On the Incorporeality of God the Father

^A that each is for himself. And those things which we judge to be great, and good, and necessary for ourselves, are all idle to their nature; and whatever things are useful to us from among animate beings, are not necessary to them. For they have no need of bulls for cultivation, nor of horses for war; they do not need fire for light, nor those things which require fire for their care. Neither is water necessary to them, nor [water] from the sea, nor from the earth, nor that which is brought from the rains. They do not have need of sleep for refreshment, nor food for survival. By chance, however, those who hear this may wonder—those who have not reached the choirs of the angels with their mind. For to those whose happiness consists in eating and drinking, and in using marriage, and in having possessions, and in storing up treasures, and in enjoying judicial dignities, those things which are above these are ^B considered less. But let us not contaminate that holy choir of angels; let there be no woman there, where succession is not necessary. Not because I accuse the creature: for every office lies within its own nature; but when it is well transferred from its own places, and regions, and the nature for which it was constituted, it recalls to itself the virtue of divine law. For how are the schools of fish decorative in the sea? How are their leapings in the channels of rivers beautiful? How do they shine in the exits of fountains? But if you wished to bring these, as if giving a benefit, out of the waters to the purity of the air, your benefit would become the destruction of the fish. Therefore, let the fish be where it is; for some are placed in the sea, and let them be where it is given to them: others swim in rivers and in fountains, because they do not stand in need of those benefits for their destruction. What then? Because water is good for fish, should we place men exulting there as well? According to this argument, then, let male and female be useful and necessary among us, but let us not depose the nature of men against nature. For if the nature of fish cannot ascend above nature, how much more shall we fear, if we have dared to depose by word the nature of the angels, which does not descend? Moreover, nothing else will be done by us, except that we blaspheme. For even if we wished to force that nature, it will not be compelled: but they indeed remain free from this bodily habit. For neither male nor female is among them, and not from the earth. And this, for2 you have perhaps heard that wondrous saying of the Apostle, that even among those for whom nature established there to be male and female, among these very ones faith is found, and through faith union. For in Christ, he says, there is neither male nor female. If, therefore, where there is male and female by nature, in Christ it is made neither male nor female, but an imitation of the angels: why do we not rather receive grace to be assumed, or to depose the nature of the angels to our own? But let us lift ourselves up, and lead our thought to the higher things, namely to those of the angels ^C meadow; and standing by the meadows, let us see, not now flowers coming forth, nor varied in colors, nor different in smells; but let us see there a place above the heavens, shining through the angels. For the multitude there is not as great as the stars. For if the stars are numerous, yet they are constituted in magnitudes and bodies, they stand in need of places, and the multitude of them is measured from the magnitude of the heaven. They are as many as the heaven contains. But the angels do not stand in need of place, but are living free from places, and acting in one another. Not in confusion, indeed, nor in bodily exultation, but they are always in the light: they themselves are such light as they are. For among them there is not night had for refreshment, nor day for resurrection. For they always have light, and not the light which is among us. For this is measured by sensory things, but that is something else. Certainly nothing prohibits us from revolving in these same comparisons, because even to fish there is light held, not as much as among us. For that light which is held among the fish is mixed with the waters; and therefore it does not remain pure as it is among us, but there is light even there: for it shines through the waters, but it is not as pure as it is for us. And if anyone has at some time plunged into the waters, and opened his eyes in the waters, he clearly saw the light that is among us; he sees, I say, this clear [light] obscured in the waters. Let us use, however, another comparison. For the present constitution of this hour imparts testimony to the argument. This which is light among us is slight: for because a cloud coming has stood over us, filled as it were with waters; it has not allowed such light to come to us, as we had yesterday and before in our eyes. For the sadness of the air, when seen, shows how great a change is effected to that very light by the clouds interjected, as among us. But if, by the command of God, the waters having been evacuated, the clouds have been put to flight, and such is its nature, the light again comes to us, not indeed made another [light], but freed from the mixing of the clouds, providing this constitution which you see. Therefore, even in the sea, and in the waters, there was another light; not distinct in nature, but, under the introduction of others, darkened. So also among us, from the meeting of clouds and waters, this has happened, which you see through the clouds. According to this argument, then, even the light penetrating through the air is not such as is emitted by the sun. For if, especially because the air is held to be transparent, the mixture escapes notice: but if one should wish to fly away in thought, and as if into the waters of the clouds to submerge himself, and to pass through the clouds, and to transcend the mixture of the air, he will per-see the purest light. For just as this light which is among us is always diminished by regions and spaces and obstructions: so, returning, and wiping away the light from the waters, and separating yourself from the clouds, and freeing yourself from the mixture of the air, and transcending the purity of even this light, you leave behind even it alone below.

Indeed, you will encounter the light—not that which is from the sun, nor that to which night succeeds, nor that which is blocked by walls, nor that which is hindered by shadows, nor that which is mixed with air and waters, whether by clouds or by the sea, but the pure light. And do not think that I now call the angels "light," for there is a light even brighter than this brilliant one. For in this eternal light, in this which is not held in successions, which does not exist at one time and not exist at another, in this which is above the heaven—and not in the heaven here below—of which the sun is not the father, nor the moon the mother, nor the heaven the source of the stars, nor the splendors of lamps, but that light itself. For you cannot see without the sun the light, nor that which is beneath the sun, nor those things which are sought that they might be held by the hand. They are not for those who seek what they might taste, or what they might take in by smell; they are not for those who are instructed by the ears, and who see with the eyes, as in the waters. For there the manner of life is one thing, and here on earth another, and in the air it is not the same; and the heaven has a different constitution. Thus, let these things remain here, but let those things which are from thence be otherwise, not of a similar nature. For if a star is clearer than the light of a lamp, do not be deceived, for the lamp seems indeed to illuminate, and to enlighten the whole house; but the stars, being so great, have not removed one night. For if someone should wish to know the weakness of a lamp compared to the lights of the stars, remove the lamp from your eye—not as far as the heaven is distant from the earth, because this is not possible for you—but as far as you can separate the lamp from your eye, you will see that it diminishes by distance, and is darkened, and the light of the lamps is proven more infirm. But if there were some device that not only one lamp, but the flame of all lamps, and of all that are kindled; if there were some machine, so that one could collect all that flame and establish it in the heaven, where the smallest star is placed, the flame would not have been recognized at all where it was placed. Why, then, do all the stars not dispel the night? Because they are distant from us by many spaces, yet they do not transmit any mixture of light in the night. But if anyone wishes to look and compare the night to the clouds, he will see that the clouds, although not entirely, yet prevent the splendor of the stars. And since this is so, he will observe what the stars accomplish, and how much splendor they send in the night—and yet all the stars, with all the lamps, have indeed an affinity, because both are luminous in some way. But the stars differ not only from the lamps, but star also differs from star in glory ^A. And when all the stars are brought together, the splendor of the moon shines forth, and adding this moon to all the stars, their brightnesses are conquered by the rays of the sun. For just as stars do the lamps, and the moon the stars, and the sun all these luminaries, and overcomes the darkness of night itself—so also the sun, with all that has been mentioned, is conquered by the light that is held above the heaven. And how does the same Paul ^B contend to show it, speaking of the ineffable God,

he who alone has immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable

“Come, I will make you fishers of men”

^A a spiritual person, is he called an angel; not that his nature is thus, but rather that we should not be made flesh. Nor let us trust too much in the soul: for the eye without light is darkened, and thought without supernatural efficacy wishes to see, like an eye in the night, and desires, and is drawn, but it labors because it is not able; but when light arrives, it becomes an eye. So also thought without the operation of the Holy Spirit gropes, touches, moves forward, grows, and thinks that perhaps this stone is God, or that gold is God, or this wood. For it says to itself: "Do you think the sea is God? Or the earth? Or the air?" Whence they also transferred the names of the creatures, so that by not calling them by the names in common usage, but by naming them for what they worshipped, they might be convicted of doing violence to the works of the Maker. But those who have greatly imagined that they ascend, reaching upward as far as the stars, have met the moon and seen the sun, and perhaps even the heaven, and have remained there, and have suffered a wicked vice: just as one who hastens to the king, approaching the royal gates, beholds great and bright things worthy of a king; and while he ought rather to reveal his desire to Him who is sought, he stays at the royal gates, thinking there is nothing more to the king than those things which are his, remaining at those things that first occurred to him, and he is cheated of the vision and nature of the king. But let not the earth hold us, let not the sea stifle us; let us not stumble among the stars, nor be darkened by the moon, nor let the sun blind us with its glare; let not heaven detain us: for the Lord and Maker and Creator of all those things which have been named and which have not been named is He who is sought. ^B To God, then, O man, to the God of all these things which are good and bright. There is nothing more miserable than for someone to stumble in the light; but this is the vice of the blind. We shall not be darkened by the sun; you see him rising and setting, and yielding to measurements. But he himself is a herald from the east even to the west; he proclaims Him who made him and says, if you listen, and even more if you see: "I am not God, but I am the work of Him whose creature I am. You see me, but He is invisible. Visible and invisible are contrary in nature; for although I am bright as I am, yet I am a bright object that is seen; but He transcends all things by the invisibility of ^C His brilliance. Do not dishonor me by honoring me. I am not ungrateful to the Creator; the benefits I have received are enough for me; do not add what I cannot accept. I am a creature, not the Creator; I am a work, not the Maker; I am made, not He who made; I am from the heaven, and from there I am seen by eyes; He is invisible. I am fixed in a place; He is free from every place. I hold the wall of the heaven in which I am also placed; but He fills all things. I move from place to place; He even separated a place for me. Look at me, and do not number together things that cannot be numbered. How can the invisible and the visible be numbered together? What communion of nature has he who is in a place, and He who is without place? I rise and

descend, because I am also able to fulfill both through commands. ^A He truly surpasses all; He does not need to be born, He does not change place, He remains always in that very state in which He is; He is always He who is; from Him comes heat, from Him are given the measures of the courses, by Him the heaven has been measured. For although I am far off in space, yet by heat I confess [His] nature: He is invisible. You observe my state, but He is without state. I have so many other things, from which nothing seems to pertain to Him: He does not encounter touch, He is not encompassed by place, He does not encompass places, there is no state about Him, no composition for glory. He is born of the Unborn ^A, ^B through whom I and all things were made. Do not turn me toward blasphemy, do not blaspheme through me. I am a letter for the glory of Him who made me: for the heaven is a great book; I and my kindred am but letters of religion. Read the virtue of the moon: it grows and wanes, and is always changing, and announces the Unchangeable: and in it also a state is found, inasmuch as even it is seen by the eye, and never remains in that very thing that it is. Do not blaspheme it along with me. Why do you slander us? At one time declaring that I have committed fornication, and at another the moon, because it has admitted to adultery. Do not degrade us against nature, nor again extol us above nature. You say that I have conversed with a woman: by what operations? by what limbs? by what state? How could she endure my flame? How my splendors? For if she cannot endure my ray at such a distance ^C she was able to carry my union ^B in her bosom? Do not slander me so shamefully, do not extol me so foolishly: for you not only do not know God, but you are also ignorant of the works of God Himself. Let me be, for I am fixed and I complete the course of heaven. Do not drag me down to earth with words, nor bring me down with fables. I do not prevaricate the law: I am set on high; I do not change the course ordained for me; I do not recede from my duty; I guard the given law; I acknowledge the spaces of heaven, which also I traverse as commanded. It is not of my nature to tread upon the earth: when night has become troublesome, because I have descended to the intercourse of a woman? Cease to honor shamefully, to bring down foully: do not open your mouths in good verses to evil deeds. Why do you bring me down? Why do you extol me? I do not descend to a woman, I do not ascend to an equality with God. But what leisure ^D did I have to abandon the course set for me? When was the day interrupted? Or when did I not arrive running to [my] adornment, occupied with a woman? And the moon is dishonored by fables, but it refutes the fables by its own nature. Perhaps, however, the sun will not be silent about that either. But if it is not its nature to speak, we will speak on its behalf, provided, however, it be for the sun and not for God; not because God needs our assistance and defense, but we men are moved with compassion for men. For we, as ones who see, wish to show the way to those who do not see; for we have pity on our own kind. For they, indeed, are stripped of their garments but cover themselves in mud, who carry stones, who receive double damage, so that they produce gold and fall away from God. Nor does the sun cease to bring to light even that, because they think they are deifying him, in these things especially in which he is indignant. For men attribute to every wickedness, and to the malice of the sun and moon, even their own debaucheries. "This man," he says, "is not an adulterer, but the sun." For they come to that place, and attribute the evils of men to the sun alone. And for men, indeed, they leave nothing of evil, not debaucheries to the debauched; not homicides to the homicides; not adultery to the adulterers; not lies to the liars; not thefts to the thieves; but, forgetting those things which they blasphemed, saying they were gods, and omitting the men who commit faults, they wish the very ones whom they called gods now to be in the place of men—thieves, homicides, liars, the malicious, adulterers, thieves. But among us, if a homicide kills someone, and perhaps is saddened or rendered infamous, and trembling, and compelled by poverty, or rage, or enmities, the sun kills him who is killed. Why? What neighborhood? What co-inheritance? What shared life? What has he suffered? What entering into? What is he lacking? What advantage is ours? We are not reeds in the hands of the stars moved to letters. They are yours, even if you slander the sun. But the moon does not do what you slander: slander does not free you from sin: you acquire for yourself also blasphemy: for when you say, "I do not admit it, but the works of God." For what, although it is not "I," it leaves that to Him whose works it is, and adds blasphemy besides. For if the works that we admit are not our own, but the sun and moon and stars are worked through us; so neither are they the works of [the stars], for God has constituted [them] equally. See what you say: you name God, whom it is a burden to know as God, but it is easy for you, among whom they are, to say: I am ashamed and it is a burden to defile my tongue, and especially descending from the heavenly vision. What then, O wise one? Is the swan a god who burns with passion for a maiden? Let those be confounded who sometimes adore a bull, sometimes a swan. Tell us why he was changed so that he might see the maiden? For according to you, the god did not have women. Does he not have a sister as a co-worker, that he might steal away the marriages of others? These stories are not ours, but your fables written in books, in images, on walls, in the pantomimes of the theaters. You are indignant because I say those things which you, reading, marvel at: you are angry because I speak of those things which, seeing, you adore. You are indignant because I say those things which you take delight in seeing and hearing in the pantomimes. Blot them out of your poetic books, recede from the theaters, and exterminate them from the walls; melt them down, withdraw from the images, and I will rejoice with you. But if you remain in blindness, do not be indignant if you are convicted; tell me if I have added anything. But if they are written for you in gold

and silver and stones and walls and theaters; if I speak of this for a short hour, I do so in my disgust, yet out of compassion I remind you: that those things which you see, O man, you do not perceive with your eyes and senses, and yet you are indignant at these things. If they are gods, they are not adulterers; if they are adulterers, they are not gods. But if they desire to have adulterous gods, we do not ourselves curse them; but let them be such as those who are adored by them. The first of their gods is not satisfied with lust in heaven, as they themselves wish, often acting with his own wife: for if he is found with another, immediately his jealousy is kindled; for the god did not believe the goddess was suspected of evil. For if he did not restrain himself from mortals, how did this one cease from his desires among the heavenly beings? But yield to your tongue: for now gold is liquid in the bosoms of virgins, so that it may steal her virginity: perhaps it dissolves well and the dissolved lust is also well-liking, if the bull is their god, who is not of their progeny, but a lying fiction for the heart, a bull in nature; and what do you think of a man and a bull carrying a virgin, a slave of lust, a minister of concupiscence, with the virgin in his neck with lust as her mistress? For what figure did he intermit, when he rested, so that he would not have been changed into a swan, a bull, an eagle, or gold? Or has he become fixed now? For during these many years he has not become an eagle, and certainly not a few good children have been born in the desert. Do you think he has grown old and his concupiscence has ceased, or has he had repentance for his lust, and now he contains himself? For now he does not snatch a boy. I am ashamed to say on what occasion his wife, the co-worker, from whom so many were born, did not suffice, and yet now none are born any longer. But his marriage has grown old, why do they no longer bring forth? But she did not suffice, and he went after mortals; nor did a second one suffice in the same way; for evil is multiform. Mortals did not suffice: he turned his lust toward males. O poet, whom shall we mock? But rather, whom shall we lament? Those who wrote these things, or those who even now adore and look up to or worship him who carries the eagle in his right hand? But do you think that this one alone exists as such? Is not that honest cithara-player also like him? In the first place, why should we call the cithara-players gods, since it is a seemly harmony that befits ^A them? For this is that which contains the heavens; but that harmony which is true is that in which the heavens are, and the earth is placed, the sea lies adjacent, and the air is composed, and consistency is struck. For the sea does not push against the earth because of harmony: the night does not do violence to the day, for the harmonies of the latter do not permit it. You say, the heaven consents to those things which are below. For the sun, placed therein, provided as much as it was useful to prepare; and it enkindles as much as was convenient; and it goes and returns, so that neither would an abundant conflagration burn up everything; nor, on the other hand, if it were to transcend, would all things perish by cold. But there are also common harmonies and those divided into parts, just as in a short flute greater melodies for each, and other melodies for the flute-player in song agree. This great and spacious sea, whose waves strike the heaven, does not transcend the boundaries of the earth. ^B But that earth, which contends by the sharpness of nature, has not contended, but the common law of the Lord is set, and the finger of the eternal ages has not been added to it, with such great rivers and fountains running into the gulfs of the sea. By the blowing wind, ships are fed by the blasts, and are carried up as far as the heavens. And who has not sometimes been afraid while passing through, lest, just as it threatens, it might seize the one standing by? For sometimes the sea has also declined, and come to where it was appointed for it, the legislator and the appointer of the end having feared; and breaking the waves at the shore, it shows the invisible through those things which are seen. This cithara befits Him, which describes harmonies on the foreheads of men, where the eyes ought to be, and what is around them; where the teeth are, and how many; where the ears, and how many, and to what end; where the tongue, and to what end; what is the use of the eyes; where the nails, and to what extent; where the hair, and where no hair; what is within, what to constrict, what to involve, what to cover, what to lie, and for what use; who is to take food and to divide it; what measures the food ought to have, and how much it ought to remain inside, and when it ought to purge, and if it has passed the hour, it shows the harm. This lyre, composed of the melodies of the members, befits God: for it has nerves and strings in which there is bone to bone, and viscera to viscera, and member to member, through which the hands are put down and opened: through which the feet are bent, and return again; the eyes are closed for refreshment, and are ^C again recalled to work. And who will be able to number how many such lyres are always struck, not in one man alone, nor in humans only, but also in every animal? For all have measures, ages, magnitudes of teeth, of horns, and to some there are no horns. Some have hair, and of what kind of hair, nails and of what kind of nails, feathers and again no feathers, both in the waters, and in the air, and in the sea, and in the rivers, and in the fountains, and in the innumerable things that arise, yet there is one harmony. For when it has ignited its lamp, when it has indeed prayed to the sun, when it has sent the light from the boundaries of the east at the same time to the west; every animal is moved, each one to that for which it has nature. And the common table indeed is full, and one animal hastens to one food, another avoids it elsewhere; and what things are not useful to them, are held as convenient for others. They cast out ^D the irrational things brought by such harmony, what one ought to taste, and what one ought to avoid, and with whom to associate. This is a harmony decent for God, through which the sun is appointed for its course, and the moon for growing, and the stars for their spaces. He strikes that harmony through days and nights, if indeed He also increases those who sleep, and is not idle toward those who act. And God indeed strikes this harmony without fingers and labor: but he who is feigned and is not a god, receives a virgin. O insult! The virgin flees on account of her modesty: but the god who is so called, pursues on account of the love of lust, and does not comprehend. For the feet of the virgin's modesty were swifter through her will, than he who by lust...

is dissolute. He who walks slowly, who joins step to step, he now hurrying does not overtake the virgin: for the feet, loosened by lust, were not able to overtake the tender steps of the virgin, but little is what he attained: such is their god, and well does the dove escape the musical hawk: but the earth, he says, being miserable, seeing that she was more humane than such a god of theirs, transported her to the laurel. And perhaps the virgin preferred to become wood, rather than to be corrupted by such a god of theirs. But he who, beyond his hope, had failed in such a hunt, seeing the virgin turned into a tree, was neither confused by the transformation, nor did he transport his love with the transformed nature: but still burning with love, still ardently desiring, he embraces the tree, and plucks from her who was no longer a virgin, leaves, and confessing his victory, he crowns his conquered head, setting up the title as a trophy for his own lust. But perhaps a certain facile and inconsiderately speaking poet has lied about the gods in these things, and he did not pursue the cithara-playing virgin. Why then even still is he crowned from that tree in the images, as they think, out of honor? But if it is an honor for fornication ^A to be praised—a fornication indeed pursued but not comprehended, and still blameworthy—and they fashion them in images, and paint them on walls. But what have I to do with these? Turn, my soul, and hear the psalm: "Return, my soul, unto thy rest" (Ps. CXIV, 7). What is it to me to judge those who are outside? It is enough for them that they wallow in these things. Let them cease to think ill of created things; for using these things, they think evilly of the things created, and inflict injuries upon the Creator himself. Let them be as they wish, and certainly I do not wish them to be as they wish. But may our discourse flee as much as possible from their stench, because among them are tales, fables, images, adulteries, fornications, blood, stones, wood, demons, nakedness, filth, and things to be said and things not to be said, hidden things. Fleeing ^B however from thence, let him give thanks to Him, who liberated him from such things. For the grace will be twofold, because He both delivered from false things, and led to true ones. Being therefore liberated from these, you have been judged worthy. To God the unborn Father, through His one and only-begotten Son, with the Holy Spirit, be glory, honor, dominion, majesty, both now, and ever, and unto all ages of ages. Amen.

EUSEBIUS PAMPHILI: ITEM ON THE FACT THAT GOD THE FATHER IS INCORPORAL, BOOK FIVE

Anything that ought to be collected and sought ^C or exhibited, because the nature of God is incorporeal, and even if not as much as the matter itself demands (69), yet as much as has reached our capacity, and rather as much as grace has granted to our weakness, these things we have gathered together over many past days, and have discussed in common. And if anyone has perceived or understood or remembers, he no longer has any doubt about that nature which is decreed to be incorporeal: but perhaps that great solicitude which proceeded through considerations will lead some to another sort of suspicion. For they who wish to pervert right things say that considerations of the good and the true, and of the becoming and the right concerning God, are indeed held; but that the Scriptures do not agree with these good and right considerations, but rather through the things that have been said, they accuse the considerations instead of commending them. Yet the proposal was not what we say ^D not simply about God: because we do not have the power, like the Gentiles, to speak from the heart about God, but such as the Scriptures introduce him, and such as He interprets Himself, such it behooves Him to be received and adored. For the Gentiles, who have dared all things, transfigure all things and fashion them, and not only in temples and images and pictures do they paint and represent them, but even Him whom they are seen to call incorporeal God, they produce by fashioning him from their hearts. Whence also he who is thought to be an actor among them is believed among others: for since He who is, was not recognized by them, but fame reached them in most recent times; yet from the hearing of Moses, that they had heard the fame of one God, and Him as Creator, who for many centuries worshiped created things while passing over the Creator; one suggested one thing by name, another another, concerning Him whom they had heard; so that certain writers were tasked to describe an image from the name alone, not, I say, of a man or of any other status (70), but simply the name from fame. For it was necessary for those who were ignorant of Scripture, but had heard the name of the nature of the Unknown, to fashion other things and different things from their hearts, by conjecture indeed concerning Him whom they did not know, and therefore they erred in all things. Thence it is that they not only disagreed among themselves about God, but even opposed Him. For one says that He provides, another that He does not provide, and another that He provides up to the moon, another.