與赫拉克利德對話 第 1 章

When questions had been raised by the bishops present concerning the faith of Bishop Heraclides, so that he might confess before everyone how he believes, and after each had said what occurred to him and put his questions, Bishop Heraclides said:

I too believe exactly what the divine Scriptures say:

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

He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

Do we then agree in the faith, and on this point also do we believe that Christ took flesh, that he was born, that he ascended into the heavens in the flesh in which he rose, that he sits at the right hand of the Father, about to come from there and to judge the living and the dead, being God and man? Origen said:

Since once an inquiry is being held, and it is fitting to say something in the place of inquiry, I will speak.

The whole church is present, listening.

One church ought not to differ from another in knowledge, since you are not a church that lies.

I beg you, Father Heraclides:

God is the Almighty, the unbegotten, who is over all and who made all things;

is this agreeable? Heraclides said:

for so I too believe. Origen said:

Christ Jesus, being in the form of God, being other than the God in whose form he existed—was he God before he came into a body, or not? Heraclides said:

He was God beforehand. Origen said:

Was he God before he came into a body, or not? Heraclides said:

A God other than this God in whose form he himself existed? Heraclides said:

Clearly other than someone, and being in the form of that one, he belongs to him who created all things. Origen said:

So then, the Son of God, the only-begotten of God, the firstborn of all creation, was God; and are we not being superstitious when in one sense we say there are two Gods, and in another sense we say there is one God? Heraclides said:

But we say that God is the Almighty, God without beginning and without end, who contains all things and is contained by nothing; and that his Word is the Son of the living God, God and man, through whom all things came to be—God according to the spirit, but man inasmuch as he was born of Mary. Origen said:

What I asked you do not seem to have answered;

perhaps I did not follow.

Is the Father God? Heraclides said: (Yes.)

Is the Son other than the Father? Heraclides said: (Yes.)

For how can he be Son, if he is also Father? Origen said:

The Son, being other than the Father, is he himself also God? Heraclides said:

He himself also is God. Origen said:

And do two Gods become one? Heraclides said: (Yes.)

Do we confess two Gods? Heraclides said:

The power is one. Origen said:

But since our brethren take offence at there being two Gods, the matter must be carefully treated, and it must be shown in what respect they are two and in what respect the two are one God.

And the divine Scriptures have taught that many things which are two are one—and not only two, but they have taught that some things which are far more than two in number are one.

What lies before us now is not to pass over the problem set before us and merely speak it away, but for the sake of the simpler ones to chew it thoroughly, as it were like meat, and little by little to lodge the teaching in the ears of the hearers.

Many things, then, that are two are said by the Scriptures to be one.

What Scriptures? Adam is one, the woman is another.

Adam is other than the woman, and the woman is other than the man;

and yet it is said straightway in the account of Creation that the two are one;

for "the two shall become one flesh." So then it is possible at some time for two to be one flesh.

...one; nor shall the two become one soul, but the two shall become one flesh.

Again, the righteous man, being other than Christ, is said by the apostle to be one with Christ;

for "he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." Is it not the case that the one is of an inferior, lower, and lesser essence, while Christ is of a more divine, more glorious, and more blessed essence? Are they not then no longer two?—For indeed the man and the woman are no longer two but one flesh, and the righteous man and Christ are one spirit.

In the same way our Saviour and Lord, in relation to the Father and God of all, is not one flesh, nor one spirit, but that which is higher than both flesh and spirit—one God.

For it was fitting that in the case of men joined to one another the name "flesh" should be applied, and in the case of a righteous man joined to Christ the name "spirit" should be applied, but in the case of Christ united to the Father neither the name "flesh" nor "spirit" should be applied, but rather the more honourable name, "God."

Hence we understand in this way the saying, "I and the Father are one."

We pray, on account of those who guard the duality and on account of those who introduce the unity; and so we neither fall into the opinion of those who have split off from the church into the fantasy of monarchianism—doing away with the Son apart from the Father, and in effect doing away with the Father also—nor do we fall into that other impious teaching which denies the divinity of Christ.

How then do the divine Scriptures speak, as in "Before me no other God came into being, and after me there shall be none," and in "I am," and "there is no God besides me"?

By these utterances we must not suppose that the term "one," applied to the God of all, the undefiled One, is meant apart from Christ;

nor indeed Christ apart from God;

but let us say that they are one in the way that Jesus says, "I and my Father are one."

On these words it is necessary to meditate, because many things have been stirred up in this church.

They often have things put in writing as a signed declaration: let the bishop subscribe, and let those under suspicion subscribe as well, and let them subscribe before all the people, so that no further dissension or dispute may arise over this matter.

Therefore, since God permits it, and secondly the bishops, and thirdly the presbyters and the people also, I will state once more what moves me concerning this point.

An offering is always made to God the Almighty through Jesus Christ, inasmuch as His divinity is offered to the Father.

Let the offering not be made twice over, but to God through God.

It may seem bold of me to say it, yet let us pray that we hold fast to these agreements.

If this is not done, you shall not show partiality to any man, nor stand in awe of the person of one in power. He who is a bishop... thus indeed he stands over all; but if this is not done, let not these agreements furnish occasions for disputes. Truly, a bishop or presbyter who acts otherwise is no bishop, is no presbyter.

If he is a deacon, he is no deacon, nor even a layman;

and if he is a layman, he is no layman, nor is he gathered together with the assembly.

If it seems good, then let these agreements be established.

Some add this further point: that in thus offering His divinity essentially to Jesus Christ, I have confessed the divinity, and the resurrection of the dead body, before the church.

Since then our Savior and Lord took up a body, let us examine what that body was.

The church alone, over against all the heresies that deny the resurrection, confesses the resurrection of the dead body—since it follows that, the firstfruits having been raised from the dead, the dead too are raised.

For this reason His body became truly dead.

For if His body had not become truly dead—able to be wrapped in a linen cloth, to receive myrrh, and all else that is done to the dead, and to be laid in a tomb—but a spiritual body cannot undergo these things;

for that which is spiritual cannot in any way be put to death, nor can the spiritual become devoid of sensation.

For if the spiritual could be put to death, there would be cause to fear lest, after the resurrection of the dead—when our body is raised, according to the apostle who says, 'It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body'—we should all die.

If these things meet with approval, let them also, with the people as witnesses, be enacted as law and firmly established.

What else concerning the faith? Does this seem good to you, Maximus, to say? Maximus said:

Would that all might become like me.

Before God and the church, I both subscribe and pronounce the anathema;

yet, however, so that I may not be left in any doubt at all nor be double-minded, I ask about a certain matter.

For the brethren indeed know this, that I was saying:

I have something to gain from the brother, and to be taught this. Seeing that the spirit was committed to the Father, according to the word, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,' and the spirit being separated from the flesh which died and lay in the tomb—how is the tomb opened, and how do the dead rise? Origen said:

We have learned from the sacred Scriptures that man is a composite being.

Now, 'May God sanctify your spirit and soul and body,' and again, 'May He sanctify you wholly, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ'—this spirit is not the Holy Spirit, but a part of man's constitution, as the same apostle teaches when he says:

'The Spirit bears witness with our spirit.' For if it were the Holy Spirit, he would not have said:

'The Spirit bears witness with our spirit.' Our Savior and Lord, then, willing to save man even as He willed to save him, for this reason willed thus to save the body, just as He likewise willed to save the soul; and He willed also to save what remained of man, namely the spirit.

For the whole man would not have been saved, had He not taken up the whole man.

They set aside the salvation of the human body when they say that the body of the Savior was spiritual;

they set aside the salvation of the human spirit, concerning which the apostle says:

'No man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him.' Willing to save the spirit of man, concerning which the apostle spoke thus, He took up also the spirit of man.

These three were divided at the time of the passion; these three were united at the time of the resurrection.

At the time of the passion they were divided.

How? The body was in the tomb, the soul was in Hades, the spirit He committed to the Father.

'You will not abandon my soul to Hades.' If He committed the spirit to the Father, He gave the spirit as a deposit.

It is one thing to bestow as a gift, another to hand over, and yet another to entrust as a deposit.

He who entrusts a deposit entrusts it in order that he may receive the deposit back again.

To whom, then, was the spirit to entrust the deposit—the Father? This is beyond me, beyond my capacity and beyond my understanding—for I am not great enough to say that, just as the body could not descend into Hades (even though those who say the body of Jesus was spiritual assert this), so neither could the spirit descend into Hades; and therefore He gave it as a deposit, until the spirit should be raised from the dead, to the Father.

Having entrusted this deposit to the Father, He receives it back.

When? Not at the very moment of the resurrection, but immediately after the resurrection.

Bring me as my witness the Scripture of the Gospel.

The Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead;

Mary met Him, and He said to her:

'Do not touch me.' For He wished that the one who touched Him should touch Him in His entirety, so that, having so touched Him completely, she might be benefited from the body in her body, from the soul in her soul, and in the spirit from His spirit;

'for I have not yet ascended to the Father.'

He ascends to the Father and comes to the disciples.

Therefore He ascends to the Father.

For what reason? To receive back the deposit.

The matters concerning the faith, in so far as they pressed upon us, have been examined together;

but we must know that we are judged at the divine tribunal not concerning faith alone, as though our life were not also examined, nor concerning life alone, as though our faith were not also searched out.

If we do well in both respects we are justified; but if we fail in both respects we are punished on both counts.

...having done well [in faith but failed in life]; while others, on the contrary, will not be punished on account of their faith, but will be punished on account of their manner of life, as having lived contrary to right reason.

I think that in the Proverbs of Solomon these two general matters—I mean the question of how we believe and know, and the question of how we live—are stated by Solomon in this way:

"Who can boast of having a pure heart? Or who can stand and say he is clean from sins?" For we understand the distinction between these thus: the heart refers to the mind's disposition, while the sins refer to deeds.

Who can boast of having a pure heart, undefiled by knowledge falsely so called, undefiled by falsehood? Or who can stand and say he is clean from sins in his conduct, having sinned in nothing in practice? If then we wish to be saved, let us not, while attending to faith, neglect the practice of life; nor again let us be overconfident in our life.

Let us through both—knowing, comprehending, and believing—possess either freedom from blame and even blessedness, or else the opposite of these.

Among those who are punished, then, there are not only the dreadful and fearful sins—which ought not even to be named in either respect—but also those reckoned to be lesser.

For this reason it seems that the apostle listed alongside the (if one may so call them) the unlawful, the abominable, and the defiled, those sins that are despised by most people.

For what does he say? "Do not be deceived:"

"neither the immoral, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with men, nor thieves, nor drunkards, nor revilers shall inherit the kingdom of God." Do you see? Alongside such great evils—the man who lies with men, the effeminate, the adulterer, the fornicator—he numbered the drunkard and the reviler, sins that all of us despise, so that we may be taught that we are cast out of the kingdom of God not only for those great sins, but also for these that are reckoned lesser.

Therefore let us neither revile, nor get drunk, nor seize what is not ours, nor steal, nor do unlawful things, even though we may go astray.

If anything is lacking concerning the rule of faith, remind me.

For the rest we will now turn to the Scripture. Dionysius said:

Is the soul the blood? Origen said:

It has come to my ears, and I speak as one fully assured, that some people here and in the neighbouring districts suppose that after the departure from this life the soul perceives nothing, but is in the tomb, in the body.

And I know that on this matter I once dealt rather harshly with the other Heraclides and with Celer before him—so harshly indeed that I left and wished to go away.

And yet, for the sake of honour and of the discussion, he sent for us.

We condescended to enter the discussion; he gave his assent, inasmuch as that man cleared himself before us with words of faith, † that it was as before God.

Of necessity, then, the beloved Dionysius also raises this question.

The texts by which they are perplexed—lest any of them escape me—I will first set forth, and to each one, God granting it according to your prayer, we will give an answer.

The thing that perplexes is this: "The soul of all flesh is its blood."

And this saying has greatly troubled those who have not understood it.

And: "You shall not eat the soul together with the flesh;"

Take strict heed not to eat the blood.

You shall not eat the soul together with the flesh.

This is the thing that perplexes.

For the other texts that perplex are far less significant than the impression conveyed by the sense of these.

But as for me, for my own part, praying to be helped in reading the divine Scriptures—for we need help, lest we should think anything contrary to the truth—

I found that things which are not bodily are named with the same names as all bodily things, so that the bodily things belong to the outer man, while the things named the same as bodily things belong to the inner man.

Scripture says that the man is two men.

"For though our outer man is being destroyed, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day."

And: "I delight in the law of God according to the inner man." These two men the apostle everywhere sets forth in each particular passage.

It seems to me that he did not venture to innovate this teaching of his own accord, but having understood more plainly what the Scriptures had stated rather obscurely, he expressed it more openly.

In the account of the creation of the world, after the creation [of man], there is a recapitulation, namely: "God took dust from the earth and formed the man."

It follows from these views that the body is what is "according to the image," and that one must grant that God is in human form, or that the form of God is according to this shape.

But we are not so mad as to say either that God is composite, made up of an inferior and a superior part, so that the "according to the image" applies to both, or that—God being whole and entire †—the "according to the image" came to be rather in the inferior part and not in the superior.

These matters are rather subtle.

We need hearers who possess a keen understanding.

I therefore beg the hearers to give heed to themselves, lest they become to me a cause of the charge that I am throwing holy things to dogs, to shameless souls.

For those who are given to barking, the dog-like, those bent on fornications and on revilings, do nothing else but yelp; and I must not throw holy things to such people.

And in the same way I also beg the hearers not to become to me a cause of the charge of casting such great pearls—which we strive to gather like good merchants—before those who wallow in the uncleannesses of their bodies and on this account rank as swine.

For I would say that the man who is always wallowing in bodily things and rolling about in the mire of this life, and who does not hasten toward the pure and holy life—such a man is altogether a swine.

If then, the kingdom of heaven being likened to a merchant seeking goodly pearls, I find the goodly pearls, and having bought them with toils and sleepless nights I cast them before pleasure-loving souls and before those wallowing in bodily mire and in uncleannesses, I too shall be a transgressor, because I have thrown the pearls before swine.

And the swine, receiving the pearls, inasmuch as they neither see their beauty nor perceive their excellence, trample them underfoot by speaking evil of what is rightly spoken; and not only do they trample the pearls underfoot, but turning they also tear to pieces the ministers of the pearls.

I beseech you, therefore, be transformed!

Are you willing to learn that it is within you to be transformed, and to put off the form of the swine, which belongs to the unclean soul, and the form of the dog, which belongs to the barking, yelping, slandering man?

And it is possible to be transformed away from serpents;

for the wicked man is called a serpent and a brood of vipers.

If then we wish to hear that it is within us to be transformed away from serpents, away from swine, away from dogs, let us learn from the apostle the transformation that is in our power.

"And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image." If you were a barker, and the word molded you and remade you, then you have been transformed from a dog into a man.

If you were unclean, and the Word reached down into your soul, and you yielded yourself to be molded by the Word, then you have been transformed from a swine into a human being.

If you were beastlike, and on hearing the Word that tames, that domesticates, that transforms you into a human being according to the will of the Word, you will no longer be called a serpent or a brood of vipers.

For if it were impossible for these serpents—those who are serpents in soul by reason of wickedness—to be changed, the Savior (or John) would not have said:

"Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance." Once you have repented, you are no longer a serpent, a brood of vipers.

Since, then, we have set ourselves to speak about man, and to inquire concerning the soul of man whether it is not blood, and since the discussion has required us first to take up the matter of the two men in each person, and we have come to a mystical teaching, we beg you not to have me charged on your account with casting the pearls to swine, with throwing what is holy to dogs, with flinging divine things to serpents, or with handing over the tree of life to the serpent.

That I may not be so charged, be transformed: put away wickedness, strife, anger, quarrels, wrath, sorrows, dissension, so that there may no longer be divisions among you, but that you may be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

I am in anguish whether to speak, and in anguish whether not to speak.

If I speak, I fear lest I be charged with depriving of the Word those who are able to hear it;

but for the sake of the unworthy I shrink from speaking, on account of what has been said before, lest I should ever throw what is holy to dogs and cast the pearls before swine.

It was the work of Jesus alone to know how to distinguish among His hearers those outside from those within, so that to those outside He might speak in parables, but to those who had entered into His house He might explain the parables.

The being outside and the entering into the house are something mystical.

"For what have I to do with judging those outside?" Everyone who sins is outside;

for this reason let things be spoken in parables to those outside, in the hope that, leaving what is outside behind, they may somehow be able to become those within.

The entering into the house is something mystical;

he who is His genuine disciple enters into the house of Jesus—he enters by minding the things of the Church, by living in a manner befitting the Church.

The within and the without are something spiritual.

Do you see how much I am saying by way of preface, preparing my hearers?

I shrink from speaking, for as I am about to speak I keep putting it off in the very speaking.

What is it I wish to do? To take up a word that heals the souls of those who hear.

The man, then, when he was created, was first created as the one after the image, for whom no matter is to be found;

for the one after the image is not of any matter at all.

"Let us make man after our image and after our likeness;"

"and let them have dominion," and so on.

"And God made man"—not taking dust from the ground as in the second account, but "after the image of God He made him."

And that the one after the image of God is immaterial, higher than every bodily existence, is known not to Moses alone, but also to the Apostle, as his words make clear when he says:

"Having put off the old man with his deeds, and having put on the new, which is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of Him who created him." There are therefore two men in each one of us.

How is it said, "The soul of all flesh is its blood"? The problem is a great one.

As, then, the outer man bears the same names as the inner, so also do his members; so that one may say that every member of the outer man is named also with reference to the inner man.

The outer man has eyes, and the inner man is said to have eyes too;

"Lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death." He is not speaking of these bodily eyes, nor of sensible sleep, nor of common death.

"The commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes;"

it is not by keeping the commandments of the Lord that we become keener-sighted in respect of the body, but by keeping the divine commandments we become keener-sighted in respect of the mind.

The eyes of the inner man see through things better than we do;

"Open my eyes, that I may behold the wondrous things of your law"—not as though his eyes were covered, but our eyes are the mind.

It belongs to Jesus alone to uncover them, that we may be able to behold the things that are written and to understand the things spoken in a hidden way.

The outer man has ears, and the inner man is said to have ears.

"He who has ears to hear, let him hear." All had the ears of sense, but not all had succeeded in keeping the inner hearing cleansed.

These ears are not within our power, but those are within our power;

and since it is within our power to have those ears, for this reason the prophet says:

"You deaf, hear; and you blind, look up that you may see;"

"and who is deaf but my servants, and who is blind but those who rule over them? And the servants of God were blinded." Because it is within our power to become deaf.

What is being said is going to touch us all;

(for the inner man must be delineated, so that the blood may be found,) because it is within our power to become deaf with regard to that hearing—listen to the prophet as he says:

"The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies."

If you stop up your ears, neither opening nor spreading them wide to receive what is spoken, there will come upon you this: "Their wrath is according to the likeness of the serpent, like the deaf adder that stops up its ears, which will not hear the voice of charmers, of the cunning enchanter who casts spells."

The outer man smells with the nostrils, perceiving sweet odors and foul ones;

and the inner man, by other nostrils, perceives the sweet fragrance of righteousness and the foul stench of sins—the fragrance, as the Apostle teaches when he says:

"We are the fragrance of Christ unto God in every place, among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing: to the one a savor from death unto death, but to the other a savor from life unto life." Solomon too says, in the Song of Songs, speaking in the person of the young women, the daughters of Jerusalem:

"We will run after you, toward the fragrance of your ointments." Just as, then, with the nostrils we perceive sensible fragrance and sensible stench, so too, according to the inner man, there is, by means of the divine sense-organs that are sound, a perception of the fragrance of righteousness which the Apostle had, and of the stench of sins.

What stench of sins? That of which the prophet thus speaks:

"My wounds grow foul and fester because of my folly." The outer man has the faculty of taste, and the inner man also has a spiritual faculty of taste, concerning which it is said:

"Taste and see that the Lord is good." The outer man has the sense of touch that is perceptible, and the inner man also has a touch—that very touch by which the woman with the flow of blood touched the fringe of Jesus' garment.

"Who touched me?" Indeed, just a moment before, Peter had said to him:

"The crowds press in upon you, and yet you say, 'Who touched me?'" Peter supposed that those who touched him were touching him bodily, not spiritually.

But those who were pressing against Jesus were not really touching him,

for they were not touching him with faith.

But she alone, possessing a certain divine touch, touched Jesus, and on this account she was healed.

And because she touched him with his divine touch, for this reason power went out from Jesus upon her divine touch.

"Who touched me? For I perceived that power had gone forth from me."

Concerning this more divine touch, John says:

"And our hands have handled, concerning the word of life." Thus we possess other hands, concerning which it is said:

"The lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice." For if I lift up these bodily hands, but the hands of my soul lie low and I do not lift them up through holy and good deeds, then the lifting up of my hands does not become an evening sacrifice; but when I do lift up the hands of the soul through holy and good works, then the lifting up of my hands becomes an evening sacrifice.

I have other feet as well, concerning which Solomon promised me, saying:

"Let your foot not stumble." Something <strange> is said in Ecclesiastes:

for to the one who does not understand it will seem senseless, but to the wise it is spoken by the Preacher:

"The wise man—his eyes are in his head." In what head? For every man's perceptible eyes, even the foolish and senseless man's, are in his perceptible head; but the eyes of the wise man—those eyes spoken of before, enlightened by the commandment of the Lord—are in his head, which is in Christ, since "Christ is the head of the man," as the Apostle says.

The faculty of understanding is in Christ.

"My bowels, my bowels! I am in anguish," said Jeremiah.

What bowels does he feel anguish in? The same in which we too feel anguish—in which, since he was in travail over the people, he says, "I am anguished in my bowels and in my senses"; not in these bodily ones, but in those of my heart.

And if I go on even to the smaller parts of the body, I see them as fleshless, belonging to the soul.

"O Lord, rebuke me not in your anger, nor chasten me in your wrath."

"Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;"

"heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled." What bones of the prophet were troubled? The harmony of his soul and the firmness of his mind were thrown into turmoil, and he prays for the restoration of those bones.

Of wickedness—you will say concerning such a person that "his bones were scattered."

"All my bones shall say:"

"O Lord, who is like you?" These bones speak, converse, declare, and perceive God; whereas those insensible bones are like the ones that physicians' assistants present, sawing through bones of one who feels nothing under the sawing.

"Therefore all my bones shall say:"

"O Lord, who is like you?" The inner man has all his bones.

The inner man has a heart:

"Listen to me, you who have lost your heart." Those people had this heart of the body;

for that bodily heart is not lost.

But whenever someone neglects the cultivation of his intellectual habit, and through much idleness casts away his power of understanding, he has lost his heart, and to such a one it is said:

"Listen to me, you who have lost your heart." "But even the hairs of your head are all numbered." What hairs? Those by which they were spiritually Nazirites.

Since you have all these things belonging to the perceptible body in relation to the inner man, no longer doubt concerning the blood as well, that—bearing the same name as the perceptible blood, just like the other members of the body—it exists in the inner man.

That blood—the blood of a sinful soul—is poured out;

for indeed, "The blood of your souls shall be required."

He did not say, "Your blood," but "The blood of your souls."

And, "The blood I will require from the hand of the watchman."

What blood does God require from the hand of the watchman, other than that blood of the sinner which is poured out? In this way the heart of the fool is lost, and it is said, "Listen to me, you who have lost your heart," inasmuch as the blood and the life-giving power of the soul is poured out.

If the soul has been rightly understood—understood according to the inner man, and understood that in it lies the "according to the image"—then it is clear that Paul speaks well when he says:

"For it is far better to depart and be with Christ." Before the resurrection the righteous person is with Christ, and in the soul itself he lives with Christ.

For this reason, "It is far better to depart and be with Christ."

But according to you who say that the soul lies in the tomb together with the body, that it has not gone out from the body, that it does not rest, that it has not come to be in the paradise of God, that it does not rest in the bosom of Abraham—

according to you who say such things, it is not "far better to depart and be with Christ";

for one is not with Christ at the moment of departing, if the soul is blood.

If the soul lies in the tombs, how can it be with Christ? But according to me and to the word of God: the soul that has departed from its toils, that has departed from its sweat, that has been released from the body, that is able to say, "Now you release your servant, Master, in peace," goes forth in peace and rests with Christ.

Thus the soul of Abraham heard:

"But you shall go to your fathers in peace, nourished in a good old age." He departs to the fathers.

What fathers? Those concerning whom Paul speaks:

"For this reason I bow my knees to the Father, from whom every fatherhood is named." In this way, according to us, Aaron also was released:

For indeed it is written in Ecclesiastes concerning the righteous man who has striven nobly, who has departed from the bond of the body: 'Out of the house of prisoners he shall come forth to reign.'

Thus am I persuaded to die for the truth; thus do I despise the death so called; thus—bring on the wild beasts, bring on the crosses, bring on the fire, bring on the tortures!

I know that as soon as I am set free I go out of the body, and I rest with Christ.

For this reason let us strive, for this reason let us wrestle and groan while we are in the body—not as those who shall yet again be in the tombs in the body, but as those who shall be set loose, and who shall change the body into one more spiritual;

we who shall be released and be with Christ—how then do we groan, we who are in the body? When Philip the bishop had come in, Demetrius, another bishop, said:

Our brother Origen teaches that the soul is immortal. Origen said:

The remark of Pope Demetrius has given us the starting point for another question.

He said that we had asserted the soul to be immortal.

To this assertion I will reply that the soul is both immortal and not immortal.

I shall try to set forth all that this means—not in the manner of the Greeks, but all that it means according to the divine Scripture.

Perhaps someone wiser than I will set forth still other meanings as well;

I, however, for the present know of three deaths.

Which are these three deaths? A man lives to God and has died to sin, according to the apostle.

This death is a blessed one.

A man dies to sin;

this is the death which my Lord died.

For in that he died, he died to sin. I know also another death, by which a man dies to God, concerning which it is said:

'The soul that sins, it shall die.' I know also a third death, by which we commonly reckon those who have departed from the body to have died;

for Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.

Since, then, there are three deaths, let us consider whether the human soul is immortal with respect to all three deaths, or not with respect to all three, but immortal with respect to certain of them.

According to the middle death we all men die;

this is the one we reckon to be the dissolution.

<This> death no human soul dies;

for if it did die, it would not be punished after death.

'Men shall seek death,' it says, 'and shall not find it.' For the souls that are punished shall seek death; they will rather wish not to exist at all than to exist and be punished;

for this reason men shall seek death and shall by no means find it.

According to this sense every human soul is immortal.

But according to the remaining senses: according to the one, the soul is mortal—and blessed if it dies to sin.

Concerning this death Balaam, prophesying as he prayed in the divine Spirit, said:

'Let my soul die among the souls of the righteous.' Concerning this death Balaam prophesied in a marvelous way, and in a word from God he prayed for himself the most excellent things;

for he prayed to die to sin, that he might live to God:

'Let my soul die among the souls of the righteous, and let my seed be as the seed of these.' But there is yet another death, with respect to which we are not indeed immortal, yet are able, by keeping watch, not to die.

And perhaps that which is mortal in the soul is not always mortal;

for in so far as it is open to committing such a sin that 'the soul that sins, it shall die,' the soul is mortal with the real death;

but if it comes to be confirmed in blessedness, so as to be no longer susceptible to death, then the soul which has eternal life is no longer mortal, but has become, in this sense too, immortal.

How is it said by the apostle, 'He who alone has immortality,' with reference to God? I seek, that I may find, that Christ Jesus died for all apart from God.

You have here how God alone has immortality.

Let us therefore take up eternal life;

let us take it up out of that which lies within our own power.

God does not give it to us outright, but sets it before us;

'Behold, I have set life before your face.' It lies within our power to stretch out the hand, to do good deeds, to take hold of life, and to lay it up in the soul.

This life is Christ, who said:

'I am the life.' This is the life which now is present to the righteous in a shadow, but then face to face;

for a Spirit before our face is Christ [the Lord], of whom let us say:

'In his shadow we shall live among the nations.'

If your shadow of life affords so many good things—such as Moses had when he prophesied, such as Isaiah had when he beheld the Lord of Sabaoth seated upon a throne high and lifted up, such as Jeremiah had when he heard, 'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you,' such as Ezekiel had when he saw the Cherubim, when he saw the wheels and the unspeakable mysteries—how shall we live when we no longer live under the shadow of life, but come to be in that very Life itself?

For now our life is hidden with Christ;

but when Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall we also be manifested with him in glory.

...in the tabernacle, in that we are at home in the body;

for so long as we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord.

Let us long to depart from the body and to dwell with the Lord, so that, dwelling with him, we may become one in relation to the God of all things; and let us behold his only-begotten Son, being saved in all things and made blessed, in Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the dominion unto the ages of the ages.