Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 27

Mankind is wont to esteem highly the knowledge of things earthly and heavenly. In which those are surely the better who set above this knowledge the knowing of themselves, and more praiseworthy is the mind to which its own weakness is known, than the mind which, without regard to that, searches out the courses of the stars—even though it is about to know them—or which already holds them known, while itself ignorant by what way it may enter to its own salvation and stability.

But he who has now awakened unto God, roused by the warmth of the Holy Spirit, and in the love of Him has become vile in his own sight, and wishing to enter unto Him yet not being able, and by His light shining upon him has attended to himself and found himself and his own sickness unable to be attuned to that purity, has come to know this; he finds it sweet to weep, and to entreat Him that He would again and again have mercy until He strip off the whole misery, and to pray with confidence, having now received the free pledge of salvation through his sole Saviour and Enlightener of man—this man, thus needy and grieving, knowledge does not puff up, because charity edifies. For he has preferred knowledge to knowledge;

he has preferred to know his own weakness rather than to know the ramparts of the world, the foundations of the earth and the summits of the heavens; and by adding this knowledge he has added sorrow—the sorrow of his pilgrimage, arising from the longing for his fatherland and for its founder, his blessed God. In this kind of men, in the family of Thy Christ, O Lord my God, if among Thy poor I groan, give me from Thy bread to answer men who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness, but are sated and abound. But it is their own phantasm that has sated them, not Thy truth, which in repelling they recoil, and fall into their own vanity. I at least perceive how many figments the human heart brings forth. And what is my heart but a human heart?

But this I pray to the God of my heart: that I may belch forth into these writings nothing of those figments as if it were solid truth, but that there may come into them whatever could come through me from that source whence to me—though cast forth from before His eyes, and striving to return from afar by the way which He has paved by the humanity of the divinity of His only-begotten—the breeze of His truth is sprinkled; which, mutable though I am, I so far drink in as I see in it nothing mutable: neither in places and times, as bodies are, nor in times only and, as it were, places, as are the thoughts of our spirits, nor in times only and with no image of places, as are certain reasonings of our minds.

For altogether the essence of God, by which He is, has nothing mutable, neither in eternity, nor in truth, nor in will; because there truth is eternal, charity is eternal; and there charity is true, eternity is true; and there eternity is dear, truth is dear. But since we have been exiled from that immutable joy, yet have not been so cut off and torn away from it as not to seek even in these mutable and temporal things eternity, truth, and blessedness (for we wish neither to die, nor to be deceived, nor to be troubled), there have been sent to us divinely appearances suited to our pilgrimage, whereby we might be admonished that what we seek is not here, but that we must return thither from these things—whence, unless we were dependent on it here, we would not seek these things.

And first it was needful that we be persuaded how greatly God loved us, lest through despair we should not dare to be lifted up unto Him. But it was fitting to show what manner of men He loved, lest, as though priding ourselves on our own merits, we should rather recoil from Him and fail the more in our own strength; and so He dealt with us that we might rather profit by His strength, and thus in the infirmity of humility the virtue of charity might be perfected. This is signified in the psalm where it says: 'Setting apart a voluntary rain, O God, for Thine inheritance; and it was weakened, but Thou hast perfected it.' For by 'voluntary rain' He wishes nothing to be understood but grace, not rendered for merits but freely given, whence also it is named grace;

for He gave it not because we were worthy, but because He willed. Knowing this, we shall not be trusting in ourselves; and this is to be weakened. But He Himself perfects us, who also said to the Apostle Paul: 'My grace is sufficient for thee; for virtue is perfected in weakness.' It was needful therefore that man be persuaded how greatly God loved us, and what manner of men He loved: how greatly, lest we despair; what manner of men, lest we grow proud. This passage the Apostle very necessarily explains thus: 'God commendeth His charity toward us,' he says, 'in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us: much more then, being now justified in His blood, shall we be saved from wrath through Him.'

'For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved in His life.' Again in another place: 'What then shall we say to these things?' he says. 'If God be for us, who is against us? He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not with Him also freely given us all things?' But what is announced to us as done, this was also shown as about to be to the ancient just men, that through the same faith they too, humbled, might be made weak, and, being made weak, might be perfected.

Since therefore there is one Word of God, through whom all things were made, which is the immutable Truth, wherein principally and immutably are all things together—not only those which now are in this whole creation, but also those which have been and which are to be; but there they neither have been nor are to be, but only are; and all are life and all are one, and rather it is one and it is one life. For all things were so made through Him that whatever was made in them, in Him is life; and was not made, because in the beginning the Word was not made, but was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and all things were made through Him; nor would all things have been made through Him, unless He Himself were before all things and had not been made.

But among those things which were made through Him, even the body, which is not life, would not have been made through Him, unless in Him, before it was made, it were life. For that which was made, in Him was already life, and not any kind of life whatever; for even the soul is the life of the body, but this too was made, since it is mutable, and by what was it made, if not through the immutable Word of God? For all things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing. That therefore which was made was already life in Him, and not any kind of life whatever, but the life was the light of men—the light, that is, of rational minds, by which men differ from beasts and are therefore men.

Not therefore the corporeal light, which is the light of flesh, whether it shine from heaven or be kindled by earthly fires—and not only of human flesh, but even of the beasts', down to the very tiniest worms; for all these see this light. But that life was the light of men, and not placed far from every one of us; for in it we live and move and have our being. But the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not. Now the darkness is the foolish minds of men, blinded by depraved desire and unbelief. To cure and heal these, the Word, through whom all things were made, was made flesh and dwelt among us. For our enlightenment is a participation in the Word, namely of that life which is the light of men.

But for this participation we were altogether unfit and less suited, on account of the uncleanness of sins; we had therefore to be cleansed. Now the one cleansing of the unjust and proud is the blood of the Just One and the humility of God, so that, to contemplate God—which by nature we are not—we might be cleansed through Him made to be that which by nature we are and which by sin we are not. For by nature we are not God; by nature we are men; by sin we are not just. God therefore, made a just man, interceded with God for sinful man. For a sinner does not accord with the just, but man accords with man. Joining therefore to us the likeness of His humanity, He took away the unlikeness of our iniquity; and made a partaker of our mortality, He made us partakers of His divinity.

Rightly indeed was the death of the sinner, coming from the necessity of condemnation, loosed by the death of the Just One, coming from the will of mercy, while His single accords with our double. For this congruence (whether it be more fitly called agreement, or concord, or consonance)—that which is of one to two—avails very greatly in every framing, or, if it be better said, in every coaptation of the creature. For this coaptation, as it now occurs to me, I have wished to name, which the Greeks call *harmonia*.

Nor is there now place to show how much the consonance of the single to the double avails, which is found chiefly in us and is so implanted in us by nature (by whom indeed, if not by Him who created us?) that not even the unskilled can fail to perceive it, whether themselves singing or hearing others. For through it the higher and the lower voices harmonize, so that whoever should sound discordantly from it offends—not the knowledge, of which very many are destitute, but the very sense of our hearing—vehemently. But to demonstrate this, a long discourse is needed; it can, however, be exhibited to the very ears by one who knows how, on the regular monochord.

But what presses upon us at present must be expounded, as far as God grants, namely, how the single of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ accords with our double and in some manner sounds in concord unto salvation. We certainly, as no Christian doubts, are dead both in soul and in body—in soul on account of sin, in body on account of the penalty of sin, and thereby in body too on account of sin. And each part of us, that is, both soul and body, had need of a medicine and a resurrection, that what had been changed for the worse might be renewed for the better. Now the death of the soul is impiety, and the death of the body is corruptibility, through which comes also the departure of the soul from the body.

For just as the soul dies when God forsakes it, so the body dies when the soul forsakes it: whence the former becomes senseless, the latter lifeless. The soul therefore is raised up again through penitence, and in the body still mortal the renewal of life is begun from the faith by which one believes in Him who justifies the ungodly; and it is increased and strengthened by good morals from day to day, as the inner man is more and more renewed. But the body, as the outer man, the longer this life lasts, is the more and more corrupted, whether by age or by disease or by various afflictions, until it come to that last which by all is called death. But its resurrection is deferred to the end, when our very justification also shall be perfected ineffably.

For then shall we be like Him, since we shall see Him as He is. But now, so long as the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul, and human life upon earth is wholly a temptation, no living man is justified in His sight in comparison with that righteousness by which we shall be made equal to the angels, and with that glory which shall be revealed in us. But of the death of the soul, to be distinguished from the death of the body, why should I cite more proofs, since the Lord in one evangelical sentence has set both deaths to be easily discerned by anyone, where He says: 'Let the dead bury their dead'? For the dead body was to be buried; but its buriers, through the unbelief of impiety, He wished to be understood as dead in soul—such as are roused when it is said:

'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten thee.' The Apostle also detests a certain kind of death, saying of a widow: 'She that liveth in pleasures is dead while she liveth.' The soul, therefore, now pious, which had been impious, is said, on account of the righteousness of faith, to have revived from death and to live. But the body, not only about to die on account of the soul's departure that is to come, but also, on account of the great weakness of flesh and blood, in a certain place in the Scriptures is even called dead, the Apostle speaking: 'The body indeed,' he says, 'is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness.' This life is made from faith, since the just man liveth by faith. But what follows?

'But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies through His Spirit that dwelleth in you.' To this double death of ours, therefore, the Saviour expended His single, and to effect our double resurrection He set beforehand and set forth His own single, in sacrament and in example. For He was neither a sinner nor impious, that He should need, as though with a dead spirit in the inner man, to be renewed, and as though by coming to His senses to be recalled to the life of righteousness; but clothed in mortal flesh, and dying only in it, rising again only in it, in it alone He sounded in concord unto both for us, since in it was wrought the sacrament of the inner man, the example of the outer.

For unto the sacrament of our inner man was given that utterance pertaining to signifying the death of our soul, not only in the psalm but also on the cross: 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' To which utterance the Apostle accords, saying: 'Knowing that our old man was crucified together with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that we should no longer serve sin.' For the crucifixion of the inner man is understood as the sorrows of penitence and a certain wholesome torment of continence, through which death the death of impiety is slain, in which God does not forsake us. And therefore through such a cross the body of sin is destroyed, that we may no longer present our members as weapons of iniquity unto sin.

Since even the inner man, if indeed he is renewed from day to day, is assuredly old before he is renewed. For within is done that which the same Apostle says: 'Put off the old man and put on the new.' Which he thus consequently expounds: 'Wherefore, putting away lying, speak ye the truth.' But where is lying put away, if not within, that he may dwell in the holy mountain of God who speaketh truth in his heart? But the resurrection of the Lord's body is shown to pertain to the sacrament of our inner resurrection, where, after He rose again, He says to the woman: 'Touch me not; for I have not yet ascended to my Father.' To which mystery the Apostle accords, saying:

'But if ye be risen with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God; savour the things which are above.' For this is not to touch Christ save when He shall have ascended to the Father, that is, not to savour of Christ carnally. But now unto the example of the death of our outer man pertains the death of the Lord's flesh, because by such suffering He chiefly exhorted His servants not to fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. On account of which the Apostle says: 'That I may fill up what is lacking of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh.' And unto the example of the resurrection of our outer man is found to pertain the resurrection of the Lord's body, because He says to the disciples:

'Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not bones and flesh, as ye see me to have.' And one of His disciples, even touching His scars, exclaimed, saying: 'My Lord and my God!' And when the whole integrity of that flesh appeared, there was demonstrated in it what, exhorting His own, He had said: 'A hair of your head shall not perish.' For why first, 'Touch me not; for I have not yet ascended to my Father,' and why, before He ascends to the Father, is He touched by the disciples, save because there was intimated the sacrament of the inner man, here was offered the example of the outer? Or is anyone perhaps so absurd and averse from the truth as to dare to say that He was touched by men before He ascended, but by women after He had ascended?

On account of this example of our future resurrection in the body, which went before in the Lord, the Apostle says: 'Christ the first-fruits, then they that are Christ's.' For in that place it was treated of the resurrection of the body, on account of which he also says: 'He shall transfigure the body of our lowliness, conformed to the body of His glory.' One death, therefore, of our Saviour was salvation to our two deaths, and one resurrection of His granted us two resurrections, since His body in each matter—that is, both in death and in resurrection—was administered by a certain medicinal congruence, both to the sacrament of our inner man and to the example of the outer. But this ratio of the single to the double arises indeed from the number three;

for one added to two makes three. But this whole that I have said comes to six; for one and two and three make six. Which number is on that account called perfect, because it is completed by its own parts; for it has three of them: a sixth, a third, a half; nor is any other part found in it which can be said to be some fraction of it. Its sixth therefore is one, its third two, its half three. But one and two and three complete that same six. Whose perfection Holy Scripture commends to us, chiefly in that God perfected His works in six days, and on the sixth day man was made to the image of God. And in the sixth age of the human race the Son of God came and was made the Son of Man, that He might reform us to the image of God.

For that age is now being passed—whether a thousand years be assigned to each several age, or whether in the divine writings we trace out memorable and notable junctures of time as it were joints: so that the first age be found from Adam to Noah, thence the second to Abraham, and thereafter, as the evangelist Matthew distinguished, from Abraham to David, from David to the migration into Babylon, and thence to the virgin's childbearing. Which three ages, joined to those two, make five. Accordingly the sixth was begun by the Lord's nativity, which is now being passed until the hidden end of time.

That this number six bears a certain figure of time we recognize also in that scheme of a threefold division whereby we reckon one time before the Law, another under the Law, a third under grace. In this present time we receive the sacrament of renewal, so that at the end of time, being wholly renewed even by the resurrection of the flesh, we may be healed from every infirmity not only of the soul but also of the body. Whence that woman is understood as a type of the Church, healed and raised up by the Lord, whom infirmity had bent double while Satan bound her; for it is of such hidden enemies that the psalm's voice laments: 'They bowed down my soul.' Now this woman had been eighteen years in her infirmity, which is thrice six.

Now the months of eighteen years are found to be the number of the solid square of six, which is six times six and this six times over. For close at hand, in the same passage of the Gospel, is also that fig tree whose wretched barrenness even a third year convicted. But intercession was made on its behalf that it be let alone for that year: if it should bear fruit, well; but if not, it should be cut down. For the three years too belong to the same threefold division, and the months of three years make the square of six, which is six times six. One year likewise, if we consider the twelve full months which thirty days each complete (for such a month the ancients observed, which the lunar circuit displays), has the force of the number six.

For what six is worth in the first order of numbers, which consists of units up to reaching ten, that sixty is worth in the second order, which consists of tens up to reaching a hundred. Sixty days, therefore, is the sixth part of the year. Accordingly, by the six of the first row the six of the second row is as it were multiplied, and there arise six times sixty, three hundred and sixty days, which are twelve full months. But since, just as the circuit of the moon shows men the month, so the year is observed by the circuit of the sun, there remain over five days and a quarter of a day, that the sun may complete its course and close the year;

for four quarters make one day, which must be intercalated when a period of four years has run out—the year they call bissextile—lest the order of the seasons be disturbed. Even those very five days and a quarter, if we consider them, the number six prevails in them most of all: first, because—as commonly happens that the whole is reckoned from a part—there are now not five days but rather six, since that quarter is taken for a day; then, because in those very five days there is the sixth part of a month, while the quarter itself has six hours; for the whole day, that is with its night, is twenty-four hours, of which the fourth part, which is the quarter of a day, is found to be six hours. Thus in the course of the year the number six prevails most of all.

Nor without reason, in the building of the Lord's body—in whose figure He said that the temple destroyed by the Jews He would raise up in three days—is that very number six understood as put for a year. For they said: 'Forty-six years was this temple in building'; and forty-six times six make two hundred and seventy-six. This number of days completes nine months and six days, which for childbearing women are reckoned as ten months—not because all reach the sixth day after the ninth month, but because the very perfection of the Lord's body is found to have been brought to birth in just so many days, as the authority of the Church, receiving it as handed down by the elders, keeps. For He is believed to have been conceived on the eighth of the Kalends of April, on which day also He suffered;

thus to the new tomb in which He was buried, where none of the dead had been laid either before or after, corresponds the Virgin's womb in which He was conceived, where no mortal had been begotten. He is handed down to have been born on the eighth of the Kalends of January; from that day therefore to this, when reckoned, two hundred and seventy-six days are found, which contains the number six forty-six times. By which number of years the temple was built, because by that number of sixes the Lord's body was perfected, which, destroyed by the suffering of death, He raised up on the third day. For He was saying this of the temple of His own body, as is declared by the most evident and most weighty testimony of the Gospel, in which He says:

'As Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.' Now that the three days themselves were not entire and full, Scripture is witness; but the first day was reckoned whole from its last part, and the third day likewise whole from its first part; while the middle one between them, that is the second day, was absolutely whole with its twenty-four hours, twelve of night and twelve of day. For He was crucified first by the shouts of the Jews at the third hour, when it was the sixth day of the sabbath; then hung upon the cross itself at the sixth hour, and yielded up His spirit at the ninth hour;

but He was buried when it was now late, as the words of the Gospel have it, which is understood at the end of the day. From whatever point therefore you begin—even if another explanation can be given how it is not against John's Gospel that at the third hour He should be understood as hung upon the wood—you do not comprise the whole first day. Therefore it will be reckoned whole from its last part, just as the third from its first part. For the night up to the dawn, at which the Lord's resurrection was made manifest, belongs to the third day; because God, who said that light should shine out of darkness, that through the grace of the New Testament and the participation of Christ's resurrection we might hear:

'For you were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord,' He suggests to us in a certain manner that the day takes its beginning from the night. For just as the first days, on account of man's coming fall, are reckoned from light into night, so these, on account of man's restoration, are reckoned from darkness to light. From the hour of death therefore up to the dawn of resurrection there are forty hours, counting the ninth itself as well; with which number corresponds also His life upon the earth after the resurrection, in forty days. And this number is most frequent in the Scriptures for suggesting the mystery of perfection in the fourfold world; for ten has a certain perfection, and this multiplied four times makes forty.

From the evening of the burial up to the dawn of the resurrection there are thirty-six hours, which is the square of six. And it is referred to that ratio of single to double, in which is the greatest consonance of fitting together. For twelve to twenty-four agree in single to double, and they make thirty-six, a whole night with a whole day and a whole night, and this not without that sacrament which I mentioned above. For not absurdly do we compare the spirit to the day, but the body to the night; for the Lord's body in death and resurrection bore both the figure of our spirit and the example of our body. Thus therefore that ratio of single to double appears also in the thirty-six hours, when twelve are compared to twenty-four.

And as for the reasons why these numbers are set down in the holy Scriptures, another may indeed investigate other reasons, whether such as should be preferred to those I have rendered, or equally probable, or even more probable than these; yet that they are set down in the Scriptures in vain, and that there are no mystical reasons why these numbers are there recorded, no one so foolish and inept would contend. But I, the reasons I have rendered I have gathered either from the authority of the Church handed down by the elders, or from the testimony of the divine Scriptures, or from the reason of numbers and likenesses. Against reason let no sober man judge, against the Scriptures let no Christian, against the Church let no peace-loving man.

This sacrament, this sacrifice, this priest, this God—before He was sent and came, made from a woman—all the things that were shown sacredly and mystically to our fathers through angelic miracles, or that were done through them, were likenesses of Him, that all creation might in a certain manner by its deeds proclaim the One who was to come, in whom would be the salvation of all who were to be restored from death.

For because, revolting through the iniquity of impiety and falling away in discord from the one supreme and true God, we had flowed away and vanished into the many, cut asunder through many things and cleaving to many things, it was fitting—by the nod and command of the merciful God—that these very many should cry out together the One who was to come, and that the One should come proclaimed by the many, and that the many should testify that the One had come, and that we, unburdened by the many, should come to the One; and that we, dead in soul through many sins and destined to die in the flesh on account of sin, should love the One who died in the flesh for us without sin; and, believing in Him raised again and rising together with Him in spirit through faith, we should be justified in the one Just One, being made one; and that we should not despair of rising again even in this very flesh, since we behold that many members have gone before us—one Head—in whom now cleansed through faith, and then restored through vision, and reconciled to God through the Mediator, we may cleave to the One, enjoy the One, and remain one.

Thus the Son of God Himself, the Word of God, and He Himself likewise the Mediator of God and men, the Son of Man, equal to the Father through the unity of divinity and a partaker of ours through the assumption of humanity, interceding with the Father for us through that which He was as man, yet not being silent about the fact that as God He was one with the Father, among other things speaks thus: 'But I pray not for these only,' He says, 'but also for those who through their word shall believe in Me, that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they too may be one in us, that the world may believe that You have sent Me. And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one, as We also are one.' He did not say:

'I and they one,' although, in that He is the head of the Church and His body is the Church, He could say 'I and they'—not 'one thing' but 'one person,' because head and body are one Christ. But showing His divinity consubstantial with the Father (on account of which He also says in another place: 'I and the Father are one'), He wills that His own be one in their own kind, that is, in the consubstantial equality of the same nature—but one in Himself, because in themselves they could not be, dissociated from one another through diverse wills and desires and the uncleanness of sins;

whence they are cleansed through the Mediator, that they may be one in Him, not only through the same nature by which all from mortal men are made equal to the angels, but also through one most concordant will conspiring together into the same blessedness, fused in a certain manner into one spirit by the fire of charity. For to this avails what He says: 'That they may be one, as We also are one'—that just as the Father and the Son are one not only in the equality of substance but also in will, so also these, between whom and God the Son is Mediator, may be one not only through the fact that they are of the same nature, but also through the same fellowship of love. Then that He Himself is the Mediator through whom we are reconciled to God, He thus indicates:

'I,' He says, 'in them and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one.' This is the true peace and our firm connection with our Creator, cleansed and reconciled through the Mediator of life, just as, defiled and estranged, we had departed from Him through the mediator of death. For as the proud devil led proud man to death, so the humble Christ led back obedient man to life; because as that one, lifted up, fell and cast down him who consented, so this One, humbled, rose and raised up him who believed.

For because the devil had not reached whither he had led man—since he bore in his spirit the death of impiety, but had not undergone the death of the flesh, for he had not taken on a garment of flesh—he seemed to man a great prince among the legions of demons, through whom he exercises a kingdom of deceptions. Thus, puffing up man through the swelling of pride—man being more eager for power than for justice—or entangling him through false philosophy, or ensnaring him through sacrilegious rites (in which, casting down souls the more curious and prouder, deceived and mocked by magical deceptions), he holds him subject, promising even the purification of the soul through those which they call teletae, transfiguring himself into an angel of light through his manifold machination in signs and lying wonders.

For it is easy for the most wicked spirits, through their aerial bodies, to do many things at which souls weighed down by earthly bodies—even those of better disposition—may marvel. For if the very earthly bodies, modified by certain arts and exercises, exhibit in theatrical spectacles such marvels to men that those who have never seen such things scarcely believe them when narrated, what great thing is it for the devil and his angels, out of the corporeal elements through their aerial bodies, to do things at which the flesh may marvel, or even, by hidden inspirations, to contrive phantasms of images for the mocking of human senses, by which he may deceive men waking or sleeping, or agitate the frenzied?

But just as it can happen that a man better in life and morals may watch most wicked men either walking on a rope or performing many incredible things by manifold movements of their bodies, and yet in no way desire to do such things, nor on that account think them to be preferred to himself, so the faithful and pious soul, not only if it sees, but even if through the frailty of the flesh it shudders at the miracles of demons, will not on that account either grieve that it cannot do such things, or judge them to be better for this reason—especially since it is in the fellowship of the saints, who, through the power of God to whom all things are subject, and with no deception at all, have done far greater things, whether men or good angels.

By no means, therefore, are souls purified and reconciled to God through sacrilegious likenesses and impious curiosities and magical consecrations, because the false mediator does not carry them across to higher things, but rather, besieging them, blocks the way—through affections which he inspires the more malignant the prouder they are, of his own society—affections which cannot nourish the wings of the virtues for flying up, but rather heap up the weights of vices for sinking down, the more grievously as the soul, destined to fall, seems to itself borne up the more loftily.

Accordingly, just as the Magi did when divinely admonished—whom a star led to adore the humility of the Lord—so we too ought to return to our fatherland not by the way we came, but by another way which the humble King taught, and which the proud king, adversary to the humble King, cannot besiege. For to us also, that we might adore the humble Christ, the heavens have declared the glory of God, since 'their sound has gone out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.' The way for us was unto death through sin in Adam: for 'through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so it passed unto all men, in whom all have sinned.' The mediator of this way was the devil, the persuader of sin and the caster-down into death;

for he too, to work our double death, brought his single death. For dead in spirit through impiety, he certainly did not die in the flesh; but he both persuaded us to impiety and, on account of this, brought it about that we should deserve to come to the death of the flesh. The one, therefore, we sought by wicked persuasion; the other followed us by just condemnation. For this reason indeed it is written: 'God did not make death,' because He Himself was not the cause of death; but nevertheless through His requital most just death was inflicted upon the sinner—just as a judge inflicts punishment upon the guilty, yet the cause of the punishment is not the justice of the judge but the desert of the crime.

Whither therefore the mediator of death sent us across but himself did not come, that is, to the death of the flesh, there the Lord our God implanted for us the medicine of amendment, which that one did not deserve, by a hidden and exceedingly secret ordinance of the divine and lofty justice. So that, just as through one man came death, so through one man might come the resurrection of the dead—because men were more avoiding the death of the flesh, which they could not avoid, than the death of the spirit, that is, more the punishment than the desert of the punishment (for not to sin is either not cared for, or too little cared for;

but not to die, although it is not obtained, is vehemently striven after), the Mediator of life, showing how death is not to be feared, which through the human condition can now no longer be escaped, but rather impiety, which through faith can be guarded against, met us at the end whither we came, but not by the way we came. For we came to death through sin, He through justice; and therefore, since our death is the punishment of sin, His death was made a sacrifice for sin.

Wherefore, since the spirit is set above the body, and the death of the spirit is to be forsaken by God, while the death of the body is to be forsaken by the spirit, and since this is the punishment in the death of the body—that because the spirit willingly forsook God, it should unwillingly forsake the body, so that, whereas the spirit forsook God because it willed, it should forsake the body even if it were unwilling, and should not forsake it when it willed, unless it inflicted upon itself some violence by which the body itself might be destroyed—the spirit of the Mediator demonstrated how no punishment of sin, even to the death of the flesh, had come upon Him, because He did not forsake it unwillingly, but because He willed, when He willed, how He willed. For, mingled to unity with the Word of God, He hence says: 'I have power to lay down My soul, and I have power to take it again.'

'No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself, and I take it again.' And at this above all they marveled, as the Gospel says, who were present when, after that cry in which He uttered the figure of our sin, He immediately yielded up His spirit. For those hung upon the wood were tormented with a long death. Whence the legs of the robbers were broken, that they might now die and be taken down from the wood before the sabbath. But He, because He was found already dead, was a matter of wonder. This too we read that Pilate marveled at, when the Lord's body was requested of him for burial.

This deceiver, then, who was mediator to man unto death, and falsely sets himself against life under the name of purification through sacrilegious rites and sacrifices, by which the proud are seduced—because he could have neither participation in our death nor resurrection of his own—was indeed able to bring his single death to bear upon our double death; but a single resurrection, in which there would be both the sacrament of our renewal and an example of that awakening which is to come at the end, he was by no means able to bring.

He therefore who, living in spirit, raised up His own dead flesh—the true Mediator of life—cast out that dead spirit and mediator of death from the spirits of those who believe in Him, that he might not reign within, but assail from without and yet not overcome. To whom He also offered Himself to be tempted, that for the overcoming of his temptations too He might be Mediator, not only through help but also through example.

But that one, at first, when—striving to creep in through all the entrances to the inner parts—he was expelled, after the baptism, in the desert, every alluring temptation being completed (because, dead in spirit, he in no way invaded the living spirit), greedy for human death turned himself to accomplishing the death that he could, and was permitted access to that which the living Mediator had taken from us as mortal. And where he was able to do something, there on every side he was utterly vanquished; and whence he received outwardly the power of slaying the Lord's flesh, thence inwardly the power by which he held us was slain. For it came about that the bonds of many sins in many deaths were loosed through the one death of the One, which no sin had preceded.

Which death the Lord for this reason paid on our behalf, though undue, that the death due might not harm us. For He was despoiled of the flesh by no right of any power, but He Himself despoiled Himself. For He who could have not died had He not willed it, beyond doubt died because He willed; and therefore He made an example of the principalities and powers, confidently triumphing over them in Himself. For by His death—one most true sacrifice offered for us—whatever of guilt there was, whereby the principalities and powers by right held us fast to pay the penalties, He purged, abolished, extinguished; and by His resurrection He called us, predestined to new life; the called He justified; the justified He glorified.

Thus the devil lost, in the very death of the flesh, man whom he possessed as it were by full right, through consent seduced; and himself, fenced round by no corruption of flesh and blood, was lording it—the prouder as though the richer and stronger—over one exceedingly needy and infirm through this frailty of the mortal body, as over one ragged and wretched. For whither he did not follow the falling sinner whom he had impelled, thither, pursuing, he compelled the descending Redeemer. Thus, in the fellowship of death, the Son of God deigned to become our friend, whither, by not attaining, the enemy thought himself better and greater than we. For our Redeemer says: 'Greater love has no one than to lay down his life for his friends.'

For which reason the devil believed himself superior even to the Lord Himself, insofar as the Lord yielded to him in His sufferings; for it was understood of Him too what is read in the Psalms: 'You made Him a little lower than the angels'—so that, by the wicked one acting against us as though by an equal right, He Himself, slain though innocent, might overcome him by a most equitable right, and thus lead captive the captivity made on account of sin, and free us from the captivity justly imposed on account of sin, blotting out by His own just blood unjustly shed the bond of death, and redeeming sinners to be justified.

Hence too the devil still deludes his own, against whom, as though to be purified but rather to be entangled and submerged, the false mediator sets himself through his own rites; for he most easily persuades the proud to deride and despise the death of Christ, from which the more estranged he himself is, the holier and more divine he is believed by them to be. Yet very few of these have remained with him, since the nations acknowledge and with pious humility drink their own price, and by trust in Him forsake their enemy and run together to their Redeemer.

For the devil does not know how, while he both lies in wait and rages, the most exalted wisdom of God uses him for the salvation of His faithful ones—reaching mightily from the higher end, which is the beginning of the spiritual creature, even to the lower end, which is the death of the body, and disposing all things sweetly. For it reaches everywhere on account of its purity, and nothing defiled runs into it. But for the devil, a stranger to the death of the flesh (whence he goes about exceedingly proud), a death of another kind is prepared in the eternal fire of Tartarus, where not only with earthly but even with aerial bodies spirits may be tormented.

But proud men, to whom Christ became worthless because He died—where He bought us at so great a price—and who requite this death upon Him, will be cast down, together with men, into that wretched condition of a nature dragged from the first sin, and into it along with him. Whom they preferred to Christ for this reason: that He cast them down into that state into which, by His distant nature, He Himself did not fall, and into which, for their sakes, through His immense mercy He descended; and yet they do not doubt to believe themselves better than the demons, and do not cease to hound and detest them with all curses—those whom they certainly know to be strangers to the suffering of this death, on account of which they despise Christ.

Nor do they wish to consider how it could come to pass that the Word of God, abiding in itself and in no part mutable through itself, could nevertheless, through the assumption of a lower nature, suffer something lower, which the unclean demon cannot suffer because he has no earthly body. Thus, though they themselves are better than the demons, yet because they bear flesh they can die in the same way as the demons, because they do not bear it, certainly cannot. And though they presume much about the deaths of their sacrifices—which they do not perceive that they offer to deceitful and proud spirits, or, if they do perceive it, they think that the friendship of the treacherous and envious avails them something, whose whole business of intention is nothing but the hindrance of our return.

They do not understand that not even those most proud spirits could rejoice in the honors of sacrifices, unless true sacrifice were due to the one true God, for whom they wish to be worshiped. Nor can it be rightly offered except through a holy and just priest, nor unless that be received which is offered, and be offered for those for whom it is offered, and be without fault, so that it may be offered for the cleansing of the faulty. This surely all desire who wish sacrifice to be offered to God for themselves. Who then is so just and holy a priest as the only Son of God, who had no need to purge His own sins by sacrifice—neither original ones nor those which are added from human life? And what could so fittingly be taken from men to be offered for them as human flesh?

And what so fitting for this immolation as mortal flesh? And what so clean, for the cleansing of the faults of mortals, as flesh born in the womb and from a virginal womb without any contagion of carnal concupiscence? And what could be so gratefully offered and received as the flesh of our sacrifice, made the body of our Priest? So that, since four things are considered in every sacrifice—to whom it is offered, by whom it is offered, what is offered, and for whom it is offered—the same one and true Mediator, reconciling us to God through the sacrifice of peace, might remain one with Him to whom He offered, might make those for whom He offered one in Himself, and might Himself be one and the same who offered and what He offered.

But there are certain ones who think that they can be purified by their own power for contemplating God and cleaving to God, whom this very pride most of all defiles. For there is no vice against which the divine law more resists, and over which that most proud spirit—mediator toward the depths, barrier toward the heights—receives a greater right of domination, unless he is secretly lying in wait and is avoided by another way, or unless, through the people that faints, which is interpreted 'Amalek,' openly raging and, by resisting, denying passage to the land of promise, he is overcome through the cross of the Lord, which was prefigured by the outstretched hands of Moses.

For on this ground these men promise themselves purification by their own power, because some of them have been able to send the gaze of the mind beyond every creature and to touch, in however small a part, the light of unchangeable truth; and they mock the fact that many Christians, living meanwhile by faith alone, have not yet been able to do so. But what does it profit a proud man, who blushes on that very account, to climb the mast and descry from afar his homeland across the sea? And what harm does it do to the humble man not to see it from so great a distance, when he is coming to that homeland upon the very wood by which the other disdains to be carried?

These men also reproach us for believing in the resurrection of the flesh, and would rather have us believe them even about such matters—as though, forsooth, because they have been able through the things that are made to understand the exalted and unchangeable substance, they are therefore to be consulted concerning the transformation of changeable things or the connected order of the ages.

For is it the case that, because they argue most truly and persuade by the most certain proofs that all temporal things come to be according to eternal reasons, they have therefore been able to discern in those very reasons—or to gather from them—how many kinds of animals there are, what the seeds of each are at their beginnings, what measure governs their growth, what numbers rule their conception, birth, ages, and decline, what impulses move them in seeking the things that accord with their nature and in fleeing their opposites? Have they not sought all these things not through that unchangeable Wisdom, but through the record of places and times, and believed things tested and written down by others?

So much the less is it to be wondered at that they have in no way been able to trace out the sequence of the more extended ages, and a certain goal of this course by which, as by a river, the human race runs on, and from thence the turning of each to the end that is due to it. For these things not even the historians could write, being far in the future and tested and told by no one. Nor did these philosophers, though better than the rest, contemplate such things by their understanding in those highest and eternal reasons; otherwise they would not have inquired after the past things of the same kind, which the historians were able to investigate, but would rather also have foreknown the future. Those among them who could do this were called seers, and by our people prophets—although the name of prophet too is not wholly foreign to their writings.

But it makes a great difference whether future things are conjectured from experience of the past—as physicians, foreseeing much, have also committed to writing the things they had themselves noted from experience, or as farmers and even sailors foretell many things; for such predictions, if they arise from long intervals of time, are thought to be divinations—or whether things already about to come have gone before and, seen coming from afar, are announced according to the keen perception of those who see them (which, when the powers of the air do it, is believed to be divination, just as if someone from a mountaintop were to see another coming from afar and announce it beforehand to those dwelling nearby on the plain);

or whether they are foreannounced by the holy angels, to whom God shows these things through His Word and Wisdom, where both future and past things stand—being foretold either to certain men, or, having been heard from those men, again transmitted to other men; or whether the minds of certain men themselves are so far lifted up by the Holy Spirit that not through angels but by their own selves they behold, in the very supreme citadel of things, the imminent causes of things to come. For the powers of the air also hear these things, whether angels or men announce them; and they hear only as much as He judges to be needful under whom all things are subject. Many things too are foretold by a certain instinct and impulse, the spirit of those who know it not, just as Caiaphas knew not what he said, but, being high priest, he prophesied.

Therefore concerning the successions of the ages and the resurrection of the dead we ought not to consult even those philosophers who understood, as far as they could, the eternity of the Creator in whom we live and move and have our being; for, though knowing God through the things that are made, they did not glorify Him as God nor give thanks, but, saying that they were wise, became fools.

And since they were not fit to fix the gaze of the mind so steadfastly upon the eternity of the spiritual and unchangeable nature that in the very Wisdom of the Creator and Governor of the universe they might see the rolls of the ages, which are there already and are always, but here were to be in the future so as not to be, and that there they might see the changes for the better not only of the souls but also of the bodies of men, unto perfection of their own kind;

since therefore they were in no way fit to see these things there, they were not even deemed worthy that these things should be announced to them through the holy angels, whether outwardly through the senses of the body or by inner revelations expressed in the spirit—as they were shown to our fathers, endowed with true piety, who, foretelling these things and creating faith either by present signs or by things near at hand coming to pass just as they had foretold, deserved to possess an authority that would be believed concerning things far in the future, even to the end of the age.

But the proud and deceitful powers of the air, even if they are found to have said through their seers certain things about the fellowship and city of the saints and about the true Mediator, things heard from the holy prophets or angels, did this in order that through these borrowed truths they might, if they could, draw even the faithful of God over to their own falsehoods. God, however, wrought through those who knew it not, so that the truth might resound from every side, to the help of the faithful and to the testimony against the impious. Since therefore we were not fit to lay hold of eternal things, and the filth of sins weighed us down—contracted by love of temporal things and, as it were, naturally ingrown from the stock of our mortality—we needed to be purified.

But we could be purified, so as to be attuned to eternal things, only through temporal things, by such as we were already held bound in attunement to. For health is very far from sickness, yet the intervening cure, unless it be suited to the sickness, does not lead through to health. Useless temporal things deceive the sick; useful temporal things take up those who are to be healed and carry them over, when healed, to eternal things. Now the rational mind, just as when purified it owes contemplation to eternal things, so, being purified, owes faith to temporal things. One even of those who were once held to be wise men among the Greeks said: 'As eternity is to that which has arisen, so is truth to faith.' And it is assuredly a true saying. For what we call temporal, he called that which has arisen.

Of which kind are we too, not only according to the body but also according to the changeableness of the soul; for that is not properly called eternal which is in some part changed. Insofar therefore as we are changeable, so far are we distant from eternity. But eternal life is promised us through the truth, from whose clear vision our faith is in turn as far distant as mortality is from eternity. Now therefore we apply faith to things done in time for our sake, and through it we are cleansed, so that when we come to sight, just as truth succeeds faith, so eternity may succeed mortality.

Wherefore, since our faith shall become truth when we come to that which is promised us who believe—and eternal life is promised us, and the Truth has spoken (not the truth that shall come to be, as our faith is a thing to come, but the truth that always is, because there is eternity)—the Truth therefore said: 'And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.' When our faith, by seeing, shall become truth, then eternity shall hold fast our mortality, transformed.

And until this comes to pass, and in order that it may come to pass—because we apply the faith of belief to things that have arisen, just as in eternal things we hope for the truth of contemplation, lest the faith of mortal life should be discordant with the truth of eternal life—the Truth Himself, coeternal with the Father, has arisen from the earth, when the Son of God so came as to become the Son of Man, and Himself took up in Himself our faith, whereby He might lead us through to His own truth; He who so took upon Himself our mortality that He did not lose His own eternity. For as eternity is to that which has arisen, so is truth to faith. Thus therefore it behooved us to be purified, that He might become for us one who arose, yet who remained eternal, lest there be one for us in faith and another in truth;

nor could we pass over from that whence we have arisen to eternal things, unless we were carried over to His eternity by the Eternal One associated with us through our arising. Now therefore our faith has in a certain manner followed thither, whither He whom we have believed has ascended: He who arose, died, was raised again, and was taken up. Of these four, the two former we knew in ourselves; for we know that men both arise and die. But the two remaining, that is, to be raised again and to be taken up, we rightly hope will come to be in ourselves, because we have believed them to have been done in Him. Therefore in Him, because even that which had arisen passed over to eternity, ours too shall pass over when faith shall have come through to truth.

For to those already believing, that they might abide in the word of faith and thence be led through to truth, and by this to eternity, and so be freed from death, He speaks thus: 'If you abide in My word, you are truly My disciples.' And as though they were asking, 'With what fruit?,' He went on and said: 'And you shall know the truth.' Again, as though they were saying, 'What does truth profit mortals?,' 'And the truth,' He says, 'shall make you free.' Free from what, save from death, from corruption, from changeableness? For truth remains immortal, incorrupt, unchangeable. But true immortality, true incorruptibility, true unchangeableness is eternity itself. Behold that to which the Son of God was sent; nay rather, behold what it is for the Son of God to have been sent.

Whatever was done in time in order to produce that faith by which we might be cleansed for contemplating the truth—in things that have arisen, brought forth from eternity and referred back to eternity—was either the testimonies of this mission or the very mission of the Son of God. But some testimonies foreannounced that He would come; some bore witness that He had come. For it was fitting that He through whom every creature was made, being made a creature, should have every creature for a witness. For unless the One had been proclaimed by many that were sent, the One would not be held fast by many that were released. And unless the testimonies had been such as would seem great to the little, it would not have been believed that He, sent as little to the little, would make them great, being great.

For incomparably greater works of the Son of God are heaven and earth and all that is in them—because all things were made through Him—than the signs and portents which broke forth in His testimony. Yet nevertheless, that men might believe these great works to have been done through Him, they trembled at those small things as though they were great. When therefore the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law—made so little that He was 'made,' and therefore sent inasmuch as He was made. If therefore the greater sends the lesser, we too confess Him made lesser, and lesser insofar as made, and made insofar as sent.