The Ancoratus (The Well-Anchored Man) (chapters 34–70)

The Ancoratus (The Well-Anchored Man)

continued

Chapter 34

1 That the Word came with a body and a soul, let the divine Scriptures of the old and the new covenant convince them. For David says of him, and Peter agrees with David: “You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor give your holy one to see corruption.” This is so that the composite nature of the Lord’s man may be understood, and that we may have clear knowledge about it: to establish that a soul, together with the deity, was laid down for the three days [text uncertain], to show that the flesh was holy, and that the deity together with the soul, unconfined, completed the mystery in Hades. 2 Somewhere there is also another testimony that says, “free among the dead.” The word “free” indicates that Hades did not hold lordship over him, but that by his own will he went down to Hades with his soul. And Peter says, “since it was not possible for him to be held by it,” that is, by Hades.

3 And the Savior himself says, “I have authority to take my soul and authority to lay it down.” And, “I am the good shepherd, who lays down his soul for the sheep.” And, “My soul is troubled,” he says, “and what shall I say?” (speaking as though in doubt, “What shall I say?”) “Father, save me from this hour.” 4 “But for this reason I came to this hour.” He says this to show that his deity came to this willingly. And the word “troubled” was said so that the reality of his coming in the flesh would not be dissolved. 5 For his coming in the flesh was not mere appearance. It was like a great king who is at war with a lesser one. He knows that his enemy, if he sees him coming with power and great strength, will beg off and turn to flight, and many regions of his subjects will be laid waste. So by his own wisdom he puts on a pretense, offering excuses, turning his back and running away, until the enemy takes courage, attacks him as a cowardly and powerless king, and pursues him. Then the king suddenly turns around with his whole force and takes the weak and opposing enemy wholly into his hands. In the same way our Lord was not afraid of death,

6 Before he went to his passion, he had made it known on the road that the Son of Man was about to be handed over, crucified, and raised on the third day. When Peter said, “God be gracious to you, Lord; this shall never happen to you,” he rebuked him: “Get behind me, Satan,” and said, “for you do not think the things of God, but the things of men.” 7 So how could the one who foretold these things, and who had come for this very purpose, pray later that the cup might pass so that he would not drink it? He had spoken about his death before he died. Even if only to avoid being thought a liar, he could not have prayed that the cup pass. 8 No, through this kind of person he draws out the adversary. The adversary supposes that the Savior fears death, and so brings death upon him. The result is salvation, through the plan of the incarnation, for those who die.

9 But even when you hear that the Lord died, understand where the suffering of death was fulfilled. Peter, the foremost of the apostles, explains to you the meaning of his death when he says, “put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit.” His divinity took on suffering in the flesh, yet it is impassible. It was impassible, and it remained impassible. Its freedom from suffering was not turned aside, and its eternity was not altered.

Chapter 35

1 Again, the empty-minded may say: “You cannot persuade us from such words that Christ had a soul. For we have found higher up in the divine Scriptures what Isaiah says in the person of God the Father about the only-begotten: ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, whom my soul has loved.’” 2 What are we to understand about the Father: that he took a soul into himself, or that he has a soul? Who but a babbler would think this of the Father? So what do they say? Obviously that the word is spoken rather figuratively. 3 If, then, they say that it is spoken figuratively of the Father, the same must be accepted for the Son. Even if he says, “My soul is troubled,” and “I have authority to lay down my soul and to take it again,” they say he had no soul, and that it was said figuratively.

4 Their reasoning seems to say something, [though] the truth stands on its own through many proofs. Each figure of speech is taken from the case in question. With the Father we must not dare to say it, because he did not put on flesh. But the Lucianists, that is, the Arians, agree that he had flesh, so there is no room for doubt. 5 But, they say, “The Word became flesh,” and it does not say, “The Word became flesh and soul.” To their ignorant objection I answer: “God formed man, taking dust from the earth.” From the one word “formed” Scripture includes everything, and in the same way “the Word became flesh” contains everything. 6 By the same reasoning we turn the argument back on them. Look, it says, “God formed man,” and it did not say that he made for him a liver, or lungs, or a heart, or veins, or sinews, or any of the other things in the body. Shall we therefore suppose that man was [a solid lump, without parts], because Scripture did not go through the make-up of the whole living creature in detail? Not at all. Just as Scripture includes the whole from one part, so it is clear that from the word “flesh” the Savior also took a soul.

Chapter 36

1 If, then, he took a soul and a body, as has been shown, his divinity was not made less than the substance of the Father, as though it were shut up within passions so that it would thirst, grow weary, hunger, and have all the needs that a human being has. 2 It is written, “He will not grow weary, and there is no searching out of his understanding.” Yet the Savior is found weary. That does not mean the Word did not come down from above from the Father’s substance. He did not grow weary above, but in the flesh. The flesh had to grow weary, so that it would not be thought an appearance only, but real. 3 The other things of this kind, such as drowsiness and sleep, point to a man, and so does [being open] to touch. For he took these on himself and was found as a man. “We have found,” it says, “the Messiah, of whom Moses wrote.”

4 But those who found him [found him] through the nature that could not be grasped, that is, the fleshly one. For he was not found in his incomprehensibility. That is why he was seized by the scribes, gave his back to scourges, did not turn his face away from spitting, and wept, along with everything else that is sung about him. 5 Who could have flogged, struck, or spat upon God the Word in heaven, who is so unutterable and beyond grasp? But if the God who cannot suffer, the Word of God, did suffer these things, then the suffering is a bodily suffering. It lies outside his own impassibility, and yet again it is not outside it, because he was pleased to take it on. 6 Even though he himself does not suffer, the suffering is counted as his own. A stain on a garment does not reach the body of the one wearing it, yet the stain on the garment is counted against the wearer. In the same way God suffered in the flesh, while his Godhead suffered nothing. Yet the suffering of the flesh was counted to the Godhead, since the flesh was worn by the Godhead, so that salvation might come to us in the Godhead.

Chapter 37

1 37. I also remember the saying in the Gospel according to Luke, and I do not want to leave it unexplained. It is written that “being in agony he sweated, and his sweat became like clots of blood.” 2 “And an angel of the Lord appeared, strengthening him.” As we are accustomed to say, those who do not grasp the force of the deeper and necessary words overturn themselves by their own wickedness, turning good things into evil. Nothing is more critical than this. 3 For by saying that the Lord’s man “was in agony,” the Gospel shows him to be a true man. And to show that he was truly a man, and that the agony did not come from the Godhead, it says: “he sweated, and his sweat became like clots of blood.” This is a bodily appearance, not a spiritual one. 4 “And an angel of the Lord appeared, strengthening him.” This was not because the one who is greater than angels needed an angel’s strength. Every knee bows to him, “of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth.” He is God, the Word forever, always with the Father and begotten from him. Rather it happened to fulfill what is in the great Song of Moses, sung in the wilderness, where he said: “All the sons of God will worship him, and let the angels of God strengthen him.”

5 The words “let them strengthen him” do not mean that they give him strength. Rather, the glorifying of God had its strength in these acts. Immediately the angels above and the spiritual living creatures cry out and say: “Yours is the power, yours is the might, yours is the strength.” In this the text shows what worshiping and strengthening mean: giving him the might of strength that is properly his own. In the same way the angel was seen in the presence of the disciples worshiping his Master. 6 He was not ignorant of the surpassing greatness of his loving plan. He marveled at the great work of gentleness accomplished in him, the work that defeated the devil, crushed the sting of death, triumphed over the rulers and authorities, and broke sin. 7 And because of the extraordinary wonder of it, the angel in his praise said as he worshiped: “Yours is the strength, Master. For you were strong against death, against Hades and against the devil, to crush his sting and cast it out from humanity.”

Chapter 38

1 38. Suppose he says again, speaking as a man would, “Where have you laid Lazarus?” Or about the woman with the flow of blood, “Who touched me?” Or “What are you looking for?” Or “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” Or “The child grew and became strong,” or “He advanced in age and wisdom,” or “Before the child knows how to call father or mother.” Do you not see from the very subject how great the knowledge is, and that these accounts come from flesh and humanity? 2 In the Old Testament there are many things said in the person of God the Father which stoop down to persuade human beings and which seem to imply ignorance, though nothing is unknown to God. The Word, when he came, fulfilled these things, to fulfill what was said: “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” So also “Where have you laid Lazarus?”

3 He asked when he had come near the place. But before he came to the place, though he had heard from no one, he said to his disciples, “Lazarus our friend has fallen asleep.” So then, he who was so many days’ journey from the place knew that Lazarus had died. Was he ignorant when he was actually there? 4 Certainly not. He wanted to show that he did all this because no one yet believed in him fully, so that he might show his great love for humanity in sparing us. 5 For they had to be the ones to say “He is four days dead, he already smells,” and to go and show him. He did not have to say it himself; he could have said: “You know everything, and if you wish, he will live.” That is also why he wept, over the hardness of human hearts. So he did not ask because he was ignorant. He asked in order to test and expose them, and in doing so he showed his love for humanity.

6 And he says, “Who touched me?” Not because he did not know who had touched him. He asked so that he would not announce the miracle himself, but so that the woman, hearing it, would come forward and tell of the grace shown to her. Then, having confessed it, she would hear, “Your faith has saved you.” In this way he would encourage others also to believe, so that they too might be healed. 7 “Who do they say that I, the Son of Man, am?” he asks. In the same way, in the Old Testament, he says in the person of the Father, “Adam, where are you?” Yet he knew where Adam was. That is why he afterward rebukes him, saying, “You have eaten from the tree.” 8 And to Cain he says, “Where is Abel your brother?” Again, he did not ask because he was ignorant. For he says, “You are cursed on the earth, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. For see, his blood cries out to me.” So the one who said that the blood cries out was not ignorant. He asked in order to give Cain an occasion for repentance and for making a defense.

Chapter 39

1 39. But they turn again to the quarrelsomeness of their ignorance, and say that these Old Testament voices belong to the Son himself. Their scheme is refuted at once. For the one who said to Moses, “What is this in your hand?” was himself saying, “I am the one who is.” 2 And the Lord, speaking to the Sadducees about the resurrection, says: “As for the dead being raised, God said, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is therefore God of the living and not of the dead.” 3 Again, there is much that can be shown to have been spoken in the Old Testament in the person of the Father. But much was also spoken, many times, in the person of the Son, and again in the person of the Holy Spirit. 4 “Where is Sarah your wife?” So the Son of God said to Abraham, who had come from above with the two angels. For if he did not know where she was, he would not have said “Sarah.”

5 “So Sarah laughed, being inside.” He wishes to point to her modesty as a pattern for women who want to live in true godliness. When they receive guests, they should serve them from their own labors, but, out of modesty, should not show their faces to the men. 6 For that blessed woman certainly prepared the meal, and having prepared it, was not seen in the presence of the angels. She set a pattern of modesty for the generations after her. But also, to show who the one present was, the one who was being entertained as a guest called the woman by name at that hour. For neither her name, nor any creature, nor any thought of man escapes his notice. 7 “Who do people say that I, the Son of Man, am?” he asks. He himself declares and confesses that he is the Son of Man, so that they would not think he was asking about the invisible one. They say, “Elijah, Jeremiah, John.” “But who do you say that I am?” “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” says Peter, and he is at once pronounced blessed.

8 For he did not ask out of ignorance. He wanted to show that the teaching which proclaims the Son to the church as true [God] is the Father’s, so that Peter would say what he had been taught by the Father.

Chapter 40

1 40. And do not be amazed if he says, “Through me they enter to the Father,” and suppose that he is different from the Father’s essence. For he himself teaches again, “No one comes to me unless the Father draws him.” So just as the Father sends people to the Son, the Son also brings them in to the Father. In this he shows that the Godhead is one and the same. 2 As for “he advanced,” “he advanced also in wisdom”: if he is the wisdom of God, he lacks no wisdom. But when he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, the fullness was not diminished. It was to show that he had been poured over from heaven into humanity, that is, into the workshop of Mary. 3 “For your name,” it says, “is ointment poured out.” It did not say “poured out” as in spilled, but “emptied out” from heaven to earth, so that from the [emptying] into Mary [text missing]. And having become flesh from Mary, he is conceived and born in Bethlehem. From Bethlehem he goes to Nazareth, from Nazareth to Capernaum, and from Capernaum to Jerusalem. He goes to the sea, where he walks on the waters. He goes to the region of Tyre, to Nain, to Judea, to Jericho, to Bethphage and Bethany. He goes to Jerusalem and the temple, the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane, the house of Caiaphas, the praetorium and Herod. He goes to the place Golgotha and to the tomb, even as far as Hades. After the resurrection he is on earth again, and then in the heavens.

4 For ointment emptied from one vessel into another gives its fragrance to every vessel. In the same way the coming of Christ from heaven made the whole earth holy, [and especially] those who receive him in truth. 5 [He who] is, as in Daniel [text missing], also a great mountain, and “a stone cut out without hands.” This hints at birth without the seed of a man. What was greater is found again to be small. Then the stone takes up its size again and becomes once more a great mountain. And because the mountain is not in one place, it fills the whole world. 6 This is the wisdom [of wisdom?], who became man and extended his power to the world in order to fill the whole world with grace. He “advanced in stature and wisdom.” 7 He was the Father’s wisdom and “teaches men” to speak. He formed the tongue for men and “planted the ear” in those who hear. How then could he not know how to say “father” or “mother”? [For it says] “He will take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria,” and so on.

8 But suppose that, as soon as he was born from the womb, he had been shown speaking and uttering words clearly, like a child already grown. Then his conception in the flesh would have been thought an illusion and not real, or rather a mere appearance. For this reason he accepts the smallness of early age, so that he would not destroy the truth of the sequence of his life.

Chapter 41

1 Again they hunt for other empty notions. They twist the divine words together and think the opposite, and they say: “How then is it written, ‘Receive the high priest of our confession, who is faithful to the one who made him,’ and ‘Let every house of Israel know that this Jesus whom you crucified, God made both Lord and Christ’?” 2 I am greatly amazed that people who handle the sequence of the text do not recognize the force of what is said in it. For the statement “Receive the high priest, who is faithful to the one who made him” was not said about the deity. 3 For God came [text missing], and the divine Scriptures make everything clear to us. For nothing in them is crooked or tangled. All of it is plain to those who understand and straight to those who find knowledge. 4 “Take,” it says, “[instruction] and not silver.” For unless someone receives instruction from God, that is, the faith of the truth, everything is crooked and twisted to him. But to those who understand rightly and find knowledge, everything is straight and beyond reproach.

5 To refute them, the apostle says: “For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices” [text breaks off]. 6 For this reason the only-begotten himself, since he came to be a high priest for men, took flesh from us. He who came from us was to be an offering on our behalf to his own Father, God, and so “call” his disciples “brothers.” Where, then, is the word “became” fulfilled? Nowhere else than in the high priest. For it says, “Receive the high priest, who is faithful to the one who made him.” 7 Let me use a further example. Suppose someone asks a king about his own son and dares to say to him, “Who is this?” He hears the father’s honest confession: “He is my son.” Then he asks again, “Your son by nature?” The king says yes, and the questioner goes on: “Then what did you make him?” The king will certainly say, “I made him king.” Did he, by stating the son’s rank, deny that he is a true son?

8 If he states the second thing, has he wiped out the first? Not at all. So also God the Father begot the Son without beginning, and “he made him high priest” is fulfilled in the flesh.

Chapter 42

1 “But,” they say, “it is written, ‘The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works.’” First of all, these empty-headed people do not know the name of the book. It is called the Proverbs of Solomon. Everything said in the form of a proverb does not mean the same thing as the power of the Word himself. 2 Consider this: our Lord Jesus Christ spoke in parables, and we can see that the parables do not stand in the same relation to our subject. 3 “The kingdom of heaven,” he says, “is like a grain of mustard seed.” If we chose to understand this in our own way, taking it part by part, it would be clear that the kingdom of heaven is a place of wide, open space. 4 If one must speak of a place at all, it is the kingdom in which God the Father is king, together with God the Word, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit of God, and the angels and archangels, the spiritual hosts, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the righteous. How, then, could so many be contained in a grain of mustard seed? The figurative language of the saying is spoken in riddles. So what is said in a proverb is not the same as the thing in itself.

5 The same holds for the woman who had ten drachmas, lost one, lit a lamp and found it; for the net cast into the sea; and for the seed sown upon the [earth?]. All these things are spoken in riddles, and they are not the same as the reality itself. 6 And we do not really know whether Solomon, the author of proverbs, spoke this saying about the Son of God. For there is wisdom and there is wisdom. 7 The apostle knows how to say, “The world did not know God through the wisdom of God,” and “God made foolish the wisdom of the world,” and again he says, “not in fleshly wisdom, but in the power of God.” Solomon too knows how to speak of wisdom, saying, “I fell in love with her beauty and took her for myself as a bride.” Job also knows of wisdom and says, “But where was wisdom found? And what is the place of understanding?” And there is “the wisdom of the poor man, which is despised,” and “he himself is the corrector of wisdom,” and “the only-begotten is the wisdom of the Father.”

Chapter 43

1 What then do we say? If the Father is wisdom, and the Son, according to their way of thinking, did not come forth from him, though he is Word and God and wisdom, then the Father is left lacking wisdom in himself. 2 How then is it said, “to God alone, wise and invisible”? [The text seems defective here.] And all these things are beyond human grasp and boundless to men. God gave wisdom to Solomon and filled Bezalel with wisdom, and “wise men hide shame.” 3 There is much more that could be said about wisdom. But that wisdom of the Father is of a single kind, having no other wisdom set beside it as a counterpart. 4 Even so, suppose the saying was indeed spoken about him. I neither agree nor reject it, but leave the knowing of it to God. Yet I see that the words, forced into this meaning, contradict each other. “He created,” it says, “the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he laid my foundation; and before all the hills he begets me.”

5 How then is what is begotten laid as a foundation? And how is what is created begotten? For if it is created, it is not truly begotten. 6 We do not create what we beget, and we do not beget what we create. For we are created, and what we beget is created. But in God, who is uncreated, what he begets is not created. 7 For if he begot, he did not create. But if after creating he begot again, how is it that what was first created is begotten afterward? 8 If, then, these words are about him, they are fulfilled in the incarnate dispensation. And for that reason the passage speaks first of the nearer things and tells of the older things afterward. 9 For wishing to honor the people who are nearest, it begins with the flesh. For the beginning of the ways of the righteousness of the gospel is that the Word became flesh for us in Mary, and a soul was founded in her flesh. This is so that it may show the higher things afterward.

10 We say that he came from the Father’s bosom, from the heavens, to the earth, since he came to us later, having completed the whole dispensation. So the Word is not a created being, God forbid. And divine Scripture has produced nothing crooked for us, not in any respect at all.

Chapter 44

1 Moreover, by nature, and among the translators too, the wording has not been given in this way. For Aquila says, “The Lord acquired me,” since in the Hebrew it says “Adonai kanani,” which is translated as we have said. And we too, according to ordinary usage, say of those who bear children, “she acquired children.” 2 But even so he has not captured the full force of the translation. For the Hebrew “adonai kananī” can also be translated “the Lord begot me.” This is why Peter speaks so plainly when he says, “This Jesus, whom you crucified.” He did not say “the God the Word from above,” but “this Jesus.” He means the flesh that was taken up together with the Word from above in the womb of Mary, and it is called “this” because of the Lord’s humanity taken from Mary. 3 In this, too, the [word “created”] is fulfilled, as Peter says, “put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit.” And again, “Since Christ therefore suffered for us in the flesh.” And again, “from whom is Christ according to the flesh,” as Paul says.

4 The Savior himself also said in the Gospel, “But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth which I heard from the Father.” He said this to show that the suffering belonged to his humanity and to what is lower, and that he himself is the Father’s Son by nature, from above. 5 The holy apostle Paul agrees with this teaching when he says, “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” and “who did not consider it something to be grasped to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” 6 You see that he declared him a man, but not a mere man. For “mediator between God and men” means that he mediates for both sides. Toward his Father he is God, truly begotten by nature. Toward human beings he is a man, truly one by nature, born of Mary without the seed of a man. In this way he is mediator between God and men: being God and having become man, not changed in his nature, but mediating for each side toward both.

Chapter 45

1 But again they say in their ignorance, “Do you see? He ‘did not consider it something to be grasped to be equal with God.’” These quarrelsome people do not even understand the wording. For Paul did not say, “He did not wish to become equal with God by grasping.” He said, “He did not count it a thing to be grasped, to be equal with God”—that is, to be God by nature, because he was. 2 For if he were not, how did he take the form of a servant? The word also pointed to something recent, and from this Paul showed, with wonder, the greatness of the act: though he was equal with God, he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant. He did this not to enslave one who is free, but, in the form he took, to set free the slaves who obey. 3 The Jews themselves bear witness that he was not ashamed to call himself equal to God, and did not hesitate, but showed it quite boldly when he said, “If I do not say it, I shall be a liar like you.” This is why they say to him, “We are not killing you for a good work, but because you, being a man, make yourself equal to God.”

4 But they say, “We ought to acknowledge the figurative things said about him.” Scripture has indeed said many figurative things about him, and we must not deny what is said of him in riddles. He is called a door, and he is called a stone, a pillar, a cloud, a lion, a sheep, a lamp, a torch, a sun, an angel, a worm, a rock, a cornerstone, a way, a bull, a calf, and the like. 5 Clearly we do not deny what has been fulfilled concerning him in riddles. But we know the reason these things were written. He is the way because through him we walk to the kingdom, to him and to the Father. He is the door because through him we enter. He is a pillar because he is the firm support of our faith. He is a rock because he cannot be moved, and a stone because he is laid as a foundation. He is the sun of righteousness because he has shone on our darkened minds.

Chapter 46

1 Then they say, “If it is written about him that he is a created thing, we must acknowledge that he is a created thing.” Look, I too have set out a part of the passages that have been fulfilled for us through his riddles. 2 But let them tell us, when he is called a “created thing,” what use is it? He is rightly called a door in a figure, so that there may be an entrance for us, and a benefit. He is called the way, so that walking by him we may not go astray. But what do we gain from “created thing”? 3 What good does it do us? “Yes,” says the vain and quarrelsome man, “for if you do not call him a created thing, you ascribe suffering to the Father. Everyone who begets is subject to suffering: he is either contracted or expanded, or made simple, or drained off, or swollen, or [suffers] something of that kind.”

4 Alas, what a wicked way of thinking this is, and how far from the truth! Who will think such things about God? What suspicion will dare such things? Clearly no one, not even the demons, will think anything of the kind. 5 Even if someone confesses the Father, he believes that the Father has truly begotten the Son. For the divine is not borne about in bulk, nor is it a body with child, so that it would have to endure the things just mentioned. 6 “For God is Spirit,” and Spirit does not undergo flowing, cutting, contraction, diminishing, or expansion, or anything of that kind. So, in that the Father is Spirit, he has begotten the Son, God the Word, in a spiritual way: outside of time, beyond comprehension, and without beginning.

Chapter 47

1 But to persuade those who think such things, let us not claim that the cases are alike. Let us instead turn their own bad defense back on them by means of illustrations drawn from like things. A created thing is whatever falls short of the Master himself infinitely, and ten thousand times over. 2 Many people in the desert who need fire fill a glass vessel with water and bring up some quickly flammable material made of flax or tow. They stand facing the sun, and the brilliance shining through the glass onto the material beneath it takes fire from the sun at once and sets it alight. Has the sun been cut, then, by sharing its substance? Has it run short? Has it been diminished? No, they say. 3 So if a created thing was not diminished, how much more is this true of God, who is boundless, beyond comprehension and undefiled! Being Spirit, he begot from himself the Word, God, who is beyond description, beyond comprehension and incorruptible, and he begot him in incorruption. He did not do it through suffering, or cutting, or lack, but as one perfect begetting one perfect, in perfection.

4 Now it is the nature of fire to kindle many lamps from one, and the first is not diminished. Again, the same substance can be made up of many separate parts, I mean of lamps or torches. 5 But the divine is not like this, God forbid. The Word did not come again and blend together with the Father. Rather, the Father is Father, the Son is Son, and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit.

Chapter 48

1 It is foolish, then, what the Manichaeans say, that in [the mind (the text is corrupt here)] of Mani the souls that come from the pillar of light are one body, and that when they are released from their bodies they are formed again into the one substance, as if gathered into the one pillar according to the pattern of their molding. 2 But the Gospel did not show it so. He broke the bread from five loaves and filled five thousand, and he did not let their leftovers go to waste. Instead he said, “Gather them, and let none of the fragments be lost.” And they gathered twelve baskets. 3 They gathered the fragments together into containers, but he did not join the pieces back into loaves as they had been. They gathered the multitude of pieces, but as many separate fragments, and what he showed was a single gathering into baskets.

4 We have not allegorized this as a matter of theory, nor the example of the sun just mentioned. For we do not say that the loaves or the fragments are souls, God forbid. Nor do we make God equal to the sun, which he created, nor the Only-begotten equal to the radiance that the sun sends into the tow. 5 In a similar way, the souls that have been begotten are not joined into one blended mass, God forbid. They go into the dwelling places of God, of which it is written that “in the Father’s house are many dwelling places.” They do not become one heap, but each is counted separately. 6 Nor, in saying that God has begotten his only-begotten Son, do we attach suffering to him, as they do in their wicked blasphemy. For they say that everyone who begets grows weary through passion, and so, by their reasoning, we must call him neither a created thing nor something begotten, lest we make God weary or suffering. Where, then, did we find the Son? Or why does he have the name of Son?

7 These are the reasonings of men, springing from earthly ways of thinking. For it is forbidden to apply our human sufferings to God, since God says plainly, “My thought is not as your thoughts,” and again, “God is not like man.”

Chapter 49

1 So let them stop their blasphemy and learn from the Father, who says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Again he speaks as of things still to come: “You are my beloved Son, whom I have chosen.” And then in the Songs he is “picked out from ten thousands.” Let them tell us, then, where this choosing comes from. 2 For these babblers suppose that by saying “I have chosen” he is called Son by grace and not by nature. Let them show who is like him, so that he could test them all and choose that one. 3 For if he is the only-begotten Son, there is no one equal to him, no one to set beside him, as though he were like the Son among the sons of God. These others he knows by grace; but no one can be made equal to him, because he is Son by nature.

4 It is plain, then, where “chosen out” and where “election” come from. There were many tens of thousands on the earth, and Mary alone “found grace,” and in her he chose the holy flesh. 5 This is why the Father said, “I am well pleased.” David speaks in the same way in the person of the apostles, who believed in the Lord and with joy showed his grace to the nations: “He subjected peoples to us and nations under our feet; he chose for us the inheritance, the beauty of Jacob, whom he loved.” That is, the pure essence of his beauty, 6 the beauty of all Jacob, the flesh chosen from Mary through the Holy Spirit. * The Father showed from above, at John the Baptist, what had come about through the economy of the flesh. For the Father was well pleased in the coming of Christ in the flesh, while the Godhead is boundless in its nature.

Chapter 50

1 50. The apostle also calls him “Son of love.” He says: “who rescued us from the authority of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.” 2 Here again those who talk nonsense do not understand the wording, and they say that the Son exists by an advance in God’s love. These ignorant men do not know the contrast in the statement. For in another place the apostle says that “God loved us in Christ.” 3 For the only-begotten is truly the beloved Son, since the Father is love and the Son is love, because love is from love. So he is Son of love for our sake and for his own, because in him God loved us, and gave up his only-begotten Son for us. So the Father does not grow weary in working, nor does he suffer in begetting. 4 Let them not heap up blasphemies for themselves in vain. For if the Son is a created being, then by their own argument he is not to be worshipped. It is foolish to worship a creature and to set aside the first commandment, which says, “Hear, Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord.”

5 So the holy Word is not a created being, because he is to be worshipped. The disciples worshipped him; the angels worship him in heaven. For it says, “Let all the angels of God worship him,” and, “I will worship you, Lord, my strength.” 6 There is one thing, stated plainly and briefly, that cannot be contradicted, and no one can speak against it. If those who are hostile to the Son of God can produce a testimony, let them show where the Father said, in the Old or the New Testament, “I created a son for myself,” or where the Son said, “The Father created me.” There are four Gospels, with 1,162 chapters, and from beginning to end the Son spoke, and the Father spoke to him, and nowhere did the Son say, “My Father created me,” nor did the Father say, “I created a son for myself,” or “I created my Son.”

Chapter 51

1 51. But the quarrelsome and glory-loving man says: “What then do you say about the body?” That it was taken from Mary, of course. “And what of Mary?” he says. “Is she uncreated or created?” Created, of course, and we ourselves say so, since she was born of a man and a woman. “Then what do you mean by ‘from Mary’? Do you worship the Savior in the body, or do you not?” How could I not worship? If I do not worship, I have no life. “See, then: you worship a created thing, the body.” But there is great madness in those who say such things. 2 For a king clothed in purple is worshipped by everyone. Is the purple worshipped, or the king? Clearly the king. The purple, while it is being worn, is worshipped along with him; but when the king takes it off and sets it aside, the purple is no longer worshipped.

3 A king also often sits in a temple on his own throne, and those who bow down bow down to the king in his temple and on his throne; but when the king gets up, no one worships the temple or the throne. And no one so mad as to want to worship the king in his temple says to the king, “Come out of your temple, so that I may worship you.” 4 In the same way, then, no one would say to the only-begotten, “Leave the body, so that I may worship you.” Rather he worships the only-begotten together with the body, the uncreated together with the holy temple, which he received when he came. 5 And no one says to the king, “Get up from your throne, so that I may worship you apart from the throne.” Rather, he worships the king together with his throne. So too Christ is worshipped together with the body that was buried and raised.

Chapter 52

1 52. But, they say, what do you mean? Did the Father beget the Son willingly, or unwillingly? For you say that the Word was always, and that there was no time before the Word. Yet even the Arians themselves, to deceive some, claim that the Son of God was begotten outside of time. They refuse, however, to call him eternal, and say instead, “There was once when he was not.” They suppose that “once” does not mean a time. 2 But when the word is examined, you expose the ignorant. For “once,” as the dictionaries use it, signifies time. In saying that it does not signify time, they fall into the absurdity of their own wicked belief. They use words ironically, while in their thinking they fight fiercely against the Son of God, shamelessly holding him to be wholly foreign to the Godhead of the Father. So then, did he beget willingly or unwillingly?

3 If we say “unwillingly,” we put the divine nature under compulsion. If we say “willingly,” we grant that the will existed before the Word. Even if it were an indivisible moment, a blink of an eye, or some tiny fraction of an hour, that fraction signifies time before the Word, and we fall back into their argument. And if we say that he did not beget willingly, then the divine nature is driven by a necessity of nature and not by the freedom of will. 4 But none of these things applies to God, as you suppose, you vain man. For these things are not found with God. So he begot neither willingly nor unwillingly, but by the surpassing excellence of his nature. For the divine nature surpasses deliberation, does not fall under time, and is not led by necessity. 5 In us nothing is ready-made, because there was a time when we did not exist. We first deliberate about something, and then we do what we do; or, if we have not deliberated, what has not yet been done by us does not exist. But with God all things are complete and smooth, and all things are fulfilled in him. He begot, neither willingly nor unwillingly, the one who exists eternally, the holy Word and God begotten from him, but he did so in his surpassing and unspeakable nature.

Chapter 53

1 53. A very great wonder comes over me, children of the faith and of the church, at how these quarrelsome people have twisted true things into allegory, and take what is said figuratively as though it were literally true, and so go astray. When they speak of “being begotten,” which belongs to him by nature, they say it is not as with any of the things begotten. But “being created,” which is foreign to his Godhead, even if it was once said in an allegorical sense, they call true; and the truth they do away with. 2 For when Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord of Sabaoth,” and “the Lord appeared to Moses,” and “the Lord appeared to Abraham,” and “Daniel saw a vision of the Ancient of Days,” and such things, and “the Lord appeared to Ezekiel” and he said, “I saw the likeness of God,” they say that these things are not so, falsely accusing the prophets,

3 supposedly on the basis of the saying of the Gospel, in which the Savior taught that “no one has ever seen God.” And they say: “If the Only-begotten said that no one has seen him, but the prophets say they have seen him, then either the Only-begotten or the prophets must be lying.” 4 By the argument of those who speak this way, the things in the prophets would also be false, as the Manichaeans claim. But if the prophets do not lie but speak the truth, in line with the Savior’s word, “the one who speaks in the prophets: Behold, I am here,” then the matter calls for understanding and there is need of allegory. 5 For this is often fulfilled in the following way. We see the sea from some part of a mountain or a plain, and we speak truly when we say so. Yet if someone says that he has not seen it, he does not lie but speaks the truth. For he does not know where its depth is or where its length is; he does not know its bulk or its vast hollow.

6 And through some opening we look at the sky, but we do not know its extent. If one person says, “I saw it,” he saw it; and if another says, “I did not see it,” he did not see it. For we saw truly, as far as we can take it in. But we did not see it as it is. 7 So also the prophets were counted worthy to see as though through an opening, through the narrow passage of their own body, and in 8 They saw, but not as the boundless nature of the vision really is. In this way the divine Scriptures are found to agree with one another: the prophets say that they have seen (for they truly saw), and the Savior says, “No one has ever seen God” (for they did not see him as he is). But he himself saw the nature, unseen, and he gave to the one who could not see the power of a gracious gift, so that he might see the power of the vision.

Chapter 54

1 But do not play the actor again and say: “The prophets saw, not with their eyes, but with the mind, understanding only [in thought].” For this is exactly why Isaiah says, “Woe is me, for I am pierced to the heart, because I am a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips, and I have seen the Lord Sabaoth.” He did not say, “I saw with my mind,” but “with my eyes.” So they saw, and they did not see: they saw as far as they were able, and they truly saw, but they did not see as the infinity of the incomprehensible really is. 2 In the same way many allegorize paradise. The God-driven Origen, for example, wished to bring into life an appearance rather than the truth. He says, “There is no paradise on earth.” 3 He supposedly bases this on the saying of the holy apostle: “I know a man fourteen years ago (whether in the body I do not know, or outside the body I do not know, God knows) such a man caught up as far as the third heaven.” But do not misread this and say that it means the third part of the air. For when he says “as far as the third heaven” he is not speaking of a third part, but of a number, three.

4 And he says, “I know such a man caught up into paradise, and hearing words which it is not permitted for a man to speak.” 5 Glory to God Almighty, who makes everything plain in every way and speaks with precision, so that the true [believers] are not led astray. For he did not join heaven and paradise in one brief phrase. He says, “I know a man caught up as far as the third heaven,” and then again, “caught up into paradise.” The use of the article marks off a different person and points to a different place. 6 It is as if someone had a mountain and a plain, with the plain encircling the mountain, and he wished to get to the far side of the mountain on that same plain. If he chooses to make the journey across the plain to whatever place he wants beyond the mountain, that is possible for him. But if he chooses first to climb the mountain, and then from the mountain to come down again to the place on the plain beyond it, that too is possible for him.

7 Understand the apostle’s words in the same way: first he went up into heaven, and then he came down into paradise, as it is said, “My beloved went down into his garden.” And the Savior says, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Chapter 55

1 But if paradise is not on earth, and what is written in Genesis is not true but is to be allegorized, then nothing in the sequence is true, and everything is allegorized. 2 “In the beginning,” it says, “God made the heaven and the [earth].” These things are not allegorized; they are visible. And it speaks of the firmament and the sea, of shoots and trees and plants, of grass, animals, fish and birds: all the things we see came into being in truth. And he made man, who truly exists. 3 So he placed the one whom he had formed in paradise, having made this same man in an image, in the image of God. 4 Do not pry into the gifts of God which were given to man by grace. For we do not deny that all human beings are in the image of God. 5 But we do not pry into how it is “in the image.” We do not take the image to be the molded body, nor the soul, nor the mind, nor virtue. For there are many things that keep me from speaking in that way.

6 Yet neither do we say that the body is not in the image, or the soul. For it belongs to believers to confess the Scripture, and to unbelievers to “set aside the grace.” So the “in the image” is in man, but God himself knows how it is. 7 For if you say, “He made man in the image,” and suppose that this is the body, yet God is invisible, incomprehensible and beyond conceiving, how will what is visible, comprehensible and falls under touch be the image of the invisible and incomprehensible? 8 And if you say that the body is not “according to the image,” Scripture says, “He took dust from the earth and formed the man.” It calls the earthy part “man,” and it also calls the part that has a soul “man.” For it says, “He breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.”

9 We understand both the soul and the body to be created. How is the soul created? Because Scripture says, “He breathed.” We do not say that the soul is a part of God, and we do not say that it is foreign to the breath he breathed into it. How exactly this is to be understood is known to God alone.

Chapter 56

1 56. But we believe God, who is truthful in all things, without prying and without trickery. And suppose you say that the soul is what is “according to the image.” Yet the apostle says, “The word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the divisions of the soul.” 2 If, then, the soul has divisions, but God is without division, how can the soul be what is “according to the image”? Also, the soul does not know the future, but God certainly knows it. We see what lies in front of the body, but we do not know what is behind us. And if you say that it is not the soul, [consider that] Scripture has certainly called the soul “man” as well, and man is both soul and body. 3 But perhaps you will say that the mind is what is “according to the image.” Scripture says, “I see another law at war in my members, taking me captive in my mind to the law of sin that is in my members.” How, then, can what is taken captive be “according to the image”? [Yet it also says,] “I will sing with the mind, I will sing with the spirit.”

4 And if you say that virtue is what is “according to the image,” I will answer you: tell me about Adam. What virtue had he practised before he was formed? For he did not exist in the beginning, yet from the beginning he was formed according to the image. And if you say that virtue does not exist, you are not speaking well. For to what does it belong to be “according to the image” if not to virtue? But man was formed according to the image before virtue. For Adam had not yet lived a life of virtue, since, clearly, he had not yet even been created. 5 And if you say that baptism is what is “according to the image,” then were the righteous who did not receive baptism not according to the image? For the type began from Moses and the sea, grace was opened up from John, and in Christ the gift was brought to completion.

Chapter 57

1 57. So all people have what is “according to the image,” but not according to nature. For human beings do not have the “according to the image” in equality with God. God is incomprehensible and beyond all thought, being Spirit, and Spirit above every spirit, and light above every light. 2 But we do not deprive man of what God himself gave. For he is truthful, who by grace gave man the “according to the image.” And this can be understood from comparable things. 3 For we see that the Savior took [bread] into his hands, as it stands in the Gospel, when he reclined at the supper. He took this [bread], and when he had given thanks he said, “This is my [body],” and he gave it to his disciples and said, “This is my [body].” 4 And we see that it is not equal or like, either to his image in the flesh, or to his invisible divinity, or to the features of his limbs. For the one is round in shape [text defective] and without feeling.

5 [Text defective] ... in respect of power, and he was pleased by grace to say, “This is my [body],” and no one disbelieves the word. For whoever does not believe that he is truthful in what he said falls away from grace and from salvation. 6 But when we hear, we also believe. We believe that it is his [text defective]. But we know our Lord as wholly sense, wholly perceiving, wholly God, wholly moving, wholly active, wholly light, wholly Word, incomprehensible, yet he has given us this by grace.

Chapter 58

1 58. Now this Adam was placed in paradise and ate from the tree. Scripture says that paradise was “in Eden, toward the east,” and “a spring went up out of Eden.” It did not say “came down,” so that we would not suppose Eden to be in heaven. For if it had been in heaven, it would have said that a spring “comes down” from above. But it says, “A river goes out of Eden,” and it did not say that it comes down. 2 This river “is divided into four heads. The name of the one is Pheison.” We can see the Pheison with our own eyes. The Pheison is the Ganges, as it is called by the Indians and the Ethiopians; the Greeks call it the river Indus. For it “encircles the whole land of Euilat,” that is, lesser and greater Ethiopia, the regions of the Euilaeans. It crosses greater Ethiopia, falls toward the south, and sinks in, within Gadeira, into the great Ocean.

3 The second river is “Geon.” Here too we see a river that can be perceived by the senses, not one to be read as an allegory. It is the river that comes down through Ethiopia and crosses lesser Ethiopia, the Anoubitis, the Blemmyan and the Axomitic lands. It floods the regions of the Thebaid and Egypt, and empties into this sea of ours. If anyone does not believe it, let him listen to Jeremiah, who says, “Why do you and the land of Egypt have to drink the muddied water of Geon?” 4 “The third,” it says, “is the river Tigris, which flows opposite the Assyrians.” It cuts through the regions of the East, goes down under the ground, and rises again out of Armenia between the Cardyaeans and the Armenians. It springs up again and is channeled into the land of the Assyrians. 5 The fourth river, the Euphrates, likewise goes down under the earth in the same way and comes up out of Armenia, and so it floods Persia. So then, if there is no paradise that can be perceived by the senses, there is no spring. If there is no spring, there is no river. If there is no river, there are not four heads. If there is no Pheison, there is no Geon and no Tigris. If there is no Tigris, there is no Euphrates.

7 If there is no Euphrates, there is no fig tree, no leaves, no Adam, no [eating], no Eve. If there is no Eve, he did not eat from the tree. If he did not eat from the tree, there is no Adam. 8 If there is no Adam, there are no human beings, and the truth becomes a myth, and everything is turned into allegory. But there is an Adam. For we come from him; we are all his offspring by succession, and we see him in the multitude of those who have followed one another in the line of descent.

Chapter 59

1 For Adam fathered Seth “according to his form and according to his image.” This is so that no one would suppose that the man who was molded and those who were born were different kinds of beings; this is why Scripture says “according to his form and according to his image.” Seth fathered Enos, Enos fathered Cainan, Cainan fathered Maleleel, Maleleel fathered Jared, and Jared fathered Enoch. Enoch fathered Methuselah, Methuselah fathered Lamech, and Lamech fathered Noah. Then the flood came, not as an allegory but in truth. Every soul perished, and “eight souls” of human beings remained. 2 If you hear “souls” used for a city, do not think that they have no bodies. For the whole man is named from one part of him. Scripture says, “Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy-five souls.” It does not mean that the souls followed without bodies, but with bodies; so it called the whole man by this word. And Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles, says, “We were in the ship about eighty souls.”

3 Common usage also tends to call slaves “bodies.” A man is said to be the master of a hundred bodies, though they also have souls. But since mastery over people rules over their bodies and not their souls, they reasonably called slaves “bodies,” together with their souls, to show the use that is made of their bodies. 4 Noah came out of the ark, having fathered Shem, Ham and Japheth. Shem fathered Arphaxad; Arphaxad fathered Kainan; Kainan fathered Sala; Sala fathered Eber; Eber fathered Phalek; Phalek fathered Ragau; Ragau fathered Serouch; Serouch fathered Nachor; Nachor fathered Tharra; Tharra fathered Abraham; Abraham fathered Isaac; Isaac fathered Jacob; Jacob fathered Judah; Judah fathered Phares; Phares fathered Hesrom; Hesrom fathered Aram; Aram fathered Aminadab; Aminadab fathered Naasson; Naasson fathered Salmon; Salmon fathered Boaz; Boaz fathered Iobed by Ruth; Iobed fathered Jesse; Jesse fathered David the king; David fathered Solomon by the wife of Uriah; Solomon fathered Rehoboam; Rehoboam fathered Abia; Abia fathered Asaph; Asaph fathered Jehoshaphat; Jehoshaphat fathered Joram; Joram fathered Ochozias; Ochozias fathered Joas; Joas fathered Amesias; Amesias fathered Ozias, who was called Azarias; Ozias fathered Joatham; Joatham fathered Achaz; Achaz fathered Hezekiah; Hezekiah fathered Manasseh; Manasseh fathered Amos; Amos fathered Josiah; Josiah fathered Jechonias; Jechonias in turn fathered Salathiel; Salathiel fathered Zerubbabel; Zerubbabel fathered Abioud; Abioud fathered Eliakim; Eliakim fathered Asor; Asor fathered Sadok; Sadok fathered Acheim; Acheim fathered Elioud; Elioud fathered Eleazar; Eleazar fathered Matthias; Matthias fathered Jacob; Jacob fathered Joseph.

Chapter 60

1 Joseph was an old man and a widower. Earlier he had taken a first wife and had by her four sons, James (who was called the Lord’s brother because he was brought up together with him), Simon, Judas and Joses, and two daughters, [Anna] and Salome. 2 This Joseph, old and a widower, was chosen by necessity when lots were cast among widowers and unmarried men, tribe by tribe, for the virgins of the temple, since firstborn children, male and female, were dedicated in the temple. By lot he received the holy virgin Mary, from whom, according to the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ was born through the Holy Spirit, not from the seed of a man and not by union of bodies. 3 So the Lord, who is God, was born according to the flesh from the tribe of Judah, from the seed of David and Abraham, in the forty-second year of the reign

4 of Augustus. Augustus reigned fifty-six years and six months. After him his son Tiberius took over the rule, for [number missing] years. After Tiberius, Gaius reigned three years, nine months and twenty-two days. After Gaius, Claudius [number missing] years. After Claudius, Nero [number missing] years. After Nero, Vespasian nine years. After Vespasian, his son Titus two years. After Titus, his brother Domitian [number missing] years and [number missing] months. After Domitian, Nerva one year and four months. After Nerva, Trajan nineteen years. After Trajan, Hadrian [number missing]. After Hadrian, Antoninus the Pious twenty-two years. After Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, also called Verus, nineteen years. Commodus [number missing] years. Pertinax [number missing] months. Severus [number missing] years. His son Antoninus seven years. Macrinus one year. Another Antoninus [number missing] years. Alexander (not the Macedonian) [number missing] years. Maximinus [number missing] years. Gordian seven years. Philip seven years. Decius [number missing] year(s). Gallus, also called Volusian, [number missing] years. [One name and number lost in the text] years. Another Claudius, one year. Aurelian [number uncertain] years. Tacitus seven months. Probus [number uncertain] years. Carus, Carinus and Numerian, two years. Diocletian [number missing] years.

5 After Diocletian came Maximian, Licinius, Constantius, Constantine, Constans, Constantius and Constantine, Julian, Jovian, Valentinian, Valens and Gratian, down to this present year, [a number of] years after the death of Diocletian. For this year is the ninetieth of Diocletian, the [number missing] year of Valentinian and Valens, and the [number uncertain] year of Gratian, in the consulship of Gratian Augustus for the third time and of the most illustrious Equitius, in the second indiction.

Chapter 61

1 So all of us come from the Adam mentioned earlier, in unbroken succession. The order has not been lost, and the things God has done are not to be treated as allegory. 2 There was, then, an Adam. There were fig leaves and a fig tree, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life in the middle of the garden. There was a serpent, disobedience and obedience. There are rivers, and there was an Eve, and the thing God formed. 3 For all things are possible for God: to change what is perishable into imperishability, and to make what is on earth continue in imperishability. 4 Let no one be astonished at this. For he came and showed it, taking perishable flesh, clothing himself in it with his divinity, and proving it imperishable. For “who will bring a charge” against God? 5 Let us look at another point. Scripture says that God drove them out of paradise, and set the Cherubim and the flaming sword to guard the entrance to the tree of life. And Adam and those with him went out and lived opposite paradise. Let no one be deceived by empty myths.

6 For God is able to raise up children from stones. God is also able to change what is perishable into imperishability, and he is able to make a place of paradise-rest on earth whenever he wishes. 7 For the earth does not belong to one god and the heaven to another. All things belong to the same God, and he gives imperishability to each one as he wills. 8 For we know that Adam’s body was formed from the earth, the same earth from which our bodies come, and we have the hope of eternal life and of an imperishable inheritance. For the Savior’s body also came from Mary, and it has been united spiritually with the imperishability of the Word in heaven. 9 We have gathered all these things and set them down here because we do not want to throw away anything that is written. We want rather to proceed in simplicity and be found faithful toward God in the things in which he truly wrote for us, and gave us the way of truth for our salvation. It is fitting to leave to him alone the knowledge of what cannot be grasped.

Chapter 62

1 62. Again, this Origen (may God grant him pardon for the fantasies he has put before people by his allegorizing) has brought in another fabulous notion. The divine Scripture says that God made tunics of skin for Adam and those with him. Origen claims that these were not tunics of skin. 2 Rather, he says that the “tunic of skin” is the fleshly part of the body, or the body itself. After the disobedience, he says, and after eating from the tree, God clothed the souls with these bodies, that is, with this flesh. The whole claim is foolish. 3 For Origen cleverly reasons, as he thinks, and says: “Was God a tanner, that he should tan hides and work them into tunics for Adam and Eve?” But such a remark is far more bestial. 4 Which was easier for God: to make heaven and earth out of nothing, or to make tunics of skin? When has he ever wished to do his wonders and not done them? When has he been unable to change lifeless things into living ones?

5 He made the rod of Moses, dry and wooden as it was, into a living serpent that pursued Moses, so that Moses turned and fled. This was to show that it was no phantom but that what happened was real. And how was it that for forty years the people’s garments did not shrivel, their hair did not grow long, and their sandals did not wear out? 6 Let the fools who follow Origen’s madness on this point tell me this. When the Savior rose from the dead and left the linen cloths in the tomb, as it is written, did he then appear naked to the disciples, though he had risen from the dead with body and soul? 7 But when he showed Thomas and those with him his bones, his flesh, his hands and his side, he clearly was not naked. So who wove him the garments he wore after the resurrection?

8 You will surely tell me they were spiritual garments, which he made for himself by his own will. And if he could make such garments for himself, could he not make those tunics of skin for Adam and those with him by his own will? Truly 9 Origen’s allegory falls apart. For if Adam’s flesh was created after he ate from the tree, where did God get the rib before Adam had eaten? When Adam was awakened from his trance, he says, “This is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh.”

Chapter 63

1 63. So from now on, let no one trouble us. For this is how the holy church of God has believed from the beginning. Origen will not stand with us on the day of judgment. 2 I am truly amazed that some people put up with a man who blasphemed his own Master. Let such people read Origen’s work On First Principles, and let those who think they are sons of the catholic church learn from it. [The text is defective here.] And let them not dare to separate the Son from the Godhead of the Father. 3 [The text is defective here.] How is it that Origen did not think it worthwhile to say even that the Son sees the Father? Instead he says: “Just as the Son cannot see the Father, so the Holy Spirit cannot see the Son.” And again: “The angels cannot see the Holy Spirit, and human beings cannot see the angels.”

4 And he deceived himself most of all, and those whom he led astray. But he did not deceive the man who is understanding and faithful, who believes the truth and the 5 spiritual teaching. So stop, Origen, and stop, you disciples of Origen. The apostles and prophets [speak the truth] far more than you and your teacher do. 6 Let the Gnostics stop, for they are condemned in their way of life. Let the Valentinians, the Manichaeans and the Marcionites stop, who are mistaken in everything. Let the Arians, the Anomoeans, the Sabellians, the Pneumatians (who are also called Pneumatomachians) and the Dimoirites stop, who foolishly throw out the mind. 7 For all divine Scripture speaks the truth. But understanding is needed, to know that God speaks the truth, to believe him and his words, and to know the gifts God has given, is giving and will give. Understanding is also needed to know, according to the promise, the resurrection of the dead in perfection. For every heresy lies, because it has not received the Holy Spirit according to the tradition of the fathers in the holy catholic church of God.

Chapter 64

1 64. We will speak about all these things again, as far as our weakness allows. But we are the least and the lowly, and have been counted worthy [by God] to belong to the holy catholic church of God. So, as far as our smallness is able, we set out in part the foundation of this church on all these matters, for those who want to care for their own life. 2 What has been said about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit would have been quite enough. But we are eager to make it clearer still, for the joy, the keeping and the full assurance of believers. So we are gathering the testimonies of divine Scripture, to make a wide feast and a cause of rejoicing for the faithful who read them, and we will not hesitate to show [often] how secure and firm our hope in God is. Nothing at all is different in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The holy Trinity is of one rank and of one substance.

3 We do not draw our teaching from anywhere else, nor from our own thoughts. We draw it from our life, that is, from the prophets, and from the coming of our Savior and his love for humankind. 4 For he came, our life came, and showed us the light again, when he found us wandering astray. For we were, indeed we were, in pride and blasphemies, in the likenesses of idols, in the godlessness of spirits, immersed in the commands of every evil. 5 All these things were in me. Unwillingly I did what I did not want, and I was driven to do what I hated, with sin thus serving me [sic]. Then the holy Father sent his holy Son, and in his mercy he saved me and rescued me from all my corruptions.

Chapter 65

1 65. For the grace of our Lord and Savior appeared, teaching us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires, and to live sensibly, godly and righteously in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He gave himself for us, to redeem us from all lawlessness, and to cleanse for himself a people of his own, zealous for good works. 2 [Having wiped out] the handwriting against us, with its decrees, which stood against us, he took it out of the way by nailing it to the cross. He stripped the rulers and authorities, made a public example of them with boldness, and triumphed over them in it. He shattered the gates and crushed the iron bars. Again he showed the light [to the earth], stretching out his hand, making a road, showing the steps up to the heavens, and counting us worthy to live in paradise again.

3 So he made his home in us, and he gave us the righteous requirement of the law through the Spirit, so that we might know him and know that [what concerns him] is the beginning and end of life. He became for us a law of righteousness, a law of faith, a law of the Spirit, and set us free from the law of the flesh and of sin. 4 Therefore “I delight in the law of God according to the inner man.” And our inner man is Christ, if indeed he lives in us. 5 For he died, and became for us the way of life, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for us and was raised, the cause of life. He remembered the oath made many generations before, as David says. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.

6 Because in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, making peace through the blood of the cross. 7 So he arrived “for the administration of the fullness of the times,” as was promised to Abraham and the other saints, “to sum up all things in him, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth.” 8 There was a separation and hostility within God’s forbearance. But he reconciled us in the body of his flesh, “making both one through himself,” for he came as our peace. He broke down the middle wall of the partition. In his flesh he did away with the hostility, the law of commandments expressed in decrees, so that he might create the two into one new man. He wanted the Gentiles to be fellow members of the body, fellow sharers and fellow heirs of the promise. So he gave the command, saying, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

9 So, since I was weak through the flesh, a Savior was sent to me in the likeness of sinful flesh. He fulfilled this plan of salvation in order to redeem me from slavery, from corruption and from death. And he became for me righteousness, sanctification and redemption. 10 He is righteousness, because through his faith he loosed sin. He is sanctification, because he set me free through water and Spirit and by his word. He is redemption, because his blood is the ransom of the true Lamb, who gave himself for me. He is the atoning sacrifice that cleanses the world and reconciles all things in heaven and on earth. In this he fulfilled, at the appointed times, the mystery that was hidden before the ages and generations. 11 The same one “will transform the body of our humiliation so that it becomes like his glorious body, according to the working of [his power] to subject all things to himself,” “because in him all the fullness of the deity dwells bodily.”

Chapter 66

1 Christ, then, is the vessel of wisdom and of deity. As mediator he “reconciles all things to God in himself, not counting their sins.” He fulfills the hidden mysteries by faith in his covenant, which was promised beforehand by the law and the prophets. He is proclaimed Son of God and called son of David. For he is both, God and man, “mediator between God and men,” the true “house of God,” a “holy priesthood.” He is the giver of the Holy Spirit, who regenerates and renews all things again for God. For “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” and “we beheld his glory, glory as of an only-begotten from the Father.” 2 Rain is joined in nature with trees and plants and forms body in them, and each of the fruits is formed according to its own likeness. In the olive tree the rain becomes rich oil, taking its substance from the tree. In the vine it takes on color as sweet wine. In the fig tree the fig is made sweet. And in each of the seeds it makes growth increase according to the seed’s own kind.

3 In the same way, I think, the Word of God became flesh in Mary and was found as a man in the seed of Abraham, according to the promise. “For we have found the Messiah, of whom Moses wrote.” Moses said, “Let my utterance come down like rain,” and David said, “Let him come down like rain upon the fleece, and like drops dripping on the [earth].” So the wool, receiving the dew, increases the growth of the fleece, 4 and the earth, receiving the rain, increases the fruit of hope. [Being tilled] by this receiving at the command of the Master, and readily yielding its nature, it has all the more eagerness to take from him. 5 So also with the virgin Mary. When she said, “How shall I know [this]?” and “that this will be to me,” she heard: “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born from you will be holy and will be called Son of the Most High.”

6 Christ speaks through the angel, and the Master shapes himself within his own creature, having taken “the form of a servant.” Mary draws in the Word for conception, as the earth draws in the rain. And the Word of God shows himself to be a holy fruit, taking on a mortal nature. 7 He was born of her, who drew him in like the earth and the fleece. He is the fruit of true hope for the saints who were waiting. As Elizabeth said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” The Word took this fruit from humanity, suffering though he is beyond suffering. 8 This is the living bread that came down from heaven and gives life. This is the fruit of the true olive, the oil of anointing and of the compounded ointment, which Moses prefigured. This is the true vine, which the Father alone tends, having produced for us a cluster of joy.

9 This is the living water. The thirsty man who receives it will not thirst again, for it is in his belly, “leaping up to eternal life.” The new farmers received from this and shared it with the world. But the old farmers dried up and ruined [it] through unbelief. 10 By his own blood he sanctifies the nations, and by his own Spirit he leads the called up into the heavens. “As many as are led by his Spirit, these” live to God. Those who are not are still reckoned to death, and are called soulish, that is, fleshly. 11 He therefore commands us to set aside the works of the flesh, which are strongholds of sin. He commands us to put to death the members of death through his grace. He commands us to receive a holy Spirit, whom we did not have before. This Spirit gives life to me, who died long ago, and if I do not receive him I will die.

12 For apart from his Spirit everyone is dead. “If then his Spirit is in us, the one who raised him from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in us.” But I think both dwell in the righteous person, Christ and his Spirit.

Chapter 67

1 But Christ is believed to be God from God, from the Father, and the Spirit to be from Christ, or from both. Christ says, “who proceeds from the Father,” and “he will receive from what is mine.” And Christ is from the Holy Spirit. For “what is in her,” he says, “is from the Spirit” [this is the voice of the angel]. So I understand the mystery that redeems me. I receive it by faith, by hearing alone, by friendship toward the one who came to me. 2 For God knows himself, Christ proclaims himself, and the Holy Spirit makes himself known to the saints. In the holy Scriptures a Trinity is announced to us. It is believed without prying and without quarrelling, on the basis of 3 hearing. From this faith comes the salvation of grace: “righteousness is from faith, apart from works of law.” For it is written that the Spirit of Christ is given to those who are being saved, from hearing.

4 This faith is signified by the voices of heralds [text corrupt here], as I at least think, having been taught from the Scriptures. Three holy, three together-holy; three existing, three co-existing; three in form, three of like form; three active, three working together; three subsisting, three co-subsisting, being with one another. This is called the holy Trinity. Being three, they are one harmony, one Godhead, of the same being, of the same Godhead, of the same substance, like from like, working an equality of grace of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. 5 The “how” is left for them to teach. “For no one knows the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father, and the one to whom the Son may reveal him.” And he reveals him through the Holy Spirit. 6 So these are three, whether from him, or from him, or toward him. Each is understood fittingly, just as they reveal themselves: as light, fire, spirit, and, I think, in other likenesses of visions, according to how worthy the person ministering is.

7 So it is the same God who in the beginning said, “Let there be light, and there was light” (the visible light). It is he who enlightened us to see the true light, which enlightens every person coming into the world. “Send out your light and your truth,” says David. He is the Lord who said, “In the last days I will pour out from my Spirit on all flesh, and their sons and their daughters will prophesy, and their young men will see visions.” In this he shows us three persons of holy service, from a subsistence that is threefold.

Chapter 68

1 I say, then, that Christ became a servant of the circumcision for the sake of the truth of God, to fulfil the promises, and that the Holy Spirit serves together with him. For we have received this from the divine Scriptures. Christ is sent from the Father; the Holy Spirit is sent. Christ speaks in the saints; the Holy Spirit speaks. Christ heals; the Holy Spirit heals. Christ sanctifies; the Holy Spirit sanctifies. Christ baptizes; in his name the Holy Spirit baptizes. 2 So the Scriptures say: “You will send your Spirit and renew the face of the [earth].” This is like saying, “You will send out your word and melt them.” 3 “While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting,” it says, “the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’” This is like saying, “But the Lord said, ‘Go into the city, and there you will be told what you must do.’”

4 “So they, sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia.” It is as if Christ were saying, “Look, I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves.” 5 “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit to lay no greater burden on you than these necessary things.” It is as if he were saying, “I say, not I but the Lord, that a wife should not be separated from her husband.” 6 They went through Phrygia and the Galatian region, since they were prevented by the Holy Spirit from speaking the word in Asia. When they came to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit did not allow them. This is as if Christ were saying, “Go and baptize all the nations,” and “Carry no bag, no staff, and no sandals.” 7 “Those men,” it says, “kept telling Paul through the Spirit not to go up to Jerusalem.” Or Agabus: “This is what the Holy Spirit says: the man whose belt this is...” This is like what Paul said: “Are you looking for proof of Christ speaking in me?” And: “Remember the words of the Lord, that he himself said, It is [good] to give rather than to receive.”

8 “And now, look, I am going bound in the Spirit.” This is as if Paul were saying, “prisoner of Jesus Christ.” 9 “Except that the Spirit testifies to me in every city, saying...” This is like saying, “The Lord bears witness to my soul that I am not lying.” 10 “In power according to the Spirit of holiness.” This is like saying, “Holy is he who rests among the holy.” 11 “And circumcision of the heart in the Spirit.” This is like saying, “And you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, in the stripping off of the body of sins, in the circumcision of Christ.” 12 “If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.” This is like saying, “As you received Christ, walk in him.” And also: “The Spirit of the Lord spoke in me, and his word was in my mouth.” 13 “And having the firstfruits of the Spirit.” This is like saying, “Christ is the firstfruits.”

14 “But the Spirit himself intercedes beyond measure for us.” This is like saying, “who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” 15 “That the offering of the [Gentiles] may be acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit.” This is like saying, “May the Lord sanctify you, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.” 16 “But God revealed to us through his Spirit.” This is like saying, “when he who set me apart from my mother’s womb was pleased, through his grace, to reveal his Son in me.” 17 “We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.” This is like saying, “Test yourselves, to see whether Christ is in you.” 18 “You are God’s temple, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” This is like saying, “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

Chapter 69

1 Scripture also speaks of justification and grace as coming from both. “But you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.” This is like saying, “Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” And no one can [receive] the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, except from the Lord. “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are varieties of workings, but the same God who works all things in all.” And: “from glory to glory, as from the Lord, the Spirit.” 3 “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” This is like saying, “Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?”

4 “But the Spirit says expressly...” This is like saying, “Thus says the Lord Almighty.” 5 And: “My Spirit stands in your midst.” And: “If anyone opens to me, I and the Father will come in and make our dwelling with him.” 6 Isaiah says, “and upon him the Spirit of God.” Christ says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because of which he anointed me.” And: “Jesus from Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit.” Or: “The Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.” 7 The voice of the Seraphim is plain too, crying out, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord Sabaoth.” 8 And if you hear that Christ, “exalted to the right hand of God, received from the Father the promise of the Spirit”; or “wait for the promise of the Father, which you have heard”; or that “the Spirit drives him out into the desert”; or that he himself says, “Do not worry about what you will say, for it is the Spirit of my Father who speaks in you”; or “if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God”; or “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven,” and so on; or “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” and so on; or “the child grew and became strong in the Spirit”; or “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan”; or “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit”; or “what is born of the Spirit is spirit” (which is like saying, “what has come to be in him was life”); or “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, the Spirit of truth”; or Peter’s words to Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart, so that you lie to the Holy Spirit?” and after that, “You have not lied to men but to God.” So the Holy Spirit is God from God, and God, since those who held back part of the price of the field lied to him; or “he who was manifested in the flesh, was vindicated in the Spirit” — I have nothing greater than this to say.

9 The Son also is God. “From them,” it says, “is the Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all.” “Believe,” it says, “in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” And “he spoke to them the word of the Lord,” and “he brought them up into his house and set a table before them, and rejoiced with his whole household that he had come to believe in God.” Or that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Or “that they may adorn the teaching of God our Savior.” Or “For the grace of God and Savior has appeared to all people, training us.” Or “awaiting the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” 10 The Spirit and the Word share the same service. “Take heed,” it says, “to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, to shepherd the church of God.” That is like saying, “I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful and appointed me to his service.”

Chapter 70

1 70. So, as has been shown, the Son and the Holy Spirit work together with the Father. “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the breath [or Spirit] of his mouth all their power.” The Holy Spirit is also to be worshiped: “Those who worship God must worship in spirit and in truth.” 2 But if they work together in these things, then a creature does not work with a creature, nor does the Godhead become created, nor is God known as having measure or limit. For he is without boundary, cannot be contained, and cannot be grasped by thought, and he holds within himself all the works of God. 3 Nor is the creature to be worshiped. “They worshiped the creature,” it says, “rather than the Creator, and were [put to shame].” How foolish it is to call a creature God and to set aside the first commandment, which says, “Hear, Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord,” and “There shall be no new god in you.”

4 In the holy Scriptures the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are called by various names. The Father is called Father, Almighty, Father of all, Father of Christ. The Son is called Word, Christ, true light. The Holy Spirit is called Helper, Spirit of truth, Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ. 5 Furthermore, God and Father is also understood as light, though as something far brighter, as power, wisdom, [life]. And if God and Father is light, the Son is light from light, and he is the one “who dwells in unapproachable light.” 6 God is entirely power, and for this reason the Son is “Lord of powers.” God is entirely wisdom; so the Son is wisdom from wisdom, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom.” God is entirely life; so the Son is life from life: “For I am the truth and the life.” 7 The Holy Spirit is from both, Spirit from Spirit. For God is Spirit. [The Godhead is the giver of gifts; the Spirit is] most truly the enlightener, the Helper, and the one who announces the Father’s purposes. [The text here is uncertain.]

8 For as the Son is “the Angel of great counsel,” so also is the Holy Spirit. And Scripture says: “We received the Spirit of Mind, so that we might see the things freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit of God, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”