書信集 第 1 章 第 11/11 段

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church."

"For this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."

"This mystery is great."

"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us."

"Or are you ignorant that as many of you as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?"

"As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ."

"Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil its lusts."

"My beloved is mine, and I am his;"

"in his shadow I desired to sit, and I sat down, and his fruit was sweet in my throat."

Moreover, besides these things, we have also received that beloved appellation which we bear, from the name of Christ.

For we are named Christians.

Foretelling this name, the God of all things said:

"But to those who serve me shall be given a new name, which shall be blessed upon the earth."

For this reason, then, the Church clings especially to this appellation.

For when the only-begotten Son of God became man, then he was named Christ; then human nature received the rays of the intelligible light; then the heralds of the truth illumined the (Roman) world.

The teachers of the Church, however, have always used the appellations of the Only-begotten indifferently, without distinction.

For sometimes they glorify the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit;

and sometimes the Father together with the Christ and the Holy Spirit.

But nevertheless this has, in meaning, no difference from that.

"Believe," he said, "and let each of you be baptized in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;"

as though this very appellation contained the whole power of the divine proclamation.

And this the great Basil taught us clearly, the luminary of the Cappadocians, or rather of the whole (Roman) world:

"For the appellation of Christ is the confession of the whole (faith)."

And the thrice-blessed Fathers, too, who assembled at Nicaea, having said that one must believe in one God the Father, went on to add:

"And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God;"

teaching that the Lord Jesus Christ is himself the only-begotten Son of God.

But it is necessary to add this also to what has been said, that one ought not to say:

For indeed, after the Ascension, the divine Gospels were composed, and the history of the Acts, and the Epistles of the Apostle.

After the Ascension the divine Paul cries out:

"Having then a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus Christ our Lord, let us hold fast our confession."

"For Christ entered not into holy places made with hands, figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God on our behalf;"

And again, having said certain things concerning the hope in God, he added:

"Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and entering into that within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek."

And writing also to the blessed Titus concerning the second appearing, he spoke thus:

"Awaiting the blessed hope, and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ;"

And to the Thessalonians also he wrote similar things:

"...of the heavens, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath that is coming."

"And may the Lord make you to increase and abound in love toward one another, and toward all, even as we also do toward you, so as to establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints."

And writing again to the same people, he set down these things also:

"Now we beseech you, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to him,"

And a little later, foretelling the destruction of the Antichrist, he added:

"...whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of his mouth, and shall abolish by the manifestation of his coming."

And having exhorted the Romans to concord, he added these things also:

"But why do you judge your brother? Or you also, why do you despise your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ."

"As I live, says the Lord, to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God."

And the Lord himself also, foretelling his second coming, said, among many other things, these as well:

"Lo, here is the Christ, lo, there; do not believe it."

"For as the lightning comes forth from the east and shines even to the west, so shall the coming of the Son of Man be."

And even after the immortality and incorruption of the body, he called himself Son of Man, naming himself from the visible nature.

For this very nature will also appear at that time.

For the divine nature is invisible even to the angels.

"For no one has ever seen God," according to the very word of the Lord himself.

And to the great Moses he said:

"No one shall see my face, and live."

"We know no one according to the flesh; and even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him thus no more;"

the divine Apostle said this not for the abolition of the nature that was assumed, but for the confirmation of the incorruption and immortality and spiritual life that shall be ours.

"So that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."

But he spoke of the things that shall be as though they had already come to pass.

For we have not yet obtained immortality, but we shall obtain it; and having obtained it, we shall not become bodiless, but shall put on immortality.

"For we do not wish," says the divine Apostle, "to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."

Thus, then, he did not say that the Lord is bodiless, but taught us to believe that the visible nature also is incorruptible, and immortal, and has been glorified with divine glory.

For this he taught us more clearly in the (Epistle) to the Philippians.

"For our commonwealth," he said, "exists in the heavens;"

"from whence also we await as Saviour the Lord Jesus, who shall transform the body of our humiliation, that it may become conformed to the body of his glory."

Let us not, then, flee from the appellation through which we have enjoyed salvation, through which all things have been renewed, as the Teacher himself said, writing to the Ephesians:

according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in himself, for the dispensation of the fullness of the times: to sum up all things in Christ, both the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, in him

Let us learn also from this blessed tongue how we ought to glorify the Benefactor, joining the appellation of Christ to God and the Father.

For writing to the Romans he speaks thus:

...of Christ, to whom be the glory forever.

And writing to the Ephesians he sang thus:

Now to him who is able to do superabundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be the glory in the Church, in Christ Jesus, unto all the generations of the age of ages.

And a little before this he said as follows:

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.

We give thanks, he says, always for you all, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father.

And indeed he also repaid the generosity of the Philippians with blessings:

And my God shall fulfil every need of yours, according to his riches, in glory, in Christ Jesus.

And to the Hebrews he prayed thus:

Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus, equip you in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever.

And not only in glorifying, but also in charging, and in solemnly adjuring, he conjoins Christ with God and the Father.

And writing to the blessed Timothy he cries out:

I charge you before God, who gives life to all things, and Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, to keep the commandment without spot, without reproach, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his own time he will show, he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of those who reign as kings, and Lord of those who rule as lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light;

whom no man has seen, nor is able to see;

to whom be honor and everlasting dominion.

These things we were taught by the divine Apostles; and this same teaching also John and Matthew, the mightiest rivers of the evangelic proclamations, brought to us:

And he who disclosed the things that are before the ages:

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

He was in the beginning with God;

and that all things were made through him.