49. But, as it is, neither did the Lord leave us in doubt: He who hath seen Me, hath seen the Father also; nor was the Apostle silent as to His nature, Who is the image of the invisible God. For the Lord had said, If I do not the works of My Father, believe Me not 949 , teaching them to see the Father in Himself in that He did the works of the Father; that through perceiving the power of His nature they might understand the nature of that power which they perceived. Wherefore the Apostle proclaiming that this is the image of God, says, Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in Him were all things made in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through Him and in Him, and He is before all, and for Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the Church, Who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell, and through Him all things should be reconciled to Him 950 . So through the power of these works He is the image of God. For assuredly the Creator of things invisible is not compelled by any necessity inherent in His nature to be the visible image of the invisible God. And lest He should be regarded as the likeness of the form and not of the nature, He is styled the likeness of the invisible God in order that we may understand by His exercise of the powers (not the invisible attributes) of the Divine nature, that that nature is in Him.
50. He is accordingly the first-born of every creature because in Him all things were created. And lest any one should dare to refer to any other than Him the creation of all things in Himself, he says, All things have been created through Him and in Him, and He is before all, and for Him all things consist. All things then consist for Him Who is before all things, and in Whom are all things. Now this indeed describes the origin of created things. But concerning the dispensation by which He assumed our body, he adds, And He is the head of the body, the Church: Who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead: that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell, and that through Him all things should be reconciled to Him. The Apostle has assigned to the spiritual mysteries their material effects. For He Who is the image of the invisible God is Himself the head of His body, the Church, and He Who is the first-born of every creature is at the same time the beginning, the first born from the dead: that in all things He might have the pre-eminence, being for us the Body, while He is also the image of God, since He, Who is the first-born of created things, is at the same time the first-born for eternity; so that as to Him things spiritual, being created in the First-born, owe it that they abide, even so all things human also owe it to Him that in the First-born from the dead they are born again into eternity. For He is Himself the beginning, Who as Son is therefore the image, and because the image, is of God. Further He is the first-born of every created thing, possessing in Himself the origin of the universe: and again He is the head of His body, the Church, and the first-born from the dead, so that in all things He has the pre-eminence. And because all things consist for Him, in Him the fulness of the Godhead is pleased to dwell, for in Him all things are reconciled through Him to Him, through Whom all things were created in Himself.
51. Do you now perceive what it is to be the image of God? It means that all things are created in Him through Him. Whereas all things are created in Him, understand that He, Whose image He is, also creates all things in Him. And since all things which are created in Him are also created through Him, recognize that in Him Who is the image there is present the nature of Him, Whose image He is. For through Himself He creates the things which are created in Him, just as through Himself all things are reconciled in Him. Inasmuch as they are reconciled in Him, recognise in Him the nature of the Father’s unity, reconciling all things to Himself in Him. Inasmuch as all things are reconciled through Him, perceive Him reconciling to the Father in Himself all things which He reconciled through Himself. For the same Apostle says, But all things are from God, Who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave unto us the ministry of reconciliation: to wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself 951 . Compare with this the whole mystery of the faith of the Gospel. For He Who is seen when Jesus is seen, Who works in His works, and speaks in His words, also reconciles in His reconciliation. And for this cause, in Him and through Him there is reconciliation, because the Father abiding in Him through a like nature restored the world to Himself by reconciliation through and in Him.
52. Thus God out of regard for human weakness has not set forth the faith in bare and uncertain statements. For although the authority of our Lord’s mere words of itself compelled their acceptance, He nevertheless has informed our reason by a revelation which explains their meaning, that we might learn to know His words, I and the Father are one 952 , by means of that which was itself the cause of the unity in question. For in saying that the Father speaks in His words, and works through His working, and judges through His judgment, and is seen in His manifestation, and reconciles through His reconciliation, and abides in Him, while He in turn abides in the Father,—what more fitting words, I ask, could He have employed in His teaching to suit the faculties of our reason, that we might believe in Their unity, than those by which, through the truth of the birth and the unity of the nature, it is declared that whatever the Son did and said, the Father said and did in the Son? This says nothing of a nature foreign to Himself, or added by creation to God, or born into Godhead by a partition of God, but it betokens the divinity of One Who by a perfect birth is begotten perfect God, Who has so confident an assurance of His nature that He says, I in the Father and the Father in Me 953 , and again, All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine 954 . For nought of the Godhead is lacking in Him, in Whose working and speaking and manifestation God works and speaks and is beheld. They are not two Gods, Who in their working and words and manifestation put on a semblance of unity. Neither is He a solitary God. Who in the works and words and sight of God, Himself worked and spoke and was seen as God. The Church understands this. The Synagogue does not believe, philosophy does not know, that being One of One, Whole of Whole, God and Son, He has neither by His birth deprived the Father of His completeness, nor failed to possess the same completeness in Himself by right of His birth. And whosoever is caught in this folly of unbelief is a disciple either of the Jews or of the heathen.
53. Now that you may understand the saying of the Lord, when He said, All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine 955 , learn the teaching and faith of the Apostle who said, Take heed lest any lead you astray through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the elements of the world and not after Christ; for in Him dwelleth the fulness of Godhead bodily 956 . That man is of the world and savours of the teaching of men and is the victim of philosophy, who does not know Christ to be the true God, who does not recognise in Him the fulness of Godhead. The mind of man knows only that which it understands, and the world’s powers of belief are limited, since it judges according to the laws of the material elements that that alone is possible which it can see or do. For the elements of the world have come into being out of nothing, but Christ’s continuity of existence did not begin in the non-existent, nor did He ever begin to exist, but He took from the beginning a beginning which is eternal. The elements of the world are either without life, or have issued out of this stage into life, but Christ is life, born to be living God from the living God. The elements of the world have been established by God, but they are not God: Christ as God of God is Himself wholly all that God is. The elements of the world, since they are within it, cannot possibly rise out of their condition and cease to be within it, but Christ, while having God within Himself through the Mystery, is Himself in God. The elements of the universe, generating from themselves creatures with a life like their own, do indeed through the exercise of their bodily functions bestow upon them from their own bodies the beginnings of life, but they are not themselves present as living beings in their offspring, whereas in Christ all the fulness of the Godhead is present in bodily shape.
54. Now I ask, whose Godhead is it whereof the fulness dwells in Him? If it be not that of the Father, what other God do you, misleading preacher of one God, thrust upon me as Him Whose Godhead dwells fully in Christ? But if it be that of the Father, inform me how this fulness dwells in Him in bodily fashion. If you hold that the Father abides in the Son in bodily fashion, the Father, while dwelling in the Son, will not exist in Himself. If on the other hand, and this is more true, the Godhead abiding in Him in bodily shape displays within Him the verity of the nature of God from God, inasmuch as God is in Him, abiding neither through condescension nor through will but by birth, true and wholly in bodily fulness according as He is; and inasmuch as, in the whole compass of His being, He was born by His divine birth to be God, and within the Godhead there is no difference or dissimilarity, except that in Christ He dwells in bodily form, and yet whatever dwells in Him bodily is according to the fulness of Godhead; why follow after the doctrines of men? Why cleave to the teaching of empty falsehoods? Why talk of ‘agreement’ or ‘harmony of will’ or ‘a creature?’ The fulness of Godhead dwells in Christ bodily.
55. The Apostle has herein held fast to the canon of his faith, by teaching that the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily; and this, in order that the teaching of the faith might not degenerate into an unholy profession of a oneness of Persons or sinful frenzy break forth into the belief of two different natures. For the fulness of Godhead which dwells in Christ in bodily fashion is neither solitary nor separable; for the fulness in bodily form does not admit any partition from the other bodily fulness, and the indwelling Godhead cannot be regarded as also the dwelling-place of the Godhead. And Christ is so constituted that the fulness of Godhead dwells in Him in bodily fashion, and that this fulness must be held one in nature with Christ. Lay hands on every chance that offers for your quibbles, sharpen the points of your blasphemous wit. Name, at least, the imaginary being whose fulness of Godhead it is which dwells in Christ in bodily fashion. For He is Christ, and there is dwelling in Him in bodily fashion the fulness of Godhead.
56. And if you would know what it is to ‘dwell in bodily fashion,’ understand what it is to speak in one that speaks, to be seen in one who is seen, to work in one who works, to be God in God, whole of whole, one of one; and thus learn what is meant by the fulness of God in bodily shape. Remember, too, that the Apostle does not keep silence on the question, whose Godhead it is, which dwells fully in Christ in bodily fashion, for he says, For the invisible things of Him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even His everlasting power and divinity 957 . So it is His Godhead that dwells in Christ in bodily fashion, not partially but wholly, not parcelwise but in fulness; and so dwelling that the Two are one, and so one, that the One Who is God does not differ from the Other Who is God: Both so equally divine, as a perfect birth engendered perfect God. And the birth exists thus in its perfection, because the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily in God born of God.
Footnotes
137:884Titus 1:9, 10.
137:885I.e. bishop.
137:886Titus 2:7, 8.
137:8872 Tim. ii. 17.
137:888Tit. i. 9.
139:889St. John 10:30, John 14:7, 9, 10, 11.
139:890John 10.30.
139:891Acts iv. 32.
139:8921 Cor. iii. 8.
139:893St. John 17:20, 21.
139:894Reading odit.
139:895Eph. 4:4, 5.
140:896Gal. 3:27, 28.
140:897St. John x. 30.
140:898John 17.21.
140:899St. John xvii. 21.
140:900John 17.22.
141:901St. John xvii. 22.
141:902John 17:22, 23.
141:903If in the Sacrament we hold real communion with the Father and the Son, the union of Father and Son on which it is based must be also real, and not a mere concord of will.
141:904St. John 6:55, 56.
141:905John 14:19, 20.
142:906St. John vi. 56.
142:907John 6.57.
142:908St. John 10:28, 29.
142:909John 14:7, 9, 10, 12.
142:910John 15.26.
143:911St. John xvi. 12-15.
143:912John 17.10.
143:913Rom. viii. 9-11.
144:914St. Luke iv. 18.
144:915St. Matt. xii. 18.
144:916Matt. 12.28.
144:917Ps. 2:8, Matt. 3:17, &c.
144:918Acts 2:16, 17.
145:919St. John xiv. 23.
145:920St. John x. 30.
145:9211 Cor. xii. 3.
145:9221 Cor. 12.3.
145:9231 Cor. 12.4-7.
145:9241 Cor. 12.8-10.
146:925Acts 1:4, 5.
146:926Acts 1.8.
146:927I.e. in 1 Cor. xii. 8 f.
146:9281 Cor. xii. 11.
146:929Hilary’s interpretation of this passage is not strictly Trinitarian. His view is that there are two Divine Persons at work, the Father and the Son, and that Both are embraced under the common name of ‘Spirit.’ Compare ii. 30, and the exegesis of St. John iv. 24, which follows.
146:9301 Cor. xii. 12.
147:9311 Cor. 12:5, 6.
147:932Eph. 4:7, 10.
147:9331 Cor. 12:5, 6.
147:9341 Cor. 8.6.
147:935Eph. 4:5, 6.
147:9361 Cor. xii. 3.
147:9371 Cor. 8.6.
147:938St. John vi. 40.
148:939St. John x. 30.
148:940See § 31, supr., and note.
148:941Rom. ix. 5.
149:942Rom. xi. 36.
149:943St. John vi. 27-29.
150:944St. John vi. 27.
150:945Phil. 2:6, 7. The sense in which Hilary understands non rapinam arbitratus est, is to be seen in his explanation, non sibi rapiens esse se æqualem Deo (see just below).
150:946Phil. 2:6, 7
151:947St. John xiv. 9.
151:948Col. i. 15.
151:949St. John x. 37.
151:950Col. i. 15-20.
152:9512 Cor. 5:18, 19.
152:952St. John x. 30.
152:953John 14.11.
152:954John 16.15.
153:955St. John xvi. 15.
153:956Col. 2:8, 9.
154:957Rom. i. 20.
Book IX.
1. In the last book we treated of the indistinguishable nature of God the Father and God the Son, and demonstrated that the words, I and the Father are One 958 , go to prove not a solitary God, but a unity of the Godhead unbroken by the birth of the Son: for God can be born only of God, and He that is born God of God must be all that God is. We reviewed, although not exhaustively, yet enough to make our meaning clear, the sayings of our Lord and the Apostles, which teach the inseparable nature and power of the Father and the Son; and we came to the passage in the teaching of the Apostle, where he says, Take heed lest there shall be any one that leadeth you astray through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ; for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily 959 . We pointed out that here the words, in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, prove Him true and perfect God of His Father’s nature, neither severing Him from, nor identifying Him with, the Father. On the one hand we are taught that, since the incorporeal God dwelt in Him bodily, the Son as God begotten of God is in natural unity with the Father: and on the other hand, if God dwelt in Christ, this proves the birth of the personal Christ in Whom He dwelt 960 . We have thus, it seems to me, more than answered the irreverence of those who refer to a unity or agreement of will such words of the Lord as, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father 961 , or, The Father is in Me and I in the Father 962 , or, I and the Father are One 963 , or, All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine 964 . Not daring to deny the words themselves, these false teachers, in the mask of religion, corrupt the sense of the words. For instance, it is true that where the unity of nature is proclaimed the agreement of will cannot be denied; but in order to set aside that unity which follows from the birth, they profess merely a relationship of mutual harmony. But the blessed Apostle, after many indubitable statements of the real truth, cuts short their rash and profane assertions, by saying, in Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, for by the bodily indwelling of the incorporeal God in Christ is taught the strict unity of Their nature. It is, therefore, not a matter of words, but a real truth that the Son was not alone, but the Father abode in Him: and not only abode, but also worked and spoke: not only worked and spoke, but also manifested Himself in Him. Through the Mystery of the birth the Son’s power is the power of the Father, His authority the Father’s authority, His nature the Father’s nature. By His birth the Son possesses the nature of the Father: as the Father’s image, He reproduces from the Father all that is in the Father, because He is the reality as well as the image of the Father, for a perfect birth produces a perfect image, and the fulness of the Godhead dwelling bodily in Him indicates the truth of His nature.
2. All this is indeed as it is: He, Who is by nature God of God, must possess the nature of His origin, which God possesses, and the indistinguishable unity of a living nature cannot be divided by the birth of a living nature. Yet nevertheless the heretics, under cover of the saving confession of the Gospel faith, are stealing on to the subversion of the truth: for by forcing their own interpretations on words uttered with other meanings and intentions, they are robbing the Son of His natural unity. Thus to deny the Son of God, they quote the authority of His own words, Why callest thou Me good? None is good, save one, God 965 . These words, they say, proclaim the Oneness of God: anything else, therefore, which shares the name of God, cannot possess the nature of God, for God is One. And from His words, This is life eternal, that they should know Thee the only true God 966 , they attempt to establish the theory that Christ is called God by a mere title, not as being very God. Further, to exclude Him from the proper nature of the true God, they quote, The Son can do nothing of Himself except that which He hath seen the Father do 967 . They use also the text, The Father is greater than I. 968 Finally, when they repeat the words, Of that day and that hour knoweth no one, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only 969 , as though they were the absolute renunciation of His claim to divinity, they boast that they have overthrown the faith of the Church. The birth, they say, cannot raise to equality the nature which the limitation of ignorance degrades. The Father’s omniscience and the Son’s ignorance reveal unlikeness in the Divinity, for God must be ignorant of nothing, and the ignorant cannot be compared with the omniscient. All these passages they neither understand rationally, nor distinguish as to their occasions, nor apprehend in the light of the Gospel mysteries, nor realize in the strict meaning of the words and so they impugn the divine nature of Christ with crude and insensate rashness, quoting single detached utterances to catch the ears of the unwary, and keeping back either the sequel which explains or the incidents which prompted them, though the meaning of words must be sought in the context before or after them.
3. We will offer later an explanation of these texts in the words of the Gospels and Epistles themselves. But first we hold it right to remind the members of our common faith, that the knowledge of the Eternal is presented in the same confession which gives eternal life 970 . He does not, he cannot know his own life, who is ignorant that Christ Jesus was very God, as He was very man. It is equally perilous, whether we deny that Christ Jesus was God the Spirit, or that He was flesh of our body: Every one therefore who shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father which is in Heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven 971 . So said the Word made flesh; so taught the man Jesus Christ, the Lord of majesty, constituted Mediator in His own person for the salvation of the Church, and being in that very mystery of Mediatorship between men and God, Himself one Person, both man and God. For He, being of two natures united for that Mediatorship, is the full reality of each nature; while abiding in each, He is wanting in neither; He does not cease to be God because He becomes man, nor fail to be man because He remains for ever God. This is the true faith for human blessedness, to preach at once the Godhead and the manhood, to confess the Word and the flesh, neither forgetting the God, because He is man, nor ignoring the flesh, because He is the Word.
4. It is contrary to our experience of nature, that He should be born man and still remain God; but it accords with the tenor of our expectation, that being born man, He still remained God, for when the higher nature is born into the lower, it is credible that the lower should also be born into the higher. And, indeed, according to the laws and habits of nature, the working of our expectation even anticipates the divine mystery. For in every thing that is born, nature has the capacity for increase, but has no power of decrease. Look at the trees, the crops, the cattle. Regard man himself, the possessor of reason. He always expands by growth, he does not contract by decrease; nor does he ever lose the self into which he has grown. He wastes indeed with age, or is cut off by death; he undergoes change by lapse of time, or reaches the end allotted to the constitution of life, yet it is not in his power to cease to be what he is; I mean that he cannot make a new self by decrease from his old self, that is, become a child again from an old man. So the necessity of perpetual increase, which is imposed on our nature by natural law, leads us on good grounds to expect its promotion into a higher nature, since its increase is according to, and its decrease contrary to, nature. It was God alone Who could become something other than before, and yet not cease to be what He had ever been; Who could shrink within the limits of womb, cradle, and infancy, yet not depart from the power of God. This is a mystery, not for Himself, but for us. The assumption of our nature was no advancement for God, but His willingness to lower Himself is our promotion, for He did not resign His divinity but conferred divinity on man.
5. The Only-begotten God, therefore, when He was born man of the Virgin, and in the fulness of time was about in His own person to raise humanity to divinity, always maintained this form of the Gospel teaching. He taught, namely, to believe Him the Son of God, and exhorted to preach Him the Son of Man; man saying and doing all that belongs to God; God saying and doing all that belongs to man. Yet never did He speak without signifying by the twofold aspect of these very utterances both His manhood and His divinity. Though He proclaimed one God the Father, He declared Himself to be in the nature of the one God, by the truth of His generation. Yet in His office as Son and His condition as man, He subjected Himself to God the Father, since everything that is born must refer itself back to its author, and all flesh must confess itself weak before God. Here, accordingly, the heretics find opportunity to deceive the simple and ignorant. These words, uttered in His human character, they falsely refer to the weakness of His divine nature; and because He was one and the same Person in all His utterances, they claim that He spoke always of His entire self.
6. We do not deny that all the sayings which are preserved of His, refer to His nature. But, if Jesus Christ be man and God, neither God for the first time, when He became man, nor then ceasing to be God, nor after He became Man in God less than perfect man and perfect God, then the mystery of His words must be one and the same with that of His nature. When according to the time indicated, we disconnect His divinity from humanity, then let us also disconnect His language as God from the language of man; when we confess Him God and man at the same time, let us distinguish at the same time His words as God and His words as man; when after His manhood and Godhead, we recognise again the time when His whole manhood is wholly God, let us refer to that time all that is revealed concerning it 972 . It is one thing, that He was God before He was man, another, that He was man and God, and another, that after being man and God, He was perfect man and perfect God. Do not then confuse the times and natures in the mystery of the dispensation, for according to the attributes of His different natures, He must speak of Himself in relation to the mystery of His humanity, in one way before His birth, in another while He was yet to die, and in another as eternal.
7. For our sake, therefore, Jesus Christ, retaining all these attributes, and being born man in our body, spoke after the fashion of our nature without concealing that divinity belonged to His own nature. In His birth, His passion, and His death, He passed through all the circumstances of our nature, but He bore them all by the power of His own. He was Himself the cause of His birth, He willed to suffer what He could not suffer, He died though He lives for ever. Yet God did all this not merely through man, for He was born of Himself, He suffered of His own free will, and died of Himself. He did it also as man, for He was really born, suffered and died. These were the mysteries of the secret counsels of heaven, determined before the world was made. The Only-begotten God was to become man of His own will, and man was to abide eternally in God. God was to suffer of His own will, that the malice of the devil, working in the weakness of human infirmity, might not confirm the law of sin in us, since God had assumed our weakness. God was to die of His own will, that no power, after that the immortal God had constrained Himself within the law of death, might raise up its head against Him, or put forth the natural strength which He had created in it. Thus God was born to take us into Himself, suffered to justify us, and died to avenge us; for our manhood abides for ever in Him, the weakness of our infirmity is united with His strength, and the spiritual powers of iniquity and wickedness are subdued in the triumph of our flesh, since God died through the flesh.
8. The Apostle, who knew this mystery, and had received the knowledge of the faith through the Lord Himself, was not unmindful, that neither the world, nor mankind, nor philosophy could contain Him, for he writes, Take heed, lest there shall be any one that leadeth you astray through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Jesus Christ, for in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in Him ye are made full, Who is the head of all principalities and powers 973 . After the announcement that in Christ dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, follows immediately the mystery of our assumption, in the words, in Him ye are made full. As the fulness of the Godhead is in Him, so we are made full in Him. The Apostle says not merely ye are made full, but, in Him ye are made full; for all who are, or shall be, regenerated through the hope of faith to life eternal, abide even now in the body of Christ; and afterwards they shall be made full no longer in Him, but in themselves, at the time of which the Apostle says, Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory 974 . Now, therefore, we are made full in Him, that is, by the assumption of His flesh, for in Him dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Nor has this our hope a light authority in Him. Our fulness in Him constitutes His headship and principality over all power, as it is written, That in His name every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things below, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father 975 . Jesus shall be confessed in the glory of God the Father, born in man, yet now no longer abiding in the infirmity of our body, but in the glory of God. Every tongue shall confess this. But though all things in heaven and earth shall bow the knee to Him, yet herein He is head of all principalities and powers, that to Him the whole universe shall bow the knee in submission, in Whom we are made full, Who through the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Him bodily, shall be confessed in the glory of God the Father.
9. But after the announcement of the mystery of Christ’s nature, and our assumption, that is, the fulness of Godhead abiding in Christ, and ourselves made full in Him by His birth as man, the Apostle continues the dispensation of human salvation in the words, In whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the stripping off of the body of the flesh, but with the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead 976 . We are circumcised not with a fleshly circumcision but with the circumcision of Christ, that is, we are born again into a new man; for, being buried with Him in His baptism, we must die to the old man, because the regeneration of baptism has the force of resurrection. The circumcision of Christ does not mean the putting off of foreskins, but to die entirely with Him, and by that death to live henceforth entirely to Him. For we rise again in Him through faith in God, Who raised Him from the dead; wherefore we must believe in God, by Whose Working Christ was raised from the dead, for our faith rises again in and with Christ.
10. Then is completed the entire mystery of the assumed manhood, And you being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you I say, did He quicken together with Him, having forgiven you all your trespasses, blotting out the bond written in ordinances, that was against us, which was contrary to us; and He hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross, and having put off from Himself His flesh, He hath made a shew of powers, triumphing over them in Himself 977 . The worldly man cannot receive the faith of the Apostle, nor can any language but that of the Apostle explain his meaning. God raised Christ from the dead; Christ in Whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily. But He quickened us also together with Him, forgiving us our sins, blotting out the bond of the law of sin, which through the ordinances made aforetime was against us, taking it out of the way, and fixing it to His cross, stripping Himself of His flesh by the law of death, holding up the powers to shew, and triumphing over them in Himself. Concerning the powers and how He triumphed over them in Himself, and held them up to shew, and the bond which he blotted out, and the life which He gave us, we have already spoken 978 . But who can understand or express this mystery? The working of God raises Christ from the dead; the same working of God quickens us together with Christ, forgives our sins, blots out the bond, and fixes it to the cross; He puts off from Himself His flesh, holds up the powers to shew, and triumphs over them in Himself. We have the working of God raising Christ from the dead, and we have Christ working in Himself the very things which God works in Him, for it was Christ who died, stripping from Himself His flesh. Hold fast then to Christ the man, raised from the dead by God, and hold fast to Christ the God, working out our salvation when He was yet to die. God works in Christ, but it is Christ Who strips from Himself His flesh and dies. It was Christ who died, and Christ Who worked with the power of God before His death, yet it was the working of God which raised the dead Christ, and it was none other who raised Christ from the dead but Christ Himself, Who worked before His death, and put off His flesh to die.
11. Do you understand already the Mysteries of the Apostle’s Faith? Do you think to know Christ already? Tell me, then, Who is it Who strips from Himself His flesh, and what is that flesh stripped off? I see two thoughts expressed by the Apostle, the flesh stripped off, and Him Who strips it off: and then I hear of Christ raised from the dead by the working of God. If it is Christ Who is raised from the dead, and God Who raises Him; Who, pray, strips from Himself the flesh? Who raises Christ from the dead, and quickens us with Him? If the dead Christ be not the same as the flesh stripped off, tell me the name of the flesh stripped off, and expound me the nature of Him Who strips it off. I find that Christ the God, Who was raised from the dead, is the same as He Who stripped from Himself His flesh, and that flesh, the same as Christ Who was raised from the dead; then I see Him holding principalities and powers up to shew, and triumphing in Himself. Do you understand this triumphing in Himself? Do you perceive that the flesh stripped off, and He Who strips it off, are not different from one another? He triumphs in Himself, that is in that flesh which He stripped from Himself. Do you see that thus are proclaimed His humanity and His divinity, that death is attributed to the man, and the quickening of the flesh to the God, though He Who dies and He Who raises the dead to life are not two, but one Person? The flesh stripped off is the dead Christ: He Who raises Christ from the dead is the same Christ Who stripped from Himself the flesh. See His divine nature in the power to raise again, and recognise in His death the dispensation of His manhood. And though either function is performed by its proper nature, yet remember that He Who died, and raised to life, was one, Christ Jesus.
12. I remember that the Apostle often refers to God the Father as raising Christ from the dead; but he is not inconsistent with himself or at variance with the Gospel faith, for the Lord Himself says:—Therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life, that I may take it again. No one shall take it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command have I received from the Father 979 : and again, when asked to shew a sign concerning Himself, that they might believe in Him, He says of the Temple of His body, Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up 980 . By the power to take His soul again and to raise the Temple up, He declares Himself God, and the Resurrection His own work: yet He refers all to the authority of His Father’s command. This is not contrary to the meaning of the Apostle, when He proclaims Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God 981 , thus referring all the magnificence of His work to the glory of the Father: for whatever Christ does, the power and the wisdom of God does: and whatever the power and the wisdom of God does, without doubt God Himself does, Whose power and wisdom Christ is. So Christ was raised from the dead by the working of God; for He Himself worked the works of God the Father with a nature indistinguishable from God’s. And our faith in the Resurrection rests on the God Who raised Christ from the dead.
13. It is this preaching of the double aspect of Christ’s Person which the blessed Apostle emphasises. He points out in Christ His human infirmity, and His divine power and nature. Thus to the Corinthians he writes, For though He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth through the power of God 982 , attributing His death to human infirmity, but His life to divine power: and again to the Romans, For the death, that He died unto sin, He died once: but the life, that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Even so reckon ye yourselves also to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus 983 , ascribing His death to sin, that is, to our body, but His life to God, Whose nature it is to live. We ought, therefore, he says, to die to our body, that we may live to God in Christ Jesus, Who after the assumption of our body of sin, lives now wholly unto God, uniting the nature He shared with us with the participation of divine immortality.
14. I have been compelled to dwell briefly on this, lest we should forget our Lord Jesus Christ is being treated of as a Person of two natures, since He, Who was abiding in the form of God, took the form of a servant, in which He was obedient even unto death. The obedience of death has nothing to do with the form of God, just as the form of God is not inherent in the form of a servant. Yet through the Mystery of the Gospel Dispensation the same Person is in the form of a servant and in the form of God, though it is not the same thing to take the form of a servant and to be abiding in the form of God; nor could He Who was abiding in the form of God, take the form of a servant without emptying Himself, since the combination of the two forms would be incongruous. Yet it was not another and a different Person Who emptied Himself and Who took the form of a servant. To take anything cannot be predicated of some one who is not, for he only can take who exists. The emptying of the form does not then imply the abolition of the nature: He emptied Himself, but did not lose His self: He took a new form, but remained what He was. Again, whether emptying or taking, He was the same Person: there is, therefore, a mystery, in that He emptied Himself, and took the form of a servant, but He does not come to an end, so as to cease to exist in emptying Himself, and to be non-existent when He took. The emptying availed to bring about the taking of the servant’s form, but not to prevent Christ, Who was in the form of God, from continuing to be Christ, for it was in very deed Christ Who took the form of a servant. When He emptied Himself to become Christ the man, while continuing to be Christ the Spirit, the changing of His bodily fashion, and the assumption of another nature in His body, did not put an end to the nature of His eternal divinity, for He was one and the same Christ when He changed His fashion, and when He assumed our nature.
15. We have now expounded the Dispensation of the Mysteries, through which the heretics deceive certain of the unlearned into ascribing to infirmity in the divinity, what Christ said and did through His assumed human nature, and attributing to the form of God what is appropriate only to the form of the servant. Let us pass on, then, to answer their statements in detail. We can always safely distinguish the two kinds of utterances, since the only true faith lies in the confession of Jesus Christ as Word and flesh, that is, God and Man. The heretics consider it necessary to deny that our Lord Jesus Christ by virtue of His nature was divine, because He said, Why callest thou Me good? None is good save one, God 984 . Now a satisfactory answer must stand in direct relation to the matter of enquiry, for only in that case will it furnish a reply to the question put. At the outset, then, I would ask these misinterpreters, “Do you think that the Lord resented being called good?” Would He rather have been called bad, as seems to be signified by the words, Why callest thou Me good? I do not think any one is so unreasonable as to ascribe to Him a confession of wickedness, when it was He Who said, Come unto Me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me: for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light 985 . He says He is meek and lowly: can we believe that He was angry because He was called good? The two propositions are inconsistent. He Who witnesses to His own goodness would not repudiate the name of Good. Plainly, then, He was not angry because He was called good: and if we cannot believe that He resented being called good, we must ask what was said of Him which He did resent.
16. Let us see, then, how the questioner styled Him, beside calling Him good. He said, Good Master, what good thing shall I do 986 ? adding to the title of “good” that of master. If Christ then did not chide because He was called good, it must have been because He was called “good Master.” Further the manner of His reproof shews that it was the disbelief of the questioner, rather than the name of master, or of good, which He resented. A youth, who provides himself upon the observance of the law, but did not know the end of the law 987 , which is Christ, who thought himself justified by works, without perceiving that Christ came to the lost sheep of the house of Israel 988 , and to those who believe that the law cannot save through the faith of justification 989 , questioned the Lord of the law, the Only-begotten God, as though He were a teacher of the common precepts and the writings of the law. But the Lord, abhorring this declaration of irreverent unbelief, which addresses Him as a teacher of the law, answered, Why callest thou Me good? and to shew how we may know, and call Him good, He added, None is good, save one, God, not repudiating the name of good, if it be given to Him as God.
17. Then, as a proof that He resents the name “good master,” on the ground of the unbelief, which addresses Him as a man, He replies to the vain-glorious youth, and his boast that he had fulfilled the law, One thing thou lackest; go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me. There is no shrinking from the title of “good” in the promise of heavenly treasures, no reluctance to be regarded as “master” in the offer to lead the way to perfect blessedness. But there is reproof of the unbelief which draws an earthly opinion of Him from the teaching, that goodness belongs to God alone. To signify that He is both good and God, He exercises the functions of goodness, opening the heavenly treasures, and offering Himself as guide to them. All the homage offered to Him as man He repudiates, but he does not disown that which He paid to God; for at the moment when He confesses that the one God is good, His words and actions are those of the power and the goodness and the nature of the one God.
18. That He did not shrink from the title of good, or decline the office of master, but resented the unbelief which perceived no more in Him than body and flesh, may be proved from the difference of His language, when the apostles confessed Him their Master, Ye call Me Master, and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am 990 ; and on another occasion, Be ye not called masters, for Christ is your Master 991 . From the faithful, to whom He is master, He accepts the title with words of praise, but here He rejects the name “good master,” when He is not acknowledged to be the Lord and the Christ, and pronounces the one God alone good, but without distinguishing Himself from God, for He calls Himself Lord, and Christ, and guide to the heavenly treasures.
19. The Lord always maintained this definition of the faith of the Church, which consists in teaching that there is one God the Father, but without separating Himself from the mystery of the one God, for He declared Himself, by the nature which is His by birth, neither a second God, nor the sole God. Since the nature of the One God is in Him, He cannot be God of a different kind from Him; His birth requires that, being Son, it should be with a perfect Sonship 992 . So He can neither be separated from God nor merged in God. Hence He speaks in words deliberately chosen, so that whatever He claims for the Father, He signifies in modest language to be appropriate to Himself also. Take as an instance the command, Believe in God, and believe also in Me 993 . He is identified with God in honour; how, pray, can He be separated from His nature? He says, Believe in Me also, just as He said Believe in God. Do not the words in Me signify His nature? Separate the two natures, but you must separate also the two beliefs. If it be life, that we should believe in God without Christ, strip Christ of the name and qualities of God. But if perfect life is given to those who believe in God, only when they believe in Christ also, let the careful reader ponder the meaning of the saying, Believe in God, and believe in Me also, for these words, uniting faith in Him with faith in God, unite His nature to God’s. He enjoins first of all the duty of belief in God, but adds to it the command that we should believe in Himself also; which implies that He is God, since they who believe in God must also believe in Him. Yet He excludes the suggestion of a unity contrary to religion 994 , for the exhortation Believe in God, believe in Me also, forbids us to think of Him as alone in solitude.
20. In many, nay almost all His discourses, He offers the explanation of this mystery, never separating Himself from the divine unity, when He confesses God the Father, and never characterising God as single and solitary, when He places Himself in unity with Him. But nowhere does He more plainly teach the mystery of His unity and His birth than when He says, But the witness which I have is greater than that of John, for the works which the Father hath given Me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me, and the Father which sent Me, He hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. And ye have not His word abiding in you, for Whom He sent, Him ye believe not. 995 How can the Father be truly said to have borne witness of the Son, when neither He Himself was seen, nor His voice heard? Yet I remember that a voice was heard from Heaven, which said, This is My beloved Son, in Whom I have been well pleased; hear ye Him 996 . How can it be said that they did not hear the voice of God, when the voice which they heard itself asserted that it was the Father’s voice? But perhaps the dwellers in Jerusalem had not heard what John had heard in the solitude of the desert. We must ask, then, “How did the Father bear witness in Jerusalem?” It is no longer the witness given to John, who heard the voice from heaven, but a witness greater than that of John. What that witness is He goes on to say, The works which the Father hath given me to accomplish, the very works which I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me. We must admit the authority of the testimony, for no one, except the Son sent of the Father, could do such works. His works are therefore His testimony. But what follows? And the Father, which sent Me, He hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form, and ye have not His word abiding in you. Are they blameless, in that they did not know the testimony of the Father, Who was never heard or seen amongst them, and Whose word was not abiding in them? No, for they cannot plead that His testimony was hidden from them; as Christ says, the testimony of His works is the testimony of the Father concerning Him. His works testify of Him that He was sent of the Father; but the testimony of these works is the Father’s testimony; since, therefore, the working of the Son is the Father’s testimony, it follows of necessity that the same nature was operative in Christ, by which the Father testifies of Him. So Christ, Who works the works, and the Father Who testifies through them, are revealed as possessing one inseparable nature through the birth, for the operation of Christ is signified to be itself the testimony of God concerning Him.
21. They are not, therefore, acquitted of blame for not recognising the testimony; for the works of Christ are the Father’s testimony concerning Him. Nor can they plead ignorance of the testimony on the ground that they had not heard the voice of the Testifier, nor seen His form, nor had His word abiding in them. For immediately after the words, Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form, and ye have not His word abiding in you, He points out why the voice was not heard, nor the form seen, and the word did not abide in them, though the Father had testified concerning Him: For Whom He sent, Him ye believe not; that is, if they had believed Him, they would have heard the voice of God, and seen the form of God, and His word would have been in them, since through the unity of Their nature the Father is heard and manifested and possessed in the Son. Is He not also the expression of the Father, since He was sent from Him? Does He distinguish Himself by any difference of nature from the Father, when He says that the Father, testifying of Him, was neither heard, nor seen, nor understood, because they did not believe in Him, Whom the Father sent? The Only-begotten God does not, therefore, separate Himself from God when He confesses God the Father; but, proclaiming by the word “Father” His relationship to God, He includes Himself in the honour due to God.
22. For, in this very same discourse in which He pronounces that His works testify of Him that He was sent of the Father, and asserts that the Father testifies of Him, that He was sent from Him, He says, The honour of Him, Who alone is God, ye seek not 997 . This is not, however, a bare statement, without any previous preparation for the belief in His unity with the Father. Hear what precedes it, Ye will not come to Me that ye may have life. I receive not glory from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in yourselves. I am come in My Father’s name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in His name 998 ,him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive glory from men, and the glory of Him, Who alone is God, ye seek not. 999 He disdains the glory of men, for glory should rather be sought of God. It is the mark of unbelievers to receive glory of one another: for what glory can man give to man? He says He knows that the love of God is not in them, and pronounces, as the cause, that they do not receive Him coming in His Father’s name. “Coming in His Father’s name:” what does that mean but “coming in the name of God?” Is it not because they rejected Him Who came in the name of God, that the love of God is not in them? Is it not implied that He has the nature of God, when He says, Ye will not come to Me that ye may have life. Hear what He said of Himself in the same discourse, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live 1000 . He comes in the name of the Father: that is, He is not Himself the Father, yet is in the same divine nature as the Father: for as Son and God it is natural for Him to come in the name of the Father. Then, another coming in the same name they will receive: but he is one from whom men will expect glory, and to whom they will give glory in return, though he will feign to have come in the name of the Father. By this, doubtless, is signified the Antichrist, glorying in his false use of the Father’s name. Him they will glorify, and will be glorified of him: but the glory of Him, Who alone is God, they will not seek.
23. They have not the love of God in them, He says, because they rejected Him coming in the name of the Father, but accepted another, who came in the same name, and received glory of one another, but neglected the glory of Him, Who is the only true God. Is it possible to think that He separates Himself from the glory of the only God, when He gives as the reason why they seek not the glory of the only God, that they receive Antichrist, and Himself they will not receive? To reject Him is to neglect the glory of the only God; is not, then, His glory the glory of the only God, if to receive Him steadfastly was to seek the glory of the only God? This very discourse is our witness: for at its beginning we read, That all may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which sent Him 1001 . It is only things of the same nature that are equal in honour; equality of honour denotes that there is no separation between the honoured. But with the revelation of the birth is combined, the demand for equality of honour. Since the Son is to be honoured as the Father 1002 , and since they seek not the honour of Him, Who is the only God, He is not excluded from the honour of the only God, for His honour is one and the same as that of God: just as He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father also, so he who seeks not the honour of the only God, seeks not the honour of Christ also. Accordingly the honour of Christ is inseparable from the honour of God. By His words, when the news of Lazarus’ sickness was brought to Him, He illustrates the complete identification of Father and Son in honour: This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of Man may be glorified through him. 1003 Lazarus dies for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through him. Is there any doubt that the glory of the Son of God is the glory of God, when the death of Lazarus, which is glorious to God, glorifies the Son of God? Thus Christ is declared to be one in nature with God the Father through His birth, since the sickness of Lazarus is for the glory of God, and at the same time the Mystery of the faith is not violated, for the Son of God is to be glorified through Lazarus. The Son of God is to be regarded as God, yet He is none the less to be confessed also Son of God: for by glorifying God through Lazarus, the Son of God is glorified.
24. By the mystery of the divine nature we are forbidden to separate the birth of the living Son from His living Father. The Son of God suffers no such change of kind, that the truth of His Father’s nature does not abide in Him. For even where, by the confession of one God only, He seems to disclaim for Himself the nature of God by the term “only,” nevertheless, without destroying the belief in one God, He places Himself in the unity of the Father’s nature. Thus, when the Scribe asked Him, which is the chief commandment of the law, He answered, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy spirit, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these 1004 . They think that He severs Himself from the nature and worship of the One God when He pronounces as the chief commandment, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and does not even make Himself the object of worship in the second commandment, since the law bids us to love our neighbour, as it bids us to believe in one God. Nor must we pass over the answer of the Scribe, Of a truth thou hast well said, that God is one, and there is none other but He: and to love Him with all the heart, and all the strength and all the soul, and to love his neighbour as himself, this is greater than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices 1005 . The answer of the Scribe seems to accord with the words of the Lord, for He too proclaims the innermost and inmost love of one God, and professes the love of one’s neighbour as real as the love of self, and places love of God and love of one’s neighbour above all the burnt offerings of sacrifices. But let us see what follows.
25. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God 1006 . What is the meaning of such moderate praise? Believe in one God, and love Him with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy heart, and love thy neighbour as thyself; if this be the faith which makes man perfect for the Kingdom of God, why is not the Scribe already within, instead of not far from the Kingdom of Heaven? It is in another strain that He grants the Kingdom of Heaven to those who clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and visit the sick and the prisoner, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world 1007 ; or rewards the poor in spirit, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven 1008 . Their gain is perfect, their possession complete, their inheritance of the kingdom prepared for them is secured. But was this young man’s confession short of theirs? His ideal of duty raises love of neighbour to the level of love of self; what more did he want to attain to the perfection of good conduct? To be occasionally charitable, and ready to help, is not perfect love; but perfect love has fulfilled the whole duty of charity, when a man leaves no debt to his neighbour unpaid, but gives him as much as he gives himself. But the Scribe was debarred from perfection, because he did not know the mystery which had been accomplished. He received, indeed, the praise of the Lord for his profession of faith, he heard the reply that he was not far from the kingdom, but he was not put in actual possession of the blessed hope. His course, though ignorant, was favourable; he put the love of God before all things, and charity towards his neighbour on a level with love of self. And when he ranked the love of God even higher than charity towards his neighbour, he broke through the law of burnt offerings and sacrifices; and that was not far from the mystery of the Gospel.
26. We may perceive also, from the words of our Lord Himself, why He said, Thou art not far from the Kingdom of Heaven, rather than, Thou shalt be in the Kingdom of Heaven. Then follows: And no man after that durst ask Him any question. And Jesus answered and said, as He taught in the Temple, How say the Scribes that the Christ is the Son of David? David himself saith in the Holy Spirit, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My right hand, till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet (Ps. cx. 1). David himself calleth Him Lord, and whence is He his Son 1009 ? The Scribe is not far from the Kingdom of God when he confesses one God, Who is to be loved above all things. But his own statement of the law is a reproach to him that the mystery of the law has escaped him, that he does not know Christ the Lord, the Son of God, by the nature of His birth to be included in the confession of the one God. The confession of one God according to the law seemed to leave no room for the Son of God in the mystery of the one Lord; so He asks the Scribe, how he can call Christ the Son of David, when David calls Him his Lord, since it is against the order of nature that the son of so great a Patriarch should be also his Lord. He would bid the Scribe, who regards Him only in respect of His flesh, and His birth from Mary, the daughter of David, to remember that, in respect of His Spirit, He is David’s Lord rather than his son; that the words, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, do not sever Christ from the mystery of the One Lord, since so great a Patriarch and Prophet calls Him his Lord, as the Son begotten of the Lord before the morning star. He does not pass over the law, or forget that none other is to be confessed Lord, but without violating the faith of the law, He teaches that He is Lord, in that He had His being by the mystery of a natural birth from the substance of the incorporeal God. He is one, born of one, and the nature of the one Lord has made Him by nature Lord.
27. What room is any longer left for doubt? The Lord Himself proclaiming that the chief commandment of the law is to confess and love the one Lord, proves Himself to be Lord not by words of His own, but by the Prophet’s testimony, always signifying, however, that He is Lord, because He is the Son of God. By virtue of His birth He abides in the mystery of the one God, for the birth transmitting with it, as it did, the nature of God is not the issuing forth of another God with a different nature; and, because the generation is real, neither is the Father degraded from being Lord, nor is the Son born less than Lord. The Father retains His authority, the Son obtains His nature. God the Father is one Lord, but the Only-begotten God the Lord is not separated from the One, since He derives His nature as Lord from the one Lord. Thus by the law Christ teaches that there is one Lord; by the witness of the prophets He proves Himself Lord also.
28. May the faith of the Gospel ever profit thus by the rash contentions of the ungodly to defend itself with the weapons of their attack, and conquering with the arms prepared for its destruction, prove that the words of the one Spirit are the doctrine of the one faith! For Christ is none other than He is preached, namely the true God, and abiding in the glory of the one true God. Just as He proclaims Himself Lord out of the law, even when He seems to deny the fact, so in the Gospels He proves Himself the true God, even when He appears to confess the opposite. To escape the acknowledgment that He is the true God, the heretics plead that He said, And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true God. and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ 1010 . When He says, Thee, the only true God, they think He excludes Himself from the reality of God by the restriction of solitariness; for the only true God cannot be understood except as a solitary God. It is true the Apostolic faith does not suffer us to believe in two true Gods, for nothing which is foreign to the nature of the one God can be put on equality with the truth of that nature; and there is more than one God in the reality of the one God, if there exists outside the nature of the only true God a true God of another kind, not possessing by virtue of His birth the same nature with Him.
29. But by these very words He proclaims Himself plainly to be true God in the nature of the only true God. To understand this, let our answer proceed from statements which He made previously, though the connection is unbroken right down to these words. We can then establish the faith step by step, and let the confidence of our freedom rest at last on the summit of our argument, the true Godhead of Christ. There comes first the mystery of His words, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father; and, Do ye not believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I say unto you, I speak not from Myself; but the Father abiding in Me, Himself doeth His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works’ sake 1011 . At the close of this discourse, teeming with deep mysteries, follows the reply of the disciples, Now know we that Thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee: by this we believe that Thou camest forth from God 1012 . They perceived in Him the nature of God by the divine powers which He exercised; for to know all things, and to read the thoughts of the heart belongs to the Son, not to the mere messenger of God. They confessed, therefore, that He was come from God, because the power of the divine nature was in Him.
30. The Lord praised their understanding, and answered not that He was sent from, but that He was come out from, God, signifying by the words “come out from” the great fact of His birth from the incorporeal God. He had already proclaimed the birth in the same language, when He said, Ye love Me, and believe that I came out from the Father, and came from the Father into this world 1013 . He had come from the Father into this world, because He had come out from God. To shew that He signifies His birth by the coming out, He adds that He has come from the Father; and since He had come out from God, because He had come from the Father, that “coming out,” followed, as it is, by the confession of the Father’s name, is simply and solely the birth. To the Apostles, then, as understanding this mystery of His coming out, He continues, Ye believe now, Behold the hour cometh, yea is come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone: yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me 1014 . He would shew that the “coming out” is not a separation from God the Father, but a birth, which by His being born continues in Him the nature of God the Father, and therefore He adds that He is not alone, but the Father is with Him; in power, that is, and unity of nature, for the Father was abiding in Him, speaking in His words, and working in His works. Lastly to shew the reason of this whole discourse, He adds, These things I have spoken to you, that in Me ye may have peace. In this world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world 1015 . He has spoken these things unto them, that in Him they may abide in peace, not torn asunder by the passion of dissension over debates about the faith. He was left alone, but was not alone, for He had come out from God, and there abode still in Him the God, from Whom He had come out. Therefore he bade them, when they were harassed in the world, to wait for His promises, for since He had come out from God, and God was still in Him, He had conquered the world.
31. Then, finally, to express in words the whole Mystery, He raised His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come: glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee. Even as Thou gavest Him authority over all flesh, that, whatsoever Thou hast given Him, to them He should give eternal life 1016 . Do you call Him weak because He asks to be glorified? So be it, if He does not ask to be glorified in order that He may Himself glorify Him by Whom He is glorified. Of the receiving and giving of glory we have spoken in another book 1017 , and it would be superfluous to go over the question again. But of this at least we are certain, that He prays for glory in order that the Father may be glorified by granting it. But perhaps He is weak in that He receives power over all flesh. And indeed the receiving of power might be a sign of weakness if He were not able to give to those whom He receives life eternal. Yet the very fact of receiving is used to prove inferiority of nature. It might, if Christ were not true God by birth as truly as is the Unbegotten. But if the receiving of power signifies neither more nor less than the Birth, by which He received all that He has, that gift does not degrade the Begotten, because it makes Him perfectly and entirely what God is. God Unbegotten brought God Only-begotten to a perfect birth of divine blessedness: it is, then, the mystery of the Father to be the Author of the Birth, but it is no degradation to the Son to be made the perfect image of His Author by a real birth. The giving of power over all flesh, and this, in order that to all flesh might be given eternal life, postulates the Fatherhood of the Giver and the Divinity of the Receiver: for by giving is signified that the One is the Father, and in receiving the power to give eternal life, the Other remains God the Son. All power is therefore natural and congenital to the Son of God; and though it is given, that does not separate Him from His Author, for that which is given is the property of His Author, power to bestow eternal life, to change the corruptible into the incorruptible. The Father gave all, the Son received all; as is plain from His words, All things, whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine 1018 . He is not speaking here of species of created things, and processes of material change 1019 , but He unfolds to us the glory of the blessed and perfect Divinity, and teaches us that God is here manifested as the sum of His attributes, His power, His eternity, His providence, His authority; not that we should think that He possesses these as something extraneous to Himself, but that by these His qualities He Himself has been expressed in terms partly comprehensible by our sense. The Only-begotten, therefore, taught that He had all that the Father has, and that the Holy Spirit should receive of Him: as He says, All things, whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine; therefore I said, He shall take of Mine 1020 . All that the Father hath are His, delivered and received: but these gifts do not degrade His divinity, since they give Him the same attributes as the Father.
32. These are the steps by which He advances the knowledge of Himself. He teaches that He is come out from the Father, proclaims that the Father is with Him, and testifies that He has conquered the world. He is to be glorified of the Father, and will glorify Him: He will use the power He has received, to give to all flesh eternal life. Then hear the crowning point, which concludes the whole series, And this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ 1021 . Learn, heretic, to confess, if you cannot believe, the faith which gives eternal life. Separate, if you can, Christ from God, the Son from the Father, God over all from the true God, the One from the Only: if, as you say, eternal life is to believe in one only true God without Jesus Christ. But if there is no eternal life in a confession of the only true God, which separates Christ from Him, how, pray, can Christ be separated from the true God for our faith, when He is not separable for our salvation?
33. I know that laboured solutions of difficult questions do not find favour with the reader, but it will perhaps be to the advantage of the faith if I permit myself to postpone for a time the exposition of the full truth, and wrestle against the heretics with these words of the Gospel. You hear the statement of the Lord, This is life eternal, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ. What is it, pray, which suggests to you that Christ is not the true God? No further indication is given to shew you what you should think of Christ. There is nothing but Jesus Christ: not Son of Man, as He generally called Himself: not Son of God, as He often declared Himself: not the living bread which cometh down from Heaven 1022 , as He repeated to the scandal of many. He says, Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ, omitting all His usual names and titles, natural and assumed. Hence, if the confession of the only true God, and of Jesus Christ, gives us eternal life, without doubt the name Jesus Christ has here the full sense of that of God.
34. But perhaps by saying, Thee the only, Christ severs Himself from communion and unity with God. Yes, but after the words, Thee the only true God, does He not immediately continue, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ? I appeal to the sense of the reader: what must we believe Christ to be, when we are commanded to believe in Him also, as well as the Father the only true God? Or, perhaps, if the Father is the only true God, there is no room for Christ to be God. It might be so, if, because there is one God the Father, Christ were not the one Lord 1023 . The fact that God the Father is one, leaves Christ none the less the one Lord: and similarly the Father’s one true Godhead makes Christ none the less true God: for we can only obtain eternal life if we believe in Christ, as well as in the only true God
35. Come, heretic, what will your fatuous doctrine instruct us to believe of Christ; Christ, Who dispenses eternal life, Who is glorified of, and glorifies, the Father, Who overcame the world, Who, deserted, is not alone, but has the Father with Him, Who came out from God, and came from the Father? He is born with such divine powers; what of the nature and reality of God will you allow Him? It is in vain that we believe in the only true God the Father, unless we believe also in Him, Whom He sent, even Jesus Christ. Why do you hesitate? Tell us, what is Christ to be confessed? You deny what has been written: what is left, but to believe what has not been written? O unhappy wilfulness! O falsehood striving against the truth! Christ is united in belief and confession with the only true God the Father: what faith is it, pray, to deny Him to be true God, and to call Him a creature, when it is no faith to believe in the only true God without Christ? But you are narrow, heretic, and unable to receive the Holy Spirit. The sense of the heavenly words escapes you; stung with the asp’s poison of error, you forget that Christ is to be confessed true God in the faith of the only true God, if we would obtain eternal life.
36. But the faith of the Church, while confessing the only true God the Father, confesses Christ also. It does not confess Christ true God without the Father the only true God; nor the Father the only true God without Christ. It confesses Christ true God, because it confesses the Father the only true God. Thus the fact that God the Father is the only true God constitutes Christ also true God. The Only-begotten God suffered no change of nature by His natural birth: and He Who, according to the nature of His divine origin was born God from the living God, is, by the truth of that nature, inalienable from the only true God. Thus there follows from the true divine nature its necessary result, that the outcome of true divinity must be a true birth, and that the one God could not produce from Himself a God of a second kind. The mystery of God consists neither in simplicity, nor in multiplicity: for neither is there another God, Who springs from God with qualities of His own nature, nor does God remain as a single Person, for the true birth of the Son teaches us to confess Him as Father. The begotten God did not, therefore, lose the qualities of His nature: He possesses the natural power of Him, Whose nature He retains in Himself by a natural birth. The divinity in Him is not changed, or degenerate, for if His birth had brought with it any defect, it would more justly cast upon the Nature, through which He came into being, the reflection of having failed to implant in its offspring the properties of itself. The change would not degrade the Son, Who had passed into a new substance by birth, but the Father, Who had been unable to maintain the constancy of His nature in the birth of the Son, and had brought forth something external and foreign to Himself.
37. But, as we have often said, the inadequacy of human ideas has no corresponding inadequacy in the unity of God the Father and God the Son: as though there were extension, or series, or flux, like a spring pouring forth its stream from the source, or a tree supporting its branch on the stem, or fire giving out its heat into space. In these cases we have expansion without any separation: the parts are bound together and do not exist of themselves, but the heat is in the fire, the branch in the tree, the stream in the spring. So the thing itself alone has an independent existence; the one does not pass into the other, for the tree and the branch are one and the same, as also the fire and the heat, the spring and the stream. But the Only-begotten God is God, subsisting by virtue of a perfect and ineffable birth, true Scion of the Unbegotten God, incorporeal offspring of an incorporeal nature, living and true God of living and true God, God of a nature inseparable from God. The fact of birth does not make Him God with a different nature, nor did the generation, which produced His substance, change its nature in kind.
38. Put in the dispensation of the flesh which He assumed, and through the obedience whereby He emptied Himself of the form of God, Christ, born man, took to Himself a new nature, not by loss of virtue or nature but by change of fashion. He emptied Himself of the form of God and took the form of a servant, when He was born. But the Father’s nature, with which He was in natural unity, was not affected by this assumption of flesh; while Christ, though abiding in the virtue of His nature, yet in respect of the humanity assumed in this temporal change, lost together with the form of God the unity with the divine nature also. But the Incarnation is summed up in this, that the whole Son, that is, His manhood as well as His divinity, was permitted by the Father’s gracious favour to continue in the unity of the Father’s nature, and retained not only the powers of the divine nature, but also that nature’s self. For the object to be gained was that man might become God. But the assumed manhood could not in any wise abide in the unity of God, unless, through unity with God, it attained to unity with the nature of God. Then, since God the Word was in the nature of God, the Word made flesh would in its turn also be in the nature of God. Thus, if the flesh were united to the glory of the Word, the man Jesus Christ could abide in the glory of God the Father, and the Word made flesh could be restored to the unity of the Father’s nature, even as regards His manhood, since the assumed flesh had obtained the glory of the Word. Therefore the Father must reinstate the Word in His unity, that the offspring of His nature might again return to be glorified in Himself: for the unity had been infringed by the new dispensation, and could only be restored perfect as before if the Father glorified with Himself the flesh assumed by the Son.
39. For this reason, having already so well prepared their minds for the understanding of this belief, the Lord follows up the words, And this is eternal life, that they should know Thee, the only true God, and Him Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ, with a reference to the obedience displayed in His incarnation, I have glorified Thee on the earth, I have accomplished the work which Thou gavest Me to do 1024 . And then, that we might know the reward of His obedience, and the secret purpose of the whole divine plan, He continued, And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was 1025 . Does any one deny that Christ remained in the nature of God or believe Him separable and distinct from the only true God? Let him tell us what is the meaning of this prayer. And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self. For what purpose should the Father glorify Him with His own self? What is the signification of these words? What follows from their signification? The Father neither stood in need of glory, nor had He emptied Himself of the form of His glory. How should He glorify the Son with His own self, and with that glory which He had with Him before the world was made? And what is the sense of which He had with Him? Christ does not say, “The glory which I had before the world was made, when I was with Thee,” but, The glory which I had with Thee. When I was with Thee would signify, “when I dwelt by Thy side:” but which I had with Thee teaches the Mystery of His nature. Further, Glorify Me with Thyself is not the same as “Glorify Me.” He does not ask merely that He may be glorified, that He may have some special glory of His own, but prays that He may be glorified of the Father with Himself. The Father was to glorify Him with Himself, that He might abide in unity with Him as before, since the unity with the Father’s glory had left Him through the obedience of the Incarnation. And this means that the glorifying should reinstate Him in that nature, with which He was united by the Mystery of His divine birth; that He might be glorified of the Father with Himself; that He should resume all that He had had with the Father before; that the assumption of the servant’s form should not estrange from Him the nature of the form of God, but that God should glorify in Himself the form of the servant, that it might become for ever the form of God, since He, Who had before abode in the form of God, was now in the form of a servant. And since the form of a servant was to be glorified in the form of God, it was to be glorified in Him in Whose form the fashion of the servant’s form was to be honoured.
40. But these words of the Lord are not new, or attested now for the first time in the teaching of the Gospels, for He testified to this very mystery of God the Father glorifying the Son with Himself by the noble joy at the fulfilment of His hope, with which He rejoiced at the very moment when Judas went forth to betray Him. Filled with joy that His purpose was now to be fully accomplished, He said, Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, He hath glorified Him in Himself, and straightway hath He glorified Him 1026 . How can we whose souls are burdened with bodies of clay, whose minds are polluted and stained with foul consciousness of sin, be so puffed up as to judge of His divine claim? How can we set up ourselves to criticise His heavenly nature, rebelling against God with our unhallowed and blasphemous disputations? The Lord enunciated the faith of the Gospel in the simplest words that could be found, and fitted His discourses to our understanding, so far as the weakness of our nature allowed Him, without saying anything unworthy of the majesty of His own nature. The signification of His opening words cannot, I think, be doubted, Now is the Son of Man glorified; that is, all the glory which He obtains is not for the Word but for His flesh: not for the birth of His Godhead, but for the dispensation of His manhood born into the world. What then, may I ask, is the meaning of what follows, And God is glorified in Him? I hear that God is glorified in Him; but what that can be according to your interpretation, heretic, I do not know. God is glorified in Him, in the Son of Man, that is: tell me, then, is the Son of Man the same as the Son of God? And since the Son of Man is not one and the Son of God another, but He Who is Son of God is Himself also Son of Man, Who, pray, is the God Who is glorified in this Son of Man, Who is also Son of God?
41. So God is glorified in the Son of Man, Who is also Son of God. Let us see, then, what is this third clause which is added, If God is glorified in Him, God hath also glorified Him in Himself. What, pray, is this secret mystery? God, in the glorified Son of Man, glorifies a glorified God in Himself! The glory of God is in the Son of Man, and the glory of God is in the glory of the Son of Man. God glorifies in Himself, but man is not glorified through himself. Again the God Who is glorified in the man, though He receives the glory, yet is Himself none other than God. But since in the glorifying of the Son of Man, the God, Who glorifies, glorifies God in Himself, I recognise that the glory of Christ’s nature is taken into the glory of that nature which glorifies His nature. God does not glorify Himself; but He glorifies in Himself God glorified in man. And this “glorifies in Himself,” though it is not a glorifying of Himself, yet means that He took the nature, which He glorified, into the glory of His own nature since the God, Who glorifies the God glorified in man, glorifies Him in Himself, He proves that the God Whom He glorifies is in Himself, for He glorifies Him in Himself. Come, heretic, whoever you be, produce the inextricable objections of your tortuous doctrine; though they bind themselves in their own tangles, yet, marshal them as you will, we shall not be in danger of sticking in their snares. The Son of Man is glorified; God is glorified in Him; God glorifies in Himself Him, Who is glorified in the man. It is not the same that the Son of Man is glorified, as that God is glorified in the Son of Man, or that God glorifies in Himself Him, Who is glorified in the man. Express in the terms of your unholy belief, what you mean by God being glorified in the Son of Man. It must certainly be either Christ Who is glorified in the flesh, or the Father Who is glorified in Christ. If it is Christ, Christ is manifestly God, Who is glorified in the flesh. If it is the Father, we are face to face with the mystery of the unity, since the Father is glorified in the Son. Thus, if you allow it to be Christ, despite yourself you confess Him God; if you understand it of God the Father, you cannot deny the nature of God the Father in Christ. Let this be enough concerning the glorified Son of Man and God glorified in Him. But when we consider that God glorifies in Himself God, Who is glorified in the Son of Man, by what loophole, pray, can your profane doctrine escape from the confession that Christ is very God according to the verity of His nature? God glorifies in Himself Christ, Who was born a man; is Christ then outside Him, when He glorifies Him in Himself? He restores to Christ in Himself the glory which He had with Himself, and now that the servant’s form, which He assumed, is in turn assumed into the form of God, God Who is glorified in man is glorified in Himself; He was in God’s self before the dispensation, by which He emptied Himself, and now He is united with God’s self, both in the form of the servant, and in the nature belonging to His birth. For His birth did not make Him God of a new and foreign nature, but by generation He was made natural Son of a natural Father. After His human birth, when He is glorified in His manhood, He shines again with the glory of His own nature; the Father glorifies Him in Himself, when He is assumed into the glory of His Father’s nature, of which He had emptied Himself in the dispensation.
42. The words of the Apostle’s faith are a barrier against your reckless and frenzied profanity, which forbids you to turn the freedom of speculation into licence, and wander into error. Every tongue, he says, shall confess that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father 1027 . The Father has glorified Him in Himself, therefore He must be confessed in the glory of the Father. And if He is to be confessed in the Father’s glory, and the Father has glorified Him in Himself, is He not plainly all that His Father is, since the Father has glorified Him in Himself and He is to be confessed in the Father’s glory? He is now not merely in the glory of God, but in the glory of God the Father. The Father glorifies Him, not with a glory from without, but in Himself. By taking Him back into that glory, which belongs to Himself, and which He had with Him before, the Father glorifies Him with Himself and in Himself. Therefore this confession is inseparable from Christ even in the humiliation of His manhood, as He says, And this is eternal life, that they should know Thee, the only true God, Him, Whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ 1028 ; for firstly there is no life eternal in the confession of God the Father without Jesus Christ, and secondly Christ is glorified in the Father. Eternal life is precisely this, to know the only true God and Him, Whom He sent, even Jesus Christ; deny that Christ is true God, if you can have life by believing in God without Him. As for the truth that God the Father is the only true God; let this be untrue of the God Christ, unless Christ’s glory is wholly in the only true God the Father. For if the Father glorifies Him in Himself, and the Father is the only true God, Christ is not outside the only true God, since the Father, Who is the only true God, glorifies in Himself Christ, Who is raised into the glory of God. And in that He is glorified by the only true God in Himself, He is not estranged from the only true God, for He is glorified by the true God in Himself, the only God.
43. But perhaps the godless unbeliever meets the pious believer with the assertion that we cannot understand of the true God a confession of powerlessness, such as, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father doing 1029 . If the twofold anger 1030 of the Jews had not demanded a twofold answer, it would indeed have been a confession of weakness, that the Son could do nothing of Himself, except what He had seen the Father doing. But Christ was answering in the same sentence the double charge of the Jews, who accused Him of violating the Sabbath, and of making Himself equal with God by calling God His Father. Do you think, then, that by fixing attention upon the form of His reply you can withdraw it for the substance? We have already treated of this passage in another book 1031 ; yet as the exposition of the faith gains rather than loses by repetition, let us ponder once more on the words, since the occasion demands it of us.
44. Hear how the necessity for the reply arose:—And for this cause did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He did these things on the Sabbath 1032 . Their anger was so kindled against Him, that they desired to kill Him, because He did His works on the Sabbath. But let us see also what the Lord answered, My Father worketh even until now, and I work 1033 . Tell us, heretic, what is that work of the Father; since through the Son, and in the Son, are all things, visible and invisible? You, who are wise beyond the Gospels, have doubtless obtained from some other secret source of learning the knowledge of the Father’s work, to reveal Him to us. But the Father works in the Son, as the Son Himself says, The words that I say unto you, I speak not from Myself, but the Father who abideth in Me, He doeth His works 1034 . Do you grasp the meaning of the words, My Father worketh even until now? He speaks that we may recognise in Him the power of the Father’s nature employing the nature, which has that power, to work on the Sabbath. The Father works in Him while He works; without doubt, then, He works along with the working of the Father, and therefore He says, My Father worketh even until now, that this present work of His words and actions may be regarded as the working of the Father’s nature in Himself. This worketh even until now identifies the time with the moment of speaking, and therefore we must regard Him as referring to that very work of the Father’s which He was then doing, for it implies the working of the Father at the very time of His words. And lest the Faith, being restricted to a knowledge of the Father only, should fail of the hope of eternal life, He adds at once, And I work; that is, what the Father worketh even until now, the Son also worketh. Thus He expounds the whole of the faith; for the work which is now, belongs to the present time; and if the Father works, and the Son works, no union exists between them, which merges them into a single Person 1035 . But the wrath of the bystanders is now redoubled. Hear what follows, For this cause, therefore, the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but because He called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God 1036 . Allow me here to repeat that, by the judgment of the Evangelist and by common consent of mankind, the Son is in equality with the Father’s nature; and that equality cannot exist except by identity of nature. The begotten cannot derive what it is save from its source and the thing generated cannot be foreign to that which generates it, since from that alone has it come to be what it is. Let us see, then, what the Lord replied to this double outburst of wrath, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father doing: for what things soever He doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner 1037 .
45. Unless we regard these words as an integral part of His statement, we do them violence by forcing upon them an arbitrary and unbelieving interpretation. But if His answer refers to the grounds of their anger, our faith expresses rightly what He meant to teach, and the perversity of the ungodly is left without support for its profane delusion. Let us see then whether this reply is suitable to an accusation of working on the Sabbath. The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father doing. He has said just above, My Father worketh even until now, and I work. If by virtue of the authority of the Father’s nature within Him, all that He works, He works with the Father in Him, and the Father works even until now on the Sabbath, then the Son, Who pleads the authority of the Father’s working, is acquitted of blame. For the words, can do nothing, refer not to strength but to authority; He can do nothing of Himself, except what He has seen. Now, to have seen does not confer the power to do, and therefore He is not weak, if He can do nothing without having seen, but His authority is shewn to depend on seeing. Again the words, unless He hath seen, signify the consciousness derived from seeing, as when He says to the Apostles, Behold I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest 1038 . With the consciousness that the Father’s nature is abiding in Him, and working in Him when He works, to forestall the idea that the Lord of the Sabbath has violated the Sabbath, He pronounces that, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father doing. And thus He demonstrates that His every action springs from His consciousness of the nature working within Him; when He works on the Sabbath, the Father worketh even until now on the Sabbath. In what follows, however, He refers to the second cause of their indignation, For what things soever He doeth, the Son doeth in like manner. Is it false that, what things soever the Father doeth, the Son doeth in like manner? Does the Son of God admit a distinction between the Father’s power and working and His own? Does He shrink from claiming the equality of homage befitting an equal in power and nature? If He does, disdain His weakness, and degrade Him from equality of nature with the Father. But He Himself says only a little later, That all may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father, He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which sent Him 1039 . Discover, if you can, the inferiority, when Both are equal in honour; make out the weakness, when Both work with the same power.
46. Why do you misrepresent the occasion of the reply in order to detract from His divinity? To the working on the Sabbath He answers that He can do nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father doing: to demonstrate His equality, He professes to do what things soever the Father doeth. Enforce your charge of weakness, by His answer concerning the Sabbath, if you can disprove that what things soever the Father doeth, the Son doeth in like manner. But if what things soever includes all things without exception; in what is He found weak, when there is nothing that the Father doeth, which He cannot also do? Where is His claim to equality refuted by any episode of weakness, when one and the same honour is demanded for Him and for the Father? If Both have the same power in operation, and both claim the same reverence in worship, I cannot understand what dishonour of inferiority can exist, since Father and Son possess the same power of operation, and equality of honour.
47. Although we have treated this passage as the facts themselves explain it, yet to prove that the Lord’s words, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He hath seen the Father doing, so far from supporting this unholy degradation of His nature, testify to His conscious possession of the nature of the Father, by Whose authority He worked on the Sabbath, let us shew them that we can produce another saying of the Lord, which bears upon the question, I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father taught Me, I speak these things. And He that sent Me is with Me: He hath not left Me alone, for I do always the things that are pleasing to Him 1040 . Do you feel what is implied in the words, The Son can do nothing, but what He hath seen the Father doing? Or what a mystery is contained in the saying, I can do nothing of myself, and He hath not left me alone, for I do always the things that are pleasing to Him? He does nothing of Himself, because the Father abides in Him; can you reconcile with this the fact that the Father does not leave Him, because He does the things which are pleasing to Him? Your interpretation, heretic, sets up a contradiction between these two statements, that He does nothing of Himself, unless taught of the Father abiding in Him, and that the Father abides in Him, because He does always the things which are pleasing to Him. For if the Father’s abiding in Him means that He does nothing of Himself, how could He have deserved that the Father should abide in Him, by doing always the things which are pleasing to the Father. It is no merit, not to do of oneself what one does. Conversely, how are the Son’s deeds pleasing to the Father, if the Father Himself, abiding in the Son, be their Author? Impiety, thou art in a sore strait; the well-armed piety of the faith hath hemmed thee in. The Son is either an Agent, or He is not. If He is not an Agent, how does He please by his acts? If He is an Agent, in what sense are deeds, done not of Himself, His own? On the one hand, He must have done the things which are pleasing; on the other, it is no merit to have done, yet not of oneself, what one does.
48. But, my opponent, the unity of Their nature is such, that the several action of Each implies the conjoint action of Both, and Their joint activity a several activity of Each. Conceive the Son acting, and the Father acting through Him. He acts not of Himself, for we have to explain how the Father abides in Him. He acts in His own Person, for in accordance with His birth as the Son, He does Himself what is pleasing. His acting not of Himself would prove Him weak, were it not the case that He so acts that what He does is pleasing to the Father. But He would not be in the unity of the divine nature, if the deeds which He does, and wherein He pleases, were not His own, and He were merely prompted to action by the Father abiding in Him. The Father then in abiding in Him, teaches Him, and the Son in acting, acts not of Himself; while, on the other hand, the Son, though not acting of Himself, acts Himself, for what He does is pleasing. Thus is the unity of Their nature retained in Their action, for the One, though He acts Himself, does not act of Himself, while the Other, Who has abstained from action, is yet active.
49. Connect with this that saying, which you lay hold of to support the imputation of infirmity, All that the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me, and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out; for I am come down from heaven not to do Mine own will, but the will of the Father that sent Me 1041 . But, perhaps you say, the Son has no freedom of will: the weakness of His nature subjects Him to necessity, and He is denied free-will, and subjected to necessity that He may not reject those who are given to Him and come from the Father. Nor was the Lord content to demonstrate the mystery of the Unity by His action in not rejecting those who are given to Him, nor seeking to do His own will instead of the will of him that sent Him, but when the Jews, after the repetition of the words, Him that sent Me, began to murmur, He confirms our interpretation by saying, Every one who heareth from the Father and learneth, cometh unto Me. Not that any man hath seen the Father, save He which is from God, He hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth in Me hath eternal life 1042 . Now, tell me first, where has the Father been heard, and where has He taught His hearers? No one hath seen the Father, save Him Who is from God: has any one ever heard Him Whom no one has ever seen? He that has heard from the Father, comes to the Son: and he that has heard the teaching of the Son, has heard the teaching of the Father’s nature, for its properties are revealed in the Son. When, therefore, we hear the Son teaching, we must understand that we are hearing the teaching of the Father. No one hath seen the Father, yet he who comes to the Son, hears and learns from the Father to come: it is manifest, therefore, that the Father teaches through the words of the Son, and, though seen of none, speaks to us in the manifestation of the Son, because the Son, by virtue of His perfect birth, possesses all the properties of His Father’s nature. The Only-begotten God desiring, therefore, to testify of the Father’s authority, yet inculcating His own unity with the Father’s nature, does not cast out those who are given to Him of the Father, or work His own will instead of the will of Him that sent Him: not that He does not will what He does, or is not Himself heard when He teaches; but in order that He may reveal Him Who sent Him, and Himself the Sent, under the aspect of one indistinguishable nature, He shews all that He wills, and says, and does, to be the will and works of the Father.
50. But He proves abundantly that His will is free by the words, As the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom He will 1043 . When the equality of Father and Son in power and honour is indicated, then the freedom of the Son’s will is made manifest: when Their unity is demonstrated, His conformity to the Father’s will is signified, for what the Father wills, the Son does. But to do is something more than to obey a will: the latter would imply external necessity, while to do another’s will requires unity with him, being an act of volition. In doing the will of the Father the Son teaches that through the identity of Their nature His will is the same in nature with the Father’s, since all that He does is the Father’s will. The Son plainly wills all that the Father wills, for wills of the same nature cannot dissent from one another. It is the will of the Father which is revealed in the words, For this is the will of My Father, that every one that beholdeth the Son and believeth in Him, should have eternal life, and that I should raise Him up at the last day 1044 . Hear now, whether the will of the Son is discordant with the Father’s, when He says, Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I will that where I am they also may be with Me 1045 . Here is no doubt that the Son wills: for while the Father wills that those who believe in the Son should have eternal life, the Son wills that the believer should be where He is. For is it not eternal life to dwell together with Christ? And does He not grant to the believer in Him all perfection of blessing when He says, No one hath known the Son save the Father, neither hath any known the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him 1046 ? Has He not freedom of will, when He wills to impart to us the knowledge of the Father’s mystery? Is not His will so free that He can bestow on whom He will the knowledge of Himself and His Father? Thus Father and Son are manifestly joint Possessors of a nature common to Both through birth and common through unity: for the Son is free of will, but what He does willingly is an act of the Father’s will.
51. He who has not grasped the manifest truths of the faith, obviously cannot have an understanding of its mysteries; because he has not the doctrine of the Gospel he is an alien to the hope of the Gospel. We must confess the Father to be in the Son and the Son in the Father, by unity of nature, by might of power, as equal in honour as Begetter and Begotten. But, perhaps you say, the witness of our Lord Himself is contrary to this declaration, for He says, The Father is greater than I 1047 . Is this, heretic, the weapon of your profanity? Are these the arms of your frenzy? Has it escaped you, that the Church does not admit two Unbegotten, or confess two Fathers? Have you forgotten the Incarnation of the Mediator, with the birth, the cradle, the childhood, the passion, the cross and the death belonging to it? When you were born again, did you not confess the Son of God, born of Mary? If the Son of God, of Whom these things are true, says, The Father is greater than I, can you be ignorant that the Incarnation for your salvation was an emptying of the form of God, and that the Father, unaffected by this assumption of human conditions, abode in the blessed eternity of His own incorrupt nature without taking our flesh? We confess that the Only-begotten God, while He abode in the form of God, abode in the nature of God, but we do not at once reabsorb into the substance of the divine unity His unity bearing the form of a servant. Nor do we teach that the Father is in the Son, as if He entered into Him bodily; but that the nature which was begotten by the Father of the same kind as His own, possessed by nature the nature which begot it 1048 : and that this nature, abiding in the form of the nature which begot it, took the form of human nature and weakness. Christ possessed all that was proper to His nature: but the form of God had departed from Him, for by emptying Himself of it, He had taken the form of a servant. The divine nature had not ceased to be, but still abiding in Him, it had taken upon itself the humility of earthly birth, and was exercising its proper power in the fashion of the humility it assumed. So God, born of God, being found as man in the form of a servant, but acting as God in His miracles, was at once God as His deeds proved, and yet man, for He was found in the fashion of man.
52. Therefore, in the discourse we have expounded above, He had borne witness to the unity of His nature with the Father’s: He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father also 1049 : The Father is in Me, and I in the Father 1050 These two passages perfectly agree, since Both Persons are of equal nature; to behold the Son is the same as to behold the Father; that the One abides in the One shows that They are inseparable. And, lest they should misunderstand Him, as though when they beheld His body, they beheld the Father in Him, He had added, Believe Me, that I am in the Father and the Father in Me: or else believe Me for the very works’ sake 1051 . His power belonged to His nature, and His working was the exercise of that power; in the exercise of that power, then, they might recognise in Him the unity with the Father’s nature. In proportion as any one recognised Him to be God in the power of His nature, he would come to know God the Father, present in that mighty nature. The Son, Who is equal with the Father, shewed by His works that the Father could be seen in Him: in order that we, perceiving in the Son a nature like the Father’s in its power, might know that in Father and Son there is no distinction of nature.
53. So the Only-begotten God, just before He finished His work in the flesh, and completed the mystery of taking the servant’s form, in order to establish our faith, thus speaks, Ye heard how I said unto you, I go away, and I came unto you. If ye loved Me, ye would rejoice, because I go unto the Father; for the Father is greater than I 1052 . He has already, in an earlier part of this very discourse unfolded in all its aspects the teaching of His divine nature: can we, then, on the strength of this confession deprive the Son of that equality, which His true birth has perfected in Him? Or is it an indignity to the Only-begotten God, that the Unbegotten God is His Father, seeing that His Only-begotten birth from the Unbegotten gives Him the Only-begotten nature? He is not the source of His own being, nor did He, being Himself non-existent, bring to pass His own birth out of nothing; but, existing as a living nature and from a living nature, He possesses the power of that nature, and declares the authority of that nature, by bearing witness to His honour, and in His honour to the grace belonging to the birth He received. He pays to the Father the tribute of obedience to the will of Him Who sent Him, but the obedience of humility does not dissolve the unity of His nature: He becomes obedient unto death, but, after death, He is above every name 1053 .
54. But if His equality is doubted because the Name is given Him after He put off the form of God, we dishonour Him by ignoring the mystery of the humility which He assumed. The birth of His humanity brought to Him a new nature, and His form was changed in His humility, by the assumption of a servant’s form, but now the giving of the Name restores to Him equality of form. Ask yourself what it is, which is given. If the gift be something pertaining to God, the grant to the receiving nature does not impair the divinity of the giving nature. Again, the words, And gave Him the Name, involve a mystery in the giving, but the giving of the Name does not make it another name. To Jesus is given, that to Him, Every knee shall bow of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father 1054 . The honour is given Him that He should be confessed in the glory of God the Father. Do you hear Him say, The Father is greater than I? Know Him also, of Whom it is said in reward of His obedience, And gave unto Him the Name which is above every name 1055 ; hear Him Who said, I and the Father are one; He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father also; I am in the Father, and the Father in Me. Consider the honour of the confession which is granted Him, that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father. When, then, is the Father greater than the Son? Surely, when He gives Him the Name above every name. And on the other hand, when is it that the Son and the Father are one? Surely, when every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord in the glory of God the Father. If, then, the Father is greater through His authority to give, is the Son less through the confession of receiving? The Giver is greater: but the Receiver is not less, for to Him it is given to be one with the Giver. If it is not given to Jesus to be confessed in the glory of God the Father, He is less than the Father. But if it is given Him to be in that glory, in which the Father is, we see in the prerogative of giving, that the Giver is greater, and in the confession of the gift, that the Two are One. The Father is, therefore, greater than the Son: for manifestly He is greater, Who makes another to be all that He Himself is, Who imparts to the Son by the mystery of the birth the image of His own unbegotten nature, Who begets Him from Himself into His own form, and restores Him again from the form of a servant to the form of God, Whose work it is that Christ, born God according to the Spirit in the glory of the Father, but now Jesus Christ dead in the flesh, should be once more God in the glory of the Father. When, therefore, Christ says that He is going to the Father, He reveals the reason why they should rejoice if they loved Him, because the Father is greater than He.
55. After the explanation that love is the source of this joy, because love rejoices that Jesus is to be confessed in the glory of God the Father, He next expresses His claim to receive back that glory, in the words, For the prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in Me 1056 . The prince of this world hath nothing in Him: for being found in fashion as a man, He dwelt in the likeness of the flesh of sin, yet apart from the sin of the flesh, and in the flesh condemned sin by sin 1057 . Then, giving obedience to the Father’s command as His only motive, He adds, But that the world may know that I love the Father, even as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go hence 1058 . In His zeal to do the Father’s commandment, He rises and hastens to complete the mystery of His bodily passion. But the next moment He unfolds the mystery of His assumption of flesh. Through this assumption we are in Him, as the branches in the vinestock 1059 ; and unless He had become the Vine, we could have borne no good fruit. He exhorts us to abide in Himself, through faith in His assumed body, that, since the Word has been made flesh, we may be in the nature of His flesh, as the branches are in the Vine. He separates the form of the Father’s majesty from the humiliation of the assumed flesh by calling Himself the Vine, the source of unity for all the branches, and the Father the careful Husbandman, Who prunes away its useless and barren branches to be burnt in the fire. In the words, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father also, and The words that I say unto you, I speak not of Myself, but the Father abiding in Me, He doeth His works, and Believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me, He reveals the truth of His birth and the mystery of His Incarnation. He then continues the thread of His discourse, until He comes to the saying, The Father is greater than I; and after this, to complete the meaning of these words, He hastens to add the illustration of the husbandman, the vine, and the branches, which directs our notice to His submission to bodily humiliation. He says that, because the Father is greater than Himself, He is going to the Father, and that love should rejoice, that He is going to the Father, that is, to receive back His glory from the Father: with Him, and in Him, to be glorified not with a brand-new honour, but with the old, not with some strange honour but with that which He had with Him before. If then Christ shall not enter into Him with glory, to abide in the glory of God, you may disparage His nature: but if the glory which He receives is the proof of His Godhead, recognise that it as Giver of this proof that the Father is the greater.
56. Why do you distort the Incarnation into a blasphemy? Why pervert the mystery of salvation into a weapon of destruction? The Father, Who glorifies the Son, is greater: The Son, Who is glorified in the Father, is not less. How can He be less, when He is in the glory of God the Father? And how can the Father not be greater? The Father therefore is greater, because He is Father: but the Son, because He is Son, is not less. By the birth of the Son the Father is constituted greater: the nature that is His by birth, does not suffer the Son to be less. The Father is greater, for the Son prays Him to render glory to manhood He has assumed. The Son is not less, for He receives back His glory with the Father. Thus are consummated at once the mystery of the Birth, and the dispensation of the Incarnation. The Father, as Father, and as glorifying Him Who now is Son of Man, is greater: Father and Son are one, in that the Son, born of the Father, after assuming an earthly body is taken back to the glory of the Father.
57. The birth, therefore, does not constitute His nature inferior, for He is in the form of God, as being born of God. And though by their very signification, ‘Unbegotten’ and ‘Begotten’ seem to be opposed, yet the Begotten cannot be excluded from the nature of the Unbegotten, for there is none other from whom He could derive His substance. He does not indeed share in the supreme majesty of being unbegotten: but He has received from the Unbegotten God the nature of divinity. Thus faith confesses the eternity of the Only-begotten God, though it can give no meaning to begetting or beginning in His case. His nature forbids us to say that He ever began to be, for His birth lies beyond the beginnings of time. But while we confess Him existent before all ages, we do not hesitate to pronounce Him born in timeless eternity, for we believe His birth, though we know it never had a beginning.
58. Seeking to disparage His nature, the heretics lay hold of such sayings as, The Father is greater than I, or, But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only 1060 . It is turned to a reproach against the Only-begotten God that He did not know the day and the hour: that, though God, born of God, He is not in the perfection of divine nature, since He is subjected to the limitation of ignorance; that is, an external force stronger than Himself, triumphing, as it were, over His weakness, makes Him captive to this infirmity. And, indeed, it is with an apparent right to claim that this confession is inevitable, that the heretics, in their frenzy, would drive us to such a blasphemous interpretation. The words are those of the Lord Himself, and what, it may be asked, could be more unholy than to corrupt His express assertion by our attempt to explain it away.
59. But, before we investigate the meaning and occasion of these words, let us first appeal to the judgment of common sense. Is it credible, that He, Who stands to all things as the Author of their present and future, should not know all things? If all things are through and in Christ, and in such a way through Christ that they are also in Him, must not that, which is both in Him and through Him, be also in His knowledge, when that knowledge, by virtue of a nature which cannot be nescient, habitually apprehends what is neither in, nor through Him 1061 ? But that which derives from Him alone its origin, and has in Him alone the efficient cause of its present state and future development, can that be beyond the ken of His nature, through which is effected, and in which is contained, all that it is and shall be? Jesus Christ knows the thoughts of the mind, as it is now, stirred by present motives, and as it will be to-morrow, aroused by the impulse of future desires. Hear the witness of the Evangelist, For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who it was that should betray Him 1062 . By its virtue His nature could perceive the unborn future, and foresee the awakening of passions yet dormant in the mind: do you believe that it did not know what is through itself, and within itself? He is Lord of all that belongs to others, is He not Lord of His own? Remember what is written of Him, All things have been created through Him, and in Him: and He is before all things 1063 : or again, For it was the good pleasure of the Father, that in Him should all the fulness dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself 1064 , all fulness is in Him, all things were made through Him, and are reconciled in Him, and for that day of reconciliation we wait expectant; did He not, then, know it, when its time was in His hands, and fixed by His mystery, for it is the day of His coming, of which the Apostle wrote, When Christ, Who is your life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with Him be manifested in glory 1065 . No one is ignorant of that which is through himself and within himself: shall Christ come, and does He not know the day of His coming? It is His day, for the same Apostle says, The day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the night 1066 : can we believe, then, that He did not know it? Human natures, so far as in them lies, foresee what they determine to do: knowledge of the end desired accompanies the desire to act: does not He Who is born God, know what is in, and through, Himself? The times are through Him, the day is in His hand, for the future is constituted through Him, and the Dispensation of His coming is in His power: is His understanding so dull, that the sense of His torpid nature does not tell Him what He has Himself determined? Is He like the brute and the beast, which, animated by no reason or foresight, not even conscious of acting but driven to and fro by the impulse of irrational desire, proceed to their end with fortuitous and uncertain course?
60. But, again, how can we believe that the Lord of glory, because He was able not to know the day of His own coming, was of a discordant and imperfect nature, subject to the necessity of coming, but ignorant of the day of His coming? This would make God weaker than the power of ignorance, which took from Him the prerogative of knowledge. Then, too, how we redouble occasions of blasphemy, if we impute not only infirmity to Christ, but also defect to God the Father, saying that He defrauded of foreknowledge of this day the Only-begotten God, the Son of His love, and in malice denied Him certainty concerning the future consummation: suffered Him to know the day and hour of His passion, but withheld from Him the day of His power, and the hour of His glory among His Saints: took from Him the knowledge of His blessedness, while He granted Him prescience of His death? The trembling conscience of man dare not presume to think thus of God, or ascribe to Him such taint of human fickleness, that the Father should deny anything to the Son, or the Son, Who was born as God, should possess an imperfect knowledge.
61. But God can never be anything but love, or anything but the Father: and He, Who loves, does not envy; He Who is Father, is wholly and entirely Father. This name admits of no compromise: no one can be partly father, and partly not. A father is father in respect of his whole personality; all that he is is present in the child, for paternity by piecemeal is impossible: not that paternity extends to self-generation, but that a father is altogether father in all his qualities, to the offsprings born of him. According to the constitution of human bodies, which are made of dissimilar elements, and composed of various parts, the father must be father of the whole, since a perfect birth hands on to the child all the different elements and parts, which are in the father. The father is, therefore, father of all that is his; the birth proceeds from the whole of himself, and constitutes the whole of the child. God, however, has no body, but simple essence: no parts, but an all-embracing whole: nothing quickened, but everything living. God is therefore all life, and all one, not compounded of parts, but perfect in His simplicity, and, as the Father, must be Father to His begotten in all that He Himself is, for the perfect birth of the Son makes Him perfect Father in all that He has. So, if He is proper Father to the Son, the Son must possess all the properties of the Father. Yet how can this be, if the Son has not the quality of prescience, if there is anything from His Author, which is wanting in His birth? To say that there is one of God’s properties which He has not, is almost equivalent to saying that He has none of them. And what is proper to God, if not the knowledge of the future, a vision, which embraces the invisible and unborn world, and has within its scope that which is not yet, but is to be?
62. Moreover Paul, the teacher of the Gentiles, forestalls the impious falsehood, that the Only-begotten God was partially nescient. Listen to his words, Being instructed in love, unto all riches of the fulness of understanding, unto knowledge of the mystery of God, even Christ, in Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden 1067 . God, even Christ, is the mystery, and all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Him. But a portion is one thing, the whole another: a part is not the same as all, nor can all be called a part. If the Son does not know the day, all the treasures of knowledge are not in Him; but He has all the treasures of knowledge in Him, therefore He is not ignorant of the day. But we must remember that those treasures of knowledge were hidden in Him, though not, because hidden, therefore wanting. As in God, they are in Him: as in the mystery, they are hidden. But Christ, the mystery of God, in Whom are all the treasures of knowledge hidden, is not Himself hidden from our eyes and minds. Since then He is Himself the mystery, let us see whether He is ignorant when He does not know. If elsewhere His profession of ignorance does not imply that He does not know, here also it will be wrong to call Him ignorant, if He does not know. In Him are hidden all the treasures of knowledge, and so His ignorance is an economy rather than ignorance. Thus we can assign a reason for His ignorance, without the assumption that He did not know.
63. Whenever God says that He does not know, He professes ignorance indeed, but is not under the defect of ignorance. It is not because of the infirmity of ignorance that He does not know, but because it is not yet the time to speak, or the divine Plan to act. Thus He says to Abraham, The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is full, and their sin is very grievous. Therefore I will go down now, and see if they have done altogether according to the cry of it: and if not, I will know 1068 . Here we perceive God not knowing that which notwithstanding He knows. He knows that their sins are very grievous, but He comes down again to see whether they have done altogether, and to know if they have not. We observe, then, that He is not ignorant, although He does not know, but that, when the time comes for action, He knows. This knowledge is not, therefore, a change from ignorance, but the coming of the fulness of time. He waits still to know, but we cannot suppose that He does not know: therefore His not knowing what He knows, and His knowing what He does not know, is nothing else than a divine economy in word and deed.
64. We cannot, then, doubt that the knowledge of God depends on the occasion and not on any change on His part: by the occasion being meant the occasion, not of obtaining but of declaring knowledge, as we learn from His words to Abraham, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou anything unto him, for now I know that thou fearest thy God, and hast not withheld thy beloved son, for My sake 1069 . God knows now, but that now I know is a profession of previous ignorance: yet it is not true, that until now God did not know the faith of Abraham, for it is written, Abraham believed in God, and it was counted to him for righteousness 1070 , and therefore this now I know marks the time when Abraham received this testimony, not when God began to know. Abraham had proved, by the sacrifice of his son, the love he bore to God, and God knew it at the time He spoke: but as we cannot suppose that He did not know before, we must for this reason suppose that He took knowledge of it then because He spoke.
By way of example, we have chosen for our consideration this passage out of many in the Old Testament, which treat of the knowledge of God, in order to shew that when God does not know, the cause lies, not in His ignorance, but in the occasion.
65. We find our Lord in the Gospels knowing, yet not knowing, many things. Thus He does not know the workers of iniquity, who glory in their mighty works and in His name, for He says to them, Then will swear, I never knew you; depart from Me, all ye that work iniquity 1071 . He declares with an oath even, that He does not know them, but nevertheless He knows them to be workers of iniquity. He does not know them, not because He does not know, but because by the iniquity of their deeds they are unworthy of His knowledge, and He even confirms His denial with the sanctity of an oath. By the virtue of His nature He could not be ignorant, by the mystery of His will He refused to know. Again the Unbegotten God does not know the foolish virgins; He is ignorant of those who were too careless to have their oil ready, when He entered the chamber of His glorious coming. They come and implore, and so far from not knowing them, He cries, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not 1072 . Their coming and their prayer compel Him to recognize them, but His profession of ignorance refers to His will, not to His nature: they are unworthy to be known of Him to Whom nothing is unknown. Hence, in order that we should not impute His ignorance to infirmity, He says immediately to the Apostles, Watch therefore, for ye know not the day nor the hour 1073 . When He bids them watch, for they know not the day or the hour, He points out that He knew not the virgins, because through sleep and neglect they had no oil, and therefore were unworthy to enter into His chamber.
66. The Lord Jesus Christ, then, Who searcheth the heart and the reins 1074 , has no weakness in His nature, that He should not know, for, as we perceive, even the fact of His ignorance proceeds from the omniscience of His nature. Yet if any there be, who impute to Him ignorance, let them tremble, lest He Who knows their thoughts should say to them, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts 1075 ? The All-knowing, though not ignorant of thoughts and deeds, sometimes enquires as if He were, as for instance when He asks the woman who it was that touched the hem of His garment, or the Apostles, why they quarrelled among themselves, or the mourners, where the sepulchre of Lazarus was: but His ignorance was not ignorance, except in words. It is against reason that He should know from afar the death and burial of Lazarus, but not the place of his sepulchre: that He should read the thoughts of the mind, and not recognise the faith of the woman: that He should not need to ask concerning anything 1076 , yet be ignorant of the dissension of the Apostles. But He, Who knows all things, sometimes by a practice of economy professes ignorance, even though He is not ignorant. Thus, in the case of Abraham, God concealed His knowledge for a time: in that of the foolish virgins and the workers of iniquity, He refused to recognise the unworthy: in the mystery of the Son of Man, His asking, as if ignorant, expressed His humanity. He accommodated Himself to the reality of His birth in the flesh in everything to which the weakness of our nature is subject, not in such wise that He became weak in His divine nature, but that God, born man, assumed the weaknesses of humanity, yet without thereby reducing His unchangeable nature to a weak nature, for the unchangeable nature was that wherein He mysteriously assumed flesh. He, Who was God is man, but, being man, has not ceased to remain God. Conducting Himself then as one born man, and proving Himself such, though remaining God the Word, He often uses the language of man (though God, speaking as God, makes frequent use of human terms), and does not know that which it is not yet time to declare, or which is not deserving of His recognition.
67. We can now understand why He said that He knew not the day. If we believe Him to have been really ignorant, we contradict the Apostle, who says, In Whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden 1077 . There is knowledge which is hidden in Him, and because it has to be hidden, it must sometimes for this purpose be professed as ignorance, for once declared, it will no longer be secret. In order, therefore, that the knowledge may remain hidden, He declares that He does not know. But if He does not know, in order that the knowledge may remain hidden, this ignorance is not due to His nature, which is omniscient, for He is ignorant solely in order that it may be hidden. Nor is it hard to see why the knowledge of the day is hidden. He exhorts us to watch continually with unrelaxing faith, and withholds from us the security of certain knowledge, that our minds may be kept on the stretch by the uncertainty of suspense, and while they hasten towards and continually look for the day of His coming, may always watch in hope; and that, though we know the time must come, its very uncertainty may make us careful and vigilant. Thus the Lord says, Therefore be ye also ready, for ye know not what hour the Son of Man shall come 1078 ; and again, Blessed is that servant whom His lord, when He cometh, shall find so doing 1079 . The ignorance is, therefore, a means not to delude, but to encourage in perseverance. It is no loss to be denied a knowledge which it is an advantage not to have, for the security of knowledge might breed negligence of the faith, which now is concealed, while the uncertainty of expectation keeps us continually prepared, even as the master of the house, with the fear of loss before his eyes, watches and guards against the dreaded coming of the thief, who chooses the time of sleep for his work.
68. Manifestly, therefore, the ignorance of God is not ignorance but a mystery: in the economy of His actions and words and manifestations, He does not know and at the same time He knows, or knows and at the same time does not know. But we must ask, whether it may not be through the Son’s infirmity that He knows not what the Father knows. He could perhaps read the thoughts of the human heart, because His stronger nature can unite itself with a weaker in all its movements, and by the force of its power, as it were, pass through and through the feeble nature. But a weaker nature is powerless to penetrate a stronger: light things may be penetrated by heavy, rare by dense, liquid by solid, but the heavy are impenetrable to the light, the dense to the rare, and the solid to the liquid: the strong are not exposed to the weak, but the weak are penetrated by the strong. Therefore, the heretics say, the Son knew not the thoughts of the Father, because, being Himself weak, He could not approach the more powerful and enter into Him, or pass through Him.
69. Should any one presume, not merely to speak thus of the Only-begotten God in the rashness of his tongue, but even to think so in the wickedness of his heart, let him hear what the Apostle thought of the Holy Ghost, from the words he wrote to the Corinthians, But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God. For who among men knoweth the things of a man, which are in him, save the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the things which are in God, none knoweth, save the Spirit of God 1080 . But let us cast aside these empty illustrations of material things, and measure God born of God, Spirit of Spirit, by His own powers and not by earthly conditions. Let us measure Him not by our own senses, but by His divine claims. Let us believe Him Who said, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also 1081 . Let us not forget that He said, Believe, if only by My works, that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father 1082 , and again, I and the Father are one 1083 . If the names which correspond to realities, when intelligibly used, impart to us any true information, then He Who is seen in Another by the eye of understanding is not different in nature from that Other; not different in kind, since He abides in the Father, and the Father in Him; not separate, since Both are One. Perceive their unity in the indivisibility of their nature, and apprehend the mystery of that indivisible nature by regarding the One as the mirror of the Other. But remember that He is the mirror, not as the image reflected by the splendour of a nature outside Himself, but as being a living nature, indistinguishable from the Father’s living nature, derived wholly from the whole of His Father’s, having the Father’s in Him because He is the Only begotten, and abiding in the Father, because He is God.
70. The heretics cannot deny that the Lord used these words to signify the mystery His birth, but they attempt to escape from them by referring them to a harmony of will. They make the unity of God the Father and God the Son not one of divinity, but merely of will: as if the divine teaching were poor in expression and the Lord could not have said, I and the Father are one in will; or as if those words could have the same meaning as I and the Father are one; or as if He meant, He that hath seen My will, hath seen the will of My Father also, but, being unskilled statement, tried to express that idea in the words, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also: or as if the divine vocabulary did not contain the terms, The will of My Father is in Me, and My will is in the Father, but this thought could be expressed by I in the Father and the Father in Me. All this is nauseous and irreverent nonsense; common sense condemns the judgment of such silly fancies, as that the Lord could not say what He wanted, or did not say what He said. True, we find Him speaking in parables and allegories, but it is a different thing to strengthen one’s words with illustrations, or satisfy the dignity of the subject with the help of suggestive proverbs, or adapt one’s language to the needs of the moment. But this passage concerning the unity, of which we are speaking, does not allow us to look for the meaning outside the plain sound of the words. If Father and Son are one, in the sense that They are one in will, and if separable natures cannot be one in will, because their diversity of kind and nature must draw them into diversities of will and judgment, how can They be one in will, not being one in knowledge? There can be no unity of will between ignorance and knowledge. Omniscience and nescience are opposites, and opposites cannot be of the same will.
71. But perhaps it may be held to confirm the Son in His confession of ignorance that He says the Father alone knows. But unless He had plainly said that the Father alone knows, it would have been a matter of the greatest danger for our understanding, since we might have thought that He Himself did not know. For, since His ignorance is due to the economy of hidden knowledge, and not to a nature capable of ignorance, now that He says the Father alone knows, we cannot believe that He does not know; for, as we said above, God’s knowledge is not the discovery of what He did not know, but its declaration. The fact that the Father alone knows, is no proof that the Son is ignorant: He says that He does not know, that others may not know: that the Father alone knows, to shew that He Himself also knows. If we say that God came to know the love of Abraham 1084 , when He ceased to conceal His knowledge, it follows that only because He did not conceal it from the Son, can the Father be said to know the day, for God does not learn by sudden perception, but declares His knowledge with the occasion. If, then, the Son according to the mystery does not know the day, that He may not reveal it: on the other hand, only by the fact that He has revealed it can the Father be proved to know the day.
72. Far be it from us to imagine vicissitudes of bodily change in the Father and Son, as though the Father sometimes spoke to the Son, and sometimes was silent. We remember, indeed, that a voice was sometimes uttered from heaven for us, that the power of the Father’s words might confirm for us the mystery of the Son, as the Lord says, This voice hath not come from Heaven for My sake but for your sakes 1085 . But the divine nature can dispense with the various combinations necessary for human functions, the motion of the tongue, the adjustment of the mouth, the forcing of the breath, and the vibration of the air. God is a simple Being: we must understand Him by devotion, and confess Him by reverence. He is to be worshipped, not pursued by our senses, for a conditioned and weak nature cannot grasp with the guesses of its imagination the mystery of an infinite and omnipotent nature. In God is no variability, no parts, as of a composite divinity, that in Him will should follow inaction, speech silence, or work rest, or that He should not will, without passing from some other mental state to volition, or speak, without breaking the silence with His voice, or act, without going forth to labour. He is not subject to the laws of nature, for nature has received its law from Him: He never suffers weakness or change when He acts, for His power is boundless, as the Lord said, Father, all things are possible unto Thee 1086 . He can do more than human sense can conceive. The Lord does not deprive even Himself of the quality of omnipotence, for He says, What things soever the Father doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner 1087 . Nothing is difficult, when there is no weakness; for only a power which is weak to effect, knows the need of effort. The cause of difficulty is the weakness of the motive force; a force of limitless power rises above the conditions of impotence.
73. We have established this point to exclude the idea that after silence God spoke to the Son, or after ignorance the Son began to know. To reach our intelligence terms must be used applicable to our own nature: thus we do not understand communication except by word of mouth, or comprehend the opposite of nescience except as knowledge. Thus the Son does not know the day for the reason that He does not reveal it: the Father, He says, alone knows it for the reason that He reveals it to the Son alone. But, as we have said, Christ is conscious of no such natural impediments as an ignorance which must be removed before He can come to know, or a knowledge which is not His before the Father begins to speak. He declares the unity of His nature, as the only-begotten, with the Father, by the unmistakable words, All things whatsoever the Father hath, are Mine 1088 . There is no mention here of coming into possession: it is one thing, to be the Possessor of things external to Him; another, to be self-contained and self-existent. The former is to possess heaven and earth and the universe, the latter to be able to describe Himself by His own properties, which are His, not as something external and subject, but as something of which He Himself subsists. When He says, therefore, that all things which the Father has, are His, He alludes to the divine nature, and not to a joint ownership of gifts bestowed. For referring to His words that the Holy Spirit should take of His 1089 , He says, All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine, therefore said I, He shall take of Mine: that is, the Holy Spirit takes of His, but takes also of the Father’s: and if He receives of the Father’s, He receives also of His. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, and does not receive of a creature, but teaches us that He receives all these gifts, because they are all God’s. All things that belong to the Father are the Spirit’s; but we must not think that whatever He received of the Son, He did not receive of the Father also; for all that the Father hath belongs equally to the Son.
74. So the nature of Christ needed no change, or question, or answer, that it should advance from ignorance to knowledge, or ask of One Who had continued in silence, and wait to receive His answer: but, abiding perfectly in mysterious unity with Him, it received of God its whole being as it derived from Him its origin. And, further, it received all that belonged to the whole being of God, namely, His knowledge and His will. What the Father knows, the Son does not learn by question and answer; what the Father wills, the Son does not will by command. Since all that the Father has, is His, it is the property of His nature to will and know, exactly as the Father wills and knows. But to prove His birth He often expounds the doctrine of His Person, as when He says, I came not to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. 1090 He does the Father’s will, not His own, and by the will of Him that sent Me, He means His Father. But that He Himself wills the same, is unmistakeably declared in the words, Father, those whom Thou hast given Me, I will, that, where I am, they also may be with Me 1091 . The Father wills that we should be with Christ, in Whom, according to the Apostle, He chose us before the foundation of the world 1092 , and the Son wills the same, namely that we should be with Him. His will is, therefore, the same in nature as the Father’s will, though to make plain the fact of the birth it is distinguished from the Father’s.
75. The Son is ignorant, then, of nothing which the Father knows, nor does it follow because the Father alone knows, that the Son does not know. Father and Son abide in unity of nature, and the ignorance of the Son belongs to the divine Plan of silence, seeing that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. This the Lord Himself testified, when He answered the question of the Apostles concerning the times, It is not yours to know times or moments, which the Father hath set within His own authority 1093 . The knowledge is denied them, and not only that, but the anxiety to learn is forbidden, because it is not theirs to know these times. Yet now that He is risen, they ask again, though their question on the former occasion had been met with the reply, that not even the Son knew. They cannot possibly have understood literally that the Son did not know, for they ask Him again as though He did know. They perceived in the mystery of His ignorance a divine Plan of silence, and now, after His resurrection, they renew the question, thinking that the time has come to speak. And the Son no longer denies that He knows, but tells them that it is not theirs to know, because the Father has set it within His own authority. If then, the Apostles attributed it to the divine Plan, and not to weakness, that the Son did not know the day, shall we say that the Son knew not the day for the simple reason that He was not God? Remember, God the Father set the day within His authority, that it might not come to the knowledge of man, and the Son, when asked before, replied that He did not know, but now, no longer denying His knowledge, replies that it is theirs not to know, for the Father has set the times not in His own knowledge, but in His own authority. The day and the moment are included in the word ‘times’: can it be, then, that He, Who was to restore Israel to its kingdom, did not Himself know the day and the moment of that restoration? He instructs us to see an evidence of His birth in this exclusive prerogative of the Father, yet He does not deny that He knows: and while He proclaims that the possession of this knowledge is withheld from ourselves, He asserts that it belongs to the mystery of the Father’s authority.
1094 We must not therefore think, because He said He did not know the day and the moment, that the Son did not know. As man He wept, and slept, and sorrowed, but God is incapable of tears, or fear, or sleep. According to the weakness of His flesh He shed tears, slept, hungered, thirsted, was weary, and feared, yet without impairing the reality of His Only-begotten nature; equally so must we refer to His human nature, the words that He knew not the day or the hour.
Footnotes
155:958St. John x. 30.
155:959Col. 2:8, 9.
155:960Subsistentis Christi = subsistentia distincti Christi (see footnote in the Benedictine Edition). God the Father dwelt in Christ. But the Dweller must be personally distinct from Christ, in Whom He dwelt: and as the only distinction between the Father and Christ is that of Begetter and Begotten, therefore the words ‘God dwelt in Christ’ prove the generation of Christ.
155:961St. John xiv. 9.
155:962John 10.38.
155:963John 10.30.
155:964John 16.15.
155:965St. Mark 10:18, Matt. 19:17, Luke 18:19). The Greek is οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς, εἰ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός, ‘save one, even God’ (R.V.). The application of this text by the Arians depends upon the omission of the article ὁ.
155:966St. John xvii. 3.
156:967St. John v. 19.
156:968John 14.28.
156:969St. Mark 13:32, Matt. 24:36.
156:970Alluding to St. John xvii. 3, quoted in c. 2.
156:971St. Matt. 10:32, 33.
157:972The three periods referred to in these three sentences are 1) before the Incarnation: we can assign only to His Godhead the words Christ uses in reference to this period, because He was not yet man. 2) The Incarnation: we must distinguish whether He is speaking of Himself as man or as God. 3) After the Resurrection, when His manhood remains, but is perfected in the Godhead.
157:973Col. ii. 8-10.
157:974Phil. iii. 21.
158:975Phil. 2:10, 11. The Greek is εἰς δόξαν, κ.τ.λ. ‘to the glory of God the Father’ (R.V.). There is also another reading in Hilary’s text in this place, ‘in gloriam’ instead of ‘in gloria;’ but the latter is demanded by the context. See c. 42.
158:976Col. 2:11, 12.
158:977Col. 2.13-15.
158:978See I. 13.
159:979St. John 10:17, 18.
159:980John 2.19.
159:9811 Cor. i. 24.
159:9822 Cor. xiii. 4.
159:983Rom. 6:10, 11.
160:984St. Mark 10:18, Matt. 19:17, Luke 18:19, and note on c. 2 of this book.
160:985St. Matt. 11:28, 30.
160:986Matt. 19.16.
160:987Rom. x. 4.
160:988St. Matt. 15:24, Matt. 10:6.
160:989Cf. Rom. viii. 3, “What the law could not do;” and Gal. iii. 11 ff., “No man is justified by the law in the sight of God.…The law is not of faith.”
160:990St. John xiii. 13.
160:991St. Matt. xxiii. 10.
161:992i.e. including personal distinction from the Father, cf. c. 1, and note.
161:993St. John xiv. 1.
161:994i.e. such as Sabellius had taught by extending the unity of nature into a unity of person. There is a unity of nature in the Godhead, but a union of Persons.
161:995St. John v. 36-38.
161:996St. Matt. xvii. 5, the occasion of the Transfiguration. But the context shews that Hilary is referring to the voice heard at the baptism, where all the three Evangelists (Matt. 3:17, Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22), according to the commonly received text agree in omitting the words, “Hear ye Him.”
162:997St. John v. 44. The usual text of the Greek is τὴν δόξαν τὴν παρὰ τοῦ μόνου θεοῦ, “the glory that cometh from the only God” (R.V.).
162:998At the close of this chapter, Hilary speaks as if these words were, “if another shall come in His (i.e. the Father’s) name,” though the Latin “si alius venerit in nomine suo,” is ambiguous and the Greek, “ἔαν ἄλλος ἔλθῃ ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τῷ ἰδί& 251·,” quite excludes this translation.
162:999St. John v. 40-44.
162:1000St. John v. 25.
162:1001John 5.23.
163:1002Following the punctuation of the older Editions, and placing the full stop after, instead of before, the sentence “cum Filius ita honorandus ut Pater sit.”
163:1003St. John xi. 4, “through him” = through Lazarus. The Greek is δι᾽ αὐτῆς, “thereby” (R.V.).
163:1004St. Mark 12:29, Matt. 22:36.
163:1005St. Mark 12:52, 33.
163:1006Mark 12.34.
163:1007Matt. xxv. 34.
163:1008Matt. 5:3, Luke 6:20.
164:1009St. Mark xii. 34-37.
164:1010St. John xvii. 3.
165:1011St. John xiv. 9-11.
165:1012John 16.30.
165:1013John 16:27, 28.
165:1014John 16:31, 32.
165:1015St. John xvi. 33.
165:1016John 17:1, 2.
165:1017See iii. 12.
166:1018St. John xvi. 15.
166:1019i.e. He does not mean whatsoever the Father hath the created world; nor is the giving and receiving to be understood in a material sense, cf. c. 72.
166:1020St. John xvi. 15. The “He” is the Holy Ghost; see the context.
166:1021John 17.3.
166:1022St. John vi. 51.
166:10231 Cor. viii. 6: see above, c. 32.
168:1024St. John 17:3, 4.
168:1025John 17.5.
168:1026St. John 13:31, 32.
169:1027Phil. ii. 11. The Greek is εἰς δόξαν θεοῦ πατρός, to the glory of God the Father (R.V.): see note on c. 8.
169:1028St. John xvii. 3.
170:1029St. John v. 19.
170:1030John 5.18. The Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.
170:1031Book vii. 15 ff.
170:1032St. John v. 16.
170:1033John 5.17.
170:1034John 14.10.
170:1035That both Father and Son work implies that They are two distinct Persons and forbids us to suppose a union of Father and Son, which merges them into one Person.
170:1036St. John v. 18.
170:1037John 5.19.
171:1038St. John iv. 35.
171:1039John 4.23.
171:1040St. John 8:28, 29.
172:1041St. John 6:37, 38.
172:1042John 6.45-47.
172:1043St. John v. 21.
172:1044John 6.40.
172:1045John 17.24.
173:1046St. Matt. xi. 27.
173:1047St. John xiv. 28.
173:1048The unity of the Father and the Son does not mean that the Son’s body was derived from the Father, as in human conception the father is in the son; but the Son Who derived His incorporeal nature from the Father at the generation, afterwards assumed a human body for the Incarnation. Thus Hilary clears himself of any Patripassian or Marcellian construction which might be put on his words.
173:1049St. John xiv. 9.
173:1050John 10:38, John 14:10, 11.
173:1051John 14.11.
173:1052John 14.28.
174:1053Phil. 2:8, 9.
174:1054Phil. 2:10, 11.
174:1055Phil. 2.9.
174:1056St. John xiv. 30.
174:1057Rom. viii. 3. Here Hilary’s de pecccato peccatum…condemnans must mean ‘by means of sin.’ In Latin of this date de is often instrumental.
174:1058St. John xiv. 31. The words ‘but that the world…even so I do,’ are generally connected with the previous sentence, and the last sentence, ‘arise, let us go hence,’ is regarded as the breaking off of the discourse. But the words, ‘But that the world,’ &c., do not stand in very clear connection with the previous sentence, and the view here suggested has much to be said for it.
174:1059St. John 15:1, 2.
175:1060St. Matt. 24:36, Mark 13:32.
176:1061Christ was conscious, e.g., of the sinfulness of man.
176:1062St. John vi. 64.
176:1063Col. i. 16.
176:1064Col. 1.19.
176:1065Col. 3.4.
176:10661 Thess. v. 2.
177:1067Col. 2:2, 3.
177:1068Gen. 18:20, 21.
177:1069Gen. xxii. 12.
177:1070Gen. 15.6.
177:1071St. Matt. vii. 23.
178:1072St. Matt. xxv. 12.
178:1073Matt. 25.13.
178:1074Rev. ii. 23.
178:1075St. Matt. ix. 4.
178:1076St. John xvi. 30. The Greek is ἵνα τίς σε ἐρωτᾷ, ‘that any one should ask thee’ (R.V.).
178:1077Col. ii. 3.
178:1078St. Matt. xxiv. 44.
178:1079Matt. 24.46.
179:10801 Cor. 2:10, 11.
179:1081St. John xiv. 9.
179:1082St. John 10:38, John 14:11.
179:1083John 10.30.
180:1084Gen. xxii. 12: see c. 64.
180:1085St. John xii. 30.
180:1086St. Mark xiv. 36.
180:1087St. John v. 19.
180:1088John 16.15.
180:1089John 16.14. “He shall glorify Me, for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.”
181:1090St. John vi. 38. Hilary means that by the mention of two wills, our Lord teaches the personal distinction of the Father and the Son: cf. cc. 49, 50.
181:1091St. John xvii. 24.
181:1092Eph. i. 4.
181:1093Acts i. 7.
181:1094This last paragraph is omitted from many mss., though contained in several of high authority. It offers a different explanation from that which Hilary has adopted in the rest of the book (see especially c. 59), where he maintains that Christ avoided revealing what He really knew, by saying that He did not know. The line adopted here is the same as that in the passage found by Erasmus and inserted by him in Book x. c. 8. This is one of several interpolations made in later, though still early, times to correct or supplement Hilary’s teaching; cf. x. 8, with the note.
Book X.
1. It is manifest that there is nothing which men have ever said which is not liable to opposition. Where the will dissents the mind also dissents: under the bias of opposing judgment it joins battle, and denies the assertions to which it objects. Though every word we say be incontrovertible if gauged by the standard of truth, yet so long as men think or feel differently, the truth is always exposed to the cavils of opponents, because they attack, under the delusion of error or prejudice, the truth they misunderstand or dislike. For decisions once formed cling with excessive obstinacy: and the passion of controversy cannot be driven from the course it has taken, when the will is not subject to the reason. Enquiry after truth gives way to the search for proofs of what we wish to believe; desire is paramount over truth. Then the theories we concoct build themselves on names rather than things: the logic of truth gives place to the logic of prejudice: a logic which the will adjusts to defend its fancies, not one which stimulates the will through the understanding of truth by the reason. From these defects of partisan spirit arise all controversies between opposing theories. Then follows an obstinate battle between truth asserting itself, and prejudice defending itself: truth maintains its ground and prejudice resists. But if desire had not forestalled reason: if the understanding of the truth had moved us to desire what was true: instead of trying to set up our desires as doctrines, we should let our doctrines dictate our desires; there would be no contradiction of the truth, for every one would begin by desiring what was true, not by defending the truth of that which he desired.
2. Not unmindful of this sin of wilfulness, the Apostle, writing to Timothy, after many injunctions to bear witness to the faith and to preach the word, adds, For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears will heap up teachers to themselves after their own lusts, and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables 1095 . For when their unhallowed zeal shall drive them beyond the endurance of sound doctrine, they will heap up teachers for their lusts, that is, construct schemes of doctrine to suit their own desires, not wishing to be taught, but getting together teachers who will tell them what they wish: that the crowd of teachers whom they have ferreted out and gathered together, may satisfy them with the doctrines of their own tumultuous desires. And if these madmen in their godless folly do not know with what spirit they reject the sound, and yearn after the corrupt doctrine, let them hear the words of the same Apostle to the same Timothy, But the Spirit saith expressly that in the last days some shall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils through the hypocrisy of lying talk 1096 . What advancement of doctrine is it to discover what one fancies, and not what one ought to learn? Or what piety in doctrine is it not to desire what one ought to learn, but to heap up doctrine after our desires? But this is what the promptings of seducing spirits supply. They confirm the falsehoods of pretended godliness, for a canting hypocrisy always succeeds to defection from the faith: so that at least in word the reverence is retained, which the conscience has lost. Even that pretended piety they make impious by all manner of lies, violating by schemes of false doctrine the sacredness of the faith: for they pile up doctrines to suit their desires, and not according to the faith of the Gospel. They delight, with an uncontrollable pleasure, to have their itching ears tickled by the novelty of their favourite preaching; they estrange themselves utterly from the hearing of the truth, and surrender themselves entirely to fables: so that their incapacity for either speaking or understanding the truth invests their discourse with what is, to them, a semblance of truth.
3. We have clearly fallen on the evil times prophesied by the Apostle; for nowadays teachers are sought after who preach not God but a creature 1097 . And men are more zealous for what they themselves desire, than for what the sound faith teaches. So far have their itching ears stirred them to listen to what they desire, that for the moment that preaching alone rules among their crowd of doctors which estranges the Only-begotten God from the power and nature of God the Father, and makes Him in our faith either a God of the second order, or not a God at all; in either case a damning profession of impiety, whether one profess two Gods by making different grades of divinity; or else deny divinity altogether to Him Who drew His nature by birth from God. Such doctrines please those whose ears are estranged from the hearing of the truth and turned to fables, while the hearing of this our sound faith is not endured, and is driven bodily into exile with its preachers.
4. But though many may heap up teachers according to their desires, and banish sound doctrine, yet from the company of the Saints the preaching of truth can never be exiled. From our exile we shall speak by these our writings, and the Word of God which cannot be bound will run unhindered, warning us of this time which the Apostle prophesied. For when men shew themselves impatient of the true message, and heap up teachers according to their own human desires, we can no longer doubt about the times, but know that while the preachers of sound doctrine are banished 1098 truth is banished too. We do not complain of the times: we rejoice rather, that iniquity has revealed itself in this our exile, when, unable to endure the truth, it banishes the preachers of sound doctrine, that it may heap up for itself teachers after its own desires. We glory in our exile, and rejoice in the Lord that in our person the Apostle’s prophecy should be fulfilled.
5. In the earlier books, then, while maintaining the profession of a faith, I trust, sincere, and a truth uncorrupted, we arranged the method of our answer throughout, so that (though such are our limitations, that human language can never be safe from exception) no one could contradict us without an open profession of godlessness. For so completely have we demonstrated the true meaning of those texts which they cunningly filch from the Gospels and appropriate for their own teaching, that if any one denies it, he cannot escape on the plea of ignorance, but is condemned out of his own mouth of godlessness. Further, we have, according to the gift of the Holy Ghost, so cautiously proceeded throughout in our proof of the faith, that no charge could possibly be trumped up against us. For it is their way to fill the ears of the unwary with declarations that we deny the birth of Christ 1099 , when we preach the unity of the Godhead; and they say that by the text, I and the Father are one 1100 , we confess that God is solitary: thus, according to them, we say that the Unbegotten God descended into the Virgin, and was born man, and that He refers 1101 the opening word ‘I’ to the dispensation of His flesh, but adds to it the proof of His divinity, And the Father, as being the Father of Himself as man; and further, that, consisting of two Persons, human and divine, He said of Himself, We are one 1102 .
6. But we have always maintained the birth existing out of time: we have taught that God the Son is God of the same nature with God the Father, not co-equal with the Unbegotten, for He was not Himself Unbegotten, but, as the Only-begotten, not unequal because begotten; that the Two are One, not by the giving of a double name to one Person, but by a true begetting and being begotten; that neither are there two Gods, different in kind, in our faith, nor is God solitary because He is one, in the sense in which we confess the mystery of the Only-begotten God: but that the Son is both indicated in the name of, and exists in, the Father, Whose name and Whose nature are in Him, while the Father by His name implies, and abides in, the Son, since a son cannot be spoken of, or exist, except as born of a father. Further, we say that He is the living copy of the living nature, the impression of the divine seal upon the divine nature, so undistinguished from God in power and kind, that neither His works nor His words nor His form are other than the Father’s: but that, since the image by nature possesses the nature of its author, the Author also has worked and spoken and appeared through His natural image.
7. But by the side of this timeless and ineffable generation of the Only-begotten, which transcends the perception of human understanding, we taught as well the mystery of God born to be man from the womb of the Virgin, shewing how according to the plan of the Incarnation, when He emptied Himself of the form of God and took the form of a servant, the weakness of the assumed humanity did not weaken the divine nature, but that Divine power was imparted to humanity without the virtue of divinity being lost in the human form. For when God was born to be man the purpose was not that the Godhead should be lost, but that, the Godhead remaining, man should be born to be God. Thus Emmanuel is His name, which is God with us 1103 , that God might not be lowered to the level of man, but man raised to that of God. Nor, when He asks that He may be glorified 1104 , is it in any way a glorifying of His divine nature, but of the lower nature He assumed: for He asks for that glory which He had with God before the world was made.
8. As we are answering all, even their most insensate statements, we come now to the discussion of the unknown hour 1105 . Now, even if, as they say, the Son had not known it, this could give no ground for an attack upon His Godhead as the Only-begotten. It was not in the nature of things that His birth should avail to put His beginning back, until it was equivalent to the existence which is unbegotten, and had no beginning; and the Father reserves as His prerogative, to demonstrate His authority as the Unbegotten, the fixing of this still undetermined day. Nor may we conclude that in His Person there is any defect in that nature which contained by right of birth all the fulness of that nature which a perfect birth could impart. Nor again could the ignorance of day and hour be imputed in the Only-begotten God to a lower degree of Divinity. It is to demonstrate against the Sabellian heretics that the Father’s authority is without birth or beginning, that this prerogative of unbegotten authority is not granted to the Son 1106 . But if, as we have maintained, when He said that He knew not the day, He kept silence not from ignorance, but in accordance with the Divine Plan, all occasion for irreverent declarations must be removed, and the blasphemous teachings of heresy thwarted, that the truth of the Gospel may be illustrated by the very words which seem to obscure it.
9. Thus the greater number of them will not allow Him to have the impossible nature of God because He feared His Passion and shewed Himself weak by submitting to suffering 1107 . They assert that He Who feared and felt pain could not enjoy that confidence of power which is above fear, or that incorruption of spirit which is not conscious of suffering: but, being of a nature lower than God the Father, He trembled with fear at human suffering, and groaned before the violence of bodily pain. These impious assertions are based on the words, My soul is sorrowful even unto death 1108 , and “Father if it be possible let this cup pass away from Me” 1109 , and also, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me 1110 ? to which they also add, Father into Thy hands I commend My Spirit. 1111 All these words of our holy faith they appropriate to the use of their unholy blasphemy: that He feared, Who was sorrowful, and even prayed that the cup might be taken away from Him; that He felt pain, because He complained that God had deserted Him in His suffering; that He was infirm, because He commended His Spirit to the Father. His doubts and anxieties preclude us, they say, from assigning to Him that likeness to God which would belong to a nature equal to God as being born His Only-begotten. He proclaims His own weakness and inferiority by the prayer to remove the cup, by the complaint of desertion and the commending of His Spirit.
10. Now first of all, before we shew from these very texts, that He was subject to no infirmity of fear or sorrow on His own account, let us ask, “What can we find for Him to fear, that the dread of an unendurable pain should have seized Him?” The objects of His fear, which they allege, are, I suppose, suffering and death. Now I ask those who are of this opinion, “Can we reasonably suppose that He feared death, Who drove away the terrors of death from His Apostles, exhorting them to the glory of martyrdom with the words, He that doth not take his cross and follow after Me is not worth of Me; and, He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that hath lost his life for My sake shall find it 1112 ? If to die for Him is life, what pain can we think He had to suffer in the mystery of death, Who rewards with life those who die for Him? Could death make Him fear what could be done to the body, when He exhorted the disciples, Fear not those which kill the body 1113 ?
11. Further, what terror had the pain of death for Him, to Whom death was an act of His own free will? In the human race death is brought on either by an attack upon the body of an external enemy, such as fever wound, accident or fall: or our bodily nature is overcome by age, and yields to death. But the Only-begotten God, Who had the power of laying down His life, and of taking it up again 1114 , after the drought of vinegar, having borne witness that His work of human suffering was finished, in order to accomplish in Himself the mystery of death, bowed His head and gave up His Spirit 1115 . If it has been granted to our mortal nature of its own will to breathe its last breath, and seek rest in death; if the buffeted soul may depart, without the breaking up of the body, and the spirit burst forth and flee away, without being as it were violated in its own home by the breaking and piercing and crushing of limbs; then fear of death might seize the Lord of life; if, that is, when He gave up the ghost and died, His death were not an exercise of His own free will. But if He died of His own will, and through His own will gave back His Spirit, death had no terror; because it was in His own power.
12. But perchance with the fearfulness of human ignorance, He feared the very power of death, which He possessed; so, though He died of His own accord, He feared because He was to die. If any think so, let them ask “To which was death terrible, to His Spirit or to His body?” If to His body, are they ignorant that the Holy One should not see corruption 1116 , that within three days He was to revive the temple of His body 1117 ? But if death was terrible to His Spirit, should Christ fear the abyss of hell, while Lazarus was rejoicing in Abraham’s bosom? It is foolish and absurd, that He should fear death, Who could lay down His soul, and take it up again, Who, to fulfil the mystery of human life, was about to die of His own free will. He cannot fear death Whose power and purpose in dying is to die but for a moment: fear is incompatible with willingness to die, and the power to live again, for both of these rob death of his terrors.
13. But was it perhaps the physical pain of hanging on the cross, or the rough cords with which He was bound, or the cruel wounds, where the nails were driven in, that dismayed Him? Let us see of what body the Man Jesus was, that pain should dwell in His crucified, bound, and pierced body.
14. The nature of our bodies is such, that when endued with life and feeling by conjunction with a sentient soul, they become something more than inert, insensate matter. They feel when touched, suffer when pricked, shiver with cold, feel pleasure in warmth, waste with hunger, and grow fat with food. By a certain transfusion of the soul, which supports and penetrates them, they feel pleasure or pain according to the surrounding circumstances. When the body is pricked or pierced, it is the soul which pervades it that is conscious, and suffers pain. For instance a flesh-wound is felt even to the bone, while the fingers feel nothing when we cut the nails which protrude from the flesh. And if through some disease a limb becomes withered, it loses the feeling of living flesh: it can be cut or burnt, it feels no pain whatever, because the soul is no longer mingled with it. Also when through some grave necessity part of the body must be cut away, the soul can be lulled to sleep by drugs, which overcome the pain, and produce in the mind a death-like forgetfulness of its power of sense. Then limbs can be cut off without pain: the flesh is dead to all feeling, and does not heed the deep thrust of the knife, because the soul within it is asleep. It is, therefore, because the body lives by admixture with a weak soul, that it is subject to the weakness of pain.
15. If the Man Jesus Christ began His bodily life with the same beginning as our body and soul, if He were not, as God, the immediate Author of His own body and soul alike, when He was fashioned in the likeness and form of man, and born as man, then we may suppose that He felt the pain of our body; since by His beginning, a conception like ours, He had a body animated with a soul like our own. But if through His own act He took to Himself flesh from the Virgin, and likewise by His own act joined a soul to the body thus conceived, then the nature of His suffering must have corresponded with the nature of His body and soul. For when He emptied Himself of the form of God and received the form of a servant when the Son of God was born also Son of Man, without losing His own self and power, God the Word formed the perfect living Man. For how was the Son of God born Son of Man, how did He receive the form of a servant, still remaining in the form of God, unless (God the Word being able of Himself to take flesh from the Virgin and to give that flesh a soul, for the redemption of our soul and body), the Man Christ Jesus was born perfect, and made in the form of a servant by the assumption of the body, which the Virgin conceived? For the Virgin conceived, what she conceived, from the Holy Ghost alone 1118 , and though for His birth in the flesh she supplied from herself that element, which women always contribute to the seed planted in them, still Jesus Christ was not formed by an ordinary human conception. In His birth, the cause of which was transmitted solely by the Holy Ghost, His mother performed the same part as in all human conceptions: but by virtue of His origin He never ceased to be God.
16. This deep and beautiful mystery of His assumption of manhood the Lord Himself reveals in the words, No man hath ascended into heaven, but He that descended from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven 1119 . ‘Descended from heaven’ refers to His origin from the Spirit: for though Mary contributed to His growth in the womb and birth all that is natural to her sex, His body did not owe to her its origin. The ‘Son of Man’ refers to the birth of the flesh conceived in the Virgin; ‘Who is in heaven’ implies the power of His eternal nature: an infinite nature, which could not restrict itself to the limits of the body, of which it was itself the source and base. By the virtue of the Spirit and the power of God the Word, though He abode in the form of a servant, He was ever present as Lord of all, within and beyond the circle of heaven and earth. So He descended from heaven and is the Son of Man, yet is in heaven: for the Word made flesh did not cease to be the Word. As the Word, He is in heaven, as flesh He is the Son of Man. As Word made flesh, He is at once from heaven, and Son of Man, and in heaven, for the power of the Word, abiding eternally without body, was present still in the heaven He had left: to Him and to none other the flesh owed its origin. So the Word made flesh, though He was flesh, yet never ceased to be the Word.
17. The blessed Apostle also perfectly describes this mystery of the ineffable birth of Christ’s body in the words, The first man was from the soil of the ground, the second man from heaven 1120 . Calling Him ‘Man’ he expresses His birth from the Virgin, who in the exercise of her office as mother, performed the duties of her sex in the conception and birth of man. And when he says, The second man from heaven he testifies His origin from the Holy Ghost, Who came upon the Virgin 1121 . As He is then man, and from heaven, this Man was born of the Virgin, and conceived of the Holy Ghost. So speaks the Apostle.
18. Again the Lord Himself revealing this mystery of His birth, speaks thus: I am the living bread Who have descended from Heaven: if any one shall eat of My bread he shall live for ever 1122 : calling Himself the Bread since He is the origin of His own body. Further, that it may not be thought the Word left His own virtue and nature for the flesh, He says again that it is His bread; since He is the bread which descends from heaven, His body cannot be regarded as sprung from human conception, because it is shewn to be from heaven. And His language concerning His bread is an assertion that the Word took a body, for He adds, Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have not life in you 1123 . Hence, inasmuch as the Being Who is Son of Man descended also as bread from heaven, by the ‘Bread descending from heaven’ and by the ‘Flesh and Blood of the Son of Man’ must be understood His assumption of the flesh, conceived by the Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin.
19. Being, then, Man with this body, Jesus Christ is both the Son of God and Son of Man, Who emptied Himself of the form of God, and received the form of a servant. There is not one Son of Man and another Son of God; nor one in the form of God, and another born perfect man in the form of a servant: so that, as by the nature determined for us by God, the Author of our being, man is born with body and soul, so likewise Jesus Christ, by His own power, is God and Man with flesh and soul, possessing in Himself whole and perfect manhood, and whole and perfect Godhead.
20. Yet many, with the art by which they seek to prove their heresy, are wont to delude the ears of the unlearned with the error, that as the body and soul of Adam both sinned, so the Lord must have taken the soul and body of Adam from the Virgin, and that it was not the whole Man that she conceived from the Holy Ghost 1124 . If they had understood the mystery of the Incarnation, these men would have understood at the same time the mystery that the Son of Man is also Son of God. As if in receiving so much from the Virgin, He received from her His soul also; whereas though flesh is always born of flesh, every soul is the direct work of God.
21. With a view to deprive of substantive divinity the Only-begotten God, Who was God the Word with God in the beginning, they make Him merely the utterance of the voice of God. The Son is related to God His Father, they say, as the words to the speaker. They are trying to creep into the position, that it was not God the eternal Word, abiding in the form of God, Who was born as Christ the Man, Whose life therefore springs from a human origin, not from the mystery of a spiritual conception; that He was not God the Word, making Himself man by birth from the Virgin, but the Word of God dwelling in Jesus as the spirit of prophecy dwelt in the prophets. They accuse us of saying that Christ was born man with body and soul different from ours. But we preach the Word made flesh, Christ emptying Himself of the form of God and taking the form of a servant, perfect according to the fashion of human form, born a man after the likeness of ourselves: that being true Son of God, He is indeed true Son of Man, neither the less Man because born of God, nor the less God because Man born of God.
22. But as He by His own act assumed a body from the Virgin, so He assumed from Himself a soul; though even in ordinary human birth the soul is never derived from the parents. If, then, the Virgin received from God alone the flesh which she conceived, far more certain is it that the soul of that body can have come from God alone. If, too, the same Christ be the Son of Man, Who is also the Son of God (for the whole Son of Man is the whole Son of God), how ridiculous is it to preach besides the Son of God, the Word made flesh, another I know not whom, inspired, like a prophet, by God the Word; whereas our Lord Jesus Christ is both Son of Man and Son of God. Yet because His soul was sorrowful unto death, and because He had the power to lay down His soul and the power to take it up again, they want to derive it from some alien source, and not from the Holy Ghost, the Author of His body’s conception: for God the Word became man without departing from the mystery of His own nature. He was born also not to be at one time two separate beings, but that it might be made plain, that He Who was God before He was Man, now that He has taken humanity, is God and Man. How could Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have been born of Mary, except by the Word becoming flesh: that is by the Son of God, though in the form of God, taking the form of a slave? When He Who was in the form of God took the form of a slave, two contraries were brought together 1125 . Thus it was just as true, that He received the form of a slave, as that He remained in the form of God. The use of the one word ‘form’ to describe both natures compels us to recognise that He truly possessed both. He is in the form of a servant, Who is also in the form of God 1126 . And though He is the latter by His eternal nature, and the former in accordance with the divine Plan of Grace, the word has its true significance equally in both cases, because He is both: as truly in the form of God as in the form of Man. Just as to take the form of a servant is none other than to be born a man, so to be in the form of God is none other than to be God: and we confess Him as one and the same Person, not by loss of the Godhead, but by assumption of the manhood: in the form of God through His divine nature, in the form of man from His conception by the Holy Ghost, being found in fashion as a man. That is why after His birth as Jesus Christ, His suffering, death, and burial, He also rose again. We cannot separate Him from Himself in all these diverse mysteries, so that He should be no longer Christ; for Christ, Who took the form of a servant, was none other than He Who was in the form of God: He Who died was the same as He Who was born: He Who rose again as He Who died; He Who is in heaven as He Who rose again; lastly, He Who is in heaven as He Who before descended from heaven.
23. So the Man Jesus Christ, Only-begotten God, as flesh and as Word at the same time Son of Man and Son of God, without ceasing to be Himself, that is, God, took true humanity after the likeness of our humanity. But when, in this humanity, He was struck with blows, or smitten with wounds, or bound with ropes, or lifted on high, He felt the force of suffering, but without its pain. Thus a dart passing through water, or piercing a flame, or wounding the air, inflicts all that it is its nature to do: it passes through, it pierces, it wounds; but all this is without effect on the thing it strikes; since it is against the order of nature to make a hole in water, or pierce flame, or wound the air, though it is the nature of a dart to make holes, to pierce and to wound. So our Lord Jesus Christ suffered blows, hanging, crucifixion and death: but the suffering which attacked the body of the Lord, without ceasing to be suffering, had not the natural effect of suffering. It exercised its function of punishment with all its violence; but the body of Christ by its virtue suffered the violence of the punishment, without its consciousness. True, the body of the Lord would have been capable of feeling pain like our natures, if our bodies possessed the power of treading on the waters, and walking over the waves without weighing them down by our tread or forcing them apart by the pressure of our steps, if we could pass through solid substances, and the barred doors were no obstacle to us. But, as only the body of our Lord could be borne up by the power of His soul in the waters, could walk upon the waves, and pass through walls, how can we judge of the flesh conceived of the Holy Ghost on the analogy of a human body? That flesh, that is, that Bread, is from Heaven; that humanity is from God. He had a body to suffer, and He suffered: but He had not a nature 1127 which could feel pain. For His body possessed a unique nature of its own; it was transformed into heavenly glory on the Mount, it put fevers to flight by its touch, it gave new eyesight by its spittle.
24. It may perhaps be said, ‘We find Him giving way to weeping, to hunger and thirst: must we not suppose Him liable to all the other affections of human nature?’ But if we do not understand the mystery of His tears, hunger, and thirst, let us remember that He Who wept also raised the dead to life: that He did not weep for the death of Lazarus, but rejoiced 1128 ; that He Who thirsted, gave from Himself rivers of living water 1129 . He could not be parched with thirst, if He was able to give the thirsty drink. Again, He Who hungered could condemn the tree which offered no fruit for His hunger 1130 : but how could His nature be overcome by hunger if He could strike the green tree barren by His word? And if, beside the mystery of weeping, hunger and thirst, the flesh He assumed, that is His entire manhood, was exposed to our weaknesses: even then it was not left to suffer from their indignities. His weeping was not for Himself; His thirst needed no water to quench it; His hunger no food to stay it. It is never said that the Lord ate or drank or wept when He was hungry, or thirsty, or sorrowful. He conformed to the habits of the body to prove the reality of His own body, to satisfy the custom of human bodies by doing as our nature does. When He ate and drank, it was a concession, not to His own necessities, but to our habits.
25. For Christ had indeed a body, but unique, as befitted His origin. He did not come into existence through the passions incident to human conception: He came into the form of our body by an act of His own power. He bore our collective humanity in the form of a servant, but He was free from the sins and imperfections of the human body: that we might be in Him, because He was born of the Virgin, and yet our faults might not be in Him, because He is the source of His own humanity, born as man but not born under the defects of human conception. It is this mystery of His birth which the Apostle upholds and demonstrates, when he says, He humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of a man and being formed in fashion as a man 1131 : that is, in that He took the form of a servant, He was born in the form of a man: in that He was made in the likeness of a man, and formed in fashion as a man, the appearance and reality of His body testified His humanity, yet, though He was formed in fashion as a man, He knew not what sin was. For His conception was in the likeness of our nature, not in the possession of our faults. For lest the words, He took the form of a servant, might be understood of a natural birth, the Apostle adds, made in the likeness of a man, and formed in fashion as a man. The truth of His birth is thus prevented from suggesting the defects incident to our weak natures, since the form of a servant implies the reality of His birth, and found in fashion as a man, the likeness of our nature. He was of Himself born man through the Virgin, and found in the likeness of our degenerate body of sin: as the Apostle testifies in his letter to the Romans, For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His Son in the likeness of flesh of sin, condemned sin of sin 1132 . He was not found in the fashion of a man: but found in fashion as a man: nor was His flesh the flesh of sin, but the likeness of the flesh of sin. Thus the fashion of flesh implies the truth of His birth, and the likeness of the flesh of sin removes Him from the imperfections of human weakness. So the Man Jesus Christ as man was truly born, as Christ had no sin in His nature: for, on His human side, He was born, and could not but be a man; on His divine side, He could never cease to be Christ. Since then Jesus Christ was man, He submitted as man to a human birth: yet as Christ He was free from the infirmity of our degenerate race.
26. The Apostles’ belief prepares us for the understanding of this mystery; when it testifies that Jesus Christ was found in fashion as a man and was sent in the likeness of the flesh of sin. For being fashioned as a man, He is in the form of a servant, but not in the imperfections of a servant’s nature; and being in the likeness of the flesh of sin, the Word is indeed flesh, but is in the likeness of the flesh of sin and not the flesh of sin itself. In like manner Jesus Christ being man is indeed human, but even thus cannot be aught else but Christ, born as man by the birth of His body, but not human in defects, as He was not human in origin. The Word made flesh could not but be the flesh that He was made; yet He remained always the Word, though He was made flesh. As the Word made flesh could not vacate the nature of His Source, so by virtue of the origin of His nature He could not but remain the Word: but at the same time we must believe that the Word is that flesh which He was made; always, however, with the reserve, that when He dwelt among us, the flesh was not the Word, but was the flesh of the Word dwelling in the flesh.
Though we have proved this, still we will see whether in the whole range of suffering, which He endured, we can anywhere detect in our Lord the weakness of bodily pain. We will put off for a time the discussion of the passages on the strength of which heresy has attributed fear to our Lord; now let us turn to the facts themselves: for His words cannot signify fear if His actions display confidence.
27. Do you suppose, heretic, that the Lord of glory feared to suffer? Why, when Peter made this error through ignorance, did He not call him ‘Satan’ and a ‘stumbling-block 1133 ?’ Thus was Peter, who deprecated the mystery of the Passion, established in the faith by so sharp a rebuke from the lips of the gentle Christ, Whom not flesh and blood, but the Father in Heaven had revealed to him 1134 .
What phantom hope are you chasing when you deny that Christ is God, and attribute to Him fear of suffering? He afraid, Who went forth to meet the armed bands of His captors? Weakness in His body, at Whose approach the pursuers reeled and broke their ranks and fell prone, unable to endure His Majesty as He offered Himself to their chains? What weakness could enthral His body, Whose nature had such power?
28. But perhaps He feared the pain of wounds. Say then, What terror had the thrust of the nail for Him Who merely by His touch restored the ear that was cut off? You who assert the weakness of the Lord, explain this work of power at the moment when His flesh was weak and suffering. Peter drew his sword and smote: the High Priest’s servant stood there, lopped of his ear. How was the flesh of the ear restored from the bare wound by the touch of Christ? Amidst the flowing blood, and the wound left by the cleaving sword, when the body was so maimed, whence sprang forth an ear which was not there? Whence came that which did not exist before? Whence was restored that which was wanting? Did the hand, which created an ear, feel the pain of the nails? He prevented another from feeling the pain of a wound: did He feel it Himself? His touch could restore the flesh that was cut off; was He sorrowful because He feared the piercing of His own flesh? And if the body of Christ had this virtue, dare we allege infirmity in that nature, whose natural force could counteract all the natural infirmities of man?
29. But, perhaps, in their misguided and impious perversity, they infer His weakness from the fact that His soul was sorrowful unto death 1135 . It is not yet the time to blame you, heretic, for misunderstanding the passage. For the present I will only ask you, Why do you forget that when Judas went forth to betray Him, He said, Now is the Son of Man glorified 1136 ? If suffering was to glorify Him, how could the fear of it have made Him sorrowful? How, unless He was so void of reason, that He feared to suffer when suffering was to glorify Him?
30. But perhaps He may be thought to have feared to the extent that He prayed that the cup might be removed from Him: Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee: remove this cup from Me 1137 . To take the narrowest ground of argument, might you not have refuted for yourself this dull impiety by your own reading of the words, Put up thy sword into its sheath: the cup which My Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it 1138 ? Could fear induce Him to pray for the removal from Him of that which, in His zeal for the Divine Plan, He was hastening to fulfil? To say He shrank from the suffering He desired is not consistent. You allow that He suffered willingly: would it not be more reverent to confess that you had misunderstood this passage, than to rush with blasphemous and headlong folly to the assertion that He prayed to escape suffering, though you allow that He suffered willingly?
31. Yet, I suppose, you will arm yourself also for your godless contention with these words of the Lord, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me 1139 ? Perhaps you think that after the disgrace of the cross, the favour of His Father’s help departed from Him, and hence His cry that He was left alone in His weakness. But if you regard the contempt, the weakness, the cross of Christ as a disgrace, you should remember His words, Verily I say unto you, From henceforth ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of Heaven 1140 .
32. Where, pray, can you see fear in His Passion? Where weakness? Or pain? Or dishonour? Do the godless say He feared? But He proclaimed with His own lips His willingness to suffer. Do they maintain that He was weak? He revealed His power, when His pursuers were stricken with panic and dared not face Him. Do they contend that He felt the pain of the wounds in His flesh? But He shewed, when He restored the wounded flesh of the ear, that, though He was flesh, He did not feel the pain of fleshly wounds. The hand which touched the wounded ear belonged to His body: yet that hand created an ear out of a wound: how then can that be the hand of a body which was subject to weakness?
33. But, they say, the cross was a dishonour to Him; yet it is because of the cross that we can now see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, that He Who was born man of the womb of the Virgin has returned in His Majesty with the clouds of heaven. Your irreverence blinds you to the natural relations of cause and event: not only does the spirit of godlessness and error, with which you are filled, hide from your understanding the mystery of faith, but the obtuseness of heresy drags you below the level of ordinary human intelligence. For it stands to reason that whatever we fear, we avoid: that a weak nature is a prey to terror by its very feebleness: that whatever feels pain possesses a nature always liable to pain: that whatever dishonours is always a degradation. On what reasonable principle, then, do you hold that our Lord Jesus Christ feared that towards which He pressed: or awed the brave, yet trembled Himself with weakness: or stopped the pain of wounds, yet felt the pain of His own: or was dishonoured by the degradation of the cross, yet through the cross sat down by God on high, and returned to His Kingdom?
34. But perhaps you think your impiety has still an opportunity left to see in the words, Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit 1141 , a proof that He feared the descent into the lower world, and even the necessity of death. But when you read these words and could not understand them, would it not have been better to say nothing, or to pray devoutly to be shewn their meaning, than to go astray with such barefaced assertions, too mad with your own folly to perceive the truth? Could you believe that He feared the depths of the abyss, the scorching flames, or the pit of avenging punishment, when you listen to His words to the thief on the cross, Verily, I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise 1142 ? Such a nature with such power could not be shut up within the confines of the nether world, nor even subjected to fear of it. When He descended to Hades, He was never absent from Paradise (just as He was always in Heaven when He was preaching on earth as the Son of Man), but promised His martyr 1143 a home there, and held out to him the transports of perfect happiness. Bodily fear cannot touch Him Who reaches indeed down as far as Hades, but by the power of His nature is present in all things everywhere. As little can the abyss 1144 of Hell and the terrors of death lay hold upon the nature which rules the world, boundless in the freedom of its spiritual power, confident of the raptures of Paradise; for the Lord Who was to descend to Hades, was also to dwell in Paradise. Separate, if you can, from His indivisible nature a part which could fear punishment: send the one part of Christ to Hades to suffer pain, the other, you must leave in Paradise to reign: for the thief says, Remember me when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom. It was the groan he heard, I suppose, when the nails pierced the hands of our Lord, which provoked in him this blessed confession of faith: he learnt the Kingdom of Christ from His weakened and stricken body! He begs that Christ will remember him when He comes in His Kingdom: you say that Christ feared as He hung dying upon the cross. The Lord promises him, To-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise; you would subject Christ to Hades and fear of punishment. Your faith has the opposite expectation. The thief confessed Christ in His Kingdom as He hung on the cross, and was rewarded with Paradise from the cross: you who impute to Christ the pain of punishment and the fear of death, will fail of Paradise and His Kingdom.
35. We have now seen the power that lay in the acts and words of Christ. We have incontestably proved that His body did not share the infirmity of a natural body, because its power could expel the infirmities of the body that when He suffered, suffering laid hold of His body, but did not inflict upon it the nature of pain: and this because, though the form of our body was in the Lord, yet He by virtue of His origin was not in the body of our weakness and imperfection. He was conceived of the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin, who performed the office of her sex, but did not receive the seed of His conception from man 1145 . She brought forth a body, but one conceived of the Holy Ghost; a body possessing inherent reality, but with no infirmity in its nature. That body was truly and indeed body, because it was born of the Virgin: but it was above the weakness of our body, because it had its beginning in a spiritual conception.
36. But even now that we have proved what was the faith of the Apostle, the heretics think to meet it by the text, My soul is sorrowful even unto death 1146 . These words, they say, prove the consciousness of natural infirmity which made Christ begin to be sorrowful. Now, first, I appeal to common intelligence: what do we mean by sorrowful unto death? It cannot signify the same as ‘to be sorrowful because of death:’ for where there is sorrow because of death, it is the death that is the cause of the sadness. But a sadness even to death 1147 implies that death is the finish, not the cause, of the sadness. If then He was sorrowful even to death, not because of death, we must enquire, whence came His sadness? He was sorrowful, not for a certain time, or for a period which human ignorance could not determine, but even unto death. So far from His sadness being caused by His death, it was removed by it.
37. That we may understand what was the cause of His sadness, let us see what precedes and follows this confession of sadness: for in the Passover supper our Lord completely signified the whole mystery of His Passion and our faith. After He had said that they should all be offended in Him 1148 , but promised that He would go before them into Galilee 1149 , Peter protested that though all the rest should be offended, he would remain faithful and not be offended 1150 . But the Lord knowing by His Divine Nature what should come to pass, answered that Peter would deny Him thrice: that we might know from Peter how the others were offended, since even he lapsed into so great peril to his faith by the triple denial. After that, He took Peter, James and John, chosen, the first two to be His martyrs, John to be strengthened for the proclamation of the Gospel, and declared that He was sorrowful unto death. Then He went before, and prayed, saying, My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet, not as I will, but as Thou wilt 1151 . He prays that the cup may pass from Him, when it was certainly already before Him: for even then was being fulfilled that pouring forth of His blood of the New Testament for the sins of many. He does not pray that it may not be with Him; but that it may pass away from Him. Then He prays that His will may not be done, and wills that what He wishes to be effected, may not be granted Him. For He says, Yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt: signifying by His spontaneous prayer for the cup’s removal His fellowship with human anxiety, yet associating Himself with the decree of the Will which He shares inseparably with the Father. To shew, moreover, that He does not pray for Himself, and that He seeks only a conditional fulfilment of what He desires and prays for, He prefaces the whole of this request with the words, My Father, if it is possible. Is there anything for the Father the possibility of which is uncertain? But if nothing is impossible to the Father, we can see on what depends this condition, if it is possible 1152 : for this prayer is immediately followed by the words, And He came to His disciples and findeth them sleeping, and saith to Peter, Could ye not watch one hour with Me? Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation: for the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak 1153 . Is the cause of this sadness and this prayer any longer doubtful? He bids them watch and pray with Him for this purpose, that they may not enter into temptation; for the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. They were under the promise made in the constancy of faithful souls not to be offended, yet, through weakness of the flesh, they were to be offended. It is not, therefore, for Himself that He is sorrowful and prays: it is for those whom He exhorts to watchfulness and prayer, lest the cup of suffering should be their lot: lest that cup which He prays may pass away from Him, should abide with them.
38. And the reason He prayed that the cup might be removed from Him, if that were possible, was that, though with God nothing is impossible, as Christ Himself says, Father, all things are possible to Thee 1154 , yet for man it is impossible to withstand the fear of suffering, and only by trial can faith be proved. Wherefore, as Man He prays for men that the cup may pass away, but as God from God, His will is in unison with the Father’s effectual will. He teaches what He meant by If it is possible, in His words to Peter, Lo, Satan hath sought you that He might sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee that thy faith may not fail 1155 . The cup of the Lord’s Passion was to be a trial for them all, and He prays the Father for Peter that his faith may not fail: that when he denied through weakness, at least he might not fail of penitential sorrow, for repentance would mean that faith survived.
39. The Lord was sorrowful then unto death because in presence of the death, the earthquake, the darkened day, the rent veil, the opened graves, and the resurrection of the dead, the faith of the disciples would need to be established which had been so shaken by the terror of the night arrest, the scourging, the striking, the spitting upon, the crown of thorns, the bearing of the cross, and all the insults of the Passion, but most of all by the condemnation to the accursed cross. Knowing that all this would be at an end after His Passion, He was sad unto death. He knew, too, that the cup could not pass away unless He drank it, for He said, My Father, this cup cannot pass from Me unless I drink it: Thy will be done 1156 : that is, with the completion of His Passion, the fear of the cup would pass away which could not pass away unless He drank it: the end of that fear would follow only when His Passion was completed and terror destroyed 1157 , because after His death, the stumbling-block of the disciples’ weakness would be removed by the glory of His power.
40. Although by His words, Thy will be done, He surrendered the Apostles to the decision of His Father’s will, in regard to the offence of the cup, that is, of His Passion, still He repeated His prayer a second and a third time. After that He said, Sleep on now, and take your rest 1158 . It is not without the consciousness of some secret reason that He Who had reproached them for their sleep, now bade them sleep on, and take their rest. Luke is thought to have given us the meaning of this command. After He had told us how Satan had sought to sift the Apostles as it were wheat, and how the Lord had been entreated that the faith of Peter might not fail 1159 , he adds that the Lord prayed earnestly, and then that an angel stood by Him comforting Him, and as the angel stood by Him, He prayed the more earnestly, so that the sweat poured from His body in drops of blood 1160 . The Angel was sent, then, to watch over the Apostles, and when the Lord was comforted by him, so that He no longer sorrowed for them, He said, without fear of sadness, Sleep on now, and take your rest. Matthew and Mark are silent about the angel, and the request of the devil: but after the sorrowfulness of His soul, the reproach of the sleepers, and the prayer that the cup may be taken away, there must be some good reason for the command to the sleepers which follows; unless we assume that He Who was about to leave them, and Himself had received comfort from the Angel sent to Him, meant to abandon them to their sleep, soon to be arrested and kept in durance.
41. We must not indeed pass over the fact that in many manuscripts, both Latin and Greek, nothing is said of the angel’s coming or the Bloody Sweat. But while we suspend judgment, whether this is an omission, where it is wanting, or an interpolation, where it is found (for the discordance of the copies leaves the question uncertain), let not the heretics encourage themselves that herein lies a confirmation of His weakness, that He needed the help and comfort of an angel. Let them remember the Creator of the angels needs not the support of His creatures. Moreover His comforting must be explained in the same way as His sorrow. He was sorrowful for us, that is, on our account; He must also have been comforted for us, that is, on our account. If He sorrowed concerning us, He was comforted concerning us. The object of His comfort is the same as that of His sadness. Nor let any one dare to impute the Sweat to a weakness, for it is contrary to nature to sweat blood 1161 . It was no infirmity, for His power reversed the law of nature. The bloody sweat does not for one moment support the heresy of weakness, while it establishes against the heresy which invents an apparent body 1162 , the reality all His body. Since, then, His fear was concerning us, and His prayer on our behalf, we are forced to the conclusion that all this happened on our account, for whom He feared, and for whom He prayed.
42. Again the Gospels fill up what is lacking in one another: we learn some things from one, some from another, and so on, because all are the proclamation of the same spirit. Thus John, who especially brings out the working of spiritual causes in the Gospel, preserves this prayer of the Lord for the Apostles, which all the others passed over: how He prayed, namely, Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name.…while I was them I kept them in Thy Name: those whom Thou gavest Me I have kept 1163 . That prayer was not for Himself but for His Apostles; nor was He sorrowful for Himself, since He bids them pray that they be not tempted; nor is the angel sent to Him, for He could summon down from Heaven, if He would, twelve thousand angels 1164 ; nor did He fear because of death when He was troubled unto death. Again, He does not pray that the cup may pass over Himself, but that it may pass away from Himself, though before it could pass away He must have drunk it. But, further, ‘to pass away’ does not mean merely ‘to leave the place,’ but ‘not to exist any more at all:’ which is shewn in the language of the Gospels and Epistles: for example, Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My word shall not perish 1165 : also the Apostle says, Behold the old things are passed away; they are become new 1166 . And again, The fashion of this world shall pass away 1167 . The cup, therefore, of which He prays to the Father, cannot pass away unless it be drunk; and when He prays, He prays for those whom He preserved, so long as He was with them, whom He now hands over to the Father to preserve. Now that He is about to accomplish the mystery of death He begs the Father to guard them. The presence of the angel who was sent to Him (if this explanation be true) is not of doubtful significance. Jesus shewed His certainty that the prayer was answered when, at its close, He bade the disciples sleep on. The effect of this prayer and the security which prompted the command, ‘sleep on,’ is noticed by the Evangelist in the course of the Passion, when he says of the Apostles just before they escaped from the hands of the pursuers, That the word might be fulfilled which He had spoken, Of those whom Thou hast given Me I lost not one of them 1168 . He fulfils Himself the petition of His prayer, and they are all safe; but He asks that those whom He has preserved the Father will now preserve in His own Name. And they are preserved: the faith of Peter does not fail: it cowered, but repentance followed immediately.
43. Combine the Lord’s prayer in John, the request of the devil in Luke, the sorrowfulness unto death, and the protest against sleep, followed by the command, Sleep on, in Matthew and Mark, and all difficulty disappears. The prayer in John, in which He commends the Apostles to His Father, explains the cause of His sorrowfulness, and the prayer that the cup may pass away. It is not from Himself that the Lord prays the suffering may be taken away. He beseeches the Father to preserve the disciples during His coming passion. In the same way, the prayer against Satan 1169 in St. Luke explains the confidence with which He permitted the sleep He had just forbidden.
44. There was, then, no place for human anxiety and trepidation in that nature, which was more than human. It was superior to the ills of earthly flesh; a body not sprung from earthly elements, although His origin as Son of Man was due to the mystery of the conception by the Holy Ghost. The power of the Most High imparted its power to the body which the Virgin bare from the conception of the Holy Ghost. The animated body derives its conscious existence from association with a soul, which is diffused throughout it, and quickens it to perceive pains inflicted from without. Thus the soul, warned by the happy glow of its own heavenly faith and hope, soars above its own origin in the beginnings of an earthly body, and raises 1170 that body to union with itself in thought and spirit, so that it ceases to feel the suffering of that which, all the while, it suffers. Why need we then say more about the nature of the Lord’s body, that of the Son of Man Who came down from heaven? Even earthly bodies can sometimes be made indifferent to the natural necessities of pain and fear.
45. Did the Jewish children fear the flames blazing up with the fuel cast upon them in the fiery furnace at Babylon? Did the terror of that terrible fire prevail over their nature, conceived though it was like ours 1171 ? Did they feel pain, when the flames surrounded them? Perhaps, however, you may say they felt no pain, because they were not burnt: the flames were deprived of their burning nature. To be sure it is natural to the body to fear burning, and to be burnt by fire. But through the spirit of faith their earthly bodies (that is, bodies which had their origin according to the principles of natural birth) could neither be burnt nor made afraid. What, therefore, in the case of men was a violation of the order of nature, produced by faith in God, cannot be judged in God’s case natural, but as an activity of the Spirit commencing with His earthly origin. The children were bound in the midst of the fire; they had no fear as they mounted the blazing pile: they felt not the flame as they prayed: though in the midst of the furnace, they could not be burnt. Both the fire and their bodies lost their proper natures; the one did not burn, the others were not burnt. Yet in all other respects, both fire and bodies retained their natures: for the bystanders were consumed, and the ministers of punishment were themselves punished. Impious heretic, you will have it that Christ suffered pain from the piercing of the nails, that He felt the bitterness of the wound, when they were driven through His hands: why, pray, did not the children fear the flames? Why did they suffer no pain? What was the nature in their bodies, which overcame that of fire? In the zeal of their faith and the glory of a blessed martyrdom they forgot to fear the terrible; should Christ be sorrowful from fear of the cross, Christ, Who even if He had been conceived with our sinful origin, would have been still God upon the cross, Who was to judge the world and reign for ever and ever? Could He forget such a reward, and tremble with the anxiety of dishonourable fear?
46. Daniel, whose meat was the scanty portion of a prophet 1172 , did not fear the lions’ den. The Apostles rejoiced in suffering and death for the Name of Christ. To Paul his sacrifice was the crown of righteousness 1173 . The Martyrs sang hymns as they offered their necks to the executioner, and climbed with psalms the blazing logs piled for them. The consciousness of faith takes away the weakness of nature, transforms the bodily senses that they feel no pain, and so the body is strengthened by the fixed purpose of the soul, and feels nothing except the impulse of its enthusiasm. The suffering which the mind despises in its desire of glory, the body does not feel, so long as the soul invigorates it. It is, then, a natural effect in man, that the zeal of the soul glowing for glory should make him unconscious of suffering, heedless of wounds, and regardless of death. But Jesus Christ the Lord of glory, the hem of Whose garment can heal, Whose spittle and word can create; for the man with the withered hand at His command stretched it forth whole, he who was born blind felt no more the defect of his birth, and the smitten ear was made sound as the other; dare we think of His pierced body in that pain and weakness, from which the spirit of faith in Him rescued the glorious and blessed Martyrs?
47. The Only-begotten God, then, suffered in His person the attacks of all the infirmities to which we are subject; but He suffered them in the power of His own nature, just as He was born in the power of His own nature, for at His birth He did not lose His omnipotent nature by being born. Though born under human conditions, He was not so conceived: His birth was surrounded by human circumstances, but His origin went beyond them. He suffered then in His body after the manner of our infirm body, yet bore the sufferings of our body in the power of His own body. To this article of our faith the prophet bears witness when he says, He beareth our sins and grieveth for us: and we esteemed Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted: He was wounded for our transgressions and made weak for our sins 1174 . It is then a mistaken opinion of human judgment, which thinks He felt pain because He suffered. He bore our sins, that is, He assumed our body of sin, but was Himself sinless. He was sent in the likeness of the flesh of sin, bearing sin indeed in His flesh but our sin. So too He felt pain for us, but not with our senses; He was found in fashion as a man, with a body which could feel pain, but His nature could not feel pain; for, though His fashion was that of a man, His origin was not human, but He was born by conception of the Holy Ghost.
For the reasons mentioned, He was esteemed ‘stricken, smitten and afflicted.’ He took the form of a servant: and ‘man born of a Virgin’ conveys to us the idea of One Whose nature felt pain when He suffered. But though He was wounded it was ‘for our transgressions.’ The wound was not the wound of His own transgressions: the suffering not a suffering for Himself. He was not born man for His own sake, nor did He transgress in His own action. The Apostle explains the principle of the Divine Plan when he says, We beseech you through Christ to be reconciled to God. Him, Who knew no sin, He made to be sin on our behalf 1175 . To condemn sin through sin in the flesh, He Who knew no sin was Himself made sin; that is, by means of the flesh to condemn sin in the flesh, He became flesh on our behalf but knew not flesh 1176 : and therefore was wounded because of our transgressions.
48. Again, the Apostle knows nothing in Christ about fear of pain. When He wishes to speak of the dispensation of the Passion, He includes it in the mystery of Christ’s Divinity. Forgiving us all our trespasses, blotting out the bond written in ordinances, that was against us, which was contrary to us: taking it away, and nailing it to the cross; stripping off from Himself His flesh, He made a shew of principalities and powers openly triumphing over them in Himself 1177 . Was that the power, think you, to yield to the wound of the nail, to wince under the piercing blow, to convert itself into a nature that can feel pain? Yet the Apostle, who speaks as the mouthpiece of Christ 1178 , relating the work of our salvation through the Lord, describes the death of Christ as ‘stripping off from Himself His flesh, boldly putting to shame the powers and triumphing over them in Himself.’ If His passion was a necessity of nature and not the free gift of your salvation: if the cross was merely the suffering of wounds, and not the fixing upon Himself of the decree of death made out against you: if His dying was a violence done by death, and not the stripping off of the flesh by the power of God: lastly, if His death itself was anything but a dishonouring of powers, an act of boldness, a triumph: then ascribe to Him infirmity, because He was therein subject to necessity and nature, to force, to fear and disgrace. But if it is the exact opposite in the mystery of the Passion, as it was preached to us, who, pray, can be so senseless as to repudiate the faith taught by the Apostles, to reverse all feelings of religion, to distort into the dishonourable charge of natural weakness, what was an act of free-will, a mystery, a display of power and boldness, a triumph? And what a triumph it was, when He offered Himself to those who sought to crucify Him, and they could not endure His presence: when He stood under sentence of death, Who shortly was to sit on the right hand of power: when He prayed for His persecutors while the nails were driven through Him: when He completed the mystery as He drained the draught of vinegar; when He was numbered among the transgressors and meanwhile granted Paradise: that when He was lifted on the tree, the earth quaked: when He hung on the cross, sun and day were put to flight: that He left His own body, yet called life back to the bodies of others 1179 : was buried a corpse and rose again God: as man suffered all weaknesses for our sakes, as God triumphed in them all.
49. There is still, the heretics say, another serious and far reaching confession of weakness, all the more so because it is in the mouth of the Lord Himself, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me 1180 ? They construe this into the expression of a bitter complaint, that He was deserted and given over to weakness. But what a violent interpretation of an irreligious mind! how repugnant to the whole tenor of our Lord’s words! He hastened to the death, which was to glorify Him, and after which He was to sit on the right hand of power; with all those blessed expectations could He fear death, and therefore complain that His God had betrayed Him to its necessity, when it was the entrance to eternal blessedness?
50. Further their heretical ingenuity presses on in the path prepared by their own godlessness, even to the entire absorption of God the Word into the human soul, and consequent denial that Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, was the same as the Son of God. So either God the Word ceased to be Himself while He performed the function of a soul in giving life to a body 1181 , or the man who was born was not the Christ at all, but the Word dwelt in him, as the Spirit dwelt in the prophets 1182 . These absurd and perverse errors have grown in boldness and godlessness till they assert that Jesus Christ was not Christ until He was born of Mary. He Who was born was not a pre-existent Being, but began at that moment to exist 1183 .
Hence follows also the error that God the Word, as it were some part of the Divine power extending itself in unbroken continuation, dwelt within that man who received from Mary the beginning of his being, and endowed him with the power of Divine working: though that man lived and moved by the nature of his own soul 1184 .
51. Through this subtle and mischievous doctrine they are drawn into the error that God the Word became soul to the body, His nature by self-humiliation working the change upon itself, and thus the Word ceased to be God; or else, that the Man Jesus, in the poverty and remoteness from God of His nature, was animated only by the life and motion of His own human soul, wherein the Word of God, that is, as it were, the might of His uttered voice, resided. Thus the way is opened for all manner of irreverent theorising: the sum of which is, either that God the Word was merged in the soul and ceased to be God: or that Christ had no existence before His birth from Mary, since Jesus Christ, a mere man of ordinary body and soul, began to exist only at His human birth and was raised to the level of the Power, which worked within Him, by the extraneous force of the Divine Word extending itself into Him. Then when God the Word, after this extension, was withdrawn, He cried, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? or at least when the divine nature of the Word once more gave place within Him to a human soul, He Who had hitherto relied on His Father’s help, now separated from it, and abandoned to death, bemoaned His solitude and chid His deserter. Thus in every way arises a deadly danger of error in belief, whether it be thought that the cry of complaint denotes a weakness of nature in God the Word, or that God the Word was not pre-existent because the birth of Jesus Christ from Mary was the beginning of His being.
52. Amid these irreverent and ill-grounded theories the faith of the Church, inspired by the teaching of the Apostles, has recognised a birth of Christ, but no beginning. It knows of the dispensation, but of no division 1185 : it refuses to make a separation in Jesus Christ 1186 ; whereby Jesus is one and Christ another; nor does it distinguish the Son of Man from the Son of God, lest perhaps the Son of God be not regarded as Son of Man also. It does not absorb the Son of God in the Son of Man; nor does it by a tripartite belief 1187 tear asunder Christ, Whose coat woven from the top throughout was not parted, dividing Jesus Christ into the Word, a body and a soul; nor, on the other hand, does it absorb the Word in body and soul. To it He is perfectly God the Word, and perfectly Christ the Man. To this alone we hold fast in the mystery of our confession, namely, the faith that Christ is none other than Jesus, and the doctrine that Jesus is none other than Christ.
53. I am not ignorant how much the grandeur of the divine mystery baffles our weak understanding, so that language can scarcely express it, or reason define it, or thought even embrace it. The Apostle, knowing that the most difficult task for an earthly nature is to apprehend, unaided, God’s mode of action (for then our judgment were keener to discern than God is mighty to effect), writes to his true son according to the faith, who had received the Holy Scripture from his childhood, As I exhorted thee to tarry at Ephesus, when I was going into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge certain men not to teach a different doctrine, neither to give heed to fables and endless genealogies, the which minister questionings, rather than the edification of God which is in faith 1188 . He bids him forbear to handle wordy genealogies and fables, which minister endless questionings. The edification of God, he says, is in faith: he limits human reverence to the faithful worship of the Almighty, and does not suffer our weakness to strain itself in the attempt to see what only dazzles the eye. If we look at the brightness of the sun, the sight is strained and weakened: and sometimes when we scrutinise with too curious gaze the source of the shining light, the eyes lose their natural power, and the sense of sight is even destroyed. Thus it happens that through trying to see too much we see nothing at all. What must we then expect in the case of God, the Sun of Righteousness? Will not foolishness be their reward, who would be over wise? Will not dull and brainless stupor usurp the place of the burning light of intelligence? A lower nature cannot understand the principle of a higher: nor can Heaven’s mode of thought be revealed to human conception, for whatever is within the range of a limited consciousness, is itself limited. The divine power exceeds therefore the capacity of the human mind. If the limited strains itself to reach so far, it becomes even feebler than before. It loses what certainty it had: instead of seeing heavenly things it is only blinded by them. No mind can fully comprehend the divine: it punishes the obstinacy of the curious by depriving them of their power. Would we look at the sun we must remove as much of his brilliancy as we need, in order to see him: if not, by expecting too much, we fall short of the possible. In the same way we can only hope to understand the purposes of Heaven, so far as is permitted. We must expect only what He grants to our apprehension: if we attempt to go beyond the limit of His indulgence, it is withdrawn altogether. There is that in God which we can perceive: it is visible to all if we are content with the possible. Just as with the sun we can see something, if we are content to see what can be seen, but if we strain beyond the possible we lose all: so is it with the nature of God. There is that which we can understand if we are content with understanding what we can: but aim beyond your powers and you will lose even the power of attaining what was within your reach.
54. The mystery of that other timeless birth I will not yet touch upon: its treatment demands an ampler space than this. For the present I will speak of the Incarnation only. Tell me, I pray, ye who pry into secrets of Heaven, the mystery of Christ born of a Virgin and His nature; whence will you explain that He was conceived and born of a Virgin? What was the physical cause of His origin according to your disputations? How was He formed within His mother’s womb? Whence His body and His humanity? And lastly, what does it mean that the Son of Man descended from heaven Who remained in heaven 1189 ? It is not possible by the laws of bodies for the same object to remain and to descend: the one is the change of downward motion; the other the stillness of being at rest. The Infant wails but is in Heaven: the Boy grows but remains ever the immeasurable God. By what perception of human understanding can we comprehend that He ascended where He was before, and He descended Who remained in heaven? The Lord says, What if ye should behold the Son of Man ascending thither where He was before 1190 ? The Son of Man ascends where He was before: can sense apprehend this? The Son of Man descends from heaven, Who is in heaven: can reason cope with this? The Word was made flesh: can words express this? The Word becomes flesh, that is, God becomes Man: the Man is in heaven: the God is from heaven. He ascends Who descended: but He descends and yet does not descend. He is as He ever was, yet He was not ever what He is. We pass in review the causes, but we cannot explain the manner: we perceive the manner, and we cannot understand the causes. Yet if we understand Christ Jesus even thus, we shall know Him: if we seek to understand Him further we shall not know Him at all.
55. Again, how great a mystery of word and act it is that Christ wept, that His eyes filled with tears from the anguish of His mind 1191 . Whence came this defect in His soul that sorrow should wring tears from His body? What bitter fate, what unendurable pain, could move to a flood of tears the Son of Man Who descended from heaven? Again, what was it in Him which wept? God the Word? or His human soul? For though weeping is a bodily function, the body is but a servant; tears are, as it were, the sweat of the agonised soul. Again, what was the cause of His weeping? Did He owe to Jerusalem the debt of His tears, Jerusalem, the godless parricide, whom no suffering could requite for the slaughter of Apostles and Prophets, and the murder of her Lord Himself? He might weep for the disasters and death which befall mankind: but could He grieve for the fall of that doomed and desperate race? What, I ask, was this mystery of weeping? His soul wept for sorrow; was not it the soul which sent forth the Prophets? Which would so often have gathered the chickens together under the shadow of His wings 1192 ? But God the Word cannot grieve, nor can the Spirit weep: nor could His soul possibly do anything before the body existed. Yet we cannot doubt that Jesus Christ truly wept 1193 .
56. No less real were the tears He shed for Lazarus 1194 . The first question here is, What was there to weep for in the case of Lazarus? Not his death, for that was not unto death, but for the glory of God: for the Lord says, That sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be honoured through him 1195 . The death which was the cause of God’s being glorified could not bring sorrow and tears. Nor was there any occasion for tears in His absence from Lazarus at the time of his death. He says plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I rejoice for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent that ye may believe 1196 . His absence then, which aided the Apostles’ belief, was not the cause of His sorrow: for with the knowledge of Divine omniscience, He declared the death of the sick man from afar. We can find, then, no necessity for tears, yet He wept. And again I ask, To whom must we ascribe the weeping? To God, or the soul, or the body? The body, of itself, has no tears except those it sheds at the command of the sorrowing soul. Far less can God have wept, for He was to be glorified in Lazarus. Nor is it reason to say His soul recalled Lazarus from the tomb: can a soul linked to a body, by the power of its command, call another soul back to the dead body from which it has departed? Can He grieve Who is about to be glorified? Can He weep Who is about to restore the dead to life? Tears are not for Him Who is about to give life, or grief for Him Who is about to receive glory. Yet He Who wept and grieved was also the Giver of life.
57. If there are many points which we treat scantily it is not because we have nothing to say, or do not know what has already been said; our purpose is, by abstaining from too laborious a process of argument, to render the results as attractive as possible to the reader. We know the deeds and words of our Lord, yet we know them not: we are not ignorant of them, yet they cannot be understood. The facts are real, but the power behind them is a mystery. We will prove this from His own words, For this reason doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again. No one taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again. This commandment received I from the Father 1197 . He lays down His life of Himself, but I ask who lays it down? We confess without hesitation, that Christ is God the Word: but on the other hand, we know that the Son of Man was composed of a soul and a body: compare the angel’s words to Joseph, Arise and take the child and His mother, and go into the land of Israel; for they are dead who sought the soul of the child 1198 . Whose soul is it? His body’s, or God’s? If His body’s, what power has the body to lay down the soul, when it is only by the working of the soul that it is quickened into life? Again, how could the body, which apart from the soul is inert and dead, receive a command from the Father? But if, on the other hand, any man suppose that God the Word laid aside His soul, that He might take it up again, he must prove that God the Word died, that is, remained without life and feeling like a dead body, and took up His soul again to be quickened once more into life by it.
58. But, further, no one who is endued with reason can impute to God a soul; though it is written in many places that the soul of God hates sabbaths and new moons: and also that it delights in certain things 1199 . But this is merely a conventional expression to be understood in the same way as when God is spoken of as possessing body, with hands, and eyes, and fingers, and arms, and heart. As the Lord said, A Spirit hath not flesh and bones 1200 : He then Who is, and changeth not 1201 , cannot have the limbs and parts of a tangible body. He is a simple and blessed nature, a single, complete, all-embracing Whole. God is therefore not quickened into life, like bodies, by the action of an indwelling soul, but is Himself His own life.
59. How does He then lay down His soul, or take it up again? What is the meaning of this command He received? God could not lay it down, that is, die, or take it up again, that is, come to life. But neither did the body receive the command to take it up again; it could not do so of itself, for He said of the Temple of His body, Destroy this temple and after three days I will raise it up 1202 . Thus it is God Who raises up the temple of His body. And Who lays down His soul to take it again? The body does not take it up again of itself: it is raised up by God. That which is raised up again must have been dead, and that which is living does not lay down its soul. God then was neither dead nor buried: and yet He said, In that she has poured this ointment upon My body she did it for My burial 1203 . In that it was poured upon His body it was done for His burial: but the His is not the same as Him. It is quite another use of the pronoun when we say, ‘it was done for the burial of Him,’ and when we say, ‘His body was anointed:’ nor is the sense the same in ‘His body was buried,’ and ‘He was buried.’
60. To grasp this divine mystery we must see the God in Him without ignoring the Man; and the Man without ignoring the God. We must not divide Jesus Christ, for the Word was made flesh: yet we must not call Him buried, though we know He raised Himself again: must not doubt His resurrection, though we dare not deny He was buried 1204 . Jesus Christ was buried, for He died: He died, and even cried out at the moment of death, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Yet He, Who uttered these words, said also: Verily I say unto thee, This day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise 1205 , and He Who promised Paradise to the thief cried aloud, Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit; and having said this He gave up the Ghost 1206 .
61. Ye who trisect Christ into the Word, the soul and the body, or degrade the whole Christ, even God the Word, into a single member of our race, unfold to us this mystery of great godliness which was manifested in the flesh 1207 . What Spirit did Christ give up? Who commended His Spirit into the hands of His Father? Who was to be in Paradise that same day? Who complained that He was deserted of God? The cry of the deserted betokens the weakness of the dying: the promise of Paradise the sovereign power of the living God. To commend His Spirit denoted confidence: to give up His Spirit implied His departure by death. Who then, I demand, was it Who died? Surely He Who gave up His Spirit? but Who gave up His Spirit? Certainly He Who commended it to His Father. And if He Who commended His Spirit is the same as He Who gave it up and died, was it the body which commended its soul, or God Who commended the body’s soul? I say ‘soul,’ because there is no doubt it is frequently synonymous with ‘spirit,’ as might be gathered merely from the language here: Jesus gave up His ‘Spirit’ when He was on the point of death. If, therefore, you hold the conviction that the body commended the soul, that the perishable commended the living, the corruptible the eternal, that which was to be raised again, that which abides unchanged, then, since He Who commended His Spirit to the Father was also to be in Paradise with the thief that same day, I would fain know if, while the sepulchre received Him, He was abiding in heaven, or if He was abiding in heaven, when He cried out that God had deserted Him.
62. It is one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, Who expresses Himself in all these utterances, Who is man when He says He is abandoned to death: yet while man still rules in Paradise as God, and though reigning in Paradise, as Son of God commends His Spirit to His Father, as Son of Man gives up to death the Spirit He commended to the Father. Why do we then view as a disgrace that which is a mystery? We see Him complaining that He is left to die, because He is Man: we see Him, as He dies, declaring that He reigned in Paradise, because He is God. Why should we harp, to support our irreverence, on what He said to make us understand His death, and keep back what He proclaimed to demonstrate His immortality? The words and the voice are equally His, when He complains of desertion, and when He declares His rule: by what method of heretical logic do we split up our belief and deny that He Who died was at the same time He Who rules? Did He not testify both equally of Himself, when He commended His Spirit, and when He gave it up? But if He is the same, Who commended His Spirit, and gave it up, if He dies when ruling and rules when dead: then the mystery of the Son of God and Son of Man means that He is One, Who dying reigns, and reigning dies.
63. Stand aside then, all godless unbelievers, for whom the divine mystery is too great, who do not know that Christ wept not for Himself but for us, to prove the reality of His assumed manhood by yielding to the emotion common to humanity: who do not perceive that Christ died not for Himself, but for our life, to renew human life by the death of the deathless God: who cannot reconcile the complaint of the deserted with the confidence of the Ruler: who would teach us that because He reigns as God and complains that He is dying, we have here a dead man and the reigning God. For He Who dies is none other than He Who reigns, He Who commends His spirit than He Who gives it up: He Who was buried, rose again: ascending or descending He is altogether one.
64. Listen to the teaching of the Apostle and see in it a faith instructed not by the understanding of the flesh but by the gift of the Spirit. The Greeks seek after wisdom, he says, and the Jews ask for a sign; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ Jesus, the power of God, God 1208 . Is Christ divided here so that Jesus the crucified is one, and Christ, the power and wisdom of God, another? This is to the Jews a stumbling-block and unto the Gentiles foolishness; but to us Christ Jesus is the power of God, and the wisdom of God: wisdom, however, not known of the world, nor understood by a secular philosophy. Hear the same blessed Apostle when he declares that it has not been understood, We speak the wisdom of God, which hath been hidden in a mystery, which God foreordained before the world for our glory: which none of the rulers of this world has known: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory 1209 . Does not the Apostle know that this wisdom of God is hidden in a mystery, and cannot be known of the rulers of this world? Does he divide Christ into a Lord of Glory and a crucified Jesus? Nay, rather, he contradicts this most foolish and impious idea with the words, For I determined to know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified 1210 .
65. The Apostle knew nothing else, and he determined to know nothing else: we men of feebler wit, and feebler faith, split up, divide and double Jesus Christ, constituting ourselves judges of the unknown, and blaspheming the hidden mystery. For us Christ crucified is one, Christ the wisdom of God another: Christ Who was buried different from Christ Who descended from Heaven: the Son of Man not at the same time also Son of God. We teach that which we do not understand: we seek to refute that which we cannot grasp. We men improve upon the revelation of God: we are not content to say with the Apostle, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth, who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus, that died, yea, rather, that was raised from the dead, Who is at the right hand of God, Who also maketh intercession for us 1211 . Is He Who intercedes for us other than He Who is at the right hand of God? Is not He Who is at the right hand of God the very same Who rose again? Is He Who rose again other than He Who died? He Who died than He Who condemns us? Lastly, is not He Who condemns us also God Who justifies us? Distinguish, if you can, Christ our accuser from God our defender, Christ Who died from Christ Who condemns, Christ sitting at the right hand of God and praying for us from Christ Who died. Whether, therefore, dead or buried, descended into Hades or ascended into Heaven, all is one and the same Christ: as the Apostle says, Now this ‘He ascended’ what is it, but that He also descended to the lower parts of the earth? He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens, that He may fill all things 1212 . How far then shall we push our babbling ignorance and blasphemy, professing to explain what is hidden in the mystery of God? He that descended is the same also that ascended. Can we longer doubt that the Man Christ Jesus rose from the dead, ascended above the heavens and is at the right hand of God? We cannot say His body descended into Hades, which lay in the grave. If then He Who descended is one with Him, Who ascended; if His body did not go down into Hades, yet really arose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, what remains, except to believe in the secret mystery, which is hidden from the world and the rulers of this age, and to confess that, ascending or descending, He is but One, one Jesus Christ for us, Son of God and Son of Man, God the Word and Man in the flesh, Who suffered, died, was buried, rose again, was received into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God: Who possesses in His one single self, according to the Divine Plan and nature, in the form of God and in the form of a servant, the Human and Divine without separation or division.
66. So the Apostle moulding our ignorant and haphazard ideas into conformity with truth says of this mystery of the faith, For He was crucified through weakness but He liveth through the power of God 1213 . Preaching the Son of Man and Son of God, Man through the Divine Plan, God through His eternal nature, he says, that He Who was crucified through weakness is He Who lives through the power of God. His weakness arises from the form of a servant, His nature remains because of the form of God. He took the form of a servant, though He was in form of God: therefore there can be no doubt as to the mystery according to which He both suffered and lived. There existed in Him both weakness to suffer, and power of God to give life: and hence He Who suffered and lived cannot be more than One, or other than Himself.
67. The Only-begotten God suffered indeed all that men can suffer: but let us express ourselves in the words and faith of the Apostle. He says, For I delivered unto you first of all how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures 1214 . This is no unsupported statement of his own, which might lead to error, but a warning to us to confess that Christ died and rose after a real manner, not a nominal, since the fact is certified by the full weight of Scripture authority; and that we must understand His death in that exact sense in which Scripture declares it. In his regard for the perplexities and scruples of the weak and sensitive believer, he adds these solemn concluding words, according to the Scriptures, to his proclamation of the death and the resurrection. He would not have us grow weaker, driven about by every wind of vain doctrine, or vexed by empty subtleties and false doubts: he would summon faith to return, before it were shipwrecked, to the haven of piety, believing and confessing the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, according to the Scriptures, this being the safeguard of reverence against the attack of the adversary, so to understand the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as it was written of Him. There is no danger in faith: the reverent confession of the hidden mystery of God is always safe. Christ was born of the Virgin, but conceived of the Holy Ghost according to the Scriptures. Christ wept, but according to the Scriptures: that which made Him weep was also a cause of joy. Christ hungered; but according to the Scriptures, He used His power as God against the tree which bore no fruit, when He had no food. Christ suffered: but according to the Scriptures, He was about to sit at the right hand of Power. He complained that He was abandoned to die: but according to the Scriptures, at the same moment He received in His kingdom in Paradise the thief who confessed Him. He died: but according to the Scriptures, He rose again and sits at the right hand of God. In the belief of this mystery there is life: this confession resists all attack.
68. The Apostle is careful to leave no room for doubt: we cannot say, “Christ was born, suffered, was dead and buried, and rose again: but how, by what power, by what division of parts of Himself? Who wept? Who rejoiced? Who complained? Who descended? and Who ascended?” He rests the merits of faith entirely on the confession of unquestioning reverence. The righteousness, he says, which is of faith saith thus, Say not in thy heart, Who hath ascended into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down: or Who hath descended into the abyss: that is, to bring Christ up from the dead? But what saith the Scripture? Thy word is nigh, in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach: because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart, that God hath raised Him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved 1215 . Faith perfects the righteous man: as it is written, Abraham believed God and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness 1216 . Did Abraham impugn the word of God, when he was promised the inheritance of the Gentiles, and an abiding posterity as many as the sand or the stars for multitude? To the reverent faith, which trusts implicitly on the omnipotence of God, the limits of human weakness are no barrier. Despising all that is feeble and earthly in itself, it believes the divine promise, even though it exceeds the possibilities of human nature. It knows that the laws which govern man are no hindrance to the power of God, Who is as bountiful in the performance as He is gracious in the promise. Nothing is more righteous than Faith. For as in human conduct it is equity and self-restraint that receive our approval, so in the case of God, what is more righteous for man than to ascribe omnipotence to Him, Whose Power He perceives to be without limits?
69. The Apostle then looking in us for the righteousness which is of Faith, cuts at the root of incredulous doubt and godless unbelief. He forbids us to admit into our hearts the cares of anxious thought, and points to the authority of the Prophet’s words, Say not in thy heart, Who hath ascended into heaven 1217 ? Then He completes the thought of the Prophet’s words with the addition, That is to bring Christ down. The perception of the human mind cannot attain to the knowledge of the divine: but neither can a reverent faith doubt the works of God. Christ needed no human help, that any one should ascend into heaven to bring Him down from His blessed Home to His earthly body. It was no external force which drove Him down to the earth. We must believe that He came, even as He did come: it is true religion to confess Jesus Christ not brought down, but descending. The mystery both of the time and the method of His coming, belongs to Him alone. We may not think because He came but recently, that therefore He must have been brought down, nor that His coming in time depended upon another, who brought Him down.
Nor does the Apostle give room for unbelief in the other direction. He quotes at once the words of the Prophet, Or Who hath descended into the abyss 1218 , and adds immediately the explanation, That is to bring Christ back from the dead. He is free to return into heaven, Who was free to descend to the earth. All hesitation and doubt is then removed. Faith reveals what omnipotence plans: history relates the effect, God Almighty was the cause.
70. But there is demanded from us an unwavering certainty. The Apostle expounding the whole secret of the Scripture passes on, Thy word is nigh, in thy mouth and in thy heart 1219 . The words of our confession must not be tardy or deliberately vague: there must be no interval between heart and lips, lest what ought to be the confession of true reverence become a subterfuge of infidelity. The word must be near us, and within us; no delay between the heart and the lips; a faith of conviction as well as of words. Heart and lips must be in harmony, and reveal in thought and utterance a religion which does not waver. Here too, as before, the Apostle adds the explanation of the Prophet’s words, That is the word of Faith, which we preach; because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Piety consists in rejecting doubt, righteousness in believing, salvation in confessing. Trifle not with ambiguities, be not stirred up to vain babblings, do not debate in any way the powers of God, or impose limits upon His might, cease searching again and again for the causes of unsearchable mysteries: confess rather that Jesus is the Lord, and believe that God raised Him from the dead; herein is salvation. What folly is it to depreciate the nature and character of Christ, when this alone is salvation, to know that He is the Lord. Again, what an error of human vanity to quarrel about His resurrection, when it is enough for eternal life to believe that God raised Him up. In simplicity then is faith, in faith righteousness, and in confession true godliness. For God does not call us to the blessed life through arduous investigations. He does not tempt us with the varied arts of rhetoric. The way to eternity is plain and easy; believe that Jesus was raised from the dead by God and confess that He is the Lord. Let no one therefore wrest into an occasion for impiety, what was said because of our ignorance. It had to be proved to us, that Jesus Christ died, that we might live in Him.
71. If then He said, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me 1220 , and Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit 1221 , that we might be sure that He did die, was not this, in His care for our faith, rather a scattering of our doubts, than a confession of His weakness? When He was about to restore Lazarus, He prayed to the Father: but what need had He of prayer, Who said, Father, I thank Thee, that Thou hast heard Me; and I know that Thou hearest Me always, but because of the multitude I said it, that they may believe that Thou didst send Me 1222 ? He prayed then for us, that we may know Him to be the Son; the words of prayer availed Him nothing, but He said them for the advancement of our faith. He was not in want of help, but we of teaching. Again He prayed to be glorified; and immediately was heard from heaven the voice of God the Father glorifying Him: but when they wondered at the voice, He said, This voice hath not come for My sake, but for your sakes 1223 . The Father is besought for us, He speaks for us: may all this lead us to believe and confess! The answer of the Glorifier is granted not to the prayer for glory, but to the ignorance of the bystanders: must we not then regard the complaint of suffering, when He found His greatest joy in suffering, as intended for the building up of our faith? Christ prayed for His persecutors, because they knew not what they did. He promised Paradise from the cross, because He is God the King. He rejoiced upon the cross, that all was finished when He drank the vinegar, because He had fulfilled all prophecy before He died. He was born for us, suffered for us, died for us, rose again for us. This alone is necessary for our salvation, to confess the Son of God risen from the dead: why then should we die in this state of godless unbelief? If Christ, ever secure of His divinity, made clear to us His death, Himself indifferent to death, yet dying to assure that it was true humanity that He had assumed: why should we use this very confession of the Son of God that for us He became Son of Man and died as the chief weapon to deny His divinity?
Footnotes
182:10952 Tim. 4:3, 4.
182:10961 Tim. 4:1, 2.
182:1097i.e. the Arians, who maintained that Jesus was created (creatura) and not God.
183:1098Reading “exsulantibus” with the Benedictine Edition (Paris, 1693); Migne (Paris, 1844), “exultantibus.”
183:1099i.e. The generation of the second Person from the first Person of the Trinity.
183:1100St. John x. 30.
183:1101Supply, ‘referat.’
183:1102The Arians accused the Catholics of a Sabellian denial of the Trinity and a Patripassian view of the Incarnation, i.e. that the unborn God became man.
184:1103St. Matt. i. 23.
184:1104St. John xvii. 5.
184:1105“Of that day and that hour knoweth no one, not even the Angels of Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only.” St. Matt. 24:36, Mark 13:32.
184:1106Hilary is granting for the moment that the Son really was ignorant of the day and hour; this, he says, could be not argument for the inequality of the Son: it would serve, however, to disprove the Sabellian identification of the Son and the Father by shewing that this knowledge was the possession of the Father only. Erasmus inserted here a passage which he found in a ms.;—“and this shews us that the saying of the Word referred to the mystery of human perfection: that He, Who bore our infirmities, should take upon Himself also the infirmity of human ignorance, and that He should say He knew not the day, just as He knew not where they had laid Lazarus, or who it was when the woman touched the hem of His garment: being infirm in knowledge as He was infirm in weeping, in the endurance of weariness, hunger, and thirst, He did not disdain even the error of ignorance: especially when we consider how, when He rose from the dead, and was about to ascend up to, and above, the heavens, the Apostles approached Him as no longer ignorant, but knowing, and determining this His day, and put exactly the same question to Him of which He was silent during the dispensation of His humanity: that it might be made plain by their repeated question, that they understood His statement, ‘I know not,’ of an ignorance which He took upon Himself, not essential to His nature.” The passage is utterly inconsistent with Hilary’s teaching both here and in ix. 58 f., and is an obvious and clumsy interpolation.
184:1107Throughout the whole of this discussion of Christ’s sufferings, Hilary distinguishes the feeling of pain (dolere, dolor) from the physical cause of pain, i.e. the cutting and piercing of the body (pati, passio). Christ’s body suffered (pati) but He could not feel pain (dolere): see c. 23.
184:1108St. Matt. xxvi. 38.
184:1109Matt. 26.39.
184:1110Matt. 27.46.
184:1111St. Luke xxiii. 46.
184:1112St. Matt. 10:38, 39.
185:1113St. Matt. x. 28.
185:1114St. John x. 18.
185:1115John 19.30.
185:1116Ps. xv. 10.
185:1117St. John 2:19, Matt. 26:16, Matt. 27:40, Mark 14:58.
186:1118Omitting ‘suo:” or retaining it ‘His (i.e. the Word’s) Holy Spirit.’
186:1119St. John iii. 13.
186:11201 Cor. xv. 47. One copy reads de terra terrenus, of the earth, earth.
186:1121Luke i. 35. “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.”
186:1122St. John vi. 51.
186:1123John 6.54.
186:1124Apollinaris argued that if Christ were perfect God and perfect man, there would be two Christs, the Son of God by nature and the Son of God by adoption. Hence He taught that Christ was partly God and partly man; that He received from the Virgin His body and the lower, irrational soul which is the condition of bodily life; while His rational Spirit was Divine. On this theory the ‘whole man,’ as Hilary says, was not born of the Virgin. Hilary denies the threefold division. The soul in every case, Christ’s included, is, he says, the immediate work of God.
187:1125i.e. the infinite nature of God, and the finite nature of man.
187:1126Form since the time of Aristotle meant the qualities which constituted the distinctive essence of a thing.
188:1127Erasmus mentions an insertion in one ms. here, which explains what Hilary implies throughout the chapter: ‘weak as ours from sin,’ i.e. weakness is the proper penalty for sin: pain is only a secondary and adventitious effect of the weakness of human nature brought on by sin. Christ then atoned completely for sin, by suffering, without feeling pain.
188:1128St. John xi. 15, ‘Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes, that I was not there, to the intent that ye may believe.’
188:1129St. John vii. 38.
188:1130St. Matt. 21:19, Mark 11:3.
188:1131Phil. ii. 7.
188:1132Rom. viii. 3.
189:1133St. Matt. 16:22, 23.
189:1134Matt. 16.16.
189:1135St. Matt. xxvi. 38.
189:1136St. John xiii. 31.
189:1137St. Mark xiv. 36.
189:1138St. John xviii. 11.
190:1139St. Mark 15:34, Mark 27:46.
190:1140St. Matt. 26:64, Matt. 16:27.
190:1141St. Luke xxiii. 46.
190:1142Luke 23.43.
190:1143i.e. the thief on the cross.
190:1144In Biblical and Patristic Latin chaos had acquired the sense of χάσμα; cf. Rönsch, Itala u. Vulgata, p. 250.
191:1145Reading ‘susceptis elementis.’
191:1146St. Matt. 26:38, Mark 14:34.
191:1147Usque ad mortem: up to, as far as death. The Latin gives more colour to this interpretation of Hilary than the English translation ‘even unto death.’
191:1148St. Matt. 26:31, Mark 14:27, John 16:32.
191:1149St. Matt. 26:32, Mark 14:28, Mark 16:7.
191:1150St. Matt. xxvi. 33.
191:1151St. Matt. 26:39, Mark 14:36, Luke 22:42.
191:1152i.e. the possibility that the disciples may not endure the temptation of the cup: that it might abide with them instead of passing away. See the explanation in the next chapter.
192:1153St. Matt. 26:40, 41, Mark 14:37, 38, Luke 22:45, 46.
192:1154St. Mark xiv. 36.
192:1155St. Luke 22:31, 32.
192:1156St. Matt. xxvi. 42. The Greek is:—‘My Father, if this cup cannot pass away except I drink of it, Thy will be done.’
192:1157Reading ‘non nisi finito.’
192:1158St. Matt. xxvi. 45.
192:1159This is a mistranslation of St. Luke xxii. 32, ἐδεήθην being taken as passive.
192:1160St. Luke 22:43, 44. The Greek is ὥσει, ‘as it were drops of blood.’
193:1161The Greek is ἐγένετο δὲ ὁ ἵδρως αὐτοῦ ὥσει θρόμβοι αἵματος. ‘His sweat became as it were great drops of blood’ (R.V.): see supra.
193:1162i.e. all sects with Docetic tenets, who would not allow Christ to have had a real human body, but only to have appeared in bodily shape, like a ghost.
193:1163St. John 17:11, 12. Hilary omits after ‘keeping them in Thy Name,’ the words ‘which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one even as We are One.’
193:1164St. Matt. xxvi. 53.
193:1165St. Mark xiii. 31. In the Greek the same word παρέρχεσθαι is used in both cases, but Hilary uses transire in the first, praeterire in the second instance.
193:11662 Cor. v. 17.
193:11671 Cor. vii. 31.
193:1168St. John xviii. 9.
193:1169i.e. St. Luke 26:31, 32, as quoted above, c. 38.
194:1170Reading efficit.
194:1171Dan. iii. 23.
194:1172Dan. i. 8-16.
194:11732 Tim. 4:6, 8.
194:1174Isa. 1:0, Isa. 53:4, Isa. 5:0. Hilary translates from the Septuagint. The Hebrew and the Vulgate differ, cf. the English Version, “Surely He hath borne our griefs” (instead of “our sins”).
195:11752 Cor. 5:20, 21. The Greek is ὑπὲρ χριστοῦ, ‘on behalf of Christ.’
195:1176i.e. flesh in the bad sense, “the flesh of sin.”
195:1177Col. ii. 13-15.
195:11782 Cor. xiii. 3.
195:1179Allusion to St. Matt. xxvii. 52, “many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised.”
195:1180St. Matt. xxvii. 46.
195:1181Apollinaris’ heresy that in Christ the place of the ordinary human soul was supplied by the Logos, the second Person in the Trinity.
195:1182This doctrine was held by Marcellus of Ancyra (Sozomen, H.E. II. 33), and Photinus: cp. also what Sozomen (VII. 7) says of Hebion.
196:1183This doctrine was held by Marcellus of Ancyra (Sozomen, H.E. II. 33), and Photinus: cp. also what Sozomen (VII. 7) says of Hebion.
196:1184The preaching of Sabellius, cf. I. 16, protensio sit potius quam descensio, ‘an extension rather than a descent.’
196:1185i.e. it realizes the plan by which the second Person of the Trinity chose to take a human form, but refuses to separate the Divine from the human in Jesus.
196:1186Reading partitur for Mss. patitur.
196:1187Apollinarianism.
196:11881 Tim. 1:3, 4.
197:1189St. John iii. 13.
197:1190John 6.62.
197:1191St. Luke xix. 41.
197:1192St. Matt. 23:37, Luke 13:34.
197:1193The human soul in Jesus alone could feel grief and weep: yet it was the divine Spirit which sent forth the prophets: for the human soul began to exist only in conjunction with His human body.
197:1194St. John xi. 35.
197:1195John 11.4. The Greek is δι᾽ αὐτῆς, through it.
198:1196St. John 14:0, John 15:0.
198:1197John 10:17, 18.
198:1198St. Matt. ii. 20.
198:1199E.g. Isa. 1:0, 14.
198:1200St. Luke xxiv. 39.
198:1201Mal. iii. 6.
198:1202St. John ii. 19.
198:1203St. Matt. xxvi. 12.
199:1204Hilary is playing on the mystery of the two natures in one Person. We cannot say the God-nature was buried: nor that the human nature brought itself back to life: yet Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose again.
199:1205St. Luke xxiii. 43.
199:1206Luke 23.46.
199:12071 Tim. iii. 16.
199:12081 Cor. 1:23, 24.
200:12091 Cor. 2:7, 8.
200:12101 Cor. 2.2.
200:1211Rom. 8:33, 34.
200:1212Eph. 4:9, 10.
200:12132 Cor. xiii. 4.
200:12141 Cor. 15:3, 4.
201:1215Rom. x. 6-9.
201:1216Gen. 15:16, Rom. 4:3.
201:1217Deut. xxx. 12. The context is the assurance of Moses, that “the law is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off,” but “the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart.”
201:1218Deut. xxx. 13. E.V. Who shall go over the sea for us?
202:1219Deut. xxx. 14.
202:1220St. Mark xv. 34.
202:1221St. Luke xxiii. 46.
202:1222St. John 11:41, 42.
202:1223John 12.30.
Book XI.
1. The Apostle in his letter to the Ephesians, reviewing in its manifold aspects the full and perfect mystery of the Gospel, mingles with other instructions in the knowledge of God the following: As ye also were called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, and through all, and in us all 1224 . He does not leave us in the vague and misleading paths of an indefinite teaching, or abandon us to the shifting fancies of imagination, but limits the unimpeded license of intellect and desire by the appointment of restraining barriers. He gives us no opportunity to be wise beyond what he preached, but defines in exact and precise language the faith fixed for all time, that there may be no excuse for instability of belief. He declares one faith, as he preaches one Lord, and pronounces one baptism, as he declares one faith of one Lord, that as there is one faith of one Lord, so there may be one baptism of one faith in one Lord. And since the whole mystery of the baptism and the faith is not only in one Lord, but also in one God, he completes the consummation of our hope by the confession of one God. The one baptism and the one faith are of one God, as they are of one Lord. Lord and God are each one, not by union of person but by distinction of properties: for, on the one hand, it is the property of Each to be one, whether of the Father in His Fatherhood, or of the Son in His Sonship, and on the other hand, that property of individuality, which Each possesses, constitutes for Each the mystery of His union with the Other. Thus the one Lord Christ cannot take away from God the Father His Lordship, or the one God the Father deny to the one Lord Christ His Godhead. If, because God is one, Christ is not also by nature divine, then we cannot allow that the one God is Lord, because there is one Lord Christ: that is, on the supposition that by their oneness’ is signified not the mystery, but an exclusive unity. So there is one baptism and one faith of one Lord, as of one God.
2. But how can it be any longer one faith, if it does not steadfastly and sincerely confess one Lord and one God the Father: and how can the faith which is not one faith confess one Lord and one God the Father? Further, how can the faith be one, when its preachers are so at variance? One comes teaching that the Lord Jesus Christ, being in the weakness of our nature, groaned with anguish when the nails pierced His hands, that He lost the virtue of His own power and nature, and shrank shuddering from the death which threatened Him. Another even denies the cardinal doctrine of the Generation and pronounces Him a creature. Another will call Him, but not think Him, God on the ground that religion allows us to speak of more Gods than One, but He, Whom we recognise as God, must be conscious of sharing the divine nature 1225 . Again, how can Christ the Lord be one, when some say that as God He feels no pain, others make Him weak and fearful: to some He is God in name, to others God in nature: to some the Son by Generation, to others the Son by appellation? And if this is so, how can God the Father be one in the faith, when to some He is Father by His authority, to others Father by generation, in the sense that God is Father of the universe?
And yet, who will deny that whatever is not the one faith, is not faith at all? For in the one faith there is one Lord Christ, and God the Father is one. But the one Lord Jesus Christ is not one in the truth of the confession, as well as in name, unless He is Son, unless He is God 1226 , unless He is unchangeable, unless His Sonship and His Godhead have been eternally present in Him. He who preaches Christ other than He is, that is, other than Son and God, preaches another Christ. Nor is he in the one faith of the one baptism, for in the teaching of the Apostle the one faith is the faith of that one baptism, in which the one Lord is Christ, the Son of God Who is also God.
3. Yet it cannot be denied that Christ was Christ. It cannot be that He was incognisable to mankind. The books of the prophets have set their seal upon Him: the fulness of the times, which waxes daily, witnesses of Him: by the working of wonders the tombs of Apostles and Martyrs proclaim Him: the power of His name reveals Him: the unclean spirits confess Him, and the devils howling in their torment call aloud His name. In all we see the dispensation of His power. But our faith must preach Him as He is, namely, one Lord not in name but in confession, in one faith of one baptism: for on our faith in one Lord Christ depends our confession of one God the Father.
4. But these teachers of a new Christ, who deny to Him all that is His, preach another Lord Christ as well as another God the Father. The One is not the Begetter but the Creator, the Other not begotten, but created. Christ is therefore not very God, because He is not God by birth, and faith cannot recognise a Father in God, because there is no generation to constitute Him Father. They glorify God the Father indeed, as is His right and due, when they predicate of Him a nature unapproachable, invisible, inviolable, ineffable, and infinite, endued with omniscience and omnipotence, instinct with love, moving in all and permeating all, immanent and transcendent, sentient in all sentient existence. But when they proceed to ascribe to Him the unique glory of being alone good, alone omnipotent, alone immortal, who does not feel that this pious praise aims to exclude the Lord Jesus Christ from the blessedness, which by the reservation ‘alone’ is restricted to the glory of God? Does it not leave Christ in sinfulness and weakness and death, while the Father reigns in solitary perfection? Does it not deny in Christ a natural origin from God the Father, in the fear lest He should be thought to inherit by a birth, which bestows upon the Begotten the same virtue of nature as the Begetter, a blessedness natural to God the Father alone?
5. Unlearned in the teaching of the Gospels and Apostles, they extol the glory of God the Father, not, however, with the sincerity of a devout believer, but with the cunning of impiety, to wrest from it an argument for their wicked heresy. Nothing, they say, can be compared with His nature: therefore the Only-begotten God is excluded from the comparison, because He possesses a lower and weaker nature. And this they say of God, the living image of the living God, the perfect form of His blessed nature, the only-begotten offspring of His unbegotten substance; Who is not truly the image of God unless He possesses the perfect glory of the Father’s blessedness: and reproduces in its exactitude the likeness of His whole nature. But if the Only-begotten God is the image of the Unbegotten God, the verity of that perfect and supreme nature resides in Him and makes Him the image of the very God. Is the Father omnipotent? The weak Son is not the image of omnipotence. Is He good? The Son, Whose divinity is of a lower stamp, does not reflect in His sinful nature the image of goodness. Is He incorporeal? The Son, Whose very spirit is confined to the limits of a body, is not in the form of the Incorporeal. Is He ineffable? The Son, Whom language can define, Whose nature the tongue can describe, is not the image of the Ineffable. Is He the true God? The Son possesses only a fictitious divinity, and the false cannot be the image of the True. The Apostle, however, does not ascribe to Christ a portion of the image, or a part of the form, but pronounces Him unreservedly the image of the invisible God and the form of God 1227 . And how could He declare more expressly the divine nature of the Son of God, than by saying that Christ is the image of the invisible God even in respect of His invisibility: for if the substance of Christ were discernible how could He be the image of an invisible nature?
6. But, as we pointed out in the former books, they seize the Dispensation of the assumed manhood as a pretext to dishonour His divinity, and distort the Mystery of our salvation into an occasion of blasphemy. Had they held fast the faith of the Apostle, they would neither have forgotten that He, Who was in the form of God, took the form of a servant, nor made use of the servant’s form to dishonour the form of God (for the form of God includes the fulness of divinity), but they would have noted, reasonably and reverently, the distinction of occasions 1228 and mysteries, without dishonouring the divinity, or being misled by the Incarnation of Christ. But now, when we have, I am convinced, proved everything to the utmost, and pointed out the power of the divine nature underlying the birth of the assumed body, there is no longer room for doubt. He Who was at once man and the Only-begotten God performed all things by the power of God, and in the power of God accomplished all things through a true human nature. As begotten of God He possessed the nature of divine omnipotence, as born of the Virgin He had a perfect and entire humanity. Though He had a real body, He subsisted in the nature of God, and though He subsisted in the nature of God, He abode in a real body.
7. In our reply we have followed Him to the moment of His glorious death, and taking one by one the statements of their unhallowed doctrine, we have refuted them from the teaching of the Gospels and the Apostle. But even after His glorious resurrection there are certain things which they have made bold to construe as proofs of the weakness of a lower nature, and to these we must now reply. Let us adopt once more our usual method of drawing out from the words themselves their true signification, that so we may discover the truth precisely where they think to overthrow it. For the Lord spoke in simple words for our instruction in the faith, and His words cannot need support or comment from foreign and irrelevant sayings.
8. Among their other sins the heretics often employ as an argument the words of the Lord, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God 1229 . His Father is also their Father, His God their God; therefore He is not in the nature of God, for He pronounces God the Father of others as of Himself, and His unique Sonship ceases when He shares with others the nature and the origin which make Him Son and God. But let them add further the words of the Apostle, But when He saith All things are put in subjection, He is excepted Who did subject all things unto Him. And when all things have been subjected unto Him, then shall He Himself be subjected unto Him that did subject all things unto Himself, that God may be all in all 1230 , whereby, since they regard that subjection as a proof of weakness, they may dispossess Him of the virtue of His Father’s nature, because His natural infirmity subjected Him to the dominion of a stronger nature. And after that, let them adopt their very strongest position and their impregnable defence, before which the truth of the Divine birth is to be demolished; namely, that if He is subjected, He is not God; if His God and Father is ours also, He shares all in common with creatures, and therefore is Himself also a creature: created of God and not begotten, since the creature has its substance out of nothing, but the begotten possesses the nature of its author.
9. Falsehood is always infamous, for the liar throwing off the bridle of shame dares to gainsay the truth, or else at times he hides behind some veil of pretext, that he may appear to defend with modesty what is shameless in intention. But in this case, when they sacrilegiously use the Scriptures to degrade the dignity of our Lord, there is no room for the blush or the false excuse; for there are occasions when even pardon accorded to ignorance is refused, and wilful misconstruction is exposed in its naked profanity. Let us postpone for a moment the exposition of this passage in the Gospel, and ask them first whether they have forgotten the preaching of the Apostle, who said, Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, received up in glory 1231 . Who is so dull that he cannot comprehend that the mystery of godliness is simply the Dispensation of the flesh assumed by the Lord? At the outset then, he who does not agree in this confession is not in the faith of God. For the Apostle leaves no doubt that all must confess that the hidden secret of our salvation is not the dishonour of God, but the mystery of great godliness, and a mystery no longer kept from our eyes, but manifested in the flesh; no longer weak through the nature of flesh, but justified in the Spirit. And so by the justification of the Spirit is removed from our faith the idea of fleshly weakness; through the manifestation of the flesh is revealed that which was secret, and in the unknown cause of that which was secret is contained the only confession, the confession of the mystery of great godliness. This is the whole system of the faith set forth by the Apostle in its proper order. From godliness proceeds the mystery, from the mystery the manifestation in the flesh, from the manifestation in the flesh the justification in the Spirit: for the mystery of godliness which was manifested in the flesh, to be truly a mystery, was manifested in the flesh through the justification of the Spirit. Again, we must not forget what manner of justification in the Spirit is this manifestation in the flesh: for the mystery which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached among the nations, and believed on in this world, this same mystery was received up in glory. Thus is it in every way a mystery of great godliness, when it is manifested in the flesh, when it is justified in the Spirit, when it is seen of angels, when it is preached among the nations, when it is believed on in the world, and when it is received up in glory. The preaching follows the seeing, and the believing the preaching, and the consummation of all is the receiving up in glory: for the assumption into glory is the mystery of great godliness, and by faith in the Dispensation we are prepared to be received up, and to be conformed to the glory of the Lord. The assumption of flesh is therefore also the mystery of great godliness, for through the assumption of flesh the mystery was manifested in the flesh. But we must believe that the manifestation in the flesh also is this same mystery of great godliness, for His manifestation in the flesh is His justification in the Spirit, and His assumption into glory. And now what room does our faith leave for any to think that the secret of the Dispensation of godliness is the enfeebling of the divinity, when through the assumption of glory is to be confessed the mystery of great godliness? What was ‘infirmity’ is now the ‘mystery:’ what was ‘necessity’ becomes ‘godliness 1232 .’ And now let us turn to the meaning of the Evangelist’s words, that the secret of our salvation and our glory may not be converted into an occasion of blasphemy.
10. You credit with the weight of irresistible authority, heretic, that saying of the Lord, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God 1233 . The same Father, you say, is His Father and ours, the same God His God and ours. He partakes, therefore, of our weakness, for in the possession of the same Father we are not inferior as sons, and in the service of the same God we are equal as servants. Since, then, we are of created origin and a servant’s nature, but have a common Father and God with Him, He is in common with our nature a creature and a servant. So runs this infatuated and unhallowed teaching. It produces also the words of the Prophet, Thy God hath anointed Thee, O God, to prove that Christ does not partake of that glorious nature which belongs to God, since the God Who anoints Him is preferred before Him as His God 1234 .
11. We do not know Christ the God unless we know God the Begotten. But to be born God is to belong to the nature of God, for the name Begotten signifies indeed the manner of His origin, but does not make Him different in kind from the Begetter. And if so, the Begotten owes indeed to His Author the source of His being, but is not dispossessed of the nature of that Author, for the birth of God can arise but from one origin, and have but one nature. If its origin is not from God, it is not a birth; if it is anything but a birth, Christ is not God. But He is God of God, and therefore God the Father stands to God the Son as God of His birth and Father of His nature, for the birth of God is from God, and in the specific nature of God.
12. See in all that He said, how carefully the Lord tempers the pious acknowledgment of His debt, so that neither the confession of the birth could be held to reflect upon His divinity, nor His reverent obedience to infringe upon His sovereign nature. He does not withhold the homage due from Him as the Begotten, Who owed to His Author His very existence, but He manifests by His confident bearing the consciousness of participation in that nature, which belongs to Him by virtue of the origin whereby He was born as God. Take, for instance, the words, He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father also 1235 , and, The words that I say, I speak not from Myself 1236 . He does not speak from Himself: therefore He receives from His Author that which He says. But if any have seen Him, they have seen the Father also: they are conscious, by this evidence, given to shew that God is in Him, that a nature, one in kind with that of God, was born from God to subsist as God. Take again the words, That which the Father hath given unto Me, is greater than all 1237 , and, I and the Father are one 1238 . To say that the Father gave, is a confession that He received His origin: but the unity of Himself with the Father is a property of His nature derived from that origin. Take another instance, He hath given all judgment unto the Son, that all may honour the Son even as they honour the Father 1239 . He acknowledges that the judgment is given to Him, and therefore He does not put His birth in the background: but He claims equal honour with the Father, and therefore He does not resign His nature. Yet another example, I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me 1240 , and, The Father is greater than I 1241 . The One is in the Other: recognise, then, the divinity of God, the Begotten of God: the Father is greater than He: perceive, then, His acknowledgment of the Father’s authority. In the same way He says, The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He hath seen the Father doing: for what things soever He doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner 1242 . He doeth nothing of Himself: that is, in accordance with His birth the Father prompts His actions: yet what things soever the Father doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner; that is, He subsists as nothing less than God, and by the Father’s omnipotent nature residing in Him, can do all that God the Father does. All is uttered in agreement with His unity of Spirit with the Father, and the properties of that nature, which He possesses by virtue of His birth. That birth, which brought Him into being, constituted Him divine, and His being reveals the consciousness of that divine nature. God the Son confesses God His Father, because He was born of Him; but also, because He was born, He inherits the whole nature of God.
13. So the Dispensation of the great and godly mystery makes Him, Who was already Father of the divine Son, also His Lord in the created form which He assumed, for He, Who was in the form of God, was found also in the form of a servant. Yet He was not a servant, for according to the Spirit He was God the Son of God. Every one will agree also that there is no servant where there is no lord. God is indeed Father in the Generation of the Only-begotten God, but only in the case that the Other is a servant can we call Him Lord as well as Father. The Son was not at the first a servant by nature, but afterwards began to be by nature something which He was not before. Thus the Father is Lord on the same grounds as the Son is servant. By the Dispensation of His nature the Son had a Lord, when He made Himself a servant by the assumption of manhood.
14. Being, then, in the form of a servant, Jesus Christ, Who before was in the form of God, said as a man, I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God. He was speaking as a servant to servants: how can we then dissociate the words from Christ the servant, and transfer them to that nature, which had nothing of the servant in it? For He Who abode in the form of God took upon Him the form of a servant, this form being the indispensable condition of His fellowship as a servant with servants. It is in this sense that God is His Father and the Father of men, His God and the God of servants. Jesus Christ was speaking as a man in the form of a servant to men and servants; what difficulty is there then in the idea, that in His human aspect the Father is His Father as ours, in His servant’s nature God is His God as all men’s?
15. These, then, are the words with which He prefaces the message, Go unto My brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God. I ask, Are they to be understood as His brethren with reference to the form of God or to the form of a servant? And has our flesh kinship with Him in regard to the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in Him, that we should be reckoned His brothers in respect of His divinity? No, for the Spirit of prophecy recognises clearly in what respect we are the brethren of the Only-begotten God. It is as a worm and no man 1243 that He says, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren 1244 . As a worm, which is born without the ordinary process of conception, or else comes up into the world, already living, from the depths of the earth, He speaks here in manifestation of the fact that He had assumed flesh and also brought it up, living, from Hades. Throughout the Psalm He is foretelling by the Spirit of prophecy the mysteries of His Passion: it is therefore in respect of the Dispensation, in which He suffered, that He has brethren. The Apostle also recognises the mystery of this brotherhood, for he calls Him not only the firstborn from the dead 1245 , but also the firstborn among many brethren 1246 . Christ is the Firstborn among many brethren in the same sense in which He is Firstborn from the dead: and as the mystery of death concerns His body, so the mystery of brotherhood also refers to His flesh. Thus God has brethren according to His flesh, for the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us 1247 : but the Only-begotten Son, unique as the Only-begotten, has no brethren.
16. By assuming flesh, however, He acquired our nature in our totality, and became all that we are, but did not lose that which He was before. Both before by His heavenly origin, and now by His earthly constitution, God is His Father. By His earthly constitution God is His Father, since all things are from God the Father, and God is Father to all things, since from Him and in Him are all things. But to the Only-begotten God, God is Father, not only because the Word became flesh; His Fatherhood extends also to Him Who was, as God the Word, with God in the beginning. Thus, when the Word became flesh, God was His Father both by the birth of God the Word, and by the constitution of His flesh: for God is the Father of all flesh, though not in the same way that He is Father to God the Word. But God the Word, though He did not cease to be God, really did become flesh: and while He thus dwelt He was still truly the Word, just as when the Word became flesh He was still truly God as well as man. For to ‘dwell’ can only be said of one who abides in something: and to become flesh of one who is born. He dwelt among us; that is, He assumed our flesh. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us; that is, He was God in the reality of our body. If Christ Jesus, the man according to the flesh, robbed God the Word of the divine nature, or was not according to the mystery of godliness also God the Word, then it reduces His nature to our level that God is His Father, and our Father, His God and our God. But if God the Word, when He became the man Christ Jesus, did not cease to be God the Word, then God is at the same time His Father and ours, His God and ours, only in respect of that nature, by which the Word is our brother, and the message to His brethren, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God, is not that of the Only-begotten God the Word, but of the Word made flesh.
17. The Apostle here speaks in carefully guarded words, which by their definiteness can give no occasion to the ungodly. We have seen that the Evangelist makes the Lord use the word ‘Brethren’ in the preface to the message, thus signifying that the whole message, being addressed to His brethren, refers to His fellowship in that nature which makes Him their brother. Thus he makes manifest that the mystery of godliness, which is here proclaimed, is no degradation of His divinity. The community with Him, by which God is our Father and His, our God and His, exists in regard to the Dispensation of the flesh: we are counted His brethren, because He was born into the body. No one disputes that God the Father is also the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, but this reverent confession offers no occasion for irreverence. God is His God but not as possessing a different order of divinity from His. He was begotten God of the Father, and born a servant by the Dispensation: and so God is His Father because He is God of God, and God is His God, because He is flesh of the Virgin. All this the Apostle confirms in one short and decisive sentence, Making mention of you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you a spirit of wisdom and revelation 1248 . When he speaks of Him as Jesus Christ, he mentions His God: when his theme is the glory of Christ, he calls God His Father. To Christ, as having glory, God is Father: to Christ, as being Jesus, God is God. For the angel, when speaking of Christ the Lord, Who should be born of Mary, calls Him by the name ‘Jesus 1249 :’ but to the prophets Christ the Lord is ‘Spirit 1250 .’ The Apostle’s words in this passage seem to many, on account of the Latin, somewhat obscure, for Latin has no articles, which the beautiful and logical usage of Greek employs. The Greek runs, ὁ Θεὸς τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν ᾽Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ πατὴρ τῆς δόξης, which we might translate into Latin, if the usage of the article were permitted, ‘Ille Deus illius Domini nostri Jesu Christi, ille pater illius claritatis’ (The God of the Lord [of us] Jesus Christ, the Father of the glory). In this form ‘The God of the Jesus Christ,’ and ‘the Father of the glory,’ the sentence expresses, so far as we can comprehend them, certain truths of His nature. Where the glory of Christ is concerned, God is His Father; where Christ is Jesus, there the Father is His God. In the Dispensation by which He is a servant, He has as God Him Whom, in the glory by which He is God, He has as Father.
18. Time and the lapse of ages make no difference to a Spirit 1251 . Christ is one and the same Christ, whether in the body, or abiding by the Spirit in the prophets. Speaking through the mouth of the holy Patriarch David, He says, Thy God, O God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows 1252 , which refers to no less a mystery than the Dispensation of His assumption of flesh. He, Who now sends the message to His brethren that their Father is His Father, and their God His God, announced Himself then as anointed by His God above His fellows. No one is fellow to the Only-begotten Christ, God the Word: but we know that we are His fellows by the assumption which made Him flesh. That anointing did not exalt the blessed and incorruptible Begotten Who abides in the nature of God, but it established the mystery of His body, and sanctified the manhood which He assumed. To this the Apostle Peter witnesses, Of a truth in this city were they gathered together against Thy holy Son Jesus, Whom Thou didst anoint 1253 : and on another occasion, Ye know that the saying was published through all Judæa, beginning from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached: even Jesus of Nazareth, how that God anointed Him with the Holy Ghost and with power 1254 . Jesus was anointed, therefore, that the mystery of the regeneration of flesh might be accomplished. Nor are we left in doubt how He was thus anointed with the Spirit of God and with power, when we listen to the Father’s voice, as it spoke when He came up out of the Jordan, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee 1255 . Thus is testified the sanctification of His flesh, and in this testimony we must recognise His anointing with the power of the Spirit.
19. But the Word was God, and with God in the beginning, and therefore the anointing could neither be related nor explained, if it referred to that nature, of which we are told nothing, except that it was in the beginning. And in fact He Who was God had no need to anoint Himself with the Spirit and power of God, when He was Himself the Spirit and power of God. So He, being God, was anointed by His God above His fellows. And, although there were many Christs (i.e. anointed persons) according to the Law before the Dispensation of the flesh, yet Christ, Who was anointed above His fellows, came after them, for He was preferred above His anointed fellows. Accordingly, the words of the prophecy bring out the fact that the anointing took place in time, and comparatively late in time. Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity: therefore Thy God, O God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows. Now, a fact which follows later upon other facts, cannot be dated before them. That a reward be deserved postulates as a prior condition the existence of one who can deserve it, for merit earned implies that there has been one capable of acquiring it. If, therefore, we attribute the birth of the Only-begotten God to this anointing, which is His reward for loving righteousness and hating iniquity, we shall be regarding Him not as born, but as promoted by unction, to be the Only-begotten God. But then we imply that He advanced with gradual progress and promotion to perfect divinity, and that He was not born God, but afterwards for His merit anointed God. Thus we shall make Christ as God Himself conditioned, whereas He is the final cause of all conditions; and what becomes then of the Apostle’s words, All things are through Him and in Him, and He is before all, and in Him all things consist 1256 ? The Lord Jesus Christ was not deified because of anything, or by means of anything, but was born God: God by origin, not promoted to divinity for any cause after His birth, but as the Son; and one in kind with God because begotten of Him. His anointing then, though it is the result of a cause, did not enhance that in Him, which could not be made more perfect. It concerned that part of Him which was to be made perfect through the perfection of the Mystery: that is, our manhood was sanctified in Christ by unction. If then the prophet here also teaches us the dispensation of the servant, for which Christ is anointed by His God above His fellows, and that because He loved righteousness and hated iniquity, then surely the words of the prophet must refer to that nature in Christ, by which He has fellows through His assumption of flesh. Can we doubt this when we note how carefully the Spirit of prophecy chooses His words? God is anointed by His God; that is, in His own nature He is God, but in the dispensation of the anointing God is His God. God is anointed: but tell me, is that Word anointed, Who was God in the beginning? Manifestly not, for the anointing comes after His divine birth. It was then not the begotten Word, God with God in the beginning, Who was anointed, but that nature in God which came to Him through the dispensation later than His divinity 1257 : and when His God anointed Him, He anointed in Him the whole nature of the servant, which He assumed in the mystery of His flesh.
20. Let no one then defile with his godless interpretations the mystery of great godliness which was manifested in the flesh, or reckon himself equal to the Only-begotten in respect of His divine substance. Let Him be our brother and our fellow, inasmuch as the Word made flesh dwelt among us, inasmuch as the man Jesus Christ is Mediator between God and man. Let Him, after the manner of servants, have a common Father and a common God with us, and as anointed above His fellows, let Him be of the same nature as His anointed fellows, though His be an unction of special privilege. In the mystery of the Mediatorship let Him be at once very man and very God, Himself God of God, but having a common Father and God with us in that community by which He is our brother.
21. But perhaps that subjection, that delivering of the kingdom, and lastly that end betoken the dissolution of His nature, or the loss of His power, or the enfeebling of His divinity. Many argue thus: Christ is included in the common subjection of all to God, and by the condition of subjection loses His divinity: He surrenders His Kingdom, therefore He is no longer King: the end which overtakes Him entails as its consequence the loss of His power.
22. It will not be out of place here if we review the full meaning of the Apostle’s teaching upon this subject. Let us take, then, each single sentence and expound it, that we may grasp the entire Mystery by comprehending it in its fulness. The words of the Apostle are, For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ are all made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then they that are Christ’s at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when He shall have emptied all authority and all power. For He must reign until He put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be conquered is death. But when He saith, All things are put in subjection, He is excepted Who did subject all things unto Him. But when all things have been subjected to Him, then shall He also Himself be subjected to Him, that did subject all things unto Him, that God may be all in all 1258 .
23. The Apostle who was chosen not of men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ, to be the teacher of the Gentiles 1259 , expounds in language as express as he can command the secrets of the heavenly Dispensations. He who had been caught up into the third heaven and had heard unspeakable words 1260 , reveals to the perception of human understanding as much as human nature can receive. But he does not forget that there are things which cannot be understood in the moment of hearing. The infirmity of man needs time to review before the true and perfect tribunal of the mind, that which is poured indiscriminately into the ears. Comprehension follows the spoken words more slowly than hearing, for it is the ear which hears, but the reason which understands, though it is God Who reveals the inner meaning to those who seek it. We learn this from the words written among many other exhortations to Timothy, the disciple instructed from a babe in the Holy Scriptures by the glorious faith of his grandmother and mother 1261 : Understand what I say, for the Lord shall give thee understanding in all things 1262 . The exhortation to understand is prompted by the difficulty of understanding. But God’s gift of understanding is the reward of faith, for through faith the infirmity of sense is recompensed with the gift of revelation. Timothy, that ‘man of God’ as the Apostle witnesses of him 1263 , Paul’s true child in the faith 1264 , is exhorted to understand because the Lord will give him understanding in all things: let us, therefore, knowing that the Lord will grant us understanding in all things, remember that the Apostle exhorts us also to understand.
24. And if, by an error incident to human nature, we be clinging to some preconception of our own, let us not reject the advance in knowledge through the gift of revelation. If we have hitherto used only our own judgment, let that not make us ashamed to change its decisions for the better. Guiding this advance wisely and carefully, the same blessed Apostle writes to the Philippians, Let us therefore as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you. Only, wherein we have hastened, in that same let us walk 1265 . Reason cannot anticipate with preconceptions the revelation of God. For the Apostle has here shewn us wherein consists the wisdom of those who have the perfect wisdom, and for those who are otherwise minded, he awaits the revelation of God, that they may obtain the perfect wisdom. If any, then, have otherwise conceived this profound dispensation of the hidden knowledge, and if that which we offer them is in any respect more right or better approved, let them not be ashamed to receive the perfect wisdom, as the Apostle advises, through the revelation of God, and if they hate to abide in untruth let them not love ignorance more. If to them, who had another wisdom, God has revealed this also, the Apostle exhorts them to hasten on the road in which they have started, to cast aside the notions of their former ignorance, and obtain the revelation of perfect understanding by the path into which they have eagerly entered. Let us, therefore, keep on in the path along which we have hastened: or, if the error of our wandering steps has delayed our eager haste, let us, notwithstanding, start again through the revelation of God towards the goal of our desire, and not turn our feet from the path. We have hastened towards Christ Jesus the Lord of Glory, the King of the eternal ages, in Whom are restored all things in Heaven and in earth, by Whom all things consist, in Whom and with Whom we shall abide for ever. So long as we walk in this path we have the perfect wisdom: and if we have another wisdom, God will reveal to us what is the perfect wisdom. Let us, then, examine in the light of the Apostle’s faith the mystery of the words before us: and let our treatment be, as it always has been, a refutation from the actual truth of the Apostle’s confession of every interpretation, which they would profanely foist upon his words.
25. Three assertions are here disputed, which, in the order in which the Apostle makes them, are first the end, then the delivering, and lastly the subjection. The object is to prove that Christ ceases to exist at the end, that He loses His kingdom, when He delivers it up, that He strips Himself of the divine nature, when He is subjected to God.
26. At the outset take note that this is not the order of the Apostle’s teaching, for in that order the surrender of the Kingdom is first, then the subjection, and lastly the end. But every cause is itself the result of its particular cause, so that, in every chain of causation, each cause, itself producing a result, has inevitably its underlying antecedent. Thus the end will come, but when He has delivered the Kingdom to God. He will deliver the Kingdom, but when He has abolished all authority and power. He will abolish all authority and power, because He must reign. He will reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. He will put all enemies under His feet, because God has subjected everything under His feet. God has so subjected them as to make death the last enemy to be conquered by Him. Then, when all things are subjected unto God, except Him Who subjected all things unto Him, He too will be subjected unto Him, Who subjects all to Himself. But the cause of the subjection is none other than that God may be all in all; and therefore the end is that God is all in all.
27. Before going any further we must now enquire whether the end is a dissolution, or the delivering a forfeiture, or the subjection an enfeebling of Christ. And if we find that these are contraries, which cannot be connected as causes and effects, we shall be able to understand the words in the true sense in which they were spoken.
28. Christ is the end of the law 1266 ; but, tell me, is He come to destroy it or to fulfil it? And if Christ, the end of the law, does not destroy it, but fulfils it (as He says, I am come not to destroy the law but fulfil it 1267 ), is not the end of the law, so far from being its dissolution, the very opposite, namely its final perfection? All things are advancing towards an end, but that end is a condition of rest in the perfection, which is the goal of their advance, and not their abolition. Further, all things exist for the sake of the end, but the end itself is not the means to anything beyond: it is an ultimate, all-embracing whole, which rests in itself. And because it is self-contained, and works for no other time or object than itself, the goal is always that to which our hopes are directed. Therefore the Lord exhorts us to wait with patient and reverent faith until the end comes: Blessed is He that endureth to the end 1268 . It is not a blessed dissolution, which awaits us, nor is non-existence the fruit, and annihilation the appointed reward of faith: but the end is the final attainment of the promised blessedness, and they are blessed who endure until the goal of perfect happiness is reached, when the expectation of faithful hope has no object beyond. Their end is to abide with unbroken rest in that condition, towards which they are pressing. Similarly, as a deterrent, the Apostle warns us of the end of the wicked, Whose end is perdition, . . . . . but our expectation is in heaven 1269 . Suppose then we interpret the end as a dissolution, we are forced to acknowledge that, since there is an end for the blessed and for the wicked, the issue levels the godly with the ungodly, for the appointed end of both is a common annihilation. What of our expectation in heaven, if for us as well as for the wicked the end is a cessation of being? But even if there remains for the saints an expectation, whereas for the wicked there waits the end they have deserved, we cannot conceive that end as a final dissolution. What punishment would it be for the wicked to be beyond the feeling of avenging torments, because the capability of suffering has been removed by dissolution? The end is, therefore, a culminating and irrevocable condition which awaits us, reserved for the blessed and prepared for the wicked.
29. We can therefore no longer doubt that by the end is meant an ultimate and final condition and not a dissolution. We shall have something more to say upon this subject, when we come to the explanation of this passage, but for the present this is enough to make our meaning clear. Let us, therefore, turn now to the delivering of the Kingdom, and see whether it means a surrender of rule, whether the Son by delivering ceases to possess that which He delivers to the Father. If this is what the wicked contend in their unreasoning infatuation, they must allow that the Father, by delivering, lost all, when He delivered all to the Son, if delivery implies the surrender of that which is delivered. For the Lord said, All things have been delivered unto Me of My Father 1270 , and again, All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and earth 1271 . If, therefore, to deliver is to yield possession, the Father no longer possessed that which He delivered. But if the Father did not cease to possess that which He delivered, neither does the Son surrender that which He delivers. Therefore, if He did not lose by the delivering that which He delivered, we must recognise that only the Dispensation explains how the Father still possesses what He delivered, and the Son does not forfeit what He gave.
30. As to the subjection, there are other facts which come to the help of our faith, and prevent us from putting an indignity on Christ upon this score, but above all this passage contains its own defence. First, however, I appeal to common reason: is the subjection still to be understood as the subordination of servitude to lordship, weakness to power, meanness to honour, qualities the opposite of one another? Is the Son in this manner subjected to the Father by the distinction of a different nature? If, indeed, we would think so, we shall find in the Apostle’s words a preventive for such errors of the imagination. When all things are subjected to Him, says He, then must He be subjected to Him, Who subjects all things to Himself; and by this ‘then’ he means to denote the temporal Dispensation. For if we put any other construction on the subjection, Christ, though then to be subjected, is not subjected now, and thus we make Him an insolent and impious rebel, whom the necessity of time, breaking as it were and subduing His profane and overweening pride, will reduce to a tardy obedience. But what does He Himself say? I am not come to do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me 1272 : and again, Therefore hath the Father loved Me because I do all things that are pleasing unto Him 1273 : and, Father, Thy will be done 1274 . Or hear the Apostle, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient even unto death 1275 . Although He humbled Himself, His nature knew no humiliation: though He was obedient, it was a voluntary obedience, for He became obedient by humbling Himself. The Only-begotten God humbled Himself, and obeyed His Father even to the death of the Cross: but as what, as man or as God, is He to be subjected to the Father, when all things have been subjected to Him? Of a truth this subjection is no sign of a fresh obedience, but the Dispensation of the Mystery, for the allegiance is eternal, the subjection an event within time. The subjection is then in its signification simply a demonstration of the Mystery.
31. What that is must be understood in view of this same hope of our faith. We cannot be ignorant that the Lord Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, and sits at the right hand of God, for we have also the witness of the Apostle, According to the working of the strength of His might, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and made Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to came, and put all things in subjection under His feet 1276 . The language of the Apostle, as befits the power of God, speaks of the future as already past: for that which is to be wrought by the completion of time already exists in Christ, in Whom is all fulness, and ‘future’ refers only to the temporal order of the Dispensation, not to a new development. Thus, God has put all things under His feet, though they are still to be subjected. By their subjection, conceived as already past, is expressed the immutable power of Christ: by their subjection, as future, is signified their consummation at the end of the ages as the result of the fulness of time.
32. The meaning of the abolishing of every power which is against Him is not obscure. The prince of the air, the power of spiritual wickedness, shall be delivered to eternal destruction, as Christ says, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which My Father hath prepared for the devil and his angels 1277 . The abolishing is not the same as the subjecting. To abolish the power of the enemy is to sweep away for ever his prerogative of power, so that by the abolition of his power is brought to an end the rule of his kingdom. Of this the Lord testifies when He says, My kingdom is not of this world 1278 : as He had once before testified that the ruler of that kingdom is the prince of the world, whose power shall be destroyed by the abolition of the rule of His kingdom 1279 . A subjection, on the other hand, which implies obedience and allegiance, is a proof of submission and mutability.
33. So when their authority is abolished, His enemies shall be subjected: and so subjected, that He shall subject them to Himself. Moreover He shall so subject them to Himself, that God shall subject them to Him. Was the Apostle ignorant, think you, of the force of these words in the Gospel, No one cometh to Me, except the Father draw Him to Me 1280 which stand side by side with those other words, No one cometh unto the Father but by Me 1281 : just as in this Epistle Christ subjects His enemies to Himself, yet God subjects them to Him, and He witnesses throughout this, his work of subjection, that God is working in Him? Except through Him there is no approach to the Father, but there is also no approach to Him, unless the Father draw us. Understanding Him to be the Son of God, we recognise in Him the true nature of the Father. Hence, when we learn to know the Son, God the Father calls us: when we believe the Son, God the Father receives us; for our recognition and knowledge of the Father is in the Son, Who shews us in Himself God the Father, Who draws us, if we be devout, by His fatherly love into a mutual bond with His Son. So then the Father draws us, when, as the first condition, He is acknowledged Father: but no one comes to the Father except through the Son, because we cannot know the Father, unless faith in the Son is active in us, since we cannot approach the Father in worship, unless we first adore the Son, while if we know the Son, the Father draws us to eternal life and receives us. But each result is the work of the Son, for by the preaching of the Father, Whom the Son preaches, the Father brings us to the Son, and the Son leads us to the Father. The statement of this Mystery was necessary for the more perfect understanding of the present passage, to shew that through the Son the Father draws us and receives us; that we might understand the two aspects, the Son subjecting all to Himself, and the Father subjecting all to Him. Through the birth the nature of God is abiding in the Son, and does that which He Himself does. What He does God does, but what God does in Him, He Himself does: in the sense that where He acts Himself we must believe the Son of God acts; and where God acts, we must perceive the properties of the Father’s nature existing in Him as the Son.
34. When authorities and powers are abolished, His enemies shall be subjected under His feet. The same Apostle tells who are these enemies, As touching the Gospel they are enemies for your sakes, but as touching the election they are beloved for the fathers’ sake 1282 . We remember that they are enemies of the cross of Christ; let us remember also that, because they are beloved for the fathers’ sake, they are reserved for the subjection, as the Apostle says, I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved, even as it is written, There shall come out of Sion a Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: and this is the covenant firm Me to them, when I have taken away their sins 1283 . So His enemies shall be subjected under His feet.
35. But we must not forget what follows the subjection, namely, Last of all is death conquered by Him 1284 . This victory over death is nothing else than the resurrection from the dead: for when the corruption of death is stayed, the quickened and now heavenly nature is made eternal, as it is written, For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in strife. O death, where is thy sting? O death, where is thy strife 1285 ? In the subjection of His enemies death is conquered; and, death conquered, life immortal follows. The Apostle tells us also of the special reward attained by this subjection which is made perfect by the subjection of belief: Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the works of His power, whereby He is able to subject all things to Himself 1286 . There is then another subjection, which consists in a transition from one nature to another, for our nature ceases, so far as its present character is concerned, and is subjected to Him, into Whose form it passes. But by ‘ceasing’ is implied not an end of being, but a promotion into something higher. Thus our nature by being merged into the image of the other nature which it receives, becomes subjected through the imposition of a new form.
36. Hence the Apostle, to make his explanation of this Mystery complete, after saying that death is the last enemy to be conquered, adds: But when He saith, All things are put in subjection except Him, Who did subject all things to Him, then must He be subjected to Him, that did subject all things to Him, that God may be all in all 1287 . The first step of the Mystery is that all things are subjected to Him: then He is subjected to Him, Who subjects all things to Himself. As we are subjected to the glory of the rule of His body, so He also, reigning in the glory of His body, is by the same Mystery in turn subjected to Him, Who subjects all things to Himself. And we are subjected to the glory of His body, that we may share that splendour with which He reigns in the body, since we shall be conformed to His body.
37. Nor are the Gospels silent concerning the glory of His present reigning body. It is written that the Lord said, Verily, I say unto you, there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom. And it came to pass, after six days Jesus taketh with Him Peter and James and John His brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart. And Jesus was transfigured before them, and His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became as snow. 1288 Thus was shewn to the Apostles the glory of the body of Christ coming into His Kingdom: for in the fashion of His glorious Transfiguration, the Lord stood revealed in the splendour of His reigning body.
38. He promised also to the Apostles the participation in this His glory. So shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather together out of His Kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and He shall send them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear 1289 . Were their natural and bodily ears closed to the hearing of the words, that the Lord should need to admonish them to hear? Yet the Lord, hinting at the knowledge of the Mystery, commands them to listen to the doctrine of the faith. In the end of the world all things that cause stumbling shall be removed from His Kingdom. We see the Lord then reigning in the splendour of His body, until the things that cause stumbling are removed. And we see ourselves, in consequence, conformed to the glory of His body in the Kingdom of the Father, shining as with the splendour of the sun, the splendour in which He shewed the fashion of His Kingdom to the Apostles, when He was transfigured on the mountain.
39. He shall deliver the Kingdom to God the Father, not in the sense that He resigns His power by the delivering, but that we, being conformed to the glory of His body, shall form the Kingdom of God. It is not said, He shall deliver up His Kingdom, but, He shall deliver up the Kingdom 1290 , that is, deliver up to God us who have been made the Kingdom by the glorifying of His body. He shall deliver us into the Kingdom, as it is said in the Gospel, Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world 1291 . The just shall shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father, and the Son shall deliver to the Father, as His Kingdom, those whom He has called into His Kingdom, to whom also He has promised the blessedness of this Mystery, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God 1292 . While He reigns, He shall remove all things that cause stumbling, and then the just shall shine as the sun in the Kingdom of the Father. Afterwards He shall deliver the Kingdom to the Father, and those whom He has handed to the Father, as the Kingdom, shall see God. He Himself witnesses to the Apostles what manner of Kingdom this is: The Kingdom of God is within you 1293 . Thus it is as King that He shall deliver up the Kingdom, and if any ask Who it is that delivers up the Kingdom, let him hear, Christ is risen from the dead, the firstfruits of them that sleep; since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead 1294 . All that is said on the point before us concerns the Mystery of the body, since Christ is the firstfruits of the dead. Let us gather also from the words of the Apostle by what Mystery Christ rose from the dead: Remember that Christ hath risen from the dead, of the seed of David 1295 . Here he teaches that the death and resurrection are due only to the Dispensation by which Christ was flesh.
40. In His body, the same body though now made glorious, He reigns until the authorities are abolished, death conquered, and His enemies subdued. This distinction is carefully preserved by the Apostle: the authorities and powers are abolished, the enemies are subjected 1296 . Then, when they are subjected, He, that is the Lord, shall be subjected to Him that subjecteth all things to Himself, that God may be all in all 1297 , the nature of the Father’s divinity imposing itself upon the nature of our body which was assumed. It is thus that God shall be all in all: according to the Dispensation He becomes by His Godhead and His manhood the Mediator between men and God, and so by the Dispensation He acquires the nature of flesh, and by the subjection shall obtain the nature of God in all things, so as to be God not in part, but wholly and entirely. The end of the subjection is then simply that God may be all in all, that no trace of the nature of His earthly body may remain in Him. Although before this time the two were combined within Him, He must now become God only; not, however, by casting off the body, but by translating it through subjection; not by losing it through dissolutions, but by transfiguring it in glory: adding humanity to His divinity, not divesting Himself of divinity by His humanity. And He is subjected, not that He may cease to be, but that God may be all in all, having, in the mystery of the subjection, to continue to be that which He no longer is 1298 , not having by dissolution to be robbed of Himself, that is, to be deprived of His being.
41. We have a sufficient and sacred guarantee for this belief in the authority of the Apostle. Through the Dispensation, and within time, the Lord Jesus Christ, the firstfruits of them that sleep, is to be subjected, that God may be all in all, and this subjection is not the debasement of His divinity, but the promotion of His assumed nature, for He Who is God and Man is now altogether God. But some may think that, when we say He was both glorified in the body whilst reigning in the body, and is hereafter to be subjected that God may be all in all, our belief finds no support for itself in the Gospels nor yet in the Epistles. We will, therefore, produce testimony of our faith, not only from the words of the Apostle, but also from our Lord’s mouth. We will shew that Christ said first with His own lips what He afterwards said by the mouth of Paul.
42. Does He not reveal to His Apostles the Dispensation of this glory by the express signification of the words, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God hath been glorified in Him, God hath glorified Him in Himself, and straightway hath He glorified Him 1299 . In the words, Now is the Son of Man honoured, and God is honoured in Him, we have first the glory of the Son of Man, then the glory of God in the Son of Man. So there is first signified the glory of the body, which it borrows from its association with the divine nature: and then follows the promotion to a fuller glory derived from an addition to the glory of the body. If God hath been honoured in Him, God hath honoured Him in Himself, and straightway hath God honoured Him. God has glorified Him in Himself, because He has already been glorified in Him. God was glorified in Him: this refers to the glory of the body, for by this glory is expressed in a human body the glory of God, in the glory of the Son of Man is seen the divine glory. God was glorified in Him, and therefore hath God glorified Him in Himself: that is, by His promotion to the Godhead, whose glory was increased in Him, God has glorified Him in Himself. Already before this He was reigning in the glory which springs from the divine glory: from henceforth, however, He is Himself to pass into the divine glory. God hath glorified Him in Himself: that is, in that nature by which God is what He is. That God may be all in all: that His whole being, leaving behind the Dispensation by which He is man, may be eternally transformed into divinity. Nor is the time of this hidden from us: And God hath glorified Him in Himself, and straightway hath He glorified Him. At the moment when Judas arose to betray Him, He signified as present the glory which He would obtain after His Passion through the Resurrection, but assigned to the future the glory with which God would glorify Him with Himself. The glory of God is seen in Him in the power of the Resurrection, but He Himself, out of the Dispensation of subjection, will be taken eternally into the glory of God, that is, into God, the all in all.
43. But what absurd folly is it of the heretics to regard as unattainable for God that goal to which man hopes to attain, to imply that He is powerless to effect in Himself that which He is mighty to effect in us. It is not the language of reason or common sense to say that God is bound by some necessity of His nature to consult our happiness, but cannot bestow the like blessings upon Himself. God does not, indeed, need any further blessedness, for His nature and power stand fast in their eternal perfection. But although in the Dispensation, that mystery of great godliness, He Who is God became man, He is not powerless to make Himself again entirely God, for without doubt He will transform us also into that which as yet we are not. The final sequel of man’s life and death is the resurrection: the assured reward of our warfare is immortality and incorruption, not the ceaseless persistence of everlasting punishment, but the unbroken enjoyment and happiness of eternal glory. These bodies of earthly origin shall be exalted to the fashion of a higher nature, and conformed to the glory of the Lord’s body. But what then of God found in the form of a servant? Though already, while still in the form of a servant, glorified in the body, shall He not be also conformed to God? Shall He bestow upon us the form of His glorified body, and yet be able to do for His own body nothing more than He does for Himself in common with us? For the most part the heretics interpret the words, Then shall He be subjected to Him that did subject all things to Himself, that God may be all in all, as if they meant that the Son is to be subjected to God the Father, in order that by the subjection of the Son, God the Father may be all in all. But is there still lacking in God some perfection which He is to obtain by the subjection of the Son? Can they believe that God does not already possess that final accession of blessed divinity, because it is said that by the coming of the fulness of time He shall be made all in all?
44. To me, who hold that God cannot be known except by devotion, even to answer such objections seems no less unholy than to support them. What presumption to suppose that words can adequately describe His nature, when thought is often too deep for words, and His nature transcends even the conceptions of thought! What blasphemy even to discuss whether anything is lacking in God, whether He is Himself full, or it remains for Him to be fuller than His fulness! If God, Who is Himself the source of His own eternal divinity, were capable of progress, that He should be greater to-day than yesterday, He could never reach the time when nothing would be wanting to Him, for the nature to which advance is still possible must always in its progress leave some ground ahead still untrodden: if it be subject to the law of progress, though always progressing it must always be susceptible of further progress. But to Him, Who abides in perfect fulness, Who for ever is, there is no fulness left by which He can be made more full, for perfect fulness cannot receive an accession of further fulness. And this is the attitude of thought in which reverence contemplates God, namely, that nothing is wanting to Him, that He is full.
45. But the Apostle does not neglect to say with what manner of confession we should bear witness of God. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past tracing out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him? For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things. To Him be the glory for ever and ever 1300 . No earthly mind can define God, no understanding can penetrate with its perception to sound the depth of His wisdom. His judgments defy the searching scrutiny of His creatures: the trackless paths of His knowledge baffle the zeal of all pursuers. His ways are plunged in the depths of incomprehensibility: nothing can be fathomed or traced to the end in the things of God. No one has ever been taught to know His mind, no one besides Himself ever permitted to share His counsel. But all this applies to us men only, and not to Him, through Whom are all things, the Angel of mighty Counsel 1301 , Who said, No one knoweth the Son save the Father: neither doth any one know the Father save the Son, and him to whom the Son hath willed to reveal Him 1302 . It is to curb our own feeble intellect, when it strains itself to fathom the depth of the divine nature with its descriptions and definitions, that we must re-echo the language of the Apostle’s exclamation, lest we should attempt by rash conjecture to snatch from God more than He has been pleased to reveal to us.
46. It is a recognised axiom of natural philosophy, that nothing falls within the scope of the senses unless it is subjected to their observation, as for instance an object placed before the eyes, or an event posterior to the birth of human sense and intelligence. The former we can see and handle, and therefore the mind is qualified to pass a verdict upon it, since it can be examined by the senses of touch and sight. The latter, which is an event in time, produced or constituted since the origin of man, falls within the limits in which the discerning sense may claim to pass judgment, since it is not prior in time to our perception and reason. For our sight cannot perceive the invisible, since it only distinguishes the seen; our reason cannot project itself into the time when it was not, because it can only judge of that, to which it is prior in time. And even within these limits, the infirmity which is bound up with its nature robs it of absolutely certain knowledge of the sequence of cause and effect. How much less then can it go back behind the time when it had its origin, and comprehend with its perception things which existed before it in the realms of eternity?
47. The Apostle then recognised that nothing can fall within our knowledge, except it be posterior in time to the faculty of sense. Accordingly when he had asserted the depth of the wisdom of God, the infinity of His inscrutable judgments, the secret of His unsearchable ways, the mystery of His unfathomable mind, the incomprehensibility of His uncommunicated counsel, he continued, For who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things. The eternal God is neither subject to limitation, nor did human reason and intelligence exercise their functions before He had His being. His whole being is therefore a depth, which we can neither examine nor penetrate. We say His whole being, not to define it as limited, but to understand it in its unlimited boundlessness: because of no one has He received His being, no antecedent giver can claim service from Him in return for a gift bestowed: for of Him and through Him and in Him are all things. He does not lack things that are of Him and through Him and in Him. The Source and Maker of all, Who contains all, Who is beyond all, does not need that which is within Him, the Creator His creatures, the Possessor His possessions. Nothing is prior to Him, nothing derived from any other than Him, nothing beyond Him. What element of fulness is still lacking in God, which time will supply to make Him all in all? Whence can He receive it, if outside Him is nothing, and while nothing is outside Him, He is eternally Himself? And if He is eternally Himself, and there is nothing outside Him, with what increase shall He be made full, by what addition shall He be made other than He is? Did He not say, I am and I change not 1303 ? What possibility is there of change in Him? What scope for progress? What is prior to eternity? What more divine than God? The subjection of the Son will not therefore make God to be all in all, nor will any cause perfect Him, from Whom and through Whom and in Whom are all causes. He remains God as He ever was, and He needs nothing further, for what He is, He is eternally of Himself and for Himself.
48. But neither is it necessary for the Only-begotten God that He should change. He is God, and that is the name of full and perfect divinity. For, as we said before, the meaning of the repeated glorifying, and the cause of the subjection is that God may be all in all: but it is a Mystery, not a necessity, that God is to be all in all. Christ abode in the form of God when He assumed the form of a servant, not being subjected to change, but emptying Himself; hiding within Himself, and remaining master of Himself though He was emptied. He constrained Himself even to the form and fashion of a man, lest the weakness of the assumed humility should not be able to endure the immeasurable power of His nature. His unbounded might contracted itself, until it could fulfil the duty of obedience even to the endurance of the body to which it was yoked. But since He was self-contained even when He emptied Himself, His authority suffered no diminution, for in the humiliation of the emptying He exercised within Himself the power of that authority which was emptied.
49. It is therefore for the promotion of us, the assumed humanity, that God shall be all in all. He Who was found in the form of a servant, though He was in the form of God, is now again to be confessed in the glory of God the Father: that is, without doubt He dwells in the form of God, in Whose glory He is to be confessed. All is therefore a dispensation only, and not a change of His nature; for He abides still in Him, in Whom He ever was. But there intervenes a new nature, which began in Him with His human birth, and so all that He obtains is on behalf of that nature which before was not God, since after the Mystery of the Dispensation God is all in all. It is, therefore, we who are the gainers, we who are promoted, for we shall be conformed to the glory of the body of God. Further the Only-begotten God, despite His human birth, is nothing less than God, Who is all in all. That subjection of the body, by which all that is fleshly in Him, is swallowed up into the spiritual nature, will make Him to be God and all in all, since He is Man also as well as God; and His humanity which advances towards this goal is ours also. We shall be promoted to a glory conformable to that of Him Who became Man for us, being renewed unto the knowledge of God, and created again in the image of the Creator, as the Apostle says, Having put off the old man with his doings, and put on the new man, which is being renewed unto the knowledge of God, after the image of Him that created him 1304 . Thus is man made the perfect image of God. For, being conformed to the glory of the body of God, he is exalted to the image of the Creator, after the pattern assigned to the first man. Leaving sin and the old man behind, he is made a new man unto the knowledge of God, and arrives at the perfection of his constitution, since through the knowledge of his God he becomes the perfect image of God. Through godliness he is promoted to immortality, through immortality he shall live for ever as the image of his Creator.
Footnotes
203:1224Eph. iv. 4-6.
203:1225The text is very corrupt here, but the meaning seems to be that, while we have the authority of the Bible to speak of God, if we do not attach its full meaning to the word (e.g. Psalm lxxxii. 6, “I have said, ‘Ye are Gods,’”), yet if we use the name in its proper significance it is blasphemous to call Christ God. The reading of the earlier editions and some mss., ‘duos dici irreligiosum est, et Deum non intelligi,’ is probably a gloss to soften the difficulty.
203:1226Reading ‘unus est, si filius sit, si Deus sit.’
204:1227Cf. Col. 1:15, Phil. 2:6.
204:1228i.e. the occasions when Christ was speaking of His humanity and those when He was referring to His divine nature.
205:1229St. John xx. 17.
205:12301 Cor. 15:27, 28.
205:12311 Tim. iii. 16.
206:1232I.e. the Incarnation is the Mystery of godliness, not the infirmity of necessity.
206:1233St. John xx. 17.
206:1234Ps. xlv. 7. The general reading is, “Therefore God, thy God, &c.” (R.V.).
206:1235St. John xiv. 9.
206:1236John 14.10.
206:1237John 10.29.
206:1238John 10.30.
206:1239John 5:22, 23.
206:1240John 14:11, John 10:38.
206:1241John 14.28.
206:1242John 5.19.
207:1243Ps. xxii. 6.
207:1244Psa. 22.22.
207:1245Col. i. 18.
207:1246Rom. viii. 29.
207:1247St. John i. 14.
208:1248Eph. 1:16, 17.
208:1249St. Matt. 1:21, Luke 1:31.
208:1250I.e. divine.
208:1251By ‘Spirit’ Hilary means God considered as a spiritual (as opposed to a material) Being: cf. in the previous chapter, “to the prophets Christ the Lord is ‘Spirit.’”
208:1252Ps. xlv. 7.
208:1253Acts iv. 27.
208:1254Acts 10:37, 38.
208:1255Ps. ii. 7. The last words occur in neither in Matt. 3:17, Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22: but there is evidence of the existence of such a reading. See Tischendorf, Nov. Test. Græc., on St. Matt. iii. 17, and St. Luke iii. 22.
209:1256Col. 1:16, 17.
209:1257Reading ‘quam’ instead of quâ.
210:12581 Cor. xv. 21-28.
210:1259Cf. Gal. i. 1.
210:1260Cf. 2 Cor. 12:2, 4.
210:1261Cf. 2 Tim. 1:5, 2 Tim. 3:15.
210:12622 Tim. ii. 7.
210:12631 Tim. v. 11.
210:12641 Tim. 1.2.
210:1265Phil. 3:15, 16.
211:1266Rom. x. 4.
211:1267St. Matt. v. 17.
211:1268St. Matt. 10:22, Mark 13:13.
211:1269Phil. 3:19, 20. The Greek paraphrased ‘expectation’ is , ‘citizenship’ (R.V.), or ‘commonwealth’ (marg.).
211:1270St. Luke x. 22.
211:1271St. Matt. xxviii. 18.
212:1272St. John vi. 38.
212:1273Cf. John 8.29.
212:1274Cf. Matt. 26:39, 42, Mark 14:36, Luke 22:42.
212:1275Phil. ii. 8.
212:1276Eph. 1.19-22.
212:1277St. Matt. xxv. 41.
212:1278St. John xviii. 36.
212:1279John 16.11. “The prince of this world hath been judged.”
212:1280John 6.44.
212:1281John 14.6.
213:1282Rom. xi. 28.
213:1283Rom. 11.25-27.
213:1284Cf. 1 Cor. xv. 26.
213:12851 Cor. 15.53-55. The reading ‘strife’ instead of ‘victory’ arose from the confusion of νεῖκος (=strife) and νῖκος (=victory) in the original Greek.
213:1286Phil. iii. 21.
213:12871 Cor. 15:27, 28.
214:1288St. Matt. xvi. 28–xvii. 2.
214:1289Matt. 13.40-43.
214:12901 Cor. xv. 24.
214:1291St. Matt. xxv. 34.
214:1292St. Matt. v. 8.
214:1293St. Luke xvii. 21.
214:12941 Cor. 15:20, 21.
214:12952 Tim. ii. 8.
214:12961 Cor. 15:24, 25.
214:12971 Cor. 15.28.
215:1298The humanity is eternal, although He is no longer man.
215:1299St. John 13:31, 32. There is another reading in the text of Hilary, glorificabit, “shall glorify Him in Himself,” and though it is not well supported by ms. authority, and in John 9.40 all the mss. agree in the perfect honorificavit, the future is favoured by the last two sentences of this chapter. The variation between honoured and glorified shews the confusion of texts which preceded the Vulgate and caused it to be welcomed.
216:1300Rom. xi. 33-36.
216:1301Isa. 1:0, Isa. 9:6 in the LXX and Old Latin.
216:1302St. Matt. xi. 27.
217:1303Mal. iii. 6.
217:1304Col. 3:9, 10.
Book XII.
1. At length, with the Holy Ghost speeding our way, we are approaching the safe, calm harbour of a firm faith. We are in the position of men, long tossed about by sea and wind, to whom it very often happens, that while great heaped-up waves delay them for a time around the coasts near the ports, at last that very surge of the vast and dreadful billows drives them on into a trusty, well-known anchorage. And this, I hope, will befall us, as we struggle in this twelfth book against the storm of heresy; so that while we venture out trusty bark therein upon the wave of this grievous impiety, this very wave may bring us to the haven of rest for which we long. For while all are driven about by the uncertain wind of doctrine, there is panic here and danger there, and then again there often is even shipwreck, because it is maintained on prophetic authority that God Only-begotten is a creature—so that to Him there belongs not birth but creation, because it has been said in the character of Wisdom, The Lord created Me as the beginning of His ways 1305 . This is the greatest billow in the storm they raise, this is the big wave of the whirling tempest: yet when we have faced it, and it has broken without damage to our ship, it will speed us forward even to the all-safe harbour of the shore for which we long.
2. Yet we do not rest, like sailors, on uncertain or on idle hopes: whom, as they shape their course to their wish, and not by assured knowledge, at times the shifting, fickle winds forsake or drive from their course. But we have by our side the unfailing Spirit of faith, abiding with us by the gift of the Only-begotten God, and leading us to smooth waters in an unwavering course. For we recognise the Lord Christ as no creature, for indeed He is none such; nor as something that has been made, since He is Himself the Lord of all things that are made; but we know Him to be God, God the true generation of God the Father. All we indeed, as His goodness has thought fit, have been named and adopted as sons of God: but He is to God the Father the one, true Son, and the true and perfect birth, which abides only in the knowledge of the Father and the Son. But this only, and this alone, is our religion, to confess Him as the Son not adopted but born, not chosen but begotten. For we do not speak of Him either as made, or as not born; since we neither compare the Creator to His creatures, nor falsely speak of birth without begetting. He does not exist of Himself, Who exists through birth; nor is He not born, Who is the Son; nor can He, Who is the Son, come to exist otherwise than by being born, because He is the Son.
3. Moreover no one doubts that the assertions of impiety always contradict and resist the assertions of religious faith; and that that cannot be piously held now which is already condemned as impiously conceived; as, for instance, the discrepancy and variance which these new correctors of the apostolic faith maintain between the Spirit of the Evangelists and that of Prophets; or their assertion that the Prophets prophesied one thing and the Evangelists preached another, since Solomon calls upon us to adore a creature, while Paul convicts those who serve a creature. And certainly these two texts do not seem to agree together, according to the blasphemous theory, whereby the Apostle, who was trained by the law, and separated by divine appointment, and spoke through Christ speaking in him, either was ignorant of the prophecy, or was not ignorant but contradicted it; and thus did not know Christ to be a creature when he named Him the Creator; and forbade the worship of a creature, warning us that the Creator alone is to be served, and saying, Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and served the creature, passing by the Creator Who is blessed for ever and ever 1306
4. Does Christ, Who is God, speaking in Paul, fail to refute this impiety of falsehood? Does He fail to condemn this lying perversion of truth? For through the Lord Christ all things were created; and therefore it is His proper name that He should be the Creator. Does not both the reality and the title of His creative power belong to Him? Melchisedec is our witness, thus declaring God to be Creator of heaven and earth: Blessed be Abraham of God most high, Who created heaven and earth 1307 . The prophet Hosea also is witness, saying, I am the Lord thy God, that establish the heavens and create the earth, Whose hands have created all the host of heaven 1308 . Peter too is witness, writing thus, Committing your souls as to a faithful Creator 1309 . Why do we apply the name of the work to the Maker of that work? Why do we give the same name to God and to our fellowmen? He is our Creator, He is the Creator of all the heavenly host.
5. Since by the faith of the Apostles and Evangelists these statements are referred in their meaning to the Son, through Whom all things were made, how shall He be made equal to the very works of His hands and be in the same category of nature as all other things? In the first place our human intelligence repudiates this statement that the Creator is a creature; since creation comes to exist by means of the Creator. But if He is a creature, He is both subject to corruption and exposed to the suspense of waiting, and is subjected to bondage. For the same blessed Apostle Paul says: For the long expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was subject to vanity, not of its own will, but on account of Him Who has made it subject in hope. Because also the creature itself shall be freed from the slavery of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God 1310 . If, therefore, Christ is a creature, it must needs be that He is in uncertainty, hoping always with a tedious expectation, and that His long expectation, rather than ours, is waiting, and that while He waits He is subjected to vanity, and is subjected through a subjection due to necessity, not of His own will. But since He is subjected not of His own will, He must needs be also a bondservant; moreover since He is a bondservant He must needs also be dwelling in a corruptible nature. For the Apostle teaches that all these things belong to the creature, and that, when it shall be freed from these through a long expectation, it will shine with a glory proper to man. But what a thoughtless and impious assertion about God is this, to imagine Him exposed, through the insults which the creature bears, to such mockeries as that He should hope and serve, and be under compulsion and receive recognition, and be freed hereafter into a condition which is ours, not His; while really it is of His gift that we make our little progress.
6. But our impiety, by the licence of this forbidden language, waxes apace with yet deeper faithlessness; asserting that since the Son is a creature it is bound to maintain that the Father also does not differ from a creature. For Christ, remaining in the form of God, took the form of a servant; and if He is a creature Who is in the form of God, God can never be separate from the creature, because there is a creature in the form of God. But to be in the form of God can only be understood to mean, remaining in the nature of God; whence also God is a creature, because there is a creature with His nature. But He Who was in the form of God, did not grasp at being equal with God, because from equality with God, that is, from the form of God, He descended into the form of a servant. But He could not descend from God into man, except by emptying Himself, as God, of the form of God. But when He emptied Himself, He was not effaced, so as not to be; since then He would have become other in kind than He had been. For neither did He, Who emptied Himself within Himself, cease to be Himself; since the power of His might remains even in the power of emptying Himself; and the transition into the form of a servant does not mean the loss of the nature of God, since to have put off the form of God is nothing less than a mighty act of divine power.
7. But to be in this way in the form of God is nothing else than to be equal with God: so that equality of honour is owed to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is in the form of God, as He Himself says, That all men may honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father Who sent Him 1311 . There is never a difference between things which does not also imply a different degree of honour. The same objects deserve the same reverence; for otherwise the highest honour will be unworthily bestowed on those which are inferior, or with insult to the superior the inferior will be made equal to them in honour. But if the Son, regarded as a creation rather than a birth, be treated with a reverence equal to that paid the Father, then we grant no special meed of honour to the Father, since we charge ourselves with only such reverence towards Him as is shewn to a creature. But since He is equal to God the Father, inasmuch as He is born as God from Him, He is also equal to Him in honour, for He is a Son and not a creature.
8. This again is a notable utterance of the Father concerning Him: From the womb, before the morning star I begat Thee 1312 . Here, as we have often said already, nothing derogatory to God is implied in the concession to our weakness of understanding; as though, because He said that He begot Him from the womb, He were therefore composed of inner and outer parts, which unite to form His members, and owed His being to the same causes within time to which earthly bodies owe theirs; when in fact He Whose existence is due to no natural necessities, free and perfect, and eternal Lord of all nature, in explanation of the true character of the birth of His Only-begotten, points to power of His own unchangeable nature. For though Spirit be born of Spirit (consistently, be it remembered, with the true character of Spirit, through which itself is also Spirit), nevertheless its only cause for being born lies within those perfect and unchangeable causes. And though it is from a perfect and unchangeable cause that it is born, it must needs be born from that cause, in accordance with the true character of that cause. Now the necessary process of human birth is conditioned by the causes which operate upon the womb. But as God is not made up of parts, but is unchangeable as being Spirit, for God is Spirit, He is subject to no natural necessity working within Him. But since He was telling us of the birth of Spirit from Spirit, He instructed our understanding by an example from causes which work among us: not to give an example of the manner of birth, but to declare the fact of generation; not that the example might prove Him subject to necessity, but that it might enlighten our mind. If, therefore, God Only-begotten is a created being, what meaning is there in a revelation which uses the common facts of human birth to indicate that He was divinely generated?
9. For often by means of these members of our bodies, God illustrates for us the method of His own operations, enlightening our intelligence by using terms commonly understood: as when He says, Whose hands created all the host of heaven 1313 ; or again, The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous 1314 ; or again, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart 1315 . Now by the heart is denoted the desire, to which David was well-pleasing through the uprightness of his character; and knowledge of the whole universe, whereby nothing is beyond God’s ken, is expressed under the term ‘eyes;’ and His creative activity, whereby nothing exists which is not of God, is understood by the name of ‘hands.’ Therefore as God wills and foresees and does everything, and even in the use of terms denoting bodily action must be understood to have no need of the assistance of a body; surely, now, in the statement that He begat from the womb, the idea is brought forward not of a human origin produced by a bodily act, but of a birth which must be understood as spiritual, since in the other cases where members are spoken of, this is done to represent to us other active powers in God.
10. Therefore since heart is put for desire, and eyes for sight, and hands for work achieved,—and yet, without in any way being made up of parts, God desires and foresees and acts, these same operations being expressed by the words heart, and eyes, and hand,—is not the meaning of the phrase that He begat from the womb an assertion of the reality of the birth? Not that He begat the Son from His womb, just as neither does He act by means of a hand, nor see by means of eyes, nor desire by means of a heart. But since by the employment of these terms it is made clear that He really acts and sees and wills everything, so from the word ‘womb’ it is clear that He really begot from Himself Him Whom He begat; not that he made use of a womb, but that He purposed to express reality. Just in the same way He does not will or see or act through bodily faculties, but uses the names of these members in order that through the services performed by corporeal forces we may understand the power of forces which are not corporeal.
11. Now the constitution of human society does not allow, nor indeed do the words of our Lord’s teaching permit, that the disciple should be above his master, or the slave rule over his lord; because, in these contrasted positions, subordination to knowledge is the fitting state of ignorance, and unconditional submission the appointed lot of servitude. And since it is the common judgment of all that this is so, whose rashness now shall induce us to say or think that God is a creature, or that the Son has been made? For nowhere do we find that our Master and Lord spoke thus of Himself to His servants and disciples, or that He taught that His birth was a creation or a making. Moreover, the Father never bore witness to Him as being aught else but a Son, nor did the Son profess that God was aught else than His own true Father, assuredly affirming that He was born, not made nor created, as He says, Every one that loveth the Father, loveth also the Son Who is born of Him 1316 .
12. On the other hand His works in creation are acts of making and not a birth through generation. For the heaven is not a son, neither is the earth a son, nor is the world a birth; for of these it is said, All things were made through Him 1317 ; and by the prophet, The heavens are the works of Thy hands 1318 ; and by the same prophet, Neglect not the works of Thy hands 1319 . Is the picture a son of the painter, or the sword a son of the smith or the house a son of the architect? These are the works of their making: but He alone is the Son of the Father Who is born of the Father.
13. And we indeed are sons of God, but sons because the Son has made us such. For we were once sons of wrath, but have been made sons of God through the Spirit of adoption, and have earned that title by favour, not by right of birth. And since everything that is made, before it was made, was not, so we, although we were not sons, have been made what we are. For formerly we were not sons: but after we have earned the name we are such. Moreover, we have not been born, but made; not begotten, but purchased. For God purchased a people for Himself, and by this act begot them. But we never learn that God begot sons in the strict sense of the term. For He does not say, “I have begotten and brought up My sons,” but only, I have begotten and brought up sons 1320 .
14. Yet perchance inasmuch as He says, My firstborn Son Israel 1321 , some one will interpret the fact that He said, My firstborn, so as to deprive the Son of the characteristic property of birth; as though, because God also applied to Israel the epithet Mine, the adoption of those who have been made sons was misrepresented as though it were an actual birth, and therefore the phrase used of Him, This is My beloved Son 1322 , is not solely applicable to the birth of God, since the epithet My is (so it is asserted) shared with those who clearly were not born sons. But that they were not really born, although they are said to have been born, is shewn even from that passage where it is said, A people which shall be born, whom the Lord hath made 1323 .
15. Therefore the people of Israel is born, in such wise that it is made; nor do we take the assertion that it is born as contradictory to the fact that it is made. For it is a son by adoption, not by generation; nor is this its true character, but its title. For although the words, My firstborn are written of it; there is yet a great and wide difference between My beloved Son, and My firstborn son. For where there is birth, there we see, My beloved Son; but where there is a choice from among the nations, and adoption through an act of will, there is My firstborn son. Here the people is God’s, in regard to its character as firstborn; in the former case the fact that He is God’s, relates to His character as a Son. Again, in a case of birth the father’s ownership comes first, and then his love; in a case of adoption the primary fact is that the son is made a firstborn, and then comes the ownership. Thus to Israel, adopted for a son out of all the peoples of the earth, properly belonged the character of a firstborn; but to Him alone, Who is born God, properly belongs the character of a Son. Accordingly there is no true and complete birth where sonship is imputed rather than real: since it is not doubtful that that people, which is born into a state of sonship, is also made. But since it would not have been what it is now become, and inasmuch as its birth is but a name for its being made, it has no true birth, since it was something else before it was born. And for this reason it was not before it was born, that is, before it was made, because that which is a son from among the nations was a nation before it was a son: and accordingly it is not truly a son, because it was not always a son. But God Only-begotten was neither at any time not a Son, nor was He anything before He was a Son, nor is He Himself anything except a Son. And so He Who is always a Son, has rendered it impossible for us to think of Him that there was a time when He was not.
16. For indeed human births involve a previous non-existence, because, as a first reason, all are born from those, all of whom formerly were not. For although each one who is born has his origin from one who has been, nevertheless that very parent, from whom he is born, was not before he was born. Again, as a second reason, he who is born, is born after that he was not, for time existed before he was born. For if he is born to-day, in the time which was yesterday, he was not; and he has come into a state of being from a state of not being; and our reason enforces that that which is born to-day did not exist yesterday. And so it remains that his birth, by virtue of which he is, took place after a state of non-existence; since necessarily today implies the previous existence of yesterday, so that it is true of it that there was a time when it was not. And these facts hold good of the origin of everything relating to man: all receive a beginning, previously to which they had not been: firstly, as we have explained, in respect of time, and then in respect of cause. And in respect of time indeed there is no doubt that things which now begin to be, formerly were not; and this is true also in respect of cause, since it is certain that their existence is not derived from a cause within themselves. For think over all the causes of beginnings, and direct your understanding to their antecedents: you will find that nothing began by self-causation, since nothing is born by the free act of the parent, but all things are created what they are through the power of God. Whence also it is a natural property of each class of things by virtue of actual heredity, that it once was not and then began to be, beginning after time began, and existing within time. And while all existing things have an origin later than that of time, their causes also, in their turn, were once nonexistent, being born from things which once were not. Even Adam, the first parent of the human race, was formed from the earth, which was made out of nothing, and after time, that is to say, after the heaven and earth, and the day and the sun, moon and stars, and he had no first beginning in being born, and began to be when he once had not been.
17. But for God Only-begotten, Who is preceded by no antecedent time, the possibility is excluded that at some time He was not, since that “some time” thus becomes prior to Him; and again, the assertion that He was not involves the notion of time: whence time will not begin to be after Him, but He Himself will begin to be after time, and, inasmuch as He was not before He was born, the very period when He was not will take precedence of Him. Further, He Who is born from Him Who really is, cannot be understood to have been born from that which was not: since He Who really is, is the cause of His existing, and His birth cannot have its origin in that which is not. And therefore since in His case it is not true either in regard of time that He ever was not, or in regard of the Father, that is, the Author of His being, that He has come into existence out of nothing, He has left no possibility with regard to Himself either of His having been born out of nothing, or of His not having existed before He was born.
18. Now I am not ignorant that most of those, whose mind being dulled by impiety does not accept the mystery of God, or who through the strong influence of a hostile spirit are ready to manifest, under the cover of reverence, a mad passion for disparaging God, are wont to make strange assertions in the ears of simple-minded men. They assert that since we say that the Son always has been, and that He never has been anything which He has not always been, we are therefore declaring that He is without birth, inasmuch as He always has been; since, according to the workings of human reason, that which always has existed cannot possibly have been born: since (so they urge) the cause of a thing being born, is that something, which was not, may come into existence, while the coming into existence of something which was not, means nothing else, according to the judgment of common sense, than its being born. They may add those arguments, subtle enough and pleasant to hear;—“If He was born, He began to be; at the time when He began to be, He was not: and when He was not, it cannot be that He was.” By such proofs let them maintain that it is the language of reasonable piety to say, “He was not before He was born: because in order that He might come to be, One Who was not, not One Who was, was born. Nor did He Who was, require a birth, although He Who was not was born, to the end that He might come to be.”
19. Now, first of all, men professing a devout knowledge of divine things, in matters where the truth preached by Evangelists and Apostles shewed the way, ought to have laid aside the intricate questions of a crafty philosophy, and rather to have followed after the faith which rests in God: because the sophistry of a syllogistical question easily disarms a weak understanding of the protection of its faith, since treacherous assertion lures on the guileless defender, who tries to support his case by enquiry into facts, till at last it robs him, by means of his own enquiry, of his certainty; so that the answerer no longer retains in his consciousness a truth which by his admission he has surrendered. For what answer accommodates itself so well to the questioner’s purpose, as the admission on our part, when we are asked, “Does anything exist before it is born?” that that which is born, did not previously exist? For it is contrary both to nature and to necessary reason that a thing which already exists should be born: since a thing must needs be born in order that it may come to be, and not because it already existed. But when we have made this concession, because it is rightly made, we lose the certainty of our faith, and being ensnared we fall in with their impious and unchristian designs.
20. But the blessed Apostle Paul, taking precaution against this, as we have often shewn, warned us to be on our guard, saying: Take heed lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ, in Whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily 1324 . Therefore we must be on our guard against philosophy, and methods which rest upon traditions of men we must not so much avoid as refute. Any concession that we make must imply not that we are out-argued but that we are confused, for it is right that we, who declare that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, should not flee from the doctrines of men, but rather overthrow them; and we must restrain and instruct the simple-minded lest they be spoiled by these teachers. For since God can do all things, and in His wisdom can do all things wisely, for neither is His purpose unarmed with power nor His power unguided by purpose, it behoves those who proclaim Christ to the world, to face the irreverent and faulty doctrines of the world with the knowledge imparted by that wise Omnipotence, according to the saying of the blessed Apostle: For our weapons are not carnal but powerful for God, for the casting down of strongholds, casting down reasonings and every high thing which is exalted against the knowledge of God 1325 . The Apostle did not leave us a faith which was bare and devoid of reason; for although a bare faith may be most mighty to salvation, nevertheless, unless it is trained by teaching, while it will have indeed a secure retreat to withdraw to in the midst of foes, it will yet be unable to maintain a safe and strong position for resistance. Its position will be like that which a camp affords to a weak force after a flight; not like the undismayed courage of men who have a camp to hold. Therefore we must beat down the insolent arguments which are raised against God, and destroy the fastnesses of fallacious reasoning, and crush cunning intellects which hit themselves up to impiety, with weapons not carnal but spiritual, not with earthly learning but with heavenly wisdom; so that in proportion as divine things differ from human, so may the philosophy of heaven surpass the rivalry of earth.
21. Accordingly let misbelief abandon its efforts; let it not think, because it does not understand, that we deny a truth which, in fact, we alone rightly understand and believe. For while we declare in so many words that He was born, nevertheless we do not assert that He was ever not born 1326 . For it is not the same thing to be not born and to be born: since the latter term expresses origin derived from some other, the former origin derived from none. And it is one thing to exist always, as the Eternal, without any source of being, and another to be co-eternal with a Father, having Him for the Source of being. For where a father is the source of being, there also is birth; and further, where the Source of being is eternal, the birth also is eternal: for since birth comes from the source of being, birth which comes from an eternal Source of being must be eternal. Now everything which always exists, is also eternal. But nevertheless, not everything which is eternal is also not born; since that which is born from eternity has eternally the character of having been born; but that which is not born is ingenerate as well as eternal. But if that which has been born from the Eternal is not born eternal, it will follow that the Father also is not an eternal Source of being. Therefore if any measure of eternity is wanting to Him Who has been born of the eternal Father, clearly the very same measure is wanting to the Author of His being; since what belongs in an infinite degree to Him Who begets, belongs in an infinite degree to Him also Who is born. For neither reason nor intelligence allows of any interval between the birth of God the Son and the generation by God the Father; since the generation consists in the birth, and the birth in the generation. Thus each of these events coincides exactly with the other; neither took place unless both took place. Therefore that which owes its existence to both these events cannot be eternal unless they both are eternal; since neither of the two correlatives, apart from the other, has any reality, because it is impossible for one to exist without the other.
22. But some one, who cannot receive this divine mystery, will say, “Everything which has been born, once was not; since it was born in order that it might come into existence.”
23. But does any one doubt that all human beings that have been born, at one time were not? It is, however, one thing to be born of some one who once was not, and another to be born of One Who always is. For every state of infancy, since previously it had no existence, began from some point of time. And this again, growing up into childhood, still later urges on youth to fatherhood. Yet the man was not always a father, for he advanced to youth through boyhood, and to boyhood through original infancy. Therefore he who was not always a father, also did not always beget: but where the Father is eternal, the Son also is eternal. And so if you hold, whether by argument or by instinct, that God, in the mystery of our knowledge of Whom one property is that He is Father, was not always the Father of the begotten Son, you hold also, as a matter of understanding and of knowledge, that the Son, Who was begotten, did not always exist. But if the property of fatherhood be co-eternal with the Father, then necessarily also the property of sonship must be co-eternal with the Son. And how will it square with our language or our understanding to maintain that He was not before He was born, Whose property it is that He always was what He has been born.
24. And so God Only-begotten, containing in Himself the form and image of the invisible God, in all things which are properties of God the Father is equal to Him by virtue of the fulness of true Godhead in Himself. For, as we have shewn in the former books, in respect of power and veneration He is as mighty and as worthy of honour as the Father: so also, inasmuch as the Father is always Father, He too, inasmuch as He is the Son, possesses the like property of being always the Son. For according to the words spoken to Moses, He Who is, hath sent Me unto you 1327 , we obtain the unambiguous conception that absolute being belongs to God; since that which is, cannot be thought of or spoken of as not being. For being and not being are contraries, nor can these mutually exclusive descriptions be simultaneously true of one and the same object: for while the one is present, the other must be absent. Therefore, where anything is, neither conception nor language will admit of its not being. When our thoughts are turned backwards, and are continually carried back further and further to understand the nature of Him Who is, this sole fact about Him, that He is, remains ever prior to our thoughts; since that quality, which is infinitely present in God, always withdraws itself from the backward gaze of our thoughts, though they reach back to an infinite distance. The result is that the backward straining of our thoughts can never grasp anything prior to God’s property of absolute existence; since nothing presents itself, to enable us to understand the nature of God, even though we go on seeking to eternity, save always the fact that God always is. That then which has both been declared about God by Moses, that of which our human intelligence can give no further explanation; that very quality the Gospels testify to be a property of God Only-begotten; since in the beginning was the Word, and since the Word was with God, and since He was the true Light, and since God Only-begotten is in the bosom of the Father 1328 , and since Jesus Christ is God over all 1329 .
25. Therefore He was, and He is, since He is from Him Who always is what He is. But to be from Him, that is to say, to be from the Father, is birth. Moreover, to be always from Him, Who always is, is eternity; but this eternity is derived not from Himself, but from the Eternal. And from the Eternal nothing can spring but what is eternal: for if the Offspring is not eternal, then neither is the Father, Who is the source of generation, eternal. Now since it is the special characteristic of His being that His Father always exists, and that He is always His Son, and since eternity is expressed in the name He that is, therefore, since He possesses absolute being, He possesses also eternal being. Moreover, no one doubts that generation implies birth, and that birth points to one existing from that time forth, and not to one who does not continue. Furthermore, there can be no doubt that no one who already was in existence could be born. For no cause of birth can accrue to Him, Who of Himself continues eternal. But God Only-begotten, Who is the Wisdom of God, and the Power and the Word of God, since He was born, bears witness to the Father as the source of His being. Since He was born of One, Who eternally exists, He was not born of nothing. Since He was born before times eternal, His birth must necessarily be prior to all thought. There is no room for the verbal quibble, “He was not, before He was born.” For if He is within the range of our thought, in the sense that He was not before He was born, then both our thought and time are prior to His birth; since everything which once was not, is within the compass of thought and time, by the very meaning of the assertion that it once was not, which separates off, within time, a period when it did not exist. But He is from the Eternal, and yet has always been; He is not ingenerate, yet never was non-existent; since to have always been transcends time, and to have been born is birth.
26. And so we confess that God Only-begotten was born, but born before times eternal: since we must make our confession within such limits as the express preaching of Apostles and Prophets assigns to us; though at the same time human thought cannot grasp any intelligible idea of birth out of time, since it is inconsistent with the nature of earthly beings that any of them should be born before all times. But when we make this assertion, how can we reconcile with it, as part of the same doctrine, the contradictory statement that before His birth He was not, when according to the Apostle He is God Only-begotten before times eternal? If, therefore, the belief that He was born before times eternal is not only the reasonable conclusion of human intelligence, but the confession of thoughtful faith, then, since birth implies some author of being, and what surpasses all time is eternal, and whatever is born before times eternal transcends earthly perception, we are certainly exalting by impious self-will a notion of human reason, if we maintain in a carnal sense that before He was born He was not, since He is born eternal, beyond human perception or carnal intelligence. And again, whatever transcends time is eternal.
27. For we can embrace all time in imagination or knowledge, since we know that what is now to-day, did not exist yesterday, because what was yesterday is not now; and on the other hand what is now, is only now and was not also yesterday. And by imagination we can so span the past that we have no doubt that before some city was founded, there existed a time in which that city had not been founded. Since, therefore, all time is the sphere of knowledge or imagination, we judge of it by the perceptions of human reason; hence we are considered to have reasonably asserted about anything, “It was not, before it was born,” since antecedent time is prior to the origin of every single thing. But on the other hand, since in things of God, that is to say, in regard to the birth of God, there is nothing that is not before time eternal: it is illogical to use of Him the phrase “before He was born,” or to suppose that He Who possesses before times eternal the eternal promise, is merely (in the language of the blessed Apostle 1330 ) in hope of eternal life, which God Who cannot lie has promised before times eternal, or to say that once He was not. For reason rejects the notion that He began to exist after anything, Who, so we must confess, existed before times eternal.
28. We may grant that for anything to be born before times eternal is not the way of human nature, nor a matter which we can understand; and yet in this we believe God’s declarations about Himself. How then does the infidelity of our own day assert, according to the conceptions of human intelligence, that that had no existence before it was born, which the Apostolic faith tells us was, in some manner inconceivable to the human 1331 understanding, always born, or in other words existed before times eternal? For what is born before time is always born; since that which exists before time eternal, always exists. But what has always been born, cannot at any time have had no existence; since non-existence at a given time is directly contrary to eternity of existence. Moreover, existing always excludes the idea of not having existed always. And the idea of not having existed always being excluded by the postulate that He has always been born, we cannot conceive the supposition that He did not exist before He was born. For it is obvious that He Who was born before times eternal, has always been born, although we can form no positive conception of anything having been born before all time. For if we must confess (as is clearly necessary) that He has been born before every creature, whether invisible or corporeal, and before all ages and times eternal, and before all perception, Who always exists through the very fact that He has been so born;—then by no manner of thought can it be conceived that before He was born, He did not exist; since He Who has been born before times eternal, is prior to all thought, and we can never think that once He did not exist, when we have to confess that He always exists.
29. But our opponent cunningly anticipates us with this carping objection. “If,” he urges, “it is inconceivable that He did not exist before He was born, it must be conceivable that One Who already existed was born.”
30. I will ask this objector in reply, whether he remembers my calling Him anything else than born, and whether I did not say that existence before times eternal and birth have the same meaning in the case of Him that was. For the birth of One already existing is not really birth, but a self-wrought change through birth, and the eternal existence of One Who is born means that in His birth He is prior to any conception of time, and that there is no room for the mind to suppose that at any time He was unborn. And so an eternal birth before times eternal is not the same as existence before being born. But to have been born always before times eternal excludes the possibility of having had no existence before birth.
31. Again, this same fact excludes the possibility of saying that He existed before He was born; because He Who transcends perception transcends it in every respect. For if the notion of being born, though always existing, transcends thought, it is equally impossible that the notion that He did not exist before He was born should be a subject of thought. And so, since we must confess that to have been always born means for us nothing beyond the fact of birth, the question whether He did or did not exist before He was born cannot be determined under our conditions of thought; since this one fact that He was born before times eternal ever eludes the grasp of our thought. So He was born and yet has always existed; He Who does not allow anything else to be understood or said about Him than that He was born. For since He is prior to time itself within which thought exists (since time eternal is previous to thought), He debars thought from determining concerning Him, whether He was or was not before He was born; since existence before birth is incompatible with the idea of birth, and previous non-existence involves the idea of time. Therefore, while the infinity of times eternal is fatal to any explanation involving the idea of time—that is to say, to the notion that He did not exist; His birth equally forbids any that is inconsistent with it,—that is to say, the notion that He existed before He was born. For if the question of His existence or His non-existence can be determined under our conditions of thought, then the birth itself must be after time; for He Who does not always exist must, of necessity, have begun to be after some given point of time.
32. Therefore the conclusion reached by faith and argument and thought is that the Lord Jesus both was born and always existed: since if the mind survey the past in search of knowledge concerning the Son, this one fact and nothing else, will be constantly present to the enquirer’s perception, that He was born and always existed. As therefore it is a property of God the Father to exist without birth, so also it must belong to the Son to exist always through birth. But birth can declare nothing except that there is a Father and the title Father nothing else except that there is a birth. For neither those names nor the nature of the case, will allow of any intermediate position. For either He was not always a Father, unless there was always also a Son; or if He was always a Father, there was always also a Son; since whatever period of time is denied to the Son, to make His sonship non-eternal, just so much the Father lacks of having been always a Father: so that although He was always God, nevertheless He cannot have been also a Father for the same infinity during which He is God.
33. Now the declarations of impiety even go so far as not only 1332 to ascribe to the Son birth in time, but also generation in time 1333 to the Father; because the process of generation and the birth take place within one period.
34. But, heretic, do you consider it pious and devout to confess that God indeed always existed, yet was not always Father? For if it is pious for you to think so, you must then condemn Paul of impiety, when he says that the Son existed before times eternal 1334 : you must also accuse Wisdom itself, when it bears witness concerning itself that it was founded before the ages: for it was present with the Father when He was preparing the heaven. But in order that you may assign to God a beginning of His being a Father, first determine the starting-point at which the times must have begun. For if they had a beginning, the Apostle is a liar for declaring them to be eternal. For you all are accustomed to reckon the times from the creation of the sun and the moon, since it is written of them, And let them be for signs and for times and for years 1335 . But He Who is before the heaven, which in your view is even before time, is also before the ages. Nor is He merely before the ages, but also before the generations of generations which precede the ages. Why do you limit things divine and infinite by what is perishable and earthly and narrow? With regard to Christ, Paul knows of nothing except an eternity of times. Wisdom does not say that it is after anything, but before everything. In your judgment the times were established by the sun and the moon; but David shews that Christ remains before the sun, saying, His is name is before the sun 1336 . And lest you should think that the things of God began with the formation of this universe, he says again, And for generations of generations before the moon 1337 . These great men counted worthy of prophetic inspiration look down upon time: every opening is barred whereby human perception might penetrate behind the birth, which transcends times eternal. Yet let the faith of a devout imagination accept this as limit of its speculations, remembering that the Lord Jesus Christ, God Only-begotten, is born in a manner to be acknowledged as a perfect birth, and in the reverence paid to His divinity, not forgetting that He is eternal.
35. But we are accused of lying, and together with us the doctrine preached by the Apostle is attacked, because while it confesses the birth, it asserts the eternity of that birth: the result being that, while the birth bears witness to an Author of being, the assertion of eternity in the mystery of the divine birth transgresses the limits of human thought. For there is brought forward against us the declaration of Wisdom concerning itself, when it taught that it was created in these words: The Lord created Me for the beginning of His ways 1338 .
36. And, O wretched heretic! you turn the weapons granted to the Church against the Synagogue, against belief in the Church’s preaching, and distort against the common salvation of all the sure meaning of a saving doctrine. For you maintain by these words that Christ is a creature, instead of silencing the Jew, who denies that Christ was God before eternal ages, and that His power is active in all the working and teaching of God, by these words of the living Wisdom! For Wisdom has in this passage asserted that it had been created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works from the commencement of the ages, lest perchance it might be supposed that it did not subsist before Mary; yet has not employed this word ‘created’ in order to signify that its birth was a creation, since it was created for the beginning of God’s ways and for His works. Nay rather lest any one should suppose that this beginning of the ways, which is indeed the starting-point for the human knowledge of things divine, was meant to subordinate an infinite birth to conditions of time, Wisdom declared itself established before the ages. For, since it is one thing to be created for the beginning of the ways and for the works of God, and another to be established before the ages, the establishing was intended to be understood as prior to the creation; and the very fact of its being established for God’s works before the ages was intended to point to the mystery of the creation; since the establishing is before the ages, but the creation for the beginning of the ways and for the works of God is after the commencement of the ages.
37. But now, lest the terms ‘creation’ and ‘establishing’ should be an obstacle to belief in the divine birth, these words follow, Before He made the earth, before He made firm the mountains, before all the hills He begat Me 1339 . Thus He is begotten before the earth, Who is established before the ages; and not only before the earth, but also before the mountains and hills. And indeed in these expressions, since Wisdom speaks of itself, more is meant than is said. For all objects which are used to convey the idea of infinity must be of such a kind as to be subsequent in point of time to no single thing and to no class of things. But things existing in time cannot possibly be fitted to indicate eternity; because, from the very fact that they are posterior to other things, they are incapable of suggesting the thought of infinity as a beginning, themselves having their own beginning in time. For what wonder is it, that God should have begotten the Lord Christ before the earth, when the origin of the angels is found to be prior to the creation of the earth? Or why should He, Who was said to be begotten before the earth, be also declared to be born before the mountains, and not only before the mountains but also before the hills; the hills being mentioned, as an afterthought, after the mountains, and reason requiring that there should be a world before mountains could exist? For such reasons it cannot be supposed that these words were used merely in order that He might be understood to exist prior to hills and mountains and earth, Who surpasses by the eternity of His own infinity things which are themselves prior to earth and mountains and hills.
38. But this divine discourse has not left our understandings unenlightened, since it explains the reason of the phrase in what follows:—God made the regions, both the uninhabitable parts and the heights which are inhabited under the heaven. When He was preparing the heaven, I was with Him; and when He was setting apart His own seat. When above the winds He made the clouds huge in the upper air, and when He placed securely the springs under the heaven, and when He made firm the foundations of the earth, I was by Him, joining all things together 1340 . What period in time is here? Or how far are the conceptions of human intelligence allowed to reach beyond the infinite birth of God Only-begotten? By means of things whose creation we can conceive in our mind, it is not possible to understand the generation of Him, Who is prior to all these things; and hence we cannot maintain that He came, indeed, first in time, yet was not infinite, inasmuch as the only privilege bestowed upon Him was a birth prior to things temporal. For in that case, since they, by their constitution, are subject to the conditions of time, He, though prior to them all, would be equally subject to conditions of time, because their creation within time would define the time of His birth, namely that He was born before then; for that which is antecedent to temporal things stands in the same relation to time as they.
39. But the voice of God, our instruction in true wisdom, speaks what is perfect, and expresses the absolute truth, when it teaches that itself is prior not merely to things of time, but even to things infinite. For when the heaven was being prepared, it was present with God. Is the preparation of the heaven an act of God within time; so that an impulse of thought suddenly surprised His mind, as though it had been previously dull and inert, and after the fashion of men He sought for materials and instruments for fashioning the heaven? Nay, the prophet’s conception of the working of God is far different, when He says, By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all their power by the breath of His mouth 1341 . Yet the heavens needed the command of God, that they might be established; for their arrangement and excellence in this firm unshaken constitution, which they display, did not arise from the blending and commingling of some kind of matter, but from the breath of the mouth of God. What then does it mean, that Wisdom begotten of God was present with Him, when He was preparing the heaven? For neither does the creation of heaven consist in a preparation of material, nor does it consist with the nature of God to linger over preliminary thoughts concerning His work. For everything, which there is in created things, was always with God: for although these things in respect of their creation have a beginning, nevertheless they have no beginning in respect of the knowledge and power of God. And here the prophet is our witness, saying, O God, Who hast made all things which shall be 1342 . For although things future, in so far as they are to be created, are still to be made, yet to God, with Whom there is nothing new or sudden in creation, they have already been made; since there is a dispensation of times for their creation, and in the prescient working of the divine power they have already been made. Here, therefore, Wisdom, in teaching that it was born before the ages, teaches that it is not merely prior to things which have been created, but is even co-eternal with what is eternal, to wit, with the preparation of the heaven, and the setting apart of the abode of God. For this abode was not set apart at the time when it was actually made, for setting apart and fashioning an abode are different things. Nor again was the heaven formed at the time when it was (ideally) prepared, for Wisdom was with God both when He prepared and when He set apart the heaven. And afterwards it was fashioning the heaven by the side of God Who formed it: it proves its eternity by its presence with Him as He prepares; it reveals its functions, when it fashions by the side of God Who forms. Therefore, in the passage before us it said that it was begotten even before the earth and mountains and hills, because it meant to teach that it was present at the preparation of the heaven; in order that it might shew that, even when the heaven was being prepared, this work was already finished in the counsel of God, for to Him there is nothing new.
40. For the preparation for creation is perpetual and eternal: nor was the frame of this universe actually made by isolated acts of thought, in the sense that first the heaven was thought of, and afterwards there came into God’s mind a thought and plan concerning the earth; that He thought of each part singly, so that first the earth was spread out as a plain, and then through better counsels was made to rise up in mountains, and yet again was diversified with hills, and in the fourth place was also made habitable even in the heights; that so the heaven was prepared and the abode of God set apart, and huge clouds in the upper air held the exhalations caught up by the winds; then afterwards sure springs began to run under the heaven, and, last of all, the earth was made firm with strong foundations. For Wisdom declares that it is prior to all these things. But since all things under the heaven were made through God, and Christ was present at the fashioning of the heaven, and preceded even the eternity of the heaven which was prepared, this fact does not allow us to think in respect to God of disconnected thoughts on details, since the whole preparation of these things is co-eternal with God. For although, as Moses teaches, each act of creation had its proper order;—the making the firmament solid, the laying bare of the dry land, the gathering together of the sea, the ordering of the stars, the generation by the waters and the earth when they brought forth living creatures out of themselves; yet the creation of the heaven and earth and other elements is not separated by the slightest interval in God’s working, since their preparation had been completed in like infinity of eternity in the counsel of God.
41. Thus, though Christ was present in God with these infinite and eternal decrees, He has granted to us nothing more than a knowledge of the fact of His birth; in order that, just as an apprehension of the birth is the means which leads to faith in God, so also the knowledge of the eternity of His birth might avail to sustain piety; since neither reason nor experience allow us to speak of any but an eternal Son as proceeding from a Father Who is eternal.
42. But perhaps the word ‘creation,’ and its employment of Him, disturbs us. Certainly the word ‘creation’ would disturb us, if birth before the ages and creation for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works were not affirmed of Him. For birth cannot be understood to denote creation, since the birth precedes causation, but the creation takes place through causation. For before the preparation of the heaven and before the commencement of the ages was He established, Who was created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works. Is it possible that to be created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works, means the same as to be born before all things? No: one of these ideas relates to time employed in action, but the other bears a sense which has no relation to time.
43. Or perhaps you wish the assertion that He was created for the works to be understood in the sense that He was created on account of the works; in other words that Christ was created for the sake of performing the works. In that case He exists as a servant and a builder of the universe, and was not born the Lord of Glory; He was created for the service of forming the ages, and was not always the beloved Son and the King of the ages. But, although the general understanding of Christians contradicts this impious thought of yours, recognising that it is one thing to be created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works, and another to be born before the ages, yet this very same passage thwarts your purpose of falsely asserting that the Lord Christ was created, on account of the formation of the universe, since it shews that God the Father is the Maker and Former of the universe, and shews it convincingly, since Christ Himself was present fashioning by the side of Him Who was forming all things. But, while all Scripture was designed to speak of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Creator of the universe, Wisdom, to destroy all occasion for impiety, has here declared that though God the Father was the Constructor of the universe, yet itself was not absent from Him while constructing it, since it was present with Him even when He was preparing it beforehand, and that when the Father formed the universe, Wisdom also was fashioning it by the side of Him Who formed it, and was present with Him even when He prepared it. Whence Wisdom would have us understand that it was not created on account of God’s works 1343 , by the very fact that it had been present at the eternal preparation of works yet to be, and proves Scripture not to be false, by the fact that it fashioned the universe by the side of God when He formed it.
44. Learn at last, heretic, from the revelation of Catholic teaching, what is the meaning of the saying that Christ was created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works; and be taught by the words of Wisdom itself the folly of your impious dulness. For thus it begins: If I shall declare unto you the things which are done every day, I will remember to recount those things which are from of old 1344 . For Wisdom had said before, You, O men, I entreat, and I utter my voice to the sons of men. O ye simple, understand subtilty, moreover ye unlearned, apply your heart 1345 ; and again, Through Me kings reign, and mighty men decree justice. Through Me princes are magnified, and through Me despots possess the earth 1346 ; and again, I walk in the ways of equity, and move in the midst of the paths of justice; that I may divide substance to those that love Me, and fill their treasures with good things 1347 . Wisdom is not silent about its daily work. And firstly entreating all men, it advises the simple to understand subtilty, and the unlearned to apply their heart, in order that a zealous and diligent reader may ponder the different and separate meanings of the words. And so it teaches that by its methods and ordinances all success, all attainment of knowledge or fame or wealth, is achieved: it shews that within itself are contained the reigns of kings and the prudence of the mighty, and the famous works of princes, and the justice of despots who possess the earth; that it moreover does not mingle with wicked deeds and has no part in acts of injustice; and that all this is done by Wisdom in order that, by taking part in every work of equity and justice, it may supply to those that love it, a wealth of eternal goods and incorruptible treasures. Therefore Wisdom, after declaring that it will relate the things which are done every day, promises that it will also be mindful to recount the things which are from of old. And now what blindness is it, to think that things were performed before the beginning of the ages, which are expressly declared to date merely from the beginning of the ages! For every work among those which date from the beginning of the ages is itself posterior to that beginning: but on the contrary, things which are before the beginning of the ages, precede the ordering of the ages, which are later than they. And so Wisdom, after declaring that it is mindful to speak of the things which date from the beginning of the ages, says, The Lord created Me for the beginning of His ways for His works, by these words denoting things performed from the date of the beginning of the ages. Thus Wisdom’s teaching concerns not a generation declared to precede the ages, but a dispensation which began with the ages themselves.
45. We must also enquire what is the meaning of the saying that God, born before the ages, was again created for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works. This surely is said because where there is a birth before the commencement of the ages, there is the eternity of an endless generation: but where the same birth is represented as a creation from the commencement of the ages, for the ways of God and for His works, it is applied as the creative cause to the works and to the ways. And first, since Christ is Wisdom, we must see whether He is Himself the beginning of the way of the works of God. Of this, I think, there is no doubt; for He says, I am the way, and, No man cometh to the Father except through Me 1348 . A way is the guide of those who go, the course marked out for those who hasten, the safeguard of the ignorant, a teacher, so to speak, of things unknown and longed for. Therefore He is created for the beginning of the ways, for the works of God; because He is the Way and leads men to the Father. But we must seek for the purpose of this creation, which is from the commencement of the ages. For it is also the mystery of the last dispensation, wherein Christ was again created in bodily form, and declared that He was the way of the works of God. Again, He was created for the ways of God from the commencement of the ages, when, subjecting Himself to the visible form of a creature, He took the form of a created being.
46. And so let us see for what ways of God, and for what works of God, Wisdom was created from the commencement of the ages, though born of God before all ages. Adam heard the voice of One walking in Paradise. Do you think that His approach could have been heard, had He not assumed the guise of a created being? Is not the fact, that He was heard as He walked, proof that He was present in a created form? I do not ask in what guise He spoke to Cain and Abel and Noah, and in what guise He was near to Enoch also, blessing him. An Angel speaks to Hagar, and certainly He is also God. Has He the same form, when He appears like an Angel, as He has in that nature, by virtue of which He is God? Certainly the form of an Angel is revealed, where afterwards mention is made of the nature of God. But why should I speak of an Angel? He comes as a man to Abraham. Under the guise of a man, in the shape of that created being, is not Christ present in that nature, which He possesses as being also God? A man speaks, and is present in the body, and is nourished by food; and yet God is adored. Surely He Who was an Angel is now also man, in order to save us from the assumption that any of these diverse aspects of one state, that of the creature, is His natural form as God. Again, He comes to Jacob in human shape, and even grasps him for wrestling; and He takes hold with His hands, and struggles with His limbs, and bends His flanks, and adopts every movement and gesture of ours. But again He is revealed, this time to Moses, and as a fire; in order that you might learn to believe that this created nature was to provide Him with an outward guise, not to embody the reality of His nature. He possessed, at that moment, the power of burning, but He did not assume the destructive property which is inherent in the nature of fire, for the fire evidently burned and yet the bush was not injured.
47. Glance over the whole course of time, and realise in what guise He appeared to Joshua the son of Nun, a prophet bearing His name, or to Isaiah, who relates that he saw Him, as the Gospel also bears witness 1349 , or to Ezekiel, who was admitted even to knowledge of the Resurrection, or to Daniel, who confesses the Son of Man in the eternal kingdom of the ages, or to all the rest to whom He presented Himself in the form of various created beings, for the ways of God and for the works of God, that is to say, to teach us to know God, and to profit our eternal state. Why does this method, expressly designed for human salvation, bring about at the present time such an impious attack upon His eternal birth? The creation, of which you speak, dates from the commencement of the ages; but His birth is without end, and before the ages. Maintain by all means that we are doing violence to words, if a Prophet, or the Lord, or an Apostle, or any oracle whatever has described by the name of creation the birth of His eternal divinity. In all these manifestations God, Who is a consuming fire, is present, as created, in such a manner that He could lay aside the created form by the same power by which He assumed it, being able to destroy again that which had come into existence merely that it might be looked upon.
48. But that blessed and true birth of the flesh conceived within the Virgin the Apostle has named both a creating and a making, for then there was born both the nature and form of our created being. And without doubt in his view this name belongs to Christ’s true birth as a man, since he says, But when the fulness of the time came, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, in order that He might redeem those who are under the law, that we might obtain the adoption of sons 1350 . And so He is God’s own Son, Who is made in human form and of human origin; nor is He only made but also created, as it is said: Even as the truth is in Jesus, that ye put away according to your former manner of life, that old man, which becomes corrupt according to the lusts of deceit. However, be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put ye on that new man, which is created according to God 1351 . So the new man is to be put on Who has been created according to God. For He Who was Son of God was born also Son Man. This was not the birth of the divinity, but the creating of the flesh; the new Man taking the title of the race, and being created according to God Who was born before the ages. And how the new man was created according to God, he explains in what follows, adding, in righteousness, and in holiness, and in truth 1352 . For there was no guile in Him; and He has been made unto us righteousness and sanctification, and is Himself the Truth. This, then, is the Christ, created a new man according to God, Whom we put on.
49. If, then, Wisdom, in saying that it was mindful of the things which have been performed since the beginning of the ages, said that it was created for the works of God and for the ways of God; and yet, while saying that it was created, taught that it was established before the ages, lest we should suppose that the mystery of that created form, so variously and frequently assumed, involved some change in its nature;—for although the firmness with which it was established would not allow of any disturbance that could overthrow it, yet, lest the establishment might seem to mean something less than birth, Wisdom declared itself to be begotten before all things:—if this is so, why is the term ‘creation’ now applied to the birth of that which was both begotten before all things, and also established before the ages? Because that which was established before the ages was created anew from the commencement of the ages for the beginning of the ways of God and for His works. In this sense must we understand the difference between creation from the commencement of the ages and that birth which precedes the ages and all things. Impiety at least has not this excuse, that it can plead error as the cause of its profanity.
50. For although the weakness of the understanding might hinder the perceptions of a man devoutly disposed, so that, even after this explanation, he might fail to grasp the meaning of “creation,” nevertheless, even the letter of the Apostle’s saying, when he applies 1353 the term “making” to a true birth, should have sufficed for a sincere, if not intelligent, belief, that the term “creation” was designed to conduce to a belief in generation. For when the Apostle was minded to assert the birth of One from one Parent, that is to say, the birth of the Lord from a virgin without a conception due to human passions, he clearly had a definite purpose in calling Him “made of a woman,” Whom he knew and had frequently asserted to have been born. He desired that the ‘birth’ should point to the reality of the generation, and the ‘making’ should testify to the birth of One from one Parent; because the term ‘making’ excludes the idea of a conception by means of human intercourse, it being expressly stated that He was made of a virgin, though it is equally certain that He was born and not made. But see, heretic, how impious you are. No sentence of prophet, or evangelist, or apostle has said that Jesus Christ was created from God, rather than born from Him: yet you deny the birth, and assert the creation, but not according to the Apostle’s meaning, when he said that He was made, lest there should be any doubt that He was born as One from one Parent. You make your assertion in a most impious sense, implying that God did not derive His being by way of birth conveying nature; although a creature would rather have come into being out of nothing. This is the primary infection in your unhappy mind, not that you term birth a creating, but that you adapt your faith to the idea of creation instead of birth. And yet while it would mark a poor intellect, still it would not mark a man entirely undevout, if you had called Christ created, in order that men might recognise His impossible birth from God, as being that of One from One.
51. But none of these phrases does a firm apostolic faith permit. For it knows in what dispensation of time Christ was created, and in what eternity of times He was born. Moreover, He was born God of God, and the divinity of His true birth and perfect generation is not doubtful. For in relation to God we acknowledge only two modes of being, birth and eternity: birth, moreover, not after anything, but before all things, so that birth only bears witness to a Source of being, and does not predicate any incongruity between the offspring and the Source of being. Still, by common admission, this birth, because it is from God, implies a secondary position in respect to the Source of being, and yet cannot be separated from that Source, since any attempt of thought to pass beyond acceptance of the fact of birth, must also necessarily penetrate the mystery of the generation. And so this is the only pious language to use about God: to know Him as Father, and with Him to know also Him, Who is the Son born of Him. Nor assuredly are we taught anything concerning God, except that He is the Father of God the Only-begotten and the Creator. So let not human weakness overreach itself; and let it make this only confession, in which alone lies its salvation—that, before the mystery of the Incarnation, it is ever assured, concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, of this one fact that He had been born.
52. For my part, so long as I shall have the power by means of this Spirit Whom Thou hast granted me, Holy Father, Almighty God, I will confess Thee to be not only eternally God, but also eternally Father. Nor will I ever break out into such folly and impiety, as to make myself the judge of Thy omnipotence and Thy mysteries, nor shall this weak understanding arrogantly seek for more than that devout belief in Thy infinitude and faith in Thy eternity, which have been taught me. I will not assert that Thou wast ever without Thy Wisdom, and Thy Power, and Thy Word, without God Only-begotten, my Lord Jesus Christ. The weak and imperfect language, to which our nature is limited, does not dominate my thoughts concerning Thee, so that my poverty of utterance should choke faith into silence. For although we have a word and wisdom and power of our own, the product of our free inward activity, yet Thine is the absolute generation of perfect God, Who is Thy Word and Wisdom and Power; so that He can never be separated from Thee, Who in these names of Thy eternal properties is shewn to be born of Thee. Yet His birth is only so far shewn as to make manifest the fact that Thou art the Source of His being; yet sufficiently to confirm our belief in His infinity, inasmuch as it is related that He was born before times eternal.
53. For in human affairs Thou hast set before us many things of such a sort, that though we do not know their cause, yet the effect is not unknown; and reverence inculcates faith, where ignorance is inherent in our nature. Thus when I raised to Thy heaven these feeble eyes of mine, my certainty regarding it was limited to the fact that it is Thine. For seeing therein these orbits where the stars are fixed, and their annual revolutions, and the Pleiades and the Great Bear and the Morning Star, each having their varied duties in the service which is appointed them, I recognise Thy presence, O God, in these things whereof I cannot gain any clear understanding. And when I view the marvellous swellings of Thy sea, I know that I have failed to comprehend not merely the origin of the waters but even the movements of this changeful expanse; yet I grasp at faith in some reasonable cause, although it is one that I cannot see, and fail not to recognise Thee in these things also, which I do not know. Furthermore, when in thought I turn to the earth, which by the power of hidden agencies causes to decay all the seeds which it receives, quickens them when decayed, multiplies them when quickened, and makes them strong when multiplied; in all these changes I find nothing which my mind can understand, yet my ignorance helps towards recognising Thee, for though I know nothing of the nature that waits on me, I recognise Thee by actual experience of the advantages I possess. Moreover, though I do not know myself, yet I perceive so much that I marvel at Thee the more because I am ignorant of myself. For without understanding it, I perceive a certain motion or order or life in my mind when it exercises its powers; and this very perception I owe to Thee, for though Thou deniest the power of understanding my natural first beginning, yet Thou givest that of perceiving nature with its charms. And since in what concerns myself I recognise Thee, ignorant as I am, so recognising Thee I will not in what concerns Thee cherish a feebler faith in Thy omnipotence, because I do not understand. My thoughts shall not attempt to grasp and master the origin of Thy Only-begotten Son, nor shall my faculties strain to reach beyond the truth that He is my Creator and my God.
54. His birth is before times eternal. If anything exist which precedes eternity, it will be something which, when eternity is comprehended, still eludes comprehension. And this something is Thine, and is Thy Only-begotten; no portion, nor extension, nor any empty name devised to suit some theory of Thy mode of action. He is the Son, a Son born of Thee, God the Father, Himself true God, begotten by Thee in the unity of Thy nature, and meet to be acknowledged after Thee, and yet with Thee, since Thou art the eternal Author of His eternal origin. For since He is from Thee, He is second to Thee; yet since He is Thine, Thou art not to be separated from Him. For we must never assert that Thou didst once exist without Thy Son, lest we should be reproaching Thee either with imperfection, as then unable to generate, or with superfluousness after the generation. And so the exact meaning for us of the eternal generation is that we know Thee to be the eternal Father of Thy Only-begotten Son, Who was born of Thee before times eternal.
55. But, for my part, I cannot be content by the service of my faith and voice, to deny that my Lord and my God, Thy Only-begotten, Jesus Christ, is a creature; I must also deny that this name of ‘creature’ belongs to Thy Holy Spirit, seeing that He proceeds from Thee and is sent through Him, so great is my reverence for everything that is Thine. Nor, because I know that Thou alone art unborn and that the Only-begotten is born of Thee, will I refuse to say that the Holy Spirit was begotten, or assert that He was ever created. I fear the blasphemies which would be insinuated against Thee by such use of this title ‘creature,’ which I share with the other beings brought into being by Thee. Thy Holy Spirit, as the Apostle says, searches and knows Thy deep things, and as Intercessor for me speaks to Thee words I could not utter; and shall I express or rather dishonour, by the title ‘creature,’ the power of His nature, which subsists eternally, derived from Thee through Thine Only-begotten? Nothing, except what belongs to Thee, penetrates into Thee; nor can the agency of a power foreign and strange to Thee measure the depth of Thy boundless majesty. To Thee belongs whatever enters into Thee; nor is anything strange to Thee, which dwells in Thee through its searching power.
56. But I cannot describe Him, Whose pleas for me I cannot describe. As in the revelation that Thy Only-begotten was born of Thee before times eternal, when we cease to struggle with ambiguities of language and difficulties of thought, the one certainty of His birth remains; so I hold fast in my consciousness the truth that Thy Holy Spirit is from Thee and through Him, although I cannot by my intellect comprehend it. For in Thy spiritual things I am dull, as Thy Only-begotten says, Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born anew. The Spirit breathes where it will, and thou hearest the voice of it; but dost not know whence it comes or whither it goes. So is every one who is born of water and of the Holy Spirit 1354 . Though I hold a belief in my regeneration, I hold it in ignorance; I possess the reality, though I comprehend it not. For my own consciousness had no part in causing this new birth, which is manifest in its effects. Moreover the Spirit has no limits; He speaks when He will, and what He will, and where He will. Since, then, the cause of His coming and going is unknown, though the watcher is conscious of the fact, shall I count the nature of the Spirit among created things, and limit Him by fixing the time of His origin? Thy servant John says, indeed, that all things were made through the Son 1355 , Who as God the Word was in the beginning, O God, with Thee. Again, Paul recounts all things as created in Him, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible 1356 . And, while he declared that everything was created in Christ and through Christ, he thought, with respect to the Holy Spirit, that the description was sufficient, when he called Him Thy Spirit. With these men, peculiarly Thine elect, I will think in these matters; just as, after their example, I will say nothing beyond my comprehension about Thy Only-begotten, but simply declare that He was born, so also after their example I will not trespass beyond that which human intellect can know about Thy Holy Spirit, but simply declare that He is Thy Spirit. May my lot be no useless strife of words, but the unwavering confession of an unhesitating faith!
57. Keep, I pray Thee, this my pious faith undefiled, and even till my spirit departs, grant that this may be the utterance of my convictions: so that I may ever hold fast that which I professed in the creed of my regeneration, when I was baptized in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Let me, in short, adore Thee our Father, and Thy Son together with Thee; let me win the favour of Thy Holy Spirit, Who is from Thee, through Thy Only-begotten. For I have a convincing Witness to my faith, Who says, Father, all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine 1357 , even my Lord Jesus Christ, abiding in Thee, and from Thee, and with Thee, for ever God: Who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.
Footnotes
218:1305Prov. viii. 22.
218:1306Rom. i. 23.
218:1307Gen. xiv. 19.
219:1308Hos. xiii. 4 (LXX.).
219:13091 Pet. iv. 19.
219:1310Rom. viii. 19-21.
219:1311St. John v. 23.
219:1312Ps. cix. 3 (LXX.).
220:1313Hos. xiii. 4, according to LXX.
220:1314Ps. xxxiv. 15.
220:1315Acts 13:22, Ps. 89:20.
220:13161 John 5.1.
221:1317St. John i. 3.
221:1318Ps. cii. 25.
221:1319Psa. 138.8.
221:1320Is. i. 2 (LXX.).
221:1321Ex. iv. 22.
221:1322St. Matt. xvii. 5.
221:1323Ps. xxi. 32 (LXX.).
223:1324Col. 2:8, 9.
223:13252 Cor. 10:4, 5
223:1326i.e. not yet born.
224:1327Ex. iii. 14 (in LXX.).
224:1328St. John 1:1, 9, 18.
224:1329Rom. ix. 5.
225:13302 Tim. 1:9, Titus 1:2.
225:1331Reading humanæ.
226:1332Reading non solum.
226:1333Reading generationis.
226:1334Tit. i. 2.
226:1335Gen. i. 14.
226:1336Ps. lxxi. 17 (in LXX.).
226:1337Psa. 71.5 (LXX.).
227:1338Prov. viii. 22 (LXX.).
227:1339Prov. 8:24, 25 (LXX.).
227:1340Prov. viii. 26-30 (LXX.).
228:1341Ps. xxxii. 6 (LXX.).
228:1342Is. xlv. 11 (LXX. but altered from the 3rd person to the 2nd).
229:1343Reading per id ipsum ea neque propter opera.
229:1344Prov. viii. 21 (LXX.).
229:1345Prov. 8:4, 5.
229:1346Prov. 8:15, 16.
229:1347Prov. 8:20, 21.
230:1348St. John xiv. 6.
230:1349St. John xii. 41.
231:1350Gal. 4:4, 5.
231:1351Eph. iv. 21-24.
231:1352Eph. 4.24.
231:1353Deputantis, conj. edd. Benedict.
233:1354St. John 3:7, 8.
233:1355John 1:1, 3.
233:1356Col. i. 16.
233:1357St. John xvii. 10.
Introduction to the Homilies on Psalms I., LIII., CXXX.
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Some account of St. Hilary’s Homilies on the Psalms has already been given in the Introduction to this volume, pp. xl.–xlv. A few words remain to be said concerning his principle of exposition. This may be gathered from his own statement in the fifth sections of the Instructio Psalmorum, the discourse preliminary to the Homilies:—‘There is no doubt that the language of the Psalms must be interpreted by the light of the teaching of the Gospel. Thus, whoever he be by whose mouth the Spirit of prophecy has spoken, the whole purpose of his words is our instruction concerning the glory and power of the coming, the Incarnation, the Passion, the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of our resurrection. Moreover, all the prophecies are shut and sealed to worldly sense and pagan wisdom, as Isaiah says, And all these words shall be unto you as the sayings of this book which is sealed 1358 .… The whole is a texture woven of allegorical and typical meanings, whereby are spread before our view all the mysteries of the Only-begotten Son of God, Who was to be born in the body, to suffer, to die, to rise again, to reign forever with, those who share His glory because they believed on Him, to be the Judge of the rest of mankind.’ It is true that Hilary from time to time discriminates, and sometimes very shrewdly, between passages which must, and others which must not, be thus interpreted, but for the most part the commentary is theological and therefore mystical. The Psalter is not used for the establishment of doctrine. No position for which Hilary had not another and an independent defence is maintained on the strength of an allegorical explanation, and no deductions are drawn from such allegories. They are simply used for the cumulative confirmation of truth otherwise revealed. The result is a commentary much more illustrative of Hilary’s own thought to of that of the writers of the Psalms; and great as are the merits of the Homilies, they are counter-balanced by obvious and serious defects. There is, of course, little interest taken in the circumstances in which the Psalms were written. They are, in Hilary’s eyes, essentially prophecies, and he is content as a rule to describe the writer simply as ‘the Prophet.’ And as with the history, so with the spirit of the Psalter. There is little evidence that he recognised in it the noblest and most perfect expression of human devotion towards God, and still less that he appreciated the elevation of its poetry. For the latter failure there is ample excuse. The Septuagint and Old Latin versions of the Psalms have for us venerable antiquity and sacred associations, but they can hardly be said to appeal to the imagination. Now while Hilary of course regarded the Greek translation as authoritative on account both of our Lord’s use of it and of general consent, he treats it not as literature but rather in the spirit of a lawyer interpreting and applying the terms of an ancient charter. Nor is it likely that the Latin version would move Hilary as it sometimes moves us who read it to-day and find a certain dignity and power in its unpolished sentences. Its roughness could only shock, and its obscurity perplex, one who, as we have said already (Intr. iii.), could think and express himself clearly in what was to him a living and a cultivated language. But with all his disadvantages he has produced a great and profoundly Christian work, of permanent value and interest and of abiding influence upon thought, theological and moral. For in these Homilies, and not least in those which are here translated, the Roman genius for moral reflection is manifest, and the pattern set which St. Ambrose was to follow with success in such work as his De officiis ministrorum.
Footnotes
235:1358Is. xxix. 11.
Homilies on the Psalms.
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Psalm I.
The primary condition of knowledge for reading the Psalms is the ability to see as whose mouthpiece we are to regard the Psalmist as speaking, and who it is that he addresses. For they are not all of the same uniform character, but of different authorship and different types. For we constantly find that the Person of God the Father is being set before us, as in that passage of the eighty-eighth Psalm: I have exalted one chosen out of My people, I have found David My servant, with My holy oil have I anointed him. He shall call Me, Thou art my Father and the upholder of my salvation. And I will make him My first-born, higher than the kings of the earth 1359 ; while in what we might call the majority of Psalms the Person of the Son is introduced, as in the seventeenth: A people whom I have not known hath served Me 1360 ; and in the twenty-first: they parted My garments among them and cast lots upon My vesture 1361 . But the contents of the first Psalm forbid us to understand it either of the Person of the Father or of the Son: But his will hath been in the law of the Lord, and in His Law will he meditate day and night. Now in the Psalm in which we said the Person of the Father is intended, the terms used are exactly appropriate, for instance: He shall call Me, Thou art my Father, my God and the upholder of my salvation; and in that one in which we hear the Son speaking, He proclaims Himself to be the author of the words by the very expressions He employs, saying, A people whom I have not known hath served Me. That is to say, when the Father on the one hand says: He shall call Me; and the Son on the other hand says: a people hath served Me, they shew that it is They Themselves Who are speaking concerning Themselves. Here, however, where we have But his will hath been in the Law of the Lord; obviously it is not the Person of the Lord speaking concerning Himself, but the person of another, extolling the happiness of that man whose will is in the Law of the Lord. Here, then, we are to recognise the person of the Prophet by whose lips the Holy Spirit speaks, raising us by the instrumentality of his lips to the knowledge of a spiritual mystery.
2. And as he says this we must enquire concerning what man we are to understand him to be speaking. He says: Happy is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly nor stood in the way of sinners, and hath not sat in the seat of pestilence. But his will hath been in the Law of the Lord, and in His Law will he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rills of water, that will yield its fruit in its own season. His leaf also shall not wither, and all things, whatsoever he shall do, shall prosper. I have discovered, either from personal conversation or from their letters and writings, that the opinion of many men about this Psalm is, that we ought to understand it to be a description of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that it is His happiness which is extolled in the verses following. But this interpretation is wrong both in method and reasoning, though doubtless it is inspired by a pious tendency of thought, since the whole of the Psalter is to be referred to Him: the time and place in His life to which this passage refers must be ascertained by the sound method of knowledge guided by reason.
3. Now the words which stand at the beginning of the Psalm are quite unsuited to the Person and Dignity of the Son, while the whole contents are in themselves a condemnation of the careless haste that would use them to extol Him. For when it is said, and his will hath been in the Law of the Lord, how (seeing that the Law was given by the Son of God) can a happiness which depends on his will being in the Law of the Lord be attributed to Him Who is Himself Lord of the Law? That the Law is His He Himself declares in the seventy-seventh Psalm, where He says: Hear My Law, O My people: incline your ears unto the words of My mouth. I will open My mouth in a parable 1362 . And the Evangelist Matthew further asserts that these words were spoken by the Son, when he says For this cause spake He in parables that the saying might be fulfilled: I will open My mouth in parables 1363 . The Lord then gave fulfilment in act to His own prophecy, speaking in the parables in which He had promised that He would speak. But how can the sentence, and he shall be like a tree planted by the rills of water,—wherein growth in happiness is set forth in a figure—be possibly applied to His Person, and a tree be said to be more happy than the Son of God, and the cause of His happiness, which would be the case if an analogy were established between Him and it in respect of growth towards happiness? Again, since according to Wisdom 1364 and the Apostle, He is both before the ages and before times eternal, and is the First-born of every creature; and since in Him and through Him all things were created, how can He be happy by becoming like objects created by Himself? For neither does the power of the Creator need for its exaltation comparison with any creature, nor does the immemorial age of the First-born allow of a comparison involving unsuitable conditions of time, as would be the case if He were compared to a tree. For that which shall be at some point of future time cannot be looked upon as having either previously existed or as now existing anywhere. But whatsoever already is does not need any extension of time to begin existence, because it already possesses continuous existence from the date of its beginning up till the present.
4. And so, since these words are understood to be inapplicable to the divinity of the Only-begotten Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, we must suppose him, who is here extolled as happy by the Prophet, to be the man who strives to conform himself to that body which the Lord assumed and in which He was born as man, by zeal for justice and perfect fulfilment of all righteousness. That this is the necessary interpretation will be shewn as the exposition of the Psalm proceeds.
5. The Holy Spirit made choice of this magnificent and noble introduction to the Psalter, in order to stir up weak man to a pure zeal for piety by the hope of happiness, to teach him the mystery of the Incarnate God, to promise him participation in heavenly glory, to declare the penalty of the Judgment, to proclaim the two-fold resurrection, to shew forth the counsel of God as seen in His award. It is indeed after a faultless and mature design that He has laid the foundation of this great prophecy 1365 ; His will being that the hope connected with the happy man might allure weak humanity to zeal for the Faith; that the analogy of the happiness of the tree might be the pledge of a happy hope, that the declaration of His wrath against the ungodly might set the bounds of fear to the excesses of ungodliness, that difference in rank in the assemblies of the saints might mark difference in merit, that the standard appointed for judging the ways of the righteous might shew forth the majesty of God.
But let us now deal with the subject matter and the words which express it.
6. Happy is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly nor stood in the way of sinners, and hath not sat in the seat of pestilence. But his will hath been in the Law of the Lord, and in His Law will he meditate day and night.
The Prophet recites five kinds of caution as continually present in the mind of the happy man: the first, not to walk in the counsel of the ungodly, the second, not to stand in the way of sinners, the third, not to sit in the seat of pestilence, next, to set his will in the Law of the Lord, and lastly, to meditate therein by day and by night. There must, therefore, be a distinction between the ungodly and the sinner, between the sinner and the pestilent; chiefly because here the ungodly has a counsel, the sinner a way, the pestilent a seat, and again, because the question is of walking, not standing, in the counsel of the ungodly; of standing, not walking, in the way of the sinner. Now if we would understand the reason of these facts, we must note the precise difference between the sinner and the undutiful 1366 , that so it may become clear why to the sinner is assigned a way, and to the undutiful a counsel; next, why the question is of standing in the way, and of walking in the counsel, whereas men are accustomed to connect standing with a counsel, and walking with a way.
Not every man that is a sinner is also undutiful: but the undutiful man cannot fail to be a sinner. Let us take an instance from general experience. Sons, though they be drunken and profligate and spendthrift, can yet love their fathers; and with all these vices, and, therefore, not free from guilt, may yet be free from undutifulness. But the undutiful, though they may be models of continence and frugality, are, by the mere fact of despising the parent, worse transgressors than if they were guilty of every sin that lies outside the category of undutifulness.
7. There is no doubt then that, as this instance proves, the undutiful (or ungodly) must be distinguished from the sinner. And, indeed, general opinion agrees to call those men ungodly who scorn to search for the knowledge of God, who in their irreverent mind take for granted that there is no Creator of the world, who assert that it arrived at the order and beauty which we see by chance movements, who, in order to deprive their Creator of all power to pass judgment on a life lived rightly or in sin, will have it that man comes into being and passes out of it again by the simple operation of a law of nature.
Thus, all the counsel of these men is wavering, unsteady, and vague, and wanders about in the same familiar paths and over the same familiar ground, never finding a resting-place, for it fails to reach any definite decision. They have never in their system risen to the doctrine of a Creator of the world, for instead of answering our questions as to the cause, beginning, and duration of the world, whether the world is for man, or man for the world, the reason of death, its extent and nature, they press in ceaseless motion round the circle of this godless argument and find no rest in these imaginings.
8. There are, besides, other counsels of the ungodly, i.e., of those who have fallen into heresy, unrestrained by the laws of either the New Testament or the Old. Their reasoning ever takes the course of a vicious circle; without grasp or foothold to stay them they tread their interminable round of endless indecision. Their ungodliness consists in measuring God, not by His own revelation, but by a standard of their choosing; they forget that it is as godless to make a God as to deny Him; if you ask them what effect these opinions have on their faith and hope, they are perplexed and confused, they wander from the point and wilfully avoid the real issue of the debate. Happy is the man then who hath not walked in this kind of counsel of the ungodly, nay, who has not even entertained the wish to walk therein, for it is a sin even to think for a moment of things that are ungodly.
9. The next condition is, that the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly shall not stand in the way of sinners. For there are many whose confession concerning God, while it acquits them of ungodliness, yet does not set them free from sin; those, for example, who abide in the Church but do not observe her laws; such are the greedy, the drunken, the brawlers, the wanton, the proud, hypocrites, liars, plunderers. No doubt we are urged towards these sins by the promptings of our natural instincts; but it is good for us to withdraw from the path into which we are being hurried and not to stand therein, seeing that we are offered so easy a way of escape. It is for this reason that the man who has not stood in the way of sinners is happy, for while nature carries him into that way, religious belief draws him back.
10. Now the third condition for gaining happiness is not to sit in the seat of pestilence. The Pharisees sat as teachers in Moses’ seat, and Pilate sat in the seat of judgment: of what seat then are we to consider the occupation pestilential? Not surely of that of Moses, for it is the occupants of the seat and not the occupation of it that the Lord condemns when He says: The Scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; whatsoever they bid you do, that do; but do not ye after their work 1367 . The occupation of that seat is not pestilential, to which obedience is enjoined by the Lord’s own word. That then must be really pestilential, the infection of which Pilate sought to avoid by washing his hands. For many, even God-fearing men, are led astray by the canvassing for worldly honours; and desire to administer the law of the courts, though they are bound by those of the Church.
But although they bring to the discharge of their duties a religious intention, as is shewn by their merciful and upright demeanour, still they cannot escape a certain contagious infection arising from the business in which their life is spent. For the conduct of civil cases does not suffer them to be true to the holy principles of the Church’s law, even though they wish it. And without abandoning their pious purpose they are compelled, against their will, by the necessary conditions of the seat they have won, to use, at one time invective, at another, insult, at another, punishment; and their very position makes them authors as well as victims of the necessity which constrains them, their system being as it were impregnated with the infection. Hence this title, the seat of pestilence, by which the Prophet describes their seat, because by its infection it poisons the very will of the religiously minded.
11. But the fact that he has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of pestilence, does not constitute the perfection of the man’s happiness. For the belief that one God is the Creator of the world, the avoidance of sin by the pursuit of unassuming goodness, the preference of the tranquil leisure of private life to the grandeur of public position—all this may be found even in a pagan. But here the Prophet, in portraying in the likeness of God the man that is perfect—one who may serve as a noble example of eternal happiness—points to the exercise by him of no commonplace virtues, and to the words, But his will hath been in the Law of the Lord, for the attainment of perfect happiness. To refrain from what has gone before is useless unless his mind be set on what follows, But his will hath been in the Law of the Lord. The Prophet does not look for fear. The majority of men are kept within the bounds of Law by fear; the few are brought under the Law by will: for it is the mark of fear not to dare to omit what it is afraid of, but of perfect piety to be ready to obey commands. This is why that man is happy whose will, not whose fear, is in the Law of God.
12. But then sometimes the will needs supplementing; and the mere desire for perfect happiness does not win it, unless performance wait upon intention. The Psalm, you remember, goes on: And in His Law will he meditate day and night. The man achieves the perfection of happiness by unbroken and unwearied meditation in the Law. Now it may be objected that this is impossible owing to the conditions of human infirmity, which require time for repose, for sleep, for food: so that our bodily circumstances preclude us from the hope of attaining happiness, inasmuch as we are distracted by the interruption of our bodily needs from our meditation by day and night. Parallel to this passage are the words of the Apostle, Pray without ceasing 1368 . As though we were bound to set at naught our bodily requirements and to continue praying without any interruption! Meditation in the Law, therefore, does not lie in reading its words, but in pious performance of its injunctions; not in a mere perusal of the books and writings, but in a practical meditation and exercise in their respective contents, and in a fulfilment of the Law by the works we do by night and day, as the Apostle says: Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God 1369 . The way to secure uninterrupted prayer is for every devout man to make his life one long prayer by works acceptable to God and always done to His glory: thus a life lived according to the Law by night and day will in itself become a nightly and daily meditation in the Law.
13. But now that the man has found perfect happiness by keeping aloof from the counsel of the ungodly and the way of sinners and the seat of pestilence, and by gladly meditating in the Law of God by day and by night, we are next to be shewn the rich fruit that this happiness he has won will yield him. Now the anticipation of happiness contains the germ of future happiness. For the next verse runs: And he shall be like a tree planted beside the rills of water, which shall yield its fruit in its own season, whose leaf also shall not fall off. This may perhaps be deemed an absurd and inappropriate comparison, in which are extolled a planted tree, rills of water, the yielding of fruit, its own time, and the leaf that falls not. All this may appear trivial enough to the judgment of the world. But let us examine the teaching of the Prophet and see the beauty that lies in the objects and words used to illustrate happiness.
14. In the book of Genesis 1370 , where the lawgiver depicts the paradise planted by God, we are shewn that every tree is fair to look upon and good for food; it is also stated that there stands in the midst of the garden a tree of Life and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil; next that the garden is watered by a stream that afterwards divides into four heads. The Prophet Solomon teaches us what this tree of Life is in his exhortation concerning Wisdom: She is a tree of life to all them that lay hold upon her, and lean upon her 1371 . This tree then is living; and not only living, but, furthermore, guided by reason; guided by reason, that is, in so far as to yield fruit, and that not casually nor unseasonably, but in its own season. And this tree is planted beside the rills of water in the domain of the Kingdom of God, that is, of course, in Paradise, and in the place where the stream as it issues forth is divided into four heads. For he does not say, Behind the rills of water, but, Beside the rills of water, at the place where first the heads receive each their flow of waters. This tree is planted in that place whither the Lord, Who is Wisdom, leads the thief who confessed Him to be the Lord, saying: Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise 1372 . And now that we have shewn upon prophetic warrant that Wisdom, which is Christ, is called the tree of Life in accordance with the mystery of the coming Incarnation and Passion, we must go on to find support for the strict truth of this interpretation from the Gospels. The Lord with His own lips compared Himself to a tree when the Jews said that He cast out devils in Beelzebub: Either make the tree good, said He, and its fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by its fruit 1373 ; because although to cast out devils is an excellent fruit, they said He was Beelzebab, whose fruits are abominable. Nor yet did He hesitate to teach that the power that makes the tree happy resided in His Person, when on the way to the Cross He said: For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry 1374 ? Declaring by this image of the green tree that there was nothing in Him that was subject to the dryness of death.
15. That happy man, then, will become like unto this tree when he shall be transplanted, as the thief was, into the garden and set to grow beside the rills of water: and his planting will be that happy new planting which cannot be uprooted, to which the Lord refers in the Gospels when He curses the other kind of planting and says: Every planting that My Father hath not planted shall be rooted up 1375 . This tree, therefore, will yield its fruits. Now in all other passages where God’s Word teaches some lesson from the fruits of trees, it mentions them as making fruit rather than as yielding fruit, as when it says: A good tree cannot make evil fruits 1376 , and when in Isaiah the complaint about the vine is: I looked that it should make grapes, and it made thorns 1377 . But this tree will yield its fruits, being supplied with free-will and understanding for the purpose. For it will yield its fruits in its own season. And, pray, in what season? In the season, of course, of which the Apostle speaks: That He might make known unto you also the mystery of His Will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself, in the dispensation of the fulness of time 1378 . This, then, is the dispensation of time, by which is regulated the right moment of receiving, in the case of the recipients, and of giving, in that of the giver; for the giver has choice of the season. But delay in point of time depends upon the fulness of times. For the dispensation of yielding fruit waits upon the fulness of time. Now what, you ask, is this fruit that is to be dispensed? That assuredly of which this same Apostle is speaking when he says: And He will change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like His glorious body 1379 . Thus He will give us those fruits of His which He has already brought to perfection in that man whom He has chosen to Himself who is portrayed under the image of a tree, whose mortality He has utterly done away and has raised him to share in His own immortality.
This man then will be happy like that tree, when at length he stands surrounded by the glory of God, being made like unto the Lord.
16. But the leaf of this tree shall not fall off. There is no ground for wonder that its leaves do not fall off, seeing that its fruits will not drop to the ground, either because they are forced off by ripeness, or shaken off by external violence, but it will yield them, distributing them by an act of reasoned service. Now the spiritual significance of the leaves is made clear by a comparison based upon material objects. We see that leaves are made to sprout round the fruits about which they cluster, for the express purpose of protecting them, and of forming a kind of fence to the young and tender shoots. What the leaves signify, then, is the teaching of God’s words in which the promised fruits are clothed. For it is these words that kindly shade our hopes, that shield and protect them from the rough winds of this world. These leaves, then, that is the words of God, shall not fall: for the Lord Himself has said: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away 1380 , for of the words that have been spoken by God not one shall fail or fall.
17. Now that the leaves of the tree we speak of are not valueless but are a source of health to the nations is testified by St. John in the Apocalypse, where he says: And He shewed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb; in the midst of the street of it and on either side of the river the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree are for the healing the nations 1381 .
Bodily manifestations so reveal the mysteries of heaven that, although matter by itself cannot convey the full spiritual meaning, yet to regard them only in their material aspect is to mutilate them. We should have expected to hear that there were trees, not one tree, standing on either side of the river shewn to the saint. But because the tree of Life in the sacrament of Baptism is in every case one, supplying to those that come to it on every side the fruits of the apostolic message, so there stands on either side of the river one tree of Life. There is one Lamb seen amid the throne of God, and one river, and one tree of Life: three figures wherein are comprised the mysteries of the Incarnation, Baptism and Passion, whose leaves, that is to say, the words of the Gospel, bring healing to the nations through the teaching of a message that cannot fall to the ground.
18. And all things whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Never again shall His gift and His statutes be set at naught, as they were in the case of Adam, who by his sin in breaking the Law lost the happiness of an assured immortality; but now, thanks to the redemption wrought by the tree of Life, that is, by the Passion of the Lord, all that happens to us is eternal and eternally conscious of happiness in virtue of our future likeness to that tree of Life. For all their doings shall prosper, being wrought no longer amid shift and change nor in human weakness, for corruption will be swallowed up in incorruption, weakness in endless life, the form of earthly flesh in the form of God. This tree, then, planted and yielding its fruit in its own season, shall that happy man resemble, himself being planted in the Garden, that what God has planted may abide, never to be rooted up, in the Garden where all things done by God shall be guided to a prosperous issue, apart from the decay that belongs to human weakness and to time, and has to be uprooted.
19. The next point after the prophet had set forth the man’s perfect happiness was for him to declare what punishment remained for the ungodly. Thus there ensues: The ungodly are not so, but are like the dust which the wind driveth away from the face of the earth. The ungodly have no possible hope of having the image of the happy tree applied to them; the only lot that awaits them is one of wandering and winnowing, crushing, dispersion and unrest; shaken out of the solid framework of their bodily condition, they must be swept away to punishment in dust, a plaything of the wind. They shall not be dissolved into nothing, for punishment must find in them some stuff to work on, but ground into particles, imponderable, unsubstantial, dry, they shall be tossed to and fro, and make sport for the punishment that gives them never rest. Their punishment is recorded by the same Prophet in another place where he says: I will beat them small as the dust before the wind, like the mire of the streets I will destroy them 1382 .
Thus as there is an appointed type for happiness, so is there one for punishment. For as it is no hard task for the wind to scatter the dust, and as men who walk through the mud of the streets are hardly aware that they have been treading on it, so it is easy for the punishment of hell to destroy and disperse the ungodly, the logical result of whose sins is to melt them into mud and crush them into dust, reft of all solid substance, for dust and mud they are, and being merely mud and dust are good for nothing else than punishment.
20. And the Prophet, seeing that the change of their solid substance into dust will deprive them of all share in the boon of fruit to be bestowed upon the happy man in season by the tree, has accordingly added: Therefore the ungodly shall not rise again in the Judgment. The fact that they shall not rise again does not convey sentence of annihilation upon these men, for indeed they will exist as dust; it is the resurrection to Judgment that is denied them. Non-existence will not enable them to miss the pain of punishment; for while that which will be non-existent would escape punishment, they, on the other hand, will exist to be punished, for they will be dust. Now to become dust, whether by being dried to dust or ground to dust, involves not loss of the state of existence, but a change of state. But the fact that they will not rise again to Judgment makes it clear that they have lost, not the power to rise, but the privilege of rising to Judgment. Now what we are to understand by the privilege of rising again and being judged is declared by the Lord in the Gospels where He says: He that believeth on Me is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already. And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light 1383 .
21. The terms of this utterance of the Lord are disturbing to inattentive hearers and careless, hasty readers. For by saying: He that believeth on Me shall not be judged, He exempts believers, and by adding: But he that believeth not hath been judged already, He excludes unbelievers, from judgment. If, then, He has thus exempted believers and debarred unbelievers, allowing the chance of judgment neither to one class nor the other, how can He be considered consistent when he adds thirdly: And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light? For there can apparently be no place left for judgment, since neither believers nor unbelievers are to be judged. Such no doubt will be the conclusion drawn by inattentive hearers and hasty readers. The utterance, however, has an appropriate meaning and a rational interpretation of its own.
22. He that believes, says Christ, is not judged. And is there any need to judge a believer? Judgment arises out of ambiguity, and where ambiguity ceases, there is no call for trial and judgment. Hence not even unbelievers need be judged, because there is no doubt about their being unbelievers; but after exempting believers and unbelievers alike from judgment, the Lord added a case for judgment and human agents upon whom it must be exercised. For some there are who stand midway between the godly and the ungodly, having affinities to both, but strictly belonging to neither class, because they have come to be what they are by a combination of the two. They may not be assigned to the ranks of belief, because there is in them a certain infusion of unbelief; they may not be ranged with unbelief, because they are not without a certain portion of belief. For many are kept within the pale of the church by the fear of God; yet they are tempted all the while to worldly faults by the allurements of the world. They pray, because they are afraid; they sin, because it is their will. The fair hope of future life makes them call themselves Christians; the allurements of present pleasure make them act like heathen. They do not abide in ungodliness, because they hold the name of God in honour; they are not godly because they follow after things contrary to godliness. And they cannot help loving those things best which can never enable them to be what they call themselves, because their desire to do such works is stronger than their desire to be true to their name. And this is why the Lord, after saying that believers would not be judged and that unbelievers had been judged already, added that This is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.
These, then, are they whom the judgment awaits which unbelievers have already had passed upon them and believers do not need: because they have loved darkness more than light; not that they did not love the light too, but because their love of darkness is the more active. For when two loves are matched in rivalry, one always wins the preference; and their judgment arises from the fact that, though they loved Christ, they yet loved darkness more. These then will be judged; they are neither exempted from judgment like the godly, nor have they already been judged like the ungodly; but judgment awaits them for the love which they have deliberately preferred.
23. It is precisely the scheme and system thus laid down in the Gospel that the Prophet has followed, when he says: Therefore the ungodly shall not rise again in the Judgement, nor sinners in the counsel of the righteous. He leaves no judgment for the ungodly, because they have been judged already; on the other hand, he has refused to sinners, who as we shewed in our former discourse 1384 are to be distinguished from the ungodly, the counsel of the righteous, because they are to be judged. For ungodliness causes the former to be judged beforehand, but sin keeps the latter to be judged hereafter. Thus ungodliness having already been judged is not admitted to the judgment of sinners, while again sinners, who, are yet to be judged, are deemed unworthy of enjoying the counsel of the righteous, who will not be judged.
24. The source of this distinction lies in the following words: For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Sinners do not come near the counsel of the righteous for this reason, that the Lord knows the way of the righteous. Now He knows, not by an advance from ignorance to knowledge, but because He condescends to know. For there is no play of human emotions in God that He should know or not know anything. The blessed Apostle Paul declared how we were known of God when he said: If any man among you is a prophet or spiritual, let him take knowledge of the things which I write unto you, that they are of the Lord: but if any man does not know, he is not known 1385 .
Thus he shews that those are known of God who know the things of God: they are to come to be known when they know, that is, when they attain to the honour of being known through the merit of their known godliness, in order that the knowledge may be seen to be a growth on the part of him who is known, and not a growth on the part of one who knows not.
Now God shews clearly in the cases of Adam and Abraham that He does not know sinners, but does know believers. For it was said to Adam when he had sinned: Adam, where art thou 1386 ? Not because God knew not that the man whom He still had in the garden was there still, but to shew, by his being asked where he was, that he was unworthy of God’s knowledge by the fact of having sinned. But Abraham, after being for a long time unknown—the word of God came to him when he was seventy years of age—was, upon his proving himself faithful to the Lord, admitted to intimacy with God by the following act of high condescension: Now I know that thou fearest the Lord thy God, and for My sake thou hast not spared thy dearly loved son 1387 .
God certainly was not ignorant of the faith of Abraham, which He had already reckoned to him for righteousness when he believed about the birth of Isaac: but now because he had given a signal instance of his fear in offering his son, he is at last known, approved, rendered worthy of being not unknown. It is in this way then that God both knows and knows not—Adam the sinner is not known, and Abraham the faithful is known, is worthy, that is, of being known by God Who surely knows all things. The way of the righteous, therefore, who are not to be judged is known by God: and this is why sinners, who are to be judged, are set far from their counsel; while the ungodly shall not rise again to judgment, because their way has perished, and they have already been judged by Him Who said: The Father judgeth no man, but hath given all judgment unto the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.
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Footnotes
236:1359Psa. 89.20 ff.
236:1360Psa. 18.45.
236:1361Psa. 22.19.
236:1362Psa. 78.1.
237:1363St. Matt. xiii. 35.
237:1364Prov. viii. 22.
237:1365i.e. the Psalter.
237:1366Impius, which is elsewhere in the Homily translated ungodly, is here rendered undutiful, in order to preserve to some extent the sense of undutiful towards parents in which Hilary, with true Roman appreciation of the patria potestas, uses it in this passage.
238:1367St. Matt. xxiii. 2.
239:13681 Thess. v. 17.
239:13691 Cor. x. 31.
239:1370Gen. ii. 9.
239:1371Prov. iii. 18.
239:1372St. Luke xxiii. 43.
239:1373St. Matt. xii. 33.
240:1374St. Luke xxiii. 31.
240:1375St. Matt. xv. 13.
240:1376Matt. 7.18.
240:1377Is. v. 2.
240:1378Eph. i. 9.
240:1379Phil. iii. 21.
240:1380St. Matt. xxiv. 35.
240:1381Rev. 22.1.
241:1382Psa. 18.42.
241:1383St. John 3:18, 19.
242:1384This proves that the Homily in its original form consisted of two parts.
242:13851 Cor. xiv. 37.
242:1386Gen. iii. 9.
242:1387Gen. 22.12.
Psalm LIII. (LIV.).
For the end among the hymns, of the meaning of David when the Ziphims came and said to Saul: behold, is not David hid with us?
Save me, O God, by Thy name, and judge me by Thy power. Hear my prayer, O God; give ear unto the words of my mouth, and so on.
1. The doctrines of the Gospel were well known to holy and blessed David in his capacity of Prophet, and although it was under the Law that he lived his bodily life, he yet filled, as far as in him lay, the requirements of the Apostolic behest and justified the witness borne to him by God in the words: I have found a man after My own heart, David, the son of Jesse 1388 . He did not avenge himself upon his foes by war, he did not oppose force of arms to those that laid wait for him, but after the pattern of the Lord, Whose name and Whose meekness alike he foreshadowed, when he was betrayed he entreated, when he was in danger he sang psalms, when he incurred hatred he rejoiced; and for this cause he was found a man after God’s own heart. For although twelve legions of angels might have come to the help of the Lord in His hour of passion, yet that He might perfectly fulfil His service of humble obedience, He surrendered Himself to suffering and weakness, only praying with the words: Father into Thy hands I commend My spirit 1389 . After the same pattern, David, whose actual sufferings prophetically foretold the future sufferings of the Lord, opposed not his enemies either by word or act; in obedience to the command of the Gospel, he would not render evil for evil, in imitation of his Master’s meekness, in his affliction, in his betrayal, in his fight, he called upon the Lord and was content to use His weapons only in his contest with the ungodly.
2. Now to this Psalm is prefixed a title arising out of an historical event; but before the event is described we are instructed as to the scope, time and application of the incidents underlying it. First we have: For the end of the meaning of that David. Then there follows: When the Ziphims came and said to Saul: behold, is not David hid with us? Thus David’s betrayal by the Ziphims awaits for its interpretation the end. This shews that what was actually being done to David contained a type of something yet to come; an innocent man is harassed by railing, a prophet is mocked by reviling words, one approved by God is demanded for execution, a king is betrayed to his foe. So the Lord was betrayed to Herod and Pilate by those very men in whose hands He ought to have been safe. The Psalm then awaits the end for its interpretation, and finds its meaning in the true David, in Whom is the end of the Law, that David who holds the keys and opens with them the gate of knowledge, in fulfilling the things foretold of Him by David.
3. The meaning of the proper name, according to the exact sense of the Hebrew, affords us no small assistance in interpreting the passage. Ziphims mean what we call sprinklings of the face; these were called in Hebrew Ziphims. Now, by the Law, sprinkling was a cleansing from sins; it purified the people through faith by the sprinkling of blood, of which this same blessed David thus speaks: Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be cleansed 1390 ; the Law, through faith, providing as a temporary substitute, in the blood of whole burnt-offerings, a type of the sprinkling with the blood of the Lord, which was to be. But this people, like the people of the Ziphims, being sprinkled on their face and not in their faith, and receiving the cleansing drops on their lips and not in their hearts, turned faithless and traitors towards their David, as God had foretold by the Prophet: This people honoureth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me 1391 . They were ready to betray David because, the faith of their heart being dead, they had performed all the mystical ceremonies of the Law with deceitful face.
4. Save me, O God, by Thy Name, and judge me by Thy power. Hear my prayer, O God; give ear unto the words of my mouth.
The suffering of the Prophet David is, according to the account we have given of the title, a type of the Passion of our God and Lord Jesus Christ. This is why his prayer also corresponds in sense with the prayer of Him Who being the Word was made flesh: in such wise that He Who suffered all things after the manner of man, in everything He said, spoke after the manner of man; and He who bore the infirmities and took on Him the sins of men approached God in prayer with the humility proper to men. This interpretation, even though we be unwilling and slow to receive it, is required by the meaning and force of the words, so that there can be no doubt that everything in the Psalm is uttered by David as His mouthpiece. For he says: Save me O God, by Thy name. Thus prays in bodily humiliation, using the words of His own Prophet, the Only-begotten Son of God, Who at the same time was claiming again the glory which He had possessed before the ages. He asks to be saved by the Name of God whereby He was called and wherein He was begotten, in order that the Name of God which rightly belonged to His former nature and kind might avail to save Him in that body wherein He had been born.
5. And because the whole of this passage is the utterance of One in the form of a servant—of a servant obedient unto the death of the Cross—which He took upon Him and for which He supplicates the saving help of the Name that belongs to God, and being sure of salvation by that Name, He immediately adds: and judge Me by Thy power. For now as the reward for His humility in emptying Himself and assuming the form of a servant, in the same humility in which He had assumed it, He was asking to resume the form which He shared with God, having saved to bear the Name of God that humanity in which as God He had obediently condescended to be born. And in order to teach us that the dignity of this Name whereby He prayed to be saved is something more than an empty title, He prays to be judged by the power of God. For a right award is the essential result of judgment, as the Scripture says: Becoming obedient unto death 1392 , yea, the death of the Cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him and gave unto Him the name which is above every name. Thus, first of all the name which is above every name is given unto Him; then next, this is a judgment of decisive force, because by the power of God, He, Who after being God had died as man, rose again from death as man to be God, as the Apostle says: He was crucified from weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God 1393 , and again: For I am not ashamed of the Gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth 1394 . For by the power of the Judgment human weakness is rescued to bear God’s name and nature; and thus as the reward for His obedience He is exalted by the power of this judgment unto the saving protection of God’s name; whence He possesses both the Name and the Power of God. Again, if the Prophet had begun this utterance in the way men generally speak, he would have asked to be judged by mercy or kindness, not by power. But judgment by power was a necessity in the case of One Who being the Son of God was born of a virgin to be Son of Man, and Who now being Son of Man was to have the Name and power of the Son of God restored to Him by the power of judgment.
6. Next there follows: Hear my prayer, O God, give ear unto the words of my mouth. The obvious thing for the Prophet to say was, O God, hear me. But because he is speaking as the mouthpiece of Him, Who alone knew how to pray, we are given a constantly reiterated demand that prayer shall be heard. The words of St. Paul teach us that no man knows how he ought to pray: For we know not how to pray as we ought 1395 . Man in his weakness, therefore, has no right to demand that his prayer shall be heard: for even the teacher of the Gentiles does not know the true object and scope of prayer, and that, after the Lord had given a model. What we are shewn here is the perfect confidence of Him, Who alone sees the Father, Who alone knows the Father, Who alone can pray the whole night through—the Gospel tells us that the Lord continued all night in prayer—Who in the mirror of words has shewn us the true image of the deepest of all mysteries in the simple words we use in prayer. And so, in making the demand that His prayer should be heard, he added, in order to teach us that this was the prerogative of His perfect confidence: Give ear unto the words of My mouth. Now can any man suppose that it is a human confidence which can thus desire that the words of his mouth should be heard? Those words, for instance, in which we express the motions and instincts of the mind, either when anger inflames us, or hatred moves us to slander, or pain to complaint, when flattery makes us fawn, when hope of gain or shame of the truth begets the lie, or resentment over injury, the insult? Was there ever any man at all points so pure and patient in his life as not to be liable to these failings of human instability? He alone could confidently desire this Who did no sin, in Whose mouth was no deceit, Who gave His back to the smiters, Who turned not His cheek from the blow, Who did not resent scorn and spitting, Who never crossed the will of Him, to Whose Will ordering it all He gave in all points glad obedience.
7. He has next added the reason why He prays for His words to be heard: For strangers are risen up against Me and violent men have sought after My soul; they have not set God before their eyes. The Only-begotten Son of God, the Word of God and God the Word—although assuredly He could Himself do all things that the Father could, as He says: What things soever the Father doeth, the Son also doeth in like manner 1396 , while the name describing the divine nature which was His inseparably involved the inseparable possession of divine power,—yet in order that He might present to us a perfect example of human humility, both prayed for and underwent all things that are the lot of man. Sharing in our common weakness He prayed the Father to save Him, so that He might teach us that He was born man under all the conditions of man’s infirmity. This is why He was hungry and thirsty, slept and was weary, shunned the assemblies of the ungodly, was sad and wept, suffered and died. And it was in order to make it clear that He was subject to all these conditions, not by His nature, but by assumption, that when He had undergone them all He rose again. Thus all His complaints in the Psalms spring from a mental state belonging to our nature. Nor must it cause surprise if we take the words of the Psalms in this sense, seeing that the Lord Himself testified, if we believe the Gospel, that the Psalms spiritually foretold His Passion.
8. Now they were strangers that rose up against Him. For these are no sons of Abraham, nor sons of God, but a brood of vipers, servants of sin, a Canaanitish seed, their father an Amorite and their mother a daughter of Heth, inheriting diabolical desires from the devil their parent. Further it is the violent that seek after His soul; such as was Herod when he asked the chief priests where Christ should be born, such as was the whole synagogue when it bore false witness against Him. But in deeming this soul to be of human nature and weakness they set not God before their eyes; for God had stooped from that estate wherein He abode as God, even to the beginnings of human birth; that is, He became Son of Man Who before was the Son of God. For the Son of God is none other than He Who is Son of Man, and Son of Man not in partial measure but born so, the Form of God divesting Itself of that which It was and becoming that which It was not, that so It might be born into a soul and body of Its own. Hence He is both Son of God and Son of Man, hence both God and Man: in other words the Son of God was born with the attributes derived from human birth, the Nature of God condescending to assume the nature of one born as man who is wholly moulded of soul and flesh. Wherefore strangers, when they rise up against Him, and the mighty, when they seek after that soul of His, which in the Gospels is often sad and cast down, set not God before their eyes, because God it was, and the Son of God existing from out the ages, that was born with the attributes of human nature, was born as man, that is, with our body and our soul, by a virgin birth; the mighty and glorious works He wrought never opened their eyes to the fact that the Son of Man Whose soul they were seeking had come to be man with a beginning of life after an eternal existence as Son of God.
9. The introduction of a pause 1397 marks a change of person. He no longer speaks but is addressed. For now the prophetic utterance assumes a general character. Thus immediately after the prayer addressed to God, he has added, in order that the confidence of the speaker might be understood to have obtained what He was asking even in the very moment of asking: Behold, God is My helper and the Lord is the upholder of My soul. He has requited evil unto Mine enemies. To each separate petition he has assigned its proper result, thus teaching us both that God does not neglect to hear, and that to look for a pledge of His pitifulness in hearing our several petitions is not a thing unreasonable. For to the words, For strangers are risen up against Me, the corresponding statement is: God is My helper; while with regard to and the violent have sought after My soul, the exact result of the hearing of His prayer is expressed in the words: and the Lord is the upholder of My soul; lastly the statement, they have not set God before their eyes, is appropriately balanced by, He hath requited evil unto Mine enemies. Thus God both gives help against those that rise up, and upholds the soul of His Holy One when it is sought by the violent, and when He is not set before the eyes, nor considered by the ungodly, He requites upon His enemies the very evils which they had wrought; so that while without thinking upon God they seek the soul of the righteous and rise up against Him, He is saved and upheld, and they find that He Whom, absorbed in their wicked works, they did not consider, avenges their malice by turning it against themselves.
10. Let pure religion, therefore, have this confidence, and doubt not that amid the persecutions at the hand of man and the dangers to the soul, it still has God for its helper, knowing that, if at length it comes to a violent and unjust death, the soul on leaving the tabernacle of the body finds rest with God its upholder; let it have, moreover, perfect assurance of requital in the thought that all evil deeds return upon the heads of those that work them. God cannot be charged with injustice, and perfect goodness is unstained by the impulses and motions of an evil will. He does not awaken mischief out of malice, but requites it in vengeance; He does not inflict it because He wishes us ill, but He aims it against our sins. For these evils are universally appointed as instruments of retribution without destruction of life, such being the sternly just ordinance of that righteous judgment. But these evils are warded off from the righteous by the law of righteousness, and are turned back upon the unrighteous by the righteousness of that judgment. Each proceeding is equally just; for the righteous, because they are righteous, the warning exhibition of evil without actual infliction; for the wicked, because they so deserve, the punitive infliction of evil; the righteous will not suffer it, though it is displayed to them; the wicked will never cease to suffer it, because it is displayed to them.
11. After this there is a return to the Person of God, to Whom the petition was at the first addressed: Destroy them by Thy truth. Truth confounds falsehood, and lying is destroyed by truth. We have shewn that the whole of the foregoing prayer is the utterance of that human nature in which the Son of God was born; so here it is the voice of human nature calling upon God the Father to destroy His enemies in His truth. What this truth is, stands beyond doubt; it is of course He Who said: I am the Life, the Way, the Truth 1398 . And the enemies were destroyed by the truth when, for all their attempts to win Christ’s condemnation by false witness, they heard that He was risen from the dead and had to admit that He had resumed His glory in all the reality of Godhead. Ere long they found, in ruin and destruction by famine and war, their reward for crucifying God; for they condemned the Lord of Life to death, and paid no heed to God’s truth displayed in Him through His glorious works. And thus the Truth of God destroyed them when He rose again to resume the majesty of His Father’s Glory, and gave proof of the truth of that perfect Divinity which He possessed.
12. Now in view of our repeated, nay our unbroken assertion both that it was the Only-begotten Son of God Who was uplifted on the cross, and that He was condemned to death Who is eternal by virtue of the origin which is His by the nature which He derives from the eternal Father, it must be clearly understood that He was subjected to suffering of no natural necessity, but to accomplish the mystery of man’s salvation; that He submitted to suffering of His own Will, and not under compulsion. And although this suffering did not belong to His nature as eternal Son, the immutability of God being proof against the assault of any derogatory disturbance, yet it was freely undertaken, and was intended to fulfil a penal function without, however, inflicting the pain of penalty upon the sufferer: not that the suffering in question was not of a kind to cause pain, but because the divine Nature feels no pain. God suffered, then, by voluntarily submitting to suffering; but although He underwent the sufferings in all the fulness of their force, which necessarily causes pain to the sufferers, yet He never so abandoned the powers of His Nature as to feel pain.
13. For next there follows: I will sacrifice unto Thee freely. The sacrifices of the Law, which consisted of whole burnt-offerings and oblations of goats and of bulls, did not involve an expression of free will, because the sentence of a curse was pronounced on all who broke the Law. Whoever failed to sacrifice laid himself open to the curse. And it was always necessary to go through the whole sacrificial action because the addition of a curse to the commandment forbad any trifling with the obligation of offering. It was from this curse that our Lord Jesus Christ redeemed us, when, as the Apostle says: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made curse for us, for it is written: cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree 1399 . Thus He offered Himself to the death of the accursed that He might break the curse of the Law, offering Himself voluntarily a victim to God the Father, in order that by means of a voluntary victim the curse which attended the discontinuance of the regular victim might be removed. Now of this sacrifice mention is made in another passage of the Psalms: Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared for Me 1400 ; that is, by offering to God the Father, Who refused the legal sacrifices, the acceptable offering of the body which He received. Of which offering the holy Apostle thus speaks: For this He did once for all when He offered Himself up 1401 , securing complete salvation for the human race by the offering of this holy, perfect victim.
14. Then He gives thanks to God the Father for the accomplishment of all these acts: I will give thanks unto Thy name, O Lord, for it is good, for Thou hast delivered Me out of all affliction. He has assigned to each clause its strict fulfilment. Thus at the beginning He had said: Save Me, O God, by Thy name; after the prayers had been heard it was right that there should follow a corresponding ascription of thanks, in order that confession might be made to His name by Whose name He had prayed to be saved, and that inasmuch as He had asked for help against the strangers that rose up against Him, He might set on record that He had received it in the burst of joy expressed in the words: Thou hast delivered Me out of all affliction. Then in respect of the fact that the violent in seeking after His soul did not set God before their eyes, He has declared His eternal possession of unchangeable divinity in the words: And Mine eye hath looked down upon Mine enemies. For the Only-begotten Son of God was not cut off by death. It is true that in order to take the whole of our nature upon Him He submitted to death, that is to the apparent severance of soul and body, and made His way even to the realms below, the debt which man must manifestly pay: but He rose again and abides for ever and looks down with an eye that death cannot dim upon His enemies, being exalted unto the glory of God and born once more Son of God after becoming Son of Man, as He had been Son of God when He first became Son of Man, by the glory of His resurrection. He looks down upon His enemies to whom He once said: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up 1402 . And so, now that this temple of His body has been built again, He surveys from His throne on high those who sought after His soul, and, set far beyond the power of human death, He looks down from heaven upon those who wrought His death, He who suffered death, yet could not die, the God-Man, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.
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Footnotes
243:1388Acts 13:22, 1 Sam. 13:14.
243:1389St. Luke xxiii. 46.
243:1390Psa. 51.9.
243:1391Is. xxix 13.
244:1392Phil. ii. 8 ff.
244:13932 Cor. xiii. 4.
244:1394Rom. i. 16.
244:1395Rom. 8.26.
245:1396St. John v. 19.
245:1397Diapsalmus, see Suicer, s.v. and Dict. of Bible, Selah.
246:1398St. John xiv. 6.
246:1399Gal. iii. 13.
247:1400Psa. 40.7.
247:1401Heb. vii. 27.
247:1402St. John ii. 19.
Psalm CXXX. (CXXXI.).
O Lord, my heart is not exalted, neither have mine eyes been lifted up.
1. This Psalm, a short one, which demands an analytical rather than a homiletical treatment, teaches us the lesson of humility and meekness. Now, as we have in a great number of other places spoken about humility, there is no need to repeat the same things here. Of course we are bound to bear in mind in how great need our faith stands of humility when we hear the Prophet thus speaking of it as equivalent to the performance of the highest works: O Lord, my heart is not exalted. For a troubled heart is the noblest sacrifice in the eyes of God. The heart, therefore, must not be lifted up by prosperity, but humbly kept within the bounds of meekness through the fear of God.
2. Neither have Mine eyes been lifted up. The strict sense of the Greek here conveys a different meaning; οὐδὲ ἐμετεωρίσθησαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοί μου, that is, have not been lifted up from one object to look on another. Yet the eyes must be lifted up in obedience to the Prophet’s words: Lift up your eyes and see who hath displayed all these things 1403 . And the Lord says in the gospel: Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white unto harvest 1404 . The eyes, then, are to be lifted up: not, however, to transfer their gaze elsewhere, but to remain fixed once for all upon that to which they have been raised.
3. Then follows: Neither have I walked amid great things, nor amid wonderful things that are above me. It is most dangerous to walk amid mean things, and not to linger amid wonderful things. God’s utterances are great; He Himself is wonderful in the highest: how then can the psalmist pride himself as on a good work for not walking amid great and wonderful things? It is the addition of the words, which are above me, that shews that the walking is not amid those things which men commonly regard as great and wonderful. For David, prophet and king as he was, once was humble and despised and unworthy to sit at his father’s table; but he found favour with God, he was anointed to be king, he was inspired to prophesy. His kingdom did not make him haughty, he was not moved by hatreds: he loved those that persecuted him, he paid honour to his dead enemies, he spared his incestuous and murderous children. In his capacity of sovereign he was despised, in that of father he was wounded, in that of prophet he was afflicted; yet he did not call for vengeance as a prophet might, nor exact punishment as a father, nor requite insults as a sovereign. And so he did not walk amid things great and wonderful which were above him.
4. Let us see what comes next: If I was not humble-minded but have lifted up my soul. What inconsistency on the Prophet’s part! He does not lift up his heart: he does lift up his soul. He does not walk amid things great and wonderful that are above him; yet his thoughts are not mean. He is exalted in mind and cast down in heart. He is humble in his own affairs: but he is not humble in his thought. For his thought reaches to heaven, his soul is lifted up on high. But his heart, out of which proceed, according to the Gospel, evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, railings 1405 , is humble, pressed down beneath the gentle yoke of meekness. We must strike a middle course, then, between humility and exaltation, so that we may be humble in heart but lifted up in soul and thought.
5. Then he goes on: Like a weaned child upon his mother’s breast, so wilt thou reward my soul. We are told that when Isaac was weaned Abraham made a feast because now that he was weaned he was on the verge of boyhood and was passing beyond milk food. The Apostle feeds all that are imperfect in the faith and still babes in the things of God with the milk of knowledge. Thus to cease to need milk marks the greatest possible advance. Abraham proclaimed by a joyful feast that his son had come to stronger meat, and the Apostle refuses bread to the carnal-minded and those that are babes in Christ. And so the Prophet prays that God, because he has not lifted up his heart, nor walked amid things great and wonderful that are above him, because he has not been humble-minded but did lift up his soul, may reward his soul, lying like a weaned child upon his mother: that is to say that he may be deemed worthy of the reward of the perfect, heavenly and living bread, on the ground that by reason of his works already recorded he has now passed beyond the stage of milk.
6. But he does not demand this living bread from heaven for himself alone, he encourages all mankind to hope for it by saying: Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for evermore. He sets no temporal limit to our hope, he bids our faithful expectation stretch out into infinity. We are to hope for ever and ever, winning the hope of future life through the hope of our present life which we have in Christ Jesus our Lord, Who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.
Footnotes
247:1403Is. xl. 26.
247:1404St. John iv. 35.
248:1405St. Matt. xv. 19.
p. ib
John of Damascus.
Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.
Translated
by
The Rev. S. D. F. Salmond, D.D., F.E.I.S.,
Principal of the Free Church College, Aberdeen.
p. iib Note.
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In the difficult task of translating the De Fide Orthodoxa—a task made the more difficult at times by the condition of the text,—I am indebted for much to my son, James L. Salmond, M.A., M.B., formerly of Balliol College, Oxford. There still remain passages of doubtful interpretation. It was intended to furnish a larger body of Notes and also an account of John and his writings. It has been found advisable, however, to complete the volume without these.
S. D. F. Salmond.
Aberdeen, 1 Sept. 1898.
p. viib
Prologue.
From the Latin of the Edition of Michael Lequien, as Given in Migne’s Patrology.
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After the rules of Christian dialectic and the review of the errors of ancient heresies comes at last the book “Concerning the Orthodox Faith.” In this book, John of Damascus retains the same order as was adopted by Theodoret in his “Epitome of Divine Dogmas,” but takes a different method. For the former, by the sheer weight of his own genius, framed various kinds of arguments against heretics, adducing the testimony of the sacred page, and thus he composed a concise treatise of Theology. Our author, however, did not confine himself to Scripture, but gathered together also the opinions of the holy Fathers, and produced a work marked with equal perspicuity and brevity, and forming an unexhausted storehouse of tradition in which nothing is to be found that has not been either sanctioned by the œcumenical synods or accepted by the approved leaders of the Church.
He followed, indeed, chiefly Gregory of Nazianzus, who, from the great accuracy of his erudition in divine matters, earned the title “The Theologian,” and who has left scarcely any chapter of Christian learning untouched in his surviving works, and is free from any taint or suspicion of the slightest error. John had read his books with such assiduity that he seemed to hold them all in the embrace of his faithful memory. Wherefore throughout this work you may hear not so much John of Damascus as Gregory the Theologian expounding the mysteries of the orthodox faith. John further made use of Basil the great, of Gregory of Nyssa, and especially of Nemesius, bishop of Emesa in Syria, the most beloved of all; likewise of Cyril of Alexandria, Leo the Great, Leontius of Byzantium, the martyr Maximus: also of Athanasius, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, and, not to mention others, that writer who took the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. Out of all these he culled on every hand the flower of their opinions, and concocted most sweet honey of soundest doctrine. For his aim was, not to strike out views of his own or anything novel, but rather to collect into one single theological work the opinions of the ancients which were scattered through various volumes. And, indeed, in order that the reader may more readily perceive the method of this most careful teacher, we shall carefully note in the margin the names of the authors and of the books from which he copied each separate opinion.
To John of Damascus, therefore, belongs the merit of being the first to compose a volume packed with the sentences of catholic teachers. Accordingly his authority among theologians was always weighty, not only in the East but even in the West and with the Latins: all the more so after the translation into Latin of his book “Concerning the Orthodox Faith,” by Burgundio, a citizen of Pisa, during the Pontificate of Eugenius the Third. Further it was this translation that was used by that master of sentences, St. Thomas, and other later theologians, down till the time when at the beginning of the 16th century Jacobus Faber Stapulensis attempted to produce a more perfect translation than was the old one with its uncouth and barbarous diction. But as this one, too, had many faults, Jacobus Billius, in the course of the same century, completed a version of greater elegance but yet lacking in carefulness and brevity. For, as Combefis remarked, “in translating the Damascene Billius shewed the rawness of a recruit.” Combefis himself, however, considered the translation of Billy of no little worth; for when he was toiling at a new edition of the works of John of Damascus, he did not think it necessary to make a new translation once more, but was quite content to emend the earlier one. For he was rightly aware that all the most learned interpreters of lengthy tomes slip into many errors, and that it is much easier to improve on the errors of others than to detect one’s own. Thus our translation will represent that of Billius purged of its blemishes and restored to a more concise style. but in order that our edition should go forth in a more accurate shape than the rest, besides using the older translations and various copies to the number of twenty or more codices, collated by my own hand, I have moreover revised the Greek phraseology and diction in those places of the Greek Fathers which the Damascene has massed together. Nay, further, omitting both the shorter commentaries of p. viiib Faber on each chapter and also the longer ones of Judocus Clictoveus of Neoportua, neither of whom contributes much, if anything, to the intelligent understanding of the Greek Fathers, I have attempted by fuller annotations to place before the eyes of all a specimen of eastern theology, drawn alike from those teachers whom the Damascene copied and from Greeks of later date whom I had the privilege of consulting.
The customary division among the Latins of the work “Concerning the Orthodox Faith” into four books is found in no Greek codex, nor in the Greek edition of Verona. And, further, that division is not met with in the old manuscripts of the original Latin translation, except as a chance note written in ink by a second and later hand on the margins of some of them. Hence Marcus Hopperus appears to be mistaken in ascribing in the dedicatory epistle of the Græco-Latin edition of Basil the division into four books to the Latin translator: that is, unless I am mistaken, to Faber, whose edition he published. Traces of this, however, exist in the books of St. Thomas Aquinas. I therefore hold that this mode of division was devised and introduced by the Latins in imitation of the four books of “Sentences” of Peter Lombard. Codex Regius n. 3445, and that is a very late one, alone seems to divide the “De Fide Orthodoxa” into two parts, the first, or περὶ τῆς Θεολογίας, dealing indeed with the one triune God, the Creator and Provider, and the second, περὶ τῆς οἰκονομίας, with God Incarnate, the Redeemer and Rewarder. But an objection to this division is the clear connection between chapter 43, in which the Incarnation, or “Œconomia Divina,” is discussed, and the words which immediately precede it in the end of chapter 42, which is entitled “On Prædestination,” making either chapter part of one continuous discussion. This fault cannot be taken to the other division into four parts. But in order not to startle the reader accustomed to the former division with too much novelty, I have, following Hopperus, assigned indeed to the Greek chapters the same numbers as were marked in the Greek codices, but I have not hesitated to divide the Latin translation into four books.
I have come across no edition of the old Latin translation; but the version of Jacobius Faber was issued in Paris by Judocus Clictoveus from the press of Henry Stephen in the year 1512, along with commentaries. Next, in the year 1535, Henry Pet, the printer of Basle, published the existing works of St. John of Damascus, and amongst them the four books “Concerning the Orthodox Faith, as translated by Jacobus Faber of Stapula,” but without any commentary. After some years the same Henry in a second edition added the shorter commentaries of Clictoveus, and again in the edition published in the year 1537. In the preface to these editions there occurs among others the following sentence, “Now for the first time are added the annotations explaining all the difficulties and the hard and lofty passages.” For a truth I know no older edition in which those explanations, such as they are, are given. Further, the author of these is asserted by Henricus Gravius, of the order of Preachers, in his own Latin edition of the works of holy John of Damascus, which he brought out at Cologne from the press of Peter Quentel, in the year 1546, to have been Jacobus Faber, and of a surety indeed in certain places, and in especial where the most holy mystery of the Eucharist is under discussion, the annotations are somewhat frigid in character and do not express with sufficient fulness the catholic faith. And this cannot be said without pain, for the sake of a man whom otherwise I should look up to as worthy of veneration, as almost one of my own house, had he not proved himself a traitor to his ancestral religion or at least somewhat too partial to innovators. As to the edition of our Gravius, learned as he was in both Latin and Greek, he revised the translation, Jacobus Faber’s translation, and compared it with the Greek text and illustrated it with very short scholia, “for the sake of heretics,” as he said in the dedicatory letter to Oswald, especially where they themselves try in vain to shake the doctrine of the Church as stated by the Damascene.
The book “Concerning the Orthodox Faith” Donatus Veronensis caused to be printed at Verona first in Greek only, and presented it to Clement the Seventh in the year 1531. Not till the year 1548 did he produce a version containing both the Greek and Latin, and again in the year 1575. Next, in the year 1577, Jacobus Billy published at Paris his own translation without the Greek text: and it was printed again in that same city in the years 1603 and 1617.
Here it will not be superfluous to call to mind that the great part of the first book, as they say, of the work “Concerning the Orthodox Faith” exists as the sixth volume of the works of Cyril of Alexandria, inscribed in that teacher’s name, a result to be doubtless attributed to the carelessness of some copyist who found these writings of the Damascus along with others of Cyril.
p. 1b
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.
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Book I.
Chapter I.—That the Deity is incomprehensible, and that we ought not to pry into and meddle with the things which have not been delivered to us by the holy Prophets, and Apostles, and Evangelists.
No one hath seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him 1406 . The Deity, therefore, is ineffable and incomprehensible. For no one knoweth the Father, save the Son, nor the Son, save the Father 1407 . And the Holy Spirit, too, so knows the things of God as the spirit of the man knows the things that are in him 1408 . Moreover, after the first and blessed nature no one, not of men only, but even of supramundane powers, and the Cherubim, I say, and Seraphim themselves, has ever known God, save he to whom He revealed Himself.
God, however, did not leave us in absolute ignorance. For the knowledge of God’s existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature. This creation, too, and its maintenance, and its government, proclaim the majesty of the Divine nature 1409 . Moreover, by the Law and the Prophets 1410 in former times and afterwards by His Only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, He disclosed to us the knowledge of Himself as that was possible for us. All things, therefore, that have been delivered to us by Law and Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists we receive, and know, and honour 1411 , seeking for nothing beyond these. For God, being good, is the cause of all good, subject neither to envy nor to any passion 1412 . For envy is far removed from the Divine nature, which is both passionless and only good. As knowing all things, therefore, and providing for what is profitable for each, He revealed that which it was to our profit to know; but what we were unable 1413 to bear He kept secret. With these things let us be satisfied, and let us abide by them, not removing everlasting boundaries, nor overpassing the divine tradition 1414 .
Footnotes
1b:1406St. John i. 18 (R.V.).
1b:1407St. Matt. xi. 27.
1b:14081 Cor. ii. 11.
1b:1409Wisd. xiii. 5.
1b:1410Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
1b:1411Dionys., De div. nom., c. 1.
1b:1412Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
1b:1413Reading ὃπερ δε οὐκ ἐδυνάμεθα for ὃπερ δὲ οὖν ἐδυνάμεθα. Cod. Reg. 3379 gives καὶ ὃ οὐ δυνάμεθα.
1b:1414Prov. xxii. 28.
Chapter II.—Concerning things utterable and things unutterable, and things knowable and thing unknowable.
It is necessary, therefore, that one who wishes to speak or to hear of God should understand clearly that alike in the doctrine of Deity and in that of the Incarnation 1415 , neither are all things unutterable nor all utterable; neither all unknowable nor all knowable 1416 . But the knowable belongs to one order, and the utterable to another; just as it is one thing to speak and another thing to know. Many of the things relating to God, therefore, that are dimly understood cannot be put into fitting terms, but on things above us we cannot do else than express ourselves according to our limited capacity; as, for instance, when we speak of God we use the terms sleep, and wrath, and regardlessness, hands, too, and feet, and such like expressions.
We, therefore, both know and confess that God is without beginning, without end, eternal and everlasting, uncreate, unchangeable, invariable, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, invisible, impalpable, uncircumscribed, infinite, incognisable, indefinable, incomprehensible, good, just, maker of all things created, almighty, all-ruling, all-surveying, of all overseer, sovereign, judge; and that God is One, that p. 2b is to say, one essence 1417 ; and that He is known 1418 , and has His being in three subsistences, in Father, I say, and Son and Holy Spirit; and that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in all respects, except in that of not being begotten, that of being begotten, and that of procession; and that the Only-begotten Son and Word of God and God, in His bowels of mercy, for our salvation, by the good pleasure of God and the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, being conceived without seed, was born uncorruptedly of the Holy Virgin and Mother of God, Mary, by the Holy Spirit, and became of her perfect Man; and that the Same is at once perfect God and perfect Man, of two natures, Godhead and Manhood, and in two natures possessing intelligence, will and energy, and freedom, and, in a word, perfect according to the measure and proportion proper to each, at once to the divinity, I say, and to the humanity, yet to one composite person 1419 ; and that He suffered hunger and thirst and weariness, and was crucified, and for three days submitted to the experience of death and burial, and ascended to heaven, from which also He came to us, and shall come again. And the Holy Scripture is witness to this and the whole choir of the Saints.
But neither do we know, nor can we tell, what the essence 1420 of God is, or how it is in all, or how the Only-begotten Son and God, having emptied Himself, became Man of virgin blood, made by another law contrary to nature, or how He walked with dry feet upon the waters 1421 . It is not within our capacity, therefore, to say anything about God or even to think of Him, beyond the things which have been divinely revealed to us, whether by word or by manifestation, by the divine oracles at once of the Old Testament and of the New 1422 .
Footnotes
1b:1415τά τε τῆς θεολογίας, τά τε τῆς οἰκονομίας.
1b:1416Dionys., De div. nom. c. 1; Greg. Naz., Orat. 34 and 37.
2b:1417οὐσία, substance, being.
2b:1418ὑποστάσεσι, hypostases, persons.
2b:1419μιᾷ δὲ συνθέτῳ ὑποστάσει.
2b:1420οὐσία, substance, being.
2b:1421Dionys., De div. nom., c. 2.
2b:1422Ibid. c. 1.
Chapter III.—Proof that there is a God.
That there is a God, then, is no matter of doubt to those who receive the Holy Scriptures, the Old Testament, I mean, and the New; nor indeed to most of the Greeks. For, as we said 1423 , the knowledge of the existence of God is implanted in us by nature. But since the wickedness of the Evil One has prevailed so mightily against man’s nature as even to drive some into denying the existence of God, that most foolish and woe-fulest pit of destruction (whose folly David, revealer of the Divine meaning, exposed when he said 1424 , The fool said in his heart, There is no God), so the disciples of the Lord and His Apostles, made wise by the Holy Spirit and working wonders in His power and grace, took them captive in the net of miracles and drew them up out of the depths of ignorance 1425 to the light of the knowledge of God. In like manner also their successors in grace and worth, both pastors and teachers, having received the enlightening grace of the Spirit, were wont, alike by the power of miracles and the word of grace, to enlighten those walking in darkness and to bring back the wanderers into the way. But as for us who 1426 are not recipients either of the gift of miracles or the gift of teaching (for indeed we have rendered ourselves unworthy of these by our passion for pleasure), come, let us in connection with this theme discuss a few of those things which have been delivered to us on this subject by the expounders of grace, calling on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
All things, that exist, are either created or uncreated. If, then, things are created, it follows that they are also wholly mutable. For things, whose existence originated in change, must also be subject to change, whether it be that they perish or that they become other than they are by act of will 1427 . But if things are uncreated they must in all consistency be also wholly immutable. For things which are opposed in the nature of their existence must also be opposed in the mode of their existence, that is to say, must have opposite properties: who, then, will refuse to grant that all existing things, not only such as come within the province of the senses, but even the very angels, are subject to change and transformation and movement of various kinds? For the things appertaining to the rational world, I mean angels and spirits and demons, are subject to changes of will, whether it is a progression or a retrogression in goodness, whether a struggle or a surrender; while the others suffer changes of generation and destruction, of increase and decrease, of quality and of movement in space. Things then that are mutable are also wholly created. But things that are created must be the work of some maker, and the maker cannot have been created. For if he had been created, he also must surely have been created by some one, and so on till we arrive at something uncreated. The Creator, then, being uncreated, is also wholly immutable. And what could this be other than Deity?
p. 3b And even the very continuity of the creation, and its preservation and government, teach us that there does exist a Deity, who supports and maintains and preserves and ever provides for this universe. For how 1428 could opposite natures, such as fire and water, air and earth, have combined with each other so as to form one complete world, and continue to abide in indissoluble union, were there not some omnipotent power which bound them together and always is preserving them from dissolution?
What is it that gave order to things of heaven and things of earth, and all those things that move in the air and in the water, or rather to what was in existence before these, viz., to heaven and earth and air and the elements of fire and water? What 1429 was it that mingled and distributed these? What was it that set these in motion and keeps them in their unceasing and unhindered course 1430 ? Was it not the Artificer of these things, and He Who hath implanted in everything the law whereby the universe is carried on and directed? Who then is the Artificer of these things? Is it not He Who created them and brought them into existence. For we shall not attribute such a power to the spontaneous 1431 . For, supposing their coming into existence was due to the spontaneous; what of the power that put all in order 1432 ? And let us grant this, if you please. What of that which has preserved and kept them in harmony with the original laws of their existence 1433 ? Clearly it is something quite distinct from the spontaneous 1434 . And what could this be other than Deity 1435 ?
Footnotes
2b:1423Supr.c. 1; cf. Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
2b:1424Ps. xiv. 1 (E.V.).
2b:1425The readings vary between ἀγνωσίας and ἀγνοίας.
2b:1426Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
2b:1427Reading προαίρεσιν; a variant is τροπήν.
3b:1428Athan., Cont. Gent.
3b:1429Various reading, Who.
3b:1430Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
3b:1431The Greek is τῳ αὐτομάτῳ, to the automatic; perhaps = to the accidental, or, to chance.
3b:1432Or, Whose was the disposing of them in order?
3b:1433Or, Whose are the preserving of them, and the keeping of them in accordance with the principles under which they were first placed?
3b:1434παρα τὸ αὐτόματον; or, quite other than the spontaneous, or,than chance.
3b:1435Athan., De Incarn. Verbi, near the beginning. Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
Chapter IV.—Concerning the nature of Deity: that it is incomprehensible.
It is plain, then, that there is a God. But what He is in His essence and nature is absolutely incomprehensible and unknowable. For it is evident that He is incorporeal 1436 . For how could that possess body which is infinite, and boundless, and formless, and intangible and invisible, in short, simple and not compound? How could that be immutable 1437 which is circumscribed and subject to passion? And how could that be passionless which is composed of elements and is resolved again into them? For combination 1438 is the beginning of conflict, and conflict of separation, and separation of dissolution, and dissolution is altogether foreign to God 1439 .
Again, how will it also be maintained 1440 that God permeates and fills the universe? as the Scriptures say, Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord 1441 ? For it is an impossibility 1442 that one body should permeate other bodies without dividing and being divided, and without being enveloped and contrasted, in the same way as all fluids mix and commingle.
But if some say that the body is immaterial, in the same way as the fifth body 1443 of which the Greek philosophers speak (which body is an impossibility), it will be wholly subject to motion like the heaven. For that is what they mean by the fifth body. Who then is it that moves it? For everything that is moved is moved by another thing. And who again is it that moves that? and so on to infinity till we at length arrive at something motionless. For the first mover is motionless, and that is the Deity. And must not that which is moved be circumscribed in space? The Deity, then, alone is motionless, moving the universe by immobility 1444 . So then it must be assumed that the Deity is incorporeal.
But even this gives no true idea of His essence, to say that He is unbegotten, and without beginning, changeless and imperishable, and possessed of such other qualities as we are wont to ascribe to God and His environment 1445 . For these do not indicate what He is, but what He is not 1446 . But when we would explain what p. 4b the essence of anything is, we must not speak only negatively. In the case of God, however, it is impossible to explain what He is in His essence, and it befits us the rather to hold discourse about His absolute separation from all things 1447 . For He does not belong to the class of existing things: not that He has no existence 1448 , but that He is above all existing things, nay even above existence itself. For if all forms of knowledge have to do with what exists, assuredly that which is above knowledge must certainly be also above essence 1449 : and, conversely, that which is above essence 1450 will also be above knowledge.
God then is infinite and incomprehensible and all that is comprehensible about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility. But all that we can affirm concerning God does not shew forth God’s nature, but only the qualities of His nature 1451 . For when you speak of Him as good, and just, and wise, and so forth, you do not tell God’s nature but only the qualities of His nature 1452 . Further there are some affirmations which we make concerning God which have the force of absolute negation: for example, when we use the term darkness, in reference to God, we do not mean darkness itself, but that He is not light but above light: and when we speak of Him as light, we mean that He is not darkness.
Footnotes
3b:1436Various reading, It is evident that the divine (τὸ Θεῖον) is incorporeal.
3b:1437Text ἄτρεπτον. Most mss. read σεπτόν. So, too, Greg. Naz., Orat. 34, from which these words are taken. An old interpretation is ‘venerabile est.’ But in the opinion of Combefis, Gregory’s text is corrupt, and ἄτρεπτονshould be read, which reading is also supported by various authorities, including three Cod. Reg.: cf. also De Trinit. in Cyril.
3b:1438σύνθεσις.
3b:1439Greg. Naz., Orat. 32, 34.
3b:1440Text, σωθήσεται: various reading, συνθήσεται.
3b:1441Jer. xxiii. 24.
3b:1442Greg. Naz. ut supr.
3b:1443The reference is to the Pythagorean and Aristotelian ideas of the heavens as being like the body of Deity, something uncorrupt, different from the four elements, and therefore called a fifth body, or element (στοιχεῖον). In his Meteor. i. 3, De Cœlo i. 3, &c., Aristotle speaks of the Ether as extending from the heaven of the fixed stars down to the moon, as of a nature specially adapted for circular motion, as the first element in rank, but as the fifth, “if we enumerate beginning with the elements directly known by the senses.…the subsequently so-called πέμπτον στοιχεῖον, quinta essentia.” The other elements, he taught, had the upward motion, or the downward: the earth having the attribute of heaviness, and its natural place in the world being the lowest; fire being the light element, and “its place the sphere next adjoining the sphere of the ether.” See Ueberweg’s History of Philosophy, Vol. I. p. 167, Morris’s translation, and the chapter on the De Cœlo in Grote’s Aristotle, Vol. II. pp. 389, &c.
3b:1444Greg. Naz. ut supr.
3b:1445Or, such as are said to exist in the case of God, or in relation to God. The Greek is, ὅσα περὶ Θεοῦ, ἢ περὶ Θεὸν εἶναι λέγεται.
3b:1446Greg. Naz. ut supr.
4b:1447Greg. Naz., Orat. 32, 34. The Greek is, οἰκειότερον δὲ μᾶλλον ἐκ τῆς ἁπάντων ἀφαιρέσεως ποιεῖσθαι τὸν λόγον. It may be given thus:—It is more in accordance with the nature of the case rather to discourse of Him in the way of abstracting from him all that belongs to us.
4b:1448Dionys., De Myst. Theolog.
4b:1449Or, above being; ὑπὲρ οὐσίαν.
4b:1450Or, above being; ὑπὲρ οὐσίαν.
4b:1451Or, but only the things which relate to His nature. The Greek is, ὅσα δὲ λέγομεν ἐπὶ Θεοῦ καταφαντικῶς, οὐ τὴν φύσιν, ἀλλὰ τὰ περὶ τὴν φύσιν δηλοῖ.
4b:1452Or, the things that relate to his nature.
Chapter V.—Proof that God is one and not many.
We have, then, adequately demonstrated that there is a God, and that His essence is incomprehensible. But that God is one 1453 and not many is no matter of doubt to those who believe in the Holy Scriptures. For the Lord says in the beginning of the Law: I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me 1454 . And again He says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord 1455 . And in Isaiah the prophet we read, For I am the first God and I am the last, and beside Me there is no God. Before Me there was not any God, nor after Me will there be any God, and beside Me there is no God 1456 . And the Lord, too, in the holy gospels speaketh these words to His Father, And this is life eternal, that they may know Thee the only true God 1457 . But with those that do not believe in the Holy Scriptures we will reason thus.
The Deity is perfect 1458 , and without blemish in goodness, and wisdom, and power, without beginning, without end, everlasting, uncircumscribed 1459 , and in short, perfect in all things. Should we say, then, that there are many Gods, we must recognise difference among the many. For if there is no difference among them, they are one rather than many. But if there is difference among them, what becomes of the perfectness? For that which comes short of perfection, whether it be in goodness, or power, or wisdom, or time, or place, could not be God. But it is this very identity in all respects that shews that the Deity is one and not many 1460 .
Again, if there are many Gods, how can one maintain that God is uncircumscribed? For where the one would be, the other could not be 1461 .
Further, how could the world be governed by many and saved from dissolution and destruction, while strife is seen to rage between the rulers? For difference introduces strife 1462 . And if any one should say that each rules over a part, what of that which established this order and gave to each his particular realm? For this would the rather be God. Therefore, God is one, perfect, uncircumscribed, maker of the universe, and its preserver and governor, exceeding and preceding all perfection.
Moreover, it is a natural necessity that duality should originate in unity 1463 .
Footnotes
4b:1453Various reading, but that He is one.
4b:1454Exod. 20:2, 3.
4b:1455Deut. vi. 4.
4b:1456Isa. 1:0, Isa. 43:10.
4b:1457St. John xvii. 3.
4b:1458See Thomas Aquin. I. quæst. 11, Art. 4; also cf. Book iv., c. 21 beneath. The question of the unity of the Deity is similarly dealt with by those of the Fathers who wrote against the Marcionites and the Manichæans, and by Athenagoras.
4b:1459Or, infinite; ἀπερίγραπτον.
4b:1460Infr. lib. iv. c. 21.
4b:1461Greg. Nyss., Prol. Catech.
4b:1462Greg. Naz., Orat. 35.
4b:1463Cf. Dionys., De div. nom., c. 5, 13.
Chapter VI.—Concerning the Word and the Son of God: a reasoned proof.
So then this one and only God is not Wordless 1464 . And possessing the Word, He will have it not as without a subsistence, nor as having had a beginning, nor as destined to cease to be. For there never was a time when God was not Word: but He ever possesses His own Word, begotten of Himself, not, as our word is, without a subsistence and dissolving into air, but having a subsistence in Him and p. 5b life and perfection, not proceeding out of Himself but ever existing within Himself 1465 . For where could it be, if it were to go outside Him? For inasmuch as our nature is perishable and easily dissolved, our word is also without subsistence. But since God is everlasting and perfect, He will have His Word subsistent in Him, and everlasting and living, and possessed of all the attributes of the Begetter. For just as our word, proceeding as it does out of the mind, is neither wholly identical with the mind nor utterly diverse from it (for so far as it proceeds out of the mind it is different from it, while so far as it reveals the mind, it is no longer absolutely diverse from the mind, but being one in nature with the mind, it is yet to the subject diverse from it), so in the same manner also the Word of God 1466 in its independent subsistence is differentiated 1467 from Him from Whom it derives its subsistence 1468 : but inasmuch as it displays in itself the same attributes as are seen in God, it is of the same nature as God. For just as absolute perfection is contemplated in the Father, so also is it contemplated in the Word that is begotten of Him.
Footnotes
4b:1464ἄλογον; without Word, or, without Reason.
5b:1465Greg. Nyss., Catech., c. 1.
5b:1466In R. 2427 is added, ‘Who is the Son.’
5b:1467διῄρηται, i.e. distinguished from the Father. Objection is taken to the use of such a verb as suggestive of division. It is often employed, however, by Greg. Naz. (e.g. Orat. 34) to express the distinction of persons. In many passages of Gregory and other Fathers the noun διαίρεσις is used to express the distinction of persons. In many passages of Gregory and other Fathers the noun διαίρεσις is used to express the distinction of one thing from another: and in this sense it is opposed both to the Sabellian confusion and the Arian division.
5b:1468Reading ὑπόστασιν. Various reading, ὕπαρξιν, existence.
Chapter VII.—Concerning the Holy Spirit, a reasoned proof.
Moreover the Word must also possess Spirit 1469 . For in fact even our word is not destitute of spirit; but in our case the spirit is something different from our essence 1470 . For there is an attraction and movement of the air which is drawn in and poured forth that the body may be sustained. And it is this which in the moment of utterance becomes the articulate word, revealing in itself the force of the word 1471 . 1472 But in the case of the divine nature, which is simple and uncompound, we must confess in all piety that there exists a Spirit of God, for the Word is not more imperfect than our own word. Now we cannot, in piety, consider the Spirit to be something foreign that gains admission into God from without, as is the case with compound natures like us. Nay, just as, when we heard 1473 of the Word of God, we considered it to be not without subsistence, nor the product of learning, nor the mere utterance of voice, nor as passing into the air and perishing, but as being essentially subsisting, endowed with free volition, and energy, and omnipotence: so also, when we have learnt about the Spirit of God, we contemplate it as the companion of the Word and the revealer of His energy, and not as mere breath without subsistence. For to conceive of the Spirit that dwells in God as after the likeness of our own spirit, would be to drag down the greatness of the divine nature to the lowest depths of degradation. But we must contemplate it as an essential power, existing in its own proper and peculiar subsistence, proceeding from the Father and resting in the Word 1474 , and shewing forth the Word, neither capable of disjunction from God in Whom it exists, and the Word Whose companion it is, nor poured forth to vanish into nothingness 1475 , but being in subsistence in the likeness of the Word, endowed with life, free volition, independent movement, energy, ever willing that which is good, and having power to keep pace with the will in all its decrees 1476 , having no beginning and no end. For never was the Father at any time lacking in the Word, nor the Word in the Spirit.
Thus because of the unity in nature, the error of the Greeks in holding that God is many, is utterly destroyed: and again by our acceptance of the Word and the Spirit, the dogma of the Jews is overthrown: and there remains of each party 1477 only what is profitable 1478 . On the one hand of the Jewish idea we have the unity of God’s nature, and on the other, of the Greek, we have the distinction in subsistences and that only 1479 .
p. 6b But should the Jew refuse to accept the Word and the Spirit, let the divine Scripture confute him and curb his tongue. For concerning the Word, the divine David says, For ever, O Lord, Thy Word is settled in heaven 1480 . And again, He sent His Word and healed them 1481 . But the word that is uttered is not sent, nor is it for ever settled 1482 . And concerning the Spirit, the same David says, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created 1483 . And again, By the word of the Lord were the heavens made: and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth 1484 . Job, too, says, The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life 1485 . Now the Spirit which is sent and makes and stablishes and conserves, is not mere breath that dissolves, any more than the mouth of God is a bodily member. For the conception of both must be such as harmonizes with the Divine nature 1486 .
Footnotes
5b:1469The Greek theologians, founding on the primary sense of the Greek term Πνεῦμα, and on certain passages of Scripture in which the word seemed to retain that sense more or less (especially Psalm xxxiii. 6. in the Vulgate rendering, verbo Dei cœli formati sunt: et spiritu oris ejus omnis virtus eorum), spoke of the Holy Ghost as proceeding from the Father like the breath of His mouth in the utterance or emission of His Word. See ch. 15 of this Book, where we have the sentence, οὐδεμία γὰρ ὁρμὴ ἄνευ πνεύματος. Compare also such passages as these—Greg. Naz., Orat. i. 3: Cyril. Alex., Thes., assert. 34, De Trin. dial. 2, p. 425, and 7, pp. 634, 640; Basil, Contra Eunom., B.V., and De Spiritu Sancto, ch. 18; Greg. Scholar., Contra Latin., de process. Spiritus Sancti, i. 4, where we have the statement οὕτω καὶ τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα ὥσπερ ὁρμὴ καὶ κίνησις, ἐνδοτέρα τῆς ὑπερφυοῦς ἐκείνης οὐσίας, so the Holy Spirit is like an impulse and movement within that supernatural essence.
5b:1470Or, substance; οὐσία.
5b:1471Text, φανεροῦσα: various reading, φέρουσα (cf. Cyril, De Trinitate).
5b:1472Greg. Nyss., Catech., c. 2.
5b:1473Text, ἀκούσαντες: variant, ἀκούοντες (so in Cyril).
5b:1474So Cyril speaks frequently of the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father and being (ειναι) and abiding (μένειν) in the Son; as also of the Spirit as being of the Son and having His nature in Him (ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐμπεφυκὼς αὐτῷ). The idea seems to have been that as the Son is in the bosom of the Father so the Spirit is in the bosom of the Son. The Spirit was compared again to the energy, the natural, living energy, of the Son (ἐνέργεια φυσικὴ καὶ ζωσα, τὸ ἐνεργὲς τοῦ υἱοῦ), Cyril, Dial 7 ad Hermiam. Such terms as προβολεὺς ἐκφαντορικοῦ πνεύματος, the Producer, or, Emitter of the revealing Spirit, and the ἔκφανσις or ἔλλαμψις, the revealing, the forth-shewing, were also used to express the procession of the one eternal Person from the Other as like the emission or forth-shewing of light from light.
5b:1475Greg. Naz., Orat. 37, 44.
5b:1476Text, πρὸς πᾶσαν πρόθεσιν: variant θέλησιν in almost all the codices.
5b:1477αἵρεσις.
5b:1478Greg. Orat. 38, and elsewhere.
5b:1479Greg. Nyss., Catech., c. 3.
6b:1480Ps. cxix. 89.
6b:1481Psa. 107.30.
6b:1482Text, διαμένει: variant, μένει.
6b:1483Ps. civ. 30.
6b:1484Psa. 33.6.
6b:1485Job xxxiii. 4.
6b:1486Basil, De Spir. Sancto, ad Amphil. c. 18.
Chapter VIII.—Concerning the Holy Trinity.
We believe, then, in One God, one beginning 1487 , having no beginning, uncreate, unbegotten, imperishable and immortal, everlasting, infinite, uncircumscribed, boundless, of infinite power, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, without flux, passionless, unchangeable, unalterable, unseen, the fountain of goodness and justice, the light of the mind, inaccessible; a power known by no measure, measurable only by His own will alone (for all things that He wills He can 1488 ), creator of all created things, seen or unseen, of all the maintainer and preserver, for all the provider, master and lord and king over all, with an endless and immortal kingdom: having no contrary, filling all, by nothing encompassed, but rather Himself the encompasser and maintainer and original possessor of the universe, occupying 1489 all essences intact 1490 and extending beyond all things, and being separate from all essence as being super-essential 1491 and above all things and absolute God, absolute goodness, and absolute fulness 1492 : determining all sovereignties and ranks, being placed above all sovereignty and rank, above essence and life and word and thought: being Himself very light and goodness and life and essence, inasmuch as He does not derive His being from another, that is to say, of those things that exist: but being Himself the fountain of being to all that is, of life to the living, of reason to those that have reason; to all the cause of all good: perceiving all things even before they have become: one essence, one divinity, one power, one will, one energy, one beginning, one authority, one dominion, one sovereignty, made known in three perfect subsistences and adored with one adoration, believed in and ministered to by all rational creation 1493 , united without confusion and divided without separation (which indeed transcends thought). (We believe) in Father and Son and Holy Spirit whereinto also we have been baptized 1494 . For so our Lord commanded the Apostles to baptize, saying, Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit 1495 .
(We believe) in one Father, the beginning 1496 , and cause of all: begotten of no one: without cause or generation, alone subsisting: creator of all: but Father of one only by nature, His Only-begotten Son and our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Producer 1497 of the most Holy Spirit. And in one Son of God, the Only-begotten, our Lord, Jesus Christ: begotten of the Father, before all the ages: Light of Light, true God of true God: begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, through Whom all things are made: and when we say He was before all the ages we shew that His birth is without time or beginning: for the Son of God was not brought into being out of nothing 1498 , He that is the effulgence of the glory, the impress of the Father’s subsistence 1499 , the living wisdom and power 1500 , the Word possessing interior subsistence 1501 , the essential and perfect and living image 1502 of the unseen God. But always He was with the Father and in Him 1503 , everlastingly and without beginning begotten of Him. For there never was p. 7b a time when the Father was and the Son was not, but always the Father and always the Son, Who was begotten of Him, existed together. For He could not have received the name Father apart from the Son: for if He were without the Son 1504 , He could not be the Father: and if He thereafter had the Son, thereafter He became the Father, not having been the Father prior to this, and He was changed from that which was not the Father and became the Father. This is the worst form of blasphemy 1505 . For we may not speak of God as destitute of natural generative power: and generative power means, the power of producing from one’s self, that is to say, from one’s own proper essence, that which is like in nature to one’s self 1506 .
In treating, then, of the generation of the Son, it is an act of impiety 1507 to say that time comes into play and that the existence of the Son is of later origin than the Father. For we hold that it is from Him, that is, from the Father’s nature, that the Son is generated. And unless we grant that the Son co-existed from the beginning with the Father, by Whom He was begotten, we introduce change into the Father’s subsistence, because, not being the Father, He subsequently became the Father 1508 . For the creation, even though it originated later, is nevertheless not derived from the essence of God, but is brought into existence out of nothing by His will and power, and change does not touch God’s nature. For generation means that the begetter produces out of his essence offspring similar in essence. But creation and making mean that the creator and maker produces from that which is external, and not out of his own essence, a creation of an absolutely dissimilar nature 1509 .
Wherefore in God, Who alone is passionless and unalterable, and immutable, and ever so continueth, both begetting and creating are passionless 1510 . For being by nature passionless and not liable to flux, since He is simple and uncompound, He is not subject to passion or flux either in begetting or in creating, nor has He need of any co-operation. But generation in Him is without beginning and everlasting, being the work of nature and producing out of His own essence, that the Begetter may not undergo change, and that He may not be God first and God last, nor receive any accession: while creation in the case of God 1511 , being the work of will, is not co-eternal with God. For it is not natural that that which is brought into existence out of nothing should be co-eternal with what is without beginning and everlasting. There is this difference in fact between man’s making and God’s. Man can bring nothing into existence out of nothing 1512 , but all that he makes requires pre-existing matter for its basis 1513 , and he does not create it by will only, but thinks out first what it is to be and pictures it in his mind, and only then fashions it with his hands, undergoing labour and trouble 1514 , and often missing the mark and failing to produce to his satisfaction that after which he strives. But God, through the exercise of will alone, has brought all things into existence out of nothing. Now there is the same difference between God and man in begetting and generating. For in God, Who is without time and beginning, passionless, not liable to flux, incorporeal, alone and without end 1515 , generation is without time and beginning, passionless and not liable to flux, nor dependent on the union of two 1516 : nor has His own incomprehensible generation beginning or end. And it is without beginning because He is immutable: without flux because He is passionless and incorporeal: independent of the union of two again because He is incorporeal but also because He is the one and only God, and stands in need of no co-operation: and without end or cessation because He is without beginning, or time, or end, and ever continues the same. For that which has no beginning has no end: but that which through grace is endless is assuredly not without beginning, as, witness, the angels 1517 .
Accordingly the everlasting God generates His own Word which is perfect, without beginning and without end, that God, Whose nature and existence are above time, may not engender in time. But with man clearly it is otherwise, for generation is with him a matter of sex, and destruction and flux and increase and body clothe him round about 1518 , and he possesses a nature which is male or female. For the male requires the assistance of the female. But may He Who surpasses all, and transcends all thought and comprehension, be gracious to us.
The holy catholic and apostolic Church, p. 8b then, teaches the existence at once of a Father: and of His Only-begotten Son, born of Him without time and flux and passion, in a manner incomprehensible and perceived by the God of the universe alone: just as we recognise the existence at once of fire and the light which proceeds from it: for there is not first fire and thereafter light, but they exist together. And just as light is ever the product of fire, and ever is in it and at no time is separate from it, so in like manner also the Son is begotten of the Father and is never in any way 1519 separate from Him, but ever is in Him 1520 . But whereas the light which is produced from fire without separation, and abideth ever in it, has no proper subsistence of its own distinct from that of fire (for it is a natural quality of fire), the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father without separation and difference and ever abiding in Him, has a proper subsistence of its own distinct from that of the Father.
The terms, ‘Word’ and ‘effulgence,’ then, are used because He is begotten of the Father without the union of two, or passion, or time, or flux, or separation 1521 : and the terms ‘Son’ and ‘impress of the Father’s subsistence,’ because He is perfect and has subsistence 1522 and is in all respects similar to the Father, save that the Father is not begotten 1523 : and the term ‘Only-begotten’ 1524 because He alone was begotten alone of the Father alone. For no other generation is like to the generation of the Son of God, since no other is Son of God. For though the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father, yet this is not generative in character but processional. This is a different mode of existence, alike incomprehensible and unknown, just as is the generation of the Son. Wherefore all the qualities the Father has are the Son’s, save that the Father is unbegotten 1525 , and this exception involves no difference in essence nor dignity 1526 , but only a different mode of coming into existence 1527 . We have an analogy in Adam, who was not begotten (for God Himself moulded him), and Seth, who was begotten (for he is Adam’s son), and Eve, who proceeded out of Adam’s rib (for she was not begotten). These do not differ from each other in nature, for they are human beings: but they differ in the mode of coming into existence 1528 .
For one must recognise that the word ἀγένητον with only one ‘ν’ signifies “uncreate” or “not having been made,” while ἀγέννητον written with double ‘ν’ means “unbegotten.” According to the first significance essence differs from essence: for one essence is uncreate, or ἀγένητον with one ‘ν,’ and another is create or γενητή. But in the second significance there is no difference between essence and essence. For the first subsistence of all kinds of living creatures is ἀγέννητος but not ἀγένητος. For they were created by the Creator, being brought into being by His Word, but they were not begotten, for there was no pre-existing form like themselves from which they might have been born.
So then in the first sense of the word the three absolutely divine subsistences of the Holy Godhead agree 1529 : for they exist as one in essence and uncreate 1530 . But with the second signification it is quite otherwise. For the Father alone is ingenerate 1531 , no other subsistence having given Him being. And the Son alone is generate, for He was begotten of the Father’s essence without beginning and without time. And only the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father’s essence, not having been generated but simply proceeding 1532 . For this is the doctrine of Holy Scripture. But the nature of the generation and the procession is quite beyond comprehension.
And this also it behoves 1533 us to know, that the names Fatherhood, Sonship and Procession, were not applied to the Holy Godhead by us: on the contrary, they were communicated to us by the Godhead, as the divine apostle says, Wherefore I bow the knee to the Father, from Whom is every family in heaven and on earth 1534 . But if we say 1535 that the Father is the origin of the Son and greater than the p. 9b Son, we do not suggest any precedence in time or superiority in nature of the Father over the Son 1536 (for through His agency He made the ages 1537 ), or superiority in any other respect save causation. And we mean by this, that the Son is begotten of the Father and not the Father of the Son, and that the Father naturally is the cause of the Son: just as we say in the same way not that fire proceedeth from light, but rather light from fire. So then, whenever we hear it said that the Father is the origin of the Son and greater than the Son, let us understand it to mean in respect of causation. And just as we do not say that fire is of one essence and light of another, so we cannot say that the Father is of one essence and the Son of another: but both are of one and the same essence 1538 . And just as we say that fire has brightness 1539 through the light proceeding from it, and do not consider the light of the fire as an instrument ministering to the fire, but rather as its natural force: so we say that the Father creates all that He creates through His Only-begotten Son, not as though the Son were a mere instrument serving 1540 the Father’s ends, but as His natural and subsistential force 1541 . And just as we say both that the fire shines and again that the light of the fire shines, So all things whatsoever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise 1542 . But whereas light possesses no proper subsistence of its own, distinct from that of the fire, the Son is a perfect subsistence 1543 , inseparable from the Father’s subsistence, as we have shewn above. For it is quite impossible to find in creation an image that will illustrate in itself exactly in all details the nature of the Holy Trinity. For how could that which is create and compound, subject to flux and change, circumscribed, formed and corruptible, clearly shew forth the super-essential divine essence, unaffected as it is in any of these ways? Now it is evident that all creation is liable to most of these affections, and all from its very nature is subject to corruption.
Likewise we believe also in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life: Who proceedeth from the Father and resteth in the Son: the object of equal adoration and glorification with the Father and Son, since He is co-essential and co-eternal 1544 : the Spirit of God, direct, authoritative 1545 , the fountain of wisdom, and life, and holiness: God existing and addressed along with Father and Son: uncreate, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting, all-powerful, of infinite power, Lord of all creation and not under any lord 1546 : deifying, not deified 1547 : filling, not filled: shared in, not sharing in: sanctifying, not sanctified: the intercessor, receiving the supplications of all: in all things like to the Father and Son: proceeding from the Father and communicated through the Son, and participated in by all creation, through Himself creating, and investing with essence and sanctifying, and maintaining the universe: having subsistence, existing in its own proper and peculiar subsistence, inseparable and indivisible from Father and Son, and possessing all the qualities that the Father and Son possess, save that of not being begotten or born. For the Father is without cause and unborn: for He is derived from nothing, but derives from Himself His being, nor does He derive a single quality from another 1548 . Rather He is Himself the beginning and cause of the existence of all things in a definite and natural manner. But the Son is derived from the Father after the manner of generation, and the Holy Spirit likewise is derived from the Father, yet not after the manner of generation, but after that of procession. And we have learned that there is a difference 1549 between generation and procession, but the nature of that difference we in no wise understand. Further, the generation of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit are simultaneous.
All then that the Son and the Spirit have is from the Father, even their very being 1550 : and unless the Father is, neither the Son nor the Spirit is. And unless the Father possesses a certain attribute, neither the Son nor the Spirit possesses it: and through the Father 1551 , that is, because of the Father’s existence 1552 , the Son and the Spirit exist 1553 , and through the Father, that is, because of the Father having the qualities, the Son and the Spirit have all their qualities, those of being unbegotten, and of birth and of procession being excepted 1554 . For in these hypop. 10b static or personal properties alone do the three holy subsistences 1555 differ from each other, being indivisibly divided not by essence but by the distinguishing mark of their proper and peculiar subsistence.
Further we say that each of 1556 the three has a perfect subsistence, that we may understand not one compound perfect nature made up of three imperfect elements, but one simple essence, surpassing and preceding perfection, existing in three perfect subsistences 1557 . For all that is composed of imperfect elements must necessarily be compound. But from perfect subsistences no compound can arise. Wherefore we do not speak of the form as from subsistences, but as in subsistences 1558 . But we speak of those things as imperfect which do not preserve the form of that which is completed out of them. For stone and wood and iron are each perfect in its own nature, but with reference to the building that is completed out of them each is imperfect: for none of them is in itself a house.
The subsistences then we say are perfect, that we may not conceive of the divine nature as compound. For compoundness is the beginning of separation. And again we speak of the three subsistences as being in each other 1559 , that we may not introduce a crowd and multitude of Gods 1560 . Owing to the three subsistences, there is no compoundness or confusion: while, owing to their having the same essence and dwelling in one another, and being the same in will, and energy, and power, and authority, and movement, so to speak, we recognise the indivisibility and the unity of God. For verily there is one God, and His word and Spirit.
Marg. ms. Concerning the distinction of the three subsistences: and concerning the thing itself and our reason and thought in relation to it.
One ought, moreover, to recognise that it is one thing to look at a matter as it is, and another thing to look at it in the light of reason and thought. In the case of all created things, the distinction of the subsistences is observed in actual fact. For in actual fact Peter is seen to be separate from Paul. But the community and connection and unity are apprehended by reason and thought. For it is by the mind that we perceive that Peter and Paul are of the same nature and have one common nature 1561 . For both are living creatures, rational and mortal: and both are flesh, endowed with the spirit of reason and understanding 1562 . It is, then, by reason that this community of nature is observed. For here indeed the subsistences do not exist one within the other. But each privately and individually, that is to say, in itself, stands quite separate, having very many points that divide it from the other. For they are both separated in space and differ in time, and are divided in thought, and power, and shape, or form, and habit, and temperament and dignity, and pursuits, and all differentiating properties, but above all, in the fact that they do not dwell in one another but are separated. Hence it comes that we can speak of two, three, or many men.
And this may be perceived throughout the whole of creation, but in the case of the holy and superessential and incomprehensible Trinity, far removed from everything, it is quite the reverse. For there the community and unity are observed in fact, through the co-eternity of the subsistences, and through their having the same essence and energy and will and concord of mind 1563 , and then being identical in authority and power and goodness—I do not say similar but identical—and then movement by one impulse 1564 . For there is one essence, one goodness, one power, one will, one energy, one authority, one and the same, I repeat, not three resembling each other. But the three subsistences have one and the same movement. For each one of them is related as closely to the other as to itself: that is to say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in all respects, save those of not being begotten, of birth and of procession. But it is by thought that the difference is perceived 1565 . For we recognise one God: but only in the attributes of Fatherhood, Sonship, and Procession, both in respect of cause and effect and perfection of subsistence, that is, manner of existence, do we perceive difference 1566 . For with reference to the uncircumscribed Deity we cannot speak of separation in space, as we can in our own case. For the subsistences dwell in one another, in no wise confused but cleaving together, according to the word of the Lord, p. 11b I am in the father, and the father in Me 1567 : nor can one admit difference in will or judgment or energy or power or anything else whatsoever which may produce actual and absolute separation in our case. Wherefore we do not speak of three Gods, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but rather of one God, the holy Trinity, the Son and Spirit being referred to one cause 1568 , and not compounded or coalesced according to the synæresis of Sabellius. For, as we said, they are made one not so as to commingle, but so as to cleave to each other, and they have their being in each other 1569 without any coalescence or commingling. Nor do the Son and the Spirit stand apart, nor are they sundered in essence according to the diæresis of Arias 1570 . For the Deity is undivided amongst things divided, to put it concisely: and it is just like three suns cleaving to each other without separation and giving out light mingled and conjoined into one. When, then, we turn our eyes to the Divinity, and the first cause and the sovereignty and the oneness and sameness, so to speak, of the movement and will of the Divinity, and the identity in essence and power and energy and lordship, what is seen by us is unity 1571 . But when we look to those things in which the Divinity is, or, to put it more accurately, which are the Divinity, and those things which are in it through the first cause without time or distinction in glory or separation, that is to say, the subsistences of the Son and the Spirit, it seems to us a Trinity that we adore 1572 . The Father is one Father, and without beginning, that is, without cause: for He is not derived from anything. The Son is one Son, but not without beginning, that is, not without cause: for He is derived from the Father. But if you eliminate the idea of a beginning from time, He is also without beginning: for the creator of times cannot be subject to time. The Holy Spirit is one Spirit, going forth from the Father, not in the manner of Sonship but of procession; so that neither has the Father lost His property of being unbegotten because He hath begotten, nor has the Son lost His property of being begotten because He was begotten of that which was unbegotten (for how could that be so?), nor does the Spirit change either into the Father or into the Son because He hath proceeded and is God. For a property is quite constant. For how could a property persist if it were variable, moveable, and could change into something else? For if the Father is the Son, He is not strictly the Father: for there is strictly one Father. And if the Son is the Father, He is not strictly the Son: for there is strictly one Son and one Holy Spirit.
Further, it should be understood that we do not speak of the Father as derived from any one, but we speak of Him as the Father of the Son. And we do not speak of the Son as Cause 1573 or Father, but we speak of Him both as from the Father, and as the Son of the Father. And we speak likewise of the Holy Spirit as from the Father, and call Him the Spirit of the Father. And we do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son 1574 : 1575 but yet we call Him the Spirit of the Son. For if any one hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His 1576 , saith the divine apostle. And we confess that He is manifested and imparted to us through the Son. For He breathed upon His Disciples, says he, and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit 1577 . It is just the same as in the case of the sun from which come both the ray and the radiance (for the sun itself is the source of both the ray and the radiance), and it is through the ray that the radiance is imparted to us, and it is the radiance itself by which we are lightened and in which we participate. Further we do not speak of the Son of the Spirit, or of the Son as derived from the Spirit 1578 .
Footnotes
6b:1487Or, principle, ἀρχήν.
6b:1488Cf. Ps. cxxxv. 6.
6b:1489Or, penetrating, ἐπιβατεύουσαν.
6b:1490ἀχράντως.
6b:1491ὑπερούσιον.
6b:1492ὑπέρθεον, ὑπεράγαθον, ὑπερπλήρη.
6b:1493Greg. Naz., Orat. 13, n. 32.
6b:1494An argument much used against the Arians, the Macedonians, and the Sabellians. See e.g. Athan., ad Serap. Epist. 1 and 2; Basil, Contra Eunom., bk. iii., and De Spiritu Sancto, ch. 10, 12; Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
6b:1495St. Matt. xviii. 19.
6b:1496Or, principle, ἀρχήν.
6b:1497προβολέα. The term προβολή, rendered prolatio by Tertullian and Hilary, was rejected as unsuitable to the idea of the Divine procession, e.g. by Athanasius, who in his Expos. Fidei denies that the Word is ἀπό& 207·ῥοια, efflux, or τμῆσις, segmen, or προβολή, emissio or prolatio; and by Jerome, Adv. Ruf., Apol. 2, his reason being that the word had been used by Gnostics in speaking of the emanations of Æons, Greg. Naz., however, Orat. 13, 35, speaks of the Father as γεννήτωρ and προβολεύς, and of the Spirit as πρόβλημα.
6b:1498Greg. Naz., Orat. 36.
6b:1499Ibid.
6b:15001 Cor. i. 24.
6b:1501The Word enhypostatic, ὁ Λόγος ἐνυπόστατος.
6b:1502Heb. i. 3.
6b:1503The Arians admitted that the Son is in the Father, in the sense in which all created things are in God. Basil (De Spiritu Sancto, ch. 25, Orat. in Princip. evang. Joan.) takes the preposition σύν, in, to express the idea of the σύναφεια, or conjunction of the two. The Scholiast on the present passages calls attention to the two prepositions with and in as denoting the Son’s eternal existence and His union with the Father, as the shining is with the light, and comes from it without separation. Basil, De Spir. Sancto, ch. 26, holds it better to say that the Spirit is one with (συνεῖναι) the Father and the Son than that He is in (ἐνεῖναι) the Father and the Son.
7b:1504Greg. Naz., Orat. 35.
7b:1505Cyril, Thesaurus, assert. 4 and 5.
7b:1506Ibid., assert. 6.
7b:1507Ibid., assert. 4.
7b:1508Greg. Naz., Orat. 29.
7b:1509Text, ἀνόμοιον παντελῶς, variant, ἀνόμοιον παντελῶς κατ᾽ οὐσίαν, cf. also Cyrill.
7b:1510Greg. Naz., Orat. 29 and 35.
7b:1511On this distinction between generation and creation, compare Athan., Contra Arianos, Or. 2, 3 ; Basil, Contra Eunom., bk. iv; Cyril, Thes., assert. 3. &c.
7b:1512Greg. Naz., Orat. 29.
7b:1513Cyril, Thes., assert. 7 and 18.
7b:1514Greg. Naz., Orat. 29.
7b:1515Cyril, Thes., assert. 5, 6, and 16; Greg., Orat. 35.
7b:1516ἀρρεύστως γεννᾷ καὶ ἐκτὸς συνδυασμοῦ. This argument is repeatedly made in refutation both of Gnostic ideas of emanation and Arian misrepresentation of the orthodox doctrine. Cf. Athan., De Synodis; Epiph., Hæres. 69; Hilary, De Trin. iii. iv.; Greg. Naz., Orat. 35.
7b:1517Infra, Book ii. c. 3.
7b:1518Greg. Naz., Orat. 45.
8b:1519Text, μηδ᾽ ὅλως. Variant in many codices is μηδαμῶς, as in the previous sentence.
8b:1520Greg. Naz., Orat. bk. i., Cont. Eun., p. 66; Cyril, Thes., assert. 5.
8b:1521Greg. Naz., Orat. 36.
8b:1522ἐνυπόστατον; enhypostatic. See Suicer, Thesaurus, sub voce.
8b:1523Greg. Naz., Orat. 23, 37, and 39.
8b:1524Cf. ibid. 23, 36.
8b:1525Athan., Contra Arian., Orat. 2; Basil, Contra Eunom. iv.; Greg. Naz., Orat. 35.
8b:1526ἀξιώματι.
8b:1527Basil, bk. ii. and iv.
8b:1528Greg. Naz., Orat. 36 and 37.
8b:1529Man. Dialog. contr. Arian.
8b:1530Cyril, Thes., assert. 1, p. 12.
8b:1531Greg. Naz., Orat. 35.
8b:1532St. John xv. 26.
8b:1533Cf. Basil, Contra Eunom., v.; Athan., Contra Arian., ii.; Cyril, Thes., assert. 32; Epiphan., Hæres. 73, &c.
8b:1534Eph. 3:14, 15: Cyril, Thes., assert. 32: Dionys., De divin. nom., c. 1.
8b:1535In the first Book of his Contra Arianos Athanasius refers to Christ’s word in St. John xiv. 28. He remarks that He does not say “the Father is better (κρείσσων) than I,” lest it should be inferred that the Son is not equal to the Father in Divine nature, but of another nature; but “the Father is greater (μείζων) than I,” that is to say, not in dignity or age, but as being begotten of the Father. And further, that by the word “greater” He indicates the peculiar property of the substance (τῆς οὐσίας τὴν ἰδιότητα). This declaration of our Lord’s was understood in the same way by Basil, Gregory Nazianzenus, Cyril and others of the Greek Fathers, and by Hilary among the Latin Fathers. In the ixth and xth Books of his De Trinitate Hilary refers to this, and says that the Father is called ‘greater’ propter auctoritatem, meaning by auctoritas not power, but what the Greeks understand by αἰτιότης, causation, principle or authorship of being. So also Soebadius says that the Father is rightly called ‘greater,’ because He alone is without an author of His being. But Latin theologians usually spoke of the Father as ‘greater,’ not because He is Father, but because the Son was made Man. To this effect also Athanasius expresses himself in his De hum. carne suscepta, while Gregory Nazianzenus speaks otherwise in his Orat. 36.
9b:1536St. John xiv. 28.
9b:1537τοὺς αἰ& 242·νας; Heb. i. 3.
9b:1538Greg. Naz., Orat. 37; Athan., Contr. Arian., bk. i.
9b:1539φαίνειν, shines.
9b:1540See Cyril, Ad Herm., dial. 2; Irenæus. iv. 14, v. 6, and John of Damascus, himself in his Dial. Contr. Manich.
9b:1541Greg. Naz., Orat. 13, 31 and 37.
9b:1542St. John v. 19.
9b:1543τέλεια ὑπόστασις; a perfect hypostasis.
9b:1544Greg. Naz., Orat. 37.
9b:1545ἡγεμονικόν.
9b:1546Greg. Naz., Orat. 49.
9b:1547θεοῦν οὐ θεούμενον.
9b:1548Text οὐ γὰρ ἔκ τινος· ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ γὰρ τὸ εἶναι ἔχει, οὐδέ τι τῶν ὅσαπερ ἔχει ἐξ ἑτέρου ἔχει· Another reading is, οὐ γὰρ ἔκ τινος τὸ ειναι ἔχει, οὐδέ τι τῶν οσα ἔχει, i.e. or He does not derive His being nor any one of His qualities from any one.
9b:1549See Greg. Naz., Orat. 29, 35; Thomas Aquin., I. Quæst. 35, art. 1.
9b:1550Greg. Naz., Orat. 25.
9b:1551See Athan., Contra Arian., Orat. 3; Greg. Naz., Orat. 35. So Augustine (Contr. Max. iii. 14, De Trin. xv.). Epiphanius (Anchor.), and Gregory of Nyssa (Epist. ad Ablab.) teach that the Spirit proceeds, and is not begotten, because He is both of the Father and the Son, while the Son is only of the Father.
9b:1552Reading, διὰ τὸ εἶναι τὸν Πατέρα: a variant is, διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν Πατέρα, as also in Cyrilli, De Trinitate.
9b:1553Greg. Naz., Orat. 23.
9b:1554Ibid., Orat., 25.
10b:1555ὑπόστασεις; hypostases.
10b:1556See Athan., Contra Arian., Orat. 5.
10b:1557Greg. Naz., Orat. 13 and 29: Athan., Orat. Contr. Arian.
10b:1558The Greek is ὅθεν οὐδὲ λέγομεν τὸ εἶδος ἐξ ὑποστάσεων, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ὑποστάσεσιν. See Basil., Orat. Contr. Sabell., Ar. et Eunom.
10b:1559See Greg. Naz., Orat. 1 and 37.
10b:1560Greg. Naz., Orat. 29, 34 and 40.
10b:1561Greg. Naz., Orat. 37.
10b:1562Ibid. 32.
10b:1563τὴν τῆς γνώμης σύμπνοιαν; co-operation of judgment, or, disposition.
10b:1564Greg. Naz., Orat. 40. The Greek is singular and difficult: τὸ ἕν ἔξαλμα τῆς κινήσεως; the one forthleaping of the motion, or movement. Origen speaks of ἡ ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ κίνησις (I. 436 A.). In Athanasius (I. 253 C.) κίνησις has the metaphorical sense of indignation.
10b:1565Greg. Naz., Orat. 37; Greg. Nyss., Epist. ad Ablab. et Orat. 32.
10b:1566Basil., Epist. 43.
11b:1567St. John xiv. 11.
11b:1568εἰς ἓν αἴτιον. So elsewhere it is put, ὥσπερ μία ἀρχή, κατὰ τοῦτο εἷς Θεός. The three Persons or Subsistences are yet One God, because of the one Principle of Being whence Son and spirit derive. So the Father is said to be the ἕνωσις ἐξ οὗ καὶ πρὸς ὃν ἄναγεται τὰ ἑξῆς.
11b:1569The Greek runs thus:—καὶ τὴν ἐν ἀλλήλαις περιχώρησιν ἔχουσι δίχα πάσης συναλοιφῆς καὶ συμφύρσεως. The term περιχώρησις, circumincessio, immanentia, was meant to express the peculiarity of the relations of the Three Divine Persons or Subsistences—their Indwelling in each other, the fact that, while they are distinct they yet are in one another, the Coinherence which implies their equal and identical Godhead. “In the Trinity,” says Bishop Bull (Defence of the Nicene Creed, bk. iv. ch. iv., secs. 13, 14), “the circumincession is most proper and perfect, forasmuch as the Persons mutually contain Each Other, and all the three have an immeasureable whereabouts (immensum ubi, as the Schoolmen express it), so that wherever one Person is there the other two exist; in other words They are all everywhere.…This outcome of the circumincession of the Persons in the Trinity is so far from introducing Sabellianism, that it is of great use, as Petavius has also observed, for (establishing) the diversity of the Persons, and for confuting that heresy. For, in order to that mutual existence (in each other) which is discerned in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, it is absolutely necessary that there should be some distinction between these who are thus joined together—that is, that those that exist mutually in each other should be different in reality, and not in mode of conception only; for that which is simply one is not said to exist in itself, or to interpenetrate itself.…Lastly, this is to be especially considered—that this circumincession of the Divine Persons is indeed a very great mystery, which we ought rather religiously to adore than curiously to pry into. No similitude can be devised which shall be in every respect apt to illustrate it; no language avails worthily to set it forth, seeing that it is an union which far transcends all other unions.”
11b:1570Greg., Orat. 29; Dionys., De div. nom., c. 2.
11b:1571Greg. Naz., Orat. 37.
11b:1572Greg. Naz., Orat. 19 and 29.
11b:1573Text, αἴτιον: variant, ἀναίτιον, causeless.
11b:1574Maxim. Epist. ad Marin.
11b:1575ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ δὲ τὸ Πνεῦμα οὐ λέγομεν. See also ch. xii., καὶ Υἱοῦ Πνεῦμα οὐχ ὡς ἐξ αὐτοῦ, and at the close of the Epist. ad Jordan, Πνεῦμα Υἱοῦ μὴ ἐξ Υἱοῦ.
11b:1576Rom. viii. 9.
11b:1577St. John xx. 29.
11b:1578Greg. Naz., Orat. 37.
p. 12b Chapter IX.—Concerning what is affirmed about God.
The Deity is simple and uncompound. But that which is composed of many and different elements is compound. If, then, we should speak of the qualities of being uncreate and without beginning and incorporeal and immortal and everlasting and good and creative and so forth as essential differences in the case of God, that which is composed of so many qualities will not be simple but must be compound. But this is impious in the extreme. Each then of the affirmations about God should be thought of as signifying not what He is in essence, but either something that it is impossible to make plain, or some relation to some of those things which are contrasts or some of those things that follow the nature, or an energy 1579 .
It appears then 1580 that the most proper of all the names given to God is “He that is,” as He Himself said in answer to Moses on the mountain, Say to the sons of Israel, He that is hath sent Me 1581 . For He keeps all being in His own embrace 1582 , like a sea of essence infinite and unseen. Or as the holy Dionysius says, “He that is good 1583 .” For one cannot say of God that He has being in the first place and goodness in the second.
The second name of God is ὁ Θεός, derived from θέειν 1584 , to run, because He courses through all things, or from αἴθειν, to burn: For God is a fire consuming all evil 1585 : or from θεᾶσθαι, because He is all-seeing 1586 : for nothing can escape Him, and over all He keepeth watch. For He saw all things before they were, holding them timelessly in His thoughts; and each one conformably to His voluntary and timeless thought 1587 , which constitutes predetermination and image and pattern, comes into existence at the predetermined time 1588 .
The first name then conveys the notion of His existence and of the nature of His existence: while the second contains the idea of energy. Further, the terms ‘without beginning,’ ‘incorruptible,’ ‘unbegotten,’ as also ‘uncreate,’ ‘incorporeal,’ ‘unseen,’ and so forth, explain what He is not: that is to say, they tell us that His being had no beginning, that He is not corruptible, nor created, nor corporeal, nor visible 1589 . Again, goodness and justice and piety and such like names belong to the nature 1590 , but do not explain His actual essence. Finally, Lord and King and names of that class indicate a relationship with their contrasts: for the name Lord has reference to those over whom the lord rules, and the name King to those under kingly authority, and the name Creator to the creatures, and the name Shepherd to the sheep he tends.
Footnotes
12b:1579The Greek runs:—ἢ σχέσιν τινὰ πρὸς τὶ των ἀντιδιαστελλομένων, ἢ τὶ τῶν παρεπομένων τῃ φύσει, ἢ ἐνέργειαν.
12b:1580Rendered in the Septuagint Version, ᾽Εγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν. Some of the Fathers made much of the fact that it is not the neuter form τὸ ὄν.
12b:1581Exod. iii. 14.
12b:1582Greg. Naz., Orat. 36.
12b:1583Dionys., De div. nom. c. 2, 3 and 4. This sentence and the next are absent in some mss., and are rather more obscurely stated than is usual with John of Damascus.
12b:1584In his Cratylus Plato gives this etymology, and Eusebius quotes it in his Prep. Evangel. i. Clement of Alexandria refers to it more than once in his Strom., bk. iv., and in his Protrept., where he says—Sidera θέους ἐκ τοῦ θέειν, deos a currendo nominarunt.
12b:1585Deut. iv. 24.
12b:15862 Mac. x. 5.
12b:1587κατὰ τὴν θελητικὴν αὐτοῦ ἄχρονον ἔννοιαν. See Thomas Aquin., I., II. Quæst. 17, Art. 1, where he says, est actus rationis, præsupposito tamen actu voluntatis.
12b:1588This sentence is absent in some mss., being added at the end of the chapter with the mark σχόλ.
12b:1589Dionys., De div. nom., c. 5.
12b:1590παρέπονται τῇ φύσει; follow the nature, are consequents of the nature, or accompany it.
Chapter X.—Concerning divine union and separation.
Therefore all these names must be understood as common to deity as a whole, and as containing the notions of sameness and simplicity and indivisibility and union: while the names Father, Son and Spirit, and causeless and caused, and unbegotten and begotten, and procession contain the idea of separation: for these terms do not explain His essence, but the mutual relationship 1591 and manner of existence 1592 .
When, then, we have perceived these things and are conducted from these to the divine essence, we do not apprehend the essence itself but only the attributes of the essence: just as we have not apprehended the essence of the soul even when we have learnt that it is incorporeal and without magnitude and form: nor again, the essence of the body when we know that it is white or black, but only the attributes of the essence. Further, the true doctrine 1593 teacheth that the Deity is simple and has one simple energy, good and energising in all things, just as the sun’s ray, which warms all things and energises in each in harmony with its natural aptitude and receptive power, having obtained this form of energy from God, its Maker.
But quite distinct is all that pertains to the divine and benignant incarnation of the divine Word. For in that neither the Father nor the Spirit have any part at all, unless so far as regards approval and the working of inexplicable miracles which the God-Word, p. 13b having become man 1594 like us, worked, as unchangeable God and son of God 1595 .
Footnotes
12b:1591Greg. Naz., Orat. 45; cf. also Epist. ad. Evagr., and Greg. Nyss., Epist. ad Ablab.; Dionys., De div. nom., c. 2; Basil, Epist. 43 ad Greg. fratr.
12b:1592Dionys., De div. nom., c. 2; Greg. Naz., Orat. 37 and 45; Nyss. Epist. ad. Ablab.
12b:1593ὁ δὲ ἀληθὴς λόγος.
13b:1594Text, ἄνθρωπος, which is absent in some codices and in Dionys., De div. nom., from which these words are taken.
13b:1595Greg. Naz., Orat. 24: Dionys., De div. nom., c. 2.
Chapter XI.—Concerning what is affirmed about God as though He had body.
Since we find many terms used symbolically in the Scriptures concerning God which are more applicable to that which has body, we should recognise that it is quite impossible for us men clothed about with this dense covering of flesh to understand or speak of the divine and lofty and immaterial energies of the Godhead, except by the use of images and types and symbols derived from our own life 1596 . So then all the statements concerning God, that imply body, are symbols, but have a higher meaning: for the Deity is simple and formless. Hence by God’s eyes and eyelids and sight we are to understand His power of overseeing all things and His knowledge, that nothing can escape: for in the case of us this sense makes our knowledge more complete and more full of certainty. By God’s ears and hearing is meant His readiness to be propitiated and to receive our petitions: for it is this sense that renders us also kind to suppliants, inclining our ear to them more graciously. God’s mouth and speech are His means of indicating His will; for it is by the mouth and speech that we make clear the thoughts that are in the heart: God’s food and drink are our concurrence to His will, for we, too, satisfy the necessities of our natural appetite through the sense of taste. And God’s sense of smell is His appreciation of our thoughts of and good will towards Him, for it is through this sense that we appreciate sweet fragrance. And God’s countenance is the demonstration and manifestation of Himself through His works, for our manifestation is through the countenance. And God’s hands mean the effectual nature of His energy, for it is with our own hands that we accomplish our most useful and valuable work. And His right hand is His aid in prosperity, for it is the right hand that we also use when making anything of beautiful shape or of great value, or where much strength is required. His handling is His power of accurate discrimination and exaction, even in the minutest and most secret details, for those whom we have handled cannot conceal from us aught within themselves. His feet and walk are His advent and presence, either for the purpose of bringing succour to the needy, or vengeance against enemies, or to perform any other action, for it is by using our feet that we come to arrive at any place. His oath is the unchangeableness of His counsel, for it is by oath that we confirm our compacts with one another. His anger and fury are His hatred of and aversion to all wickedness, for we, too, hate that which is contrary to our mind and become enraged thereat 1597 . His forgetfulness and sleep and slumbering are His delay in taking vengeance on His enemies and the postponement of the accustomed help to His own. And to put it shortly, all the statements made about God that imply body have some hidden meaning and teach us what is above us by means of something familiar to ourselves, with the exception of any statement concerning the bodily sojourn of the God-Word. For He for our safety took upon Himself the whole nature of man 1598 , the thinking spirit, the body, and all the properties of human nature, even the natural and blameless passions.
Footnotes
13b:1596Dionys., De div. nom., c. 1; De Cæl. Hier., c. 15.
13b:1597Greg. Naz., Orat. 37.
13b:1598Text, πάντα τὸν ἄνθρωπον: variant, ἅπαντα.
Chapter XII.—Concerning the Same.
The following, then, are the mysteries which we have learned from the holy oracles, as the divine Dionysius the Areopagite said 1599 : that God is the cause and beginning of all: the essence of all that have essence: the life of the living: the reason of all rational beings: the intellect of all intelligent beings: the recalling and restoring of those who fall away from Him: the renovation and transformation of those that corrupt that which is natural: the holy foundation of those who are tossed in unholiness: the steadfastness of those who have stood firm: the way of those whose course is directed to Him and the hand stretched forth to guide them upwards. And I shall add He is also the Father of all His creatures (for God, Who brought us into being out of nothing, is in a stricter sense our Father than are our parents who have derived both being and begetting from Him 1600 ): the shepherd of those who follow and are tended by Him: the radiance of those who are enlightened: the initiation of the initiated: the deification of the deified: the peace of those at discord: the simplicity of those who love simplicity: the unity of those who worship unity: of all beginning the beginning, super-essential bep. 14b cause above all beginning 1601 : and the good revelation of what is hidden, that is, of the knowledge of Him so far as that is lawful for and attainable by each.
Further and more accurately concerning divine names 1602
The Deity being incomprehensible is also assuredly nameless. Therefore since we know not His essence, let us not seek for a name for His essence. For names are explanations of actual things 1603 . But God, Who is good and brought us out of nothing into being that we might share in His goodness, and Who gave us the faculty of knowledge, not only did not impart to us His essence, but did not even grant us the knowledge of His essence. For it is impossible for nature to understand fully the supernatural 1604 . Moreover, if knowledge is of things that are 1605 , how can there be knowledge of the super-essential? Through His unspeakable goodness, then, it pleased Him to be called by names that we could understand, that we might not be altogether cut off from the knowledge of Him but should have some notion of Him, however vague. Inasmuch, then, as He is incomprehensible, He is also unnameable. But inasmuch as He is the cause of all and contains in Himself the reasons and causes of all that is, He receives names drawn from all that is, even from opposites: for example, He is called light and darkness, water and fire: in order that we may know that these are not of His essence but that He is super-essential and unnameable: but inasmuch as He is the cause of all, He receives names from all His effects.
Wherefore, of the divine names, some have a negative signification, and indicate that He is super-essential 1606 : such are “non-essential 1607 ,” “timeless,” “without beginning,” “invisible”: not that God is inferior to anything or lacking in anything (for all things are His and have become from Him and through Him and endure in Him 1608 ), but that He is pre-eminently separated from all that is. For He is not one of the things that are, but over all things. Some again have an affirmative signification, as indicating that He is the cause of all things. For as the cause of all that is and of all essence, He is called both Ens and Essence. And as the cause of all reason and wisdom, of the rational and the wise, He is called both reason and rational, and wisdom and wise. Similarly He is spoken of as Intellect and Intellectual, Life and Living, Power and Powerful, and so on with all the rest. Or rather those names are most appropriate to Him which are derived from what is most precious and most akin to Himself. That which is immaterial is more precious and more akin to Himself than that which is material, and the pure than the impure, and the holy than the unholy: for they have greater part in Him. So then, sun and light will be more apt names for Him than darkness, and day than night, and life than death, and fire and spirit and water, as having life, than earth, and above all, goodness than wickedness: which is just to say, being more than not being. For goodness is existence and the cause of existence, but wickedness is the negation of goodness, that is, of existence. These, then, are the affirmations and the negations, but the sweetest names are a combination of both: for example, the super-essential essence, the Godhead that is more than God, the beginning that is above beginning and such like. Further there are some affirmations about God which have in a pre-eminent degree the force of denial: for example, darkness: for this does not imply that God is darkness but that He is not light, but above light.
God then is called Mind and Reason and Spirit and Wisdom and Power, as the cause of these, and as immaterial, and maker of all, and omnipotent 1609 . And these names are common to the whole Godhead, whether affirmative or negative. And they are also used of each of the subsistences of the Holy Trinity in the very same and identical way and with their full significance 1610 . For when I think of one of the subsistences, I recognise it to be perfect God and perfect essence: but when I combine and reckon the three together, I know one perfect God. For the Godhead is not compound but in three perfect subsistences, one perfect indivisible and uncompound God. And when I think of the relation of the three subsistences to each other, I perceive that the Father is super-essential Sun, source of goodness, fathomless sea of essence, reason, wisdom, power, light, divinity: the generating and productive source p. 15b of good hidden in it. He Himself then is mind, the depth of reason, begetter of the Word, and through the Word the Producer 1611 of the revealing Spirit. And to put it shortly, the Father has no reason 1612 , wisdom, power, will 1613 , save the Son Who is the only power of the Father, the immediate 1614 cause of the creation of the universe: as perfect subsistence begotten of perfect subsistence in a manner known to Himself, Who is and is named the Son. And the Holy Spirit is the power of the Father revealing the hidden mysteries of His Divinity, proceeding from the Father through the Son in a manner known to Himself, but different from that of generation. Wherefore the Holy Spirit is the perfecter of the creation of the universe. All the terms, then, that are appropriate to the Father, as cause, source, begetter, are to be ascribed to the Father alone: while those that are appropriate to the caused, begotten Son, Word, immediate power, will, wisdom, are to be ascribed to the Son: and those that are appropriate to the caused, processional, manifesting, perfecting power, are to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit. The Father is the source and cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit: Father of the Son alone and producer of the Holy Spirit. The Son is Son, Word, Wisdom, Power, Image, Effulgence, Impress of the Father and derived from the Father. But the Holy Spirit is not the Son of the Father but the Spirit of the Father as proceeding from the Father. For there is no impulse without Spirit. And we speak also of the Spirit of the Son, not as through proceeding from Him, but as proceeding through Him from the Father. For the Father alone is cause.
Footnotes
13b:1599Dionys., De div. nom., c. 1.
13b:1600Athan., Orat. 2, Cont. Arian.; Cyril, Thes., assert. 13.
14b:1601Text reads, ὡς ὑπάρχιος: surely a misprint for ὡς ὑπεράρχιος.
14b:1602This chapter is not found in the oldest copies, but only in a few of the latest date. In Cod. Reg. 3109 it comes in after bk. iv. c. 9, and in Cod. Reg. 3451, after bk. ii. c. 2.
14b:1603Greg. Naz., Orat. 36.
14b:1604Dioyns., De div. nom., c. 1.
14b:1605Text, εἰ δὲ καὶ τῶν ὄντων αἱ γνωσεις, τὸ ὑπερούσιον πῶς γνωθήσεται; a variant, εἰ δὲ αἱ φύσεις ἄγνωστοι, αὐτὸ ὑπερούσιον πῶς γνωθήσεται. If the natures are unknown how can the superessential itself be known?
14b:1606Or, super-substantial, ὑπερούσιος.
14b:1607ἀνούσιος, non-substantial, without substance.
14b:1608Coloss. i. 17.
14b:1609Dionys., De div. nom., c. 5.
14b:1610Text, ἀπαραλείπτως: variant, ἀπαραλλάκτως, unchangeably, an adverb used by the Greeks in connection with the equality of the divine persons.
15b:1611προβολεύς, Lat. productor, Emitter.
15b:1612Or, Word; λόγος.
15b:1613θέλησις, cf. Cyril, Th., assert. 7; Athan., Contr. Arian. 4; Greg. Nyss., Contr. Eunom., p. 345.
15b:1614ἡ μονὴ δύναμις του Πατρὸς, ἠ προκαταρτικὴ τῆς τῶν πάντων ποιήσεως. The ἡ προκαταρτική is understood by some to mean the primordial or immediate Cause, by others to be better rendered as the primordial Power or Energy. Basil in his De Spiritu Sancto speaks of the Father as the primordial Cause (προκαταρτικὴ αἰτία) in the creation of the world.
Chapter XIII.—Concerning the place of God: and that the Deity alone is uncircumscribed.
Bodily place is the limit of that which contains, by which that which is contained is contained 1615 : for example, the air contains but the body is contained 1616 . But it is not the whole of the containing air which is the place of the contained body, but the limit of the containing air, where it comes into contact with the contained body: and the reason is clearly because that which contains is not within that which it contains.
But there is also mental place where mind is active, and mental and incorporeal nature exists: where mind dwells and energises and is contained not in a bodily but in a mental fashion. For it is without form, and so cannot be contained as a body is. God, then, being immaterial 1617 and uncircumscribed, has not place. For He is His own place, filling all things and being above all things, and Himself maintaining all things 1618 . Yet we speak of God having place and the place of God where His energy becomes manifest. For He penetrates everything without mixing with it, and imparts to all His energy in proportion to the fitness and receptive power of each: and by this I mean, a purity both natural and voluntary. For the immaterial is purer than the material, and that which is virtuous than that which is linked with vice. Wherefore by the place of God is meant that which has a greater share in His energy and grace. For this reason the Heaven is His throne. For in it are the angels who do His will and are always glorifying Him 1619 . For this is His rest and the earth is His footstool 1620 . For in it He dwelt in the flesh among men 1621 . And His sacred flesh has been named the foot of God. The Church, too, is spoken of as the place of God: for we have set this apart for the glorifying of God as a sort of consecrated place wherein we also hold converse with Him. Likewise also the places in which His energy becomes manifest to us, whether through the flesh or apart from flesh, are spoken of as the places of God.
But it must be understood that the Deity is indivisible, being everywhere wholly in His entirety and not divided up part by part like that which has body, but wholly in everything and wholly above everything.
Marg. ms. Concerning the place of angel and spirit, and concerning the uncircumscribed.
The angel, although not contained in place with figured form as is body, yet is spoken of as being in place because he has a mental presence and energises in accordance with his nature, and is not elsewhere but has his mental limitations there where he energises. For it is impossible to energise at the same time in different places. For to God alone belongs the power of energising everywhere p. 16b at the same time. The angel energises in different places by the quickness of his nature and the promptness and speed by which he can change his place: but the Deity, Who is everywhere and above all, energises at the same time in diverse ways with one simple energy.
Further the soul is bound up with the body. whole with whole and not part with part: and it is not contained by the body but contains it as fire does iron, and being in it energises with its own proper energies.
That which is comprehended in place or time or apprehension is circumscribed: while that which is contained by none of these is uncircumscribed. Wherefore the Deity alone is uncircumscribed, being without beginning and without end, and containing all things, and in no wise apprehended 1622 . For He alone is incomprehensible and unbounded, within no one’s knowledge and contemplated by Himself alone. But the angel is circumscribed alike in time (for His being had commencement) and in place (but mental space, as we said above) and in apprehension. For they know somehow the nature of each other and have their bounds perfectly defined by the Creator. Bodies in short are circumscribed both in beginning and end, and bodily place and apprehension.
Marg. ms. From various sources concerning God and the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And concerning the Word and the Spirit.
The Deity, then, is quite unchangeable and invariable. For all things which are not in our hands He hath predetermined by His foreknowledge, each in its own proper and peculiar time and place. And accordingly the Father judgeth no one, but hath given all judgment to the Son 1623 . For clearly the Father and the Son and also the Holy Spirit judged as God. But the Son Himself will descend in the body as man, and will sit on the throne of Glory (for descending and sitting require circumscribed body), and will judge all the world in justice.
All things are far apart from God, not in place but in nature. In our case, thoughtfulness, and wisdom, and counsel come to pass and go away as states of being. Not so in the case of God: for with Him there is no happening or ceasing to be: for He is invariable and unchangeable: and it would not be right to speak of contingency in connection with Him. For goodness is concomitant with essence. He who longs alway after God, he seeth Him: for God is in all things. Existing things are dependent on that which is, and nothing can be unless it is in that which is. God then is mingled with everything, maintaining their nature: and in His holy flesh the God-Word is made one in subsistence and is mixed with our nature, yet without confusion.
No one seeth the Father, save the Son and the Spirit 1624 .
The Son is the counsel and wisdom and power of the Father. For one may not speak of quality in connection with God, from fear of implying that He was a compound of essence and quality.
The Son is from the Father, and derives from Him all His properties: hence He cannot do ought of Himself 1625 . For He has not energy peculiar to Himself and distinct from the Father 1626 .
That God Who is invisible by nature is made visible by His energies, we perceive from the organisation and government of the world 1627 .
The Son is the Father’s image, and the Spirit the Son’s, through which Christ dwelling in man makes him after his own image 1628 .
The Holy Spirit is God, being between the unbegotten and the begotten, and united to the Father through the Son 1629 . We speak of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the mind of Christ, the Spirit of the Lord, the very Lord 1630 , the Spirit of adoption, of truth, of liberty, of wisdom (for He is the creator of all these): filling all things with essence, maintaining all things, filling the universe with essence, while yet the universe is not the measure of His power.
God is everlasting and unchangeable essence, creator of all that is, adored with pious consideration.
God is also Father, being ever unbegotten, for He was born of no one, but hath begotten His co-eternal Son: God is likewise Son, being always with the Father, born of the Father timelessly, everlastingly, without flux or passion, or separation from Him. God is also Holy Spirit, being sanctifying power, subsistential, proceeding from the Father without separation, and resting in the Son, identical in essence with Father and Son.
Word is that which is ever essentially present with the Father. Again, word is also the natural movement of the mind, according to which it is moved and thinks and considers, p. 17b being as it were its own light and radiance. Again, word is the thought that is spoken only within the heart. And again, word is the utterance 1631 that is the messenger of thought. God therefore is Word 1632 essential and enhypostatic: and the other three kinds of word are faculties of the soul, and are not contemplated as having a proper subsistence of their own. The first of these is the natural offspring of the mind, ever welling 1633 up naturally out of it: the second is the thought: and the third is the utterance.
The Spirit has various meanings. There is the Holy Spirit: but the powers of the Holy Spirit are also spoken of as spirits: the good messenger is also spirit: the demon also is spirit: the soul too is spirit: and sometimes mind also is spoken of as spirit. Finally the wind is spirit and the air is spirit.
Footnotes
15b:1615Arist., Physic, bk. iv. 4.
15b:1616Text, οἷον ὁ ἀ& 209·ρ περιέχει, τὸ δὲ σῶμα περιέχεται· οὐχ ὅλος δε ὁ περιέχων ἀ& 208·ρ, &c. Variant, οἷον ὁ ἀ& 209·ρ περιέχει τόδε σῶμα, οὐχ ὅλος, &c.
15b:1617ἄϋλος ὤν. Greg. Naz., Orat. 34, Greg. Nyss., De anim. et resurr., &c. speak of God as nowhere and as everywhere.
15b:1618Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
15b:1619Isa. 1:0, Isa. 6:1, seq.
15b:1620Isa. 1:0, Isa. 66:1.
15b:1621Baruch iii. 38.
16b:1622Greg. Naz., Orat. 44.
16b:1623St. John v. 22.
16b:1624St. John vi. 46.
16b:1625John 5.30.
16b:1626Greg., Orat. 36.
16b:1627Wisd. xii. 5.
16b:1628Basil, Cont. Eun., bk. v.
16b:1629μέσον τοῦ ἀγεννήτου καὶ τοῦ γεννητοῦ, καὶ δι᾽ Υἱοῦ τῷ Πατρὶ συναπτόμενον.
16b:1630αὐτοκύριος.
17b:1631προφορικός is absent in mss. but added by a second hand in one codex.
17b:1632οὐσιώδης τέ ἐστι καὶ ἐνυπόστατος. Against the Sabellian doctrine, the views of Paul of Samosata, &c.
17b:1633πηγαζόμενον.
Chapter XIV.—The properties of the divine nature.
Uncreate, without beginning, immortal, infinite, eternal, immaterial 1634 , good, creative, just, enlightening, immutable, passionless, uncircumscribed, immeasurable, unlimited, undefined, unseen, unthinkable, wanting in nothing, being His own rule and authority, all-ruling, life-giving, omnipotent, of infinite power, containing and maintaining the universe and making provision for all: all these and such like attributes the Deity possesses by nature, not having received them from elsewhere, but Himself imparting all good to His own creations according to the capacity of each.
The subsistences dwell and are established firmly in one another. For they are inseparable and cannot part from one another, but keep to their separate courses within one another, without coalescing or mingling, but cleaving to each other. For the Son is in the Father and the Spirit: and the Spirit in the Father and the Son: and the Father in the Son and the Spirit, but there is no coalescence or commingling or confusion 1635 . And there is one and the same motion: for there is one impulse and one motion of the three subsistences, which is not to be observed in any created nature.
Further the divine effulgence and energy, being one and simple and indivisible, assuming many varied forms in its goodness among what is divisible and allotting to each the component parts of its own nature, still remains simple and is multiplied without division among the divided, and gathers and converts the divided into its own simplicity 1636 . For all things long after it and have their existence in it. It gives also to all things being according to their several natures 1637 , and it is itself the being of existing things, the life of living things, the reason of rational beings, the thought of thinking beings. But it is itself above mind and reason and life and essence.
Further the divine nature has the property of penetrating all things without mixing with them and of being itself impenetrable by anything else. Moreover, there is the property of knowing all things with a simple knowledge and of seeing all things, simply with His divine, all-surveying, immaterial eye, both the things of the present, and the things of the past, and the things of the future, before they come into being 1638 . It is also sinless, and can cast sin out, and bring salvation: and all that it wills, it can accomplish, but does not will all it could accomplish. For it could destroy the universe but it does not will so to do 1639 .
Footnotes
17b:1634Text, τὸ ἄ& 203·λον: in one codex there is added as emendation or explanation, τὸ ἁπλοῦν, τὸ ἀσύνθετον.
17b:1635Greg. Naz., Orat. 1, 13 and 40.
17b:1636Dionys., De div. nom., c. 5.
17b:1637Text, καθὼς ἔχει φύσεως: in the margin of the manuscript is ὡς ἔχουσι.
17b:1638Dan. ii. 22.
17b:1639Greg., Orat. 40.
p. 18b Book II.
Chapter I.—Concerning æon or age.
He created the ages Who Himself was before the ages, Whom the divine David thus addresses, From age to age Thou art 1640 . The divine apostle also says, Through Whom He created the ages 1641 .
It must then be understood that the word age has various meanings, for it denotes many things. The life of each man is called an age. Again, a period of a thousand years is called an age 1642 . Again, the whole course of the present life is called an age: also the future life, the immortal life after the resurrection 1643 , is spoken of as an age. Again, the word age is used to denote, not time nor yet a part of time as measured by the movement and course of the sun, that is to say, composed of days and nights, but the sort of temporal motion and interval that is co-extensive with eternity 1644 . For age is to things eternal just what time is to things temporal.
Seven ages 1645 of this world are spoken of, that is, from the creation of the heaven and earth till the general consummation and resurrection of men. For there is a partial consummation, viz., the death of each man: but there is also a general and complete consummation, when the general resurrection of men will come to pass. And the eighth age is the age to come.
Before the world was formed, when there was as yet no sun dividing day from night, there was not an age such as could be measured 1646 , but there was the sort of temporal motion and interval that is co-extensive with eternity. And in this sense there is but one age, and God is spoken of as αἰ& 240·νιος 1647 and προαιώνιος, for the age or æon itself is His creation. For God, Who alone is without beginning, is Himself the Creator of all things, whether age or any other existing thing. And when I say God, it is evident that I mean the Father and His Only begotten Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, and His all-holy Spirit, our one God.
But we speak also of ages of ages, inasmuch as the seven ages of the present world include many ages in the sense of lives of men, and the one age embraces all the ages, and the present and the future are spoken of as age of age. Further, everlasting (i.e. αἰ& 240·νιος) life and everlasting punishment prove that the age or æon to come is unending 1648 . For time will not be counted by days and nights even after the resurrection, but there will rather be one day with no evening, wherein the Sun of Justice will shine brightly on the just, but for the sinful there will be night profound and limitless. In what way then will the period of one thousand years be counted which, according to Origen 1649 , is required for the complete restoration? Of all the ages, therefore, the sole creator is God Who hath also created the universe and Who was before the ages.
Footnotes
18b:1640Ps. xc. 2.
18b:1641Hebr. i. 2.
18b:1642Arist., De Cœlo, bk. 1. text 100.
18b:1643Matt. 12:32, Luke 7:34.
18b:1644Greg Naz., Orat. 35, 38, 42.
18b:1645Basil, De Struct., hom. 2; Greg. Naz., Orat. 44.
18b:1646Greg. Naz., Orat. 44.
18b:1647αἰ& 240·νιος, ‘eternal,’ but also ‘secular,’ ‘aeonian,’ ‘age-long.’
18b:1648Variant, καὶ ἀπέραντον δηλοῖ. In Regg. αἰ& 242·νος is absent.
18b:1649See his Contr. Cels., iv. Cf. Justin Martyr. Apol. 1; Basil, Hex., hom. 3; Greg. Nyss., Orat. Catech. 26, &c.
Chapter II.—Concerning the creation.
Since, then, God, Who is good and more than good, did not find satisfaction in self-contemplation, but in His exceeding goodness wished certain things to come into existence which would enjoy His benefits and share in His goodness, He brought all things out of nothing into being and created them, both what is invisible and what is visible. Yea, even man, who is a compound of the visible and the invisible. And it is by thought that He creates, and thought is the basis of the work, the Word filling it and the Spirit perfecting it 1650 .
Footnotes
18b:1650Greg. Naz., Orat. 38, 42; Dionys., De Eccl. Hier., ch. 4.
Chapter III.—Concerning angels.
He is Himself the Maker and Creator of the angels: for He brought them out of nothing into being and created them after His own image, an incorporeal race, a sort of spirit or immaterial fire: in the words of the divine David, He maketh His angels spirits, and His ministers a flame of fire 1651 : and He has described their lightness and the ardour, and p. 19b heat, and keenness and sharpness with which they hunger for God and serve Him, and how they are borne to the regions above and are quite delivered from all material thought 1652 .
An angel, then, is an intelligent essence, in perpetual motion, with free-will, incorporeal, ministering to God, having obtained by grace an immortal nature: and the Creator alone knows the form and limitation of its essence. But all that we can understand is, that it is incorporeal and immaterial. For all that is compared with God Who alone is incomparable, we find to be dense and material. For in reality only the Deity is immaterial and incorporeal.
The angel’s nature then is rational, and intelligent, and endowed with free-will, changeable in will, or fickle. For all that is created is changeable, and only that which is un-created is unchangeable. Also all that is rational is endowed with free-will. As it is, then, rational and intelligent, it is endowed with free-will: and as it is created, it is changeable, having power either to abide or progress in goodness, or to turn towards evil.
It is not susceptible of repentance because it is incorporeal. For it is owing to the weakness of his body that man comes to have repentance.
It is immortal, not by nature 1653 but by grace 1654 . For all that has had beginning comes also to its natural end. But God alone is eternal, or rather, He is above the Eternal: for He, the Creator of times, is not under the dominion of time, but above time.
They are secondary intelligent lights derived from that first light which is without beginning, for they have the power of illumination; they have no need of tongue or hearing, but without uttering words 1655 they communicate to each other their own thoughts and counsels 1656 .
Through the Word, therefore, all the angels were created, and through the sanctification by the Holy Spirit were they brought to perfection, sharing each in proportion to his worth and rank in brightness and grace 1657 .
They are circumscribed: for when they are in the Heaven they are not on the earth: and when they are sent by God down to the earth they do not remain in the Heaven. They are not hemmed in by walls and doors, and bars and seals, for they are quite unlimited. Unlimited, I repeat, for it is not as they really are that they reveal themselves to the worthy men 1658 to whom God wishes them to appear, but in a changed form which the beholders are capable of seeing. For that alone is naturally and strictly unlimited which is un-created. For every created thing is limited by God Who created it.
Further, apart from their essence they receive the sanctification from the Spirit: through the divine grace they prophesy 1659 : they have no need of marriage for they are immortal.
Seeing that they are minds they are in mental places 1660 , and are not circumscribed after the fashion of a body. For they have not a bodily form by nature, nor are they extended in three dimensions. But to whatever post they may be assigned, there they are present after the manner of a mind and energise, and cannot be present and energise in various places at the same time.
Whether they are equals in essence or differ from one another we know not. God, their Creator, Who knoweth all things, alone knoweth. But they differ 1661 from each other in brightness and position, whether it is that their position is dependent on their brightness, or their brightness on their position: and they impart brightness to one another, because they excel one another in rank and nature 1662 . And clearly the higher share their brightness and knowledge with the lower.
They are mighty and prompt to fulfil the will of the Deity, and their nature is endowed with such celerity that wherever the Divine glance bids them there they are straightway found. They are the guardians of the divisions of the earth: they are set over nations and regions, allotted to them by their Creator: they govern all our affairs and bring us succour. And the reason surely is because they are set over us by the divine will and command and are ever in the vicinity of God 1663 .
With difficulty they are moved to evil, yet they are not absolutely immoveable: but now they are altogether immoveable, not by nature but by grace and by their nearness to the Only Good 1664 .
They behold God according to their capacity, and this is their food 1665 .
They are above us for they are incorporeal, and are free of all bodily passion, yet are not passionless: for the Deity alone is passionless.
p. 20b They take different forms at the bidding of their Master, God, and thus reveal themselves to men and unveil the divine mysteries to them.
They have Heaven for their dwelling-place, and have one duty, to sing God’s praise and carry out His divine will.
Moreover, as that most holy, and sacred, and gifted theologian, Dionysius the Areopagite 1666 , says, All theology, that is to say, the holy Scripture, has nine different names for the heavenly essences 1667 . These essences that divine master in sacred things divides into three groups, each containing three. And the first group, he says, consists of those who are in God’s presence and are said to be directly and immediately one with Him, viz., the Seraphim with their six wings, the many-eyed Cherubim and those that sit in the holiest thrones. The second group is that of the Dominions, and the Powers, and the Authorities; and the third, and last, is that of the Rulers and Archangels and Angels.
Some, indeed 1668 , like Gregory the Theologian, say that these were before the creation of other things. He thinks that the angelic and heavenly powers were first and that thought was their function 1669 . Others, again, hold that they were created after the first heaven was made. But all are agreed that it was before the foundation of man. For myself, I am in harmony with the theologian. For it was fitting that the mental essence should be the first created, and then that which can be perceived, and finally man himself, in whose being both parts are united.
But those who say that the angels are creators of any kind of essence whatever are the mouth of their father, the devil. For since they are created things they are not creators. But He Who creates and provides for and maintains all things is God, Who alone is uncreate and is praised and glorified in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Footnotes
18b:1651Ps. civ. 4.
19b:1652Greg. Naz., Orat. 38.
19b:1653Nemes., ch. 1.
19b:1654Text, χάριτι. R. 2930, κατὰ χάριν.
19b:1655ἄνευ λόγου προφορικου: without word of utterance.
19b:1656Greg. Naz., Orat. 38.
19b:1657Ibid. 34.
19b:1658Text, ἀξίοις. R. 2930, ἁγίοις.
19b:1659Theodoret, Epist. de div. decr., ch. 8.
19b:1660ἐν νοητοῖς καὶ τόποις. Cf. bk. i. 17.
19b:1661See Greg. Naz., Orat. 34. And cf. Cyril, Thesaur. 31, p. 266; Epiph., Hæres. 64.
19b:1662Dionys., De Cœl. Hier., ch. 3; Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
19b:1663Dionys., De Cœl. Hier., ch. 9; Greg., Orat. 34.
19b:1664Greg. Naz., Orat. 38.
19b:1665Text, τροφήν. Variant, τρυφήν, cf. Dionys., De Cœl. Hier., ch. 7.
20b:1666Dionys., De Cœl. Hier., ch. 6.
20b:1667But cf. August., Enchir., ch. 8; Greg. Naz., Orat. 34; Greg. Nyss., Contra Eunom., Orat. 1; Chrysost., De incomprehens., hom. 3, &c.
20b:1668See Epiph., Hæres. 6, n. 4 and 5; Basil, Hex. 1; Chrysost., 2 Hom. in Gen.; Theodor., Quæst. 3in Gen.
20b:1669Greg. Naz., Orat. 2.
Chapter IV.—Concerning the devil and demons.
He who from among these angelic powers was set over 1670 the earthly realm, and into whose hands God committed the guardianship of the earth, was not made wicked in nature but was good, and made for good ends, and received from his Creator no trace whatever of evil in himself. But he did not sustain the brightness and the honour which the Creator had bestowed 1671 on him, and of his free choice was changed from what was in harmony to what was at variance with his nature, and became roused against God Who created him, and determined to rise in rebellion against Him 1672 : and he was the first to depart from good and become evil 1673 . For evil is nothing else than absence of goodness, just as darkness also is absence of light. For goodness is the light of the mind, and, similarly, evil is the darkness of the mind. Light, therefore, being the work of the Creator and being made good (for God saw all that He made, and behold they were exceeding good 1674 ) produced darkness at His free-will. But along with him an innumerable host of angels subject to him were torn away and followed him and shared in his fall. Wherefore, being of the same nature 1675 as the angels, they became wicked, turning away at their own free choice from good to evil 1676 .
Hence they have no power or strength against any one except what God in His dispensation hath conceded to them, as for instance, against Job 1677 and those swine that are mentioned in the Gospels 1678 . But when God has made the concession they do prevail, and are changed and transformed into any form whatever in which they wish to appear.
Of the future both the angels of God and the demons are alike ignorant: yet they make predictions. God reveals the future to the angels and commands them to prophesy, and so what they say comes to pass. But the demons also make predictions, sometimes because they see what is happening at a distance, and sometimes merely making guesses: hence much that they say is false and they should not be believed, even although they do often, in the way we have said, tell what is true. Besides they know the Scriptures.
All wickedness, then, and all impure passions are the work of their mind. But while the liberty to attack man has been granted to them, they have not the strength to over-master any one: for we have it in our power to receive or not to receive the attack 1679 . Wherefore there has been prepared for the p. 21b devil and his demons, and those who follow him, fire unquenchable and everlasting punishment 1680 .
Note, further, that what in the case of man is death is a fall in the case of angels. For after the fall there is no possibility of repentance for them, just as after death there is for men no repentance 1681 .
Footnotes
20b:1670πρωτοστάτης. Cf. Chrysost., Epist. ad Ephes., hom. 4, &c.
20b:1671Text, ἐδωρήσατο. R. 1986, ἐχαρίσατο.
20b:1672See Iren., bk. iv. c. 48, &c.
20b:1673Greg. Nyss., Orat. Catech., cp. 6.
20b:1674Gen. i. 31.
20b:1675See Greg. Naz., Orat. 19, 38; Chrysost., In S. Babyl. Or. 2; Basil, in Jesaiam, ch. 1, &c.
20b:1676Quæst. ad Antioch. 10.
20b:1677Job i. 12.
20b:1678St. Mark v. 13.
20b:1679VideIambl., De Myst., ch. 11, sect. 4.
21b:1680St. Matt. xxv. 41.
21b:1681Nemes., De Nat. Hom., ch. 1.
Chapter V.—Concerning the visible creation.
Our God Himself, Whom we glorify as Three in One, created the heaven and the earth and all that they contain 1682 , and brought all things out of nothing into being: some He made out of no pre-existing basis of matter, such as heaven, earth, air, fire, water: and the rest out of these elements that He had created, such as living creatures, plants, seeds. For these are made up of earth, and water, and air, and fire, at the bidding of the Creator.
Footnotes
21b:1682Ps. cxlvi. 6.
Chapter VI.—Concerning the Heaven.
The heaven is the circumference of things created, both visible and invisible. For within its boundary are included and marked off both the mental faculties of the angels and all the world of sense. But the Deity alone is uncircumscribed, filling all things, and surrounding all things, and bounding all things, for He is above all things, and has created all things.
Since 1683 , therefore, the Scripture speaks of heaven, and heaven of heaven 1684 , and heavens of heavens 1685 , and the blessed Paul says that he was snatched away to the third heaven 1686 , we say that in the cosmogony of the universe we accept the creation of a heaven which the foreign philosophers, appropriating the views of Moses, call a starless sphere. But further, God called the firmament also heaven 1687 , which He commanded to be in the midst of the waters, setting it to divide the waters that are above the firmament from the waters that are below the firmament. And its nature, according to the divine Basilius 1688 , who is versed in the mysteries of divine Scripture, is delicate as smoke. Others, however, hold that it is watery in nature, since it is set in the midst of the waters: others say it is composed of the four elements: and lastly, others speak of it as a fifth body, distinct from the four elements 1689 .
Further, some have thought that the heaven encircles the universe and has the form of a sphere, and that everywhere it is the highest point, and that the centre of the space enclosed by it is the lowest part: and, further, that those bodies that are light and airy are allotted by the Creator the upper region: while those that are heavy and tend to descend occupy the lower region, which is the middle. The element, then, that is lightest and most inclined to soar upwards is fire, and hence they hold that its position is immediately after the heaven, and they call it ether, and after it comes the lower air. But earth and water, which are heavier and have more of a downward tendency, are suspended in the centre. Therefore, taking them in the reverse order, we have in the lowest situation earth and water: but water is lighter than earth, and hence is more easily set in motion: above these on all hands, like a covering, is the circle of air, and all round the air is the circle of ether, and outside air is the circle of the heaven.
Further, they say that the heaven moves in a circle and so compresses all that is within it, that they remain firm and not liable to fall asunder.
They say also that there are seven zones of the heaven 1690 , one higher than the other. And its nature, they say, is of extreme fineness, like that of smoke, and each zone contains one of the planets. For there are said to be seven planets: Sol, Luna, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus and Saturn. But sometimes Venus is called Lucifer and sometimes Vesper. These are called planets because their movements are the reverse of those of the heaven. For while the heaven and all other stars move from east to west, these alone move from west to east. And this can easily be seen in the case of the moon, which moves each evening a little backwards.
All, therefore, who hold that the heaven is in the form of a sphere, say that it is equally removed and distant from the earth at all points, whether above, or sideways, or below. And by ‘below’ and ‘sideways’ I mean all that comes within the range of our senses. For it follows from what has been said, that the heaven occupies the whole of the upper region and the earth the whole of the lower. They say, besides, that the heaven encircles the earth in the manner of a sphere, and bears along with it in its most rapid revolutions sun, moon and stars, and that when the sun is over the earth it becomes day there, and when it is under the earth it is p. 22b night. And, again, when the sun goes under the earth it is night here, but day yonder.
Others have pictured the heaven as a hemisphere. This idea is suggested by these words of David, the singer of God, Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain 1691 , by which word he clearly means a tent: and by these from the blessed Isaiah, Who hath established the heavens like a vault 1692 : and also because when the sun, moon, and stars set they make a circuit round the earth from west to north, and so reach once more the east 1693 . Still, whether it is this way or that, all things have been made and established by the divine command, and have the divine will and counsel for a foundation that cannot be moved. For He Himself spoke and they were made: He Himself commanded and they were created. He hath also established them for ever and ever: He hath made a decree which will not pass 1694 .
The heaven of heaven, then, is the first heaven which is above the firmament 1695 . So here we have two heavens, for God called the firmament also Heaven 1696 . And it is customary in the divine Scripture to speak of the air also as heavens, because we see it above us. Bless Him, it says, all ye birds of the heaven, meaning of the air. For it is the air and not the heaven that is the region in which birds fly. So here we have three heavens, as the divine Apostle said 1697 . But if you should wish to look upon the seven zones as seven heavens there is no injury done to the word of truth. For it is usual in the Hebrew tongue to speak of heaven in the plural, that is, as heavens, and when a Hebrew wishes to say heaven of heaven, he usually says heavens of heavens, and this clearly means heaven of heaven 1698 , which is above the firmament, and the waters which are above the heavens, whether it is the air and the firmament, or the seven zones of the firmament, or the firmament itself which are spoken of in the plural as heavens according to the Hebrew custom.
All things, then, which are brought into existence are subject to corruption according to the law of their nature 1699 , and so even the heavens themselves are corruptible. But by the grace of God they are maintained and preserved 1700 . Only the Deity, however, is by nature without beginning and without end 1701 . Wherefore it has been said, They will perish, but Thou dost endure 1702 : nevertheless, the heavens will not be utterly destroyed. For they will wax old and be wound round as a covering, and will be changed, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth 1703 .
For the great part the heaven is greater than the earth, but we need not investigate the essence of the heaven, for it is quite beyond our knowledge.
It must not be supposed that the heavens or the luminaries are endowed with life 1704 . For they are inanimate and insensible 1705 . So that when the divine Scripture saith, Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad 1706 , it is the angels in heaven and the men on earth that are invited to rejoice. For the Scripture is familiar with the figure of personification, and is wont to speak of inanimate things as though they were animate: for example 1707 , The sea saw it and fled: Jordan was driven back 1708 . And again, What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou, O Jordan, that thou was driven back 1709 ? Mountains, too, and hills are asked the reason of their leaping in the same way as we are wont to say, the city was gathered together, when we do not mean the buildings, but the inhabitants of the city: again, the heavens declare the glory of God 1710 , does not mean that they send forth a voice that can be heard by bodily ears, but that from their own greatness they bring before our minds the power of the Creator: and when we contemplate their beauty we praise the Maker as the Master-Craftsman 1711 .
Footnotes
21b:1683Cf. Chrysost., In Genes., hom. 4; Basil, Hex. hom. 3, &c.
21b:1684Ps. cxv. 16.
21b:1685Psa. 148.4.
21b:16862 Cor. xii. 2.
21b:1687Gen. i. 8.
21b:1688Basil, Hom. 1 in Hexaëmeron.
21b:1689The Peripatetics. See Nemes., ch. 5.
21b:1690Basil, Hom. 3, in Hexaëmeron.
22b:1691Ps. civ. 2.
22b:1692Is. xl. 22.
22b:1693Chrysost., Hom. 14 and 17, ad Hebr.
22b:1694Ps. 48:5, 6.
22b:1695Greg. Nyss. de opif. Hom.
22b:1696Gen. i. 8.
22b:16972 Cor. xii. 2.
22b:1698Ps. cxlviii. 4.
22b:1699Plato, Tim.
22b:1700Basil, Hom. 1 and 3, in Hexaëmeron.
22b:1701Just., quæst. 93.
22b:1702Ps. cii. 26.
22b:1703Rev. 21.1.
22b:1704Cf. August., Retract. ii. 2.
22b:1705Basil, Hom. 13, in Hexaëmeron.
22b:1706Ps. xcvi. 11.
22b:1707Text, ὡς τό. N. καὶ τὸ ἀνάπαλιν.
22b:1708Ps. cxiv. 3.
22b:1709Psa. 114.5.
22b:1710Psa. 19.1.
22b:1711Basil, Hom. 1 and 3, in Hexaëmeron.
Chapter VII.—Concerning light, fire, the luminaries, sun, moon and stars.
Fire is one of the four elements, light and with a greater tendency to ascend than the others. It has the power of burning and also of giving light, and it was made by the Creator on the first day. For the divine Scripture says, And God said, Let there be light, and there was light 1712 . Fire is not a different thing from what light is, as some maintain. Others again hold that this fire of the universe is above the air 1713 and call it ether. In the beginning, then, that is to say on the first day, God created light, the ornament and glory of the whole visible creation. For take away light and all things remain in undistinguishable darkness, incapable of displaying their native beauty. And God called the light day, but the darkness p. 23b He called night 1714 . Further, darkness is not any essence, but an accident: for it is simply absence of light. The air, indeed, has not light in its essence 1715 . It was, then, this very absence of light from the air that God called darkness: and it is not the essence of air that is darkness, but the absence of light which clearly is rather an accident than an essence. And, indeed, it was not night, but day, that was first named, so that day is first and after that comes night. Night, therefore, follows day. And from the beginning of day till the next day is one complete period of day and night. For the Scripture says, And the evening and the morning were one day 1716 .
When, therefore, in the first three days the light was poured forth and reduced at the divine command, both day and night came to pass 1717 . But on the fourth day God created the great luminary, that is, the sun, to have rule and authority 1718 over the day: for it is by it that day is made: for it is day when the sun is above the earth, and the duration of a day is the course of the sun over the earth from its rising till its setting. And He also created the lesser luminaries, that is, the moon and the stars, to have rule and authority 1719 over the night, and to give light by night. For it is night when the sun is under the earth, and the duration of night is the course of the sun under the earth from its rising till its setting. The moon, then, and the stars were set to lighten the night: not that they are in the daytime under the earth, for even by day stars are in the heaven over the earth but the sun conceals both the stars and the moon by the greater brilliance of its light and prevents them from being seen.
On these luminaries the Creator bestowed the first-created light: not because He was in need of other light, but that that light might not remain idle. For a luminary is not merely light, but a vessel for containing light 1720 .
There are, we are told, seven planets amongst these luminaries, and these move in a direction opposite to that of the heaven: hence the name planets. For, while they say that the heaven moves from east to west, the planets move from west to east; but the heaven bears the seven planets along with it by its swifter motion. Now these are the names of the seven planets: Luna, Mercury, Venus, Sol, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and in each zone of heaven is, we are told, one of these seven planets:
In the first and highest Saturn
In the second Jupiter
In the third Mars
In the fourth Sol
In the fifth Venus
In the sixth Mercury
In the seventh and lowest Luna.
The course which the Creator 1721 appointed for them to run is unceasing and remaineth fixed as He established them. For the divine David says, The moon and the stars which Thou establishedst 1722 , and by the word ‘establishedst,’ he referred to the fixity and unchangeableness of the order and series granted to them by God. For He appointed them for seasons, and signs, and days and years. It is through the Sun that the four seasons are brought about. And the first of these is spring: for in it God created all things 1723 , and even down to the present time its presence is evidenced by the bursting of the flowers into bud, and this is the equinoctial period, since day and night each consist of twelve hours. It is caused by the sun rising in the middle, and is mild and increases the blood, and is warm and moist, and holds a position midway between winter and summer, being warmer and drier than winter, but colder and moister than summer. This season lasts from March 21st till June 24th. Next, when the rising of the sun moves towards more northerly parts, the season of summer succeeds, which has a place midway between spring and autumn, combining the warmth of spring with the dryness of autumn: for it is dry and warm, and increases the yellow bile. In it falls the longest day, which has fifteen hours, and the shortest night of all, having only nine hours. This season lasts from June 24th till September 25th. Then when the sun again returns to the middle, autumn takes the place of summer. It has a medium amount of cold and heat, dryness and moisture, and holds a place midway between summer and winter, combining the dryness of summer with the cold of winter. For it is cold and dry, and increases the black bile. This season, again, is equinoctial, both day and night consisting of twelve hours, and it lasts from September 25th till December 25th. And when the rising of the sun sinks to its smallest and lowest point, i.e. the south, winter is reached, with its cold and moisture. It occupies a place midway between autumn and spring, combining the cold of autumn p. 24b and the moisture of spring. In it falls the shortest day, which has only nine hours, and the longest night, which has fifteen: and it lasts from December 25th till March 21st. For the Creator made this wise provision that we should not pass from the extreme of cold, or heat, or dryness, or moisture, to the opposite extreme, and thus incur grievous maladies. For reason itself teaches us the danger of sudden changes.
So, then, it is the sun that makes the seasons, and through them the year: it likewise makes the days and nights, the days when it rises and is above the earth, and the nights when it sets below the earth: and it bestows on the other luminaries, both moon and stars, their power of giving forth light.
Further, they say that there are in the heaven twelve signs made by the stars, and that these move in an opposite direction to the sun and moon, and the other five planets, and that the seven planets pass across these twelve signs. Further, the sun makes a complete month in each sign and traverses the twelve signs in the same number of months. These, then, are the names of the twelve signs and their respective months:—
The Ram, which receives the sun on the 21st of March.
The Bull, on the 23rd of April.
The Twins, on the 24th of May.
The Crab, on the 24th of June.
The Virgin, on the 25th of July.
The Scales, on the 25th of September.
The Scorpion, on the 25th of October.
The Archer, on the 25th of November.
Capricorn, on the 25th of December.
Aquarius, on the 25th of January.
The Fish, on the 24th of February.
But the moon traverses the twelve signs each month, since it occupies a lower position and travels through the signs at a quicker rate. For if you draw one circle within another, the inner one will be found to be the lesser: and so it is that owing to the moon occupying a lower position its course is shorter and is sooner completed.
Now the Greeks declare that all our affairs are controlled by the rising and setting and collision 1724 of these stars, viz., the sun and moon: for it is with these matters that astrology has to do. But we hold that we get from them signs of rain and drought, cold and heat, moisture and dryness, and of the various winds, and so forth 1725 , but no sign whatever as to our actions. For we have been created with free wills by our Creator and are masters over our own actions. Indeed, if all our actions depend on the courses of the stars, all we do is done of necessity 1726 : and necessity precludes either virtue or vice. But if we possess neither virtue nor vice, we do not deserve praise or punishment, and God, too, will turn out to be unjust, since He gives good things to some and afflicts others. Nay, He will no longer continue to guide or provide for His own creatures, if all things are carried and swept along in the grip of necessity. And the faculty of reason will be superfluous to us: for if we are not masters of any of our actions, deliberation is quite superfluous. Reason, indeed, is granted to us solely that we might take counsel, and hence all reason implies freedom of will.
And, therefore, we hold that the stars are not the causes of the things that occur, nor of the origin of things that come to pass, nor of the destruction of those things that perish. They are rather signs of showers and changes of air. But, perhaps, some one may say that though they are not the causes of wars, yet they are signs of them. And, in truth, the quality of the air which is produced 1727 by sun, and moon, and stars, produces in various ways different temperaments, and habits, and dispositions 1728 . But the habits are amongst the things that we have in our own hands, for it is reason that rules, and directs, and changes them.
It often happens, also, that comets arise. These are signs of the death of kings 1729 , and they are not any of the stars that were made in the beginning, but are formed at the same time by divine command and again dissolved 1730 . And so not even that star which the Magi saw at the birth of the Friend and Saviour of man, our Lord, Who became flesh for our sake, is of the number of those that were made in the beginning. And this is evidently the case because sometimes its course was from east to west, and sometimes from north to south; at one moment it was hidden, and at the next it was revealed: which is quite out of harmony with the order and nature of the stars.
It must be understood, then, that the moon derives its light from the sun; not that God was unable to grant it light of its own, but in order that rhythm and order may be unimpressed upon nature, one part ruling, the other being ruled, and that we might thus be taught to live in community and to share p. 25b our possessions with one another, and to be under subjection, first to our Maker and Creator, our God and Master, and then also to the rulers set in authority over us by Him: and not to question why this man is ruler and not I myself, but to welcome all that comes from God in a gracious and reasonable spirit.
The sun and the moon, moreover, suffer eclipse, and this demonstrates the folly of those who worship the creature in place of the Creator 1731 , and teaches us how changeable and alterable all things are. For all things are changeable save God, and whatever is changeable is liable to corruption in accordance with the laws of its own nature.
Now the cause of the eclipse of the sun is that the body of the moon is interposed like a partition-wall and casts a shadow, and prevents the light from being shed down on us 1732 : and the extent of the eclipse is proportional to the size of the moon’s body that is found to conceal the sun. But do not marvel that the moon’s body is the smaller. For many declare that the sun is many times larger even than the earth, and the holy Fathers say that it is equal to the earth: yet often a small cloud, or even a small hill or a wall quite conceals it.
The eclipse of the moon, on the other hand, is due to the shadow the earth casts on it when it is a fifteen days’ moon and the sun and moon happen to be at the opposite poles of the highest circle, the sun being under the earth and the moon above the earth. For the earth casts a shadow and the sun’s light is prevented from illuminating the moon, and therefore it is then eclipsed.
It should be understood that the moon was made full by the Creator, that is, a fifteen days’ moon: for it was fitting that it should be made complete 1733 . But on the fourth day, as we said, the sun was created. Therefore the moon was eleven days in advance of the sun, because from the fourth to the fifteenth day there are eleven days. Hence it happens that in each year the twelve months of the moon contain eleven days fewer than the twelve months of the sun. For the twelve months of the sun contain three hundred and sixty-five and a quarter days, and so because the quarter becomes a whole, in four years an extra day is completed, which is called bis-sextile. And that year has three hundred and sixty-six days. The years of the moon, on the other hand, have three hundred and fifty-four days. For the moon wanes from the time of its origin, or renewal, till it is fourteen and three-quarter days’ old, and proceeds to wane till the twenty-ninth and a half day, when it is completely void of light. And then when it is once more connected with the sun it is reproduced and renewed, a memorial of our resurrection. Thus in each year the moon gives away eleven days to the sun, and so in three years the intercalary month of the Hebrews arises, and that year comes to consist of thirteen months, owing to the addition of these eleven days 1734 .
It is evident that both sun and moon and stars are compound and liable to corruption according to the laws of their various natures. But of their nature we are ignorant. Some, indeed, say that fire when deprived of matter is invisible, and thus, that when it is quenched it vanishes altogether. Others, again, say that when it is quenched it is transformed into air 1735 .
The circle of the zodiac has an oblique motion and is divided into twelve sections called zodia, or signs: each sign has three divisions of ten each, i.e. thirty divisions, and each division has sixty very minute subdivisions. The heaven, therefore, has three hundred and sixty-five degrees: the hemisphere above the earth and that below the earth each having one hundred and eighty degrees.
The abodes of the planets.
The Ram and the Scorpion are the abode of Mars: the Bull and the Scales, of Venus 1736 : the Twins and the Virgin, of Mercury: the Crab, of the Moon: the Lion, of the Sun: the Archer and the Fish, of Jupiter: Capricorn and Aquarius, of Saturn.
Their altitudes.
The Ram has the altitude of the Sun: the Bull, of the Moon: the Crab, of Jupiter: the Virgin, of Mars: the Scales, of Saturn: Capricorn, of Mercury: the Fish, of Venus.
The phases of the moon.
It is in conjunction whenever it is in the same degree as the sun: it is born when it is fifteen degrees distant from the sun: it rises when it is crescent-shaped, and this occurs twice 1737 , at which times it is sixty degrees distant from the sun: it is half-full twice, when it is ninety degrees from the sun: twice it is gibbous, when it is one hundred p. 26b and twenty degrees from the sun: it is twice a full moon, giving full light, when it is a hundred and fifty degrees from the sun: it is a complete moon when it is a hundred and eighty degrees distant from the sun. We say twice, because these phases occur both when the moon waxes and when it wanes. In two and a half days the moon traverses each sign.
Footnotes
22b:1712Gen. i. 3.
22b:1713Text, ὑπερ. Variant, ὑπο, but this does not agree with the view of the author or the ancients.
23b:1714Gen. i. 5.
23b:1715Basil, Hom. 2, in Hexaëmeron.
23b:1716Gen. i. 5.
23b:1717Basil, Hom. 2, in Hexaëmeron.
23b:1718Text, ἐξουσίαν: variant. ἐξουσίας.
23b:1719Variant here also, ἐξουσίας.
23b:1720Basil, Hom. 6, in Hexaëmeron.
23b:1721Text, ὁ Δημιουργός. Variant, ὁ δημιουργήσας.
23b:1722Ps. viii. 3.
23b:1723Basil, Hom. 6, in Hexaëmeron.
24b:1724Text, συγκρούσεως. Variants, συγκράσεως and συγκρίσεως.
24b:1725Basil, Hom. 6, in Hexaëmeron.
24b:1726Nemes., de Nat. Hom., ch. 34.
24b:1727Text, ποιουμένη. Variant, ποιούμενον.
24b:1728Basil, Hom. 6, in Hexaëmeron.
24b:1729Text, θάνατον δηλοῦντα βασίλεων. Variant, θανάτων βασίλεων: also θάνατον, ἢ ἀνάδειξιν σημαίνουσι βασίλεων.
24b:1730Basil, Christi Nativit.
25b:1731Rom. i. 25.
25b:1732Text, διαναδοθῆναι: variants, διαδοθῆναι and δοθῆναι.
25b:1733Sever. Gabal., De opif. mundi, III.
25b:1734Ibid. De opif. mundi, III.
25b:1735Nemes., ch. 5.
25b:1736VidePorph., de antro Nymph.
25b:1737Text, δίς. R. 4 has δεύτερον.
Chapter VIII.—Concerning air and winds.
Air is the most subtle element, and is moist and warm: heavier, indeed, than fire: but lighter than earth and water: it is the cause of respiration and voice: it is colourless, that is, it has no colour by nature: it is clear and transparent, for it is capable of receiving light: it ministers to three of our senses, for it is by its aid that we see, hear and smell: it has the power likewise of receiving heat and cold, dryness and moisture, and its movements in space are up, down, within, without, to the right and to the left, and the cyclical movement.
It does not derive its light from itself, but is illuminated by sun, and moon, and stars, and fire. And this is just what the Scripture means when it says, And darkness was upon the deep 1738 ; for its object is to shew that the air has not derived its light from itself, but that it is quite a different essence from light.
And wind is a movement of air: or wind is a rush of air which changes its name as it changes the place whence it rushes 1739 .
Its place is in the air. For place is the circumference of a body. But what is it that surrounds bodies but air? There are, moreover, different places in which the movement of air originates, and from these the winds get their names. There are in all twelve winds. It is said that air is just fire after it has been extinguished, or the vapour of heated water. At all events, in its own special nature the air is warm, but it becomes cold owing to the proximity of water and earth, so that the lower parts of it are cold, and the higher warm 1740 .
These then are the winds 1741 : Cæcias, or Meses, arises in the region where the sun rises in summer. Subsolanus, where the sun rises at the equinoxes. Eurus, where it rises in winter. Africus, where it sets in winter. Favonius, where it sets at the equinoxes, and Corus, or Olympias, or Iapyx, where it sets in summer. Then come Auster and Aquilo, whose blasts oppose one another. Between Aquilo and Cæcias comes Boreas: and between Eurus and Auster, Phœnix or Euronotus; between Auster and Africus, Libonotus or Leuconotus: and lastly, between Aquilo and Corus, Thrascias, or Cercius, as it is called by the inhabitants of that region.
[These 1742 , then, are the races which dwell at the ends of the world: beside Subsolanus are the Bactriani: beside Eurus, the Indians: beside Phœnix, the Red Sea and Ethiopia: beside Libonotus, the Garamantes, who are beyond Systis: beside Africus, the Ethiopians and the Western Mauri: beside Favonius, the columns of Hercules and the beginnings of Libya and Europe: beside Corus, Iberia, which is now called Spain: beside Thrascia, the Gauls and the neighbouring nations: beside Aquilo, the Scythians who are beyond Thrace: beside Boreas, Pontus, Mæotis and the Sarmatæ: beside Cæcias, the Caspian Sea and the Sacai.]
Footnotes
26b:1738Gen. i. 2.
26b:1739Sever. Gabal., Hom. 1 in Hexaëm.
26b:1740Nemes., De Nat. Hom. i., ch. 5.
26b:1741These are absent in edit. Veron.
26b:1742This paragraph is absent in almost all the copies.
Chapter IX.—Concerning the waters.
Water also is one of the four elements, the most beautiful of God’s creations. It is both wet and cold, heavy, and with a tendency to descend, and flows with great readiness. It is this the Holy Scripture has in view when it says, And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters 1743 . For the deep is nothing else than a huge quantity of water whose limit man cannot comprehend. In the beginning, indeed, the water lay all over the surface of the earth. And first God created the firmament to divide the water above the firmament from the water below the firmament. For in the midst of the sea of waters the firmament was established at the Master’s decree. And out of it God bade the firmament arise, and it arose. Now for what reason was it that God placed water above the firmament? It was because of the intense burning heat of the sun and ether 1744 . For immediately under the firmament is spread out the ether 1745 , and the sun and moon and stars are in the firmament, and so if water had not been put above it the firmament would have been consumed by the heat 1746 .
Next, God bade the waters be gathered together into one mass 1747 . But when the Scripp. 27b ture speaks of one mass it evidently does not mean that they were gathered together into one place: for immediately it goes on to say, And the gatherings of the waters He called seas 1748 : but the words signify that the waters were separated off in a body from the earth into distinct groups. Thus the waters were gathered together into their special collections and the dry land was brought to view. And hence arose the two seas that surround Egypt, for it lies between two seas. These collections contain 1749 various seas and mountains, and islands, and promontories, and harbours, and surround various bays and beaches, and coastlands. For the word beach is used when the nature of the tract is sandy, while coastland signifies that it is rocky and deep close into shore, getting deep all on a sudden. In like manner arose also the sea that lies where the sun rises, the name of which is the Indian Sea: also the northern sea called the Caspian. The lakes also were formed in the same manner.
The ocean, then, is like a river encircling the whole earth, and I think it is concerning it that the divine Scripture says, A river went out of Paradise 1750 . The water of the ocean is sweet and potable 1751 . It is it that furnishes the seas with water which, because it stays a long time in the seas and stands unmoved, becomes bitter: for the sun and the waterspouts draw up always the finer parts. Thus it is that clouds are formed and showers take place, because the filtration makes the water sweet.
This is parted into four first divisions, that is to say, into four rivers. The name of the first is Pheison, which is the Indian Ganges; the name of the second is Geon, which is the Nile flowing from Ethiopia down to Egypt: the name of the third is Tigris, and the name of the fourth is Euphrates. There are also very many other mighty rivers of which some empty themselves into the sea and others are used up in the earth. Thus the whole earth is bored through and mined, and has, so to speak, certain veins through which it sends up in springs the water it has received from the sea. The water of the spring thus depends for its character on the quality of the earth. For the sea water is filtered and strained through the earth and thus becomes sweet. But if the place from which the spring arises is bitter or briny, so also is the water that is sent up 1752 . Moreover, it often happens that water which has been closely pent up bursts through with violence, and thus it becomes warm. And this is why they send forth waters that are naturally warm.
By the divine decree hollow places are made in the earth, and so into these the waters are gathered. And this is how mountains are formed. God, then, bade the first water produce living breath, since it was to be by water and the Holy Spirit that moved upon the waters in the beginning 1753 , that man was to be renewed. For this is what the divine Basilius said: Therefore it produced living creatures, small and big; whales and dragons, fish that swim in the waters, and feathered fowl. The birds form a link between water and earth and air: for they have their origin in the water, they live on the earth and they fly in the air. Water, then, is the most beautiful element and rich in usefulness, and purifies from all filth, and not only from the filth of the body but from that of the soul, if it should have received the grace of the Spirit 1754 .
Concerning the seas 1755 .
The Ægean Sea is received by the Hellespont, which ends at Abydos and Sestus: next, the Propontis, which ends at Chalcedon and Byzantium: here are the straits where the Pontus arises. Next, the lake of Mæotis. Again, from the beginning of Europe and Libya it is the Iberian Sea, which extends from the pillars of Hercules to the Pyrenees mountain. Then the Ligurian Sea as far as the borders of Etruria. Next, the Sardinian Sea, which is above Sardinia and inclines downwards to Libya. Then the Etrurian Sea, which begins at the extreme limits of Liguria and ends at Sicily. Then the Libyan Sea. Then the Cretan, and Sicilian, and Ionian, and Adriatic Seas, the last of which is poured out of the Sicilian Sea, which is called the Corinthian Gulf, or the Alcyonian Sea. The Saronic Sea is surrounded by the Sunian and Scyllæan Seas. Next is the Myrtoan Sea and the Icarian Sea, in which are also the Cyclades. Then the Carpathian, and Pamphylian, and Egyptian Seas: and, thereafter, above the Icarian Sea, the Ægean Sea pours itself out. There is also the coast of Europe from the mouth of the Tanais River to the Pillars of Hercules, 609,709 stadia: and that of Libya from the Tigris, as far as the mouth of the Canobus, 209,252 p. 28b stadia: and lastly, that of Asia from the Canobus to the Tanais, which, including the Gulf, is 4,111 stadia. And so the full extent of the seaboard of the world that we inhabit with the gulfs is 1,309,072 stadia 1756 .
Footnotes
26b:1743Gen. i. 2.
26b:1744See Basil, Hexaëm., Hom. 3.
26b:1745Text, ὑφήπλωται. Variant, ἐφήπλωται.
26b:1746Basil, Hom. 2 in Hexaëm.; Sever. Gabal., Orat. de opific. mundi.
26b:1747Gen. i. 9.
27b:1748Gen. i. 10.
27b:1749Text, συνήχθησαν. R. 2927 has διέστησαν: Edit. Veron. Reg. 3362 has ὅθεν συνέστησαν: Colb. 1 has ὀθεν συνέστη.
27b:1750Gen. ii. 10.
27b:1751For ποταμὸς δὲ ὁ γλυκὺ ὕδωρ ἔχων ἐστί, reading πότιμον καὶ γλυκὺ ὕδωρ ἔχων.
27b:1752Basil, Hom. 4 in Hexaëm.
27b:1753Gen. i. 2.
27b:1754Sever. Gabal., Orat. 4, De opific. mundi: Basil, Hom. 8.
27b:1755This chapter is wanting in certain copies, Reg. 7, Colb. 1, R. 2930. In Cod. Hil. it is given after the chapter On Creation.
28b:1756Vide Strab. bk. ii.
Chapter X.—Concerning earth and its products.
The earth is one of the four elements, dry, cold, heavy, motionless, brought into being by God, out of nothing on the first day. For in the beginning, he said, God created the heaven and the earth 1757 : but the seat and foundation of the earth no man has been able to declare. Some, indeed, hold that its seat is the waters: thus the divine David says, To Him Who established the earth on the waters 1758 . Others place it in the air. Again some other says, He Who hangeth the earth on nothing 1759 . And, again, David, the singer of God, says, as though the representative of God, I bear up the pillars of it 1760 , meaning by “pillars” the force that sustains it. Further, the expression, He hath founded it upon the seas 1761 , shews clearly that the earth is on all hands surrounded with water. But whether we grant that it is established on itself, or on air or on water, or on nothing, we must not turn aside from reverent thought, but must admit that all things are sustained and preserved by the power of the Creator.
In the beginning, then, as the Holy Scripture says 1762 , it was hidden beneath the waters, and was unwrought, that is to say, not beautified. But at God’s bidding, places to hold the waters appeared, and then the mountains came into existence, and at the divine command the earth received its own proper adornment, and was dressed in all manner of herbs and plants, and on these, by the divine decree, was bestowed the power of growth and nourishment, and of producing seed to generate their like. Moreover, at the bidding of the Creator it produced also all manner of kinds of living creatures, creeping things, and wild beasts, and cattle. All, indeed, are for the seasonable use of man: but of them some are for food, such as stags, sheep, deer, and such like: others for service such as camels, oxen, horses, asses, and such like: and others for enjoyment, such as apes, and among birds, jays and parrots, and such like. Again, amongst plants and herbs some are fruit bearing, others edible, others fragrant and flowery, given to us for our enjoyment, for example, the rose and such like, and others for the healing of disease. For there is not a single animal or plant in which the Creator has not implanted some form of energy capable of being used to satisfy man’s needs. For He Who knew all things before they were, saw that in the future man would go forward in the strength of his own will, and would be subject to corruption, and, therefore, He created all things for his seasonable use, alike those in the firmament, and those on the earth, and those in the waters.
Indeed, before the transgression all things were under his power. For God set him as ruler over all things on the earth and in the waters. Even the serpent 1763 was accustomed to man, and approached him more readily than it did other living creatures, and held intercourse with him with delightful motions 1764 . And hence it was through it that the devil, the prince of evil, made his most wicked suggestion to our first parents 1765 . Moreover, the earth of its own accord used to yield fruits, for the benefit of the animals that were obedient to man, and there was neither rain nor tempest on the earth. But after the transgression, when he was compared with the unintelligent cattle and became like to them 1766 , after he had contrived that in him irrational desire should have rule over reasoning mind and had become disobedient to the Master’s command, the subject creation rose up against him whom the Creator had appointed to be ruler: and it was appointed for him that he should till with sweat the earth from which he had been taken.
But even now wild beasts are not without their uses, for, by the terror they cause, they bring man to the knowledge of his Creator and lead him to call upon His name. And, further, at the transgression the thorn sprung out of the earth in accordance with the Lord’s express declaration and was conjoined with the pleasures of the rose, that it might lead us to remember the transgression on account of which the earth was condemned to bring forth for us thorns and prickles 1767 .
That this is the case is made worthy of belief from the fact that their endurance is secured by the word of the Lord, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth 1768 .
Further, some hold that the earth is in the form of a sphere, others that it is in that of a cone. At all events it is much smaller p. 29b than the heaven, and suspended almost like a point in its midst. And it will pass away and be changed. But blessed is the man who inherits the earth promised to the meek 1769 .
For the earth that is to be the possession of the holy is immortal. Who, then, can fitly marvel at the boundless and incomprehensible wisdom of the Creator? Or who can render sufficient thanks to the Giver of so many blessings 1770 ?
[There are also provinces, or prefectures, of the earth which we recognise: Europe embraces thirty four, and the huge continent of Asia has forty-eight of these provinces, and twelve canons as they are called 1771 .]
Footnotes
28b:1757Gen. i. 1.
28b:1758Ps. cxxxvi. 6.
28b:1759Job xxvi. 7.
28b:1760Ps. lxxv. 3.
28b:1761Psa. 24.2.
28b:1762Gen. i. 2.
28b:1763In this John does not follow Basil in his De Paradiso.
28b:1764Basil, Hom. de Parad.
28b:1765Gen. iii. 1.
28b:1766Ps. xlix. 12.
28b:1767Basil, Hom. de Parad.
28b:1768Gen. i. 22.
29b:1769St. Matt. v. 5.
29b:1770Method, Cont. Orig. apud Epiph. Hæres. 64.
29b:1771Only Cod. Reg. 3451 has this paragraph.
Chapter XI.—Concerning Paradise.
Now when God was about to fashion man out of the visible and invisible creation in His own image and likeness to reign as king and ruler over all the earth and all that it contains, He first made for him, so to speak, a kingdom in which he should live a life of happiness and prosperity 1772 . And this is the divine paradise 1773 , planted in Eden by the hands of God, a very storehouse of joy and gladness of heart (for “Eden” 1774 means luxuriousness 1775 ). Its site is higher in the East than all the earth: it is temperate and the air that surrounds it is the rarest and purest: evergreen plants are its pride, sweet fragrances abound, it is flooded with light, and in sensuous freshness and beauty it transcends imagination: in truth the place is divine, a meet home for him who was created in God’s image: no creature lacking reason made its dwelling there but man alone, the work of God’s own hands.
In its midst 1776 God planted the tree of life and the tree of knowledge 1777 . The tree of knowledge was for trial, and proof, and exercise of man’s obedience and disobedience: and hence it was named the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or else it was because to those who partook of it was given power to know their own nature. Now this is a good thing for those who are mature, but an evil thing for the immature and those whose appetites are too strong 1778 , being like solid food to tender babes still in need of milk 1779 . For our Creator, God, did not intend us to be burdened with care and troubled about many things, nor to take thought about, or make provision for, our own life. But this at length was Adam’s fate: for he tasted and knew that he was naked and made a girdle round about him: for he took fig-leaves and girded himself about. But before they took of the fruit, They were both naked, Adam and Eve, and were not ashamed 1780 . For God meant that we should be thus free from passion, and this is indeed the mark of a mind absolutely void of passion. Yea, He meant us further to be free from care and to have but one work to perform, to sing as do the angels, without ceasing or intermission, the praises of the Creator, and to delight in contemplation of Him and to cast all our care on Him. This is what the Prophet David proclaimed to us when He said, Cast thy burden on the Lord, and He will sustain thee 1781 . And, again, in the Gospels, Christ taught His disciples saying, Take no thought for your life what ye shall eat, nor for your body what ye shall put on 1782 . And further, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you 1783 . And to Martha He said, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: but one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her 1784 , meaning, clearly, sitting at His feet and listening to His words.
The tree of life, on the other hand, was a tree having the energy that is the cause of life, or to be eaten only by those who deserve to live and are not subject to death. Some, indeed, have pictured Paradise as a realm of sense 1785 , and others as a realm of mind. But it seems to me, that, just as man is a creature, in whom we find both sense and mind blended together, in like manner also man’s most holy temple combines the properties of sense and mind, and has this twofold expression: for, as we said, the life in the body is spent in the most divine and lovely region, while the life in the soul is passed in a place far more sublime and of more surpassing beauty, where God makes His home, and where He wraps man about as with a glorious garment, and robes him in His grace, and delights and sustains him like an angel with the sweetest of all fruits, the contemplation of Himself. Verily it has been fitly named the tree of life. For since the p. 30b life is not cut short by death, the sweetness of the divine participation is imparted to those who share it. And this is, in truth, what God meant by every tree, saying, Of every tree in Paradise thou mayest freely eat 1786 . For the ‘every’ is just Himself in Whom and through Whom the universe is maintained. But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was for the distinguishing between the many divisions of contemplation, and this is just the knowledge of one’s own nature, which, indeed, is a good thing for those who are mature and advanced in divine contemplation (being of itself a proclamation of the magnificence of God), and have no fear of falling 1787 , because they have through time come to have the habit of such contemplation, but it is an evil thing to those still young and with stronger appetites, who by reason of their insecure hold on the better part, and because as yet they are not firmly established in the seat of the one and only good, are apt to be torn and dragged away from this to the care of their own body.
Thus, to my thinking, the divine Paradise is twofold, and the God-inspired Fathers handed down a true message, whether they taught this doctrine or that. Indeed, it is possible to understand by every tree the knowledge of the divine power derived from created things. In the words of the divine Apostle, For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made 1788 . But of all these thoughts and speculations the sublimest is that dealing with ourselves, that is, with our own composition. As the divine David says, The knowledge of Thee from me 1789 , that is from my constitution, was made a wonder 1790 . But for the reasons we have already mentioned, such knowledge was dangerous for Adam who had been so lately created 1791 .
The tree of life too may be understood as that more divine thought that has its origin in the world of sense, and the ascent through that to the originating and constructive cause of all. And this was the name He gave to every tree, implying fulness and indivisibility, and conveying only participation in what is good. But by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we are to understand that sensible and pleasurable food which, sweet though it seems, in reality brings him who partakes of it into communion with evil. For God says, Of every tree in Paradise thou mayest freely eat 1792 . It is, me-thinks, as if God said, Through all My creations thou art to ascend to Me thy creator, and of all the fruits thou mayest pluck one, that is, Myself who art the true life: let every thing bear for thee the fruit of life, and let participation in Me be the support of your own being. For in this way thou wilt be immortal. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die 1793 . For sensible food is by nature for the replenishing of that which gradually wastes away and it passes into the drought and perisheth: and he cannot remain incorruptible who partakes of sensible food.
Footnotes
29b:1772Greg. Nyss., De opif. Hom., ch. 2.
29b:1773See the treatise of Anastas. II. Antiochen., on the Hexaëmeron, bk. vii.
29b:1774᾽Εδεμ, Edem, in the text. Basil, Hom. de Parad.
29b:1775See 2 Kings 19:12, Isa. 37:12, Ezek. 27:23.
29b:1776See Chrysost., In Gen. Hom. 16, Theodor., Quæst. 27, &c.
29b:1777Gen. ii. 9.
29b:1778Text, τὴν ἔφεσιν λιχνοτέροις. Variant τὴν αἴσθησιν, &c.
29b:1779Greg. Naz., Orat. 38 and 42: Method., ap Epiph. Hæres. 64.
29b:1780Gen. ii. 25.
29b:1781Ps. lv. 22.
29b:1782St. Matt. vi. 25.
29b:1783Matt. 6.33.
29b:1784St. Luke 10:41, 42.
29b:1785Nemes., de Nat. Hom., ch. 1.
30b:1786Gen. ii. 16.
30b:1787Greg. Naz., Orat. 38 and 42.
30b:1788Rom. i. 20.
30b:1789Ps. cxxxix. 6.
30b:1790εθαυμαστώθη ἡ γνῶσίς σου ἐξ εμοῦ, τουτέστιν, ἐκ τῆς ἐμῆς κατασκευῆς. Basil, Gregory Naz., Anastasius II., Antiochenus and others render it so, following the LXX. version, and not the Hebrew text.
30b:1791Maxim., in Script. p. 10.
30b:1792Gen. ii. 16.
30b:1793Gen. 2.17.
Chapter XII.—Concerning Man.
In this way, then, God brought into existence mental essence 1794 , by which I mean, angels and all the heavenly orders. For these clearly have a mental and incorporeal nature: “incorporeal” I mean in comparison with the denseness of matter. For the Deity alone in reality is immaterial and incorporeal. But further He created in the same way sensible essence 1795 , that is heaven and earth and the intermediate region; and so He created both the kind of being that is of His own nature (for the nature that has to do with reason is related to God, and apprehensible by mind alone), and the kind which, inasmuch as it clearly falls under the province of the senses, is separated from Him by the greatest interval. And it was also fit that there should be a mixture of both kinds of being, as a token of still greater wisdom and of the opulence of the Divine expenditure as regards natures, as Gregorius, the expounder of God’s being and ways, puts it, and to be a sort of connecting link between the visible and invisible natures 1796 . And by the word “fit” I mean, simply that it was an evidence of the Creator’s will, for that will is the law and ordinance most meet, and no one will say to his Maker, “Why hast Thou so fashioned me?” For the potter is able at his will to make vessels of various patterns out of his clay 1797 , as a proof of his own wisdom.
Now this being the case, He creates with His own hands man of a visible nature and an invisible, after His own image and likeness: on the one hand man’s body He formed of earth, and on the other his reasoning and p. 31b thinking soul 1798 He bestowed upon him by His own inbreathing, and this is what we mean by “after His image.” For the phrase “after His image” clearly refers 1799 to the side of his nature which consists of mind and free will, whereas “after His likeness” means likeness in virtue so far as that is possible.
Further, body and soul were formed at one and the same time 1800 , not first the one and then the other, as Origen so senselessly supposes.
God then made man without evil, upright, virtuous, free from pain and care, glorified with every virtue, adorned with all that is good, like a sort of second microcosm within the great world 1801 , another angel capable of worship, compound, surveying the visible creation and initiated into the mysteries of the realm of thought, king over the things of earth, but subject to a higher king, of the earth and of the heaven, temporal and eternal, belonging to the realm of sight and to the realm of thought, midway between greatness and lowliness, spirit and flesh: for he is spirit by grace, but flesh by overweening pride: spirit that he may abide and glorify his Benefactor, and flesh that he may suffer, and suffering may be admonished and disciplined when he prides himself in his greatness 1802 : here, that is, in the present life, his life is ordered as an animal’s, but elsewhere, that is, in the age to come, he is changed and—to complete the mystery—becomes deified by merely inclining himself towards God; becoming deified, in the way of participating in the divine glory and not in that of a change into the divine being 1803 .
But God made him by nature sinless, and endowed him with free will. By sinless, I mean not that sin could find no place in him (for that is the case with Deity alone), but that sin is the result of the free volition he enjoys rather than an integral part of his nature 1804 ; that is to say, he has the power to continue and go forward in the path of goodness, by co-operating with the divine grace, and likewise to turn from good and take to wickedness, for God has conceded this by conferring freedom of will upon him. For there is no virtue in what is the result of mere force 1805 .
The soul, accordingly 1806 , is a living essence, simple, incorporeal, invisible in its proper nature to bodily eyes, immortal, reasoning and intelligent, formless, making use of an organised body, and being the source of its powers of life, and growth, and sensation, and generation 1807 , mind being but its purest part and not in any wise alien to it; (for as the eye to the body, so is the mind to the soul); further it enjoys freedom and volition and energy, and is mutable, that is, it is given to change, because it is created. All these qualities according to nature it has received of the grace of the Creator, of which grace it has received both its being and this particular kind of nature.
Marg. The different applications of “incorporeal.” We understand two kinds of what is incorporeal and invisible and formless: the one is such in essence, the other by free gift: and likewise the one is such in nature, and the other only in comparison with the denseness of matter. God then is incorporeal by nature, but the angels and demons and souls are said to be so by free gift, and in comparison with the denseness of matter.
Further, body is that which has three dimensions, that is to say, it has length and breadth and depth, or thickness. And every body is composed of the four elements; the bodies of living creatures, moreover, are composed of the four humours.
Now there are, it should be known, four elements: earth which is dry and cold: water which is cold and wet: air which is wet and warm: fire which is warm and dry. In like manner there are also four humours, analogous to the four elements: black bile, which bears an analogy to earth, for it is dry and cold: phlegm, analogous to water, for it is cold and wet: blood, analogous to air 1808 , for it is wet and warm: yellow bile, the analogue to fire, for it is warm and dry. Now, fruits are composed of the elements, and the humours are composed of the fruits, and the bodies of living creatures consist of the humours and dissolve back into them. For every thing that is compound dissolves back into its elements.
Marg. That man has community alike with inanimate things and animate creatures, whep. 32b ther they are devoid of or possess the faculty of reason.
Man, it is to be noted, has community with things inanimate, and participates in the life of unreasoning creatures, and shares in the mental processes of those endowed with reason. For the bond of union between man and inanimate things is the body and its composition out of the four elements: and the bond between man and plants consists, in addition to these things, of their powers of nourishment and growth and seeding, that is, generation: and finally, over and above these links man is connected with unreasoning animals by appetite, that is anger and desire, and sense and impulsive movement.
There are then five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. Further, impulsive movement consists in change from place to place, and in the movements of the body as a whole and in the emission of voice and the drawing of breath. For we have it in our power to perform or refrain from performing these actions.
Lastly, man’s reason unites him to incorporeal and intelligent natures, for he applies his reason and mind and judgment to everything, and pursues after virtues, and eagerly follows after piety, which is the crown of the virtues. And so man is a microcosm.
Moreover, it should be known that division and flux and change 1809 are peculiar to the body alone. By change, I mean change in quality, that is in heat and cold and so forth: by flux, I mean change in the way of depletion 1810 , for dry things and wet things and spirit 1811 suffer depletion, and require repletion: so that hunger and thirst are natural affections. Again, division is the separation of the humours, one from another, and the partition into form and matter 1812 .
But piety and thought are the peculiar properties of the soul. And the virtues are common to soul and body, although they are referred to the soul as if the soul were making use of the body.
The reasoning part, it should be understood, naturally bears rule over that which is void of reason. For the faculties of the soul are divided into that which has reason, and that which is without reason. Again, of that which is without reason there are two divisions: that which does not listen to reason, that is to say, is disobedient to reason, and that which listens and obeys reason. That which does not listen or obey reason is the vital or pulsating faculty, and the spermatic or generative faculty, and the vegetative or nutritive faculty: to this belong also the faculties of growth and bodily formation. For these are not under the dominion of reason but under that of nature. That which listens to and obeys reason, on the other hand is divided into anger and desire. And the unreasoning part of the soul is called in common the pathetic and the appetitive 1813 . Further, it is to be understood, that impulsive movement 1814 likewise belongs to the part that is obedient to reason.
The part 1815 which does not pay heed to reason includes the nutritive and generative and pulsating faculties: and the name “vegetative 1816 ” is applied to the faculties of increase and nutriment and generation, and the name “vital” to the faculty of pulsation.
Of the faculty of nutrition, then, there are four forces: an attractive force which attracts nourishment: a retentive force by which nourishment is retained and not suffered to be immediately excreted: an alternative force by which the food is resolved into the humours: and an excretive force, by which the excess of food is excreted into the draught and cast forth.
The forces again 1817 , inherent in a living creature are, it should be noted, partly psychical, partly vegetative, partly vital. The psychical forces are concerned with free volition, that is to say, impulsive movement and sensation. Impulsive movement includes change of place and movement of the body as a whole, and phonation and respiration. For it is in our power to perform or refrain from performing these acts. The vegetative and vital forces, however, are quite outside the province of will. The vegetative, moreover, include the faculties of nourishment and growth, and generation, and the vital power is the faculty of pulsation. For these go on energising whether we will it or not.
Lastly, we must observe that of actual things, some are good, and some are bad. A good thing in anticipation constitutes desire: while a good thing in realisation constitutes pleasure. Similarly an evil thing in anticipation begets fear, and in realisation it begets pain. And when we speak of good in this connection we are to be understood to mean both real and apparent good: and, similarly, we mean real and apparent evil.
Footnotes
30b:1794τὴν νοητὴν οὐσίαν; rational being.
30b:1795την αἰσθητήν; material being, being perceptible by sense.
30b:1796Greg. Naz., Orat. 38 and 42.
30b:1797Rom. ix. 21.
31b:1798Ψυχὴν λογικήν.
31b:1799Cf. Chrysostom, Hom. in Gen. 9; Anastasius, Hom. in Hex. 7; Clem. Alex., Strom. II.; Basil, Hom. de hom. Struct. 1; Greg. Nyss., De opif. hom., ch. 16; Iren., Hær. v. 8, &c.
31b:1800Cf. Greg. Naz., Orat. 31; Jerome, Epist. 82; August., De Genesi, x. 28, &c.
31b:1801ἐν μικρῷ μέγαν, is read in Nazianz. Hom. 38 and 42: so also in Nicetas, who says that ‘the world is small in comparison with man, for whose sake all was made.’ But Combefis emended it.
31b:1802The text read, τῷ μεγέθει φιλοτιμούμενος· τὸ δὲ ἵνα πάσχων ὑπομιμνήσκηται, καὶ παιδεύηται ζῶον. On the basis of various manuscripts and the works of Gregory of Nazianzum, it is corrected so—ἵνα πάσχῃ, καὶ πάσχων, ὑπομιμνήσκηται, καὶ παιδεύηται τῷ μεγέθει φιλοτιμούμενον.
31b:1803Greg. Naz., Orat. 38 and 42.
31b:1804Reading, οὐχ ὡς ἐν τῆ φύσει, for ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἐν τῃ φύσει.
31b:1805Athan. lib. de inob. contr. Apoll.
31b:1806The Fathers objected to Aristotle’s definition of the soul as the ἐντελέχεια πρώτη σώματος φυσικοῦ ὀργανικοῦ taking it to imply that the soul had no independent existence but was dissolved with the body. Cicero explains it otherwise, Tusc. Quæst., bk. 1.
31b:1807Maxim., opus de Anima.
31b:1808Supplying the words, τῷ ὕδατι, ψυχρὸν γὰρ καὶ ὑγρόν· αἷμα, ἀναλογοῦν.
32b:1809τομὴ, καὶ ρεῦσις, καὶ μεταβολή.
32b:1810Nemes., de Nat. Hom., ch. 1.
32b:1811Or, breath, πνεῦμα.
32b:1812Nemes., de Nat. Hom., ch. 1.
32b:1813παθητικὸν καὶ ὀρεκτικόν.
32b:1814ἡ καθ᾽ ὁρμὴν κίνησις.
32b:1815The following three paragraphs, as found in manuscripts and the old translation, are placed at the end of ch. 32, “Concerning Anger,” but do not suit the context there.
32b:1816Supplying the word φυτικόν from Nemesius.
32b:1817Nemes., ch. 23.
p. 33b Chapter XIII.—Concerning Pleasures.
There are pleasures of the soul and pleasures of the body. The pleasures of the soul are those which are the exclusive possession of the soul, such as the pleasures of learning and contemplation. The pleasures of the body, however, are those which are enjoyed by soul and body in fellowship, and hence are called bodily pleasures: and such are the pleasures of food and intercourse and the like. But one could not find any class of pleasures 1818 belonging solely to the body 1819 .
Again, some pleasures are true, others false. And the exclusively intellectual pleasures consist in knowledge and contemplation, while the pleasures of the body depend upon sensation. Further, of bodily pleasures 1820 , some are both natural and necessary, in the absence of which life is impossible, for example the pleasures of food which replenishes waste, and the pleasures of necessary clothing. Others are natural but not necessary, as the pleasures of natural and lawful intercourse. For though the function that these perform is to secure the permanence of the race as a whole, it is still possible to live a virgin life apart from them. Others, however, are neither natural nor necessary, such as drunkenness, lust, and surfeiting to excess. For these contribute neither to the maintenance of our own lives nor to the succession of the race, but on the contrary, are rather even a hindrance. He therefore that would live a life acceptable to God must follow after those pleasures which are both natural and necessary: and must give a secondary place to those which are natural but not necessary, and enjoy them only in fitting season, and manner, and measure; while the others must be altogether renounced.
Those then are to be considered moral 1821 pleasures which are not bound up with pain, and bring no cause for repentance, and result in no other harm and keep 1822 within the bounds of moderation, and do not draw us far away from serious occupations, nor make slaves of us.
Footnotes
33b:1818Reading, οὐκ ἂν εὕροι τις ἰδίας ἡδονάς.
33b:1819Nemes., ch. 18: Chrys., Hom. in Joan., 74.
33b:1820See Chrysostom, Hom. in Joannem, 74; Cicero, De fin. bon. et mal., 1.
33b:1821καλάς, honourable, good.
33b:1822Text, χωρούσας. Variant, παραχωρούσας.
Chapter XIV.—Concerning Pain.
There are four varieties of pain, viz., anguish 1823 , grief 1824 , envy, pity. Anguish is pain without utterance: grief is pain that is heavy to bear like a burden: envy is pain over the good fortune of others: pity is pain over the evil fortune of others.
Footnotes
33b:1823ἄχος.
33b:1824ἄχθος.
Chapter XV.—Concerning Fear.
Fear is divided into six varieties: viz., shrinking 1825 , shame, disgrace, consternation, panic, anxiety 1826 . Shrinking 1827 is fear of some act about to take place. Shame is fear arising from the anticipation of blame: and this is the highest form of the affection. Disgrace is fear springing from some base act already done, and even for this form there is some hope of salvation. Consternation is fear originating in some huge product of the imagination. Panic is fear caused by some unusual product of the imagination. Anxiety is fear of failure, that is, of misfortune: for when we fear that our efforts will not meet with success, we suffer anxiety.
Footnotes
33b:1825ὄκνος, dread.
33b:1826ἀγωνία.
33b:1827Nemesius and certain manuscripts give these species of fear in a different order, viz., dread, consternation, panic, anxiety, shame, disgrace.
Chapter XVI.—Concerning Anger.
Anger is the ebullition 1828 of the heart’s blood 1829 produced by bilious exhalation or turbidity. Hence it is that the words χολή and χόλος 1830 are both used in the sense of anger. Anger is sometimes lust for vengeance. For when we are wronged or think that we are wronged, we are distressed, and there arises this mixture of desire and anger.
There are three forms of anger: rage, which the Greeks also call χολή or χόλος, μῆνις and κότος. When anger arises and begins to be roused, it is called rage or χολή or χόλος. Wrath again implies that the bile endures, that is to say, that the memory of the wrong abides: and indeed the Greek word for it, μῆνις is derived from μένειν, and means what abides and is transferred to memory. Rancour, on the other hand, implies watching for a suitable moment for revenge, and the Greek word for it is κότος from κεῖσθαι.
Anger further is the satellite of reason, the vindicator of desire. For when we long after anything and are opposed in our desire by some one, we are angered at that person, as though we had been wronged: and reason evidently deems that there are just grounds for displeasure in what has happened, in the p. 34b case of those who, like us, have in the natural course of things to guard their own position.
Footnotes
33b:1828ζέσις, boiling.
33b:1829τοῦ περὶ καρδίαν αἵματος, the blood about the heart.
33b:1830Nemes., ch. 21.
Chapter XVII.—Concerning Imagination.
Imagination 1831 is a faculty of the unreasoning part of the soul. It is through the organs of sense that it is brought into action, and it is spoken of as sensation. And further, what is imagined 1832 and perceived is that which comes within the scope of the faculty of imagination and sensation. For example, the sense of sight is the visual faculty itself, but the object of sight is that which comes within the scope of the sense of sight, such as a stone or any other such object. Further, an imagination is an affection of the unreasoning part of the soul which is occasioned by some object acting upon the sensation. But an appearance 1833 is an empty affection of the unreasoning part of the soul, not occasioned by any object acting upon the sensation. Moreover the organ of imagination is the anterior ventricle of the brain.
Footnotes
34b:1831φανταστικόν.
34b:1832Or, presented.
34b:1833See Aristotle, De anima, III. c. 7.
Chapter XVIII.—Concerning Sensation.
Sensation is that faculty of the soul whereby material objects can be apprehended or discriminated. And the sensoria are the organs or members through which sensations are conveyed. And the objects of sense are the things that come within the province of sensation. And lastly, the subject of sense is the living animal which possesses the faculty of sensation. Now there are five senses, and likewise five organs of sense.
The first sense is sight: and the sensoria or organs of sight are the nerves of the brain and the eyes. Now sight is primarily perception of colour, but along with the colour it discriminates the body that has colour, and its size and form, and locality, and the intervening space and the number 1834 : also whether it is in motion or at rest, rough or smooth, even or uneven, sharp or blunt, and finally whether its composition is watery or earthy, that is, wet or dry.
The second sense is hearing, whereby voices and sounds are perceived. And it distinguishes these as sharp or deep, or smooth or loud. Its organs are the soft nerves of the brain, and the structure of the ears. Further, man and the ape are the only animals that do not move their ears.
The third sense is smell, which is caused by the nostrils transmitting the vapours to the brain: and it is bounded by the extreme limits of the anterior ventricle of the brain. It is the faculty by which vapours are perceived and apprehended. Now, the most generic distinction between vapours is whether they have a good or an evil odour, or form an intermediate class with neither a good nor an evil odour. A good odour is produced by the thorough digestion in the body of the humours. When they are only moderately digested the intermediate class is formed, and when the digestion is very imperfect or utterly wanting, an evil odour results.
The fourth sense is taste: it is the faculty whereby the humours are apprehended or perceived, and its organs of sense are the tongue, and more especially the lips, and the palate (which the Greeks call οὐρανίσκος ), and in these are nerves that come from the brain and are spread out, and convey to the dominant part of the soul the perception or sensation they have encountered 1835 . The so-called gustatory qualities of the humours are these:—sweetness, pungency, bitterness, astringency, acerbity, sourness, saltness, fattiness, stickiness; for taste is capable of discriminating all these. But water has none of these qualities, and is therefore devoid of taste. Moreover, astringency is only a more intense and exaggerated form of acerbity.
The fifth sense is touch, which is common to all living things 1836 . Its organs are nerves which come from the brain and ramify all through the body. Hence the body as a whole, including even the other organs of sense, possesses the sense of touch. Within its scope come heat and cold, softness and hardness, viscosity and brittleness 1837 , heaviness and lightness: for it is by touch alone that these qualities are discriminated. On the other hand, roughness and smoothness, dryness and wetness, thickness and thinness, up and down, place and size, whenever that is such as to be embraced in a single application of the sense of touch, are all common to touch and sight, as well as denseness and rareness, that is porosity, and rotundity if it is small, and some other shapes. In like manner also by the aid of memory and thought perception of the nearness of a body is possible, and similarly perception of number up to two or three, and such small and easily reckoned figures. But it is by sight rather than touch that these things are perceived.
The Creator, it is to be noted, fashioned p. 35b all the other organs of sense in pairs, so that if one were destroyed, the other might fill its place. For there are two eyes, two ears, two orifices of the nose, and two tongues, which in some animals, such as snakes, are separate, but in others, like man, are united. But touch is spread over the whole body with the exception of bones, nerves, nails, horns, hairs, ligaments, and other such structures.
Further, it is to be observed that sight is possible only in straight lines, whereas smell and hearing are not limited to straight lines only, but act in all directions. Touch, again, and taste act neither in straight lines, nor in every direction, but only when each comes near to the sensible objects that are proper to it.
Footnotes
34b:1834Nemes., ch. 71.
34b:1835Nemes., ch. 9.
34b:1836Ibid., ch. 8.
34b:1837ξηρόν is added in some mss. but wrongly: for it is what is perceived by touch alone that is here spoken of, whereas, below, we are told that dryness is recognised also by sight; so also in Nemesius.
Chapter XIX.—Concerning Thought.
The faculty of thought deals with judgments and assents, and impulse to action and disinclinations, and escapes from action: and more especially with thoughts connected with what is thinkable, and the virtues and the different branches of learning, and the theories of the arts and matters of counsel and choice 1838 . Further, it is this faculty which prophesies the future to us in dreams, and this is what the Pythagoreans, adopting the Hebrew view, hold to be the one true form of prophecy. The organ of thought then is the mid-ventricle of the brain, and the vital spirit it contains 1839 .
Footnotes
35b:1838Nemes., ch. 11.
35b:1839Greg. Nyss., De opif. Hom., ch. 13.
Chapter XX.—Concerning Memory.
The faculty of memory is the cause 1840 and storehouse of remembrance and recollection. For memory is a fantasy 1841 that is left behind of some sensation and thought 1842 manifesting itself in action; or the preservation 1843 of a sensation and thought 1844 . For the soul comprehends objects of sense through the organs of sense, that is to say, it perceives, and thence arises a notion: and similarly it comprehends the objects of thought through the mind, and thence arises a thought. It is then the preservation of the types of these notions and thoughts that is spoken of as memory.
Further, it is worthy of remark that the apprehension of matters of thought depends on learning, or natural process of thought, and not on sensation. For though objects of sense are retained in the memory by themselves, only such objects of thought are remembered as we have learned, and we have no memory of their essence.
Recollection is the name given to the recovery of some memory lost by forgetfulness. For forgetfulness is just loss of memory. The faculty of imagination 1845 then, having apprehended material objects through the senses, transmits this to the faculty of thought or reason (for they are both the same), and this after it has received and passed judgment on it, passes it on to the faculty of memory. Now the organ of memory is the posterior ventricle of the brain, which the Greeks call the παρεγκεφαλίς, and the vital spirit it contains.
Footnotes
35b:1840Text, αἴτιον. R. 2930, ἀγγεῖον.
35b:1841φαντασία.
35b:1842καὶ νοήσεως is wanting in some mss., nor is it found in Nemesius, who borrowed his description from Origen.
35b:1843Text, σωτηρία. Variant, σωρεία, a heaping up, “coacervatio.” Faber has “confirmatio,” which is nearer σωτηρία, conservatio, which is found in Nemesius, &c.
35b:1844Nemes., ch. 13.
35b:1845τὸ φανταστικόν, the faculty of fantasy.
Chapter XXI.—Concerning Conception and Articulation.
Again the reasoning part of the soul is divided into conception and articulation. Conception is an activity of the soul originating in the reason without resulting in utterance. Accordingly, often, even when we are silent we run through a whole speech in our minds, and hold discussions in our dreams. And it is this faculty chiefly which constitutes us all reasoning beings. For those who are dumb by birth or have lost their voice through some disease or injury, are just as much reasoning beings. But articulation by voice or in the different dialects requires energy: that is to say, the word is articulated by the tongue and mouth, and this is why it is named articulation. It is, indeed, the messenger of thought, and it is because of it that we are called speaking beings.
Chapter XXII.—Concerning Passion and Energy.
Passion is a word with various meanings. It is used in regard to the body, and refers to diseases and wounds, and again, it is used in reference to the soul, and means desire and anger. But to speak broadly and generally, passion is an animal affection which is succeeded by pleasure and pain. For pain succeeds passion, but is not the same thing as passion. For passion is an affection of things without sense, but not so pain. Pain then is not passion, but the sensation of passion: and it must be considerable, that is to say, p. 36b it must be great enough to come within the scope of sense.
Again, the definition of passions of the soul is this: Passion is a sensible activity of the appetitive faculty, depending on the presentation to the mind of something good or bad. Or in other words, passion is an irrational activity of the soul, resulting from the notion of something good or bad. For the notion of something good results in desire, and the notion of something bad results in anger. But passion considered as a class, that is, passion in general, is defined as a movement in one thing caused by another. Energy, on the other hand, is a drastic movement, and by “drastic” is meant that which is moved of itself. Thus, anger is the energy manifested by the part of the soul where anger resides, whereas passion involves the two divisions of the soul, and in addition the whole body when it is forcibly impelled to action by anger. For there has been caused movement in one thing caused by another, and this is called passion.
But in another sense energy is spoken of as passion. For energy is a movement in harmony with nature, whereas passion is a movement at variance with nature. According, then, to this view, energy may be spoken of as passion when it does not act in accord with nature, whether its movement is due to itself or to some other thing. Thus, in connection with the heart, its natural pulsation is energy, whereas its palpitation, which is an excessive and unnatural movement, is passion and not energy.
But it is not every activity of the passionate part of the soul that is called passion, but only the more violent ones, and such as are capable of causing sensation: for the minor and unperceived movements are certainly not passions. For to constitute passion there is necessary a considerable degree of force, and thus it is on this account that we add to the definition of passion that it is a sensible activity. For the lesser activities escape the notice of the senses, and do not cause passion.
Observe also that our soul possesses twofold faculties, those of knowledge, and those of life. The faculties of knowledge are mind, thought, notion, presentation, sensation: and the vital or appetitive faculties are will and choice. Now, to make what has been said clearer, let us consider these things more closely, and first let us take the faculties of knowledge.
Presentation and sensation then have already been sufficiently discussed above. It is sensation that causes a passion, which is called presentation, to arise in the soul, and from presentation comes notion. Thereafter thought, weighing the truth or falseness of the notion, determines what is true: and this explains the Greek word for thought, διάνοια, which is derived from διανοεῖν, meaning to think and discriminate. That, however, which is judged 1846 and determined to be true, is spoken of as mind.
Or to put it otherwise: The primary activity of the mind, observe, is intelligence, but intelligence applied to any object is called a thought, and when this persists and makes on the mind an impression of the object of thought, it is named reflection, and when reflection dwells on the same object and puts itself to the test, and closely examines the relation of the thought to the soul, it gets the name prudence. Further, prudence, when it extends its area forms the power of reasoning, and is called conception, and this is defined as the fullest activity of the soul, arising in that part where reason resides, and being devoid of outward expression: and from it proceeds the uttered word spoken by the tongue. And now that we have discussed the faculties of knowledge, let us turn to the vital or appetitive faculties.
It should be understood that there is implanted in the soul by nature a faculty of desiring that which is in harmony with its nature, and of maintaining in close union all that belongs essentially to its nature: and this power is called will or θέλησις. For the essence both of existence and of living yearns after activity both as regards mind and sense, and in this it merely longs to realise its own natural and perfect being. And so this definition also is given of this natural will: will is an appetite, both rational and vital, depending only on what is natural. So that will 1847 is nothing else than the natural and vital and rational appetite of all things that go to constitute nature, that is, just the simple faculty. For the appetite of creatures without reason, since it is irrational, is not called will.
Again βούλησις or wish is a sort of natural will, that is to say, a natural and rational appetite for some definite thing. For there is seated in the soul of man a faculty of rational desire. When, then, this rational desire directs itself naturally to some definite object it is called wish. For wish is rational desire and longing for some definite thing.
Wish, however, is used both in connection with what is within our power, and in connection with what is outside our power, that is, both with regard to the possible and the impossible. For we wish often to indulge lust or to be temperate, or to sleep and the p. 37b like, and these are within our power to accomplish, and possible. But we wish also to be kings, and this is not within our power, or we wish perchance never to die, and this is an impossibility.
The wish 1848 , then, has reference to the end alone, and not to the means by which the end is attained. The end is the object of our wish, for instance, to be a king or to enjoy good health: but the means by which the end is attained, that is to say, the manner in which we ought to enjoy good health, or reach the rank of king, are the objects of deliberation 1849 . Then after wish follow inquiry and speculation (ζήτησις and σκέψις), and after these, if the object is anything within our power, comes counsel or deliberation (βουλή or βούλευσις): counsel is an appetite for investigating lines of action lying within our own power. For one deliberates, whether one ought to prosecute any matter or not, and next, one decides which is the better, and this is called judgment (κρίσις). Thereafter, one becomes disposed to and forms a liking for that in favour of which deliberation gave judgment, and this is called inclination (γνώμη). For should one form a judgment and not be disposed to or form a liking for the object of that judgment, it is not called inclination. Then, again, after one has become so disposed, choice or selection (προαίρεσις and ἐπιλογή) comes into play. For choice consists in the choosing and selecting of one of two possibilities in preference to the other. Then one is impelled to action, and this is called impulse (ὁρμή): and thereafter it is brought into employment, and this is called use (χρῆσις). The last stage after we have enjoyed the use is cessation from desire.
In the case, however, of creatures without reason, as soon as appetite is roused for anything, straightway arises impulse to action. For the appetite of creatures without reason is irrational, and they are ruled by their natural appetite. Hence, neither the names of will or wish are applicable to the appetite of creatures without reason. For will is rational, free and natural desire, and in the case of man, endowed with reason as he is, the natural appetite is ruled rather than rules. For his actions are free, and depend upon reason, since the faculties of knowledge and life are bound up together in man. He is free in desire, free in wish, free in examination and investigation, free in deliberation, free in judgment, free in inclination, free in choice, free in impulse, and free in action where that is in accordance with nature.
But in the case of God 1850 , it is to be remembered, we speak of wish, but it is not correct to speak of choice. For God does not deliberate, since that is a mark of ignorance, and no one deliberates about what he knows. But if counsel is a mark of ignorance, surely choice 1851 must also be so. God, then, since He has absolute knowledge of everything, does not deliberate 1852 .
Nor in the case of the soul of the Lord do we speak of counsel or choice, seeing that He had no part in ignorance. For, although He was of a nature that is not cognisant of the future, yet because of His oneness in subsistence with God the Word, He had knowledge of all things, and that not by grace, but, as we have said, because He was one in subsistence 1853 . For He Himself was both God and Man, and hence He did not possess the will that acts by opinion 1854 or disposition. While He did possess the natural and simple will which is to be observed equally in all the personalities of men, His holy soul had not opinion 1855 (or, disposition) that is to say, no inclination opposed to His divine will, nor aught else contrary to His divine will. For opinion (or, disposition) differs as persons differ, except in the case of the holy and simple and uncompound and indivisible Godhead 1856 . There, indeed, since the subsistences are in nowise divided or separated, neither is the object of will divided. And there, since there is but one nature, there is also but one natural will. And again, since the subsistences are unseparated, the three subsistences have also one object of will, and one activity. In the case of men, however, seeing that their nature is one, their natural will is also one, but since their subsistences 1857 are separated and divided from each other, alike in place and time, and disposition to things, and in many other respects, for this reason their acts of will and their opinions are different. But in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, since He possesses different natures, His natural wills, that is, His volitional faculties belonging to Him as God and as Man are also different. But since the subsistence is one, and He Who exercises p. 38b the will is one, the object of the will, 1858 that is, the gnomic will 1859 , is also one, His human will evidently following His divine will, and willing that which the divine will willed it to will.
Further note, that will (θέλησις) and wish (βούλησις) are two different things: also the object of will (τὸ θελητόν) and the capacity for will (θελητικόν), and the subject that exercises will (ὁ θέλων), are all different. For will is just the simple faculty of willing, whereas wish is will directed to some definite object. Again, the object of will is the matter underlying the will, that is to say, the thing that we will: for instance, when appetite is roused for food. The appetite pure and simple, however, is a rational will. The capacity for will, moreover, means that which possesses the volitional faculty, for example, man. Further, the subject that exercises will is the actual person who makes use of will.
The word τὸ θελήμα, it is well to note, sometimes denotes the will, that is, the volitional faculty, and in this sense we speak of natural will: and sometimes it denotes the object of will, and we speak of will (θέλημα γνωμικόν) depending on inclination 1860 .
Footnotes
36b:1846Cf. 1 Cor. i. 10.
36b:1847Max. ad Marin. et ad Incert. p. 98.
37b:1848τὸ βουλητόν.
37b:1849Max. Dial. cum Pyrrh. et Epist. 1 ad Marin.
37b:1850Thomas Aquinas (1—2, Quæst. 4, a. 1 and 2) lays down the position in accordance with John of Damascus, that there is no “counsel” in God quatenus est appetitus inquisitivus, but that there is quantum ad certitudinem judicii. Basil (Hexaëm. Hom. 1), arguing against the ancient philosophers who taught that the world was made ἀπροαιρέτως, affirms “counsel” in God in the latter sense.
37b:1851Max., Epist. 1 ad Marin.
37b:1852Text, ὁ δὲ Θεὸς πάντα εἰδὼς ἁπλῶς, οὐ βουλεύεται. Various reading is, ὁ δὲ Θεὸς πάντα αἰδὼς ἁπλῶς βούλεται.
37b:1853Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
37b:1854διὸ οὐδὲ γνωμικὸν εἶχε θέλημα.
37b:1855γνωμήν.
37b:1856v. infr., lib. iii. ch. 14.
37b:1857Or, personalities.
38b:1858Text, θελητόν, as given by Faber. Variant, θελητικόν.
38b:1859τὸ γνωμικὸν θέλημα, the will of individual opinion, or, the dispositional will.
38b:1860Or, acting by opinion, or disposition.
Chapter XXIII.—Concerning Energy.
All the faculties 1861 we have already discussed, both those of knowledge and those of life, both the natural and the artificial, are, it is to be noted, called energies. For energy 1862 is the natural force and activity of each essence: or again, natural energy is the activity innate in every essence: and so, clearly, things that have the same essence have also the same energy, and things that have different natures have also different energies. For no essence can be devoid of natural energy.
Natural energy again is the force in each essence by which its nature is made manifest. And again: natural energy is the primal, eternally-moving force of the intelligent soul: that is, the eternally-moving word of the soul, which ever springs naturally from it. And yet again: natural energy 1863 is the force and activity of each essence which only that which is not lacks.
But actions 1864 are also called energies: for instance, speaking, eating, drinking, and such like. The natural affections 1865 also are often called energies, for instance, hunger, thirst, and so forth 1866 . And yet again, the result of the force is also often called energy.
Things are spoken of in a twofold way as being potential and actual. For we say that the child at the breast is a potential scholar, for he is so equipped that, if taught, he will become a scholar. Further, we speak of a potential and an actual scholar, meaning that the latter is versed in letters, while the former has the power of interpreting letters, but does not put it into actual use: again, when we speak of an actual scholar, we mean that he puts his power into actual use, that is to say, that he really interprets writings.
It is, therefore, to be observed that in the second sense potentiality and actuality go together; for the scholar is in the one case potential, and in the other actual.
The primal and only true energy of nature is the voluntary or rational and independent life which constitutes our humanity. I know not how those who rob the Lord of this can say that He became man 1867 .
Energy is drastic activity of nature: and by drastic is meant that which is moved of itself.
Footnotes
38b:1861Anast. Sin. in ῞Οδηγ., from Greg. Nyss., p. 44; Clem. Alex. ap. Max., p. 151.
38b:1862The Greek ἐνεργεία being a term with a large connotation is explained as meaning in different cases operation (operatio), action (actio), and act (actus). Nemesius defines actio as operatio rationalis, actus as perfectio potentiæ
38b:1863Cf. Anast. Sin. in ῾Οδηγός, p. 43; John of Dam., Dialect. c. 30; Greg. Nyss., in Maximus, II., p. 155.
38b:1864πράξεις. So πρᾶξις is defined as ἐνέργεια λογική in the following chapter.
38b:1865τὰ πάθη. Cf. Instit. Elem., c. 9; Greg. Nyss., Cont. Eunom., v. p. 170.
38b:1866Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
38b:1867Greg. Nyss. ap. Max., p. 155.
Chapter XXIV.—Concerning what is Voluntary and what is Involuntary.
The voluntary 1868 implies a certain definite action, and so-called involuntariness also implies a certain definite action. Further, many attribute true involuntariness not only to suffering, but even to action. We must then understand action to be rational energy. Actions are followed by praise or blame, and some of them are accompanied with pleasure and others with pain; some are to be desired by the actor, others are to be shunned: further, of those that are desirable, some are always so, others only at some particular time. And so it is also with those that are to be shunned. Again, some actions enlist pity and are pardonable, others are hateful and deserve punishment. Voluntariness, then, is assuredly followed by praise or blame, and renders the action pleasurable and desirable to the actor, either for all time or for the moment of its performance. Involuntariness, on the other hand, brings merited pity or pardon in its train, and renders the act painful and undep. 39b sirable to the doer, and makes him leave it in a state of incompleteness even though force is brought to bear upon him.
Further, what is involuntary, depends in part on force and in part on ignorance. It depends on force when the creative beginning in cause is from without, that is to say, when one is forced by another without being at all persuaded, or when one does not contribute to the act on one’s own impulse, or does not co-operate at all, or do on one’s own account that which is exacted by force 1869 . Thus we may give this definition: “An involuntary act is one in which the beginning is from without, and where one does not contribute at all on one’s own impulse to that which one is forced.” And by beginning we mean the creative cause. All involuntary act depends, on the other hand, on ignorance, when one is not the cause of the ignorance one’s self, but events just so happen. For, if one commits murder while drunk, it is an act of ignorance, but yet not involuntary 1870 : for one was one’s self responsible for the cause of the ignorance, that is to say, the drunkenness. But if while shooting at the customary range one slew one’s father who happened to be passing by, this would be termed an ignorant and involuntary act.
As, then, that which is involuntary is in two parts, one depending on force, the other on ignorance, that which is voluntary is the opposite of both. For that which is voluntary is the result neither of force nor of ignorance 1871 . A voluntary act, then, is one of which the beginning or cause originates in an actor, who knows each individual circumstance through which and in which the action takes place. By “individual” is meant what the rhetoricians call circumstantial elements: for instance, the actor, the sufferer, the action (perchance a murder), the instrument, the place, the time, the manner, the reason of the action.
Notice that there are certain things that occupy a place intermediate between what is voluntary and what is involuntary. Although they are unpleasant and painful we welcome them as the escape from a still greater trouble; for instance, to escape shipwreck we cast the cargo overboard 1872 .
Notice also that children and irrational creatures perform voluntary actions, but these do not involve the exercise of choice: further, all our actions that are done in anger and without previous deliberation are voluntary actions, but do not in the least involve free choice 1873 . Also, if a friend suddenly appears on the scene, or if one unexpectedly lights on a treasure, so far as we are concerned it is quite voluntary, but there is no question of choice in the matter. For all these things are voluntary, because we desire pleasure from them, but they do not by any means imply choice, because they are not the result of deliberation. And deliberation must assuredly precede choice, as we have said above.
Footnotes
38b:1868Cf. Greg. Nyss., in Maxim.; Nemes., ch. 29.
39b:1869Nemes., ch. 30.
39b:1870Ibid., ch. 31.
39b:1871Ibid., ch. 32.
39b:1872Ibid., ch. 30.
39b:1873Nemes., ch. 33.
Chapter XXV.—Concerning what is in our own power, that is, concerning Free-will 1874 .
The first enquiry involved in the consideration of free-will, that is, of what is in our own power, is whether anything is in our power 1875 : for there are many who deny this. The second is, what are the things that are in our power, and over what things do we have authority? The third is, what is the reason for which God Who created us endued us with free-will? So then we shall take up the first question, and firstly we shall prove that of those things which even our opponents grant, some are within our power. And let us proceed thus.
Of all the things that happen, the cause is said to be either God, or necessity, or fate, or nature, or chance, or accident. But God’s function has to do with essence and providence: necessity deals with the movement of things that ever keep to the same course: fate with the necessary accomplishment of the things it brings to pass (for fate itself implies necessity): nature with birth, growth, destruction, plants and animals; chance with what is rare and unexpected. For chance is defined as the meeting and concurrence of two causes, originating in choice but bringing to pass something other than what is natural: for example, if a man finds a treasure while digging a ditch 1876 : for the man who hid the treasure did not do so that the other might find it, nor did the finder dig with the purpose of finding the treasure: but the former hid it that he might take it away when he wished, and the other’s aim was to dig the ditch: whereas something happened quite different from what both had in view. Accident again deals with casual occurrences that take place among lifeless or irrational things, apart from nature and art. This then is their doctrine. Under which, then, of these categories are we to bring what happens through the agency of p. 40b man, if indeed man is not the cause and beginning of action 1877 ? for it would not be right to ascribe to God actions that are sometimes base and unjust: nor may we ascribe these to necessity, for they are not such as ever continue the same: nor to fate, for fate implies not possibility only but necessity: nor to nature, for nature’s province is animals and plants: nor to chance, for the actions of men are not rare and unexpected: nor to accident, for that is used in reference to the casual occurrences that take place in the world of lifeless and irrational things. We are left then with this fact, that the man who acts and makes is himself the author of his own works, and is a creature endowed with free-will.
Further, if man is the author of no action, the faculty of deliberation is quite superfluous: for to what purpose could deliberation be put if man is the master of none of his actions? for all deliberation is for the sake of action. But to prove that the fairest and most precious of man’s endowments is quite superfluous would be the height of absurdity. If then man deliberates, he deliberates with a view to action. For all deliberation is with a view to and on account of action.
Footnotes
39b:1874τοῦ αὐτεξουσίου. See also III. 34.
39b:1875Nemes., ch. 39.
39b:1876Text, ταφρον. Variant, τάφον.
40b:1877Text, πράξεως. mss. πράξεων, as in Nemesius.
Chapter XXVI.—Concerning Events 1878 .
Of events 1879 , some are in our hands, others are not. Those then are in our hands which we are free to do or not to do at our will, that is all actions that are done voluntarily (for those actions are not called voluntary the doing of which is not in our hands), and in a word, all that are followed by blame or praise and depend on motive and law. Strictly all mental 1880 and deliberative acts are in our hands. Now deliberation is concerned with equal possibilities: and an ‘equal possibility’ is an action that is itself within our power and its opposite, and our mind makes choice of the alternatives, and this is the origin of action. The actions, therefore, that are in our hands are these equal possibilities: e.g. to be moved or not to be moved, to hasten or not to hasten, to long for unnecessaries or not to do so, to tell lies or not to tell lies, to give or not to give, to rejoice or not to rejoice as fits the occasion, and all such actions as imply virtue or vice in their performance, for we are free to do or not to do these at our pleasure. Amongst equal possibilities also are included the arts, for we have it in our power to cultivate these or not as we please.
Note, however, that while the choice of what is to be done is ever in our power, the action itself often is prevented by some dispensation of the divine Providence 1881 .
Footnotes
40b:1878περὶ τῶν γινομένων.
40b:1879Nemes., ch. 40.
40b:1880τὰ ψυχικὰ πάντα.
40b:1881Nemes., ch. 37.
Chapter XXVII.—Concerning the reason of our endowment with Free-will.
We hold, therefore, that free-will 1882 comes on the scene at the same moment as reason, and that change and alteration are congenital to all that is produced. For all that is produced is also subject to change 1883 . For those things must be subject to change whose production has its origin in change. And change consists in being brought into being out of nothing, and in transforming a substratum of matter into something different. Inanimate things, then, and things without reason undergo the aforementioned bodily changes, while the changes of things endowed with reason depend on choice. For reason consists of a speculative and a practical part. The speculative part is the contemplation of the nature of things, and the practical consists in deliberation and defines the true reason for what is to be done. The speculative side is called mind or wisdom, and the practical side is called reason or prudence. Every one, then, who deliberates does so in the belief that the choice of what is to be done lies in his hands, that he may choose what seems best as the result of his deliberation, and having chosen may act upon it. And if this is so, free-will must necessarily be very closely related to reason. For either man is an irrational being, or, if he is rational, he is master of his acts and endowed with free-will. Hence also creatures without reason do not enjoy free-will: for nature leads them rather than they nature, and so they do not oppose the natural appetite, but as soon as their appetite longs after anything they rush headlong after it. But man, being rational, leads nature rather than nature him, and so when he desires aught he has the power to curb his appetite or to indulge it as he pleases. Hence also creatures devoid of reason are the subjects neither of praise nor blame, while man is the subject of both praise and blame 1884 .
Note also that the angels, being rational, are endowed with free-will, and, inasmuch as they are created, are liable to change. This p. 41b in fact is made plain by the devil who, although made good by the Creator, became of his own free-will the inventor of evil, and by the powers who revolted with him 1885 , that is the demons, and by the other troops of angels who abode in goodness.
Footnotes
40b:1882This is supplied by Combefis from Nemesius.
40b:1883Nemes., ch. 41.
40b:1884This sentence is omitted in Basil and some mss.
41b:1885Nemesius speaks of this at greater length.
Chapter XXVIII.—Concerning what is not in our hands.
Of things that are not in our hands some have their beginning or cause in those that are in our power, that is to say, the recompenses of our actions both in the present and in the age to come, but all the rest are dependent on the divine will. For the origin of all things is from God, but their destruction has been introduced by our wickedness for our punishment or benefit. For God did not create death, neither does He take delight in the destruction of living things 1886 . But death is the work rather of man, that is, its origin is in Adam’s transgression, in like manner as all other punishments. But all other things must be referred to God. For our birth is to be referred to His creative power; and our continuance to His conservative power; and our government and safety to His providential power; and the eternal enjoyment of good things by those who preserve the laws of nature in which we are formed is to be ascribed to His goodness. But since some deny the existence of Providence, let us further devote a few words to the discussion of Providence.
Footnotes
41b:1886Wisd. i. 13.
Chapter XXIX.—Concerning Providence.
Providence, then, is the care that God takes over existing things. And again: Providence is the will of God through which all existing things receive their fitting issue 1887 . But if Providence is God’s will, according to true reasoning all things that come into being through Providence must necessarily be both most fair and most excellent, and such that they cannot be surpassed. For the same person must of necessity be creator of and provider for what exists: for it is not meet nor fitting that the creator of what exists and the provider should be separate persons. For in that case they would both assuredly be deficient, the one in creating, the other in providing 1888 . God therefore is both Creator and Provider, and His creative and preserving and providing power is simply His good-will. For whatsoever the Lord pleased that did He in heaven and in earth 1889 , and no one resisted His will 1890 . He willed that all things should be and they were. He wills the universe to be framed and it is framed, and all that He wills comes to pass.
That He provides, and that He provides excellently 1891 , one can most readily perceive thus. God alone is good and wise by nature. Since then He is good, He provides: for he who does not provide is not good. For even men and creatures without reason provide for their own offspring according to their nature, and he who does not provide is blamed. Again, since He is wise, He takes the best care over what exists.
When, therefore, we give heed to these things we ought to be filled with wonder at all the works of Providence, and praise them all 1892 , and accept them all without enquiry, even though they are in the eyes of many unjust, because the Providence of God is beyond our ken and comprehension, while our reasonings and actions and the future are revealed to His eyes alone. And by “all” I mean those that are not in our hands: for those that are in our power are outside the sphere of Providence and within that of our Free-will.
Now the works of Providence are partly according to the good-will 1893 (of God) and partly according to permission 1894 . Works of good-will include all those that are undeniably good, while works of permission are…… 1895 . For Providence often permits the just man to encounter misfortune in order that he may reveal to others the virtue that lies concealed within him 1896 , as was the case with Job 1897 . At other times it allows something strange to be done in order that something great and marvellous might be accomplished through the seemingly-strange act, as when the salvation of men was brought about through the Cross. In another way it allows the pious man to suffer sore trials in order that he may not depart from a right conscience nor lapse into pride on account of the power and grace granted to him, as was the case with Paul 1898 .
One man is forsaken for a season with a view to another’s restoration, in order that others when they see his state may be taught a lesson 1899 , as in the case of Lazarus and the rich man 1900 . For it belongs to our nature to be p. 42b cast down when we see persons in distress. Another is deserted by Providence in order that another may be glorified, and not for his own sin or that of his parents, just as the man who was blind from his birth ministered to the glory of the Son of Man 1901 . Again another is permitted to suffer in order to stir up emulation in the breasts of others, so that others by magnifying the glory of the sufferer may resolutely welcome suffering in the hope of future glory and the desire for future blessings, as in the case of the martyrs. Another is allowed to fall at times into some act of baseness in order that another worse fault may be thus corrected, as for instance when God allows a man who takes pride in his virtue and righteousness to fall away into fornication in order that he may be brought through this fall into the perception of his own weakness and be humbled and approach and make confession to the Lord.
Moreover, it is to be observed 1902 that the choice of what is to be done is in our own hands 1903 : but the final issue depends, in the one case when our actions are good, on the cooperation of God, Who in His justice brings help according to His foreknowledge to such as choose the good with a right conscience, and, in the other case when our actions are to evil, on the desertion by God, Who again in His justice stands aloof in accordance with His foreknowledge 1904 .
Now there are two forms of desertion: for there is desertion in the matters of guidance and training, and there is complete and hopeless desertion. The former has in view the restoration and safety and glory of the sufferer, or the rousing of feelings of emulation and imitation in others, or the glory of God: but the latter is when man, after God has done all that was possible to save him, remains of his own set purpose blind and uncured, or rather incurable, and then he is handed over to utter destruction, as was Judas 1905 . May God be gracious to us, and deliver us from such desertion.
Observe further that the ways of God’s providence are many, and they cannot be explained in words nor conceived by the mind.
And remember that all the assaults of dark and evil fortune contribute to the salvation of those who receive them with thankfulness, and are assuredly ambassadors of help.
Also one must bear in mind 1906 that God’s original wish was that all should be saved and come to His Kingdom 1907 . For it was not for punishment that He formed us but to share in His goodness, inasmuch as He is a good God. But inasmuch as He is a just God, His will is that sinners should suffer punishment.
The first then is called God’s antecedent will and pleasure, and springs from Himself, while the second is called God’s consequent will and permission, and has its origin in us. And the latter is two-fold; one part dealing with matters of guidance and training, and having in view our salvation, and the other being hopeless and leading to our utter punishment, as we said above. And this is the case with actions that are not left in our hands 1908 .
But of actions that are in our hands the good ones depend on His antecedent goodwill and pleasure, while the wicked ones depend neither on His antecedent nor on His consequent will, but are a concession to free-will. For that which is the result of compulsion has neither reason nor virtue in it. God 1909 makes provision for all creation and makes all creation the instrument of His help and training, yea often even the demons themselves, as for example in the cases of Job and the swine 1910 .
Footnotes
41b:1887Nemes., ch. 43.
41b:1888Ibid., ch. 42.
41b:1889Ps. cxxxv. 6.
41b:1890Rom. ix. 19.
41b:1891Nemes., ch. 44.
41b:1892The words πάντα ἐπαινεῖν are wanting in Cod. R. 2 and in Nemes., ch. 44.
41b:1893κατ᾽ εὐδοκίαν.
41b:1894κατὰ συγχώρησιν.
41b:1895There is a hiatus here in Edit. Veron. and in Cod. R. 2927. Various readings are found in other mss., some with no sense and others evidently supplied by librarians. It is best supplied from Nemesius, ch. 44, τῆς δὲ συγχωρήσεως πολλὰ εἴδη, “but there are many forms of concession.”
41b:1896Nemes, ch. 44.
41b:1897Job i. 11.
41b:18982 Cor. ii. 7.
41b:1899Nemes., ch. 44.
41b:1900St. Luke xvi. 19.
42b:1901St. John ix. 1.
42b:1902Nemes., ch. 37.
42b:1903Cf. Nemes., c. 27; also Cicero’s statement on Providence in the Academ. Quest.
42b:1904See the reference in Migne.
42b:1905St. Matt. xxvi. 24.
42b:1906See Chrysostom, Hom. 1, in Epist. ad. Ephes., and Hom. 18, in Epist. ad Hebræos.
42b:19071 Tim. ii. 4.
42b:1908These words are wanting in two mss.
42b:1909This last sentence is absent in one Codex.
42b:1910St. Matt. viii. 30 seqq.
Chapter XXX.—Concerning Prescience and Predestination.
We ought to understand 1911 that while God knows all things beforehand, yet He does not predetermine all things 1912 . For He knows beforehand those things that are in our power, but He does not predetermine them. For it is not His will that there should be wickedness nor does He choose to compel virtue. So that predetermination is the work of the divine command based on fore-knowledge 1913 . But on the other hand God predetermines those things which are not within our power in accordance with His prescience. For already God in His prescience has prejudged all things in accordance with His goodness and justice.
Bear in mind, too 1914 , that virtue is a gift from God implanted in our nature, and that He Himself is the source and cause of all good, p. 43b and without His co-operation 1915 and help we cannot will or do any good thing. But we have it in our power either to abide in virtue and follow God, Who calls us into ways of virtue, or to stray from paths of virtue, which is to dwell in wickedness, and to follow the devil who summons but cannot compel us. For wickedness is nothing else than the withdrawal of goodness, just as darkness is nothing else than the withdrawal of light. While then we abide in the natural state we abide in virtue, but when we deviate from the natural state, that is from virtue, we come into an unnatural state and dwell in wickedness 1916 .
Repentance is the returning from the unnatural into the natural state, from the devil to God, through discipline and effort.
Man then the Creator made male, giving him to share in His own divine grace, and bringing him thus into communion with Himself: and thus it was that he gave in the manner of a prophet the names to living things, with authority as though they were given to be his slaves. For having been endowed with reason and mind, and free-will after the image of God, he was fitly entrusted with dominion over earthly things by the common Creator and Master of all.
But since God in His prescience 1917 knew that man would transgress and become liable to destruction, He made from him a female to be a help to him like himself; a help, indeed, for the conservation of the race after the transgression from age to age by generation. For the earliest formation is called ‘making’ and not ‘generation.’ For ‘making’ is the original formation at God’s hands, while ‘generation’ is the succession from each other made necessary by the sentence of death imposed on us on account of the transgression.
This man He 1918 placed in Paradise, a home that was alike spiritual and sensible. For he lived in the body on the earth in the realm of sense, while he dwelt in the spirit among the angels, cultivating divine thoughts, and being supported by them: living in naked simplicity a life free from artificiality, and being led up through His creations to the one and only Creator, in Whose contemplation he found joy and gladness 1919 .
When therefore He had furnished his nature with free-will, He imposed a law on him, not to taste of the tree of knowledge. Concerning this tree, we have said as much as is necessary in the chapter about Paradise, at least as much as it was in our power to say. And with this command He gave the promise that, if he should preserve the dignity of the soul by giving the victory to reason, and acknowledging his Creator and observing His command, he should share eternal blessedness and live to all eternity, proving mightier than death: but if forsooth he should subject the soul to the body, and prefer the delights of the body, comparing himself in ignorance of his true dignity to the senseless beasts 1920 , and shaking off His Creator’s yoke, and neglecting His divine injunction, he will be liable to death and corruption, and will be compelled to labour throughout a miserable life. For it was no profit to man to obtain incorruption while still untried and unproved, lest he should fall into pride and under the judgment of the devil. For through his incorruption the devil, when he had fallen as the result of his own free choice, was firmly established in wickedness, so that there was no room for repentance and no hope of change: just as, moreover, the angels also, when they had made free choice of virtue became through grace immoveably rooted in goodness.
It was necessary, therefore, that man should first be put to the test (for man untried and unproved 1921 would be worth nothing 1922 ), and being made perfect by the trial through the observance of the command should thus receive incorruption as the prize of his virtue. For being intermediate between God and matter he was destined, if he kept the command, to be delivered from his natural relation to existing things and to be made one with God’s estate, and to be immoveably established in goodness, but, if he transgressed and inclined the rather to what was material, and tore his mind from the Author of his being, I mean God, his fate was to be corruption, and he was to become subject to passion instead of passionless, and mortal instead of immortal, and dependent on connection and unsettled generation. And in his desire for life he would cling to pleasures as though they were necessary to maintain it, and would fearlessly abhor those who sought to deprive him of these, and transfer his desire from God to matter, and his anger from the real enemy of his salvation to his own brethren. The p. 44b envy of the 1923 devil then was the reason of man’s fall. For that same demon, so full of envy and with such a hatred of good, would not suffer us to enjoy the pleasures of heaven, when he himself was kept below on account of his arrogance, and hence the false one tempts miserable man with the hope of Godhead, and leading him up to as great a height of arrogance as himself, he hurls him down into a pit of destruction just as deep.
Footnotes
42b:1911Chrys., Hom. 12 in Epist. ad. Ephes.
42b:1912Cf. Maximus, Vita, n. 8; Just. Martyr, Apol. 1; Tatian, Or. ad Græcos; Origen, Ep. ad Rom. 1; Jerome, on Ezek. c. xxiv., &c.
42b:1913Act. S. Max.
42b:1914Cf. Clem. Alex., Strom., bk. vi.; Jerome, on Ep. ad Gal., ch. 1; Greg. Naz, Carmen de virt. hum.
43b:1915Cf. Clem. Alex., Quis dives salvetur; Greg. Naz., Orat. 31; Chrysost., Hom. 45in Joann., Hom. in Ep. ad Hebr. xii. 2, Hom. 15 in Ep. ad Rom.; Cyril, De ador. in Spir. et ver., p. 25; Petavius, Dogm., vol. i., bk. ix. c. 4, &c.
43b:1916Cf. infra, bk. iii. ch. 14.
43b:1917ὁ προγνώστης Θεός. See Athanas., in Psalm 1; Chrysost. in Hom. 18 in Gen.; Greg. Nyss., De opif. hom.; Athanas., Minor, Quest. 50 ad Antioch.; Thomas Aquinas I., Quæst. 98, Art. 2.
43b:1918Greg. Nyss., De opif., ch. 20.
43b:1919Text, εὐφραινόμενος. Variant, σεμνυνόμενος.
43b:1920Ps. xlix. 12.
43b:1921ἀδοκιμος; in Cod. R. 2 ἀδοκίμαστον.
43b:1922This parenthesis is absent in almost all codices and in the translations of Faber, &c.
44b:1923Cf. Greg. Naz., Orat. 38 and 42; Cyril Alex., Cont. Anthrop., I. 8; Anast. II. Antioch., Hexaëm. vi; Chrysost., Hom. 10 in Ep. ad Rom., Hom. 5 in Ep. ad Epes., &c.
p. 45b
Book III.
Chapter I.—Concerning the Divine Œconomy and God’s care over us, and concerning our salvation.
Man, then, was thus snared by the assault of the arch-fiend, and broke his Creator’s command, and was stripped of grace and put off his confidence with God, and covered himself with the asperities of a toilsome life (for this is the meaning of the fig-leaves 1924 ); and was clothed about with death, that is, mortality and the grossness of flesh (for this is what the garment of skins signifies); and was banished from Paradise by God’s just judgment, and condemned to death, and made subject to corruption. Yet, notwithstanding all this, in His pity, God, Who gave him his being, and Who in His graciousness bestowed on him a life of happiness, did not disregard man 1925 . But He first trained him in many ways and called him back, by groans and trembling, by the deluge of water, and the utter destruction of almost the whole race 1926 , by confusion and diversity of tongues 1927 , by the rule 1928 of angels 1929 , by the burning of cities 1930 , by figurative manifestations of God, by wars and victories and defeats, by signs and wonders, by manifold faculties, by the law and the prophets: for by all these means God earnestly strove to emancipate man from the wide-spread and enslaving bonds of sin, which had made life such a mass of iniquity, and to effect man’s return to a life of happiness. For it was sin that brought death like a wild and savage beast into the world 1931 to the ruin of the human life. But it behoved the Redeemer to be without sin, and not made liable through sin to death, and further, that His nature should be strengthened and renewed, and trained by labour and taught the way of virtue which leads away from corruption to the life eternal and, in the end, is revealed the mighty ocean of love to man that is about Him 1932 . For the very Creator and Lord Himself undertakes a struggle 1933 in behalf of the work of His own hands, and learns by toil to become Master. And since the enemy snares man by the hope of Godhead, he himself is snared in turn by the screen of flesh, and so are shown at once the goodness and wisdom, the justice and might of God. God’s goodness is revealed in that He did not disregard 1934 the frailty of His own handiwork, but was moved with compassion for him in his fall, and stretched forth His hand to him: and His justice in that when man was overcome He did not make another victorious over the tyrant, nor did He snatch man by might from death, but in His goodness and justice He made him, who had become through his sins the slave of death, himself once more conqueror and rescued like by like, most difficult though it seemed: and His wisdom is seen in His devising the most fitting solution of the difficulty 1935 . For by the good pleasure of our God and Father, the Only-begotten Son and Word of God and God, Who is in the bosom of the God and Father 1936 , of like essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Who was before the ages, Who is without beginning and was in the beginning, Who is in the presence of the God and Father, and is God and made in the form of God 1937 , bent the heavens and descended to earth: that is to say, He humbled without humiliation His lofty station which yet could not be humbled, and condescends to His servants 1938 , with a condescension ineffable and incomprehensible: (for that is what the descent signifies). And God being perfect becomes perfect man, and brings to perfection the newest of all new things 1939 , the only new thing under the Sun, through which the boundless might of God is manifested. For what greater thing is there, than that God should become Man? And the Word became flesh without being changed, of the Holy Spirit, and Mary the holy and ever-virgin one, the mother of God. And He acts as mediator between God and man, He the only lover of man conceived in the Virgin’s chaste womb without will 1940 or desire, or any connection with man or pleasurable generation, but through the p. 46b Holy Spirit and the first offspring of Adam. And He becomes obedient to the Father Who is like unto us, and finds a remedy for our disobedience in what He had assumed from us, and became a pattern of obedience to us without which it is not possible to obtain salvation 1941 .
Footnotes
45b:1924Gen. iii. 7; cf. Greg. Naz., Orat. 38 and 42; Greg. Nyss., Orat. Catech. c. 8.
45b:1925Text, παρεῖδεν. Variant, περιεῖδεν.
45b:1926Gen. vi. 13.
45b:1927Gen. 11.7.
45b:1928ἐπιστασία, care, or dominion.
45b:1929Gen. xviii. 1 seqq.
45b:1930Gen. 19.1 seqq.
45b:1931Wisd. ii. 24.
45b:1932Greg. Naz., Orat. 12 and 38.
45b:1933Text, πάλην. Variant, πλάσιν, cf. “plasmationem” (Faber).
45b:1934Text, παρείδε. Variant, περιεῖδεν.
45b:1935Greg. Nyss., Orat. Cathec., ch. 20 et seqq.
45b:1936St. John i. 18.
45b:1937Phil. ii. 6.
45b:1938“Condescends to His servants” is absent in some mss.
45b:1939Eccles. i. 10.
45b:1940Greg. Nyss., Cat. ch. 16.
46b:1941Athan., De salut. adv. Christi.
Chapter II. —Concerning the manner in which the Word 1942 was conceived, and concerning His divine incarnation.
The angel of the Lord was sent to the holy Virgin, who was descended from David’s line 1943 . For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah, of which tribe no one turned his attention to the altar 1944 , as the divine apostle said: but about this we will speak more accurately later. And bearing glad tidings to her, he said, Hail thou highly favoured one, the Lord is with thee 1945 . And she was troubled at his word, and the angel said to her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God, and shalt bring forth a Son and shalt call His name Jesus 1946 ; for He shall save His people from their sins 1947 . Hence it comes that Jesus has the interpretation Saviour. And when she asked in her perplexity, How can this be, seeing I know not a man 1948 ? the angel again answered her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee 1949 shall be called the Son of God 1950 . And she said to him, Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to Thy word 1951 .
So then, after the assent of the holy Virgin, the Holy Spirit descended on her, according to the word of the Lord which the angel spoke, purifying her 1952 , and granting her power to receive the divinity of the Word, and likewise power to bring forth 1953 . And then was she overshadowed 1954 by the enhypostatic Wisdom and Power of the most high God, the Son of God Who is of like essence with the Father as of Divine seed, and from her holy and most pure blood He formed flesh animated with the spirit of reason and thought, the first-fruits of our compound nature 1955 : not by procreation but by creation through the Holy Spirit: not developing the fashion of the body by gradual additions but perfecting it at once, He Himself, the very Word of God, standing to the flesh in the relation of subsistence. For the divine Word was not made one with flesh that had an independent pre-existence 1956 , but taking up His abode in the womb of the holy Virgin, He unreservedly in His own subsistence took upon Himself through the pure blood of the eternal Virgin a body of flesh animated with the spirit of reason and thought, thus assuming to Himself the first-fruits of man’s compound nature, Himself, the Word, having become a subsistence in the flesh. So that 1957 He is at once flesh, and at the same time flesh of God the Word, and likewise flesh animated, possessing both reason and thought 1958 . Wherefore we speak not of man as having become God, but of God as having become Man 1959 . For being by nature perfect God, He naturally became likewise perfect Man: and did not change His nature nor make the dispensation 1960 an empty show, but became, without confusion or change or division, one in subsistence with the flesh, which was conceived of the holy Virgin, and animated with reason and thought, and had found existence in Him, while He did not change the nature of His divinity into the essence of flesh, nor the essence of flesh into the nature of His divinity, and did not make one compound nature out of His divine nature and the human nature He had assumed 1961 .
Footnotes
46b:1942Text, τοῦ Λόλου. Variant, τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου: so Dei Verbi (Faber).
46b:1943St. Luke i. 27.
46b:1944Hebr. vii. 14.
46b:1945St. Luke i. 28.
46b:1946Luke 1:30, 31.
46b:1947St. Matt. i. 21.
46b:1948St. Luke i. 34.
46b:1949“Of thee” is wanting in some mss.
46b:1950St. Luke i. 35.
46b:1951Luke 1.38.
46b:1952Luke 1:27, 28.
46b:1953Greg. Naz., Orat. 38 and 42.
46b:1954Cf. Athan., Ep. ad Serap., De Spiritu Sancto; Greg. Nyss., Contr. Apoll. 6, 25; Rufinus, Exp. Symb.; Tertullian, De Carne Christi and Contr. Prax.; Hilary, De Trin. II. 26.
46b:1955Basil, Christi Nativ.
46b:1956Cyril, Apolog. 5 and 8 anathem.
46b:1957Cf. Greg. Naz., 1 Ep. ad Cledon; Cyril, 1 Ep. ad Nestor.; Theodor., Ep. ad Joan. Antioch., &c.
46b:1958Cyril., Epist. ad Monach.
46b:1959Procl., Epist. 2 ad Arm.
46b:1960τῆν οἰκονομίαν, the œconomy, the Incarnation.
46b:1961Cod. R. 2428 adds here some statements taken from the Dissertation against the Nestorians.
Chapter III.—Concerning Christ’s two natures, in opposition to those who hold that He has only one 1962 .
For the two natures were united with each other without change or alteration, neither the divine nature departing from its native simplicity, nor yet the human being either changed into the nature of God or reduced to non-existence, nor one compound nature being produced out of the two. For the compound nature 1963 cannot be of the same essence as either of the natures out of which it is compounded, as made one thing out of others: for example, the body is composed of the four elements, but is not of the same essence as fire or air, or water or earth, nor does it keep these names. If, therefore, after the union, Christ’s nature was, as the heretics p. 47b hold, a compound unity, He had changed from a simple into a compound nature 1964 , and is not of the same essence as the Father Whose nature is simple, nor as the mother, who is not a compound of divinity and humanity. Nor will He then be in divinity and humanity: nor will He be called either God or Man, but simply Christ: and the word Christ will be the name not of the subsistence, but of what in their view is the one nature.
We, however, do not give it as our view that Christ’s nature is compound, nor yet that He is one thing made of other things and differing from them as man is made of soul and body, or as the body is made of the four elements, but hold 1965 that, though He is constituted of these different parts He is yet the same 1966 . For we confess that He alike in His divinity and in His humanity both is and is said to be perfect God, the same Being, and that He consists of two natures, and exists in two natures 1967 . Further, by the word “Christ” we understand the name of the subsistence, not in the sense of one kind, but as signifying the existence of two natures. For in His own person He anointed Himself; as God anointing His body with His own divinity, and as Man being anointed. For He is Himself both God and Man. And the anointing is the divinity of His humanity. For if Christ, being of one compound nature, is of like essence to the Father, then the Father also must be compound and of like essence with the flesh, which is absurd and extremely blasphemous 1968 .
How, indeed, could one and the same nature come to embrace opposing and essential differences? For how is it possible that the same nature should be at once created and uncreated, mortal and immortal, circumscribed and uncircumscribed?
But if those who declare that Christ has only one nature should say also that that nature is a simple one, they must admit either that He is God pure and simple, and thus reduce the incarnation to a mere pretence, or that He is only man, according to Nestorius. And how then about His being “perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity”? And when can Christ be said to be of two natures, if they hold that He is of one composite nature after the union? For it is surely clear to every one that before the union Christ’s nature was one.
But this is what leads the heretics 1969 astray, viz., that they look upon nature and subsistence as the same thing 1970 . For when we speak of the nature of men as one 1971 , observe that in saying this we are not looking to the question of soul and body. For when we compare together the soul and the body it cannot be said that they are of one nature. But since there are very many subsistences of men, and yet all have the same kind of nature 1972 : for all are composed of soul and body, and all have part in the nature of the soul, and possess the essence of the body, and the common form: we speak of the one nature of these very many and different subsistences; while each subsistence, to wit, has two natures, and fulfils itself in two natures, namely, soul and body.
But 1973 a common form cannot be admitted in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ. For neither was there ever, nor is there, nor will there ever be another Christ constituted of deity and humanity, and existing in deity and humanity at once perfect God and perfect man. And thus in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ we cannot speak of one nature made up of divinity and humanity, as we do in the case of the individual made up of soul and body 1974 . For in the latter case we have to do with an individual, but Christ is not an individual. For there is no predicable form of Christlihood, so to speak, that He possesses. And therefore we hold that there has been a union of two perfect natures, one divine and one human; not with disorder or confusion, or intermixture 1975 , or commingling, as is said by the God-accursed Dioscorus and by Eutyches 1976 and Severus, and all that impious company: and not in a personal or relative manner, or as a matter of dignity or agreement in will, or equality in honour, or identity in name, or good pleasure, as Nestorius, hated of God, said, and Diodorus and Theodorus of Mopsuestia, and their diabolical tribe: but by synthesis; that is, in subsistence, without change or confusion or alteration or difference or separation, and we confess that in two perfect natures there is but one subsistence of the Son of God incarnate 1977 ; holding that there is one and the same subsistence belongp. 48b ing to His divinity and His humanity, and granting that the two natures are preserved in Him after the union, but we do not hold that each is separate and by itself, but that they are united to each other in one compound subsistence. For we look upon the union as essential, that is, as true and not imaginary. We say that it is essential 1978 , moreover, not in the sense of two natures resulting in one compound nature, but in the sense of a true union of them in one compound subsistence of the Son of God, and we hold that their essential difference is preserved. For the created remaineth created, and the uncreated, uncreated: the mortal remaineth mortal; the immortal, immortal: the circumscribed, circumscribed: the uncircumscribed, uncircumscribed: the visible, visible: the invisible, invisible. “The one part is all glorious with wonders: while the other is the victim of insults 1979 .”
Moreover, the Word appropriates to Himself the attributes of humanity: for all that pertains to His holy flesh is His: and He imparts to the flesh His own attributes by way of communication 1980 in virtue of the interpenetration of the parts 1981 one with another, and the oneness according to subsistence, and inasmuch as He Who lived and acted both as God and as man, taking to Himself either form and holding intercourse with the other form, was one and the same 1982 . Hence it is that the Lord of Glory is said to have been crucified 1983 , although His divine nature never endured the Cross, and that the Son of Man is allowed to have been in heaven before the Passion, as the Lord Himself said 1984 . For the Lord of Glory is one and the same with Him Who is in nature and in truth the Son of Man, that is, Who became man, and both His wonders and His sufferings are known to us, although His wonders were worked in His divine capacity, and His sufferings endured as man. For we know that, just as is His one subsistence, so is the essential difference of the nature preserved. For how could difference be preserved if the very things that differ from one another are not preserved? For difference is the difference between things that differ. In so far as Christ’s natures differ from one another, that is, in the matter of essence, we hold that Christ unites in Himself two extremes: in respect of His divinity He is connected with the Father and the Spirit, while in respect of His humanity He is connected with His mother and all mankind. And in so far as His natures are united, we hold that He differs from the Father and the Spirit on the one hand, and from the mother and the rest of mankind on the other. For the natures are united in His subsistence, having one compound subsistence, in which He differs from the Father and the Spirit, and also from the mother and us.
Footnotes
46b:1962κατὰ Μονοφυσιτῶν : these words are absent in mss.
46b:1963Cf. Eulogius and also Polemon in the Collect. Contr. Severianos.
47b:1964Max. Epist. ad Joan. cubic. p. 279.
47b:1965Ibid. p. 286.
47b:1966ἐξ ἑτέρων τὰ αὐτά. Cod. R. 3 reads ταῦτα. See also Cyril, Ep. 2 ad Success.
47b:1967Cf. Niceph. Call., Hist. xviii. 46.
47b:1968Eulog. apud Max., t. ii. p. 145.
47b:1969Cf. Sever., Ep. 2 ad Joannem.
47b:1970Anast. Sinaita, in ῾Οδηγῷ, ch. 9; Leontius, contr. Nest. et Eutych.
47b:1971Greg. Naz., Ep. ad Cled., 1.
47b:1972τὸν αὐτὸν ἐπιδέχονται λόγον τῆς φύσεως; perhaps—all admit the same account of the nature,—all can be dealt with in the same way in respect of nature.
47b:1973Leontius, Contr. Sev. et Eutych. Max. loc. cit., p. 277.
47b:1974Reading ὥσπερ ἐπὶ ἀτόμου, &c. These words are omitted in Cod. S. Hil. Reg. 10, Colb. 3, and N.
47b:1975ἤ σύγκρασιν, ἢ ἀνάκρασιν. The mss. omit the latter.
47b:1976The word Εὐτυχής, however, is omitted by the best copies.
47b:1977Procl., Epist. 2 ad Arm.
48b:1978Greg. Naz., Hom. 5. See also John’s Dialect., 65.
48b:1979Leo papa, Epist. 10, ch. 4.
48b:1980κατὰ τὸν ἀντιδόσεως τρόπον, in the way of a communication of properties.
48b:1981διὰ τὴν εἰς ἄλληλα τῶν μερῶν περιχώρησιν. See Leont., De Sect., 7, Contr. Nest. et Eutych., I.
48b:1982Leo papa, epist. 10, ch. 4.
48b:19831 Cor. ii. 8.
48b:1984St. John iii. 13.
Chapter IV.—Concerning the manner of the Mutual Communication 1985 .
Now we have often said already that essence is one thing and subsistence another, and that essence signifies the common and general form 1986 of subsistences of the same kind, such as God, man, while subsistence marks the individual, that is to say, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, or Peter, Paul. Observe, then, that the names, divinity and humanity, denote essences or natures: while the names, God and man, are applied both in connection with natures, as when we say that God is incomprehensible essence, and that God is one, and with reference to subsistences, that which is more specific having the name of the more general applied to it, as when the Scripture says, Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee 1987 , or again, There was a certain man in the land of Uz 1988 , for it was only to Job that reference was made.
Therefore, in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing that we recognise that He has two natures but only one subsistence compounded of both, when we contemplate His natures we speak of His divinity and His humanity, but when we contemplate the subsistence compounded of the natures we sometimes use terms that have reference to His double nature, as “Christ,” and “at once God and man,” and “God Incarnate;” and sometimes those that imply only one of His natures, as “God” alone, or “Son of God,” and “man” alone, or “Son of Man;” sometimes using names that imply His loftiness and sometimes those that imply His lowliness. For He Who is alike God and man is one, being the former from the Father ever without 1989 cause, but having become the latter afterwards for His love towards man 1990 .
p. 49b When, then, we speak of His divinity we do not ascribe to it the properties of humanity. For we do not say that His divinity is subject to passion or created. Nor, again, do we predicate of His flesh or of His humanity the properties of divinity: for we do not say that His flesh or His humanity is uncreated. But when we speak of His subsistence, whether we give it a name implying both natures, or one that refers to only one of them, we still attribute to it the properties of both natures. For Christ, which name implies both natures, is spoken of as at once God and man, created and uncreated, subject to suffering and incapable of suffering: and when He is named Son of God and God, in reference to only one of His natures, He still keeps the properties of the co-existing nature, that is, the flesh, being spoken of as God who suffers, and as the Lord of Glory crucified 1991 , not in respect of His being God but in respect of His being at the same time man. Likewise also when He is called Man and Son of Man, He still keeps the properties and glories of the divine nature, a child before the ages, and man who knew no beginning; it is not, however, as child or man but as God that He is before the ages, and became a child in the end. And this is the manner of the mutual communication, either nature giving in exchange to the other its own properties through the identity of the subsistence and the interpenetration of the parts with one another. Accordingly we can say of Christ: This our God was seen upon the earth and lived amongst men 1992 , and This man is uncreated and impossible and uncircumscribed.
Footnotes
48b:1985Cf. Athan., De Salut. adv. Christi; Greg. Naz., Orat. 38; Greg. Nyss., Contr. Apoll.; Leont., Contr. Nestor. et Eutych., bk. 1; Thomas Aquinas, III., quæst. 16, art. 4, 5.
48b:1986εἶδος, form, class, species.
48b:1987Ps. xlv. 7.
48b:1988Job i. 1.
48b:1989ἀεὶ ἀναιτίως ἐκ Πατρός.
48b:1990Greg. Naz., Orat. 35.
49b:19911 Cor. ii. 8.
49b:1992Baruch iii. 38: these words are absent in many mss.
Chapter V.—Concerning the number of the Natures.
In the case, therefore, of the Godhead 1993 we confess that there is but one nature, but hold that there are three subsistences actually existing, and hold that all things that are of nature and essence are simple, and recognise the difference of the subsistences only in the three properties of independence of cause and Fatherhood, of dependence on cause and Sonship, of dependence on cause and procession 1994 . And we know further that these are indivisible and inseparable from each other and united into one, and interpenetrating one another without confusion. Yea, I repeat, united without confusion, for they are three although united, and they are distinct, although inseparable. For although each has an independent existence, that is to say, is a perfect subsistence and has an individuality of its own, that is, has a special mode of existence, yet they are one in essence and in the natural properties, and in being inseparable and indivisible from the Father’s subsistence, and they both are and are said to be one God. In the very same way, then, in the case of the divine and ineffable dispensation 1995 , exceeding all thought and comprehension, I mean the Incarnation of the One God the Word of the Holy Trinity, and our Lord Jesus Christ, we confess that there are two natures, one divine and one human, joined together with one another and united in subsistence 1996 , so that one compound subsistence is formed out of the two natures: but we hold that the two natures are still preserved, even after the union, in the one compound subsistence, that is, in the one Christ, and that these exist in reality and have their natural properties; for they are united without confusion, and are distinguished and enumerated without being separable. And just as the three subsistences of the Holy Trinity are united without confusion, and are distinguished and enumerated without being separable 1997 , the enumeration not entailing division or separation or alienation or cleavage among them (for we recognise one God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit), so in the same way the natures of Christ also, although they are united, yet are united without confusion; and although they interpenetrate one another, yet they do not permit of change or transmutation of one into the other 1998 . For each keeps its own natural individuality strictly unchanged. And thus it is that they can be enumerated without the enumeration introducing division. For Christ, indeed, is one, perfect both in divinity and in humanity. For it is not the nature of number to cause separation or unity, but its nature is to indicate the quantity of what is enumerated, whether these are united or separated: for we have unity, for instance, when fifty stones compose a wall, but we have separation when the fifty stones lie on the ground; and again, we have unity when we speak of coal having two natures, namely, fire and wood, but we have separation in that the nature of fire is one thing, and the nature of wood another thing; p. 50b for these things are united and separated not by number, but in another way. So, then, just as even though the three subsistences of the Godhead are united with each other, we cannot speak of them as one subsistence because we should confuse and do away with the difference between the subsistences, so also we cannot speak of the two natures of Christ as one nature, united though they are in subsistence, because we should then confuse and do away with and reduce to nothing the difference between the two natures.
Footnotes
49b:1993Leont., Resp. ad argum. Sever.
49b:1994For καὶ τῇ αἰτιατῇ καὶ ὑ& 187·κῇ, καὶ τῇ αἰτιατῇ καὶ ἐκπορευτῇ we get καὶ τῇ αἰτιατικῇ, καὶ ὑ& 187·κῃ, καὶ πορευτῇ in Cod. Colb. 1, Cod. Reg. 3, and so Faber also.
49b:1995οἰκονομίας, incarnation.
49b:1996Leont., Resp. ad argum. Sever.
49b:1997See Leont., Act. 7. De Sect., with reference to one of the arguments of the Nestorians; also Greg. Naz., Orat. 36; Max., Ep. 1 ad Joan. Cubic.
49b:1998Infr. ch. vii.: Basil, Epist. 40 and Bk. De Spir. Sanct. ch. 17.
Chapter VI.—That in one of its subsistences the divine nature is united in its entirety to the human nature, in its entirety and not only part to part.
What is common and general is predicated of the included particulars. Essence, then, is common as being a form 1999 , while subsistence is particular. It is particular not as though it had part of the nature and had not the rest, but particular in a numerical sense, as being individual. For it is in number and not in nature that the difference between subsistences is said to lie. Essence, therefore, is predicated of subsistence, because in each subsistence of the same form the essence is perfect. Wherefore subsistences do not differ from each other in essence but in the accidents which indeed are the characteristic properties, but characteristic of subsistence and not of nature. For indeed they define subsistence as essence along with accidents. So that the subsistence contains both the general and the particular, and has an independent existence 2000 , while essence has not an independent existence but is contemplated in the subsistences. Accordingly when one of the subsistences suffers, the whole essence, being capable of suffering 2001 , is held to have suffered in one of its subsistences as much as the subsistence suffered, but it does not necessarily follow, however, that all the subsistences of the same class should suffer along with the suffering subsistence.
Thus, therefore, we confess that the nature of the Godhead is wholly and perfectly in each of its subsistences, wholly in the Father, wholly in the Son, and wholly in the Holy Spirit. Wherefore also the Father is perfect God, the Son is perfect God, and the Holy Spirit is perfect God. In like manner, too, in the Incarnation of the Trinity of the One God the Word of the Holy Trinity, we hold that in one of its subsistences the nature of the Godhead is wholly and perfectly united with the whole nature of humanity, and not part united to part 2002 . The divine Apostle in truth says that in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily 2003 , that is to say in His flesh. And His divinely-inspired disciple, Dionysius, who had so deep a knowledge of things divine, said that the Godhead as a whole had fellowship with us in one of its own subsistences 2004 . But we shall not be driven to hold that all the subsistences of the Holy Godhead, to wit the three, are made one in subsistence with all the subsistences of humanity. For in no other respect did the Father and the Holy Spirit take part in the incarnation of God the Word than according to good will and pleasure. But we hold that to the whole of human nature the whole essence of the Godhead was united. For God the Word omitted none of the things which He implanted in our nature when He formed us in the beginning, but took them all upon Himself, body and soul both intelligent and rational, and all their properties. For the creature that is devoid of one of these is not man. But He in His fulness took upon Himself me in my fulness, and was united whole to whole that He might in His grace bestow salvation on the whole man. For what has not been taken cannot be healed 2005 .
The Word of God 2006 , then, was united to flesh through the medium of mind which is intermediate between the purity of God and the grossness of flesh 2007 . For the mind holds sway over soul and body, but while the mind is the purest part of the soul God is that of the mind. And when it is allowed 2008 by that which is more excellent, the mind of Christ gives proof of its own authority 2009 , but it is under the dominion of and obedient to that which is more excellent, and does those things which the divine will purposes.
Further the mind has become the seat of the divinity united with it in subsistence, just as is evidently the case with the body too, not as an inmate 2010 , which is the impious error into which the heretics fall when they say that one bushel cannot contain two bushels, for they are judging what is immaterial by material standards. How indeed could Christ be called perfect God and perfect man, and be said to be of like essence with the Father and p. 51b with us, if only part of the divine nature is joined in Him to part of the human nature 2011 ?
We hold, moreover, that our nature has been raised from the dead and has ascended to the heavens and taken its seat at the right hand of the Father: not that all the persons of men have risen from the dead and taken their seat at the right hand of the Father, but that this has happened to the whole of our nature in the subsistence of Christ 2012 . Verily the divine Apostle says, God hath raised us up together and made us sit together in Christ 2013 .
And this further we hold, that the union took place through common essences. For every essence is common to the subsistences contained in it, and there cannot be found a partial and particular nature, that is to say, essence: for otherwise we would have to hold that the same subsistences are at once the same and different in essence, and that the Holy Trinity in respect of the divinity is at once the same and different in essence. So then the same nature is to be observed in each of the subsistences, and when we said that the nature of the word became flesh, as did the blessed Athanasius and Cyrillus, we mean that the divinity was joined to the flesh. Hence we cannot say “The nature of the Word suffered;” for the divinity in it did not suffer, but we say that the human nature, not by any means, however, meaning 2014 all the subsistences of men, suffered in Christ, and we confess further that Christ suffered in His human nature. So that when we speak of the nature of the Word we mean the Word Himself. And the Word has both the general element of essence and the particular element of subsistence.
Footnotes
50b:1999εἶδος, form, class, species.
50b:2000These words are found only in Cod. Reg. 2927.
50b:2001The words οὐσία παθητή and πέπονθε are omitted in some editions.
50b:2002Against Arius, Apollinaris, and the Severians.
50b:2003Col. ii. 9.
50b:2004Dion., De div. nom., ch. 2.
50b:2005Athan., De salut. adv. Christ: Greg. Naz., Epist. 1 ad Cled. et Orat. 1: Cyril, in John viii.
50b:2006Cf. Greg. Naz., Orat. 1, &c.
50b:2007Greg., Orat. 1, 38–51.
50b:2008περιχωρεῖται ὑπὸ του κρείττονος.
50b:2009Infr., ch. xviii.
50b:2010ου σύνοικος. It is proposed to read αὐτοῦ σύνοικος, or ὡς σύνοικος.
51b:2011Greg., Epist. 1 ad Cled.
51b:2012Athan., De salut. adv. Christ.
51b:2013Ephes. ii. 6.
51b:2014Text, ὑπεμφαίνοντες. Variant, ἐμφαίνομεν.
Chapter VII.—Concerning the one compound subsistence of God the Word.
We hold then that the divine subsistence of God the Word existed before all else and is without time and eternal, simple and uncompound, uncreated, incorporeal, invisible, intangible, uncircumscribed, possessing all the Father possesses, since He is of the same essence with Him, differing from the Father’s subsistence in the manner of His generation and the relation of the Father’s subsistence, being perfect also and at no time separated from the Father’s subsistence: and in these last days, without leaving the Father’s bosom, took up His abode in an uncircumscribed manner in the womb of the holy Virgin, without the instrumentality of seed, and in an incomprehensible manner known only to Himself, and causing the flesh derived from the holy Virgin to subsist in the very subsistence that was before all the ages.
So then He was both in all things and above all things and also dwelt in the womb of the holy Mother of God, but in it by the energy of the incarnation. He therefore became flesh and He took upon Himself thereby the first-fruits of our compound nature 2015 , viz., the flesh animated with the intelligent and national soul, so that the very subsistence of God the Word was changed into the subsistence of the flesh, and the subsistence of the Word, which was formerly simple, became compound 2016 , yea compounded of two perfect natures, divinity and humanity, and bearing the characteristic and distinctive property of the divine Sonship of God the Word in virtue of which it is distinguished from the Father and the Spirit, and also the characteristic and distinctive properties of the flesh, in virtue of which it differs from the Mother and the rest of mankind, bearing further the properties of the divine nature in virtue of which it is united to the Father and the Spirit, and the marks of the human nature in virtue of which it is united to the Mother and to us. And further it differs from the Father and the Spirit and the Mother and us in being at once God and man. For this we know to be the most special property of the subsistence of Christ.
Wherefore we confess Him, even after the incarnation, the one Son of God, and likewise Son of Man, one Christ, one Lord, the only-begotten Son and Word of God, one Lord Jesus. We reverence His two generations, one from the Father before time and beyond cause and reason and time and nature, and one in the end for our sake, and like to us and above us; for our sake because it was for our salvation, like to us in that He was man born of woman 2017 at full time 2018 , and above us because it was not by seed, but by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Virgin Mary 2019 , transcending the laws of parturition. We proclaim Him not as God only, devoid of our humanity, nor yet as man only, stripping Him of His divinity, nor as two distinct persons, but as one and the same, at once God and man, perfect God and perfect man, wholly God and wholly man, the same being wholly God, even though He was also p. 52b flesh and wholly man, even though He was also most high God. And by “perfect God” and “perfect man” we mean to emphasize the fulness and unfailingness of the natures: while by “wholly God” and “wholly man” we mean to lay stress on the singularity and individuality of the subsistence.
And we confess also that there is one incarnate nature of God the Word, expressing by the word “incarnate 2020 ” the essence of the flesh, according to the blessed Cyril 2021 . And so the Word was made flesh and yet did not abandon His own proper immateriality: He became wholly flesh and yet remained wholly uncircumscribed. So far as He is body He is diminished and contracted into narrow limits, but inasmuch as He is God He is uncircumscribed, His flesh not being coextensive with His uncircumscribed divinity.
He is then wholly perfect God, but yet is not simply 2022 God: for He is not only God but also man. And He is also wholly 2023 perfect man but not simply 2024 man, for He is not only man but also God. For “simply 2025 ” here has reference to His nature, and “wholly 2026 ” to His subsistence, just as “another thing” would refer to nature, while “another 2027 ” would refer to subsistence 2028 .
But observe 2029 that although we hold that the natures of the Lord permeate one another, yet we know that the permeation springs from the divine nature. For it is that that penetrates and permeates all things, as it wills, while nothing penetrates it: and it is it, too, that imparts to the flesh its own peculiar glories, while abiding itself impossible and without participation in the affections of the flesh. For if the sun imparts to us his energies and yet does not participate in ours, how much the rather must this be true of the Creator and Lord of the Sun 2030 .
Footnotes
51b:2015ἀπαρχὴν τοῦ ἡμετέρου φυράματος.
51b:2016σύνθετον γενέσθαι τὴν πρότερον ἁπλῆν οὖσαν τοῦ Λόγου ὑπόστασιν, σύνθετον δὲ ἐκ δύο τελείων φύσεων.
51b:2017Text, καὶ χρόνῳ κυήσεως. Various readings, καὶ τρόπῳ κυήσεως: καὶ χρόνῳ καὶ κυήσει: καὶ νόμῳ κυήσεως.
51b:2018Cf. Ruf., Expos. Symb.; Epiph., in the epilogue to his De Hær.; Joan. Scyth., Epist. Dionys. 4.
51b:2019Μαρίας is absent in most mss.
52b:2020Expositio fidei a Patribus Nicænis contra Paul. Samos.III. p. conc. Ephes.
52b:2021Commonit. ad Eulog. et Epist. 2 ad Success.; cf. supr. ch. vi. et infr. ch. xi.
52b:2022ὅλος μὲν οὖν ἐστι Θεὸς τέλειος, οὐχ ὅλον δὲ Οεός.
52b:2023ὅλος
52b:2024ὅλον
52b:2025ὅλον
52b:2026ὅλος
52b:2027Greg. Naz., Orat. 51.
52b:2028The following is added in R. 2927: ἐν πᾶσι μὲν ἦν, καὶ ὑπὲρ τὰ πάντα, καὶ ἐν τῇ γάστρι τῆς Θεομήτορος, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ταύτῃ τε, ἐνεργεί& 139· τῆς σαρκώσεως. This is assuredly an interpolation.
52b:2029v. supr. ch. iii.
52b:2030Leontius de sectis, Act. 3.
Chapter VIII.—In reply to those who ask whether 2031 the natures of the Lord are brought under a continuous or a discontinuous quantity 2032 .
If any one asks concerning the natures of the Lord if they are brought under a continuous or discontinuous quantity 2033 , we will say that the natures of the Lord are neither one body nor one superficies 2034 , nor one line, nor time, nor place, so as to be reduced to a continuous quantity. For these are the things that are reckoned continuously.
Further note that number deals with things that differ, and it is quite impossible to enumerate things that differ from one another in no respect: and just so far as they differ are they enumerated: for instance, Peter and Paul are not counted separately in so far as they are one. For since they are one in respect of their essence they cannot be spoken of as two natures, but as they differ in respect of subsistence they are spoken of as two subsistences. So that number deals with differences, and just as the differing objects differ from one another so far they are enumerated.
The natures of the Lord, then, are united without confusion so far as regards subsistence, and they are divided without separation according to the method and manner of difference. And it is not according to the manner in which they are united that they are enumerated, for it is not in respect of subsistence that we hold that there are two natures of Christ: but according to the manner in which they are divided without separation they are enumerated, for it is in respect of the method and manner of difference that there are two natures of Christ. For being united in subsistence and permeating one another, they are united without confusion, each preserving throughout its own peculiar and natural difference. Hence, since they are enumerated according to the manner of difference, and that alone, they must be brought under a discontinuous quantity.
Christ, therefore 2035 , is one, perfect God and perfect man: and Him we worship along with the Father and the Spirit, with one obeisance, adoring even His immaculate flesh and not holding that the flesh is not meet for worship: for in fact it is worshipped in the one subsistence of the Word, which indeed became subsistence for it. But in this we do not do homage to that which is created. For we worship Him, not as mere flesh, but as flesh united with divinity, and because His two natures are brought under the one person and one subsistence of God the Word. I fear to touch coal because of the fire bound up with the wood. I worship the twofold nature of Christ because of the divinity that is in Him bound up with flesh. For I do not p. 53b introduce a fourth person 2036 into the Trinity. God forbid! but I confess one person of God the Word and of His flesh, and the Trinity remains Trinity, even after the incarnation of the Word.
In reply 2037 to those who ask whether the two natures are brought under a continuous or a discontinuous quantity.
The natures of the Lord are neither one body nor one superficies, nor one line, nor place, nor time, so as to be brought under a continuous quantity: for these are the things that are reckoned continuously. But the natures of the Lord are united without confusion in respect of subsistence, and are divided without separation according to the method and manner of difference. And according to the manner in which they are united they are not enumerated. For we do not say that the natures of Christ are two subsistences or two in respect of subsistence. But according to the manner in which they are divided without division, are they enumerated. For there are two natures according to the method and manner of difference. For being united in subsistence and permeating one another they are united without confusion, neither having been changed into the other, but each preserving its own natural difference even after the union. For that which is created remained created, and that which is uncreated, uncreated. By the manner of difference, then, and in that alone, they are enumerated, and thus are brought under discontinuous quantity. For things which differ from each other in no respect cannot be enumerated, but just so far as they differ are they enumerated; for instance, Peter and Paul are not enumerated in those respects in which they are one: for being one in respect of their essence they are not two natures nor are they so spoken of. But inasmuch as they differ in subsistence they are spoken of as two subsistences. So that difference is the cause of number.
Footnotes
52b:2031Directed against the Severians. See Leont., De Sect., Act. 7; Greg. Naz., Orat. 37.
52b:2032ὑπὸ τὸ συνεχὲς πόσον ἀνάγονται αἱ τοῦ Κυρίου φύσεις, ἢ ὑπο τὸ διωρισμένον.
52b:2033Text, ἀνάγονται. Variants, ἀναφέροιντο and διαφέροιντο.
52b:2034μία ἐπιφάνεια.
52b:2035Cyril, De Anath. 8 cont. Theod.
53b:2036The Apollinarians attacked the orthodox as ἀνθρωπολάτραι, man-worshippers, and as making the Trinity a Quaternity by their doctrine of two perfect natures in Christ. See Greg. Naz., Ep. 1 ad Cled.; Athanas., Ep. ad Epictet.; Anastas. Antioch., De Operationibus; Cyril, Contr. Nestor. 1.
53b:2037See Migne on the position of this section.
Chapter IX.—In reply to the question whether there is Nature that has no Subsistence.
For although 2038 there is no nature without subsistence, nor essence apart from person (since in truth it is in persons and subsistences that essence and nature are to be contemplated), yet it does not necessarily follow that the natures that are united to one another in subsistence should have each its own proper subsistence. For after they have come together into one subsistence, it is possible that neither should they be without subsistence, nor should each have its own peculiar subsistence, but that both should have one and the same subsistence 2039 . For since one and the same subsistence of the Word has become the subsistence of the natures, neither of them is permitted to be without subsistence, nor are they allowed to have subsistences that differ from each other, or to have sometimes the subsistence of this nature and sometimes of that, but always without division or separation they both have the same subsistence—a subsistence which is not broken up into parts or divided, so that one part should belong to this, and one to that, but which belongs wholly to this and wholly to that in its absolute entirety. For the flesh of God the Word did not subsist as an independent subsistence, nor did there arise another subsistence besides that of God the Word, but as it existed in that it became rather a subsistence which subsisted in another, than one which was an independent subsistence. Wherefore, neither does it lack subsistence altogether, nor yet is there thus introduced into the Trinity another subsistence.
Footnotes
53b:2038Another allegation of the Severian party is in view here. See Leont., De Sect., Act. 7, Contr. Nestor. et Eutych. 1.; John of Dam., Dialect. 29.
53b:2039Leont., De sect., Act 7.
Chapter X.—Concerning the Trisagium (“the Thrice Holy”).
This being so 2040 , we declare that the addition which the vain-minded Peter the Fuller made to the Trisagium or “Thrice Holy” Hymn is blasphemous 2041 ; for it introduces a fourth person into the Trinity, giving a separate place to the Son of God, Who is the truly subsisting power of the Father, and a separate place to Him Who was crucified as though He were different from the “Mighty One,” or as though the Holy Trinity was considered passible, and the Father and the Holy Spirit suffered on the Cross along with the Son. Have done with this blasphemous 2042 and nonsensical interpolation! For we hold the words “Holy God” to refer to the Father, without limiting the title of divinity to Him alone, but acknowledging also as God the Son and the Holy Spirit: and the words p. 54b “Holy and Mighty” we ascribe to the Son, without stripping the Father and the Holy Spirit of might: and the words “Holy and Immortal” we attribute to the Holy Spirit, without depriving the Father and the Son of immortality. For, indeed, we apply all the divine names simply and unconditionally to each of the subsistences in imitation of the divine Apostle’s words. But to us there is but one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and we in Him: and one Lord Jesus Christ by Whom are all things, and we by Him 2043 2044 . And, nevertheless, we follow Gregory the Theologian 2045 when he says, “But to us there is but one God, the Father, of Whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and one Holy Spirit, in Whom are all things:” for the words “of Whom” and “through Whom” and “in Whom” do not divide the natures (for neither the prepositions nor the order of the names could ever be changed), but they characterise the properties of one unconfused nature. And this becomes clear from the fact that they are once more gathered into one, if only one reads with care these words of the same Apostle, Of Him and through Him and in Him are all things: to Him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen 2046 .
For that the “Trisagium” refers not to the Son alone 2047 , but to the Holy Trinity, the divine and saintly Athanasius and Basil and Gregory, and all the band of the divinely-inspired Fathers bear witness: because, as a matter of fact, by the threefold holiness the Holy Seraphim suggest to us the three subsistences of the superessential Godhead. But by the one Lordship they denote the one essence and dominion of the supremely-divine Trinity. Gregory the Theologian of a truth says 2048 , “Thus, then, the Holy of Holies, which is completely veiled by the Seraphim, and is glorified with three consecrations, meet together in one lordship and one divinity.” This was the most beautiful and sublime philosophy of still another of our predecessors.
Ecclesiastical historians 2049 , then, say that once when the people of Constantinople were offering prayers to God to avert a threatened calamity 2050 , during Proclus’ tenure of the office of Archbishop, it happened that a boy was snatched up from among the people, and was taught by angelic teachers the “Thrice Holy” Hymn, “Thou Holy God, Holy and Mighty One, Holy and Immortal One, have mercy upon us:” and when once more he was restored to earth, he told what he had learned, and all the people sang the Hymn, and so the threatened calamity was averted. And in the fourth holy and great Œcumenical Council, I mean the one at Chalcedon, we are told that it was in this form that the Hymn was sung; for the minutes of this holy assembly so record it 2051 . It is, therefore, a matter for laughter and ridicule that this “Thrice Holy” Hymn, taught us by the angels, and confirmed by the averting of calamity 2052 , ratified and established by so great an assembly of the holy Fathers, and sung first by the Seraphim as a declaration of the three subsistences of the Godhead, should be mangled and forsooth emended to suit the view of the stupid Fuller as though he were higher than the Seraphim. But oh! the arrogance! not to say folly! But we say it thus, though demons should rend us in pieces, “Do Thou, Holy God, Holy and Mighty One, Holy and Immortal One, have mercy upon us.”
Footnotes
53b:2040Dam., Epist. ad Jord. Archim.
53b:2041Text, βλάσφημον. Variant, βλασφημίαν.
53b:2042Text, βλάσφημον. Variant, βλασφημίαν.
54b:20431 Cor. viii. 5.
54b:2044These words which refer to the Holy Spirit are absent in R. 2930 and in 1 Cor. viii., but are present in other Codices and in Basil, De Spirit. Sancto, and in Greg. Nazianz., Orat. 39, and further in the Damascene himself in Parallel, and elsewhere, and could not be omitted here.
54b:2045Orat. 39.
54b:2046Rom. xi. 36.
54b:2047Vid. Epist. ad Jordan.
54b:2048Orat. 42. at the beginning.
54b:2049Epist. ad Petrum Fullonem; Theoph., Ad Arn. 5930.
54b:2050See Niceph. Call., Hist. xviii. 51.
54b:2051Conc. Chal., Act. 1, at the end.
54b:2052In Cod. S. Hil. is written above the line ἢ θεηλάτου ὀργῆς παύσει, which explains the author’s meaning.
Chapter XI.—Concerning the Nature as viewed in Species and in Individual, and concerning the difference between Union and Incarnation: and how this is to be understood, “The one Nature of God the Word Incarnate.”
Nature 2053 is regarded either abstractly as a matter of pure thought 2054 (for it has no independent existence): or commonly in all subsistences of the same species as their bond of union, and is then spoken of as nature viewed in species: or universally as the same, but with the addition of accidents, in one subsistence, and is spoken of as nature viewed in the individual, this being identical with nature viewed in species 2055 . God the Word Incarnate, therefore, did not assume the nature that is regarded as an abstraction in pure thought (for this is not incarnation, but only an imposture and a figment of incarnation), nor the nature viewed in species (for He did not p. 55b assume all the subsistences): but the nature viewed in the individual, which is identical with that viewed in species. For He took on Himself the elements of our compound nature, and these not as having an independent existence or as being originally an individual, and in this way assumed by Him, but as existing in His own subsistence. For the subsistence of God the Word in itself became the subsistence of the flesh, and accordingly “the Word became flesh 2056 ” clearly without any change, and likewise the flesh became Word without alteration, and God became man. For the Word is God, and man is God, through having one and the same subsistence. And so it is possible to speak of the same thing as being the nature of the Word and the nature in the individual. For it signifies strictly and exclusively neither the individual, that is, the subsistence, nor the common nature of the subsistences, but the common nature as viewed and presented in one of the subsistences.
Union, then, is one thing, and incarnation is something quite different. For union signifies only the conjunction, but not at all that with which union is effected. But incarnation (which is just the same as if one said “the putting on of man’s nature”) signifies that the conjunction is with flesh, that is to say, with man, just as the heating of iron 2057 implies its union with fire. Indeed, the blessed Cyril himself, when he is interpreting the phrase, “one nature of God the Word Incarnate,” says in the second epistle to Sucensus, “For if we simply said ‘the one nature of the Word’ and then were silent, and did not add the word ‘incarnate,’ but, so to speak, quite excluded the dispensation 2058 , there would be some plausibility in the question they feign to ask, ‘If one nature is the whole, what becomes of the perfection in humanity, or how has the essence 2059 like us come to exist?’ But inasmuch as the perfection in humanity and the disclosure of the essence like us are conveyed in the word ‘incarnate,’ they must cease from relying on a mere straw.” Here, then, he placed the nature of the Word over nature itself. For if He had received nature instead of subsistence, it would not have been absurd to have omitted the “incarnate.” For when we say simply one subsistence of God the Word, we do not err 2060 . In like manner, also, Leontius the Byzantine 2061 considered this phrase to refer to nature, and not to subsistence. But in the Defence which he wrote in reply to the attacks that Theodoret made on the second anathema, the blessed Cyril 2062 says this: “The nature of the Word, that is, the subsistence, which is the Word itself.” So that “the nature of the Word” means neither the subsistence alone, nor “the common nature of the subsistence,” but “the common nature viewed as a whole in the subsistence of the Word.”
It has been said, then, that the nature of the Word became flesh, that is, was united to flesh: but that the nature of the Word suffered in the flesh we have never heard up till now, though we have been taught that Christ suffered in the flesh. So that “the nature of the Word” does not mean “the subsistence.” It remains, therefore, to say that to become flesh is to be united with the flesh, while the Word having become flesh means that the very subsistence of the Word became without change the subsistence of the flesh. It has also been said that God became man, and man God. For the Word which is God became without alteration man. But that the Godhead became man, or became flesh, or put on the nature of man, this we have never heard. This, indeed, we have learned, that the Godhead was united to humanity in one of its subsistences, and it has been stated that God took on a different form or essence 2063 , to wit our own. For the name God is applicable to each of the subsistences, but we cannot use the term Godhead in reference to subsistence. For we are never told that the Godhead is the Father alone, or the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone. For “Godhead” implies “nature,” while “Father” implies subsistence, just as “Humanity” implies nature, and “Peter” subsistence. But “God” indicates the common element of the nature, and is applicable derivatively to each of the subsistences, just as “man” is. For He Who has divine nature is God, and he who has human nature is man.
Besides all this, notice 2064 that the Father and the Holy Spirit take no part at all in the incarnation of the Word except in connection with the miracles, and in respect of good will and purpose.
Footnotes
54b:2053Niceph. Call., Hist. xviii. 51, speaks of this Hymn and also the φῶς ἱλαρόν as coming from the Apostles themselves. The writer of the Life of Basil supposed to be Amphilochius of Iconium, declares that the Trisagium was recited by Basil at Nicæa.
54b:2054ἢ ψιλῇ θεωρί& 139· κατανοεῖται.
54b:2055This division is absent in some copies and is not restored in the old translation, but is not superfluous.
55b:2056St. John i. 14.
55b:2057τοῦ σιδήρου is absent in some codices and also in the old translation.
55b:2058τὴν οἰκονομίαν, the incarnation.
55b:2059ἡ καθ᾽ ἡμάς οὐσία.
55b:2060Supr. ch. 6 and 7.
55b:2061Leont., De sect. Act. 8.
55b:2062Cyril, Defens. II., Anath. cont. Theod.
55b:2063ὁ Θεὸς μορφοῦται, ἤτοι οὐσιουται τὸ ἀλλότριον. Gregory of Nazianzum in his Carmen used the term οὐσιοῦσθαι of the word after the assumption of our nature. See also Dionys., De div. nom., ch. 2; Ep. ad Carmen, 4; &c.
55b:2064Dion., De div. nom., ch. 8.
Chapter XII.—That the holy Virgin is the Mother of God: an argument directed against the Nestorians.
Moreover we proclaim the holy Virgin to be p. 56b in strict truth 2065 the Mother of God 2066 . For inasmuch as He who was born of her was true God, she who bare the true God incarnate is the true mother of God. For we hold that God was born of her, not implying that the divinity of the Word received from her the beginning of its being, but meaning that God the Word Himself, Who was begotten of the Father timelessly before the ages, and was with the Father and the Spirit without beginning and through eternity, took up His abode in these last days for the sake of our salvation in the Virgin’s womb, and was without change made flesh and born of her. For the holy Virgin did not bare mere man but true God: and not mere God but God incarnate, Who did not bring down His body from Heaven, nor simply passed through the Virgin as channel, but received from her flesh of like essence to our own and subsisting in Himself 2067 . For if the body had come down from heaven and had not partaken of our nature, what would have been the use of His becoming man? For the purpose of God the Word becoming man 2068 was that the very same nature, which had sinned and fallen and become corrupted, should triumph over the deceiving tyrant and so be freed from corruption, just as the divine apostle puts it, For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead 2069 . If the first is true the second must also be true.
Although 2070 , however, he says, The first Adam is of the earth earthy; the second Adam is Lord from Heaven 2071 , he does not say that His body is from heaven, but emphasises the fact that He is not mere man. For, mark, he called Him both Adam and Lord, thus indicating His double nature. For Adam is, being interpreted, earth-born: and it is clear that man’s nature is earth-born since he is formed from earth, but the title Lord signifies His divine essence.
And again the Apostle says: God sent forth His only-begotten Son, made of a woman 2072 . He did not say “made by a woman.” Wherefore the divine apostle meant that the only-begotten Son of God and God is the same as He who was made man of the Virgin, and that He who was born of the Virgin is the same as the Son of God and God.
But He was born after the bodily fashion inasmuch as He became man, and did not take up His abode in a man formed beforehand, as in a prophet, but became Himself in essence and truth man, that is He caused flesh animated with the intelligent and reasonable to subsist in His own subsistence, and Himself became subsistence for it. For this is the meaning of “made of a woman.” For how could the very Word of God itself have been made under the law, if He did not become man of like essence with ourselves?
Hence it is with justice and truth that we call the holy Mary the Mother of God. For this name embraces the whole mystery of the dispensation. For if she who bore Him is the Mother of God, assuredly He Who was born of her is God and likewise also man. For how could God, Who was before the ages, have been born of a woman unless He had become man? For the son of man must clearly be man himself. But if He Who was born of a woman is Himself God, manifestly He Who was born of God the Father in accordance with the laws of an essence that is divine and knows no beginning, and He Who was in the last days born of the Virgin in accordance with the laws of an essence that has beginning and is subject to time, that is, an essence which is human, must be one and the same. The name in truth signifies the one subsistence and the two natures and the two generations of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But we never say that the holy Virgin is the Mother of Christ 2073 because it was in order to do away with the title Mother of God, and to bring dishonour on the Mother of God, who alone is in truth worthy of honour above all creation, that the impure and abominable Judaizing Nestorius 2074 , that vessel of dishonour, invented this name for an insult 2075 . For David the king, and Aaron, the high priest, are also called Christ 2076 , for it is customary to make kings and priests by anointing: and besides every God-inspired man may be called Christ, but yet he is not by nature God: yea, the accursed Nestorius insulted Him Who was born of the Virgin by calling Him God-bearer 2077 . May it be far from us to speak of or think of Him as God-bearer only 2078 , Who is in truth God incarnate. For the Word Himself became flesh, having been in truth conceived of the Virgin, but coming forth as God with the assumed nature which, as soon as He was brought forth into being, was deified by Him, so that these three things took place simultaneously, the assumption of our nature, the coming into being, and the p. 57b deification of the assumed nature by the Word. And thus it is that the holy Virgin is thought of and spoken of as the Mother of God, not only because of the nature of the Word, but also because of the deification of man’s nature, the miracles of conception and of existence being wrought together, to wit, the conception the Word, and the existence of the flesh in the Word Himself. For the very Mother of God in some marvellous manner was the means of fashioning the Framer of all things and of bestowing manhood on the God and Creator of all, Who deified the nature that He assumed, while the union preserved those things that were united just as they were united, that is to say, not only the divine nature of Christ but also His human nature, not only that which is above us but that which is of us. For He was not first made like us and only later became higher than us, but ever 2079 from His first coming into being He existed with the double nature, because He existed in the Word Himself from the beginning of the conception. Wherefore He is human in His own nature, but also, in some marvellous manner, of God and divine. Moreover He has the properties of the living flesh: for by reason of the dispensation 2080 the Word received these which are, according to the order of natural motion, truly natural 2081 .
Footnotes
56b:2065See especially Greg. Naz., Ep. 1 ad Cled.; Theod., Hær. fab., v. 18.
56b:2066Greg. Naz., Epist. I. ad Cledon.
56b:2067Ibid.
56b:2068Infr. ch. 18.
56b:20691 Cor. xv. 21.
56b:2070Greg. Naz., ibid.
56b:20711 Cor. xv. 47.
56b:2072Gal. iv. 4.
56b:2073χριστοτόκος, as opposed to θεοτόκος.
56b:2074Cyril, ad Monachos, Epist. 1.
56b:2075ὡς ἐπηρεαζομένην is absent in Vegelinus.
56b:2076i.e. Anointed One.
56b:2077θεοφόρος, Deigerus. See Greg. Naz., Ep. 2, ad Cled. Basil, De Spir. Sanc., ch. 5, &c.
56b:2078Cyril, cont. Nest., bk. 1.
57b:2079ἀεί is absent in Vegelinus.
57b:2080οἰκονομίας λόγῳ, by reason of the incarnation.
57b:2081Reading γινόμενα, for which Cod. R. 2930 gives ὑπῆρχον.
Chapter XIII.—Concerning the properties of the two Natures.
Confessing, then, the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, to be perfect God and perfect man, we hold that the same has all the attributes of the Father save that of being ingenerate, and all the attributes of the first Adam, save only his sin, these attributes being body and the intelligent and rational soul; and further that He has, corresponding to the two natures, the two sets of natural qualities belonging to the two natures: two natural volitions, one divine and one human, two natural energies, one divine and one human, two natural free-wills, one divine and one human, and two kinds of wisdom and knowledge, one divine and one human. For being of like essence with God and the Father, He wills and energises freely as God, and being also of like essence with us He likewise wills and energises freely as man. For His are the miracles and His also are the passive states.
Chapter XIV.—Concerning the volitions and free-will of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Since, then, Christ has two natures, we hold that He has also two natural wills and two natural energies. But since His two natures have one subsistence, we hold that it is one and the same person who wills and energises naturally in both natures, of which, and in which, and also which is Christ our Lord: and moreover that He wills and energises without separation but as a united whole. For He wills and energises in either form in close communion with the other 2082 . For things that have the same essence have also the same will and energy, while things that are different in essence are different in will and energy 2083 ; and vice versa, things that have the same will and energy have the same essence, while things that are different in will and energy are different in essence.
Wherefore 2084 in the case of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit we recognise, from their sameness in will and energy, their sameness in nature. But in the case of the divine dispensation 2085 we recognise from their difference in will and energy the difference of the two natures, and as we perceive the difference of the two natures we confess that the wills and energies also are different. For just as the number of the natures of one and the same Christ, when considered and spoken of with piety, do not cause a division of the one Christ but merely bring out the fact that the difference between the natures is maintained even in the union, so it is with the number of wills and energies that belong essentially to His natures. (For He was endowed with the powers of willing and energising in both natures, for the sake of our salvation.) It does not introduce division: God forbid! but merely brings out the fact that the differences between them are safeguarded and preserved even in the union. For we hold that wills and energies are faculties belonging to nature, not to subsistence; I mean those faculties of will and energy by which He Who wills and energises does so. For if we allow that they belong to subsistence, we will be forced to say that the three subsistences of the Holy Trinity have different wills and different energies.
For it is to be noted 2086 that willing and the manner of willing are not the same thing. For to will is a faculty of nature, just as p. 58b seeing is, for all men possess it; but the manner of willing does not depend on nature but on our judgment, just as does also the manner of seeing, whether well or ill. For all men do not will in the same way, nor do they all see in the same way. And this also we will grant in connection with energies. For the manner of willing, or seeing, or energising, is the mode of using the faculties of will and sight and energy, belonging only to him who uses them, and marking him off from others by the generally accepted difference.
Simple willing then is spoken of as volition or the faculty of will 2087 , being a rational propension 2088 and natural will; but in a particular way willing, or that which underlies volition, is the object of will 2089 , and will dependent on judgment 2090 . Further that which has innate in it the faculty of volition is spoken of as capable of willing 2091 : as for instance the divine is capable of willing, and the human in like manner. But he who exercises volition, that is to say the subsistence, for instance Peter, is spoken of as willing.
Since, then 2092 , Christ is one and His subsistence is one, He also Who wills both as God and as man is one and the same. And since He has two natures endowed with volition, inasmuch as they are rational (for whatever is rational is endowed with volition and free-will), we shall postulate two volitions or natural wills in Him. For He in His own person is capable of volition in accordance with both His natures. For He assumed that faculty of volition which belongs naturally to us. And since Christ, Who in His own person wills according to either nature, is one, we shall postulate the same object of will in His case, not as though He wills only those things which He willed naturally as God (for it is no part of Godhead to will to eat or drink and so forth), but as willing also those things which human nature requires for its support 2093 , and this without involving any opposition in judgment, but simply as the result of the individuality of the natures. For then it was that He thus willed naturally, when His divine volition so willed and permitted the flesh to suffer and do that which was proper to it.
But that volition is implanted in man by nature 2094 is manifest from this. Excluding the divine life, there are three forms of life: the vegetative, the sentient, and the intellectual. The properties of the vegetative life are the functions of nourishment, and growth, and production: that of the sentient life is impulse: and that of the rational and intellectual life is freedom of will. If, then, nourishment belongs by nature to the vegetative life and impulse to the sentient, freedom of will by nature belongs to the rational and intellectual life. But freedom of will is nothing else than volition. The Word, therefore, having become flesh, endowed with life and mind and free-will, became also endowed with volition.
Further, that which is natural is not the result of training: for no one learns how to think, or live, or hunger, or thirst, or sleep. Nor do we learn how to will: so that willing is natural.
And again: if in the case of creatures devoid of reason nature rules, while nature is ruled in man who is moved of his own free-will and volition, it follows, then, that man is by nature endowed with volition.
And again: if man has been made after the image of the blessed and super-essential Godhead, and if the divine nature is by nature endowed with free-will and volition, it follows that man, as its image, is free by nature and volitive 2095 . For the fathers defined freedom as volition 2096 .
And further: if to will is a part of the nature of every man and not present in some and absent in others, and if that which is seen to be common to all is a characteristic feature of the nature that belongs to the individuals of the class, surely, then, man is by nature endowed with volition 2097 .
And once more: if the nature receives neither more nor less, but all are equally endowed with volition and not some more than others, then by nature man is endowed with volition 2098 . So that since man is by nature endowed with volition, the Lord also must be by nature endowed with volition, not only because He is God, but also because He became man. For just as He assumed our nature, so also He has assumed naturally our will. And in this way the Fathers said that He formed our will in Himself 2099 .
If the will is not natural, it must be either hypostatic or unnatural. But if it is hypostatic, the Son must thus, forsooth, have a different will from what the Father has: for that which is hypostatic is characteristic of subsistence only. And if it is unnatural, will must be a defection from nature: for p. 59b what is unnatural is destructive of what is natural.
The God and Father of all things wills either as Father or as God. Now if as Father, His will will be different from that of the Son, for the Son is not the Father. But if as God, the Son is God and likewise the Holy Spirit is God, and so volition is part of His nature, that is, it is natural.
Besides 2100 , if according to the view of the Fathers, those who have one and the same will have also one and the same essence, and if the divinity and humanity of Christ have one and the same will, then assuredly these have also one and the same essence.
And again: if according to the view of the Fathers the distinction between the natures is not seen in the single will, we must either, when we speak of the one will, cease to speak of the different natures in Christ or, when we speak of the different natures of Christ, cease to speak of the one will.
And further 2101 , the divine Gospel says, The Lord came into the borders of Tyre and Sidon and entered into a house, and would have no man know it; but He could not be hid 2102 . If, then, His divine will is omnipotent, but yet, though He would, He could not be hid, surely it was as man that He would and could not, and so as man He must be endowed with volition.
And once again 2103 , the Gospel tells us that, He, having come into the place, said ‘I thirst’: and they gave Him some vinegar mixed with gall, and when He had tasted it He would not drink 2104 . If, then, on the one hand it was as God that He suffered thirst and when He had tasted would not drink, surely He must be subject to passion 2105 also as God, for thirst and taste are passions 2106 . But if it was not as God but altogether as man that He was athirst, likewise as man He must be endowed with volition 2107 .
Moreover, the blessed Paul the Apostle says, He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross 2108 . But obedience is subjection of the real will, not of the unreal will. For that which is irrational is not said to be obedient or disobedient 2109 . But the Lord having become obedient to the Father, became so not as God but as man. For as God He is not said to be obedient or disobedient. For these things are of the things that are under one’s hand 2110 , as the inspired Gregorius said 2111 . Wherefore, then, Christ is endowed with volition as man.
While, however, we assert that will is natural, we hold not that it is dominated by necessity, but that it is free. For if it is rational, it must be absolutely free. For it is not only the divine and uncreated nature that is free from the bonds of necessity, but also the intellectual and created nature. And this is manifest: for God, being by nature good and being by nature the Creator and by nature God, is not all this of necessity. For who is there to introduce this necessity?
It is to be observed further 2112 , that freedom of will is used in several senses, one in connection with God, another in connection with angels, and a third in connection with men. For used in reference to God it is to be understood in a superessential manner, and in reference to angels it is to be taken in the sense that the election is concomitant with the state 2113 , and admits of the interposition of no interval of time at all: for while the angel possesses free-will by nature, he uses it without let or hindrance, having neither antipathy on the part of the body to overcome nor any assailant. Again, used in reference to men, it is to be taken in the sense that the state is considered to be anterior in time to the election. For man is free and has free-will by nature, but he has also the assault of the devil to impede him and the motion of the body: and thus through the assault and the weight of the body, election comes to be later than the state.
If, then, Adam 2114 obeyed of his own will and ate of his own will, surely in us the will is the first part to suffer. And if the will is the first to suffer, and the Word Incarnate did not assume this with the rest of our nature, it follows that we have not been freed from sin.
Moreover, if the faculty of free-will which is in nature is His work and yet He did not assume it, He either condemned His own workmanship as not good, or grudged us the comfort it brought, and so deprived us of the full benefit, and shewed that He was Himself subject to passion since He was not willing or not able to work out our perfect salvation.
Moreover, one cannot speak of one comp. 60b pound thing made of two wills in the same way as a subsistence is a composition of two natures. Firstly because the compositions are of things in subsistence (hypotasis), not of things viewed in a different category, not in one proper to them 2115 : and secondly, because if we speak of composition of wills and energies, we will be obliged to speak of composition of the other natural properties, such as the uncreated and the created, the invisible and the visible, and so on. And what will be the name of the will that is compounded out of two wills? For the compound cannot be called by the name of the elements that make it up. For otherwise we should call that which is compounded of natures nature and not subsistence. And further, if we say that there is one compound will in Christ, we separate Him in will from the Father, for the Father’s will is not compound. It remains, therefore, to say that the subsistence of Christ alone is compound and common, as in the case of the natures so also in that of the natural properties.
And we cannot 2116 , if we wish to be accurate, speak of Christ as having judgment (γνώμη) and preference 2117 . For judgment is a disposition with reference to the decision arrived at after investigation and deliberation concerning something unknown, that is to say, after counsel and decision. And after judgment comes preference 2118 , which chooses out and selects the one rather than the other. But the Lord being not mere man but also God, and knowing all things, had no need of inquiry, and investigation, and counsel, and decision, and by nature made whatever is good His own and whatever is bad foreign to Him 2119 . For thus says Isaiah the prophet, Before the child shall know to prefer the evil, he shall choose the good; because before the child knows good or evil, he refuses wickedness by choosing the good 2120 . For the word “before” proves that it is not with investigation and deliberation, as is the way with us, but as God and as subsisting in a divine manner in the flesh, that is to say, being united in subsistence to the flesh, and because of His very existence and all-embracing knowledge, that He is possessed of good in His own nature. For the virtues are natural qualities 2121 , and are implanted in all by nature and in equal measure, even if we do not all in equal measure employ our natural energies. By the transgression we were driven from the natural to the unnatural 2122 . But the Lord led us back from the unnatural into the natural 2123 . For this is what is the meaning of in our image, after our likeness 2124 . And the discipline and trouble of this life were not designed as a means for our attaining virtue which was foreign to our nature, but to enable us to cast aside the evil that was foreign and contrary to our nature: just as on laboriously removing from steel the rust which is not natural to it but acquired through neglect, we reveal the natural brightness of the steel.
Observe further that the word judgment (γνώμη) is used in many ways and in many senses. Sometimes it signifies exhortation: as when the divine apostle says, Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord; yet I give my judgment 2125 : sometimes it means counsel, as when the prophet David says, They have taken crafty counsel against Thy people 2126 : sometimes it means a decree, as when we read in Daniel, Concerning whom (or, what) went this shameless decree forth 2127 ? At other times it is used in the sense of belief, or opinion, or purpose, and, to put it shortly, the word judgment has twenty-eight 2128 different meanings.
Footnotes
57b:2082Leo, Epist. 10, ad Flavian.
57b:2083Max., Disp. cum Pyrrho.
57b:2084Supr., bk. ii. ch. 22.
57b:2085οἰκονομίας, incarnation.
57b:2086Max., Dial. cum Pyrrho; Anast. in ῾Οδηγός, ch. 6, p. 40.
58b:2087τὸ μὲν ἁπλῶς θέλειν, θέλησις, ἤτοι ἡ θελητικὴ δύναμις.
58b:2088ὄρεξις.
58b:2089θέλητον, willed, the thing willed.
58b:2090θέλημα γνωμικόν, dispositional volition, will of judgment.
58b:2091θελητικον, volitive. Volitivum, volitive, is the Scholastic translation θελητικόν.
58b:2092Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
58b:2093Max., ibid.
58b:2094Max., ibid.
58b:2095θελητικός, endowed with volition.
58b:2096θέλησις, will.
58b:2097θελητικός.
58b:2098θελητικός.
58b:2099καὶ κατὰ τοῦτο οἱ Πατέρες τὸ ἡμέτερον ἐν ἑαυτῷ τυπῶσαι αὐτὸν ἔφησαν θέλημα: and according to this the Fathers said that He typified, moulded, had the form of our will in Himself.
59b:2100Greg. Nyss., Cont. Apollin and others, Act. 10, sext. syn.
59b:2101Max., Agatho pap. Epist. Syn. in VI Syn., Act. 4.
59b:2102St. Mark vii. 24.
59b:2103Max., ibid.
59b:2104Matt. 27:33, 34, John 19:28, 29.
59b:2105ἐμπαθής, passible, sensible, possessed of sensibility.
59b:2106πάθος, sensibility.
59b:2107In N. is added: καὶ εἰ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ πάθους λέγει· Πάτερ, εἰ δυνατὸν, παρελθέτω τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ. Πλὴν οὐχ ὡς ἐγὼ θέλω, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς σύ. ᾽Ιδοὺ δύο θελήσεις, θεϊκὴ ἅμα καὶ ἀνθρωπίνη.
59b:2108Phil. ii. 8.
59b:2109Max., ut supr.
59b:2110τῶν ὑπὸ χεῖρα γὰρ ταῦτα.
59b:2111Orat. 36, some distance from the beginning.
59b:2112Max., Disp. cum Pyrrh.
59b:2113ὡς συντρεχούσης τῇ ἕξει τῆς προχειρίσεως, the choice, or decision, being synchronous with the moral disposition.
59b:2114Max., Disp. cum Pyrrh.
60b:2115πρῶτον μὲν, ὅτι αἱ συνθέσεις τῶν ἐν ὑποστάσει ὄντων, καὶ οὐ τῶν ἑτέρῳ λόγῳ, καὶ οὐκ ἰδί& 251· θεωρουμένων εἰσί.
60b:2116Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
60b:2117Max., Epist. ad Marin.
60b:2118προαίρεσις.
60b:2119Basil, on Ps. xliv., or rather on Isaiah vii.
60b:2120Is. vii. 16, sec. LXX.
60b:2121Φυσικαὶ μεν γάρ εἰσιν αἱ ἀρεταὶ; cf. Cicero, De leg. 1.
60b:2122Supr., bk. ii., ch. 30.
60b:2123Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
60b:2124Gen. i. 26.
60b:21251 Cor. vii. 25.
60b:2126Ps. lxxxiii. 3.
60b:2127Dan. ii. 15. περὶ τίνος ἐξῆλθεν ἡ γνώμη ἡ ἀναιδὴς αὕτη. In our A.V., Why is the decree so hasty from the king?
60b:2128Text, κατὰ εἴκοσι ὀκτὼ: Variants, κατὰ κοινοῦ, κατὰ πολύ, secundum multa (old trans.), and secundum plurima (Faber). Maximus gave 28 meanings of γνώμη.
Chapter XV.—Concerning the energies in our Lord Jesus Christ.
We hold, further, that there are two energies 2129 in our Lord Jesus Christ. For He possesses on the one hand, as God and being of like essence with the Father, the divine energy, and, likewise, since He became man and of like essence to us, the energy proper to human nature 2130 .
But observe that energy and capacity for energy, and the product of energy, and the agent of energy, are all different. Energy is the efficient (δραστική) and essential activity of nature: the capacity for energy is the nature from which proceeds energy: the product of energy is that which is effected by energy: and the agent of energy is the person or subsistence which uses the energy. Further, sometimes energy is used in the sense of the product of energy, and the product of energy in that of energy, just as the terms creation and creature are sometimes transposed. For we say “all creation,” meaning creatures.
p. 61b Note also that energy is an activity and is energised rather than energises; as Gregory the Theologian says in his thesis concerning the Holy Spirit 2131 : “If energy exists, it must manifestly be energised and will not energise: and as soon as it has been energised, it will cease.”
Life itself, it should be observed, is energy, yea, the primal energy of the living creature and so is the whole economy of the living creature, its functions of nutrition and growth, that is, the vegetative side of its nature, and the movement stirred by impulse, that is, the sentient side, and its activity of intellect and free-will. Energy, moreover, is the perfect realisation of power. If, then, we contemplate all these in Christ, surely we must also hold that He possesses human energy.
The first thought 2132 that arises in us is called energy: and it is simple energy not involving any relationship, the mind sending forth the thoughts peculiar to it in an independent and invisible way, for if it did not do so it could not justly be called mind. Again, the revelation and unfolding of thought by means of articulate speech is said to be energy. But this is no longer simple energy that involves no relationship, but it is considered in relation as being composed of thought and speech. Further, the very relation which he who does anything bears to that which is brought about is energy; and the very thing that is effected is called energy 2133 . The first belongs to the soul alone, the second to the soul making use of the body, the third to the body animated by mind, and the last is the effect 2134 . For the mind sees beforehand what is to be and then performs it thus by means of the body. And so the hegemony belongs to the soul, for it uses the body as an instrument, leading and restraining it. But the energy of the body is quite different, for the body is led and moved by the soul. And with regard to the effect, the touching and handling and, so to speak, the embrace of what is effected, belong to the body, while the figuration and formation belong to the soul. And so in connection with our Lord Jesus Christ, the power of miracles is the energy of His divinity, while the work of His hands and the willing and the saying, I will, be thou clean 2135 , are the energy of His humanity. And as to the effect, the breaking of the loaves 2136 , and the fact that the leper heard the “I will,” belong to His humanity, while the multiplication of the loaves and the purification of the leper belong to His divinity. For through both, that is through the energy of the body and the energy of the soul, He displayed one and the same, cognate and equal divine energy. For just as we saw that His natures were united and permeate one another, and yet do not deny that they are different but even enumerate them, although we know they are inseparable, so also in connection with the wills and the energies we know their union, and we recognise their difference and enumerate them without introducing separation. For just as the flesh was deified without undergoing change in its own nature, in the same way also will and energy are deified without transgressing their own proper limits. For whether He is the one or the other, He is one and the same, and whether He wills and energises in one way or the other, that is as God or as man, He is one and the same.
We must, then, maintain that Christ has two energies in virtue of His double nature. For things that have diverse natures, have also different energies, and things that have diverse energies, have also different natures. And so conversely, things that have the same nature have also the same energy, and things that have one and the same energy have also one and the same essence 2137 , which is the view of the Fathers, who declare the divine meaning 2138 . One of these alternatives, then, must be true: either, if we hold that Christ has one energy, we must also hold that He has but one essence, or, if we are solicitous about truth, and confess that He has according to the doctrine of the Gospels and the Fathers two essences, we must also confess that He has two energies corresponding to and accompanying them. For as He is of like essence with God and the Father in divinity, He will be His equal also in energy. And as He likewise is of like essence with us in humanity He will be our equal also in energy. For the blessed Gregory, bishop of Nyssa, says 2139 , “Things that have one and the same energy, have also absolutely the same power.” For all energy is the effect of power. But it cannot be that uncreated and created nature have one and the same nature or power or energy. But if we should hold that Christ has but one energy, we should attribute to the divinity of the Word the passions of the intelligent spirit, viz. tear and grief and anguish.
If they should say 2140 , indeed, that the holy p. 62b Fathers said in their disputation concerning the Holy Trinity, “Things that have one and the same essence have also one and the same energy, and things which have different essences have also different energies,” and that it is not right to transfer to the dispensation what has reference to matters of theology, we shall answer that if it has been said by the Fathers solely with reference to theology, and if the Son has not even after the incarnation the same energy as the Father, 2141 assuredly He cannot have the same essence. But to whom shall we attribute this, My Father worketh hitherto and I work 2142 : and this, What things soever He seeth the Father doing, these also doeth the Son likewise 2143 : and this, If ye believe not Me, believe My works 2144 : and this, The work which I do bear witness concerning Me 2145 : and this, As the Father raised up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will 2146 . For all these shew not only that He is of like essence to the Father even after the incarnation, but that He has also the same energy.
And again: if the providence that embraces all creation is not only of the Father and the Holy Spirit, but also of the Son even after the incarnation, assuredly since that is energy, He must have even after the incarnation the same energy as the Father.
But if we have learnt from the miracles that Christ has the same essence as the Father, and since the miracles happen to be the energy of God, assuredly He must have even after the incarnation the same energy as the Father.
But, if there is one energy belonging to both His divinity and His humanity, it will be compound, and will be either a different energy from that of the Father, or the Father, too, will have a compound energy. But if the Father has a compound energy, manifestly He must also have a compound nature.
But if they should say that together with energy is also introduced personality 2147 , we shall reply that if personality is introduced along with energy, then the true converse must hold good that energy is also introduced along with personality; and there will be also three energies of the Holy Trinity just as there are three persons or subsistences, or there will be one person and one subsistence just as there is only one energy. Indeed, the holy Fathers have maintained with one voice that things that have the same essence have also the same energy.
But further, if personality is introduced along with energy, those who divine that neither one nor two energies of Christ are to be spoken of, do not maintain that either one or two persons of Christ are to be spoken of.
Take the case of the flaming sword; just as in it the natures of the fire and the steel are preserved distinct 2148 , so also are their two energies and their effects. For the energy of the steel is its cutting power, and that of the fire is its burning power, and the cut is the effect of the energy of the steel, and the burn is the effect of the energy of the fire: and these are kept quite distinct in the burnt cut, and in the cut burn, although neither does the burning take place apart from the cut after the union of the two, nor the cut apart from the burning: and we do not maintain on account of the twofold natural energy that there are two flaming swords, nor do we confuse the essential difference of the energies on account of the unity of the flaming sword. In like manner also, in the case of Christ, His divinity possesses an energy that is divine and omnipotent while His humanity has an energy such as is our own. And the effect of His human energy was His taking the child by the hand and drawing her to Himself, while that of His divine energy was the restoring of her to life 2149 . For the one is quite distinct from the other, although they are inseparable from one another in theandric energy. But if, because Christ has one subsistence, He must also have one energy, then, because He has one subsistence, He must also have one essence.
And again: if we should hold that Christ has but one energy, this must be either divine or human, or neither. But if we hold that it is divine 2150 we must maintain that He is God alone, stripped of our humanity. And if we hold that it is human, we shall be guilty of the impiety of saying that He is mere man. And if we hold that it is neither divine nor human, we must also hold that He is neither God nor man, of like essence neither to the Father nor to us. For it is as a result of the union that the identity in hypostasis arises, but yet the difference between the natures is not done away with. But since the difference between the natures is preserved, manifestly also the energies of the natures will be preserved. For no nature exists that is lacking in energy.
If Christ our Master 2151 has one energy, it must be either created or uncreated; for p. 63b between these there is no energy, just as there is no nature. If, then, it is created, it will point to created nature alone, but if it is uncreated, it will betoken uncreated essence alone. For that which is natural must completely correspond with its nature: for there cannot exist a nature that is defective. But the energy 2152 that harmonises with nature does not belong to that which is external: and this is manifest because, apart from the energy that harmonises with nature, no nature can either exist or be known. For through that in which each thing manifests its energy, the absence of change confirms its own proper nature.
If Christ has one energy, it must be one and the same energy that performs both divine and human actions. But there is no existing thing which abiding in its natural state can act in opposite ways: for fire does not freeze and boil, nor does water dry up and make wet. How then could He Who is by nature God, and Who became by nature man, have both performed miracles, and endured passions with one and the same energy?
If, then, Christ assumed the human mind, that is to say, the intelligent and reasonable soul, undoubtedly He has thought, and will think for ever. But thought is the energy of the mind: and so Christ, as man, is endowed with energy, and will be so for ever.
Indeed, the most wise and great and holy John Chrysostom says in his interpretation of the Acts, in the second discourse 2153 , “One would not err if he should call even His passion action: for in that He suffered all things, He accomplished that great and marvellous work, the overthrow of death, and all His other works.”
If all energy is defined as essential movement of some nature, as those who are versed in these matters say, where does one perceive any nature that has no movement, and is completely devoid of energy, or where does one find energy that is not movement of natural power? But, as the blessed Cyril says 2154 , no one in his senses could admit that there was but one natural energy of God and His creation 2155 . It is not His human nature that raises up Lazarus from the dead, nor is it His divine power that sheds tears: for the shedding of tears is peculiar to human nature while the life is peculiar to the enhypostatic life. But yet they are common the one to the other, because of the identity in subsistence. For Christ is one, and one also is His person or subsistence, but yet He has two natures, one belonging to His humanity, and another belonging to His divinity. And the glory, indeed, which proceeded naturally from His divinity became common to both through the identity in subsistence, and again on account of His flesh that which was lowly became common to both. For He Who is the one or the other, that is God or man, is one and the same, and both what is divine and what is human belong to Himself. For while His divinity performed the miracles, they were not done apart from the flesh, and while His flesh performed its lowly offices, they were not done apart from the divinity. For His divinity was joined to the suffering flesh, yet remaining without passion, and endured the saving passions, and the holy mind was joined to the energising divinity of the Word, perceiving and knowing what was being accomplished.
And thus His divinity communicates its own glories to the body while it remains itself without part in the sufferings of the flesh. For His flesh did not suffer through His divinity in the same way that His divinity energised through the flesh. For the flesh acted as the instrument of His divinity. Although, therefore, from the first conception there was no division at all between the two forms 2156 , but the actions of either form through all the time became those of one person, nevertheless we do not in any way confuse those things that took place without separation, but recognise from the quality of its works what sort of form anything has.
Christ, then, energises according to both His natures 2157 and either nature energises in Him in communion with the other, the Word performing through the authority and power of its divinity all the actions proper to the Word, i.e. all acts of supremacy and sovereignty, and the body performing all the actions proper to the body, in obedience to the will of the Word that is united to it, and of whom it has become a distinct part. For He was not moved of Himself to the natural passions 2158 , nor again did He in that way recoil from the things of pain, and pray for release from them, or suffer what befel from without, but He was moved in conformity with His nature, the Word willing and allowing Him œconomically 2159 to suffer that, and to do the p. 64b things proper to Him, that the truth might be confirmed by the works of nature.
Moreover, just as 2160 He received in His birth of a virgin superessential essence, so also He revealed His human energy in a superhuman way, walking with earthly feet on unstable water, not by turning the water into earth, but by causing it in the superabundant power of His divinity not to flow away nor yield beneath the weight of material feet. For not in a merely human way did He do human things: for He was not only man, but also God, and so even His sufferings brought life and salvation: nor yet did He energise as God, strictly after the manner of God, for He was not only God, but also man, and so it was by touch and word and such like that He worked miracles.
But if any one 2161 should say, “We do not say that Christ has but one nature, in order to do away with His human energy, but we do so because 2162 human energy, in opposition to divine energy, is called passion (πάτθος),” we shall answer that, according to this reasoning, those also who hold that He has but one nature do not maintain this with a view to doing away with His human nature, but because human nature in opposition to divine nature is spoken of as passible (παθητική ). But God forbid that we should call the human activity passion, when we are distinguishing it from divine energy. For, to speak generally, of nothing is the existence recognised or defined by comparison or collation. If it were so, indeed, existing things would turn out to be mutually the one the cause of the other. For if the human activity is passion because the divine activity is energy, assuredly also the human nature must be wicked because the divine nature is good, and, by conversion and opposition, if the divine activity is called energy because the human activity is called passion, then also the divine nature must be good because the human nature is bad. And so all created things must be bad, and he must have spoken falsely who said, And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good 2163 .
We, therefore, maintain 2164 that the holy Fathers gave various names to the human activity according to the underlying notion. For they called it power, and energy, and difference, and activity, and property, and quality, and passion, not in distinction from the divine activity, but power, because it is a conservative and invariable force; and energy, because it is a distinguishing mark, and reveals the absolute similarity between all things of the same class; and difference, because it distinguishes; and activity, because it makes manifest; and property, because it is constituent and belongs to that alone, and not to any other; and quality, because it gives form; and passion, because it is moved. For all things that are of God and after God suffer in respect of being moved, forasmuch as they have not in themselves motion or power. Therefore, as has been said, it is not in order to distinguish the one from the other that it has been named, but it is in accordance with the plan implanted in it in a creative manner by the Cause that framed the universe. Wherefore, also, when they spoke of it along with the divine nature they called it energy. For he who said, “For either form energises close communion with the other 2165 ,” did something quite different from him who said, And when He had fasted forty days, He was afterwards an hungered 2166 : (for He allowed His nature to energise when it so willed, in the way proper to itself 2167 ,) or from those who hold there is a different energy in Him or that He has a twofold energy, or now one energy and now another 2168 . For these statements with the change in terms 2169 signify the two energies. Indeed, often the number is indicated both by change of terms and by speaking of them as divine and human 2170 . For the difference is difference in differing things, but how do things that do not exist differ?
Footnotes
60b:2129Cf. Anast., De operationibus, I.; Joan. Scyth, Con. Sever. VIII., &c.
60b:2130Supr. bk. ii.: Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
61b:2131Orat. 37, near the beginning.
61b:2132Anast. Antioch., De operationibus.
61b:2133καὶ αὐτὸ τὸ ἀποτελούμενον; cf. Max., ad Marin. II.
61b:2134Max. tom. ii., Dogmat. ad Marin., p. 124.
61b:2135St. Matt. viii. 3.
61b:2136St. John vi. 11.
61b:2137See Act. 10 sextæ synodi.
61b:2138Text, θεηγόρους. Variant, θεοφόρους.
61b:2139Orat. de natura et hyp. Also in Basil. 43.
61b:2140Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
62b:2141Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
62b:2142St. John v. 17.
62b:2143John 5.19.
62b:2144John 10.38.
62b:2145John 5.36.
62b:2146John 5.21.
62b:2147Max., ibid.
62b:2148Maxim., lib. De duab. vol. et Dial. cum Pyrrh.
62b:2149St. Luke viii. 54; Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
62b:2150Max., ibid.
62b:2151Max., ibid.
63b:2152Text, ἡ δὲ κατὰ φύσιν ἐνέργεια. Variant, εἰ δέ.
63b:2153Hom. 1.
63b:2154Thes., xxxii., ch. 2; Act. 10, sextæ Synodi.
63b:2155The Monotheletes made much of the case of the raising of the daughter of Jairus. See Cyril, In Joan., p. 351; Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh., Epist. ad Nicand., Epist. ad Mon. Sicil.; Scholiast in Collect. cont. Severum, ch. 20.
63b:2156οἰκονομῶ, in incarnate form.
63b:2157Leo, Epist. cit.
63b:2158οὐ γὰρ ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ πρὸς τὰ φυσικὰ πάθη τὴν ὁρμὴν ἐποιεῖτο, οὐδ᾽ αὐτὴν ἐκ τῶν λυπη?ῶν ἁφορμὴν καὶ παραίτησιν.
63b:2159The term is μορφή, as in Phil. 2:6, 7.
64b:2160Dion., ch. 2, De div. nom. et Epist. 4.
64b:2161Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
64b:2162See the reply of Maximus in the Dialogue cum Pyrrh.
64b:2163Gen. i. 31.
64b:2164Max., Opusc. Polem., pp. 31, 32.
64b:2165Leo, Epist. 10.
64b:2166St. Matt. iv. 2.
64b:2167Nyss., adv. Apoll.
64b:2168Chrysost., Hom. in S. Thom.
64b:2169δι᾽ ἀντωνυμίας.
64b:2170Cyril, in Joan., bk. viii.
Chapter XVI.—In reply to those who say 2171 “If man has two natures and two energies, Christ must be held to have three natures and as many energies.”
Each individual man, since he is composed of two natures, soul and body, and since these natures are unchangeable in him, could appropriately be spoken of as two natures: for he preserves even after their union thee natural properties of either. For the body is not immortal, but corruptible; neither is the soul mortal, but immortal: and the body is not invisible nor the soul visible to bodily eyes: but the soul is rational and intellectual, and incorporeal, while the body is dense and visible, and irrational. But things that are opposed to one another in essence have not p. 65b one nature, and, therefore, soul and body cannot have one essence.
And again: if man is a rational and mortal animal, and every definition is explanatory of the underlying natures, and the rational is not the same as the mortal according to the plan of nature, man then certainly cannot have one nature, according to the rule of his own definition.
But if man should at any time be said to have one nature, the word “nature” is here used instead of “species,” as when we say that man does not differ from man in any difference of nature. But since all men are fashioned in the same way, and are composed of soul and body, and each has two distinct natures, they are all brought under one definition. And this is not unreasonable, for the holy Athanasius spake of all created things as having one nature forasmuch as they were all produced, expressing himself thus in his Oration against those who blasphemed the Holy Spirit: “That the Holy Spirit is above all creation, and different from the nature of things produced and peculiar to divinity, we may again perceive. For whatever is seen to be common to many things, and not more in one and less in another, is called essence 2172 . Since, then, every man is composed of soul and body, accordingly we speak of man as having one nature. But we cannot speak of our Lord’s subsistence as one nature: for each nature preserves, even after the union, its natural properties, nor can we find a class of Christs. For no other Christ was born both of divinity and of humanity to be at once God and man.”
And again: man’s unity in species is not the same thing as the unity of soul and body in essence. For man’s unity in species makes clear the absolute similarity between all men, while the unity of soul and body in essence is an insult to their very existence, and reduces them to nothingness: for either the one must change into the essence of the other, or from different things something different must be produced, and so both would be changed, or if they keep to their own proper limits there must be two natures. For, as regards the nature of essence the corporeal is not the same as the incorporeal. Therefore, although holding that man has one nature, not because the essential quality of his soul and that of his body are the same, but because the individuals included under the species are exactly the same, it is not necessary for us to maintain that Christ also has one nature, for in this case there is no species embracing many subsistences.
Moreover, every compound 2173 is said to be composed of what immediately composes it. For we do not say that a house is composed of earth and water, but of bricks and timber. Otherwise, it would be necessary to speak of man as composed of at least five things, viz., the four elements and soul. And so also, in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ we do not look at the parts of the parts, but at those divisions of which He is immediately composed, viz., divinity and humanity.
And further, if by saying that man has two natures we are obliged to hold that Christ has three, you, too, by saying that man is composed of two natures must hold that Christ is composed of three natures: and it is just the same with the energies. For energy must correspond with nature: and Gregory the Theologian bears witness that man is said to have and has two natures, saying, “God and man are two natures, since, indeed, soul and body also are two natures 2174 .” And in his discourse “Concerning Baptism” he says, “Since we consist of two parts, soul and body, the visible and the invisible nature, the purification is likewise twofold, that is, by water and Spirit 2175 .”
Footnotes
64b:2171This is directed to another argument of the Severians. Cf. Leont., De Sect., 7, Contr. Nest. et Eutych., I.
65b:2172Epist. 2 ad Serap., towards the end; Collect., as above, c. 19.
65b:2173Anast., Collect., ch. 19.
65b:2174Epist. 1, ad Cledon.
65b:2175Orat. 4, not far from the beginning.
Chapter XVII.—Concerning the deification of the nature of our Lord’s flesh and of His will.
It is worthy of note 2176 that the flesh of the Lord is not said to have been deified and made equal to God and God in respect of any change or alteration, or transformation, or confusion of nature: as Gregory the Theologian 2177 says, “Whereof the one deified, and the other was deified, and, to speak boldly, made equal to God: and that which anointed became man, and that which was anointed became God 2178 .” For these words do not mean any change in nature, but rather the œconomical union (I mean the union in subsistence by virtue of which it was united inseparably with God the Word), and the permeation of the natures through one another, just as we saw that burning permeated the steel. For, just as we confess that God became man without change or alteration, so we consider that the flesh became God without change. For because the Word became flesh, He did not overstep the limits of His own divinity nor abandon p. 66b the divine glories that belong to Him: nor, on the other hand, was the flesh, when deified, changed in its own nature or in its natural properties. For even after the union, both the natures abode unconfused and their properties unimpaired. But the flesh of the Lord received the riches of the divine energies through the purest union with the Word, that is to say, the union in subsistence, without entailing the loss of any of its natural attributes. For it is not in virtue of any energy of its own but through the Word united to it, that it manifests divine energy: for the flaming steel burns, not because it has been endowed in a physical way with burning energy, but because it has obtained this energy by its union with fire 2179 .
Wherefore the same flesh was mortal by reason of its own nature and life-giving through its union with the Word in subsistence. And we hold that it is just the same with the deification of the will 2180 ; for its natural activity was not changed but united with His divine and omnipotent will, and became the will of God, made man 2181 . And so it was that, though He wished, He could not of Himself escape 2182 , because it pleased God the Word that the weakness of the human will, which was in truth in Him, should be made manifest. But He was able to cause at His will the cleansing of the leper 2183 , because of the union with the divine will.
Observe further, that the deification of the nature and the will points most expressly and most directly both to two natures and two wills. For just as the burning does not change into fire the nature of the thing that is burnt, but makes distinct both what is burnt, and what burned it, and is indicative not of one but of two natures, so also the deification does not bring about one compound nature but two, and their union in subsistence. Gregory the Theologian, indeed, says, “Whereof the one deified, the other was deified 2184 ,” and by the words “whereof,” “the one,” “the other,” he assuredly indicates two natures.
Footnotes
65b:2176Cf. Greg. Naz., Orat. 38, 39, 42, 51; Niceph., C.P. adv. Ep. Euseb., c. 50; Euthym., Panopl., II. 7.
65b:2177Greg., Orat. 42.
65b:2178Id., Orat. 39; Max. bk. De duabus voluntatibus.
66b:2179Max., Epist. ad Nicandr.
66b:2180Greg. Naz., Orat. 36.
66b:2181Ibid. 35, p. 595.
66b:2182St. Mark vii. 24.
66b:2183St. Matt. viii. 3.
66b:2184Greg. Naz., Orat. 42.
Chapter XVIII.—Further concerning volitions and free-wills: minds, too, and knowledges and wisdoms.
When we say that Christ is perfect God 2185 and perfect man, we assuredly attribute to Him all the properties natural to both the Father and mother. For He became man in order that that which was overcome might overcome. For He Who was omnipotent did not in His omnipotent authority and might lack the power to rescue man out of the hands of the tyrant. But the tyrant would have had a ground of complaint if, after He had overcome man, God should have used force against him. Wherefore God in His pity and love for man wished to reveal fallen man himself as conqueror, and became man to restore like with like.
But that man is a rational and intelligent animal, no one will deny. How, then, could He have become man if He took on Himself flesh without soul, or soul without mind? For that is not man. Again, what benefit would His becoming man have been to us if He Who suffered first was not saved, nor renewed and strengthened by the union with divinity? For that which is not assumed is not remedied. He, therefore, assumed the whole man, even the fairest part of him, which had become diseased, in order that He might bestow salvation on the whole. And, indeed, there could never exist a mind that had not wisdom and was destitute of knowledge. For if it has not energy or motion, it is utterly reduced to nothingness.
Therefore, God the Word 2186 , wishing to restore that which was in His own image, became man. But what is that which was in His own image, unless mind? So He gave up the better and assumed the worse. For mind 2187 is in the border-land between God and flesh, for it dwells indeed in fellowship with the flesh, and is, moreover, the image of God. Mind, then, mingles with mind, and mind holds a place midway between the pureness of God and the denseness of flesh. For if the Lord assumed a soul without mind, He assumed the soul of an irrational animal.
But if the Evangelist said that the Word was made flesh 2188 , note that in the Holy Scripture sometimes a man is spoken of as a soul, as, for example, with seventy-five souls came Jacob into Egypt 2189 : and sometimes a man is spoken of as flesh, as, for example, All flesh shall see the salvation of God 2190 . And accordingly the Lord did not become flesh without soul or mind, but man. He says, indeed, Himself, Why seek ye to kill Me, a Man that hath told you the truth 2191 ? He, therefore, assumed flesh animated with the spirit of reason and mind, a spirit that holds sway p. 67b over the flesh but is itself under the dominion of the divinity of the Word.
So, then, He had by nature, both as God and as man, the power of will. But His human will was obedient and subordinate to His divine will, not being guided by its own inclination, but willing those things which the divine will willed. For it was with the permission of the divine will that He suffered by nature what was proper to Him 2192 . For when He prayed that He might escape the death, it was with His divine will naturally willing and permitting it that He did so pray and agonize and fear, and again when His divine will willed that His human will should choose the death, the passion became voluntary to Him 2193 . For it was not as God only, but also as man, that He voluntarily surrendered Himself to the death. And thus He bestowed on us also courage in the face of death. So, indeed, He said before His saving passion, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me 2194 ,” manifestly as though He were to drink the cup as man and not as God. It was as man, then, that He wished the cup to pass from Him: but these are the words of natural timidity. Nevertheless, He said, not My will, that is to say, not in so far as I am of a different essence from Thee, but Thy will be done 2195 , that is to say, My will and Thy will, in so far as I am of the same essence as Thou. Now these are the words of a brave heart. For the Spirit of the Lord, since He truly became man in His good pleasure, on first testing its natural weakness was sensible of the natural fellow-suffering involved in its separation from the body, but being strengthened by the divine will it again grew bold in the face of death. For since He was Himself wholly God although also man, and wholly man although also God, He Himself as man subjected in Himself and by Himself His human nature to God and the Father, and became obedient to the Father, thus making Himself the most excellent type and example for us.
Of His own free-will, moreover, He exercised His divine and human will. For free-will is assuredly implanted in every rational nature. For to what end would it possess reason, if it could not reason at its own free-will? For the Creator hath implanted even in the unreasoning brutes natural appetite to compel them to sustain their own nature. For devoid of reason, as they are, they cannot guide their natural appetite but are guided by it. And so, as soon as the appetite for anything has sprung up, straightway arises also the impulse for action. And thus they do not win praise or happiness for pursuing virtue, nor punishment for doing evil. But the rational nature, although it does possess a natural appetite, can guide and train it by reason wherever the laws of nature are observed. For the advantage of reason consists in this, the free-will, by which we mean natural activity in a rational subject. Wherefore in pursuing virtue it wins praise and happiness, and in pursuing vice it wins punishment.
So that the soul 2196 of the Lord being moved of its own free-will willed, but willed of its free-will those things which His divine will willed it to will. For the flesh was not moved at a sign from the Word, as Moses and all the holy men were moved at a sign from heaven. But He Himself, Who was one and yet both God and man, willed according to both His divine and His human will. Wherefore it was not in inclination but rather in natural power that the two wills of the Lord differed from one another. For His divine will was without beginning and all-effecting, as having power that kept pace with it, and free from passion; while His human will had a beginning in time, and itself endured the natural and innocent passions, and was not naturally omnipotent. But yet it was omnipotent because it truly and naturally had its origin in the God-Word.
Footnotes
66b:2185Against the Apollinarians and the Monotheletes. Cf. Max., ut supra, II. p. 151.
66b:2186Greg. Naz., Carm. sen. adv. Apollin., Epist. ad Cled., and elsewhere.
66b:2187See also ch. 6 above, and Gregory’s lines against the Apollinarians.
66b:2188St. John i. 14.
66b:2189Gen. 46:27, Acts 7:14.
66b:2190Isa. 40:5, Luke 3:6.
66b:2191St. John viii. 40.
67b:2192Sophron., Epist. Synod.
67b:2193See Cyril, In Joann., ch. x.
67b:2194Matt. 26:39, Luke 22:22.
67b:2195Matt. 26:39, Luke 22:22
67b:2196Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.; Greg. Naz., Ep. 1, ad Cledon.
Chapter XIX.—Concerning the theandric energy.
When the blessed Dionysius 2197 says that Christ exhibited to us some sort of novel theandric energy 2198 , he does not do away with the natural energies by saying that one energy resulted from the union of the divine with the human energy: for in the same way we could speak of one new nature resulting from the union of the divine with the human nature. For, according to the holy Fathers, things that have one energy have also one essence. But he wished to indicate the novel and ineffable manner in which the natural energies of Christ manifest themselves, a manner befitting the ineffable manner in which the natures of Christ mutually permeate one another, and further how strange and wonderful and, in the nature of things, unknown was His life as man 2199 , and lastly the manner of p. 68b the mutual interchange arising from the ineffable union. For we hold that the energies are not divided and that the natures do not energise separately, but that each conjointly in complete community with the other energises with its own proper energy 2200 . For the human part did not energise merely in a human manner, for He was not mere man; nor did the divine part energise only after the manner of God, for He was not simply God, but He was at once God and man. For just as in the case of natures we recognise both their union and their natural difference, so is it also with the natural wills and energies.
Note, therefore, that in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, we speak sometimes of His two natures and sometimes of His one person: and the one or the other is referred to one conception. For the two natures are one Christ, and the one Christ is two natures. Wherefore it is all the same whether we say “Christ energises according to either of His natures,” or “either nature energises in Christ in communion with the other.” The divine nature, then, has communion with the flesh in its energising, because it is by the good pleasure of the divine will that the flesh is permitted to suffer and do the things proper to itself, and because the energy of the flesh is altogether saving, and this is an attribute not of human but of divine energy. On the other hand the flesh has communion with the divinity of the Word in its energising, because the divine energies are performed, so to speak, through the organ of the body, and because He Who energises at once as God and man is one and the same.
Further observe 2201 that His holy mind also performs its natural energies, thinking and knowing that it is God’s mind and that it is worshipped by all creation, and remembering the times He spent on earth and all He suffered, but it has communion with the divinity of the Word in its energising and orders and governs the universe, thinking and knowing and ordering not as the mere mind of man, but as united in subsistence with God and acting as the mind of God.
This, then, the theandric energy makes plain that when God became man, that is when He became incarnate, both His human energy was divine, that is deified, and not without part in His divine energy, and His divine energy was not without part in His human energy, but either was observed in conjunction with the other. Now this manner of speaking is called a periphrasis, viz., when one embraces two things in one statement 2202 . For just as in the case of the flaming sword we speak of the cut burn as one, and the burnt cut as one, but still hold that the cut and the burn have different energies and different natures, the burn having the nature of fire and the cut the nature of steel, in the same way also when we speak of one theandric energy of Christ, we understand two distinct energies of His two natures, a divine energy belonging to His divinity, and a human energy belonging to His humanity.
Footnotes
67b:2197Dionys., Epist. 4, ad Caium.
67b:2198See Severus, Ep. 3, ad Joann. Hegum.; Anastas., Sinait. Hodegus, p. 240.
67b:2199Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
68b:2200Leo, Epist. 1 ad Flav.
68b:2201Perhaps from Joann. Scythop., bk. viii.; cf. Niceph., C.P. Antirrh., III. 59.
68b:2202Max., Dogm. ad Marin., p. 43.
Chapter XX.—Concerning the natural and innocent passions 2203 .
We confess 2204 ,then, that He assumed all the natural and innocent passions of man. For He assumed the whole man and all man’s attributes save sin. For that is not natural, nor is it implanted in us by the Creator, but arises voluntarily in our mode of life as the result of a further implantation by the devil, though it cannot prevail over us by force. For the natural and innocent passions are those which are not in our power, but which have entered into the life of man owing to the condemnation by reason of the transgression; such as hunger, thirst, weariness, labour, the tears, the corruption, the shrinking from death, the fear, the agony with the bloody sweat, the succour at the hands of angels because of the weakness of the nature, and other such like passions which belong by nature to every man.
All, then, He assumed that He might sanctify all. He was tried and overcame in order that He might prepare victory for us and give to nature power to overcome its antagonist, in order that nature which was overcome of old might overcome its former conqueror by the very weapons wherewith it had itself been overcome.
The wicked one 2205 , then, made his assault from without, not by thoughts prompted inwardly, just as it was with Adam. For it was not by inward thoughts, but by the serpent that Adam was assailed. But the Lord repulsed the assault and dispelled it like vapour, in order that the passions which assailed him and were overcome might be easily subdued by us, and that the new Adam should save the old.
p. 69b Of a truth our natural passions were in harmony with nature and above nature in Christ. For they were stirred in Him after a natural manner when He permitted the flesh to suffer what was proper to it: but they were above nature because that which was natural did not in the Lord assume command over the will. For no compulsion is contemplated in Him but all is voluntary. For it was with His will that He hungered and thirsted and feared and died.
Footnotes
68b:2203Or, sensibilities.
68b:2204Cf. Greg. Nyss., Contr. Apoll.; Leont., De Sect., Act. 10; Anastas., Hodegus, 13. &c.
68b:2205Cf. Athanas., De Salut.Adventu Christi.
Chapter XXI.—Concerning ignorance and servitude.
He assumed, it is to be noted 2206 , the ignorant and servile nature 2207 . For it is man’s nature to be the servant of God, his Creator, and he does not possess knowledge of the future. If, then, as Gregory the Theologian holds, you are to separate the realm of sight from the realm of thought, the flesh is to be spoken of as both servile and ignorant, but on account of the identity of subsistence and the inseparable union the soul of the Lord was enriched with the knowledge of the future as also with the other miraculous powers. For just as the flesh of men is not in its own nature life-giving, while the flesh of our Lord which was united in subsistence with God the Word Himself, although it was not exempt from the mortality of its nature, yet became life-giving through its union in subsistence with the Word, and we may not say that it was not and is not for ever life-giving: in like manner His human nature does not in essence possess the knowledge of the future, but the soul of the Lord through its union with God the Word Himself and its identity in subsistence was enriched, as I said, with the knowledge of the future as well as with the other miraculous powers.
Observe further 2208 that we may not speak of Him as servant. For the words servitude and mastership are not marks of nature but indicate relationship, to something, such as that of fatherhood and sonship. For these do not signify essence but relation.
It is just as we said, then, in connection with ignorance, that if you separate with subtle thoughts, that is, with fine imaginings, the created from the uncreated, the flesh is a servant, unless it has been united with God the Word 2209 . But how can it be a servant when it is once united in subsistence? For since Christ is one, He cannot be His own servant and Lord. For these are not simple predications but relative. Whose servant, then could He be? His Father’s? The Son, then, would not have all the Father’s attributes, if He is the Father’s servant and yet in no respect His own. Besides, how could the apostle say concerning us who were adopted by Him, So that you are no longer a servant but a son 2210 , if indeed He is Himself a servant? The word servant, then, is used merely as a title, though not in the strict meaning: but for our sakes He assumed the form of a servant and is called a servant among us. For although He is without passion, yet for our sake He was the servant of passion and became the minister of our salvation. Those, then, who say that He is a servant divide the one Christ into two, just as Nestorius did. But we declare Him to be Master and Lord of all creation, the one Christ, at once God and man, and all-knowing. For in Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the hidden treasures 2211 .
Footnotes
69b:2206Greg. Naz., Orat. 36.
69b:2207Photius, Cod. 230; Eulog., bk. x., Ep. 35; Sophron., Ep. ad Serg.; Leont., De Sect., Act. 10.
69b:2208Cf. Sophron., Ep. ad. Serg., who refers to the Duliani (᾽Δουλιανοί); the opinions of Felix and Elipandas, condemned at the Synod of Frankfort; and Thomas Aquinas, III., Quæst. 20, Art. 1.
69b:2209Greg. Naz., Orat. 24.
69b:2210Gal. iv. 7.
69b:2211Col. ii. 3.
Chapter XXII.—Concerning His growth.
He is, moreover, said to grow in wisdom and age and grace 2212 , increasing in age indeed and through the increase in age manifesting the wisdom that is in Him 2213 ; yea, further, making men’s progress in wisdom and grace, and the fulfilment of the Father’s goodwill, that is to say, men’s knowledge of God and men’s salvation, His own increase, and everywhere taking as His own that which is ours. But those who hold that He progressed in wisdom and grace in the sense of receiving some addition to these attributes, do not say that the union took place at the first origin of the flesh, nor yet do they give precedence to the union in subsistence, but giving heed 2214 to the foolish Nestorius they imagine some strange relative union and mere indwelling, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm 2215 . For if in truth the flesh was united with God the Word from its first origin, or rather if it existed in Him and was identical in subsistence with Him, how was it that it was not endowed completely with all wisdom and grace? not that it might itself participate in the grace, nor share by grace in what belonged to the Word, but rather by reason of the union in subsistence, since both what is human and p. 70b what is divine belong to the one Christ, and that He Who was Himself at once God and man should pour forth like a fountain over the universe His grace and wisdom and plenitude of every blessing.
Footnotes
69b:2212St. Luke ii. 52.
69b:2213Athanas., Contr. Arian., bk. iv.; Greg. Naz., Ep. I. ad Cled., and Orat. 20; Cyril, Contr. Nest., bk. iii.; Greg. Nyss., Contr. Apoll., II. 28, &c.
69b:2214Text has πείθομαι: surely it should be πειθόμενοι.
69b:22151 Tim. i. 1.
Chapter XXIII.—Concerning His Fear.
The word fear has a double meaning. For fear is natural when the soul is unwilling to be separated from the body, on account of the natural sympathy and close relationship planted in it in the beginning by the Creator, which makes it fear and struggle against death and pray for an escape from it. It may be defined thus: natural fear is the force whereby we cling to being with shrinking 2216 . For if all things were brought by the Creator out of nothing into being, they all have by nature a longing after being and not after non-being. Moreover the inclination towards those things that support existence is a natural property of them. Hence God the Word when He became man had this longing, manifesting, on the one hand, in those things that support existence, the inclination of His nature in desiring food and drink and sleep, and having in a natural manner made proof of these things, while on the other hand displaying in those things that bring corruption His natural disinclination in voluntarily shrinking in the hour of His passion before the face of death. For although what happened did so according to the laws of nature, yet it was not, as in our case, a matter of necessity. For He willingly and spontaneously accepted that which was natural. So that fear itself and terror and agony belong to the natural and innocent passions and are not under the dominion of sin.
Again, there is a fear which arises from treachery of reasoning and want of faith, and ignorance of the hour of death, as when we are at night affected by fear at some chance noise. This is unnatural fear, and may be thus defined: unnatural fear is an unexpected shrinking. This our Lord did not assume. Hence He never felt fear except in the hour of His passion, although He often experienced a feeling of shrinking in accordance with the dispensation. For He was not ignorant of the appointed time.
But the holy Athanasius in his discourse against Apollinarius says that He did actually feel fear. “Wherefore the Lord said: Now is My soul troubled 2217 . The ‘now’ indeed means just ‘when He willed,’ but yet points to what actually was. For He did not speak of what was not, as though it were present, as if the things that were said only apparently happened. For all things happened naturally and actually.” And again, after some other matters, he says, “In nowise does His divinity admit passion apart from a suffering body, nor yet does it manifest trouble and pain apart from a pained and troubled soul, nor does it suffer anguish and offer up prayer apart from a mind that suffered anguish and offered up prayer. For, although these occurrences were not due to any overthrow of nature, yet they took place to shew forth His real being 2218 .” The words “these occurrences were not due to any overthrow of His nature,” prove that it was not involuntarily that He endured these things.
Footnotes
70b:2216Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
70b:2217St. John xii. 27.
70b:2218S. Athanas., De salutari adventu Christi, contra Apollinarem towards the end.
Chapter XXIV.—Concerning our Lord’s Praying.
Prayer is an uprising of the mind to God or a petitioning of God for what is fitting. How then did it happen that our Lord offered up prayer in the case of Lazarus, and at the hour of His passion? For His holy mind was in no need either of any uprising towards God, since it had been once and for all united in subsistence with the God Word, or of any petitioning of God. For Christ is one. But it was because He appropriated to Himself our personality and took our impress on Himself, and became an ensample for us, and taught us to ask of God and strain towards Him, and guided us through His own holy mind in the way that leads up to God. For just as He 2219 endured the passion, achieving for our sakes a triumph over it, so also He offered up prayer, guiding us, as I said, in the way that leads up to God, and “fulfilling all righteousness 2220 ” on our behalf, as He said to John, and reconciling His Father to us, and honouring Him as the beginning and cause, and proving that He is no enemy of God. For when He said in connection with Lazarus, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I know that Thou hearest Me always, but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me 2221 , is it not most manifest to all that He said this in honour of His Father as the cause even of Himself, and to shew that He was no enemy of God 2222 ?
Again, when he said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: yet, not as I will p. 71b but as Thou wilt 2223 , is it not clear to all 2224 that He said this as a lesson to us to ask help in our trials only from God, and to prefer God’s will to our own, and as a proof that He did actually appropriate to Himself the attributes of our nature, and that He did in truth possess two wills, natural, indeed, and corresponding with His natures but yet in no wise opposed to one another? “Father” implies that He is of the same essence, but “if it be possible” does not mean that He was in ignorance (for what is impossible to God?), but serves to teach us to prefer God’s will to our own. For that alone is impossible which is against God’s will and permission 2225 . “But not as I will but as Thou wilt,” for inasmuch as He is God, He is identical with the Father, while inasmuch as He is man, He manifests the natural will of mankind. For it is this that naturally seeks escape from death.
Further, these words, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me 2226 ? He said as making our personality His own 2227 . For neither would God be regarded with us as His Father, unless one were to discriminate with subtle imaginings of the mind between that which is seen and that which is thought, nor was He ever forsaken by His divinity: nay, it was we who were forsaken and disregarded. So that it was as appropriating our personality that He offered these prayers 2228 .
Footnotes
70b:2219St. Matt., Greg. Naz., Orat. 36.
70b:2220St. Matt. iii. 15.
70b:2221St. John xi. 42.
70b:2222Greg. Naz., Orat. 42; Chyrs., Hom. 63 in Joan.
71b:2223St. Matt. xxvi. 39.
71b:2224Chyrs. in Cat. in St. Matt. xxvi.
71b:2225Greg., Orat. 36.
71b:2226St. Matt. xxvii. 46.
71b:2227Greg. Naz., Orat. 36; Cyril, De recta fide; Athanas., Contr. Arian., bk. iv.
71b:2228Greg. Nyss., Orat. 38.
Chapter XXV.—Concerning the Appropriation.
It is to be observed 2229 that there are two appropriations 2230 : one that is natural and essential, and one that is personal and relative. The natural and essential one is that by which our Lord in His love for man took on Himself our nature and all our natural attributes, becoming in nature and truth man, and making trial of that which is natural: but the personal and relative appropriation is when any one assumes the person of another relatively, for instance, out of pity or love, and in his place utters words concerning him that have no connection with himself. And it was in this way that our Lord appropriated both our curse and our desertion, and such other things as are not natural: not that He Himself was or became such, but that He took upon Himself our personality and ranked Himself as one of us. Such is the meaning in which this phrase is to be taken: Being made a curse for our sakes 2231 .
Footnotes
71b:2229Max. ad Marin. in solut. 1 dubit. Theod.
71b:2230Greg. Naz., Orat. 36; Athanas., De Salut. adv. Christi.
71b:2231Gal. iii. 15.
Chapter XXVI.—Concerning the Passion of our Lord’s body, and the Impassibility of His divinity.
The Word of God then itself endured all in the flesh, while His divine nature which alone was passionless remained void of passion. For since the one Christ, Who is a compound of divinity and humanity, and exists in divinity and humanity, truly suffered, that part which is capable of passion suffered as it was natural it should, but that part which was void of passion did not share in the suffering. For the soul, indeed, since it is capable of passion shares in the pain and suffering of a bodily cut, though it is not cut itself but only the body: but the divine part which is void of passion does not share in the suffering of the body.
Observe, further 2232 , that we say that God suffered in the flesh, but never that His divinity suffered in the flesh, or that God suffered through the flesh. For if, when the sun is shining upon a tree, the axe should cleave the tree, and, nevertheless, the sun remains uncleft and void of passion, much more will the passionless divinity of the Word, united in subsistence to the flesh, remain void of passion when the body undergoes passion 2233 . And should any one pour water over flaming steel, it is that which naturally suffers by the water, I mean, the fire, that is quenched, but the steel remains untouched (for it is not the nature of steel to be destroyed by water): much more, then, when the flesh suffered did His only passionless divinity escape all passion although abiding inseparable from it. For one must not take the examples too absolutely and strictly: indeed, in the examples, one must consider both what is like and what is unlike, otherwise it would not be an example. For, if they were like in all respects they would be identities, and not examples, and all the more so in dealing with divine matters. For one cannot find an example that is like in all respects whether we are dealing with theology or the dispensation.
Footnotes
71b:2232Photius, Cod. 46.
71b:2233Athan., De salut. adv. Christi.
Chapter XXVII.—Concerning the fact that the divinity of the Word remained inseparable from the soul p. 72b and the body, even at our Lord’s death, and that His subsistence continued one.
Since our Lord Jesus Christ was without sin (for He committed no sin, He Who took away the sin of the world, nor was there any deceit found in His mouth 2234 ) He was not subject to death, since death came into the world through sin 2235 . He dies, therefore, because He took on Himself death on our behalf, and He makes Himself an offering to the Father for our sakes. For we had sinned against Him, and it was meet that He should receive the ransom for us, and that we should thus be delivered from the condemnation. God forbid that the blood of the Lord should have been offered to the tyrant 2236 . Wherefore death approaches, and swallowing up the body as a bait is transfixed on the hook of divinity, and after tasting of a sinless and life-giving body, perishes, and brings up again all whom of old he swallowed up. For just as darkness disappears on the introduction of light, so is death repulsed before the assault of life, and brings life to all, but death to the destroyer.
Wherefore, although 2237 He died as man and His Holy Spirit was severed from His immaculate body, yet His divinity remained inseparable from both, I mean, from His soul and His body, and so even thus His one hypostasis was not divided into two hypostases. For body and soul received simultaneously in the beginning their being in the subsistence 2238 of the Word, and although they were severed from one another by death, yet they continued, each of them, having the one subsistence of the Word. So that the one subsistence of the Word is alike the subsistence of the Word, and of soul and body. For at no time had either soul or body a separate subsistence of their own, different from that of the Word, and the subsistence of the Word is for ever one, and at no time two. So that the subsistence of Christ is always one. For, although the soul was separated from the body topically, yet hypostatically they were united through the Word.
Footnotes
72b:2234Isa. 53:9, John 1:29.
72b:2235Rom. v. 12.
72b:2236Greg., Orat. 42.
72b:2237Cf. Epiph., Hæres. 69; Greg. Nyss., Contr. Eunom., II. p. 55.
72b:2238ὑπόστασις, hypostasis.
Chapter XXVIII.—Concerning Corruption and Destruction.
The word corruption 2239 has two meanings 2240 . For it signifies all the human sufferings, such as hunger, thirst, weariness, the piercing with nails, death, that is, the separation of soul and body, and so forth. In this sense we say that our Lord’s body was subject to corruption. For He voluntarily accepted all these things. But corruption means also the complete resolution of the body into its constituent elements, and its utter disappearance, which is spoken of by many preferably as destruction. The body of our Lord did not experience this form of corruption, as the prophet David says, For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption 2241 .
Wherefore to say, with that foolish Julianus and Gaïanus, that our Lord’s body was incorruptible, in the first sense of the word, before His resurrection is impious. For if it were incorruptible it was not really, but only apparently, of the same essence as ours, and what the Gospel tells us happened, viz. the hunger, the thirst, the nails, the wound in His side, the death, did not actually occur. But if they only apparently happened, then the mystery of the dispensation is an imposture and a sham, and He became man only in appearance, and not in actual fact, and we are saved only in appearance, and not in actual fact. But God forbid, and may those who so say have no part in the salvation 2242 . But we have obtained and shall obtain the true salvation. But in the second meaning of the word “corruption,” we confess that our Lord’s body is incorruptible, that is, indestructible, for such is the tradition of the inspired Fathers. Indeed, after the resurrection of our Saviour from the dead, we say that our Lord’s body is incorruptible even in the first sense of the word. For our Lord by His own body bestowed the gifts both of resurrection and of subsequent incorruption even on our own body, He Himself having become to us the firstfruits both of resurrection and incorruption, and of passionlessness 2243 . For as the divine Apostle says, This corruptible must put on incorruption 2244 .
Footnotes
72b:2239Leont. De sect., Act. 10, and Dial. cont. Aphthartodoc.
72b:2240Anast. Sinait., Hodegus, p. 295.
72b:2241Ps. xvi. 10.
72b:2242Anast. Sinait., Hodegus, p. 293.
72b:22431 Cor. xv. 20.
72b:22441 Cor. 15.53.
Chapter XXIX.—Concerning the Descent to Hades.
The soul 2245 when it was deified descended into Hades, in order that, just as the Sun of Righteousness 2246 rose for those upon the earth, so likewise He might bring light to those who sit under the earth in darkness p. 73b and shadow of death 2247 : in order that just as He brought the message of peace to those upon the earth, and of release to the prisoners, and of sight to the blind 2248 , and became to those who believed the Author of everlasting salvation and to those who did not believe a reproach of their unbelief 2249 , so He might become the same to those in Hades 2250 : That every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth 2251 . And thus after He had freed those who had been bound for ages, straightway He rose again from the dead, shewing us the way of resurrection.
Footnotes
72b:2245Cf. Ruf., Expos. Symbol. Apost.; Cassian, Contr. Nestor., bk. vi.; Cyril, Catech. 14.
72b:2246Mal. iv. 2.
73b:2247Is. ix. 2.
73b:2248Isa. 61:1, Luke 4:19.
73b:22491 Pet. iii. 19.
73b:2250Iren., iv. 45; Greg. Naz., Orat. 42.
73b:2251Phil. ii. 10.
p. 74b Book IV.
Chapter I.—Concerning what followed the Resurrection.
After Christ was risen from the dead He laid aside all His passions, I mean His corruption or hunger or thirst or sleep or weariness or such like. For, although He did taste food after the resurrection 2252 , yet He did not do so because it was a law of His nature (for He felt no hunger), but in the way of economy, in order that He might convince us of the reality of the resurrection, and that it was one and the same flesh which suffered and rose again 2253 . But He laid aside none of the divisions of His nature, neither body nor spirit, but possesses both the body and the soul intelligent and reasonable, volitional and energetic, and in this wise He sits at the right hand of the Father, using His will both as God and as man in behalf of our salvation, energising in His divine capacity to provide for and maintain and govern all things, and remembering in His human capacity the time He spent on earth, while all the time He both sees and knows that He is adored by all rational creation. For His Holy Spirit knows that He is one in substance with God the Word, and shares as Spirit of God and not simply as Spirit the worship accorded to Him. Moreover, His ascent from earth to heaven, and again, His descent from heaven to earth, are manifestations of the energies of His circumscribed body. For He shall so come again to you, saith he, in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven 2254 .
Footnotes
74b:2252St. Luke xxiv. 43.
74b:2253Theodor., Dial. 2; Greg. Naz., Orat. 49, Ep. 1 ad Cled.
74b:2254Acts i. 11.
Chapter II.—Concerning the sitting at the right hand of the Father.
We hold, moreover, that Christ sits in the body at the right hand of God the Father, but we do not hold that the right hand of the Father is actual place. For how could He that is uncircumscribed have a right hand limited by place? Right hands and left hands belong to what is circumscribed. But we understand the right hand of the Father to be the glory and honour of the Godhead in which the Son of God, who existed as God before the ages, and is of like essence to the Father, and in the end became flesh, has a seat in the body, His flesh sharing in the glory. For He along with His flesh is adored with one adoration by all creation 2255 .
Footnotes
74b:2255Athan. Jun., p. 45, ad Ant.; Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, ch. 6.
Chapter III.—In reply to those who say 2256 “If Christ has two natures, either ye do service to the creature in worshipping created nature, or ye say that there is one nature to be worshipped, and another not to be worshipped.”
Along with the Father and the Holy Spirit we worship the Son of God, Who was incorporeal before He took on humanity, and now in His own person is incarnate and has become man though still being also God. His flesh, then, in its own nature 2257 , if one were to make subtle mental distinctions between what is seen and what is thought, is not deserving of worship since it is created. But as it is united with God the Word, it is worshipped on account of Him and in Him. For just as the king deserves homage alike when un-robed and when robed, and just as the purple robe, considered simply as a purple robe, is trampled upon and tossed about, but after becoming the royal dress receives all honour and glory, and whoever dishonours it is generally condemned to death: and again, just as wood in itself 2258 is not of such a nature that it cannot be touched, but becomes so when fire is applied to it, and it becomes charcoal, and yet this is not because of its own nature, but because of the fire united to it, and the nature of the wood is not such as cannot be touched, but rather the charcoal or burning wood: so also the flesh, in its own nature, is not to be worshipped, but is worshipped in the incarnate God Word, not because of itself, but because of its union in subsistence with God the Word. And we do not say that p. 75b we worship mere flesh, but God’s flesh, that is, God incarnate.
Footnotes
74b:2256Against the Apollinarians, &c. Cf. Greg. Naz., Ep. Ad Cled., 11.
74b:2257Athan., bk. i., Cont. Apoll. Epist. ad Adelph. Epiphan. Ancor. § 51.
74b:2258A simile much used by the Fathers: cf. supr., bk. iii., ch. 8.
Chapter IV.—Why it was the Son of God, and not the Father or the Spirit, that became man: and what having became man He achieved.
The Father is Father 2259 and not Son 2260 : the Son is Son and not Father: the Holy Spirit is Spirit and not Father or Son. For the individuality 2261 is unchangeable. How, indeed, could individuality continue to exist at all if it were ever changing and altering? Wherefore the Son of God became Son of Man in order that His individuality might endure. For since He was the Son of God, He became Son of Man, being made flesh of the holy Virgin and not losing the individuality of Sonship 2262 .
Further, the Son of God became man, in order that He might again bestow on man that favour for the sake of which He created him. For He created him after His own image, endowed with intellect and free-will, and after His own likeness, that is to say, perfect in all virtue so far as it is possible for man’s nature to attain perfection. For the following properties are, so to speak, marks of the divine nature: viz. absence of care and distraction and guile, goodness, wisdom, justice, freedom from all vice. So then, after He had placed man in communion with Himself (for having made him for incorruption 2263 , He led him up through communion with Himself to incorruption), and when moreover, through the transgression of the command we had confused and obliterated the marks of the divine image, and had become evil, we were stripped of our communion with God (for what communion hath light with darkness 2264 ?): and having been shut out from life we became subject to the corruption of death: yea, since He gave us to share in the better part, and we did not keep it secure, He shares in the inferior part, I mean our own nature, in order that through Himself and in Himself He might renew that which was made after His image and likeness, and might teach us, too, the conduct of a virtuous life, making through Himself the way thither easy for us, and might by the communication of life deliver us from corruption, becoming Himself the firstfruits of our resurrection, and might renovate the useless and worn vessel calling us to the knowledge of God that He might redeem us from the tyranny of the devil, and might strengthen and teach us how to overthrow the tyrant through patience and humility 2265 .
The worship of demons then has ceased: creation has been sanctified by the divine blood: altars and temples of idols have been overthrown, the knowledge of God has been implanted in men’s minds, the co-essential Trinity, the uncreate divinity, one true God, Creator and Lord of all receives men’s service: virtues are cultivated, the hope of resurrection has been granted through the resurrection of Christ, the demons shudder at those men who of old were under their subjection. And the marvel, indeed, is that all this has been successfully brought about through His cross and passion and death. Throughout all the earth the Gospel of the knowledge of God has been preached; no wars or weapons or armies being used to rout the enemy, but only a few, naked, poor, illiterate, persecuted and tormented men, who with their lives in their hands, preached Him Who was crucified in the flesh and died, and who became victors over the wise and powerful. For the omnipotent power of the Cross accompanied them. Death itself, which once was man’s chiefest terror, has been overthrown, and now that which was once the object of hate and loathing is preferred to life. These are the achievements of Christ’s presence: these are the tokens of His power. For it was not one people that He saved, as when through Moses He divided the sea and delivered Israel out of Egypt and the bondage of Pharaoh 2266 ; nay, rather He rescued all mankind from the corruption of death and the bitter tyranny of sin: not leading them by force to virtue, not overwhelming them with earth or burning them with fire, or ordering the sinners to be stoned, but persuading men by gentleness and long-suffering to choose virtue and vie with one another, and find pleasure in the struggle to attain it. For, formerly, it was sinners who were persecuted, and yet they clung all the closer to sin, and sin was looked upon by them as their God: but now for the sake of piety and virtue men choose persecutions and crucifixions and death.
Hail! O Christ, the Word and Wisdom and Power of God, and God omnipotent! What can we helpless ones give Thee in return for p. 76b all these good gifts? For all are Thine, and Thou askest naught from us save our salvation, Thou Who Thyself art the Giver of this, and yet art grateful to those who receive it, through Thy unspeakable goodness. Thanks be to Thee Who gave us life, and granted us the grace of a happy life, and restored us to that, when we had gone astray, through Thy unspeakable condescension.
Footnotes
75b:2259Greg. Naz., Orat. 37; Fulg., De fid. ad Petrum; Thomas Aquinas, III., quæst. 3, Art. 6.
75b:2260Greg. Naz., Orat. 39.
75b:2261ἡ ἰδιότης, Latin, proprietas, the propriety, that which is distinctive of each.
75b:2262Text, καὶ οὐκ ἐκστὰς τῆς ὑ& 187·κῆς ἰδιότητος. R. 1 has, καὶ οὐκ ἐξέστη τῆς οἰκείας ἰδιότητος, and the old trans. is “et non secessit a propria proprietate.”
75b:2263Wisd. ii. 23.
75b:22642 Cor. vi. 14.
75b:2265Athan., De Incarn.; Cyril, In Joan., bk. i.
75b:2266Ex. xiv. 16.
Chapter V.—In reply to those who ask if Christ’s subsistence is create or uncreate.
The subsistence 2267 of God the Word before the Incarnation was simple and uncompound, and incorporeal and uncreate: but after it became flesh, it became also the subsistence of the flesh, and became compounded of divinity which it always possessed, and of flesh which it had assumed: and it bears the properties of the two natures, being made known in two natures: so that the one same subsistence is both uncreate in divinity and create in humanity, visible and invisible. For otherwise we are compelled either to divide the one Christ and speak of two subsistences, or to deny the distinction between the natures and thus introduce change and confusion.
Footnotes
76b:2267ὑπόστασις, hypostasis.
Chapter VI.—Concerning the question, when Christ was called.
The mind was not united with God the Word, as some falsely assert 2268 , before the Incarnation by the Virgin and from that time called Christ. That is the absurd nonsense of Origen 2269 who lays down the doctrine of the priority of the existence of souls. But we hold that the Son and Word of God became Christ after He had dwelt in the womb of His holy ever-virgin Mother, and became flesh without change, and that the flesh was anointed with divinity. For this is the anointing of humanity, as Gregory the Theologian says 2270 . And here are the words of the most holy Cyril of Alexandria which he wrote to the Emperor Theodosius 2271 : “For I indeed hold that one ought to give the name Jesus Christ neither to the Word that is of God if He is without humanity, nor yet to the temple born of woman if it is not united with the Word. For the Word that is of God is understood to be Christ when united with humanity in ineffable manner in the union of the œconomy 2272 .” And again, he writes to the Empresses thus 2273 : “Some hold that the name ‘Christ’ is rightly given to the Word that is begotten of God the Father, to Him alone, and regarded separately by Himself. But we have not been taught so to think and speak. For when the Word became flesh, then it was, we say, that He was called Christ Jesus. For since He was anointed with the oil of gladness, that is the Spirit, by Him Who is God and Father, He is for this reason 2274 called Christ. But that the anointing was an act that concerned Him as man could be doubted by no one who is accustomed to think rightly.” Moreover, the celebrated Athanasius says this in his discourse “Concerning the Saving Manifestation:” “The God Who was before the sojourn in the flesh was not man, but God in God, being invisible and without passion, but when He became man, He received in addition the name of Christ because of the flesh, since, indeed, passion and death follow in the train of this name.”
And although the holy Scripture 2275 says, Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness 2276 , it is to be observed that the holy Scripture often uses the past tense instead of the future, as for example here: Thereafter He was seen upon the earth and dwelt among men 2277 . For as yet God was not seen nor did He dwell among men when this was said. And here again: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea wept 2278 . For as yet these things had not come to pass.
Footnotes
76b:2268See Sophr., Ep. ad Serg.; Origen, Περὶ ἀρχῶν, II. 6; Ruf., Expos. Symb., &c.
76b:2269Origen, Περὶ ἀρχῶν, bk. ii., ch. 6.
76b:2270Orat. 36, near the end.
76b:2271Edit. Paris, p. 25.
76b:2272καθ᾽ ἕνωσιν οἰκονομικήν, in the union of the Incarnation.
76b:2273Edit. Paris, p. 54.
76b:2274Ps. xlv. 7.
76b:2275Ps. xlv. 7.
76b:2276Some copies omit the last five words.
76b:2277Bar. iii. 38.
76b:2278Ps. cxxxvii. 1.
Chapter VII.—In answer to those who enquire whether the holy Mother of God bore two natures, and whether two natures hung upon the Cross.
ἀγένητον and γενητόν, written with one ‘ν’ 2279 and meaning uncreated and created, refer to nature: but ἀγέννητον and γεννητόν, that is to say, unbegotten and begotten, as the double ‘ν’ indicates, refer not to nature but to subsistence. The divine nature then is ἀγένητος, that is to say, uncreate, but all things that come after the divine nature are γένητα, that is, created. In the divine and uncreated nature, therefore, the property of being ἀγέννητον or unbegotten is contemplated in the Father (for He was not begotten), that of being γέννητον or begotten in the Son (for He has been eternally begotten of the Father), p. 77b and that of procession in the Holy Spirit. Moreover of each species of living creatures, the first members were ἀγέννητα but not ἀγένητα: for they were brought into being by their Maker, but were not the offspring of creatures like themselves. For γένεσις is creation, while γέννησις or begetting is in the case of God the origin of a co-essential Son arising from the Father alone, and in the case of bodies, the origin of a co-essential subsistence arising from the contact of male and female. And thus we perceive that begetting refers not to nature but to subsistence 2280 . For if it did refer to nature, τὸ γέννητον and το ἀγέννητον, i.e. the properties of being begotten and unbegotten, could not be contemplated in one and the same nature. Accordingly the holy Mother of God bore a subsistence revealed in two natures; being begotten on the one hand, by reason of its divinity, of the Father timelessly, and, at last, on the other hand, being incarnated of her in time and born in the flesh.
But if our interrogators should hint that He Who is begotten of the holy Mother of God is two natures, we reply, “Yea! He is two natures: for He is in His own person God and man. And the same is to be said concerning the crucifixion and resurrection and ascension. For these refer not to nature but to subsistence. Christ then, since He is in two natures, suffered and was crucified in the nature that was subject to passion. For it was in the flesh and not in His divinity that He hung upon the Cross. Otherwise, let them answer us, when we ask if two natures died. No, we shall say. And so two natures were not crucified but Christ was begotten, that is to say, the divine Word having become man was begotten in the flesh, was crucified in the flesh, suffered in the flesh, while His divinity continued to be impassible.”
Footnotes
76b:2279Supr., bk. i. ch. 9.
77b:2280Euthym., p. 2, tit. 8.
Chapter VIII.—How the Only-begotten Son of God is called first-born.
He who is first begotten is called first-born 2281 , whether he is only-begotten or the first of a number of brothers. If then the Son of God was called first-born, but was not called Only-begotten, we could imagine that He was the first-born of creatures, as being a creature 2282 . But since He is called both first-born and Only-begotten, both senses must be preserved in His case. We say that He is first-born of all creation 2283 since both He Himself is of God and creation is of God, but as He Himself is born alone and timelessly of the essence of God the Father, He may with reason be called Only-begotten Son, first-born and not first-created. For the creation was not brought into being out of the essence of the Father, but by His will out of nothing 2284 . And He is called First-born among many brethren 2285 , for although being Only-begotten, He was also born of a mother. Since, indeed, He participated just as we ourselves do in blood and flesh and became man, while we too through Him became sons of God, being adopted through the baptism, He Who is by nature Son of God became first-born amongst us who were made by adoption and grace sons of God, and stand to Him in the relation of brothers. Wherefore He said, I ascend unto My Father and your Father 2286 . He did not say “our Father,” but “My Father,” clearly in the sense of Father by nature, and “your Father,” in the sense of Father by grace. And “My God and your God 2287 .” He did not say “our God,” but “My God:” and if you distinguish with subtle thought that which is seen from that which is thought, also “your God,” as Maker and Lord.
Footnotes
77b:2281See the Scholiast on Gregory Nyssenus in Cod. Reg. 3451.
77b:2282Vid. apud Greg. Nyss., bk. iii., contr. Eunom.
77b:2283Col. i. 15.
77b:2284Athan., Expos. Fidei.
77b:2285Rom. viii. 29.
77b:2286St. John xx. 17.
77b:2287John 20.17
Chapter IX.—Concerning Faith and Baptism.
We confess one baptism for the remission of sins and for life eternal. For baptism declares the Lord’s death. We are indeed “buried with the Lord through baptism 2288 ,” as saith the divine Apostle. So then, as our Lord died once for all, we also must be baptized once for all, and baptized according to the Word of the Lord, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit 2289 , being taught the confession in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Those 2290 , then, who, after having been baptized into Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and having been taught that there is one divine nature in three subsistences, are rebaptized, these, as the divine Apostle says, crucify the Christ afresh. For it is impossible, he saith, for those who were once enlightened, &c., to renew them again unto repentance: seeing they crucify to themselves the Christ afresh, and put Him to an open shame 2291 . But those who were not bapp. 78b tized into the Holy Trinity, these must be baptized again. For although the divine Apostle says: Into Christ and into His death were we baptized 2292 , he does not mean that the invocation of baptism must be in these words, but that baptism is an image of the death of Christ. For by the three immersions 2293 , baptism signifies the three days of our Lord’s entombment 2294 . The baptism then into Christ means that believers are baptized into Him. We could not believe in Christ if we were not taught confession in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit 2295 . For Christ is the Son of the Living God 2296 , Whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit 2297 : in the words of the divine David, Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows 2298 . And Isaiah also speaking in the person of the Lord says, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He hath anointed me 2299 . Christ, however, taught His own disciples the invocation and said, Baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit 2300 . For since Christ made us for incorruption 2301 2302 , and we transgressed His saving command, He condemned us to the corruption of death in order that that which is evil should not be immortal, and when in His compassion He stooped to His servants and became like us, He redeemed us from corruption through His own passion. He caused the fountain of remission to well forth for us out of His holy and immaculate side 2303 , water for our regeneration, and the washing away of sin and corruption; and blood to drink as the hostage of life eternal. And He laid on us the command to be born again of water and of the Spirit 2304 , through prayer and invocation, the Holy Spirit drawing nigh unto the water 2305 . For since man’s nature is twofold, consisting of soul and body, He bestowed on us a twofold purification, of water and of the Spirit: the Spirit renewing that part in us which is after His image and likeness, and the water by the grace of the Spirit cleansing the body from sin and delivering it from corruption, the water indeed expressing the image of death, but the Spirit affording the earnest of life.
For from the beginning the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters 2306 , and anew the Scripture witnesseth that water has the power of purification 2307 . In the time of Noah God washed away the sin of the world by water 2308 . By water every impure person is purified 2309 , according to the law, even the very garments being washed with water. Elias shewed forth the grace of the Spirit mingled with the water when he burned the holocaust by pouring on water 2310 . And almost everything is purified by water according to the law: for the things of sight are symbols of the things of thought. The regeneration, however, takes place in the spirit: for faith has the power of making us sons (of God 2311 ), creatures as we are, by the Spirit, and of leading us into our original blessedness.
The remission of sins, therefore, is granted alike to all through baptism: but the grace of the Spirit is proportional to the faith and previous purification. Now, indeed, we receive the firstfruits of the Holy Spirit through baptism, and the second birth is for us the beginning and seal and security and illumination 2312 of another life.
It behoves us, then, with all our strength to steadfastly keep ourselves pure from filthy works, that we may not, like the dog returning to his vomit 2313 , make ourselves again the slaves of sin. For faith apart from works is dead, and so likewise are works apart from faith 2314 . For the true faith is attested by works.
Now we are baptized 2315 into the Holy Trinity because those things which are baptized have need of the Holy Trinity for their maintenance and continuance, and the three subsistences cannot be otherwise than present, the one with the other. For the Holy Trinity is indivisible.
The first baptism 2316 was that of the flood for the eradication of sin. The second 2317 was through the sea and the cloud: for the cloud is the symbol of the Spirit and the sea of the water 2318 . The third baptism was that of the Law: for every impure person washed himself with water, and even washed his garments, and so entered into the camp 2319 . The fourth 2320 was that of John 2321 , being preliminary and leading those who were baptized to repentance, that they might believe in Christ: I, p. 79b indeed, he said, baptize you with water; but He that cometh after me, He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire. 2322 Thus John’s purification with water was preliminary to receiving the Spirit. The fifth was the baptism of our Lord, whereby He Himself was baptized. Now He is baptized not as Himself requiring purification but as making my purification His own, that He may break the heads of the dragons on the water, 2323 that He may wash away sin and bury all the old Adam in water, that He may sanctify the Baptist, that He may fulfil the Law, that He may reveal the mystery of the Trinity, that He may become the type and ensample to us of baptism. But we, too, are baptized in the perfect baptism of our Lord, the baptism by water and the Spirit. Moreover, 2324 Christ is said to baptize with fire: because in the form of flaming tongues He poured forth on His holy disciples the grace of the Spirit: as the Lord Himself says, John truly baptized with water: but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire, not many days hence: 2325 or else it is because of the baptism of future fire wherewith we are to be chastized. 2326 The sixth is that by repentance and tears, which baptism is truly grievous. The seventh is baptism by blood and martyrdom, 2327 which baptism Christ Himself underwent in our behalf, 2328 He Who was too august and blessed to be defiled with any later stains. 2329 The eighth 2330 is the last, which is not saving, but which destroys evil: 2331 for evil and sin no longer have sway: yet it punishes without end. 2332
Further, the Holy Spirit 2333 descended in bodily form as a dove, indicating the firstfruits of our baptism and honouring the body: since even this, that is the body, was God by the deification; and besides the dove was wont formerly to announce the cessation of the flood. But to the holy Apostles He came down in the form of fire: 2334 for He is God, and God is a consuming fire. 2335
Olive oil 2336 is employed in baptism as a significant of our anointing, 2337 and as making us anointed, and as announcing to us through the Holy Spirit God’s pity: for it was the fruit of the olive that the dove brought to those who were saved from the flood. 2338
John was baptized, putting his hand upon the divine head of his Master, and with his own blood.
It does not behove 2339 us to delay baptism when the faith of those coming forward is testified to by their works. For he that cometh forward deceitfully to baptism will receive condemnation rather than benefit.
Footnotes
77b:2288Col. ii. 12.
77b:2289St. Matt. xxviii. 19.
77b:2290See Clem. Alex., Strom., bk. i; Basil, Ep. Ad Amphiloch. 2; Irenæus, i. 8; Theodor., Hær. fab. c. 12; Euseb., Hist. Eccles., vii. 9; Trullan Canon 95; Tertull., De Bapt., c. 1, &c.
77b:2291Heb. vi. 4.
78b:2292Rom. vi. 3.
78b:2293See Basil, De Spir. Sanct., c. 28, and Ep. 39; Jerome, Contr. Lucif.; Theodor., Hær. III. 4; Socrates, Hist. c. 23; Sozomen, Hist. VI. 26.
78b:2294Auct., Quæst. ad. Antioch.
78b:2295Basil., De Bapt., bk. i. ch. 12.
78b:2296St. Matt. xvi. 16.
78b:2297Acts x. 38.
78b:2298Ps. xlv. 7.
78b:2299Is. lxi. 1.
78b:2300St. Matt. xxviii. 19.
78b:2301Text, ἐπ᾽ ἀφθαρσίαν. Variant, ἐπ᾽ ἀφθαρσί& 139·; old interpretation, ‘in incorruption.’
78b:2302Method., De Resurr.
78b:2303St. John xix. 34.
78b:2304John 3.5.
78b:2305Greg., Orat. 48.
78b:2306Gen. i. 2.
78b:2307Lev. xv. 10.
78b:2308Gen. vi. 17.
78b:2309Text, καθαίρεται. Variant in many Codices is ἐκάθαίρετο. On one margin is, ἠ ἐκεκάθαρτο.
78b:2310III. Reg. xviii. 32.
78b:2311πίστις γὰρ υἱοθετεῖν οἶδε.
78b:2312Text, φωτισμός, illumination. In R. 2626 is added, καὶ ἁγιασμός, which Faber translates, “et illuminatio et sanctificatio.” In R. 2924, ἁγιασμός is read instead of φωτισμός.
78b:23132 Pet. ii. 22.
78b:2314James ii. 26.
78b:2315Greg. Naz., Orat. 40; Athan. ad Serap. De Spir. Sancto.
78b:2316Greg. Theol., Orat. 39.
78b:2317Gen. vii. 17.
78b:23181 Cor. x. 1.
78b:2319Lev. xiv. 8.
78b:2320Greg., Orat. 40; Basil, Hom. de Bapt.; Chrys. in Matt. Hom. 10, and others.
78b:2321Cf. Basil, De Bapt., I. 2.
79b:2322St. Matt. iii. 11.
79b:2323Ps . lxxiv. 13.
79b:2324Greg. Naz., Orat. 40.
79b:2325Acts i. 5.
79b:2326Greg. Naz., Orat. 40.
79b:2327Id. ibid.
79b:2328St. Luke xii. 50.
79b:2329Text, ὡςλίαν...ὅσον. Variants, ὅσων and ὃ καί.
79b:2330Greg. Naz., Orat. 40.
79b:2331See Basil, De Spir. Sanct., c. 13.
79b:2332οὐ σωτήριον, ἀλλὰ τῆς μὲν κακίας ἀναιρετικόν οὐκ ἔτι γὰρ κακία καὶ ἁμαρτία πολιτεύεται· κόλαζον δὲ ἀτελεύτητα.
79b:2333Greg. Naz., Orat. 39.
79b:2334Greg. Naz., Orat. 44: Acts ii. 3.
79b:2335Deut. iv. 24.
79b:2336Cf., Allab., De Cousens, bk. iii., c. 16; Cyril of Jerus., Catech. Myst. 2.
79b:2337Reading, χρίσιν. Variant, χάριν.
79b:2338Gen. viii. 11.
79b:2339Greg. Naz., Orat. 40.
Chapter X.—Concerning Faith.
Moreover, faith is twofold. For faith cometh by hearing. 2340 For by hearing the divine Scriptures we believe in the teaching of the Holy Spirit. The same is perfected by all the things enjoined by Christ, believing in work, cultivating piety, and doing the commands of Him Who restored us. For he that believeth not according to the tradition of the Catholic Church, or who hath intercourse with the devil through strange works, is an unbeliever.
But again, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen 2341 , or undoubting and unambiguous hope alike of what God hath promised us and of the good issue of our prayers. The first, therefore, belongs to our will, while the second is of the gifts of the Spirit.
Further, observe that by baptism we cut 2342 off all the covering which we have worn since birth, that is to say, sin, and become spiritual Israelites and God’s people.
Footnotes
79b:2340Rom. x. 17.
79b:2341Heb. xi. 1.
79b:2342περιτεμνόμεθα, circumcise.
Chapter XI.—Concerning the Cross and here further concerning Faith.
The word ‘Cross’ is foolishness to those that perish, but to us who are saved it is the power of God. 2343 For he that is spiritual judgeth all things, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit. 2344 For it is foolishness to those who do not receive in faith and who do not consider God’s goodness and omnipotence, but search out divine things with human and natural reasonings. For all the things that are of God are above nature and reason and conception. For should any one consider how and for what purpose God brought all things out of nothing and into being, and aim at arriving at that by natural reasonings, he fails to comprehend it. For knowledge of this kind belongs to spirits and demons. But if any one, under the guidance of faith, should consider the divine goodness p. 80b and omnipotence and truth and wisdom and justice, he will find all things smooth and even, and the way straight. But without faith it is impossible to be saved 2345 . For it is by faith that all things, both human and spiritual, are sustained. For without faith neither does the farmer 2346 cut his furrow, nor does the merchant commit his life to the raging waves of the sea on a small piece of wood, nor are marriages contracted nor any other step in life taken. By faith we consider that all things were brought out of nothing into being by God’s power. And we direct all things, both divine and human, by faith. Further, faith is assent free from all meddlesome inquisitiveness 2347 .
Every action, therefore, and performance of miracles by Christ are most great and divine and marvellous: but the most marvellous of all is His precious Cross. For no other thing has subdued death, expiated the sin of the first parent 2348 , despoiled Hades, bestowed the resurrection, granted the power to us of contemning the present and even death itself, prepared the return to our former blessedness, opened the gates of Paradise 2349 , given our nature a seat at the right hand of God, and made us the children and heirs of God 2350 , save the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. For by the Cross 2351 all things have been made right. So many of us, the apostle says, as were baptized into Christ, were baptized into His death 2352 , and as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ 2353 . Further Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God 2354 . Lo! the death of Christ, that is, the Cross, clothed us with the enhypostatic wisdom and power of God. And the power of God is the Word of the Cross, either because God’s might, that is, the victory over death, has been revealed to us by it, or because, just as the four extremities of the Cross are held fast and bound together by the bolt in the middle, so also by God’s power the height and the depth, the length and the breadth, that is, every creature visible and invisible, is maintained 2355 .
This was given to us as a sign on our forehead, just as the circumcision was given to Israel: for by it we believers are separated and distinguished from unbelievers. This is the shield and weapon against, and trophy over, the devil. This is the seal that the destroyer may not touch you 2356 , as saith the Scripture. This is the resurrection of those lying in death, the support of the standing, the staff of the weak, the rod of the flock, the safe conduct of the earnest, the perfection of those that press forwards, the salvation of soul and body, the aversion of all things evil, the patron of all things good, the taking away of sin, the plant of resurrection, the tree of eternal life.
So, then, this same truly precious and august tree 2357 , on which Christ hath offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sakes, is to be worshipped as sanctified by contact with His holy body and blood; likewise the nails, the spear, the clothes, His sacred tabernacles which are the manger, the cave, Golgotha, which bringeth salvation 2358 , the tomb which giveth life, Sion, the chief stronghold of the churches and the like, are to be worshipped. In the words of David, the father of God 2359 , We shall go into His tabernacles, we shall worship at the place where His feet stood 2360 . And that it is the Cross that is meant is made clear by what follows, Arise, O Lord, into Thy Rest 2361 . For the resurrection comes after the Cross. For if of those things which we love, house and couch and garment, are to be longed after, how much the rather should we long after that which belonged to God, our Saviour 2362 , by means of which we are in truth saved.
Moreover we worship even the image of the precious and life-giving Cross, although made of another tree, not honouring the tree (God forbid) but the image as a symbol of Christ. For He said to His disciples, admonishing them, Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven 2363 , meaning the Cross. And so also the angel of the resurrection said to the woman, Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth which was crucified 2364 . And the Apostle said, We preach Christ crucified 2365 . For there are many Christs and many Jesuses, but one crucified. He does not say speared but crucified. It behoves us, then, to worship the sign of Christ 2366 . For wherever the sign may be, there also will He be. But it does not behove us to worship the material of which the image of the Cross is composed, even though it be gold or precious stones, after it is destroyed, if that should happen. Everything, therefore, that is dedicated to God we worship, conferring the adoration on Him.
The tree of life which was planted by God in Paradise pre-figured this precious Cross. p. 81b For since death was by a tree, it was fitting that life and resurrection should be bestowed by a tree 2367 . Jacob, when He worshipped the top of Joseph’s staff, was the first to image the Cross, and when he blessed his sons with crossed hands 2368 he made most clearly the sign of the cross. Likewise 2369 also did Moses’ rod, when it smote the sea in the figure of the cross and saved Israel, while it overwhelmed Pharaoh in the depths; likewise also the hands stretched out crosswise and routing Amalek; and the bitter water made sweet by a tree, and the rock rent and pouring forth streams of water 2370 , and the rod that meant for Aaron the dignity of the high priesthood 2371 : and the serpent lifted in triumph on a tree as though it were dead 2372 , the tree bringing salvation to those who in faith saw their enemy dead, just as Christ was nailed to the tree in the flesh of sin which yet knew no sin 2373 . The mighty Moses cried 2374 , You will see your life hanging on the tree before your eyes, and Isaiah likewise, I have spread out my hands all the day unto a faithless and rebellious people 2375 . But may we who worship this 2376 obtain a part in Christ the crucified. Amen.
Footnotes
79b:23431 Cor. i. 23.
79b:23441 Cor. 2:14, 15
80b:2345Heb. xi. 6.
80b:2346Basil. in Ps. cxv.
80b:2347Basil, cit. loc.
80b:2348Text, προπάτορος ἁμαρτία. Variant, προπατ. ᾽Αδὰμ ἁμαρτ.
80b:2349Text, ἠνοίχθησαν. Variant, ἠνοίγησαν.
80b:2350Cyril, Hier. catech. i. 14.
80b:2351Text, διὰ σταυροῦ. Variant, δί αὐτοῦ.
80b:2352Rom. vi. 3.
80b:2353Gal. iii. 27.
80b:23541 Cor. i. 24.
80b:2355Basil. in Is. xi.
80b:2356Exod. xii. 23.
80b:2357Cf. Cyril, Contr. Jul., bk. vi.
80b:2358Text, ὁ Γοργοθᾶς, ὁ σωτήριος. Variant, ὁ σταυρός.
80b:2359ὁ θεοπάτωρ Δαβίδ. Cf. Dionysiaster, Ep. 8.
80b:2360Ps. cxxxii. 7.
80b:2361Psa. 132.8.
80b:2362Text, Σωτῆρος. Variant, σταυρός.
80b:2363St. Matt. xxiv. 30.
80b:2364St. Mark xvi. 6.
80b:23651 Cor. i. 23.
80b:2366Text, Χριστοῦ. Variant, σταυροῦ.
81b:2367Gen. 2:0, Gen. 3:0.
81b:2368Heb. xi. 21.
81b:2369Auct., Quæst. ad Antioch., 9, 63.
81b:2370Num. xx.
81b:2371Exod. iv.
81b:2372Exod. 4
81b:2373Text, οὐκ εἰδυί& 139·. Variant, εἰδώς.
81b:2374Iren., bk. v., c 18.
81b:2375Isa. 1:0, Isa. 65:2.
81b:2376Text, τοῦτο. Variants, τοῦτον and τούτῳ.
Chapter XII.—Concerning Worship towards the East.
It is not without reason or by chance that we worship towards the East. But seeing that we are composed of a visible and an invisible nature, that is to say, of a nature partly of spirit and partly of sense, we render also a twofold worship to the Creator; just as we sing both with our spirit and our bodily lips, and are baptized with both water and Spirit, and are united with the Lord in a twofold manner, being sharers in the mysteries and in the grace of the Spirit.
Since, therefore, God 2377 is spiritual light 2378 , and Christ is called in the Scriptures Sun of Righteousness 2379 and Dayspring 2380 , the East is the direction that must be assigned to His worship. For everything good must be assigned to Him from Whom every good thing arises. Indeed the divine David also says, Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth: O sing praises unto the Lord: to Him that rideth upon the Heavens of heavens towards the East 2381 . Moreover the Scripture also says, And God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed 2382 : and when he had transgressed His command He expelled him and made him to dwell over against the delights of Paradise 2383 , which clearly is the West. So, then, we worship God seeking and striving after our old fatherland. Moreover the tent of Moses 2384 had its veil and mercy seat 2385 towards the East. Also the tribe of Judah as the most precious pitched their camp on the East 2386 . Also in the celebrated temple of Solomon the Gate of the Lord was placed eastward. Moreover Christ, when He hung on the Cross, had His face turned towards the West, and so we worship, striving after Him. And when He was received again into Heaven He was borne towards the East, and thus His apostles worship Him, and thus He will come again in the way in which they beheld Him going towards Heaven 2387 ; as the Lord Himself said, As the lightning cometh out of the East and shineth 2388 even unto the West, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be 2389 .
So, then, in expectation of His coming we worship towards the East. But this tradition of the apostles is unwritten. For much that has been handed down to us by tradition is unwritten 2390 .
Footnotes
81b:2377Basil, De Spir. Sanct., c. 27; Alcuin, De Trin. ii. 5; Wal. Strabo, De reb. eccles, c. 4; Hon. August., Gemma Animæ. c. 950.
81b:23781 John 1.5.
81b:2379Mal. iv. 2.
81b:2380Zach. iii. 8, vi. 12; St. Luke i. 78.
81b:2381Ps. 68:32, 33.
81b:2382Gen. ii. 8.
81b:2383Text, ὃν παραβάντα ἐξώρισεν, ἀπέναντί τε τοῦ Παραδείσου τῆς τρυφης κατῴκισεν . Variants, ὃν παραβάντα, τῆς τρυφῆς ἐξώρισεν, and ὃν παραβάντα, τοῦ παραδείσου τῆς τρυφῆς ἐξώρισεν, ἀπέναντί τε τοῦ παραδείσου κατῴκισεν.
81b:2384Levit. xvi. 14.
81b:2385Lev. 16.2.
81b:2386Num. ii. 3.
81b:2387Acts i. 11.
81b:2388Text, φαίνεται. Variant, φθάνει. The old translation gives occupat.
81b:2389St. Matt. xxiv. 27.
81b:2390Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, ch. 27.
Chapter XIII.—Concerning the holy and immaculate Mysteries of the Lord.
God 2391 Who is good and altogether good and more than good, Who is goodness throughout, by reason of the exceeding riches of His goodness did not suffer Himself, that is His nature, only to be good, with no other to participate therein, but because of this He made first the spiritual and heavenly powers: next the visible and sensible universe: next man with his spiritual and sentient nature. All things, therefore, which he made, share in His goodness in respect of their existence. For He Himself is existence to all, since all things that are, are in Him 2392 , not only because it was He that brought them out of nothing into being, but because His energy preserves and maintains all that He made: and in especial the living creatures. For both in that they exist and in that they p. 82b enjoy life they share in His goodness. But in truth those of them that have reason have a still greater share in that, both because of what has been already said and also because of the very reason which they possess. For they are somehow more dearly akin to Him, even though He is incomparably higher than they.
Man, however, being endowed with reason and free will, received the power of continuous union with God through his own choice, if indeed he should abide in goodness, that is in obedience to his Maker. Since, however, he transgressed the command of his Creator and became liable to death and corruption, the Creator and Maker of our race, because of His bowels of compassion, took on our likeness, becoming man in all things but without sin, and was united to our nature 2393 . For since He bestowed on us His own image and His own spirit and we did not keep them safe, He took Himself a share in our poor and weak nature, in order that He might cleanse us and make us incorruptible, and establish us once more as partakers of His divinity.
For it was fitting that not only the first-fruits of our nature should partake in the higher good but every man who wished it, and that a second birth should take place and that the nourishment should be new and suitable to the birth and thus the measure of perfection be attained. Through His birth, that is, His incarnation, and baptism and passion and resurrection, He delivered our nature from the sin of our first parent and death and corruption, and became the first-fruits of the resurrection, and made Himself the way and image and pattern, in order that we, too, following in His footsteps, may become by adoption what He is Himself by nature 2394 , sons and heirs of God and joint heirs with Him 2395 . He gave us therefore, as I said, a second birth in order that, just as we who are born of Adam are in his image and are the heirs of the curse and corruption, so also being born of Him we may be in His likeness and heirs 2396 of His incorruption and blessing and glory.
Now seeing that this Adam is spiritual, it was meet that both the birth and likewise the food should be spiritual too, but since we are of a double and compound nature, it is meet that both the birth should be double and likewise the food compound. We were therefore given a birth by water and Spirit: I mean, by the holy baptism 2397 : and the food is the very bread of life, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who came down from heaven 2398 . For when He was about to take on Himself a voluntary death for our sakes, on the night on which He gave Himself up, He laid a new covenant on His holy disciples and apostles, and through them on all who believe on Him. In the upper chamber, then, of holy and illustrious Sion, after He had eaten the ancient Passover with His disciples and had fulfilled the ancient covenant, He washed His disciples’ feet 2399 in token of the holy baptism. Then having broken bread He gave it to them saying, Take, eat, this is My body broken for you for the remission of sins 2400 . Likewise also He took the cup of wine and water and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it: for this is My blood, the blood of the New Testament which is shed for you for the remission of sins. This do ye in remembrance of Me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the death of the Son of man and confess His resurrection until He come 2401 .
If then the Word of God is quick and energising 2402 , and the Lord did all that He willed 2403 ; if He said, Let there be light and there was light, let there be a firmament and there was a firmament 2404 ; if the heavens were established by the Word of the Lord and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth 2405 ; if the heaven and the earth, water and fire and air and the whole glory of these, and, in sooth, this most noble creature, man, were perfected by the Word of the Lord; if God the Word of His own will became man and the pure and undefiled blood of the holy and ever-virginal One made His flesh without the aid of seed 2406 , can He not then make the bread His body and the wine and water His blood? He said in the beginning, Let the earth bring forth grass 2407 , and even until this present day, when the rain comes it brings forth its proper fruits, urged on and strengthened by the divine command. God said, This is My body, and This is My blood, and this do ye in remembrance of Me. And so it is at His omnipotent command until He come: for it was in this sense that He said until He come: and the overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit becomes through the invocation the rain to this new tillage 2408 . For just as God made all that He made by the energy of the Holy Spirit, so also now the energy of the p. 83b Spirit performs those things that are supernatural and which it is not possible to comprehend unless by faith alone. How shall this be, said the holy Virgin, seeing I know not a man? And the archangel Gabriel answered her: The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee 2409 . And now you ask, how the bread became Christ’s body and the wine and water Christ’s blood. And I say unto thee, “The Holy Spirit is present and does those things which surpass reason and thought.”
Further, bread and wine 2410 are employed: for God knoweth man’s infirmity: for in general man turns away discontentedly from what is not well-worn by custom: and so with His usual indulgence He performs His supernatural works through familiar objects: and just as, in the case of baptism, since it is man’s custom to wash himself with water and anoint himself with oil, He connected the grace of the Spirit with the oil and the water and made it the water of regeneration, in like manner since it is man’s custom to eat and to drink water and wine 2411 , He connected His divinity with these and made them His body and blood in order that we may rise to what is supernatural through what is familiar and natural.
The body which is born of the holy Virgin is in truth body united with divinity, not that the body which was received up into the heavens descends, but that the bread itself and the wine are changed into God’s body and blood 2412 . But if you enquire how this happens, it is enough for you to learn that it was through the Holy Spirit, just as the Lord took on Himself flesh that subsisted in Him and was born of the holy Mother of God through the Spirit. And we know nothing further save that the Word of God is true and energises and is omnipotent, but the manner of this cannot be searched out 2413 . But one can put it well thus, that just as in nature the bread by the eating and the wine and the water by the drinking are changed into the body and blood of the eater and drinker, and do not 2414 become a different body from the former one, so the bread of the table 2415 and the wine and water are supernaturally changed by the invocation and presence of the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of Christ, and are not two but one 2416 and the same.
Wherefore to those who partake worthily with faith, it is for the remission of sins and for life everlasting and for the safeguarding of soul and body; but to those who partake unworthily without faith, it is for chastisement and punishment, just as also the death of the Lord became to those who believe life and incorruption for the enjoyment of eternal blessedness, while to those who do not believe and to the murderers of the Lord it is for everlasting chastisement and punishment.
The bread and the wine are not merely figures of the body and blood of Christ (God forbid!) but the deified body of the Lord itself: for the Lord has said, “This is My body,” not, this is a figure of My body: and “My blood,” not, a figure of My blood. And on a previous occasion He had said to the Jews, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. For My flesh is meat indeed and My blood is drink indeed. And again, He that eateth Me, shall live 2417 2418 .
Wherefore with all fear and a pure conscience and certain faith let us draw near and it will assuredly be to us as we believe, doubting nothing. Let us pay homage to it in all purity both of soul and body: for it is twofold. Let us draw near to it with an ardent desire, and with our hands held in the form of the cross 2419 let us receive the body of the Crucified One: and let us apply our eyes and lips and brows and partake of the divine coal, in order that the fire of the longing, that is in us, with the additional heat derived from the coal may utterly consume our sins and illumine our hearts, and that we may be inflamed and deified by the participation in the divine fire. Isaiah saw the coal 2420 . But coal is not plain wood but wood united with fire: in like manner also the bread of the communion 2421 is not plain bread but bread united with divinity. But a body 2422 which is united with divinity is not one nature, but has one nature belonging to the body and another belonging to the divinity that is united to it, so that the compound is not one nature but two.
With bread and wine Melchisedek, the priest of the most high God, received Abraham on his return from the slaughter of the Gentiles 2423 . That table pre-imaged this mystical table, just as that priest was a type and image of Christ, the true high-priest 2424 . For thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedek 2425 . Of this p. 84b bread the show-bread was an image 2426 . This surely is that pure and bloodless sacrifice which the Lord through the prophet said is offered to Him from the rising to the setting of the sun 2427 .
The body and blood of Christ are making for the support of our soul and body, without being consumed or suffering corruption, not making for the draught (God forbid!) but for our being and preservation, a protection against all kinds of injury, a purging from all uncleanness: should one receive base gold, they purify it by the critical burning lest in the future we be condemned with this world. They purify from diseases and all kinds of calamities; according to the words of the divine Apostle 2428 , For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. This too is what he says, So that he that partaketh of the body and blood of Christ unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself 2429 . Being purified by this, we are united to the body of Christ and to His Spirit and become the body of Christ.
This bread is the first-fruits 2430 of the future bread which is ἐπιούσιος, i.e. necessary for existence. For the word ἐπιούσιον signifies either the future, that is Him Who is for a future age, or else Him of Whom we partake for the preservation of our essence. Whether then it is in this sense or that, it is fitting to speak so of the Lord’s body. For the Lord’s flesh is life-giving spirit because it was conceived of the life-giving Spirit. For what is born of the Spirit is spirit. But I do not say this to take away the nature of the body, but I wish to make clear its life-giving and divine power 2431 .
But if some persons called the bread and the wine antitypes 2432 of the body and blood of the Lord, as did the divinely inspired Basil, they said so not after the consecration but before the consecration, so calling the offering itself.
Participation is spoken of; for through it we partake of the divinity of Jesus. Communion, too, is spoken of, and it is an actual communion, because through it we have communion with Christ and share in His flesh and His divinity: yea, we have communion and are united with one another through it. For since we partake of one bread, we all become one body of Christ and one blood, and members one of another, being of one body with Christ.
With all our strength, therefore, let us beware lest we receive communion from or grant it to heretics; Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, saith the Lord, neither cast ye your pearls before swine 2433 , lest we become partakers in their dishonour and condemnation. For if union is in truth with Christ and with one another, we are assuredly voluntarily united also with all those who partake with us. For this union is effected voluntarily and not against our inclination. For we are all one body because we partake of the one bread, as the divine Apostle says 2434 .
Further, antitypes of future things are spoken of, not as though they were not in reality Christ’s body and blood, but that now through them we partake of Christ’s divinity, while then we shall partake mentally 2435 through the vision alone.
Footnotes
81b:2391Greg. Naz., Orat. 42; Dion. De div. nom., ch. 3.
81b:2392Rom. xi. 36.
82b:2393Heb. ii. 17.
82b:2394Rom. vii. 17.
82b:2395Variant, φύσει καὶ κληρονόμοι τῆς αὐτοῦ γενώμεθα χάριτος, και αὐτου υἰοι, καὶ συγκληρονόμοι.
82b:2396Text, κληρονομήσωμεν. Variant, κληρονομήσαντες.
82b:2397Chrys. in Matt., Hom. 83; St. John iii. 3.
82b:2398St. John vi. 48.
82b:2399John 6.13.
82b:2400St. Matt. xxvi. 26; Liturg. S. Jacobi.
82b:2401Matt. 26:27, 28, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19, 20, 1 Cor. 11:24.
82b:2402Heb. iv. 12.
82b:2403Ps. cxxxv. 6.
82b:2404Gen. 1:3, 6.
82b:2405Ps. xxxiii. 6.
82b:2406Text, καὶ τὰ τῆς...καθαρὰ καὶ ἀμώμητα αἵματα ἑαυτῷ. Variant, καὶ ἐκ τῶν τῆς...καθαρῶν καὶ ἀμωμήτων αἱμάτων ἑαυτῳ.
82b:2407Gen. i. 11.
82b:2408Iren.,bk. iv., ch. 35; Fulg., Ad Monim., bk. ii., ch. 6; Chrys., De prod. Judæ; Greg. Nyss., Catech., &c.
83b:2409St. Luke 1:34, 35.
83b:2410Nyss., Orat., Catech., ch. 37.
83b:2411Clem., Constit., bk. viii.; Justin Martyr., Apol. i.; Iren., v. 2.
83b:2412Greg. Nyss., Orat. Catech., c. 37.
83b:2413Simile Nyss. loc. cit.
83b:2414οὐ is absent in some mss.
83b:2415The Greek is ὁ τῆς προθέσεως οἶνος, the bread of the prothesis. It is rendered panis propositionis in the old translations. These phrases designate the Shewbread in the LXX. and the Vulgate. The πρόθεσις is explained as a smaller table placed on the right side of the altar, on which the priests make ready the bread and the cup for consecration. See the note in Migne.
83b:2416See Niceph., C.P., Antirr. ii. 3.
83b:2417St. John vi. 51-55.
83b:2418ζωὴν αἰ& 240·νιον is added in many mss.
83b:2419Cyril Hierosol., Cat. Mystag. 5; Chrys. Hom. 3 in Epist. ad Ephes.; Trull. can. 101.
83b:2420Is. vi. 6.
83b:2421See Cyril Alex. on Isaiah vi.
83b:2422Vide Basil, ibid.
83b:2423Gen. xiv. 18.
83b:2424Lev. xiv.
83b:2425Ps. cx. 4.
84b:2426Text, εἰκόνιζον. Variant, εἰκονίζουσι.
84b:2427Mal. i. 11.
84b:24281 Cor. 11:31, 32.
84b:24291 Cor. 11.29.
84b:2430Cyril, loc. cit.
84b:2431St. John vi. 63.
84b:2432Anastas., Hodegus, ch. 23.
84b:2433St. Matt. vii. 6.
84b:24341 Cor. x. 17.
84b:2435Text, νοητῶς διὰ μόνῆς τῆς Θέας: νοητῶς is wanting in some Reg. 2928 having διὰ μόνης τῆς Θείας ἑνώσεως.
Chapter XIV.—Concerning our Lord’s genealogy and concerning the holy Mother of God 2436 .
Concerning the holy and much-lauded ever-virgin one, Mary, the Mother of God, we have said something in the preceding chapters, bringing forward what was most opportune, viz., that strictly and truly she is and is called the Mother of God. Now let us fill up the blanks. For she being pre-ordained by the eternal prescient counsel of God and imaged forth and proclaimed in diverse images and discourses of the prophets through the Holy Spirit, sprang at the pre-determined time from the root of David, according to the promises that were made to him. For the Lord hath sworn, He saith in truth to David, He will not turn from it: of the fruit of Thy body will I set upon Thy throne 2437 . And again, Once have I sworn by My holiness, that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure for ever, and His throne as the sun before Me. It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven 2438 . And Isaiah says: And there shall come out a rod out of the stem of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots 2439 .
But that Joseph is descended from the tribe of David is expressly demonstrated by Matthew and Luke, the most holy evangelists. But Matthew derives Joseph from David through Solomon, while Luke does so through Nathan; while over the holy Virgin’s origin both pass in silence.
One ought to remember that it was not the custom of the Hebrews nor of the divine Scripture to give genealogies of women; and p. 85b the law was to prevent one tribe seeking wives from another 2440 . And so since Joseph was descended from the tribe of David and was a just man (for this the divine Gospel testifies), he would not have espoused the holy Virgin contrary to the law; he would not have taken her unless she had been of the same tribe 2441 . It was sufficient, therefore, to demonstrate the descent of Joseph.
One ought also to observe 2442 this, that the law was that when a man died without seed, this man’s brother should take to wife the wife of the dead man and raise up seed to his brother 2443 . The offspring, therefore, belonged by nature to the second, that is, to him that begat it, but by law to the dead.
Born then of the line of Nathan, the son of David, Levi begat Melchi 2444 and Panther: Panther begat Barpanther, so called. This Barpanther begat Joachim: Joachim begat the holy Mother of God 2445 2446 . And of the line of Solomon, the son of David, Mathan had a wife 2447 of whom he begat Jacob. Now on the death of Mathan, Melchi, of the tribe of Nathan, the son of Levi and brother of Panther, married the wife of Mathan, Jacob’s mother, of whom he begat Heli. Therefore Jacob and Heli became brothers on the mother’s side, Jacob being of the tribe of Solomon and Heli of the tribe of Nathan. Then Heli of the tribe of Nathan died childless, and Jacob his brother, of the tribe of Solomon, took his wife and raised up seed to his brother and begat Joseph. Joseph, therefore, is by nature the son of Jacob, of the line of Solomon, but by law he is the son of Heli of the line of Nathan.
Joachim then 2448 took to wife that revered and praiseworthy woman, Anna. But just as the earlier Anna 2449 , who was barren, bore Samuel by prayer and by promise, so also this Anna by supplication and promise from God bare the Mother of God in order that she might not even in this be behind the matrons of fame 2450 . Accordingly it was grace (for this is the interpretation of Anna) that bore the lady: (for she became truly the Lady of all created things in becoming the Mother of the Creator). Further, Joachim 2451 was born in the house of the Probatica 2452 , and was brought up to the temple. Then planted in the House of God and increased by the Spirit, like a fruitful olive tree, she became the home of every virtue, turning her mind away from every secular and carnal desire, and thus keeping her soul as well as her body virginal, as was meet for her who was to receive God into her bosom: for as He is holy, He finds rest among the holy 2453 . Thus, therefore, she strove after holiness, and was declared a holy and wonderful temple fit for the most high God.
Moreover, since the enemy of our salvation was keeping a watchful eye on virgins, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, who said, Behold a virgin shall conceive and bare a Son and shall call His name Emmanuel, which is, being interpreted, ‘God with us 2454 ,’ in order that he who taketh the wise in their own craftiness 2455 may deceive him who always glorieth in his wisdom, the maiden is given in marriage to Joseph by the priests, a new book to him who is versed in letters 2456 : but the marriage was both the protection of the virgin and the delusion of him who was keeping a watchful eye on virgins. But when the fulness of time was come, the messenger of the Lord was sent to her, with the good news of our Lord’s conception. And thus she conceived the Son of God, the hypostatic power of the Father, not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man 2457 , that is to say, by connection and seed, but by the good pleasure of the Father and co-operation of the Holy Spirit. She ministered to the Creator in that He was created, to the Fashioner in that He was fashioned, and to the Son of God and God in that He was made flesh and became man from her pure and immaculate flesh and blood, satisfying the debt of the first mother. For just as the latter was formed from Adam without connection, so also did the former bring forth the new Adam, who was brought forth in accordance with the laws of parturition and above the nature of generation.
For He who was of the Father, yet without mother, was born of woman without a father’s co-operation. And so far as He was born of woman, His birth was in accordance with the laws of parturition, while so far as He had no father, His birth was above the nature of generation: and in that it was at the usual time (for He was born on the completion of the ninth month when the tenth was just beginning), His birth was in accordance with the laws of parturition, while in that it was painless it was above the laws of generation. For, as pleasure did not precede p. 86b it, pain did not follow it, according to the prophet who says, Before she travailed, she brought forth, and again, before her pain came she was delivered of a man-child 2458 . The Son of God incarnate, therefore, was born of her, not a divinely-inspired 2459 man but God incarnate; not a prophet anointed with energy but by the presence of the anointing One in His completeness, so that the Anointer became man and the Anointed God, not by a change of nature but by union in subsistence. For the Anointer and the Anointed were one and the same, anointing in the capacity of God Himself as man. Must there not therefore be a Mother of God who bore God incarnate? Assuredly she who played the part of the Creator’s servant and mother is in all strictness and truth in reality God’s Mother and Lady and Queen over all created things. But just as He who was conceived kept her who conceived still virgin, in like manner also He who was born preserved her virginity intact, only passing through her and keeping her closed 2460 . The conception, indeed, was through the sense of hearing, but the birth through the usual path by which children come, although some tell tales of His birth through the side of the Mother of God. For it was not impossible for Him to have come by this gate, without injuring her seal in anyway.
The ever-virgin One thus remains even after the birth still virgin, having never at any time up till death consorted with a man. For although it is written, And knew her not till she had brought forth her first-born Son 2461 , yet note that he who is first-begotten is first-born even if he is only-begotten. For the word “first-born” means that he was born first but does not at all suggest the birth of others. And the word “till” signifies the limit of the appointed time but does not exclude the time thereafter. For the Lord says, And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world 2462 , not meaning thereby that He will be separated from us after the completion of the age. The divine apostle, indeed, says, And so shall we ever be with the Lord 2463 , meaning after the general resurrection.
For could it be possible that she, who had borne God and from experience of the subsequent events had come to know the miracle, should receive the embrace of a man. God forbid! It is not the part of a chaste mind to think such thoughts, far less to commit such acts.
But this blessed woman, who was deemed worthy of gifts that are supernatural, suffered those pains, which she escaped at the birth, in the hour of the passion, enduring from motherly sympathy the rending of the bowels, and when she beheld Him, Whom she knew to be God by the manner of His generation, killed as a malefactor, her thoughts pierced her as a sword, and this is the meaning of this verse: Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also 2464 2465 . But the joy of the resurrection transforms the pain, proclaiming Him, Who died in the flesh, to be God.
Footnotes
84b:2436In Reg. 2428 is added καὶ ᾽Ιωσὴφ τοῦ μνήστορος.
84b:2437Ps. cxxxii. 11.
84b:2438Psa. 89.35-37.
84b:2439Is. xi. 1.
85b:2440Num. xxxvi. 6 seqq.
85b:2441σκήπτρου.
85b:2442Cf. Julius Afric., Ep. ad Aristidem, cited in Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. i. 7.
85b:2443Deut. xxv. 5.
85b:2444See the note in Migne.
85b:2445Text, τὴν ἅγιαν Θεοτόκον. Variant, τὴν ἅγιαν ῎Ανναν.
85b:2446St. Luke iii. 24 seqq.
85b:2447R. 2926 adds “Ethan,” the name being taken from Julius Africanus.
85b:2448Epiph., Hæres. 79.
85b:24491 Sam. i. 2.
85b:2450Greg. Nyss., Orat. in nativ. Dom.: Eustath. in Hexaëm.
85b:2451Epiph., Hæres. 79.
85b:2452τῆς προβατικῆς, the Sheep-gate.
85b:2453Ps. 18:25, 26.
85b:2454Isa. 7:14, Matt. 1:23.
85b:24551 Cor. 3:19, Job 5:13.
85b:2456Is. xxix. 11.
85b:2457St. John i. 13.
86b:2458Is. lxvi. 7.
86b:2459θεοφόρος.
86b:2460Ezek. xliv. 2.
86b:2461St. Matt. i. 25.
86b:2462Matt. 28.20.
86b:24631 Thess. iv. 17.
86b:2464St. Luke ii. 35.
86b:2465In R. 2926 is added, ὅπερ αὐτῇ προείρηκεν ὁ Θεοδόχος Συμεὼν, τὸν Κύριον ἐναγκαλισάμενος.
Chapter XV.—Concerning the honour due to the Saints and their remains.
To the saints honour must be paid as friends of Christ, as sons and heirs of God: in the words of John the theologian and evangelist, As many as received Him, to them gave He power to became sons of God 2466 . So that they are no longer servants, but sons: and if sons, also heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ 2467 : and the Lord in the holy Gospels says to His apostles, Ye are My friends 2468 . Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth 2469 . And further, if the Creator and Lord of all things is called also King of Kings and Lord of Lords 2470 and God of Gods, surely also the saints are gods and lords and kings. For of these God is and is called God and Lord and King. For I am the God of Abraham, He said to Moses, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob 2471 . And God made Moses a god to Pharaoh 2472 . Now I mean gods and kings and lords not in nature, but as rulers and masters of their passions, and as preserving a truthful likeness to the divine image according to which they were made (for the image of a king is also called king), and as being united to God of their own free-will and receiving Him as an indweller and becoming by grace through participation with Him what He is Himself by nature. Surely, then, the worshippers and friends and sons of God are to be held in honour? For the honour shewn to the most thoughtful of fellow-servants is a proof of good feeling towards the common Master 2473 .
These are made treasuries and pure habitations of God: For I will dwell in them, p. 87b said God, and walk in them, and I will be their God 2474 . The divine Scripture likewise saith that the souls of the just are in God’s hand 2475 and death cannot lay hold of them. For death is rather the sleep of the saints than their death. For they travailed in this life and shall to the end 2476 , and Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints 2477 . What then, is more precious than to be in the hand of God? For God is Life and Light, and those who are in God’s hand are in life and light.
Further, that God dwelt even in their bodies in spiritual wise 2478 , the Apostle tells us, saying, Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you? 2479 , and The Lord is that Spirit 2480 , and If any one destroy the temple of God, him will God destroy 2481 . Surely, then, we must ascribe honour to the living temples of God, the living tabernacles of God. These while they lived stood with confidence before God.
The Master Christ made the remains of the saints to be fountains of salvation to us, pouring forth manifold blessings and abounding in oil of sweet fragrance: and let no one disbelieve this 2482 . For if water burst in the desert from the steep and solid rock at God’s will 2483 and from the jaw-bone of an ass to quench Samson’s thirst 2484 , is it incredible that fragrant oil should burst forth from the martyrs’ remains? By no means, at least to those who know the power of God and the honour which He accords His saints.
In the law every one who toucheth a dead body was considered impure 2485 , but these are not dead. For from the time when He that is Himself life and the Author of life was reckoned among the dead, we do not call those dead who have fallen asleep in the hope of the resurrection and in faith on Him. For how could a dead body work miracles? How, therefore, are demons driven off by them, diseases dispelled, sick persons made well, the blind restored to sight, lepers purified, temptations and troubles overcome, and how does every good gift from the Father of lights 2486 come down through them to those who pray with sure faith? How much labour would you not undergo to find a patron to introduce you to a mortal king and speak to him on your behalf? Are not those, then, worthy of honour who are the patrons of the whole race, and make intercession to God for us? Yea, verily, we ought to give honour to them by raising temples to God in their name, bringing them fruit-offerings, honouring their memories and taking spiritual delight in them, in order that the joy of those who call on us may be ours, that in our attempts at worship we may not on the contrary cause them offence. For those who worship God will take pleasure in those things whereby God is worshipped, while His shield-bearers will be wrath at those things wherewith God is wroth. In psalms and hymns and spiritual songs 2487 , in contrition and in pity for the needy, let us believers 2488 worship the saints, as God also is most worshipped in such wise. Let us raise monuments to them and visible images, and let us ourselves become, through imitation of their virtues, living monuments and images of them. Let us give honour to her who bore God as being strictly and truly the Mother of God. Let us honour also the prophet John as forerunner and baptist 2489 , as apostle and martyr, For among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist 2490 , as saith the Lord, and he became the first to proclaim the Kingdom. Let us honour the apostles as the Lord’s brothers, who saw Him face to face and ministered to His passion, for whom God the Father did foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son 2491 , first apostles, second prophets 2492 , third pastors and teachers 2493 . Let us also honour the martyrs of the Lord chosen out of every class, as soldiers of Christ who have drunk His cup and were then baptized with the baptism of His life-bringing death, to be partakers of His passion and glory: of whom the leader is Stephen, the first deacon of Christ and apostle and first martyr. Also let us honour our holy fathers, the God-possessed ascetics, whose struggle was the longer and more toilsome one of the conscience: who wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented; they wandered in deserts and in mountains and in dens and caves of the earth, of whom the world was not worthy 2494 . Let us honour those who were prophets before grace, the patriarchs and just men who foretold the Lord’s coming. Let us carefully review the life of these men, and let us emulate their faith 2495 and love and hope and zeal and way of life, and endurance of sufferings and patience even to blood, in order that we may be sharers with them in their crowns of glory.
Footnotes
86b:2466St. John i. 12.
86b:2467Gal. 4:7, Rom. 8:17.
86b:2468St. John xv. 14.
86b:2469John 15.15.
86b:2470Rev. 19.16.
86b:2471Ex. iii. 6.
86b:2472Exod. 7.1.
86b:2473Basil, Orat. in 40 Martyr.
87b:2474Lev. 26:12, 2 Cor. 6:16.
87b:2475Wisd. iii. 1.
87b:2476Ps. 40:9, 10.
87b:2477Psa. 116.15.
87b:2478διὰ τοῦ νοῦ.
87b:24791 Cor. iii. 16.
87b:24802 Cor. iii. 17.
87b:24811 Cor. iii. 17.
87b:2482Aster., Hom. in SS. Mart.
87b:2483Ex. xvii. 6.
87b:2484Judg. xv. 17.
87b:2485Num. xix. 11.
87b:2486Jas. i. 17.
87b:2487Ephes. v. 19.
87b:2488Text, πιστοί. Variant, πίστει in Reg. 1.
87b:2489Almost all read τὸν πρόδρομον ᾽Ιωάννην, ὡς προφήτην, &c.
87b:2490St. Matt. xi. 11.
87b:2491Rom. viii. 29.
87b:24921 Cor. xii. 24.
87b:2493Ephes. iv. 11.
87b:2494Heb. 11:37, 38.
87b:2495Heb. 13.7.
p. 88b Chapter XVI.—Concerning Images 2496 .
But since some 2497 find fault with us for worshipping and honouring the image of our Saviour and that of our Lady, and those, too, of the rest of the saints and servants of Christ, let them remember that in the beginning God created man after His own image 2498 . On what grounds, then, do we shew reverence to each other unless because we are made after God’s image? For as Basil, that much-versed expounder of divine things, says, the honour given to the image passes over to the prototype 2499 . Now a prototype is that which is imaged, from which the derivative is obtained. Why was it that the Mosaic people honoured on all hands the tabernacle 2500 which bore an image and type of heavenly things, or rather of the whole creation? God indeed said to Moses, Look that thou make them after their pattern which was shewed thee in the mount 2501 . The Cherubim, too, which o’ershadow the mercy seat, are they not the work of men’s hands 2502 ? What, further, is the celebrated temple at Jerusalem? Is it not hand-made and fashioned by the skill of men 2503 ?
Moreover the divine Scripture blames those who worship graven images, but also those who sacrifice to demons. The Greeks sacrificed and the Jews also sacrificed: but the Greeks to demons and the Jews to God. And the sacrifice of the Greeks was rejected and condemned, but the sacrifice of the just was very acceptable to God. For Noah sacrificed, and God smelled a sweet savour 2504 , receiving the fragrance of the right choice and good-will towards Him. And so the graven images of the Greeks, since they were images of deities, were rejected and forbidden.
But besides this who can make an imitation of the invisible, incorporeal, uncircumscribed, formless God? Therefore to give form to the Deity is the height of folly and impiety. And hence it is that in the Old Testament the use of images was not common. But after God 2505 in His bowels of pity became in truth man for our salvation, not as He was seen by Abraham in the semblance of a man, nor as He was seen by the prophets, but in being truly man, and after He lived upon the earth and dwelt among men 2506 , worked miracles, suffered, was crucified, rose again and was taken back to Heaven, since all these things actually took place and were seen by men, they were written for the remembrance and instruction of us who were not alive at that time in order that though we saw not, we may still, hearing and believing, obtain the blessing of the Lord. But seeing that not every one has a knowledge of letters nor time for reading, the Fathers gave their sanction to depicting these events on images as being acts of great heroism, in order that they should form a concise memorial of them. Often, doubtless, when we have not the Lord’s passion in mind and see the image of Christ’s crucifixion, His saving passion is brought back to remembrance, and we fall down and worship not the material but that which is imaged: just as we do not worship the material of which the Gospels are made, nor the material of the Cross, but that which these typify. For wherein does the cross, that typifies the Lord, differ from a cross that does not do so? It is just the same also in the case of the Mother of the Lord. For the honour which we give to her is referred to Him Who was made of her incarnate. And similarly also the brave acts of holy men stir us up to be brave and to emulate and imitate their valour and to glorify God. For as we said, the honour that is given to the best of fellow-servants is a proof of good-will towards our common Lady, and the honour rendered to the image passes over to the prototype 2507 . But this is an unwritten tradition 2508 , just as is also the worshipping towards the East and the worship of the Cross, and very many other similar things.
A certain tale 2509 , too, is told 2510 , how that when Augarus 2511 was king over the city of the Edessenes, he sent a portrait painter to paint a likeness of the Lord, and when the painter could not paint because of the brightness that shone from His countenance, the Lord Himself put a garment over His own divine and life-giving face and impressed on it an image of Himself and sent this to Augarus, to satisfy thus his desire.
Moreover that the Apostles handed down much that was unwritten, Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, tells us in these words: Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught of us, whether by word or by epistle 2512 . And to the Corinthians he writes, Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the traditions as I have delivered them to you 2513 .”
Footnotes
88b:2496Some mss. have the title “Concerning the adoration of the august and holy images,” or “Concerning the holy and sacred images,” or “Concerning holy images.”
88b:2497Cf. Petavius, Theol. Dogm. xv., ch. 12.
88b:2498Gen. i. 26.
88b:2499Basil, De Spir. Sancto, ch. 18.
88b:2500Ex. xxxiii. 10.
88b:2501Exod. 25:40, Heb. 8:5.
88b:2502Ex. xxv. 18.
88b:25031 Kings viii.
88b:2504Gen. viii. 21.
88b:2505John 1:14, Titus 3:4.
88b:2506Bar. iii. 38.
88b:2507Basil, in 40 Mart: also De Spir. Sancto, ch. 27.
88b:2508Cf. August., Contr. Donatist., bk. iv.
88b:2509Evagr., Hist. iv., ch. 27.
88b:2510Procop., De Bellis, ii. ch. 12.
88b:2511i.e. Abgarus.
88b:25122 Thess. ii. 15.
88b:25131 Cor. xi. 2.
p. 89b Chapter XVII.—Concerning Scripture 2514 .
It is one and the same God Whom both the Old and the New Testament proclaim, Who is praised and glorified in the Trinity: I am come, saith the Lord, not to destroy the law but to fulfil it 2515 . For He Himself worked out our salvation for which all Scripture and all mystery exists. And again, Search the Scriptures for they are they that testify of Me 2516 . And the Apostle says, God, Who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son 2517 . Through the Holy Spirit, therefore, both the law and the prophets, the evangelists and apostles and pastors and teachers, spake.
All Scripture, then, is given by inspiration of God and is also assuredly profitable 2518 . Wherefore to search the Scriptures is a work most fair and most profitable for souls. For just as the tree planted by the channels of waters, so also the soul watered by the divine Scripture is enriched and gives fruit in its season 2519 , viz. orthodox belief, and is adorned with evergreen leafage, I mean, actions pleasing to God. For through the Holy Scriptures we are trained to action that is pleasing to God, and untroubled contemplation. For in these we find both exhortation to every virtue and dissuasion from every vice. If, therefore, we are lovers of learning, we shall also be learned in many things. For by care and toil and the grace of God the Giver, all things are accomplished. For every one that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened 2520 . Wherefore let us knock at that very fair garden of the Scriptures, so fragrant and sweet and blooming, with its varied sounds of spiritual and divinely-inspired birds ringing all round our ears, laying hold of our hearts, comforting the mourner, pacifying the angry and filling him with joy everlasting: which sets our mind on the gold-gleaming, brilliant back of the divine dove 2521 , whose bright pinions bear up to the only-begotten Son and Heir of the Husbandman 2522 of that spiritual Vineyard and bring us through Him to the Father of Lights 2523 . But let us not knock carelessly but rather zealously and constantly: lest knocking we grow weary. For thus it will be opened to us. If we read once or twice and do not understand what we read, let us not grow weary, but let us persist, let us talk much, let us enquire. For ask thy Father, he saith, and He will shew thee: thy elders and they will tell thee 2524 . For there is not in every man that knowledge 2525 . Let us draw of the fountain of the garden perennial and purest waters springing into life eternal 2526 . Here let us luxuriate, let us revel insatiate: for the Scriptures possess inexhaustible grace. But if we are able to pluck anything profitable from outside sources, there is nothing to forbid that. Let us become tried money-dealers, heaping up the true and pure gold and discarding the spurious. Let us keep the fairest sayings but let us throw to the dogs absurd gods and strange myths: for we might prevail most mightily against them through themselves.
Observe, further 2527 , that there are two and twenty books of the Old Testament, one for each letter of the Hebrew tongue. For there are twenty-two letters of which five are double, and so they come to be twenty-seven. For the letters Caph, Mem, Nun, Pe 2528 , Sade are double. And thus the number of the books in this way is twenty-two, but is found to be twenty-seven because of the double character of five. For Ruth is joined on to Judges, and the Hebrews count them one book: the first and second books of Kings are counted one: and so are the third and fourth books of Kings: and also the first and second of Paraleipomena: and the first and second of Esdra. In this way, then, the books are collected together in four Pentateuchs and two others remain over, to form thus the canonical books. Five of them are of the Law, viz. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. This which is the code of the Law, constitutes the first Pentateuch. Then comes another Pentateuch, the so-called Grapheia 2529 , or as they are called by some, the Hagiographa, which are the following: Jesus the Son of Nave 2530 , Judges along with Ruth, first and second Kings, which are one book, third and fourth Kings, which are one book, and the two books of the Paraleipomena 2531 which are one book. This is the second Pentateuch. The third Pentateuch is the books in verse, viz. Job, Psalms, Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes of Solomon and the Song of Songs of Solomon. The fourth Pentateuch is the Prophetical books, viz the twelve prophets constituting one book, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. Then come the two books of Esdra made into one, and Esther 2532 . There p. 90b are also the Panaretus, that is the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Jesus, which was published in Hebrew by the father of Sirach, and afterwards translated into Greek by his grandson, Jesus, the Son of Sirach. These are virtuous and noble, but are not counted nor were they placed in the ark.
The New Testament contains four gospels, that according to Matthew, that according to Mark, that according to Luke, that according to John: the Acts of the Holy Apostles by Luke the Evangelist: seven catholic epistles, viz. one of James, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude: fourteen letters of the Apostle Paul: the Revelation of John the Evangelist: the Canons 2533 of the holy apostles 2534 , by Clement.
Footnotes
89b:2514This chapter is wanting in Cod. R. 3547.
89b:2515St. Matt. v. 17.
89b:2516St. John v. 39.
89b:2517Heb. 1:1, 2.
89b:25182 Tim. iii. 16.
89b:2519Ps. i. 3.
89b:2520St. Luke xi. 10.
89b:2521Ps. lxviii. 13.
89b:2522St. Matt. xxi. 37.
89b:2523Jas. i. 17.
89b:2524Deut. xxxii. 7.
89b:25251 Cor. viii. 7.
89b:2526St. John iv. 14.
89b:2527Cyril Hieros., Cat. 4; Epiphan., De pond. et mens.
89b:2528Many copies read Phi.
89b:2529Writings.
89b:2530Joshua the Son of Nun.
89b:2531Chronicles.
89b:2532R. 2428 reads καὶ ἡ ᾽Ιουδὶθ, καὶ ἡ ᾽Εσθήρ: so also in Cod. S. Hil., but Epiphanius does not mention the book of Judith, nor does the text require it.
90b:2533R. 2428 reads καὶ ἐπιστολαὶ δύο διὰ Κλήμεντος, probably an interpolation.
90b:2534Trull., Can. 2; Euseb., Hist. Eccles. vi., ch. 23, &c.
Chapter XVIII.—Regarding the things said concerning Christ.
The things said concerning Christ fall into four generic modes. For some fit Him even before the incarnation, others in the union, others after the union, and others after the resurrection. Also of those that refer to the period before the incarnation there are six modes: for some of them declare the union of nature and the identity in essence with the Father, as this, I and My Father are one 2535 : also this, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father 2536 : and this, Who being in the form of God 2537 , and so forth. Others declare the perfection of subsistence, as these, Son of God, and the Express Image of His person 2538 , and Messenger of great counsel, Wonderful Counsellor 2539 , and the like.
Again, others declare the indwelling 2540 of the subsistences in one another, as, I am in the Father and the Father in Me 2541 ; and the inseparable foundation 2542 , as, for instance, the Word, Wisdom, Power, Effulgence. For the word is inseparably established in the mind (and it is the essential mind that I mean), and so also is wisdom, and power in him that is powerful, and effulgence in the light, all springing forth from these 2543 .
And others make known the fact of His origin from the Father as cause, for instance My Father is greater than I 2544 . For from Him He derives both His being and all that He has 2545 : His being was by generative and not by creative means, as, I came forth from the Father and am come 2546 , and I live by the Father 2547 . But all that He hath is not His by free gift or by teaching, but in a causal sense, as, The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He seeth the Father do 2548 . For if the Father is not, neither is the Son. For the Son is of the Father and in the Father and with the Father, and not after 2549 the Father. In like manner also what He doeth is of Him and with Him. For there is one and the same, not similar but the same, will and energy and power in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Moreover, other things are said as though the Father’s good-will was fulfilled 2550 through His energy, and not as through an instrument or a servant, but as through His essential and hypostatic Word and Wisdom and Power, because but one action 2551 is observed in Father and Son, as for example, All things were made by Him 2552 , and He sent His Word and healed them 2553 , and That they may believe that Thou hast sent Me 2554 .
Some, again, have a prophetic sense, and of these some are in the future tense: for instance, He shall come openly 2555 , and this from Zechariah, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee 2556 , and this from Micah, Behold, the Lord cometh out of His place and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth 2557 . But others, though future, are put in the past tense, as, for instance, This is our God: Therefore He was seen upon the earth and dwelt among men 2558 , and The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways for His works 2559 , and Wherefore God, thy God, anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows 2560 , and such like.
The things said, then, that refer to the period before the union will be applicable to Him even after the union: but those that refer to the period after the union will not be applicable at all before the union, unless indeed in a prophetic sense, as we said. Those that refer to the time of the union have three modes. For when our discourse deals with the higher aspect, we speak of the deification of the flesh, and His assumption of the Word and exceeding exaltation, and so forth, making manifest the riches that are added to the flesh from the union and natural conjunction with the most high God the Word. And when our discourse deals with the lower aspect, we speak of the incarnation of God the Word, His becoming man, His emptying of Himself, His poverty, His humility. For these and such like are imposed upon the Word and p. 91b God through His admixture with humanity. When again we keep both sides in view at the same time, we speak of union, community, anointing, natural conjunction, conformation and the like. The former two modes, then, have their reason in this third mode. For through the union it is made clear what either has obtained from the intimate junction with and permeation through the other. For through the union 2561 in subsistence the flesh is said to be deified and to become God and to be equally God with the Word; and God the Word is said to be made flesh, and to become man, and is called creature and last 2562 : not in the sense that the two natures are converted into one compound nature (for it is not possible for the opposite natural qualities to exist at the same time in one nature) 2563 , but in the sense that the two natures are united in subsistence and permeate one another without confusion or transmutation. The permeation 2564 moreover did not come of the flesh but of the divinity: for it is impossible that the flesh should permeate through the divinity: but the divine nature once permeating through the flesh gave also to the flesh the same ineffable power of permeation 2565 ; and this indeed is what we call union.
Note, too, that in the case of the first and second modes of those that belong to the period of the union, reciprocation is observed. For when we speak about the flesh, we use the terms deification and assumption of the Word and exceeding exaltation and anointing. For these are derived from divinity, but are observed in connection with the flesh. And when we speak about the Word, we use the terms emptying, incarnation, becoming man, humility and the like: and these, as we said, are imposed on the Word and God through the flesh. For He endured these things in person of His own free-will.
Of the things that refer to the period after the union there are three modes. The first declares His divine nature, as, I am in the Father and the Father in Me 2566 , and I and the Father are one 2567 : and all those things which are affirmed of Him before His assumption of humanity, these will be affirmed of Him even after His assumption of humanity, with this exception, that He did not assume the flesh and its natural properties.
The second declares His human nature, as, Now ye seek to kill Me, a man that hath told you the truth 2568 , and Even so must the Son of Man be lifted up 2569 , and the like.
Further, of the statements made and written about Christ the Saviour after the manner of men, whether they deal with sayings or actions, there are six modes. For some of them were done or said naturally in accordance with the incarnation; for instance, His birth from a virgin, His growth and progress with age, His hunger, thirst, weariness, fear, sleep, piercing with nails, death and all such like natural and innocent passions 2570 . For in all these there is a mixture of the divine and human, although they are held to belong in reality to the body, the divine suffering none of these, but procuring through them our salvation.
Others are of the nature of ascription 2571 , as Christ’s question, Where have ye laid Lazarus 2572 ? His running to the fig-tree, His shrinking, that is, His drawing back, His praying, and His making as though He would have gone further 2573 For neither as God nor as man was He in need of these or similar things, but only because His form was that of a man as necessity and expediency demanded 2574 . For example, the praying was to shew that He is not opposed to God, for He gives honour to the Father as the cause of Himself 2575 : and the question was not put in ignorance but to shew that He is in truth man as well as God 2576 ; and the drawing back is to teach us not to be impetuous nor to give ourselves up.
Others again are said in the manner of association and relation 2577 , as, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me 2578 ? and He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin 2579 , and being made a curse for us 2580 ; also, Then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him 2581 For neither as God nor as man 2582 was He ever forsaken by the Father, nor did He become sin or a curse, nor did He require to be made subject to the Father. For as God He is equal to the Father and not opposed to Him nor subjected to Him; and as God, He was never at any time disobedient to His Begetter to make it necessary for Him to make Him subject 2583 . Appropriating, then, our person and ranking Himself with us, He used these words. For we are bound in the fetters of sin and the curse as faithless and disobedient, and therefore forsaken.
Others are said by reason of distinction in thought. For if you divide in thought things that are inseparable in actual truth, to cut the flesh from the Word, the terms p. 92b ‘servant’ and ‘ignorant’ are used of Him, for indeed He was of a subject and ignorant nature, and except that it was united with God the Word, His flesh was servile and ignorant 2584 . But because of the union in subsistence with God the Word it was neither servile nor ignorant. In this way, too, He called the Father His God.
Others again are for the purpose of revealing Him to us and strengthening our faith, as, And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with the glory which I had with Thee, before the world was 2585 . For He Himself was glorified and is glorified, but His glory was not manifested nor confirmed to us. Also that which the apostle said, Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead 2586 . For by the miracles and the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit it was manifested and confirmed to the world that He is the Son of God 2587 . And this too 2588 , The Child grew in wisdom and grace 2589 .
Others again have reference to His appropriation of the personal life of the Jews, in numbering Himself among the Jews, as He saith to the Samaritan woman, Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship, far salvation is of the Jews 2590 .
The third mode is one which declares the one subsistence and brings out the dual nature: for instance, And I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me 2591 . And this: I go to My Father and ye see Me no more 2592 . And this: They would not have crucified the Lord of Glory 2593 . And this: And no man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven 2594 , and such like.
Again of the affirmations that refer to the period after the resurrection some are suitable to God, as, Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost 2595 , for here ‘Son’ is clearly used as God; also this, And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world 2596 , and other similar ones. For He is with us as God. Others are suitable to man, as, They held Him by the feet 2597 , and There they will see Me 2598 , and so forth.
Further, of those referring to the period after the Resurrection that are suitable to man there are different modes. For some did actually take place, yet not according to nature 2599 , but according to dispensation, in order to confirm the fact that the very body, which suffered, rose again; such are the weals, the eating and the drinking after the resurrection. Others took place actually and naturally, as changing from place to place without trouble and passing in through closed gates. Others have the character of simulation 2600 , as, He made as though He would have gone further 2601 . Others are appropriate to the double nature, as, I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God 2602 , and The King of Glory shall come in 2603 , and He sat down on the right hand of the majesty on High 2604 . Finally others are to be understood as though He were ranking Himself with us, in the manner of separation in pure thought, as, My God and your God 2605 .
Those then that are sublime must be assigned to the divine nature, which is superior to passion and body: and those that are humble must be ascribed to the human nature; and those that are common must be attributed to the compound, that is, the one Christ, Who is God and man. And it should be understood that both belong to one and the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. For if we know what is proper to each, and perceive that both are performed by one and the same, we shall have the true faith and shall not go astray. And from all these the difference between the united natures is recognised, and the fact 2606 that, as the most godly Cyril says, they are not identical in the natural quality of their divinity and humanity. But yet there is but one Son and Christ and Lord: and as He is one, He has also but one person, the unity in subsistence being in nowise broken up into parts by the recognition of the difference of the natures.
Footnotes
90b:2535St. John x. 30.
90b:2536John 14.9.
90b:2537Phil. ii. 6.
90b:2538Heb. i. 3.
90b:2539Is. ix. 6.
90b:2540περιχώρησις.
90b:2541St. John xiv. 10.
90b:2542τὴν ἀνεκφοίτητον ἵδρυσιν.
90b:2543Cyril, Thes., bk. xxxiv., p. 341.
90b:2544St. John xiv. 28.
90b:2545Greg. Naz., Orat. 36, and other Greeks.
90b:2546St. John xvi. 28.
90b:2547John 6.57.
90b:2548John 5.19.
90b:2549Text, μετά. Various reading, κατά.
90b:2550Text, πληρούμενα. Variant, πληρουμένης.
90b:2551κίνησιν, motion.
90b:2552St. John xi. 42.
90b:2553Ps. cvii. 20.
90b:2554St. John xvii. 2.
90b:2555Ps. l. 3.
90b:2556Zech. ix. 9.
90b:2557Mic. i. 3.
90b:2558Bar. iii. 38.
90b:2559Prov. viii. 22.
90b:2560Ps. xlv. 7.
91b:2561Greg. Naz., Orat. 39.
91b:2562Is. xlviii. 12.
91b:2563Supr. bk. iii., ch. 2.
91b:2564Or, inhabitation, mutual indwelling.
91b:2565περιχωροῦσα.
91b:2566St. John xiv. 1.
91b:2567John 10.30.
91b:2568John 7:19, John 8:40.
91b:2569John 3.14.
91b:2570Vide supr., bk. iii., ch. 21, 22, 23.
91b:2571προσποίησις, feigning.
91b:2572St. John. xi. 34.
91b:2573St. Luke xxiv. 28.
91b:2574Greg. Naz., Orat. 36.
91b:2575Supr. bk. iii. 24.
91b:2576Text, μετὰ τοῦ εἶναι Θεός. Variant, μεῖναι.
91b:2577οἰκείωσις καὶ ἀναφορά.
91b:2578St. Matt. xxvii. 46.
91b:25792 Cor. v. 21.
91b:2580Gal. iii. 13.
91b:25811 Cor. xv. 28.
91b:2582Greg. Naz., Orat. 36.
91b:2583Ibid.
92b:2584Supr., bk. iii. ch. 21.
92b:2585St. John. xvii. 5.
92b:2586Rom. i. 4.
92b:2587Chrysost., Hom. 1 in Epist. ad Rom., and others.
92b:2588St. Luke ii. 40.
92b:2589Text, χάριτι. Reg 1, συνέθει.
92b:2590St. John. iv. 22.
92b:2591John 16.10.
92b:2592John 16.10
92b:25931 Cor. ii. 8.
92b:2594St. John. iii. 13.
92b:2595St. Matt. xxviii. 19.
92b:2596Matt. 28.20.
92b:2597Matt. 28.9.
92b:2598Matt. 28.10.
92b:2599κατὰ θύσιν
92b:2600κατὰ προσποίησιν
92b:2601St. Luke xxiv. 28.
92b:2602St. John xx. 17.
92b:2603Ps. xxiv. 7.
92b:2604Heb. i. 3.
92b:2605St. John xx. 17.
92b:2606Epist. apologetica ad Acacium Melitinæ Episcopum.
Chapter XIX.—That God 2607 is not the cause of evils.
It is to be observed 2608 that it is the custom in the Holy Scripture to speak of God’s permission as His energy, as when the apostle says in the Epistle to the Romans, Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour 2609 ? And for this reason, that He Himself makes this or that. For He is Himself alone the Maker of all things; yet it is not He Himself that fashions noble or ignoble things, but the personal choice of p. 93b each one 2610 . And this is manifest from what the same Apostle says in the Second Epistle to Timothy, In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth: and some to honour and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work 2611 . And it is evident that the purification must be voluntary: for if a man, he saith, purge himself. And the consequent antistrophe responds, “If a man purge not himself he will be a vessel to dishonour, unmeet for the master’s use and fit only to be broken in pieces.” Wherefore this passage that we have quoted and this, God hath concluded them all in unbelief 2612 , and this, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear 2613 , all these must be understood not as though God Himself were energising, but as though God were permitting, both because of free-will and because goodness knows no compulsion.
His permission, therefore, is usually spoken of in the Holy Scripture as His energy and work. Nay, even when He says that God creates evil things, and that there is no evil in a city that the Lord hath not done, he does not mean by these words 2614 that the Lord is the cause of evil, but the word ‘evil 2615 ’ is used in two ways, with two meanings. For sometimes it means what is evil by nature, and this is the opposite of virtue and the will of God: and sometimes it means that which is evil and oppressive to our sensation, that is to say, afflictions and calamities. Now these are seemingly evil because they are painful, but in reality are good. For to those who understand they became ambassadors of conversion and salvation. The Scripture says that of these God is the Author.
It is, moreover, to be observed that of these, too, we are the cause: for involuntary evils are the offspring of voluntary ones 2616 .
This also should be recognised, that it is usual in the Scriptures for some things that ought to be considered as effects to be stated in a causal sense 2617 , as, Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight, that Thou mightest be justified when Thou speakest, and prevail when Thou judgest 2618 . For the sinner did not sin in order that God might prevail, nor again did God require our sin in order that He might by it be revealed as victor 2619 . For above comparison He wins the victor’s prize against all, even against those who are sinless, being Maker, incomprehensible, uncreated, and possessing natural and not adventitious glory. But it is because when we sin God is not unjust in His anger against us; and when He pardons the penitent He is shewn victor over our wickedness. But it is not for this that we sin, but because the thing so turns out. It is just as if one were sitting at work and a friend stood near by, and one said, My friend came in order that I might do no work that day. The friend, however, was not present in order that the man should do no work, but such was the result. For being occupied with receiving his friend he did not work. These things, too, are spoken of as effects because affairs so turned out. Moreover, God does not wish that He alone should be just, but that all should, so far as possible, be made like unto Him.
Footnotes
92b:2607Against Platonists, Gnostics, and Manicheans.
92b:2608Damasc. Dial. cont. Manich.
92b:2609Rom. ix. 21.
93b:2610Basil, Homil. Quod Deus non sit auct. malorum.
93b:26112 Tim. 2:20, 21.
93b:2612Rom. xi. 32.
93b:2613Isa. 29:10, Rom. 11:8.
93b:2614Amos iii. 6.
93b:2615Text, δισέμφατον. Variant, δυσέμφατον.
93b:2616Text, τῶν γὰρ ἑκουσίων κακῶν τὰ ἀκούσια, &c. R. 2930 has τῶν ἀκουσίων τὰ ἑκούσια
93b:2617Basil, loc. cit.
93b:2618Ps. li. 4.
93b:2619νικητής is sometimes absent.
Chapter XX.—That there are not two Kingdoms.
That there are not two kingdoms 2620 , one good and one bad, we shall see from this. For good and evil are opposed to one another and mutually destructive, and cannot exist in one another or with one another. Each of them, therefore, in its own division will belong to the whole, and first 2621 they will be circumscribed, not by the whole alone but also each of them by part of the whole.
Next I ask 2622 , who it is that assigns 2623 to each its place. For they will not affirm that they have come to a friendly agreement with, or been reconciled to, one another. For evil is not evil when it is at peace with, and reconciled to, goodness, nor is goodness good when it is on amicable terms with evil. But if He Who has marked off to each of these its own sphere of action is something different from them, He must the rather be God.
One of two things indeed is necessary, either that they come in contact with and destroy one another, or that there exists some intermediate place where neither goodness nor evil exists, separating both from one another, like a partition. And so there will be no longer two but three kingdoms.
Again, one of these alternatives is necessary, either that they are at peace, which is quite incompatible with evil (for that which is at peace is not evil), or they are at strife, which p. 94b is incompatible with goodness (for that which is at strife is not perfectly good), or the evil is at strife and the good does not retaliate, but is destroyed by the evil, or they are ever in trouble and distress 2624 , which is not a mark of goodness. There is, therefore, but one kingdom, delivered from all evil.
But if this is so, they say, whence comes evil 2625 ? For it is quite impossible that evil should originate from goodness. We answer then, that evil is nothing else than absence of goodness and a lapsing 2626 from what is natural into what is unnatural: for nothing evil is natural. For all things, whatsoever God made, are very good 2627 , so far as they were made: if, therefore, they remain just as they were created, they are very good, but when they voluntarily depart from what is natural and turn to what is unnatural, they slip into evil.
By nature, therefore, all things are servants of the Creator and obey Him. Whenever, then, any of His creatures voluntarily rebels and becomes disobedient to his Maker, he introduces evil into himself. For evil is not any essence nor a property of essence, but an accident, that is, a voluntary deviation from what is natural into what is unnatural, which is sin.
Whence, then, comes sin 2628 ? It is an invention of the free-will of the devil. Is the devil, then, evil? In so far as he was brought into existence he is not evil but good. For he was created by his Maker a bright and very brilliant angel, endowed with free-will as being rational. But he voluntarily departed from the virtue that is natural and came into the darkness of evil, being far removed from God, Who alone is good and can give life and light. For from Him every good thing derives its goodness, and so far as it is separated from Him in will (for it is not in place), it falls into evil.
Footnotes
93b:2620Athan., Cont. Gentes.
93b:2621Athan., Cont. omnes hæret.
93b:2622Damasc., Dial. Cont. Manich.
93b:2623Text, ἀποτεμνόμενος. Variants, ἀποτεμόμενος and ἀπονεμόμενος.
94b:2624Text, κακοῦσθαι. Variant, κακουχεῖσθαι.
94b:2625Basil, Hom. Deum non esse caus. mal.
94b:2626Text, παραδρομή. Variant, παρα. ροπή, cf. infra.
94b:2627Gen. i. 31.
94b:2628Basil, Hom. Deum non esse caus. mal.
Chapter XXI.—The purpose 2629 for which God in His foreknowledge created persons who would sin and not repent.
God in His goodness 2630 brought what exists into being out of nothing, and has foreknowledge of what will exist in the future. If, therefore, they were not to exist in the future, they would neither be evil in the future nor would they be foreknown. For knowledge is of what exists and foreknowledge is of what will surely exist in the future. For simple being comes first and then good or evil being. But if the very existence of those, who through the goodness of God are in the future to exist, were to be prevented by the fact that they were to become evil of their own choice, evil would have prevailed over the goodness of God. Wherefore God makes all His works good, but each becomes of its own choice good or evil. Although, then, the Lord said, Good were it for that man that he had never been born 2631 , He said it in condemnation not of His own creation but of the evil which His own creation had acquired by his own choice and through his own heedlessness. For the heedlessness that marks man’s judgment made His Creator’s beneficence of no profit to him. It is just as if any one, when he had obtained riches and dominion from a king, were to lord it over his benefactor, who, when he has worsted him, will punish him as he deserves, if he should see him keeping hold of the sovereignty to the end.
Footnotes
94b:2629Jer., Contr. Pelag., bk. iii.
94b:2630Damasc., Dialog contra Manich.
94b:2631St. Mark xiv. 21.
Chapter XXII.—Concerning the law of God and the law of sin.
The Deity is good and more than good, and so is His will. For that which God wishes is good. Moreover the precept, which teaches this, is law, that we, holding by it, may walk in light 2632 : and the transgression of this precept is sin, and this continues to exist on account of the assault of the devil and our unconstrained and voluntary reception of it 2633 . And this, too, is called law 2634 .
And so the law of God, settling in our mind, draws it towards itself and pricks our conscience. And our conscience, too, is called a law of our mind. Further, the assault of the wicked one, that is the law of sin, settling in the members of our flesh, makes its assault upon us through it. For by once voluntarily transgressing the law of God and receiving the assault of the wicked one, we gave entrance to it, being sold by ourselves to sin. Wherefore our body is readily impelled to it. And so the savour and perception of sin that is stored up in our body, that is to say, lust and pleasure of the body, is law in the members of our flesh.
Therefore the law of my mind, that is, the conscience, sympathises with the law of God, that is, the precept, and makes that its will. But the law of sin 2635 , that is to say, the assault p. 95b made through the law that is in our members, or through the lust and inclination and movement of the body and of the irrational part of the soul, is in opposition to the law of my mind, that is to conscience, and takes me captive (even though I make the law of God my will and set my love on it, and make not sin my will), by reason of commixture 2636 : and through the softness of pleasure and the lust of the body and of the irrational part of the soul, as I said, it leads me astray and induces me to become the servant of sin. But what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (for He assumed flesh but not sin) condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but in the Spirit 2637 . For the Spirit helpeth our infirmities 2638 and affordeth power to the law of our mind, against the law that is in our members. For the verse, we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself maketh intercession with groanings that cannot be uttered 2639 , itself teacheth us what to pray for. Hence it is impossible to carry out the precepts of the Lord except by patience and prayer.
Footnotes
94b:26321 John 1.7.
94b:2633Rom. vii. 23.
94b:2634Rom. vii. 25.
94b:2635Rom. 7.23.
95b:2636Text, κατὰ ἀνάκρασιν. Variants, ἀνάκρισιν, ἀνάκλισιν. The old translation is ‘secundum anacrasin,’ i.e. ‘contractionem, refusionem per laevitatem voluptatis:’ Faber has ‘secundum contradictionem per suadelam voluptatis.’ The author’s meaning is that owing to the conjunction of mind with body, the law of sin is mixed with all the members.
95b:2637Rom. 8:3, 4.
95b:2638Rom. 8.26.
95b:2639Rom. 8.26
Chapter XXIII.—Against the Jews on the question of the Sabbath.
The seventh day is called the Sabbath and signifies rest. For in it God rested from all His works 2640 , as the divine Scripture says: and so the number of the days goes up to seven and then circles back again and begins at the first. This is the precious number with the Jews, God having ordained that it should be held in honour, and that in no chance fashion but with the imposition of most heavy penalties for the transgression 2641 . And it was not in a simple fashion that He ordained this, but for certain reasons understood mystically by the spiritual and clear-sighted 2642 .
So far, indeed, as I in my ignorance know, to begin with inferior and more dense things, God, knowing the denseness of the Israelites and their carnal love and propensity towards matter in everything, made this law: first, in order that the servant and the cattle should rest 2643 as it is written, for the righteous man regardeth the life of his beast 2644 : next, in order that when they take their ease from the distraction of material things, they may gather together unto God, spending the whole of the seventh day in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and the study of the divine Scriptures and resting in God. For when 2645 the law did not exist and there was no divinely-inspired Scripture, the Sabbath was not consecrated to God. But when the divinely-inspired Scripture was given by Moses, the Sabbath was consecrated to God in order that on it they, who do not dedicate their whole life to God, and who do not make their desire subservient to the Master as though to a Father, but are like foolish servants, may on that day talk much concerning the exercise of it, and may abstract a small, truly a most insignificant, portion of their life for the service of God, and this from fear of the chastisements and punishments which threaten transgressors. For the law is not made for a righteous man but for the unrighteous 2646 . Moses, of a truth, was the first to abide fasting with God for forty days and again for another forty 2647 , and thus doubtless to afflict himself with hunger on the Sabbaths although the law forbade self-affliction on the Sabbath. But if they should object that this took place before the law, what will they say about Elias the Thesbite who accomplished a journey of forty days on one meal 2648 ? For he, by thus afflicting himself on the Sabbaths not only with hunger but with the forty days’ journeying, broke the Sabbath: and yet God, Who gave the law, was not wroth with him but shewed Himself to him on Choreb as a reward for his virtue. And what will they say about Daniel? Did he not spend three weeks without food 2649 ? And again, did not all Israel circumcise the child on the Sabbath, if it happened to be the eighth day after birth 2650 ? And do they not hold the great fast which the law enjoins if it falls on the Sabbath 2651 ? And further, do not the priests and the Levites profane the Sabbath in the works of the tabernacle 2652 and yet are held blameless? Yea, if an ox should fall into a pit on the Sabbath, he who draws it forth is blameless, while he who neglects to do so is condemned 2653 . And did not all the Israelites compass the walls of Jericho bearing the Ark of God for seven days, in which assuredly the Sabbath was included 2654 .
As I said 2655 , therefore, for the purpose of p. 96b securing leisure to worship God in order that they might, both servant and beast of burden, devote a very small share to Him and be at rest, the observance of the Sabbath was devised for the carnal that were still childish and in the bonds of the elements of the world 2656 , and unable to conceive of anything beyond the body and the letter. But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Only-begotten Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons 2657 . For to as many of us as received Him, He gave power to become sons of God, even to them that believe on Him 2658 . So that we are no longer servants but sons 2659 : no longer under the law but under grace: no longer do we serve God in part from fear, but we are bound to dedicate to Him the whole span of our life, and cause that servant, I mean wrath and desire, to cease from sin and bid it devote itself to the service of God, always directing our whole desire towards God and arming our wrath against the enemies of God: and likewise we hinder that beast of burden, that is the body, from the servitude of sin, and urge it forwards to assist to the uttermost the divine precepts.
These are the things which the spiritual law of Christ enjoins on us and those who observe that become superior to the law of Moses. For when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away 2660 : and when the covering of the law, that is, the veil, is rent asunder through the crucifixion of the Saviour, and the Spirit shines forth with tongues of fire, the letter shall be done away with, bodily things shall come to an end, the law of servitude shall be fulfilled, and the law of liberty be bestowed on us. Yea 2661 we shall celebrate the perfect rest of human nature, I mean the day after the resurrection, on which the Lord Jesus, the Author of Life and our Saviour, shall lead us into the heritage promised to those who serve God in the spirit, a heritage into which He entered Himself as our forerunner after He rose from the dead, and whereon, the gates of Heaven being opened to Him, He took His seat in bodily form at the right hand of the Father, where those who keep the spiritual law shall also come.
What belongs to us 2662 , therefore, who walk by the spirit and not by the letter, is the complete abandonment of carnal things, the spiritual service and communion with God. For circumcision is the abandonment of carnal pleasure and of whatever is superfluous and unnecessary. For the foreskin is nothing else than the skin which it superfluous to the organ of lust. And, indeed, every pleasure which does not arise from God nor is in God is superfluous to pleasure: and of that the foreskin is the type. The Sabbath, moreover, is the cessation from sin; so that both things happen to be one, and so both together, when observed by those who are spiritual, do not bring about any breach of the law at all.
Further, observe 2663 that the number seven denotes all the present time, as the most wise Solomon says, to give a portion to seven and also to eight 2664 . And David 2665 , the divine singer when he composed the eighth psalm, sang of the future restoration after the resurrection from the dead. Since the Law, therefore, enjoined that the seventh day should be spent in rest from carnal things and devoted to spiritual things, it was a mystic indication to the true Israelite who had a mind to see God, that he should through all time offer himself to God and rise higher than carnal things.
Footnotes
95b:2640Gen. ii. 2.
95b:2641Exod. 13:6, Num. 15:35.
95b:2642Greg. Naz., Orat. 44.
95b:2643Deut. v. 14.
95b:2644Prov. xii. 10.
95b:2645Epiph., Exp. Fid., n. 22.
95b:26461 Tim. i. 9.
95b:2647Exod. 24:18, Exod. 34:28.
95b:26481 Kings xix. 8.
95b:2649Dan. x. 2.
95b:2650Gen. xvii. 12.
95b:2651Lev. xvi. 31.
95b:2652St. Matt. xii. 5.
95b:2653Epiph., Hæres. 30, n. 32, et Hær. n. 82 seqq: Athan., Hom. circum. et Sabb.
95b:2654Josh. iii.
95b:2655Ath. loc. cit.
96b:2656Gal. iv. 3.
96b:2657Gal. 4:4, 5.
96b:2658St. John i. 12.
96b:2659Gal. iv. 7.
96b:26601 Cor. xiii. 10.
96b:2661Athan., loc. cit.
96b:2662Ibid.
96b:2663Greg. Naz., Orat. 42.
96b:2664Eccl. xi. 2.
96b:2665Ps. xvi.
Chapter XXIV.—Concerning Virginity.
Carnal men abuse virginity 2666 , and the pleasure-loving bring forward the following verse in proof, Cursed be every one that raiseth not up seed in Israel 2667 . But we, made confident by God the Word that was made flesh of the Virgin, answer that virginity was implanted in man’s nature from above and in the beginning. For man was formed of virgin soil. From Adam alone was Eve created. In Paradise virginity held sway. Indeed, Divine Scripture tells that both Adam and Eve were naked and were not ashamed 2668 . But after their transgression they knew that they were naked, and in their shame they sewed aprons for themselves 2669 . And when, after the transgression, Adam heard, dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return 2670 , when death entered into the world by reason of the transgression, then Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare seed 2671 . So that to prevent the wearing out and destruction of the race by death, marriage was devised that the race of men may be preserved through the procreation of children 2672 .
But they will perhaps ask, what then is the meaning of “male and female 2673 ,” and “Be fruitful and multiply?” In answer we shall say that “Be fruitful and multiply 2674 ” does not p. 97b altogether refer to the multiplying by the marriage connection. For God had power to multiply the race also in different ways, if they kept the precept unbroken 2675 to the end 2676 . But God, Who knoweth all things before they have existence, knowing in His foreknowledge that they would fall into transgression in the future and be condemned to death, anticipated this and made “male and female,” and bade them “be fruitful and multiply.” Let us, then, proceed on our way and see the glories 2677 of virginity: and this also includes chastity.
Noah when he was commanded to enter the ark and was entrusted with the preservation of the seed of the world received this command, Go in, saith the Lord, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives 2678 . He separated them from their wives 2679 in order that with purity they might escape the flood and that shipwreck of the whole world. After the cessation of the flood, however, He said, Go forth of the ark, thou and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives 2680 . Lo, again, marriage is granted for the sake of the multiplication of the race. Next, Elias, the fire-breathing charioteer and sojourner in heaven did not embrace celibacy, and yet was not his virtue attested by his super-human ascension 2681 ? Who closed the heavens? Who raised the dead 2682 ? Who divided Jordan 2683 ? Was it not the virginal Elias? And did not Elisha, his disciple, after he had given proof of equal virtue, ask and obtain as an inheritance a double portion of the grace of the Spirit 2684 ? What of the three youths? Did they not by practising virginity become mightier than fire, their bodies through virginity being made proof against the fire 2685 ? And was it not Daniel’s body that was so hardened by virginity that the wild beasts’ teeth could not fasten in it 2686 . Did not God, when He wished the Israelites to see Him, bid them purify the body 2687 ? Did not the priests purify themselves and so approach the temple’s shrine and offer victims? And did not the law call chastity the great vow?
The precept of the law, therefore, is to be taken in a more spiritual sense. For there is spiritual seed which is conceived through the love and fear of God in the spiritual womb, travailing and bringing forth the spirit of salvation. And in this sense must be understood this verse: Blessed is he who hath seed in Zion and posterity in Jerusalem. For does it mean that, although he be a whoremonger and a drunkard and an idolater, he is still blessed if only he hath seed in Sion and posterity in Jerusalem? No one in his senses will say this.
Virginity is the rule of life among the angels, the property of all incorporeal nature. This we say without speaking ill of marriage: God forbid! (for we know that the Lord blessed marriage by His presence 2688 , and we know him who said, Marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled 2689 ), but knowing that virginity is better than marriage, however good. For among the virtues, equally as among the vices, there are higher and lower grades. We know that all mortals after the first parents of the race are the offspring of marriage. For the first parents were the work of virginity and not of marriage. But celibacy is, as we said, an imitation of the angels. Wherefore virginity is as much more honourable than marriage, as the angel is higher than man. But why do I say angel? Christ Himself is the glory of virginity, who was not only-begotten of the Father without beginning or emission or connection, but also became man in our image, being made flesh for our sakes of the Virgin without connection, and manifesting in Himself the true and perfect virginity. Wherefore, although He did not enjoin that on us by law (for as He said, all men cannot receive this saying 2690 ), yet in actual fact He taught us that and gave us strength for it. For it is surely clear to every one that virginity now is flourishing among men.
Good indeed is the procreation of children enjoined by the law, and good is marriage 2691 on account of fornications, for it does away with these 2692 , and by lawful intercourse does not permit the madness of desire to be enflamed into unlawful acts. Good is marriage for those who have no continence: but that virginity is better which increases the fruitfulness of the soul and offers to God the seasonable fruit of prayer. Marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled, but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge 2693 .
Footnotes
96b:2666Vide bk. ii. ch. 30.
96b:2667Deut.
96b:2668Gen. ii. 23.
96b:2669Gen. 4.7.
96b:2670Gen. 4.19.
96b:2671Gen. iv. 1.
96b:2672Greg. Nyss., De opif., hom. 16.
96b:2673Gen. i. 27.
96b:2674Gen. 1.28.
97b:2675Text, ἀπαραχάρακτον. Variant, ἀπαρεγχάρακτον, old trans. “in intransmutationem.”
97b:2676Vid. supr., bk. ii. ch. 30.
97b:2677Text αυξήυατα = increases. We have read αὐχήματα.
97b:2678Gen. 6:18, Gen. 7:1.
97b:2679Cf. Chrys., Hom. 28 on Genesis.
97b:2680Gen. viii. 16.
97b:26812 Kings ii. 11.
97b:26822 Kings 4.34.
97b:26832 Kings 2.14.
97b:26842 Kings 2.9.
97b:2685Dan. iii. 20.
97b:2686Dan. 6.16.
97b:2687Exod. 19:15, Num. 6:2.
97b:2688St. John ii. 1.
97b:2689Heb. xiii. 4.
97b:2690St. Matt. xix. 11.
97b:2691Simeon Thess., De initiat., ch. 33.
97b:26921 Cor. vii. 2.
97b:2693Heb. xiii. 4.
Chapter XXV.—Concerning the Circumcision.
The Circumcision 2694 was given to Abraham before the law, after the blessings, after the promise, as a sign separating him and his offspring and his household from the Gentiles with whom he lived 2695 . And this is evident 2696 , p. 98b for when the Israelites passed forty years alone by themselves in the desert, having no intercourse with any other race, all that were born in the desert were uncircumcised: but when Joshua 2697 led them across Jordan, they were circumcised, and a second law of circumcision was instituted. For in Abraham’s time the law of circumcision was given, and for the forty years in the desert it fell into abeyance. And again for the second time God gave the law of Circumcision to Joshua, after the crossing of Jordan, according as it is written in the book of Joshua, the son of Nun: At that time the Lord said unto Joshua, Make thee knives of stone from the sharp rock, and assemble and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time 2698 ; and a little later: For the children of Israel walked forty and two 2699 years in the wilderness of Battaris 2700 , till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were uncircumcised, because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord: unto whom the Lord sware that He would not shew them the good land, which the Lord swore unto their fathers that He would give them, a land that floweth with milk and honey. And their children, whom He raised up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised: for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them by the way 2701 . So that the circumcision was a sign, dividing Israel from the Gentiles with whom they dwelt.
It was, moreover, a figure of baptism 2702 . For just as the circumcision does not cut off a useful member of the body but only a useless superfluity, so by the holy baptism we are circumcised from sin, and sin clearly is, so to speak, the superfluous part of desire and not useful desire. For it is quite impossible that any one should have no desire at all nor ever experience the taste of pleasure. But the useless part of pleasure, that is to say, useless desire and pleasure, it is this that is sin from which holy baptism circumcises us, giving us as a token the precious cross on the brow, not to divide us from the Gentiles (for all the nations received baptism and were sealed with the sign of the Cross), but to distinguish in each nation the faithful from the faithless. Wherefore, when the truth is revealed, circumcision is a senseless figure and shade. So circumcision is now superfluous and contrary to holy baptism. For he who is circumcised is a debtor to do the whole law 2703 . Further, the Lord was circumcised that He might fulfil the law: and He fulfilled the whole law and observed the Sabbath that He might fulfil and establish the law 2704 . Moreover after He was baptized and the Holy Spirit had appeared to men, descending on Him in the form of a dove, from that time the spiritual service and conduct of life and the Kingdom of Heaven was preached.
Footnotes
97b:2694Just. Martyr., Dial. cum Tryph., p. 241.
97b:2695Gen. xvii. 10.
97b:2696Chrys., Hom. 39 in Gen.
98b:2697Text, ᾽Ιησοῦς.
98b:2698Josh. v. 2.
98b:2699Josh. 5.6.
98b:2700Text, Βατταριτίδι as in mss.; but in Bib. Sixt. μαδβαρείτιδι is to be read. The desert in which the Israelites dwelt is called “per antonomasiam” Madbara, from the Hebrew רבדמ, desert.
98b:2701Josh. 5:6, 7.
98b:2702Greg. Naz., Orat. 40. Athan., De Sab. et circ.
98b:2703Gal. v. 3.
98b:2704St. Matt. v. 17.
Chapter XXVI.—Concerning the Antichrist 2705 .
It should be known that the Antichrist is bound to come. Every one, therefore, who confesses not that the Son of God came in the flesh and is perfect God and became perfect man, after being God, is Antichrist 2706 . But in a peculiar and special sense he who comes at the consummation of the age is called Antichrist 2707 . First, then, it is requisite that the Gospel should be preached among all nations, as the Lord said 2708 , and then he will come to refute the impious Jews. For the Lord said to them: I am come in My Father’s name and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive 2709 . And the apostle says, Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved, for this cause God shall send them a strong delusion that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2710 . The Jews accordingly did not receive the Lord Jesus Christ who was the Son of God and God, but receive the impostor who calls himself God 2711 . For that he will assume the name of God, the angel teaches Daniel, saying these words, Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers 2712 . And the apostle says: Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition: who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God 2713 , shewing himself that he is God; in the temple of God he said; not our temple, but the old Jewish temple 2714 . For he will come not to us but to the Jews: not for Christ or the things of Christ: wherefore he is called Antichrist 2715 .
First, therefore, it is necessary that the Gospel should be preached among all nations 2716 : And then shall that wicked one be p. 99b revealed, even him whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders 2717 , with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish, whom the Lord shall consume with the word of His mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming 2718 . The devil himself 2719 , therefore does not become man in the way that the Lord was made man. God forbid! but he becomes man as the offspring of fornication and receiveth all the energy of Satan. For God, foreknowing the strangeness of the choice that he would make, allows the devil to take up his abode in him 2720 .
He is, therefore, as we said, the offspring of fornication and is nurtured in secret, and on a sudden he rises up and rebels and assumes rule. And in the beginning of his rule, or rather tyranny, he assumes the role of sanctity 2721 . But when he becomes master he persecutes the Church of God and displays all his wickedness. But he will come with signs and lying wonders 2722 , fictitious and not real, and he will deceive and lead away from the living God those whose mind rests on an unsound and unstable foundation, so that even the elect shall, if it be possible, be made to stumble 2723 .
But Enoch and Elias the Thesbite shall be sent and shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children 2724 , that is, the synagogue to our Lord Jesus Christ and the preaching of the apostles: and they will be destroyed by him. And the Lord shall come out of heaven, just as the holy apostles beheld Him going into heaven, perfect God and perfect man, with glory and power, and will destroy the man of lawlessness, the son of destruction, with the breath of His mouth 2725 . Let no one, therefore, look for the Lord to come from earth, but out of Heaven, as He himself has made sure 2726 .
Footnotes
98b:2705See the note in Migne.
98b:27061 John 2.22.
98b:2707Iren., bk. v. ch. 25; Greg. Naz., Orat. 47.
98b:2708St. Matt. xxiv. 14.
98b:2709St. John v. 43.
98b:27102 Thess. 2:10, 11, 12.
98b:2711Chrys., Hom. 4 in Epist. 2 Thess.
98b:2712Dan. xi. 37.
98b:27132 Thess. 2:3, 4.
98b:2714Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. 15.
98b:2715Iren., Cyril Hieros., Catech. 15; Greg. Naz. loc. cit.
98b:2716St. Matt. xxv. 14.
99b:2717Text has πέρασι ψεύδους, instead of the received text, τέρασι ψεύδους, cf. infr.
99b:27182 Thess. 2:8, 9, 10.
99b:2719Jerome on Daniel, ch. vii.
99b:2720Chrys., Hom. 3 in 2 Thess.
99b:2721Text, ἁγιοσύνην . Variants, ἀγαθωσύνην, δικαιοσύνην . Old trans. “justitiam,” but Faber has “bonitatem.”
99b:27222 Thess. ii. 9.
99b:2723St. Matt. xxiv. 24.
99b:2724Mal. 4:6, Rev. 11:3.
99b:2725Acts i. 11.
99b:27262 Thess. ii. 8.
Chapter XXVII.—Concerning the Resurrection.
We believe also in the resurrection of the dead. For there will be in truth, there will be, a resurrection of the dead, and by resurrection we mean resurrection of bodies 2727 . For resurrection is the second state of that which has fallen. For the souls are immortal, and hence how can they rise again? For if they define death as the separation of soul and body, resurrection surely is the re-union of soul and body, and the second state of the living creature that has suffered dissolution and downfall 2728 . It is, then, this very body, which is corruptible and liable to dissolution, that will rise again incorruptible. For He, who made it in the beginning of the sand of the earth, does not lack the power to raise it up again after it has been dissolved again and returned to the earth from which it was taken, in accordance with the reversal of the Creator’s judgment.
For if there is no resurrection, let us eat and drink 2729 : let us pursue a life of pleasure and enjoyment. If there is no resurrection, wherein do we differ from the irrational brutes? If there is no resurrection, let us hold the wild beasts of the field happy who have a life free from sorrow. If there is no resurrection, neither is there any God nor Providence, but all things are driven and borne along of themselves. For observe how we see most righteous men suffering hunger and injustice and receiving no help in the present life, while sinners and unrighteous men abound in riches and every delight. And who in his senses would take this for the work of a righteous judgment or a wise providence? There must be, therefore, there must be, a resurrection. For God is just and is the rewarder of those who submit patiently to Him. Wherefore if it is the soul alone that engages in the contests of virtue, it is also the soul alone that will receive the crown. And if it were the soul alone that revels in pleasures, it would also be the soul alone that would be justly punished. But since the soul does not pursue either virtue or vice separate from the body, both together will obtain that which is their just due.
Nay, the divine Scripture bears witness that there will be a resurrection of the body. God in truth says to Moses after the flood, Even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, for his blood his own shall be shed, for in the image of God made I man 2730 . How will He require the blood of man at the hand of every beast, unless because the bodies of dead men will rise again? For not for man will the beasts die.
And again to Moses, I am the God of Abrap. 100b ham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob: God is not the God of the dead (that is, those who are dead and will be no more), but of the living 2731 , whose souls indeed live in His hand 2732 , but whose bodies will again come to life through the resurrection. And David, sire of the Divine, says to God, Thou takest away their breath, they die and return to their dust 2733 . See how he speaks about bodies. Then he subjoins this, Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, they are created: and Thou renewest the face of the earth 2734 .
Further Isaiah says: The dead shall rise again, and they that are in the graves shall awake 2735 . And it is clear that the souls do not lie in the graves, but the bodies.
And again, the blessed Ezekiel says: And it was as I prophesied, and behold a shaking and the bones came together, bone to his bone, each to its own joint: and when I beheld, lo, the sinews came up upon them and the flesh grew and rose up on them and the skin covered them above 2736 . And later he teaches how the spirits came back when they were bidden.
And divine Daniel also says: And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such trouble as never was since there was a nation on the earth even to that same time. And at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake: some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and out of the multitude of the just shall shine like stars into the ages and beyond 2737 . The words, many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, clearly shew that there will be a resurrection of bodies. For no one surely would say that the souls sleep in the dust of the earth.
Moreover, even the Lord in the holy Gospels clearly allows that there is a resurrection of the bodies. For they that are in the graves, He says, shall hear His voice and shall come forth: they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation 2738 . Now no one in his senses would ever say that the souls are in the graves.
But it was not only by word, but also by deed, that the Lord revealed the resurrection of the bodies. First He raised up Lazarus, even after he had been dead four days, and was stinking 2739 . For He did not raise the soul without the body, but the body along with the soul: and not another body but the very one that was corrupt. For how could the resurrection of the dead man have been known or believed if it had not been established by his characteristic properties? But it was in fact to make the divinity of His own nature manifest and to confirm the belief in His own and our resurrection, that He raised up Lazarus who was destined once more to die. And the Lord became Himself the first-fruits of the perfect resurrection that is no longer subject to death. Wherefore also the divine Apostle Paul said: If the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised. And if Christ be not raised, our faith is vain: we are yet in our sins 2740 . And, Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that slept 2741 , and the first-born from the dead 2742 ; and again, For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him 2743 . Even so, he said, as Christ rose again. Moreover, that the resurrection of the Lord was the union of uncorrupted body and soul (for it was these that had been divided) is manifest: for He said, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up 2744 . And the holy Gospel is a trustworthy witness that He spoke of His own body. Handle Me and see, the Lord said to His own disciples when they were thinking that they saw a spirit, that it is I Myself, and that I am not changed 2745 : for a spirit hath not flesh or bones, as ye see Me have 2746 . And when He had said this He shewed them His hands and His side, and stretched them forward for Thomas to touch 2747 . Is not this sufficient to establish belief in the resurrection of bodies?
Again the divine apostle says, For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality 2748 . And again: It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power: it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory: it is sown a natural body (that is to say, crass and mortal), it is raised a spiritual body 2749 , such as was our Lord’s body after the resurrection which passed through closed doors, was unwearying, had no need of food, or sleep, or drink. For they will be, saith the Lord, as the angels of God 2750 : there will no longer be marriage nor procreation of children. The divine apostle, in truth, says, For our conversation is in heaven, from whence p. 101b also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, Who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body 2751 : not meaning change into another form (God forbid!), but rather the change from corruption into incorruption 2752 .
But some one will say, How are the dead raised up? Oh, what disbelief! Oh, what folly! Will He, Who at His solitary will changed earth into body, Who commanded the little drop of seed to grow in the mother’s womb and become in the end this varied and manifold organ of the body, not the rather raise up again at His solitary will that which was and is dissolved? And with what body do they come 2753 ? Thou fool, if thy hardness will not permit you to believe the words of God, at least believe His works 2754 . For that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die 2755 . And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body 2756 . Behold, therefore, how the seed is buried in the furrows as in tombs. Who is it that giveth them roots and stalk and leaves and ears and the most delicate beards? Is it not the Maker of the universe? Is it not at the bidding of Him Who hath contrived all things? Believe, therefore, in this wise, even that the resurrection of the dead will come to pass at the divine will and sign. For He has power that is able to keep pace with His will.
We shall therefore rise again, our souls being once more united with our bodies, now made incorruptible and having put off corruption, and we shall stand beside the awful judgment-seat of Christ: and the devil and his demons and the man that is his, that is the Antichrist and the impious and the sinful, will be given over to everlasting fire: not material fire 2757 like our fire, but such fire as God would know. But those who have done good will shine forth as the sun with the angels into life eternal, with our Lord Jesus Christ, ever seeing Him and being in His sight and deriving unceasing joy from Him, praising Him with the Father and the Holy Spirit throughout the limitless ages of ages 2758 . Amen.
Footnotes
99b:27271 Cor. xv. 35-44.
99b:2728Epist. in Ancor. n. 89; Method., Contr. Orig.
99b:2729Isa. 22:13, 1 Cor. 15:32.
99b:2730Gen. 9:3, 4, 5, 6.
100b:2731Exod. 3:6, Matt. 22:32.
100b:2732Wisd. iii. 1.
100b:2733Ps. civ. 29.
100b:2734Psa. 104.30.
100b:2735Is. xxvi. 18.
100b:2736Ez. xxxvii. 7.
100b:2737Dan. 12:1, 2, 3.
100b:2738St. John 5:28, 29.
100b:2739St. John xi. 39-44.
100b:27401 Cor. 15:16, 17.
100b:27411 Cor. 15.20.
100b:2742Col. i. 18.
100b:27431 Thess. iv. 14.
100b:2744St. John ii. 19.
100b:2745St. Luke xxiv. 37.
100b:2746Luke 24.39.
100b:2747St. John xx. 27.
100b:27481 Cor. xv. 35.
100b:27491 Cor. 15:42, 44.
100b:2750St. Mark xii. 25.
101b:2751Phil. 3:20, 21.
101b:2752Nyss., loc. citat.; Epiph., Hæres. vi. 4.
101b:27531 Cor. xv. 35.
101b:2754Epiph., Ancor., n. 93.
101b:27551 Cor. xv. 35.
101b:27561 Cor. 15.36-38.
101b:2757See Migne’s Preface to John’s Dial., Contr. Manichæos.
101b:2758In R. 2924 is read: ἐν τῷ Κυρί& 251· ἡμῶν, ᾧ πρέπει πάσα δόξα, τιμὴ, καὶ προσκύνησις, νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ, καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰ& 242·νας τῶν αἰ& 240·νων. ᾽Αμήν. In 2928: ὅτι αὐτῷ πρέπει δόξα, τιμὴ καὶ προσκύνησις, νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ, &c.
Indexes
Index of Scripture References
Genesis
1:1 1:1 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:2 1:3 1:3 1:5 1:5 1:6 1:6 1:7 1:8 1:8 1:9 1:10 1:11 1:14 1:22 1:26 1:26 1:26 1:26 1:26 1:26 1:27 1:27 1:28 1:31 1:31 1:31 2 2:2 2:8 2:9 2:9 2:10 2:16 2:16 2:17 2:23 2:25 3 3:1 3:7 3:9 4:1 4:7 4:19 5:3 6:13 6:17 6:18 7:1 7:17 8:11 8:16 8:21 9:3 9:4 9:5 9:6 9:6 11:7 14:18 14:19 15:6 15:16 16:9 16:10 16:13 17:10 17:12 17:19 17:20 18:1 18:1 18:10 18:13 18:14 18:17 18:20 18:20 18:21 18:25 18:25 18:25 18:26 19:1 19:1 19:2 19:24 19:24 19:24 21:1 21:2 21:17 21:18 22:12 22:12 22:12 32:26 35:1 35:1 46:27
Exodus
3:2 3:4-6 3:6 3:6 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:14 3:14 4 4 4:22 7:1 7:1 12:23 13:6 14:16 17:6 19:15 20:2 20:3 24:18 25:18 25:40 33:10 34:28
Leviticus
14 14:8 15:10 16:2 16:14 16:31 26:12
Numbers
2:3 6:2 15:35 19:11 20 36:6
Deuteronomy
4:24 4:24 5:14 6:4 6:4 6:4 6:4 6:4 25:5 30:12 30:13 30:14 32:7 32:21 32:39 32:39 32:43 32:43 33:16
Joshua
3 5:2 5:6 5:6 5:7
Judges
15:17
1 Samuel
1:2 13:14
1 Kings
8 19:8
2 Kings
2:9 2:11 2:14 4:34 19:12
Job
1:1 1:11 1:12 5:13 26:7 33:4
Psalms
1 1 1 1:3 2 2:7 2:8 2:8 2:25 2:26 4:2 4:4 4:29 4:30 7:12 7:20 8:3 9 9 9:1 9:3 10:1 10:1 10:4 13 14 14 14:1 14:3 15 15:10 15:16 16 16:10 18 18 18:25 18:26 18:42 18:45 19 19:1 19:89 21:32 22:6 22:6 22:19 22:22 24:2 24:7 32:6 32:7 32:11 33:6 33:6 33:6 34:15 35:6 35:6 35:6 36:6 37:1 39:6 40:7 40:9 40:10 42 44 44 44:8 45:7 45:7 45:7 45:7 45:7 45:7 45:7 46:6 48:4 48:5 48:6 49:12 49:12 50:3 51 51 51 51:4 51:9 52 53 53 55:22 59 61 61 63 63 64 64 65 67 68 68:5 68:13 68:32 68:33 71:5 71:17 72:9 72:10 74:13 75:3 78:1 82:6 82:6 82:6 83:3 89:20 89:20 89:35-37 90:2 96:11 103:4 104:30 107:30 110:3 114:5 116:15 118 118 118 118 118 118 118 118 118 126 132 132:8 133 134 135 137 138 138:7-10 138:8 139:7-10 143 148:4
Proverbs
3:18 8:4 8:5 8:15 8:16 8:20 8:21 8:21 8:22 8:22 8:22 8:22 8:22 8:22 8:22 8:22 8:24 8:25 8:26-30 8:28-31 12:10 22:28
Ecclesiastes
1:10 11:2
Isaiah
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1:2 1:2 1:14 2 2 5 5:2 6 6:1 6:6 7 7:14 7:16 9:2 9:6 9:6 9:6 11:1 11:10 22:13 26:18 29:10 29:11 29:11 29:13 29:14 37:12 40:5 40:12 40:22 40:26 43:10 43:10 44:6 44:6 45:11 45:11-16 45:12 45:14 48:12 53:4 53:8 53:8 53:8 53:9 61:1 61:1 64:4 65:1 65:2 65:13-16 65:16 65:16 66:1 66:1 66:1 66:2 66:7
Jeremiah
1:6 17:9 23:22 23:24
Ezekiel
27:23 37:7 44:2
Daniel
1:8-16 2:15 2:22 3:20 3:23 6:16 10:2 11:37 12:1 12:2 12:3
Hosea
1:6 1:7 13:4 13:4
Amos
3:6
Micah
1:3
Zechariah
9:9
Malachi
1:11 3:6 3:6 3:6 3:6 4:2 4:2 4:6
Matthew
1:21 1:21 1:23 1:23 1:25 2:20 3:11 3:15 3:17 3:17 3:17 3:17 3:17 3:17 3:17 3:17 4:2 4:4 5:3 5:5 5:8 5:17 5:17 5:17 6:25 6:26 6:33 7:6 7:18 7:23 8:3 8:3 8:30 9:2 9:4 10:6 10:15 10:16 10:22 10:28 10:29 10:30 10:32 10:33 10:38 10:39 10:40 11:11 11:25 11:27 11:27 11:27 11:27 11:27 11:27 11:27 11:27 11:28 11:30 12:5 12:18 12:18 12:28 12:32 12:33 13:15 13:35 13:40-43 14:33 15:13 15:13 15:19 15:24 16:16 16:16 16:16 16:16 16:16 16:17 16:22 16:22 16:23 16:23 16:27 17:5 17:5 17:5 17:5 17:5 18:19 19:11 19:16 19:17 19:17 21:19 21:37 22:32 22:36-40 23:2 23:10 23:37 24:14 24:24 24:27 24:30 24:35 24:36 24:36 24:36 24:44 24:46 25:12 25:13 25:14 25:34 25:34 25:41 25:41 26:12 26:16 26:24 26:26 26:27 26:28 26:31 26:32 26:33 26:38 26:38 26:38 26:38 26:38 26:39 26:39 26:39 26:39 26:39 26:39 26:39 26:39 26:40 26:41 26:42 26:42 26:45 26:53 26:64 26:64 26:64 27:33 27:34 27:40 27:46 27:46 27:46 27:46 27:46 27:46 27:46 27:52 27:54 27:54 28:9 28:10 28:18 28:19 28:19 28:19 28:19 28:19 28:19 28:19 28:20 28:20 28:20
Mark
1:11 1:11 5:13 7:24 7:24 10:18 10:18 10:18 11:3 12:25 12:29 12:29 12:29-31 12:33 12:34 12:34-37 12:52 13:13 13:31 13:32 13:32 13:32 13:32 13:32 13:32 13:32 13:32 14:21 14:22-24 14:27 14:28 14:28 14:34 14:36 14:36 14:36 14:36 14:36 14:37 14:38 14:58 14:61 15:34 15:34 16:6 16:7 27:46
Luke
1:27 1:27 1:28 1:28 1:30 1:31 1:31 1:34 1:34 1:35 1:35 1:35 1:35 1:38 2:35 2:40 2:52 3:6 3:22 3:22 3:22 3:24 4:18 4:19 6:20 7:34 8:28 8:54 10:22 10:41 10:42 11:9 11:10 12:50 13:34 16:19 17:21 18:19 18:19 18:19 18:19 19:41 22:19 22:20 22:22 22:22 22:31 22:32 22:32 22:32 22:42 22:42 22:43 22:43 22:44 22:44 22:45 22:46 23:31 23:34 23:43 23:43 23:43 23:43 23:46 23:46 23:46 23:46 23:46 23:46 23:46 24:28 24:28 24:37 24:39 24:39 24:39 24:43 26:31 26:32
John
1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1-3 1:1-4 1:1-14 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:4 1:9 1:10 1:12 1:12 1:13 1:14 1:14 1:14 1:14 1:14 1:14 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:29 2:1 2:6 2:16 2:19 2:19 2:19 2:19 2:19 2:22 2:23 3:3 3:5 3:6 3:7 3:8 3:8 3:13 3:13 3:13 3:13 3:13 3:14 3:16 3:17 3:18 3:19 4:13 4:14 4:19 4:20 4:21-24 4:22 4:23 4:24 4:24 4:24 4:24 4:35 4:35 4:35 5:16 5:17 5:17 5:17 5:18 5:18 5:18 5:18 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19 5:19-22 5:21 5:21 5:22 5:22 5:22 5:23 5:23 5:23 5:23 5:25 5:26 5:26 5:26 5:26 5:26 5:26 5:26 5:26 5:28 5:29 5:30 5:32 5:36 5:36 5:36-38 5:37 5:37 5:39 5:40-44 5:43 5:44 5:44 5:46 6:11 6:13 6:27 6:27-29 6:28 6:37 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:38 6:40 6:40 6:44 6:45-47 6:46 6:48 6:51 6:51 6:51-55 6:54 6:55 6:56 6:56 6:57 6:57 6:57 6:57 6:62 6:63 6:64 7:19 7:27 7:28 7:28 7:28 7:29 7:29 7:38 8:28 8:29 8:29 8:40 8:40 8:42 8:42 8:56 9:1 9:1 9:3 9:35 9:35 9:36 9:37 9:38 9:40 10:17 10:17 10:18 10:18 10:18 10:27-30 10:28 10:29 10:29 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:30 10:31-33 10:34-38 10:36 10:37 10:37 10:38 10:38 10:38 10:38 10:38 10:38 10:38 10:38 10:38 10:38 10:38 11:4 11:4 11:15 11:27 11:34 11:35 11:39-44 11:41 11:41 11:41 11:42 11:42 11:42 12:23 12:23 12:27 12:30 12:30 12:41 12:41 13:13 13:31 13:31 13:31 13:32 13:32 13:32 14 14:1 14:1 14:6 14:6 14:6 14:6-11 14:7 14:7 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9 14:9-11 14:10 14:10 14:10 14:10 14:10 14:10 14:11 14:11 14:11 14:11 14:11 14:11 14:11 14:11 14:11 14:11 14:11 14:11 14:12 14:12 14:13 14:14 14:16 14:16 14:17 14:19 14:20 14:23 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:28 14:30 14:31 15 15:1 15:2 15:14 15:15 15:23 15:26 15:26 16:7 16:10 16:10 16:11 16:12 16:12-15 16:14 16:14 16:15 16:15 16:15 16:15 16:15 16:15 16:15 16:15 16:15 16:26-28 16:27 16:28 16:28 16:28 16:28 16:29 16:30 16:30 16:30 16:31 16:32 16:32 16:33 17:1 17:1 17:1 17:1-6 17:2 17:2 17:3 17:3 17:3 17:3 17:3 17:3 17:3 17:3 17:3 17:3 17:3 17:4 17:5 17:5 17:5 17:5 17:5 17:5 17:10 17:10 17:10 17:10 17:11 17:12 17:20 17:20 17:21 17:21 17:21 17:21 17:22 17:22 17:22 17:23 17:24 17:24 18:9 18:11 18:11 18:36 19:7 19:28 19:29 19:30 19:34 20:17 20:17 20:17 20:17 20:17 20:17 20:17 20:17 20:25 20:26 20:27 20:29 20:31
Acts
1:4 1:5 1:5 1:7 1:8 1:11 1:11 1:11 2:3 2:16 2:17 4:27 4:32 4:32 7:14 10:37 10:38 10:38 13:22 13:22 17:28
Romans
1:2-4 1:4 1:16 1:20 1:20 1:23 1:25 2:29 4:3 5:10 5:12 6:3 6:3 6:10 6:11 7:17 7:23 7:23 7:25 8:3 8:3 8:3 8:3 8:4 8:9 8:9 8:9-11 8:11 8:14 8:14 8:15 8:15 8:17 8:19-21 8:26 8:26 8:26 8:29 8:29 8:29 8:31 8:32 8:33 8:34 9:5 9:5 9:5 9:19 9:21 9:21 10:4 10:4 10:6-9 10:13-21 10:17 11:8 11:25-27 11:28 11:32 11:33-36 11:36 11:36 11:36 12:3 12:13 15:10 15:12 16:25-27
1 Corinthians
1:9 1:10 1:17-25 1:20 1:20-25 1:23 1:23 1:23 1:24 1:24 1:24 1:24 1:27 1:27 2:2 2:7 2:8 2:8 2:8 2:8 2:10 2:11 2:11 2:12 2:12 2:14 2:15 3:8 3:8 3:16 3:17 3:19 7:2 7:25 7:31 8 8:5 8:6 8:6 8:6 8:6 8:6 8:7 10:1 10:17 10:31 11:2 11:24-26 11:29 11:31 11:32 12:3 12:3 12:3 12:3 12:4-7 12:4-11 12:5 12:5 12:6 12:6 12:8 12:8 12:8-10 12:11 12:12 12:24 13:10 14:32 14:37 15:3 15:4 15:16 15:17 15:20 15:20 15:20 15:21 15:21 15:21-28 15:24 15:24 15:24-28 15:25 15:26 15:27 15:27 15:27 15:28 15:28 15:28 15:28 15:28 15:32 15:35 15:35 15:35 15:35-44 15:36-38 15:42 15:44 15:47 15:47 15:53 15:53-55
2 Corinthians
2:7 3:17 3:17 3:17 4:8 5:17 5:18 5:19 5:19 5:20 5:21 5:21 6:14 6:16 10:4 10:5 11:25 12:2 12:2 12:2 12:4 13:3 13:4 13:4 13:4
Galatians
1:1 3:11 3:13 3:13 3:15 3:27 3:27 3:28 4:3 4:4 4:4 4:4 4:5 4:5 4:6 4:7 4:7 4:7 5:3
Ephesians
1:4 1:9 1:16 1:17 1:19-22 2:6 3:14 3:15 4:4 4:4-6 4:5 4:5 4:6 4:7 4:9 4:10 4:10-12 4:11 4:21-24 4:24 4:30 5:19
Philippians
2:6 2:6 2:6 2:6 2:6 2:6 2:6 2:7 2:7 2:7 2:7 2:7 2:8 2:8 2:8 2:8 2:9 2:9 2:10 2:10 2:10 2:11 2:11 2:11 3:15 3:16 3:19 3:20 3:20 3:21 3:21 3:21 3:21
Colossians
1:15 1:15 1:15 1:15 1:15-20 1:16 1:16 1:16 1:16 1:16 1:16 1:17 1:17 1:18 1:18 1:19 1:20 2:2 2:3 2:3 2:3 2:3 2:8 2:8 2:8 2:8-10 2:8-15 2:9 2:9 2:9 2:9 2:9 2:9 2:9 2:10 2:11 2:12 2:12 2:13-15 2:13-15 2:14 3:4 3:9 3:10
1 Thessalonians
4:14 4:17 5:2 5:17
2 Thessalonians
2:3 2:4 2:8 2:8 2:9 2:9 2:10 2:10 2:11 2:12 2:15
1 Timothy
1:1 1:2 1:3 1:4 1:9 2:4 2:5 2:5 3:16 3:16 4:1 4:2 5:11 6:15 6:16
2 Timothy
1:5 1:9 2:7 2:8 2:17 2:20 2:21 3:15 3:16 4:3 4:4 4:6 4:8
Titus
1:2 1:2 1:9 1:9 1:10 2:7 2:8 3:4
Hebrews
1:1 1:2 1:2 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:4 2:17 3:1 4:12 5:12 6:4 7:14 7:27 8:5 11:1 11:6 11:21 11:37 11:38 13:4 13:4 13:7
James
1:17 1:17 1:17 2:26
1 Peter
3:19 3:20 4:19
2 Peter
1:4 2:14 2:22
1 John
1:5 1:7 2:22 5:1 5:1 5:20 5:20 8:3
Revelation
2:23 11:3 14:1 19:16 21:1 22:1
Wisdom of Solomon
1:13 2:23 2:24 3:1 3:1 12:5 13:5 13:5
Baruch
3:35-37 3:35-37 3:38 3:38 3:38 3:38 3:38
2 Maccabees
7:28 10:5
Index of Greek Words and Phrases
Index of Pages of the Print Edition
I III iii V VI VII i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv xv xvi xvii xviii xix xx xxi xxii xxiii xxiv xxv xxvi xxvii xxviii xxix xxx xxxi xxxii xxxiii xxxiv xxxv xxxvi xxxvii xxxviii xxxix xl xli xlii xliii xliv xlv xlvi xlvii xlviii xlix l li lii liii liv lv lvi lvii lviii lix lx lxi lxii lxiii lxiv lxv lxvi lxvii lxviii lxix lxx lxxi lxxii lxxiii lxxiv lxxv lxxvi lxxvii lxxviii lxxix lxxx lxxxi lxxxii lxxxiii lxxxiv lxxxv lxxxvi lxxxvii lxxxviii lxxxix xc xci xcii xciii xciv xcv xcvi 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 ib iib viib viiib 1b 2b 3b 4b 5b 6b 7b 8b 9b 10b 11b 12b 13b 14b 15b 16b 17b 18b 19b 20b 21b 22b 23b 24b 25b 26b 27b 28b 29b 30b 31b 32b 33b 34b 35b 36b 37b 38b 39b 40b 41b 42b 43b 44b 45b 46b 47b 48b 49b 50b 51b 52b 53b 54b 55b 56b 57b 58b 59b 60b 61b 62b 63b 64b 65b 66b 67b 68b 69b 70b 71b 72b 73b 74b 75b 76b 77b 78b 79b 80b 81b 82b 83b 84b 85b 86b 87b 88b 89b 90b 91b 92b 93b 94b 95b 96b 97b 98b 99b 100b 101b
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. IX, part 2 of 2. . Hermetic Cloud, https://hermeticcloud.com/library/nicene-and-post-nicene-fathers-ser-ii-vol-ix-part-2/. Public-domain text reproduced in full; markup only.