Catechetical Lectures 6 part 1/2

And a reading from Isaiah:

Be renewed toward Me, you islands.

Israel is saved by the Lord with an everlasting salvation;

they shall not be ashamed, neither shall they be confounded for ever and ever, and so forth.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ;

[blessed also be His only-begotten Son.]

For as soon as God is conceived, let Father also be conceived;

that the glorification of Father and Son together with the Holy Spirit may be accomplished undivided.

For the Father has not one glory and the Son another;

but one and the same [with the Holy Spirit].

Since the Son is the only-begotten of the Father, and when the Father is glorified the Son also shares in the glory;

since the glory of the Son comes from the honor of His Father;

and again, when the Son is glorified, the Father of so good a Son is greatly honored.

And the mind indeed conceives most swiftly;

but the tongue has need of words, and of much explanation of the intervening discourse.

For the eye at once embraces a great chorus of stars;

but when one wishes to relate each in detail—what is the morning star, what is the evening star, what is each individual one—he has need of many words.

Again likewise, the mind in the swiftest moment embraces land and sea and all the ends of the world;

but what it conceives in an instant, this it relates in many words.

Great, then, is the example just spoken;

but it is still weak and feeble.

For we speak not what we ought concerning God (for these things are known to Him alone), but what human nature has admitted, and what our weakness is able to bear.

For we do not expound what God is;

but we confess with thankfulness that we do not know the exact truth concerning Him.

For in matters concerning God it is great knowledge to confess one's ignorance.

Magnify, therefore, the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together, all of us in common;

or rather, even if we are all gathered together, we shall not yet do as we ought.

I do not say only you who are present, but even if all the flocks of the whole universal Church, both that which now is and that which is to come, should come together, they will not be able to praise the Shepherd worthily.

Great was Abraham and honorable;

but great in relation to men.

Yet when he came before God, then, truthfully owning it with thankfulness, he says, I am earth and ashes.

He did not say earth and then keep silent, lest he should name himself the great element;

but he added, and ashes, that he might set forth his easily dissolved and crumbling nature.

Is there anything, he says, smaller or finer than ashes? For take, he says, the comparison of ashes to a house, and of a house to a city, and of a city to a province, and of a province to the country of the Romans, and of the country of the Romans to the whole earth and all its ends; and of the whole earth to the heaven that enfolds it;

which earth bears to heaven such a comparison as the center bears to the whole circumference of the wheel (for such is the comparison of earth to heaven); and conceive this first visible heaven to be smaller than the second, and the second than the third;

[for up to these the Scripture has named;

not that these alone exist, but that it was profitable for us to know only so many]; and when you have beheld with the mind all the heavens, not even the heavens will be able to praise God as He is;

not even if they should sound louder than thunder.

But if such vast vaults of the heavens cannot praise God worthily;

when then shall earth and ashes, the smallest and least of all things that are, be able to send up a worthy hymn of God—[or to speak worthily concerning God]—who holds the circle of the earth, and has its inhabitants as locusts? If anyone undertakes to speak the things concerning God, let him first describe the ends of the earth.

You inhabit the earth, and you do not know the limit of your own dwelling, the earth;

and how shall you be able worthily to conceive of the Maker? You behold the stars, but you do not behold their Maker.

Number first the visible, and then describe the invisible One;

Him who numbers the multitudes of the stars, and calls them all by their names.

Drops of more violent rains that lately came down well-nigh destroyed us.

Number the raindrops of this one city alone;

and I say not of the city, but number the drops upon your own house in a single hour, if you are able;

but being unable, you recognize your own weakness.

From this learn the power of God;

for to Him the drops of rain too are numbered, those poured out over all the inhabited world, not only now, but always.

The sun is a work of God, great indeed;

but very small in comparison with the whole heaven.

Gaze first upon the sun, and then busy yourself about the Master.

Seek not things too deep for you, nor search out things too strong for you;

the things which are commanded you, these consider.

But someone will say: If the divine subsistence is incomprehensible, why then do you discourse about these things? So then, because I am unable to drink the whole river, shall I not take even what is profitable for me in due measure? Because I cannot, with the capacity of my eyes, contain the whole sun, shall I not look upon even so much as suffices for my own need? Or, because I have entered into a vast paradise, and cannot eat all the substance of the orchard, do you wish me to go out entirely hungry? I praise and glorify Him who made us;

for it is a divine command that says:

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

I undertake now to glorify the Master, but not to expound Him, knowing well indeed that I shall fall short of the worthiness of glorifying Him, yet counting it a work of piety even to make the attempt at all.

For the Lord Jesus comforts my weakness, saying, No man has seen God at any time.

What then? someone will say, is it not written that the angels of the little ones do always behold the face of My Father who is in heaven? But the angels behold, not as God is, but in so far as they themselves are capable.

For Jesus Himself is the One who says, Not that anyone has seen the Father, save He who is from God; He has seen the Father.

they are capable, and archangels according to their power;

but Thrones and Dominions, more than the former, yet less than His worthiness.

And only the Holy Spirit, together with the Son, is able to behold as is fitting.

For That searches all things, [and knows] even the depths of God;

even as the only-begotten Son also knows the Father as is fitting, together with the Holy Spirit.

For no one knows the Father, He says, save the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him.

For He sees as is fitting, and reveals God through the Spirit, in so far as each is capable;

since the only-begotten Son is also partaker of the Father's Godhead together with the Holy Spirit.

He who was begotten [impassibly before the eternal ages] knows the One who begot, and the One who begot knows the One who was begotten.

Since therefore the angels are ignorant (for the only-begotten, together with the Holy Spirit, reveals to each according to his own capacity, as we have said), let no man be ashamed to confess his ignorance.

I am speaking now, I and all in turn;

but how we speak, we are unable to tell.

How then can I describe Him who gave the power of speech? I who have a soul, and cannot describe its characters, how shall I be able to tell forth the Giver of the soul? This alone will suffice us unto piety, to know that we have a God;

one God, a God who is, who is ever;

of whom there is no other Father;

than whom none is stronger, whom no successor casts out of His kingdom;

the One of many names, almighty, and of single form in His subsistence.

For it is not that, because He is called good and just and almighty and Sabaoth, He is on that account different and varied;

but being one and the same, He sends forth countless energies of His Godhead.

Not having more in one part, and being diminished in another part;

but in all things being like to Himself.

Not great in loving-kindness only and small in wisdom;

but having wisdom and loving-kindness equal in power.

Not seeing in one part, and in another part deprived of seeing;

but being all eye and all hearing and all mind.

Not, as we, understanding in part and in part not knowing;

for blasphemous is such a saying, and unworthy of the divine subsistence.

He is foreknower of the things that are, and holy, and almighty, and better than all, and greater than all, and wiser than all;

of whom we shall be able to declare neither [beginning] nor form nor figure.

For you have never at any time heard His voice, nor have you seen His form, says the Scripture.

Wherefore also Moses says to the Israelites, And take good heed to your souls, for you saw no likeness.

For if it is altogether impossible to imagine the likeness, will the mind then be near to the subsistence? Many have imagined many things, and all have failed.

And some supposed God to be fire;

others winged like a man, because it is rightly written, but wrongly conceived, In the shelter of your wings you shall shelter me.

They forgot our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten, who likewise says concerning Himself also, to Jerusalem, How often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not? For His protecting power being taken as wings, these men, not understanding, fell down into human notions, and conceived in a human way of Him who is past tracing out.

And others dared to say that He has seven eyes, because it is written, The seven eyes of the Lord that look upon all the earth.

For if He has only seven eyes set about Him in part, then His seeing is partial, and not complete;

which to say [of God] is profane.

For we must believe God to be perfect in all things, according to the Savior's word which says, Your heavenly Father is perfect.

Perfect in seeing, perfect in power, perfect in greatness, perfect in foreknowledge, perfect in goodness, perfect in righteousness, perfect in loving-kindness toward mankind.

Not bounded by place, but the Maker of places;

being in all, and circumscribed by none.

Heaven is His throne, but He who sits upon it is higher still;

the earth is His footstool, but His power reaches even to the regions beneath the earth.

He is One, present everywhere, seeing all things, perceiving all things, forming all things through Christ.

[For all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.] The greatest and inexhaustible fountain of every good, a river of beneficence, light eternal, shining forth without ceasing, power invincible, condescending to our weaknesses;

of whom we cannot even bear to hear the name.

Will you find out the trace of the Lord, says Job, or have you reached the uttermost things which the Almighty has made? If the uttermost of the works is not comprehended, shall He who made all things be comprehended? Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.

If the things which God has prepared are beyond the grasp of our minds, can we then comprehend with the mind Him who prepared them? O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!

how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out, says the Apostle.

If His judgments and His ways are incomprehensible, shall He Himself be comprehended? Seeing then that God is so great, and yet greater still (for not even if I should turn my whole being into a tongue could I speak worthily of Him;

rather, not even if all the angels should come together, will they yet speak worthily);

God being then so good and so great, a man, having carved a stone, said to the stone, You are my God.

O the great blindness, that has come down from such greatness to such baseness!

The tree which God planted, and the rain made to grow, and which afterward, being burned up and becoming glowing ashes, this is proclaimed God;

but the true God is despised.

And the wickedness of idolatry was poured out abundantly;

and cat and wolf and dog were worshiped instead of God, and a man-eating lion was worshiped instead of God who most loves mankind.

Serpent and dragon, counterfeits of him who cast us out of paradise, were worshiped;

and He who planted paradise was despised.

I am ashamed to say it, yet I say it:

for onions too have already been worshiped among certain peoples.

Wine was given to gladden the heart of man;

and Dionysus was worshiped instead of God.

God made grain by saying, Let the earth bring forth the herb of grass, sowing seed after its kind [and after its likeness], that bread might sustain the heart of man;

and whence then was Demeter worshiped? Fire comes forth from the striking together of stones, even to this day;

and whence then Hephaestus, the maker of fire? Whence the polytheistic error of the Greeks? God is incorporeal;

and whence then are adulteries charged against those who are called gods by them? I pass over in silence the changes of Zeus into a swan;

I am ashamed to speak of his transformations into a bull; for the bellowings are unworthy of a god.

The god of the Greeks has been found to be an adulterer, and they are not ashamed.

For if he is an adulterer, let him not be called god.

And they tell of deaths and falls and thunderstrikes of the gods among them.

Do you see from what great height they have come down to where they are? Did then the Son of God come down from heaven in vain, or was it that He might heal so great a wound? Did the Son come in vain, or that the Father might be made known? You have recognized what moved the only-begotten to come down from the throne at the right hand.

The Father was being despised; the Son had to set right the error.

For He through whom all things were made had to offer all things to the Master of all.

The wound had to be healed;

for what was worse than this disease, that a stone should be worshiped instead of God? On Heresies.

And not only among the heathen did the devil contend for these things;

But indeed, even many of those falsely called Christians, who are wrongly named with the most fragrant name of Christ, have impiously dared to estrange God from His own works.

I mean the children of the heretics, those ill-named and utterly godless men, who pretend to be lovers of Christ but are altogether haters of Christ.

For he who blasphemes the Father of Christ is an enemy of the Son.

These men dared to say there are two deities, one good and one evil.

If it is deity, then it is altogether good as well;

but if it is not good, why is it called deity? For if goodness belongs to God, if it befits God to be loving toward mankind, beneficent, and almighty,

[then] one of two things follows: either let them call it God together with the name and the operation; but if they intend to deprive it of these operations, let them not call it God by the mere appellation.

The heretics dared to speak of two gods, and two sources, of good and of evil, and to say that these are unbegotten.

If both are unbegotten, then surely they are also equal, and both mighty.

How then does darkness do away with light? And are they ever together, or are they kept apart? For together they cannot be.

"For what fellowship has light with darkness?" says the Apostle.

But if they are far apart from one another, then surely they also occupy their own places.

And if they occupy their own places, then we are certainly within the realm of the one God, and certainly we worship one God.

For it must be concluded thus, even if we were to go along with their folly: that one must worship one God.

Let us examine them, and consider what they say concerning the good God.

Is He able or unable? If He is able, how did evil come to be against His will? And how does the evil substance intrude when He does not will it? For if, knowing of it, He cannot prevent it, they charge Him with weakness;

but if, being able, He does not prevent it, they charge Him with betrayal.

And behold their senselessness.

At one time they say that the Evil One has nothing in common with the good God in the creation of the world; at another time they say that he has only a fourth part.

And the Good One they say is the Father of Christ;

but Christ they call this sun.

If then, according to them, the world was made by the Evil One, and the sun is in the world, how is it that the Son of the Good One serves unwillingly among the things of the Evil One? We wallow in filth when we say these things—yet we say them so that none of those present may from ignorance fall into the mire of the heretics.

I know that I am defiling my own mouth and the ears of my hearers;

for it is far better to hear the absurdities in the accusation of others, than from ignorance to fall into them.

It is far better for you to know the mire and to hate it, than in ignorance to fall into it.

The doctrine of the godlessness of the heresies is many-branched;

for whenever one falls away from the single straight road, then he often plunges down into many precipices.

And the inventor of every heresy was Simon the magician.

That Simon in the Acts of the Apostles, who expected to buy with money the unpurchasable grace of the Spirit, and heard:

"You have neither part nor lot in this matter," and what follows.

"They went out from us, but they were not of us;"

"for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us."

This man, having come to Rome, after being cast out by the Apostles, and bringing with him a certain harlot named Helen, was the first who with his blasphemous mouth dared to say that he himself was the one who had appeared on Mount Sinai as the Father;

and that later, among the Jews, he had appeared not in flesh but in semblance, as Christ Jesus;

and that after this he appeared as the Holy Spirit, the one promised by Christ to be sent as the Paraclete.

And he so deceived the city of the Romans that Claudius set up a statue of him, inscribing in the Roman tongue, SIMONI DEO SANCTO, which being interpreted means, "To Simon the holy God."

But as the deception spread, a pair of good men corrected the error: Peter and Paul, the leaders of the Church, who came to the scene;

and Simon, who was reputed to be God and was making his display, they straightway showed to be dead.

For when Simon promised to be lifted up into the heavens, and was being borne through the air on a chariot of demons, the servants of Christ bowed the knee and displayed that agreement of which Jesus spoke—"If two of you shall agree concerning anything that they ask, it shall be done for them"—

and sending forth the dart of concord through prayer against the magician, they cast him down to the earth.

And it is no marvel—though it is indeed a marvel;

for it was Peter, who carries about the keys of the heavens.

For it was Paul, who was caught up to the third heaven and into paradise,

and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

[These men also] brought down from the air to the earth the reputed god, who was destined to be brought down to the regions beneath the earth.

This was the first dragon of wickedness;

but when one head was cut off, the matter of wickedness was again found to be many-headed.

For Cerinthus ravaged the Church, and Menander, and Carpocrates;

and the Ebionites, and Marcion, the mouth of godlessness.

For he who proclaimed different gods, one the Good and another the Just, contradicts the Son who says, "Righteous Father."

And [he who says] again that the Father is one and the Maker of the world another, opposes the Son who says:

"If God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven [of fire],"

and, "Who makes His sun to rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust."

So again, the inventor of yet another wickedness was Marcion the second.

For being refuted by the testimonies laid down from the Old in the New Testament, he was the first who dared to cut out those testimonies, and to leave the proclaimed word of the faith without witness, having abandoned God;

and, as though there were no heralds, he wished to make the faith of the Church unsound.

After him again came another, Basilides, ill-named, most dreadful in manner, a preacher of licentiousness.

Valentinus too contended in wickedness, the herald of thirty gods.

The Greeks speak of few gods; but this man, so called—or rather not really—a Christian, extended his error to a full thirty.

And he says that the Deep (it is fitting for him, being a deep of wickedness, to begin from a deep of teaching) begot Silence, and from Silence begot Word.

This man is worse than the Zeus of the Greeks, who lay with his sister;

for Silence was said to be the child of the Deep.

Do you see absurdity wrapped in the guise of Christianity? Wait a little while, and you will hate the impiety.

For he says that from this one there came eight aeons, and from those ten;

and from those another twelve, male and female.

And whence the establishing of these? Behold the nonsense from his fabrications.

Whence do you have the proof of the thirty aeons? "Because," he says, "it is written that Jesus was baptized when about thirty years of age."

And what sort of proof is this from the thirty years, even if He was baptized at thirty? Then, because He also broke five loaves for five thousand, are there five gods? Or because He had twelve disciples, ought there to be only twelve gods? And this is still a small matter compared with the rest of the impiety.

For he says that the last of the gods, being male-female, as he dares to say, is this Wisdom.

For Christ is the Wisdom of God, the only-begotten Son;

yet that man, by his teaching, dragged down Wisdom into a female and into the thirtieth element, the last fabrication.

And he says that Wisdom undertook to behold the first God;

and not enduring the dazzling rays, she fell out of the heavens and was cast forth from the thirtieth number.

Then groaning, out of her groans she begot the devil;

and that, weeping over her fall, she gave subsistence to the sea.

Do you see the impiety? For how is the devil begotten from wisdom, and wickedness from understanding, or darkness from light? And he says that the devil begot others, who fashioned the world;

and that Christ came down to draw men away from the world-maker.

But hear whom they say Christ [Jesus] is, that you may hate them yet more greatly.

For they teach that when Wisdom fell, in order that the number of thirty might not be lacking, the twenty-nine aeons, each contributing some smallest portion, fashioned Christ;

and this one too they again call male-female.

Is there anything more impious than these things? Is there anything more wretched than these? I am recounting to you the error, that you may hate them the more greatly.

Flee therefore the impiety, and do not even bid such a man Godspeed, lest you share in the unfruitful works of darkness;

and neither be inquisitive, nor wish to enter into discussion with them.

And hate indeed all heretics, but especially the man named for madness,

who first began in the time of the emperor Probus,

for the error is now a full seventy years old, and there are still men to this day who saw that man with their own eyes.

But hate him not because he lived a short time ago;

rather, hate the worker of wickedness on account of his impious doctrines—the receptacle of all filth, who took into himself the mire of every heresy.

For being ambitious to become preeminent in wickedness, taking the doctrines of all, and putting together one heresy filled with blasphemies and every lawlessness, he ravages the Church (or rather those outside the Church), walking about like a lion and devouring.

Do not give heed to their fair speech, nor to their pretended humility;

for they are serpents, a brood of vipers.

Judas too said, "Hail, Rabbi," and was betraying Him.

Do not give heed to the kisses, but guard yourself against the venom.

And lest we seem to accuse him in vain, let us say in passing who this Manes is, and what he teaches in part;

for not even the whole of eternity could worthily recount the entire mire of his teaching.

Let these things be remembered by you as timely help—things which were said also to those before you, and shall be said also to those now present;

that those who are ignorant may learn, and those who know may be reminded.

Manes is not from the Christians—God forbid;

nor was he cast out of the Church like Simon, neither he nor those who taught before him;

for he is a thief of the evils of others, appropriating their wickedness to himself.

But how, and in what manner, must be heard.

There was a certain Scythianus in Egypt, a Saracen by race, having nothing in common either with Judaism or with Christianity.

This man, having settled in Alexandria and imitating the Aristotelian manner of life, composed four books: one called The Gospel, not containing the acts of Christ, but merely the title alone;

and another called The Chapters;

and a third, The Mysteries;

and a fourth, which they now carry about, The Treasure.

And a disciple of his there was, named Terebinthus.

But the Lord, by smiting Scythianus—who had purposed to come into Judaea and ravage the country—with a deadly disease, put a stop to the pestilential design.

And the disciple of wickedness, Terebinthus, being heir to the gold and the books and the heresy, came into Palestine; and being recognized and condemned in Judaea, he resolved to remove into Persia.

And lest he be recognized there too by his name, he renamed himself Buddas.

But he had adversaries there also, the priests of Mithras;

and many arguments being stirred up and much wrangling, he was refuted.

And at last, being hard pressed, he took refuge with a certain widow.

Then, going up onto the housetop and invoking the demons of the air—whom the Manichaeans to this day invoke over their abominable fig-cake—

being smitten of God and cast down from the housetop, he expired;

and thus the beast was cut off, the second one.

But the books that served as reminders of the impiety remained;

and the widow was heir both to the books and to the money.

And having neither relative nor any other person, she decided to buy with the money a boy called Cubricus;

and taking him into adoption, she educated him in the learning of the Persians as a son, and sharpened him as an evil dart against humanity.

And Cubricus the evil servant flourished in the midst of the philosophers;

and when the widow died, he inherited the money and the books.

Then, lest the name of Cubricus's servitude should be a reproach, instead of Cubricus he named himself Manes, which in the Persian dialect signifies "discourse."

For since he seemed to be a dialectician, he named himself Manes, as though a certain most excellent conversationalist.

But while he contrived for himself good repute in the Persian tongue,

the providence of God made him, even against his will, to become his own accuser;

so that, while thinking to honor himself in Persia, among the Greeks he proclaimed himself named for madness.

And he dared to say that he himself was the Paraclete.)

"But whosoever shall blaspheme against the Spirit

the Holy, has no forgiveness."

He therefore blasphemed, by calling himself the Holy Spirit.

Let him who has fellowship with those men consider with whom he ranks himself.

The servant shook the inhabited world, since by three things the earth is shaken;

and the fourth it cannot bear, if a servant should become king.

And having come into the midst, he thereafter promised things beyond man.

The son of the king of the Persians was ill;

and an abundance of physicians was present.

But Manes promised that, like a pious man, he would set things right through prayer.