De Incarnatione Verbi Dei
"On the Incarnation"
By
Saint Athenatius
(295-373 AD)
INTRODUCTION TO THE TREATISE
ON THE
INCARNATION OF THE WORD
THE tract 'against the Gentiles' leaves the reader face to face with the
necessity of restoration by the Divine Word as the remedy for corrupt
human nature. How this necessity is met in the Incarnation is shewn in the
pages which follow. The general design of the second tract is to illustrate
and confirm the doctrine of the Incarnation by shewing (1) its necessity
and end, the congruity of its details, its truth, as against the objections of
Jews and Gentiles, its result. He begins by a review (recapitulating c. Gent.
2-7) of the doctrine of creation and of man's place therein. The abuse by
man of his special Privilege had resulted in its loss. By foregoing the
Divine Life, man had entered upon a course of endless undoing, of
progressive decay, from which none could rescue him but the original
bestower of his life (2-7). Then follows a description in glowing words of
the Incarnation of the Divine Word and of its efficacy against the plague of
corruption (8-10). With the Divine Life, man had also received, in the
knowledge of God, the conscious reflex of the Divine Likeness, the faculty
of reason in its highest exercise. This knowledge their moral fall dimmed
and perverted. Heeding not even the means by which God sought to
remind them of Himself, they fell deeper and deeper into materialism and
superstition. To restore the effaced likeness the presence of the Original
was requisite. Accordingly, condescending to man's sense-bound
intelligence — lest men should have been created in vain in the Image of
God — the Word took Flesh and became an object of Sense, that through
the Seen He might reveal the Invisible (11-16).
Having dwelt (17-19) upon the meaning and purpose of the Incarnation, he
proceeds to speak of the Death and Resurrection of the Incarnate Word.
He, Who alone could renew the handiwork and restore the likeness and
give afresh the knowledge of God, mist needs, in order to pay the debt
which all had incurred, die in our stead,
offering the sacrifice on behalf of all, so as to rise again, as our first-fruits,
from the grave (20-32, note especially 20). After speaking of the especial
fitness of the Cross, once the instrument of shame, now the trophy of
victory, and after meeting some difficulties connected with the manner of
the Lord's Death, he passes to the Resurrection. He shews how Christ by
His triumph over the grave changed the relative ascendancy of Death and
Life: and how the Resurrection with its momentous train of consequences,
follows of necessity from the Incarnation of Him in Whom was Life.
The two main divisions of contemporary unbelief are next combated. In
either case the root of the difficulty is moral; with the Greeks it is a
frivolous cynicism, with the Jews, inveterate obstinacy. The latter (33-40)
are confuted, firstly, by their own Scriptures, which predict both in
general and in detail the coming of Jesus Christ Also, the old Jewish
polity, both civil and religious, has passed away, giving place to the
Turning to the Greeks (41-45), and assuming that they allow the existence
of a pervading Spirit, whose presence is the sustaining principle of all
things, he challenges them to reject, without inconsistency, the Union of
that Spirit, the Logos (compare St. Augustine Conf. VII. ix.), with one in
particular of the many constituents of that Universe wherein he already
dwells. And since man alone (43 3) of the creatures bad departed from the
order of his creation, it was man's nature that the Word united to Himself,
thus repairing the breach between the creature and the Creator at the very
point where it had occurred.
God did not restore man by a mere fiat because, just as repentance on
man's part could not eradicate his disease, so such a fiat on God's part
would have amounted to the annihilation of human nature as it was, and
the creation of a fresh race. Man's definite disorder God met with a
specific remedy, overcoming death with life. Thus man has been enabled
once more to shew forth, in common with the rest of Creation, the
handiwork and glory of his Maker.
Athanasius then confronts the Greeks, as he had the Jews, with facts.
Since the coming of Christ, paganism, popular and philosophic, had been
failing into discredit and decay. The impotence and rivalries of the
philosophic teachers, the local and heterogeneous character, the low moral
ideals of the old worships, are contrasted with the oneness and inspiring
power of the religion of the Crucified. Such are the two, the dying and the
living systems; it remains for him who will to taste and see what that life
is which is the gift of Christ to them that follow Him (46-end).
The purpose of the tract, in common with the contra Genies, being to
commend the religion of Christ to acceptance, the argument is concerned
more with the Incarnation as a living fact, and with its place in the scheme
of God's dealing with man, than with its analysis as a theological doctrine.
He does not enter upon the question, fruitful of controversy in the
previous century at Alexandria, but soon to burst forth into furious
debate, of the Sonship of the Word and of His relation to God the Father.
Still less does he touch the Christological questions which arose with the
decline of the Arian tempest, questions associated with the names of
Apollinarius, Theodore, Cyril, Nestorius, Eutyches, Theodoret, and
Dioscorus. But we feel already that firm grasp of soteriological principles
which mark him out c; the destined conqueror of Arianism, and which
enabled him by a sure instinct to anticipate unconsciously the theological
difficulties which troubled the Church for the century after his death. It is
the broad comprehensive treatment of the subject in its relation to God,
human nature, and sin, that gives the work its interest to readers of the
present day. In strong reaction from modern or medieval theories of
Redemption, which to the thoughtful Christian of to-day seem arbitrary,
or worse, it is with relief that men find that from the beginning it was not
so;,that the theology of the early Church interpreted the great Mystery of
godliness in terms which, if short of the fullness of the Pauline conception,
are yet so free from arbitrary assumptions, so true to human nature as the
wisest of men know it, so true to the worthiest and grandest ideas of God
(see below, p. 33 ad fin.). The de Incarnatione, then, is perhaps more
appreciated in our day than at any date since the days of its writer.
It may therefore be worth while to devote a word or two to some
peculiarities incidental to its aim and method. We observe first of all how
completely the power of the writer is absorbed in the subject under
discussion. It is therefore highly precarious to infer anything from his
silence even on points which might seem to require explanation in the
course of his argument. Not a word is said of the doctrine of the Trinity,
nor of the Holy Spirit; this directly follows from the purpose of the work,
in accordance with the general truth that while the Church preaches Christ
to the World, the Office and Personality of the Spirit belongs to her inner
life. The teaching of the tract with regard to the constitution of man is
another case in point. It might appear (3, cf. 11. 2, 13. 2) that Athanasius
ascribed the reasonable soul of man, and his immortality after death, not to
the constitution of human nature as such, but to the grace superadded to it
by the Creator (hJ tou~ kat jeijko>na ca>riv), a grace which constituted men
logikoi> (3. 4) by virtue of the power of the Logos, and which, if not
forfeited by sin, involved the privilege of immortality. We have, then, to
carefully consider whether Athanasius held, or meant to suggest, that man
is by nature, and apart from union with God, rational, or immortal. If we
confine our view to the treatise before us, there would be some show of
reason in answering both questions in the negative; and with regard to
immortality this has been recently done by an able correspondent of The
But that Athanasius held the essential rationality and immortality of the
soul is absolutely clear, if only from c. Gent. 32 and 33. We have, then, to
find an explanation of his language in the present treatise. With regard to
immortality, it should be observed that the language employed (in 4. 5,
where kenwqh~nai tou~ ei+nai ajei> is explained by to< dialuqe>ntav
me>nein ejn tw|~ qana>tw| kai< th|~ fqo>ra|) suggests a continued condition,
and therefore something short of annihilation, although not worthy of the
name of existence or life, — that even in the worst of men the image of
God is defaced, but not effaced (14. 1, etc.), and that even when grace is
lost (7. 4), man cannot be as though the contact with the divine had never
taken place; — that in this work, as by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, the
final destiny of the wicked is passed over (but for the general reference 56.
3) in silence. It may be added that Athanasius puts together all that
separates man from irrational creatures without clearly drawing the line
between what belongs to the natural man and what to the kat j eijko>na
ca>riv. The subject of eschatology is nowhere dealt with in full by
Athanasius; while it is quite certain (c. Gent. 33) that he did not share the
inclination of some earlier writers (see D.C.B. ii. p. 192) toward the idea of
conditional immortality, there is also no reason to think that he held with
the Universalism of Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and others (see Migne,
Patr. Gr. xxvii. p. 1404 A, also 1384 c, where 'the unfortunate Origen's'
opinions seem to be rejected, but with an implied deprecation of harsh
judgment). As to his view of the essential rationality of man (see c. Gent.
32) the consideration urged above once more applies (compare the
discussion in Harnack, Dg. ii. 146 sqq.). Yet he says that man left to
himself can have no idea of God at all (11. 1), and that this would deprive
him of any claim to be considered a rational being (ib. 2). The apparent
inconsistency is removed if we understand that man may be rational
potentially (as all men are) and yet not rational in the sense of exercising
reason (which is the case with very many). In other words, grace gives not
the faculty itself, but its integrity, the latter being the result not of the
mere psychological existence of the faculty, but of the reaction upon it of
its highest and adequate object. (The same is true to a great extent of the
doctrine of pneu~ma in the New Testament.)
A somewhat similar caution is necessary with regard to the analogy drawn
out (41, etc.) between the Incarnation and the Union of the Word with the
Universe. The treatise itself (17. 1, an, and see notes on
41) supplies the necessary corrective in this case. It may be pointed out
here that the real difference between Athanasius and the neo-Platonists
was not so much upon the Union of the Word with any created Substance,
which they were prepared to allow, as upon the exclusive Union of the
Word with Man, in Contrast to His essential distinctness from the
Universe. This difference goes back to the doctrine of Creation, which was
fixed as a great gulf between the Christian and the Platonist view of the
Universe. The relation of the latter to the Word is fully discussed in the
third part of the contra Gentes, the teaching of which must be borne in
mind while reading the forty-first and following chapters of the present
Lastly, the close relation between the doctrine of Creation and that of
Redemption marks off the Soteriology of this treatise from that of the
middle ages and of the Reformation. Athanasius does not leave out of sight
the idea of satisfaction for a debt. To him also the Cross was the central
purpose (20. 2, cf. 9. I, 2, etc.) of His Coming. But the idea of Restoration
is most prominent in his determination of the necessity of the Incarnation.
God could have wiped out our guilt, had He so pleased, by a word: but
human nature required to be healed, restored, recreated. This
is the foremost of the three ideas (7. 5) which sum up his account of the
'dignus tanto Vindice nodus .
The translation which follows is that printed in 1885 (D. Nutt, second
edition, 1891) by the editor of this volume, with a very few changes
(chiefly 2. 2, 8. 4, 34. 2, 44. 7, 8): it was originally made for the purpose
of lectures at Oxford (1879-1882), and the analytical headings now
prefixed to each chapter are extracted verbatim from notes made for the
same course of lectures. The notes have mostly appeared either in the
former edition of the translation, or appended to the Greek text published
(D. Null, 1882) by the translator. A few, however, have now been added,
including some references to the Sermo Major, which borrows wholesale
from the present treatise (Prolegg. ch. III. 1. 37). Two other English
translations have appeared, the one (Parker, 1880) previous, the other
(Religious Tract Society, n.d.) subsequent to that of the present translator.
The text followed is that of the Benedictine editors, with a few exceptions.
Of those that at all affect the sense, 43:6 and 51:2 are due to Mr. Marriott (Analecta Christiana, Oxf. 1844). For
the others (13.2, omission of, 28.3, rejecting
conjectures of Montf. and Marriott, 42:6, omission of 57.3,
for the present editor is alone responsible.
ON THE INCARNATION
OF THE WORD
1.
INTRODUCTORY. —
The subject of this treatise: the humiliation and incarnation of the
Word. Presupposes the doctrine of Creation, and that by the Word.
The Father has saved the world by Him through Whom He first
made it.
WHEREAS in what precedes we have drawn out — choosing a few points
from among many — a sufficient account of the error of the heathen
concerning idols, and of the worship of idols, and how they originally
came to be invented; how, namely, out of wickedness men devised for
themselves the worshipping of idols: and whereas we have by God's grace
noted somewhat also of the divinity of the Word of the Father, and of His
universal Providence and power, and that the Good Father through Him
orders all things, and all things are moved by Him, and in Him are
quickened: come now, Macarius (worthy of that name), and true lover of
Christ, let us follow up the faith of our religion, and set forth also what
relates to the Word's becoming Man, and to His divine Appearing
amongst us, which Jews traduce and Greeks laugh to scorn, but we
worship; in order that, all the more for the seeming low estate of the Word,
your piety toward Him may be increased and multiplied. 2. For the more
He is mocked among the unbelieving, the more witness does He give of His
own Godhead; inasmuch as He not only Himself demonstrates as possible
what then mistake, thinking impossible, but what men deride as unseemly,
this by His own goodness He clothes with seemliness, and what men, in
their conceit of wisdom, laugh at as merely human, He by His own power
demonstrates to be divine, subduing the pretensions of idols by His
supposed humiliation — by the Cross — and those who mock and
disbelieve invisibly winning over to recognize His divinity and power. 3.
But to treat this subject it is necessary to recall what has been previously
said; in order that you may neither fail to know the cause of the bodily
appearing of the Word of the Father, so high and so great, nor think it a
consequence of His own nature that the Savior has worn a body; but that
being incorporeal by nature, and Word from the beginning, He has yet of
the loving-kindness and goodness of His own Father been manifested to us
in a human body for our salvation. 4. It is, then, proper for us to begin the
treatment of this subject by speaking of the creation of the universe, and
of God its Artificer, that so it may be duly perceived that the renewal of
creation has been the work of the self-same Word that made it at the
beginning. For it will appear not inconsonant for the Father to have
wrought its salvation in Him by Whose means He made it.
Erroneous views of Creation rejected. Epicurean (fortuitous
generation). But diversity of bodies and parts argues a creating
intellect. (2.) Platonists (pre-existent matter.) But this subjects God
to human limitations, making Him not a creator but a mechanic.
Gnostics (an alien Demiurge). Rejected from Scripture.
Of the making of the universe and the creation of all things many have
taken different views, and each man has laid down the law just as he
pleased. For some say that all things have come into being of themselves,
and in a chance fashion; as, for example, the Epicureans, who tell us in
their self-contempt, that universal providence does not exist speaking right
in the face of obvious fact and experience. 2. For if, as they say,
everything has had its beginning of itself, and independently of purpose, it
would follow that everything had come into mere being, so as to be alike
and not distinct. For it would follow in virtue of the unity of body that
everything must be sun or moon, and in the case of men it would follow
that the whole must be hand, or eye, or foot. But as it is this is not so. On
the contrary, we see a distinction of sun, moon, and earth; and again, in the
case of human bodies, of foot, hand, and head. Now, such separate
arrangement as this tells us not of their having come into being of
themselves, but shews that a cause preceded them; from which cause it is
possible to apprehend God also as the Maker and Orderer of all. 3. But
others, including Plato, who is in such repute among the Greeks, argue that
God has made the world out of matter previously existing and without
beginning. For God could have made nothing had not the material existed
already; just as the wood must exist ready at hand for the carpenter, to
enable him to work at all. 4. But in so saying they know not that they are
investing God with weakness. For if He is not Himself the cause of the
material, but makes things only of previously existing material, He proves
to be weak, because unable to produce anything He makes without the
material; just as it is without doubt a weakness of the carpenter not to be
able to make anything required without his timber. For, ex hypothesi, had
not the material existed, God would not have made anything. And how
could He in that case be called Maker and Artificer, if He owes His ability
to make to some other source — namely, to the material? So that if this be
so, God will be on their theory a Mechanic only, and not a Creator out of
nothing; if, that is, He works at existing material, but is not Himself the
cause of the material. For He could not in any sense be called Creator
unless He is Creator of the material of which the things created have in
their turn been made. 5. But the sectaries imagine to themselves a different
artificer of all things, other than the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in
deep blindness even as to the words they use. 6. For whereas the Lord
says to the Jews : "Have ye not read that from the beginning He which
created them made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a
man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they
twain shall become one flesh?" and then, referring to the Creator, says,
"What, therefore, GOD hath joined together let not man put asunder:"
how come these men to assert that the creation is independent of the
Father? Or if, in the words of John, who says, making no exception, "All
things were made by Him, and "without Him was not anything made,"
how could the artificer be another, distinct from the Father of Christ?
The true doctrine. Creation out of nothing, of God's lavish bounty
of being. Man created above the rest, but incapable of independent
perseverance. Hence the exceptional and supra-natural gift of being
in God's Image, with the promise of bliss conditionally upon his
Thus do they vainly speculate. But the godly teaching and the faith
according to Christ brands their foolish language as godlessness. For it
knows that it was not spontaneously, because forethought is not absent;
nor of existing matter, because God is not weak; but that out of nothing,
and without its having any previous existence, God made the universe to
exist through His word, as He says firstly through Moses: "In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth;" secondly, in the most
edifying book of the Shepherd, "First of all believe that God is one, which
created and framed all things, and made them to exist out of nothing." 2.
To which also Paul refers when he says, "By faith we understand that the
worlds have been framed by the Word of God, so that what is seen hath
not been made out of things which do appear." 3. For God is good, or
rather is essentially the source of goodness: nor could one that is good be
niggardly of anything: whence, grudging existence to none, He has made all
things out of nothing by His own Word, Jesus Christ our Lord. And
among these, having taken especial pity, above all things on earth, upon
the race of men, and having perceived its inability, by virtue of the
condition of its origin, to continue in one stay, He gave them a further gift,
and He did not barely create man, as He did all the irrational creatures on
the earth, but made them after His own image, giving them a portion even
of the power of His own Word; so that having as it were a kind of
reflection of the Word, and being made rational, they might be able to abide
ever in blessedness, living the true life which belongs to the saints in
paradise. 4. But knowing once more how the will of man could sway to
either side, in anticipation He secured the grace given them by a law and
by the spot where He placed them. For He brought them into His own
garden, and gave them a law: so that, if they kept the grace and remained
good, they might still keep the life in paradise without sorrow or pain or
care besides having the promise of incorruption in heaven; but that if they
transgressed and turned back, and became evil, they might know that they
were incurring that corruption in death which was theirs by nature: no
longer to live in paradise, but cast out of it from that time forth to die and
to abide in death and in corruption. 5. Now this is that of which Holy Writ
also gives warning, saying in the Person of God: "Of every tree that is in
the garden, eating thou shalt eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, ye shall not eat of it, but on the day that ye eat, dying ye shall
die." But by "dying ye shall die," what else could be meant than not dying
merely, but also abiding ever in the corruption of death?
Our creation and God's Incarnation most intimately connected. As
by the Ward man was called from non-existence into being, and
further received the grace of a divine life, so by the one fault which
forfeited that life they again incurred corruption and untold sin and
You are wondering, perhaps, for what possible reason, having proposed to
speak of the Incarnation of the Word, we are at present treating of the
origin of mankind. But this, too, properly belongs to the aim of our
treatise. 2. For in speaking of the appearance of the Savior amongst us, we
must needs speak also of the origin of men, that you may know that the
reason of His coming down was because of us, and that our transgression
called forth the loving-kindness of the Word, that the Lord should both
make haste to help us and appear among men. 3. For of His becoming
Incarnate we were the object, and for our salvation He dealt so lovingly as
to appear and be born even in a human body. 4. Thus, then, God has made
man, and willed that he should abide in incorruption; but men, having
despised and rejected the contemplation of God, and devised and contrived
evil for themselves (as was said 4 in the former treatise), received the
condemnation of death with which they had been threatened; and from
thenceforth no longer remained as they were made, but were being
corrupted according to their devices; and death had the mastery over them
as king. For transgression of the commandment was turning them back to
their natural state, so that just as they have had their being out of nothing,
so also, as might be expected, they might look for corruption into nothing
in the course of time. 5. For if, out of a former normal state of
nonexistence, they were called into being by the Presence and
loving-kindness of the Word, it followed naturally that when men were
bereft of the knowledge of God and were turned back to what was not (for
what is evil is not, but what is good is), they should, since they derive
their being from God who is, be everlastingly bereft even of being; in other
words, that they should be disintegrated and abide in death and corruption.
6. For man is by nature mortal, inasmuch as he is made out of what is not;
but by reason of his likeness to Him that is (and if he still preserved this
likeness by keeping Him in his knowledge) he would stay his natural
corruption, and remain incorrupt; as Wisdom says: "The taking heed to
His laws is the assurance of immortality;" but being incorrupt, he would
live henceforth as God, to which I suppose the divine Scripture refers,
when it says: "I havesaid ye are gods, and ye are all sons of the most
Highest; but ye die like men, and fall as one of the princes."
For God has not only made us out of nothing; but He gave us freely, by
the Grace of the Word, a life in correspondence with God. But men, having
rejected things eternal, and, by counsel of the devil, turned to the things of
corruption, became the cause of their own corruption in death, being, as I
said before, by nature corruptible, but destined, by the grace following
from partaking of the Word, to have escaped their natural state, had they
remained good. 2. For because of the Word dwelling with them, even their
natural corruption did not come near them, as Wisdom also says : "God
made man for incorruption, and as an image of His own eternity; but by
envy of the devil death came into the world." But when this was come to
pass, men began to die, while corruption thence-forward prevailed against
them, gaining even more than its natural power over the whole race,
inasmuch as it had, owing to the transgression of the commandment, the
threat of the Deity as a further advantage against them. 3. For even in their
misdeeds men had not stopped short at any set limits; but gradually
pressing forward, have passed on beyond all measure: having to begin with
been inventors of wickedness and called down upon themselves death and
corruption; while later on, having turned aside to wrong and exceeding all
lawlessness, and stopping at no one evil but devising all manner of new
evils in succession, they have become insatiable in sinning. 4. For there
were adulteries everywhere and thefts, and the whole earth was full of
murders and plunderings. And as to corruption and wrong, no heed was
paid to law, but all crimes were being practiced everywhere, both
individually and jointly. Cities were at war with cities, and nations were
rising up against nations; and the whole earth was rent with civil
commotions and battles; each man vying with his fellows in lawless deeds.
8. Nor were even crimes against nature far from them, but, as the Apostle
and witness of Christ says: "For their women changed the natural use into
that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural
use of the women, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men
working unseemliness, and receiving in themselves that recompense of
their error which was meet."
The human race then was wasting, God's image was being effaced,
and His work ruined. Either, then, God must forego His spoken
word by which man had incurred ruin; or that which had shared in
the being of the Word must sink back again into destruction, in
which case God's design would be defeated. What then? was God's
goodness to suitor this? But if so, why had man been made? It
could have been weakness, not goodness on God's part.
For this cause, then, death having gained upon men, and corruption abiding
upon them, the race of man was perishing; the rational man made in God's
image was disappearing, and the handiwork of God was in process of
dissolution. 2. For death, as I said above, gained from that time forth a
legal hold over us, and it was impossible to evade the law, since it had been
laid down by God because of the transgression, and the result was in truth
at once monstrous and unseemly. 3. For it were monstrous, firstly, that
God, having spoken, should prove false — that, when once He had
ordained that man, if he transgressed the commandment, should die the
death, after the transgression than should not die, but God's word should
be broken. For God would not be true, if, when He had said we should die,
man died not. 4. Again, it were unseemly that creatures once made rational,
and having partaken of the Word, should go to ruin, and turn again toward
non-existence by the way of corruption. 5. For it were not worthy of
God's goodness that the things He had made should waste away, because
of the deceit practiced on men by the devil. 6. Especially it was unseemly
to the last degree that God's handicraft among men should be done away,
either because of their own carelessness, or because of the deceitfulness of
evil spirits. 7. So, as the rational creatures were wasting and such works in
course of ruin, what was God in His goodness to do? Suffer corruption to
prevail against them and death to hold them fast? And where were the
profit of their having been made, to begin with? For better were they not
made, than once made, left to neglect and ruin. 8. For neglect reveals
weakness, and not goodness on God's part — if, that is, He allows His
own work to be ruined when once He had made it — more so than if He
had never made man at all. 9. For if He had not made them, none could
impute weakness; but once He had made them, and created them out of
nothing, it were most monstrous for the work to be ruined, and that before
the eyes of the Maker. 10. It was, then, out of the question to leave men
to the current of corruption; because this would be unseemly, and
unworthy of God's goodness.
On the other hand there was the consistency of God's nature, not to
be sacrificed for our profit. Were men, then, to be called upon to
repent? But repentance cannot avert the execution of a law; still less
can it remedy a fallen nature. We have incurred corruption and
need to be restored to the Grace of God's Image. None could renew
but He Who had created. He alone could(1) recreate all, suffer for
all, respect all to the Father.
But just as this consequence must needs hold, so, too, on the other side
the just claims of God lie against it: that God should appear true to the law
He had laid down concerning death. For it were monstrous for God, the
Father of truth, to appear a liar for our profit and preservation. 2. So here,
once more, what possible course was God to take? To demand repentance
of men for their transgression? For this one might pronounce worthy of
God; as though, just as from transgression men have become set towards
corruption, so from repentance they may once more be set in the way of
incorruption. 3. But repentance would, firstly, fail to guard the just claim
of God. For He would still be none the more true, if men did not remain in
the grasp of death; nor, secondly, does repentance call men back from
what is their nature — it merely stays them from acts of sin. 4. Now, if
there were merely a misdemeanor in question, and not a consequent
corruption, repentance were well enough. But if, when transgression had
once gained a start, men became involved in that corruption which was
their nature, and were deprived of the grace which they had, being in the
image of God, what further step was needed? or what was required for
such grace and such recall, but the Word of God, which had also at the
beginning made everything out of nought? 5. For His it was once more
both to bring the corruptible to incorruption, and to maintain intact the
just claim of the Father upon all. For being Word of the Father, and above
all, He alone of natural fitness was both able to recreate everything, and
worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be ambassador for all with the
The Word, then, visited that earth in which He was yet always
present; and saw all these evils. He takes a body of our Nature,
and that of a spotless Virgin, in whose womb He makes it His own,
wherein to reveal Himself, conquer death, and restore life.
For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial
Word of God comes to our realm, howbeit he was not far from usbefore.
For no past of Creation is left void of Him: He has filled all things
everywhere, remaining present with His own Father. But He comes in
condescension to shew loving-kindness upon us, and to visit us. 2. And
seeing the race of rational creatures in the way to perish, and death reigning
over them by corruption; seeing, too, that the threat against transgression
gave a firm hold to the corruption which was upon us, and that it was
monstrous that before the law was fulfilled it should fall through: seeing,
once more, the unseemliness of what was come to pass: that the things
whereof He Himself was Artificer were passing away: seeing, further, the
exceeding wickedness of men, and how by little and little they had
increased it to an intolerable pitch against themselves: and seeing, lastly,
how all men were under penalty of death: He took pity on our race, and
had mercy on our infirmity, and condescended to our corruption, and,
unable to bear that death should have the mastery — lest the creature
should perish, and His Father's handiwork in men be spent for nought —
He takes unto Himself a body, and that of no different sort from ours. 3.
For He did not simply will to become embodied, or will merely to appear.
For if He willed merely to appear, He was able to effect His divine
appearance by some other and higher means as well. But He takes a body
of our kind, and not merely so, but from a spotless and stainless virgin,
knowing not a man, a body clean and in very truth pure from intercourse
of men. For being Himself mighty, and Artificer of everything, He
prepares the body in the Virgin as a temple unto Himself, and makes it His
very own as an instrument, in it manifested, and in it dwelling. 4. And thus
taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty
of the corruption of death He gave 'it over to death in the stead of all, and
offered it to the Father — doing this, moreover, of His loving-kindness, to
the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in Him, the law involving
the ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in
the Lord's body, and had no longer holding-ground against men, his peers),
and that, secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, He might
turn them again toward incorruption, and quicken them from death by the
appropriation of His body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing
death from them like straw from floe fire .
The Word, since death alone could stay the plague, took a mortal
body which, united with Him, should avail for all, and by partaking
of this immortality stay the corruption of the Race. By being above
all, He made His Flesh an offering for our souls; by being one with
us all, He clothed us with immortality. Simile to illustrate this.
For the Word, perceiving that no otherwise could the corruption of men be
undone save by death as a necessary condition, while it was impossible for
the Word to suffer death, being immortal, and Son of the Father; to this
end He takes to Himself a body capable of death, that it, by partaking of
the Word Who is above all, might be worthy to die in the stead of all, and
might, because of the Word which was come to dwell in it, remain
incorruptible, and that thenceforth corruption might be stayed from all by
the Grace of the Resurrection. Whence, by offering unto death the body
He Himself had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from any stain,
straightway He put away death from all His peers by the offering of an
equivalent. 2. For being over all, the Word of God naturally by offering
His own temple and corporeal instrument for the life of all satisfied the
debt by His death. And thus He, the incorruptible Son of God, being
conjoined with all by a like nature, naturally clothed all with incorruption,
by the promise of the resurrection. For the actual corruption in death has
no longer holding-ground against men, by reason of the Word, which by
His one body has come to dwell among them. 3. And like as when a great
king has entered into some large city and taken up his abode in one of the
houses there, such city is at all events held worthy of high honor, nor does
any enemy or bandit any longer descend upon it and subject it; but, on the
contrary, it is thought entitled to all care, because of the king's having
taken up his residence in a single house there: so, too, has it been with the
Monarch of all. 4. For now that He has come to our realm, and taken up
his abode in one body among His peers, henceforth the whole conspiracy
of the enemy against mankind is checked, and the corruption of death
which before was prevailing against them is done away. For the race of
men had gone to ruin, had not the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God,
come among us to meet the end of death .
By a like simile, the reasonableness of the work of redemption is
shewn. How Christ wiped away our ruin, and provided its and-date
by His own teaching. Scripture proofs of the Incarnation of the
Word, and of the Sacrifice He wrought.
Now in truth this great work was peculiarly suited to God's goodness. I.
For if a king, having founded a house or city, if it be beset by bandits from
the carelessness of its inmates, does not by any means neglect it, but
avenges and reclaims it as his own work, having regard not to the
carelessness of the inhabitants, but to what beseems himself; much more
did God the Word of the all-good Father not neglect the race of men, His
work, going to corruption: but, while He blotted out the death which had
ensued by the offering of His own body, He corrected their neglect by His
own teaching, restoring all that was man's by His own power. 2. And of
this one may be assured at the hands of the Savior's own inspired writers,
if one happen upon their writings, where they say: "For the love of Christ
constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all
died, and He died for all that we should no longer live unto ourselves, but
unto Him Who for our sakes died and rose again," our Lord Jesus Christ.
And, again: "But we behold Him, Who hath been made a little lower than
the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with
glory and honor, that by the grace of God He should taste of death for
every man." 3. Then He also points out the reason why it was necessary
for none other than God the Word Himself to become incarnate; as
follows: "For it became Him, for Whom are all things, and through Whom
are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of
their salvation perfect through suffering;" by which words He means, that
it belonged to none other to bring man back from the corruption which had
begun, than the Word of God, Who had also made them from the
beginning. 4. And that it was in order to the sacrifice for bodies such as
His own that the Word Himself also assumed a body, to this, also, they
refer in these words : "Forasmuch then as the children are the sharers in
blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that
through death He might bring to naught Him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil; and might deliver them who, through fear of death, were
all their lifetime subject to bondage." 5. For by the sacrifice of His own
body, He both put an end to the law which was against us, and made a
new beginning of life for us, by the hope of resurrection which He has
given us. For since from man it was that death prevailed over men, for this
cause conversely, by the Word of God being made man has come about the
destruction of death and the resurrection of life; as the man which bore
Christ saith: For since by man came death, by man came also the
resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all
be made alive:" and so forth. For no longer now do we die as subject to
condemnation; but as men who rise from the dead we await the general
resurrection of all, "which in its own times He shall show," even God,
Who has also wrought it, and bestowed it upon us. 6. This then is the first
cause of the Savior's being made man. But one might see from the
following reasons also, that His gracious coming amongst us was fitting to
Second reason for the Incarnation. God knowing that man was not
by nature sufficient to know Him, gave him, in order that he might
have some profit in being, a knowledge of Himself. He made them
in the Image of the Word, that thus they might know the Word, and
through Him the Father. Yet man, despising this, fill into idolatry,
leaving the unseen God for magic and astrology; and all this in
spite of God's manifold revelation of Himself.
God, Who has the power over all things, when He was making the race of
men through His own Word, seeing the weakness of their nature, that it
was not sufficient of itself to know its Maker, nor to get any idea at all of
God; because while He was uncreate, the creatures had been made of
nought, and while He was incorporeal, men had been fashioned in a lower
way in the body, and because in every way the things made fell far short
of being able to comprehend and know their Maker — taking pity, I say,
on the race of men, inasmuch as He is good, He did not leave them
destitute of the knowledge of Himself, lest they should find no profit in
existing at all. 2. For what profit to the creatures if they knew not their
Maker? or how could they be rational without knowing the Word (and
Reason) of the Father, in Whom they received their very being? For there
would be nothing to distinguish them even from brute creatures if they had
knowledge of nothing but earthly things. Nay, why did God make them at
all, as He did not wish to be known by them? 3. Whence, lest this should
be so, being good, He gives them a share in His own Image, our Lord Jesus
Christ, and makes them after His own Image and after His likeness: so that
by such grace perceiving the Image, that is, the Word of the Father, they
may be able through Him to get an idea of the Father, and knowing their
Maker, live the happy and truly blessed life. 4. But men once more in their
perversity having set at nought, in spite of all this, the grace given them, so
wholly rejected God, and so darkened their soul, as not merely to forget
their idea of God, but also to fashion for themselves one invention after
another. For not only did they grave idols for themselves, instead of the
truth, and honor things that were not before the living God, "and serve the
creature rather than the Creator," but, worst of all, they transferred the
honor of God even to stocks and stones and to every material object and
to men, and went even further than this, as we have said in the former
treatise. 5. So far indeed did their impiety go, that they proceeded to
worship devils, and proclaimed them as gods, fulfilling their own lusts. For
they performed, as was said above, offerings of brute animals, and
sacrifices of men, as was meet for them, binding themselves down all the
faster under their maddening inspirations. 6. For this reason it was also
that magic arts were taught among them, and oracles in divers places led
men astray, and all men ascribed the influences of their birth and existence
to the stars and to all the heavenly bodies, having no thought of anything
beyond what was visible. 7. And, in a word, everything was full of
irreligion and lawlessness, and God alone, and His Word, was unknown,
albeit He had not hidden Himself out of men's sight, nor given the
knowledge of Himself in one way only; but had, on the contrary, unfolded
it to them in many forms and by many ways.
For though man was created in grace, God, foreseeing his
forgetfulness, provided also the works of creation to remind man of
Him. Yet further, He ordained a Law and Prophets, whose ministry
was meant far all the world. Yet men heeded only their own lusts.
For whereas the grace of the Divine Image was in itself sufficient to make
known God the Word, and through Him the Father; still God, knowing the
weakness of men, made provision even for their carelessness: so that if
they cared not to know God of themselves, they might be enabled through
the works of creation to avoid ignorance of the Maker. 2. But since men's
carelessness, by little and little, descends to lower things, God made
provision, once more, even for this weakness of theirs, by sending a law,
and prophets, men such as they knew, so that even if they were not ready
to look up to heaven and know their Creator, they might have their
instruction from those near at hand. For men are able to learn from men
more directly about higher things. 3. So it was open to them, by looking
into the height of heaven, and perceiving the harmony of creation, to know
its Ruler, the Word of the Father, Who, by His own providence over all
things makes known the Father to all, and to this end moves all things, that
through Him all may know God. 4. Or, if this were too much for them, it.281
was possible for them to meet at least the holy men, and through them to
learn of God, the Maker of all things, the Father of Christ; and that the
worship of idols is godlessness, and full of all impiety. 5. Or it was open
to them, by knowing the law even, to cease from all lawlessness and live a
virtuous life. For neither was the law for the Jews alone, nor were the
Prophets sent for them only, but, though sent to the Jews and persecuted
by the Jews, they were for all the world a holy school of the knowledge of
God and the conduct of the soul. 6. God's goodness then and
loving-kindness being so great — men nevertheless, overcome by the
pleasures of the moment and by the illusions and deceits sent by demons,
did not raise their heads toward the truth, but loaded themselves the more
with evils and sins, so as no longer to seem rational, but from their ways
to be reckoned void of reason.
Here again, was God to keep silence? to allow to false gods the
worship He made us to render to Himself? A king whose subjects
had revolted would, after sending letters and messages, go to them
in person. How much more shall God restore in us the grace of His
image. This men, themselves but copies, could not do. Hence the
Word Himself must come (1) to recreate, to destroy death in the
So then, men having thus become brutalized, and demoniacal deceit thus
clouding every place, and hiding the knowledge of the true God, what was
God to do? To keep still silence at so great a thing, and suffer men to be
led astray by demons and not to know God? 2. And what was the use of
man having been originally made in God's image? For it had been better for
him to have been made simply like a brute animal, than, once made
rational, for him to live the life of the brutes. 3. Or where was any
necessity at all for his receiving the idea of God to begin with? For if he be
not fit to receive it even now, it were better it had not been given him at
first. 4. Or what profit to God Who has made them, or what glory to Him
could it be, if men, made by Him, do not worship Him, but think that
others are their makers? For God thus proves to have made these for
others instead of for Himself. 5. Once again, a merely human king does not.282
let the lands he has colonized pass to others to serve them, nor go over to
other men; but he warns them by letters, and often sends to them by
friends, or, if need be, he comes in person, to put them to rebuke in the
last resort by his presence, only that they may not serve others and his
own work be spent for naught. 6. Shall not God much more spare His own
creatures, that they be not led astray from Him and serve things of naught?
especially since such going astray proves the cause of their ruin and
undoing, and since it was unfitting that they should perish which had once
been partakers of God's image. 7. What then was God to do? or what was
to be done save the renewing of that which was in God's image, so that by
it men might once more be able to know Him? But how could this have
come to pass save by the presence of the very Image of God, our Lord
Jesus Christ? For by men's means it was impossible, since they are but
made after an image; nor by angels either, for not even they are (God's)
images. Whence the Word of God came in His own person, that, as He
was the Image of the Father, He might be able to create afresh the man
after the image. 8. But, again, it could not else have taken place had not
death and corruption been done away. 9. Whence He took, in natural
fitness, a mortal body, that while death might in it be once for all done
away, men made after His Image might once more be renewed. None other
then was sufficient for this need, save the Image of the Father.
A portrait once effaced must be restored from the original. Thus the
Son of the Father came to seek, save, and regenerate. No other way
was possible. Blinded himself, man could not see to heal. The
witness of creation had failed to preserve Him, and could not bring
Him back. The Word done could do so. But how? only by revealing
For as, when the likeness painted on a panel has been effaced by stains
from without, he whose likeness it is must needs come once more to
enable the portrait to be renewed on the same wood: for, for the sake of
his picture, even the mere wood on which it is painted is not thrown
away, but the outline is renewed upon it; 2. in the same way also the most
holy Son of the Father, being the Image of the Father, came to our region.283
to renew man once made in His likeness, and find him, as one lost, by the
remission of sins; as He says Himself in the Gospels: "I came to find and
to save the lost." Whence He said to the Jews also: "Except a man be born
again," not meaning, as they thought, birth front woman, but speaking of
the soul born and created anew in the likeness of God's image. 3. But since
wild idolatry and godlessness occupied the world, and the knowledge of
God was hid, whose part was it to teach the world concerning the Father?
Man's, might one say? But it was not in man's power to penetrate
everywhere beneath the sun; for neither had they the physical strength to
run so far, nor would they be able to claim credence in this matter, nor
were they sufficient by themselves to withstand the deceit and
impositions of evil spirits. 4. For where all were smitten and confused in
soul from demoniacal deceit, and the vanity of idols, how was it possible
for them to win over man's soul and man's mind whereas they cannot
even see them? Or how can a man convert what he does not see? 5. But
perhaps one might say creation was enough; but if creation were enough,
these great evils would never have come to pass. For creation was there
already, and all the same, men were groveling in the same error concerning
God. 6. Who, then, was needed. save the Word of God, that sees both soul
and mind, and that gives movement to all things in creation, and by them
makes known the Father? For He who by His own Providence and
ordering of all things was teaching men concerning the Father, He it was
that could renew this same teaching as well. 7. How, then, could this have
been done? Perhaps one might say, that the same means were open as
before, for Him to shew forth the truth about the Father once more by
means of the work of creation. But this was no longer a sure means. Quite
the contrary; for men missed seeing this before, and have turned their eyes
no longer upward but downward. 8. Whence, naturally, willing to profit
men, He sojourns here as man, taking to Himself a body like the others,
and from things of earth, that is by the works of His body [He teaches
them], so that they who would not know Him from His Providence and
rule over all things, may even from the works done by His actual body
know the Word of God which is in the body, and through Him the Father..284
Thus the Word condescended to man's engrossment in corporeal
things, by even taking a body. All man's superstitions He met
halfway; whether men were inclined to worship Nature, Man,
Demons, or the dead, He shewed Himself Lord of all these.
For as a kind teacher who cares for His disciples, if some of them cannot
profit by higher subjects, comes down to their level, and teaches them at
any rate by simpler courses; so also did the Word of God. As Paul also
says: "For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom
knew not God, it was God's good pleasure through the foolishness of the
word preached to save them that believe." 2. For seeing that men, having
rejected the contemplation of God, and with their eyes downward, as
though sunk in the deep, were seeking about for God in nature and in the
world of sense, feigning gods for themselves of mortal men and demons; to
this end the loving and general Savior of all, the Word of God, takes to
Himself a body, and as Man walks among men and meets the senses of all
men half-way, to the end, I say, that they who think that God is corporeal
may from what the Lord effects by His body perceive the truth, and
through Him recognize the Father. 3. So, men as they were, and human in
all their thoughts, on whatever objects they fixed their senses, there they
saw themselves met half way, and taught the truth from every side. 4. For
if they looked with awe upon the Creation, yet they saw how she
confessed Christ as Lord; or if their mind was swayed toward men, so as
to think them gods, yet from the Savior's works, supposing they
compared them, the Savior alone among men appeared Son of God; for
there were no such works done among the rest as have been done by the
Word of God. 5. Or if they were biased toward evil spirits, even, yet
seeing them cast out by the Word, they were to know that He alone, the
Word of God, was God, and that the spirits were none. 6. Or if their mind
had already sunk even to the dead, so as to worship heroes, and the gods
spoken of in the poets, yet, seeing the Savior's resurrection, they were to
confess them to be false gods, and that the Lord alone is true, the Word of
the Father, that was Lord even of death. 7. For this cause He was both
born and appeared as Man, and died, and rose again, dulling and casting
into the shade the works of all former men by His own, that in whatever.285
direction the bias of men might be, from thence He might recall them, and
teach them of His own true Father, as He Himself says: "I came to save
and to find that which was lost."
He came then to attract man's sense bound attention to Himself as
man, and so to lead him on to know Him as God.
For men's mind having finally fallen to things of sense, the Word disguised
Himself by appearing in a body, that He might, as Man, transfer men to
Himself, and center their senses on Himself, and, men seeing Him
thenceforth as Man, persuade them by the works He did that He is not
Man only, but also God, and the Word and Wisdom of the true God. 2.
This, too, is what Paul means to point out when he says: "That ye being
rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the
saints what is the breadth and length, and height and depth, and to know
the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all
the fullness of God." 3. For by the Word revealing Himself everywhere,
both above and beneath, and in the depth and in the breadth — above, in
the creation; beneath, in becoming man; in the depth, in Hades; and in the
breadth, in the world — all things have been filled with the knowledge of
God. 4. Now for this cause, also, He did not immediately upon His coming
accomplish His sacrifice on behalf of all, by offering His body to death and
raising it again, for by this means He would have made Himself invisible.
But He made Himself visible enough by what He did, abiding in it, and
doing such works, and shewing such signs, as made Him known no longer
as Man, but as God the Word. 5. For by His becoming Man, the Savior
was to accomplish both works of love; first, in putting away death from
us and renewing us again; secondly, being unseen and invisible, in
manifesting and making Himself known by His works to be the Word of
the Father, and the Ruler and King of the universe..286
How the Incarnation did not limit the ubiquity of the Word, nor
diminish His Purity. (Simile of the Sun.)
For He was not, as might be imagined, circumscribed in the body, nor,
while present in the body, was He absent elsewhere; nor, while He moved
the body, was the universe left void of His working and Providence; but,
thing most marvelous, Word as He was, so far from being contained by
anything, He rather contained all things Himself; and just as while present
in the whole of Creation, He is at once distinct in being from the universe,
and present in oil things by His own power,-giving order to all things, and
over all and in all revealing His own providence, and giving life to each
thing and all things, including the whole without being included, but being
in His own Father alone wholly and in every respect, — 2. thus, even
while present in a human body and Himself quickening it, He was, without
inconsistency, quickening the universe as well, and was in every process
of nature, and was outside the whole, and while known from the body by
His works, He was none the less manifest from the working of the
universe as well. 3. Now, it is the function of soul to behold even what is
outside its own body, by acts of thought, without, however, working
outside its own body, or moving by its presence things remote from the
body. Never, that is, does a man, by thinking of things at a distance, by
that fact either move or displace them; nor if a man were to sit in his own
house and reason about the heavenly bodies, would he by that fact either
move the sun or make the heavens revolve. But he sees that they move and
have their being, without being actually able to influence them. 4. Now, the
Word of God in His man's nature was not like that; for He was not bound
to His body, but rather was Himself wielding it, so that He was not only
in it, but was actually in everything, and while external to the universe,
abode in His Father only. 5. And this was the wonderful thing that He was
at once walking as man, and as the Word was quickening all things, and as
the Son was dwelling with His Father. So that not even when the Virgin
bore Him did He suffer any change, nor by being in the body was [His
glory] dulled: but, on the contrary, He sanctified the body also. 6. For not
even by being in the universe does He share in its nature, but all things, on
the contrary, are quickened and sustained by Him. 7. For if the sun too,.287
which was made by Him, and which we see, as it revolves in the heaven, is
not defiled by touching the bodies upon earth, nor is it put out by
darkness, but on the contrary itself illuminates and cleanses them also,
much less was the all-holy Word of God, Maker and Lord also of the sun,
defiled by being made known in the body; on the contrary, being
incorruptible, He quickened and cleansed the body also, which was in
itself mortal: "who did," for so it says, "no sin, neither was guile found in
How the Word and Power of God works in His human actions: by
casting out devils, by Miracles, & His Birth of the Virgin.
Accordingly, when inspired writers on this matter speak of Him as eating
and being born, understand that the body, as body, was born, and
sustained with food corresponding to its nature, while God, the Word
Himself, Who was united with the body, while ordering all things, also by
the works He did in the body shewed Himself to be not man, but God the
Word. But these things are said of Him, because the actual body which ate,
was born, and suffered, belonged to none other but to the Lord: and
because, having become man, it was proper for these things to be
predicated of Him as man, to shew Him to have a body in truth, and not in
seeming. 2. But just as from these things He was known to be bodily
present, so from the works He did in the body He made Himself known to
be Son of God. Whence also He cried to the unbelieving Jews; "If I do not
the works of My Father, believe Me not. But if I do them, though ye
believe not Me, believe My works; that ye may know and understand that
the Father is in Me, and I in the Father." 3. For just as, though invisible,
He is known through the works of creation; so, having become man, and
being in the body unseen, it may be known from His works that He Who
can do these is not man, but the Power and Word of God. 4. For His
charging evil spirits, and their being driven forth, this deed is not of man,
but of God. Or who that saw Him healing the diseases to which the human
race is subject, can still think Him man and not God? For He cleansed
lepers, made lame men to walk, opened the hearing of deaf men, made
blind men to see again, and in a word drove away from men all diseases.288
and infirmities: from which acts it was possible even for the most ordinary
observer to see His Godhead. For who that saw Him give back what was
deficient to men born lacking, and open the eyes of the man blind from his
birth, would have failed to perceive that the nature of men was subject to
Him, and that He was its Artificer and Maker? For He that gave back that
which the man from his birth had not, must be, it is surely evident, the
Lord also of men's natural birth. 5. Therefore, even to begin with, when
He was descending to us, He fashioned His body for Himself from a
Virgin, thus to afford to all no small proof of His Godhead, in that He
Who formed this is also Maker of everything else as well. For who, seeing
a body proceeding forth from a Virgin alone without man, can fail to infer
that He Who appears in it is Maker and Lord of other bodies also? 6. Or
who, seeing the substance of water changed and transformed into wine,
fails to perceive that He Who did this is Lord and Creator of the substance
of all waters? For to this end He went upon the sea also as its Master, and
walked as on dry land, to afford evidence to them that saw it of His
lordship over all things. And in feeding so vast a multitude on little, and of
His own self yielding abundance where none was, so that from five loaves
five thousand had enough, and left so much again over, did He shew
Himself to be any other than the very Lord Whose Providence is over all
Man, unmoved by nature, was to be taught to know God by that
sacred Manhood, Whose deity all nature confessed, especially in
But all this it seemed well for the Savior to do; that since men had failed to
know His Providence, revealed in the Universe, and had failed to perceive
His Godhead shewn in creation, they might at any rate from the works of
His body recover their sight, and through Him receive an idea of the
knowledge of the Father, inferring, as I said before, from particular cases
His Providence over the whole. 2. For who that saw His power over evil
spirits, or who that saw the evil spirits confess that He was their Lord,
will hold his mind any longer in doubt whether this be the Son and
Wisdom and Power of God? 3. For He made even the creation break.289
silence: in that even at His death, marvelous to relate, or rather at His
actual trophy over death — the Cross I mean — all creation was
confessing that He that was made manifest and suffered in the body was
not man merely, but the Son of God and Savior of all. For the sun hid His
face, and the earth quaked and the mountains were rent: all men were
awed. Now these things shewed that Christ on the Cross was God, while
all creation was His slave, and was witnessing by its fear to its Master's
presence. Thus, then, God the Word shewed Himself to men by His
works. But our next step must be to recount and speak of the end of His
bodily life and course, and of the nature of the death of His body;
especially as this is the sum of our faith, and all men without exception are
full of it: so that you may know that no whir the less from this also Christ
is known to be God and the Son of God.
None, then, could bestow incorruption, but He Who had made,
none restore the likeness of God, save His Own Image, none
quicken, but the Life, none teach, but the Word. And He, to pay our
debt of death, must also die for us, and rise again as our first-fruits
from the grave. Mortal therefore His body must be; corruptible,
We have, then, now stated in part, as far as it was possible, and as
ourselves had been able to understand, the reason of His bodily appearing;
that it was in the power of none other to turn the corruptible to
incorruption, except the Savior Himself, that had at the beginning also
made all things out of naught and that none other could create anew the
likeness of God's image for men, save the Image of the Father; and that
none other could render the mortal immortal, save our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who is the Very Life; and that none other could teach men of the Father,
and destroy the worship of idols, save the Word, that orders all things and
is alone the true Only-begotten Son of the Father. 2. But since it was
necessary also that the debt owing from all should be paid again: for, as I
have already said, it was owing that all should die, for which especial
cause, indeed, He came among us: to this intent, after the proofs of His
Godhead from His works, He next offered up His sacrifice also on behalf.290
of all, yielding His Temple to death in the stead of all, in order firstly to
make men quit and free of their old trespass, and further to shew Himself
more powerful even than death, displaying His own body incorruptible, as
first-fruits of the resurrection of all. 3. And do not be surprised if we
frequently repeat the same words on the same subject. For since we are
speaking of the counsel of God, therefore we expound the same sense in
more than one form, lest we should seem to be leaving anything out, and
incur the charge of inadequate treatment: for it is better to submit to the
blame of repetition than to leave out anything! that ought to be set down.
4. The body, then, as sharing the same nature with all, for it was a human
body, though by an unparalleled miracle it was formed of a virgin only, yet
being mortal, was to die also, conformably to its peers. But by virtue of
the union of the Word with it, it was no longer subject to corruption
according to its own nature, but by reason of the Word that was come to
dwell in it was placed out of the reach of corruption. 5. And so it was that
two marvels came to pass at once, that the death of all was accomplished
in the Lord's body, and that death and corruption were wholly done away
by reason of the Word that was united with it. For there was need of
death, and death must needs be suffered on behalf of all, that the debt
owing from all might be paid. 6. Whence, as I said before, the Word, since
it was not possible for Him to die, as He was immortal, took to Himself a
body such as could die, that He might offer it as His own in the stead of
all, and as suffering, through His union with it, on behalf of all, "Bring to
naught Him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and might
deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to
Death brought to naught by the death of Christ. Why then did not
Christ die privately, or in a more honorable way? He was not
subject to natural death, but had to die at the hands of others. Why
then did He die? Nay but for that purpose He came, and but for
that, He could not have risen.
Why, now that the common Savior of all has died on our behalf, we, the
faithful in Christ, no longer die the death as before, agreeably to the.291
warning of the law; for this condemnation has ceased; but, corruption
ceasing and being put away by the grace of the Resurrection, henceforth
we are only dissolved, agreeably to our bodies' mortal nature, at the time
God has fixed for each, that we may be able to gain a better resurrection. 2.
For like the seeds which are cast into the earth, we do not perish by
dissolution, but sown in the earth, shall rise again, death having been
brought to naught by the grace of the Savior. Hence it is that blessed Paul,
who was made a surety of the Resurrection to all, says: "This corruptible
must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality; but
when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall
have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is
written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is thy sting? O
grave where is thy victory?" 3. Why, then, one might say, if it were
necessary for Him to yield up His body to death in the stead of all, did He
not lay it aside as man privately, instead of going as far as even to be
crucified? For it were more fitting for Him to have laid His body aside
honorably, than ignominiously to endure a death like this. 4. Now, see to
it, I reply, whether such an objection be not merely human, whereas what
the Savior did is truly divine and for many reasons worthy of His
Godhead. Firstly, be cause the death which befalls men comes to them
agreeably to the weakness of their nature; for, unable to continue in one
stay, they are dissolved with time. Hence, too, diseases befall them, and
they fall sick and die. But the Lord is not weak, but is the Power of God
and Word of God and Very Life. 5. If, then, He had laid aside His body
somewhere in private, and upon a bed, after the manner of men, it would
have been thought that He also did this agreeably to the weakness of His
nature, and because there was nothing in him more than in other men. But
since He was, firstly, the Life and the Word of God, and it was necessary,
secondly, for the death on behalf of all to be accomplished, for this cause,
on the one hand, because He was life and power, the body gained strength
in Him; 6. while on the other, as death must needs come to pass, He did
not Himself take, but received at others' hands, the occasion of perfecting
His sacrifice. Since it was not fit, either, that the Lord should fall sick, who
healed the diseases of others; nor again was it right for that body to lose its
strength, in which He gives strength to the weaknesses of others also. 7.
Why, then, did He not prevent death, as He did sickness? Because it was
for this that He had the body, and it was unfitting to prevent it, lest the.292
Resurrection also should be hindered, while yet it was equally unfitting for
sickness to precede His death, lest it should be thought weakness on the
part of Him that was in the body. Did He not then hunger? Yes; He
hungered, agreeably to the properties of His body. But He did not perish
of hunger, because of the Lord that wore it. Hence, even if He died to
ransom all, yet He saw not corruption. For [His body] rose again in
perfect soundness, since the body belonged to none other, but to the very
But why did He not withdraw His body from the Jews, and so
guard its immortality? It became Him not to inflict death on
Himself, and yet not to shun it. He came to receive death as the due
of others, therefore it should come to Him from without. His death
must be certain, to guarantee the truth of His Resurrection. Also,
He could not die from infirmity, lest He should be mocked in His
But it were better, one might say, to have hidden from the designs of the
Jews, that He might guard His body altogether from death. Now let such
an one be told that this too was unbefitting the Lord. For as it was not
fitting for the Word of God, being the Life, to inflict death Himself on His
own body, so neither was it suitable to fly from death offered by others,
but rather to follow it up unto destruction, for which reason He naturally
neither laid aside His body of His own accord, nor, again, fled from the
Jews when they took counsel against Him. 2. But this did not shew
weakness on the Word's part, but, on the contrary, shewed Him to be
Savior and Life; in that He both awaited death to destroy it, and hasted to
accomplish the death offered Him for the salvation of all. 3. And besides,
the Savior came to accomplish not His own death, but the death of men;
whence He did not lay aside His body by a death of His own — for He
was Life and had none — but received that death which came from men, in
order perfectly to do away with this when it met Him in His own body. 4.
Again, from the following also one might see the reasonableness of the
Lord's body meeting this end. The Lord was especially concerned for the
resurrection of the body which He was set to accomplish. For what He.293
was to do was to manifest it as a monument of victory over death, and to
assure all of His having effected the blotting out of corruption, and of the
incorruption of their bodies from thenceforward; as a gage of which and a
proof of the resurrection in store for all, He has preserved His own body
in-corrupt. 5. If, then, once more, His body had fallen sick, and the word
had been sundered from it in the sight of all, it would have been
unbecoming that He who healed the diseases of others should suffer His
own instrument to waste in sickness. For how could His driving out the
diseases of others have been believed in if His own temple fell sick in
Him? For either He had been mocked as unable to drive away diseases, or
if He could, but did not, He would be thought insensible toward others
Necessity of a public death for the doctrine of the Resurrection.
But even if, without any disease and without any pain, He had hidden His
body away privily and by Himself "in a corner," or in a desert place, or in
a house, or anywhere, and afterwards suddenly appeared and said that He
had been raised from the dead, He would have seemed on all hands to be
telling idle tales, and what He said about the Resurrection would have been
all the more discredited, as there was no one at all to witness to His death.
Now, death must precede resurrection, as it would be no resurrection did
not death precede; so that if the death of His body had taken place
anywhere in secret, the death not being apparent nor taking place before
witnesses, His Resurrection too had been hidden and without evidence. 2.
Or why, while when He had risen He proclaimed the Resurrection, should
He cause His death to take place in secret? or why, while He drove out
evil spirits in the presence of all, and made the man blind from his birth
recover his sight, and changed the water into wine, that by these means He
might be believed to be the Word of God, should He not manifest His
mortal nature as incorruptible in the presence of all, that He might be
believed Himself to be the Life? 3. Or how were His disciples to have
boldness in speaking of the Resurrection, were they not able to say that
He first died? Or how could they be believed, saying that death had first
taken place and then the Resurrection, had they not had as witnesses of.294
His death the men before whom they spoke with boldness? For if, even as
it was, when His death and Resurrection had taken place in the sight of all,
the Pharisees of that day would not believe, but compelled even those who
had seen the Resurrection to deny it, why, surely, if these things had
happened in secret, how many pretexts for disbelief would they have
devised? 4. Or how could the end of death, and the victory over it be
proved, unless challenging it before the eyes of all He had shewn it to be
dead, annulled for the future by the incorruption of His body?
Further objections anticipated. He did not choose His manner of
death; for He was to prove Conqueror of death in all or any of its
forms: (simple of a good wrestler). The death chosen to disgrace
Him proved the Trophy against death: moreover a preserved His
But what others also might have said, we must anticipate in reply. For
perhaps a man might say even as follows: If it was necessary for His death
to take place before all, and with witnesses, that the story of His
Resurrection also might be believed, it would have been better at any rate
for Him to have devised for Himself a glorious death, if only to escape the
ignominy of the Cross. 2. But had He done even this, He would give
ground for suspicion against Himself, that He was not powerful against
every death, but only against the death devised for Him; and so again there
would have been a pretext for disbelief about the Resurrection all the same.
So death came to His body, not from Himself, but from hostile counsels,
in order that whatever death they offered to the Savior, this He might
utterly do away. 3. And just as a noble wrestler, great in skill and courage,
does not pick out his antagonists for himself, lest he should raise a
suspicion of his being afraid of some of them, but puts it in the choice of
the onlookers, and especially so if they happen to be his enemies, so that
against whomsoever they match him, him he may throw, and be believed
superior to them all; so also the Life of all, our Lord and Savior, even
Christ, did not devise a death for His own body, so as not to appear to be
fearing some other death; but He accepted on the Cross, and endured, a
death inflicted by others, and above all by His enemies, which they
thought dreadful and ignominious and not to be faced; so that this also
being destroyed, both He Himself might be believed to be the Life, and the
power of death be brought utterly to nought. 4. So something surprising
and startling has happened; for the death, which they thought to inflict as
a disgrace, was actually a monument of victory against death itself.
Whence neither did He suffer the death of John, his head being severed,
nor, as Esaias, was He sawn in sunder; in order that even in death He
might still keep His body undivided and in perfect soundness, and no
pretext be afforded to those that would divide the Church.
Why the Cross, of all deaths? He had to bear the curse for us. On it
He held out His hands to unite all, Jews and Gentiles, in Himself.
He defeated the "Prince of the powers of the air" in his own region,
clearing the way to heaven and opening for us the everlasting
And thus much in reply to those without who pile up arguments for
themselves. But if any of our own people also inquire, not from love of
debate, but from love of learning, why He suffered death in none other
way save on the Cross, let him also be told that no. other way than this
was good for us, and that it was well that the Lord suffered this for our
sakes. 2. For if He came Himself to bear the curse laid upon us, how else
could He have "become a curse," unless He received the death set for a
curse? and that is the Cross. For this is exactly what is written: "Cursed is
he that hangeth on a tree." 3. Again, if the Lord's death is the ransom of
all, and by His death "the middle wall of partition" is broken down, and
the calling of the nations is brought about, how would He have called us to
Him, had He not been crucified? For it is only on the cross that a man dies
with his hands spread out. Whence it was fitting for the Lord to bear this
also and to spread out His hands, that with the one He might draw the
ancient people, and with the other those from the Gentiles, and unite both
in Himself. 4. For this is what He Himself has said, signifying by what
manner of death He was to ransom all: "I, when I am lifted up," He saith,
"shall draw all men unto Me." 5. And once more, if the devil, the enemy of
our race, having fallen from heaven, wanders about our lower atmosphere,.296
and there bearing rule over his fellow-spirits, as his peers in disobedience,
not only works illusions by their means in them that are deceived, but tries
to hinder them that are going up (and about this the Apostle says:
"According to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now
worketh in the sons of disobedience "); while the Lord came to cast down
the devil, and clear the air and prepare the way for us up into heaven, as
said the Apostle: "Through the veil, that is to say, His flesh " — and this
must needs be by death — well, by what other kind of death could this
have come to pass, than by one which took place in the air, I mean the
cross? for only he that is perfected on the cross dies in the air. Whence it
was quite fitting that the Lord suffered this death. 6. For thus being lifted
up He cleared the air of the malignity both of the devil and of demons of
all kinds, as He says: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven;" and
made a new opening of the way up into heaven as He says once more:
"Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors."
For it was not the Word Himself that needed an opening of the gates, being
Lord of all; nor were any of His works closed to their Maker; but we it
was that needed it whom He carried up by His own body. For as He
offered it to death on behalf of all, so by it He once more made ready the
Reasons for His rising on the Third Day. (1) Not sooner for else
His real death would be denied, nor later; to (a) guard the identity
of His body, (b) not to keep His disciples too long in suspense, nor
(c) to wait till the witnesses of His death were dispersed, or its
The death on the Cross, then, for us has proved seemly and fitting, and its
cause has been shewn to be reasonable in every respect; and it may justly
be argued that in no other way than by the Cross was it right for the
salvation of all to take place. For not even thus — not even on the Cross
— did He leave Himself concealed; but far otherwise, while He made
creation witness to the presence of its Maker, He suffered not the temple
of His body to remain long, but having merely shewn it to be dead, by the
contact of death with it, He straightway raised it up on the third day,
bearing away, as the mark of victory and the triumph over death, the
incorruptibility and impassibility which resulted to His body. 2. For He
could, even immediately on death, have raised His body and shewn it alive;
but this also the Savior, in wise foresight, did not do. For one might have
said that He had not did at all, or that death had not come into perfect
contact with Him, if He had manifested the Resurrection at once. 3.
Perhaps, again, had the interval of His dying and rising again been one of
two days only, the glory of His incorruption would have been obscure. So
in order that the body might be proved to be dead, the Word tarried yet
one intermediate day, and on the third shewed it incorruptible to all. 4. So
then, that the death on the Cross might be proved, He raised His body on
the third day. 5. But lest, by raising it up when it had remained a long time
and been completely corrupted, He should be disbelieved, as though He
had exchanged it for some other body for a man might also from lapse of
time distrust what he saw, and forget what had taken place — for this
cause He waited not more than three days; nor did He keep long in
suspense those whom He had told about the Resurrection: 6. but while the
word was still echoing in their ears and their eyes were still expectant and
their mind in suspense, and while those who had slain Him were still living
on earth, and were on the spot and could witness to the death of the
Lord's body, the Son of God Himself, after an interval of three days,
shewed His body, once dead, immortal and incorruptible; and it was made
manifest to all that it was not from any natural weakness of the Word that
dwelt in it that the body had died, but in order that in it death might be
done away by the power of the Savior.
The change wrought by the Cross in the relation of Death to Man.
For that death is destroyed, and that the Cross is become the victory over
it, and that it has no more power but is verily dead, this is no small proof,
or rather an evident warrant, that it is despised by all Christ's disciples,
and that they all take the aggressive against it and no longer fear it; but by
the sign of the Cross and by faith in Christ tread it down as dead. 2. For of
old, before the divine sojourn of the Savior took place, even to the saints
death was terrible, and all wept for the dead as though they perished. But
now that the Savior has raised His body, death is no longer terrible; for all
who believe in Christ tread him under as nought, and choose rather to die
than to deny their faith in Christ. For they verily know that when they die
they are not destroyed, but actually [begin to] live, and become
incorruptible through the Resurrection. 3. And that devil that once
maliciously exulted in death, now that its pains were loosed, remained the
only one truly dead. And a proof of this is, that before men believe Christ,
they see in death an object of terror, and play the coward before him. But
when they are gone over to Christ's faith and teaching, their contempt for
death is so great that they even eagerly rush upon it, and become
witnesses for the Resurrection the Savior has accomplished against it. For
while still tender in years they make haste to die, and not men only, but
women also, exercise themselves by bodily discipline against it. So weak
has he become, that even women who were formerly deceived by him,
now mock at him as dead and paralyzed. 4. For as when a tyrant has been
defeated by a real king, and bound hand and foot, then all that pass by
laugh him to scorn, buffeting and reviling him, no longer fearing his fury
and barbarity, because of the king who has conquered him; so also, death
having been conquered and exposed by the Savior on the Cross, and bound
hand and foot, all they who are in Christ, as they pass by, trample on him,
and witnessing to Christ scoff at death, jesting at him, and saying what has
been written against him of old: "O death, where is thy victory? O grave,
This exceptional fact must be tested by experience.
Let those who doubt it become Christians."
Is this, then, a slight proof of the weakness of death? or is it a slight
demonstration of the victory won over him by the Savior, when the
youths and young maidens that are in Christ despise this life and practice
to die? 2. For man is by nature afraid of death and of the dissolution of the
body; but there is this most startling fact, that he who has put on the faith
of the Cross despises even what is naturally fearful, and for Christ's sake
is not afraid of death. 3. And just as, whereas fire has the natural property
of burning, if some one said there was a substance which did not fear its.299
burning, but on the contrary proved it weak — as the asbestos among the
Indians is said to do — then one who did not believe the story, if he
wished to put it to the test, is at any rate, after putting on the fireproof
material and touching the fire, thereupon assured of the weakness
attributed to the fire: 4. or if any one wished to see the tyrant bound, at
any rate by going into the country and domain of his conqueror he may see
the man, a terror to others, reduced to weakness; so if a man is incredulous
even still after so many proofs and after so many who have become
martyrs in Christ, and after the scorn shewn for death every day by those
who are illustrious in Christ, still, if his mind be even yet doubtful as to
whether death has been brought to nought and had an end, he does well to
wonder at so great a thing, only let him not prove obstinate in incredulity,
nor case hardened in the face of what is so plain. 5. But just as he who has
got the asbestos knows that fire has no burning power over it, and as he
who would see the tyrant bound goes over to the empire of his conqueror,
so too let him who is incredulous about the victory over death receive the
faith of Christ, and pass over to His teaching, and he shall see the
weakness of death, and the triumph over it. For many who were formerly
incredulous and scoffers have afterwards believed and so despised death as
even to become martyrs for Christ Himself.
Here then are wonderful effects, and a sufficient cause, the Cross,
to account for them, as sunrise accounts for daylight.
Now if by the sign of the Cross, and by faith in Christ, death is trampled
down, it must be evident before the tribunal of truth that it is none other
than Christ Himself that has displayed trophies and triumphs over death,
and made him lose all his strength. 2. And if, while previously death was
strong, and for that reason terrible, now after the sojourn of the Savior and
the death and Resurrection of His body it is despised, it must be evident
that death has been brought to nought and conquered by the very Christ
that ascended the Cross. 3. For as, if after night-time the sun rises, and the
whole region of earth is illumined by him, it is at any rate not open to
doubt that it is the sun who has revealed his light everywhere, that has
also driven away the dark and given light to all things; so, now that death.300
has come into contempt, and been trodden under foot, from the time when
the Savior's saving manifestation in the flesh and His death on the Cross
took place, it must be quite plain that it is the very Savior that also
appeared in the body, Who has brought death to nought, and Who
displays the signs of victory over him day by day in His own disciples. 4.
For when one sees men, weak by nature, leaping forward to death, and not
fearing its corruption nor frightened of the descent into Hades, but with
eager soul challenging it; and not flinching from torture, but on the
contrary, for Christ's sake electing to rush upon death in preference to life
upon earth, or even if one be an eye-witness of men and females and
young children rushing and leaping upon death for the sake of Christ's
religion; who is so silly, or who is so incredulous, or who so maimed in his
mind, as not to see and infer that Christ, to Whom the people witness,
Himself supplies and gives to each the victory over death, depriving him
of all his power in each one of them that hold His faith and bear the sign of
the Cross. 5. For he that sees the serpent trodden under foot, especially
knowing his former fierceness no longer doubts that he is dead and has
quite lost his strength, unless he is perverted in mind and has not even his
bodily senses sound. For who that sees a lion, either, made sport of by
children, fails to see that he is either dead or has lost all his power? 6. Just
as, then, it is possible to see with the eyes the truth of all this, so, now
that death is made sport of and despised by believers in Christ let none
any longer doubt, nor any prove incredulous, of death having been brought
to nought by Christ, and the corruption of death destroyed and stayed.
The reality of the Resurrection prayed by facts: the victory over
death described above: the Wonders of Grace are the work of one
Living, of One who is God:: if the gads be (as alleged) real and
living, a fortiori He Who shatters their power is alive.
What we have so far said, then, is no small proof that death has been
brought to naught, and that the Cross of the Lord is a sign of victory over
him. But of the Resurrection of the body to immortality thereupon
accomplished by Christ, the common Savior and true Life of all, the
demonstration by facts is clearer than arguments to those whose mental.301
vision is sound. 2. For if, as our argument shewed, death has been brought
to naught, and because of Christ all tread him under foot, much more did
He Himself first tread him down with His own body, and bring him to
nought. But supposing death slain by Him, what could have happened
save the rising again of His body, and its being displayed as a monument
of victory against death? or how could death have been shewn to be
brought to nought unless the Lord's body had risen? But if this
demonstration of the Resurrection seem to any one insufficient, let him be
assured of what is said even from what takes place before his eyes. 3. For
whereas on a man's decease he can put forth no power, but his influence
lasts to the grave and thenceforth ceases; and actions, and power over men,
belong to the living only; let him who will, see and be judge, confessing the
truth from what appears to sight. 4. For now that the Savior works so
great things among men, and day by day is invisibly persuading so great a
multitude from every side, both from them that dwell in Greece and in
foreign lands, to come over to His faith, and all to obey His teaching, will
any one still hold his mind in doubt whether a Resurrection has been
accomplished by the Savior, and whether Christ is alive, or rather is
Himself the Life? 5. Or is it like a dead man to be pricking the consciences
of men, so that they deny their hereditary laws and bow before the
teaching of Christ? Or how, if he is no longer active (for this is proper to
one dead), does he stay from their activity those who are active and alive,
so that the adulterer no longer commits adultery, and the murderer murders
no more, nor is the inflicter of wrong any longer grasping, and the profane
is henceforth religious? Or how, if He be not risen but is dead, does He
drive away, and pursue, and cast down those false gods said by the
unbelievers to be alive, and the demons they worship? 6. For where Christ
is named, and His faith, there all idolatry is deposed and all imposture of
evil spirits is exposed, and any spirit is unable to endure even the name,
nay even on barely hearing it flies and disappears. But this work is not
that of one dead, but of one that lives — and especially of God. 7. In
particular, it would be ridiculous to say that while the spirits cast out by
Him and the idols brought to nought are alive, He who chases them away,
and by His power prevents their even appearing, yea, and is being
confessed by them all to be Son of God, is dead..302
If Power is the sign of life, what do we learn from the impotence of
idols, for goad or evil, and the constraining power of Christ and of
the Sign of the Cross? Death and the demons are by this proved to
have lost their sovereignty. Coincidence of the above argument
from facts with that from the Personality of Christ.
But they who disbelieve in the Resurrection afford a strong proof against
themselves, if instead of all the spirits and the gods worshipped by them
casting out Christ, Who, they say, is dead, Christ on the contrary proves
them all to be dead. 2. For if it be true that one dead can exert no power,
while the Savior does daily so many works, drawing men to religion,
persuading to virtue, teaching of immortality, leading on to a desire for
heavenly things, revealing the knowledge of the Father, inspiring strength
to meet death, shewing Himself to each one, and displacing the godlessness
of idolatry, and the gods and spirits of the unbelievers can do none of
these things, but rather shew themselves dead at the presence of Christ,
their pomp being reduced to impotence and vanity; whereas by the sign of
the Cross all magic is stopped, and all witchcraft brought to nought, and all
the idols are being deserted and left, and every unruly pleasure is checked,
and every one is looking up from earth to heaven: Whom is one to
pronounce dead? Christ, that is doing so many works? But to work is not
proper to one dead. Or him that exerts no power at all, but lies as it were
without life? which is essentially proper to the idols and spirits, dead as
they are. 3. For the Son of God is "living and active," and works day by
day, and brings about the salvation of all. But death is daily proved to
have lost all his power, and idols and spirits are proved to be dead rather
than Christ, so that henceforth no man can any longer doubt of the
Resurrection of His body. 4. But he who is incredulous of the
Resurrection of the Lord's body would seem to be ignorant of the power
of the Word and Wisdom of God. For if He took a body to Himself at all,
and — in reasonable consistency, as our argument shewed — appropriated
it as His own, what was the Lord to do with it? or what should be the end
of the body when the Word had once descended upon it? For it could not
but die, inasmuch as it was mortal, and to be offered unto death on behalf
of all: for which purpose it was that the Savior fashioned it for Himself..303
But it was impossible for it to remain dead, because it had been made the
temple of life. Whence, while it died as mortal, it came to life again by
reason of the Life in it; and of its Resurrection the works are a sign.
But who is to see Him risen, so as to believe? Nay, God is ever
invisible and known by His works only: and here the works cry out
in proof. If you do not believe, look at those who do, and perceive
the Godhead of Christ. The demons see this, though men be blind.
Summary of the argument so far.
But if, because He is not seen, His having risen at all is disbelieved, it is
high time for those who refuse belief to deny the very course of Nature.
For it is God's peculiar property at once to be invisible and yet to be
known from His works, as has been already stated above. 2. If, then, the
works are not there, they do well to disbelieve what does not appear. But
if the works cry aloud and shew it clearly, why do they choose to deny
the life so manifestly due to the Resurrection? For even if they be maimed
in their intelligence, yet even with the external senses men may see the
unimpeachable power and Godhead of Christ. 3. For even a blind man, if
he see not the sun, yet if he but take hold of the warmth the sun gives out,
knows that there is a sun above the earth. Thus let our opponents also,
even if they believe not as yet, being still blind to the truth, yet at least
knowing His power by others who believe, not deny the Godhead of
Christ and the Resurrection accomplished by Him. 4. For it is plain that if
Christ be dead, He could not be expelling demons and spoiling idols; for a
dead man the spirits would not have obeyed. But if they be manifestly
expelled by the naming of His name, it must be evident that He is not
dead; especially as spirits, seeing even what is unseen by men, could tell if
Christ were dead and refuse Him any obedience at all. 5. But as it is, what
irreligious men believe not, the spirits see — that He is God,-and hence
they fly and fall at His feet, saying just what they uttered when He was in
the body: "We know Thee Who Thou art, the Holy One of God;" and,
"Ah, what have we to do with Thee, Thou Son of God? I pray Thee,
torment me not." 6. As then demons confess Him, and His works bear
Him witness day by day, it must be evident, and let none brazen it out.304
against the truth, both that the Savior raised His own body, and that He is
the true Son of God, being from Him, as from His Father, His own Word,
and Wisdom, and Power, Who in ages later took a body for the salvation
of all, and taught the world concerning the Father, and brought death to
nought, and bestowed incorruption upon all by the promise of the
Resurrection, having raised His own body as a first-fruits of this, and
having displayed it by the sign of the Cross as a monument of victory over
death and its corruption.
Unbelief of Jews and scoffing of Greeks. The former confounded by
their own scriptures. Prophecies of his coming as god and as man.
These things being so, and the Resurrection of His body and the victory
gained over death by the Savior being clearly proved, come now let us put
to rebuke both the disbelief of the Jews and the scoffing of the Gentiles. 2.
For these, perhaps, are the points where Jews express incredulity, while
Gentiles laugh, finding fault with the unseemliness of the Cross, and of the
Word of God becoming man. But our argument shall not delay to grapple
with both especially as the proofs at our command against them are clear
as day. 3. For Jews in their incredulity may be refuted from the Scriptures,
which even themselves read; for this text and that, and, in a word, the
whole inspired Scripture, cries aloud concerning these things, as even its
express words abundantly shew. For prophets proclaimed beforehand
concerning the wonder of the Virgin and the birth from her, saying: "Lo,
the Virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall
call his name Emmanuel, which is, being interpreted, God with us." 4. But
Moses, the truly great, and whom they believe to speak truth, with
reference to the Savior's becoming man, having estimated what was said as
important, and assured of its truth, set it down in these words: "There
shall rise a star out of Jacob, and a man out of Israel, and he shall break in
pieces the captains of Moab." And again: "How lovely are thy habitations
O Jacob, thy tabernacles O Israel, as shadowing gardens, and as parks by
the rivers, and as tabernacles which the Lord hath fixed, as cedars by the
waters. A man shall come forth out of his seed, and shall be Lord over
many peoples." And again, Esaias: "Before the Child know how to call.305
father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils 'of
Samaria before the king of Assyria." 5. That a man, then, shall appear is
foretold in those words. But that He that is to come is Lord of all, they
predict once more as follows: "Behold the Lord sitteth upon a light cloud,
and shall come into Egypt, and the graven images of Egypt shall be
shaken." For from thence also it is that the Father calls Him back, saying:
"I called My Son out of Egypt."
Prophecies of His passion and death in all its circumstances.
Nor is even His death passed over in silence: on the contrary, it is referred
to in the divine Scriptures, even exceeding clearly. For to the end that none
should err for want of instruction:in the actual events, they feared not to
mention even the cause of His death, — that He suffers it not for His own
sake, but for the immortality and salvation of all, and the counsels of the
Jews against Him and the indignities offered Him at their hands. 2. They
say then: "A man in stripes, and knowing how to bear weakness, for his
face is turned away: he was dishonored and held in no account. He beareth
our sins, and is in pain on our account; and we reckoned him to be in labor,
and in stripes, and in ill-usage; but he was wounded for our sins, and made
weak for our wickedness. The chastisement of our peace was upon him,
and by his stripes we were healed." O marvel at the loving-kindness of the
Word, that for our sakes He is dishonored, that we may be brought to
honor. "For all we," it says, "like sheep were gone astray; man had erred
in his way; and the Lord delivered him for our sins; and he openeth not his
mouth, because he hath been evilly entreated. As a sheep was he brought
to the slaughter, and as a lamb dumb before his shearer, so openeth he not
his mouth: in his abasement his judgment was taken away." 3. Then lest
any should from His suffering conceive Him to be a common man, Holy
Writ anticipates the surmises of man, and declares the power (which
worked) for Him, and the difference of His nature compared with
ourselves, saying: "But who shall declare his generation? For his life is
taken away from the earth. From the wickedness of the people was he
brought to death. And I will give the wicked instead of his burial, and the.306
rich instead of his death; for he did no wickedness, neither was guile found
in his mouth. And the Lord will cleanse him from his stripes."
How these prophecies are satisfied in Christ alone.
But, perhaps, having heard the prophecy of His death, you ask to learn
also what is set forth concerning the Cross. For not even this is passed
over: it is displayed by the holy men with great plainness. 2. For first
Moses predicts it, and that with a loud voice, when he says: "Ye shall see
your Life hanging before your eyes, and shall not believe." 3. And next, the
prophets after him witness of this, saying: "ButI as an innocent lamb
brought to be slain, knew it not; they counseled an evil counsel against me,
saying, Hither and let us cast a tree upon his bread, and efface him from
the land of the living." 4. And again: "They pierced my hands and my feet,
they numbered all my bones, they parted my garments among them, and
for my vesture they cast lots." 5. Now a death raised aloft and that takes
place on a tree, could be none other than the Cross: and again, in no other
death are the hands and feet pierced, save on the Cross only. 6. But since
by the sojourn of the Savior among men all nations also on every side
began to know God; they did not leave this point, either, without a
reference but mention is made of this matter as well in the Holy
Scriptures. For "there a shall be," he saith, "the root of Jesse, and he that
riseth to rule the nations, on him shall the nations hope." This then is a
little in proof of what has happened. 7. But all Scripture teems with
refutations of the disbelief of the Jews. For which of the righteous men
and holy prophets, and patriarchs, recorded in the divine Scriptures, ever
had his corporal birth of a virgin only? Or what woman has sufficed
without man for the conception of human kind? Was not Abel born of
Adam, Enoch of Jared, Noe of Lamech, and Abraham of Tharra, Isaac of
Abraham, Jacob of Isaac? Was not Judas born of Jacob, and Moses and
Aaron of Ameram? Was not Samuel born of Elkana, was not David of
Jesse, was not Solomon of David, was not Ezechias of Achaz, was not
Josias of Amos, was not Esaias of Amos, was not Jeremy of Chelchias,
was not Ezechiel of Buzi? Had not each a father as author of his existence?.307
Who then is he that is born of a virgin only? For the prophet made
exceeding much of this sign. 8. Or whose birth did a star in the skies
forerun, to announce to the world him that was born? For when Moses
was born, he was hid by his parents: David was not heard of, even by
those of his neighborhood, inasmuch as even the great Samuel knew him
not, but asked, had Jesse yet another son? Abraham again became known
to his neighbors as a great man only subsequently to his birth. But of
Christ's birth the witness was not man, but a star in that heaven whence
Prophecies of Christ's sovereignty, flight into Egypt, etc.
But what king that ever was, before he had strength to call father or
mother, reigned and gained triumphs over his enemies? Did not David
come to the throne at thirty years of age, and Solomon, when he had
grown to be a young man? Did not Joas enter on the kingdom when seven
years old, and Josias, a still later king, receive the government about the
seventh year of his age? And yet they at that age had strength to call father
or mother. 2. Who, then, is there that was reigning and spoiling his enemies
almost before his birth? Or what king of this sort has ever been in Israel
and in Juda — let the Jews, who have searched out the matter, tell us — in
whom all the nations have placed their hopes and had peace, instead of
being at enmity with them on every side? 3. For as long as Jerusalem stood
there was war without respite betwixt them, and they all fought with
Israel; the Assyrians oppressed them, the Egyptians persecuted them, the
Babylonians fell upon them; and, strange to say, they had even the Syrians
their neighbors at war against them. Or did not David war against them of
Moab, and smite the Syrians, Josias guard against his neighbors, and
Ezechias quail at the boasting of Senacherim, and Amalek make war against
Moses, and the Amorites oppose him, and the inhabitants of Jericho array
themselves against Jesus son of Naue? And, in a word, treaties of
friendship had no place between the nations and Israel. Who, then, it is on
whom the nations are to set their hope, it is worth while to see. For there
must be such an one, as it is impossible for the prophet to have spoken
falsely. 4. But which of the holy prophets or of the early patriarchs has.308
died on the Cross for the salvation of all? Or who was wounded and
destroyed for the healing of all? Or which of the righteous men, or kings,
went down to Egypt, so that at his coming the idols of Egypt fell? For
Abraham went thither, but idolatry prevailed universally all the same.
Moses was born there, and the deluded worship of the people was there
Psalm 22:16, etc. Majesty of His birth and death. Confusion of
oracles and demons in Egypt.
Or who among those recorded in Scripture was pierced in the hands and
feet, or hung at all upon a tree, and was sacrificed on a cross for the
salvation of all? For Abraham died, ending his life on a bed; Isaac and
Jacob also died with their feet raised on a bed; Moses and Aaron died on
the mountain; David in his house, without being the object of any
conspiracy at the hands of the people; true, he was pursued by Saul, but
he was preserved unhurt. Esaias was sawn asunder, but not hung on a tree.
Jeremy was shamefully treated, but did not die under condemnation;
Ezechie suffered, not however for the people, but to indicate what was to
come upon the people. 2. Again, these, even where they suffered, were
men resembling all in their common nature; but he that is declared in
Scripture to suffer on behalf of all is called not merely man, but the Life of
all, albeit He was in fact like men in nature. For "ye shall see," it says,
"your Life hanging before your eyes;" and "who shall declare his
generation?" For one can ascertain the genealogy of all the saints, and
declare it from the beginning, and of whom each was born; but the
generation of Him that is the Life the Scriptures refer to as not to be
declared. 3. Who then is he of whom the Divine Scriptures say this? Or
who is so great that even the prophets predict of him such great things?
None else, now, is found in the Scriptures but the common Savior of all,
the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. For He it is that proceeded from
a virgin and appeared as man on the earth, and whose generation after the
flesh cannot be declared. For there is none that can tell His father after the
flesh, His body not being of a man, but of a virgin alone; 4. so that no one
can declare the corporal generation of the Savior from a man, in the same.309
way as one can draw up a genealogy of David and of Moses and of all the
patriarchs. For He it is that caused the star also to mark the birth of His
body; since it was fit that the Word, coming down from heaven, should
have His constellation also from heaven, and it was fitting that the King of
Creation when He came forth should be openly recognized by all creation.
5. Why, He was born in Judaea, and men from Persia came to worship
Him. He it is that even before His appearing in the body won the victory
over His demon adversaries and a triumph over idolatry. All heathen at
any rate from every region, abjuring their hereditary tradition and the
impiety of idols, are now placing their hope in Christ, and enrolling
themselves under Him, the like of which you may see with your own
eyes. 6. For at no other time has the impiety of the Egyptians ceased, save
when the Lord of all, riding as it were upon a cloud, came down there in
the body and brought to nought the delusion of idols, and brought over all
to Himself, and through Himself to the Father. 7. He it is that was
crucified before the sun and all creation as witnesses, and before those who
put Him to death: and by His death has salvation come to all, and all
creation been ransomed. He is the Life of all, and He it is that as a sheep
yielded His body to death as a substitute, for the salvation of all, even
though the Jews believe it not.
Other clear prophecies of the coming of God in the flesh.
Christ's miracles unprecedented.
For if they do not think these proofs sufficient, let them be persuaded at
any rate by other reasons, drawn from the oracles they themselves
possess. For of whom do the prophets say: "I was made manifest to them
that sought me not, I was found of them that asked not for me: I said
Behold, here am I, to the nation that had not called upon my name; I
stretched out my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people." 2. Who,
then, one might say to the Jews, is he that was made manifest? For if it is
the prophet, let them say when he was hid, afterward to appear again.
And what manner of prophet is this, that was not only made manifest
from obscurity, but also stretched out his hands on the Cross? None
surely of the righteous, save the Word of God only, Who, incorporeal by.310
nature, appeared for our sakes in the body and suffered for all. 3. Or if not
even this is sufficient for them, let them at least be silenced by another
proof, seeing how clear its demonstrative force is. For the Scripture says:
"Be strong ye hands that hang down, and feeble knees; comfort ye, ye of
faint mind; be strong, fear not. Behold, our God recompenseth judgment;
He shall come and save us. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and
the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and
the tongue of the stammerers shall be plain." 4. Now what can they say to
this, or how can they dare to face this at all? For the prophecy not only
indicates that God is to sojourn here, but it announces the signs and the
time of His coming. For they connect the blind recovering their sight, and
the lame walking, and the deaf hearing, and the tongue of the stammerers
being made plain, with the Divine Coming which is to take place. Let them
say, then, when such signs have come to pass in Israel, or where in Jewry
anything of the sort has occurred. 5. Naaman, a leper, was cleansed, but no
deaf man heard nor lame walked. Elias raised a dead man; so did Eliseus;
but none blind from birth regained his sight. For in good truth, to raise a
dead man is a great thing, but it is not like the wonder wrought by the
Savior. Only, if Scripture has not passed over the case of the leper, and of
the dead son of the widow, certainly, had it come to pass that a lame man
also had walked and a blind man recovered his sight, the narrative would
not have omitted to mention this also. Since then nothing is said in the
Scriptures, it is evident that these things had never taken place before. 6.
When, then, have they taken place, save when the Word of God Himself
came in the body? Or when did He come, if not when lame men walked,
and stammerers were made to speak plain, and deaf men heard, and men
blind from birth regained their sight? For this was the very thing the Jews
said who then witnessed it, because they had not heard of these things
having taken place at any other time: "Since the world began it was never
heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were
not from God, He could do nothing."
Do you look for another? But Daniel foretells the escort time.
Objections to this removed..311
But perhaps, being unable, even they, to fight continually against plain
facts, they will, without denying what is written, maintain that they are
looking for these things, and that the Word of God is not yet come. For
this it is on which they are for ever harping, not blushing to brazen it out
in the face of plain facts. 2. But on this one point, above all, they shall be
all the more refuted, not at our hands, but at those of the most wise
Daniel, who marks both the actual date, and the divine sojourn of the
Savior, saying: "Seventy weeks are cut short upon thy people, and upon
the holy city, for a full end to be made of sin, and for sins to be sealed up,
and to blot out iniquities, and to make atonement for iniquities, and to
bring everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to
anoint a Holy of Holies; and thou shalt know and understand from the
going forth of the word to restore and to build Jerusalem unto Christ the
Prince" 3. Perhaps with regard to the other (prophecies) they may be able
even to find excuses and to put off what is written to a future time. But
what can they say to this, or can they face it at all? Where not only is the
Christ referred to, but He that is to be anointed is declared to be not man
simply, but Holy of Holies; and Jerusalem is to stand till His coming, and
thenceforth, prophet and vision cease in Israel. 4. David was anointed of
old, and Solomon and Ezechias; but then, nevertheless, Jerusalem and the
place stood, and prophets were prophesying: God and Asaph and Nathan;
and, later, Esaias and Osee and Amos and others. And again, the actual
men that were anointed were called holy, and not Holy of Holies. 5. But if
they shield themselves with the captivity, and say that because of it
Jerusalem was not, what can they say about the prophets too? For in fact
when first the people went down to Babylon, Daniel and Jeremy were
there, and Ezechiel and Aggaeus and Zachary were prophesying.
Argument (1)from the withdrawal of prophecy and destruction of
Jerusalem, from the conversion of the Gentiles, and that to the God
of Moses. What more remains for the Messiah to do, that Christ
So the Jews are trifling, and the time in question, which they refer to the
future, is actually come. For when did prophet and vision cease from.312
Israel, save when Christ came, the Holy of Holies? For it is a sign, and an
important proof, of the coming of the Word of God, that Jerusalem no
longer stands, nor is any prophet raised up nor vision revealed to them, —
and that very naturally. 2. For when He that was signified was come, what
need was there any longer of any to signify Him? When the truth was
there, what need any more of the shadow? For this was the reason of their
prophesying at all, — namely, till the true Righteousness should come,
and He that was to ransom the sins of all. And this was why Jerusalem
stood till then- namely, that there they might be exercised in the types as a
preparation for the reality. 3. So when the Holy of Holies was come,
naturally vision and prophecy were sealed and the kingdom of Jerusalem
ceased. For kings were to be anointed among them only until the Holy of
Holies should have been anointed; and Jacob prophesies that the kingdom
of the Jews should be established until Him, as follows:-"The rulershall
not fail from Juda, nor the Prince from his loins, until that which is laid up
for him shall come; and he is the expectation of the nations." 4. Whence
the Savior also Himself cried aloud and said: "The law and the prophets
prophesied until John." If then there is now among the Jews king or
prophet or vision, they do well to deny the Christ that is come. But if
there is neither king nor vision, but from that time forth all prophecy is
sealed and the city and temple taken, why are they so irreligious and so
perverse as to see what has happened, and yet to deny Christ, Who has
brought it all to pass? Or why, when they see even heathens deserting
their idols, and placing their hope, through Christ, on the God of Israel, do
they deny Christ, Who was born of the root of Jesse after the flesh and
henceforth is King? For if the nations were worshipping some other God,
and not confessing the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses,
then, once more, they would be doing well in alleging that God had not
come. 5. But if the Gentiles are honoring the same God that gave the law
to Moses and made the promise to Abraham, and Whose word the Jews
dishonored, — why are they ignorant, or rather why do they choose to
ignore, that the Lord foretold by the Scriptures has shone forth upon the
world, and appeared to it in bodily form, as the Scripture said: "The Lord
God hath shined upon us;" and again: "He sent His Word and healed
them;" and again: "Not a messenger, not an angel, but the Lord Himself
saved them?" 6. Their state may be compared to that of one out of his
right mind, who sees the earth illumined by the sun, but denies the sun.313
that illumines it. For what more is there for him whom they expect to do,
when he is come? To call the heathen? But they are called already. To
make prophecy, and king, and vision to cease? This too has already come
to pass. To expose the godlessness of idolatry? It is already exposed and
condemned. Or to destroy death? He is already destroyed. 7. What then
has not come to pass, that the Christ must do? What is left unfulfilled,
that the Jews should now disbelieve with impunity? For if, I say, -which
is just what we actually see, — there is no longer king nor prophet nor
Jerusalem nor sacrifice nor vision among them, but even the whole earth is
tilled with the knowledge of God, and gentiles, leaving their godlessness,
are now taking refuge with the God of Abraham, through the Word, even
our Lord Jesus Christ, then it must be plain, even to those who are
exceedingly obstinate, that the Christ is come, and that He has illumined
absolutely all with His light, and given them the true and divine teaching
concerning His Father. 8. So one can fairly refute the Jews by these and by
other arguments from the Divine Scriptures.
Answer to the Greeks. Do they recognized the Logos? If He
manifests Himself in the organism of the Universe, why not in one
Body? For a human body is a part of the same whole.
But one cannot but be utterly astonished at the Gentiles, who, while they
laugh at what is no matter for jesting, are themselves insensible to their
own disgrace, which they do not see that they have set up in the shape of
stocks and stones.. Only, as our argument is not lacking in demonstrative
proof, come let us put them also to shame on reasonable grounds, —
mainly from what we ourselves also see. For what is there on our side that
is absurd, or worthy of derision? Is it merely our saying that the Word has
been made manifest in the body? But this even they will join in owning to
have happened without any absurdity, if they show themselves friends of
truth. 3. If then they deny that there is a Word of God at all, they do so
gratuitously, jesting at what they know not. 4. But if they confess that
there is a Word of God, and He ruler of the universe, and that in Him the
Father has produced the creation, and that by His Providence the whole
receives light and life and being, and that He reigns over oil, so that from.314
the works of His providence He is known, and through Him the Father, —
consider, I pray you, whether they be not unwittingly raising the jest
against themselves. 5. The philosophers of the Greeks say that the
universe is a great body 5; and rightly so. For we see it and its parts as
objects of our senses. If, then, the Word of God is in the Universe, which
is a body, and has united Himself with the whole and with all its parts,
what is there surprising or absurd if we say that He has united Himself
with man also. 6. For if it were absurd for Him to have been in a body at
all, it would be absurd for Him to be united with the whole either, and to
be giving light and movement to all things by His providence. For the
whole also is a body.. But if it beseems Him to unite Himself with the
universe, and to be made known in the whole, it must beseem Him also to
appear in a human body, and that by Him it should be illumined and work.
For mankind is part of the whole as well as the rest. And if it be unseemly
for a part to have been adopted as His instrument to teach men of His
Godhead, it must be most absurd that He should be made known even by
His union with the body is based upon His relation to Creation as a
whole. He used a human body, since to man it was that He wished
For just as, while the whole body is quickened and illumined by man,
supposing one said it were absurd that man's power should also be in the
toe, he would be thought foolish; because, while granting that he pervades
and works in the whole, he demurs to his being in the part also; thus he
who grants and believes that the Word of God is in the whole Universe,
and that the whole is illumined and moved by Him, should not think it
absurd that a single human body also should receive movement and light
from Him. 2. But if it is because the human race is a thing created and has
been made out of nothing, that they regard that manifestation of the Savior
in man, which we speak of, as not seemly, it is high time for them to eject
Him from creation also; for it too has been brought into existence by the
Word out of nothing. 3. But if, even though creation be a thing made, it is
not absurd that the Word should be in it, then neither is it absurd that He.315
should be in man. For whatever idea they form of the whole, they must
necessarily apply the like idea to the part. For man also, as I said before, is
a part of the whole. 4. Thus it is not at all unseemly that the Word should
be in man, while all things are deriving from Him their light and movement
and light, as also their authors say, "In him we live and move and have our
being." 5. So, then, what is there to scoff at in what we say, if the Word
has used that, wherein He is, as an instrument to manifest Himself? For
were He not in it, neither could He have used it; but if we have previously
allowed that He is in the whole and in its parts, what is there incredible in
His, manifesting Himself in that wherein He is? 6. For by His own power
He is unitedwholly with each and all, and orders all things without stint,
so that no one could have called it out of place for Him to speak, and make
known Himself and His Father, by means of sun, if He so willed, or moon,
or heaven, or earth, or waters, or fire; inasmuch as He holds in one all
things at once, and is in fact not only in oil but also in the part in question,
and there invisibly manifests Himself. In like manner it cannot be absurd
if, ordering as He does the whole, and giving life to all things, and having
willed to make Himself known through men, He has used as His
instrument a human body to manifest the truth and knowledge of the
Father. For humanity, too, is an actual part of the whole. 7. And as Mind,
pervading man all through, is interpreted by a part of the body, I mean the
tongue, without any one saying, I suppose, that the essence of the mind is
on that account lowered, so if the Word, pervading all things, has used a
human instrument, this cannot appear unseemly. For, as I have said
previously, if it be unseemly to have used a body as an instrument, it is
unseemly also for Him to be in the Whole.
He came in human rather than in any nobler forth, because (1) He
came to save, not to impress; Man alone of creatures had sinned.
As men would not recognize His works in thee Universe, He came
and worked among them as Man; in the sphere to which they had
Now, if they ask, Why then did He not appear by means of other and
nobler parts of creation, and use some nobler instrument, as the sun, or.316
moon, or stars, or fire, or air, instead of man merely? let them know that
the Lord came not to make a display, but to heal and teach those who were
suffering. 2. For the way for one aiming at display would be, just to
appear, and to dazzle the beholders; but for one seeking to heal and teach
the way is, not simply to sojourn here, but to give himself to the aid of
those in want, and to appear as they who need him can bear it; that he
may not, by exceeding the requirements of the sufferers, trouble the very
persons that need him, rendering God's appearance useless to them. 3.
Now, nothing in creation had gone astray with regard to their notions of
God, save man only. Why, neither sun, nor moon, nor heaven, nor the
stars, nor water, nor air had swerved from their order; but knowing their
Artificer and Sovereign, the Word, they remain as they were made. But
men alone, having rejected what was good, then devised things of nought
instead of the truth, and have ascribed the honor due to God, and their
knowledge of Him, to demons and men in the shape of stones. 4. With
reason, then, since it were unworthy of the Divine Goodness to overlook
so grave a matter, while yet men were not able to recognize Him as
ordering and guiding the whole, He takes to Himself as an instrument a
part of the whole, His human body, and unites Himself with that, in order
that since men could not recognize Him in the whole, they should not fail
to know Him in the part; and since they could not look up to His invisible
power, might be able, at any rate, from what resembled themselves to
reason to Him and to contemplate Him. 5. For, men as they are, they will
be able to know His Father more quickly and directly by a body of like
nature and by the divine works wrought through it, judging by comparison
that they are not human, but the works of God, which are done by Him, 6.
And if it were absurd, as they say, for the Word to be known through the
works of the body, it would likewise be absurd for Him to be known
through the works of the universe. For just as He is in creation, and yet
does not partake of its nature in the least degree, but rather all things
partakeof His power; so while He used the body as His instrument He
partook of no corporeal property, but, on the contrary, Himself sanctified
even the body. 7. For if even Plato, who is in such repute among the
Greeks, says that its author, beholding the universe tempest-tossed, and in
peril of going down to the place of chaos, takes his seat at the helm of the
soul and comes to the rescue and corrects all its calamities; what is there
incredible in what we say, that, mankind being in error, the Word lighted.317
down upon it and appeared as man, that He might save it in its tempest by
His guidance and goodness?
As God made man by a word, why not restore him by a word? But
(1) creation out of nothing is different from reparation of what
already exists. Man was there with a definite need, calling for a
definite remedy. Death was ingrained in man's nature: He then
must wind life closely to human nature. Therefore the Word became
Incarnate that He might meet and conquer death in His usurped
territory. (Simile of straw and asbestos.)
But perhaps, shamed into agreeing with this, they will choose to say that
God, if He wished to reform and to save mankind, ought to have done so
by a mere fiat, without His word taking a body, in just the same way as
He did formerly, when He produced them out of nothing. 2. To this
objection of theirs a reasonable answer would be: that formerly, nothing
being in existence at all, what was needed to make everything was a fiat
and the bare will to do so. But when man had once been made, and
necessity demanded a cure, not for things that were not, but for things that
had come to be, it was naturally consequent that the Physician and Savior
should appear in what had come to be, in order also to cure the things that
were. For this cause, then, He has become man, and used His body as a
human instrument. 3. For if this were not the right way, how was the
Word, choosing to use an instrument, to appear? or whence was He to
take it, save from those already in being, and in need of His Godhead by
means of one like themselves? For it was not things without being that
needed salvation, so that a bare command should suffice, but man, already
in existence, was going to corruption and ruin. It was then natural and right
that the Word should use a human instrument and reveal Himself
everywhither. 4. Secondly, you must know this also, that the corruption
which had set in was not external to the body, but had become attached to
it; and it was required that, instead of corruption, life should cleave to it;
so that, just as death has been engendered in the body, so life may be
engendered in it also. 5. Now if death were external to the body, it would
be proper for life also to have been engendered externally to it. But if death.318
was wound closely to the body and was ruling over it as though united to
it, it was required that life also should be would closely to the body, that
so the body, by putting on life in its stead, should cast off corruption.
Besides, even supposing that the Word had come outside the body, and
not in it, death would indeed have been defeated by Him, in perfect
accordance with nature, inasmuch as death has no power against the Life;
but the corruption attached to the body would have remained in it none
the less. 6. For this cause the Savior reasonably put on Him a body, in
order that the body, becoming wound closely to the Life, should no longer,
as mortal, abide in death, but, as having put on immortality, should
thenceforth rise again and remain immortal. For, once it had put on
corruption, it could not have risen again unless it had put on life. And
death likewise could not, from its very nature, appear, save in the body.
Therefore He put on a body, that He night find death in the body, and blot
it out. For how could the Lord have been proved at all to be the Life, had
He not quickened what was mortal? 7. And just as, whereas stubble is
naturally destructible by fire, supposing (firstly) a man keeps fire away
from the stubble, though it is not burned, yet the stubble remains, for all
that, merely stubble, fearing the threat of the fire — for fire has the natural
property of consuming it; while if a man (secondly) encloses it with a
quantity of asbestos, the substance said to be an antidote to fire, the
stubble no longer dreads the fire, being secured by its enclosure in
incombustible matter; 8. in this very way one may say, with regard to the
body and death, that if death had been kept from the body by a mere
command on His part, it would none the less have been mortal and
corruptible, according to the nature of bodies; but, that this should not be,
it put on the incorporeal Word of God, and thus no longer fears either
death or corruption, for it has life as a garment, and corruption is done
Thus once again every part of creation manifests the glory of God.
Nature, the witness to her Creator, yields (by miracles) a second
testimony to God Inncarnate. The witness of Nature, perverted by.319
man's sin, was thus forced back to truth. If these reasons suffice
not, let the Greeks look at facts.
Consistently, therefore, the Word of God took a body and has made use of
a human instrument, in order to quicken the body also, and as He is known
in creation by His works so to work in man as well, and to shew Himself
everywhere, leaving nothing void of His own divinity, and of the
knowledge of Him. 2. For I resume, and repeat what I said before, that the
Savior did this in order that, as He fills all things on all sides by His
presence, so also He might fill all things with the knowledge of Him, as the
divine Scripture also says : "The whole earth was filled with the
knowledge of the Lord." 3. For if a man will but look up to heaven, he sees
its Order, or if he cannot raise his face to heaven, but only to man, he sees
His power, beyond comparison with that of men, shewn by His works,
and learns that He alone among men is God the Word. Or if a man is gone
astray among demons, and is in fear of them, he may see this man drive
them out, and make up his mind that He is their Master. Or if a man has
sunk to the waters, and thinks that they are God,-as the Egyptians, for
instance, reverence the water, — he may see its nature changed by Him,
and learn that the Lord is Creator of the waters. 4. But if a man is gone
down even to Hades, and stands in awe of the heroes who have descended
thither, regarding them as gods, yet he may see the fact of Christ's
Resurrection and victory over death, and infer that among them also Christ
alone is true God and Lord. 5. For the Lord touched all parts of creation,
and freed and undeceived all of them from every illusion; as Paul says:
"Having put off from Himself the principalities and the powers, He
triumphed on the Cross:" that no one might by any possibility be any
longer deceived, but everywhere might find the true Word of God. 6. For
thus man, shut in on every side, and beholding the divinity of the Word
unfolded everywhere, that is, in heaven, in Hades, in man, upon earth, is
no longer exposed to deceit concerning God, but is to worship Christ
alone, and through Him come rightly to know the Father. 7. By these
arguments, then, on grounds of reason, the Gentiles in their turn will fairly
be put to shame by us. But if they deem the arguments insufficient to
shame them, let them be assured of what we are saying at any rate by facts
obvious to the sight of all..320
Discredit, from the date of the Incarnation, of idol-cultus, oracles,
mythologies, demoniacal energy, magic, and Gentile philosophy.
And whereas the old cults were strictly local and independent, the
warship of Christ is catholic and uniform.
When did men begin to desert the worship-ping of idols, save since God,
the true Word of God, has come among men? Or when have the oracles
among the Greeks, and everywhere, ceased and become empty, save when
the Savior has manifested Himself upon earth? 2. Or when did those who
are called gods and heroes in the poets begin to be convicted of being
merely mortal men, save since the Lord erected His conquest of death, and
preserved incorruptible the body he had taken, raising it from the dead? 3.
Or when did the deceitfulness and madness of demons fall into contempt,
save when the power of God, the Word, the Master of all these as well,
condescending because of man's weakness, appeared on earth? Or when
did the art and the schools of magic begin to be trodden down, save when
the divine manifestation of the Word took place among men? 4. And, in a
word, at what time has the wisdom of the Greeks become foolish, save
when the true Wisdom of God manifested itself on earth? For formerly the
whole world and every place was led astray by the worship-ping of idols,
and men regarded nothing else but the idols as gods. But now, all the world
over, men are deserting the superstition of the idols, and taking refuge with
Christ; and, worshipping Him as God, are by His means coming to know
that Father also Whom they knew not. 5. And, marvelous fact, whereas
the objects of worship were various and of vast number, and each place
had its own idol, and he who was accounted a God among them had no
power to pass over to the neighboring place, so as to persuade those of
neighboring peoples to worship him, but was barely served even among
his own people; for no one else worshipped his neighbor's God — on the
contrary, each man kept to his own idol, thinking it to be Lord of all; —
Christ alone is worshipped as one and the same among all peoples; and
what the weakness of the idols could not do — to persuade, namely, even
those dwelling close at hand, — this Christ has done, persuading not only
those close at hand, but simply the entire world, to worship one and the
same Lord, and through Him God, even His Father..321
The numerous oracles, — fancied of apparitions in sacred places,
etc., dispelled by the sign of the Cross. The old gods prove to have
been mere men. Magic is exposed. And whereas Philosophy could
only persuade select and local cliques of Immortality, and
goodness, — men of little intellect have infused into the multitudes
of the churches the principle of a supernatural life.
And whereas formerly every place was full of the deceit of the oracles, and
the oracles at Delphi and Dodona, and in Boeotia and Lycia and Libya and
Egypt and those of the Cabiri, and the Pythoness, were held in repute by
men's imagination, now, since Christ has begun to be preached
everywhere, their madness also has ceased and there is none among them
to divine any more. 2. And whereas formerly demons used to deceive
men's fancy, occupying springs or rivers, trees or stones, and thus
imposed upon the simple by their juggleries; now, after the divine
visitation of the Word, their deception has ceased. For by the Sign of the
Cross, though a man but use it, he drives out their deceits. 3. And while
formerly men held to be gods the Zeus and Cronos and Apollo and the
heroes mentioned in the poets, and went astray in honoring them; now
that the Savior has appeared among men, those others have been exposed
as mortal men, and Christ alone has been recognized among men as the true
God, the Word of God. 4. And what is one to say of the magic esteemed
among them? that before the Word sojourned among us this was strong
and active among Egyptians, and Chaldees, and Indians, and inspired awe
in those who saw it; but that by the presence of the Truth, and the
Appearing of the Word, it also has been thoroughly confuted, and brought
wholly to nought. 5. But as to Gentile wisdom, and the sounding
pretensions of the philosophers, I think none can need our argument, since
the wonder is before the eyes of all, that while the wise among the Greeks
had written so much, and were unable to persuade even a few from their
own neighborhood, concerning immortality and a virtuous life, Christ
alone, by ordinary language, and by men not clever with the tongue, has
throughout all the world persuaded whole churches full of men to despise
death, and to mind the things of immortality; to overlook what is temporal.322
and to turn their eyes to what is eternal; to think nothing of earthly glory
and to strive only for the heavenly.
Further facts. Christian continence of virgins and ascetics.
Martyrs. The power of the Cross against demons and magic.
Christ by His Power shews Himself more than a man, mare than a
magician, more than a spirit. For all these are totally subject to
Him. Therefore He is the Word of God.
Now these arguments of ours do not amount merely to words, but have in
actual experience a witness to their truth. 2. For let him that will, go up
and behold the proof of virtue in the virgins of Christ and in the young
men that practice holy chastity, and the assurance of immortality in so
great a band of His martyrs. 3. And let him come who would test by
experience what we have now said, and in the very presence of the deceit
of demons and the imposture of oracles and the marvels of magic, let him
use the Sign of that Cross which is laughed at among them, and he shall see
how by its means demons fly, oracles cease, all magic and witchcraft is
brought to nought. 4. Who, then, and how great is this Christ, Who by His
own Name and Presence casts into the shade and brings to nought all
things on every side, and is alone strong against all, and has filled the
whole world with His teaching? Let the Greeks tell us, who are pleased to
laugh, and blush not. 5. For if He is a man, how then has one man exceeded
the power of all whom even themselves bold to be gods, and convicted
them by His own power of being nothing? But if they call Him a magician,
how can it be that by a magician all magic is destroyed, instead of being
confirmed? For if lie conquered particular magicians, or prevailed over one
only, it would be proper for them to hold that He excelled the rest by
superior skill; 6. but if His Cross has won the victory over absolutely all
magic, and over the very name of it, it must be plain that the Savior is not
a magician, seeing that even those demons who are invoked by the other
magicians fly from Him as their Master. 7. Who He is, then, let the Greeks
tell us, whose only serious pursuit is jesting. Perhaps they might say that
He, too, was a demon, and hence His strength. But say this as they will,
they will have the laugh against them, for they can once more be put to.323
shame by our former proofs. For how is it possible that He should be a
demon who drives the demons out? 8. For if He simply drove out
particular demons, it might property be held that by the chief of demons
He prevailed against the lesser, just as the Jews said to Him when they
wished to insult Him. But if, by His Name being named, all madness of the
demons is uprooted and chased away, it must be evident that here, too,
they are wrong, and that our Lord and Savior Christ is not, as they think,
some demoniacal power. 9. Then, if the Savior is neither a man simply, nor
a magician, nor some demon, but has by His own Godhead brought to
nought and cast into the shade both the doctrine found in the poets and the
delusion of the demons and the wisdom of the Gentiles, it must be plain
and will be owned by all, that this is the true Son of God, even the Word
and Wisdom and Power of the Father froth the beginning. For this is why
His works also are no works of man, but are recognized to be above man,
and truly God's works, both from the facts in themselves, and from
comparison with [the rest of] mankind.
His Birth and Miracles. You call Asclepius, Heracles, and Dionysus
gods for their works. Contrast their works with His, and the
wonders at His death, etc.
For what man, that ever was born, formed a body for himself from a virgin
alone? Or what man ever healed such diseases as the common Lord of all?
Or who has restored what was wanting to man's nature, and made one
blind from his birth to see? 2. Asclepius was deified among them, because
he practiced medicine and found out herbs for bodies that were sick; not
forming them himself out of the earth, but discovering them by science
drawn from nature. But what is this to what was done by the Savior, in
that, instead of healing a wound, He modified a man's original nature, and
restored the body whole. 3. Heracles is worshipped as a God among the
Greeks because he fought against men, his peers, and destroyed wild
beasts by guile. What is this to what was done by the Word, in driving
away from man diseases and demons and death itself? Dionysus is
worshipped among them because he has taught man drunkenness; but the
true Savior and Lord of all, for teaching temperance, is mocked by these.324
people. 4. But let these matters pass. What will they say to the other
miracles of His Godhead? At what man's death was the sun darkened and
the earth shaken? Lo even to this day men are dying, and they died also of
old. When did any such-like wonder happen in their case? 5. Or, to pass
over the deeds done through His body, and mention those after its rising
again: what man's doctrine that ever was has prevailed everywhere, one
and the same, from one end of the earth to the other, so that his worship
has winged its way through every land? 6. Or why, if Christ is, as they
say, a man, and not God the Word, is not His worship prevented by the
gods they have from passing into the same land where they are? Or why
on the contrary does the Word Himself, sojourning here, by His teaching
stop their worship and put their deception to shame?
Impotence and rivalries of the Sophists tint to shame by the Death
of Christ. His Resurrection unparalleled even in Greek legend.
Many before this Man have been kings and tyrants of the world, many are
on record who have been wise men and magicians, among the Chaldaeans
and Egyptians and Indians; which of these, I say, not after death, but
while still alive, was ever able so far to prevail as to fill the whole earth
with his teaching and reform so great a multitude from the superstition of
idols, as our Savior has brought over from idols to Himself? 2. The
philosophers of the Greeks have composed many works with plausibility
and verbal skill; what result, then, have they exhibited so great as has the
Cross of Christ? For the refinements they taught were plausible enough till
they died; but even the influence they seemed to have while alive was
subject to their mutual rivalries; and they were emulous, and declaimed
against one another. 3. But the Word of God, most strange fact, teaching in
meaner language, has cast into the shade the choice sophists; and while He
has, by drawing all to Himself, brought their schools to nought, He has
filled His own churches; and the marvelous thing is, that by going down as
man to death, He has brought to nought the sounding utterances of the
wise concerning idols. 4. For whose death ever drove out demons? or
whose death did demons ever fear, as they did that of Christ? For where
the Savior's name is named, there every demon is driven out. Or who has.325
so rid men of the passions of the natural man, that whoremongers are
chaste, and murderers no longer hold the sword, and those who were
formerly mastered by cowardice play the man? 5. And, in short, who
persuaded men of barbarous countries and heathen men in divers places to
lay aside their madness, and to mind peace, if it be not the Faith of Christ
and the Sign of the Cross? Or who else has given men such assurance of
immortality, as has the Cross of Christ, and the Resurrection of His
Body? 6. For although the Greeks have told all manner of false tales, yet
they were not able to feign a Resurrection of their idols, — for it never
crossed their mind, whether it be at all possible for the body again to exist
after death. And here one would most especially accept their testimony,
inasmuch as by this opinion they have exposed the weakness of their own
idolatry, while leaving the possibility open to Christ, so that hence also
He might be made known among all as Son of God.
The new, virtue of continence.
Revolution of Society purified and pacified by Christianity.
Which of mankind, again, after his death, or else while living, taught
concerning virginity, and that this virtue was not impossible among men?
But Christ, our Savior and King of all, had such power in His teaching
concerning it, that even children not yet arrived at the lawful age vow that
virginity which lies beyond the law. 2. What man has ever yet been able to
pass so far as to come among Scythians and Ethiopians, or Persians or
Armenians or Goths, or those we hear of beyond the ocean or those
beyond Hyrcania, or even the Egyptians and Chaldees, men that mind
magic and are superstitious beyond nature and savage in their ways, and to
preach at all about virtue and self-control, and against the worshipping of
idols, as has the Lord of all, the Power of God, our Lord Jesus Christ? 3.
Who not only preached by means of His own disciples, but also carried
persuasion to men's mind, to lay aside the fierceness of their manners, and
no longer to serve their ancestral gods, but to learn to know Him, and
through Him to worship the Father. 4. For formerly, while in idolatry,
Greeks and Barbarians used to war against each other, and were actually
cruel to their own kin. For it was impossible for any one to cross sea or.326
land at all, without arming the hand with swords, because of their
implacable fighting among themselves. 5. For the whole course of their life
was carried on by arms, and the sword with them took the place of a staff,
and was their support in every emergency; and still, as I said before, they
were serving idols, and offering sacrifices to demons, while for all their
idolatrous superstition they could not be reclaimed from this spirit. 6. But
when they have come over to the school of Christ, then, strangely enough,
as men truly pricked in conscience, they have laid aside the savagery of
their murders and no longer mind the things of war: but all is at peace with
them, and from henceforth what makes for friendship is to their liking.
Wars, etc., roused by demons, lulled by hristianity.
Who then is He that has done this, or who is He that has united in peace
men that hated one another, save the beloved Son of the Father, the
common Savior of all, even Jesus Christ, Who by His own love underwent
all things for our salvation? For even from of old it was prophesied of the
peace He was to usher in, where the Scripture says: "They shall beat their
swords into ploughshares, and their pikes into sickles, and nation shall not
take the sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." 2.
And this is at least not incredible, inasmuch as even now those barbarians
who have an innate savagery of manners, while they still sacrifice to the
idols of their country, are mad against one another, and cannot endure to
be a single hour without weapons: 3. but when they hear the teaching of
Christ, straightway instead of fighting they turn to husbandry, and instead
of arming their hands with weapons they raise them in prayer, and in a
word, in place of fighting among themselves, henceforth they arm against
the devil and against evil spirits, subduing these by self-restraint and virtue
of soul. 4. Now this is at once a proof of the divinity of the Savior, since
what men could not learn among idols they have learned from Him; and no
small exposure of the weakness and nothingness of demons and idols. For
demons, knowing their own weakness, for this reason formerly set men to
make war against one another, lest, if they ceased from mutual strife, they
should turn to battle against demons. 5. Why, they who become disciples
of Christ, instead of warring with each other, stand arrayed against demons.327
by their habits and their virtuous actions: and they rout them, and mock at
their captain the devil; so that in youth they are self-restrained, in
temptations endure, in labors persevere, when insulted are patient, when
robbed make light of it: and, wonderful as it is, they despise even death
and become martyrs of Christ.
The whole fabric of Gentilism leveled at a blow
by Christ secretly addressing the conscience of man.
And to mention one proof of the divinity of the Savior, which is indeed
utterly surprising, — what mere man or magician or tyrant or king was
ever able by himself to engage with so many, and to fight the battle against
all idolatry and the whole demoniacal host and all magic, and all the
wisdom of the Greeks, while they were so strong and still flourishing and
imposing upon all, and at one onset to check them all, as was our Lord, the
true Word of God, Who, invisibly exposing each man's error, is by
Himself bearing off all men from them all, so that while they who were
worshipping idols now trample upon them, those in repute for magic burn
their books, and the wise prefer to all studies the interpretation of the
Gospels? 2. For whom they used to worship, them they are deserting, and
Whom they used to mock as one crucified, Him they worship as Christ,
confessing Him to be God. And they that are called gods among them are
routed by the Sign of the Cross, while the Crucified Savior is proclaimed in
all the world as God and the Son of God. And the gods worshipped among
the Greeks are falling into ill repute at their hands, as scandalous beings;
while those who receive the teaching of Christ live a chaster life than they.
3. If, then, these and the like are human works, let him who will point out
similar works on the part of men of former time, and so convince us. But if
they prove to be, and are, not men's works, but God's, why are the
unbelievers so irreligious as not to recognize the Master that wrought
them? 4. For their case is as though a man, from the works of creation,
failed to know God their Artificer. For if they knew His Godhead from
His power over the universe, they would have known that the bodily
works of Christ also are not human, but are the works of the Savior of all,.328
the Word of God. And did they thus know, "they would not," as Paul
said, "have crucified the Lord of glory."
The Word Incarnate, as is the case with the Invisible God, is known
to us by His works. By them we recognize His deifying mission. Let
us be content to enumerate a few of them, leaving their dazzling
plentitude to him who will behold.
As, then, if a man should wish to see God, Who is invisible by nature and
not seen at all, he may know and apprehend Him from His works: so let
him who fails to see Christ with his understanding, at least apprehend Him
by the works of His body, and test whether they be human works or
God's works. 2. And if they be human, let him scoff; but if they are not
human, but of God, let him recognize it, and not laugh at what is no matter
for scoffing; but rather let him marvel that by so ordinary a means things
divine have been manifested to us, and that by death immortality has
reached to all, and that by the Word becoming man, the universal
Providence has been known, and its Giver and Artificer the very Word of
God. 3. For He was made man that we might be made God; and He
manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen
Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit
immortality. For while He Himself was in no way injured, being
impossible and incorruptible and very Word and God, men who were
suffering, and for whose sakes He endured all this, He maintained and
preserved in His own impossibility. 4. And, in a word, the achievements
of the Savior, resulting from His becoming man, are of such kind and
number, that if one should wish to enumerate them, he may be compared
to men who gaze at the expanse of the sea and wish to count its waves.
For as one cannot take in the whole of the waves with his eyes, for those
which are coming on baffle the sense of him that attempts it; so for him
that would take in all the achievements of Christ in the body, it is
impossible to take in the whole, even by reckoning them up, as those
which go beyond his thought are more than those he thinks he has taken
in. 5. Better is it, then, not to aim at speaking of the whole, where one
cannot do justice even to a part, but, after mentioning one more, to leave
the whole for you to marvel at. For all alike are marvelous, and wherever a
man turns his glance, he may behold on that side the divinity of the Word,
and be struck with exceeding great awe.
Summary of foregoing. Cessation of pagan oracles, etc.:
propagation of the faith. The true King has come forth and silenced
This, then, after what we have so far said, it is right for you to realize, and
to take as the sum of what we have already stated, and to marvel at
exceedingly; namely, that since the Savior has come among us, idolatry not
only has no longer increased, but what there was is diminishing and
gradually coming to an end: and not only does the wisdom of the Greeks
no longer advance, but what there is now fading away: and demons, so far
from cheating any more by illusions and prophecies and magic arts, if they
so much as dare to make the attempt, are put to shame by the sign of the
Cross. 2. And to sum the matter up: behold how the Savior's doctrine is
everywhere increasing, while all idolatry and everything opposed to the
faith of Christ is daily dwindling, and losing power, and falling. And thus
beholding, worship the Savior, "who is above all" and mighty, even God
the Word; and condemn those who are being worsted and done away by
Him. 3. For as, when the sun is come, darkness no longer prevails, but if
any be still left anywhere it is driven away; so, now that the divine
Appearing of the Word of God is come, the darkness of the idols prevails
no more, and all parts of the world in every direction are illumined by His
teaching. 4. And as, when a king is reigning in some country without
appearing but keeps at home in his own house, often some disorderly
persons, abusing his retirement, proclaim themselves; and each of them, by
assuming the character, imposes on the simple as king, and so men are led
astray by the name, hearing that there is a king, but not seeing him, if for
no other reason, because they cannot enter the house; but when the real
king comes forth and appears, then the disorderly impostors are exposed
by his presence, while men, seeing the real king, desert those who
previously led them astray: 5. in like manner, the evil spirits formerly used
to deceive men, investing themselves with God's honor; but when the
Word of God appeared in a body, and made known to us His own Father,
then at length the deceit of the evil spirits is done away and stopped,
while men, turning their eyes to the true God, Word of the Father, are
deserting the idols, and now coming to know the true God. 6. Now this is
a proof that Christ is God the Word, and the Power of God. For whereas
human things cease, and the Word of Christ abides, it is clear to all eyes
that what ceases is temporary, but that He Who abides is God, and the
true Son of God, His only-begotten Word.
Search then, the Scriptures, if you can, and so fill up this sketch.
Learn to look for the Second Advent and Judgment.
Let this, then, Christ-loving man, be our offering to you, just for a
rudimentary sketch and outline, in a short compass, of the faith of Christ
and of His Divine appearing to usward. But you, taking occasion by this,
if you light upon the text of the Scriptures, by genuinely applying your
mind to them, will learn from them more completely and clearly the exact
detail of what we have said. 2. For they were spoken and written by God,
through men who spoke of God. But we impart of what we have learned
from inspired teachers who have been conversant with them, who have
also become martyrs for the deity of Christ, to your zeal for learning, in
turn. 3. And you will also learn about His second glorious and truly divine
appearing to us, when no longer in lowliness, but in His own glory, — no
longer in humble guise, but in His own magnificence, — He is to come, no
more to suffer, but thenceforth to render to all the fruit of His own Cross,
that is, the resurrection and incorruption; and no longer to be judged, but
to judge all, by what each has done in the body, whether good or evil;
where there is laid up for the good the kingdom of heaven, but for them
that have done evil everlasting fire and outer darkness. 4. For thus the Lord
Himself also says: "Henceforth ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the
right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven in the glory of
the Father." 5. And for this very reason there is also a word of the Savior
to prepare us for that day, in these words: "Be ye ready and watch, for He
cometh at an hour ye know not." For, according to the blessed Paul: "We
must all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. that each one may
receive according as he hath done in the body, whether it be good or bad."
Above all, so live that you may have the right to eat of this tree of
knowledge and life, and so come to eternal joys. Doxology.
But for the searching or the Scriptures and true knowledge of them, an
honorable life is needed, and a pure soul, and that virtue which is according
to Christ; so that the intellect guiding its path by it, may be able to attain
what it desires, and to comprehend it, in so far as it is accessible to human
nature to learn concerning the Word of God. 2. For without a pure mind
and a modeling of the life after the saints, a man could not possibly
comprehend the words of the saints. 3. For just as, if a man wished to see
the light of the sun, he would at any rate wipe and brighten his eye,
purifying himself in some sort like what he desires, so that the eye, thus
becoming light, may see the light of the sun; or as, if a man would see a
city or country, he at any rate comes to the place to see it; — thus he that
would comprehend the mind of those who speak of God must needs begin
by washing and cleansing his soul, by his manner of living, and approach
the saints themselves by imitating their works; so that, associated with
them in the conduct of a common life, he may understand also what has
been revealed to them by God, and thenceforth, as closely knit to them,
may escape the peril of the sinners and their fire at the day of judgment,
and receive what is laid up for the saints in the kingdom of heaven, which
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of
man," whatsoever things are prepared for them that live a virtuous life, and
love the God and Father, in Christ Jesus our Lord: through Whom and
with Whom be to the Father Himself, with the Son Himself, in the Holy
Spirit, honor and might and glory for ever and ever. Amen.