Anastasius I, Bishop of Antioch

from the time he had begun his pontificate (14); whereas he ought rather to have written, from the time he had been removed from the pontificate. Otherwise, the learned man’s ^A chronological calculation, which he had correctly set out a little earlier, would not be consistent with itself. Therefore, the twenty-three years must be numbered not from the beginning of Anastasius’s pontificate in the year 559, but from the year 570, in which he was cast out; and thus they must be understood as referring to his restoration to that same see.

III. Evagrius speaks just as the Lambecian inscription does (15). But what must be noted above all is that which the same historian says—namely, that Gregory, who replaced our Athanasius, died at the time when Anastasius was presiding over the Church of Antioch. Hence, Valesius rightly argues that Anastasius had been restored to the Antiochene see shortly before the death of Gregory. Boschius treats this matter at greater length (16). Nicephorus, in his *Chronicle*, attributes six years to his second pontificate, ^B ἔτη ς'; but the *Tables* of Theophanes seem more correct in attributing five years, ἔτη ε'. For the holy Gregory wrote an epistle to Anastasius the Younger, his successor, in the year 599, in the second indiction, in the month of January (17); and thus Anastasius the Elder must have died in the preceding year, 598, in which the second indiction began on the first of September. Pagius agrees with this in many respects (18). Baronius had preceded Pagius in this same opinion in his annotations to the *Martyrology* (19), although later, having changed his mind in the *Annals*, he established the year as 599. And indeed others (20)—among whom is Boschius (21)—think that one should rather side with the very learned father of ecclesiastical annals. Truly, if the authority of the *Greek Menologium* and the ecclesiastical *Tables* is heeded, then both that of Pagius and the earlier opinion of Baronius seem preferable. For in the former, Anastasius’s praise is recorded on the 20th day of the month of April (22); in the latter, his anniversary memorial is celebrated on ^C the eleventh of the Kalends of May (23). These notations of time, which precede the second indiction in which the mentioned epistle of Gregory the Great was written, confirm that the year of Anastasius’s death was 598.

IV. The extant writings of Anastasius the Elder, Bishop of Antioch, are of such a kind as Fabricius enumerates (24):

Περὶ τῶν καθ' ἡμᾶς ὀρθῶν τῆς ἀληθείας δογμάτων Λόγοι ε'. On our right dogmas of the truth, five Orations.

V. These Orations are followed by 3 sermons, of which Joannes Meursius (28) published the first and second on the Annunciation of the Mother of God in Greek at Leyden in the year 1619 in the collection *Variorum divinorum*; from whose copy Combefisius wove both of them, translated into Latin, into the new *Auctarium* of the *Bibliotheca Græco-Latina Patrum*; he also added the sermon on the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ (29), which had been transcribed from a defective Royal codex at the end. Furthermore, Fabricius (31) supplied from Lambecius (30) what was missing in the edition of Combefisius; whence we have taken those things, as we noted in their proper place.

Finally, we have appended to these the short work of the same Anastasius, patriarch of Theopolis, *On the three Lents*, brought to light by Cotelerius (32). Regarding which this famous editor says (33): "It is cited," he says, "although somewhat carelessly, by Theodore Balsamon in his *Epistle on the Fasts*, which we published in the previous volume; where, as we did regarding the *Apostolic Constitutions*, we spoke about the fasts of the Greeks and of their three Lents, in Anastasius’s Question 64, and in the place of John Citrius in Allatius’s *De consensu*, III, 12, and also in the *Typicon* of St. Sabas, f. 100 and 133, and in Morinus’s *Antiqua pœnitentialia*, pp. 89, 185." Nor were the Latins wanting...

in their knowledge of his three Lents, as is most clearly shown by the Council of Tribur, the Capitularies, Amalarius, and other testimonies gathered together by learned men. Hence, according to his custom, Jerome deftly says in Epistle 54 to Marcella, against Montanus: "We," he says, "fast one Lent according to the tradition of the apostles, at a time of year convenient for us: they keep three Lents in a year, as if three Saviors had suffered," etc. See that same great doctor on Haggai chap. 1, and on Matthew chap. 9.

II. THE PUBLISHED WRITINGS OF ANASTASIUS OF ANTIOCH, WHO DIED IN THE YEAR 599.

1. ^A *On the Orthodox Faith, Five Sermons* (De orthodoxa fide sermones V). α'. On the Holy Trinity. It begins: "The discourse regarding our sound faith and the true ones..." β'. On the Incircumscript. "Every deceitful tongue dares everything..." γ'. On the Divine Incarnation. "Sufficiently to us are the things regarding theology..." δ'. On the Passion and Impassibility of Christ. "Having shown himself through the things from him..." ε'. On the Resurrection. "For indeed not only concerning these things..." [cf. supra, vol. IX, p. 740, n. 6.]

These five sermons exist in Greek manuscripts in the Imperial Library, according to Lambecius, VII, p. 167 ff. Also in the Vatican, and others. The Latin translation by Francis Turrianus, S.J., was published by Petrus Stevartius in his *Auctarium lectionum antiquarum* of Henr. Canisius, Ingolstadt 1616, 4, pp. 460-516. [In Basnage's ed., vol. I, p. 436.] Whence it was reprinted in vol. IX of the *Bibliotheca Patrum*, Lyon ed., p. 923. Another translation by Godfrid Tilmann had appeared at Paris in 1556, 8; and from there in the Parisian *Bibliotheca Patrum*. Fabricius and Aubertinus, *De sacramento Eucharistiæ*, p. 894, judge those five orations to be the genuine work of Anastasius of Sinai and the elder bishop of Antioch, who died in 599; but Oudin dissents (l. c. p. 569 ff.), and subscribes to the judgment of Du Pin in *Biblioth. nova eccl.* sec. VI, p. 95, that these Orations contain many scholastic reasonings, which he shows can rightly be referred to the eleventh century, and therefore he ascribes them to Anastasius of that name, the fourth. ^B

2. *On the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Two Sermons*. The prior begins: "Today, O noble children." The posterior: "What again does the great Gabriel-wish for us on earth?" Published in Greek by Joannes Meursius in *Variis divinis*, p. 19 and 33, Lugd. Bat. 1619. 4. [Rec. in Meursii Opp., Florent. 1746, t. VIII, p. 683.] It exists in Latin in the *Bibliotheca Patrum*, Lyon ed., t. IX, p. 939, 940; and in the sixth volume of Combefis’s *Bibliotheca concionatoria*. In Greek and Latin in the first volume of the same Combefis’s *Auctarium novum*, p. 850, Paris 1648 fol. Fabricius. The posterior is repeated in Jo. Patusa’s *Encyclopædia philologica*, Gr. Venet. 1710, 8, vol. II, p. 338 ff. *On the Annunciation of the Theotokos*, Leiden, in *cod. Vulcan.*: thus it is cited in *Catal. bibl. Leid*, p. 344, n. 4. See also the note on the Paris codex at sect. 5, n. 18. Other things are above in this volume, p. 281 near the end, and p. 241; another on the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Oudin, loc. cit. p. 527 and 583, also assigns those two orations to Anastasius IV. Harl.

3. *On the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ*. It begins: "The lover of mankind, Jesus." In Latin in *Biblioth. Patrum*, Lyon ed., vol. IX, p. 291, and in the *Bibliotheca concionatoria* of Combefis, vol. VII. In Greek and Latin in the first volume of the *Auctarium novum* of Combefis, p. 866; but in the final part it is mutilated, p. 881, which ought to be supplied thus: "...Necessarily, therefore, he instructed the disciples to keep silent about the things they had seen, until he himself, having arrived, should triumph over death, so that those who hear might not fall into the habit of disbelieving what they are told by them. For after the resurrection of the Firstborn, they published the resurrection of all with boldness, and concerning the transformation from corruptible into spiritual bodies, instructing everyone that, just as Christ, having risen from the dead, no longer dies, and death no longer has dominion over him, so also he will make us conformed to his glory, and will transform..."

our bodies toward that which is spiritual and incorruptible. And if we walk in newness of life, we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen. Lambeck, VIII, p. 117 [p. 250 seq. n. 15, Kollar.]. FABR. See above, in this vol. p. 244.—In the Coislin codex 304. See Montfaucon, *Bibl. Coislin.* p. 419, n. 44. Harl.

4

A Compendious Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (53)

5

Of the Three Forty-Day Periods

UNPUBLISHED OR LOST WRITINGS OF THE SAME ANASTASIUS

6. *Relatio to the Emperor Justinian Against the Aphthartodocetae*. Evagrius, IV, 40. 7. *To the monks of the first and second Syria, on the same subject*. Ibid. 8. *Address to the Emperor*, or a *Valedictory Sermon* to the people of Antioch, when he was being sent into exile. Ibid. 9. Another *Arrival Address*, or *Welcome*, when he returned from exile in the eleventh year of Maurice, in 593 AD, which Nicephorus attests he read, xvi, 44. Labbeus in *Bibliotheca nova mss.* p. 82, attests that a sermon of Anastasius exists in the library of the King of France, from when he was returning to his own see. 10. Another *Irenicon*, On Peace, delivered about the same time on the Wednesday of Holy Week and mentioned by Nicephorus. This manuscript is still preserved in the Imperial library, as attested by Lambeck VII, p. 168 (56); who thinks it is the same little work of Anastasius that exists in the Florentine Library under the title, *On the Right Principles of Truth*.

^A Migne believes he alludes to him in Gregory the Great, book iv, epistle 37. It begins: *Peace and again peace, and a third time peace*.

11. *Epistle to Scholasticus*, in which he responds to a doubt (aporia) presented to him; it is cited in the fourth synod of the seventh ecumenical council, Labbe, vol. VII, p. 247. (Harduin, vol. IV, p. 202.) It begins: *To him who asks alone*.

12. *On the Sabbath and to Symeon, Bishop of Bostra*. It is cited by John of Damascus, orations 2 and 3 *On Images*, vol. I of the new edition, pp. 344, 386, and in the Second Council of Nicaea, session 4, Labbe, vol. VII, p. 249. (Harduin, vol. IV, p. 205.) It begins: *One must honor the Father according to the word*.

13. *Against the treatise or book of Johannes Philoponus on union*, which he had entitled *The Arbiter*, from which Anastasius’s work, a fragment in Latin from Turrianus’s version, was published by Gretser in his preface to the *Hodogus*. Saint Maximus also praises it, vol. II, pp. 124, 125, 126. FABRICIUS. Compare below in this volume the chapter on Philopona, § 9, concerning his unpublished writings, and Walch, *History of Heresies*, etc., cited in vol. VIII, p. 829, who nevertheless doubts whether Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, left such an eristic book against Philoponus. HARLEIUS. Allatius in his book *On the Simeonites*, p. 114.

14. *On the Meeting of the Lord (Hypapante)*. Long ago Symeon carried Symeon in his arms. Allatius mentions it in his book *On the Simeonites*, p. 114.

15. *Latin version of the Pastoral Care of Gregory the Great*, which you see in book x, epist. 22; and several others to the same Gregory and other Epistles.

16. *Epistle of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome, "On the apostolic memory of the election of Leo the Pope"*. Cited in the Lateran Synod of 649, session 5. The word *episkopes* (of the bishop) is incorrectly used for *epistoles* (of the epistle) in Labbe, vol. VI, p. 308. Which is amended in Harduin, vol. III, p. 885.

17. *Narrative concerning Pope Gregory of Rome and the Wonderworker*. It begins: *A certain elder named Peter related to us*. MS Lambeck VIII, p. 425. [5. p. 899, n. 42, cod. 44. ed. Koll.] FABRICIUS. Oudin notes that this narrative was published and forms part of a homily on the Holy Synaxis, l.c. vol. II, p. 573, n. 7. But Kollar denies this at vol. III, p. 485. Lambeck, *Commentaries* (on the Viennese codex 99, n. 1); and says that there is neither wish nor trace of this narrative of ours in the oration, either in the Combefisian *Auctarium Patrum* or in the Canisian *Basnagianus*, vol. I. Without the name of the author in the Florentine codex, Laurent. 1, n. 21, plut. 10. See Bandini, l.c. I, p. 469. HARLEIUS.

18. *Proof that the dignity of the high priest is great and angelic, and that a priest cannot be judged by a layman, but only by a greater priest*. MS Lambeck III, p. 196; IV, pp. 65 and 169; VIII, p. 425 (37). Coislin Library, p. 400 [cod. 283; add. p. 277, cod. 228]: and Labbe’s *Bibliotheca nova mss.*, p. 82. It begins: *Having found such a thing in the ecclesiastical history of Philo the philosopher*. Mention of this Philo is also found in Glycas in his *Annals*, who provides some things from his *Ecclesiastical History*, p. 292 sq.

19. *Narrative of the disputation of the Christian prelate with gentiles or Greeks and Jews, before Aphrodisianus, the archimagirus of the king of the Persians, at which Anastasius himself says he was present, and indeed [he was] the only one of the bishops of the Roman empire.* It begins: *Reigning in the land of Persia*. Allatius mentions it, p. 83, *On the Simeonites*, and wished to edit it in Greek and Latin in book VIII, *Symmikton*, and Gretser found it in the same Augustan codex (58), from which he edited the *Hodogus* of Anastasius of Sinai; it also exists in the Paris library codex 1370, according to Labbe: but Gretser says he fears this narrative smacks of I know not what fables, so that it is difficult to believe it is by Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch, who died around the year 599.

* This fragment published above, among the Works of St. Anastasius of Sinai.

Kollar notes that this historical demonstration is in truth the epilogue of the oration of Anastasius of Sinai *On Repentance*, which Fabricius himself attributes to the same Sinaite, and cites the remaining Caesarean codices in which this demonstration is contained: n. in book and vol. IV, p. 147; cod. 115, n. 4, p. 311 seq.; cod. 432, 6, p. 377; especially 378 seq.; cod. 168, 5. In vol. V, p. 90 seq.; cod. 214, 4. – P. 245, cod. 246, 8. In vol. VIII, p. 897 seq.; cod. 44, 41. It also exists in Moscow in cod. 590, n. 5. See Matthaei, *Notit. codd. gr. Mosq.*, p. 191; Oxford in cod. Barroc. 185. HARLEIUS.

In the codex Th. Gale 28, n. 5862, *Cat. mss. Angliae*, etc., vol. II, and by Bandini in *Catal. codd. Gr. Laurent.*, in the index, p. 117, a sermon *On the Decapitation of John* is attributed to Anastasius; but in the catalog itself, vol. I, p. 456, n. 43, it is named *Anatolius*. See in this volume, p. 259. Other orations from the Greek in cod. Barroc. 196. Homily of Anastasius of Sinai *On the fear of God*. Incipit: *Whenever a man often*. The *Chronological Instruction* of Archbishop Anastasius begins: *From the great day of the Lord of Pascha*, Venice, in the Nanian codex 228, n. 10. See the catalog of Greek codices of Nani, p. 420. *On the length and shortness of life and on varied and sudden deaths* by Anastasius of Sinai. Incipit: *The whole nature of men is struck with fear*. In the Moscow codex 279. See Matthaei, *Notit.* cited, p. 182, n. 43. HARLEIUS. 1991, n. 6; and ibid. in three other codices. HARLEIUS.

produced from the workshop. Henschenius also noted, in *Tomus II Aprilis* (p. 854), that in his time there was no king of the Persians named Arenatus, but that after Chosroes, who reigned for forty-eight years, Hormisdas reigned for fifteen years.

22. *Κεφάλαια* (Chapters) or one hundred chapters to Sergius Scholasticus are cited in the eclogues of John of Antioch. Mss. Lambecius VIII, p. 356. Begins: *Τί πιστεύεις, Χριστιανὲ, καὶ πῶς*. [Conf. note to section 6, no. 4].

25. *Definitiones, Κεφάλαια ἀμιλόσοφα* (162), which are always included in the divine dogmas. Mss. in the Caesarean library. Begins: *Ἐπειδήπερ χωρὶς ὀρθοδόξου*. See Nessel, part IV, p. 45, no. 14. Fabricius, *Definitiones* from Anastasius and others. Regarding the Viennese and other codices, see the note to § 2 end. Cod. 46, *Anastasii, patriarchæ Antioch. Definitiones*; begins: *Ἰστέον, καὶ μὴ ἀγνοητέον*. See Matthaei, cited notice p. 324, no. 8. — Venice in cod. Marcianus 257. See the learned Morelli, *Bibl. mss. Gr. et Lat.*, vol. 1, p. 144 seq. Harl.

LIFE OF BISHOP ANASTASIUS OF ANTIOCH

(Acta Sanctorum, April, vol. II, p. 851; July, vol. IV, 97.)

^A In the sixth century and at the beginning of the following, there were two patriarchs of Antioch, or Theopolis, called Anastasius. The first of these was called Sinaita by some, but incorrectly; he attained that see in the year 561, towards the end of the time of the Emperor Justinian; but he was driven from his see by Justin the Younger in the year 572, with George substituted in his place. After the death of the latter, under the reign of Maurice, he recovered his former dignity and lived in it until the year 598 or the year following; when, upon his death, he was succeeded by another Anastasius, named the Martyr, because he was excarnified by the Jews about the year 608, or the following. He is inscribed in the Roman Martyrology for the 25th of December, whereas the former is inscribed for this day, the 21st of April, in these words: *At Antioch, Saint Anastasius, bishop and Sinaite*; and in the notes it is indicated that the Greeks treat of him on this day in their Menologium: they indeed make mention of Anastasius the Sinaite, but no mention is made of Antioch or of the episcopate. He is also numbered among the holy Fathers in the Second Council of Nicaea, and is mentioned passim in the titles prefixed to his works indicated below. A writer of this time was Evagrius Scholasticus, who, in *Ecclesiastical History*, Book IV, chapter 38, asserts that after Domninus, bishop of the Theopolitans, that is, of the Antiochenes, Anastasius was created bishop, and in chapter 39, he explains his studies and deeds in these words:

"Anastasius was a man who, besides being especially learned in the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, was also so exquisite in his morals and his whole way of life that he took great care even of trivial matters, nor would he deviate in them from the constant and stable purpose of his mind, let alone in matters of the greatest moment ^B and weight, and those that seemed to reach toward God Himself. Moreover, he so tempered his temperament that he would neither too easily yield, because of a softness of mind and courtesy, to those things that were less in accordance with reason, nor would he sternly consent, because of severity and harshness, to those things which right reason demanded. His ears were open to hearing serious matters, and just as he was fluent in speech, so he was acute and perceptive in resolving inquiries, but he closed his ears to foolish matters of no importance: he curbed his tongue as if with a bridle, so that he might moderate both his speech with reason and make silence more valuable than speech. Justinian attacked this man as if he were a most fortified tower with every kind of machine, embracing in his mind the thought that if he could overthrow him, he would, without labor, occupy the whole city, reduce the dogmas of the right faith as if into servitude, and finally lead away the sheep of Christ captive from the Church. But Anastasius was so elevated by a certain divine loftiness of soul (for he stood upon the firm rock of faith) that he contradicted Justinian freely and openly through his letters, showing both very clearly and eloquently that the divine apostles and holy Fathers had confessed and handed down that the body of the Lord was subject to corruption, and was a participant in the affections that are imprinted in souls by nature and are free from reproach. In the same way, he also confirmed the minds of all the monks of Major and ^C Minor Syria, responding to those of them who were inquiring of him about this matter."

^A Furthermore, when Anastasius had received word that Justinian wished to send him into exile, he wrote an oration to the Antiochenes to confirm their minds in the faith; this work, due to the elegance of its discourse, the frequency of its aphorisms, the abundance of testimonies drawn from the Holy Scriptures, and finally, the history that is so aptly recounted within it, is truly and rightly to be held in high esteem. But, thanks to Divine Providence, which has seen fit to provide better for us, the edict of Justinian was never promulgated. For Justinian, who had ordered the exile of Anastasius and his priests, was struck down unexpectedly and departed this light after having reigned for thirty-eight full years and eight months. So much for that. Eustathius, a contemporary author, in his *Life of Saint Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople*, who was also driven into exile by Justinian for the same cause, interpolates the following at number 31, under the sixth day of April: "For all the patriarchs and many bishops, especially those of the East, refused to subscribe to the imperial opinion, and resisted it both in synod and in their writings; but before them all was the most holy Anastasius, patriarch of Theopolis, who endured the same tribulations—or should I call them crowns?—as the great Eutychius." So much from Eustathius. Justinian died on November 14, 576, having reigned for 39 years, 7 months, and 23 days. He was succeeded by Justin the Younger, the son of his sister Vigilantia. Concerning him and Anastasius, the same Evagrius reports the following in Book V, chapter 5: "Justin, moreover, expelled Anastasius from the see of Antioch, having brought these charges against him: first, that he had squandered the sacred treasury beyond measure and for no necessary purpose; and second, that he had cast insults upon him (for it is said that when Anastasius was asked why he had spent the sacred treasury so lavishly, he replied frankly: 'Lest it be plundered by Justin, the common blight of the whole world'). It is even said that Justin was angry with Anastasius because, when he himself was designated bishop, Anastasius had refused to give him money when he requested it." ^D I pass over other crimes alleged by certain people who, I believe, were endeavoring to serve the emperor's design. After him, Gregory was raised to the sacred rank of the episcopacy. "Upon his death," the same Evagrius says in chapter 23, "at the time when Gregory the Great held the episcopate of ancient Rome, Anastasius was restored to his see of Antioch after twenty-three years." And there Evagrius ends his *History* in the 12th year of the reign of the Emperor Maurice, which began on August 13, in the year 593.

Saint Gregory the Great wrote a letter among his epistles, recorded in Book I of his *Register*, chapter 24, to John, Bishop of Constantinople, Eulogius of Alexandria, ^A and Gregory of Antioch, and to Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, who was still deprived of his see; to him he sent the following letter separately, in which he treats of the pastoral burden imposed upon himself. And in chapter 27, he writes to Sebastian, Bishop of Risinium, indicating that he had made a most full suggestion with the highest prayers to the most pious masters, that the most beatific man, Lord Patriarch Anastasius, should be sent to the thresholds of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, with the use of the pallium granted, in order to celebrate the solemnities of the Masses with him, so that if he were not allowed to return to his own see, he might at least live with him in his dignity. He desires that the mind of the same Lord Anastasius be known, and that whatever might please him in this matter be indicated to him. But in Book IV, epistle 37, given in the 13th indiction, in the year 594, he congratulates him on the fact that he was restored to his Antiochene see, in which, near the end, he has this: "We have received your blessing, which we were owed, with the mind, smelling sweet and tasting well: and we give thanks to the omnipotent God, because those things which you do, which you say, and which you give, are both fragrant and flavorful. Therefore, let us speak likewise of your life, let us all say: *Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will*."

Afterward, Saint Gregory wrote to him on various occasions, from which epistles 24 and 51 of Book VI are dated in the year 597, the 15th indiction, and Epistle 3 of Book VII is dated in the year 598, the 1st indiction, in which he consoles him amid the adversities of this world. ^C "Behold," he says, "in your old age, your holy beatitude labors with many tribulations." And afterward: "Your most sweet holiness indicates to me that you would have wished to speak with me, if it could have been done, without paper and pen, and it grieves me that the space of almost Orient and Occident lies between us. But I say what I feel to be true: even on paper, your mind speaks to me without paper; because only charity sounds in the words of your holiness; and we are not divided by place, who are united by the bond of the love of the omnipotent Lord. Why, therefore, do you seek to receive the wings of the silvered dove, which you already possess? For its wings are the charity of God and neighbor. By them the holy Church flies, by them she transcends all earthly things; if your holiness did not possess them, you would not have come to me with such charity in your letters. I beg, however, that you pray more earnestly for the infirmity of my heart, so that omnipotent God may protect my mind through your intercession, and may more quickly snatch me from the many storms of this tempest, and lead me to the eternal shores of rest. I have received all the most bountiful blessings which were sent, which you, oh man of God, poor in spirit, transmitted to me, concerning which you say: 'For what does the poor man give, if not those things which are the poor man's?' But if you were not poor through the spirit of humility, your blessings would not have been bountiful. May omnipotent God protect you with His protection from all evils: and since your life is very necessary for all good men, may He, after even longer times, lead you to the joys of your heavenly homeland." So much in that place to Anastasius, bishop...

^A whose writings can be seen in lib. I, n. 49; lib. II, n. 13 and 49; and lib. IV, n. 1 and 25.

Patriarch Anastasius did not live long thereafter, as he finished his life perhaps still in the year 598 or at the beginning of the following year, and ceded his patriarchate to another Anastasius, from whom, after Saint Pope Gregory had received the profession of faith according to custom, he wrote to him the letter in the second indiction, in the year 599, which is in lib. VI of the Register, cap. 47. Mention of both Anastasii is found in the tables inserted in the *Chronography* of Theophanes, and in the catalog of the bishops of Antioch by Saint Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, and in the *Ecclesiastical History* of Nicephorus Callistus, who, from Evagrius, which we gave above, describes the deposition in cap. 36, and the restitution in lib. XVIII, cap. 26. But being deprived of the said guide Evagrius, he clearly errs, when in cap. 44 of the said lib. XVIII he writes that Anastasius lived until the time of the Emperor Phocas; and that he was killed by the Jews: for this happened to his successor, also named Anastasius, in the 7th year of the reign of Phocas—to whom Theophanes writes thus: "In this year, a sedition having been stirred up, the Jews of Antioch rioted, and they seized the great Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch, dragging him through the middle of the city's streets, and killed him," after the patriarch had been killed, they inserted virile members into his mouth. ^B

This second Anastasius is substituted in the tables of Theophanes for the former, at the 19th year of the reign of Maurice: but this error, by which Nicephorus conflated two Anastasii into one, could have been noted by many more easily than another committed by the same person regarding the first Anastasius, when he made him and Saint Anastasius, the Sinaite monk, one and the same person. He did this, as we have already warned, when he describes chapter 39 of book IV from the *History* of Evagrius, by changing the title; and whereas Evagrius placed before this one, *Concerning Anastasius, Archbishop of Antioch*, he himself places this in lib. XVIII, cap. 29: *Concerning Anastasius, the Sinaite of Theoupolis*. In the same way, in book XVIII, cap. 15, he has this title: "How after Gregory, Anastasius the Sinaite received his see." But he did this most of all in cap. 44 of the same book XVIII, where, by combining both his errors, he says: "To this Anastasius, because he had practiced philosophy on Mount Sinai, and had there tamed the sense of the flesh, the name Sinaite was given. And he indeed ended his life killed in a popular riot." These last things are to be attributed to his successor Anastasius, and the former ones to Saint Anastasius, the monk of Mount Sinai. (Acta SS. Jul. t. IV, p. 97.)

Saint Anastasius, whom Baronius and many others wrongly confuse with Saint Anastasius the Sinaite, was a monk by profession, a Palestinian by birth, according to the witness of Saint Symeon the Younger Stylites, who had predicted that he would succeed Domnus, in the *Acta sanctorum*, day 25 of May, page 379, number 192. His outstanding virtues, doctrine, writings, and noble deeds, and his cult, we have provided above in the *Acta sanctorum*, day 26 of April. The letters of Saint Gregory the Great cited here can also be read, from which it is possible to understand both with how much love the pontiff, who was in every way greatest, regarded this prelate, and what a sublime opinion he held in his mind regarding his exceptional doctrine and sanctity. ^C Here, therefore, I shall only touch upon his chronology. He undertook to govern the Church of Antioch, therefore, in the year of Christ 559, around the month of August or September; and he held it, according to Saint Nicephorus and Theophanes, for eleven years; and thus until the year of Christ 570, when "that great Anastasius, Bishop of Antioch... was deposed from the see by the order of Justin," says Theophanes to the year of the divine Incarnation according to the Alexandrians 562, which runs until almost September with the year of Christ 570.

The same is narrated by Evagrius, lib. V, cap. 5: and from this deposition until his recall he correctly numbers 23 years. Eutychius, tom. II, page 183, indeed says that he had been bishop for only six years before his exile; but this error is refuted by what must be said in the next number regarding the restitution of Anastasius, from which the Baronian chronology will also be corrected, and our own will be established. ^D Indeed, it is not credible, as Eutychius narrates in the cited place, that the deposed Anastasius, in a disguised habit, went to Jerusalem, where, having become a candelighter in the temple of the Resurrection, he lit the lamps, and served in that office for 24 years... without anyone in the meantime recognizing that he had been patriarch: for these things do not cohere with the writings of Saint Gregory the Great regarding him, which, not yet recalled, by no means allow for such an unknown person to be feigned at that time. (Acta SS. loc. cit. p. 99.)

We have already shown that Saint Anastasius returned to his former dignity in the year of Christ 593, in the month of March. Wherefore, since Saint Nicephorus in his *Chronicle* and Theophanes in his lists assert that he then presided over the Church of Antioch for six years, it is necessary that he reached about the year of Christ 599. He was certainly still alive when Saint Gregory, the supreme pontiff, consoled him through letter 5 of book VI, at the end of the year of Christ 597: nor could he have died long after, as he responded through letter 47, otherwise 48, of lib. VII, to Anastasius the Second, who had recently succeeded Anastasius the First, and immediately upon entering his episcopate had sent his profession of faith to Saint Gregory; which letter of Gregory Pagius in *Crit. Baron.* at the year of Christ 599, number 2, says was given "In the 11th indiction, in the month of Ja-

- ^A nuary; and from this he concludes against Baronius that the death of Anastasius I belongs to the preceding year.

That, indeed, would be correct if that letter were written in the month of January; but where is the proof of that? I have certainly consulted four editions of the works of Saint Gregory, of which two distinguish all the letters that are recited from the month of January to the end of the 11th indiction without inserting any further month; two others, namely, the Douai edition of 1615 and Labbe’s tom. V of the Councils, insert no month between the letters from January to July. But among those letters, the one we are discussing here occupies almost the middle position. Why, then, should it be brought closer to January, and not to June? I, for my part, think only this can be gathered from this passage: that that letter was sent neither before January of the indiction, nor after June. But it does not follow from this in any way that Anastasius did not occupy his restored see for almost six whole years; and that he consequently lived, as Baronius thought, until the year of Christ 599, and until about the month of March. Furthermore, it is clear from these things that the lapse of Eutychius, who assigns nine years to Saint Anastasius once he was restored, is incorrect (tom. II, p. 192). Nicephorus Callistus strays more shamefully, as, mixing everything up, he leaves Anastasius I among the living until the times of Phocas. (*Acta SS. April.* t. II, p. 853.)

Saint Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, ^B became known for no less learning due to the books he wrote, of which I wish we possessed the letters written to Saint Gregory the Great and other illustrious men. We have collected some of Saint Gregory’s responses and letters to him above. Indeed, in epistle 22 of book X, to John the Roman subdeacon, Gregory has these words: "Anatolius the deacon, of most beloved memory, gave to the Roman Emperor, who was seeking and ordering it, the book of the *Pastoral Rule*; which my most holy brother and fellow bishop, Anastasius of Antioch, translated into Greek, being, of course, also skilled in the Latin tongue." John the Deacon, in book IV of the *Life of Saint Gregory*, Sigebert, and generally more recent writers, make mention of this translation. In the second Nicaean ecumenical synod, held in the year 787, among other holy Fathers brought forward for the cult and veneration of sacred images, John the presbyter and vicar of the apostolic throne of the East offered a book in which the blessed Anastasius teaches about various kinds of adoration, from which, by the order of the holy synod, it is handed down that Stephen the monk read these things there: *Epistle of the holy Anastasius, bishop of Theopolis, etc.* Epistle of Saint Anastasius, bishop of Theopolis, to a certain scholastic. Constantine also, bishop of Constantia of Cyprus, delivered a book of the holy Anastasius, bishop of Theopolis, from which Stephen the deacon and notary read this: "Sermon of our holy Father Anastasius to Simeon, bishop of Bostra, on the Sabbath, etc." Which same things, with Anastasius, bishop of Antioch, cited to Simeon, bishop of Bostra, are read in Saint John Damascene in his third oration *On Images*, which most clearly distinguish two Anastasii from the Damascene one.

Leo Allatius, in the above-mentioned *Diatribe on the Writings of the Simeons*, has two Orations *On the Annunciation of the Mother of God the Virgin*: the beginning of the first is indicated on page 109 with these words: *Today for you, O best of men, I speak a word.* The beginning of ^C the other is reported on page 111: *What does the great Gabriel again desire on earth for us.* Both orations were published in Greek by Joannes Meursius at Leiden by the Elzevir press in the book *Variorum divinorum*, with the title:

*Of our holy Father Anastasius, archbishop of Antioch, towards the annunciation of the most pure Mother of God Mary, oration II.*

^A Leo Allatius, page 83, the relation of events in Persia with this exordium: "A dispute arose when Areobindus was governing the Persian territory." Gretser asserts in his Preface to the *Guide to the Way* of Anastasius of Sinai that he found it in the Augsburg manuscript codex under the name of Anastasius, Bishop of Theopolis, and that it deals with a disputation of Christian prelates with heathens, Greeks, and Jews, with Aphrodisianus, the archimagirus of the king of the Persians, acting as judge, at which Anastasius himself says he was present, and indeed as the only one among the bishops of the Roman Empire. But that oration (as he adds) smells of I know not what fables, so that it is difficult to believe it issued from the workshop of Anastasius. He himself had begun to translate it into the Latin language, but drew back his foot due to the multitude of errors and fables: nor does he think this narrative would be intelligible to anyone unless he acquires a more emended copy or more manuscript codices. What sort of transcript Allatius obtained we do not know. At least, while Anastasius of Antioch was alive, there was no king of the Persians named "Arenatus" as indicated above, but Chosroes [reigned] for 47 years, and after him Hormisdas for 15, as Theophanes displays them.

The *Response* of Bishop Anastasius to the interrogations of certain orthodox Christians concerning various ecclesiastical topics exists; Gentianus Hervetus turned it into Latin, and attributed it to a certain Nicene bishop called Anastasius, printed in the first volume of the second Parisian edition of the *Bibliotheca Patrum*. Against this treatise and its text, Joannes Maria Brasichellensis, master of the sacred apostolic palace, prescribed many cautions in the first volume of the *Index of Prohibited Books*; Nicolaus Alamannus, formerly prefect of the Vatican library, also added some: all of which Jacobus Gretser published together, who published the said *Questions and Answers* in a much more expanded Greek-Latin edition; but supported by a fallacious title, in these words: "The book which is called *Odegos*, that is, *Guide to the Way*. Doubts and Answers concerning various topics proposed by various [people], by our Holy Father Anastasius of Sinai, Bishop of Antioch. He took the solutions not from himself, but from experience and from the sacred Scriptures." Thus some Greek, perhaps Nicephorus Callistus, or another who followed him—unless someone somewhat older provided the occasion for error—stuffed in the errors of the Greeks. Indeed, because Anastasius of Sinai had composed an illustrious treatise which was called *Odegos*, that is, *Guide to the Way*, the author adapted the same title to this bran-filled work; and because Nicephorus Callistus had mistakenly called the same Anastasius of Sinai Bishop of Antioch, he wanted himself to appear as one and the same, both Sinaite and Antiochene, excerpting much from the *Apostolic Constitutions*, which were thrust upon posterity under the name of Clement of Rome, by this very fact demonstrating himself to be an impostor. In these *Questions* are also cited the Canons of the Quinisext, or Trullan, synod, which was held at Constantinople in the year 707, that is, a full century after the death of both Anastasiuses: also cited is the holy patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople, whose death we have shown to be in the year 828 in his Life [celebrated] on 13 March: finally, Olympiodorus, who belongs to the tenth century, is cited; [also] the holy monk and martyr Maximus, Moschus, and others, all of whom are younger. Finally, at the end, response is made to question 117, that the seven hundredth year is then passing, because the Arians were expelled from the holy places and they were occupied by the Barbarians, so that it is no wonder if so many errors of later Greeks are stuffed into these *Questions and Answers*, which we judge to be entirely eliminated from the catalog of treatises, both those which holy Anastasius of Sinai and those which Anastasius of Antioch composed.

^B The *Compendious Explanation of the Orthodox Faith* of Anastasius, Patriarch of Theopolis, and Cyril of Alexandria, exists in volume IV of the *Bibliotheca Patrum* in the Parisian edition, which in the Cologne edition, part II of volume VI, is attributed to the younger Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, who was killed by the Jews: Autbertus Miraeus did the same in *De scriptoribus ecclesiasticis*, page 213. But they are completely silent as to the reason why they decided this. That compendious explanation of the faith seems rather to have been extracted by some third person from the books of SS. Cyril and Anastasius. Margarinus de la Bigne commemorates some unpublished Anastasian works, namely: *Responses to the questions of the monasteries of first and second Syria*; but these are perhaps those of which we have already treated before. *To the Antiochenes, Syntagmatrion* or *On coordination or discipline*.—*Two books on the construction of man*.—*Mystical contemplation of the passions of Christ*.—*Encomium of Egypt*.—*Question against those who say there are three essences in the divinity, against the Jews, two books*. These last were rendered into Latin by Franciscus Turrianus, [and] were published in volume III of the *Antiqua lectio* of Henricus Canisius, but the author is cited as "Anastasius the Abbot against the Jews," who expresses his own age when he says: "The eight-hundredth year and more is now passing since God dispersed the Jews and called Titus and Vespasian to lay waste the city." This Abbot Anastasius therefore flourished toward the end of the ninth century. The work cited as *Mystical contemplation of the passions of Christ* seems to be [the work of] Anastasius of Sinai, *On the passion and impassibility of Christ*; and thus other books perhaps lie hidden under other titles.

^C Having been offered the opportunity, I sent the Synopsis of this Commentary to Rome to the Rev. Petrus Possinus, who on the day after the Calends of May in the year 1671 replied thus: "Regarding the things which your Reverence eruditely inquires into and annotates concerning the Anastasiuses and their writings, in order to respond something, I have consulted the Vatican Indices and found in them much more than is known to you. The catalog of works of the Sinaite alone preserved there fills four large pages. An illustrious and useful edition of the studies of this Father, as well as of many others, could certainly be published: but where will one be found who can and will perform that labor? Where is one who might contribute the means for an edition?" Thus Possinus. But truly…

for because from dubious works we have seen many things, and there was no leisure for comparing them one with another, if we have turned aside from the truth in this or that place, let the critical reader remember that we wished only to accomplish this: to demonstrate that the works of the Sinaite and the Antiochene must be distinguished; in the examining and illustrating of which any other person who had obtained more leisure could merit praise. ^A Lucas Holstenius had often leaned toward this task, but while he was occupied in preparing and publishing books, he was taken from life in the year 1661, when we bestowed upon him, as he was dying, that final service which religious priests can and are accustomed to bestow upon friends in such a state.

OF SAINT ANASTASIUS,

PATRIARCH OF ANTIOCH,

FIVE ORATIONS ON OUR RIGHT DOGMAS OF THE TRUTH.

Translated by Franciscus Turrianus.

I.

ON THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

I. Since I have long ago treated of our sound faith and of the true dogmas of the Church, in an incorrupt and approved manner, in various Orations delivered in the Church and recited at a time when it was permitted to write and to speak with confidence, when no one impudently dared to say: "Keep silent, and do not speak"; I thought that what I then wrote was sufficient both to refute falsehood and to make the truth manifest: nor did I think it necessary to labor more, not only because I feared the vice of loquacity, but because I thought, as I said, that what I had committed to letters and published was abundantly sufficient for all who had set before them the goal of learning: those who wished to read them could have perfect knowledge of the dogmas; and those who already knew them of themselves could either learn, or at least approve our labors with their agreement, if they appeared to be such; for perhaps others might disapprove: for there cannot be one opinion among all, because our affections are different; and we do not all think about the same thing in the same way.

II. But however those who are likely to read these writings may judge, if by chance they have obtained them whole and not corrupted by enemies: I, for my part, greatly trust that they do not deviate from the truth in any part, but rather agree and harmonize with the incorrupt doctrines of the Fathers, which I have followed from childhood and, as it is said, from my tenderest years, ^B striving to follow the footsteps of none but those who have been illuminated by the Holy Spirit; first indeed the apostles, second the prophets, third the teachers. Whoever, therefore, reads them incorruptly, as we have said, is not arrogant, if I may say so, for he will find a lucid declaration of the truth and a refutation of falsehood: for it is the faith that preaches, and it is true, and there is no lie in them. And this I call true, not because it was written by me: I do not say this, lest anyone think it, nor should anyone think that I am of the opinion about myself that I ought not to be. For I know, being earth and ashes, that I do not have speech by which the preaching is worthy; but because the doctrine is that of theological men, and a perfect tradition, which has come to us legitimately as a paternal inheritance to legitimate sons from spiritual fathers; whom I, following and agreeing with their writings, approached to write these things, claiming for myself the rights of my fathers (for this is the law most excellently established), and glorying in their labors as if they were my own goods: and this indeed is not done unjustly or undeservedly. Let no one, therefore, insultingly attribute it to a fault: For Parents store up for their children; so it seemed good to Paul, in whom Christ spoke. And Solomon says: The glory of children are their fathers.

III. Since, therefore, it is necessary that he who has been made a participant in the discourse, especially concerning the faith (this is the foundation of the rest of the building), should impart it freely

to those in need or even to those who ask, and conceal nothing of what he has learned, fearing the example of him who buried the talent. For this reason, I never ceased to speak and write when the time was right, though I was otherwise entirely unfitted for anything else, since I was without formal training and laid claim to no teacher from among the secular sages. Yet I dare to say this: I have never strayed from the truth, although my speech has been weak in demonstrating it. Nor have I willingly refused the words of God in my definitions, nor have I retreated from the confession. Rather, insofar as I was able, I have followed the paths of my Fathers, who used to say and teach me: "Let our speech lean upon your mind; keep my commandments, neither forget nor neglect the words of our mouth." I have followed the footprints ^B of their feet in divine dogmas, and I have never turned aside to the right or to the left. Wherefore, I have not hidden the mercy of God and his truth from the synagogue of the many, so that I might speak in the church of the many peoples the justifications of the Lord, which I learned from the Fathers. Thus, you will discover that the fathers have taught through me (if it is not bold to say so) that which, in the things formerly written by me, you read without corruption: for this drop is from the copious fountain of their labors, and this small torrent is from the perennial river; for these things of mine, when compared with theirs, are like a sprinkling compared to a flood, even if they are kin to them. Since those things were already published to those who wanted them at that time, this present labor of mine would be redundant if they were still available. For they could answer for themselves, satisfying the debt both to those of us who study and to those who desire to know. But because those things no longer survive, due to the divine visitation by which He lovingly and kindly instructs us and exercises us in the contempt of earthly things—which are fleeting and perishable—so that we may deem worthy of possession those things which cannot be taken away; and because you, best of friends and most honorable of men, frequently ask and entreat me, as do many others ^C with you, as you write, that I might explain to you what force they contained:

IV. Therefore, I have deemed it necessary to condense their sentiment into a few words, performing a brief summary, encompassing many things in few; and perhaps it is accommodated to the time we have and to the lack of books from which we suffer. And because I know that many are weary of a multitude of writings, as if nauseated, like those who have sailed a vast sea and despair at the mere sight of a great volume, I have thought it better for the sake of these to write briefly and to avoid the satiety of a long discourse, and through you, to propose to all a polished exposition of dogmas, which may be sufficient to teach those who use them what they ought to think about the things being spoken of, and what they ought to avoid. The discourse will proceed in series and order, so far as I am able to attain, beginning from the higher things which are above us, ^D and descending to the humble things of our humanity, and what He assumed for our sake.

But in order that we may proceed in these things, let us first supplicate God, praying to Him thus: “Reveal my eyes, and I will consider the wondrous things out of your law” (Ps. CXIX, 18); understanding by the name of “law” all the holy and divinely inspired Scripture, from which, as from the treasure of the Lord, bringing out new and old, we shall strive to distribute to our fellow servants. This distribution, however, requires divine grace, wisdom, and prudence. For, "Who," he says, "is the faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of food in due season?" (Luke XII, 42). Therefore, there is need of divine illumination for one speaking about God: for without it, to speak anything about Him is very dangerous.

V. Having therefore purged every sense, or rather having left behind every sense, and having been lifted up on high above the earth, and again passing over the air itself, and elevated to heaven, and if it be possible, having proceeded above it, and with the mind free from every thought of bodily sense, let us join ourselves to the incorporeal things with naked intellect, by which, as if led by the hand and taught, we may contemplate the nature which excels nature, and the substance which excels substance—known indeed by affirmation, not what it is, but that it is; but by negation, declared [as to] what it is not. For the affirmation which is predicated about the substance that cannot be comprehended by reason is not true; but the removal [of attributes] which denies is more true. If, however, an affirmation which is spoken about Him were ever true, it would not declare to the hearers what He is, nor would it reveal the unknown nature; but it would reveal how He stands in relation to those things which depend upon Him: and that very tenuously and minutely, as if one were to show the sun in water or in a mirror. How therefore is it possible that He who surpasses reason and intellect should be praised in speech? Or what can be said to demonstrate, according to one's worthiness, Him who is above notion? This is the firmament of all, the strength of all, the principle of all, from whom all things flow, and to whom all things look, the beginning and the end, and the Alpha, he says, and the Omega (Apoc. I, 8), as the Theologian said who taught the Theologian; who makes things which are, to be (Rom. IV, 17), and things which are not yet, to take their origin; who is the order of things which were made from nothing, and their duration and preservation, creative nature, efficient power, seeing and providing, living life, and vivifying substance. The only nature *methektikē*, that is, communicative, passing through all things, contained by no embrace: and what can anyone say having attempted to speak about the ineffable infinite? For what cannot be expressed will not be explained; and what is above every mind, no mind will comprehend, although it be most subtle for penetrating and most acute for contemplating. Therefore, let no one think he will comprehend what cannot be comprehended, nor find what cannot be found. For he will pursue in vain what he will not be able to attain. After, therefore, countless thoughts

^A and invented reasonings, we shall be seen to be merely gathering the winds, as is said in the Proverb, in the bosom, and gathering and rolling up water in a cloak. For if the uttermost things in creatures are unknown to us mortals (for who has measured the height of the sky? or who has comprehended the depth of the sea, the flow of the air, the force of the winds, the weight of the earth, and the remaining parts of physical substance), if these, I say, cannot be known, is it not the height of madness to deem that the very nature which created all things can be comprehended by the intellect?

VI. Let us, therefore, be silent, as is necessary, for we whose speech is insufficient, and let the son of thunder sound again from on high, speaking from the heights where he was instructed with heavenly wisdom; let him provide the prelude to the proposed discourse, and let him be our guide on this path, together with the principal Spirit ^B whom he partook of, and from whom he learned that toward which we hasten, and let him say: *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him.* For with these few propositions, he made manifest what is known of God, and I say "known" because I have learned from Paul that he signified there is something of God that is unknown. Therefore, what of Him is known, as I said, John manifests in an ample discourse, illuminating those who are in the darkness of ignorance with that light which *illuminates every man coming into this world*, and by the necessity and force of his discourse blocking every mouth that speaks injustice against God and denies the everlasting divinity of the Only-Begotten, from whom the knowledge of God the Father flowed to us. ^C For if *the Word was God in the beginning with God*, it is manifest to all endowed with mind that there was a certain principle in which the Word was, which principle was necessarily God, with whom the Word was. As, therefore, the mind tending upward cannot comprehend the principle—for it will always find a principle higher than itself—so it cannot surpass or transcend that "was"; for there always occurs an "earlier than," placed higher than every thought and ascent and higher flight. For though one may always elevate himself by mind and thought, advancing and proceeding further, he will never pass beyond the "was." The principle preempts the end, which it does not allow anyone to precede; for if it is a principle, it will not be second to anyone. For the second is not a principle; and what is in the beginning is not after the beginning. Therefore, if the Word was in the beginning, it is absolutely necessary to contemplate at the same time the Word that was in the beginning, and the principle in which the Word was; and from that from which we say the principle exists, from that same we must confess the Word in the beginning. Therefore, there is no place for "He was not," because "was not" is the contrary of that "was." And if "He was," how was He not? What then remains to be said, except that "was not" was—not; for He was not "not"; but He always was subsistence, concerning whom it is said "He was," ^D and He was in the Father and with the Father, not bearing any interval, whether of time or of an age, so that, by something being interposed, He might be separated from the beginning in which He was, and through an absurd posture, this principle might take on a "did not exist." What is anticipated by another cannot be seen eternally in the beginning; nor does it receive that...

VII. If, however, the Word was in the beginning, and if the Word is with God, that is, with the Father, we cannot contemplate God unless we simultaneously contemplate the Word with Him. And if all things were made through Him, then also time itself was made through Him; for "when" is a part of time. The ages, therefore, were also made through Him: how then can that "sometime" be older than the author of the ages? It is vain, therefore, to say that He who is, at some time was not; for He who is, was always; He who is before the ages; who, without an interval, proceeded from the Father by generation. For nothing existed intermediate to the divine and ineffable generation; nor was there anything at all present to the divine nature that could be interposed, no matter devoid of reason and order—as the demented say, who are utterly bereft of reason and order—no infinite and inseparable chaos; no darkness; no depth; no silence; nothing of whatever the mind invents which is ignorant of its own author, and, erring, believes its own fiction, not at all noticing the absurd, nay, the absurdities, which follow from a fictitious and invented opinion. For if anything is placed between the generating and the generated, he who dares to do this indecently rends the substance; and he separates it from itself, as if by a middle wall of partition caused by that section and by something interposed. And the Father would be found to be the cause of that primary one, more than of the Son. But how will He further be called the *firstborn of all creation*, if another occupies the place first? For the firstborn is the first of all; and He is of all, as the Apostle says, as the coeternal Son of the eternal Father: for He is not only God, but also Father; and from whom God is, from him Father is. But the Father is the Father of the Son, who cannot be Father in any other way than from the necessarily subsisting Son—for without the Son there is no Father. Before all things, therefore, is the Son, who proceeded ineffably from the Father who begot Him: for He did not produce Him out of nothing, as [He did] creatures and their parts; but [He produced] from Himself the living and subsisting Word, and God, and Son. Wherefore, he who says that He is out of nothing, who proceeded from Him who is, utters blasphemy more against the Begetter than against the Begotten; for what is more impious than to say of Him who is, that He is not? For if He is begotten of the Father, He who truly is, is Father.

VIII. But some say that He was begotten out of nothing. How absurd this is, it is permitted to everyone to discern; for it is necessary that what is not, be more honorable than that which proceeded from it: and that which lacks substance will be found to be more noble than the sub...

substance; or it will be said that the Father, who begat the Son and from whom the Son was begotten, whom these people claim is in the Father's stead, does not exist, being from nothing. Next, how can it be that such a substantial virtue could have proceeded from that which lacks substance and does not exist, and did not exist in principle by itself? For if it does not exist, it is not subsistent: how then will there be something existent from the non-existent, and how will that which is, take on substance from that which is not at all? For if it exists, it is one of all things; and if it is one of all things, it was certainly made through the Son: since all things were made through Him. But if that which is not, is, and they say the Son is from nothing; let them first make that which is not, be a substance, and then attribute to it the power of producing such offspring.

IX. But this must not be glossed over, for it is very necessary for the proposed discussion: that everything which is made from nothing has the power to return to nothing, although a greater power may overcome its natural property: but to think this of the Son is the utter destruction of the soul. Therefore, the Son is from the Father by nature, and not from nothing: but if the Son is from the Father by nature, He is therefore *homoousios*, that is, consubstantial with the Father who begat Him: for everything begotten is consubstantial with theFather who begets; and that which is naturally fit for begetting is of the same substance with the One whose nature it is to beget. For this reason the Fathers in the Nicene Council say, God from God; and again light from light: for as the Father is, such is the Son according to substance. This is clearly declared by energy, that is, operation: since of those whose energy is one, the substance is one; and vice versa, those whose substance is one, have clearly one energy or operation. And the Lord, to confute the Jews when they spoke against Him for having said, I am the Son of God, taught that His operation is like all others to attest to the truth, when He said: If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me; but if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe in my works, so that you may know and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Therefore, the same operation of the Father and the Son is an absolute demonstration, and one which is sufficient and cannot be refuted, of their consubstantiality: for what He sees the Father doing, the Son does; not the kinds of things He does, but the things He does.

X. We likewise believe and confess concerning the Holy Spirit that He is consubstantial with the Father and the Son and co-eternal, as being always co-existent: for what the Father is according to substance who begat, and the Son who was begotten, that same thing is the Holy Spirit; and as the Son is from the Father, so the Holy Spirit is from God: the former indeed is begotten, and therefore the Son; the latter however is proceeding, and is the Spirit: or rather it must be said, that the former is begotten, but the latter ^A always to proceed. For so says the Lord concerning himself: Before all the hills He begets me, and concerning the Holy Spirit: Who proceeds from the Father. But the diversity of generation and procession does not show a difference of substance: for difference of existence does not signify of being, but declares how it is, while the same substance of Him from whom they are, and of those who are from Him, remains according to a different mode, that is, intellect. The mode, therefore, as it was said, of existence is different; the account of the substance, however, is the same; for it is from the same, although not in the same manner.

XI. Let us not wonder, therefore, that the Lord, when He speaks of the exit of both, calls it an exit from the Father; for I, He says, went out from the Father and am coming. And again: The Spirit, who proceeds from the Father. For although to go out and to proceed signify the same thing here, yet He specially applied procession to the Holy Spirit, just as He applied generation to Himself. For as the Father is called Spirit, and the Son likewise Spirit, according to that: God is Spirit; and that: Christ the Lord is the Spirit of our face: properly, however, here it is the Holy Spirit, who completes the holy Trinity. Thus, although the Son and the Holy Spirit are said to go out from the Father, the procession nevertheless is ^B specially of the Holy Spirit, just as the generation is of the Son. Wherefore the unbegotten, the begotten, and the proceeding, which indeed constitute the holy Trinity, are of one and the same nature: but to be unbegotten, and to be begotten, and to proceed are not similar among themselves: for generation differs from unbegottenness, and procession from generation and unbegottenness; but those in whom these things are, are of the same substance and nature. We say, therefore, the same substance of the holy Trinity; we speak of a Trinity not of substances, but of persons: for we profess one God not in number, but in nature: for that which is altogether one in number, is not altogether one in nature. And one in substance is not altogether one in number. For example, let us take the world: this is indeed one in number; but it is not one in nature, but many things from which it is composed: and again, man is indeed one in nature; but infinite in number. And therefore the holy Trinity is one God in substance, but a Trinity in number in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit adored, and ^D ὁριζομένη (defined): yet it is never contracted within the Trinity, nor poured out beyond this to another number; for it is not right to understand a duality, or to introduce a quaternity, or to add to this mystic number of the holy Trinity, or to take anything away from it. For the Trinity is always, wholly creative, wholly to be adored, co-eternal with itself, sole uncreated: for it creates, it is not created: nothing is older than it, or later: for that "before" and "after" are parts of time; but God is the author of times: for He is not under time: but it is impossible for anything...

^A to be understood as being below the Trinity; since that which is placed below substance brings with it those things which are of the same substance. Therefore, let us not have any lowly thought about the One, lest we simultaneously render the Universe lowly: for God does not suffer Himself to be separated from that which is consubstantial; nor does it bring glory to Him, to consider as a disgrace Him who is with Him: for that is a disgrace when it is said: "there was a time when He was not," and "He was created," and "He came from non-existent things": all of which are alien to the glory of God.

^B XII. Therefore, we who profess that the holy Trinity is God, let us not even think of, much less utter with the tongue, any of those things that are said about God in an incongruous manner. For when God testifies concerning the Son begotten of Him, that "from the womb before the morning star He begot Him," understand the womb as the substance hidden in mystery and ineffable: and again when He says concerning the Holy Spirit, "the Spirit shall go forth from Me"; and our Savior Jesus speaks concerning His consubstantial Paraclete, that "He proceeds from the Father"; and He receives from the Son all things which are the Father's, making and having them as His own: for there is one substance, and all things are common to that one substance; and indeed the substance itself is also common: for the relationship (habitudo) is natural: and those things which are in any way related to something bring with them along with themselves the things to which they naturally have a relationship: therefore the Father brings with Himself the Son, and the Son brings the Father, and one cannot be understood without the other: for if the Son were not, the Father would not be at all. For who would be Father, if the Son were not? And again, how would there be a Son, if the Father were not? For as this is, so is that. The Word, ^C when it is the Son, simultaneously demonstrates the Spirit with Itself; for the Word is not without the Spirit; nor is the mind without the Word: but we call the Father the mind of the Word; I mean the mind in which the Word is, with whom is the Holy Spirit, who is called the spirit of the mouth of God; for the Son is the mouth of the Father. Wherefore the number of the Trinity is necessarily accepted in the divine nature for the demonstration of the persons, which number shows their substantial relationship and their co-eternal substance. For we do not say that the Trinity is composed according to the composition of units, and progressing from unity to Trinity: for unity and duality precede a Trinity of this kind; and again, quaternity follows, and so on. But neither unity nor duality precedes the holy Trinity, nor does quaternity or anything else follow; for the Trinity is a nature always existing in the same manner, neither lacking nor increasing: inasmuch as we contemplate the Trinity in unity; and the unity in the Trinity: for when we understand substance, we contemplate a simple unity; but when we contemplate the hypostases, we profess a Trinity: for the unity of substance extends only as far as the Trinity of persons: for although there is one nature of ^D deity, for it is one; yet it is not so narrow that one hypostasis of the divinity is circumscribed: which is indeed one, as divinity is one; but as there are characteristic properties of the persons, that is, those that mark the persons, there are three: for the Father is the Father, who is indeed not the Son, but is God: and the Son is likewise the Son, who is indeed not the Father, but is God: and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but is He who is called the Holy Spirit, the true God: for what the substance of each of those who have been mentioned is, that they are who are named simultaneously, and are simultaneously: for the difference is concerning the persons, not concerning the substance.

XIII. Whatever, therefore, the Father who begot is, that the Son who is begotten is, although He did not beget: for even He who begot is unbegotten: that which is begotten is the same as the begetter, according to substance. Similarly, the Holy Spirit, who neither begot nor is begotten, is by nature the very same thing as He who begot and He who is begotten: for since each one is of the same, one, and only uncreated nature; he has obtained, if I may so say, the characteristic property of his personal hypostasis in a proper mode. The Father has the "unbegotten"; the Son, the "begotten"; the Holy Spirit, the "procession"; and these do not become common, just as we say the substance is common: for a property does not pass into the common: otherwise, how would it be a property? And what is common to all, how could it ever be the property of anyone? For instance, just as risibility, for example, is not the property of any one person, for it is common to all: so a snub or hooked nose is not common to all, but such things belong to one person: but examples are, I confess, unworthy of the image; yet they are examples to declare that it is in no way possible for those things which are properly inherent in someone to cause a change of nature. For since, as I said, the substance in the holy Trinity is common, the property which is in the persons distinguishes the hypostases: and it is the property of the Father alone to be unbegotten; of the Son, to be begotten; of the Holy Spirit, to proceed: nor is it right, looking at these properties, to seek also for a difference of substance: for it is impious and at the same time foolish to suspect these things: for he who thinks this to be true, and at the same time changes the substance along with the singular properties; let him also think [alt-version omitted] that, as is logical, Adam and Eve and Abel are not of the same substance: because Adam is formed; Eve, abstracted; Abel, begotten: and Adam is indeed the father, Eve the mother, and Abel the son: yet all humans, according to substance, differ in no way among themselves, even though Adam is not naturally from parents, but was formed by the hands of God; Eve is a part of the formed one, abstracted from the man; and Abel took his origin naturally from the formed one and the abstracted one, being begotten of parents: for there is not a manifold production

and variation by which they exist has varied the nature. Wherefore, as we have often said, property regarding substance does not simultaneously change the substance, nor does it cut it; for it remains ^A entire in those allotted a different existence, and it is whole without section and division in individuals, not made property according to property. For every man is man, having the whole substance in himself indivisible. In the divinity, therefore, what is said to be according to substance is that from which it is, that is, God the Father; those who are from Him are said to be this, that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit: for where there is not quality, or quantity, or time, or place, or position, from whence will there be a difference of substance indivisible according to nature, from whence will individual substances exist? And if it is a part of substance, how does the Son demonstrate the Father in Himself, when He says: *I am in the Father, and the Father is in me* 29; and at another time to Philip: *He who has seen me, has seen my Father* 30; and again: *I and the Father are one* 31? The Son is therefore from the Father, and not a part of Him; light from light, and not a particular light; God from God, and not a part of the divinity or substance. Similarly the Holy Spirit. And the Father is the true God; for so the Son calls Him, when He says: *That they may know thee the only true God* 32; but He calls Himself the truth, saying: *I am the truth* 33; and the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of truth 34. But He proceeds from the Father: and He receives all of the Son, who has all the things of the Father 35, to demonstrate and make manifest that it is one substance both of the receiver, and of Him from whom He receives, and of Him from whom He naturally proceeds: for He did not proceed from anything of a diverse substance; nor did He receive anything from what is not consubstantial. But if they are of the same substance with Him from whom He proceeds, and from whom He receives; they also will necessarily be of the same substance among themselves: for those who are consubstantial to the same, will also be so among themselves, and they are truly of the same substance.

XIV. Wherefore they are necessarily glorified together and adored together, as a consubstantial Trinity; which is also named together, and is used in common for the regeneration of the baptized: for because we have taken our origin from the same, being affected by old age we are renewed through Him: for it pertains to no one else to renew, than to Him who created in the beginning: and nothing will ever be called to renewal, unless it has been brought forth and created from the beginning.

XV. Again, therefore, we shall say that the Trinity is one God, although it is called by different names; which names indeed do not signify being, but how it is. For he who said Father, did not signify substance, but strictly a relationship. But if Father is intended to signify a relationship, necessarily so is Son; for both being posited ^B and brought together; and when the one is taken away, he takes away the other at the same time. For if you deny Abel in thought, you have at the same time denied that his father is Adam. For this is the substance of his name and not a relationship to another. Therefore, repeating the same, we shall say that God is one, whom we contemplate in three persons: and since Moses, the most ancient of all the prophets, knew this clearly: *Hear, O Israel: The Lord God, the Lord is one* 36.

XVI. And not only Moses, but all the theologians who followed, having become participants of the theological spirit, contemplated perfectly the divinity of the three persons, and delivered to us the pure and sincere doctrine of professing and celebrating unity in Trinity, and Trinity in unity, with admirable union and distinction: for neither is distinction alienation and separation; nor is union conglutination and confusion: but rather union is simplicity; and the distinction is admirable: and both befit God. But because some have thought that the hypostasis is a particular nature, and this was their opinion; we must beware lest we think so: for their opinion is not sincere, and does not agree with the theologians; for particular nature declares partition: but God is in no way partible. Wherefore a person is not to be called a special nature: for ^C hypostasis is not nature; just as neither is nature, hypostasis or person: for nature is of one form, and is indivisible: and it is foolish to seek parts in an indivisible thing: for it is for composite things to be divided and to undergo partition. Wherefore those who think thus, not only fall into these absurdities, but necessarily posit three particular gods, making a lot of the divine substance, or rather, of substances in themselves. For if there are three; it is not one and simple, and not composite. By no means, even if they attribute similarity to them, those who dare such things. For if each one has its own nature, and cannot undergo the property of another; how will they exist, how will they have that consubstantiality: since to speak of similarity in the Trinity is rash and inconsiderate; since like is said to be like either in quality, or in quantity; but where neither of these is present (for God is exempt from quality and quantity), how will similarity have a place ^D?

XVII. We therefore profess the Trinity to be neither similar, nor dissimilar, lacking quality and quantity; but consubstantial and individual. But those who divide, and make one into three, are impious, and introduce a multitude of gods, and reject the monarchy, fearing no danger of division: for the partition of substances and the adjustment, and the variation of this substance from that one, is a section of those who are of one nature. Since he who says...

the particular substance of the Father, which cannot be the nature of the Son, is a totally varied substance—nay, he speaks of substances—how will *homousion*, that is, consubstantial, be found in different substances? In vain, therefore, do they preach, feigning to profess *homousion*, which they do not profess truly, dividing the individual substance. And it is wonderful if they themselves also—to use the word of the Gospel—are not divided and take a part with the hypocrites, who are not even said to believe; but rather, on the contrary, they cannot believe, as if hawking the faith and selling it for the price of empty and passing glory, to whom the Lord said before: "How can you believe, who receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that is from God alone?" These, loving the glory of men more than that of God, bestow their own sense for the sake of favor, buying up the times and playing as if with the faith, as if with a toy, while they transmute it to the will of their leader; to whom it would be better to bear their reward, like those who are hypocrites, so that they might appear to men to be fasting and merciful, and not to store up for themselves punishment and the material of unquenchable fire. ^B Therefore, let no one, by another’s favor or by yielding to his own will, depart from a sound opinion, nor pervert the decree of the faith, either because of fear of punishment or because of threats of the plundering of goods. For what, equal and comparable to the faith, will be plundered? Or even because of the hope of gain: for what can he gain who suffers the loss of God? Since the whole world is small if it is compared with its Creator; nor can heaven itself represent the greatness of its Author; what will he have more, when he has lost this? What will exist equal and comparable to what is lost? Nor let him suppress the faith, whoever wishes to be truly faithful: for suppression is in some way a negation; but to confess confidently shows the firmness of the faith: therefore, if a just man suppresses it, he is no longer just: "My soul," he says, "takes no pleasure in him."

XVIII. But again we have heard from the Lord himself: "Everyone who will confess me before men, I also will confess him before my Father who is in heaven." For in each one, a similar thing is rendered to what preceded; confession to confession, negation to negation, but not likewise: since the confession and the negative ^C that came before are in men; but the following ones are in the Savior and the holy angels. Therefore, let everyone fortify himself, fearing the impending danger; and let him shake from his thoughts, like dust, every human fear and every favor of man: let him fear only Him who can destroy soul and body in hell, and have it as a persuasion that "the Lord has scattered, and will scatter, the bones of those who please men." Therefore, we gaze only upon the glory of God; and we look for the Word alone as judge. For what, ^A says the Lord, "will it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man will come in the glory of his Father, and then he will render to each according to his works." Therefore, fixing the sight of the eyes of the soul upon that judgment as upon a certain beacon, which those who sail the sea are accustomed to hide, we shall proceed straight to the port of salvation: and we shall fix our anchors in the immovable rock of the faith, doing or saying nothing while "serving to the eye," as if we wished to please men, but rather as servants of God, casting away every hypocrisy and simulation, let us glorify the Father as Father; let us adore the Son as Son; let us confess the Holy Spirit, sincerely acknowledging one substance and diverse persons, and each person as God, yet not possessing a particular substance, not a common one, even though He is named God by Himself: for the particular is not substance, since substance is a genus; and the general is not particular, just as the particular is not general: and although each person is called God; yet the divinity is not divided, the divinity is not made proper and particular naturally according to diversity of substance, but has a perfect and total common substance. For which reason three are said to be, and are, one, as being of one substance not divided into three, although each is named by himself; nor extended into a multitude, when the three are named among themselves.

XIX. Therefore, he perverts the truth who thinks there are three gods: but he thinks there are gods who calls them hypostases, special or particular natures. For thus there would be special natures; but God is nature, when the Prophet says: "Our God in heaven and on earth; and they shall know that you are the Lord God alone." Of which, therefore, of the three does he speak? For he did not posit a signification of multitude; but special natures show a multitude. But if the discourse is about the divine substance—which is unique and simple—and divine Scripture calls this one God, even if it has three properties: there is, at any rate, one nature and substance of the divinity. But if it is one, let no one speak of particular substances, if he avoids naming a multitude of gods. For it has been demonstrated that to name particular natures is the beginning of a multitude of gods: and I believe that no one has so stripped his head [uncovered his face]—that is, proceeded to such impudence—as to name gods in the number of a multitude; even if from their assumptions it is necessarily concluded that they say "gods," if they name the holy Trinity special natures: that which has been plainly demonstrated by us, when we wrote in the proper place against those who say there are three substances, when this question was recently deliberated and perhaps whoever seeks those things will find it;

how it was disputed against that heresy which had arisen ^A regarding them.

XX. Furthermore, we say that all things were made through Him, and in Him all things consist as in the Creator and Con-creator: *For whatsoever He willed, He did.* For if some opine that this was said of the Father: *He spoke, and they were made; He commanded, and they were created*; yet, *All things*, He says, *whatsoever the Father sees the Son doing, these the Son also does likewise*, and not such-like; for this is the operation of the same substance. The Lord therefore says: *The Father gave a commandment to me*, not as to a subject servant, but as to one of the same nature, and at once God. We feel the same regarding the Holy Spirit; for nothing is a servant in the holy Trinity; therefore, neither is anything created: for every creature is the servant of its creator; nor is anything foreign; for that which is not a co-creator, not to be adored, not light, not life, is not foreign; and the rest of the things which are said of God in a way befitting Him, are said. For just as the Father is light and life, so the Son is, and the Holy Spirit: and we find these names throughout the whole holy Scripture, sometimes indeed declaring the holy Trinity commonly; sometimes, however, specifically one person.

XXI. Great intelligence, therefore, is required of us to recognize the difference, lest we be frustrated, using uncertain reasonings. For when David chants, saying: *In thy light we shall see light*, he signifies the holy Trinity; for the Prophet signifies three lights; one to whom he addressed his prayers, this is the Father; and His light, the Son; and in the light, the Holy Spirit: but when he subjoins: *Extend thy mercy to those who know thee*; he calls the Son ^B mercy, since He Himself is the propitiation: again, the Holy Spirit is called, as I might say, specifically light, as when he says: *O Lord, they shall walk in the light of thy countenance*; for the Holy Spirit is the light before the face of God; since the face of God is the Only-Begotten, whose light is the Holy Spirit, who is the guide of the way for the saints, in which Spirit they walk, as it is written: *The Spirit descended from the Lord, and was their guide*; and again: *Thy good Spirit shall be my guide*. Moreover, consubstantiality is demonstrated through the combination and cooperation together: *By the Word*, he says, *of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the power of them by the Spirit of his mouth*. Whence blessed David calls the Son and the Holy Spirit the hands of God, when he says in the psalm: *Thy hands have made me and fashioned me*; and again: *I shall see*, he says, *the heavens, the works of thy fingers*. And we have learned from Moses and from Christ Himself that the Holy Spirit is called the finger of God: for Moses said, *The tables were written with the finger of God*, but Christ said to the Jews, who attributed the expulsion of demons to Beelzebub: *If I by the finger of God cast out demons*; which Matthew said: *If I by the Spirit of God*. We rightly interpret, therefore, the hands of God and His ^C fingers as His Son and the Holy Spirit, who were His co-workers in the fabrication of the world. And the blessed Job, confessing the same similarly, says: *Thy hands, he says, have made me and fashioned me*. And again David, explaining the providence of God, says: *My soul, he says, is in thy hands always*. But indeed, he who confirms this more cries out by the prophet: *My hand has founded the earth: and my right hand has established the heaven*. And again, showing them: *These things*, he says, *all did my hand make; and these are all mine*. But if He made all things through the Son, that is, through the Word who was in the beginning, that is, in the Father; and the Spirit is with God, and His hands made all things, and His fingers the heaven; I think it makes no difference to call the Son or the Spirit hands and fingers and arms, and whatsoever else, if they declare the consubstantiality and the operative power and energy through the conjunction of members, which are named symbolicaly: since God is incorporeal, and it is sacrilege to think He uses members, like our ^D own.

XXII. But if these things declare consubstantiality, as hands and fingers are of the same nature and are with the body: it is demonstrated from every side that there is one and individual divine nature, not torn into diverse natures, according to those who dare to say God is uncreated and created; nor divided in itself, according to the recent heresy, into parts which they call special or particular substances; nor is it prior or posterior to itself: for how can that which is prior and posterior to itself be God? For just as one and the same body cannot be said to be older and younger; so one God, who is in three persons, always remains the same and behaves in the same way, not at all thought of as being at the same time with His existence; but taking the example from the property of the body, we have represented the mutual connection of the divine persons through the proportion of members and assimilation. For so the Spirit of His mouth, that is, of God, is called the Holy Spirit; but the mouth is the Only-Begotten: and again the Spirit proceeding from Him, and sent not only by the Father, but also by the Son, as the Lord Himself says: *But the Paraclete*

whom the Father will send to you; and again: *If I depart, I will send him to you*—meaning to the disciples; and David prophetically says to Him: *You will send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created; and you will renew the face of the earth.* And indeed, we do not think that because the Holy Spirit is sent, He is inferior in substance to the Father and the Son—far be it; let no one suspect this: for He is not sent as a minister, but as consubstantial, and of equal honor, and of the same nature. Since we have learned that the Son Himself is sent not only by the Father, but by the Holy Spirit, as He Himself said through Isaiah: *And now the Lord has sent me, and His Spirit.* Moreover, God is called Spirit; and again: *But the Lord is Spirit*; and the Holy Spirit is called the spirit of God, and the spirit of Christ, and the spirit of Jesus. Through all the hypostases, the divine word demonstrates the natural kinship of the divinity. The Holy Spirit has this as His proper character, which is signified by this appellation; for He is the Holy Spirit: but you will not find another called and named the Holy Spirit in this total sense. But God, as I said before, is called Spirit; and God is called holy; yet both compound names befit Him who is properly called the Holy Spirit, just as the name of Father properly befits the Principle; and the name of Son befits Him who is immediately from the Principle; and these names are not exchanged between themselves: all other things are moved and changed. For just as the Father, who is God and Father, is called by the names of Spirit, namely holy and spirit, although He is not called by the whole of this, the Holy Spirit; so also the Holy Spirit, who is spirit and holy, is God, and is so named: and the Savior likewise, who is the Son, is called Lord, and not only has He used this appellation of Lord, but the Father is also named Lord; and the Holy Spirit is also named Lord; just as the Son Himself is also called God and Spirit and holy.

XXIII. In what manner the holy Trinity shares names and substance

This community of appellations in Holy Scripture is carried out economically, so to speak, so that men may have no occasion for impiety, and suppose there to be three gods. Therefore, Holy Scripture, in order to cut off every such suspicion from everyone, calls the Father God; the Son, however, Lord; and the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete: and if it has provided this in the manner of a pedagogue, it has nevertheless not deprived the Son and the Holy Spirit of the divine voice, nor has it kept silent the name of Lord in the Father and the Holy Spirit: indeed, it has not alienated the appellation of Sanctifier from any person of the Trinity. But since the divinity of the holy Trinity is one—or substance, or nature, or whatever one chooses to call it—these names, God, Lord, and Spirit, pass reciprocally between them on account of the incorporeal nature, and holy: for to each person such appellations are aptly applied, with it being reserved to the Father alone that He is Father, because He alone is the Principle; and to the Son, that He is Son, because He alone is begotten; and to the Paraclete, that He is the Holy Spirit; for He has His own proper procession from the Father.

XXIV. That the difference of names does not divide the essence

XXIV. We have often said that the difference of names does not vary the nature: for the Father, because He is Father, is not therefore God; nor because the Son is not the Father, is He therefore not God; similarly the Holy Spirit: but He is God because He is uncreated, eternal, immutable, incorruptible, invariable, the author of life, the creator of bodies, and of those things which are incorporeal. For these are the properties of the divinity; and they are present in each person, and because of these, each person is God, since the Father is God because of these, and not because He is Father. For if He were God because He is Father, every father would be God: but as it is, it is not so; but rather, different appellations signify the same substance, declaring at once the communion of the same nature, and admitting nothing alien from the one nature. Therefore, the whole fullness of the divinity is one God, *over all, and through all, and in all*: for even if Holy Scripture calls the holy Trinity, whom we adore and worship, by diverse names, it has nevertheless removed special occasions for introducing [different] natures, since it has demonstrated one substance and the same [divinity] from the same operations, leaving no cause of error to those who wish to partake of the light, and not rather to blind their own mind, so as to say either that the nature at one time was not, or that the divinity is divided into particular substances. For we have not learned to speak or think of the persons of the holy Trinity as one star differs from another in splendor, as for example, the greater from the lesser, nor as one body is greater than another in mass, as the body of an adolescent and the body of a boy, nor as one man is older in time, as for example, Abraham older than David, or David than Zorobabel. But rather, it has common natural operations; these indeed clearly declare the substance: but at the same time we contemplate the persons as existing inseparably among themselves and within themselves in the same glory and power, since they are of the same substance and nature.

XXV. That the power of the Trinity is inseparable

XXV. That the power of the holy Trinity is inseparable, just as its substance is, David declares, when, supplicating God, he said: *Whither shall I go from your spirit? or whither shall I flee from your face?* And first, indeed, he puts the Spirit of the Son, who is the face of the Father, because He is in the Father, and the Father is in Him; but he does not separate the energy, that is, the operation, or divide the substance, but only distinguishes the hypostases, signify-

signifying that the Father does not exist without the Son, and the Son induces the Father with Him; and that the Holy Spirit exists simultaneously with the Father and the Son, as with Mind and Word. For indeed the Lord, demonstrating that He exists from Himself, breathing upon the disciples, said: "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John xx, 22); which the disciples themselves, having applied prayer, bestowed upon the believers through the laying on of hands. From this it is possible to understand the difference between service and equality. For the apostles, praying and as if suppliant to the Lord, were, so to speak, introducing the Holy Spirit to those who were worthy of His coming. But our Savior, from Himself, as from a kind of treasury, was offering Him to those who had been made fit through purity of life to receive His energy. And to the apostles indeed He was always present in a participatory way; but to the Savior, Christ and our God, as consubstantial.

And the same God is for this reason called the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, not like the ministering spirits sent for service: for they have a circumscribed substance, so that it could not be, for example, for Gabriel to be in heaven and at the same time with the Virgin; nor with Daniel in Babylon, and in Judea with Habakkuk: since His nature is created. But the Holy Spirit, who fills all things, was present both to the prophets in Judea; and was with those in captivity in Babylon; and He did not forsake those who were in Egypt; present to all, as each was capable, and imparting wisdom according to the proportion of faith. Since He filled all the apostles: "And they began to speak with various tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them to utter" (Acts ii, 4); and He was a pilgrim with the pilgrims; and He dwelt with those who abode, dwelling with all indivisibly and impartibly; and at Antioch He was ordaining Barnabas and Saul; and He was present with Peter and John in Samaria; and He came to some indeed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, through whom He spoke; others, however, He sent to preach, and others He did not allow to go where they wished. All these are examples of divine operations, by which the substance is openly declared.

XXVIII. I have used many digressions, and perhaps not uselessly, since the intention was to demonstrate that the substance is the same, and the equality of the persons. For it is far removed from the holy Trinity to say that there is a greater and a lesser in it; for even if it is said that the Father is greater than the Son, as it is written: "The Father is greater than I" (John xiv, 28), it is understood that He is called greater by reason of the principle, not by reason of the substance: perhaps, however, the Son is called lesser than the Father insofar as He was made lower than the angels, on account of the assumption of the flesh: and this is more to be held: for He is not said to be greater than the Holy Spirit, but than the Son alone, who assumed the flesh.

In substance, therefore, it is in vain and to no purpose that "greater" and "less" are sought; for substance does not admit of greater and less, as external philosophers teach. We profess, therefore, one substance, in which the generating, and the begotten, and the proceeding [Person] is one God.

XXIX. But concerning how the Word is generated, or how the Spirit proceeds, let us not inquire curiously; for it is not safe, nor free from danger. For this is known only to the Beginning, and to those who proceed differently from Him. But to us, who have been instructed by faith in the perfect knowledge of the mystery, it is enough to know that God is one, and that there is one nature of the divinity, although it is perceived in three: ^B as Principle, and Creator, and Perfecter; for there are three names around one substance, and each one declares one hypostasis, not passing into another, nor having been made that which it was not. And these are the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit; for it is safer and more cautious to repeat the same things very often. In these we are initiated in baptism, and we obtain salvation through faith, and we return to that life which is immortal and never-aging and of infinite age, believing in those things in which we have been baptized, and to which we have been ascribed. Now these are one only God, in whom the generating, and the begotten, and the proceeding is one God. Therefore, leaving aside superfluous things, let us use the voices of the saints, ^C which offer to us what is safe and at the same time free from danger. These voices of the theologians make mention of the generation, clearly declaring the relation which the Principle has to Him who exists from that Principle. "For," He says, "today I have begotten Thee," and, "Before the morning star I have begotten Thee"; and these indeed as from the Principle. But that saying is from Wisdom herself: "Before all the hills He begets Me," meaning God. We have learned furthermore the name of Father: "For the Father sent Me," says the Savior; and, "I came forth from the Father, and I am come," and other things of the sort. The holy Scriptures, moreover, have called Him who is begotten the Son, just as they have called Him who begot, the Father: "For You are My Son," ^D He says. Thus divine Scripture has instructed us concerning the true knowledge by means of our own names, as we could not be taught otherwise those things which are of the Spirit; for it is not because God needed His own proper and natural names that He claimed ours for Himself, and through ours, as has been said, taught us His own.

XXX. Just as, therefore, if someone, desiring to transmit useful discipline to a foreign nation, and to educate it to a better state and an excellent standard of life, would find his effort and study entirely empty if he were to use his own language, since those who speak another language cannot understand anything except their own tongue: what else was it necessary for Him to do—He who on account of charity wished to untrain those who stray into error—than to use the language of the fatherland and that which is customary to the hearers? So that we might judge from ourselves what is just. ^A For every man generates a man similar to himself according to substance; and everyone who generates is a father; and likewise, he who is generated is a son; yet neither is greater or lesser in nature; nor is anyone said to create him who is generated from himself. And this, whoever is of sound mind, will confess, as it seems, learning from human things, as far as possible, the divine. For he who generates a son of the same substance with himself, generates him naturally; but he who creates, creates something else of a different substance, and never a son. Therefore, if the Son is begotten, He is not a creature; and if the Father who generated is such by nature, how shall the Creator be called the Creator of the begotten? We know this natural kinship from our own names; ^B otherwise, the divine things are as much higher than these names, as that nature is higher than our humble nature. It is proper for those who wish, as is the will of God, to live, to hold to things consistent with these.

XXXI. But if some, contrary to the nature of things, fabricate empty thoughts with perverse counsel and purpose—which they have devised for themselves unto their own evil and to lead astray the simple-minded—they meditate upon vain and empty things: "And the fraudulent," he says, "shall be frustrated in their hunting"; for they do not attain the truth, nor do they turn the things against which they make new names. For the nature of things is fixed; and it shall not be moved for an age of an age; but as it was, and is, so it remains and will remain. ^C Nor will this or that appellation change its reason into anything else, alien to that which is according to nature; for the imposition of names is posterior, and the things concerning which names are spoken are prior. If, therefore, names fit the natures of things, and the discourse squarely applies to those things, it is deservedly called true, incurring no reproach; but if, on the contrary, it is found not to agree nor to square, it is manifest that it is proved to be false. The thing, however, which is constituted according to nature remains, having received no harm from the false discourse. And one will find this to be true in every single thing, if one inquires: but if in every single thing, much more so in divine dogmas. For a fallacious discourse will deceive some, and perhaps lead them away from the truth ^D who have not been imbued with these things; yet it will not change the nature concerning which the pronouncement is made: for the nature would not be stronger than the discourse if things were changed by the sound of words.

XXXII. But next, because perhaps this discourse is longer than it should be, we shall proceed to another, or rather not to another: for it is still concerned with the same matters, even though it varies the material of the argumentation.

II. CONCERNING THE UNCIRCUMSCRIBED.

1. The deceitful tongue dares all things, both despising the Creator and failing to perceive what His virtue is. May the Lord be to us an aid of hope, and may He grant the speech of prudence for the sake of those who desire to gather fruit and increase in prudence. But you, most beloved, do not make a covenant with them, as it is written: I speak of those who diminish God and circumscribe the divine substance, and as much as in them lies, deliver the universe—which is seen by those who are seemingly pious to be from the Creator of the universe—as being empty; they are impudent blasphemers, denying the amplitude of the divine nature and sharpening their importunate and loquacious tongue against the God of the universe. Assuredly, they have not known, nor have they understood the power of God, but rather: Their senseless heart has been darkened, as Scripture says: claiming to be wise, they have become fools. But God bears these things with the greatest patience, for He does not wish any to perish, but all to come to repentance: for He wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. May God grant that this wise counsel may reach a good end in them, they themselves having obtained salvation according to the purpose of God: Who calls things that are not, as though they were.

^A 2. But lest the absurd and deceitful dogma of these people lie hidden, let us see what sort of things they dare to say about God: "Energy," they say, "is God in all things; but substance, not at all." They call energy the work accomplished by energy, that is, by operation, just as a shipwright is in the ship he has built, and a weaver in the cloak he has woven. But I will say that His energy is inseparable from the nature of God, using the example taken by them from above: for just as the maker of a ship is perceived in the ship, and the weaver in the woven cloak; so is God in His works—although they, as mortals and circumscribed by bodies, leave energy alone, empty of the artisan who applied his skill to the doing of the work; and indeed, if the artisan is present and known, the work proclaims him; but if he is absent and unknown, it does not. But why is this so? Because both are perceived as circumscribed, both the work, and that from which the work has proceeded. But because the divine nature is living, it has living energies—that is, operations—acting without intermission; but without substance, energy can in no way proceed; for where energy is perceived, the substance from which it proceeds is perceived simultaneously with it: for both are uncircumscribed; wherefore they are altogether inseparable from one another. Indeed, the operation proclaims the hidden substance; but it is perceived conjoined with the work, ^{B C} without which it cannot be. Thus: The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament announces the work of his hands; not once made, and alienated from its maker; for it always needs a preserver, who does not allow it to grow old. Whence, because everything that can suffer does not grow old un-renewed; but that which by nature can grow old, is renewed without growing old: the heaven, therefore, and the heavenly bodies which have lasted thus far just as they were made from the beginning, show that a renewal takes place in them daily; and I call this renewal preservation: for God preserves them, just as they are affected. But if it is held correctly, that which we understand, that energy—that is, operation—is preservation; the universe is indeed preserved and contained; and energy revolves around the universe. And from this, substance is not separable; therefore the substance of God is around the universe, and in the universe.

III. Thus we understand what the Savior said: My Father is working until now, and I am working; not that an addition has been made to the universe: for God rested on the seventh day from all his works, which he began to do; and: There is nothing new under the sun, says Solomon; but He named the work the preservation of the universe. For it is permitted to see the very genera and species of these things always being preserved, neither increased at all, nor diminished; but they are preserved by the Word, as we have said before, so that it would be impious to separate them from the preserving power: since he who has separated the author of the universe from the universe will lead the universe to destruction.

IV. God is therefore present in all things not only by energy, that is, by operation, but also by substance: for it has been demonstrated that energy is not separated from substance. But I call energy the living virtue, always acting, proceeding from the acting substance: for energy is spoken of in three ways; a power of acting implanted in nature; and the habit of the actor toward the work, whereby it is done; and that very thing which has been accomplished from the preceding. For the mind first contemplates what is to be done; afterwards the hands are moved; then that which the mind has contemplated is consummated, and that which has been effected by motion. ^D But these are the energies of those things which are composite and mortal: and for this reason it is not necessary that the actor should always be present to the thing which he works upon; for the thickness of the body prohibits presence, and the death of the actor, and the cessation of the operation, and perhaps even the destruction of the effected thing. But in the divine nature, nothing of these things that have been said prohibits; for it is simple, because it is incor-

^Aporeal; and: "He alone has immortality," and by the perpetuity of his energy; and that which is effected is preserved. Therefore, in all things, the substance of the operator is necessarily discerned: for, in the example above, for as long as that in which the operation is engaged is being made, for just so long the nature of the operator is necessarily present; for no one who is absent can operate anything. Since, therefore, God always operates all things, and continues the conservation of the universe without cessation, it is necessary that God be in all things, and be separated from no thing: otherwise, how would it be permitted to think of God as God should be thought of? For it would come to pass that we would say that God is a body, which surpasses extreme impiety; for circumscription is proper to bodies, and to creatures.

V. If, then, it is proper to bodies and creatures to be circumscribed, and to the incorporeal and uncreated not to be circumscribed, then he who says that He who is by nature uncircumscribed is not in some thing, he circumscribes the uncircumscribed; for if He is excluded by even one thing, however small, it is a mode of circumscription; for if a substance is limited by another, it demonstrates that the thing limited is circumscribed, as one that cannot circumscribe that which limits it. How, therefore, will that which Scripture says be true: "The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world"? ^B For since God is substance, He has filled all things that are with divine substance; and He is in all things by power, not assimilated to the mass of a body, but as the divine one binding together and containing the universe: for nothing of those things that are can exist without participating in that which is. But God alone is—properly speaking—He who always is in the same mode and tenor, and is not changed; and if anything is said to be, it is not said to be primarily, but to be by participation in Him who is properly and primarily, and perhaps solely, for Scripture says: "You love all things that are." But if the things that are, are so because they participate in that which is; and they participate in that which is (that is, according to His operation); and operation does not depart separated from substance, and is in all things: therefore, the substance is in all things, as the Prophet says: "I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord"; and He fills things that are above those that are; and there is nothing empty, not a participant of Him. Neither should anyone think he is honoring God by imagining that He does not descend to the wicked, or to others unworthy of His presence in another way; ^C lest he should afflict Him with the greatest dishonor and ignominy, attributing to Him the property of bodies—that is, circumscription and limit—separating, namely, the operation from the substance: which, indeed, cannot be understood in God.

VI. Even before this, the Prophet, when he knew it, said: "Whither shall I go from your Spirit? (he did not say, from your operation): And from your face, whither shall I flee? If I ascend into heaven, you are there, not only your operation; if I descend into hell, you are present"; and the things that follow. Where, therefore, Scripture gave a sign of the disjunction of the nature from the energy or operation? Nowhere; for God moves through all things, filling all things with the amplitude of His nature and the abundance of His power.

VII. But there are some who transfer the infirmity of their own nature to God, being parsimonious and restricted about the greatest things. But they who think it better to restrain the divine nature from matter than to suppose it stretches and extends as far as the universe, and who think it entirely forbidden and impious to enter into indecorous, sordid, and fetid bodies, or impious souls, and ^D other such minima, should understand regarding God that there is a nature which excels all things, who certainly think lowly thoughts about God, and thoughts unworthy of His greatness, which cannot be attained. But perhaps those who have brought it into their mind to think thus, are ignorant of His operations which pervade the universe; for there is no particle of matter which is not the work of God; nor does God judge anything sordid or unclean except for thoughts gathered in the soul by our own will. What, therefore, shall anyone devise out of all things that God has not made? What body, no matter how unclean it is, is not a part of the matter subject to bodies, figured and formed by the qualities that come to it? Therefore, they think weak thoughts, and those entirely lacking a foundation; because God does not reject any of His creatures, nor does He deem any things putrid; but He does not, in coming to us, participate in our iniquity, which is the only thing that is truly unclean, which does not exist except only when it is committed. Who, therefore, is of such childish sense, and of such small judgment, as to circumscribe God on account of qualities that come and go in turn: and that he may not suffer this, who cannot suffer?

VIII. For if the sun, being otherwise corporeal, approaching all bodies by its rays, yet does not defile itself with any filth, nor take on stench, although it casts its rays upon infinite foul things; nay rather, on the contrary, it changes such qualities for the better by its own nature: how much more will God, who is above the sun, communicate His goods, and He Himself participate in nothing? For it is not permitted that if the sun participates in rottenness, God must necessarily also participate in it: but if the sun does not participate, although it is otherwise passible like other bodies: how should the impassible God have participated?

IX. Furthermore, because they say that the operation is in all things—for they wish it not to be circumscribed or limited—they must be interrogated as to how they think about it: do they say it participates in earthly filth when it approaches them, or not? If they confess the truth, it is clear that it is possible for what approaches not to participate in the malice of those to whom it approaches; but if they shall say that it does participate, the same absurdity will happen to those who say this, which, in order to flee, they were circumscribing God.

^A And knowing that God is God, and that they have not swerved from the straight path which the feet of our meek and humble Fathers have trodden in matters of dogma—Fathers who have rightly handled the word of truth and upon whom the Lord has looked favorably because of their upright heart—we have followed them, putting forth a clear and thoroughly polished sentiment; not by expressing anything of our own, but rather by gathering the words of the saints like flowers; these we have now fashioned like honeycombs, using as our helper, or rather as the cause and first principle, the wise bee, whose labors are applied to the healing of both kings and commoners.

III. ON THE DIVINE ECONOMY, THAT IS, THE INCARNATION

I. It behooves one who is wise to praise the economy of our Savior according to the poverty of our intelligence, not according to the dignity of the greatness of the Word. I do not promise this; by no means: for the human mind, however purified it may be, cannot embrace such great magnitude; but as our weak and small powers allow, we shall discourse upon this matter. Therefore, we ask those who shall come to read, not to grovel on the ground with a base understanding of what is written by us, but rather to be lifted up on high with the greatness of the subjects: for even if one discourse is weak in its instrumentation, still the matter remains free of detriment, which itself demonstrates its greatness in that it surpasses every speech: for the fabric of the universe—the heaven fashioned by the Word and adorned with stars, and the earth founded upon nothing, and beautifully planted with every kind of tree, and providing suitable nourishment for every kind of living being; the free sea, and not transgressing its bounds; the air poured out and occupied by none through force, but honored by the equal participation of those who breathe it, and the other parts of the created world—do not show that power which is above all things as much as it is shown by the fact that the divine nature could be mingled with our own, and connected without any mutation to a body endowed with a rational soul. And the perfect cause of this great descent He alone knows, and those to whom He has revealed it, and who have been worthy of this knowledge.

II. But as much as we have managed to attain, being instructed by their writings, the cause was that man, who had perished badly, might be saved—he who was formed by the hand of God and honored with His image, and was placed by the Creator in paradise to work and to keep it, ^B as it had been commanded; for the one could not be useful without the other: yet he did not always keep what had been entrusted to him, through sloth, and he approached what was forbidden, being led by the deceit of a certain fallacious pleasure. Hence for him all labor was born, and an inundation of evils; which, though they should have been cut away otherwise, yet increased all the more. For it is customary for this to happen to those who fall ill while observing no order, and thus do not use the precepts of physicians as they ought: *Having come into the depth of evils, as the Wise Man says in Proverbs, he despised it.* Whence, because he had fallen from such great excellence and height, it did not befit the natural goodness of God to pass over this fall without medicine, and left in an unhappy state in which he had been created; for he who was once ^C *in purple, as the Prophet says, was high and educated, was clothed in dung.*

III. Therefore, that great King and one truly of noble birth, and truly free among all who are under the sun, wisely undertook the business of the economy of the Word of God: for having come forth from His city on behalf of him who had been exiled from thence, He sat upon our dung in which we were sitting, stripped of the splendid garment with which we had been clothed before the transgression, and clad in this filth: and since from the foul dung we had received ulcers and wounds, which were corrupting the whole fabric of our nature, He took a potsherd, ^D that he might scrape away much of the putrefaction; for He wished to cleanse the wound, and to wash it. But what is this potsherd? It is, of course, the earthly body, with which He cleansed our sin: having become the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. This is for us a *Great mystery, hidden from the ages and from generations in God, who created all things*; which John, the thunder of theology,

^A proclaimed, being elevated above sense and above those things which fall under sense: In the beginning, he says, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him.

IV. Therefore, following that master and leader, let us use his divine words, saying: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. For after he showed his exceeding mercy toward us, he also said that he became man. But how could it have come to pass that he who was otherwise immutable should become what he was not? He taught us when he said: And dwelt among us: which is just as if he were to say, He used flesh as a tabernacle; for it was necessary that he who was truly and by nature our King, should not leave us as captives, oppressed by a certain alien and adulterine lord who had seized ^B a kingdom that pertained to him in no way, without any account or care for us: but rather that he should put on the insignia of our servitude and come to us, so that, with the wall broken down and razed, he might go before us, and draw forth with himself men of the same nature; nay, that he should voluntarily cast upon himself the bonds of the servitude of those with whom he had a shared nature.

V. For this cause he who was far off came to us, and drew near to us who were placed in the distance—not in place; for no change of place occurred, for how could the Divinity be circumscribed, or where could it be circumscribed, it which contains all things in itself and is contained by none? Nor, therefore, could he who had fallen away from him be outside the number of those things which exist, such that we should look for an advent that pertains likewise to place; for both were impossible. But we were far from him in affection and the will of the spirit, as Scripture says. For this reason he descended to us, not having abandoned the divine life which he lived naturally with the Father and the Holy Spirit; with whom he was before the ages in glory, resting in the paternal bosom; but because of the love which he took upon himself voluntarily, the economy which befitted his natural goodness, he thus clothed himself in dense, earthly, and mortal flesh, and flesh resistant to death, using the superabundance of his power to hide his glory and to assume the flesh which he united to himself and in which he dwelt, covering the amplitude of his own divinity with a shadow. For it was necessary that he who was invisible, and whose purpose it was to come to those who lived according to sense, should become visible and similar to them. For which reason he formed this divine instrument for himself, so that through it he might become visible; and that it might minister to the divine actions of our nature and the nature united to them: so that in this way he might say to all who awaited his redemption: I who spoke, am present; for the Word is truly present; and although only the body is seen, he is the true God, and he subjects a human form to our eyes; and he is before the ages, although his birth is described in time as made from the race of Abraham and David: ^A for from these existed the earthly body, to which he subjected time. It is from the Spirit, however, that which is divine and without time, which he willed to unite to animated flesh, through which he associated with us, covered by this veil; just as the body covers our soul, which is invisible and is not numbered among things that fall under sense, because it was made in the image of him who created it, and keeps the signs of the likeness to which it was made: for that which is gifted by nature is not naturally apt to be easily changed.

VI. How much, therefore, we are permitted by conjecture to grasp the mode of the union of the Word with the flesh, we cannot find another image and likeness than that of the soul with its proper body, from which man exists as one animal, with neither the parts in the composition changed among themselves, nor one of them making the other from itself, but rather, the two different things coming together, that exists which, after composition, is and is so named. Bringing forward, therefore, from this image, as much as is useful for an example of likeness, we shall contemplate the union of the Word with humanity. For the Word, who in the beginning was God, when he willed to become man, because man could not otherwise be saved, entered into a virginal womb and one exempt from all corruption: for she was a virgin chaste in spirit and body. Wherefore necessarily, as it befitted, he chose her for the ministry of such a mystery, and it was united without confusion and mixture, whole to the whole—to the flesh, animated by a soul participating in reason, and constituted and formed through the advent of the Holy Spirit from the flesh of the Virgin Mother, with no cause preceding in it from those things from which bodies are wont to be made, except by the power of the Highest. For only the woman provided the matter for the body which was made an instrument of divinity, just as once from the proper flesh of the man alone the woman was made and became the mother of the living.

VII. Vainly, therefore, do they rave who, because of the mode of generation, deny that he is consubstantial with us: for by the same reasoning neither will Eve be consubstantial with the man, nor with him who is born from both at once; for both existed in a various way: nor, since he could not otherwise, did he lead his own body from elsewhere than from matter subject to our bodies: For, he says, he did not take hold of angels, nor another celestial power, but the seed of Abraham, to whom the promise had been made. How, therefore, do some say that the earthly body, born on earth, was celestial, since such matter is not in those celestial places? Therefore, he did not fashion for himself a body from an immutable nature proper to himself, nor from any other, unless from that which was said. For it would have been very absurd if, when he was coming to us, he brought a body alien to us; but rather, since being God he was only begotten from the Father, and had his nature without any variety, that is, himself, he assumed a body from his mother, and was made consubstantial with it: wherefore according to the image proposed above, from each substance...

^A one Christ has appeared to us, the same God and man.

VIII. And this is what is admirable in this mystery, that each of those things which have come together preserves its natural property just as if it existed by itself, no union of one with the other having been made, since otherwise there would be one hypostasis. Christ, therefore, is what exists from the union of these natures—not a habit, but that very thing which consists of these substances; indeed, the substances themselves, and not the divine without the human, nor again the human without the divine, but the inseparable union of both: which we do not say came about in the likeness of liquids, which when mixed together are changed into something else, but according to the likeness proposed of soul and body, from which the animal partaking of reason, man, is constituted; from the intelligent, I say, and the sensible, at once intelligent and sensible. Thus here one can tenuously contemplate this mystery: for both the divine and the human come together at once, and what consists from this composition is nothing other than the united nature—for Christ is equally God and man, who appeared to the world from the united things in an ineffable way, using a mortal body to destroy death: which is admirable. Christ, therefore, is truly God and man at once: which appellation cannot be true unless there are diverse natures subjected to him. It is, however, often attributed separately to those from which he consists, not indeed as if this were all he is; for it cannot be that we contemplate one of the united things, except by the mere consideration of the discerning mind, insofar as we recognize what is divine, which is not human; and again what is human, which is not divine. For if we ever express these notions in the mind, wishing to signify the underlying substances and their diversity from one another, we immediately join them in act; again uniting them before we separate them, recognizing one Christ to be consisting from diverse natures.

IX. For though the natures from which he is united for the manifestation of the mystery are diverse, yet there is one hypostasis: for the same property of the hypostasis remained, even with the Son incarnate. For the Son is again also according to the flesh: wherefore the assuming and the assumed differ indeed in nature; but in hypostasis, not at all. Thus we say there is one hypostasis of things differing in nature, with all theologians and doctors of the Church approving, who affirm the same to be God and man. These are the natures from which he is composed: but we now call natures not the principles, as some say who set snares to deceive the simpler, saying that the natures from which the union was made are God the Father and the Virgin mother, who covertly and darkly say that, from which, so that there is nothing of assumption in Christ ^B and they confess. But we, looking at the union ^C of the natures according to the hypostasis of Christ, who consists not only of God and man, but is the same God and man, with the substances saved in the union, which through composition return the composite hypostasis whom we call Christ.

X. For this reason the holy Fathers speak of Christ not only as from God and man, nor from two natures as if from principles, but as of God and man, and of two natures; so that they might banish fallacy very far away, and declare the truth plainly: for the preaching of piety was simple and straight, had not many tried in various ways to deprave it with fallacious words. Wherefore, lest those who enter with simplicity of soul should be captured by the snares of these men without a contest, at various times the Holy Spirit taught the minds of holy men by his advent, and gave them speech to contradict, and to escape the violent nets of fallacies against the truth, who handed down to us a great treasure, and especially in earthen vessels: for this was fitting for divine dogmas and doctrine; because it was fitting that the vessels in which the great treasure is hidden should always be broken, on account of the weaker ones, he gave to the preachers of the truth the power of speech to resist those contradicting, and to drive back the missiles of adversaries rashly sent. Wherefore the Word of truth is not conquered by falsehood, but rather refutes the fallacy of falsehood. And it itself, with all that is foreign to it exploded, remains, neither put down nor shifted. For this reason he teaches that Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, one from heaven and from the earth, God and clothed in the form of a servant, so that God might lie hidden from the prince of this world with whom he had a contest, and he might not flee the struggle, as if he were not going to contend with God; perhaps indeed, so that like might preserve like. He suffered nothing external and foreign, therefore, beyond that which we are, but he assumed our whole mass from the seed left to us, made the firstfruits of our nature. By this reason, however, it is called firstfruits.

XI. For indeed because it was proposed to him to raise up all that had fallen, and the whole race had fallen; he mixed himself, the whole, with the whole Adam, life with the dead, so that he might save him, penetrating into him, the whole, to whom he was united, as the soul of a great body, animating the whole, and imparting life to the whole sensibly. Thus the human race is called the body of Christ, and members in that part ^D, as if passing through all in common, and as if dwelling in each one separately according to the measure of the faith. For the members signify something proper, insofar as the dignities of the members are different: for of these some are honorable; others infirm, others however honest; to others, however, greater honor.

ORATION III. — ON THE INCARNATION

is applied; and these are not predicated of the community of the body. Wherefore, when the Apostle spoke of the body and named the members, he taught that the genus differs from the part: and when he did not call it the genus of Christ, he signified that He was united to the community of our substance, not to a particular hypostasis; otherwise we would be called a member of Him, not members, nor body.

XII. But since the Word once willed to become man, and to make us entirely His own garment; although He is both, He is spoken of as the one, and when He is spoken of as the other, He is both, not changed by these names: for these things are not said by catachresis; but since He is both, He is named separately: for we call Him God, not *a certain* God; we also call the same one man, not *a certain* man. Moreover, God is at once and man declared by more general names, from which He is composed; specifically, He is not composed of particular hypostases, but of general substances. For I do not even think there is a part of substance: for those who exercise themselves in these matters say that parts of substances are substances. Shall then a part of substance be found which does not partake of the definition of substance, so that we might name it a particular substance? But if what they call a part receives the definition of the whole, it will be the whole, not a part: for neither can the section of a substance be understood as in the section of a circle into two semicircles, or into other parts; nor as in the section of a sphere into four parts, or into hemispheres. For what shall the section of substance produce? Perhaps parts of substance: but it has been said that parts of substance are substances; therefore, substance is indivisible and impartible: for just as a sphere or circle cannot be cut and again make spheres or circles; so divided substance cannot make particular substances existing ^A by themselves.

XIII. Therefore, let no one labor in vain to demonstrate with empty arguments that which cannot be demonstrated—namely, that the union of the Incarnation of the Word was made in particular natures, and not in general ones; at which I truly marvel how they are not ashamed, those who say this: for it is no less difficult to understand than it is difficult to interpret riddles. For since substance signifies being, and all things that are of substance likewise participate in essence, what is less of them, according to the definition of essence, that it should be called a particular and singular substance? when otherwise substance declares something general, not singular: and we have heard of the most general genus, and the most specific species; but now we learn of the most singular genus for the first time. For even if some are called genera of species, just as the middle ones are called species of genera, and they themselves are genera of other species; yet these all are predicated of many: which is indeed more of community than of particularity. Therefore, what is common is not particular; and if it turns back, that is, what is particular, is common. ^B

XIV. Finally, the more absurd this is, who is so demented as to accept one thing for another in turn—namely, that to exist and to exist in such a way, of the kind that being a substance and being a hypostasis are, are the same? For a particular nature is not a substance. When, therefore, we speak of the union of natures or substances, we contemplate the substances themselves in the union, the union not having been made so that nature passes into nature, or that there occurs a confusion or mixture; but a natural coupling. But regarding these natures or substances, our opinion is that they are inseparable among themselves: for we do not say that the incarnation of our Savior was made according to habit, or apposition, or prosopopoeia, or dignity, or any other mode devised by those who speak of two persons; but, contemplating the union of these natures according to hypostasis, we adore one and the same Christ, who was God before the incarnation, and remained God after the incarnation; who was united to a diverse substance, so that He might save that which was consubstantial to Him: for, having been made consubstantial, He is predicated as a diverse substance; and He proceeded to conceive human generation, who was otherwise begotten from the Father before the ages with nothing intervening. ^C

XV. Hence we believe that there are two generations: for we have learned that the same one went forth through two natures, not similarly, but dissimilarly; for He was begotten in one way from the Father, and in another way from the mother. Yet it is the same one, even if not according to the same [manner]: for the difference of the united substances made different generations; and each is more excellent and more admirable than can be comprehended by the intelligence: albeit He is one, to whom high dignity is given, just as in us—to use this comparison—from body and soul, which are diverse natures, one exists: for it is impossible even moderately to attain to Him who is before the ages, and the author of the ages.

XVI. But let no one who is outside the Church disparage the things we have said, and in his own manner malign this doctrine, and trample upon it with unwashed feet like shining pearls. For, ignorant of what is the certain and safe doctrine concerning what they have learned, they leap wildly against the word of truth and say, ^D that it is possible to hold that the holy Trinity is united to flesh. And whoever says in any way that one divinity of substance exists, and confesses that this has been coupled with our nature: and while they lay bare the rashness of their own mind and the absurdity they have introduced to the pious, they seem to want to flee; they say that the Word has a proper nature, consubstantial to the Father and the Holy Spirit, which has been united to us through the incarnation out of charity. I myself marvel at this so discordant thing, and would desire to speak to this person with all my power, as is fitting: I do not argue now, whether God having clothed Himself in flesh can…

be said to have his own nature or not; but I demonstrate that he who says these things cannot grasp that the Son is consubstantial with the Father: for everything that is of one substance receives the same definition of substance; and conversely, everything that receives the same definition of substance is of one and the same substance; and on the other hand, that which is not of the same substance does not receive the same definition; and that which does not receive the same definition cannot be of the same substance. Let them choose, therefore, whichever they wish: from whatever direction, absurdity will confront them. If the Son receives the same definition of substance as the Father, He is one substance with the Father, and a common definition will be rendered for them. But how will that which is rendered commonly be particular? But if He does not receive the same definition and account, He will not be of one substance: for those of which there is no substance, there will be no consubstantiality. For just as things that are of the same substance are consubstantial, so those that are not of the same substance are not consubstantial: how then do they say the Son is consubstantial with the Father, while attributing to Him a particular substance? For that which has been made common with another cannot be particular.

XVII. What then will they say this particular substance is? If they say it is the filiation: first, filiation is not a substance; furthermore, even if this were granted and conceded, it would again lead them into a diversity of substance. For just as the account of paternity and filiation is not the same, so, according to them, the Son will not be of one and the same substance with the Father: and no one will deny that things which are not of the same substance are not consubstantial. Therefore, let there be an end to this vanity of words among those who speak of a common and a particular substance: for it has been proven at length that there is ^B no particular substance: for whoever names the substance of some things necessarily signifies a common one: it is therefore superfluous to add "common" to substance; for it is the same as if one were to say a "common community": and it is all the more superfluous to say a "particular substance"; for that is nothing other than saying a "common particularity." For this reason, the doctors of the Church, speaking precisely, have called the substance "common"; but the particular, or special, they called hypostasis: as "man" is common; "a certain man" is particular, that is, hypostasis, while the former is substance: for not even a certain man is not a man, but he is in fact *enousios*, that is, in substance; not, however, according to a particular substance separated from the common, but according to the same [substance], according to which all individuals under the same species have been allotted substance: for each one receives the same account as the rest: for the man is a common man, and a certain man, and neither is more or less a man. Filiation, therefore, is a natural habit toward Him, toward the Father, that is, from whom the Son is: but the Son is of the same divinity as the Father. Again, we say that a particular substance has a character, a filiation: for this is said to be the character of a paternal ^C nature, not indeed of nature; for that very thing is nature, which the Father is; but a hypostasis, that is, a person: as bringing with it the Father, at the same time as the Son is named according to a categorical relation to something; which is, when that which is, is said to be another's, as the Son is the Son of the Father, and the Father is the Father of the Son, because through Him we have access to the Father, and He Himself is our teacher, and the author of the knowledge of Him; just as the same said to the Father: *I have manifested thy name to men*; but He manifested the name not as God's; for this was already known long ago, but as the Father's: for He Himself revealed the knowledge of the Father.

XVIII. I have used so many digressions, because I wanted to demonstrate that it is not a part of a substance; so that someone might not say that the incarnation took place by assuming a part of another substance: and because I did not want to correct the opinion of those who think that he who says the whole substance of the Word is united to the flesh, refers the Father and the Holy Spirit to the economy of the incarnation: which, indeed, that it is not necessary, we have sufficiently demonstrated to those who, not contentiously but benevolently, receive the pious and divine dogmas of our true faith toward God: for the Son is not a substance, but a hypostasis *enousios*, that is, possessing substance. But if it is a substance, to concede this for now; yet it is not a particular substance: for he who is a participant in it possesses the whole substance ^D integrally. It is true, therefore, what is said, that out of two perfect substances there existed one hypostasis of Christ, who is God, as the Father, [would be] if He were a part and not the whole: but that He is called God, we shall presently teach; then that He is man; afterwards, that He is composed of diverse things.

XIX. Therefore Jeremiah said, indicating Him: *This is our God, and none other shall be estimated against him. He discovered all the way of discipline, and gave it to Jacob his boy, and to Israel his beloved. After these things he was seen on earth, and conversed with men*. That this prophecy was spoken about Christ, the conversation with men clearly demonstrates, when God took on flesh, of whom David, striking the chords with a plectrum, sang: *God of gods, the Lord hath spoken, and called the earth*; and: *God shall come manifestly*. And lest you happen to think it was predicted of anyone other than Himself, he declares that He is the one who took the power of judgment from the Father, because He is the Son of man; for it follows: *Fire shall burn in his sight, and round about him a severe tempest. He shall call the heaven from above, and the earth, to judge his people*. That, however,

the Father judges no one, we have heard from the Lord himself. God, therefore, while judging his people, is Christ according to his humanity.

XX. To the same effect it is said: *God stood in the synagogue of gods; in the midst, however, he will judge the gods*. Furthermore, Hosea cries out, prophesying from his person and saying: *I am God, and not man; the Holy One among you*. And Isaiah, referring to him, says: *In thee, he says, is God, and there is no other besides thee. For thou art God, and we knew not, the God of Israel the Savior. All who oppose him shall be confounded and put to shame*. ^A That the Jews, however, and the teachers of the law were opposed to him on account of the covering of the flesh is manifest. For when it was unknown who he was who was seen in a strange form, he was hearing from those who were ignorant: *Why do you, man, being who you are, make yourself God?* These, therefore, will one day be confounded, when they understand the truth with the shame of their former ignorance. And so much for this: now, from many things, we shall produce a few which bear testimony to the divinity of Christ and demonstrate him to be God with the flesh.

XXI. That he is, however, man, we shall again demonstrate, to the best of our ability, from these same Holy Scriptures. First, therefore, after Isaiah called him a child, and a rod sprung from the root of Jesse, and Emmanuel, and a male born of a prophetess, and after he named him *Swift to seize, and fast to plunder*; naming this very one man in these words: *And we saw him, he says, and he had no form nor beauty; but his form was dishonored: lacking beyond all men: a man existing in the plague, and knowing how to bear infirmity*. ^B And again David, the writer of the psalms, plucking the divine lyre, says: *What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels*. He was lowered, for, as Paul says, *a little lower than the angels, made man, on account of the passion of death: wherefore he was crowned with glory and honor*, taking as an inheritance all the nations for whom he underwent death: for this was the glory which he had with the Father before the world was made. On account of this, he knew how to bear infirmity, which brought salvation to the whole world. Here, therefore, even though he seemed not to have form or beauty: *Yet he was beautiful in form beyond the sons of men*. For he was the Son of God, and the Son of man confirmed, and the man of the right hand called by the Holy Spirit. *Let thy hand be, he says, upon the man of thy right hand, and upon the Son of man whom thou hast confirmed for thyself*. He is called the man *Oriens* (the Orient, or Rising), according to the prophecy of Zechariah when he says: *Behold the man, the Orient is his name*: for the male born of the prophetess, as Isaiah has evangelized, subsequent interpreters have called a man.

XXII. It is demonstrated, therefore, that he is also called a man by the prophets, who is otherwise God. ^C It remains that we make it manifest from the same Scriptures how the same is God and at once man; that what we have said may have authority, confirmed by the testimonies of the Scriptures. Consider, therefore, for me, whether David signifies this composition in a riddle in the forty-fourth psalm, which is inscribed: *For those who are to be changed, to understanding, a canticle for the beloved*. The beloved, however, is the Son alone, as the Gospel testifies, in which the voice of the Father is carried, which said to Christ: *Thou art my beloved Son*. For this one was changed, having been made man, not by a change of his immutable nature, but by the assumption of another nature: *For this is the change of the right hand of the Most High*, which was made, which was not. Or thus: *For those who are to be changed, the nations, through him*. In this psalm, therefore, for the beloved, or for those who are to be changed, David says: *Beautiful in form beyond the sons of men; grace is poured out upon thy lips: therefore God, thy God, has anointed thee with the oil of exultation beyond thy peers*. Which another of the interpreters made more manifest, saying: *God has anointed thee, thy God*; for God is anointed by God, not insofar as he is God, but insofar as he is the Son of man. ^D For when he had called him the son of man, beautiful in form beyond the sons of men; lest anyone perhaps out of ignorance might suspect that he was man only, he is adorned with divine grace beyond other men, then he called him God, saying: *God has anointed thee, thy God, with the oil of exultation beyond thy peers*. Similar to these are those things which the Lord, raised from the dead, said to Mary: *I ascend to my Father and your Father, my God and your God*. However, there is no one so much a child in the understanding of the mind as to suspect that he who is truly God can properly be said to have a God; nor that he who is man only, properly calls God his own God. But because this and that are in the same, God and at once man, each is seen to be properly: for he is the Son, and the servant; therefore he properly calls God, at once God and Father: the Father indeed as Father of God, but God as God of man. For no one can separate what cannot be separated, while Christ exists, who is composed of these.

XXIII. Whence, against those who, deceived on account of the covering of the flesh, think that the holy prophet is he, and he is seen to be man only; the Lord says through the prophet Zechariah: *I am not a prophet, because a man has begotten me from my youth*; that is: Do not think, I who have been begotten from a man, that I am a prophet: for this generation belongs to my youth, not however to my eternal essence. And through another prophet he said more clearly: *I am God, and not man; the Holy One in thee*; he does not deny that he is man, but rather from that which is more principal, and which was not believed, because...

he was not seen with the eyes of the flesh, he names himself: for he was and is both; from which he fitted for himself the bodily instrument as a vehicle of the divine nature, by which he contrived the salvation which was needed. Wherefore, after the sacrifices of the Law which could not avail, he said: *Behold, I come, having fitted a body for myself, that I may take away the sin of the world*; for this is the will of the Father, that all men be saved: *I come*, he says, *that I may do thy will* ^A.

XXIV. Having therefore demonstrated to those who are not too far removed from listening and obedience that Christ is God, and that he is man; and that he is God and man at once, by the testimony of the Law and the prophets: although it might be superfluous to introduce testimonies of the New Testament, nevertheless, let them be added as redundant to the new things which agree with them, as though written by one and the same Spirit. But what is more explanatory in these than the name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, as the Evangelist says: *God with us*? He was not called God with us in any other way than because he was God and man at once, from us and from God at once; for of such a kind is the composition of the Savior. Whence, when the high priest had proposed an oath to him, while he was undergoing judgment and slander, and he answered nothing to the false accusations, being asked whether he himself were the Son of God, he answered fittingly: *Thou hast said* ^B; and surely he would not have assented to the questioning of him who was maliciously and deceitfully invoking an oath upon him, unless he plainly knew himself to be God and man at once. For if he were only man, as some think concerning him, how did he affirm himself to be God when asked about this? For the reason of justice is not maintained according to those people; since one who assumes to himself the glory and reputation of divinity, while he is otherwise not God, is not only not just, but most blasphemous; yet they condemned him to death as a blasphemous fool and blind man, not understanding what had been clearly and truly said. Wherefore one of two things is necessary: either to confess him to be God, or not even to call him a just man, he who said he was God; for just as the denial of one is the refusal of the other, so the affirmation of one is the confirmation of the other. Therefore, for those who acknowledge him to be a just man, it follows that they must necessarily confess him to be God, who said he was God. For what stands in the way of it being so ^C? For if he does not do, as he said, the works of him who sent him, it is not to be believed that he is God; but if he does them, it is necessary to believe his works: for these demonstrate his substance, according to the axiom which says: *Whose operation is the same, and substance one, the sub-operation will be the same*. Wherefore, in the flesh was hidden the consubstantial with the Father, and he doing the same as him, who said: *My Father worketh until now, and I work*. And again: *What he seeth the Father doing, that the Son doeth also*.

XXV. We shall rightly, therefore, thinking of God, see him *as he is*, not how great he is: for he is God blessed forever, as the Apostle says. But granted that he is God, nevertheless on the other hand he is found to be called man by himself, and indeed even by his disciples; for he said to the Jews: *Now you seek to kill me, a man who tells you the truth*; which indeed, when Paul perfectly understood, he left the expression which has equal force in his Epistles, when he said: *The man Christ Jesus, who gave himself for all*. Thus therefore, whoever seeks without contention will not stray from the truth, which can be made plain to those who desire it, whose greedy and diligent students we are, having set forth a few things out of the many which are dispersed in the divine Scriptures, as much as memory offered at the time. Moreover, those who have the sacred books in their hands can collect everything regarding this matter, and have it at the ready for their own benefit and for refuting falsehood: which I, indeed, was not able to do now in exile. But since a few things have the same power that many have, the fewness of those which have been set forth will not stand against those who wish to have a certain and explored [truth], in which there was need to have: for what has faith and authority in one thing which is said by him, makes it no less credible than if a thousand things of similar authority had been said; for the spirit is the same in all. But what need is there of many words? Since he himself from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds, openly offers testimony to the truth concerning himself, who knows himself, and what is in him: for the Evangelist says: *He himself knew what was in man*. Enough for now: let us proceed next to setting forth, according to our strength, what pertains to the passion of the Savior.

IV. ON THE PASSION AND IMPASSIBILITY OF CHRIST.

I. When Christ was showing himself to be true God and Lord of all by the things he said and did, he was saying to his disciples when about to ascend to Jerusalem: *Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be delivered to the Gentiles and to the chief priests and the Scribes, to be scourged, and mocked, and crucified*.

ORATION IV. — ON THE PASSION AND IMPASSIBILITY OF CHRIST

He was saying these things, which were in agreement with the predictions of the prophets who had foretold the end he was to have in Jerusalem; whence, at the time of that incursion of wicked men, when they came with swords and clubs to apprehend Jesus, under the lead of that mob’s Juda—whom it would have been better never to have been born—when Peter, with drawn sword, and the ear of a certain Malchus, servant of the high priest, having been cut off, wanted to avenge the injury to his Master, the Lord himself, rebuking Peter, said: *Put up again thy sword into his place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. Or thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be done?* If, therefore, it must be done, it was absolutely necessary that it be done; and what is necessary to be done, cannot fail to be done. ^B Since, therefore, the divine Scripture had from the beginning foretold the death of Christ, and the sufferings before death, and what things happened to his dead body after death, and declares this God to whom these things happened to be impassible and immortal—for God could never be otherwise, unless, looking into the truth of the incarnation, we derive thence the reasons for rightly and justly confessing both, namely, both the passion and the impassibility; and since He alone knows, and those to whom He has revealed it, the reason for which the Word of God, otherwise impassible, came to the passion—for indeed man could not be saved otherwise; for He knows all things which are the Father's, as it is written: *The Spirit searcheth the deep…* mysteries.

II. Moreover, it was absolutely impossible for the passion not to occur, as He himself affirmed when He called them *slow and foolish* who did not know that thus Christ must suffer, and enter into his glory. For He went forth for the salvation of his people, having left that glory which He had with the Father before the world was; but salvation was the consummation which had to be wrought through passion, and be attributed to the author of our life, as Paul teaches when he says: *Him to be the author of life perfected through sufferings.* And in a certain way, the glory of the Only-Begotten, outside of which He had been for a brief time for our sake, seems to have been restored to Him through the cross in the assumed flesh; for the son of thunder says in his Gospel, when he expounds what that water was which the Savior said flowed like rivers from the belly of the believer: *Now this he said of the Spirit, which they should receive who believe in him; for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified;* he calls death on the cross glory. Whence the Lord, when He was offering prayers before He underwent the cross, besought the Father that He might be glorified with that glory which He had with Him before the world was. ^D III. But after the resurrection, while He was staying with his disciples, He affirmed that He had received this which He asked for, saying: *All power is given to me in heaven and in earth; so that it is now clearly demonstrated that the cause of this glory is the cross, and the death through the cross: for our whole race was guilty of death, because all have sinned; but the sting of death is sin, by which death has laid us low, wounded. And those who had been conquered by arms and taken captive could not otherwise be liberated from the bonds of servitude except through death: for the price of liberation is placed in the will of those who hold the captives. There was not, therefore, one who could undertake the business and redeem the race; no one of the human race was free: for scarce is one liberated by dying for himself, who can in no way liberate even one with himself: but if he cannot even one, who could liberate the whole world from servitude? For even if, let us posit this, each one had been sufficient for his own liberation: yet it was not fitting that all should die, and all remain under the power of death. Whose, therefore, was such an excellent duty? Namely, of someone who could not have sinned. But who among all was there who could not sin, if not God alone? Therefore, because this work was God’s, and it could not be accomplished without death and without the passions which precede death; but God is entirely incapable of death: He assumed a nature, consubstantial with us and in all things similar, which could take on passions and death; offering at the same time an occasion for death to attack the flesh, and intending to overcome death itself, by nature subject to death, by struggling against it, so that neither could death say it was overcome not by a man, but by God; nor could we be rendered soft for the contest, when the time called for it: provided that we had an example in the flesh of the same nature and substance, in which sin had been condemned, which had found no place in it. For the Word of God struggled through it with death impassibly, because He made that very flesh his own, and it is united with Him, as the soul is with the body: He calls this his own body and flesh. And He deems and reckons all things that have been done in it as his own. Indeed, the prophet cries out from his person, saying: *They have added to the wound of my sorrows.* He calls the wound of his body his own wound; and he reckons parts of the body as his own members, just as the whole body: *I gave my back to the scourges, and my cheeks to the slaps; and I did not turn away my face from the disgrace of spittings.* And again: *They dug my hands and my feet, and numbered all my bones.* And these things he says indeed about the body, which he calls his own. And those things which were brought upon the body, he says were brought upon Himself, who bore the body.

IV. Furthermore, He also says that He has suffered, without naming the body or enumerating the members; as when the prophet says: *He was led as a sheep to the slaughter.* And: *They gave gall for my food...*

and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.* ^A Let no one imagine that these things are said of Him separately; rather, we profess that all things are said of Him conjointly. For this reason, both human and divine things are predicated of Him in common, while the mind distinguishes what pertains to each nature. For the Divinity is impassible, and passion can never reach the impassible, nor can those things which belong to the soul, or to the body, or to the animate body reach it. For it belongs to the soul endowed with reason to feel pain, to be troubled, to grieve, and to ponder sad things that are pressing or approaching; to the body, to be cut and joined; and to the animate body, to hunger, to thirst, to toil, and to sweat. All these things, and each of them, happen to the sufferer according to a change of state. But God says: *I am, and I change not.* ^B And another theologian says to Him: *But Thou art the selfsame.* What passion, then, can anyone suppose to happen to the impassible? Or a bodily passion? But in what way could this happen, which cannot even happen to the soul, which is created and recent? Or an animal passion, that is, one of a soul endowed with reason? But this is highly absurd, if one says that the same passions which fall upon creatures fall upon the Creator of the universe. And not only this, but also that He is subject to change and variation; for it is impossible that such passions should occur without change, yet the divine nature can never be changed. But the passion of the animate flesh reached the Divinity. Far be it, says the prophet: *For the eternal God shall not hunger, nor will He toil; nor is there any searching of His wisdom.*

V. Since, therefore, the divine nature is substantially devoid of passion, and yet the passion and the cross by which we have been saved are proclaimed; for Paul says: *I judged not myself to know anything among you, except Christ, and Him crucified*; it necessarily follows that the passion belongs properly and primarily to the assumed nature, and in no way to the assuming nature as if separated, but rather united according to the hypostasis in an indissoluble union; so that all things belong to the one Christ, both divine and human, without our reason confusing them when it seeks to discern what is divine and what, in turn, is human. But rather, it is necessary to predicate both of one and the same person—I mean ^C the passions and the impassibility; because He of whom they are predicated is composed of both. For just as we know that bodily divisions and stripes pertain primarily to the body, yet because of the composition we say they belong to the soul, even though we otherwise know it is impossible for the soul to be affected by these things—and then the movements of the soul and the sciences which are conveyed by reason, although they are otherwise of the soul, we nevertheless say they belong to the composite animal, even though the corporeal nature is not adapted to grasp knowledge—so also in Christ, who is God and man at once, we profess all things to be of one and the same person, preserving the natural state and the impassibility.

VI. Peter, the prince of the apostles, taught us to speak and think in this way when he says: *Christ having suffered for us in the flesh*; even though he had clearly and openly confessed Him to be the Son of God, for which he was deservedly called blessed for having received such a revelation from God the Father. It is necessary, therefore, that we, following Peter, who received knowledge of this matter from God, use the same rule and say that Christ is passible, as the most wise Paul speaks, yet not according to the Divinity; and the same is impassible, but not according to the humanity. He suffered, therefore, the passions of nature, which are followed not by condemnation, but by a magnificent contemplation of the natures opposed to one another. And it is indeed God who suffers, though the Divinity does not partake of the passion; yet the same one is man, not suffering by the Divinity that was in Him, which by nature possesses impassibility, even though it is composed with the suffering body. The very mode of the passion demonstrates the difference of the composed natures and the innocence of the ^D passible nature. For He was not condemned to death or insult because He had committed anything worthy of it; for *He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.*

VII. Moreover, even those who condemned Him to death bore witness to Him. For when the Jews were gathered and requested Barabbas the robber, Pilate said: *Will you that I release to you Jesus, who is called Christ?* For he knew that they had delivered Him out of envy. They answered: *Not, but Barabbas.* To whom Pilate said again: *What then shall I do with Jesus, who is called Christ?* But they said: *Let Him be crucified.* And again, in order to shame them, Pilate said: *What evil hath He done?* Therefore, since He had done no evil, He was handed over to death by the cross. Whence Isaiah says: *For their sins, namely of men, He was delivered.* And again: *For the sins of my people He is led to death.* For truly it was we who had death as an adulterous mistress, and had taken our honors from Him, and had sinned unto death by our sins. Therefore the prophet cries out, rebuking the crime of the sale, saying: *Behold, with your sins you have been sold.* But although the sale was wicked, [D (cont)] nonetheless it was necessary that the liberation should be just and lawful. For we have all been bought with the precious blood of the immaculate and undefiled Lamb, Christ; and thus liberated from the prison of him who had first led us into slavery.

VIII. We have opportunely obtained our freedom. He has therefore torn up our handwriting, whereby we had enslaved ourselves to service, having suffered everything for our sake, whatever it is that they say are the signs of complete liberty.

For he was beaten and struck with fists, the prophecies concerning these things indeed having been brought to realization; for us, however, he obtained deliverance from service: nothing of the honors which occurred during his passion happened in vain or by chance; far be it that we should think this! Rather, it happened for a certain better and necessary reason, which no power of words can reach.

IX. For when we had been sold and had become servants of death, which held dominion over all, he himself willed to be sold for our sake; but we were sold for the price of pleasure, while he for silver: for he was stronger than pleasure. And we were sold by ourselves, but he was sold by us: since he is not the seller of liberty, but its champion. And we abused the honors which we had received from him toward our own destruction. Now, the valuation of a free person was a burial place for strangers, to preserve the bodies of those who had ceased to live in a foreign land; until he comes who raises the bodies, whose souls have been redeemed by his precious blood: for his blood was poured out that it might be the price of redemption for many. Perhaps, however, it would be better to say, for all: for all are those who are many. And indeed, at first glance, it was a man who was slaughtered; for this alone was visible; but the wonders performed by him testified that his nature, from which the activity proceeded, was above man: I do not mean the raising of the dead, the sight restored to the blind, the cleansing of lepers, or the healing of other infirmities: for the common people attributed these to the Savior as to God; but [there is] also that which perhaps does not come into the minds of many. What is this? Namely, to do all things with power, and above all, to cast the merchants out of the temple, who were making the house of prayer a den of thieves: for if his power had not been excessive, never would he have driven so many thousands of buyers and sellers out of the temple; especially with the feast at hand, and those flocking to him from all sides, when the law summoned everyone from every place to the day of unleavened bread, on which it was legally established that the passover be sacrificed. For what leader, having sent in a vast army of armed soldiers, could have cast out so many, especially when that nefarious trade had been confirmed over a long period of time? Yet he himself, with only a whip made of cords, drove them all out, calling his house a house of prayer, which they who were trafficking in God had made an emporium, buying doves, and changing divine Scriptures like money-changers, whose tables are deservedly overturned, and whose coins are poured out by the divine virtue of Him who had come to purge the temple, in which the law commanded pure sacrifices to be offered to God, and not that these nefarious things should happen.

^{A B C} X. Wherefore they admired him, who were watching what was happening, and when this miracle, as it was fitting, was such a huge one, and was being divulged, they brought together all those whose body parts were injured, who approached him in the temple, and they were healed: the second miracle was greater than the first. For the law barred the lame and the blind far from the temple: but when this admirable prodigy of the ejection of those who were in the market occurred, those who had seen and heard, and were teaching that a work of this kind was greater than human strength, entered boldly: and when they were in the temple, they approached Jesus, and he healed them: demonstrating in all things that he is God hidden in the flesh, which Paul calls the veil: now the veil is the covering of the holy and of the holies, which the high priest alone entered once a year, that he might render God propitious for his own and the people's ignorances. Wherefore, we dare to interpret the holy [place] covered by the first veil, and the holy of holies by the second, in such a way as to say that the first veil is the body of Christ; the second, however, the soul: for the soul is covered by the body, as by the first veil; but the soul is the second veil of the Word.

XI. Moreover, the two tabernacles were joined and connected by cords and rings, which seem to me to have signified symbolically, by what modes and reasons—things which, like opaque symbols for interpretation, have contemplations very difficult to explain—such charity of God toward us has been exhibited. For one tabernacle has one veil from top to bottom: nor is it permitted to contemplate those veils otherwise than if one, ascending from the extremes to the first, arrives at the beginning. The composition indeed tends from the top downward; but the dissolution (this, however, we call intellection) elevates those who are worthy from the bottom to the top. The Word placed this tabernacle in the circuit as a hiding place, the firstfruits of all humanity; and he gave this as a price for all, handing over his soul to death; that it might become a substitution for the entire human race: for he tasted death for all, drawn toward this by no one by force, but unwillingly. For he said: "No one takes my soul from me; but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down; and I have power to take it again." In which he also declared himself to be more than man: since every man lays down his soul unwillingly; and there are others who take the soul, who are ministers appointed for this: as it was said to that rich man, whose field had brought forth abundant fruits, who had taken an imprudent counsel: "This night they shall require thy soul of thee." But no one took the soul of our Savior, but he himself rather laid it down for a brief time, the same divine

^A providence by which he was made man for our sake; for it was necessary to go to the souls released from their bodies, and to preach deliverance to the captives. Whoever, therefore, wishes to dismiss his own soul is not merely a soul using a body: for why is it that he of his own will releases his soul? For it is not consistent with reason to think that the body, which does not possess voluntary appetites, could do this. But if this should be conceded, it would be found that the body is nobler than the soul which participates in reason, since the body dismisses the soul, while the soul is dismissed. Therefore it is necessary to believe entirely that in the composition of Christ there is something else besides body and soul, something nobler than both: and more fundamental than that which is more excellent; something which, by its own authority, gave the body as food to the disciples, and laid down the soul for its friends: and by this means showed his excessive love for us.

XII. But what was this? It was the divine power, composed, of course, without passion, with a terrestrial body. And it was hidden, indeed, and not seen, on account of the tabernacle which, as I said, was round about it; and because its nature is invisible: yet it demonstrated itself to be God through the things it did. For the works cried out, which proclaimed God hidden in the flesh: and the sufferings were, in the first place and primarily, of the flesh; but as far as he attributed them to himself, they were of him who had assumed the flesh: the miracles, however, were primarily of the Word of God; but at the same time the flesh was glorified through these, because, of course, it was of the Word of God. The flesh itself was pierced by nails on the cross, and was wounded by a lance, and was given vinegar to drink, and suffered every kind of insult voluntarily from those wicked men, when it had the Word of God united to it according to the hypostasis. Whence the blood which flowed from it is said to be the blood of the incorporeal and bloodless Word, in so far as Christ, composed from both, is one, God and man simultaneously. But he clearly declares that this is so, when he calls the Father ^B his God and Father upon the cross: *Eloi*, he says, *lamma sabachthani?* which is interpreted: *My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?* And again: *My Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.* And that which happened, the blood and water flowing from the side when already dead, was above the nature of man: which indeed brought some of the unbelievers who were standing by to believe, confessing him to be truly the Son of God, because of whom and through whom so many and so great wonders were brought forth. And what were these wonders? A defect of the sun at the fourteenth moon, when it was permitted for the Jews to sacrifice the passover: earthquakes, rocks rent, graves opened, the dead raised, the veil of the temple torn from top to bottom, and other things of this kind, which declared the power of him who was hanging on the wood, and who condemned our sin in it. For it was not consistent that the whole universe should be so disturbed on account of one who was merely a man; and if someone should perhaps say that it sympathized, he would not be wrong: for it was necessary that the creatures should sympathize with the Creator. Nor do we say these things without probable reason, since although many just men had suffered before, nothing in the universe abandoned its order: for what is recorded in the Scriptures to have happened when the saints were stoned, slain by the sword, or divided? But because the whole creation was moved when this one suffered, it became a herald to those who have ears to hear, that he who hung there was truly the Son of God and God, not an adopted Son, nor God by grace, but Son by nature and God by nature, and consubstantial with the Begetter, who before the morning star was begotten as incorporeal God, who later took hold ^C of the seed of Abraham, and through union with it became man, who shared in flesh and blood, like the children. They took this flesh in which God was, once it was taken down from the cross, and placed it in the sepulcher, and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth; and those who had sought the body out of excessive grief withdrew. There was, moreover, a stone that obstructed the entrance of the monument, as a testimony that he was truly dead and buried.

V. ON THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

I. Truly, the affairs of our Savior and Lord were not consumed only up to these things; for a most complete economy was needed, and a goal was lacking: for by the resurrection of him who had died from the dead, there resulted the birth of the same one who was begotten before the ages, and the death through the cross of him who is immortal; which indeed did not happen by chance, as someone might perhaps say: for there are many and diverse modes of death that happen to men; some ^D from providence, others from treachery: but in order that his death might be public to all, and that it might not escape notice what had happened, for this reason he was so dead: for who would deny that he who hung on the cross and was pierced with nails and thus left this life was dead, although he strongly opposes the truth? For of those who were with him on the gallows, only Jesus died; I mean the two thieves, who were crucified with him and suffered no such thing. The events that followed bear witness: for when the Great Sabbath had arrived, falling upon the feast of Unleavened Bread, the Jews had asked Pilate that the bodies of those who were crucified should be taken down, and Pilate had granted this.

^A And the history records that the soldiers, when they arrived, having been ordered to break the legs of the others, indeed broke the legs of the first and the second who had been crucified with Him; but when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.

II. Since, therefore, there are witnesses that He was dead, no one will have any ground for denying the death of the One who was raised. Indeed, even Joseph, when he had asked for the body to bury it, was wondered at by Pilate, because He was already dead. What can be more evident than the testimony of the Jews, who wish to hide the resurrection of the Lord by every artifice? For when they had come to Pilate on the following day, they said: "We remember that that deceiver, while He was still living, said: After three days I will rise again." Since, therefore, they say, "when He was still living He said," and by saying "when He was still living," they clearly declare that He was dead, all the fabrication of those who dare to say that He was not dead will be refuted.

III. ^B Next, that the sepulcher was sealed—which those wicked men had suggested—was done with the greatest deliberation to the shame of those who said that the disciples came by night and stole Him. For the monument being sealed, and the soldiers guarding the seals, what plausible reason will appear to obscure the truth? But neither can that be justly said by anyone, in my opinion, that those close to the sepulcher should be accused of violating it, having stolen the body while the seals remained intact. For the monument was not constructed of selected stones joined together, but rather it was a native rock, which cast off this entire suspicion; for this reason it was a new monument, recently made in the rock, in which no body had previously been laid, so that it might not come into doubt for those who in any way accept the resurrection, as to who had been raised from the dead.

IV. ^C All these things and many more were provided for this purpose: to establish faith in the resurrection of our Savior; to show which, the angel descended, who rolled away the stone from the opening of the monument—not to prepare an exit for the entombed, for already on the third day the Lord had risen, unimpeded by anyone, but to demonstrate the place where the body had been laid, where only the burial clothes of the One raised remained. Whence the angel who appeared to the women who had come said: "Do not be afraid: I know that you seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified; He is not here; He has risen, as He said: come, see the place where He was laid." When these things were done, the soldiers guarding Him, terrified by fear, lay as though dead; having barely been freed from the terror of their alarm, they fled into the city to report what had happened. But the wicked priests of the Jews, who ought finally to have come to their senses and to have repented of what they had done, instead persisting in their malice, strove to obscure the resurrection and to weave together much mendacity, which they themselves very foolishly suggested to them: "Say," they say, "that His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were sleeping." Deservedly it can be said to them: O teachers of absurd and contradictory lying! How could it happen that those who were sleeping could see who it was that stole Him? But if they truly recognized the thieves—for you suggested that they say this—surely they recognized them by seeing them: how then were they sleeping if they saw them? Why did they not rather prevent the theft? For this reason they had remained at the monument, just as had been proposed by the impious and false teachers, who had affirmed that they would persuade the governor Pilate that they saw the truth while they were asleep.

V. ^D And they indeed thought they were thus obscuring and covering the truth; but the Savior truly rose on the third day, having left corruption in the sepulcher and having become the firstborn from the dead; for He descended into the lower parts of the earth, and came into its heart, remaining there for as much time as was necessary to impart His grace and benefit to those who were held in hell. For He did not descend there in vain, because God does nothing in vain, but that He might lead out those who were in the prison, and lead them back, walking before them as a shepherd before his sheep, seeking those whom He had lost, and finding those whom He had sought, and leading back those for whom He had descended. For He did not only dissolve the destruction of bodies in the sepulcher, but He also liberated captive souls from hell, in which they were held by tyranny; and perhaps they were not held by tyranny, but for many debts; these being paid, He who had descended for the sake of liberation led back a great multitude of captives, promising that even he who had led the captives would one day be held captive and a servant; I mean him, who a little while before was thought to be a master. For it says: "There shall be captives who led you captive; and they shall be under your dominion who now dominate you."

VI. To this end Christ died and lived, that He might be the Lord both of the dead and of the living. But God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. Therefore the dead, whose Lord He who lived is, are no longer dead, but living; and for this reason life dominates them, so that they may live, no longer fearing death, just as Christ, raised from the dead, no longer dies: thus those raised and freed from corruption shall no longer see death, being future participants in the resurrection of Christ, just as He Himself was a participant in their death. For He did not descend into the earth, whose eternal bars held Him, for any other reason than to crush the bronze gates and break the iron bars and to lead our life from corruption toward Himself, having given us liberty in place of servitude. But if the work of this economy does not yet seem complete—for men still die,

^A and bodies are dissolved by destruction—far be it that this should be an occasion for unbelief. For we have already received the earnest of all good things that have been spoken of, through our first fruits, by which we have escaped to the height of heaven and have sat down with Him who raised us up with Himself into the heights, just as Paul says in a certain place: *And He raised us up together, and made us sit in the heavenly places in Christ* (Eph. II, 6). We shall bear the consummation when the time predetermined by the Father shall arrive, when we shall put off childishness and reach unto a perfect man (Eph. IV, 13). For it seemed good to the Father of ages that the gift given should be firm, and not be despised again because the mind becomes youthful once more.

VII. Let no one, therefore, imagine that the earnest was not given, from the fact that he still sees some bound by their former debts. For the earnest, as we have said, was paid beforehand, which makes one certain of the payment of the entire sum; for the earnest is not the whole sum, but a part, which Paul indeed calls a *riddle* (1 Cor. XIII, 12). But all these things shall come to an end when *God shall be all in all* (1 Cor. XV, 28). Do you see from where He has led us? Truly, He has led us out and will lead us out; for the death of Christ has become life to the dead: He heals contraries with contraries, who can wisely heal incurable diseases. But when the mystery of death was also fulfilled, and death, which had power over bodies, was destroyed, since our body was clothed with the power of God, after He had left the tomb on the third day—He who had truly been buried—it was fitting that He, having descended to take away the sin of the world, should again ascend with the assumed body to the Father who had sent Him ^B for there was no longer any place on earth suitable and fit for a body that had laid aside its fleshly density and had become, from corruptible, incorruptible; from mortal, immortal; from animal, spiritual. For just as an earthly place is the dwelling of bodies, so a heavenly place is the dwelling of spiritual things. But what need is there to say that the Lord’s body rose spiritual, when Paul testifies concerning bodies that *they are sown animal and rise spiritual* (1 Cor. XV, 44)—transfigured, of course, to the glorious transfiguration of Christ, the leader who goes before? Since even the Apostle says that this, which he clearly knew, would happen to every human race through Christ, *who will transfigure our body of humiliation, so that He may make it conformed to the body of His glory* (Philip. III, 21). If, therefore, the transfiguration is a change into a spiritual body, and this is conformed to the body of the glory of Christ, then Christ rose with a spiritual body; which is nothing else than that which was *sown in dishonor* (1 Cor. XV, 43), but is that very thing which has been changed into honor. Truly that body remained, but the flesh did not—not indeed because the underlying substance perished, but because it became more glorious. For ^C it can take on qualities, even if not all at once; nor is it made another, but a varied one; that is, affected by other qualities than those by which it was previously affected: indeed, it varies and changes these when it pleases the Creator.

VIII. Let no one, therefore, when he hears that it has become spiritual from animal, think that the body was not raised; for this is an error, and the opinion of the enemies of the truth. For the substance underlying the body, I repeat, perseveres indeed the same always, as long as it shall seem good to the Creator that it should persist; but when changed into a spiritual body, it is varied, but not made another. Thus, therefore, Christ also rose: and His testimonies are many others, but this is the most powerful of all, namely, that He left the linen cloths in the monument, that He emerged from the sealed monument, that He entered while the doors were shut, that He did not dwell with the disciples as before at all times, but suddenly appeared to them in other forms; that He no longer had need of food or clothing; for the soldiers had divided the first garments; those things which pertained to the burial, He left in the monument and rose. And when He appeared to the disciples, He indeed conversed with them, yet He was not recognized as to who He was, until He had offered them signs that it was He Himself; sometimes truly by showing His hands and feet pierced by the nails and His side opened by the lance; at other times, indeed, by taking food with them, and by refreshing the memory of their dining with Him before the passion: which was as if He were saying, while He was doing these things: I am He whom you recognized as living and conversing with you in a dense body; which body I now bear, free from every infirmity, having become glorious through change. He would never have wished to make Himself manifest to the disciples with so many and such great signs, and while they were absent from Him for no long time, if a change of form had not varied His body. For if a long time had passed, perhaps someone could say ^D that he had forgotten what the lines of the body were, by which we are accustomed to distinguish natures among ourselves: but three days having elapsed, what forgetfulness could overcome those who had dwelt with Him for such a long time! It is manifest, therefore, and without doubt, that it was changed into a more glorious one, made from animal into spiritual, from weak into strong. For the Apostle says: *For He was crucified out of weakness, yet He lives by the power of God* (2 Cor. XIII, 4), no longer having this infirmity. But this infirmity is that dense and earthly body, which after forty days retreated to heaven as if to its own proper place, using the cloud as a vehicle: for the body could no longer be borne downward by its own weight, as heavy bodies are by nature borne, but rather, since it was lighter with the cloud, it was raised on high above it, and sat at the right hand of God the Father, having proceeded to heaven, subject to the angels themselves, and to the powers, and to the virtues. He will come

but again in the same body Christ will be judge of the living and the dead, just as the angels said to the disciples when they were gazing at him as he ascended into heaven: "Men," they say, "why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."

IX. Therefore, when he comes again with the body of the resurrection, as the holy angels said with their own voices, he will come with that body with which he now sits at the right hand of the Father. And when he has brought the first fruits of our nature to the Father, he will also bring the whole universe to him; for he promised this when he said: "When I am lifted up, I will draw all ^A to myself." Then even his enemies will be subjected under his feet, as it was promised to him: "For the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." They are placed there, however, partly against their will and partly willingly; for it is necessary that all wicked sinners be destroyed from the earth, so that they may no longer exist. Then a new praise and a perpetual hymn will be offered by the mouths of all to the Father of times and ages; and every knee shall bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth; and every tongue will confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. To whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

OF THE SAME ANASTASIUS, FOUR SERMONS.

Translated by François Combefis. (Galland, *Veterum Patrum Bibliotheca*, vol. XII, p. 258.)

SERMON I. On the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The lover of mankind, Jesus, appearing to the world as a good teacher, since he was also God, said to his disciples: "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his soul will lose it; but whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but suffers the loss of his own soul? Or what will a man give as an exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is to come in the glory of his Father with his holy angels; then he will reward each according to his works."

"If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny ^B himself"; that is, every human sentiment, and not only that, but also, "Likewise with me, let him take up his cross, and follow me." We have understood from his writings that Paul did this; for he was not only crucified to the world, and the world was crucified to him; but he also transformed his very life, no longer living as himself, neither moving nor acting on his own; but he had that very life of Christ working within him. For he had surrendered himself ^C

^A completely, and having mortified his own will, he had submitted his whole self to the divine will; so that, if I may be bold to give him a name, Paul was more to be called Christ than a living man, for Christ was his life. Thus, they who wish to be his must go after him and follow him. For since in most people there is a twofold and contrary will—the divine, that is, and the human—and it is not possible that anyone should live without one or the other of these, it is clear that whoever is attached to the one must recoil from the other, and vice versa. Whoever, therefore, wishes to come after the Lord must hate every human inclination, and by changing the life he lived before, let him follow; thus, in a certain sense, abandoning himself and transforming all the powers of his soul. For he who truly wishes to find his own soul, which is wandering among the vanities of this life and visions likened to its dreams, must first lose it from the life in which it previously existed; and then he will find it with a fine finding. But for as long as he has an affection for the matter of the world, he cannot recognize the perdition in which he is immersed. He will not, therefore, necessarily seek the lost soul, nor will he find it. For just as there are two lives and two deaths, one according to God and one according to the world—as Paul clearly spoke of living to sin and to righteousness—so there is a twofold perdition of the soul: one worthy of reproach, and the other truly laudable. And as he who lives to sin is dead to righteousness, so in turn he who lives to righteousness is dead to sin. In the same way, he who follows the wills of the flesh walks after the flesh, and is in a state of loss ^B regarding the following of the Lord. But he who hates the flesh and that life—that is, its perdition—and by virtue says, "I will walk after my God," he has exchanged his perdition, having acquired a praiseworthy one in place of the one worthy of reproach. For to perish to the world is to be found by God; and conversely, to be found by the world is to perish to God. But how foolish is that counsel, that a man should gain or win the whole world and have it as his own possession, yet suffer the loss of his soul, and lose it? For what is a worthy exchange for the soul, or what will a man give as a ransom for it? Nothing that exists in material things is of equal value to it. Only the soul itself can be given for itself; and absolutely nothing else. For the Son of Man, receiving judicial power from the Father, is to come in order to render to each according to his works ^C when nothing of the things that surround us will be able to help us; but all of us, naked and bereft of things not our own (for all things around us are not our own), will stand before the judgment seat; and the books will be opened by which we are convicted, and by which, through the things impressed upon the conscience, it is made manifest which one each preferred to follow—flesh or spirit, Christ or the world—which perdition of the soul he chose: that which is from God, or that which is from the world. And then, while that terrible and most exact investigation is being made, He who has received the power to judge ^D [is the Son of Man], renders to each a worthy distribution.

For He is to come in the glory of His Father with the holy angels, those ^A administrating spirits; no longer having the appearance or beauty as He now appeared to the world, but beautiful with a beauty beyond the sons of men, having transformed His own body into incorruption; and revealing that which was transformed after the resurrection into the spiritual and heavenly; which we also have as a pledge of our own transformation and transfiguration of our bodies. And that we might have the obscure promise of this hope in certainty, He wills even now to show to the chosen among the disciples the change that shall then come to pass. In a moment, says Paul, and in the twinkling of an eye. Therefore He says: Amen I say to you, there are some of those standing here, who shall not taste death, until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. But how this was brought to pass we shall know from what follows.

III. On the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ

^B And it came to pass after six days, Jesus takes Peter, and James, and John his brother; and brings them up into a high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them. His face shone as the sun. And His garments became white as snow. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with Him. These things should not be heard superficially; nor should one think that the history goes no further than the words, signifying only that which is designated by the spoken terms; but rather, it is a certain initiation into mysteries, set apart, and relating to the enjoyment of the goods which shall be ours after the course of this life, or rather, the goods reserved for the saints, and not for us. Wherefore, after six days from ^C the promise, He fulfills the promise which He had spoken to the disciples. And that promise was of this kind: There are some of those standing here, who shall not taste death, until they see the kingdom of God; which must be manifested after the consummation of this grosser world. Therefore, after six days, He took those whom it behooved to know the more divine mysteries of the kingdom before tasting death. For after the six, there is the seventh, that holy rest in which it is not lawful to work. Since in six days God created the heaven and the earth; and on the seventh He rested, and sanctified it. Wherefore on the first [day] the promise came to pass; and the first [day] again was the fulfillment of the promise. The number six, therefore, is analogous to this grosser world, which is composed and completed ^D from its own specific days, being a symbol of generation, and having within itself the male and the female, the combination of which causes the generation of bodies. But after the generation of these there comes in succession the seventh, in which they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. Whence also the number seven is called "virgin," and the seventh day "holy,"

^A causing every work of servitude to cease, and making all to be settled, each in his own place.

IV. After this, therefore, he takes with him three of his chosen disciples. For it was neither fitting that Judas should become a spectator of such great mysteries; nor, again, that he alone should be absent from the spectacle, lest the supposed preference of the others over him should become for him an occasion of betrayal. For this reason, Jesus takes only the three, and leads them into a high mountain ^B (and what is higher than his glory?), and that apart. For the spiritual life is of one mode. And leading them up from below—not so much by local ascent as by a certain divine method, that is, making them capable of his surpassing illuminations—he was then transfigured before them ^C. Long ago, too, Jesus the Savior had been transfigured, not in the sight of men, but before his own Father: when he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, and emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, he who existed in the form of God. Therefore at that time he obscured his divine form, having been transfigured into the form of a servant; but now he restores the form of a servant to its native form; not indeed laying aside the servile substance, but adorning it with divine properties. He is therefore transfigured before them, by which he might signify to them that he would thus one day transfigure the body of our humility, making it conformed to the body of his glory. And his face, he says, shone as the sun, and his garments became white as snow. These things were not written because they admit of comparison with the sun and snow (for what comparison is there of that which is beyond comparison?), but because among things composed of matter, nothing more brilliant than the sun or whiter than snow occurs, and he wished to sufficiently represent the excellence of his light and splendor, he made the conjecture from these things so well known to us. Moreover, the ^D splendor of his garments signifies the future mutation of our bodies. For we have become a garment to him, because he put on our flesh. And perhaps his face, shining like the sun, symbolically signified his own proper body; but his garments, white as snow, represent those who are purified by him, through his power to transform them. For this reason is the spiritual garment also compared to snow, because it too, being transformed and evaporated from water, has become snow. But that human nature has been, and will be again, his garment, let us hear Isaiah saying to him from the person of God: As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thyself with all these, and bind them upon thee as the ornament of a bride.

V. Therefore he was transfigured, and his face shone as the sun, and his garments became white as snow; and there appeared to them Moses and Elias, talking with him. The apostles, having become more discerning as

^A they were exalted together with Jesus on the mountain, scarcely realized that Moses and Elias were at that time talking with Jesus because they had been transfigured with him. For they would not have been talking if they had not been transfigured. But according to Luke, they were talking with Jesus about the departure which he was about to fulfill in Jerusalem; and the disciples heard from them regarding the things about which they had previously been ignorant when Jesus spoke to them—at the time when Peter, mindful of the things of men, rebuked Jesus for saying that he must be killed by men and rise from the dead on the third day.

Moses and Elias—that is, the Law and the Prophets—concur, therefore, as I said, with Jesus. When their accounts are transfigured and the shadows of the Law are removed, then also will Moses, the faithful servant—who wrote everything pertaining to Christ—be believed, and he will clearly demonstrate from his own words the departure which he (Christ) was about to fulfill in Jerusalem. But as for the inquiry of some—whence, or how, or by what signs the disciples recognized the prophets—this does not seem to me a clever question nor one worthy of investigation. Since they had advanced to such a height that they were deemed worthy of so great a spectacle—which He himself, revealing ^B that He was transfigured with the prophets, had called the kingdom of heaven—how could they have failed to recognize the fellow-disciples? Certainly, the apostles themselves were also prophets; and when prophets associate with prophets, they possess one and the same knowledge, and especially when Jesus is present, illuminating the governing part of the soul and molding the mind toward his own divine form.

And Peter, answering Jesus, said: "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elias." Peter had perceived the difference between intelligible things and sensible things, and he chose the better over the worse. Nevertheless, he did not yet have perfect knowledge of the things that were being seen; for otherwise, he would have had no notion of tabernacles among things purely intelligible. But perhaps he speaks in this way being still anxious about the Teacher, on account of the death He had foretold, regarding which even those who appeared were talking with Jesus. For they were saying, with one accord, that this departure was to take place in Jerusalem. For this reason, perhaps, he was asking the Teacher to prefer to remain there, and not in any way to deliver Himself to the Pharisees and Scribes who were envious of Him. For he thought, perhaps, that no conspirator could come to Him on the mountain; and otherwise, it was impossible that He should be in Jerusalem and in another place at the same time. "It is good, therefore, for us to be here with Moses and Elias, rather than to go to the profane and God-killing priests." And if you will assent to what is said: "Let us make," he says, "here three tabernacles: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elias." That he spoke out of consideration for the Teacher, albeit unknowingly, and was becoming an obstacle to the salvation of the world, Luke notes by saying: "Not knowing what he said." But Mark says:

"For he knew not what to say, nor what he understood." ^A Let those who went up with Jesus remain in a more elevated place.

VI. While he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And behold a voice from the cloud, saying: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him." And the disciples hearing, fell upon their face, and were very afraid. And Jesus came and touched them, saying: "Arise, and fear not." And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one, save Jesus only. While Peter was still speaking—out of that affection which he had for the Teacher—a certain bright cloud overshadowed them from above; and a voice issued from the cloud, correcting Peter, and perhaps also his fellow-disciples who themselves might have wanted the same thing as he, and were saying that they should remain on the mountain, so that they would not be minded to think anything contrary to the beloved Son, but should hear him and follow his will, by which the salvation of all is established.

What, however, ought to be understood by the symbol of this cloud must be sought from similar things said in Scripture. For we find that Moses also entered into the cloud when it covered the mountain in the desert of Horeb: and the divine oracles testify that he entered into the darkness where God was. Then also, when of old a cloud variously covered the tabernacle of the testimony, and thence God was heard speaking with Moses. Again, a pillar of cloud led the way for the people, ^B by day indeed bedewing them, but by night burning. Moreover, Isaiah also predicted that the Lord would come into Egypt upon a light cloud. In addition to these, we also hear in Solomon, when he had built and dedicated the temple, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not enter and offer sacrifice because of the presence of the cloud. These things, and more than these, we can gather from the whole of Scripture, so that the proposed meaning may be explained and illustrated, and so that we may understand what this cloud is, which overshadowed all who appeared, and the spectators themselves as well, from which also that voice was heard: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him."

VII. It is proper to consider the aforementioned clouds as related to one another; nay, rather, one should not hesitate to call them all one single cloud. Nor, indeed, must we reckon it as any exhalation of the earth, or evaporation of water, or condensation of the air, or altogether as anything airy of ^D corporeal substance; but as the knowledge of the divine nature, made possible for us and adapted to our capacity, which we might more appropriately call, in the language of David, "magnificence." For since the comprehension of the divine nature is impossible for those subject to birth and decay, by the modes that are possible,

^A it appears to us, and to those near to it, just as it spoke to us through the prophets. And when a man is heard saying, "I am the Lord your God," we do not believe that the man is God, like Isaiah, but that God is the one speaking within him. Therefore, even if the voice was from the cloud, whence it was also heard, yet the voice was clearly of the Father primarily, who bore witness to Him concerning His sonship, thundering through a rational nature reaching Him. For there are indeed also inferior clouds that give forth a voice and prophesy for the Word, according to the text, "The clouds gave forth a voice" (Ps. LXXVI, 18). And they are commanded not to rain "rain" upon the thorn-bearing vineyard, the corporal house and family of Israel. I say that these are the prophets, who rain the word and irrigate those in need of watering. But this cloud surpasses all ^B and overshadows everyone, so that we may say it provides providence for all. "This, therefore," He says, "is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to Him." He does not say the "dearly loved" (dilectum) Son, but rather the "most beloved" (charissimum). For he who is "loved" (diligitur) is not necessarily "most beloved" (charissimus); but he who is "most beloved" is also "loved." For that which is "most beloved" is by nature entirely such; but that which is "loved" is not necessarily so by nature, but by good pleasure. The Son, therefore, being one, is both, both "most beloved" and, so to speak, "well-pleased," since He assumed something extraneous to Himself, and that which was not consubstantial was assumed toward the demonstration of one hypostasis. The Father, therefore, signified to us in this testimony the distinctness, not by separating things united (for how shall what God has ^C united be separated?), but by teaching the union of things of different natures, and that one Son, Christ the Lord, is composed of these, one most beloved Son, whom it is the Father's good pleasure that every creature should serve and listen to.

VIII. The apostles, therefore, hearing this magnificent voice, fell on their faces, being subjected to the voice sent from on high, and they feared greatly, perhaps because of their previous disobedience, having learned that they had thought the contrary to the Father's good pleasure, turning away from the death of the Son, by which salvation was being prepared for all men according to the ancient counsel of the Father. And while they were struck with fear and lying on the ground, Jesus drawing near, ^D touched them, saying, "Arise, and do not be afraid." For it was not in the power of anyone to dissipate that terror and fear, except only the Son, who always commands all who approach Him to take heart.

^A Yielding to this, they lifted their eyes, which had been obscured, perhaps by fear; and having lifted them, they saw Jesus only. Hitherto took place the enigmatic exhibition of the kingdom of heaven. And as they were descending from the mountain, Jesus commanded them, saying: "Tell the vision to no one, until the Son of man is risen." But why did He forbid them to recount what they had seen, or to reveal to anyone the mystery of the resurrection? Because, of course, it was fitting that the First-begotten from the dead should rise first, ^B confirming the resurrection by the deed itself; and that then the common resurrection of all should be made known through the testimony. For who would have believed in things being said which even the foremost of the apostles would not have believed? (Indeed, Peter himself considered it blasphemous what was being said about the Savior's death), until they heard the voice crying from above, bearing witness to the beloved Son, and commanding obedience to Him. "For hear Him," He says, "and consider as a certain law, whatever is said by Him." Necessarily, therefore, ^C He commanded the disciples to be silent about what they had seen, until He Himself, having come, should overcome death, so that those hearing them might not become accustomed to disbelieving what was said by them. For after the resurrection of the First-begotten, they proclaimed with confidence the resurrection of all, and the transfiguration of bodies from the more gross into spiritual ones, instructing all, that just as Christ, rising from the dead, no longer dies, and death no longer has dominion over Him, ^D so also He will make us conformed to the brightness of His glory, and will reform our bodies into a spiritual and incorruptible one. And if we have walked in newness of life, we shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we be forever with the Lord. To whom be glory and empire unto the ages of ages. Amen.

SERMON II. On the Annunciation of the most immaculate Mother of God, Mary.

I. To you today, best of sons, I am about to tell a word, and I am certain that in bringing it into the midst, I shall gladden the Church with the narrative. To you today, recounting the blending and coalition of the Word of God with our human flesh, I shall dismiss you from the assembly rejoicing, having useful and wholesome matter for joy. For what is clearer than the Word—than reason? or what is more convenient for utility? Today is set the cornerstone...

[alt-version omitted]

^A in the foundations of Sion, which connects to one another things whose nature is unconnected, and makes one things that are by essence disparate. Therefore, let us rightly rejoice with her who received grace, and with Gabriel let us address the Mother of our God, saying: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; for thou hast become for us a way of salvation, and an ascent to heaven, and a place of rest, and a tabernacle of refreshment, in which the Lord dwelt. For this reason, with all generations, we call thee blessed alone among women, whom the sun, casting the flame of pleasure, did not burn, nor did the flowing power of the moon at night harm. For thou didst not give the foot of thy soul into commotion ^B, but, having fixed it upon the rock, thou didst remain unbending; and the Lord guarded thee, entering into thee alone, and proceeding from thee, and keeping thee closed and sealed for ever. Hail, therefore, O Mother and Virgin, and food of life, and fountain of immortality; for from thee came forth the Destroyer of corruption, and He who put death to death. We, therefore, brethren, having said these things to the Mother of God according to our ability, let us henceforth turn our attention to ourselves, and let us know the power of the day, and let us today renew our own birth. For this day is for us called holy, in which we were formed and returned to the ancient life. ^C And perhaps what is said may seem strange to you; however, it shall be said, God granting the power, and ministering speech to the speaker.

II. But from where shall we give a beginning to the narrative, if not from the words of the Evangelist? For he himself shall begin the discourse for us, who also made this day known. In the sixth month, he says, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a Virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house and family of David, and the name of the Virgin was Mary. But perhaps some inquisitive searcher of such things might ask: What is the sixth month, and whence is it counted? But that we may openly suggest the truth, we must recur to ^D those things which were spoken by the Evangelist a little earlier; for he says: After these days Elisabeth the wife of Zacharias conceived, and hid herself five months, etc. And then he subjoins: In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent to Mary. But, one will say, even with these things set forth, the narrative remains obscure. For what the Evangelist said: "After these days Elisabeth conceived," he did not signify which days. And certainly he seems to inquire rightly who says thus: but he shall be taught, provided that, accommodating his ear to the hearing, he receives with an intelligent mind what is said.

III. Once a year the legal priest enters into the Holy of holies, making atonement for the people; whence also atonement...

or the day of atonement, and the day of humiliation, and the great fast, is what such a feast is called among them. It is celebrated on the tenth day of the seventh month, which is October, called Thersi by the Hebrews; for the Hebrews lead the beginning of the year from April. Therefore, on the tenth day according to the moon of the seventh month, while Zacharias was performing his priestly office, he saw the angelic vision and heard the good news of the birth of the Baptist; after which, having completed his term of service, he returned to his home. And it is completed when the moon has become full, in what is called the full moon. Then his wife Elizabeth conceived, and she hid herself for five months, perhaps blushing at her gray hair blooming, and that at such an age she had come together in marital union with her husband. She hid herself for five months, saying: "Because thus has the Lord dealt with me." Therefore in the sixth month from the conception of Elizabeth, Gabriel was sent, as it is written, to Mary, not when the sixth month was entirely finished, but within its whole duration. For neither does the evangelical history say that the sixth month was fulfilled at the time when the Virgin's salutation, or annunciation, took place, nor do the words of Gabriel to her indicate this, but the history says: ^B "In the sixth month the angel was sent." And the angel says to the Virgin: "And behold, your kinswoman, she also has conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who is called barren."

IV. From this, a greater question has arisen for us, and some more zealous person objects, saying: "If," he says, "the salutation or annunciation happened while the month was passing, who assigned it so that it must be celebrated today, that is, on the 25th day of the month, and not on another day of the month?" To whom it was ready to answer that he would have the same question regarding any other day. Since, however, the inquiry seems not unintelligent, let us respond. We say, therefore, not affirming that this is really how it stands, nor that we hold only to our own discourse, but that we may open up without envy what has come into our mind, and exercise you to inquire for a truer solution; which, if you find it, let this one remain obscure, and not deserve to be written down.

V. Since this world was created, ^D and is measured by time, it must clearly have begun from some motion; and it had altogether a certain temporal beginning. For we do not know how to say it is sempiternal, nor do the Churches of God. For nothing is sempiternal whose parts are subject to corruption and change; but altogether, whatever has decaying parts, the whole itself is also subject to corruption. And if the parts of the world perish by corruption, surely the whole will also perish. Therefore the world is not sempiternal.

^A If, however, this mass subject to our eyes is not sempiternal, it clearly had a beginning, and a principle of creation, as has been proven. Whence it was already fitting that the wisdom of God, which created and founded all things in order and justice, should commence creation, or even initiate time: for He himself entered into time concurrently with the created things; and from that same equality, as far as it concerns the discrimination and division of time, and from the supreme equilibrium of parts which the beginning of spring had from the first creation, and has even to this day, as it mediates between cold and heat, and escapes the discomfort of either by its lack of excess; then, as it bestows the greater part upon the light and the daylight, and despoils the darkness for the victory of the light. For it was necessary ^B that light should be judged more precious than darkness. Since the latter has no substance, while the former was created by the first word of God, not having existed before, and it was testified concerning it that it was good. Hence, the Hebrews call this the first month, perhaps from ancient times, from the Fathers, and also as it was ordained for them by law through Moses. For he says: This month shall be for you the first among the months of the year; which he also calls the new month, though in another place Moses calls it the month of new things, as a memorial of the beginning of the new creation, and of those things which were created at the beginning. But let the one who has received from the Fathers the principle of knowing time, recognize this month. In the accounts of the flood, we clearly find that the month which follows Nisan is called the second. For so it is called among them, the first month, which among the Romans is called April, but among the Macedonians, Xanthicus. For Nisan is interpreted as "blooming." ^C For *Nissa* is said among the Hebrews to be "the flower." Perchance even the Xanthicus is called *Anthicus*, being hailed as Xanthicus by the addition. Whether it be *Anthicus* or *Xanthicus*, it takes its name from the blossoming in the air.

Therefore, the first month is the one beginning from the vernal equinox, existing essentially as the first, as the beginning of time, created concurrently with the production of existing things. And it is the equinox, because no part of pre-existing time remains in the solar course, on the twentieth [day] of March ^D or the month of Dystrus. For so it happens even to this day, whenever the quadrennium of the so-called bissextile completes the movement into a perfect day. For in the other three years, because of the remaining quarter, it is no longer on the twentieth, but [on the twenty-first].

^A And for this reason, the equinox occurs unevenly. Next, spring begins, immediately transforming and moving all things toward beauty and generation. If these things are so, we understand the initial origin of the visible world to be the twentieth day of the month of March. For that which is brought into existence ^B must necessarily have been born in the most beautiful of the seasons; and the most beautiful of the seasons is spring, as the sense itself bears witness. For we see everything moving then toward multiplication and growth, reverencing that first commandment, "Increase and multiply." If, therefore, the spring season is the most beautiful, and it begins from the equinox—on which day God began the works of creation, having created man on the sixth day—we have reckoned the creation of man to be on the twenty-fifth ^C of the month of March; for the twenty-fifth is the sixth day from the twentieth.

VII. Since these things are so, what day was it fitting for Him to define for Himself, so that He might be joined to the flesh, He who had formed man from the beginning? For if, for the sake of our salvation, He willingly served the flesh and generation and our passions, in order that He might free us who are held under sin, it was fitting that the re-compacting should begin on the very day on which the creation of man had begun. For He became the second Adam, ^D having accepted all that belonged to the first, if you only except sin. And if all things, why did He overlook this one thing, the time of generation, which certainly was not at all unworthy of His wise dispensation for the human race? Indeed, it was fitting that the one guilty of sin should be reformed precisely when he had been formed.

VIII. Wherefore, on that very day, Gabriel was sent, announcing the incorrupt birth to the blessed Virgin, and proclaiming to her the salvation that would come to the nations through her; and while he was offering his greeting, the *Word became flesh*, reforming the creature which sin—having entered along with the words of the malignant serpent—had made subject to corruption. For it was necessary, it was necessary that the flesh which had been corrupted by the hissing of the serpent should return to incorruption through the greeting of the angel. And just as death was effected through a woman, so it was necessary for salvation to be ordained through a woman. By that one (Eve), deceived by pleasure, we all died; [through this one (Mary) we have been brought to life], receiving not only those things from which we had fallen, but much greater and richer things, which the human intellect cannot conceive, nor the eye behold, nor the hearing receive. This celebration and festival day which we keep is the Annunciation of this holy and revered Virgin, but it is the birthday of the entire world; because all things were restored to their order, and that which was formerly deformed received beauty. For, of course, He became like us for our sake.

the One who fashioned us, restoring His image that had grown old and corrupted, and reshaping it into a surpassing excellence of beauty, crying out to us, as it were: “Since you were formed today and flowed away, and were dragged down to death, today for your sake I, the Fashioner, am fashioned, that by this flesh of mine, now being fashioned, I may lead you back to your former life; for this reason I join battle with death and put it to death, as was truly fitting.”

^B IX. But in order that we may confirm our own words by the authority of the Fathers, and add, as it were, a certain ornament through which they may have grace, hear what Gregory, who received the surname of “Theologian,” says concerning the spring season. For, urging us toward the New Sunday, he says in the discourse inscribed to it: “Let the heaven be new to you, and the earth new; and the other things as well, to one who understands the reason for them. See what things are visible. The queen of the seasons conducts a procession for the queen of days, and offers as a gift whatever is most beautiful and most delightful.” And having linked together many praises of the spring season, he showed that it had taken precedence over that which preceded it, both as an exordium and a beginning, and, if one might so say, as a relaxation and a composition of time. Indeed, lest by speaking I pass over the time, and the sun now being set towards the west, I shall here end my discourse, so that by saying many things about these matters I may not weary you and become burdensome to you. Let us therefore praise Him who for our sake became flesh, through Him and with Him sending up glory and honor to the Father and the Holy Spirit; for to Him is due praise, and Greatness, and Majesty, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

SERMON III

On the Annunciation of our all-praised Lady, the Theotokos.

I. Why does the great Gabriel wish to be with us on earth again? Does he come to us once more? In what hidden mysteries of God does he serve? He does not minister at least in small matters, but in things that are truly ^C awesome. Great are those things which are entrusted to him. No one else could easily grasp the things revealed through him. To him alone are entrusted the secret treasures of God’s wisdom, and he is taught the depth of His unsearchable judgments. Sometimes he comes to us so that he might instruct Daniel, the man of desires, in wisdom, and might teach the successions of kings, and the end of the world, and might reveal the resurrection, and announce the judgment ^D to be rendered to each in order, and might manifest the revelation of future things. He came again, announcing to the father the wondrous birth of the divine Baptist, and indicating the reconciliation of men to God which would take place through him. For indeed, even if you who are worthy to have faith in the things that are written, consider,

^A that the barren bear children; the elderly beget offspring; embryos leap in the womb; a priest loses his speech because of unbelief.

II. To one of the holy angels is entrusted one task, to another a different one: but to this one, he who is the head of all, is committed that which is the essence of all: namely, that God is conceived without seed in a virginal womb; that the Holy Spirit cooperates in the birth; and that he who is Father and God over all commands the Virgin to be saluted with these words: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you." O magnificent and divine voice! O excellent clemency and goodness! O truly angelic ministry! O blessed Virgin, who was deemed worthy to hear such words! Or rather, who was deemed worthy to minister to such matters! You conceived without any intercourse with a man; you gave birth as one unmarried: you were made both Mother and Virgin at once. For neither did the birth hinder your virginity, nor did the conception destroy your purity. You kept the treasure of your virginity inviolate even after the birth. You suckled as an infant him who gives food to all flesh. You gathered to your breast as a little child him who, like a fountain, wells up milk for women in labor so that they may nourish their infants. For indeed you became the mother, not of a mere man, or of some prophet, or of one having God as an inmate, but the true mother of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. ^B Who shall tell the mighty acts of the Lord? What ear can comprehend them? What speech can be found worthy to interpret these things which are understood? Up until you, women heard: "In sorrow you shall bring forth children," and to all, as a kind of hereditary succession, the divine command ran, remaining indissoluble and immutable. From you henceforth the female sex shall hear: "Rejoice, women, who have received the beginning of joy," having received the only one among virgins who is full of grace, the beautiful, the immaculate, the holy, the Theotokos, Mary.

III. The great angel, therefore, announces such things to the Virgin, and along with his words, the only-begotten Son of God enters the virginal womb; and a womb contained him whom heaven altogether cannot contain. For our sake, he who was superior to us became an infant gestated in the womb: gradually growing and bodily advancing ^C to perfection, he who himself was the Word of God perfect in all respects, and upholding all things by the word of his power. He, the Creator of times and existing before the ages, took upon himself a beginning of years. The Creator of men became man, acquiring for himself a mother from among us, he who is the only Son of God by nature, assuming from her flesh consubstantial with us.

IV. But since human speech does not sufficiently rise to meet these miracles, nor can mortal tongue ^D worthily [declare] the magnificent works of God...

do you, O Isaiah, most vocal and loud-voiced of the prophets, come hither and teach us the greatness of God; praise the things that have been brought to pass through the Spirit; make proclamation that the things foretold should be heard; glorify Him who illuminates whom He wills; establish faith through the prediction of the unbelievable. "Behold," he says, "the Virgin shall have in her womb, and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel." Say again, O prophet, the song of praise concerning these things, the hymn: "O Lord my God, I will glorify You, I will praise Your name, for You have done marvelous things, an ancient counsel, true." Let it be so, O Lord. And what was the ancient counsel of God the Father? Assuredly, the salvation of us all. For He who gave us [our] being, how would He not much rather give us [our] well-being, recalling His own creation to its ancient dwelling place and the observance of the commandment, through which there is the promise of immortal life within us, which we had deservedly lost by not keeping such a commandment? But, O divine and blessed Virgin, ladder extended to heaven, gate of paradise, entrance to incorruption, union and fellowship of men with God, do you be the seal of our discourse: in Christ Jesus our Lord, through whom and with whom is the glory and power to the Father with the holy and life-giving Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

SERMON IV. Of Anastasius, Patriarch of the great Theopolis of Antioch, concerning the three holy Lenten Fasts, whence we received the obligation to keep them, and that those who transgress them violate the law.

^BWe ought, indeed, following the apostolic traditions and constitutions, and the written decrees of our holy Fathers, not to need to seek out vain and empty inquiries and fallacious discourses for the invalidating of those things which were decreed by them, but rather to attend diligently to those things which they defined, both in their divine ^C canons, and in the holy books of theirs which are extant, and in their holy words received by tradition, and to deem and revere these as the words of God. But since the hater of good and deceitful devil, who at the beginning in paradise corrupted the commandment of fasting given to the first-created man, and by the eating of the tree cast him down and delivered him to death, does not cease even until today to calumniate the divine ^D precepts which the men of God, for the sake of...

the salvation of our race, have handed down. ^A Yet now, and especially, this has crept into some of our own number—not only laymen, or the ignorant and unlettered, but even those who boast of their doctrine and lift their eyebrows in the pride of their great wisdom; I speak of bishops, metropolitans, priests, deacons, and the rest of the clergy, and perhaps even those monks whose god is deemed to be their belly. These men, with shameless and brazen impudence, teach that the only fast handed down by the holy Apostles and divine Fathers is the one which is called the Great Fast; but that the fast of the Nativity of Christ ^B (which some also call that of holy Philip, for a reason we shall state as we proceed), and the fast which precedes the feast and commemoration of the holy chief Apostles Peter and Paul, have no origin in apostolic or patristic ordinance, but are the inventions and preferences of certain monks, who observe these two aforementioned fasts. Therefore, some of those who resist the ordinance of God abstain for eighteen days only from meat, and cheese, and eggs; some indeed only from meat, while they eat the rest, except on one day; others in like manner abstain for only twelve days, others for six, and another for four. ^C And not only do they wish themselves to be the only ones deceived, but they also draw after them simple multitudes, so that theirs is not the only sin, but they shall certainly pay a heavier penalty as well, because they have scandalized many and led them away from the straight path. For if he who brings forth the worthy from the unworthy is reputed to be the mouth of God—as he who said this declared—how much more worthy of condemnation will be he who, by his own gluttony and intemperance, deceives a huge multitude of men? We, therefore, have included in this book whatever we have found regarding the aforementioned fasts, which ^D align with and define the apostolic and patristic ordinances, to bridle the mouths of those who so shamelessly speak against the holy Apostles’ fasts.

If the present Jewish Passover is found in the month of March, 16 days must be added; and there the coming (Pascha) will be found. But if the present is in April, 11 days must be subtracted; and there the coming one will be. But if also there is only the sixteenth cycle of the moon, 12 must be subtracted; and the coming one shall be immediately after.

Or also thus: Number after the Sunday of the Prodigal Son (Apokreo), namely from the Monday of Cheesefare, 56 days, and there you will find the Christians' Pascha. However, as many days as are found from the Monday of Bright Week until the third of May, accept as many, and those in the...

[alt-version omitted]

as to those who indeed, through conceit and pride and the love of pleasure and gluttony dwelling within them, impudently set aside and bear false witness, and do not fear the sentence of the Lord ^A saying, "Whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble, it is better for him that a millstone..." and all the rest that everyone knows. For when an unlearned and simple person sees you, who possess knowledge, eating impudently during the time of the fast, he will certainly take offense and commit worse deeds. Henceforth, let them hear the aforementioned apostolic and Patristic traditions concerning the fasts mentioned. And the Lord said to Moses: "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: Keep three times of the year for me; the feast of unleavened bread in the first month; and from the fourteenth day, for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with bitter herbs, the bread of affliction; for in this you went out of Egypt. And you shall count for yourselves from the seven weeks. Seven whole days. And you shall call it a holy day. And the fifteenth of the seventh month in the middle of the year. The day of atonement. And the feast of tabernacles. It shall be a holy convocation to you. Humble your souls. And every soul that shall not be humbled shall be cut off from its people. For seven days you shall offer burnt offerings, dwelling in booths, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths ^B when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God."

Of Chrysostom.

^A or the fourth day, or the Preparation day, let him be deposed, unless he be hindered by infirmity."

Now, concerning the Quadragesima of the Nativity of Christ, it is written in the *Periodos* or Circuit and Itinerary of the holy Philip, that while he was preaching the word of truth, he arrived, teaching, at Hierapolis in Asia, along with Bartholomew and his sister Mariamne; and that city was worshipping a viper. And having seized the apostles, after many tortures, because they were in no way receptive, and would not even endure to hear the divine word—except for the man who had first received the apostles: for he was baptized, and his entire house and kinsmen, and the wife of the proconsul—they brought Philip out and, having pierced his ankles, crucified him head downwards; and they hung Bartholomew on a tree near him; and they kept Mariamne in prison.

When, however, the holy John had come there, Philip said to him that they should ask for fire to be brought down from heaven and consume them all; which the apostle John forbade to happen. After his departure, and an interval of three days, the holy Philip prayed, and the earth opened its mouth and brought down all the idolaters alive into Hades. And after this the Savior appeared to him, reminding him of his commandment, which says that one ought not to return evil for evil, and the rest; then He also added: "Since you have disobeyed my commandment and have harmed those who caused you pain, ^C you shall indeed fall asleep here, and you shall be carried in glory by my holy angels as far as paradise; but you shall not enter it, but for forty days you shall stand outside, grieving and hindered by the flaming sword, because you have grieved those who were wronging you."

[The text below this point is a critical apparatus/commentary section on historical texts (Sirmond, Mabillon, Faustus of Riez, etc.) relative to the Church discipline of the time]. ^D

...Jacob Sirmond, a man of great learning and curious felicity, cannot, however, be denied to have left many errors remaining in the books of the ancients which he edited. He indeed caught them by his own perspicacity, and possessed the sharpness of mind to be able to correct them, but, being intent on greater things, he neglected the labor of emendation—an example certainly not to be followed. I, however, for whom, by a benefit or a vice of nature prone to meditation, I do not entirely turn away from the crosses of sharp wits, willingly exercise myself on obscure and depraved passages.

Such, without a doubt, is the Epistle of Pope John II to Caesarius of Arles concerning Contumeliosus of Riez (Vol. I of the *Concilia Galliae* for the year [535]): "We have received the letters of your Charity with a willing mind, in which, alleging bodily necessities, you also pointed out what sacrilegiously the man who has fallen has done." What, therefore, is *sacrilegius* [sacrilegiously] in that monstrous reading? Two options occur which might be substituted: *sequius* or *secius*, that is, wickedly; or *sacratus*, perhaps with an allusion made to the testimony of Faustus of Riez, which is seen to be produced in that cause: "He loses the grace of the consecrated man who still wishes to exercise the office of a husband." But let the reader judge which is more likely. Although, now correcting these things given to the press, I understand that the vulgate reading can be retained in some way, and *sacrius* can be explained adverbially as "more wickedly" or "more execrably."

However, because the matter of Contumeliosus and the negligence of Sirmond is being handled, let the distinguished words of Agapetus to Caesarius which pertain to this be brought forth: "Contumeliosus, having returned to his own substance, we wish to be suspended meanwhile from the administration of ecclesiastical patrimony and the celebration of Masses." [D cont.] And after a few words: "Suspended, therefore, as we have said before, let the bishop Contumeliosus have only what he is said to have presumed—the celebration of masses." These things conflict evidently with one another, and they cannot be reconciled otherwise than by inserting before the word *habeat* [let him have] the negative particle *non habeat* [let him not have].

In Volume III of the *Analecta* of the most learned Mabillon, p. 282: "And let him be untouched by any snare or oppression of the priestly catalogue or by human action, and free until our judgment, as it is said above, he who has merited to obtain the help of the blessed prince of the apostles, Peter," [or] *ad sacerdotals catalogi* [to the priestly catalogue].

[Note: The remaining lines discuss the apocryphal nature of the Acts.]

^A ...and having vexed those who did injury, afterwards you shall enter, and take the place prepared for you. Then, once he had led up those who had been taken down into Hades, he ascended into heaven. Afterwards, Philip commanded Bartholomew and Mariamne to tell James and the rest of the apostles to fast and pray for him for forty days. And so, the apostles ordained a forty-day fast and prayer for all the faithful. And this was guarded by the holy Fathers and by the seven ecumenical councils. And it was legislated that the fast should not be of five or eight or ten days, but of forty. And it is said concerning the Nativity of Christ, that at the end of the forty days, the saving Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ also arrives. And two good things are accomplished: for we fulfill the tradition of the ^B apostles, and together we are purified beforehand for the meeting and adoration of Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the holy Theotokos and ever-virgin, without spot and ineffably.

The fast which follows Pentecost is that which is spoken of in the *Constitutions* of the holy apostles. For they say in them: "After Pentecost, celebrate for one week, and after that, fast." For it is just to rejoice over the gift of God, and after the relaxation to fast. For indeed, both Moses and Elijah fasted for forty days, and Daniel for three weeks did not eat bread of desire, and flesh and wine did not enter into his mouth. ^C This fast, therefore, was observed until the Falling Asleep of the Theotokos; but by the holy Fathers, for the sake of economy and dispensation, it was broken up—partly because it happened to coincide with the fasts of the gentiles, namely of the Armenians, Jacobites, Nestorians, and often even the Ishmaelites; and partly, as it appears to me, because of the negligence and lack of zeal of men. However, it was established to fast until the feast of the holy apostles; and thus afterwards to break the fast; then to fast from the beginning of August until the Falling Asleep of the Theotokos; and again to break it; and ^D then to have the exhortation from the apostolic *Constitutions*.

ANASTASIUS, PATRIARCH OF THEOPOLIS, AND CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA, COMPENDIOUS EXPLANATION OF THE ORTHODOX FAITH.

^A Catechist. What is your religion, man? Catechumen. I am a Christian. Catechist. And what is a Christian? Catechumen. One who lives according to God, and conducts himself piously, in a way that pleases God, and uprightly. Catechist. Regarding theology, how many natures do you profess? Catechumen. One. Catechist. Which one is that? Catechumen. The Deity. Catechist. What is God? Catechumen. An essence which has no author, the cause of all beings, that is, omnipotent, all-powerful, the super-essential cause of every cause and nature. Catechist. And how do you believe? Catechumen. I believe in one God the Father, and in one Son and God, who is begotten of God and the Father, and in one Holy Spirit, the God who proceeds from the Father. Catechist. In what does the Son differ from the Father? Catechumen. In hypostasis, inasmuch as the Father is unbegotten, but the Son is begotten; for he is from the Father. Catechist. In what does the Holy Spirit differ from the Father and the Son? Catechumen. In hypostasis, inasmuch as he is proceeding. Catechist. Therefore, do you consequently believe in three gods? Catechumen. God forbid. Catechist. But surely in three natures? Catechumen. By no means. Catechist. But you have enumerated three gods; how then do you say, "God forbid"? Catechumen. Even if I have enumerated three, I speak of three because of the three-hypostasized subsistence of the co-essential and undivided ^C Trinity. For the Father is one God, and the Son is one God, and the Holy Spirit is one God; and one

^A deity is established in three hypostases, and one essence, one kingdom, one power and nature.

Catechist: What, then, is essence? Catechumen: A self-subsistent thing, not needing another for its own constitution. Catechist: What is nature? Catechumen: The universal thing, and one that encompasses the hypostases under it. Or thus defined: The true existence of things, so that essence, nature, and form are one and the same thing. Catechist: How many hypostases do you acknowledge in the deity? Catechumen: Three: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Catechist: What is a hypostasis? Catechumen: Essence with certain properties, differing in number from those of the same species; that is, a co-essential person. We call the persons in God bodiless and formless. ^B Catechist: What is proper to each of these three hypostases, and what is common? Catechumen: It is proper to the Father to be unbegotten; to the Son, to be begotten; and to the Holy Spirit, to proceed. But common to them is the deity and the kingdom. Catechist: In the oikonomia (that is, in the mystery of the incarnation), how many natures do you profess? Catechumen: Two: deity and humanity; so that the same Son is perfect God and perfect man. Catechist: How many natural wills and energies do you profess in Christ? Catechumen: Two: one divine, and one human. ^C Catechist: What is the divine will? Catechumen: Cleansing lepers, as in, “I will, be cleansed,” and others of this kind, as also, “Go, and as you have believed, so let it be done to you.” Catechist: What is the divine energy? Catechumen: That all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, as in, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” Catechist: What is the human will? Catechumen: To seek drink, which also happened on the cross, and to ask for food, as in, “Have you anything to eat here?” ^D Catechist: What is the human energy? Catechumen: To travel, to become weary, and such like. Catechist: How many hypostases do you profess in the confession of faith concerning the Son? Catechumen: One; so that the same one is Son of God and Son of the Virgin. Catechist: What does the Son have in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit? Catechumen: He has in common with them the nature of His deity, in that He is perfect God; but He also has in common with men the nature of His humanity, in that He is also perfect man.

What is God?

The name "God" is common to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. But "Father," and "Son," and "Holy Spirit" are not common names, but the proper names of each hypostasis. For the Father is not called the Son, and the Son is not called the Father, and the Holy Spirit is called neither Father nor Son; but the Trinity is always called God. ^B When, therefore, we say "three hypostases," or "three persons," we do not say three essences, or three natures, or three gods, but we confess one God, one essence, or nature, that we may not Arianize. Yet when we speak of one essence or nature, we do not speak of one hypostasis, that we may not Sabellianize, but we believe in three hypostases, or three persons, in one Deity, one essence and nature. God is an essence that surpasses all contemplation, a mind that cannot be comprehended, a beauty whose reason can be gone into by no one, a magnitude that cannot be seen, a glory that escapes all thought. The Son is an ineffable generation, a word explainable by no reasoning, an insurmountable mind, an invariant essence, an inaccessible nature, a subsistent character. ^C The Spirit is intellectual and simple, subtle, clear, and manifest, unharmed, unstained, and all-seeing. The sun is the image of the Father; the Son is the ray of the sun; the Holy Spirit is the warmth of the ray. Thus the sun is the Father, the ray is the Son, the fiery splendor is the entirely holy Spirit. And the sun indeed never left heaven, but it sent forth the Son as rays—that is, the radiance upon the earth—and the Holy Spirit as warmth, to keep warm and to benefit the upper and the lower world. In such a way ought one to think also upon the single, three-hypostasized Deity: nature, and essence, and form are one and the same; hypostasis and person are the same. And essence, or nature, designates that which is common: but hypostasis, or person, declares that which is proper to each. As, for example (to speak thus), in man, we are all men of one and the same nature; there is one and the same nature in all. For we all consist of an intellectual soul and a body, ^D but of many, and infinite, and innumerable hypostases. Both Peter and Paul are of one and the same nature, but of different hypostases; they share with one another according to nature, but they are divided according to the hypostases, or persons. And

FRAGMENTS

FRAGMENTS OF THE SAME ANASTASIUS

I. FRAGMENT ON THE SABBATH

^A The discourse of our holy Father Anastasius to Symeon, Bishop of Bostra, concerning the Sabbath, the beginning of which is: "If it is necessary, according to the saying, and as you yourself admit, to question fathers, and indeed elders as well." And after a few words: "For just as when a king is absent, his image is worshipped in his stead; but when he is present, it is superfluous, having abandoned the archetype, to worship the image; yet the fact that it is not worshipped, because of the presence of the one for whom it is worshipped, does not mean it ought to be treated with dishonor. And after a few words: Just as he who acts insolently toward the image of a king undergoes just punishment, as if he had dishonored the king himself—even though the image is nothing other than wood and colors mixed and blended with wax—in the same way, he who dishonors the figure of someone refers the insult to that very person whose figure it is. ^B Such a thing, I think, occurred regarding the shadow of the Law, or rather the letter (for the Apostle calls it a shadow). For as long as the grace of truth was stored away for the proper time, the saints set forth the figures, contemplating the truth as if in a mirror. But when the truth had come, they did not judge it to be good to live according to the figures, and to follow these still. For when the things themselves are present, the figure of the thing is henceforth superfluous. Yet even so, they did not dishonor them, nor did they cast them aside, but they honored the figure, and those who attempted to dishonor them ^C they judged to be impious, and worthy of death by bitter punishment."

From the same, from the third oration. "Just as if someone, on account of the honor which is owed to the emperor, should worship his image, even if it is composed of wax and colors."

II. FRAGMENT OF A LETTER TO SERGIUS

^D The letter of the holy Anastasius, Bishop of Theopolis, to a certain scholastic, by which he answered him concerning the *aporia* [difficulty] brought to him by him, the beginning of which is: "If to one merely asking for wisdom, wisdom should be reckoned..."