On the Making of Man 1 part 5/7

But by the all-powerful wisdom there came to be not a part of the whole, but at once the entire fullness of the nature.

He who has grasped all the boundaries beheld—as Scripture says, which declares, 'In his hand are the ends of the earth'—He who knows all things even before their coming to be, comprehending in his knowledge how great in number, in each several instance, the human race would be.

And since He perceived in our formation the inclination toward the worse, and that, having voluntarily slipped away from equality of honour with the angels, it would appropriate to itself fellowship with the lowly;

for these reasons He mingled something also of the irrational with his own image.

For there is not in the divine and blessed nature the distinction of male and female;

but transferring to man the property of the irrational creation, He bestowed upon the race the increase not according to the loftiness of our creation.

For not when He made man according to the image did He then add to him the power of increasing and multiplying, but when He divided him by the distinction of male and female, then He says:

'Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.' For such a thing is not proper to the divine nature, but to the irrational, as the narrative indicates—having recounted that these things were said by God earlier concerning the irrational creatures; so that, had He added to man the power of increasing through this utterance before laying upon nature the distinction of male and female, we would not have needed this manner of generation by which the irrational creatures are begotten.

When, therefore, the fullness of mankind had been foreknown through the foreknowing energy, mankind being destined to come into life through this more animal-like generation, God who governs all things in a certain order and sequence, since the inclination of our nature toward the lowly—which He saw before it came to be, He who sees the future on equal terms with the present—made altogether necessary to humanity this manner of generation, for this reason also foreknew the time commensurate with the constitution of mankind;

so that the prolongation of time should be brought to completion together with the passing-in of the souls that had been bounded off, and then the flowing motion of time should stand still, when mankind is no longer brought forth through it;

and when the generation of mankind is finished, time should come to its end together with the end of this, and thus the re-elementing of the whole should come about, and along with the transformation of the universe the human also should be changed, from the corruptible and earthy to the impassible and everlasting.

to foretell, through the epistle to the Corinthians, the sudden standstill of time and the reverse resolution of the things in motion, in which he says:

'Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.' For when the fullness, as I think, of human nature has come to its end according to the foreknown measure, since there is nothing further lacking to the number of souls for its increase, he taught that the change of existing things would come about in a moment of time, naming that indivisible and dimensionless limit of time an 'instant' and a 'twinkling of an eye,' so that it is no longer possible for one who has set foot upon the last and uttermost point of time's prime—because no part remains over for that summit—to acquire this periodic change through death; but if only the trumpet of the resurrection should sound, awaking what is dead, and changing all at once those left in life, in likeness to those altered by resurrection unto incorruption, so that the weight of the flesh no longer presses downward and holds its bulk fast to the earth;

but to move aloft through the air.

'For we shall be caught up,' he says, 'in clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.' Therefore let him await the time that necessarily extends along with the growth of mankind.

For indeed the patriarchs around Abraham had the desire to see the good things, and did not cease seeking the heavenly fatherland, as the Apostle says;

but nevertheless they are still in the hoping for the grace, God having provided some better thing concerning us, according to the saying of Paul:

'that they,' he says, 'should not be made perfect apart from us.' If, then, those who are afar off bear the postponement, having seen the good things through faith and hope alone, and having embraced them—as the Apostle testifies—laying hold of the surety of the enjoyment of the things hoped for in deeming faithful Him who promised;

what ought we, the many, to do, for whom perhaps there is not even hope toward the better from the things we have lived? The soul of the Prophet too fainted with desire, and confesses through the psalmody this loving passion, saying that his soul longs and faints to be in the courts of the Lord, even if it should be needful to be cast down in the lowest places, as it is a greater and more honourable thing to be the last in those places

than to be first in the sinful tents of this life.

But nevertheless he bore with the postponement, calling blessed the abiding there, and counting the brief partaking more precious than thousands of years;

'Better,' he says, 'is one day in thy courts than thousands'; yet he was not vexed at the necessary administration concerning existing things, but deemed it sufficient for the blessedness of men even to have the good things in hope.

'O Lord God of hosts, blessed is the man who hopes in thee.' Neither, then, ought we to be distressed at the brief postponement of the things hoped for, but to have our zeal directed to this, that we may not become outcasts from the things hoped for.

For just as if someone should foretell to one of the more inexperienced that at the season of summer there will be the gathering of the fruits, and the storehouses will be full, and the table laden with eatables in the season of plenty;

vain would he be who hastens the coming of the season, when he ought to be casting in seeds and through diligence preparing the fruits for himself.

For the season, whether one will or not, will altogether be present according to the appointed time.

But not alike will they behold it—both he who has prepared for himself the abundance of fruits beforehand, and he who is left destitute of all preparation by the season.

[but rather, leaning] upon the things expected, through good citizenship to lay up beforehand the coming grace.

That he who confesses the beginning of the world's constitution must necessarily also agree concerning its end.

But if anyone, seeing the present course of the world carried on by a certain sequence, through which the temporal interval is contemplated, should say that the foretold standstill of the things in motion cannot come about;

such a one is evidently one who does not even believe that in the beginning heaven and earth came to be from God.

For he who grants a beginning to motion does not at all doubt also concerning its end; and he who does not accept the end has not accepted the beginning either.

But just as we understand the ages to have been framed by the word of God, believing—as the Apostle says—that the things seen came to be from the things not appearing;

we shall use the same faith concerning the word of God which foretold the necessary standstill of existing things.

But the 'how' is to be excepted from busy curiosity;

for there too by faith we accepted that the thing seen was framed from the things not yet appearing, passing over the inquiry into things unattainable.

And yet the discourse set before us many things to be perplexed at, affording no small occasions for doubt about the things believed.

For there too it was possible for the contentious, from plausible arguments, by logical consequence to overturn the faith, so as not to think true the account concerning the material creation which the holy Scripture champions, asserting that the coming-to-be of all existing things is from God.

For those who take their stand on the contrary argument set up matter to be co-eternal with God, using such arguments toward the doctrine:

If God is simple in nature, and immaterial, qualityless and magnitudeless, and uncompounded, and far removed from circumscription by shape—but all matter is apprehended in dimensional extension, and has not escaped apprehension through the senses, being known in colour and shape and bulk and quantity and resistance and the rest of the properties contemplated about it, none of which is possible to conceive in the divine nature;

what contrivance is there for matter to be produced from the immaterial, the dimensional nature from the dimensionless? For if these are believed to have subsisted from thence, plainly being in Him according to the unspeakable account they thus came forth into being.

But if the material was in Him, how is He immaterial who has matter in himself? Likewise also all the other things by which the material nature is characterized:

if quantity is in God, how is God quantityless? if the compound is in Him, how is He simple and partless and uncompounded? So that the argument constrains Him of necessity to be material, because matter subsisted from thence;

or, if one would flee this, it is compulsory to suppose that matter was brought in from without to Him for the construction of the whole.

If, then, it was outside God, there was altogether something else besides God conceived together with Him who exists ingenerately, according to the account of eternity;

so that two principles, both unoriginate and ingenerate, would be comprehended together by the argument in mutual relation—that which works artistically, and that which receives this scientific working.

But indeed we have believed, hearing Scripture say that all things are from God;

and the 'how' it was in God—that which is beyond our reckoning—we do not deem worthy of meddlesome inquiry, having believed all things to be containable by the divine power;

Therefore, consistently, as we deem the power of the divine will sufficient for the things that are unto their subsistence from non-being;

so too, leading back the re-elementing of the things that have come together unto the same power, we shall receive the faith in nothing beyond what is fitting.

And yet it was perhaps possible, by some ingenuity of argument, to persuade those who quibble about matter not to seem to run down the argument as undefended.

A refutation against those who say that matter is co-eternal with God.

For neither does the supposition about matter appear to fall outside the things found by logical consequence—the supposition that champions matter's subsisting from the intelligible and immaterial;

for we shall find all matter constituted of certain qualities, of which, if it were stripped bare by itself, it would nowhere be apprehended by the reason.

But indeed each form of quality is separated in account from the substratum.

And the account is something intelligible, and not a corporeal contemplation.

For instance, when some animal or piece of wood, or some other of the things that have a material constitution, is set before contemplation, we perceived many things about the substratum by conceptual division, the account of each of which stands unmixed in relation to what is contemplated together with it.

For the account of colour is one, and that of weight is another, that of quantity again another, and that of the quality particular to touch yet another.

For softness and the two-cubit length and the rest of the things mentioned agree neither with one another nor with the body in account.

For of each of these there is conceived its own interpretive definition, according to what it is, sharing in nothing with any other of the qualities contemplated about the substratum.

If, then, colour is intelligible, and resistance too is intelligible, and quantity, and the rest of such properties, and if each of these, if it were taken away from the substratum, the whole account of the body is dissolved together with it;

it would be consistent to suppose that the concurrence of those things, the absence of which we found to be the cause of the body's dissolution, brings forth the material nature.

For just as there is no body to which colour and shape and resistance and extension and weight and the rest of the properties do not belong, while each of these is not a body, but something other than the body, found in its own peculiarity;

so conversely, wherever the things mentioned concur, they produce the corporeal subsistence.

But indeed if the apprehension of these properties is intelligible, and the Divine is intelligible by nature;

it is in no way unlikely that these intelligible starting-points for the coming-to-be of bodies subsist from the incorporeal nature—the intelligible nature giving subsistence to the intelligible powers, and the concurrence of these with one another bringing the material nature into being. But let these things be examined by us as a side-matter;

and let us bring the discourse back again to faith, through which we have received that the whole subsisted from non-being, and again, having been taught by Scripture that it is transelemented into some other state, we do not doubt.

How one might lead even those from without to believe Scripture which teaches concerning the resurrection.

But perhaps someone, looking at the dissolved bodies, and judging the Divine by the measure of his own power, says that the account of the resurrection is impossible, and that the things now in motion will come to a standstill and rise again;

saying that the things now not in motion cannot be admitted [to rise];

but let such a one make first and greatest his proof of the truth concerning the resurrection the trustworthiness of its proclamation;

and the faith of the things said has its assurance from the outcome of the rest of the things foretold.

[Since it is] Scripture, it is possible, having beheld how the rest of the things spoken stand with regard to falsehood or truth, through those things also to understand the doctrine concerning the resurrection.

For if in the other matters the words are proved false and gone astray from the truth, then neither is this altogether outside falsehood.

But if all the other things have experience bearing witness to their truth, it would be consistent through those to deem true also the prediction concerning the resurrection.

Therefore let us call to mind one or two of the things foreannounced, and let us set the outcome over against the things foretold, so as to know through them whether the account looks toward the truth.

Who does not know how the Israelite people flourished in ancient times, rising up against all the dominions throughout the inhabited world? What were the palaces in the city of Jerusalem? what the walls? the towers? the magnificent grandeur of the temple? which even to the disciples of the Lord were deemed worthy of wonder, and they think it worthwhile that the Lord should observe them, being disposed in admiration concerning the things visible, as the Gospel narrative shows, saying to Him:

'What manner of works and what manner of buildings!' But He points out to those who marvelled at the present, the coming desolation concerning the place and the vanishing of that beauty, saying that nothing of the things visible would be left in a little while.

But also at the time of the Passion, the women followed lamenting the unjust sentence against Him;

for they did not yet look toward the dispensation of the things coming to pass;

but He counsels them to be silent about the things happening concerning Himself;

for they were not worthy of tears;

but to defer the wailing and the lament to the true time of tears, when the city should be hemmed in by besiegers, and the sufferings should come to such a degree of distress that one would deem blessed him who is not born.

Among these things He also foretold the abomination concerning the child-devouring, saying that in those days the barren womb would be called blessed.

Where, then, are those palaces? where the temple? where the walls?

For the testimony in these things through the deeds is also a demonstration of the truth in those things.

For just as if, when some farmer is expounding the power of seeds, it should happen that one inexperienced in farming disbelieves, it would suffice for the husbandman, as a demonstration of the truth, to show in one seed of those lying in the bushel the power, and to give surety concerning the rest;

for he who has seen the one grain of wheat, or the one barleycorn, or whatever happens to be in the fullness of the bushel, become an ear after being cast into the clod, would no longer through that one disbelieve also concerning the rest.

Thus it seems to me sufficient for testimony of the mystery concerning the resurrection, the truth agreed upon together with the rest of the things spoken.

Or rather, even the experience of the resurrection itself, which we were taught not so much through words as through the very deeds.

For since the wonder concerning the resurrection was great and beyond belief, beginning with the lesser of the wonder-workings, He gently in a way accustoms our faith to the greater things.

For just as some mother, nursing her infant suitably, for a time puts the milk into the soft and moist mouth through the nipple;

[and accommodated the food] to the capacity of what was offered;

then, as the strength increases by addition, the infant being accustomed to the softer things, she gently brings it to more solid food;

so the Lord, nourishing and nursing human faint-heartedness like some imperfect infant through the wonders, first prefigures the power of the resurrection in a desperate sickness—which was indeed a great achievement, yet not such as to be disbelieved when reported.

For having sternly rebuked the fever that was consuming Simon's mother-in-law, He brought about so great a removal of the malady that He strengthened to serve those present her who was already expected to die.

Then He adds a little to the power, and [restored] the son of the king's officer, who lay in acknowledged danger (for thus the narrative says, that he was about to die, the father crying out:

'Come down before the child dies!')—He effects again the resurrection of one believed to be about to die, having wrought the wonder by a greater power, in that He did not even draw near to the place, but from afar, by the strength of the command, sent forth life.

Again by sequence He ascends to the loftier wonders.

For having set out toward the daughter of the synagogue-ruler, He willingly gave leisure to the journey, making public the cure of the issue of blood which had escaped notice, so that in this time death might take hold of the sick girl.

Just then, when the soul had separated from the body, and those wailing at the calamity were in tumult with the doleful cry, He raised the little girl again to life by the commanding word, as if from sleep, taking up human weakness toward the greater by a certain way and sequence.

Then upon these He surpasses Himself in wonder, and through a loftier power makes the way for men to faith concerning the resurrection.

Scripture relates a certain city Nain in Judaea.

In this there was an only son to a certain widow—no longer such a son as to be among striplings, but already passing from boyhood into manhood.

The account names him a young man;

the narrative tells much through few words;

the narration is downright a dirge.

'A widow,' it says, 'was the mother of the dead man.'

Do you see the weight of the misfortune, how in few words the account heightened the suffering into tragedy? For what is meant is that there was for her no hope of childbearing to heal the calamity over him who was failing;

she had no other to look to in place of the departed;

and how great is the evil in this, it is easy for everyone to perceive who is not estranged from nature.

Him alone she had known in birth-pangs, him alone she had nursed at the breast;

he alone made her table cheerful;

he alone was the ground of the cheer about the house;

in play, in earnest pursuits, in exercises, in brightening occasions, in goings-forth, in the wrestling-schools, in the gatherings of youth;

everything that is sweet and precious in a mother's eyes, he alone was.

Already coming to the prime of marriage, the shoot of the lineage, the branch of the succession, the staff of old age.

But the addition of his age too was another dirge.

For in calling him a young man, he named the blossom of the prime that had been withered—just now growing green with the first down, not yet filled with the depth of a beard, still glistening with the beauty of his cheeks.

What, then, was the mother likely to suffer over him? To be consumed as it were by fire in her inward parts, so that she prolonged the dirge over him bitterly, clinging to the corpse laid out, so as not to hasten the burial for the dead, but to glut herself with the suffering, drawing out the lamentations over him at the greatest length;

neither did the account pass this over: 'For Jesus, seeing her,' it says, 'had compassion';

and coming forward He touched the bier, and the bearers stood still.

'Young man, I say to thee, arise!'

and He gave him back to his mother alive. Now then, the dead man having come to be so not after a short interval, and being all but already laid in the tomb, there comes about from the Lord Himself the wonder, indeed, greater, but the command equal.

[so that] the things visible might draw nearer to the wonder disbelieved concerning the resurrection.

A certain one of the Lord's acquaintances and friends was sick;

Lazarus was the name of the sick man.

And the Lord declines the visiting of the friend, coming to be far from the sick man, so that death might find room and power, in the absence of life, to work its own through the sickness.

The Lord makes known to the disciples in Galilee the affliction concerning Lazarus;

but also His setting out toward him, with a view to raising up him who lay dead.

But those men were full of fear because of the savagery of the Jews, deeming it grievous and perilous to come again into Judaea in the midst of the murderous men.

And for this reason, hesitating and delaying, they make their return from Galilee in time.

For their willingness was overcome, and the disciples were being led by the Lord, as if to be initiated in Bethany into the preliminary rites of the universal resurrection.

Four days had now passed after the death; all the customary rites had been fulfilled for the departed; the body had been hidden in a tomb.

It had now, in all likelihood, swollen up, and was dissolving toward corruption, the body becoming putrid in the mould of the earth, and falling apart of necessity.

The thing was such as to be shunned, since nature was constrained to render again to life that which had been dissolved into stench.

Then the work of the universal resurrection, which is disbelieved, is brought to demonstration through a more vivid wonder.

For neither does someone rise from a grievous sickness, nor is one brought back to life who is at his last breaths, nor is a child newly dead made alive, nor is a young man about to be brought to the tomb loosed again from the bier;

but a man past his prime, dead, stale, already swollen and dissolving, so that not even to those near was it bearable for the Lord to draw near the tomb, because of the loathsomeness lying upon the body fallen to pieces—by a single call made alive—confirms the proclamation of the resurrection, that is, the thing expected in the common case, which we learned in part by experience.

For just as in the re-elementing of the whole, the Apostle says, the Lord Himself shall descend with a command, with the voice of an archangel, and through a trumpet shall raise up the dead unto incorruption;

so also now, having shaken off death like some sleep at the voice of the command, the one in the tomb, and having shaken from himself the corruption that had come upon his deadness, leaps forth whole and sound from the tomb, not even hindered toward the exit by the bond of the grave-cloths about his feet and hands.

Are these things small toward faith in the resurrection of the dead? If you seek to have your judgement concerning this confirmed also through other things—but it seems to me that the Lord said not in vain to those in Capernaum, speaking this, as it were from the persona of men, to Himself:

'Surely you will say to me this parable:

Physician, heal thyself.' For it was needful, having accustomed men to the wonder concerning the resurrection in other bodies, to confirm the word in the man that was His own.

You saw the proclamation effective in others;

those about to die, the child just now ceased from living, the young man at the tomb, the corrupted corpse—all alike by one command loosed unto life.

Do you seek also those who had come to be in death through wounds and blood, lest some weakness of the life-giving power in their case loose the grace? He saw the one whose hands had been pierced through with nails.

He saw the one whose side had been pierced through with a spear.

'Put your hand into the wound from the spear.'

You surely conjecture, by how much it was likely that the spear-point should have penetrated to the interior, reckoning the passage to the inside by the breadth of the scar.

For the blow which gave room for the entrance of a human hand—how far within the depth does it show the iron to have come? If, then, this one has been raised, it would be easy to utter the apostolic cry:

[the resurrection] is displayed; and this we have learned not by word alone, but also from those very ones who have come back to life out of resurrection, we received in deed the demonstration of the promise;

what occasion remains for those who do not believe? Shall we not, having said 'Farewell' to those who, through philosophy and empty deceit, would jostle aside the unadorned faith, hold to the bare confession? having learned in brief through the Prophet the manner of the grace, in the words by which he says:

'Thou wilt take away their spirit, and they shall fail, and shall return to their dust.

Thou wilt send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth.' At which time it also says that the Lord rejoices over His works, the sinners having failed from the earth.

For how shall anyone be named from sin, sin no longer being? CHAPTER 20

That the resurrection is not outside what is probable.

But there are some who, through the feebleness of human reasonings, judging the divine power by our measures, set up that what is impossible for us is not possible even for God.

And they go through many such mean things, unworthy of the great power and authority of God, for the overthrow of the doctrine;

as though God were unable, again through the same ways, by resolution, to restore to man his own.

But we, in brief, will cut short the long circuits of their rational vanity, confessing that the dissolution of the body comes about into the things of which it was composed, and not only does the earth, according to the divine word, dissolve into the earth;

but also the air and the liquid go over to their kindred, and the migration of each of the things in us comes about toward what is akin to it, even if the human body should be mingled through eating with flesh-eating birds, or with the most savage beasts, even if it should come under the tooth of fishes, even if it should be changed into vapours and dust by fire.

But wherever one might, hypothetically, carry the man around in argument, he is altogether within the cosmos;

and that this is held fast by the hand of God, the divinely-inspired utterance teaches.

If, then, you are not ignorant of any of the things in your own palm, do you think God's knowledge to be feebler than your power, so as not to find out the exactitude of the things contained within the divine span? CHAPTER 27

That it is possible, when the human body has been dissolved into the elements of the whole, for each one's own to be preserved again out of the common store.