Questions on the Old and New Testament

God is that which no opinion reaches; for he is more than whatever can be said or thought. But let us say something which, though unequal to him, may yet in some measure fit the things that seem worthy of God. For each nature forms its notion of God according to its own capacity, so that as far as nature differs from nature, so far does opinion differ from opinion as to what God is. For because he is above all things, he must exceed the minds of all. Human beings, as far as they can stretch the eye of the mind, look upon what God is by opinion, not by definition; that the angels, who are above human beings, perceive something more of God is not in doubt; the archangels even more by that very fact; and the cherubim and seraphim, which are said to be powers near God, perceive greater things of God, yet do not wholly comprehend what God is, because “no one knows the Father except the Son, nor does anyone know the Son except the Father.”

God, then, as he appears to human beings, is spirit, simple in nature, light inaccessible, invisible, beyond estimation, infinite, perfect, needing nothing, eternal, immortal in every way, from whom all things have taken their beginning; to be venerated, loved, feared; outside whom nothing is, rather in whom are all things that exist, above, below, highest and lowest; almighty, all-holding, truly rich in all things, because there is nothing that is not his; good, just, merciful. Good, because he made exist what did not exist; just, because the things he made were left to their own free choice so that they might make progress (and because they are not so perfect that they cannot fall, he decreed that seeds of the law should be in them by nature, adding the help of the revealed law, so that its authority might be for people’s advancement); and merciful, because he does not readily repay sinners, but bears with them so as to pardon them when they turn. He is also severe, so that the things he has well established may be preserved by fear, lest negligence should bring about the ruin of life. And, not to pass over what is more wonderful, so great is his clemency that, having suffered insults from those he made, he bears them and is the first to call them to peace. Is this not a work of greater power than to have founded creation? If he remained in this alone, his excessive goodness would harm creation. Hence he wants sometimes to be loved, sometimes to be feared, lest those who stray from him perish. This is why, lest his patience be thought something to be despised (to our harm entirely, certainly not his), he says: “I have kept silent; shall I keep silent for ever?”

So, since God is good, all the things he made are good. Whence, then, is evil? Nothing is evil except the transgression of good, when things not granted are presumed, or things granted are done out of order, so that what is commanded in one place is done in another: when what is granted with a wife is done with a prostitute; when what was to be offered to God is offered to the devil; when someone takes not his own but another’s; and when, although it is permitted to kill a transgressor, an innocent man is killed. No nature, then, is proved to be evil. But will is an accident of nature, conceived from causes, which is moved badly when it exceeds its measure, so as to do things that are not of its nature. And the causes of transgression arise from the senses, when we see or hear something badly. This thing produces this error because man is not God, who alone cannot err.

So human nature has been left to its own choice, so that it can do what it wills; so that if exercise improves the good of its nature, it may be honored, but if it weakens its vigor, such a one may be held worthy of disgrace; for he does what is against himself. It is no small thing that has been granted to man: that when he follows what is right he may rejoice in himself, because he sees himself better by his own work, or else blame himself, who, when he could, did not take pains to improve himself with good things. But if man were not in his own power, he would have been subject to necessity, so as to have neither the glory of a good work nor the punishment of an evil one, but he would have been one of the beasts.

Since, then, we have been made capable of both, so that we sin through negligence if we hear and see badly, that is, contrary to nature and reason, what we ought to hear and see well, but keep the good of our nature through vigilance; and since we cannot always be on guard, because, as I said, we have been made capable of both: if we sin, we are not yet condemned unless we offend again, as if now ruined. For one who has sinned once ought to restore himself so as not to sin again, lest he be equal to the one who had conquered him; so that if he does not sin again, he is now held superior, because, thrown down once, he has triumphed twice. This is justice: that, since there is a wrestling match in the world, the one who is more inclined not to sin is crowned.

There is nothing evil, then, in God’s work, even if certain things are called evil by some, such as poison or darkness (for because our bodies cannot bear the force of poison, it is called evil, as though they could bear fire or water), and iron or lead, because it is far inferior to gold, will be called evil. For they condemn darkness by comparison with light, though they know it is necessary in its place, as are lead or clay; for darkness at least gives rest after labor.

So everyone who wrestles in the world must strive not to go away beaten in a hard struggle and become guilty, restoring himself barely or late, and perhaps meanwhile his end may come, and he may depart from here with sin. For one who resists with all his strength, if he is perhaps thrown, falls as if a man, and no one is angry with him, but rather restores his spirit with some encouragement; for one has seen that he had the purpose of conquering, and hopes that such a one can advance to victory, whom his enemy did not throw without tiring himself. For one who is easily conquered has no spirit to resist, and is not conquered but consents. This man sins more bitterly; such a one is hardly to be admitted to pardon, who has the wish to offend. For one who takes care not to sin, even if he does sin, does not sin grievously. For lesser sins sometimes creep up on the diligent; for the smaller they are, the subtler, and while they are despised they are not avoided. The greater ones appear from afar, and therefore one who sins in the greater ones commits a crime of his will.

Certainly, since we said above that sins take their origin from the senses, when we look at or hear something contrary to the command of the law or to reason: for example, if, seeing the sun, we think it is to be worshiped because of its beauty, then we see badly, because it is an insult to the common Creator that what is due to him alone should be assigned to a creature, since he has forbidden it through the law. Or when we see bodies well formed and comely, or if we covet something of our neighbor’s, we look at them otherwise than the law commands; then sin occurs, which is called evil. But perhaps it may be said: “Nothing beautiful ought to have been made, so that we would not sin,” so that our protection would consist in the ugliness of other things; nor should there be iron, so that murders would not be done with it; nor should a lamp be in use, so that thieves would not use its light to break in; so that what is greatly useful to all would be lacking because of the empty talk of some; whereas it is plain that we always look at all things and yet do not always covet, because the fault is not theirs but ours when we are negligent. This plainly comes about from the interval of creation, because we are not what God is. And we hear badly if, hearing that idols are gods, we agree, or if we lend an ear to those singing shameful things. But we hear well if, hearing about God that he is one, we delight in it. And if anyone hearing something against the law assents, he sins: this will be hearing badly.

He made, because he is a maker; or let it be denied, if he is not. But his works themselves show that he is. He made, then, so that what was not before might be, because without doubt it is better to be than not to be. But it is said: “Was there some void where he could make, or what was there before where he made?” The vessel of election settles this in a few words. For he says, when he was speaking of God: “In him we live and move and are”; that is, all things are in God, because he is everywhere and before all things alone, eternal, invisible to every creature.

And lest we seem to have passed over, or rather not to have known, the mystery of why the world was made, we say that the devil’s apostasy drew many angels, that is, spiritual powers, with him into transgression, when he wanted to claim a kingdom for himself by impious presumption. The prophet Isaiah indicates this, saying: “How has Lucifer fallen from heaven, who rose in the morning!” that is, “who appeared more shining than the rest.” For he was as it were the chief of many, among whom he was the more brilliant, in whose company he descended to the impious struggle. For seeing many spiritual powers below him, since in God’s paradise he was more eminent in knowledge of the heavenly mystery, puffed up by that very elation he wanted to be called God; by the same reasoning, indeed, by which even in the present life we see some imitating his example, who, lifted up by the sight of the soldiers gathered around them, with their attendants supplying the kindling of conspiracy in this matter, have wanted to claim imperial power for themselves.

Hence it is that God, in order to destroy his presumption not by power but by reason, created matter, which was a confusion of things, from which he made the world. For things that were confused together, once distinguished, produced this adornment we see. For when the substances had been separated from one another and joined together, it is called “world” (mundus), because each thing, separated from another, appeared clean (ad mundum); so that man, placed here, created from the upper and lower things, that is, from heavenly and earthly, might show that the one God is Lord not only by his voice but also by his image, by which he was made one by the one God, from whom the rest would arise. For one made one for this reason, to teach that all things are from one and therefore that God is one; so that the higher creation might learn the truth, to its confusion, in man, who was formed from the earth.

From that time the devil became man’s enemy; for he perceived that man was made for his accusation. Hence by his subtlety he contrived to lead him into the same transgression into which he himself had fallen, so as to make his accuser a sharer in his condemnation. For by transgression he promised him the deity which he himself fell while aspiring to. And because every nature is free from crime, names come from what is accidental (for first the thing, afterward the meaning), and therefore “Satan” and “devil” are names composed from his acts, so as to signify not his nature but his will.

So, so that God’s purpose, which he decreed in creating man, might stand, and the devil’s deed, by which he got round man, might go to heap up his guilt, Christ deigned to come from the sacred seats to earth, both to free man from the sentence of transgression and to show the devil’s future perdition, lest anyone imitate his deed. For this reason the apostle John said: “For this the Son of God came, to undo the works of the devil.” If he were evil by nature, to promise him punishment would be the act of a madman or an unjust man. For who would blame one whom he sees doing nothing other than what his nature allows? Can one be angry with fire because it burns, or with water because it chills, when it certainly does this not by will but by nature? Hence the devil too, if he were evil by nature, would have no will. For he could not discern, but would plunge into everything in one and the same way, as if blind.

But in fact he does this with a certain judgment; for he spares those who do his will, overlooks certain neutral people, puts stumbling blocks and hindrances in the way of those who want to flee to God’s help, lays snares for God’s servants, and is more hostile to those who are readier in his service. Hence it is plain that his will is at fault. For this reason the apostle Peter says: “Be sober and watchful, because your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom to devour.” He does not seek gentiles, he does not seek Jews, he does not seek those of evil life and conduct, but he seeks the servants of God and of Christ, whom he knows to be his enemies, because they condemn his deed and presumption.

Indeed, when the law was given, his envy blazed up more against those under the law, knowing that the teachings of the law hand on one God and good conduct to people. So if he is thought to do these things by nature, he cannot be made guilty, because he does what belongs to his nature and what he can, and does not do what he cannot, because it is not of his nature; and so he is neither to be praised nor condemned: not to be praised, because the things he does are harmful; not to be condemned, because he does them not by will but by the impulse of nature. For we know that some, having suddenly gone mad, have done much harm with iron, club, stones, and bites, and some have even killed; yet when they were caught with effort and brought to trial, they were not made guilty, because they did these things not by will but driven by some force or other, without knowing. For how is one made guilty who does not know what he did? So too the devil, if he does not know the good, why is he judged worthy of condemnation, who does not do what he does not know? Indeed, if it could be, he would be praiseworthy, because he does what he knows.

But we are rightly made guilty, because we do otherwise than we know we ought to do. And since through all Scripture we see the devil made guilty, and for this reason we read that Gehenna is prepared for him, we know that he is to be condemned by laws, because, though he knew and could do good, he did evil. For God, who is just, would not condemn him because he had not done good, which he had not known, or because he had done evil, which he had known [to be his nature]. I think it has thus been made plain that no nature ought to be called evil, because every evil, as has become clear, comes from the will, which befalls nature through the senses.

It did not need to be written down earlier, because there was not yet so great an error among people from this cause. But when error grew in the human race, so that even the children of Israel in Egypt heard it handed down against this account by the philosophers of the Egyptians (by whom Moses too had been instructed in all Egyptian learning), which asserts that a certain Saclas made this world through evil angels, and that he is seen to be the prince of this world, that is, Satan (a view following which Marcion fell into death; for the Manichees too say that man was made by the same Saclas, though not this world, being more foolish than the rest; for since it is agreed that the world was made for man’s sake, they say the world was made by God, though from another’s material, but man created by the adversary, as if one man set a master in another’s house), it was necessary, then, for Moses, in order to expose and remove this error, to make it plain that God is the author of the world and of the man that was made. For having received authority through the signs and wonders he did, he taught without doubt that what he handed down with signs as witnesses was true. For who would not believe one whose signs were so great in what he did? Indeed, hence it is that those who think against this teaching are known to err, because they try to support their assertions with bare words.

So, to teach that nothing is coeternal with God, he sets out the very order of created things, so that, by mentioning the lesser things made first and afterward the greater, none of these may be held uncreated; because the things that are lesser in time are greater in power, so that if the former think to claim precedence by time, they may be refuted by the very weakness by which they are subject to the later ones; or if the latter claim the first place by presuming on their power, they may be humbled by their very lateness; so that none of these may be seen as not subject to a beginning. First, indeed, heaven and earth were made; then light, which in its function is day; afterward the firmament, which was called heaven, and the gatherings of the waters, which he called seas, so that the earth might appear, on which one could live. And by the earth which he says was made after heaven, he does not want earth alone to be understood, but signified matter, that is, all the lower things, which developed into every form of the world. And he maintains that the heaven made in the beginning is not this fleshly one but that higher one which is spiritual; so that, saying that heaven was made first, then earth, he might signify that all invisible things in heaven and all visible things on earth were created by God. For he comprehended the highest and lowest of all nature, so that whatever is in between may be believed beyond doubt to have been made. The lights, which he established to govern the world, he asserts were made on the fourth day, so that the greater they are in power, the lower they are in time. And he set man on the sixth day, to bring an inhabitant into a house already made.

Hence it is that what displeases some was said: “And God saw the light, that it was good”; so that, since all things were said to be made by an evil one and could not be believed good, Moses, to prove that the things made are good, showed that the things he made pleased God himself, so as to make guilty anyone they displeased. For how could he not know the light, who said, “Let there be light, and there was light”? Does anyone make what he does not know? The light that was made pleased the one who made it. What craftsman does not rejoice in his work? If, though it was said, “God saw the light, that it was good,” there are still those who say it is evil, what if it had been left without testimony?

So, having described the making of the world and the origin of the first man, he kept to the line of descent of Seth, who was given in place of Abel, and came in order to Abraham, the father of the Jews, to show that Abraham believed in this God who is the maker of the world, and that he gave the law, in which the future Christ was promised, who would free the human race from the devil’s dominion. From these things our faith is proved reasonable; for the origin described bears witness to it, because the race of Christians is from the beginning. For from Seth, the son of Adam, one comes to Enoch, from Enoch to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham one descends to David, and from David Christ is born of Mary by the Holy Spirit. All the earlier ones, then, as many as had the faith in the one God which the Savior preached, are rightly to be called Christians; for from the beginning the Savior was promised as coming. Hence it says in the Apocalypse: “the lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world.” So Christianity always existed. For all these I mentioned above, from the first man created in the world, through whom the line extends to the Savior, had faith in this God, of whom Christ spoke, saying: “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only and true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” It can be said in reply: “If Christianity existed before, what knowledge came through Christ?” The coming of Christ brought this advance in understanding: that it showed the mystery of the one God who had been preached, and demonstrated what belongs to which person, and, to fulfill the righteousness of the law, added what had been held in reserve.

The law formed in letters did not need to be given first, because it is in some way implanted in nature itself, and knowledge of the Creator was not hidden, being handed down by descent. For who does not know what befits a good life, or is unaware that what one does not want done to oneself ought not to be done to another? But when the natural law faded away, pressed down by the habit of sinning, then it had to be made manifest, so that in the Jews all might hear; not that it had been wholly blotted out, but it lacked its greatest authority: idolatry was pursued; there was no fear of God on earth; sexual immorality was practiced; they were greedy with desire for their neighbor’s goods. So the law was given, so that the things that were known might have authority and those that had begun to be hidden might be made manifest. For we find that before Moses sins were not only not hidden but were also punished. For this reason many are found to have been righteous; for, knowing God as avenger, they feared to sin. When this began to be neglected, the natural law had to be revealed, so that all might know by open reasoning that the Lord would require an account of human acts. Although we read that vengeance was taken through the flood and on Sodom and Gomorrah, yet the forgetfulness of antiquity had covered these things over; hence they were recalled through Moses for the sake of fear, to correct discipline and reform faith in God. Therefore the apostle too says: “The law is not laid down for the righteous but for the unrighteous, idol worshipers, fornicators,” and such.

Now let us see whether it suits those who, hearing of God’s judgment, laugh that it will come, whether it will profit or harm, whether it is fortified by truth or lacks reason. The law was indeed given to the world, but we see it lapse with many: it does not, then, seem just. Why should sinners be secure here through power, others mock the laws, the poor be oppressed, accusations be fabricated against the just, those who do well be held in reproach, the godly be in need, the wicked flourish, the unjust and corrupters be in honor, the greedy and robbers grow rich, and the judge be for sale? Would it not seem unjust if the Creator of things did not require an account of these things, so that those unjustly oppressed here might be lifted up, and those who were in need for living well might be rewarded, and those who were in reproach for righteousness might be honored; but those who through power despised the laws, or mocked them by evasion, pursuing iniquity, so glorious in these things that they seemed to insult justice itself, might be humbled and confounded and subjected to torments in the sight of those in whose misfortunes and contempt they rejoiced, so that these too, glad at their punishment, might give thanks to God, with whom alone respect of persons ceases?

This can be gathered from the words of the reading itself, since the story is not veiled by literary art. For the very speech of Scripture shows Abel to be prudent and devout, but Cain negligent and improvident and therefore less devout. Abel, then, chose the better of what pleased him to offer to God the Creator, so as to offer him the choicest of the very things he had created, by which he would prove both his dedication and God’s desert, showing both his own reverence and God as the author. Cain, like a rustic, could not perceive this in advance. For, putting his whole mind into the earth, he could not raise the eyes of his mind to heaven so as to see what was worthy of the Creator; for he offered God gifts of any sort whatever.

This cause of a crooked mind is also found in the Jews. For they were often rebuked when they offered their gifts carelessly at God’s altar, gifts that would not seem worthy even of men, as the Lord says: “You offer me the blind and the one-eyed; I will not accept these from your hands. Offer them to your governor or your leader, and see if he accepts them”; since it is agreed by all that the greatest gifts ought to be offered to an exalted person. And so Cain’s gifts were rejected, God saying to him: “Why are you saddened, and why has your face fallen? If you offer rightly but do not divide rightly, have you not sinned? Be still. Its turning is to you, and you will rule over it.”

You see, then, that the division incurs sin. Not considering what was worthy of God, he kept the better things for his own use. So he was not rebuked because he offered, but because he offered unworthy things; nor was he condemned for it, but warned to amend the deed. “For its turning is to you,” he says, “and you will rule over it,” that is, “since I do not accept it, the gift you offered has returned to your ownership,” so that he would know what to do in the future. From this envy blazed up so that he killed his brother, so that the one who first showed righteousness was killed by the unrighteous, and an evil example was given to people. For he was so blinded by jealous rivalry that he not only did not give thanks (because he had not been made guilty, but had even learned how to amend it), but even added something else more grave, by which he deserved to be condemned.

The case of improvident and murderous Cain is like that of the wicked servant who, when his master had forgiven him, became ungrateful and, going out, choked his fellow servant, so that he was condemned without excuse both for the crime of the past, which had been forgiven him, and for the impiety committed against his fellow servant. And yet Cain was not condemned for the present, but was sent away upon the earth confounded and guilty, under fear, so that, if he repented, he might be pardoned. Indeed, fearing that someone would kill him for this deed, he said to God: “My case is too great for me to be left. If you cast me out today from your face, I will hide also from the face of the earth, and I will be groaning and trembling on the earth; and it will be that anyone who finds me will kill me.” Terrified by the words of the just judge God, Cain fears to be despised by God, so that he thinks he must also flee from the sight of men, certain that one who lives under God’s anger can also be killed by a man. But what did the Lord answer him? “Not so,” he says; that is, “I have not sent you back for this, when you do not deserve to live, that you should be killed by someone, but that you should groan and tremble, as the first to give an evil example on the earth, while the ground does not answer your labors with fruit.” “So anyone who kills Cain,” he says, “will pay sevenfold vengeance.” This sentence shows that Cain was rightly to be condemned. For when he saw a law given with such a threat, lest anyone imitate his deed, he began to fear the more, knowing what evil he had committed.

So he promises sevenfold vengeance if anyone aspired to this crime, so that, seeing Cain made guilty by this deed, and while there was not yet a revelation of the law, he might know that he would be fined with a sevenfold penalty if he did not avoid it; so that knowledge of the law would add six blows beyond what Cain had deserved, so that with Cain’s blow seven vengeances would be counted. By this number too those are to be rewarded who leave all things and follow the Lord, and in the future they will have eternal life. This is the sign that God set on Cain, so that no one who found him should kill him. For a law was laid down concerning the parricide, so that if anyone committed homicide (because every parricide is a homicide), he would be seven times more guilty than Cain had been, so that, frightened by this severity, the rest might restrain themselves from this crime.

Those are wrong who think that Lamech said of Cain: “I have killed a man to my bruising and a young man to my wound.” For Lamech was already born in the fifth generation from Cain, that is, from Methushael, Cain’s great-great-grandson. Lamech recalls this to show that one who has sinned under a revealed law is to be bound more severely. And therefore, if after Cain vengeance was taken sevenfold on his imitator, how much more must it be taken on one whom neither Cain’s deed and rebuke nor the sentence passed after him frightened into turning his will from so impious and cruel a crime! After Cain, then, Lamech committed homicide, who without doubt, according to what was said above, paid sevenfold vengeance. And he shows what would happen after Lamech to anyone who followed this, saying: “But for Lamech seventy times seven”; because if repentance does not follow an evil work, let it be struck with blows of seventy-seven plagues. Hence the Savior too commanded that one who sins even seventy times seven times, yet turns, should be forgiven.

But lest it be thought that someone else after Cain committed homicide before Lamech, because he said, “vengeance has been taken for Cain,” as if already done: how could Lamech say of himself that vengeance had been taken on him, when the homicide he had confessed to having committed was still recent? Because it is agreed that every deed carries its sentence with it. For when there is no other hope except what is known to be due to the completed work, the future is held as done. Indeed, it was said to Adam: “On the day you eat, you shall die the death”; and certainly they did not die at once, but after a long interval of time; but because the hope of immortality had already been lost, the future death was called present, because it began to be held in expectation. So Lamech confesses that he killed a young man, and Cain, as has become clear, could not reach this time, or if he did, which is impossible, he was old.

He called the ten statements “ten words,” because the Savior too signified a meaning by “word,” saying among other things to the Jews: “I too will ask you one word; answer me: the baptism of John, where was it from, from heaven or from men?” He called this meaning a “word.” In a similar way, ten words are said to have been written on two tablets, which are ten meanings. Indeed he says: “You shall have no other gods besides me” (this is the first word), and he added: “You shall not make for yourself any likeness of the things in heaven above and on earth below, nor in the water which is under the earth.” Then he added thirdly: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not cleanse one who takes his name in vain,” that is, “you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in a lie, so as to perjure yourself by it.” Then in fourth place he says: “You shall keep the sabbaths of the Lord your God and shall do no servile work on it.” These are four words of the ten; these belong properly to the Lord; these are written on the first tablet.

Then on the second tablet these are contained: the first word is, “Honor your father and mother”; the second, “You shall not kill”; the third, “You shall not commit sexual immorality”; the fourth, “You shall not steal”; the fifth, “You shall not bear false witness”; the sixth, “You shall not covet anything of your neighbor’s,” and the like. The apostle Paul proves that these were written on the second tablet, saying: “Honor father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise.” How would it be first unless the second tablet began with it? And he said “with a promise” because he at once added: “that you may live long on the earth and that it may be well with you.” This is the promise made to those who keep the commandments. So you have the commandments distinguished, their number completed, and what and how many were written on each tablet.

Having received power against sinners, he came down from the mountain with honor, his face glorious. For the law was given against sinners. Moses, then, because he had not sinned, appeared glorious, so much so that he could not be looked upon by sinners. For it was shown in him that sinners do not deserve to behold the glory of God. For after the image of the molten calf and the breaking of the tablets on which the law had been given, Moses, going up the mountain again with the tablets, on which he received the law, when he came down, his face was made glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look upon his face, nor Aaron, because he too had sinned; but with a veil interposed he spoke to them, so that they would be unworthy of the glory of God as long as they continued in sins.

Hence the apostle says: “When he turns to the Lord, the veil will be taken away,” so that, washed by God’s gift, they might become worthy to look upon the glory of God. For by the breaking of the tablets he had received before, he signified that the people of the Jews were reprobate, because, devoted to sins, they were going to be unworthy of God’s promise. And the repetition of the law signified that there would be another people, for whom the law given on the mountain would profit.

Because words have many kinds of meaning, they produce questions. For if they are referred to the matter under discussion, there will be no question, because the things themselves will show themselves in order. For sometimes we call “common” what is undivided, sometimes what is unclean; for “common” is used in two ways. Indeed the apostle Peter says: “Nothing common and unclean has ever entered my mouth”; and the apostle Paul says: “Everything that is not from faith is sin,” and elsewhere he says: “The law is not from faith,” and yet it is not sin. You see, then, that one and the same word does not always mean the same thing.

So too when something is called “unclean,” one must consider for what reason it is said; because sometimes it is called unclean by comparison with better things, sometimes it refers to filthy works, so that evil is understood. No substance, then, is evil, because things thought unclean in their substance are unclean by comparison with the most beautiful things. For bread too is called unclean, and oil and lead are unclean in comparison with gold, and the raven compared with the peacock; and though they are members of one body, some are called honorable, others dishonorable, though they are known not to be evil. So all things are good in their own nature, because they are useful.

As far as the words go, it seems contradictory; but if the sense is sought, it will be found not to differ. For the law speaks in such a way that it can be understood by the diligent and careful, so that the reason of the truth reveals itself not to the incurious but to the attentive. For God certainly said, “in the fourth generation,” and Moses wrote, “in the fifth generation,” although Moses reported both, and it is impossible that he, in whom such great power was at work, should be deceived. And therefore the sense must be investigated, because divine Scripture says nothing idly or carelessly. So there are two parts, which each mentioned. For God signified four generations which were born in Egypt; but Moses, adding to these one, from which these took their origin when they entered Egypt, said: “In the fifth generation the children of Israel went out.” For he included together the generation which entered Egypt and the four that were born there. For from Abraham to the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt there are eight generations. For they lived two hundred and fifteen years in Canaan from the promise made to Abraham, and two hundred and fifteen in Egypt.

These are the years which the apostle includes in Galatians, saying: “The law was made after four hundred and thirty years.” So these four generations were born in Canaan: one in Isaac, another in Jacob, the third in Levi, the fourth in Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. And when the children of Israel had entered Egypt, Kohath begot Amram (this is the first generation made in Egypt); and Amram begot Aaron, Moses, and Miriam, which is the second generation made in Egypt; and Aaron begot Eleazar and his brothers, which is the third generation; and Eleazar begot Phinehas in the fourth generation. These are the four generations born in Egypt. Hence God says to Abraham: “Your seed will be a sojourner, and they will oppress them with slavery; but I will set them free; in the fourth generation they will go out from there.” See whether it is not plain that God signified nothing other than what was done in Egypt. But Moses, in order to include also that generation which entered Egypt with Jacob their father, from which these four take their origin, said: “In the fifth generation the children of Israel went out of the land of Egypt.”

The will of a righteous man, as far as his conscience goes, is good; but as far as foreknowledge goes, he is not immune from adversity. For God alone judges of the future. And therefore Isaac, a righteous man, as far as was fitting to present humanity, thought his elder son more deserving of the blessing. But God, who knows hidden things, showed that the younger deserved the blessing, so as to show that in a blessing the benefit is not man’s but God’s, and that it belongs to the dignity of the office, not to the merit of the man, which God’s blessing follows. Indeed, it was said by God in Numbers to Moses and Aaron the priests: “But you shall put my name upon the children of Israel; I the Lord will bless them”; so that the tradition, through the ministry of the one ordained, may pour grace into people, and the priest’s will can neither harm nor help, but the merit of the one asking for the blessing.

And let us note from this how great is the dignity of the priestly order. For it was said of the most wicked Caiaphas, the Savior’s killer, among other things: “This he did not say of himself, but being high priest that year he prophesied.” By this it is shown that the Spirit of graces follows not the person, whether worthy or unworthy, but the ordination of the tradition; so that, although someone may be of good merit, he cannot bless unless he has been ordained, so as to exercise the office of ministry. And it belongs to God to give the effect of the blessing.

If you are willing to pay attention, you will see that what you think contrary to reason is not unfitting. For believing that he would have a son in whom all nations would be blessed and from whom holiness was to arise, he received the sign in that part by which the begetting of children takes place and ceases, so that it might be holier. But if to some it seems a disfigurement, let them notice that Abraham rejoiced in it and his children were glorious by this testimony. For Achior, certainly one of the princes of the gentiles, seeing that there was such great power in the God of Abraham that he beheaded Holofernes, the general of the Assyrian army, whose might the whole earth trembled at, with his own sword by a woman’s hand, circumcised himself of his own accord, thinking that by this very thing he had gained dignity. Does not someone who has lost an eye or some member for the name of Christ display it? Does he not thrust that very part before people’s faces, so as to appear glorious? For to lose something for a time for the faith is to make a gain.

So Abraham too, receiving the sign of his faith, was not disfigured but improved. And spiritually it signified that the cloud of the flesh was to be circumcised from human hearts through faith in Christ, because fleshly error stood in the way, spreading darkness over human hearts so that they would not know the Creator. And Abraham, because the Christ who would wipe away this darkness was promised to come from his seed, was circumcised because he believed he would have a son who would cut off this error. Now see whether it was not fitting that he received such a sign in that part.

So that the exceedingly impious crime of the Sodomites may be noticed, their sin reached even to the death of their own children, so that no trace of their origin might remain. Was it not provided in their case that, living long, they should not follow the examples of their fathers? For they are free from Gehenna, having been killed in another’s cause. For the parents are guilty both for themselves and for these, because, so that their works might be blotted out, their whole progeny was erased. For if children rejoice in the goods of their parents and are commended by their prerogative, so too they cannot complain of the death inflicted because of their parents’ evils; so that, just as they are sharers in the gain, they are also in the loss. Likewise in Egypt too the children were punished for the offenses of the fathers, but so that it might serve for their correction; so that, because for other reasons they would not believe in and venerate the Lord who was in Moses, they might, terrified by this plague, confess with satisfaction, lest they experience his anger more heavily.

This death of the children, then, is the crime of the fathers. For however the children gave back the spirit they owed, they will be accusers of their parents, because these could not overcome their faithlessness even by the blood of their children. So the evils of the parents befell the children not for the future but for the present time. Nor is it a small benefit not to be glorious, yet not guilty. For if some, placed at the very end, strive with prayers to come to the faith of the true one, so as to deserve, if not a crown, at least pardon, how can any complain about this, who have been so dealt with that there was neither anything for which to pray to be pardoned, nor were they held exalted who had not labored at all? Compare now the torment of one moment with the punishment of a long time; consider also that many labor and, because they cannot persevere, not only lose the effect of their labor but are also fined with punishment; add too that those born of evil parents and brought up or living among the most wicked hardly temper their mind to follow God’s discipline: see, then, whether it was not rather well done with the children of the lost.

Whoever doubts that the Lord does or says nothing unjustly is mad. So if the Lord’s words are not suppressed, but everything that belongs to the same question is set out, what seems obscure will become clear, and what is thought not at all just will be judged godly. For one who suppresses the words of a question is either unskilled or evasive, more eager for false charges than for teaching. Now God did promise that he would repay the sins of the fathers on the children, but on those who hate him, that is, those who, engaged in their fathers’ evils, serve idols as their fathers did. For he is God’s enemy who claims the honor of his name for a creature. For just as the children of the righteous, being righteous themselves, ennoble the race of righteousness in themselves, while they are exalted both by their fathers’ righteousness and their own, so also the children of the most wicked, being most wicked themselves, increase wickedness, because they are both the children of the wicked and have copied their wickedness to the ruin of many.

God seems to have spoken with terror, then, but it is true, and reason supports it. For who would not curse doubly a bad man who is the son of a bad man, just as he judges a good man and son of a good man worthy of double honor? And he promised to repay to the third and fourth generation so that, if after a bad father the son does not follow his father’s faithlessness, but the grandson becomes an imitator of his grandfather in evils, he may know that he will not be immune from the severity of the sentence; or if the grandson perhaps follows the footsteps not of his grandfather but of his father and loves the covenant of God, the great-grandson may not be unaware that the sentence reaches to him, if he emulates his great-grandfather’s faithlessness.

By this revelation of the law God wanted to deter impious fathers, so that, recognizing how much evil the pursuit of idolatry brings forth, they might be called back to reverence for the Creator at least by affection for their children; or that the children, fearing to incur their fathers’ sins, might obey God’s law. But they, attending to wickedness, began to interpret this otherwise, saying: “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” so that, secure of impunity because their sins would be repaid to their children, they had no devotion either of spirit or of flesh. Hence it is said to them, not “the son shall die for the father” or “the father for the son,” but: “The soul that sins, it shall die”; so that they might learn that it would not be without punishment for them, but that the fathers’ sins are repaid to the children in such a way that, because, following their parents’ impiety, they copied the evils that ought to have been blotted out, they are punished more severely.

After God showed what evil idolatry brings forth, he at once added what goods follow those who love him, saying: “and showing mercy to thousands of thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments,” so as to repay the good of a father not to the great-grandson but to thousands of thousands. For example, if anyone from the seed of David loves the Lord, who certainly lived a thousand years before, God’s mercy is added to him, so that in need he deserves to receive mercy with two causes supporting him: that he himself is a worshiper of God and that he is of the seed of one who loved God. And in this God’s clemency is praiseworthy, that to those who hate him he repays to the third and fourth generation and not to thousands of thousands; so that if the evil is drawn out to the fifth generation, it begins again to have a head from there, so as to be counted from it to the third and fourth generation.

But someone will say: “It seems just that more should be repaid to the author than to the imitator.” Fitting vengeance is given to the author; but what he says is repaid more to the children is the punishment of the fathers. And if you ask, by the coming of the law sinners become more guilty, as with Lamech and after Lamech. Yet to some it seems that the sins of the fathers were repaid on the children in this way, when they were led into captivity because of their fathers and were there until the fourth generation. If this is true, God repaid the sins of the fathers not only to those who hate him but also to those who love his name, for Daniel too was carried off, and the three youths, and Baruch, and Ezekiel, and Ezra was born there. It plainly appears, then, that what we said above fits the question proposed.

Excessive righteousness incurs sin, but tempered righteousness makes people perfect. For one who is very righteous is not without malice, because if you respond to sinners in every particular, there will be no lack of occasions for you to sin. Indeed God’s righteousness is tempered; for he sometimes forgives sinners, sometimes is angry, sometimes repays them not as much as they deserve; for he bears with them, so that there may be those who make progress. For the law, because it cannot soften itself, must be mitigated by us, so that it can profit those who live under it. So the one who imitates God is not “very righteous.”

What Moses had done without counsel he corrected at the appearance of the threatening angel. Indeed, seeing what had been passed over through negligence, he [the angel] ceased from anger. Moses saw the angel so hostile to him and ready for vengeance for this reason, that the fault of an exalted man is a grave sin. For the more his person is looked up to, the more his light offense becomes a most bitter sin. So he was going to the children of Israel, sent by the God of Abraham, and he did not bear the sign of Abraham’s righteousness, in which he knew the Jews gloried, so that he would either be called a troublemaker or said not to be sent by the same God who had chosen Abraham. For living in Midian he had not circumcised his sons, whom he either ought not to have taken with him to Egypt, he who was going to lead the others out of there, or else ought to have taken circumcised, for the reasons we gave above.

So Zipporah, Moses’ wife (Scripture speaks briefly), not unaware why the angel appeared hostile to her husband, took and circumcised her son, and the angel withdrew. For the anger was calmed by the same reason by which it had been kindled. For Scripture says some things briefly, wanting them to be understood from the reasoning set out, as also in what the Savior says among other things to the Jews: “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor father and mother,’ and, ‘Whoever curses father or mother, let him die the death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to father or mother, “Every gift that comes from me will profit you,” and does not honor his father or mother.’” Without doubt the Savior said this in brief, so that it might be understood that the priests of the Jews, devoted to avarice, had spurned God’s law; for in an impious conspiracy they advised sons that, having cursed father or mother, they should offer something as a gift to God, by which the sentence pronounced against those who curse would be dissolved; hence the sons, made secure, despised their parents against God’s command. So too Moses, when he saw the angel hostile to him, understanding the cause, showed his wife what should be done, so that the angel who sought to kill him might withdraw from him. This is understood in this case, as is what we said above about the priests.

Because it had begun to be understood otherwise than it had been given, the prophet Isaiah afterward showed in what sense it was said. For when this had been laid down as a sentence because of God’s being offended (because, deserting God, they were struck in this, that though taking wives they would not leave offspring), human error seized on it so that they thought those guilty before God who either did not want wives or, having taken them, could not beget, as often happens; as if God sought nothing else than offspring, as they are rebuked through the prophet Malachi. So Isaiah, to console those whom a wrong understanding had saddened, taught that it does no harm if someone either cannot or does not want to have children, provided he keeps God’s law. For the curse applied to those who, though they could and would, were barren because a divine judgment stood in the way, so that they might not have the fruit of God’s creation, which they despised; so that, seeing that they either could not beget or could not keep those begotten, they might recognize that it was the anger of an indignant God and, turning, make satisfaction.

For holy men too, when they longed for children and did not obtain them, thought that sins stood in the way, and grieved, not knowing that it was the providence of God, for whom they were being kept. Indeed by God’s arrangement Hannah conceived and bore Samuel, and Elizabeth John, and Manoah’s wife Samson. Yet the spiritual understanding in this case is this: that those are to be held cursed who have not left offspring that will see the Lord, that is, “who has not trained a son or a slave or a neighbor to teach the fear of God on earth.”

It is not fitting to revise God’s judgment; for human weakness and inexperience ought to instruct itself by God’s judgment in that in which it is not wise, so as to understand the truth from God’s sentence and that nothing else ought to have been done than what it sees the Lord has done, whom it knows to be no respecter of persons. For if he accepted David’s prayer and rejected Saul’s, nothing contrary is to be thought about what the Lord did. For knowing with what mind each spoke, he accepted the petition of the one he saw asking pardon with a troubled heart, but disregarded the other, because the pain of repentance had not touched his mind; for God hears the heart more than the voice. Hence it is said: “Man sees the face, but God the heart.” And so we are deceived, because pretense in words and face gets round us; for what is in the heart we cannot see.

So we ought to follow God’s judgment, who examines each according to the heart, in which each one’s real judgment lies. We find that the Savior did this too. For he did not accept the scribe who offered himself, but called Levi sitting at the tax booth, because the scribe’s heart did not follow his words, whereas Levi, silent, had in his heart what the scribe had in words. And Jesus, who, as it is written, knew what was in man, chose Levi. Moreover, David did not want another to be humbled for him, as Saul did, but himself, a suppliant with troubled heart, prayed for pardon.

God made man so that, as long as he did not sin, he would flourish in immortality, so that he himself would be the author of either life or death for himself; so that, guarding himself from sin, he might rejoice that he was immortal by his own labor, but, having become negligent, he might blame himself for having begun to be mortal. For as long as he remained in the Creator’s law, he was worthy to eat of the tree of life, so as to be unable to die. For the body was not such that it seemed impossible to be dissolved, but the taste of the tree of life held back the body’s corruption. Indeed even after sin he could have remained indissoluble, if only he had been permitted to eat of the tree of life. For how did he have an immortal body that was sustained by food? For an immortal does not need food or drink. For food supplied strength, but the tree of life, like a medicine, prevented all corruption. So it was for man like an impregnable wall.

The bread he calls of angels is manna. And manna is interpreted, “What is this?” For the children of Israel, seeing something white like coriander seed fall on the ground, said to one another: “What is this?”, which in the Hebrew language is said “manni?” This bread or food, then, was not created by the law of the world through the mixing of elements, but came from above, provided by a spiritual reason. Nor was it kept in the heavens, because it was created by God’s power for the moment to nourish bodies. And it was called the bread of angels because it was created by that power by which the angelic nature subsists and lives; for without God no one has life. So because it is said to have come from heaven, it is called the bread of angels. For to recall what and how great are God’s benefits toward man, he spoke thus, so that, recognizing them, they might give thanks to God, who governs his servants with such care that, if need be, he provides them, while still in the flesh, with the things by which the angels live.

The apostle said, among other things: “And the rock was Christ,” so that, because water flowed from the rock by Christ’s power, Christ was called the rock. In a similar way, because manna came from heaven by his power, Christ may be called manna, that is, bread; so that what was done then may be thought to have been a figure of that thing which is now offered in the church; so that men, that is, the Jews, ate the bread of the Christian peoples, whom Scripture signified as angels. And since grace is greater now than it was among the prophets, and freedom has been given through Christ, because “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” Christians are called angels by comparison of times and graces, with whose bread, which is Christ, the Jews were filled, whom he called men. Christ belongs rather to those to whom he has been revealed and who are judged worthy to be called by this name. So the question above can be understood in two ways: so that it may be called the bread both of the heavenly angels and of the Christians, according to what has been said.

This is man’s being made in the image of God: that one made one, so that, as all things are from one God, so the whole human race is from one man. And the likeness is this: that as the Son is from the Father, so the woman is from the man, so that the authority of one principle may be preserved. But the Son was born of God the Father ineffably and incomprehensibly, while the woman was made bodily from the man, as we read, so that birth might arise through her. And the Son of God was born so that creation might be made through him. In this, then, it is unlike; for God was born of God, but woman of man, because there there is simplicity, and simple could only be born of simple, spirit of spirit, God of God. So the man is the image of God. For thus it is written: “And God made man; in the image of God he made him.” Hence the apostle too says: “A man indeed ought not to veil his head, since he is the image and glory of God”; “but let a woman,” he says, “veil her head.” Why? Because she is not the image of God. Hence the apostle says again: “But a woman is not permitted to teach, nor to have authority over a man.”

He justifies his soul before death who, in the hope of the future life, attains faith, so as not to die impious. But Solomon speaks of the one who lives under the law and is not converted rightly. Such a one, then, if he corrects his mind so as to walk in the ways of righteousness, justifies his soul before death. For Solomon gave counsel because of the future judgment, lest anyone, careless about himself, die in sins; but David spoke of the perfection of righteousness, that no one will be justified before the Lord, so as to be worthy of the promise, unless he has died with righteousness. For as long as one lives, he does not yet have the full merit of the things to come. Hence the Savior says: “Whoever perseveres to the end will be saved.”

I think it unseemly to say that souls are generated with bodies, so that soul is born from soul, which does not befit the soul itself. Or if, indeed, single heavenly powers were made and the others were born from them, can it seem credible that the other souls are born from the one soul of Adam? But it is not fitting, because to God alone was it possible that the simple should beget, and it was not granted to others. This is so mystical in the case of the Savior that it is thought incredible not only by the gentiles or Jews alone but even by those who call themselves Christians; for both the Photinians and the Arians spurn this faith.

For if at the time when the body is sown the soul too is generated from the soul: we read that a rib was taken from Adam, yet not that a soul was born from a soul; and if the rib had a soul with it, it was not born, but detached as a part. But this is not written either. For the prophet Zechariah says among other things: “who forms the spirit of man within him.” Nor does Isaiah disagree with them, saying: “Thus says the Lord God, who made you and formed you in the womb.” If, then, it is formed in the womb, it is given to a body already formed. For when it fills all the members of the body, it is said to be shaped in the body; and as water, though without shape, yet seems shaped when poured into a vessel, so too the soul, though by nature incorporeal and simple, is as it were formed into the body, giving life to each member. Moses handed this down more plainly, saying: “If anyone strikes a woman with child and she miscarries, if it was formed, let him give life for life; but if it was unformed, let him be fined with money,” to prove that there is no soul before the form. So if it is given to a body already formed, it is not born at the conception of the body, derived with the seed. For if the soul too comes from the soul with the seed, many souls perish every day, when seed by some flow does not advance to birth.

But if we look more closely, we shall see what we ought to follow. Let us consider the making of Adam; for in Adam an example was given, so that it might be understood from it that the body, already formed, received the soul. For he could have mixed the soul with the slime of the earth and so formed the body. But it was formed by reason, because the house first had to be built and so the inhabitant brought in. The soul certainly, because it is spirit, cannot dwell in what is dry; and so it is carried in the blood. When, then, the body’s lineaments have not been put together, where will the soul be? Or does it wander outside until it is sent in, when reason teaches that it is given so as to animate the body, not to wander idle? But let those who think otherwise say from whom it is given: from the male or from the female? If from the female, it does not fit, because the example is otherwise. For they propose that the soul too was given from the man with the rib, which we have taught is weakened by many reasons. Hence perhaps it may seem to be given from the female, chiefly because of the Savior, whom we know to have been born of a woman by the Holy Spirit without fleshly union. If they think so, they give more to women; for they transfer the man’s authority to the woman. For while they say that the origin both of body and soul is from the man, they turn round so as to say that what is better, that is, the soul, comes from the woman, and what is less, that is, the body, from the male; whereas it is plain that the order of the example handed down by God cannot be changed.

Man and woman are indeed of one substance, both in soul and in flesh, but the man is greater in rank, because the woman is from him, as the apostle says: “The head of the woman is the man.” For cause made the man greater, not substance. For in one body too there are greater members and lesser, not by nature but by order.

It is plain that Joseph did not give this command to the children of Israel idly. For one who could prophesy is not to be believed to have spoken without foresight. For being more devoted to God the Creator, and knowing that he was worshiped by the Egyptians because of the administration by which he governed Egypt in great famine, he sought to remove the error after his death, being sure that the vain crowd venerates the dead as gods more than the living, lest the honor owed to the Creator be paid to him. So he showed that he was free from the vain superstition of the Egyptians, when, so that it might not lead to an insult to God, he commanded that his ashes be carried away. We find that the apostles too followed this. For Paul and Barnabas, when they saw that people wanted to sacrifice to them, knowing that this is hateful to God, tore their garments, saying: “What are you doing? We too are men like you,” and so they restrained the crowds.

Holy Elisha, eager to do mighty works, drawn by his master’s example, having received the opportunity to ask whatever he wished, greedy for the good, asked that the spirit be in him doubly as it was in his master; to whom the man of God Elijah said: “You have asked a hard thing.” For in his eagerness he did not consider that the disciple is not above the master. Yet Elijah, knowing that he had not asked this out of ambition for present glory, answered: “Yet if you see me taken from you, it will be so for you.” The sense here must be weighed. Somewhat indignant, when he had said, “You have asked a hard thing,” he added: “Yet if you see me taken up, it will be so for you.” Lest, because he seemed to have refused him, he showed that it would be for him as was fitting, not as he himself had asked? For Scripture wants many things understood, so that the sense gathered from the words is not contrary to the reason of religion. For certainly a hard request ought even to have lost its merit; but because he asked thus out of eagerness for good, God, who knows what gift is to be given to each, did not allow him to be deprived of his merits.

Let us see, then, whether Elijah’s merit would allow Elisha to deserve to receive his gift doubled. For it was said by the Holy Spirit through Zechariah what merit John would have: “He will come,” he says, “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (so he shows John equal to Elijah); and the Lord says: “Among those born of women there is no prophet greater than John the Baptist.” He did not say, “he is greater than all,” but “no one is greater than he,” that is, “he has an equal, he has no greater.” Elijah, then, is equal to him, and certainly less than no one. How then is Elisha greater than he, when John, than whom no one is greater, is equal to Elijah? For coming to the crossing of the waters, he did not receive honor from them so as to be able to cross, until he named the God of Elijah; so that by this the hard request might be seen to be rebuked, since he was heard only in Elijah’s name, lest he be thought to have received what he had boldly asked, as if the dispensation of the Spirit granted to Elijah were not enough for the merit of the time.

I judge it an unworthy deed if assent is given according to the words of the narrative. For how could it happen that a man holy by birth and righteous in the works of his life should be drawn up by magic art? Or, if he was not drawn up, did he consent? Both are contrary to belief about a righteous man. For if he was brought against his will, righteousness has no support; but if willingly, he lost the merit of the spiritual life which he had sought while in the flesh; which is very absurd, because one who departs from here righteous remains righteous. But in fact this is an illusion of Satan, by which, to deceive very many, he pretends that he has even the good in his power. The apostle says this among other things: “Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.” For to produce the error in which he glories, he disguised himself in the appearance and name of a righteous man, so as to lie to the worshipers of God that the hope they preached profited nothing, when he pretended that the righteous who depart from here are in his power.

But some are misled by this, that he did not lie about the death of Saul and his son, as though it were a great thing for the devil to foresee the end of the body before the day, since certain signs are wont to appear in those about to die, from whom God’s protection seems to have been withdrawn. How much more the devil, whom the prophetic oracles testify was exalted in angelic majesty, of whose greatness the apostle says: “Or do you not know the depth of Satan?” What wonder, then, if he could foresee a death close at hand, since this is how he deceives and wants to be worshiped as having God’s power? For Saul was made mad with such dullness that he fled to the pythoness. For, depraved because of sin, he betook himself to the things he had condemned.

But if anyone thinks that, for the sake of the narrative and what is expressed in its words, these things should not be passed over, lest the account of the narrative be empty, he will do rightly, provided he does not carry it over to the account of the truth, but to Saul’s sight and understanding. For having become reprobate he could not have a good understanding. For the historian described Saul’s mind and Samuel’s appearance, expressing what was said and seen, passing over whether they were true or false. For what does he say? Hearing in what appearance the one raised was: “He understood,” it says, “that this was Samuel.” It reported what he understood; and because he did not understand well, against Scripture he worshiped another than the Lord, and, thinking it Samuel, worshiped the devil, so that Satan might have the fruit of his deceit. For this is what he strives for, to be worshiped as God. For if Samuel had truly appeared to him, certainly a righteous man would not have allowed himself to be worshiped, who had preached that the Lord alone is to be worshiped. And how could the man of God, who was in refreshment with Abraham, say to a man of pestilence worthy of the burning of Gehenna: “Tomorrow you will be with me”?

By these two marks improvident Satan betrayed the subtlety of his deceit: that he allowed himself to be worshiped, against the law, under the appearance and name of Samuel; and that he lied that a man weighed down with sins would be with most righteous Samuel, though there is a great distance between sinners and the righteous. It can seem true if the name of Samuel is left out, because Saul was going to be with the devil; for he passed over to the one he worshiped. So the devil, always hiding under a veil, betrays himself when he invents things that are abhorrent to the persons through whom he tries to deceive.

That the world has existed from eternity and owes subjection to no one is improbable and impossible, since we see it standing in corporeal form with such diversity, whereas nothing can be divine and eternal unless it is simple, in which no diversity is seen but there is unity. For it does not even keep the very succession of seasons, so that it is varied not only in its seasons and consists of contrary substances, but also in the very successions of seasons; whereas an eternal thing abhors diversity and cannot be grasped by touch or sight, being incorporeal. But this world is subject to passion, for water fights fire, and fire, if there is more of it, overcomes water; and earth, being by nature dry and cold, suffers burning like a corporeal thing. So it is unfitting to call the world eternal, which, since we see it subject to passion and failing with age in its parts, we believe will also come to an end.

What does one who thinks the world eternal judge about man? Certainly man began in the world: for whom, then, without man, did the yearly fertility of the world serve? Or did it generate without any providence? And how did an eternal thing generate corruptible and mortal things, when what comes from the eternal ought to be eternal? And what is visible and is felt and touched, with what audacity is it called eternal? And what is served by the successions of seasons, so that the seasons themselves sometimes do not keep their duties, how is it called eternal? For eternity is not corrupted, is not changed.

Circumcision was commanded on the eighth day from birth for this reason: that, according to the number and course of the seven days, the same day is found to be the first again, as it were after the sabbath, so that it is no longer held to be the eighth but the first. For because the salvation to come through Christ was predestined on the first day, which is called the Lord’s day because on it the Lord rose, which is after the sabbath, therefore the figure of this salvation was given in circumcision, so that the future renewal might be recognized in the law of circumcision. And because people were to be saved through faith, which was confirmed on the first day by the Lord’s resurrection, the figure of this thing was given in circumcision on the first day, which was also the sign of Abraham’s faith. The cause, then, is complete: because the sign of the past faith, signified on the first day, was a figure of the future faith established on the first day.

All truth is righteousness. For one who confesses what is, is righteous (for he speaks the truth), but sinners who defend their offenses cannot be justified. Hence such a one is worthily called righteous, because by declaring his sin he certainly asks that it be forgiven him, imploring God’s mercy. For he knows that it is said in the law: “Confess your sins, that you may be justified.” And what is it to confess at the beginning of one’s speech, except to admit, not under compulsion, but voluntarily? For who, even among those who fear God, is without sin, since offenses mingle even with our thoughts and we sometimes sin unwillingly? Yet it can also be said or understood of one who is called a catechumen, that by coming to faith he is justified. For when he asks to be changed, without doubt he confesses himself a sinner, so as to be justified.

As far as the narrative goes, it is a serpent by nature that is spoken of, which was wiser than the other beasts that the Lord God had made on the earth. Indeed God also gave sentence against the serpent. For what wonder if the devil will be wiser than the beasts, of whom the apostle says among other things: “Or do you not know the depth of Satan?” But the serpent was a serpent by nature to such a degree that it was said to it: “On your breast and belly you shall crawl, and you shall eat earth all the days of your life.” These things are far from the condition of Satan, because he is neither corporeal nor mortal. And if one looks more closely, it will be seen that the sentence given did the serpent no harm, but it was ordered to remain in that in which it was made. For because it had become Satan’s minister for subjugating man, to whom God had subjected all things, God therefore repressed the serpent’s elation by the same subjection by which he subjected all things to man, because it had begun to be the minister of pride. For man seemed to have been put under the serpent, from whom he took counsel and despised the law given. And that serpents are prudent the Lord confirms in the gospel, saying: “Be shrewd as serpents.”

So since it has become clear that a serpent truly spoke with Eve, it remains to be discerned whether it could have been so prudent and cunning as to deceive her by guile. For if it was more prudent than the other beasts, yet not than human beings, since no animal is rational except man. So it is impossible that the serpent devised this subtlety. For although it is called prudent, it is not beyond its nature; for it does not deliberate or devise or take counsel. Therefore there is no doubt that it was the devil who got round the woman through the serpent. For mingling himself with the serpent, he acted through it as through an instrument, so that the woman did not perceive the guile of the hidden devil, knowing that the serpent is prudent. And therefore the sentence given bodily fell spiritually on Satan, because the sentence holds the guilty one. For the sentence was not given by a man, who might perhaps destroy an innocent one through error or ill will, but by God, who certainly cannot be deceived, so that his sentence should not hold the one who is guilty. For because Satan, though invisible, carried out his guile bodily, the sentence seems to have been given bodily, so as to hold him spiritually whose deed elicited the sentence. For, cast down from the most sacred seats of heaven, most shameless Satan rolls on the earth, always groaning.

But perhaps it may be said: “And in what language, do you think, did the serpent speak to the woman?” With the serpent’s mouth, of course. For if today there are those who understand the barking of dogs, the howling of wolves, the trumpeting of elephants, and the song of chickens, why could not the woman, still new, rather know and understand the hissing of serpents, since we know that many can distinguish the voices of birds? For it is agreed too that the devil uses the tongue of the one whose body he has entered; nor could he have deceived the woman otherwise. And therefore he spoke through the serpent with the serpent’s mouth.

Far be this impious assertion from the minds of the faithful. For Scripture, in order to teach that the poor man is not to be despised and the rich man honored, showed that God is the maker of both, certainly not in poverty and riches, but in what they are. For if they differ from one another in means, they do not differ in the substance of nature. For because certain occasions and outcomes make some in the world prosperous in riches or unfortunate in poverty, those whom God has not humbled are not therefore to be despised, nor those to be looked up to to whom the truth has given no testimony. Those are plainly to be despised who are corrupters of morals and sacrilegious against God’s law, and those to be honored who love God and cultivate discipline.

For those are held rich with God who are of good conduct, and the more contemptible they are in the world, the more honored they are in heaven. For those who have the benefit of the times in increasing their means, if they know themselves and understand God’s will (that he gave the earth to all, and bids his sun rise on all, and pours out rains without distinction, while the injustice of the times, or chance occasions, or want, deny to some what God gave to all), let them minister to these, so that, perceiving God’s will, they may be rich not only in the world but also in heaven, lest the riches of a short time shut out the eternal ones; and those whom they think are to be despised because of poverty, if they contemplate God’s future judgment, will always be rich there, where the rich of the age will be in want, repenting that they were not poor.

It would indeed be fitting that all the impious not only lose this light sooner but not even enjoy life for one moment of time, who, forgetful of their Creator, ascribe the authority of all life to the creature. But Scripture speaks of those impious who, while living under God’s law, were more inclined to idols. For they are worse than the other impious; for knowing the Lord and despising him, they obey servants. And the apostle proves that this was said of them, saying: “But we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law.” But the gentiles are not counted among the living.

No one doubts that all good things are from God; but the evils he spoke of are evils to us while vengeance is taken on us. For punishment, though inflicted justly, nevertheless seems evil to the one who suffers it. For God also speaks through the prophet to sinners, saying: “I will do evils to you,” that is, “I will drive you with punishments.” And life and death are from God in this way: that he gave the law, which promises life to those who keep it, but death to its despisers, that death which is called the second. For while he adjudges to each what he deserves, from him comes either acquittal to life or guilt to death. So he is not the inventor of death but its judge, because the author of death is sin. How then could God make death, who knows not how to sin? But when he repays sins, death is said to be from him, although it is not from him but from the one who sinned.

By the same reasoning poverty and riches are from God. For some, having the fear of God, spurn luxury, flee a prodigal life, and do not turn their eye from the needy or the poor; such people increase their goods. For it is written in Proverbs: “Discipline takes away poverty and dishonor.” But those who do not have the fear of God, living more loosely and despising the needy, as it is written, will be in want, being not only negligent and improvident about themselves but also despisers of the law given. In this way God makes poor and rich: because, when offense against the law brings forth want, it is said to be done by God as the author of the law; and when some keep the discipline of the law out of fear, they become rich from God as the author of the law.

David, well aware that the tradition in the office of the royal order is divine, therefore honors Saul, still set in that same tradition, lest he seem to wrong God, who decreed honor for these orders. For the king has the image of God, as the bishop has that of Christ. As long as he is in that tradition, then, he is to be honored, if not for his own sake, at least for the order’s. Hence the apostle says: “Be subject to all higher powers. For there is no power except from God; for those that exist are ordained by God.” Hence it is that we honor a gentile, if he is placed in power, although he himself is unworthy, who, holding God’s order, gives thanks to the devil. For power demands it, because it deserves honor. For this is why the dream of the future famine was revealed to Pharaoh, and why Nebuchadnezzar alone, with others standing beside him, saw the Son of God in the furnace of fire, certainly not by his own merit, since he wanted to be worshiped in an idol, but by the merit of the royal order.

Scripture spoke in another sense than is proposed. For it did not speak of this death which is certainly common to all, but of that which is called the second. This receives sinners; but to those who died in the battle the sin of Achan was not repaid; rather it harmed them in that, not helped by divine protection, they did not prevail over the enemy. For they were not weakened because of Achan, but were not fortified by God’s help, so that, being unable to act bravely, they were killed. For they were few against many, and hence they are known to have been defeated. So there is no injustice in God’s will. For he has it in his power whether he wills to help, so that if he is present he is merciful, if he does not will it, just; for he is not a debtor to such, so as to be held liable. This is why Joshua son of Nun, saddened, tore his garments, understanding that the Lord had not withdrawn his help without cause.

He set two names of one people, so that their deserts might be understood from the names. For certainly he who was named Israel was previously called Jacob. For wrestling with the Savior he understood that he was God, whom he saw in bodily form, and therefore he was called “a man seeing God.” So the people he calls Jacob signifies, in this place and in this case, the fleshly people, like the names given by parents to children. But these, that is, the Jews, because of their evil works were not called Israelites, because they sacrificed to calves and groves in Samaria at the zeal and command of King Jeroboam. But that people which in Jerusalem offered victims in the temple of the Lord through the priests of God was called Israel. Samaria, then, because of its impiety, was handed over to captivity and death, but Jerusalem was preserved because it had kings who loved God. But when Jerusalem too followed the impiety of Samaria, the sentence given against Samaria overtook it.

This is why it was said: “God sent death into Jacob” (that is, into the people of Samaria, who lived in a fleshly way, as we said above) “and it came into Israel,” that is, into the people of Jerusalem, because it followed idolatry in imitation of Samaria, so that it was likewise carried off into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar, as Samaria was by Shalmaneser king of the Assyrians. This is plainly: the sentence given to the wicked found the good too, when they ceased to be righteous. For death sent into Jacob, as was shown above, reached Israel, not passing over Samaria; but when the cause for which it was sent into Samaria was found in Jerusalem too, having been sent there, it came also to that place in which the same cause remained. For vengeance follows the cause, not distinguishing the person.

It is not to be understood as the words sound. For it is the work, though it is mute, that is said to cry out the praise of the Creator; for it urges those who look at it to bless the maker, as every well-made vessel praises the craftsman; since we read in the Psalms: “Will the dust confess to you, or declare your truth?” So in every senseless substance it is not will, which certainly is none, but the works that bless the author. But if you want to take this spiritually, understand that the earth signifies man, according to the prophet’s saying (“Remember, Lord,” he says, “that we are earth”), whom the works of creation urge to break forth in praise of his maker.

Darkness signifies paganism and ignorance. He wants it understood, then, that there is hope in a pagan rather than in an apostate, by what he added, saying: “A living dog is better than a dead lion”; because just as the lion is stronger than all wild beasts, so Christianity is stronger than all sects. So if anyone abandons it, he loses salvation, so that he is worse than a pagan. For it can happen that a pagan believes and gains the salvation which the apostate lost. And if he does not believe, the apostate is worse, because it is worse to have lost salvation than not to have had it. And the Savior shows that “dog” signifies a pagan, saying: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

Since the children of the earthly Jerusalem apostatized from God, joy cannot be ascribed to her, but grief. So to the reproach of this Jerusalem the prophet says that the upper Jerusalem ought to rejoice, which the apostle calls our mother, because without groaning and pains she has many more children than this one who bears with tears in the flesh, namely the Jews; while that one bears Christians spiritually through faith. He calls her deserted because she herself is life, which the first man Adam deserted and followed death. So when people are reborn, they return to the life they had deserted. This life is Christ, because he himself said: “I am the life.” God the Father too is life, because the Lord says: “As the Father has life, so he has given the Son to have life.” Without doubt the Holy Spirit too is life, as the Lord says: “He will take of what is mine.” So he who received from life is life. Three, then, are one life. This is the life through faith in which we are reborn. She is our mother, as we read in Genesis too: “because she,” it says (that is, life), “is the mother of all the living.” Who are those who live, except those who believe?

If the Holy Spirit is thought by some to be meant because we read “the spirit of God,” it is a weak and empty assertion. For not only does the order not allow it and reason refuse it, but the words themselves are shown to be too weak to establish this case. For we often find something else signified by these words in the law. For among other things the Lord God says: “My spirit shall not remain in these men, because they are flesh.” And in what follows: “But I will destroy,” he says, “everything from man to beast,” because he was going to bring a flood on the earth. Can the Holy Spirit be understood here? Did he not speak of souls? For not only our souls are called spirits, but those of beasts too. For thus it is written: “And all flesh died in the water, in which was the spirit of life.” And in the prophet Ezekiel it is said thus, when God promises the restoration of men, saying: “Thus says the Lord to these bones: I will stretch skin over you and put my spirit in you, and you will live.” Did he speak of the Holy Spirit and not of the soul?

All heavenly things are indeed spirits, but they differ from one another; and God is spirit, but far otherwise. So every spirit is God’s; yet it is not God, except the Spirit who is from him, whose designation is that he is called “holy.” For human beings too are called sons of God, and Christ is called the Son of God; but there is a gap, because he is true, they adopted. So also there is a difference within “spirit of God.” For the Holy Spirit is from God, consubstantial with him; but the other spirits are said to be God’s, yet they are creatures. Nor is it fitting in order that the Holy Spirit should be understood to be borne over the waters, since reason teaches that a spiritual creature was over the waters, and one that has another, superior creature above it, because creature differs from creature in brightness. For the nearer one comes to the seat of God, the brighter are the ministries. Hence the angel Raphael says among other things: “I am one of the seven holy angels who stand and go about before the majesty of God.”

God is exalted; it was fitting, then, that he should appear on high, in a place near to heaven. And because fire always seeks higher things, growing upward toward heaven, the Lord of the heavens ought to appear in that which strives from the ground toward the heights. And he made himself appear in a bush because of offenses. For because he had come down to give the law because of sins, and thorns signify sins (“For I waited,” he says, “for it to make grapes, but it made thorns”), and the law had not come to punish at once, but first to show, therefore the fire did not burn the bush, that is, the law given did not make sinners guilty for the past. For because sins too are not from nature but by accident, the material of the bramble, that is, of the thorns, does not have a root armed with thorns. So it was by reason that the Lord appeared thus to Moses.

There is a great distance between the case of Abraham and that of Jephthah. First, Abraham was born lawfully, but Jephthah was illegitimate; for he was the son of a prostitute. Then Abraham was of the best conduct, but Jephthah a chief of robbers. Abraham was a righteous man and proved in temptation; in Jephthah there is no testimony of righteousness.

So Abraham was commanded to offer his son to God, so as to show people how much Abraham believed God, who did not hesitate to kill even his son at his command. For one who could make him be born, against the world’s hope, of a barren old woman, could without doubt raise him from the dead against the world’s reason. By this deed Abraham was heaped with righteousness. For God showed that he had not asked for the boy’s blood, but that his servant Abraham might become greater by this deed. For he wants those who love him to suffer something, so that he may be seen to promote them justly.

But Jephthah, a criminal and improvident man, by a foolish vow promised a gift to God, saying: “Whatever meets me before the doors of my house when I return from the slaughter, this I will offer to God.” Was he compelled to vow? Or did he understand how he ought to make a vow? For what if a dog or an ass had met him, which God forbade to be offered? Or if someone else’s son, or a wife, so that he would pay his vow rejoicing in another’s grief? Therefore what the improvident man had vowed to another’s ruin was turned back on himself by divine judgment. And Jephthah was so senseless that not even afterward did he recognize that he had vowed foolishly, so that his error, which had begun from him, might also be corrected by him. For he should have understood that God does not delight in such a sacrifice, and prayed for his folly, and offered something else that was not against the law. But the fool showed himself faithful as a parricide, though it is plain that foolish faith not only does not profit but does harm. So in his daughter’s fate he himself was slain; hence God too took no notice of such a sacrifice. For if he had forbidden it, he would seem to have wanted him to offer him something else, when he knew that, being unworthy, he ought not to offer. But his daughter gained, because, dying innocent in her father’s evils, she was spared the punishment of the underworld, which she perhaps could not have obtained by living long.

That the triumph of victory followed Jephthah was not his merit nor the people’s; for we do not read that they were suppliants to God for him to give them a defender. Or did God send Jephthah himself, or speak to him? But because the Philistines were praising their gods, as having subjected the children of Israel to them, and reviling the God of Abraham, God therefore took vengeance on the Philistines for the honor of his name, if not for these men’s sake, at least for the merit of Abraham and his own majesty. Or, because the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon Samson when he was going to a prostitute, will he be called worthy, when this is understood to have been done for the destruction of the Philistines?

It is written in the prophet Isaiah: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” But perhaps the Jews may say: “The house of God, that is, the synagogue, is open to all.” We do not resist this, provided that, as always, the circumcised are joined to the law. For the law belongs to those who were commanded to be circumcised after the manner of Abraham. So nothing new could be seen in this saying of the prophet, because whoever came from any nation was not forbidden to join himself to the law from the beginning of Judaism. Nothing new could be thought to have been said by the prophet; rather, it was said superfluously, if gentiles were always admitted to serve the God of Abraham and are never found to have been forbidden. And it is true that those who subjected themselves to the law are shown never not to have been received. If, then, these things are so, the prophet seems to have warned superfluously of what, once handed down, was always kept.

And could anyone be found so dull as to say that so great a prophet spoke of a superfluous and empty thing? I do not know for whom it would be safe even to hear this and not forbid it. For since the Jewish people, because of the sins they committed against the Lord, seeking help from idols, often rebuked by the prophets, would not enter the way of repentance so as to return to God, God indicated, as a reproach to them, that he would open his house to all nations for prayer, to show that, having disowned the Jews, he would put others in their place. For if the nations were always admitted to the law, as was said above, how did the prophet say this would be in the future, unless he signified something other than what had been commanded before? For he could not say of a thing that was done daily that it was going to be. Hence it is plain that this tends to the ruin of the Jews, to whom the prophet showed that, these being removed, others would be called to receive the gift of God’s grace which had been promised to the Jews.

And what was promised, the prophet Isaiah teaches, saying: “There will come from Zion one who will deliver and turn away impiety from Jacob; and this is my covenant with them.” So this covenant is the abolition of sins. For this is the new covenant which was promised through Jeremiah, saying: “Behold, the days will come, says the Lord, and I will accomplish for the house of Israel and the house of Judah a new covenant, not according to the covenant which I arranged with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not remain in my covenant, and I neglected them, says the Lord.” This is their transgression: when they made the image of the calf, then they broke the covenant. Hence the tablets on which the law had been given were broken under the mountain, because they deserved to receive heavy precepts.

But because God is clement and merciful, he promised through the prophets that he would change the law, so as to give another covenant different from the one he had given before; so that not only what was heavy might be changed but also the things given in figure, that is, the sabbath and circumcision; so that, having been long oppressed, they might, relieved in everything, give thanks to God as suppliants. And because, persisting in their fathers’ transgression, they would not turn their minds from idols, he declares that the nations, with the remnant who kept faith, would enjoy the covenant he had said was coming; so that the faithless Jews would be tormented, weighed down in two ways: for they were burdened for a time with precepts, and in the future they will pay fitting penalties, because they were found faithful neither in the old covenant nor in the new.

So he said that he would give a new covenant, so that the old, which had been given to the fathers, would cease. And therefore one who serves God in this covenant keeps neither sabbath nor new moons nor circumcision nor distinctions of foods, but has only the fear of God in faith, because he is justified not by the law but by faith, as the prophet Habakkuk says: “For the righteous will live by my faith”; so that one no longer uses many precepts to win God’s favor, but few, Isaiah again saying the same in this sense; for he says: “If the number of the children of Israel is like the sand of the sea, the remnant of them will be saved. For he finishes and cuts short the word in equity, because God will make a shortened word in the whole world.” To the remnant who persevered in faith in the promise while the rest distrusted, he showed the shortened word of the law, that is, the new covenant which he promised; which would not otherwise be called a covenant unless it too was likewise confirmed by the testimony of blood, as the old covenant was, so that the name of both is one; but in the old there are many precepts, in the new few; as he promised, so that, since he had said Abraham would be the father of many nations, the children would be justified in the same way as the father was justified; so that, the things that began after Abraham’s faith ceasing, those who receive the faith by which the same Abraham was justified would be children of Abraham, as the Lord said. This is neither wonderful nor unheard of, that people are justified without care for sabbath and circumcision and the other commandments of this kind.

For it was not by this that Enoch pleased God so as to be translated, nor was Noah alone found righteous in the flood by keeping these things, nor was Abraham himself justified after he was circumcised: “For Abraham believed God,” it says, “and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Then he was circumcised, so that it would be a sign in him that he believed, when he was old, that he would have a son. So it is not circumcision that commends Abraham, but faith. And therefore for believers faith suffices for justification, so that they are children of Abraham in faith, not in circumcision, because these have no need of circumcision. For what Abraham believed is not believed in this. But the Jews were commanded to be circumcised so that they might have the sign of Abraham’s faith, not of their own faith, but so that they might be known as his children according to the flesh; yet if they believe, they will be his children unto justification too.

For what does it profit one who is powerless to be called the son of a mighty man, except that it rather harms? For it is a disgrace to be the son of a dignitary without honor. For circumcision of the flesh is of so little merit that God says through the prophet Jeremiah that he will punish all the circumcised as uncircumcised, if they have not been circumcised in heart. But he is not indignant with those who, circumcised in heart, are uncircumcised in the flesh, because no one has pleased God without circumcision of the heart. Whoever, then, are circumcised in the flesh signify the race of Abraham according to the flesh; but those who are circumcised in heart signify the race of God according to faith, because, circumcised from every worldly error, they confess God as their parent. What, then, does circumcision of the flesh profit, when, if faith is lacking in a Jew, he cannot attain to Abraham’s merit? Or what does uncircumcision harm, since no one attains to Abraham’s righteousness except one who has emulated his faith?

So they glory superfluously in circumcision of the flesh, when they see that it has no merit with God. And if, as has been shown, it is better to have faith than circumcision, the nations are better than the Jews, because these have faith, the Jews circumcision. And whom, do you think, would Abraham rather recognize as children: those who are like him according to the flesh, or those who are like him in faith? But faith bears witness to Abraham, and therefore he glories not in the flesh but in faith. And so he receives as children those he sees to be imitators of his glory. For how can he call those children whom he sees shrinking from that by which he pleased God and was justified? He could judge them not children but enemies; for they seem envious of him, spurning the faith by which he was glorified.

Nor is it a wonder if the distrustful Jews are found not accepting the new covenant, since we know that they were not faithful in the old one either. For they were always rebellious and insolent against God, and therefore they received such precepts as would press down their necks, which were inflexible. For they never wanted to hope for good things from God, whose great benefits and such wonderful mighty works they had known. Hence it is that the prophet Ezekiel says among other things: “I lifted my hand against them in the desert, that they should be scattered among the nations and dispersed in the lands, because they did not do my ordinances and rejected my precepts”; and in what follows: “And I gave them precepts that were not good, and ordinances by which they shall not live.” He shows for what reason such great and harsh precepts were given them: so that, because they proved ungrateful for such great goods, they might be pressed down, as justice dictated, by more severe precepts. He called them “not good,” though they are just, because they did not profit them for justification but for ruin; and punishment, though justly inflicted, is nevertheless not good to the one who suffers it. Yet after these things, because God is kind, he promised to give a new covenant, in which the abridgment of the law would justify believers as Abraham was justified; so that, the new moons and sabbath and circumcision and the other precepts ceasing (not those of the natural law, that is, against murder, adultery, and such), they might be justified as Abraham was. For, Abraham’s faith being renewed, he wanted all things to cease, so that the time might be such as it had been when Abraham believed.

But perhaps the Jews may say: “If the things given by Moses are said to cease through the abridgment of the law, surely circumcision was not given by Moses so as to cease? And therefore we have the sign of our father, because we are children of Abraham, which ought not to cease, for the sake of the testimony of descent.” Circumcision was indeed to be kept in its own time, that is, before the new covenant which had been promised was given. But when, by the gift of God’s grace, the burdens of the law were ordered to cease, what need is there to be circumcised? For this reason a new law was given, that is, a spiritual one, so that fleshly things might cease and those receiving it might receive its sign; so that, as in the old covenant they had the sign of Abraham, from whom the old covenant began, so in the new they might have the sign of the Savior, who is the founder of the new covenant. For just as from Abraham they were called Hebrews, so from Christ they are called Christians. Whoever, then, are still called Hebrews have not received the new covenant which God promised, bringing to nothing the benefit and mercy of God, who, no longer willing that his people be reckoned by the name of a man, deigned to establish them under the name of his Son.

With what audacity, then, do the Jews say that we use not our own law but theirs, when David says: “I will confess to you among the nations,” and again: “Feast, you nations, with his people”? And the Lord says to the prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came out of the womb I sanctified you and appointed you a prophet among the nations.” Judaism certainly has its own designations: for that people is signified either in Jacob, or in Samaria, or in Jerusalem, or in Judah, or in Israel. But as to the nations, it is plain that it signifies them otherwise than the Jews.

So Jeremiah is our prophet. For although in all the prophets God showed that the nations would be sharers in his gift, yet to Jeremiah he speaks specially, because he gave him to us as a prophet. For he signified the coming new covenant, which would profit the nations more than the Jews, which now appears declared. For since the new covenant is preached in the whole earth, a believing Jew is found so rarely and with such difficulty that all the churches of the new covenant are named churches of the nations, as had been said in the prophet Hosea: “I will call not my people my people, and the unloved beloved.” So, the Jews being rejected, he calls the nations with that grace of mercy by which he also deigned to call Abraham. For Abraham did not know the Lord without being called. So he who deigned to call Abraham is the same who deigned to call the nations.

Why then do they say, “The law is ours,” when it is plain that the gift of God belongs to all who will? So let this rashness of usurpation cease, because the grace of God is common to all. With what shame do they deny that our Christ was promised in the law, when they see in him all the signs which the law foretold? For according to the promise to Abraham all nations who believe in him are justified; and according to Isaiah’s prophecy he was born of a virgin, in Bethlehem, of the tribe of Judah, as had been promised, of the seed of David; and, according to what Jeremiah prophesied, he preached the new covenant which God had promised would come; and after showing all the signs of mighty works he humbled himself according to the words of the prophets, and having suffered all that was foretold, he rose on the third day, as it is written in the prophet.

And if they ask for the time of the promise, as it was shown to the prophet Daniel, they will find it fulfilled at the time when Christ was born and suffered; because from the first year of Darius king of the Persians to the birth and passion of the Lord and the destruction of Jerusalem, which was carried out by Vespasian, emperor of the Romans, seventy weeks were completed, which are four hundred and ninety years. This reckoning is plain through the reigns and the successors of the empire, as it is also found reckoned by Tertullian in the book he wrote against the Jews; which we have passed over, lest it be to his injury, because he reckoned correctly.

And who would doubt about this number, when about three hundred years are now found beyond it? So it is shameless, after so great a number has been added beyond it, to say of the Savior’s coming, “He has not come.” For under the apostles, or at the very time when the Lord was living among men, malice contradicting the truth could hide itself, so that, though it saw all the signs of the promised Christ in the Savior, it might nevertheless say it doubted about the time, to hide its faithlessness. But afterward, when many years began to grow beyond the promised number, what shamelessness it is to deny that he has come, which is known to have been fulfilled both by signs and by times! For when something is full and does not overflow, a contentious person can say it is not full; but if it overflows, the mouth of the contentious is shut.

So too the Jews in the Savior’s time could say, though deceitfully, that the reckoning from the time of Darius to Christ the Lord had not been made well, so that he could be said to be the one who was promised. For we are mistaken in the years, months, and days of the emperors and have not reckoned them precisely. But when the times grew beyond the prescribed number of years of the promised Christ, no excuse can be put forward for not saying that he who came is the Christ, unless (God forbid) the one who promised is said to have lied. For when the time of the promise has elapsed and it is denied that the one promised has come, what else is the one who promised accused of but lying? But all the signs teach that the one who promised is truthful, which were foretold and are known to be found in Christ. But the Jews, while they are ashamed to amend, do not think of the future judgment. For nothing is worse than to deny that something is true which one understands is not a lie.

“Let us make,” he says, “man in our image and likeness.” To some it seems that this is to be understood from another part of the reading, namely the one in which we read that God said: “Come, let us go down and confound their tongues”; because as far as appears on the surface it is similar: for it is the voice of one speaking in the plural number; but it differs in sense, because the reason is also different. For there he speaks of creating man, whom God wills to be created in his image and likeness. But what he says, “Come, let us go down and confound their tongues,” pertains to this: that men should not understand one another; hence God can be seen to have spoken to the angels, like an emperor to his army. For he spoke in common because he was going to do it through them, as their creator; and therefore he says, “let us confound their tongues.” But when he says, “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” he cannot be said to have spoken to angels, because it cannot be said that the image of God and of the angels is one, like that of an emperor and his counts; because those whose image is one cannot be unlike in dignity or nature. Indeed he added: “And God made man; in the image of God he made him,” so that God spoke and God made, not another or a different God, but the same God.

For that one spoke to one signified not another nature but a person. For though God is one, yet there are three persons; and God is one because, whether in the Son or in the Holy Spirit, there is the substance of the one God, because what is from him cannot but be what he is. So it is the person of God the Father who says, “Let us make,” and of the Son who makes man in the image of God, whether the Father’s or his own, it makes no difference, because the image of both is one. So the Son made through the Holy Spirit. For as the Father is said to make through the Son, so also the Son through the Holy Spirit, as he himself says: “For I cast out demons by the Spirit of God.” So the image of the three is one, because, whether Father or Son or Holy Spirit, God is one. And therefore one man was made to the image of the one God. And man is the image of God in this, that as there is one God in heaven, from whom all spiritual things subsist, so there should be one man on earth, from whom the rest should have their fleshly origin.

Yet to some it seems that man was made the image of God in dominion, because he said: “And let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and the whole earth,” although these things are seen to be subject not only to the man but also to the woman, who plainly does not have the image of God. This lacks reason in two ways. For by it God is asserted to have said “Let us make man in our image and likeness” not to the Son but to the heavenly dominions which the apostle mentions, if man has the image of God in dominion; and it is given to the woman too, so that she too would be the image of God, which is absurd. For how can it be said of the woman that she is the image of God, when she is plainly subject to the man’s dominion and has no authority? For she can neither teach, nor be a witness, nor give a pledge, nor judge: how much less command!

There are some among us who, partly occupied with worldly business, partly less studious about the sacred Scriptures, suffer the error of thinking that Samuel was a priest, that is, that he had his origin from Aaron, from whose progeny the Lord God established that priests should be born, not made. Nor was it granted to anyone besides his sons to put incense on the altar. Of these, some who err more deny that Samuel was of Aaron’s race, that is, they say he was not born a priest, and yet assert that he performed the priesthood. They must be answered first. For it is worse to deny that Samuel was born a priest and yet assert that he performed the priesthood, than to say that he was a priest from the sons of Aaron. For here there is ignorance, there folly. For when those who think he was born a priest have learned that he was not of the sons of Aaron, it will be plain to them, though they did not know it, that he was not a priest, because no one was allowed to perform the priesthood except one who was of the seed of Aaron. For they have it established; for it is plain that Korah, since he was not of the sons of Aaron and wanted to put incense on the altar, was swallowed up with his companions by the opening of the earth. And King Uzziah, since he was certainly not of the seed of Aaron but of the tribe of Judah, and had presumed to perform the priesthood, standing before the altar was struck with leprosy on his forehead and so died.

But those who say that Samuel was not born a priest and yet assert that he performed the priesthood say something quite foolish. And to persuade a fool of what is good is the greatest labor. For with what dullness they are led, that while the sun shines on the earth they say it is night! For though they read, and not in one place, that it was decreed by God that no one should dare to perform the priesthood except Aaron and his sons, with obstinate mind they contend that Samuel was a priest. For they do not understand that if Samuel was not born a priest and performed the priesthood, he is called presumptuous, because God established that priests should be born, not made. And I think it is not safe to think this of Samuel. For how could it be that a praiseworthy man, commended by God’s testimony, would do what he knew was not permitted? Especially since he held for certain that vengeance for this presumption had been taken once and again. For by God’s judgment he could not aspire to this, knowing him to be unchangeable; and if he had perhaps heard this from him, he would rather have believed that he was being tempted, knowing that God can in no way rescind his sentence. For he could more easily believe that this was being done with him under God’s appearance and name, so that he might be deceived by the opposing side, than that God could change his judgment.

Indeed when Balaam had been forbidden by God to go to Balak, and afterward asked again whether he should go, God was indignant with him and rebuked him by the example of the ass, because the ass, seeing the angel forbidding, would not complete the journey begun. But Balaam, asking again, when God had forbidden him to go, whether he wanted him to go, judged of God as of a man, who, because he lacks foreknowledge, is varying and changeable. But Balaam is commended by no divine testimony (for he was a soothsayer), whereas Samuel was a man dear to God and knowing that his judgments are a fixed sentence; how would he believe that something else ought to be done than what he knew had been established by God?

“But,” they say, “when Eli and his sons, the priests, had died, Samuel began to perform the priesthood”: which neither the reading teaches nor reason admits. For saying this, they think that there was no one at that time to perform the priesthood, so that, these three having died, unless Samuel had offered the people’s gifts, the priesthood would have ceased to be performed; which assertion is hostile to God. For by it God is judged improvident; for as if not knowing, he established what could not last. For why did he establish that no others than the sons of Aaron should perform the priesthood for ever, that is, until the times of the coming of Christ, if he knew this would fail? But if he did not know (God forbid!), he was improvident; and so it may be that Samuel was priest when they failed. But if God is provident and foreknowing, what he established remained; and if what he established remained, Samuel did not perform the priesthood, because priests were not lacking. In the old law God decreed that priests be born; but in the new the Lord ordered that priests be made.

Let them now choose one of two: either let them prove that Samuel was born a priest, or that he was made one. But they agree that he was not born a priest, because they know that he was not of the sons of Aaron. If, then, Samuel was not born a priest, and is neither read nor proved to have been made one, since God had not established that priests should be made, it is clear that Samuel was not a priest at all.

But the objectors, with their eyes closed, say: “If he was not a priest, yet he acted as a priest, since we read that he offered sacrifice to God! Who would dare deny what is proved written?” Samuel did offer sacrifice to God, but it is not known from this that he acted as a priest. For the one is always said to offer whose oblations they are, which the priest places on the altar. Saul too offered in this way, that is, through a priest, as offering is done now; and David offered, and Solomon offered, and the rest likewise offered. Did they all act as priests? For although the priest performs his own office, yet he is said to offer in whose name the priest acts; for it is credited to him whose gifts are offered. And one who was not a priest, how could he act as a priest? Can a deacon act as a priest? For a prefect can act in place of a prefect, and a praetor of a praetor; yet a private person cannot act in place of any authority: how much less can one who is not a priest act as a priest!

For by what counsel does one dare aspire to what he knows is not permitted to him? For if a priest is lacking somewhere, a priest of another place can be asked to come and act in his stead; yet a prophet, though he be of holy life, cannot do what he knows is not at all granted to him. For it is one thing to live well and another to receive the power of some office. For just as one who is a priest ought not to think his life commended by that, so too one who is of holy conduct and life ought not therefore to claim the priesthood for himself. For although the priesthood is good, yet it will be evil for one to whom it has not been granted and who presumes. For if we look at what is written about holy Samuel, we shall see what testimony Scripture gives him, saying: “And it became known,” it says, “to all the people that Samuel was faithful as a prophet of the Lord”; and in the psalm: “Moses and Aaron,” it says, “among his priests, and Samuel among those who call on his name.” Who would not notice from this distinction that the persons are divided by reason of their dignities, so that Moses and Aaron are known to have obtained the priestly dignity, but Samuel is held to have been worthy of God among the prophets, who called on God with prayers to protect his people, as we read? And priests are proved to have been so far from lacking that, when the ark was brought back, carried by Levites, the men of Beth-shemesh offered sacrifices to God in Samuel’s absence. And when Saul had been made king, Ahijah, the great-grandson of Eli the priest, was there, who wore the ephod.

“But from this,” they say, “Samuel seems to have been a priest, because he was clothed in an ephod.” As if today deacons were not clothed in dalmatics, like the bishop. And we read that David too was clothed in an ephod, and a double ephod. And Samuel, still a little boy, was girded with an ephod: could a little boy offer the people’s gifts to God? You see, then, that “ephod” is indeed one name but does not always signify one thing. For the priests carried the ephod, they were not clothed in it; but kings and the Levite Samuel were clothed in the ephod. So the ephod sometimes signifies a garment, sometimes a kind of small chest, which the priests carried to inquire of the Lord.

As far as appears, it has been proved that Samuel was not a priest but a prophet. Now we answer those who, not knowing that Samuel is not of the sons of Aaron the priest, think he was a priest; for it was not right that one descending from the line of Aaron should not be a priest. I want them first to recognize that, if Samuel was a priest, without doubt Elkanah his father was a priest too. It would also have been fitting that his sons were priests, whom, because they were not priests, he appointed judges over the children of Israel, as Samuel himself was. For so we read: “that he judged the children of Israel.” And Elkanah, Samuel’s father, because he was not a priest, “went up,” it says, “from day to day from his city Ramathaim to worship and to sacrifice to God almighty of hosts. And there was Eli and his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, priests of the Lord.”

What is so plain as that Elkanah came at the appropriate time to offer his gifts before the Lord through the priests, according to what Moses had established, that three times a year they should offer their gifts and tithes where the ark of the Lord and the priests were; especially since he also had two wives at one time, which is unlawful for priests? For Elkanah was of the Levites, as the order of generations is contained in the book of Chronicles. For the Levites did not yet have an established order of ministry around the priests and the ark of the Lord. For David in his reign arranged courses for the priests and Levites, so that from twenty years and upward (in the law, from twenty-five years and upward) they should begin to render service to the Lord’s ceremonies; so that there should be from the sons of Aaron, that is, from the line of Phinehas and Ithamar, twenty-four courses of priests, which would take their turns at fixed times. And Levites were appointed to be gatekeepers of the tabernacle, and carriers of the ark of the Lord, and to keep the watches, and to be keepers of the vessels, and to receive the various offerings. And twenty-four courses were instituted of singers and harpists and other musicians, so that these too, that is, all the Levites, had turns of time, because they also needed leisure to look after their houses.

And not only do these things serve the case stated above, that Samuel was not of the sons of Aaron, but also what his mother says to the Lord: “If you give me a son, I will lend him to the Lord all the days of his life.” She would not say this if he had been born a priest (for he would have had to serve the altar), but because he was a Levite and the law had not yet been laid down for the Levites, but each one acted according to his own will, so that, going astray, they presumed unlawful things. For Jonathan, the son of Moses’ son, though he was counted among the Levites, presumed to perform the priesthood for the tribe of Dan. And therefore we read in the book of Judges that “each one,” it says, “did what pleased him, because there was no king in Israel.” For this reason Hannah vowed, saying, “I lend him to the Lord,” lest he go astray with the rest.

And so that the question may be discussed more fully, let us also treat what was said of Elkanah, that he came from day to day to offer his gifts and tithes. How did he offer tithes, who possessed nothing? For the Levites did not receive fields, because they got their living from the tithes given by the people. But it can be, and it is given to be understood thus, that he could have had a possession of his wife’s, or a purchased one; because not only these but others too took wives from other tribes, so that even priests took wives for themselves from other tribes. For Jehoiada the high priest married, from the tribe of Judah, the daughter of King Joram.

It is clear that the seven women signify seven churches; for although the church is one, it is called sevenfold, as one body consists of a sevenfold number of members. For not only we but also the heavenly beings above are members of the church, whose head is Christ. So whether one or seven churches are spoken of, it makes no difference. For it is called one because it has one head, which is Christ; and seven because, as the members are different, so too the spiritual powers, among whom we too are counted, are different in their virtues, for which reason they are also said to be in need. For they are different for this reason: that the single ones cannot do everything, but all together are the body of Christ, because he is the head of the body, the church, from which the whole body subsists, that is, from whom all things in heaven and on earth have their origin.

In this church which is on earth, then, mention is made of all the churches, because when the mystery of the Creator is preached to it, this teaching is made known also to the heavenly beings. For when it is conveyed to the lower ones, those above must hear too. Hence the apostle says: “To me, the least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach among the nations the incomprehensible riches of Christ and to enlighten all as to what is the plan of the mystery hidden from the ages in God, who created all things, and to make known to the principalities and powers in the heavens, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God.” Through this church, then, those above are taught, because, it says, “truth has sprung from the earth.” For so that mention may be made of those above, here seven churches are named in one people, which the prophet brings in as suppliants to the Savior made man. For they understood that Christ was born for this, to take away reproach, first of those living under his law, then of the rest. And they had in memory that it is written: “There will come from Zion one who will deliver and turn away impiety from Jacob.”

These seven churches, then, took hold of one man, that is, Christ when born, saying: “We will eat our own bread and be clothed with our own garments; only let your name be called upon us; take away our reproach.” What is this that they pray for? For if they use their own bread and are clothed in their own garments, that is, both live and are not naked, what do they lack? If bread signifies life and clothing devotion to God (because one who is without God is called naked; hence the apostle says: “You who have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ,” and again: “if, being stripped, we are not found naked”), what is it that they ask, that their reproach be taken away from them, except that this people is marked by the number of the seven churches, which, living under the law, awaited the promised Christ to abolish sins? Therefore they say: “We will eat our own bread” (that is, we will be fed by the words of the law, which hand on one God, because man does not live by bread alone but by every word of God) “and be clothed with our own garments,” that is, we are reckoned by the name of our Creator; because each one is said to be clothed with what he both is and professes.

Indeed senators or officials are understood from their clothing as to what they are. But because these things are not enough to win God’s favor, he also established this: that through the mystery of the knowledge of the one God man should be heir of the kingdom of heaven. For washed of sins through faith, and a stranger to the second death, which, by the sentence given in Adam, held people in the underworld, with no one holding him he goes on into the paradise of God the Father, in which the Lord told the thief that he would be with him. For although the people mentioned above, which is signified in the seven churches, was under God’s law and devotion from the very origin of the world, yet it needed purification both of its own and its fathers’ offense, because “all,” it says, “have sinned and lack the glory of God.” Therefore the churches mentioned above pray that their reproach may be taken away by the invocation of Christ’s name, because those who have his sign, by which he conquered death, cannot be held by the enemy. And not only do these churches pray that the name of Christ may be invoked upon them, but also the spiritual beings above living in the heavens. For although they are spiritual and heavenly powers, they are nevertheless subject to reproach if they are strangers to their Creator, and they will not be members of the body, wandering without knowing their head.

And that it is nothing other than what we have explained the prophet testifies in what follows, saying: “But on that day God will shine in counsel upon the earth,” and he added: “because the Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters and will purge the blood from their midst.” What is so evident as that on that day, that is, the day on which God’s promise was fulfilled and the mystery of faith was declared to people, they were enlightened, so that, purified through knowledge of the Creator, those who had been guilty of death might become heirs of eternal life? So the prophet spoke without distinction, to signify that all need God’s gift, so that both sinners and the righteous might be known to have awaited God’s mercy: sinners because of their own offenses, so as to be snatched from the jaws of death; and the righteous, absolved from their fathers’ sin, the sentence given in Adam being blotted out, by which all were held by death, might enter the kingdom of God having received freedom, no longer slaves but sons of God. [Questions on the New Testament.]

When God willed that the things which were not should exist, and knew that this work was not worthy of his majesty, he first begot from himself, since he is simple in nature and incorporeal, a Son who would differ from him in nothing, so that an effect worthy of his greatness might correspond to it. For what more could he do than beget another himself, who is perfect? This, then, is the perfect work, than which nothing can seem more excellent. For all other things are lesser; for the more excellent Christ is than all these, the more inferior is their creation to his generation. There is also something else. For God, from whom are all things, wishing to found creation, first begot the Word which he had in mystery with himself, that is, made it come forth. And he called this Word Son for this reason, to show that he came forth from him and is consubstantial with him; so that the law by which children are from parents might make this credible, by which he manifested to creation the mystery which lay hidden in him from eternity.

It is true and plain that the Savior did not need baptism, because Christ was not made but born, as the angel said to the shepherds: “Behold, today a Savior is born to you, who is Christ the Lord.” Indeed John, knowing his holiness, tried to prevent him from baptism; but the Savior insisted that it must be done, certainly not because of sin, but to fulfill righteousness. For it was fitting that he should be an example to the future children of God, he who taught that people become children of God through baptism; and he who promised that the Holy Spirit would be given to believers ought to demonstrate this visibly in himself, so that, having learned this, believers might hope to receive the Holy Spirit invisibly. For the Savior certainly, being born of the Holy Spirit, had a purified body. For the anointing was given spiritually to his flesh in the womb; for the Holy Spirit purified what passed from the virgin Mary into the Savior’s body. And this is the anointing of the flesh of the Savior’s body, for which reason at his birth he was called “Christ.” For what God granted through anointing with oil by the ministry of the prophets to those who were anointed as kings, the Holy Spirit granted to the man Christ, with expiation added; because the earlier anointed ones received only the power of rule through anointing, but the Savior, born a man, both received power and was born purified. For it would have been unfitting that the Son of God should be born in a body subject to sins.

So, taking up the cause of man and teaching that people become children of God through regeneration, he had to be baptized, so as to show this ratified in himself. For what is said is easily accepted as proved and is persuasive if it is seen done by the teacher. So too it was fitting that the marks of mighty works should be done, so that, appearing now as Son of God, he might give healing for bodily sufferings through the mystery of regeneration, so as to be an example to his future brothers, because through regeneration each one receives power of strength.

Circumcision is a command of past time, which was to have authority until Christ, so that it would run as long as until Christ, promised to Abraham, was born, so that afterward circumcision would cease, the promise being fulfilled. For Isaac was promised as a figure of Christ. For God said to him: “In your seed all nations will be blessed,” which is Christ. For the faith which Abraham had received was restored by Christ, so that in the seed of Abraham, which is Christ, all nations would be blessed, as had been promised to Abraham. So circumcision was the sign of the promised son, that is, of Christ; once he was born the sign of the promise had to cease, yet in such a way that the promised one himself, on coming, received the sign of the father, so that he might be known to be the one who had been promised to justify all nations through faith in circumcision of the heart. For as the bodily seal of circumcision belonged to father Abraham’s son born in the flesh, so too for those born spiritually the spiritual sign is circumcision of the heart; and therefore it is more right that after Christ there should no longer be fleshly circumcision.

To Mary, doubting about conception, the angel declares the possibility, saying: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” that is: “Do not doubt because you do not know a man; for what I said, that you will conceive, the Holy Spirit coming upon you will bring about, so that you conceive without a man.” “And the power of the Most High,” he says, “will overshadow you.” “The power of the Most High” is without doubt Christ; for this pertains to his person. So the Holy Spirit, coming upon the virgin, sanctified her, by his work making from her a holy body in which the power which is called the Son of God would be born. And his overshadowing of the virgin is this: that of the immensity of the divinity there should be something in the virgin’s womb, as much as human nature could hold, which would be called as it were an overshadowing from the splendor of God’s power, and would be the power of God and also God; for nothing is from God that is not called God. For this is a bodily matter, that something should be in the flesh and yet cannot be called flesh, like hair and bones and the rest.

This question should be understood in two ways. First, the house of Christ is the church, which he built for himself with his blood. Then too his body can be called his house, as it is also called his temple. For if it is called the temple of God because of indwelling, it will not absurdly be called a house too, as we read in the law. But if the body was made by the working of the Holy Spirit, which we think can also be called a house, it is asked why it is referred to the person of Christ. The deed of the Son is the deed of the Father, because the power of both is one. In a similar way the deed of the Holy Spirit is also the deed of the Son of God, because of the unity of nature and will. For whether the Father acts, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, it is the Trinity that works; and whatever the three do is the operation of the one God.

No one could be so dull as to deny that God does all things with reason. So Christ, coming down from the sacred seats to bestow salvation on the world, so as to teach that he had also established the world itself and the times, willed to be born a man, to increase toward God the diminished human race, at the time when, after great diminishing, the light, which is day, begins to receive increase; so that the time of his birth might accord with the reason of the divine teaching, which began to multiply people from the shadow of death to life.

Christ the Son of God is from eternity according to the spirit of holiness, but according to the flesh he was born from the seed of David a Son to God, so that in both he is held to be not made a Son to God but born. And what he hears at baptism is for the sake of the mystery, not for his own sake. For he hears it for all who are baptized. He himself is only pointed out, so that from this God may appear in a man by mighty works; but the others are confirmed, because from this they begin to be sons of God, when they receive the Holy Spirit. For although the Lord’s body was born holy, yet the man Christ had not been confirmed by the sacrament of regeneration to be the Son of God unless he had received the Holy Spirit, according to the decree of the gift of rebirth. For the Jews too were called sons of God in devotion, not in the sacrament which now works, so that, having received the remission of sins, the Holy Spirit coming upon them, they are called sons of God. So the Savior was both born Son of God according to the flesh and afterward confirmed in the mystery. For what was born holy from the Holy could not but be born to God; but so that the purpose of the mystery might be fulfilled, by the coming of the Spirit it was not diminished but increased.

The Savior did all things in their proper places and times. For to teach that he had rightly founded all things by the Father’s will, he willed to redeem and re-form the world by his passion at the time when he had also created it, that is, at the equinox, from which the world took its beginning and the day began to increase over the night. So, living in the Roman realm, he had to suffer on no other day than the eighth before the Kalends of April, when the Romans have the equinox. For then indeed this part of the world was first lit up and from that point the day began to receive increase; and therefore by the Savior’s passion too it was then led from darkness to light. So no blame can be seen to fall on the Author, since he re-formed the fallen creation at the time when he had also made it. For the beginning of creation cannot be blamed for a thing that fell, since its restoration returns to it. For he willed that the joy of renewal should be on the same day as that of the dedication.

There is no doubt that Joseph’s father was Jacob. For the line from David through Solomon, keeping its course, comes straight to Jacob, whose son is Joseph; while Heli, the son of Matthat, keeps the line from David through Nathan, a son of the same David, down to the time when the Savior came. Hence the evangelists, each following from David the line of generations of one of the brothers, made as it were a fork: so that Matthew descended from David through Solomon to Joseph, while Luke ascended from Heli, who lived in the Savior’s time, through the line of Nathan son of David, and joined the tribe of both Heli and Joseph, showing that both were of one race; so that, by associating Heli with Joseph, he shows that they do not differ in descent but are brothers, and therefore that the Savior is the son not only of Joseph but also of Heli. For by the very reason for which the Savior is called the son of Joseph, he is also the son of Heli and of all the others who are of the same tribe. Hence the apostle says: “whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh.” For Luke was moved by divine prompting to ascend from Heli through the line of Nathan to David, and through Terah his father to Shem son of Noah, and further, beyond the flood, to reach Seth son of Adam, who was given in place of Abel; and by the same reason to make the Savior the son of Adam by which he was called the son of Joseph and of Heli; and, going beyond Adam, to mark that Christ is the Son of God before all flesh.

But the view some hold, that Heli took Jacob’s wife as the law commanded, that if anyone died without sons his brother or kinsman should take his wife and raise up seed for his brother, and that thus it came about that Heli begot Joseph for Jacob, whose wife he had taken, and that by this the genealogy is joined, so that Joseph is not undeservedly said to have Heli as father, is neither probable nor of any use.

But what was said above both joins the generation through two brothers, sons of one father, and shows that Christ is the Son of God before every generation. For the evangelist reports it, saying: “And Jesus himself was beginning to be about thirty years of age, the son, as was supposed, of Joseph, who was of Heli”; that is, Jesus was thought to be the son of Joseph, and he was not only the son of Joseph but also of Heli. Not that he calls Joseph the son of Heli, but in the same way in which Jesus was called the son of Joseph, so he was also the son of Heli, because Joseph and Heli were sons of brothers, that is, of Solomon and Nathan, sons of David; so that, ascending through David to Abraham and Noah and Seth and to Adam himself, and beyond Adam, he may teach that Christ is the Son of God. For when he says, “who was the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God,” he certainly calls Christ the son of Adam just as he was called the son of Joseph. For Mary said to Jesus: “Son, what have you done to us? For I and your father have been seeking you, sorrowful and sad.” And beyond Adam he joins Christ to God the Father, so that he who was called the son of these, that is, from Adam to Joseph and Heli, might be understood to be the true Son of God before all of them; to the confusion of Photinus, who contends that Christ existed only from Mary and not before. For he was called the son of those whose son he was not, and was denied to be the son of God, whose Son he truly was.

For if (what is improbable and of no use) Joseph is said to be Heli’s son in the way we mentioned above, he will seem to have said “who was of God” not of Christ but of Adam. For by setting out in order the fathers of each son, he comes to Enosh, whose father he says is Seth, and the father of Seth he says is Adam, and the father of Adam he says is God. I do not know what use there is in asserting it thus. But if, as we said, each in order is called father of Christ, as he was also called the son of Joseph (since it is said, “whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh”), by that very order he is read to be the son of Seth and the son of Adam, and beyond all these he is marked as the Son of God, so that he is said to be before those of whom he is called the son.

Mark could not have been unaware of what he was writing; for he was not without learning, who, steeped in divine letters from infancy, was trained in the law, especially since he followed the apostles. Knowing that all sayings are to be referred to their author, he referred these to Isaiah, who had first intimated this sense, saying: “The voice of one crying in the desert: prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God.” Indeed, right after the words of Malachi the evangelist added, saying, “the voice of one crying in the desert,” so as to join the words of both prophets, which pertain to one sense, under the person of the earlier prophet.

John was endowed with such holiness even from the cradle that he is believed neither to be deceived nor to deceive, nor not to know his Lord, who had enlightened him in the womb through the Holy Spirit. And therefore it is true both that he recognized him when the Spirit descended on him, and that he was not ignorant of him before he came to baptism. For he knew him, but did not know whether he himself was the one who would minister the gift of God promised to the fathers; this is what he declares he learned when he saw the Spirit descend on him. For John says he was instructed by God thus: “On whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, he is the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.” The apostle also testifies to this: “For I say,” he says, “that Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises of the fathers.” This is the respect in which John did not know the Lord; for although he was not ignorant of his magnificence, yet this was hidden from him: that through him the faith of Abraham was to be fulfilled.

One who thinks baptism consists in a fleshly reason is not spiritual; nor can he obtain the heavenly gift who does not believe that he is changed not by water but by faith. For water is seen, but the Spirit, who is not seen, works, so that faith may be in it. Because just as water washes bodily filth, so the Spirit washes the soul from sins, so that as visible things profit visible things, so the Spirit profits spiritual things. And therefore a spiritual reason is at work in baptism. For there is more there that is heard than is seen.

So when Nicodemus, bound by fleshly reasoning, doubted on this point, the Savior, to draw him to faith, used a fitting example: so as to give a visible example to confirm an invisible thing, one that consists in hearing alone, not sight; and it is not denied, and yet it is earthly, because it does a work of the world. So the Lord said to Nicodemus, to persuade him: “The spirit blows where it will, and you hear its voice, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so is everyone who is reborn of water and the Holy Spirit”; so that as the voice of the coming spirit, that is, the wind, is heard but not seen, as was said, so too the account of baptism is heard, what is said, but how it is done through the Spirit is not seen; yet it is heard when what will come of it is proclaimed by the one who conveys the words, so that what is heard may be believed to happen, though the account of how it is done is not given.

But when Nicodemus was not led to faith even by the example, he then hears from the Savior: “If I have spoken to you earthly things,” he says, “and you do not believe, how will you believe if I speak heavenly things?” He called those words earthly which he put forward as an example; that is: “If by the earthly reasoning of the example given, the spirit of the wind, you do not believe it can be done, because how it happens is not seen, how could it be that you would believe if I gave heavenly examples, which certainly you do not know?” For a person can be persuaded of what he does not know through what he knows; for example, God says of Christ that he is his true Son, which cannot be comprehended as to how it is; but through what we know according to the flesh of how sons are, we believe that God said, “Christ is my true Son,” to signify that he is from himself. In this way the Savior too wanted to commend a thing which can be explained neither in words nor in mind through what is perceptible and heard by the ears, that is, through the example of spirit, which is wind, which the senses grasp and the ear hears but does not know where it comes from; he wanted to make credible the work of the Holy Spirit, which cannot be grasped.

And in the Acts of the Apostles we read in the same way: “And suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house,” and so on. See, by the example of wind it plainly indicates that the Holy Spirit came from heaven and sounded just as a mighty wind does over the earth. For Jeremiah too calls the wind spirit, saying: “The wind blows in every region.” Because it is in this world and is carried about through different places, we do not know where it comes from or where it goes. But the Holy Spirit comes from heaven, as we read, to enlighten believers.

How then does it seem to some that the Savior spoke of the Holy Spirit, “The spirit blows where it will, and you hear its voice, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes,” when it is plain that the Savior said these things by way of example? Indeed he added: “So is everyone,” he says, “who is reborn of water and the Holy Spirit.” What is so plain as that he signified the wind by “spirit”? But they think the wind is not signified because he said, “it blows where it will,” as if every creature were not left to its own choice under the law laid down for it. For we too go and do what we will, acting under law. Why should we then give an account, or is it thought possible and not seem foolish, that, wanting to indicate the effect of the Holy Spirit, he would give that very Spirit as the example? So I think the question is resolved in every way.

This was not indeed of the time, but was done to condemn the Jews, so that, since they did not understand that the height of truth of the improved time was done for the gain of their salvation, the truth might bend itself to their accusation. For since they regarded the Savior as an enemy of the law, because out of mercy he wanted to free them from the burden of the law, as had been foretold by the prophet Jeremiah (for he says among other things, “And I will give them a new covenant, not such as I gave their fathers”), then the Savior, lest he appear an enemy, as they thought, by preaching new things, sent the man who had been cleansed of leprosy to the priests to offer gifts for his cleansing, as Moses had commanded. And to testify that this served for their accusation he says, “as a testimony to them,” so that in the judgment this thing might be a witness against those who called the Savior an enemy of the law. The apostle Paul followed this too. For though he preached that one must no longer be circumcised, he circumcised Timothy because of the offense of the Jews (for he preferred to do a superfluous thing rather than have a tumult stirred up by false brothers); which indeed served the error of the Jews. For they were satisfied for the moment, by which they would err for ever.

The Savior wants to expose the hypocrisy of the Jews by many examples, showing that greater things were done under the law and that no one dared to accuse, so as to show not only that the sabbath was violated once and again under the law, but also that the priestly bread was taken unlawfully with the priest himself allowing it, and, what is more, by men of high authority. For first Joshua son of Nun, by divine command, did not keep the sabbath, and when this was done the walls of Jericho fell of their own accord. How much it profited not to have kept the sabbath, but faith! And the Maccabees, after being slaughtered earlier, fought on the sabbath and triumphed over their enemies; and the priests, to serve the Lord’s ceremonies, disregarded the sabbath in the temple. And David, already anointed king, after he had, by God’s power, stripped of his arms the Philistine he had killed, being on a journey and suffering the necessity of hunger, received bread from the priest, which he was not allowed to eat (but not allowed apart from necessity; it was lawful if necessity required it); in short, the priest, seeing the necessity, did not refuse, and David, chosen by God, accepted without hesitation.

Such is the case of the sabbath too, which is why circumcision on the sabbath is not forbidden. For these things, which are not dangerous, were commanded to be kept in such a way that it does no harm if they are set aside out of necessity, because they were commanded not for salvation but for reverence; but what is altogether unlawful is always unlawful and is not softened by any necessity so that its commission does no harm. For what is forbidden by laws, because it is criminal, is always unlawful. But the things we said above are sometimes lawful are like the lawful fasts, which, broken out of necessity, do not make people guilty, if it is for the stomach’s sake or the weakness of fevers. The crafty Jews, knowing these things, accused the disciples as if they were violating the sabbath, as was said above. But the Savior did not want to prejudge them about the time of the fulfilled law, lest they leap further into madness; but from the past, from which they thought the sabbath should rather be defended, he showed them to be slanderers; and not only in the case of the sabbath, but they were confounded in the case of the priestly bread too, as was shown above.

As far as the narrative goes, the sons of Rachel of the tribe of Benjamin had long ago been destroyed and wiped out by the other tribes for their own crimes, namely the deeds of the Sodomites and the outrage they committed on the Levite’s concubine. For this reason she is said to refuse to be comforted, knowing there is no hope for those who are known to have perished. But the sons of Leah were killed in their earliest years on account of the Savior, and so he does not want lamentation ascribed to them, because they were both killed innocent and for God’s sake, by whom without doubt they have been given eternal life as a reward. Therefore lamentation belongs to Rachel’s sons, who were wiped out both in the present and in the future; but those, lamented in the flesh, were consoled spiritually; while Rachel’s sons, having lived in a fleshly way, will be consumed by spiritual flames. And the evangelist testifies that Rachel’s lament was fulfilled when Leah’s sons were killed, because she began to lament her sons when she saw her sister’s sons killed in such a cause that they became heirs of eternal life. For one to whom some misfortune befalls from another’s happiness laments his own misfortune more miserably.

These Chaldean magi observed the course of the stars not out of ill will but out of curiosity about things. For, as is given to be understood, they followed the tradition of Balaam, who, when summoned by Balak to curse God’s people, by divine will began to bless. From his report, then, they had learned that by God’s providence one would come from Jacob who would reign. For he prophesied, as is no secret, saying: “A star will rise from Jacob,” and so on. Following this tradition, then, the magi, seeing a star outside the order of the world, understood that this was the one which Balaam had prophesied would be the sign of the king of the Jews. This indeed was done against the enemies of religion. For it received testimony from the quarter from which it is usually disproved; for astrologers are enemies of the truth.

In this case, if you look for the number in the order of days and nights, you will not attain understanding, because Moses too fasted forty days and forty nights, and yet the full number is not found. For when he went up by day and came down by day, he certainly did not complete the whole number; but because where there is day, night is also counted, and where there is night, day is also counted, from the part to the whole forty days and forty nights are spoken of. So it is with what the Savior said: because there are three nights, three days too are taken. For night exists (lest it perhaps seem new or against reason) as depending on day. For it is not doubted that light, from which the day was named, was established before evening, which night follows.

That the Lord’s passion is asserted to take its beginning from night is not absurd; for as light, that is, day, is the image of life, so night, that is, darkness, is the likeness of death, as is evidently shown in the Scriptures: “sons of light,” and on the contrary, “of darkness.” Nor is it a wonder if, whereas everywhere day is put before night and light before darkness, here alone what follows is put before what precedes; or that in such a case the order of things is confused and changed, so that night rather than day seems to be the forerunner of death (for this is why the beginning is taken from night), since he could not enter the prince of darkness except through night; and so that the Lord of light, that is, of eternal life, might be subject for a time in some measure to the prince of darkness or of death, so as to free from death both those who had gone before and those who would come after. For death would not have been wholly emptied, nor the gloom of darkness ever dispelled, if it had not seen the Lord. For when so great a light entered, the secret place of death, in which it ruled, vanished; nor can anyone be wholly conquered unless he is caught either by his own means or in his own domain. Rightly, then, in such a business night alone holds the first place, so that it might lose its power. And so that the Jews, not believing, might remain in perpetual night, and that not day but night might be the author of so great a crime, or rather sacrilege, day is placed under the preceding night against the order of things, just as God and Lord of all things was placed under the prince of wicked death, to free all from the snares of death.

And if to anyone this still perhaps seems contrary, let him attend carefully, lest he begin to think that harder, that God, putting on the person of a servant, not to say of a man, gave himself to death. Why then do you look for order here, where you see all things contrary? For what is the light that was in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it, by which it was overcome? For one who knows that he is seized in order to be struck reckons that time to his death. There is also the following day, on which he was heard and crucified; there is also the night that falls into the sabbath; there is the sabbath itself; there is also the evening after the sabbath (this is what was commanded the Jews by Moses in figure, that they should enter the sabbath at evening), on which the Lord rose, which includes the Lord’s day, because night is not reckoned without day nor day without night. By this reckoning the Lord rose after three days and three nights.

It is not good to wrap true things in obscurities. For three evangelists had one sense, but Mark wanted to make known a thing which they had passed over, knowing it was necessary. For one could not be deceived who, following the examples of the authors, learned with great devotion and diligence what he wrote, and was not without the Holy Spirit. What he wanted to show by this, then, ought to be explained. So it must be observed that the Savior was crucified not by Pilate but by the Jews. As far as Roman law was concerned, they pronounced the Savior innocent. For Pilate said to the Jews: “I find no cause in him,” and when they said, “Crucify him,” he answered: “Why, what evil has he done?” Indeed, persisting and wanting to bring him out of their hands, he suffered false accusation, when they said: “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend; for everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” So it came about that he handed him over to their judgment. So Pilate did not give the sentence, but the Jews.

Indeed, “they were prompted,” it says, “by the chief priests to say, ‘Let him be crucified.’” He wants it understood that this sentence was given at the third hour, in which, persisting with continual shouts, yet with an interval of about three hours, in which they went to Herod and returned, they crucified the Savior. For everyone who is condemned is reckoned dead from the moment he receives sentence. So Mark made plain that the Savior was not crucified by the judge’s sentence. For it is difficult to prove innocent one who is punished by the judge’s sentence. So he allowed himself to disagree in a word, to teach that what was completed at the sixth hour was begun at the third hour, not by the laws, but by the persistent malice of the Jews.

To some it seems that by “the rulers of this age” he meant the elders of the Jews, as if according to what the apostle Peter said: “For you know, brothers, that you did this evil in ignorance, as did your rulers.” So they were rulers of the Jews, but not of this age. For he says “your rulers,” not “of the age,” since they said that they had Caesar as king, under whose power they had been brought. But these rulers are those whom the apostle signified in another place, saying: “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.” So it is rightly asked: if these did not know Jesus, how could it be that the demons recognized him?

But it is one thing that he says the demons recognized in Christ, and another that he denies the rulers of this age recognized. For the demons knew that he was the one who had been promised through the law. For they saw in him all the signs that the prophets had said would come, and that the redeemer of Israel would come of the seed of David from a virgin; but they did not know the mystery of his divinity, as their rulers did not. Indeed the devil asks the Savior, though captiously: “If you are the Son of God,” and so on. For seeing sometimes divine power, sometimes human weakness, he was tormented, uncertain what was true. So the Scriptures agree according to what has been revealed. For it is impossible for men of one Spirit to disagree.

Not everyone who is ignorant is free from punishment. For that ignorant person can be excused from punishment who found no one from whom to learn; but he asks forgiveness for these, because, having someone from whom to learn, they did not take pains. Such may not be ignorant: they will receive pardon, then, if they turn.

The souls of the slain cry out asking to be avenged, just as the blood of Abel cried from the earth. So it is the causes that are said to cry out, though they cannot speak. For what else does blood that has been shed do but ask to be avenged, crying not with voice but with reason? For a work too is said to praise its maker by the very fact that it delights the one who sees it. For the saints are not so impatient as to press for what they know will come at the predetermined time, which can be neither anticipated nor deferred. But by this saying he wanted to show that God will avenge the blood of his saints, lest, because he now seems so patient, the impious war waged against the saints be thought to go unpunished; so as both to strike terror into those who persecute God’s servants and to encourage those who suffer for him. For the soul of the sufferer is relieved when it hears that it will be avenged by one who is mighty. For it is proud if it hears that its death displeases the judge; for then it holds for certain that it is innocent. And God is indeed merciful and patient, but with measure. For he waits for the impious to believe and sinners to amend; otherwise they will be punished, because they despised God’s long patience.

He showed an example of this even in the time when mercy is preached, lest he seem not patient but insensible, one whom neither anyone’s pain nor pity moves. Hence he says through the prophet: “I have kept silent; shall I keep silent for ever?” And the Lord says: “Will not God avenge his servants who cry to him day and night?” They cry, certainly, in the way we said above. So if a Christian avenges himself for a time, not harshly nor with blood, he does not sin; yet he will do better if he leaves it to God the judge.

Everything said about Christ has been fulfilled. And the Lord himself fulfilled the law and the prophets in this way, when he did all that was written about him, and did not abolish anything but confirmed it. For the law and the prophets lasted until him. For the prophets spoke of him; therefore what was said by them about him cannot extend beyond him, nor could any prophets of this kind be found after him, because they have nothing to speak of, and the one of whom they spoke has already come. For they embraced everything in their books, and revealed his incarnation, his way of life, his passion, his resurrection, the manifestation of his divinity, and his future judgment; and therefore the prophets ceased when the work of the dispensation was fulfilled.

And the law ceased in two ways, though not wholly; for even what ceased can remain if a condition is kept. For one thing ceased in its sentence, another in the law itself. When John preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, the sentence of the law which held sinners guilty ceased; there ceased also the burdens of the law which had been given because of the hardness of the Jewish heart, in foods, new moons, weasels. For when mercy came, vengeance ceased. But the burdens of the law ceased for ever, while the sentence ceases and is abolished for those who remain in the benefit they have received. But for those who return to the old man the authority of the law is renewed, because, forgetful of the benefits, they return under the sentence of the law.

Circumcision and the sabbath were valid until the time when the commandment of the new law was preached. For they were given in such a way as to cease when the law of faith came. Hence the apostle says: “Christ is the end of the law.” For Daniel too signifies this, when he prophesies about the Lord’s coming and the times of the weeks, that chrism and judgment and sacrifice and the city itself would cease. For when the spiritual law came, fleshly things had to cease. For then God was served with a part of the body, now with a part of the soul; formerly visibly, now invisibly; then in the flesh, now in the mind; because God, who is spirit, must certainly be served in spirit. So the law was not abolished because it ceased, but it was succeeded when its time was fulfilled. For its administration or judgment is not accused if pardon is given to sinners, since it is the more proved to have been rightly and justly given because those over whom it ruled are not denied to have been sinners: “for the law,” he says, “is not laid down for the righteous.”

So let righteousness not be thought condemned because mercy is to be preferred; for if there were no reverence for it, mercy itself would have no fruit. For unless they keep it after receiving mercy, pardon will profit them nothing. For the law said: “You shall not make yourself an idol, nor worship the things that are in heaven above and on earth below,” and, “You shall not perjure yourself,” and, “Honor father and mother,” and, “You shall not kill, nor commit sexual immorality, nor steal; you shall not bear false witness, nor covet anything of your neighbor’s.” Are these to be said to have ceased? Far from it. For without them who can be judged fit even in this life? And therefore the other things we mentioned above have ceased: new moons, sabbaths, the law of foods, sacrifices, circumcision, and the rest. Hence the apostle says among other things: “Rulers are not a terror to good work, but to evil. Do you want not to fear the authority? Do good, and you will have praise from it.” These things kept make people good, yet not perfect. Hence the Savior says: “Unless your righteousness abounds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” For by adding better things to these the Savior certainly did not abolish the law but fulfilled it. For the sense of the law pertains to man’s safety, for example, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” so that, fearing to suffer what he was forbidden to do to another, one might restrain himself from wickedness. But the Savior, adding to this sense a higher righteousness, says: “But I say to you, do not resist evil; but if anyone strikes you on your right cheek, offer him the left also,” so that, by not repaying evil, one may be perfect. For to repay is just, but not full; but if one overlooks the injury, it is full and abounding righteousness. For to retaliate is to rejoice for a time; but to forgive brings gladness in the future.

So the Savior fulfilled the law in this way: those whom it taught righteousness he made more righteous, which it could not do; and therefore it is the law’s joy that its disciples have been made more skilled. He would plainly have destroyed the law if he had taught that one may sin with impunity. But in fact he suspended the sentence, so that the one who does evil may have room for repentance; otherwise the sentence returns on him heaped up, because he did not recognize that he was released for this purpose, to amend himself.

No one doubts that the devil is man’s enemy, especially the believer’s; for he sharpens his weapons more vehemently against God’s servants. So just as he is the enemy of the good, so the law is hostile to the evil. For who would not be hostile to one who despises him? So the Lord addresses the sinner, that he should agree with the commandments which condemn him in his disobedience, so as to submit himself to their will and become a friend instead of an enemy; because the despiser of the law is its enemy, for he resists its will. And therefore the Lord exhorts the sinner to reconcile the law to himself by acting well, lest on the day of judgment it accuse him before the judge and, condemned, he pay the penalty for the law he despised. For to everyone who wants to do evil the Lord’s discipline seems hostile; unless he agrees with it, he will be sent into the Gehenna prepared for the devil, who is truly the enemy of the human race.

As far as the faith of truth goes, no one has ever seen God at all, neither Father nor Son. For what he is said to have been seen refers to understanding; for he was seen as in an image. Just as we, when we do not know the emperors, see them in a figure, not in reality, so too God was seen, so that the one who appeared might be understood to be God by reason, not by substance, because God cannot be seen in his nature. And to open more truly the secrets of the question proposed, let us try to unfold the sense of the evangelist. For John wanted to bring out something hidden, which he knew pertained to saving teaching. Therefore he says: “No one has ever seen God, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; he has declared him.”

Let us note the evangelist’s sense. To show that it is true that no one has ever seen God, he teaches that the Son declared it, who certainly cannot be deceived, because he is in the Father’s bosom. And what is the Father’s bosom except the affection, in the love of the true Father, toward the Son through the unity of nature? Therefore no one has seen God except the only Son. John the apostle heard the Son of God say this among other things: “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.” So, to serve the condemnation of the Jews, who would neither hear nor believe that Christ is the Son of God, the evangelist shows that this is the Christ who appeared to the fathers as God, but that he who is the Father is never seen except by the Son. For when he denies that God the Father has been seen and confesses that God appeared to the fathers, the Son of God wants to manifest himself, because he himself was always seen as God by the fathers. Hence he says among other things to the Jews about the Father: “You have never heard his voice nor seen his form.” See, it is not contradictory that God is both seen and unseen.

It must not be passed over carelessly, but one must consider what “the law was given through Moses” means. For the law given through Moses has plain precepts, but he also wrote history, which itself too is called law. And let us see what in its precepts will not be true. Perhaps what it says: “You shall not kill, you shall not commit sexual immorality, you shall not steal”; the rest are of this kind. But that his history was not truth before Christ’s coming is plain. For what the things under a veil signified was uncertain. But when it is made manifest through Christ whose person it is that says in Genesis, “Let us make,” and who it is that makes, and who was seen in the bush or by the patriarchs, and who worked in the rock that gave water in the desert (because, it says, “the rock was Christ”), so truth comes through Christ: when what was hidden or came into doubt, as to what it signified, has been shown by Christ. For the Lord says among other things: “Moses wrote of me.” This was hidden before; for there was error. For God the Father was thought to be the one who was the Son, and the one who was thought an angel was known to be the Son of God. And a promise had been made to Abraham, which, as long as it was not fulfilled, was in doubt. But when it was fulfilled at Christ’s coming, it became truth, when both what was promised was fulfilled and what had been promised began to be known. For the faithfulness of the one who promises is proved true when he pays what was promised.

It is entirely impossible that the Savior’s will should not be fulfilled, nor can he will what he knows ought not to be done; therefore he must be said to have willed what was done. For his will is never outside his nature. So just as his nature does not fall under reproach, neither does his will. For what is proposed we read was done in the region of Tyre. Then he entered a house and wanted no one to know. Now it is asked how or why he wanted no one to know. For it must be noted that this was done in the region of the gentiles, to whom it was not yet the time for preaching. Indeed, sending his disciples, he commanded, saying: “Do not go on the road of the gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Therefore he did not want it betrayed that he was in the house; but he did not refuse to be sought out, rather he accepted it gladly. For although it was not the time for preaching to the gentiles, yet not to receive those coming to faith of their own accord would have been grudging. So it came about that the Savior, though not betrayed by his disciples, was betrayed by others who had seen him entering the house, and it began to be known that he was in the house, so that those who wanted to obtain benefits might come in to him. So he did not want to be proclaimed by his own as being in the house; but he wanted to be sought out, and so it happened. For he was not hidden, being pointed out by others as being in the house. Indeed the Canaanite woman, hearing of him, came in to him praying that he would drive the demon from her daughter; and unless she had first submitted herself to the God of the Jews, she would not have obtained the benefit. So the Savior’s will was fulfilled according to what we have explained; for by examining what the evangelist, aiming at brevity, summarized, we have found what was hidden.

You always hide the sense with an abridged statement. For what you call into question happened when, being in Galilee, because of the tumult of the Jews, he was urged by his brothers, who did not yet believe in him, to go up to Judea, because the feast of the Jews was coming, so that he would suffer sedition. But he answered them, saying: “You go up to the feast, because the world does not hate you; but it hates me, because I convict its works. I do not go up to this feast, because my time is not yet fulfilled.” Then his brothers went up to the feast, but he remained in Galilee. But afterward he too went up to the feast.

What seems contradictory, when he did not go up when he said no, but went up afterward, and went up not as to a feast but as to a dispute? For they all went up gladly, as if to enjoy the delights of the feast day. So it is certain that he did not go up to the feast. But that was the Savior’s feast day on which by his passion he redeemed the world. Indeed he says: “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.” This is his feast day, on which he conquered death.

The case is otherwise than proposed; for this is not the sense of this question that you put forward. For the case of free choice cannot in any way be disturbed by these words, because if you look closely at the sense of the sayings, you will know that the view of free choice is rather strengthened from them. For these things were said against the malicious Jews. For when, by a deceit of pretense born of envy, they asserted that Joseph was his own father and his sons the Savior’s brothers, lest he be believed to be the Son of God, then the Savior said: “No one comes to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” And how did the Father draw to the Son except through the works he did through him? For thus he said: “The Father abiding in me does the works himself,” so that these works might draw to faith in Christ. For the mighty works which the Savior did themselves persuaded that God is the Father of Christ, so that one who said he had another father would not be drawn by God to Christ. So God worked through Christ so that faith might be given to his words, in which he said he was the Son of God.

This is the drawing: not violence, but God’s testimony in Christ; whoever believes it is said to be drawn by him to Christ. For no one believes the Savior except one who says God is his own Father. For the apostle said these things which you have brought into question not to strike at free choice, but to forbid the revision of God’s judgment; he said these things proclaiming God just; for he knows on whom he ought to have mercy. And the inspector of the heart sees the mind of the one who asks, whether he deserves to receive. Indeed he says through the prophet: “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” For it is just that he harden the mind of a dissembler. For one who calls the true false not through error but through malice, so that, understanding the good, he pretends not to know that it is good, so as to turn it into evil, should certainly be given this: that he truly not understand the good, so as not to be saved, which he does not want. For it is not just that one be saved against his will who spurns salvation not through ignorance but through malice or envy. So by these things free choice is strengthened rather than destroyed, so that each is answered according to his wish.

All the divine books are bitter, but to the faithless and the fleshly. For it is unpleasant to idolaters when they hear one God preached in Christ. And Photinus too is afraid, seized with horror; Sabellius also blushes, hearing that the Father is the Father, who cannot be called Son, because all things are from him; and that the Son is called Son because he is certainly not the Father himself but from the Father, not the one from whom but through whom all things are. Arius too is refuted when he reads that Christ is the true Son of God; for without doubt he could not be called true unless he were properly from God. Marcion too is convicted, who thinks flesh must be denied to Christ, when he learns that the Word was made flesh. The wicked Manichee too is refuted, seeing it written by the evangelist that the Savior not only graced the vows of a wedding with his presence but even honored it with drink; he who shuts the entrance to marriage and urges promiscuous intercourse.

These things are contained in the book which the apostle received to devour. This book is the gospel which is titled “According to John,” which is bitter not only to those who think wrongly but also to the undisciplined, who do not want to be corrected, so that they advance to worse. This revelation was made at the time when the apostle John was on the island of Patmos, banished by the emperor Domitian for the faith. Then he was in the Spirit, so that he could see heavenly things, and while these things were shown him which will come because of impiety and sexual immorality and the rest, a book was given him which was sweet in the mouth but made the belly bitter; so that of the people who seem to be of one body, it would be sweet to these, who, because they are of sound profession, are signified in the mouth (for that is sweet in the mouth which is true), but bitter to those who live or think in a fleshly way with heretical depravity, for which reason they are signified in the belly. For it will accuse them on the day of God’s judgment. So after the revelation he was ordered to write the gospel because of the things we said above. And to the prophet Ezekiel likewise it was said that he should take a book which was sweet in his mouth, when he was sent to rebuke the faithlessness of the people.

Simeon, a holy man commended by divine oracles, spoke through the Holy Spirit of what would happen to people on account of Christ: that he would be a fall for those who, though they seemed to themselves to stand through observance and skill in the law, would nevertheless fall through distrust of Christ’s works, cut off from the promise to the fathers; but for those who were of almost no standing in the law but believed in Christ, a resurrection in Israel, so that those formerly unworthy and useless might become worthy of God, and those who were thought something might be rejected. This is what the Lord says in another place: “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see and those who see may become blind.” Indeed, it was not the teachers of the law, not Pharisees, not scribes who followed Christ, but fishermen, unskilled and rustic men. Hence the Lord says: “Father, I thank you that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones.”

And what he added, saying, “And a sword will pass through your own soul, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed,” certainly signified that even Mary, through whom the mystery of the Savior’s incarnation was accomplished, would doubt at the Lord’s death, yet in such a way that she would be strengthened by the resurrection. For all doubted at the Lord’s death with a kind of stupor. For who would not hesitate, seeing the one who called himself the Son of God so humbled as to descend even to death? And because, as I said, all doubt would depart at the Lord’s resurrection, he said “pass through,” not fall upon or touch some member in passing; so that as a sword thrown, passing beside a man, causes fear but does not strike, so too doubt caused sadness but did not kill, because it did not settle in the mind but passed through, touching the disciples’ hearts as through a shadow. Indeed Cleopas and Emmaus, going sad on the way, say among other things to the Lord himself, not knowing that he is the Lord: “We thought that he was the one who was beginning to free Israel.” They doubted, but at once, when the Lord was recognized, the doubt passed. It is likewise said of Joseph that “iron passed through his soul.” This is to escape death, because to doubt about God or Christ is death; and therefore one who ceases to doubt escapes death.

As far as the sense goes, the questions are different. But the words are partly alike, partly differing. For “made” and “did not make” are contrary; “knew not” and “did not do” are alike. So the prophet spoke in the person of Christ: “for he did no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth”; but the apostle speaks of the person of God the Father: “because him,” that is Christ, “who knew no sin, he made sin for us.” This is to be understood in two ways. First, he made him sin when he willed him to be incarnate, so that he whom the lot did not touch should take a body from sinful flesh, by which he is said to be made sin. Then, in offering him for sins, he made him sin. For the victim offered for sins in the law was called “sin.”

So Christ did not commit sin, as the prophet says, but plainly he himself was made sin, as has been shown. And what is it to offer Christ for us, except to give power to those who wanted to kill him? This was allowed because it would profit, so that it would be the occasion for descending to the underworld to strip Tartarus of souls. For it is a superabounding and unheard-of sin to have killed one who not only had sinned in no way but had given life to many. Made guilty by this sin, the devil lost the audacity to contradict. For something similar is read in the letter to the Galatians; for among other things he says: “He was made a curse for us.” By whom was he made, if not by the Father? For by God’s judgment the cross of Christ is the curse of the Jews; for the Savior’s death cries out their sin. So he allowed himself to be crucified so that his passion might profit us, so that, departing from here with his sign, we might not be held by the second death. For death fears even his servants, by whom it was conquered.

The didrachma is understood as a poll-tax, not a tax on estates. For the Savior possessed nothing in the world, though he is Lord of the world, and when dead he was buried at others’ expense; yet we, to whom the world is foreign, desire to increase our means, so that when dying we testify, not only by voice but also in writing, to the world we have seized, so that by our own profession we are condemned by him whose the world is. Hence the Lord says: “Whoever does not leave everything and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Whoever, then, holds his means in such a way that he does not put his hope in them, but is ready to throw them away for the faith, walks the road that leads to Christ our Lord.

So the didrachma was to be exacted from those who carried on some business or applied themselves to crafts. But the Savior, who cared for none of these things, nor did his disciples, was certainly not to be taxed. But because the enemy devil was always lying in wait, seeking an occasion to see whether he could bend the Savior, he took hold of the minds of the collectors of the didrachma, so that they did his will; so that, coming to Peter, who was first among the apostles, they said that the didrachma must be paid by their teacher, though they were free of these burdens (for they did nothing in the world that was of the world); so that, because he had nothing to pay with, he would either be an offense to them or at least, by the humility of seeking support, look for someone to pay for him. Then the Lord, to show that the devil is improvident and always plotting against himself, orders the apostle Peter to go to the sea and open the mouth of a fish he caught and find there the amount owed for the tax; and when it was paid, not only would he not be an offense to the collectors, nor be bent by asking help to pay, but he would even display a sign of the greatest power, by which he would draw to himself those captured by the devil, so that the devil would be tormented by his own scheme and cunning. So the collectors of the didrachma say to the apostle Peter: “Does your teacher not pay the didrachma?” By this saying they called on the teacher to pay for all the disciples.

And when the Savior orders payment for himself and Peter, he seems to have paid for all, because, just as all were in the Savior by reason of his teaching office, so too after the Savior all are contained in Peter. For he appointed him to be their head, so that he might be shepherd of the Lord’s flock. For among other things he says to the disciples: “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation,” and to Peter he says: “Behold, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when at last you have turned, strengthen your brothers.” What is in doubt? Did he pray for Peter and not pray for James and John, not to speak of the others? It is plain that all are contained in Peter; because in another place too he says: “I pray for those whom you have given me,” and: “I want them to be with me where I am.”

Now let us see what a didrachma is, that is, what its measure of weight or quantity is, or of what substance … [the rest is lost].

The Lord, when the children of Israel often sinned after being led out of Egypt, in anger gave sentence that none of them would enter the land of promise except Caleb and Joshua son of Nun, who was formerly called Hoshea. But those who had been born in the desert, he said, would enter, because they did not know good or evil. Not to know good or evil is a certain natural simplicity, which is trained neither to good nor to evil, that is, ignorance without malice. For we are born without understanding, but our nature has this good, that it is capable of learning the truth. But a son of the devil is one who, after being born, is steeped in evil things, so as to devote himself to what is hostile to the Creator, asserting many gods and that sacrifice must be made to them as rulers of the world. If this one comes to his senses and thinks according to his nature, betaking himself to the Creator, he will be a son of God.

And therefore those who are born are neither sons of God nor of the devil. For what does the Savior say to the Jews? “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.” You see, then, that sons are created for the devil by works and profession, and that those are sons of God who, confessing that God is properly the Father of Christ, live rightly. For God established our race in such a way that, though born without understanding, we nevertheless have the possibility of learning either good or evil, so that we ourselves may acquire for ourselves either evil or good; so that we may rejoice in ourselves when, acting rightly, we are rewarded, or blame ourselves if, following wicked things, we are condemned.

Not everything that is born is the same as that from which it is born. For gold too is born of the earth, and yet it is not earth, and so are gems and many other things; and food is born from a tree, and an egg from a hen. But that pagans are born of pagans has this cause: since every pagan is in ignorance, and the one born of him is without understanding, both are ignorant. Yet there is this difference between the two: the begetter is without doubt a blasphemer and therefore a son of the devil, while the infant who is born does not know how to blaspheme, just as he does not know how to bless; yet he is a pagan, because he is without understanding. A Jew, on the other hand, is born of a Jew because he is begotten under devotion to the Creator, as Adam said of Cain: “I have procreated a man through God.” For as the pagans, who are not devoted to the Creator, give thanks to demons in all they do, so the Jews, as suppliants of God the Creator, praise him in every act of theirs; in this they are to be despised, that they do not acknowledge Christ, through whom all things are. In this way too a Jew is born of a Jew; not, as some think, because circumcision makes a Jew. For circumcision is the sign of Judaism, not Judaism, since in Abraham circumcision is not righteousness but the sign of righteousness, so that those born of Abraham might have a sign by which they would be proved to be sons of Abraham. Indeed they were called by this name after Judas Maccabeus, so that not only those from Judah but also the rest, from all the sons of Jacob, were called Jews, because Judas had been their leader. And so those born Jews receive the sign, so that it may be understood what they are. But a Christian is not born of a Christian, because the one who begets was not born but made a Christian. For this reason the one who is born must also be made one, in order to be one. For he is not born a Christian by substance but by faith, which comes to those already born. For ignorance is born with the flesh, but faith is implanted afterward by a spiritual principle. But it is objected: “If the one who begets has certainly been made one, he ought now to beget what he is himself, so that the dignity he received would be passed on by descent. For senators beget senators.” But the dignity of senators has no merit before God, nor does nature itself, that is, the substance, obtain any benefit from it; the dignity consists only in reputation and talk. And therefore the name does run along the line of fleshly descent, but it confers nothing except the reputation of dignity, just as those who are consuls or are honored with statues rejoice in something empty. But when people become Christians, dignity is added to nature itself, so that the very essence of the human being has the everlasting benefit of incorruptibility, so that it is so not in reputation only but in fact, effectively, before God. It is as if some eloquent poor man were praised and lacked bread or other necessities. For true praise is this: that the dignity sought should so profit a man that he lacks nothing, when this is granted to his nature, that it lives by itself and lives well, needing no support; this is truly to become rich and glorious.

It is clear that by adding, removing, or changing a syllable the sense is perverted. Everyone knows that the pagans worship the elements; but the Jews served God, not the elements, yet “under the elements,” because of new moons and sabbaths and circumcision and other such things. For these are carnal; whatever is visible is carnal and belongs to the elements. But because this was by God’s command, God was being served, so that from visible things they might come to invisible ones, and from this care progress might be made toward grasping greater things, so that, practised in these, they might become worthy of the spiritual promises. In this respect, then, which I mentioned above, the Jews served under the elements; in another respect they had a spiritual law, which both forbids sin and exhorts to love of the Lord God, who had been promised to them as coming to forgive sins.

No one who shows mercy ought to be slandered. For it is in the power of the giver when and how much he wishes to show mercy. Such a one should be encouraged and called forth by prayers, not called back from a good work by contention. Perhaps there would be no objection if some return were made to him for this mercy. Would anyone blame a physician who spends his medicines and his service free of charge, or will his slowness be accused by those by whom he was not sought?

These things we have said according to reason; but the Savior’s goodness does not take account of them, because of human weakness, for he follows his own nature in showing mercy. Therefore he came when he ought to come, following the reason of his own will, not of our merits. For if you weigh merits, he ought not to have come. He came, then, when he knew both that help ought to be given and that the benefit would be welcome. For if someone threatened by need is helped beforehand, it will indeed be welcome, yet he will not be able to know well what has been granted him; but if you bring help to one already placed in the need, he will know what kind of benefit he has obtained. For one rescued from tribulation will return greater thanks, just as when you offer bread to someone hungry; but if you offer it when he is not hungry, it will certainly not be as welcome.

Therefore it was rightly done that the Lord did not come earlier. For first he let the human race use its own will, not without witness to himself, since he willed his divinity to be understood and feared from the very fabric of the world and from the yearly gifts which he decreed to be presented for human use through the ministry of the elements; and indeed knowledge of him was also on earth by descent from the first man, then through Enoch and Noah. But when, through a certain languor of the human race, the knowledge of God among men had begun to grow obsolete and morals were changing, he deigned to choose Abraham, in whom there would be a pattern of renewed knowledge of God and of morals. And when reverence was still sluggish, he afterward gave the law in writing through Moses, so that it would not grow obsolete and would strike more fear. For fear is greater where authority is manifest. And because, once the law had been received, the nations spurned it, not submitting to it, and those who received it did not keep it, the Lord, moved by mercy, sent his Son, who, offering himself for them and destroying death, with forgiveness of sins given to all, might present them justified to God the Father. For he could not descend to the underworld except through death; neither order nor reason required that one who had not died should enter the gates of Tartarus.

If someone wishes to deceive barbarians in their own land, does he not change into their dress, so as to be thought one of them, and so find out how to overthrow them? So it was done to the devil as well. Since by an evil device he had overthrown man, so that man remained in death, a remedy was found by which he would lose those whom he wrongly held: he was to be entered upon unawares, and the one whom he thought he had killed as a man he was to find in the underworld to be God. When this was done, he was found guilty and lost all whom he held, and thereafter the way to heaven was opened.

See how much the Savior’s coming profited, so that people, knowing from what danger they have been set free, may give him thanks without ceasing! But perhaps it will be objected: “If many before the law and after the law, weighed down by sins, gave themselves wholly to the flesh and deserved to remain in Tartarus, without doubt there were also some who, by devotion and reverence toward the Creator, bridled their life by the law of nature. Were not these too held in the underworld once removed from this life? But if he had come earlier, after the death of Adam, then by setting free Adam, who sinned first, he would have opened the way to heaven for the rest, so that those who had lived well and acknowledged the Creator would be received into heaven when they died. It is a loss, then, that Christ did not come earlier.” That it is a loss is plain; but ask whether it is just or unjust. For losses are often just, and one may not complain about them. Has a thief who was caught and condemned to repay fourfold according to the law ever dared to complain? And so the loss the human race suffered was justly done, which is why it was permitted.

This is why the Savior ought not to have come at the very beginning either. For when the devil grew proud, man, made by God, was set up as his enemy, so that, fortified by God’s help, since he was unequal to him, he might resist him, having received a commandment. But the devil, with his usual subtlety, pretended not to know what God had commanded, and found Eve unsteady; then, promising them that if they touched what was forbidden he would grant them deity, he got the better of them. Then the devil, having overcome man, triumphed, and man, conquered, made his race subject to sin. For this reason it would have been unjust to take the spoils from the victor by force, since what God does he does justly, especially since man sinned grievously. For by consenting, against the Creator’s commandment, to become a god, he committed idolatry, by which he sinned against God; and therefore he ought not to have been helped at once, especially since he did not repent. Nor would mercy have been welcome if he had not known what he deserved. For although God can do all things, he does what agrees with reason, so that he may remain beyond reproach.

Far be it that Christians should be said to venerate the stars, Christians to whom a spiritual worship has been granted, so that, despising the things that are seen, they may be joined to those that are invisible and above the heavens, and so transcend all these things, since they will be with the angels of God. For worshippers of the stars will either be with them or beneath them; how can anyone be above the things he worships? So the pagans do not observe the reckoning of the moon; they venerate the moon itself as a goddess, and thinking they have grasped the effects of its courses, what must be done or avoided on certain days, they have made decrees, subjecting their life and conduct in a fixed order to its rule; and because they have dared to usurp these things outside God’s ordering, we often find them deceived. For God set these lights as signs of the times, which is why we too keep the number of the moon, not worship the moon itself: so that from the fourteenth moon, which for us according to the law is the first, we observe the reckoning of Pascha. For God established all things complete; and therefore from the fourteenth to the twenty-first, in these seven days, we are allowed to celebrate Pascha, so that within these seven days are included the days from the Preparation to the Lord’s resurrection, so that the passion does not fall on the thirteenth nor the resurrection on the fourteenth or the fifteenth, lest Christ’s passion come before what is for us the first moon, or his resurrection fall on any day but the first day, on which the world was begun.

For all the times of the world are counted by the courses of one week, in which God put together the members and ornaments of the world. For in six days he fitted out the world, and on the seventh he rested, which he called the Sabbath. In these seven days the whole reckoning and number of the world is contained. For, always returning upon themselves, they multiply the number of times. After the Sabbath it always begins again from the first day up to the seventh, that is, the Sabbath, so that the Lord’s resurrection may be learned to have taken place on the first day of the world’s beginning, which is called the Lord’s day. For the Lord made it “one,” and when it has run on in the evening to the number seven, it begins again, so as to be first after the week. This was so decreed from the beginning because of the mystery of the Lord’s incarnation and passion and resurrection. For in the Lord’s body almost the whole world rose again and was renewed.

It is settled that we do not worship the moon but keep the number that was established by the moon’s course. But the devil, who is Satan, in order to lend some authority to his deceit and colour his lies with invented truth, in the first month, in which he knows the Lord’s mysteries are to be celebrated, instituted mysteries for the pagans to observe (for he is of no mean power), so as to keep their souls in error for two reasons: first, that because falsehood came before the truth, the truth might seem falsehood, as if antiquity prejudged the truth; and second, that because in the first month, in which the Romans have the equinox just as we do, that very observance is kept by them, so that they too say that expiation is made through blood, as we say it is through the cross. By this cunning he holds the pagans in error, so that they think our truth seems an imitation rather than the truth, as though invented by a kind of superstition out of rivalry. “For what was found later,” they say, “cannot be reckoned true.” But because with us the truth is certain and has been from the beginning, the signs of mighty works and wonders bear witness, so that by the testimony of power the devil’s wickedness becomes known. For since power alone easily persuades of these things, it has been set against the devil’s cunning and his anticipation, to reveal his pretence. No one, even among our enemies, would dare deny that the truth is there where power appears.

Nothing should seem credible except that the evangelist followed the sense of the law, and therefore these were not undeservedly removed by the evangelist from the number of the others. For their impiety continued in such a way that their wickedness had no interval. The wickedness begun from Joram ran on unbroken down to Uzziah son of Amaziah, so that there was no support on either side by which any of them might remain in the number of the kings on account of a father’s merit. For Joram, acting wickedly, was left in the number because of the merit of Jehoshaphat, and Uzziah was kept in the number because of the merit of Jotham; but the wickedness of those three against God was continuous. Solomon too was left in the kingdom because of his father’s merit, and Rehoboam son of Solomon, acting wickedly, was left in the number of the kings because of the merit of Asa. But those three, acting wickedly, were shut in between evils; therefore they were erased. For it is a worse example, to the ruin of a race, when wickedness spreads itself without a break. And to speak precisely: they were passed over because Joseph does not descend from their line. For the evangelist followed the generation, from Abraham, of those from whom Joseph draws his origin, to whom Mary was betrothed and bore Christ.

We bring forward the word of a fit witness. For the angel says to Mary, among other things: “And the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” How would David be called his father by a fit witness, if Mary were not of the seed of David?

Almost nothing new; for the Trinity is preached in such a way that one God is believed. So nothing has been added, but the mystery of the one God has been revealed. It ought not to have been made manifest at the very beginning, because first there must be preaching, and afterward what was preached must be revealed, so that you may know that the Father is the one from whom all things are, that the Son is said to be the one through whom all things are, and that the Holy Spirit is called the one through whom all things, which are from the Father but through the Son, are regenerated to faith in the one God. These, then, are indeed three, but one Godhead. Reason, then, makes them three, not more or fewer. For every number reaches up to nine, because three, while they are in one another, make nine in number, since three are in one and three in one. For whoever sees one sees three, since one differs in nothing from another. Three, then, are one, and three times three are one; that is, perfection lies in the number nine, so far as number is concerned, because all things are from one. For when one is added, from whom or in whom the three who are counted make nine, the result is ten or twenty. Yet one always comes up to nine and one is added, because nine are one, so that the perfection of unity may be full.

As the case required, so the Lord showed himself. To the prophet he appeared as a king rebuking the people, and he showed himself as what he was; for the cause of his deity was at peace. But that he appeared standing to Stephen was brought about by the false accusation of the Jews. In Stephen the Savior’s cause was suffering violence; therefore, with God the judge seated, he appeared standing, as one pleading a case, and because his cause is good, he was at the right hand of the judge. For everyone who pleads a case must stand.

Since neither the Jews nor the worldly powers believed the Savior (for he willed to be manifested not only to men but also to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, as the apostle teaches in the letter to the Ephesians), he showed that after his passion the Holy Spirit would prove that he had spoken the truth. And this is “to convict the world”: to show it that what it refused to believe is true. For it refused to believe that the Savior had come from God. But the Savior, keeping righteousness, did not fear to return to him who had sent him, and by going back he proved that he had come from there, because no one ascends to God except the one who descended from God. Seeing him ascend, then, the powers were confounded, seeing that what they had spurned as false was true. So this righteousness convicts them, by which he was proved righteous, because he went back to where he had come from. And he convicts them of sin in this way, that they not only refused to believe him but also killed him. Of judgment he rebuked them in this way, by showing that the ruler of the world was made guilty and restrained by him in whose faith they had no share. For seeing souls going from the underworld into heaven, they recognized that the ruler of this world had been condemned, so that, made guilty in the Savior’s case, he lost what he held.

These things were indeed seen when the Savior ascended, but when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples they were made manifest openly and plainly. For the true rebuke came then, when after the passion, as testimony to the Savior, the faithless saw publicly the dead rising, the lame running, lepers cleansed, paralytics strengthened, the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the mute speaking, the demon-possessed cleansed, and the sick giving thanks with their health restored. In this way the Holy Spirit convicts the world, because in the name of the Savior, who was rejected by the world, he worked the powers of every kind of healing.

“Devil” is not a proper name but a common one. In whomever the works of the devil are found, he must without doubt be called a devil; for it is the name of a work, not of a nature. So in this place he signifies Cain as the father of the Jews, whose imitators the Jews wished to be when they killed the Savior. He says that this man did not stand in the truth, because he stained himself with the murder of a kinsman and made himself guilty of death. From him the pattern of fratricide was given. He means this same man when he says that when he speaks a lie he speaks of his own, to show that each one sins only by his own will. But because he is an imitator of the devil, he added: “because he is a liar, as is his father too.” For the devil, in order to condemn the first man to death, pretended not to know what God had commanded. Likewise Cain too, when asked, pretended not to know where his brother Abel was, whom he had killed. So in this place he called Cain the devil, and the devil, whose works he followed, his father; for the devil’s son is a devil. But that devil who is also Satan has no father in his wickedness; he is the author of evil to himself. For he sinned first, and therefore whoever imitate him will be called his sons, and he their father. For we too have Abraham as father in faith, because he first believed God, and therefore we are reckoned by his name; we are called faithful as he was.

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.

There is no doubt that everything in our religion is strengthened by the testimony of truth and marked by the prerogative of the old law. For all things in the past are known to have been done and designed as a figure of our future faith, so that we would not doubt that we hold the truth, when we see that the things we now hear and believe were predestined before the ages, commended not only by words but also by powerful signs. But the question now is whether they are understood by us in the same way as they were designed, so that we may rightly discern from where and for what reason the day of Pentecost was derived. For the Lord’s Scriptures open their meanings to the careful and devout and close them to the careless. Nor was it fitting that things reserved for the deserving and worthy should be seen everywhere by everyone.

Pentecost, then, which is reckoned the fiftieth day from Pascha, has this rationale. Just as after the week the Lord’s day is the first, on which the mystery of Pascha was fulfilled for the redemption of human salvation (because after the course of seven days one must always return to the first, to show that the age of the world is completed by the number seven), so too after seven weeks the day of Pentecost is the first. Indeed Pentecost never falls on any day but the Lord’s day, so that everything concerning human salvation may be known to have been both begun and completed on the Lord’s day. For on the Lord’s day the world was made, and after the fall it was again re-formed on the Lord’s day. A figure of this re-formation was given first in circumcision, in which there was a sign of the faith to come. For after the week, the day called the eighth is the first in the mystery. For this is the day which the Lord made. He made one day, from which the others would receive their courses. And therefore he rose on the very day which he made; and, according to the number in the reasoning stated above, on that same day he also gave the law on Mount Sinai through his servant Moses, so that, as the lamb was a figure of the Lord’s passion in the sacrament of the Pascha, so the giving of the law was a figure of the gospel preaching, because the law was given on the same day, that is, Pentecost, on which the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples, so that they might receive authority and know how to preach the law of the gospel. This fact is confirmed by a double testimony, because it is both shown to have been predestined and proved divine and above the heavens by the manifest pouring out of the Holy Spirit; for the unlearned spoke the mighty works of God in various tongues.

The law, then, was given to the sons of Israel through Moses on the third day of the third month, as is contained in the book of Exodus; that day is the fiftieth from the fourteenth of the first month, on which the Pascha was kept in Egypt, that is, it is Pentecost. Hence it came about that the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles at Pentecost for preaching the law of faith, so that the deeds of the ancients might be held as images of things to come, for the security of our faith, because what was preached from the beginning cannot seem false. Therefore the time of forgiveness and re-formation is described in the fiftieth psalm, so that the same providence of the fiftieth day, which is also the first, might be known. Hence it came about too that the manna was given from heaven to the Jewish people on the first day, which is the Lord’s day; that this is so is proved by the sequence of six days on which they gathered it, and on the seventh day, that is, the Sabbath, they rested. And the manna is a type of the spiritual food which by the Lord’s resurrection became truth in the mystery of the Eucharist.

It now remains for us to prove whether what we have said is to be understood as we stated above. In the first month, on whose fourteenth day the Pascha was celebrated in Egypt, that day was the fourth day of the week; hence the law too was given on the fourth day of the week. This is given to be understood from the fact that the fifteenth day of the second month after the departure of the sons of Israel appears to have been a Sabbath; therefore the flock of quails was not sent to them by day, but in the evening. And in the morning manna rained on them from heaven, that is, on the Lord’s day, which is found to be the first after the week in the repeating cycle. Then for six continuous days they gathered manna, and on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, they rested. From this day, then, to the third day of the third month, on which the law was given, search and you will find that it was the fourth day of the week when the law was given. For from the fifteenth day of the second month, when it was the Sabbath, to the third day of the third month, on which the law was given, there are nineteen days. Hold on to these nineteen, then, and go back past the fifteenth day of the second month, on which it was the Sabbath, which counting from the first is the fourteenth, and come back to the first day of the second month, and you will have another fourteen; add these to the nineteen mentioned above, and you will find that the first day of the second month was a Sabbath. Add further, toward the beginning of the first month, seventeen days, because the thirteen days of the first month that were before the Pascha are to be subtracted, for the Pascha was kept on the fourteenth day of the first month. So with thirteen subtracted and seventeen added, you will find that the fourteenth of the first month was the fourth day of the week.

And so that you are not wearied by reading, nor have to examine each part of the question minutely, I give a summary, so that you may be sure of the number of days from the Pascha to the giving of the law, and may learn more easily from it on what day of the week the Pascha was kept. The law was given on the third day after the second month; there are therefore two months and three days. Subtract from these the thirteen days that were before the Pascha, and fifty days will remain. That the law was given on the fourth day of the week is easily seen from this. The manna was given on the first day of the week, because they gathered it on six continuous days; this first day of the week was the sixteenth of the second month. From this first day, then, to the eighteenth day, on which the law was given, you will find it to be the fourth day of the week. And from a fourth day, whether you count forward or back, the fiftieth day is a fourth day. Therefore, since the Jews kept the Pascha in Egypt on the fourth day of the week and received the law on the fourth day of the week, and set out from Egypt on the fifth day of the week, Pentecost is the dedication of the law.

The apostle could not be mistaken when he says, “Christ our Pascha has been sacrificed,” which is not his own word but that of the law, since Moses says: “And when your sons say to you, What is this service? you shall say, This is the sacrifice of the Pascha of the Lord.” What more is needed as testimony? The law speaks, the apostle confirms; it remains only that the gainsayer be rejected as obstinate. For it is plain that the passing over came after the Pascha. They put some of the blood of the sacrificed lamb on the doorposts and on the threshold, so that the angel passing through at night would not strike the house where the sign of blood was. So the blood gave salvation, not the passing, because the blood prevented the passing from doing harm.

If faith is willing to listen to reason, the very meaning of the names Father and Son would show their unity in a natural way. For he would not be called the true Son of God unless he had come into being from the substance of God the Father; nor would God’s truth and justice allow him to be called the true Son if he were not from him. He is not true if he is not from him. But Scripture says, “He is true”; therefore he is from him. Whoever denies that Christ was born of God slanders Scripture, which calls him the true Son precisely to signify that he was born of God. For if he is not from God and yet is called the true Son of God, Scripture is deceptive. But if Scripture does not deceive, whoever does not confess that Christ came into being from God both empties Scripture and denies that Christ is the true Son of God. For it is not will that makes a true son, but birth. “But it lies within God’s power,” they say, “to make false things true.” On the contrary, this is the power of God, for which he is worthy of all praise: that with him the true is true and the false false. To call the false true is the mark of a liar, which does not befit God. God can indeed do all things, but he does nothing except what agrees with his truth and justice.

It is plain, therefore, that Christ is called the true Son of God so that he may be understood as God’s own Son, that is, born of his substance. Hence the apostle too says, “who did not spare his own Son,” and in another letter: “who, though he was in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal to God.” If, then, he did not think it robbery when he said he was equal to God, he showed himself the true Son of God. For he could not be equal to God unless he were from him. Those are equals who are either both true or both false. What has a beginning and what is eternal do not admit equality, or unity. By saying that he is one with the Father, Christ made himself equal to God. “For not only,” it says, “was he breaking the Sabbath, but he also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God,” that is, on a par with him. Is it not plain that this equality comes down from the fact that his birth is proper to the Father? For in calling himself God’s own, that is, true Son, he made himself equal to God.

This is why he says: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father too.” Because they are consubstantial, whoever sees one sees both. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son also to have life; that is, the Father begot a Son equal to himself. And all that is the Father’s is the Son’s, and what is the Son’s is the Father’s; and no one can snatch anything from the Father’s hand or from the Son’s. And he added, “I and the Father are one,” and: “The words that I speak to you,” he says, “I do not speak from myself, but the Father who remains in me himself speaks; and the works that I do he himself does. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.” For because one who is begotten is not from himself but from the one who begot him, therefore whatever he does he calls the Father’s doing, so that by all this it may be confirmed that Christ is called the true Son of God precisely so that he may be believed to be born of him, lest his essence be thought to be outside the nature of the one God. His humility, then, is his greatest exaltation. For when he seems to place himself beneath the Father, saying, “The words that I speak to you I do not speak from myself, but the Father who remains in me himself speaks; and the works that I do he himself does,” he proves that he has his origin from God and that he is his power, since he says that what he is he is not from himself but from him. By these words Christ is commended, not lowered. For one who speaks from himself is not a true son.

You see, then, that the Arians understand Christ wrongly from the very passages from which he must be rightly understood, and reject him and call him false on the very grounds by which he is shown to be the true Son of God. For he asks to be glorified by the Father and promises to glorify the Father whom he asks, so that where he seems to humble himself he exalts himself. When the Father gives testimony to the Son, he testifies to his own praise; and when the Son proclaims the Father, he manifests his own glory. For the greatness and nobility of the Father is the high birth of the true Son. And therefore whatever is said to be the Father’s is without doubt the Son’s as well, and what is said to be the Son’s is the Father’s as well. The Spirit is called God’s, and the same Spirit is called Christ’s; the church is called God’s, and it is called Christ’s; God is worshiped, and Christ is worshiped; God is served, and Christ is served; the saints are called priests of God, and they are called priests of Christ; God is said to be the temple of the holy city, and likewise Christ; the holy city is said to be lit by the light of God, and in the same way by that of Christ; the throne is God’s, and Christ’s too; God is judge, and so is Christ, for Isaiah the prophet saw Christ, the Lord of hosts, sitting on the throne of majesty, which the Arians do not deny. Of God the Father it is read that he is King of kings and Lord of lords, and the same is read of Christ, the true Son of God. So everywhere the Father and the Son are made equal in divinity, so that the number of persons does not go beyond the measure of the one God.

Between the Father and the Son there is no difference except this alone: that the Father is unbegotten and the Son begotten; that is, the Father is from no one, but the Son is from the Father; and this indeed is something sublime in the Son. For from this the eternity of his nobility is learned, and that he is the true Son of the true Father. Otherwise, where does that come from which we read in Genesis, where God says, “Let us make man in our image and likeness”? So if their image and likeness is one, how are they not one in nature too? In spiritual things, where there are certainly no shapes, nothing will be alike except by substance; so where the image of two is one, how will their substance not also be one? We read that their image and likeness is one precisely so that we would believe that one of them differs in nothing from the other, that is, that Christ is the true Son of God, because what is born is not unlike the one who begets. Indeed the Jews, understanding that he called God his own Father, say to Pilate: “We have a law, and according to the law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.” The Jews understood, and do Christians say they do not understand? Those who did not believe understood; and do those who say they believe act so as not to understand? Let them at least admit this, that the prophet Isaiah, to signify that Christ is God not from himself but from God, says among other things: “After you they will follow bound with chains, and will worship you and will pray in you, because God is in you, and there is no God besides you. For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior.”

To a sound mind these things are plain. For by them the Father is proved to be in the Son, and the Son is signified to be God of the same substance as the Father. Of one in whom God is, besides whom there is no God, and who is himself God, what else can be said than that he is what God the Father is, and differs from him in nothing? For this is for two to be one. God is in him, because, although he is God, he is not God from himself; he is from the Father, because he is the Son. But besides him there is no God, because he is the only Son of the Father. And he himself is God, because the substance of God and of Christ is one and the same. So no ambiguity is left: the substance of the Father and of the Son is to be believed to be one. For the true Son is the Son of the true Father.

Of the same kind is that saying of the prophet Jeremiah; for he says among other things: “This is our God; no other shall be reckoned in comparison with him. He found out the whole way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved. After this he was seen on earth and lived among men.” Can one be called degenerate in comparison with whom no other can be reckoned? Or can he be called a God other than the Father is, so as to advance this God to the Father’s injury? For if no other God can be reckoned in comparison with him, and he is apart from God the Father, see whether what follows ought to be said, for it is dangerous: he will be called greater than the Father. Thinking they pay deference to God the Father by separating the Son from him, they detract from him, so that, impiously blinded in mind, they set the one they want to make lesser above the one to whose authority they think he must bow. But Scripture, to teach that the Son differs in nothing from the Father (and he would differ if he were not true), said that no other is to be reckoned in comparison with him, because no other substance can be found like the substance of God, which is also Christ’s. For it could not be taught that Christ is from God otherwise than by saying that no other is to be reckoned like him. For, knowing that God the Father can in no way be called subject, to show that his Son is his equal it says, “No other shall be reckoned in comparison with him,” because he is equal to God the Father, who is God of all; for he is his true Son. So the prophet says, “This is our God,” that is, the God of Israel. If it is he, he himself is the one God; for of him Scripture says, “Hear, Israel, the Lord your God is one God,” and certainly the one meant here is not the Father but his Son.

You see, then, that the person of the Son does not prejudice the one God if he too is called the one God, since Scripture testifies to this. How is this so, unless the Father and the Son are one, because unity is signified not by persons but by nature, so that they are not two in substance but one, nor two in divinity but one God, so that whether the Father speaks or the Son speaks, the one God is said to have spoken? For if the Lord himself says, among other things, of male and female, “They are no longer two, but one flesh,” how much more are the Father and the Son not two gods but one substance! That the Father and the Son are called two is because of the birth; that they are not, on the other hand, two gods is because of the one divinity. With what dullness, then, do they preach that Christ was created, that is, made, when they read that God made nothing without Christ? If nothing was made without him, he himself will not be a thing made. For if he is a thing made, something was made without him. But far from it, because nothing was made without him. Born of God, he did not begin, but came forth; for birth is nothing other than a going forth, and a going forth is a manifestation; so he was not made but brought forth. To signify that Christ came forth or proceeded from the essence of God, his going forth was called birth, so that, since what is born is not unlike the begetter, it would not be doubted that Christ is consubstantial with God, and that mind which says, “There was a time when he was not,” would be condemned; because he who is read to have proceeded from God, so as to signify that he was always with God, cannot at some time not have been. For no one has proceeded from where he was not.

The Arians are wont to interpret it of the Son of God in this way, saying, “Christ is called the true Son of God because God made him such that he would be true,” as though there were anything God makes false. And what will become of all that we said above about the unity of the Father and the Son, since it has been so strengthened and confirmed? If it is thought that one must judge otherwise here, many things made solid by the divine oracles could be torn up by the testimony of a single degenerate. Yet the point must be cut off, so that wickedness may not flatter itself even about this. “So,” he says, “God made him such that he would be true,” so that will has taken the place of birth, and making the place of begetting. “For this much,” they say, “must be granted to God’s power, that he can make things that are not as though they are.”

Since, then, they use this cunning craftiness against the Son of God, we must answer them from the very things on which they rely, since they have been refuted on the rest, so that they may appear refuted on the whole. This proposition, as to its sense, is of no weight; but as to its words, it makes a fog so that it is not quickly seen through. It is like an Egyptian placed in the dark: a bad cause cannot be defended with a good sense, so they use sacrilegious words to defend impiety. If, then, this is the power of God, that he made Christ his true Son though he was not born of him, then he made him such as he himself is, so that making supplied what begetting would have given. If, then, you say that there is no difference between God and Christ, it might perhaps be thought that you do not assert this maliciously, so that what is said in the word is also in the sense: that because he is called the true Son, he is held to be true, by being of one substance with the Father, though not by begetting but by making, since God can do everything, as you say, so that what was made is as though it were not made.

But if, following the line of reason, you say that what is bounded by a beginning cannot be equal and consubstantial with what is eternal, you reveal the deceit of your malice: to elude the sense of the word, you say with a false voice that Christ is the true Son of God while denying that he is equal to God the Father. For he is not true if he is unequal. Can the Son be called true if the Father is not called true? If the Son is true, the Father will be true too, and equality proves this truth. But if they are unequal, neither of them is true. But since the testimony of the Scriptures, by which Christ is shown to be the true Son of God, cannot be made void, he must be believed to be born of God the Father, because, to confirm this truth, he is read to be both on a par with God and equal to him.

But you who proclaim God’s inestimable power say: “God cannot beget, because he is a simple nature”; and by this you insult God the Father himself. You call him a liar, denying the Son whom he declares to be his own and true, and you uncover your hypocrisy, because you falsely proclaim God powerful. For if you proclaim God’s power in what you assert was made true out of false, so as to mock what is truly true, how much more ought you, if you were of sound mind, to embrace that by which what is called true is proved true, and the testimony God the Father gave of his Son is confirmed as true! For the Lord says, “But with God all things are possible,” so that whatever seems impossible to men is possible to God. If the reasoning of the flesh is considered, neither did a virgin give birth, nor did Jonah live in the belly of the whale, nor will the dead rise, nor did God beget a Son, because a simple nature cannot beget, since nothing in the world is begotten without mingling. All these things must either be believed together or refuted together. If the reasoning of the world is to be held, it ought to have authority in all of them; but if there is a reasoning proper to spiritual things, he must be called carnal who, infected by the reasoning of the world, denies that anything can happen otherwise than he knows.

Again, they are wont to put forward another question with their evasions. They say, “Did the Father beget the Son by will or not?”, so that when they hear, “By will, certainly,” they at once reply, as enemies of the Son of God: “Then the will is before the Son, so that from this he appears not eternal, since he did not take his beginning by birth but came into being.” And yet, if they think this, the will will be not only before the Son but also before the Father, since the begetting concerns the Father and the Son alike. Unbelief follows the senses of the flesh in everything. It presents God’s case as if it were a man’s, as though he had deliberated and thought beforehand in order to beget, as though subject to weakness, whereas in God there was neither begetting without will nor will without begetting. The will itself is the begetting. It is certainly a common way of speaking to say “God made” and “a man made”; but God makes in one way, a man in another. So too in other matters: one must speak of God as is worthy of him.

They are also wont to raise another question against God the Father himself, saying: “Did begetting come to him as something added, or is it his nature always to beget?” They bring this forward in order both to assert that God is a liar, who testifies that he begot Christ, and to make Christ not a true but an adopted son. “For if he begot,” they say, “he ought always to beget; so, since he does not always beget, he should not be believed to have begotten Christ,” as though he were to be denied to have made the world because he does not make others. What irreverence, what lack of discipline, to lay down a law for God: “If he begot, either he begot many or he could not beget one,” not believing even the Lord himself, who declared that he is the only Son of God!

Having shown above that the Father and the Son are equal, let us see whether what is written about the Holy Spirit agrees with this, so that the Trinity, which we hold in the profession of salvation, admits no difference of nature, just as it has no difference of faith. For since there is no salvation without any one of them, the power of the three which gives salvation to those who believe in them is seen to be one. Since we brought forward the words of the Father as testimony to the Son, let us now use the words of the Son as testimony to the Holy Spirit, by which he declares that the Holy Spirit does not differ from him, so that, since the Father is witness to the Son and the Son to the Holy Spirit, the Trinity may be understood to be of one nature. So the Lord says among other things: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, to be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth.” When he says that another Paraclete is to be sent, he certainly shows that he himself is a Paraclete. It is also read in the letter of John, who says, “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, who intercedes for our sins”; and again the Lord says, “I am the truth.” See, the unity of the Holy Spirit and the Son of God is plain; for what the Son says of himself, he says also of the Holy Spirit.

Now we must add what Scripture sets out in this sense. It is read in Isaiah that he saw the Lord of hosts sitting on the throne of majesty, whom John the evangelist understood to be Christ, saying among other things, “Isaiah said these things when he saw his majesty and spoke of him.” The apostle says that this is the Holy Spirit. For he says in the last part of the Acts of the Apostles: “The Holy Spirit spoke well to your fathers, saying: With the ear you will hear and not understand,” and so on. These words were spoken by the Lord of hosts. This is the one God, and whether he is understood as the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit, there is no contradiction, because their divinity and power are one. For if, in the edict of a single praetorian prefect, the other prefects too are said to command because of the authority of the one office, how much more, in the command of the one God, if one of the three has spoken, will the three fittingly be said to have spoken! For their nature and will are one.

Again, they are wont to prejudge the Holy Spirit, saying that he is to be understood as inferior because he is placed third in order, whereas there is such simplicity in the divine Scriptures that sometimes you find the third placed first. As the case required, so they are placed; it is an injury to none, because their divinity is one. Indeed we read in Isaiah, where the Lord says: “I am the first and I am for ever, and my hand founded the earth, my right hand made firm the heaven,” and in what follows: “I have spoken, I have called, I have brought him and made his way prosperous. Come near to me and hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; when these things were made, I was there; and now the Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.” Who do you think it is that founded the earth? For he says that he has been sent. The Father? Far from it. It is the Son, then, who says he was sent by God and by the Holy Spirit. See, these things are on a par between the Son and the Holy Spirit. For as the Holy Spirit is read to be sent by the Father and the Son, so Christ too was sent by God and the Holy Spirit. For this alone is peculiar to the Father, that he is not said to be sent.

Take the words of the apostle, who includes the Trinity in another order; for he says among other things in the second letter to the Thessalonians: “May the Lord direct your hearts in the love of God and the patience of Christ.” Whom, do you think, does he call Lord except the Holy Spirit? And what wonder, since the one whom Isaiah saw sitting on the throne of majesty, the Lord of hosts, the apostle himself calls the Holy Spirit, as we showed above? And John the apostle signifies that God is understood in the Holy Spirit, saying among other things: “By this we know that God remains in us, from his Spirit whom he has given us.” If, then, he remains in us through his Spirit, there is no doubt that the Holy Spirit is from God. And there is no doubt that what is from God is God. This is why the apostle says: “No one knows what is in God except the Spirit of God.” How can he know what is in God unless he is of the same divinity? An inferior nature cannot know what is in a superior one; how much less could a creature know what is in its Creator!

And in the first letter to the Corinthians, leaving aside the order that belongs to the handing on of the faith, he begins from the Holy Spirit in recounting the workings of graces and ministries, then adds the Lord Jesus, and puts God third, whom he says works both in the Holy Spirit and in the Lord, as the Lord too says, “The Father who remains in me himself works.” For since both the Holy Spirit and Christ are from God the Father, their working is God’s work. Indeed he calls the Holy Spirit Lord as well, and the Lord he also calls God, because of the unity of nature. Since, then, in this place he says that the same God, who is also Lord, works all things in all, further down he concludes thus: “All these things are worked by one and the same Spirit, distributing to each as he wills.” What could be plainer than that the three have one working, since when one works, three are said to work? Why, unless because they are of one divinity? There is no doubt that it is properly the Holy Spirit who works the gift of graces. But to teach that God and the Lord and the Holy Spirit are one because their nature is without difference, he showed that the work of the Holy Spirit is the work of the three. And to make plain that, as far as person is concerned, it is the work of the Holy Spirit alone, he says, “All these things are worked by one and the same Spirit, distributing to each as he wills.” “As he wills,” because his will is God’s will. For he did not say, “as God wills,” but “as the Spirit wills.” A creature compels itself to do God’s will; but the Holy Spirit wills it by nature.

To make it shine plainly that the Holy Spirit works all things, the Lord says among other things: “For if I cast out demons by the finger of God,” and so on. He calls the Holy Spirit the finger of God, to prove that he is from God. Indeed he testified that the Jews, who said he cast out demons by Beelzebub, had blasphemed against the Holy Spirit. And that Moses too did signs through the Holy Spirit the magicians confess, saying, “This is the finger of God.” In the Acts of the Apostles too we read: “While they were serving the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said: Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” See, the Lord is served, and the Holy Spirit claims this service for himself, from which it plainly appears that he is Lord, as God the Father is too. And Christ called Saul from heaven and sent him to preach, and in the same way the Holy Spirit claims this for himself by saying, “for the work to which I have called them.” No one is unaware that the Savior instituted bishops for the churches; for before he ascended into heaven, laying his hand on the apostles, he ordained them bishops. The apostle attributes this to the Holy Spirit when he says: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has placed you as bishops to rule the church of the Lord Jesus.” And among other things Peter says to Ananias, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?”, and below: “You have not lied to men,” he says, “but to God.” It is plain that the Holy Spirit is called God, since Ananias, who lied to him, is said to have lied to God. If he had not wanted the Holy Spirit to be understood as God, he would have said, “You have not lied to men but to the Holy Spirit,” so as to designate him neither as God nor as man. And what wonder? For the apostle sometimes calls a human being the temple of God, sometimes the temple of the Holy Spirit, because they are one in nature. For if the Holy Spirit were not understood to be God, with what boldness would he say below, “For the temple of God is holy, which you are”?

Since one God is preached in all the Scriptures, but his mystery is worshiped in the Trinity, Scripture proceeds in such a way that, under the profession of one God, the things that are from him, that is, his Son and his Spirit, may be understood to be in the same honor in which God himself is; for the sacrament of God was revealed precisely so that his glory might be shown to remain in the Trinity. For this reason what is from God is not called God outright, lest it be believed to make another God apart from him who is one; but Scripture gives us to understand, so that we may believe that the salvation of the creature consists in the Trinity for this reason, that their divinity is one. For Creator and creature, Lord and servants, the eternal and what is subject to a beginning could not be joined together and placed in one series, especially since there is salvation for no one without any one of them. Whatever is God, whether the Son or the Holy Spirit, is insulted if it is reckoned outside the honor and glory of the one God. The Scriptures, then, show Christ to be God and show the Holy Spirit to be God, so that those who see may know what it is that is shown. It is as if someone shows a gem without shouting that it is a gem; because he does not shout, will what is seen not be a gem? So the Scriptures too, through the things treated above, show what we ought to believe, enclosing our understanding within faith in the one God by the mystery of the Trinity.

You have heard what the holy gospel testifies, where the Lord says to the Jews: “You are born of your father the devil, and you want to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar, as is his father too.” Let none of the faithful doubt that the devil had no author of his apostasy. He himself is the prince of all error: seeing that he had been made by God with no mean power, he dared to lay claim to deity, so that, because he saw the others were inferior, he set himself above them as God. Indeed the names by which he is called, devil and Satan, are formed from his action, not from his nature. For every evil is proved by the deed, so that what lies in the crime is not a substance but a will conceived from causes. When he saw that he was more powerful than the others, he was puffed up to exercise dominion.

How then will he be said to have a father, when he is held to be the author of his own crime? Or how is it proved that he was a murderer from the beginning? But Scripture calls by his name the one who was his imitator, so that, because the devil received his name from his work, everyone who has done an evil work may not undeservedly be named devil. So in this place the Savior called Cain the devil, because he was a rival of the devil’s works. Envying his brother, he committed murder, leaving an example of the cruelty of killing a kinsman; just as the devil, envying the man made in God’s image, heaped up the malice of his work, providing a pattern for error. From this, therefore, Cain also proved a liar: when God said to him, “Where is Abel your brother?”, steeped in his father’s malice, he burst out into a lie and said, “I do not know,” pretending not to know where the one was whose life he had wrested from him, so blinded by fury that he answered God as though answering a man from whom he thought he could hide.

The Jews, then, having become his imitators, killed even the Lord himself, wanting to have Cain the fratricide as father rather than God, so that they became guilty of all the blood that had been shed. For in killing the author of life they became the chief perpetrators of all crime, so much so that they even bound their sons to this evil, saying, “His blood be on us and on our sons.” To persuade Pilate that there was nothing evil in what they asked, they said that it should be turned back on their sons if it were unjust; for to satisfy their fury they were unwilling to spare even their sons.

That the devil is not evil by nature is more easily learned from this: punishment would not be promised to one who had not done what he did not know. It is unjust to punish one who does nothing other than what belongs to his nature; and it is a greater evil to demand of someone what you know he cannot do. Therefore he is justly to be punished who, though it is certain that he knows the good and can do it, does evil. This can also be observed from the Savior’s words; for he says, as mentioned above: “Your father was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth.” If, then, he is a liar by nature, how is he said not to have stood in the truth? For he does not stand in the truth who does not remain in the truth. It is certain, then, that the devil was in the truth but did not persevere. Indeed we read the Lord saying through the prophet: “If they had stood,” he says, “in my substance,” that is, “in my law”; and the apostle to the Galatians: “Stand,” he says, “and do not be held again by the yoke of slavery.” What could be plainer? He commands this, that from then on they remain in his commandments. If the devil had kept them, he would have stood in God’s substance and law. For the law is a foundation for those who keep it.

How, then, do some think that the devil was either made evil by God or has an origin of his own, that is, arose from nothing, both of which are seen to be contrary to God? For whoever says that he was made in order to be evil thinks God of imperfect goodness, because one who is perfectly good does not make evil; but whoever does not believe that God is the author of his origin denies God’s dominion. For by this, since all things are God’s, they suppose there is something that does not belong to God at all; and they must suffer punishment when they see that all things are judged by God through Christ.

Not without foresight, I think, does the teacher of the gentiles, our apostle, wish that temptation may take hold of us, but only human temptation, because divine temptation brings ruin. The Jews, taken by this, perished by serpents; for though they lived under God’s law, they doubted his providence. And therefore he urges that not divine but human temptation take hold of us. He is said to tempt God who, acting under God’s name, hopes for salvation from idols, because he does not hold God as proved. Everything that is not proved is put to the test, and what is put to the test comes into doubt. Therefore divine temptation is deadly but human temptation saving, because, as doubting God is ruinous, so to despair of human beings for the sake of God’s law is most wholesome. Therefore the apostle providently says, “Let no temptation take hold of you except what is human,” so that, tempted by human beings because of God’s law, we may be found strong while carnal men doubt us, and may be proved before God; for those who are not proved before God are tempted so that they may be corrected.

Temptation, then, is twofold: sometimes we are tempted as believers, sometimes as doubters, the temptation of believers being human. For because of faith we are afflicted by human beings, who tempt us to see whether they can lead us away from the faith; but because of distrust people are tempted so that, hard pressed, they may repent and return to the way, as happened to the Jews. When they distrusted God’s providence, they were tried by serpents, so that, seized by pain, they might be corrected. God tempts in this way in order to correct such people. There is also another temptation, by which Abraham and Job and Tobit, servants of God, were tempted: Abraham, so that through the trial of offering his only and most beloved son he might have a richer fruit of righteousness for eternal glory; Job, so that through the loss of all his substance he might be increased, enriched with wealth in heaven and on earth; and Tobit, who suffered blindness, became so much more advanced that he was made glorious in the present when his sight was restored, and lasting splendor was kept for him in the future; for the righteous are tested so that they may advance. And therefore in temptation we ought to be of strong mind, knowing that it serves not to our diminution but to our increase, if only we bear it with a calm mind through Christ.

You have heard, dearest brothers, what the gospel testifies, where the Lord says: “I confess to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to little ones. Yes, Father, for so it was pleasing before you.” If, then, we look into the sense of the words, we will see that they were spoken by the Lord to encourage believers, those who, because they spurn worldly wisdom, seem little ones to the wise of the world, who want to be called wise though commended by no testimony. Therefore it seemed unworthy to God to show these people the truth; but to the humble, who presume nothing of themselves and bow to God’s will, saving things must be revealed, as fairness requires. For he is prudent before God and mindful of his salvation who puts God’s law before his own knowledge, seeing that it is supported not by the clatter of words but by powerful deeds. And without doubt he is foolish and empty who entrusts himself to a thing that is fortified by no privilege of signs.

Hence God promised the kingdom not to the learned of the world but to the faithful; he promises eternity not to those who search the stars but to those who act rightly; he gives glory not to dialecticians, who strive to shut out the truth by trickery and petty quibbles, but to men of good will, who are careful more in their life than in their speech. For God rejects those who would rather use the eloquence of brilliant speech than good deeds. He who thinks he adorns God’s cause with words wants to turn God’s glory to himself. The things themselves ought to please by themselves, so that not the speech but the sense is praised. If sense is the author of the letter, and words were invented to signify things, why should not the things themselves rather be set forth in plain sense, so as more easily to stir the mind to salvation? And therefore the Lord chose fishermen as our apostles, simple and unlettered men, who without any cunning, by keeping faith and living well, might show God’s truth in themselves. Hence the apostle Paul too says, “And I, when I came to you, brothers, came not in loftiness of speech or of wisdom,” and among other things, “For the kingdom of God,” he says, “is not in speech but in power,” so that, because words are open to contradiction, power might stand as witness to God’s law, before which all loftiness of speech gives way.

So these things have been said first, dearest brothers, to look after the simpler ones, lest they think themselves unworthy of God’s grace because they are not at all trained in the learning of the courts; for their simplicity serves rather to their praise, since what the prudent of the world do not see because of the pride of learning, these believe, prudent not in words but in counsel. They know that God rests in good works and looks for faith, not polished speech. For they read the Lord saying: “On whom shall I rest, except on the humble and meek one who trembles at my words?” Therefore, so that we may be made worthy of the promised rewards, we must do what the Lord commands, confident that the Lord loves those who keep his words. For so he said to his disciples, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” so that, serving the Lord in these things, we may be heirs of his kingdom through Christ our Lord.

While we wish to obey the commands of love, we shall perhaps fall into blame for writing on a matter that has never come into doubt for anyone; for while we do not wish to offend friendship, we entangle an effort that ought to serve to reveal something hidden. Yet because of the excessive folly of a certain man, who asserts what we shall set out below, the same love has laid this on us too, lest, if no one answered these things for a long time, he should go on to worse and, long practised in vanity, could not be corrected. For this is the zeal of love, which does not seek its own.

A certain man, then, who bears the name of a false god, led by folly and by the boastfulness of the city of Rome, strives to make levites equal to priests and deacons equal to presbyters, not to say set them above them; for that would be more foolish and might seem incredible, and we would be held not correctors but slanderers. By what law, then, or what custom, by what example he dares attempt this, I think no one knows: to make those to whom no seat in the church is given equal to those who, as overseers of God, sit with dignity in God’s house and in the honor of Christ. What audacity, to make the presbyters’ own ministers equal to them! What vain presumption of rashness, to compare to priests the bearers of the tabernacle and all its vessels, the cutters of wood and the carriers of water! For this was the office of the levites. It is as if officials were made equal to prefects, or servants to masters. For this is written, where the Lord says to Moses: “Take the tribe of Levi from the midst of the sons of Israel and set them before Aaron the priest, and they shall serve him.” What could be plainer than this example, which is kept in the church even now?

Although the deacons of the Roman church seem somewhat more shameless, they do not presume the dignity of sitting in the church. That they do not perform all the ministries of service in turn is due to the great number of clergy. For otherwise they would certainly carry both the altar and its vessels, and pour water on the priest’s hands, as we see in all the churches and as was established by the Lord through Moses. Or are they better than Elisha, who poured water on Elijah’s hands?

He defends deacons against presbyters as if deacons were ordained from among the presbyters and not presbyters from among the deacons. But because they are ministers of the Roman church, they are thought more honorable than in the other churches because of the magnificence of the city of Rome, which seems to be the head of all cities. If that is so, they ought to claim this for their priests too; for if those who are inferior grow because of the city’s magnificence, how much more are those who are superior to be exalted! Whatever is granted to officials becomes an increase to the authority over them, as a servant’s honor serves the praise of his master; although before God, the just judge, each keeps here the honor that was created for the several offices of the churches, so that he who is a deacon has the honor of the diaconate throughout all the churches (for it is no ordinary honor to serve the overseer of God, at least in the church), and the priest is held worthy of all church honor. For the greater order contains within itself and with itself the lesser as well; the presbyter also performs the office of deacon, of exorcist, and of reader.

That a presbyter is understood to be a bishop the apostle Paul proves when he instructs Timothy, whom he ordained a presbyter, what kind of man he ought to make bishop. For what is a bishop but the first presbyter, that is, the high priest? Indeed he calls the presbyters nothing other than his fellow presbyters and fellow priests; but does the bishop call the ministers his fellow deacons? Certainly not, because they are much inferior, and it would be shameful to call a judge “chief clerk.” For in Alexandria and throughout Egypt, if the bishop is absent, the presbyter gives the seal.

How great the dignity of the priestly order is, the case of Caiaphas shows: though he was a very wicked man, he prophesied. Why? “Because,” it says, “he was chief of the priests.” And again, that there is a great distance between a deacon and a priest the book we call the Acts of the Apostles proves. When people from Samaria had believed Philip’s preaching, a deacon ordained by the apostles, “they sent,” it says, “Peter and John to come and give the Holy Spirit to those who had believed, through the laying on of hands.”

But they defend these things, I believe, because they do not know the Scriptures or have forgotten the law. Whoever thinks these things should be asserted ought, then, to remember what happened to the levites when they thought this way. When they presumed that there was no difference between priests and levites, by God’s judgment Korah and those who agreed with him were swallowed up when the earth opened, and a torrent of fire consumed two hundred and fifty men together; and King Uzziah, when he presumed to do the priestly work, was covered with leprosy, so that by this example the rest would be terrified and not dare to presume what is not granted. For now we see deacons rashly doing at banquets what belongs to priests, and wanting in prayer to be answered by the people, though this is lawful only for priests. For the order of the diaconate is to receive from the priest and so give to the people.

Do you see what vain presumption produces? Forgetful through pride, because they see that they are ministers of the Roman church, they do not consider what God has decreed for them and what they ought to keep; this is taken out of their memory by their constant attendance in the household and their position as officials, which now has very great power through suggestions, bad or good. For either they are feared, lest they make bad suggestions, or they are bought, so that they will help. These are the people who make them disregard the nature of their order. For while people pay court to them unlawfully by flattery, they make them headlong, so that they think more is permitted to them, since they see that the priests are not shown such deference; and from this they think they are preferred.

“But,” he says, “a presbyter is made on the testimony of a deacon,” as if this belonged to a prerogative of greatness. Yet we read that the apostle Peter said to the people: “Choose,” he says, “from among yourselves those whom we may appoint to serve the ministries of the church”; I do not wish to say “tables.” See, deacons were created by the testimony of lay people. And the apostle wants the one who is to be ordained bishop to have the testimony even of the gentiles; for he says: “For he must also have a good testimony from those outside.” Giving testimony, then, belongs to all, and yet not all are worthy of this honor. All can judge, and yet not all can be what they judge. A painter can be judged a good painter by someone who cannot paint, and one choral piper can be approved as better than another by someone who practises another art; so too one who is lower in order can be a witness for a presbyter to be made. There is something else that puffs them up and makes them think much is owed them: “For by us,” they say, “those to be ordained are led forward,” so that, being flanked at their sides by them, they seem worthy of honor. Suppose it is true: the deacon is sent by the bishop as an official, to render service to the one being ordained. For the emperor too, so that he may appear emperor, is installed with the service of soldiers; yet the army is not better than the emperor, nor his equal. Haman too, though he was distinguished in military honor, was sent by the king to go and serve Mordecai, so that from his services it might be known how worthy Mordecai was; so too deacons are sent to serve presbyters who are being made, so that all may understand that these are being made worthy priests. For, except for the priests, to whom they owe service, deacons are placed above all.

His disciples say to Jesus: “Lord, do you want us to say that fire should come down from heaven and consume them, as Elijah did?” And the Lord answered them, saying: “You do not know of what spirit you are. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy souls, but to save them.” Although it would certainly have been fitting to punish the Samaritans who did not receive him, yet the Lord, because he came to give mercy, set the sentence aside, so that they might be corrected and amended in future. The prophet Elisha, angered at the boys who insulted him, punished them by God’s judgment, so that they were eaten by bears in a place where there is said to be no forest. But the Lord spared the harlot brought to him, namely the woman whom the elders of the Jews said they had caught in adultery, to teach that, because the preaching of mercy was beginning, she was not to be condemned but forgiven. For the law given through Moses, because it had a justice directed to punishment, exercised severity at its beginnings: it punished with death the man who went out on the Sabbath to gather wood, likewise took vengeance on the son of the Egyptian woman who had blasphemed God, and in the matter of the molten calf struck down the sons of Israel.

Each law, then, showed its full sense at its very beginnings: the old law, being quicker to punish, seemed harsher at its beginning, so that by striking fear it might make its hearers diligent and careful; the new, being merciful and ready to show mercy, displayed very mild and gentle beginnings, so as to draw all to pardon by that very delight. But afterward the one that seemed harsher not only softened its rigor because of the frailty of the human race but showed itself humane and merciful; and the one that seemed merciful sometimes punished. For Ananias with Sapphira his wife was struck down by God; and Elymas the magician, unbelieving and opposing God’s law, was blinded by the Lord’s judgment and power; and King Herod, because he did not give honor to God, was struck by an angel of God and died swarming with worms. Lest, because mercy is preached, people should think that sin goes altogether unpunished, he set fear in place, showing that pardon for sins is given for this purpose: that, brought to life as it were from the dead, they should afterward abstain from what is contrary, and take pains that no one leaves this world with a crime, because they will come to judgment. For to each one is imputed the sentence in which he dies. Since, then, the new law has the fullness of mercy, it punished those mentioned above, lest it be held in contempt by lovers of sin. And the old law, although it was given for punishment, nevertheless pardoned some, lest it be thought altogether cruel, but it punished more, because its sense is quick to avenge.

Without doubt, then, the grace of the new law is greater than that of the old. If, then, its grace is greater, how is it denied that it can grant what was granted by the law that had lesser grace? For the old law was more inclined to severity. So if it is shown to have pardoned the penitent, how can this law, which is merciful, not receive the penitent? For the Jews too were called sons of God, and on the authority of the apostle Paul they are read to have been baptized through Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Being about to receive the law, they are without doubt known to have been purified, so that afterward they might give account of the law they had received, and, if any sinned, might reform themselves through repentance, as the Lord says through the prophet Isaiah: “Repent, you who go astray, and be converted.” But perhaps it is objected: “Repentance indeed was preached, but not forgiveness.” If repentance was preached by God, there is fruit for those who do penance; the Lord would not have urged it to no purpose. Moreover, the Lord, knowing that forgiveness of sins ought to be given to those who turn back, commanded this, since he said: “I do not desire the death of one who is dying, so much as that he return and live.” There is, then, a fruit of repentance, as has become clear, for those who turn to God. Excluded, then, is the impiously composed assertion of Novatian, by which he turns the sense of the Lord’s words upside down, saying: “The Lord says, Whoever denies me, I too will deny him,” so that, if any Christian has denied for whatever cause, he can no longer return, or at least, if he returns, is not received.

And where will the repentance that was commanded be, when the Savior, after giving this sentence, did not deny the apostle Peter, who denied him? Why? Because, as repentance followed, Peter wept most bitterly for his error, knowing indeed that those who turn back are pardoned and restored through repentance. But Novatian only pretends that penance is to be done. For because he does not dare openly deny that penance is to be granted, bound as he is by the law, he strives subtly to frustrate it. When he says that “whoever denies will in no way have pardon, but will himself be denied in the sight of God’s angels,” how is he not professing with guile that penance is to be done? His fraud appears plainly from what he adds: “Whoever sins against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either here or in the future.” Although sinning against the Holy Spirit is one matter and denying the Lord Jesus another, Novatian nevertheless, to deny pardon to this sin, wants the sense of denying the Lord and of sinning against the Holy Spirit to be the same, so as to cut off the fruit of repentance by this evasion. For if denying the Lord is the same as sinning against the Holy Spirit, no pardon is to be hoped for by those who deny, nor any fruit of repentance, because the Lord’s oracles have declared that this sin is forgiven neither here nor in the future.

From this it appears that Novatian says with guile that penance is to be done; for why should anyone repent if it is denied that the offense is wiped out? The groaning, weeping, and lamentation of repentance obtain this, that one merits both pardon and restoration. Indeed David, repenting and confessing his sin, both merited pardon and was restored to his former state, for he both remained king and afterward prophesied. This is clearly proved: in the fiftieth psalm he repented, and afterward, having suffered persecution from his son, he prophesied; for in the order of history the third psalm comes after the fiftieth. But perhaps a king ought to be pardoned, while the lowly ought not to be? On the contrary, it would seem that the more powerful should be pardoned with more difficulty, for God does not accept a man’s person. The more exalted someone is, the more his sin, even if light, is a grave crime. Just as humility in a petitioner is sublime and magnificent, so his fault is to be held a crime. For, apart from the sins that are known to be unlawful for all, not everything allowed to the lowly is lawful for the powerful. It is unseemly for a man of rank to trade, and to enter a tavern brings disgrace; for senators, too, lending at interest is infamy. If, then, they are marked with disgrace for these light things, how much more are they to be held guilty if they sin! From this it appears that David sinned most gravely, and indeed in two ways; yet, turning back, he obtained pardon for both murder and adultery, and, what is more, by weeping he was restored. When he was rebuked by the prophet Nathan, he did not dare to hide his sin but confessed it, saying, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Then the prophet answered him and said: “The Lord has taken away your sin, and you will not die, because you have repented”; and because he is found to have prophesied afterward, there is no doubt that he was restored. Ahab too, rebuked by the prophet for the death of Naboth, went about weeping, tore his garments, and girded himself with sackcloth; and the word of the Lord came by the hand of his servant Elijah concerning Ahab, and the Lord said: “Have you heard how Ahab was moved before my face? I will not bring the evils in his days.” And the Ninevites, weeping for their sins, had their life restored when death was imminent. See how great the gain of repentance is!

But perhaps it will be objected: “Pardon has indeed been granted, but not for the crime of idolatry; for although these are grave, the crime of idolatry is greater.” Even so, Novatian’s assertion has been rightly overthrown in no small part, since two grave crimes are seen to have been granted to repentance; for if sexual immorality ought not to be pardoned, as Novatian thinks, how much less murder or adultery! His emptiness appears here, when these graver things are shown to have been pardoned. So we must now inquire whether God promised that pardon could be granted to idolaters. For whatever has not been rightly granted here cannot be granted in the future either. Here, as the Lord said, sins are either bound or loosed; in the future there will be nothing but reward or condemnation. Everyone who is rightly rejected here cannot be chosen or judged worthy in the future.

Let us hear, then, what the Lord says about idolaters to the prophet Jeremiah: “Go and say,” he says, “Return to me, dwelling of Israel, says the Lord, and I will not set my face against you, for I am merciful, says the Lord, and I am not angry with you for ever. Only know your offense: you have acted impiously and set your ways toward strangers under every leafy tree.” See what God promises to those who turn to him after a fall: he forgives the sins of those who return after apostasy. And again God says through Jeremiah: “My delicate ones have walked rough ways; they were led away like a flock plundered by enemies. Be steadfast, my sons, and cry out to God; you will be remembered in your captivity. For as your mind was set on straying from God, so, once turned back, you will seek him ten times as much; for he who brought evils upon you will bring upon you everlasting joy with your salvation.” O the mercy of God! How he calls the fallen to rise! How he urges them to return to him after the error of idols! Like a kindly father he promises his sons the everlasting joy of salvation if they correct themselves. Likewise in the same prophet, among other things: “And I will restore them to this land and rebuild them and not abandon them; and I will replant them and not pluck them up”; so that, because he had threatened, “Whoever sacrifices to gods will be rooted out,” those who sinned against God should not despair of themselves, as though those who had sacrificed to idols, once rooted out, could not be replanted. He urges them because, if they repent, they can be restored to their former state. For the sentence stands only if the offense is not amended.

Indeed it was preached to the Ninevites that their city would be overthrown after three days. Why after three days, unless so that they should either repent and the sentence be removed, or, persisting in sin, perish more justly? This is what he said through the prophet: “I do not desire the death of one who is dying, so much as that he return and live.” So it came about that the Ninevites, who were about to die because of their sins, were pardoned when repentance followed. For why do we find the ark being built for a hundred years under Noah, unless so that people, seeing and hearing what was coming, might amend themselves? For God wills no one to perish. Hence we read in Solomon: “Because,” he says, “the Most High has had mercy on the penitent,” and again: “You have mercy on all, because you can do all things, and you overlook the sins of men for the sake of repentance.” In this sense the Lord too, grieving over the faithlessness of the Jews, says: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I wanted to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing!”

So throughout the whole law the Lord always urges sinners to turn to him, not wanting his work to be given over to perdition; for there is no other reason for giving the law than that people should turn from error to the truth. Yet in the New Testament the author of the law appears more merciful, because at the time when he deigned to manifest the mystery of his Son our Lord, he wished to be more generous and abundant in mercy, so that there should be more grace when the Son preached than there had been when servants preached. And not undeservedly, for it was fitting that he should bestow greater gifts through the Son than through servants. Indeed to believers who turn to him he grants all sins at once, without any lamentation of penance coming in between. Hence the apostle Paul says: “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” But afterward, if they have sinned, they can merit pardon through repentance, so that, because they sinned after receiving free mercy, they may come to pardon no longer freely, but with groaning and weeping coming in between.

For it is impossible for a human being not to sin. Hence the apostle John says: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us; if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, so as to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So David merited pardon and restoration when he confessed his sin. Certainly the apostle is speaking to Christians, for he says in what follows: “My little children, I write these things to you so that you may not sin; and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ.” He says this so that, if we sin after baptism, we may entreat the advocate as suppliants to plead with the Father for us. For if repentance had a place among our forebears, how can it have no place at this time, when the mercy of the preaching is greater? And will he who had mercy on enemies by calling them to grace not have mercy on those who have been made friends, when they bring a payment? For contrition of heart is the penitent’s payment. If Novatian’s view were true, people would grieve that they had been made friends out of enemies. Or what kind of person would he be thought to be, if he gave mercy to enemies who did not repent but refused it to friends who entreat him? Especially since the Lord knows that the devil exalts himself and rages more against God’s friends and servants; hence the apostle Peter says: “Be watchful, be sober, because our adversary the devil, roaring like a lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour.”

Since, then, the Lord knows that we have a terrible and powerful adversary, if we have been conquered by him he wants us to flee to his help, grieving that we have been struck down, so that, restored by his power, we may fight back strongly. For just as, unless those days were shortened, as the Lord says, no flesh would be saved, so too, if repentance is denied to people, no one can be saved. For “no one,” it says, “will boast that he has a clean heart.” And elsewhere: “No one,” it says, “is without stain, not even an infant of one day.” Who will be able to escape if repentance is denied? And where is what the Lord says, that there will be joy in heaven over a sinner who does penance?

“But,” he says, “the greater crimes, sexual immorality and idolatry, ought not to be pardoned.” And where then is the Lord’s saying, by which he promises that all sins and blasphemies will be forgiven to men, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven them? He says that absolutely all sins can be forgiven except one. Now choose, Novatian, of whom you want this said: of those who do not yet believe or of those who already believe? If of those who do not believe, how is forgiveness of sins given, since it is certain that all, before they believe, sin against God and against the Holy Spirit? For some call the Lord’s deeds magic, assigning the work of the Holy Spirit to demons. But if you want it said of believers, your assertion is excluded, because all sins will be forgiven: “And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man,” he says, “it will be forgiven him.” So whether one sins against God or against Christ, it will be forgiven to men; for he included all sins except that against the Holy Spirit. So he does not want the sin committed against God to be understood as also being the sin against the Holy Spirit; if it were, he would certainly not have excepted the latter. Since, then, he signifies a different sin when the Holy Spirit is blasphemed (for this saying concerns the Spirit’s person, not his nature), all sins will be forgiven, whether to those who already believe, through penance, or to those who will believe, through baptism.

That the Jews sinned against the Holy Spirit is another matter, one that belonged to that time. Hence he shows that this is not forgiven them, either here or in the future. For they sinned against the Holy Spirit not by error but by malevolence. Knowing and understanding that the works they saw in the Savior’s deeds were God’s, they pretended, in order to turn the people from faith in him, that they belonged to the prince of demons. This is why the Lord says to them: “You have the key of knowledge, and neither do you enter nor do you let others enter.” This sentence, then, was pronounced against the malevolent, for whom no remedy can be found by which they may be saved. Nothing is graver than this crime: it pretends that what it knows to be true is false. For the Jews, who were seen to be under God’s law and to whom the promise of Christ had been made, seeing the mighty works and understanding that this was what God had promised, were blinded by envy, so that they denied it, and not only denied it but even persecuted him to death. It is not fitting, then, that this sin should ever be forgiven to those who, with their own conscience as witness, dared to resist God, to whom they claimed to be devoted.

Sins against God and sins against Christ have different causes. Either someone, envying another’s good fortune, rises up against the Creator in grief at his own lowly state, or, having suffered some sudden misfortune, he is stirred by anger and becomes insulting toward his Parent. But to Christ it is his incarnation that provokes insult. For while people do not know the mystery of Christ incarnate, they blaspheme, thinking it unworthy that the Son of God, who is of incorporeal and simple nature, should be said to have been born in human fashion. They blaspheme, then, because they do not know the mystery. Therefore a hand must be held out to them when they turn back, because they set themselves against the truth while thinking they are acting for the truth. Such a man, when tortured and torn with hooks, says that what he follows is true; but the Jews mentioned above thought one thing and did another, and they are always tortured, without judge or executioner, by their own conscience as witness. One who became an enemy of the truth through error rejoices, once turned back, that he has come to know the truth. But the malevolent man has nothing to amend; for if he turns, he will only begin to call true what he never believed to be false.

But there is no cause for doing injury to the Holy Spirit; his function gives no offense, since it appears in the power of signs and wonders. Who would dare to rise up against him when he sees the dead raised? Or who would be angry with him through whose working he sees paralytics running, the blind receiving light, the deaf hearing? Or how will anyone not love him whom he sees casting out unclean spirits, cleansing lepers, and healing all infirmities together? Yet the Jews preferred to insult him, saying that his work was the work of demons, so long as they could satisfy the envy and hatred they were venting on the Savior. Therefore he shows that this sin is forgiven them neither here nor in the future.

But Novatian says: “Let it be proved that the greater crimes, namely idolatry and sexual immorality after the washing, are forgiven by name. For this reason,” he says, “all sins are forgiven together in baptism, so that afterward, if people commit anything grave, they may in no way obtain pardon; because after the Holy Spirit has been received, what is against the Holy Spirit ought not to be committed.” Who would deny that one ought never to sin, if only it were possible? But God, knowing the human race to be frail, has always attended them with saving remedies, so that after sinning they might have a way to restore themselves. If the gift of the Spirit forbids penance to be given to sinners, there is no providence in the New Testament, and better provision will seem to have been made for the ancients, to whom this medicine was not denied. And how then is grace greater in the new than in the old? It would be the act of an enemy, knowing that people cannot be provided for in any other way to reach salvation than by penance coming in between, to give the Holy Spirit on such terms that, if injury is done to him through some fear or by error, satisfaction should no longer have room to restore the person. That would be to seek an occasion for destroying a person, not saving him. But far from it, for the Lord says: “The Son of Man did not come to destroy souls, but to save them.” If God commanded us to forgive one another seventy times seven times the sins we commit against one another, if we turn back, how much more does he himself pardon those who turn back when sin is committed against him! For he wills every sinner to be converted.

Hence the apostle proves that forgiveness was granted to the sexually immoral and the unclean, when he says: “lest perhaps when I come I mourn many of those who sinned before and did not do penance for the uncleanness and sexual immorality they committed.” He proves that some had done penance, over whom he does not grieve but rejoices; but he indicates that others had not done penance for their sexual immorality, and for this reason he says he mourns them as not belonging to life, because they did not do penance. For if penance for this crime always had to be in progress throughout this life, he would not say that he mourns them because they “did not do” it, but because they “are not doing” it. But knowing that penance is both begun and completed here, he says “they did not do it.” For he wanted, when he came to them, to have peace in communion with them. See, it is proved that the sexually immoral are to be admitted to communion after penance has been done. They cannot be given communion while they are doing it; but they are to be given communion when, by the church’s judgment, they cease doing it.

It now remains for us to prove whether pardon can be granted specifically to idolaters. In the Apocalypse of the blessed apostle John we read that penance is preached for idolatry. For the bishops, whom he calls angels, that is, messengers (as the blessed apostle Paul says, “You received me as an angel of God”), are admonished to give penance to sinners, and not to let those who cause stumbling in the church go unadmonished, though they themselves belong to the church. He says, then: “And to the angel of the church of Pergamum write: These things says he who has the sword sharp on both sides: I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is; and you hold fast my name and did not deny my faith in the days when Antipas, my most faithful witness, was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the eyes of the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed and to commit sexual immorality; so you too have those who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Likewise, do penance.” He says that this teaching of the Nicolaitans is the same as Balaam’s, that is, idolatry and sexual immorality, and he commands penance for it. And he shows that he is speaking to members of the church when he says: “These things the Spirit says to the churches.”

That there is a fruit of penance he signifies thus: “To the one who conquers,” he says, “I will give to eat of the manna that is hidden,” so that through penance one may conquer sins. For what is it to repent but to grieve over the past and to refrain afterward from what one had committed? “And to the angel of the church of Thyatira write: These things says the Son of God, who has his eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet like fine bronze: I know your works and love and faith and ministry and patience, and your last works better than the first. But I have this against you, that you allow the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet, and teaches and seduces my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent, and she would not do penance for her sexual immorality. See, I will cast her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they do penance for their deeds; and I will strike her children dead; and all the churches will know that I am he who searches reins and hearts, and I will give to each of you according to his works. But to you I say, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching and do not know the depths of Satan, as they say: I lay on you no other burden; only hold fast what you have until I come. And to the one who conquers and keeps my works to the end I will give authority over the nations.”

In a single letter, addressed to the church of Thyatira, he confounds and overthrows the twofold error of the Novatian heresy: he promises fruit to those who do penance for idolatry, and he shows that in one church the wicked do not contaminate the good, though they were certainly of one communion. He was not writing to those placed outside the church when he said: “Whoever has ears,” he says, “let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” In a similar way the apostle Paul says: “But we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law”; and in another place: “For what have I to do with judging those outside?” So he calls members of one church partly to penance and partly praises them, saying: “But to you I say, the rest who are in Thyatira, whoever do not hold this teaching” (that is, of idolatry), “hold fast what you have until I come”; that is, “persevere to the end,” because whoever perseveres to the end will be saved. In the same way whoever perseveres in evil will be condemned. And therefore, just as the righteousness of the righteous will not deliver him on the day he goes astray, so the wickedness of the wicked will not harm him when he turns back. Therefore he said: “Whoever sacrifices to gods will be rooted out; but if he turns back, he will surely live.” So it is with what the Lord says: “Whoever denies me, I will deny him.” But if he turns back, he cannot be denied by the one he confesses.

This is why it is said in the psalm: “No living man will be justified in my sight.” For a man is held to the sentence in which he dies. That the wicked would be with the good in the church until God’s judgment the Lord himself also signified when he said: “The kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea, which gathers fish of every kind. When they had come to the shore, they put the good into their vessels, but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age: the angels will go out and will separate from the kingdom of God all stumbling blocks and those who do wickedness.” This matter is also signified by the man who was found among the guests without a wedding garment: it shows that he alone was cast out of the gathering of the church, because the crime of his unworthiness did not pollute the others; and because his unworthiness was marked by his not having a wedding garment, it was manifest to the rest, for they saw that he was dressed differently from themselves.

Hence the apostle Paul says: “In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay.” He said this because of Hymenaeus and Philetus, who, though they were of the church, held perverse views about the resurrection, just as some in the church of the Corinthians denied the resurrection. But Novatian holds that this great house is to be understood as the world, not the church, so as not to be forced to admit that in one church there are wicked with good, clean with unclean. This, I think, is easily overturned. In one house all are under one name; though they differ in morals, they are all counted under the one name of their master in their profession. But this world contains people of different professions, who even profess to have different gods and lords. You see, then, that this could not be said of the world, but of the church, in which people living under one name differ in conduct. I notice that Novatian was not unaware of this; but because he had no just grounds of complaint for his separation, he forged certain arguments for himself through a bad interpretation of the law, so as not to blush openly, and by them he tried to excuse and cover the envious will of his spite.

Then he replied to what we have said: “I do not refuse that penance be done for idolatry committed, but I do not dare to forgive it, because this crime must be forgiven by the one against whom it was committed.” But he answered this with guile, and he is exposed by his own interpretations, in which his fraud appears. For when he says, “It is written, Whoever denies me, I too will deny him; and he whose words these are cannot lie,” he shows that the penance he says is to be done is empty and fruitless. If the sentence has been given, and he who gave it does not deceive, why do you compel a person to be tormented with lamentations and groans, when you either deny the effect of this penance or admit that you do not know it? Everyone who gives advice to someone gives it in order to declare what he may gain from it. But because you, Novatian, profess this with guile, you say that penance is to be done in order to mock people’s minds. Knowing that it cannot be openly denied, you act subtly, cutting penance off not in word but in effect. Certainly you say that everyone who has sacrificed to idols sins against the Holy Spirit, and you contend from the words of the law that this sin is forgiven him neither here nor in the future. How, then, do you say that penance is to be done for this offense, unless you are deceiving, as I showed above?

But you usually try to cover this fraud with another trick, saying that the apostle Peter too said to Simon in the same sense: “Do penance for this wickedness of yours, if perhaps it may be forgiven you.” But the apostle Peter, seeing the man’s poisoned and most bitter wickedness, gave him a doubtful answer for that reason. For what mortal ever sinned in such a way as to want to buy God’s gift with money? This answer, then, was given to malevolence, not to error. Malevolence has no remedy, because it is neither error nor a necessity by which one might excuse oneself so as to reach pardon by weeping. If any are found in such a case, let them hear what Simon heard. And why he answered doubtfully the apostle Peter shows when he says: “For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of wickedness.” If, then, in so grave a case, which seems to be without remedy, a doubtful answer was given, there is no doubt that those who sin against God by error or under some necessity can be forgiven if they do fitting penance. For this has been granted to the church’s authority by its author: both to give penance and, after penance, to receive back.

There is also another thing Novatian finds fault with: “Why,” he says, “do they give the Lord’s body to those whom they know to be sinners?” As if those who are judges could themselves be accusers! But if such people have been accused and exposed, they can be put out. For what judge would take on the role of accuser? If the Lord himself bore with Judas, whom he knew to be a thief who carried off what was put into the purse, and did not cast out one who had not been accused, we ought to follow this example, so that it is not lawful to cast out one who has not been publicly exposed. Nor does it befit a righteous man to accuse anyone. Hence it says: “Joseph, since he was a righteous man and did not want to expose her, wished to put her away secretly.” Judas, then, while he was among the disciples, did not stain them with his contagion, since they certainly did not consent to his thefts; and receiving the Eucharist among them, he did not pollute the innocent. Nor did the Lord deny his body to one whom he knew to be a robber, because, according to the apostle, whoever takes it unworthily takes a sword against himself; and so he did not turn away from his kiss either. For sinners pollute those who consent to their evils. Hence it is said: “You saw a thief and ran with him.”

This is why the apostle rebukes the people of Corinth for not reproving or avoiding the man who publicly had his father’s wife, so that he might amend himself, saying: “Do you not know that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump?” Since there was no leader or overseer of the church, it was the people’s part to reprove the man whom they saw living so shamefully and obscenely among them. And therefore the apostle rebukes them as consenting to his crime. In this matter there was no need of an accuser or witnesses, for he publicly had his stepmother in place of a wife.

So, as far as our case is concerned, we have set out our reasoning, not accusing others but defending ourselves. But I appeal to the conscience of Novatian, who always accuses us, whether he knows that all whom he has with him are holy. He is so angry with us that he even denies that we are Christians, though he knows that we were dipped in the same faith on which he himself relies. Certainly profession and life make a Christian. If, then, you see a man professing what you profess and not unlike you in life, why do you deny that he is what you are? Certainly whoever says “Lord Jesus” says it in the Holy Spirit, for he speaks the truth; all truth is from God. Why do you not agree with one who speaks the truth, but deny it? You contradict one who confesses God, not by reason but by fury. Do you not appear to be God’s enemy, you who resist one who professes true things about him? Does a pagan, hearing someone say that idols are gods, deny that he is a pagan? Why do you deny that one is a Christian whom you hear professing the words of the sound faith, when you read: “With the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”? But you, as an enemy, because you do not see through your anger, fight against God, denying that one who confesses these things has salvation, though the Lord says: “Whoever confesses me, I too will confess him.” Does he say, “if a Novatianist confesses me”? But you build your case so as to seem to yourself to be defending this: that he is saved who is not only a Christian but also a Novatianist. But if confession made of Christ gives salvation, then wherever and among whomever this confession is sound, it has salvation. So if the handing on of this confession has been corrupted among us, or its sense changed, you rightly accuse us. But if it remains in us as it does in you, by denying us you seem to deny yourself.

But you accuse the ministers of the faith. Suppose it is true, though you cannot prove it. Yet for those who heard from them, is what they heard true or false? If a vicious man speaks the truth, it will not cease to be true because a vicious man said it; conduct is one matter, profession another. Does not the persecutor, out of hatred of the Christian name, persecute the profession, not the conduct? In the first place, knowing that confessing that we are Christians advances religion, the sacrilegious persecutor believes us when we confess what he does not want to hear, because he hates it. But you, though you share the same profession and seal, do not believe us when we confess what you yourself confess. If you knew that we had been reborn otherwise than you were reborn, you would rightly not believe that we are what you are. Why do I suffer persecution from the sacrilegious if I am not what you are? If I professed of myself what you say of me, I would not suffer persecution. In the end I am to be believed about myself, not you. The judge asks for my profession, not yours about me. Why, then, do you deny when I confess, since it is true that in this matter what is required, whether for me or against me, is not another’s testimony but my own profession? I could wish you were tortured for the name alongside me, so that it might appear whether, when I confessed the truth, you would deny it against me, and whom one would believe. You put this forward with guile, so as to seem to have a just cause for schism. For you are not unaware that in this matter my testimony about myself is required, not another’s, and that what is held true is what I confess, not what another denies.

It is plain, then, that they are free who, out of love for Christ, without inquiring into people’s actions, run together to obtain faith in him, approving in their ministers what they know is useful to themselves, namely that they obtain the handing on of the faith concerning Christ. Whoever thinks that anything of the man besides his ministry is necessary in this matter does injury to the handing on, for he thinks less of the grace of God. When he denies that God’s gift can benefit one who is devoted to God unless the merit of the man is present, he makes the man either superior or equal to the handing on itself, though the man’s merit is far removed from this office, as the apostle Paul says of this very matter: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the growth.”

How can anything in this matter be hoped for from the man, when the words that are to be handed on have been given? Let us see, then, what it will profit if he is of good merit, or what harm it will do if he is of bad merit. The one who approaches desires to hear the words of God, and by giving them his faith he believes that he receives salvation. What difference does it make here whether the one who hands on the solemn words is of good or bad life, since what is required is the devout faith of the one who receives, that he believe with his whole mind what he hears? If the one who hands them on is of bad life, will he put an obstacle in the way of the receiver, so that he does not believe what he hears, though it should be believed, as if the minister’s sin entered his heart and kept him from believing? Or must God, who is just, despise one who is devoted to him because of the sin of a man whom God himself allows to remain in the order? Not even a human being judges like that, though he is known often to be deceived or to show favor. If that were so, and a person pleaded his own case, would he not say to God: “Who this man is, on whose account you despise me, I do not know. I came to him for your sake, because he was called your overseer. I sought you, I desired you, I believed you; I hoped for nothing from the man. Why, then, should his evils harm me, when I would not have known him had I not sought you? If his good deeds could profit me, it might perhaps seem just that his evils should harm me too. But just as his good deeds would have profited me nothing if I had believed with doubt, so his evils ought to do me no harm when I believe rightly. For I gave my faith to his words, which are said to be given by you, which breathe you, speak of you, make promises from you; I believed nothing from him about himself or about his deeds, but I joined myself to the faith that is from you.”

On this reasoning the believer’s case is intact. Think of overseers as advocates. If an advocate is of bad life, will judgment be given against his client? The advocate’s duty is to plead his client’s case according to the order of law; can his life, if it is shameful, harm his client’s case? The advocate’s person can neither harm nor help; as the case is, so will the verdict be. So it is with those who wish to become Christians. They approach the overseer and tell him their vows, and he pronounces the words of the church’s law. If the vows are true, they are accepted by the judge. In what can the overseer either harm or help, since he does not even know his client’s case? It is known to God the judge alone with what mind each one approaches. It belongs to the overseer, then, to perform the office entrusted to him, and to the judge to accept or reject the client’s case. For he himself is found to have said: “Daughter, your faith has saved you.”

You see, then, that each one is saved not by anyone’s help but by his own faith. For God has decreed this for faith: if it does not doubt, it obtains whatever it wishes. Yet you, not as a friend but as an enemy of Christ, have gathered a people under your own name, so that they are not Christians unless they are Novatianists, though the apostle condemns anyone who says he belongs to Paul or to anyone else. But you, judging yourself superior, have put your own name above Christ’s, as though he were not enough to protect his church.

If you look closely, there is no question to raise here; nor should you think that the Lord lied or changed, commanding and afterward denying. For concerning the sacrifices, libations, and holocausts of which he testifies that he said nothing, nothing is found that he commanded. Note that there are two kinds of sacrifices: one that was commanded to be offered according to its several kinds, and another that is called voluntary. In the first, which was prescribed to be offered in various kinds, whether for sins or for the firstborn, what was to be offered, of what quality, and how, was commanded. But the voluntary sacrifice was certainly not commanded, because it was left to choice, so that if someone wished to offer, he might offer what seemed good to him; for these sacrifices were votive. And because they offered them carelessly and thoughtlessly, not considering that one who offers gifts to a superior should offer choice ones, it is said to them: “I did not command you about these; but if you wish to offer them, you ought to offer what is worthy.”

In the same way Cain too is found to have sinned, when he did not consider that the better things ought to be offered to God. When they said they were offering these things to appease God, by that very act they provoked God to indignation, so that in the very thing they claimed to be doing well they sinned, offering God unworthy holocausts. Hence he says in the prophet Malachi: “If you bring a blind or lame or sick animal for sacrifice, it is not good. Offer it to your governor or your commander, and see whether he will receive you, says the Lord almighty.” Hence in Isaiah God complains of the same thing, saying: “What are the sheep of your holocaust to me? Nor have you honored me in your sacrifices. I did not make you for this, that you should toil over incense or buy incense for me with silver, nor did I desire the fat of your sacrifices; but in your sins and iniquities you stood before me.” It is plain, then, that the complaints arose because, when they offered voluntary sacrifices, they did not honor God in them, offering what was unworthy, though there was certainly no necessity to offer them. If they had been commanded, they might seem to offer any kind out of necessity; but when they offered them by their own choice, they ought to have offered such things as would show their devotion to God. But because their mind wandered with desire for idols, they did these things thoughtlessly. So they are reproached on two counts: that while acting wickedly they dared to offer to God, and that they offered what was unworthy; whereas wicked acts are redeemed not by sacrifices but by lamentation and mercy.

Hence David says, when he had sinned: “If you had wished, I would certainly have given sacrifices; you will not delight in holocausts. A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit, and a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” Then Samuel says to Saul, who had despised the Lord’s command and thought God could be appeased by sacrifice: “For God does not want sacrifice,” he says, “rather than that his voice be heard.” And Scripture says: “I want mercy rather than sacrifice,” because, though they were unjust and unmerciful, they thought God would be made favorable by offerings, just as now too some, spurning righteousness, think they are praised for their offerings. An offering is good, then, if righteousness is kept and mercy is not neglected, because what we ask for ourselves we ought also to grant to others.

The Lord, knowing that the Jewish war against him was coming, told his disciples to get swords for themselves. When this had been done and the war had begun under the leadership of Simon Iscariot, the apostle Peter, seeing the enemies rising up, drew his sword and cut off the ear of the priests’ servant. Then the Lord told Peter to put his sword back into its sheath: “For everyone,” he says, “who takes the sword will perish by the sword.” Why did he who forbade striking order swords to be prepared, and even mark as deserving death the man who struck with the sword, when the apostle does not seem to have struck unjustly? As far as he was concerned, he struck a man he saw armed against him. He ought to resist ungrateful servants armed to kill their Lord.

If you examine each part of the matter whose reason you wish to have laid open, you will find other questions to ask besides these. What need was there that he who relied on spiritual power should order carnal swords to be prepared, and that he who earlier ordered that neither bag nor money nor staff be carried on the way should now order them to have what he had earlier forbidden?

Let us begin, then, to explain why he ordered swords to be prepared and yet forbade striking. He commanded weapons to be procured for the coming war not only because of his enemies but also for the sake of his own disciples. Something new and astonishing was going to happen: that he who did new and unheard-of signs would suddenly be so humbled as to be subjected to scourging and death. So, lest he seem to suffer these things without foreknowing them, as one whom power had perhaps deserted, he foretold all these things so that they would not doubt about them, but would see that he foreknew them and prepared himself to meet them. And because he was humbled by his own will, he ordered that the enemies not be resisted too fiercely, showing that he was still the same as he had been, so that, when he had already been seized, he restored the ear that had been cut off and gave back what the action of the sword had severed. Not as a physician of the flesh, but as the maker of the body, he refashioned his own maimed work; for physicians cannot restore members cut off from the body. So that the power of God might be seen not diminished in him but present as it had been, and might confirm what he had said, “I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it up again,” for this reason he ordered swords to be prepared, yet did not order killing.

It now remains to ask why, seeing the apostle Peter’s act, he said that whoever used the sword would perish by the sword, when Peter does not seem to have struck unjustly. As is indicated in Luke, he struck with the Lord’s own permission, and when he was then forbidden he heard these words. It was permitted so that they might be seen to be able to defend themselves but unwilling to do so, and so that power might be shown to remain in the one in whom it had been, so that in both respects there would be no doubt that they could defend themselves, while the enemies would hold it for certain that the power to do these things had been given them by him. For he did not appear as one conquered, but as one handing himself over to their will. Why, then, was the sentence given that whoever takes the sword will perish by the sword, unless because it is lawful for no one except a judge to kill anyone with the sword? The apostle Peter was permitted only so far as to cause pain, not to kill. Hearing this, so that he would not strike again, he learned besides that those who have now become Christians may not kill; for those placed under mercy may not use harshly the law of justice entrusted to the world. And what he seems to have commanded earlier to the disciples as they went on their way, that they should take nothing on the way, concerned peace, the grace of mighty works, and the gentleness of the teaching. What need was there to take anything on the way for those to whom everything would be offered because of the signs? But when the time came at which he allowed himself to suffer, because a war rather than a brawl was at hand, he orders the disciples to be armed, not so that he who wished to suffer would fight back, but, as I said, so that he would show both that he foreknew this and that he had his passion in his own power, and that he humbled himself for the sake of human salvation, which will be discussed in its place.

At the Lord’s first coming it was foretold that the sun would be darkened at his passion at the very hour at which this is shown to have happened, that is, at midday; for so it is written in the prophet Amos: “And it will be on that day, says the Lord, the sun will set at midday, and the day of light will grow dark over the earth.” On that day, then, the sun was darkened from the sixth hour to the ninth, and so the prophecy of that prophet was fulfilled. An image of what will happen at the Lord’s second coming was shown in the Lord’s passion, because at the end, when the Lord begins to come to judge the world, the lights will be released from their office, as the Lord says: “In those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its brightness.” The prophet Joel too did not pass this over, so that, since Joel signifies it, it may be believed without doubt that it will be fulfilled. For he said: “The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and manifest day of the Lord comes.” This, so far as appears, fits the second coming better; for then he will be openly manifested to all, as Scripture says: “Then every eye will see him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him, and those who crucified him.”

So if both comings include the darkening of the sun in those days, what is the day on which, as Scripture sang, the sun and moon will be increased? For Isaiah says among other things: “And there will be on every high mountain and on every lofty place water running on that day, when many have perished, when towers have fallen. And the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun; and the light of the sun will be sevenfold in the day when he heals the bruise of his people,” and so on. What day can be understood on which the Lord promised to heal the bruise of his people? This, I think, is the day that Zechariah, the father of John, points to when he says: “Blessed is the God of Israel, because he has visited and made redemption for his people, and raised up a horn of our salvation in the house of David his servant, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets who are from of old, and he has delivered us from our enemies and from the hands of all who hate us, to show mercy with our fathers.” And Simeon says among other things: “This one is set for the fall and the rising of many in Israel.” This “fall” is that of the scribes and Pharisees and rulers of the Jews, whom the prophet signified by “towers.”

As these fell through unbelief, others rose by believing, who earlier seemed weak and sick through negligence. Hence the Savior says: “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind,” so that those who seemed to have sight through their practice and knowledge of the law were blinded through unbelief, while the blind, that is, the unlearned or the tax collectors, saw when they believed. The prophet foretold that the Savior would bear their infirmities. So this was done in the time of the Savior, as is read in the gospel, that he himself took our infirmities and healed our wounds.

All these things were completed and fulfilled in the Savior’s passion; for in this way the salvation of the human race was both redeemed and secured, among those above as among those below, since the prophecy of Zechariah mentioned above includes both. Here, among those above, they were freed from the oppression of enemies by the intervention of mercy; and there, among those below, when they were snatched from Tartarus. For all who had hoped in the promised Christ were awaiting his coming, so that, when death was conquered, they might be freed from the underworld. Hence he said: “to show mercy with our fathers.” But if anyone understands this salvation to be included in the second coming as well, still in both comings, and especially the second, the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon will not give its brightness. How then shall we take it that the sun and moon are increased on the day on which the Lord will visit his people, when we read that at both times, at which the liberation of the people was begun and completed, the sun and moon are not increased but darkened? Unless we plainly understand the sun and moon to be comparisons for the saints, as in another place we read that the saints are likened to lights, as the apostle Paul preaches, because among other people the saints appear in this world like lights; and in the gospel: “Then the righteous,” he says, “will shine like the sun.” For the Lord calls righteous works light; so he says: “Let your light shine before men, so that, seeing your good works, they may glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Those, then, who leave all they have and follow the Lord for the sake of righteousness and holiness are compared to the sun and moon, honored sevenfold, as the Lord says: “There is no one who leaves house or wife or children or fields who does not receive sevenfold in this age.” Those who are honored sevenfold in the present can therefore be understood to be believed seven parts brighter than others in the future as well, so that their resurrection is compared to the sun and moon, while that of the others is like the stars. The brightness of the saints, then, which here is honored sevenfold, obtains another sevenfold in the resurrection, so that one who here has the brightness of the moon will receive in the future the brightness of the sun, and one who here is compared to the sun is believed to be going to receive sevenfold as much. The prophet Isaiah, then, foretold by the comparison of sun and moon that the merits of the saints would be increased, and not without reason. For if the Lord himself is called “the sun of righteousness,” and the saints will be like him, as the apostle John says, “For when he appears we shall be like him,” it is fitting that the saints are signified by the sun. Yet the prophet shows that the sun is seven parts greater than the moon. When he says that the moon will be like the light of the sun, but the sun sevenfold, he certainly signifies that the moon is increased sevenfold to the measure of the sun, so as to be such as the sun is. Although the subject here is the saints, under this figure of the lights he partly revealed their magnitude: after the increase of sun and moon, the sun is again greater by as much as it was, so that as much as one saint differs from another in the present, so much will he differ in the future after the reward.

“In the beginning God made heaven and earth.” If he made heaven and earth in the beginning, and heaven is the firmament, as appears in what follows, then it is not true that light was made first and the firmament afterward; for it could not signify another heaven, since it is describing the making of the world completed by God’s working. Because people were deceived by different opinions about the world, Moses, with God inspiring him, showed what the nature of the world was. For to some it seemed to have no beginning; to others to have a beginning, but to have been fashioned by certain angels; to some, likewise made, but by a certain Sacla, who was the god of the adverse power; but a few, following the line of descent from the origin of truth, held that God was its maker. Because of the diversity of those who were led by false opinion, then, Moses was compelled to show what its true cause was, so that the sons of Israel, rescued from the power of the Egyptians, would not remain unfreed from their false understanding. For the Egyptians more than all others pursued the study of error; from antiquity they gave themselves above others to vain philosophy. Indeed Moses, because he was regarded as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter, was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

What, then, does he mean when he says, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”? If it does not mean the firmament, as we showed above, let us see what it says. We think that Moses, to remove every error about the lower creation and about the materials of which the world was made, indicated that in the beginning the very substances of which the world consists were made; for if he had been silent about this, the substances might perhaps have been thought eternal and reckoned as coupled with God. So whoever accepts this testimony cannot doubt that the world was made, since he confesses that the substances which went into the material of the world were brought into being at the beginning. So “in the beginning God made heaven and earth,” that is, the upper and the lower substance. The upper is that of which heaven consists; the lower is a kind of muddy concretion, which went to form the dry land, which is called earth, and the darkness. Hence he says in the prophet Isaiah: “I am God, who made light and created darkness,” that is, water, darkness, and earth.

These substances, then, were created together before the times (for the times are under the firmament; the firmament, as some think, is ice formed from the waters, and it is called firmament because it was made firm when the waters were congealed by God; it is called caelum from hiding, occulere or celare. And because water is the greater element, it is mentioned first, and because part of it went to form the vault of the world, while the earth is the floor. David too confesses through the Holy Spirit that these were created, for he says: “And let the water that is above the heavens praise the name of the Lord, because he spoke and it was made, he commanded and it was created”). After these elements, then, before the world was joined together, God made light, so that his works might proceed in the light; and this light, in a set measure, completed the course of the day. And night came, according to the measure of the day, and likewise, when its measure of time was completed, it was lit by the coming of the morning light; and so the first day was completed when the second began. For the night was assigned to the day, so that together they are called one day. Because darkness was made subject to light, it lacks authority, so that it cannot make a number. For thirty days are called one month, though they include the nights with them. So the ministry of light, by which it completes the span decreed for it, is called day; but the substance of darkness, before it is lit, is called night. The span between setting and rising is night. For darkness does not make night in the way that light makes day, because darkness remains in its own nature; but the coming of light makes day, and its departure night. Not without reason, then, is night made subject to day.

When light had been made, then, and the course of twelve hours completed, and as many hours of night had passed, there was an equinox on the first day. From then the day began to grow longer than the night for three months, which are the season of spring. Then from that increase the day shortens over another three months, which are the season of summer. And again there is an equinox, so that from it the night grows longer than the day for another three months, which are the season of autumn. And again the night begins to shrink from the length by which it exceeds the day, until the end of the fourth season, which is winter. And then comes the equinox of the first season, when God created the world; that day is understood to be the eleventh day before the Kalends of April, when the first day of Pascha is, that is, the first day of the first month. For it is commanded in the law that on the tenth day of the first month, in the evening, they should prepare themselves for keeping the Pascha on the fourteenth day of the month, that is, from the eleventh. For the evening of the tenth day already shines into the eleventh, so that the first month would begin from the eleventh day before the Kalends of April. In the beginning the moon, when it was made, was in its fourteenth day, because all things were made full; add the three days from the evening of the tenth, and these are the three days that were before the lights, so that the world was made on the eleventh day before the Kalends of April, because the count of the moon goes from the eleventh to the fourteenth, to which the first month of the Pascha is assigned whole; so that on the solemn day of Pascha it is neither outside the eleventh before the Kalends of April nor outside the fourteenth moon, because the world was made on the eleventh. And on the fourteenth moon it was made brighter with greater light.

Between the beginning, then, and the brightness by which the world was lit, our Savior both suffered and rose again: for he suffered on the fourteenth moon and rose on the first day, which is called “the Lord’s” because he made it, and which, multiplied, makes months and seasons and years. That Easter is not celebrated always on one and the same date is caused by the course of the moon in its waning and waxing.

“But the earth was invisible and unformed.” It is plain that the earth, after it had been made, was invisible and unformed. It was covered by waters, and therefore it was invisible; and it was unformed because, being fluid, it was not fit for cultivation.

“And darkness was over the abyss.” He says that darkness was over the abyss, that is, over water boundless on every side.

“And the spirit of God was borne over the water.” He indicates this water as the surface, as it were, over which he shows that the spirit of God was borne, so as to indicate that the darkness was over the infinite depth, but the spirit of God over the waters, because where the spirit of God was there was no darkness. As far as it could, it lit up the water, but it could not light up the abyss, that is, the boundless depth; that is, it lit up the upper waters, while below there was still darkness over the abyss.

He calls this “the spirit of God” not because he wants it understood as the Holy Spirit, but because he wants spiritual things understood as set over the material creation; and to indicate that the whole belongs to God, he calls this spirit, which was borne over the waters, the spirit of God, so as to overthrow the perverse assertion some make when they say that there is something that is not God’s. It is not in keeping with order or reason that the Holy Spirit should be said to have been over the waters, because he is above all creation. What is from God is above all powers and principalities, and above all spiritual powers as well. Let no one be disturbed that it is called the spirit of God, since it is certain that all things are God’s. For God says among other things, when he was about to send the flood, “My spirit will not remain in these men, because they are flesh”; and in Ezekiel, among other things: “Thus says the Lord to these bones: I will stretch skin over you and put my spirit into you, and you will live.” Do these things belong to the office of the Holy Spirit and not to the soul? This spirit, then, is indeed God’s, as the other things are, yet it is the governor of the material substances; its appointed place is to preside over them.

When light, then, had been made and the course of the day regulated and completed, on the second day he made the firmament, that is, heaven, so that the light within the firmament might regulate the day, like a lamp in a house. This firmament was made from the substance of water mentioned above. For now the world is put together in its form, so that, the substances being separated out of the confusion of things, the individual parts that went to form the members of the world might be fitted together. The substances that we said were made first are the materials of the world; and it is called “world” (mundus) because things separated from one another, which had been confused, and brought into form, caused it to be called the world, into whose construction they went. The firmament, then, that is, heaven, was made in the midst of the waters, to divide between the water that was above the firmament and the water that was under the firmament, so that by God’s power the firmament stood in the midst of the waters, having water beneath it, within it, above it, and around it; concave from the outside and fortified within, so that the waters, whether outer or inner, should not penetrate its hollow, and so that it would be like a fortified and strengthened house, in which those who dwell may be secure.

On the third day he commanded the water that was under heaven, that is, within the space of the firmament, to be gathered into one gathering, so that the dry land, which is the earth, might appear; and it was so. The breadth of the earth was hollowed out, and a kind of basin was made, into which all the water within the firmament might sink, and then the dry land appeared. As the water receded, the earth necessarily appeared, made visible, which before had been invisible. Then the dry land was called earth and the gatherings of the waters seas. And he commanded the earth to bring forth grass for pasture and fruit-bearing trees with their seed upon the earth.

Again, on the fourth day God commanded lights to be made in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth: the greater light for the beginning of the day and the lesser light for the beginning of the night, and the stars. These serve the conception, birth, and nourishment of the things that are begotten in the world, and are needed as signs of the times under fixed headings, and also for the adornment of the whole world. As it belongs to the adornment of a house that its vault has paneled ceilings picked out in gold, so the stars shining with varied light give adornment to the world. To the light that was made first, then, the splendor of the sun was added, so that the two are joined and inseparable; but to the night, which was dark, a light was given. And because the moon was in its fourteenth day when it was made, he says, “the lesser light for the beginning of the night”; for once made it shone the whole night. So it is said from the part for the whole, “for the beginning of the night,” because it does not always shine in the evening. But the greater light, which we call the sun, remains at the beginnings of the day, because it was joined together with the earlier light.

For three days, then, the world was without these lights, for there were not yet things for whose sake their functions would be needed. But when the earth had brought forth grass for pasture and fruit-bearing trees, there was need of things that would nourish or preserve what had been brought forth. Since, then, all the generation of these things is completed through the action of the lights, the lights ought not to have been made first, lest the things brought forth from the earth be thought to have arisen by their effect; rather he made the plants first and then the lights, so that there would be no doubt that the plants were made without them.

Then on the fifth day he commanded the waters to bring forth creeping things with living souls, and birds flying over the earth along the firmament of heaven; and it was so. And among other things: “And God saw,” it says, “that they were good, and said: Increase and multiply.” He added “And God saw that they were good” because some say these creatures are evil, so that they may at least blush at this. When they please God their maker, they ought surely to displease no one. For fools are wont to say: “He saw, and they pleased him, because he did not know before.” O dullards, how did he not know, when what he willed was brought forth? Does anyone will what he does not know? And can one who is able to make something be said not to know what he makes? What is more, he did not make it himself but commanded it to be made; and was the thing he commanded not given the power to make it? Because all things are possible to him, at his command the waters began to be able to do what they could not, so as to serve his praise; for the power is twofold, in that he commanded the insensible to bring forth sensible beings.

On the sixth day he commanded the earth to bring forth living soul, four-footed animals and beasts of the earth; and it was so, and they were brought forth. And God saw that they were good, and very good, because all are necessary.

On that same day God said: “Let us make man in our image and likeness, and let him have,” he says, “power over all things that have been made on the earth.” First God made the substances out of which to put the world together; when it had been put together, adorned with all its ornaments and furnished with what is needed, he then made man, to enjoy it and all things in it. For while he commanded all things on the earth to be brought forth from the waters and the earth, yet to make man he is described as having taken mud from the earth in his hands, to teach that man differs greatly from the other things he had made. He wishes it to belong to man’s honor when he describes him as made by God’s hands and made in the image and likeness of God, that is, of the Father and the Son.

Although we have said elsewhere what “in the image and likeness” means, this place and subject require us to say it again. These are the words of the Father to the Son: “Let us make man in our image and likeness,” although in every work the person of both is understood, of the one who speaks and of the one who obeys. This, then, is God’s image in man: that one man was made as a kind of lord, from whom the others would arise, having God’s rule as his vicar, since every king has the image of God. And therefore woman was not made in God’s image. For so it says: “And God made man; in the image of God he made him.” Hence the apostle says: “A man ought not to veil his head, because he is the image and glory of God”; but woman veils herself for this reason, that she is not the glory or image of God. And God’s likeness in man is this: that as the Son is from the Father, so woman is from man; yet plainly unlike in this, that she was made, while he was born.

Some, however, think that the Lord made all things at once. “For if he made them by a word,” they say, “why should he not be said to have made all things at once? Making in parts is the way of human beings.” So they say it does more honor to God’s power if all things are believed to have been made by him in one day. But we see great providence in this work and its order. He certainly could have made all things at once, but manifold reason forbade it; and, setting all these considerations aside, faith must be given to the divine Scripture, which says, and says often: “For in six days the Lord your God made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.” In the first place, things ought to have been made so that they would perceive and know that they were made. For when they saw that they were not all made together, but one today and another tomorrow, they knew that they were bounded by a beginning and could not suppose themselves eternal, since they recognize that they came in parts, one after another. If all things had come into being at once, they would have no sense of their weakness, but would think they had not begun. Things that by God’s word suddenly exist together do not perceive that they are being made, except by seeing one thing before them and another after. And lest what was made first should think itself unmade, it sees greater things made after it and believes of itself what it sees in another that is superior. Light, which is called day, has heaven and earth before it, that is, water and dry land. But since water itself, the dry land, and darkness had been made in confusion, they could not claim eternity for themselves, for none of them dared to claim a settled state and distinct property for itself. Sun and moon, again, though they are most bright, have many things before them. So it came about that, since later things see themselves superior and earlier things inferior, none of them claims eternity for itself.

Moreover, because the work completed in six days contains within itself the age of the whole world, the works of the six days bear the figure of six thousand years, since what was to happen in each age is contained in order in the works of the six days. So the earlier days were seen without splendor, I think because in the earlier ages there was not to be so great a knowledge of God on earth; the cattle were made before man, because our forebears were to live uncultivated and rustic, like cattle; and man was made on the sixth day because in the six thousandth year the coming of Christ made man anew, so that he would not be subject to death. And man was made the image of God because by God’s gift he would be conformed to the image of the Son of God, as the apostle John says: “But we know,” he says, “that when he appears we shall be like him”; and the vessel of election: “conformed,” he says, “to the Son of God.” The tree of life, which was placed in paradise, was an image of God’s future grace, which is the body of the Lord, and whoever eats it will live for ever. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the law given through Moses, which, when it had made known sin that before had lain hidden, gave knowledge of good and evil; for it showed what was good and what was evil. And God’s rest on the seventh day from his works signified that, when the six thousandth year is completed, in the seven thousandth he would rest, the world then ceasing from every worldly work. We have said these few things out of many, to open a way of understanding along the lines we have shown above.

As far as the making of the world is concerned, we read of darkness before light. The things that went into the construction of the world and appear to have been made together, that is, water, earth, and darkness, out of which the world was put together, are considered to have been without light, as is contained in the Wisdom called Solomon’s: “from unseen matter,” that is, dark matter. The sacred volumes testify by the Lord’s own voice, through the prophet Isaiah, that darkness and water were made: “For I am God,” he says, “who made light and created darkness.” Likewise through David the Holy Spirit shows that the waters were made and the earth established upon the waters. This agrees with the authority of the gospel and the apostolic tradition, in which we read that all things were made, and, so as to except nothing, “whether things in heaven,” he says, “or things on earth.”

In this part, then, which concerns the earth, we read of darkness before light. This concerns the order of the reading, not dignity; for light is certainly much better than darkness. In the scheme of the world, however, light received a name, so that it was called day and darkness night, but for this reason: when the darkness is lit and the light then passes, that time, until the light returns, is called night, and the time in which the darkness is lit is called day. So when night is spoken of, a day to come is hoped for, and when day is spoken of, night is expected. But when these functions cease as the world passes away, there will be only darkness and light. It cannot be called night when the darkness is perpetual, nor day when the light has ceased to set. Where there is eternity these names cease, because they began with the world. Indeed, before light was made, which was called day, we read not that there was night but darkness; and after the darkness had been lit and the light had passed, it was called evening and night.

So, as appears, night is subject to day. Nor, because darkness is read of before light, should darkness be thought superior; for heaven too comes before the sun, and yet the sun is greater in brightness, and the earth comes before man, and cattle and the other animals, and yet they are subject to man. Night, then, ought not to be preferred to day because darkness is read of first, since it is plain that light is set before darkness in dignity and day before night in time. For, as was shown above, when there was darkness, light was made.

“And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night; and there was evening and there was morning, one day.” For unless there had been day, there would be no night either; there was darkness, and when it had been lit and the day had passed, its course run, evening came. And when after the evening it had dawned, the first day was made, the night having passed, so that night followed day. This is both fitting and commended by reason, that the inferior nature be in all things subject to the superior.

How, then, will night be said to come before day, when you read its name after the day? It would not have been called night or evening unless the light, once made, had made the day, after which came evening, which is night. The day became evening, so that you may know that night is part of the day. For the day is completed only when it has passed, night included. Indeed we say, “The year has 365 days,” certainly not without the nights. When we say days, we count the nights in at the same time; under the authority of the day we signify the night too. If night preceded day, the day too would be counted under the name of night. Who would say, “I will see you after five nights,” and not “after five days”? Nor do we remember reading anywhere that night is named before day. “Moses was,” it says, “on the mountain forty days and forty nights”; and in the psalm: “The sun will not burn you by day, nor the moon by night”; and, to give an example from the very beginning: “Let there be lights,” it says, “in the firmament of heaven, to shine upon the earth; the greater light for the beginning of the day and the lesser light for the beginning of the night.” If the moon can be put before the sun, so can night before day; but as the moon is under the sun, so night is under the day. And in the gospel we find nights included under the authority and number of days. For the Lord says among other things: “There are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man in his kingdom.” And it adds: “And it came to pass after eight days,” and so on. Are not the nights contained in this number? And in another place: “These things,” it says, “were done in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing. On the next day he saw Jesus coming.” Did he say, “on the next night”? Again it follows: “On the following day he wished to set out for Galilee,” and further on: “And on the third day a wedding took place at Cana of Galilee.”

See, everywhere the day is shown to hold authority, having the night subject to it. If the count were made under the name of night, night would precede day. Because the Romans hold the rule, the Spaniards, Gauls, Africans, and the others subject to them are called Romans under their name; so too night, because it is subject to day, is included under its name. Some are misled here because the Jews are commanded to enter the Sabbath in the evening, not considering why it was so commanded. On the day before they must buy their food, prepare for the Sabbath, and go to wash. Could they do these things at night, so as to enter the Sabbath when day broke? The Lord certainly rose in the evening, and it is assigned to the day. The resurrection is celebrated on the day that is called the Lord’s day (for so you read, “This is the day which the Lord made”), yet not the Lord’s night, because the day has the primacy. Whether to the past day or to the coming one, night is always subject, because it is inferior both in order and in nature, as the apostle says: “You are sons of the day and of light, not of night and darkness.” And if we draw an inference from the consuls, we shall see that the one elected first is named first. Indeed people say, “Who will be consul with him?” If, then, night came before day, it would be named first. The count begins from the day to such an extent that if we say, for example, “Tomorrow is the sixth day before the Kalends,” it is reckoned from morning until the next morning comes, so that it is counted when a day and a night have passed. The moon too was made in the morning at the beginning, in its fourteenth day; for once made it had to shine the whole night, and at the next morning its fifteenth day began. Why, then, is it doubted that the beginning is to be taken from the day?

Because of some people’s contentiousness about a plain matter we have been compelled to speak at greater length, though the reading explains itself, since it plainly sets day before night. All the things mentioned above we have said according to the origin of the world. But if we wish to speak more deeply, raising our understanding with spiritual vigor, we shall find it incongruous to assert that darkness was created before light. If the nature of light is heavenly and that of darkness earthly, it is surely absurd to think that light was made after darkness. Moses says that light was made in the part where the world now is, not that it was created then, because all spiritual things were created before carnal ones, so that the light that was in the heights came to be in the things below, like a lamp in a house. And for what reason is darkness said to come before light, when it is always seen after light? Indeed heavenly and spiritual things are believed to be by nature light, earthly and carnal things darkness, so that the nature of darkness seems to subsist by the power of light, because everything lowest belongs to what is highest. If we inquire, we find darkness in the sun itself: if you were near it, it would seem so bright that it could not be looked at; at some distance, very bright, but such that it can be looked at; far off, less bright; and the farther off, a kind of failing appears, which announces darkness; and so one arrives at the point where darkness seems to take its origin from light. So he who made light created darkness in the same way as, in making water, he at the same time created earth; so that, as earth is the solid part of water, darkness is the failing of light.

God alone suffers no failing; since he is everywhere, or rather holds all things within himself, he is so bright that he is seen by no one unless he wishes to temper himself. Indeed the Savior, when he was in the body and yet not enclosed, was not seen unless he wished. For what was transfigured on the mountain and appeared in great brightness was, as it were, hidden in the body, and when he wished he manifested it. How then was he hidden who was not enclosed? If with a body he came in to the disciples through closed doors, how does his divinity not penetrate all things? That is, it cannot be enclosed, because it suffers no failing. Since, then, God is absent nowhere, he is nevertheless said to be there where he appears and wishes to be seen. Since all things are in God, because he exceeds all things, as the apostle says, “For in him we live and move and are,” yet he himself is in nothing except in whom he wishes. For by a certain mystery he is in all things, and by a certain providence he appears in whom he wishes.

Everything that is from God is rational, and a cause gives each thing its beginning, which is its origin, so that a thing may not seem to be named or to exist absurdly, but so that the name may show the thing, which is understood to be the head of that name. The nature of man, then, is the cause by which he consists. He consists of four elements, earth, air, water, and fire, with God alone as their author; the fifth is the mind, like a charioteer, to drive the compacted and shaped body as its commander. From this first man we have all taken our beginning, and we are named by his name. We are called homines because of humus, the soil, from which our father had his outward origin. So cause and reason bring it about that from one person’s name those who exist after him are called by the same name, signifying him in themselves.

Let us see, then, whether it is fitting, as some think, that the Hebrews were named after Heber. As far as the name goes, the origin of this name does seem to come from him, for Heber is earlier than Abraham. If this were true, those of the tribe of Heber ought to have been called by the same name after him; for Abraham was born in the seventh generation from Heber. If, then, people before Abraham, or Abraham himself, were called Hebrews, the Hebrews are without doubt named from Heber; but if we do not read that people were called Hebrews before Abraham, but after him, then the Hebrews are named not from Heber but from Abraham, since the sons of Abraham are known to have been the first to be called by this name. For in Genesis Joseph and his brothers are called Hebrews. People knew that Abraham was the man who had come down from Syria into Canaan and multiplied; who, because of his faith, was filled with every abundance and was called king and prophet and father of many nations; who with three hundred and eighteen men born in his house routed five kings. Because these things were not done and said in a corner, so as to remain hidden, they called those of his seed Hebrews. It was owing to Abraham’s rank and merit that he became the head of those who descend from him. By God’s judgment he was set up in the land of Canaan as prince and origin, so that those born of him would be of another profession and way of life than he himself had been before he came down into Canaan; for he himself, made new, was to establish a new people in devotion to God. Hence the apostle Paul confesses that he is a Hebrew of Hebrews; for this seemed to be a title of dignity. It was a testimony and nobility of race to be named after one who had pleased God in many ways and who was their origin.

Let the view be rejected if it does not agree with reason, spurned if it is unequal to the case, overturned if it is foreign to Abraham’s merits, and let us be refuted as his flatterers. What is this enmity against Abraham, what rivalry by which his enemies disparage him? And who are they, if not those who are called his sons? What is there in Abraham that displeases, that this glory should be thought foreign to him? And what pleases in Heber, that he should be said to hold this primacy? If his way of life could be inquired into, he would perhaps be found to have worshiped idols, like Terah and Nahor and Nahor’s father, who certainly lived not long after him; for Joshua son of Nun testifies that these worshiped idols.

Or else let those on the other side show by what reasoning this is to be claimed for Heber, lest perhaps we suppress his merit. But there is none, because the Scriptures are common to us, and what is owed to each is in plain view. If they think the claim should be defended from the name alone, it is weak and unproven. It would rightly be claimed for his name if some facts stood as witnesses to confirm it; for others of the same name could claim for themselves what is not theirs, and therefore that is true which is confirmed not by name alone but by clear reasoning. No one doubts that by God’s favor it came about that the human race was visited in Abraham, and a pattern of salvation made for men. Therefore in him was restored what had been lost through the fault of human frailty. He was set up as a kind of image, so that in his likeness the human race might return to God, and so that he might recover for men both the worship of God and the language that had first been given for human use. Just as in the beginning God’s image was in Adam, so that knowledge of him might be on earth, so after the ruin of the human race and the forgetting of the truth it was re-formed in Abraham, so that from him faith in God, begun again, might sprout into fruit. Hence it is not absurd that the people begun from him should take its name from his.

But lest they be troubled by the name Heber, because Heber sounds more like Hebraei, since they are called Hebraei and not Habraei, let them recognize in turn that they are called Hebraei, not Heberei; for he was called Heber, not Hebrer. If they think the case should be fought on this ground, they suffer what they inflict, and neither of us will win here, except the one who gives his reasons in order and shows that what he asserts is true. One who is equal on one point must be said to have lost if he is found unequal on another. For the letter was changed for the sake of sound, so that they were called Hebraei instead of Habraei, because it sounds better; just as from Iuda they are called not Iudai but Iudaei. Wherever something seemed awkward, a letter was changed so that the word would have a well-formed sound; for we say meridie instead of medidie, and there are many such cases. It is fitting, then, as has been shown, that both the language and the people were called after Abraham.

This, then, is the language which we say was first given to Adam and the others, and which we believe was scattered and confused into many because of the presumption of building the tower, so that it no longer existed as such, but many languages arose from it through changes in certain words; so that it lost its form and yet did not perish, but was wholly mingled with the other languages. This was done then so that people would not understand one another and dare greater things. As many languages, then, are understood to have arisen then as there were men, who, dispersed to the places where they lived, each established his own language.

But if it is not thought to be the very language which Scripture says was then the only one, it will remain that it was gathered piece by piece from the other languages and put together into the form of the one language Abraham used, so that, because he was the father of many nations, he would have a speech composed of many languages and be renewed in all things. But since those whom the book of Genesis mentions as having one voice and speech are read to have migrated from the east and from there to have been scattered again by God over the face of the whole earth, there certainly did not remain there anyone who kept the language first given. Indeed it has no land among men, as other languages do, nor any nation except the Jews, because it was given to the first man in paradise. And after the languages were confused, the language now called Hebrew was found nowhere. If, then, it has no place or nation (and Abraham was a Syrian by nation), from where did this language come to Abraham and the rest of his seed, unless either it is the original one or else it was fitted together from many? For we see that a number of languages have features similar to it.

But the second view does not agree with reason as well as the first, that it is the original language itself; for reason shows that this did not happen without purpose. Abraham had to have the very language that the first man had, so that Moses, when he came to describe creation and the man made by God, would use the speech in which God spoke and called the man Adam, and Adam’s wife was called Eve; so that the speech in Moses’ book would be the same as that of those he describes, and so teach that the first state and God’s benefit were truly restored in Abraham in all things.

We read in the book of Genesis about Melchizedek, and likewise in the letter to the Hebrews: “Melchizedek, priest of God most high, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and brought out loaves and wine and offered them to him, and blessed him, saying: Blessed are you, Abraham, by God most high, who made heaven and earth, who delivered your enemies into your hands.” And to indicate how this Melchizedek is to be understood, the letter added: “For without doubt,” it says, “the lesser is blessed by the better.” This he certainly did not refer to the handing on of the church’s office. Who would doubt that the rule of the Lord’s handing on, by which those subject to the Lord are blessed, is better than those blessed by it? For the mystery of the Lord works in these words, which contain and commemorate him. But he wished to show the proper merit and power of Melchizedek’s person.

Who, then, is this, and how great, compared with whom Abraham is called least, though he is known to bear among all the faithful the sign of the testimony of nobility and faith! This Melchizedek is certainly not understood to have blessed Abraham as human priests do, giving a blessing by delegation with solemn words, but as his own, a blessing he received not through words but substantially, by nature, so that it is proper to him. But priests, whom we call overseers, have a rule set down in solemn words and handed on to them, which they pronounce over people and so bless them, not those whom they wish but sometimes even those whom they do not wish, because the giver of the rule himself knows to whom the most sacred blessing ought to be given or poured out.

But he who has the blessing substantially in his nature, whom it calls priest of the most high God, gives the blessing by his will. The words of the blessing and his nature agree with his will. Nor does he err, willing where he ought not or not willing where he ought; to whomever he gave the words, he gave the effect. But our priests every day pronounce the Lord’s name and the words of blessing over many, yet the effect is found in few; and again there are times when they bless people better than themselves. For although someone is holy, he still bows his head to receive the blessing, because it is not the priest’s own but God’s institution. Eli the priest blessed Hannah, and the effect followed, certainly not by the merit of the priest but by that of Hannah herself, whose pure heart God beheld.

So Melchizedek is said to be better than Abraham not only because of the office of priesthood, but he is also placed before him by nature, so that he may be understood to be beyond men. In no way can one who is set above so great a friend of God be thought a man, above one so faithful that for love of God he did not hesitate to kill his dearest son. By what righteousness, by what works could anyone merit more than Abraham merited? There was nothing more he could do to commend his merits than Abraham did. First, when he did not know God and had not seen any sign to persuade him, and God said to him, “Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father’s house,” he did not delay but obeyed at once, fulfilling the will not only of the God present to him but of the Lord who was to come. For the Lord says: “Whoever puts home or parents or brothers or relatives before me is not worthy of me.” What kind of man, then, was Abraham, and of what merit, who fulfilled the Savior’s commandments before they were preached!

The apostle earnestly teaches that hospitality is to be pursued: Abraham practised it so devotedly that the apostle seems to have learned from him that it should be preached. Then, advanced in years, he believed that his seed would be multiplied like the stars of heaven, which seems foolish to the prudent of the world; so that, before sentence was passed on the prudent of this age, they seem to have been condemned by him. For afterward it was said: “I will destroy the prudence of the prudent.” At God’s command he is circumcised, which is certainly not done without pain, and he does not resent it, so as to give his descendants a pattern of patience. A son is promised him from Sarah his wife, already an old woman, and he does not doubt, so as to show to those to come that one must yield to God’s authority so completely that, even if he commands or promises things that seem unreasonable, there is no doubt; because his person is to be considered more than the words, so that what seems weak or impossible in the words, his person confirms and makes to seem possible. For it is God who promises, and of him it must be believed that he can do what seems impossible to men. What offense can be judged when humanity thinks more highly of God than of itself?

Because of this, when God commanded him to kill the son God had given him, Abraham does not hesitate, does not delay, does not wonder at God’s will, that he should order the son whom he had given as a great gift and a marvel to be killed; for he was sure that God’s will ought not to be revised by man and that God’s command and act are not without providence. And to fulfill it quickly with all devotion, he does not tell the boy’s mother, his wife, knowing that women are more tender toward their children and could hinder this devotion by the pity of their tears; and he also hides it from the boy himself until the hour of slaughter, so as to obey God’s command with the full submission of his mind, reckoning this not the murder of a son but a holocaust, performed on the authority of a just judge.

What greater things than these could Melchizedek do, to surpass Abraham, who, as we see, is known to have been disobedient in nothing? Moses, to whom the Lord is read to have spoken face to face, did not want to go when he was sent to his nation and his brothers. The prophet Jonah likewise broke away from the command given him to preach to the Ninevites and went to another place to which he had not been sent. Job, plainly outstanding in all things, was yet moved by the loss of his children, tore his garments, and shaved the hair of his head; but Abraham is not read even to have been saddened at the death of his dearest son, whom he himself had been commanded to kill, nor is he read anywhere to have trembled when God gave him a command.

From these things it appears that Melchizedek is beyond man, because there was no way he could be better than Abraham unless he surpassed him by nature alone. An impassible nature has blessedness by its substance, but what is born human acquires blessedness through deeds. Because it does not have the perfection of deity, it advances through exercise and struggle to become better, when it conquers more often than it is conquered. If it could act (which is impossible) so as never to sin, it would become better than God, far be it! For a nature that can sin, as it can also not sin, if it always conquered, would have to be placed above the nature that does not sin because it is impassible. It would not seem great not to sin because one cannot; but it would be magnificent if one could sin and did not.

This, then, is the difference between the substance of God and that of man: God’s substance is always blessed, in the security of its invincible eternity; but man’s substance becomes blessed in another way, through labor. One blessedness must be impassible, the other that of one who is worn by tribulations so that he may at some time rejoice. Impassible blessedness consists in always being blessed; but the passible rejoices after great trials that it has escaped death. It is saddened, then, in order to be able to rejoice, and is never perpetually secure because of the passibility of its nature; but the impassible is always blessed, because it neither knows sadness nor suspects that it can be saddened. Human nature, although it attains blessedness through labor, will nevertheless not be untouched, nor will it lack scars. How can one who has often fought and sometimes been conquered not be wounded? But the impassible always remains untouched, unharmed, inviolable.

So Abraham would not be called least in comparison with Melchizedek unless Melchizedek’s nature were superior to Abraham’s. What we have said may perhaps seem a matter of ingenuity; but if we look to the law, many more and weightier things can be said. For “this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God most high, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and who blessed him, is first by interpretation king of righteousness, then king of Salem, that is, king of peace, without father, without mother, and without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life; but made like the Son of God he remains a priest for ever.” And to commend what he had indicated in these passages, he added about him: “You see,” he says, “how great this one is, to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the firstfruits.” To show with what power and how great Melchizedek is, he praises Abraham, calling him the chief of the fathers; that is, Abraham is better than all others, yet least in comparison with Melchizedek.

Is it not plain that he is not a man but something greater? For what does Scripture say of him, that he is king of peace and king of righteousness? Come closer and look. Seeing the sun from afar, you think it a lamp, and looking at silver you suppose it tin. Can any human being be called king of peace and righteousness? Peace is preached to men, and likewise righteousness; but he is called king of peace and righteousness so that righteousness and peace may be known to have their origin from him. What is ruled by him cannot be said to be above him. Human beings are trained to win God’s favor by righteousness and peace as their teachers. This righteousness, then, the teacher of men, has Melchizedek as its king. How much better than a man, then, is Melchizedek, when the governess of men is under him! This is to be king of kings.

So when he is called king of righteousness and peace, he is shown to be their author; so that, as the Lord Jesus is the author of life, so Melchizedek is the author of righteousness and peace, because those who live through Christ are ruled by the dispensing of righteousness and peace. He pours righteousness and peace into the hearts of God’s servants to adorn the Lord’s discipline. We read written in the eighty-fourth psalm that righteousness and peace have embraced, and truth has sprung up from the earth; and to show what righteousness he meant, it says that righteousness has looked down from heaven. Scripture shows that this concerns the Savior’s time, when God’s righteousness was given to the world through Christ in the knowledge of the mystery of the one God, which he had promised before (for it is righteous that the creature should know the truth of its Creator). This righteousness, manifested on earth, removed the discord that had been bred by the unrighteousness of ignorance of God, and made peaceable those who were at variance, when it established in one faith those long divided. So “righteousness and peace embraced, and the truth of the one God sprang up from the earth,” with righteousness as its teacher. For the incarnation of Christ showed what truth was to be known about God himself. This, then, is certainly the righteousness of God. Likewise peace too, as the apostle says: “But the God of peace himself will crush Satan.”

How this can be distinguished I do not see: since the God of peace is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and also Christ himself (for he says, “My peace I give you”), and Melchizedek is said to be king of righteousness and peace, I do not understand by what reasoning he is set apart. For I think that, as regards the reality, a king of peace differs in nothing from the God of peace. Because no one in the world ought to be called god, so that this name might be reserved to the one alone from whom all things are, God nevertheless established a king who would bear his image and have all his power except the name of God. But because he is earthly, he is a king of men, not of peace and righteousness, because he too has righteousness as his leader, which he may not despise. Righteousness is God to him. Righteousness is God’s affair, and whoever transgresses it becomes guilty by God’s judgment. But Melchizedek, as we are given to understand, is not called king in the human way, because he has under him righteousness, which rules over kings. No one can have righteousness under him unless his nature is such that he cannot sin. It is said to be under him because it was devised by him in the form of a law, by which those who can sin may be governed. So the king of righteousness is the governor of the words he himself devised, by which one may both live and believe well and blessedly.

We labor long and hard and still say too little about Melchizedek, unless we return to Scripture, which itself knocks and cries out at length to rouse those weighed down by heavy sleep to an understanding not of night but of day. It says that Melchizedek is “without father, without mother, without genealogy,” and, lest he be understood otherwise than is fitting, it added: “having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” By this it shows that Melchizedek was neither born nor died. What does human subtlety argue against things so plain? What is this crafty cleverness that dares resist what is plain, so as not to take its sense from the reading but to give a sense to the reading? Violence is done to the Lord’s Scriptures, so that they find enemies even in those who seem to bow to their authority. For some say that one should not believe about Melchizedek what the Scriptures report, and so they turn the Scriptures to their own sense. It would be better for them openly to reject the Scriptures than to act deceitfully against them, so that war is prepared under the name of peace and an enemy hides under the cover of friendship.

They say, then, that his being read to have been without father and mother concerns not Melchizedek’s nobility but the lowliness of his descent. They claim it was written so to show that he was of foreign stock, not of the tribe from which Abraham came, because his descent is not found in the law. “That is why,” they say, “it added ‘and without genealogy,’ so that it would be understood that his origin is not described in the law at all, so that he may be believed to have become a good man by himself, from parents of whatever kind.” Yet Scripture is so “careless” that it sets down in order everything the case requires! First it says, “without father, without mother.” Let us see whether the mothers of the others are given in the law: who the wife of Nahor, Abraham’s grandmother, the mother of Terah, was, we do not read, nor who Abraham’s mother was, to say nothing of the others. Must these be said to have been without mothers? If it had said only “without father,” would their view not have had some color? Because the law gives the fathers of all who lived, it adds, “and without genealogy.” If it said these things to show that his descent is not in the law, it would have been enough to say “without father,” because if no one knows a man’s father, much less does anyone know his grandfather.

To make it plain it says, “having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” Tell me, whoever you are who do violence to the text, how do you interpret this? What is it to have neither beginning of days nor end of life? It would surely have been enough to say that his generation is not written in the law, and so his origin would have to be believed to be from foreigners. It can be said that he was “translated” like Enoch and therefore did not die. So be it. But what is it not to have a beginning of days of life? Perhaps you will say it is because his birthday is not written. Whose is written in the law? Is this a reason, that one whose birthday is not written should be said to have no beginning of days of life? Then the same could be said of all the others. And if he had been translated as a man, still he would not be without an end of life, because whatever is subject to the prospect of death has an end.

Stop, whoever you are who are eager for contention. It is better to be conquered by the truth than to conquer the truth by falsehood. That is losing, not winning; for even if truth seemed to lose before a man, before God it conquers, because its reasoning is invincible. So the mind ought to be conquered by the law, so as to think what the law signifies, not to give the law a sense of its own choosing and so present itself violently to the law. And hear Zerubbabel, who says: “Truth conquers above all things.”

Now Melchizedek showed the future mystery of the Lord’s incarnation and passion when he first handed to Abraham, as the father of the faithful, the Eucharist of the Lord’s body and blood, so that the truth that was to be in the sons would be prefigured in the father. If he is thought to be a man, a priest in the way Aaron was or priests are now, let his dwelling place be shown or read of, or whether there was some temple or synagogue in which he gathered the people and offered their sacrifices, or what people came together to him. If he was a priest on earth, he certainly had a people. And before Abraham, or in his time, there would then have been a people serving God. And how was Abraham made, as it were, the head of faith, so that the people might have knowledge of God from him? Likewise, if there was a Melchizedek teaching the fear of the one God on earth, Abraham was chosen in vain, so that God’s people would be named after him; for he could have been among those who gathered to Melchizedek.

And where is what is read in the song of Deuteronomy: “When the Most High divided the nations, as he scattered the sons of Adam, he fixed the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God, and his people Jacob became the Lord’s portion”? If, then, there was no people of God in the world except the sons of Abraham, on what ground is another people thought to have existed, descended from Melchizedek’s teaching, when the prophet denies it? When he names all the nations in the world and says that the people of God is none but the sons of Abraham, what remains but that, except for these, the others are denied to have had knowledge of God, because “God is known in Judea”? But Melchizedek, “priest of God most high,” appeared to bless Abraham as a foreshadowing of the saints to come, because a blessing was to be given in the future to God’s people through God’s overseer, whom we call a priest. This Melchizedek, then, appeared as forerunner of the sacrament of the Son of God to come, because the one who follows in order goes ahead to serve. What we have said about Melchizedek is therefore not to be wondered at, since Scripture, to confound those who clamor, adds still more. After all these things worthy of praise, to confound the malevolent, it says: “But made like the Son of God he remains a priest for ever.”

Now see whom you are striving to think ill of; and if you do not revere him, at least fear Christ, to whom Scripture’s authority says he is like. Step by step Scripture comes gradually to his natural dignity, so that if the earlier statements disturbed anyone (that he is called king of righteousness and peace, and that though seen in the flesh he had neither father nor mother, that is, appeared unbegotten, having neither rising nor setting), it might show the earlier statements to be credible by what it added last. Who but a madman would dare to say that all these sublime things are unfitting for one who is designated as like the Son of God, remaining a priest for ever? He cannot be like the Son of God unless he is of the same nature. And what seems incredible if Melchizedek appeared as a man, since he is understood to be the third person? If Christ, who is the second person, was often seen in the form of a man, why is there doubt about what has been said? For we read in the psalm: “You are,” it says, “a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek.” None of us doubts that this refers to the person of Christ, because Christ is a priest for ever of the same kind as Melchizedek; but Christ is the high priest, Melchizedek the second. If Melchizedek is a man, how is it fitting that Christ should be a priest for ever according to his order? Both are read to be alike and of one dispensation precisely because they are also of one nature.

But since the authority of the one God must be preserved in every way, the second and third persons are placed under the Father’s name. Christ is the Father’s vicar and overseer, and therefore he is also called priest. Likewise the Holy Spirit, being sent, is called, as overseer, a priest of the most high God, not the high priest, as our people presume to say in the offering; because, although Christ and the Holy Spirit are of one substance, the order of each must still be kept. They are called priests or envoys because they show in themselves the one whose envoys they are; for they are his image. And therefore Christ and the Holy Spirit, having God’s image by nature, are called his priests. In them God is seen, as the Lord says: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father too”; and if God was seen in the Lord’s deeds, and the deeds of the Holy Spirit are works, as the Lord indicates (“for I cast out demons by the Spirit of God”), then God was seen in the Holy Spirit too.

The prophet David signified spiritual truth through the figure of carnal things, and with an eager mind he uttered psalms of various kinds and merits for the praise and the mystery of God. The first psalm he covered with no veil and assigned to no one, but made it general, so that it belongs to those who, separated from the wicked, have fortified themselves with the company of the good. The beginning, especially of this grace, ought not to be sung in obscurity (for light comes before darkness, and the head of each thing is in plain view); and so no question arises from the opening but from what follows. He began thus: “Blessed is the man who has not gone away into the counsel of the ungodly.” The counsel of the ungodly is the conspiracy of the wicked, to be understood in many ways. The ungodly differ from sinners, for ungodliness is the gravest sin; every ungodliness is sin, but not every sin is ungodliness. How then does one go away into the counsel of the ungodly? Surely when he is called away from himself. In saying this he shows that, as long as one does not go out from his nature, he does not incur sin. For this reason he says, “Blessed is he who has not gone away into the counsel of the ungodly.” Ungodliness, begun by the devil with his followers consenting, entices human beings so as to make them partners in his ungodliness. He himself, first sinning against God by wishing to usurp primacy for himself by tyranny, was cast down from the sacred seats and thought it a consolation if he could acquire as many companions as possible for his perdition. And therefore he says, “Blessed is the man who has not gone away into the counsel of the ungodly.” Those who act under this prince are our enemies and always entice human beings, as the apostle says: “For your struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers”; and in another letter he says among other things of their tyrant, “so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God.” Because sinning seems sweet, and evil is not felt until there has been loss (so that deceivers do not show themselves while they are catching people, but are recognized once they have deceived them), he calls blessed the one who has not been enticed into the counsel of the ungodly so as to enter into the fellowship of their ungodliness.

The first cause of ungodliness, then, is this, by which they began to rebel against God in wicked conspiracy, and by imitation of which idolatry began. The transgression that began on high came down to the earth. For when people were not content to be subject to one God and Creator, they became ungodly by dividing his majesty among others, so that, spurning him, they chose others to worship. This is the first cause of the human race’s offense, for which, abandoned by God, they are handed over to various enticements and passions to be made sport of, according to the faith of the apostle Paul. What work remains unharmed that has not acknowledged its maker? From there the evil, once sown, knows no restraint and spreads in many directions, like a vine stretching out its shoots, so that those who had not spared God leaped more easily to insulting and killing their parents. For, to say nothing of the others (as the apostle says, “For what have I to do with judging those outside?”), Reuben committed sexual immorality with his father’s concubine to insult his father, and Absalom, against all right, seized the kingdom so as to deprive his father of his rule and his life.

Ungodliness has still other parts: to disregard someone who begs for help in danger when one could help him is ungodliness, and so is giving advice in a harsh and wicked affair so that it can be carried out …, and other such things that could be found in this sense. Not without reason, then, is the man blessed who has not gone away into the counsel of the ungodly. It is a great ruin for a man, and an incurable wound, to be joined to these errors after knowing God. One who turns from the truth to falsehood must necessarily be dealt with more severely; and the man is blessed who, having received knowledge of the truth, flees the counsels of the ungodly, because ungodliness is the head of error.

And it follows: “and has not stood in the way of sinners”; for it is impossible not to sin, as it is possible not to be ungodly, since the gravest sin can be avoided, but the others find ways to creep in. Human life itself, even when it is not thinking of sin, often falls into sin unexpectedly. And therefore blessed is he who does not go into the counsel of the ungodly, that is, does not even begin the evil. But since sin cannot fail to be begun, as I said, he called blessed the one who does not remain in it, that is, does not stand in the way of sinners. The way of sinners is a life lived in sins. One is said to walk badly who goes forward in order to seek sin. When his mind does not stand firm in God’s law but wanders, he is said to walk in the way of sinners, because this wandering seeks sin. And therefore “blessed is he who does not stand in the way of sinners,” that is, who, with repentance following, grieves that he was ensnared and withdraws from the conspiracy of sinful men. So, as he is blessed who has not gone into the counsel of the ungodly, he will be beyond correction if he has gone, as Solomon says that “the hope of the ungodly will perish”; and “blessed is the man who has not stood in the way of sinners.” But if he has stood there, he is no longer blessed but guilty and deserving of stripes; yet he seems to have some hope of amendment, because he is not ungodly but a sinner. But if there is someone who has not gone into the counsel of the ungodly and does not stand in the way of sinners, he is blessed in a twofold way. He cannot be blessed if he does not go into the counsel of the ungodly but stands in the way of sinners, because, if not to perdition, he is still liable to punishment.

Then he added: “and has not sat in the chair of pestilence.” He says that this is the blessedness that consists of these three steps and is fortified by a threefold reasoning: that one neither go into the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the chair of pestilence. But since only two kinds are held up for reproof above, the ungodly and sinners, to which did he mean to assign this third, which he added in saying, “and has not sat in the chair of pestilence”? To the ungodly or to sinners? Let us see what it is to sit in the chair of pestilence, and then we will understand to which kind he assigns it. We call that the chair of pestilence which is outside God’s ordering and which was certainly devised so that unjust judgments might come out of it; it is called the chair of pestilence because pestilence is a corruption that brings death, as iniquity brings condemnation. The chair of death, then, is not from God; for Moses received a chair of life. It was given so that in it there might be the authority of the just judge, God the Creator. Hence the Lord says, “The scribes and Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses”; and the apostle says, “There is no authority except from God; for those that exist have been ordained by God.”

Hence Paul says to the ruler of the people: “You sit judging according to the law, and contrary to the law you order me to be struck?” By saying “according to the law” he indicated the just and saving authority of the chair. By saying “contrary to the law you order me to be struck,” he showed that the man himself was an unjust judge, sitting in God’s chair and judging unjustly. Hence Daniel too says, “The kingdom is God’s, and he will give it to whom he wills.” As the authority of an earthly emperor runs through all, so that he is reverenced in all, so God established that God’s authority should begin from the king himself and run through all. Although the world often does not understand this, and a man placed in power submits himself to someone other than he should, yet the institution is that there should be one who is feared. Where this institution is absent, there the chair of pestilence is found. Nowhere is the authority of the one God refused except among those who preach fear and reverence of many gods. These are the ones who sit in the chair of pestilence, because what their pontiffs preach is death. They teach that worshipers of the one God, as fools and enemies, should either be held in contempt or removed from this life. This is the very substance of ungodliness, which also extends into other areas in which it displays the laws of its ungodliness. At Jezebel’s command the chiefs of wickedness sat in the chair of pestilence: though they were not judges, they plotted evil against the innocent Naboth, suborned false witnesses, and passed sentence of death. Hence he says in another psalm, “And I will not sit with the ungodly.” This is the judgment of the one whose chair is also of pestilence. So if those who sit in God’s chair oppress the innocent, it is the judgment that will be unjust, not the chair. But where there is a chair of pestilence, the judgment cannot fail to be unjust, although they put on certain veils to cover their ungodliness, so that those who see them are deceived. Ungodliness alone cannot be put forward, because it finds no buyer; and where the devil’s law is, if he himself is named, he is shuddered at.

As something is mixed with poison to hide it, so they mix certain just things into the devil’s law and give it the name of truth; but the meaning of each thing must be judged, for the devil sometimes shows something true in order to deceive, so that when he preaches what is wicked it may be thought good. Since we have asserted that the chair of pestilence is not of God’s ordering, we also say that the seat of those who have set up seats for themselves outside the church or against the church is a chair of pestilence. Whoever presumes what has not been granted is guilty; how much more if he also corrupts the tradition of the one whose seat he usurps! For they also disturb the order that began with the apostle Peter and has been kept to this time by the succession of bishops one after another, claiming for themselves an order without origin, that is, professing a body without a head; hence it is fitting to call their seat too a chair of pestilence. Nor will they go unpunished because they do these things under God’s name. It is clear that they pursue their own causes under God’s name; they act not out of zeal for God but from a wish to defend a position for themselves, though we know that Korah and the two hundred and fifty men who presumptuously offered to God were swallowed up when the earth opened, and that King Uzziah, when he unlawfully offered to God, was struck with leprosy on his forehead.

Since it has become clear that the chair of pestilence belongs to the ungodliness mentioned above, let us go on to the rest. He added: “but his will is in the law of the Lord.” He says that the will of that man is in the law of the Lord who, spurning the ungodly, leaving sinners, and refusing the chair of pestilence, has set his will in God’s law. For this reason he called him “blessed.”

And it follows: “and on his law he will meditate day and night.” It is plain that one who is free from all enticements and untouched by what is contrary to God’s law exercises himself in nothing but God’s law. Strengthened by the sacraments of the Son of God, by day he devotes himself to good works and by night to prayers. This is the one of whom it says in the Song of Songs that “he sleeps and his heart keeps watch.”

Hence he says: “and he will be like a tree planted beside the streams of water.” Who doubts that one who meditates on God’s law has hope of receiving a reward? As a tree planted beside water cannot be barren, so one who devotes himself constantly to God’s law cannot fail to see the effect of his work.

And he added: “which will give its fruit in its season.” Every well-tended planting gives fruit at the proper time; so too he who obeys God’s law will have fruit at the appointed time. He will receive the reward of this devotion when the Lord Jesus Christ takes his seat to judge the living and the dead.

Then he added: “and its leaf will not fall.” It is plain that by a tree whose leaves do not fall he signified life. A tree invigorated by the moisture of flowing water keeps its leaves. The Lord Jesus too says: “If they do these things in the green wood, what will happen in the dry?” By the green wood he signified life and fruit. As the tree, then, does not suffer drought because of the flowing water, so he who devotes himself to God’s law, when temptation comes, kept safe by God’s protection, does not lose salvation but gains it, as the apostle says: “For through tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.”

And it follows: “and all things whatever he does will prosper.” What he says is plain: one who keeps faith with God’s law and longs for his commandments becomes fortunate in all he does; as with Joseph, because he put the fear of God before this present life, God made all that he did prosper in his hands.

And he added: “Not so the ungodly, not so.” The repetition of the words signifies that the future will be in no way other than he promises: for the ungodly nothing will prosper in the future, but everything will be against them until their destruction.

Hence he says: “but like dust which the wind scatters from the face of the earth.” He says that the ungodly perish in the same way as dust which the wind scatters from the face of the earth, so that it perishes. Lifted from its place and dispersed through the air, it gradually vanishes; so the ungodly too, cast out by the ministering angels from the face of God their maker, without whom no one can live, will perish.

And it follows: “therefore the ungodly do not rise in the judgment.” What he says is fitting. Why should they rise in the judgment who preferred that no business of God be entrusted to them for which they would have to give an account? Spurning and denying God’s law, they have nothing for which to render account, so as to state their case when questioned at the judgment according to the law entrusted to them. Found arrogant and rebellious against God, they will rise only to see that what they refused to believe is true, so that they may perish, because they judged God a liar.

And he added: “nor sinners in the council of the righteous.” In this psalm he signifies three kinds of people, the ungodly, sinners, and the righteous, in the order in which error began. The ungodly are excluded from these, because, as I said, they did not wish to live under God’s decree. Sinners, who live under God’s law, are to be set before Christ’s tribunal, separated from the righteous, to give an account of the law they received, and to be corrected in the things in which they did not take pains to earn more praise than blame. The righteous, found far more devoted in the practice of fulfilling the law, are to be rewarded.

And he added: “because the Lord knows the way of the righteous.” God is said to know those who, mindful of his precepts, devote themselves to good works, so that, held righteous, they may be crowned. But to those who, forgetful of him, neglect the care of their soul, he says: “Depart from me; I do not know you, workers of iniquity.”

And it follows: “and the path of the ungodly will perish.” The psalm begins and ends with the ungodly, so that, once their case has been treated, they would be shown liable to nothing but perdition. As I said, God is said to know the way of the righteous because they walk in his law; but the path of the ungodly, because it lies outside God’s law, will perish; for “all the ways of the ungodly are dark,” says Solomon, “but those of the godly most bright,” with Christ our Lord as guide.

The title of the psalm suggests its meaning. Being about to speak of the mystery of Christ our Lord, he indicated the Lord’s day, saying: “To this David, on the first of the Sabbath.” When it says “to this David,” it refers to the one whose image this David bears, of whom the prophet says: “And my servant David will shepherd them.” “The first of the Sabbath” is the first day of the week; for after the Sabbath the first day is the Lord’s day, as the gospel affirms when it says: “On the first of the Sabbath Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to the tomb,” and so on. By the Lord’s day, then, he indicated the Savior’s mystery. But so that the psalm might be set out in a reasoned order, he began from the person of God the Father, so that the mystery of the truth would not be shown to people without order. For whoever wishes to introduce a subject cannot show its proper character or teach its truth unless he holds to its head and origin.

So the prophet began thus: “The earth is the Lord’s and its fullness.” He held to the faith about things when he said, “The earth is the Lord’s and its fullness”; for he followed the authority of the ancient saints, who said that the earth and what is in it belong to the dominion of the Lord God.

And he added: “the world and all who dwell in it.” Lest he be thought to have meant something less when he said that the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s, he made his meaning clear by saying, “the world and all who dwell in it,” to teach that absolutely all the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, so that nothing is excepted that is not his, as certain heretics think, who, in the words of the apostle Peter, deny God his lordship. For their condemnation the prophetic oracles taught that all things are God’s.

And it follows: “He himself founded it upon the seas,” which he expressed in another psalm, saying, “You established the earth upon the waters.” So that testimony might follow faith, he shows how God made it. When there was confusion of things, and neither earth nor water had its own form, at God’s command the earth was gathered together and established upon the waters, so that both earth and water would have the character proper to their origin. Hence in Kingdoms there is the voice of God saying, “Did I not make the waters?”

And he added: “and prepared it upon the rivers.” It was prepared upon the rivers in that it has waters stored within it, which flow as through the channels of veins and give it density, so that it would not be wholly dry, brittle, and useless for cultivation. They give life to the roots of growing things and at the same time relieve the thirst of dry places.

And to show that profession without a good life profits little, he says: “Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord, or who will stand in his holy place?” He sets out what kind of person one ought to be who professes God as Creator, so that, since he showed that those who deny God’s lordship, as I said, are to be punished, those who confess him might know that they are not exempt from punishment if they do not live rightly. By “the mountain of the Lord,” then, he signified heaven. Hence in another psalm he says, “I lifted my eyes to the mountains, from where my help will come.” And the Lord’s place is where he appears. For it is said to Joshua son of Nun, when the Lord had appeared to him, “And the place where you stand is holy ground”; and Jacob, where he saw the Lord, says, “This is the house of God.”

And it follows: “innocent in hands and clean of heart.” He says that a person is worthy to ascend the mountain of the Lord, that is, into heaven, or to stand in his holy place, if he is innocent in his works and has a clean heart in God’s cause, that is, in faith. Such a one can ascend into heaven and stand in his holy place. When this life is ended he ascends into heaven; then, at the Lord’s coming, he will descend from heaven with the city of Jerusalem, worthy, as one innocent, to stand where the Lord will judge the living and the dead. But the ungodly and sinners will be unworthy to stand in the holy place of God’s judgment; they will rise, the ungodly to perdition, sinners to punishment. If the sons of Israel, because of sin, could not look at the glorified face of Moses as he came down from the mountain, how much more will a conscience guilty of offenses dread to look on the Lord of glory himself sitting on the throne of majesty! For they will hear: “I do not know you, workers of iniquity.”

And he added: “who has not received his soul in vain.” Now he touches on the kinds of sins themselves. In the first place, he is innocent and has a clean heart who is free from the immorality of idolatry. For this is the vanity to which whoever bows down subjects his soul to corruption.

And it follows: “nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbor.” He mentioned the two principal matters, God and the neighbor, because one who proves fit in these will without doubt be held approved in the rest as well, as the Lord says: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hangs the whole law and the prophets.” Who, loving the Lord with his whole heart, would not keep his law? Or who, having love for his neighbor, would be eager for sin, since he loves his neighbor out of the fear of God?

And he added: “This one will receive blessing from the Lord and mercy from God his savior.” Now he shows the reward of one who has kept faith and love in what concerns God and man, the Creator and the neighbor: he will be blessed by the Lord, so as to be seen to be approved, and he will obtain mercy for the things he could not fulfill. No one can be so careful as never to go wrong; but because he was found careful and faithful in great things, in the least he will receive mercy from his God, who is called savior because he does not will the death of one who is dying, but that he should turn back and live.

And it follows: “This is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.” He said that there is one generation of those who seek God and seek the face of the God of Jacob, and this is not idle. Although both are good, he indicated two steps by these words. It is good to seek God; but seeking the face of the God of Jacob is the full good. Those who stand before the judge’s face are more worthy. This, then, is the generation of these merits; for innocence and purity of heart bring one to this, just as injustice and iniquity run ahead so that one comes to evil. There are two generations, one on the side of iniquity, which is the mother of Cain, the other on the side of righteousness, which is the mother of Abel. The latter consists in faith and good conduct, the former in faithlessness and crooked works. These are the two laws, of good and of evil, of God and of the devil, and whichever one has followed, he will be called its son. And therefore this is the generation of those who seek God: faith in God and love toward the neighbor, as we said above. One who has faith in God will always seek his help; and one who wants to have God favorable will not show himself unjust to men. The sign of this is the phrase “the God of Jacob,” because “God is known in Judea.” And why are they said to seek God’s face, when Moses heard, “My face will not be seen by you”? If Moses too sought God’s face and could not see it, these people, who are not better than Moses, would be said to seek in vain. But no one should be said to seek God’s face in vain; they are said to seek God’s face so that it may be known whom they seek, because they are worthy also to see. Everyone who is sought is recognized when his face is seen. But since God’s face cannot be seen by mortals, the phrase “the God of Jacob” stands for the face.

Diapsalma. The diapsalma in this place signifies a change of person. After the things that concern the person of God the Father, he adds those that concern the mystery of the Son of God, so that the order of Father and Son is kept whole. The law was given through Moses to be a kind of pedagogue to people, teaching them and preparing them, with righteousness as their teacher, so that they would become worthy to receive the year of the Lord and the day of retribution; so that those who had been faithful in the hope of the Christ to come would receive him and could escape Adam’s sin, being secure about their own sins, because the coming of the one they had hoped for would give them mercy for the things in which they had been caught off guard and had offended. This is what he mentioned above, saying, “he will receive mercy from God his savior.”

He says, then: “Lift up the gates of your prince.” This is the voice of the holy angels, of whom it says in the gospel, “Angels came and ministered to him.” They say to the principalities and powers, against whom the apostle says we have our struggle, that they should lift up the gates of their prince, that is, of the devil, who is the prince of the princes established in error, gates through which one goes into Gehenna. These gates are the faithlessness and deceit of idolatry.

And it follows: “and be lifted up, eternal gates.” Faith and hope, with love, are the eternal gates, because what is preached through the truth cannot be abolished. But those gates which I said are faithlessness and the deceit of idols are temporal, because no lie endures; when the truth is made manifest it will perish. So they are taught to lift up the gates of their prince, that is, to remove the error of many gods so that faith in the one God may be brought in, in Christ. This is what the apostle testifies he was sent to teach: to show the mystery of the one God in Christ not only to men but also to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.

And he added: “and the king of glory will enter.” He says that the deceitful gates of the devil, made by his subtlety, are to be lifted up (they are the presumption by which he thought himself God), so that the king of glory may enter, who is Christ Jesus our Lord. Faith in God enters no one’s mind unless he has put away from himself the error devised through the devil’s transgression; and the princes mentioned above cannot receive Christ the king into faith in the one God unless they cast away from themselves the tradition by which slander is brought against the one God, not only the earthly one but also that which was usurped in the heavenly places by Satan, the prince of princes. For the error they conspired in among themselves there, to call themselves gods with the devil as author, they also set up here on earth, so that this error is an image of that one.

And it follows: “Who is this king of glory?” Lest he be thought to call Christ king of glory without reason, he introduces a person asking, “Who is this king of glory?”, as if marveling or wishing to be taught whether it is true and fitting to call Christ king of glory.

And therefore he is answered: “The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle,” so that by this addition he might learn that Christ is king of glory not by bare words but with testimony. The power and might by which he subdued and crushed the devil with his followers show him to be the king of glory.

And he added: “Lift up the gates of your prince, and be lifted up, eternal gates.” That is: since by the testimony of power, which it is impious to contradict, you have learned that Christ is worthy to be called king of glory, remove error from your minds.

And he says: “and the king of glory will enter.” It is shown that they cannot share in the faith of Christ unless they cleanse their hearts from all the uncleanness of idolatry. For unless a person has been renewed, the Holy Spirit will not enter into him.

And it follows: “Who is this king of glory?” This repetition gives confirmation. Anything new that is heard is not taken into the heart unless it is repeated; for wonder produces astonishment when something is said that has never been heard.

And he added: “The Lord of powers, he is the king of glory.” By repeating the same thing he teaches that he who is Lord of powers is rightly called king of glory. Not without reason is he called king of glory who rules over the powers. Hence the apostle says: “For if they had understood, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty.”

This psalm has been placed fiftieth not because of the order of time but for a reason; its title follows not the numbering but a rationale. As far as the history is concerned, it is earlier than the third. David was rebuked by the prophet Nathan for his offense before his son Absalom rose against him, wishing to deprive him of both life and kingdom. The reason why it was placed fiftieth is known to come from the law, for there it is laid down that the number fifty brings remission. After seven weeks the first day bears the type of the Lord’s day: just as after seven days the first day is the very day made at the beginning, which is always first when the week is completed, so too after seven weeks the fiftieth, counted in the mystery, is the first; and it is called “the Lord’s day” in two ways, first because it was made by the Lord in the beginning and, always turning back upon itself, is first when the week is completed, and then because on it he rose, having triumphed over death. Not without reason, then, is remission contained in the number fifty, which we have noted is signified in the mystery as the first. Indeed the law was given on the fiftieth day. On the forty-eighth day after the departure of the sons of Israel from Egypt they were ordered to wash, so that, purified for two days, they would be ready on the third day to receive the law. What does this washing indicate but the remission made on the fiftieth day, so that, purified, they might receive the law, according to which, with the past blotted out, they would from then on give account of their acts according to the law entrusted to them? For this reason the law also commanded that property that had been bought should be released in the fiftieth year. This, then, is why this psalm is titled the fiftieth.

In this psalm King David asks for remission in the sense described above; hence he says: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy.” Knowing that he had sinned gravely, King David asks in these words: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy.” For mercy is great when it pardons great sins.

And he added: “and according to the multitude of your compassions blot out my iniquity.” To make plain that he had offended bitterly, he calls his sin iniquity, because iniquity is no light sin; and one who blots out iniquity, that is, does not impute it, abounds in compassion. So he tries to excuse nothing in his case, so as not only to soften the judge’s mind toward himself but also to make him grieve with him. For the mind is moved to mercy when it sees the accused so confessing his sins as to show that he grieves that he sinned. One who does not grieve seems to mock the judge, because he prays in order to escape for the time being, intending to do the same things afterward.

And it follows: “Wash me thoroughly,” he says, “from my unrighteousness and cleanse me from my offense.” Since he proclaims God’s great compassion, he prays to be cleansed completely, so that nothing of offense or unrighteousness may remain in him for which he might be held suspect.

And so that he might obtain and secure this very thing, he added: “because I acknowledge my iniquity, and my offense is always before me.” Since he knows he has sinned gravely, he is anxious lest the whole of it not be forgiven him. Considering the greatness of his sins, he fears, knowing that grave sins are not easily pardoned; and so with tears he confesses his sin, keeping it before his eyes, to make the judge favorable to him in every way. For he knows that it is written: “Tell your iniquities first, so that you may be justified.”

And it follows: “Against you alone have I sinned and done evil before you.” Now he looks for a remedy from another side of his case, so as to bring his petition to effect. With this plea he declares himself innocent on the first count, because one who sins by serving another god is an enemy of God the maker; he chooses another in God’s place and ascribes God’s authority to him. Showing himself free of this iniquity, he says, “Against you alone have I sinned and done evil before you,” that is: “Because I sinned against you and against no other whom I might in error call god, my case is lighter than that of the others, who are liable to perdition. I am not ungodly but a sinner, because I sinned not against you but against your law. I did not deny you, but, confessing you as God and Lord, I sinned against a man. Therefore, since I am not guilty in what is your own cause, forgive me that I sinned against a fellow servant. For I sinned in such a way as neither to deny the honor of your name nor to give it to another.” So there was ground for the judge to be moved to mercy. While many sin against him, and he even urges them to turn to him, he gladly admits those who do not sin against him but ask pardon for other causes. For the Lord always wants his servants to take refuge in his help.

Hence he added: “so that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged.” In asking for mercy he prays that God not change his justice, since justice is usually impartial, the same for those who sin and those who do not, that is, rendering to each according to his works. But this man, innocent as regards the mystery of God, is not unaware of what he asks. Knowing that the Lord often said in the law, “For I the Lord your God am merciful,” he asks from this that this faithfulness remain and that God be justified in his words, abiding in what he has spoken and not being so overcome by human sins that he does not show mercy. Those who sin, knowing what God has promised to those who live well, and persisting in their sin, judge him a liar; for by living badly they show that they do not believe that what he promised is true. Therefore King David asks that God prevail over what people think and give what he has promised, so that those may blush who, not keeping the commandments, judge that he will not give it.

And it follows: “For behold, I was conceived in iniquities.” With this addition he now recalls the cause and the weakness of the human race, for it is easy for man to sin, so as to soften the judge’s examination of him. He mentions the first cause, by which Adam, through his transgression, made the human race liable to sin. Conceiving iniquity through the persuasion and deceit of the enemy, he subjected all his seed to iniquity, so that all begotten from him by descent would be liable to sin.

Therefore he added: “and in offenses my mother conceived me,” so that the sin derived from Adam was a hindrance to those conceived and born in leading a good life; and therefore mercy should not be refused to the suppliant, because he has an enemy planted within him who persuades him to sin. For sin, which is the devil, having subjected the first man to himself, received power to insert himself into his flesh and with a certain subtlety to suggest the delights of offenses, by which he robs the captured man of life. Recalling this, the teacher of the gentiles says: “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind”; so that the judge, seeing this, may stretch out his hand to one who grieves that he has been ensnared.

And it follows: “For behold, you have loved truth.” “Because you love truth, then,” he says, “help one who asks, one whom you know to be laying bare the true hindrances of his heart; for to every such accused you long ago, moved by mercy, decreed to bring help, so that heavenly providence might amend the error committed on earth.”

Because of this he added: “The uncertain and hidden things of the heart you have made known to me.” By “the uncertain and hidden things of the heart” he means the things God provided for the protection of the human race, as the apostle too says: “What eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.” Who are those who love God, if not those who agree with his law, neither hiding nor excusing their sins? These hidden things of the heart, then, were made known to those who love God. Because they grieved that they had been ensnared by offenses, and when rebuked did not deny it, but imputed it to themselves and their origin rather than transferring their sins to God their maker, their hearts were lit by a spiritual flash, so that they saw God’s providence in Christ, who was to come to condemn the sin that held sway over the human race since Adam’s transgression. This, then, is what King David prays: that what God had decreed for the future, seeing the human race laboring, he would grant to him in advance, bound as he was by the same necessity in which God had decreed to help all, so that the gift that was to be free, and could not be given before its time, might be granted to him in answer to his prayer and tears.

How this is done he does not keep silent, saying: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be cleansed.” Rightly he asks to be cleansed by the sprinkling of hyssop. With it the sons of Israel smeared their doorposts with blood, so as to be kept safe from death; so too here, by the sprinkling of hyssop he prays to be cleansed from sins, so as not to be touched by death.

And it follows: “You will wash me and I shall be made whiter than snow.” It is plain that God’s work differs from man’s. Therefore he says, “I shall be made whiter than snow,” because what God has made is much better than what man has made. For this reason he asks to be cleansed by the sprinkling of hyssop, so that, as the fleshly body is washed with water, so through what hyssop signifies the stains of souls may be washed away in a spiritual way. The sprinkling of hyssop is a kind of illumination, so that through what is visible one may be cleansed invisibly.

And it follows: “To my hearing you will give joy and gladness.” There is no doubt that the voice of one preaching remission gives joy to sinners. Who would not rejoice on hearing that pardon is given? One whom God forgives is secure both in the present and in the future.

Therefore “the humbled bones will exult.” The bones are humbled in two ways: he was humbled in sinning, for no one is exalted by sinning, and humbled again when afterward he begged pardon as a suppliant. He certainly prayed for mercy rolling in sackcloth and ashes, and when he obtained it he was lifted up with exultation of mind and refreshment of body.

And he added: “Turn your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.” In this form he asks for remission as it had been established for the future through faith in Christ, so that the Savior, who had been specially promised to him, would begin with him to give all sins to those who turn back. One whose sins are not looked upon and all whose iniquities are blotted out has nothing for which he can be held guilty, and the mouths of his enemies are shut. One who does not look upon sins does not impute them; for to turn one’s face from someone’s sins is not to receive an accusation against him. And why is it that, though he was rebuked for two sins, he here adds more, accusing himself? And when he had heard from the prophet Nathan that he had been pardoned, why does he ask with such persistent prayer to be able to reach pardon, unless because he is pleading not his own case alone, but on the occasion of his own sin is telling of the miseries of the whole people? For himself he prays for restoration, because one who is pardoned is not without shame unless he is restored to his place, so that the dignity of the place covers the shame; but for the others he pointed to God’s benefit that was to come in Christ for washing away all sins.

And it follows: “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and dedicate a righteous spirit in my inward parts”; that is, to pray for mercy with a good mind. He asks not only about the past but is also anxious about the future, lest he sin, so that, showing that he hates sinning, he may be helped by God through the spirit of righteousness, which he prays may be dedicated in his inward parts, that is, placed in him anew to guard him from sins, so that he is not driven to do what he is known not to want. He can have a clean heart if he offends neither inwardly nor outwardly, that is, neither in deed nor in thought. Since it is almost impossible to keep this in all things, it must at least be kept in God’s cause, which is the principal one, so that a clean heart is kept in the mystery of God and Christ while faith in them is preserved unharmed; for in another psalm it says, “Who will boast that he has a clean heart, or that he is free from sins?” Indeed King David had a clean heart in God’s cause, because he never sought help from vanity, which is idolatry, nor failed to fulfill anything God commanded him.

As for the rest, judge for yourself. And he added: “Do not cast me away from your face, and do not take your holy Spirit from me.” This is the sense I mentioned above: secure about pardon, he is anxious about restoration. One who is merely pardoned is usually kept away from the lord’s presence; for although punishment is not exacted, the crime has not been blotted out of the mind of the lord or judge. Therefore he prays that his sin be blotted out completely, and that he be worthy to come into the Lord’s presence and to prophesy again, which also happened. This is what he means by “and do not take your holy Spirit from me.” This is the spirit of the prophets.

And it follows: “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a princely spirit.” He asks to be given the joy that was promised in Christ, so that, washed of all stains and restored, he might rejoice in the salvation he sought, and be not removed but strengthened in the kingdom by the Holy Spirit, whom he called princely because he is above every creature, and through him kings reign.

And he added: “I will teach the unjust your ways, and the ungodly will turn to you.” He says this so that in him the unjust may learn God’s kindness, by which he receives and restores sinners who confess to him, and does not neglect the ungodly who turn back, but encourages them by showing mercy to others.

And it follows: “Deliver me from blood, O God, God of my salvation.” By saying this he shows that his sin deserved death, so as to proclaim how great God’s mercy is; and by this he also calls others to take refuge in God’s clemency.

Hence he added: “My tongue will exult in your righteousness, O Lord.” He says he rejoices in the Lord’s righteousness, because God abides by what he promised when he said, “But my mercy I will not take away from them.” King David, then, glad and secure on this point, proclaims the righteousness of his God.

And it follows: “You will open my lips, and my mouth will announce your praise.” God opens his lips by not letting him remain subject because of his sin. The mouth of one set free is open, but the sinner’s mouth is shut; seized by shame and fear, he does not dare to speak; but once acquitted or set free, he dances for joy and proclaims the praise of the judge. The apostle too, as he himself testifies, because he was free from all, says: “Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians.”

And he added: “For if you had wanted sacrifice, I would certainly have given it.” He speaks from what he knew, knowing that holy Samuel said to King Saul, when Saul thought his sin could be blotted out not by grief of mind or pitiful tears but by offering sacrifice: “God does not want sacrifice,” he says, “more than that his voice be heard.” Such sacrifices can cost a man something but cannot appease God. God is appeased if the soul, mindful of its sin, weeps over what it has done with tribulation and grief of heart.

And it follows: “You will not delight in holocausts.” God does not delight in holocausts, at least in cases like this. The mind itself must make satisfaction for itself, not redeem itself from outside. Those things can give help; but the mind, as it took delight in sins, so must be afflicted in penance, and then it will please God to blot out its sins.

Hence he added: “A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise.” He shows what kind of sacrifice God accepts for sins: no one can appease God unless he who rejoiced to the harm of his salvation has been troubled in heart, so as to be restored to life. Indeed anyone restless or undisciplined often happens to injure the members of his body, which certainly cannot receive the medicine of healing without pain; so too sinners cannot redeem their sins unless the mind that sinned has felt pain. It is just that, because it rejoiced against reason, it should suffer grief according to reason.

And it follows: “Deal kindly, O Lord, in your good will with Zion.” By Zion he means the church (so that our view may not seem unlikely). He urges God to fulfill his promise to it, knowing that he would receive full remission only when God had fulfilled in Christ what he had decreed, that is, that those who hope in the promised salvation should be freed from every sin; for through Christ they will be freed not only from their own sins but also from Adam’s sin, which came to all by descent.

And he added: “and let the walls of Jerusalem be built.” Why does he say, “and let the walls of Jerusalem be built”? Had they been destroyed? But by the walls of Jerusalem he means the church that was to be built through the faith set forth in Christ, whose walls are understood to be holy people, as the Apocalypse of the apostle John teaches us, that both the city of Jerusalem and its walls are to be understood as God’s servants. King David, then, knowing the promise through Christ that was to bring the freeing of God’s servants, prays that it be fulfilled, that is, that the church be built through faith and that those who hope for salvation through this faith be freed.

And it follows: “Then you will accept the sacrifice of righteousness, offerings and holocausts.” He says this because offerings and holocausts would be acceptable only when the church had been built, and not indiscriminately or by custom; but “the sacrifice of righteousness,” he says, “you will accept.” A sacrifice is righteous when a worthy gift is offered; and nothing is so righteous and worthy as that we offer ourselves to God. Because God is spirit, spiritual sacrifices must be offered to him, so that a living victim is offered to the living God. Since he had said that God takes no delight in carnal sacrifices offered for sin, he shows that in the future God would accept what was to be offered to him spiritually, because these are sacrifices worthy of God; that is, in the past the sacrifices were lesser, being carnal, but now they are greater, being spiritual.

And he added: “Then they will place calves upon your altar.” If he meant that, when the former sacrifices ceased, spiritual sacrifices would follow, why does he say, “then they will place calves upon your altar,” unless by these bodily things he signifies spiritual ones, since he has said that God does not delight in carnal sacrifices? By “calves,” then, he signified the new people reborn by faith in Christ, whose devotion is offered every day upon the Lord’s altar. One who is understood to have spoken of the church must be understood also to have signified its spiritual sacrifices.

Although everything God does must be believed to be done reasonably and with foresight, yet I think it better if, after faith, the reason for what was done can also be grasped, so that what is believed is not unknown. Hence the Lord says: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” First one must believe, as the prophet said, and then know what is believed; for the Holy Spirit helps one who is already faithful and diligent in this matter, so that, coming to know, he understands the reason of his faith. Then he has full joy in his belief, when he understands what he believes. This is the strength of faith, this its immovable foundation: to learn the mystery of what one believes. Where there is faith alone, devotion is not so pure, and deception can find a way in.

Hence the vessel of election labors so that believers may learn the reason for their faith. When they have come to know how great he is to whom they have entrusted themselves and what his power is, they will not let themselves be drawn away from hope in him by any bargain or any argument. Hence we read: “Taste and see how sweet the Lord is,” so that by taking pains they may know the savor of his divinity, understanding that nothing is wiser than to believe in Christ. For this reason the teacher of the gentiles himself says among other things, “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” and again, “For I know whom I have believed, and that he is able to guard what I have entrusted.” He knows the reason for his faith and does not doubt the power of the one in whom he believes, who understands that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in the mystery of Christ’s birth, passion, and resurrection.

With my faith remaining, then, I have long considered with myself why our Lord came down from the sacred and heavenly seats to earth to be made flesh, and not another of those whom the Lord himself calls holy angels. It seems unfitting to his person to have undertaken this work, unless the reason for it is known; and indeed this is what troubles many. The providence of God the Father could have carried out this business through another person, both to show the truth to people caught in error and to crush the presumptuous devil, who envies salvation, with his followers, and to despoil him once conquered; for the obstinacy and irreverence of the most wicked servants could have been checked by servants acting as ministers, so that the Lord of all need not have undergone something unworthy of him.

Satan’s strength and power are not so great that he could not have been overcome by another power of the same rank, since it is certain that with God’s help he is conquered even by human beings. And though the comparison is unequal, if we take examples from earthly affairs, they agree with reason in some respect. Against a servant who rebelled against King David, Joab, his fellow servant, was sent to pursue and kill him; and against Absalom, who was impious toward his father, the task was given to servants. How much more would the strength of one holy angel out of many have sufficed to overcome the devil’s tyranny, since we read that, fighting against the angel Michael, he could not hold out but was cast down to the earth!

Reflecting often on these things, I knew only this: that he himself was sent by the Father, lest it be an injury to him if the work made through him were restored through another. But to know this was very little; it did not suffice for so great and wonderful a matter, unless something else were grasped that would lead to a hidden understanding. So it came about that I saw that the case required that the one who came should come. The reason concerned him, that he should come to crush the one who had usurped his dignity and rank. For the devil wished to be called god after God the Father, and he still contends for this even now, though the matter did not concern him at all; it belonged to the Son of God, who is second after God the Father, not by nature but by order.

To carry out this cause, then, no one else ought to have come but Christ our Lord. He came not only to crush the devil but also to make himself known to all creation, so that, the devil’s person being rejected, they would know that he is the one whose primacy and majesty Satan had presumed to claim, and thereafter, knowing the truth, they would abandon error, holding for certain that Christ is the Son of God, who alone is God from God and the head or beginning of all things in heaven and on earth; for by the strength and power with which he overcame the tyrant Satan he was shown to be the one whose rule the impious devil, who is Satan, had presumed to claim.

For while he wished unjustly to be called god, so as to rule over the spiritual powers (for which he is rebuked by the prophet, who says, “For you said in your heart, I will set my house in the clouds and will be like the Most High”), he deceived many, and by their conspiracy became the prince of error. These are admonished in the psalm to reject the lie and receive the truth; for it is said to them, “Lift up the gates of your prince, and be lifted up, eternal gates, and the king of glory will enter.” Unless error is removed from the minds of unbelievers, they cannot receive faith in the one God in Christ. They are taught to remove the gates through which one goes to the second death, which are the faithlessness begun by the devil, and to receive the sacraments of faith, through which one goes to life. These are what he means by the eternal gates, because the truth of faith is eternal, while faithlessness is temporal, because the lie is the devil’s invention. The devil, having begun his transgression in heaven, sowed it on earth, persuading people to worship many gods, among whom he would hold primacy. He wanted to be the head and beginning of the rest, which was owed not to him but to the Savior. Hence the Savior pursues him even to the earth, so that by crushing him he might expose the transgression of his error, the truth having been made manifest in himself. Hence it is said, “Truth has sprung up from the earth.” Cast down from heaven, the devil fled to the earth, so as to achieve below the deity he had schemed for on high. Hence the apostle says, “so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God.” In whatever way he can, he wants to fulfill his desire, even at the cost of being condemned; full of fury, he thinks it a lesser thing to be condemned than not to satisfy the greed of his error.

On what grounds the pagans dare to engage with us, or think they can attack our faith, I do not see established, since they have no proofs for their claims, for their superstition, I should say, rather than their religion. They put forward things for which they have no warrant, so that they are rather to be considered the authors and defenders of novelties. In the first place, they claim to worship gods of whom they give no tokens and no testimonies. They call gods those who did not dare to call themselves by this name, so that men are held to be the authors of gods, when God ought to be the author of men; and therefore the claim is vain and empty. Whatever is without God cannot be stable. That what I say is plain is proved by their own books, in which nothing divine, nothing established at a god’s command, is read; rather they state that individual men instituted various sacrifices to divinities for certain reasons, and men of no apparent merit at that, though they would have to show that what these men established was established worthily. Since those whom they call gods are not read to have commanded any of these things, by what authority do they do them, or think them accepted, when they cannot prove they were commanded? And even if a command were proved, it would first have had to be examined whether it was fitting or due to obey beings whose deeds showed no signs or wonders to commend their divinity.

But when they are shut out from these arguments, they usually flee to the elements, saying that they worship those by whose governance human life is ruled. We ask them, as above, whether this was commanded or ordered by God, whom they themselves confess to be great and supreme, and yet neglect. If it ought to be done, it should have been commanded by the one who is said to be the elements’ maker. But if it was not commanded by him, it is presumption and will lead to punishment, not reward, because it is an insult to the Creator that the Lord should be despised and his servants worshiped, the emperor spurned and his counts adored. How will this go unpunished, when we see such things punished even in this life, and indeed more harshly?

But perhaps they will say it was commanded by the elements themselves. Let them show a precept somewhere; let them read that the elements ever said anything. If they cannot show it, what punishment do they deserve, who are exposed as the authors of a presumptuous and invented religion? The elements are free of this ungodliness; the very lights of the world will accuse them before God the judge, showing that they were in no way the authors of this vain counsel. Likewise those whom they call gods, though it is certain they were men, when they begin to be tormented for their own sins, will defend themselves as not guilty on this count, turning the charge back on those who, without any command from them, began to worship them as gods.

With what shame, then, do they think our faith should be blamed or mocked, when they see that its law is supported by the testimonies of mighty works, and they also read the voice of the Lord our God himself saying, “I am God, and there is no other besides me”? If he had said this in bare words, he would not have had to be believed, lest we seem like the pagans, who began to worship their gods without seeing any signs of their majesty, and, what is worse, to worship them shamefully. Shameful things are done there which modesty forbids revealing, and they call themselves prudent, while their own law makes sport of them like a buffoon.

But our God commanded that he be worshiped with his power as witness, and, so as to leave no ground for suspicion, he handed down a law that is itself honorable and holy, as befits God. We, whom the pagans call fools, would not have believed our God unless he had satisfied us with testimonies of mighty works, nor would we have received his law if we had not known it to be pure and worthy of the profession itself.

This is why among us nothing is done in darkness, nothing in secret. Whatever is known to be honorable is not afraid of being made public; but what is shameful and dishonorable cannot be made public, because shame forbids it. For this reason the pagans celebrate their mysteries in darkness, and in that at least they are prudent. They are ashamed to be mocked openly; they do not want the shameful things done there in place of law to be revealed, lest those who call themselves prudent seem dull to the people they call fools.

But perhaps we seem fools to them because our law preaches chastity, mercy, and continence. To them these things are foolish, for every good man seems bad to the bad, and the prudent man seems senseless to the fool. They so detest chastity that they even delight in effeminate men, and submit to their teaching; and unless these men were such, they would not be fit for their religion, if it must be called that. For this reason they are castrated and change their dress, so that from men they become, as it were, women, and, submitting against nature, undergo what women undergo, so that only then are they fit and worthy ministers of their superstition. Can such a man be blamed, whom the law makes such? He is transformed into a woman, having lost both the conduct and the dress of a man, precisely so that he may freely undergo what women undergo.

What, then, are these supposed mysteries, in which the honorable is made dishonorable and the uncorrupted corrupted, when the true worship of religion is this: to make honorable people out of the shameful and modest people out of the undisciplined? How can its worshipers strive for a good life, when the mysteries of their law cannot be celebrated without effeminate men? If their law delights in such men, whoever is not such will be a sinner and a fool. And so they call us fools. Those who practise these shameful things they judge prudent; those who avoid and flee them, fools. This seems to have been arranged by them with cunning and craft. They give their law the name of prudence precisely to cover its blameworthy features, because where there is prudence there is no reproach; but they call our law foolish, so as to keep people from it. But let the names of prudence and folly be set aside, and all the ill will that the defense of both sides produces be removed, and let the laws themselves contend with each other, so that it may appear where prudence lies and where folly. Yet when the sign of the cross is present, paganism falls silent; and if that “prudence” which they call folly is present, their rites dare not respond; the entrails of their victims are checked, and their power hides itself in reverence for the Christian majesty. A great thing, that what they call prudence should fear what they call folly!

Let us now compare the substance of the laws. The pagans profess even in writing that they worship gods and goddesses; and what they say is true, for they worship both males and females. Janus and Saturn, Jupiter and Mercury and Apollo and the rest, and likewise Minerva and Isis, and Frui, and Venus, and Flora the prostitute with the rest, are gods and goddesses, as the histories of both Greeks and Romans testify. But the Christians, poor men whom they call fools, worship in a mystery one God, from whom are all things, and venerate nothing that he has created. They know that he alone suffices for them and abounds for their salvation, aware that if they assign his glory and name to others they will offend him, since no emperor allows his tribunes and counts to be adored with his name.

Let the laws now be compared, so that it may be seen where prudence lies: with one who worships the Creator or with one who worships the creature, with one who worships the Lord or with one who worships his servants? Can it be that in some household, besides the one master, another is called master? Yet the pagans, trained in the learning of the courts and prudent in their own eyes, venerate many gods and goddesses in one world created by one God. They have called the stewards and agents of the world by the name of lord and god, and are thereby shown to be improvident. To assert what brings ruin is the mark of the improvident and foolish, since God must avenge the injury done to him on those who have shared the name and glory of the Lord God with their fellow servants.

Next let the precepts be considered. Our law, the law of those they call fools, commands that overseers and ministers be ordained who are holy, without crime and above reproach. The pagan tradition, on the contrary, holds that overseers and ministers cannot be fit for it unless they are changed from men into women, so as to undergo, freely and publicly, what women undergo, and, shaking out their hair indecently in the water, utter a soft, quavering, and shameful voice. If they did this in public, they would be stoned by the whole people. And there is that Dog-head who goes nodding about through every place seeking the members of Osiris, the adulterer, husband of Isis. See with what ministers, without any true teachers, the pagans claim for themselves the name of prudence, when it belongs not only to imprudence but to crime! To love what is obscene and disgraceful is deadly. And what is that rite in which they are made sport of in a cave with their eyes veiled? Their eyes are veiled lest they shudder at being shamefully dishonored. Some flap their wings like birds, imitating the croak of the raven; others roar like lions; and others, their hands bound with chickens’ intestines, are thrown across pits full of water, while someone comes up with a sword, cuts through the intestines, and calls himself their liberator.

There are other things more shameful still. See in how many ways those who call themselves wise are shamefully made sport of! But because they undergo these things in darkness, they think they can remain unknown. All these things, devised and arranged in secret by wicked and shameful men, the holy Christian faith has exposed and uncovered. When the faith was preached, those who heard it, considering what good and holiness was publicly promised, came over to the faith, leaving behind those hidden, dishonorable, and shameful things and confessing how they had been made sport of through ignorance. For long ago almost everyone was caught up in this error, and so they seemed prudent to themselves, because there was no one to rebuke them. Although all erred under the one deceitful name of idolatry, each arranged his worship according to his own morals and way of life, so that the one error took on variety from the shamefulness and conduct of its founders. Indeed the rites they call those of Liber are dishonorable, utterly vain, and full of madness; for it is hard for the impure not to be given to rage. Indeed everywhere he is seen painted with Priapus, with whom he lived dishonorably.

Their other rites are of the same kind; but that later generations should be caught by these inventions was brought about by the subtlety and cunning of Satan. Although these things were not devised without his counsel, he sprinkled certain illusions over each invention, by which to lure people into error; and so it came about that deceit was commended by the line of antiquity and a shameful invention excused. Through custom what was shameful began not to seem shameful. When people are dishonored, at first they blush; but afterward, as custom flatters them, shame withdraws and the face changes, especially if one sees many others like oneself. The profit of shamefulness comes when those who are called noble are seen to be dishonored; for dishonored nobility easily finds imitators.

If, then, long ago they seemed prudent to themselves because there was no one whom this foul invention displeased, now that by God’s mercy the human race has been enlightened, and it has been declared a crime what passed for law, and folly what was thought a prudent invention, they ought at least to give up this name, if they wish to remain in a crime now exposed, recognizing that the name of wisdom does not belong to them.

But to add to the weight of their own confession, when they are caught in folly they call fools those by whom they are refuted. They attack our faith and its late origin, yet they do not deny that nothing in our precepts can be faulted. Those who attack our faith take up the case not so much against us as against our author. They pronounce us fools, as having believed a foolish thing, and him a liar, a deceiver, and malicious, as one who handed down a faith by which believers would be deceived. So let us first prove that we did not believe foolishly, and then plead the cause of our author.

When we lived in the error in which the pagans still remain, drawn by no signs of mighty works but by bare words, we took up what they call sacred rites, thinking they were of benefit, not because divinity had commended them but because old custom had handed them down; and in that error, as is no secret, mocked by various vanities, we knew no hope of salvation. What could a thing devised by men profit us? But we were persuaded to come to faith in God, and to believe in his Son made flesh and crucified, not by words but by deeds. We saw the dead raised, lepers cleansed, sight restored to a man born blind, demons cast out, and every infirmity healed.

Now let it be judged when we were fools: when we believed bare words, or when we believed deeds? Deeds certainly come before words, since words were invented to signify deeds. If, then, we gave faith to a human tradition invented to make sport of people’s minds, with no power to persuade us, how much more should we give it to this faith, which all the signs that call on God attest to be divine and deifying! Would we not rightly be judged fools if we did not believe mighty works, we who had believed mere words? Would we not reasonably be marked as improvident and thoughtless if we did not follow the hope that calls us, we who had been given over to despair?

“But,” they reply, “what you believe is foolish; for it does not stand to reason that God has a Son, or that dead and dissolved bodies are restored to life again.” All the philosophers and the founders of sects stabbed at one another with various disputations, and none went over to another, because each remained in what he had been steeped in. Since words are open to contradiction, no one overcame another; there was no way by which anyone could show himself the victor, but, wearing one another out with contradictions, none persuaded the other.

Hence God’s providence, whose mind cannot be searched out, joined power to his preaching, so that the truth of the preaching would be proved by the testimony of power, and those who were ready to contradict words would not dare to contradict when they saw power. What greater witness to truth could there be than the working of power?

But if anyone denies the mighty works by attacking the Scriptures, how can he call our faith foolish while denying the Scriptures? Where it is written of Christ that he is to be believed the Son of God, in the same place power is found as witness. And if it seems absurd to someone reading that Christ, the Son of God, was crucified, let him read on and he will find that he rose from the dead, and let him understand that he did not die to no purpose, or unwillingly, he who was able to rise, but that it is a mystery. Whoever he is, then, either he will keep silent about the cross, because, if he calls the cross foolish, he cannot call the resurrection foolish, for the resurrection excuses the cross; or, if he speaks of the cross, he cannot deny that there is providence in it, which he sees confirmed by the testimony of the resurrection. Either both are accepted or both are rejected, so that one who will not defend them should not dare to accuse.

Why he allowed himself to be crucified by his own kin is a mystery to be kept for its place. But he so commended this death that he testified he would be glorified through it. For he says, “I have power to lay down my life,” and, “I have power to take it up again.” He was not compelled to die, then, who had power both to die and to rise. One who rejects this cannot say that death was inflicted on him by force; for if he denies this, he cannot claim that he died either, because these things are contained in the same place where he is read to have been handed over to death. No one condemns what comes later on the basis of what comes before, or the earlier on the basis of the later; for what belongs to one body is not contradictory.

As for the rising of the dead, they say deceitfully that it is foolish to believe it; for they see examples by which it may be judged credible. None of the seeds needed for our use can be reborn unless they have first been dissolved. If God decreed these things in the world for the sake of human beings, why do they think it foolish to believe that he will grant the same to their very bodies, unless because they themselves are fools, who allow God no more than the world can do? Yet a shadow of the mighty works that were done still appears even now. Although it is not now the time for doing mighty works (they had to be done at the beginning, so that the seed of faith might grow by them), even now demons are terrified when the cross of Christ is named and, if it is done more earnestly, are put to flight; and the gods of the pagans, out of dread and fear of the cross when it is named, cannot give their oracles.

If Christ’s death is a disgrace, why is it a terror? Something that comes from a crime should not be feared but despised. Who would fear a man executed for his crime? And if he was innocent, he still cannot be feared, only mourned. So unless the demons, or the gods of the pagans, perceived that the cross of Christ is a sacrament, they would not be terrified when it is named; and, to put it more exactly, unless they were guilty, they would not be afraid. All who belong to the devil’s side consented to Christ’s death. Hence all the demons, or gods of the nations, are shaken with terror when the cross of Christ is named. Whenever anyone is guilty of the death of an innocent man, fear seizes his heart when that man’s name is mentioned, for in recalling the offense he sees himself guilty. How much more the demons, or the gods of the nations, who are guilty of the death of the Lord and Savior of the world!

But the pagans contend that they hold the truth because of its antiquity, “for what is earlier,” they say, “cannot be false,” as though antiquity or old custom prejudged the truth. Murderers, effeminate men, adulterers, and other criminals could defend their unlawful acts in this way, because these acts are ancient and began from the very beginning of the world; whereas from this they ought rather to recognize their error, because what is blameworthy and shameful is shown to have begun badly, while what is honorable and holy is rightly practised; and the shameful and blameworthy cannot have come before the holy and blameless.

Finally, it cannot be denied that the pagan tradition was invented by man, while it is evident that our law was given by God. On the mountain God’s majesty appeared to give the law to men, and, so that it might be believed, he sent before it many signs and wonders done in Egypt, to which the books laid up by Ptolemy in the library of Alexandria still bear witness today. So he deigned to give the law in such a way that no one would doubt that it was God who gave it. God’s majesty was seen by all, openly and plainly, in such brightness and terror that no other god would be believed besides him, and what he commanded would be held worthy of all observance.

And so that everything may agree with what is worthy of God, let the law he handed down be examined, to see whether there is anything unjust in it, anything dishonorable, anything ridiculous. This is how God had to make himself known: not appearing in a corner by imposture, he who cannot be enclosed, nor in a cave, where an enticing deceit is at work so that what is there is other than what is seen, nor handing down things to be observed that would have to be done in darkness because they were dishonorable.

When the knowledge of the one God had been blotted out in the world through the habit of sinning, because falsehood had drawn a veil over the truth, God, kind and merciful, unwilling that his work should be given over to perdition, deigned to visit the human race. He did not appear as those did who falsely wished to be called gods, but showed himself as the truth of God is, so as to remove the error that had corrupted the mind of the world through the preaching of false gods. Indeed more than six hundred thousand men who had come out of Egypt, seeing and recognizing from the appearance of his ineffable glory that this was the Lord above all, were afraid to come near him, but worshiped from afar on bended knee. Afterward, as other signs followed besides all the wonders he had done in Egypt, he was shown to be the one God.

These things became known in almost every language; they were a terror to the neighboring nations. What is there like this among the gods of the nations? To what nation, to what people did they show their glory? What signs or mighty works did they do as testimony to their divinity? Where or when are they shown to have spoken?

But the irrational crowd began to worship as gods either apparitions of shades, or demons, or images of the dead; and this practice, once established as ancient custom, supposes that it can defend the truth of its reasoning, though the reason of truth comes not from custom or antiquity but from God, who is shown to be God not by antiquity but by eternity. For this reason faith is not something that had a beginning but is without beginning: our believing in God has a beginning, but what is believed is eternal. How then do the pagans think themselves earlier, when what they worship comes after God? Does not the work come after the maker? The pagans worship works, we the maker; they the creature, we the Creator. Certainly God made the world; come now, did he not show knowledge of himself to what he made? Or did he make man and not wish to be worshiped by the one he made? That is absurd.

Man, once made, began to venerate his maker, because it is fitting and the case requires it. When this had fallen out of use through human sloth, God restored it in Abraham, so that the knowledge of God that had been in Adam would begin again in Abraham, so that those born of him might be brought up in this knowledge and, through the line of descent, there would never fail to be someone who worshiped God, while people of foreign nations were also called to this knowledge of God. One who knows has a beginning; but the one who is known is above any beginning. On what reasoning, then, do the pagans say that their law came before ours? If the world is before God, which God forbid, then paganism too can be placed before Christianity.

Let no one wonder at the name “Christianity.” It means worshiping one God in the mystery of the Trinity; for even if the name of Christ is thought to come from chrism, the meaning of the name is older than creation. Among our forebears, those who were anointed as kings were called christs, bearing the image of the Christ to come, who, born of God the Father as king, is rightly called Christ, because what chrism gave to them, his birth gave to him. As long as the pagans do not know him, they reject him; but when they have come to know him, they honor him all the more eagerly, rejoicing that they have passed from evil to good. Those who were obstinate in a thing so trivial and absurd, how much stronger and more ardent will they be once they know the truth! What kind of one is our Christ, then, who is hated when unknown and loved when known! Every bad man is loved while unknown and hated once known. How many once hated Christ who now love him and grieve that they hated what they did not know! It is foolish to hate someone you do not know, for it must first be tested whether the thing deserves hatred. Indeed those who oppose him today will defend him tomorrow, repenting that they came so late to know the truth. If it were something deserving hatred or had any deceit in it, every day pagans would be made out of Christians. But since this is the truth, every day, every hour, without ceasing, people abandon Jupiter, among them sophists and nobles of the world who had fashioned him into a god, and take refuge in Christ, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever.

Nothing is so contrary to a Christian as to devote himself to the art of astrology, for it is known to be hostile to God’s law. If people are born to be bad and, conversely, born to be good, the law will be said to have been given in vain; and not only that, the lawgiver will be held unjust. One who gives a law that compels people to act against what they were born to be, knowing that nature cannot be changed, would surely seem to have given the law so as to have an occasion to satisfy his cruelty with human death. Why would he forbid what he knows cannot be avoided? Or how can he condemn a man for not doing what he could not do?

But if he is seen to be just, as he is (for it is impious to think otherwise of God), he gave the law rightly and for our salvation, knowing that man can restrain himself from what the law forbids. Since, then, he gave the law justly, he is certainly not unjust when he punishes.

So if faith is to be given to God’s law, because it is shown to have been justly given, the art of astrology must be avoided and fled. The cunning and subtlety of the devil invented it. Because he does not dare to fight the Creator openly, he works by evasion, so as both to do injury to God and, by making man hostile to the law, to punish him with the second death.

Whoever, then, yields to God’s authority and thinks it impious to second-guess his work obeys the law he gave, applying himself to its study day and night, and pays no attention to anything opposed to it, not doubting that man is able to keep his precepts. Those who are eager to sin look for pretexts by which to make their sins someone else’s, so that, since their sins are to be blamed on their nature, as it were, the sinner may seem exempt from punishment. This is the aim of those who, despairing of the promised life, want to enjoy the pleasures of the present.

But those who, relying on the confidence of faith, await the hope of things to come strive to fulfill what they promised at the beginning of their rebirth, to renounce the pomps and pleasures of Satan. How great a subtlety Satan used, then, to make man readier to sin, and so to satisfy the malice of his envy! When a man hears that he was born to sin, and knows that God is most just, he believes he sins with impunity, because a just judge does not condemn one who sinned at nature’s command; nor indeed is it to be called his sin, if it was done by another through him, if the man was deceived; for weighed down by sins he has been made subject to death. So whoever takes away man’s evil takes away all his good as well. If the sinner has no punishment, neither does the righteous have a crown; and why then are the good praised and the wicked blamed? If it is his nature that he cannot sin, what do you praise in him that is not his own? And why do you condemn the offense in the sinner, when you know that his sinning is not his own, unless because whoever praises the good and accuses the bad will then be unjust?

But perhaps it will be objected: “I praise a good nature in a man and condemn a bad one, just as good wine is praised because it is good by nature, and bad wine is refused, though nature makes it so too.” If that were so, there would be nothing blameworthy in the matter, so that the righteous would be praised without being judged worthy of a crown, and the unrighteous blamed without being called worthy of punishment. But we know and read that both in the present and in the future the righteous are rewarded and the unrighteous are subjected to punishments and burned; and this would certainly seem unjust, if one who had done what belonged to his nature suffered punishment by avenging fire, and another, likewise doing what belonged to his nature, were given rewards.

But if the good man is to be praised because he did what belonged to his nature, the bad man ought to be praised too, because he likewise did what belonged to his nature, so that each, remaining what he was made, is praised; for if one who remains what he was made is held blameworthy, the blame touches the maker, who caused him to be born such as to displease.

But if the righteous is rightly rewarded and the unrighteous condemned, then the response is made not to nature but to the will; for nature is blameless, but the will is responsible, being subject to the approaches and withdrawals of the senses, so that the unrighteous man, seeing the righteous crowned and himself condemned, may blame himself, who trusted his senses against the law and did evil when he could have done good. Can the sun be blamed because it burns, or water because it chills? Or is water to be rewarded because it refreshes the thirsty, or the sun given prizes because it warms people after cold? They do what belongs to their nature, and so they are neither condemned nor praised; they do not know how to do otherwise.

But that things are not as the star-gazers think, the evidence of human conduct proves. No one can be found who always does good or always does evil. A man would seem born to act well if he remained blameless throughout, and he would rightly be thought born bad if he persisted in always doing evil. But since you see the one you think was born good sometimes acting badly, and you sometimes see the one you say was born bad doing good, how do you prove that the bad is bad and the good good, except that this is far more certain: that a person advances in whatever he has set his mind on? For there are also causes that give rise to sins, such as envy, quarreling, or becoming someone’s enemy.

The things the law forbids they commit not openly or plainly but in secret. Why, unless because they revere the law? If, as they claim, they had been born to do evil, they would not look for hiding places or show the law any reverence, but would do everywhere whatever nature compelled. But since you see people planning their sins and devising where they can commit them unseen (for they choose places, persons, and times so as to carry out the will of their evil purpose), so too the good decide on their good works with a certain judgment, distributing their good according to the time and to someone’s need. This must certainly be imputed not to nature but to the will, which resides in nature. If it were natural, judgment would cease.

If we discuss the matter more fully, we will show that those who are now righteous were formerly unrighteous, and were changed by making an effort. Abraham himself is read to have been made righteous through faith; before that, then, he was not, since he is understood to have worshiped idols under his father’s leadership. So too Zacchaeus, to whom the Lord bears witness after a common life; and the vessel of election, who confesses this too, saying, “We too were by nature children of wrath, like the rest.” Because will takes the place of nature (for a person is judged by his will, not by his nature), without doubt all the martyrs and those who have been justified are good, because they were not born faithful but reborn. And how many we know who led shameful lives and were extravagant devotees of luxury, who are now continent and holy! When the fear of God comes, the vices that ruled before are overcome.

How much the fear of the law can do, let us observe from this. Before Julian’s edict, women were unable to put away their husbands; but once they received the power, they began to do what they could not do before, for they began every day to put away their husbands freely. Where was fate hiding for so long? Out of fear of the law, I suppose, it kept itself hidden.

And how did what Moses handed down slip in? While the fates were asleep, I suppose. So many things were handed down to the Jews to keep, precepts such as no other nation has. And lest anyone think this should be attributed to a region of the sky, they keep the commandments of their law though scattered over almost the whole world. These precepts run counter to the fates: they did not exist for perhaps three thousand years and more from the founding of the world, but once given they remain until the end. How did something begin that did not exist for so many thousands of years? For the course of the stars has been the same from the founding of the world.

And why is it that, though there is so great a multitude of Jews throughout the world, none of them changes and becomes a gentile, while we see Jews made from pagans, though rarely? See, as far as the rite of the Jews is concerned, fate is excluded, because they began to be outside fate and remain so.

What are we to think of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose end lies plainly before the eyes as an act of vengeance? It was such that all, stained with the infamy of filthiness, deserved to be consumed by divine fire. In the flood all were of one fate, so that all perished by one death at one time, except the house of Noah. And will the whole army of Pharaoh be said to have been born under one decree, so that the absurd error of astrology may be upheld, because they were drowned in the Red Sea with their king? And there are many other examples that we pass over, since two examples are enough to satisfy, and how much more three!

For all nations too have different institutions, and what is lawful elsewhere is not lawful here, and again what is lawful here is not lawful elsewhere. For here in the city of Rome and its territory, which is called most sacred, it is lawful for women to put away their husbands, although it is provided in the divine law that not even husbands should use this power, except for the cause of sexual immorality. See, in this matter the barbarians are better! That this can be kept here too is not impossible, because it is shown to have been kept before. Fate, then, has been changed, because what was formerly forbidden began to be lawful.

It is not lawful to make eunuchs in the Roman realm, though among others it is lawful. But it is settled that they could be made here too; for it is proved that it is done, though in secret. If fear ceased, it would be done publicly. Fear, then, restrains fate; for fate is conquered if it does not do what it wants to do.

The Persians wear earrings like women, which here is dishonorable and unlawful; but that it could be done here too is attested by the priests of the Mother who is called Great (and truly great she was, but a harlot; but there is this difference, that these men are effeminates, while the Persians are men). And what shall we say? In the whole world are these alone born under the fate of being castrated and turned into women, so that in all the world only these few are found, who, it is known, are wretchedly deceived and driven by promised rewards to this pain and disgrace? If they had been born for this, they would not need to be driven to it.

The Persians consider it lawful to unite with their own daughters, and it is shown that this could happen here too, since it is proved to have been done by some. But because punishment intervened, they were seized with fear and did not do what can be done but is not lawful. Everything that is forbidden is forbidden for this reason: lest, because it can be done, it should be done. If it were a matter of fate, it could not be otherwise, and it would not be forbidden. For if it is not of fate and is forbidden, this shows that what is not of fate can be done. And what prudence is there in forbidding what cannot be done? Would anyone forbid a person to fly from the city of Rome to Spain, or to carry a mountain on his shoulders? It is the things that can be done but ought not to be done that are forbidden.

It is the custom of the Moors that their women wear rings even in their noses. Is this a matter of fate? If it were, they would keep it when brought here, because, if there is fate, everyone carries his own fate with him. But because it is not of fate, all who come here from there change, seeing that what is thought becoming there is regarded as shameful here.

Certainly among all nations number is number, earth is earth, water is water, air is air, and fire is fire. Can earth be found anywhere that is not dry, or air that can be touched, or water that is not fluid or cold, or fire that is cold? So everywhere Jupiter is Jupiter, Saturn is Saturn, and Venus is Venus; and the other signs likewise. This art is practised everywhere by one method.

But the institutions of every nation stand not by the logic of the fates, which, as they treat it, is the same everywhere, but by human devising. Whatever seemed reasonable and fitting to someone who was thought the leading man among his people, he established for those over whom he presided; hence each region or nation has its own customs to keep, as Solon and Lycurgus established many things that the Greeks kept as law, which were gradually forgotten as their power declined.

Mules pleased the kings of the Jews for riding; the kings of the Romans preferred not mules but horses; the kings of the Garamantes, who live beyond African Tripoli, prefer bulls for riding; the kings of the Persians are carried in litters (the ancient kings of the Persians were not even seen by the people); the kings of Midian delight in riding camels, and adorn their necks with golden collars; and throughout Africa people prefer to ride asses rather than horses.

Though all things are found everywhere, not all things please everyone, because each chooses what appeals more to him. We ourselves have differing wishes in clothing, in food, in other uses, and in our very opinions. That this should not be said to be a matter of fate (since they assert that many people have different fates) is shown by the fact that our will often changes. What we love for a long time we afterward despise, and we begin to love what we did not care for before, and once it has become habit we remain changed.

They say that the order of the fates is such that what they bring about at given times recurs at intervals as before, so that, for example, what they do today they will do again after a time. Human ways are not said to remain in one state; for fate is overcome by discipline and custom.

For a long time the use of wine was unknown to Roman women. Discipline, having become custom, confirmed their judgment, so that they kept what they had learned to be beneficial. Were these fates in force in those times and did they afterward die, so that a well-devised practice ceased? It was not the fates that devised this but discipline; and when people departed from the custom, the discipline perished.

The ancient Romans were of such self-restraint that they even refused gifts offered to them, reckoning a good reputation as riches and preferring virtue to pleasures. Did these fates come in their turn, or did they die out? It was not of fate but of discipline, which is the tutor even of fate itself. How could something be of fate that did not exist before that time and does not exist now?

And I do not know why they lay so much blame on fate as to call it the author of all deeds, when it both is and is not. Where there is discipline, it is not; where there is custom, it is not; where there is chance, it is not. And where it seems to be, it is overcome by fear of the law: lust is restrained by fear, and gain of money is rejected in order to win God’s favor. In this respect, then, its existence cannot be denied, for what is overcome cannot fail to exist; and yet it can rightly be said not to exist even here, because what is overcome lacks authority.

So whoever follows God’s law and keeps the habit of a good life finds that all the things called fates give way to him. Habit can do so much that it even tames wild beasts. Those who wish to live badly make fates for themselves. Through luxury and pleasure come intemperance and restlessness, which produce lack of self-control and anger. Knowing that this deserves punishment, and wanting to make themselves exempt, when they are put to shame they ascribe it to the fates; while demons give help to those who are thinking of such things. Those who stand ready to give effect to evil intentions they call fates, not understanding that they are man’s enemies.

If sins did not creep into the soul through the senses but were born from within, everything in which one offends could rightly be said to come from the fates. But since they see that the desire for sins is born through sight and hearing and the other senses, with the help of the enemies, who suggest doing what is harmful, and which is not thought harmful while it is being done (for it seems sweet while it is done or before it is done, but once done it proves bitter), why do they blame the fates?

That it can be overcome we can see from this. When we are thinking hard and absorbed in some matter, the enemies fall silent and lust grows quiet; they cannot make suggestions to us while we are occupied. Does anyone suggest something else to a person devoted to some task? He does not, knowing either that he will not be heard or that he will be rebuffed as making an untimely suggestion. So too with the enemies, who are known to be demons; for these are the gods of the pagans. If they see us occupied with divine things, they do not intrude to suggest what is contrary, but lie in ambush, looking for an opportunity to plunge in.

The defenses of the soul, then, are constant meditation on God’s law and work, because if the demons see us idle from divine things, they are roused to tempt us. It is they who sow desires through flesh and blood. Although the flesh has its own impulse from its origin, since fleshly birth is not idle, yet in this matter the help of demons is added, to bring about people’s death.

Demons are of different kinds and have different wills. Some, while disturbing minds, strike down bodies; some, mixing themselves with the blood, generate desires in souls; others, attaching themselves to a person’s heart, suggest harmful things with flatteries; and there are some that only bind bodies with infirmities, like that daughter of Abraham whom the Lord healed.

Not knowing all this, the pagans call it fate, when the causes are various and are contrived by the enemies, so that, ensnared by one cause or another, a person is made subject to passions. They call it good fate when bodies are well tempered or commended by an agreeable manner and have a certain charm; and bad fate when a body has too much heat or moisture, or is not touched with charm but rather prone to losses; such people they call unfortunate.

Suppose this is true. We see such things even in animals, that some have more heat; but animals are not rational, as man is, so as to be able to temper their bodies by taking care. The mind is the commander of the body precisely so that it may govern it with the reins of the divine law. The divine law shows that what is suggested, whether by the impulse of the flesh or by the enemy, is not beneficial; God gave it as a help for this purpose, so that, looking to the precepts of the law, we may recognize the enemy who presents evil as good to be a seducer, because he urges something other than what the law teaches.

So the body is reined in in this way: because it runs hot, less is given to it, and it is kept from delicacies. Just as a feverish body grows hotter if it takes food or drink, so bodies of this kind, inflamed by the heat of the blood, will blaze up more fiercely unless they are governed. If you do not feed a fire, it dies down.

It is the mind’s task to lead the body; if it lets it go where it likes, the body throws it headlong, as a spirited horse throws a careless rider. And because the heat of the body blazes up more when the enemies are at work to deceive the soul (for the body does not desire, but by its heat produces desires in the soul), our God’s protection must be implored to guard us and to restrain them, because our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. Once they are removed, it will be easy to check the motion of flesh and blood. A fire goes out if the material that keeps it alive is lacking.

The things that astrologers foretell happen to those who believe that what they say will happen. It is brought about by the subtlety of demons that they bring to pass what their priests have said will happen, lest they be exposed and shown to be false. But their working has no power over those who do not give credence to their responses, because the demons are not so eager to satisfy those who do not believe them, and God does not allow them to do anything by which those who trust in God and do not believe the devil might be led astray. God has so ordered all things that it happens to each according to his faith, so that the free choice of the will remains. And therefore nothing can prevail against one who believes God and takes refuge in his help; for he is certain that all that God made is in his power, and that nothing dares to act against one whom it sees to have the God of all on his side.

Certainly God made the world and created the sun and moon and stars, setting for them courses by which the human race is governed. Does he not have power to command them to do something other, at times, than what has been decreed for them? He created them so that they are subject to his will and carry out their appointed courses only if nothing else has been commanded. So, if he is asked by those whom they serve, because the rains are untimely or crops are barren from excessive drought, he may order the weather to be tempered; or if, as usually happens, people live under God’s anger, wandering in luxury and vanity and not doing what pleases God, he may hold back the rain for a very long time, as we read happened under Elijah and Elisha, and stir up famine on the earth; and then, appeased by their satisfaction, he grants that showers should join the dry land.

The government of the world is like that of a secular empire. Just as some who are oppressed by provincial governors run to the emperors for help so as to be relieved, so people, if they see hard times, should present themselves as suppliants to God, in whose power are all things.

But the astrologers do not think so. They say that nothing can happen except that the stars fulfill the causes decreed for them; that they can neither be called back nor driven to anything else, but keep the duties once established for them. This is the astrologers’ claim: that the fates cannot be changed and nothing can be obtained by prayer, because, they say, God once established the order of the whole world and handed it over to the stars as his ministers, which can be moved neither backward nor forward.

This is the error of the astrologers, by which they even assail God. By this claim they deny that anything can happen outside the order of the world, so that they deny that we should believe any of the things that God is read to have done in the world if they conflict with the world’s law, and accept only those said to have been done according to the world’s statutes; so that it may not be said that a virgin gave birth, nor that Aaron’s rod blossomed and bore fruit, nor that old Sarah gave birth. The order of the world does not contain these things, because they are read to have been done by God outside the order of the world. And what wonder is it if the author of the world did what the world cannot do?

“But he seems,” they say, “to have transgressed the order he established, if he is said to have acted himself otherwise than he decreed for the world.” Come now: he laid down for the world a law of making and generating; did he lay it down for himself? It would be a lowering of himself if he acted as the world he made acts. And how would it be understood that something was done by him, if he had done what he did by the world’s law? So that it would be understood to have been done by God and not by the world, it was done by another order.

He certainly decreed that the sun should run its appointed courses unceasingly, with no license to stand still. Because he laid down this law for it, will he himself not be permitted to make it stand still?

It is certainly laid down for judges that they may not revoke a sentence given against a defendant; will the emperor himself also be under this law? He alone may revoke a sentence and pardon one condemned to death. How much more should that be permitted to God which ought not to be granted to the world, since the world is the servant of its Creator! Indeed the world, by the law handed to it, can kill but cannot make alive. Through intemperance it can make a man blind, but cannot restore his eyes; it can make him weak and sick, but cannot heal him. God reserved this to himself, so that it might be seen that he is Lord of all. It serves to overthrow fate that the dead rose, that eyes were restored to one born blind, that the sick and paralyzed were made strong, and that other such things were done; so that, for those who take refuge in God, fate, if there can be any such thing, can put no obstacle in the way. For the apostle John says: “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in this world.”

When God is asked, he removes even what he has established. He certainly established that sinners should be punished, and yet he pardons those who entreat him, because he alone may bind and loose. Hence, although the sun was not granted to stand still, under Joshua son of Nun it was ordered to stand, and obeyed his command, contrary to what had been prescribed for it in the order of the world. And under Hezekiah more is read to have been done: so that Hezekiah would not doubt that what had been promised him was true, he received a sign that was new and unheard of to human ears. The sun was not ordered, as before, to stand still, but to go back, so that, seeing this, Hezekiah might be certain that the one who had made the ninth hour the sixth could add fifteen years to his life. And because what was granted to Hezekiah is against the astrologers (for they deny that anything can be added to a life), he received in this matter a sign that was against the astrologers as well; for they say it is impossible for the stars to do anything other than what is established for them.

They certainly say that whether one has a slave or not is a matter of fate. So be it. Where were these fates from the beginning of the world? Until the flood, and for a long series of years after it, there was no such condition as slavery. Or did these fates begin in the times of Ninus, who is said to have been the first to make war on his neighbors and to make captives subject to slavery? You see, then, that this was invented later and is not a matter of fate but the work of demons; for if it were of fate, it would have existed from the beginning of the world. The stars are the same ones that were made in the beginning, and their course remains the same.

In earlier times human life was rustic, and no one pursued riches. How, then, do the astrologers now say that people become rich and poor through the stars? Have the stars changed, or is it the cunning and illusion of Satan, so that he says things are done by the stars which he works through his ministering angels? As the time approaches when his destruction draws near, he devises greater means of making people sin.

See, we know that Italy and Africa, Sicily and Sardinia have suffered from famine. Let the astrologers say whether all these had one fate, when they say that among a hundred people not even two can have matching fates. Let them blush and be silent and stretch out suppliant hands to God, in whose power are all things. But perhaps here the fates were caught off guard: what shall we say of Pannonia, which has been so laid waste that it can have no remedy?

O the weakness of those who profess themselves Christians with a wavering faith! While they doubt the promises, they do not think about what has been done. If they considered the deeds of the prophets and apostles, they would never admit the fables of the astrologers. They would know that all things are in God’s power, and they would not be terrified when evils befall the good, because the good will be rewarded at the future judgment; they would remember the apostle, who says: “For through tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” One who is content and awaits his God’s judgment will be rewarded and also vindicated. But if he wants to be vindicated in the present, or to enjoy present wealth with all greed, he doubts the promised life, and so in the future he will be counted among the faithless and held worthy of punishment. God made the world for training and enriched it with all good things, setting before us two possibilities, the present and the future, the heavenly and the earthly, to test human beings: so that whoever spurned the future life and chose the present would be assigned to the flesh, but whoever put the future before the present would be held worthy of spiritual things; and whoever, unjustly oppressed by the power of the unjust, laid his complaints before God, or reserved them for the future judgment, would be relieved and honored with spiritual glory. Hence none of the saints appeared glorious in the world or loved present delights. Hence the apostle says: “Having food and clothing, let us be content with these.” But a Christian complains and grieves if someone seems fortunate in the world, though the dignity and happiness of Christians are promised not on earth but in heaven. How can someone call himself a Christian who wants to glory not there, where it is promised, but here, where it is forbidden? If it were profitable to enjoy present things, heavenly things would certainly not be promised to those who despise them.

With what hope, then, do Christians lend their ears to astrologers, when they hear the apostle John crying out: “Do not love this world or the things that are in the world”? If these are the precepts of our faith and our law, that neither the world nor the things in the world are to be loved, why do some of us complain, saddened by others’ worldly good fortune, which before God is perhaps misfortune, when they ought rather to rejoice that the world does not give them things that would hold them bound and subject to human affairs?

This good fortune, having obtained the means of security, lacks concern for divine things. One who is filled with every necessity and has nothing to be anxious about must necessarily be neglectful of the divine oracles. Such people usually begin to labor under another anxiety, to be enlarged in the world, which cannot be done without sin. If one looks more closely, the world will be seen to be more the enemy of those whom it is said to make happy; for scarcely any of them thinks of heavenly things.

Christians, then, should rejoice when, living rightly, they are oppressed in the world. He has conquered the world who, content with however things turn out for him in the world, gives thanks to his God, hoping that if temporal things seem to be denied him here, eternal things will be given him in return. Why did God establish the future judgment, except so that those who are unjustly pressed down for a time might be exalted in eternal life, while those are crushed who, through their power, despised or disbelieved God’s future judgment and supposed that their crimes would go unpunished?

But those who assert the fates deny the future judgment. If people are born good and others born bad, what do you praise or blame, when the good man did not labor in the fight to win, and the bad man was not negligent so as to lose? These fables they peddle among private persons. Sinners brought before the courts have never dared to excuse their crimes by fate; confessing themselves guilty, they do not deny that they receive their sentence justly. So the authority of the law tramples on the reasoning of the fates, so much so that fate cannot even be mentioned once the law bestirs itself.

And how do they believe they will escape for ever, who after wicked lives contrive to flee the severity of the law for a time, not reflecting that the author of the law cannot overlook it hereafter? Here is the image of the law, there the truth; and one who eludes the image cannot elude the truth. Is there any place without God, or does anyone escape his hand? But flattering themselves, they think that one who escapes here is already safe. And how do they think it just that, when others are condemned in such cases, they should escape?

Certainly God established the world and showed what law it should follow. Loving his work, he showed it the way that leads to life, appointing leaders for people to follow, because there is also a way that leads to death. Ought he not, then, to inquire whether those he set as ministers of his kingdom governed his people by the law he established, and whether the people received his edict, so that faithful ministers may be found worthy of praise and unfaithful ones be punished, and likewise the people praised if the law is kept or condemned if it is despised? This is just; this is what the case demands.

How, then, can some be unwilling to believe in a future judgment? It is the madness of the astrologers that invented this. How could they accept a future judgment, who oppose the present one, since they contend that judgment takes place at birth? And because truth, when it is thought to be suppressed, rises again, these very people who assert that good and bad are not made but born by a kind of natural judgment punish wrongdoers and do not allow sins to go unpunished. At home they chastise with rods, the mill, and chains those whom outside they assert were born incorrigible. Does any prudent person chastise someone he knows cannot be corrected? That is the mark either of a fool or of an unjust man.

But let them not say that this too happens by fate, as if one who is under fate does not do what he wills, so that they too are naturally driven to punish those whom they know to remain unchangeable by nature. Truly, it must be said that whatever is said to be of fate should be put down to folly. How foolish it is that, while they say someone was born bad, they cannot prove that the one they claim was born good is good! How can someone be judged good who is caught doing an unjust thing? And what is so unjust as to beat a man who, they say, could not have done anything other than what he did?

And if everything happens by fate, how did the law come in, which does not allow what is of fate to happen? If the law were removed, unlawful things would be done everywhere and publicly, the powerful could not be borne, and there would be no freedom; for even one who does not now think of evil would begin to be evil once fear was removed. Indeed we read that the law was given because of the wicked.

But perhaps this too was of fate, that the law should be given. Then by what reasoning do the fates stand, if they generate what destroys them, since the law declared that what is of fate ought not to happen? They lack reason, then, if they generate what is contrary to themselves; and they are unjust, because they cause people to be born for condemnation; and if they are unjust, they ought to have no authority, because everything unjust is liable to punishment.

Or will they perhaps say that the law is of no use, because one born to be bad cannot be changed by the law? If so, the law was given to no purpose; and how did the fates cause something useless to be born, since “nothing is without fate”? So the fates act both for themselves and against themselves. If that is so, what has no firmness through the inconsistency of its reasoning cannot stand.

Or did the fates want the law to exist so that those whom the fates cause to be born bad might be condemned by the law, so that fate and law agree in punishing them? What is to be said to this, except that both laws and fates deserve to be condemned by their own judgment, if with equal injustice they labor to have people killed who did evil not voluntarily but because the fates drove them? To this the law answers the opposite, that the fates are to be condemned by their own profession; for they do not deny that the bad are bad by fate. But the law is so opposed to the fates that it denies that the bad are bad by fate, but says they are bad by their own will; and for this reason it rightly holds them guilty. Law and fate, then, have nothing in common, since what the fates assert the law denies.

And under what star will those be said to have been born who banished the astrologers from the city of Rome, a law that is known to have been kept, and they were certainly pagans? How can things that are against fate happen by fate? If there is fate, it does not act against itself. Those who act against fate have no fate; and if they have no fate, there is no fate.

“But there is,” they say, “a fate that assigns to each person the death by which he will die.” If so, a murderer is not to be accused. He will defend himself in two ways: he did it because the fates drove him, and the other man was killed because the fates drove it. But meanwhile the law is struck down, because it punishes the murderer brought before it. In the same way one is born to be an adulterer, a woman to be an adulteress, and another to be the one wronged by adultery. If this too is so, here again the law is struck at, since it punishes adulterers; but if it were truly of fate, the man whose fate it was to suffer adultery should also be punished, for he too is found to be a partner, since his fate allowed the adultery to happen. It would be fair, then, for them all to be condemned together or acquitted together; and meanwhile the law appears unjust.

And therefore, if the fates are from God, the law will not be God’s; for it befits not only God but even a prudent man not to condemn what he himself made. But since no one has ever dared to speak against the law or deny that it is from God, the fates cannot be said to be from God, because God punishes them through the law. When what is done at the fates’ impulse is condemned, the fates themselves are without doubt condemned.

“But souls,” they say, “are born bad for this purpose, that they may do evil.” So be it. But then the innocent ought not to be born under such a fate that they could be killed by them. If those souls were bad, they ought not to be born but punished, so that they would not kill the innocent. But it is not the souls, which they imagine to be bad, that kill the innocent, but the fates, which cause people to be born so as to be killed. And therefore it is not the souls but the fates that are unjust; and if they are unjust, they are not from God. Therefore they are from the devil, and are to be condemned together with him.

And since the fates are said to decree for each person how he will die, by the sword, the noose, a fall, a shipwreck, or otherwise, they assign the same to many; for no one can differ from the fates of all others. But if anyone is found to differ, his death is no longer of fate but of chance; and if there is chance in one person’s death, there will be in many, and it will no longer be of fate. Anaxagoras, thrown into a mortar at the king’s command, died pounded to death, which happened to no other human being. And a woman drove a stake into the temples of Sisera, king of the foreigners, and so he gave up his spirit; no one else died in this way. And formerly men were nailed to crosses, which has since been forbidden by edict and remains so. If it was of fate, how did it cease? When what is of fate is forbidden and does not happen, fate is conquered. Or if it was not of fate, men were crucified not by fate but by the judgment of the law. And so people are condemned not by fate but because they are convicted by their own evil works.

Among the Etruscans a certain man is said to have been born with a face more handsome than any there had ever been; and because he was a good man, so as not to fall under anyone’s suspicion, since he drew the eyes even of respectable women, he wounded his face with seven gashes, to condemn the beauty that everyone desires. See how, if there are fates, they have been overcome! But perhaps it will be said: “It was of nature that he was born handsome, but of fate that his face was wounded.” If so, then fate is no longer something one is born with but an accidental cause; and if it is something accidental, it will not be of fate but of deliberate choice, or certainly of chance, as far as the remaining parts are concerned.

What else is it to conquer fate but to change nature? If fate were from God, it could be neither changed nor conquered. We read recorded in a certain law book that a woman once gave birth to five children at once. How did this slip past the fates, that nature decreed for her alone something that was not of fate? If it had been of fate, a number of other women would have been burdened with the same lot. And when a certain man was setting out for foreign parts, he entrusted his wife to a friend whom he knew to be faithful, not a boy but a man of mature age, who, to be a more careful guardian of her, castrated himself, so that he could sleep near her safely without anyone’s suspicion. What do we think: was this of fate or of deliberate choice? How could something contrary to fate be of fate? One who conquers what was born in him makes fate empty.

And certainly in learning the matter of the fates comes into play, determining whether someone acquires knowledge or cannot grasp it. Then all senators have one fate, for no senator is without letters; and nations without letters have one fate; and all slaves are of one fate, for no slave is a senator.

But if you call fate what one is born with, whatever is added later will be outside fate. Or if what is added comes from fate, why does it come through labor? It would be called fate if it happened to a man against his will. What comes upon one without foresight is said to be of the fates; but why should something be said to be of fate that is devised, long weighed, and acquired through intervening effort?

One man is born a eunuch, others are made eunuchs: where will fate be? In the one born so, I suppose; but what is to be said of those who are made so? The cases differ. Or if these were made eunuchs by fate, the other was born a eunuch against fate. And why is a eunuch born so rarely that it seems incredible? There was a woman in the city of Rome who is known to have had eleven husbands, and a man who had twelve wives: what fates decreed this for them? And in the time of the emperor Constantius it is well known that a girl in part of Campania was changed into a male and brought to Rome: what fates did this? Others, I suppose, of which you know nothing.

O, if only you would keep silent about this name, and leave some things to chance and accident, and grant some things to providence! For the virtue and industry of the mind can do so much that it not only resists nature but also amends or corrupts itself, because it has judgment over itself.

It is related of the Scythian women called Amazons that, when their husbands were long absent, occupied in a distant war, they had intercourse with slaves for the sake of offspring and killed every male child born, keeping the females, so that none of them devoted herself to wool-working, but from childhood they were trained in the wrestling ground and in arms. Their courage and energy in action were so great that they ruled for a long series of years, subdued a number of nations, and made all Asia pay tribute. What can be said to this? Were these things of fate, which were done over so many years in such a way as to empty everything thought to be of fate? First, that women, against nature, ruled and spurned men; then that they had intercourse with their own slaves; third, that all the male children were killed and the females kept alive, and such prosperity followed that, without men, they extended the kingdom they had begun with great forces over long periods. Certainly this never happened since the founding of the world except in Scythia alone; lest they say that these things come round when the world is renewed after one thousand four hundred and sixty years, since the world is now in its six thousandth year.

And indeed a person does what he has chosen to imitate. Marcus Crassus was called Agelastus because he is said to have laughed only once in his life; and Gaius Junius was surnamed Brutus because, by shrewd design, he pretended to be stupid so as not to be killed by King Superbus because of the size of his wealth; and in the time of Constantine a man called Samsucius pretended to be a fool for thirty years, in order, as he himself later said, to divert the emperor from his cares. Where is the reasoning of the fates, when each person does what he wills? It is excluded.

And what of this, that those who assert the fates are devoted to supplications, though these are opposed to their view? They commend their years to the gods and make inquiries about marriages, journeys, purchases, and offices. But if it is of fate, why do you pray, why do you supplicate, for what will happen even against your will? “But I am asking,” he says, “whether I ought to buy.” Then what you say you ought to do if you learn it is expedient does not depend on fate. For if it is of fate, you ask in vain, because, willing or unwilling, whether you ask or not, you are going to do it.

Because this claim is not settled even among themselves, they try things uncertainly, lest they find something true other than what they teach. Those who seem more prudent among them say: “We do not supplicate because of the fates, since we know they cannot be changed at all, but because of the things near the fates, lest they do us some harm.” Come now: if someone has a good fate, and near it there is something that seems contrary, what can that be, since a good fate is said to be unchangeable, as is a bad one? Certainly they supplicate the thing near the fate so that it will not harm them, for it will harm them unless they supplicate. How, then, is that fate said to be unchangeable, when this neighboring thing is feared? It would not be feared unless the fate were believed to be changeable. But because the point of your position is rather that fate cannot be said to change, you are without doubt supplicating for nothing.

But see whether it is not also of fate that you supplicate, since whatever you assign to fate is usually without sense. Certainly supplicating is not a bad thing; why then should it not be said to be of fate? If it is of fate that someone supplicates, whose doing will it be to supplicate and not obtain? For if it was of fate, he ought to obtain what he supplicates for. But if it is of fate to supplicate and not obtain, fate is foolish, because it makes a man supplicate whom it knows will not obtain. And if it does not know whether he can obtain what it makes him supplicate for, fate will be improvident and lacking reason, because all ignorance is lack of wisdom, and lack of wisdom is folly. Every treatise of the pagans falls into this trap. Let the pagans see to it, who cannot see the light for the darkness poured around them; ensnared by ancient error, they refuse to lend their ears to the truth that was formerly hidden.

What shall we say of certain Christians who, changed in name only, defend the vanity of their former error, and are so dull that they contend that the Lord himself acted under fate, saying, “He himself said, My hour has not yet come,” as if that hour were a necessity not of his will but of a fated condition? He was indicating the hour of his own will, at which he allowed himself to suffer. Indeed he says: “I have power to lay down my life and I have power to take it up again.” Fated necessity ceases, then, where there is power of will.

And how is he called Savior by us, if what we do or what happens to us is of fate? He is called Savior because he showed us the way of salvation. If it was shown by him, then it was not of fate, because it was hidden before, and what is said to be of fate they claim happens unexpectedly. Here lies the merit of faith, which cannot be said to come from fate, because what is believed was not heard of in other ages; while the fates are said to supply what concerns human conduct.

And by what reasoning are the fates said to be able to supply what they are found not to know? Hence the apostle says: “whom none of the rulers of this age knew.” These are the principalities and powers who have bad angels under them, and who under the name of the fates bring about whatever pleases them, as sorcerers often confess. There are some people they love, others they do not love, some they hate. And each suggests to each person what it itself likes, because they too have different pleasures: for some they procure the lust of various kinds of sexual immorality, for others lust in one thing, for others wanton pleasures, for others anger, for some avarice, for others gains, for others losses, for others favor, for others hatreds and also obstacles. Sometimes at certain times, sated, they rest in idleness; and sometimes they do not intrude upon a mind occupied with some reasoning, because they do not rule but creep in, looking for an opportunity to capture. Therefore the choice of the will is free; but when through a kind of sloth we become careless about ourselves, they tempt us and persuade us to what is harmful; especially if they find us thinking of something contrary to the law, they will come and help us in that very thing, so that we do what the law forbids. But if the fear of God is in the mind, neither flesh nor blood nor principalities and powers prevail, because they are restrained by God’s support, so that they are conquered without effort.

If we were not in our own power, how could the Lord say: “Ask and it will be given to you; for everyone who asks will receive”? If whoever wishes to ask will receive, then the common saying no longer holds, “not what we will, but what has been given,” because the will is roused by the Savior to ask and to receive what it has asked for. But they say it is of fate that, whether one asks or not, he obtains by fate whatever is bad or good. The Lord excludes this when he says, “Daughter, your faith has made you well,” so that it is no longer a matter of fate when faith receives the benefit. And again he says, “If you believe, all things are possible to one who believes.” He certainly placed merit in the will, because this good belongs to faith, not to nature. Faith is something added, which rouses the will to exercise, so that, since faith is not in nature, the will, which is in nature, having received faith, lays up merit for it before God. Human nature is like a stone, which does not have fire in its substance yet has it in potential, so that by working it produces what it does not seem to have; for fire does not exist in it except as in a seed. It is there in potential, so that it may be brought forth by exercise; and if exercise is lacking, it does not exist, because a seed too does not produce unless it is worked, but remains alone. Something added, then, makes it produce. So too man does not have faith in his nature, but the seed of faith, which will give no fruit, that is, he will not have faith, unless it is called forth and exercised. Those who believe the fables of the astrologers destroy the seed of faith, which bears witness both to the Creator and to his justice. The work acknowledges its maker and testifies that he loves with equal justice all that he has made.

We warn, then, that this art is to be fled in every way. Those who are curious about it are enemies of God and are never free of anxiety; always in suspense, they wait for what they know is uncertain. But we, who believe that all good things come from God and that, if any adversities arise, they are checked at his nod, should live simply, secure in his protection, knowing nevertheless that even if something adverse befalls us while we do good, it will, if endured, serve toward the crown.

Pascha, dearly beloved brothers, is named from the passion, as we are taught by the prefiguring of this tradition that took place in Egypt through God’s servant Moses, as Scripture says: “This is the sacrifice of the Pascha of the Lord.” What, then, is the reason that the sacred mystery was celebrated through blood, and the restoration of life through death? It was so that death, thinking it was gaining, received the Savior’s blood and ebbed away diminished, and, supposing it had done this by its own power, was weakened and perished. By divine providence death was found for death through death’s own work, so that, because it always wills evil, it was yielded to for a time, so that, destroyed justly by its own act, it could not complain that its kingdom had been taken away. Although God can do all things, he does nothing contrary to reason; the justice he requires he also practises, not presuming on his power.

Great, then, is God’s providence toward the human race: preserving justice, he undid what had been justly decreed and rescued man from death, though man was not held undeservedly. But because he had been deceived by the devil’s envy, it was just that he should be helped. He was held by God’s sentence, but Satan had brought this about. Hence, just as it seemed just to rescue him, so it would have been unjust to do it by force, setting justice aside. When man, conquered at the devil’s persuasion, was to receive mercy, the devil objected as his accuser. So it was arranged that he who gloried in man’s sin should himself be caught sinning, so that, once made guilty, he would not dare to object. So it came about that the Son of God was born a man and, preaching righteousness, provoked the devil, because he kept people from the devil’s vices; so that the devil even killed him who knew no sin.

Then he was found to have sinned, and more gravely than the man he was accusing. For while by God’s decree he claimed man for himself because of sin, since whoever sins belongs to the devil’s side, he was found to have sinned more when he killed one who had not sinned, so as to seize him for himself. So through death destruction came upon death, and blood was shed so that blood might be recovered. For, as I said, death, which is the devil, having been found to have sinned in the Savior’s death, lost the Savior’s blood together with that of all of us; because, as through one man, Adam, who sinned, he held all in death, so through one who did not sin he lost all. So the Savior’s blood, unjustly shed, obtained this as its reward: recovering in triumph the blood of its own origin, it recalled it to its former state with its substance improved. Death, conquered, could not object to the one who had conquered it. Blessed, then, is the mystery of Pascha, which redeemed our blood through blood, conquering death by death, as poison is often overcome by poison.

The faith of this patriarch was so outstanding and admirable that all the other righteous confess him, by God’s judgment, to be the father of belief, and no one is worthy of God and dear to him unless he has been called his son. The privilege of his honor and merit is faith; and because he did not hesitate to give it even to things beyond belief, he was among other things found worthy to see the Savior in the form of the incarnation that was then still to come, as the Lord says and proves to the Jews: “Abraham your father longed to see my day, and he saw it and rejoiced.” It was fitting that he who had deservedly been made the father of faith should foresee the hope of his future sons, which, by the favor and foresight of God, was to flow down as a grace of inheritance from a human and godly father to obedient sons.

Let us now see what this faith believed, that it should come to such honor and glory by God’s judgment. We have praised his faith, but have not yet said what it believed. The Lord led him out, showed him the stars of heaven, and said: “Can you number them? So shall your seed be.” And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. It would not have been a great thing to believe God, except that what he believed the world judges to be unbelievable and foolish, because it lies beyond what the nature of things allows one to hope for. Hence Abraham, alone out of the world, because he believed this, was set apart from worldly people and justified.

The faithlessness of worldly wisdom makes it a great thing to have believed this, and to have believed it against worldly expectation is of the greatest merit. The despair of the worldly is the merit and the hope of Christians; the case of the wicked makes the reward of the good; for faith is stronger and fuller when it entrusts itself to things that are harder to believe. A man already dried up, with an aged wife, believed that he would have descendants too many to be numbered, looking not so much at what was shown him as at the one who showed it, whom he did not think capable of lying. And therefore it was reckoned to him as righteousness. To believe something absurd and known to be impossible is the mark of a dullard, unless there is a person whose word persuades one to believe it. Hence Abraham shows both admirable faith and a wise heart, since he both believes what is beyond belief and entrusts himself to the one whom it is both foolish and dangerous not to believe.

What proves our faith reasonable is that it believes of no one but God that he can do what he promises. This is the bulwark of faith, this its triumph. The wise of the world, looking at the nature of things, say it is foolish to believe, because nature cannot do this; they do not know that, according to the apostle, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” They would rightly judge us fools if we believed something of the nature of things that is proved impossible for it. But we believe that God, if he has promised, will do what the nature of things cannot. What folly can be found in this? If the work believed possible were unworthy of God, faith would rightly be likened to dullness; but if it is worthy of him, precisely because it is impossible for the creature, why should faith not be praised, which grants the Creator as much as is denied to the creature?

Great and admirable, then, is Abraham, who did not hesitate to believe God against the world’s opinion, because God is able to do what he promises. A Chaldean by birth, he appeared as a teacher of belief: though skilled in astrology, he put God before human counsel, thinking it fitting that we should believe of God something whose manner cannot be searched out. God’s power strengthened his weakness, since to declare the unique greatness of his majesty God would choose to do things impossible and unheard of to the world, and by doing them would show himself Lord of creation, and creation would submit to him whose work seemed impossible to all others; and by their unbelief the most faithful Abraham is exalted all the more. His faith is the punishment of unbelievers, and the faithlessness of unbelievers is his glory; for he is the father of the faithful and the judge of the unfaithful. By his example the good are given eternal life and the wicked will pay eternal punishment. At that time, when the world was still childish in knowledge and not yet illumined by signs and wonders to draw people to faith, he did not refuse God his faith, though it went against his own knowledge.

Holy Abraham, then, was given to the human race as a most faithful example. In him all nations were prefigured as coming to salvation through faith. And so that the overflowing growth of his faith might be known, he is tested and ordered to sacrifice his son to God, something that had never been done; and he is neither troubled by the novelty of it nor disputes whether the killing of a son ought to be done at the command of God, who had threatened punishment so that murder would not be done. So, fearless and sure about God’s will, he does not hesitate to believe that what God commands is wise, even concerning this son, whom two old people had received by promise, the reward of faith, the token of merits, the one in whom all hope of the promised seed was held. To carry this out with all devotion, he did not tell the boy’s mother, lest she put some obstacle in the way of his dedication, knowing that mothers are more inclined to love where their children are concerned; so he kept it from her, not doubting that what God commands must be fulfilled, so that by this example we might be taught to keep God’s commandments with all care.

If the most faithful Abraham is found obedient in a matter so grave and harsh, how much more should we be, who are commanded things that can be borne! O faith dedicated to God and hope firm in the Lord, so dear and sweet that it is preferred to the affection of parents and children, as Scripture says: “Taste and see how sweet the Lord is!”

Our patriarch, the most faithful Abraham, because he was a prophet, knew what he ought to follow. So what the Lord has now said, he did then, preferring God in love to his son, however dear, as the Lord says: “If anyone loves father or mother or sons above me, he is not worthy of me.” Hence the patriarch, in order to be worthy of the Lord above all others, did not refuse even to kill his son.

Great, dearly beloved brothers, is the love of almighty God toward the human race; when it is understood, it leads to the heavenly kingdom, but when it is not understood, it leads down to the underworld. God wants his benefit to be welcome and fruitful, so that it may profit us and that it may delight him to show mercy.

So since he is good and wills all people to be saved, he has shown us an example of righteousness in his servant Job, as the present reading testifies, by following which we may both be free of evil and come to the good, not only freed from punishment but also rewarded.

How admirable, then, is the most holy Job, who, before the law was published in writing, showed in his works a pattern of the law! He learned the teaching of no one in this matter, but with nature itself as his guide, in which God decreed that the seeds of righteousness should be present by nature, he kept reverence for the Creator with godly devotion.

With how much praise, then, is he worthy, and with what words should his deeds be extolled, since we can find no equal to him either before the law or after it? Even if someone could copy his deeds, he would not then be comparable to him or rightly called like him; for it would not be his own achievement that he had become such, since he would have followed another’s example. But holy Job, though he had seen nothing like it and had not read it in books, showed himself such that he received nothing from anyone, but himself gave to others, providing a pattern of wonderful deeds for winning the Lord’s favor. Therefore he is also commended by the Lord’s testimony, who says: “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on earth, a true worshiper of God.”

Who could merit so much, that the Lord should bear him such testimony, except one who is found to be not an imitator but the author of what he did? Hence he is also declared a true worshiper of God. No pretense of feigned truth can be seen in one who has had no one like him before him; for everyone who feigns feigns what he is seen to imitate.

And yet there are still greater things to be said than all these. In these praises there were no proofs from tribulations, but only a purpose dedicated to God and expressed in practice and observance. Because this did not seem to the tempter complete enough for a crown of merits, he asked to be allowed to test Job’s righteousness with various temptations, so that, hard pressed in many things, Job would stumble somewhere and go beyond the bounds; for various punishments are usually inflicted on wrongdoers for this reason, that, since no one can bear every torment, one of them may draw from him a confession of the truth.

So the tempter was permitted to destroy and lose all Job had, even to the death of his sons; so that, if he bore the loss of his oxen, he would not bear that of his sheep; or if he bore the loss of the sheep too, he would not bear the loss of the camels, or of the servants, or of all his substance; or if, being great of soul and quite pure in devotion, he were not conquered by all these, he would at least be broken by the death of all his sons together, as the force of love compelled. But because before the law was published he had the law written in his heart, no losses or bereavements made him less devoted to God, so that he set a pattern that God is to be loved with the whole heart above all things. How great is the glory he deserves, who kept the law before the law, so that he showed how the law that was to come was to be kept, not in words but as a doer, in deeds!

And because the tempter is irreverent, and this glory did not seem to him enough to prove the righteous man unless he devised something else against him that he knew a human being could not bear, he asked again to strike Job himself with a cruel wound from head to nails. And when this was permitted, he was commanded to spare his soul, because the devil is not to be trusted, for the sake of Job’s free choice, so that he would not dare any violence against one whom he could not overcome by the law of reason. Having received the power, then, with savage cruelty rising afresh in him, he struck the righteous man with an exceedingly great plague, so that there was nothing in his body free of a wound, which no man could endure except Job alone, who was able to conquer Satan. And when even so the devil’s wickedness could draw nothing from the righteous man against God, he remembered his old cunning, by which he deceived Adam, to see whether he could deceive this man too through his wife, because a man is easily deceived through someone of his own household.

Gaining nothing in all this, but rather suffering loss, the most shameless Satan found God’s servant not only immovable but a teacher as well. Placed in that very distress, he not only persevered in the fear of God, but, rebuking his wife who suggested the contrary, he taught that everything that happens by God’s permission is to be borne bravely. This doubled the punishment of the shortsighted Satan, because he did not persuade Job of what he wanted, and by envying him he made others learn what he did not want even Job to know. How much temptation profits God’s servants and harms the devil, this reading teaches us more fully. When he thinks he is harming them, he advances them, and when he persecutes one, he rouses many; for seeing this man protected by God’s help, many become his imitators. Wanting to make a gain, then, he lost; his fury always does himself harm. While he does not let the righteous be at peace, lest they be rewarded, he makes them more worthy; and in his jealousy of holy Job he doubled his merit in heaven and on earth, for Job was both enriched here and received into heaven with the Savior; so that all these things serve the glory of the saints and the punishment of the devil.

So great is the Lord God’s providence toward us that, not wanting us to go astray, he gave both the law and examples of good works, by which a modest and peaceful life may be led in the fear of God. He who is the author of life certainly does not want his work to be subject to death. Although nature itself is not without law, yet because the Lord is good and merciful, so that there might be greater knowledge of what is to be followed and what avoided, he showed it by writings and by examples, as the present reading testifies.

Holy Tobit, the servant of God, was given to us as an example after the law, so that we may know how the things we read are done, and, if temptations come, may not depart from the fear of God or hope for help from anywhere but from him, remembering that it is written: “I have been young and now am old, and I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread.”

One who hopes in God with his whole mind can never be deceived. Though tribulations may arise for a time through Satan’s snares, the examples of holy men teach us that God permits them only for the increase of our merits; for if they are borne with an even mind, consolation will be given us here with real effect, and in the future eternal life with glory. Our God, because he is just and shows no partiality, allows us to be tempted because he loves us, so that after our labor he may give us the richest rewards. Indeed when the apostle prayed that his temptations might cease, the Lord said to him: “My grace is sufficient for you; for power is made perfect in weakness.” Following on from this he says: “When I am weak, then I am stronger,” and: “I rejoice in my tribulations, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

How praiseworthy holy Tobit is, Scripture teaches us: captivity did not diminish his devotion, the loss of his eyes did not persuade him to stop blessing God, and the loss of his substance did not turn him from the way of righteousness and truth. Hardship proves the righteous man, and to keep fairness in want is true and perfect righteousness. The very thing that diminishes some people’s devotion made the praiseworthy Tobit grow. For “poverty,” it says, “humbles a man, and one who is humbled cannot keep righteousness.” But the mind of holy Tobit, lifted up to God, was neither broken by captivity nor humbled by poverty: he buried the bodies of the slain against the prohibition, and, confident in God’s generosity, was merciful out of his very little, knowing that mercy shown out of little pleases God more, as that widow did whom the Lord praised in the gospel. He is truly faithful and does not doubt God’s promises who gives generously out of little.

Consoling his mind with the hope of things to come, then, Tobit, dedicated to God, was found sturdy and strong in temptation, showing that in hardship one must be all the more watchful in the fear of God; for if hardship does not drive a person to God’s help, how much less will security! Holy men, then, certain that God has reserved to himself the judgment of everything done in this world, did not bear tribulations, losses, and other disasters or insults with resentment, but even received them gratefully, as our apostles did, who, when they were beaten, rejoiced that they had been counted worthy to suffer insult for the name of God. The disasters unjustly inflicted on the faithful, whether tribulations or insults, are tokens of future merits.

So the righteous Tobit pleased God so much that he received the reward of his merits in two ways. In the present he recovered, through the ministry of an angel, the sight he had lost, and was also enriched with the goods that belong to this present life; and in the future he was made heir of the kingdom of heaven. By this we are taught that whoever obeys God’s law with his whole heart and does not doubt the promises is cared for by God in this world and is given eternal life in the world to come.

There is also something else that invites us to serve God. Holy Tobit gained not only the merits of his own righteousness; to the sum of his glory is added the good done by those who become his imitators. Examples are praised in those who imitate them; and this could happen for us too, if we live in such a way that we also deserve to have imitators.

It is fitting, dearest brothers, that the priest of God and the leader of Christ’s people should most devoutly exhort the people placed in his care in sound doctrine, as the apostle commands, so that we may perform the work of faith in keeping with the season, with all care and diligence and with an eager and devout mind. What the fasts that are now to be kept, as the feast day of Pascha approaches, accomplish, though it is no secret, ought nevertheless not to be passed over in silence. Devotion is stirred when things are reviewed, even if they are not unknown. Such is the character of our nature that it grows sluggish if the practice of reading lapses; for as iron that is not used gathers rust, so sins will be born in the soul unless it exercises itself frequently in the divine readings. This is why the psalm calls blessed the one who meditates on the law of the Lord day and night.

Indeed, although the divine words are known, when they are brought to mind from the sacred volumes the devout heart receives them as if they were new; the soul’s desire for saving works is roused. Hence the apostle says to Timothy among other things, “that you rekindle the grace of God that is in you.” Fasts, then, are necessary to us, as medicine is to wounds. They bring healing for eternal life, yet only if they are commended by the witness of two things, prayer and mercy.

Fasts, then, soften the body’s intemperance, check its hostile impulses, and lift the burden from the soul, as the Lord says: “Do not be given to food and drunkenness, lest your hearts be weighed down.” When the soul has been freed from food and drink, it recognizes itself better. As a man does not see himself as he is in a dirty mirror, so a man weighed down with food and drink perceives himself as other than he is. Then lust is roused, anger kindled, pride inflamed, and luxury bred. Hence the apostle says: “Do not get drunk with wine, in which is luxury.” But if the body has been tempered by a fast, the soul recovers knowledge of itself and understands with what devotion it ought to obey its Redeemer.

In great measure, then, fasts are necessary. Under Queen Esther, when the Jewish people had been put in danger, they were set free with the help of fasting. And the Ninevites, when they heard from the prophet the day appointed for their overthrow, proclaimed a fast and were found worthy to escape. And our righteous men and prophets, when they wished to obtain something from God, humbled themselves by fasting, as David says: “In fasting I humbled my soul.” The Savior himself, who had no need of it, fasted to give us an example.

So no one doubts that fasts are of benefit. One shows that he wants to obtain what he asks for when he afflicts himself with fasting. Hence it is said: “Prayer is good with fasting.” So that prayer may be acceptable, then, Scripture wants it to have the support of fasting; and because none of these is firm without godliness, it added, “and almsgiving with righteousness,” so that almsgiving, with righteousness preserved, may commend prayer joined with fasting. Indeed mercy commended the prayer and fasting of Cornelius. He was rich and fasted, but he also fed those who had nothing, so that their being filled made his fast acceptable. Fasting, then, needs certain things and must be free of certain things, if it is to merit what it asks.

O holy and saving day of Pascha, to be proclaimed with every praise, on which death was conquered and the kingdom taken from the devil; the mystery of God made manifest, the decree that was against us cancelled; the gates of Tartarus broken, the bound set loose, the imprisoned released, the blind enlightened, the unlearned given knowledge, the ungodly made merciful, the unjust made righteous; forgiveness of sins given, enemies reconciled, error corrected, truth declared; sons won for God out of the lost; pride brought low, humility exalted; the poor enriched, the rich emptied; mountains leveled, valleys filled, hills laid low; shamelessness trampled, modesty strengthened; access to heaven given to souls, freedom restored, captivity broken and undone; darkness grown numb, malice confounded, squalor purified; Satan cast down, the underworld emptied, our Lord Christ Jesus proved the true Son of God, flesh taken up into heaven to the confusion of the worldly wise, and things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth shown to belong to the one God and Lord!

So, dearest brothers, we ought to keep and honor this feast day, devoted to God, with a modest life and a glad mind, avoiding what is shameful and dishonorable, so that we may be found worthy to come to the fruit of Pascha through Christ our Lord, to whom be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

“In the beginning was the Word.” What does “in the beginning” mean? We read in the old books too, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth”; and in the letter of the same man whose gospel this is, whose opening we are trying to expound, the same sense is expressed, for he says, “what was from the beginning.” The letter and the gospel, then, have one sense. But it is one thing when Scripture says in the old books, “In the beginning God made heaven and earth,” and another when it says, “In the beginning was the Word,” and “what was from the beginning.” To be “in the beginning” and to be “from the beginning” mean the same thing, because what was from the beginning did not begin to be. What begins to be was not from the beginning, and is therefore placed under the beginning, so that it is said, “it began to be in the beginning,” that is, it is first in order among the others, because, made in the beginning, it began to have others after it, which were made after it; as we read that in the beginning God made heaven and earth. Scripture did not say, “in the beginning heaven and earth were,” because they did not exist; when God was arranging to make the world, “in the beginning,” that is, among the other things that went into the making of the world, “he first made heaven and earth”; for a beginning is the starting point of someone who begins something, which is first in order.

When it says that in the beginning was, that is, the Word, this signifies that it existed before the commencement of the creation above and below, so that it would certainly not be understood to have been made first among the created things; for it was in the beginning, when God was arranging to make the creation. If, then, it was in the beginning, that is, before all things, it always was; and therefore it was also the Word.

“And with God,” it says, so that what was always with God would not unworthily be thought to be subject to a beginning. For it is fitting that what was with God before all things should be subject to no beginning.

Hence he also added: “and the Word was God.” Now he shows plainly that what was said above fits the Word, because the Word, he says, is God; and of God one must think nothing other than that he always existed. If he began, he is a creature; if he is a creature, he is not God; for whatever exists is either God or a creature, and therefore the name of God does not belong to a creature. But because he did not begin to be (for he was), he is rightly called God.

He is said always to have been with God because he is God not from himself but from God. For this reason his name too is said to be “the Word of God,” as the faith of the same evangelist shows in his Revelation, where he says among other things: “and his name is the Word of God.” So that not the one from whom are all things, but the one through whom are all things, that is, not the Father but the Son, would be signified, he was called “the Word of God”; so that, because God cannot be without a Word, the one who is called “the Word of God” may be believed always to have been with God; and because a word is not outside the one whose word it is, this Word that was with God may be understood to be from no other source but from God; and because he is from God, he is not absurdly called God.

So it does not make two gods that God was with God. If there were two, they would differ in nature and not be of one will. If we human beings, though of one nature, are nevertheless of differing wills, how much more where the nature too is different! And then God would not even be said to be with God. For God who was and is with God does not have from himself that he is God; otherwise he would neither be said to be God with God, nor would “the Word of God” be called God the Word. But because what is from God signifies being nothing other than what God is, “the Word of God” was named God; so that, because he is called “the Word of God,” he would not be referred to another God; and that he is called God so that it would not be an injury to God if what was from God were not called God. So both the unity of God has been preserved and due honor rendered, since he who is God from God is received not in his own glory but in the glory of the one from whom he is God.

For this reason the gospel begins to speak of the Word before it speaks of God the Father, because questions arise not about God but about the Word of God. No one doubts about God, but about the one who is God from God. Every tongue of things in heaven and on earth confesses one God, but is troubled by the mystery of the one God. It trembles on hearing that the Word of God is called God, because it is struck by bodily ways of thinking, since a man’s word cannot be called a man. Yet God is certainly simple in nature, not composed of members, having no inside and outside, no before and after, no highest and lowest, but, if it may be said, wholly the same throughout, never varied or unlike; his one brightness is boundless. If fire has no front and back or inside and outside, how much less its Creator! So, because all that God is is wholly one, there is no discord when what is from God is called God.

Partly by a human comparison, then, and partly not, the Son of God, who is the Word of God, is God. As the sons of men are men, so the Son of God is God. But because the sons of men are men through the mingling of parents, the Son of God is not God after this pattern, for he was born simply from the simple God. And as our word comes from us, so by this comparison the Word of God is understood to be from God; but because our word is not what we are, the Word of God is not from God in this way, for the Word of God is a reality, not a sound that passes away.

Because some words are common to us and to God, it does not follow that the reality they effect is of one kind for us and for God. We read: “In the beginning God made heaven and earth.” How did he make them? As we make things, by the work of our hands? And in what follows: “And God said, Let there be light; and light was made.” How do we think God spoke, since he certainly did not speak to a man but to one who could make, who was also to make man, as he did? As we speak, with a bodily organ? Far from it. You see, then, that the words are common to us and to God, but differ in what they effect; God makes otherwise than we make, and he is said to speak, but not in our way.

So too the Word of God is not a word like ours, which ceases to exist once spoken; that Word remains, because it is a Word that hears, speaks, and works. And the Son of God is not only “the Word of God” but also “the power and wisdom of God.” As to what he is, he is called the Son of God; as to the address by which God speaks to us through him, he is called the Word of God; as to the wisdom by which God teaches us his mystery through him, he is called the Wisdom of God; and as to working, because through him God made and makes all things, he is called the Power of God.

These titles could belong to no one but the Son of God. Because he is God from God, he is said to be all that is God’s; by being born he received all that is God’s. It would not be fitting to call the Word of God, the power and wisdom of God, degenerate; for this is what God is: Word, power, wisdom. Christ, because he is wholly God from the whole God, is called the wisdom of God, the power, and the Word of God; that is, he is God from God and with God.

Because of this he says: “This was in the beginning with God.” Compelled to overcome the minds of unbelievers, Scripture broke out to show that Christ is God. Whereas everywhere else, because of the unity of God, it wishes Christ to be understood as God, here it said in plain words that he is God and was always with God. Disclosing the mystery of God, lest God be thought entirely solitary, it declared that he is called one God not so that he may be thought solitary, but that, though there are two or three, yet they are from one and do not prejudice his unity, because what is from the one is referred back to that one, since he is one.

Although all things are said to be from God, it is one thing to have come forth properly from God and another to exist by his command. What was created by God is from outside; that is, what proceeded from his substance is one thing, and what was created by his will when it did not exist at all is another. What proceeded from God’s substance never came to be in substance, but what was created began to be in substance when it was created; and therefore the Trinity alone has no beginning.

The disclosure of the mystery, then, lessened the merit of faith, because the more hidden what is believed, the richer the believer’s reward and the lighter the punishment of the one who does not believe. And as the disclosure of the mystery made believers merit less, so it roused greater punishments for those who do not believe; for a plainer law makes a person more guilty.

The Savior’s testimony, by which he said that God was his own Father, would have been enough. Which believer would doubt that the Son differs in nothing from the Father in substance? But because the perversity of heretics had begun to attack the laws of faith with inventions of unbelief, taking the Son of God otherwise than he is preached, it was added, to make it plain, that he was with God before all things and is God, so as to declare what the reasoning of the true Son contained in a hidden way. In this the divine kindness seems to have provided for human weakness, opening what it had kept closed for the merits of a stronger faith.

Hence he added: “All things were made through him”; so that, if anyone was in doubt about anything said above, since human understanding is too narrow to grasp divine things, he might be enabled to grasp it from these words when he hears, “All things were made through him,” and so would certainly not think him something made, since he hears that all things were made by God through him. If he too were something made, John would not have said that all things were made by God through him; for he was not made through himself.

To teach this still more completely, he added: “and without him nothing was made.” By saying this he shut out every controversy and earthly argument. Although there are always some who doubt, yet, when he shows that nothing was made without him, he taught that he must in no way be suspected of being something made. How can he be said to be something made, when God is said to have made nothing without him? If God had made him, Scripture would be lying. But far from it; Scripture is faithful, and, to cut off error, it uses all the clarity it can for the redemption of human salvation.

Then he added: “What was made in him is life.” By “in him,” that is, in the Word, he signifies that what was made is life. As the Lord himself says: “As the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son also to have life in himself”; not that the Word was without life and afterward life was either given to him or made in him, but he wants the Word itself to be understood as life. If it can be said of God the Father that he is one thing and has another in himself, then it can be said of his Son too, since “as the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son also to have life in himself.”

Human speech is not fit to explain divine things; and so what is said seems faulty, that, although the Son of God is not something made, it is said, “what was made in him.” And if he had said, “what was begotten in him,” even that would seem faulty. But to show his generation in substance, he showed, with such words as he could use, the work done in it by which it came to be: that his generation has life in itself.

We live, indeed, but we cannot give life to others, since that life is not in our power; but he is said to have life in himself because he is able to give life and to create whatever he wills, so that it exists and lives. He is said to have been born for this, that he might be able to do all that the Father does, because he has life in himself as the Father has; that is, the Father made all things through him and in him, and begot him so that he would have life in himself, through which he could make all things. Not that he is something other than life, but because his life is able both to live and to create other things that live, he is said to have life in himself. We live, but we do not have life in ourselves so as to give life to others too. The apostle Paul too expresses this sense, saying among other things: “who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn before every creature, because in him all things were founded in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created through him and unto him.”

The gospels of the two apostles, John and Paul, agree; they say the same thing, that the Son of God was begotten before every creature, so as to create the spiritual powers, the world, and the visible things in it. What John said, that what was made in him is life, Paul expressed in the same way when he said that in him all things in heaven and on earth were founded.

And in what follows: “All things were created through him and unto him.” He created “through him” because in substance he is the same God, that is, the Father in the Son; and “unto him” because he so begot the Son that he would have power to make all things visible and invisible. This is what it was to have made life in him: that he should both live and grant life to others, the life of living, acting, and understanding, and life to the other animals, as he willed, being the image of God.

When he is called the image of God, this refers to both things: by an exact birth he has in himself the full likeness of the Father, and he can do whatever the Father can do; so that it is true that the Father is seen in the Son, who is the image of the invisible God.

Because he called the Father invisible, did he make the Son visible, when the Son is certainly by nature what the Father is? And since the heavenly creation is invisible, how much more its Creator! But he meant what is in heaven, not what is on earth; for although the Son too is invisible, yet there, in the heavenly places, he is seen by the apostles and others like them, of whom he said, “Father, I want those whom you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory”; and in another place, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” that is, the Father in the Son, God in his image, which is God in God.

As the image of a body is a body, so the image of God is God, because the Father is the exemplar and the Son an exemplar from the exemplar, which he shares with the Holy Spirit; for he says, “he will take from what is mine.” And therefore God is seen in the Son as in his own image. As no one was found worthy to open the book and its seals except the Word of God, so no one is worthy, either by nature or by merit, to see God the Father except his true Son. There is nothing in between to stand in the way between Father and Son, as he himself testifies to us, saying: “No one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen God.”

But if the Father is seen in the Son, why is no one said to be worthy to see God, when he is seen in the Son, since the Son differs in nothing from the Father? He plainly differs in nothing in substance, because he is the true Son; but he differs in cause or rank, because all power is from the Father in the Son; and though the Son is not lesser in substance, the Father is greater in authority, as the Lord himself testifies, saying: “If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.”

Keeping this measure, the apostle Paul says: “One God the Father, from whom are all things and we in him, and one Lord Jesus, through whom are all things and we through him”; so that the first rank is the one from whom are all things, the second the one through whom are all things, the third the one in whom are all things. And because none of these is degenerate, they are signified within the unity of God, as the apostle says: “For from him and through him and in him are all things; to him be glory.”

I have found that some of our brothers, not having examined the Scriptures fully, but out of simplicity of mind, assert that Adam, when he was made, received the Holy Spirit, which he lost by sinning, as the Spirit is now given to believers. They are led by the reasoning commonly put forward by very many, that through faith man has been restored, so that, brought back to his former state, he received everything Adam had obtained at the beginning; and because Adam must be said to have been made a perfect man, “if he did not have the Holy Spirit,” they say, “he was imperfect.”

But I say that not only man but everything God made, of which it cannot be said that it received the Holy Spirit, is perfect. All kinds of animals are perfect in their own kind, so as to fulfill what they were made for; so too man is perfect in his own kind, able to distinguish evil from good, crooked from right. He is an intelligent animal, perfect for the purpose for which he was made; he is capable of learning, devising, and doing, so that what he cannot accomplish by strength he accomplishes by understanding.

And how have they dared to say that man is born perfect and knows everything, when they see that he knows nothing beyond what is learned here? What he does not learn here, he does not know. Indeed, since he does not learn here what he is, he does not know it. How then does one who does not know what he is know all things, when it is a lesser thing to know oneself than to know everything else? But because he learns about other things and does not learn about himself, he knows about others but does not know about himself, neither what he is, nor whether he exists before the body or after it.

If he had been made so perfect as to need nothing, he would not have been a man but God, and he would not have been deceived and transgressed. To have the Holy Spirit is beyond the nature and perfection of man; it enables him to do the things of God. Was it not beyond the perfection of the ass that it spoke to Balaam? It received the ability to do what belonged not to its nature but to ours.

Because man is more excellent than the other animals, must they then be called imperfect? Or are the holy angels imperfect because they are not what God is? Or are the lights and stars less perfect because they are inferior to the angels above, or because clouds hide the sun and moon behind their veil? And will the members of the body be called imperfect because they need one another, since the feet cannot do what the hands can? Far from it. All things are firm and perfect in their own places and ranks, so as to fulfill the purpose for which they were made.

So all things are perfect, because their Creator is perfect; but compared with him they are imperfect. God is perfect in every respect, as the fount and origin of all things. The things that have been made are perfect for the purpose for which they were made, but not perfect in other respects, because one needs another; each is perfect in what it does not need, not in what it needs. And therefore all things are both perfect and imperfect. The hands need the feet, because unless the feet walk the hands will be idle; and the feet need the hands, for they cannot put on their own shoes or tend themselves.

Though the body is perfect in its members, it cannot fly, nor carry as much as a mule. And though beasts are perfect in their abilities, they do not know how to govern themselves and cannot apply medicine to themselves. Hence it is said: “Do not become like the horse and mule, which have no understanding.” Water and fire, though they oppose each other, are each perfect in their own kind, because they fulfill the purpose for which they were made: fire cooks and consumes, purifies and warms; water washes, cools, irrigates, and refreshes the thirsty.

So although all things are perfect in their own kind, they can do nothing without man, nor man, though he is more perfect, without them. Hence the apostle calls us both imperfect and perfect. Compared with unbelievers we are perfect, because we have come to know God; but because we know less than we ought of what has been promised, since in this life we cannot grasp as much as is believed, we are imperfect. Since, then, they think that Adam’s perfection is restored to believers, let us see whether this restoration contains no more of the divine gift than Adam had received.

Adam, when he was made, “was placed in paradise to work there and to guard it,” that is, to cultivate the earth and to keep God’s precepts, by which he would know that he had received dominion over all things in such a way that he himself still lived under the Creator’s law, lest his dominion exalt him and, puffed up with pride, he forget his maker. He was placed there so that his life would be sustained by food; but through Christ it has been granted that those who rise will need neither food nor drink, because what is mortal in man will be changed into life. Adam was made to dwell on earth; but faith has graciously granted that our dwelling should be in heaven.

Scripture itself testifies: “The first man Adam was made a living soul, but the second man a life-giving spirit. The first man,” it says, “was from the earth, earthly; the second man from heaven, heavenly. As is the earthly, so are those who are earthly; as is the heavenly, so are those who are heavenly.” What could be plainer than that Adam did not have the Holy Spirit? He was made a living soul; but through Christ man is made a life-giving spirit, so that he may be like the Creator in some respect and be what he believes. Because the mystery of faith given for salvation is threefold, man becomes threefold, in body, soul, and the Holy Spirit, through whom we are called sons of God, which Adam is not shown to have been called; for he was made earthly. But the sons of God, born not carnally but spiritually, are called heavenly.

See, it is settled that God’s gift granted far more grace in the Savior’s time than Adam had received, because man was not only restored but also improved: restored in that he was washed of his sins, improved in everything else. Justice and reason both required that God’s kindness should be richer in giving benefits at the time when he willed to make known to creation the mystery of his divinity, so that, knowing what had been unknown for ages and generations, that the mystery of the one God consists in the Trinity, people might be washed of their sins, as at the dedication of something new, and moreover be justified, and, adopted by God, receive the Holy Spirit, through whom they may be seen to bear the sign of adoption. Those adopted by God ought to bear the sign of God the Father, so that they may rightly be called sons of God.

This gift was promised through the prophets, to be given when the mystery of God was to be declared in triumph, with death conquered, so that creation might know that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God. Hence the evangelist says: “The Spirit had not been given, because Jesus had not been glorified.” This is the glorification: when by his power he is recognized to be what he testified about himself; and this glorification gave the gift that had been promised through the prophet Joel. For God says: “In the last days I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,” and so on. And the apostle says among other things: “But when the kindness and humanity of God our Savior appeared, not by works of righteousness that we did, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewal, through the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us abundantly through Christ Jesus our Savior, so that, justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” The apostle confirmed what had been promised through the prophet Joel: that after Jesus was glorified God fulfilled this, pouring out the Holy Spirit on those who believe in Christ; and that to receive the Holy Spirit is to “become an heir of eternal life,” so that, because the Spirit is eternal, whoever has received him has eternal life; for he is the pledge of immortality.

Whoever has received him and remains in his love goes, when this life is over, into heaven to the one whose Spirit he has. It would be incongruous for someone who leaves this world having the Holy Spirit to be held in the underworld. His Spirit is the sign in a person of Christ’s victory, by which he conquered death, so that one in whom his Spirit is cannot be held by the underworld. And therefore the Holy Spirit was not in the ancient saints as he is now in the faithful, because when they left the world they were in the underworld; for it cannot be said that the Holy Spirit was held there along with them under the sentence given to Adam, because of Adam’s sin, which through the descent of the race made all his seed subject to the underworld.

That the Holy Spirit was with the prophets and with righteous men is not in doubt: with the prophets for the sake of the dispensation, with the righteous for the sake of holiness, as is read of holy Simeon, “the Holy Spirit was with him,” not as a sign of adoption in him but because of the grace of his merits. Believers began to be sons of God only when the Son of God was made manifest to all creation, with death conquered.

But if the Holy Spirit is said to have been in Adam and the others as he is now in the faithful, what new gifts did God give when he dedicated the kingdom of his Son in us? And how is the coming of the Savior called a happy and blessed time above all others, if it gave what had already been given? And where then is what the Savior says to the disciples: “Many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it”?

On what grounds, then, can it be said that the blessedness of this time bestowed no greater gift than was bestowed on the ancients? This tends to the Savior’s dishonor, as if he had nothing new to give those who received him at the beginning of his reign, when the rich take pains to give choice gifts to their guests on the festal day of their birthday. How great a dishonor to the Lord, then, to say that he had nothing untried to give to those whom he invited to a new and unheard-of feast, worthy of all praise! And where is the saying of the evangelist John: “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him; but as many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God”? How is what God gave to those who believe in Christ not unprecedented, when he gave them power to become sons of God, that is, brothers of his own Son, born not of the will of flesh and blood or of a man but of God, so as to be born spiritually? Or if this grace is shown to have been granted earlier, then let it be said that the coming of Christ conferred nothing new.

Adam’s making was certainly carnal and earthly, not spiritual. He was not born of God without flesh and blood, but was made by God from the earth. And therefore he could not receive the Holy Spirit, since he was not spiritual and had not been granted to call God Father in prayer. To those who receive the Holy Spirit power has been given, because they have the Spirit of God, to call him Father of Christians in prayer. Because this was not granted before, those who came earlier cannot be said to have had the Holy Spirit. Those who think that Adam or others had the Holy Spirit do not know what kind of gift from God they themselves have, and cannot give him fitting thanks, since, though they have received more than others, they say they have obtained nothing more.

Mercy is one and the same in the rich and in the poor, but it is reckoned differently to the rich and to the poor, because it is more to be praised in the poor than in the rich. The poor man did not fear to give from his scanty means, hoping to be repaid by God both in the present and in the future; for he believes Scripture, which says that whoever gives to the poor will not be in want. Hence that poor woman, while the rich were putting in much, alone was found worthy to be praised by the Lord, because she did not fear to give out of her poverty. The rich give, secure in their riches; the poor man gives, secure in the Lord. The rich do well when they give to the needy, but the poor do much better; and therefore the reward of the poor is one and that of the rich another. If the rich man does not do this, he will be beaten; but so much is not required of the poor, and therefore the merciful poor man is praiseworthy.

Theft is one and the same sin in the poor and in the rich, but it makes the rich man more guilty, because the poor man steals out of need, while the rich man, though he has plenty, is not content with his own and takes what belongs to others. And, what is worse, they usually rob the poor; and so the punishment of the two differs.

Righteousness too is one and the same in the poor and the rich, but it is more praiseworthy in the poor. To keep righteousness in want is a magnificent thing; but the rich man seems to keep righteousness because he is a stranger to want. Both, then, are righteous, but it is greater to keep righteousness in need.

Pride is one and the same, but it is more to be condemned in the poor man than in the rich, because the rich man is lifted up by abundance, but the poor man is proud in his want, which borders on madness; and therefore the poor man is more guilty.

Humility is one and the same, but it is more to be praised in the rich. What great thing is it if a poor man seems humble, when poverty itself makes him humble? But it is magnificent if one who is distinguished by rank and wealth bows himself down, not claiming for himself what he knows he deserves. Humility, then, is good in everyone, but much more so in the rich.

The pursuit of learning and study is one and the same, but it is more praiseworthy in the rich. The poor man, having no advantage to commend him, took pains to acquire something for which he might be sought after; but the rich man, though he did not lack means of distinction, increased himself by his labor so as to be needed on two counts; he did not let his wealth distract him and withdraw his mind from flourishing by his own effort. Therefore he is more worthy of praise than the poor man, who, had he not applied himself to study, would have remained of no account in every respect. Will made the one eager for study; necessity made the other.

Lust is the same in the poor man and in the rich, but it is more damnable in the poor man than in the rich. Want itself ought to call the poor man back from the desire for luxury; he ought to reflect that he lacks the means to satisfy it, and that in hurrying to satisfy it he must commit many other evils, from which he may not escape even in this life, or else, spending what little he has, he will be left a beggar and disgraced. But the rich man’s abundance of delights provokes him to the pleasure of lust; besides, the rich are sure of impunity, knowing that judgments are for sale and that no one will rebuke them. Who would dare to rebuke a rich man supported by rank? Hence they are inflamed the more, so as even to do these things by force. Not only are they not rebuked; they are held in great honor, so that they can even boast of being what they are. But if both, the poor man and the rich, are chaste, the chastity of the rich man differs greatly from that of the poor. The poor man may be held back by his lowly state, so that he cannot do what he wants, or by fear of the laws; but the rich man, since many circumstances combine to entice him to pleasure, is praiseworthy if he turns his mind away from it. So the chaste rich man deserves one reward and the chaste poor man another. And if a king is chaste, that is very glorious: having everything in his power, he does not touch what he knows he could do with impunity. This man truly fears God, this man truly keeps his precepts, who, having the laws in his own power, keeps God’s future judgment before his eyes. It is a great thing that, though in the present he has no one to fear, he overcomes what delights him, since delight is so strong that it fears neither the future nor even the present. Those who overcome it merit much, but this man more, who in the present rules over laws and men. The others fear both men and laws, and that is why they keep their resolve: to avoid shame before people they keep what they have long held, and to avoid condemnation they abstain from what is forbidden. But this man, who because of his power neither fears the laws nor is ashamed before men, wins great glory if he abstains.

I remember reading in a certain little book of Eusebius, a man once distinguished in other respects, that not even the Holy Spirit knows the mystery of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ; and I am amazed that a man of such learning should have inflicted this stain on the Holy Spirit. By saying this he marked him as degenerate. One who does not know the things of God cannot be said to be from God, because an inferior nature does not know what is in a superior one. But if he is of the same substance and divinity, how can he not know what is his own? Indeed the Son of God, after saying, “I and the Father are one,” because of the unity of substance, rightly added: “All that is the Father’s is mine, and what is mine is the Father’s.”

Therefore, if the Holy Spirit is of the same divinity, on what grounds is he set apart so as not to have the same knowledge, when it is not denied that he is of the same substance? You grant the greater and withhold the lesser. A creature learns and begins to know some things about its maker, and what it has learned is then shared with its maker; but substance or divinity cannot be shared by God and a creature. God’s substance has nothing to learn, because there is nothing it does not know; but human substance does not have knowledge by nature, but only the capacity to learn. So knowledge comes to human nature as something added, yet the substance is not changed, because human nature lacks knowledge; the substance was created in such a way as to acquire knowledge through exercise.

Substance, then, is greater than knowledge, because knowledge does not acquire substance, but substance acquires knowledge; substance exists without knowledge, but knowledge cannot exist without substance. In God, however, as there is substance, so there is knowledge; a substance that has nothing to learn is itself its own knowledge. For this reason everything in God is called substantial. A substance that lacks nothing has everything substantially, because nothing came to it by study.

How, then, can it be said of the Holy Spirit that he does not know the birth of the Son of God, if he is consubstantial with him? Can one and the same substance both know and not know? Certainly the Son of God did not learn the mystery of his own birth; he knows it substantially, not by teaching. By what reasoning, then, is the Holy Spirit said not to know, when he too has nothing to learn, because he knows all things by substance?

For like the Son of God, the Holy Spirit too is the substance of God, as the Lord says: “All that the Father has is mine,” by which he indicated that God the Father’s substance is his own substance. And he says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and receives from what is his: “Therefore,” he says, “I said, he will take from what is mine, because all that the Father has is mine.” If he proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son, how can he not know the Son’s birth, when his substance is the Son’s substance? For all that is the Father’s is the Son’s. Without doubt, then, the Father’s substance is in the Holy Spirit. For the Son added: “and all that is mine is the Father’s.”

Why, then, is there doubt about the Holy Spirit, whether he is of the same divinity, when he is of the same substance? As the Lord said of himself that he came forth from God, so he testifies of the Holy Spirit. And so that this could not be interpreted otherwise, he says, “he proceeds from the Father,” and, “he will take from what is mine,” so that proceeding from the Father is the same as receiving from Christ. When he is said to receive from the Son of God, there is no doubt that he too is from God, so that there is no doubt that the substance and divinity of the Father are in the Holy Spirit.

So whoever says that he does not know the birth of the Son of God disparages the one from whom he is said to have received. He received nothing other than what the one from whom he received is, because to have received from Christ means to have proceeded from God; and therefore he cannot fail to know what the one from whom he received knows, nor can he be said to be ignorant of God, since he proceeded from God.

Certainly the Son of God, because he is from God the Father, knows all things of God. Why then should the Holy Spirit be denied knowledge of what is Christ’s, since he has received from him? So if the Son of God knows the things that are in God, there is no doubt that the Holy Spirit too is not ignorant of the things in the Son of God; and because he knows what is in the Son, he must not be said to be ignorant of what is in God. From the one from whom he received, he has knowledge of God.

And why do we labor, when the apostle is our witness in this matter, saying, “No one knows the things that are in God except the Spirit of God”? See, what we sweated over for so long we have accomplished with the apostle’s help. Did he prejudice the Son of God by saying that no one knows the things in God except the Spirit of God? Far from it. Neither did the Son prejudice the Holy Spirit when he said, “No one knows the Father except the Son.” He said that no one knows what is in God except the one who is from God, because everything that is from God knows God and what is in God. God’s nature knows itself; and since you understand that it is also in the Holy Spirit, because he proceeded from the Father and received from the Son, it is not safe to say that he does not know God the Father, whose nature you recognize in him.

And yet the Savior said that no one knows God except the Son in such a way as to reserve this knowledge for another person; for he at once added, “and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” To whom, do you think, does the Son wish to reveal him? No one can be dearer to him than his own Spirit; for “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ,” it says, “he does not belong to him.” How, then, do you think God the Father is revealed by the Son to the Holy Spirit, except as the Lord himself says, “he will take from what is mine”? God the Father cannot be revealed to a creature, because a creature cannot bear God’s nature unless it is of the same substance; for he dwells in light that is inaccessible, inaccessible, that is, to creatures.

But some think it right to say that the Holy Spirit does not know the mystery of the Son of God’s birth, because he is said to search all things, and “one who searches,” they say, “certainly does not know.” This must be understood from other passages; for these are the words of God, who says among other things, “I am God who search the reins and hearts,” and in the psalm, “God, searching hearts and reins,” and the apostle, “He who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit desires, because he intercedes for the saints according to God’s will.”

From these examples, when the Spirit of God is said to search, it means that he is not ignorant. He is said to search “even the depths of God”; and what are the depths of God, which he is said to see through? To search means to penetrate hidden things, so that nothing is believed to be hidden from him. The depths of God are God’s inner mysteries, which cannot be searched out by a creature. He is also read to intercede for the saints according to God’s will, which the saints themselves certainly do not know, as the apostle says: “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought.” So to know the depths of God and not to be ignorant of God’s will mean the same thing. What mystery is so deep as the will of God, which is known to the Holy Spirit but unknown to all others?

We must consider how it was said that “no one knows what is in a man except the spirit of the man that is in him.” By spirit he meant the mind, because no one knows what is in a person’s mind except his mind, which is his spirit. So too no one knows the things that are in God except the Spirit of God, that is, God himself.

One who is from God is understood to be nothing other than what God is. Therefore the Spirit of God knows what is in God, because he is from God. If no one knows human thoughts except God, how much more can no one know God’s secrets and will unless he is from God, that is, the same God himself! For he is known to himself alone.

Indeed in God there are no thoughts. He does not deliberate within himself what to do or not to do, considering whether it is expedient; for everything that is in God is without hesitation, not by accident but by substance, not by study but by nature, because he does not change. And therefore the Holy Spirit knows the mysteries of God in no other way than through substance; for one substance has one mind and one will.

He is speaking of God, who is always one and unchangeable, whether in the Son or in the Holy Spirit. What the Father wills, the Son also wills; and what the Son wills, the Holy Spirit wills as well. For this reason he is sometimes called the Spirit of God and sometimes the Spirit of Christ, because “he goes forth from God,” it says, and “he will take from what is mine.”

Hence the apostle John says: “By this we know that God remains in us, from his Spirit whom he has given us.” If, then, God is said to remain in us when the Spirit of God remains in us, the Spirit of God is shown to be God.

Indeed this is the sign by which believers are shown to be sons of God: when they receive him, they dare to call themselves sons of God. Unless they had the sign of deity, they could not be called sons of God. For no one is a true son of God, wholly from the whole, as Christ is; but they become sons of God by adoption, so that, receiving the Spirit of Christ, they are called sons of God through him, because the Spirit whom they have in them is from God. In sons, even adopted ones, something of the Father’s substance ought to be seen in some measure.

In the world, because things are imperfect, sons adopted by human beings receive no pledge but only a name; but God, because he is perfect, does more, giving his Spirit to those he adopts, so that through him those adopted by God may be seen to have some reality; for names without realities are empty.

Our apostle supports this claim of ours when he says: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how untraceable his ways!” Why is it that, though elsewhere he says that the depths of God, that is, his secrets, can be searched, here he denies it, saying they are unsearchable? In this place he said that God’s secrets or judgments are unsearchable to the creature; but of the Holy Spirit, because he knows all that is God’s, he said that everything in God can be searched, so as to assert that the Spirit of God is not ignorant of what is unknown to the creature. The nature of God, then, cannot be denied to one who knows what no creature can grasp.

Those who call the Holy Spirit degenerate attack God’s design, for God declared that the salvation of all creation consists in the divinity of the Trinity. If the Spirit is not consubstantial with God and Christ, it is absurd to place him among the number of the Father and the Son, so that without him there is neither salvation nor dignity for anyone. If he is not of the same divinity, this was done either foolishly or by favoritism, which God forbid. What prudent person would deny that the Creator cannot be counted together with a creature, the eternal compared with what is subject to a beginning, the Lord made equal to a servant, the powerful set beside the powerless, or the one who knows reckoned with the ignorant?

But now let the slander cease. He is third in order, not in nature; in rank, not in divinity; in person, not in ignorance. As the Son of God is second from the Father and not lesser in divinity, so the Holy Spirit, coming after the Son, is not unequal but equal in the divinity of the substance.

Indeed what we read of the Son of God we read also of the Holy Spirit, with the Son himself as our witness. For he says: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, the Spirit of truth.” When he said “another,” he showed that he himself is a Paraclete. The apostle John declares this when he says that the Son of God intercedes for our sins, and the apostle Paul says, “The Spirit of God himself intercedes for us.” See, Scripture shows that both are advocates. And when he called him the Spirit of truth, he showed that the Spirit differs in nothing from himself, for he said, “I am the truth.” He said he was sent by the Father, and he himself promised to send the Holy Spirit. If he is not unequal to the one who sends him, neither is the Holy Spirit unequal to him. Nor, because they are three, is each a member of the other, so as to have different powers. The power of the three is one, so that nothing is lacking to any of them.

Let this be the end; the rest, concerning the undivided unity of the Trinity, has been fully treated in the little book composed against the Arian impiety.

It is written that the righteous man’s righteousness will not profit him on the day he goes astray, and that the wicked man’s wickedness will not harm him when he turns back; and the Lord says in the gospel: “Whoever has not believed is already judged,” so as to indicate by this that whoever has believed is not subject to judgment to receive a sentence, but will be worthy of praise by the merit of his faith.

The knowledge of God, then, has this privilege, that it obtains the forgiveness of sins. One who believes that Jesus is the Son of God becomes worthy to be freed from all sins. Long astray in error and tossed in every direction by the waves of ignorance, he has been lit by the flash of truth and has found a harbor where he may rest secure after his great storms. It is fitting for him, once he has knowledge, to refrain from the things he did long ago when he was in ignorance. What good is knowledge if the former way of life remains? One is seen to have known God when he changes his life and conduct.

Once God is known he ought to be feared, because he is preached as the one who will judge, so that the faithful may receive the fruit of their righteousness and the ungodly, that is, unbelievers, pay the penalties their faithlessness deserves. It is fitting that the righteous should rejoice in the future, where Christ will reign with his own, so that those who in this world, whose prince is the devil, are held in contempt and subjected to injuries, may appear glorious in the kingdom of Christ, for whose sake they were judged contemptible by worldly people; and that the unrighteous, because they seem to flourish falsely, fighting the truth with lies, should be afflicted in punishment, so that those who seemed glorious through pretense may, through the truth, appear despised and utterly humbled. Then the righteous will rejoice that they believed, when they see the faithless tormented; and the faithless will not repent of not having believed until they see their own punishment and the glory of those whom they thought foolish and contemptible for believing.

So from the moment someone professes to be a Christian, he ought to strive not to sin. He must arm himself against vices, and, since it is impossible always to win, if he is conquered he must grieve, so as not to be conquered again; for one who grieves at being conquered restores himself. One who fights back, then, has an excuse if he is conquered; he shows that he wished to win but did not prevail. For him there is hope that he can restore himself, so that by constant practice he may be found more skilled and stronger in the fight.

But one who rises up in order to sin is inexcusable and has a very grave case. It is worse to live under the profession of God and have the will to sin than for someone who does not know God to live shamefully and defiled. The latter does not know whom he ought to fear; the former knowingly despises him.

Believers, then, receive the forgiveness of sins; yet they will not be glorious unless, after receiving the faith, they live in the fear of God, so that, wrestling against the enemies of the Christian name, they win the victory and can merit the reward, conquering more often than they are conquered.

Someone who understands God and yet does not come to his faith, so as not to have to live as a Christian, but wants to receive the faith at the end so as to die a Christian, is either ashamed to live as a Christian or is devoting himself to sins that he thinks can be forgiven him once he has believed. I do not think such a person has a good case: so that he may sin as long as he is in the world, he does not want to become a Christian and live as one, or he is ashamed to be called a Christian. What kind of God does he hope for, from whom he wants to receive wages while ashamed to serve under him? Such a person is a mocker. Knowing that, with death at hand, he no longer has time to sin, he then wants to become a Christian, so that, since he can no longer sin, he says he believes in Christ, who abhors sin; so that it is not that he no longer wills to sin, but that he cannot, death forestalling him. To such people it must be read out that God is not mocked.

Such people often even give instructions that the faith should be given to them when they are already failing, out of their minds, and only gasping for breath, fearing that they might recover and be put to shame for having been made Christians. To them should be recited the words of the gospel: “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the kingdom of his Father.”

But perhaps they will say: “Knowing that the human race is frail, we want to receive the faith at the end of life so that we may no longer sin.” But the faith must be received in such a way that the one receiving knows what he receives. He will have its benefit only if he knows and professes it, for “with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” How then can one who no longer knows where he is be said to receive it? He has received who professes that he has received, knowing that he has received. If they believe that forgiveness of sins is given to believers, they ought to know that the one who believes is the one who believes with his own heart as witness, because God, who made the promise, sees the heart; he accepts the one whom he sees believing in his heart. How, then, will someone whose heart does not attend to the words of faith have its benefit?

A person may be seen to fear becoming a Christian by receiving the faith, if he is seen to act so as not to sin lightly afterward. But one who is eager to sin does not want to receive the faith for this reason, lest he be compelled to live well, which he evidently does not want; but at death he wants to obtain impunity, hoping for forgiveness of his past evils, so as to be secure about both the past and the future, since, being about to die, he certainly will no longer be able to sin.

But it is not done with good counsel or with a clean conscience to want to receive the faith at the moment when one can no longer sin, rather than when one no longer wishes to sin. To such people that saying applies: “Let us do evil that good may come,” that is, “Let us sin now and believe at the end, and it will be forgiven us.” And therefore he added: “Their condemnation is just.” It is not fitting that forgiveness of sins should be given to those who, already knowing God, who does not want sin to be committed and hates sinners, are eager to sin, unwilling to see that God’s gift benefits those who sin in ignorance of God, not knowing that God will judge. But for one who has heard, has considered it with himself, and has the wish to sin, not so as to be overcome by some compelling cause but because he wants to sin, it is hard to be pardoned.

There are two ways that bring forgiveness of sins: one by the gift, the other by penance, so that one who has sinned after the gift may be restored by penance. Because he did not remain in the grace he received, so as to persevere in freedom, but again subjected himself to sin, he obtains the blotting out of his sin by lamentation and groaning. He sinned knowingly and deliberately; not that anyone is ignorant of what sin is, but one who does not know that God will judge thinks that his sin will go unpunished.

And therefore a gentile who falls ill and, in despair of life itself, considers within himself the faith and the promised hope has an intact case: his sins are forgiven him as he believes, and he is not held in the underworld, carrying with him the sign of death conquered and despoiled; yet he does not have rank or reward. There ought to be some difference between one who, moved by love for his lord, did not fear to fight against his lord’s enemies, arming himself with continence and guarding against all vices so as to resist evil, always anxious how to defend his lord’s rule; and one who sided with his lord’s enemies and assisted them, and returned to his lord at the end of his life, not to defend his lord’s kingdom but to benefit himself alone, discharged before he was ever a soldier.

One who prefers to live as a Christian, so as to be rewarded after death, knows that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory that will be revealed in us; and so, taking up the arms of faith, he does not hesitate to engage the principalities and powers, so that, victorious in this world, he may be crowned after it. It is fitting that one who, among the faithless and rebellious, bears witness to his lord’s kingdom in the present should receive the reward for it in the future; so that God’s enemies, seeing the witness of Christ exalted in God’s kingdom for the truth of his confession, may grieve in confusion that they thought false what has been declared true; and that those who believed late, confessing God not in life but in death, seeing how great is the glory of those who serve under Christ’s arms and wage their emperor’s wars devoutly and faithfully, may regret that they did not live as Christians, but only died as Christians.

One who had no wish to live as a Christian may seem hardly fit to die as one. Perhaps, already about to die, he wanted to be called a Christian because there was no longer time to sin. “In case,” he says, “what is believed is true, I want to become a Christian, losing nothing if what is believed is false.” Since at death it is not the will to sin but the sinning that ceases, he tries to see whether faith can profit him after death; whereas what would have been useful was that his vices and sins be amended here, where they were committed.

A person proves that he has condemned his past when, following the line of faith, he is seen to change his conduct and life. If before he sinned because he did not know God, once he knows him he ought to sin no more, lest it be in vain that he came to know him; there ought to be some progress from the knowledge of God. A Christian is to be recognized before his profession is heard: Christians are proved by works more than by name. For this reason commandments were given that are purer than other laws and concerned with holiness, so that the worship of God might be seen in them; otherwise people will hear: “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?” By this he indicated that it profits to call the Lord Lord only if his commandments are kept; one who calls him Lord whose precepts he despises seems to be mocking him. To such a person must be recited the words of the law that say that God is not mocked. So whoever calls him Lord, while showing by his works that he does not fear him at all, will be condemned by his own words.

I think no one doubts that this world was built for the sake of man. Though it consists of different substances, it is one, fitted together with many members, so that through their mutual working the things that man would need might be produced. A house was made for man, with its provisions, in such a way that each of these things came into being on the earth according to its kind; that is, the things made had this power implanted in them, that the offspring of each kind should be produced on the earth. Origins were established whose seed would serve the procreation of the kinds that were to multiply upon the earth.

Hence Scripture testifies: “And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply upon the earth.” In the same way the human race too was blessed, as we see in the law, for we find it written: “The people increased and multiplied in Egypt.” With the same blessing with which the things created for man’s use were blessed, man too was blessed, so that likewise, from male and female, the offspring of the human race should increase and multiply upon the earth; and so that, as seeds were to be improved by cultivation, so the human race too, taking care, should strive, once it had received knowledge of the Creator, to bridle its life so as to win his favor, so that all things together might serve the praise and glory of the Creator.

And since these words mean nothing else, the facts themselves bear witness. Everything that was made has been multiplied and improved on the earth at God’s command; nothing could grow except as God’s will and blessing decreed for the seeds. How, then, can it be said that what increases by God’s blessing and with his favor is done wrongly or is not lawful? The tradition of this both remained in the synagogue and is now celebrated in the church: that God’s creature is joined in marriage under God’s blessing, certainly not by presumption, since the pattern was given in this way by its author himself.

But if it is thought that marriage ought to cease, it will have to cease when the other things that were likewise blessed to multiply cease too; for if the generation of human beings ceases, what use will there be for the things born on the earth that were blessed? The world cannot be at work in one part and cease in another; either the whole of it works or the whole of it rests in idleness. Is a body useful when some of its members are vigorous and others numb?

Why, then, do some assert that what has been blessed by God is a sordid and defiled work, unless because they in a sense lay hands on God himself? They would not find fault with this unless they thought ill of God, its author. Because they are afraid to disparage God openly, they accuse him through the work he devised; for when the work displeases, the author is blamed.

But if such people read, or rather accepted, the Scriptures, they would remember Balaam, who said: “How shall I curse whom God blesses?” In vain is he accused who is praised by the judge; rather, one who calls guilty a man whom the laws defend accuses himself. Who are you, then, who think to condemn what you read has been blessed by God, unless you either deny that this is God or accuse Scripture of falsehood?

For there are some who, as if receiving new things, think that the old are to be rejected. But the new precepts made known to the peoples through Christ do not disagree with the old. For he himself, when asked to go to a wedding, did not disdain it, and not only made it illustrious by his presence, but also supplied what was lacking for its gladness. For it is written that wine gladdens the heart of man. And to show that he had done this according to the will of God his Father, when the Jews asked whether it was lawful for a man to put away his wife, he answered, saying among other things: “Since from the beginning God made male and female, and said: For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be in one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined, let man not separate.” This is why, when asked to a wedding, he went gladly, so as not to seem to weaken the work of God his Father; rather, showing that the teaching of the old law and of the new agree, he not only did not forbid weddings but even deigned to be present at them, giving them his testimony that God is their author; and he showed by a saving precept that what has been joined by God ought neither to be forbidden nor separated.

And because being born is a benefit, when he was already leaving the world he entrusted his mother to his disciple John. For this reason we too are taught by all the commandments of the old and new law to honor our parents; and the law warns that if we do not, we will incur a curse.

So what presumption is it, or from what law does it come, to shut off the way to marriage, when both the new and the old law are seen to favor it in every respect? It is what we read: that whatever goes beyond this comes from evil. Hence the apostle says that people of this kind have a seared conscience, who forbid marriage and teach abstinence from foods that God created to be received. They are marked out as doing this in hypocrisy, out of hostility, so as to bring a charge against the law that God handed down.

These people stretch out their hands against saving precepts in order to commend the commands of a perverse doctrine, and therefore they are said to have a seared conscience. With a corrupted mind they know one thing and profess another, like the Jews, who knew that the Savior’s deeds were works of the Holy Spirit, yet out of envy said that he cast out demons by Beelzebul, so as to turn the people away from faith in him. Such is the cunning of those mentioned above. To pretend that they love chastity and holiness, they even say that marriage is to be condemned, so as to win esteem by this and turn the people from the truth; and, feigning devotion to abstinence, they teach abstaining from foods, so as to show by this that they are strangers to the world and hastening to the heavenly kingdom. By enticing people’s minds in this way, they go on to teach that unlawful things are lawful, and to condemn lawful things as though they were not permitted.

These are Satan’s tricks: to turn things upside down, so that, as if introducing something new, he shuts out the truth, in which nothing is new, because the whole of it is eternal. Who would not notice that this view was put together by the adversary? Who would dare to reject what God devised, something that never harmed anyone, except the adversary of truth? To cover his own impurity he preaches holiness, which he does not love; and while he shows himself by this to be well meaning, he urges unlawful things as lawful. He commends himself in order to deceive more readily, and so, having caught the unwary, he suggests things by which to make them greater sinners. To bring some relief to his own case, he persuades people to sin greatly, seeking great consolation from this, since he can show many partners in his crime; he thinks his punishment light, though it is heavy, if he sees many with him in Gehenna. As for other sins, let people look to it, when they are overcome by vices, or when out of ignorance they defend what is not punished here.

What contrary desire deceives, or what fog stands in the way, so that what is true is not seen! Written words often seem to mean something else when they are either badly read aloud or wrongly punctuated. But when it is read, “God made,” and “he blessed what he made,” who would dispute it? Who would doubt it? Who, hearing that something was blessed, would think it cursed, unless he were driven by another spirit? If this were said to be a man’s voice, some deceit might perhaps be suspected; but God is said to speak, and do you doubt? God blesses, and is it to be rejected?

But perhaps Moses introduced error under God’s name! Let the signs and wonders done through Moses in Egypt satisfy you; let the marvels done at the Red Sea to free the sons of Israel persuade you; hear the magicians confessing, “This is the finger of God”; agree with the apostle, who says: “For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” And from where did the apostle say these things? Scripture is at hand, in which we read that Christ our Lord said to the Jews: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me too, for Moses wrote of me.” Who would refuse faith to this harmony? Who would dare to say that what is one is at odds with itself? Who has so evil a mind as to claim that undivided love looks like enmity? See, you have both the testimony of words and the examples of mighty works to bring your mind under the truth, so that you think nothing true except what the books of the catholic church contain.

Since it has been proved, then, that the same God who is ours now was in the old covenant, and that he is shown to be true by many tokens of mighty works, his authority ought to be preferred so far that even what we think harsh and perhaps absurd should be accepted, and thought of otherwise than we suppose, if it is commended by God’s judgment; for we ought to believe God more than ourselves. Our weakness and inexperience often judge harmful things useful and take false things for true, which it is impious even to suspect of God, for his is not a nature that can be deceived. How much more, then, should there be no doubt about marriage, when God has spoken! It is a plain and simple matter.

Certainly every person rejoices when he has obtained God’s favor, and believes himself made better as he learns the mystery of the Creator; and he would certainly not attain this unless he had been born. Why, then, does he lament what he rejoices in, and condemn what he boasts of having learned? If he rejoices that he has learned, and he would not have learned unless he had been born, it is without doubt good to be born, because the fruit of birth is knowledge of the truth. But if it is evil to be born, knowledge will not be good either; for what good will knowledge do if birth is condemned? If it is neither expedient nor right to be born, it is pointless for one who is to be condemned to learn. But since no one is so dull as to deny that the knowledge of God profits human beings, it is good and useful. Through it birth is made better, so that it merits more than was given to Adam; for believers will reign in heaven, not on earth, in the paradise of God the Father, not in the one in which Adam had been ordered to work with his body.

If the encaenia were celebrated at Jerusalem, that is, the festival of the dedication of the Lord’s temple, how much more should the birthday of man himself be celebrated, who is more truly the temple of God, and for whom a temple made with hands was built for giving thanks to God! Our body is a better temple, because it was built by God’s work, the other by human labor; and this one is in hope of eternity, that one of destruction. So one who knows that he was born by God’s design, to give him thanks, having come to know his mystery, ought to rejoice on his birthday, seeing the profit of his birth. Those, indeed, ought not to have been born who abandon their Creator and give his glory to others; their birth leads to punishment. Yet it is not birth that incurs guilt, but the will.

But who are you who forbid marriage? Perhaps you are Marcion, since you think the body was fashioned not by God but by the devil, and you contend that the soul suffered a fall through some error, so as to come to the regions of darkness in which the world now is. How, then, could it be freed from here if begetting were forbidden? Having been born, you came to know your fall and took pains to return to your ancestral home, restored to your source. Indeed you say that you give thanks to Christ, through whom you rejoice to have gained this knowledge. Come now: if you had not been born, there would be no knowledge, and no liberation would follow. So if you rejoice that the soul is set free, favor birth; for if you oppose birth, you are an enemy of souls.

Or if you are a Manichaean, who reject marriage as hostile, I ask you: if bodies were not begotten, how would the soul, which you say has been poured out into the region of darkness and clings to material things, be rescued from here? You have it written in your books that it is freed by being born, so that souls leaving their bodies are received by the moon and handed on to the sun, which you claim is the god of your souls. You rejoice when you are called Manichaeans, for by this name you claim your liberation, which you certainly would not know unless you had been born. It is plain from afar, then, that you condemn marriage in hypocrisy. Professing holiness, you secretly pursue uncleanness, which has been exposed not only privately but also by the edicts of the emperors.

Hear now, catholic, with the gospel as witness, that human birth is a benefit. When Simeon, a righteous man, wished to depart from the world, thinking that knowledge of the Creator without knowledge of his mystery was enough for him, he was not permitted to do so until he had grown in the perception of God, so as to have the full reward of his faith. Indeed, taking the newborn Savior in his arms, he blessed God and said: “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” It is clearly shown that God’s benefit lies in human birth, when the righteous man who was thinking of death was told that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. He advanced so far in life that he became worthy to see even in the present the one he hoped for as his deliverer after death. How, then, can it be said that birth did not benefit one who was kept alive and not permitted to die until he had seen the fruit of his hope, so that he might be secure that he was passing from life to life?

If it were an evil that we are born, we would not be promised paradise, or eternal life, or the kingdom of heaven, but punishment, Gehenna, and perdition; so that one who knew he was born for perdition would fear to beget another, and it would not be lawful for one unlawfully born to beget.

But perhaps it will be said: “The kingdom of heaven has indeed been promised, but to the faithful and to those who do good.” Rightly so. You see, then, that people become guilty not because they were born but because they lived badly. The kingdom of heaven was not promised to the unborn, so that those to whom it will not be given could blame their birth; it was promised to the born who do good, so that birth neither profits the one who does evil nor can harm the one who does good.

By the faithful and those who do good, birth is made better; by the faithless and those who do evil, it is made worse. Birth is like a tree that is grafted: if it is grafted with a good shoot, it becomes better and is called good; but if it is grafted with a bad shoot, it becomes worse and is called not good but bad. So too, if good teaching is added to birth, it will produce good fruit; if bad teaching, bad fruit. As a tree is needed so that there is something to graft into, so birth is needed so that there is something that can make progress.

But someone replies: “If birth is useful, why is a person reborn?” We would not be reborn unless birth were useful. To be reborn is to be renewed, and one who is renewed is restored. So rebirth does not accuse birth but re-forms it; and what is re-formed is shown to have been well established from the beginning. When we are reborn, then, we are changed in purpose, having received the cleansing of the body, so as to be brought back to Adam’s original state. The body was stained by the soul’s sin, and once the purpose has been restored and improved through faith, it is washed, so that, as it was defiled through contempt of God, it may be washed through obedience, escape the sentence given to Adam, and be able to rise again.

So if sin began from the soul, why is the nature of the body accused? In Adam’s sin there was no bodily desire; rather the soul, lured by the hope of deity, transgressed God’s command, so that it subjected its body to sin and human beings came to be born under sin. This does a person no harm, provided he obeys God’s law, except that he dies; and for this God’s goodness has promised a reward. Since they are found faithful in devotion to the Creator, but were made subject to corruption and death through Adam’s transgression, they will receive for this from God the judge more than was granted to Adam: in the future they will be glorious, have eternal life, and be called adopted sons of God, so that it is a gain that they were born.

From here I will now return to the rest of the reading. When man had been placed in paradise, he received these commands: “From every tree that is in paradise for food you shall eat; but from the tree by which good and evil are known, you shall not eat.” All the trees it mentions were created bearing fruit for eating. They are called trees by one name but are understood to differ in their fruits; yet all are trees, and eating is one kind of act, though what is eaten differs. When God had created many fruit trees for man to eat, as I said, he forbade eating from one tree, so that those who had received all things into their power might show reverence for the Creator in some respect, one tree being reserved over which they had no freedom, so that they would remember the law of their condition.

How could the kind of sin be understood from the sentence? This sentence fits the murderer, the sorcerer, the adulterer, and the disgraced alike. Achan son of Carmi, when he had sinned, was sentenced to be consumed with all his household. How can the kind of sin be understood from the sentence? It can be known that the offense was great, but not what kind of offense it was. We know that others too were condemned to this sentence, though they are known to have sinned differently: both Haman and the Sodomites are known to have perished with all their families. So it happens that people guilty of one sin are struck with different sentences, and sinners guilty of different crimes are punished in one and the same way. Therefore the kind of sin committed by Adam and Eve cannot be understood from the sentence given them.

Although their sin was one, the man and the woman received their sentences each according to their own person, and the serpent too, so that they would not only fail to remain as they had been made but would also have toil added to them as punishment. When all the cattle and animals had been subjected to man, as we read, the serpent rose up against this order and, getting the better of man by deceit and fraud, had made him its subject; for whoever captures someone without doubt makes him his own. For this reason the serpent, so that its cunning would not achieve its effect, is brought back by God’s sentence and pressed down below what it had been made, so as not to be above man, and so that it grieves not only that its cleverness gained it nothing but that it has been made worse. For though it is read to have been more cunning than the other beasts, after it deceived man it was made cursed above all the beasts of the earth.

After the sentence on the serpent, it follows that the woman too, whom it had made its partner in despising God’s law, receives a sentence. For he says: “I will greatly multiply your sorrows and your groaning; in sorrow you will bear children, and your turning will be to your husband, and he will rule over you.” No one confirms what he himself condemns. If children were granted because she had usurped intercourse, then the usurpation gave more than it took. If, because he said, “in sorrow you will bear children,” you think that generation began from this point, what becomes of the saying, “Increase and multiply”? Understand, then, that this was added only as punishment: what had been granted before with gladness had sorrow added to it as a penalty. And so that it might press on the woman all the harder and more often, the turning to her husband is added, so that there would be occasion for the same pain to be renewed for her again.

If the Lord condemned intercourse in his servants, why did he add, “your turning is to your husband”? No one imposes as a punishment the very thing he condemns, since a punishment is surely the opposite of what is condemned and never comes from the same thing, but from its contrary; if the two coincided, no one would fear condemnation. Would anyone sentence a person to the very thing by which he saw the law broken? That would be to confirm sin, not to punish it. Some believe that the woman’s turning to her husband arose from the fact that she had had intercourse; but the truth is that the turning, simply granted before, was laid on her now with the utmost servitude as a punishment. Since the man had been made subject through the woman, and she seemed without doubt to be the superior, for he followed her counsel, thinking what she urged would profit him, so that God’s work seemed to be undone by the serpent’s subtlety, God’s sentence restores the original order: the woman returns to the subjection of her condition, humbled under the man, as had been established, and what is added as punishment is added to her, when she hears: “I will greatly multiply your sorrows and your groaning; in sorrow you will bear children, and your turning will be to your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Was it ever decreed otherwise than that the woman should be subject to the man’s authority? From this it appears that the woman was brought back to what she had been made, with an addition. Hence he says, “I will greatly multiply your sorrows and your groaning.” What does he multiply? He adds to what is less; he is not seen to work on what does not exist. Here, then, the sentence does not begin the work of creating, which had been granted before in “Increase and multiply,” but brings harm to the creation that had been granted. For the woman, pain is added in bearing children and difficulty imposed; no new form of procreation is established. If generation is rightly thought to come from this sentence, it might be understood that generation came into being by the serpent’s will rather than the Lord’s, and then it would truly be, as he said, a brood of vipers. But if anyone thinks he was born in this way, let him consider what he deserves: that because of sin the pain of childbirth was increased for the woman, so that she who would have had little pain in bearing children had it increased because of the offense; for children are borne with groaning and sorrow, and once born they are not had without sadness.

Now, third, this sentence is pronounced on the man: “Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree from which I had commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground in your works, and in sorrows you shall eat from it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,” and so on. Here too Adam is brought back to what he had been made for, but with loss. Before, he had been placed to work the ground simply, so that the fruit of his labor would follow; but when he despised God’s command, believing that the serpent’s counsel would provide better for him than God had made, he was brought back to his original task with the expense of toil, so that the ground, cursed not in itself but in his works, would in no way answer to his labor, and so that it might be shown that God’s purpose cannot be overthrown and that no one can provide better than God. No one can love another’s work more than the one who made it, as the apostle says: “For no one hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church.”

Let us now see whether what follows in the law agrees with its beginnings. When Abraham had pleased God, among the rewards of his faith he was judged worthy, in old age, to beget a son. How then can that be blamed which was clearly granted as a reward, so that, because he had done God’s will, God fulfilled his? It would not have been fulfilled unless it were harmless; God would not fulfill what he saw asked badly or ignorantly, especially by one who pleased him; this does not befit even a human being. And Hannah, when she was barren and loved God, asked to have a son and received one. If it were contrary to God’s will, she could have been warned by him whom she loved not to ask for a harmful thing. And the most holy Samuel, born of her, begot sons and yet did not lessen the merits of his righteousness; from his youth he always grew, so as to be commended in old age by an even fuller testimony from God. And Zechariah the priest, a righteous man, begot a son in his old age at God’s bidding, and at his birth was found worthy to prophesy. On what grounds, then, is that blamed which is shown to do no harm at all? And who would deny that what harms no one ought to be called good?

And it strengthens the case if something is said here about the apostles too. Certainly holy John kept the holiness of celibacy; but his fellow disciple, the equally holy Peter, is known to have had a wife and children, and the begetting of children did not prevent him from receiving the primacy among the apostles. How then is that thought worthy of condemnation which does not hinder merit?

Hence the apostle shows that a man who has a wife can and should become a priest, if he keeps the commandments in other respects. If marriage were unlawful, he certainly could not say that a sinner ought to become a priest. And what could be plainer? It is the same apostle who says: “Concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord.” When the Corinthians were troubled by heretics who in hypocrisy taught that marriage should be condemned, they consulted the apostle by letter whether it was lawful to marry or to put away a wife. Then the apostle commanded that a wife ought not to depart from her husband, when he had occasion to say, if he had known it was to be taught, that it was in no way lawful for a woman to marry a husband. What he knew had not been handed down to him, he showed he could not teach. Which of his disciples, then, would dare to teach what was not handed down by the master, whom he hears declaring, “I want young women to marry and bear children”?

But perhaps it will be said: “If it is lawful and good to marry, why are priests not allowed to have wives, that is, why may those already ordained not come together with them?” Who does not know that each person has a law according to his person and rank? There are things that are not lawful for anyone at all; there are things that are lawful for some and not for others; and there are things that are lawful at some times and not at others. Sexual immorality is never lawful for anyone; but trading is sometimes lawful and sometimes not. Before someone becomes a cleric he may trade; once he has been made one, he may not. And for a Christian to come together with his wife is sometimes lawful and sometimes not. Because of the days of procession, it is sometimes not lawful to come together, since one must abstain even from what is lawful so that what is asked may be obtained more easily. Hence the apostle says that one must abstain by consent for a time, “so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.” For according to the law too, on a fast day it is not lawful to strike or quarrel, though afterward it is, because greater reverence is owed to the things of God.

Is everything that is lawful among others lawful in the emperor’s presence? How much more in the things of God! And therefore his overseer must be purer than others, for he is seen to bear his person. He is his vicar, so that what is lawful for others is not lawful for him, because he must every day act in Christ’s stead, pray for the people, offer the sacrifice, or baptize. And this is not lawful for him only, but also for his minister, because he too ought to be cleaner, since the things he ministers are holy. Compared with a lamp, darkness is not only dark but dirty; compared with the stars, a lamp is gloom; compared with the sun, the stars are cloudy; and compared with God’s brightness, the sun is night. So too things that are lawful and clean as far as we are concerned are, as it were, unlawful and unclean with respect to God’s dignity; for although they are good, they do not befit the person of God. Is not the tunic of a man of middling rank, though clean, dirty and improper for the emperor? And likewise a coarse cloak for a senator? And therefore God’s overseers ought to be purer than others, because they bear the person of Christ, and God’s ministers must be cleaner. No one serves the emperor carelessly; they serve dressed in bright, clean garments. But because God is by nature most bright, his ministers must be clean in their nature rather than in their clothing.