On the Incarnation

In what came before this we set out sufficiently, choosing a few points out of many, the error of the nations concerning idols and their superstition: how the invention of idols first came about, namely, that out of wickedness human beings devised for themselves the worship of idols. And by the grace of God we also indicated a few things about the divinity of the Word of the Father, and about his providence and power over all things: that the good Father orders all things by him, that all things are moved by him, and that in him they are given life. Come then, blessed and truly Christ-loving friend, let us follow on in order, with the faith of true religion, and relate what concerns the Word's becoming man, and set out his divine appearing among us, which the Jews slander and the Greeks mock, but which we worship; so that from the seeming lowliness of the Word your devotion to him may become still greater and fuller.

For the more he is mocked by unbelievers, the greater the witness he gives to his own divinity. What human beings cannot grasp and think impossible, he shows to be possible; what human beings mock as unfitting, he by his own goodness makes fitting; and what human beings in their cleverness laugh at as merely human, he by his own power shows to be divine. By what is thought to be his lowliness, through the cross, he overthrows the illusion of idols, and he quietly persuades those who mock and disbelieve to recognize his divinity and power.

But for an account of these matters we must recall what has been said before, so that you may be able to know the reason why the Word of the Father, so great and so exalted, was manifested in a body, and may not think that the Savior wore a body as a consequence of his nature, but that, being by nature bodiless and being the Word, he was nevertheless, through the love for humankind and the goodness of his own Father, manifested to us in a human body for our salvation.

In giving an account of this, it is fitting that we speak first about the creation of the universe and about God its Maker, so that one may rightly see that its renewal was accomplished by the Word who made it in the beginning. For it will not appear contradictory if the Father has worked its salvation in the very one through whom he made it.

Many have understood the making of the world and the creation of all things in different ways, and each has defined it as he wished. Some say that all things came into being of themselves and by chance, like the Epicureans, who tell the fable that there is no providence over the universe, speaking flatly against what is evident and plain to see.

For if, as they say, all things came into being of themselves without providence, all things ought to have come into being simply alike, and to be the same and not different. As in a single body, everything would have to be sun or moon; and in human beings the whole would have to be hand, or eye, or foot. But it is not so. We see that one thing is sun, another moon, another earth; and again in human bodies, one part is foot, another hand, another head. Such an ordering shows that they did not come into being of themselves, but that a cause preceded them; and from it one can perceive God, who ordered and made all things.

Others, among them Plato, who is great among the Greeks, relate that God made the universe out of pre-existing and uncreated matter, since God could not have made anything unless matter already lay at hand, just as wood must lie at hand for the carpenter so that he can work.

They do not realize that in saying this they ascribe weakness to God. For if he is not himself the cause of matter, but simply makes the things that exist out of matter lying ready, he is found to be weak, unable to produce anything that comes into being without matter; just as it is a weakness in the carpenter that he cannot make anything he needs without wood. For on that hypothesis, if matter had not existed, God would not have made anything. And how could he still be called Maker and Craftsman, if he has his ability to make from something else, I mean from matter? If that is so, God on their account will be only an artisan, and not a creator bringing things into being, since he works matter that lies ready but is not himself the cause of matter. In general he could not even be called a creator, if he does not create the matter from which created things have come.

Those from the heresies invent for themselves another maker of all things besides the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, being deeply blind even as to what they say.

For when the Lord says to the Jews, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”, and then, pointing to the Creator, says, “What therefore God has joined together, let no human being separate”, how can these people bring in a creation foreign to the Father? And if, according to John, who embraces everything and says, “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being”, how could the Maker be another besides the Father of Christ?

These are the fables these people tell. But the inspired teaching and the faith according to Christ reject their idle talk as godlessness. For it knows that God made the universe neither of itself, since it is not without providence, nor out of pre-existing matter, since God is not weak, but out of nothing, when it did not exist at all in any way, bringing it into being through the Word. So it says through Moses: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth”; and through that most useful book, the Shepherd: “First of all, believe that God is one, who created and ordered all things, and made them to be out of what was not.”

Paul also points to this when he says, “By faith we understand that the ages were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen did not come into being from things that appear.”

For God is good, or rather he is the source of goodness; and the good can begrudge nothing. So, begrudging existence to nothing, he made all things out of nothing through his own Word, our Lord Jesus Christ. Among these, before all things on earth, he had mercy on the human race; and seeing that by the terms of its own origin it was not able to remain for ever, he gave them something more. He did not simply create human beings, as he did all the irrational animals on earth, but made them according to his own image, giving them a share also in the power of his own Word, so that, having as it were some shadows of the Word and being made rational, they might be able to remain in blessedness, living the true life, which is truly that of the saints in paradise.

Knowing again that the free choice of human beings could incline either way, he secured beforehand the grace given them by a law and a place. He brought them into his own paradise and gave them a law, so that if they kept the grace and remained good, they might have the life in paradise without grief, pain, or care, besides the promise of incorruption in heaven; but if they transgressed and turned away and became bad, they might know that they would suffer the corruption in death that is according to their nature, and would no longer live in paradise, but thereafter, dying outside it, would remain in death and in corruption.

Divine Scripture also foretells this, saying in the person of God: “From every tree in paradise you may eat for food; but from the tree of knowing good and evil you shall not eat of it; and on the day you eat, you shall die by death.” And what else could “you shall die by death” be but not only to die, but also to remain in the corruption of death?

Perhaps you wonder why, having set out to speak about the Word's becoming man, we are now relating the beginning of humankind. But this too is not foreign to the aim of our account.

For in speaking of the Savior's appearing among us we must also speak of the beginning of humankind, so that you may know that our own case became the occasion of his coming down, and our transgression called forth the Word's love for humankind, so that the Lord came even to us and appeared among human beings.

For we were the reason for his embodiment, and for our salvation he so loved humankind as to come to be and to appear in a human body.

So God made humankind and willed that it remain in incorruption. But human beings, neglecting and turning away from the contemplation of God, and devising and contriving wickedness for themselves, as was said in the first book, received the condemnation of death that had been threatened beforehand. From then on they no longer remained as they had been made, but were being corrupted as they had devised, and death held sway over them as king. For the transgression of the commandment was turning them back to what was according to their nature, so that, just as they had come into being from what was not, so too they should rightly suffer in course of time the corruption that leads to non-being.

For if, having a nature that once did not exist, they were called into being by the presence and love for humankind of the Word, it followed that when human beings were emptied of the knowledge of God and turned to what does not exist (for evil things are non-existent, but good things exist, since they have come from God who exists), they should also be emptied of being for ever. And this is to remain, dissolved, in death and corruption.

For a human being is by nature mortal, since he came into being from what does not exist. But because of his likeness to him who exists, which he would have kept through contemplation of him, he would have blunted his natural corruption and remained incorruptible; as Wisdom says, “Heeding laws is assurance of incorruption.” And being incorruptible he would have lived thereafter as God, as divine Scripture somewhere indicates when it says, “I said, you are gods, and sons of the Most High, all of you; but you die like human beings, and fall like one of the rulers.”

For God not only made us out of nothing, but also granted us by the grace of the Word to live a life like God's. But human beings turned away from the things that are eternal, and by the devil's counsel turned to the things of corruption; so they became the cause of their own corruption in death. They were, as I said, corruptible by nature, but would have escaped what is according to nature by the grace of their share in the Word, if they had remained good.

For because of the Word who was with them, even their natural corruption did not come near them, as Wisdom also says: “God created man for incorruption and as an image of his own eternity; but by the envy of the devil death entered into the world.” When this happened, human beings began to die, and corruption thereafter flourished against them, prevailing over the whole race with more than natural force, since it had the threat of the Deity against them because of the transgression of the commandment.

For in their offenses human beings did not stop within fixed limits, but, extending themselves little by little, at last came to be beyond all measure. From the beginning they were inventors of wickedness and called down death and corruption upon themselves; later they turned aside to injustice and exceeded all lawlessness, and, not stopping at one evil but devising ever new evils upon new ones, they became insatiable in sinning.

For there were adulteries and thefts everywhere, and the whole earth was full of murders and robberies. There was no concern for law regarding corruption and injustice, but every evil was done by each individually and by all in common. Cities warred against cities, and nations rose against nations; the whole inhabited world was torn apart by factions and battles, each vying with the other in lawlessness.

Nor were they far even from what is against nature; but, as the Apostle, the witness of Christ, said: “For their women exchanged natural relations for those against nature; and likewise the men, giving up natural relations with women, were inflamed in their desire for one another, men committing shameless acts with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

For these reasons, since death had gained the greater hold and corruption remained upon human beings, the human race was perishing; the rational human being, made in the image, was disappearing; and the work made by God was being destroyed.

For death, as I said, from then on had legal power over us, and it was impossible to escape the law, since it had been laid down by God because of the transgression. And what was happening was truly both absurd and unfitting.

It would have been absurd for God, having spoken, to prove false: that after he had legislated that man should die by death if he transgressed the commandment, man should not die after transgressing, but that God's word should be set aside. For God would not have been truthful if, when he had said that we should die, man did not die.

On the other hand, it would have been unfitting that beings once made rational and sharing in the Word himself should perish, and return again to non-existence through corruption.

For it was not worthy of God's goodness that what he had made should be destroyed through the deceit practiced on human beings by the devil.

Besides, it would have been most unfitting of all that God's craftsmanship in human beings should vanish, whether through their own neglect or through the deceit of demons.

So, as rational beings were being corrupted and such works were perishing, what was God, being good, to do? Let corruption prevail over them and death hold them fast? Then what need was there for them to come into being in the first place? They ought rather not to have come into being than, having come into being, to be neglected and perish.

For weakness rather than goodness would be seen in God's neglect, if after making his work he allowed it to be corrupted, rather than if he had not made man in the beginning.

For if he had not made them, there would have been no one to reckon it weakness; but since he had made them and created them into being, it would have been most absurd for the works to perish, and especially before the eyes of their Maker.

So it was necessary not to let human beings be carried off by corruption, because this would be unfitting and unworthy of God's goodness.

But just as this had to be so, on the other side again stands what is reasonable with respect to God: that God should appear truthful in his law concerning death. For it would have been absurd for God, the Father of truth, to appear a liar for our benefit and preservation.

What then was to happen in this matter, or what was God to do? Demand repentance from human beings for the transgression? Someone might say this was worthy of God, arguing that as they had come to corruption from transgression, so from repentance they might come again to incorruption.

But repentance would neither have preserved what is reasonable with respect to God, for he would again have remained untruthful if human beings were not held in death; nor does repentance recall them from what is according to nature, but it only makes them cease from sins.

If, then, there had been only an offense and not the consequence of corruption, repentance would have been well enough. But if, once the transgression had come first, human beings were held fast in natural corruption and had been deprived of the grace of being in the image, what else was to happen? Or whom did such grace and recalling need, but the Word of God, who in the beginning also made the universe out of nothing?

For it was his, again, both to bring the corruptible to incorruption and to preserve for the Father what is reasonable with respect to all. For being the Word of the Father and above all, he alone was consequently able to re-create the universe, and was fit to suffer on behalf of all and to intercede for all with the Father.

For this reason the bodiless, incorruptible, and immaterial Word of God comes into our region, although he was not far from us before. For no part of creation has been left empty of him; he has filled all things everywhere, while remaining with his own Father. But he comes, stooping down in his love for humankind and his appearing to us.

He saw the rational race perishing, and death reigning over them through corruption. He saw also that the threat of the transgression kept corruption in force against us, and that it would be absurd for the law to be dissolved before it was fulfilled. He saw also the unfittingness of what had happened, that the very things of which he was the Maker were disappearing. He saw also the surpassing wickedness of human beings, that little by little they had increased it against themselves beyond bearing. He saw also that all human beings were liable to death. Having mercy on our race, pitying our weakness, stooping down to our corruption, and not enduring the dominion of death, so that what had been made should not perish and the Father's work in humankind should not come to nothing, he takes to himself a body, and that not foreign to our own.

For he did not simply will to be in a body, nor did he will only to appear; for if he had willed only to appear, he could have made his divine appearing through some other, nobler means. But he takes what is ours, and that not simply, but from a spotless and undefiled virgin who knew no man, a body pure and truly untouched by intercourse with men. For being powerful and the Maker of the universe, he prepares for himself in the Virgin a temple, the body, and makes it his own as an instrument, being made known in it and dwelling in it.

And so, taking from what is ours a body like ours, because all were liable to the corruption of death, he gave it over to death in place of all, and offered it to the Father. And he did this out of love for humankind, so that, on the one hand, since all died in him, the law concerning the corruption of human beings might be abolished (its power having been spent on the Lord's body, and no longer having room against human beings like him); and, on the other, so that he might turn back to incorruption human beings who had turned back to corruption, and bring them to life from death, by making the body his own and by the grace of the resurrection, making death vanish from them like straw from fire.

For the Word perceived that the corruption of human beings could not be undone except by dying; yet it was not possible for the Word to die, being immortal and the Son of the Father. For this reason he takes to himself a body capable of dying, so that, sharing in the Word who is above all, it might be sufficient to die on behalf of all, and because of the Word who had come to dwell in it might remain incorruptible, and so that thereafter corruption might cease from all by the grace of the resurrection. So, offering to death the body he had taken for himself as an offering and a sacrifice free from every stain, he at once put away death from all his fellows by the offering of an equivalent.

For the Word of God, being above all, fittingly offered his own temple and bodily instrument as a ransom for the life of all, and paid the debt in his death. And so, united with all through a body like theirs, the incorruptible Son of God fittingly clothed all with incorruption by the promise of the resurrection. For the very corruption in death no longer has room against human beings, because of the Word who has come to dwell in them through the one body.

And as when a great king enters some great city and dwells in one of its houses, such a city is surely counted worthy of great honor, and no enemy or bandit any longer attacks and overthrows it, but it is rather thought worthy of every care because of the king who dwells in one of its houses; so too it has happened with the King of all.

For now that he has come into our region and dwelt in one body like ours, every plot of enemies against human beings has ceased, and the corruption of death, which formerly prevailed against them, has vanished. For the human race would have perished utterly, had not the Lord and Savior of all, the Son of God, come to put an end to death.

And this great work was truly fitting, above all, to the goodness of God.

For if a king who has built a house or a city does not neglect it when, through the carelessness of those who live in it, it is attacked by bandits, but avenges and saves it as his own work, looking not to the carelessness of its inhabitants but to what befits himself; much more did God the Word of the all-good Father not neglect the human race made through him as it went down to corruption. He blotted out the death that had befallen them by the offering of his own body, and corrected their carelessness by his own teaching, setting right all that concerned human beings by his own power.

One can be assured of this also from the Savior's own inspired men who spoke of God, by reading their writings, where they say: “For the love of Christ constrains us, since we have concluded this: that if one died for all, then all died; and he died for all, so that we might no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died and rose from the dead for us,” our Lord Jesus Christ. And again: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

Then he indicates also the reason why it had to be none other than God the Word himself who became man, saying: “For it was fitting for him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” By this he indicates that it belonged to no one else to bring human beings back from the corruption that had come about but to the Word of God, who had also made them in the beginning.

And that the Word himself also took a body for the sake of the sacrifice for bodies like his, they indicate this too when they say: “Since therefore the children share in blood and flesh, he himself likewise partook of the same, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

For by the sacrifice of his own body he both put an end to the law that was against us and made a new beginning of life for us, giving the hope of the resurrection. For since death had prevailed over human beings through a human being, for this reason, again, through the Word of God becoming man came the destruction of death and the resurrection of life; as the man who bore Christ says: “For since through a man came death, through a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive,” and what follows. For now we no longer die as those condemned, but as those who will be raised we await the common resurrection of all, which God, who also accomplished and granted it, will show in its own time.

This, then, is the first reason for the Savior's becoming man. But one may also learn from the following that his good coming among us was reasonable.

God, who has power over all things, when he was making the human race through his own Word, saw again the weakness of their nature: that it was not able of itself to know its Maker or to form any idea of God at all, because he is uncreated while they came into being out of nothing, and he is bodiless while human beings were fashioned somewhere below in a body, and in general because created things fall far short of grasping and knowing their Maker. So, again having mercy on the human race, since he is good, he did not leave them destitute of the knowledge of himself, so that they might not have even their existence to no profit.

For what profit is there for creatures who do not know their own Maker? Or how could they be rational if they did not know the Word of the Father, in whom they also came into being? They would not differ at all even from irrational animals, if they knew nothing more than earthly things. And why would God have made them, if he did not want to be known by them?

So, that this might not happen, being good he gives them a share in his own image, our Lord Jesus Christ, and makes them according to his own image and likeness, so that by such grace, perceiving the image, I mean the Word of the Father, they might be able through him to form an idea of the Father, and, knowing their Maker, might live the happy and truly blessed life.

But human beings, again senseless, neglecting even in this way the grace given to them, turned so far away from God and so darkened their own souls that they not only forgot the idea of God but also fashioned for themselves one thing after another in its place. They shaped idols for themselves instead of the truth, and honored the things that are not above the God who is, worshiping the creature rather than the Creator; and worst of all, they transferred the honor of God to wood and stones and every kind of matter and to human beings, and did more than this, as was said in the earlier book.

So impious were they that they went on to worship demons and proclaim them gods, fulfilling their desires. They offered sacrifices of irrational animals and slaughters of human beings, as was said before, as their due, binding themselves the more by their frenzies.

For this reason magic arts were taught among them, and oracles in various places led people astray; and all ascribed the causes of their birth and existence to the stars and to all the heavenly bodies, reckoning nothing beyond what is seen.

In short, everything was full of impiety and lawlessness, and God alone and his Word were not known, although he had not hidden himself out of human sight, nor given them only one way of knowing him, but had unfolded that knowledge to them in manifold ways and through many means.

For the grace of being in the image was sufficient to make God the Word known, and through him the Father. But God, knowing the weakness of human beings, provided even for their carelessness, so that if they neglected to recognize God by themselves, they might have the works of creation through which not to be ignorant of the Maker.

And since human carelessness sinks little by little to worse things, God again provided for this weakness of theirs as well, sending the law and prophets known to them, so that if they were reluctant even to look up to heaven and know the Maker, they might have teaching from those near at hand. For human beings can learn about higher things more directly from human beings.

It was possible for them, then, looking up to the greatness of heaven and considering the harmony of creation, to know its ruler, the Word of the Father, who by his providence over all things makes the Father known to all, and for this reason moves the universe, so that through him all may know God.

Or, if this was too much trouble for them, they could at least have met the saints and learned through them of God, the Maker of all, the Father of Christ, and that the worship of idols is godlessness and full of all impiety.

And it was possible for them, once they knew the law too, to cease from all lawlessness and live a life of virtue. For the law was not for the Jews alone, nor were the prophets sent for them alone; they were sent to the Jews and persecuted by the Jews, but they were for the whole inhabited world a sacred school of the knowledge of God and of the conduct of the soul.

Yet, though the goodness and love for humankind of God were so great, human beings, overcome by the pleasures of the moment and by the illusions and deceits of demons, did not lift up their heads toward the truth, but filled themselves with more evils and sins, so that they no longer seemed rational but, from their ways, were thought irrational.

When human beings had thus become irrational, and demonic error was overshadowing everything everywhere and hiding the knowledge of the true God, what was God to do? Keep silent about so great a thing, and let human beings be led astray by demons and not know God?

And what need was there then for man to be made according to God's image in the beginning? He should simply have been made irrational, or, having been made rational, should not live the life of irrational creatures.

And what need was there at all for him to receive an idea of God in the beginning? For if he is not worthy to receive it even now, it ought not to have been given him at the beginning either.

And what profit is there for God who made them, or what glory could he have, if the human beings made by him do not worship him but think that others made them? For God would be found to have created them for others and not for himself.

Then again, a king, though a man, does not let the lands he has founded be handed over to serve others or go over to others, but reminds them by letters, and often sends to them through friends; and if need be he comes himself, putting them to shame at last by his presence, only so that they may not serve others and his work come to nothing.

Will not God much more spare his own creatures, so that they are not led astray from him and serve things that do not exist? Especially since such error becomes the cause of their destruction and disappearance, and it was not right that those who had once shared in God's image should perish.

What then was God to do? Or what was to happen, but to renew again what was according to the image, so that through it human beings might be able once more to know him? But how could this have come about, except by the coming of the very image of God, our Savior Jesus Christ? It was not possible through human beings, since they themselves were made according to the image; nor through angels, for they are not images either. So the Word of God came in his own person, so that, being the image of the Father, he might be able to re-create man who was made according to the image.

But again, it could not have come about unless death and corruption had been done away with.

So he fittingly took a mortal body, so that in it death might be done away with once for all, and human beings made according to the image might be renewed again. For this need, then, there was need of no other than the Image of the Father.

For as, when a figure painted on wood has been obscured by dirt from outside, the one whose figure it is must come again, so that the image can be renewed on the same material (for because of his portrait the very material on which it is painted is not thrown away, but the likeness is drawn again on it):

in the same way the all-holy Son of the Father, being the Father's image, came to our regions to renew man made according to him, and to find him as one lost, through the forgiveness of sins; as he himself says in the Gospels: “I came to find and to save what was lost.” So he also said to those of his own people, “Unless one is born again”, not meaning birth from women, as they supposed, but indicating the soul born again and re-created in what is according to the image.

And since mad worship of idols and godlessness held the world, and the knowledge of God was hidden, whose task was it to teach the world about the Father? A man's, someone might say. But it was not possible for human beings to travel over the whole world under the sun: they were neither strong enough by nature to run so far, nor able to be trusted in this matter, nor able by themselves to withstand the deceit and illusion of demons.

For since all had been struck and troubled in soul by demonic deceit and the vanity of idols, how could anyone have won over the soul and mind of human beings, when they cannot even see them? And how can one re-educate what one does not see?

But perhaps someone would say that creation was enough. But if creation had been enough, such great evils would not have happened. For creation was there, and none the less human beings wallowed in the same error about God.

Whom then was there need of again, but of the Word of God, who sees both soul and mind, who moves all things in creation and through them makes the Father known? For it belonged to him who teaches about the Father through his own providence and ordering of the universe to renew the same teaching as well.

How then could this have come about? Perhaps someone would say that it was possible by the same means, so as to show the truth about him again through the works of creation. But this was no longer safe. Certainly not; for human beings had overlooked this before, and no longer had their eyes upward, but downward.

So, fittingly, wishing to help human beings, he comes to dwell as a man, taking to himself a body like theirs, and from things below, I mean through the works of the body, so that those who would not know him from his providence and rule over the universe might at least from the works done through the body itself know the Word of God who is in the body, and through him the Father.

For as a good teacher who cares for his pupils always comes down and teaches by simpler means those who cannot profit from higher things, so also does the Word of God, as Paul also says: “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.”

For since human beings had turned away from the contemplation of God and, as if sunk in the deep, with their eyes downward, were seeking God in the world of becoming and in things of sense, shaping mortal men and demons into gods for themselves, for this reason the Savior of all, who loves humankind, the Word of God, takes to himself a body and lives as a man among men, and draws to himself the senses of all human beings, so that those who think God is in bodily things might, from what the Lord does through the works of the body, perceive the truth, and through him come to consider the Father.

Being human and thinking of everything in human terms, wherever they turned their senses they saw themselves met there and taught the truth from every side.

If they were awestruck at creation, they saw it confessing Christ as Lord. If their minds had been taken up with human beings, so as to think them gods, then from the works of the Savior, compared with theirs, the Savior alone among human beings appeared as Son of God, since nothing done by them was like what was done by the Word of God.

If they had been taken up with demons, yet seeing them driven out by the Lord they knew that he alone is the Word of God, and that the demons are not gods.

If their minds had already been held fast by the dead, so that they worshiped heroes and the gods spoken of by the poets, yet seeing the Savior's resurrection they confessed that those were false, and that the Lord alone is true, the Word of the Father, who is Lord even over death.

This is why he was born, appeared as a man, died, and rose again: dulling and eclipsing by his own works the deeds of all human beings who had ever lived, so that wherever human beings had been taken up, he might lead them up from there and teach them his own true Father; as he himself says: “I came to save and to find what was lost.”

For once the understanding of human beings had fallen to things of sense, the Word submitted to appearing through a body, so that as a man he might draw human beings over to himself, turn their senses toward himself, and from then on, as they saw him as a man, persuade them by the works he did that he is not a man only, but also God, and the Word and Wisdom of the true God.

Paul too, wishing to indicate this, says: “Being rooted and grounded in love, so that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled to all the fullness of God.”

For since the Word has spread himself out everywhere, above and below, into the depth and into the breadth (above into creation, below into the incarnation, into the depth into Hades, into the breadth into the world), all things have been filled with the knowledge of God.

For this reason he did not complete the sacrifice on behalf of all immediately on his coming, by giving his body over to death and raising it, thereby making himself invisible. Rather, he made himself visible through the body, remaining in it and doing such works and giving such signs as made him known no longer as a man but as God the Word.

For the Savior in his love for humankind accomplished both through his becoming man: he put away death from us and renewed us; and, being unseen and invisible, he manifested himself through his works and made himself known to be the Word of the Father, the ruler and king of the universe.

For he was not enclosed in the body; nor was he in the body but nowhere else; nor did he move that body while the universe was left empty of his activity and providence. But, most wonderful of all, being the Word, he was not contained by anything, but rather himself contained all things. And just as, while present in the whole of creation, he is outside the universe in his being (οὐσία) but in all things by his powers, ordering all things, extending his providence over everything in all things, giving life to each and all together, containing the universe and not contained, but wholly in his own Father alone in every respect,

so too, being in the human body and himself giving it life, he fittingly gave life to the universe as well, and was in all things, and was outside all things; and while he was made known from the body through his works, he was not unseen in his activity in the universe either.

Now it is the work of a soul to contemplate by its reasoning even things outside its own body, but not to act outside its own body or move by its presence things far from it. Never does a man, by thinking about distant things, thereby move or shift them; nor if someone sat in his own house and reasoned about the things in heaven would he thereby move the sun or make the heaven revolve. He sees them moving and existing, but he is not able to make them.

The Word of God in the man was not like this. For he was not bound to the body, but rather himself had power over it, so that he was both in it and in all things, and was outside all beings, and rested in the Father alone.

And this was the wonder: that he lived as a man, and as the Word gave life to all things, and as the Son was with the Father. So neither when the Virgin gave birth did he himself suffer, nor was he defiled by being in a body; rather he sanctified the body.

For though he is in all things, he does not partake of all things; rather all things are given life and sustained by him.

For if even the sun, which was made by him and is seen by us, as it circles in heaven is not soiled by touching bodies on earth, nor put out by darkness, but rather itself lights and cleanses them, much more was the all-holy Word of God, the Maker and Lord of the sun as well, not soiled by being made known in a body; rather, being incorruptible, he gave life to and cleansed the body too, mortal as it was. For “he committed no sin,” it says, “nor was deceit found in his mouth.”

So when those who speak of God about him say that he ate and drank and was born, know that the body, as a body, was born and was nourished with suitable food, while he himself, God the Word, who was united with the body, was ordering all things, and by what he did in the body made himself known not as a man but as God the Word. These things are said of him because the body that ate and was born and suffered belonged to no one else but the Lord; and because, since he had become man, it was fitting that these things too should be said of him as of a man, so that he might be seen to have a body in truth and not in appearance.

But as from these things he was known to be bodily present, so from the works he did through the body he made himself known as Son of God. So he cried out to the unbelieving Jews, saying: “If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me; but if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe my works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

For as, being invisible, he is known from the works of creation, so, having become man and not being seen in the body, he would be known from his works to be not a man, but the Power and Word of God who does these things.

For his commanding the demons, and their being driven out, is not a human but a divine work. Or who, seeing him heal the diseases to which the human race is subject, would still think him a man and not God? He cleansed lepers, made the lame walk, opened the ears of the deaf, made the blind see, and in short drove away every disease and every sickness from human beings; from which even an ordinary person could behold his divinity. For who, seeing him give back what was lacking to those whose birth had left them deficient, and open the eyes of the man blind from birth, would not have understood that the birth of human beings is subject to him, and that he is its Maker and Creator? For he who gives back what a man did not have from birth must surely be the Lord of the birth of human beings as well.

This is why, at the beginning, when he came down to us, he fashioned the body for himself from a virgin, so as to give all no small sign of his divinity: that he who fashioned it is himself the Maker of other things as well. For who, seeing a body come forth from a virgin alone without a man, does not conclude that the one appearing in it is the Maker and Lord of other bodies too?

And who, seeing the substance of water changed and turned into wine, does not realize that the one who did this is the Lord and Creator of the substance of all waters? For this reason he walked on the sea as its master and walked as on land, giving those who saw it a sign of his lordship over all things. And by feeding so great a multitude from little, and himself producing plenty out of scarcity, so that five thousand were filled from five loaves and as much again was left over, did he not make himself known as none other than the Lord of the providence over all things?

The Savior thought it good to do all these things so that, since human beings had failed to recognize his providence in all things and had not perceived his divinity through creation, they might at least look up from the works done through his body, and through him receive an idea of the knowledge of the Father, inferring, as I said before, from the particular things his providence over the whole.

For who, seeing his authority over demons, or seeing the demons confess that he is their Lord, will still be of doubtful mind whether this is the Son of God, the Wisdom and the Power?

Nor did he make creation itself keep silent; but, most wonderful of all, even in his death, or rather in the very trophy over death, I mean the cross, all creation confessed that he who was made known and suffered in the body was not simply a man but the Son of God and Savior of all. For the sun turned away, the earth quaked, the mountains were rent, and all were terrified. These things showed that Christ on the cross was God, and that all creation was his servant and bore witness by its fear to the presence of its Master.

In this way, then, God the Word manifested himself to human beings through his works. It would be fitting next to relate the end of his life and conduct in the body, and to say what kind of death the body suffered; above all because this is the chief point of our faith, and absolutely everyone talks about it; so that you may know that from this too, no less, Christ is known to be God and the Son of God.

We have stated before, in part, as far as was possible and as far as we were able to understand, the reason for his bodily appearing: that it belonged to no one else to change the corruptible into incorruption but to the Savior himself, who in the beginning made the universe out of nothing; that it belonged to no one else to re-create for human beings what was according to the image but to the Image of the Father; that it belonged to no one else to render the mortal immortal but to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is Life itself; and that it belonged to no one else to teach about the Father and overthrow the worship of idols but to the Word who orders all things, who alone is the true, only-begotten Son of the Father.

But since the debt owed by all had still to be paid (for, as I said before, all were bound to die), and this was the chief reason for his coming, for this reason, after the proofs of his divinity from his works, he now also offered the sacrifice on behalf of all, giving over his own temple to death in place of all, so as to make all free from liability and from the ancient transgression, and to show himself stronger even than death, displaying his own body incorruptible as the firstfruits of the resurrection of all.

And do not be surprised if we often say the same things about the same matters. For since we are speaking of the good pleasure of God, for that reason we express the same meaning in more ways than one, lest we seem to leave anything out and be charged with having spoken inadequately. For it is better to incur the blame of repetition than to omit anything that ought to be written.

The body, then, since it too had the same being (οὐσία) as all (for it was a human body), even though it was formed by a new miracle from a virgin alone, yet being mortal it also died, in keeping with bodies like it. But by the Word's coming into it, it was no longer corrupted according to its own nature, but, because of the Word of God who had come to dwell in it, it came to be beyond corruption.

And so both things happened, wonderfully, in the same act: the death of all was fulfilled in the Lord's body, and death and corruption were done away because of the Word who was united with it. For there was need of death, and death had to take place on behalf of all, so that what was owed by all might be paid.

So, as I said before, since it was not possible for the Word to die (for he was immortal), he took to himself a body capable of dying, so that he might offer it as his own in place of all, and, suffering on behalf of all through his coming into it, “might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

Indeed, now that the common Savior of all has died for us, we who believe in Christ no longer die by death as before, according to the threat of the law; for that condemnation has ceased. Rather, since corruption has ceased and been done away by the grace of the resurrection, from now on we are dissolved only according to the body's mortality, at the time God has appointed for each, so that we may be able to obtain a better resurrection.

For like seeds cast into the earth, we do not perish when we are dissolved, but, as those that are sown, we shall rise again, since death has been abolished by the grace of the Savior. So the blessed Paul, who became for all a guarantor of the resurrection, says: “This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. And when this mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the word that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your sting?”

Why then, someone might say, if it was necessary for him to give his body over to death in place of all, did he not lay it aside privately as a man, instead of going as far as being crucified? For it would have been more fitting for him to lay aside his body honorably than to endure such a death with outrage.

See, again, whether such an objection is not merely human, while what the Savior did is truly divine and worthy of his divinity for many reasons. First, the death that befalls human beings comes to them through the weakness of their nature: not able to last long, they are dissolved in time. That is why diseases befall them, and they grow weak and die. But the Lord is not weak; he is the Power of God and the Word of God and Life itself.

If, then, he had laid aside his body privately somewhere, in a bed, after the manner of human beings, it would have been thought that he too suffered this through the weakness of nature, and had nothing more than other human beings. But since he was Life and the Word of God, and the death on behalf of all had to take place, for this reason, as Life and Power, he strengthened the body within himself;

but since death had to take place, he took the occasion of completing the sacrifice not from himself but from others. For it was not right for the Lord to fall sick, who healed the diseases of others; nor again for that body to grow weak in which he strengthened the weaknesses of others.

Why then did he not prevent death as he did sickness? Because it was for this that he had the body, and it was unfitting to prevent it, lest the resurrection too be hindered. Yet for sickness to precede his death was again unfitting, lest it be thought a weakness of the one in the body. Did he not hunger, then? Yes, he hungered, because this belongs to the body; but he did not perish of hunger, because of the Lord who bore it. So even though he died as a ransom for all, he did not see corruption. For he rose whole, since the body belonged to no other but to Life itself.

But, someone might say, he ought to have hidden from the plot of the Jews, so as to keep his own body wholly immortal. Let such a person hear that this too was unfitting for the Lord. For as it was not fitting for the Word of God, being Life, to give death to his own body from himself, so neither was it fitting to flee the death given by others, but rather to pursue it to its destruction. So, fittingly, he neither laid aside his body of himself, nor again fled from the Jews who plotted against him.

This showed no weakness in the Word, but rather made him known as Savior and Life: that he awaited death so as to destroy it, and hastened to complete the death given him for the salvation of all.

Besides, the Savior came to accomplish not his own death but that of human beings. So he did not lay aside his body by a death of his own (for, being Life, he had none), but received the death that came from human beings, so as to destroy it completely when it came upon his own body.

Then, from the following too one may reasonably see why the Lord's body had such an end. The Lord was above all concerned with the resurrection of the body which he was about to bring about. For this was the trophy over death: to display the resurrection to all, and to assure all that corruption had been put away by him, and that from then on bodies are incorruptible. As a pledge and sign to all of this, and of the resurrection that is to come upon all, he kept his own body incorruptible.

If, then, his body had fallen sick and the Word had been parted from it in the sight of all, it would have been unfitting for one who healed the diseases of others to neglect his own instrument wasting away in sickness. For how could he have been believed to drive away the weaknesses of others, if his own temple was weak in him? Either he would have been mocked as unable to drive away disease, or, if able and not doing so, he would have been thought unloving toward others as well.

And if, without any disease and without any pain, he had hidden his body privately somewhere, by himself in a corner, or in a desert place, or in a house, or anywhere at all, and afterwards had suddenly appeared again and said that he had been raised from the dead, he would have seemed to everyone to be telling tales, and would have been disbelieved much more in speaking of the resurrection, since there would have been no one at all to bear witness to his death. Death must precede resurrection, since there could be no resurrection without a preceding death. So, if the death of his body had taken place secretly somewhere, with the death not seen or witnessed, his resurrection too would have been unseen and unwitnessed.

Or why, when he had risen, would he proclaim the resurrection, yet have his death take place unseen? Or why did he drive out demons in the sight of all, make the man blind from birth see, and change water into wine, so that by these things he might be believed to be the Word of God, yet not show his mortal body made incorruptible in the sight of all, so that he might be believed to be Life itself?

And how would his disciples have had boldness in speaking of the resurrection, if they could not say that he had first died? Or how could they have been believed when they said that death had come first and then the resurrection, unless they had as witnesses of the death those to whom they spoke boldly? For if, even when the death and the resurrection took place before the eyes of all, the Pharisees of that time would not believe, but even forced those who had seen the resurrection to deny it, surely, if these things had happened in secret, how many pretexts for unbelief would they have devised?

And how could the end of death and the victory over it have been shown, unless he had challenged it in the sight of all and proved it dead, emptied thereafter of its power by the incorruption of the body?

We must also anticipate in our defense what others might say. For perhaps someone might say this too: if his death had to take place before all and with witnesses, so that the account of the resurrection might be believed, he ought at least to have devised a glorious death for himself, if only to escape the dishonor of the cross.

But even if he had done this, he would have given grounds for suspicion against himself, as though he had power not over every death but only over the one devised for himself; and there would have been no less a pretext for disbelief in the resurrection. So death came to the body not from himself but from a plot, so that he himself might do away with whatever death they brought upon the Savior.

And like a noble wrestler, great in skill and courage, who does not choose his opponents himself, lest he give grounds for suspecting that he fears some of them, but leaves the choice to the spectators, especially if they happen to be his enemies, so that, whomever they match against him, he may throw that one and be believed stronger than all: so also the Life of all, our Lord and Savior Christ, did not devise a death for his body himself, lest he appear to fear some other kind; but the death that came from others, and especially from his enemies, which they thought terrible, dishonorable, and to be shunned, this he accepted and endured on the cross, so that when this too was destroyed, he himself might be believed to be Life, and the power of death be completely abolished.

So something wonderful and paradoxical happened: the death which they thought they were inflicting as a dishonor was a trophy over death itself. That is why he did not suffer the death of John, whose head was cut off, nor was he sawn asunder like Isaiah: so that even in death he might keep his body undivided and whole, and no pretext be given to those who wish to divide the Church.

This is said to outsiders who pile up arguments for themselves. But if one of our own asks, not out of love of argument but out of love of learning, why he endured the cross and not some other death, let him also hear that it was good for us in no other way than this, and that the Lord rightly endured it for our sake.

For if he came himself to bear the curse that lay on us, how else could he have become a curse, unless he received the death that was set under a curse? And that is the cross. For so it is written: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.”

Again, if the Lord's death is the ransom of all, and by his death the dividing wall of partition is broken down and the calling of the nations comes about, how could he have called us to himself had he not been crucified? For only on a cross does one die with hands outstretched. So it was fitting for the Lord to endure this too and to stretch out his hands, so that with one he might draw the ancient people and with the other those from the nations, and join both together in himself.

For he himself said this, indicating by what death he was to ransom all: “When I am lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.”

And again, if the devil, the enemy of our race, having fallen from heaven, wanders about the lower air here, and there has power over the demons with him, who are like him in disobedience, working illusions through them on those who are deceived and trying to hinder those who are going up (and of him the Apostle says, “according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now at work in the sons of disobedience”), and the Lord came to cast down the devil, to cleanse the air, and to open for us the way up to heaven, as the Apostle said, “through the veil, that is, his flesh”; and this had to happen through death; by what other death could this have come about than by one that took place in the air, I mean the cross? For only one who is put to death on a cross dies in the air. So it was fitting that the Lord endured it.

For being lifted up in this way, he cleansed the air of the plots of the devil and of all the demons, saying, “I saw Satan fall like lightning”; and he opened and made new the way up to heaven, saying again, “Lift up the gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting gates.” For it was not the Word himself who needed the gates opened, being Lord of all, nor was any of his works closed to the Maker; but we were the ones in need, whom he carried up through his own body. For as he offered it to death on behalf of all, so through it he again opened the way up to heaven.

So the death on the cross for us was fitting and suitable, and its reason has been shown to be reasonable in every respect, and the arguments for it are just: that the salvation of all had to come about in no other way than through the cross. For even so, even on the cross, he did not leave himself unseen, but, more than that, made creation bear witness to the presence of its Maker; and he did not let his temple, the body, remain long, but, having only shown it dead by death's contact with it, he raised it at once on the third day, bearing as trophies and victories over death the incorruption and freedom from suffering that came about in the body.

He could have raised the body from death immediately and shown it alive again; but the Savior, wisely foreseeing this too, did not do it. For someone would have said that it had not died at all, or that death had not fully touched it, if he had shown the resurrection immediately.

And perhaps, if the death and the resurrection had stood with no real interval between them, the glory of the incorruption would have been left uncertain. So, that the body might be shown dead, the Word waited one intervening day, and on the third day showed it to all incorruptible.

So it was in order that the death in the body might be shown that he raised it on the third day.

But lest, by remaining long and being completely corrupted, and then being raised later, he should be disbelieved as bearing not that body but another (for someone might, because of the lapse of time, have disbelieved what appeared and forgotten what had happened), for this reason he did not wait more than three days, nor keep those who had heard him speak of the resurrection long in suspense;

but while his word was still ringing in their ears, and their eyes were still expecting, and their minds were in suspense, and those who had put him to death were still living on earth and in the same places, and the witnesses of the death of the Lord's body, the Son of God himself, after an interval of three days, showed the body that had been dead to be immortal and incorruptible. And it was made plain to all that the body had died not through any weakness of nature in the Word who dwelt in it, but so that death might be done away in it by the power of the Savior.

That death has been destroyed, that the cross has become a victory over it, and that it no longer has any power but is truly dead, there is no small proof and a clear assurance: it is despised by all the disciples of Christ, all trample on it and no longer fear it, but by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ tread it down as dead.

For of old, before the divine coming of the Savior took place, death was terrible even to the saints, and all mourned the dying as perishing. But now that the Savior has raised his body, death is no longer terrible; all who believe in Christ tread on it as nothing, and choose rather to die than to deny their faith in Christ. For they truly know that in dying they do not perish, but live, and become incorruptible through the resurrection.

And that devil who of old wickedly exulted over death, now that its pangs have been loosed, alone remained truly dead. The evidence of this is that before people believe in Christ they see death as terrible and fear it; but once they have come over to his faith and teaching, they so despise death that they even rush eagerly toward it and become witnesses of the resurrection that the Savior won over it. Even those still young in age hasten to die, and not only men but women train themselves against it by their disciplines. So weak has it become that even women, who were once deceived by it, now mock it as dead and powerless.

For as when a tyrant has been defeated by a lawful king and bound hand and foot, all who pass by mock him, striking and reviling him, no longer fearing his fury and savagery, because of the king who conquered him; so too, since death has been conquered and publicly exposed by the Savior on the cross, and bound hand and foot, all who pass by in Christ trample on it, and, bearing witness to Christ, mock death, jeering at it and saying what was written against it of old: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O Hades, is your sting?”

Is this, then, a small proof of death's weakness? Or is it a small demonstration of the victory won over it by the Savior, when boys and young girls in Christ disregard this present life and train themselves to die?

For a human being by nature fears death and the dissolution of the body; but what is most astonishing is this: that one who has put on the faith of the cross despises even what is natural, and does not fear death because of Christ.

And as, since fire by nature burns, if someone said there was something that did not fear its burning but rather showed it to be weak, as the asbestos of the Indians is said to do, then anyone who did not believe what was said, if he wished to test it, would put on the fireproof cloth, apply it to the fire, and so be assured of the fire's weakness;

or as, if someone wished to see the tyrant bound, he would go into the country and dominion of his conquerors and see the one who was terrible to others made weak; so, if anyone is unbelieving, even after so much, after so many martyrs in Christ, after the daily mockery of death by those who excel in Christ, and still has a doubtful mind about whether death has been abolished and come to an end, he does well to wonder at so great a thing; only let him not be hard in unbelief or shameless before what is so evident.

But as one who takes the asbestos knows that fire does not touch it, and one who wishes to see the tyrant bound goes into the dominion of his conqueror, so let one who disbelieves in the victory over death take up the faith of Christ and come over to his teaching; and he will see the weakness of death and the victory over it. For many who formerly disbelieved and mocked, after they came to believe, so despised death that they even became martyrs for Christ.

If, then, death is trampled by the sign of the cross and by faith in Christ, it must be clear before the judgment of truth that it is no other than Christ himself who has displayed trophies and victories over death and made it powerless.

And if formerly death was strong and therefore terrible, but now, after the Savior's coming and the death and resurrection of his body, it is despised, it must be evident that death has been abolished and conquered by Christ himself, who went up on the cross.

For as, when the sun comes after night and the whole region of the earth is lit up by it, there is surely no doubt that it is the sun, spreading its light everywhere, that has driven away the darkness and lit up all things; so, since death has been despised and trampled from the time the Savior's saving appearance in the body and the end of the cross took place, it must be plain that it is the Savior himself, who appeared in the body, who has abolished death and displays trophies over it every day in his disciples.

For when one sees human beings, weak by nature, leaping forward to death, not cowering at its corruption nor fearing the descent into Hades, but challenging it with eager soul, not shrinking from tortures, but rather, for Christ's sake, preferring the rush toward death to this present life; or when one becomes a spectator of men and women and young children rushing and leaping into death for their devotion to Christ, who is so simple, or who so unbelieving, who so maimed in mind, as not to perceive and reason that Christ, to whom these people bear witness, himself grants and gives each of them the victory over death, making it powerless in each of those who hold his faith and bear the sign of the cross?

For one who sees a serpent trampled underfoot, especially knowing its former savagery, no longer doubts that it is dead and completely powerless, unless he is out of his mind and does not even have sound bodily senses. For who, seeing a lion made sport of by children, does not know that it is either dead or has lost all its strength?

As, then, one can see with one's eyes that these things are true, so, since death is mocked and despised by those who believe in Christ, let no one any longer doubt, nor be unbelieving, that death has been abolished by Christ, and its corruption dissolved and ended.

What has been said, then, is no small proof that death has been abolished and that the Lord's cross is a trophy over it. But of the immortal resurrection of the body that followed, accomplished by Christ, the common Savior of all and truly Life, the proof from what is seen is clearer than words to those whose mind's eye is sound.

For if death has been abolished, as the argument has shown, and because of the Lord all trample on it, much more did he himself first trample on it in his own body and abolish it. And when death had been put to death by him, what was to happen but that the body should rise and be displayed as a trophy over it? For how could death have been seen to be abolished, unless the Lord's body had risen? But if this proof of his resurrection is not sufficient for someone, let him be assured of what is said at least by what takes place before his eyes.

For if a man who has died can do nothing, but his influence lasts only to the tomb and then ceases, and deeds and actions affecting human beings belong only to the living, let whoever wishes look, and be a judge, confessing the truth from what he sees.

For since the Savior is doing so much among human beings, and every day, everywhere, is invisibly persuading so great a multitude, both of those who live in Greece and of those in foreign lands, to come over to his faith and all to obey his teaching, will anyone still have a doubtful mind as to whether a resurrection has been accomplished by the Savior, and whether Christ is alive, or rather is himself Life?

Is it the part of a dead man to prick the consciences of human beings, so that they deny their ancestral laws and bow before the teaching of Christ? Or how, if he is not active (for that is the mark of a dead man), does he stop the active and living from their activity, so that the adulterer no longer commits adultery, the murderer no longer murders, the unjust man no longer grasps for more, and the impious man becomes godly at last? And how, if he did not rise but is dead, does he himself drive out, pursue, and cast down the false gods whom unbelievers say are alive, and the demons they worship?

For where Christ and faith in him are named, from there all idolatry is overthrown, all the deceit of demons is exposed, and no demon endures even the name, but on merely hearing it flees and is gone. This is not the work of a dead man, but of one who lives, and above all of God.

Besides, it would be ridiculous to say that the demons he drives out and the idols he abolishes are alive, while saying that he who drives them away and by his power prevents them from even appearing, and who is confessed by all to be the Son of God, is dead.

Those who disbelieve the resurrection put forward a great proof against themselves, if all the demons and the gods they worship do not drive out Christ, whom they call dead, but rather Christ proves them all dead.

For if it is true that the dead can do nothing, while the Savior every day does so much, drawing people to godliness, persuading them to virtue, teaching about immortality, leading them up to a longing for heavenly things, revealing the knowledge of the Father, breathing into them power against death, showing himself to each, and overthrowing the godlessness of idols; and if the gods and demons of the unbelievers can do none of these things, but rather at Christ's coming become dead, their illusion idle and empty; while by the sign of the cross all magic ceases, all sorcery is abolished, all idols are deserted and abandoned, all irrational pleasure ceases, and faith looks up from earth to heaven: whom should one call dead? Christ, who does so much? But it is not the part of the dead to act. Or the one who does nothing at all but lies lifeless, which is the mark of the demons and idols, as dead things?

For the Son of God, being living and active, works every day and effects the salvation of all; while death is shown every day to have grown weak, and the idols and demons to be rather dead; so that from this no one should any longer doubt the resurrection of his body.

One who disbelieves in the resurrection of the Lord's body seems not to know the power of the Word and Wisdom of God. For if he took a body to himself at all, and made it his own in reasonable consequence, as the argument has shown, what was the Lord to do with it? Or what end was the body to have, once the Word had come upon it? It could not fail to die, being mortal and offered to death on behalf of all, for which reason the Savior prepared it for himself. But it could not remain dead, because it had become the temple of Life. So it died as mortal, but came to life again because of the Life within it; and his works are the sign of the resurrection.

But if, because he is not seen, it is disbelieved that he has been raised, it is time for the unbelievers to deny the order of nature too. For it is proper to God not to be seen, but to be known from his works, as was said above.

If, then, the works are not there, they do well to disbelieve what does not appear. But if the works cry out and show it plainly, why do they willfully deny the life of the resurrection that is so manifest? For even if they have been maimed in mind, yet even with the outward senses one can see the undeniable power and divinity of Christ.

For even a blind man, though he does not see the sun, yet feeling the warmth it produces, knows that the sun is above the earth. So also let those who contradict, even if they do not yet believe, still being blind to the truth, at least recognize his power from others who believe, and not deny the divinity of Christ and the resurrection accomplished by him.

For it is clear that if Christ were dead, he would not be driving out the demons and despoiling the idols; for the demons would not obey a dead man. But if they are plainly driven out by the naming of his name, it must be clear that he is not dead, especially since the demons, who see even what is not seen by human beings, could know whether Christ is dead, and would not obey him at all.

But as it is, what the impious do not believe, the demons see: that he is God. And for this reason they flee and fall down before him, saying what they uttered when he was in the body: “We know who you are, the Holy One of God,” and, “Ah, what have you to do with us, Son of God? I beg you, do not torment me.”

Since, then, the demons confess it and his works bear witness daily, it must be evident (and let no one be shameless toward the truth) both that the Savior raised his own body, and that he is the true Son of God, being from him, as from a Father, his own Word and Wisdom and Power; who in later times took a body for the salvation of all, taught the world about the Father, abolished death, and freely gave incorruption to all through the promise of the resurrection, having raised his own body as its firstfruits and displayed it by the sign of the cross as a trophy over death and its corruption.

This being so, and the proof of the resurrection of the body and of the victory won by the Savior over death being plain, come, let us also refute the unbelief of the Jews and the mockery of the Greeks.

For perhaps at these things Jews disbelieve and Greeks laugh, disparaging the unfittingness of the cross and of the Word of God becoming man. But our argument will not hesitate to proceed against both, having clear proofs against them.

The Jews in their unbelief have their refutation from the Scriptures that they themselves read; for from one end to the other, every inspired book teaches plainly about these things, as the very words make evident. For the prophets foretold from of old the wonder of the Virgin and the birth from her, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

And Moses, who is truly great and believed by them to be truthful, having judged the saying about the Savior's becoming man to be of great moment and recognizing its truth, set it down, saying: “A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man out of Israel, and he shall crush the rulers of Moab.” And again: “How fair are your houses, O Jacob, your tents, O Israel; like shady glens, and like gardens by rivers, and like tents which the Lord has pitched, like cedars by the waters. A man shall come forth from his seed, and he shall rule over many nations.” And again Isaiah: “Before the child knows how to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the king of Assyria.”

That he would appear as a man, then, is announced beforehand by these passages. And that he who comes is Lord of all, they foretell again, saying: “Behold, the Lord sits on a swift cloud, and will come into Egypt, and the works of men's hands in Egypt shall be shaken.” And from there too the Father calls him back, saying: “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

Nor has his death been passed over in silence; it is indicated very plainly in the divine Scriptures. For they were not afraid to tell both the reason for his death, that he endures it not for his own sake but for the immortality and salvation of all, and the plot of the Jews and the outrages done to him by them, so that no one might be ignorant of what happened or be led astray.

They say, then: “A man under a blow, and knowing how to bear weakness, for his face is turned away; he was dishonored and not esteemed. He bears our sins and suffers pain for us; and we esteemed him to be in toil and under a blow and in affliction. But he was wounded because of our sins and made weak because of our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his bruise we were healed.” Marvel at the love of the Word for humankind, that he is dishonored for our sake so that we may be honored. “For all we,” it says, “like sheep have gone astray; man has gone astray in his way; and the Lord gave him up for our sins; and he, because he was afflicted, does not open his mouth. As a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is dumb, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment was taken away.”

Then, lest anyone should suppose from his suffering that he was an ordinary man, Scripture anticipates people's suspicions, and declares both his power beyond them and the unlikeness of his nature to ours, saying: “Who shall declare his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth. Because of the iniquities of the people he was led to death. And I will give the wicked in return for his burial, and the rich in return for his death; for he did no iniquity, nor was deceit found in his mouth. And the Lord wills to cleanse him from the blow.”

But perhaps, having heard the prophecy of his death, you seek to learn also what is indicated about the cross. Nor has this been passed over in silence; it has been shown very plainly by the saints.

For Moses first announces it beforehand with a loud voice, saying: “You shall see your life hanging before your eyes, and you shall not believe.”

And the prophets after him again bear witness about this, saying: “But I, like an innocent lamb led to be sacrificed, did not know it; they devised evil against me, saying: Come, let us put wood into his bread, and destroy him from the land of the living.”

And again: “They pierced my hands and my feet; they counted all my bones; they divided my garments among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.”

A death lifted up and taking place on wood could be no other than the cross; and in no other death, again, are hands and feet pierced, but only on the cross.

And since at the Savior's coming all the nations everywhere began to know God, they did not leave this unmarked either; there is mention of it too in the holy writings: “There shall be,” it says, “the root of Jesse, and he who rises to rule the nations; in him the nations shall hope.” These are a few proofs of what has happened.

But all Scripture is full of refutations of the unbelief of the Jews. For who ever, among the righteous men, holy prophets, and patriarchs recorded in the divine Scriptures, had his bodily birth from a virgin alone? Or what woman has been sufficient without a man for the conception of human beings? Was not Abel born of Adam, Enoch of Jared, Noah of Lamech, Abraham of Terah, Isaac of Abraham, and Jacob of Isaac? Was not Judah born of Jacob, and Moses and Aaron of Amram? Was not Samuel the son of Elkanah, David of Jesse, Solomon of David, Hezekiah of Ahaz, Josiah of Amon, Isaiah of Amoz, Jeremiah of Hilkiah, Ezekiel of Buzi? Did not each have a father as the source of his birth? Who, then, is the one born of a virgin alone? For the prophet took great care over this sign.

And whose birth did a star in the heavens run before, signaling to the world the one who was born? For Moses, when he was born, was hidden by his parents; and David was not heard of even by his neighbors, since even the great Samuel did not know him, but asked whether Jesse had yet another son. Abraham became known to those near him only after he had become great. But of Christ's birth the witness was not a man but a star appearing in heaven, from where he was coming down.

And which of the kings that have been ever reigned and won trophies over his enemies before he was able to call father or mother? Did not David come to the throne at thirty years of age, and Solomon when he had become a young man? Did not Joash come to the kingdom at seven years old, and Josiah, later still, take up the rule at about seven? Yet even these, at that age, were able to call father or mother.

Who, then, is it that reigns almost before his birth and despoils his enemies? Let the Jews search and say what such king there has been in Israel or in Judah, on whom all the nations have set their hope and had peace, and were not rather opposed to them on every side.

For as long as Jerusalem stood there was war without truce against them, and all fought against Israel: the Assyrians oppressing them, the Egyptians pursuing them, the Babylonians attacking them; and, remarkably, they even had their neighbors the Syrians making war against them. Did not David fight those in Moab and cut down the Syrians? Did not Josiah guard against his neighbors, and Hezekiah fear the arrogance of Sennacherib? Did not Amalek take the field against Moses, and the Amorites oppose him, and the inhabitants of Jericho array themselves against Joshua son of Nun? And in general, were not the nations' relations with Israel without truce or friendship? It is worth seeing, then, who it is on whom the nations set their hope; for there must be such a one, since the prophet cannot lie.

And which of the holy prophets or of the patriarchs of old died on a cross for the salvation of all? Or who was wounded and put to death for the healing of all? And which of the righteous or of the kings went down into Egypt, and by his going down the idols of the Egyptians ceased? Abraham went down, and idolatry still prevailed over all. Moses was born there, and the worship of those led astray was there no less.

And which of those attested in Scripture was pierced in hands and feet, or hung at all on a tree and was put to death on a cross for the salvation of all? Abraham died failing on his bed; Isaac and Jacob too died on their beds, drawing up their feet. Moses and Aaron died on the mountain, David in his house, suffering no plot from the people; and if he was sought by Saul, he was kept unharmed. Isaiah was sawn asunder, but was not hung on a tree; Jeremiah was insulted, but did not die under sentence; Ezekiel suffered, but not for the people, only signifying what would come upon the people.

Besides, these men, even when they suffered, were men, like all others in the likeness of their nature. But he who is shown in the Scriptures to suffer on behalf of all is called not simply a man, but the Life of all, even though he was like human beings in nature. For it says: “You shall see your Life hanging before your eyes,” and, “Who shall declare his generation?” For one can learn and declare the generation of all the saints from the beginning, who each was and where he came from; but the divine words indicate that the generation of him who is Life cannot be declared.

Who, then, is it of whom the divine Scriptures say these things? Or who is so great that the prophets foretold so much about him? No one else is found in the Scriptures but the common Savior of all, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. For he is the one who came forth from a virgin and appeared as a man on earth, and whose generation according to the flesh cannot be declared. For there is no one who can name his father according to the flesh, since his body is not from a man but from a virgin alone.

As, then, one can trace the fathers of David and Moses and all the patriarchs, so no one can declare the Savior's generation according to the flesh from a man. He is the one who made the star signify the birth of his body. For the Word, coming down from heaven, had to have his sign from heaven too; and the King of creation, coming forth, had to be plainly recognized by the whole world.

Indeed, he was born in Judea, and men from Persia came to worship him. He is the one who, even before his bodily appearing, won the victory over the demons his adversaries and trophies over idolatry. All from the nations everywhere, abjuring their ancestral custom and the godlessness of idols, now set their hope on Christ and enroll themselves under him, as one can see with one's own eyes.

For at no other time did the godlessness of the Egyptians cease but when the Lord of all, riding as on a cloud, came down there in the body, abolished the error of idols, and brought all over to himself and through himself to the Father.

He is the one who was crucified with the sun and creation as witnesses, and those who brought death upon him; and by his death salvation has come to all, and all creation has been redeemed. He is the Life of all, who like a sheep gave up his own body to death as a ransom for the salvation of all, even if the Jews do not believe.

For if they think these things insufficient, let them be persuaded at least by other oracles which they themselves have. For of whom do the prophets speak: “I became manifest to those who did not seek me; I was found by those who did not ask for me. I said, Here I am, to a nation that did not call on my name. I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contradicting people”?

Who, then, is the one who became manifest? one might say to the Jews. If it is the prophet, let them say when he was hidden, so as to appear afterwards. And what prophet is this, who both became manifest after being hidden and stretched out his hands on a cross? None of the righteous, but only the Word of God, who, being bodiless by nature, appeared in a body for our sake and suffered for us.

Or if even this is not enough for them, let them at least be put to shame by other passages, seeing so clear a refutation. For Scripture says: “Be strong, you slack hands and feeble knees; take comfort, you faint of heart; be strong, do not fear. Behold, our God renders judgment; he himself will come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be clear.”

What, then, can they say about this, or how can they dare to face it at all? For the prophecy signifies that God is coming, and the signs make known the time of his coming. For they speak of the blind seeing, the lame walking, the deaf hearing, and the tongue of the stammerers made clear, in connection with the divine coming that has taken place. When, then, have such signs taken place in Israel? Or where has anything like this happened in Judea? Let them say.

Naaman, a leper, was cleansed, but no deaf man heard, nor did a lame man walk. Elijah and Elisha raised the dead, but no man blind from birth received sight. To raise the dead is indeed a great thing, but not such as the Savior's wonder. Yet if Scripture has not passed over in silence the case of the leper and of the widow's dead son, then surely, if a lame man had walked and a blind man seen, the account would not have failed to make these known too. Since they are passed over in silence in the Scriptures, it is clear that these things had not happened before.

When, then, did these things happen, but when the Word of God himself came in the body? And when did he come, but when the lame walked, the stammerers spoke clearly, the deaf heard, and those blind from birth received sight? For the Jews who saw it at the time said this too, having never heard of such things happening before: “Since the world began it has not been heard that anyone opened the eyes of one born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.”

But perhaps, unable to fight against what is evident, they will not deny what is written, but will insist that they are awaiting these things and that God the Word has not yet come. For this is what they keep repeating everywhere, not blushing at their shamelessness in the face of the facts.

But on this point above all they will be refuted, not by us, but by the most wise Daniel, who indicates both the present time and the divine coming of the Savior, saying: “Seventy weeks are cut short upon your people and upon the holy city, for sin to be ended, and sins to be sealed up, and iniquities to be blotted out, and iniquities to be atoned for, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint a Holy of holies. And you shall know and understand: from the going forth of the word to answer and to build Jerusalem, until Christ the prince.”

Perhaps about the other passages they can find pretexts and put off what is written to a future time. But what can they say to this, or how can they face it at all? For here the Christ is indicated, and the one anointed is proclaimed to be not simply a man but the Holy of holies; and Jerusalem stands until his coming, and thereafter prophet and vision cease in Israel.

David, Solomon, and Hezekiah were anointed of old, but Jerusalem and the place still stood, and prophets prophesied: Gad, Asaph, Nathan, and after them Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, and others. Besides, the anointed men themselves were called holy, not Holy of holies. And if they bring up the captivity and say that because of it Jerusalem did not exist, what would they say about the prophets? For of old, when the people went down to Babylon, Daniel and Jeremiah were there, and Ezekiel, Haggai, and Zechariah prophesied.

So the Jews are telling tales, and putting off the present time into the future. For when did prophet or vision cease from Israel, but now, when Christ the Holy of holies has come? For it is a sign and great proof of the coming of the Word of God that Jerusalem no longer stands, no prophet is raised up, and no vision is revealed to them; and very reasonably.

For when the one signified had come, what further need was there of those who signified him? And when the truth was present, what further need was there of the shadow? For this reason they prophesied until Righteousness itself should come, he who ransoms the sins of all. For this reason too Jerusalem stood so long, so that there they might practice beforehand the types of the truth.

So, since the Holy of holies is present, vision and prophecy have fittingly been sealed, and the kingdom of Jerusalem has ceased. For kings were anointed among them only until the Holy of holies was anointed; and Moses prophesies that the kingdom of the Jews stands until him, saying: “A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until there come the things stored up for him; and he is the expectation of the nations.”

So the Savior himself cried out: “The law and the prophets prophesied until John.” If, then, there is now among the Jews a king or prophet or vision, they do well to deny the Christ who has come. But if there is neither king nor vision, and every prophecy has henceforth been sealed, and the city and the temple have been taken, why are they so impious and so perverse as to see what has happened and deny Christ, who brought it about? And why, seeing those from the nations forsaking their idols and setting their hope through Christ on the God of Israel, do they deny the Christ born according to the flesh from the root of Jesse and now reigning? If the nations worshiped some other god and did not confess the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, they might again plausibly plead that God had not come.

But if the nations worship the very God who gave the law to Moses and made the promise to Abraham, whose word the Jews dishonored, why do they not recognize, or rather why do they willfully overlook, that the Lord foretold by the Scriptures has shone upon the world and appeared to it bodily? As Scripture said: “The Lord God has appeared to us”; and again: “He sent forth his Word and healed them”; and again: “Not an ambassador, not an angel, but the Lord himself saved them.”

They are like someone deranged in mind who sees the earth lit up by the sun but denies the sun that lights it. For what more has the one they expect to do when he comes? Call the nations? They have been called already. Put an end to prophet, king, and vision? This too has already happened. Expose the godlessness of idols? It has already been exposed and condemned. Abolish death? It has already been abolished.

What, then, has not happened that the Christ must do? Or what remains unfulfilled, that the Jews should now rejoice in unbelief? For if, as we see, there is among them neither king, nor prophet, nor Jerusalem, nor sacrifice, nor vision, but the whole earth has been filled with the knowledge of God, and those from the nations, forsaking their godlessness, now take refuge with the God of Abraham through the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, it must be plain even to the utterly shameless that Christ has come, and that he has shone on absolutely all with his own light and has given the true and divine teaching about his own Father.

From these things, then, and from many more in the divine Scriptures, one may fittingly refute the Jews.

But one may well wonder at the Greeks, who laugh at what is no matter for mockery, yet are blind to their own shame, which they have set up in stones and wood and do not see.

But since our argument does not lack proofs, come, let us put these too to shame by reasonable arguments, especially from what we ourselves see. For what is absurd, or what deserves mockery, in what we say? Surely only that we say the Word has been made manifest in a body? But they themselves will agree that this has happened not absurdly, if they are friends of the truth.

If, then, they deny altogether that there is a Word of God, they act idly, mocking what they do not know.

But if they confess that there is a Word of God, and that he is the ruler of the universe, and that in him the Father has made creation, and that by his providence the universe is given light and life and existence, and that he reigns over all, so that he is known from the works of his providence, and through him the Father, consider, I beg you, whether they are not unwittingly turning their mockery against themselves.

The philosophers of the Greeks say that the world is a great body, and they say truly; for we see it and its parts falling under our senses. If, then, the Word of God is in the world, which is a body, and has entered into all of it and into each of its parts, what is surprising or absurd if we say that he has also entered into a man?

For if it is absurd for him to be in a body at all, it would be absurd for him to have entered into the universe too, and to give light and movement to all things by his providence; for the whole is also a body.

But if it is fitting for him to enter into the world and be known in the whole, it would be fitting also for him to appear in a human body, and for it to be given light and to act by him. For the human race too is a part of the universe. And if it is unfitting for the part to become his instrument for the knowledge of his divinity, it would be most absurd for him to be known through the whole world.

For as, when the whole body is moved and given light by a man, if someone said it was absurd for the man's power to be in the toe too, he would be thought foolish, because while granting that he pervades and acts in the whole, he forbids him to be in the part; so one who grants and believes that the Word of God is in the universe, and that the universe is given light and movement by him, will not think it absurd that one human body too should be moved and given light by him.

But if, because the human race is created and has come into being out of nothing, they think it unfitting for us to speak of the Savior's appearing in a man, it is time for them to expel him from creation too; for it too came from non-being into being through the Word.

But if, though creation is created, it is not absurd for the Word to be in it, then neither is it absurd for him to be in a man. For whatever they think about the whole, they must necessarily conclude about the part as well; for man too, as I said before, is a part of the whole.

So it is not at all unfitting for the Word to be in a man, and for all things to be given light and movement and existence by him and in him, as their own writers also say: “In him we live and move and have our being.”

What, then, do we say that deserves mockery, if the Word has used as an instrument for his manifestation that in which he is? For if he were not in it, he could not have used it. But if we have already granted that he is in the universe and in its parts, what is incredible if he also manifests himself in those in which he is?

For as, while by his powers he is wholly in each and all and orders all things without stint, no one would have said he acted absurdly if he had wished to use the sun, or moon, or heaven, or earth, or waters, or fire as a voice and make himself and his Father known, since he holds all things together at once and is with all and in each part, showing himself invisibly: so it would not be absurd if he, who orders all things and gives life to the universe, and who willed to make himself known through human beings, has used a human body as an instrument for the manifestation of the truth and the knowledge of the Father. For humanity too is a part of the whole.

And as the mind, which pervades the whole man, is expressed by a part of the body, I mean the tongue, and no one says that the being of the mind is lessened by this; so, if the Word, who is in all things, has used a human instrument, this would not appear unfitting. For if, as I said before, it is unfitting to use a body as an instrument, it is unfitting for him to be in the whole.

Why then, if they say it, did he not appear through other, nobler parts of creation, and use a nobler instrument, such as the sun, or moon, or stars, or fire, or ether, instead of a man only? Let them know that the Lord came not to make a display, but to heal and teach those who were suffering.

For one making a display would only appear and astonish those who saw him; but it belongs to one who heals and teaches not simply to arrive, but to come for the benefit of those in need, and to appear in a way those in need can bear, lest by exceeding the need of the sufferers he should confound the very people who needed him, and the appearing of the divine be of no profit to them.

Now nothing in creation had gone astray in its ideas about God but man alone. Indeed, neither sun nor moon nor heaven nor stars nor water nor ether departed from their order; knowing their Maker and King, the Word, they remain as they were made. Human beings alone turned from the good and fashioned for themselves things that are not in place of the truth, and gave the honor due to God and the knowledge of him to demons and to men carved in stone.

So, fittingly, since it was not worthy of God's goodness to overlook so great a thing, but human beings could not know him ordering and ruling in the whole, he takes to himself as an instrument a part of the whole, the human body, and enters into it, so that, since they could not know him in the whole, they might at least not fail to know him in the part; and since they could not look up to his invisible power, they might at least be able to reason about him and behold him from what is like themselves.

For being human, they will be able more quickly and more directly to know his Father through a body like theirs and the divine works done through it, judging by comparison that what he does are not human works but works of God.

And if, as they say, it were absurd for the Word to be known through the works of the body, it would again be absurd for him to be known from the works of the universe. For as, being in creation, he does not share in anything of creation, but rather all things share in his power, so also, using the body as an instrument, he shared in nothing of the body, but rather himself sanctified the body.

For if even Plato, who is admired among the Greeks, says that the one who begot the world, seeing it storm-tossed and in danger of sinking into the region of unlikeness, takes his seat at the helm of the soul, comes to its aid, and sets right all its failings, what is incredible in what we say, that, when humanity was going astray, the Word took his seat upon it and appeared as a man, so as to save it, storm-tossed as it was, by his steering and goodness?

But perhaps, out of shame, they will agree with this, but will want to say that God, if he wished to instruct and save human beings, should have done it by a mere nod, and his Word should not have touched a body, just as he did of old when he brought things into being out of nothing.

To this objection of theirs the following may fittingly be said: that of old, when nothing existed anywhere, a nod and a mere act of will were needed for the making of the universe. But once man had been made, and need required that not what did not exist but what had come into being be healed, it followed that the physician and Savior should come among what had already come into being, so as to heal what existed. For this reason he became man and has used the body as a human instrument.

For if it was not to happen in this way, how was the Word, wishing to use an instrument, to come? Or from where was he to take it, but from what had already come into being and needed his divinity through something like itself? For it was not non-existent things that needed salvation, so that a command alone would suffice; but man, who already existed, was being corrupted and was perishing. So, fittingly, the Word used a human instrument well and spread himself through all things.

Then this too must be known: that the corruption that had come about was not outside the body but had attached itself to it, and it was necessary for life to be interwoven with it in place of corruption, so that as death had come about in the body, so life too might come about in it.

If, then, death were outside the body, its life too would have had to come from outside. But if death was interwoven with the body and, as united with it, ruled over it, then life too had to be interwoven with the body, so that the body, putting on life in exchange, might cast off corruption. Besides, if the Word had come to be outside the body and not in it, death would indeed have been defeated by him quite naturally, since death has no power against Life; but the corruption attached to the body would have remained in it no less.

For this reason the Savior fittingly put on a body, so that the body, interwoven with Life, might no longer remain in death as mortal, but, having put on immortality, might thereafter rise and remain immortal. For once it had put on corruption, it would not have risen unless it had put on life; and again, death does not appear by itself, except in the body. For this reason he put on a body, so as to find death in the body and blot it out. For how could the Lord have been shown to be Life at all, if he had not given life to what was mortal?

And as, since straw is by nature destroyed by fire, if someone keeps the fire away from the straw, the straw is not burned, but it remains straw all the same, fearing the threat of the fire, for fire by nature consumes it; but if someone wraps the straw in plenty of asbestos, which is said to be proof against fire, the straw no longer fears the fire, having safety from its fireproof clothing:

in the same way one might speak of the body and of death. If death had been kept from it merely by a command from him, it would nonetheless have remained mortal and corruptible, according to the nature of bodies. But so that this might not happen, it put on the bodiless Word of God; and so it no longer fears death or corruption, having Life as its clothing, and corruption being done away in it.

So, consistently, the Word of God took up a body and has used a human instrument, both to give life to the body and so that, as he is known in creation through his works, he might also work in a man and show himself everywhere, leaving nothing empty of his divinity and of the knowledge of him.

For I say the same thing again, repeating what I said before: the Savior did this so that, as he fills all things everywhere by his presence, he might also fill all things with the knowledge of him; as the divine Scripture also says: “The whole earth was filled with the knowledge of the Lord.”

For if someone wishes to look up to heaven, he sees its order; or if he cannot look up to heaven but only lifts his head toward human beings, he sees through his works his power toward human beings, which is beyond comparison, and knows that he alone among human beings is God the Word. If someone has turned aside to demons and is awestruck by them, he sees him driving them out and judges him to be their master. If someone has sunk into the nature of waters and thinks them to be God, as the Egyptians revere water, he sees it changed by him and knows that the Lord is their Creator.

And if someone has gone down even to Hades and is awestruck at the heroes who have gone down there, as gods, yet he sees his resurrection and victory over death, and concludes that among them Christ alone is true Lord and God.

For the Lord touched all parts of creation, and freed all things from every deception and exposed it, as Paul says: “Having stripped the rulers and the authorities, he triumphed over them in the cross”, so that no one could any longer be deceived, but everywhere might find the true Word of God.

For thus, hemmed in on every side, and seeing the divinity of the Word spread out everywhere, that is, in heaven, in Hades, in man, and on earth, man is no longer deceived about God, but worships him alone, and through him rightly knows the Father.

By these arguments, then, the Greeks too will fittingly be put to shame by us on reasonable grounds. But if they think the arguments insufficient to shame them, let them at least be assured of what is said by what appears before the eyes of all.

When did people begin to abandon the worship of idols, except since the true Word of God came among human beings? And when did the oracles among the Greeks and everywhere cease and become empty, except when the Savior manifested himself on earth?

And when did the so-called gods and heroes of the poets begin to be condemned as mere mortal men, except since the Lord won the trophy over death and kept incorruptible the body he had taken, raising it from the dead?

And when was the deceit and madness of demons despised, except when the Power of God, the Word, the Master of all including them, stooping down because of human weakness, appeared on earth? And when did the art of magic and its schools begin to be trampled underfoot, except when the divine manifestation of the Word took place among human beings?

And in short, when was the wisdom of the Greeks made foolish, except when the true Wisdom of God manifested itself on earth? For of old the whole world and every place was led astray by the worship of idols, and people thought nothing else to be gods but the idols. But now throughout the whole world people are abandoning the superstition of idols and taking refuge in Christ, and, worshiping him as God, through him they come to know the Father whom they did not know.

And the wonder is that, though objects of worship were various and countless, each place having its own idol, and the so-called god of one people not able to pass over into the next place so as to persuade even their neighbors to worship him, but barely worshiped even among his own (for no one worshiped his neighbor's god, but each kept his own idol, thinking it lord of all), Christ alone is worshiped among all as one and everywhere the same. And what the weakness of idols could not do, namely persuade even those living nearby, Christ has done, persuading not only those nearby but simply the whole world to worship one and the same Lord, and through him God his Father.

And of old every place was filled with the deceit of oracles, and the oracles at Delphi, Dodona, Boeotia, Lycia, Libya, Egypt, and among the Cabiri, and the Pythia, were admired by people for their illusions. But now, since Christ is proclaimed everywhere, their madness too has ceased, and there is no longer anyone among them giving oracles.

And of old demons deluded people with illusions, occupying springs or rivers or trees or stones, and so astonishing the foolish by their trickery. But now that the divine manifestation of the Word has taken place, their illusion has ceased. For a man, merely by using the sign of the cross, drives away their deceits.

And of old people thought the so-called gods of the poets, Zeus, Cronus, Apollo, and the heroes, to be gods, and went astray in worshiping them. But now that the Savior has appeared among human beings, those have been stripped bare as mortal men, and Christ alone has been recognized among human beings as true God, God the Word of God.

And what might one say of the magic they admire? Before the Word came to dwell among us it was strong and active among Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Indians, and astonished those who saw it; but by the presence of the truth and the manifestation of the Word it too was exposed and completely abolished.

As for Greek wisdom and the grand talk of the philosophers, I think no one needs an argument from us, since the wonder is before the eyes of all: that though the wise men of the Greeks wrote so much and could not persuade even a few from neighboring places about immortality and the life of virtue, Christ alone, through simple words and through men not wise in speech, has persuaded throughout the whole world whole churches full of people to despise death and to think of immortal things, to overlook what is temporal and look to what is eternal, to count earthly glory as nothing and strive for immortality alone.

These things that we say do not stop at words; they have the witness of truth from experience itself.

Let whoever wishes come forward and see the proof of virtue in the virgins of Christ and in the young men who live in holy chastity, and the assurance of immortality in so great a company of martyrs.

And let whoever wishes to put what has been said to the test come, and in the very presence of the illusions of demons, the deceit of oracles, and the wonders of magic, let him use the sign of the cross that they laugh at, merely naming Christ, and he will see how through it demons flee, oracles cease, and all magic and sorcery is brought to nothing.

Who, then, and how great is this Christ, who by his name and presence has overshadowed and abolished everything on every side, who alone prevails against all, and has filled the whole world with his teaching? Let the Greeks say, who laugh so much and do not blush.

If he is a man, how has one man surpassed the power of all their gods, and by his own power shown them to be nothing? If they call him a magician, how is it possible for all magic to be abolished by a magician, rather than strengthened? If he had defeated human magicians, or prevailed over only one, he might well have been thought by them to surpass the others by a superior art.

But if his cross has won the victory over absolutely all magic and over its very name, it must be clear that the Savior is not a magician, since even the demons invoked by other magicians flee from him as their master.

Who, then, is he? Let the Greeks say, whose only zeal is for mockery. Perhaps they will say that he too was a demon and so had power. But in saying this they will incur utter ridicule, since they can again be put to shame by the earlier proofs. For how is it possible for one who drives out demons to be a demon?

For if he simply drove out demons, he might well have been thought to prevail over the lesser ones by the ruler of the demons, as the Jews too said to him when they wished to insult him. But if all the madness of the demons gives way and is put to flight at the naming of his name, it must be evident that in this too they are mistaken, and that our Lord and Savior Christ is not, as they think, some demonic power.

If, then, the Savior is neither simply a man, nor a magician, nor a demon, but by his divinity has abolished and overshadowed the notions of the poets, the illusion of demons, and the wisdom of the Greeks, it must be evident, and will be confessed by all, that he is truly the Son of God, being the Word and Wisdom and Power of the Father. That is why his works are not human but above human, and are recognized as truly God's, both from what appears and from comparison with human beings.

For which of all the men who have ever lived formed a body for himself from a virgin alone? Or what man ever healed such diseases as the common Lord of all? And who has given back what was lacking at birth, and made a man blind from birth see?

Asclepius was deified among them because he practiced medicine and found herbs for bodies that were suffering, not forming them himself from the earth, but discovering them by knowledge drawn from nature. But what is that compared with what the Savior did, who did not heal a wound but formed a birth and restored what had been fashioned?

Heracles is worshiped as a god among the Greeks because he fought against men who were his equals and killed wild beasts by cunning. What is that compared with what the Word did, driving away diseases and demons and death itself from human beings? Dionysus is worshiped among them because he became a teacher of drunkenness to humankind; but the Savior, who is truly Lord of the universe, is mocked by them for teaching self-control.

But let that pass. What of the other wonders of his divinity? At what man's death was the sun darkened and the earth shaken? Look, men die even now and have died before; when did any such wonder happen at their deaths?

Or, to pass over the deeds done through his body and recall those after his resurrection: whose teaching, among all the men who have ever lived, has prevailed, one and the same everywhere, from the ends of the earth to its ends, so that his worship has flown through all the earth?

Or why, if Christ is a man and not God the Word, as they say, is his worship not prevented by their gods from passing into the same country where they are? Rather, the Word himself, coming to dwell there, puts an end to their worship by his teaching and puts their illusion to shame.

Many kings and tyrants of the earth have lived before this; many wise men and magicians are recorded among the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Indians. Which of them ever, I do not say after death, but even while still living, was able to have so much power as to fill the whole earth with his teaching and to reclaim so great a multitude from the superstition of idols, as many as our Savior has brought over from idols to himself?

The philosophers of the Greeks wrote much with persuasiveness and skill of words. What, then, did they display as great as the cross of Christ? Their sophistries were persuasive only until their death; and even the influence they seemed to have while living was spent in rivalry with one another, as they contended and competed against each other.

But the Word of God, most wonderfully, teaching in plainer language, has overshadowed the cleverest sophists, abolished their teachings by drawing all to himself, and filled his own churches. And the wonder is that, going down to death as a man, he has abolished the grand talk of the wise about idols.

For whose death ever drove out demons? Or whose death did demons ever fear as they fear Christ's? For where the Savior's name is named, from there every demon is driven out. And who has so removed the passions of the soul from human beings that fornicators become chaste, murderers no longer hold the sword, and those gripped by cowardice become brave?

And in short, who persuaded the barbarians and the people of the nations in various places to lay aside their madness and think of peace, but the faith of Christ and the sign of the cross? And who else has so assured human beings about immortality as the cross of Christ and the resurrection of his body?

For though the Greeks invented every kind of falsehood, they could not invent a resurrection for their idols, not considering at all whether it is even possible for the body to exist again after death. And for this one might especially commend them: that by reasoning in this way they exposed the weakness of their own idolatry and conceded that power to Christ, so that from this too he might be known by all as the Son of God.

Which man, then, after his death, or even while living at all, taught about virginity, and did not think this virtue impossible among human beings? But our Savior and King of all, Christ, has had such power in his teaching about it that children not yet of lawful age vow a virginity beyond the law.

What man ever was able to travel so far, to the Scythians and Ethiopians, or Persians, Armenians, or Goths, or those said to live beyond the Ocean, or those beyond Hyrcania, or even to reach the Egyptians and Chaldeans, who are given to magic, superstitious beyond nature and savage in their ways, and to preach at all about virtue and self-control and against the worship of idols, as the Lord of all, the Power of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, has done?

He not only preached through his own disciples, but also persuaded them in mind to put aside the savagery of their ways, to worship their ancestral gods no longer, but to recognize him and through him to worship the Father.

For of old, while they worshiped idols, Greeks and barbarians made war on one another and were cruel even to their own kin. No one could cross land or sea at all without arming his hand with a sword, because of their irreconcilable fighting with one another.

For their whole way of life was carried on by arms; the sword was their staff and the support of every need. And yet, as I said before, they served idols and poured out sacrifices to demons; and still, for all their superstition of idols, those who held such beliefs could not be reformed at all.

But when they have come over to the teaching of Christ, then indeed, wonderfully, pricked in mind, they lay aside the savagery of their bloodshed and no longer think of war; everything with them is now peaceful and all their desire is for friendship.

Who, then, has done these things, or who has joined in peace those who hated one another, but the beloved Son of the Father, the common Savior of all, Jesus Christ, who in his love endured everything for our salvation? For it was prophesied from of old about the peace that he would establish, as Scripture says: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into sickles, and nation shall not take up sword against nation, and they shall no more learn to make war.”

And this is not incredible, since even now the barbarians, in whom savagery of manners is inborn, while they still sacrifice to their idols, rage against one another and cannot bear to be without a sword for a single hour.

But when they hear the teaching of Christ, at once they turn from war to farming, and instead of arming their hands with swords they stretch them out in prayer. In short, instead of fighting one another, they now arm themselves against the devil and the demons, fighting them down with self-control and virtue of soul.

This is a proof of the Savior's divinity: that what human beings could not learn among idols they have learned from him. And it is no small refutation of the weakness and nothingness of demons and idols. For the demons, knowing their own weakness, for this reason formerly set human beings to fight against one another, lest, ceasing from their strife with one another, they should turn to battle against the demons.

Indeed, those who become disciples of Christ, instead of fighting one another, array themselves against demons by their conduct and virtuous deeds, and they rout them and mock their leader the devil, so that in youth they are chaste, in temptations they endure, in toils they persevere, when insulted they are patient, and when robbed they think nothing of it; and, most wonderful of all, they even despise death and become martyrs of Christ.

And to mention one very wonderful proof of the Savior's divinity: what mere man or magician or tyrant or king was ever able by himself to take on so much, and to fight against all idolatry and every demonic host and all magic and all the wisdom of the Greeks, while they were so strong and still flourishing and astonishing everyone, and with a single stroke to withstand them all, as our Lord, the true Word of God, has done? Invisibly exposing each one's error, he alone, from among them all, carries off all people as spoils, so that those who worshiped idols now trample on them, those admired for magic burn their books, and the wise prefer the interpretation of the Gospels to everything.

For those whom they formerly worshiped they are abandoning, and the crucified Christ whom they used to mock they worship, confessing him as God. The so-called gods among them are put to flight by the sign of the cross, while the crucified Savior is proclaimed in all the world as God and Son of God. And the gods worshiped among the Greeks are denounced by them as shameful, while those who receive the teaching of Christ live a more chaste life than they.

If, then, these and such things are human, let whoever wishes show similar things done by those before, and persuade us. But if they appear, and are, not the works of human beings but of God, why are the unbelievers so impious as not to recognize the Master who has done them?

For they are like someone who does not know God the Maker from the works of creation. For if they knew his divinity from his power over the universe, they would have known that the works of Christ done through the body are not human either, but belong to the Savior of all, the Word of God. And knowing this, as Paul said, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

As, then, one who wishes to see God, who is invisible by nature and not seen at all, grasps and knows him from his works, so let one who does not see Christ with his mind learn of him at least from the works of his body, and test whether they are human or God's.

And if they are human, let him mock; but if they are recognized as not human but God's, let him not laugh at what is no matter for mockery, but rather marvel that through so humble a means divine things have been made manifest to us, that through death immortality has reached all, and that through the Word's becoming man the providence over all things has been made known, and its giver and maker, the Word of God himself.

For he became man so that we might be made god; and he manifested himself through a body so that we might receive an idea of the invisible Father; and he endured the insolence of men so that we might inherit incorruption. He himself was harmed in nothing, being impassible and incorruptible and the very Word and God; but in his own impassibility he kept and preserved the suffering human beings for whose sake he endured these things.

In short, the achievements of the Savior accomplished through his becoming man are of such kind and so many that anyone who wished to recount them would be like people who gaze at the open sea and want to count its waves. For as one cannot take in all the waves with one's eyes, since those coming on escape the senses of the one trying, so for one who wishes to take in all the achievements of Christ in the body it is impossible to grasp them all even in thought, since those that escape his thinking are more than those he thinks he has grasped.

It is better, then, not to try to speak of the whole, of which one cannot tell even a part, but to mention one more thing and leave the whole to you to marvel at. For all alike are wonderful, and wherever one turns one's gaze, one sees the divinity of the Word there and is struck with amazement.

This, then, after what has been said, it is worth your learning, and setting down as the starting point of what has not been said, and greatly marveling at: that since the Savior came to dwell among us, idolatry no longer increases, and what there is diminishes and gradually ceases; the wisdom of the Greeks no longer advances, and what there is is now disappearing; and demons no longer deceive by illusions, oracles, and magic, but as soon as they dare and try, they are put to shame by the sign of the cross.

And, to sum up, see how the Savior's teaching is increasing everywhere, while all idolatry and everything opposed to the faith of Christ is daily diminishing, weakening, and falling. And seeing this, worship the Savior who is over all, the mighty God the Word, and condemn what is being diminished and done away by him.

For as when the sun is present darkness no longer prevails, but even if any remains anywhere it is driven away, so, now that the divine manifestation of God the Word has come, the darkness of idols no longer prevails, and all parts of the world everywhere are lit up by his teaching.

And as, when a king reigns in some country but does not appear, remaining inside his own house, often some disorderly men, taking advantage of his withdrawal, proclaim themselves, and each, putting on the part, deludes the simple as if he were king, and so people are led astray by the name, hearing that there is a king but not seeing him, above all because they cannot go into the house; but when the true king comes out and appears, then the disorderly deceivers are exposed by his presence, and the people, seeing the true king, abandon those who formerly led them astray:

so too, of old, demons and men deceived, putting on themselves the honor due to God; but when the Word of God appeared in a body and made his own Father known to us, then the deceit of the demons vanishes and ceases, and people, looking to the true Word of the Father, God, abandon the idols and at last recognize the true God.

This is a proof that Christ is God the Word and the Power of God. For since human things are ceasing and the word of Christ remains, it is clear to all that what is ceasing is temporary, while he who remains is God and the true Son of God, the only-begotten Word.

Let this, then, be set before you by us briefly, as an elementary outline of the faith of Christ and of his divine appearing to us, O lover of Christ. But taking your start from these things, if you read the texts of the Scriptures and apply your mind to them sincerely, you will learn from them more completely and more clearly the exact truth of what has been said.

For they were spoken and written by God through men who spoke of God; and we, having learned from the inspired teachers who read them, who also became witnesses of the divinity of Christ, pass it on in turn to your love of learning.

You will learn also of his second glorious and truly divine appearing to us, when he comes no longer in lowliness but in his own glory, no longer in humble estate but in his own majesty, no longer to suffer but thereafter to render to all the fruit of his own cross, I mean the resurrection and incorruption; and he is no longer judged, but will judge all according to what each has done through the body, whether good or evil. Then the kingdom of heaven is laid up for the good, but for those who have done evil, eternal fire and outer darkness.

For so the Lord himself says: “I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven in the glory of the Father.”

Therefore there is also a saving word that prepares us for that day and says: “Be ready and keep watch, for he comes at an hour you do not know.” For according to the blessed Paul, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive according to what he has done through the body, whether good or evil.”

But for the searching of the Scriptures and true knowledge there is need of a good life, a pure soul, and the virtue that is according to Christ, so that the mind, journeying by it, may be able to attain and grasp what it longs for, as far as it is attainable for human nature to learn about the Word of God.

For without a pure mind and imitation of the life of the saints, no one could grasp the words of the saints.

For as, if someone wished to see the light of the sun, he would surely wipe and clear his eye, purifying himself so as to be almost like what he desires, so that the eye, having become light, may see the light of the sun; or as, if someone wished to see a city or country, he would surely go to the place in order to see it: so one who wishes to grasp the mind of those who spoke of God must first wash and cleanse his soul by his way of life, and approach the saints themselves by likeness to their deeds, so that, joined with them in the conduct of a common life, he may understand what was revealed to them by God, and thereafter, being joined with them, may escape the danger of sinners and their fire on the day of judgment, and receive what is laid up for the saints in the kingdom of heaven, “which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man,” whatever has been prepared for those who live virtuously and love the God and Father, in Christ Jesus our Lord; through whom and with whom, to the Father himself, with the Son himself, in the Holy Spirit, be honor and might and glory for ever and ever. Amen.