Ancoratus

A letter written from Pamphylia, from the city of Suedra, by Tarsinus and Matidius and other presbyters, to Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in Cyprus, concerning the faith, asking about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and other parts of that same faith. To the lord, the God-honored bishop Epiphanius, Matidius, Tarsinus, Neon, and Numerianus, presbyters of the catholic church in Suedra, send greetings in the Lord God.

The enemy of mankind, the devil, is accustomed to disturb in various ways and to sow his own seeds against the simpler ones and those not yet perfected and confirmed in the faith of the holy Trinity. "The firm foundation, however," according to what is written, "stands having this seal; for the Lord knew those who are his." But the heretics, who are easily swayed in everything, having set aside the blasphemy against Jesus, impiously act against God in another way, "magnifying their own tongue" against the Holy Spirit and "speaking injustice into the heights." Yet, although countless things have been stirred up, we ourselves, by the grace of the Lord, stand in the sound faith, having been moved not at all from the right and sound teaching. And many of those who seemed to be deceived have been strengthened again by the grace of the Lord, through the letters of the worthy of memory and blessed bishop Athanasius and of your most God-fearing fellow minister Proclianus.

Since remnants of the evil teaching still remain among some, and it is necessary that these be either grafted into a good olive tree by you, the experienced farmers, or completely cut off, for this reason, writing to your piety, we ask that your reverence deign to compose a letter to our church and set forth the right and healthy faith through a more extensive exposition, so that even the simpler ones and those still wavering concerning the faith may be confirmed through your sacred writings, and the enemy of the church, the devil, may be put to shame through your holy prayers. We pray that you may be strong for many years and remember us in your prayers to God.

A letter written by Palladius, a citizen of the same city of Suedra, and sent to the same Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia of the island of Cyprus, he also having asked about the same matters. To my master of the soul, the God-honored bishop Epiphanius, Palladius, a citizen in Suedra, greets you in the Lord God. Those who sail the great and spacious sea, as long as a calm wind steers the ship, pay little heed to the harbors lying along the shores, thinking to cross the vessel without effort; but when a contrary and violent wind falls upon them, raising the high waves from all sides and washing over the ship,

Then, longing for a fair-weather harbor and surveying the entire mainland before them, but unable to anchor anywhere, they finally set sail for a nearby island, if such should chance, procuring safety for themselves by any means; and having approached it and slipped under the shelter of the projecting promontories, they have at last barely been able to escape the evils that were overwhelming them. And we ourselves now, O master, being catechized in the saving word of God and eager to free ourselves from the worldly surge and wishing to steer our vessel into the unshakable harbor of Christ, since we have learned of certain empty and irrational inquiries, as it seems to me, stirred up by some concerning the Holy Spirit—who assert that it ought not to be glorified together with the divinity and the lordship, but is to be ranked in the role of a servant and apostle, and who hold even more base and lowly opinions about it—for this reason, as if caught in an unsteady swell and a harsh storm, and unable to find among us anyone capable of resolving the questions and setting forth the sound faith, we have hastened to refer the matter to your piety, rightly uttering this cry ourselves: "Master, save us." We therefore beseech your unfeigned and orthodox faith, which a good reputation preceding you and trustworthy witnesses attest and proclaim.

Deign, being appointed to this by the Savior, to receive our petition patiently and to wish, through broader and clearer exposition, to set forth in sacred writings the faith of the holy Trinity and to send these to us, so that we, confirmed in this faith, may attain what we seek, and those already firmly established in it may rejoice, and those who err may, if possible, be healed, and God may be glorified in all.

3. A letter written to Pamphylia to those around the presbyter Matidius and Tarsinus and Neon and Numerianus of Svedra and Palladius the citizen, concerning the faith of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and other parts of the faith, I mean the resurrection of the dead and the incarnation of Christ, in the ninetieth year of Diocletian in the month of July, concerning which they asked in their own letters, as is contained in them and as are prefixed.

To my lords and most honored brothers and fellow presbyters, Matidius and Tarsinus and Neon and Numerianus and all the rest with you, and to our most beloved children, Palladius and Severianus, who have emulated good zeal and chosen for themselves the blessed and much-desired life of orthodox faith and perfect agreement, fulfilling what was said by the Savior, “If you wish to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor,” and “They sold their possessions and laid them at the feet of the apostles,” and all that is opportune and most good for us to procure for our own souls, adding to themselves, Epiphanius, the least of the bishops, and the brothers with me in the Lord God, greetings. Now then I would count myself blessed, most beloved, that although we are not adequate for the virtuous conduct of the holy and zealous and those who have taken up the zeal of God, we are deemed worthy by them to be pricked into rousing the mind and presenting it for what is useful. For the humble thought always in us, eager to persevere in quiet and not to extend further beyond what is too much, observing that saying of the apostle, “that I may not extend beyond the measure of the rule which God has given us as a measure,” is now compelled to reach this point.

For from all sides the votes, so to speak, of the divinely inspired zeal in you and of the other like-minded ones—I mean those who strive for orthodoxy—among whom is Hypatius, our child, who came to me from the land of the Egyptians for this very reason, have prepared me to put aside all indolence and every hesitation, and no longer to delay or to consider secondary the writing to you concerning the faith, since you and our brothers are seeking the matters of our salvation from the divine and holy scripture: the firm foundation of faith concerning Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and all the rest of salvation in Christ—I mean the resurrection of the dead and the incarnate presence of the Only-begotten, and concerning the holy covenant, both old and new, and all the other constitutions of perfect salvation without exception. So I, having taken up such a proposal of requests, which are not few, from those around brother Conon the fellow presbyter and those who follow him, and from others, and from your reverence, most beloved children, and not least from our child Hypatius, who came to me from Egypt for this reason, seeing the many unanimous votes together, stung in my mind and reason, I considered and it seemed good to me to set out eagerly according to your written request, and without hesitation, since not only willingly but also unwillingly, because of the excess of your request and that of those with you, I, the insignificant one, am impelled by your desire to write this letter of mine.

And I am exceedingly struck with wonder, having marveled at the economy of our Lord and God, who deigned, by the excess of his own goodness, to give his Holy Spirit in all things to those who seek him in truth. For I did not consider your requests and those of your kind, conveyed through letters, to have occurred without divine influence, most beloved ones, but I discerned the impulse as having originated from the grace of God in you. For in truth, those who hold orthodox views concerning the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, and who know how to speak in harmony and agreement with the most blessed Peter the Apostle, that "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," will clearly be blessed by the Lord himself, just as that holy one was blessed when he heard, "Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah," that is, son of Jonah; for his father was called Jonah, and "bar" is interpreted from the Hebrew language as "son." For this was the life which the only-begotten Son of God gave to his own disciples, saying, "that they might have life in themselves," and this is the life of which he said, "that they might know you, the only true God, and whom you sent, Jesus Christ." Therefore, in saying "the only true God," he led us to monarchy, so that we might no longer "be enslaved by the elements of the world," so that polytheism might no longer exist among us and the thoughts of men be scattered into such fornication, but rather toward the unity of the only true God; "for the first fornication is the conception of idols," says Scripture. And he says, "and whom you sent, Jesus Christ." Jesus Christ—who else but God?

If then Christ Jesus is God, as John says about him, "the only-begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, that one expounded," then the Father is one God and the only true God, and the only-begotten is also God. Therefore he is not alien to God and to the Monad; but because he is Son from Father, for this reason he alone is true God. And not according to the false gods, which some of the Greeks supposed to be gods, though they are not gods, but he alone is true God, because the only-begotten is alone from alone, and the Holy Spirit alone. For Trinity in Monad, and one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But the word spits at those who have not been deemed worthy of the Holy Spirit. "For no one can say 'Lord Jesus' except in the Holy Spirit." For the name Jesus even Jews utter, but they do not consider him Lord. And Arians utter the name and *God*, but they say he is adopted and not true, because they have not partaken of the Holy Spirit. For if one does not receive the Holy Spirit, he does not call Jesus truly Lord and truly God and truly Son of God and truly eternal King. For let those who have held the evil opinion learn that the only-begotten Son of God does not wish to testify about himself. For thus he said in the Gospel: "If I testify about myself, my testimony is nothing; there is another who testifies about me." And who is that other but the one who cried out from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I have taken delight"?

The same one who says, "If I testify about myself, my testimony is nothing," also says, "Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true," and again, "The works themselves that the Father has given me testify about me," and again, "Moses wrote about me," and "Moses testifies about me." The first, "If I testify about myself, my testimony is nothing," because many glorify themselves and testify about themselves, in order to cut off the boasting of the boastful and of those who commend themselves. But when he says, "Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true," he shows that his testimony is not that of a man, but he is God speaking truth in his own testimony. Therefore, the Father is true God, the Son is true God, the Holy Spirit is true, being "Spirit of God" and "Spirit of truth," a Trinity numbered in one name. For concerning the Father, the Son himself says, "So that they may know you, the only true God." And a trustworthy witness concerning the Son is the one who, having reclined on his breast, declares him to be only-begotten God. He did not add to the only-begotten God the term "true God," but it is written concerning the Father that he is true God, and concerning the Son that he is only-begotten God. And conversely, concerning the Father, that "God is light"; concerning the Son, that "he was the true light." And observe for me the precision of the Scriptures. For the Father is light, and "true light" is not added to what is said about the Father; but concerning the Son he said "true light," and no one dares to say otherwise.

For who, being mad or rather gathering mental derangement for himself, will dare to acquire for himself a suspicion of blasphemy, not finding the word "true" attached to the text, and say concerning the Father that he is not true light? For if the genuine Son born from him is true light, the begetter of the Son is undoubtedly true light, he himself who begot him without beginning and without time being true light. And just as one must not dare to say concerning the Father that he is not true light, even though the word "true" is not attached, but we know from ourselves, through pious understanding, even if it is not written, that he is true light, and we do not doubt it, lest we perish, so also in the case of the Son it is written that the Son is God, and even if "true God" is not attached, we heap madness upon ourselves if we dare to blaspheme and not call the Son true God, even if the expression is not attached. For it suffices to bear the entire bond of the Trinity upon the one, and from the Father to understand the Son as true God and the Spirit as true, with the names of each being set in opposition to

of equal weight with the truth, to the Father the title "true God," and to the Son the title "God," and conversely to the Son the title "true light," and to the Father the title "light," so that, having yoked together the two opinions concerning divinity, we may confess concerning the Father "true God," and concerning the Son "true light," and concerning the Father "light," and concerning the Son "God," and from "light" and "God" the one divinity, and from "true God" and "true light" the one unity of power.

Likewise also concerning the Holy Spirit: "If I go away, that one comes," he says, "the spirit of truth"; and further concerning himself, "I am the truth"; and concerning the Father, "the spirit of my Father speaking in you"; and concerning the Spirit, "my spirit has stood in your midst." And the Spirit, ineffably cooperating with the Son, "casts him out into the desert" "to be tempted by the devil"; and the Lord himself says, "Spirit of the Lord, for which reason he anointed me"; and the Holy Spirit speaking in the prophets: "Thus says the Lord Almighty," and "the one speaking in the prophets is the Lord," "the one who strengthens thunder and creates wind"—thunder being the sound that echoes to men, and creating wind for the activity of rains sent from God to the earth. And concerning creatures he speaks thus: "strengthening thunder and creating wind"; for these are created things; "and announcing his Christ to men"—no longer creating, no longer strengthening, but "announcing him to men"—the one truly born from the true one, the uncreated, the immutable, the unchangeable, the one always existing from the one always existing, the one proclaimed through Moses and John as always existing.

The one who is, for he says, 'has sent me,'" says Moses and John, "the one who is in the bosom of the Father, that one expounded." The Father is being, the Son is being, the one "who is toward the one who is," begotten from him, not being a fusion with the Father, not having begun to exist, but always being a genuine Son with the Father, always a Father who has begotten the Son. For there was never a time when the Father was not Father, there was never a time when the Son did not exist for the only Father. For if there was a time when he was not Father, then he himself would also be son of another Father before being Father of the only-begotten. And those who think they are revering the Father are completely impious. For in God there is no time, no moment, no instant of time, no fraction of an hour, no blink of an eye, no flight of thought, but as far as your mind ascends to apprehend and believe in the Son, it simultaneously conceives the Father. For the name is indicative. For when you call the Son, saying "Son," you conceive the Father; for from the Son the Father is conceived, and when you call the Father, you signify the Son; for Father is always called of a Son. When, then, can you dare to say that the Father was not Father, so that you might also dare to say that the Son is not Son? But if you do not dare to attribute a beginning to the Father—for the divine exists in identity and does not admit of addition, of glory, of advancement—"learn not to blaspheme," O you who war against the faith, or rather drive yourself from the faith, but always believe that the Father is eternal, truly having begotten the Son, who is always truly being toward the truly being Father. But begotten.

For the Son is always with the Father, yet he is not a fusion with the Father, nor a brother, but a genuine Son begotten from the Father, a natural Son, not an adopted one, a Son consubstantial with the Father, not co-substantial, but consubstantial, that is, not begotten from outside the Father, as some carry on with irony, wishing the Son to be by adoption and not in truth. The bond of the faith is to say "consubstantial." For if you say "consubstantial," you have undone the power of Sabellius; for where there is "consubstantial," it is indicative of one hypostasis. But it also signifies that the Father is enhypostatic, and the Son is enhypostatic, and the Holy Spirit is enhypostatic. When one says "consubstantial," it does not mean alien to the same divinity, but that the Son is God from God, and the Holy Spirit is God, of the same divinity, not three gods. For even if we call the Son and the Father God, we do not say two gods; for our God is one, as the blessed Moses says, "The Lord your God, the Lord is one." We do not say gods—God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit—and not gods; for there is no polytheism in God. Through the three names the one divinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is signified. And there are not two Sons; for the Son is one only-begotten, while the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, always being with Father and Son, not alien to God, but being from God, "proceeding from the Father" and "receiving from the Son." But the Son is only-begotten, incomprehensible, and the Spirit is incomprehensible, yet from God, not alien to Father and Son. Nor is there a fusion of Father and Son, but a Trinity always being of the same essence.

not a different essence besides the divinity nor a different divinity besides the essence, but the same divinity, and from the same divinity are the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And the Spirit is Holy Spirit, and the Son is Son; the Spirit proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son, "searching the depths of God," announcing the things of the Son in the world, sanctifying the saints through the Trinity, third in name since the Trinity is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; "Go forth," it says, "baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," the seal of grace, the bond of the Trinity, not alien to the number, not separate from the name, not foreign to the gift, but one God, one faith, one Lord, one grace, one Church, one baptism. For the Trinity is always Trinity and never receives addition, being numbered thus: Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is not a fusion, nor is there anything in it separated from its own unity, but in perfection of hypostasis the Father is perfect, the Son is perfect, the Holy Spirit is perfect; Father and Son and Holy Spirit. And conversely, the Spirit is arranged among the gifts: "For there are divisions of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are divisions of ministries, but the same Lord; and there are divisions of operations, but the same God, who works all things in all." Let us not fall from the subject, let us not depart from the truth. We do not plead on behalf of God, but we think piously, lest we perish, and we speak not as comprehending; for as men we speak what we have comprehended.

For the honor paid to God is infinite and manifold beyond our understanding; the Trinity has been glorified and is glorified, neither receiving any addition of glory nor being deprived of any property. For nothing in the Trinity is created or later-born, but the Father begets the Son, and there was never a time when the Son was not. For the Father was never at any time not called Father, but he was always Father and the Son was always Son—not a brother, but a Son begotten ineffably and named incomprehensibly, always being with the Father and never ceasing to exist. Therefore the Father is unbegotten, uncreated, and incomprehensible; the Son is begotten, but also uncreated and incomprehensible; the Holy Spirit is always, not begotten, not created, not a brother, not a brother of the Father, not a forefather, not an offspring, but from the same essence of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. For "God is Spirit." And each of the names is unique, having no duplication. For the Father is Father and has no opposite, nor is he coupled with another Father, lest

two gods. And the Son is only-begotten, true God from true God, not having the name of Father nor being alien to the Father, but existing as Son of the Father; only-begotten, so that the Son may be of one name, and God from God, so that Father and Son may be called one God. And the Holy Spirit is only-begotten, not having the name of Son, nor the appellation of Father, but called Holy Spirit thus, not alien to the Father. For the only-begotten himself says, "the Spirit of the Father" and "that which proceeds from the Father," and "he will take from me," so that it may not be considered alien to the Father or to the Son, but of the same essence, of the same divinity, divine Spirit, "the Spirit of truth," the Spirit of God, the Paraclete Spirit, called by one name, having no antithesis, not equated with any other spirit, not called by the name of Son nor named with the appellation of Father, so that the names of one name may not be homonymous; except that the God is in the Father, the God is in the Son, the God is in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God and God. For Spirit of God and Spirit of the Father and Spirit of the Son, not by any composition, as in us soul and body, but in the midst of Father and Son, from the Father and the Son, third in appellation. "Go," he says, "and baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

If the Father baptizes in his own name, in the name of God, and the seal is perfect, sealed in us in the name of God, and Christ baptizes in his own name, in the name of God, and the seal is perfect, sealed in us in the name of God, who will dare to war against his own soul, calling the Spirit alien to the divinity? For if we seal in the name of the Father and in the name of the Son and in the name of the Holy Spirit, it is one seal of the Trinity; therefore one power of the divinity in Trinity. But if the one is God, and the others are created and not God, by what reasoning are the two bound together with the one in the seal of perfection? Then indeed we have been sealed in a royal name, the one of the Father, and the others are not royal, but we are still enslaved to elements and creatures, and the name of the Father alone was not able to save, but he took to himself, having created two other elements according to the supposition of the blasphemers, so that his divinity might take also other powers and be able to save the one sealed by him, and the man created by him might receive redemption through remission of sins. Fie on such drivel, fie on such blasphemy. Whence has this other new faithlessness, or rather I should say evil-faith, again crept into the world? For evil-faith is worse than faithlessness. For faithlessness, when it receives faith, will be corrected, but evil-faith is incorrigible, saved with difficulty, unless perhaps the anointing from above should visit.

The blessed Peter says to those around Ananias, "Why did Satan tempt you to lie to the Holy Spirit?" And he says, "You did not lie to men, but to God." Therefore the Spirit is God from Father and Son, whom those who embezzled from the price deceived. As also Paul agrees with this statement, saying, "But you are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you." Therefore the Spirit is God, as I said before. For this reason holy men also will be called a temple of God, those who have housed the Holy Spirit of God within themselves, as the foremost of the apostles bears witness, who was deemed worthy to be called blessed by the Lord, because the Father revealed to him. Thus the Father reveals the true Son to him, and he is blessed, and the same again reveals his Holy Spirit. It was necessary that the first of the apostles, the solid rock, "upon which the Church of God is built, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it"—the gates of Hades being the heresies and the heresiarchs. In every respect

For in him the faith was established in a manner, in the one who received the key of the heavens, in the one who looses on earth and binds in heaven. In him all the subtle inquiries of faith are found. This is the one who denied three times and anathematized three times before the rooster crowed; for indicating the excess of his love for his own master, he insisted, saying, "Even if all deny you, I will not deny you," speaking as far as is possible for a human. This is the one who wept at the sound of the rooster, so that he might truly confess that the conception of the Son of God was not in appearance but real, so that he might call him a true man in weeping over his own conception, betrayed by the Pharisees. This is the one who went to Galilee to fish, the companion of the one who reclined on the breast; for the one learning from the Son and receiving from the Son the power of knowledge revealed it, while the other was benefited by the Father, laying the foundation of the security of faith, who in the boat on the Lake of Tiberias fished naked again after being called. The disciple whom Jesus loved, at the saying which the Savior spoke, "Children, do you have any relish?" and he says, "Cast to the right of the boat and you will find." And at the event, Peter being astonished, John, whom Jesus loved, says, "It is the Lord," a man according to flesh, born from Mary in truth, not in appearance, and God according to spirit, coming from the heavenly realms from the Father.

This is the one who heard from the same Lord, "Peter, shepherd my lambs," the one entrusted with the flock, the one who guides well by the power of his own master, the one who confesses concerning the flesh, the one who truly reports the Father's words about the Son, the one who signifies the Spirit and his dignity in divinity, the one who gave the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas together with James and John, so that "every word may be established by three witnesses."

For nothing can exist without two or three testimonies. For by these, even the faith of those in the Law, who knew only the Father, was confirmed through a riddle, unless they receive the power of the Son and are strengthened through the testimonies of the Father and Son, and through the third testimony receive the Holy Spirit and are fulfilled, as the voices of the Cherubim and Seraphim openly cry out the third "holy, holy, holy." For the doxology in heaven is not completed by two voices, nor do these same holy and invisible spiritual beings utter a fourth, nor do they give a fourth voice, nor a single one alone, but three singular voices, the "holy, holy, holy"; and they do not say "holies, holies," lest they make the singular polyonymous or conceal the number of the three, but they give the sanctification three times, while uttering the word in a uniform and singular manner, lest they name polytheism. For there is one God, Father in Son, Son in Father with the Holy Spirit. And for this reason, "holy, resting among holies," true hypostatic Father and true hypostatic Son and true hypostatic Holy Spirit, three beings, one divinity, one essence, one doxology, one God.

You named the Son, you included the Trinity in your thought; you had the Holy Spirit, you were deemed worthy of the power of the Father and of the Son of God; you glorified the Father, you signified the Son and the Holy Spirit. But not by coalescence; for the Father is Father, the Son is Son, the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit. But the Trinity is not alienated from the unity and the identity; the Father is honored insofar as he is Father, the Son is honored insofar as he is Son, the Holy Spirit is honored insofar as it is true Spirit and Spirit of God. Thus the Only-begotten says, "He who honors the Father honors the Son"; for in saying the Father, you signify the Son and honor the Son. And "He who honors the Son honors the Father"; for in naming the Son, you honor the Father, not claiming that Christ is less than the Father. For if among us humans such a sentiment is absent and we do not wish the sons to be inferior nor diminished in comparison with the honor of fathers—for dishonor toward the sons is reckoned to the fathers—how much more would God and Father never wish his own Son to be diminished? Therefore, he who supposes the true Son of the Father to be deficient in the glory of the Father rather dishonors the Father, instead of honor, being carried away by ignorance. So as the Son reveals the Father, saying, "No one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father," so I dare to say, no one knows the Spirit either except the Father and the Son, from whom it proceeds and from whom it receives.

How then do they dare to say that the Spirit is foreign to God, those who are possessed more by madness than by truth, who do not learn the true voice of the trustworthy and holy Apostle Paul, to whom the foremost of the apostles, Peter, who was deemed worthy to hold the key of the kingdom, gave his right hand, who heard from the heavens, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?", who was deemed worthy to hear "ineffable words, which it is not permitted for a man to speak," who says, "no one knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man dwelling in him," wishing from the example to express the higher things, so that he might not liken the example of man to God, but by the example reveal a part of the higher things? For the whole creation gathered together—of angels and archangels, Cherubim and Seraphim with the heavenly host, of heaven and earth, of earthly, heavenly, and subterranean beings, of luminaries and stars, of dry and wet things, and of all things simply in heaven and on earth—cannot indicate or be likened by example to their own master. For by grace he bestows the image upon man, saying, "God made man; he made him in the image of God." For every man has the image by a gift, but no one will be likened to his own master. For the one is invisible, the other visible; the one is immortal, the other susceptible to death; and the one is the source of all wisdom and has everything perfected in himself, while man, having a gift from a part, falls short of the most perfect things, unless God wishes to grant perfection through a gift according to worth to those who receive it.

Nevertheless, the same holy apostle, using an example, says: "No one knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man dwelling in him; thus also the things of God no one knows." And he did not say "except the Spirit of God dwelling in him," but only "the Spirit of God," lest anyone think the divine is composite and compounded. "Except," he says, "the Spirit of God." "For the Spirit of God investigates all things, even the depths of God." Therefore the Spirit of God, which investigates the depths of God, is not foreign to God. For if the divine scripture reproaches us, saying, "What was commanded to you, ponder that, and you have no need of hidden things," and "Do not seek what is higher than you, nor examine what is deeper than you," shall we then say concerning the Holy Spirit that it investigates the depths of God rather by curiosity than by genuineness? For where does it investigate the depths of God? For what reason? Tell me, O foolish one: as one being overly curious? As one meddling in others' affairs? As one desiring what is not its own? Far from it. But because the saints are deemed worthy to house the Holy Spirit within themselves, when the Holy Spirit comes to be in the saints, it grants them to investigate the depths of God, for the purpose of deeply glorifying.

As David also confesses this: "From the depths," he says, "I cried out to you, Lord," and in an immeasurable and not small and trivial manner, just as those of the Arian heresy and all the external ones. And from the time the law was given through Moses, the heresies that split off after him before the incarnate presence of Christ were eleven, and after the incarnate presence another sixty. Apart from those before the law and all these five and the other four Greek heresies, which are nine before the law; altogether all of them together with their mothers number eighty. Of these, the mothers are five as follows: Barbarism, Scythism, Hellenism, Judaism, Samaritanism. From these, from Hellenism four heresies: of the Pythagoreans, Platonists, Stoics, Epicureans. And from the law before the incarnate presence of Christ eleven: from the Jews seven: of the Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Ossaeans, Nasaraeans, Hemerobaptists, Herodians; and from the Samaritans four: of the Gorothenians, Sebouaeans, Essenes, Dositheans; together eleven born from the law from Jews and Samaritans. All those before the incarnate presence of Christ, beginning from Adam and up to it, are twenty. After the incarnate presence of Christ up to the reign of Valentinian and Valens and Gratian, all the heresies that falsely claimed the name of Christ for themselves are sixty, numbered thus:

Simonians, Menandrians, Saturnilians, Basilidians, Nicolaitans, Gnostics, also called Stratiotics and Phibionites, but by some Secundianites, by others Socratites, by others Zacchaeans, and by some Coddians, also Borborites and Barbelites, Carpocratians, Cerinthians, also called Merinthians, Nazoraeans, Ebionaeans, Valentinians, Secundians, with whom are associated Epiphanes and Isidore, Ptolemaeans, Marcosians, Colorbasians, Heracleonites, Ophites, Cainites, Sethians, Archontics, Cerdonians, Marcionists, Lucanists, Apelleians, Severians, Tatians, Encratites, those according to Phrygia, also called Montanists and Tascodrugites, Pepuzians, also called Priscillians and Quintillians, with whom are associated Artotyrites, Tessarescaedecatites, who celebrate Passover only one day of the year, Alogi, who do not accept the Gospel and the Apocalypse of John, Adamians, Sampsaeans, also called Elcesaites, Theodotians, Melchizedekians, Bardesanists, Noetians, Valesians, Cathari, also called Novatians, also called Montenses, as they are called in Rome, Angelics, Apostolics, also called Apotactics, Sabellians, Origeniasts, also called the shameful ones, Origeniasts of Adamantius, the party of Paul of Samosata, Manichaeans, also called Acuanites, Hieracites, Melitians, who are a schism in Egypt, Arians, also called Ariomanites, the schism of the Audians, but not a heresy, Photinians, Marcellians, Semi-Arians, Pneumatomachi, who blaspheme the Holy Spirit of God, Aerians, Aetians, also called Anomoeans, with whom is associated Eunomius, rather the lawless one, Dimoirites, who do not [accept] the full [nature] of Christ

confessing the incarnation, also the Apollinarians, and those who say that the holy Mary, the ever-virgin, after giving birth to the Savior was joined to Joseph, whom we called Antidicomarianites, and those who offer a cake in her name, who are called Collyridians, Messalians, to whom are joined the Martyrians who are from the Greeks, and the Euphemites and Satanians. And simply, I have grown weary and am weary of bringing to a number the names of so many heresies and of recounting their lawless practices, and also of the two schisms, I mean those in Egypt previously mentioned, the Melitians, who because of the fall of some during the persecution, were received by our people into their own clergy after repentance, but separated themselves, though not being in heresy, and those in Mesopotamia previously mentioned, likewise the Audians, who are also a schism, but do not have a foreign faith, only contending in a private manner concerning the image, not rebelling because of faith and separating themselves, nor for any other reason, but out of a supposed self-willed righteousness, because they do not share communion with bishops and presbyters who possess gold and silver, and because they celebrate Passover at the time when the Jews do, and they separate themselves for these reasons and alienate themselves from the unity of the orthodox church. For those who have not received the Holy Spirit have not learned the depths of God and have been broken into these heresies and into the schisms through the pretext of contentiousness.

For they abandoned the truth and walked many paths, at different times thinking different things. But the same holy apostle says, revealing to us the reason why he said this, "But we received the Spirit of God, so that we might know the gifts bestowed upon us by God. And we speak these things, not in learned words of wisdom, but in learned words of the Holy Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual," and so forth. Therefore, the Spirit of God is not alien to God. For if it were alien to God, how would it search the depths of God? But what will you say to me, O vainglorious one, who wages war against yourself, lest I say the Holy Spirit of God? For what, O vainglorious one, do you fight against the one who cannot be fought? Why do you do battle with the invincible? "It is hard for you to kick against the goads." You scandalize yourself and not the Word, you ensnare yourself and not the Spirit, you alienate yourself from the grace of God and not the Son from the Father, nor the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.

For you certainly speak with cunning; for I have already heard some foolish ones shifting the truth of our God and Savior into blasphemies and saying, "It searches the depths of God, but it does not comprehend," because this phrase is not appended to the text, but the apostle only said "it searches the depths of God," and the word "comprehends" is not added. O what great stupidity! For was it necessary, O god-driven one, after saying "it searches" to also say "it comprehends"? According to your dullness, would the matter be found lame if this word were not added? But now no pretext is left for you.

For from all sides Scripture gathers the truth for the most reverent man. For concerning the all-powerful God it is written thus: "God, testing kidneys" and "searching the chambers of the belly." But if He tests kidneys, does He not know what He tests? Or did He declare the whole of knowledge in the act of testing? And "searching the chambers of the belly," again it is not added "comprehending." Therefore, if "comprehending" is not added to the text, shall I bring death upon myself by weaving into the text "He does not comprehend" according to your argument, O foolish one? So then also concerning the Holy Spirit it is said that He searches, and there was no need to say that He also comprehends. For in that very statement it is made clear that the knowledge of God and of the depths of God exists in the Holy Spirit. Even if it does not say "He comprehends," understand the same for me and do not destroy your own soul. For just as in the case of the Father one must not dare to say "He searches and does not comprehend"—for He Himself created man together with the Son and the Holy Spirit; for the Trinity is always Trinity and never receives addition—so also must one think concerning the Holy Spirit. For when it says "Let us make man" "in the beginning" for

God made the heaven and the earth," signifies the Father's voice summoning to creation, and saying "Let us make" indicates not only the Son, I would say, but also the Holy Spirit. For thus it says, "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their power." Therefore the Word co-creates with the Father, and the Holy Spirit also co-creates. So does the all-powerful God, who made man, not know the things of man, "searching the chambers of the belly"? But the greater part of the knowledge of God the Word adds this, saying, lest any of those sinning among us think something hidden from God. For He Himself knows man and the things of man.

Therefore the Father searches the chambers of the belly and knows; the Spirit searches the depths of God and knows. For it reveals to the saints the mysteries of God and teaches them deeply to glorify God and to point out His incomprehensibility to them. So then the Spirit is not alien to God. For it did not say concerning angels that they search the depths of God, nor concerning archangels. "For no one knows the day nor the hour," says the Son of God, "neither the angels of heaven nor the Son, except the Father." But the foolish, those not adorned with the Holy Spirit, think that there is nothing in the Father which is not in the divinity of the Son. * "For as the Father has life in Himself, so the Son has life in Himself," and "All that is my Father's is mine," says the same holy Word of God. And what are the things of the Father but these: what is God of the Father, that is also of the Son.

the life of the Father is also that of the Son; the light of the Father, clearly also of the Son; the immortality of the Father, likewise also of the Son; the incomprehensibility of the Father and of the Son. All that is the Father's belongs to the Son. If therefore what is the Father's is his, then the knowledge that is in the Father also exists in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. But if anyone thinks that the Son is ignorant of the day, let the ignorant one learn and not blaspheme. For I propose to him knowledge and he will know. Tell me, O beloved—for I call you beloved; I hate no one except the devil and the works of the devil and evil faith; but for you I pray, that you may come to the truth of God and not destroy yourself in blasphemy against God. For the words of the holy God are deep, but knowledge is given through the Holy Spirit by means of the gifts. For it says, "To one is given a word of wisdom, to another a word of teaching," and so forth, "and the same Spirit distributing to each as it wills," in order to show you also the authority of the Holy Spirit. For when the same Spirit gives the gifts to all as it wills, then beseech the Father that he may reveal the Son to you, and beseech the Son that he may reveal the Father to you, and again beseech the Father that he may give you the Son and reveal the Holy Spirit to you and grant that you have it within you, so that the Holy Spirit given within you may reveal to you the whole knowledge of Father and Son and Holy Spirit, that you may learn that in the Son there is no ignorance, nor in the Holy Spirit.

For even if angels fall short of greater authority and knowledge, let it not be that the Son of God and his Holy Spirit fall short. But the Son speaks spiritually, the holy Logos who came from the Father to us; but the psychic ones are examined, not understanding the wisdom of the Son, or rather the word of wisdom—I ask you, and tell me: which is greater, the Father or that day of which he speaks? You will not dare to say that the Father is not greater. If, then, the Father is greater than the day and the hour and all things that have been and will be generated by him, and no one knows him except the Son, which then is greater: to know the Father or to know that day? It is evident that it is to know the Father. How, then, does one who knows the greater things fall short of the lesser? If, therefore, he knows the Father, he certainly knows the day as well, and there is nothing of which the Son falls short in knowledge. But you will say that, being greater than all, the Father has knowledge, but the Son does not at all, just as he himself says, "My Father is greater than I." But the Son says this honoring the Father, as was fitting, having been honored more greatly by the Father. For truly the genuine son ought to honor his own father, in order to show his genuineness. But how do you suppose him to be greater? In circumference, or bulk, or time, or occasion, or rank, or divinity, or immortality, or eternity? Do not think these things. For there is nothing unequal in the divinity with respect to the Son, but insofar as the Father is Father and insofar as the Son is genuine Son, he honors his own Father.

For the divine is not borne by bulk, that the Father might be more bulky than the Son, nor does it fall under time, that the Father might be more ancient than the Son, nor is the Father partially arranged by height, for he contains all things, himself contained by nothing, that the Son might be thought of as transcending. For he sat at the right hand of the Father and did not say, he entered into the Father, in order to dissolve Sabellius and to overthrow Arius from his blasphemy.

Therefore do not seek what is not to be sought, but honor the Son, that you may honor the Father. And when you hear concerning God, "No one is good except the one God," do not dare, because of exceedingly honoring the Son, to declare the Son not good. For he does not, denying himself to be good, say that the Father is good, but he reveals himself all the more greatly in not wishing to receive honor from men, but rather referring the honor to his own Father, so that from the goodness of the Father the knowledge of the goodness of the Son of God may be known, as born from a good Father God. For great is the feebleness of those who dare to say such a thing about the Son, even if he says, "The one God is good.

For see, in many places divine scripture teaches us, calling a child good and poor and wise, and "Samuel was good with God and men" and "Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, was good, taller than all Israel by a cubit and more" and "it is good to go to a drinking house" and "open, Lord, the heaven, your good treasury" and "a good word is better than a gift" and "the living dog is good than the dead lion" and "two are good than one" and "the last of words is good than the beginning" and "if you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children," speaking of fish and bread. How then do you dare to conceive that the Son denies his own goodness and does not, by excess of honor, bear the goodness upon the Father? For he saw the one saying to him "good teacher" speaking with the mouth and not the heart, and wishing to refute him, because he was not persuaded by his lips, but refuted his heart, as also in another place he says "why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do my words," and here he wished to refute him. For he called him a good teacher and did not remain in his faith of believing in his goodness.

This holy Logos, then, the living one, the hypostatic one, the heavenly king, the genuine son, the one always being with the Father, the one who came forth from the Father, the "radiance of the glory, the character of the hypostasis," "the image of the Father" in truth, the one who shares the throne with the one who begot him, "whose kingdom will have no end," "the judge of the living and the dead," the one who is wisdom from wisdom, the one who is a spring from a spring—"For they," he says, "abandoned me, a spring of water of life, and dug for themselves broken cisterns"—the ever-flowing river, the one "delighting the city of God with its streams," the one who came forth from the spring, "from whom, as it is said, rivers will flow from his belly," the scepter of David, the root of Jesse, the flower from it, the lion, the king from the tribe of Judah, the rational sheep, the living stone, the "angel of the great council," the one who became man in truth and who exists as God in truth, not having changed his nature, not having altered his divinity, the one born in flesh, the Logos made flesh, the Logos become flesh, the one having between "the Logos" and "became" the "flesh"—for it did not say "the one who became," but after saying "the Logos" it places "flesh" in the infinitive, and after "flesh" it says "became," so that the "became" from Mary might be confirmed, so that the Logos might be understood as having come down from above from the Father—this holy, living Logos, God from the Father, "the angel of the great council," the one announcing the matters of the Father's council, "the father of the coming age," he himself said, "No one knows the day and the hour, not even the angels in heaven"; for they do not know that the Son says conceptually, "except the Father alone.

If, then, the Son knows the Father, and the Father is greater than both the day and the hour, and no one disputes this, how can he who knows the greater be ignorant of the lesser? For no one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father. For just as the Father is great because he knows the Son, so also the Son is great because he knows the Father. If, then, he knows the Father, the greater, how can he be ignorant of the small, that is, the day and the hour? Examine the divine scriptures and learn the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit itself, which knows the Father and the Son, will reveal to you the knowledge of the Logos, the Son of God, so that you may not stray from the truth and lose your own soul.

For there are two kinds of knowledge in divine scripture, two kinds of awareness: one according to actuality and one according to awareness. To illustrate the matter with examples, so that through many instances your wandering mind and that of those who think like you may be set straight, learn what scripture says about Adam: "They were," it says, "naked in paradise and were not ashamed." But they were not blind, for they saw; for if they did not see, how did they see the tree, that it was "good for food and fair to behold"? "And the woman," it says, "took, ate, and gave also to her husband who was with her." Therefore, they were not blind, but had their eyes open; yet being naked, they were not ashamed while seeing, and being naked, they knew themselves. They knew according to awareness and not according to action. For after being cast out of paradise, having eaten of the tree, after a long time it says, "Adam knew Eve, his wife." How, then, can this be?

And yet they saw each other naked and knew each other by sight, but not by action. Scripture calls the union with each other "knowledge." But it uses the word "knowledge" in two senses. For again it says thus: "Jacob knew Leah his wife, and she conceived and bore." And first he knew her, for he had been with her seven years pasturing the sheep of Laban her father. He had knowledge of her by sight and by acquaintance, but he did not know her by action. And "he knew Rachel his wife." And again in another place: "And David grew old," it says, "and they covered him with garments, and he was not warmed. And they said to the king, 'Let a beautiful virgin be sought.'" And Abishag the Shunammite was found. And it says: "She was brought to the king, and she lay with him and warmed him, and David did not know her"—her who was with him, his bedfellow and companion. So which knowledge does it mean? That by sight or that by action? And "the Lord knew those who were his." Does he then not know those who are not his? And "Depart from me, workers of lawlessness; I have never known you." Is there then ignorance in the Son of God? And again: "I have known you from among all the nations." Does he then not know the remaining nations? Far from it. But divine Scripture knows a knowledge, one kind according to perception, another according to action. Since, then, the only-begotten of the Father, fulfilling his will, has already demonstrated all things completed, for the Father knew the hour and the day, he knew it both by knowledge and by action.

For he himself knows all things, and in the Son's saying, "The Father has given all judgment to the Son," and yet not judging, through the very act of giving to the Son, he himself judges; for God is not alienated from judging those who are judged, and in the Father's not judging, he has already judged. The Son knows when it comes; for he himself bears that day, and he himself defines, leads, and completes it. For it says, "That day comes like a thief in the night," and it says, "You are not in the night, so that the day might overtake you in darkness." If, then, the servants of Christ are children of the day, does the Son himself, who bears the day, not know it, so that the day might overtake him, and he not rather bear the day? Who, considering these things, will not blaspheme, reasoning things unfitting concerning Father and Son? And the Father knows the day and the hour in two ways: according to knowledge and according to action. For he knows when it comes, and again he has already judged, having determined that the Son should judge, and he has known it according to action. But the Son of God knows when it comes, and he himself bears it and is not ignorant, but he has not yet acted upon it according to knowledge, that is, he has not yet known it according to action. For still the impious are impious, and the faithless are faithless, and the evil-minded blaspheme, and the devil is active, and sins occur, and injustice prevails, and judgment is patient, until it comes and he knows it according to action and executes vengeance and saves those who hope in him in truth and do not blaspheme his divinity and that of the Father and the Holy Spirit.

From the holy angels, then, such dignity is lacking in two ways. For they are honorable, having obtained this from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; but this is lacking to them: they do not know when the appointed things occur. For the Father set the times by his own authority. But if the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, then the authority that is in the Father is not lacking from the Son. It is lacking, however, from the angels; for angels, archangels, and powers are created, but the Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Spirit of God is uncreated. Therefore the angels know neither by knowledge nor by action the day and the hour. For they do not know when the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit intend to bring about the day, and they do not know by knowledge of action; for they have not yet been ordered to go out and gather like tares and bind them in bundles to burn with unquenchable fire. So then they have not yet acted nor do they know, but the Father knows and has acted; the Son knows but has not yet acted. That is to say, "If not the Father alone, then neither the angels nor the Son." Let us understand the power of the Scripture, so that the letter does not become death for us. For it says, "The letter kills, but the spirit gives life." Let us take the spirit, so that we may be benefited by the letter. For the letter does not kill; for in the letter is life; rather it kills the one who approaches the letter without understanding and does not have the interpreting spirit, which opens the letter and reveals what is in it.

This holy Father, then, gave his genuine only-begotten Son, begotten from him, and his holy Spirit to his holy Church in one knowledge of concord, in one bond of perfection, so that we might receive the seal in the name of the perfect Father and God, and in the name of the perfect Son and God, and in the name of the divine and perfect Spirit we might receive the seal. O holy Trinity that is numbered, Trinity numbered in one name. For it is not called a monad and a dyad, nor a monad and monads, but a monad in a triad and a triad in a monad, uniformly, mononymously one God, Father in Son, Son in Father together with the holy Spirit. And call for me the witnesses of the truth, call for me the youths who were saved from the furnace of Babylon, who were deemed worthy to be cast into the fire but not to be consumed, not to extinguish the fire, lest they be suspected of having contrived novel works, but to be in the fire and yet not be consumed in the fire because of their right faith, God teaching us through them what things are created and what things are uncreated, what things are made and what things are not generated, what things always exist and what things exist from them but are generated. Such saved youths wished to show a grateful disposition toward the God who saved them, in whom from the beginning they hoped and did not waver and did not bow their neck to an image and to the arrogance of the king and to tyranny.

And when they wished to assign something to God, having searched the depths with the Holy Spirit in their heart, being holy, and having considered the heaven and all things in it, and the earth and all things beneath it, and all that exists, they deemed none of these worthy to be offered as an offering to God; for they did not have authority to offer to God things above themselves, and according to worth and according to authority they wished only to hymn God with hymns; for this is what is written: "Offer a sacrifice of praise" and "A sacrifice of praise will glorify me." Already transforming the old covenant into the new, being prompted by the Holy Spirit, they have no need of sacrifices of animals or of whole burnt offerings; for they say, "There is no place to offer a burnt offering, nor a sacrifice, nor an altar," since all things are encompassed. Wishing to offer such praise, and leaving aside their own smallness, they conduct themselves humbly; for "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." For along with the gift of their salvation they also receive this gift of humility, and they wish to offer praise to God and not to grow weary. And having tested themselves with regard to the ineffable glorification of God, they deem it worthy to take up with themselves creation for glorification, and they begin to speak, having encompassed all of creation. Having divided the creations from the creator and the created things from the creator, they say, "Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord." They said "all" and left out nothing.

so that the Holy Spirit might characterize perfect knowledge for understanding what the divine is and what the things brought into being by God are, so that we might not mix the eternal with things that came into being from non-being, so that we might not destroy our own understanding. It gathered everything together by number. For the Holy Spirit revealed to them, as they were deemed worthy to be with angels and to be companions of angels, the things in the heavens and on the earth and beneath the earth, and they were no longer ignorant. And these same holy children say, as I said before: "Bless all the works of the Lord, the Lord," and they begin to count and to divide what the works are, what the things that make are, what the things that work are, and what the things that have been worked are. And they count heaven, earth, waters above the heaven, and angels—for angels are created—and thrones and powers—for these are created—sun, moon—for they are made and not uncreated—clouds and snowfalls, winds, snows, lightning, thunder, earth, sea, springs, abysses, rivers, all humanity, mountains, birds of the sky, cattle.

and animals, souls of the righteous, spirits of the just, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, priests and servants of God. For all these things are made and created, having come into being by God through the Word and the Holy Spirit: "for by the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the spirit of his mouth all their power." See, beloved brother, how they enumerated all things, borne by the Holy Spirit, and they did not enumerate the Son among the creations, nor the Holy Spirit, but they recognized the same divinity to be in a triad and the same triad to be in one divinity. And they glorified the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father together with the Holy Spirit, one sanctity, one worship, one divinity, one doxology.

But certainly the devil dares to stir this up among men, the audacity of unbelief to falsely accuse the holy children and to say: they did not know to speak the name of the Holy Spirit; for they were Jews and did not know the Son either, being Jews. But immediately the words refute the unbelief of the heterodox. For it says, "and the face of the fourth was like the face of the Son of God." Behold the name of the Son of God; therefore there is no ignorance concerning this, and before the time of the furnace, that "Daniel was filled with the Holy Spirit and said, 'I am pure from her blood,' and they returned to the judgment" and he judged the elders, being filled with the Holy Spirit. Therefore they knew the Son and they knew the Father and the Holy Spirit, and it was not for lack of knowledge that they did not speak the names, but for the sake of caution.

Bless, for it says, all the works of the Lord the Lord," and they did not say, "Let the Son of God bless the Lord," nor "Let the Holy Spirit bless the Lord," but "Bless, all the works of the Lord the Lord." And let none of those who hunt for pretexts for themselves say: "Because they did not say Cherubim or Seraphim, therefore these also are not works of God." For the divine word anticipated securing everything against those who devise machinations for themselves, foreknowing the harm to them and to the children. For the same holy children triply doubled the hymn, putting forward created and made things in praise of God, and first saying, "Blessed are you, Lord God of our fathers, and praiseworthy and glorified is your name for ever," then after other things, "Blessed are you who sit upon the Cherubim," and again, "Blessed are you who sit upon the throne of the glory of your kingdom," and "Blessed are you who see the abysses, sitting upon the Cherubim," so that from the mention of the throne you may understand Seraphim and Cherubim, and from the name of the Cherubim and abysses and sanctified throne and all the rest of the names, you may understand from the number of all those named that they are among the works, counted together with the others. For having called all these things into the hymn, they immediately add, saying, "Bless, all the works of the Lord the Lord," so that Gabriel and Michael may bless the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The reverend angels in heaven sing the triumphal hymn, together with the Seraphim and Cherubim, glorifying the Trinity with like glory, like order, and like substance, and saying the “Holy, Holy, Holy,” uttering three voices, but speaking in unity and not with many names. For they do not say “Holy” a fourth time, lest they add something to the name of the Trinity; they do not say “Holy” twice, lest the glory of perfection be deficient, but three times, that they may sanctify Father and Son and Holy Spirit in the same honor. And they do not say “Holy” and “half-holy,” but they say “Holy” equally, with one voice and one word and one perfection, glorifying the Trinity together in unity and unity in Trinity. For this knowledge the only-begotten Son of God came to teach us, this understanding the Holy Spirit proclaimed to us, this perfection the Father revealed to us; in truth this life the Word incarnate bestowed upon us, this edifice the Holy Spirit built for us. “For if anyone builds upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, grass, straw,” and so forth. For there is no other foundation; “for no one can lay another foundation besides the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” the Son of God, “of whom we are the building, and of whom we are the cultivation,” “built upon the foundation of prophets and apostles,” that we may know that our building is firm in truth and that our foundation always exists and did not begin to be.

But "knowledge is not in all," according to the apostolic saying, but in those deemed worthy by the Holy Spirit to know the mysteries of truth. For He who revealed Himself and His own Father and the Holy Spirit, reproaching some of those in ignorance, said, "You do not know the Scriptures nor their power," and again elsewhere, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," and again, "If you knew who it is that asks to drink from you, you would have asked," He said to the Samaritan woman, and again, "You do not know of what spirit you are." Therefore, "knowledge is not in all"; "for each has different gifts from God." And the holy word says, "To whom more is given, more will be demanded of him," as some receive little, some not at all, and others receive more abundantly.

And that these things are so can be found from what is said in the divine Scriptures themselves. For the divine Scripture, speaking spiritually for the most part, especially concerning our life—I mean knowledge of the Lord—whatever words are deeper and more securely fortify our soul, these have become a stumbling block to those who have not attained knowledge of God, as the prophet Hosea says, "Who is wise and will understand these things?" and "To whom a word of knowledge of the Lord is given, he will know them; for the ways of the Lord are straight, but the impious will stumble on them." For they are straight, but the impious stumble on the ways of the Lord, these ways being blameless of any stumbling to men. So those who stumble on the stone of stumbling stumble indiscriminately.

They stumbled against the stone of stumbling and were scandalized. For immediately the Jews, seeing the only-begotten son of God come in the flesh working divine signs and not having been deemed worthy of the heavenly knowledge, said, "Who is this man who speaks blasphemies?" and at other times, "If this man were from God, he would not break the Sabbath." Therefore they were ignorant of his divinity and considered him only a mere man. But those who recognized him as God, yet were ignorant of his perfect glory, hearing the words spoken in depth about him and the economy of the flesh contrived for our salvation, err and hold false opinions concerning his divinity. For their understanding led them astray. For just as the Jews were led astray by what they heard, so too these were led astray by what they heard. For the Jews saw what was foretold in the prophets, but being ignorant of its fulfillment in the incarnate presence of Christ, they were disturbed. And these again, hearing the things foretold on account of his economy, but understanding them superficially, are disturbed and set forth for their own destruction what was said for our edification, and they say: "But he said, 'I

I go to my God and your God and my Father and your Father.” Do you see that they dare to say that He Himself is one of the creatures, blaspheming? You see, then, that the economy of the incarnate presence misleads them. For let them take up from the beginning and ask about times or seasons: “For His goings out,” it says, “are from the days of eternity.” Let us therefore examine what came before these. The Father says, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness,” and He did not say, “I will make man according to my image.” Be refuted, you who have a hardened heart, according to what is written, “But their heart was hardened,” and learn that the Son is always with the Father; for saying “let us make” is not indicative of one, but of the Father speaking to the Son. Be refuted also, you who say the Son is unlike the Father; for in saying “according to our image,” He did not distinguish the likeness of the Son from the Father nor did He separate any of the identity of the Father with the Son. For He did not say “according to my image” or “according to your image,” but He revealed one essence and divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. For He says, “according to our image and likeness,” so that the divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, but man has come to be according to the image of the one divinity of Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Be refuted also, you, Arius, and hear the Father saying to the Son, “let us make,” calling the Son a co-creator. For I have often heard some saying that the Son made nothing, but that “through Him” the things that came to be were made.

If it came to be through Him, then He Himself made it, as has been clearly demonstrated. For the master-builder Word is the maker of all things, and through Him the Father works. Let them hear Him clearly saying, “My Father works until now, and I work.” For here He calls His own Father a co-creator in saying this. But again, do not let your mind deceive you, and approach the Son as a slave and not as a true master. For if He were a slave and not a true master, how could He, who exists in the form of God, have taken on the form of a slave when He came? And how could He have emptied Himself, if He did not possess perfection? Therefore approach the Son as a perfect God and as a genuine Son from the Father. And do not say out of ill will: “But the Father said to the Son, ‘Let us make,’ while the Son did not say to the Father, ‘Let us make,’ and the Son does not say, ‘I work and my Father works,’ but He places the Father first as speaking and working.” For you say this foolishly and wish to conceive of the divine as having many principles. There is one principle and the same one divinity, and nowhere here does the Son say “my God.” I do not say this to deny the honor of the Son toward the Father, but such is the sequence of the divinity. And again, “Adam heard,” it says, “God walking in the garden in the evening.” And nowhere does the Son say “my God and your God,” but here He speaks of God as self-sufficient. And again, “And God spoke to Noah,” and nowhere is such a phrase found. “And God appeared,” it says, “to Abraham, as he sat by the oak of Mamre; and behold, three men, and he ran to meet them and prostrated on the ground and said:

If I found favor before you,” so as to show the one God, and the other two accompanying him as his angels. For concerning this it also says, “God went up from Abraham”; but he who came to him says, “Shall I hide anything from my servant Abraham? The cry,” it says, “of Sodom and Gomorrah has reached me,” and so forth; and nowhere in these times is the phrase “my God and your God” employed. “And the two men entered Sodom,” as the one who had ascended above Abraham was left behind from the two who entered Sodom for its destruction. And concerning the one who ascended, Scripture says, “And the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord”; and there was no need of the expression to say “my God and your God.” And Moses says in the Ode, “And let all the angels of God worship him.” If he says “angels of God” and “fire from the Lord” and does not say merely “angels,” it is to show the single kingdom of the Father and the Son, the angels not being divided into separate authorities, but belonging to God, while they worship the Son and God; for an angel does not worship an angel. And nowhere here is “my God and your God.” And David says, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” Lord, he says, to my Lord; for the economy of the flesh was not yet, on account of which it was necessary to call him “my God and your God.” “Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted ‘God with us’”; and there was not yet need to say “my God and your God.

And “You, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are not too small to be among the thousands of Judah; for from you will come forth for me a ruler in Israel, and his goings forth are from the beginning, from days of eternity,” and according to other copies, “And you, Bethlehem, are not the least among the leaders of Judah; for from you will come forth a leader, and he will shepherd my people Israel.” And you see that there was not yet any need to say “my God” and “your God.” But when the prophecy of Jeremiah and likewise of Isaiah was being fulfilled—that the Word would be born from a virgin and take on flesh, just as Jeremiah says, “And he is a man; and who will know him?”—then, having partaken of flesh and having formed that same holy flesh in himself without the seed of a man from the God-bearer Mary, according to what is said, “born of a woman,” and having partaken of our [nature] for our sake, he says “my God”; but on account of his eternal genuineness according to nature, he says “my father,” and on account of his grace toward his own disciples, “your father,” and on account of the natural relationship of the disciples themselves to his divinity and to his eternal father, “your God.” For he is God of the disciples, but father of the Lord according to nature, and father of the disciples according to grace; and the father is God of the Son on account of the flesh, but father on account of the eternity and incomprehensibility of his generation and genuineness, because he is truly his father, having begotten him timelessly and without beginning according to divinity.

It was necessary to call him God because of the economy he performed for us, being always with the Father, born without beginning as Word, but in flesh born from Mary at the end of the days according to flesh, from Mary herself, the holy virgin, through the Holy Spirit. Let them therefore understand the depths of God's dispensation and not turn grace into ingratitude, counting as dishonor the ineffable and incomprehensible nature of God's salvation for us. But, they say, it is written concerning God: "He will not hunger nor thirst, nor is there any discovery of his wisdom," but concerning the Son, that he hungered in the wilderness during the temptation. And they say: "Our God will not grow weary," but the Lord Jesus grew weary on the journey; and "He who guards Israel will not slumber nor sleep," but, they say, the Lord slept in the ship. O vain suspicions of those who reason such things! For not only did the holy Word take upon himself our burdens for our sake when he came, but he also became subject to touch, took flesh, was found to be a man, was seized by the scribes, and, as it says, "I gave my back to the scourges, and the

I did not turn my face away from the shame of spittings. But also "he wept," as it stands in the Gospel according to Luke in the uncorrected copies—and the holy Irenaeus uses this testimony in his work against heresies, against those who say that Christ appeared in semblance, but the orthodox removed the saying, fearing and not understanding its purpose and its very strong force—and "being in agony he sweated, and his sweat became like drops of blood, and an angel appeared strengthening him." Not only this, but also as a man he asks, "Where have you placed Lazarus?" and concerning the woman with the hemorrhage, "Who touched me?" and concerning those seeking him, "Whom do you seek?" but also he asks the disciples as a man, "What do men say I am, the son of man?" and also "How many loaves do you have with you?" he said, and being weary from the journey he sat by the well in Samaria, but also "the child grew and was strengthened in spirit" and "Jesus advanced in age and wisdom," but also "before the child knows to call father or mother, he will receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria," he who is wisdom and "teaching men knowledge and planting the ear in man" and articulating speech to the sons of men "and making the tongue of the stammerers clear." All such things he endured for us, so that, preserving the entire sequence of the incarnation administered for our sake, he might not obliterate the character of the truth.

But so that we do not leave the testimonies which we have adduced as from the face of those on the opposite side, who have collected them from the divine scriptures in opposition to the truth, but which are wrongly understood by them, uninterpreted, I will state the theory of the power in each, for which reason it is spoken in a human-passionate manner. And again we will say, having already said much concerning "my God" and "your God," as it is possible for one who has a mind to know from the sequence itself that it is reasonably spoken. "For he is a man, and who will know him?" The divine text reveals both at the same time, the visible and the invisible, so that through the visible "my God" is reasonably spoken, and through the invisible "my father" is said, neither mode being contradicted by the word. For how, if he were a man, was he not known? But if he were not a man, how was he called a man? For certainly everyone born from humans is known by humans, from the one who gave birth, from relatives, from household members, from neighbors, from tent-mates or fellow citizens. And it is impossible for this to be fulfilled in a mere man; but it is fulfilled in the divine Word and Son of God, in saying "he is a man," that he is truly a man, and "who will know him?" that he is God; because he shares with men and is God, unknowable to men due to his incomprehensibility. But he is truly a man born from Mary without the seed of a man: "And the virgin," it says, "for the prophet proclaimed beforehand before the time that she will conceive and will bear a son.

If then she is a virgin, the economy of the birth is not from men, because before this time it was said to Ahaz, "Ask for yourself a sign, either in depth or in height." But he, being humble, says, "I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord my God," having declined to ask for a sign. Immediately, because he did not ask for a sign, God, who bestows great gifts upon men, grants two gifts: from on high he sent the Word by his own will and by the will of the Word himself, and from the depth he arranged the flesh by his own good will together with the Word himself. For later it says, "And they will call his name Emmanuel." And it did not say "I will call," but "they will call"; for to men God, who was once unknown among them, was revealed. But he does not receive the name recently; for it did not say "I will call his name Emmanuel," but "they will call." And the phrase "born of a woman," as I have already indicated above, is so that in the phrase "from a woman" the becoming flesh might be fulfilled, while the Word is clearly shown to be eternal to all. And if the phrase "he will not thirst" is about God, but about the Son, that he hungered and thirsted, this has been arranged for us of necessity. For how would the economy be found to be in truth if it did not have the necessary custom of the incarnation? In this he has shown us the solutions to all the questions of the heretics. For immediately he resolved the suspicion of the Manichaeans; for in saying that he eats and drinks, he indicates true flesh. He resolved the manner of the Lucianists and the power of Arius.

For Lucian and all Lucianists deny that the Son of God took a soul, and they say that he had only flesh, so that they might, as it were, ascribe to God the Word human passion—thirst and hunger and weariness and weeping and grief and disturbance, and all such things as are present in his incarnate presence. But it would be foolish to reckon these things to the divinity of the Son of God. But, they say, flesh by itself neither eats nor drinks nor grows weary nor does the other things. And I myself agree that flesh by itself does not have these things. But the Word came and undertook the whole economy, and both flesh and soul and all that is in a human being; and hunger and weariness, and thirst and grief and the rest were parts of the soul and the flesh. For he weeps in order to refute the error of Manichaeus, that he was not clothed in the body in appearance, but in truth; and he thirsts in order to show that he has not only flesh, but also soul. For his divinity did not thirst anywhere, but he thirsted with the flesh and the soul, and he grew weary from the journey because of the consequence of the flesh and the soul.

That the Word came having both body and soul, let the divine scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments persuade them. For immediately David speaks about him, and Peter speaks in harmony with David: "You will not let my soul go to Hades, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption," so that the composite nature of the Lord's human being might be understood and clear knowledge of this might be given to us, in order to establish that the soul, together with the divinity, was laid to rest in the three-day period, so as to show the flesh as holy, and that the divinity together with the soul accomplished the mystery in Hades without restraint. For somewhere it also has another testimony speaking thus: "free among the dead"—the word "free" signifying that Hades does not rule over him, but that he descended to Hades by his own will together with the soul. And Peter says, "inasmuch as it was not possible for him to be held by it," that is, by Hades. And the Savior himself says, "I have authority to take my soul and to place it," and "I am the good shepherd, who places his soul for the sheep," and "my soul is troubled," he says, "and what shall I say?" speaking as if in doubt, "What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this reason I came to this hour," in order to show that his divinity came into this willingly; and the phrase "is troubled," so that the form of the truth of his incarnate presence might not be altered.

For it was not by illusion that the embodied presence occurred, but like a great king who has a war against an inferior and knows that his enemy, if he sees him coming in power and great strength, will withdraw and turn to flight and will devastate many of the subject territories, and for this reason, by his own wisdom, he feigns pretexts and gives his back and flees, until the enemy, taking courage, attacks as if the king were cowardly and powerless and pursues him, but the king, turning suddenly with his own force, receives the whole weak and hostile one into submission—so also our Lord did not fear death, he who before coming to suffer indicated on the journey that the Son of Man was to be betrayed and crucified and on the third day to rise, and when Peter said, "Mercy, Lord; this shall not happen to you," he rebuked him, saying, "Get behind me, Satan, for you do not think the things of God, but the things of men." He who foretold these things and came for this very purpose, how later does he pray that the cup pass by, so that he might not drink it? He who spoke about death before dying could not, even to avoid being thought a liar, have prayed that the cup pass by. But through such a persona he provokes the adversary, so that when the adversary supposes the Savior fears death, he brings death upon him for the salvation of the dying through the economy. But even if you hear that the Lord died, know where the passion of death was fulfilled.

The most eminent of the apostles, Peter, interprets for you the matter concerning his death, saying: "Put to death in flesh, but made alive in spirit." For his divinity, having undergone suffering in the flesh, is impassible, was impassible, and remained impassible, the impassibility not being turned nor the eternity altered.

Again, if the vainglorious say: You cannot persuade us from such statements that Christ had a soul. For we have found above in the divine scriptures, as Isaiah says from the person of God and Father concerning the only-begotten: "This is my beloved son, in whom I was well pleased, whom my soul loved." What shall we understand concerning the Father, that he received a soul in himself or has a soul? And who, babbling, will understand this concerning the Father? What then do they say? That the expression is spoken figuratively, evidently. If then they say it is spoken more figuratively concerning the Father, then it is necessary to take the same concerning the Son. For even if he says: "My soul is troubled" and "I have authority to give my soul and take it," they say he did not have a soul, but it is spoken more figuratively. And their syllogistic reasoning seems to say something, * truth being self-evident from many proofs. For each mode is taken from the form. For concerning the Father it is not to be dared, because he did not wear flesh. But since the flesh is agreed upon by the Lucianists or Arians, there is no ambiguity. But, he says: "The Word became flesh," and he did not say: "The Word became flesh and soul.

Against their ignorant contradiction, I also say: "God formed man, taking dust from the earth," and from the phrase "he formed" he included everything, and from the phrase "the Word became flesh" he encompasses everything. For according to the same reasoning, we counter them, saying: Behold, it says "God formed man," and it did not say: he made for him a liver or a lung or a heart or veins or sinews or all the other things that are in the body. From this, shall we understand that man is a single, solid-forged entity, because the scripture did not detail the composition of the whole living being? Not at all. Just as from the one form he included the whole, so also from the flesh it is clearly evident that the Savior took the soul. If, then, he took soul and body, as has been demonstrated, then the divinity was not diminished from the essence of the Father, being enclosed within passions, so as to thirst and labor and hunger and all that are necessary for man. And that God "will not labor, nor is there any device of his understanding," but the Savior is found to have labored, yet not because of this is the Word not from the essence of the Father, having come down from above. For he did not labor above, but in the flesh. For the flesh had to labor, so that it might not be thought to be in appearance, but in truth; and all the other things that have such a force, such as to doze, to sleep, are indicative of man, and to be under touch. For he took these things and was found to be man. "For we have found," it says, "the Messiah, whom Moses wrote about." But those who found him through the incomprehensible nature, that is, through the incarnate nature.

For since he was not found on account of his incomprehensibility, for this reason he is apprehended by the scribes, and "he gave his back to lashes and did not turn his face away from the shame of spittings," he wept, and whatever else is sung about him. Who could have scourged or slapped or spat upon the divine Word in heaven, that ineffable and incomprehensible one? But if the impassible Word of God suffered these things, then the suffering is bodily, outside his own impassibility, and yet not outside, because of his consent; although he did not suffer, the suffering is accounted to him. And just as a stain on a garment does not reach the body of the wearer, but the stain on the garment is accounted to the wearer, so God suffered in the flesh, while his divinity suffered nothing. But the suffering of the flesh, worn by the divinity, was accounted to the divinity, so that in the divinity salvation might come to us. I recall the saying from the Gospel according to Luke, and I do not wish to leave it uninterpreted, the passage which says: "Being in agony, he sweated, and his sweat became like clots of blood. And an angel of the Lord appeared, strengthening him." The deeper meanings of the words, as we are accustomed to say, and the necessary ones, those who do not understand the force of them overturn themselves into evil instead of good; for nothing is more timely than this. For in saying "he was in agony," it shows the Lord's man to be a true man. And to show that the agony came not from the divinity, but that he was a true man, it says: "he sweated, and his sweat became like clots of blood.

The form is corporeal, not spiritual. "And an angel of the Lord appeared strengthening him," not that the one greater than angels was in need of the angel's strength, "he before whom every knee of the heavenly, earthly, and infernal beings bends," being always God the Word and always with the Father and born from him, but in order to fulfill what was in the great song of Moses sung in the wilderness, in which he said, "all sons of God will worship him, and let the angels of God strengthen him." The "let them strengthen him" not as providing him with strength; but since the doxology was strong in these things to glorify God, by angels immediately above and spiritual creatures crying out and saying, "yours is the power, yours is the might, yours is the strength," in this it shows worshiping and strengthening, that is, giving him the proper might of strength, as also the angel appeared before the disciples worshiping his own master; not being ignorant of the excess of his philanthropic economy, but marveling at the great transaction of gentleness that had occurred in him, which defeated the devil, which crushed the sting of death, which triumphed over the principalities and powers, which shattered sin. And on account of the excess of wonder in the doxology, the angel said while worshiping: yours is the strength, master; for you have prevailed against death and against Hades and against the devil, to crush his sting and cast it out from humanity.

If again he says, "Where have you placed Lazarus?" speaking in a human way, and concerning the woman with the issue of blood, "Who touched me?" or "Whom do you seek?" or "What do men say I am, the Son of Man?" or "The child grew and was strengthened" or "He advanced in age and wisdom" or "Before the child knew to call father or mother," do you not see from the very subject matter the excess of knowledge, that the narratives are from flesh and humanity? For all things in the Old Testament that from the person of God and Father are condescended for the persuasion of men, partaking of ignorance, yet not unknown to God, these the Logos came and fulfilled, so as to fulfill the saying, "My father until now works, and I work." "Where have you placed Lazarus?" he asked, having come near the place; but before coming to the place, having heard from no one, he said to his disciples, "Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep." He, then, who from such a distance of the journey, being far from the place, knew that Lazarus had died, when present at the place was he ignorant? Not at all, but he wished to show that he did all these things, since no one yet fully believed in him, so as to demonstrate the great philanthropy of his care for us. For he needed not to say those things, "It is the fourth day, he already stinks," nor to go and show, but to say: You know all things, and if you wish, he will live. Therefore he also wept at the hardness of men. So he did not ask in ignorance, but tests, tempting, and exercises philanthropy.

And "Who touched me?" he says, not because he did not know who touched him, but so that he might not himself declare the miracle that had occurred, but rather so that she, upon hearing, might come forward and tell of the grace that had been bestowed upon her, and after confessing, might hear: "Your faith has saved you," in order to encourage others to believe, so that they might be healed. "Whom do they say I am," he says, "the Son of Man?" As also in the Old Testament, speaking from the person of the Father, he says, "Adam, where are you?" But he knew where he was; for that reason he later convicts him, saying, "You ate from the tree." And to Cain, "Where is Abel, your brother?" And he was not asking in ignorance. For he says, "Cursed are you upon the earth, which gaped to receive your brother's blood from your hand. Behold, his blood cries out to me." Therefore, the one who said that the blood cries out was not ignorant, but rather, in order to give him an opportunity for repentance through an apology, he asked for this reason.

They turn again to the contentiousness of ignorance and say that these utterances in the Old Testament belong to the Son himself. But their contrivance is immediately refuted. For the one who said to Moses, "What is this in your hand?" himself said, "I am the one who is." And the Lord says to the Sadducees, when discoursing about the resurrection, "That the dead rise, God said: I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Therefore, God is of the living and not of the dead." And again, there is much to show that in the Old Testament things are said from the person of the Father; but also from the person of the Son many times, and again from the person of the Holy Spirit.

And "Where is Sarah, your wife?" the Son of God, who came from above with the two angels, said to Abraham. For if he did not know where she was, he would not have said "Sarah." * "So Sarah laughed, being inside" — he wishes to indicate her modesty as a model for women who wish to be pious in truth, so that when they receive guests, they may serve from their own labors, but on account of modesty, they may not show their faces to the men. For that blessed woman certainly prepared everything, and having prepared it, she was not seen in the presence of the angels, presenting a model of modesty to the generations after her. But also, to show who the present one is, the one who was hosted for the moment called the woman's name, * because neither the name nor the creation nor the thought of any human is hidden from him. "Who do they say I am," he says, "the Son of Man?" And he himself speaks of the Son of Man, confessing it, so that they might not think he is asking about the invisible one. And they say, Elijah and Jeremiah and John. "But you, who do you say I am?" "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," he says, and immediately he is blessed. For he was not asking in ignorance, but wishing to show that the teaching which proclaims the Son as true God to the Church is from the Father, so that Peter might be compelled to say what he had been taught by the Father. And do not be surprised if he says, "Through me they come to the Father," and you suppose that he is altered from the Father's substance. For he himself teaches again, "No one comes to me unless the Father draws him.

Just as the father sends to the son, and the son brings to the father, to show that the divinity is one and the same. And "he advanced in age and wisdom"—if wisdom is of God, he is not lacking wisdom. But because he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, the fullness was not diminished; but to show that he was poured from heaven into humanity, that is, into the workshop of Mary. "For a perfume emptied out is your name," it says; it did not say poured out, but emptied from heaven to earth, so that from earth it might be emptied into Mary. And from Mary, having become flesh, he is conceived, is born in Bethlehem, moves from Bethlehem to Nazareth, from Nazareth to Capernaum, from Capernaum to Jerusalem and the sea when he walks on the waters, and the regions of Tyre and Nain and Judea and Jericho and to Bethphage and Bethany, to Jerusalem, the temple and the Mount of Olives and Gethsemane, to the house of Caiaphas, to the praetorium and to Herod, to the place of Golgotha, to the tomb and as far as Hades, to earth after the resurrection and to the heavens. For a perfume emptied from vessel to vessel perfumes all the vessels, and the presence of Christ from heaven sanctified the whole earth, those receiving him in truth. The mountain that is, as is said in Daniel, and a great mountain, "a stone cut without hands"—without the seed of a man being hinted at, the greater again found small.

Again taking up the stone, it becomes great in size and again becomes a great mountain, and clearly the mountain is not in one place, but fills the whole inhabited world. This one, being wisdom and having become man, extending his power to the world, so that he might fill the inhabited world with grace, "advanced in age and wisdom." Since he is wisdom of the father and "teaching men" to speak and having articulated the tongue for men and "planted the ear" for those who hear, how did he not know to call father or mother? * "He will take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria" and so forth? But because, if he had been born from the womb and immediately speaking and clearly uttered things as a mere child, his incarnation would have been considered a fantasy and not true but rather a semblance, for this reason he endures the smallness of age, so that he might not destroy the truth of the sequence. Others again hunt after * vain suppositions, interweaving them with the divine words and think contrarily, and say: How then is it written "Receive the high priest of our confession, being faithful to the one who made him" and "Let it be known to you, all the house of Israel, that this Jesus, whom you crucified, the Lord and Christ, God made him." And great wonder comes upon me how those who touch upon the sequences are ignorant of the power expressed in them. For to say "Receive the

faithful high priest to the one who made him” is not said concerning the divinity. For God came, and the divine scriptures make everything clear to us. For there is nothing in them crooked or tangled, “but everything is clear to those who understand and straight to those who find knowledge.” For it says, “Take instruction and not silver”; for if one does not take instruction from God—that is, the faith of truth—everything is crooked and distorted to him, but to those who understand rightly and find knowledge, everything is straight and blameless. And to refute them, the apostle says: “For every high priest taken from among men is appointed for matters concerning God on behalf of men, to offer gifts and sacrifices.” For this reason also the only-begotten himself, since he came to be a high priest on behalf of men, took flesh from us, so that the offering made from us on our behalf might call the disciples “brothers” to his own father God. Where then is the “having become” fulfilled? From nowhere else, but in relation to the high priest. “Receive,” it says, “the high priest faithful to the one who made him.” And to use a further example: someone might ask a king about his own son and say to him, daringly, “Who is this?” And having heard from the father a just declaration, “He is my son,” he might ask again, “Your son by nature?” And if the king says yes, the questioner will then press, “Then what did you make him?” Surely he will say, “I made him king.” Did he, by stating the rank, deny the legitimacy? If he says the second, did he annul the first? Not at all.

Thus indeed God the Father begot the Son without beginning, and in the flesh the saying “He made him high priest” is fulfilled. But, they say, it is written, “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works.” And first of all, the vain-glorious ones are ignorant of the name of the book. For the book is called Proverbs of Solomon. And everything spoken proverbially is not identical in force with the literal meaning. For behold, our Lord Jesus Christ spoke in parables, and we see that the parables do not correspond to our subject in that way. For he says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed.” And if we wish to interpret that part according to our own understanding, it is clear that the kingdom of heaven is a place of spaciousness—if indeed one must call it a place—in which kingdom are God the Father, God the Word and Son of God, and the Holy Spirit of God, as well as angels and archangels, spiritual hosts, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the righteous. Where, then, will so many things be contained in a grain of mustard seed? But the figurative meaning of the saying is spoken enigmatically. Therefore, what is spoken proverbially is not identical. But also the woman who had ten drachmas and lost one, and lit a lamp and found it; also the net cast into the sea; also the seed sown upon the ground—all these are spoken enigmatically, and they are not identical in force. And we truly do not know whether the proverbialist Solomon spoke this saying concerning the Son of God. For there is wisdom, and there is wisdom.

Thus the apostle knows how to say, "The world did not know God through the wisdom of God," and "God made foolish the wisdom of the world," and again he says, "Not in fleshly wisdom, but in the power of God." And Solomon knows how to call wisdom, saying, "I loved her beauty and brought her as a bride for myself." And Job knows wisdom and says, "But whence was wisdom found? And what place is that of understanding?" and "The wisdom of the poor is despised," and "He is the corrector of wisdom," and "The wisdom of the Father is the only-begotten."

What then do we say? If wisdom is the Father, and the Son, according to their understanding, did not come forth from him, being Word and God and wisdom, then the Father lacks wisdom in himself. How then is it "to God alone, wise, invisible," and all these things are incomprehensible and infinite to men? God gave wisdom to Solomon and filled Bezalel with wisdom, and "wise men hide shame." And there is much to say about wisdom. But that wisdom of the Father is uniform, having no other antithesis. Nevertheless, even if the discourse were sung about it, I neither agree nor dissent, but I leave it to God to know; I see the things said as forced antitheses. For it says, "He created the beginning of his ways for his works; before the age he founded me; before all hills he begets me." How then is that which is begotten founded? And how is that which is created begotten? For if it is created, it is not truly begotten. For we do not create what we beget, and we do not beget what we create; for we are created, and what is begotten by us is created. But in God, who is uncreated, the offspring is not created.

For if he begot, he did not create; but if after creating he again begot, how then is that which was first created later begotten? If, then, the things said are about him, they are fulfilled in the incarnate economy. And for this reason he mentions the nearer things first and relates the older things later. For wishing to persuade the nearest people, he begins from the flesh, for the beginning of the ways of righteousness of the gospel is that the Word became flesh for us in Mary, and a soul was founded in her flesh, so that he might show the higher things later. And we say that from the paternal bosoms he came from the heavens to the earth, since he came to us later, having completed the whole economy. Therefore, the Word is not created, let it not be, and divine scripture engendered nothing crooked for us, nothing at all. But both by nature and among the interpreters the phrase is not rendered thus. For Aquila says, "The Lord acquired me," since in the Hebrew it says "Adonai qanani"; which is interpreted as we have said. And we ourselves, according to custom, say of those who are begotten, "He acquired children." But not even thus did he seal the force of the interpretation. For "Adonai qanani" can also be interpreted thus: "The Lord nested me." And for this reason Peter clearly declares, saying, "This Jesus, whom you crucified." He did not say the God Word from above, but "this Jesus," that is, the flesh conceived together with the Word from above in the womb of Mary, which is called this because of the Lord's man from Mary.

For in this also the † thing being created is fulfilled, as Peter says, "put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit," and again, "Christ, then, having suffered for us in the flesh," and again, "from which Christ, as to the flesh," as Paul says. And the Savior himself said in the Gospel, "Now you seek to kill me, a man, who has spoken the truth to you, which I heard from the Father," in order to show that the passion is from the humanity and the lower things, but that he is the natural son of the Father from the higher things. And the holy apostle Paul also agrees with this statement, saying, "one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ," "who did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave." Do you see that he declared him to be a man, but not a mere man? For the phrase "mediator between God and men," since he mediates between both, on the one hand to his Father being God by nature, a genuine born son, and on the other hand to men being a natural genuine man born from Mary without the seed of a man. For thus he is mediator between God and men, being God and having become man, not having changed his nature, but mediating between both according to each.

But again, being ignorant, they say: "Do you see that 'he did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God'?" And the contentious ones do not even know the expression. For he did not say: "He did not wish to become equal to God by usurpation," but "he did not consider it a usurpation to be equal to God," that is, to be God by nature, because he was. For if he were not, how did he take the form of a slave? For by taking the recent [form] he signified, and from this he showed the surpassing wonder, that although he was equal to God, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, not in order to enslave the free, but in order that in the form which he took he might free the obedient slaves. As also the Jews testify that he was not ashamed to call himself equal to God nor did he hesitate, but rather from this he showed it more boldly by saying, "If I do not say it, I will be a liar like you." And for this reason they say to him, "We do not kill you for a good deed, but because, being a man, you make yourself equal to God." But they say: "We ought to acknowledge the figurative statements about him." And the scripture has said many figurative things about him, and one must not deny the things said about him enigmatically, that he is called a door and is said to be a stone and a pillar and a cloud and a lion and a sheep and a lamp and a torch and a sun and an angel and a worm and a rock and a cornerstone and a way and a bull and a calf and the like. Clearly we too do not deny the things about him that have been fulfilled enigmatically. But we know for what reason these things are written: a way because through him we travel toward the kingdom, toward him and the Father; a door because through him we enter; a pillar because he is the foundation of our faith.

Rock" because of its immovability; "stone" because it is founded; "sun of righteousness" because it illuminated our darkened minds.

Then they say that if it is written about him that he is a creation, one must also acknowledge the creation. Behold, I too have set forth a part of the passages that have been fulfilled for us through his riddles. Let them tell us, in calling him a creation, what use is it? "Door" is fittingly said figuratively, so that it becomes an entrance for us and a benefit, and "way," so that walking through him we do not go astray; but "creation," why does it become so for us? What benefit does it give us? Yes, says the vainglorious contentious one; for if you do not call him a creation, you attribute a passion to the Father. For every one who begets is enveloped in passion; for either he contracts or expands or is extended or flows out or swells or suffers something of the sort. Fie on such a mind, which is wicked and not most true. Who will conceive such things about God? What suspicion will dare such things? Clearly no one, not even the demons, will conceive anything of the sort. And if one confesses the Father, he believes that he has truly begotten the Son. For the divine is not carried about by masses nor is it a pregnant body, so as to undergo the aforementioned things. "For God is spirit," and spirit does not undergo flux, nor cutting, nor contraction, nor diminution, nor extension, nor anything of the sort. Therefore, inasmuch as the Father is spirit, he has begotten the Son, God Logos, spiritually, timelessly, incomprehensibly, and without beginning.

To persuade those who think this way, let us say, not claiming similar things but turning them away from their own evil defense by means of similar things: a creation is that which is infinitely and ten-thousandfold inferior to its own master. And many people in the desert, lacking fire, fill a vessel with water and bring readily flammable material made from flax or tow. They stand opposite the sun, and the radiance from the glass, shining onto the material placed beneath, immediately catches fire from the sun's fire and kindles the flame. Has the sun been divided by the participation of its substance? Has it been diminished? Has it been reduced? No, they say. If, then, a creation, being a creation, was not diminished, how much more so God, who is infinite, incomprehensible, and pure, having begotten from himself a Spirit, being God the Word, ineffable, incomprehensible, and incorruptible, begot in incorruptibility, not through passion, not through division, not through diminution, but perfect from perfect in perfection. And the nature of fire lights many lamps from one, and the first, being present, is not diminished; again, the same substance can be in many partial things, I mean lamps or torches. But the divine is not so, far from it; for the Word did not again enter and effect a coalescence with the Father, but the Father is Father, and the Son is Son, and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit. For the statement among the Manichaeans is foolish, that in the mind of Mani the souls, coming from the pillar of light, are one body and, being released from bodies, are again reshaped into the one substance, as if gathered into the one pillar according to their mythical fabrication.

But the Gospel did not show it thus; rather, He broke from five loaves and fed five thousand, and He did not leave their leftovers, but says, "Gather, and leave none of the fragments," and they gathered twelve baskets. And they gathered them together into the receptacles, but He did not make the fragments again into a continuous loaf as they were. They gathered the multitude, but into many fragments, yet He showed them gathered into one collection of baskets. And we have not allegorized this, nor the aforementioned example of the sun, according to a speculative hypothesis. For we do not call the loaves souls, nor the fragments—far from it—nor do we equate God with the sun which He created, nor the Only-Begotten with the ray sent by the sun into the tinder. But similarly, the souls that have been begotten are not joined into one coalescence—far from it—but into the many mansions of God, as it is written: "There are many mansions with the Father." They do not become a single heap, but each is individually numbered. Nor, in saying that God has begotten His Only-Begotten Son, do we attribute passion to Him, according to their evil blasphemy. For every one who begets labors with passion, and we ought neither to call Him a creature nor a begotten thing according to their reasoning, lest we represent God as laboring or suffering. Whence then did we find the Son, or why does He have the name Son? But these are syllogisms of men, proceeding from earthly thoughts. For it is unlawful to reckon our human passions to God, since God clearly says, "My mind is not as your minds," and again, "Not as man, so also God.

Therefore, let them cease from blasphemy and learn from the Father who says, "This is my beloved son, in whom I was well pleased"; and again, as concerning future things, He says, "For you are my beloved son, whom I chose," and then in the Odes, "chosen from among myriads." Whence then does choice arise, let them say. For the foolish ones suppose that by the saying "I chose," he is called son by grace and not by nature. Let them show who is like him, so that after testing all, he might choose that one. For if he is only-begotten son, there is none equal to him nor comparable, "like the son among sons of God." For these he knows by grace, but to that one none can be equal because he is son by nature. For it is evident whence

he is chosen and whence choice: that many myriads were on the earth and Mary alone "found grace" and in her he chose the holy flesh. Therefore he said "I was well pleased," as also David says from the perspective of the apostles who believed in the Lord and with joy point out his grace to the nations, that "he subjected peoples to us and nations under our feet; he chose for us his inheritance, the beauty of Jacob, which he loved," that is, the pureness of his beauty, the beauty of all Jacob, the flesh from Mary chosen through the Holy Spirit. * The event of the economy of the flesh toward John the Baptist the Father showed from above. For the Father was well pleased in the incarnate presence of Christ, but the divinity is infinite in nature.

The apostle also calls him "son of love," saying, "who rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his son of love." And those who prattle here, not understanding the expression, say that the Son exists by progression of God's love. And the ignorant do not know the counter-argument of the statement; for in another place the apostle says that "God loved us in Christ." Truly the only-begotten is a beloved son, since the Father is love, the Son is love, because love is from love. Therefore, he is a son of love for our sake and for his own sake, because in him he loved us and delivered his only-begotten son for us. So he neither toils in working nor suffers in begetting. And let them not heap up blasphemies upon themselves in vain. For if the Son is created, he is not to be worshipped according to their argument. For it is foolish to worship a creation and to reject the first commandment which says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one." Therefore the holy Word is not created, because he is to be worshipped. The disciples worshipped him, the angels in heaven worship him; for it says, "and let all the angels of God worship him" and "I will worship you, O Lord my strength." But there is one thing that is clear and concise and irrefutable, which no one can gainsay: if those hostile to the Son of God have testimony to show, where did the Father say that I created a son for myself in the Old or New Testament, or where did the Son say that the Father created me?

There are four gospels, of one thousand one hundred and sixty-two chapters, and from beginning to end the Son spoke and the Father to him, and nowhere did he say, "My father created me," nor did the Father say, "I created a son for myself" or "I created my son."

But the contentious and glory-loving man says: What then do you say the body is? Taken from Mary, obviously. And what is Mary? he says. Uncreated or created? Created, obviously, and we ourselves say so, born of a man and a woman. What then do you say about that which is from Mary? Do you worship the Savior in the body or do you not worship? How then shall I not worship? For if I do not worship, I have no life. Behold then, you worship the body, a creation. But great is the folly of those who say such things. For a king clothed in purple is worshipped by all; is the purple worshipped then, or the king? It is clear that it is the king. The purple is worshipped together with him while it is worn; but when the king takes it off and puts it in a place, the purple garment is no longer worshipped. A king often sits on his own throne in a temple, and those who worship worship the king in his own temple and on his throne; but when the king rises, no one worships either the temple or the throne. No one who is mad, wishing to worship the

He who is king in his temple says to the king, "Come out of your temple, so that I may worship you." So then no one says to the Only-begotten, "Leave the body, so that I may worship you," but worships the Only-begotten together with the body, the uncreated one together with the temple which he took when he came. And no one says to the king, "Rise from your throne, so that I may worship you apart from the throne," but worships the king together with the throne. And so Christ also is worshipped together with the body which was buried and has risen. But, they say, what then do you say? Did the Father beget the Son willingly or unwillingly? Since you say, the Word always was and there is no time before the Word? And yet even the Arians themselves, for the deception of some, claim that the Son of God was begotten timelessly, though they do not wish to call him eternal, but say, "There was once when he was not," and they think that "once" is not time. But when the expression is examined, you refute the ignorant. For "once," when used lexically, is indicative of time. And by saying it while not meaning time, they fall into the absurdity of their own opinion in bad faith. For they use the words ironically, while being dreadfully arrayed in their opinion against the Son of God, glorifying him as utterly alien to the Father's divinity without shame. So did he beget willingly or unwillingly? If we say unwillingly, we subject the divine to necessity, and if we say willingly, we grant that the will existed before the Word. Even if it were an atom or a blink of an eye or a fraction of an hour, the fraction is indicative of time before the Word, and again we fall into their argument.

And if we say that he begot unwillingly, then the divine is led by necessity of nature and not by freedom of will. But none of these things apply to God, as you suppose, O vainglorious one. For these things are not in God. Therefore he begot neither willing nor unwilling, but by an excess of nature. For the divine nature transcends deliberation and is not subject to time nor led by necessity. For in us nothing is ready, because we once were not, and we first deliberate about something, then we do what we do; or without our deliberation there is nothing that has not yet been done by us. But in God all things are perfect and smooth, and all things are fulfilled in him, and he begot neither willing nor unwilling the one who exists eternally, the holy Word and God begotten from him, but in his excessive and ineffable nature. A very great wonder comes upon me, O sons of faith and of the Church, how the contentious have twisted the true things into allegory and take the things spoken figuratively as true, erring. For they deny that he has been begotten, which is in him according to nature, saying not as one of the begotten things; but that he has been created, which is alien to his divinity, if indeed it has ever been said in allegory, that they call true, while they obliterate the true. For when Isaiah says, "I saw the Lord Sabaoth," and "the Lord appeared to Moses," and "the Lord appeared to Abraham," and "Daniel saw a vision, the Ancient of Days," and such things, and the Lord appeared to Ezekiel and he said, "I saw the form of God," they say these things are not so, falsely accusing the prophets.

allegedly from the saying of the Gospel, where the Savior said teaching that "no one has ever seen God." And they say: if then the Only-begotten said that no one has seen, but the prophets say they have seen, it is necessary that either the Only-begotten or the prophets are lying. And according to the argument of those who speak thus and of the Manichaeans, the things in the prophets will be false. But if the prophets are not lying, but speak truth, according to the saying of the Savior that "the one speaking in the prophets, behold I am present," the matter requires understanding and allegory. For

this is often fulfilled thus: we see the sea from some part, from a mountain or a plain, and we speak truth in saying we have seen it. And if someone says that he has not seen, he does not lie, but speaks truth. For he does not know where the depth is, where the length is, he does not know the mass, he does not know the hollow. And from some aperture we behold the sky, but we do not know its extension. And if one says "I have seen," he has seen; and if another says "I have not seen," he has not seen. For we have truly seen as far as we can grasp, but we have not seen what it is in itself. Thus also the prophets, as through an aperture, through the narrow passage of their own body, were deemed worthy to see, and in truth they saw, but not as the infinite of the vision is. And thus the divine scriptures are fulfilled, harmonizing with each other, both that the prophets say they have seen—for they saw in truth—and that the Savior says "no one has ever beheld God"—for they did not see what he is in himself. But he himself saw the nature invisibly, and he gave to the one unable to see the power of grace to see the power of the vision. But do not say again, as if staging a drama:

The prophets saw not with their eyes, but with their mind, understanding almost as if seeing, yet not seeing. For this reason Isaiah says precisely: "Woe is me, for I am stricken, for being a man and having unclean lips among a people having unclean lips, I dwell and I saw the Lord Sabaoth." And he did not say, "I saw with my mind," but "with my eyes." So they saw and did not see, but as they were able, yet in truth they saw, though they did not see as the infinite incomprehensibility is. So also concerning paradise many allegorize, as the god-driven Origen wished to introduce fantasy rather than truth into life. And he says: There is no paradise on earth—evidently from the saying of the holy apostle, who said: "I know a man fourteen years ago, whether in the body I do not know, or outside the body I do not know, God knows, such a one having been snatched up to the third heaven." But do not misread and say that it means the third part of the air; for in saying "up to the third heaven" he does not speak of a third part, but of three numbers. And he says: "I know such a man having been snatched into paradise and having heard words which it is not permitted for a man to utter." Glory to the almighty God, who in every way makes clear and refines, so that the true ones may not err. For he did not join heaven and paradise in one brevity, but says: "I know a man having been snatched up to the third heaven," and again, "having been snatched into paradise." And the use of the article with a different person is distinctive of another person and transpositive of another place.

As if someone had a mountain and a plain, with the plain encircling the mountain, and wished to go to the other side of the mountain on the same plain; and when he desired to make the journey through the plain to the place where he wanted to go beyond the mountain, this would be possible for him; but if he wished first to go up onto the mountain and then from the mountain to reach the part of the plain beyond the mountain, this too would be possible for him. In this way understand also what was said by the apostle: first to have ascended into heaven, then to have descended into paradise, according to the saying, "My little brother went down into his garden." And the Savior says, "Today you will be with me in paradise." But if paradise is not on earth and what is written in Genesis is not true, but is allegorized, then nothing of the sequence is true, but everything is allegorized. "In the beginning," it says, "God made the heaven and the earth"; and not

These things are spoken of allegorically, but they are visible. And he says, "firmament," and "sea," and plants, and trees, and grasses, animals, fish, birds—all visible things were made in truth, and man was made as a being in truth. Therefore, he placed this one whom he had formed in the paradise, having made the same man according to an image, and indeed according to the image of God. Do not be overly curious about the gifts of God, which were given to man by grace. For we do not deny that all men are according to the image of God. But as to the "how" of the "according to the image," we do not investigate it. For we understand neither the formation as being according to the image, nor the soul, nor the mind, nor virtue. For there are many things that prevent me from speaking thus. But we say neither that the body is not according to the image, nor the soul. For it is for believers to confess the scripture and not to deny it, and for unbelievers to "reject the grace." Therefore, the "according to the image" is in man, but God himself knows how it is. For if you say that man was made according to the image and you suppose it to be the body, but God is invisible, incomprehensible, inconceivable, how will the visible and comprehensible and tangible be an image of the invisible and incomprehensible? And if you say that the body is not according to the image, it says, "He took dust from the earth and formed man." And he calls the earthy thing "man," and he calls the psychic thing "man"; for it says, "He breathed into his face a breath of life, and man became a living soul." And we understand the soul and the body as created. How created? For it says, "He breathed"; and we say that the soul is neither a part of God nor alien to the inbreathing.

How this is understood in detail is known only to God.

We, however, without meddlesome curiosity and without malice, believe in God, who is truthful in all things. And if you say that the soul is that which is according to the image, listen to the apostle saying, "The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even to the divisions of the soul." If, then, the soul has divisions, and God is indivisible, how can the soul be that which is according to the image? For the soul does not know the future, but God knows all things. And we see what is before the body, but we are ignorant of what is behind. And if you say that the soul is not, certainly he has also called the soul "man," and man is both soul and body. But you might say that the mind is that which is according to the image. But Scripture says, "I see another law warring in my members and taking me captive in my mind by the law of sin that is in my members." How, then, can the mind, being taken captive, be according to the image? Because "I will sing with my mind, I will sing with my spirit." And if you say that virtue is that which is according to the image, I will say to you: Tell me about Adam, what virtue did he accomplish before he was formed? For there was no virtue in the beginning, but from the beginning he was formed according to the image. And if you say that virtue is not, you do not speak well. For to what does it befit to be according to the image except virtue? But before virtue, man was formed according to the image. For Adam had not yet lived in virtue, clearly because he had not yet been created. And if you say that baptism is according to the image, then were the righteous who did not receive baptism not according to the image?

For from Moses and the sea the type began, from John grace was opened, and in Christ the gift was perfected. Therefore all have the "according to the image," but not according to nature. For men do not have the "according to the image" in equality with God. For God is incomprehensible, inconceivable, being spirit and spirit beyond all spirit and light beyond all light. But we do not deprive man of what he himself bestowed; for he is true who with grace bestowed the "according to the image" upon man. And it is possible to understand from similar things; for we see that the Savior took into his hands, as it is in the Gospel, when he was reclining at the supper and took these things and, having given thanks, said, "This is my such-and-such," and gave to his disciples and said, "This is my such-and-such." And we see that it is neither equal nor similar either to the fleshly image or to the invisible divinity or to the features of the limbs. For one thing is round-shaped and insensate, as compared to the power, and he wished to say by grace, "This is my such-and-such," and no one disbelieves the word. For he who does not believe that he is true in what he said falls from grace and salvation. But when we hear, we also believe; we believe that it is his, but we know that our Lord is wholly perception, wholly sentient, wholly God, wholly moving, wholly energizing, wholly light, wholly Logos, incomprehensible, but this has been bestowed upon us with grace.

This Adam, then, was placed in the paradise and ate from the tree. The paradise, it says, "in Eden toward the east"; "and a spring rose up from Eden," and it did not say "descended," so that we might not think Eden is in heaven. For if it were in heaven, it would have said the spring "comes down" from above. But it also says, "a river goes out from Eden"; and it did not say comes down. This river "is divided into four heads. The name of one is Pishon," and we see the Pishon before our eyes. And Pishon is the Ganges, called among the Indians and Ethiopians, but Greeks call it the Indus river. For "it encircles all of Havilah," both little Ethiopia and great Ethiopia, the regions of the Havilites, and it crosses great Ethiopia and falls into the south and sinks within Gadira into the great Ocean. The second river is "Gihon." And we see this river as a perceptible one and not allegorized; for this is the one descending through Ethiopia and crossing little Ethiopia, both Anubitis and Blemya and Axomitis, and flooding the regions of the Thebaid and Egypt, and it falls into this sea. But if anyone disbelieves, let him hear Jeremiah saying, "Why for you and for the land of Egypt to drink the water of Gihon, which is turbid?" "The third," it says, "river is the Tigris, which goes opposite the Assyrians"; for it cuts through the regions of the East and sinks under the earth and rises from Armenia in the middle of the Cardyaeans and Armenians and springs up again and is divided into the land of the Assyrians.

But also the fourth river, the Euphrates, in the same manner likewise sinks beneath the earth and rises up from Armenia and thus floods Persia. If, then, there is no sensible paradise, there is no spring; if there is no spring, there is no river; if there is no river, there are not four sources; if there is no Pishon, there is no Gihon, there is no Tigris; if there is no Tigris, there is no Euphrates; if there is no Euphrates, there is no fig tree, there are no leaves, there is no Adam, there is no eating, there is no Eve; if there is no Eve, she did not eat from the tree; if she did not eat from the tree, there is no Adam; if there is no Adam, there are no humans, but the truth is then a myth and everything is allegorized. Therefore Adam exists; for we are from him, all of us being his race by succession, and we see him through the multitude in the succession. For Adam begets, according to his form and according to his image, Seth. For so that one might not think that the one who was formed is different and those who were begotten are different, for this reason the scripture says, "according to his form and according to his image." And Seth begets Enosh, Enosh begets Kenan, Kenan begets Mahalalel, Mahalalel begets Jared, and Jared begets

Enoch, Enoch begat Methuselah, Methuselah begat Lamech, Lamech begat Noah, and the flood occurred, not allegorically but in truth, and every soul perished, but "eight souls" of men remained. If you hear "souls" again, do not think they are forms without bodies. For from the one species the whole man is called. "Jacob went down into Egypt with seventy-five souls," says the scripture, not that the souls followed without bodies, but with bodies; thus it has called the whole man "souls." And "we were in the ship about eighty souls," says Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles. And custom is accustomed to call slaves "bodies." There is a master, it says, of a hundred bodies; but they also have souls. Since the mastery of men rules over bodies but not souls, for this reason they fittingly called slaves "bodies" with souls, in order to show the use of bodies. And Noah came out of the ark, having begotten Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Shem begat Arphaxad, Arphaxad begat Cainan, Cainan begat Sala, Sala begat Eber, Eber begat Peleg, Peleg begat Reu, Reu begat Serug, Serug begat Nahor, Nahor begat Terah, Terah begat Abraham, Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judah, Judah begat Perez, Perez begat Hezron, Hezron begat Aram, Aram begat Aminadab, Aminadab begat Naasson, Naasson begat Salmon, Salmon begat Boaz, Boaz begat Obed from Ruth, Obed begat Jesse, Jesse begat David the king, David begat Solomon from the wife of Uriah, Solomon begat Rehoboam, Rehoboam begat Abijah, Abijah begat Asa, Asa begat Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat begat Joram, Joram begat Ahaziah, Ahaziah begat Joash, Joash begat Amaziah, Amaziah begat Uzziah, called Azariah, Uzziah begat Jotham, Jotham begat Ahaz, Ahaz begat Hezekiah, Hezekiah begat Manasseh, Manasseh begat Amon, Amon begat Josiah, Josiah begat Jeconiah, Jeconiah again begat Salathiel, Salathiel begat Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel begat Abiud, Abiud begat Eliakim, Eliakim begat Azor, Azor begat Sadoc, Sadoc begat Achim, Achim begat Eliud, Eliud begat Eleazar, Eleazar begat Matthan, Matthan begat Jacob, Jacob begat Joseph. Joseph, being old and a widower, after having taken a first wife and having from her children—four sons, Jacob called the brother of the Lord because he was brought up with him, and Simon, and Judas, and Joses, and two daughters, Anna and Salome—this Joseph, being old and a widower, by necessity of the lots being cast upon widowers and unmarried men in each tribe for the virgins from the temple, because the firstborn children, both male and female, were consecrated in the temple, took by lot the

the holy virgin Mary, from whom according to the flesh our Lord Jesus Christ was born through the Holy Spirit, not from the seed of a man nor by bodily union. The Lord is therefore born from the tribe of Judah, from the seed of David and Abraham according to the flesh, being God, in the forty-second year of the reign of Augustus. Augustus reigned fifty-six years and six months; after him his son Tiberius succeeded to the rule for twenty-three years; after Tiberius, Gaius for three years and nine months and twenty-two days; after Gaius, Claudius for thirteen years; after Claudius, Nero for thirteen years; after Nero, Vespasian for nine years; after Vespasian, his son Titus for two years; after Titus, his brother Domitian for fifteen years and five months; after Domitian, Nerva for one year and four months; after Nerva, Trajan for nineteen years; after Trajan, Hadrian for twenty-one years; after Hadrian, Antoninus Pius for twenty-two years; after Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, also called Verus, for nineteen years; Commodus for thirteen years; Pertinax for six months; Severus for eighteen years; his son Antoninus for seven years; Macrinus for one year.

Antoninus another, 4 years; Alexander, not the Macedonian, 13 years; Maximinus, 3 years; Gordian, 6 years; Philip, 6 years; Decius, 1 year; Gallus and Volusianus, 3 years; Gallienus, 15 years; Claudius another, 1 year; Aurelian, 14 years; Tacitus, 6 months; Probus, 6 years; the party of Carus, Carinus, and Numerian, 2 years; Diocletian, 20 years; after Diocletian, Maximian, Licinius, Constantius, Constantine, Constans, Constantius and Constantine, Julian, Jovian, Valentinian, Valens, Gratian, up to this year, 70 years after the death of Diocletian. For this year is the ninetieth of Diocletian, the tenth of Valentinian and Valens, and the sixth of Gratian, in the consulship of Gratian Augustus for the third time and of the most illustrious Equitius, indiction 2.

We therefore are all from the aforementioned Adam in succession; and the order has not been lost, nor are the things produced by God allegorized. There is therefore Adam, and there are fig leaves and a fig tree and the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life in the middle of paradise, and a serpent, and disobedience and obedience, and there are rivers, and there is Eve and the formation; "for all things are possible for God," both to change corruptible things into incorruption and to make things on earth continue in incorruption. And let no one marvel; for this came and showed, taking corruptible flesh and clothing it in divinity and demonstrating it incorruptible. "For who will accuse" God? But let us also consider another aspect. He cast them out, it says, outside of paradise and placed the Cherubim and the flaming sword to guard the entrance of the tree of life.

And those around Adam went out and dwelt opposite Paradise. Let no one be deceived by empty myths. "For God can raise up children from stones," and God can also change corruptible things into incorruptibility, and he can make on earth a rest of Paradise, when he wished. For the earth is not of one god and the heaven of another, but all things are of the same God, and as he wills he grants incorruptibility to each. For we know that the body of Adam was formed from the earth, from which our bodies also are, and we have hope of eternal life and incorruptible inheritance. For the body of the Savior was from Mary and is spiritually united with the incorruptibility of the Word in heaven. All these things we have gathered and set forth here, wishing to cast aside nothing of what is written, but rather to be carried along with simplicity and to be found faithful toward God, in the things which in truth he wrote for us and granted us the way of truth for our salvation; and it is fitting to leave it to him alone to know the incomprehensible things. But again, this Origen—whom may God forgive for introducing fantastic allegories to men—brought in another mythical theory, claiming that the leather tunics which divine scripture says God made for those around Adam are not leather tunics; but he says that "leather tunic" means the fleshly part of the body or the body itself; for after the disobedience, he says, and after eating from the tree, he clothed the souls with these bodies, that is, this flesh. And it is foolish to say the whole thing. For Origen himself plays the sophist, ostensibly, and says:

Was God a tanner, then, that he might tan hides and make leather tunics for Adam and Eve? That is far more bestial. What was easier for God: to make heaven and earth out of nothing, or to make leather tunics? For when has he not wrought his wonders when he wished, and when has he not been able to change lifeless things into living? The rod of Moses, which was dry and wooden, he made into a living serpent pursuing Moses, from which Moses fled, to show that it was not a phantom but a true event. And how for forty years the people's garments did not wrinkle, their hair did not grow, and their sandals did not wear out? Let those foolish ones who followed Origen's mental derangement in this matter tell me: when the Savior rose from the dead and left the linens in the tomb, as it is written, did he appear naked to the disciples when he rose from the dead with body and soul? And when he showed Thomas and the others his bones and his flesh, his hands and his side, clearly he was not naked. So who wove for him the garments he wore after the resurrection? But you will surely say to me, they were spiritual garments, which he made for himself by his own will. And if he could make such garments for himself, could he not make those leather tunics for Adam and his kin by his own will? Indeed, Origen's allegory falls apart. For if Adam's flesh was created after he ate of the tree, from where did God take the rib before he ate?

As if roused from his ecstasy, he says, “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh, this one.”

“From now on, therefore, let no one cause us trouble.” For thus the holy Church of God has believed from the beginning. Origen will not stand by us on the day of judgment. For I truly marvel how some endure the one who blasphemed his own master. Let such persons read Origen’s On First Principles, and let those who think they are sons of the Catholic Church learn, and let them not dare to separate the Son from the Father’s divinity. How did Origen not deign to say even that the Son sees the Father, but he says, “Just as the Son cannot see the Father, so the Holy Spirit cannot see the Son,” and again, “The angels cannot see the Holy Spirit, and men cannot see the angels.” And he deluded himself and those whom he deceived, but not the intelligent and faithful person who believes in the truth and in spiritual teaching. Cease, therefore, Origen, and cease, you disciples of Origen. For the apostles and the prophets speak truth rather than you and your teacher. Let the Gnostics cease, being reprobate in their way, and let the Valentinians and Manichaeans and Marcionites cease, who are utterly in error, and let the Arians and Anomoeans and Sabellians and Pneumatites, also called Pneumatomachi, and the Dimoerites, who foolishly distort the mind, cease. For divine Scripture speaks truth in all things.

There is need of understanding, to know that God speaks truth, to believe in him and in his words, and to know the things granted and given by God and those that will be, and to know, according to the promise, the resurrection of the dead in its fullness. For every heresy lies, not having received the Holy Spirit according to the tradition of the fathers in the holy catholic Church of God. And concerning all these things we will speak again, according to our weakness; but, having been deemed worthy by God of the holy catholic Church of God, we, the least and humble, having also its foundation, to the best of our limited ability, set forth in part concerning all things for those who wish to care for their own life. And what has been said concerning Father and Son and Holy Spirit would suffice adequately; but in order to work more for the delight, edification, and assurance of the faithful, let us hasten to clarify, gathering from all sides the testimonies of divine Scripture for the abundant feasting and rejoicing of the faithful who encounter them, and again we shall not shrink from pointing out how secure and firm in God is our hope, that nothing has been altered in Father and Son and Holy Spirit, but the holy Trinity is co-ordinate and consubstantial. We do not make our teaching from elsewhere or from our own thoughts, but from our life, that is, from the prophets and from the coming of our Savior and his philanthropy. For he came, our life came, and again showed us the light, having found us astray.

We were, for we were immersed in pride and blasphemies, in likenesses of idols, in godlessness of spirits, in commands of all evils. Since these things were present with me involuntarily—"for I did not do what I wished, but I was compelled to do what I hated"—sin thus serving me, the holy father sent his holy son and in his mercy saved me and delivered me from all my corruptions.

"For the grace of our Lord and Savior appeared, teaching us that, having renounced impiety and worldly desires, we should live temperately, piously, and justly in the present age, awaiting the blessed hope and epiphany of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all lawlessness, and purify for himself a chosen people, zealous for good works"; "having erased the hand-written bond against us, which was hostile to us in its decrees, he removed it from the midst, nailing it to the cross, having stripped off the principalities and powers, he exposed them openly, triumphing over them in himself"; "having shattered bronze gates and crushed iron bars," he again revealed the light of life, stretching out a hand, making a way, pointing out the foundations of the heavens, deeming us worthy to dwell again in paradise. Therefore "he dwelt in us" and gave us "the ordinance of the law" of the Spirit for knowing him and that matters concerning him are the beginning and end of life; "a law of righteousness" became for us, "a law of faith," "a law of the Spirit," free from "the law of the flesh of sin." Hence "I rejoice in the law of God according to the inner man.

But within us is Christ, if indeed he dwells in us. For he himself, having died, became a path of life on our behalf, so that "the living no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died and rose for us," the cause of life; "remembering the oath from many generations ago" according to David, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their transgressions against them," "because in him the whole fullness was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile all things to itself, having made peace through the blood of the cross." He came therefore "for the economy of the fullness of the times," as was promised to Abraham and the other saints, "to recapitulate all things in himself, those in the heavens and those on the earth." But there was division and enmity "in the patience of God"; "he reconciled in the body of his flesh," "through him making both one," for he came as "our peace" and "having dissolved the partition wall of the fence, annulling the enmity in his flesh the law of commandments in doctrines, so that he might create the two into one new man," "and that the nations might be of one body and participants and co-heirs of the promise," he commanded, saying, "Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." Therefore, "in that I was weak through the flesh," a savior was sent to me "in the likeness of sinful flesh," fulfilling such an economy, that he might "ransom" me from slavery, that he might ransom me from corruption, that he might

of death, and became for me “righteousness and sanctification and redemption”: righteousness, because through faith in him he dissolved sin; sanctification, because through water and spirit and in his word he set free; redemption, because his blood, the ransom of the true lamb, gave himself for me, a propitiation for the cleansing of the world, a reconciliation of all heaven and earth, “the mystery hidden before the ages and generations,” fulfilling it at the appointed times. He himself “will transform the body of our lowliness so that it becomes conformed to his glory according to the power of his ability and to subject all things to him.” “Because in him dwells the whole fullness of the divinity bodily.”

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

Rain, when it mingles with trees and plants, produces a body and each fruit according to its kind: in the olive tree it becomes rich oil, taking from it the essential substance; in the vine it is colored into sweet wine; in the fig tree it is sweetened into a fig; and in each of the seeds it grows a shoot according to its form. So, I think, the Word of God became flesh in Mary and was found as a man in the seed of Abraham according to the promise. “For we have found the Messiah, whom Moses wrote about.” As Moses said, “Let my utterance descend like rain,” and David, “Let it descend like rain on fleece and like drops falling on the earth.” Wool, then, receiving the dew, increases the fleece’s yield; earth, receiving the rain, increases the fruit of the farmers’ hope, by willingly offering its nature to receive the master’s command and by striving to receive more from him. So also the virgin Mary, when she says, “How shall I know that this will happen to me?” heard, “The spirit of the Lord is upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child born from you will be holy and will be called son of the Most High.” Christ speaks through the angel, and the master reshapes himself in his own creation, “taking the form of a servant”; and Mary draws in the Word for conception, as the earth draws in rain, while the Word of God shows himself to be a holy fruit, taking on the nature of a mortal. This was the fruit of true hope, drawn from her as from earth and fleece, for the saints in expectation.