Saint Caesarius, Brother of Saint Gregory

S. CAESARIUS, GERMAN BROTHER OF B. GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN. NOTICE.

(Galland, *Veterum Patrum Biblioth.*, tom. VI, Proleg. p. III.)

I. Caesarius, the youngest of the three children ^A whom Gregory, the bishop of Nazianzus, had begotten by the most excellent lady Nonna before his episcopate, excelled greatly in talent and integrity. Having left home and, inflamed with an eagerness for learning, betook himself to Alexandria—which even at that time was not undeservedly considered the gymnasium of all the sciences ^B—he departed from there, having already become excellently and sufficiently versed in the liberal arts, and especially in philosophical disciplines, and well-skilled in the art of medicine, and proceeded to Constantinople, to which his own brother, Gregory the Theologian, had likewise moved after his return from Athens. There, in the royal city, he shortly obtained such great celebrity of name that public honors, a noble marriage, and senatorial dignity were offered to him. Indeed, it was requested by the emperor Constantius, who was then residing in Italy, through his envoys, that the principal city be honored by the prince of learned men, and that this be added to his other praises: that it be adorned in Caesarius by both a physician and a citizen—*and for this to be added to all the narratives concerning that city: that it be adorned by Caesarius, [both] as physician and [as] citizen*. But he, putting all these things aside, and having a regard for his piety toward his parents that surpassed other considerations, preferred to follow his brother Gregory, who was returning to his homeland.

II. But after he had consecrated the first-fruits of his learning to his native city, he finally betook himself to the court and was created chief physician ^C of the imperial household at the time when Julian the Apostate possessed the empire. Quite against the wishes of his own parents, and especially of his brother Gregory, who on this account sent the most grave letters to him, Caesarius complied with the will of his brother; and by his counsel, after he had exhibited an excellent example of the Christian faith before the apostate emperor, he withdrew his foot from his court and returned to his own people. Furthermore, after Julian was removed from the midst, our author is found to have held the office of quaestor in Bithynia under Valens. Consequently, while he was attending to the parts of his office in Nicaea toward the end of the year of Christ 368, that city was razed to its foundations by an earthquake, the greatest by far within the memory of men; and from such a great danger, he alone among the illustrious men—or at least with very few—was saved by divine providence, being protected by the very ruins ^D. And though he had survived the earthquake, he did not survive the disease; being seized by it, and having then at last received holy baptism and left his possessions as heirs to the poor, he seems to have departed this life a little later in the same city. For although the opinion of very learned men is varied regarding the place where Caesarius departed from the living—with some indeed asserting that it has nowhere been recorded where he died; while others think that he died in his homeland among his holy parents, bishop Gregory and Nonna—nevertheless, it is certain from his brother the Theologian that Caesarius, outside his homeland, in the midst of his duties, "departed for the heights," and that his ashes were carried from Bithynia to Nazianzus.

*...Κόνιν ἐκ Βιθυνῶν δεξάμεθ' ἄν σε πέδου.* *We have received thee, O ashes, from the soil of Bithynia.*

III. That Caesarius was outstanding for the greatest strength of mind and that he pursued every kind of learning with such intensity of spirit that he left most men far behind him, the same Gregory is a reliable witness: "Everything," he says, "he cultivated as one, and again each thing as everything. And just as he was endowed with a swift mind, by study and diligence he was likewise" ...

surpassed—or, to speak more precisely, he surpassed the naturally gifted in talent, and the laborious in study, and indeed those who possessed both, he excelled in both. ^A Under the name of so great a man, therefore, Dialogues are circulated, in which, more than in others, the most hidden mysteries of theology are unfolded. We find that this work was read by Photius among the ancients (l); he calls it "ecclesiastical chapters," and recognizes its author as Gregory, who bears the epithet "Theologian," along with others. Nor does it seem that the same work escaped Suidas, when he says (m) that Caesarius wrote various things and also against the Greeks: *he wrote various things and also against the Hellenes*. And quite correctly, although Tillemont thought otherwise (n). For these Dialogues are known to be filled with manifold doctrine and erudition, and are woven together with various questions, derived not only from the theological faculty but also from mathematical and philosophical disciplines; in the cultivation of which Caesarius was so excellent that he bore the first rank among all the most learned, as we have just understood from his brother Gregory: and consequently, that our author had committed various things to writing, Suidas has rightly pronounced. Furthermore, the same lexicographer has said that Caesarius disputed against the Greeks for the reason that he had dealt with and refuted ^B in a very comprehensive manner, above all, the astrological fate of Bardesanes (o).

IV. To Photius and Suidas, moreover, we add Michael Glycas: whom we have found to have excerpted from two places, one on the angels (p) and another on the customs of certain nations (q) (r). Why, indeed, is Gregory Nazianzen himself deservedly thought to confirm the authenticity of the Dialogues of his brother Caesarius? Undoubtedly, he recounts the struggles (s) which his own brother undertook for the truth, and the DISCOURSES which he held—MANY AND FREQUENT AND WITH MANY—not only SHREWD, but also very PIOUS and fervent: *the struggles and discourses for the sake of the truth, which he often held before many, not by logic alone, but also most piously and fervently*. By these very words you may see the character of the questions of Caesarius described, which we described a little earlier (t). To these is also added the authority of the manuscript codices, which Lambecius (u) and Montfauconius (v) cite: so that from this, the authenticity of the Caesarian work is further corroborated. Many things to the same effect, and indeed worthy of being known, are noted in the aforementioned Lambecius, loc. cit., among which I should wish you to note most of all that, in the inscription of the work itself, that learned man reads (x) *for the 20 years*, *for the 6 years*, that is, *vi* years instead of *xx*. ^C Whence that objection is elided which Tillemont first brings forward (y). But the remaining things which either that same critic or others bring together against the integrity of these Dialogues, we judge to be sufficiently diluted by those things which we have brought forward above.

Notitia

(...) ^D we subjoin: whom we have found to have made excerpts, in two places, one indeed regarding the angels (p), and the other regarding the customs of certain nations (q) (r). Why, indeed, is Gregory Nazianzen himself deservedly thought to confirm the authenticity of the Dialogues of his brother Caesarius? Undoubtedly, he recounts the struggles (s) which his own brother undertook for the truth, and the DISCOURSES which he held—MANY AND FREQUENT AND WITH MANY—not only SHREWD, but also very PIOUS and fervent: *the struggles and discourses for the truth, which he organized often and before many, not by logic alone, but also most piously and fervently*. In these very words, indeed, you may see expressed the characteristics of the questions of Caesarius, which we described a little earlier (t). To these is also added the authority of the manuscript codices, which Lambecius (u) and Montfauconius (v) invoke: so that on account of this, the authenticity of the Caesarian work is confirmed even from this. Many things to the same effect, and indeed worthy of being known, are in the cited Lambecius, loc. cit., among which I would want you to note most of all that, in the title of the work itself, that learned man reads (x) *for 20 years*, *for 6 years*, that is, *vi* years instead of *xx*. Whence that objection is elided which Tillemont first brings forward (y). But the remaining things which either that same critic or others bring together against the integrity of these Dialogues, we judge to be sufficiently diluted by those things which we have brought forward above.

The various arts and disciplines to which Caesarius had devoted his efforts, you have here. And that which concerns geometry and astronomy, hear Gregory himself speaking in Oration X concerning the funeral of Caesarius in these words: *Of geometry, indeed, and of astronomy, and of that which is to others a dangerous education, as much as was useful having selected*, etc. And from geometry, indeed, and from astronomy, and from that which is to others a dangerous doctrine, when he had collected whatever was useful, etc. But the Theologian continues in the same oration, and affirms that arithmetic and medicine were arts so well understood by Caesarius, that there was no one so inept and obstinate as not to give him the second place, and not to consider that it was well dealt with for him if he held the number next to Caesarius and bore the first place among the seconds. However, under the name of our Caesarius, four Dialogues are circulated, often published in public print, in which the most hidden mysteries of theology are treated. Yet, that this offspring is not to be attributed to St. Caesarius is the opinion of very many learned men, such as Bollandus on the 25th of February in his *Vita*, Dupin, Cave, etc. For, they say, why did Gregory, his brother, while diligently enumerating every praise of Caesarius, and all the arts in which he had been instructed, never pronounce him to have been even lightly imbued with theological studies? For what reason would Jerome in his book *De script. eccles.* have omitted Caesarius, previously the brother of his teacher Nazianzen, if he had been the author of such a learned work? Therefore, what very learned men have observed in the rest of Gregory’s writings concerning Caesarius, that I consider more clearly in these poems. Gregory makes mention of geometry, astronomy, logic, grammar, medicine, and rhetoric, to which Caesarius had devoted himself: why, if he also devoted himself to theology, does he not have even a word regarding that? Who, then, would not see that those rest on light arguments who adjudge these Dialogues to our Caesarius? It must not, however, be hidden that Lambecius, in Vol. IV of the *Bibliotheca Caesarea*, codex CVII, has instituted a learned disquisition on this matter, where he contends with all his might that these Dialogues are not to be denied to Caesarius. Perhaps a stronger reason is situated in those words of Nazianzen, in which, speaking of Caesarius, he mentions *the struggles concerning the truth*, etc. Certainly they make the uncertain and doubtful question such that no one can suspect Caesarius to be the author of those Dialogues without rashness. MURATORI.

V. It is appropriate, however, to add one more thing, taken from the author himself. "I will not," he says, "bring forth matters that are my own or trivial; rather, I have traversed the meadows of the famous and blessed Fathers, and have gathered from their rose-garden." Hence, it is ^B truly no wonder if you should find in the Dialogues of Caesarius many things transcribed from Bardesane, Cyril of Jerusalem, and other ancient authors. Furthermore, if anything from some later writers should appear in the Dialogues, you may rightly argue that it was introduced by the license of the copyists. Regarding the various editions of the work, Fabricius is to be consulted above all others. We have followed the one which Fronto Ducæus published in the *Auctuarium Bibliothecae Patrum* of Paris, translated by Joannes Leunclavius. But we have seen to it that it be printed in a much more emended state: for we have restored many places to their integrity, having particularly made use of the notes which the most learned Cotelerius recorded in his *Ecclesiae Graecae Monumenta*.

FOUR DIALOGUES OF CAESARIUS THE MOST WISE, BROTHER OF GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN

Questions brought forward by Constantius, Theocharistus, Andreas, ^C Gregorius, Domnus, Isidorus, and Leontius to Caesarius, brother of St. Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzus, at the time when he was secretary and teaching in Constantinople, where he stayed for twenty whole years.

DIALOGUE I.

INTERROGATION I.

Those who sail upon a great and vast sea, as long as they carry their sails according to their own desire with favorable winds, are not much concerned about neighboring lands; but if a violent and contrary wind rises up, stirring ^D up a storm and threatening with death those who but a little while before were sailing without fear, then indeed they desire with great longing that a tranquil harbor be offered to them. And so, after they have turned their eyes toward all the land set before them, and nowhere can find a place to land, finally [they look] to the island nearby, if it happens to be one, by means of their

rudder, and steer the ship, striving for salvation in every way. Having approached it, and having taken refuge under the shelter of the headlands, and having been spared from an abhorred death, they send up thanksgivings to God, the Savior of all. ^B We, therefore, loving-child Father, sailing across the tempestuous sea of life, and being variously overwhelmed by the waves of heresies, and finding nowhere a rational harbor, have come to your love, entreating that you might let us hear about the adorable and holy Trinity, and other chapters of holy Scripture; so that we may not be led astray with the foolish, but being strengthened by your instruction, we may gradually and quietly withdraw ourselves from the worldly surge, and hasten to drive our soul’s bark into the waveless harbor of Christ, following your honey-dropping counsel.

Response

^C My understanding is far exceeded and surpassed by the most precise exposition of the divine Scriptures, since it is not yet purified, nor has it laid aside the clothing of the matter, which is subject to many passions. For I, who am not just, cannot rise to the just God, lying low in desire; nor as a Maker and instructor of all and a sovereign do I approach to be taught the reasons for bodies and judgment and Providence; nor do I, poor wretch, stand before Him as King and Master. For even now I am not able to entreat Him with head bared, carrying about the idols of the world, and being weighed down by that dangerous [burden] of his, and being dashed against the earth. And to sum it up: whenever ^D I look toward the exalted nature of divine things, I become dizzy again and tremble, just as those who lean over from some high precipice into a vast sea, or, again, those who, having injured eyes, attempt to gaze steadily upon the sun in a calm, midday course across the sky, becoming dimmed in their vision by the excess of its rays and the brightness from it. Therefore, I thought it best to use silence as a helper. But lest, by persistent silence, I should reasonably become suspected by you of envy, as one who rejects a readiness to comply with vain reticence—since that divine David sings: "Many things have you done, O Lord my God, your wonders; and there is none who shall be compared to you in your thoughts: I have declared and spoken, they have multiplied beyond number." And again: "I have proclaimed good tidings of justice in a great church; lo, my lips I will not restrain, O Lord; you know. Your justice I have not hidden in my heart; your truth and your salvation I have spoken; I have not hidden your mercy and your truth from a great congregation; but do you, O Lord, not remove your mercies from us." And since the chief of the apostles in his written catholic [epistle] exhorts us to be ready

^A to give an answer to every man that asks us a reason of the hope that is in us; and since Paul the sublime also cries out explicitly ^B that we should walk in his footsteps and imitate Christ; and since Christ himself likewise teaches that we should freely give what we have freely received ^C, and struggle with all our might to double the divine talents entrusted to us by Him for that purpose, lest, if we bury them in vain silence as if in the earth ^D, we be cast into the outer darkness along with that wicked and slothful servant of whom it is written in the Gospels 6—I think it is more to be feared than to be silent.

For, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," ^A says David, the singer of divine things 7. For it is good to be silent with discernment and superior judgment, and to be as it were deaf and crucified to ^B the world, while being active and articulate regarding divine instruments. For thus there will be for us a desirable deafness and unceasing speech regarding divine things, when we entreat the Divinity; crying out concerning things destructive to the soul: ^C "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth, and a door of restraint around my lips, and do not let my heart turn aside to words of wickedness 8"; but concerning things divine and life-giving: "O Lord, you shall open my lips, and my mouth will announce your praise 9." Rightly, therefore, shall I again gird myself for your questions, ^D setting God as the leader of my discourse and relying on your supplications to Him. For I take pleasure in imitating those who gladly watch horse races. These people are wont, in the courses of the contests, to offer their favor to those they cherish—even if those [contestants] are already exerting themselves to their utmost speed—by rising from their seats and stands with a kind of total movement of their bodies, using shouts; and by turning their eyes along with the course, they incite the charioteer (or so they think) to a greater speed. Indeed, they even urge on the horses with shouts, and instead of a whip, they stretch out their hands toward them, striking those near them with their index fingers; and they do not just rub their cheeks, but sometimes even urge them on with a gesture, and threaten with their faces, and they rise up toward the runners in the stadium, gesturing with their fingers to indicate what seems to them to contribute to the prize—not that these things contribute to the victory, but they express in voice and gesture their goodwill and love toward those who are struggling. I am compelled to do the same thing, most honored friends and brothers of mine, out of my own longing for you, as you run with agility through the stadium of virtue and hasten toward the prize of the upward calling with dense and light leaps; not speaking anything of my own or trivial, but gathering as much as I have collected by wandering through the meadows of the famous and blessed Fathers—those whose roses are watered by the water from the side of the God and Word who was incarnate, and are reddened by the blood from there; which illuminate the whole world, shining and giving light more than the luminaries of the firmament.

^A and containing the word of life; their wick never falls, nor is their lamp broken, nor is the oil consumed, nor is the lampstand shaken, nor is the torch withered; but they carry the Cross as a staff, and the Gospels as a wallet, and love as a shepherd's crook and pipe, feeding the rational flock of Christ with these. ^B Ask therefore, you who are worthy of admiration, concerning those things for which you have come, reaping their divine seeds from my weakness.

INTERROGATION II

Since we hear from some people certain irrational and blasphemous voices concerning the only-begotten Son of God and the Spirit, saying that the Son is a creature and unlike the Father, and that the Spirit is placed in the rank and condition of a minister and messenger, and further holding even more irrational and base opinions about them; we entreat you by that love wherewith you embrace us as your children, that you would briefly explain to us what we ought to hold concerning the divine and adorable Trinity.

REPLY

Every good gift, and every perfect boon is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, says the divine James (Jac. I, 17). ^C But you will ask, with good reason, of what lights? Surely the Father himself is the proper, and principal, and true light, just as John the Theologian writes in these words: This is the message which we have heard from him, meaning the Son, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (I Joan. I, 5). And the Son is also light, as the same John says: The true light was that which lightens every man coming into the world (Joan. I, 9). And the Lord himself, the light free from all dense matter and darkness, which illuminates every nature endowed with intelligence and participant in reason, says in the Gospels: I am the light of the world (Joan. VIII, 12). ^D And I say that the divine Spirit is also light, agreeing with the divinely-inspired David: In your light we shall see light (Ps. XXXV, 10). For in God and the Father we see the Son and God; and in the Son, the Father; and in both, the Spirit, as the Son says: The Father is in me, and I in the Father (Joan. XIV, 10); and, He who has seen me, has seen the Father. And concerning the Spirit he says: The Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father (Joan. XV, 26). Therefore, in the light that is the Father, we see light, his Son and Word; and in the light that is the Son, we see the Spirit as light. Reasonably, therefore, let three lights be understood in one another, united indistinguishably and inseparably. But God over all, and the Almighty Father, is not begotten, nor is he caused by another; but he is the begetter and cause of his Son, as a fountain is of a river, as the sun is of a ray, as fire is of a flame; he is the cause, but not pre-existing in time. Likewise, those that are from them are causes, but not subsequent in time; thus also do they...

^A always exist in the Father, and are from the Father, and exist with the Father, without mingling, without separation, without change.

INTERROGATION III

And how can he who is begotten of the Father and has gone forth be with the Father and in the Father? For that which is once begotten and has gone forth from that which contained it, how shall it be again in that which begat it?

Response

The Son and the Spirit, of course, did not proceed from the Father after the manner of men, by flux or division or dimension, but as rivers from a fountain, which are indeed from it and in it and with it; and as rays from the sun, which are in it and with it and from it; and as flame and light from fire, which exist with the fire and in the fire. I have used these things in declaring this matter—things which explain it obscurely, indeed, but which do not altogether depart from the image. The Son, therefore, who is in the Father, has proceeded from the same, and exists with the Father, and ^B will be for ages without end, even as he himself says: *I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.* By these words he signifies both the sameness of substance and the unchangeableness and equal power of the divinity of both in every respect. And again when he says: *I have come forth from the Father and have come into the world*, he sets forth the difference and the property of the person. But the divine and most holy Spirit is not begotten, but proceeds; and by the very fact that he proceeds from the Father, he arises from the Father as from a cause. David, the expositor of the holy Trinity, says: *By the Word of the Lord were the heavens established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their host.* Agreement with these are those words of Zechariah also: *Let the hands of Zerubbabel be strong, and the hands of Josedech the priest, and the hands of the people; for I am with you, and my Word, and my Spirit, saith the Lord Almighty.* The Father, therefore, is unbegotten, the Son is begotten, the Spirit proceeds; these three are lights in themselves; they are not confused, they shine with the same light, they shine eternally, they are distinguished indivisibly by hypostases or persons, and without confusion they are one by supernatural essence, and by a conjunction of mind surpassing strength, and in distance admitting no dimension. And the three hypostases do not divide the one substance of the divinity into so many natures, nor is the one substance drawn together into one person and one hypostasis, and the three-fold and three-sun-like fountain of the divinity destroyed. The Father, therefore, is light, the Son is light, the divine Spirit is light; but these three are one light, beyond time, before the ages, without beginning, three-personed, three-hypostasied, three-lorded, three-throned, three-shining, three-rayed, equal-shining, unchangeable, undiminished, without night, uncreated, ^C unapproachable, one substance, one power, one glory, one kingdom, one divinity, one will, one act. ^D

^A Every unity and equality and identity in the Trinity, saving for the unbegottenness, the begottenness, and the procession, each hypostasis existing and being subsistently, not having begun, not ceasing, but always having been the same and remaining unchangeable. For God always existed as Father, always being the Father of the Only-begotten Son, the subsistent Word—who performs all things—the divine Spirit always co-existing with them, and being worshipped together by all intellectual and rational natures. Neither is there any predecessor among them nor any successor; there is no increasing or waning, as in sensory light or the hypercosmic powers. For while all of these are the same in substance (as likewise are the rational souls of mortals, all being the same in substance), they yet happen to differ in order, or in station, or in standing and ministry, and by choices, changes, and transformations, swaying at will toward the worse or the better, not falling into “greater” and “lesser” by any physical necessity; it is in these latter respects that they have the difference of superiority. Yet mortal man is also called light, and the sun and the moon are called light, and the varied choir of the stars is named light. But of those many material and various lights mentioned, the Author and Creator is the true and immaterial Light, the God and Father over all, together with his Only-begotten Son and the divine Spirit; the incorporeal, the invisible, the supersubstantial and super-unknown, He who is the Begetter of the Son and the Producer of the Spirit, according to nature, ineffably, timelessly, before ^B the ages. For there is neither predecessor nor successor, nothing pre-existing or adventitious in the divine Trinity, nothing before-age, nothing today, nothing beyond. For three always exist: three co-principles, three co-eternal ones, three acting, three co-acting, three formed, three co-formed, three working, three co-working, three subsistent, three co-subsistent, not changing or shifting or mixing into one another. For the Father is always, and Father only, not also Son; the Son is always Son, and Son only, not also Father; and likewise the divine Spirit is neither Father nor Son, but proceeds inalterably. They ever possess their standing, particular, and super-perfect state according to the individual hypostasis of each. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—the Trinity is and is conceived in unity, and confessed and worshipped by those who worship in truth and not in phantasm or blasphemy, as Arius does, dividing and weighing, imagining “greater” and “lesser” in the divine Trinity; or as Sabellius does, merging and confounding, insanely teaching a Son-Fatherhood. The divine Trinity is, therefore, of equal strength, equal glory, equal magnitude—or rather, super-glorious, super-magnificent, and superior to every apprehension—in one godhead and kingdom, and power and authority, having fashioned all things from no pre-existing matter; but as to how, let us leave that precision aside. For no one knows the Father except the Son, nor does anyone know the Son except ^C the Father. And the divine Spirit reveals them to mortals. Therefore, while these three exist—neither increasing nor waning, neither culminating, nor gathered-

may they be understood and believed as they are in themselves, as reason consistent with their nature demands, as they reveal themselves: light, fire, spirit, and—as I suppose—through other comparisons and likenesses of visions, in the manner that he who treats of divine matters is found worthy.

INTERROGATION IV

Response

QUESTION V

Response

INTERROGATION VI

^A

Response. The Son himself is a sufficient teacher of this. For, he says, if I go away, that one will come, the Spirit of truth.

INTERROGATION VII. ^B But the Scripture also shows that the Spirit is created, saying: "He who establishes the thunder, and creates the spirit."

Response. But the text here does not speak of the divine Spirit. For the word "holy" is not added to the one being created; rather, it says simply, "creating the spirit," which moves upon the stirring of the clouds and the working of the rain, through which the sound of thunder is also reasonably produced; the spirit, being caught in the hollows of the clouds, and by its breaking and breath striking the things placed beneath. It is according to the image of a membrane or a translucent bladder in birds or cattle, which, when taken by wanton and ill-behaved boys and dried in the air, they stretch with their own breath; and then, by striking it secretly, they terrify those standing around with the sound of the crack and the depth of their heart's fear.

INTERROGATION VIII. ^C And how is it that, although these same winds exist in the winter, and indeed are even more violent, the claps of thunder do not occur?

Response. When the clouds are moist and become softer due to the thickness of the air, and the misty and humid evaporation of the waters—both those contained in springs and rivers, and those mixed with the earth—the sound of the cracking is not produced. This, however, does not happen over the entire land, but only in its colder climates, according to the image of a whip or parchment; when they are dried by the sun, they cannot even be touched without making a noise, but when they are wet, they do not signify the rupture or the contraction. Since the air around the earth is thickened and compressed, I judge that the crackling sound of the thunder cannot be heard. Reasonably, then, it should be understood that the Scripture speaks of the spirit of the wind as being created; for this reason, it is joined to the thunder.

INTERROGATION IX. ^D Having been well instructed concerning the Spirit, we ask that you add something concerning the Son. For that which is said by the Scripture, "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works," some teach is said of him, namely that he is created and posterior to the Father.

Response. I too accept that the statement was made concerning the Son, yet not concerning his divinity, but concerning his flesh, which [he] took from Mary. For he is uncreated in divinity, but is created on account of what he assumed. For the divine Scripture does not speak of the Father as "He who creates his Christ for men," but...

rather as One who announces his Anointed to men—that is, that true, immutable, uncreated God, who is co-eternal with the Father and who subsists with Him before the ages. Of Him John cries out: "Who is in the bosom of the Father"; and He who commands Moses to say to Pharaoh—not "He who was created at some time," according to the opinion of certain foolish and senseless men, but—“He said, I AM has sent me to you.” And He Himself says concerning Himself through Paul: "Christ, who is God over all."

INTERROGATION X

Response

INTERROGATION XI

Response

^A

INTERROGATION XII

*Response.* Nay, I profess a Trinity of one and the same essence, of one and the same power and divinity, which neither increases nor diminishes or wanes, nor receives any addition in number. For although it pleased the Word to be united with flesh, yet He did not in any way add to the number of the Trinity. Therefore, in the Trinity, there is but one sign and salvation, and nothing in it is created. For if the Father is uncreated, but the Son and the Spirit are created, according to the fables of Arius and the rest of the demented, by what reasoning is the uncreated joined and bound, mingled and glorified together with the created, in the seal [(5)] of mystical perfection? Is it as if the Father were unable to save, and assumed two created beings to assist Him?

INTERROGATION XIII

*Response.* But beyond Moses and Paul, let us also hear the voice of the Cherubim and Seraphim, who cry out without ceasing: *Holy, holy, holy*. For those spiritual beings, filled with the divine Power, do not say this twice or four times, nor again do they utter it but once; nor do they say, "Holies, holies," lest they declare that what is single has multiple appellations; but they attribute holiness three times, and yet use the singular number, that they may not sow a multitude of gods into the minds of the simple. ^{B C}

INTERROGATION XIV

*Response.* But He does not search out of ignorance or curiosity, as that madman Macedonius teaches, but by a certain property native to Him. For when that divine and most holy Spirit enters into the excellent and holy among men, He prepares them to search the depths of God, from the ready examination of the letter

carrying them up to a higher understanding by the investigation of things divine. It is as if, when the mind has descended into a deep, the hook of the Spirit brings up from the gulf of this life the fish of the soul, holding in its ^B mouth that most precious stater—Christ, the Savior of all. For thus, too, the chief of the Apostles is commanded to give, in his own name and in Christ’s, the fish of the soul to those who demand tribute, holding the stater—Christ—and the doctrine of the faith in his mouth, along with the lifting up and praise from the depth of the heart. For, ^C he says, "Out of the depths I have cried unto Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice." But also that incomparable Apostle says: "We have received the Spirit of God, that we might know the things that are given to us by God." And again the same one says: "But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit." And again David, the psalmist of divine things, says: ^D "I opened my mouth and drew in the spirit," not an airy one, but the divine one, through which he declared clearly, a thousand years before, the hidden things of the divine incarnation of God, singing to God: "The obscure and hidden things of Thy wisdom Thou hast made manifest unto me."

INTERROGATION XV

If the Son is God and equal to the Father, how does He not know what the Father knows? For He Himself says in the Gospels, that "no one knows the day, nor the hour of the consummation, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only."

Responsio.

Holy Scripture is accustomed to use human analogies, and it frequently draws from natural things—as when the Lord says in the Gospel: "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven and a grain of mustard seed." And Paul, high in understanding, says: "There are celestial bodies, and terrestrial bodies." And, writing to the Corinthians, he treats of natural things, mentioning the trumpet, the flute, and the harp. Therefore, I too will make use of a slight resemblance drawn from our own affairs. Would my reason be ignorant of my own counsels? No one among those who have attained even a small degree of learning would say so. How, then, shall the Word of God and the Father be ignorant of His counsels, when He Himself says, "All things that the Father has are Mine"—namely, that God is life, that He is light, that He is immortality, that He is incomprehensible. And elsewhere He says: "All Mine are Thine, O Father, and Thine are Mine." If, therefore, all things that are the Father’s are His, then the knowledge that is the Father’s is also His entirely, as is that of the Spirit, as will be spoken of more fully in a little while.

INTERROGATION XVI

Is it, then, the case that if I say, "All things that the Father has are Mine," I also have the knowledge of the Father and know His counsel?

^A

Response. I too may ask you, O illustrious ones: Who is greater, that day and hour, or the Father?

INTERROGATION XVII The Father, of course, as He is without beginning, prior to all ages, incomprehensible, and the Creator of all things.

Response. If, therefore, the Father is greater than that hour and that day, and indeed greater than all things, how can the Son, who knows the greater, be ignorant of the less? And since He knows the Creator and works with Him in all things, how can He be ignorant of things made by Him? For, as He says, "As the Father knows Me, I also know the Father." How, then, would He who knows the greater be ignorant of the less? ^B

INTERROGATION XVIII But we believe that the Father is greater even than the Son, just as He Himself says: "My Father is greater than I."

Response. You do not think piously enough in supposing the Father to be greater than the Son, whether by reason of circumference, or bulk, or time, or season, or dignity, or power, or divinity, or magnitude, or excellence. For nothing of this sort has any place in the holy Trinity. But insofar as the Father is Father, the Son honors the Father with legitimate honor. For the Divinity is not carried in any bulk, so that the Father might surpass the Son by bulk; nor is He subject to time, so that the begetter might be prior in time to the begotten; nor again is the Father ranked in height specifically, for He contains all things and is contained by none, being without magnitude and quantity. ^C

INTERROGATION XIX If, therefore, the Son is equal to God and Father, and good as He is, how does He Himself say, "No one is good except one, God"?

Response. He does not deny goodness in Himself, nor does He set Himself apart from the divinity by saying that only God and Father is good; rather, this is a clear proof of supreme love and goodness—that He does not attribute the honor to Himself, but to the Father, teaching us to be lovers of our parents. For, voluntarily speaking modestly, He does not grasp at empty glory, nor is He lifted up by the estimation of dignity, as are the proud and arrogant who, having obtained some faint and obscure authority, are puffed up by the herald’s voice and transformed into an untamable beast; because they do not judge their power by gentleness and humanity, they will deservedly be reckoned among those of lasting glory, and they will not unreasonably stir up hatred against themselves. But if you will rashly deify any good thing whatsoever, we shall have many gods in this regard, since the Holy Scripture proclaims in many places that there are other good things besides God; saying, for instance, in one place that the poor boy Samuel was righteous/good, and in another, "Saul the son of Kish was good, the first king of Israel." And when ^D Elkanah was distressed by the barrenness of Hannah, he says—

^A "Why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?" And Solomon, the wise in divine matters: "It is good," he says, "to go into the house of mourning." And it is said elsewhere: "Open the heaven, your good treasury." Also, "A good word is better than a gift." Also, "A living dog is better than a dead lion." But if a lion were indeed alive—unless perhaps we are speaking of the pagans, among whom fountains and onions and the blowing of the wind are insanely deified as if they were gods—it would not be God, just as a living dog would not be, if it were not for the fact that among the Greeks...

Interrogation XX

Since you promised above to speak more extensively concerning the fact that Christ knew that day and the hour of the consummation, render to us the explanation, so that when we are debating, those who oppose us may not be able in some other way to overcome us.

Response

It has indeed already been stated briefly concerning this; but nevertheless, I greatly value your multifaceted question about it. That holy Word, living and subsisting in Himself, the King of all creation, the genuine Son of the Father, the radiance of [His] glory and the express image of [His] substance, ^B coeternal and sitting on the same throne with the Father, the incorruptible judge of the living and the dead, Life from Life, Light from Light, Wisdom from Wisdom, the perennial fountain from the divine spring, the river which flows without defect with the divine gifts of grace, which by its own onrush makes glad the city of God, according to the divine melody: the root of Jesse, the scepter of David, the rod, and the divine flower born from it according to the inspired Isaiah; the lion, the king from the tribe of Judah, according to Moses the revealer of mysteries; the rational sheep according to Isaiah; the innocent lamb, according to Jeremiah, in many dangers, sacrificed for the salvation of the world; the stone rejected by the Jews, which has been placed as the head of the corner of the Church of the nations, and preserves the whole structure of the assembly, according to David the composer of divine songs; the messenger of the great counsel and God the strong, as Isaiah says—having become a mortal, remaining God, not changed in nature, nor made into someone else according to [His] divinity, that Word incarnate and born in flesh, the Word made flesh—yet remaining what He was, not degenerating in this into [anything else] by reason of nature (for after John had thundered: "In the beginning was the Word," and having shaken the whole creation, then he adds: "And the Word became flesh," showing the Word to be the pre-temporal and supra-temporal God, co-throned with the Father; but by "became," he signifies afterwards His theandric [God-man] emergence from the ever-virgin Mary)—therefore, that living, holy, and subsisting Word, speaking and hearing, He Himself in the Gospels, speaking as God, says, "No one knows that day or hour, not the angels of heaven, nor the Son"—which He says economically [i.e., condescendingly, for our sake]; as...

indeed, was said by us above, if He ^A knows the Father, who is superior to every magnitude and comprehension and perception, how could He be ignorant of that day and hour, which are like a vapor or dust, or even things lighter and more tenuous when compared to the nature of that divine essence? Especially when He expressly says: "No one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father." For as the great Father knows the Son, and as that greatest Son knows the Begetter, so also the Spirit, the divine Spirit, equal in magnitude, knows the Father and the Son, being known by both.

We are taught by the Holy Scriptures of two knowledges and a twofold perception: one according to activity, the other according to vision. Using these as obscure examples, I shall break the cable of ignorance, if any of the sects are ignorant, drawing you away from their blasphemous phalanx. For thus Christ, ^B being exalted upon the cross, according to David the divine psalmist, makes captive in His turn those mortals [who had been] taken captive by the crafty Belial. For that holy man foresaw the saving passion and our captivity, and for that reason he says: "You ascended on high, You led captivity captive, You gave gifts among men." What are these? Faith in the Trinity, the holy administration of the mysteries, and the hope of the resurrection. Immediately the divine song adds: "And the disobedient also to dwell [among them]." Who [are these], and where? Those among the Jews and Gentiles, in the holy habitation of the Church. For that disobedient, terrifying, and Christian-tearing wolf was Paul, who is now the pillar of the Church and the high-sounding trumpet of the faith; who, having formerly persecuted wickedly, having been rightly converted, is now voluntarily scourged for the sake of those who suffer persecution; the striker ^C is beaten with rods; the slayer of the slain is willingly beheaded; through the voice heard from heaven and the blow to his eyes, he was converted, being renamed from Saul to Paul by Christ who redeemed him, so that he might give the name of Christians to the Gentiles.

But let us return our discourse to the matter at hand, using a sharper aspect of the mind for the consideration of this twofold knowledge and perception. The Holy Scripture says concerning Adam and Eve, that after they were cast out of paradise, having tasted the forbidden fruit, "Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore." What then shall we say? That in paradise he was ignorant of her, he who said of her: "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh"? Certainly he knew her; there, indeed, by vision alone, but here, both by vision and by bodily ^D act. Likewise, Abraham "knew" Sarah his wife, not being ignorant of her before the union. And concerning David, the volume of the Books of Kings says: "David grew old, and they covered him with garments, but he was not warmed; and they sought a virgin, who with him

^A might sleep and warm him. And Abishag the Shunammite was found," it says, "and David did not know her, though she slept with him." Shall we therefore say in his case that he did not even know her by sight or touch? Often we, too, say to those who bring accusations against us concerning women, calling down oaths upon ourselves and swearing that we do not know whether such a person is a woman or a man. We say this in truth regarding the act, yet from the voice and appearance we have an unambiguous knowledge of the male or female. ^B The Son, therefore, is not ignorant of that day and that hour, for He declares all its signs and fearful portents, and describes it as if it were present, by its indications; but He did not wish to clarify that vain question, and so He wisely arranged that it be unknown to all, so that, thinking every day and hour to be that one, we might prepare for it and soberly await its coming, for the compensation and reward of the contests of this life. Far be it, therefore, from us to have that madness which, with a kind of delirium, attributes the ignorance of one day and hour to the Creator of the ages, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom, as the holy Apostle ^C says.

QUESTION XXI.

Answer.

which is the knowledge of the day and hour of that judgment which is to be exercised. ^A

INTERROGATION XXII.

How, then, does He say: *To my God and your God, and my Father and your Father*, by this showing Himself not to be equal to the Father, when He says, *I go to my God*?

Responsio. Let not your mind sink to the point of thinking the Son to be lesser than the Father, offended by this word, which is spoken by reason of the administration of the human nature united with God. For it is not established that He had spoken thus in the Old Scripture before this time, when He was yet incorporeal: *I go to my God*. Indeed, even when united to flesh, the divinity is nonetheless attributed to Him by the prophets, as Isaiah cries out: *A child is born to us and is given, whose government is upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, the Messenger of the Great Counsel, Wonderful Counselor, God the Mighty, Potentate, Prince of Peace, Father of the world to come*. David, moreover, sings of His second theandric coming, which shall gather all for judgment and retribution: *Our God shall come manifestly; our God, I say, and He shall not be silent. Fire shall precede before Him, and round about Him a very great storm*, driving the guilty to punishment, and shall set them at the fearful and unswerving tribunal of Him who exists above all, namely our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore, ^B by reason of His administration in the body, He says, *I go to my God*. But by reason of the generation of His divinity from the Father, which is according to nature, He says, *I go to my Father*. Thus, He is God of the disciples and Father of the Child according to nature, but God of the Son according to the flesh, and Father of the students according to grace.

INTERROGATION XXIII.

And how is it written regarding the Father: *He shall not hunger, He shall not thirst, and there is no finding of His wisdom*; but regarding the Son, that He hungered after forty days, having been tempted in the desert, and that, being thirsty, He sought to drink from the Samaritan woman? Again, regarding the Father: *He shall not labor, He shall not slumber, nor shall He sleep, He who guards Israel*; but Jesus was fatigued from the journey, and He sleepeth in the boat; things which, surely, do not befit God?

Responsio. Away with you and with this your madness, O man. For the subsistent and living holy Word not only endured to hunger, but even suffered through the nature assumed by us, in which He also underwent burial. First, having been scourged on the back, He was sent bound by Pilate to Herod. Then He is struck with cuffs on the cheeks ^C and spat upon. But He also wept, and being in agony He sweated; and there was sweat

...as though they were drops of blood. And an angel appeared, strengthening him, says the divine Luke. ^A Yet, as if ignorant, he asked concerning Lazarus, "Where have you laid him?" And concerning the woman afflicted with an issue of blood, who had secretly stolen her healing through the touch of his fringe, he said, "Who touched me?" And to the Jews who were about to seize him, "Whom do you seek?" he said. And to his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" and "How many loaves do you have?"—not that he was ignorant of any of these things, as the final outcome of the events demonstrates: in the case of Lazarus, it was the foretelling of his death, about which I shall discourse more clearly a little later, when the time constrains the conclusion of the argument; in the case of the woman with the issue of blood, it was the sensation of the touch and the abundant relief of divine power; in the case of those coming to seize him, it was the motive for the attack and the closeness of that hour, and the fact that he said to the murderers, "I am he"; in the case of his asking whom he seemed to be to men, it was the very blessing bestowed upon Peter for his most exact and firm confession; in the case of the loaves, it was the immense abundance of remnants from such few and small beginnings. For when there were only five, they fed five thousand to the full, and furthermore filled twelve baskets with fragments after the crowd had feasted, being increased by the touch and the breaking of Him who in the beginning had commanded the earth to produce wheat, ^B and the waters to bring forth every kind of swimming creature, and whatever is born from them.

INTERROGATION XXIV

But if Christ is perfect God, how, says the evangelist, did "the child Jesus grow and become strong in spirit, and increase in wisdom and stature"? God certainly does not grow, nor does he increase in wisdom, nor is he strengthened as if he were infirm.

Response

Being the wisdom and power of God the Father, as that holy Apostle says, he walks among us economically by a voluntary condescension, teaching wisdom to mortals, he who planted the ear of Adam. But a little later, repeating the argument ^C above, I shall demonstrate him more clearly as God, who without any change or mutation for our sake became an infant, and received an increase of body, not of divinity. Therefore, that prophet who suffered much, Jeremiah, says: "He is a man, and who will know him?" by which he signifies that he is God, who is nevertheless ignored by those who are duller in intellect, and who are unable through unbelief to grasp the knowledge of him; just as those who have diseased eyes are unable through weakness to endure the sight of the sun. But if he were a man, why was he not known as we are? For every man is surely known either from his parents, or from his relatives and kin, or finally from his companions and household members. Since therefore he is not known from any of those things which are among us, the prophet, presenting him, says: ^D "He is a man, and who will know him?" because being God, he willed to become this. Famine

and thirst he equally admits, which are affections of the body, devoid of vice, and refuting those who maintain that his administration in the flesh is an opinion and an imaginary thing. ^A

INTERROGATION XXV. Do you maintain that the body of the Word has a soul, or does the divinity act in place of a soul? For many assert this, and it seems plausible.

Response. It is an act of foolishness and childishness to think the body of God the Word is soulless. For the Word has been united—beyond reason—to both elements of which human nature consists, I mean to soul and body, bestowing strength upon either part. For if he lacked one or the other, our salvation would be incomplete, whether the body remained in corruption or the soul were detained in Hades. ^B

INTERROGATION XXVI. Why, then, does John not state this? For having said, "In the beginning was the Word," and, "The Word became flesh," he does not add that he also became a soul, or that he assumed a soul.

Response. If we think the Lord's body to be soulless, it will follow entirely that we declare the Divinity liable to passion, passing through the flesh like a soul, and naturally succumbing to hunger and thirst, sleep and tears, anguish and sweat. But let the divine prophet David be heard, singing concerning the soul of the Person who is from God and man, in the words of that very one: "For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption." The Savior himself says in the Gospels: "I have authority to lay down my soul, and again to take it up"; and, "I am the good shepherd, who lays down his soul for the sheep." ^C

INTERROGATION XXVII. Does the Father, then, also have a soul? For Isaiah, in his person, says concerning Christ: "Behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well-pleased." If, therefore, from the things the Son said, you think he has a soul, we must altogether say that he has a soul from the things the Father said. But if the Father has none, then neither will the Son; and if he does have one, it is shown from this that he is unequal to the Father.

Response. But the Father does not have a soul, because he did not undergo mortal flesh with the Son, nor did he come to the cross and death, for which the Word had need of flesh, that under it He might be held and suffer, and in place of mortals, accomplish the making of men immortal and eternally blessed. ^D

^A QUESION XXVII. But why did John not openly say that He also took a soul, as he speaks concerning the flesh? Answer. Because the Scripture says that God made man, having taken dust from the earth, and it does not add that He made the head, or the brain, or the liver, or the spleen and the lungs—not that He did not create the other secret natural organs within us, but we should not consider ourselves deprived of them and lacking them because the sacred letters do not detail every minute organ of our nature. Just as, therefore, in the consideration of ourselves, the whole is known from the part, so let us believe that the holy God Word was united to both soul and body; so that, not thinking the divine body to be soulless, we might wrongly attribute to God certain natural affections.

^B QUESTION XXIX. But how is Christ equal to the Father according to divinity, when He is subject to anguish and sweat, and is strengthened by an angel, just as Luke says of Him; and you passed over the explanation of these matters, although a question had been raised earlier concerning them? Answer. Through these things we are clearly taught that it is not in imagination and semblance, but rather in reality ^C that that living and self-subsistent holy God Word is united with us, with the exception of sin and vice alone, which cannot fall upon the divine nature. For we say that to be in anguish belongs to the soul, but to sweat belongs to the body; and I think that the drops of blood surging from the flesh, through that flowing moisture, were wiping away from our nature—by the union of God and the Word—the venom of the serpent infused into us through our ears during the transgression of the divine commandment in Paradise, so that the author of evils, the demon, might no longer be worshipped by us with the stench of sacrifices and blood and the slaughter of children. Nor does it seem to me that an angel was strengthening and making strong his own creator. For how would a servant strengthen a master, or a spirit strengthen the rock? For the rock was Christ, says the divine ^D Apostle. And again, *Who makes his angels spirits*; and again, *Without all contradiction, the less is blessed and strengthened by the greater.* From which it may rightly be understood that, on account of the new and unheard-of miracle of the victory of Christ which was to follow, the angel was presenting a certain triumphal form, effectively fulfilling the words of the lawgiver Moses, who more than a thousand years ago exclaimed: *Rejoice, O heavens, with him*, because He has led back what had been cast down to the heights; *and let all the angels of God worship him*, seeing their own places being increased by the addition of men; *rejoice, O nations, with his people*, as many as were added from the nations to Enoch, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Joseph, to David, to Christ, to the Church, because the blood of his sons, he says, is being avenged, and he shall avenge, and shall render retribution to his enemies, and to those who hate him.

^A And the exalted Apostle, confirming himself victoriously in Christ, says: *Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.* And again, as though teaching all creation to supplicate him as victor, he says: *In the name of Jesus Christ every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and of things on earth, and every tongue shall confess to him.* Harmonizing with this, the son of thunder, John, theologizing victoriously about Christ, says: *And we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.* Following the angel, we too, as if victoriously confirming Christ at the time of that divine administration of mysterious things, cry out: *For thine is the power and the kingdom and the might and the glory.* Behold the unity of the divine nature, namely of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

^B There is a similar custom in the athletic contests, whether in bodily exercises or in struggles, that the courageous and robust athletes—that is, the pancratiasts—the ones [(8)] still in their youth and very young, whose cheeks are not yet shaded by the down of a beard, should be encouraged by acclamations and anointed, so that, strengthened, they may advance more firmly against their opponents; not that strength and vigor are supplied to the strong by the weaker, but by law and sequence preceding every action. It is certainly a law of lordship that masters be anointed and flattered by their servants; and the fullness of the Law is Christ, who is the Lord of all things equally; and to the angels a law is proposed, that they should studiously honor and flatter their wise creator and master, and be helped by him, not help him themselves. For if he had needed their strength, he would have needed it much more in the desert, while being tempted by the devil for forty days. But this is nowhere stated in the Scriptures; for it says, *the angels came and did not help him, but ministered unto him*, which clearly demonstrates his lordship and their subservience. Let the things concerning the angel, therefore, be understood according to the reason provided. ^C For neither do those holy Cherubim, in bestowing any holiness in heaven upon the divine Trinity, cry out *Holy, holy, holy* without ceasing; nor, on the other hand, do we, while we sing in the most holy hymn, *Holy God, holy Strong, holy Immortal*, cause the Divinity to receive any holiness or strength or immortality.

Interrogation XXX

We have been sufficiently instructed regarding the divine things you were bidden to explain to us; what remains, we ask that the voices of some senseless people be overturned. For they say that the Savior was ignorant of the tomb of Lazarus, ^D and of the woman afflicted by the flow of blood, and that not even

^A was He perfect God: for it says, "He grew and was strengthened in wisdom, and in stature, and in grace," as the Gospel says.

### Response. Do not let the things spoken by Him by way of dispensation in the flesh become for you an occasion for blasphemy: such as, "Where have you laid him?" or, "Who touched me?" or, "Whom do you seek?" or, "Whom do men say that I am?" or, that "The child grew and was strengthened, and was advancing in wisdom and stature." For none of these things levies a charge of ignorance against God the Word, who for our sake became what we are; but rather, they show Him to be equal to the Father in these things. For "My Father," He says, "is working until now, and I am working." Not that there is anything lacking in the construction of this universe fashioned by us, as if things created under our gaze were imperfect; but we work, suggesting the life that is consonant with virtue to men ^B together with our Father in God, and this through those who have already been strengthened by Him from a worse condition into a better one. The Father Himself asked our first forefather Adam, after he had transgressed, "Where are you?" Not in ignorance, as if failing to notice, and as if he required to be stirred to discern the transgressor, but as if laughing at and mocking his withdrawal and the simplicity of his foolishness, attempting to hide again by the command of Him who had forbidden it. To which the Unlying One says, "Where are you, you who thought to be divinized by the counsel of the serpent? Where are you, you who disobeyed God and trusted the enemy? Do not hide," He says, "for you will not go unseen, having stripped yourself of the incorrupt and blessed life." ^C Similarly, therefore, the Son did not lack knowledge of where Lazarus was enclosed. For two days before arriving in Bethany, which had received Lazarus, He said to those accompanying Him, "Lazarus our friend has fallen asleep, and I go that I may awaken him," who having been dead for four days now stank. How then could He who knew the events in those places before He arrived there, after He had reached them in body, be ignorant of what His divinity knew—in accordance with which He fills all things? But He asked by way of dispensation, so that, with the Jews gathered at the tomb as an occasion for him to demonstrate it, they themselves might become witnesses of the resurrection of the dead man: how, with his head bound with a napkin, and his face covered with the cloth, and his feet bound with burial bands, already seeing through the skull, with ^D his mouth gaping in decay, his tongue and eyes flowing—how then the soul of this man, drawn from afar by the voice of the Creator, had re-migrated into that body which it had abandoned; and how, with his feet bound, he leapt from the tomb, moving forth unharmed and whole, being strengthened by the voice of the Word, and using it as a helper for his exit? And it seems to me that He was also hinting to Death to hasten the resurrection, lest by the delay of a second occurrence of the voice of the Word, He might release all at once who were completing their time there; which is...

much what happened ^A after six days to the unhappy man, when He who calls the dead to life was approaching death, according to the prophecy of the divine seers Job and Isaiah, who cried out clearly a thousand years before: *Thou hast entered the sea, and walked in the footprints of the abyss; the gates of death open to thee in terror; the gatekeepers of Hades saw thee and shuddered.* Agreeing with these, the author of the divine songs, David, says: *Sing to God, make melody to his name: make a way for him who rides into the west; the Lord is his name.* We are taught to prepare a way for the Lord ourselves, and to make our home a sanctuary by a virtuous way of life, receiving the Godhead into ourselves as into a shrine, having become his mansion and temple, as He Himself taught divinely in the Gospel and through Paul. By "the west" can be understood our nature, and the wretched region of this world which is overshadowed by the pleasures of the passions. Hades can also be understood. In these places, that immaterial and shadowless light shone forth, and transformed everything for the better, renewed nature, brightened the world, and despoiled Hades for the sake of gentleness and the release of those held captive there. ^B And what is from David seems to me to be indicated obscurely; but the words of Job and Isaiah we shall explain shortly, postponing them for now because of lack of time. Both, however, proclaimed what was to come as if it had already happened, in a fitting manner, as if they were certain of the event of their prophecy. Therefore, He who knows the secrets of every creature in the universe feigned ignorance according to the dispensation, so that by the interrogation the crowd might be roused to reveal Lazarus, and that by the enemies themselves the more testimony might be borne to the miraculous event.

INTERROGATION XXXI

Having understood the account regarding Lazarus well, we ask that you discourse on the woman suffering from the issue of blood, so that from this we may also draw a conjecture regarding the other interrogations of the Savior.

Response

By this also we are taught that the Son is equal to God the Father, and that He asked not out of ignorance, but by dispensation and certain counsel, imitating the Father. For He says to the first murderer, Cain, who killed his brother out of envy because his brother's gifts were preferred, while envy lay hidden within him and was sharpening the sword of murder: ^C *Where is Abel thy brother?* Not that He was ignorant, but that He was offering the bloodstained murderer an opportunity for repentance. But he, having turned toward madness, says: *Am I my brother's keeper?* And again the divine voice, rebuking him, says: *The voice of thy brother's blood cries unto me.* From which it is shown ^D that the inquiry by God was not out of ignorance, but out of love for mankind.

In the same manner, therefore, the Son also asked, not because He was ignorant, but in order that, if He had declared the miracle Himself, He might appear to those of duller understanding to be boastful; nor, on the other hand, should we lose the miracle through His silence, for He used the questioning ^A with a certain purpose, so that she herself, stepping forward, might proclaim the release from her affliction which had come to her through the touching of the hem of His garment. For the divine evangelist says: *The woman, seeing that she was not hidden, came trembling and falling down before Him,* and so forth. But also, feigning ignorance of our first visitation in the flesh, He says to Abraham: *Where is Sarah thy wife?* If He had been ignorant, He would not have rebuked her for being inside the tent and laughing. For the fact that it is said that Sarah laughed within herself indicates that she laughed quietly. And ^B immediately the threefold guest, having been received by the patriarch, addressed her by name, promising that she who was barren would be fruitful. The end of the promise was Isaac, born of her. For no figment, no creature, no things past, nor present, nor future, nor anything that can be named or conceived is hidden from Christ.

INTERROGATION XXXII.

Response.

INTERROGATION XXXIII.

Response.

INTERROGATION XXXIV.

Response.

INTERROGATION XXXV

^A How can we not say the Son is created, when the Apostle writes concerning Him: "Accept the high priest of your faith, who is faithful to Him who appointed Him?" And: "Let it be known to you, all the house of Israel, that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." And Solomon also says, in the person of Christ to God and the Father: "The Lord created me as the beginning of His ways for His works."

^{A B}

Response

Since I have already discussed these matters previously, to be entangled in the same absurdities again would be either a folly or a childish game. For the statement "He made Him" and "He created me," I consider should be understood of the flesh. We see, moreover, that likenesses are not the same as the things to which they are compared. For we know that in the book of Proverbs the saying, "The Lord created me," is set down. But Proverbs are certain metaphorical passages; for in external learning, "path" is understood as "way," so that parables are both passages and images of things. "For the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed," says the Lord. ^C How, then, could infinite multitudes and hosts of angels and archangels be contained in a grain of mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds? But certainly the all-wise Lord used this image either for the sake of the humble voluntary poverty and condescension to our lowliness, through which there comes to us a shadow and refreshment from the painful things of the present life; or because of the mediocrity of the evangelical flock, which it was from the beginning; or because of the sharpness of the divinity in the Word, through which ^D rivers of tears are stirred in those who joyfully and lavishly participate through virtue in the intellectual mustard of repentance, of which the divine prophet David also, being filled, sings: "I will wash my bed every night, I will water my couch with my tears." And again: "My eyes have been submerged by the runs of waters." Or because of the future divine judgment, which will come harshly upon those who have been overcome by vice, just as the divine page testifies everywhere, and the education of the outsiders through Plato threatens wailing in fire. Or because of the undivided and inseparable union of the Word and the flesh and one hypostasis, which is not divided by any speech or thought. For the divine grain of the kingdom slips from the fingers of the mind of those who divide it, in no way enduring to be enclosed by the hands of blasphemers. But also, no one can know clearly whether Solomon the writer of Proverbs is speaking about the Son of God when he says, "The Lord created me." But if the saying of the Wise One is interpreted by us in this way, it seems to me to signify the theandric advent of the Lord, when he says: "The Lord created me as the beginning of His ways, for His works; before the age He founded me, and before all the hills He begets me." How then is that which is begotten founded, and how is that which is created be-

begotten? For that which is created is not begotten, and that which is begotten is not created; for the one is different, and the other is different. Yet we see both in the Son: ^A uncreated indeed in His divinity, but created in His humanity. But it is a frequent custom of Holy Scripture to indicate first the things that are near to us, and then the more ancient things. For so does the divine Matthew also, beginning from the nearer and more easily grasped things, to announce the Gospel of Christ to us. "The book," he says, "of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham": partly indeed alluring the Jews, who falsely proclaimed themselves to be children of Abraham, and vainly boasted because of holy men whose way of life they did not imitate; but partly also, as a teacher for the more unlearned, leading us through things near at hand into divine knowledge, and then proceeding in the Gospel, he begins to theologize concerning Christ, drawing our intellect up to more divine things as if by a ladder. The sage of divine things, Solomon, says therefore: "The Lord created me as the beginning of ^B His ways," that is, as the beginning of the way of the righteousness of the Gospel, which is, according to the flesh, the birth of the Word of God to us from the ever-virgin Mother Mary, whom He founded before the age. Before the circular week of the present age came to pass, on the sixth day the soul in Adam was founded by the Maker of our nature; and thus, after the sixth, the seventh day of the age is constituted, revolving seven times into itself throughout the whole of the present age. But as he proceeds to more divine and more primordial things, he says: "Before all the hills He begets me." By "hills" he there signifies the heavens, or rather the powers that are above them. For there are no heavens, no angels, no archangels, no quality or quantity ^C of time, no age, nor any other thing that can be thought of or spoken of, that is older than the Son. For He Himself is the Creator of the ages and of all things simultaneously, Paul crying out expressly: "Through whom He also made the ages," and, "In Him all things were created, things visible and invisible," because "all things were made through Him." Therefore, He is created from Mary by the assumption [of human nature], and the soul is founded in the created body; but being united to the Word in both, He is seen as a created man, but is understood as the uncreated God, from an uncreated Father who has no father.

INTERROGATION XXXVI

Response. But we must take care not to fall asleep over the letter and shut ourselves off from the more divine things. For, according to the excellent Apostle, "the letter killeth, but the spirit

giveth life." Conversely, I say: the letter does not kill those who contemplate it rightly, nor, again, does the spirit give life to those who blaspheme against it. Let us therefore honor the spirit so that we may understand the letter, receiving the Son figuratively as the door, the way, the stone, and the rest of the images. By the "way," we understand Him as the one who leads us to the knowledge of the Father and of higher things; the "door" is the one opened to those who strive to be regenerated within through virtues, beating their breasts with their fists; let the "pillar" be understood as the foundation of our faith, at once supporting and bearing all things; the "stone of stumbling" exists for the unbelievers, and a "rock of scandal" for the Jews, but to us it is the cornerstone of the Church, holding together the whole foundation. The "rock" is the solid and immovable nature of our confession, against which the storms of heresies are dashed and dissolve again into foam; the "worm," as David, the author of the divine songs, says: whereas for us He is a worm from the earth, born without any passion or intercourse from the ever-virgin Mary, by a birth surpassing the laws of nature, for His adversaries He is a worm of punishment, stinging and gnawing without end.

Interrogation XXXVII. But if you do not say that He is a creature, you insult the Father by attributing passion to Him. For everyone who begets will altogether be subject to passion. Either he contracts, or he dilates, or he undergoes division or flux, or he swells, or he is diminished, or he who begets undergoes something of this kind.

Response. Away with such delirium, O excellent man! For the divine nature is not a body, subject to swelling or contraction, or to flux or division, or to be dominated by any passion whatsoever. Inasmuch, then, as the Father is spirit, He has begotten the Son, God the Word, spiritually, timelessly, and ineffably. But because it seems to most people that sight is more reliable than hearing, I thought it necessary to use a simple example to explain that God begets without passion, undergoing neither flux nor division. The sun, indeed, is a creature of God, from which those who dwell in the uninhabitable extremities, lacking fire to cook their food—the horse-herds, the cow-herds, the swine-herds, and other shepherds—fill a cup with pure water, and hold it against the sun's ray, and by applying dry dung to the vessel of water, they immediately draw fire from it, while the luminary itself undergoes neither division, nor flux, nor swelling, nor contraction. And it is seen to shine through clear glass into houses, and as if begetting its rays across the entire earth, it is seen at all times without deficiency or division. Similarly, a torch, even if it kindles countless lamps, undergoes neither flux nor division. If therefore these things are unimpaired, let us believe that the divine nature is infinitely superior to them in every respect. For all things, taken together, are as nothing in comparison to it.

^A Therefore, those who dishonor the Father, being senseless and empty-minded, let them not dare to declare the Son to be a creature. For if, as they say, the Father suffers in begetting, then I also say that the Creator grows weary; from where else can we attribute [suffering] to the Son, so that we may not blaspheme the Father by saying he suffers or grows weary? Away, therefore, with such an idea, for you honor the Divinity dishonorably! For he who blasphemes the Son stones the Father, just as he himself proclaims in the Gospels: "He who does not honor the Son, does not honor the Father."

INTERROGATION XXXVIII

But how do some say that Christ became the Son of God by election and grace? For the Father does not say: "This is my beloved Son whom I begat," but: "in whom I am well pleased." ^B And Isaiah, speaking in the person of God and Father concerning Christ, says: "Behold my Servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased." Solomon likewise says: "Chosen out of ten thousand."

Answer

As it seems, you suffer from the madness of Arius, struggling with such vehemence against the truth. Show me, therefore, those like Christ, whom the Father, having tested them, chose as he chose Christ alone. For if the Son exists as the only-begotten, he has no brother or equal or someone standing opposite him. For that divine David sang concerning him: "Who shall be likened unto the Lord among the sons of God?" And further: "Great and terrible is he above all who are round about him." As if no one, neither by grace nor by progress, could be compared to the God-Word, who for the sake of mortals assumed manhood and was justly chosen. For when there were very many ^C and innumerable women still incorrupt, he alone chose Mary out of all of them, in her ineffably uniting and joining our nature to himself, just as that divine poet says: "He chose for us his inheritance, the beauty of Jacob, whom he loved," signifying Mary, who remained a perpetual virgin, who never had proceeded to generation nor conceived a fetus in her maternal womb. But the Father, embracing the incarnation of the Word which was from her, cries out from on high: "Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased," making known to us the one that is from him and from the ever-virgin as God-Child, consubstantial to him and to us—in one respect by divinity, and in the other by the assumption [of flesh]. ^D For he, being immortal among mortals, remaining of his own will what he was, was seen to be what I am.

INTERROGATION XXXIX

But how does the Apostle, showing him to be the Son of God according to progress and love, speak concerning the Father

says: "Who has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love." ^A

Response. But it will not be shown from these that the Son of God is such by progress. For elsewhere the same holy Apostle says: "That God loved us in Christ," signifying that Christ is the love of God and the Father, just as he is also wisdom and power. The Father, therefore, is love, and likewise the Son; just as light is from light, and God from God, and love from love. "For God is love," says John. Let those, therefore, of the Arian madness cease, who think the Creator is a creature, when neither Testament wills this. There are for us four Gospels, in one thousand one hundred and sixty-two chapters; and from beginning to end, the Son divinely teaches concerning the Father, and the Father concerning the Son, and yet neither of them says, "I created a Son for myself," or again, "The Father created me." ^B

INTERROGATION XL. What then do you conclude regarding the Virgin Mary? Is she created or uncreated? And the body of Christ which is from her? And how do you worship Christ? For if you say he is created, which is absolutely necessary, you clearly worship a creature; but if you do not worship him, you deny the Son of God. I do not describe the nature of the Godhead; for it is simple and invisible and without form. But fixing my gaze on the form of the flesh, I worship God, as is fitting, because of the union according to hypostasis. ^C

Response. By my salvation, I do not worship Christ as a creature, but as the Maker of creatures and God. Just as I honor the king along with his purple robe with one and the same veneration, not separating him from it. Or does it seem to you that one should say to the ruler: "Rise from your throne, so that I may worship you," or, "Go out of the temple, so that I may praise you without inanimate matter?" If, therefore, inanimate things are worshipped along with animate things, and things that are altogether trivial, then justly indeed shall the Word, along with the temple of the body—which I call his purple robe and tunic and throne—be worshipped with one adoration. ^D

INTERROGATION XLI. But if He is God with a body, how does He himself say: "No one has ever seen God"? For if He was God, all those who were with Him at that time saw Him.

Response. The Son speaks of the Father when He says: "No one has ever seen God." For He did not say: "No one has ever seen the Son, who is God the Word and became man." Prophets and apostles and all the righteous indeed saw God, but no one saw Him as He is by nature. For there is no nature that is capable of seeing Him; but He appears to each of the worthy, not without some

^A veil, according to the measure of the purity of him who ministers to Him. Job therefore saw, but through a whirlwind and clouds; before him, Abraham saw Him speaking through angels; Jacob saw Him as a man wrestling with him; Moses in the midst of the darkness; and likewise the rest of the choir of holy men, through riddles and veils. The apostles also saw God and the Word made man through the flesh, that same Son of God and of man, each according to the measure of his own virtue and strength of soul, just as, according to whether the corporeal eyes are clear or clouded, some are able to gaze directly at the sun for a long time, while others [can do so] weakly, not bearing the brilliance of its light nor the impact of its rays. ^B

We see the sea, indeed, from some mountain peak or hill, and we speak the truth when we say we have seen the sea, yet we see only the surface of the deep, and that only in part. For from the level or steep shore where we stand, the power of our eyes cannot reach the lookout point situated opposite, as it vanishes into the air; nor, again, is the mind able to find its depth or its lowest bottom. For as one thing is thought of, another always enters the mind, which must contain its heights, lest it should spread or flow away; in so far as it extends into the immense, our intellect, as is evident, fails. Moreover, we do not all see the heaven ^C in the same way, but each according to the strength of his eyes. For the mind does not reach the extremity, nor, because of the solid resistance of that vault repelled from us, can it approach it at all.

We see, therefore, things that are in the same condition of servitude, not as they are [in themselves], but as we perceive them. For both visible and invisible things are proposed to us; of these, one part is seen in part, while the other is seen as a whole. Similarly, God is both visible and invisible to men: the former by way of the veil of the body through condescension, the latter naturally and by reason of His immensity. For stubble and straw ^D do not withstand the proximity of fire, since, because of their dryness, they are soon resolved into earth. For Christ, laying bare a little of the divinity in Himself upon the mount of transformation, caused the pillars of the Church to tremble. For Peter, and James, and John, falling down and trembling with fear, were almost melted by the fire of the divinity. Leading us toward this, the divine Apostle also openly declares: *For from the greatness and beauty of creatures, He is perceived by way of comparison.* For if we are unable to see the heaven and the earth and the sea in their entirety as they are by nature, how shall we be able to see our Creator according to His own nature?

INTERROGATION XLII

Having been sufficiently instructed concerning Christ, we desire to hear a few things concerning the Holy Spirit: whether He is equal to the Father and the Son, doing and commanding what He wills by the authority of His own power; and why He is compared with water and fire in Scripture.

^A

*Response.* Listen then, most illustrious one, to the Spirit, commanding and acting with authority and sovereign power, equal to the Father and the Son. "Separate for me," He says to the apostles, "Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." In harmony with this, the Son says to Paul: "Enter the city, and there it will be told to you what you must do." Elsewhere the Acts of the Apostles say: "They, having been sent forth by the Spirit, went down to Seleucia." In the same way, the Son says: "Go and teach all nations." Similarly the apostles say: "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us, to lay upon you no other burden than these necessary things." Similarly Paul says: "I say, and not I, but the Lord: let not a wife be separated from her husband." ^B And again: "They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Spirit to speak the word in Asia." In the same way the Son said to the apostles: "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not." But even David, the inspired, showing that all things are the work of the holy Trinity, sings in the Psalms: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the power of them by the spirit of his mouth," indicating the Father by the Lord, the Son by the Word, and the holy Spirit by the divine Spirit. And in harmony with this, the divine teacher of those under heaven, Paul, says: "There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord; and there differencs of operations, but the same God which worketh all in all," expressing three persons, but one divinity, authority, and kingdom. ^C

*Interrogation XLIII.* We ask that you add to what has been said, why the holy Spirit is compared in Scripture to water and fire.

*Response.* Not in vain, nor without reason, is the divine Spirit compared to these. For water falling from heaven has the power to produce, foster, and nourish herbs, and it enriches all things, commingling itself with all; and although it is uniform in nature, it operates in many ways, and from one fountain diverse kinds of plants are watered. The same rain, being uniform in nature and appearance, manifests its efficacy in many ways: manifesting itself as white in the lily, red in the rose, purple in violets, and yellow in the crocus. ^D Falling uniformly upon the fig tree, it results in different forms, being sweet in the fruit, but acrid in the milk which is squeezed out. The same rain coming upon the vine, uniform in nature, is thickened into tendrils, into shoots, into clusters, into grapes, into wine, into drink; and, to speak summarily, becoming all things in all.

^A Likewise, fire, though uniform, acts in various ways: it warms, it purges, it digests, it tests, it gives light, it burns. In the same manner, the holy Spirit, though one, of one form, of one mode, and of one substance, indivisible and without defect, distributes grace to each as He wills. Just as it is the nature of plants to remain fruitless as long as the harshness of winter prevails, but once they are watered by rain and warmed by the sun, they revive and sprout; so too, the souls of mortals, as long as they are held by the winter of vice, showing themselves harsh and devoid of all communion towards their neighbors, are dead and fruitless. But when they have received the divine rain of the Spirit through the teaching of instruction, and have washed away the filth that comes from wickedness, and have laid aside the garment of bodily bulk, which is subject to many passions, then reason is awakened in them, and they are, as it were, reborn through the divine irrigation and heat of the Spirit, and they bear fruit, according to the word of the Lord: some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some a hundredfold. For to one He lends his tongue for wisdom, to another for prophecy, to another for the expulsion of demons, to another for the clarification of divine things; one He instructs to live temperately, another He confirms in mercy, another in self-control. One He anoints and excites to martyrdom, and He appears different in one from another, while He Himself is not different, just as that high and profound thinker, the Apostle, writes: "To each," he says, "is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing, to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. ^B But all these things one and the same Spirit works, distributing separately to each as He wills." For just as it is the power of water to make grass grow and to cause decay, and of fire to burn and to illuminate, so too is it the power of the divine Spirit to benefit and to punish.

INTERROGATION XLIV

Since we have found you to be a physician of the soul, applying medicine to our minds with abundant demonstrations and rescuing us from error, we ask you to add to what has been said regarding the angels: whether there are any orders of them, and how many, and what their nature is, and whether they know future things.

Response

The angels are indeed created and subject to change, rational spirits sent for ministry, ^C just as the author of the divine songs says, and Paul concurring with him: "Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire," in which words he declares at once both their nature and their rank. There are indeed seven...

orders, as Judas wrote, and the distinguished Apostle enumerates, whom the holy ministers of the divine office follow, when they cry out with a loud voice to God: "Thee do the angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, and virtues celebrate with praises." That they are mutable, there is a manifest proof: having turned to the worse, the author of evil, the Devil, dragging with him many of the angels—not changed by nature, but by will, through the suggestion of their leader, who received an appellation appropriate to his deed. For in that he calumniates those of his own kind, he is properly named "Devil"; but "Satan," from the fact that he is opposed to God and men; wherefore he has been cast out from those ultramundane ^B places. And he is reproached by the divine prophet of the Cherubim, Ezechiel [Isaiah]: "How didst thou fall from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning?" ^C representing at once in the image of the luminary his fiery and illuminating nature, and the dignity of his rank in the order. In agreement with this, Daniel, laying bare his wickedness and the subduction of his followers, sets it forth.

But angels, together with mortals, do not know things to come; for it belongs to the divine Trinity alone to know existing things, and to foreknow those which are to be. Yet they minister both to Him and to us: to Him, indeed, as is fitting towards God, serving; but to us, providing those things which, by sure counsel, are commanded them by Him for our salvation. Thus, some, on account of a malice in which there is no place for amendment, they destroy, lest those near to them be involved in their ruin, as prudent physicians are accustomed to do, who, before the corruption of the disease can be diffused throughout the whole body, amputate its force by cautery or surgery. This is also industriously observed by farmers, that they might eradicate weeds at their very sprouting, lest, growing up together and rising high, they might damage the wheat. And vinedressers, too, pull up or cut away with a sickle the herb that is choking the vine while it is still tender, before it can entwine itself with the vine, so that the grape may not be injured. This same thing the Farmer of our nature and Vinedresser of the Church is wont to do; foreknowing the destructive growth of one still nursing at the breast, he eradicates and uproots, while he is yet growing, him who was about to uproot others through destructive works and doctrines. Or, for this reason, that the punishment due for the things they designated in this life might be lighter for others once he is removed; for those who undergo penalties here, and pay the punishment of the future life in advance, it seems to me that it will no longer be inquired against them concerning the things for which they have rendered satisfaction: not because of the things the murderer variously committed, but on account of that for which he is recently condemned and led to death, that he may pay eye for eye, tooth for tooth: likewise that he who has shed blood should be put to death, the divine law commands. ^D And that they may not again be punished on account of those...

the same offenses, it is openly said: *The Lord will not take vengeance twice for the same thing.* For neither is this equitable among us, that any criminal should be punished under two judges. For while we are judged here, we are disciplined by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. And the excellent Apostle says: *Whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and scourges every son whom He receives.* He does not, indeed, receive some and reject others; but some do this here, and others there, by receiving Him or by rejecting Him through the commandments themselves. For the royal road does not provide a cause for those who stumble or fall, but they themselves do so while their eyes wander about and they walk with incautious feet. Therefore, angels take away those who persevere in malice, but preserve those who turn themselves toward virtue. For the angel of the Lord went out from the camp, and killed one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the foreigners, say the Sacred Letters. Likewise, an angel suffocated the firstborn of Egypt. And an angel hindered the journey of Balaam, who was going to Balak to curse Israel, whom the beast of burden that carried him beheld, and trembling with fear, stopped, rebuking its rider with a human voice. Michael the archangel is sent to Joshua the son of Nun; Gabriel to Daniel, to interpret his dreams; to Zacharias, to announce the birth of John; to the mother and ever-virgin Mary, concerning the conception of God and the Word; Raphael is sent to Tobias, to carry his bag, and to accompany him for fourteen days, and to unite him with his lawful wife; and to separate from the murderous demon her who was joined to a man through him, and to open the eyes of the bride's father-in-law, which had been blinded by the droppings of birds, and were restored by the bile of a fish squeezed upon them. But you will find very many other ministries of angels, in the life of Abraham, and of Moses, and of Manoah, at Bethlehem, and to the shepherds, at the monument of Christ, and at His ascension. ^B

INTERROGATION XLV, XLVI.

But if angels are ignorant of future things, how does Gabriel predict to Daniel in Babylon that Christ would be born after four hundred and eighty-three years? For interpreters hand down that the sixty-nine weeks, of which he was speaking to him, are seventy years apiece.

Response.

But he did not indicate this by his own foreknowledge; rather, whatever angels learn from the supernal wisdom, those things they speak. For they learn holy things from the sacred Trinity, and from them in turn, humans learn, and from humans, others who are lower in rank learn the things that follow.

INTERROGATION XLVII.

If, therefore, they perceive through instruction, it is necessary for them to use little books and papers after our manner. For words and decrees not written are soon consigned to oblivion. For if words were durable in memory, Moses would certainly not have written them on stone tablets on the mountain ^C

^A.

*Response.*

Moses, indeed, received the words of the divine decrees inscribed by the finger of God on the tablets of the Decalogue, without any graving tool or pen. But how did the same man write down all that God spoke concerning the origin of the world, keeping it by memory alone? Or how, through memory alone, did he instruct Bezeleel to imitate through matter that divine tabernacle which was shown to him on the mount, even though it was itself devoid of matter? And how did all the holy prophets and apostles, not by means of learning, but just as the Word sounded within them—even if they stored something in their memory—preach to the whole world, the Galilean teachers traversing among the Romans, becoming adapted to each nation in its own tongue? For the Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the rest of the nations, each heard the wonders of God spoken in their own dialect by those who were preaching. They proclaimed these things not by grammatical training, but by spiritual power. For there appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire (on the fiftieth day from the Resurrection, and the tenth from the Ascension); ^B and it sat upon each of them, says the divine Luke, narrating their deeds.

INTERROGATION XLVIII.

If angels are incorporeal, how did they have intercourse with women, from whom the giants were born? And how do they appear to the saints as men, if they are indeed incorporeal? For the divine Scripture says: "And the sons of God went in unto the daughters of men," from whom some say the giants were born.

*Response.*

Angels are incorporeal with respect and in relation to our nature; yet they possess a body according to their own nature, like wind, or fire, or smoke, or air. For they are subtle bodies and free from the density of our matter. "For there are some celestial bodies, and some terrestrial bodies," says the holy Apostle. But it is absurd and utter folly to think that they sleep with women, just as it is thought that demons sleep with women: they who, however, have not abandoned their nature, but their rank; nor have they been deprived of their size, but of their boldness of speech. It is, therefore, blasphemous and childish to think that angels lust after women. For the divine Scripture does not say this of them, that "the sons of God went in unto the daughters of men"; for angels are not yet called sons of God, but the sons of Seth and Enos, who began under the circumstances of those times. For he [Enos] was the first who began to call upon God, says the Scripture. And the Lord says to Moses: "I have made thee a God to Pharaoh"; and concerning the divine judges He says: "Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people." Rightly, therefore, let the children of Seth and Enos be understood as the sons of God; who, having been overcome by licentiousness, ^C

^A entered in unto the daughters of Cain. From their mutual nuptial contamination giants were brought forth into life, robust indeed because of the just [progenitor], but evil because of Cain. ^B And truly, in what way could women have slept with angels, when men—and not ordinary men, but those outstanding in virtue—were stunned at their appearance? For this reason, Daniel, not sustaining the sight of Gabriel, presently fell to the ground and was near to melting away with fear. Moreover, Zacharias, terrified by him, lost his speech at the first sight of him and trembled with fear, lacking the use of his tongue until the birth of John, signifying only by nods what was pleasing to the will. This seems to me to foretell the silence of the Law and the ancient sacred cult, in expectation of the arrival of something superior; but a little later we shall demonstrate this meaning more clearly. ^C Furthermore, the women hastening to the Savior’s sepulcher were stunned by the appearance of those angels and, smitten with fear, did not announce to the apostles what had been enjoined upon them: "For trembling and amazement had seized them, so that they said nothing to anyone," says the divine evangelist. If, therefore, even great men could not sustain the manifestation of angels, how could tender women endure their handling or intercourse? For a straw is by no means strong enough against a nearby flame. It is written in the sacred Letters: "And Adam lived two hundred and thirty years, and begat a son according to his likeness and according to his image," that is, such as he had from the beginning when he was made by God, the image and splendor upon his face; "and he called his name Seth," which means "resurrection." For he saw in him that ancient and miraculous form restored, as well as the grace and brilliance of the most holy Spirit, which the men of that time, seeing, called [him] God. And for this reason, the Scripture says that the sons of Seth, seeing the daughters of men—those of the lineage of Cain—took them as wives for themselves. For they too were participants in the grace of the holy Spirit, until God said: "My Spirit shall not remain in these men." And Seth indeed retained this same form for five hundred and five years.

QUESTION XLIX

Answer

and fills all things. For ^A our God is in heaven, and on earth, in the seas, and in all the abysses, says David, the composer of divine odes. From which we are taught that all things are in his sight, and that not only angels, but also the devil, and demons, and men, and cattle, and all things whatsoever, are seen by him. For it is while we are upon the earth that we stand before God; as the inspired Elias says: "The Lord lives, before whom I stand today." For if all things are encompassed by the air, much more is the fourfold constitution of the universe—the incorporeal, intellectual, and rational; the sensible, incarnate, and rational; the animate and irrational; the inanimate and insensate—contained within its Creator. For "all things are naked and opened to his eyes; and there is no creature that is hidden from his sight," says the divine ^B Apostle.

Question 50.

Response.

^A you angels, heavens, waters, sun, moon, stars, fire, earth, mountains, hills, cattle, beasts, reptiles, birds, and everything else which the Gentiles have numbered among their gods.

INTERROGATION LI.

INTERROGATION LII.

INTERROGATION LIII.

with Him, fittingly arranging all things": that is, the power and wisdom of God, Christ.

INTERROGATION LIV. When was the air made? Can you say whether Solomon wrote anything about this too? Response. Listen to Moses, who says: "And the Spirit of God was moving over the water." Amos agrees with this: "The Lord strengthening the thunder and creating the spirit."

INTERROGATION LV. But the word does not mean the air; rather, it is spoken of the Holy Spirit. For we do not say that anything else is, or is called, spirit, except the Holy Spirit itself. Response. I am afraid to number the uncreated with the created. Nevertheless, without denying what has been said, I accept this, too, understood in a way that is natural and becoming to God: that it refers to the water for the sake of the generation of life, warming it like a brooding hen, and imparting a certain vital power to the waters being warmed beneath it, in order to bring forth the infinite kinds of fish.

INTERROGATION LVI. In addition to this, we wish to learn from you about the origin of fire. For it is nowhere said in Scripture that God said, "Let there be fire." Response. Of all things, the nature of fire is the most energetic, and it appears to subsist and lie hidden within the creation of the earth. Wherever you strike a stone, fire is produced; and when iron is rubbed, it is likewise its nature to be generated; and when wood is crushed together, it is shown in like manner, as the axle of a cart demonstrates when it burns from the pressure of the load through the fire infused within it. Indeed, not only this, but if millstones are turned in vain, you see fire leaping forth. By the likeness of these things, the collisions of the clouds, driven by the winds, are wont to produce lightning. For all things are mixed with fire, as Peter, the key-holder of the kingdom of heaven, says in this manner: "For the heavens and the earth that now are, have been stored up with fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men."

INTERROGATION LVII. And how is it that in winter, when the clouds and winds are the same, there is neither lightning nor thunder? Response. As to what concerns thunder, what I think has been said above. But that lightning does not appear in winter, I believe is because of the thickness of the air and the moisture permeating the clouds. For that which is dry and arid is not in the same state in collisions as that which is wet and full of matter; the former is accustomed to be set ablaze by fire, while in the latter its power fades.

INTERROGATION LVIII

What you say is indeed true, but our inquiry is about lightning and the generation of fire, as to where God said, "Let there be fire."

Responsio. Moses writes: *And God said, Let there be light; and there was light*—signifying the nature of fire. For not only is the fire that is among us the only fire that exists; rather, those celestial powers seem to be fire, akin to that which is with us.

INTERROGATION LIX

But how is the celestial fire akin to that which is among us, when the former is inexstinguishable and the latter is extinguishable?

Responsio. I propose that angels and our own souls have a certain likeness. For both are spirits, having their origin from God. The former shine in our bodies like lamps, and, as if extinguished by separation, lose their effectiveness in action. For even among the ancient wise men, humans are called *phōs*, that is, light, on account of the power of reason. Similarly, they are called fire, as I shall demonstrate a little later, once my discourse has progressed to our own generation. But I call angels inexstinguishable spirits, having no corporal separation or union. Furthermore, those three holy youths expressed this likeness between spirits and angels when they said: *Bless the Lord, ye spirits and souls of the righteous.* And again in the canticles, David says: *Who makest his angels spirits.* And, hinting at their likeness to our own souls, he says: *Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit hath failed.*

INTERROGATION LX

How is it that the fire among us has the power to burn wood and any matter, while the celestial fire does not burn the dry branches of trees, or the wool of sheep, or our own hair when exposed to the sun?

Responsio. Let the sun itself be our pedagogue in this matter, and let it teach us the kinship of its own fire with that which is among us. For very often, some goatherds, cowherds, or horse-herds, living in solitary tents in the wilderness, when they wish to cook meat or grain, fill a clear glass vessel with water and, holding it straight against the sun's rays, touch some dry dung with the water-filled vessel and kindle fire from the celestial light.

INTERROGATION LXI

Who made the darkness? Was it God, or did it exist from the beginning? Or did the devil make it, as an adversary of light? Many believe that it existed from the beginning, before the world. For Moses nowhere says that anyone made the darkness, but only that it was.

^A Response. Neither did God make them, nor the devil, nor did they exist before the visible world. For all the choirs of angels, devoid of flesh, lived in light even before the world was made; but upon the heavenly body being extended, darkness stood by in the shadow as if from some obstacle, according to the image of the midday sun, having fixed for itself a tent from some dense and opaque material. ^B Similarly, we also learn from those who sail; they shade the ship against rain by extending skins. Or if this is not the case, it seems to me that darkness naturally came to be from the misty exhalation of the abyss, as the murk and vapors thickened. And God said: "Let there be light." The first voice of God created light, which he also called "day," honoring with a pleasant name that which is gentle and mild. It is possible, indeed, to recount other lights created by him: for instance, the light appearing to Moses when it burned the bush but did not consume it, so that it might both demonstrate its nature and make its power known; the light that went before the Israelites in a pillar of fire and softened the wilderness; the light that shone around the shepherds; the light that snatched up Elijah in a chariot of fire and did not burn him as he was snatched up; ^C the light that shone around the shepherds when the light that is timeless came into time, Christ; the light of the star that appeared in Bethlehem, so that it might lead the Magi and escort the light that is above us, having become with us; the light of the divinity shown to the disciples on the mountain, a little harsher to the sight; the light that shone around Paul, the vision healing the darkness of the soul with a stroke to the eyes. Light is also the splendor of the future life in those who have been purified here, when the righteous shall shine as the sun, in whose midst stands God, among gods and kings, setting in order and distributing to each, according to the dignity of their deeds, the rewards of the blessedness from there. Light also is the commandment given in paradise to our first parent. "Thy law is a lamp to my feet and a light to my paths," says David, the author of divine songs. Light is also the power of reason that exists in us, directing our steps according to God; ^D light is also that which bore witness to God and which leads us to him by its torch, having trampled the flame of error, as those with Ananias in Babylon, dancing in the middle of the furnace flame, even with their garments remaining unharmed; light, moreover, is that of which the illumination of baptism consists in a peculiar way; light is, above all, the equal and blameless faith in the holy Trinity. And God said: "Let there be light," and there was light. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

INTERROGATION LXII.

^A Response. Whatever is cheerful and bright is deservedly called "day"; but the contrary of these is named "night." Yet it seems to me that through this naming, their service is also signified, and the orderly succession of their cycle one to the other. For it belongs to the Master to call them by name, and to the servants to obey, and to respond as it were by the voice of the good order of their course.

INTERROGATION LXIII. How was the earth invisible and unformed? Was it made by God as if half-finished, or in what way?

Response. The earth was invisible and unformed, not in nature, but in embellishment and appearance, for the waters had not yet been separated to their own proper place, so that its substance might be discerned, and it might be adorned with plants and crowned with flowers. For since the abyss was flooding over it, it was not yet girded about by the distinction of springs and rivers, nor variegated for the nourishment of the animals that were, by divine command, to be produced from it; it was surrounded by the abyss as if by some mourning garment, just as the author of the divine songs, David, says: *The abyss as a garment is its covering.* It is evident that the Ocean, like a ring, surrounded it, just as it still does today.

INTERROGATION LXIV. Why then did the Prophet not speak in the feminine gender, "its covering," but in the masculine?

Response. There is no difference in this, if the element is understood to refer to the earth. Nor, again, because the souls of all are addressed in the feminine gender, shall we concede that souls are therefore either female or male. But Christ is also called Wisdom, and Power, and Rock, while being God, the Word, and man the same. But let it be understood in another way: the earth was invisible, for there was not yet man, its spectator, nor those kinds of animals which naturally incline towards it and look fixedly upon it, uttering their cries.

INTERROGATION LXV. What is the firmament, according to its nature, that separates the water and the water, the super-celestial and the marine?

Response. On the first day, heaven is created, which is situated above the firmament; but on the second, this firmament which is seen above our heads, which is of a different nature than that which is above.

INTERROGATION LXVI. How then, when they are of one and the same name, will they be of a different, separate nature?

Response. Those who examine the letter studiously and not perfunctorily will find that there is a great difference even in the appellation. For heaven is one thing, and the firmament is another. And so, from the very naming,

we are taught that what is seen is of a more solid nature than the invisible things. For Moses says: *In the beginning God created heaven and earth.* ^A And here he mentions the solid: *And God said, Let there be a firmament.* And Isaiah, asserting the tenuity and lightness of the nature of the former, but the solidity and thickness of the body of the latter, says: *Who has strengthened the heaven like smoke, and stretched it out like a tent.* And concerning that which is seen, he says: *Who fixed the heaven like a vaulted chamber.* For, indeed, Holy Scripture is accustomed to call both the man and the woman "human"; and although the appellation is one, yet the former is robust and capable of bearing heavier things, while the latter is softer and lighter, both in intelligence and in speech. ^B Silence, therefore, regarding the substance of the things above, as far as it is possible for me, I say that the nature of that which is seen is crystalline—fixed and strengthened by a divine command to bear the supramundane things, and devoid of our own thickness—and that both heavens are supported by the divine power that overcomes and sustains all things.

INTERROGATION LXVII.

Answer.

INTERROGATION LXVIII.

Answer.

^A what is poured out. But the all-wise active power of God is greater than all human understanding. Observe for me a clearer example regarding the firmament, established not by the craft of mortals, but by divine counsel, and set before us as a sort of school; consider one of the four rivers flowing from the fountain of Paradise, Pishon, according to our scripture, but called Ister by the Greeks, Danubius by the Romans, and Dunabis by the Goths. If in winter it freezes and that soft nature of the river changes into stony hardness, so that it can bear those crossing on foot in armor, and a multitude of Romans, Illyrians, and Thracians crossing over—in this same way, that firmament itself, established from water, is washed underneath by the flowing river, but above it carries horse and rider, often, as is seen, in the tens of thousands. It also happens sometimes, when the bitterness of winter gains strength and the cold persists, that heavy water falling from the clouds and flowing through the valleys or mountain peaks or hills is carried down to the river’s hardened surface. This, being separated with respect to that which flows above ^B as though by a barrier, by the firmament made of waters, remains unmixed and unconfused with that which is below. We learn similar lessons through snow, which is received by the firmament of which we speak, so that it becomes in itself a crystal septum, separating between water and water, like the heavenly firmament, distinguishing the supernal and ultramundane from the infernal and terrestrial. And I say that the divine command, having established the firmament set above our heads, is infinitely and incomparably stronger than any winter.

INTERROGATION LXIX.

INTERROGATION LXX.

^A we shall speak of those things which are above us. We compare the king of luminaries, the sun, to the celestial body, as the smallest of lamps shining in a very large house. It is just as if one were to place a tiny coal or light a lamp upon a huge serving platter; not only would it be unable to burn or ignite what is beneath it, but it would not even be able to warm the vessel itself. How, then, could a dim lamp be able to melt or to scorch the deep expanse of ice? ^B And when is a cup [or lamp]—if unlit—able to shatter the coldness of winter, struggling to extinguish its wick with frost, and to transform into stone the water and oil contained within it, while the intensity of the cold withers the lamp? And how is the amianthus plant capable of remaining everywhere unburnt? But we also know that the salamander, a lowly animal of a nature different from fire, can leap into and pass through the center of a burning hearth, yet suffer no harm whatsoever from the consuming nature of the fire. Therefore, the sun surely would not harm the heaven under which it runs; the author of the divine songs, describing its morning risings, says: *And he, like a bridegroom coming forth from his bridal chamber, shall exult as a giant to run his way; his going forth is from the extremity of heaven.* You see here the words "extremity" and "going forth" set down, not "sphere" or "circular ascent," as it seems to those who follow vain conjectures. *And his meeting is to the extremity of heaven,* he says. See again "meeting" and "extremity," not "descent" or "setting." But let us move on to the bridal beauty of this luminary. For David says of it: *And he, like a bridegroom coming forth from his bridal chamber,* expressing by these words the cheerfulness and temperance of his morning aspect. For when he runs through the southern sky, we often attempt to seek refuge, unable to endure his fiery heat. But at the same time, at his uprising, he is pleasant to all, and is viewed like a bridegroom; and from morning until evening, he proceeds abundantly, ^C and through the whirls of his rays, he dissolves with the light of his torch the cheerlessness of the air, and communing with the earth for the production of fruit, he warms it and encourages it to bring forth seeds.

INTERROGATION LXXI.

Response.

flame, ^A remained untouched and unharmed, shining more brightly than the fire? But that those who were stoking it with tow, pitch, naphtha, and brushwood might not think that it was by some magic or illusion that the all-consuming power of fire was bridled, the divinity that rejoiced within them ordained that the flame, raised high through the opening, should rush out upon the dry ground and burn up the ministers and spectators who were sitting forty-nine cubits away from the furnace, and reduce them to dust and ashes. And how did Elijah, soaring into heaven in a chariot of fire, remain unharmed by the fire, even down to his very hairs? Or how is a wick made of asbestos, when placed in a lamp, sufficient for a period of twenty years, with only the oil always evaporating in the lamp’s fire, while it itself remains incorrupt? ^B Let this "how," therefore, rest in God. "The voice of the Lord breaks the flame of fire," says the divine psalmist. For just as in the bush in the desert, and in the furnace in Babylon, and in the case of Elijah the prophet, and in other prodigies, the divine command cuts off the devouring power of fire, separating things that are inseparable among us, and intimating the integrity of the future divine judgment, where the illumination of eternal fire will be granted to the righteous, but its inflammation to the adversaries. "For that day is revealed in fire, and the fire shall test every man's work of what sort it is," says the excellent Apostle. Agreeing with this, Peter, the prince of the divine ministry, says: "The heavens and the earth which are now, are stored up with fire, being reserved for the day of judgment and retribution." ^C And sealing the words of His servants, the Lord says in the Gospels: "Then the Son of Man will send out His angels throughout the whole world, and they will gather [the] sinners from the midst of the righteous, and will cast them into the furnace of fire."

INTERROGATION LXXII.

What then? Will there never be a dissolution of the heavens, and an end to those luminaries?

Answer.

There will indeed be a dissolution of creation, but not an utter annihilation; rather, a transformation for the better, as we learn from the divinely inspired David, singing in this manner: "You, Lord, founded the earth from the beginning, and the heavens are the works of your hands; they shall perish, but you shall remain." And again, adding [words] about the regeneration, he says: "And all will grow old like a garment, and like a mantle you shall fold them up, and they shall be changed." ^D Therefore, when the supercelestial waters have failed, all things will simultaneously be fused by the intensity of the fire; for the stars shall fall, as leaves from a vine, says the sublime Isaiah among the prophets. And in the Catholic Epistles Peter says: "The elements, being on fire, shall be dissolved." But that toward the better and to a state that will no longer fail, all things are to be strengthened, he teaches

with such words as those of the divine bard of things present and future: "You shall send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth."›

^A INTERROGATION LXXIII. Will the sea then also cease at some time at the consummation, being so great, and also the supercelestial waters, concerning which God says: "Let a firmament exist between water and water"?

Answer. It is quite clearly taught us by the exalted Isaiah that the sea is to cease and vanish at the consummation. For that inspired man says to God: "Who say to the abyss: You shall be laid waste, and I will dry up your rivers." ^B But let it be understood metaphorically: the abyss of malice is the devil, and the rivers flowing from him and into him are the demons, his flood being deadly to us, while they, like waves, are raised up and ever insult us through temptations. Moreover, the Creator contrived the nature of the waters such as should be sufficient merely for the constitution of this universe. And the firmament is reserved not only for the refrigeration of the ultramundane waters, but God also sends the flame of the luminaries toward the lower regions, forcing the fire that tends upward by its own inherent nature ^C toward the lower parts, and dispersing the reflection into rays, just as if we were holding a lamp in our hands and pressing down the flame from above with some tablet or plate, breaking it into rays and jets. Therefore, Christ, the sun before the sun, contrived the raised position of the sun, causing it to rise from one point for summer and from another for winter, so that by not lingering too long in the same tract, it might not damage the arch of the firmament or scorch any part of the world.

INTERROGATION LXXIV. What, then, is to be determined concerning the ultramundane waters? Are they like those of the sea, bitter and salt, and heavy or stagnant?

Answer. One half of the whole of the water is that which is reserved in the upper parts, except that it does not have that excessive ^D bitterness, or heaviness, or stench, which is in sea water; for the sun does not touch the former while running beneath it, whereas it shines upon the latter for a long time and evaporates and draws up whatever is sweetest and potable, which is separated into the sea by the rivers and torrents. For we often see regions inaccessible due to an abundance of water left dry and moistureless in a single midday, the water having been separated by the vapors, and, having been taken up to the clouds, being squeezed out again upon the earth as if from sponges, and fashioned into rain.

INTERROGATION LXXV. What then? Are the showers supplied to the clouds from the sea then scattered again upon the earth? And how

^A can such a weight and multitude of waters be carried up into the clouds? Response. Hear David singing of God: He brings up the clouds from the ends of the earth, he made lightnings for the rain. Another of the prophets says: He who calls for the water of the sea and pours it out upon the face of the earth; the Lord God Almighty is his name. For by the collision of the clouds, driven by the winds that carry the rain, lightnings are produced. INTERROGATION LXXVI. But how, when it is being drained for so many years by the drawing up of showers and the participation of all, does the water of fountains or the sea not fail? Response. The water of fountains does not fail, being returned from the sea, and flowing back into it through rivers and torrents. Therefore, it can neither overflow, while it receives into itself what comes from itself, as that expert in divine matters, Solomon, teaches: All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not filled. Nor is the sea diminished, because of the compensation that occurs from above, by which that which has evaporated through the sun is increased and distills from heaven and exudes in dew, growing from the vapors of the air rising upward daily, just as happens in the vaults of baths, which are moistened by the evaporation of the air, and in turn drop tears onto the ground. And it is often possible to see thick air exhaling from the sea, fountains, and rivers, which, I believe, appears to be nothing other than water. INTERROGATION LXXVII. But how can fountain or potable water come from the sea, when that is bitter and salt, while these are sweet and drinkable and somewhat lighter? Response. None of this can hinder what has been said so far. For by the compression of the passages and the winding exits in the upwelling, that weight is laid aside along with the bitterness, and the saltness is attenuated, just as if wine mixed with water were poured over a sponge or pure bread; the wine, being thicker, is retained within the passages of the bread, but the water, as something more thin and pellucid, is filtered through the passages. The same is shown by oil mixed with water poured onto the aforementioned materials; for here too, that which is oilier and thicker remains, because it is thicker than that which is passing through and being strained out. INTERROGATION LXXVIII. But if this is the case, why does water not rise up from the abyss everywhere, but we endure no common labor in digging wells, sometimes even suffering a most miserable death, buried in the pits? Response. Nay, it is likely that we may conjecture from the wells that fountain

waters proceed from the abyss, returned through the looser folds of the earth. For those that travel from a distance from the abyss, and wander tortuously through the conduits, becoming heated, lose their bitterness and, laying aside their saltness, grow sweet. But the water of a well, as is natural, is heavier and somewhat salty, and less potable, because its floor is near to the abyss, and it floats upon the abyss like a jar or cask. Whence it happens that, on account of a closer ascent and a shorter exit, it cannot equal the bitter saltness of sea-water, but is affected in a certain middle state, heavier indeed than fountain water, but lighter than sea-water.

^D INTERROGATIO LXXIX. How do the clouds carry the sea-water up on high? Or how is it that, once taken up, it is not immediately poured out upon the earth? How is it also that in some places it rains, while in others it does not?

Response. Hear David singing of God: *Who gathereth together as a skin the waters of the sea*; and another person saying: *Binding up the water in the clouds of the air*. Before these, however, Job, the leader of contests according to God, a tower and a bulwark, says: *And the cloud is not rent under it*, that is, under the water. But let this be understood also concerning the assumption of the deified humanity of the Saviour. For a cloud came under his feet, not assisting the ascension, but to show that he is the one who of old had spoken through the whirlwind and clouds first to Job, and after him to Moses; but when the clouds are filled, as if they were skins or siphons, instead of a bond, or a finger, or a siphon that holds the water by compression, the divine command rests upon them, just as traders are accustomed to do when they let down a siphon into the deep, and when it is filled, they bring it up by placing a thumb against it, and carry the clouds, as it were, which are full, throughout the house as if through the world, and the water that was taken up is utilized as it seems good to the one who drew it, by the placing and removing of the finger.

INTERROGATIO LXXX. When all things were first contained by water, and covered by the abyss, where was it gathered, and whither did it withdraw, when God said, *Let the water be gathered together into one gathering, and let the dry land appear*?

Response. That divine power which is the effective cause of the universe, when it determined to separate the water into one gathering and place, straightway also created the location that was to receive it. For there did not yet exist that sea beyond Gades, nor that great and daunting ocean which mariners dread, which encircles the British island and the Hesperian Iberians; but then, the region having been created by divine command, the multitudes of waters flowed together unto it.

INTERROGATION LXXXI

INTERROGATION LXXXII

INTERROGATION LXXXIII

INTERROGATION LXXXIV

^A looks upon the beauty of the creatures, but contemplates the things that are made with ineffable wisdom: who says to Jeremiah: Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee; and to Nathanael: Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee; and to Abraham: At this time... Sarah shall have a son; and to the Jews: Before Abraham was, I am. For the sea whitening [with foam] is a beautiful sight, when a steady calm holds it; and it is delightful when, at the morning breezes, it roughens its back and presents a purple or azure hue to those who gaze upon it, neither striking the neighboring land with violence, nor yet resting entirely, but greeting its shores with a kind of peaceful embrace, and leaping back towards itself. ^B It is beautiful, too, in that it reveres the divine command: Hitherto shalt thou come, and not pass beyond; but in thyself thy waves shall be broken. Which, for the reproof of our lack of understanding, demonstrates the fear instilled in it, by running slightly past the limit with its waves, leaving a clear line marked upon the shores, like a tongue, admonishing it not to overstep the bounds of the divine command. It is beautiful because, being the mother of rivers, it receives them back again, bringing them forth from one side and receiving them as guests from the other. It is beautiful because it joins together continents and cities ^C that are far apart from one another, carrying ships upon its surface, and offering no impediment to sailors, but providing commerce for the sailors on the one hand, and for the rest of mankind on the other; and granting the benefit of varied knowledge of things that were unknown, and assisting the needy in necessary matters, providing the convenience of export and exchange to cities. Yet one should not think of God in this way, that the good or the beautiful in Him is judged by the reason of its utility. We must conclude the same regarding light and the rest.

INTERROGATION LXXXV.

How did Moses write that God said: Let the earth bring forth the herb of grass, sowing seed according to its kind and likeness, and a fruit-bearing tree, whose seed is in itself according to its kind; ^D when, however, we see many plants that are entirely fruitless and have no seed? For what fruit does the black poplar have, or the fir, or the pine, or the reed? And what seed does the garlic, or the rose, or the saffron, or the vine, or the tamarisk, and other innumerable fruitless plants have?

Response.

If someone investigates divine things diligently and painstakingly, he will find that all things have been produced by the divine will without defect. For the black poplar provides fruit in its branches for the necessity of each of us; its leaf, when stored, provides fodder for cattle in winter; from the budding shoot comes the oil that is provided to the infirm, which is called by many "poplar-oil." But instead of seed...

the branches of the alder, when buried, strike root. In the same way, the fir and the spruce tree increase their kind by small branches and broken-off shoots. As for the rose, or garlic, or crocus, they serve partly for the fragrance of their scent, partly to be mixed with wine that has degenerated for those who drink strong liquor, and likewise for perfumers to use in the skillful concoction of incense, and for physicians for eye-salves taken in food. But they also provide water that is harmless to those who drink water. The reed, however, produces fruit, its tuft serving as sponges, and the rest serving for writing instruments. Both increase their kind by the sprouting of their roots. ^A

INTERROGATION LXXXVI

Why do things evil by nature and corruptible seem to accompany things good in our life, like tares and hemlock with wheat, thorns with roses, and with other food, hellebore, aconite, mandrake, and the juice of the poppy, which take away our life?

Answer.

Shall we then, abandoning our thanksgiving for what is useful, bring an accusation against the Creator because some things are born for our trial and others for our utility? Or shall we not consider that not everything has been created for the sake of our belly? ^B Yet for us, the foods allotted to us are readily available and known to all, and each of the things that exist fulfills a certain specific reason in creation. For, just because the blood of a bull is toxic to you, should that animal not have been produced, or should it be bloodless, when our life needs its strength in so many ways? But you have your own innate reason sufficient for the avoidance of pernicious things. For do not sheep and goats know how to flee from what is destructive to their life, judging what is harmful by smell alone? And for you, to whom both reason is present, and the medical art that provides what is healthful, and the experience of those who have gone before, which prompts ^C the flight from lethal things, would it be difficult to avoid poisons? None of these things has been born fruitlessly or without purpose; but they have been assigned for the utility either of us or of the cattle. For starlings feed on hemlock, and quails on hellebore, both being immune to the harm by a certain disposition of nature; further, physicians induce sleep in the infirm by means of the mandrake; by the juice of the poppy they soothe the intense pains of bodies; and already some have suppressed the madness of appetites with hemlock, and have extirpated many chronic diseases with hellebore. So that what we think is an enemy ^D to our nature has turned out to be an addition to our thanksgiving.

INTERROGATION LXXXVII

Why is it said of herbs and trees, "Let the earth sprout," but of cattle and beasts, "Let it produce"? Does this contain some dissonance, since both come forth from the same womb?

Answer.

Since the sprouts and fruits were to sprout and remain in the earth every year, descending into it—as if into the bosom of a mother—as the flowers pass away,

and again are conceived from it; whereas animals, having been produced from the earth once, are no longer propagated from it, but from their successors.

^A Q. LXXXVIII. Why did He not adorn the heaven, as the thing first created by Him, but gave preference to the earth, which was created after it; whereas, according to the sequence of creation, the adornment should have been added first to the heaven?

Answer. Because of the error regarding the multitude of gods that was to arise, which even now holds many in its grasp, who worship the sun as God, and are atheists at night upon its setting; lest they might think that the fruits are brought to maturity by the heat of the sun, and not that each thing is perfected to the magnitude defined for it by the divine power that governs all things. Or again, lest any should think the sun to be the author and father of light, for this reason the adornment of the earth was prior to that of the heaven.

^B Q. LXXXIX. And why, on the first day, when the abyss still covered the heavenly things, and the water had not yet been gathered into one collection, did He not make the sun, the moon, and the stars?

Answer. Because there was not yet a firmament in which the luminaries were to be placed. For in the beginning, He says, God created the heaven and the earth—not the one that is seen, but that which is set above what is seen.

Q. XC. Do you then say that there is also a multitude of heavens above the firmament?

Answer. No one of the inspired ones has ever declared the number, except for the lofty Apostle, who cries out that he was caught up as far as the third; yet he did not stop the number at them. For in saying that he was caught up as far as the third heaven, by the word "as," he implied that others also were established above the three. And David, the composer of divine odes, says, "Praise the Lord from the heavens"; and the divine companions of Ananias say, "Bless the Lord, O heavens of the Lord"—both being silent through the Spirit regarding the number. For what would it profit us to know the highest heaven, which is superior to number, when we do not even wish to ascend in our mind to that which is before and above our heads, being weighed down by coarse matter and passions, darkening the intellectual faculty, and gaping at things that lie below and on the earth?

^C Q. XCI. What then? Do you think that which is placed above is of another nature than that which we see and call the firmament?

Answer. I say that they are of a more subtle substance than that which is secondary, as being superior and lighter, even as

bubbles growing on ice; but the one that is seen is more consolidated because it bears the supermundane things. For, *Praise God in the firmament of His power*, says David ^A; and with him those with Ananias agree, singing, *Blessed art Thou*, they say, *in the firmament of heaven*. But before them Moses indicated that the heaven which was made in the beginning of the world on the first day is one thing, and the firmament on the second day is another. For there, *In the beginning*, he says, *God made heaven and earth*; but here, *And God said: Let there be a firmament*, of a different nature and use.

INTERROGATION XCII.

ANSWER.

the discovered seats and devising other foundations above them, beyond which nothing further occurs; Solomon crying out, "Seek not things higher than you, and search not into things deeper than you." ^A Think only of those things which have been commanded you, believing that the divine power, which preserves the universe, sustains and keeps all things, and pervades all things, governing the entirety.

INTERROGATION XCIII. Whence were the luminaries, the sun and moon, and the host of the stars made? We know that it is the work of God, but we inquire about their substance.

Response. It seems to me that the luminaries ^B exist from the primordial light. For God, producing the matter of light, says, "Let there be light, and there was light." Then, transforming the matter into various forms, He says, "Let there be luminaries." Just as if someone were first to bring forth a mass of gold, and having cut this into coins, were to make two excel in size, and fix them upon a very large disc and hang it from the ceiling of a house, delighting the eyes of those who behold it, while making eternal monuments of his own ingenuity; and placing them far from the firmament, he then subjoined them to it. For the narrator of divine things himself, Moses, says, "And God made the two great luminaries." ^C Here, most excellent one, lend me attentive ears; for from the very expression I shall make manifest that the creation of the luminaries is outside the firmament. For Moses says, "And He placed them in the heaven," signifying things lower, or describing their orbs outside the roof, and such that they were thereafter subject to it.

INTERROGATION XCIV. Did He establish those two at once, or did He separate them from one another?

Response. The sun was produced even after the decoration of the earth, ^D so that some might not name it the author of light, nor the maker of the things that spring from the earth. For first, the nature of light was produced. But on the fourth day, the solar body’s chariot was prepared for the primordial light, like some lamp by reason of the fire placed upon it. And just as whiteness is one thing, and the whitened body another, so also, though these are diverse, they are united, even if they are distinct. But as for those things which are separable in our conception, these are separated in operation by the power of Him who made them; who also separated the burning power of fire from its brightness, as we hear in the case of the bush and the furnace of the three children, and the fire in the terrible judgment which we hear will illuminate the righteous, yet burn the sinners, as David testifies: "The voice of the Lord, who divides the flame of fire." As for those things which are asked about the phases of the moon, the brief comprehension is that, when it wanes, it is not consumed in its whole body, but having laid aside the light surrounding it, and again assuming it, it...

^A presents the appearance of decrease and increase. For it is possible in clear air to see its unilluminated part, delimited by an arc of the same size as it is during the full moon. Think the same regarding the sun, except that what the latter has received once, he possesses inseparably; but the former is continually clothed and divested. And these things are believed to have been said about the sun. Furthermore, let us understand their position from the Mosaic writing. For it says: ^B *And God made two great lights, and set them in the firmament: the great light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night*. He therefore set them opposite each other from a contrary region, him indeed in the morning region, but her in the evening. And him indeed one who would preside over the day, and her one who would preside over the night. So that, running opposite to each other, he through the day that is nocturnal ^C and she through the night that is daily, might arrive at the same rising. So that when the day inclines, she might arrive at the height of the morning rising, acting as a queen, cheering the night with her splendors. But he, while the darkness grows heavy, arriving at the same center, like a king by his presidency might illuminate every region that is under the heavens. So that there is for him a rising, for her a setting; and for her a presidency, for him a withdrawal, so that that might be fulfilled: *Let them rule over the day and the night*.

INTERROGATION XCV.

Response.

^A

QUESTION XCVI.

Response.

QUESTION XCVII.

Response.

^A

INTERROGATION XCVIII.

Answer.

INTERROGATION XCIX.

Answer. After it has traversed the celestial boundaries with a swift course, and has passed beneath a certain side—namely, the northern climate—where the soil of the Cappadocians rises up, the brightness of its rays is shadowed by forests and waters through the superior repression of the firmament, the rays being refracted to the sides, and by the eminence of the earth its light is excluded, and that according to the previously exhibited similitude of a lamp such as we use: if a firebrand is compressed by a potsherd, and is shadowed on one side, the light recedes to some free side. In this way also the sun reaches the east, secretly passing through the northern region. And we have as an illustrious witness in divine matters the wise Solomon: "The sun ariseth," he says, "and goeth down; the sun proceedeth toward the setting, and whirleth about towards the north, and returneth into its place" (Eccl. I, 5, 6). Look therefore at it passing through the south, and circling around the northern region, so that it may be brought to the east within the prescribed time. ^C

INTERROGATION C.

Answer. Because it does not always proceed from the same center, but...

^A arriving near the meridian, not by the high path, but by coming along the oblique one, it renders the days shorter. But when it sets at the edge of the western region, it circles through the night, covering all the west, the North, and the east, so that it may again reach the edge of the meridian, starting from there once more upon its swift daily course. Hence it naturally happens that the night is lengthened, and the day shortened. But when it drives its chariot evenly through the middle of the ether, it produces the equinox. In summer, moreover, inclining again toward the northern region, it is elevated, taking away from the night and adding to the day by means of the shorter circuit in the night. ^B The moon, however, is not found to be failing by a total diminution, but the disc is eclipsed in part, and it is possible to observe it waning and coming to an end, obscured under a cloud, like a phantom behind a silken curtain. Then again, being reclothed with light, the complement being drawn together, it comes forth like a queen, being a manifest image of our nature—being born, increasing, arriving at fullness, waning, diminishing, setting, but not altogether perishing. Similarly, we too are born, we increase, we are filled in old age, ^C and then thus we end at the hour of our departure, we wane in the beauty and blooming of the cheek, our redness turning to pallor. We are diminished in bodily strength, beginning to walk bent over and leaning upon a staff, bowed down toward the earth, confirming it by our very posture: "Behold, I am come." We die, and in it we end in body, not perishing in spirit, but a little later the soul is reclothed in the garment of the flesh that was laid aside. For I am not the body; I, indeed, am the soul, but this body is mine, and whatever grows from the ^D earth; hence, this too. Again, after the end, the new moon is born, as if reviving and appearing to the sight. Since we too, having ended in the tomb, shall rise again, as if reborn, according to the divine saying: "When the Son of Man shall come in the regeneration of our resurrection," indicating by this the time. (Matt. xix, 28).

DIALOGUE II

INTERROGATION CI.

Since we heard you yesterday saying to those who asked that the earth is inanimate; if it is inanimate, how does it beget animate things: the ox, the sheep, the lion, the dragon, and the remaining kinds of cattle, reptiles, and wild beasts?

Response.

Nothing of these proves to you that the earth is animate; since by this logic we must also admit that the vine with its clusters, which lies hidden, is immediately brought forth; and that the palm tree, bearing its fruit filled with earth, suddenly leaps forth to visibility; or that wheat, ^A full, with its ear, and ready for harvest, is produced from beneath

and again ^B by the divine command arises. But the comparison does not hold. For if the earth is animate because it brings forth animate things, it would then have stripped itself of a soul. For he who brings out a soul, whether his own or his neighbor’s, is altogether dead and inanimate, having cast out the vital cause.

INTERROGATION CII

Response

water seeking their food? There are the Nile crocodiles in Egypt; the river dogs ^B at the western Physon; the Euphratean gryphons, the marsh frogs, and among us, sea urchins and swans. And who could discover the countless genera of amphibious creatures, which now collect seeds in the meadows and grain-bins, or eat grass, together with the land animals, and now, swimming in the waters, eat the lighter food of river creatures—which even the flesh-eating land creatures are accustomed to do.

But let us turn the helm of our discourse to the proposition before us, following the prophetic dogmas. For they nowhere declare the earth to be animate, but that its products are animated by a divine power and spirit, as the inspired David sings: "You will send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created" 78; and as Isaiah, as if in the person of God, clearly cries out: "I am God who made heaven and earth, and who gives the breath of life to all who walk upon it" 79.

^C INTERROGATION CIII. We say that nothing that bellows or roars is inanimate; how then does the earth roar, if it is inanimate, and bellow when it is shaken?

Response. Just as the sea, swelling with subterranean spirits, gives forth a kind of whirring or bellowing. That [sea] too, often moved and overflowing by the evaporation of the heat of the deep, produces a sound, striking itself with much more violent storms. But when the wind rests, it does not cry out likes something animate, but being stilled, it has the tranquility of the deep. Otherwise, do you think that water jars or casks are animate, which we hear whirring and bellowing when the airy spirit permeates them? And [consider] the goat that has been slaughtered ^D and skinned; it is evident to everyone that the hide itself is inanimate; yet when it is fashioned into a wineskin, and distended with air, and then again, by the pressure of our hands, the air is expelled, how does the inanimate thing give forth a whirring or bellowing? And how, again, when it is used for a musical instrument, as a man manages it and uses it in various ways, is any song produced, and does it resonate through the pipes, as mournfully or as softly as he wishes? Shall we, therefore, say that those things inflated by musical instruments, [devised] by the ingenuity of men, are animate? Or the zither strings, and the skins of drums, which emit tinkle and sounds, and make a noise through the touch of the one who holds them? In this manner, think of the earth too as bellowing and being shaken by the operation of something else.

INTERROGATION CIV. How, therefore, do those three children imply that all creation is animate, singing in the furnace: "Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord; praise the Lord and ...

^A exalt Him forever"? Bless, O angels, heavens, earth, sun, moon, stars, dews, snowy rains, ice, snows, light, darkness, nights, days, mountains, hills, sea, rivers, and all things that follow? For this implies that these things are animate.

Response. But the hymn of those holy ones does not show that all things are animate, beyond men, beasts, whales, and the rest of the terrestrial and aquatic creatures. For angels bless as rational and ministerial spirits; the heavens, however, not by speech and voice, but by the supplying of rains and their firm constitution; the sun and moon, by the rising and mutual vicissitude of their course and the emission of their rays. Moreover, by their orderly procession, the morning star marks the day, while the evening star does the reverse. The Pleiades, when seen, promise security to those who sail; but when they set, they signify the contrary. ^B The axle, sometimes turning toward the evening regions, signifies night and dawn. The earth, kindly cherishing mortals with its fruits, praises the Lord. The sea, passable for ships and wood, and bringing forth and preserving fish for us, praises the Lord. Animals, moreover, are brutes, and humans: we, indeed, offer praises with reason, but they, carrying those who praise and make vows, guided orderly by them and restrained in fear, proclaim the Lord; for we are accustomed to pray for our beasts no less than for ourselves.

Interrogation CV

Response. They are not fixed, but are attached under the firmament, and are carried in the ether by the lightness of their nature, but they run under the firmament: ^C indeed, by its refrigeration they are pushed down proportionately toward the lower regions, but are lifted up by the underlying thickness of the air. For the nature of fire is lighter than all created things; therefore, angels also have been allotted this. "Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flaming fire," says David in his melodies. In the Epistles, however, Paul [states that] the luminaries surpass the air by the lightness of fire. Yet they cannot strike against the firmament, or ignite any part of it, on account of the cold of the celestial waters breathing from above.

INTERROGATION CVI

Response. The winds blow from below, and the clouds are carried under the sun, as can be seen ^D at high noon, the way that clouds moving [around] shade the sun that is flying-over [them]; the power of the breath...

being nearer to the earth, reasonably levers up the abyss and scatters the air with dust. But how should the force of the winds, which is not capable of moving a small hut or a stone, ever move or relocate the sun, which exceeds a whole city in size, or knock it against the stars?

INTERROGATION CVII. ^B If the stars contribute nothing to human birth, nor can the things that befall us be conjectured from them, how did a star rise at the birth of Christ, becoming a guide to the Magi? And how did they, recognizing the star as regal, move to set out on their journey, urged on to worship the child by the star?

RESPONSE. Since the Samaritans and Sadducees did not accept the existence of angels, the divine evangelist reasonably calls the angel a star. ^C Furthermore, drawing the cult paid to the stars toward Christ and leading mortals away from the error of polytheism, he posits the angel as a star, the guide for [the purpose of] worship. For the Magi were not stirred to worship by anything other than the opinion of their own cult. But when magic had become weaker and more impotent through the divine-human birth of Him who founded the stars and defined the order for them, those erring Chaldeans, perceiving this and having had their minds confirmed for supplication and their error expiated, go of their own accord, like evangelists and the first heralds of the nations, of the divine-human visitation. Arising, then, and hearing the prophecy of the exalted Isaiah crying out: “A child is born to us, a son is given to us, and his name is called Messenger of Great Counsel, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Potentate, Prince of Peace, Father of the age to come” (Isa. ix, 6). And though they had not heard these things, which had been foretold by the inspired man five hundred years prior, they demonstrated them by their actions, surpassing in faith the foolish Jews who had leisure to attend to the Law and the prophets. ^D That the leader of the Magi was not a star, but some intellectual and rational power, we learn from this very fact of its motion and its standing-still. For of the stars, some are always moving and never rest from their motion; others, being fixed, do not move. But this one appears to be versatile, moving and standing firm, and hiding itself from those being led: so that when they asked, “Where is the newborn King of the Jews?” Herod might be troubled, and all Jerusalem, and the divine birth might be noised abroad and gossiped about by the Magi, because their guide had been hidden from them. Again, however, appearing, it came and stood over the cave where the child was, says the exalted Matthew. For if it had not appeared at intervals, Jerusalem would not have been shaken by the inquiry of the Magi, nor would Herod have been enraged at hearing of a king.

^B If, however, that star had not been an intellectual and rational power, it surely would not have declared itself a minister of Him who was born. But now, just as is customary to be done in the case of kings, this divine courier calls out and leads the way for some men toward the king; after they have arrived at the gate of the broad street, he commands those who have been called to remain at the threshold until he has announced their arrival to the king. Then, having appeared to them again, he leads them to the golden roof and to the king sitting within. Thus, here the star is seen, but an angel is understood to be the guide of the nations. Otherwise, which for you seems better – the star, or the sun? You would surely say the sun. Who then, when the sun is positioned in the midst of the heavens, can say which of the cities or villages it points out with precision, or which house it designates as if with a finger? Compare, therefore, the star with the sun, as a gnat 44 with an elephant, and the divine star with the greatest of all cities, as a midge with a camel. If, therefore, we do not know which of the greatest cities that king of luminaries, standing above, points out, how then shall we say that the small star pointed out the cave, if an angel was not there, traveling in the heights close to the earth and indicating the Lord? ^C Let those desist from their madness who imagine that a star rises with the birth of each one of us, those tellers of fables who rave that the star also perishes when the same person dies. For when there were only two human beings in the world, I mean Adam and Eve, the heaven was full of stars. And again, when all living nature was destroyed by the waters in the time of the giants, except for those eight who were saved with the divine Noah, the stars were not taken away together with those who were destroyed by the water, nor did they move even a little from their own order.

INTERROGATION CVIII

How, then, does Scripture call Abraham an astrologer? Or how do we find many others who predict many things that happen among us from the stars, such as that this infant when grown will turn out to be a murderer or an adulterer, while that other one will be sober, more modest, and fortunate, by the benefit of a star?

Response

The history, in calling the patriarch Abraham an astronomer, nowhere suggests that he held the stars to be gods or worshipped them. But the patriarch is believed to have observed them for the sake of agriculture, and rain, and droughts, and storms, as one brought forth by a Gentile father, Terah, and having lived among the Chaldeans, who believed in a multitude of gods. For it is not according to astrology, ^D

but according to piety toward God that he first applied to himself, and then to his son Isaac, the sharp blade of circumcision. Nor was it according to astrology, but because of a divine promise, that he believed he would beget offspring from a barren and elderly consort, with whom he had lived from his youth and prime of life until her very gray hairs and deepest old age, while they still did not yield to the astrologers. Again, not even when the Architect of the stars commanded him to sacrifice his son as a trial, did he follow the stars; rather, obeying God, he exchanged Chaldea for the Mesopotamia of Syria. ^A I ask of your sharp wit, most illustrious Constantius, that in the present holy gathering, you keep silent for a little while for the sake of listening, and explain to me your astronomical view of our genesis, and what is the combination and conjunction of these [stars] — so that by the divine power and wisdom the dogmas you advocate may be overthrown, and through sobriety and teaching, better things may be raised up in you. Just as it is said by the lofty Apostle, the legal things having been demolished and the Evangelical things in turn exalted, the wickedness broken and restored for the better, and peace being reconciled with my dogmas, and those who have been stirred together to hear this discourse departing unharmed, carrying away with them nothing of the Gentile wickedness: David, that author of divine hymns, shall add: ^B *This is the change of the right hand of the Most High* (Ps. LXXVI, 11); and the high vates of the prophets, Isaiah, shall proclaim in the person of God: *I am God, who makes peace, and creates evils for the better* (Isa. XLV, 7). ^C

INTERROGATION CIX

Since your holiness allows me to speak, I begin my discourse from this point, not to corrupt those present, but wishing to cast off what is harmful. Whenever Mars holds the center in his own house, ^D and is observing, from a square aspect, Saturn with Mercury at the center, while the Moon is beginning to be full, in a daytime birth, it brings forth murderers and those killed, violators of oaths and blood-drinkers, drunks, lechers, demoniacs, seekers of the secrets of hidden mysteries, sacrificial magicians, and those things which are similar to these, especially if no gaze of the beneficent stars is observing. Again, the same Mars, gazing at Venus in a square aspect, if no beneficent star is observing at the center, makes adulterers, having relations with sisters and mothers. Venus, with the Moon in the boundaries and houses of Saturn, with Saturn approaching and Mars approving, makes women who are cultivators of fields and architects, and skilled in all manly works, having associations and sleeping with whom they wish, and not being hindered in this by their own husbands. Therefore...

it is impossible to restrain desires through fear, or ^A by the threat of anyone, or by artifice, because of the lot assigned by the stars.

Answer. You have set forth the myths of Greek error very skillfully. In turn, I ^B also shall boldly advance against what you have said, and using my discourse in place of a sling or bow, I will attempt to cast down your planets, Mars and Venus, ^C just as you attribute to me the birth of a star-wrought slaughter. But first, I ask that you be taught how a person who so wishes can either chasten or totally shake off desires and actions. Indeed, I am accustomed to shake them off through the scourges of conscience and the memory of the inevitable judgment, which prohibits vices. But even the laws ^D of princes, before trials by torture, and straits, and the punishments of the rack, can by the mere hearing of the terrible things that exist in retribution for offenses, render a self-indulgent man modest, and blunt the swelling vigor of youth in any region whatsoever, whether these laws be written or unwritten, both among us and among the nations; for among some the written law prevails, among others custom. For those who are devoid of laws consider ancestral customs to be laws. The first of these are the Seres, who inhabit the ends of the earth, and have as law their national custom: that no one should commit fornication, nor plunder, nor commit adultery, nor worship statues, nor offer supplication to demons; and that there should not exist among them at all any idol, or harlot, or adulteress, or plunderer, or murderer, or thief. And yet, the planet shining with the fire of Mars, of which you speak, has forced the free will of none of these; nor has it compelled any of them by force to kill his neighbor with a sword or strike him with a stone. Venus has not, together with Mars, persuaded any man to rush furiously upon his neighbor’s wife, even if Mars holds the midheaven for the whole day. Nevertheless, ancestral law prevails among the Seres over the necessity of the stars.

There is also a law among the Bactrians, that is, the Brachmanes, a discipline received from ancestors: not to get drunk, nor to taste soulless things, not to partake of wine, whether simple or adulterated, fearing my God—even though the Indians who live nearby are polluted with murders, and given to drunkenness, and, like wild boars, indulge in effeminacy and are shaken by passion. In the western regions, furthermore, beyond the Indians, there dwell some who are man-eaters and who kill and eat those who arrive as guests; and not one of the beneficent stars has had the strength to turn them away from this blood-guiltiness until this present day.

It is another custom for the Chaldeans and Babylonians to take mothers as wives and to violate sisters, and toward their own children...

^A they do not anoint themselves with perfumes, nor do they defile their faces with paints to color their cheeks, as do the wives of others among us who apply certain cosmetic preparations to their faces. The men, however, dress in flowing soft garments and dyed robes. Among them are some most warlike women, who also hunt wild beasts, and few are as strong as they. How, then, is it that all the women of the Gelae were not allotted Capricorn or Aquarius, with Venus situated in an ill-fated place? Or, conversely, why were their men not allotted Venus in Aries with Mars, where those who share the opinion of the Chaldeans claim people are manly and soft? ^B In the Susa of Babylon, the women use every kind of precious ointment and adornment; attended by servants, they go out into public cheerfully, with great immodesty of countenance and joy. They sleep with all strangers fearlessly and shamelessly, ruling over their own husbands rather. And yet, not in the nativity of every Susian woman does Venus hold the mid-heaven with Jupiter and Mars within the bounds of Jupiter. Moreover, in the eastern region, there are sodomites who, if detected by their own kin among the Christians, are punished without mercy. In Britain, many men sleep with a single woman; likewise, many women are joined to a single man.

Finally, the nations use the customs of their ancestors as if they were law, without sting of conscience or distress. The Amazons do not even have husbands, but, in the manner of brute beasts, once a year around the vernal equinox they depart from their own ^C lands and unite with the men in the vicinity, regarding the time of this association as a sort of public assembly and festive occasion. After they have conceived, they all return home together. But at the time of giving birth, they destroy the male offspring, while the female they preserve and nurse with care. It is absurd to believe that in the generation of male seed, Mars and Saturn were allotted the hour equally, but in the female, never. And how, when the seeds are received and cast into the wombs in the same night or day, and they emerge again, as it were, from a single womb, are some of the fetuses destroyed—tasting of life for a moment and put to death by their murderous mothers before they have drawn milk ^D or uttered a sound—while others are preserved and cherished in those lawless bosoms, having been born into such evil ways? How...

^A Or how is it that at the same time, among us, women for the most part conceive and bring forth, and when they have given birth to twins, they preserve both infants, with no star compelling them to kill them, or dash them against the ground, or cause them to dissolve into the earth, like the Amazons—who, rather than their miserable offspring, would have their own necks offered up for their slaughter, desiring to be torn asunder themselves rather than that their suckling infants should be severed from life?

But if Mercury, as you say, when he is in his own mansions with Venus, creates molders, painters, and money-changers; and in the mansions of Venus, perfumers, singers, mimes, and poets: ^B how does it come to pass that among the Elians and Saracens, and those in upper Libya, and the Moors who dwell near the shores and banks of the Ocean river, and in further Germany, and in upper Sarmatia, and in Scythia, and among all the nations that are far distant from the Pontus, there cannot be found a money-changer, or a molder, or a painter, or an architect, or a singer, or an actor of poems, as there are among us? Why did not Mercury and Venus grant it even to those born there, so that they might attain those exercises of arts and customs which do not exist among them? The Medes ^C all, with eagerness, cast the sick while they are still breathing to dogs as food, without any pity. Did these Medes, then, together with the Moon, obtain Mars in Cancer at their diurnal nativity, as you are accustomed to speak? The Indians reduce the corpses of their dead to ashes with fire, and with them they burn the wives of some. Yet, surely, not all the burnt wives of the Indians, or those surviving, obtained at the time of their parents' nocturnal intercourse, with Mars, the Sun, which does not shine by night in the parts of Mars. Many of the Germans deprive themselves of life by hanging; yet it is not the case that the greater part of the Germans have the Moon and the hour intercepted by Saturn and Mars. ^D But if men born in every nation, whether by day or by night, will not be better or worse according to the conjunction of the stars, as you say, but in every country certain laws and ancestral customs prevail, from which we all learn what is our own right and what we all ought to do—for not even by your opinion can *genesis* compel the Seres to kill, or the Brahmans to eat meat and drink strong drink, or the Persians not to marry their mothers and violate their sisters, or the Indians not to deliver their dead to fire, or the Medes not to deliver the dying to dogs, or the Parthians not to contract many marriages, or the Mesopotamians to be very temperate, or the Greeks to be occupied with exercising their bodies, or the barbarian nations to wish to have commerce with those things which are proclaimed by the Greeks; but, as I said already, each mortal uses the freedom of the law, putting aside the things fabled to come from the stars according to the Greeks, being restrained from base things by the fear of the laws, or by the ancestral custom of the nation, for the virtues are voluntary.

^A For some virtues come from the choice of free will, while others come from the circumstances of one who, compelled by necessity, approaches the better course, inasmuch as the laws thus demand.

INTERROGATION CX

But since there are seven stars assigned to our birth, we say that the earth is divided into seven climates, and that each climate is governed by one of these stars, and that those who are governed by them are led and perfected by their conjunctions; this efficiency some call destiny.

Response

If the world is divided into seven regions, how is it that we find many and diverse laws in one and the same part? Or rather, not only seven according to the number of the stars, nor twelve according to the signs of the zodiac, nor again thirty-six according to the decans, but countless laws are mentioned, which were changed long ago, and others which prevail now. ^B And how do we see in the same section the man-eating Indians dwelling alongside the Brahmins, who abstain from all animal flesh and slaughter? How is it that the Babylonians—wherever they may be—indulge in the unholy marriages of their own kin? Or how is it that in another section of the same tract, there exist the Sclaveni and Physonitae (who are also called Danubians), of whom some gladly consume the breasts of women, because they are full of milk, dashing their infants against stones like mice; while others abstain even from the legitimate and irreprehensible eating of meat? And some of them are headstrong, living by their own law, without any ruler, constantly killing or eating with and traveling with their own leader and prince, eating foxes and wild cats and pigs, and provoking themselves with the howling of wolves; while others abstain from gluttony, and are subject and obedient to whatever prince they have?

And much is said about the Lombards, ^C and the Norici, and the western Gauls, as being ignorant of the Mercurial and Saturnian science of the stars. How many kings and princes have abolished badly established laws, themselves enacting what they saw fit! Or, on the other hand, have the opposite party rejected better ones, hindered by no star in the decrees that pleased them? But I shall bring forward one point which will stop the mouths of all the incredulous as if with a blow: All Jews, having received the law which Moses brought, bleed every male child born to them, capable of reason, by circumcising him on the eighth day. From the beginning, however, no Greek or Christian has received circumcision, although very many Jews and Greeks and Christians have been born in the same months and weeks and days and hours. Therefore, Mars does nothing, nor Mercury, nor Venus, nor the rest of the Greek fable, as one circle encompasses all things, ^D and no one is constrained by force by the stars.

Were Greeks or Jews or Christians cast into the maternal womb on the same day or hour, and at the same time brought into the light? How then did most of them join ^A Christ, having renounced their ancestral error, when the star ruling the terrestrial portion could not hinder them from true piety toward God?

Interrogation CXI.

But for us, while we speak of the stars, the discourse is not about faith, but about character and conduct and the action dependent thereon, and furthermore about the constitution of the body. For those whose birth is under Aries have curly hair, are graceful and magnanimous, because Aries performs the office of a prince: they also have the election of free will, inasmuch as Aries, too, can be shorn of his wool without pain, and is again clothed by nature. He who is subject to Taurus is miserable and servile; for the bull is under the yoke. He who is under Scorpio is a striker, because of the resemblance taken from those beasts. For he who is under Libra is just, because of the equality of our scales.

Response.

O Gentile madness! For what could be more ridiculous than these things? For the Aries from which they foolishly trace the birth of man is the twelfth part of the heaven, in which the sun, moving, enters the vernal signs. But Libra, and Taurus, and Scorpio, and likewise any one of these, is a twelfth portion and part of the heaven in the circle which they call the Zodiac. How, then, do they say that antecedent causes for mortals exist thence, while their characters are designated ^B for them from those things which bleat among us? For the ram is an animal easy to share with, not because that part of the heaven is the producer of such a character, but because the sheep received such a nature from the Creator. And you strive to show our birth from the stars, but attempt to persuade through bleatings. If indeed the heaven, having taken the origins of such characters from these animals, is itself also entirely subject to alien powers, namely to the powers of the stars—but the stars [are subject] to the animals, having causes hanging from them—if this is ridiculous, it will be more ridiculous to wish to introduce probability regarding what is said of birth from things which have nothing in common with one another. For how are the aspects of the stars mutated innumerably each day? For the planets, as they are, are called "always mobile." And some indeed overtake each other more quickly, ^C while others perform their periods at the same hour more slowly. Sometimes also looking at each other, they are soon hidden. But if good and evil exist in them by nature, the cause of evil is entirely referred by us to the Creator. But if they are moved by the election of free will, first of all they will be animals endowed with free will, loosened and free

^A from the impulses of power: which is the height of madness and insanity, joined with blasphemy against the Creator and with falsehood regarding inanimate things.

How is it that those who attribute their birth to the Ram are curly-haired, graceful, and endowed with free will and wealth? We see many, indeed, with curly hair who are nonetheless blind and by no means wealthy, nor endowed with free will, but are instead reckless, indigent, filthy, and tattered beggars, moving from door to door for the sake of daily bread. How is it that those who are bald, or have straight hair, or have dim vision have the opposite: wealth, abundance, and ^B peace, rarely gathering with their own kin? How many times in the day or night do the configurations of royal births occur! Why, then, are kings not born at every moment? Or how is it that paternal successions to the kingdom proceed for them? It is not, surely, that every king can observe the royal configuration of the stars through the marital union so as to adapt it to his son; for no one is master of such a thing. How, then, did King Uzziah beget King Jotham, Jotham beget Ahaz, Ahaz beget Hezekiah, and he beget Manasseh, and he Amon, and he Josiah, and he Jehoahaz, each king begetting a king? And not one of them happened to be born at an ignoble hour.

Furthermore, if the principles of actions concerning vice and virtue do not derive from what is within our power, but from the necessities of birth, then legislators are superfluous who define for us what is to be sought and what is to be avoided; superfluous, too, are the judges who honor virtue ^C and punish vice. For the injury is not that of the thief or the murderer, who are not even able, if they wish, to restrain their hand, due to the astronomy that urges them toward these deeds and the necessity imposed upon them by fate.

I shall indeed refute them also from the change in universal affairs. For before the arrival of the God-man, when all nations were mad after idols and were reveling in every manner of impiety, after the arrival of the God-man, through the preaching of the Gospel, there was a migration toward piety; error was cast aside, and virtue was held in honor, while the aspect and position of the same stars remained unchanged, with Greeks, Jews, and most nations turning and being joined to Christ. Where, then, are those stars that previously compelled them to bow down to idols? ^D Where do those lie hidden that now draw them toward piety? If, however, there has been neither the subtraction nor addition of any region of the stars, they will acknowledge against their will that virtue or vice is not instilled or determined in the living by any fate or necessity, but that each one, by the election of his own free will, moves toward what he has chosen. This is what the lofty Isaiah clearly indicates, crying out openly in the person of

God: "If you are willing and obey me, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and do not obey me, the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things" (Isa. 1, 19-20). And the Lord Himself, preaching in the Gospels, says: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often I have desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" (Matth. 23, 37). He refers the things to be followed or avoided to the will of each individual, and not to the necessity of fate or to the law of the stars. For He would not consider us to be sinners if we were subject to their snares. ^A

INTERROGATION CXII. But if men are affected neither by benefit nor by injury from the stars, how does the Gospel call those who are epileptic, foaming and lacerating themselves, "lunatics"?

Response. He calls them "lunatics" according to the common opinion of many, who are unable to hear what is higher. For since vain men used to offer worship to the moon, the sun, and the stars, He, wishing to recall them from such a pernicious opinion, indicates even the moon as the cause of those possessed by demons, so that those who pray to it might become more languid and recoil from its worship. ^B For Christ, the architect of the universe, did not construct the luminaries to the ruin of mortals; rather, an unclean spirit, observing such an appearance in them, brought it forward in order to seduce some, so that shifting and imprudent mortals might go of their own accord to jugglers and to those who seem to be "nurtured by Jove," as if through the occasion of incantations and the hope of alleviating evil. But we often see dogs rush upon us in secret; yet we do not say that the moon is the cause of the bite or of the animal's movement. And often a servant, when the moon is full, rises to flee, and uses its light as a help for swiftness. Shall we therefore call the moon the cause of the fugitive's rashness? Likewise, an effeminate man, fearing the darkness of night, is often compelled to sleep at home; yet when the moon is shining at night, he rushes all the faster to the brothel, prancing like a horse, neighing, and running, coming happily to the prostitute. Shall we therefore say that the moon, which illuminates the lands subjected to heaven at the divine command, is the cause of an evil journey? ^C Restrain yourself, I pray, from this lunatic madness: for demons are accustomed to easily sow into the minds of those who are easily captured, so that they may assert not only that the luminaries are the causes of evils, but also calumniate the Creator Himself as the maker of evil and destructive things. Those who put their faith in these do not worship God but ashes in the parricide—he who destroyed his own children and his own marriage, and was destroyed in a tomb among the Cretans—which is not God. ^D

^A And not content with this, those impious and vain men even counted the children born of him among the gods; in Hermopolis, Mercury—whose obscenities cannot be recounted in speech—reduced to dust; in Cyprus, Venus, lying in a tomb of dung; and in Thrace, Mars, so-named from the curse—from whom, as from an unruly Esau, Dionysius the Areopagite arose, having become a disciple of the divine apostles. ^B Beside the Caucasian mountains, Saturn—or rather an ass, worshipped by asses—braying and roaring against the Gentiles themselves. In Thebes, Bacchus, an incurable and foul-smelling disease of both soul and body to those who worship him. In Tyre, Hercules—or rather an abominable one, consumed by fire on account of his wickedness—is deified by the impious. In Epidaurus, Asclepius, a child in his intellect, was called god by those even more childish and senseless. The Syrians, those base-born swarms—a name that suits them—impiously deified Adonis, the namesake of Hades; the Egyptians, the creeping and earth-bound Osiris; the wretched Elians, Hector, who is not even as good as a cock. Those on the island of Leuce, Icachus Achilles. The Pontians deified the parricide Patroclus. The Rhodians, the reckless warrior Macedonian, and others deify others—they worship dust lying in a grave, acting altogether impiously; for none of them finished his life in God. ^C It is not the present time to enumerate the madness of those who wish to hear such trifles; let whoever desires to hear their fables seek out Orpheus and Hesiod, and grant me the grace to remain silent for the rest.

INTERROGATION CXIII

I do not argue against you as if defending the Greeks, Father, but I wish to be armed against them by your great depth of learning. How then do you say that nothing happens by chance, nor outside of the divine power? Behold, the rainbow appears, having a precise circumference and equal on all sides, of a kind that in truth no mind can describe—and yet we see it being formed by no one, but coming into existence automatically.

^D

Response

The constitution of the rainbow cannot introduce chance. For, upon the likeness of the firmament, it is stretched out like a scarlet thread upon a disk. For even if a mind that creates its own forms exists, yet the one who fashioned the rainbow...

^A created it as an intelligible thing, intending to spread forth or weave together the things he chooses. For lead or wax or copper, melted by fire and poured into a mold—and from this the shape is impressed, becoming what the craftsman envisioned—does not seem to have come into existence by random chance, when it has been brought to the desired effect by the hand of the craftsman through the mold. In this very way, let the constitution of the rainbow be understood during more intense rainstorms, as if given to the world as a sign of fearlessness, that the things under heaven will not again be submerged and swept away by waters. For, says God, "I will set my bow in my cloud as a sign for you." The sun, then, like a cupping-glass, draws the moisture from the clouds by the discharge of its rays, as if from some body, and carries the rain upward like a certain stream that is borne above its foundations. The rainbow is triform: part red, part blue, and part, like ^B green grass, signifying peace, and wisdom, and power, and that the Word, and the God of all things, comes into the world in blood, and water, and spirit: by water, washing every creature from filth through the streams of the Jordan; and by the divine Spirit, drowning the intelligible giants. But after the drowning and washing away of the idols and demons on earth, the sign of salvation given to us through blood is the true rainbow and peace of God and the Word, who was, as it were, stretched out in the flesh in a figure beforehand, just as he is now an evident sign of propitiation and security, having become for us a protection against the flood of the demons, drawing us to himself out of their storm, saying: "When I am lifted up from the earth" (on the cross, clearly), "I will draw all men to myself." And again he says: "Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon all the power of the enemy." And that there are three witnesses of this, says the sublime John, "the blood, and the water, and the spirit; and these three are one." For around the ninth hour, Jesus, having cried out, gave up the spirit of his soul; for the divine was united to the inanimate body, and ^C likewise it was tempered with the indwelling soul. For if the airy spirit is present in both, much more would the divine be present in each part, existing as indivisible and without quantity. And when a spear pierced his side, "There came out blood and water; and he who saw has borne witness, and his testimony is true," says the sublime John. Blood and water flow from this divine and perennial fountain because of Pilate who judged him, and the others crying out: "Away with him, away with him, crucify him." For Pilate indeed was removing from himself the blood of the Lord's death; but the Jews, bringing upon themselves the condemnation that would follow from it, were crying out: "His blood be upon us and upon our children." Which we also say with distinct love, though not with the same disposition as them; for they looked upon him as a man, who is worshiped ^D by us as the God of all things; just as the wise physicians cut off the stream that is borne from the head to the eyes, through the rainbow of the waters'

' infusion, stretched out like a certain form in the sun beneath, gathering the clouds through its rays like a cupping-glass, and drying up the water-bearing veins as if with a hot cautery.

^A INTERROGATIO CXIV. You said that the primordial darkness was brought about by the separation of the celestial body, and this is rightly said. But how do we see night occurring spontaneously, not expressed by any form?

Responsio. I gave the explanation concerning night above, and now, employing an obscure similitude, I will demonstrate that it did not come into being by chance, nor outside the divine hand. For just as towers are raised by builders, and carved or cast objects are polished by the hand of a craftsman, but their shadows are not of a nature to be made by the craftsman, but are produced by the things made by them: if, therefore, some things come to exist alongside others as an expression of a certain form, yet those forms have been made by the hand of the craftsman from the beginning. Therefore, night also does not exist in and of itself, but is a shadow of the earth, as I will demonstrate a little later, for the time now presses us toward the divine celebration of the mysteries, and the holy assembly awaits us.

DIALOGUE III.

INTERROGATIO CXV. Because time pressed us more than was fitting yesterday, today grant us the leftovers of that table, explaining to us more broadly the matters concerning night, and why the primordial day is not called "first" in the Scriptures, but "one": a thing which seems to me inconsistent with the days that followed. For if the second and third are named after it, it would have been more consistent that it, being the starting point of them, should be called "first" and not "one."

Responsio. The author of the history calls the day with the night "one day," assigning the pre-eminence of the whole interval of twenty-four hours to the more dominant part. For so the divine Scripture is wont to speak in many places, counting days in the reckoning of time, but not nights. Do you hear what that author of divine hymns says: "The days of our years in them are seventy years." Before him, moreover, Jacob the patriarch says: "The days of my life are few and evil." Again, the author of the divine hymns says: "And my dwelling shall be in the house of the Lord, for all the days of my life." Not only so, but the divine evan-

- ^A gelist says: "Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany." And the Lord Himself, speaking divinely to His own, says: "You know that after two days the Passover is coming." What has now been handed down in the form of a narrative serves as a law for what follows; for it says: "And there was evening and there was morning, one day." Clearly, before the day existed, there was evening; from evening came night, and from night came morning. There the "one day" is completed, possessing its authority through the twenty-four hours of the one day, with the night being understood as included with the day in the span of the twenty-four hours. Wherefore, even at the time of the summer solstices of the sun, which they call turnings, the day exceeds the night in its intervals. But at the time appointed for the equinox, it is absolutely required that both be equal, each taking from the other what is lacking. But also the appearance of the heavens, when it returns again to the same constitution, is deservedly called "one day," just as it is accustomed to happen on the earth, that the time between one yield of flowers and another is called a year. Wherefore, as often as evening and morning occupy the world according to the circuit of the sun, it signifies—in a time no greater than the space of one day—the day joined with the night, and the return of the luminaries to their former constitution. Or rather, it seems to me that more credence should be given to that reasoning which is delivered in secret: namely, that God, who made the nature of time, ordained in its measures and signs the intervals of the days; and measuring it out by the week, He commands the week always to revolve into itself, thus numbering the motion of time, just as the week is again filled by the days, revolved seven times into itself. This, however, is a circular figure, starting from itself and ending in itself; which is, of course, also proper to the age ^B and returns into itself, nowhere terminated. For this reason He named the head of time not "first" among the days, but "one," that by this very name it might have a kinship with the age. For since it shows us a mark of unity, and of that which is without communion with another, it was properly and conveniently called "one," seeing that it revolves in itself and into itself through every age.

INTERROGATION CXVI

And in what way does Holy Scripture, demonstrating that there are many ages, call them "ages of ages"? David says at the end of the psalm: "Confess to the Lord of heaven, for His mercy is unto all ages"? And the same again: "I will exalt Thee, O my God, my King, and I will bless Thy name unto the age, and unto the age of the age"? Behold three ages in the one hundred and forty-fourth psalm. But also in those things which are spoken by the sacred ministers, offering thanksgiving to God and attributing dominion over all, we hear these words being uttered: "Dominion and kingdom and power."

and the glory of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen."

^B Response. But we are not taught by these words to number many ages, but rather [to note] the changes of things and states, not the circumscriptions and limits or successions of ages. "For the day of the Lord is great and illustrious," says the prophet; and again, "Why do you seek the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light"—darkness, that is, for those who deserve it, since we know that that day is without evening or succession; the day which the singer of divine songs also called "the eighth," marking his own psalms, "For the eighth" (Ps. VI, 1; XI, 1). He inscribes another psalm: "For her who receives the inheritance" (Ps. V, 1), as if this day alone were the heir of the remaining days, crowned with the sovereignty over all things through infinite and indivisible stretches of time, for the reason that it is superior to and situated outside of this seven-day cycle. So whether I call it a day or an age, I mean the same concept. For whether it be a day, it will be one and not many; or if it be called an age, it will be unique and without end. Therefore, leading our intellect toward the future life, Moses the hierophant wrote of one day as the image of the whole of eternity: the firstfruit of days, contemporary with light, that divine and venerable Lord's Day [Sunday], which is ^C honored by the resurrection of the Lord.

INTERROGATION CXVII. How do some claim that the moon is drawn down from heaven by spells and sorcery? ^D The greatest part of the human race, persuaded and captivated by this rumor, believe that by beating iron and bronze, they are delivering her from her wandering by that clamor, as if she were in a state of ecstasy.

Response. Certain ridiculous myths have been spread everywhere by dreaming old women, the delirium of which is that the moon can be moved from her proper seat by certain impostures, and brought down to the earth itself, and touched. This seems to me to be full of all absurdity and the utmost madness, which that author of divine songs refutes when he sings: "The moon and the stars which Thou hast founded" (Ps. VIII, 4). But what place, I ask, ever received her when dragged down? By an image of small scale, I shall demonstrate her magnitude to those empty-headed men. The cities that are throughout the world, though separated from one another by a great distance according to the eastern and western regions, and divided by different intersections of roads and elevated places, nevertheless all equally receive the lunar light. That which suffices for the wise is that she is turned toward all cities and is of immense magnitude. For unless the matter were so ordered, she would certainly illuminate only those beneath her; but to those whose breadth she overshoots, she would cast rays at an angle, running past them through the slanted paths.

^C Nevertheless, these matters concerning the moon will be clarified in another way. If, therefore, you have ever looked down from a high mountain peak upon an extensive, level plain, how large to you did the yokes of oxen appear? How large the plowmen, or the herdsman with his thousand-head cattle-herd, or the ten-thousand-fold flock bleating in the marsh? How large the herd of horses, prancing and leaping in the meadows? Did they not seem to you slighter than ants? Or if, from a watchtower or some hill turned toward a vast sea, you cast your eyes down upon the ocean, how large did the greatest islands appear to you? How large did some cargo ship, laden with infinite merchandise, appear, sailing with white sails over the blue sea? Did it not present to you a shape and appearance slighter than any pigeon, as the view was consumed in the air and vanished due to the distance, which prevents the eye from comprehending it accurately? Likewise, in certain places there are very large mountains, which are encompassed in their depths by valleys and surrounded by the channels of torrents; since the light and fleeting gaze is directed to their summits, it touches only the surface, being unable, because of its weakness, to penetrate and observe the hollows lying between. Do not even square towers, reaching the clouds in height, seem to many, by reason of the distance, low and round? Therefore, if the lunar body were not exceedingly large, it would not be seen by everyone everywhere with a similar light; nor would it, being no less in breadth than the entire earth, simultaneously manifest itself to those sailing far away on the sea, providing a view of its size and shining with its rays.

INTERROGATION CXVIII. What, then, is the meaning of it often becoming blood-colored, and changing and scattering? Response. By this appearance, I believe that warlike bloodshed is signified, or that its light and splendor are rendered turbid by the carriage of the air darkened from the earth, and its appearance is changed by this dust, until, having moved forward, it escapes the dusty and smoky place; for the earth is partly rich and thick, partly burnt and ash-colored, and in some places it is finally thicker and heavier. Hence it seems that the moon, surrounded by dust, is changed. We often see that the exhalation of smoke, or excessive dust, obscures something among us, and a storm or mist dulls the solar rays. Or rather, the cause of all these things is most evident: for since she is the sister of the sun, and daughter of the same mother, Wisdom—that is, Christ—she does not bear the insults heaped upon Him by the impious; just as the sun also demonstrated in his daily course, punishing with darkness the insane phalanx of the Jews who were killing God, and fleeing by the contraction of his rays, so as not to behold his Creator nailed to the wood ^D

^A. This, it seems to me, is what is seen to occur by the moon, imitating her brother in her nocturnal course, while imposters go to tombs and altars, and there are perpetrated massacres and slaughters of children and dissections of their own bowels, with the blood of which, while the livers are yet palpitating, the impious parricides are defiled. Describing their impiety not inappropriately ^B in tragic terms, that divine David says: "And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan." And after other things, indicating the harvest of that sowing, he says: "And the Lord was angered with fury against his people, and he abhorred his inheritance." Since, therefore, even now many, shrouded in the darkness of the Greeks, and secretly submitting to the error of their ancestors, practice the ancient slaughter of minds in the hills or tombs or monuments by night, honoring the demons with odors and blood, whom they even worship as suppliants at home, therefore the moon, though she does not let herself fall, yet boils with grief, shudders, and hides herself, putting on a cloud, and, following her brother's example, disdains to bestow her splendor upon the unworthy, from heaven as if from some watchtower or lofty place, by that very change of herself crying out and, by the darkness, punishing and restraining the murderers from their impious crime.

INTERROGATION CXIX

If the Son of God is not unequal to God and the Father, but equal in all things and of the same honor and of the same nature, how does he himself say: "I am the vine, and my Father is the husbandman"? For the nature of the husbandman and the vine is not ^C the same; for the one is rational and animate, while the other is irrational and inanimate.

Response.

I do not commend your unstable shrewdness, which often wanders outside the matters at hand, and distracts me with strange questions. And if you do this intentionally, recognize that I observe it. But if you simply bring forth what occurs to your mind, know that I grant you pardon, which you in turn kindly grant to me. The dogmas of the Christians are certainly held and supported by faith, and not by syllogisms, through which the majority have lost their wits. For were Paul and Apollos of a different nature ^D with respect to the Church? For that Apostle, endowed with high intelligence, writes to that holy assembly of the Church: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." Was then the Church therefore inanimate and irrational, being planted by Paul and watered by Apollos through the irrigation and planting of the commandments?

INTERROGATION CXX

Why did God deliver Job to the devil, while he himself bears witness to his justice and his true

^A and irreproachable way of life? And grant pardon for an interrogatory that does not cohere with the preceding ones. For I do not do this for the sake of tempting.

Response. He did not deliver him, but what was his; he did not hand him over, but permitted it, exercising Job toward fortitude, and by things of the mire drawing away from the temptation of the just man the adversary who is without flesh. ^A

INTERROGATION CXXI You have spoken rightly: that not he himself, but what was his, was handed over. What then? Was he not himself the one who was being perforated by worms, and consumed by them, and scraping off the ichor with a potsherd?

Response. The soul was not harmed in the least by the bodily wounds; nor, though they perforated the vessel, could the worms attack the treasure stored within. For Job was not the body, but Job was the very power of the mind partaking of reason; Job's was the body, and the body's were the things from the earth kindred to it. For if the rational soul is capable of mind and knowledge, being rational and receptive, while the non-rational is without senses and muddy; yet, because of the commixture of these different kinds of things and their union, a mortal is rightly called a rational animal. God therefore permits the outer ^B things to the enemy, in order that all the inner things might be known—the scepters of the King, obscuring with their own brightness the visible purple and diadem. For he reigned alone over the land of the Ausites before the tabernacles of his flesh were perforated by the reptiles, and the inhabited world was illuminated by the endurance manifested therein. The vigorous virtue of the man is therefore stripped bare, when the enemy thought he was marvelously delighted by the abundance of his possessions, and that by the care of those things, as if by flattery, he would utter an insult against God. Wherefore, he demands his possessions, and after he had despoiled him of them and had missed his mark, he shakes [the house] with his dearest children celebrating a feast with him, having suddenly made the table a tumultuous tomb for them. But [having failed] in the deed, and having thus also been driven back with shame, he brings other engines of war against the divine city, whose citizens are thoughts, again advancing into battle against the enemy. For after the devil had despoiled the just man of everything, and had not bent him toward blasphemy (for this was the one thing he was studying to achieve), he then demands him himself, and says to God: "Stretch forth thy hand, and touch his flesh and his bones, see if he will not bless thee to thy face, or rather, blaspheme." ^C But God, who searches the hearts, trusting in the just man, and removing every attempt or pretext of mercy, lest it be thought that the just man was to be touched sparingly by the devil—and at the same time trusting in his own athlete, and reproaching his opponent, as one who, flesh and blood as he is, is being defeated by him who is without flesh, the one who boasts and says: "By my strength I will act, and by my power I will take away the boundaries of nations, and I will encompass the whole world, and I will see how"

^A one who is altogether and entirely devoid of flesh, and who boasts and says: "By my strength I will act, and by my power I will take away the boundaries of nations, and I will encompass the whole world, and I will take them as if they were abandoned eggs. I will ascend above the stars, I will place my throne above the clouds, and I will be like the Most High." ^B God, as if laughing at his arrogance, says: "What, O miserable devil, are you boasting about? Behold, here is one of my servants, who is clay-born, dusty, vile by nature, and a mortal man, not an angel (for it would be shameful, surely, for an angel to contend with you, seeing that you are not even superior to the clay). Behold," he says, "I deliver him into your hand, as if he were bound and lying prostrate. See if you can overcome his lofty spirit, by besieging him and piercing him with darts in his flesh." And what follows after this? The arrogant one, having rushed in like a more powerful dart, was driven back ineffectually, as he—who thought himself to be a god—was overcome by flesh and blood. For he was not able, by besieging and striking with his arrows, to capture the divine city of that body, nor any of its citizens, namely [his] thoughts, nor to slay anyone at the gates of his mouth. ^C For in all these things which happened to him, Job did not sin with his lips against the Lord. But being urged by the enemy to blaspheme, he acted in the opposite way, saying: "The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so it came to pass; blessed be the name of the Lord forever." He is not, therefore, betrayed, but is presented as a champion and a teacher of fortitude and of thanksgiving in the adversities of this life.

We know, therefore, four ways of correction. One is brought upon us for sins for the sake of correction ("For many are the scourges of the sinner," ^D says David). Another, however, casts down pride and haughtiness—that is, it suppresses the inflation or swelling of the soul ("For God resists the proud"). Others manifest a latent virtue and fortitude so that those who see them may imitate it. "For no one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel or a bed, but on a lampstand, that it may give light to all who are in the house," says the Lord; as if saying: "For this reason, like a torch, I kindled Job, and I placed him outside the city on a dunghill-lampstand, so that he might shine upon all who are in the world." Finally, another correction is to be entirely forsaken by God on account of extreme wickedness and ungodliness, in which no good whatever is mixed, which happened to Pharaoh, and to Nabuchodonosor, and to Judas, in that they were delivered to destruction on account of their unconvertible malice. "For I will turn my face from them and I will show what shall be with them in the end," says God through the tongue of Moses. But as for Nabuchodonosor, who was set upright by discipline and became sober from his drunkenness, God—who had been rejected by him—does not reject him, but again restored the kingdom to him, gladdening him with purple and a diadem.

INTERROGATION CXXII

the Savior. Others say only six hours; and therefore at the sixth hour the Savior was crucified. Others assert forty days, which he spent in paradise and passed in delights, from whence he was expelled on account of the transgression: these they say Christ brought back and compensated for, during which time for forty days He neither ate nor drank, being tempted in the desert by the devil as a man. ^B

Response. As regarding the forty-day period, this I myself have already set forth, and it does not seem to me to be unlikely. For, imitating this, our holy assembly of the Church, once throughout the whole cycle of the year, fasts with the most severe abstention from both food and worldly things, yearning with the greatest desire for the ancient homeland of paradise and the life that is yearned for there. For Christ submitted Himself to pay off all the debts of our first parent. Since that one was not obedient to the word, in turn this one obeyed even unto the cross and death. That one, tempted through Eve, who had already been overcome by the tempter, tasted of the forbidden things; this one, being tempted, fasts, compensating for the forty days passed in paradise by our first parent Adam, and reviving want in the place of luxury. That one, desiring to become God, and frustrated by his hope, was changed and even lost what he was before, having become mortal from immortal, and condemned from blessed; this one, for his sake, becomes mortal, remaining God, not changed in the manner of his nature, nor having become another in the manner of his divinity. That one was expelled from paradise into this wretched and laborious place; this one, for his sake, having descended from the heavens, assumes his life, dwelling in this dark and obscure cave in place of the unapproachable light; surrounded by irrational animals in place of intellectual and rational beings; carried in the arms of a woman, holy indeed, undefiled, and ever-virgin, but of our common nature, in place of the powers of all ^C by which he was sustained; in place of angelic hymns and canticles, sought out with calumnies, as if he possessed a demon, and as if he cast out demons through the prince of demons, and misled the crowds; while otherwise celebrated by the children of the Hebrews, crying out: *Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord*. In place of the virgin Eve, he raised up the holy ever-virgin as his mother; in place of her punishment, he sent salvation to her through his own servant Gabriel, healing in her what she had sinned. In place of the tree of transgression, he fixed the tree of resurrection in the midst of the earth, his own saving cross. Just as he says, David, the author of the divine songs: *But our God for ages before [us] worked salvation in the midst of the earth*; in place of that death-bearing food, not by nature but by transgression, uniting His own divine nature with our own, He is set before [us] as life-giving food, hanging in the midst of the air, partaken of by all, and yet remaining the same indivisible [God], He who was judged on behalf of the condemned voluntarily, as God and man the same. Just as, therefore, he was fed with gall and is watered with vinegar, on behalf of the consumption of Adam ^D

^A which he had taken, while he who was man in the divine nature paid back Adam’s debt: so it seems to me that these forty days are repaid for the same number of days. But I prefer to accept regarding the number of their six days [of creation] and my forty days, the explanation that has come down to us from certain not obscure elders on this matter, the foundation of which rests on the words of the exalted Apostle, that our first parent lived happily in paradise for a longer period of time. For in his own person the divine Apostle cries out explicitly: "I was alive without the law once." Paul was certainly not before the law, who was the last of all the disciples of the law, nor was he, or did he become, ever without this law. For even in preaching the Gospel he brings forward legal testimonies everywhere; but mourning in the person of Adam, he says, "I was alive without the law once." He shows more clearly ^B that he is bringing these things forward in the person of Adam, when, to illustrate the understanding of these words, he no longer calls it the law, but a commandment, which had been given to Adam, adding as it were: "When the commandment came"—that is, as if to say, when it was given—"sin revived, and I died," namely, by the fall from the blessed life through disobedience. From which it is evident that the commandment was not given to Adam immediately as soon as he was created, but after some time, which, however, we do not have defined in the least.

Regarding the commandment given in paradise to Adam by God

The commandment given to Adam in paradise by God concerned the partaking of every tree and abstinence from the tree that was forbidden. This is that tree which includes every good, the name of which is "the all" [or "every"]. This is that which is truly good, of which David says, "Delight in the Lord." Solomon also calls Wisdom, which is the Lord, the tree of life. Thus, it is the same thing, the tree of life and the "every tree," of which God encourages the eating. ^C But he distinguishes from this another tree, the eating of which is not exclusively of good or of evil, but is mixed; the Author of life forbids it, but the serpent advises it, in order that he might provide an entrance for death. The fruit of the forbidden tree is mixed through opposites for this reason: because the evil does not lie before us naked, appearing according to its own nature—for malice would be ineffective if it were not colored by some good that draws the one being deceived toward a desire for it. Now, however, it is mixed, having hidden destruction in its depth, but in its apparent part exhibiting a certain semblance of good. Thus, sins, having corruption hidden within ^D themselves, become chosen by the thoughtless, being eagerly sought as if they were good because of the deception; and many of the things that exhilarate the senses are classified among the good things, due to the communion of the name, both of that which is truly good and of that which is thought to be good. Which

is why ^A desire, when directed toward evil as toward good, was termed the knowledge of good and evil: it is neither absolutely evil, because it is adorned with the good, nor purely good, because evil is hidden beneath it. For what is truly good is simple, but evil is various, thought to be one thing while being discovered by experience to be another. For this reason the serpent showed the wicked fruit of sin, not by displaying the evil as it was by nature; for the man would not have been deceived by an obvious evil. But by adorning the appearance with a certain brilliance, he appeared persuasive to the woman. And the woman saw, he says, that the tree was good for food. Yet if that eating became the mother of death, that tree was thus named the knowledge of good and evil in the way that poisons are, which are blended with honey: in so far as it sweetens the sense, it seems to be good; but in so far as it destroys the one who touches and partakes of it, it becomes the most extreme of all evils.

QUESTION CXXIII.

Response.

miserable woman to eat what was forbidden, and through her he captures the man, who craved both forms of divinity. Having then stripped them even of what they possessed, namely immortality, incorruptibility, and beatitude, that enemy of God and murderer of men truly comes to life again, and straightway accuses before God the man who had transgressed. Now Moses, that spectator of ^A God and divine legislator, sets forth the very words of the devil's calumny, describing that deceitful one in a tragic manner. For the devil uses these words to accuse Adam before God: "And Jacob ate and was filled, and the beloved one kicked." For he grew fat, he says, and grew thick and wide, and he abandoned God who made him, and departed from God his savior. For he did this same thing to the descendants of Jacob, when he had bent them toward the satiety of the flesh and drunkenness, and thereafter precipitated them into idolatry: concerning whom Moses, when he had armed the Levites, mowed down twenty-three thousand Jacobites in one day in the desert like grass. Nevertheless, God, the lover of mankind, being nowise changed toward him who had been accused, came to us to capture the enemy, being truly born in the form of him who ^B had been deceived, and in order not to give the enemy an opportunity to say, "I am a mortal who, while warring against mortals, have been overcome by God," He Himself becomes mortal, remaining God, and comes to do battle on behalf of mortal men. This is what David, that singer of divine things, had already prophesied five hundred years before: "Blessed," he says, "is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Who is this, O divine one? "God is the Lord, and he has appeared to us." And for the sake of whom does God become mortal, O David? To destroy, he says, the enemy and exactor, the devil. For he brings accusations about everything to God, and to others he brings accusations about Him, and to both parties he suggests revenge. This he does maliciously in both directions regarding Job and God. To God he says: ^C "Does Job worship God for nothing, or is he cherished and does he live in luxury amidst much possession of wealth?" And to Job he says: "Fire fell from heaven and consumed all your possessions." And again he says to God: "Nay, but send forth your hand and touch his bones and his flesh." And again to Job, through his life-partner: "How long will you persevere out in the open on the dunghill? But say some word to the Lord, and die, that you may be delivered from the evils that beset you." The Lord, therefore, removing this enemy and exactor through His theandric advent, says: "Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy."

INTERROGATION CXXIV. If the Lord has removed the enemy, who is it that wars against each of us, and involves us in unforeseen temptations and sins?

Response. But although He was able to effect his complete extinction and removal, He did not wish to ^D do so, on account of the (The remainder of the line is a continuation of the scholarly apparatus and is therefore omitted).

future eternal life, if there were not here some adversary for us, against whom we might contend, as in the stadium of the present life, that in the time of remuneration we might obtain crowns. But after striking the head of the dragon, He put to death the entire train that is trailed after him, at least leaving some faint movement in it, for our exercise and the demonstration of virtue. For oftentimes we too, having struck the head of the serpent, leave the trailing length of the body to be struck by the children, at once teaching them to be bold and eager against wild beasts. ^B For not even against swine do demons have power, just as the holy Scripture of the Gospel teaches. For before the divine permission of Christ, they did not dare to touch the herd of the swine of the Gergeseans. But the Lord permits them, not that they should submerge the herd together with the swineherds, but that, leaving these aside so that they might be able to take to flight, they should enter into the brute beasts: evidently teaching us that, unless we were guarded by His divine and all-encompassing power, the demons would be disposed toward us—who sail dangerously on the sea of this life—in a manner similar to, or even worse than, they were toward the swine.

INTERROGATION CXXV.

Response.

^A, and would soon reign, and prophesy many things concerning himself. He foreknew the holy assembly ^B of apostles, prophets, martyrs, teachers, and the rest of the Church that would germinate from him; and, to speak concisely, it was not fitting that because of the sloth and defection of one man, the stadium should be closed to all, the contests abolished, fortitude hidden, and the prizes remain idle.

INTERROGATION CXXVI. How is it that, when the Savior says, "As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he wills," ^C when he came to Lazarus he did not raise him by his own authority, but invokes the Father, saying, "Father, glorify thy Son," and thus calls Lazarus back from the dead?

Response. None of these things takes away from him any power or authority. For he says, "Because of the crowd standing by, I said it, that they might believe." But what does he add further? "That thy Son also may glorify thee?" Does the Father then stand in need of glory that he might receive it from the Son? By no means; but the Father glorified the Son, and the Son the Father, manifesting to us their mutual consent and equality of glory. How, then, when the Son does all things with absolute authority in greater matters, does he in lesser matters require, as you say, paternal permission or help? For when punishing and bestowing benefits, he nowhere invokes the Father. For: "Come," he says, "you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." ^D To the other part: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire." To the paralytic he says: "Arise, take up your pallet, and go to your house." In another place again: "I say to you, young man, arise from the dead." Similarly, to the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue who had died he says: "Maiden, arise." To the leper, who from head to foot was covered with ulcers, he said, stretching out his hand: "I will; be made clean"; and immediately the disease flees, driven away by the divine will. Rebuking, he says: "I say to you, evil demon, come out of him." He subdues again with a rebuke the swelling abyss. And condemning cities along with the men, he says with authority: "Woe to you, Chorazin, woe to you, Bethsaida, and you, Capernaum, which are exalted to heaven, shall go down to Hades." And destroying the old Jerusalem, he says: "There shall not remain a stone upon a stone in it," which we see has come to pass. How then, in these greater matters, having nowhere invoked the Father or stood in need of strength bestowed by him, should he in lesser matters borrow from the Father, as if on loan, the benefits with which he heals those who suffer? Far be it from you, O most excellent one, to harbor such a thought concerning Christ! For it is not because of a lack of authority or power that he addresses the Father in certain places, but

rather his goal is to teach us humility in all things, to strip away the pride of our arrogance, and to ensure that we do not dare to initiate any action before his governance, but instead make him the beginning of every word and deed.

INTERROGATION CXXVII

Answer

INTERROGATION CXXVIII

^A that he says: "For God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself"? It was not Christ who was doing this, but God inhabiting Him. [Response.]

I, for my part, affirm that Christ is God above all power and dominion, and equal in glory to God and the Father. Nor is His divinity taken away from Him because He is called Lord by the sublime Apostle; nor, again, does the term "God" signify that He was merely inhabited by God, as we are taught from this very passage and from the sublimely inspired Isaiah who preceded him. For the latter, prophesying of Christ long ago, says: "And the men of Seboim, who are eminent, shall pass over unto thee, and shall be thy servants, and shall walk after thee bound in shackles, because God is in thee." And ^B removing the very notion of indwelling, he adds: "And there is no God besides thee; for thou art our God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Savior." And again, the same prophet, years earlier, says: "A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and his name shall be called God the Mighty, the Potentate." And Paul, a man of sublime intellect, says: "Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen."

That He is called Lord does not, as the divine Psalmist David shows, place Him outside the Godhead. For, foretelling in his songs the theandric advent of God the Word in the flesh, he says: "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; God is the Lord, and he hath appeared unto us." Throughout the Old Testament, the inspired prophets call ^C the Father "Lord." Isaiah, that sublime one, says: "Thus saith the Lord Sabaoth." Jeremiah, the man of many trials, says: "Thus saith the Lord Almighty." Ezekiel, that interpreter of the Cherubim, says: "Thus saith the Lord Adonai." And similarly Daniel and the other prophets. For neither does Paul, when he says, "One God the Father," place Him outside of lordship, nor again, when he says, "One Lord Jesus Christ," does he show Him to be outside the Godhead. Nor, again, when the Son himself proclaims, "Upon this rock I will build my Church," does He show the Father to be foreign to the Church. For, He says, "All mine, O Father, are thine, and thine are mine." Indeed, throughout the divine Scriptures, the terms "God" and "Lord" are joined together.

That the divine and most holy Spirit is of the same name and the same glory, we learn from the divine Apostle, who writes the following words: "Now the Lord is that Spirit." To those, then, who are keen-sighted ^D regarding the divine Scripture, it will never appear to disagree or contradict itself, as it sometimes proclaims things more divine, and at other times things more humble, adapting itself to the understanding of the hearer—just as a loving mother raises her children in a manner appropriate to each: feeding those still tender with milk, as it were, and those who have departed from the state of infancy with vegetables, and bringing bread to those who are more perfect. For to both of these the sublime Apostle says: "I have fed you with milk, and not with food, for ye were not yet able to bear it; neither indeed are ye now able." But addressing others, he says: "But the full-grown..."

^A feed on herbs," indicating those whose thoughts are at a middle stage, not being able to be fed with bread like those who are already perfect in their training, on account of the still simple and unstable state of their intellect.

INTERROGATION CXXIX

Response

^A when he stood with Elias the prophet on the summit of the mountain, while Christ was transfigured, so that they themselves think he is still alive and in the flesh, just as Elias was translated—he pricks their inflation and the swelling of their vain opinion regarding this man, showing him to be mortal and of the same nature as us, as if pointing to him with a finger and saying: "Moses is dead," who was mortal; why do you boast, O Jews? And again, the same [Apostle] says, refuting them: "Unto this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies upon their heart." Does it mean then that the Jews are blind only up to the time of Paul, or unto the very end? Again, the same [Apostle], writing to the Corinthians, says: "For we have reached even unto you with the Gospel of Christ." Does it mean then only as far as Corinth, or did he reach from the East to the West, and traveling the circuit of Illyricum with swift speed, did he preach as far as Rome itself? ^B And again, the same says: "Exhorting one another daily, so long as it is called today." But also the inspired David said: "Today if you will hear his voice," that is to say, God’s, "harden not your hearts as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the desert." Is, therefore, obedience to the divine voice necessary only for those who existed in the time of David? O the madness of those vainly wise men! If even we, who are the handiwork of Christ himself, after the present age remain forever, rising incorruptible and immortal, shall he, the architect and governor of the whole universe, return to the Father and no longer exist? And how can an eternal and immortal kingdom among men be promised to him, if he is to be despoiled of this, and lay down his kingdom after certain fixed periods of time, just as those men possessed of a vain mind desire? But far be such an absurdity from you, I beseech you. For David will refute them in the Old Testament, singing of the kingdom of Christ: "Let all your works confess you, O Lord." ^C But all things are the work of Christ, just as the sublime John says, that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," and Christ "became flesh and dwelt among us," and that "all things were made through him." And again David says: "Your kingdom is a kingdom of all ages, and your dominion endures throughout every generation and generation." And in harmony with this, Gabriel, the minister of the unending kingdom of Christ, explicitly cries out: "And he will reign over the house of Jacob unto the ages, and of his kingdom there will not be an end." Therefore, that which is habitually stated in many places of holy Scripture—namely, "until," or "today"—does not belong to limiting times. For with God the whole of eternity is one day, without evening. Similarly, this is true for all mental and rational powers, since that ultramundane light is not succeeded ^D by any night.

INTERROGATION CXXX

^A But if He is equal to the Father, how does He Himself say, "The Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing it"?

Response. It is the height of madness to be so disposed toward the only-begotten Son of God. For it would follow that one must posit a twofold creation: one already perfected by the Father, and another that is still being perfected by the Son, and is being introduced little by little, being fashioned in imitation of the Father's creation. Let the followers of Arian madness, therefore, show us two suns and two lunar torches, and let them distinguish for us which is the sun of the Father, and which is the Son's; which moon is the Father's, and which is the Son's. I will likewise inquire justly concerning the earth and the sea. Moreover, how will that son of thunder, John, speak truly—he who drew the doctrine ^B concerning the incarnate Word by derivation from His very bosom, and, filled like a divine chalice from an eternal spring, poured forth upon the whole earth under the sun that word, "All things were made through Him"—if he wished to say that the Son does all things by looking at no archetype or pattern? But whom, I pray, is this Son? Is it He who was united to our nature in the womb of the perpetual Virgin Mary, and was thus the only-begotten Son of God sent by the Father to be born of a woman, ^C just as the divine Apostle teaches? Where, then, or when had He seen the Father incarnate, and born, and crucified, and buried, and resurrected from the dead, so that He might do these things by His example? Where, truly, hearing the Father, did He likewise say: "I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it up again"? And that "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord"? And when did He see the Father riding on a beast, so that in imitation of Him He came to Jerusalem sitting on an ass? To put it briefly, the Son was accustomed to do the things that were spoken without ^D looking to anything else. For in forming Adam, and creating Eve from him, He did not see any other rational male or female created by the Father, so as to fashion His own after that; rather, being the Creator in His own right, and the absolute God of all, He was the same before the incarnation and after it, being able to do all things as He willed. Therefore, so that those who are blind toward Him might not think Him an adversary to God or an oppressor of the Father, He says: "The Son can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing it"—at the same time teaching us love for our parents.

INTERROGATION CXXXI

How, then, does He say to James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were asking for a seat with Him: "To sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give, but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father"? Why did He not say, as one endowed with His own proper authority: "To those for whom I have prepared it," or "To those whom I shall will," but instead refers them to the Father? This, surely, is not the action of one acting with full authority.

^A

**Response.**

It is not as though He were unable to grant it that He refused, but by a prudent pretext He checked their pride and their haughtiness toward their fellow-disciples; by these words He corrected the others as well, and extinguished the absurd love of preeminence smoldering within them by the terror of a refusal. For He does not say, "The Father grants it to you unconditionally," but rather, "to those for whom it is prepared,"—those who labor—thereby stimulating them toward virtue and fortitude, that they might first demonstrate their good will, gird themselves for the struggles, and persistently persevere even unto death for Him. "For not yet," He says, "have you preached My message, and how, pray, do you desire to proclaim My words, not yet having been buffeted for My sake? ^B Therefore, strip for the contests in the stadium, descend into the pit, go forth as deserters of your own ease, remain unconquered; and as soon as the theater of this present age has been dissolved, I shall then grant you those thrones as the prizes of the contest. But for now, I deservedly ward you off; they shall be given to those to whom the Father has directed." For in no other way could your mother and you yourselves be repelled in your importunity.

Alternatively, He acts in the manner of those who are unwilling to grant something before the proper time, but who pretend that the authority belongs to someone else, lest, whenever they have received it, they become more slothful in their alacrity and fortitude, content with what has been given and no longer willing to labor. ^C For thus those who reign on earth are accustomed to do when they are importuned by some for the dignities of provincial governors, or military commands; although it is within their power to give, yet, being unwilling to do so before the time, they refer the authority to another, exciting the servants of the kingdom by the expectation of office, and preparing them so that they might struggle among themselves, and grow vigorous and be sharpened against their enemies. ^D

And yet, in another way, since they thought He was going to exercise a temporary kingdom upon the earth, He says to them: *Nescitis quid petitis* (You do not know what you are asking)—as if to say: "Awaken, I beseech you, my disciples, ascend in your mind to my kingdom; do not take pleasure in things that flit about like a night-specter, nor in things that wallow in the filth of the earth, lest you also hear from My Father: 'It is not Mine to give, strictly speaking, but to require from you, in turn, the compensation of struggles and sweats.' For I prefer to be in your debt on account of your benevolent alacrity, rather than to accuse you of sloth. It is not Mine to give, nor is it My Father's to give simply to those who ask, since if that were the case, murderers, and adulterers, and any wicked and intemperate person could sit with Me if they were to ask. It is not for Us to give rashly and to corrupt what is just. For it is the part of a righteous Judge to distribute to each according to the dignity of his merit, not to neglect those who labor, nor to bestow anything upon the idle. If, therefore, you love the thrones, do not be ignorant of the struggles to which you must prepare yourselves; it is not fitting for you to boast delicately merely in your cloak, your beard, and your staff, but rather to win the thrones through your labors, and to appease the judgment."

INTERROGATION CXXXII

how is the Son ^A terrified by the cross and does He pray to the Father, saying: ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me’? For to have recourse to another in times of necessity, and to beseech the aid of another, is not the action of one who acts by his own right, nor of one who possesses spontaneous will." Response. I believe that a fatal wound is hereby inflicted by the divine hand upon those who are endowed with a vain mind, since it is demonstrated that the Son is even now of the same power as the Father, and that nothing at all is taken away from His authority by those words which were uttered by Him for the sake of pretense. For since the advent of His humanity was difficult to receive, because its excessive humility and benevolence toward men surpassed belief, His purpose was not to repel the malignant demon by the power of divinity, nor to overthrow his battle line by sovereign authority, but rather by gentleness and long-suffering to condemn the resisting adversary; for if He had come intending to use His natural power, He would not have been seen to do anything worthy of wonder, had God contended against a fallen angel: ^B nay, the opposite would rather have happened, and He would have puffed up the devil into arrogance, as if the adversary were equal to God. Justly, therefore, by using human humility, He suppresses his elation and secures the trophy of victory for us: for if, when man was deceived from the beginning, the plunderer had not been captured in turn by one who appeared to be a man, even while He was in reality God, this glorious achievement would not have been bestowed upon the human race. But now, since the Word, having become both divine and human in nature, has come to us, and in the form of a captive has seized the enemy himself: as God He has given us power over him, divinely uttering those words: "Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy." ^C INTERROGATION CXXXIII "Who, then, is He who was crucified, or rather, who is He who prays and says: ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me’?" Response. Neither merely God, nor merely man. For a naked man could not have saved us, and God naked cannot suffer. Wherefore, one from both, by the concurrence and union of natures, He who was born of the Ever-Virgin, the God-Man, did this, who nonetheless remained what He was. The same being God and the same being man, with neither nature separated, ascended the cross. And therefore, speaking at one time in a divine manner and at another in a human manner, He accommodates himself appropriately to the time. Now, indeed, when the enemy is puffed up, He declares Himself to those subject to Him by words and signs as God; but then, again, when he approaches and looks more attentively to see whether He who appeared in some sense to be God truly was God, and ^D challenges Him to contests and struggle, He again puts forward mortal things, lest the adversary, becoming afraid, should flee and refuse to proceed to the cross and death, in which alone the whole victory of the God-Man was situated

^A

INTERROGATION CXXXIV.

And why, when He came, was He not crucified openly, trusting in His own power, but sometimes He is seen as needy, and at other times manifest in glory? And why, being God, does He also feign fear?

Answer.

Since the enemy himself did not attack our first parents in Paradise openly—for they would have guarded against the deceit and the fall—but concealed his nature in the guise of a serpent, united to it, and said to the wretched woman: "In the day you eat of the tree that is forbidden, you shall be as gods." And, to state briefly all that follows there, he deceitfully led them away from that blessed life; therefore, he who deceived with deceitful words was himself, as an unhappy foe, deceived by divine words. Thus, neither was the serpent there naked, nor the devil naked; nor is the man here naked, nor God naked. Nor, again, is He afraid, but He clearly dissolves the sophism of the foolish one. Behold, then, the voluntariness and the strength of the fear that He feigned in pretense. When the Jewish captors came against Him, having blinded them, He says: "Whom do you seek?" And when they said they sought Jesus, He again shows His voluntary will, and says to them: "Behold, I am He," and He follows those who seek Him with haste. Who, then, could have hindered Him from flying away from the vultures? Who could have prevented Him from escaping those who were blinded, ^B He who said of Himself: "I have power to lay down My life, and again to take it up"? And how does He also call Peter to account when he chides Him and prays that the cross might be averted from Him? For He says to the one who was otherwise beloved: "Get behind Me, Satan, for you do not mind the things of God, but those of men." As if to say: "Follow Me, and do not fall back, being ignorant of the dispensation and deceived by the appearance of the flesh." For how shall I, who am nothing other than immortal life, fear death? How shall I, who deliver from passions, pray to be delivered from passion? I, who healed the blind by the touch of My hand; who strengthened the paralytic by a bare word, and made them carry the mats upon which they were previously borne; who dried up fountains of blood with the fringes of My garment; who cleansed lepers of their corruption; who put to flight legions of demons by a command; who trod upon the abyss as if it were dry land; who made the very sea, peaking and raging, to grow silent and mute; who stretched out My hand to the winds for tranquility, by which I also restrained the surges and the storm; who fed five thousand to satiety with five loaves, and filled twelve baskets with the remnants thereof; who called Lazarus, rotting after four days, from the tomb to life, unharmed; I, who am the Creator and God of all, being myself Life and Resurrection? I feign fear and lowliness because of the assumption of the flesh, wishing to hook the dragon, the devil, who is mocked by Me, but who mocks mortals. For, being a fisherman, I have cast myself as a hook into the depths of this life, having clothed myself with the flesh of mortals that he catches, becoming Himself, through Himself, according to them, an immutable Adam; and as a fisherman, now gently drawing ^C and pulling toward the depth the hook provided [for the catch], and now...

holding it still, for the murderous fish ^A approaches, whom I watch lest, being frightened, he might spring away. Therefore, through my servant David I say: "I am a worm and no man." For just as that one is formed from the earth without any union, and is brought forth into life, similarly I too, having become incarnate from Her who is ever Virgin, without any mixture or union with a man, have naturally become mortal, remaining God. Therefore, Jeremiah, that prophet who endured many perils, seeing with prophetic eye that the deceiver was about to be deceived, and, as it were, mocking his bluster and madness, says of me more than five hundred years before: "He is man, and who shall know him?" As if to say, that He who is God, having been made man for our sake by way of dispensation, wishing to show ^B wisdom in outwitting the one wise in malice, fulfilling the prophecy of noble Job, who says: "Thou shalt draw out the dragon with a hook." And the same one says again: "Thou hast walked in the paths of the abyss, traversing the subterranean places, and setting free the captives there." And again the same one says: "The gates of death will be opened to thee in fear; and the gatekeepers of Hades, seeing thee, shuddered."

QUESTION CXXXV.

ANSWER

^A let, therefore, all contention and movement of calculations cease; for the Divine, being honored with simple faith, rejoices.

INTERROGATION CXXXVI

Since you have explained all these things to us clearly and lucidly, we desire to learn what remains concerning our nature. And David indeed belittles and disparages man, saying in the eighth Psalm: "Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him?" In the thirty-eighth Psalm: "Nevertheless, every man is vanity." And in the one hundred and forty-third Psalm: "Lord, what is man, that thou art known to him, or the son of man, that thou reckonest him? Man is like unto vanity," he says. But his son Solomon magnifies man, and honors him, saying: "Man is something great and precious." If, therefore, he disagrees with his father, how shall the rest of the prophets agree?

Response

Nothing of these things can be shown to be dissonant among the words of the divinely inspired, if they are examined with a desire to learn, and are contemplated soberly, without a "fat" judgment. For action is a kind of ascent to contemplation. Therefore, one shows our nature, while the other shows the dignity which we received from God, the Creator of all, having been made by divine hands before every creature. By unrolling the first volume of Moses, you shall learn both: that God took dust from the earth, and fashioned man, and breathed into his face the breath of life. In the [words] "He took and fashioned," the matters of dignity are known; ^B for it is said of none of the creatures, except of man alone; but in the [statement] that dust was taken from the earth, the lowliness of our nature is taught, that we are earth and dust, things worth nothing and easily dissolved.

INTERROGATION CXXXVII

How, therefore, is man a great and precious thing, if he is lowly and easily dissolved, subject to myriad passions and necessities?

Response

But ^C look not to nature alone; join to this also [his] dignity. For [the scriptures] attributed to nature that which is easily dissolved and short-lived, which after the turning away from the former blessed life in paradise, crept into us through the transgression. For after that destructive eating, the wretched one heard the sentence: "Earth thou art, and unto earth thou shalt return," having obeyed the enemy rather than God.

INTERROGATION CXXXVIII

What does David mean when he says to God: "Thy hands have made me, and fashioned me"? Does he signify one thing by the "fashioning," and another by the "making"? And from this

we might understand that we are of a twofold nature. What kind of hands, then, must be said to exist in God?

Responsio. The word "making" seems to me to be understood of the soul, but "fashioning" of the multiple shaping of the body. By the hands of God and the Father, I speak of the Son and the Spirit, to whom He also says: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness" ^A. But even though the history says that God took dust from the earth and fashioned man, yet from the appearance and custom of these things, that which does not fall under the eyes is also denoted; for this operation is entirely one of will, not a shaping by hands. Nevertheless, the expression "shaping by hands" was used for the dignity of our nature. Since also the statement that man is made to the image of God must not be referred to an imitation of nature (for no one could express how great the difference is), but rather to the marks of sovereignty and freedom.

INTERROGATIO CXXXIX. What then? Do you attribute members to the Divinity according to our image, signifying that He has ears and arms and legs?

Responsio. We must pause a little in explaining these things consecutively and in order, lest by confusion of the question we stray from the meaning; rather, let us ascend directly to the summit of our origin by the ladder of discourse. Man is a great and precious thing ^B, who both formerly and now has his origin from vile materials. For when God could have made man from bronze, or iron, or adamant, or stone, He fashioned him from dust in the past, and today from a thin and fluid excretion. ^C In these things, the incomprehensible efficacy of His wisdom, which surpasses the understanding, is manifest. And let not the sharpness of your charity mock or laugh at me if, for the sake of more exact knowledge, I touch upon the surface of the natural mysteries of our origin in my discourse. For neither does divine Scripture disdain to mention these things, when it speaks of the son of Judah sleeping with Thamar, and concerning the purifications of women, and regarding the one suffering from a flux of seed, (and) the one sitting, and the one purifying a new mother. But even the eminent Apostle remembers those men who debase themselves with men, and women who do the same with males, in his epistle to the Romans ^D. Therefore, a certain cold ebullition of humor is cast into the female by the male, and being mixed with the blood humor presented by the woman as an object, it is coagulated by the colder excretion of the man, as that Job—who was without reproach and testified by the witness of God—says when he speaks to God in the wounding of his body: "Hast Thou not milked me like milk, and curdled me like cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fashioned me with bones and sinews; Thou hast granted me life and mercy" — demonstrating at once the nature, its own powers, and its own authority. "Thou hast granted me life and mercy," he says; as if to say, Thou hast placed...

misericordiam mihi apposuisti, inquit, quasi dicat: "In me posuisti [the capacity] to live, and to have mercy upon myself through obedience and the keeping of thy commandments; or [to have the capacity] to destroy myself through disobedience, and not to be shown mercy, justly suffering punishment, by attaching myself to the enemy rather than to the Creator." This is what our first parent did, who, not having mercy upon himself, but receiving as it were a sword—his own ruinous counsel—against himself, was slain by it and, having become mortal from immortal, perished.

When, therefore, all the seats of the senses and the senses of both persons are suppressed, and the bodies are, as it were, tempered and mingled together in the union, an ineffable beginning takes place, namely, the expression of the face, [coming] from the first and stronger seed, whence the characteristic form of either the woman or the man is stamped. Thus, then, the emission of the male, being somewhat cold and bony, is transformed into the strength of bones and sinews, having a solidity in proportion to that which grew. But the blood which is returned by the woman in the intercourse, being by nature hot, is condensed by the cold and changes into flesh. The flesh is then vivified by a certain vital power inspired from God. "For I am He who made the earth and man upon it, and who gives the breath of life to all who walk upon it," says God. ^B

This is another passage of those which I mentioned a little while ago. For I think these [words] were added by someone who wished to join with the opinion of Caesarius, in the same place, the opinion of the external philosophers concerning the formation of man.

Words described from the books of those outside.

Nature is inherent in the seed. For the power that is in it, when it begins to be moved, is called "nature," because it brings forth and generates by being born. It is nourished, however, by the food that is in the body, just as there is no nourishment without matter. It moves into itself, digesting food, and through itself completing the processes of digestion. The faculties of nature are three: the generative, concerning which mention has already been made regarding the seed; the augmentative, which has motion according to time; and the nutritive, to which the preparation of food pertains. The nutritive and augmentative [faculties] extend throughout the whole body; but the generative is situated only in the twin testicles that contain the seed. Nature is occupied first with food and spirit; this spirit, hot by an internal power, as it is moved by itself according to what was said about the seed, produces and completes man in defined times and magnitudes.

INTERROGATION CXL.

We say that the soul exists together with that which is emitted by the man, and that it is something living and ensouled, since the cause and origin of our birth is from a living and ensouled body; just as branches torn from trees, which contain the seed of each, possess the vital power of those [trees] from which they were taken. For if the blood is hot, and the living [creature] comes from the man's seed, even if not altogether like the blood, they possess the living...

vital cause, which is the soul. But because of the thinness and smallness of its constitution on the first day, it cannot perfectly manifest its own activities; but because of the thinness of the emission, as it grows in the womb and is turned into flesh, and from there is turned into a fetus, it grows together with it, and thus finally the soul can perfectly manifest its own operations and appear along with the now-perfect body. ^A

Response. Far be it from us to think that the soul exists with the seed. For how shall we think that the soul existed together with Adam, who was created without any conjunction or procreation? For if we concede that the soul is extracted from the man at the same time, it will entirely follow that the soul of God the Word, when He was incarnate, must also be assumed to be from seed, joined to the body; which would be a mark of the utmost madness and blasphemy, deserving of immense punishment. ^B The same madness would follow, that those who flee fornication, and struggle bravely against it, and for the sake of the kingdom of heaven castrate themselves with self-control, as the Lord says 33, are rather destined for punishments than to gain the prizes of the contests and crowns—those who stifle souls within themselves and put them to death along with their earthly members, becoming, by their own sobriety, worse than those who are effeminate and given to pleasure. Shall then that Paul, gifted with sublime intellect, remain unhonored and pay penalties as someone who contrived tortures and deaths for us and our souls, teaching by deed and word and writing to the whole world that fornication is to be fled, and that a woman should not be touched, if it be possible? Why then did he punish the fornicating Corinthian, [thereby] letting out the soul that was stifled in him to life? Why, moreover, did the law command him who labored under a flux of seed to be purified and washed with water, if, forsooth, an overly confined soul had issued from his loins? ^C Of what plants or fruits did God take branches or seed, with which He adorned the earth in the beginning? And how was it that Sarah, lying with Abraham for a hundred years from her youth, and receiving the same seed, never found that excrement to be ensouled, except by divine precept, so that Isaac, the only-begotten son, should be born to the hundred-year-old [parents]? And how could Anna, having had the custom of the bed with Elkanah for many years, never have received ensouled matter in her womb, before she went to the sanctuary and besought the Divine [Power] for the sake of childbearing? Whose suppliant prayer God received, and she who for many times indeed had judged of herself that she would never bear a living fetus, God animated that [matter]—which had been cast down in the usual manner of the following accustomed intercourse, as if it were soulless matter—and fashioned that excellent and divine Samuel, whom, after the state of boyhood and nursing infancy, the mother offered, clad in a tunic, to that holy God who had provided the holy boy, having consecrated him to God from his cradle? ^D How, likewise, was the excellent old woman Elizabeth, from a tender and vigorous age, sleeping with her contemporary Zechariah, [having] reached extreme old age, and [having] of their marital...

laws not renounced, yet never attained [the] living commixture, before that it was animated by the angel's voice, the matter lying in the loin, having been separated from both and solidified into flesh, like a stone torn from a mountain or a mine by the hand of some stonemason and carved by daily chiseling, until it reaches the perfected likeness of a statue? Thus also is the matter, which formerly in the elderly was inanimate and formless, carved into John, and . . . the Baptist and forerunner. Let there cease, therefore, the mythical coexistence of souls in the emission of the male. For how could the incorruptible and immortal coexist with the corruptible and formless? And how could that which is of a better and superior nature have the cause of its origin into life from a lesser and inferior one? And how is it not absurd to suppose that it is sown in corruption, when the Apostle says concerning the body, "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown an animal body, but not a soul"? For the "animal" exists as an organ belonging to the soul, whereas the body is the soul's instrument. Let also the delusional "after-existence" be silenced. For as soon as God thinks of what each ought to be, the matter is also present, and the stars of each one's existence are present along with the divine, active will. For Divine Scripture teaches neither pre-existence nor after-existence of souls, lest man be thought to be both old and young at the same time; but as soon as it says, "And God took dust from the earth, and fashioned man," it immediately adds, "And He breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul." Therefore, neither the soul by itself, nor the body, is a man. For Moses, the writer of divine things, declared that a human being is perfected by the conjunction and union of both. ^A

But let us return to that point of our discourse from which we digressed. The blood, solidified by cold, is transformed into flesh; and it grows according to the ratio of the nourishing qualities united with it, [provided] by Him who gives food to all flesh, as David, the composer of divine melodies, says. ^B And just as marine creatures—being nourished as if in a womb within the shells of oysters and scallops—possess a vital power from God, leaping and vibrating, though they are devoid of the organs of mouth, hearing, teeth, or taste, and are lacking in limbs, being nourished solely by the moisture ^C of the waters. But those things remain perpetually in the same form, having been allotted such a nature by the divine command; whereas the cause of our own generation, though it be some small thing at the first commixture of seeds, is woven and enlarged by the partial additions of the ingested nourishing qualities, and is ineffably fashioned by the wise and invisible divine hand of Him who formed our first parent from the dust. And thus, then, in the passing of the nine-month period, the infant is perfected by divine strength, by the strength...

of the mother’s womb carrying it, not because the Creator of all is unable to [either] take that dim beginning cast into the womb, or even without it—just as He brought forth all things from no underlying matter—to form us immediately perfect and complete, as [He did with] Adam, and [so] has need of the delay of the nine-month period in the case of embryos. Rather, it is like a hide or a membrane, that the womb might grow larger by the gradual formation of the one lying within, and stretch by [the motion of] the one leaping inside. For the organs of the female would not contain the infant completed if it were immediately placed within them; those who do this ^A act reasonably, as those who wish to contain many things in a small and dry skin-bag, by softening it and stretching it, render it stronger and more capacious. Thus, therefore, it seems to me that whatever is bony and nervous is strengthened from the emission of the male; but whatever is bloody and fleshy is consolidated from that which the female contributes. And again, there follows upon this that divine word and action: "Increase and multiply, and fill the earth" (Gen. I, 28), as God says to our first parents, at once saying it Himself and causing us to increase to the size of body defined by Him, to multiply by offspring, and to fill the earth. From those very protoplasts we learn what from each of them concurs in the procreation of children: from Adam, the bone of the rib removed and made into a woman by the divine hand, at once declaring both the connection and the union of nature, and the things that occur in the procreation of children for each.

From these things, one should understand that there ^B exist in us elemental portions of the warm and cold, and of the other remaining pair, namely the moist and the dry. For the earth from which the Creator brought us forth appears to me to be mixed with all these: itself called dry, yet floating upon the moist; having fire hidden in stones, and iron, and wood; and air diffused through its entirety, warming it. Once the fetus has been formed in the womb, and the dark and moist matter has been sculpted into the articulated joining of the limbs, each limb is nourished and grows according to the quality of those things received into the mother’s belly, just as it is accustomed to happen in agriculture, with the fields lying below being watered by rain from the clouds or by streams led in. Let there be some garden, then, of which we speak, nourishing infinite species of plants, of diverse species and form, yet in one and the same order, and let some one nature of water irrigate them ^C similarly: nevertheless, the property of those things which are nourished transforms that moisture into diverse qualities. For that same moisture becomes bitter in the wormwood, passes into a lethal liquid in the hemlock, and one and the ^D same [moisture] becomes one thing in another—in crocus, in balsam, in poppy—of which one thing heats, another cools, and another has a middle quality. In the laurel, and in the fragrant reed, and in other similar [plants], it becomes a scent; in the fig...

and pear it grows sweet, through the vine it changes into wine and the grape cluster, in the apple it grows red, in the lily it grows white, in the violet it becomes blue. Something of this kind is also wrought wondrously by nature—or rather, by the Lord of nature—in the living garden of our body: bones, cartilages, veins, arteries, nerves, ligaments, flesh, skin, fat, hairs, glands, nails, eyes, nostrils, ears, and ten thousand things besides these, standing apart from one another; yet there is one form of nourishment by which all are appropriately fed according to their own nature, so that the sustenance brought to each of the distinct parts, whatever it may be, is transposed into that part, becoming appropriate and adhering to the quality of that part. For if it reaches the eye, it is commingled with the faculty of sight, moistening the membrane of the eye; and lodging in the parts of hearing, it revolves around the hearing. And moistening the lips, like certain little skins, it does not allow them to dry up and wither; it hardens in the bone, softens in the marrow, is strengthened in the nerve, is extended on the surface, ends in the nail, and is thinned out for the generation of hair by suitable vapors. And if the evaporation occurs through tortuous pores, it produces curlier and more entangled locks; but if through straight and softer ones, [it produces] simple ones like a thread, the moisture remaining from the food being transformed into hair through the vapors. But if the evaporations from the hotter parts of the heart and liver exhale towards the skull, baldness usually occurs due to a lack of cold; for when heat prevails, it is established that the hair dries up and falls out. ^B Truly, it would be a timely and sweet thing, and worthy of admiration and every proclamation, for us to celebrate here our Master and Governor, and to sing together with the divine David: *How magnified are thy works, O Lord! in wisdom hast thou made them all.* For who can speak of the mighty acts of the Lord, or who shall tell of all his praises? What speech will be able to attain to an expression of these things? For how, out of things that are of different substance and differ among themselves, did He fashion our one nature; and neither does one flee from the communion or union of another, before the limits of the life of each set by Thee, but the immortal nature dwells with the mortal even unto the end; and again, it bids a long farewell, joined to the body, obeying the command of separation? And who would not be struck with amazement, seeing from dust so many limbs and parts of the body, distinct bones ^C adapted to each other, joined together by pivots and lathes, as supports for the flesh, and easy for every movement, which, as if by a single line, keep all the proportions intact, limbs balanced with limbs, the right hand of equal length with the left, and finger with finger, and sole with sole, and foot with foot, and so on for each individual part.

^D But it is worth our while for the discourse to run back to the summit of our creation, traveling thence to the feet and the sandals; or rather, even from the very

^A soul itself, if it be possible. Behold yourself, therefore, and there will be no need of seeking the Creator through an examination of the whole universe; but in yourself, as in a small world, you shall behold the ineffable wisdom of God. And before all things, consider the Divine to be incorporeal, from the contemplation of your own incorporeal soul, which is not circumscribed by any place; for our mind does not possess a local circumscription by nature, but through its conjunction with the body, it comes to be in a place. ^B Confess that it is invisible, inferring this from that same image, as it does not submit itself to the eyes of the flesh, not by color, nor by form, nor by any other bodily character is it portrayed, but is known by its activity alone. So that do not seek in God a comprehension of His nature by means of the eyes, unless you proceed through some dim condescension, and even then, not without some veil. For not even to the Cherubim themselves is He visible according to His nature, as they shade their faces with the projection of their wings, because they are not capable of beholding Him. ^C Therefore, having entrusted your understanding to your mind and faith, you shall be a spectator of God, insofar as you have departed from this gross manner of life and approached the spiritual, marveling at His wisdom—how, that is, He implants the soul into the body, extending it even to its extremities and leading the members, which for the most part are at variance with one another, into one harmonious agreement and fellowship. Consider for me what strength is inherent in the flesh from the soul, and what mutual affection is reflected back to the soul from the flesh. How the flesh makes the soul its own by means of its incorporeal life, and the incorporeal entity receives pain from the body, though it be itself devoid of body. ^D How, when the latter is injured, the former cries out; how, when the former flourishes, the body is invigorated and becomes more beautiful. O excellent conjunction, O admirable union, O the wisdom of Him who joined them together! For who would be able to declare what storehouses or repositories of learning it has fashioned, such that ancient things are not obscured by the knowledge of those things found after them, nor are they hindered by any barrier from what is heard every day, so that one might report today a word heard fifty years ago; but keeps the memories of instruction distinct and unconfused, as if carved in stone? And how, when it descends to carnal passions, it loses the flower of its own beauty; and again, virtue cleansing away the deformity brought on by vice, it runs back to the likeness of the Creator. For He Himself says in the Gospels: "Amen I say to you, if two shall agree upon earth concerning anything" (signifying the soul and the body, the mistress and the handmaid), if they agree upon the same thing—the flesh indeed serving, and the soul advancing in virtue—so that the handmaid may not be burdened by excessive austerity and give up under the labors, nor on the other hand, be carried away by the mistress toward passions and pleasure; but rather, that they may run together in agreement according to the same rule of virtue, and follow one another. For if they agree

these two, namely the soul and the body, of whatever they might ask, it shall come to pass for them, says the Lord; if indeed we ask from Him, naturally good things shall come to pass. But if we withdraw to the devil through a more negligent and impassioned life—which, it seems to me, is to make a request that payment be made to him—then our undertakings will surely turn out crooked and difficult. ^B Let us therefore touch, if it seems good, upon the construction and articulation of the body, admiring the wise Architect of the universe, God; how the supreme craftsman built, for the rational soul, an appropriate and fitting dwelling, and alone among the creatures under heaven, brought forth man upright, teaching us from that very form that we have our life from an affinity with things above. For all irrational creatures are inclined downward toward the belly; but to mortals alone is given a natural and ready gaze toward heaven, so that he may not be given over to pleasure nor incline downward toward the passions, but may exist upright and have his movement while looking toward things above. ^C Then, placing the head as if upon a hill of the body, He established within it the precious seats of the senses. Most people think the brain has no purpose beyond filling an empty cup, yet to it is entrusted the wisdom and prudence of God the Creator, who fashioned all things by His counsel and understanding. And that the brain is a thing of the greatest importance for life, what happens from the opposite case clearly shows; for if the membrane that contains it sustains a wound or rupture, death follows instantly upon the injury, with nature not resisting the suffering even for a moment; just as in subterranean structures, or in the ceilings of baths, there is one chief stone that holds together the whole of the building, fixed in the dome—what the builders call a wedge—upon the breaking or dislodging of which, the whole structure is at once shaken down. The greatest of the luminaries, the Sun and the Moon, labor, traversing the celestial regions within the space of a day and night. But our mind, in an atom, in the twinkling of an eye, traverses at once both the lower creation and things beyond the world, running its untiring course, and like one hidden, secretly surveying hidden things. ^D The hairs seem small and weak, but they too have grown on the skin of the head for the sake of comeliness, warding off with light breezes the smaller animals that are hostile to the bald, which is why they always move their hands to ward them off. But the hairs also resist the cold of winter and the scorching of the sun, shading the part beneath like a grove or a dense forest, and receiving the downpour of rain. The eyes have obtained the highest watchtower, and though they are but two, they behold the entire decoration of the world, so that none of the bodily laws casts darkness upon them; but, sheltered by the small projection of the eyebrows, they are stretched out from the prominence above toward what is straight, and like needles or awls, they shake off the tiny animals with their thorns, and with the constant movement of the eyelids preserve the pupils, as if by fanning away the heat of the sun.

^B These same eyelids, being like coverings for the eyes, ward off the death of intemperance, concerning which Jeremiah, who suffered many perils among the divine prophets, testifying, says: "Death has climbed in through the windows." For it is necessary not only that the body remain untouched, but also that we keep the glances of our eyes virginal and in no way permit them to rush forward shamelessly and flutter toward the beauties of others, lest from the sight we rush into the act. For according to the divine word: "Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Therefore, the pupils of the eyes ought to be virgins, for they have been assigned the same decorative name as virgins. For often the pupil within the eyelids, which was a virgin, by the opening of them and its own roaming movement, became a clear nod and thought of fornication.

^C The ear is a small thing among all our members. But the organ that surrounds it also adorns these, and to them alone among all created things are the mysteries of God committed; it is spirally fashioned and winding, so that the word does not enter too quickly, but, diminished by the space of a longer time, the excavation itself prevents the matter of falsehood from penetrating to the bottom, but causes it to remain on the outskirts along with the refuse of slander; for it is a virtue in the one who speaks not to tell falsehoods, and in the one who hears to test the appearances, whether any emotion of a friend or an opponent is mingled therein. For the one does not see sharply, and the other does not see at all. But if reason is corrupted by either of these defects, it must be punished by the judgment of the mind that is in us and cleansed from depravity by the truth, which serves the office of torturer. ^D For the story teaching this concerning the divine and most courageous athlete Job says: "Does not the mind judge words, and the throat taste food?" In agreement with this, David, the melodist of divine things, says: "Him who secretly slanders his neighbor, I was pursuing." And the God of all things, sealing the words of His servants, says in the Gospels: "Be approved money-changers, discerning the counterfeit from the genuine." Not so that we may receive the sound like money-changers testing coins, but that, weighing the pronouncements of those who converse and the outcomes of their deeds, we may rather incline toward a just scale. For there is a great danger in ears and tongues: since the tongue is a small member, it is an office of falsehood and truth, or rather of salvation and destruction. "My tongue is the pen of a ready scribe," and, "My tongue shall speak of justice," says the author of the divine songs. And again the same one: "They practiced deceit with their tongues, and the poison of asps is under their lips." In agreement with the father, the wise Solomon of divine things says: "For life and"

death are in the power of the tongue." ^A Bringing forth the word as if it were a hand, and deceit as a sword, God places the murderer in the same rank and number as the deceitful one, just as He said through the mouth of the great David: "The Lord will abhor a man of blood and a deceitful man." ^B Yet he whom God deems abhorrent is surely one who must be punished. Just as iron that is cast aside and consumed by rust, or wood or clothing that is abhorrent to its master is destroyed by the filth with which it teems; or as a house that is deprived of its inhabitant is gradually destroyed—so it seems to me that a mortal who is an abomination to God, being weighed down by the divine turning-away and by the evils infused within him, is punished, when the sentence that those who hear it will receive is passed upon them: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," ^C as they are scourged for the merits of the sins they have committed. Then, indeed, it consumes and burns them, like a coal falling among straw, throughout eternity, yet neither destroying them nor being destroyed, because we shall rise from the graves incorruptible. The just, however, abide forever in security and rest, endowed with every freedom, immortal. But those who have entangled themselves with sins, while they are punished with eternal torments, are neither consumed nor do they perish, but they abide in the designated places, grieving, driven into straits, sorrowing, mourning, lamenting, suffering, crying out, afflicted, howling, vexed, able to do nothing further, having cast aside the present time for repentance, those who closed their faculties to the needy, but to themselves closed the bowels of divine mercy. "For judgment without mercy is to him who has not practiced mercy," says the divine voice; ^D and darkness in the outer places vexes others, according to the sentence that scourges and drives out the guilty, just as the history concerning the Egyptians teaches us; for while there is but one divine sentence, it is applied in a manner befitting the disposition of those who hear it. It punishes the Egyptians in Pharaoh, but preserves the Israelites with Moses; for to the former, it turned the Nile red with blood as a punishment of thirst, but to the latter, it preserved the nature of the water whole and pure. To the former, it changed the daylight into palpable darkness, but to the latter, it preserved the light within its own bounds. For the former, it dried up the Erythraean Sea so that it could be crossed, but for the latter, it caused it to flow back together, and left them, having been submerged and destroyed, to perish. ^A In like manner, also in the Babylonian furnace, while one sentence was at work, the three Hebrew boys were dancing as if in the midst of dew in the flame, and singing hymns, but those who were stoking it by casting in material, and raising the flame to a height of forty-nine cubits, were instantly burned by it and turned to ash. Likewise, we know that the very earth obeyed the divine command, having split open to receive Dathan and Abiram for their punishment, ^B while bearing the innocent ones according to nature in the same place, on the same day and hour. In this way, also, the wretched Cain, when the divine judgment fell upon his ears, was punished, saying, [original-script column: see facsimile]

^B *Gemens et tremens eris super terram*, and immediately the thing itself followed the words, and with unstable trembling and mournful groaning drawn from the deepest heart and nails, it punished the first murderer in the world and slayer of his brother, yet it did not remove him from the midst, although he desired to die and cried out: *And it shall be, everyone who finds me will slay me.* To whom God, responding, pronounced: *Not so: for I have set a sign upon you, so that everyone who finds you may not kill you.*

Let us fear, therefore, that avenging fire of torments, and the worm, and the darkness, which do not spare even the holy ones, whose life has been contaminated in the world. For thus God says through Ezekiel: *Pass through, and strike, and begin from my holy ones.* ^C If, therefore, the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? says Solomon, the expert in divine things, stirring us up from negligence. Let us not, therefore, cast off care for ourselves, relying on baptism; nor let us deem that, because of our participation in the sacred mysteries, we shall then be punished with a lighter penalty. For those things which we have treated contemptuously here, and have partaken of rashly beyond our dignity, will profit us nothing there. *For he who eats and drinks unworthily the potions of the Word of God, eats and drinks judgment upon himself*, says the sublime Apostle; and the same one again: *Circumcision indeed will profit if you observe the law; but if you be a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision*, if you have not lived worthily of it. And the same one again: *Not the hearers of the law, but the doers of the law shall be justified by God.* Therefore, to all who have been even slightly tinged with some learning, it is manifest that baptism was adumbrated by circumcision as if by a figure, and that in place of the law, the venerable Gospels have been delivered to us the faithful; which, confirming in the Gospels, the Lord says: *Amen I say to you, not all who say to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does my will. For many will say to me in that day: Lord, have we not cast out demons in your name, and healed diseases? And I will say to them: I know you not; depart from me, you cursed, workers of iniquity, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels.*

^D Such Christians, and a multitude of the faithful, appear to me to exist, among whom clearly may be even Judas the apostle, who both performed signs and healed the infirm, before he furiously raged against Christ, the God of all. But also that Simon who was driven away by Peter and Paul, and very many of the Galatians, who after they had brought forth signs and prodigies and healings, and had been deemed worthy of the gifts of prophecy, again slipped back under error and clung to their former wickedness; to whom, writing, that preeminent guide of the earth—

^A O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? ^B Such persons, as I have previously said, seem to me to gain no benefit from baptism, even if they were to say to Christ the Judge, "Lord, did we not perform miracles in your name, and cast out demons, and heal the sick?" To whom Christ—from whom may He by His mercy deliver us all, being entreated for us by His blameless saints—has already given a deadly and terrible answer, full of lamentation. For "the ungodly shall not rise in the judgment," says David, the chanter of divine songs. In agreement with this, the exalted among the prophets, Isaiah, says: "Let the ungodly be taken away, so that he may not see the glory of the Lord." Confirming which, the holy Paul says: "For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law," meaning by this the total abandonment and turning away of God from them, and the punishment into endless ages. The prophets signify the same thing, that the ungodly shall not rise to stand in judgment, but shall be carried off to condemnation along with their leader, the devil. For not even the laws of this present life, once a manifest murderer or adulterer has been summoned from prison, judge him with a long speech in the sight of the fearful assembly, but they condemn him by his own example. For when one member is cut off or burned in the body, the whole is shaken and suffers with the part; and when one servant is often being tortured, the whole phalanx of servants, trembling, promises amendment in its mind, and not to touch the forbidden things for which that one individual, having been torn by such grievous lashes, is dragged by divine wrath to judgment. Understand this to be managed by God in a city of ten thousand: one house being punished, bearing the penalty for sins here, for the sobering and correction of the remaining fellow-citizens and of all cities. "For when the ungodly fall, the righteous become fearful," says the wise man of divine things, Solomon.

And that holy baptism will avail nothing in that steadfast and impartial judgment for those who have insulted it here by a most wicked manner of life and who have lived unworthily of the name of Christ, we learn more clearly from the exalted Apostle than from what has been said thus far, as he cries out explicitly: "Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment will he be deemed worthy of who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has considered the blood of the covenant as common?" ^C But he tramples upon the Son of God and the Word of God who receives His mystical mixtures fearlessly with grasping hands that are lifted up against his neighbor, treating them as if they were common bread and wine, whereas they are perceived to be God Himself by the eyes of the mind in the faithful. For "the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and pierces to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart." As he himself says through Paul...

For he is in no way destroyed, even if in part he is fixed with nails, and in part flows away; nor is he consumed, since he is perceived by all even as the air, and yet God remains the same, in no way diminished. Marking and sealing the words of Paul, and showing that those who are Christians by name but evil in deed, and who through drunkenness neglect their own salvation, are to be punished with the same penalty as the unbelievers, the Lord says in the Gospel: "If that servant shall say in his heart: My lord delays to come, and shall begin to strike his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken servants: I say to you, the lord of that servant will come in a day that he expects not, and in an hour that he knows not, and will cut him asunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers." ^B Let us not conceive of the servant being cut asunder ^C corporally—for that would be ignorant and ridiculous—but let us understand his being cut off by the Lord to mean the spoliation of spiritual gifts and of baptism, and of the boldness he had before Him. For it is not possible that those who have bound themselves to Christ, and who have been marked as it were as His soldiers with that seal, and girded about with the belt of His own militia, should be punished unless they are first despoiled of these things. Just as the laws even today teach that guilty soldiers must not be subjected to punishment before the belt is taken from them; by which it is signified that once the symbol of their military service is removed, they can be punished by the executioner in the manner of private citizens. Using a clearer analogy, I will show what this divine dissection is. For the high priests who occupy the lofty throne of Christ, if any of the consecrated ones in their company should fall, do not subject him to penalties before they have removed him from the divine sacred rites and he has been stripped of their symbols. In this way, having despoiled him, they hold him as one of the laity. By this removal, the aforementioned dissection is indicated, and by his being numbered with the common and base folk, his portion with the unbelievers is declared. This is what David, that author of divine songs, hinted at long ago, thus testifying: "Make your vows, and pay them to the Lord your God; all that are round about him shall bring presents to him that is terrible and taketh away the spirits of princes." ^D I would not have anyone believe that this song should be taken as referring to the removal of souls. For it is not only of rulers, but also of those who are ruled, both masters and servants, that He Himself plainly bestows and removes vital spirits. It is, of course, said of the soul, or rather of the spiritual gifts and of baptism. For to me, the faithful seem to be the magnates and lords of the unbelievers, having obtained from the Word of God who was in the beginning the power to rule over them and over the demons. For these differ in no way from those, being in the same consensus as they, opposing God and warring against the Christians. That he may rule over them and trample them underfoot, the divine David, praying in advance, asks this of the Divine: "Thou shalt appoint them rulers over all the earth."

^A I will be mindful of thy name in every generation and generation." ^B Having heard the prophet, God the Word, after having been made man from those generations, came down into the world; and speaking divinely in the Gospels, He says to us: "Have confidence, I have overcome the world," and, "Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy," which is every heresy. In every generation and generation we are mindful of the name of Christ, being established as rulers over the adversaries and as lords by Him through baptism and the Holy Spirit given to us therein. Let us strive to honor these things by living virtuously, not smearing them with any stain or blemish through an impure manner of life, lest Jesus, when He judges, cut us in two and destroy us along with the unbelieving subjects in the eternal fire, having stripped us of the spiritual gift and baptism.

It is not as it seemed to one of the myth-spinners, who charms the ears but does not nourish souls, that the punishment of sinners will have an end, because the Lord said the fire of punishment is merely "eternal" and not "eternal of eternities." For just because the prophet says, "For the eternity, O Lord, thy Word abides in heaven," we must not therefore think that God and the Word exist in heaven only until a certain time, and after that age depart from the heavens. And again, the same says, "The truth of the Lord abides for the eternity." Shall we therefore suppose that after some passage of time the Lord will not be true, according to the madness of him who is named after wrath? Even He Himself in the Gospels, the Judge, says to His holy apostles: "And I am with you until the consummation of the age." Shall we therefore suppose that He will be with His saints only for a time, or rather eternally and without end?

How is it not the height of madness to suppose a limit to eternity, and to say that the devil, along with the wicked men associated with him, having been tormented up to that point, is then to be freed from his painful sufferings and no longer punished? For the contrary will surely happen to the just: that after they have lived blessedly for some age, they would again die or undergo some suffering in security, once their age is completed. The Judge has declared that some go into eternal life, and others into eternal punishment. It is necessary, therefore, that upon the completion of the punishment of the latter, the life of the former must also be completed, just as they say, deprived of the true life, who loosen the hands of the bound and, by preaching a future end of punishment, have made their souls soft.

But having wandered far from the matters proposed for our discourse by the impulse of speech, let us return to it with a swift course. For there is great danger in ears and tongues. Therefore, ^C this is guarded by two lips.

^A God in His wisdom established that it be kept guarded within the bulwark of the teeth, so that, by the protection of that fortress being present, its waywardness might be kept under control. For since it lies in a moist place, at one time it produces a foul odor by cursing, while at another, by blessing, it gushes forth and offers a harmony of hymns to God. Therefore, with the divine David we must sing: "Set, O Lord, a watch before my mouth, and a door of enclosure around my lips." For being tender and nimble, it has easy deflections in speech, differing from every other voice. For the swallow is garrulous and makes a perpetual noise; the turtle dove, however, sounds something sweet and is a friend of solitude. The cicada emits a thin sound, as if through a pipe; the crane clangors with its voice, the dove murmurs, the bear sighs and has a soft voice; the bull bellows like a trumpet; the lion shakes the wilderness with its roar; the heifer, while lowing, attracts its calf to itself; crows emit croaking cries that disturb the people; the song of the owl is mournful, the flute sounds for weddings, the trumpet for war, the lyre for dancing, and the drum for revelry. ^B Yet all things in the universe are surpassed by the sweet-sounding voice of men. For where in them is the significance of our tongue, or its clarity, or that accurate sound, or harmony, or sweetness? Swallows do not understand the mournful murmur of doves, nor cranes that of geese, nor the owl the note of the seleucis, or of the kingfisher or peacock, nor do the rest of the irrational animals know alien voices, nor can we interpret or declare them. For who will know what the lion signifies by roaring, or the bull by bellowing, or what the sheep mean by bleating among the kids? But all things recognize the significance of human eloquence. For when shepherds call, the sheep approach, but when they threaten, they retreat again. When the goatherd sounds his instrument, the goats spring back from the crops and turn away from the fields; likewise the horse, the mule, and the donkey are instructed by the human tongue as to whether they must go to the right or to the left. Dogs, too, leaping out to bark, if their master shouts, take fright and immediately settle down into quiet. ^C Observe also the wandering pig of mine, and how it returns from its error at the voice of the shepherd. Sometimes a dog, pursuing a gazelle and having wandered too far from the hunter, if it hears the whistle of a pipe from afar, responds in turn with a bark, calling for help from him by whom it was sent. Look also at the flights of doves, how, upon hearing the pipe-call of their owner, they swoop down like a cloud toward the dove-cotes. Every musical instrument is likewise adjusted by the striking of the hand to the sounds of our tongue. And it is truly admirable how, although it is so small and tender, it has a double faculty: of tasting by habit, and of discerning by both nature and instruction, and this by the wisdom of Him who created it, being sufficient for every motion of speech and for taste. ^D But he who does not sin with it, he is a great man, and capable of bridling his whole body, as the divine James says in his epistle to those under the sun. Together with the teeth that cooperate with it—

for the skillful pronunciation of speech, providing a firm rebound for the expression of discourse, as if a plectrum were striking the strings of a lyre. At the same time, they are also ministers of food; some cutting, while others refine. The front ones are for cutting, while the inner ones are molars, so called by the aptness of the term because they refine and comminute the food taken in. The nose, holding the middle place between the cheeks, draws in and gives back air, draining away fluid from the head, ^B and drawing in good scent while rejecting the contrary. The beard, indeed, covers the cheeks when we pass from the boyish and unstable age to a settled one, as we look to the things necessary for life; indicating, I think, that nature only grows up until that time, and that from thence we begin to take up labors. ^C It is time, therefore, for us to sing along with David: "How great are your works, O Lord! You made all things in wisdom" (Ps. CIII, 24). For in such a small head you have placed all our more precious senses, sight, hearing, taste, smell, building them close together as neighbors, so that neither of them hinders the operation of its neighbor. Nor are there others for us, besides the touch of the hands. The neck is agile and well-proportioned, through which man looks toward the heavens, that image with an upright face, as if it were a head resting upon a pillar, ^D a head that bows and lifts up in a manner appropriate through the cooperation of the neck. There are five fingers on the right hand, and the same on the left; with them we cleave the earth, we mine the mountains, we draw out springs, we alter the course of rivers. Through them, with ropes and timber, we navigate the abyss, we handle the sails of the ship according to the wind and steer the rudders; we capture wild beasts alive and tame them; we net sea monsters, equal in magnitude to hills and mountains, and terrible to behold; we harvest the air, capturing those that fly in it with limed reeds. And fire, though so vehement in its onset, terrible to the touch, destructive and violent in its motion, we force to serve our purpose and to accommodate itself to our individual will. By means of these [hands] we also raise cities, and wrap them in ramparts and walls, arming them with slings and bows and other suitable defensive weapons. The organ of the heart is small, round, and without joints; yet in it and in the brain we deliberate about God, angels, and archangels, heaven, earth, the sea, and the whole of creation together; as if it were a storehouse or a fortress of the vital cause within us and of the strength of the spirit around the heart. Since, therefore, we consider the heart to be a kind of fountain and principle of our life after God, from which tube-like channels in many forms, growing one through another through the whole body, diffuse the hot and fiery spirit; and since, in any case, some sort of nourishment had to be present for the heat by na-

nature ^A (for the fire within us cannot remain by itself unless it be nourished in turn), therefore also the channels of the blood, flowing as it were from a fountain out of the liver, accompany the warm spirit through the whole body, so that, if one be not left isolated from the other, the nature of the body may not suffer corruption as a result of some defect.

Since therefore the Divine is devoid of all need, but the poverty of mortals requires external things for its constitution—for if the liver is the fountain of blood, the provision of nourishment is necessary—what is introduced into us through this means provides the blood to well forth from the liver. Just as snow upon a mountain, increasing the fountains at the base of the mountain through its own moisture, gradually presses its own moisture through the depths into the veins below. The cardiac spirit is introduced through the neighboring organ, called the lung, which is a receptacle for air, drawing in external spirit by breathing through the trachea which extends as far as the mouth. ^B And in the midst of this the heart is enfolded, ever-moving, similar to the nature of fire, as you might see in a smithy, where it draws to itself the external spirit from the neighboring lung, filling its cavities by expansion, and providing its own heat to the neighboring arteries; it breathes out with constant motion, drawing from without as it expands into its own cavities, and expelling from itself by contraction into the arteries. And as if in a smelting furnace, performing a kind of melting and digestion by means of natural heat, it transfers the material, as if from a casting vessel, to the subsequent passages. Having separated the thick from the thin, it pushes the thicker matter into the intestines, but the thin and purified part it delivers to the gates of the liver. Bubbling over with heat, it deposits the fluid, and having reddened with the fluid that which is akin to fire into blood, those things which possess a certain intermediary power are, through a certain mixture and temperament, united to the body by means of the blood; it both nourishes and sustains the brain through vapors, from which, in turn, that exhalation, having become purer and more subtly refined, anoints the membrane surrounding the brain; this, extending from above toward the depths like a tube ^C through the spinal vertebrae joined in order, leading both itself and the contained marrow, ends at the genitals, being to all the joints of bones and harmony of muscles, and to the origins of the nerves, as it were a certain charioteer, giving to each both motion and rest.

But let us return to the proposed subject. Since the heart is the most preeminent and necessary limb of our life, therefore, before all our other organs, the Creator fortified it first, placing it in safety behind stronger fortifications and surrounding it with a fence; from behind, with the spine and the shoulder blades; from either side, with the arrangement and configuration of the ribs, so that he might effect that the center should not easily suffer harm. On the front side, the breastplate and the connection ^D

^A of the collarbone he placed it, guarding against external disturbances from all sides. Let us also speak briefly concerning the nature of the lungs. Being attached to the chest, it is well-knit ^B yet soft, and very porous and uneven; its entire circumference, having its passages leading to the bottom of the artery, contracts and collapses, necessarily squeezing out and emitting the spirit that remains in its cavities. But when again it expands and opens, it violently draws in air toward that which moves it, and being agitated by the continuous motion around the heart, it beats back the heart's fiery and burning heat by its fanning. For just as a flame, lacking respiration, is extinguished by its own smoke, so too does an animal perish if it does not respire through the lungs, quenching the fire around its heart. Wherefore, being agitated around the heart and caressing it with gentle breezes, it shows the animal to be thriving and robust. For in it, and in it alone, the vital cause seems to me to be situated.

The liver, being itself hot, is attached to the right side for the digestion and sanguification of what is ingested; when this is chilled, a change occurs in the face, followed by spasm and partial weakness. To the left side is attached the spleen, which draws off and separates the coarser element of the blood; but if it becomes too sweet, it swells and becomes inflamed, overstepping its bounds and obstructing the passages, and while making the man appear fleshy, it brings on pallor and partial weakness.

The convolutions and entanglements of the intestines are around the stomach so that, through the tortuous path, the food may be retained in the viscera for some time, lest, by the straightness of the passage, it should be easily and immediately excreted and excite the animal to appetite, never allowing it to be drawn away from such an occupation, according to the nature of brute beasts. The Creator also fashioned membranous vessels for the flow of fluids by means of invisible ducts, which draw in the fluid by degrees, so that the animal might not be ensnared by sudden overflowing, or by thirst from drying out, but that what has been drawn in might be managed little by little until a certain time.

Our legs are articulated with pivots and sockets, joined together like weight-bearing columns supporting the whole body; the knee acts as the head, the ankle as the base, making them nimble and ready for every motion—for prayer and adoration, for running and leaping. Our feet have been made harder than all the rest of the body that rests upon them, since they are always to strike the ground, being helped by the toes as if by hooks for progression; if we lose these ^C through cold or some other injury, we become slow in walking.

Who is the discourse that will describe the wisdom and power of the Creator within us? The perforations and membranous pipes, the entanglements of the veins, the tension of the nerves, the firmness of the bones, and the ways and paths that invisibly govern what is ingested, through one single breath of the body, the drawing in of the spirit ^D

the aqueducts of the blood, the dwelling of heat, the hearth of cold, and all such things as medicine has philosophized about—of which I shall leave the explanation to those who have studiously acquired the medical arts.

A passage from the holy man, Gregory of Nyssa, from the chapter wherein he teaches that the cause of existence is one and the same for both soul and body (97).

As we say regarding wheat, that the form of the ear—the blade, the stalk, the intermediate joints, the fruit, and the beards—exists entirely in the power [of the seed], and that none of these things pre-exist according to the principle of nature, nor are added to the nature of the seed, but rather that these things emerge in a natural order: so too we say concerning human conception, that the power of nature is sown together at the very beginning of the formation, but this power unfolds and manifests itself through a natural sequence—established first by the will of God as if by a foundation, and subsequently by the causes of generation that supervene. For just as individuals members of the body cannot be discerned in that which is deposited in the workshop of nature for the production of a human being before the formation has taken place, so neither can the soul’s properties be observed in the same [embryo] before they proceed into action. And just as that which is implanted is formed—by the power and faculty innate to it—into joints and viscera, so too is it understood regarding the soul. ^C For if the form of the human being who is to be produced exists in that power, but lies hidden due to its obscurity, as the sequence of things requires, then the soul is also present in it, even if it does not yet appear; it will, however, appear, progressing along with the bodily growth.

Since a certain power is secreted from an animate and living being for conception, you must not think that what proceeds into life is inanimate. And as we do not say that what is corporeal therein is flesh, or bones, or hair, and the rest, but that each of these exists by power and potentiality: so too concerning that which pertains to the soul, we do not say that the rational faculty, or the motive affect, or the appetitive power, and the rest that relate to the soul, are yet [fully developed] in it, but that the operations of the soul grow along with the building up of the body. ^D Now, in this first structure, only the augmentative and nutritive faculty precedes, for the smallness of the recipient does not admit more. Then, in one who has come into the light, the gift of sensing flourishes, and in one who has become adult, the rational faculty shines forth—not the whole of it at once, but growing along with the perfection of the organ, as much as the faculty of the subject is capable of receiving. It is evident, therefore, that this is not devoid of soul, which, having been separated from a living body, has been placed in the workshop of nature toward the nature of a living creature.

It must be understood, however, that if the matter stands in this way, such an emanation from the man happens only when God wills for a human being to be generated. If not, it flows out uselessly, even if some outsider might perhaps call this absurd. For they maintain that the emanation from the man is [only] an extremity, when God wills a human being to be created; otherwise, it is deaf/barren—even if someone from among those outside might reasonably argue that the female contributes to the generation of life along with that which comes from the man.

For she contributes ^A a certain material to that which is separated from the man, much as if she were providing some sort of matter to the efficient cause, namely a portion of the menstrual fluids, or as it were a certain brass to the sculptor. ^B For the woman emits no seed, but rather a certain useless fluid that exists within the female parts. The male seed is, as it were, the craftsman and effects the principle of motion, just as we see in the case of rennet, which curdles milk. Thus, the seed falling into the womb mixes with the most pure superfluity of the female. And they say that that which is formed in the womb is also partaker of a soul, not indeed of a perfect one, but of a nutritive one. For just as plants grow in the earth, so too does the fetus live, using the umbilical cord as a root through which the drawing of food is effected from the womb. When it comes into the light, it also acquires ^C a sentient soul, and as it grows with the growing body, there also grows that rational and intellectual faculty of the soul. For there is in the seed a certain particle of the soul, which is called the vital heat, corresponding to the heat of the sun; for just as that possesses a life-giving power, it creates life. The heart is formed first, which also is the last to perish. Similarly, the other internal organs are disposed before the external ones, and especially those above the girdle. The human being is fashioned in the womb having the nose ^D midway between the knees, and the eyes above the knees. The fetus begins to gain strength when the check of the menstrual fluids is transformed into milk in the breasts. Instantly the nausea and vomiting cease for women; and it becomes a male if the seed of the male is well-digested. Whence young men and old men for the most part beget females; but they hold that the surplus or the deficiency in certain parts occurs on account of a lack or excess of matter. That the emission of seed occurs from the areas around the head is clear from the fact that the eyes of those who have intercourse frequently become hollowed. The womb is also moved by the mind and thought, just as the male organ sometimes moves even without purpose; and twins are produced by the division of the seed in the womb: if it is well-digested, two males; if not, the opposite. They are also born by superfetation; whence often both a male and a female are born at the same time. The most nourishing milk is that which is thick and yellow, as is evident from cheese. A woman carries the fetus for seven months sometimes, for the most part for nine, and often for ten after she has conceived, but rarely after the eleventh. The fetus brought into the light either lives, or the woman will give birth to what is called a mole, which is a hard flesh, or she will be in danger. Around the fourteenth year, both males and females change their physical states; from being healthy they become sickly, or the reverse. Then also for females the monthly periods begin, and for males the seed, and the voice becomes deeper; the breasts and the genitals grow; and the woman becomes pale if she is about to carry a female.

Of the same Gregory of Nyssa

The communion of the mind with the body has an ineffable and incomprehensible conjunction, neither within

^A (for that which is incorporeal is not mixed with the body), nor surrounding it from without (for that which is incorporeal is not circumscribed by bodies); but the mind approaches nature and is applied to it in an ineffable and inconceivable manner, and it is contemplated both in it and around it. Yet, it is impossible to say or even to conceive how this is, except that when nature is flourishing in its own proper order, the mind also becomes active; but if any defect should happen to it, the movement of the intellect also falters in that respect.

It is worth knowing for what reason the growth of things springing from the earth precedes, after which brute animals are produced, and after them finally man. Not only that grass is useful to animals, and that the abundance of cattle exists for the sake of man, as if serving him, but that Moses here imparts to us the philosophy concerning the soul. The division of the subject can be explained in speech: All things are partly intelligible, and partly corporeal. Let the intelligible things be set aside for now. Of the corporeal, some participate in vital energy, while some are totally devoid of life. Again, of the vital body, some is sensible, and some is insensible; and of the sensible, some is rational, and some is devoid of reason. Nature progresses, therefore, from the lesser to that which is perfect. For this reason, after inanimate matter, as if certain steps of the form of animate beings, the legislator says that this natural life came into existence, pre-existing in the germination of natural things, as a nourishing and growing power, and thus then he adds also the faculty of sensation, which is in animals, participating also in that which was before it. For things that live through flesh can exist even without an intelligible nature. But what is rational cannot exist unless it be commingled with that which is sensible. Therefore, man was made last. For the rational animal is tempered from every species of souls; for it is nourished according to the species of the soul that is in plants; to the growing faculty, the sentient was added by nature; and finally, in the sentient, the efficacy of the intelligible nature shines forth. Hence it is also properly called a rational and intelligible soul, which reaches through all things. For in the rational it has also embraced the rest, and in the sensible there is also the vegetative ^B in every case, and the physical is concerned with the material. . . . but these through the vital energy are called souls abusively.

It should be known that those things which were made simply so that we may live are the brain, the heart, and the lungs, the liver and the stomach. For if any of these is damaged, the animal necessarily dies. But the eyes, the hands, and the feet were made so that we may live well. For these being damaged, the animal indeed lives, but not well. Finally, others pertain to the propagation of posterity.

Man was produced by God last after the creation. Not as if he were vile and cast away among the last, but it was fitting that the ruler should not be [created] before the subjects

should appear, nor before the feast was prepared for the guest to be brought in.

The human nature is more valuable than all creation that is visible to the eyes. For other things were created by God as if in an instant, brought into existence together with the command; but in the architecture of man, counsel precedes, and reason contemplates everything concerning him beforehand; for God said: *Let us make man according to our image* 85, and the things that follow concerning him; so that man might obtain his dignity even before his birth. Therefore, He also prepared the matter from which he would be fashioned, and considered after what archetype he should have his likeness. Therefore, the most excellent craftsman, God, fashioned human nature as an instrument suitable for the administration of the kingdom, both in the advantages of the soul and in the very shape of the body. For the soul shows the royal majesty, being subject to no one, and of its own power, as an image of God partaking of the archetype, having put on the splendor of virtues in place of royal robes, and sharing in no common vulgarity.

One perceptive faculty of things is implanted in man, namely the mind; which, running through each of the senses and grasping all things, and being as it were a character of the one substance of God, is the effector of various operations. Let those be silenced ^B who say that the Son or the Holy Spirit is unlike the Father according to substance; for He who said, *Let us make*, and by the plural signification declared the Holy Trinity, would not have made mention of the image in the singular number, if it were unlike the archetype; for it is impossible for one image to be made like to diverse forms; for if the natures were diverse, they would have established diverse images also.

Man is naked and stripped of weapons and natural defenses, not armed with horns, nor with the sharpness of claws, nor with teeth or a poisonous sting, nor with a covering of hair, not winged, nor swift of foot, nor fleshy; and yet, destined to rule, he ought to have been protected by his own weapons; but it is fittingly otherwise. For if he had been so fashioned, he would have been something beastly and impossible to meet, and he would have disregarded his rule over others, having no need of their assisting work. Now, however, that which seems to be lacking to nature is an occasion for seizing command over things subject to him. For this reason, the ox was brought under the yoke by him, the horse was tamed, the oversight of sheep was taken up on account of the produce obtained from them, and animals suitable for carrying burdens ^C were yoked. The dog was given for the catching of some animals by the grip of its teeth; something stronger than horns and claws has been devised, namely iron. The birds also serve us, and their feathers; and from the hides of animals, the protection of the tenderness of our feet has been secured.

The upright stature of man, and his hands, show the excellence of his dignity over other animals, which look downward, ^D and have feet [turned] toward the front...

^A prior members, because they required a support. ^B The hands cooperate for every necessity, both in war and in peace, and in the usage of speech, and in the writing of letters. For we adapt sounds even through the shape of the hands, so that the hands are something proper to rational nature. But if man were lacking hands, he would have been constructed after the likeness of quadrupeds, for the sake of the need for food, so that his face would be extended toward food, while at the same time his nostrils would be thin; from which it would necessarily follow that he would have a strange voice.

The body is constructed as an organ for the use of reason. Since the mind is an intellectual and incorporeal thing, it had need of such workmanship, in order that it might manifest its motion through some artful method, touching the vocal parts like a plectrum. The operation regarding this organ is twofold: the one is of sound, the ^C other is of hearing. The former is always emitting something, while the hearing is perpetually receiving. And it is worthy of admiration how no confusion arises from the words and thoughts that are introduced through it. This also has a place in the efficacy of the eyes. For through these the mind apprehends those things that are outside the body; and the mind, examining each one of those things that are admitted within, deposits them in the suitable places of knowledge, often stirring up one knowledge from diverse seats of the senses; and again, perceiving various things from one single sense; for if someone has heard the name of honey, and has seen it, and smelled it, and touched it, and tasted it, he has known one thing through all the faculties of the senses. He perceives various sounds through the single sense of hearing, and through sight he considers things of a different class, namely, white, and black, and brown.

The mind is something different from the senses; for if it were the same, it would have a kinship with one of them, being simple; but now, being dispersed into the various senses, and acting effectively through each one, existing as something various in unity, and as one in variety. Therefore its nature escapes knowledge, and by the very fact that it cannot be known, it represents that incomprehensible nature of Him who made it according to His own image.

And since the body has been made like a certain musical instrument; just as one skilled in singing cannot demonstrate his art with a damaged instrument: so also the mind, wandering through the whole organ, touching each of the members through the efficacies that are consistent with it, has its proper effect in those which are naturally affected, but in those which are infirm it is inefficacious; for it does not touch one part while deserting another.

Just as the mind is adorned by the beauty of the first divine exemplar, exalted as if by its character: so also nature, administered by the mind, is adorned, and the coarseness of our substance, around which nature is discerned, is in turn contained by it. But as the mind, obscured by the deformity of men, does not admit divine beauty unless it has been purified: so ^D

^A also, the nature understood in substance, being in some way affected, cannot receive the operation of the mind unless it returns to its former health. ^B It is also demonstrated from this, that the mind is dependent on nature. For when it is established and awake, it acts and is moved; but when it is relaxed by sleep, it remains motionless. We consider the images that occur during sleep to be certain phantoms of the operation of the mind; for someone often seems to be in strange and complex places, which would by no means happen in a waking state. These occur to some from the constitution of their character, and the phantasms of the brave are one thing, those of the coward another; those of the intemperate are different from those of the sober, of the generous from those of the insatiable; for the echoes of daily practices remain in the reminiscent seat of the soul. ^C Sometimes, too, dreams occur according to the dispositions of bodily qualities. For thus, the thirsty man seems to be at springs, and he who is in need of food, at banquets; and in short, the sight of dreams is manifold, but vain. For the mind, obscured by sleep through the inactivity of the senses, can neither shine through them nor is it entirely extinguished. But if Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and Nabuchodonosor are led through dreams to the knowledge of future things, this was provided by God for another reason, that the hidden wisdom of the holy ones might be manifested. ^D It should be known that the communion of the intelligible with the corporeal has an ineffable and incomprehensible conjunction. And this was written before.

INTERROGATION CXLI.

Response.

INTERROGATION CXLII.

Response.

^A Necessarily, therefore, your own voice must be turned against you, and thus we must return to the question of the article; for you say that he did not state that he had descended, but that he had been caught up into paradise, and from this, as it seems, you shake off the teachings of the most illustrious fathers. For since he did not say "having ascended," but "having been caught up," does it follow that he did not ascend? But if he has ascended by being caught up, it is clear that he also descended by being caught up into paradise. For he says, "And I know such a man, who was caught up into paradise." ^B

INTERROGATION CXLIII.

But since the heaven is seen above us, it is evident that he used an ascent to be above it, where we also understand paradise to be.

Response.

Why then did he not, by combining them, say, "And I know such a man, caught up into heaven and paradise"? But by the interposition of the article, he distinguished the places, saying: "And I know such a man, caught up into the third heaven," and again, "caught up into paradise." But the "again" transfers him to another place; to the likeness of a mountain surrounded by a sloping plain, in which if someone wishes to be, by entering the plain he easily arrives at it; but if he wishes first to ascend the mountain, and from it come into the plain, it is absolutely necessary that he should journey downwards from the high to the low. In a similar way, I think the divine Apostle first entered the heavens, and thence flew down into paradise. ^C But a witness worthy of faith, even before Paul, is the wise Solomon in divine matters, indicating a perceptible paradise upon earth: "My brother has descended," he says, "into his garden," signifying at once the divine advent of the Lord into the flesh, and prefiguring in Him the descent of Paul from the heavens, after he had been caught up above them from the earth. Moreover, the brother of Solomon and Paul according to the flesh is Christ, He who descended into His own garden. And again, they have another brother; for both, having become foster children of the Synagogue, endured the knife of circumcision and the yoke of the law.

INTERROGATION CXLIII.

What then? Do you think the Savior Christ was not in the heavens, but on earth, when He entrusted His soul at the time of His crucifixion, saying, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit"? And to the thief, "Today you will be with me in paradise"? If, therefore, God and the Father of Christ is in heaven, paradise must surely be there too, into which Christ promised to bring the thief who was crucified with Him. ^D

Response.

It seems to me blasphemous and of the utmost madness to think that the divine Power is in heaven or paradise alone, and not everywhere; for existing in all things, It also encompasses all things, heavenly, earthly, and subterranean; and so, entering even into Hades, the...

^A soul of the incarnate God and Word, we say, exists in the Father’s hands. And we confess that Christ was in paradise in His divinity, and that He brought the thief’s soul along with Him, and thus that He resided in the Genitor’s palms. "For our God is in heaven and in earth, in the seas, and in all the deeps," says David, the author of divine songs; and again: "Because in His hand are the ends of the earth"; and the same one also says: "If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I descend to Hades, You are present." And if heaven is the highest of all things, and Hades the deepest of all, and the Divine exists in these and simultaneously encompasses all things, as the divine men proclaim, it is clear that Christ, being everywhere present with the Father in His divinity, none the less committed His soul into His hands. For if "the souls of the righteous are in the hand of the Lord," as the Prophet says, much more so are the souls of God and the Word, from whom we are taught that the paradise is earthly and sensible; for did He not say to the thief suspended with Him on the wood, "Today you will be with Me in paradise"? He therefore leads back into paradise the One who had exiled the thief Adam, having had mercy on the hostile thief.

INTERROGATION CXLIV

What, then, does Isaiah mean when he says in the person of God: "Upon My hands I have depicted your walls"? This we understand to be said about paradise. And the Apostle also indicates this, writing: "But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother"; which we think to be none other than paradise.

Response

You seem to me to be pleading for, rather than opposing, a paradise planted with trees and guarding its fruits, by bringing forward for me a city and walls. And there is also an equivocation of "paradise" and "Jerusalem," or of "heaven" and "Edem," where Moses points out that the paradise was made by God, saying: "And God planted a paradise in Edem ^B toward the east"—but not "in heaven toward the east." "And a fountain," he says, "rises from Edem to water the paradise"—not "it descends from heaven." "And a river goes forth from Edem," not "it descends from the heavens." "This," he says, "is divided into four sources," not "it flows down into four heads." Where in heaven are the figs, the palms, the pomegranates, and the rest with which paradise is adorned, and where it naturally flourishes? Where in the heavens are the fountain, and the rivers, and the tree of transgression? Hear, then, the author of the history proclaiming the four rivers flowing out from one fountain, and as if pointing to them with a finger by their very names. "And the name to the one is Pishon." This one, he says, passing by Ethiopia and India, is called by them "Ganges." Among the Greeks, it is called the "Ister" and the "Indus" river; among the Illyrians and the Ripaeans who dwell by the Ister, it is called the "Danubis"; among the Goths, the "Dunautis." And circling the whole land of Evilat, the second Ethiopia and the parts of the Elymaeans, and traversing the first Ethiopia, then thus it...

flows forth toward the south and the west inside Cadiz, into the celebrated Ocean. ^A

INTERROGATION CXLV.

Do not put an end to the discourse here, kind Father, but by describing the impetus of the second river in your discourse, gladden us perfectly.

Response.

The second is Gihon, which is called Nile by the Egyptians, inundating and irrigating the whole of Egypt gently every year. It provides passage for ships with sails, permits agricultural works to be carried out, and allows aquatic creatures to mingle with land animals, of which some feed on grasses, while others feed on flesh. Flowing past the greatest Ethiopia, it flows through the lesser, and through Anumeta, and Blemmyum, and Auxumeta, and the parts of Thebais and Egypt, and thus then it pours out into the sea. ^B Jeremiah, among other prophets, having experienced many struggles while restraining the frenzied Israel from returning to Egypt, cries out clearly: "What is there for you in Egypt, that you should drink troubled water?" That is, the troubled water of the Nile.

INTERROGATION CXLVI.

We beseech you not to hesitate, due to the shortness of time, to explain also in a few words those things which pertain to the third river: where it arises, and where it ends.

Response.

The one which proceeds after the second from the same spring is called Tigris by divine Scripture; it flows indeed straight toward the Syrians, and passing through the parts of the East, it enters the earth for an immense space, and emerges again in Armenia, and is divided in the region of the Assyrians. ^C

INTERROGATION CXLVII.

That we may receive this customary joy from your oration, please describe the fourth river for us also.

Response.

The fourth, overflowing from the same womb, is the celebrated Euphrates, which also carries to us certain Indian fruits and leaves from the autumn and leaf-fall of paradise in its stream. It similarly, like the other, flowing from the same spring, glides underground for a certain distance, and emerges again near Armenia, from whence it flows through Babylon. Each of these is navigated by ships carrying immense burdens, after their subterranean reflow toward those regions beyond, as if for those wishing to strive through those hidden passages toward paradise. But having tried in vain to arrive at those inaccessible places, through navigation against the current, or by following the shores in order to investigate at least by a terrestrial journey the approach to it, they have attempted. From among these, certain Egyptians, drinkers of the water and eaters of seeds, not using our coarse diet from the cradle, having procured a supply of diverse seeds, and having filled many ships, and having the water as an easy drink to draw from it, since they moisten their legumes as well; and for food they...

softened them, they sailed along the ^A stream of the Geon—which is called the Nile among them—attempting, by following the course of the river, to find the paradise that no one has seen since Adam. But after they had sailed for a very long time, and had been carried beyond the inhabited world, they were scorched by the fire of the sun in difficult places; and since the river there was boiling entirely, so that they could no longer touch the drink even with the tips of their fingers or their lips, they turned their rudders back toward the land from whence they had sailed, and were brought back into their own country, not bringing back any provisions, as everything had been consumed in the long span of time, as some of the Egyptians have recorded. ^B Those sailors, however, who missed that blessed sight, were clearly taught the words of the wise Solomon: "Seek not out the things that are too hard for thee, neither search the things that are above thy strength; but what is commanded thee, think thereupon." But if, according to Origen—that most unholy man—paradise is not on earth, why did Egypt send its men to behold it? And how does Moses, that first writer of divine things, say, "And the Lord descended into paradise," and not, "He ascended"? And, "The Lord brought Adam into paradise," and not, "He lifted him up"? Furthermore, if paradise is not on earth, as that babbler trifles, nor is the fountain divided into four, whence flow the Geon, Phison, Tigris, and ^C Euphrates? And where in the heavens is the fig tree, or the grape, with whose sewed leaves those first men covered themselves after the fall? Now, if that region is neither sensible nor among us, then certainly there was no fig tree there. If there was no tree there, the first parents did not eat of it; and if they did not eat, they did not transgress; and neither did Adam exist, nor Eve from him, nor we from both, nor any other after us.

INTERROGATION CXLVIII

What then? Do you not think that the devil has fallen from heaven? For just as we say this of him, so also do we speak of man, meaning clearly a fall from heaven.

Response

Undoubtedly we say that the author of evil, that demon, was cast down from the ultramundane realms, as Ezekiel, the beholder of the Cherubim, ^D laments him and says: "How is Lucifer fallen from heaven?" And the Lord, agreeing with his servant in the Gospels, says: "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." But concerning Adam, this will nowhere be found stated in the divine Scriptures. For although custom uses the word "to fall" regarding man, and likewise the term "fall" regarding Adam, nevertheless, the name of heaven is not prefixed before the fall, as it is in the case of Belial. We use the word "to fall" also when someone comes down from riches and splendor to poverty, or turns from virtue to vices, or rushes from virginity into debauchery, or when the body perishes. Did those, then, fall from the heavens? By no means; for—

^B I thought it necessary to make use of the aid of the Divine Scriptures and to provide demonstrations from the sacred writer, Moses. He says, then: "And God placed the man to till and to keep the garden." From whom, I ask, ought he to guard it, since in the heavens angels do not know how to steal? A fruit-eating bear, or a swine, or a wild boar, does not exist in the heavens; nor a grass-eating hedgehog; nor a fox digging through the hives of bees, and disturbing their buzzing, or devouring the honeycombs; there is no blood-thirsty lion, no ravenous wolf, no eagle or griffin, nor anything else of those that are among us and that, fearing even the mere rebuke of Adam, dreaded even to touch or approach the paradise. For all things trembled at his voice before the transgression. But concerning him who had transgressed, he says: "And He cast them out from the paradise," but He did not say, "He cast them down." "And He placed them," he says, "not below, but over against the paradise." And He placed the cherubim, "and the flaming sword which turns itself, to keep," not the ascent, but the entrance to the tree of life. He says it is "turning," for the sake of causing fear from afar to those who defect, whether they be brute beasts or demons; just as farmers are accustomed to do, on the one hand driving away both birds and quadrupeds from the vineyards and orchards with a shout; but on the other hand, by the whirling of the sword which is in their hands, and by its flash, they frighten from a distance those who come for the plundering of the fruits. Sometimes also, by the whirling of a sling and the stone thrown from it, they terrify from afar the plunderer who is approaching.

^C INTERROGATION CXLIX. What do you think are the garments of skin with which the Lord clothed Adam and Eve after the fall? For we have heard someone speaking eloquently, saying that man was a rational mind, and a rational incorporeal animal. But after he had sinned through disobedience toward God, the mind, which had become chilled, was separated and died—and for this reason was called "soul," because the heat of the mind having grown cold, it could no longer remain and serve the things on high—but that he had put on this body, which Scripture calls a "garment of skin," placed around the one who had sinned for his punishment, so that it might be like a prison and a penalty for him. Therefore, the saints also asked God that they might die and be freed from this punishment. For David says: "Bring my soul out of prison"; and Paul: "Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"; and Job incessantly prays for death, no longer bearing the punishment of the garment of skin in the body.

Response. I already suspected and stated in what went before that you hold the same views as the venomous and pestilential dogmas of Origen, which deceive the simpler folk. For souls that have sinned in heaven are not condemned to be punished in a body, as if no longer able to perform the sacred service of the ultramundane ministry. For if they were enclosed in these bodies for correction and chastisement, how, in this…

^A state, do they sin far more grievously? But he who is punished in custody, it is certain that even if he should wish to sin, he cannot. Why then did He not also confirm the demons along with the devil—since they are minds and incorporeal—in sobriety and correction after they had sinned and been cast down from the heavens, instead of enclosing them in bodies as He did with us?

And when Moses prayed for the people that they might become a thousand-fold more numerous and innumerable as the sand of the sea, did he desire that so many intellectual ^B powers that had sinned in heaven should be cast down into bodies in order to increase those who were on earth? And when Anna, that godly woman, besought the Divine for the bearing of children, did she ask that an intellectual and incorporeal power might fall from the heavens so that she might give birth to a mortal? Or again, when David, the composer of divine melodies, making a prayer for the godly, said, "And may you see your children's children," did he desire that the race of the righteous might be multiplied through the fall of the ultramundane powers?

But if He bound to our bodies, for the sake of punishment, souls that had sinned in heaven, why did He likewise condemn those who had not sinned at all, punishing them in bodies just as He did the others? For behold, He Himself testifies ^C to the great Job, even before his fortitude against the devil was displayed, saying: "There is no one on earth like my servant Job, a man just and true, blameless, godly, abstaining from every evil deed."

INTERROGATION CL.

But behold, look at what you said was said by God: "There is no man on earth"—which implies that there are other intellectual men in heaven, from whose number Job, after he had sinned, was bound to a body for punishment; and through virtue having been purified, even before the affliction, he received testimony from God that he was more just than those who are men on earth, but not, however, than those who are in the heavens.

Response.

Sight and touch seem to me more trustworthy than hearing. Let us therefore leave aside things that are heard ^D groundlessly and without demonstration, and let us rather handle the things that are seen. For you are not able to demonstrate from the heavenly voice concerning Job that there are other intellectual men in heaven besides those who are on the earth; observe, therefore, and feel for yourself the things that are clearly handed down to you by me from the divine voice. For since, in past times, Abel was the first of the righteous, after him Seth, then Enoch, Noah, then Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—since these all had fallen asleep and were under the earth, and at those times alone among the mortals on earth the righteous Job was found, just as Lot in the pentapolis of Sodom, living alone virtuously, rightly escaped their doom. Therefore, when those righteous men who had previously fallen asleep were under the earth, Job was the only righteous one among those on the earth. And that he was not condemned for sinning in the heavens and joined to a body for the pursuit of justice, we are instructed by those who came after him. For what kind of virtue did he demonstrate that

^A Jeremias the divine is testified to by God before he emerged from the womb? Or, by what act did John, while still being carried in the womb toward the Son and Word who was likewise being carried in the womb of the Ever-Virgin, obtain that boldness which he manifested by leaping? But if again, as you say, they existed sinless in the heavens, for what reason were they clothed with bodies that were under condemnation? Far be it from us! May Christ drive away those who claim that souls existed beforehand, lest they dare to say that even His own soul was chilled and devoid of mind.

INTERROGATION CLI

What then? If the soul does not exist beforehand in the heavens, but after it has sinned, it is expelled into the present life through copulation with the body and generation, how does David, lamenting this, say: *For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me*?

Response

Nothing in these points can confirm the trifles of Origen. For what David says, *Behold, I was conceived in iniquities*, denotes that he himself, having been captured and stained by concupiscence, fell into profligacy, and having perpetrated the grief of adultery, straightway added slaughter to it. ^B He indicates, therefore, that he is grieving because, overcome by concupiscence, he was captured by iniquity, while the Law commanded: *Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife*. But the statement, *In sins did my mother conceive me*, is something that is wont to occur even today. For very many mothers do not lie with their husbands out of love, as did Sarah, or Rebecca, or Anna, or Elizabeth, but rather out of strifes, and quarrels, and jealousies; while they submit in body, yet remaining disobedient in will, they sometimes conceive fetuses. ^C This is what David suspected: that he was conceived from the beginning out of such contention. But the Lord shows that legitimate copulation and the procreation of children according to the Law is free from every sin and superior to reproach; for He made the woman out of Adam, by which He teaches that He embraces the union of those joined together through her, and the procreation of children from them; and therefore, concerning the copulation that is through Him, He says: *Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and have dominion over it*. ^D Honoring this same manner of living together once more, He adorns it in Cana of Galilee with His presence and the fellowship of the feast; and that He might demonstrate this even more, He bestows an honorary gift, wine made from water. And, speaking divinely in the Gospels, He says: *For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh*. And through Paul He says: *Marriage is honorable, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge*, which is to say, this very Christ. For the Father judges no one, but has handed over all judgment to the Son. Therefore, our conception according to Christ does not take place in iniquities. For in the womb Jeremias was sanctified, and John leaped with singular joy. Finally, that Word, who is also God, became man

through an ineffable conception. Consequently, bodies are not for the sake of souls, nor is one prior to the other in generation, but God in an instant created both ineffably because of His goodness. But having turned away from the good and been stripped of divinity, He again, because of His goodness, covered them, adorning them with a solid skin, since their tenderness was now outside the delight of Paradise and divine protection, and they were beginning to undertake labors and to experience a life of toil and sweat. Therefore, piety does not teach that the soul is pre-existent, co-existent, or post-existent, lest we think falsely that some souls slip down from the heavens and are inserted into ^A bodies, and [lest] on the other hand we calumniate those who practice chastity and temperance, or [those who] suffer a flow of seed, as if they were killers of souls, suffocating souls in the loin and in the seed. Far be it from me that you should hold that opinion, that the soul is posterior to the body; for a man is not older or younger than himself. ^B

(These things were also added regarding another; for Maximus the Christian Philosopher lived after Caesarius.)

*From Saint Maximus.* Since the principal purpose of God was that we should not be generated through marriage and corruption, and transgression introduced marriage; therefore all who are from Adam, being subject to the condemnation of our first parent, are conceived in iniquities. But the text, *In sin did my mother conceive me*, teaches that the first parent, Eve, was the first to desire pleasure. Therefore we too are said to be conceived in sin, as being subject to that same condemnation. ^C

*Interrogation CLII.* Must we, then, think of God as a tanner or a slaughterer, so that He might clothe Adam in tunics of skin?

*Response.* I would rightly ask you in return, O most contentious one, which is more light and easy: to have fixed the heaven from the waters, and to have founded the earth above the abyss, and to have gathered the infinite water into one gathering, and to have adorned each thing with fitting reason; to have illuminated the heaven with stars, and to have variegated the dry land with plants, and to have made the sea teem with swimming creatures; or ^D to sew hide and cover the naked? To fashion an animal, or to clothe one? To make the sea passable like dry land by a command, and to have led over six hundred thousand men with wives and children on dry feet, or to have covered those in need with tunics by a command? To have struck a sheer rock and caused water to spring forth, to have cut back the stream of the Jordan and led the people across, or to have clothed the naked? To have fastened dust with nerves and brought it to life, or to have clothed an animal capable of reason that was made from dust?

*Interrogation CLIII.* Show us, then, I pray, who it was who slaughtered, and what was the slaughtered animal, from which the skins came, and who it was who sewed them? For if you provide the account regarding these, it will be necessary for us no longer to doubt what is said by you.

[Response.] ^A Show me, then, you too, the maker of the feast, and the animals slaughtered, and what was their number by which that famous Nile was reddened, and a river so great was instantly transformed into blood, being obedient to God through Moses. Where, moreover, are the meats of that immense slaughter of cattle, through which the navigable stream was transformed into blood? How, likewise, did the holy and self-subsistent living God, and the Word bearing flesh, and rising from the tomb for our sake, leaving behind the grave-clothes in it, not appear naked? Who is he who provides, who is he who sews, who is he who clothes him who clothes all things? But if those things were present by His divine will, let us believe that our first parents were also clothed by this means with skins; for not, according to the opinion of that empty talker, are our bodies skins, with which the souls were surrounded after they had eaten of the forbidden fruit; for both the formation of the bodies is described before the eating and the transgression, and the rib was taken from Adam for the woman before the transgression, since it is absurd to posit a rib in a bodyless state. What need, moreover, compelled them to be covered with fig leaves, if they were incorporeal? ^B

INTERROGATION CLIV. From the great David we learn that souls exist before bodies. For he says to God: *Thy hands have made me* (meaning the soul) *and fashioned me* (the body, clearly).

Response. The great Job was not less than David in justice, nor enclosed by less power; for he too was a celebrated king, and equal testimony to justice and truth was borne for him by God as for David. But this one says to God: *Thy hands have made me.* And again: *Remember that Thou hast fashioned me out of clay.* Shall we therefore, because the fashioning is placed in the first position, say that the body exists before the soul? Or, because he mentions the fashioning but does not add the creation, shall we for that reason call him inanimate, or otherwise? Since the divine Moses, the narrator of the creation, says that God, having taken dust from the earth, fashioned man, and did not add that He completed him in the very same hour and moment, are we therefore to suppose that the crown of the head existed first, in the second place the eyes, in the third the neck, and finally the ankles and feet? Away with such delirium. For whence shall we know that the best and most wise God, the Artificer, did not begin our creation from the soles of the feet or the tongue? ^C

INTERROGATION CLV. In what does it seem to you that man is made to the image of God? Is it in the soul, as being spirit and an invisible thing, or is it in the body with its many parts?

Response. In neither, except in the immortality of the soul. And in this, that he has dominion over all things: yet not even in these does he maintain the exact quality and

^A similitude; for both are created, both soul and body, and they are composite through their mutual connection and communion. But separation and division necessarily follow composition. God, however, is incomposite and indivisible, and is expressed by no form, remaining in Himself and always being the same. Neither, again, does it preserve in its dominion the likeness to the archetype of the image. For he who receives is not of the same honor as the giver. For he who provides is entirely in no need of that which he provided; but he who receives is in need of all that is given. And the one was appointed by God to have dominion over his fellow servants; but God is by no one, existing as Lord and Almighty of his own power. ^B

INTERROGATION CLVI

But consider each by itself, the soul separately, and the body on the other hand; and explain to us in what you think that which is "according to the image of God" consists.

Response

Neither one separated from the other is man: for the one is spirit, but not man; the other is clay, devoid of reason and sense; but from both, one man is perfected. And the soul is subject to alteration and changes, at times forgetting, at times remembering, rejoicing in an abundance of things, and being sullen, and becoming piteous and gloomy in need, at one time thinking solemn things, at another licentious things, now choosing just things, now unjust, now becoming kind, now inhuman, in a moment becoming angry, and in a moment calmed, yielding to divisions and changes, as the sublime Apostle says, crying out explicitly: "For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two-edged sword, and reaching unto the division of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents." How, then, can that which is subject to divisions, and whose thoughts and intents are discerned, not only by God, but also often by His prophets, and which is convicted of its hidden things, be the image of the immutable God? But who shall grasp the counsel or thought of God, as the holy Apostle cries out: "Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?" If, therefore, that which is properly the main part of the human composition, the soul, has fallen away from the divine image and likeness, how much more will the comparison of the body appear to be far removed from it? For the one, as it were, is incorruptible, but the body is corruptible; the one is without magnitude and qantity, but the other is small and comprehensible; the one is incomprehensible to the touch, and the other is tangible and fleeting; the one is incorporeal and immaterial, towering above all height and being supereminent; but the other is small and material, creeping upon the earth and humble, rolling about in these lower things; the one neither increases, nor ceases, nor subsides, nor is diminished. ^C Do not, therefore, let yourself be persuaded by these lower things, nor describe the divine nature in human terms, hearing God saying that "I will lift up my hand to heaven, and I will swear by my right hand, and I will say," and again, "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool."

And again the prophet saying: "Who hath measured the heaven with his palm, and the earth with his fist?" And elsewhere, that with his finger he carved the stone tables which he handed to the spectator of God, Moses. Nor, because David, that author of divine songs, says: "Incline, O Lord, thy ear, and hear me," and "Look upon me, and have mercy on me," should you for this reason assign form to the Divine, describing it by members and organs. For if the wind blowing is present everywhere, and the air encompasses all things, how much more so [is he] who commanded it to blow, and gathered the blowing winds? The throne encompasses the one sitting, but the Divine is incomprehensible. But if he also has the earth as a footstool, how is it that while we are walking, or plowing, or running from the east to the west, driving and urging on horses by the commands of emperors, we are not dashed against his feet? Or how is it that having measured the heaven with his palm, and sitting on high, he again says he lifts his hand to heaven? Or how, with such fingers, did he polish the tables without an axe, carve them without a stylus, and hand the law written on them to the lawgiver? Rouse yourself, therefore, even if late, and with the eye of the mind behold that these things are but thoughts and figures; and consider this by a comparison from something common and small to the Divine.

The sea, surpassing all elements in magnitude, is as a drop from a cask, and the universe is as a dew-drop, when compared to that divine ocean, as the Prophet says. Yet, though it is something simple and endowed with no form, it cries out without a mouth, runs without feet; it leaps and surges without shins; it holds back navigators while possessing no hands; it is raised on high without wings; it suffocates many without a palm or fingers or knots; it roars and spits while lacking lips; it dashes against rocks without arms, raising up ships carrying immense burdens; without teeth it devours, and hollows out the neighboring land. If, being simple and fluid by nature, it is accustomed to perform these things, how much more is he able to perform them who has reined in its unbearable violence and tyranny with a very small amount of sand, and as if with an iron wall has set a boundary around it? For when it makes an assault with its waves toward the outer region, it is checked by the sand as if by a bridle, and its force being dissolved into foam, it returns to itself.

In like manner also the spirit of the wind, though it is simple, while blowing whistles without lips, destroys roofs without arms, harvests fruits, shaking the trees without hands; it stirs up and makes the abyss seethe like a furnace, and transfers what is at the bottom to the surface, using neither winnowing-fan nor hoe; it strives in opposition, and resisting, hinders from their course the huge ships, while lacking breasts and shoulders. And others, white-robed like sheep, it drives on the sea as if in a meadow or field, not striking them with a spear, ^B or a staff.

^A it reddens those that were quite pale, while making ready ships for the transport of men, without itself undergoing any change of color. If, therefore, the sea and the wind, though they surpass all their fellow-servants in size, yet occupy the place of a gnat or a mule, or a grain of mustard seed, or something even smaller, when compared with the Divine; and if they shout, run swiftly, mock, prevail, hinder movement, though they lack hands and limbs, and perform good deeds, punish, confer riches, drown in the deep, lead on, and lead away—why, O most excellent and dear man, do you attribute form and ascribe limbs to the simple and incomposite Divine, which is expressed by no form, when you hear: "Incline, O Lord, thy ear, and hear me"? And again: "Look upon me"; and "Send forth, O Lord, thy hand from on high, take me out, and deliver me"; and other things of this kind? ^B Away, then, with the notion that men, in soul or body, should be defined as made in the image of God. For how is it fitting to compare things easy to grasp and mutable to the Divine, which cries out through the prophet: "I am, and I do not change"?

Neither is the divine word false when it says that man was made in the image of God, nor is the miserable suffering of human nature similar to the beatitude of the impassible Godhead. For in this comparison it is necessary that either the Divine be passible, or the human impassible. It must be investigated, therefore, in what way the human is said to be similar to the Divine. The Scripture says: "And God created man; in the image of God he created him." It repeats again: "Male and female he created them." This is something alien to God; and consequently, the image does not possess the likeness of the prototype. The solution to this is as follows: ^C There is a twofold structure to our nature; one aspect is intellectual, which, as it exists in the participation of all good things, is said to have been made in the image of God; the other is that which is divided into the difference of male and female. But since only the Divine is immutable, and our nature is mutable (for it began to be from nothing), He who before the generation of all things knew everything, having foreknown to what the movement of the human will—endowed with its own power—would incline, fashions for the image that difference which is in male and female. When the Word says that God created man, by that universal and indefinite name He encompassed all of humanity. For Adam was not mentioned at this point as being created, as happens in the following passages, but "man" is named universally. Therefore, it is not possible to see the structure that is in the image of God in Adam alone, but in every human being; ^D for the one who was first fashioned and the one who will be the last of all possess it similarly. He who, therefore, having contemplated all of humanity through His foreknowing power, and having honored it with an angelic destiny, since He foresaw that the human will would not walk straight toward the good, so that the multitude of human souls might not be cut short, having fallen from that manner in which the angels were increased in multitude, [prepared] the [method of] increase [for those] who had slipped into sins...

^A granting to human nature—in place of the angelic manner of life—a brutish and irrational mode of propagation, as David says: *Man, being in honor, did not understand* [Ps. XLVIII, 13, 21]. Whence this kinship of ours with the beasts often conceals the better part with the worse, whenever one draws the mind down to the passions. For the mind, by lending its cooperation to the passion, has made the generation of absurd things infinitely manifold. But if the passion does not have the alliance of reason, it quickly dissolves. ^B Indeed, in the blessed nature, there is no difference between male and female; for which reason, when He granted man to be according to His image, He did not add the power of increasing and multiplying to man, but when He distinguished him into male and female, He said: *Increase and multiply, and fill the earth* [Gen. I, 28], and what follows; which divine command had previously been used for the irrational animals as well. For if such a word had been spoken when He made that which is according to the image, we would not have had need of animal generation. For this reason He also appointed a time commensurate with the creation of men, so that it might be brought to fulfillment together with the production of the souls that were determined beforehand, and then both might cease, and thus the reformation of this universe and the transformation of the human race might occur, from the earthy to that which is exempt from passion and eternal. It should be known that the image of God is that which had its perfection in the whole of humanity; for it says that God made man, not Adam. But ^C after He had added the properties of human nature, namely male and female, then He added the name Adam, which signifies "earthly creature" in the Hebrew tongue, just as Paul, by means of the Greek word, calls him "dust-born" [1 Cor. xv, 48].

QUESTION CLVII.

ANSWER

^A sent as law; the passion will the more quickly grow quiet. And if we introduce consideration into [the state of] dementia, the swelling of arrogance will instantly cease, and the boiling of anger, which surges around the wretched body, will be calmed. For dementia is the absence of the mind, the soul pushing away its guidance in practical matters and turning aside to another teacher. Consideration, however, is the arrival and taming of the mind; and admonition is, as it were, the placing of the mind, which teachers implant in their students while admonishing them.

INTERROGATION CLVIII

Response

INTERROGATION CLIX

Response

the same [Apostle] says: "But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin" [Rom. vii, 23]. How, then, will he be an image of the immutable God, who is free from all defect and is incomprehensible—he who, being overcome on the contrary side, has either succumbed, or fallen together with the soul, or slipped into transgression?

INTERROGATION CLX.

In what, then, does it appear to you that we possess the image of God? Or do you show us to be entirely unlike Him?

Response.

^BThat which is said concerning the "likeness," I will demonstrate a little later, following the divine Scripture as far as I am able. However, that which is said "according to the image," as I have previously said, appears to me to be situated in immortality and in the dominion of the soul, in no other way than as it was said before. For the divine Writings say: "And the man became a living soul" [Gen. ii, 7], that is, immortal. And that which in the preceding [verses] it says more clearly: "And God said: Let us make man according to our image and likeness, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and the cattle, and all the wild beasts, and all the reptiles of the earth" [Gen. i, 26]. Therefore, in that we have dominion over every creature that is under heaven, and in the immortality of the soul, we possess that which is "according to the image of God." Regarding which, as if struck with amazement at the ineffable goodness of God, David, the author of divine canticles, says: "O Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" [Ps. viii, 5]. And in agreement with the father, Solomon, that expert in divine ^C things, says: "O Lord, what is man, that Thou hast magnified him, or that Thou visitest the mind that is in him?" And again, David says: "Thou hast put all things under his feet, sheep and oxen all of them, and moreover also the cattle of the field, the birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea, that pass through the paths of the seas" [Ps. viii, 8-9].

According to the image is understood according to reason and intellect and proper authority; according to that which the mind begets as speech, and produces as spirit; and according to the power of dominion. In these things, the angels also are according to the image; but men [are so] more abundantly, according to that which is unbegotten in Adam, begotten in Seth, and proceeding in Eve; according to that which is naturally authoritative—for by nature the soul rules the body. And according to that which unites the whole of creation; for in God all creation is united, and in man [as well]; for he is the bond of intellectual and sensible creation. And [it is so] because the Son of God was to be born according to the image; ^D for He was not made an angel, but He became a man.

Just as some king, having built a great city,

^A places his own image in the midst of it, so that it may be honored in the honor of himself: so also God, after He had made the world, made man according to His own image; [and] "according to the image," because he was capable of virtue and goodness; for He says, "Be holy, for I am holy" (Levit. xi, 44); and the Apostle: "As we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly" (1 Cor. xv, 49). But it does not seem to me [to be] according to dominion, since both angels are called principalities and powers, and the sun and the moon are said to rule over the day and the night; yet they are not for this reason called [made] according to the image of God. Again, the Apostle says: "The man is according to the image of God, but the woman is the glory of the man" (1 Cor. xi, 7), ^B signifying that the woman was of the same honor as the man, but lost that honor after the transgression; but [the term] "according to likeness" is perhaps used in parallel, as is "I slept and took rest" (Psal. iii, 6), and "Blessed is he that considereth the poor and needy" (Psal. xl, 1).

INTERROGATION CLXI. Why indeed was it commanded that we should rule first over the fish and birds, and thereafter over beasts, cattle, and creeping things?

Answer. He gave us boldness first against the weaker things, that through this we might become more confident and thereafter rule over stronger beasts; or because the swimming and flying race first proceeded from the waters, and thereafter the beasts, cattle, and creeping things were brought forth from the earth. Therefore, those things born first were also deservedly, first of all, subjected to the servitude of men.

INTERROGATION CLXII. And how are we masters, when from among cattle, beasts, and creeping things, sometimes the lion, bear, wolf, serpent, or scorpion—in short, all things—rise up against us, ^C wishing partly to tear us apart, and partly to strike and kill us with poison?

Answer. In the preceding [dialogue], somewhere, as much as my ability allows, I have declared this; and it seems superfluous to me to be entangled in the same matters, since time does not allow it.

INTERROGATION CLXIII. Above you said that before sin all beasts and creeping things submitted to us and feared us, but after the transgression, when we fell from our rule, all things rose up against us: and thus you have demonstrated that the matter stands. But now we seek to hear why we do not also rule over the heaven, the earth, the sea, the rivers, the sun, the moon, and the clouds, if we are according to the image of God; for God is the ruler of all.

Answer. What was said about the beasts also applies to these; ^D for those who immediately defaced the image through submission to what is inferior, had they not fallen from that rule, would have been masters even of these.

INTERROGATION CLXIV

If, then, He had commanded the sky to rain, or the earth to bring forth something, ^A would they have obeyed? Or if He had commanded the sun to rise, would it have risen? Or if He commanded the sea to dry up, or a river to stop and not flow, would they have obeyed?

Response

Take clear proofs of this. The divine legislator Moses, by the smiting of his staff, divided the Red Sea and, having fixed the wall of waters like a barrier, led six hundred thousand men across on dry feet on the dry bottom of the abyss. And a little later, when the army was seeking water in a desert devoid of it, he smote a rock with his rod and immediately poured out a river flooding the desert. Similarly, Joshua son of Nun, his successor, ^B divided the famous stream of the Jordan and led the same people across, commanding them to take up twelve stones from the foundation of the stream, which we see to this day, having gone to those places. The same man, having commanded the sun traversing the sky, fixed it in one place until the next day and the same hour, having only said: "Let the sun stand still over Gibeon, and the moon over the valley of Ajalon," designating certain places, until they struck down the enemies and raised a trophy of victory. Consider also Elijah the divine, who by a mere word brought down fire from heaven upon the captain of fifty sent to him by the king, to whom he said: "If I am a man of God, let fire descend from heaven and consume thee and thy fifty soldiers." Immediately and at once, a flame supervening reduced that cohort of soldiers to ashes. ^C Again, the same man, moved by zeal for God, wishing to chastise a people given to the worship of the stars, by a word restrained the rain-bearing clouds for three years and six months, and persisted in punishing with death the people who resisted God, having cut off the rains. For he says: "The Lord lives, if there shall be rain upon the earth, except by my mouth"; as if to say, when it shall seem good to me. When, however, he was about to be carried up into heaven and to be taken up in a chariot of fire, having arrived at the Jordan, he struck the river with his mantle, divided the stream, crossed with dry feet together with Elisha, ascended the chariot of fire alone, and thence moving through the air, he threw his tunic to his disciple and departed, living ^D even until this day. Consider also in the New Testament the lords and princes of the world, how Peter casts down Simon from the clouds, and Paul, having trodden upon the third heaven and thence the paradise, judges the angels who fell away. And to say everything in sum, those who have not stained the image with evil actions, nor fallen from their authority, command and rule over all things celestial.

INTERROGATION CLXV

Since those things which were to be said regarding the image have been well explained to us, we ask that you also add that which is "according to likeness." Why, when God said, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness," the "according to image," [has been explained, but...]

regarding that which is] according to likeness, he kept silent? For the Scripture says, "And God made man, according to the image of God he made him; male and female he made them;" and it is not added, "according to likeness." ^B

**Response.** Because God did not wish us to lead a lazy and slothful life, like swine, or wild boars, or sheep, and other irrational animals that lack reason, nor, on the other hand, to honor us unworthily without reward, He left it in our power to become like Him through imitation of Him, and through the correction and demonstration of virtues, so that by our care for our neighbor we might be made like unto Him, as much as can be achieved by human nature striving toward God. For, "Be to the orphans as a father, and in place of a husband to their mother," says that man skilled in divine things, Solomon. But the Lord Himself says in the Gospels: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." And again: "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." And again, "Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Let us therefore be philanthropic and merciful; since we ourselves are in need of mercy, let us show pity to him who needs to be treated well; for God does this by doing good to those who are in need, if we have done what we wish to receive. For God does unto us whatever we may have done to others.

**INTERROGATION CLXVI.** But God did not say, "Let us make man who is to become like us through virtue"; but rather He said He was creating him perfect and complete immediately. Did He then say one thing and do another? ^C

**Response.** None of these things accuses God of a change of mind; but He left in us a spark of love toward Him, so that through imitation we might strive toward His torch; for there was not yet another who was to be treated well by the one being produced; but He reasonably attributed the future state to those who were to proceed from him. Let us consider, however, in another way also, without nullifying any of the things said regarding the image and likeness, but rather seeking demonstration from the abundance of evidence. For God says, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness," knowing the future as if it were present, and before all things are done, foreknowing the outcome of each one; as in the case of Esau and Jacob, before they were conceived in the maternal womb, or were separated from the paternal loins; saying through Malachi: "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated." As in the case of Jeremiah, saying: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you came forth from the matrix, I sanctified you." As in the case of Judas, foretelling his betrayal, when not even his parents yet existed, He says through the divinely inspired David: "He who eats my bread has magnified his treachery against me." As in the case of the leader of the apostles, Peter, through the divinely inspired David: "And those who revile..."

me swore against me." ^A And at the same time he foretells the flight of all: "My friends and my neighbors drew near against me and stood, and my kinsmen stood afar off," who had not yet been cast from the loins, nor coagulated into flesh, indeed, had not yet even had parents or ancestors. And showing his own saving cross as if it were already set up, and himself already nailed to it, he says: "They pierced my hands and my feet, they numbered all my bones," ^B where they pierce me with nails. And to sum everything up, in many places of the divine Scripture we hear God speaking of things future as if they were already present, or as if they had passed and been accomplished, which are certain to happen according to his predestination: just as that excellent Apostle says: "For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers."

Since, therefore, he clearly knew the seduction of our first parents and their fall into disobedience, and that in the last time of the ages the only-begotten Son of God would be born as a man, on account of men who were in peril because of their separation from him, what he predestined seems to me to be declared by what he says: "Let us make man according to our image and likeness." ^C It is as if he said: Even if it be late, yet for his sake I shall be born according to him, taking upon me a body without seed from one who is inexperienced in marriage and ever-virgin, to be laid in the manger of irrational animals, reclaiming him from his irrational condition. For it behooves me to become what he is, and to make him what I am: to dwell in the dark and lightless cave of this life, that he may dwell in heaven; to be bound in swaddling clothes, that he may be loosed from the bonds of death; to grow in body, that he may grow in divinity; I must be baptized, and wash him who is covered in filth; be tempted, and conquer the adversary, and subject him who is overcome. I shall hunger for his sake who ate badly, I who nourish the universe. I shall thirst for the sake of the condemned, I who provide the rain, and who in the flesh traverse the abyss. ^D I shall willingly be bound, and shall loose him who was bound against his will. I shall be mocked and exposed to reproaches, that she of the female sex who transgressed may be freed from the opprobrium of men. I, the Creator, shall be spat upon in the face of my flesh, that I may wipe the face of the created one. I, the Lord of angels, shall be struck with blows by a servant, that I may liberate him who has been enslaved to sin; for by a blow masters manumit their servants, at once striking them and freeing them from servitude. I shall be crowned with thorns, I who planted paradise, that the thorns of mortals may be rooted out. I shall be fed with gall and watered with vinegar, by reason of the flesh I have assumed, wiping away all the bitterness of human nature. I, who provided manna to Israel, shall ascend the altar and the cross, that I who am bodiless may be nailed in the body; but for the sake of men I am encompassed by it, and by this I am held by the Jews, I who am uncontainable; by this I am put to death, I who am immortal, being death to death

Therefore I shall be buried for the sake of those who are in Hades; therefore, as if by a stone, I shall strike its gates, leading out the bound in strength, just as David, my servant, says. Therefore, I shall ascend into the heavens, not needing an ascent, I who fulfill all things; therefore, I shall sit at the right hand of the unshaped Father, I who am, like Him, unshaped. By this, at the end of times, it pleased Me that what was made by Me should come to be according to the image and likeness of Him, having preordained for Myself the future of the creation. If, therefore, this discourse on the image and likeness seems certain to you, let the inquiry concerning it cease from henceforth.

INTERROGATION CLXVII.

What, then? Did the Trinity become incarnate and become man? For God did not say, "Let us make man according to image and likeness," but, "Let us make man according to image and likeness," not mine, but ours.

Response.

If we desire to proceed to what follows in the discourse, the divine word itself will surely clarify it, saying: "And He made" (not "they made"), "God" (not "the gods"), "the man according to the image of God" (not "of gods"). Therefore, by the word "Let us make" the three persons of the Godhead are signified; but by the word "He made," the unity of the nature and of the will and of the action, even as we have learned from our own creation. For "God made man," in this place representing the oneness of nature of all mortals; "Male and female He created them," in this place signifying the persons. And elsewhere He says: "I will blot out the man from the earth whom I made," even though there were very many myriads of men who were drowned in the flood in the time of Noah, although the word is in the singular. And elsewhere, the divine song of Mary, singing of the total submersion of the Pharaonic army: "Let us sing to the Lord," it says, "for He has been gloriously glorified; horse and rider He cast into the sea," singing of the multitude of the horse in the singular, and of the army likewise, though all were swallowed up in the Red Sea along with their wretched king. And to Moses He says: "I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," signifying by "I" the unity and identity of the divine Trinity, but by saying "God" three times, it represents its three hypostases and persons; saying "I" once, but "God" three times. But also that which is ineffable and hidden to all, the theophany of the God-man in the flesh from the always-virgin Mary, may be said to have come to pass, the Father willing, the Son being incarnate, and the Spirit cooperating; not on account of the impotence of one to accomplish the work, but on account of the complete agreement and unity and identity of the one will and authority and sovereignty in the Trinity, Scripture is accustomed to divide the many things of the divine operation in a threefold manner; the

works of the Old Testament referring to the Father, those of the New to the Son of God, Christ, and those which now in the present time are done divinely, to the Holy Spirit.

^C INTERROGATION CLXVIII.

But did not God say, "Let us make man according to the image and likeness," in which he was to be at some time, but he indicates one already fixed and perfect, saying: "And God made man, according to the image of God he made him," which are indeed the words of Moses?

Response.

Unless those who wish to contend with effort are disturbed by these things that have been said, it seems to me that those things which concern this image might reasonably be answered by the holy apparition of the Word made among us, with the prophetic assembly in many places many ages ago bearing witness to me, which proclaims the life of the Word in the flesh, which was to be after them, as if it were already present. ^D Isaiah, indeed the most excellent of prophets, clearly cries out: "A child is born to us, and is given, and his name shall be called God the mighty," even when his mother according to the flesh, who was always a virgin, had not yet attained her existence. Another also, five hundred years and more before the human-divine vision of the Word, as if he were already crucified and had risen from the tomb, asked him who was standing by: "What are these wounds in the midst of your hands?" To whom God, not yet incarnate, nevertheless confirming the prophet as if these things had already happened, says: "These are the wounds with which I was struck in the house of my beloved." David also, that author of divine songs, already a thousand years ago, sang of his ascension in the body to the heavens as if it were present or past: "God has ascended with jubilation, the Lord with the voice of the trumpet."

INTERROGATION CLXIX.

But how did you in the foregoing reject those who ascribe members to God and say he is endowed with human form, and yet again you assert that he himself is as we are?

Response.

I said not that he *is*, but that he *becomes*, united both by soul and body to our own. For even the holy Word himself, having become as we are, and living his life among us, while being what he was, and being seen as what he was not, said to the sacred company of the apostles, while distributing the bread: "Take, eat of this all of you: this is my body," not yet having been sacrificed in the flesh; and, "Take, drink: this is my blood," not yet having been wounded on the cross by a lance in his side. And we see that very holy bread today on the unbloody altar during the time of the divine and mystical service, set forth on the undefiled table, not however like the image of the saving body of God and the Word, nor again with the wine-cup mingled with his blood set forth together with the bread—neither by the articulate distinction of members, nor by carnal and sanguineous quality, nor by that invisible and hiddenly united form of divine...

^A nature; for the one is sanguineous, animate, sinewy, red, articulated, and distinct with various arteries and veins . . . through which even the Creator Word is interwoven down to the hairs and nails. For I say the hair of God is the hair of Christ, and likewise the feet and nails, and blood and water. For my sake the Word is united to mine. And this is upright, articulated, ambulatory, and active; but that [other] is round, unarticulated, inanimate, bloodless, immobile, and like to neither—not to that which is seen, nor to the invisible in divinity. Nevertheless, we believe according to the divine word, even if it be not similar or equal, that it is properly and convenently the divine body, which is holily consecrated upon the divine table, and ^B is divided without section to the holy assembly, and is partaken of without deficiency. For neither does the sun cease to provide its light to those in need, nor is the sea exhausted to its depths by being partaken of through salt, nor is fire enfeebled or lessened by igniting myriad torches—the underlying supply that excites the flame not failing—nor again is the air diminished by the breathing of all animate things. And again, *He who does not believe*, He says, *in me is judged already*, lest perhaps one should judge anyone. *But he who believes in me has eternal life*; yet the believers have not already received it, until they have departed from this passionate and material [life]; for from this we pass over to that. But believing in the divine word, and holding the future securely, we are disposed as if we were ^C already established therein. Likewise, let us understand the discourse concerning this image, as being accomplished by the foreknowledge of the forming, birth, and mode of life of the Word according to our nature, with all unholy wickedness absent from it.

INTERROGATION CLXX

Response

INTERROGATION CLXXI

us first of all, what is the perfect limit of virtue?

Answer. Admirably, O dear soul, and searchingly asking what is the perfect limit of virtue, you show yourself watchfully looking toward it, and as if—should what is desired be found by reason—you would wish to make it your own life’s property. But I am equally at a loss on both counts: for to embrace or to demonstrate that which reason might comprehend, I declare to be beyond my own intellect. Perhaps all who have shown themselves brilliant in virtue would confess that its perfection is unattainable to them. For perfection in all other things whatsoever that are measured by the senses is distinguished by certain defined limits, such as in continuous and discrete quantity. For every measure in quantity is contained within certain proper limits. And anyone who looks toward a cubit, or toward the decad of number, knows whence it began and in what it ended, in which it is standard for perfection to exist. But regarding virtue, we have learned one limit of perfection from the Apostle, which is that it is itself infinite and lacking any limit; for that great man, endowed with a sublime mind, running continually through this, never ceased extending himself to the things that are before. For he did not think that a halt to the course was sufficiently safe; for no good is limited by its own nature, but it is definitively limited by the confrontation of its opposite, just as life is by death, light by darkness, and strength by infirmity. ^B Therefore, just as the end of life is the beginning of death, and the setting of the sun is the beginning of darkness, and the loss of good health is the beginning of infirmity, so too the halting of the course of virtue becomes the beginning of the course of vice. Therefore I rightly said that virtue is not subject to proper limits; for that which is grasped by limits is not virtue. But I call perfect, indeterminate, and infinite virtue—void of magnitude and quantity, and superior to all comprehension—God, who is properly and principally good, whose nature is goodness and most immense virtue. Since, therefore, there is no other limit of virtue than the opposition of vice, and the divine numen is not capable of a contrary, and is infinite: even he who attends to virtue is altogether a participant in God, who is absolute virtue; and thus he has no limit. Finally, it is necessary that the desire of him who participates, concurring with the infinite and extending itself along with it, will never have a pause in its course. Therefore, God Himself is infinite and most immense absolute virtue.

INTERROGATION CLXXII

Response. ^B Do not, since our discourse has demonstrated that which was proposed in the question is incomprehensible, let us neglect the virtue that can be attained, which clearly and holily proclaims: *Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.* By these words He does not command us to strain ourselves to reach the divine nature, which is altogether incomparable and surpasses reason and intellect (for that is impossible), but rather that we should imitate His kindness, accessibility, and goodness in every way, showing all manner of deep compassion toward our neighbor, even if he should be an enemy and a plotter. For God supplies all things to all men, and makes them flow forth as if from a fountain; let us anticipate the requests of those in need with gifts, though we receive honor from no one according to our merit. Let us therefore strive after virtue as much as we are able, leaping toward it with light and frequent bounds, even if it is impossible to attain its summit. For since, among the most excellent things, one who is not able to obtain the whole may still obtain a part, this is no small gain. For if we are not able to drink a fountain or a water-jar dry, ought we not therefore to soothe the burning of our thirst with the enjoyment permitted to us? Or because it is impossible to inhale the entire atmosphere, ought we therefore not even to breathe? Or because we do not know the whole art of dialectic, ought we therefore not to speak at all? Therefore, every effort must be exerted not to fall away entirely from the perfection that is possible, but to embrace it as much as we can, even beyond our strength; for even the overflow of it is praiseworthy. Wherefore the perfection of virtue seems to me to be the always hastening to have more in goodness, and for justice to weigh down injustice. For, being weighed and measured by the ineffable discernment of the Divinity in a moment of time according to the things done by each one in this life, we shall receive recompense as virtue or vice has prevailed, and shall be gathered to those who are like us, destined either to be honored with a reward or to be afflicted with punishment. ^C

INTERROGATION CLXXIII What are the species of virtue, and how many? And is it possible to attain perfection through one of them? For not all can attain all of them. For perhaps one person, through poverty, cannot show hospitality, yet he can be temperate and sober, or endure temptations, or teach things that are pious. Another indeed distributes to the poor those things necessary for life; another serves gratuitously. What then? Can one not be delivered from eternal judgment through one of these? ^D

Response. Every virtue is to be cultivated by those whose rational faculty has not been darkened by material things, and by those who are truly of sound mind. And all vice is loathsome.

...as it were inherently an evil thing, ^A inasmuch as it stands as an adversary to that which is better, fighting against our nature. Some have stated that there are four species of virtue: fortitude, prudence, temperance, and justice. These are indeed fair, yet they crawl upon the ground and swim upon the earth, being far lower than that heavenly vault. For they spoke of fortitude as that which resists vices; temperance as strength and victory against the passions; prudence as the best constitution of public affairs in cities; and justice as the noble portion of life. In these they thought they were establishing a certain order, if they had restrained the excess of measure in that which is excessive in either direction. Yet they were unable to think or to speak of anything more sublime; and as far as in them lay, they enclosed virtue only within those things which are seen, judging that it had nothing in itself which was sublime, or which was comparable to the beauty of the heavens. ^B But we have that excellent teacher, the Apostle, who enumerates many species of virtue, yet three above all others as preeminent: faith, hope, and charity. Of these, faith bestows upon mortals those things which are above nature, inscribing for the intellects of those still encompassed by the garment of gross matter—prone to many affections—that which it is. For faith imparts to men, who are fixed to the ground and moving upon the earth, the knowledge of things which the orders of angels and of other beings without flesh have not known, and instructs them, leading the mind to the royal and formless throne. By the exquisite and refulgent splendor of the beginningless and incorrupt nature, it drives away the darkness of the senses; and after it has wiped away from the mind whatever is gross and cloudy in them, it makes it so that, as joined companions, they believe nothing absurd has been committed, since forgetfulness of former things has been made by the ablution and the laver, and it appears as if always virgin and ^C undefiled.

INTERROGATION CLXXIV.

Response.

INTERROGATION CLXXV.

^A And if ye are willing to receive it, this is Elias who is to come? We know that Herod beheaded John; how then shall this same John be Elias again?

Response. He ^B rightly calls him Elias, because of the spirit and power of Elias sent before Him for the first advent of the God-man, both for the equality of grace and the likeness of the dispensation. For John became the beginning and the end of the two Testaments: the end of the Law, the beginning of the Gospels; that is, the teacher of a conduct and life different from the legal one. Likewise, we await Elias in the second advent of the God-man Christ, preceding Him for a short while, to show that it is the end of the present conduct and life, and the beginning of the future. And as John was killed, so we believe that he too will be killed by the intelligible Herod for the sake of the truth.

INTERROGATION CLXXVI. ^C How is John the Baptist greater than all those born of women? And if he was a prophet, what had he more than a prophet? For so the Lord says in the Gospels. Why, then, greater than all, witnessed to by the Savior, was he who stopped the mouth of his own father Zacharias?

Response. The explanation regarding this seems manifold to me. And, above all, since you yourselves confess that John is witnessed to by the Lord as greater than all mortals and higher than the prophets, we have no word higher than the living Word, testifying to the voice crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the ways of the ^D Lord, and make straight his paths. But, having taken the occasions concerning the voice from the Word, I shall render a reason regarding each, not according to the dignity of either, but according to my own capacity. John, then, is greater than all born of women, because while still in his mother’s womb, and not yet having touched our life, he prophesied using his mother’s tongue as an instrument; and, while lying in darkness, he did not fail to recognize the light incarnate in the womb of the ever-virgin Mary; and, having as it were drawn in the lightning through some opening of the mouth of her who bore him, through the embrace and kiss of the God-bearing maiden, he was stirred by his mother’s tongue and cried out: Whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? The grateful servant recognized the Master; and, leaping for joy in the belly, he is pressed toward the ministry of the Word, to be beforehand at the Jordan, and to prepare the laver which was for us according to the flesh. But he is greater than the prophets because he saw in the flesh Him whom they were prophesying, and touched that head before which all things tremble—whom all patriarchs and prophets only imagined through dreams or riddles, having departed this life before the divine manifestation of the Word as God-man. And that Zacharias was struck dumb, having received the annunciation of the birth of his child, not from amazement at the angel who appeared to him, I mean (for in the custom of seeing them, clear [vision]

was his, as he served the law ^A in the sacred office); but by the type of his silence follows the silence of the law. When the child was born, the tongue of the father was restored, signifying that from silence and sterility and old age a voice is born: this is to say, from that which had grown old and reached an advanced age, and from the law which had become barren; and from the unfruitfulness of the Jews who had received it, and had perceived no benefit from the vaticinations of the prophets, nor had understood that the Judaic birth of God and the Word according to our nature was coming to pass in reality, and that his mother according to the flesh proceeded from them.

INTERROGATION CLXXVII.

Response.

Secondly, there is the excellence of the angels over John. For he who is thought to be the lowest of all the angels in rank, ^C and by nature lesser than John in the kingdom of heaven, is greater than him by nature and generation. For that vile Herod beheaded John, but one angel, who is lesser than all those others, would have struck and destroyed infinite Herods in a moment of time. For one angel, going out from the camp in the time of Isaiah and Hezekiah, in a moment of time laid low and slew one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the alien armies.

What other sense does the third meaning present to us? Who is lesser in the kingdom of heaven, but greater than John? It is surely he who was surnamed by the Lord *Son of Thunder*, John the Theologian. For while that one did not dare, even when ^D ordered, to touch the head of the Word bearing flesh, being filled with much fear, this one, having more boldness than all, reclining at the divine supper in the bosom of the Lord, a little later leans back upon the very holy chest of the God-man, as the Gospel teaches, inquiring about him who was to betray him. For Peter had nodded to him to find out who it was that would betray him. Not the mother who bore him, not Joseph who was called—but was not—his father; not John the Baptist, not an angel, not an archangel, nor any other of those who…

^A dared to touch that formidable breast, upon which this John leaned, poured out like a father over a son. From there he drew the discourse concerning the Word, and indeed thundered throughout the world under the heavens: *In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.* He saw the divine and most holy Spirit only in the form of a dove flying down from heaven upon the Word baptized in the flesh; but this person received it upon his own head in the form of a tongue of fire, together with his fellow-disciples on the day of Pentecost, just as the great Luke recorded when writing the Acts of the Apostles. The former was beheaded because of a wanton harlot who cohabited with brothers, the wife of Herod, who had previously been his brother's; the latter, condemned to migrate to the tomb for the Lord, eventually dies. The former baptized only those who came to him and was unable to bestow the divine Spirit upon anyone—for which reason this person and the rest of the apostles rebaptized those who had been baptized by him unto perfection, and by the laying on of hands, they bestowed the Holy Spirit upon the faithful for the display of signs and wonders. The former was testified ^B by one greater [than himself] to be greater than all born of women; the latter was called the light of the world by the true and unbegotten and ever-existing great Light, God. The former departed this life having performed no sign, nor having wrought any miracle at all, just as the Gospel says concerning him, nor having heard any of the things that were to be his there; the latter received the promise from the preaching Christ that he would sit with Christ and by his nod judge the tribes of Israel, along with the twelve. The former is nowhere called blessed, though he was great among men; the latter receives demonstrated proof that he is greater from the blessed God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who says to them: *Amen I say to you, many prophets and just men have desired to see what you see, and did not see [it], and to hear what you hear, and did not hear [it]. But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.* That John is a prophet and a just man we all believe. The former, when the bearer of the one without a father approached his own mother, trembled ^C and rejoiced to leap [in the womb], fearing the danger from her who carried [him], not bearing that she who carried the fire should approach; but the latter, the one who is by essence without a mother and by economy without a father, sets him [John] on his own [place] and commends him to his own mother. At the time of the saving passion, as they stood by the cross, having fixed his gaze upon John, he said to the one who is maiden and mother, *Behold thy son,* and conversely to him, *Behold thy mother*; committing the one to the other in his own stead, and testifying to the undefiled and intact virginity of both, even to that assembly which opposes God. ^D

And to sum it up, Christ is the kingdom of heaven. He who was perfect and absolute according to the law, John, seems to me inferior to those who in regard to the death of the

Lord have been baptized. For the law perfected nothing, as the great one in the law and eminent one in the Gospels, the Apostle, says, who had experience of all things. In his own generation, therefore, and in his own times, John was greater than all. For if the Divine were to contradict itself, saying to Solomon, "As there has not been any before thee, and after thee there shall not arise any like unto thee," and regarding John, that "among those born of women there has not arisen a greater than he"—since according to the law he was greater and more precise than all—yet the apostles are better. For the Lord does not say that a greater than he shall not arise, but that there has not arisen, as if to say, within his own times. And before both of these, God says to the devil: "Have you considered in your mind my servant Job, that there is no one on earth like him?" And to Moses he says: "I have known you beyond all men, and you have found grace before me." Just as, therefore, Enoch, being great in his own times, was translated, and just as Noah, being righteous in his own times, was saved in the ark with eight others while the world was submerged by the flood, and just as Lot, being great, was saved alone while the Pentapolis of the Sodomites was consumed by fire, so too John was greater than all according to the law in his own times.

QUESTION CLXXVIII.

Regarding whom does the Lord say, "Amen I say to you, there are some of those standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the Son of man coming in his glory"? For some say that He spoke of John the Theologian, that he does not die until the second coming of Christ.

Response.

Having already instructed the disciples accompanying Him to despise death and to prepare themselves bravely to undergo dangers for His sake, He enters into their hidden thoughts, and finding them still faltering and wavering, He attempts to make them finally cast away the things they were anxiously expecting, rousing and anointing them, as it were, with the promise of blessed life, toward a magnanimous union with Him even unto death. For He saw them inconstant, like reeds shaken by the wind—the very thing which that Judas Iscariot also demonstrated, who, before any necessity or persecution or scourging, fearing the future, following greed, and captured by the impulse of the spirit of self-love, sold the Lord. At the same time of the passion, he who feared the maidservant, that chief of the apostles, denied the Lord three times with an oath, although he later applied the remedy of tears. And to say everything in sum, when He was going to the pillar of the cross, the spirit of cowardice within them broke them, and caused all of them to save themselves by flight, and He permitted Himself to be killed before they had preached the things concerning Him. For which reason He also says to those who seized Him, "If you seek me, let..."

^A these go." ^B Knowing beforehand, therefore, their distress and wavering, He confirms them with a promise, and partially unveils it, making the whole reliable through a dim foreshadowing. For not being able to contain it, and being overwhelmed at the present time, they were near to being consumed upon dry land. ^C For taking Peter, James, and John with Him after six days to a high mountain peak, He was transfigured before them, and His face shone as the sun, and His garments were as the light, says the divine Matthew. There, then, before tasting of death, they beheld the Son of Man in His glory, just as He had previously promised them. Although the Divinity did not appear naked, but united to our human nature, He cast them to the ground by the insupportable splendor of His countenance, teaching them that if Christ had wished to appear as He truly is, all things would have been utterly consumed, melting away at that insupportable sight like wax in the proximity of fire. He caused Moses and Elijah, those two ^D outstanding princes of the righteous, to stand by and converse with Him, showing that He has dominion not only over things on earth, but also already over those under the earth; and not only those dead for four days, like Lazarus, or those dead that same day, like the widow’s son, but even those dead for a thousand years, and those who have perished from the beginning of time and have been dissolved into dust, He is able, by His command, to cause to stand before Him alive and vigorous. He does these things before His passion and resurrection, demonstrating that He does not have this lordship over all things as if acquired from the Father through patience and fortitude, but that He possesses it by His own authority. Therefore, He presents to Himself those who have left this life in diverse ways, showing that before His burial and resurrection He rules over the living and the dead: Moses, whom He had taken from life by the death common to all, and Elijah, whom He had translated by a chariot of fire into the heavens, as it were, to an invisible place of the land; the former He brought from the nether world, and the latter He called from the region of the living which is allotted for their reception, and in the twinkling of an eye He set them before Himself. "And while He was still speaking to them," says the great Matthew, "behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud saying, 'This is my beloved Son, hear Him.'" And as the Father was thus giving instructions through the cloud, the holy ones departed with haste, while the others fell prostrate, having closed their eyes at the insupportable voice, so that He who stood transfigured might appear alone as the genuine, beloved, consubstantial Son, conversing confidently with the Father. For in the face of divine and royal silence, it was fitting for some of the servants to withdraw; but as for those brought into His presence, to pass on, and to keep silent, and to reverence the silence. Therefore, the disciples of the Lord did not taste of death until they saw the Son of Man in His glory, not as He was, but as they were able to receive it, and this was granted to only three of them, those who were more discerning and superior among the group; for the Lord says, "There are some of those standing here, not all, who shall not taste death until they see the kingdom of God," which they beheld dimly.

DIALOGUE IV

^A John, therefore, and all the apostles and prophets departed from this life, except for Enoch and Elijah, who alone are still said to exist in the flesh, though they too shall be killed a little later.

INTERROGATION CLXXIX. And how does the Lord speak to Peter concerning John the evangelist: "If I wish him to remain until I come, what is that to you?" This seems to indicate that he is living until the consummation.

Responsio. John himself made this clear in his Gospel toward the end, saying: "And when he had said this, he says to him," that is, to Peter, "Follow me. But Peter, turning, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved, following, who also reclined at supper upon his breast, and said: Lord, who is it that betrays you? Seeing him, Peter says to Jesus: Lord, but what about this man? Jesus says to him: If I wish him to remain until I come, what is that to you?" Since, then, he had found them fishing and had instructed Peter to follow him, he desired that his fellow disciple should also depart with them; and he says to Jesus: "Lord, but what about this man?" Jesus, wishing to indicate that he was to remain by the sea, says: "If I wish him to remain until I come, what is that to you?" ^B

DIALOGUE IV

INTERROGATION CLXXX. We desire to learn from you how the parable of the leaven is to be understood. For there was no small question about this among us yesterday.

Responsio. It seems to me that this parabolic discourse can be understood in two ways. But let us first recite it, and then introduce our consideration of it. "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a prudent woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole was leavened." By the leaven, it seems to me that the Lord compares the doctrine and the faith [that is within it], and by the woman, his own Church, which he also loved, as the divine Apostle says. ^C By the "three measures of flour," the three sons of Noah are meant: Shem, Ham, and Japheth, from whom alone, after the flood, all the nations proceeded that are now gathered in the Church. To these, the doctrine of the preaching and the faith, being mixed in like leaven, leavened the whole flour of the nations—which consists of the three measures of Noah endowed with reason—unto the worship of God. But if one prefers to hear the words interpreted in another way, the leaven should be understood as the ^D venerable and divine body of God, which

^A he fashioned for himself to be clothed withal in the womb of the intact Virgin, woven and united without seed both to soul and body. Furthermore, may that holy and living and subsistent God the Word himself justly be understood as the prudent woman, because of the feminine designation; for Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, says the divine Apostle. ^B And of the three measures of meal, the first is the whole nature of mortals, the second is death, and after this the underworld; in which, the divine body being hidden by burial, it leavened all things for resurrection and life. Hear also this in another way: the three measures are baptism, the Gospels, and the mysteries. And let them be understood otherwise as: apostles, prophets, and teachers. And otherwise as: things past, present, and future. For the Word, having become incarnate, did not benefit only those who were present, but he also raised those who had fallen asleep in death, and granted to us who come after hope of resurrection and life; through whom, having risen from the dead, he raised up some with himself, he indeed having ascended into the heavens, but having translated them into the land of the living, where Enoch and Elias now are, no longer to die. ^C

INTERROGATION CLXXXI.

Since we never have our fill of the interpretations of holy Scripture, but always desire to hear them: explain to us the parable of the net, drawing down much reward for yourself and benefit for us. For the Lord says: Blessed is he who shall do and teach one of these commandments; and again: he did not leave unpunished the one who buried in silence the talent of the word he received from him.

Response.

The things said in this parable also seem to me to be akin to those previously mentioned. For the kingdom of heaven is like a net cast into the sea and gathering from every kind. ^D When it was filled, they drew it up to the shore, and sitting down, they gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad outside, says the Lord. It seems to me that the net represents the evangelical state, which the divine apostles received after the Lord said to them: Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. For many of them had been catchers of irrational fish. Having woven and joined together nets from the Old and New Testaments, they cast them, as if into the sea, in this present life, enclosing rational beings instead of irrational ones according to their capacity; and thus far they have gathered from every kind, both evil and good, righteous and sinners, enclosing them in the divine net of the preaching; and without discrimination, the holy men still labor in the sea, by letter and by spirit. For they are absent from the majority in body. This is what the noble Isaiah among the prophets already cried out five hundred years ago: The wolf shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall rest with the kid; and the ox and the ass shall eat fodder together, and the calf and the lion shall feed together; and a little child shall lead them, signifying that there shall be no separation of the spiritual assembly. For in it, together with things di-

divine, we are fed—both the rapacious and the murderous, and the gentle and the untamed, led by a little child; concerning whom the same person says elsewhere: A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and his name is called God the mighty, the Potentate [Isa. 9:6]. And when the time of the consummation arrives, they shall draw it upon the shore, and by the nod of Christ, together with the angels, effect the separation of those contained therein, and will separate the wicked from the midst of the just.

INTERROGATION CLXXXII.

What does the Lord signify in commanding Peter to go and cast a hook, and upon opening the mouth of the first fish that comes up, to give the stater found therein for himself and for him, to those who demand the census and the didrachma?

Response.

This also does not seem to me to be outside of a double meaning. For the stater which Peter was ordered to take from the fish from the deep by a hook, I think is our form, which, as if in the deep, being in this life covered with passions and submerged by the waves of sin, fluctuates. If it is not this, then I consider the detention of us that occurred in Hades through death, which the Lord recalls in Himself to the original archetype, commanding the stater to be given for Himself and Peter, as He had become a mortal like us, subject to our passions and liable to taxation, except that He did not yield to viciousness, nor become obedient to, or decline toward, the worse. But in providing the stater for Himself and Peter, He suffers voluntarily for the Church. For He says to him: Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church [Matth. 16:18]. But through Himself He teaches it. For the edification of souls is the instruction in divine things, having as the head of the corner the master of all, namely Christ, of whom the author of the divine songs says: The stone which the builders rejected, the Jews through the law, this has become the head of the corner [Psal. 117:22]. And again the same one says in the person of the stone: In the head of the book it is written of me [Psal. 39:8]. This is what John revealed, while he cries aloud: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God [John 1:1], obviously united to the flesh, and through Himself instructing it through those things which were said about the fish and the stater, that one should not resist king or prince when they command something without harm, but should submit to the tribute with an even mind. At the same time, He also demonstrated Himself to be God by these very things. For whence could He have known, if He were a man according to the insolence of those who impugn His divinity, that a fish in the deep had a stater in its mouth, and that it was held not in the flesh, but in the mouth? And furthermore, that that one would be the first to be brought to the hook? And whether the fish came to the hook of its own accord, and thus it was of God, as He had predicted the capture of the creature holding the stater in its open mouth? If, however—which is more true—He led it to the hook by the invisible power of His divinity, He who commanded the whale to receive Jonah, to guard him impassible for three days in the deep, and thus safe and sound...

^A to cast him out again onto the land. If, then, the fish having taken the stater in the deep swam to him; and God Himself is the first who foretold it. What does He say? "The fish shall be caught first of all its kin." But if, which is more authoritative, at the time of the need itself, He who brought all things out of nothingness, having made the stater, placed it into the swimmer and drove it toward the fisherman; clearly He is the One who instructed Peter to cast the hook into the sea, concerning whom the King and cantor of divine songs says: "Our God is in heaven and on earth, in the seas, and in all the abysses, all things whatsoever He willed, He did."

INTERROGATION CLXXXIII

What did the Lord intend when He dried up the fig tree, and cursed it, that it should no longer bear fruit forever? For He did not do this without some purpose.

Response

Let no one think that He cursed ^B and dried up the plant simply. For through this He wishes to instruct the God-opposing synagogue of the Jews, that He is able also to punish, but as He is good, He does not wish to. For since they saw Him punishing no one, they supposed that He could only confer benefits, but not punish. Therefore, through the inanimate nature He persuades the God-hating synagogue that He does indeed punish, but for the present He forbears; and He dries up the inanimate fig tree, that He might curse the godless synagogue ^C... seeing its unfruitfulness and desolation: that there shall not remain stone upon stone within it. As indeed the fig tree had natural labors, so too the synagogue had legal ones. The inanimate is punished, therefore, so that the godless might bring forth the fruit of faith. For who is ignorant, even if one has lived from early childhood and tender years in the halls of kings, and is ignorant of agriculture, that a fig tree does not have fruit in winter? But as I said, He used the plant as an image ^D for the sake of many things. First, by showing that He is able, even in the present life, to afflict the wicked with punishment, but He holds back His power for the present, granting to each time for repentance, just as the divine tragic poet says: "God is a righteous judge, strong and long-suffering, and He does not bring wrath upon each day; if you do not turn, He will whet His sword," indicating the punitive power. For it is truly of God to dry up by word a green tree, and to make to sprout a dry tree, as says Ezekiel, the spectator of the cherubim; He who dried up the fig tree by command, He Himself, a thousand years before His birth according to our nature, suddenly brought life into the dry and inanimate staff of Moses held in his hand, causing it to become a serpent. Nor, having been struck with terror at the sight, did the divine man try to flee, if the One who had brought it to life had not shown it to be a staff again; for He says to him regarding the burial

of Lazarus, "What is this in your hand?" He replied, "A staff." And again the divine voice says, "Cast it upon the ground." Being cast, it became a serpent, leaping upon him who had cast it. And when he recoiled, God says to him, "Stretch out your hand, and take hold of its tail." Upon doing this, the animal returned to what it had been before the transformation. In the same way, He says to those who had concern for the bound Lazarus, "Loose him, and let him go," ^A by which words He restored him to health, after he had been corrupted and had stunk, so that he was what he had been before tasting death. Likewise, He caused Aaron’s rod, which was dry and lacked the greenness of leaves, to produce leaves and nuts in a single night without toil, without moisture, and without the embrace of the earth, by which act He provided him with the demonstration of the priesthood. The same One who surrounded that rod with greenery without planting it, embodied Himself without sexual union. "For a rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse." Now Jesse was a man, the father of the great David. It was necessary, therefore, from an animate root to conceive of an animate rod, concerning which the great Isaiah speaks; which the divinely inspired Apostle revealed, ^B crying out clearly: "We have a great high priest, who has passed through the heavens." This One, coming to Jerusalem not long after, of His own accord underwent the cross for our sake, and with a mere word immediately withered the tree, showing that He is the very One who commanded it to grow, and that He is able to command the wood of the cross to strike those who nail Him fast, and that He suffers as God, while enduring as man in the flesh. As they were going to Jerusalem, Jesus was hungry on the way, and seeing a fig tree, He came to it, seeking fruit, and found none, as the divine evangelist says. Figuratively, the "way" should be understood as the present life, which the living and holy Word, having become like us, traverses corporally, and changes places, though He is everywhere present divinely. ^C Intelligibly, He was hungry for our salvation, and especially that of the Jews. He came to the fig tree, as if to the Synagogue, seeking from it not sensible figs, but intelligent, sweet fruitfulness from the Law and the Prophets; for just as in a fig there are seeds, so in the Synagogue there are divine precepts by which a soul, partaking of them, is sweetened. But Jesus did not find fruit in it, only the leaves of the legal and prophetic writings, and these too, through the transgression of the divine commandments, were as the leaves of a fig tree, trodden underfoot without fear by the Jews, who had turned to an irrational nature. For the synagogue which committed deicide is a book-bearing beast of burden; it is the one that has been enslaved many times, and being a servant, has killed its King, while holding the soldier in honor; ^D it has become a tributary; the one that reads but does not understand; the one that holds to the letter but is ignorant of the reality. It has the covenant, but lacks the true religion; to whom alone Christ, wishing to be called her Husband, says through the prophet...

Hosea: "She is not my wife, and I am not her husband." Another of the prophets, indicating the cause, cries out: "These did not remain in my testament, and I neglected them, says the Lord Almighty." 37 The sterile fig tree, or rather the Synagogue, is therefore disinherited, which the word of piety rejects because of adultery, and the law excludes from the inheritance.

INTERROGATION CLXXXIV

RESPONSE

INTERROGATION CLXXXV

RESPONSE

^A appearing like luminaries in the world, holding fast the word of life. For we know the power of fire is twofold, burning and illuminating; to those who truly touch it, it is illuminating, but to those who do so with contempt and without fear, it is burning and cleansing. For an immoderate nearness to it burns, while a moderate distance illuminates. Experienced physicians are accustomed to restrain most incurable diseases by cauterization: not that God destroys, but He refines and purges away the foulness of one’s past life, if indeed he who is held by the disease is inclined toward healing through repentance. But if the infirm person has departed from this lamentable life, he is indeed burned, but not consumed, eternally tormented by the divine fire, thenceforth in an immortal and incorruptible body. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality, "so that each one may receive what he has done through the body," as the excellent Apostle says. Therefore, here is the time for medicine, there for the rendering of an account; here for health, there for punishment; here is the time of divine long-suffering, there of inevitable and just judgment.

^B

INTERROGATION CLXXXVI.

Response.

^C

INTERROGATION CLXXXVII.

Response.

tabernacle, which, along with its being set up, also has its destruction. ^A

INTERROGATION CLXXXVIII.

Response.

INTERROGATION CLXXXIX.

Response.

^A a twofold meaning, hidden from those who are of a coarser understanding. For even one who sits at home, and lives in far-off retreats, far from the tumults of the city, may have an adversary. He commands us, therefore, to have goodwill toward the adversary, that we may understand him better and more acutely; defining the adversary as the appetite of the body acting against the spirit, in a manner worthy of the divine. By the force of life itself, he implies that which departs in a disorderly fashion from our nature. By goodwill, he means a quick perception of the insurrection of the body, which, as soon as the appetite is stirred, ought to understand it instantly, and to bridle it as if with the bit of divine fear, lest, if we submit ourselves to the same commands and have done things unworthy of the heavenly calling, we be delivered by them to the Judge, when He comes to repay to each man according to the worth of the things he did in his life. Let us not therefore think that the promise of the letter is sufficient for salvation while neglecting the deed; neither let us imagine that we approach God by the touch of the unpolluted sacrifice: for God demonstrates that acting in a way worthy of the divine is more pleasing than speaking.

INTERROGATION CXC

What is that which the Lord says: "That if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; and if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee?"

^B Response. By the right eye and hand, Christ—that eye that succumbs to no sleep, and the Right Hand of God and the Father—has rightly typified the nearness of kinsmen, or even of suitable friends, through whom we do what is commanded, using them no otherwise than as the members of the body, for every cooperation with them, and moving together with them. When, therefore, one of them becomes to us an author of scandal, entangling us in sin, and bringing upon us reproach, and upon himself ignominy and disgrace, the divine Man commands us to cut him off immediately, to expel him from the house, and to cast him far from us, lest, like a plague, he should feed upon the upright strength of the body of those who are well and healthy, causing them to smell his own malice. Let us not, therefore, under the pretext of philosophy, despise true philosophy, which is Christ, who requires a soul that is immovable and admits no sycophancy. For Paul, full of true wisdom, says: "Christ is the wisdom of God," ^C adorning not only speech, but life itself.

INTERROGATION CXCI

What does the Lord signify when He commands us to be wise in a similar way to the cursed serpent, saying: "Be ye prudent as serpents, and harmless as doves?"

Response. The Lord desires us to be prudent as serpents, in every danger or temptation keeping the head, which is Christ, as the ^D Apostle says. For the serpent, having its strength caught by man, provides the whole of the rest of its body to the striker, in order to preserve its head, which it regards as the seat of its life. Thus does the Lord command us to make our head, Christ, the chief object of our protection, exposing all our other concerns to the danger of the present time, in order that we may preserve our faith in Him unscathed. And "harmless as doves," he says, because the dove is a simple and gentle creature, which neither bears

^A the impression of malice, nor is it subject to any injury, but is entirely devoid of bile. ^B

For the serpent, when it is with difficulty captured by a human, presents its whole body to the striker, but it endeavors to keep its head unscathed. And when it settles down and sleeps, by coiling itself, it secures its head in the middle of its whole body, fortifying it as if with a wall by the following coils; but also, it wisely sheds its old skin, being pressed in some narrow passage as it glides in, and thus putting away its old age. He wishes, therefore, that we also, being pressed along the narrow and arduous way, should put off the old man, and put on the new which is being renewed according to His image. ^C In addition to these things, he wishes us also to imitate his cunning for the better; and just as he through coaxing led us into a fall and transgression, so also should we, acting cunningly toward those who approach our neighbors, suggest to them the things of the faith, and lead them back again, and join them to God. Therefore, while offering up our whole body to be torn by those who scourge us for Christ’s sake, let us keep the head unharmed with all our strength, which is our faith in Christ. Nor again, while the assembly of the faithful is stable and enjoying peace, should we neglect the strenuous exercise of the virtues—thinking that the cloak, and the beard, and the staff are sufficient for us for the perfection of the angelic life—clinging to the instruments of a life according to rule, but abandoning the struggle and the fight, from which the victory comes to the obedient, who is armed with the breastplate, the word of faith.

INTERROGATION CXCII

Since you have well explained to us the matters concerning the serpent, we desire also to hear about the dove, why He conjoined it with the serpent, signifying that it is simple and without malice?

Response

Since the serpent was indeed prudent, but not for good, the Lord conjoins with this prudence the harmlessness and simplicity of the dove; thus representing moderation, [teaching us] to be prudent, but in a simple and harmless way, not creeping and groveling like the serpent, but soaring upward to God in the heavens. "Be ye prudent," says the Lord, "as the serpent" against you, and you—acting wisely against him—as he drove you out of the blessed life, so you too exclude him from your own life; and be simple and harmless toward your neighbors as the dove, rendering evil to no mortal. For they say that the dove is more harmless than any bird and all other winged creatures, and that it does not even possess a gallbladder, which is the organ of bile. Furthermore, we find in these two animals the principles of virtue and vice, each having a fitting instrument: vice as heavy and groveling and creeping, being found in a creature of similar nature; but virtue as divine and heavenly, appearing in the bird that traverses the sky, proclaiming God's kindness toward the human race. For it is evident that it is through the divine Spirit that virtues are effective in mortals. This is again in the [from the divine under the Noah-sent dove it came to pass, or toward the God-inspired it rose, as the olive leaf...]

the dove sent forth from the divine ark by Noah, which returned to that divine man bearing an olive branch with leaves. By the branch it bore the woody Law, and by the fat leaf the ever-green teaching of the Gospels. For the ark of Noah, which contained all kinds of creatures, was ^A an image of our all-embracing Church, floating upon the sea of this flowing and unstable life, our Church being surrounded on every side by the storm of temptations. Through the serpent we fell from paradise; through the dove of the Spirit we have been brought up to the heavens. For in this form the Holy Spirit, the apex of all virtues, flew down upon Jesus in the Jordan. He showed Him to be the natural, and not adoptively, Son of God, while bringing to us simplicity and innocence. Let us not, therefore, be wise only as the serpent is in order to deceive men, but let us be wisely minded to do good (for the kindly and most intelligent Apostle says: "Not only to be wise, but to be wisely minded," ^B and again the same, "I would have you wise indeed unto what is good, and simple toward what is evil"). Let us not be lifted up and puffed up by praises, nor cast down and faint-hearted at insults. For one who is wounded by words and who protests, and breaks out into intolerable anger, cannot become a laborer in the Lord's vineyard. For the Lord defines him who, being struck on one cheek, offers the other, as one who bravely bears the burden of the day of the present age and the heat of the temptations therein, as having promptly fulfilled every laborious act of His commandment. For He who was ministered to by ^C myriads of angels did not Himself take revenge when struck by a servant at the time of His voluntary passion. Paul, emulating Him, though he had been afflicted by the Jews five times with forty stripes save one, received them meekly, teaching patience like unto God—a virtue truly so named, of which he who is a partaker becomes far removed from anger. Since, therefore, God is the perfect virtue, He is deservedly called long-suffering, as being far removed from anger. Even the followers of external learning have honored this. Socrates, indeed, the legislator of Attic dogmas, did not take revenge when struck; and Antisthenes, having been struck in the face by a certain reviler, departed, saying nothing, having written on his forehead only the name of the striker, so that those who saw him would not suspect him of being mad or intoxicated. ^D And the leg of Epictetus, having been crippled by a harsh master, became a school of silence and endurance in dangers for many philosophers. For he who had devoted himself to philosophy was shown to be the master of his master. Let us not, therefore, fail when we are insulted, but following in the footsteps of the Maker of us all, even if it be another's servant who has dealt the blow, let us also say to him the divine word: "If I have spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why do you strike me?" For thus, the adversary shall be wounded as if by the arrow of magnanimity, and having had his rash tongue and thought changed, he shall return thee thanks as the author of his transformation for the better. It is not

that we should be querulous or flag in our minor labors, since we desire great rewards, but that we should love the greater ones too, as though we should not otherwise receive the penny unless we possessed the testimony of the perfection of our labors. For ^B the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed, says that most excellent Apostle, who suffered much for Christ’s sake, and accounted all present things as refuse for His sake.

INTERROGATION CXCIII

What is the meaning of the Lord’s saying: "A sower went out to sow; and some seeds fell by the wayside, others into stony places, others among thorns; and those by the wayside, the birds of the air came and devoured them; and those in stony places, because they had no depth of earth nor root, after they sprang up withered; and those among thorns, they were choked; and whatever else the discourse sets forth concerning these things"?

Response

"A sower went out to sow." Christ went out from the Father, God before the ages; for He is the sower of our salvation. His seed is the divine and life-giving Word; the field is all mankind; the oxen are the apostles; the plow is the cross; the yoke is concord; the yoking is the sweet love that binds and bows the necks of the blessed. Christ went out to sow, not wheat or barley or any other earthly thing or anything else of that sort, but faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ^C the hope of resurrection, and love toward God and neighbor without hypocrisy. The sower Christ went out, having ten yokes of oxen, as the exalted Isaiah says: "For—shall ten yokes of oxen make one vessel?" And the ten rational yokes of oxen signify the holy assembly of the apostles: twelve before the passion, and seven including Stephen after the divine resurrection, by the decision of the twelve, and the twentieth, he who heard from the heavens, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" who in turn was transferred to struggle on behalf of Him whom he had persecuted against his own kin of Israel, and was armed in turn for war. These, then, the twenty rational oxen of that Sower ^D plowed the psychic field of mortals, and through Christ sowed in everyone under the sun the faith in Him, having made our entire earthen mass one vessel, capable of the divine mixtures, and of the blood and the water poured forth on the cross by the piercing of the spear from the earthen vessel of the divine body. For Christ Himself is the Sower, Himself the Potter of our mass, who before the incarnation created us from nothing, and having allowed us—who had been defiled and had become capable of something worse—to be crushed by death, He fashions us again, and makes us unable to receive any malice hereafter. For He is mingled with the creation without mixture and without confusion, having made us ever-immortal before

its transformation, and in the appearance that is ours. And He Himself is the earthen vessel, having been made according to the flesh from our clay, and containing the living and leaping water of His own divinity. ^A Which John, as it were, carrying in the proclamation of baptism, cried out upon seeing Jesus: "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world," by the cross and the pouring out of blood and water. Regarding whom, when Jesus was again asked by the disciples where they should prepare the legal Passover for Him, He says to them: "Go into this city, and a man will meet you carrying an earthen vessel of water; and say to him, ‘The Master says, With you I prepare the Passover with my disciples.’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; and there prepare." And these things happened sensibly; but let them be understood figuratively. The man carrying the earthen vessel of water is John the Baptist, preaching the baptism of repentance and baptizing. The city is the Jerusalem above, whose citizens are John and the rest of the company of the righteous and the holy. ^B The upper room furnished with resplendent stone is Heaven, shaped with certain living creatures and figures by the variety of the stars, after the likeness of which is the royal floor among us, paved with the variety of stone. That the prophet compared the apostles to oxen, Paul, the distinguished one of the divine embassy, clearly demonstrates, saying: "It is written, You shall not muzzle the ox that treads the grain." And again he adds, "Is it for oxen that God is concerned? It is certainly said for us; for it is written on our account." But let us return to the sublime Isaiah, following the prophecy existing in him: "For ten yokes of oxen shall not work to produce one jar." And again he adds, "And he who sows six artabae shall reap three modii." Shall we then suppose that such a failure would ever occur, that he who has sown six artabae would receive back only three modii? ^C For He does not say he will make three artabae, but three modii, which contain something small. But entering into the interior veil of the letter, we shall certainly find what is to be through these things. The six artabae, therefore, by which the rational field of mortals is sown for the Church, are: four books of divine discourse, the fifth the Acts of the saints, and the sixth the fourteen Epistles of the excellent apostle Paul, contained in a single volume; from which and through which the holy assembly bears fruit, planted in divine things by the instruction of the leaders, the three modii: faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the sower went out to sow, not wheat from which bread is made, but life-giving faith; yet not in all. ^D (For some fall by the way, and the way is Christ). For He Himself says: "I am the way and the life." The Arians, therefore, are not far from the way; just as the Greeks and Jews are not, nor are they *in* the way, but *by* the way, that is, near Christ. For the fact that they confess Christ causes them to be near the way; but that they blaspheme Him as lesser and unequal casts them out from the living Way. Wherefore also the birds of the air, the diabolical armies flying about, gather the divine seeds from the heart of the reprobate. For the Lord Himself, what He commands, that He also is accustomed to do, saying: "Do not cast my holy thing to the dogs, nor cast my pearls before swine." And again: "Take," He says, "the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents."

For to him who has right faith, it shall be given and added; but from him who has not faith, hope, and charity in God, even that which he seems to have shall be taken away, says the Lord. This signifies that they cannot enjoy Him unless they are perfect in every virtue, who do not worship God with right faith. As He Himself says: "He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has not believed shall be condemned." By the name of "incredulous," I believe, he also designates those who hold mistaken beliefs and the impious followers of heresies. Furthermore, those who are among the thorns seem to me to be the Eunomians, whom many call Anomoeans because of their blasphemy. For the fact that they rave, daring to prate that Christ is a creature and a thought, acts like thorns, choking them and not allowing them to germinate and be perfected in faith. The same saying is also appropriate for some of our own Church, who stifle themselves with the cares of life and the thorns of business, and do not permit the nature of divine things to flourish within them or to bring forth fruit. "Some fell not upon rock, but upon stony ground." For the Rock is Christ, as the divine Paul says. But those who are on stony ground seem to me to be those who have a dull heart, knowing not how to obey—which is indeed softer than stone, but harder than its own proper nature. For such is the seed of nature, softer indeed than stone, but harder than earth. To this, the Lord compares the Macedonians and Marathonians, enemies of God, who blaspheme the Spirit and falsely assert that He is a creature, drawing upon themselves the implacable sentence of the Lord. For He says: "Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age nor in the age to come." Therefore, they are neither good and fertile earth, holding the seed like Christians, nor are they solid rock, to be carved by teachers into the structure of the holy assembly. For the fact that they confess that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is similar to the Father according to substance shows that they are somewhat softer; but that they deny that the Holy Spirit is God shows that they are hesitant and only partially sound regarding the whole, numbering the Creator with the creature, and thinking wrongly about the Lord and the Servant alike. The Apostle, secluding them from Christianity, says: "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His." And again, the Lord says, "Others fell into good soil, and they yielded fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some a hundredfold." Comparing the heart of the good soil to a righteous and well-disposed mind, purged of heretical thorns, and germinating: first indeed the herb of faith, then the ear of hope growing, then exhibiting the mature fruit of perfect love. For the divine Apostle also shows these to be the principal gifts: faith, hope, and charity. He, therefore, who believes, produces thirty; he who hopes, produces sixty; but he who is in perfect love produces a hundredfold through perfection, which are works most acceptable to God. He who from one seed has rendered the threefold fruit, honoring God, exalting the Church, deifying himself, composing himself with the Spirit, providing for the soul, ruling over the body, glorified on earth, rising from the dead, rests in the heavens. ^A He who is perfect in the Trinity is faithful, meek, accessible to all, and modest, merciful, benign, just, scorning the body, exercising himself in divine things, hungering for heavenly things, living among mortals in an image and appearing as a figure upon the earth; therefore he brings forth thirtyfold fruit, as one acting among men: sixtyfold, however, as one ministering with the angels: hundredfold, truly, as one conversing with God: giving fruit through the anointing of holy oil in the thirtyfold; through baptism in the sixtyfold; through the sacred ministry of the ointment in the hundredfold. He who believes in the Father brings forth thirty, he who in the Son sixty, he who in the Spirit a hundred... For in what they think to diminish the divine Spirit, they the more exalt and adorn Him, placing Him in number before the Father and the Son, wrongly and imprudently. For he who believes, does not believe in the Spirit, but in the Father first, then in the Son, and then in the Holy Spirit, the perfecter of the Trinity. ^B Just as that author of divine songs, signifying the work of the Trinity to be the universe, says: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were fixed, and by the Spirit of His mouth, all their power." Calling the Father the Lord, the Son the Word, and the Holy Spirit the one who completes the divine Trinity; whose authority the Lord, rising from the dead, signifying, says to His own disciples: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them," by the authority, indeed, of the Spirit whom you receive, who divinely gives to you the power to forgive sins. Let us not, therefore, fall in with heretics, who will be condemned by the Queen of the South, because of sloth in exercising virtue. For this fame of wisdom... ^{C D}

^A from the ends of the earth urged them to fly to Solomon, yet Christ, crying out in this present time, did not persuade them to watch and look to their own well-being. And while words and rumors winged that woman toward salvation, the sight and works of God and the Word incarnate did not in any way make these men better.

QUESTION CXCIV

Is the question of Peter and the answer of the Lord to be understood only according to the letter, or does it have some other meaning? The one asking says, "How often, if my brother sins against me, shall I forgive him? Up to seven times?" But the Lord answers abundantly: "Amen I say to you, not only up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven."

ANSWER

The answer is beautiful and ready, conferring ^B forgiveness on both, both on him who sinned and on him against whom something was committed. For the former, who asks for pardon in the matters in which he failed, and for the latter, who receives him into favor, as being himself liable to the same. For there is nothing that cannot fall and be caught, except only the nature of the first and simple holy Trinity in unity. For the divine oracle says: "Who shall boast that he has a pure heart? Or who shall speak with boldness that he is pure from sin?" Before these things, Job that divine man, that unshaken tower, who did not yield to the striking devil nor to the passions, that adamantine wall, clearly cries out: "No one is pure from sin, even if his life upon the earth ^C should have lasted but one single day." Now the life of man is not the transition from the womb into life, but after the bodily growth and the completion of the understanding, it is the beginning of the deliberation concerning life. Since, therefore, Peter was about to be entrusted with the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the ecclesiastical assembly (understand by the "key" the power of forgiving sins; for instead of a key he possessed the tongue, opening heaven and shutting it; and this belongs also to us by tongue, to open or to shut heaven to ourselves, as we speak things worthy or unworthy of God), wishing, therefore, or expecting to receive the power of forgiving sins, he asks the Lord: "How often, if my brother sins against me, shall I forgive him? Up to seven times?" ^D And for what reason does he not ask four times, or ten times, or more, but up to seven? It seems to me that he secretly desires to learn about the murderer: whether he who fell into seven sins is deemed worthy of forgiveness through baptism and repentance—Cain, who first in the world committed homicide, and was condemned to as many punishments, which mutually succeed one another from the sins of bloodshed. For among men, Cain was the first to act deceitfully, the first to commit murder, the first to lie to God when He asked about the slain one, the first to bring mourning and lamentation upon his parents by killing his brother, the first to beget envy and malice, the first to offer the firstfruits of his produce wickedly, and the first to defile the earth with blood, becoming the instigator of a curse upon it. And for these seven dramas of bloodshed, an equal number of punishments…

^A is imposed by the divine voice. Sterility and infecundity of the earth, which will no longer receive the murderer; groaning and a shaking of the whole body. But I have thought that the punishment itself should also be examined in number. "Cursed is the earth from you," is one punishment. "Work the earth," this is the second; for by a certain unspeakable necessity, He established him, compelling him to toil and labor on the earth. And "it will not increase to give you its strength," a third punishment: to toil and reap nothing from one's labors. "You shall be groaning and trembling upon the earth;" to the three, the divine decree adds two more punishments: incessant groaning and unceasing trembling, so that he could not even bring food or drink to his mouth, as his murderous right hand—which used its former strength badly against his brother, and in its vigor purchased infirmity for itself—is unsteady. The sixth punishment is his falling away from the freedom of speech he formerly had toward God. For the turning away of God is a terrible and most grievous punishment, containing all avenging powers; lamenting for which, he who experienced this trial begs for death, knowing it to be more beneficial for him than to live cast out by God. For he says: "If you cast me out from the earth," that is, if I am no longer to enjoy its produce, "and I shall be hidden from your face;" if I am deprived of the necessities of life from the earth, and I cannot appear before you, who are angry, "It shall be," he says, "that everyone who finds me will kill me; for it is better for me to die than to live tormented in misery." To whom the Lord says: "Not so; for I have set a sign upon you, so that everyone who finds you may not kill you." This is the seventh punishment: not to be deemed worthy of death, which dissolves all shame and the glory of opinion, but to remain subject to torment and, by the sign branding him, to be recognized as the one who was the instigator of evils among mortals. ^B

For the most grievous of punishments for those endowed with reason is the disgrace which the divine decree threatens to the guilty, saying: "Some shall rise to eternal life, but others to shame and eternal reproach." Since, therefore, seven evils had attached themselves to the murderer, he was condemned to as many punishments. Therefore, Peter knew that the Lord had intended the seventh day to be honored, resting in it and ceasing from His works; and that He had honored not any other, but this one, giving the Law in it, and that the Sabbath had been kept for the cessation from works: and that the number seven is to be revered, and carries a special significance, in which are the feast of Tabernacles and the trumpets, in which is the day of atonement: the seventh year among them is held in high regard as a year of remission, in which they plow, sow, and reap for six years, but allow it to rest on the seventh, remaining complete, and being content with what grows of its own accord. A slave serving for seven years would obtain his freedom. With the passing of the annual week of years, the seventy captives were liberated from Babylon. Likewise, the sevenfold beneficence is peculiarly used by the sacred assembly of our Christ-bearing Church. "Seven times a day I have praised you," says David, the author of divine songs. By the name of the day, indeed, signifying the present age: but that he himself is revolved seven times through the week. Isaiah enumerates seven spiritual gifts. "And seven (16) eyes of the Lord," he says. That which Solomon also says, "Wisdom has built her house, and has supported seven pillars." And the divine Apostle has interpreted Wisdom to be Christ. The house of this is both heaven and the Church. In the former, indeed, are the seven pillars of the angelic orders, but in the latter are the seven deacons of the Apostles, the colleagues of Stephen and Philip. And again, another of the holy prophets says, "The righteous man shall fall seven times, and shall rise again." And this, moreover, not otherwise than through repentance. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, was translated and did not see death, demonstrating by this transposition that the Church is transferred from a corruptible life subject to death into an immortal place lacking all misery. Likewise, from the flood, Noah alone is saved, having Christ as his governor. The seventh

^A generation from Adam is Christ born, as the divine Luke demonstrates in his genealogy. Since, therefore, Scripture defines the number of the remission of sins by the heptad, and the present age extends through a week—entirely completed in seven days by the Creator, and as if always revolving in itself by a septenary vicissitude—it has the remission of sins through repentance, which inclines one toward correction and sobriety, having been chastened by God. And thus Peter, thinking that it is most difficult if the Lord's decree in this hebdomadal age be to remit to a homicide seven times the flagrant crime and guilt, says to the Lord: *How often, if my brother sins against me, shall I forgive him? Seven times?* As if to say: "Even if he has committed homicide, shall I forgive him if he repents?" But the Lord, commending benevolence to him, says: *Not seven times, but seventy times seven.* By this, I suppose, He teaches that not only is he who has committed homicide once, and is subject to those seven evils, to be received if he repents; but he, too, who has already in a way denied God—which is a more serious matter than murder—is, when seventy times seven have been committed, to be accepted and to have pardon given to him who repents and mourns. Because these things are shadowed forth to the mind, and that Peter, diffident of these things, might obtain such pardon—who thought that neither one nor the other would be forgiven, and that those who had sinned were never to be deemed worthy of benevolence through repentance—the Lord permits him to fall seven times, because of the smitten servant of the high priest and his severed ear. For he struck with the intent to kill, had not He who planted the ear listened, and He who formed the eye perceived. He, who a little before had opened the eyes of the blind, and indeed of one who had never looked upon the light, here immediately restored the ear of the beaten man with the touch of His hand, as though both were miracles performed by God. And "seventy times seven" refers to the question of the cockerel, by whose voice it was said that he had denied Him three times. But He remitted these things and no longer remembered them, since he was fervently and bitterly mourning over his denial and shedding tears, so that, having himself obtained pardon in the fall in which he had been established, he might similarly bestow the same upon his neighbors who were repenting. Let us therefore school ourselves, lest we neglect repentance. For the perfection that comes from it is hard-won. Wherefore it seems better to me to abstain with all our strength from corruptible things, than, filled with deadly wounds, to grieve and be sorrowful and troubled, and to call upon the physician after we have been struck by the sting of sin. ^B Conversely, if it should happen that we slip through some temptation, let us not despair of expiation or of remission, nor, when we have been recalled, let us act sluggishly; but let us as soon as possible recoil from what is worse, and grasp at the suggestion of the virtues, wash our vesture and our perception, and flee from earthly things as from those that stifle; let us return to that former sublime way of life; let us incline our hearing to divine dogmas; let us forget the groveling things of earth; let us acquire love, the citadel of the virtues; and let us inscribe the divine law upon the tablets of our heart, having become a tablet sculpted by God.

QUESTION CXCV.

Answer.

seeing him as a Simon, and unchangeable thereafter toward better things. For it was necessary that the evil be forgiven, since the heart did not agree with the lips, as the chanter of divine songs says concerning Israel: *And they loved him with their mouth, and with their tongue they lied to him; but their heart was not right with him, nor were they faithful in his covenant.* ^B For even so are the skilled in medicine accustomed to act: when some extremity of the body is held by an incurable disease, they straightway cut off a finger from the hand or foot, before the corruption spreads to the remaining members. Similarly, Moses, the divine man, looking from the very start at the precepts of the Law, and being incensed, ordered that he who gathered wood on the Sabbath be stoned for a light offense, having written that God had pronounced this. For transgression is judged in a great and a moderate matter, as the Lord says: *If someone fulfills the whole Law, but stumbles in one, he has become guilty of all.* ^C (Not that all his virtue has vanished—for this would justly seem unfair even to those who think lightly of the divine and just judgment—but he seems to me to become guilty of all, as one who has departed from the one, making himself liable to the penalty of the one crime and the [equal] compensation for all; or because he has fallen away from the body of those [virtues] themselves, or has departed from their number.) He, therefore, who has not altogether despaired of himself, and has not surrendered wholly to the worse, but even rarely offers virtue to God, and has shown pity to his neighbor, in truth owes [repayment] to Him in the things wherein he has offended; but it is owed to him in turn in the things wherein he has done good. Compensation being subtracted, then, a decision is rendered according to what remains. This we have often known to happen among us, if we owe a hundred denarii, and thirty are owed to us. As, therefore, the debtor of money is obligated to the creditor for everything until the payment of the debt, ^D so he who is owed [recompense] by God for a thousand good deeds, but is himself a debtor for one trespass, is held guilty of all until the accounting of each person’s stewardship is rendered. For transgression is judged in a small and a greater matter, having a difference in comparison. Let us strive, therefore, to have the surplus in the good, weighing down injustice with justice.

INTERROGATION CXCVI

If the consummation of the world and the coming of Christ are inevitable, how does He Himself say, *Then those in Judea, let them flee to the mountains, and he who is on the housetop, let him not come down to take anything from his house, and he who is in the field, let him not turn back to take his garment*? And again He says, *But pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. Woe, however, to those who are pregnant and those who are nursing in those days.* Is it that if the consummation should happen to occur in summer, or on a Sunday, or on another day, we might be able to hide or flee? And why, when there will be such a crowd and populace then, did He pronounce miserable and bewail only the pregnant and nursing women out of all, as if on account of the birth?

^A

*Response.* Foretelling the future flight of the Jews, the Lord commands them to flee to the mountains. For after Vespasian, Titus arriving leveled Jerusalem completely and laid it waste, having miserably destroyed the Jews; for he struck down the men with the sword, dashed the newborn infants against the ground, and cut open the pregnant women, destroying the God-opposing race with every sort of ruin and extermination. The city having been taken on the Sabbath—and everyone being at home because of the Sabbath rest—and it being winter as well, not one of them could escape captivity and death. He who was on the roof attempted to hide, wishing to take nothing of what was below, judging it more honorable to live than to possess anything. He who was in the field not only remained without turning back to his house, but was compelled to go even further, seeing the burning and the capture of the city. ^B But if you wish to adapt the discourse, as is appropriate, to our own concerns through a more sublime understanding: "Let those who are in Judaea flee to the mountains"—let those who are firm in piety (for "Judaea" signifies this according to interpretation) look to the sublime refuge, namely Christ, guarded under the confession of Him. "And let him who is on the roof not descend to take anything from his house": let him who has despised this present shadowy life, and has trampled down the whole tabernacle here, and has become sublime in his life and has cast away the entangling passions, not draw anything from them—neither fear, nor depression, nor empty glory, nor love of wealth, which are a descent from the heights. "He who is in the field, let him not turn back to take his garment": he who has stripped off the old man and has renounced the things of the flesh, let him wear the new, who has renewed him unto the renewal of God and cleansed him from the mire; in this he shall have strength invincible against every counsel. Therefore, let no disturbance or mutual affection of kinsfolk tear us away from the love of Christ. ^C For neither did Christ, when sought by His mother and brothers, admit their call when He had begun the saving doctrine among His hearers, teaching that spiritual things should be preferred over carnal things. In the same way, His disciples also, having abandoned the care of tables, preferred to take up the discourse of piety, teaching wisely not only by words, but training by deeds. For to speak well is like a lyre or a cymbal, but to act usefully is connected with the nature of the angels.

QUESTION CXCVII

But will there be a return for them at the consummation of the world, and when all who are from the gentiles have believed, will the remnant from the Jews also be converted then? For the Lord says in the Gospel: "For I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, that there may be one flock and one shepherd." ^D And the Apostle, agreeing with this, says: "When the fullness of the gentiles has come..."

then all Israel shall be saved." ^A

Response. I shall never be persuaded that the Jews are to be recalled; for neither does the Lord teach this, nor does that noble Apostle, through those things which were indeed rightly spoken by them, but badly understood and expressed by you. For to say, as the Lord did, "I have other sheep," clearly meaning us, "which are not of this fold" (as if it were the Jewish one), of which the first were the manifestation of the Lord: namely, the divine apostles, and with them, and through them, those of the Jews who were converted to the faith. For that which consists of the gentiles did not yet exist before the saving passion, because it had not yet been preached to us, nor had we been baptized; which Christ did after the resurrection through his apostles, and brought us into the faithful fold of the Jews. ^B And we all who are faithful are one flock, being pastured and guarded by one shepherd, the high priest and arch-shepherd Christ. For there is, as the disciple of the arch-shepherd and the noble Apostle, the teacher of all those under heaven, says: "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." The same one also says: "When the fullness of the gentiles has entered, then all Israel shall be saved," not signifying that the Jews are to be saved and recalled at the consummation, but those who see God through purity of mind and faith. ^C For this is what "Israel" is interpreted to mean by all, even by the Jews themselves: "A mind seeing God." For not all who are of Israel are Israel; nor because they are the seed of Abraham are they all children, but "in Isaac shall your seed be called"—that is, those who are children of the flesh are not necessarily children of God, says the same Apostle. And again, the Lord says in the Gospels: "Many are called"—as it were, Israelites and Christians—"but few are chosen," as it were, those who are saved. ^D When, therefore, the "fullness of the gentiles"—that is, the Church encompassing all peoples—has entered, namely into judgment, then "all Israel" (the mind seeing God), which is every man, having the knowledge of God through faith and piety, shall be saved.

INDICES

SIMILARITIES

Orderly arranged, as used by Gregory of Nazianzus in his Epistles and Poems.

A Love of virginity in Gregory, and a spark in stubble, ^A 633, v. 27. Love of God, and water in a canal, 551, v. 231. Love reaching toward one thing, and the craftsman applying a plumb line, 529, v. 554. The people of Anastasia, and a single semi-nature, 845, v. 41. A soul in Christ, like a star before the sun and a light before a great pyre, 89, C. Soul and shin-bone, 247, v. 90. A soul prostrated by the Devil, and a pine tree cast down, or a flat plane, 659, v. 529. A soul and a team drawn by three horses, 941, v. 10. Apollinarists denying Christ a soul, and a man whose eye is injured, and his foot struck besides, applying medicine to the foot, but leaving the eye uncured, ^D 30, D. Apollinarists likewise, and cobblers, shaving away what is thicker in hides, 91, A. Miser, and a dropsical person, 437, v. 440. Miser, and the dipsas snake, 553, v. 151. Audacity as a veil of justice, and a cuttlefish vomiting ink from deep within, 737, v. 1199. Gold unjustly collected, and a covered and obscure tyrant, 17, C.

B Earthly goods, and spiders' webs, 585, xxx, v. 27. One puffed up by external goods, and a monkey wearing golden collars, or an ass carrying talents of gold, or a leaden sword in a silver scabbard, 1045, v. 173. Good, but ignoble, and a rose grown from thorns, 543, v. 35.

C Caesarius, and a fallen oak, 641, v. 187. Calamity, and the earth swept away by the force of rain, 677, v. 20. Grey hairs, and winter, 337, v. 701. Those who are carnal, and tortoises, and crabs moving obliquely, and twisting serpents, 357, v. 712. Bachelors, and a ship, 313, v. 278. Preachers holding forth for vanity, and these street performers and tightrope walkers, 853, v. 76. Body, and a snake, 987, v. 138.

D The Devil, and one drawing fish with bait, 633, v. 50. God, and lightning, 309, v. 377. Clinging to God and to the flesh, and an amphibious creature, 327, v. 538. Desire, and a spark in stubble, 933, v. 267. Human dignities, and dreams, or a river, or a shadow, or darkness, or a ship, 653, v. 91. Giving half-service to God, and indulging in dances. Or sailing at the same time and traveling on foot, 351, v. 228. About to discuss divine matters, and a traveler about to cross a river, 257, v. 50. Riches, and a whore, 1001, v. 17.

E The empire of the Church, and a showy stage, 81, B. The Nazianzen Church, and a ship tossed by a storm, 873, v. 49. Bishop and lamp, 55, D. The grace of the Epistles is simple, and an eagle not thinking itself beautiful, 47, D. Eusebius of Caesarea, and a man caressing one side with his hand and striking the other with evil, or tearing down the foundations of a house, and painting the walls, and decorating the outer parts, 17, B. A faulty model, and a river flowing down slopes, 799, v. 369.

F Happiness, and the track of a ship, 633, v. 94.

G Gregory, and the shadows of bodies, 17, C. Gregory, and the most sordid vessels and instruments, and the supports placed under arches, which, once the structure is reinforced and made compact, are wont to be removed and held as nothing, 43, B. Gregory, and refuse and sweepings, and the chaff and spray of the sea, 77, B. Gregory and Jonah, 113, D, 114, A, 771, v. 1838. Gregory wishing to leave the episcopacy, and an impatient horse, 771, v. 1818. Gregory, and a lion entangled in the snares of hunters, 995, v. 17. Gregory of Nyssa, and the sun and the stars, 75, B.

H Man after original sin, and one navigating a great force of oars, 29, v. 125. Man ignorant of himself, and eyes that see other things but themselves not at all, 125, C.

I The ignorant, and fish, 339, v. 18. The wicked, and those who throw a stone into the sky, 335, v. 677. A wicked man resting, and a cloud pregnant with hail, 729, v. 1024. Mutual slanderers, and reciprocal waves, 157, A, B. Unhappiness, and bitter medicine, 235, v. 100. Wrath, and a wild beast, 513, v. 22. Wrath, and fire, 513, v. 17. Wrath, and rust, 1033, v. 287.