Questions and Answers to the Orthodox

[Question 1.] If God abolished the ancient worship as not pleasing to him, and introduced in its place that of the Christians as pleasing to him, but the orthodox, who alone please God, are not equal in number to the Greeks and Jews and all the heretics, but fewer, what proof is there that it is not through poverty of power, on the part of the one who chose this worship instead of that, that error remains unuprooted? And how is the abolition of that worship not useless, when much error still holds the world? Answer. God, having abolished the ancient worship and purposed to introduce the new one in its place through the Old Testament, … introducing this one instead of that one, first, when it was proclaimed in words attested by divine powers, abolished Judaism and Hellenism; and later, by divine works done likewise by powers, he brings about the uprooting of all error among men and demons, and with it of all the evils in the world … If not all who have received the worship keep and hold the same opinion about the same things, but some hold it rightly and others not rightly, this is no reproach against God for poverty of power, that they through their own negligence or some other weakness do not rightly understand what they believe; it is a reproach against their negligence. It has been said in the worship that was being introduced, about the fewness of the orthodox, at one time, “Many are called, but few are chosen”; at another, “Narrow and hard is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it.” Likewise about the heresies, which the Lord in his parables calls tares and rotten fish. If, then, nothing in the Christian worship is false, as the truth of events bears witness, making the future believed from what has already come about, then no pretext remains for slandering God for poverty of power, or for calling useless the worship introduced in place of the other worship, which now dissolves Judaism and Hellenism, and later the heresies too. [2] Question. If prophets and apostles foretold the things that were going to happen, such as victories in wars, attacks of enemies, and the destruction of cities by those who attacked them, and among the Greeks too the words of oracles foretold them, how are the former known to be better than those outside, when the prediction of what was going to happen came from both sides? Answer. All these things belong to the same God, both the prediction in words and the outcome in deeds; he announced beforehand through the prophets and apostles what he was going to do, and likewise through those outside piety he himself announced beforehand what he was going to do. For as through the soothsayer Balaam he blessed Israel and cursed his enemies, doing each by the foretelling of what would be, so too through divination he announced beforehand to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon the capture of Israel, as the prophet Ezekiel says: “And the king of Babylon will stand at the ancient way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination, to shake the rod, to inquire of the carved images, and to look out from his right hand; and it was against Jerusalem,” and so on. So too, through the soothsayers among the Greeks, whatever received its outcome in deeds he himself announced beforehand. But the difference between the prophets and the soothsayers is great. First, the God in whose name the prophets and apostles prophesied, of him they have had the knowledge and the faith and the worship; and all that the prophets foretold about the overthrow of the Greek gods and oracles and about the establishment of Christian things received its outcome; but of what the soothsayers foretold, either against the true God and those who worship him, or for the establishment of Greek things, [nothing] received its outcome. And a witness of this is the destruction of the Assyrians, who, setting out from their own divination, said: “Have I come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up and destroy it.” And having gone up, contrary to the divination, he was destroyed. [3] Question. If all who have sinned are punished at the resurrection, but those who knew God's will and did not do it are punished more, what is the difference, what the gain, between the Christian and the Greek, the baptized and the unbaptized, the orthodox and the one who is not orthodox? Answer. If, according to the apostle Paul, the believer who does not provide for his own has denied God and is worse than the unbelievers, as one who does not have, together with knowledge and faith and baptism, the way of life characteristic of discipleship to Christ, but has the form of piety while denying its power, he is worse than the unbelievers. So sinning with knowledge is as much worse than sinning without knowledge as an inexcusable sin is worse than a sin that has an excuse.

[Question.] If the heretics hastened with all their power to know and keep the truth of the doctrines, and were not able, how is it not unjust to subject to punishment those who have missed the truth? Answer. So far were the heretics from seeking the truth with all their power that even when it was demonstrated to them by those who had found it, they were neither able nor willing to accept it. And if this defense were true, they ought … one another … , and not to have set up, out of wickedness of judgment, heresies that fight against themselves and against the truth. But now, since they condemn one another for the strangeness of their thinking, it is clear that all the heresies took the occasions of their establishment from the love of glory or the antipathy of the heresiarchs; for which reason the founders of the heresies were named “grievous wolves” by the apostle. That it is impossible for one who seeks the truth with his whole heart and power not to find it, the Lord bears witness, saying: “Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks will find, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

[Question.] If in the churches of the heretics powers are at work, such as healings of diseases, expulsions of unclean spirits, the bearing of fruits of the earth, and gushings of oil, how is it not inevitable that they are confirmed in their error by these? [Answer.] … on the evil and the good, and to send rain on the just and the unjust, is not a confirming of the unjust in their wickedness and injustice, but a preparation for just punishment, so it is not a confirming of the heretics in their error that some powers are at work among them. For if working powers were a proof and sign of piety, the Lord would not have declared unapproved and unworthy of his [acquaintance] those who said, “[Lord,] did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?”, saying to them, “I never knew you; depart from me, you who work lawlessness.” … having taught you to feed and give drink to the hungry and the thirsty, much more does he himself do the like of what he taught us, heaping fire on their heads, since they have not known the giver of the faith worthily.

[Question.] If passibility is shown in those who feel pain and pleasure, and in the judgment sinners [will feel] the one and the righteous the other, how does he speak truly who declared that there is impassibility for men after the resurrection? [Answer.] … that from what we are by nature we receive no change, neither into opposites, in respect of being and not being, nor into contraries, in respect of more and less; for instance, we are not changed from joy into grief, nor do we rejoice over the same good sometimes more and sometimes less. Even if we rejoice more over a greater good and less over a lesser one, yet even so the quantity of joy remains unchanged in proportion to the goods. And this holds for those who rise to life; and for those who rise to judgment the same argument holds, when they are released, as from death, so from judgment. For of those who rise, according to one or the other, some rise to life, others to judgment. [7] Question. If it is a mark of change to take good and bad things into one's mind, how are those who are punished unchanged, when they reckon the rest of the righteous; or again those who are at rest, when they think of the punishment of sinners? For each gives a greater perception of the other when the contraries are set side by side. Answer. In the age to come the quantity of the perception of honor and of punishment lies in a fixed measure, and perception cannot receive increase or decrease by the setting side by side of opposites. For all things there are unchangeable, in quantity as in quality. [8] Question. If we have received the knowledge of good and evil from God, together with our being, how is he not the cause of each, who has also implanted in our nature both the knowledge and the power for both? Answer. Not only has God given us the power of being and of knowing and doing good and evil, but he has also made us masters of choosing freely what seems good among the things known; and he placed our being good or bad not in the knowledge of the things known, but in the choice of the things chosen. God, then, is not the cause of our being good or bad, but our free choice. For as the one who sees a prostitute and knows that she is a prostitute is not a fornicator because of the knowledge; nor even if the knowledge arouses the passion of desire is he a fornicator thereby; but if his free choice consents to the passion, then he is a fornicator, either in act or in disposition; so too of good and bad men knowledge is not the cause of their being good or bad, but free choice, according to preference … [9] Question. … [If God gives …] and crowns and punishes each man according to his deeds, how does he do both justly, when [man] has each from God himself? Answer. What belongs to us and what is up to us differ from one another. We are male and female; but it is up to us to be chaste or fornicators. We are crowned or punished because of what is up to us; for we are either crowned or punished because of the things to which our free choice leads us. For God has given us powers for acting, but has subjected them to the authority of free choice; and God's judgment is with regard to free choice, which governs the powers of choice in us, and not with regard to nature. We have received from God the power of acting and of not acting: of doing what is just and of not doing what is unjust. When, then, we act otherwise, and turn the acting and the not acting to the opposite, we are justly punished. [10] Question. If the bodily things said by the poets about the gods among the Greeks, and by the prophets about God, have another meaning by allegory, how are not both shown to be myth? Answer. What the prophets said allegorically about God was said by transference from what is by nature to what is not by nature: for instance, “The Lord smelled a sweet savor.” In men smelling is by nature; in God it is said by an extended use and not by nature. But what the poets say mythically about the gods is not said by transference from what is by nature to what is not by nature. For man does not by nature swallow man, so that we should understand by transference that Kronos swallowed Zeus. The myth about the swallowing of Zeus has nothing in it but falsehood. [11] Question. If what contains is greater than what is contained in substance, but less in worth — as heaven and earth contain the angels, a house its inhabitants, the body the soul — and God contains the universe, how is he not less than the universe by the argument of worth? Answer. This argument is not universal; therefore the question was not soundly put. For arguments whose contrary can be found by the same means, since they lack necessity, also lack credibility. For there are some contained things that are less than their containers both in substance and in worth, like the seeds of fruits. Further, the containers mentioned contain the things contained by their being; but God alone contains the universe by his will. And the other containers themselves need something to contain them; but God does not need anything to contain him. And for the other contained things their being and continuance does not come from their containers; but for the universe both come from God. And the containers mentioned exist because of the things contained; but God does not exist because of the universe. Therefore God is greater than the universe, in worth as in substance. [12] Question. If what contains serves to guard and keep what is contained, how does God, who contains the universe, not contain it for the guarding and continuance of evil? For evil too is seen in a part of the universe. Answer. The universe is the work of God; and God keeps the universe as his own work; and as God made nothing evil by nature, so he keeps nothing evil by nature.

[Question.] If the resurrection takes place for the requital of what each has lived, how do infants, or those who died in the womb, not rise superfluously, since because of the untimeliness of their age they [could have earned neither rest] nor affliction, nor receive perception [of what is coming]? Answer. For one who believes it true that “it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power,” it is possible and fitting to believe in the resurrection of infants too. For he who grants them incorruption can also grant them the power to perceive the goods set before them. If there is no resurrection of these, God will be found to have fashioned them in vain. But if God does nothing in vain, then the infants too necessarily came into being for the sake of the resurrection. And how is it not out of place [to speak of vengeance on] Herod, if the infants who are avenged did not exist? Witness to these things are the leaps of exultation of John the Baptist in his mother's womb, and the hymn of the infants and sucklings …

[Question.] If the baptism given by the heretics is false and vain, why do the orthodox not baptize the heretic who takes refuge in orthodoxy, but [receive him] as in a true baptism, the spurious one? And if he happens to have received ordination from them, they themselves accept this too as valid. How then are the one received and those who received him [not …]? Answer. When the heretic comes over to orthodoxy, his error is corrected: his false belief by the change of his thinking; his baptism by the anointing with the holy chrism; his ordination by the laying on of hands; and nothing of the old remains unloosed.

[Question.] If Job did not sin [in cursing] the day, clearly he was heard as a righteous man; and if he was heard, God overturned his own [day] …, and one must seek in the divine Scripture the destruction of that day. But if he was not heard, how is it not [necessary] to say that he was not heard because he was a sinner? For [the will] of those who fear him God will do; but about sinners it is said, “If you … your prayer, I will not hear you.” Answer. Job's aim in the curse set forth was this, as if he were saying: “Would that the day on which I was born had been cursed with this curse!” Why? “So that I,” he says, “might not have been born.” For it is not possible for anyone to be born on a day so cursed. This curse, then, was not pronounced so as to await fulfillment. For if the curse had been so made as to await its fulfillment, he would have recalled his own words when he was freed from his afflictions and had come into better things. It was because of the excess of his affliction, then, that he uttered the words of his heart; and when it had left him, clearly he no longer held the same opinion about the same day.

[Question.] If, according to our nature, whatever is begotten is of the same essence as the one who begot it, how, according to this same nature, does not whatever has been begotten exist after the one who begot it? But if not the second, then neither will the first … in the divine begetting be as with us. [Answer.] … having our existence before the begetting, which takes place after our existence; but God begot at the same time as he exists. Therefore with God there is no later existence of what is begotten, since there is no earlier existence before the begetting.

[Question.] If the essence of the divine hypostases is one and indivisible, how can they be called three hypostases and three persons, and not rather [one]? Answer. Of the divine hypostases, what belongs to the essence is one and indivisible, but what belongs to them as three is divisible. Therefore the three hypostases are distinct … ; and the hypostasis we call [another], we no longer call the same hypostasis, but another. For we say that the Trinity of the names of the Trinity belongs to the hypostases, not to their unity. Therefore God is one by the oneness and indivisibility of the essence, but the persons are three by the distinction of the hypostases.

[Question.] If “God” indicates the essence and “Father” the person, how is saying “Son of God” the same as saying “Son of the Father”? [Answer.] … Son, sometimes Son of the Father, sometimes Son of God. He is, then, Son of the Father, the Son of the God who is according to essence. And to say “Son of the Father” is the same as to say “Son of God,” since whatever belongs to the person belongs also to the essence of the person. … having the begetting preceding their existence. [19] Question. [If the observation of palpitations is not the mark] of the pious, why are the pious, though they wish with all their power to reject it, unable to do so, since it announces either something cheerful or something gloomy? And if this is bad, how does it come upon us against our purpose? But if it is good, which I do not think, why is it forbidden? Answer. Foreknowledge of the future belongs to the soul enlightened by the divine Spirit for knowledge of things hitherto unclear, and not to the involuntary motion of the body. Palpitation is a bodily affection arising from the coursing of the natural spirit through the body, which exists in all animals; therefore the saints judged such a bodily motion unworthy to be a criterion of the future; and as sneezes of the nose and ringings of the ears come upon us against our purpose, so does palpitation. Further, for those who have received the hope of the future state and have one aim, to … , it is superfluous to know beforehand here, through palpitations, what is cheerful or gloomy. And if the same palpitation that foretells wealth comes to the man of the world and to the ascetic, how is the foretelling of wealth by palpitation not proved false by the choice of the ascetic, who chooses not only not to acquire what he does not have, but not even to possess what he has?

[Question.] If fishermen take fish from the waters to death and corruption, how did the Master Christ, intending to bring men to eternal life through the apostles, promise to make them fishers of men? Answer. Since the men caught by the apostles in the net of the kingdom had to die to their former life in sins, for this reason the Lord compared the catching of men to the catching of fish. And he added “to life,” supplying for the thing illustrated what was lacking in the illustration. [21] Question. If monks have turned away from marital pleasures, why in their fantasies during sleep do they suffer involuntary things, and not only with chance women, but sometimes in the fantasy … they seem to have intercourse even with mothers and sisters? What, then, must be used for deliverance from such a war? And must the one so attacked abstain from the mysteries, or approach them? … [And he chose the apostles from fishermen, and promised to make them fishers of men] … since there is much inquiry about this among them too. [Answer.] … they have an adversary who contrives by every means in his power to set [stumbling blocks] before the pious; for this reason they suffer involuntary things in sleep. And the adversary knows that for things not in our power we are neither praised for the honorable nor blamed for the shameful (for praise and blame belong to the things done by us with the consent of reason), and that dreams are among the things not in our power; yet through dreams too he stirs up in us the doing of both, honorable things and shameful, having these hopes in himself: that perhaps, either through boasting of what we have not done, or through the working of shameful things, he might be able to find us delighting in the involuntary act. But to see such dreams is not in our power; to be delighted or grieved at an act so involuntary, that is in our power. If, then, he finds us delighting in the involuntary act, the adversary boasts as victor; but if he finds us grieving, he is frustrated in his plan and defeated. It is sufficient, then, for deliverance from the evil device to be grieved at what happened involuntarily, and to wash away the defilement with tears. But for those who suffer such involuntary things to abstain from communion in the divine mysteries is not at all just; otherwise we would abolish by this the difference between voluntary and involuntary evils.

[Question.] If the Master Christ declared that the tares grow together with the wheat, how have the tares multiplied while the wheat has almost failed? And what proof is there that what has failed is wheat, and that the prediction of their growing together has not proved false? Answer. The proof that what has failed is wheat is this, the prediction from him: “… the love of many will grow cold.” And again: “In later times some will depart from the faith … of men.” And again: “They will turn away from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” And again: “[Grievous wolves] will come in among you, not sparing the flock, to draw away the disciples after them.” That the wheat does not fail until the end of the age the Lord shows, saying: “For the sake of the elect, whom the Father … , those days will be shortened.” If something happened to the wheat, in its growing and failing, that was not said about it, clearly the word about it has proved false; but if from the beginning of the preaching until the end of the age all the things that happen … , it is [clear] that the word about it has in no way proved false. If there are tares, there must also be wheat; for by being set side by side the wheat is known for what it is, and likewise the tares; and if the one does not exist, the other is not known for what it is either.

[Question.] If before the passion the Lord prayed that the disciples be sanctified by the Father, but afterwards Judas perished, how does the prayer offered for them appear to have been accepted? And how is “I know that you always hear me” shown to be true? Answer. Judas' perdition took place from the moment when Christ, taking the morsel and dipping it, gave it to him; and when Judas took the morsel, Satan entered into him, and going out he tore himself away from the rest of the disciples. The prayer for the disciples took place after Judas had separated himself; and this is shown from the prayer itself, when the Lord, praying, said: “Those whom you gave me I have guarded, and none of them perished except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” First, then, came the perdition of Judas, then the prayer for the disciples, and then the passion of the Savior.

[Question.] If God is the creator and Master of creation, how do the [talismans] of Apollonius have power in the parts of creation? For, as we see, they check the onrushes of the sea, the blasts of the winds, and the attacks of mice and wild beasts. And if the miracles done by the Lord are carried only in the narrative, while most of those done by that man are shown in the very facts, how do they not deceive those who see them? And if this has happened by divine permission, how has such a permission not become a guide to Hellenism? But if not, how have those things not come about by the power of demons? Again, if God cooperated with him because he was pleased with what was done as good, why were such things not done through prophets or apostles? But if he was not pleased with it as bad, why did he not either prevent the bad at once, or … [Having in these things the marks of the divine power of Christ, … that Christ's miracles lie in bare narrative] … allow it to prevail over creation? Answer. Apollonius, as a man skilled in the natural powers and in the sympathies and antipathies in them, made his talismans by this science, not by divine authority; therefore in all his effects there was need of the use of suitable materials, cooperating with him for the accomplishment of what was being done. But our Savior Christ, doing his miracles by his divine authority, in no way needed matter, but the facts followed and still follow his commands and predictions. And the talismans made by Apollonius, since they came about by the science of natural powers, … for the bodily work of men, the Lord did not overturn; but the demon himself, who was established in his statue and deceived men in the oracles into worshiping and honoring Apollonius as a god, he muzzled, abolishing his oracles; and with him he destroyed the dominion of the other demons honored by the Greeks under the name of gods, as the facts are seen [to show].

[Question.] If Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in works and words, as the divine Scripture says, how did this blessed prophet not pursue astronomy and geometry and astrology and the things that go with these? For the wisdom of the Egyptians at that time taught the teachings of error. Why then is he admired by Scripture for such words or works? Answer. The divine Scripture admires the prophet for the power of his words and works, not for the words and works in themselves; for in themselves those things were unworthy of the prophet's praise. But since the prophet was renowned among the Egyptians for both, the education of his speech and the worldly splendor of his life, and he honored piety toward God above both, for this reason the divine Scripture admired him. Astronomy, astrology, and geometry among the Egyptians … were reckoned … The studies honored among them at that time were the so-called hieroglyphic ones, handed down in the sanctuaries not to anyone at all but to the select; of these the prophet, even if he had knowledge, yet did not have the use, since it was opposed to the godly way of life of the Hebrews; for this he despised all royal power in Egypt and chose to suffer affliction with the people of God.

[Question.] If all the waters had been made blood by Moses, how does Scripture add, “And the enchanters of the Egyptians did likewise”? For either it is false that all the waters became blood by Moses, or again that the enchanters did likewise. And the same argument holds about the other wonders against them. Answer. When all the waters above the earth had become blood, the Egyptians were compelled to dig wells around the river, to draw water, and to give drink from it to themselves, their animals, and their flocks. From this water drawn from the wells the enchanters made the blood; so the word has in no way proved false. And the miracles done by Moses, since they came about by divine activity, came about by a change of the nature of the thing set before him into the nature of what was being accomplished; but those done by the enchanters came about by the activity of the demons, who deluded the sight of the onlookers so that they saw what was not a serpent as a serpent, what was not blood as blood, and what were not frogs as …

[Question.] If Moses did not act against himself in carrying the bones of Joseph while abhorring as unclean the one who touches a corpse — and if he had some reasonable cause for this, we wish to learn it — why did Scripture not say for what cause Moses did those things while teaching these? Answer. Since Joseph, when dying, made the sons of Israel swear about the carrying up of his bones, and both things were set before Moses to keep, not to transgress the oath and not to touch a corpse, for this reason, by loosening the law that says not to touch a corpse, he kept the oath inviolate. For it was impossible for him to keep both inviolate, the law and the oath. By the greater keeping, that of the oath, he loosed the lesser keeping, that of the law. For everywhere the lesser evil is to be chosen before the greater. And many such things are found in the divine Scripture which God does not reckon as sin to those who transgress them, because of the necessity that befell them: such as circumcision on the eighth day, the circling of Jericho for eight days, and the offering of sacrifices on the Sabbath, which involve the loosening of the Sabbath. Further, if the prophet ordered those who carried the bones of Joseph in turn to be unclean for seven days and [purified] through the purification according to the law of Moses, … the prophet did nothing contrary to what he said. To ask why the prophet did not state the cause of these things is like asking why all the Scriptures were not handed down already interpreted by those who set them out; for in the narrative of a fact the meaning of the fact is implicitly contained. Therefore Scripture did not think fit to state it expressly.

[Question.] If the Lord, refuting the feigned piety of the Pharisees, said that they are whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness; and in the law the one who touched a corpse was reckoned unclean, as having done something improper; and we abhor the dead and their tombs, since both the Old and the New [Testament] call the dead unclean, how did Christ not act contrary to both, when in raising the widow's son he touched the bier, and took the daughter of Jairus by the hand? For even if they rose at once afterwards, yet the dead bodies received the touch. Answer. The dead bodies of corpses and their tombs are abhorred because of the heavy stench that follows them, and not because of their deadness. For if the bodies of the dead were abhorred simply because of their deadness, then we ought not to use the parts of the dead bodies of animals for the needs of the living, such as skins, horns, hair, bile, fat, and flesh; which no argument can exempt from the deadness that belongs to them. But if these too are dead, and yet we do not abhor them because of their usefulness, how is it not most absurd to regard these as clean because of their usefulness, while the Greeks abhor the bodies and tombs of the holy martyrs, which protect against the plots of the demons and heal diseases beyond the medical art? [The dead are called unclean] because, as to the mind of the living the stench and uncleanness of dead bodies is abominable, so the lawlessness of those men is abominable to the mind of the pious, being in a way a deadness of their soul: as, when the soul is separated from the body, the body is dead and stinking and unclean, so, when the fear of God is separated from the soul, the soul is dead … the Lord [transgressed] nothing either of the Old or of the New; for he was not under the law when he raised the dead mentioned in the question. For from his baptism the Lord began the Gospel way of life, which is outside the observance of the law; therefore he was not defiled by touching the dead. And according to the New [Testament], only those things defile men, the evils that come out of the heart; but touching a corpse does not defile a man.

[Question.] If the house where the Lord was was full when the paralytic was about to be healed, and for this reason those carrying him were compelled to break open the roof and let the sick man down through it, how did the crowds gathered in the house not … [Answer.] … when the roof was being uncovered, they surely withdrew. For those uncovering the roof were not so foolish as not to call out to those in the house to withdraw, so that they might not be struck. Nor was there any need to uncover the whole roof, but only as much as sufficed for the …

[Question.] If an angel accompanies each man as guardian, as the divine Scripture says, and men have at times undergone increase and at times decrease, as in the flood and the other calamities, because of their own deeds, what service did the angels, who are not capable of increase and decrease, then fulfill, since each of the angels received a service from God from the beginning? Answer. All the angels, rulers and ruled, fulfill a service useful to the heavens and to the things [made] for man's sake; and those who have received the service of accompanying men as guardians are always increasing and never decreasing. For they either accompany the composite, I mean soul and body, or they accompany the soul after the soul's departure from the body, until the time of the … ; [and those not yet assigned] to accompany men and guard them serve their own rulers in the other ministries on behalf of men.

[Question.] If by a divine nod the clouds send rain down to the earth, why do [enchanters] … the clouds where they wish, [bringing] hail and immoderate rains? Answer. Since you bear witness to this according to the holy Scriptures, [the claim] that the rains come from enchanters is incredible. For you yourself who asked this question did not ask it from what you saw happening, but from what you heard.

[Question.] If God created our nature mortal, how do you say that God did not make death? Answer. If something is mortal by nature, it does not therefore necessarily die; and the proof of this is that Enoch and Elijah, who were mortal by nature, still remain in immortality, having been raised above “Earth you are, and to earth you shall go.” It is true, then, that God made our nature mortal, and that death entered the world through man's disobedience. For if, as God made the nature mortal, so he had also made death, death would not [have come] through disobedience; and if God did not make the disobedience, then neither did he make death.

[Question.] If the nature of men, being mortal, recognizes its own end, but each man's time is not fixed by any limit (what those outside call fate), how were years added to Hezekiah? For what is added is clearly taken in addition to a predetermined number. From where, then, is the indeterminacy of time shown in those who die? Answer. That the time of each one's life is not determined is shown from the words of Scripture thus: “If,” it says, “a man finds [a betrothed girl] in the field and lies with her by force, you shall kill the man, but you shall not kill the girl. For as when a man rises against his neighbor and strikes him, and as he strikes him there is no one to help, so is this matter; and the girl cried out, and there was no one to help her.” The divine Scripture would not have compared the forced violation to a forced killing if death were [predetermined]. For what is determined by God is not forced and not transgressed. But if this is so, clearly years of life were added not to Hezekiah's predetermined life, but to his years that had run on without a fixed limit, whose end was coming through the deadly sickness, had God not healed him of the sickness and restored him to life. [34] Question. [If the] flood did not happen in every place of the earth, but [only] where the men of that time lived, how is it true that the water rose fourteen cubits above all the high mountains? Answer. It does not seem true that the flood did not happen in the whole world, unless perhaps the places where the flood happened were lower than the other places of the earth. [35] Question. [If] … God is good, why did he declare clean what parts the hoof and chews the cud? And again, why is what chews the cud but does not part the hoof, like the camel, ranked among the unclean, and what parts the hoof but does not chew the cud, like the pig, reckoned among the unclean? And among fish, those without scales? And why are the birds divided, when some of the clean ones, if they are permitted, eat and do the same things as the unclean? Answer. By nature all animals are clean, and were made good by God from the beginning, according to what was said: “And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good” … But since God wished, as in all things, to bring the Jews under the yoke of the servitude of the law in what they ate too, for this reason he named some of the animals, birds, and fish clean, whose slaughter and eating he permitted to the Jews, and named some unclean, from eating which he kept them away. These, then, are called both clean and unclean: clean because of their nature, unclean because of the law. And again they are called clean and unclean for another reason. Since in Egypt at that time all animals except the pig were deified, for this reason he named some animals clean and others unclean; and he permitted them to sacrifice the clean, and not to eat the others, as unclean, showing through each that they were unworthy of the name and honor of God, both by being sacrificed and eaten, and again by being called unclean. [36] Question. If the Divine is incapable of change, why does it say about the anointing of Saul that he repented, and about the overthrow of Nineveh that he repented? Answer. The Master God is unchangeable both in his being and in doing the deeds that befit him. But providing for changeable things for the benefit of those for whom he provides, he changes events; therefore he is unchangeable both in pardoning and in not pardoning. For he pardons, unchangeably, those who correct their own faults; but to those who remain uncorrected in their evils … “I repent” shows his unchangeableness in not pardoning; and “The Lord repented” shows his unchangeableness in pardoning. For God is unchangeable, and always continues in what befits him; but he never admits change toward doing what does not befit him.

[Question.] If John's baptism was not according to the law, as indeed it was not, how was it not contrary to the law, and how was it accepted by those under the law? And how were those who were under the law and received the baptism contrary to the law not transgressors? But if the baptism of grace was under the law, being called neither according to the law, nor above the law, nor contrary to the law, according to what will it be found to have taken place? Answer. John's baptism was a prelude to the Gospel of grace; therefore it was above the law. For it was not possible for those who had sinned under the law to receive pardon in it through repentance and faith in Christ.

[Question.] If John wished to assure his disciples about Christ, that he is the one, when he sent them to him (for some have said this), why did he not tell them so by a declaration, but brought them to Christ with a question? But if he himself, because he was shut up in prison, came into doubt about him from the various things that were thought (for others have said this too), why does he ask as though he did not know that he had already come? For “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” gives the impression that Christ had not yet come but was still prayed for as one awaited. For if he had been convinced of this, he would not have asked, “Are you the Christ, or someone else besides him?” Answer. Since various reports were going round about the miracles Jesus had done, some saying, “The one who does these things is Elijah,” others, “Jeremiah,” others, “Some other of the prophets,” John, hearing these reports in prison, sends his disciples to learn whether the one who does the signs is the one to whom he had borne witness, or someone else, as the many were saying. Jesus, knowing John's aim, did many miracles in the presence of John's disciples, persuading them, and through them John, that he himself, the one to whom John had borne witness, was the one who had done also the miracles reported under the name of others.

[Question.] If the Master Christ promised to draw all to himself after his own lifting up, how did not all come to faith in him? And how does he, promising to draw all to himself, not contradict “No one comes to me unless my Father draws him”? Answer. Every word is judged by its own end; and the end of drawing all to himself is when he abolishes all rule and authority and power. One must not, then, demand before the end the things of the end. And the Father draws to the Son by giving the Son too authority and power to be able to draw all to himself. It is not, then, at one time that the Father draws to the Son and at another that the Son draws to himself; so there is nothing contrary in the words.

[Question.] If the demons in the possessed … ; but if they do this to those who suffer, … for a short while, departing, how, when they are driven out from them by an invisible power, do they no longer show in them traces of their presence? Answer. It is impossible for … the demons … by his presence … ; nor are his traces present; for the invisible power that drives him out puts fear into him not to come near the healed person again.

[Question.] If it belongs to God alone to give life and strength to bodies, how do the demons do this, [so that the possessed can] break bonds and chains? [For he] was bound with chains and fetters, and, tearing the bonds apart, he was driven by the demon into the desert. Answer. The demon did not give the body the power to be able to break and tear apart the bonds and chains; the demon himself broke and tore apart the bonds and the chains, even if the divine Scripture attributes the works of the demon to the possessed man. [42] Question. [If the demons, when their] oracles [were disobeyed], brought punishments on the Greeks, and when the idols were worshiped removed these and gave them good things in their place, from where is it possible [to come] to the understanding of each? Answer. It was the custom of the demons, for the deception of men, to attach to themselves the strength of God as well as his name. That the demons have no strength to punish the disobedient and benefit the obedient is shown from the overthrow that Hellenism suffered at the hands of Christianity. For Hellenism was openly seen to use no other power against Christianity than that of men's hands and swords. For if Hellenism had had [divine power] at its disposal, it would not have used human power to save itself from overthrow, having vainly expected its gods [to do so]; and this is the greatest proof of the weakness of the demons, and that they were never able to accomplish divine works, punishing the disobedient and benefiting the obedient. Further, if all worship is of beings that live and perceive, how is it not plainly false to say, “When the idols were worshiped they removed the punishments,” when the idols neither live nor perceive, but are as insensible to worship as to disobedience to the oracles?

[Question.] If at the time of the flood it says that the animals were brought into the ark two by two and seven by seven — some say, unreasonably, not four and fourteen of the unclean and the clean, for some have said this, but others that two clean … only — which of the two, then, is truer? Answer. The one who said four and fourteen spoke more truly than the one who said two and seven. For it said “two by two” meaning two males and two females, and “seven by seven” meaning seven males and seven females; and the unclean were two by two. [44] Question. [If of the] living creatures Isaiah and Ezekiel saw a vision, was one and the same thing revealed to both, or was one thing shown to one and another to the other? And what was shown? Answer. Through the vision of the prophet Isaiah [was shown] the mystery of Christ, seated on the throne of glory, and by the eating of his holy flesh making purification of the sins of impious men, those in all the earth who glorify the holy Trinity, equal in honor, for the greatness of the divine gifts; in whose name they were baptized and justified, having received the hope of a share in heavenly and eternal goods. For the coal that the prophet saw brought to his unclean lips for the cleansing of iniquities and sins was an announcement of the Lord's flesh, which cleanses the conscience of those who eat it from all impiety. Through the vision of the prophet Ezekiel he showed what was going to happen to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, as a consolation for the Israelites who were in captivity in Babylon. The prophet saw four-faced living creatures, having likenesses of a man and a lion, a calf and an eagle. And the prophet Daniel says about him: [his feathers] as an eagle's, and his hair as a lion's, and they fed him grass like the calf, and a man's heart was given him. From this vision he gives a consolation to the Israelites, who looked to the mighty and very strong dominion of the Babylonians and were in despair of ever obtaining freedom from such captivity. So that God might move the Israelites from this despair and prepare them to look to his own dominion, he shows the prophet the yoking together of a tame and a wild animal, and the joining of a heavy-bodied animal and a bird. For man is a tame animal, the lion a wild one; and the calf a heavy-bodied animal, the eagle a winged and light one. In the former he shows the change of the kingdom from wildness to tameness; in the latter the change from the heaviness of servitude to freedom. For the calf is under the yoke, but the eagle is free of the yoke. He also shows the prophet a wheel within a wheel, indicating by them the leading away of the Jews into captivity and their leading back to their own land. [45] Question. [Why in the case of Ezekiel] has the divine decree used the title “son of man,” which it did not do with the other prophets? And did the same prophet see the universal resurrection in the dry bones, and did the bones really rise and become complete men, as the book of the same prophet teaches? Answer. Because through the prophet Ezekiel the resurrection of the dead was to be prefigured in a vision, the resurrection that was to take place in fact through the Son of man, according to what was said: “The hour is coming, and now is, when all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of man, and those who hear will live”; for this reason he is called by the name of the Son of man. … in which he says: “And the Lord spoke to me, saying …” … “They say, Our bones have become dried up, our hope has perished,” and so on. [As Joshua, when he was about to] command the sun and the moon to stand still, receives the name of Jesus, which is honored by creation through obedience to his command, so also Ezekiel receives the name of the Son of man, and through the vision raises the dead by the power of the title. With Ezekiel everything was a vision, both the bones and their resurrection. God shows this vision to the prophet, first indicating through it the universal resurrection of all from the dead which is to take place through Christ; and then for the consolation of the Israelites who had despaired of themselves because they had been enslaved, [that] they will be free of the kingdom of the Babylonians. For as dead bodies lying in tombs have no hope of rising, so they reckoned themselves to be in Babylon without any hope of return. The same prophet shows this, [saying]: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel” …

[Question.] If all the things of life are good, why are those who abstain from them praised in the Scriptures, and those who hold to them censured? But if [they are not], why are bad things yoked together with our life, and that when the Creator is good? Answer. Abstaining from the good things of life is not simply praiseworthy, nor is holding to them simply blameworthy; but each, abstaining from them and holding to them, is praiseworthy when done with fitting reason, and both are blameworthy when done in the contrary way. That nothing bad in its substance has been yoked to our life the divine Scripture shows, [saying]: “And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” But when we voluntarily pervert good things, bad things come into being. For there is nothing bad in what is healthy, while the goods in it remain unperverted; so that nothing is bad apart from the perversion of the good. Nothing bad, then, has been yoked together with our life; for bad things are bad by irrational use and not by nature; and to use them well or badly is a matter of choice.

[Question.] If hearing does not belong to the elements, [how does Moses call heaven and earth to witness against the] people, and Isaiah, accusing the same people, command them to hear? Answer. What is said to heaven and earth is said to the rational beings in them, as what is said to a city is said to its citizens; as in “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills [the prophets and stones] those sent to her.” For it was not the city that killed and stoned, but the citizens. [48] Question. [Why did the Lord say to] Mary after the resurrection, “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father”? If before the ascension no one was permitted to touch him, how a little later did he allow the disciples and Thomas to do this? But if it was permitted, how did he forbid to Mary a little before what he was about to allow to many a little later? Answer. “Do not touch me” was said to Mary by the Savior in the sense of “Do not follow me so as to be always with me, as in my way of life before my cross.” For he wished to wean the disciples little by little from the sight and presence of his body; therefore in the days he spent on earth after the resurrection he neither … to the disciples continually, nor made himself wholly invisible to them, but did both at intervals, being seen by them and not being seen. [49] Question. [Were wild] beasts and cattle, male and female, brought forth in the making of the world? For some of the pious have said this, to establish that the garments of skin were not given to the first men by God from the hide of irrational animals. Answer. If in each kind there are some first parents, and the first parents are works of God, while those after the first parents are works of nature, existing through sowing and generation, then clearly God made no more than one pair, male and female, of each kind. And God made the garments of skin not in human fashion but by creation. For he did not slaughter animals and sew their skins together to make garments, but he created the garments of skin themselves. But perhaps someone will say: if God created the garments of skin after the seven days of creation, how does the divine Scripture say that God rested on the seventh day from all his works which he began to make? He rested from making, that is, from making the things that are not; the skins he now makes he does not now begin to make, but in the making of the animals their skins also came to be long ago. In the same way too: “And the Lord God formed further from the earth all the cattle and the beasts of the field, and brought them to Adam,” and so on; for “further” signifies their second creation.

[Question.] Since of old the children, and now we, when singing hymns use the word Hosanna and the word Alleluia, what is their interpretation? Answer. The interpretation of the one is, “Praise with song the One who is”; and of Hosanna, …

[Question.] If the Divine is unchangeable, how has he often rendered to both [the righteous and the wicked] what the deeds of each deserved? Answer. God, remaining unchangeably in his own perception and justice, renders to each according to desert; not doing this by finding it through a change, but having it always, he has unchangeableness in these things … and those held by insensibility or injustice, which are foreign [to him].

[Question.] If Saul, moved by pious zeal, destroyed the mediums, why was he driven to seek a prediction from a medium? And did she really bring up Samuel, since Scripture says this? And that she spoke the truth, though the act was impious, is clear. Answer. One who does something with divine zeal does not fight against God. But Saul, suspecting David, that God had transferred his kingdom to him, contrived by every means to kill David, so that the divine sentence against himself might not come to fulfillment. He destroyed the mediums expecting by this to change [God's] own sentence about the kingdom, not hating the impiety of the mediums but loving the kingdom. And since God did not accept his aim, for this reason he left him to need those whom he had destroyed with no good aim. All the other things done by the medium [took place] by the activity of the demon, who deluded the sight of the onlookers [to see] Samuel, who was not there. But the truth of the words came from God, who granted the demon to appear to the medium in the form of Samuel and to make known the future. And since Saul did not listen to Samuel, who had told him of the taking away of the kingdom, but even after the divine sentence that rejected him from the kingdom still laid claim to the kingdom, for these reasons God judged him unworthy to have the future announced to him through those dedicated to God, as he did also with Ahab king of Israel, who disbelieved the prophets of the truth; and he sent him a lying spirit, as the book of Kingdoms says; and Ahab, believing and being deceived, went out into the desert and did not return alive …

[Question.] If male and female were created for the sake of procreation, when the resurrection takes place do men rise having the distinction of the procreative parts? And if so, how is it not superfluous to bring along members that have no use? Answer. Even if the generative parts are not useful for procreation after the resurrection, yet they are useful as a reminder that through such parts men received their generation, growth, and continuance. For we are led by them to think of the great wisdom of Christ, which [devised] … the guarding of our race against death in immortality through the succession of those who are born. [54] Question. [If Moses] prophesied that this punishment would be brought on the people, why did he say these things in song, when songs are known to bring relaxation rather than profit to [the hearers]? Answer. The rhythms of the melodies were made fittingly according to the narratives contained in the songs, bringing the souls into the disposition that befits what is sung; for either mournfully …

[Question.] … of contraries the … of such … , healing of bodily diseases, and by Solomon the king, but none of the …

[Question.] If infants who die have neither praise nor blame from works, what is the difference in the resurrection between those baptized by others, who have done nothing, and those not baptized, [who have done nothing either]? Answer. This is the difference between the baptized and the unbaptized: the baptized obtain the goods that come through baptism, and the unbaptized do not obtain them; and the baptized are counted worthy of the goods that come through baptism by the faith of those who bring them to baptism.

[Question.] If Moses set out for us the creation of two heavens, how does Scripture teach us that there are more? At one time it says, “The heavens of the heavens”; at another, “The heavens were opened to him”; and, “I see the heavens opened”; and, “He was caught up to the third heaven” — and it did not say, “to the third part of heaven,” but absolutely, “to the third heaven”; and you will find many things like these in Scripture. How then do they not say things contrary to one another, and yet speak truly in both? Answer. Moses said “heavens,” but did not give a number, neither one nor two nor more. But the divine Scripture was going to name the spaces lying above in part “heavens,” as in “the birds of heaven,” “an eagle from heaven,” and “the stars of heaven.” From the sequence of the words used, then, we understand that the heavens are two in substance, but more in respect of spaces; and when the heavens are understood in this way, there is no contra[diction] …

[Question.] If to attribute ignorance to Christ is impious, clearly he has perfect foreknowledge of all things. How then is he not the cause of the betrayal by Judas and of the sworn denial by Peter, he who foreknew these things and did not prevent them? And the same argument would fit the fall of the devil and of the first-formed man from God. Answer. If Christ had to be betrayed by one of his disciples, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, clearly … of the Scripture, and not of the betrayal by Judas. For of this Judas himself was the cause; and God, foreseeing it as future, foretold it through Scripture. And foreknowledge is not the cause of what will be, but what will be is the cause of the foreknowledge. For what is future does not follow foreknowledge, but foreknowledge follows what is future; and in no way is the one who foreknows the cause of what will be. So Christ is not the cause of the betrayal, but the betrayal is the cause of the Lord's foreknowledge. And the same argument holds for the devil and the first-formed man. [59] Question. [If the luminaries are] hidden …, how is the heaven not shown to be a sphere? For the divine man among the philosophers said: “… by body. This, then, which lies upon the earth; and the one, because it is light, moves upward, and the other, because it is heavy, moves downward. Therefore, because of their counterpull, they are held together by one another.” If this is true, of the whole heavenly vault … to shine always, how then are they hidden? Answer. If, admittedly, many things that are on one and the same level plane are hidden from sight because of the length of the distance — as ships at sea are not seen by one another, since the breadth of the surface of the waters bounds the sight so that it does not reach beyond the horizon — what wonder if the hiding of the luminaries also happens for the same reason? As for heaven and earth standing because of the counterpull of heaven and earth, this can be conjectured of the first heaven and the earth, because they came into being together; but of the firmament and the earth it is no longer possible to suppose it. For the earth stood before the firmament, bearing all the moist substance without any counterpull of the firmament; for the firmament came into being after the earth.

[Question.] If difference of forms is useful to us here because of the needs of the body, occupations, and dealings, and the body rises without needs at the resurrection, then if we rise with the same difference of forms, how is it not useless? But if we rise in the same likeness, what is the proof of this? And how does the parable of Lazarus and the rich man not show the difference of forms? For it is quite clear from it. And if some should say that some knowledge was given him for recognizing Lazarus and Abraham, how will they establish this also in the Lord's case, when the bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep rose and appeared to many? Surely in their own form, [to those who had known them]. Answer. There are many reasons why those who rise must rise in their own form. First, to show the great and divine knowledge of God, who is able, in so countless a multitude of those rising, to preserve to each his own form. Then, so that he may not be thought to create new men instead of raising the dead, for this reason each of those rising has his own form. For if the forms of the wrongdoer and the wronged were unknown, the justice of the judgment would perish. Further, if, when the needs are dissolved because of which the difference of forms became necessary, this difference is found superfluous and useless, superfluous and useless too is the difference of names. How then does the rich man call Abraham and Lazarus by name, if the persons are not known by the difference of names? The narrative about Lazarus and the rich man is neither a parable nor a history. For a parable is a speech containing a likeness of something that has happened to what will be, and a history is a speech that narrates … [serving the illumination of the universe, so that the luminaries exist and shine always] … For neither before the resurrection does the requital of what each has lived take place, nor after the resurrection is it true that “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” The narrative about Lazarus and the rich man is a sketch of a teaching that men cannot, after the departure of the soul from the body, obtain any benefit by any provision or effort. [61] Question. [If God alone has immortality,] according to the Apostle, how is it true, according to him, that “We shall not all sleep”? Answer. God is said to be the only one who has immortality because he does not have it from the will of another, … but according to [his] essence.

[Question.] If the luminaries were made on the fourth day, and the number of days is made up from them, how do the three days before the bringing forth of the luminaries not make doubtful the number of days after the bringing forth of the luminaries? Answer. From the bringing forth of the light came the separation of light and darkness; and from the separation of light and darkness, day and night came to be. Before the making of the luminaries, the prevailing of light according to the limit set by God made the day, and the prevailing of darkness made the night. When the luminaries came into being, they were appointed to rule, the one over the light and the day, the other over the darkness and the night. For the Creator allotted the light with its fixed prevailing to the greater of the luminaries; and such days as the light now makes with the luminary, such it made also before the making of the luminaries, by the limit of God, who fixed its prevailing at twelve hours. That limit urges the sun on to the measured twelve-hour course it has had from the beginning.

[Question.] Since some have interpreted variously and obscurely the words, “In the sun he set his tent,” teach us their clear meaning. Answer. We said above that the divine Scripture is accustomed to call heavens either those that are heavens in substance, like the first heaven and the firmament, or the spaces in the air. “In the sun he set his tent,” then, means: he set the heavens as a tent for the sun. For the rendering of the phrase from the Hebrew tongue into the Syrian tongue was made thus: “In them he set the tent of the sun.” The prophet David shows this very thing in another psalm, saying, “Who stretches out the heaven like a skin” (for the stretching out of skins makes a tent) … by the variety of their substances and the difference of their uses showing them to be generated. For the unbegotten nature has no difference by nature in relation to the [unbegotten] nature; and being of this kind or that for the sake of a need is foreign to the [unbegotten] nature. [64] Question. [If, as Jonah was in the belly] of the sea monster for three days, so too Christ was in the heart of the earth, how did not the Lord's death happen in mere appearance? For Jonah did not die, but was thought to have died. But if the Lord truly tasted death, how is the example of Jonah not proved false? Answer. He did not compare death with death, but the Savior's three-day stay in the tomb with Jonah's three-day stay in the sea monster. Besides, if the things of Jonah were like those of the Savior in all respects, they could no longer be a type or image of them. The truth must have something more than the type, according to what was said: “Something greater than Jonah is here.” The example of Jonah is understood to be true of the Savior in this way: as Jonah had, as a sign giving faith that he had been sent by God as herald of the overthrow of the Ninevites, his being brought up from the sea monster on the third day, so too the Savior had, as a sign giving faith that he was sent by God as herald of the kingdom of heaven, his resurrection from the tomb on the third day.

[Question.] Since some say that the Lord's betrayal took place on Wednesday, conjecturing this from the number of things that were done at that time, what is the proof of the day on which the betrayal took place? Answer. The proof that Christ was betrayed not on Wednesday but on Thursday is this: in the night in which he was betrayed, in that same night he was tried and condemned by the high priests and elders; and in the morning that followed that night they handed him over to Pilate. And on the day on which Pilate received him, on that day he also crucified him: having received him on the morning of the Preparation, he crucified him at the sixth hour of the same Preparation. One must not, then, … For Matthew the evangelist says: “[When morning came,] all the high priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death; and having bound him, they led him away and handed him over to Pontius Pilate the governor.” Likewise John the evangelist says: “They lead Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium; and it was early”; and again: “When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat on the judgment seat at a place … It was the Preparation of the Passover, and the hour was about the sixth.” If, then, he was betrayed in the night, and was tried and condemned by the high priests, and in the morning was handed over to Pilate, and was crucified at the sixth hour of the Preparation, it is clear that the betrayal took place on Thursday. [66] Question. [If Christ calls himself son] of man, and not of a woman, … and for this reason unbelievers try to show that the Lord's birth came about from marital union; for “of man,” they say, is the name not of a female but of a male: by what arguments, then, shall we refute such an insult, vainly spoken? [Answer.] [If from marital union] the Lord's birth had come about, Scripture would not have said, “Being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph.” For “as was supposed” has no place to be said of those born from marital union. And to overturn, by one unclear and deficient expression, all those expressions that clearly announce that Christ was born of the Holy Spirit and of Mary the virgin is most absurd. To refute their vain attempt we use arguments such as these. If, because Christ did not call himself son of a woman, he is not for this reason son of a woman, then because he did not call himself son of some man, he is not son of some man. But if Christ is not the son of some man, necessarily he is not son of man at all. Further, if, as Joseph was reckoned son of Heli according to the law without marital union, God having wished to give Joseph as son to Heli in this way, what is absurd in giving a son without marital union to Joseph too in the same way? For this reason divine grace arranged beforehand that the Virgin be [betrothed] to a man who had two fathers, one by nature from marital union, the other according to the law without marital union; prefiguring in his begetting the begetting of Christ, who was born of the Holy Spirit as Son to God, and born of Joseph's wife as son to Joseph. “The Holy Spirit,” it says, “will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore also the holy one born of you will be called, to the Lord, Son of God.” But if the one born of Heli's wife is son of [Heli] according to God's law, much more is the one born of Joseph's wife, by divine good pleasure, son of Joseph without marital union.

[Question.] Since Isaiah, prophesying about the Master Lord, says, “Who will declare his generation?”, is this saying to be taken of a generation hard to declare or not to be declared at all, and of the Godhead or of the flesh? … how is the [genealogy] of Christ [traced], and is its manner in Scripture? [Answer.] … [from the Holy Spirit] and the virgin Mary; but his birth according to the Godhead is without genealogy; therefore … the indescribable or hard-to-describe character of the birth.

[Question.] If the soul of man is not his blood (though when the blood is shed the living being perishes), by what arguments and examples is it shown that there is a soul in the body, or something else in creation that is invisible? [Answer.] … of creation, which distinguish soul from body, ought not to demand examples more trustworthy than these to establish the truth of what is sought. For giving the devil authority over the whole bodily constitution of Job, to strike it as he wished, while preventing him from touching his soul, shows that the incorporeal soul is something other than his stricken flesh. Likewise too, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” shows that there is something of the slain man that remains in immortality even after the death of the body. So it is absurd to call the blood that is shed and corrupted the soul. It is clear, then, that the soul is by its own nature invisible to men.

[Question.] Why does the number seven bring change? For on the Sabbath the air usually changes; and man's progress in age takes its increase in this number, the teeth growing in the seventh month and being changed in the seventh year; and when the number is doubled, men acquire seminal power; and, to put it briefly, the number seven produces the growth and the end of men, determines the crisis of diseases, and has gained in the law more honor than the other numbers. Answer. The fulfillment of the works of nature takes place according to the power of nature, and not according to a span of time fixed by a week of months or years. Therefore nature often brings the works of nature named in the question to their completion sooner or later than seven; which would not happen if nature followed the seven, and not the seven nature. The seven, then, is not the cause of the fulfillment of the works of nature; rather the power of nature is the cause of the seven, … for nature to accomplish its own works. Likewise concerning the other numbers of months and years by which the work of nature is fulfilled in the other animals and plants, the power of nature is the cause of the equal time, and of the longer and the shorter. The number seven is more honored in the divine Scripture than the other numbers because in it lies the whole time of the making of the world and of the rest of him who made it: six for the making, one for the rest. So that the memory of the making of the world might be kept among men, for this reason he ordained that the number seven should be found more honored than the others in the divine Scripture. [70] Question. If rejoicing and exulting in gifts is forbidden as [a mark] of pride, and humility and gentleness are handed down by the divine Scripture to those who have received them, how are the gifts not useless to them, since they cannot give them a perception of their own good in the present? Answer. [Scripture] forbids rejoicing in gifts with pride, as destroying good rejoicing; but rejoicing in gifts with gentleness it not only does not discourage, but on the contrary encourages such joy: at one time the Savior saying, “Rejoice that your names have been written in heaven”; at another the Apostle saying, “Brothers, rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known,” showing the intensity of the joy. Neither, then, does joy destroy gentleness, nor does gentleness destroy the perception of joy, but each is preserved by the other.

[Question.] Since some, conjecturing about the constitution of the world, have said that it will stand for only six thousand years, let us learn whether this is true and is shown by clear examples, or from the divine Scripture, or whether it is unknown. Answer. It is possible to learn through many words of Scripture that the time of the present constitution of the world is [six thousand] years: at one time it says, “In these last days he has spoken to us in a Son”; at another, “On whom the ends of the ages have come”; at another, “When the fullness of time came.” All such words were spoken in the sixth …

[Question.] If each person is shown to be ungrudging when he bestows on his neighbors what he knows to be good, if it is possible, how is God not grudging, when he is able to make all beings gods and does not make them so, since God is good? But if he is not grudging, but did not do this because he is unable, one of the two is necessary. Answer. [Ungrudgingness is shown] in those who bestow on their neighbors the good things they can do or know. For a neighbor of God would not need God for provision; for he would have equality with him in all things. Further, if God made only gods, he would not have made the world. For the world necessarily needs parts that differ from one another in position, above and below. Further, if nothing impossible comes to be, and it is impossible for a god to come to be (for God is uncreated and unmade), how is it not irrational to say that God is ungrudging only when he makes what is not possible? Further, God is good because he is uncreated and creator; but nothing created is God. This question resembles the argument that says: “The eye is good and more honorable than the feet; but if God is ungrudging, why did he not make the feet eyes?” For this argument too leads to the same irrational absurdity, that God did not make the feet eyes either from envy or from inability.

[Question.] If the good appears good when it is compared with the bad, and the world is good, clearly the not-world, that is, what was before the world, is bad. And if both are from God, that is, what was before the world and the world, how are not both from him, that is, the good and the bad? But if one is from him and the other is not from him, how is what is not from him not spontaneous and not under him? And how does he speak truly who says, “From him are all things”? For among all things are both the things that formerly did not exist and the things that now exist. Answer. Evil is nothing other than the turning aside from the good; therefore evil is later than the good, for it is a turning aside from the good. And this shows that the good appears good not from comparison with the bad, but from its own nature. And what was before the world, not being, in no way was; it was neither good nor bad; therefore nothing is compared with what so is not. Further, what in no way is is neither from God, nor from another, nor spontaneous. Before the world, then, there was nothing other than God. Since comparison is of things that are with things that are, the world is not compared with the not-world, nor is the not-world contained in the world. For the not-world is nothing; but what is contained is something. And when we say [that God made the world] from what is not, … we give no being to what is not, but [affirm] the complete abolition of what is not. [74] Question. [If, now that Hellenism has been overthrown] by Christianity, Hellenism has no hope of recall, how has the true religion, once conquered by Hellenism, now received recall? For that the truth prevailed before error the divine Scriptures bear witness, showing that Adam and many after him served not idols but God, even if some of them … Answer. If the end of the present order is the judgment of the impious by fire, as the Scriptures of the prophets and apostles say, and also those of the Sibyl, as the blessed Clement says in his letter to the Corinthians; and this judgment takes place through Jesus Christ, who was crucified by the Jews, who reigns eternally over the Christians with an endless kingdom given to him according to the prophet Daniel; for this reason Hellenism has no hope of recall. Besides, if Hellenism, once the dominion by which it held the people of God was dissolved, never took it again, how does it not now expect in vain the recall of its old dominion? And why does Hellenism expect the recall of its old dominion? Surely so that by tortures it may compel Christians to abandon the worship of and faith in the Son of God and turn to follow the religion of the demons. But these tortures, which Hellenism used before, expecting through them to keep itself undissolved, put an end to Hellenism and [established] Christianity …

[Question.] If [until the raising of the bodies the soul, separated from the body,] does not receive [its rewards], is it then in the meantime subject to examination until the resurrection of the bodies? Answer. The state that souls have here with the body they do not have after their departure from the body. [Displaced words of the question: … until the raising of the bodies the soul, separated from the body, does not receive its rewards, is it then in the meantime subject to …] For here all things of the union are common to the just and the unjust, and there is no difference among them in this respect, such as being born and dying, being healthy and being sick, being rich and being poor, and the other things like these. But after the departure from the body the distinction between the just and the unjust takes place at once. For they are led by the angels to places worthy of them: the souls of the just to paradise, where there is meeting with and sight of angels and archangels, and in vision also of the Savior Christ, according to what was said: “Away from the body and at home with the Lord”; and the souls of the unjust to the places in Hades, according to what was said about Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon: “Hades below was embittered when it met you,” and so on; and they are kept in the places worthy of them until the day of the resurrection and the requital.

[Question.] If before the resurrection there is no requital of deeds, what benefit did the thief gain when his soul was brought into paradise, especially since paradise is perceptible, but the essence of the soul is not perceptible? Answer. The thief who entered paradise gained the benefit of learning by experience the usefulness of faith, through which he was counted worthy of the assembly of the saints, in which he is kept until the day of resurrection and requital. And he has perception of paradise by what is called intellectual perception, by which souls see themselves and the things beneath them, and further the angels and the demons. For a soul does not understand or see a soul, nor an angel an angel, nor a demon a demon [by bodily sense], but by the intellectual perception mentioned they see themselves and one another, and further all bodily things. [77] Question. [If it is through the] senses that the soul receives the perception of perceptible things, and good and bad things are perceptible, how is the soul, once separated from the body, not without perception? But if it is without perception, clearly it has become dead; for insensibility distinguishes the dead from the living and … Answer. All created and rational substances have twofold powers of apprehension, sensible and intelligible: the one called intellective, by which they apprehend themselves and one another; the intelligible, by which they receive knowledge of what is beside them. Souls, then, … not by the cooperation of the body … The soul, providing perception by its presence, makes the living being perceptive; with respect to the living being it is perceptive, but with respect to itself it is perceiving; and the soul never becomes dead. For deadness belongs to the ensouled being, and not to the soul. It is the ensouled being, then, that needs the cooperation of the body for apprehending perceptible things; and ensouledness and the soul are different, the one by participation, the other by essence.

[Question.] If God declared David to be after his own heart, how did the same prophet afterwards commit adultery and murder? And if these things are hated by God as evil, why did God establish the prophet's line from the adulteress, and make the Master Christ descend from her? And if this is so, how does Scripture speak truly in saying, “Children of adulterers will not come to maturity”? Answer. David, who corrected his own faults through repentance, was found even after this to be after the heart of God, who does not wish the death of sinners so much as that they turn and live. The child he begot adulterously by the wife of Uriah God put to death, because children of adulterers do not come to maturity; but those born after him he did not put to death, because David took her as wife fittingly after the death of Uriah. Honoring repentance, God established David's line in those born of Uriah's wife, and for the same reason [traced] Christ from [her] … [79] Question. If of all the kings of Israel and Judah Josiah showed the most fervent zeal for piety, breaking the pillars of the idols, burning to ashes the bones of the pagans together with their idol altars, cutting down utterly the groves of error, stopping those who sacrificed on the high places, raising up the worship of God, and making the people celebrate the feasts of the law splendidly, as Scripture testifies; and [he ended] his life by a pagan sword, while long life was given to the pagans, how would the pagans not speak truly about these things, that because of his offenses against their objects of worship such a bitter end met him? And where shall we find him receiving rewards for such great achievements? And for what benefit to those after him …? Answer. [The time of reward] for those who achieve great things in piety with virtue is not the present age but the age to come, in which the rewards await for ever those who expect them. Josiah received a painful end of life because he disobeyed the command of Jeremiah, who told him by God's command not to go out to meet the king of Egypt in war, as Jeremiah says. So that the Master God might take him from life pure of sins, he allowed him to pay the penalty for this disobedience by a pagan sword, for the instruction of the men who came after: both not to disobey the prophets, and that “If the righteous is scarcely saved, where will the sinner and the ungodly appear?” And his sons, … [had they kept the piety] of their father and still become captives, the pagans' argument would have had some ground, that because Josiah offended against the objects of the idols' worship his sons became captives. But if they departed from their father's piety and took up the worship of the idols, and were taken captive while practicing idolatry, the pagans' argument is plainly false.

[Question.] If Scripture teaches us to be long-suffering toward all, how did Elisha not err in killing by a curse those who insulted him as bald, and bringing on them death by wild beasts in return for a mere insult against himself? Answer. When through long-suffering … [severity rather than] long-suffering is especially more useful for the incorrigible. One must not, then, slander the prophet for his severity. For he had found that long-suffering did not give sinners a perception of their sin; and the children had been taught by their parents the words with which they dishonored the prophet, which they always used against the prophets to mock the taking up of Elijah, as if saying, “Let a spirit take you too and throw you onto some inaccessible mountain, as it threw him, so that we may be rid of you as we were rid of him.” For this reason he scourged the parents by the destruction of the children, so that they might learn not to dishonor the prophets, and through them God. [81] Question. [If the power of the demons] has been abolished [by Christ's coming], how do the demons speak through the so-called ventriloquists? And how do they not present Christianity as cheap and worthy of contempt, when in the bodies of Christians they display the works of deceit and utter the oracles of divination? Answer. If, according to what was said, all things are not yet subjected to him, until he abolishes all rule and authority, so that it is clear that not yet has all the error of the demons been abolished, yet in those by whom Christ is believed the error of the demons has been abolished; but in those by whom Christ is still disbelieved the demons work their error. And the phantoms that the ventriloquists use to speak and do the words and works of divination are not real bodies; the demons delude the sight of the onlookers, so that they see as bodies what are not bodies.

[Question.] If Scripture nowhere showed men names of demons, how did the Jews in the Lord's time name the name of Beelzebul as something known, saying that he cast out demons by him? And how did the Master himself say to the disciples, as to those who knew the demon's name, “If they called the master of the house Beelzebul”? And what is the interpretation of such a name? Answer. As men learned of the existence of demons from the demons themselves, so they were taught their names by them. For men first sacrificed to demons, and afterwards the divine Scripture said, “They sacrificed to demons and not to God.” And just as Scripture appears to have said nothing about the existence of demons, yet says, “They sacrificed to demons and not to God,” so too, having said nothing about their names, it speaks the names of the demons, Beelzebul and Belial: “What accord,” it says, “has Christ with Belial?” For the names that the enchanters used for the works they had in hand they necessarily learned from the demons. For according to the manner of their [magic] they named the title of their invocation. The interpretation of these names has been given by Origen in the Interpretation of the … [83] Question. [If God] took no pleasure [in sacrifices], as some have said and the present state of things teaches, why before the law did he command Noah to sacrifice, especially when there were not yet idolatrous [sacrifices]? But if he took pleasure in them, why after the law did their use cease? Answer. None of those who sacrificed irrational animals to God before the law sacrificed according to a divine ordinance, even if God appears to have accepted the sacrifice, showing by accepting it that the one who sacrificed was [pleasing] to him. And what he commanded Abraham, to take a three-year-old animal, and likewise the ram that he offered in sacrifice in place of Isaac, he commanded not as taking pleasure in their sacrifices, but for the sake of foretelling things to come. And God nowhere appears to have commanded Noah to offer him the sacrifice of irrational animals. [84] Question. [If Elisha asked for a double share of Elijah's spirit, how is he shown to have] done double miracles? [Elijah's were] restraining the rain, oppressing the earth with famine, bringing down heavenly fire upon sacrifices, slaughtering the lawless priests, [consuming] the captains of fifty, and the rest. From where, then, will Elisha be shown to have obtained his own request and Elijah's promise? Answer. Elisha did not ask for the double share of the spirit in order to do the same works twice over, but in order simply to be able to accomplish, with a greater abundance of power, whatever needed to be done by him. That he did not fail in his request the miracles done through him bear witness, of which he accomplished some doubled and some single. For raising two dead men, one while he was alive and one after he had died, showed the double measure of the abundance of the divine grace of the Spirit in him, if he wished it, in the other miracles too. And with Elijah the gift of oil was for need, but with Elisha it was even beyond need. And Elijah brought fire down from heaven to defend himself against enemies, but Elisha brought down horses and riders of fire from heaven to help Israel. [85] Question. [If at the resurrection] the complete man rises, how does Scripture say after the Lord's passion that many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised? It did not say this of the others whom the Lord raised, such as Lazarus, the widow's son, or Jairus' daughter, but absolutely that he raised this man or that girl. How then does it mention a resurrection of bodies only in the case of these, and add that they appeared to many? This gives most people the suspicion of a phantom. And teach us whether bodies without souls really rose, and whether they lived on, or died at once, or remain in immortality, and where, and what benefit they give to those after them from what happened to them. Answer. If we call this the complete resurrection of men who rise, when the souls are settled again in the bodies of those who rise, clearly all who rose and who are to rise by the Lord rose complete. For it is impossible for a resurrection of the dead to take place without the soul being settled again in its own body. Even if the divine Scripture says, “So-and-so rose from the dead,” or, “Bodies rose from the dead,” we must understand by either expression the complete resurrection, which takes place by the restoring of the soul to the body. And just as when the divine Scripture says, “He who raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead will give life to our souls and bodies,” it neither speaks of an incomplete resurrection nor admits a suspicion of a phantom, but [teaches] faith in a complete resurrection; so too when it says, “Many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised from the dead,” it speaks of the complete resurrection. The resurrection of these saints was a proof that the death of Christ … of all men, to those in the present [age] … and to all the souls in Hades. For this reason they did not die again, but remain in immortality, like Enoch and Elijah, and are with them in paradise, awaiting the [resurrection] that takes place by change through the resurrection of Christ, which is already eternal; according to which, as the divine apostle says, “All [will be changed].” For no one's resurrection to immortal and incorruptible life has yet taken place except that of the Savior Christ; therefore he is proclaimed firstborn of the dead and firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. [86] Question. What is the meaning of the mina, the hin, the gebel, the gomor, the shekel, the royal [shekel], the holy [shekel], the stater, the drachma, the quadrans, the … , the didrachma, the talent, the assarion, the seraphim, the … , the Sabaoth, the Adonai, the ephod? For knowledge of both [the words and the measures] is necessary to us, since each is contained in Scripture. Answer. The interpretation of all the Hebrew [words] or measures found in the divine Scriptures has been given by Origen, a man who knew the language of the Hebrews. If you look for that work, you will find in it the interpretation of all that you have asked. [87] Question. [If from the beginning of his] preaching the Master shone with the doing of miracles, as Matthew says, and the report of him spread over all in Judea, how, after the death of the Forerunner, did Herod with the Jews, hearing of the miracles done by Christ, say that it was John who had returned to life and was doing the signs? For the blessed Mark narrates these things. Answer. That not all who heard heard of all the miracles done by the Savior at one time, but some earlier and others later, is witnessed by the words of those who said that John was the worker of the miracles done by the Savior after John's death; for they would not have said this if they had heard of the miracles done by the Savior before John's death. There was, then, nothing wonderful if Herod too, after John's death, heard of the works of Jesus' disciples, those done in Jesus' name. For Herod heard the name of Jesus at the time when Jesus sent his disciples into the villages and cities to preach repentance and heal diseases, as Mark the evangelist says. Indeed John himself, before the raising of the widow's son, had not heard of all that Jesus did in Galilee and Jerusalem, though many miracles had already been done by the Savior, both before John was cast into prison and after he was cast into prison. For it was then that John sent his disciples to Jesus to learn, “Are you the one who is expected to come?”, as Luke the evangelist says … [88] Question. [If, as Scripture says] and we have believed, Christ when born did no sin, how again does Scripture speak truly when it cries out with an oath, “No one has been born who did not sin, nor has anyone come into being who did not transgress”? And every infant that met its end at the time of its birth, or received a short span of life, could [neither] commit sin and lawlessness nor do the opposite … Answer. “No one has been born who did not sin, nor has anyone come into being who did not transgress” does not show to be false what was said of Christ, “He committed no sin.” For this saying was spoken of one born of man and woman; but Christ was born of the Holy Spirit and the holy Virgin. The saying is to be understood thus: no one who is of a nature to sin or transgress has failed to sin or transgress. He is of a nature to sin who by his own self-chosen will leads himself to do what he wishes, whether good or bad. But the infant, since it does not yet have such power, clearly is not of a nature to sin. And “Who will be clean from filth? Not one, even if his life on earth be one day” in no way fits the infant; for “life” is said in the sense of “way of life”; and as the infant has no way of life, neither has it a life [in this sense].

[Question.] If the vessel that Peter saw in the vision contained the clean birds … , as Scripture hands down to us, … “all” is a word that includes both of those mentioned, as it stands; then, [commanded] to sacrifice and eat of those shown, he refused, saying, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything common or unclean”: how is he not shown by such words to forbid all irrational animals as unclean, and to blame the one who permitted eating them, as unclean? Answer. From Peter's answer we learn what the things in the sheet were, namely the unclean only; and the word “all” does not necessarily include the clean too; for “all the quadrupeds and birds of the earth” can be said of the unclean. And “By no means, Lord, I have never eaten anything common or unclean” he answered at the sight of all the things shown to him in the sheet, and not about some of them. The vessel, then, in which were all the birds and quadrupeds … is spoken of with “unclean” left out, instead of: in which were all the unclean birds and all the quadrupeds of the earth. And as, when the divine Scripture says, “The head of every man is Christ,” the word “every” does not include the believing and the unbelieving man, but the believer only (for the believing man is the body of Christ, and Christ is called the head of the believing man), so the word “all” does not include clean and unclean, but the unclean only, by which the reception of the unclean nations was foreshown to Peter, whose hearts God cleansed by faith in Christ.

[Question.] If the patriarchs, moved by pious reasoning, took wives for themselves and their sons from their own kin, how did Joseph and Moses not act against the pious aim of their forebears, the one taking an Egyptian wife and the other a Midianite? [Answer.] [The patriarchs, fearing lest their sons be turned away] from piety, did not permit them to take wives from the gentiles; but Moses and Joseph were above such fear. So Moses and Joseph do not appear to have done anything against the aim of the fathers in taking gentile wives. For not only were they themselves not turned away from piety by their wives, but they even brought their wives over to their own …

[Question.] If before the transgression Adam had not seen the death of any rational or irrational being, how was he afraid of the death that was threatened, which he had not seen, as though he had seen it? And how did God threaten it as something known, when it was unknown to him? Answer. If we call rational the one who has in himself the notions of the things signified [by names] … , clearly Adam too, being rational, had in himself the notion of death. And just as Adam had not seen any rational being ashamed of its own nakedness, yet when he was made naked he was ashamed, having in himself the name and the notion of shame, so he had in himself the notion of death too, even if he had not yet seen the thing in another. Therefore he reasonably feared death, knowing from his own understanding that it is opposed to life. [92] Question. Since Scripture speaks of judgments, ordinances, testimonies, and law, commandments and precepts, teach us whether these are all the same as one another, or whether each has its own meaning. Answer. By “judgments” it means the words that distinguish what is to be done from what is not to be done, and appoint honor for obedience and dishonor for disobedience; by “ordinances” it means the rightness of the judgments, which assigns to each according to desert. By “law” it means the written summary of the whole Jewish worship and way of life; and it calls “testimony” the requital, by blessing and curse, for the deeds of those who received the [law], which Moses, calling heaven and earth to witness, told the Jews would come upon them if they obeyed or disobeyed. And by “commandments” and “precepts” it means the [words] laid down by way of command, according to the emphasis of the divine authority of the one who commanded or ordained them.

[Question.] If the back of the heaven is loaded with waters, as Scripture says — which some have said was done because of the fiery substance of the luminaries, so that the heaven, enriched with the waters lying upon it, might remain unconquered by the flame of the luminaries beneath it — how do those who say this speak truly, since the luminaries move not in the heaven but under the heaven? And if we say they are in the heaven, how do they have the activity of motion, when the heavenly body is immovable? But if the stars take their motion together with the heaven, how is the myth that calls the heaven a sphere not true? … [If it is not] consistent to think [this] of the luminaries, how is the existence of the waters above not useless? And what will it be at the consummation, when the righteous above and the sinners below are to receive the rewards of what is to come? Answer. Even if the luminaries are under the heaven, yet the motion of the fiery substances … those who said that the back of the heaven is loaded with waters for the preservation of the firmament have given a cause. But this is not the only cause of the waters being on the back of the heaven, that it may be unconquered by the flame of the luminaries beneath it; another is that it may be weighed down by the mass of the waters on its back, and not be shaken by the violent rush of the winds; and that extreme coldness may be sent down from them, which, mixed with the extreme heat of the sun, produces the good temperature of the air for the preservation of the animals and plants on earth. At the consummation, [the rewards will be given] not in the present heaven and the present earth … , according to what was said, “The new heaven and the new earth which I make remain before me for ever.” And again: “In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands; they will perish, but you remain; and they will all grow old like a garment, and they will be changed.” And again: “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.” The shaking shows its removal, so that the things not shaken may remain unmoved. [94] Question. [That the heaven will be rolled up like a scroll,] and that the stars will fall like leaves on the [earth], the Lord foretells, and the prophet proclaimed beforehand in agreement; how is the complete destruction of the firmament not shown by those words? What, then, is the meaning of such words, and how can the elements subsist incorruptible? Answer. As the divine Scripture compared the making of the firmament figuratively — at one time to the stretching out of a skin, saying, “Who stretches out the heaven like a skin”; at another to smoke made firm, “The heaven,” it says, “was made firm like smoke”; at another to the curve of a vault, “Who set up the heaven like a vault” — so it compares its dissolution figuratively, at one time to a scroll rolled up, at another to an element dissolved by fire, as the apostle Peter says in his second catholic letter, at another to a garment growing old. For with the bringing in of the heaven that is newly made, the firmament must be abolished, as useless for that state, so that by its destruction, at least then, the folly may be shown and refuted of those who said … that the heaven is unbegotten and eternal.

[Question.] If creation was brought forth for our need and benefit, and likewise for our need some things perish and others will put on incorruption at the consummation — cattle, birds, and beasts perish, while heaven and earth are freed from corruption; the former perish because our body rises without needs, while the elements mentioned will remain in incorruption, since we are to receive in them the requital of our deeds — how are the air and the sea not useless, if they remain incorruptible, when we will need them neither for breathing, nor for trade, nor for eating fish, nor for any other help from them, because of the body's freedom from need, as I said? Answer. If, according to the apostle Paul, God makes the form of this world pass away, clearly all the other things that came to be for the sake of the form of the world will by necessity pass away along with the form of the world; and a new heaven and earth will be brought in, in which the rewards of their deeds are to be given to the just and the unjust. And even if we do not then need the air for breathing, we shall necessarily use it for motion and change of place. For “we shall be caught up,” it says, “in clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” [96] Question. [If] praise from God [is not due to those who are good not by their own will, what praise justly owed have] those who received death from Herod … , and those who uttered the hymn when the Lord, seated on the beast, was entering the city? Answer. … those too [received] the slaughter that they received against their will; and these uttered that hymn in Jerusalem not by their own will but by divine grace. [For if] “it has been granted to us,” it says, “not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him,” and the infants too suffered for Christ, then they were counted worthy of divine grace. Who then would not praise those whom God justly praised by the gift of divine grace, he who lavishes praise even on those who are good against their will? Further, if, for the praise of those afflicted for piety, God repays affliction to those who afflict them, then the infants killed by Herod must be praised with this praise too, which comes through the avenging of afflictions. “It is just [for God] …” [Displaced end of the previous ref: “… that by its destruction the folly may be shown and refuted of all who have foolishly said that the heaven is unbegotten and eternal.” The question repeated: “If praise from God is not due to those good not by their own will, … those who received death by the sword from Herod for the Lord's sake, and those who uttered the hymn when the Lord, seated on the beast, was entering the city, what praise justly owed do they have?”] … “to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give you who are afflicted rest with us” … in his kingdom.

[Question.] If grace is called grace because it is readier [to forgive] than the provisions of the law, how are the things that befit grace found rather in the law? For the law, by certain sprinklings and sacrifices of irrational animals and different washings, releases from blame those who stumble day by day; but grace grants one baptism only. If we fell into faults only once, we would need forgiveness only once. But since we sin many times, clearly we need forgiveness many times; and this not grace but the law provides, through the sprinklings mentioned and the rest. How then will grace be shown to be more loving toward sinners than the law, if things are as I said? Answer. The law gives release, through washing and sacrifice, from such faults as contribute nothing to the harm of the way of life and the life of men: for example, touching a corpse or a leper or something of the kind. But for the other faults, committed to the harm of the way of life or the life of men, the law gives no pardon for such faults, either through washing or through the sacrifice of irrational animals, but gives to those who stumbled a just and fitting requital by equal retaliation: … tooth for tooth. And where equality of requital is unfitting, there it repays death by fire, or stone, or sword to the [offenders]. For the daughter of a priest who commits fornication it consumes by fire, the daughter of a layman by stone, and the married woman by the sword. And nowhere does the law have the strength, out of love for men, to save any such person through washings and sacrifices. But grace has great strength for the [salvation] of sinners. For even while the law held sway, if grace had not overtaken the man in his sins, opening to him the door of repentance, he would not have found with the law a saving love for sinners. Grace established in the world for sinners a proven physician, repentance, which heals them, if only they are willing to use the will to repent.

[Question.] If the Lord shows by what he says that fear is not [good] — for he says, “He who fears is not perfected in love” — how again does the same teach the disciples, saying, “Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna”? Answer. “He who fears is not perfected in love” was not said by the Lord, even if the one who said it said it according to the Lord; and “Fear rather him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna” was not said to abolish perfect love. For he who by the greater fear of God dissolves the lesser fear of men does this through love of God; so that the greater fear of God exists for the sake of not falling from the things loved. For as precious as what is believed is, so much is it loved; and as much as it is loved, so much does the lover fear its loss, as long as he is in the contest for what he loves. When the contest is ended, with it ends also the fear of losing what is loved. So until then the fear of God is necessary. For fearing is not destructive of love as hating is (for it is impossible for the same person to love and hate); but the same person can both love and fear. [99] Question. [If God] commanded [sacrifices of irrational animals] to be made in the law, so that men might show their honor toward him by them, how are the Greeks shown to be more impious for sacrificing men? This, they say, was done by the ancients for the sake of greater honor, thinking the one held among them to be a god worthy of greater [honor], and honoring him with the sacrifice of rational beings. For as much as the rational is more honorable than the irrational, so much is its sacrifice more august. And this is shown more clearly by the case of Jephthah, who offered his own daughter as a sacrifice and is [numbered] by the Apostle in the letter to the Hebrews in the list of the [righteous]. Answer. [One must not] consider [only] the sacrifice offered to God in the law, that it was the blood of irrational animals, but how God received it when it was offered to him. For if he received the blood of irrational animals that was offered as if the one offering it were offering his own soul, clearly the sacrifice had the first rank because of the good pleasure of the one who so received it, and God had the first honor. That the one who offered the blood of irrational animals offered it to God as his own soul, the divine Scripture bears witness, saying: “For the soul,” it says, “of those who offer, the blood of their sacrifices is offered in the holy of holies.” Not, then, from the nature of what is offered, but from the disposition of the one who receives it, must the rank of the sacrifice and the honor of God be [judged] … because he spared the human race, not wishing to consume men offered in sacrifice day by day and to destroy the race, [he willed it] to remain, and gave their sacrifices the greatest rank. But the gods worshiped among the Greeks, being wicked and man-hating demons, delighted in sacrifices that diminished and destroyed the human race; and this is the greatest sign of the beastly inhumanity of the Greek gods and of the godlessness of the Greeks, who honor their own gods, as they say, more greatly, or rather most shamefully, by the destruction of the human race. The reason why Jephthah was numbered in the list of the pious is this. Jephthah asked for victory over his enemies; and for this victory he vowed a vow of thanksgiving without limit, to offer as a sacrifice whatever came out of his house to meet him on his return from the war. … Since, then, Jephthah, keeping his piety toward God, was shown [faithful] through the sacrifice of his daughter, for this reason his memory is in the list of the righteous. … [The devil, seeing] the open-endedness of the vow, contrived from it to set a snare of transgression for Jephthah, and moved his daughter, who was an only child, to go out of the house with the lyre to meet him, so that Jephthah, sparing his daughter, would be compelled to break his vow. But though the devil set the snare, he did not get his prey, since Jephthah held the fulfillment of the vow more important than his daughter's life. God allowed her to be offered as a sacrifice, not as one delighting in the shedding of blood, but for the instruction of those who came after, never to make an open-ended vow to God. For many absurd things are to be feared from a vow so open-ended; and God, providing that they should not happen, allowed Jephthah's daughter to become a sacrifice; which was not primarily the choice either of God or of Jephthah, but something that in a way followed from the open-endedness of the vow.

[Question.] If, to establish that the worship practiced by the orthodox is true, the Master at the beginning gave the grace of miracles in their churches, why, when the heretics, having worshiped in them, [drove out] the orthodox themselves, did the divine gifts not depart from the churches together with the orthodox? Instead, the worship of error took hold of the churches, while the gifts given by God for the growth of orthodoxy kept the same activity in the churches even under the heretics. Answer. If divine grace worked the gifts through the heretics, living or dead, what happens would cause a reasonable perplexity. But if those who work the divine miracles in the churches are saints — apostles, prophets, and martyrs — through whom God by divine works testifies to the world, then the churches belong to those through whom the miracles are accomplished, that is, to the orthodox. [101] Question. … ; and the law of knowledge is to set the lesser before the greater; which is shown more clearly to have prevailed among the Jews, who received first the teachings of the law and then those of the Gospels. How then do we not learn out of order, being taught the greater before the lesser? I mean the things of the law as lesser, and those of the Gospels as greater. For since our nature and theirs [is one], there ought to be one order of learning; since if in studies the worse things come first, the better are hindered. Answer. If our teachings had the necessity that those studies have, that unless the learning of the lesser comes first the better are hindered, [it would not be possible] to learn our teachings out of order. But since it is possible to learn our teachings even out of order, clearly our teachings are freed from that necessity. And what is freed from necessity is blameless with respect to order, however it happens. So much in reply to the sophism in the question. To the question itself we answer thus: we too are not taught out of order; but as the apostles learned, first the things of the law and later the Gospels, so they also taught us. Their own words bear witness to this, in which they proclaimed the Gospel. For everywhere they preached Christ from the law, the later from the first, and the greater from the lesser. For “The Lord our God will raise up for you a prophet from your brothers like me”; and “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet”; and “You did not abandon my soul to Hades, nor did my flesh see corruption,” are words of the law that proclaim Christ beforehand, which the apostle also used when he preached the Gospel to the Jews. As to learning, the Gospels did not differ from the law; but as to promise and fulfillment, they differ. For what is the law? The Gospel proclaimed beforehand. And what is the Gospel? The law fulfilled. … [as] the Apostle [says], “You were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands …”

[Question.] If the Creator made nothing superfluous in the constitution of our [body], how was the part of the foreskin of the Jews cut off as superfluous? And for what useful purpose did those before the coming of the Master Christ receive circumcision not in another part but in the procreative member? And why, if it was useful for them, are we not likewise [treated] with such surgery? Answer. Since [Abraham], because of his age, was in despair of begetting children from his free wife, … received the promise of procreation from God, and believed that beyond the time of his age he would be the father of a son born to him from the aged barren woman, God gave him as a seal of this [faith] the circumcision of the foreskin of the member that had become useless for procreation because of age, but through Abraham's faith had become useful for procreation. And he passed this circumcision on to the whole race that came from the father who became one beyond hope, as an indelible memorial of the faith of Abraham and of the power of God, who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not as though they were. And we too are circumcised with the circumcision of Christ through baptism, putting off Adam, through whom we became sinners and died, and putting on Christ, through whom we are justified and rise from the dead. “In whom,” he says, “[you were circumcised with a circumcision] not made with hands, in the putting off of your body …”

[Question.] If one who is commanded to do what is within his power receives praise or blame for doing it or not doing it, clearly one who does not do what is beyond his power, since it is impossible, is not accountable. How then does [God], commanding what is beyond our power, that is, not to sin, subject the sinner [to punishment], when man is incapable of fulfilling the law? And the Apostle bears witness to this, saying, “No flesh will be justified by works of the law.” Answer. What is impossible for every man is also impossible for any one man, such as flying in the air like an eagle; … and conversely, what is possible for some man, such as sailing, is possible for every man. But if, as the divine Scripture says, some under the law became blameless in righteousness, clearly it was possible for all under the law likewise to become blameless according to the righteousness that comes from the law. For the blessed apostle Paul says about himself that “according to the righteousness that is in the law, I became blameless.” And the blessed evangelist Luke says about Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth that “they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” And what is the whole righteousness according to the law? To love God above oneself, and one's neighbor as oneself; which is not impossible for men who are willing. “No flesh will be justified by works of the law,” then, is said not because of an inability to do the impossible, but because of an unwillingness to do the possible. For we use the will for what is possible, not for what is impossible; for praise or blame belongs to the things that are possible and up to us, whether they are done or not done. And a sign that we men sin through not choosing, and not through not being able, is this: not all men fall into all kinds of sin, but some fall into this kind of sin and others into that; some into more, some into fewer, and some into none, like the righteous mentioned before. This would not happen to men — to sin in one kind of sin and never to sin in another — if men sinned from an inability of nature and not from an ill will of choice.

[Question.] If in the case of crimes the law gives those who have sinned no room for repentance, but brings on them an inexorable danger, how did the prophet David, who committed adultery and murder, not obtain pardon contrary to the law? And if pardon is good, why is unpardonableness joined to the law? But if it is bad, which I do not think, how did the giver of good things grant what is bad to the prophet? Answer. If in the case of crimes the law gives no room for repentance to the one who has sinned, how was the law [said in the earlier question to be] readier and more loving toward sinners for the forgiveness of sins, since day by day it released them from blame through washing and the sacrifice of irrational animals; while now, in the present question, not a drop of love is left to the law, but unpardonableness is joined to it, bringing an inexorable danger on the sinner? Let this be said to show the contradiction between the questions. To the question itself we answer that, even if the law has unpardonableness, yet grace has given repentance to the sinner. For “Though [your sins are] like scarlet, I will make them white as snow,” and “I do not wish the death of the sinner so much as that he turn and live,” are words of divine grace, calling sinners to obedience to the law, once they have received through repentance pardon for their past sins. Pardon, then, is good and a gift of divine grace; it is neither according to the law nor against the law, but above the law and on behalf of the law: above the law, because it is grace; on behalf of the law, because through repentance it leads sinners to obedience to the law, just as also …

[Question.] If the help that comes through prayer is necessary for all men because of the weakness of their nature, but these things do not belong to the Master Christ, since he is Master and possesses power sufficient for all things, why do we learn from Scripture that Christ prayed more often than the apostles? Answer. As the Lord hungered and thirsted, though he could by the abundance of his power have endured not even these, but willingly endured the weaknesses of nature to give a mark of his human nature, so also with praying, for the same reason. For if, when he had willingly endured the weaknesses of his own nature, some dare to say that he was not of our nature, how would they not have said this very thing, [had he declined] with the abundance [of his power] to pray to God the Father? And since there was no doubt about the apostles, whether they were men, but there was going to be doubt about the Savior, for this reason the divine Scripture announced that he prayed more often than the other men. For if, having become higher than the weaknesses of the flesh through the resurrection, he intercedes with God for us as the high priest of our confession, how much more, while he was still subject to the weakness of the flesh, did he need the loud cries and the tears with which he offered his prayer to the one who was able to save him from death?

[Question.] If the flesh of all men has one [essence], and the soul one essence, how is one man slow and another sharper in understanding? But if the soul is the cause of such a difference, one must suppose the essence of souls to differ according to the difference of understanding; and if the flesh is the cause, the same argument would fit it. And if, from some humor, dry or moist, hot or cold, by excess or deficiency, the one prevails over the other, producing for instance folly or prudence, from where or how did the prevailing of such a quality come about …? Answer. Some have given as the cause of sharpness or slowness of understanding the good or bad blending of the elements of which our bodies are composed, and the proportion of the bodily organs, and they seem to have given the causes rightly. For there are some who in youth are inventive and receptive and sharp in thought, but in old age, changing to the contrary, become slow in understanding. Further, this is a sign that good and bad blending is the cause of such a share [in understanding]. Likewise those with very large heads, called heavy-headed, because they do not keep a proportion with the other parts of the body through an excess of smallness or greatness, are themselves unfit to be able [to understand] … And others are sharp and ready for grasping the things that are constituted by nature also by divine grace, as in, “The Lord gave Solomon breadth of heart like the sand by the shore of the sea”; and, “To one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge.”

[Question.] If songs were invented by unbelievers for deception, and were introduced to those under the law because of the childishness of their minds, why do those who have received the perfect teachings of grace, which are foreign to the ways mentioned, use songs in the churches like the children under the law? Answer. It is not simply singing that befits children, but singing with lifeless instruments, and with dancing and castanets; therefore in the churches the use of such instruments, and of the other things that befit children, is removed from the songs, and simple singing is left. For it sweetens the soul toward an ardent longing for what is delighted in in the songs; it lulls to sleep the passions that rise up from the flesh; it drives away the wicked thoughts cast at us by the invisible enemies; it waters the soul to bear the fruit of divine goods; it makes the contestants of piety noble in endurance amid dangers; it becomes for the pious a remedy for all the griefs of life. Paul calls this the sword of the Spirit, with which he arms the soldiers of piety against the invisible enemies. For it is the word of God, both when it is meditated and when it is sung and … the things that perfect the soul in the virtues of piety, through the church's songs, for the pious …

[Question.] If involuntary ignorance draws pardon after it, as we are taught by Scripture, how is it that the Jews of old, who crucified Christ out of ignorance, suffered very many unbearable evils, as Josephus bears witness in his account of the capture [of Jerusalem], while those of the present who disobey Christ have been driven out of their own homeland and scattered over all the earth, and given over to the nations in dishonorable slavery, as the facts proclaim more clearly than an inscribed pillar? [Scripture] establishes [their ignorance] in both cases: at one time [the Lord saying], “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do”; at another the Apostle saying, “For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” This is said about the Jews of old; and about those of the present: “I bear them witness,” he says, “that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” Answer. When involuntary ignorance is thought by the ignorant to be knowledge, then the outcome of what is done in ignorance shows whether it was in truth knowledge, or error and ignorance. And when the supposed knowledge has been shown by the outcome to be ignorance of the matter, if the one who was ignorant remains in the same ignorance, he draws no pardon after him, but inexorable punishment. But that [they crucified him] thinking him an opponent of God … , as having God [on their side] in killing him, is clear to everyone. For they would not have crucified him if they had known that after his death God would raise him from the dead. And when he was raised from the dead by God, he showed that the supposed knowledge of the Jews against Christ was in truth ignorance. Since, then, after the Lord had risen from the dead, and it had been shown that God had not agreed with the Jews in the death of Christ, and that Christ did not remain in death without rising, as those who crucified him expected, the Jews still remained in unbelief, for this reason they were not worthy of pardon. For paying money against his resurrection, considering it a theft, and forbidding the apostles to accomplish in his name the divine works done in the power of the Holy Spirit, is not the mark of an involuntary ignorance that draws pardon, but of a known and voluntary fighting against God that draws punishment. For if the Jews crucified Christ with this hope, that his teaching would not prevail and Judaism would not be dissolved, how is not the failure of both a dissolving of the Jews' involuntary ignorance concerning Christ? And “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” was said in this sense: when they know that they crucified me in ignorance, and ask for ransom from their offenses, grant it to them. For forgiveness is not given to one who thinks that his own sin is not sin but righteousness. And what Paul said, “I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge,” was said sparingly, by the condescension of the word, becoming weak to the weak, so that, according to what was said, he might save the weak.

[Question.] If God promised to give the gift of resurrection to all the dead, and all, rising from the tombs, are to stand before the Judge, how will the Lord's judging the living and the dead be fulfilled? And how will the dead be able to be judged, when their bodies lie cast in tombs and their souls are separated from their bodies? Answer. “We shall not all sleep,” it says. He will judge, then, as living those who are alive at that time, and as dead those who rise from the dead. “The hour is coming,” it says, “and now is, when all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have done good will come out to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” One should, then, consider the possibility of the thing according to the trustworthiness of the word, and not raise an irrational perplexity.

[Question.] If the Lord promised to give a hundredfold to those who leave father or mother or children and the rest, will such people then also receive a hundred wives? And since many who left the things mentioned because of the commandment died in poverty, solitude, and desolation, how has such a promise not proved false? Answer. As he speaks of fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters, meaning those who by spiritual kinship have become father and mother, brothers and sisters, so he speaks of a wife, meaning the woman who, at the time of the abandonment for Christ's sake, provides for the one who left his natural wife. And the Church of the Master Christ, which from the beginning of the Christian preaching [was attacked] by the Greeks and … opposed to it — from where [has it come to abound] in spiritual things and in [material things], if not from the divine and living voice of the Savior, which promised many times over and worked the requital in it? And from where did rich men and women, bringing their own possessions, [seek out] the anchorites in the desert and supply their wants, as we know from the history of the holy men of old, unless the Master Christ was bringing his own promise to fulfillment through them? [111] Question. [If for the resurrection] of bodies the Apostle used the example of seeds as fitting, in the letter to the Corinthians, how will those who are cut up or burned rise, since seeds do not sprout after being cut or burned? Answer. Since it is nature that produces what comes from seeds, having received a measured power from the Creator, the seeds must be suitable for producing what comes from them. Therefore, if seeds are burned or cut, they become useless to nature for producing what comes from them. But God does not have a measured power; for this reason nothing is unsuitable to him for making all that he wishes, nor is he prevented by the cutting and burning of bodies from bringing about their resurrection. For God does not work by the law and measure of nature, but by the authority of a will that is at a loss for nothing in making what it wishes to make. The Apostle used the example of seeds to give assurance of the resurrection of the dead, so that by analogy he might give assurance of the teaching on the resurrection: just as we do not disbelieve the sprouting of the seed, though we see the seed die in the earth and cast off its nature, so we ought not to disbelieve the resurrection of the dead. For God, who has given to nature to produce the sprouting through the seed, much more can himself raise the dead from death …

[Question.] If the apostles supposed the kingdom of Israel to be earthly glory and luxury and ease, as some have said, why did the Lord, when asked about it by them, not only not correct them but even confirm their ignorance, saying to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority”? For this answer confirms their question. Answer. This too is one of the things that could not be borne by the apostles before the coming of the Holy Spirit … , according to what was said: “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now; but when that Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” And having learned from the Spirit that “God will abolish both the belly and the foods,” they were brought over from the Jewish supposition to the understanding that befits the state of those who rise from the dead, in which there is neither food, nor drink, nor marriage, but the sons of the resurrection will be equal to angels. “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority,” then, does not have the form of confirming those who asked in their ignorant supposition, but of leaving in doubt both their supposition about the time and about the manner. The apostle Paul too shows the manner of that state when he says, “The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

[Question.] If we understand the perfect to be perfect when it possesses all things perfect, and the perfect in the highest degree is what admits no addition or increase in any respect, how did God, who existed before creation and afterwards made creation, thereby take on, in addition to being God, the name and the reality of creator, and receive increase and change from being God to being also creator? Answer. Being oneself is one thing, being in relation to another is another. Being oneself is non-relational; being in relation to another is relational. Since, then, God's perfection lies in his being himself, being in relation to another does not increase him. And just as being the beginning of number contributes nothing to the one for its perfection (for even when it was not the beginning of number it was perfect; and when it became the beginning of number, it was not increased), so too God was perfect before creation and was not increased after creation. Nothing, then, that comes through creation increases God (“For you,” it says, “are the same”), but [it increases] the relation he has toward creation in many ways (“You are exceedingly exalted,” it says, “above all gods”); for he is related as Father, and Master, and Judge, and Shepherd, and the like. And just as God, by not making more worlds, though he is able to make them, did not show his perfection to be imperfect by this … ; if God was not diminished by not making more worlds, then neither was he increased by making one world.

[Question.] If being in potentiality is less than being in actuality, how is the maker of the world, who was maker before the making of the world in potentiality and not in actuality, not subject to the name of diminution? Answer. Of things whose potentiality for actuality exists by some natural necessity, the potentiality is less than the actuality. But he whose potentiality for actuality exists not by natural necessity but by his own will is not subject to the name of diminution. “You purposed,” it says, “and all things are present to you.” [115] Question. [If kneeling] in prayer presents those who pray to God more than praying standing, and draws more of the divine compassion, why on the Lord's days, and from Easter to Pentecost, do those who pray not bend the knee? And from where did such a custom come into the churches? Answer. Since we ought always to remember both our fall into sins and the grace of our Christ, through which we have risen from the fall, for this reason our kneeling on the six days is a symbol of our fall into sins, and not bending the knee on the Lord's day is a symbol of the resurrection, through which, by the grace of Christ, we have been freed from sins and from the death that was put to death by them. This custom took its beginning from the apostolic times, as the blessed Irenaeus, martyr and bishop of Lyons, says in his discourse On the Pascha, in which he mentions also Pentecost, … [as equal] to the day of the Lord, for the reason given about it. [116] Question. [If the Lord, when he came out] of the tomb, left the grave clothes in the tomb, how is it that Scripture did not relate that after the resurrection he was either seen naked or obtained clothing from elsewhere? But if he appeared to those who saw him at that time neither in clothes from elsewhere nor naked, how is it true that he left the garments in the tomb? Answer. The Savior's garments the soldiers divided among themselves after crucifying him; and those brought into the tomb with him were unsuitable for the use of a living man. The garments the Lord wore after the resurrection he either created or took from elsewhere, as he also took the colt to sit on. For he could do either, create them or take them from elsewhere. And since there are many things of the Lord, said and done, whose stories the divine Scripture does not contain, necessarily the clothing after the resurrection too [is not recorded]. … it is [not] reasonable, out of all the things not recorded, to seek the cause of this one thing not recorded, nor, from its not being recorded, to construct a difficulty about the Lord's clothing, but rather to take from his power the belief concerning his clothing.

[Question.] If a dense body has its passage hindered by shut doors, how did the Lord, after the resurrection, come in to the disciples when the doors were shut? But if it is true that what was seen inside with the doors shut was a body, why was the stone lying on the Lord's tomb rolled away by the angel for the raising of the body itself? But if Scripture speaks truly in telling of the shutting of the doors, clearly not a body but a spirit came in. And if the body was sometimes a body and sometimes became spirit, how did the properties of the body's essence not undergo change? Answer. As the Lord walked on the sea not by a change from body into spirit, but by his divine power made the sea, impassable for walking, walkable, not only for his own body but also for Peter's, so by his own divine power he both came out of the tomb, with the stone lying on the tomb, and came in to the disciples with the doors shut. For the removal of the stone from the tomb did not take place for his raising, but so that … to those who saw it; [for to see] the garments of his burial, but not to see him, became the clearest proof of his resurrection. We must understand that things of equal force have the same credibility when they are granted, and the same when they are denied. Walking on the sea in an unchanged body is of equal force with coming in to the apostles in an unchanged body with the doors shut. And things beyond nature that happen in nature by divine power cannot be established by the reasoning of nature; therefore, when the disciples were terrified at such an entrance, he allowed them to touch the places of his body that had suffered, [showing] that he had made his entrance to them not by a change of the body into spirit, but in a dense body, by his divine power that makes things beyond nature.

[Question.] If God, having made all things around the circle of nature, is Master of the universe — and so David too commands us to bless the Lord in every place of the Lord's dominion, and likewise the Apostle commands us to lift up holy hands to God in every place — why do we send up our hymns and prayers to God looking toward the region of the sunrise, as though considering it an august work and a divine dwelling? And who taught Christians this custom? Answer. Since we set apart the more honorable of our things for the honor of God, and according to men's common opinion the east is more honorable than the other parts of creation, for this reason at the time of prayer we all turn toward the east. Just as we seal with the right hand, in the name of Christ, those who need this seal, because it is considered more honorable than the left, though it differs from it by position and not by nature, so too the east, as the more honorable part of creation, has been set apart for the worship of God. Making our prayers toward the east does not contradict the prophetic and apostolic word. For in every place the east is there for those who pray; and since we have our sight toward one side, we worship toward that side, as it is impossible at the time of prayer to look toward the four parts of creation. For this reason, looking toward one part of creation, we make our worship, not as to the only work of God, nor as to a part set apart as God's dwelling, but as to a place appointed for the worship we offer to God … the custom from which the Church received praying [so], and this from the holy apostles. [119] Question. If those before the flood partook neither of [anything but the fruit of trees] nor of eating meat, as some of the fathers taught, how did Abel offer of the fat of the sheep that he shepherded, and Cain likewise of the fruits of the earth that he farmed? Clearly each of them, preferring the Divine to his own food, made use of such a sacrifice. But if they brought to God things useless to themselves, how did they not insult the Ever-Existent by such an offering? For each of them laid down a costless and mocking favor. How then was Cain's sacrifice rejected but Abel's gifts [accepted]? Answer. The blessed Apostle, father of the fathers and teacher of piety, says: “Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Who shepherds a flock and does not eat of the milk of the flock?” — meaning, no one. But if no one, it is clear that Abel did not shepherd his flock so as not to eat of the milk of his flock, nor did Cain farm the earth so as not to eat of its fruits. Further, if the fruits of the earth were useless to Cain, why did he honor God with the worse and prefer himself to God with the better (for which his sacrifice was rejected), if he had no need of the fruits of the earth? But if Abel preferred God to his own need, and Cain preferred his own need to God, it is clear that each of them needed the support that came from his own labors. [120] Question. [If the kingdom of God is the res]urrection, as some have supposed, and righteous and sinners are believed to be counted worthy of it, how did Paul declare those who did forbidden things to be disinherited, saying that neither fornicators nor adulterers and [the rest will inherit the kingdom of God]? Answer. The divine Scripture is accustomed to name as the kingdom of God not the resurrection simply, but the state established after the resurrection, in which the division of those punished and those glorified takes place, God being confessed by all beyond doubt, who works glory in those glorified and punishment in those punished. “Those in the tombs,” it says, “will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who have done good will come out to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” The resurrection, then, is divided into life and judgment according to the differences of the just and the unjust. For the resurrection extends further than the kingdom of God; for the resurrection includes the just and the unjust, but the kingdom of God the just only. [121] Question. [If anathema and katathema are things] … the Old and the New Testament know, how did the blessed Peter, in the passion, … the Master? … [Teach us] about both, that is, the anathematizing and the katathematizing, and what is signified by each. [Answer.] … and set apart for God, and not taken into common use, or what is estranged from God through wickedness; but katathema is to agree with those who anathematize … [122] Question. [If time] does not hold us, how did the Lord at the wedding say, “My hour has not yet come,” and the [evangelist] about him, “No one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come”? Answer. Even if [we are not held by] hours and days, yet of the things that happen among us some happen at a suitable time and some at an unsuitable one. The divine Scripture calls the time suitable for the thing being done the presence of the hour, and the unsuitable time the absence of the hour. And since the Lord considered the time after the making of the wine suitable for departing from the wedding, for this reason before the making of the wine the Lord said, “My hour has not yet come.” And again, since at the time of the Jews' Passover the Lord had to be arrested and suffer what he suffered, for this reason it was said of him before the Passover, “No one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come”: not that the necessity of the hour prevented his arrest, but the providence of God. [For if] the Lord's arrest had been prevented by the necessity of the hour, the divine Scripture would not have added to the passage this: “Jesus withdrew into Galilee; for he did not wish to walk in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him”; nor before this would he have withdrawn into Egypt, since the necessity of the hour would have been sufficient … [123] Question. [If the good is] the best, and what is made bad is the worst of things that exist; and God is good, but man, being made bad, is the worst of all; for none of the other beings — I mean heaven and earth, air, luminaries, and the like — can be made bad … Answer. If the other things named exist for the sake of man, and things that exist for the sake of something are less than it, then man is the best, being above the things that exist for his sake. And if being made bad itself contributes something to man's improvement, man is the best in this respect too, [being exposed] by divine providence to the things that make bad … [One who] wishes to understand the good man [must] look to the end laid up for man after this life. For that is the fruit of the present life, namely endless blessedness instead of the short-lived life that is made bad. [124] Question. If the Master is the provider of each one's life, why did he not settle the souls of the pious in strong bodies? And if, storing up their rewards for them in the future, he allowed them to be afflicted in the present, why were not all the pious alike tested in afflictions, so that from this the good and the terrible might be clearly shown? But if both are found with both, how is the one who chose the better not unrecognizable? And how do all things, being borne along at random, not show the things in the world to be without providence, since there is no distinction of [pious and] impious? Answer. God did not wish to honor those dedicated to him with present things as a reward of virtue … the death of the pious is not a wage of virtue; and just as the pious are said not to be of the world, so their glory and wealth are not earthly. When, then, we see present with the pious what is present also with the impious, [let us learn] from this that present things are not worthy of the [rewards] of virtue. And if God appears at times to men to have [glorified] some of those dedicated to him, like Joseph or David, yet he did not reward their virtues by these things, but through Joseph provided for the increase of the Israelite race, and through David established the kingdom of the Spirit. The pious do not differ from the impious at all in material and bodily things; for all things are present to both, the pleasant and the painful. They differ from one another chiefly in the hope of the future and in the sufferings for piety, and then also in the divine alliances, in which God often made his own renowned: at one time dissolving the dominion of the Egyptians, at another subjecting the Canaanites to the Israelites, at another putting to sleep the boldness of the Assyrians, at another taking away the kingdom of the Babylonians, at another commanding the sun a course and a standing still contrary to nature. In these things the providence of God is shown; and in those he prepares the pious to look toward another life, in which the distinction of the just and the unjust in glory and dishonor takes place.

[Question.] If the apostle Paul forbade returning evil for evil and reviling for reviling, how did he himself do the opposite of what he said, cursing at one time the high priest and at another Alexander the coppersmith? Answer. If Paul had struck back the high priest who struck him, or harmed in return the one who had harmed [him], … [it would have come] from his own wilful wickedness … ; [then] it would not be possible to infer the holiness of the better [men from the fact that he did] what he taught. But to say what was going to happen to each from God — to the high priest, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall,” and to Alexander, “The Lord will repay him in that day” — is neither a curse nor [revenge], but predictions fitting for an apostolic man, who does not avenge himself but gives place to wrath.

[Question.] If God [honored] the pious with brilliance in this life, like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their descendants, with wealth and good children and abundant crops, from where were the same things supplied to the Greeks when they served idols everywhere? And how is Hellenism not [better] and holier, since as long as it held the cities, the cities and the fields possessed every prosperity and plenty, and this abundantly; but from the time the Christian preaching [took hold of] them, they have become empty of houses and inhabitants and of their former plenty, and, scarcely keeping the remains of the [buildings] made of old by the Greeks, [show] that they were once cities, so that each religion is shown to be the cause of each, of the old plenty and of the new desolation? Answer. From the Master God, who makes his sun rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust, the [goods] of the present life are supplied to both … , by whose providence [all] is governed; so that the righteous, seeing themselves abounding in labors for piety, but equal to the impious in the things of life, may expect another life, in which there is a difference of honor and punishment, the distribution according to the just and the unjust, as was said. That the desolations of cities and fields took place while Hellenism prevailed is witnessed by the desolation of the Babylonians and Assyrians, and of Nineveh, and of many other nations. But it cannot be shown what city or field was desolated while Christianity prevailed. And from the plenty and prosperity, the habitation and desolation, of cities and fields [no judgment can be made], since the Master God makes the supply of such things, and their removal, to all men for their benefit. The holiness of the better is judged from the good things done by them by choice. To offer men as a sacrifice to demons (“They sacrificed,” it says, “their sons and their daughters to the demons”), and to offer to idols the honor that befits God, took place while the Greeks prevailed; the prevention of such Greek impieties took place while Christians prevailed. One must, then, recognize the holiness of Christians from such things, and not from the plenty and habitation of cities and fields. And Christianity excels so much in these things … that while it prevails the world is warred upon less than it was warred upon when Hellenism prevailed.

[Question.] If what is destroyed by the destroyer perishes, and the destroyer brings about the destruction by wickedness; and very many such things are found among all the irrational living creatures, in which one can see plotting not only against one another but also against men; how does he speak truly who says that God made all things good and very good? But if he speaks truly, and yet both good and bad things exist in creation, how are not the good things recognized as belonging to a good creator and the bad to a bad creator, and two contrary principles shown to exist, as the Manichaeans say? And if the destruction of those destroyed takes place for some good, as some have supposed, how would it not have been better at the beginning to prevent their passage from non-being into being? Answer. He who inquires consistently about the Creator from the creation of living beings, rational and irrational, ought to look to the nature that, according to the Creator's limit, leads all mortal things, as into generation, so also into corruption and destruction. And if among the [irrational] animals there is no difference with respect to reason, then of things without difference the Creator is one and the same; and the destruction they suffer from plots against one another has been permitted by divine providence to befall them. For if, when they are subject to corruption and destruction both by nature and by plotting, some did not refrain from deifying them, how much more would they have been deified if they had always remained outside harm and destruction? So that, from what they suffer, they may be known for what they are, that is, unworthy of the honor and name of God, for this reason [this was permitted]. And the irrational animals came into being, some for the service of man, some for food, some for discipline, as in “I will send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the fury of things that crawl on the earth.” But if it is good for man to be fed by irrational animals, to be served by them, and to be disciplined through them, then their passage into being is good, and blameless as to wickedness, both of their nature and of their use. And if this is so, clearly all the irrational animals are the works of one good Creator. [128] Question. … [which] the enemy works in men [against] the salvation of men, contriving through these to subject them to the punishments to come … composed with another, composite; how is God uncomposite … about to be punished … and therefore … how not by wickedness of nature alone … [Answer.] … to blame the natures of the irrational animals is not reasonable. For doing good or evil belongs to those who share in reason, not to those without reason; and since the nature of the irrational animals came into being for the need mentioned before, it is clear that, as the need is good, the nature too is good.

[Question.] If what is by itself is simple, as among the letters of the alphabet, for instance iota, and what is with another is composite, for instance pi, and both are of the same essence, both the iota and the pi composed of three iotas, and [the pi] composed of three iotas is not deprived of being from … ; how is God — who is said to have the composition of two persons of the same essence, I mean Father and Son, and of one person who gives, on the face of it, the impression of a distinct essence, I mean the Holy Spirit — called one and uncircumscribed, when there is so great a distinction and division of his hypostases, or persons? Answer. Iota and pi do not differ from each other in essence. For each is a line; and a line does not differ from a line, inasmuch as it is a line. But iota differs from pi by such and such a position; and [pi] is both composite and generated. By parts and by extension in time, pi came into being through the one who put it together and made it. One must, then, when contemplating by some natural analogy him who is beyond nature, take from the analogy only those things that fit what is contemplated through the analogy: for example, both one and three belong to pi and to God; but to pi in a generated and composite way, to God in an ungenerated and uncomposite way. For he who has no one who made and composed him is neither generated nor composite. Therefore in God we speak of eternal co-existence, but no longer of composition; but in pi of composition, because of its generation by parts. Pi, then, inasmuch as it is a line, is one; inasmuch as it is pi, it is three; and God, the Trinity, [is one] in the unity of the essence, without any division and distinction in this respect, just as pi is one in the unity of the line, without any division and distinction in this respect. The difference in the holy Trinity is according to the modes of existence of the hypostases, but in pi according to the position of the line.

[Question.] If, because of the Greeks' [saying] that the heaven is a sphere and moves in place, … , or because it is fixed like a vault, or stretched out like a skin, according to Scripture, [we say that] the heaven is not in place? For as what moves, so also what is fixed must be thought to be in place. And if this is so, how shall we not have a just condemnation of one another concerning the circumscription of the heaven? And if the heaven is in place according to both, and the quality and quantity of the place are unknown to both, what more is there of condemnation and ignorance for each of those mentioned? Answer. If the Christians said that the heaven is not in place, as the Greeks say, the condemnation of each other would be equal, since both say that the heaven is not in place and yet use to one another expressions that signify that the heaven is in place. But if it is impossible that the heaven is a sphere and moves spherically, while it is shown to be possible that it is like a vault, then there is no condemnation of the Christians for ignorance. As to its place, [we speak] from what we conjecture about it from the things among us: as among us, when a round body, smooth and hollow, equal in circumference on every side, is placed upside down on the waters, it is borne up by the waters, in this way the heaven is borne up by the waters. “Who set up,” it says, “the heaven like a vault.” By the name of vault it indicated the roundness of the body of the heaven. The waters, then, bear the heaven, the earth bears the waters, and the divine command bears the earth: “Who hung,” it says, “the earth upon nothing.” [131] Question. [If Matthew and] Luke, in giving the genealogy of the Lord according to the flesh, wrote, the one the genealogy according to nature and the other the genealogy according to the law, because in this way [the arguments] against the Jews are established, how is the blessed Luke not shown to fight with Matthew, since he set out in his own Gospel more fathers of Christ according to the law than according to nature, though the contrary ought to have been written by him? For one must reckon those by adoption fewer than the fathers by nature. For it is possible to become [father] according to the law … when the natural father who begot the child has died. How then, as I said, … is it reversed in the evangelists, and Luke, who ought to name the [fathers] of Christ according to the law as equal to, or rather fewer than, those according to nature, … and [if] such a [wife] was also barren, how is he found naming more fathers? And if they are found fighting with themselves and with one another in the genealogy, how will they be able to have credibility in the rest of what they say about the Savior, provoking from the very beginning to contradiction the one who wishes with reason to join our religion? Answer. In the genealogy according to Luke, Heli alone is the father of Joseph according to the law; and from Heli to Nathan all who are set below are sons by nature of those placed above them, because of the relation that Heli has with Joseph: Joseph alone [is his son] according to the law, and all the others according to nature. This being so, all the slander about the evangelists' contradicting each other, which comes from the misunderstanding of those men, is abolished …

[Question.] If, according to the law of Moses, the brother of one who died childless [takes his wife, raising up seed] by nature to himself but by law to his brother, then if it happened that the surviving brother had a wife, did he take, together with her, also the wife of his dead brother as wife? And how is this not absurd? [If he did not,] the marriage would [not] bring absurdity and uselessness, and the command of the law would be shown absurd in every way, since the dead man would not receive the memorial through procreation. And what benefit comes to the dead man, that through another's procreation he is named, after his end, father of another's offspring? Answer. Since the law did not forbid the Israelites to take [more than one] wife if they wished, there is nothing absurd or harmful in taking [another] wife, since the law is not broken. For all absurdity lies in the transgression of the law. And even if it should happen [that the wife was barren] … this is unclear … ; and what is unclear is not … against the law. This law was laid down so that what death took from the dead man, that is, fatherhood and an heir, the providence of the law might supply to him. For if men come to marriage for the sake of a memorial and an inheritance, clearly [what] God might be asked to supply to men does not become useless. There is also another benefit attached to this law: that by this marriage the inheritance might remain in the same tribe and not pass to another tribe. And since the wife, once joined to her first husband, became one body with him, for this reason the dead man does not become father of another's offspring, but of one born from his own body. For as the [child] born of such a union is named [son] of the dead man, so also the wife [is named] his … [133] Question. [If …] of David was commanded to the Israelites, how did the evangelist Matthew mention the natural fathers before David and after David, while Luke made mention of the natural fathers before David, but of the legal fathers after David? And if the names of the natural and legal fathers after the deportation to Babylon are not found complete in the divine Scriptures, but are written on mere assertion, how [are] the things written on assertion [to be believed]? Answer. Luke too mentioned the natural fathers of Heli, both those before David and those after David. Heli alone was the legal father of Joseph, who because of the legal sonship is reckoned in the same relation up to Nathan. That the Master Christ was named son of Joseph, who had two fathers, one by law and the other by nature, divine grace arranged, so that when we hear that Christ was son of Joseph but not born of him by nature, we may not be surprised. For just as Joseph himself was called son of Heli, though not born of him, because it seemed good to the divine law to give a son to Heli from Heli's wife, so it seemed good to God to give a son to Joseph from Joseph's wife, not born of him by nature. “Joseph,” it says, “[do not fear to take Mary] your wife.” For what is born of a woman without [another man's] seed is necessarily the son of the husband and the wife, in whatever way God wishes to give a son to the husband, either through union or without union. The evangelists did not set out the names in the genealogies on assertion, but from written histories. For the holy evangelists who wrote the genealogies were Hebrews of Hebrews, among whom there was great zeal to have the genealogy of the royal and priestly tribe in writing. Indeed, after the return from Babylon, Ezra expelled from the priestly service those whom he did not find genealogized in the list of the priests. And this is shown from the book of Chronicles …

[Question.] If God sent down the law to the Israelites through Moses, how is it that in many places of the divine Scripture Moses is called the law, and not the lawgiver? Answer. It is the custom not only of men but also of the divine Scripture to call a book by the name of the one who spoke it, to show whose the words are; as in “The eunuch was sitting in the chariot and reading the prophet Isaiah”; and again, “The abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel.” Likewise it is our custom to say, “I have acquired the prophet Jeremiah,” or “the Apostle.” [135] Question. [If the Lord] showed [his name by] his acts and the calling according to the divine Scripture, and the divine Scripture foretold that Christ would be called Emmanuel, how will the Lord be thought to be true, when after his birth he nowhere received the name Emmanuel? For no one addressed the Christ who had come by the name Emmanuel in so many words. Answer. If the Gospel narratives contain the fulfillment of the divine predictions about Christ, and the blessed Matthew has handed down to us that he is the one foreordained by divine prediction to be called by the name Emmanuel, how is he not called by the name Emmanuel? Nor has the holy Church of God, taught by the holy Gospel, ceased to name the Lord Emmanuel. We have, in the name of Christ, all the other names of Christ contained, even if we do not always use them all. Nor is he Emmanuel because he is called so; but because he is so, he is called so.

[Question.] If disregarding one's parents is forbidden by the divine Scripture, and he who pursues forbidden things is called a sinner, how is the Master Christ shown to be sinless, who disregarded his own parents in various places? For at the wedding he rebuked his mother by saying, “What is there between me and you, woman?” And when his mother wished to see him, he named as his mother and brothers those who do the will of God. And again, when the womb that bore him and the breasts that he sucked were blessed, he himself blessed those who do the will of God. All these sayings are thought to have been said by him to slight his mother, because when his mother was named and blessed, others were blessed by him in contrast to her; and a contrast is clearly drawn between contrary things. Besides, if he chose the holy Virgin for the service of so great a dispensation, how is she unworthy? But if the things said are contrary to one another, how do contraries not destroy one another? Answer. “What is there between me and you, woman?” was said to his mother by the Savior not as a rebuke but to show this: “We,” he says, “are not the ones who have undertaken the care of the wine consumed at the wedding; yet out of great love, if you wish that they not lack wine, tell the servants to do what I tell them, and you will see that they will not lack wine”; which is what happened. He would not, then, rebuke in word the mother whom he honored in deeds. And in the other sayings he does not deprive his mother of the honor that befits her, but shows according to what motherhood the Virgin is blessed. For if he who hears the word of God and keeps it is brother, sister, and mother of God, and both these belonged to his mother, it is clear that his mother ought to be blessed according to this motherhood. For to hear the word of God and keep it belongs to virtue and to a pure soul wholly inclined toward God. And since God did not choose an ordinary woman to become mother of Christ, but the one who surpassed all women in virtues, for this reason Christ too wished his mother to be blessed for this virtue, through which she was counted worthy to become a mother while a virgin. That Christ in no way appears to have done anything to dishonor or disobey his parents, Luke the evangelist bears witness, saying about him that he went down with Joseph and Mary from Jerusalem, and was subject to them. [137] Question. [If the woman] anointed the Lord with ointment [before his passion], and we in baptism perform the symbols of his passion and resurrection, how is it that we are first anointed with oil, and then, after the symbols mentioned in the font, we are sealed with the ointment afterwards, and do not think we do these things in the reverse of what happened in the Lord's case, since the Lord was first anointed with ointment and afterwards suffered? And how is the anointing with oil offered to those about to be baptized not superfluous, since the Lord was anointed only with ointment before the passion? Answer. Since what [one does] for burial one does after the death of the one buried, but the blessed Mary anointed the Lord before his death (according to what is written: “What she has done,” he says, “she did for my burial; for she anointed my body beforehand”; and “beforehand” means: before the proper time she anointed my body); for this reason it does not happen in reverse, but what happened in the Lord's case before the time happens in the case of the baptized at the proper time. We are anointed with the old oil so that we may become christs; and with the ointment in remembrance of the one who … ; in type in the present, and in truth in the future, of the Savior Christ, who called us to the fellowship of his sufferings and glory. [138] Question. [If each one who] has sinned is punished for what he sinned, how is God just, who put to death so great a people for the faults of others? I mean those who were at fault, Jonathan and David: the one broke the fast in ignorance by tasting the honey, the other rashly numbered the people. And if someone should say that the death of the subjects took place to punish the rulers, how does he not do wrong, subjecting the innocent to punishments? And this contradicts the Scripture that says, “The soul that sins, it shall die.” [Answer.] That the punishment of the people [is a punishment] of the kings who sinned the blessed David himself shows, asking God to transfer the blow from the people to himself and his house. For the diminishing of the subjects is a shaking of the kingdom. Likewise Saul too was going to kill his son Jonathan, so that by his death he might heal the blow on the people, had not the people first sworn not to let Jonathan die. And as man is composed of soul and body, so the kingdom is composed of the king and the subjects. And as, when a man commits a sin with his hand and is beaten on the back, the one who beats him does no wrong, so God does no wrong in punishing the people for the faults of kings. For the blow on the people is known to grieve kings greatly; for the blow on the people is a punishment of the kingdom.

[Question.] If God is one, it is clear that he possesses each thing as one: for instance, the simple or the composite, the mortal or the immortal, the begotten or the unbegotten, begetting or not begetting. How then, since the Father begot and the Son did not beget, and the Son was begotten while the Father was not begotten, can the Father, the Son, and the Spirit be called one God, when from being begotten or not being begotten, and from begetting and not begetting, he is thought to possess contrariety? Answer. God is one in the co-existence of the three divine hypostases, which differ from one another not in essence but in the modes of existence. And the difference in the modes of existence does not divide the oneness in essence. And just as in the case of Adam, Eve, and Seth there is one account of the essence, a rational soul and a mortal body, but the modes of existence differ (for Adam came into being from the earth, Eve from the rib, and Seth from seed), and in the different modes of existence the account of the essence remains one, undivided and unchanged; so also in the case of God, by the identity of the essence of the persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are believed to be one God. For the mode of existence contributes nothing to the account of the essence. Whatever, then, is said of the three divine hypostases alike and without difference, in these understand the oneness of the essence; and whatever is not said alike, understand these of the mode of existence of the persons.

[Question.] If Christ called himself the heir, and the tenants, that is, the Jews, recognized him according to the parable, and killed the heir because of the inheritance, how did Christ himself and the apostle Paul bear witness to their ignorance in that bold deed? The one saying, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”; the other declaring, “If they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Answer. Ignorance is spoken of in two ways. Either one is ignorant without willing it, when he does not have the things that lead to knowledge; or one is ignorant willingly, when he has the things that lead to knowledge but does not wish to know. This willing ignorance the divine Scripture is accustomed to call sometimes ignorance and sometimes knowledge: knowledge, as when it says, “You both know me and know where I am from,” instead of “You can know, from what I do, both [the truth] of my name and of my words”; for one who lies cannot do such works. The heir's being recognized by the tenants [means] that, according to the figure of the parable, they saw him to be above every man in the present life by the works he did and by his calling. But that after his death God would raise him from the dead to immortal life and make him heir of all, they did not know; for the figure of the parable did not contain any indication of this. According to this ignorance Christ said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”; and likewise the apostle: “For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” [141] Question. [If Christ alone] fulfilled the law exactly, how did Zechariah and Elizabeth walk blameless in the law, to whom Luke bore this witness, and Paul too, who became blameless according to the righteousness that is in the law? Answer. The blameless is one thing and the sinless another. … [The sinless is necessarily] blameless, but the blameless is not necessarily also sinless. For he who sins against the law with a pardonable sin, and receives forgiveness by bringing the sacrifices and confessing the fault, becomes pure and blameless according to the righteousness from the law. But Christ, being sinless and in no way transgressing the law, did nothing that needed correction; and he also accepted John the Baptist and was baptized by him, to fulfill all righteousness — which Paul had not yet accepted before believing in Christ, since otherwise he would not have persecuted the Church. For this reason Christ alone is called sin[less] …

[Question.] If an angel is higher than a man, and Scripture names men gods, how is it not fitting that the angels too be named gods by us? Answer. Those of the angels who appeared in the rank of God, or spoke to men, have themselves also received the name of God, as the one who spoke to Jacob and to Moses. Men too were called gods. To each of these, because of the task entrusted to them, it was given to have the rank and title of God; but when the task is fulfilled, those who received the name of God for the sake of some task cease to be called gods. For when he entrusted to the angel the oversight of the people, he said to Moses about him, “Do not disobey him, for my name is upon him.” When … [he said to] them, “Judge just judgment, for the judgment is God's”; and again, “I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High.” He called them gods, meaning: “I have given you my honor and rank and name; as I judge, so judge the people.” [143] Question. … [if God] has come down to [being] man, how is man not improperly called God? Answer. This question suits neither a Christian nor a Greek. … according to each one's opinion. One ought not to build a difficulty out of things agreed, but out of …

[Question.] If God has an existing hypostasis, and an indwelling will, and an existing Son, how is he, composed of so many things, named simple? Answer. Just as God is whole everywhere, and whole in each thing, and whole by himself, and we have faith in this, so also his simplicity is whole. He is wholly Son and wholly has a Son; he is wholly will and wholly has will. For God is not according to created nature, so that his being and his having should be understood as composition, as … ; but as being by nature, so also … composition.

[Question.] If flesh and blood are composed of the same things, why does God permit the eating of the flesh of animals but forbid the partaking of what is in the blood? “Only flesh with blood,” he says, “you shall not eat.” Answer. So that in this too God might separate us from likeness to the wild beasts, which with the eating of the flesh lap up also the blood of those whose flesh they eat. [146] Question. If God, in matters that had a true outcome, foretold what was going to be even through the seers among the Greeks, when Greeks fought against Greeks; [and if] they, often doing according to an oracle things whose doing the divine Scripture forbade, were delivered from the dreadful things set out in the second inquiry: for instance in war, as when the Seven against Thebes were going to overturn the aforesaid city utterly, but when Tiresias prophesied, Menoeceus readily slew himself as the oracle had decided, and so, according to the prediction of the oracle, the city was saved and the enemies were destroyed by those in the city — and this is one example out of many that we have given concerning trophies in wars? Answer. He who gives the solution of questions ought first to set down the things agreed, and then from them make the solution of what is sought. Among the things agreed is that there is one God, the Creator, … whom the divine Scriptures of the Christians [proclaim], attested by divine words and powers; from whom is both the prediction of things to come and the outcome. And the Scriptures that proclaim him drive out the [gods] of the Greeks: … and, “They are not gods.” But those whose gods are not gods, their seers are not prophets of truth either, nor does their prediction have an inescapable and true outcome. For as they are far from the true Godhead, so also from the foreknowledge of things to come. That in the battle of Greeks against Greeks, who used oracles in many ways, especially in wars, the God of the Christians established his own will, the battle of Alexander and Darius bears witness, in which he confirmed the oracles of the one and made void those of the other; and the battle of the Assyrian bears witness too, which he had with the many other strong nations, whom God called the rod of his anger and a saw, at one time saying, “Behold, the Assyrian is the rod of my anger; I will send him against a sinful nation”; at another saying of him, “Shall the saw be lifted up without the one who draws it?” … the enemies, and the city was saved, not from the … but from the [will] of the Master, the true God, is plain. And yet … the Assyrian, according to the successes of the oracles he received from his gods through the seers, saws even the pitiable nations who likewise, trusting in oracles, joined battle with him; and … having obtained the hope given by the oracles, God permitted the Assyrian to succeed in his oracles, and the nations to fail. Concerning them God says through the prophet Isaiah, “I let go my hand, and they were dried up”; and the Assyrian says, “Have the gods of the nations delivered their land out of my hands, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?” According to the oracles the Assyrian received from the seers, he uttered such words both against the nations and against Jerusalem. And with God's permission the Assyrian succeeded in his oracles against the nations; but against Jerusalem he failed in his oracles, since God did not permit it. How then did the Seven against Thebes fail of the oracle to destroy the city utterly? For the failure of an oracle becomes a proof of the weakness of the god who through the oracle foretold what did not come about. And if, according to the Savior's word that does not lie, not a sparrow will fall to the ground without God, much more would a whole nation or a whole city not perish without God's permission. That every Greek nation destroyed by a Greek nation is destroyed by the rod and saw of God's anger is made plain from what was said about the Assyrian. Further, if what is said among the Greeks about the seer Tiresias is wholly laughable, how can what was said through him be true? For they say of him that he became man and woman and had the forms of both, and that because he settled many quarrels of the gods, Hera in anger blinded him, and Zeus, to console him for his blindness, granted him the art of prophecy. But if the tales about him are foreign to belief, how can the tales told by him be true? Further, if, as the Greeks say, what is spun by the Fates cannot be unspun, how are the oracles not destructive to those who use them, since the Fates necessarily lead what they spin to an inescapable end? But if this is so, how are not both the Fates and the oracles false, destroying each other? And how did Menoeceus not slay himself in vain, as the oracle had decided, [when] the cause of [the enemies'] destruction [was not the oracle but the] permission [of God, not of] the demon who gave the oracle through the seer?