Disputation between a Saracen and a Christian

...their doctrine regarding the repugnance of things collapses. For contrary natures cannot coexist with one another. And thus your portentous fables are thoroughly exploded in every way. Do not, therefore, entangle yourselves and others in impious dogmas, as if in thorns; but hastening to the light of truth, banish the darkness of ignorance from your souls. For it is by free will, not by necessity of nature, that we men choose what we see fit to do. Explicit.

OF SAINT JOHN OF DAMASCUS: A DISPUTATION BETWEEN A SARACEN AND A CHRISTIAN.

(From the Gallandian Library, vol. XIII, 272.)

^A Being questioned by a SARACEN: Whom do you say is the cause of good or evil? A CHRISTIAN answered: We say that no one is the cause of all good things except God, but for evil, not so. And the SARACEN, replying, said: Whom do you say is the cause of evils? CHRIST. He who is devil by his own intention, and we men also. SARAC. For what reason? CHRIST. Because of free will. SARAC. What then? Are you of free will, and able to do whatever you wish? CHRIST. Only in two things; in anything else I was not formed by God with free will. SARAC. What are these? CHRIST. Doing good, I do not fear the law; on the contrary, I obtain reward and mercy from God: the devil likewise (would have obtained it). The first man was formed by God with free will and he sinned; and God thrust him out of his own state. But perhaps you may also say to me in objection: What are these things you call good and evil? Behold, the sun, moon, and stars are good: make one out of these. It is not for that reason that I declared to you regarding men, that I work good and evil. Good things, therefore, are the glorification of God and prayer: but evils are fornication, theft. Since, as you say, evil and good ^C things from God...

^A are to be found, then God according to you will be found unjust, which is certainly not the case. For since God commanded, as you say, the fornicator to fornicate, and the thief to steal, and the murderer to commit murder, they are worthy of reward; for they have done the will of God. Your legislators will also be found liars, and your books false, since they command the fornicator and the thief to be flayed, who nevertheless did the will of God; and the murderer to be killed, whom it was proper to heap with rewards, seeing that he did the will of God.

SARAC. He says, who forms infants in the wombs of women? For the Saracens put forward this most formidable problem against us, wishing to demonstrate that God is the author of evil. For if, in answering, you say that God is the one who forms ^B infants in the wombs of women, the Saracen will retort: Therefore God is a co-worker with the fornicator and the adulterer.

CHRIST. To this he answers: I do not at all find after the first week of the creation of the world that Scripture asserts that God forms or creates anything. But if he does not acquiesce regarding this, let him show [you] any creature or figment whatsoever that came into being under God after the first week; for he can by no means show this. For all visible creatures came into being on the first week. For God fashioned man on the first week, and commanded him to beget and be begotten, saying: "Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth." And because man was animate and possessed animate seed, it sprouted in his own wife as seed. Wherefore man begets man, as the Scripture says: ^C "For Adam begat Seth, and Seth begat Enos, and Enos begat Kainan, and Kainan begat Malaleel, and Malaleel begat Jaret, and Jaret begat Enoch." And it did not say, God fashioned Seth, or Enos, or any other person; and from this we know that Adam alone was fashioned by God, while those after him are begotten and beget even to the present time. And in this way, by the grace of God, the world is maintained. For even every herb and plant, by the command of God from that time, begets and is begotten. For God said: "Let the earth bring forth the herb of hay." According to His command, every tree sprouted, and every species of herb and plant has a seminal power within itself. For the seed of every plant and herb is animate, which, falling again into the earth of its own accord, ^D or being sown by another, sprouts; not being fashioned by anyone, but following the first command of God. Behold, as I said before, being possessed of free will in those matters which I alone mentioned, wherever I may sow, even if into my own

^A wife, or even if into another’s by the power that I use, it grows and germinates through obedience to the first command of God. Not that God is even now fashioning and working daily; since in the first week God made heaven and earth and the whole world in six days, and on the seventh He rested from all His works which He began to do, as also the Scripture bears witness to me.

SARAC. God says to Jeremiah: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you came forth from the matrix I sanctified you."

CHRIST. God fashioned the animate and seminal power of every man from Adam and successively thereafter. For Adam, having had [a son] in the womb, begat Seth, as I said before, and Seth [begat] Enos; and every man, having had a son in his womb ^B beforehand, begets him, and the son has begotten even to the present time. But as for that which says, "From the matrix I sanctified you," understand it as that which truly begets the children of God, according to the testimony of the holy Gospel: "As many as received Him," it says, "He gave them the power to become children of God, to those who believe in Him," it says, "who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God," through baptism.

ADVERSARY. Was there, therefore, baptism before Christ? For Jeremiah was born before Christ.

CHRIST. It was there, indeed, according to the testimony of the holy Apostle, who says that some were baptized through the cloud, and others ^C through the sea. And the Lord says in the Gospels: "Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." And thus Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the other saints before Christ who entered the kingdom of heaven, had they not been baptized, would not have attained salvation. The Holy Spirit testifies to this, saying: "The sinners are alienated from the womb," that is, from baptism. Therefore, we confess that all those who were or are being saved, were saved or are being saved through baptism by the grace of God.

SARAC. He asked, saying: Do you say that a Christian who does the will of God himself is good ^D or evil?

CHRISTIAN, recognizing his craftiness, said: I know what you wish to say.

SARAC. Reveal it to me.

CHRIST. You wish to say to me: Did Christ suffer willingly, or unwillingly? And if I say to you, He suffered willingly, you will reply to me: Go, therefore, and worship the Jews, since they did the will of your God.

VARIA LECTIONES. (m) Read: Wholly, therefore, within the matrix He fashioned. CHRIST. Adam having the animate and seminal power in the womb. (n) To the words καὶ νὰ there is nothing corresponding in Lequien.

^A THE SARACEN. This, he says, is what I wished to tell you; and if you are able to speak, answer me. CHRIST. You say it is the will, I call it forbearance and long-suffering. THE SARACEN. Whence can you demonstrate this? CHRIST. By things themselves, he said to the Saracen. While I or you are sitting, or indeed standing, can either of us rise or move without the power and lordship of God? THE SARACEN. By no means. CHRIST. Since God has said: Do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not murder, He does not will that we should steal, commit adultery, or murder. THE SARACEN. Not at all. For if He had willed it, He would not have said, Do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not murder. CHRIST. Glory to God, for you have confessed it, saying what I wished to say. See, you have agreed with me that none of us can rise or move without God. And that God does not will that we should steal or commit adultery. If, therefore, upon rising I go away and steal or commit adultery, what do you call this? The will of God, or pardon and forbearance and long-suffering? ^B THE SARACEN. Realizing this, and marveling, he said: It is truly so. CHRIST. Understand this also, that whereas God could have struck, He withdrew to the Cross; this is long-suffering used against sin. But when He wills that I should repent, He requites me, just as He did to the Jews. For after ^C a few years He raised up against them Titus and Vespasian and the Greeks, and cast down their arrogance. If you are asked by a Saracen who says: "Who do you say Christ is?" say to him: "The Word of God." I consider that in this I do not err, since He is also called "Word" by Scripture, and "Wisdom," and "Arm," and "Power of God," and many other such things, for He has many names. And you, in turn, question him, saying: "What is Christ called by Scripture?" Perhaps even if the Saracen wishes to ask you about some other matter, do not answer him until he has solved your request. By what necessity will he be compelled to answer you, saying: "By my Scripture, Christ is called the Spirit and Word of God." And then say to him, you too: "Are the Spirit of God and the Word called uncreated by your Scripture, or created?" And when he says that they are created, say to him: "And who created the Spirit and Word of God?" And if, reduced to an impasse, he says to you that God created them, say: "See, if I said this to you, you would have said to me that I had destroyed my own testimony, and that henceforth you would not believe whatever I said. Nevertheless, I ask you even this: Before God created the Word and the Spirit, did He not possess a Spirit nor a Word?" And he will flee from you, having nothing to answer. For such men are heretics in...

^A regard to the Saracens, and are truly abominable and to be rejected; and if you wish to expose him to the rest of the Saracens, he will fear you greatly. And if the Saracen should ask you, saying: "Are the words [logia] of God created or uncreated?" For they throw this most formidable question at us, wishing to prove that the Word of God is created, which is not at all the case. If you say they are created, he says to you: "Behold, all these are words of God; they are uncreated, and yet they are not gods." Behold, you have confessed that Christ, being the Word of God, is not God. Therefore, the Christian, answering him, says neither "created" nor "uncreated," but says: "I confess one sole Word of God in hypostasis, that is uncreated, just as you also confess; but all my Scripture I do not call *logia* (words), but *rhemata* (sayings) of God." And if the Saracen should say: "And how does David say, 'The words [logia] of the Lord are pure words,' and not, 'The sayings [rhemata] of the Lord are pure sayings'?" Say to him: "The Prophet spoke figuratively [troponologikos], and not literally [kuriologikos]." And if he asks you: "What is figurative speech and literal speech?" Say to him: "Literal speech is a certain demonstration of a thing; but figurative speech is an uncertain demonstration." And if the Saracen should say to you: "Is it possible for a prophet to utter an uncertain demonstration?" Say to him immediately: "In the prophets, you see inanimate things given personalities, and eyes and mouths attributed to them; so that, 'The sea saw and fled' (Ps. XI, 7). Behold, the sea has no eyes, for it is not an animate being. And again, the same Prophet addresses it as if it were animate: 'What is it to you, O sea, that you fled?' (Ps. CXVII [CXVI], 3) and what follows. And 'The sword shall devour flesh' (Jer. XII, 12), says the Scripture. For to devour is said of a mouth that eats and drinks, but the sword cuts indeed, but does not swallow. In the same way, speaking figuratively, he called the sayings [rhemata] words [logia], although they are not *logia* but *rhemata*." And if he says to you, "How did God descend into the womb of a woman?" Say to him: "Let us use your Scripture and mine. Your scripture says ^B that God purified the Virgin Mary above all female flesh, and the Spirit of God and the Word descended into her; and my Gospel says: 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you' (Luc. I, 35). Behold, one sound of both expressions, and one meaning." But I also know this, that the Scripture speaks of the ascent and descent of God according to our common manner of speaking, figuratively and not literally. For properly, descent and ascent are spoken of concerning bodies according to the philosophers, but God contains all things and is not contained by any place. For one of the prophets said: "Who has measured the sea with his hand, and the heavens with his span?" And altogether, all the waters are in the hands of God…

as is the heaven ^A in the span of his hand. How is it possible for Him, who with His own hand holds all things, to descend and ascend? And if the Saracen also asks you, saying: "And if Christ were God, did He eat and drink, and sleep, and so on?" say to him that the pre-eternal Word of God, who created all things, as my Scripture says, and yours too, He Himself having become a perfect man from the flesh of the holy Virgin Mary, endowed with mind and soul; He ate, and drank, and slept, but the Word of God ^B did not eat, nor did He drink, nor did He sleep, nor was He crucified, and so on. Know, however, that Christ is said to be dual in natures, but one in hypostasis. For one is the pre-eternal Word of God, even after the assumption of the flesh, hypostatically and not naturally; for a fourth person was not added to the Trinity after the ineffable union of the flesh. ^C

SAR. Is that which you call divine dead or alive? Tell him: It did not die, relying on Scriptural demonstration. For the Scripture says regarding this: "The natural death of men came upon it..."—taking away or conquering the memory that is in us—far be it. Otherwise, let me put it this way: The first man slept, and his rib was taken.

SAR. Behold, I have received a wound in a certain place of my flesh, and the wounded flesh has produced a weal, and in the weal a worm has appeared. Who formed it?

CHR. It states what we have already said: After the first week ^D of the creation of the world, we do not find that God created anything, or is creating; but by the commandment of God it was ordained in the first week, and things that occur came to be. After the commandments, the earth was condemned to thorns and thistles. Then also our flesh was condemned, such that to this day it produces decay and worms.

SAR. The Saracen asks the Christian: Furthermore, who is greater among you, the one who sanctifies, or the one who is sanctified? But the CHRISTIAN, recognizing his insidious question, said: I understand what you want to say.

SARACEN. If indeed you know, tell me. CHRISTIAN. He says: If I tell you that the one who sanctifies is greater than the one who is sanctified, you will reply to me, "Go away, worship John the Baptist, since he baptized and sanctified your Christ." SARACEN. That is indeed what I wanted to say to you. The ^A CHRISTIAN speaks to the Saracen, saying enigmatically: If you were going to the bath with your slave to bathe, and you were washed and cleansed by him, whom would you call the greater? That wretched and silver-bought slave, or you who were cleansed by him? So also, being Lord, He himself was cleansed by the slave. Do you call me the greater, who bought him, or him who was bought by me, says the Saracen to the Christian? But the ^B Christian responded, having first given thanks to God, and said to the Saracen: Think of John in the same way for me, as a slave and servant ministering to Christ in the Jordan, in which my Savior, having been baptized, crushed the heads of the evil demons skulking there. The Saracen, extremely amazed and at a loss, having nothing to answer the Christian, went away, no longer harassing him.

OF JOHN OF DAMASCUS OR JOHN, PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM, A WORK AGAINST ICONOCLASTS

AN INVECTIVE DISCOURSE

1. Naboth the Israelite, that he might not surrender his ancestral vineyard ^C, was stoned, saying: I will not surrender the inheritance of my fathers. But these men, he says, who have been allotted the position of bishops and pastors of the rational sheep, for the sake of empty glory alone, thrust aside the voices of the Fathers.