Since there exists, invisibly to us, a much-wandering, earthly and demonic substance, flitting about the air surrounding the earth, unknown and undiscernible to men, differing for the worse from the good spirits and powers and from the divine angels themselves, it was not otherwise well for those who fall away from the piety belonging to the Most High, the all-sovereign King, than for them to choose the best of the things visible in heaven.
For it was no ordinary fear, lest, seeking God and busying themselves about invisible things, they should, through their perplexity concerning things unseen and obscure, be turned aside into opposing and demonic powers. All the most conspicuous of the visible works of God's creation, then, were handed over to those who did not aspire to the better worship, so that from this, in some manner, a contemplation of the invisible might be reflected, as it were through a kind of mirror.
Thus matters stood in this regard; but as for the deceiving and apostate power — whether of demons or of other, worse spirits, differing among themselves in degrees of evil, more or less — and moreover, of the terrible ruler over all these, a certain 'great demon,' who were the first to shake off piety toward the divine and to fall from their own proper lot — out of envy for the salvation of mankind, it dragged the opposite course by every kind of device of wickedness, plotting through malice against the good things of all the nations, and even against the very portion of the Lord.
The godless and impious reasoning of this 'great demon,' then, the prophetic Spirit refutes in Isaiah, speaking thus: 'For he said, By my strength I will act, and by the wisdom of understanding I will remove the boundaries of the nations, and I will plunder their strength, and I will shake inhabited cities; and I will seize the whole world with my hand as a nest, and as eggs that are left I will take them up, and there shall be none that shall escape me, or gainsay me.'
These are the words of that God-warring one, boasting greatly in the strength of his wickedness, and threatening to plunder and to confound the boundaries of the nations that had been handed over to the angels by the Most High, and insolently declaring that he would plunder the whole world and thoroughly shake the whole race of men and remove it from its former good order.
But as to the sort of thoughts he entertained about himself in uttering such boasts, hear the same prophecy again declaring concerning him: 'How has the Day Star fallen from heaven, he who rose in the morning? He who sent to all the nations has been broken to the ground. But you said in your mind, I will ascend into heaven, I will set my throne above the stars of heaven; I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High. But now you shall go down to Hades, and to the foundations of the earth.'
Through these words the discourse indicates a great many things at once: the derangement of mind of the one signified, his fall from better things to worse, and the end of that falling-away. Having threatened terrible things against all the nations, with his other device he found mankind easily caught by his darts, since they possessed, readily and of their own judgment, a propensity to fall into evil through their self-determined choice.
He shook the cities from their standing in better things, and with the lures of pleasure dragged down the souls of the many into every kind of baseness; and leaving no device untried, by shameful myths about the gods and licentious tales he set forth, through the artful deceit of demons, whatever was agreeable and pleasing to those who were being ensnared.
By this he took the whole inhabited world captive and held it in subjection, and he was obliterating the boundaries of the nations — which very thing he had threatened to do, saying: '...the boundaries of nations, and I will plunder their strength, and I will shake inhabited cities,' and 'I will seize the whole world in my hand as a nest.'
From this point on, then, he now held sway over all mankind by error, and evil demons were arrayed, each in his own place, in every locality and city and region under their own ruler; and indeed the whole life of men had been enslaved to earthly powers and evil spirits in place of the former ministers of God, while all men together and readily gave themselves over to the slidings of pleasure — so that they now even transgressed the bounds of nature, at one time destroying one another, at another committing unspeakable acts and things which it is not lawful even to conceive in thought, and not only doing these things but even attributing them to the opinions held concerning their own gods, and — all the more, as though such licentious acts were pleasing to the gods — carrying them out with still greater ease.
From this point on, then, according to the sacred Apostle, no longer standing firm even upon the still-splendid works of God's creation in the heavens, 'they became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.'
That in the most ancient times those on earth attended only to the heavenly luminaries, knowing no idol, nor occupied with the error of demons, a sufficient proof would be the testimony of witnesses foreign to our own persuasion, which I set forth in the first book of the Preparation prior to the present treatise, clearly demonstrating that the most ancient of men were slaves neither to hand-wrought images fashioned of lifeless matter, nor even to invisible demons, but only to these [luminaries] — which are also testified by the divine Scripture to have been allotted to the nations.
It is time, then, also to acknowledge with those to whom I have appealed and whose statements I set forth there, that a superstition of idols, newer and foreign to the worship of the ancients, was introduced among them, along with a meddlesome preoccupation with invisible spirits. And it was the aforementioned adversary of God who, plotting against all men on earth, worked all this; and the whole tribe of unclean demons cooperated with him. And indeed the very instigator of wickedness did these things himself, fulfilling in deed, through a madness of outlandish presumption, his threats against all mankind, and pressing forward his godless cry, 'I will be like the Most High,' offering through the services of unclean and evil demons oracles and healings and such things for the deception of men.
In so great a torrent of wickedness, since the angels formerly set over the subject nations were unable to render any assistance — being occupied rather with the care of the rest of creation, presiding over the parts of the world, and continuing, as was their custom, to minister to the beck of God the maker of all things, but not taking hold of the fall of mortals, because of men's self-chosen preference for evils — a long and hard-to-cure disease held sway over all upon earth, the nations being goaded, each in its own way, by the evil spirits, and falling into an incurable depth of wickedness.
Already indeed, in the manner of raw-eating and man-devouring beasts, some thought it a fine thing to feast on the flesh of their own dearest kin, and to have intercourse without restraint with mothers, sisters, and daughters, and to bind the aged with the noose, and to give the dead to dogs and birds of prey.
Why indeed should I recall to you the savage and monstrous human sacrifices of the so-called gods — of the base demons themselves — into which they drove the human race to madness?
And these things indeed I prepared beforehand in the preceding matter of the treatise now in hand. But since so many evils had been set forth by the base and pernicious spirits and by the tyrant who presides over them throughout the whole inhabited world, and since none of the angels set over the nations was able to render aid against the evils, fittingly that God the Word, the Savior of the universe, by the good pleasure of the Father's love for mankind — so that the race dear to him might not go on wallowing in the depth of impiety — for a while caused certain brief and dim rays of his own light to shine forth through the prophet Moses and the God-beloved men both before and after him, setting forth the healing of the evils among men in the sacred legislation.
The Word himself, then, plainly speaking, legislates for the nation of the Hebrews through Moses, saying: 'According to the practices of the land of Egypt, in which you dwelt, you shall not do; and according to the practices of the land of Canaan, into which I bring you, you shall not do; and you shall not walk in their ordinances. You shall do my judgments, and you shall keep my statutes. I am the Lord your God.'
Then, having forbidden every unlawful marriage and every indecent act — unions of women with women and of males with males — he adds: 'Do not defile yourselves in any of these things; for in all these things the nations were defiled, whom I am sending out before your face. And the land was defiled, and I recompensed iniquity upon it, and the land was sickened with those who dwelt upon it.'
And again he says: 'When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you, you shall not learn to do according to the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you one who purifies his son or his daughter by fire, one who divines divinations, or an observer of omens, or an augur, a sorcerer using charms, a ventriloquist, a portent-watcher, or one who inquires of the dead. For everyone who does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God; for because of these abominations the Lord your God will utterly destroy them from before your face. You shall be perfect before the Lord your God.'
Such then, and countless other godly teachings and precepts, God the Word formerly legislated for them through Moses, delivering to them, as it were in an introduction to the life of piety, its elementary principles, by means of symbols and a certain shadowy and bodily worship, enacted in the circumcision of the body and certain other such things accomplished on earth.
But as time went on, none, not even of the prophets after him, was strong enough, on account of the excess of wickedness, to effect so great a cure of the evils of life; and daily the works of demonic activity advanced to greater heights, so that even the Hebrew nation itself was carried along together in the corruption of the godless — the Savior and Physician of the universe himself now at last comes down among men, coming to the aid of his own angels on behalf of the salvation of mankind, the Father having beforehand promised to grant him this, even as he himself teaches in the Psalms, saying: 'The Lord said to me, You are my Son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession.'
No longer, then, caring only for the righteous and clear-sighted Israel, nor indeed only for his own portion, but subjecting to his own authority all the nations upon earth, which had formerly been allotted to a greater number of angels and had been wallowing in every kind of impiety, he came, proclaiming to all the knowledge of and friendship with his Father, promising release and remission of former ignorances and sins.
Which also he plainly proclaimed, saying: 'They who are strong have no need of a physician, but they who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.'
And indeed he came and was seen by his own angels, by those very ones who had formerly presided over the nations. And they, at once recognizing with full accuracy their own helper and lord, approached full of joy and ministered to him, even as the sacred Scripture of the Gospel teaches, saying, 'And angels came and ministered to him' — at which time also a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, said: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, among men good will.'
These, then, as his own angels needing his alliance, he took up to himself in this manner; but the guilty demons who had of old been hovering about the haunts of men, tyrannizing, both secretly and openly, over those on earth, and the tribes of wild and savage spirits, and the very instigator of wickedness among them, that dread and accursed one, he subdued and mastered by a great and divine power, putting them to flight, so that some of them, becoming aware of him, said, 'Ha! What have we to do with you, Son of God? Have you come here before the time to torment us?'
And these he mightily afflicted and tormented by what he did and taught; but the whole human race he healed and cured by his gentle and soothing remedies of words, and by his mild and exhortative teachings, and he delivered them from diseases and sufferings of all kinds, no less of bodies than of souls; and, releasing them from the old superstition and the terrors of polytheistic error and its shameful worship, he transposed and transformed those who clung to him — from licentiousness to a sober life, from impiety to piety, and from injustice to righteousness; yes, and indeed from the dominion of bitter demons to the divinely-inspired apprehension of true piety; and beyond this he set forth to the nations throughout the whole inhabited world the gates of heavenly life and of teaching according to piety, and he descended to such a degree that he not only stretched out his saving right hand to the souls of those who were sick and grievously afflicted, but also loosed from the bonds of death those who were half-dead at the very gates of death itself, or even those who had utterly perished and had long lain buried.
For which reason especially he even needed activity extending to those very regions of the dead, so that he might have dominion not only over the living but also over the dead. Now, when he is together with the Father and governs the providence of all things by his divine power, he — God's Word and God's Wisdom and God's Power — oversees and takes care both of heaven itself and earth together and of the natures contained in them, and also of the divine and incorporeal beings beyond heaven, being celebrated in the divine oracles as ruler and leader and king, and indeed already as God and Lord, and illuminating the incorporeal and intellectual natures.
And he is called the Sun of Righteousness and the true Light; and serving and cooperating in the ordinances of the Father, he is styled the Father's minister and craftsman; and he alone, knowing how to worship God in due order, standing midway between the unbegotten God and the begotten beings that come after him, having undertaken the care of all things and being consecrated as priest to the Father on behalf of all his subjects, and alone rendering him gracious and propitious to all — he is called eternal high priest, and indeed 'Christ' of the Father, just as among the Hebrews of old those who performed, through symbols, the image of the first Christ were called 'christs.'
And when he presides over the angels as their commander, he is proclaimed 'Angel of Great Counsel,' and, as leader of the heavenly hosts, is said to be 'commander-in-chief of the power of the Lord.' But when he descends to the things here below, laying hold of our own rational nature for the sake of his own image and by the Father's love of mankind, insofar as he seems to rule over infants and, as it were, over flocks, he has been named 'shepherd of the sheep'; and insofar as he professes the healing of passionate souls, he might fittingly be called 'savior' and 'physician.'
This, then, is what his name 'Jesus' signifies among the Hebrews. But since he also once had need, for himself too, of a human instrument, so that he might reveal himself even to men and teach the true doctrine of the knowledge of the Father and of piety, he does not refuse this manner either; but having in full measure entered into our nature, he comes among men, displaying to all a great wonder — God through man — so that he might be present not only invisibly and imperceptibly, being without flesh and without body, but might also be seen by them with fleshly eyes, granting to human eyes to behold wonders beyond man, and moreover delivering to bodily ears the teachings conveyed through tongue and articulate voice — a thing truly divine and marvelous, such as no other is recorded ever to have appeared — showing himself to all at once both saving and beneficent.
Thus then God the Word was called Son of Man, and was named Jesus, inasmuch as he made his passage to us for the sake of the healing and cure of human souls. Indeed, among the Hebrews too the name 'Jesus' is interpreted as 'Savior.' And he endured our common manner of life, in no way departing from being what he was, while at the same time preserving God within the man.
At once, then, at his first descent to mankind, he mingled his divine and mighty work with our human generation for God's sake: being born like us indeed, and clothing himself with man after the manner of a mortal; yet, since he is no longer merely man but God, undergoing the generation of what appeared from a spotless and unwedded maiden — not from union and corruption.
And throughout the whole of his subsequent life he continued in this same manner, at one time showing forth his fellow-feeling with us, at another God the Word, working mighty deeds and marvels as God, and proclaiming beforehand the predictions of things that were to come, and by his works openly displaying the God the Word who was not seen by the many; and fitting and similar to their beginnings were also the endings that he took in hand for his departure from among men.
For indeed the laws of his love for mankind called him even to death and to the dead themselves, that he might call back the souls of those who had died long before.
For indeed he cared for the salvation of all men from eternity, and — as the divine oracles teach — he cared how through death he might bring to nought him who had the power of death; and here again he entered upon the dispensation in a mingled manner, as man surrendering his body to the customary burial, yet withdrawing from it as God.
Crying out, then, with a great voice, and saying, 'I entrust my spirit to the Father,' he departed unhindered from the body, in no way waiting for death to come upon him; rather, while death was still approaching and, as it were, hesitating — or rather retreating before his feet and fleeing away — he himself pursued and drove it on, breaking open the gates of the dark recesses that had stood from eternity, and making, for the dead who were there, bound by the cords of death, a journey back again, an ascent unto life.
By this then even the dead man was raised up along with him, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep arose, entering in together with him into the holy and truly heavenly city; so that it is fittingly said in the divine sayings, 'Death, having prevailed, has swallowed them up,' and again, 'God has wiped away every tear from every face.'
And the Savior of all and our Lord himself, the Christ of God, called 'victorious,' is introduced in the prophetic predictions as mocking death and loosing the souls that were bound there, through which he utters the hymn of victory, saying these very words: 'I will rescue them from the hand of Hades, and I will redeem their souls from death. O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting? Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.'
Such, then, was his dispensation even unto death — of which one might, if willing to inquire, find not one cause but several. For the first the account teaches: that he might have dominion over both the dead and the living. The second: that he might wipe away our sins, being sacrificed on our behalf and becoming a curse for us.
The third: that, as a victim of God and a great sacrifice, he might be offered on behalf of the whole world to the God who is over all. The fourth: that in this way, by ineffable means, he might bring about the abolition of the manifold, wandering, and demonic activity.
And a fifth reason besides this: that to his own acquaintances and disciples he might establish the hope of life with God after death, not by words nor by sayings and utterances, but by deeds themselves, delivering to their very eyes the promise given through his words, so as to make them confident and more eager to proclaim to all Greeks and barbarians alike the pious way of life that had been laid down.
At once, then, these very acquaintances and companions, whom he himself, choosing them for their excellence, selected for himself as his apostles and disciples, he filled with the divine power that proceeded from him, to teach every race of men the knowledge of God that had been proclaimed by him; so that, laying down for all Greeks and barbarians alike a manner of piety, they might preach beforehand the withdrawal and flight of demons, the renouncing of polytheistic error, and the true knowledge of the one only God over all, promising release from former sins, if men no longer persisted in them, and a single hope of salvation for all through the all-wise and all-virtuous way of life which he had laid down.
This being so, then, the mind ought not to be troubled on hearing of generation and body and sufferings and death in connection with the immaterial and incorporeal Word of God. For just as the rays of the sun's light, which fill all things, would suffer nothing even when they touch dead and unclean bodies, much more would the incorporeal power of God neither suffer in its essence, nor be harmed, nor ever become worse than itself, when it lays hold of a body in an incorporeal manner.
For what then? Does he not, even apart from the body in which he became man, always and continually reaching through the whole matter of the elements and of bodies themselves, being as it were a creator God the Word, stamp into it the principles of the wisdom that proceeds from him — impressing life upon what is lifeless, and form upon what is by nature shapeless and formless, and imprinting the beauties within him and the incorporeal ideas upon the qualities of bodies — and, by his own principle, setting in motion the lifeless and motionless: earth, water, air, fire?
imparting a movement altogether wise and altogether harmonious, and ordering all things out of disorder, increasing and bringing them to completion, well-nigh visiting all things by that very divine and rational power, and passing through all things and touching all things, yet incurring no harm from anything, nor being defiled in its very nature — so also, becoming man in accordance with these same principles, he formerly appeared, in various ways at various times, to a few and limited in number, to none but the recorded prophets and righteous men; but at the end, already to all — to base and impious alike, to Hebrews and Greeks together — because of the surpassing goodness and love for mankind of the all-good Father, he offered himself as beneficent and saving, proclaiming this openly: 'They who are strong have no need of a physician, but they who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.'
The Savior of all called out, then, saying, 'Come to me, all you who are also burdened, and I will give you rest.' He called and healed abundantly through the human instrument which he had put forward, like some musician displaying his skill through the lyre; and for souls sick within their bodies, like the best of physicians healing a man with a fitting and appropriate remedy, he offered himself as a pattern of an all-wise, all-virtuous, and pious life, teaching truths not gathered by begging from others, but teaching from himself and from the Father the things that had of old and from a distant age been legislated for those who from the beginning were beloved of God and for the Hebrews before Moses.
And caring for bodies no less than for souls, he made it possible for men's fleshly eyes to see the things done by him through the flesh, and again for fleshly ears to hear the teachings resounding through tongue and flesh, and he accomplished all things through the man he had assumed, for the sake of those who were able to perceive his divinity in no other way but only in this manner.
All these things, then, God's all-loving Word ministered, for our profit and benefit, by the Father's counsels, while he himself continued to be immaterial and incorporeal, such as he was with the Father even before becoming man — not changing his essence, nor being made to disappear from his own nature, nor bound by the fetters of the flesh, nor falling away from his deity, nor even losing his own proper power as the Word; nor was he confined, spending his time only there where his human vessel was, while being altogether prevented from being elsewhere. Rather, even at that very time, insofar as he lived his life among men, he was filling all things, and was together with the Father, and was in him, and was caring at once, even at that time, for all things both in heaven and on earth — by no means shut off from his presence everywhere as we are, nor hindered as usual from performing divine acts; but imparting some things of himself to the man, while not receiving in turn the things of the mortal, and supplying divine power to the mortal, while not himself acquiring in return a share of what belongs to the mortal.
The incorporeal one, then, was not defiled by being born through the body, nor did the impassible one suffer in his essence at the hand of the mortal; since not even, should it so happen, when the lyre is struck or its strings torn apart, is it likely that the player himself suffers; nor, when a wise man's body is being tortured, would we reasonably say that the wisdom within him, or the soul that is in the body, is being cut or burned. On this analogy, much more is it reasonable to say that neither the nature nor the power of the Word incurs any harm from the sufferings of the body — just as our example of light did not allow that the sun's rays, sent down from heaven upon the earth, are in any way stained when they touch mud and filth and every kind of defilement.
There would be nothing to prevent our saying that these things too are illumined by the rays of light; but that the sun is defiled, or made muddy, by contact with bodies — this we may no longer say. And yet these defilements are not indeed foreign to the nature of bodies.
But the immaterial and incorporeal Word of God, being life itself and intellectual light itself and whatever else has been enumerated above, makes it necessary that whatever he touches with his divine and incorporeal power should live and pass its existence together with rational light. In this way too, whatever body he touches is at once sanctified and illumined by it, and all disease and infirmity and everything else give way before it.
And privation gives way in turn to the fullness that comes from him. Thus indeed even a dead thing, when it has but slightly touched the power of the Word, was raised up, made alive; and death fled before life, and darkness was dissolved by the light, and the corruptible put on incorruption, and the mortal, immortality.
And indeed what else happened but that the whole man was swallowed up by the deity, and God the Word was again God such as he was even before becoming man, and he deified together with himself that man, the firstfruits of our hope, deeming him worthy there of the eternal life that is with him and of communion in his deity and blessedness — thereby furnishing this as the greatest proof, to us likewise all, of the immortality and kingship that come from him and are with him.
This was the goal of his coming among men: to bring back to his own knowledge the one who had long strayed from the knowledge of the Father, and to grant the one who is kindred and dear, and who has been deemed worthy of his image, to enjoy his own proper life, and to render this one dear and kindred to the Father — for whose sake the Word of God himself submitted to become man.