Further Greek Fragments (Harvey)

The will and energy of God is the creative and providential cause of all time and place and age, and of every nature. Will is the power of the rational soul that lies in our control. Will is desiring mind and rational desire, inclining toward what is willed.

For as the ark was gilded within and without with pure gold, so too the body of Christ was pure and resplendent: adorned within by the Word, guarded without by the Spirit, so that from both the splendour of the natures might be shown.

… speaking well always of the worthy, and never ill of the unworthy, we too shall attain to the glory and kingdom of God. It is truly proper and fitting to God to be merciful, to have pity, to save his own works, even if they have come into danger of destruction; for with him, it says, is propitiation. The work of the Christian is nothing else than to practise dying.

We have believed, then, that bodies too rise again. For the body decays, but it does not perish; for the earth receives its remains and keeps them, like seed that is enriched and mingled with the richer part of the earth. Again, it is sown as a bare grain and, flourishing at the command of God the Creator, it rises clothed and glorious, but not before it has died and been dissolved and mingled with the earth; so that we have not believed in vain in the resurrection of the body. And even if it is dissolved for a time because of the disobedience that occurred from the beginning, it is placed as in the crucible of the earth, to be formed again, not as this corruptible body, but pure and no longer corruptible; and to each body its own soul will be restored, and, having put it on, it will not grieve but rejoice, having remained pure and having journeyed with a righteous bridegroom and not a treacherous one. … they will receive [their bodies] not changed, nor freed from suffering or disease, nor will they receive glorious bodies, but as they died, in sins or in good deeds; and such as they were, such they will put on when they live again; and as they were in unbelief, so they will be judged faithfully.

For when the Greeks seized slaves of Christian catechumens and then tried to force them to tell some secret about the Christians, these slaves, having nothing to say that would please those who forced them except what they had heard from their masters, that the divine communion is the blood and body of Christ, and thinking that it was actually blood and flesh, told this to those who questioned them. They, taking it as though this were literally done among the Christians, published it to the other Greeks and tried by torture to force the martyrs Sanctus and Blandina to confess it. To them Blandina answered boldly and well: "How could they endure such things, who for the sake of discipline do not even partake of the meats that are permitted?" [XIV.] How was it possible for the serpent, made by God by nature irrational and without mind, to speak with reason and voice? … But Adam, without any struggle or objection at all, partook of the fruit given him by the woman, which is a proof of utter weakness and an unmanly mind. For the woman, overthrown by a demon, is pardonable; but Adam, defeated by a woman, will be unpardonable, since he received the commandment from God in person. The woman, having heard the commandment from Adam, treated it lightly, perhaps because she had not been thought worthy that God should speak to her too, or because she doubted, perhaps thinking that the commandment was given to her by Adam on his own authority. The serpent found her alone, so that he could converse with her privately. Did he see her eating of the trees when he proposed eating of the tree, or not eating? If eating, it is clear that she was in a corruptible body; for everything that enters the mouth passes into the drain. And if corruptible, clearly also mortal. But if mortal, then that was no longer a curse or sentence, the voice of God saying to man, 'You are earth and to earth you shall go,' as the truth of things holds. But if the serpent saw the woman not eating, how did he bring to eating one who had never eaten? And who told this murderous and bloody serpent that the sentence of death given them by God would not come to fulfilment, when he said, 'In the day you eat, you shall surely die'? And not only that, but that with the eating their eyes would be opened, which had been unseeing before? By the so-called opening they made an entrance for death.

These things Balaam spoke long ago in parables and was not understood; and now Christ, being present and fulfilling them, is not believed. Therefore, foreseeing and marvelling, he says: Alas, alas, who shall live when God does these things?

… explaining the law afresh to the generation after those who were laid low in the desert, he teaches Deuteronomy: not as giving a different law from the one laid down long before for their fathers, but recapitulating this very law, so that, hearing what happened to their fathers, they might fear God with their whole heart.

From whom Christ was prefigured, and recognized, and born: in Joseph he was prefigured; from Levi and Judah he was born according to the flesh, king and priest; through Simeon he was recognized in the temple; through Zebulun he was believed among the Gentiles (as the prophet says, 'land of Zebulun'); and through Benjamin (that is, Paul), being preached to all the world, he was glorified.

And this not idly, but so that by the number of the ten men, having Jesus with him, he might appear as a helper, as though it had happened by agreement with them. And because he was unwilling to share in what they did in their idolatry, they lay the blame on him; for Jerubbaal means 'tribunal of Baal'.

"Take to yourself Joshua": that Moses led the people out of Egypt, but Joshua led them into the inheritance; and that Moses, as the law, takes his rest, while Joshua, a true type of the Word who subsists, speaks to the people; and that Moses gave the manna as food to the fathers, but Joshua the wheat, the firstfruits of life, a type of the body of Christ, as Scripture also says that the Lord's manna ceased after the people had eaten the wheat of the land.

"… go with them, nor shall you curse the people." He does not hint at the people (for they were all laid low), but at the mystery of Christ that was foreshown. For since he was to be born of the fathers according to the flesh, the Spirit teaches the man beforehand, lest, going in ignorance, he curse the people: not that a curse has power against the will of God, but to show God's providence, which he had for them because of their forefathers. [XXI.] "And he was riding on his ass." The ass bore a type of the body of Christ, on which all men, resting from their labours, are carried as on a vehicle; for the Saviour took up the burden of our sins. The angel who appeared to Balaam was the Word himself; and he had a sword in his hand, that is, that he had authority from above.

"God is not as man." He shows that all men lie, changing about; but God is not so, for he always remains true, accomplishing whatever he wills.

"To execute the Lord's vengeance on Midian." For he who no longer speaks in the Spirit of God, but sets up against the law of God another law, of fornication, will no longer be reckoned a prophet but a soothsayer; for, not abiding by God's commandment, he received a reward worthy of his evil scheming.

Know that every man is either empty or full. For if he does not have the Holy Spirit, he has no knowledge of the Creator; if he has not received Jesus Christ, the Life, he does not know the Father in heaven; if he does not live according to the Word, according to the heavenly law, is not temperate and does not act justly, such a man is empty. But if he has received God, who said, 'I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God,' he is not empty but full.

The boy who led Samson by the hand will be a type of John the Baptist, showing the people faith in Christ. The house in which they were gathered signifies the world, in which the foreign and unbelieving nations dwelt, sacrificing to their idols; and the two pillars are the two covenants. Samson's leaning on the pillars means that the people, having been taught, recognized the mystery of Christ.

"And the man of God said, 'Where did it fall?' And he showed him the place; and he cut a stick and threw it there, and the iron floated." This was a sign of the bringing up of souls through the wood on which he suffered who is able to bring up souls that follow his own ascent. And this too was a token: that many souls rose and were seen in their bodies at the descent of the holy soul of Christ. For as the lightest wood went under the water and the heaviest iron floated, so, by the union of God the Word with the flesh, a natural union according to hypostasis, what was heavy and earthy was taken up into heaven by the divine nature after the resurrection, made incorruptible.

The Gospel according to Matthew was written for the Jews; for they greatly desired a Christ from the seed of David. And Matthew, having this desire still more strongly, hastened in every way to give them full assurance that the Christ was of the seed of David; therefore he began from his genealogy.

"The axe is laid to the root," he says: rousing to the knowledge of the truth, cleansing by fear, and preparing to bear ripe fruit.

Behold the grain of mustard seed shown in a parable, and the heavenly Word, sown like seed in the world as in a field, having in itself the fiery and sharp quality of its power. For he was proclaimed judge of the whole world. Born in the heart of the earth, in a tomb, as a very great tree, he stretched out his branches to the ends of the earth. Springing from him, the twelve apostles, becoming fair and flourishing branches, became a shelter for the nations, as for the birds of the air; covered by these branches, all, like birds gathering into a nest, partook of the edible and heavenly food that comes from them.

Now just as through the disobedience of the one man, who was first formed from untilled earth, the many were made sinners and lost life, so it was necessary that through the obedience of one man, who was first born of a virgin, many should be justified and receive salvation.

Josephus says that when Moses was being brought up in the palace, he was appointed general against the Ethiopians and, having conquered, married the daughter of that king, since out of desire for him she betrayed the city to him. Why, of the two who reviled him, was she alone punished first? Because the woman's fault was greater, for both nature and the law subject the female to the male; or else Aaron had some measure of pardon, as older in years and as honoured with the high priesthood. Besides, since the leper was held unclean according to the law, and Aaron was the root and foundation of the priests, so that the reproach might not pass to the whole race, he did not bring the same punishment on him, but through his sister he both frightened and taught him. For the suffering so grieved him that, when she had first received it, he himself begged the one who had been wronged to remove the calamity by his intercession. And he did not neglect it, but at once offered the supplication. Then the merciful Lord taught that he had not punished her as one condemned, but corrected her as a father: "If her father had spat in her face, would she not be ashamed? She shall be shut out of the camp seven days, and after that she shall come in."

Since some, moved I know not by what, take away half of God's creative work, making him the cause only of the qualities of matter and calling matter itself unbegotten, come, let us ask them … unchangeable … is not altered in quality, is formed into a world? It seems superfluous to them that God should put qualities on matter, if matter does not admit change at all, being in their view unbegotten. Further, if matter is unbegotten, it has certainly been made with some quality, and that unchangeable; it would not be receptive of further qualities, nor be formed into a world; and if it is not formed into a world, it puts God wholly outside the work of creating. [XXXIII.] "And he dipped himself seven times in the Jordan," it says. Not in vain did Naaman of old, being a leper, wash and was cleansed, but as a sign for us; for we, who are lepers in our sins, are cleansed from our old transgressions by the holy water and the invocation of the Lord, being reborn spiritually as newborn children, as the Lord also said: 'Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.'

If the body of Elisha, when dead, raised a dead man, how much more will God, who gives life to the dead bodies of men, bring them to the judgment?

"And he found a jawbone of an ass." Note that after the fornication the divine Scripture no longer said of his achievements, 'The Spirit of the Lord leapt upon him'; for the sin of fornication is committed against the body as against a temple of God, according to the divine Apostle.

This signifies the persecution of the church by the nations that still remain in unbelief. But he who suffers these things hoped that there would be vengeance on those who make war. And through what is the vengeance? First, by fleeing to the spiritual rock; second, by finding the jawbone of an ass. And the jawbone is a type of the body of Christ.

Speaking well always of the worthy, and never ill of the unworthy, we too shall attain to the glory and kingdom of God. … the rock Etam … And the jawbone is a type of the body of Christ.

A prophecy was signified in them: that the people, having become transgressors, would be bound with the cords of their own sins; and the loosing of his bonds of their own accord signifies that, having repented, they will be loosed again from the bonds of sin.

It is not easy to persuade a soul held fast by error to change its mind.

"And they killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword." For he who no longer speaks in the Spirit of God, but sets up against the law of God another law, of fornication, will no longer be reckoned a prophet but a soothsayer. For, not abiding by God's commandment, he received a reward worthy of his evil scheming.

"The god of this age": named god by unbelievers, that is, Satan.

And why is 'in the city of David' added, except that he might announce as fulfilled the promise made by God to David, that from the fruit of his body there would be an eternal king? …