The Well-Anchored Man

I would count myself blessed already, most beloved, since, though we are not sufficient for the virtuous way of life of the holy and earnest who have taken up zeal for God, we are counted worthy to be prompted by these same people ⟨so as⟩ to rouse the mind and to set it to what is useful.

For the lowly mind that is always in us, which is eager to persevere quietly and not to stretch further, looking closely at that saying of the apostle, “that I may not stretch beyond the measure of the rule which God has given us as a measure,” is now compelled to come to this.

For from every side the votes, so to speak, have prevailed: those of the God-given zeal among you and of others of the same faith, I mean those who are zealous for orthodoxy, among them our son Hypatius, who came to me from the land of the Egyptians for this very purpose. They have made me put away all indolence and all hesitation, and no longer keep silent or put in second place writing to you about the faith, since you and our brothers ask about our salvation from the divine and holy Scripture: the firm foundation of the faith concerning Father and Son and Holy Spirit and all the rest of salvation in Christ, I mean the resurrection of the dead and the incarnate coming of the Only-begotten, and concerning the holy covenant, old and new, and in short the other elements that make up complete salvation.

So I, having received such a proposal of requests, and they were not few, from Conops our fellow presbyter and those with him, and from others, and from your honors, most beloved children, and moreover from our son Hypatius, who came to me from Egypt for this purpose, seeing so many votes agreeing together, was stung in heart and reasoning; I considered, and resolved to set out readily ⟨and⟩ without hesitation in accordance with your request made by letter, since, not only willingly but even against my will because of the insistence of your requests and those of the people with you, I, the least, was set to write this letter of mine for your longing.

I am greatly astonished and marvel at the dispensation of our Lord and God, who in the abundance of his goodness was pleased to give his Holy Spirit in all things to those who seek him in truth. For I did not consider your letters and those of the people with you to have ⟨come⟩ without God, most beloved; rather, I judged that the impulse had its beginning from the grace of God in you.

For truly those who hold the orthodox view about the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, and who know how to speak in harmony and agreement with the most blessed apostle Peter, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” will clearly be blessed by the Lord himself, just as that holy man was blessed when he heard “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona,” that is, son of Jonah; for his father was called Jonah, and “bar” is translated from the Hebrew language as “son.”

For this was the life which the only-begotten Son of God made known to his disciples when he said, “that they may have life in themselves”; and this is the life of which he said, “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

So in saying “the only true God” he led us to the monarchy, so that we may no longer “be enslaved under the elements of the world,” so that there may no longer be polytheism among us, and human thoughts may not be scattered toward such fornication, but toward the unity of the only true God. For “the first fornication is the devising of idols,” says the Scripture.

And he says, “and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Jesus Christ as what, if not as God? And if Christ Jesus is God, as John says of him, “the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known,” then the Father is one God and the only true God, and the Only-begotten is God.

He is therefore not foreign to God and to the unity; but since he is Son from the Father, for that reason he is the only true God. Not like the falsely named gods whom some of the Greeks thought gods, though they are not gods, but he is the only true God, since he alone is the Only-begotten from the only One, and the Holy Spirit alone. For there is a Trinity in unity, and one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The word alarms those who have not been counted worthy of the Holy Spirit. “For no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.”

For the Jews also say the name Jesus, but they do not consider him Lord. And the Arians say the name and call him God *, but they say he is God by adoption and not true God, since they have no share in the Holy Spirit.

For unless someone receives the Holy Spirit, he does not call Jesus truly Lord and truly God and truly Son of God and truly eternal King.

Let those who have formed the evil opinion learn that in everything the only-begotten Son of God does not ⟨wish⟩ to bear witness about himself.

For so he said in the Gospel: “If I bear witness about myself, my witness is nothing; there is another who bears witness about me.”

And who is the other, if not the one who called from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”? Yet the same one who says, “If I bear witness about myself, my witness is nothing,” says again, “Even if I bear witness about myself, my witness is true,” and again, “The very works which the Father has given me bear witness about me,” and again, “Moses wrote about me,” and “Moses bears witness about me.”

The first saying, “If I bear witness about myself, my witness is nothing,” he said because many glorify themselves and bear witness about themselves, in order to cut off the boasting of those who boast and of those who commend themselves.

But when he says, “Even if I bear witness about myself, my witness is true,” he shows that his witness is not a man's, but that he is God, speaking truly in his own ⟨truth⟩. So the Father is true God, the Son is true God, the Holy Spirit is true, being “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of truth”: a Trinity counted in one name.

For about the Father the Son himself says, “that they may know you, the only true God,” while a trustworthy witness ⟨about the Son⟩ is the one who leaned on his breast and called him Only-begotten. He did not add “true God” to the only-begotten God; but of the Father it is written ⟨that he is⟩ true God, and of the Son, only-begotten God. Conversely, of the Father, “God is light,” and of the Son, “He was the true light.”

And see the precision of the Scriptures. The Father is light, and “true light” is not added in what is said about the Father; but in what is said about the Son it says “true light,” and no one dares to say otherwise.

For who, being mad, or rather heaping derangement on himself, will dare to bring on himself the suspicion of blasphemy by saying about the Father, because he does not find “true” added to the text, that he is not true light?

For if the genuine Son begotten from him is true light, the begetter of the Son is beyond doubt true light: he who begot him without beginning and without time is true light.

And just as one must not dare to say of the Father that he is not true light, although “true” is not added, but of ourselves, through thinking piously, we know, even if it is not written, that he is true light, and we do not doubt, lest we perish, so also of the Son it is written that the Son is God; and even if “true God” is not added, we heap madness on ourselves if we dare to blaspheme and not call the Son true God, even if the word is not added.

For it is enough to carry the whole bond of the Trinity in the one, and from the Father to understand the Son as true God and the Spirit as true, since equivalent expressions of truth are set side by side with each of the names: to the Father “true God,” to the Son “God,”

and conversely to the Son “the true light,” and to the Father “light,” so that, joining the two sayings about the Godhead, “true God” of the Father and “true light” of the Son, and “light” of the Father and “God” of the Son, we may confess from “light” and “God” the one Godhead, and from “true God” and “true light” the one unity of power.

Likewise also concerning the Holy Spirit: “When he comes,” he says, “the Spirit of truth,” and again of himself, “I am the truth”; and of the Father, “the Spirit of my Father who speaks in you”; and of the Spirit, “My Spirit stands in your midst.”

And the Spirit, working together with the Son in a way beyond words, “drives him out into the wilderness” “to be tempted by the devil”; and the Lord himself says, “The Spirit of the Lord, because of which he has anointed me,”

and the Holy Spirit, speaking in the prophets, says, “Thus says the Lord Almighty,” ⟨and⟩ “the Lord who speaks in the prophets,” “who makes firm and creates spirit”: the thunder that resounds for people, and creating wind for the working of the rains sent by God on the earth.

And concerning created things he says thus: “who makes firm the thunder and creates wind.” For these are created. But “declaring his Christ to men” is no longer creating, no longer making firm, but “declaring him to men,”

him who was truly begotten from the True One, the uncreated, the unchangeable, the unalterable, the one who always is from the One who always is, the one who ⟨through Moses⟩ is always: “He who is,” he says, “has sent me,” says Moses, and John says, “he who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.”

The Father is “he who is,” the Son is “he who is,” “being with the One who is,” begotten from him; not merged with the Father, not having begun to be, but always the genuine Son ⟨being⟩ with the Father, the Father always having begotten the Son.

For there was never a time when the Father was not Father; there was never a time when the Son did not exist for the only Father. For if there was when the Father was not, then he himself was a son of another father before he was Father of the Only-begotten.

And thinking to be pious toward the Father, they are wholly impious. For in God there is no room for time, no season, no point of time, no indivisible moment of an hour, no blink of an eye, no suspension of thought; but as far as

your mind may rise to grasp and believe in the Son, it conceives the Father at the same time. For the name * is significant. If you call him Son, in saying Son you understand Father; for from the Son the Father is understood; and when you call him Father, you signify the Son; for a father is always called the father of a son.

When then can you dare to say that the Father was not Father, so as to dare also to say that the Son was not ⟨Son⟩? If you do not ⟨give⟩ an added dignity to the Father (for the divine is in sameness and needs no addition, no glory, no advancement), learn “not to blaspheme,” you who war against the faith, or rather drive yourself away from the faith; but always believe that the eternal Father truly begot the Son,

who always truly is, with the Father who truly is.

but begotten. For the Son, always ⟨being with him⟩, is not merged with the Father, not a brother; he is the genuine Son begotten from the Father, Son by nature, not by adoption, the Son consubstantial with the Father; not coessential, but consubstantial, that is, not begotten from outside the Father, as some ironically assert, wanting the Son to be so by adoption and not in truth.

The bond of the faith is to say “consubstantial.” For if you say “consubstantial,” you have broken the power of Sabellius; for where there is “consubstantial,” it indicates one hypostasis;

but it also signifies that the Father is subsistent, and the Son is subsistent, and the Holy Spirit is subsistent.

And when someone says “consubstantial,” he does not signify something foreign to the same Godhead, but the Son as God from God and the Holy Spirit as God, the Godhead ⟨being one⟩, not three gods.

For even if we call the Son and the Father God, we do not speak of two gods; for our God is one, as the blessed Moses says: “The Lord your God, the Lord is one.”

We do not speak of gods when we call the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God *, and not gods; for there is no polytheism in God. But through the three names the one Godhead of Father and Son and Holy Spirit ⟨is signified⟩.

And there are not two sons; for the Son is one Only-begotten, while the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, always being with Father and Son, not foreign to God, but being from God, “proceeding from the Father” and “receiving” from the Son.

But the Son, the Only-begotten, is incomprehensible, and the Spirit is incomprehensible; from God, not foreign to Father and Son. Nor is he a merging of Father and Son, but a Trinity always existing of the same substance: not another substance besides the Godhead, nor another Godhead besides the substance, but the same Godhead, and from the same Godhead are the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And the Spirit is Holy Spirit, and the Son is Son; the Spirit proceeding from the Father and receiving from the Son, “searching the depths of God,” announcing the things of the Son in the world, sanctifying the saints through the Trinity, third in naming (since the Trinity is ⟨the Father⟩ and the Son and the Holy Spirit; for “Go,” he says, “baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”), the seal of grace, the bond of the Trinity, not foreign to the number, not separated from the naming, not alien to the gift; but one God, one faith, one Lord, one grace, one church, one baptism.

For the Trinity is always Trinity and never receives an addition, being counted thus: Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

The Trinity is not a merging, nor is anything in it separated from its own unity; but in the hypostasis of perfection the Father is perfect, the Son is perfect, the Holy Spirit is perfect: Father and Son ⟨and⟩ Holy Spirit.

And conversely the Spirit is ranked with the gifts: “For there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all.”

Let us not fall away from the subject; let us not depart from the truth. We are not advocates pleading on God's behalf; rather we think piously, so that we may not perish, and we speak not as comprehending him; for as human beings we speak what we have grasped.

For the honor due to God is infinite, and ⟨the Trinity⟩ is separated ten thousand times beyond our mind, neither receiving any addition of glory nor being deprived of its distinctive property.

For nothing in the Trinity is created or came into being afterward; but the Father begets the Son. There was never a time when the Son was not. For the Father was not at some time not called Father; but he was always Father and the Son always was, not a brother, but a Son begotten indescribably and named incomprehensibly, always being with the Father and never ceasing to be.

So the Father is unbegotten and uncreated and incomprehensible; the Son begotten, but also uncreated and incomprehensible; the Holy Spirit eternal, not begotten, not created, not a brother, not an uncle, not an ancestor, not a descendant, but the Holy Spirit from the same substance of Father and Son. For “God is Spirit.”

Each of the names is single, having no duplicate. For the Father is Father and has no counterpart, nor is he yoked with another father, so that there may not be two gods.

And ⟨the⟩ Son is only-begotten, true God from true God, not having the name of Father nor foreign to the Father, but being Son of the Father: only-begotten, so that the Son may be single in name, and God from God, so that Father and Son may be called one God. And the Holy Spirit is unique, not

having the name of Son nor the naming of Father, but called Holy Spirit, not foreign to the Father.

For the Only-begotten himself says “the Spirit of the Father” and “who proceeds from the Father,” and “he will receive from what is mine,” so that he may not be thought foreign to Father or Son, but of the same substance, of the same Godhead: the divine Spirit, “the Spirit of truth,” the Spirit of God, the Spirit the Paraclete, called by a single name, having no counterpart, not made equal to any other spirit, not called by the name of Son or named with the naming of Father, so that the single names may not become shared names.

Except that “God” is in the Father, “God” in the Son, “God” in the Holy Spirit: “of God” and “God.”

For he is Spirit of God and Spirit of the Father and Spirit of the Son, not by some composition, as in us soul and body, but in the midst of Father and Son, from the Father and the Son, third in naming.

For “Go,” he says, “baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” If the Father baptizes into his own name, into the name of God, and the seal sealed in us in the name of God is perfect, and Christ baptizes into his own name, into the name of God, and the seal sealed in us in the name of God is perfect, who will dare to war against his own soul by calling the Spirit foreign to the Godhead?

For if ⟨we are sealed⟩ into the name of the Father and into the name of the Son and into ⟨the name⟩ of the Holy Spirit, there is one seal of the Trinity; so there is one power of the Godhead in the Trinity. But if the one is God and the others are created and not God, by what reason are the two bound together with the one in the seal of perfection? Were we then sealed into one royal name, that of the Father, while the others are not royal *, but we are still enslaved to elements and created things? And could the name of the Father alone not save, but did he take to himself two other elements that he created, according to the notion of the blasphemers, so that his Godhead might acquire other powers too and be able to save the one sealed by him, and the human being he created receive redemption through forgiveness of sins?

Alas for such nonsense, O for such blasphemy! From where has another new unbelief crept back into life, or rather, I should say, misbelief? For misbelief is worse than unbelief. Unbelief, by receiving faith, will be set right; but misbelief cannot be set right, and is hardly saved, unless perhaps the anointing comes upon it from above.

So the blessed Peter says to Ananias and his wife, “Why has Satan tempted you to lie to the Holy Spirit?” and he says, “You have not lied to men, but to God.”

So the Spirit is God from Father and Son, to whom those who kept back part of the price lied; as Paul too agrees with this word, saying, “You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” So the Spirit is God, as I said before.

Therefore holy people too will be called the temple of God, ⟨those⟩ who have made the Holy ⟨Spirit⟩ of God dwell in themselves, as the chief of the apostles testifies, who was counted worthy to be called blessed by the Lord because the Father revealed it to him.

So the Father reveals to him his true Son and he is called blessed, and the same one also reveals his Holy Spirit.

It was fitting * that the first of the apostles, the firm rock “on which the church of God is built, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it”; and the gates of Hades are the heresies and the founders of heresies. For in every way the faith was made firm in him, who received the key of heaven, who looses on earth and binds in heaven.

For in him all the fine points of the faith that are sought are found.

He is the one who denied three times and cursed three times before the cock crowed; for, indicating the excess of his love for his own Master, he said insistently, “Even if all deny you, I will not deny you,” speaking as far as it lay with him. He is the one who wept at the voice

of the cock, so that he might truly confess that the arrest of the Son of God was not in appearance but real, so that he might call him a true man by weeping at his arrest when he was handed over by the Pharisees. He is the one who went away to Galilee to fish,

the companion of the one who reclined on his breast; for the one, learning from the Son and receiving from the Son, revealed the power of knowledge, while the other was helped by the Father,

laying the foundation of the security of the faith. He it is who, after being called, was fishing again in the boat on the Sea of Tiberias; and the disciple whom Jesus loved *, at the word the Savior spoke, “Children, have you anything to eat?” and he says, “Cast to the right side of the boat and you will find,” and when Peter was amazed at what happened, John, whom Jesus loved, says, “It is the Lord”: man according to the flesh, born of Mary in truth, not in appearance, but God ⟨according to⟩

⟨the Spirit⟩, having come from the heavenly places, from the Father. ⟨This is⟩ the one who heard from him, “Peter, feed my lambs,” who was entrusted with the flock, who guides well in the power of his own Master, who confesses concerning the flesh, who truly announces the Father's teaching about the Son, who indicates the Spirit and his dignity in the Godhead, who gave the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas together with James and John, so that “by three witnesses every word may be established.”

For nothing can stand without two or three testimonies. ⟨Faith too⟩ was confirmed in riddles by the law for those who knew only the Father, unless they should receive the power of the Son and be strengthened through the testimonies of Father and Son, and through the third testimony receive the Holy Spirit and be filled,

as the voices of the Cherubim and Seraphim openly cry three times, “Holy, holy, holy.”

For the doxology in heaven is not completed with two cries, nor do these holy and invisible spiritual living creatures call out a fourth time, nor do they give a fourth cry, nor only one, but three singular cries: “Holy, holy, holy.”

And they do not say “Holies, holies,” so that they may not make the singular many-named nor cut short the number of the three; but they give the ascription of holiness three times, while they utter the word in one form and in the singular, so as not to name a plurality of gods.

For God is one, Father in Son, Son in Father, with the Holy Spirit. And for this reason he is “the Holy One resting among the holy.” The Father is truly subsistent, the Son truly subsistent, and the Holy Spirit truly subsistent: being three, one Godhead, one substance, one glory, one God.

You have named the Son: you have included the Trinity in your thought. You have received the Holy Spirit: you have been counted worthy of the power of the Father and of the Son of God. You have glorified the Father: you have signified the Son and the Holy Spirit.

But not by merging; for the Father is Father, the Son is Son, the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit. Yet the Trinity is not estranged from its unity and sameness. The Father is honored as being Father, the Son is honored as being Son, the Holy Spirit is honored as true Spirit and Spirit of God. So the Only-begotten says, “He who honors the Father honors the Son”; for in speaking of the Father you signify the Son and you honor the Son. And “He who honors the Son honors the Father”; for in naming the Son you honor the Father, not saying that Christ is less than the Father.

For if such an attitude is absent even among us human beings, and we do not want our sons to be inferior or diminished relative to the honor of the fathers (for dishonor to the sons reflects on the fathers), how much more would God the Father not want his own Son diminished?

So whoever supposes that the one who is truly the Father's Son falls short of the Father's glory rather dishonors the ⟨Father⟩, instead of honoring *, carried along by ignorance.

So as ⟨the Son⟩ reveals the Father, saying, “No one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father,” so, I dare to say, no one knows the Spirit either except the Father and the Son, from whom he proceeds and from whom he receives.

How do those who are held by madness rather than truth dare to call the Spirit foreign to God, who do not learn the true voice of the trustworthy and holy apostle Paul, to whom Peter, chief of the apostles, who was counted worthy to hold the key of the kingdom, gave the right hand; Paul, who heard from heaven, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

who was counted worthy to hear “unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter,” who says, “No one knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that dwells in him,” wishing to express the things above from an example, not so as to liken the human example to God, but to reveal by the example part of the things above?

For the whole creation gathered together, of angels and archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim with the heavenly host, of heaven and earth, of things on earth, in heaven, and under the earth, of luminaries and stars, of dry and wet, and in short of everything in heaven and on earth, cannot show forth a likeness nor be likened by any example to its Master.

For by grace he bestows the image on man, saying, “God made man; in the image of God he made him.” For every human being has the image as a gift,

but no one will be likened to his own Master. For the one is invisible, the other visible; the one immortal, the other subject to death; and the one is the source of all wisdom and has all things perfect in himself, while man, having a gift in part, falls short of what is most perfect, unless God wills to grant, according to worth, the perfection that comes through grace to those who receive it.

Yet the same holy apostle, using an example, says, “No man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that dwells in him; so also no one has known the things of God”;

and he did not say “except the Spirit of God that dwells in him,” but only “the Spirit of God,” so that no one might think the divine compound and composite.

“Except,” he says, “the Spirit of God”; for “the Spirit of God searches all things, even the depths of God.”

So the Spirit of God who searches the depths of God is not foreign. For if the divine writing rebukes us, saying, “Think about what has been commanded you, and you have no need of hidden things,” and “Do not seek what is higher than you, and do not examine what is deeper than you,” shall we say of the Spirit too that he searches the depths of God rather out of folly?

For where does he search the depths of God? For what reason? Tell me, foolish man: as a busybody? As meddling in others' affairs? As desiring what is not his own? God forbid.

But since the saints are counted worthy to have the Holy Spirit dwell in them, when the Holy Spirit comes to be in the saints, he grants them to search the depths of God, so as to glorify deeply (as David too confesses, saying, “Out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord”), and with boundless goodness, not meanly and cheaply, like those of the heresy of Arius and all those outside.

And since the law was given through Moses, the heresies that split off after him before the incarnate coming of Christ were eleven, and after the incarnate coming another sixty; besides those before the law, five of all these, and the other four Greek heresies, which are nine before the law; all together with their mothers number eighty.

Of these the mothers are five, thus: Barbarism, Scythism, Hellenism, Judaism, Samaritanism. From these, from Hellenism, four heresies: those of the Pythagoreans, Platonists, Stoics, and Epicureans.

And from the law until the incarnate coming of Christ, eleven: from the Jews seven, Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Ossaeans, Nasaraeans, Hemerobaptists, Herodians; and from the Samaritans four, Gorothenes, Sebuaeans, Essenes, Dositheans: in all eleven, springing from the law, from Jews and Samaritans.

So all those before the incarnate ⟨coming⟩ of Christ, beginning from Adam up to it, are twenty. And after the incarnate coming of Christ, up to the reign of Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, all the heresies that have falsely given themselves the name of Christ are sixty, counted thus:

Menandrians, Saturnilians, Basilidians, Nicolaitans, Gnostics, also called Stratiotics and Phibionites, by some Secundians, by others Socratites, by others Zacchaeans, by some called Coddians and Borborites; ⟨and⟩ Carpocratians; Cerinthians, also called Merinthians; Nazoraeans; Valentinians; Secundians, with whom Epiphanes and Isidore are joined; Ptolemaeans; Marcosians; Colorbasians; Heracleonites; Ophites; Cainites; Sethians; Archontics; Cerdonians; Marcionites; Lucianists; Apelleans; Severians; Tatianists; Encratites; Cataphrygians, also called Montanists and Tascodrugites; Pepuzians, also called Priscillianists and Quintillianists, with whom the Artotyrites are joined; Quartodecimans, who keep the Passover on one day of the year; Alogi, who do not accept the Gospel and the Revelation of John; Sampsaeans, also called Elkesaites; Theodotians; Melchizedekians; Bardesianists; Noetians; Valesians; Cathari, also called Novatianists, also called Montesians, as they are called at Rome; Angelics; Apostolics, ⟨also called⟩ Apotactics; Sabellians; Origenists, also called the shameful; Origenists, those of Adamantius; the heresy of Paul of Samosata; Manichaeans, also called Acuanites; Hieracites; Melitians, who are a schism in Egypt; Arians, also called Ariomaniacs; the schism of the Audians, but not a heresy; Photinians; Marcellians; Semi-Arians; Pneumatomachi, who blaspheme the Holy Spirit of God; Aerians; Aetians, also called Anomoeans, with whom Eunomius, or rather the lawless one, is joined; Dimoerites, who do not confess the full incarnation of Christ, ⟨also called⟩ Apollinarians; and those who say that holy Mary was united with Joseph after she had given birth to the Savior, whom we have called Antidicomarianites; and those who offer a cake in her name, who are called Collyridians; Messalians, with whom are joined the Martyrians ⟨who come⟩ from the Greeks, the Euphemites, and the Satanians.

And I have simply grown weary, and still grow weary, of counting the names of so many heresies and recounting their lawless deeds, and further of the two schisms:

I mean the Melitians in Egypt, mentioned above, who split themselves off because some who had lapsed during the persecution were received by our people into their clerical ranks after repentance,

though they are not in heresy; and likewise the Audians in Mesopotamia, mentioned above, who are ⟨themselves⟩ a schism but do not hold [a false] faith. They only quarrel, in an unlearned way, about “the image,” and they did not break away for the sake of faith ⟨but⟩ separated themselves for other reasons: out of a self-chosen extremity of supposed righteousness, because they will not share communion with bishops and presbyters who own gold and silver, and because they keep the Passover at the time when the Jews keep it; for these reasons they split themselves off and estrange themselves from the unity of the orthodox church.

For those who have not received the Holy Spirit have not learned the depths of God, and were broken off into these heresies and into those of the schisms on a pretext of idle talk. For leaving the truth they walked on many paths, thinking now one thing, now another.

And the same holy apostle, showing us for what reason he said this, says, “But we have received the Spirit of God, that we may know the things given us by God, which we also speak, not in words taught by wisdom, but in words taught by the Holy Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual,” and so on. So the Spirit of God is not foreign to God. For if he is foreign to God, how does he search the depths of God?

But what will you say to me, vainglorious man, you who war against yourself, so as not to say against the Holy Spirit of God? Why, vainglorious man, do you war against the one who cannot be warred down? Why fight the invincible? “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” You make yourself stumble, not the Word; you ensnare yourself, not the Spirit; you estrange yourself from the grace of God, not the Son from the Father, nor the Holy Spirit from Father and Son.

For no doubt you say, with cleverness (for I have already heard some, with a stubborn mind, turning the truth of our God and Savior into blasphemies and saying), “He searches the depths of God, but does not comprehend them,” because this word is not added to the text; the apostle only said, “searches the depths of God,” and “comprehends” is not added.

O great folly! Was there any need, you god-stricken man, after saying “searches” to say “comprehends”? According to your dullness, would the matter be found lame if this word were ⟨not⟩ added?

But now no pretext is left to you. For from every side Scripture gathers the truth for the most reverent man. For of the almighty God it is written thus: “God, who tests the kidneys and searches the storerooms of the belly.” If he tests the kidneys, does he not know what he tests?

Or did he declare the whole of knowledge in the testing? “And searches the storerooms of the belly”: again “comprehending” is not added. Then, if “comprehends” is not added to the text, shall I bring death on myself by weaving “does not comprehend” into the text, as you argue, foolish man?

So also of the Holy Spirit it is said that he searches, and there was no need to say that he also comprehends. ⟨For⟩ by the word itself it shows that the knowledge of God and of the depths of God is in the Holy Spirit. Even if it does not say “comprehends,” understand the same, and do not destroy your own soul.

For as one must not dare to say of the Father that he searches and does not comprehend (for he himself created man with the Son and the Holy Spirit; for the Trinity is always Trinity and never receives an addition), so indeed one must think also of the Holy Spirit.

For when he says, “Let us make man” (for “in the beginning God made the heaven and the earth”), it signifies the voice of the Father calling to the work of creation; and in saying “Let us make” it ⟨signifies⟩, I would say, not only the Son ⟨but⟩ also the Holy Spirit.

For thus it says: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.” So the Word creates together with the Father, and the Holy Spirit also creates together.

Does then the almighty God who made man not know the things of man, “searching the storerooms of the belly”? Rather, the word adds this expressing the fullness of God's knowledge, so that none of those among us who sin may think anything is hidden from God. For he knows man and the things of man.

So the Father searches the storerooms of the belly and knows; the Spirit searches the depths of God and knows. For he reveals the mysteries of God to the saints, and teaches them to glorify God deeply, and shows his own people God's incomprehensibility.

So the Spirit is not foreign to God. For it did not say of angels that they search the depths of God, nor of archangels. “For no one knows the day or the hour,” says the Son of God, “neither the angels of heaven nor the Son, except the Father.”

But the foolish, who are not adorned with the Holy Spirit, think there is something in the Father that is not in the Godhead of the Son. * “For as the Father has life in himself, so the Son has life in himself,” and “All that is my Father's is mine,” says the same holy Word of God.

And what are the Father's things but these? That “God” belongs to the Father belongs also to the Son; the life that is the Father's is also the Son's; the light of the Father is clearly also the Son's; the immortality of the Father is likewise the Son's; the incomprehensibility is the Father's and the Son's.

All that is the Father's is the Son's. If then the Father's things are his, the knowledge that is in the Father is also in the Son and in the Holy Spirit.

And if anyone thinks that the Son does not know the day, let the ignorant man learn and not blaspheme. For I set knowledge before him and he will know. Tell me, beloved (for I call you beloved; for I hate no one except only the devil and the works of the devil and misbelief; for you I pray, that you may come to the truth of God and not destroy yourself in blasphemy against God):

For the words of the holy God are deep, and ⟨knowledge⟩ is given through the gifts by the Holy Spirit. “For to one,” he says, “is given a word of wisdom, to another a word of teaching,” and so on, “but the same Spirit, distributing to each as he wills,” so as to show you also the sovereign authority of the Holy Spirit.

For since the same Spirit gives the gifts as he wills, ask the Father to reveal the Son to you, and ask the Son to reveal the Father to you, and again ask the Father to give you the Son and to reveal the Holy Spirit to you and grant you to have him in you, so that the Holy Spirit, given in you, may reveal to you all the knowledge of Father and Son and Holy Spirit, so that you may learn that there is no ignorance at all in the Son, nor in the Holy Spirit.

For even if angels fall short of the greater authority and knowledge, God forbid that the Son of God and his Holy Spirit should fall short. The Son, the holy Word who came to us from the Father, speaks spiritually; but the natural men are judged, not understanding the wisdom of the Son, or rather the word of wisdom. I ask you, then, tell me:

which is greater, the Father or that day of which he speaks? You will not dare to say that the Father is not greater. If then the Father is greater than the day and the hour and all that has been and will be made by him, and no one knows him except the Son, which is greater, to know the Father or that day? Clearly, to know the Father. How then does the one who knows the greater fall short in the lesser?

If then he knows the Father, he certainly knows the day too, and there is nothing in which the Son falls short in knowledge.

But you will say that the Father, being greater than all, has the knowledge, but the Son in no way, as he himself says, “My Father is greater than I.” But the Son says this honoring the Father, as was fitting, being himself honored more greatly by the Father. For truly the genuine Son ought to honor his own Father, in order to show that he is genuine.

But how do you think he is greater? In circumference, or bulk, or time, or season, or dignity, or Godhead, or immortality, or eternity? Do not think so. For nothing in the Godhead is unequal with respect to the Son; but because the Father is Father and because the Son is genuine, he honors his own Father.

For the divine is not borne along in bulk, so that the Father should exceed the Son in bulk; nor does it fall under time, so that the Father should be beyond the Son in time; nor is the Father placed in part in height (for he contains all things, being contained by nothing), so that the Son should be thought surpassed. For he sat at the right hand of the Father; and it did not say, “he went into the Father,” so as to undo Sabellius and bring down Arius from his blasphemy.

Therefore do not seek what is not to be sought, but honor the Son, so that you may honor the Father. And when you hear of God, “No one is good except one, God,” do not dare, because the Son honors the Father exceedingly, to declare the Son not good.

For he does not call the Father good in denying that he himself is good; rather, he reveals himself all the more greatly in not wanting honor from men, but ⟨refers⟩ the honor to his own ⟨Father⟩, so that from the goodness of the Father may be known the knowledge of the goodness of the Son of God, begotten from God the good Father.

For great is the feebleness of those who dare to say such a thing about the Son, even if he says, “One is good, God.”

For see, in many places the divine Scripture teaches us, calling good “a poor and wise child,” and “Samuel was good with God and men,” and “Saul son of Kish from the tribe of Benjamin was good, taller than all Israel from the shoulder and upward,” and “It is good to go to a house of drinking,” and “Open, O Lord, the heaven, your good treasure,” and “A good word is better than a gift,” and “A living dog is better than a dead lion,” and “Two are better than one,” and “The end of words is better than the beginning,” and “If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,” speaking about fish and bread.

How ⟨then⟩ do you dare to think that the Son is denying his own goodness, and not, out of the excess of honor, ascribing goodness ⟨to⟩

the Father? For he saw that the one who said to him “Good teacher” was saying it with his mouth and not with his heart, and wishing to expose him, since he was not persuaded by his lips but examined the heart, as he says in another place, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do my words?”, so here too he wished to expose him. For he called him good teacher and did not remain in his faith, ⟨so as⟩ to believe in his

He himself, then, the holy Word, the living, the subsistent, the heavenly King, the genuine Son, who ⟨is⟩ always with the Father, who came forth from ⟨him⟩, “the radiance of the glory, the imprint of the hypostasis,” “the image of the Father” in truth, who shares the throne of him who begot him, “of whose kingdom there will be no end,” “the judge of the living and the dead,”

who is Wisdom from Wisdom, who is a Spring from a Spring (for “Me,” he says, “they have forsaken, the spring of the water of life, and have dug for themselves broken cisterns”), the ever-flowing river, which “makes glad the city of God with its streams,” who came forth from the spring, from whom, ⟨as⟩

“rivers will flow from his belly”; the scepter of David, the root of Jesse, the flower from it, the lion, the King from the tribe of Judah,

the rational Lamb, the living stone, “the Angel of great counsel,” who became man in truth and is God in truth, not changed in nature, not having altered the Godhead; who was born in the flesh, the Word made flesh.

the Word who became flesh (having “flesh” between ⟨“Word” and⟩ “became”: it did not say “the Word who became,” but after saying “the Word” it sets down “flesh” without a verb, and after “flesh” it says “became,” so that the “became” may be tested as from Mary, and so that the Word may be understood as having come down from above from the Father); this holy living Word, God with the Father,

“the Angel of great counsel,” who announces the counsel of the Father, “the Father of the age to come,” himself said, “No one knows the day and the hour, not even the angels in heaven”; * for they indeed do not know; which the Son says in a figurative sense, “except the Father alone.”

If then the Son knows the Father, and the Father is greater than the day and the hour, and no one doubts it, how then does the one who knows the greater not know the lesser? For no one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father. For as the Father is great because he knows the Son, so the Son too is great because he knows the Father.

If then he knows the Father, the greater, how is he ignorant of the small, that is, the day and the hour? Search the Scriptures and learn the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit himself, who knows the Father and the Son, will reveal to you the knowledge of the Word, the Son of God, so that you may not stray from the truth and destroy your own soul.

For there are two kinds of knowing in divine Scripture, two kinds of knowledge: one by action and one by awareness. And to set out similar cases from examples, so that your wandering mind, and that of those who think this, may be smoothed out by many,

learn what Scripture says about Adam: “They were,” it says, “naked in paradise and were not ashamed.”

But they were not blind; for they saw. For if they did not see, how did they see the tree, that it was “good for food and beautiful to contemplate”? And “taking,” it says, “the woman ate and gave also to her husband with her.”

So they were not blind, but had their eyes open; being naked they were not ashamed though they saw, and being naked they knew each other. But they knew by awareness and not by act.

After they were driven out of paradise, having eaten from the tree, after a long time it says, “Adam knew Eve his wife.” How then will this be?

And yet they saw each other being naked and knew each other by sight, but not by act. But Scripture called being joined with each other “knowledge.”

And it knows how to call both kinds knowledge. For again it says thus: “Jacob knew Leah his wife, and she conceived and bore”; and at first he knew her; for he was with her in daylight seven years, keeping the sheep of Laban her father. He knew her with the knowledge that comes through sight and through acquaintance; ⟨he knew her⟩

also through act. And “he knew Rachel his wife.” And again ⟨in⟩ another place: “And David grew old,” it says, “and they covered him with garments and he was not warmed, and they said to the king, ‘Let a beautiful virgin be sought.’” And Abishag the Shunammite was found. And it says, “She was brought to the king and lay with him and warmed him; and David did not know her,” the woman who was with him, sharing his body and his side.

So which knowledge does it mean? That by sight, or that by act? And “The Lord knew those who are his”: does he then not know those who are not? And “Depart from me, workers of lawlessness; for I never knew you”: is there then ignorance in the Son of God?

And again, “You only have I known of all the nations.” Does he then not know the other nations? God forbid. But the divine Scripture knows of knowledge, one kind by awareness, another by act.

Since, then, the Only-begotten, fulfilling the Father's will *, has already shown all things accomplished, * for the Father knew the hour and the day; he knew it both by knowledge and by act. For he knows all things; and in the Son's saying, “The Father has given all judgment to the Son,” though not judging, by having given it to the Son he himself judges. For God is not estranged from judging those who are judged, and in not judging, the Father has already judged.

And the Son knows when he comes; for he himself brings the day, and he himself determines it and brings it and completes it. For he says, “That day comes like a thief in the night,” and he says, “You are not in the night, that the day should overtake you in darkness.”

If then the servants of Christ are children of the day, is the Son himself, ⟨who⟩ brings the day, ignorant, so that the day should overtake him and not rather he bring the day? Who, thinking these things, will not blaspheme, reckoning what is unfitting about Father and Son?

And the Father knows the day and the hour in two ways, by awareness and by act. For he knows when it comes, and again he has already judged, having appointed the one who is to judge, and he knew it by act.

But the Son of God knows when it comes, and he himself brings it and is not ignorant, but he has not yet performed it in knowledge, that is, he has ⟨not yet known it⟩ by act. For the ungodly still act ungodly, the unbelieving disbelieve, the ill-formed blaspheme, the devil is at work, sins are committed, injustice prevails, and judgment is long-suffering, until he comes and knows it by act, and carries out vengeance, and saves those who truly hope in him and do not blaspheme his Godhead and that of the Father and the Holy Spirit.

But among the holy angels such dignity is lacking in two ways. They are honored, having this from Father and Son and Holy Spirit; but this is lacking to them: they do not know when the things appointed will happen. For the Father has set the times by his own authority. But if the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, then the authority that is in the Father is not lacking to the Son.

It is lacking to the angels; for angels, archangels, and powers are created, but the Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Spirit of God uncreated.

So the angels know the day and the hour neither by awareness nor by act. For they do not know when the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit will bring the day, and they do not know it with the knowledge of action; for they have not yet been commanded to go out and gather ⟨people⟩ like tares and bind them in bundles to be burned with unquenchable fire.

So they have neither yet acted nor do they know; but the Father knows and has acted; the Son knows, but has not yet acted. That is ⟨the meaning of⟩ “except the Father alone; neither the ⟨angels⟩ nor the Son.”

Let us understand the force of Scripture, so that the letter may not become death to us. “For the letter,” he says, “kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Let us receive the Spirit so that we may be helped by the letter. For the letter does not kill, since life is in the letter; but it kills the one who approaches the letter without understanding and does not have the Spirit who explains, who opens the letter and reveals what is in it.

This holy Father, then, gave his only-begotten genuine Son, begotten from him, and his Holy Spirit to his holy church in one knowledge of concord, in one bond of perfection, so that we may receive the seal in the name of the perfect Father and God, and receive the seal in the name of the perfect Son and God and in the name of the divine and perfect Spirit.

O holy Trinity counted, Trinity counted in one name! For it is not said “a unity and a duality,” nor “a unit and a unit,” but a unity in Trinity and a Trinity in unity, in one form, in one name, one God, Father in Son, Son in Father, with the Holy Spirit.

Call me witnesses of the truth; call me the youths saved from the furnace of Babylon, who were counted worthy to be thrown into the fire and not consumed, though the fire was not quenched, so that they might not be supposed to have contrived some new device against it, but were in the fire and yet in the fire were not consumed because of their right faith, God teaching us through them which things are created and which uncreated, which are made and which did not come into being, which always are and which are from them, but came into being.

These youths, having been saved, wished to express a thankful mind toward the God who saved them, in whom they had hoped from the beginning, and did not hesitate, and did not bow the neck to the image and to the king's boldness and tyranny.

And when they wished to render something to God, searching the depths by the Holy Spirit in their heart, being holy, and thinking over heaven and all that is in it, and the earth and all that is under it, and all that exists, as not worthy to be brought forward as an offering to God (for they had no power to offer God what was beyond themselves),

and wishing, according to their worth and their power, only to praise God with hymns (for this is what is written, “Offer a sacrifice of praise,” and “A sacrifice of praise will glorify me”), already changing the old into the new covenant, prompted by the Holy Spirit, having no need of sacrifices of animals or burnt offerings (for they say, “There is no place to make an offering, neither sacrifice nor altar,” as if everything had been taken away),

and wishing to offer such praise, and ⟨seeing⟩ their own smallness, they are carried along humbly (“for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted”; for ⟨along⟩ with the gift of their salvation they receive this gift of humility), and they wish to offer praise to God and not lose heart.

And having tested themselves for the unspeakable glorification of God, they think it right to take creation along with them into the glorification, and they begin to speak, embracing the whole of what was made.

Separating the things made from the Maker and the created from the Creator, they say, “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord.” They said “all” and left out nothing.

And so that the Holy Spirit might characterize the perfect knowledge, so as to know what the divine is and what the things made by God are, so that we might not mix with the Eternal the things made from nothing, so that we might not lose our understanding, he gathered all things by number.

For the Holy Spirit revealed to them, as they were counted worthy to be with angels, having become like angels, the things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and henceforth they were not ignorant.

And the same saints say, as I said before, “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord,” and they begin to count and distinguish which are the works and which the makers, which are working and which were worked.

And they count heaven, earth, the waters above the heaven, and angels (for angels are created), and thrones and powers (for these are created), sun, moon (for they are made and not uncreated), clouds and snowstorms, winds, snows, lightnings, thunders, earth, sea, springs, deeps, rivers, all humankind, mountains, birds of heaven, cattle and animals, souls of the devout, spirits of the righteous, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, priests and servants of God.

For all these are made and created, having come into being by God through the Word and the Holy Spirit: “For by the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.”

And see, beloved brother, how, carried by the Holy Spirit, they counted all things, and did not count the Son among the things made, nor the Holy Spirit; but they knew that the same Godhead is in Trinity and the same Trinity is in one Godhead. And they glorified the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father with the Holy Spirit: one sanctification, one worship, one Godhead, one glorification.

But no doubt the devil dares to stir this too among people: the audacity of unbelief, to tell lies against the holy youths and say, “They did not know how to say the name of the Holy Spirit; for they were Jews, and, being Jews, they did not even know the Son.”

But at once the words refute the unbelief of the wrong-thinking. For it says, “And the appearance of the fourth was like the appearance of a son of God.” See, the name of the Son of God! So there is no ignorance about this *; and even before the time of the furnace, Daniel was filled with the Holy Spirit and said, “I am clean of her blood,” and “they returned to the court,” and he judged the elders, filled with the Holy Spirit.

So they knew the Son, and they knew the Father and the Holy Spirit; and it was not out of ignorance that they did not say the names, but for safety. For “Bless the Lord,” ⟨it says⟩, “all you works of the Lord,” and they did not say, “Son of God, ⟨bless⟩ the Lord,” nor did they call on the Holy Spirit to bless the Lord, but “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord.”

And let none of those who hunt for pretexts for themselves say, “They did not say Cherubim or Seraphim; so these too are not works of God.” For the divine word anticipated the devices of those who invent schemes for themselves, securing everything, foreknowing the harm ⟨they would do⟩ to the youths.

For the holy youths, putting forward created and made things for the praise of God, redoubled the hymn threefold, saying first, “Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our fathers, and praised and glorified is your name for ever,” then after other things, “Blessed are you who sit upon the Cherubim,” and again, “Blessed are you who sit on the throne of glory of your kingdom,” and “Blessed are you who look upon the deeps, sitting upon the Cherubim,”

so that from mention of the throne you may understand Seraphim and Cherubim, and from the name of the Cherubim and the deeps and the hallowed throne and all the other names you may understand, from the count of all that are named, that they are among the works, counted together with the others. For having called all these to the hymn, they at once add, “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord,” so that Gabriel and Michael may bless Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

And the august angels in heaven sing the hymn of victory, with Seraphim and Cherubim glorifying the Trinity with equal glory, equal rank, and one substance, and saying “Holy, holy, holy,” making three cries, but saying them in unity and not with many names.

For they do not say “holy” a fourth time, so as not to add to the naming of the Trinity; they do not say “holy” twice, so that the glory of perfection may not be deficient; but three times, so that they may hallow Father and Son and Holy Spirit in the same honor.

And they do not say “holy” and “half-holy,” but they say “holy” equally, glorifying with one voice, one word, one perfection, the Trinity together in unity and the unity in Trinity.

For this knowledge the only-begotten ⟨Son⟩ of God came ⟨to teach⟩ us; this understanding the Holy Spirit proclaimed to us; this perfection the Father revealed to us in truth; this life the Word, made flesh, graciously gave us; this building the Holy Spirit built for us.

“For if anyone builds on this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,” and so on. For there is no other foundation: “For no one can lay another foundation than the one laid, which is Jesus Christ,” the Son of God, “whose building we are, and whose field we are,” “built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles,” so that we may know that our building is firm in truth and that our foundation always is and did not begin to be.

But “knowledge is not in all,” according to the apostolic word, but in those counted worthy by the Holy Spirit to know the mysteries of the truth.

For he himself, who revealed himself and his Father and the Holy Spirit, rebuking some who were in ignorance, said, “You know neither the Scriptures nor their power,” and again elsewhere, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” and again, “If you knew who it is who asks you for a drink, you would have asked,” he said to the Samaritan woman, and again, “You do not know of what spirit you are.”

So “knowledge is not in all”; “for each has different gifts from God,” and the holy Word says, “From him to whom more is given, more will be demanded,” as though some receive little, some none at all, and others have received more abundantly.

And that these things are so can be found from what is said in the divine Scriptures themselves. For since the divine Scripture speaks spiritually for the most part, especially about our life, I mean the knowledge of the Lord, the words that are deeper and secure our soul more abundantly have become a stumbling block to those who have not grasped the knowledge of God,

as Hosea the prophet says, “Who is wise, and will understand these things?” and “To whom a word of the knowledge of the Lord is given, he will also know them; for the ways of the Lord are straight, but the ungodly will stumble in them.”

For they are straight, but the ungodly stumble ⟨in⟩ the ways of the Lord, which become a stumbling block for people. At any rate those who stumble against the stone of stumbling stumble indiscriminately; “for they stumbled against the stone of stumbling and were offended.”

For at once the Jews, seeing the only-begotten Son of God come in the flesh and working divine signs, and not having been counted worthy of the heavenly knowledge, said, “Who is this man who speaks blasphemies?” and at another time, “If this man were from God, he would not break the sabbath.” So they did not know his Godhead, but thought him only a mere man.

Others, knowing him also as God, ⟨but⟩ not knowing his perfect glory, having heard the words spoken in depth about him and about the dispensation ⟨of the flesh⟩ carried out for our salvation, stumble concerning his Godhead; for their understanding tripped them up.

For as the Jews tripped when they heard, so these too trip when they hear. For those saw what had been foretold in the prophets, but, not knowing that it was fulfilled in the incarnate coming of Christ, they were troubled.

And these again, hearing what was said beforehand about his dispensation, but understanding it in a merely human way, are troubled and put forward to their own ruin what was ⟨said⟩ for our upbuilding, and they say: “He said, ‘I am going to my God and your God, and to my Father and your Father.’ You see that he too is one of the creatures,” they dare to say, blaspheming.

You see, then, that the dispensation of the incarnate coming trips them up. Let them start from the beginning and ask about times or seasons; for “his goings forth,” it says, “are from the days of eternity.” Let us see, then, what came before these things. The Father says, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness,” and he did not say, “I will make man according to my image.”

Be refuted, you whose heart is hardened, as it is written, “But their heart was hardened,” and learn that the Son is always with the Father. For saying “Let us make” does not signify one, but the Father speaking to the Son.

Be refuted also, you who say the Son is unlike the Father. For in saying “according to our image” he did not distinguish the likeness of the Son from the Father nor divide anything of the Father's sameness with the Son. For he did not say “according to my image” or “according to your image,” but he showed one substance and Godhead of the Father and the Son and the ⟨Holy⟩ Spirit. For he says, “according to our image and likeness,” so that the Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, and man was made according to the image of the one Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Be refuted you too, Arius, and hear the Father saying to the Son, “Let us make,” calling the Son a fellow creator. For I have often heard some say that the Son made nothing, but the things made came into being “through him.” But if they came into being through him, he too made them, as has been clearly shown.

For the Word, the master craftsman, is maker of all, and through him the Father works. Let them hear him saying clearly, “My Father is working until now, and I am working”; and ⟨so⟩ here he calls his Father fellow creator in saying this.

But again, do not let your mind deceive you so that you approach the Son as a servant and not as the true Master. For if he were a servant and not the true Master, how did he who was in the form of God take the form of a servant when he came? And how did he empty himself, if he did not have the fullness? So approach the Son as perfect God, and ⟨as⟩ being Son from the Father.

And do not say out of ill will, “But the Father said to the Son, ‘Let us make,’ and the Son did not say to the Father, ‘Let us make’; and the Son does not say, ‘I work and my Father works,’ but ranks the Father first as speaking and working.”

For you say this foolishly and want to think of the divine as many principles. But there is one principle and the same one Godhead; and nowhere here does the Son say “my God.” I do not say this denying the honor the Son gives the Father, but ⟨to show⟩ how the order of the Godhead holds.

And again, “Adam heard,” it says, “⟨the voice⟩ of God walking in paradise in the evening”; and nowhere does the Son say “my God and your God,” but here it speaks of God complete in himself.

And again, “And God spoke to Noah,” and nowhere does such an expression occur.

“And God appeared,” it says, “to Abraham as he sat by the oak of Mamre; and behold, three men; and he ran to meet them and bowed to the ground and said, ‘If I have found favor before you,’” so as to show the one as God and the two others following him as his angels.

For about him ⟨it says⟩ also, “God went up from Abraham”; and he himself says to him, “Shall I hide anything from my servant Abraham?” “The outcry,” he says, “of Sodom and Gomorrah has multiplied toward me,” and so on; and nowhere in these times does “my God and your God” occur.

“And the two men went into Sodom,” the one who had gone up above Abraham having separated from the two who went into Sodom for its overthrow. And of the one who had gone up Scripture says, “And the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord”; and there was no need of the expression “my God and your God.”

And Moses says in the song, “And let all the angels of God worship him.” And if it says “angels of God” and “fire from the Lord,” and does not say only “angels,” it is to show the one kingdom of the Father and the Son, the angels not being divided among principalities but being God's, and worshiping the Son and God; for an angel does not worship an angel. And nowhere here is “my God and your God.”

And David says, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.” “The Lord,” he says, “to my Lord”; for the dispensation of the flesh did not yet exist, for the sake of which he needed to say “my God and your God.”

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which means, God with us”; and there was not yet ⟨need⟩ to say “my God and your God.”

And “You, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are not least to be among the thousands of Judah; for from you shall come forth for me one to be ruler in Israel, and his ⟨goings forth⟩ are from the beginning, from the days of eternity”; and according to other copies, “And you, Bethlehem, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come forth a leader who will shepherd my people Israel.” And you see that there was not yet need to say “my God and your God.”

But when the prophecy of Jeremiah and likewise of Isaiah was being fulfilled, that the Word should be born of a virgin and have flesh, as Jeremiah says, “And he is a man, and who will know him?”, then, having shared in flesh and having formed the same holy flesh for himself from Mary the God-bearer without the seed of a man (according to the saying, “born of a woman”), and having shared in what is ours, because of what is ours he says “my God”;

and because of the eternity of his genuine sonship by nature he says “my Father,” and because of his grace toward his disciples, “your Father,” and because of the nature of the disciples themselves in relation to his Godhead and that of his eternal Father, “your God.”

For he is God of the disciples, but Father of the Lord by nature, and Father of the disciples by grace; and the Father is God of the Son because of the flesh, but Father because of the eternal and incomprehensible character of his begetting and sonship, since he is truly his Father, having begotten him without time and without beginning according to the Godhead.

And he had to call him God because of the dispensation he carried out for us, being always with the Father, the Word begotten without beginning, but in the last days born in the flesh from Mary, born according to the flesh from the same holy virgin Mary through the Holy Spirit.

Let them then understand the depths of God's work and not turn grace into ingratitude, reckoning our salvation as dishonor to the inexpressible and incomprehensible nature of God.

“But,” they say, “it is written of God, ‘He will not hunger or thirst, and there is no searching out of his understanding,’ but of the Son, that he hungered in the wilderness at the temptation. And it says, ‘Our God will not grow weary,’ but the Lord Jesus grew weary on the journey; and ‘He who keeps Israel will not slumber or sleep,’ but the Lord,” they say, “slept in the

boat.” O vain notions of those who reason so! For the holy Word, coming for our sake, not only took up our burdens, but also came under touch, took flesh, was found a man, was seized by the scribes, and *: “I gave my back to the whips, and I did not turn my face from the shame of spitting.”

But also “he wept,” ⟨as⟩ it stands in the Gospel according to Luke in the uncorrected copies (and the holy Irenaeus uses the testimony in his Against Heresies against those who say Christ appeared only in appearance; but orthodox people removed the saying, being afraid, and not understanding its purpose and its great strength),

and “being in agony he sweated, and his sweat became like clots of blood, and an angel appeared strengthening him.”

Not only this, but also as a man he asks, “Where have you laid Lazarus?” and about the woman with the flow of blood, “Who touched me?” and about those seeking him, “Whom do you seek?”; and he also asks the disciples as a man, “Who do people say that I, the Son of Man, am?” and also, “How many loaves do you have with you?”

he said; and being weary from the journey he sat by the well in Samaria; and also “the child grew and became strong in spirit,” and “Jesus advanced in stature and wisdom,” and also “before the child knows how to call father or mother, he will take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria,”

he who is Wisdom, and “teaches people knowledge, and planted the ear for man,” and articulated speech for the sons of men, and “made clear the tongue of stammerers.” All such things he endured for us, so that, preserving the whole sequence of the incarnation carried out for our sake, he might not obliterate the imprint of the truth.

But so that we may not leave unexplained the ⟨sayings⟩ which we brought forward as from the mouth of our opponents, gathered from the divine Scriptures against the truth but badly understood by them, I will state the meaning of the force in each, for what reason it was said in human terms.

And we will speak again, having ⟨already⟩ said much on “my God and your God,” as it † is for one who has sense to know from the very sequence that it was said reasonably.

“For he is a man, and who will know him?” In the same place the divine letter indicates both, visible and invisible: because of the visible, “my God” is said reasonably, and because of the invisible, “my ⟨Father⟩” is said, neither of the two expressions contradicting the reasoning.

For how, if he was a man, was he not known? And if he was not a man, how was he called a man?

For certainly everyone born of human beings is ⟨known⟩ by human beings: by the one who bore him, by relatives, by household members, by neighbors, by those who share his dwelling or his city.

And this cannot be fulfilled in a mere man; but it is fulfilled in God the Word and Son of God. In saying “He is a man,” ⟨it shows he is man⟩ in truth, ⟨and⟩ “Who will know him?” shows that he is God; because he shares with human beings and is God unknown to human beings because of his incomprehensibility.

And he is man, truly born from Mary without the seed of a man; and “the virgin,” ⟨it says⟩ (for the prophet proclaimed the future before the time), “shall conceive and bear a son.”

If then she is a virgin, the dispensation of the pregnancy is not from men, because before this it had been said to Ahaz, “Ask a sign for yourself, in the depth or in the height”; and he, in humility, says, “I will not ask, and I will not test the Lord my God,” declining to ask for a sign.

And at once, because he did not ask a sign, God who gives great gifts to people bestows two gifts: from the height he sent the Word, by his own will and by the Word's own will, and from the depth he arranged the flesh by his own good pleasure together with the Word himself.

For afterward it says, “And they shall call his name Emmanuel.” And it did not say, “I will call,” but “they shall call”; for God, once unknown among them, was being revealed to people. But he does not take the name newly; for it did not say, “I will call his name Emmanuel,” but “they shall call.”

And “born of a woman,” as I showed above, is so that in “from a woman” the ⟨flesh⟩ that came to be, but the eternal Word, may be clearly shown to all. And if “he will not thirst” is said of God, but of the Son that he hungered and thirsted, this was arranged as necessary for us.

For how would the dispensation be found to be in truth, if it did not have the necessary habits of the incarnation? In this he showed us the answers to all the questions of the heretics.

For at once he undid the notion of the Manichaeans; for in saying that he ate and drank he shows true flesh. He undid the way of the Lucianists and the force of Arius.

For Lucian and all the Lucianists deny that the Son of God took a soul, and say that he had only flesh, so that they may attach human passion to God the Word: thirst, hunger, weariness, weeping, grief, trouble, and all that is related of his incarnate coming. But it would be simple-minded to reckon these things to the Godhead of the Son of God.

“But,” they say, “flesh by itself neither eats nor drinks nor grows weary nor does ⟨the⟩ other things.” And I agree that by itself it does not have these.

But the Word, when he came, had the whole dispensation: flesh and soul and all that is in a human being; and hunger and weariness, thirst and grief and the rest belonged to the soul and the flesh.

He weeps, to refute the error of Mani, that he did not put on the body in appearance but in truth; and he thirsts, to show that he has not only the flesh but also the soul. For his Godhead did not thirst anywhere, ⟨but⟩ in the flesh ⟨and the soul⟩ he thirsted and grew weary from the journey, because of the sequence of flesh and soul.

And that the Word came having a body and a soul, let the divine Scriptures of the Old and New ⟨Testaments⟩ persuade them. For at once David says about him, and Peter in agreement with David: “You will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you let your holy one see corruption,” so that the composition of the Lord's manhood may be understood and knowledge about it may be clearly given us; so as to establish that the soul with the Godhead * on the third day was laid down together, so as to show the flesh holy, and that the Godhead with the soul accomplished the mystery in Hades without being held.

For there is somewhere another testimony that says, “free among the dead”: “free” signifies that Hades did not have mastery over him, but that he went down to Hades of his own will with the soul. And Peter says, “because it was not possible for him to be held by it,” that is, by Hades.

And the Savior himself says, “I have authority to take my soul, to lay it down,” and “I am the good shepherd, who lays down his soul for the sheep,” and “My soul is troubled,” he says, “and what shall I say?” (saying “what shall I say?” as though in doubt), “Father, save me from this hour;

but for this I came to this hour,” to show that his Godhead came to this willingly; and “is troubled,” so that the form of the truth of his incarnate coming may not be ⟨denied⟩.

For the incarnate coming was not in appearance; but it was like a great king at war with a weaker foe, who knows that his enemy, if he sees him coming in power and great strength, will decline battle and turn to flight and ravage many of the lands under his rule; and so, by his own wisdom, he makes a show of pretexts and turns his back and runs away, until the enemy takes courage and attacks as though the king were cowardly and weak and pursues him; and the king turns suddenly with his power and takes the weak adversary wholly into his hand. So our Lord did not fear death,

he who before he came to suffer indicated on the way that the Son of Man was to be handed over and crucified and rise on the third day; and when Peter said, “Mercy on you, Lord; this shall not be for you,” he rebuked him, saying, “Get behind me, Satan, for you do not think the things of God but the things of men.”

How then does he who foretold these things and came for this very purpose later pray that the cup may pass so that he may not drink it? He who spoke of his death before dying could not pray for the cup to pass, if only so as not to be taken for a liar;

but by such a manner he challenges the adversary, so that, when he supposes that the Savior fears death, he may bring death upon him, for the salvation of those who die, through the dispensation.

But even when you hear that the Lord died, know where the suffering of death was fulfilled. For the chief of the apostles, Peter, interprets for you the matter of his death, saying, “put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.” For his Godhead, having taken on suffering in the flesh, is impassible, was impassible, and remained impassible, its impassibility not changed nor its eternity altered.

And again, if the vainglorious say, “You cannot persuade us from such words that Christ had a soul. For we have found above in the divine Scriptures, as Isaiah says in the person of God the Father about the Only-begotten, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, whom my soul has loved.’

What shall we think of the Father, that he took a soul in himself or has a soul? Who but a babbler will think this of the Father?” What then do they say? That the word is evidently said figuratively.

“If then they say it is said figuratively of the Father, the same must be taken of the Son. For even if he says, ‘My soul is troubled,’ and ‘⟨I have authority⟩ to lay down my soul and take it,’ he did not,” they say, “have a soul; it is said figuratively.”

And their syllogizing mind seems to say something, * though the truth establishes itself from many proofs. For each figure of speech is taken from its kind. Of the Father one must not dare ⟨say it⟩, because he did not wear flesh. But since the flesh is acknowledged by the Lucianists, or Arians, there is no doubt.

“But,” he says, “‘the Word became flesh,’ and it did not say, ‘the Word became flesh and soul.’” To their ignorant objection I too say that “God formed man, taking dust from the earth,” and by “formed” he included everything; and by “the Word became flesh” he embraces everything.

For by the same reasoning we object to them in turn, saying: see, it says, “God formed man,” and did not say, “He made him a liver or lungs or heart or veins or nerves or the other things in the body.” Shall we therefore think man is some single solid lump, because Scripture did not describe the composition of the whole living being in detail? Not at all. So, as by one form it included the whole, so also from the flesh it is quite clear that the Savior took the soul.

If then he took a soul and a body, as has been shown, then the Godhead was not diminished from the Father's substance, held within passions, so as to thirst and grow weary and hunger and whatever is necessary to a human being.

And that ⟨God⟩ “will not grow weary, and there is no searching out of his understanding,” while the Savior is found to have grown weary, does not mean that the Word who came down from above is not from the substance of the Father. For he did not grow weary above, but in the flesh. For the flesh had to grow weary, so that it might not be thought ⟨to be⟩ in appearance, but in truth;

and the other things that have such force, to slumber, to sleep, indicate a man, and ⟨so does⟩ being subject to touch *. For he took these things and was found a man. “For we have found,” ⟨it says⟩, “the Messiah, of whom Moses wrote.”

And those who found him * through the incomprehensible nature, * that is, the incarnate one. For since in his incomprehensibility he was not found, for this reason he is seized by the scribes, and gave his back to whips and did not turn his face from spitting, he wept, and all the other things sung about him.

For who could whip or strike or spit upon God the Word in heaven, so inexpressible and incomprehensible? But if the impassible Word of God suffered these things, then the suffering is bodily, outside his impassibility, and yet again not outside, because he consented to it;

and although he did not suffer, the suffering was reckoned to himself. And just as a stain on a garment does not reach the body of the wearer, yet the stain on the garment is reckoned to the wearer, so God suffered in the flesh, while his Godhead suffered nothing. But the suffering of the flesh, borne by the Godhead, was reckoned to the Godhead, so that our salvation might come about in the Godhead.

I remember the saying of the Gospel according to Luke, and I do not want to leave it unexplained, what is written: “Being in agony he sweated, and his sweat became like clots of blood.

And an angel of the Lord appeared strengthening him.” Those who do not understand the force of the deeper and necessary words, as we are accustomed to say, * overturn themselves by their malice instead of good things; for nothing is more timely than this.

For in saying “he came into agony” it shows the Lord's manhood to be a true man. And to show that he was a true man and that the agony did not come from the Godhead, it says, “he sweated, and his sweat became like clots of blood.” The form is bodily, not spiritual.

“And an angel of the Lord appeared strengthening him,” not that he who is greater than the angels, “to whom every knee bows, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth,” being always God the Word and always with the Father and begotten from him, needed the angel's strength, but so as to fulfill what is in the great song of Moses sung in the wilderness, in which he said, “Let all the sons of God worship him, and let the angels of God strengthen him.”

“Let them strengthen him,” not as supplying strength to him; but since the doxology in these words was strong to glorify God, with the angels above at once and the spiritual living creatures crying out and saying, “Yours is the power, yours is the might, yours is the strength,” by this it shows the worshiping and strengthening, that is, ascribing to him his own might of strength; as the angel too appeared before the disciples worshiping his Master,

not ignorant of the excess of his loving dispensation, but marveling at the great work of meekness accomplished in him, which defeated the devil, broke the sting of death, triumphed over the principalities and powers, and shattered sin.

And because of the excess of wonder, the angel, worshiping, said in doxology: “Yours is the strength, Master; for you have prevailed against death and Hades and the devil, to break his sting and cast him out from humankind.”

And if again he says, speaking in human fashion, “Where have you laid Lazarus?” and about the woman with the flow of blood, “Who touched me?” or “Whom do you seek?” or “Who do people say that I, the Son of Man, am?” or “The child grew and became strong,” or “He advanced in stature and wisdom,” or “Before the child knows how to call father or mother,” do you not see from the subject matter itself the surpassing knowledge, that the narratives concern the flesh and the humanity?

For whatever things in the Old Testament, spoken in the person of God the Father, come down to persuade people and seem to involve ignorance, though they are not unknown to God, these the Word fulfilled when he came, so as to fulfill the saying, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” “Where have you laid Lazarus?”

he asked when he had come near the place. But before coming to the place, having heard it from no one, he said to his disciples, “Lazarus our friend has fallen asleep.” Did he who, so far away on the journey, knew that Lazarus had died, not know when he was present at the place?

Certainly not; but he wished to show why he was doing all these things, since no one yet believed in him perfectly, so as to display the great loving-kindness of his forbearance toward us.

For they ought not to have said, “He has been dead four days, he already stinks,” nor to have gone and shown him, but to have said, “You know all things, and if you will, he will live.” For this reason he also wept at human hardness. So he asked not in ignorance, but he tests and reproves, and shows loving-kindness.

And “Who touched me?” he says, not because he did not know who touched him, but so as not to tell the miracle himself, but so that she, hearing, might come forward and tell the grace done to her, and, having confessed, hear, “Your faith has saved you,” so as to encourage others also to believe and be healed.

“Who,” he says, “do they say that I, the Son of Man, am?” just as in the Old Testament he says in the person of the Father, “Adam, where are you?” But he knew where he was; so he afterward reproves him, saying, “You have eaten from the tree.”

And to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he asked not in ignorance. For he says, “Cursed are you on the earth, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. For behold, his blood cries out to me.” So he who says that the blood cries out was not ignorant; but he asked in order to give him room for repentance, for a defense.

But they turn again to the contentiousness of ignorance and say that these words in the Old Testament are the Son's own. But at once their contrivance is refuted. For he who said to Moses, “What is this in your hand?” himself said, “I am he who is.”

And the Lord says to the Sadducees, explaining the resurrection: “That the dead are raised, God said: I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. So he is God of the living and not of the dead.”

And again, it is possible to show many things said in the Old Testament in the person of the Father; but also often in the person of the Son, and again in the person of the Holy Spirit.

And “Where is Sarah your wife?” said to Abraham the Son of God, who came from above with the two angels. For if he did not know where she was, he would not have said “Sarah.”

* “So Sarah laughed, being inside”: he wishes to point out her modesty as a pattern for women who wish to live piously in truth, so that when they receive guests they serve from their own labors, but because of modesty do not show their faces to the men.

For that blessed woman certainly prepared the meal, and having prepared it she was not seen face to face by the angels, setting a pattern of modesty for later generations. But also, to show who the one present was, the guest at that hour called the woman by name, * that neither the name nor the form nor the thought of man escapes him.

“Who,” he says, “do people say that I, the Son of Man, am?” And he himself states and confesses “the Son of Man,” so that they may not think he is asking about the invisible one. And they say Elijah and Jeremiah and John. “But who do you say that I am?” “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” he says, and at once is called blessed.

For he asked not in ignorance, but wishing to show that the teaching that proclaims the Son to the church as true ⟨God⟩ is the Father's, so that Peter might say what he had been taught by the Father.

And do not be surprised if he says, “Through me they come in to the Father,” and suppose him altered from the Father's substance. For again he himself teaches, “No one comes to me unless the Father draws him.” So as the Father sends to the Son, the Son also brings in to the Father, to show that the Godhead is one and the same.

And “he advanced,” “advanced in wisdom”: if he is the Wisdom of God, he does not lack wisdom. But since he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, the fullness * was not diminished; * but to show that he was emptied from heaven into humanity, that is, into the workshop of Mary.

For “Your name is ointment emptied out,” it says; it did not say “poured out,” but “emptied out,” from heaven to earth, so that from ⟨heaven⟩ into Mary. And from Mary, having become flesh, he is conceived, born in Bethlehem, passes from Bethlehem to Nazareth, from Nazareth to Capernaum, from Capernaum to Jerusalem and to the sea when he walked on the waters, and to the region of Tyre and Nain and Judea and Jericho, and to Bethphage and Bethany, to Jerusalem and the temple and the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane, to the house of Caiaphas, to the praetorium and to Herod, to the place Golgotha, to the tomb and as far as Hades, to earth after the resurrection, and into the heavens.

For ointment emptied from vessel to vessel perfumes all the vessels; and the coming of Christ from heaven sanctified the whole earth, those who receive him in truth.

He who is the mountain, as in Daniel, and a great mountain, “a stone ⟨but⟩ cut without hands,” * hinting at “without the seed of a man”; the greater found small again; a stone ⟨but⟩ again taking on greatness and becoming again a great mountain; and a mountain ⟨not being in⟩ one place, filling the whole inhabited world;

he who is Wisdom and became man, extending his power to the world so as to fill the inhabited world with grace, “advanced in stature and wisdom.”

Since he is the Wisdom of the Father, and “teaches people” to speak, and articulated the tongue for people, and “planted the ear” in those who hear, how did he not know how to call father or mother? * “He will take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria,” and so on?

But since, if he had been shown speaking at once when born from the womb and uttering clearly like a grown child, his incarnate conception would have been thought an illusion and not true, or rather an appearance, for this reason he endures the littleness of age, so as not to obliterate the truth of the sequence.

But again they hunt for other * vain notions, weaving them into the divine words, and understand them contrarily, and say: “How then is it written, ‘Receive the high priest of our confession, being faithful to him who made him,’ and ‘Let all the house of Israel know that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ’?”

And great wonder comes over me how those who handle the sequences do not know the force expressed in them. For saying “Receive the high priest, being faithful to him who made him” is not said about the Godhead.

For God came *, and the divine Scriptures make everything clear to us. For nothing in them is crooked or tangled, but all are plain to those who understand and right to those who find knowledge.

For “Receive instruction,” it says, “and not silver”; for unless someone receives instruction from God, that is, the faith of the truth, all things are crooked and perverse to him; but to those who understand rightly and find knowledge, all things are right and blameless.

And to refute them, the apostle says: “For every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things ⟨relating to God⟩, to offer gifts and sacrifices.”

For this reason the Only-begotten himself too, since he came to become high priest on behalf of men, took flesh from us, so that he who came from us might become an offering on our behalf to his own Father, God, and might “call” the disciples “brothers.” Where then is “made” fulfilled? Nowhere else but in relation to the high priest. “For receive,” ⟨it says⟩, “the high priest, faithful to him who made him.”

And to use a further example: someone might ask a king about his own son and say to him boldly, “Who is this?” And hearing from the father the just acknowledgment, “He is my son,” he might ask again, “Your son by nature?” And when the king says yes, the questioner will go on, “What then have you made him?” He will certainly say, “I have made him king.” Has he, in stating the rank, denied the genuine sonship?

If he says the second, has he obliterated the first? Not at all. So also God the Father begot the Son without beginning, and in the flesh “he made him high priest” was fulfilled.

“But,” they say, “it is written, ‘The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works.’” And first the vainglorious do not know the name of the book. For the book is called the Proverbs of Solomon. And everything spoken in proverbs is not the same as the force of the word.

For see, our Lord Jesus Christ spoke in parables, and we see that the parables do not correspond thus to the subject.

For “the kingdom of heaven,” he says, “is like a grain of mustard seed”; and if we want to understand the part according to our own mind, clearly the kingdom of heaven is a place of spaciousness.

If one must speak of a place, in which kingdom God the Father is King, and God the Word and Son of God, and the Holy Spirit of God, angels and archangels, spiritual hosts, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the righteous, where then will so many be contained in a grain of mustard seed? But the figurative sense of the word is spoken in riddles. So what is said in proverbs is not the same.

And also to a woman having ten drachmas who lost one and lit a lamp and found it; and also to a net cast into the sea; and also to seed sown on the *. All these ⟨are said⟩ in riddles, but are not the same in force.

And we do not truly know whether Solomon, the speaker of proverbs, said this word about the Son of God. For there is wisdom and wisdom.

The apostle knows how to say, “The world through the wisdom of God did not know God,” and “God made foolish the wisdom of the world,” and again he says, “not in fleshly wisdom but in the power of God”; and Solomon knows how to call wisdom so, saying, “I loved her beauty and took her as a bride for myself”; and Job knows wisdom and says, “But where was wisdom found? And what is the place of understanding?” and “The wisdom of the poor man is despised,” and “He is the corrector of wisdom,” and “the Only-begotten is the Wisdom of the Father.”

What then do we say? If the Father is wise, and the Son, according to their mind, did not come forth from him, being Word and God and Wisdom, then the Father lacks wisdom in himself.

How then “to God, the only wise, invisible” *, and all these things are incomprehensible and infinite to men? God gave wisdom to Solomon and filled Bezalel with wisdom; and “wise men hide shame.”

And there is much to say about wisdom. But that Wisdom of the Father is single in form, having no other counterpart.

Yet even if the word sung was about it, I neither agree nor reject it, but leave the knowing to God; and I see that the things said are forced into opposition. For “He created,” it says, “the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he founded me; and before all the hills he begets me.”

How then is what is begotten founded? And how is what is created begotten? For if it is created, it is not truly begotten.

For what we beget we do not create, and what we create we do not beget; for we are created, and what is begotten by us is created. But in God, who is uncreated, the offspring is not created.

For if he begot, he did not create; and if after creating he begot again, how is what was first created later begotten?

If, then, the things said are about him, they are fulfilled in the incarnate dispensation. And for this reason it says the nearer things first and relates the more ancient later.

For wishing to persuade people, who are nearest, he begins from the flesh (for the beginning of the ways of the righteousness of the gospel is that the Word became flesh for us in Mary, and a soul was founded in her flesh), so as to show the higher things afterward.

And we say that he came from the Father's bosom, from the heavens to the earth, since he came to us later, having completed the whole dispensation. So the Word is not created (God forbid), and the divine Scripture has produced nothing crooked for us at all.

But also, by nature and among the translators, the expression is not rendered thus. For Aquila says, “The Lord acquired me,” since in the Hebrew it says “Adonai qanani,” which is translated as we have said. And we too by custom say of those who are born, “he acquired children.”

But not even so did he seal the force of the translation. For “Adonai qanani” can also be translated thus: “The Lord nested me.” And for this reason Peter clearly declares, saying, “this Jesus whom you crucified.” He did not say “God the Word from above,” but “this Jesus,” ⟨meaning⟩ the flesh conceived together with the Word from above in Mary's womb, called “this” because of the Lord's manhood from Mary.

For in this † what is created is fulfilled, as Peter says, “put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,” and again, “Christ therefore having suffered for us in the flesh,” and again, “from whom is Christ according to the flesh,” as Paul says.

And the Savior himself said in the Gospel, “But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from the Father,” to show the suffering from the humanity, ⟨which is⟩ below, but himself to be natural Son of the Father from the things above.

And Paul the holy apostle agrees with this word too, saying, “One God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” who “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.”

You see that he declared him a man, but not a mere man. For “mediator of God and men,” since he mediates to both: to his Father, being God by nature, genuinely begotten; to men, a natural and genuine man, born from Mary without the seed of a man. For thus he is mediator of God and men, being God and having become man, not changed in nature, but mediating to both through each.

But again in their ignorance they say, “You see that ‘he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.’” And the contentious do not even know the wording. For it did not say, “He did not wish to become equal to God by robbery,” but “he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,” that is, being God by nature, which he was.

For if he was not, how did he take the form of a servant? ⟨For⟩ it signified what was new, and from this, marveling at the excess *, it showed that although he was equal to God he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, not to enslave the free, but ⟨so that⟩ in the form he took he might set free obedient servants.

As the Jews also testify that he was not ashamed to call ⟨himself⟩ equal to God nor hesitated, but * boldly * to show it thus in saying, “If I do not say so, I shall be a liar like you”; and for this reason they say to him, “We do not kill you for a good work, but because, being a man, you make yourself equal to God.”

“But,” they say, “we must confess ⟨also⟩ the figurative things said of him.” Scripture has said many figurative things about him, and one must not deny what is said of him in riddles: that he is called a door, and said to be a stone, and a pillar and a cloud and a lion and a lamb and a lamp and a torch and a sun and an angel and a worm and a rock and a cornerstone and a way and a bull and a calf, and such things.

Clearly we too do not deny what has been fulfilled in him in riddles. But we know for what reason these things are written: a way, because through him we walk to the kingdom, to him and to the Father; a door, because through him we enter; a pillar, because he is the foundation of our faith; a rock, because he is immovable; a stone, ⟨because⟩ founded; the sun of righteousness, because he shone on our darkened minds.

Then they say, “⟨If⟩ it is written of him that he is a creature, one must confess ‘creature’ too.” See, I too have related some part of the uses fulfilled for us through his riddles.

Let them tell us, ⟨then⟩, what use there is in calling him a creature. “Door” is fittingly said figuratively, so that he may become our entrance and benefit; and “way,” so that walking through him we may not go astray. But “creature,”

what does it become for us? How does it help us? “Yes,” says the vainglorious and contentious man; “for if you do not call him a creature, you attribute passion to the Father. For everyone who begets is clothed with passion: he contracts or expands or is spread out or flows away or swells, or ⟨suffers⟩ something of the kind.”

Alas for such a mind, evil and not most true! Who will think these things about God? What notion will dare such things? Clearly no one, not even of the demons, will think such a thing.

And if someone confesses the Father, he believes that he truly begot the Son. * For the divine is not carried about in bulks, nor is it a pregnant body, so as to undergo the things mentioned.

“For God is Spirit,” and Spirit undergoes no flowing, no cutting, no contraction, no diminution, no spreading out, nor anything of the kind. So, inasmuch as the Father is Spirit, he begot the Son, God the Word, spiritually, timelessly, incomprehensibly, and without beginning.

And to persuade those who think this, let us speak, not saying that the things are alike, but turning back their bad defense from comparable things: a creature is what falls infinitely and ten thousand times short of its Master.

Many people in the desert, needing fire, fill a glass vessel with water and bring easily kindled material made of linen or tow, and stand facing the sun; as the glass casts the sun's gleam onto the material beneath, at once fire is taken from the sun and kindles. Is the sun then cut by the sharing of its substance? Has it failed? Has it been diminished? No, they say.

If then the sun, being a creature, was not diminished, how much more God, who is infinite, incomprehensible, and undefiled, begetting from himself, being Spirit, God the Word, inexpressible, incomprehensible, and incorruptible, begot him in incorruption: not through passion, not through cutting, not through loss, but perfect from perfect in perfection.

And the nature of fire lights many lamps from one, and the first is not diminished; but again the same substance can be made up of many separate parts, I mean lamps or torches.

But the divine is not so, God forbid; for the Word did not come back again and bring about a merging with the Father; but the Father is Father, and the Son Son, and the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit.

For foolish is what the Manichaeans say: that in † the mind of Mani the souls, having come from the column of light, are one body, and when released from bodies are refashioned again into the one substance, ⟨gathered⟩ as into the one column, according to their fiction.

But the Gospel did not show it so; rather he broke five loaves and fed five thousand, and did not leave the leftovers, but “Gather,” he says, “and let nothing of the fragments be lost,” and they gathered twelve baskets.

And they gathered them together into the containers, but he did not make the fragments again into the union of loaves as they had been. They gathered the quantity, but into many fragments, and showed it in one collection of baskets.

And we have not allegorized this as a theory, nor the example of the sun mentioned before. For we do not say the loaves or ⟨the⟩ fragments are souls, God forbid, nor do we make God equal to the sun created by him, nor the Only-begotten to the ray sent by the sun onto the tow.

But in like manner the souls that are born are not joined into one merging, God forbid, but into the mansions of God, of which it is written, “There are many mansions with the Father”; not becoming one heap, but each counted individually.

Nor, in saying that God begot his only-begotten Son, do we attach passion to him according to their evil blasphemy. “For everyone who begets labors with passion, and one must say neither ‘creature’ nor ‘offspring,’” according to their argument, “so that we may not present God laboring or suffering. From where, then, have we found the Son, or why does he have the name of Son?”

These are human syllogisms, starting from earthly thoughts. For it is unlawful to reckon our human passions to God, when God clearly says, “My thought is not as your thoughts,” and again, “God is not as a man.”

So let them cease from blasphemy and learn from the Father, who says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”; and again, as of things to come, he says, “For you are my beloved Son, whom I have chosen,” and then in the Song, “chosen out from ten thousands.” From where then the choosing comes, let them say.

For the babblers think that in saying “I have chosen” he is called Son by grace and not by nature. Let them show who is like him, so that, having tested all, he chose that one.

For if he is only-begotten Son, there is no one equal to him or a counterpart, one “like the Son among the sons of God.” For it knows those as sons by grace, while no one can be made equal to him, because he is Son by nature.

For it is clear from where he was “chosen out” and from where the choosing: there were many ten thousands on the earth, and Mary alone “found favor,” and in her he chose the holy flesh.

For this reason he said, “I was well pleased,” as David too says in the person of the apostles who believed in the Lord and joyfully showed his grace to the nations: “He subdued peoples under us and nations under our feet; he chose for us his inheritance, the beauty of Jacob, which he loved,” that is, the pure beauty of him,

the beauty of all Jacob, the flesh from Mary chosen through the Holy Spirit. * The Father from above showed to John the Baptist what had come to be in the dispensation of the flesh. For the Father was well pleased in the incarnate coming of Christ, but the Godhead is infinitely beyond ⟨such⟩ nature.

And the apostle also calls him “the Son of love”: “who rescued us,” he says, “from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love.”

And the babblers here, not understanding the expression, say that the Son is God's by an advance in love. And the ignorant do not know the counterpart of the saying; for in another place the apostle says, “God loved us in Christ.”

For the Only-begotten is truly the beloved Son, since the Father is love, the Son is love, since he is love from love. So he is Son of love because of us and because of himself, since in him he loved us and handed over his only-begotten Son for us. So he neither labors in working nor suffers in begetting.

And let them not heap up blasphemies on themselves in vain. For if the Son is created, he is not to be worshiped, by their own reasoning. For it is foolish to worship a creature and set aside the first commandment, which says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord.”

So the holy Word is not created, because he is worshiped. The disciples worshiped him; the angels in heaven worship him; ⟨for it says⟩, “And let all the angels of God worship him,” and “I will worship you, O Lord, my strength.”

There is one matter that is plain, brief, and unanswerable, which no one can contradict: if those hostile to the Son of God have a testimony, let them show where the Father said, “I created a Son for myself,” in the Old or New Testament, or where the Son said, “The Father created me.” There are four Gospels of one thousand one hundred sixty-two chapters, and from beginning to end the Son spoke, and the Father to him, and nowhere did he say, “My Father created me,” nor the Father, “I created a Son for myself,” or “I created my Son.”

But the contentious and glory-loving man says: “What then do you say of the body? Taken from Mary, clearly. And what of Mary? Uncreated or created?” Created, clearly, we too say, born of a man and a woman. “What then do you say of what is from Mary? Do you worship the Savior in the body or do you not worship?” How then should I not worship? If I do not worship, I have no life. “See then, you worship a creature, the body.” Great is the derangement of those who say such things.

For a king clothed in purple is worshiped by all. Is the purple worshiped, or the king? Clearly the king. But the purple he wears is worshiped together with him; and when the king takes it off and lays it in its place, the purple is no longer worshiped.

A king often sits in a temple on his own throne, and those who do obeisance do obeisance to the king in his own temple and on the throne; but when the king has risen, no one does obeisance to the temple or the throne. And no madman, wishing to do obeisance to the king in his temple, says to the king, “Come out of your temple, so that I may do obeisance to you.”

So no one should say to the Only-begotten, “Leave the body, so that I may worship you”; but one worships the Only-begotten with the body, ⟨the⟩ uncreated with the holy temple which he took when he came.

And no one says to the king, “Get up from your throne, so that I may do obeisance to you without the throne,” but one does obeisance to the king with the throne. So also Christ is worshiped with the body that was buried and raised.

“But,” they say, “what then do you say? Did the Father beget the Son willing or unwilling? Since you say the Word always was and there was no time before the Word.” And yet the Arians themselves, to deceive some, say that the Son of God was begotten timelessly, not wishing to call him eternal, but saying, “There was once when he was not”; and they think that “once” is not time.

But when the expression is examined, you refute the ignorant. For “once,” said as a word, signifies time. And in saying that it does not mean time they fall into an absurdity of their own thinking in misbelief. For they use the words with irony, while in their thinking they campaign terribly against the Son of God, shamelessly holding him wholly foreign to the Father's Godhead. Did he then beget willing or unwilling?

If we say unwilling, we surround the divine with necessity; and if we say willing, we grant that the will was before the Word; and even if it were an instant and a blink ⟨of an eye or⟩ a tiny fraction of an hour, the fraction signifies time before the Word, and again we fall into their argument. And if we say he begot not willing, then the divine was led by necessity of nature and not by freedom of will.

But none of these applies to God, as you suppose, vainglorious man. For these things do not exist with God. He begot, then, neither willing nor unwilling, but by the transcendence of his nature. For the divine nature transcends counsel, and does not fall under time, nor is it led by necessity.

For in us nothing is ready, since we once were not, and first we deliberate, then we do what we do; or, if we have not deliberated, there is nothing yet done by us. But with God all things are perfect and smooth, and all is fulfilled in him; and he begot, ⟨neither willing⟩ nor unwilling, the one who is eternally, the holy Word and God begotten from him, but in his transcendent and inexpressible nature.

And the greatest wonder comes over me, children of the faith and of the church, how the contentious have turned the true things into allegory and, in error, take figurative sayings as literal truth. For the begetting, which is ⟨in⟩ him by nature, they say is not like any of the things begotten; but the being created, which is foreign to his Godhead, even if it was once said in allegory, they call true, while they obliterate the truth.

For when Isaiah says, “I saw the Lord of hosts,” and “The Lord appeared to Moses,” and “The Lord appeared to Abraham,” and “Daniel saw a vision, the Ancient of Days,” and such things, and the Lord appeared to Ezekiel and he said, “I saw the appearance of God,” they say these things did not happen, as if falsely accusing the prophets,

evidently on the basis of the saying of the Gospel, where the Savior, teaching, said, “No one has ever seen God.” And they say: “If then the Only-begotten said that no one has seen, but the prophets say they have seen, either the Only-begotten or the prophets must be lying.”

And by the reasoning of those who speak so, and of the Manichaeans, the things in the prophets will be false. But if the prophets do not lie but speak the truth, according to the Savior's word, “I who speak in the prophets, behold, I am here,” the matter calls for understanding and needs interpretation.

For so this is often fulfilled: we see the sea from some part, ⟨from⟩ a mountain or a plain, and we speak the truth in ⟨saying so⟩; and if someone says he has not seen it, he does not lie but speaks the truth. For he does not know where its depth is, where its length, he does not know its bulk, he does not know its expanse.

And through some opening we look at the sky, but we do not know its extent. If someone says, “I saw,” he saw; and if another says, “I did not see,” he did not see. For we saw truly as far as we have capacity, but we did not see it as it is.

So too the prophets, as through an opening, ⟨through⟩ the narrow passage of their own body, were counted worthy to see, and ⟨in⟩

truth they saw, ⟨but⟩ not as the infinity of the vision is. And so the divine Scriptures are fulfilled in harmony with each other: that the prophets say they have seen (for they saw in truth), and that the Savior says, “No one has ever beheld God” (for they did not see him as he is). But he himself saw the nature invisibly, and gave to one who cannot see the power of grace to see the power of the vision.

But do not again stage a drama and say, “The prophets saw not with the eyes but with the mind, all but understanding”; for precisely for this reason Isaiah says, “Wretched am I, for I am pierced to the heart, for being a man and having unclean lips, I dwell among a people with unclean lips, and I have seen the Lord of hosts”; and he did not say, “I saw with my mind,” but “with my eyes.” So they saw and did not see: as they could, but they saw in truth; yet they did not see as the infinity of incomprehensibility is.

So also many allegorize about paradise, as the god-stricken Origen wished to bring fantasy rather than truth into life. And he says, “There is no paradise on the earth,”

evidently from the saying of the holy apostle: “I know a man fourteen years ago, whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows, such a one caught up to the third heaven.” But do not misread and say that “third” ⟨means⟩ the third part of the air; for in saying “to the heaven” he does not speak of a third part, but of three in number.

And he says, “I know such a man caught up into paradise and hearing words which it is not lawful for a man to speak.”

Glory to God almighty, who makes all things clear in every way and in fine detail, so that the true * may not err. For he did not join heaven and paradise in one brief phrase, but “I know a man,” he says, “caught up to the third heaven,” and again, “caught up into paradise.” And the phrase with the article distinguishes another person and indicates a transfer to another place.

As if someone had a mountain and a plain, the plain encircling the mountain, and wished to reach the far side of the mountain in the same plain: when he wishes to make the journey through the plain to the place ⟨beyond⟩ the mountain where he wants to go, he can; and if he wishes first to climb the mountain, and from the mountain again to reach the place in the plain beyond the mountain, he can do this too.

So understand also what the apostle said: first he went up into heaven, then went down into paradise, according to the saying, “My beloved went down into his garden.” * And the Savior says, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

But if paradise is not on earth, and what is written in Genesis is not true but allegorized, then nothing in the sequence is true, but everything is allegorized.

For “In the beginning,” it says, “God made the heaven and the ⟨earth⟩”; and these are not allegorized but visible. And the firmament, it says, and the sea, sprouts and trees and plants, grass, animals, fish, birds: all the things seen came into being in truth. And he made man, ⟨who⟩ truly exists.

So he put the one whom he had formed in paradise, having made the same man according to the image, according to the image of God.

But do not pry into the gifts of God given to man by grace. For we do not deny that all human beings are according to the image of God.

But we do not pry into how the image is. For we do not understand the image to be the body, nor the soul, nor the mind, nor virtue. For many things prevent me from speaking so.

But neither do we say that the body is not according to the image, nor the soul. For it belongs to the faithful to confess Scripture, and not the unfaithful; and to the unfaithful it belongs “to set aside the grace.” So the image is in man, but God himself knows how it is.

For if you say, “He made man according to the image,” and think it is the body, while God is invisible, incomprehensible, inconceivable, how will what is visible and comprehensible and subject to touch be an image of the invisible and incomprehensible?

And if you say the body is not according to the image, “He took,” it says, “dust from the earth and formed man.” And it calls the earthly part “man,” and it calls the animated part “man”: for “he breathed,” it says, “into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”

We understand the soul and the body to be created. How created? For “he breathed,” it says; and we say neither that the soul is a part of God nor that it is foreign to the breathing. How this is understood in detail is known to God alone.

We, without prying and without guile, believe God, who speaks truly in everything. And if you say that the soul is what is according to the image, ⟨consider⟩ the apostle saying, “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing to the division of soul.”

If then the soul has divisions, but God is indivisible, how can the soul be the image? For the soul does not know the future, but God certainly knows it. And we see what is in front of the body, not knowing what is behind. And if you say it is not the soul, certainly he has also called the soul “man,” and man is soul and body.

But you might say the mind is the image. ⟨But⟩ Scripture says, “I see another law waging war in my members and taking me captive in my mind to the law of sin that is in my members.” How then will what is taken captive be the image? * that “I will sing with the mind, I will sing with the spirit.”

And if you say virtue is the image, I will say to you: tell me about Adam, what virtue did he practice before he was formed? For ⟨virtue⟩ was not in the beginning, but from the beginning he was formed according to the image. And if you say it is not virtue, you do not speak well. For to what does being according to the image befit, if not to virtue? But man was formed according to the image before virtue. For Adam had not yet lived in virtue, clearly, not ⟨yet⟩ having been created.

And if you say baptism is the image, were then the righteous who did not receive baptism not according to the image? For the type began from Moses and the sea, grace was opened from John, and the gift was perfected in Christ.

So all have what is according to the image, but not by nature. For human beings do not have the image according to equality with God. For God is incomprehensible, inconceivable, being Spirit, and Spirit beyond every spirit, and light beyond every light.

But what he bestowed we do not take away ⟨from man⟩; for he is true who graciously bestowed the image on man. And it can be understood from comparable things:

for we see that the Savior took into his hands, as it is in the Gospel, when he reclined at the supper, such-and-such, and having given thanks said, “This is my such-and-such”; and he gave to his disciples and said, “This is my such-and-such.”

And we see that it is not equal nor alike, neither to the incarnate image, nor to the invisible Godhead, nor to the features of the limbs. For the one is round in shape * and without sensation.

* as to its power; and he willed by grace to say, “This is my such-and-such,” and no one disbelieves the word. For whoever does not believe that he is true in what he said falls away from grace and salvation.

And when we hear, we also believe; we believe that it is his *; and we know our Lord to be wholly sensation, wholly sensing, wholly God, wholly moving, wholly working, wholly light, wholly Word, incomprehensible, but having bestowed this on us with grace.

This Adam, then, was placed in paradise and ate from the tree. And paradise, it says, is “in Eden, toward the east”; and “a spring went up out of Eden,” and it did not say “came down,” so that we might not think Eden is in heaven. For if it were in heaven, it would have said a spring “comes down” from above. But it ⟨also⟩ says, “A river goes out from Eden,” and it did not say “comes down.”

This “is divided into four heads. The name of the one is Pishon,” and we see the Pishon before our eyes. The Pishon is the river called Ganges among the Indians and Ethiopians, and the Greeks call it the Indus river. For “it encircles all the land of Havilah,” lesser and greater Ethiopia, the regions of the Havilites, and it crosses great Ethiopia and falls toward the south and sinks inside Gadeira into the great Ocean.

The second river is “Gihon.” And we see the river as perceptible and not allegorized; for it is the one that comes down through Ethiopia and crosses lesser Ethiopia, the Anubitis, the Blemmyes, and Axumitis, and flooding the regions of the Thebaid and Egypt falls into this sea. If anyone disbelieves, let him hear Jeremiah saying, “What have you and the land of Egypt to do with drinking the muddy water of Gihon?”

“The third river,” it says, “is the Tigris, which flows opposite the Assyrians”; for it cuts through the regions of the East and sinks under the earth and rises from Armenia between the Carduaeans and Armenians and springs up again and is divided into the land of the Assyrians.

And also the fourth river, the Euphrates, likewise in the same way sinks under the earth, comes up from Armenia, and so floods Persia. If then there is no perceptible paradise, there is no spring; if there is no spring, there is no river; if there is no river, there are no four heads; if there is no Pishon, there is no Gihon, no Tigris; if there is no Tigris, there is no Euphrates;

if there is no Euphrates, there is no fig tree, no leaves, no Adam, no ⟨eating⟩, no Eve; if there is no Eve, he did not eat from the tree; if he did not eat from the tree, there is no Adam;

if there is no Adam, there are no human beings, but truth is henceforth a myth and everything is allegorized. So there is an Adam; for we are from him, all being his race by succession, and we see him through the multitude in the succession.

For Adam begets Seth according to his form and according to his image. ⟨For⟩ so that no one might think the one formed and those begotten are different, Scripture says “according to his form and according to his image.” And Seth begets Enosh, Enosh Kenan, Kenan Mahalalel, Mahalalel Jared, and Jared Enoch, Enoch Methuselah, Methuselah Lamech, Lamech Noah; and the flood came, not in allegory but in truth, and every soul perished, and “eight souls” of men remained.

And if you hear “souls” again, do not think they have no bodies. For from one form the whole man is named. For “Jacob went down,” says Scripture, “into Egypt with seventy-five souls,” not that the souls followed without bodies, but with bodies; ⟨so⟩ it called the whole man. And “we were in the ship about eighty souls,” says Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles.

And custom is used to call slaves “bodies”: “He is master,” they say, “of a hundred bodies,” yet they have souls. But since human mastery rules over bodies but not souls, for this reason they reasonably called slaves “bodies,” with their souls, to show the use of the bodies.

And Noah came out of the ark, having begotten Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And Shem begets Arphaxad, Arphaxad begets Cainan, Cainan Shelah, Shelah Eber, Eber Peleg, Peleg Reu, Reu Serug, Serug Nahor, Nahor Terah, Terah Abraham, Abraham Isaac, Isaac Jacob, Jacob Judah, Judah Perez, Perez Hezron, Hezron Ram, Ram Amminadab, Amminadab Nahshon, Nahshon Salmon, Salmon Boaz, Boaz Obed by Ruth, Obed Jesse, Jesse David the king, David Solomon by the wife of Uriah, Solomon Rehoboam, Rehoboam Abijah, Abijah Asaph, Asaph Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat Joram, Joram Ahaziah, Ahaziah Joash, Joash Amaziah, Amaziah Uzziah, who was called Azariah, Uzziah Jotham, Jotham Ahaz, Ahaz Hezekiah, Hezekiah Manasseh, Manasseh Amos, Amos Josiah, Josiah Jechoniah, Jechoniah again Shealtiel, Shealtiel Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel Abiud, Abiud Eliakim, Eliakim Azor, Azor Zadok, Zadok Achim, Achim Eliud, Eliud Eleazar, Eleazar Matthan, Matthan Jacob, Jacob Joseph.

Joseph, being old ⟨and⟩ a widower, after taking a first wife and having by her four sons, James, called the brother of the Lord because he was brought up with him, and Simon and Judas and Joses, and two daughters, † Anna and Salome,

this Joseph, being old and a widower, by necessity, when lots were cast among widowers and unmarried men of each tribe for the virgins from the temple (because the firstborn children, male and female, were dedicated in the temple), received by lot the holy virgin Mary, “of whom” according to the flesh “was born” our Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, not from the seed of a man nor by union of body.

So the Lord is born of the tribe of Judah, of the seed of David and Abraham according to the flesh, being God, in the forty-⟨second⟩ year of the reign ⟨of Augustus⟩.

Augustus reigned fifty-six years and six months; after him his son Tiberius succeeds to the rule, … years; after Tiberius, Gaius, three years, nine months, and twenty-two days; after Gaius, Claudius, … years; after Claudius, Nero, … years; after Nero, Vespasian, nine years; after Vespasian, Titus his son, two years; after Titus, Domitian his brother, … years and … months; after Domitian, Nerva, … year, four months; after Nerva, Trajan, nineteen years; after Trajan, Hadrian, …; after Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, twenty-two years; after Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, also called Verus, nineteen years; Commodus, … years; Pertinax, … months; Severus, … years; Antoninus his son, seven years; Macrinus, one year; another Antoninus, … years; Alexander, not the Macedonian, … years; Maximinus, … years; Gordian, seven years; Philip, seven years; Decius, … year; Gallus * and Volusianus, … years; …nus, … years; another Claudius, one year; Aurelian, … years; Tacitus, seven months; Probus, … years; Carus with Carinus and Numerian, two years; Diocletian, … years.

After Diocletian: Maximian, Licinius, Constantius, Constantine, Constans, Constantius and Constantine, Julian, Jovian, Valentinian, Valens, Gratian, up to this year, … years after the death of Diocletian. For this year is the ninetieth of Diocletian, the … of Valentinian and Valens, the … of Gratian, in the consulship of Gratian Augustus for the third time and of Equitius, most illustrious, in the second indiction.

So we are all from the aforementioned Adam in sequence; and the order has not perished, nor are the things made by God allegorized.

So there is an Adam, and there are fig leaves and a fig tree, and the tree for knowing what is known of good and evil, and the tree of life in the midst of paradise, and a serpent, and disobedience and obedience; and there are rivers, and there is Eve, and the formed body.

For “all things are possible with God,” both to change corruptible things into incorruption and to make things on earth continue in incorruption.

And let no one be amazed; for he came and showed this, taking corruptible flesh and clothing it in the Godhead and showing it incorruptible. “For who will bring a charge” against God?

Let us look at another consideration too. He drove them, it says, out of paradise and placed the Cherubim and the flaming sword to guard the entrance to the tree of life. And Adam and those with him went out and dwelt opposite paradise. Let no one be deceived by empty myths.

“For God is able from the stones to raise up children,” and God is able to change corruptible things into incorruption, and able to make the rest of paradise on earth when he wished.

For the earth is not of one god and heaven of another, but all belong to the same, and he grants incorruption to each as he wills.

For we know that Adam's body was formed from the earth, from which our bodies also come, and we have hope of eternal life and an incorruptible inheritance. For the Savior's body too was from Mary and has been spiritually united to the incorruption of the Word in heaven.

We have gathered all these things and set them out here, wishing to cast aside nothing of what is written, but rather to be carried along in simplicity and be found faithful toward God in what he wrote for us in truth, and he granted the way of truth for our salvation; and it is fitting ⟨to⟩ concede to him alone the knowing of incomprehensible things.

Again this Origen (may God forgive him for allegorizing fantasies for people) introduced another mythical consideration, saying that the garments of skin which the divine Scripture says God made for Adam and Eve are not garments of skin;

but this, he says, the garment of skin, is the fleshliness of the body or the body itself; for after the disobedience, he says, and after eating of the tree, he clothed the souls with these bodies, that is, with this flesh. And the whole thing is simple-minded to say.

For Origen himself argues cleverly, as it seems, and says: “Was God then a tanner, that he tanned hides and made garments for Adam and Eve?” But such a thing is much more brutish.

Which was easier, for God to make heaven and earth from nothing, or garments of skin? When did he, wishing it, not work his wonders, and when was he unable to change lifeless things into living?

He made the rod of Moses, which was dry and wooden, a living serpent pursuing Moses, from which Moses turned to flight, to show that what happened was not an apparition but true. And how were the people's garments not worn out for forty years, their hair not overgrown, and their sandals not grown old?

And let the foolish who in this matter have followed the derangement of Origen tell me: when the Savior rose from the dead and left the linen cloths in the tomb, as it is written, did he then appear naked to the disciples, having risen from the dead with body and soul?

When he showed Thomas and those with him his bones and flesh, hands and side, clearly he was not naked. Who then wove him the garments after the resurrection?

But you will surely tell me, “They were spiritual clothes, ⟨which⟩ he made for himself by his will.” And if he could make such clothes for himself, could he not make those garments of skin for Adam and Eve by his own will? Truly

Origen's allegory falls. For if the flesh was created for Adam after eating of the tree, from where did God take the rib before he had eaten? As, waking from the trance, he says, “This is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh.”

“Henceforth let no one trouble us.” For so the holy church of God has believed from the beginning; for Origen will not stand by us on the day of judgment.

For I truly marvel how some tolerate the one who blasphemed his own Master. Let such people read Origen's On First Principles, and let those who seem to be sons of the catholic church learn *, and let them not dare to separate the ⟨Son⟩ from the Father's Godhead;

* how Origen did not deign to say even that the Son sees the Father. But he says: “As the Son cannot see the Father, so the Holy Spirit cannot see the Son,” and again, “The angels cannot see the Holy Spirit, and human beings cannot see the angels.”

And he rather deluded himself and those he deceived, but not the one who is understanding and faithful and believes the truth and the

spiritual teaching. Stop, then, Origen, and stop, you disciples of Origen; for the apostles and prophets speak the truth rather than you and your teacher.

Let the Gnostics stop, who are blameworthy in their way of life; let the Valentinians and Manichaeans and Marcionites stop, who have gone astray in everything; and let the Arians and Anomoeans and Sabellians and Pneumatites, also called Pneumatomachi, stop, and the Dimoerites, who foolishly cast out the mind.

For divine Scripture speaks truly in everything; but understanding is needed to know ⟨that⟩ God ⟨speaks truly⟩, ⟨and⟩ to believe him and his words, and ⟨to know⟩ the things graciously given by God, both given and to come, and to know according to the promise the resurrection of the dead in perfection. For every heresy lies, not having received the Holy Spirit according to the tradition of the fathers in the holy catholic church of God.

And about all these things we will speak again according to our weakness; but having been counted worthy by ⟨God⟩, we the least and lowly, to belong to the holy catholic church of God and to have its foundation, we set out in part, as far as our littleness allows, about all things for those who wish to care for their own life.

And what has been said about Father and Son and Holy Spirit would have been enough; but so that we may take pains to make things clearer, for the delight, gain, and full assurance of the faithful, gathering the testimonies of divine Scripture into a broad feast and gladness for the faithful who read, we would not hesitate to show again how safe and firm our hope in God is, that nothing differs in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, but the holy Trinity is of equal rank and consubstantial.

And we do not make our teaching from somewhere else, nor from our own thoughts, but from our life, that is, from the prophets and from the coming of our Savior and his loving-kindness.

For he came, our life came and showed us the light again, finding us astray. For we were, we were in arrogance and blasphemies, in likenesses of idols, in godlessness of spirits, steeped in the commands of every evil.

While these things were upon me (for I did not do what I wished, but what I hated I was driven to do, sin thus serving me), the holy Father sent his holy Son and in his mercy saved me and delivered me from all my corruptions.

For the grace of our Lord and Savior has appeared, “teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly and piously and justly in the present age, awaiting the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people of his own, zealous for good works”;

“having wiped out the handwriting against us in the ordinances, which was contrary to us, he took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; having stripped off the principalities and powers, he made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it”; “having shattered gates and broken iron bars,” he showed the light again, stretching out a hand, making a road, showing the steps to heaven, counting us worthy to dwell in paradise again.

So “he dwelt among us,” and, giving us “the righteous requirement of the law” of the Spirit, so that we may know him ⟨and⟩ that he is the beginning and end of life, he has become for us “a law of righteousness,” “a law of faith,” “a law of the Spirit,” free “from the law of the flesh of sin.”

Therefore “I delight in the law of God according to the inner man”; and Christ is within us, if he dwells in us.

For he, by dying, became for us the way of life, “so that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for us and was raised,” the cause of life; “remembering the oath of many generations ago,” according to David, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.”

“For in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to him, making peace through the blood of the cross.”

So he came “for the dispensation of the fullness of the times,” as promised to Abraham and the other saints, “to sum up all things in him, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth.”

There was separation and enmity “in the forbearance of God,” but “he reconciled in the body of his flesh,” “having made both one through himself” (for “our peace” came), and having broken down the dividing wall of the fence, the enmity, abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments in ordinances, “so that he might create the two into one new man,” and that the nations should be “fellow members of the body, sharers and fellow heirs of the promise,” he commanded, saying, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

So when “I was weak through the flesh,” a Savior was sent to me “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” fulfilling such a dispensation so as to “redeem” me from slavery, from corruption, from death; and he became for me “righteousness and sanctification and redemption”:

righteousness, having undone sin through faith in him; sanctification, having set free through water and Spirit and in his word; redemption, handing himself over for me, his blood the ransom of the true Lamb, the propitiation for the cleansing of the world, for the reconciliation of all things in heaven and earth, fulfilling in the appointed times “the mystery hidden from the ages and generations.”

The same one “will transform the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself,” “for in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.”

So Christ, the vessel of wisdom and Godhead, mediating, “reconciles all things to God in himself, not counting sins,” fulfilling hidden mysteries by faith in his covenant promised beforehand by the law and the prophets, proclaimed Son of God, called Son of David; for he is both, God and man, “mediator of God and men,” the true “house of God,” “a holy priesthood,” giver of the Holy Spirit who regenerates and renews all things again for God; for “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” and “we saw his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father.”

Rain, growing together with trees and plants, produces a body and each of the fruits after its likeness: in the olive it becomes rich oil, taking its substance from it; in the vine it is colored as sweet wine; in the fig it is sweetened as a fig; and in each of the seeds it increases growth according to its kind.

So, I think, the Word of God became flesh in Mary and was found a man in the seed of Abraham according to the promise. “For we have found the Messiah, of whom Moses wrote.” And as Moses said, “Let my utterance come down like rain,” and David, “Let him come down like rain on a fleece and like drops dripping on the ⟨earth⟩”: wool, receiving the dew, increases the growth of the fleece,

and the earth, receiving the rain, increases the fruit of the farmers' hope, by receiving it at the Master's command readily giving its nature, and by taking more from him having eagerness,

so too the virgin Mary, when she says, “How shall I know that this will be for me?”, heard, “The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the one born of you will be holy and will be called Son of the Most High.”

Christ speaks in the angel, and the Master fashions himself anew in his own creature, “taking the form of a servant”; and Mary draws up the Word for conception, as the earth draws up rain, while the Word of God shows himself a holy fruit, taking on the nature of a mortal.

He was from her, who drew up like earth and fleece, the fruit of true hope, awaited by the saints; as Elizabeth said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb,” which the Word took on from humanity, suffering while being impassible;

this is “the living bread that came down from heaven” and gives life; this is the fruit of the true olive, the oil of anointing and of compounding, which Moses prefigured; this is “the true vine,” which the Father alone tends, having produced for us a cluster of joy;

this is the living water, which a thirsty man who takes it will not thirst again; it is in his belly “springing up to eternal life.” From him the new farmers received and shared it with the world, but the old farmers dried it up and destroyed it through unbelief.

With his own blood he sanctifies the nations, and by his own Spirit he leads the called up to heaven. “As many as are led by his Spirit, these” live to God; but those who are not are still reckoned to death and are called natural or fleshly.

So he commands us to set aside the works of the flesh, which are strongholds of sin, to put to death the members of death through his grace, and to receive the Holy Spirit, which we did not have, who gives life to me who was long dead; if I do not receive him I shall die;

for without his Spirit everyone is dead. “If then his Spirit is in us, he who raised him from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies through his Spirit dwelling in us.” But both, I think, dwell in the righteous man: Christ and his Spirit.

And if Christ is believed to be from the Father, God from God, and the Spirit from Christ or from both (as Christ says, “who proceeds from the Father,” and “he will receive from what is mine”), and Christ from the Holy Spirit (“for what is in her,” it says, “is from the Spirit,” the voice of the angel), I understand the mystery that redeems me by faith, by hearing alone, by love for the one who came to me.

For God knows himself, Christ proclaims himself, the Holy Spirit reveals himself to the saints; and in the holy Scriptures a Trinity is announced to us and believed without prying, without contention, ⟨from⟩

hearing. And from this faith comes the salvation of grace, “righteousness from faith apart from works of the law”; ⟨for⟩ it is written that the Spirit of Christ is given to those being saved from hearing.

And the faith signified by the voices of the heralds is this, as I think, being instructed from the Scriptures: three holy, three holy together; three existing, three coexisting; three with form, three of the same form; three active, three working together; three subsistent, three subsisting together, being with one another. This is called the holy Trinity: being three, one harmony, one Godhead, of the same substance, of the same Godhead, of the same hypostasis, like from like, producing equality of grace of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

But the “how” is left to them to teach. For “no one knows the Father except the Son, nor the Son except the Father, and he to whom the Son reveals him”; and he reveals through the Holy Spirit.

So these three, being either from him, or with him, or toward him, are understood by each worthily as they reveal themselves: light, fire, spirit, and, I think, in other likenesses of visions, as the man who is served is worthy.

He himself, then, God who in the beginning said, “Let there be light, and there was light,” the visible light, he who enlightened us to see “the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world” (“Send out your light and your truth,” David says), he is the Lord who said, “In the last days I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh, and their sons and their daughters will prophesy, and their young men will see visions,” showing us three persons of holy ministry from a threefold hypostasis.

I say, then, that Christ became “a servant of the circumcision for the truth of God, to fulfill the promises,” and that the Holy Spirit serves together with him. ⟨For⟩ we have received from the divine Scriptures: Christ is sent from the Father, the Holy Spirit is sent; Christ speaks in the saints, the Holy Spirit speaks; Christ heals, the Holy Spirit heals; Christ sanctifies, the Holy Spirit sanctifies; Christ baptizes in his name, the Holy Spirit baptizes.

So the Scriptures say: “You will send your Spirit and renew the face of the ⟨earth⟩,” like saying, “You will send out your word and melt them.”

“While they were serving the Lord,” it says, “and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them,’” like saying, “And the Lord said, ‘Go into the city, and there you will be told what you must do.’”

“So they, sent out by the Holy Spirit, went down to Seleucia,” as Christ might say, “Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves.”

“For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit to lay no other burden than these necessary things,” as one might say, “I command, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband.”

“They went through Phrygia and the Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and coming to Mysia they attempted to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit did not allow them,” as Christ might say, “Go, baptize all the nations,” ⟨and⟩ “Carry no bag, no staff, nor sandals.”

“Who,” it says, “told Paul through the Spirit not to go up to Jerusalem,” or Agabus, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘The man whose belt this is,’” similar to Paul's saying, “Do you seek proof of Christ speaking in me?” or “Remember the words of the Lord, that he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

“And now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit,” as Paul might say, “a prisoner of Jesus Christ.”

“Except that the Spirit testifies to me in every city, saying,” similar to saying, “The Lord testifies to my soul that I do not lie.”

“In power according to the Spirit of holiness,” similar to saying, “the Holy One resting among the holy.”

And “circumcision of the heart in the Spirit,” similar to saying, “And you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of sins, in the circumcision of Christ.”

“If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you,” similar to saying, “As you received Christ, walk in him,” and “The Spirit of the Lord spoke in me, and his word was on my tongue.”

And “having the firstfruits of the Spirit,” similar to saying, “Christ the firstfruits.”

“But the Spirit himself intercedes for us,” similar to saying, “who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”

“So that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit,” similar to saying, “May the Lord sanctify you, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”

“But God has revealed to us through his Spirit,” similar to saying, “When he who set me apart from my mother's womb was pleased through his grace to reveal his Son in me.”

“But we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God,” similar to saying, “Test yourselves, whether Christ is in you.”

“You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you,” similar to saying, “I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people.”

But it also speaks of justification and grace from both: “But you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God,” similar to saying, “Having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“No one can say ‘Lord Jesus’ except in the Holy Spirit,” and no one can ⟨have⟩ the Holy Spirit except from the Lord. “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all,” and “from glory to glory, as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

And “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption,” similar to saying, “Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?”

“But the Spirit expressly says,” similar to saying, “Thus says the Lord Almighty.”

And “My Spirit stands in your midst,” ⟨similar to saying⟩, “If anyone opens to me, I will come in, I and the Father, and we will make our dwelling with him.”

And Isaiah: “And the Spirit of God upon him”; and Christ: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because of which he anointed me”; and “Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit”; or “The Lord has sent me, and his Spirit.”

And clear too is the voice of the Seraphim crying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts.”

And if you hear that “being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Spirit,” or “to wait for the promise of the Father which you heard,” or that “the Spirit drives him into the wilderness,” or that he himself says, “Do not be anxious what you will say, for it is the Spirit of my Father who speaks in you,” or “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God,” or “But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven,” and so on, or “Father, into your hands I will commit my spirit,” or “The child grew and became strong in spirit,” or “And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan,” or “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit,” or “What is born of the Spirit is spirit” (similar to saying, “What came to be in him was life”), or “And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Paraclete, the Spirit of truth,” or “Why has Satan filled your heart,” (Peter to Ananias), “to lie to the Holy Spirit?” and after this, “You have not lied to men but to God” (so the Holy Spirit is God from God and God, to whom those who kept back part of the price of the field lied), or “who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit”: I have nothing greater than this to say.

And the Son is God: “From whom,” it says, “is Christ according to the flesh, who is God over all”; “Believe,” it says, “in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved”; and “He spoke,” it says, “the word of the Lord to them,” “and bringing them into his house he set a table before them and rejoiced with all his household, having believed in God”; or that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; or “so that they may adorn the teaching of our Savior God”; or “For the grace of God and Savior has appeared to all men, training us”; or “awaiting the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

And the ministry of the Spirit and of the Word is the same: “Take heed,” it says, “to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you bishops, to shepherd the church of God,” similar to saying, “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who strengthened me, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to ministry.”

So, as has been shown, the Son and the Holy Spirit work together with the Father: “For by the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.” And the Holy Spirit is to be worshiped: “For those who worship God must worship in Spirit and truth.”

And if these work together, a creature does not make a creature, nor does the Godhead become created, nor is God known in measure or containment. For he is uncircumscribed, uncontained, inconceivable, containing all the works of God.

Nor is creation to be worshiped: “For they served the creature rather than the ⟨Creator⟩,” ⟨it says⟩, “and became fools.” For how is it not foolish to call a creature God and set aside the first commandment, which says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord”; “There shall be no new god among you”?

In the holy Scriptures Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are called by various names: the Father, Father Almighty, Father of all, Father of Christ; the Son, Word, Christ, true light; and the Holy Spirit, Paraclete, Spirit of truth, Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ.

Further, God and Father is understood as light, but as surpassingly bright, power, wisdom, ⟨life⟩. And if God and Father is light, the Son is light from light, and this is “dwelling in unapproachable light.”

And God is wholly power, and for this reason ⟨the Son⟩ is “Lord of powers”; God is wholly wisdom, so the Son is wisdom from wisdom, “in whom all the treasures of wisdom are hidden”; God is wholly life, so the Son is life from life: “For I am the truth and the life.”

And the Holy Spirit is from both, Spirit from Spirit. For “God is Spirit”; † the Godhead is giver of gifts, most true, enlightening, a Paraclete, announcing the counsels of the Father.

For as the Son is “the Angel of great counsel,” so also the Holy Spirit. “But we have received,” it says, “the Spirit of God, that we may know the things given us by God, which we also speak, not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit of God, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”

But someone will say, “Then we say there are two sons; and how is he only-begotten?” Indeed rather, “who are you who argue against God?” For if he calls the one Son, who is from him, and the Holy Spirit, who is from both, which, understood by the saints by faith alone, being luminous and light-giving, have a luminous activity and make harmony with the very “Father” (of light), hear by faith, sir,

that the Father is Father of a true Son, wholly light, and ⟨the⟩ Son is ⟨Son⟩ of a true Father, light, not like made or created things, by name only; and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, a third light from Father and Son.

But all other things are so by adoption or calling, not like these in activity or power or light or thought: as one might say, “I have begotten sons and raised them up,” or as one might say, “I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High,” or as one might say, “Who has begotten the drops of dew?” or as one might say, “from whom every fatherhood in heaven and on earth,” or as one might say, “I who make firm the thunder and create wind.”

For the true Father is not like other fathers or patriarchs, having begun to be father or at some time ceasing to be father. For if he begins to be father, then he was once son of another father before being Father of the Only-begotten; and by likeness fathers of fathers are understood as children, and to infinity one could search for the true father of antiquity.

Nor is the true Son, like other children, a son by adoption, new in being son. For if he is new in being son, there was once a time when the Father was not Father of the Only-begotten.

Nor is the Spirit of truth created or made like other spirits, nor is “the Angel of great counsel” so called like the other angels.

For some things have beginning and end, while others have a beginning and dominion beyond conceiving; and the ones create all things for boundless ages, working with the Father, while the others are created by them, as they will; and the ones are served by these, while the others serve; the ones are worshiped by all creatures; the ones heal the things made, while the others receive healing from them; and the ones are judged according to worth, while the others hold the just judgment;

and the ones are ⟨in⟩ time, while the others are not in time; and the ones enlighten all things, while the others are enlightened by them; and the ones call infants to the height, while the others are called by the Perfect One; and the ones give grace to all, while the others receive gifts; and in short, the one sings the praise of holiness in the heavens of heavens and the other invisible places, while the others, being praised, worthily grant gifts to the worthy.

Scripture speaks of very many spirits: “who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire,” and “All spirits, praise the Lord.”

And to the worthy is given the gift of “discernment of spirits.” For some are heavenly, “rejoicing in the truth,” others earthly, suited to deceit and error, others underground, children of the abyss and darkness; for “they begged,” the Gospel says, “that he would not send them away into the abyss”; likewise he rebuked the spirits and drove out spirits with a word and “did not allow them to speak.”

And there is said to be a “spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning”; there is said also to be a spirit of the world (“But we have not received the spirit of the world,” it says), and a spirit of man (“For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man?”), and “a spirit that goes and does not return”; “for a spirit passed through him and he will not be,” and “You will take away their spirit and they will fail”; and a spirit of prophets:

“The spirits of prophets,” ⟨it says⟩, “are subject to prophets,” and “Behold, a lying spirit stood before the Lord, and he said to him, ‘By what will you deceive Ahab?’ ‘And I will be,’ he says, ‘a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets.’”

And there is said to be ⟨also⟩ “a spirit of stupor” and “a spirit of cowardice” and “a spirit of Python,” “a spirit of fornication,” and “a spirit of storm,” and “a spirit of many words,” and “a spirit of infirmity,” and “an unclean spirit,” and a deaf spirit and “a mute spirit,” and a stammering spirit, and a spirit “exceedingly fierce,” which is called Legion, and “the spiritual forces of wickedness.”

Endless to the wise are the sayings about spirits. But just as the many sons are sons by adoption or calling but not in truth, because they have beginning and end * sinfully, so also very many spirits are so by adoption or calling, even if they are sinful; but the Holy Spirit alone is called the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, “the Spirit of truth,” and the Spirit of God, and “the Spirit of Christ,” and “the Spirit of grace.”

For he gives the good to each differently: “to one a spirit of wisdom, to another a spirit of knowledge, to another a spirit of strength, to another a spirit of healings, to another a spirit of prophecy, to another a spirit of discernment, to another tongues, to another interpretations,” and the other gifts, as it says, “but one and the same Spirit, distributing to each as he wills.”

“For your good Spirit will lead me, O God,” says David; or “The Spirit blows where he wills” (showing us by such words the subsistence of the Holy Spirit), “and you hear his voice, but you do not know where he comes from and where he goes”; and “Unless you are born of water and Spirit,” similar to Paul's saying, “For in Christ Jesus I begot you.”

Of him the Lord says, “When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me,” and “I have yet many things to say, but you cannot bear them now. When he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will announce to you the things to come. He will glorify me, for he will receive from what is mine and announce all things to you.”

If then he proceeds from the Father and, ⟨as⟩ the Lord says, “will receive from what is mine,” in the same way that “no one has known the ⟨Father⟩ except the ⟨Son⟩, nor the Son except the Father,” so I dare to say that no one ⟨knows⟩ the Spirit except the Son, from whom he receives, and the Father, from whom he proceeds; and no one ⟨knows⟩ the Son and the Father

except the Holy Spirit, who truly glorifies, who teaches all things, who bears witness about the Son, who is from the Father and from the Son, the only guide of truth, interpreter of holy laws, instructor in the spiritual law, teacher of the prophets, master of the apostles, luminary of the doctrines of the Gospel, chooser of the saints, true light from true light.

The Son is Son by nature, true Son, genuine Son, only from only; ⟨and⟩ with him is also the Spirit, named ⟨not Son⟩ but Spirit.

This is God glorified in the church: Father always, Son always, and Holy Spirit always; exalted ⟨from⟩ exalted, and intellectual, having glory beneath which created and made things lie, in short the whole universe, each thing measured and contained.

One Godhead is proclaimed above all in Moses, a duality is strongly preached in the prophets, and the Trinity is made manifest in the Gospels, fitting the righteous more and more through the times and generations for knowledge and faith. And the knowledge of it is immortality, and from faith in it comes adoption.

But first it expresses ordinances of the flesh, raising up the outer enclosure of the temple as it were, in Moses; second, it relates ordinances of the soul, adorning the holy place as it were, in the other prophecies; third, ordinances of the spirit, ordering the mercy seat and the holy of holies in the Gospels for its own dwelling; a holy tabernacle, a holy temple, ⟨which is⟩

the righteous man, only the one who is with these. And there dwells in him one Godhead, infinite; one Godhead, incorruptible; one Godhead, inconceivable, incomprehensible, indescribable, invisible, alone knowing itself, manifesting itself to whom it wills, raising up witnesses for itself, calling, predestining, glorifying, lifting up from Hades, sanctifying, uniting again to its own glory and faith these threes: things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; spirit, soul, flesh; faith, hope, love; past, present, future; age of age, ages of ages, sabbaths of sabbaths; circumcision of the flesh, circumcision of the heart, “the circumcision of Christ in putting off the body of sins.” And in general it purifies for itself

all things, the invisible and the visible, thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities, powers; and in all the same holy voice, from glory to glory crying “holy, holy, holy,” ⟨glorifying⟩ the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father with the Holy ⟨Spirit⟩, to whom be the glory and the might for ever and ever, amen. And whoever believes so will say, So be it, so be it.

And concerning the Trinity and the consubstantiality of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we, weak and unlearned, devising nothing clever and not handing ourselves over to “the trickery of men,” but rather gathering testimonies of the divine Scriptures, have collected them in part for those who wish, for the finding of the faithful and the refutation of those who think wrongly and vainly. For great is the power of the faith in the Holy Spirit,

proclaimed variously in all the divine Scriptures. But since the security of our salvation is the security concerning the incarnation and incarnate coming of our Savior, and the confirmation of hope concerning the resurrection of the dead and our regeneration, we ourselves continue, adding a little again to this labor of ours for those who wish to read more exactly, gathering from the same divine Scriptures and adding to the discourse.

For since, as we have already been taught in what was written before, our Lord himself said in his Gospel to his disciples, “Go, baptize all the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep the commandments which I commanded you,” * he himself, the holy Word, the subsistent one, who came forth from the Father, through whom the ages came to be, through whom times and seasons.

For there was no season or time before the Son. For if there was time before the Son, then time is greater than the Son; and how “were all things made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made”? For if anything came to be, it came to be through him; but he is uncreated and always is; for the Father always was and his Holy Spirit always was.

For if there was time before the Son, ⟨another⟩ will again be sought through whom the time before the Son came to be, and it will turn our reasoning to countless fancies lurking in human supposition, or rather to fornication of thoughts, and not † to soundness of mind.

So there was no time before the Son, since the Son did not come to be through times, but times through the Son, and the angels and all other creatures. There was never a time when the Son was not, nor was there ever when the Spirit was not.

Some, misreading and not knowing how to punctuate the reading of “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made,” stopping the sentence there, think it gives ground for suspecting blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; but they err in the reading, and from the error of reading they limp, turning to blasphemy.

The reading is this: “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made in him,” that is, if anything came to be, it came to be through him.

So the Father always was and the Son always was, and the Spirit breathes from Father and Son; and neither the Son is created nor the Spirit created. But all things after Father and Son and Holy Spirit are created and generated; ⟨being⟩ not existent, they came to be from Father and Son and Holy Spirit through the Word who always is, with the Spirit who always is.

Through this Word, then, all created things came to be, the heavenly King, the subsistent Word, our Savior and benefactor.

For the Savior himself, the Holy One who came down from the heavens of heavens, who deigned to accomplish our salvation in the virgin's workshop, who was born again from Mary, conceived through the Holy Spirit, who took the flesh, the Word made flesh, who was not changed in nature, who with the Godhead took the humanity, who, being perfect from the Father, fulfilled the perfect dispensation, came into the world for us and for our salvation, taking flesh and a human soul,

being perfect from the Father, becoming man among us not in appearance but in truth, having formed anew in himself a perfect man from Mary the God-bearer through the Holy Spirit;

not dwelling in a man, as he used to speak in the prophets and dwell in them in power and work, but the Word himself becoming flesh, not changed from being God, not converting the Godhead into humanity, but with the very fullness of his Godhead and the very hypostasis of God the Word, the subsistent one, embracing the being of man and whatever man is.

And a perfect man ⟨having⟩ all that is in man and such as man is: this the Only-begotten came and took, so that in the perfect man, being God, he might perfectly accomplish the whole of salvation, leaving out nothing of man, so that the part left out might not become again, part by part, food for the devil.

And if some say that he took only flesh, but not a soul, weaving in myths and turning Scripture into myths, from the saying “But we have the mind of Christ,” let them understand from that very saying that those who said “But we have the mind of Christ” had their own mind and had not spat it out. And if they, having their own, ⟨were⟩ with the mind of Christ, both ⟨were present⟩, the mind of Christ being able to improve, while their own understood rightly.

Let them know the same about Christ too: that being God and being Mind in himself, he had the human mind *, and with the flesh he also took a soul.

So it did not lead him astray as it does a man, but he himself became the adorner, corrector, and improver of the mind. For as he took the flesh without being overcome by the flesh, so, having taken the mind, he was not overcome by the mind.

Such people, on the contrary, grievously fall into a greater contradiction. For up and down the divine Scriptures cry out expressly, pronouncing the grievous things not against the mind but against the flesh.

For “the fruits of the flesh,” it says, “are sexual immorality, adultery, licentiousness, and things like these,” and “those who are in the flesh cannot please God,” and “the flesh desires against the Spirit.” But about the mind it says, “I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the mind also,” and that “my mind is unfruitful” or fruitful. For God set the mind, which Scripture is accustomed to call the heart, as the governor, so to speak, and charioteer of the whole vessel, discerner of good and bad, tester of what arises in us. “For the mind discerns words, and the throat tastes food.” The mind in man is discerning, but not yet consenting, unless it gives itself over to turning.

Why then did some decide to cast this out of the Lord's incarnation? And what did they benefit life by turning it rather to confusion *? Or how did this harm us or, so to speak, benefit us, so that they might help Christ? Or so as to do him this great favor and say of him that he did not take a mind?

“For the Galatians are foolish,” and “Cretans are always liars,” and “Ephraim is a senseless dove”; but our Lord, becoming man in life, took up everything perfectly, or rather he himself took it, having become the fashioner of his own body, himself taking or putting the soul into himself.

But some, wishing to make Christ's incarnate coming and the perfect dispensation in him deficient, thinking I know not what, have said wrongly that Christ did not take a mind.

But not because of * the mind do they appear *. For these think the mind is a hypostasis, and dare to say that by nature it is what Scripture usually calls the spirit in man, as the apostle says, “so that your whole spirit and soul and body may be kept at the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So they err. For if the spirit is mind and the mind spirit, as they themselves think, and the soul is another ⟨hypostasis⟩ besides the mind and the spirit, then there are no longer two in man brought together in one hypostasis, no longer the soul alone subsistent and the body subsistent; but we have found four: mind one hypostasis, soul another hypostasis, spirit another hypostasis, body another hypostasis.

And if we inquire again, there will be still more; for man has many names, “the inner man” and “the outer man,” and Scripture has said all these things figuratively, binding our understanding so that we may leave out nothing of salvation and have no pretext to depart from the subject. For these things are in man; but one need not be overcurious.

Yet according to their argument, if the mind is the spirit and the spirit the mind, and these are outside the soul, for what reason again does it say, “I will sing with the spirit, I will sing with the mind also”? For by this he showed that the spirit is not the mind nor the mind the spirit.

Then again, “The soul that sins shall die” did not declare it outside the body; ⟨or⟩ “For they were,” it says, “in seventy souls,” and they were certainly not souls without a body, but bodies with souls; and again custom is used to name a man by one name: that he is master of eighty bodies, certainly not without souls.

So the Word who became flesh ⟨was⟩ not without a soul, ⟨just as⟩ not without all the rest of the dispensation. When it says “soul,” it did not declare it without body, nor when we speak do we think of him as being without soul.

Why then did those who wish to say the mind was excluded decide this? How did this benefit the church, or rather did it not disturb it? And how does the one who thinks such things not make our salvation deficient?

For we cannot think the mind is something other, nor can we call it a hypostasis by itself, but the composite, rational, thinking faculty in each of those ⟨not⟩ led astray, so to speak, the thought of the ⟨soul⟩: as eyes in the body, so the mind in the soul. And again we do not say even this contentiously, but simply the intellectual faculty of human beings *.

What then is man? Soul, body, mind, and whatever else there is. What then did the Lord come to save? Certainly the whole man. So he took all that is in him perfectly.

Otherwise, how were these things fulfilled in him, which were both prophesied of him and fitted a man, from mind and body and soul and the whole incarnation, without sin?

For the divine word clearly suggests it to us, saying, “Behold, my servant will understand, my beloved, whom I have chosen, in whom my soul is well pleased; I will put my Spirit ⟨upon him⟩,” and so on. Where then is the understanding? If in the Godhead, does the Godhead lack understanding? God forbid; for this is fulfilled in the Lord's manhood. And if it is fulfilled in the Lord's manhood, how will the incarnation understand if it is without mind? This is impossible.

For if the “will understand” refers at all to Christ, and Christ is the Word from above, but became flesh from Mary, ⟨who⟩, having become man, also “lived among” men, as it is written, then without doubt he received the dispensation with the mind, since understanding belongs with it.

For this reason the Gospel says of him, “He advanced in wisdom and stature”: not the Godhead receiving stature nor lacking wisdom, being Wisdom itself; but the Savior's incarnate humanity advanced in wisdom, not being without mind, since ⟨otherwise⟩ it could not; and it advanced in stature as the child matured, as is true.

But if because of having taken a mind † this is thought sin, then all the more if we grant that he took flesh, without which sin is not accomplished (“For the works of the flesh are evident”); certainly we would have to grant that he sinned in the flesh too, having taken the flesh. “For I know,” says the apostle, “that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.”

But who will dare to say that because the Savior took flesh he was carried away with the flesh, and did not accomplish the things of the flesh in the sequence of his own whole vessel, having it likewise ⟨good⟩, even though it was human flesh, but stumbling ⟨in⟩ nothing?

For God the Word, having come forth from above from the Father and been pleased to be in flesh, bridled the vessel, and if he wished to restrain it from every useless fleshly act, he could; and if he wished, he gave way. And he gave way to the reasonable bodily needs befitting his Godhead.

For though he truly had the mind, as he truly had the whole humanity, the mind did not stretch out to irrational desires, nor did he do or think the things of the flesh as we do; but as God come in true flesh from the virgin Mary he acted * with flesh and soul and mind and the whole vessel, God the Word, subsistent, from above from the Father, having come to dwell among the human race.

But let no one argue cleverly that this is said loosely, like “Understand my cry”; for that is said loosely as a prayer, and it is clear ⟨that⟩ its use ⟨is⟩ prophesied as a type of his fleshly coming; but “And he advanced in stature” is true.

But what do such people think ⟨we⟩ say, if we say that Christ became perfect man from Mary or had a ⟨mind⟩? That we suppose he fell into sins? God forbid. “For he committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth.”

For if he breathed his power into the saints, and those into whom he breathed are testified to have been holy, righteous, advanced in their days, blameless, how much more the Word himself, “in whom all the fullness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell bodily”? Even though he took true flesh from Mary the ever-virgin and truly a human soul and mind and whatever else is in man, he himself, having all in himself, held them fast, being God, not divided toward evil, not broken by the evil one, not captured in pleasure, not falling under Adam's transgression.

And for this reason the apostle says, “born of a woman, born under the law,” and again, “found in form as a man.” And “in form” ⟨and “as a man”⟩, “born” and “under the law,” taken together signify perfection and freedom from passion: from “born,” being perfect; from “under the law,” not in appearance; from “in form,” the firmness of the kind; from “as a man,” sinlessness.

These things being so, let no one be deceived by empty myths. For if, begotten from above from the Father truly, he was also ⟨truly⟩ born from Mary, he is true both above and below; and if he is imperfect below, he is imperfect above. But if he is perfect above, he is perfect below. He did not dwell in another perfect man, but perfected all things in himself.

And he rose from the dead, no longer divided, the body in the tomb and the Godhead and soul in the underworld, no longer subject to touch, no longer held back, but entering when the doors were shut, yet touched by Thomas, so as not to be likened to an apparition but ⟨shown⟩ in truth:

he who was believed by Thomas after what was foretold was fulfilled, “With my hands I sought God, and I was not deceived”; the same God, the same man, who did not bring about a confusion but blended the two into one;

not passing into non-existence, but empowering the earthly body together with the Godhead, he united it into one power, gathered it into one Godhead: being one Lord, one Christ, not two Christs nor two Gods.

in him a spiritual body, in him incomprehensible Godhead; what suffered not corrupted, what is impassible incorruptible, incorruption the whole; God the Lord, seated at the right hand of the Father, not having left the flesh behind, but having united it into one, and seated at the right hand of the Father as the whole in one Godhead.

This Only-begotten, then, the perfect, the uncreated, the unchangeable, the unalterable, the inconceivable, the invisible, who became man and rose spiritually and “dies no more,” no longer poor, he “who became poor for our sake though he was rich,” who is wholly spirit, who unites the fleshly and the divine, one Lord, King, Christ, the Son of God, seated in heaven at the right hand of the Father, “above every principality and authority, power and every name that is named,” says in the Gospel, “Go, baptize all the nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

And this, being also in the midst †, did not signify the Son as merged with the Father ⟨nor the Holy Spirit as merged with the Father and the Son⟩; but he knows the Father as true, and showed himself as the true, subsistent Word, and his Holy Spirit as a subsistent Spirit and “the Spirit of truth,” uncreated, unchangeable, unalterable; not

as someone might suppose who approaches the faith deceitfully, hiding his feet and plotting against the truth (“for God tests hearts and kidneys”).

And the heretic says: “Clearly I believe that the Father is Father and the Son Son and the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit, and I confess three hypostases in one substance; and I do not speak of another substance besides the Godhead, nor another Godhead besides the substance; but to be exact we call it ⟨one⟩ substance, so that we may not speak of another kind of Godhead of the Trinity.”

For such a person, concealing himself, as I said, again says craftily and deceitfully, “I believe that the Father is Father, the Son Son, the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit”; but he holds such a hidden notion, likening the divine to us, saying to himself: “As I have a body and soul and human spirit, so too the Godhead:

the Father, so to speak, the form; the Son like the soul in man; and the Spirit like the breath that breathes through the man.”

For some are deceitful and think of the Godhead in this way. But we have not so learned; but see, the Father bears witness in heaven by a voice; see, the Son in the Jordan; see, the Spirit took shape coming down in the form of a dove; but took shape by himself, being a hypostasis by himself, not different from that of the Father and the Son, but of the same substance, a hypostasis from the same hypostasis of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

⟨And⟩ again, see, the Father sits in heaven *. And do not again understand “sits” in a human way, but take it indescribably and incomprehensibly. And it did not say, “the Son went up into the Father,” but “he sat at the right hand of the Father.”

And again, speaking of the Holy Spirit, the Only-begotten taught, “I am going away, and he will come, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. If I do not go away, he will not come.” But if the Spirit were merged with the Son, he would not have said, “I am going away and he comes,” but he said it to show hypostasis and hypostasis. Yet there is one Godhead, one God, one truth.

And so I have written for whoever wishes * the sequence of our life and the firm confession, from the law and the prophets and the Gospels and apostles, and preserved undefiled in the catholic church from the times of the apostles to our times;

though, out of envy that stirs disorder against the one true faith, from time to time this same faith and hope and salvation of ours has been persecuted by the heresies, yet it has endured in its own truth, while the heresies in each period defile themselves and estrange themselves from the church;

as recently again we hear of some who seem to be accorded the first rank by certain ascetics in Egypt and the Thebaid and in other regions elsewhere, who think like the Hieracites and speak of a resurrection of our flesh, yet not of this flesh but of some other instead of it, since such people have gone astray and turned God's truth and our firm hope into myths. For this reason we are compelled to speak of this again.

For unbelievers deny the resurrection entirely, while misbelievers, in a rubbishy and foolish way, have fallen from the true hope by thinking so about the resurrection.

And the Greeks are those who completely deny the resurrection because of the impiety of the multitude of lawless deeds done among them; for they hate the resurrection because of the shame they will undergo in the resurrection, having not known God and his commandments; yet they will rise, even if they do not wish to.

For creation itself refutes them expressly, showing every day the form of resurrection. For the day sets and we hint at the manner of the dead, night hinting at sleep; the day rises, waking us and showing the sign of resurrection.

The fruits are plucked and the standing crop is cut down, the form of our departure from here being defined. The earth is sown and sprouts, * that what is buried after the cutting will rise. The locust dies, having buried in the earth the brood cast from it, and after a time the earth gives back what was buried; the seeds of the crops are sown and first die, then come to fruit;

“for unless it dies, it is not made alive.” God made in us seals of resurrection through the ten and ten nails, testifying to our hope. And also, as by a crown upon the head, through the hair he proclaimed our resurrection. For what seems dead body in us, that is, hair and nails, being cut each day, grow again, signifying the hope of the resurrection.

And countless things can be said from examples for the assurance of unbelievers. But the turtledove, the bird, did not persuade them, nor the dormouse, the animal. For such a creature dies for six months and the dove for forty days, and after their seasons they come back to life.

And beetles, when about to die, hide themselves in a ball of dung, burying such a ball in the earth and covering it over, and so from their own moisture they are found again, coming back to life from their very remains.

About the phoenix, the Arabian bird, it is superfluous for me to speak; for it has already come to the hearing of many, faithful and unfaithful. The account of it appears to be this: living five hundred years, when it knows that the time of its death has come, it makes a nest of spices and, carrying it, comes to the city of the Egyptians called Heliopolis, which is interpreted On from the Egyptian and Hebrew language; and, striking its breast many times with its own wings,

it produces fire from its body, sets alight the material lying in the place, and so burns itself as a whole offering and is reduced to ashes with all its ⟨flesh⟩ and bones.

And by God's dispensation a cloud is sent and rains and quenches the flame that consumed the bird's body, the bird being already dead and burned to the extreme;

and when the flame is quenched, remains of its flesh are left still raw, and within one day, having vanished, they produce a worm; the worm grows wings, becoming a chick; on the third day it matures and, having matured, shows itself to those who serve the place, and runs back to its own homeland and rests.

And I am led to marvel at the mind of the unbelieving Greeks and other barbarians, deceived in everything, how in their myths they are not ashamed to signify resurrection in every way and often sang of resurrection,

as their myths record that Alcestis, daughter of Pelias, died for her husband Admetus and was raised by Heracles after three days and brought up from the inner depths; and Pelops son of Tantalus, after being carved up by his own father for their falsely named gods;

Amphiaraus, son of Oecles, brought back to life by Asclepius; Glaucus son of Minos, brought back to life with a herb by Polyidus son of Coeranus; Castor because of his brother Polydeuces, who willingly chose to exchange life with him day by day; and Protesilaus because of Laodamia.

And also that Sisyphus and Tantalus and the daughters of Caucasus, whom they have called Erinyes, and Tiresias with them, have been cast into Tartarus to pay the penalty there, one by a rock, another under a wheel, and others punished otherwise and still in punishment, not having passed into non-existence but existing in bodies.

For if they did not have bodies, how were they handed over to punishments under a rock and a wheel? And much can be said about these for the establishment of our faith and the refutation of them.

But those who start from the heresies also sing things akin to these and in harmony with unbelief, in that some of the heretics, the Manichaeans ⟨I mean⟩, say there will be a resurrection not of the body but of the soul; and likewise the Greeks mentioned before think and hold the same, so that their argument is put forward rather as nonsense than from understanding.

For if the heresies speak of resurrection and hold a resurrection at all, but define it as of souls, such a thing is simple-minded. For how will a soul rise that has not fallen? For we do not bury souls in tombs, but bodies.

For souls do not fall, but bodies; as custom too is used to call dead bodies “fallen ones” (corpses). So if resurrection is confessed among them, it is clear to everyone ⟨that it is⟩

not of the soul but of the body that fell. And again the Greeks who deny the resurrection are refuted. For carrying food and drink to the tombs on the days called public festivals, they burn the foods as offerings and pour out the wines, benefiting the dead nothing and rather harming themselves.

Yet by custom they are compelled to confess the resurrection of the dead. For they come where the bodies of the departed were laid and call the buried dead by name:

“Arise,” they say, “so-and-so, eat and drink and be merry.” And if they think the souls remain there where the remains of the departed are buried, such an expectation of them is good; for they remain for the coming day and the resurrection of regeneration, until they receive back their composite and yoked bodies, even though the children of the Greeks loathe the flesh as base and wholly disappearing and having no hope of coming back to life.

But if they do not do this in this way, for what reason, binding souls, which are better than the substance of bodies, ⟨to tombs⟩, do they rather surround them with condemnation in their supposition, defining them to sit by the departed remains? Or in what expectation of hope do they come? Let them say.

But ⟨they will say⟩ that they do not think the souls are in the tombs, but in certain storehouses appointed by God for each soul, according to the worth of what they did and how they lived in life; while each laid the bodies of his neighbor with his own hands in the receptacles of bodies or bones. It would be simple-minded that among all there should be one supposition and sequence of these things, confessed on every side, while among unbelievers the truth is denied and what is possible with God is not firmly held as their hope.

But I think enough has been said about these, since we have set out a few of many examples.

But about those who seem to be Christians but follow Origen, who confess the resurrection of the dead, of our flesh and of that holy body of the Lord taken from Mary, but say that this flesh is not raised, but another given by God instead of it, how shall we not say that they hold a more impious and more simple-minded supposition than the notion of the Greeks and the other heresies?

For first, if another is raised instead of this one, according to their argument, God's judgment is not just according to their myth, judging another flesh instead of the one that sinned, or bringing another body to the glory of the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven instead of the body that toiled in fasts and vigils and persecutions for the name of God.

And how will the soul be judged alone, according to the argument of the heresies, without the body that sinned with it being present? For such a soul would object to God's judgment, saying the sins were the body's.

For it has the proof too, according to the argument of those carried by contentiousness and not by truth. For it can say: “Not I sinned, but the body. For since I left the body I have not committed sexual immorality, nor adultery; I have not stolen, not murdered, not practiced idolatry, nor done any of the evil and incurable things.”

And its defense will be found reasonable. And if it defends itself reasonably, what shall we say? Is God's judgment then idle? But “is God unjust to inflict wrath on men? God forbid.”

But we know that “all things are possible with God,” and he can bring a body without a soul, and can ⟨make⟩ bodies that have vanished live again and move by themselves without ⟨a soul⟩ if he wills, as he already carried out such a dispensation through the most holy Ezekiel.

For he said to the holy prophet, “Say, son of man, that bone should come together to bone and joint to joint”; and one could marvel at God's power, that, the souls not yet having been put in, but the bones being dry, they not only had the power to move at God's command, but the bones were also filled with understanding and no ordinary knowledge.

For the foot bones did not walk by forgetfulness to near the parts of the head, nor did the vertebrae of the neck wander about the joints of the ankles seeking their place, but each of the bones both moved and walked with understanding and was added to its own joint.

So if God wills, he can raise even a body without a soul. For in this he showed his power, in first ⟨making⟩ that which was despaired of among men live again, by his command to Ezekiel.

And he did not say, “Say, son of man, that the spirit should come first,” but after easing what was hard for faith, I mean the gathering of the bodies, then he commanded the souls to enter the bodies themselves: “And there arose,” it says, “a great assembly.”

So I said that God can make even a body live again without a soul, as shown before; but the body cannot be judged by itself. For it has a just defense against God's judgment.

For it too says: “The sin was from the soul; I was not the cause. For since I was dissolved and she departed from me, have I committed adultery, have I committed sexual immorality, have I stolen, have I practiced idolatry, have I done any such offense?” And by the argument of the contentious, God's judgment will be ineffective.

For this reason, as body and soul were one composite man made by God, the just Judge raises the body again and gives its soul into it. And so God's judgment will be just, both sharing either in punishment for sin or in the reward, for virtue and godliness, that is to be rendered to the saints.

Thinking these things sufficient for establishing the truth of our hope, we have set out a few instead of many. But because of those who say that another body is raised instead of the one that falls, we again add to our labor, wishing to help those who wish to understand and do not try to lose their own life.

For may it be that we, the least and worthless, labor, and both we ourselves and all are helped, and do not deny the resurrection of our flesh, in which lies the whole treasure and foundation of every sober thought and the hope of every good work, according to the saying, “having this treasure in earthen vessels,” and so on.

For we the weak practice self-control, we the lowly live chastely, we the powerless long to give alms, because of receiving what is expected, the resurrection of the dead;

and so the rule of faith and hope in God, of love and of martyrdom for the name of God in persecutions of tortures and other inhuman punishments, is founded in those who do not deny the resurrection of our flesh, but believe that the very thing that is sown in the

earth will be raised. The divine Scriptures have given us two clear and true testimonies, through which we can know the hope of our resurrection and not be tripped up by the myths of vainglorious men who have been deceived and have written deceit for the world. So, so as not to use many testimonies (for they are not few in the New and Old about our hope and resurrection), I will say this briefly:

that if what is raised were something else, as some say, the apostle would not have affirmed, saying, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality.”

And since we must also be established in the hope concerning the saints, how they will be made radiant and changed after the resurrection (as it says, “it is raised in glory”), the holy Scripture says, “Fool, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies; and you do not sow the body that is to be, but perhaps a grain of wheat or of some other seed, and God gives it a body as he wished”; this he said of the glory of those raised in radiance.

And to show that the grain itself takes on the glory, he who also “spoke in Paul” about the resurrection said through himself in the Gospel: “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,” he says, “it remains alone;

but if it dies, it bears many grains.” So the apostle spoke of a grain and the Savior showed the same grain of the body through himself. What then shall we say? Did not his own sown body itself, that is, the grain, rise? Or was what rose from the tomb after the three days something else from it?

As the angels say, “He is risen, he is not here”; and as he says to Mary, “Do not touch me; for I have not yet ascended to my Father”; and as he shows his hands and side to Thomas, saying, “Do not be unbelieving but believing.”

For it belongs to unbelievers to say he did not rise at all, and to misbelievers to say that what existed and fell asleep did not itself rise; but to believers to say that the body itself rose, and from the same body which he raised ours has been set in the hope of truth.

For this reason he left the marks of the nails, not wiping them away, ⟨nor⟩ the mark of the spear, although he entered when the doors were shut. For his fleshly part rose spiritual, but not something other than what was, but the very thing that was, united with the Godhead, adorned with the fineness of spirit.

For if it were not the fineness of spirit, what opening would admit a bulky body? But to show that this very corruptible of ours puts on incorruption in truth (and, though it is mortal, puts on immortality), he entered when the doors were shut, to show the coarse made fine, the mortal immortal, and the corruptible incorruptible;

and to refute all who disbelieve in our resurrection, he who changed the body to fineness and blended the ⟨flesh⟩ into spirit after the resurrection did not wipe away the scars of the nails nor the mark of the spear,

but showed that the very thing that suffered on the cross was what rose, not something else, nor something else grown from it: the very thing that suffered, impassible; the very grain that fell, risen, and risen incorruptible.

And again, so that we may not think some part of it was raised *, the whole of it did not see corruption (for it says, “You will not let your holy one see corruption”), and the whole of it rose (for it says, “He is risen, he is not here”).

And if he was raised and is not here, he truly rose; and the Scriptures, which are our life, do not err. And so that the deceived may find no pretext, he showed bones and flesh to Thomas, and said to his disciples, “⟨See⟩ me, that it is I. For a spirit does not have bones and flesh as you see that I have.”

And if someone, arguing cleverly, says, “But our Savior's body was exceptional because it alone was conceived from Mary and without the seed of a man,” was then Adam's too other than ours, because it was taken only from earth without the seed of a man? But no one can say or prove this.

And if someone again, arguing cleverly, says, “Only Christ's body rose whole, but ours is not itself raised, but another instead of it,” how then does it say, “Christ is risen, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep”? The same body is one * the firstfruits of those who are raised. And how Christ became the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, let them learn, and not turn again to another error and think the other Scriptures lie.

For before him he raised Lazarus and the son of the widow in Nain; and Elijah raised a dead man, and Elisha raised two dead, one while he was still living, and one after he was buried.

But those, having risen, died again, and await the one universal resurrection; but Christ is “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep,” because having risen “he dies no more; death no longer has dominion over him,” as it is written.

For once he died, enduring suffering for us because of our sufferings; once he tasted death, “even death on a cross,” the Word coming willingly into death for us, so as to put death to death by death;

the Word made flesh, not suffering in the Godhead, but suffering together with the humanity, ⟨the⟩ suffering being reckoned to him while he remained ⟨in impassibility; death being reckoned to him while he remained⟩

in immortality, or rather being wholly immortality. For he himself said, “I am the life.” * Nor is our hope through flesh. “For cursed,” it says, “is the one who hopes in man, and he will be like the tamarisk.”

What shall we say? Is Christ not a man? From what has been said it is clear to everyone that we confess without doubt that the Lord, God the Word, became man, not in appearance but in truth.

But not a man who came by an advance into Godhead. For our hope of salvation is not in a man; for no one of all the men from Adam could accomplish salvation, but God the Word became man, so that our hope might not be in a man, but in the living and true God, who became man.

“Every priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men,” as it is written. Hence the Lord, when he came, took flesh from our flesh, and God the Word became a man like us, so that in the Godhead he might give us salvation, and in his humanity he might suffer for us human beings, undoing suffering through suffering and putting death to death by his own death.

And the suffering was reckoned to the Godhead, though the Godhead was impassible ⟨and the suffering was reckoned to the Godhead⟩, because thus the holy, impassible God the Word was pleased when he came.

And the illustration is something like this: as if someone ⟨were⟩ clothed in a garment, and blood were sprinkled on the garment, but * did not reach the body of the wearer, yet the stain from the blood is reckoned to the one wearing the garment, so in the

flesh Christ suffered, I mean in the Lord's manhood itself, which the holy Word himself, coming from heaven, formed anew ⟨for himself⟩; as the holy Peter says, “put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,” and again, “Christ therefore having suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same thought.”

As the blood on a garment is reckoned to the wearer, the suffering of the flesh was reckoned to him, to the Godhead, while it suffered nothing, so that the world might not have its hope in a man, but in the Lord's manhood,

the Godhead accepting that the suffering be reckoned to it, so that salvation for the world might come from the impassible Godhead, so that the suffering that occurred in the flesh might be reckoned to the Godhead, though it suffered nothing, so that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says, “For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory,” and so on.

So he was crucified, the Lord was crucified, and we worship the crucified one, who was buried and rose on the third day and went up into the heavens. “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God,” as it is written;

“for we know in part and we prophesy in part,” drawing as a drop from the ocean of the knowledge of God and grasping an illustration of such a dispensation, the grace of our hope, by the good pleasure of the Father, the will of the Son, with the will of the Holy Spirit, * of the same dispensation of God.

All the Scriptures held the proclamation of the resurrection scattered here and there, but the perfect form was kept for the coming of the subsistent Word himself.

“For Christ is the fulfillment of the law,” as it is written. For where did the divine letter not speak of resurrection? First the blood of Abel proclaims it; for after dying “he still speaks,” ⟨as⟩ the Scripture says. “Enoch was translated and was not found and did not see death; for he pleased God.” Noah built an ark by God's command, working regeneration for himself and his own household.

Abraham in old age receives a son, “his body being already as good as dead,” and God granted the hope from the dead, especially since “the womb of Sarah” was dead; and what was “growing old and near to vanishing,” the dried-up spring of the ordinary course of a woman, again receives power to conceive seed, and the old woman conceives ⟨as⟩ a younger one.

And Isaac was given back alive to his father from death; for God, handing the child back alive to his father from the dead, proclaimed the hope of resurrection.

Jacob shows the matter, not putting in second place the hope for his bones; for he cared for such things, not as things perishing but as things that would come back to life, and commanded, not incidentally, that they be carried back from the land of the Egyptians.

And Joseph signified this, saying, “Carry up my bones with you; for the Lord will surely visit you.” If there were no hope of resurrection, what care would there be for bones, ⟨in⟩ the righteous giving commands about decaying bones?

The first voice to Moses is God's testimony: “I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,” of those who sleep in the world but live with me. One and the same Spirit spoke in the law and teaches in the Gospel. For this the Savior also signified to the Sadducees, he who speaks in the prophets, ⟨behold, I am here⟩.

⟨And⟩ the rod of Aaron shows it, being dry ⟨for⟩ perhaps many years and left in the tabernacle from evening until morning. For living trees, with labor, produce fruit over twelve months as the cycle of the year is completed, with the sun warming, rains watering, dews spreading, and night and day nourishing,

⟨but⟩ in one night God made the difficult easy. For the dry rod sprouted and put out leaves and ripe fruit. For God showed the likeness of the resurrection that would come to be by him.

When children are conceived in honorable marriage, which the Lord showed, seed is first cast into the wombs of generation according to the sequence, as the Lord showed; and as time rolls on, what was cast into the womb is brought to completion over nine months; I mean, in the number of nine months what is conceived is perfected and born.

But in the resurrection it is not so; for the work is in a moment. “For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible.” As the Lord showed in the tent of witness that the nuts which in living trees are carried twelve months thickened on the dry wood and became shoots in one night; not

only so, but in the space of a single hour he completed what takes twelve months to happen, as has been said; and likewise the infant that takes nine months in the womb, which is completed by being gathered over a long time, in the resurrection is completed in a moment and rises.

Let the power of the Lord persuade the unbelievers, whose “will” no one “resists.” Let Moses hear and show it. “What is in your hand?” says the Lord; and he said, “A rod.” And this rod was wooden and certainly dry. And he says, “Throw it on the ground. And he threw” the dry rod.

And God made the dry moist, and not only moist but also living, and changed in nature and shaped otherwise in substance.

The work was not an apparition; for truth works by God's command, not fantasy. For in all things he set our mind straight toward the truth through Moses.

For the prophet knew that what happened was not in appearance but in truth, in running away; for if he had known what happened to be fantasy, he would not have fled from the serpent.

But let this not again become a stumbling block to the contentious, and let them not say that the rod was another, and “God gave” it a different “body, as he wished.” And first let them learn that he did not animate one thing in place of another,

but animated that very rod which was dry; since God did not call this body given to the rod, and the kind or form moved by it, to judgment; he did not wish to judge the serpent instead of the rod;

but through the rod he produced full assurance of the resurrection, and God showed his own power, so that no one might disbelieve his power in all things. And he did this with all security; for he did not raise some part of the rod, but changed the whole rod as he wished.

And that these things are so, and the dead have hope of eternal life and “those in the tombs will rise,” call me again as witness the trustworthy Moses. For when Reuben sinned, his father the holy patriarch Jacob cursed him and said, “Reuben, my firstborn and the beginning of my children, you were insolent like water; do not boil over. For you went up to your father's bed and uncovered” it, he says; and in the Hebrew, ʼal-tôtar, which is translated “do not return,” or “may you not be added,” or again “may you not have the preeminence,” but in the bare word “do not boil over”; and the translators rendered it so. And ⟨if⟩ you wish to learn that this is so, and that death was decreed by his father for him who had sinned, Moses will make it clear to you. For he too, blessing the twelve tribes, coming to Reuben and knowing that Levi was priest (for in the hand of the priesthood sins were loosed and bound), says, “Let Reuben live and not die.” But how could he live who had been buried a hundred and twenty-six years before? But since he knew that the resurrection would certainly come, and knew the second death, by condemnation on the day of judgment, wishing to relieve him from the things to come in place of the one punishment, he says “let him live,” meaning in the resurrection (for he knew that all will live), “and not die,” that is, not be surrounded by the second death by condemnation and eternal torment. For if he cared about the loss of his life, it would have sufficed to say only “Let Reuben live”; but since he signifies the things to come, he says, “Let Reuben live and not die.”

And from where will one ⟨not⟩ be able to gather so many testimonies about our hope and expectation of the resurrection, in truth and not in appearance?

For let the vainglorious and those who quarrel in vain say whether a part of bodies rises, and of all partially, or again of some the whole is raised and of some the resurrection is partial, while of others the whole body. What favoritism is this? Is there “partiality with God”? God forbid.

Let us search where or when the saints raised a dead person partially and not the whole body. The son of the widow in Zarephath rose whole and no part was left; the son of the Shunammite woman rose whole and he left no member of him unraised.

And ⟨the⟩ Lord raised Lazarus and left no remnant in the tomb, but with the grave bands and other wrappings *; and certainly there is no need of garments on the day of judgment.

He raised the son of the widow in Nain whole, the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, the daughter of the centurion. And O the vain notion of those who reckon such things, that he raises a part and leaves a part!

Let us look at the matters at hand and at what has already happened for us as a counterweight of hope. Enoch was translated whole and has not seen death until now, and Elijah was taken up whole in the body and has not seen death until now, so that by two living bodies he might present to us the resurrection as complete.

And so that no one may doubt, * two types of the two firstborn of our resurrection: Enoch was in uncircumcision, and uncircumcision did not hinder the resurrection nor the body's reception of life; Elijah was in circumcision, so that ⟨the⟩ resurrection might not be thought to be for some and not others, but wholly universal.

Elijah was in virginity, so that the preeminence of virginity might proclaim to the world immortality and incorruption with the body; and so that the resurrection and the body's endurance might not be thought to belong only to virginity as something exceptional, Enoch was not a virgin, but self-controlled and had begotten children. And these two live, remaining in body and soul for ⟨our⟩ hope.

And so that no one may doubt again, he also brought others down to Hades with their bodies. For the earth opened its mouth and swallowed Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Korah, and On, and they went down alive to Hades ⟨with⟩ body and soul. For from that very hour they were handed over to judgment, with neither their bodies dissolved nor a remnant or part handed over, but the whole with body and soul

handed over to punishment. Job says, “until I come to be again,” and “⟨may he raise up⟩ this body that endures these things,” and “you will renew me,” and again, “your youth will be renewed like the eagle's”; and Isaiah, “The dead will rise, and those in the tombs will be raised”; ⟨for God is⟩ “the one who sets free those bound in strength, likewise the rebellious, those who dwell in tombs.”

But Job says, “A man who has fallen asleep will not rise again, nor will he know his place.” And indeed resurrection does not happen daily, but is appointed for one day. And showing that he knew what term he awaited, he at once solved the question: “until the heaven is no longer sewn together.”

For as long as heaven and earth exist, the bodies also are still in the earth. But when he comes “who rolls up the heaven like a scroll” and shakes the earth, then “those in the dust of the earth will also be raised.”

For this reason he says to Ezekiel, “Son of man, say that bone should come together to bone and joint to joint,” and it was so; and “that sinews and veins, flesh and hair and nails should come upon them”; and again, “Say, son of man, come, spirit, from the four corners of the earth,” that is, from the places stored up for the souls.

And for what reason does the Lord himself not speak, but command the man to speak? Because what the Lord says he at once does, and it is no longer undone; but he commanded the man to speak, so that after they rose for the hour our hope of salvation might be signified, and the word undone would be a man's and not the Lord's. For those bones were to die again. But when the Lord says, “Arise,” they are raised and do not die; for God's word will not be undone.

For this reason the Lord, coming in the flesh, raised the dead, so that what was through the flesh should fall asleep again, until the flesh itself rises and dies no more, and he is silent from saying to only one, “Come out,” until he comes and no longer says in the singular, “Arise,” but, “Arise, all,” effecting the universal resurrection; for he himself is the resurrection of the dead.

For here, after rising from the dead, he raised none of those who had recently died. For “many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep rose with him and appeared to many,” “having entered with him into the bridal chamber,” according to what is written in the Gospel.

And it did not say, “a part of the bodies of the saints rose,” but “bodies of the saints”; and “they appeared to many,” not being others than those who had died, but recognized by their own people, since they had not died long before.

And wishing to show the wonder to others too, our Lord performed those difficult things showing them easy. And when he comes to the girl who had just died, the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, since she had died that very hour, he deigned to say to her, “Arise, child,” by the “arise” strengthening what was already dissolved, since she was still on the

bed. But the son of the widow in Nain, since he was already being carried out on the bier, he raised more easily: “for he touched the bier” and said nothing to the boy, but only touched the bier and he rose.

And what is still deeper and far beyond human hope: when he came to Lazarus, four days dead, he neither said, “Arise,” nor touched the tomb with his hand, but so readily calls by his

own authority, “Lazarus, come out.” And “come out” is much easier and readier than touching, and touching again is much easier than calling “Child, arise.” So the holy Word of God does all things, to show us the hope of the resurrection.

And if I wished to select all the testimonies from all the Scriptures, small as our mind is, brief and unlearned, yet because of their number ⟨I fear lest⟩ I stretch the discourse to great length; but in sum I will say that our salvation is concise, and in all things ⟨is found⟩ the one hope of the resurrection proclaimed to us.

These things unbelievers disbelieve, wrong-thinkers corrupt, the contentious do not accept, the vainglorious reject. But may God grant mercy to all and illuminate the darkened parts of their thoughts.

For the Greeks, ⟨not⟩ having received the Holy Spirit, will be refuted by the truth and by all the testimonies mentioned, and above all by you, the children of the holy church of God and of the orthodox faith.

For you teach, having received the Holy Spirit and been counted worthy of a fitting word “in the opening of the mouth,” first, that as disciples of Christ, counted worthy to be ⟨disciples⟩ of the “chief Shepherd” and guardian of our souls *, gathering nourishment for Christ's flocks, your own peoples, and taking care that you may feed yourselves and God's own, I mean whoever wishes to be helped, from the holy land hinted at to Moses.

And who among the right-minded, looking at you, the devout and faithful (O orthodox ones and children of the church; for in speaking of some I speak of all who are of the truth, as it is written), who would doubt about these things?

For being sons of a wise and most valiant woman, whose fame is in Solomon, who says, “A valiant woman, who will find?” (as being rare, or rather one), you will choose the better and love what is profitable.

Understand the valiant woman to be the church of God, your mother, than whom nothing is more valiant, dying in each persecution that arises for the name of her own husband.

She then, most gentle, asks her own bridegroom precisely in the Book of Songs, “Where do you shepherd? Where do you lie down at noon?”; and Christ shepherds in the holy land mentioned before, and not only shepherds, but also commands the shepherds to loosen the sandal from their feet, as he first says to Moses;

having received the tradition from him, you yourselves too safely lead by the hand first those who are brought into the holy knowledge, taking care that each one's sandals are loosed. And each of our sandals differs.

For each has shod himself with his own conduct. And so each one who obeys you, the disciples and good shepherds: one who had put on idolatry has loosed it by your admonition, another adultery, another sexual immorality, another theft, another greed.

Not only that, but renouncing hateful words and shameful speech, with blessed hopes, each hands himself over through you, the good disciples, to be shepherded “under the mighty hand” of the good shepherd; for each will certainly abstain from error.

And you set the truth before their eyes, exposing idols as counterfeit and openly proclaiming the error about them (for you do not consider them dead, since they never lived), fittingly teaching all always that they are empty and vain and non-existent.

For those never were, so as to be ⟨anything⟩; but they are ill-starred, an addition of human thought that has strengthened occasions for pleasures; and from there each one's own passion, ratified as an object of worship, has been ventured.

For first, at once, when this was newly introduced among men through the wickedness of demons, “the first fornication” was uttered, and idols were prefigured in outline drawings. Then each handed down as an object of worship to his own children his own craft, which he had in hand and through which he had found prosperity, and through the material of his own craftsmanship they fashioned gods: the potter from clay, the carpenter from wood, the goldsmith from gold, and the silversmith likewise.

Further again each one drew his own passion in likenesses before his own eyes: a bloodthirsty man calling it Ares, an adulterer or adulteress the promiscuous Aphrodite, a tyrant giving wings to Victory.

For the squalid man, gaping after worldly goods, drew the figure of Cronus; the effeminate man, Cybele and Rhea, because of the flux, I think, of promiscuous bodily unions.

Another, a roving man or woman, prefigured Artemis the huntress, and the drunkard Dionysus, and the toiler Heracles, and someone promiscuous Zeus and Apollo.

And why should I tell the multitudes of countless passions among men? But the Egyptians, more deceived than all, worshiped not only their own passions, but birds and quadrupeds, land and water creatures and some wild beasts, and “exchanged” the order of the things handed over to them by the holy God as servants;

and, being brutish in mind, they are exceedingly impious, deifying the animals among them without shame: the barking dog, the reptile-eating cat, the lewd goat, the bleating sheep, the many-toothed and most sullen crocodile, the poison-eating ibis, and the kite and hawk and raven, most servile, and the crooked and most unpleasant serpent.

And in short, O the great shame of those who neither perceive their own refutation by sight nor take it in by sense nor understand in mind * the things vainly done among them.

So they have been struck by an evil fate, not being enlightened even by their own philosophers, nor becoming fellow viewers with those who are advocates of the truth.

For they do not hear Diagoras, who, for lack of firewood, burned his own Heracles, which was wooden, and said to him mockingly, “Come now, Heracles, perform your thirteenth labor and come cook our meal”; and taking him and splitting him, laughing at his own god as non-existent, he fed himself, joking, on the meal set before him.

And another, Heraclitus, says to the Egyptians: “If they are gods, why do you lament them?” (For they lament Typhon and Osiris and other underworld gods with shrill dirges, mourning them as buried.) So he says: “If they are gods, why do you lament them? And if they are dead, you lament them in vain.”

And another, a comic poet named Eudaemon, says, “If there are gods, I cannot speak about them, nor show the form of what sort they are; for many things prevent me.” And Homer too says, “The rule of many is not good.”

And Philemon, another comic poet, says, “Those who worship one God have good hopes of salvation.”

For Apis, the straw-eating calf, was struck in the thigh with a sword by Cambyses, the king of the Assyrians, so that, if blood flowed, he would be proved not a god.

And the worshipers of Cronus do not deny that their own god is shut in with iron chains, thinking so. But if someone is in confinement, not only is he subject to one greater, but such a one is in confinement as a criminal.

And if I should speak of * Isis, who is also called Atthis and Io, daughter of Apis the Cappadocian, also called Inachus, I am ashamed perhaps to proclaim their deeds;

yet I will not be ashamed to say what they are not ashamed to worship. Let her worshipers be ashamed ⟨of the⟩ family, urging their own daughters and wives and sisters to imitate the deeds of the gods.

And at once, being in love with Osiris, her own brother, ⟨and⟩ with Typhon her brother, she sets her own brothers at war against each other. Great is the shame of a goddess who felt no modesty ⟨toward⟩ her own brother, loving and not content with men outside, but reaching as far as her own brother.

Not only that, but she also shows her dearest ones fratricide because of the insatiability of her own desire.

And she bears Horus as a child, and could not establish who is truly his genuine father. For if she names Typhon, she doubts whether he is not his parent; and if Osiris, who could establish the exactness of this?

And such a mother taught ⟨that he was⟩ a fine god, having taken him and committed fornication in Tyre for ten years.

And the children of Sinope, deifying Serapis, the king ⟨called⟩ Apis, served tyranny rather than truth.

These are the wages of the gods honored among the Egyptians, to tell which in detail * much time would be spent. But the Greeks, who seem to be something among themselves, philosophizing only in words and sharpness of tongue and not in deeds, ran aground more than all:

who derive Cronus from Uranus, saying that he was begotten from Uranus and ⟨cut off⟩ the private parts of his own father (O evil deed and shameful notion!); who, if he had not been cut, there would have been many sons of Cronus. And this noble fellow, who went as far as his father,

was not content with his first impiety, but when young he wrongs his father, and when he became old, his own children,

swallowing Poseidon and Pluto, and seeking Zeus and being fooled by Rhea, swallowing a great stone swaddled instead of a baby;

as a god, perhaps *, but being of noble parents, so to speak, his son, Zeus by name, risked becoming the husband of all women, and his son Hermes. And ⟨not⟩ according to the laws was he a keeper of the house, but always an adulterer and evildoer;

For he corrupts Penelope, having become a goat for pleasure; and he became a goat, I think, because of the vigor of the weaving of his beard.

And to Danaë ⟨Zeus, whom we mentioned first,⟩ became gold, to corrupt a chaste virgin kept in her chamber; but he could never have become gold, but being a sorcerer he deceived the virgin by bribing her with gold.

And with Leda he becomes a swan again, signifying the wing-lifting of the burning of his pleasure.

And ⟨having become⟩ an eagle, once flying up, he presides as teacher of corrupters of boys; not that he ever became an eagle, but, sailing past Troy in a ship with an ensign, called Eagle for its speed, and seizing Ganymede, the son of the king, he committed the corruption.

And for Pasiphaë he became a bull, and likewise for Europa.

And why should I tell the multitude ⟨of the corruptions⟩ of this noble corrupter ⟨of virgins⟩ and teacher of corrupters? Whose ⟨tomb⟩ is known to not a few; for in the island of Crete, on the mountain called Lasius, it is pointed out to this day.

And there have been not one or two Zeuses, but three and four in number. One of them is the son of Cronus mentioned before, who cast his own father into Tartarus on Mount Caucasus; another is called Latiaris, from whom the gladiators came; another is the tragic actor, who also burned his hand.

Perhaps, being a god, he forgot that fire bites, and did not have the foreknowledge of the one who said to the goat-satyr, who first found fire and came near to kiss it, “Do not touch it, goat; for if you touch it you will burn your beard.”

And there have been not one Athena but many: one roaming and wandering about Lake Tritonis, another the daughter of Oceanus, another the daughter of Cronus, and many others.

Many Artemises: one the Ephesian, another the daughter of Zeus, and likewise not a few others. And Dionysuses: the Theban, another the son of Semele, the one among the Corybantes, and the one torn apart by the Titans and the one initiating into the dismemberment of the Curetes.

And Heracles, called among them averter of evil, how many of whose deeds I will pass over in silence, but I will point out one of them all, perhaps praised among them: it will suffice for him to have endured this labor, so that salvation might come to the world. For if he had not corrupted fifty virgins in one night, how would the world have been saved? Rather it would have perished.

And simply, I confess to you, I am weary of recording their evil deeds in detail.

And further, most cruel kings and tyrants, having had certain favorites and having buried them in the ⟨earth⟩, having nothing more to grant them (being themselves corruptible like them), out of goodwill toward them handed down to their own subjects, to the deception of life, on an evil pretext, the worship of their tombs as of gods: like Antinous, who is buried in Antinoopolis,

and, lying in a pleasure barge, was so ranked by Hadrian. And Timogenes in Asia, and Canopus the helmsman of Menelaus and his wife Eumenuthis, buried in Alexandria, are honored by the seashore, twelve miles apart; and Marnas, the slave of Asterius the Cretan, among the people of Gaza; and Basius the shipmaster among the Pelusians.

So when you set out all these things precisely ⟨in⟩ the midst of the church, you release those so led on from the evil † example of the deadly way *; and you bring others from adultery to chastity, and you not only free them from illicit unions but also * to disregard their own ⟨wives⟩ through self-control, since “the time has been shortened,” as the holy apostle says; and you instruct fornicators, so that they may not be punished for having done what is unlawful before God and men.

And when you hand on all these things, toiling by mouth and by works, persuade them to accept everything from you, having first done everything in deed and formed it in yourselves, confirming your words by your actions, in which you first taught yourselves, so that you may make disciples of others too.

For even in silence you hold the manner of the sun, which teaches all everywhere even in silence; for as soon as it rises, silently it teaches all their crafts.

And when you hand on the benefit of all these things to your own children or most faithful brothers, you lead them on to walk on earth but to have “citizenship in heaven,” and you beget in most of them a zeal for the monastic life;

through your firmness and unfeigned faith, hating the heretics, muzzling Manichaeans ⟨and⟩ Marcionites and others like them, you drive them from God's ⟨church⟩, undoing and silencing all their pretexts.

For how many things do they boldly utter against God and against his holy prophets, being light and empty of the Holy Spirit; and they blaspheme the Creator of all, and hate all the good things God graciously gave to all people by prophecy ⟨in the Spirit⟩ through his holy prophets; and, being earthly and bodily, judging ⟨in a natural way⟩, they do not understand the deepest things of the law and the prophets; and they blaspheme in vain.

Do not hesitate at once to shake off their error from the hearers, ⟨refuting⟩ them from the true proofs. For by such words the vain-minded are carried away like brushwood in the current of a full river.