Theological Orations 27-30 3-1

THE THIRD THEOLOGICAL ORATION: ON THE SON. What one might say, then, to check their readiness and rashness in argument, and the perilousness of haste in all matters but most of all in discourses concerning God, is this.

But since to censure is no great thing—

for it is the easiest thing in the world, and within the power of anyone who wishes—

while to put forward one's own view in its place is the mark of a pious man who has understanding;

come then, taking courage in the Holy Spirit—who is dishonored by them but worshiped by us—let us bring forth into the light our conceptions concerning the Godhead, whatever they may be, like some noble and well-ripened offspring;

not having been silent at other times—for this alone would be in us a sign of youthful vigor and high spirit—and only now speaking out the truth the more boldly;

lest by drawing back, as it is written, we be condemned for not being well-pleasing.

Since every discourse is twofold—the one establishing one's own position, the other overturning that of the opponent—we too, having first set forth our own, will then attempt to overturn that of our adversaries;

and both as briefly as possible, so that what is said may be easily surveyed—just as that introductory argument which they themselves devised for the deception of the simpler or more naive—and so that the things we mean may not be dissipated by length of discourse, like water that is not confined within a pipe, but poured out over a plain and dispersed.

There are three highest opinions concerning God: anarchy, polyarchy, and monarchy.

Now the first two were the playthings of the children of the Greeks, and let them go on being so;

for that which is without origin is also without order;

and that which has many origins is full of faction, and so is without a single rule, and so is without order.

For both lead to the same thing, namely disorder, and disorder to dissolution.

But for us monarchy is what is held in honor;

yet not a monarchy that is circumscribed by a single Person;

for it is possible even for the One, when at variance with itself, to become a plurality;

but a monarchy which an equality of nature constitutes, together with a concord of mind, an identity of motion, and a convergence toward the One of those who are from Him—which is impossible in begotten nature—so that, although it differs in number, it is not divided in essence.

For this reason the Monad, having from the beginning moved toward a Dyad, came to rest at a Triad.

And this is for us the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit;

the one being Begetter and Emitter—I mean without passion, without time, and without body;

and of the others, the one being the Begotten and the other the Emitted—or I do not know how one might call them, having altogether removed them from things visible.

For we will not dare to speak of an 'overflow of goodness,' which one of those who philosophized among the Greeks dared to say, speaking thus plainly—'as if some bowl had overflowed'—in the passage where he philosophizes about the first and second Cause;

lest we ever introduce an involuntary begetting, and as it were some natural and hardly-restrainable overflow, which is least of all befitting to our conceptions concerning the Godhead.

Therefore, keeping within our own bounds, we introduce the Unbegotten, and the Begotten, and that which proceeds from the Father, as God the Word Himself somewhere says.

When, then, did these come to be? They are above the 'when.'

But if one must say something even in youthful boldness—when the Father was.

And when was the Father? There was no time when He was not.

This, then, is true also of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Ask me again, and again I will answer you:

When was the Son begotten? When the Father was not begotten.

And when did the Spirit proceed? When the Son was not proceeding, but was begotten—timelessly and beyond all reason.

—even though we cannot set forth that which is beyond time, since we wish to escape any connotation of time.

For the words "when," "before this," "after these things," and "from the beginning" are not free of time, however much we may force them.

—unless one takes that which is divided and measured by the course of the sun, which is precisely what time is.

How then, if they are coeternal, are they not equally without beginning? Because the Son is from Him, even if not after Him.

For that which is without beginning is also eternal;

but the eternal is not necessarily without beginning, so long as it is referred back to the Father as its beginning.

And it is clear that the cause is not necessarily prior to the things of which it is the cause;

and they are in a sense without beginning as to time, even though you frighten the simpler folk;

for those things from which time comes are not themselves subject to time.

How then is the begetting not subject to passion? Because it is incorporeal.

For if bodily begetting involves passion, the incorporeal is free from passion.

How is He God, if He is a creature? For that which is created is not God.

—not to mention that here too there would be passion, if it be taken in a bodily sense, such as time, desire, imagination, anxiety, hope, grief, danger, failure, correction;

all of which, and more than these, belong to creation, as is plain to everyone.

But I marvel that you do not even dare this too—to imagine certain couplings, and times of gestation, and dangers of miscarriage, as though begetting were impossible unless He had begotten in this way;

or again, enumerating the various begettings of birds and land animals and water creatures, to bring the divine and ineffable begetting under one of these begettings, or even to do away with the Son altogether on the basis of your novel hypothesis.

And you cannot even perceive this: that He whose begetting in the flesh is unique—for where among your kind have you ever known a virgin Mother of God?—has likewise a spiritual begetting that is altogether different.

or rather, He for whom existence is not the same as ours, for Him also the manner of begetting is different.

Who then is the Father that has no beginning? He who did not even begin to be;

but He whose being had a beginning, for Him also being a Father had a beginning.

He therefore did not become Father at a later time, for He did not begin to be;

and He is Father in the proper sense, because He is not also Son;

just as the Son also is Son in the proper sense, because He is not also Father.

For our relationships are not in the proper sense, because we are both;

for one of us is no more the one than the other;

and we come from both parents, not from one, so that we are divided, and become human beings little by little, and perhaps not even human beings at all, and such as we did not wish to be, both forsaking and being forsaken, so that only the relations are left, bereft of their realities.

"But," he says, "the very words 'He begot' and 'He was begotten'—what else do they introduce but a beginning of begetting?" What then if we do not even say this, but say that He was begotten from the beginning, in order to escape easily your meddlesome and time-loving objections? Will you then bring an indictment against us, as though we were tampering with something of Scripture and of the truth? Or is it plain to all that many things expressed in temporal terms are uttered with the tenses interchanged—and especially so in the usage of Scripture—not only such as belong to past time, or to the present, but also such as belong to the future? As in the verse:

"Why did the nations rage?" for they had not yet raged;

and, "They shall pass through the river on foot;"

and it would be a long task to enumerate all such expressions, which have been carefully noted by the diligent.

And here is yet another of their arguments, exceedingly contentious and shameless;

"Did He," they say, "beget the Son willingly, or unwillingly?"

Then they bind us, as they suppose, on both sides with knots—not strong ones, but very rotten indeed.

"For if it was unwilling," they say, "then He was constrained by force."

And who was it that did the constraining? And how was God the one constrained? But if it was willing, then the Son is a son of will.

How then is He from the Father? And they fabricate some new mother—the will—in place of the Father.

Now there is one pleasant thing in their case, if they say this: that having retreated from the notion of passion, they take refuge in will;

but let us examine in the second place their strong point, whatever it is they are saying.

It is best to grapple with them first at closer quarters.

You yourself, who so glibly say whatever you please—did you come into being from a father who willed it, or one who did not will it? For if from one who did not will it, then he was constrained by force.

And who was it that constrained him? For surely you will not say it was nature;

for nature includes also self-restraint.

But if from one who willed it, then over a mere few syllables you have lost your father.

For you have shown yourself to be a son of will, but not of a father.

But let me pass on to God and the creatures, and bring your own question to bear upon your own wisdom.

Did God bring all things into being willingly, or under compulsion? If under compulsion, then here too there is tyranny, and one who tyrannizes.

But if willingly, then the creatures too are deprived of their God—and you before all others, you who devise such reasonings and contrive such sophistries;

for by an intervening act of will they are walled off from the Creator.

But to my mind, the willing one and the willing are different things, the begetter and the begetting, the speaker and the word—unless we are drunk.

For the former in each case is the one who is moved, while the latter is, as it were, the movement itself.

That which is willed, therefore, is not the offspring of the will;

nor is that which is begotten the offspring of the begetting, nor that which is heard the offspring of the utterance—but they are of the one who wills, and of the one who begets, and of the one who speaks.

But the things of God are beyond all these, for whom perhaps the begetting is the very will to beget, and there is nothing intermediate—if indeed we will accept even this at all, and not rather hold that the begetting is higher than will.

Would you like me to play a little even with the Father? For it is from you that I have learned to dare such things.

Is the Father God willingly, or unwillingly?

And see how you will escape your own two-edged weapon. If indeed willingly, when did He begin to will? For it could not be before He existed;

or was one part of Him that which willed, and another that which was willed? He is divisible, then.

And how is He too not, according to you, a product of will? But if unwillingly, what was it that constrained Him into being? And how is He God, if He was constrained—and that, when His very being is nothing other than to be God? How then was He begotten? How was He created, if indeed He was created according to you? For this too belongs to the same perplexity.

Perhaps you will say: by will and by reason.

For how did the will and the word possess the power of accomplishment? It still remains to be said.

How, then, was He begotten? The begetting would be no great thing if it could be comprehended by you, who have not even understood your own begetting—or who have grasped only some small part of it, and only as much as you are ashamed to speak of.

And after that you think you know everything? You would labour much before you found out the principles of your own conception, formation, coming-to-light, the bond of soul to body, of mind to soul, of reason to mind, motion, growth, the assimilation of food, sense-perception, memory, recollection, and all the rest of which you are composed.

—and what belongs to the union of both soul and body together, what is divided between them, and what they receive from one another.

For the principles of those things whose perfecting comes later arise together with their begetting.

And not even then should you philosophize about the begetting of God.

For if you know your own begetting, it does not at all follow that you know God's also;

but if you do not know even your own, how can you know God's? For by as much as God is harder to fathom than man, by so much also is the begetting on high more incomprehensible than your own begetting.

But if, because it has not been comprehended by you, you conclude that He was therefore not begotten at all, then it is high time for you to strike out of existence many things which you have not comprehended—and before all else, God Himself;

for you are not even able to say what He at all is—not even if you are exceedingly bold and superfluously high-minded.

Cast away your effluxes and divisions and severings, and your conceiving of the incorporeal nature as though it were a body;

and then perhaps you would conceive something worthy of the begetting of God.

How was He begotten? Again I utter the same words with vexation.

Let the begetting of God be honoured in silence.

It is a great thing for you to learn that He has been begotten.

But the how—we will not grant even to angels to conceive, much less to you to understand.

Do you wish me to set before you the how? As the Father who begot knows it, and the Son who was begotten.

But what is beyond these things is hidden in a cloud, eluding your dim-sightedness.

Did He, then, beget Him as existing, or as not existing? What nonsense!

These things apply to me and to you, who in part already were—as Levi was in the loins of Abraham—and in part came to be;

so that our existence is in a sense from things existing, and also from things not existing.

It is otherwise with the primordial matter, which clearly came into being out of things not existing—even if some fashion it as ungenerated.

But here the being-begotten runs together with the being, and that from the beginning;

so where will you place this double-precipiced question? For what is older than that which is from the beginning, that there we might place the Son's once-being or not-being? For either way the phrase "from the beginning" is dissolved.

Again, when we ask whether He is from things existing or from things not existing, there is the risk either that there should be two—the one pre-existing, the other existing—or that the Son should suffer the same thing, namely to be from things not existing, all because of your playthings of questions and your buildings of sand, which do not stand even against the breezes.

For my part, then, I accept neither of these, and I say that the question contains the absurdity, not the answer the impossibility.

But if it seems to you necessary that one of the alternatives must be true in every case, according to your dialectical assumptions, then accept a little question from me.

Is time in time, or not in time? If, then, it is in time, in what time? And what is it that exists beyond this time? And how does that time contain it? But if it is not in time, what superfluous wisdom is it to introduce a timeless time? And as for the statement "Now I am lying," grant one of the two: that it is either only true or only false.

For either, by lying, he will speak the truth, or, by speaking the truth, he will lie.

What wonder is it, then, that just as here contraries result, so there both alternatives turn out false, and thus your cleverness is revealed to you as folly? Solve me yet one more of these riddles.

Were you present at your own begetting? Are you present now? Or neither? For if you were both present then and are present now, as what, and to whom? And how have you, being one, become both? But if neither of the things said is true, how are you separated from yourself? And what is the cause of the disjunction? But it is uneducated to make a fuss about whether the one is present to itself or not.

For these things are said with respect to other beings, not with respect to oneself.

Still more uneducated, be well assured, is it to inquire, concerning that which was begotten from the beginning, whether it existed before its begetting or did not exist.

For this kind of argument applies to things divided by time.

"But," he says, "the unbegotten and the begotten are not the same."

But if this is so, then neither is the Son the same as the Father.

That this argument plainly casts the Son out of the Godhead—or else the Father—what need is there to say? For if the unbegotten is the essence of God, then the begotten is not essence;

what argument will gainsay it? Choose, then, whichever of the two impieties you will, O empty theologian, if indeed you have at all set your heart on being impious.

Next, how do you say that the unbegotten and the begotten are not the same? If you mean the uncreated and the created, then I too accept it.

For the unoriginate and that which is created are not the same in nature.

But if you say that the one who begot and the one who was begotten are not the same, it is not rightly said.

For it is wholly necessary that they be the same.

For this is the nature of an offspring: to be the same as the one who begot it according to nature.

How do you mean the unbegotten and the begotten? For if you mean unbegottenness itself and begetting itself, they are not the same;

but if you mean the beings to which these belong, how are they not the same? Since the unwise and the wise also are not the same as each other, yet are concerned with the same thing, namely man;

and the distinction does not cut across essences, but is itself divided in respect of the same essence.

Or are the immortal, the guileless, and the unchangeable also the essence of God?

But if this is so, then there are many essences of God, and not one.

Or else the Divine is composite, made up of these.

For these would not be without composition, if indeed they are essences.

But these things, they say, we do not assert; for they are common to others as well.

But that which belongs to God alone and is proper to Him—this is His essence.

Now those who bring in matter and form alongside as ungenerated would not concede that unbegottenness belongs to God alone.

But let us fling the darkness of the Manichaeans far away.

But what of Adam? Was he not the only handiwork directly fashioned by God? "Most certainly," you will say.

Was he, then, also the only man? By no means.

Why ever so? Because being fashioned is not humanity;

for that which was begotten is also man.

Thus neither is only the unbegotten God, even if it belongs to the Father alone; but accept that the begotten also is God.

For He is from God, even if you are exceedingly fond of unbegottenness.

Next, how is it that you call this the essence of God, when it is not the positing of what exists but the abolition of what does not exist? For your account declares that begetting does not belong to him; it does not present what his nature is, nor what that which has no begetting actually is.

What then is the essence of God? It belongs to your madness to claim to say this, you who busy yourself with prying even into the begetting.

For us it is a great thing—if even at some later time we should come to learn this, once the gloom and the grossness have been dissolved for us, as the promise of him who cannot lie assures.

But let us venture to say at least this much: that even if it is a great thing for the Father to have his origin from no source, it is no lesser thing for the Son to be from such a Father.

For he too would share in the glory of being from one without cause, since he is from the One without cause; and there is added to him the dignity of his begetting—a thing so great and so worthy of reverence to those whose minds are not wholly grovelling and material.

"But," they say, "if the Son is identical with the Father according to essence, and the Father is unbegotten, then the Son too will be this."

Quite so—if indeed the unbegotten is the essence of God, so that there would be some novel mixture, a begotten-unbegotten!

But if the difference concerns essence, why do you advance this as something forceful? Or are you too the father of your own father, so that you fall short of your father in nothing, since you are identical with him in essence? Or is it not clear that, while the distinguishing property remains unmoved, we shall inquire into the essence of God—whatever it may be—if indeed we shall inquire at all? And that "unbegotten" and "God" are not identical, you may learn in this way.

If they were identical, then necessarily, since God is the God of certain beings, the unbegotten too would have to be the unbegotten of certain beings;

or else, since the unbegotten is of no one, neither would God be the God of anyone.

For things that are altogether identical are also predicated in the same way.

But surely the unbegotten is not of any beings—of what could it be?—whereas God is the God of certain beings, indeed of all.

How then could God and unbegotten be identical? And again: since the unbegotten and the begotten are opposed to one another, as possession and privation, there would necessarily be introduced essences also that are opposed to one another.

Or rather, since again possessions are prior to privations, and privations are destructive of possessions, it would follow not only that the Son's essence is older than the Father's, but that it is even abolished by the Father—so far as your own premises are concerned.

What argument have they left of all their inescapable ones? Perhaps they would at last take refuge in this:

namely, that if God has not ceased from begetting, the begetting is incomplete, and at some point he will cease;

but if he has ceased, then assuredly he also began.

Once again the carnal-minded apply carnal notions.

But as for me, whether his being begotten is eternal or not, I do not yet say, until I have accurately examined that text, "Before all the hills he begets me."

But I do not see what necessity there is in the argument.

For if, according to them, that which will cease has begun, it certainly does not follow that what will not cease has begun.

What then will they declare concerning the soul, or the angelic nature? If it has begun, it will also cease;

but if it will not cease, then clearly, according to them, neither has it begun.

Yet in fact it both has begun and will not cease.

Therefore, according to them, that which will cease has not begun.

Now this then is our own account:

just as of a horse, an ox, a man, and each of the things falling under the same species there is one definition, and whatever shares in that definition is also properly so called, while whatever does not share in it is either not so called or not properly so called,

so too there is one essence and nature of God,

and one appellation, even if the names too are divided along with certain conceptual distinctions that are made;

and whatever is properly so called, this also is God;

and whatever is so according to nature, this also is truly named;

if indeed truth lies for us not in names but in realities.

But these men, as though afraid of setting everything in motion against the truth, confess that the Son is God—whenever they are compelled by argument and by the scriptural testimonies—yet say he is so only homonymously and as sharing merely in the name.

But whenever we put the counter-question to them:

"What then? Is the Son not God in the proper sense, just as a painted figure is not in the proper sense an animal? How then is he God, if he is not God in the proper sense?"—they reply: "What prevents these from being both homonymous and yet each properly so called?" And they will bring forward to us the dog—the land-dog and the sea-dog—which are homonymous and yet each properly so named (for there is indeed such a kind among homonyms), and likewise whatever else makes use of the same designation and shares in it equally, though separated in nature.

But there, my good fellow, when you place two natures under the same designation, you do not introduce the one as in any way better than the other, nor the one as prior and the other as posterior, nor the one as being more and the other less of what is being named.

For there is no factor yoked alongside that imposes upon them this necessity—

of dog, I mean: as the sea-dog is no such thing relative to the land-dog, nor conversely the land-dog relative to the sea-dog;

for why, or on what principle, should it be so? Rather, the sharing of the name is among things equal in honor and yet different.

But here you yoke together with "God" that which is worthy of reverence, and that which is above all essence and nature—

which belongs to God alone and is, as it were, the very nature of the Godhead. Then, giving this to the Father but robbing the Son of it and subordinating him, and assigning to him the second place in honor and worship—even if in the syllables you grant him the like name, in the reality you cut away his Godhead, and you malevolently shift from the homonymy that implies equality to the one that links together things unequal.

So that, by your reasoning, the painted and the living man come closer to the Godhead than do the dogs of your illustration.

Either, then, grant to both—just as the sharing of the name, so also the equality of honor of their natures, even if you introduce these natures as different;

and so you have demolished your own dogs, which you had devised against equality.

For what use is the homonymy, if those whom you separate do not possess equality of honor? For it was not in order to show them equal in honor, but in order to show them unequal in honor, that you took refuge in the homonymy and in the dogs.

How could anyone be more thoroughly refuted, and convicted of fighting both against himself and against the Godhead? But if, when we say that the Father is greater than the Son in respect of being the cause, they take up in addition the premise "the cause is greater by nature," and then conclude "greater by nature"—

I do not know whether they are deceiving themselves or those against whom their argument is directed.

For it is not the case, without qualification, that whatever is said of a thing will also be said of the subject underlying that thing;

but it is clear that one must specify of what it is said, and what is said.

For what prevents me too from making this premise, that "the Father is greater by nature," and then taking up in addition "but what is greater by nature is not in every respect greater nor a father," and thence concluding that "the greater is not in every respect greater";

or, "the Father is not in every respect a father";

and "the essence is not in every respect God"?

But, in my opinion, this fallacy turns on the difference between "in a certain respect" and "without qualification," as is customary with those who like to spin technical sophistries about such matters.

For while we attribute the "greater" to the nature of the cause, they themselves substitute "greater by nature";

just as if, when we said "so-and-so is a dead man," they should without qualification infer "a man."

And how could we pass over that point, which is no less admirable than the things already mentioned? "Is 'Father,'" he asks, "a name of essence or of activity?"—thinking to bind us on both sides: for if we say it is a name of essence, we shall be agreeing that the Son is of a different essence, since there is one essence of God, and this, according to them, the Father has already pre-occupied;

but if we say it is a name of activity, we shall be plainly confessing that the Son is a thing made, not a thing begotten.

"For where there is one who acts," they say, "there is also assuredly the thing acted upon."

"And how," they will say, "can the thing made be identical with the maker?"—professing to be astonished.

I myself too would have stood much in awe of your dilemma, if it had been necessary to accept one of the two alternatives, and not rather to escape both and to state a third that is truer.

For "Father," most learned sirs, is the name neither of an essence nor of an activity, but of a relation — of how the Father stands toward the Son, or the Son toward the Father.

For just as among us these designations make known what is genuine and proper to the household, so there too they signify the sameness of nature of the begotten with respect to the one who begot.

But let it be granted, for your sakes, that the Father is in some sense the name of an essence;

it will bring in the Son along with it, and will not estrange Him, according to the common notions and the force of these very designations.

Let it be also the name of an activity, if that is your preference;

in that very case He would have wrought the consubstantial as His work — though to suppose any such activity in this matter is in any case absurd.

Do you see how, even when you wish to wage your malicious war, we escape your twists and turns? But since we have found you invincible in your reasonings and contortions, let us also examine your strength drawn from the divine oracles — to see whether you will allow us to persuade you from that quarter as well.

For we, on our part, have both apprehended and proclaimed the Godhead of the Son from the great and lofty utterances concerning Him.

Which utterances are these? He is called God, the Word, the One who was in the beginning, the One who was with the Beginning, the Beginning Himself:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

And: "He who calls her from the generations the Beginning."

"The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him."

"I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life."

And: "I am the Light of the world."

"Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God."

Radiance, Impress, Image, Seal:

"Who, being the radiance of His glory and the impress of His substance."

And: "Image of His goodness."

And: "For Him has the Father, even God, sealed."

Lord, King, the One who Is, the Almighty:

"The Lord rained down fire from the Lord."

And: "The sceptre of Your kingdom is a sceptre of uprightness."

And: "He who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

These things are plainly spoken concerning the Son, together with all that is of the same force as these — none of which is acquired, nor came to the Son later, nor to the Spirit, just as none came even to the Father Himself.

For perfection does not come by addition.

For there never was a time when He was without His Word, nor a time when He was not Father, nor a time when He was not true, or unwise, or powerless, or lacking in life, or in splendour, or in goodness.

But you, against these, go on counting up for me the words of your ingratitude: the "My God and your God," the "greater," the "He created," the "He made," the "He sanctified";

and, if you wish, also the "servant" and the "obedient";

the "He gave," the "He learned," the "He was commanded," the "He was sent," the "He can of Himself do nothing," nor say, nor judge, nor bestow, nor will.

And besides these, also the following: the ignorance, the subjection, the prayer, the asking, the progress, the being made perfect.

Add, if you wish, also all that is yet humbler than these: the sleeping, the hungering, the growing weary, the weeping, the being in agony, the submitting to suffering.

And perhaps you would even cast in His teeth the Cross and the death.

For the Resurrection and the Ascension you seem to me likely to leave aside, since in these too something is found that is on our side.

And you could still pick up many more such scraps besides these, if you wished to piece together your homonymous and counterfeit god — though to us He is the true God, equal in honour with the Father.

For each one of these it is not hard, going through them point by point, to expound to you in the most reverent sense and to clear away the stumbling-block in the texts — provided that you really do stumble, and are not deliberately playing the rogue.

But in one summary: the loftier sayings assign to the Godhead and to the nature that is superior to sufferings and to the body;

and the humbler sayings assign to the composite one, to Him who for your sake was emptied and made flesh — and it is no worse to say, was made man — and then was also exalted; that you, dissolving the carnal and grovelling element of your doctrines, may learn to be more lofty, and to ascend together with the Godhead, and may not remain among the things that are seen, but be lifted up together with the things perceived by the mind, and may know what belongs to the account of His nature and what belongs to the account of the economy.

For this very One who is now despised by you, there was a time when He was even above you;

He who is now man was also without composition.

For what cause is there for God? But He also came to be, later, by reason of a cause — and that cause was that you, the insolent one, might be saved, you who on this very account despise the Godhead, because it took upon itself your grossness — having held converse with flesh through the medium of a mind, and having become man, the God below;

since He was commingled with God and became one, the better element prevailing, in order that I might become God to the same degree as He became man.

He was begotten — yet He was also already begotten;

of a woman, to be sure — yet also of a virgin.

This is human, that is divine.

Without a father on this side — yet also without a mother on that side.

He was carried in the womb — yet He was recognized by a prophet who was himself still being carried in the womb, and who leaped for joy before the Word, for whose sake he had come to be.

He was wrapped in swaddling-clothes — yet, when He rose, He unwound the swaddling-bands of the tomb.

In a manger He was laid — yet He was glorified by angels, and pointed out by a star, and worshipped by the Magi.

He was made a fugitive into Egypt — yet He put to flight the gods of the Egyptians.

He was baptized as man — yet He absolved sins as God;

not because He Himself needed cleansing, but that He might sanctify the waters.

He was tempted as man — yet He overcame as God;

nay, He bids us be of good cheer, as having overcome the world.

He hungered — yet He fed thousands; nay, He is the living and heavenly Bread.

"If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink";

nay, He also promised that those who believe should become springs of water.

He grew weary — yet He is the rest of those who are weary and heavy laden.

He was weighed down with sleep — yet He is borne up lightly upon the sea, yet He rebukes the winds, yet He lifts up Peter as he sinks.

He pays the tribute — yet out of a fish; nay, He is king over those who exact it.

He is called a Samaritan and one possessed by a demon — yet He saves the man who came down from Jerusalem and fell among robbers; yet He is recognized by demons, and drives out demons, and sinks a legion of spirits in the deep, and beholds the prince of the demons falling like lightning.

He is stoned, yet not caught.

He prays, yet He hears prayer.

He weeps, yet He puts an end to weeping.

He asks where Lazarus is laid, for He was man; yet He raises Lazarus, for He was God.

yet He raises Lazarus, for He was God.

He is sold, and very cheaply too, for thirty pieces of silver; yet He redeems the world, and at a great price, for it cost His own blood.

As a sheep He is led to the slaughter; yet He is the Shepherd of Israel, and now of the whole world as well.

As a lamb He is dumb; yet He is the Word, proclaimed by the voice of one crying in the wilderness.

He is bruised and wounded; yet He heals every disease and every sickness.

He is lifted up and nailed to the tree; yet by the tree of life He restores us; indeed He saves even the robber crucified with Him; indeed He darkens all that is seen.

He is given vinegar to drink, and fed with gall.

Who? He who turned the water into wine, the destroyer of bitter taste, who is all sweetness and altogether desirable.

He gives up His soul; yet He has power to take it again; indeed the veil is torn, for the things above are disclosed; indeed the rocks are split; indeed the dead are raised.

He dies, yet He gives life, and by death destroys death.

He goes down into Hades; yet He brings up souls; indeed He ascends into heaven; indeed He will come to judge the living and the dead, and to put to the test such arguments as these.

If the one set of facts gives you occasion for your error, the other dissolves your error.

This is our answer to the riddle-mongers — not willingly, indeed;

for idle chatter and contention of words are not pleasant to the faithful, since even one adversary is enough;

but it is necessary for the sake of those who fall into such things — even as medicines are needed because of diseases — that they may know they are not altogether wise, nor invincible, in those superfluous things that empty the Gospel of its power.

For when we put forward the power of reason, abandoning faith, and overthrow the trustworthiness of the Spirit by our inquiries, and then reason is overcome by the greatness of the matters — and overcome it certainly will be, proceeding as it does from the feeble instrument of our understanding — what happens? The weakness of the argument appears to be the weakness of the mystery;

and thus, as Paul also holds, the eloquence of speech is shown to be a making void of the cross.

For faith is the fulfilment of our reasoning.

But may He who proclaims bonds and looses what is bound — He who has put it into our mind to undo the knots of forced doctrines — above all transform these men too, and make them faithful instead of word-spinners, and Christians instead of what they are now called.

This indeed is our exhortation:

Be reconciled to God, and quench not the Spirit;

or rather, may Christ be reconciled to you, and may the Spirit shine forth in you, even though late.

abiding sincere and without offence, until the more perfect revelation of the things we long for, in Christ Himself our Lord, to whom be glory unto the ages.