論三位一體 第 1 章

I. 1. The rule of truth requires that, first of all, we believe in God the Father and Lord almighty—that is, the most perfect Maker of all things—who suspended the heaven in lofty height, made firm the earth with its mass set below, spread out the seas with their fluid loosed, and arranged all these things, both adorned and filled, with their own fitting instruments. 2. For both in the firmament of heaven He stirred up the light-bearing risings of the sun, and filled the gleaming orb of the moon, with its monthly increases, as a solace for the night; the rays of the stars, too, He kindled with the varied splendors of glittering light, and He willed that all these should go around the whole circuit of the world by their lawful courses, to make for the human race days, months, years, signs, seasons, and useful things. 3.

Upon the lands also He raised the loftiest mountains to their peaks, cast down the valleys into the depths, spread out the plains evenly, and usefully established herds of animals for the various services of men. 4. The strong timbers of the forests, too, He made firm to be of profit for human uses, drew forth crops for food, unsealed the mouths of springs, and poured them into rivers that would flow down. 5. After which, lest He should not have provided also for the very delights of the eyes, He clothed all things with the varied colors of flowers for the pleasure of those who behold them. 6. In the very sea also, though it was wonderful both in magnitude and usefulness, He fashioned manifold animals, now of moderate, now of vast body, bearing witness to the genius of the Artificer by the variety of His creation. 7.

Not content with these, lest perhaps the roaring and course of the waters should, to the loss of the human possessor, occupy an alien element, He enclosed it within the boundaries of the shores, so that when the roaring billow and the wave foaming from its deep bosom had come, it should return again into itself and not exceed the boundaries granted, keeping the laws prescribed—so that man might guard the divine laws all the more, in proportion as even the elements had kept them. 8. After which He set man also over the world, made indeed in the image of God, into whom He put mind and reason and prudence, so that he might be able to imitate God—whose bodily beginnings, though earthly, yet his substance was inspired by a heavenly and divine breath. 9. And when He had given all these things into servitude to him, He willed that he alone should be free.

And lest the freedom, once loosed, should fall again into peril, He set a commandment, by which it was not declared that there was evil in the fruit of the tree, but rather that there would be evil, if perchance, by the will of man, through contempt of the law given, he should be forewarned. 10. For he had to be free, lest the image of God should incongruously be a slave, and a law had to be added, lest unbridled liberty should break forth even unto contempt of the Giver, so that he might consequently receive both fitting rewards and the deserts of punishments, now having that as his own which by a movement of the mind he had willed to set in motion toward one part or the other. 11. From which the envy of mortality returns indeed upon himself, who, when he could have escaped it by obedience, ran into the same, while by perverse counsel he hastens to be God. 12.

Yet He nonetheless indulgently tempered his punishment, since not so much he himself as his labors are cursed upon the earth. For even that which is required does not come from ignorance, but shows the hope of man's future, both of his finding and of his salvation, in Christ; and that he is kept back from touching the wood of the tree of life does not descend from the malignant spite of envy, but lest, living forever—unless Christ had first granted pardon of sins—he should carry about with him forever, to his own punishment, an immortal transgression. 13.

Although also in the higher regions—that is, in the parts above the very firmament itself, which are not today contemplable by our eyes—He first established the angels, arranged the spiritual powers, set thrones and powers in command, and founded many other immense spaces of the heavens and infinite works of mysteries, so that this world, though immense, might appear to be rather almost the very last work of God among corporeal things than the only one. 14. For neither are those things which lie beneath the earth empty of arranged and ordered powers—

for there is a place to which the souls of the pious and of the impious are led, perceiving the foretastes of the future judgment—so that we might see the overflowing greatnesses of His works in all their parts, not enclosed within this world's recesses, however most capacious, as we have said, but might also be able to consider both the depths and the heights beneath this world itself; and thus, having contemplated the greatness of the works of so great a mass, we might worthily admire the Artificer. II. 1.

Above all these, He Himself, containing all things, leaving nothing empty outside Himself, has left no place for a superior god—as some suppose—since He Himself has enclosed the universe in the bosom of His perfect greatness and power, ever intent upon His own work, and passing through all things, and moving all, and giving life to the universe, and beholding the whole, and so connecting together the discordant materials into the concord of all the elements, that out of unequal elements there might be one world, made solid by this fitted-together harmony, so that it cannot be dissolved by any force, except when He alone who made it shall command it to be dissolved, for the bestowing of other greater things upon us. 2.

For we read that He contains all things, and therefore that nothing could have been outside Him, seeing that He has no origin at all, and consequently feels no end—unless perhaps, which be far from it, He had at some time begun to be, and were not above all things, but, having begun to be after something, were beneath that which had been before Him, found lesser in power, while He is denoted as later even in time itself. 3. For this cause, therefore, He is ever immeasurable, because nothing is greater than He; ever eternal, because nothing is more ancient than He. For that which is without origin can be preceded by nothing, since it has no time. Therefore He is immortal, not failing in the end of a consummation.

And since whatever is without origin is without law, He excludes the measure of time, since He feels Himself a debtor to no one. 4. Concerning Him, therefore, and concerning those things which are His and are in Him, neither can the mind of man worthily conceive what they are, how great they are, and of what kind they are, nor can the eloquence of human speech bring forth a power of speech equal to His majesty. 5. For to conceive and to utter His majesty, all eloquence is deservedly mute, and every mind is too small. For He is greater than the mind itself, nor could it be conceived how great He is; lest, if He could be conceived, He should be lesser than the human mind by which He might be grasped.

He is greater also than all speech, and cannot be uttered; indeed, were He able to be uttered, He would be inferior to human speech, by which, when He is uttered, He could be both encompassed and comprehended. 6. For whatever has been thought concerning Him will be less than Himself; and whatever has been expressed will, when compared with Him, fall short of Him. For we can in some measure perceive Him in silence; but to set forth in speech what He is in Himself we cannot. 7. For whether you call Him light, you have named His creature rather than Himself, and have not expressed Himself; or whether you call Him power, you have named and brought forth His might rather than Himself; or whether you say majesty, you have described His honour rather than Himself. 8. And why do I make a long discourse, running through each thing one by one?

Let me set forth the whole at once. Whatever you say of Him at all, you will be setting forth some thing belonging to Him and some power of His rather than Himself. 9. For what worthy thing can you either say or think of Him who is greater than all words and all senses, save only this very thing, in the one way by which we can, by which we grasp it, by which it is permitted to understand what God is—that we shall apprehend Him with the mind if we have considered Him to be that whose quality and quantity cannot be understood, nor can come even into thought itself? 10.

For if at the sight of the sun the keenness of our eyes grows dim, so that our gaze, overcome by the brightness of the rays meeting it, cannot look upon the very orb, this same thing the keenness of the mind suffers in every thought concerning God; and the more it strains itself to consider God, the more it is blinded by the very light of its own thinking. 11.

For what, to say it again, can you worthily say of Him who is loftier than all loftiness, higher than all height, deeper than every depth, brighter than every light, clearer than all clearness, more splendid than all splendour, stronger than all strength, mightier than all might, more beautiful than all beauty, truer than all truth, more steadfast than all fortitude, greater than all majesty, more powerful than all power, richer than all riches, more prudent than all prudence, kinder than all kindness, better than all goodness, more just than all justice, more merciful than all mercy? 12.

For all kinds of excellences must of necessity be less than He who is both the God and the parent of all excellences, so that it can truly be said that this is God which is of such a kind that nothing can be compared to it. For He is above all that can be said: He is a certain Mind, begetting and filling all things, which, without any beginning or end of time, governs by supreme and perfect reason the causes of things naturally bound together for the benefit of all. III. 1. This One, therefore, we acknowledge and know to be God, the founder of all things, Lord by reason of His power, parent by reason of His establishing; this One, I say, who spoke, and all things were made, who commanded, and all things came forth, of whom it is written: "Thou hast made all things in wisdom"; of whom Moses says:

"God in heaven above and in earth beneath"; who, according to Isaiah, has measured the heaven with His span, the earth with His fist, who looks upon the earth and makes it tremble, who holds the circle of the earth and those who dwell in it as locusts, who weighs the mountains in a balance and the woods in a scale—that is, by the sure assize of the divine ordering; and lest the magnitude lying unevenly should easily fall into ruin, had it not been poised with equal weights, He balanced this burden of the earthen mass with measured control. 2. Who says through the prophet:

"I am God, and there is none beside me"; who through the same prophet declares that "my majesty I will not give to another," so as to exclude all the heathen with their figments and the heretics, proving that He is not God who has been made by the hand of a craftsman, nor He who has been fashioned by the ingenuity of a heretic. For He is not God who needs a craftsman in order that He may exist. 3. And He further added through the prophet: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool of my feet: what house will you build for me, or what is the place of my rest?"—to show that much more does no temple contain Him whom the world does not contain. And these things He declares not for the boasting of Himself, but for our knowledge.

For He Himself does not desire from us the glory of His greatness, but as a Father wills to confer upon us a devout wisdom. 4. And moreover, willing to draw our wild spirits—swollen and rough with savage fierceness—to gentleness, He says: "And upon whom shall my Spirit rest, save upon him who is humble and quiet and trembles at my words?"—that one may to some extent recognise how great God is, while he learns to fear Him through the Spirit bestowed. 5. Who likewise, willing still more to come into our knowledge, rousing our spirits to His worship, said:

"I am the Lord who made the light and created the darkness," so that we should not suppose some Nature, I know not what, to be the maker of those alternations by which night and day are governed, but should rather acknowledge God as their founder—which was truer. 6. Whom, since we cannot see with the gaze of the eyes, we learn to know from the greatness and power and majesty of His works. "For His invisible things," says the apostle Paul, "from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, His everlasting power also and Godhead"—so that the human mind, learning hidden things from manifest ones, might from the greatness of the works which it saw conceive with the eyes of the mind the greatness of the Craftsman. 7. Concerning whom the same apostle says:

"Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory." For He has escaped the contemplation of the eyes who has overcome the greatness of thought. "Because," he says, "of Him and through Him and in Him are all things." For all things are by His command, that they may be of Him, and ordered by His Word, that they may be through Him; and all things fall back into His judgment, so that while they await liberty in Him, corruption being laid aside, they may be seen to be recalled into Him. IV. 1. Whom alone the Lord deservedly pronounces good, of whose goodness the whole world is witness, which He would not have established had He not been good.

For if all things are very good, consequently and deservedly both the things that have been established, being good, have proved their Establisher good, and the things that are from a good Establisher cannot be other than good; whence all evil departs from God. 2. For it cannot come to pass that He should be the initiator or craftsman of any evil work who claims for Himself the name of the Perfect, and of Parent, and of Judge—especially since He is the avenger and judge of every evil work; for evil does not befall man from any other source than that he had withdrawn from the good God. 3. And this very thing is marked out in man, not because it was necessary, but because he himself so willed it. Whence it manifestly appeared both what evil was, and—lest there should seem to be envy in God from whom evil had arisen—it shone forth that it did not. 4.

This One, therefore, is ever like Himself, and never turns or changes Himself into any forms, lest through change He should even seem to be mortal. For change is grasped as a portion of a kind of death. Therefore neither does any addition of any part or of any honour ever accrue to Him, lest anything should ever seem to have been wanting to the Perfect; nor is any diminution wrought in Him, lest a degree of mortality should seem to have been received; but what He is, that He always is; and who He is, He Himself always is; and of what kind He is, of such kind He always is. 5. For both increases show an origin, and diminutions prove death and destruction. And therefore He says, "I am God, and am not changed," holding His own state always, since that which is not born cannot be turned. 6.

For in Him, whatever that can be which is God, must of necessity always be, so that He may always be God, preserving Himself by His own excellences. And therefore He says: "I am that I am." For that which IS therefore has this name, because it always retains the same quality of itself. For change takes away that name 'which is'; for whatever is at any time changed is shown to be mortal by this very fact, that it is changed. For it ceases to be what it was, and consequently begins to be what it was not. 7. Therefore, and deservedly, His own state always abides in God, since without the harm of change He is always both like and equal to Himself. For that which is not born cannot be changed either;

for those things alone come into change which either are made or are begotten, since the things which at some time had not been learn to be by being born, and therefore by being born are changed. But those things which have neither nativity nor a craftsman have excluded from themselves any alteration, since they have no origin in which there is a cause of change. 8. Therefore He has also been pronounced one, since He has no equal. For God, whatever that can be which is God, must of necessity be the highest. But whatever is highest must in this way at last be highest—when it is beyond a peer. And therefore it must of necessity be alone and one, to whom nothing can be compared, since He has no equal. 9. Since neither can there be two infinites, as the very nature of things dictates.

Now infinite is whatever has neither origin at all nor end. For whatever has seized the whole excludes the beginning of another. Since, if it does not contain all that there is whatever it is, while it is found within that by which it is contained—being found less than that by which it is contained—it will have ceased to be God, being reduced into the power of another, by whose greatness, being less, it would have been enclosed; and therefore that which contained Him would rather have already begun to be God. 10. From which it has come about that not even the proper name of God can be uttered, since it cannot even be conceived. For that is contained by a name which is also comprehended by the condition of its own nature. For a name is the signification of that thing which could be comprehended from the name.

But when that of which we treat is of such a kind that it cannot worthily be grasped even by the understandings themselves, how shall it be worthily uttered by the word of an appellation, since, while it is beyond understanding, it must of necessity be also above the signification of any appellation? 11. So that deservedly, when God adds and sets forth His own name from certain reasons and occasions, we should know that not so much a lawful propriety of appellation has been put forth, as a certain established signification, to which while men have recourse, they may seem able through it to obtain the mercy of God. 12. He is therefore both immortal and incorruptible, perceiving neither diminution at all nor end.

For because He is incorruptible, therefore He is also immortal; and because He is immortal, He is assuredly also incorruptible—both being mutually interlaced with each other and within themselves in a mutual connection, and brought forth into the state of eternity by an alternating concatenation, immortality descending from incorruption and incorruption coming from immortality. V. 1. And even if we hold described certain lawful angers and indignations of His, and learn of recorded hatreds, yet we do not understand these as referred to the patterns of human vices. 2. For although all these can corrupt man, they cannot at all vitiate the divine power. For these passions will deservedly be said to be in men, but in God they will not deservedly be judged to be.

For man can be corrupted by these things, because he can be corrupted; God cannot be corrupted by these things, because He cannot even be corrupted. 3. These things, therefore, have their own force which they exert, but where passible matter precedes, not where impassible substance precedes. 4. For even the fact that God is angry does not come from any fault of His, but He does it for our remedy. For He is indulgent even then when He threatens, since by these means men are recalled to right ways. For to those who lack reason for an honourable life, fear is necessary, so that those who have forsaken reason may at least be moved by terror.

And therefore all these, whether the angers of God or hatreds or whatever things are of this sort, while they are brought forth for our healing, as the matter teaches, came from counsel, not from fault. 5. Nor do they descend from any frailty, on which account they cannot have force even to corrupt God. For the diversity of the materials in us, of which we are made, is wont to rouse up the corrupting discord of anger that corrupts us; which in God cannot exist either from nature or from fault, since He is by no means understood to have been constructed out of bodily compositions. 6. For He is simple and without any corporeal concretion—whatever that wholly is which He alone knows Himself to be—seeing that He has been called Spirit.

And therefore these things which in men are vicious and corrupting, since they arise from the corruptibility of the body itself and of matter, cannot exert the force of corruptibility in God, seeing that, as we have said, they came not from fault but from reason. VI. 1. And although the heavenly Scripture often turns the divine countenance into human form—when it says, "The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous," or when "the Lord God smelled the odour of a good fragrance," or when the tablets written with the finger of God are handed to Moses, or when the people of the children of Israel is delivered from the land of Egypt by a mighty hand and an exalted arm, or when it says, "For the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things," or when the earth is declared to be the footstool of the feet of God, or when it says:

"Incline your ear and hear"—yet we, who say that the law is spiritual, do not enclose the measure or figure of the divine majesty within these outlines of our body, but spread it out, so to speak, in its own fields of unbounded greatness without any end. 2. For it is written: "If I ascend into heaven, Thou art there; if I descend into hell, Thou art present; and if I take my wings and go beyond the sea, there shall Thy hand lay hold of me, and Thy right hand shall hold me." For we recognise the reason of divine Scripture concerning the tempering of its arrangement. For the prophet then spoke of God in parables, according to the time of faith—not as God was, but as the people could grasp.

So that, although these things are thus said of God, it should be imputed not to God but rather to the people. 3. So also the people is permitted to set up a tabernacle, yet God is not shut up and contained within the tabernacle. So also a temple is built, yet God is not at all fenced in within the narrowness of the temple. God, therefore, is not mediocre, but the sense of the people is mediocre; nor is God narrow, but the habit of understanding of the people's reason is narrow. 4. Finally, in the Gospel the Lord said: "The hour shall come when you shall worship the Father neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem." And He gave the reasons, saying: "God is Spirit; and therefore those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." 5.

Therefore the efficacies of the divine are there shown through the members; the form of God and corporeal outlines are not set down. For when eyes are described, it is expressed that He sees all things. And when an ear, it is proposed that He hears all things. And when a finger, a certain signification of His will is opened. And when nostrils, the perception, as it were, of prayers like odours is shown. And when a hand, it is proved that He is the author of every creature. And when an arm, it is uttered that no nature can resist against His strength. And when feet, it is set forth that He fills all things and that there is nothing where God is not. 6. For neither are members nor the offices of members necessary to Him, to whose mere even silent decision all things both serve and are present.

For why should He require eyes, who is light? Or why should He seek feet, who is everywhere? Or why should He wish to walk, since there is no place outside Himself to which He could advance? Or why should He desire hands, whose silent will is the craftsman for establishing all things? Nor does He need ears, who knows even silent wills. Or for what cause should He seek a tongue, for whom to think is to have commanded? 7. For these members were necessary to men, not to God, because man's purpose would have been ineffectual unless his thought had filled out the body; but to God they are not necessary, whose will not only do works follow without any effort, but the very works themselves at once proceed together with the will. 8.

For the rest, He Himself is wholly eye, because He wholly sees; and wholly ear, because He wholly hears; and wholly hand, because He wholly works; and wholly foot, because He is wholly everywhere. For He Himself, whatever that is, is wholly equal and is wholly everywhere. 9. For whatever is simple has not in itself any diversity of itself. For those things at last fall back into a diversity of members which come from nativity into dissolution. But these things which are not compounded cannot suffer. For that which is immortal, whatever it is, that same thing is one and simple and ever is. And therefore, because it is one, it cannot be dissolved, since whatever it is, that same thing, being placed beyond the jurisdiction of dissolution, is loosed from the laws of death. VII. 1.

But that which the Lord says, that God is Spirit, I think Christ spoke thus of the Father, so that He would have still something more understood than that God is Spirit. For although in His Gospel He discourses to men, making increases of their understanding, yet He Himself too still speaks of God to men in such a way as they can yet hear or grasp—although, as we have said, He strives to make now devout increases in the knowledge of God. 2.

For we find it written that God is called Love; yet from this the substance of God is not expressed as Love; and that He is called Light, yet not in this is the substance of God; but all this has been said of God as far as it can be said, so that deservedly, even when He is called Spirit, He has not been called all that He is, but rather so that, while the mind of men by understanding advances even up to the Spirit Himself, being now itself turned into spirit, it may through the Spirit conjecture God to be something yet more. 3. For that which is, according to that which it is, can neither be uttered by human speech nor perceived by human ears nor gathered by human senses.

For if the things which God has prepared for those who love Him neither eye has seen nor ear heard nor the heart of man nor the mind itself has perceived—of what kind and how great is that very One who promises these things, to understand which both the mind of man and nature have failed? 4. Finally, if you take the Spirit to be the substance of God, you will have made God a creature. For every spirit is a creature. He will therefore now be a made God. Likewise, if according to Moses you take fire to be God, by saying so you will have expressed that which was established a creature, you will not have taught the Establisher. 5. But these things are rather figured than are so in reality.

For in the Old Testament God is called fire for this reason, that fear might be struck into a sinful people, while He is shown to be Judge; and in the New Testament He is set forth to be Spirit, so that as Restorer and Creator of those who were dead in their offences He might be approved, through this goodness of the indulgence conferred upon believers. VIII. 1.

This God, therefore—the fables and figments of the heretics being set aside—the Church knows and venerates; to whom witness is borne by all nature, both invisible and visible, always and wholly; whom angels adore, the stars marvel at, the seas bless, the lands revere, all things infernal look up to; whom every human mind perceives, even if it does not express Him; by whose command all things are moved, the springs gush forth, the rivers glide, the waves rise up, all things bring forth their offspring, the winds are compelled to blow, the rains come, the seas are stirred, all things everywhere pour forth their fruitfulness. 2.

He who established for the first-formed beings, as a kind of world peculiar to eternal life, a paradise in the east; planted the tree of life; likewise set another tree, of the knowledge of good and evil; gave a commandment; appointed a sentence against transgression; preserved Noah, the most righteous, from the perils of the flood for the merit of his innocence and faith; translated Enoch; chose Abraham into the fellowship of His friendship; protected Isaac; increased Jacob; set Moses as leader over the people; rescued the groaning children of Israel from the yoke of bondage; wrote the law; brought the offspring of the fathers into the land of promise. 3. He instructed the prophets by His Spirit, and through all these promised His Son Christ, and sent Him when He had pledged that He would give Him.

Through whom He willed to come into our knowledge, and poured out upon us the ample bosoms of His indulgence, bestowing a rich Spirit upon the needy and the abject. 4. And because He is freely both bountiful and good, lest this whole world, turned away, should grow dry of the rivers of His grace, He willed through His Son that apostles, the establishers of our race, should be sent into the whole world, so that the human race might recognise its Establisher and, if it had chosen rather to follow, might have One whom, in place of God, it might now in its petitions call Father. 5.

Whose providence has not only run, or runs, singly through individual men, but also through the very towns and cities, whose downfalls He sang by the voices of the prophets—nay, even through the very whole world, whose downfalls, plagues, diminutions and punishments He has described on account of its unbelief. 6. And lest anyone should suppose that this untiring providence of God does not reach even to the least of things, "Of two sparrows," says the Lord, "one shall not fall without the will of the Father; but also the hairs of your head are all numbered." Whose care and providence also did not allow the garments of the Israelites to be worn out, nor the meanest shoes on their feet to be worn through; nay, nor even at the last did it allow the captive trousers of the young men to be burned.

And not without reason; for if He has here embraced all things, containing all things, and all things and the whole consist of single parts, His care will consequently reach even to each single thing, whose providence reaches to the whole, whatever it is. 7. Hence it is that He also sits above the cherubim, that is, He presides over the variety of His works, the living creatures being subjected to His throne and holding the chief place above the rest; the crystal covering all things from above, that is, the heaven covering all things, which had been solidified into a firmament by God's command out of the flowing matter of the waters, so that the strong ice, dividing the middle of the waters that formerly covered the earth, might by a kind of ridge sustain the weights of the upper water with strength braced by the frost. 8.

For wheels also lie beneath—namely, the seasons, by which the members of the world are ever turned about—such feet being added by which these things do not stand for ever, but pass away. 9. But throughout all their parts they are studded with eyes. For the works of God must be contemplated with watchful gaze; in whose bosom there is a fire in the midst of coals—whether because this world hastens to the fiery day of judgment, or because all the works of God are fiery and not dark, but flourish, or even lest, because these things had arisen from earthly beginnings, they should naturally grow numb from the stiffness of their own origin, there was added to all things the warm nature of an inner spirit, which, compacted with the cold bodies, might supply to all equal proportions for the use of life. 10.

This, therefore, according to David, is the chariot of God. "For the chariot of God," he says, "is multiplied ten thousand times"—that is, innumerable, infinite, immeasurable. For under the yoke of the natural law given to all things, some are drawn back as if recalled by reins, others are urged on, roused as if with loosened reins. 11. For this world, the chariot of God with all things, the very angels too lead, and the stars, whose various courses, though bound by fixed laws, we behold leading to the goals of the time appointed for them; so that deservedly we too, with the apostle, marvelling both at the Craftsman and at His works, may now be pleased to exclaim: "O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out"—and the rest. IX. 1.

The same rule of truth teaches us to believe, after the Father, also in the Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord God—but the Son of God, of this God who is both one and alone, the founder, namely, of all things, as has already been expressed above. 2. For this Jesus Christ—again I say, the Son of this God—we read to have been promised in the Old Testament, and we observe to have been exhibited in the New, fulfilling the shadows and figures of all the sacraments by the presence of the embodied truth. 3. Him both the old prophecies and the Gospels testify to be no less than the son of Abraham and the son of David. 4. Him Genesis itself, when it says: "To thee and to thy seed will I give"; Him, when it shows the man wrestling with Jacob; Him, when it says:

"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a leader from his loins, until He come to whom it has been promised; and He shall be the expectation of the nations." 5. Him Moses, when he says: "Provide another whom Thou mayest send"; Him the same, when he testifies, saying: "God shall raise up to you a Prophet from your brethren; hear Him as you would me"; Him, when he says: "You shall see your life hanging by night and by day, and you shall not believe Him." 6. Him Isaiah: "There shall come forth a rod from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall ascend from the root"; Him the same, when he says: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son"; Him, when he places the healings that were to come from Him, saying:

"Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then shall the lame leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall be eloquent"; Him, when he sets forth the virtues of His patience, saying: "His voice shall not be heard in the streets; a bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking flax He shall not quench." 7. Him, when he described His Gospels: "And I will dispose for you an everlasting covenant, the faithful holy things of David"; Him, when he prophesies that the nations should believe in Him: "Behold, I have set Him for a prince and a commander to the nations. Nations that knew thee not shall call upon thee, and peoples that know thee not shall flee to thee"; Him the same, when he cries out to His passion, saying:

"He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer without a voice, so He opened not His mouth in His humiliation." 8. Him, when he described the strokes and wounds of His scourgings: "By His bruise we are healed"; or His humility: "And we saw Him, and He had no form nor comeliness; a man in the stroke, and knowing how to bear infirmity"; or that the people would not believe: "All the day long I have stretched out my hands to a people that did not believe"; or that He would rise from the dead: "And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, and one who shall rise to rule the nations; in Him shall the nations hope, and His rest shall be honour"; or with the time of resurrection: "As in the dawn prepared we shall find Him"; or that He would sit at the right hand of the Father: "The Lord said to my Lord:"

'Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet'; or where he is set forth as the possessor of all things: 'Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession'; or where he is shown to be the judge of all: 'O God, give your judgment to the king, and your righteousness to the King's Son.' 9. And on this point I will not press further the things which have been announced concerning Christ, since they are better known to all the heretics, and even to those who hold the truth. X. 1. But I give this warning: that no other Christ was to be looked for in the Gospel than this one who was promised beforehand by the writings of the Old Testament from the Creator, especially since both the things foretold of him have been fulfilled, and the things that have been fulfilled were foretold before. 2.

So that, against these heretics who reject the authority of the Old Testament, I may truly and steadfastly say to some fictitious Christ — invented and disguised out of old wives' fables — 'Who are you? Whence are you? By whom were you sent? Why have you now chosen to come? Why in such a form? Or by what road could you come? 3. Or why did you not go to your own, unless you have proved that you have none of your own, while you come to strangers? What have you to do with the world of the Creator? What have you to do with the man of the Maker? What have you to do with the figment of a body, from which you snatch away the hope of resurrection? Why do you come to another's servant; why do you desire to seduce another's son? Why do you try to snatch me away from the Lord? Why do you compel me to blaspheme against the Father and to be impious?' 4.

Or what shall I gain from you in the resurrection, I who do not receive my very self, since I lose my body? If you wish to save, you should have made the man to whom you would give salvation. If you desire to rescue me from sin, you should first have granted that I not sin. But what support of the Law do you carry about with you? What testimony of the prophetic voice do you have? 5. Or what firm thing can I promise myself from you, when I see that you have come in a phantasm and not in solidity? What, then, have you to do with the figure of a body, if you hate the body? Indeed, you are convicted of carrying about the substance of the very body you hate, since you chose to take on even its figure.

For you ought to have hated the imitation of a body, if you hated the truth of it; since, if you are another, you ought to have come in another way, lest you be called the Son of the Creator — if you had had even the image of flesh and body. Surely, if you hated birth, because you hated the Creator's union of marriage, you ought to have refused even the imitation of a man who is born of the Creator through marriage. 6.

Therefore we do not acknowledge as Christ that one of the heretics who was, as they say, in image and not in truth — lest nothing of what he did should be real, if he himself was a phantasm and not truth; nor him who bore nothing of our body in himself, since he received nothing from Mary — lest he should not have come to us, if he did not appear seen in our substance; nor him who, as other heretics have wished, clothed himself in ethereal or starry flesh — lest we should understand no salvation of ours in him, if we do not also recognize the solidity of our body; nor any other at all, who bore any other kind of body of fables from the figment of the heretics. 7. For both the birth of the Lord and his very death refute all these.

For 'the Word,' says John, 'became flesh and dwelt among us,' so that rightly our body was in him, since indeed the Word took on our flesh. And his blood therefore flowed from his hands and feet and from his very side, so that he might be proved a partner of our body, dying by the laws of our departure. 8. He, since in the same substance of body in which he dies he is raised again, is proved by the wounds of that very body, and also showed in his own flesh the laws of our resurrection, restoring in his own resurrection the body which he had from us. For the law of resurrection is established, when Christ is raised in the substance of his body as an example to the rest. 9.

For when it is written that flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God, the substance of the flesh is not condemned — that flesh which was built by the divine hands so that it should not perish — but only the guilt of the flesh is rightly censured, which by the voluntary rashness of man rushed on against the rights of the divine law. By that law the flesh, in baptism and in the dissolution of death, is taken away and returns to salvation, when, the mortality of guilt laid aside, it is recalled to the state of innocence. XI. 1.

But lest, from the fact that we assert our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Creator, to have been displayed in the substance of a true body, we should seem to have either given a hand or supplied material for argument to other heretics who in this matter defend him as a mere and solitary man, and therefore desire to prove that man bare and alone — we do not so express ourselves concerning the substance of his very body as to say that he was only and merely man, but so as to hold, according to the Scriptures, that he is also God, the divinity of the Word being mingled in that very union. 2.

For there is great danger in calling the Savior of the human race, the Lord and Prince of the whole world, to whom all things were delivered by his Father and all things granted, through whom the universe was established, by whom all things were created, by whom all things were ordered — the King of all ages and times, the Prince of all angels, before whom there is nothing except the Father — merely a man, and in denying to him divine authority in these matters. For this insult of the heretics will redound even to God the Father himself, if God the Father could not beget a Son who is God. 3.

But the blindness of the heretics shall prescribe nothing against the truth; nor, because they hold something in Christ and do not hold something, see one thing and do not see another, shall that which they do not see be snatched away from us by means of that which they see. 4. For they consider in him, as it were, the frailties of a man, but do not reckon, as it were, the powers of God; they recall the infirmities of the flesh, but exclude the powers of divinity. Whereas, if this argument from the infirmities of Christ avails so far that a man is proved from the infirmities, the proof of divinity gathered in him from the powers will avail so far that even God is asserted from the works. For if his sufferings show in him human frailty, why should not his works assert in him divine power?

Lest, if this does not avail to assert God from the powers, neither should the sufferings avail to show that he is also man from those same sufferings. 5. For whatever law has been laid down in the one will be found to have been received in the other. For there will be danger that the man should not be shown from the sufferings, if God too could not be approved from the powers. Therefore one must not incline to one part and flee from the other, since whoever excludes any portion of the truth will not hold the perfect truth. 6.

For Scripture as much announces Christ to be God as it also announces him a man; it as much describes Jesus Christ a man as it also describes Christ the Lord to be God; since it does not set him forth as the Son of God only, but also of man; nor does it call him man only, but has been accustomed to report him as also of God — so that, since he is of both, he may be both, lest, if he were only the one, he could not be the other. 7.

For just as nature itself has prescribed that he who is of man must be believed to be man, so the same nature prescribes that he who is of God must also be believed to be God; lest, if he were not also God, since he is of God, he should now not even be man, although he was of man; and in either the two should be endangered, while one is convicted of having destroyed faith in the other. 8. Those, then, who read that Christ Jesus is the son of man, a man, let them read this same one also called both God and the Son of God. For just as he is, as man, of Abraham, so he is also, as God, before Abraham himself. And just as, as man, he is the Son of David, so, as God, he is called the Lord of David. And just as, as man, he was made under the Law, so, as God, he was declared the Lord of the Sabbath.

And just as, as man, he suffers sentence, so, as God, he is found to hold all judgment over the living and the dead. And just as, as man, he is born after the world, so, as God, he is testified to have been before the world. And just as, as man, he was begotten of the seed of David, so, through him, as God, the world is said to have been established. And just as, as man, he is after many, so, as God, he is before all. And just as, as man, he is inferior to the rest, so, as God, he is greater than all. And just as, as man, he ascended into heaven, so, as God, he had first descended thence. And just as, as man, he goes to the Father, so, obedient to the Father, as the Son, he is to descend from there. 9.

So, if the lowly things in him approve human frailty, the majestic things in him affirm divine power. For there is danger, when you read both, in having believed not both but only one. From which, since both are read in Christ, let both be believed, so that faith may finally be true only if it has also been perfect. 10. For if, out of two, faith failing in one, the one — and indeed that which is the lesser — were taken up for belief, the rule of truth being disturbed, this rashness will not have conferred salvation, but, in place of salvation, will have kindled by the loss of faith a great danger of death. XII. 1. Why, then, should we hesitate to say what Scripture does not hesitate to express?

Why shall the truth of faith hesitate, where the authority of Scripture has never hesitated? For behold, the prophet Hosea says in the person of the Father: 'I will no longer save them by the bow, nor by horses, nor by horsemen, but I will save them in the Lord their God.' 2. If God says that he saves in God, and yet God saves only in Christ, why then should a man hesitate to call Christ God, whom he observes through the Scriptures to have been set as God by the Father? Indeed, if the Father God does not save except in God, no one will be able to be saved by God the Father unless he has confessed Christ to be God — in whom and through whom the Father promises that he will give salvation.

So that rightly whoever acknowledges him to be God finds salvation in Christ God, while whoever does not recognize him to be God loses the salvation which he will be able to find nowhere else but in Christ God. 3. For just as Isaiah says, 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted God with us,' so Christ himself says, 'Behold, I am with you even to the consummation of the age.' Therefore God is with us; indeed, much more, he is even in us. Christ is with us; therefore it is he whose name is 'God with us,' because he is also with us. Or is he not with us? How, then, does he say that he is with us? Therefore he is with us.

But because he is with us, he is called Emmanuel, that is, 'God with us.' Therefore, because he is with us, God is called 'God with us.' 4. The same prophet: 'Be strengthened, you slackened hands and feeble knees; take comfort, you faint of heart; be strengthened, do not fear. Behold, our God will render judgment; he himself will come and will save us: then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall hear; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb shall be eloquent.' 5.

If the prophet says that at the coming of God these signs which have come to pass would be in the future, let them either acknowledge Christ to be the Son of God — at whose coming and by whom these signs of healings were wrought — or, overcome by the truth of Christ's divinity and rushing into another heresy, while they are unwilling to confess Christ to be the Son of God and God, they will confess him to be the Father. For, hemmed in by the words of the prophets, they can no longer deny Christ to be God. 6. What, then, do they answer, when at the coming of God these signs are said to be future which were wrought at the coming of Christ? In what way do they receive Christ as God — for they can no longer deny him to be God — as Father or as Son? If as Son, why do they deny that the Son of God is God?

If as Father, why do they not follow those who are seen to hold blasphemies of this kind? Save that, in this contest with them concerning the truth, it is for the present enough for us that, in whatever way they are convicted, they should confess Christ to be God as well, whom they wished even to deny to be God. 7. Through the prophet Habakkuk he says: 'God will come from the south, and the Holy One from the shady and dense mountain.' Whom do these wish to come from the south? If they say that the almighty God the Father has come, then God the Father comes from a place — from which place he is also enclosed and contained within the narrow limits of some seat.

And now, through these men, as we have said, the sacrilegious Sabellian heresy is given a body, since Christ is believed to be not the Son but the Father; and in a new fashion, while by these men a bare man is asserted, through them Christ is in turn proved to be the Father, almighty God. 8. But if Christ — who through the Scriptures is also called God — is born in Bethlehem, whose region of survey looks toward the southern region of the sky, rightly is this God described as coming from the south, because he was foreseen as about to come from Bethlehem. 9. Let them therefore choose, of the two, which they will: that this one who comes from the south is the Son or the Father; for God is said to be about to come from the south. If the Son, why do they hesitate to call Christ God too? For Scripture says that God is about to come. If the Father, why do they hesitate to be mixed up with the rashness of Sabellius, who calls Christ the Father?

If the Father, why do they hesitate to be mingled with the rashness of Sabellius, who says that Christ is the Father? Save that, whether they call him Father or Son, those who are accustomed to call Christ merely a man must necessarily, however unwillingly, fall away from their heresy, when, compelled by the very facts, they begin to declare him God — whether they wish to name him Father or to name him Son. XIII. 1. And thus John, too, describing the birth of Christ, says: 'The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.' For his name is also called the Word of God, and not without reason.

'My heart,' he says, 'has uttered a good Word' — which Word he consequently calls by the name of King, by adding: 'I tell my works to the King.' 2. For through him all works were made, and without him nothing was made. 'For whether,' says the apostle, 'thrones, or dominions, or virtues, or powers, visible and invisible, all things hold together through him.' Now this Word is that which came into its own, and its own did not receive him. For the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. Now this Word was in the beginning with God, and the Word was God. 3. Who, then, would doubt, when in the final part it is said:

'The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us' — who would doubt to declare without hesitation that Christ, whose birth this is, and because he was made flesh, is man; and because he is the Word of God, is God — especially when he observes that the evangelical Scripture has joined both these substances into one harmony of Christ's birth? 4. For this is he who, as a bridegroom, goes forth from his chamber; he rejoiced as a giant to run his course; his going forth is from the height of heaven, and his return even to the height — since to the height no one ascends into heaven except him who descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven. Repeating this very thing, he says: 'Father, glorify me with that honor which I had with you before the world was.' 5.

And if this Word descended from heaven, as a bridegroom to the flesh, so that through the assumption of flesh the Son of man might be able to ascend thither, whence the Son of God, the Word, had descended — rightly, while through their mutual connection both the flesh bears the Word of God and the Son of God assumes the frailty of the flesh, then, mounting up with his bride the flesh thither, whence he had descended without flesh, he now receives back that glory which, since he is shown to have had it before the founding of the world, proves him most manifestly to be God. And no less, while the world itself is reported to have been founded after him, he is found to have been created through him — by which very fact both the glory and the authority of the divinity in him, through whom the world was made, are proved. 6.

But if — since it belongs to none but God to know the secrets of the heart — Christ beholds the secrets of the heart; and if — since it belongs to none but God to forgive sins — this same Christ forgives sins; and if — since it belongs to no man to come from heaven — by coming from heaven he descended; and if — since this utterance can be that of no man:

'I and the Father are one' — Christ alone declares this utterance out of the consciousness of divinity; and if, finally, the apostle Thomas, instructed by all the proofs and facts of Christ's divinity, answering Christ says, 'My Lord and my God'; and if the apostle Paul also writes in his letters, 'Of whom are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever'; and if the same declares that he was appointed an apostle not by men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ; and if the same maintains that he learned the Gospel not from men nor through man, but received it through Jesus Christ — then rightly Christ is God. 7.

Therefore, in this matter, one of two things must hold. For since it is manifest that all things were made through Christ, either he is before all things — since all things are through him, and rightly he is also God — or, because he is man, he is after all things, and rightly nothing was made through him. But we cannot say that nothing was made through him, since we observe it written that all things were made through him. Therefore he is not after all things, that is, he is not only man, who is after all things, but also God, since God is before all things. For he is before all things, because through him are all things — lest, if he were only man, nothing be through him; or if all things are through him, he is not only man, since if he were only man, not all things would be through him, indeed nothing would be through him. 8. What, then, do they answer?

That nothing was made through him, so that he is only man? How, then, are all things through him? Therefore he is not merely man, but also God, since all things are through him — so that we ought rightly to understand that Christ is not only man, who is after all things, but also God, since through him all things were made. For how could you call him merely a man, when you also behold him in the flesh — save that, if both are observed, both should rightly be believed? XIV. 1. And yet still the heretic hesitates to call Christ God, whom he observes approved as God by so many facts and utterances. 2. If Christ is only man, how, coming into this world, did he come into his own, since man made no world? 3.

If Christ is only man, how is the world reported to have been made through him, since the world is not reported to have been made through man, but man to have been established after the world? 4. If Christ is only man, how is it that not only of the seed of David is Christ, but 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us'? For although the first-formed man was not from seed, yet the first-formed man was not compounded from the union of word and flesh. For there was no word made flesh, dwelling among us, in his case. 5. If Christ is only man, how is it that he who came from heaven testifies of what he saw and heard, since it is agreed that man cannot come from heaven, because he cannot be born there? 6.

If Christ is only man, how are visible and invisible things, thrones, virtues, and dominions reported to have been created through him and in him, since the heavenly powers could not have been made through a man — those which had to exist before man himself? 7. If Christ is only man, how is he present everywhere when invoked, since this is not the nature of man but of God, that he can be present in every place? 8. If Christ is only man, why is man invoked as mediator in prayers, since the invocation of man is judged ineffective for bestowing salvation? 9. If Christ is only man, why is hope placed in him, since hope in man is reported to be accursed? 10.

If Christ is only man, why is it not permitted to deny Christ without the ruin of the soul, since the offense committed against man is reported as able to be forgiven? 11. If Christ is only man, how does John the Baptist testify and say, 'He who comes after me was made before me, because he was prior to me' — since, if Christ is only man, having been born after John he could not be before John, unless it is because, as he is God, he went before him? 12. If Christ is only man, how is it that what the Father does, the Son also does likewise, since a man could not do works like to the heavenly works of God? 13.

If Christ is only man, how is it that, just as the Father has life in himself, so he gave to the Son to have life in himself — since, after the example of God the Father, a man could not have life in himself, since he is not glorious in eternity, but made in the matter of mortality? 14. If Christ is only man, how does he report: 'I am the bread of eternal life, who came down from heaven' — since neither could a man, himself mortal, be the bread of life, nor could he have come down from heaven, no matter of frailty being established in heaven? 15. If Christ is only man, how does he say that no man has ever seen God the Father, except him who is from God — he has seen God? Since, if Christ is only man, he could not have seen God, because no man has seen God.

But if, since he is from God, he saw God, by seeing God he wished himself to be understood as more than a man. 16. If Christ is only man, why does he say: 'What if you should see the Son of man ascending where he was before?' But he ascended into heaven. There, then, he was, when he returns thither where he was before. 17. But if he was sent from heaven by the Father, he is surely not only man; for man, as we have said, could not come from heaven. He was not, therefore, there before as a man, but ascended thither where he had not been. But the Word of God descended, which was there — the Word, I say, of God, and God, through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. Not therefore did a man so come thence from the heavens, but the Word of God, that is, God, descended thence. XV. 1.