Questions on the Old and New Testament 91.1–94.3

Let us first ask John the Baptist, whom the Savior himself declared to be his witness. For he says among other things about the Lord: “He who comes from above is above all; he who is of the earth speaks of the earth; but he who comes from heaven testifies to what he has seen and heard, and no one receives his testimony.” See, John calls everyone, himself included, earthly in comparison with the Lord, because he testifies that the Lord came from heaven, but that all the others are from the earth, that is, from below. And the Lord himself says the same, among other things: “For I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me,” that is, of the Father. And again the Lord says, among other things, in this sense: “And now I tell you that I will ask the Father. For the Father himself loves you, because you love me and believe that I came out from God the Father and came into this world; again I leave the world and go to the Father.” Then the disciples, seeing that he had spoken plainly, say to him: “See, now you speak openly and use no figure of speech; now we know that you know all things, and there is no need for anyone to question you; by this we believe that you came out from God.” These words need no interpretation, since this is the sum of our religion: that we believe that Christ before the flesh was in heaven with God, as the Son with the Father.

For if he said that he had come out from heaven and from God and come into the world because of a righteous life and heavenly teaching, all the prophets and apostles ought to have said the same of themselves. And because he said, “again I leave the world and go to the Father,” it may perhaps be said that this meant that the teaching which had come from God returned to God when it left the world; for they have nothing else to say. But if having come from heaven, having gone out from God, and having come into this world concern power and teaching and not the Savior’s person, then when he says, “again I leave the world and go to the Father,” that power returns to where it came from; yet we see that after the Lord’s departure both power and teaching were in the world. You see, then, that the Lord did not speak of power and teaching, but specifically of himself.

But if you say that these are the words of the power that worked in Christ, this very power calls God its Father. See, you run into what you fear: for if the power of God is the Son of God, then it is certainly the power of which the apostle says, “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”; this went out from God and returned again to God. This same power, which is Christ, testifies that it casts out demons by the Spirit of God. That Spirit worked through the apostles, so that you may know that the Holy Spirit, through whom the Lord worked, worked here in the world in the apostles after the Lord’s departure, so that it may appear more fully that the Lord spoke of his own person, because, leaving the world, he returned to God. Or if you think that this power is not Christ, there will be two powers and two sons of God; and where then is what we read: “the only-begotten Son of God, who is in the bosom of the Father,” and again: “For God so loved this world,” he says, “that he gave his only Son for it”? You notice now that the power of God which worked embodied in the world is one and the same, which is called both the power of God and the Son. And let us see what the apostles believed, and in whom, when they heard from the Lord, “See, again I leave the world and go to the Father,” and answered him: “See, now you speak openly and use no figure of speech; now we know that you know all things, and there is no need for anyone to question you; by this we believe that you came out from God.”

Now let us see whether the disciples were in doubt about the mighty works, whether they were from God, when they saw Lazarus raised on the fourth day when he already stank, eyes restored to a man blind from birth, a woman freed from a flow of blood by touching a fringe, the nature of water changed into wine, or whether they were in doubt about the person of the Lord. No one at all doubted about the mighty works, since some said he was Elijah, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. For when the Jews wanted to stone him, Jesus answered them: “I have shown you many good works from my Father; for which of these works do you stone me?” The Jews said to him: “We do not stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, because, though you are a man, you make yourself God.” If, then, the Jews did not doubt that these were works of God, did the apostles doubt it?

Since, then, all the doubt concerned the Savior’s person (for something unheard of, which had not entered human understanding, astonished people when they heard him say that he had gone out from God and that God was his own Father), the disciples, confessing that they were satisfied by the plainness of the Lord’s words, said to him: “Now we know that you know all things, and there is no need for anyone to question you; by this we believe that you came out from God.” For if he did not truly go out from God, the faith of the apostles is made void; but that cannot be, because it was approved by the Savior. For he answered them: “Now you believe?”, that is, “seeing so many signs you did not believe.” So it was proved to the apostles that Christ went out from God and came, so that, because of this going out, it should not be doubtful to believe that he is the Son of God. For if no one has seen God except he who is from God (he has seen God), and if no one knows the Father except the Son (this is truly to have been with God and to have gone out from him and come; for no one else could go out from God except the one who was in the beginning with God, since no one else either knew or had seen God), then it is not incredible to us to believe that this is the true Son of God, as John said in his first letter: “And we are,” he says, “in his true Son Jesus Christ. This is the true one and eternal life”; and the apostle: “who did not spare his own Son”; and the evangelist: “because he called God his own Father.”

If, then, Christ is the true Son of God, how is he only a man? For he would not be called true unless he had properly been begotten by him. Or let Photinus say why he is believed to be truly the Son of God if he is not the true one. Or what need was there to believe him the Son of God if he were one of the other saints, who are worthy to be called sons of God? Or is there some unworthiness in him by which he could not be believed a son of God as the others are, so that it is said in order that he, about whom it seems incredible, may be believed to be the Son of God? For if he is superior to the others, what need is there to say, “Believe that Christ is the Son of God,” unless it is commanded that something different be believed of him than of the others, so that, since there are many who are called sons of God because of holiness, he alone may be believed to be the true Son of God, which is why he is also called only? For which of the saints ever dared to call himself the Son of God, not to say the true Son, except the Savior, who was conscious of his birth that proceeded from God? And how would he allow himself to be worshiped if he did not know that he was from God, since it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone,” and since the angel rebuked John because he wished to worship him, saying to him, “Do not do it, for I am your fellow servant; worship God”; and, while Scripture testifies that God alone is to be served, the apostle says, “Whoever serves Christ pleases God”? Why? Because God and Christ, Father and Son, are one.

The apostle confesses himself a servant of Christ and says to the Corinthians, “Do not become servants of men,” and to the Galatians: “Paul an apostle, not from men nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.” He shows openly that Christ is God and man, to show that his apostleship was not from man but from Christ, inasmuch as he is God, and from God the Father. Then, in what follows, he says: “For I did not receive it from a man, nor did I learn it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” What could be plainer? For he says that he obtained God’s teaching not through a man but was taught by God himself. We have received God’s teaching through men, but the vessel of election proves that he obtained nothing from the apostles, that is, from men. For if, because it is God’s teaching, it is therefore not learned through a man, what praise does the apostle claim for himself, if he learned it in the same way as the other peoples?

Why does he also say: “For I did not receive it from a man, nor was I taught it, but through a revelation of Jesus Christ”? Who would doubt that in this place Christ is signified as God? But what wonder, since among other things he says to the Romans: “whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all, blessed for ever”? What is “and from whom is Christ according to the flesh”? He would not say this unless Christ were also something according to God, so that according to the flesh he is from the fathers, but according to his divinity, from God, Christ is God over all. “But perhaps it may be said to refer to the person of the Father.” But in this place there is no mention of the Father’s name; and therefore, if it is denied that it is said of Christ, let someone name a person to whom it applies. And why should it not apply to Christ, to whose name heavenly and earthly and infernal beings bend the knee? This is to be God over all; for besides these there are no others. Let Photinus now say whether these bend the knee to a man, or whether God decreed that those heavenly powers and holy angels should worship a man. But far from it; God decrees nothing foolish, especially since it is not lawful to worship any but God, how much more in heaven! A king is worshiped on earth as God’s vicar, but Christ, after the dispensation as vicar has been fulfilled, is worshiped in heaven and on earth.

For we read that the Word became flesh, that is, was incarnate from Mary through the ministry of the Holy Spirit; that this Word was in the beginning with God and was God; and that this is also called the Son of God. How then is it not before Mary, which was in the beginning and was God? Even if, blinded, you deny that this Word is God, still you do not deny, nor are you unaware, that this Word is called the Son of God and that it was with God in the beginning. By what reasoning, then, do you say that he comes after Mary, when you read that he was in the beginning? For in the Apocalypse we read of Christ: “and his name is the Word of God.” This term “word” has many interpretations. For there is nothing from God that is not called God; but because of the authority of the one God, he called what was born of him the Word, so that, led by the reasoning by which we know that our words come only from ourselves, we might believe that Christ is from God.

Nor indeed ought it to have been said otherwise, so that he might be believed to be from him and not outside him. For in a similar way he is called both the power and the wisdom of God, so that by the same reasoning he may be understood to be from him. For if Scripture had said “God and God,” it would not have signified that he is from him, but would have made two gods, which is contrary to unity. This is the principle in the divine books: that Christ, though signified as God, does not go beyond the measure of the one God.

How foolish, Photinus, is that division of yours at the opening of John’s Gospel, by which you keep the Word from being called God! For you read it thus: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was. This Word was in the beginning with God.” What does this division mean? What sense does it indicate? What principle of piety does it signify, except only enmity against the Son of God? What does someone mean by pronouncing, “and the Word was with God, and God was”? Is this, then, the wisdom of our law, to teach that God exists? What tongue, what nation, what land, what sect is there that denies that God exists? And what does Scripture intend to suggest when it says, “and the Word was with God”? Or what does it want this Word to be understood to be, unless it shows its nature? For the Gospel is not written because of God, about whom no one doubts, but because of the Word, about whom questions arise. For it is a mystery of God, which is believed precisely because it is not manifest to all. And therefore Scripture strives to teach what the Word is, saying: “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God.” This both agrees with reason and is the sound reading. For it shows that this Word, which was in the beginning with God, was God, so that, in the sacrament of the mystery of the eternal God, which was unknown from ages and generations, God the Word may be believed to have been with God the Father.

And because this comes into doubt for the carnal, who want Scripture to speak according to the capacity of their own understanding, faith has been set before us, which, following the sense of Scripture, may merit a reward. When Solomon had asked God for wisdom, the Lord answered him: “See, I have given you,” he says, “a wise and prudent heart, such as there was none before you, and after you there shall not arise a man like you.” What shall we say? Is what God promised true? Yes indeed. So no human being will be like Solomon. And what then will be thought of Christ, who says among other things: “The queen of the south came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here”? Now choose whom you will believe, Photinus, God or Christ, the Father or the Son. If you believe the Father, you convict the Son; if you believe the Son, you accuse the Father. For if Christ is only a man, he set himself above Solomon in vain, against God’s promise; but if he is understood to be God as well, he rightly put himself before Solomon, and God’s promise remains inviolate, because no man like Solomon arose. For Christ showed himself greater precisely because he is God.

O the madness of Photinus, who will not confess that Christ existed before Mary, though he hears him testifying with his own voice that he is before Abraham! For when the Jews were disputing with him about time, saying, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”, he answered them: “Amen I say to you, before Abraham I am.” He did not say, “I am better,” but answered what he was asked: that he existed before the time the Jews supposed. Photinus plainly cannot escape the curse of the law, since he has hope in Christ, whom he calls only a man, though he reads: “Cursed is the man who has hope in man.” But the apostle, knowing that Christ is God, and that therefore there is hope in him both in the present and in the future, says: “If in this life only we hope in Christ, we are more miserable than all men.” So he in whom we are taught to have hope is not only a man, because hope in man is vain. We have said these few things out of many; for this last point alone that we have set down would be enough, if Photinus were of sound mind.

Whoever receives the Savior’s peace will incur the enmity of the world. For unless he is at variance with the devil, he will not have peace with Christ; no one can serve two masters. He, then, is at variance with the world who faithfully serves God’s law; fortified by Christ’s peace, he beats back the weapons of all his adversaries. For who would dare to move against one whom he knows to be the king’s friend? Yet the world gives peace in a different way from the way the Savior promised to give it. For the world gives peace either from fear or because it is entreated; but the Savior, since he is stronger than all and fears no one, gives peace without being asked. This peace, then, is saving, given so as to be a defense against enemies. Peace is indeed called by one name, but God’s peace and the world’s are separated by a long distance. The one is fragile, the other strong; the one fleshly, the other spiritual; the one earthly, the other heavenly; the one from necessity, the other from will. For Christ, needing nothing, offers peace to the weak and unarmed: a lord to servants, the good to the wicked, God to men.

Rightly, then, he says: “Not as this world gives do I give to you”; for in saying this he wished the kindness of his good will to be understood. For while everyone gives peace in order to benefit himself, he gives it in order to benefit not himself but those to whom he gives it. So the world gives peace otherwise than the Savior gave it; and the world’s peace does not teach a good life, does not persuade to patience, does not call forth to righteousness, does not exhort to mercy, does not promise eternal life. For whoever receives the peace of Christ will be a stranger to the vices of this world, which wage war against the soul.

In all the passages that have been put forward there is not one single cause. The forms of the several causes are signified briefly, because the Spirit is indeed one, but he has many gifts. When, then, “the Holy Spirit” is read, the function in which he is signified must also be understood. For that he was both with them and was still to come is not false, if you refer this not to the person but to the nature. Christ promised that another would come from the Father, so that, because their divinity is without difference, the Holy Spirit should not be thought absent when Christ was present, and Christ too should be reckoned present at the coming and appearing of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when he promises that he will come, he says: “You see him, because he remains with you and is with you,” so that the apostles might be secure that after the Lord’s ascension they would have for their protection a shepherd or king not lesser or inferior. For there is no doubt that the Spirit was not given to believers except, as the evangelist testifies, after the Lord, rising with death overcome, was glorified. These are the words of the triumphant Lord himself: “For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, whom you are to receive not many days from now.” He appears to have said this at the time when he had determined to ascend to the Father.

But the passage where the Lord is read to have breathed on the disciples a few days after his resurrection and to have said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” is understood to mean the church’s power. For because everything in the Lord’s handing on is done through the Holy Spirit, therefore, when the rule and pattern of this kind of discipline was handed to them, it was said to them: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And because it truly belongs to the church’s authority, he at once added: “Whose sins you retain, they will be retained; if you forgive anyone’s, they will be forgiven them.” This breathing, then, is a certain grace which is poured into those ordained through the handing on, by which they may be held in greater esteem. Hence the apostle says to Timothy: “Do not neglect the grace that is in you, which was given you through the laying on of hands of the presbytery.” So it had to be done once, so that from then on this handing on would be believed not to be without the gift of the Holy Spirit. For just as in the Savior a pattern was given visibly, so that it would not be doubted that after baptism the Holy Spirit is thereafter given invisibly to believers, so in the case mentioned above a pattern was given at the beginning, so that from then on the Holy Spirit may be believed to be poured into the church’s handing on. And power was given to the apostles to do mighty works while the Lord was present, as it had been to the prophets before. So the forms of three functions are shown in the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the apostles. The first is this one, which belongs to the church’s authority, in regenerating and the other offices. The second, which was given at Pentecost, is general, for the Holy Spirit fell not only on the apostles but also on all believers. The third form is the one granted at the beginning only to the apostles or to the ordained for doing signs and mighty works, until the seeds of faith should be sown for growth. For the mighty works done through the apostles are the seeds of faith. They were appointed as overseers of this truth, to testify through signs and wonders that our faith is not irrational. For there is no greater proof of truth than power. It is power that accuses all earthly philosophy, because philosophy has always devoted itself to words alone, not having the testimony of power by which to show that what had been built up by words was firm. So the Holy Spirit is given once, generally, to all believers, and by him they are proved to be sons of God as long as he remains in them. But in doing signs and wonders he does not remain in a person; he comes when called, or suggests what is needed, and withdraws. Likewise in the handing on, that is, ordination, he grants grace from outside, also bringing protection to those devoted to the faith.

When the Savior had been handed over, at the dawn of the Preparation, all the chief priests and scribes and elders gathered in the house of Caiaphas the high priest, where they knew Jesus was to be brought, so as to hear him. Both Matthew and Mark the evangelists testify to this, and that none of them left the governor’s house before the impious work was completed, since all their urgency and zeal for keeping the Pascha lay in the Savior’s death. Since, then, they were occupied from morning until the ninth hour with killing the Lord, how is it proved that Judas returned to them, before the Lord’s cross, the price of blood that he had received, and said to them in the temple, “I have sinned in handing over righteous blood,” since it is certain that the chief priests and elders were not all in the temple before the Lord’s passion, as indeed they mocked him even when he had been placed on the cross?

Nor can it be proved from the fact that it is related before the passion, since there are many things which, though shown to have been done earlier, are placed last. Again, when the context allows, what was done later is placed first. For it is certainly plain that the fiftieth psalm is earlier than the third. So it sometimes happens that later things are anticipated. Hence also, although Mary is shown to have anointed the Lord’s feet with ointment at a supper six days before the Pascha, after the raising of her brother Lazarus, it was anticipated by the evangelist because of its significance, when he says among other things: “Now it was Mary,” he says, “who anointed the Lord with ointment.” He relates this before Lazarus died; and if we did not find that it was done later, we would not know at what time it was done.

But perhaps it happened after the ninth hour, so that the impious and most cruel Judas, seeing the Savior killed and, because of it, the veil of the temple torn, the earth shaken, the rocks split, the elements terrified, was seized by that very fear and grieved, knowing well that he had handed over a righteous man, at whose passion God the judge was so indignant? But after the ninth hour too the elders and chief priests were occupied, I think. For that same evening they were to keep the Pascha, and on the Sabbath it was not lawful according to the law to carry coins. And therefore it cannot be proved, in my view, on what day, or rather at what time, Judas Iscariot ended his life by hanging.