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For if, although the soul is created and limited, yet because we do not see it we cannot know its will, nor indeed its very existence, so long as it does not work through some one of the members of the body — how much less could we receive teaching, or learn the will, of Him who is the Maker of all and incomprehensible, without His revelation made through one of His creatures. Rightly therefore did God, who wills our good according to the abounding riches of His grace, not make His revelation to us without someone's mediation, but took from us a perfect man for His revelation to us, and taught us through him perfect knowledge of His nature and of His will, and promised us heavenly good things that do not pass away.
CHAPTER SEVEN. For what causes our Lord God took nothing else for His revelation at this time except a man from among us. Let us therefore state these causes for which at this time a man from among us was needful for the divine revelation. For the question is asked: why did God make His revelation to us through a perfect man taken from our own race, and not, as to the ancient fathers, through fire, or through a cloud, or through some one of the parts of creation? We say, then: God did not make His revelation to us at this time through any of these parts, for this very cause, that He had already been revealed through them to our fathers. For just as from the beginning God founded the whole creation part by part;
and then at last, when nothing was lacking, gathered it into one man, after whom He created nothing new: in like manner also now, after He had been made known part by part to our fathers in the first generations, He gathered, in these last times, all the parts of all His revelations into this man whom He took from among us; after whom He will be revealed in no other, inasmuch as in Him all former things were consummated; and He Himself will remain forever, indissolubly. For when He willed to make a partial redemption, and sought to teach a doctrine suited to children, and willed to relieve a temporary need, He duly completed His revelation to the beginners through some part of creation.
But now, because He willed to bring forth a perfect redemption that would profit the whole creation, and it pleased Him to teach a wholly perfect doctrine, He rightly took, as the bond of the whole creation, a man perfect in body and soul, and in whom all creatures visible and invisible are contained. Again, because Adam the first man, the father of all men, from the beginning of his formation hearkened to the devil and transgressed the divine command, and was condemned by God to the judgment of death — which, as a kind of debt, extended itself and was transmitted to all his posterity;
and because these men more strongly confirmed upon themselves the judgment of death, through their diverse inventions of idolatries and of manifold sins, by despising love toward their neighbors, and holding in contempt the honor due to parents, and even neglecting the observances of the law of Moses — for all these things it was needful that there should arise a man partaking of the same nature, their brother, of the lineage of Adam the first man; who, being altogether just and without spot in all his manners, might take away from us the judgment of death, and loose and abolish sin, and rescue us from the servitude of Satan and of the demons, and free us from the curse of the law of Moses, and promise us immortal life in the resurrection from the dead.
For just as through a man came death, so also through a man comes the reviving of the dead. And as in Adam all men die, so also in Christ all are made alive. And as through the disobedience of one man many became sinners, so also through the obedience of one man many are made just. For just as when someone is burdened with some debt, if he cannot pay it, his goods are taken away from him, and even his children are handed over into servitude; but if there arise someone of his lineage who, by reason of his prosperity, can pay his father's debts, he will recover his goods, and will free all his brethren from the oppression of debt and of servitude:
so also, after Adam had become a debtor by hearkening to the devil, and had been delivered up to death — he and all his offspring after him — God took the man Jesus, the second Adam, from our own race, and by His grace made Him without stain; and He caused Him to die — even though He was not a debtor, since He did not sin — so that by His innocence our debt might be discharged; and that we might live through the death of Him who was not subject to sin — we, I say, who, because of sin, had received the judgment of death. For if God had been crucified and had died, as the heretics say, this would have been of no profit to us; but He would have redeemed His own fellow gods. —
For if God be mortal, it is plain that there are also many gods like Him. — But the true God partakes of none of the passions of creatures. But if anyone should say that it is of the most excellent mercy that He Himself should die that we might be redeemed — as if someone were a debtor and another should pay the debt for those who have been delivered into servitude, and free them — behold, this is what the Man of our Lord did, since, while He alone was just and without stain, He promised immortal life to all men who partake of His nature. But it would have been easy for God, had it seemed useful to Him, even without taking a man from us, by His mere nod to bring immortal life to us all.
But this He did not do, lest He should be thought a lover of the wicked, in that, while we were yet in sins, He should have redeemed us without the mediation of a man from among us who was just. But now, because He took a man from us, and only then freed us from death and from sin, He manifested His justice; and He terrified us from committing wicked and evil things, by delivering to death Him who was not a debtor, and thus redeeming us. Moreover, in that He was content that one only should die for our whole race, He manifested His unspeakable mercy;
for since each one of us ought to be without stain, and only then to possess eternal life, He promised this to us through one only who was just, lest He should weaken or altogether shut off the hope of our being changed unto virtue. These reasons, however, are brought forward according to the modes of the divine economy. For it is plain that from the beginning it pleased God first to make our nature passible and mortal; and then at last, after the discipline and training of our rationality in this world, to make us partakers of immortal and unchangeable life.
That He might grant us profit from all our circumstances, He showed forth the death which was imposed upon Adam's nature from his very creation — that is, when He overcame us through sin — so that we might all fear and be terrified away from transgressing the commandments of God; if disobedience wrought so great an injury as to dissolve the composition of man, and to separate his soul from his body. But that immortal life, which before the foundation of the world He had purposed to bestow upon us at the fitting time, He brought forth through the man Jesus Christ, as Paul the Apostle said: 'There is one mediator of God and of men.'
that He might rouse and exhort us all together to love and to be zealous for righteousness, which has such power that, when it is found in but a single man, it gives life to countless multitudes. This, then, was the divine will before all ages; and indeed the plan of His economy has profited us in many ways, as I have said. And if anyone will consider it, and if he learns the sense of the Scriptures, he will pronounce just those reasons which we have now set forth: it was truly necessary, above all else, to take to Himself the Man of our Lord.
Because at this time, when our nature, as I have said, had come to its perfect stature, so that one may say it was needful for us to receive the perfect doctrine concerning God, who is known in three persons, of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, equal in nature, without beginning and without end; which indeed could not be revealed to rational beings through any single part of creation. This is plain from the fact that, as often as God was revealed to those men of old in such likenesses, they did not know how to learn that glorious nature of the Godhead which is known in three persons, and which surpasses every composition and every limit and every local boundary. Some indeed supposed His dwelling to be in paradise;
others, however, supposed that His dwelling was enclosed only within the bounds of the heavens; and some thought that the economy of His operation was confined within the limits of Jerusalem, since they knew not the distinction of the persons of the Godhead. But we, through the Man (taken) from us, have now learned that the Spirit is God, and that He dwells equally in every place that can come to mind, and can equally operate; the whole world is sustained by Him, and is in Him as a grain of sand in the hand of one of us, and beyond what can be told. And we have learned that ineffable Being exists in a threefold way in persons.
For from the fact that He was named Christ, we have come to know the Father who anointed Him, and the Holy Spirit who, in place of oil, filled Him, namely Jesus of Nazareth, this one whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power; and again: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, therefore He hath anointed me'—our Lord Himself said this concerning Himself. Again, from the fact that He was named Son, we understand the eternal Son who is with His Father; just as from this bread which is called the body of Christ, we are lifted up to that body which is in heaven. It was impossible that one of these parts of creation, through which He was revealed to the ancients—such as fire, and the cloud, and the stones, and the wood of the temple, and the ark, and the golden plate—should be called by the name of the Son.
But that the Man of our Lord should be called the Son of God did not seem a new thing; for many were so named, as in that passage: 'I have begotten sons and exalted them'; and 'I said, ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.' And when they drew near to Him and saw His works which surpassed nature, and heard His words when He said: 'I and my Father are one'; and, 'He who sees me sees the Father also,' they recognized that hidden in Him was the eternal Son who is from the Father, who through Him did these things. To Him indeed such words as these are fitting.
For just as, if you beckon with your hand, or nod with your head, or wink with your eye, the soul, which is hidden in the body and is not seen, reveals itself only in part; likewise if one walks, or comes, or rises, or sits, or does any other such thing; but all its desires and the notions of its thoughts it teaches and makes manifest through the tongue alone; in like manner, when the invisible God was revealed to the ancients through one of these parts, He taught them partial knowledge according to the need that their infancy required. But now that He has taken from us a perfect Man, He has taught us all His desires through Him, and has manifested His nature to us perfectly, insofar as is possible;
just as the soul, which reveals and clearly manifests all its notions through the tongue. Therefore for this reason also the taking of a man from us was necessary. Furthermore, since resurrection from the dead had been promised, and the promise of ascension to the heavens had been made—yet they had not been illustrated by examples—we could not have been certain that even one of these would be accomplished in us, unless we had seen a man from among us, of our same nature, like ourselves, die, rise again, and himself first ascend to the heavens.
But when these things first happened to one like ourselves, we believed that it was now not difficult for them to be brought to pass in us also, since we are of the same nature with Him who in actual fact has already received these very things—I mean the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension of the righteous to the heavens. Again, since through Him God is to judge all men, as the Apostle says: 'When God shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel through Jesus Christ'; the righteous will feel more keenly the delights of good things, and the wicked the punishment which they shall receive, when from a visible one, just as they themselves are, they shall receive the recompense of all their works.
Finally, after the resurrection from the dead and the ascension of the righteous to the heavens, they will not build buildings of hewn stones and timbers and cedars and gems, that in them they may worship God as in this world; but He Himself will be for them as a temple, in which they will unceasingly worship the Holy Trinity, showing their love toward God, and in Him, as in a rational temple, offering to God the worship due to Him, and glory, and thanksgiving; and in Him they will possess consolation and tranquility; and their mind, which longs to see God, will be as in a quiet harbor, when they see Him as such, and are lifted up by Him to that Invisible One, as from an image to its prototype; for He is the image of the invisible God.
For when someone dear to us departs from us, if we gaze upon his image with great delight, how much more will the righteous be consoled and rejoice, and the flame of love of their mind, which ardently longs to see God, their Creator and the cause of all their good things, will receive sure faith in this rational image which is clothed with divine glory, and is higher than all, and has power over all creatures, since in Him they will in a certain manner see Him who is invisible to them, and through Him they will know Him who is hidden by His own essence, and will receive a sure faith concerning Him! O our illustrious brother, all these causes demanded the assumption of a man from among us:
the gathering and perfection of all former things, and the redemption of all creatures visible and invisible, the cessation of all the troubles which appeared through Adam the first man and reigned over our nature, the condemnation of Satan, who receives the wages of his works, and that through Him the righteous may show their love toward God; and that through Him they may receive sure faith in the invisibility of their Creator and Benefactor. CHAPTER EIGHT. That our Lord Christ was not a mere man (Psilos anthropos).
) We shall therefore resolve the doubt of many who, hearing from us what we have related of the properties of the humanity of our Lord, and the causes for which it was assumed, come up to us saying: 'Was He then a mere man, and could He alone redeem us, according to your word?' This indeed they say unjustly and ignorantly; for if they had attended diligently to the things that were said, they would have understood what we said: that in Him God the Word is revealed, with His Father and the Holy Spirit; and that in Him, as in a rational temple, He is unceasingly worshipped; again, that in Him, as in an image, He presents Himself to be seen by all His righteous ones: which do not permit our Lord to be reckoned a mere man.
These things indeed, when they are spoken, suffice alone to show His greatness, and the difference between Him and all creatures. Nay rather, we shall tell of other causes which show that God was in that man who was assumed from us. We have said above that necessity demanded that our Lord be declared perfectly righteous, and in all things without blemish: in thoughts, and words, and works; and He afforded Him help according to the excellence of His will. He was indeed justified by the Spirit. And because He fulfilled the Mosaic law, it was necessary that its course be abolished, as something long since completed.
Therefore it was also needful that God should be in Him, since indeed it belonged to Him alone to abolish the law, as the One who gave it from the beginning. Moreover, after the law had ceased from its course, and the institution of the New Testament had taken its beginning, it was necessary that those who, through faith in Him, had been made members of God's household, should receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, the adoption as sons. Wherefore we also say that God dwelt in Him, because He alone can give the grace of the Spirit. But it was also impossible for that Man of our Lord to rise from the dead and ascend to the heavens, unless God were in Him. For He alone could accomplish the loosing of death.
Finally, neither was it possible for us to receive new life, nor for the righteous to be raised to sublime heights, if our Lord Christ had been a mere man. For all these reasons, therefore, it was necessary that God should be in that man who was taken from the seed of David, just as also for the former reasons which we have stated. CHAPTER NINE. Why the Man of our Lord was not taken from the earth, but from a virgin without the intercourse of a man. After it has been seen that we are gathered together today on account of the good things given to us through Christ our Lord; and it has also been recognized what those good things are; and it has been made manifest that this was administered in great wisdom for our benefit, that the revelation was not made before;
and it has been seen that there was also need of the mediation of someone by whose aid these good things might come to us, and that this mediator ought to be nothing other than a man—not indeed a mere man, but a man in whom there was God, the Lord and Almighty of all—we shall tell henceforth why God did not take the Man of our Lord from the earth, as He did the first Adam; and why He was born of a woman without the intercourse of a man. When we have shown this, we shall come to that point: why did God ordain that His conception should take place in the springtime? And what do we understand from this: that He was born at this time? We shall add to that discussion a brief exhortation, which we shall give as the conclusion of the whole discussion, just as we said from the beginning.
From the beginning of our creation, we have been provokers and transgressors of the divine precepts, and despisers of the election of our power of discernment, because of our hatred toward our fellows. In short, throughout all generations we have so appeared as God's adversaries by our words and our works, that even if we had been reduced to nothing, this would deservedly have befallen us—save a few who, through individual generations, were found righteous among us, like pearls in the sand.
But if God had assumed the Man of our Lord from the earth, as He did the first Adam, we should all have been seized by despair and should have thought that God had repudiated our race because of our offenses, and that no hope remained for us; and so it pleased God, whose mercy is immense and whose fatherly kindness toward our race was from the beginning, to take Him not from the earth but born of our own nature, that He might teach us that the immortal and unfailing and incorruptible life, which our Lord assumed in His resurrection from the dead, has been transmitted to our whole race, and that we all together are partakers of it, because He is of the same nature as we, and not alien to us.
For just as, because we are of the same nature as the first Adam, whatever troubles he first received were transmitted and extended to us all: so, because our Lord is of the same nature as we, and He Himself is the initiator of future good things, just as Adam was of present troubles, we believe and hope that we all shall be partakers of the immortal and unfailing life with our Lord Christ, just as with the first Adam we were partakers of this life which is full of all sorrows. For just as through Adam we all died, so through Christ we all shall live, like the first Adam, or from any other part that one can conceive.
For it is plain that, although He was formed without intercourse and was born of the Virgin Mary, He nevertheless partakes of the whole nature of men and women, and a part of both was in Him, since the Blessed Mary, after the likeness of all women, was made from man and from woman; and if she who bore Him was constituted from both orders, of men and of women, it is necessary that there be in Him a part of both, inasmuch as He was born of her who was constituted from both. He therefore is called by the Scriptures the son of David and of Abraham, since from their seed the Blessed Mary was begotten, of whom He Himself was born.
Therefore the good things which came through Him have been handed over to all men, men and women alike, because, as I have said, they naturally belong to all. But that He was formed of the Holy Spirit without the intercourse of a man—this was so that He might be known to be the inaugurator of the new economy and of the age to come, after the likeness of Adam, who was formed from the earth, without intercourse, and was the head and father of this world. He who was to be the head and inaugurator in the economy of mortal life was rightly made from earth that was not living; but this One, who was the inaugurator and revealer of this world of immortal life, was taken from living earth, the Virgin Mary, without the intercourse of a man.
The very novelty that His formation was without seed is sufficient to proclaim that He is the inaugurator of the new economy which gives the resurrection of the dead, which comes to pass through the power of the Spirit, who did not lack the power of forming Him from a virgin, without seed, above the order of nature. CHAPTER TEN. For what cause God ordained that He should be conceived in the springtime. But that God ordained that He should be conceived in the springtime—this was because at this time also God had made the whole creation: for the identity of the time taught that the same One who created from the beginning is also the One who now renews through Him who was conceived, and who henceforth, at this time, is to be born according to the order of nature which God established from the beginning.
This we say from the agreement and likeness of the divine works. For just as, at this time, the day, the time of light, decreases and is diminished down to nine hours, while the night, the dominion of darkness, becomes longer and reaches fifteen hours; and then the day, the kingdom of light, begins to take hours from the night, the dominion of darkness; again, just as no fruits, whether of grain or of trees, are now among us—for the grains scarcely begin to grow, and the leaves of all the trees fall—in like manner both are seen among men at the coming of our Lord Christ; for the light of the knowledge of the truth dispels this darkness from our souls.
The darkness of the error of the worship of idols held our thoughts captive, when we were stripped and despoiled even of all the fruits of the works of righteousness. But our Lord and our Redeemer, Christ, came, and when He saw us erring in our mind, He drove away from us the darkness of the worship of idols, and led us to the perfect knowledge of the Holy Trinity, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; He also gave us the grace of the Spirit, through which we might grow and bring forth the fruits of righteousness acceptable to God the Creator. But the heathen also, worshippers of the elements, celebrate today everywhere every year a great festival, namely for this reason: because the sun begins to prevail, and its kingdom to extend itself more.
But they ought to have considered that, if it is altogether worthy of joy and festival that the day begins to take from the night, then by the same reasoning that which afterward begins—namely that the night, the kingdom of darkness, begins to take from the day, the dominion of the sun—would be worthy of the same festivals. For just as, when the night is prolonged, unless it were again diminished, the manner of human life would perish; likewise also the day, when it begins to grow longer, unless it were again diminished, there would be no preservation for this world, because without summer and winter, heat and cold, our manner of life here cannot subsist; for it is impossible, without the ascent and descent of the sun, the lengthening and shortening of night and day, that those seasons should exist.
Therefore the benefit which is ours when the sun prevails is exactly the same as ours when it decreases. The erring heathen ought therefore to celebrate a festival either at both changes or at neither; because equal gain comes from both, that is, from God who so ordained them. CHAPTER ELEVEN. Exhortation to an honorable life. They, then, celebrated a festival, as I have said, namely of the sun which at this time begins to prevail over the dominion of darkness, and which again will decrease. But the holy Church celebrates the festival of the nativity of Christ, the Sun of righteousness, who has begun to prevail over error and Satan, and will never decrease; whose dominion, on the contrary, extends itself until all rational beings, visible and invisible, are subjected to His dominion.
To Him indeed every knee shall bow, of things heavenly, earthly, and of those who are under the earth. Therefore, just as our festivals are greater and more powerful than those of the pagans and of all religions—for true knowledge is found among us alone—so our morals, which are founded on the worship of God, ought to be more honorable and purer than those of other men, while we are equally zealous about both: the reading of the Scriptures and their interpretation, as well as the teaching concerning the festivals and their causes; and also about an excellent life acceptable to Christ our Lord.