Scripture and Inspiration

Justin: Should any one, then, employ a teacher? Or whence may any one be helped, if not even in them there is truth ? Old Man: There existed , long before this time, certain men more ancient than all those who are esteemed philosophers , both righteous and beloved by God , who spoke by the Divine Spirit, and foretold events which would take place, and which are now taking place. They are called prophets . These alone both saw and announced the truth to men , neither reverencing nor fearing any man, not influenced by a desire for glory , but speaking those things alone which they saw and which they heard, being filled with the Holy Spirit .

Their writings are still extant, and he who has read them is very much helped in his knowledge of the beginning and end of things, and of those matters which the philosopher ought to know , provided he has believed them.

For they did not use demonstration in their treatises, seeing that they were witnesses to the truth above all demonstration, and worthy of belief; and those events which have happened, and those which are happening, compel you to assent to the utterances made by them, although, indeed, they were entitled to credit on account of the miracles which they performed, since they both glorified the Creator, the God and Father of all things, and proclaimed His Son, the Christ [sent] by Him: which, indeed, the false prophets , who are filled with the lying unclean spirit, neither have done nor do, but venture to work certain wonderful deeds for the purpose of astonishing men, and glorify the spirits and demons of error .

But pray that, above all things, the gates of light may be opened to you; for these things cannot be perceived or understood by all, but only by the man to whom God and His Christ have imparted wisdom.

There were, then, among the Jews certain men who were prophets of God , through whom the prophetic Spirit published beforehand things that were to come to pass, ere ever they happened. And their prophecies, as they were spoken and when they were uttered, the kings who happened to be reigning among the Jews at the several times carefully preserved in their possession, when they had been arranged in books by the prophets themselves in their own Hebrew language. And when Ptolemy king of Egypt formed a library , and endeavoured to collect the writings of all men , he heard also of these prophets , and sent to Herod , who was at that time king of the Jews , requesting that the books of the prophets be sent to him. And Herod the king did indeed send them, written, as they were, in the foresaid Hebrew language.

And when their were found to be unintelligible to the Egyptians , he again sent and requested that men be commissioned to translate them into the Greek language. And when this was done, the books remained with the Egyptians , where they are until now. They are also in the possession of all Jews throughout the world; but they, though they read, do not understand what is said, but count us foes and enemies; and, like yourselves, they kill and punish us whenever they have the power, as you can well believe . For in the Jewish war which lately raged, Barchochebas, the leader of the revolt of the Jews , gave orders that Christians alone should be led to cruel punishments, unless they would deny Jesus Christ and utter blasphemy .

In these books, then, of the prophets we found Jesus our Christ foretold as coming, born of a virgin , growing up to man's estate, and healing every disease and every sickness, and raising the dead, and being hated , and unrecognised, and crucified, and dying, and rising again, and ascending into heaven, and being, and being called, the Son of God . We find it also predicted that certain persons should be sent by Him into every nation to publish these things, and that rather among the Gentiles [than among the Jews ] men should believe in Him. And He was predicted before He appeared, first 5000 years before, and again 3000, then 2000, then 1000, and yet again 800; for in the succession of generations prophets after prophets arose.

And how Christ after He was born was to escape the notice of other men until He grew to man's estate, which also came to pass, hear what was foretold regarding this. There are the following predictions: — Unto us a child is born, and unto us a young man is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders; Isaiah 9:6 which is significant of the power of the cross , for to it, when He was crucified, He applied His shoulders, as shall be more clearly made out in the ensuing discourse. And again the same prophet Isaiah, being inspired by the prophetic Spirit, said, I have spread out my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people, to those who walk in a way that is not good. They now ask of me judgment, and dare to draw near to God .

Isaiah 65:2 , Isaiah 58:2 And again in other words, through another prophet , He says, They pierced My hands and My feet, and for My vesture they cast lots. And indeed David, the king and prophet , who uttered these things, suffered none of them; but Jesus Christ stretched forth His hands, being crucified by the Jews speaking against Him, and denying that He was the Christ. And as the prophet spoke, they tormented Him, and set Him on the judgment-seat, and said, Judge us. And the expression, They pierced my hands and my feet, was used in reference to the nails of the cross which were fixed in His hands and feet. And after He was crucified they cast lots upon His vesture, and they that crucified Him parted it among them. And that these things did happen, you can ascertain from the Acts of Pontius Pilate .

And we will cite the prophetic utterances of another prophet , Zephaniah, to the effect that He was foretold expressly as to sit upon the foal of an ass and to enter Jerusalem. The words are these: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King comes unto you; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. Zechariah 9:9

And the holy Spirit of prophecy taught us this, telling us by Moses that God spoke thus to the man first created: Behold, before your face are good and evil : choose the good. And again, by the other prophet Isaiah, that the following utterance was made as if from God the Father and Lord of all: Wash you, make you clean; put away evils from your souls ; learn to do well; judge the orphan, and plead for the widow : and come and let us reason together, says the Lord: And if your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as wool; and if they be red like as crimson, I will make them white as snow. And if you be willing and obey Me, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you do not obey Me, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Isaiah 1:16 , etc.

And that expression, The sword shall devour you, does not mean that the disobedient shall be slain by the sword, but the sword of God is fire, of which they who choose to do wickedly become the fuel. Wherefore He says, The sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. And if He had spoken concerning a sword that cuts and at once dispatches, He would not have said, shall devour . And so, too, Plato , when he says, The blame is his who chooses, and God is blameless, took this from the prophet Moses and uttered it. For Moses is more ancient than all the Greek writers.

And whatever both philosophers and poets have said concerning the immortality of the soul , or punishments after death, or contemplation of things heavenly, or doctrines of the like kind, they have received such suggestions from the prophets as have enabled them to understand and interpret these things. And hence there seem to be seeds of truth among all men ; but they are charged with not accurately understanding [the truth ] when they assert contradictories.

So that what we say about future events being foretold, we do not say it as if they came about by a fatal necessity; but God foreknowing all that shall be done by all men , and it being His decree that the future actions of men shall all be recompensed according to their several value, He foretells by the Spirit of prophecy that He will bestow meet rewards according to the merit of the actions done, always urging the human race to effort and recollection, showing that He cares and provides for men. But by the agency of the devils death has been decreed against those who read the books of Hystaspes, or of the Sibyl, or of the prophets , that through fear they may prevent men who read them from receiving the knowledge of the good , and may retain them in slavery to themselves; which, however, they could not always effect.

Since, therefore, the unity of the Deity is confessed by almost all, even against their will, when they come to treat of the first principles of the universe , and we in our turn likewise assert that He who arranged this universe is God — why is it that they can say and write with impunity what they please concerning the Deity, but that against us a law lies in force, though we are able to demonstrate what we apprehend and justly believe , namely that there is one God , with proofs and reason accordant with truth ?

For poets and philosophers , as to other subjects so also to this, have applied themselves in the way of conjecture, moved, by reason of their affinity with the afflatus from God , each one by his own soul , to try whether he could find out and apprehend the truth ; but they have not been found competent fully to apprehend it, because they thought fit to learn, not from God concerning God , but each one from himself; hence they came each to his own conclusion respecting God , and matter, and forms, and the world. But we have for witnesses of the things we apprehend and believe , prophets , men who have pronounced concerning God and the things of God , guided by the Spirit of God .

And you too will admit, excelling all others as you do in intelligence and in piety towards the true God ( τὸ ὄντως θεῖον ), that it would be irrational for us to cease to believe in the Spirit from God , who moved the mouths of the prophets like musical instruments, and to give heed to mere human opinions.

If we satisfied ourselves with advancing such considerations as these, our doctrines might by some be looked upon as human . But, since the voices of the prophets confirm our arguments — for I think that you also, with your great zeal for knowledge , and your great attainments in learning, cannot be ignorant of the writings either of Moses or of Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the other prophets , who, lifted in ecstasy above the natural operations of their minds by the impulses of the Divine Spirit, uttered the things with which they were inspired, the Spirit making use of them as a flute-player breathes into a flute — what, then, do these men say? The Lord is our God ; no other can be compared with Him. And again: I am God , the first and the last, and besides Me there is no God.

Isaiah 44:6 In like manner: Before Me there was no other God , and after Me there shall be none; I am God , and there is none besides Me. Isaiah 43:10-11 And as to His greatness: Heaven is My throne, and the earth is the footstool of My feet: what house will you build for Me, or what is the place of My rest? Isaiah 66:1 But I leave it to you, when you meet with the books themselves, to examine carefully the prophecies contained in them, that you may on fitting grounds defend us from the abuse cast upon us.

Against Heresies, III.1 (St. Irenaeus) Search: Home Fathers Bible Library H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z SEARCH Fathers Bible Library --> Home > Fathers of the Church > Against Heresies (St. Irenaeus) > Book III, Chapter 1 Against Heresies (Book III, Chapter 1) The apostles did not commence to preach the Gospel, or to place anything on record until they were endowed with the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit. They preached one God alone, Maker of heaven and earth.

1. We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation , than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God , handed down to us in the Scriptures , to be the ground and pillar of our faith . For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed perfect knowledge , as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles . For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles ] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge : they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men , who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God . Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome , and laying the foundations of the Church . After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul , recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

2. These have all declared to us that there is one God , Creator of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophets ; and one Christ the Son of God . If any one do not agree to these truths, he despises the companions of the Lord; nay more, he despises Christ Himself the Lord; yea, he despises the Father also, and stands self-condemned, resisting and opposing his own salvation , as is the case with all heretics .

1. John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith , and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel , to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men , and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans , who are an offset of that knowledge falsely so called, that he might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God , who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another, who also continued impassible, descending upon Jesus , the Son of the Creator, and flew back again into His Pleroma; and that Monogenes was the beginning, but Logos was the true son of Monogenes; and that this creation to which we belong was not made by the primary God , but by some power lying far below Him, and shut off from communion with the things invisible and ineffable. The disciple of the Lord therefore desiring to put an end to all such doctrines, and to establish the rule of truth in the Church , that there is one Almighty God , who made all things by His Word, both visible and invisible; showing at the same time, that by the Word, through whom God made the creation, He also bestowed salvation on the men included in the creation; thus commenced His teaching in the Gospel : In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God , and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God . All things…

2. John, however, does himself put this matter beyond all controversy on our part, when he says, He was in this world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own [things], and His own [people] received Him not. John 1:10-11 But according to Marcion , and those like him, neither was the world made by Him; nor did He come to His own things, but to those of another. And, according to certain of the Gnostics , this world was made by angels , and not by the Word of God . But according to the followers of Valentinus , the world was not made by Him, but by the Demiurge . For he (Soter) caused such similitudes to be made, after the pattern of things above, as they allege; but the Demiurge accomplished the work of creation. For they say that he, the Lord and Creator of the plan of creation, by whom they hold that this world was made, was produced from the Mother; while the Gospel affirms plainly, that by the Word, which was in the beginning with God , all things were made, which Word, he says, was made flesh, and dwelt among us. John 1:14

3. But, according to these men, neither was the Word made flesh, nor Christ, nor the Saviour (Soter), who was produced from [the joint contributions of] all [the Æons ]. For they will have it, that the Word and Christ never came into this world; that the Saviour , too, never became incarnate, nor suffered, but that He descended like a dove upon the dispensational Jesus; and that, as soon as He had declared the unknown Father, He did again ascend into the Pleroma. Some, however, make the assertion, that this dispensational Jesus did become incarnate, and suffered, whom they represent as having passed through Mary just as water through a tube; but others allege him to be the Son of the Demiurge , upon whom the dispensational Jesus descended; while others, again, say that Jesus was born from Joseph and Mary , and that the Christ from above descended upon him, being without flesh, and impassible. But according to the opinion of no one of the heretics was the Word of God made flesh. For if anyone carefully examines the systems of them all, he will find that the Word of God is brought in by all of them as not having become incarnate ( sine carne ) and impassible, as is also the Christ from above. Others consider Him to have been manifested as a transfigured man; but they maintain Him to have been neither born nor to have become incarnate; while others [hold] that He did not assume a human form at all, but that, as a dove, He did descend upon that Jesus who was born from Mary.…

4. And that we may not have to ask, Of what God was the Word made flesh? He does himself previously teach us, saying, There was a man sent from God , whose name was John. The same came as a witness , that he might bear witness of that Light. He was not that Light, but [came] that he might testify of the Light. John 1:6 By what God , then, was John, the forerunner, who testifies of the Light, sent [into the world]? Truly it was by Him, of whom Gabriel is the angel , who also announced the glad tidings of his birth: [that God] who also had promised by the prophets that He would send His messenger before the face of His Son, Malachi 3:1 who should prepare His way, that is, that he should bear witness of that Light in the spirit and power of Elias. Luke 1:17 But, again, of what God was Elias the servant and the prophet ? Of Him who made heaven and earth, as he does himself confess. John, therefore, having been sent by the founder and maker of this world, how could he testify of that Light, which came down from things unspeakable and invisible? For all the heretics have decided that the Demiurge was ignorant of that Power above him, whose witness and herald John is found to be. Wherefore the Lord said that He deemed him more than a prophet . Matthew 11:9 ; Luke 7:26 For all the other prophets preached the advent of the paternal Light, and desired to be worthy of seeing Him whom they preached; but John did both announce [the advent] beforehand, in a like manner as did the others,…

We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation , than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God , handed down to us in the Scriptures , to be the ground and pillar of our faith . For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed perfect knowledge , as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles . For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles ] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge : they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men , who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God . Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome , and laying the foundations of the Church . After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul , recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

2. These have all declared to us that there is one God , Creator of heaven and earth, announced by the law and the prophets ; and one Christ the Son of God . If any one do not agree to these truths, he despises the companions of the Lord; nay more, he despises Christ Himself the Lord; yea, he despises the Father also, and stands self-condemned, resisting and opposing his own salvation , as is the case with all heretics .

1. As regards His greatness, therefore, it is not possible to know God , for it is impossible that the Father can be measured; but as regards His love (for this it is which leads us to God by His Word), when we obey Him, we do always learn that there is so great a God , and that it is He who by Himself has established, and selected, and adorned, and contains all things; and among the all things, both ourselves and this our world. We also then were made, along with those things which are contained by Him. And this is He of whom the Scripture says, And God formed man, taking clay of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life. Genesis 2:7 It was not angels , therefore, who made us, nor who formed us, neither had angels power to make an image of God , nor any one else, except the Word of the Lord, nor any Power remotely distant from the Father of all things. For God did not stand in need of these [beings], in order to the accomplishing of what He had Himself determined with Himself beforehand should be done, as if He did not possess His own hands. For with Him were always present the Word and Wisdom, the Son and the Spirit , by whom and in whom, freely and spontaneously, He made all things, to whom also He speaks, saying, Let Us make man after Our image and likeness; Genesis 1:26 He taking from Himself the substance of the creatures [formed], and the pattern of things made, and the type of all the adornments in the world.

2. Truly, then, the Scripture declared, which says, First of all believe that there is one God , who has established all things, and completed them, and having caused that from what had no being, all things should come into existence : He who contains all things, and is Himself contained by no one. Rightly also has Malachi said among the prophets : Is it not one God who has established us? Have we not all one Father? Malachi 2:10 In accordance with this, too, does the apostle say, There is one God , the Father , who is above all, and in us all. Ephesians 4:6 Likewise does the Lord also say: All things are delivered to Me by My Father; Matthew 11:27 manifestly by Him who made all things; for He did not deliver to Him the things of another, but His own. But in all things [it is implied that] nothing has been kept back [from Him], and for this reason the same person is the Judge of the living and the dead; having the key of David: He shall open, and no man shall shut: He shall shut, and no man shall open. Revelation 3:7 For no one was able, either in heaven or in earth, or under the earth, to open the book of the Father , or to behold Him, with the exception of the Lamb who was slain, and who redeemed us with His own blood, receiving power over all things from the same God who made all things by the Word, and adorned them by [His] Wisdom, when the Word was made flesh ; that even as the Word of God had the sovereignty in the heavens, so also might He have the sovereignty in…

3. I have also largely demonstrated, that the Word, namely the Son , was always with the Father; and that Wisdom also, which is the Spirit , was present with Him, anterior to all creation, He declares by Solomon: God by Wisdom founded the earth, and by understanding has He established the heaven. By His knowledge the depths burst forth, and the clouds dropped down the dew. Proverbs 3:19-20 And again: The Lord created me the beginning of His ways in His work: He set me up from everlasting, in the beginning, before He made the earth, before He established the depths, and before the fountains of waters gushed forth; before the mountains were made strong, and before all the hills, He brought me forth. And again: When He prepared the heaven, I was with Him, and when He established the fountains of the deep; when He made the foundations of the earth strong, I was with Him preparing [them]. I was He in whom He rejoiced, and throughout all time I was daily glad before His face, when He rejoiced at the completion of the world, and was delighted in the sons of men. Proverbs 8:27-31

4. There is therefore one God , who by the Word and Wisdom created and arranged all things; but this is the Creator ( Demiurge ) who has granted this world to the human race , and who, as regards His greatness, is indeed unknown to all who have been made by Him (for no man has searched out His height, either among the ancients who have gone to their rest, or any of those who are now alive); but as regards His love , He is always known through Him by whose means He ordained all things. Now this is His Word, our Lord Jesus Christ , who in the last times was made a man among men , that He might join the end to the beginning, that is, man to God . Wherefore the prophets , receiving the prophetic gift from the same Word, announced His advent according to the flesh, by which the blending and communion of God and man took place according to the good pleasure of the Father , the Word of God foretelling from the beginning that God should be seen by men , and hold converse with them upon earth, should confer with them, and should be present with His own creation, saving it, and becoming capable of being perceived by it, and freeing us from the hands of all that hate us, that is, from every spirit of wickedness ; and causing us to serve Him in holiness and righteousness all our days, Luke 1:71, 75 in order that man, having embraced the Spirit of God , might pass into the glory of the Father.

1. A spiritual disciple of this sort truly receiving the Spirit of God , who was from the beginning, in all the dispensations of God , present with mankind , and announced things future, revealed things present, and narrated things past — [such a man] does indeed judge all men , but is himself judged by no man. For he judges the Gentiles , who serve the creature more than the Creator, Romans 1:21 and with a reprobate mind spend all their labour on vanity. And he also judges the Jews , who do not accept of the word of liberty, nor are willing to go forth free, although they have a Deliverer present [with them]; but they pretend, at a time unsuitable [for such conduct], to serve, [with observances] beyond [those required by] the law, God who stands in need of nothing, and do not recognise the advent of Christ , which He accomplished for the salvation of men , nor are willing to understand that all the prophets announced His two advents: the one, indeed, in which He became a man subject to stripes, and knowing what it is to bear infirmity, Isaiah 53:3 and sat upon the foal of an ass, Zechariah 9:9 and was a stone rejected by the builders, and was led as a sheep to the slaughter, Isaiah 53:7 and by the stretching forth of His hands destroyed Amalek; Exodus 17:11 while He gathered from the ends of the earth into His Father's fold the children who were scattered abroad, Isaiah 11:12 and remembered His own dead ones who had formerly fallen asleep, and came down to them that He…

2. Moreover, he shall also examine the doctrine of Marcion , [inquiring] how he holds that there are two gods, separated from each other by an infinite distance. Or how can he be good who draws away men that do not belong to him from him who made them, and calls them into his own kingdom? And why is his goodness, which does not save all [thus], defective? Also, why does he, indeed, seem to be good as respects men, but most unjust with regard to him who made men, inasmuch as he deprives him of his possessions? Moreover, how could the Lord, with any justice , if He belonged to another father, have acknowledged the bread to be His body, while He took it from that creation to which we belong, and affirmed the mixed cup to be His blood? And why did He acknowledge Himself to be the Son of man , if He had not gone through that birth which belongs to a human being? How, too, could He forgive us those sins for which we are answerable to our Maker and God? And how, again, supposing that He was not flesh, but was a man merely in appearance, could He have been crucified, and could blood and water have issued from His pierced side? John 19:34 What body, moreover, was it that those who buried Him consigned to the tomb? And what was that which rose again from the dead?

3. [This spiritual man] shall also judge all the followers of Valentinus , because they do indeed confess with the tongue one God the Father , and that all things derive their existence from Him, but do at the same time maintain that He who formed all things is the fruit of an apostasy or defect. [He shall judge them, too, because] they do in like manner confess with the tongue one Lord Jesus Christ , the Son of God , but assign in their [system of] doctrine a production of his own to the Only-begotten, one of his own also to the Word, another to Christ , and yet another to the Saviour; so that, according to them, all these beings are indeed said [in Scripture to be], as it were, one; [while they maintain], notwithstanding, that each one of them should be understood [to exist] separately [from the rest], and to have [had] his own special origin, according to his peculiar conjunction. [It appears], then that their tongues alone, forsooth, have conceded the unity [of God], while their [real] opinion and their understanding (by their habit of investigating profundities) have fallen away from [this doctrine of] unity, and taken up the notion of manifold deities — [this, I say, must appear] when they shall be examined by Christ as to the points [of doctrine] which they have invented. Him, too, they affirm to have been born at a later period than the Pleroma of the Æons , and that His production took place after [the occurrence of] a degeneracy or apostasy ; and they maintain…

4. He will judge also the Ebionites ; [for] how can they be saved unless it was God who wrought out their salvation upon earth? Or how shall man pass into God , unless God has [first] passed into man? And how shall he (man) escape from the generation subject to death, if not by means of a new generation, given in a wonderful and unexpected manner (but as a sign of salvation ) by God — [I mean] that regeneration which flows from the virgin through faith ? Or how shall they receive adoption from God if they remain in this [kind of] generation, which is naturally possessed by man in this world? And how could He (Christ) have been greater than Solomon, Matthew 12:41-42 or greater than Jonah, or have been the Lord of David, Matthew 22:43 who was of the same substance as they were? How, too, could He have subdued Matthew 22:29 ; Luke 11:21-22 him who was stronger than men, who had not only overcome man, but also retained him under his power, and conquered him who had conquered, while he set free mankind who had been conquered, unless He had been greater than man who had thus been vanquished? But who else is superior to, and more eminent than, that man who was formed after the likeness of God , except the Son of God , after whose image man was created? And for this reason He did in these last days exhibit the similitude; [for] the Son of God was made man, assuming the ancient production [of His hands] into His own nature, as I have shown in the immediately preceding book.

Cain also himself had a son, whose name was Enoch ; and he built a city, which he called by the name of his son, Enoch . From that time was there made a beginning of the building of cities, and this before the flood; not as Homer falsely says: — Not yet had men a city built. And to Enoch was born a son, by name Gaidad; who begot a son called Meel; and Meel begot Methuselah ; and Methuselah , Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two wives, whose names were Adah and Zillah. At that time there was made a beginning of polygamy, and also of music. For Lamech had three sons: Jabal, Jubal, Tubal. And Jabal became a keeper of cattle, and dwelt in tents; but Jubal is he who made known the psaltery and the harp; and Tubal became a smith, a forger in brass and iron.

So far the seed of Cain is registered; and for the rest, the seed of his line has sunk into oblivion, on account of his fratricide of his brother. And, in place of Abel, God granted to Eve to conceive and bear a son, who was called Seth; from whom the remainder of the human race proceeds until now. And to those who desire to be informed regarding all generations, it is easy to give explanations by means of the holy Scriptures . For, as we have already mentioned, this subject, the order of the genealogy of man , has been partly handled by us in another discourse, in the first book of The History. And all these things the Holy Spirit teaches us, who speaks through Moses and the rest of the prophets , so that the writings which belong to us godly people are more ancient, yea, and are shown to be more truthful, than all writers and poets.

But also, concerning music, some have fabled that Apollo was the inventor, and others say that Orpheus discovered the art of music from the sweet voices of the birds. Their story is shown to be empty and vain, for these inventors lived many years after the flood. And what relates to Noah , who is called by some Deucalion, has been explained by us in the book before mentioned, and which, if you wish it, you are at liberty to read.

And why should I recount further the vast array of such names and genealogies? So that all the authors and poets, and those called philosophers , are wholly deceived; and so, too, are they who give heed to them. For they plentifully composed fables and foolish stories about their gods, and did not exhibit them as gods, but as men, and men, too, of whom some were drunken, and others fornicators and murderers. But also concerning the origin of the world, they uttered contradictory and absurd opinions. First, some of them, as we before explained, maintained that the world is uncreated. And those that said it was uncreated and self-producing contradicted those who propounded that it was created. For by conjecture and human conception they spoke, and not knowing the truth .

And others, again, said that there was a providence , and destroyed the positions of the former writers. Aratus, indeed, says: — From Jove begin my song; nor ever be The name unuttered: all are full of you; The ways and haunts of men; the heavens and sea: On you our being hangs; in you we move; All are your offspring and the seed of Jove. Benevolent, he warns mankind to good, Urges to toil and prompts the hope of food. He tells where cattle best may graze, and where The soil, deep-furrowed, yellow grain will bear. What time the husbandman should plant or sow, 'Tis his to tell, 'tis his alone to know . Who, then, shall we believe : Aratus as here quoted, or Sophocles, when he says: — And foresight of the future there is none; 'Tis best to live at random, as one can ?

And Homer, again, does not agree with this, for he says that virtue Waxes or wanes in men as Jove decrees. And Simonides says:— No man nor state has virtue save from God ; Counsel resides in God ; and wretched man Has in himself nought but his wretchedness. So, too, Euripides: — Apart from God , there's nothing owned by men . And Menander:— Save God alone, there's none for us provides. And Euripides again:— For when God wills to save, all things He'll bend To serve as instruments to work His end. And Thestius:— If God design to save you, safe you are, Though sailing in mid-ocean on a mat. And saying numberless things of a like kind, they contradicted themselves. At least Sophocles, who in another place denied Providence, says:— No mortal can evade the stroke of God .

Besides, they both introduced a multitude of gods, and yet spoke of a Unity; and against those who affirmed a Providence they maintained in opposition that there was no Providence. Wherefore Euripides says:— We labour much and spend our strength in vain, For empty hope, not foresight, is our guide. And without meaning to do so, they acknowledge that they know not the truth ; but being inspired by demons and puffed up by them, they spoke at their instance whatever they said. For indeed the poets — Homer, to wit, and Hesiod, being, as they say, inspired by the Muses — spoke from a deceptive fancy, and not with a pure but an erring spirit.

Rightly, therefore, the divine apostle says, By revelation the mystery was made known to me (as I wrote before in brief, in accordance with which, when you read, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ), which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men , as it is now revealed to His holy apostles and prophets . Ephesians 3:3-5 For there is an instruction of the perfect, of which, writing to the Colossians, he says, We cease not to pray for you, and beseech that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord to all pleasing; being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God ; strengthened with all might according to the glory of His power.

Colossians 1:9-11 And again he says, According to the disposition of the grace of God which is given me, that you may fulfil the word of God ; the mystery which has been hid from ages and generations, which now is manifested to His saints : to whom God wished to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the nations. Colossians 1:25-27 So that, on the one hand, then, are the mysteries which were hid till the time of the apostles , and were delivered by them as they received from the Lord, and, concealed in the Old Testament , were manifested to the saints . And, on the other hand, there is the riches of the glory of the mystery in the Gentiles , which is faith and hope in Christ; which in another place he has called the foundation.

Colossians 1:27 And again, as if in eagerness to divulge this knowledge , he thus writes: Warning every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man (the whole man) perfect in Christ; not every man simply, since no one would be unbelieving. Nor does he call every man who believes in Christ perfect; but he says all the man, as if he said the whole man, as if purified in body and soul . For that the knowledge does not appertain to all, he expressly adds: Being knit together in love , and unto all the riches of the full assurance of knowledge , to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God in Christ , in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge . Colossians 2:2-3 Continue in prayer , watching therein with thanksgiving.

Colossians 4:2 And thanksgiving has place not for the soul and spiritual blessings alone, but also for the body, and for the good things of the body. And he still more clearly reveals that knowledge belongs not to all, by adding: Praying at the same time for you, that God would open to us a door to speak the mystery of Christ , for which I am bound; that I may make it known as I ought to speak. Colossians 4:3-4 For there were certainly, among the Hebrews, some things delivered unwritten. For when you ought to be teachers for the time, it is said, as if they had grown old in the Old Testament , you have again need that one teach you which be the first principles of the oracles of God ; and have become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food.

Everything, then, which falls under a name, is originated, whether they will or not. Whether, then, the Father Himself draws to Himself everyone who has led a pure life, and has reached the conception of the blessed and incorruptible nature; or whether the free-will which is in us, by reaching the knowledge of the good , leaps and bounds over the barriers, as the gymnasts say; yet it is not without eminent grace that the soul is winged, and soars, and is raised above the higher spheres, laying aside all that is heavy, and surrendering itself to its kindred element. Plato , too, in Meno , says that virtue is God-given, as the following expressions show: From this argument then, O Meno, virtue is shown to come to those, in whom it is found, by divine providence .

Does it not then appear that the gnostic disposition which has come to all is enigmatically called divine providence ? And he adds more explicitly: If, then, in this whole treatise we have investigated well, it results that virtue is neither by nature, nor is it taught, but is produced by divine providence , not without intelligence, in those in whom it is found. Wisdom which is God-given, as being the power of the Father , rouses indeed our free-will , and admits faith , and repays the application of the elect with its crowning fellowship. And now I will adduce Plato himself, who clearly deems it fit to believe the children of God . For, discoursing on gods that are visible and born, in Timæus , he says: But to speak of the other demons , and to know their birth, is too much for us.

But we must credit those who have formerly spoken, they being the offspring of the gods, as they said, and knowing well their progenitors, although they speak without probable and necessary proofs . I do not think it possible that clearer testimony could be borne by the Greeks, that our Saviour, and those anointed to prophesy (the latter being called the sons of God , and the Lord being His own Son), are the true witnesses respecting divine things. Wherefore also they ought to be believed , being inspired, he added. And were one to say in a more tragic vein, that we ought not to believe , For it was not Zeus that told me these things, yet let him know that it was God Himself that promulgated the Scriptures by His Son . And he, who announces what is his own, is to be believed .

No one, says the Lord, has known the Father but the Son , and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him. Matthew 11:27 ; Luke 10:22 This, then, is to be believed , according to Plato , though it is announced and spoken without probable and necessary proofs , but in the Old and New Testament . For unless you believe , says the Lord, you shall die in your sins . John 8:24 And again: He that believes has everlasting life. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. For trusting is more than faith . For when one has believed that the Son of God is our teacher, he trusts that his teaching is true . And as instruction, according to Empedocles, makes the mind grow, so trust in the Lord makes faith grow.

Let us add in completion what follows, and exhibit now with greater clearness the plagiarism of the Greeks from the Barbarian philosophy . Now the Stoics say that God , like the soul , is essentially body and spirit. You will find all this explicitly in their writings. Do not consider at present their allegories as the gnostic truth presents them; whether they show one thing and mean another, like the dexterous athletes. Well, they say that God pervades all being; while we call Him solely Maker, and Maker by the Word. They were misled by what is said in the book of Wisdom: He pervades and passes through all by reason of His purity; Wisdom 7:24 since they did not understand that this was said of Wisdom, which was the first of the creation of God . So be it, they say.

But the philosophers , the Stoics , and Plato , and Pythagoras, nay more, Aristotle the Peripatetic, suppose the existence of matter among the first principles; and not one first principle. Let them then know that what is called matter by them, is said by them to be without quality, and without form , and more daringly said by Plato to be non- existence . And does he not say very mystically , knowing that the true and real first cause is one, in these very words: Now, then, let our opinion be so. As to the first principle or principles of the universe , or what opinion we ought to entertain about all these points, we are not now to speak, for no other cause than on account of its being difficult to explain our sentiments in accordance with the present form of discourse.

But undoubtedly that prophetic expression, Now the earth was invisible and formless, supplied them with the ground of material essence . And the introduction of chance was hence suggested to Epicurus , who misapprehended the statement, Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. And it occurred to Aristotle to extend Providence as far as the moon from this psalm: Lord, Your mercy is in the heavens; and Your truth reaches to the clouds. For the explanation of the prophetic mysteries had not yet been revealed previous to the advent of the Lord. Punishments after death, on the other hand, and penal retribution by fire, were pilfered from the Barbarian philosophy both by all the poetic Muses and by the Hellenic philosophy .

Plato , accordingly, in the last book of the Republic , says in these express terms: Then these men fierce and fiery to look on, standing by, and hearing the sound, seized and took some aside; and binding Aridæus and the rest hand, foot, and head, and throwing them down, and flaying them, dragged them along the way, tearing their flesh with thorns. For the fiery men are meant to signify the angels , who seize and punish the wicked . Who makes, it is said, His angels spirits; His ministers flaming fire. It follows from this that the soul is immortal . For what is tortured or corrected being in a state of sensation lives, though said to suffer. Well!

And barbarians were inventors not only of philosophy , but almost of every art. The Egyptians were the first to introduce astrology among men . Similarly also the Chaldeans. The Egyptians first showed how to burn lamps, and divided the year into twelve months, prohibited intercourse with women in the temples, and enacted that no one should enter the temples from a woman without bathing. Again, they were the inventors of geometry. There are some who say that the Carians invented prognostication by the stars. The Phrygians were the first who attended to the flight of birds. And the Tuscans, neighbours of Italy , were adepts at the art of the Haruspex. The Isaurians and the Arabians invented augury, as the Telmesians divination by dreams. The Etruscans invented the trumpet, and the Phrygians the flute. For Olympus and Marsyas were Phrygians. And Cadmus, the inventor of letters among the Greeks, as Euphorus says, was a Phœnician; whence also Herodotus writes that they were called Phœnician letters. And they say that the Phœnicians and the Syrians first invented letters; and that Apis, an aboriginal inhabitant of Egypt , invented the healing art before Io came into Egypt . But afterwards they say that Asclepius improved the art. Atlas the Libyan was the first who built a ship and navigated the sea. Kelmis and Damnaneus, Idæan Dactyli, first discovered iron in Cyprus . Another Idæan discovered the tempering of brass; according to Hesiod, a Scythian. The Thracians first invented…

17. On the Saying of the Saviour, All that Came Before Me Were Thieves and Robbers. But, say they, it is written, All who were before the Lord's advent are thieves and robbers . All, then, who are in the Word (for it is these that were previous to the incarnation of the Word) are understood generally. But the prophets , being sent and inspired by the Lord, were not thieves, but servants. The Scripture accordingly says, Wisdom sent her servants, inviting with loud proclamation to a goblet of wine. Proverbs 9:3 But philosophy , it is said, was not sent by the Lord, but came stolen, or given by a thief. It was then some power or angel that had learned something of the truth , but abode not in it, that inspired and taught these things, not without the Lord's knowledge , who knew before the constitution of each essence the issues of futurity, but without His prohibition. For the theft which reached men then, had some advantage; not that he who perpetrated the theft had utility in his eye, but Providence directed the issue of the audacious deed to utility. I know that many are perpetually assailing us with the allegation, that not to prevent a thing happening, is to be the cause of it happening. For they say, that the man who does not take precaution against a theft, or does not prevent it, is the cause of it: as he is the cause of the conflagration who has not quenched it at the beginning; and the master of the vessel who does not reef the sail, is the cause of the shipwreck.…

18. He Illustrates the Apostle's Saying, I Will Destroy the Wisdom of the Wise. And of such it is said, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise: I will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent . The apostle accordingly adds, Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? setting in contradistinction to the scribes , the disputers of this world, the philosophers of the Gentiles . Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 1 Corinthians 1:19-20 which is equivalent to, showed it to be foolish, and not true , as they thought. And if you ask the cause of their seeming wisdom, he will say, because of the blindness of their heart; since in the wisdom of God , that is, as proclaimed by the prophets , the world knew not, in the wisdom which spoke by the prophets , Him, that is, God — it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching — what seemed to the Greeks foolishness — to save them that believe . For the Jews require signs, in order to faith ; and the Greeks seek after wisdom, plainly those reasonings styled irresistible, and those others, namely, syllogisms. But we preach Jesus Christ crucified; to the Jews a stumbling-block, because, though knowing prophecy , they did not believe the event: to the Greeks, foolishness; for those who in their own estimation are wise, consider it fabulous that the Son of God should speak by man and that God should have a Son, and especially that that Son should have suffered. Whence their preconceived…

After showing a little peep-hole to those who love to contemplate the Church from the law of sacrifices respecting clean and unclean animals (inasmuch as thus the common Jews and the heretics are distinguished mystically from the divine Church), let us bring the discourse to a close. For such of the sacrifices as part the hoof, and ruminate, the Scripture represents as clean and acceptable to God ; since the just obtain access to the Father and to the Son by faith . For this is the stability of those who part the hoof, those who study the oracles of God night and day, and ruminate them in the soul's receptacle for instructions; which gnostic exercise the Law expresses under the figure of the rumination of the clean animal. But such as have neither the one nor the other of those qualities it separates as unclean.

Now those that ruminate, but do not part the hoof, indicate the majority of the Jews , who have indeed the oracles of God , but have not faith , and the step which, resting on the truth , conveys to the Father by the Son. Whence also this kind of cattle are apt to slip, not having a division in the foot, and not resting on the twofold support of faith . For no man, it is said, knows the Father , but he to whom the Son shall reveal Him. Luke 10:22 And again, those also are likewise unclean that part the hoof, but do not ruminate. For these point out the heretics , who indeed go upon the name of the Father and the Son , but are incapable of triturating and grinding down the clear declaration of the oracles, and who, besides, perform the works of righteousness coarsely and not with precision, if they perform them at all.

To such the Lord says, Why will you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Luke 6:46 And those that neither part the hoof nor chew the cud are entirely unclean. But you Megareans, says Theognis, are neither third, nor fourth, Nor twelfth, neither in reckoning nor in number, but as chaff which the wind drives away from the face of the earth, and as a drop from a vessel. Isaiah 40:15 These points, then, having been formerly thoroughly treated, and the department of ethics having been sketched summarily in a fragmentary way, as we promised; and having here and there interspersed the dogmas which are the germs of true knowledge , so that the discovery of the sacred traditions may not be easy to any one of the uninitiated, let us proceed to what we promised.

Now the Miscellanies are not like parts laid out, planted in regular order for the delight of the eye, but rather like an umbrageous and shaggy hill, planted with laurel, and ivy, and apples, and olives, and figs; the planting being purposely a mixture of fruit-bearing and fruitless trees, since the composition aims at concealment, on account of those that have the daring to pilfer and steal the ripe fruits; from which, however, the husbandmen, transplanting shoots and plants, will adorn a beautiful park and a delightful grove. The Miscellanies, then, study neither arrangement nor diction; since there are even cases in which the Greeks on purpose wish that ornate diction should be absent, and imperceptibly cast in the seed of dogmas , not according to the truth , rendering such as may read laborious and quick at discovery.

On the plagiarizing of the dogmas of the philosophers from the Hebrews, we shall treat a little afterwards. But first, as due order demands, we must now speak of the epoch of Moses , by which the philosophy of the Hebrews will be demonstrated beyond all contradiction to be the most ancient of all wisdom. This has been discussed with accuracy by Tatian in his book To the Greeks , and by Cassian in the first book of his Exegetics . Nevertheless our commentary demands that we too should run over what has been said on the point.

Apion, then, the grammarian, surnamed Pleistonices, in the fourth book of The Egyptian Histories , although of so hostile a disposition towards the Hebrews, being by race an Egyptian , as to compose a work against the Jews , when referring to Amosis king of the Egyptians , and his exploits, adduces, as a witness , Ptolemy of Mendes. And his remarks are to the following effect: Amosis, who lived in the time of the Argive Inachus, overthrew Athyria, as Ptolemy of Mendes relates in his Chronology . Now this Ptolemy was a priest ; and setting forth the deeds of the Egyptian kings in three entire books, he says, that the exodus of the Jews from Egypt , under the conduct of Moses , took place while Amosis was king of Egypt . Whence it is seen that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus.

And of the Hellenic states, the most ancient is the Argolic, I mean that which took its rise from Inachus, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches in his Times . And younger by forty generations than it was Attica, founded by Cecrops, who was an aboriginal of double race, as Tatian expressly says; and Arcadia, founded by Pelasgus, younger too by nine generations; and he, too, is said to have been an aboriginal. And more recent than this last by fifty-two generations, was Pthiotis, founded by Deucalion. And from the time of Inachus to the Trojan War twenty generations or more are reckoned; let us say, four hundred years and more.

And if Ctesias says that the Assyrian power is many years older than the Greek, the exodus of Moses from Egypt will appear to have taken place in the forty-second year of the Assyrian empire, in the thirty-second year of the reign of Belochus, in the time of Amosis the Egyptian , and of Inachus the Argive. And in Greece, in the time of Phoroneus, who succeeded Inachus, the flood of Ogyges occurred; and monarchy subsisted in Sicyon first in the person of Ægialeus, then of Europs, then of Telches; in Crete, in the person of Cres. For Acusilaus says that Phoroneus was the first man. Whence, too, the author of Phoronis said that he was the father of mortal men.

So much for the details respecting dates, as stated variously by many, and as set down by us. It is said that the Scriptures both of the law and of the prophets were translated from the dialect of the Hebrews into the Greek language in the reign of Ptolemy the son of Lagos, or, according to others, of Ptolemy surnamed Philadelphus; Demetrius Phalereus bringing to this task the greatest earnestness, and employing painstaking accuracy on the materials for the translation. For the Macedonians being still in possession of Asia, and the king being ambitious of adorning the library he had at Alexandria with all writings, desired the people of Jerusalem to translate the prophecies they possessed into the Greek dialect.

And they being the subjects of the Macedonians, selected from those of highest character among them seventy elders, versed in the Scriptures , and skilled in the Greek dialect, and sent them to him with the divine books. And each having severally translated each prophetic book, and all the translations being compared together, they agreed both in meaning and expression. For it was the counsel of God carried out for the benefit of Grecian ears. It was not alien to the inspiration of God , who gave the prophecy , also to produce the translation, and make it as it were Greek prophecy . Since the Scriptures having perished in the captivity of Nebuchadnezzar , Esdras the Levite, the priest , in the time of Artaxerxes king of the Persians , having become inspired in the exercise of prophecy restored again the whole of the ancient Scriptures.

And Aristobulus, in his first book addressed to Philometor, writes in these words: And Plato followed the laws given to us, and had manifestly studied all that is said in them. And before Demetrius there had been translated by another, previous to the dominion of Alexander and of the Persians , the account of the departure of our countrymen the Hebrews from Egypt , and the fame of all that happened to them, and their taking possession of the land, and the account of the whole code of laws ; so that it is perfectly clear that the above-mentioned philosopher derived a great deal from this source, for he was very learned, as also Pythagoras, who transferred many things from our books to his own system of doctrines. And Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher , expressly writes: For what is Plato , but Moses speaking in Attic Greek?

This Moses was a theologian and prophet , and as some say, an interpreter of sacred laws . His family , his deeds , and life, are related by the Scriptures themselves, which are worthy of all credit; but have nevertheless to be stated by us also as well as we can.

Now we are commanded to reverence and to honour the same one, being persuaded that He is Word, Saviour, and Leader, and by Him, the Father , not on special days, as some others, but doing this continually in our whole life, and in every way. Certainly the elect race justified by the precept says, Seven times a day have I praised You. Whence not in a specified place, or selected temple, or at certain festivals and on appointed days, but during his whole life, the Gnostic in every place, even if he be alone by himself, and wherever he has any of those who have exercised the like faith , honours God , that is, acknowledges his gratitude for the knowledge of the way to live.

And if the presence of a good man, through the respect and reverence which he inspires, always improves him with whom he associates, with much more reason does not he who always holds uninterrupted converse with God by knowledge , life, and thanksgiving, grow at every step superior to himself in all respects — in conduct, in words, in disposition? Such an one is persuaded that God is ever beside him, and does not suppose that He is confined in certain limited places; so that under the idea that at times he is without Him, he may indulge in excesses night and day. Holding festival, then, in our whole life, persuaded that God is altogether on every side present, we cultivate our fields, praising; we sail the sea, hymning; in all the rest of our conversation we conduct ourselves according to rule.

The Gnostic , then, is very closely allied to God , being at once grave and cheerful in all things — grave on account of the bent of his soul towards the Divinity, and cheerful on account of his consideration of the blessings of humanity which God has given us. Now the excellence of knowledge is evidently presented by the prophet when he says, Benignity, and instruction, and knowledge teach me, magnifying the supremacy of perfection by a climax. He is, then, the truly kingly man; he is the sacred high priest of God . And this is even now observed among the most sagacious of the Barbarians, in advancing the sacerdotal caste to the royal power.

He, therefore, never surrenders himself to the rabble that rules supreme over the theatres, and gives no admittance even in a dream to the things which are spoken, done, and seen for the sake of alluring pleasures; neither, therefore, to the pleasures of sight, nor the various pleasures which are found in other enjoyments, as costly incense and odours, which bewitch the nostrils, or preparations of meats, and indulgences in different wines, which ensnare the palate, or fragrant bouquets of many flowers, which through the senses effeminate the soul . But always tracing up to God the grave enjoyment of all things, he offers the first-fruits of food, and drink, and ointments to the Giver of all, acknowledging his thanks in the gift and in the use of them by the Word given to him.

In the like manner, says He, Luke 6:26 did their fathers unto the prophets . What a turncoat is Marcion's Christ! Now the destroyer, now the advocate of the prophets ! He destroyed them as their rival, by converting their disciples ; he took up their cause as their friend, by stigmatizing their persecutors. But, in as far as the defense of the prophets could not be consistent in the Christ of Marcion , who came to destroy them; in so far is it becoming to the Creator's Christ that He should stigmatize those who persecuted the prophets , for He in all things accomplished their predictions. Again, it is more characteristic of the Creator to upbraid sons with their fathers' sins , than it is of that god who chastizes no man for even his own misdeeds.

But you will say, He cannot be regarded as defending the prophets simply because He wished to affirm the iniquity of the Jews for their impious dealings with their own prophets . Well, then, in this case, no sin ought to have been charged against the Jews : they were rather deserving of praise and approbation when they maltreated those whom the absolutely good god of Marcion , after so long a time, bestirred himself to destroy. I suppose, however, that by this time he had ceased to be the absolutely good god; he had now sojourned a considerable while even with the Creator, and was no longer (like) the god of Epicurus purely and simply. For see how he condescends to curse, and proves himself capable of taking offense and feeling anger ! He actually pronounces a woe !

But a doubt is raised against us as to the import of this word, as if it carried with it less the sense of a curse than of an admonition. Where, however, is the difference, since even an admonition is not given without the sting of a threat, especially when it is embittered with a woe ? Moreover, both admonition and threatening will be the resources of him who knows how to feel angry . For no one will forbid the doing of a thing with an admonition or a threat, except him who will inflict punishment for the doing of it. No one would inflict punishment, except him who was susceptible of anger .

Others, again, admit that the word implies a curse; but they will have it that Christ pronounced the woe, not as if it were His own genuine feeling, but because the woe is from the Creator, and He wanted to set forth to them the severity of the Creator in order that He might the more commend His own long-suffering in His beatitudes. Just as if it were not competent to the Creator, in the pre-eminence of both His attributes as the good God and Judge, that, as He had made clemency the preamble of His benediction so He should place severity in the sequel of His curses; thus fully developing His discipline in both directions, both in following out the blessing and in providing against the curse. He had already said of old, Behold, I have set before you blessing and cursing.

But Christ prohibits divorce , saying, Whosoever puts away his wife, and marries another, commits adultery ; and whosoever marries her that is put away from her husband, also commits adultery . Luke 16:18 In order to forbid divorce , He makes it unlawful to marry a woman that has been put away. Moses , however, permitted repudiation in Deuteronomy: When a man has taken a wife, and has lived with her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he has found unchastity in her; then let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her hand, and send her away out of his house. Deuteronomy 24:1 You see, therefore, that there is a difference between the law and the gospel — between Moses and Christ? To be sure there is! But then you have rejected that other gospel which witnesses to the same verity and the same Christ.

There, while prohibiting divorce , He has given us a solution of this special question respecting it: Moses , says He, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to give a bill of divorcement; but from the beginning it was not so Matthew 19:8 — for this reason, indeed, because He who had made them male and female had likewise said, They two shall become one flesh; what therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder. Matthew 19:4, 6 Now, by this answer of His (to the Pharisees ), He both sanctioned the provision of Moses , who was His own (servant), and restored to its primitive purpose the institution of the Creator, whose Christ He was. Since, however, you are to be refuted out of the Scriptures which you have received, I will meet you on your own ground, as if your Christ were mine.

When, therefore, He prohibited divorce , and yet at the same time represented the Father , even Him who united male and female, must He not have rather exculpated than abolished the enactment of Moses ? But, observe, if this Christ be yours when he teaches contrary to Moses and the Creator, on the same principle must He be mine if I can show that His teaching is not contrary to them. I maintain, then, that there was a condition in the prohibition which He now made of divorce ; the case supposed being, that a man put away his wife for the express purpose of marrying another.

His words are: Whosoever puts away his wife, and marries another, commits adultery ; and whosoever marries her that is put away from her husband, also commits adultery , Luke 16:18 — put away, that is, for the reason wherefore a woman ought not to be dismissed, that another wife may be obtained. For he who marries a woman who is unlawfully put away is as much of an adulterer as the man who marries one who is un- divorced . Permanent is the marriage which is not rightly dissolved; to marry, therefore, while matrimony is undissolved, is to commit adultery . Since, therefore, His prohibition of divorce was a conditional one, He did not prohibit absolutely; and what He did not absolutely forbid, that He permitted on some occasions, when there is an absence of the cause why He gave His prohibition.

1. But since the discourse has reminded us of the subjects of a future judgment and of retribution, and of the punishments of sinners, according to the threatenings of holy Scripture and the of the Church's teaching — viz., that when the time of judgment comes, everlasting fire , and outer darkness, and a prison , and a furnace, and other punishments of like nature, have been prepared for sinners — let us see what our opinions on these points ought to be. But that these subjects may be arrived at in proper order, it seems to me that we ought first to consider the nature of the resurrection, that we may know what that (body) is which shall come either to punishment, or to rest, or to happiness ; which question in other treatises which we have composed regarding the resurrection we have discussed at greater length, and have shown what our opinions were regarding it. But now, also, for the sake of logical order in our treatise, there will be no absurdity in restating a few points from such works, especially since some take offense at the creed of the Church , as if our belief in the resurrection were foolish, and altogether devoid of sense; and these are principally heretics , who, I think, are to be answered in the following manner. If they also admit that there is a resurrection of the dead, let them answer us this, What is that which died? Was it not a body? It is of the body, then, that there will be a resurrection. Let them next tell us if they think that we are to make…

2. Since the heretics , however, think themselves persons of great learning and wisdom, we shall ask them if every body has a form of some kind, i.e., is fashioned according to some shape. And if they shall say that a body is that which is fashioned according to no shape, they will show themselves to be the most ignorant and foolish of mankind . For no one will deny this, save him who is altogether without any learning. But if, as a matter of course, they say that every body is certainly fashioned according to some definite shape, we shall ask them if they can point out and describe to us the shape of a spiritual body; a thing which they can by no means do. We shall ask them, moreover, about the differences of those who rise again. How will they show that statement to be true , that there is one flesh of birds, another of fishes; bodies celestial, and bodies terrestrial; that the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial another; that one is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, another the glory of the stars; that one star differs from another star in glory ; and that so is the resurrection of the dead? According to that gradation, then, which exists among heavenly bodies, let them show to us the differences in the glory of those who rise again; and if they have endeavoured by any means to devise a principle that may be in accordance with the differences in heavenly bodies, we shall ask them to assign the differences in the resurrection…

3. We now turn our attention to some of our own ( believers ), who, either from feebleness of intellect or want of proper instruction, adopt a very low and abject view of the resurrection of the body. We ask these persons in what manner they understand that an animal body is to be changed by the grace of the resurrection, and to become a spiritual one; and how that which is sown in weakness will arise in power; how that which is planted in dishonour will arise in glory ; and that which was sown in corruption, will be changed to a state of incorruption. Because if they believe the apostle, that a body which arises in glory , and power, and incorruptibility, has already become spiritual, it appears absurd and contrary to his meaning to say that it can again be entangled with the passions of flesh and blood, seeing the apostle manifestly declares that flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God , nor shall corruption inherit incorruption. But how do they understand the declaration of the apostle, We shall all be changed? This transformation certainly is to be looked for, according to the order which we have taught above; and in it, undoubtedly, it becomes us to hope for something worthy of divine grace ; and this we believe will take place in the order in which the apostle describes the sowing in the ground of a bare grain of grain, or of any other fruit, to which God gives a body as it pleases Him, as soon as the grain of grain is dead. For in the same way also our…

4. We find in the prophet Isaiah, that the fire with which each one is punished is described as his own; for he says, Walk in the light of your own fire, and in the flame which you have kindled. By these words it seems to be indicated that every sinner kindles for himself the flame of his own fire, and is not plunged into some fire which has been already kindled by another, or was in existence before himself. Of this fire the fuel and food are our sins , which are called by the Apostle Paul wood, and hay, and stubble. And I think that, as abundance of food, and provisions of a contrary kind and amount, breed fevers in the body, and fevers, too, of different sorts and duration, according to the proportion in which the collected poison supplies material and fuel for disease (the quality of this material, gathered together from different poisons, proving the causes either of a more acute or more lingering disease); so, when the soul has gathered together a multitude of evil works, and an abundance of sins against itself, at a suitable time all that assembly of evils boils up to punishment, and is set on fire to chastisements; when the mind itself, or conscience , receiving by divine power into the memory all those things of which it had stamped on itself certain signs and forms at the moment of sinning, will see a kind of history, as it were, of all the foul, and shameful, and unholy deeds which it has done, exposed before its eyes: then is the conscience itself harassed, and,…

1. Let us now briefly see what views we are to form regarding promises. It is certain that there is no living thing which can be altogether inactive and immoveable, but delights in motion of every kind, and in perpetual activity and volition; and this nature, I think it evident, is in all living things. Much more, then, must a rational animal, i.e., the nature of man , be in perpetual movement and activity. If, indeed, he is forgetful of himself, and ignorant of what becomes him, all his efforts are directed to serve the uses of the body, and in all his movements he is occupied with his own pleasures and bodily lusts ; but if he be one who studies to care or provide for the general good, then, either by consulting for the benefit of the state or by obeying the magistrates, he exerts himself for that, whatever it is, which may seem certainly to promote the public advantage. And if now any one be of such a nature as to understand that there is something better than those things which seem to be corporeal, and so bestow his labour upon wisdom and science, then he will undoubtedly direct all his attention towards pursuits of that kind, that he may, by inquiring into the truth , ascertain the causes and reason of things. As therefore, in this life, one man deems it the highest good to enjoy bodily pleasures, another to consult for the benefit of the community, a third to devote attention to study and learning; so let us inquire whether in that life which is the true one (which is…

2. Certain persons , then, refusing the labour of thinking, and adopting a superficial view of the letter of the law, and yielding rather in some measure to the indulgence of their own desires and lusts , being disciples of the letter alone, are of opinion that the fulfilment of the promises of the future are to be looked for in bodily pleasure and luxury; and therefore they especially desire to have again, after the resurrection, such bodily structures as may never be without the power of eating, and drinking, and performing all the functions of flesh and blood, not following the opinion of the Apostle Paul regarding the resurrection of a spiritual body. And consequently they say, that after the resurrection there will be marriages, and the begetting of children, imagining to themselves that the earthly city of Jerusalem is to be rebuilt, its foundations laid in precious stones, and its walls constructed of jasper, and its battlements of crystal; that it is to have a wall composed of many precious stones, as jasper, and sapphire, and chalcedony, and emerald, and sardonyx, and onyx, and chrysolite, and chrysoprase, and jacinth, and amethyst. Moreover, they think that the natives of other countries are to be given them as the ministers of their pleasures, whom they are to employ either as tillers of the field or builders of walls, and by whom their ruined and fallen city is again to be raised up; and they think that they are to receive the wealth of the nations to live on,…

3. Those, however, who receive the representations of Scripture according to the understanding of the apostles , entertain the hope that the saints will eat indeed, but that it will be the bread of life, which may nourish the soul with the food of truth and wisdom, and enlighten the mind , and cause it to drink from the cup of divine wisdom, according to the declaration of holy Scripture: Wisdom has prepared her table, she has killed her beasts, she has mingled her wine in her cup, and she cries with a loud voice, Come to me, eat the bread which I have prepared for you, and drink the wine which I have mingled. By this food of wisdom, the understanding, being nourished to an entire and perfect condition like that in which man was made at the beginning, is restored to the image and likeness of God ; so that, although an individual may depart from this life less perfectly instructed, but who has done works that are approved of, he will be capable of receiving instruction in that Jerusalem, the city of the saints , i.e., he will be educated and moulded, and made a living stone, a stone elect and precious, because he has undergone with firmness and constancy the struggles of life and the trials of piety ; and will there come to a truer and clearer knowledge of that which here has been already predicted, viz., that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God . And they also are to be understood to be the princes and rulers who both…

4. But if these views should not appear to fill the minds of those who hope for such results with a becoming desire, let us go back a little, and, irrespective of the natural and innate longing of the mind for the thing itself, let us make inquiry so that we may be able at last to describe, as it were, the very forms of the bread of life, and the quality of that wine, and the peculiar nature of the principalities, all in conformity with the spiritual view of things. Now, as in those arts which are usually performed by means of manual labour, the reason why a thing is done, or why it is of a special quality, or for a special purpose, is an object of investigation to the mind , while the actual work itself is unfolded to view by the agency of the hands; so, in those works of God which were created by Him, it is to be observed that the reason and understanding of those things which we see done by Him remains undisclosed. And as, when our eye beholds the products of an artist's labour, the mind , immediately on perceiving anything of unusual artistic excellence, burns to know of what nature it is, or how it was formed, or to what purposes it was fashioned; so, in a much greater degree, and in one that is beyond all comparison, does the mind burn with an inexpressible desire to know the reason of those things which we see done by God . This desire, this longing, we believe to be unquestionably implanted within us by God ; and as the eye naturally seeks the light and vision, and…

1. The next subject of inquiry is, whether there was any other world before the one which now exists; and if so, whether it was such as the present, or somewhat different, or inferior; or whether there was no world at all, but something like that which we understand will be after the end of all things, when the kingdom shall be delivered up to God , even the Father; which nevertheless may have been the end of another world — of that, namely, after which this world took its beginning; and whether the various lapses of intellectual natures provoked God to produce this diverse and varying condition of the world. This point also, I think, must be investigated in a similar way, viz., whether after this world there will be any (system of) preservation and amendment, severe indeed, and attended with much pain to those who were unwilling to obey the word of God , but a process through which, by means of instruction and rational training, those may arrive at a fuller understanding of the truth who have devoted themselves in the present life to these pursuits, and who, after having had their minds purified, have advanced onwards so as to become capable of attaining divine wisdom; and after this the end of all things will immediately follow, and there will be again, for the correction and improvement of those who stand in need of it, another world, either resembling that which now exists, or better than it, or greatly inferior; and how long that world, whatever it be that is to come…

2. That it may appear more clearly, then, whether bodily matter can exist during intervals of time, and whether, as it did not exist before it was made, so it may again be resolved into non- existence , let us see, first of all, whether it is possible for any one to live without a body. For if one person can live without a body, all things also may dispense with them; seeing our former treatise has shown that all things tend towards one end. Now, if all things may exist without bodies, there will undoubtedly be no bodily substance, seeing there will be no use for it. But how shall we understand the words of the apostle in those passages, in which, discussing the resurrection of the dead, he says, This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality . When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality , then shall be brought to pass the saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory! Where, O death, is your victory? O death, your sting has been swallowed up: the sting of death is sin , and the strength of sin is the law. Some such meaning, then, as this, seems to be suggested by the apostle. For can the expression which he employs, this corruptible, and this mortal, with the gesture, as it were, of one who touches or points out, apply to anything else than to bodily matter? This matter of the body, then, which is now corruptible shall put on incorruption when a perfect soul , and one…

3. But, nevertheless, those who think that rational creatures can at any time lead an existence out of the body, may here raise such questions as the following. If it is true that this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality , and that death is swallowed up at the end; this shows that nothing else than a material nature is to be destroyed, on which death could operate, while the mental acumen of those who are in the body seems to be blunted by the nature of corporeal matter. If, however, they are out of the body, then they will altogether escape the annoyance arising from a disturbance of that kind. But as they will not be able immediately to escape all bodily clothing, they are just to be considered as inhabiting more refined and purer bodies, which possess the property of being no longer overcome by death, or of being wounded by its sting; so that at last, by the gradual disappearance of the material nature, death is both swallowed up, and even at the end exterminated, and all its sting completely blunted by the divine grace which the soul has been rendered capable of receiving, and has thus deserved to obtain incorruptibility and immortality . And then it will be deservedly said by all, O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin . If these conclusions, then, seem to hold good, it follows that we must believe our condition at some future time to be incorporeal; and if this is admitted, and all…

4. And now I do not understand by what proofs they can maintain their position, who assert that worlds sometimes come into existence which are not dissimilar to each other, but in all respects equal. For if there is said to be a world similar in all respects (to the present), then it will come to pass that Adam and Eve will do the same things which they did before: there will be a second time the same deluge, and the same Moses will again lead a nation numbering nearly six hundred thousand out of Egypt ; Judas will also a second time betray the Lord; Paul will a second time keep the garments of those who stoned Stephen; and everything which has been done in this life will be said to be repeated — a state of things which I think cannot be established by any reasoning, if souls are actuated by freedom of will, and maintain either their advance or retrogression according to the power of their will. For souls are not driven on in a cycle which returns after many ages to the same round, so as either to do or desire this or that; but at whatever point the freedom of their own will aims, there do they direct the course of their actions. For what these persons say is much the same as if one were to assert that if a medimnus of grain were to be poured out on the ground, the fall of the grain would be on the second occasion identically the same as on the first, so that every individual grain would lie for the second time close beside that grain where it had been thrown before, and so…

1. But as it is not sufficient, in the discussion of matters of such importance, to entrust the decision to the human senses and to the human understanding, and to pronounce on things invisible as if they were seen by us, we must, in order to establish the positions which we have laid down, adduce the testimony of Holy Scripture . And that this testimony may produce a sure and unhesitating belief, either with regard to what we have still to advance, or to what has been already stated, it seems necessary to show, in the first place, that the Scriptures themselves are divine, i.e., were inspired by the Spirit of God . We shall therefore with all possible brevity draw forth from the Holy Scriptures themselves, such evidence on this point as may produce upon us a suitable impression, (making our quotations) from Moses , the first legislator of the Hebrew nation, and from the words of Jesus Christ , the Author and Chief of the Christian religious system. For although there have been numerous legislators among the Greeks and Barbarians, and also countless teachers and philosophers who professed to declare the truth , we do not remember any legislator who was able to produce in the minds of foreign nations an affection and a zeal (for him) such as led them either voluntarily to adopt his laws , or to defend them with all the efforts of their mind. No one, then, has been able to introduce and make known what seemed to himself the truth , among, I do not say many foreign nations, but…

2. And we may see, moreover, how that religion itself grew up in a short time, making progress by the punishment and death of its worshippers, by the plundering of their goods, and by the tortures of every kind which they endured; and this result is the more surprising, that even the teachers of it themselves neither were men of skill, nor very numerous; and yet these words are preached throughout the whole world, so that Greeks and Barbarians, wise and foolish, adopt the doctrines of the Christian religion . From which it is no doubtful inference, that it is not by human power or might that the words of Jesus Christ come to prevail with all faith and power over the understandings and souls of all men . For, that these results were both predicted by Him, and established by divine answers proceeding from Him, is clear from His own words: You shall be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles . And again: This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached among all nations. And again: Many shall say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not eaten and drunk in Your name, and in Your name cast out devils? And I will say unto them, Depart from Me, you workers of iniquity, I never knew you. If these sayings, indeed, had been so uttered by Him, and yet if these predictions had not been fulfilled, they might perhaps appear to be untrue, and not to possess any authority. But now, when His declarations do pass into fulfilment, seeing they…

3. What, then, are we to say of this, which the prophets had beforehand foretold of Him, that princes would not cease from Judah, nor leaders from be­tween his thighs, until He should come for whom it has been reserved (viz., the kingdom), and until the expectation of the Gentiles should come? For it is most distinctly evident from the history itself, from what is clearly seen at the present day, that from the times of Christ onwards there were no kings among the Jews . Nay, even all those objects of Jewish pride , of which they vaunted so much, and in which they exulted, whether regarding the beauty of the temple or the ornaments of the altar, and all those sacerdotal fillets and robes of the high priests , were all destroyed together. For the proph­ecy was fulfilled which had declared, For the chil­dren of Israel shall abide many days without king and prince: there shall be no victim, nor altar, nor priesthood , nor answers. These testimonies, ac­cordingly, we employ against those who seem to assert that what is spoken in Genesis by Jacob refers to Judah; and who say that there still remains a prince of the race of Judah — he, viz., who is the prince of their nation, whom they style Patriarch — and that there cannot fail (a ruler) of his seed, who will re­main until the advent of that Christ whom they pic­ture to themselves. But if the prophet's words be true , when he says, The children of Israel shall abide many days without king, without prince; and there shall be no…

4. In the song of Deuteronomy, also, it is pro­phetically declared that, on account of the sins of the former people, there was to be an election of a fool­ish nation — no other, certainly, than that which was brought about by Christ; for thus the words run: They have moved Me to anger with their images, and I will stir them up to jealousy; I will arouse them to anger against a foolish nation. We may therefore evidently see how the Hebrews, who are said to have excited God's anger by means of those ( idols ), which are no gods, and to have aroused His wrath by their images, were themselves also excited to jealousy by means of a foolish nation, which God has chosen by the advent of Jesus Christ and His disciples . For the following is the language of the apostle: For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men among you after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble (are called): but God has chosen the foolish things of the world, and the things which are not, to destroy the things which formerly existed . Carnal Israel , therefore, should not boast; for such is the term used by the apostle: No flesh, I say, should glory in the presence of God .

1. It is now time, after this cursory notice of these points, to resume our investigation of the incarnation of our Lord and Saviour, viz., how or why He became man. Having therefore, to the best of our feeble ability, considered His divine nature from the contemplation of His own works rather than from our own feelings, and having nevertheless beheld (with the eye) His visible creation while the invisible creation is seen by faith , because human frailty can neither see all things with the bodily eye nor comprehend them by reason, seeing we men are weaker and frailer than any other rational beings (for those which are in heaven, or are supposed to exist above the heaven, are superior), it remains that we seek a being intermediate between all created things and God , i.e., a Mediator, whom the Apostle Paul styles the first-born of every creature. Seeing, moreover, those declarations regarding His majesty which are contained in holy Scripture, that He is called the image of the invisible God , and the first-born of every creature, and that in Him were all things created, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him, and in Him: and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist, who is the head of all things, alone having as head God the Father; for it is written, The head of Christ is God ; seeing clearly also that it is written, No one knows the Father , save the Son , nor does any one…

2. But of all the marvellous and mighty acts related of Him, this altogether surpasses human admiration, and is beyond the power of mortal frailness to understand or feel, how that mighty power of divine majesty, that very Word of the Father , and that very wisdom of God , in which were created all things, visible and invisible, can be believed to have existed within the limits of that man who appeared in Judea ; nay, that the Wisdom of God can have entered the womb of a woman , and have been born an infant, and have uttered wailings like the cries of little children! And that afterwards it should be related that He was greatly troubled in death, saying, as He Himself declared, My soul is sorrowful even unto death; and that at the last He was brought to that death which is accounted the most shameful among men , although He rose again on the third day. Since, then, we see in Him some things so human that they appear to differ in no respect from the common frailty of mortals, and some things so divine that they can appropriately belong to nothing else than to the primal and ineffable nature of Deity, the narrowness of human understanding can find no outlet; but, overcome with the amazement of a mighty admiration, knows not whither to withdraw, or what to take hold of, or whither to turn. If it think of a God , it sees a mortal; if it think of a man , it beholds Him returning from the grave, after overthrowing the empire of death, laden with its spoils. And therefore the…

3. The Only-begotten of God , therefore, through whom, as the previous course of the discussion has shown, all things were made, visible and invisible, according to the view of Scripture, both made all things, and loves what He made. For since He is Himself the invisible image of the invisible God , He conveyed invisibly a share in Himself to all His rational creatures, so that each one obtained a part of Him exactly proportioned to the amount of affection with which he regarded Him. But since, agreeably to the faculty of free-will , variety and diversity characterized the individual souls , so that one was attached with a warmer love to the Author of its being, and another with a feebler and weaker regard, that soul ( anima ) regarding which Jesus said, No one shall take my life ( animam ) from me, inhering, from the beginning of the creation, and afterwards, inseparably and indissolubly in Him, as being the Wisdom and Word of God , and the Truth and the true Light, and receiving Him wholly, and passing into His light and splendour, was made with Him in a pre-eminent degree one spirit, according to the promise of the apostle to those who ought to imitate it, that he who is joined in the Lord is one spirit. This substance of a soul , then, being intermediate between God and the flesh — it being impossible for the nature of God to intermingle with a body without an intermediate instrument — the God-man is born, as we have said, that substance being the intermediary to whose…

4. That the perfection of his love and the sincerity of his deserved affection formed for it this inseparable union with God , so that the assumption of that soul was not accidental, or the result of a personal preference, but was conferred as the reward of its virtues , listen to the prophet addressing it thus: You have loved righteousness, and hated wickedness : therefore God , your God , has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows. As a reward for its love , then, it is anointed with the oil of gladness ; i.e., the soul of Christ along with the Word of God is made Christ. Because to be anointed with the oil of gladness means nothing else than to be filled with the Holy Spirit . And when it is said above your fellows, it is meant that the grace of the Spirit was not given to it as to the prophets , but that the essential fullness of the Word of God Himself was in it, according to the saying of the apostle, In whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Finally, on this account he has not only said, You have loved righteousness; but he adds, and You have hated wickedness . For to have hated wickedness is what the Scripture says of Him, that He did no sin , neither was any guile found in His mouth, and that He was tempted in all things like as we are, without sin . Nay, the Lord Himself also said, Which of you will convince Me of sin ? And again He says with reference to Himself, Behold, the prince of this world comes, and finds nothing in Me. All…

1. The order of our arrangement now requires us, after the discussion of the preceding subjects, to institute a general inquiry regarding the soul ; and, beginning with points of inferior importance, to ascend to those that are of greater. Now, that there are souls in all living things, even in those which live in the waters, is, I suppose, doubted by no one. For the general opinion of all men maintains this; and confirmation from the authority of holy Scripture is added, when it is said that God made great whales, and every living creature that moves which the waters brought forth after their kind. It is confirmed also from the common intelligence of reason, by those who lay down in certain words a definition of soul . For soul is defined as follows: a substance φανταστική and ὁρμητική , which may be rendered into Latin, although not so appropriately, sensibilis et mobilis . This certainly may be said appropriately of all living beings, even of those which abide in the waters; and of winged creatures too, this same definition of anima may be shown to hold good. Scripture also has added its authority to a second opinion, when it says, You shall not eat the blood, because the life of all flesh is its blood; and you shall not eat the life with the flesh; in which it intimates most clearly that the blood of every animal is its life. And if any one now were to ask how it can be said with respect to bees, wasps, and ants, and those other things which are in the waters, oysters…

2. But the nature of the incarnation will render unnecessary any inquiry into the soul of Christ . For as He truly possessed flesh, so also He truly possessed a soul . It is difficult indeed both to feel and to state how that which is called in Scripture the soul of God is to be understood; for we acknowledge that nature to be simple, and without any intermixture or addition. In whatever way, however, it is to be understood, it seems, meanwhile, to be named the soul of God ; whereas regarding Christ there is no doubt . And therefore there seems to me no absurdity in either understanding or asserting some such thing regarding the holy angels and the other heavenly powers, since that definition of soul appears applicable also to them. For who can rationally deny that they are sensible and moveable? But if that definition appear to be correct, according to which a soul is said to be a substance rationally sensible and moveable, the same definition would seem also to apply to angels . For what else is in them than rational feeling and motion? Now those beings who are comprehended under the same definition have undoubtedly the same substance. Paul indeed intimates that there is a kind of animal-man who, he says, cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God , but declares that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit seems to him foolish, and that he cannot understand what is to be spiritually discerned. In another passage he says it is sown an animal body, and arises a spiritual body,…

3. But perhaps this question is asked, If it be the understanding which prays and sings with the spirit, and if it be the same which receives both perfection and salvation , how is it that Peter says, Receiving the end of your faith , even the salvation of your souls ? If the soul neither prays nor sings with the spirit, how shall it hope for salvation ? Or when it attains to blessedness, shall it be no longer called a soul ? Let us see if perhaps an answer may be given in this way, that as the Saviour came to save what was lost, that which formerly was said to be lost is not lost when it is saved; so also, perhaps, this which is saved is called a soul , and when it has been placed in a state of salvation will receive a name from the Word that denotes its more perfect condition. But it appears to some that this also may be added, that as the thing which was lost undoubtedly existed before it was lost, at which time it was something else than destroyed, so also will be the case when it is no longer in a ruined condition. In like manner also, the soul which is said to have perished will appear to have been something at one time, when as yet it had not perished, and on that account would be termed soul , and being again freed from destruction, it may become a second time what it was before it perished, and be called a soul . But from the very signification of the name soul which the Greek word conveys, it has appeared to a few curious inquirers that a meaning of no small…

4. Now, if this be the case, it seems to me that this very decay and falling away of the understanding is not the same in all, but that this conversion into a soul is carried to a greater or less degree in different instances, and that certain understandings retain something even of their former vigour, and others again either nothing or a very small amount. Whence some are found from the very commencement of their lives to be of more active intellect , others again of a slower habit of mind , and some are born wholly obtuse, and altogether incapable of instruction. Our statement, however, that the understanding is converted into a soul , or whatever else seems to have such a meaning, the reader must carefully consider and settle for himself, as these views are not be regarded as advanced by us in a dogmatic manner, but simply as opinions, treated in the style of investigation and discussion. Let the reader take this also into consideration, that it is observed with regard to the soul of the Saviour , that of those things which are written in the Gospel , some are ascribed to it under the name of soul , and others under that of spirit. For when it wishes to indicate any suffering or perturbation affecting Him, it indicates it under the name of soul ; as when it says, Now is My soul troubled; and, My soul is sorrowful, even unto death; and, No man takes My soul from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. Into the hands of His Father He commends not His soul , but His spirit; and…

1. All who believe and are assured that grace and truth were obtained through Jesus Christ , and who know Christ to be the truth , agreeably to His own declaration, I am the truth , derive the knowledge which incites men to a good and happy life from no other source than from the very words and teaching of Christ . And by the words of Christ we do not mean those only which He spoke when He became man and tabernacled in the flesh; for before that time, Christ, the Word of God , was in Moses and the prophets . For without the Word of God , how could they have been able to prophesy of Christ? And were it not our purpose to confine the present treatise within the limits of all attainable brevity, it would not be difficult to show, in proof of this statement, out of the Holy Scriptures , how Moses or the prophets both spoke and performed all they did through being filled with the Spirit of Christ . And therefore I think it sufficient to quote this one testimony of Paul from the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which he says: By faith Moses , when he had come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God , than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of the Egyptians . Moreover, that after His ascension into heaven He spoke in His apostles , is shown by Paul in these words: Or do you seek a proof of Christ who speaks in me?

2. Since many, however, of those who profess to believe in Christ differ from each other, not only in small and trifling matters, but also on subjects of the highest importance, as, e.g., regarding God , or the Lord Jesus Christ , or the Holy Spirit ; and not only regarding these, but also regarding others which are created existences, viz., the powers and the holy virtues ; it seems on that account necessary first of all to fix a definite limit and to lay down an unmistakable rule regarding each one of these, and then to pass to the investigation of other points. For as we ceased to seek for truth (notwithstanding the professions of many among Greeks and Barbarians to make it known ) among all who claimed it for erroneous opinions, after we had come to believe that Christ was the Son of God , and were persuaded that we must learn it from Himself; so, seeing there are many who think they hold the opinions of Christ , and yet some of these think differently from their predecessors, yet as the teaching of the Church , transmitted in orderly succession from the apostles , and remaining in the Churches to the present day, is still preserved, that alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition.

3. Now it ought to be known that the holy apostles , in preaching the faith of Christ , delivered themselves with the utmost clearness on certain points which they believed to be necessary to every one, even to those who seemed somewhat dull in the investigation of divine knowledge ; leaving, however, the grounds of their statements to be examined into by those who should deserve the excellent gifts of the Spirit , and who, especially by means of the Holy Spirit Himself, should obtain the gift of language, of wisdom, and of knowledge : while on other subjects they merely stated the fact that things were so, keeping silence as to the manner or origin of their existence ; clearly in order that the more zealous of their successors, who should be lovers of wisdom, might have a subject of exercise on which to display the fruit of their talents — those persons , I mean, who should prepare themselves to be fit and worthy receivers of wisdom.

4. The particular points clearly delivered in the teaching of the apostles are as follow:— First , That there is one God , who created and arranged all things, and who, when nothing existed , called all things into being — God from the first creation and foundation of the world — the God of all just men, of Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Enoch , Noe, Sere, Abraham , Isaac, Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, Moses , and the prophets ; and that this God in the last days, as He had announced beforehand by His prophets , sent our Lord Jesus Christ to call in the first place Israel to Himself, and in the second place the Gentiles , after the unfaithfulness of the people of Israel . This just and good God , the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ , Himself gave the law and the prophets , and the Gospels , being also the God of the apostles and of the Old and New Testaments. Secondly , That Jesus Christ Himself, who came (into the world), was born of the Father before all creatures; that, after He had been the servant of the Father in the creation of all things — For by Him were all things made — He in the last times, divesting Himself (of His glory ), became a man , and was incarnate although God , and while made a man remained the God which He was; that He assumed a body like to our own, differing in this respect only, that it was born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit : that this Jesus Christ was truly born, and did truly suffer, and did not endure this death common (to man) in appearance…

Now I beg of the philosophers of this present time, both those whom I have known personally myself, and those of whom I bare heard by report from others, and I beg also of all other men, that they take in good part the statements I have just made. And let no one suppose that I have expressed myself thus, either through simple friendship toward that man, or through hatred toward the rest of the philosophers ; for if there is any one inclined to be an admirer of them for their discourses, and wishful to speak well of them, and pleased at hearing the most honourable mention made of them by others, I myself am the man.

Nevertheless, those facts (to which I have referred) are of such a nature as to bring upon the very name of philosophy the last degree of ridicule almost from the great mass of men; and I might almost say that I would choose to be altogether unversed in it, rather than learn any of the things which these men profess, with whom I thought it good no longer to associate myself in this life — though in that, it may be, I formed an incorrect judgment. But I say that no one should suppose that I make these statements at the mere prompting of a zealous regard for the praise of this man, or under the stimulus of any existing animosity towards other philosophers .

But let all be assured that I say even less than his deeds merit, lest I should seem to be indulging in adulation; and that I do not seek out studied words and phrases, and cunning means of laudation — I who could never of my own will, even when I was a youth, and learning the popular style of address trader a professor of the art of public speaking, bear to utter a word of praise, or pass any encomium on any one which was not genuine. Wherefore on the present occasion, too, I do not think it right, in proposing to myself the task simply of commending him, to magnify him at the cost of the reprobation of others. And, in good truth, I should speak only to the man's injury, if, with the view of having something grander to say of him, I should compare his blessed life with the failings of others. We are not, however, so senseless.

But I shall testify simply to what has come within my own experience, apart from all ill-judged comparisons and trickeries in words. Argument 11.— Origen is the First and the Only One that Exhorts Gregory to Add to His Acquirements the Study of Philosophy, and Offers Him in a Certain Manner an Example in Himself. Of Justice, Prudence, Temperance, and Fortitude. The Maxim, Know Yourself He was also the first and only man that urged me to study the philosophy of the Greeks, and persuaded me by his own moral example both to hear and to hold by the doctrine of morals, while as yet I had by no means been won over to that, so far as other philosophers were concerned (I again acknowledge it) — not rightly so, indeed, but unhappily, as I may say without exaggeration, for me.

But if he were dealing honestly in his accusations, he ought to have given the exact terms of the prophecies, whether those in which the speaker is introduced as claiming to be God Almighty, or those in which the Son of God speaks, or finally those under the name of the Holy Spirit . For thus he might have endeavoured to overthrow these assertions, and have shown that there was no divine inspiration in those words which urged men to forsake their sins , which condemned the past and foretold the future.

For the prophecies were recorded and preserved by men living at the time, that those who came after might read and admire them as the oracles of God , and that they might profit not only by the warnings and admonitions, but also by the predictions, which, being shown by events to have proceeded from the Spirit of God , bind men to the practice of piety as set forth in the law and the prophets . The prophets have therefore, as God commanded them, declared with all plainness those things which it was desirable that the hearers should understand at once for the regulation of their conduct; while in regard to deeper and more mysterious subjects, which lay beyond the reach of the common understanding, they set them forth in the form of enigmas and allegories, or of what are called dark sayings, parables , or similitudes.

And this plan they have followed, that those who are ready to shun no labour and spare no pains in their endeavours after truth and virtue might search into their meaning, and having found it, might apply it as reason requires. But Celsus, ever vigorous in his denunciations, as though he were angry at his inability to understand the language of the prophets , scoffs at them thus: To these grand promises are added strange, fanatical, and quite unintelligible words, of which no rational person can find the meaning; for so dark are they as to have no meaning at all; but they give occasion to every fool or impostor to apply them so as to suit his own purposes. This statement of Celsus seems ingeniously designed to dissuade readers from attempting any inquiry or careful search into their meaning.

And in this he is not unlike certain persons , who said to a man whom a prophet had visited to announce future events, Wherefore came this mad fellow to you?

And now, since we have touched upon the subject of the prophets , what we are about to advance will be useful not only to the Jews , who believe that they spoke by divine inspiration, but also to the more candid among the Greeks. To these we say that we must necessarily admit that the Jews had prophets , if they were to be kept together under that system of law which had been given them, and were to believe in the Creator of the world, as they had learned, and to be without pretexts, so far as the law was concerned, for apostatizing to the polytheism of the heathen . And we establish this necessity in the following manner. For the nations , as it is written in the law of the Jews itself, shall hearken unto observers of times, and diviners ; but to that people it is said: But as for you, the Lord your God has not suffered you so to do.

And to this is subjoined the promise: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you from among your brethren. Since, therefore, the heathen employ modes of divination either by oracles or by omens, or by birds, or by ventriloquists, or by those who profess the art of sacrifice , or by Chaldean genealogists — all which practices were forbidden to the Jews — this people, if they had no means of attaining a knowledge of futurity, being led by the passion common to humanity of ascertaining the future would have despised their own prophets , as not having in them any particle of divinity; and would not have accepted any prophet after Moses , nor committed their words to writing, but would have spontaneously betaken themselves to the divining usages of the heathen , or attempted to establish some such practices among themselves.

There is therefore no absurdity in their prophets having uttered predictions even about events of no importance, to soothe those who desire such things, as when Samuel prophesies regarding three she-asses which were lost, or when mention is made in the third book of Kings respecting the sickness of a king's son. And why should not those who desired to obtain auguries from idols be severely rebuked by the administrators of the law among the Jews ?— as Elijah is found rebuking Ahaziah, and saying, Is it because there is not a God in Israel that you go to inquire of Baalzebub, god of Ekron?

Celsus goes on to say of us: They set no value on the oracles of the Pythian priestess, of the priests of Dodona, of Clarus, of Branchidæ, of Jupiter Ammon, and of a multitude of others; although under their guidance we may say that colonies were sent forth, and the whole world peopled. But those sayings which were uttered or not uttered in Judea , after the manner of that country, as indeed they are still delivered among the people of Phœnicia and Palestine — these they look upon as marvellous sayings, and unchangeably true . In regard to the oracles here enumerated, we reply that it would be possible for us to gather from the writings of Aristotle and the Peripatetic school not a few things to overthrow the authority of the Pythian and the other oracles.

From Epicurus also, and his followers, we could quote passages to show that even among the Greeks themselves there were some who utterly discredited the oracles which were recognised and admired throughout the whole of Greece. But let it be granted that the responses delivered by the Pythian and other oracles were not the utterances of false men who pretended to a divine inspiration; and let us see if, after all, we cannot convince any sincere inquirers that there is no necessity to attribute these oracular responses to any divinities, but that, on the other hand, they may be traced to wicked demons — to spirits which are at enmity with the human race , and which in this way wish to hinder the soul from rising upwards, from following the path of virtue , and from returning to God in sincere piety .

It is said of the Pythian priestess, whose oracle seems to have been the most celebrated, that when she sat down at the mouth of the Castalian cave, the prophetic Spirit of Apollo entered her private parts; and when she was filled with it, she gave utterance to responses which are regarded with awe as divine truths. Judge by this whether that spirit does not show its profane and impure nature, by choosing to enter the soul of the prophetess not through the more becoming medium of the bodily pores which are both open and invisible, but by means of what no modest man would ever see or speak of. And this occurs not once or twice, which would be more permissible, but as often as she was believed to receive inspiration from Apollo.

Moreover, it is not the part of a divine spirit to drive the prophetess into such a state of ecstasy and madness that she loses control of herself. For he who is under the influence of the Divine Spirit ought to be the first to receive the beneficial effects; and these ought not to be first enjoyed by the persons who consult the oracle about the concerns of natural or civil life, or for purposes of temporal gain or interest; and, moreover, that should be the time of clearest perception, when a person is in close intercourse with the Deity.

But let us consider who those persons are whose guidance Celsus would have us to follow, so that we may not be in want of guides who are recommended both by their antiquity and sanctity . He refers us to divinely inspired poets, as he calls them, to wise men and philosophers , without mentioning their names; so that, after promising to point out those who should guide us, he simply hands us over in a general way to divinely inspired poets, wise men, and philosophers . If he had specified their names in particular, we should have felt ourselves bound to show him that he wished to give us as guides men who were blinded to the truth , and who must therefore lead us into error ; or that if not wholly blinded, yet they are in error in many matters of belief.

But whether Orpheus, Parmenides, Empedocles, or even Homer himself, and Hesiod, are the persons whom he means by inspired poets, let any one show how those who follow their guidance walk in a better way, or lead a more excellent life, than those who, being taught in the school of Jesus Christ , have rejected all images and statues , and even all Jewish superstition , that they may look upward through the Word of God to the one God , who is the Father of the Word.

Who, then, are those wise men and philosophers from whom Celsus would have us to learn so many divine truths, and for whom we are to give up Moses the servant of God , the prophets of the Creator of the world, who have spoken so many things by a truly divine inspiration, and even Him who has given light and taught the way of piety to the whole human race , so that no one can reproach Him if he remains without a share in the knowledge of His mysteries ?

Such, indeed, was the abounding love which He had for men, that He gave to the more learned a theology capable of raising the soul far above all earthly things; while with no less consideration He comes down to the weaker capacities of ignorant men, of simple women , of slaves, and, in short, of all those who from Jesus alone could have received that help for the better regulation of their lives which is supplied by his instructions in regard to the Divine Being, adapted to their wants and capacities.

In regard to the prophets among the Jews , some of them were wise men before they became divinely inspired prophets , while others became wise by the illumination which their minds received when divinely inspired. They were selected by Divine Providence to receive the Divine Spirit, and to be the depositaries of His holy oracles, on the ground of their leading a life of almost unapproachable excellence, intrepid, noble, unmoved by danger or death. For reason teaches that such ought to be the character of the prophets of the Most High, in comparison with which the firmness of Antisthenes, Crates, and Diogenes will seem but as child's play.

It was therefore for their firm adherence to truth , and their faithfulness in the reproof of the wicked , that they were stoned ; they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword; they 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: for they looked always to God and to His blessings, which, being invisible, and not to be perceived by the senses, are eternal .

We have the history of the life of each of the prophets ; but it will be enough at present to direct attention to the life of Moses , whose prophecies are contained in the law; to that of Jeremiah, as it is given in the book which bears his name; to that of Isaiah, who with unexampled austerity walked naked and barefooted for the space of three years. Read and consider the severe life of those children, Daniel and his companions, how they abstained from flesh, and lived on water and pulse. Or if you will go back to more remote times, think of the life of Noah , who prophesied; and of Isaac, who gave his son a prophetic blessing; or of Jacob, who addressed each of his twelve sons, beginning with Come, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days.

These, and a multitude of others, prophesying on behalf of God , foretold events relating to Jesus Christ . We therefore for this reason set at nought the oracles of the Pythian priestess, or those delivered at Dodona, at Clarus, at Branchidæ, at the temple of Jupiter Ammon, or by a multitude of other so-called prophets ; while we regard with reverent awe the Jewish prophets : for we see that the noble, earnest, and devout lives of these men were worthy of the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, whose wonderful effects were widely different from the divination of demons .

Preface In the name of the Father , and the Son , and the Holy Spirit , one God. This is a transcript of the excellent law. But before beginning to give the transcript of the book of the law, it will be worth while to instruct you, O brother, as to its excellence, and the dignity of its disposition. Its first excellence is, that God delivered it by the hand of our most blessed ruler, the chief of the prophets , and first of the apostles , or those who were sent to the children of Israel , viz. Moses the son of Amram, the son of Kohath, of the sons of Levi. Now he was adorned with all manner of wisdom, and endowed with the best genius. Illustrious in dignity, remarkable for the integrity of his disposition, distinguished for power of reason, he talked with God . And He chose him as an instrument of value. By His leader and prophet , God Most High sent it clown to us, and committed it to us (blessed be His name) in the Syriac tongue of the Targum, which the Seventy translated into the Hebrew tongue, to wit, into the tongue of the nation, and the idiom of the common people. Moses . therefore, received it from the eternal Lord, and was the first to whom it was entrusted, and who obeyed its rules and ordinances. Then he taught it to the children of Israel , who also embraced it. And he explained to them its profound mysteries and dark places. And he expounded to them those things which were less easy, as God permitted him, and concealed from them those secrets of the law, as God…

6. Hippolytus, the Syrian expositor of the Targum, has said: We find in an ancient Hebrew copy that God commanded Noah to range the wild beasts in order in the lower floor or storey, and to separate the males from the females by putting wooden stakes between them. And thus, too, he did with all the cattle, and also with the birds in the middle storey. And God ordered the males thus to be separated from the females for the sake of decency and purity, lest they should perchance get intermingled with each other. Moreover, God said to Moses : Provide victuals for yourself and your children. And let them be of wheat, ground, pounded, kneaded with water, and dried. And Noah there and then bade his wife, and his sons' wives, diligently attend to kneading dough and laying it in the oven. They kneaded dough accordingly, and prepared just about as much as might be sufficient for them, so that nothing should remain over but the very least. And God charged Noah , saying to him: Whosoever shall first announce to you the approach of the deluge, him you shall destroy that very moment. In the meantime, moreover, the wife of Cham was standing by, about to put a large piece of bread into the oven. And suddenly, according to the word of the Lord, water rushed forth from the oven, and the flow of water penetrated and destroyed the bread. Therefore the wife of Cham exclaimed, addressing herself to Noah : Oh, sir, the word of God has come good: that which God foretold has come to pass; execute,…

First fragment (Preface) As I wish to give an accurate account of the times of the captivity of the children of Israel in Babylon , and to discuss the prophecies contained in the visions of the blessed Daniel, (as well as) his manner of life from his boyhood in Babylon , I too shall proceed to bear my testimony to that holy and righteous man, a prophet and witness of Christ , who not only declared the visions of Nebuchadnezzar the king in those times, but also trained youths of like mind with himself, and raised up faithful witnesses in the world. He is horn, then, in the time of the prophetic ministry of the blessed Jeremiah, and in the reign of Jehoiakim or Eliakim. Along with the other captives, he is carried off a prisoner to Babylon . Now there are born to the blessed Josiah these five sons — Jehoahaz, Eliakim, Johanan, Zedekiah, or Jeconiah, and Sadum. And on his father's death, Jehoahaz is anointed as king by the people at the age of twenty-three years. Against him comes up Pharaoh -Necho, in the third month of his reign; and he takes him (Jehoahaz) prisoner, and carries him into Egypt , and imposes tribute on the land to the extent of one hundred talents of silver and ten talents of gold. And in his stead he sets up his brother Eliakim as king over the land, whose name also he changed to Jehoiakim, and who was then eleven years old. Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon , and carries him off prisoner to Babylon , taking with him also some of the vessels…

1. In speaking of a lioness from the sea, he meant the rising of the kingdom of Babylon , and that this was the golden head of the image. And in speaking of its eagle wings, be meant that king Nebuchadnezzar was exalted and that his glory was lifted up against God. Then he says its wings were plucked off, i.e., that his glory was destroyed; for he was driven out of his kingdom. And the words, A man's heart was given it, and it was made stand upon the feet of a man , mean that he came to himself again, and recognised that he was but a man , and gave the glory to God . Then after the lioness he sees a second beast, like a bear, which signified the Persians. For after the Babylonians the Persians obtained the power. And in saying that it had three ribs in its mouth, he pointed to the three nations, Persians , Medes, and Babylonians , which were expressed in the image by the silver after the gold. Then comes the third beast, a leopard, which means the Greeks; for after the Persians , Alexander of Macedon had the power, when Darius was overthrown, which was also indicated by the brass in the image. And in saying that the beast had four wings of a fowl, and four heads, he showed most clearly how the kingdom of Alexander was parted into four divisions. For in speaking of four heads, he meant the four kings that arose out of it. For Alexander, when dying, divided his kingdom into four parts. Then he says, The fourth beast (was) dreadful and terrible: it had iron teeth, and claws of…

2. After this, then, what remains, beloved, but the toes of the feet of the image, in which part shall be of iron and part of clay mixed together? By the toes of the feet he meant, mystically , the ten kings that rise out of that kingdom. As Daniel says, I considered the beast; and, lo, (there were) ten horns behind, among which shall come up another little horn springing from them; by which none other is meant than the antichrist that is to rise; and he shall set up the kingdom of Judah. And in saying that three horns were plucked up by the roots by this one, he indicates the three kings of Egypt , Libya, and Ethiopia , whom this one will slay in the array of war . And when he has conquered all, he will prove himself a terrible and savage tyrant, and will cause tribulation and persecution to the saints , exalting himself against them. And after him, it remains that the stone shall come from heaven which smote the image and shivered it, and subverted all the kingdoms, and gave the kingdom to the saints of the Most High. This became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

3. As these things, then, are destined to come to pass, and as the toes of the image turn out to be democracies, and the ten horns of the beast are distributed among ten kings, let us look at what is before us more carefully, and scan it, as it were, with open eye. The golden head of the image is identical with the lioness, by which the Babylonians were represented. The golden shoulders and the arms of silver are the same with the bear, by which the Persians and Medes are meant. The belly and thighs of brass are the leopard, by which the Greeks who ruled from Alexander onwards are intended. The legs of iron are the dreadful and terrible beast, by which the Romans who hold the empire now are meant. The toes of clay and iron are the ten horns which are to be. The one other little horn springing up in their midst is the antichrist. The stone that smites the image and breaks it in pieces, and that filled the whole earth, is Christ, who comes from heaven and brings judgment on the world.

Genesis 1:5 And it was evening, and it was morning, one day. HIPPOLYTUS: He did not say night and day, but one day, with reference to the name of the light. He did not say the first day; for if he had said the first day, he would also have had to say that the second day was made. But it was right to speak not of the first day, but of one day, in order that by saying one, he might show that it returns on its orbit and, while it remains one, makes up the week. Genesis 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water. HIPPOLYTUS: On the first day God made what He made out of nothing. But on the other days He did not make out of nothing, but out of what He had made on the first day, by moulding it according to His pleasure. Genesis 1:6-7 And let it divide between water and water: and it was so.

And God made the firmament; and God divided between the water which was under the firmament, and the water above the firmament: and it was so. HIPPOLYTUS: As the excessive volume of water bore along over the face of the earth, the earth was by reason thereof invisible and formless. When the Lord of all designed to make the invisible visible, He fixed then a third part of the waters in the midst; and another third part He set by itself on high, raising it together with the firmament by His own power; and the remaining third He left beneath, for the use and benefit of men. Now at this point we have an asterisk. The words are found in the Hebrew, but do not occur in the Septuagint . Genesis 3:8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden at even.

HIPPOLYTUS: Rather they discerned the approach of the Lord by a certain breeze. As soon, therefore, as they had sinned , God appeared to them, producing consciousness of their sin , and calling them to repentance. Genesis 49:3 Reuben, my first-born , you are my strength, and the first of my children; hard to bear with, and hard and self-willed: you have grown wanton as water; boil not over. AQUILA: Reuben, my first-born , you are my strength, and the sum of my sorrow: excelling in dignity and excelling in might: you have been insensate as water; excel not. SYMMACHUS: Reuben, my first-born , and beginning of my pain: above measure grasping, and above measure hot as water, you shall not more excel. HIPPOLYTUS: For there was a great display of strength made by God in behalf of His first-born people from Egypt .

For in very many ways was the land of the Egyptians chastised. That first people of the circumcision is meant by my strength, and the first of my children: even as God gave the promise to Abraham and to his seed. But hard to bear with, because the people hardened itself against the obedience of God . And hard, self-willed, because it was not only hard against the obedience of God , but also self-willed so as to set upon the Lord. You have grown wanton, because in the instance of our Lord Jesus Christ the people grew wanton against the Father. But boil not over, says the Spirit , by way of comfort, that it might not, by boiling utterly over, be spilled abroad — giving it hope of salvation . For what has boiled over and been spilled is lost. Genesis 49:4 For you went up to your father's bed.

1. The book of Psalms contains new doctrine after the law which was given by Moses ; and thus it is the second book of doctrine after the Scripture of Moses . After the death, then of Moses and Joshua, and after the judges, David arose, one deemed worthy to be called the father of the Saviour , and he was the first to give the Hebrews a new style of psalmody, by which he did away with the ordinances established by Moses with respect to sacrifice , and introduced a new mode of the worship of God by hymns and acclamations; and many other things also beyond the law of Moses he taught through his whole ministry. And this is the sacredness of the book, and its utility. And the account to be given of its inscription is this: (for) as most of the brethren who believe in Christ think that this hook is David's, and inscribe it Psalms of David, we must state what has reached us with respect to it. The Hebrews give the book the title Sephra Thelim, and in the Acts of the Apostles it is called the Book of Psalms (the words are these, as it is written in the Book of Psalms ), but the name (of the author) in the inscription of the book is not found there. And the reason of that is, that the words written there are not the words of one man, but those of several together; Esdra, as tradition says, having collected in one volume, after the captivity, the psalms of several, or rather their words, as they are not all psalms. Thus the name of David is prefixed in the case of some, and that of…

2. As regards those which have no inscription, we must also inquire to whom we ought to ascribe them. For why is it that even the simplest inscription is wanting in them — such as the one which runs thus, A psalm of David, or Of David, without any addition? Now, my idea is, that wherever this inscription occurs alone, what is written is neither a psalm nor a song, but some sort of utterance under guidance of the Holy Spirit , recorded for the benefit of him who is able to understand it. But the opinion of a certain Hebrew on these last matters has reached me, who held that, when there were many without any inscription, but preceded by one with the inscription Of David, all these should be reckoned also to be by David. And if this be the case, it follows that those without any inscription are by those (writers) who are rightly reckoned, according to the titles, to be the authors of the psalms preceding these. This book of Psalms before us has also been called by the prophet the Psalter, because, as they say, the psaltery alone among musical instruments gives back the sound from above when the brass is struck, and not from beneath, after the manner of others. In order, therefore, that those who understand it may be zealous to carry out the analogy of such an appellation, and may also look above, from which direction its melody comes — for this reason he has styled it the Psalter. For it is entirely the voice and utterance of the most Holy Spirit .

3. Let us inquire, further, why there are one hundred and fifty psalms. That the number fifty is sacred, is manifest from the days of the celebrated festival of Pentecost, which indicates release from labours, and (the possession of) joy . For which reason neither fasting nor bending the knee is decreed for those days. For this is a symbol of the great assembly that is reserved for future times. Of which times there was a shadow in the land of Israel in the year called among the Hebrews Jobel (Jubilee). which is the fiftieth year in number, and brings with it liberty for the slave, and release from debt, and the like. And the holy Gospel knows also the remission of the number fifty, and of that number which is cognate with it, and stands by it, viz., five hundred; for it is not without a purpose that we have given us there the remission of fifty pence and of five hundred. Thus, then, it was also meet that the hymns to God on account of the destruction of enemies, and in thanksgiving for the goodness of God , should contain not simply one set of fifty, but three such, for the name of Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit .

4. The number fifty, moreover, contains seven sevens, or a Sabbath of Sabbaths ; and also over and above these full Sabbaths , a new beginning, in the eight, of a really new rest that remains above the Sabbaths . And let any one who is able, observe this (as it is carried out) in the Psalms with more, indeed, than human accuracy, so as to find out the reasons in each case, as we shall set them forth. Thus, for instance, it is not without a purpose that the eighth psalm has the inscription, On the wine-presses, as it comprehends the perfection of fruits in the eight; for the time for the enjoyment of the fruits of the true vine could not be before the eight. And again, the second psalm inscribed On the wine-presses, is the eightieth, containing another eighth number, viz., in the tenth multiple. The eighty-third, again, is made up by the union of two holy numbers, viz., the eight in the tenth multiple, and the three in the first multiple. And the fiftieth psalm is a prayer for the remission of sins , and a confession. For as, according to the Gospel , the fiftieth obtained remission, confirming thereby that understanding of the jubilee, so he who offers up such petitions in full confession hopes to gain remission in no other number than the fiftieth. And again, there are also certain others which are called Songs of degrees, in number fifteen, as was also the number of the steps of the temple, and which show thereby, perhaps, that the steps (or degrees ) are comprehended…

Treatise 1 (Cyprian of Carthage) Home > Fathers of the Church > Treatises (Cyprian of Carthage) > Treatise 1 Treatise 1 On the Unity of the Church. Argument.— On the Occasion of the Schism of Novatian , to Keep Back from Him the Carthaginians, Who Already Were Not Averse to Him, on Account of Novatus and Some Other Presbyters of His Church, Who Had Originated the Whole Disturbance, Cyprian Wrote This Treatise. And First of All, Fortifying Them Against the Deceits of These, He Exhorts Them to Constancy, and Instructs Them that Heresies Exist Because Christ, the Head of the Church , is Not Looked To, that the Common Commission First Entrusted to Peter is Contemned, and the One Church and the One Episcopate are Deserted. Then He Proves, as Well by the Scriptures as by the Figures of the Old and New Testament , the Unity of the Church .

1. Since the Lord warns us, saying, You are the salt of the earth, Matthew 5:13 and since He bids us to be simple to harmlessness, and yet with our simplicity to be prudent , what else, beloved brethren, befits us, than to use foresight and watching with an anxious heart, both to perceive and to beware of the wiles of the crafty foe, that we, who have put on Christ the wisdom of God the Father , may not seem to be wanting in wisdom in the matter of providing for our salvation ? For it is not persecution alone that is to be feared; nor those things which advance by open attack to overwhelm and cast down the servants of God . Caution is more easy where danger is manifest, and the mind is prepared beforehand for the contest when the adversary avows himself. The enemy is more to be feared and to be guarded against, when he creeps on us secretly; when, deceiving by the appearance of peace, he steals forward by hidden approaches, whence also he has received the name of the Serpent. That is always his subtlety; that is his dark and stealthy artifice for circumventing man. Thus from the very beginning of the world he deceived; and flattering with lying words, he misled inexperienced souls by an incautious credulity. Thus he endeavoured to tempt the Lord Himself: he secretly approached Him, as if he would creep on Him again, and deceive; yet he was understood, and beaten back, and therefore prostrated, because he was recognised and detected.

2. From which an example is given us to avoid the way of the old man, to stand in the footsteps of a conquering Christ, that we may not again be incautiously turned back into the nets of death, but, foreseeing our danger, may possess the immortality that we have received. But how can we possess immortality , unless we keep those commands of Christ whereby death is driven out and overcome, when He Himself warns us, and says, If you will enter into life, keep the commandments? Matthew 19:17 And again: If you do the things that I command you, henceforth I call you not servants, but friends. John 15:14-15 Finally, these persons He calls strong and steadfast; these He declares to be founded in robust security upon the rock, established with immoveable and unshaken firmness, in opposition to all the tempests and hurricanes of the world. Whosoever, says He, hears my words, and does them, I will liken him unto a wise man, that built his house upon a rock: the rain descended, the floods came, the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. Matthew 7:24 We ought therefore to stand fast on His words, to learn and do whatever He both taught and did. But how can a man say that he believes in Christ , who does not do what Christ commanded him to do? Or whence shall he attain to the reward of faith , who will not keep the faith of the commandment? He must of necessity waver and wander, and, caught away by a spirit of error , like dust which is…

3. But, beloved brethren, not only must we beware of what is open and manifest, but also of what deceives by the craft of subtle fraud. And what can be more crafty, or what more subtle, than for this enemy, detected and cast down by the advent of Christ , after light has come to the nations , and saving rays have shone for the preservation of men , that the deaf might receive the hearing of spiritual grace , the blind might open their eyes to God , the weak might grow strong again with eternal health, the lame might run to the church, the dumb might pray with clear voices and prayers — seeing his idols forsaken, and his lanes and his temples deserted by the numerous concourse of believers — to devise a new fraud, and under the very title of the Christian name to deceive the incautious? He has invented heresies and schisms, whereby he might subvert the faith , might corrupt the truth , might divide the unity. Those whom he cannot keep in the darkness of the old way, he circumvents and deceives by the error of a new way. He snatches men from the Church itself; and while they seem to themselves to have already approached to the light, and to have escaped the night of the world, he pours over them again, in their unconsciousness, new darkness; so that, although they do not stand firm with the Gospel of Christ , and with the observation and law of Christ , they still call themselves Christians , and, walking in darkness, they think that they have the light, while the adversary is…

Treatise 3 (Cyprian of Carthage) Home > Fathers of the Church > Treatises (Cyprian of Carthage) > Treatise 3 Treatise 3 On the Lapsed. Argument.— Having Enlarged Upon the Unlooked-for Peace of the Church , and the Constancy of the Confessors and Those Who Had Stood Fast in the Faith; And Then with Extreme Grief Having Pointed to the Downfall of the Lapsed, and Unfolded the Causes of the Bygone Persecution, Namely, the Neglect of Discipline, and the Sins of the Faithful; Our Author Severely Reproaches the Lapsed, That, at the Very First Words of the Enemy Threatening Them, They Had Sacrificed to Idols, and Had Not Rather Withdrawn, According to Christ's Counsel. Lastly, He Warns His Readers to Avoid the Novatians, Confuting Their Heresy with Many Scriptures.

1. Behold, beloved brethren, peace is restored to the Church ; and although it lately seemed to incredulous people difficult, and to traitors impossible, our security is by divine aid and retribution re-established. Our minds return to gladness ; and the season of affliction and the cloud being dispersed, tranquillity and serenity have shone forth once more. Praises must be given to God , and His benefits and gifts must be celebrated with giving of thanks, although even in the time of persecution our voice has not ceased to give thanks. For not even an enemy has so much power as to prevent us, who love the Lord with our whole heart, and life, and strength, from declaring His blessings and praises always and everywhere with glory . The day earnestly desired, by the prayers of all has come; and after the dreadful and loathsome darkness of a long night, the world has shone forth irradiated by the light of the Lord.

2. We look with glad countenances upon confessors illustrious with the heraldry of a good name, and glorious with the praises of virtue and of faith ; clinging to them with holy kisses, we embrace them long desired with insatiable eagerness. The white-robed cohort of Christ's soldiers is here, who in the fierce conflict have broken the ferocious turbulence of an urgent persecution , having been prepared for the suffering of the dungeon, armed for the endurance of death. Bravely you have resisted the world: you have afforded a glorious spectacle in the sight of God ; you have been an example to your brethren that shall follow you. That religious voice has named the name of Christ , in whom it has once confessed that it believed ; those illustrious hands, which had only been accustomed to divine works, have resisted the sacrilegious sacrifices ; those lips, sanctified by heavenly food after the body and blood of the Lord, have rejected the profane contacts and the leavings of the idols . Your head has remained free from the impious and wicked veil with which the captive heads of those who sacrificed were there veiled; your brow, pure with the sign of God , could not bear the crown of the devil , but reserved itself for the Lord's crown. How joyously does your Mother Church receive you in her bosom, as you return from the battle! How blissfully, how gladly, does she open her gates, that in united bands you may enter, bearing the trophies from a prostrate enemy! With the…

3. Let none, my beloved brethren, let none depreciate this glory ; let none by malignant dispraise detract from the uncorrupted steadfastness of those who have stood. When the day appointed for denying had gone by, every one who had not professed within that time not to be a Christian , confessed that he was a Christian . It is the first title to victory to confess the Lord under the violence of the hands of the Gentiles . It is the second step to glory to be withdrawn by a cautious retirement, and to be reserved for the Lord. The former is a public, the latter is a private confession. The former overcomes the judge of this world; the latter, content with God as its judge, keeps a pure conscience in integrity of heart. In the former case there is a readier fortitude ; in the latter, solicitude is more secure. The former, as his hour approached, was already found mature; the latter perhaps was delayed, who, leaving his estate, withdrew for a while, because he would not deny, but would certainly confess if he too had been apprehended.

Treatise 4 (Cyprian of Carthage) Home > Fathers of the Church > Treatises (Cyprian of Carthage) > Treatise 4 Treatise 4 On the Lord's Prayer. Argument.— The Treatise of Cyprian on the Lord's Prayer Comprises Three Portions, in Which Division He Imitates Tertullian in His Book on Prayer, in the First Portion, He Points Out that the Lord's Prayer is the Most Excellent of All Prayers, Profoundly Spiritual, and Most Effectual for Obtaining Our Petitions. In the Second Part, He Undertakes an Explanation of the Lord's Prayer; And, Still Treading in the Footsteps of Tertullian , He Goes Through Its Seven Chief Clauses, Finally, in the Third Part, He Considers the Conditions of Prayer, and Tells Us What Prayer Ought to Be. —

1. The evangelical precepts, beloved brethren, are nothing else than divine teachings — foundations on which hope is to be built, supports to strengthen faith , nourishments for cheering the heart, rudders for guiding our way, guards for obtaining salvation — which, while they instruct the docile minds of believers on the earth, lead them to heavenly kingdoms. God , moreover, willed many things to be said and to be heard by means of the prophets His servants; but how much greater are those which the Son speaks, which the Word of God who was in the prophets testifies with His own voice; not now bidding to prepare the way for His coming, but Himself coming and opening and showing to us the way, so that we who have before been wandering in the darkness of death, without forethought and blind, being enlightened by the light of grace , might keep the way of life, with the Lord for our ruler and guide!

2. He, among the rest of His salutary admonitions and divine precepts wherewith He counsels His people for their salvation , Himself also gave a form of praying — Himself advised and instructed us what we should pray for. He who made us to live, taught us also to pray , with that same benignity, to wit, wherewith He has condescended to give and confer all things else; in order that while we speak to the Father in that prayer and supplication which the Son has taught us, we may be the more easily heard. Already He had foretold that the hour was coming when the true worshippers should worship the Father in spirit and in truth ; John 4:23 and He thus fulfilled what He before promised, so that we who by His sanctification have received the Spirit and truth , may also by His teaching worship truly and spiritually. For what can be a more spiritual prayer than that which was given to us by Christ, by whom also the Holy Spirit was given to us? What praying to the Father can be more truthful than that which was delivered to us by the Son who is the Truth, out of His own mouth? So that to pray otherwise than He taught is not ignorance alone, but also sin ; since He Himself has established, and said, You reject the commandments of God , that you may keep your own traditions.

3. Let us therefore, brethren beloved, pray as God our Teacher has taught us. It is a loving and friendly prayer to beseech God with His own word, to come up to His ears in the prayer of Christ . Let the Father acknowledge the words of His Son when we make our prayer , and let Him also who dwells within in our breast Himself dwell in our voice. And since we have Him as an Advocate with the Father for our sins , let us, when as sinners we petition on behalf of our sins , put forward the words of our Advocate. For since He says, that whatsoever we shall ask of the Father in His name, He will give us, John 16:23 how much more effectually do we obtain what we ask in Christ's name, if we ask for it in His own prayer !

1. Many and great, beloved brethren, are the divine benefits wherewith the large and abundant mercy of God the Father and Christ both has laboured and is always labouring for our salvation : that the Father sent the Son to preserve us and give us life, in order that He might restore us; and that the Son was willing to be sent and to become the Son of man , that He might make us sons of God ; humbled Himself, that He might raise up the people who before were prostrate; was wounded that He might heal our wounds; served, that He might draw out to liberty those who were in bondage; underwent death, that He might set forth immortality to mortals. These are many and great boons of divine compassion. But, moreover, what is that providence , and how great the clemency, that by a plan of salvation it is provided for us, that more abundant care should be taken for preserving man after he is already redeemed! For when the Lord at His advent had cured those wounds which Adam had borne, and had healed the old poisons of the serpent, He gave a law to the sound man and bade him sin no more, lest a worse thing should befall the sinner. We had been limited and shut up into a narrow space by the commandment of innocence. Nor would the infirmity and weakness of human frailty have any resource, unless the divine mercy, coming once more in aid, should open some way of securing salvation by pointing out works of justice and mercy, so that by almsgiving we may wash away whatever foulness we…

2. The Holy Spirit speaks in the sacred Scriptures, and says, By almsgiving and faith sins are purged. Not assuredly those sins which had been previously contracted, for those are purged by the blood and sanctification of Christ . Moreover, He says again, As water extinguishes fire, so almsgiving quenches sin . Sirach 3:30 Here also it is shown and proved , that as in the layer of saving water the fire of Gehenna is extinguished, so by almsgiving and works of righteousness the flame of sins is subdued. And because in baptism remission of sins is granted once for all, constant and ceaseless labour, following the likeness of baptism , once again bestows the mercy of God . The Lord teaches this also in the Gospel . For when the disciples were pointed out, as eating and not first washing their hands, He replied and said, He that made that which is within, made also that which is without. But give alms , and behold all things are clean unto you; Luke 11:41 teaching hereby and showing, that not the hands are to be washed, but the heart, and that the foulness from inside is to be done away rather than that from outside; but that he who shall have cleansed what is within has cleansed also that which is without; and that if the mind is cleansed, a man has begun to be clean also in skin and body. Further, admonishing, and showing whence we may be clean and purged, He added that alms must be given. He who is pitiful teaches and warns us that pity must be shown; and because He seeks to…

3. Let us then acknowledge, beloved brethren, the wholesome gift of the divine mercy; and let us, who cannot be without some wound of conscience , heal our wounds by the spiritual remedies for the cleansing and purging of our sins . Nor let any one so flatter himself with the notion of a pure and immaculate heart, as, in dependence on his own innocence, to think that the medicine needs not to be applied to his wounds; since it is written, Who shall boast that he has a clean heart, or who shall boast that he is pure from sins ? Proverbs 20:9 And again, in his epistle, John lays it down, and says, If we say that we have no sin , we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if no one can be without sin , and whoever should say that he is without fault is either proud or foolish, how needful, how kind is the divine mercy, which, knowing that there are still found some wounds in those that have been healed, even after their healing, has given wholesome remedies for the curing and healing of their wounds anew!

4. Finally, beloved brethren, the divine admonition in the Scriptures , as well old as new, has never failed, has never been silent in urging God's people always and everywhere to works of mercy; and in the strain and exhortation of the Holy Spirit , every one who is instructed into the hope of the heavenly kingdom is commanded to give alms . God commands and prescribes to Isaiah: Cry, says He, with strength, and spare not. Lift up your voice as a trumpet, and declare to my people their transgressions, and to the house of Jacob their sins . Isaiah 58:1 And when He had commanded their sins to be charged upon them, and with the full force of His indignation had set forth their iniquities, and had said, that not even though they should use supplications, and prayers , and fastings , should they be able to make atonement for their sins ; nor, if they were clothed in sackcloth and ashes, be able to soften God's anger , yet in the last part showing that God can be appeased by almsgiving alone, he added, saying, Break your bread to the hungry, and bring the poor that are without a home into your house. If you see the naked, clothe him; and despise not the household of your own seed. Then shall your light break forth in season, and your garments shall arise speedily; and righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of God shall surround you. Then shall you cry, and God shall hear you; while yet you are speaking, He shall say, Here I am. Isaiah 58:1-9

I. From the Discourse on the Resurrection. I. Read the Book on the Resurrection by St. Methodius, Bishop and Martyr, of which that which follows is a selection, that the body is not the fetter of the soul , as Origen thought, nor are souls called by the prophet Jeremiah fettered on account of their being within bodies. For he lays down the principle that the body does not hinder the energies of the soul , but that rather the body is carried about with it, and cooperates in whatever the soul commits to it. But how are we to understand the opinion of Gregory the theologian, and many Others? II. That Origen said that the body was given to the soul as a fetter after the fall, and that previously it lived without a body; but that this body which we wear is the cause of our sins ; wherefore also he called it a fetter, as it can hinder the soul from good works. III. That if the body was given to the soul after the fall as a fetter, it must have been given as a fetter upon the evil or the good. Now it is impossible that it should be upon the good; for no physician or artificer gives to that which has gone wrong a remedy to cause further error , much less would God do so. It remains, then, that it was a fetter upon evil . But surely we see that, at the beginning, Cain, clad in this body, committed murder ; and it is evident into what wickedness those who succeeded him ran. The body is not, then, a fetter upon evil , nor indeed a fetter at all; nor was the soul clothed in it for the…

1. Read a compendious interpretation of some apostolic words from the same discourse. Let us see, then, what it is that we have endeavoured to say respecting the apostle. For this saying of his, I was alive without the law once, Romans 7:9 refers to the life which was lived in paradise before the law, not without a body, but with a body, by our first parents , as we have shown above; for we lived without concupiscence, being altogether ignorant of its assaults. For not to have a law according to which we ought to live, nor a power of establishing what manner of life we ought to adopt, so that we might justly be approved or blamed, is considered to exempt a person from accusation. Because one cannot lust after those things from which he is not restrained, and even if he lusted after them, he would not be blamed. For lust is not directed to things which are before us, and subject to our power, but to those which are before us, and not in our power. For how should one care for a thing which is neither forbidden nor necessary to him? And for this reason it is said, I had not known lust , except the law had said, You shall not covet . Romans 7:7 For when (our first parents ) heard, Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil , you shall not eat of it; for in the day you eat thereof you shall surely die, Genesis 2:17 then they conceived lust , and gathered it. Therefore was it said, I had not known lust , except the law had said, You shall not covet ; nor would they have desired…

That God Also Appeared to Jacob as an Angel; Namely, the Son of God. What if in another place also we read in like manner that God was described as an angel ? For when, to his wives Leah and Rachel, Jacob complained of the injustice of their father, and when he told them that he desired now to go and return into his own land, he moreover inter posed the authority of his dream; and at this time he says that the angel of God had said to him in a dream , Jacob, Jacob. And I said, says he, What is it? Lift up your eyes, said He, and see, the he-goats and the rams leaping upon the sheep, and the she-goats are black and white, and many-colored, and grizzled, and speckled: for I have seen all that Laban has done to you.

I am God , who appeared to you in the place of God , where you anointed for me there the standing stone, and there vowed a vow unto me: now therefore arise, and go forth from this land, and go unto the land of your nativity, and I will be with you. If the Angel of God speaks thus to Jacob, and the Angel himself mentions and says, I am God , who appeared unto you in the house of God , we see without any hesitation that this is declared to be not only an angel , but God also; because He speaks of the vow directed to Himself by Jacob in the place of God , and He does not say, in my place . It is then the place of God , and He also is God .

Moreover, it is written simply in the place of God , for it is not said in the place of the angel and God , but only of God ; and He who promises those things is manifested to be both God and Angel, so that reasonably there must be a distinction between Him who is called God only, and Him who is declared to be not God simply, but Angel also. Whence if so great an authority cannot here be regarded as belonging to any other angel , that He should also avow Himself to be God , and should bear witness that a vow was made to Him, except to Christ alone, to whom not as angel only, but as to God , a vow can be vowed; it is manifest that it is not to be received as the Father , but as the Son , God and Angel.

Moreover, if this is Christ, as it is, he is in terrible risk who says that Christ is either man or angel alone, withholding from Him the power of the divine name — an authority which He has constantly received on the faith of the heavenly Scriptures, which continually say that He is both Angel and God. To all these things, moreover, is added this, that in like manner as the divine Scripture has frequently declared Him both Angel and God , so the same divine Scripture declares Him also both man and God , expressing thereby what He should be, and depicting even then in figure what He was to be in the truth of His substance. For, it says, Jacob remained alone; and there wrestled with him a man even till daybreak.

He Proves Also that the Words Spoken to Philip Make Nothing for the Sabellians. Hereto also I will add that view wherein the heretic , while he rejoices as if at the loss of some power of seeing special truth and light, acknowledges the total blindness of his error . For again and again, and frequently, he objects that it was said, Have I been so long time with you, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me, has seen the Father also. But let him learn what he does not understand. Philip is reproved, and rightly, and deservedly indeed, because he has said, Lord, show us the Father , and it suffices us. For when had he either heard from Christ, or learned that Christ was the Father? Although, on the other hand, he had frequently heard, and had often learned, rather that He was the Son , not that He was the Father.

For what the Lord said, If you have known me, you have known my Father also: and henceforth you have known Him, and have seen Him, He said not as wishing to be understood Himself to be the Father , but implying that he who thoroughly, and fully, and with all faith and all religiousness, drew near to the Son of God , by all means shall attain, through the Son Himself, in whom he thus believes, to the Father , and shall see Him. For no one, says He, can come to the Father , but by me. And therefore he shall not only come to God the Father , and shall know the Father Himself; but, moreover, he ought thus to hold, and so to presume in mind and heart, that he has henceforth not only known , but seen the Father.

For often the divine Scripture announces things that are not yet done as being done, because thus they shall be; and things which by all means have to happen, it does not predict as if they were future, but narrates as if they were done. And thus, although Christ had not been born as yet in the times of Isaiah the prophet , he said, For unto us a child is born; and although Mary had not yet been approached, he said, ' And I approached unto the prophetess; and she conceived, and bare a son. And when Christ had not yet made known the mind of the Father , it is said, And His name shall be called the Angel of Great Counsel. And when He had not yet suffered, he declared, He is as a sheep led to the slaughter. And although the cross had never yet existed , He said, All day long have I stretched out my hands to an unbelieving people.

And although not yet had He been scornfully given to drink, the Scripture says, In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. And although He had not yet been stripped, He said, Upon my vesture they did cast lots, and they numbered my bones: they pierced my hands and my feet. For the divine Scripture , foreseeing, speaks of things which it knows shall be as being already done, and speaks of things as perfected which it regards as future, but which shall come to pass without any doubt . And thus the Lord in the present passage said, Henceforth you have known and have seen Him. Now He said that the Father should be seen by whomsoever had followed the Son , not as if the Son Himself should be the Father seen, but that whosoever was willing to follow Him, and be His disciple , should obtain the reward of being able to see the Father.

1. Since I have found some who deem themselves very wise in their opinions, acting as if they were inspired, and announcing with all the authority of an oracle, that from the time when the Christian people began to exist in the world the universe has gone to ruin, that the human race has been visited with ills of many kinds, that even the very gods, abandoning their accustomed charge, in virtue of which they were wont in former days to regard with interest our affairs, have been driven from the regions of earth — I have resolved, so far as my capacity and my humble power of language will allow, to oppose public prejudice, and to refute calumnious accusations; lest, on the one hand, those persons should imagine that they are declaring some weighty matter, when they are merely retailing vulgar rumours; and on the other, lest, if we refrain from such a contest, they should suppose that they have gained a cause , lost by its own inherent demerits, not abandoned by the silence of its advocates. For I should not deny that that charge is a most serious one, and that we fully deserve the hatred attaching to public enemies, if it should appear that to us are attributable causes by reason of which the universe has deviated from its laws , the gods have been driven far away, and such swarms of miseries have been inflicted on the generations of men.

2. Let us therefore examine carefully the real significance of that opinion, and what is the nature of the allegation; and laying aside all desire for wrangling, by which the calm view of subjects is wont to be dimmed, and even intercepted, let us test, by fairly balancing the considerations on both sides, whether that which is alleged be true . For it will assuredly be proved by an array of convincing arguments, not that we are discovered to be more impious, but that they themselves are convicted of that charge who profess to be worshippers of the deities, and devotees of an antiquated superstition . And, in the first place, we ask this of them in friendly and calm language: Since the name of the Christian religion began to be used on the earth, what phenomenon, unseen before, unheard of before, what event contrary to the laws established in the beginning, has the so-called Nature of Things felt or suffered? Have these first elements, from which it is agreed that all things were compacted, been altered into elements of an opposite character? Has the fabric of this machine and mass of the universe , by which we are all covered, and in which we are held enclosed, relaxed in any part, or broken up? Has the revolution of the globe, to which we are accustomed, departing from the rate of its primal motion, begun either to move too slowly, or to be hurried onward in headlong rotation? Have the stars begun to rise in the west, and the setting of the constellations to take place in…

3. Since this is so, and since no strange influence has suddenly manifested itself to break the continuous course of events by interrupting their succession, what is the ground of the allegation, that a plague was brought upon the earth after the Christian religion came into the world, and after it revealed the mysteries of hidden truth ? But pestilences, say my opponents, and droughts, wars , famines, locusts, mice, and hailstones, and other hurtful things, by which the property of men is assailed, the gods bring upon us, incensed as they are by your wrong-doings and by your transgressions. If it were not a mark of stupidity to linger on matters which are already clear, and which require no defense, I should certainly show, by unfolding the history of past ages, that those ills which you speak of were not unknown, were not sudden in their visitation; and that the plagues did not burst upon us, and the affairs of men begin to be attacked by a variety of dangers, from the time that our sect won the honour of this appellation. For if we are to blame, and if these plagues have been devised against our sin , whence did antiquity know these names for misfortunes? Whence did she give a designation to wars ? By what conception could she indicate pestilence and hailstorms, or how could she introduce these terms among her words, by which speech was rendered plain? For if these ills are entirely new, and if they derive their origin from recent transgressions, how could it be that the…

4. When was the human race destroyed by a flood? Was it not before us? When was the world set on fire, and reduced to coals and ashes? Was it not before us? When were the greatest cities engulphed in the billows of the sea? Was it not before us? When were wars waged with wild beasts, and battles fought with lions? was it not before us? When was ruin brought on whole communities by poisonous serpents? was it not before us? For, inasmuch as you are wont to lay to our blame the cause of frequent wars , the devastation of cities, the irruptions of the Germans and the Scythians, allow me, with your leave, to say — In your eagerness to calumniate us, you do not perceive the real nature of that which is alleged.

1. The ambitious and avaricious will of wicked men is always wont to lay snares against those churches which seem greater, by various pretexts attacking the ecclesiastical piety of such. For incited by the devil who works in them, to the lust of that which is set before them, and throwing away all religious scruples, they trample under foot the fear of the judgment of God . Concerning which things, I who suffer, have thought it necessary to show to your piety , in order that you may be aware of such men, lest any of them presume to set foot in your dioceses , whether by themselves or by others; for these sorcerers know how to use hypocrisy to carry out their fraud; and to employ letters composed and dressed out with lies, which are able to deceive a man who is intent upon a simple and sincere faith . Arius , therefore, and Achilles, having lately entered into a conspiracy, emulating the ambition of Colluthus, have turned out far worse than he. For Colluthus, indeed, who reprehends these very men, found some pretext for his evil purpose; but these, beholding his battering of Christ , endured no longer to be subject to the Church ; but building for themselves dens of thieves, they hold their assemblies in them unceasingly, night and day directing their calumnies against Christ and against us. For since they call in question all pious and apostolic doctrine, after the manner of the Jews , they have constructed a workshop for contending against Christ , denying the Godhead of…

2. And we, indeed, though we discovered rather late, on account of their concealment, their manner of life, and their unholy attempts, by the common suffrage of all have cast them forth from the congregation of the Church which adores the Godhead of Christ . But they, running here and there against us, have begun to betake themselves to our colleagues who are of the same mind with us; in appearance, indeed, pretending to seek for peace and concord, but in reality seeking to draw over some of them by fair words to their own diseases, asking long wordy letters from them, in order that reading these to the men whom they have deceived, they may make them impenitent in the errors into which they have fallen, and obdurate in impiety, as if they had bishops thinking the same thing and siding with them. Moreover, the things which among us they have wrongly taught and done, and on account of which they have been expelled by us, they do not at all confess to them, but they either pass them over in silence, or throwing a veil over them, by feigned words and writings they deceive them. Concealing, therefore, their pestilent doctrine by their specious and flattering discourse, they circumvent the more simple-minded and such as are open to fraud, nor do they spare in the meanwhile to traduce our piety to all. Hence it comes to pass that some, subscribing their letters, receive them into the Church , although in my opinion the greatest guilt lies upon those ministers who venture to do…

3. We, therefore, say these wicked men, can also be the sons of God even as He. For it is written, I have nourished and brought up children. Isaiah 1:2 But when what follows was objected to them, and they have rebelled against me, which indeed is not applicable to the nature of the Saviour , who is of an immutable nature; they, throwing off all religious reverence, say that God , since He foreknew and had foreseen that His Son would not rebel against Him, chose Him from all. For He did not choose Him as having by nature anything specially beyond His other sons, for no one is by nature a son of God , as they say; neither as having any peculiar property of His own; but God chose Him who was of a mutable nature, on account of the carefulness of His manners and His practice, which in no way turned to that which is evil ; so that, if Paul and Peter had striven for this, there would have been no difference between their sonship and His. And to confirm this insane doctrine, playing with Holy Scripture , they bring forward what is said in the Psalms respecting Christ: You love righteousness, and hate wickedness : therefore God , Your God , has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows,

4. But that the Son of God was not made from things which are not, and that there was no time when He was not, the evangelist John sufficiently shows, when he thus writes concerning Him: The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father. John 1:18 For since that divine teacher intended to show that the Father and the Son are two things inseparable the one from the other, he spoke of Him as being in the bosom of the Father. Now that also the Word of God is not comprehended in the number of things that were created from things which are not, the same John says, All things were made by Him. For he set forth His proper personality, saying, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God , and the Word was God. All things were made by Him; and with out Him was not anything made that was made. John 1:1-3 For if all things were made by Him, how comes it that He who gave to the things which are made their existence , at one time Himself was not. For the Word which makes is not to be defined as being of the same nature with the things which are made; since He indeed was in the beginning, and all things were made by Him, and fashioned from things which are not. Moreover, that which is seems to be contrary to and far removed from those things which are made from things which are not. For that indeed shows that there is no interval between the Father and the Son , since not even in thought can the mind imagine any distance between them.But that the world was created from…

1. Since the body of the Catholic Church is one, and it is commanded in Holy Scripture that we should keep the bond of unanimity and peace, it follows that we should write and signify to one another the things which are done by each of us; that whether one member suffer or rejoice we may all either suffer or rejoice with one another. In our diocese, then, not so long ago, there have gone forth lawless men, and adversaries of Christ , teaching men to apostatize ; which thing, with good right, one might suspect and call the precursor of Antichrist . I indeed wished to cover the matter up in silence, that so perhaps the evil might spend itself in the leaders of the heresy alone, and that it might not spread to other places and defile the ears of any of the more simple-minded. But since Eusebius, the present bishop of Nicomedia , imagining that with him rest all ecclesiastical matters, because, having left Berytus and cast his eyes upon the church of the Nicomedians , and no punishment has been inflicted upon him, he is set over these apostates , and has undertaken to write everywhere, commending them, if by any means he may draw aside some who are ignorant to this most disgraceful and Antichristian heresy ; it became necessary for me, as knowing what is written in the law, no longer to remain silent, but to announce to you all, that you may know both those who have become apostates , and also the wretched words of their heresy ; and if Eusebius write, not to give heed to him.

2. For he, desiring by their assistance to renew that ancient wickedness of his mind , with respect to which he has for a time been silent, pretends that he is writing in their behalf, but he proves by his deed that he is exerting himself to do this on his own account. Now the apostates from the Church are these: Arius , Achilles, Aithales, Carpones, the other Arius , Sarmates, who were formerly priests ; Euzoius, Lucius, Julius, Menas, Helladius, and Gains, formerly deacons ; and with them Secundus and Theonas, who were once called bishops . And the words invented by them, and spoken contrary to the mind of Scripture, are as follows:— God was not always the Father; but there was a time when God was not the Father. The Word of God was not always, but was made 'from things that are not;' for He who is God fashioned the non-existing from the non-existing; wherefore there was a time when He was not. For the Son is a thing created, and a thing made: nor is He like to the Father in substance; nor is He the true and natural Word of the Father; nor is He His true Wisdom; but He is one of the things fashioned and made. And He is called, by a misapplication of the terms, the Word and Wisdom, since He is Himself made by the proper Word of God , and by that wisdom which is in God , in which, as God made all other things, so also did He make Him. Wherefore, He is by His very nature changeable and mutable, equally with other rational beings. The Word, too, is alien and separate from the…

3. Since those about Arius speak these things and shamelessly maintain them, we, coming together with the Bishops of Egypt and the Libyas, nearly a hundred in number, have anathematized them, together with their followers. But those about Eusebius have received them, earnestly endeavouring to mix up falsehood with truth , impiety with piety . But they will not prevail; for the truth prevails, and there is no communion between light and darkness, no concord between Christ and Belial . 2 Corinthians 6:14 For who ever heard such things? Or who, now hearing them, is not astonished, and does not stop his ears that the pollution of these words should not touch them? Who that hears John saying, In the beginning was the Word, John 1:1 does not condemn those who say there was a time when He was not? Who that hears these words of the Gospel , the only-begotten Son; John 1:18 and, by Him were all things made, John 1:3 will not hate those who declare He is one of the things made? For how can He be one of the things made by Him? Or how shall He be the only-begotten who, as they say, is reckoned with all the rest, if indeed He is a thing made and created? And how can He be made of things which are not, when the Father says, My heart belched forth a good Word; and, From the womb, before the morning have I begotten You? Or how is He unlike to the substance of the Father , who is the perfect image and brightness of the Father , and who says, He that has seen Me has seen the Father? John 14:9…

4. Now concerning their blasphemous assertion who say that the Son does not perfectly know the Father , we need not wonder: for having once purposed in their mind to wage war against Christ , they impugn also these words of His, As the Father knows Me, even so know I the Father. John 10:15 Wherefore, if the Father only in part knows the Son , then it is evident that the Son does not perfectly know the Father. But if it be wicked thus to speak, and if the Father perfectly knows the Son , it is plain that, even as the Father knows His own Word, so also the Word knows His own Father, of whom He is the Word.