The Instructor (Paedagogus) 1

What the Instructor promises.

A firm foundation of truth has been laid for us, O you children, our very selves—the unbreakable groundwork of the knowledge of God, the holy and great temple, a noble exhortation, a yearning for eternal life through reasonable obedience, planted within the region of the intellect.

Since these three things pertain to man—his character, his actions, and his passions—the exhortatory Word took as its portion his character, being the leader unto godliness; it is the word laid down like a keel for the building up of faith, in which we greatly rejoice, and renouncing our old opinions we are renewed unto salvation, singing in harmony with the prophecy that chants, "How good is God to Israel, to the upright in heart"; the preceptive word presides over all our actions, while the consoling word heals the passions—all this being one and the same Word, which snatches man away from the customary and worldly habit and trains him toward the single-minded salvation of faith in God.

Now this heavenly Leader, the Word, when He summoned men to salvation, bore the name "Exhortatory"—this term denoting the whole from a part, namely the spurring-on Word.

For all godliness is exhortatory, engendering in the kindred reason a yearning for the present life and for that which is to come.

But now, being both healing and preceptive at the same time, consistent with Himself, He admonishes the one who has already been exhorted, promising the cure as the chief remedy of the passions within us.

Let Him be fittingly called by us by one name, the Instructor (Paedagogus)—being practical rather than theoretical; in keeping with this, His aim is to improve the soul, not to teach it, and to guide it to a temperate, not a scientific, manner of life.

And yet this same Word is also a teacher—but not now.

For in matters of doctrine the teaching Word is declarative and revelatory; but the Instructor, being practical, first exhorted unto a disposition for the forming of character, and now also summons unto the actual doing of what is required, enjoining undefiled counsels and displaying to those who come after the examples of those who erred before.

Both are most beneficial: the one, the admonitory kind, leading unto obedience; the other, employed in the form of an example, is itself also twofold in a manner similar to the former pair—the one that we may imitate it by choosing the good, the other that we may turn away, declining the evil presented in the example.

Thus from this point follows the healing of the passions, the Instructor by the consolations of the examples strengthening the souls, and as with gentle remedies, by His benevolent counsels nourishing the sick unto the perfect knowledge of the truth.

But health and knowledge are not the same thing: the one comes about by learning, the other by healing.

No one, then, while still sick would first learn anything of the teachings before being completely healed.

For each precept is not always spoken in the same way to learners as to the ailing, but to the former it is given for knowledge, to the latter for healing.

Just as, then, those who are sick in body have need of a physician, so likewise those who are weak in soul have need of an Instructor, that He may heal our passions, and then commit us to a teacher who may guide us, having prepared the soul, pure and fit for knowledge, able to receive the revelation of the Word.

Hastening, then, to perfect us by a saving advance, the Word who is altogether benevolent makes use of a good economy fitted for effective discipline, exhorting from the first, then instructing, and in all things teaching.

That it is on account of our sins that the Instructor presides over us.

Now our Instructor, O you children, is like His own Father, God, whose Son He is—sinless, blameless, and impassible in soul; God in human form, undefiled, a minister to the Father's will, the Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the right hand of the Father, and even in His human form is God.

He is for us the unstained Image, to whom we must with all our strength endeavor to make our soul like.

But He is altogether free from human passions; and for this very reason He alone is Judge, because He alone is without sin.

We, however, as far as we are able, must strive to sin as little as possible.

For nothing is so urgent as, first, deliverance from passions and diseases, and then the prevention of any easy slipping into the habit of sins.

Best of all, then, is never to sin at all in any way whatsoever—which we say belongs to God.

Second is never to commit any deliberate wrongdoing—which is proper to the wise man.

Third is not to fall into many of the involuntary sins—which is characteristic of those who are nobly instructed.

But not to persist a very long time in sins—let this be ranked last.

Yet this too is saving for those who are recalled unto repentance, that they may renew the struggle.

And it seems to me that the Instructor speaks most excellently through Moses: "If anyone die suddenly beside him, immediately the head of his vow shall be defiled, and he shall shave it"—calling involuntary sin a sudden death.

And He says that a man defiles himself by staining his soul.

Therefore He prescribes the cure as quickly as possible, counseling him to shave his head at once, exhorting him to scrape off the hair of ignorance that overshadows the reason, so that the mind, left bare of the thick undergrowth of vice, may be enthroned in the brain, and may run back again unto repentance.

Then, after saying a few more things, He adds: "But the former days are without reason"—by which it is plain that He signifies the sins which were not done according to reason.

And the involuntary He called "sudden," but the sinning He called "without reason."

For this very reason the Word, the Instructor, has received the office of presiding, unto the prevention of unreasoning sin.

Consider, then, from this passage of Scripture: "For this cause thus says the Lord."

The preexisting sin is reprovingly pointed out by the words that follow, inasmuch as the righteous judgment ensues; and this is plainly shown through the prophets, as when they say, "If you had not sinned, He would not have threatened these things"; and therefore "thus says the Lord," and "because you did not hearken to these words, therefore thus says the Lord," and "therefore, behold, says the Lord."

For this is the purpose of prophecy: on account of obedience and disobedience—through the one that we may be saved, through the other that we may be disciplined.

Our Instructor, then, is the Word, who by admonitions heals the unnatural passions of the soul.

For properly speaking, the relief of the body's diseases is called medicine, an art taught by human wisdom.

But the Father's Word alone is the divine physician of human infirmities and the holy enchanter of the ailing soul.

"Save Your servant," it says, "O my God, who hopes in You."

"Have mercy on me, O Lord, for to You will I cry all the day long."

For according to Democritus, "Medicine heals the diseases of the body, but wisdom removes the soul of its passions."

But the good Instructor, the Wisdom, the Word of the Father, who fashioned man, cares for the whole creature, and as the all-healing physician of humanity He cures both his body and his soul.

"Rise up," says the Savior to the paralytic, "take up the bed on which you lie, and go away home."

And immediately the sick man was made strong.

And to the dead man He said, "Lazarus, come forth."

And he, the dead man, came out of the coffin, such as he was before he suffered death, having had practice in the resurrection.

Yes indeed, He also heals the soul itself by commandments and gifts of grace; but by His counsels He is perhaps about to do so even now.

"Your sins are forgiven you," He says to us sinners.

And we, in the very act of thinking, have become as little children, receiving the best and most steadfast order from His own good ordering—which first concerns itself, on account of man, with the world and the heaven and the sun's revolutions, with the circles and the courses of the rest of the stars, and then concerns itself with man himself, about whom all His care is occupied.

And deeming this her greatest work, she directed his soul by prudence and temperance, blended his body with beauty and gracefulness, and into the actions of his humanity she breathed her own rightness and good order.

That the Instructor is a lover of mankind.

The Lord benefits all and helps all in every way, both as man and as God: as God forgiving sins, and as man training us not to sin.

Fittingly, then, is man a friend of God, since he is also His own handiwork.

All other things He made simply by commanding, but man He fashioned with His own hand, and breathed into him something proper to Himself.

That which was formed by Him and after His own likeness was either created by God as something chosen for its own sake, or it was fashioned as chosen for the sake of something else.

If, then, man is chosen for his own sake, God, being good, loved a good thing, and the charm lies within man—this very thing which is called the inbreathing of God.

But if man was made chosen for the sake of other things, God had no other reason for making him than that, apart from man, He could not have brought into being one to become a good craftsman, and another to attain to the knowledge of God; for otherwise God would not have made that for whose sake man came to be, unless man had come into being. And the power that lay hidden within man—namely, the will—God supplemented through the outward power of His creating, receiving from man that which had made him man, and seeing what He had... and there came to pass what He willed.

And there is nothing that God cannot do.

Man, therefore, whom God made, is chosen for his own sake; and that which is chosen for its own sake is dear to whomever it is chosen for its own sake by, and to him it is also welcome and beloved.

But is a thing that is lovable to someone not also actually loved by him? Now man has been shown to be lovable; therefore man is loved by God.

For how is he not loved, for whose sake the only-begotten Word is sent down from the bosom of the Father, the Word of faith? And faith bears witness abundantly; the Lord Himself clearly confesses and says, "For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me"; and again the same says, "And You loved them, even as You loved Me."

What, then, the Instructor wills and what He promises—standing ready in deed and word, both in enjoining what is to be done and in forbidding the contrary—is by now surely plain.

And it is clear that the other kind of discourse, the didactic, is plain and spiritual, holding to precise statement; while the contemplative kind, let it for the present be set above and reserved.

It befits us to love in return our Guide, in a manner befitting the love of the best life, and to live according to the ordinances of His will: not only fulfilling what is commanded or guarding against what is forbidden, but also turning away from some of the images and, as far as possible, imitating the others, accomplishing the works of the Instructor in His likeness, so that the "according to the image and likeness" may be fulfilled.

For as those who wander in deep darkness, in this life we have need of an unerring and exact Guide.

Now the best guide is not the blind one—as the Scripture says, "the blind leading the blind by the hand into the pit"—but the Word, who sees keenly and discerns the things of the heart.

And He guides us into salvation.

Let us, then, love the commandments of the Lord through deeds; for the Word Himself, having manifestly become flesh, displayed the same virtue as both practical and contemplative. And so, taking the Word as our law, let us recognize His commandments and counsels as short and direct roads to eternity.

For His injunctions are full of persuasion, not of fear.

That the Word is equally the Instructor of men and of women.

Let us, then, all the more gladly embrace this good obedience, and give ourselves to the Lord, holding fast to the most secure cable of faith in Him, having understood that the virtue of man and of woman is one and the same.

For if the God of both is one, the Instructor of both is also one.

One Church, one temperance, one modesty; the food is common, marriage is a yoking together, breath, sight, hearing, knowledge, hope, obedience, love—all are alike.

And those whose life is common, whose grace is common, and whose salvation is common—of these the virtue and the manner of conduct are likewise common.

"For in this age," He says, "they marry and are given in marriage"—in which alone the female is distinguished from the male; but in that age it is no longer so, where the rewards of this communal and holy life arising from wedlock are laid up, not for male and female, but for the human being, separated from the desire that divides him.

The name "man" (anthropos), therefore, is common to men and women.

In this way it seems to me that the Athenians called "little child" (paidarion) in common not only the male but also the female—if the comic poet Menander appears trustworthy to anyone, who in his play "The Girl Who Is Slapped" speaks somehow thus: "my little daughter."

"For by nature the little child is exceedingly fond of mankind."

And "lambs" (arnes) is likewise, by reason of simplicity, a name common to both the male and the female animal.

And the Lord Himself shepherds us unto the ages, Amen.

Without a shepherd neither sheep nor anything else ought to live, nor indeed children without the instructor, nor servants without the master.

That all who are occupied with the truth are children in the sight of God.

That instruction (paidagogia) is the leading of children (paides), then, is clear from the very name.

It remains, then, to consider the children whom the Scripture hints at, and then to set the Instructor over them.

In many ways and manifoldly the Scripture extols us, and by various names allegorizes in diverse fashion the simplicity of faith, setting it forth differently.

"The Lord," it says, "standing on the shore, called out to His disciples—who happened to be fishing—and said, 'Children (paidia), have you any meat?'"—addressing as children those who were already in the condition of disciples.

"And they brought to Him," it says, "little children that He might lay His hands on them in blessing; but when the disciples rebuked them, Jesus said, 'Let the little children come, and do not forbid them to come to Me;

for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'"

What the saying means, the Lord Himself will make clear, saying, "Unless you turn and become as these little children, you shall by no means enter the kingdom of heaven"—not here allegorizing regeneration, but setting before us for imitation the simplicity that is in children.

The prophetic Spirit also receives us as children.

"The children," it says, "having plucked branches of olive or of palm trees, went out to meet the Lord and cried out, saying, 'Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!'"—light and glory and praise, with supplication, to the Lord.

For this is what "Hosanna" signifies when interpreted into the Greek tongue.

And it seems to me that the Scripture, in hinting at this aforementioned prophecy, is bringing a charge by way of reproach against the slothful.

"Have you never read that out of the mouth of babes and sucklings You have perfected praise?"

He spurs on His disciples, urging them to give heed to Him, as One already hastening to the Father, making His hearers more eager by foretelling that He will depart after a little while, indicating that they must reap the fruit of the truth all the more unsparingly, inasmuch as the Word was now all but departing into heaven.

Again, then, He calls them children.

For He says, "Children, yet a little while I am with you."

And again He likens the kingdom of heaven to little children sitting in the marketplaces and saying:

"We piped to you, and you did not dance; we mourned, and you did not lament"—and whatever else He fittingly added in keeping with these words.

And it is not only the Gospel that holds this view; prophecy too agrees with it in opinion.

David, for instance, says: "Praise the Lord, O children; praise the name of the Lord."

And He also says through Isaiah: "Behold, I and the children whom God has given me."

Are you astonished to hear the men among the nations called "children" by the Lord? You do not seem to me to understand the Attic tongue, from which one may learn that the beautiful and lovely, and indeed the free young maidens, are called neanides (girls) and paidiskai (maidens), while the slave-girls are called paidiskaria; and these too are young women, honored with affectionate diminutives on account of the freshness of their youthful age.

And when He says, "Let my lambs stand at my right hand," He hints at the simple, calling them "children" as lambs, not men who are sheep by kind; and He counted the lambs worthy of preference, valuing above all the tenderness and simplicity of mind among men, and their guilelessness.

Again, when He says "as suckling calves," He once more speaks of us allegorically; and when He speaks of "an innocent and gentle dove," He again means us.

And He commands through Moses that two young pigeons or a pair of turtledoves be offered for sin, declaring that the sinlessness, innocence, and freedom from resentment of the tender young birds are acceptable to God, and teaching that like is the purification of like.

Moreover, the timidity of the turtledoves typifies caution with regard to sins.

And that He calls us the young birds, Scripture is witness.

"As a hen gathers her chicks under her wings," so are we the young of the Lord; the Word most wonderfully and mystically describing the simplicity of the soul under the figure of childhood's age.

For in one place He calls us children, in another young birds, sometimes infants, and elsewhere sons, and often children, and a new people, and a fresh people.

"For my servants," He says, "shall be called by a new name"—He speaks of the new and eternal name, the undefiled and simple and childlike and true name, which shall be blessed upon the earth.

Again, speaking allegorically, He calls us colts, unyoked to evil, untamed by wickedness, simple and frisking toward the Father alone—not horses that neigh after their neighbors' wives, beasts of burden and frenzied with lust, but free and newborn ones, proud through faith, swift runners toward the truth, quick toward salvation, who trample and stamp underfoot the things of the world.

"Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!"

"Proclaim it aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!"

"Behold, your King comes to you, righteous and bringing salvation; He is gentle, and riding upon a beast of burden and a young colt."

It was not enough to have said "colt" alone, but He added to it "young," thereby showing the youthfulness of humanity in Christ, and an ageless eternity joined with simplicity.

Such young colts—the infants—does our divine Colt-tamer rear up.

And even if the young one in Scripture be an ass, yet this one too is a colt, the foal of an ass.

"And He tied the colt," it says, "to the vine," binding this simple and childlike people to the Word, which He allegorically calls a vine.

For the vine bears wine, as the Word bears blood; and both are a drink for men unto salvation—the wine for the body, and the blood for the spirit.

And that He calls us lambs as well, the Spirit is a trustworthy witness through Isaiah,

speaking allegorically of lambs to denote the simplicity of sheep.

Indeed, we too, honoring the finest and most perfect of life's possessions with the appellation of childhood, have called it "instruction" (paideia) and "the work of the instructor" (paidagogia).

And we confess that the work of the instructor is a good leading of children toward virtue from childhood.

And the Lord, revealing to us more vividly what is signified by the appellation "child," when a question arose among the apostles as to which of them was greatest, set a child in their midst and said:

"Whoever shall humble himself like this child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven."

He does not, then, misuse the appellation of children as denoting an irrational age, as has seemed to some; nor, when He says, "Unless you become as these children, you shall not enter the kingdom of God," is it to be understood in an ignorant way.

We infants, then, no longer roll on the ground, nor creep as before upon the earth like serpents, wallowing with our whole body about foolish lusts; but reaching upward in our understanding, having renounced the world and sins, touching the earth with but a small foot—only so far as to seem to be in the world—we pursue after holy wisdom.

But this seems folly to those who have been whetted toward cunning.

Children, then, with good reason are those who acknowledge God alone as Father—the simple, the childlike, the guileless, the lovers of the horns of the unicorns.

To those, accordingly, who had advanced in the Word, He proclaimed this saying, bidding them be unconcerned with the affairs of this life and exhorting them to attend to the Father alone, in imitation of children.

Wherefore also in what follows He says: "Do not be anxious about tomorrow;

for sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

Thus He charges us to lay aside the cares of life and to cling to the Father alone.

And he who fulfills this commandment is truly both an infant and a child to God and to the world—to the latter as one gone astray, to the former as one beloved.

And if there is one teacher in heaven, as Scripture says, then admittedly all those on earth would with good reason be called disciples.

For thus stands the truth: perfection belongs to the Lord who ever teaches, but the childlike and infant state belongs to us who are ever learning.

Thus prophecy has honored perfection with the appellation of "man"; and through David, concerning the devil, it says, "The Lord abhors the man of blood," calling him a man as one perfected in wickedness.

And the Lord too is called a man, because He is perfect in righteousness.

Thus indeed the Apostle, writing to the Corinthians, says:

"For I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ"—whether as infants and holy ones, yet still to the one Lord alone.

And writing most clearly to the Ephesians, he disclosed what is sought, saying somewhat thus: "Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we may no longer be infants, tossed and carried about by every wind of doctrine through the trickery of men, in craftiness toward the scheming of error; but speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all things into Him."

He says this for the building up of the body of Christ, who is the head and the man, the only one perfect in righteousness.

But we who are infants, guarding ourselves against the winds of the heresies that blow us up into pride, and not putting our trust in those who lay down other fathers for us as lawgivers,

are then made perfect, when we are the Church, having received Christ as our head.

Here it is right to dwell upon the appellation of the infant, for "infant" (nēpios) is not applied to the foolish.

For nēpytios means an infant in the literal sense, but nēpios is the neēpios (the newly gentle), as ēpios (gentle) describes the tender-minded—that is, one who has lately become gentle and meek in disposition.

This indeed the blessed Paul most clearly indicated, saying: "Though we might have been a burden as apostles of Christ, we were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherishes her own children."

The infant, then, and in this respect all the more childlike, is tender, simple, and guileless, without pretense, straight in mind and upright.

And this is the very ground of simplicity and truth.

"Upon whom," He says, "shall I look, but upon the meek and quiet?" For such is the virgin word, tender and unfeigned.

Wherefore it is the custom to call the virgin a tender bride and the boy tender-minded; ... and we are the tender ones, soft and easily led to persuasion, readily wrought unto goodness, free from wrath and unmixed with evil-mindedness and crookedness.

For the old generation was crooked and hard of heart; but we, the new people, are a chorus of children, tender as a child.

And in the Epistle to the Romans the apostle confesses that he rejoices over the hearts of the guileless, and indeed he renders, so to speak, a kind of definition of infants, saying:

"I would have you wise unto that which is good, but simple concerning evil."

For neither is the name "infant" (nēpios) to be understood by us as denoting privation, since the grammarians' children lay it down that "nē" is a privative particle.

For if those who disparage our childlikeness call us foolish, see how they blaspheme against the Lord ... in supposing those who have fled for refuge to God to be without understanding.

But if—as is the more proper way to hear it—they too take "infants" in the sense of the simple, then let us rejoice in the appellation.

For the young minds are as infants, newly made wise amid the old folly—those minds that have lately arisen according to the new covenant.

Indeed, only of late has God been made known at the coming of Christ.

For "no one has known God, except the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him."

We then, the new people, are "young" in contrast to the older people, having learned the new good things.

And the prime of our age is this ageless youth, in which we are ever at our height for understanding, ever young and ever gentle and ever new.

For it is fitting that those who have partaken of the new word should themselves be new.

And that which has partaken of eternity loves to be made like to the incorruptible, so that the title of our childlike age is the springtime of all our life, because the truth that is in us is ageless, and our manner of being is, as it were, diffused throughout that truth.

And Wisdom is ever-flourishing, abiding ever the same and in like manner, and never changing.

"Their little ones," He says, "shall be borne upon the shoulders, and shall be comforted upon the knees."

"As one whom his mother comforts, so will I also comfort you."

The mother draws her little ones to herself, and ... we seek our mother, the Church.

Now everything that is weak and tender, inasmuch as through its weakness it stands in need of help, is gracious and pleasant and delightful, since God does not withhold His help from such a one.

For just as fathers and mothers look with greater delight upon the foals of horses, the little calves of oxen, the lion's cub, the deer's fawn, and a man's child, so too the Father of all receives those who have fled for refuge to Him; and having begotten them anew by the Spirit unto adoption, He knows them as gentle, and these alone He loves and helps and fights for, and for this reason He calls them "little child."

I refer Isaac too to the type of a child.

"Isaac" is interpreted "laughter."

Him the inquisitive king beheld sporting with his wife and helpmeet, Rebecca.

The king—Abimelech is his name—seems to me to be a kind of supramundane wisdom, looking down upon the mystery of the play.

And "Rebecca" they interpret as "patience" (endurance).

O what prudent play!—laughter helped also by patience, and the king as overseer.

The spirit of the children in Christ, who order their lives in patience, exults ... and this is the divine play.

Heraclitus says that his own Zeus plays some such play as this.

For what other becoming work is there for the wise and perfect man than to play and rejoice together in the patient endurance of good things and in the administration of good things, keeping festival together with God? There is also another way to understand what is signified by the prophecy: that we rejoice and laugh over salvation, as did Isaac.

And he too, being loosed from death, played and exulted together with his bride, the helper unto our salvation, the Church.

To her the firm name "patience" has been given—either because she alone abides unto the ages, ever rejoicing, or because she is composed of the patient endurance of those who believe, who are members of Christ.

And the testimony (martyrdom) of those who have endured unto the end, and the thanksgiving offered over these—this is the mystical play and the salvation that brings help together with that holy gladness.

So then the King, who is Christ, looks down upon our laughter from above; and stooping through the lattice, as the Scripture says, He gazes upon the thanksgiving and the blessing, the gladness and the joy, and moreover the patience that works together, and the interweaving of these—His own Church—showing only His face, which is what the Church still lacks, she being perfected with Him as her royal Head.

And where, then, was the lattice through which the Lord was shown? The flesh, through which He was made manifest.

And Isaac himself—for there is yet another way to take it—is a type which is of the Lord: a child in that he was a son, for he was the son of Abraham as Christ is the Son of God; and a victim, as the Lord was.

But he was not offered up as the Lord was; Isaac only bore the wood of the sacrifice, as the Lord bore the cross-wood.

And he laughed mystically, prophesying that the Lord would fill us with joy—us who have been redeemed from corruption by the blood of the Lord.

And he did not suffer; not only does Isaac fittingly yield to the Word the primacy of the passion, but in not being slain he also hints at the divinity of the Lord.

For Jesus rose again after the burial, having not suffered, just as Isaac was released from the sacrifice.

I shall add yet another point, a very great one, in support of the matter before us.

The Spirit calls the Lord Himself a "little child," foretelling this through Isaiah:

"Behold, a child is born unto us, a son is also given unto us, whose government is upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called the Angel of great counsel."

Who, then, is this infant child, after whose image we who are infants are formed? Through the same prophet He sets forth His greatness:

"Wonderful Counsellor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of peace, in the increase of His instruction;"

"and of His peace there shall be no end."

O the great God! O the perfect little child!

The Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son.

And how is the instruction of that child not perfect, which extends to all of us children, instructing us, His infants? He stretched out His hands toward us, those hands that have been clearly believed in.

To this child John also bears witness, the greatest prophet among those born of women.

For since Scripture names the little ones, the infants, as lambs, it has called God the Word—who for our sake became man, willing to be likened to us in all things—the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the Infant of the Father.

This is addressed to those who suppose that the title of "children" and "infants" hints at the teaching of merely the first lessons.

But we are at liberty, out of our abundance, to strip for the contest against these fault-finders.

For we are not called children and infants in reference to anything childish or contemptible in our learning, as those who are puffed up with knowledge have slanderously asserted.

On the contrary, as soon as we are born again we at once receive that perfection toward which we were striving;

and this is to come to know God.

Surely, then, he who has come to know the Perfect is not himself imperfect.

And do not take me to task for confessing that I have come to know God.

For in some such way it seemed good to the Word to speak.

Indeed, when the Lord was being baptized, a voice resounded from the heavens as a witness: "You are My beloved Son; this day have I begotten You."

Having this day been born again, is Christ already perfect, or—what would be most absurd—deficient? But if the latter, then He would need to learn something further.

But it is not likely that He, being God, should learn even one thing further.

Nor indeed could anyone be a teacher of the only Teacher.

Will they not then admit, even against their will, that the Word—who issued perfect from the perfect Father—was, according to the foreordained plan of the economy, born again in perfection? And if He was already perfect, why was the perfect One baptized? They say it was necessary to fulfill the human profession.

Was it then at the moment of His being baptized by John that He became perfect? Clearly not.

Did He then learn anything from him? No, indeed.

Is He then perfected by the washing alone, and sanctified by the descent of the Spirit? So it is.

And this very same thing comes to pass in our case also, of whom the Lord became the pattern;

being baptized, we are enlightened; being enlightened, we are made sons; being made sons, we are perfected; being perfected, we are made immortal.

"I have said," He declares, "you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High."

Now this work is called by many names—grace, illumination, perfection, and washing;

it is a washing, by which we are cleansed from our sins; a gift of grace, by which the penalties due for our sins are remitted; an illumination, through which that holy, saving light is beheld—that is, through which we gain keen sight of the divine; and we call it perfection because it lacks nothing.

For what is yet lacking to the one who has come to know God? It would indeed be truly absurd for that which is incomplete to be called the gift of God.

But being perfect, He will surely bestow perfect gifts.

And just as all things come into being at His mere command, so it follows that, at His merely willing to bestow grace, that grace is fulfilled.

For what belongs to the future in respect of time is anticipated by the power of His will.

Moreover, the deliverance from evils is itself the beginning of salvation.

Are then only those who have first set foot within the bounds of life already perfect? Indeed, we who have been separated from death are already alive.

Salvation, therefore, is to follow Christ.

For "that which has come into being in Him is life."

"Truly, truly, I say to you," He declares, "he who hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life."

Thus merely to believe and to be born again is perfection in life;

for God is never weak.

For just as His will is His work, and this is called "the world," so also His desire is the salvation of men, and this is called "the Church."

He knows, therefore, whom He has called; and those whom He has called, He has saved;

and He has called and saved them at one and the same moment.

"For you yourselves," says the Apostle, "are taught of God."

It is therefore not lawful for us to regard as imperfect that which is taught by Him; and that lesson is the eternal salvation of the eternal Savior, to whom be the grace unto the ages. Amen.

And he who has merely been born again—as the very name indicates, having been enlightened—is at once delivered from the darkness, and immediately receives the light.

Just as those who shake off sleep are at once awake within—or rather, just as those who try to remove a cataract from the eyes do not supply themselves light from without, which they do not possess, but, removing the obstruction from their sight, leave the pupil free—so also those who are baptized, wiping away by the divine Spirit the sins that darken them like a mist, gain a free, unhindered, and luminous eye of the spirit, by which alone we behold the divine, while the Holy Spirit flows in upon us from heaven.

This is a blending with the eternal radiance, which is able to behold the eternal light;

since like is dear to like, and the holy is dear to Him from whom the holy comes—He who is properly called Light.

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord."

Hence I suppose man was called "light" by the ancients.

"But he has not yet," they say, "received the perfect gift."

I too agree—except that he is in the light, and the darkness does not overtake him;

and between light and darkness there is nothing whatever in between;

but the consummation is laid up in the resurrection of those who believe;

and this is to partake of nothing other than to obtain the promise foretold beforehand.

For eternity and time are not the same thing, nor indeed are impulse and goal; they are not.

But both are concerned with one thing, and about both the one is occupied.

So then, to put it thus, faith is the impulse begotten in time, while the goal is the attainment of the promise, made sure unto the ages.

And the Lord Himself most plainly revealed the equality of salvation, saying:

"For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes on Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

Insofar, then, as it is possible in this world—which He hinted at as the last day, kept reserved until the time when it shall cease—we believe that we are made perfect.

For faith is the perfection of learning.

For this reason He says, "He who believes in the Son has eternal life."

If, then, we who have believed possess life, what remains beyond the possession of everlasting life? Nothing is lacking to faith, which is perfect and complete of itself.

But if anything is lacking to it, it is not wholly complete, nor is it faith, limping in some respect. Nor after our departure hence do other things await those who have believed; rather, since we have here without distinction been given the pledge, and have already by believing laid hold beforehand of that which shall be, we receive it as fully come to pass after the resurrection, so that what was spoken may be fulfilled: "Be it unto you according to your faith."

Where faith is, there is the promise; and the consummation of the promise is rest.

So that knowledge consists in illumination, and the term of knowledge is rest, which is conceived as the ultimate object of desire.

Just as, then, inexperience is dissolved by experience and perplexity by resource, so of necessity by illumination is darkness made to vanish.

And ignorance is the darkness, according to which we fall into sins, our sight dimmed regarding the truth.

Knowledge, therefore, is illumination, which makes ignorance to vanish and implants the power of clear vision.

But indeed the casting away of the worse things is the revelation of the better.

For the things which ignorance had bound together for ill, these through full knowledge are loosed for good.

And these bonds are loosed, with all speed, by human faith and by divine grace, our transgressions being remitted by one saving remedy, the rational baptism.

We are indeed washed clean of all our sins, and are no longer evil at our heels.

This is the one grace of illumination—that one is no longer the same in character as before the washing.

And that knowledge rises together with illumination, flashing round about the mind, is shown by this: that immediately we, the unlearned, are called disciples, that learning having at some point previously been added.

For you could not tell the precise moment of time.

For catechism leads round to faith, and faith, together with baptism, is trained by the Holy Spirit.

Since indeed faith is the one universal salvation of humankind, and the equality and fellowship of the just and benevolent God is the same toward all, the Apostle most plainly set forth, speaking somewhat thus:

"But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed;"

"so that the law has become our instructor unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith;"

"but after faith has come, we are no longer under an instructor."

Do you not hear that we are no longer under that law which was attended with fear, but under the word of free choice, the Instructor? Then indeed he added the utterance that is free from all respect of persons:

"For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus;"

"for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ."

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female;"

"for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

It is not, then, that in the Word Himself some are spiritually enlightened and others merely natural; rather, all who have put off the fleshly lusts are equal and spiritual in the sight of the Lord.

And again in another place he writes:

"For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free;"

"we were all made to drink one drink."

And it is not out of place to make use also of the very words of those men themselves, who say that the filtering of the spirit is the remembrance of the better things.

And by "filtering" they understand the separation of the worse things from the recollection of the better;

and there follows of necessity, for the one who has been reminded of the better things, repentance over the inferior ones;

for they confess that the spirit itself, having repented, runs back again.

In the same manner, then, we also, having repented of our sins, having renounced their shortcomings, being filtered clean by baptism, run back to the everlasting light, as children to the Father.

Jesus, then, having rejoiced in the Spirit, says: "I thank You, Father, O God of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and have revealed them unto babes;"

The Instructor and Teacher calls us babes—us who are more fit for salvation than the wise of this world, who, deeming themselves wise, are puffed up.

And He cries aloud, exulting and rejoicing exceedingly, as it were prattling along with the babes:

"Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight."

On this account the things hidden from the wise and prudent of this present age have been revealed unto babes.

Babes, then, fittingly are the children of God who have put off the old man and stripped off the garment of wickedness, and have put on the incorruption of Christ, that, being made new, a holy people, born again, we may keep the man undefiled, and may be babes as an infant of God, cleansed from fornication and from evil.

Most plainly, then, the blessed Paul freed us from the inquiry in the former Epistle to the Corinthians, writing somewhat thus:

"Brethren, do not be children in understanding; rather, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature."

And the saying, "When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spoke as a child," hints at the manner of life under the law, according to which, no longer as one who is simple but as one still senseless, thinking childish things he persecuted, and speaking childish things he blasphemed the Word.

For the term "infant" signifies two things.

"When I became a man," he says—Paul again speaks—"I put away the things of the infant."

It is not an undeveloped stature of age that he hints at, nor yet some fixed measure of time, nor again the teaching of other secret doctrines belonging to manly and more perfect lessons, when the apostle—who confesses that he does away with infancy—banishes infancy beyond the borders; rather, by "infants" he means those under the Law, who are terrified by fear, just as children are by bogeymen, while "men" he has called those who are obedient to the Word and masters of themselves;

we who have believed are saved by our own voluntary choice, prudently—not

foolishly—being frightened by fear.

The apostle himself will bear witness concerning this, when he calls the Jews heirs according to the former covenant, but us heirs according to the promise.

"I say," he says, "that as long as the heir is an infant, he differs in nothing from a slave, though he is lord of all; but he is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father."

"So we also, when we were infants, were enslaved under the elements of the world;"

"but when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that he might redeem those under the Law, that we might receive through him the adoption as sons."

See how he has confessed that those under fear and sin are infants, while, calling those under faith "sons," he has made them men, by way of contrast with the infants who are in the Law.

"For you are no longer a slave," he says, "but a son;"

"and if a son, then also an heir through God."

What then is lacking to the son after he has received the inheritance? It is therefore elegant to interpret "when I was an infant" thus, that is, "when I was a Jew"—for he was a Hebrew from of old—"I thought as an infant," since I followed the Law;

that is, the things of Christ—whom alone the Scripture, as we have said before, calls a man—"I have put away the things of the infant."

But infancy in Christ is perfection, as compared with the Law.

Having come to this point, we must speak in defense of our infancy.

Furthermore, the saying of the apostle must also be expounded: "I gave you milk to drink, as to infants in Christ, not solid food;"

"but neither even now are you able to bear it."

For it does not seem to me that the saying ought to be understood in a Jewish manner.

For I will set over against it that Scripture also: "I will bring you into the good land … the land flowing with milk and honey."

There arises, then, a very great difficulty in the comparison of these Scriptures: what do they mean?

For if the beginning of faith in Christ is the infancy that comes through milk, and this is disparaged as childish and imperfect, how is it that the rest of the perfect and gnostic man, which comes after the eating of solid food, is once more honored with infants' milk? Does not perhaps the "as," which is indicative of a comparison, suggest some such meaning, so that the saying ought to be read somewhat thus:

"I gave you milk to drink in Christ"; and after pausing a little, let us add "as to infants," so that, according to this division of the reading, we may receive the following sense:

"I instructed you in Christ with simple, true, and natural spiritual nourishment;"

for such is the life-nourishing substance of milk, welling up from loving breasts;

just as nurses nourish newborn children with milk, so I too, with Christ's milk—the Word—instilling into you spiritual nourishment.

Thus, then, the milk is the perfect nourishment, and it leads on to that consummation which knows no end.

Therefore also in the rest [that is to come] this very same thing, milk and honey, is promised.

Fittingly, then, the Lord again promises milk to the righteous, so that the Word may be plainly shown to be both—Alpha and Omega, beginning and end—the Word being allegorized as milk.

Something of this sort even Homer prophesies in spite of himself, when he calls the righteous among men "milk-eaters."

It is possible also to take the Scripture in this way:

"And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to fleshly, as to infants in Christ"—so that those recently catechized and still infants in Christ may be understood as "fleshly."

For he called "spiritual" those who had already believed in the Holy Spirit, but "fleshly" the newly catechized and not yet cleansed, whom he fittingly still calls fleshly, as being on a par with the Gentiles, since they still mind the things of the flesh.