Date: 1890-08-15T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Treatises & Other

Additional Writings and Fragments

Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus

Royal Archives

1890

Copyright

The source text and this English translation are in the public domain.

The cover design is © 2026 Royal Archives.

Published by Royal Archives

First published 1890

Source: The Ante-Nicene Fathers (ed. Roberts & Donaldson, 1885)

Edition identifier: urn:royalarchives:additional_writings_and_fragments:en:1

A Sectional Confession of Faith.

Section 1

Part II.—Additional Writings and Fragments.

————————————

A Sectional Confession of Faith. Edited in Latin by Gerardus Vossius, Opp. Greg. Thaum., Paris, 1662, in fol.; given in Greek from the Codex Vaticanus by Cardinal Mai, Script. Vet., vii. p. 170. Vossius has the following argument: This is a second Confession of Faith, and one widely different from the former, which this great Gregory of ours received by revelation. This seems, however, to be designated an ἔκθεσις τῆς κατὰ μέρος πίστεως, either because it records and expounds the matters of the faith only in part, or because the Creed is explained in it by parts. The Jesuit theologian Franc. Torrensis (the interpreter and scholiast of this ἔκθεσις) has, however, rendered the phrase ἡ κατὰ μέρος πίστις, by the Latin fides non universa sed in parte. And here we have a fides non universa sed in parte, according to him,—a creed not of all the dogmas of the Church, but only of some in opposition to the heretics who deny them. [The better view.]

————————————

I.

Most hostile and alien to the Apostolic Confession are those who speak of the Son as assumed to Himself by the Father out of nothing, and from an emanational origin;[1] and those who hold the same sentiments with respect to the Holy Spirit; those who say that the Son is constituted divine by gift and grace, and that the Holy Spirit is made holy; those who regard the name of the Son as one common to servants, and assert that thus He is the first-born of the creature, as becoming, like the creature, existent out of non-existence, and as being first made, and who refuse to admit that He is the only-begotten Son,—the only One that the Father has, and that He has given Himself to be reckoned in the number of mortals, and is thus reckoned first-born; those who circumscribe the generation of the Son by the Father with a measured interval after the fashion of man, and refuse to acknowledge that the æon of the Begetter and that of the Begotten are without beginning; those who introduce three separate and diverse systems of divine worship,[2] whereas there is but one form of legitimate service which we have received of old from the law and the prophets, and which has been confirmed by the Lord and preached by the apostles. Nor less alienated from the true confession are those who hold not the doctrine of the Trinity according to truth, as a relation consisting of three persons, but impiously conceive it as implying a triple being in a unity (Monad), formed in the way of synthesis[3] and think that the Son is the wisdom in God, in the same manner as the human wisdom subsists in man whereby the man is wise, and represent the Word as being simply like the word which we utter or conceive, without any hypostasis whatever.

[1] οἱ τὸν Υἱὸν ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων καὶ ἀποστελλομένης ἀρχῆς εἶναι ἐπίκτητον λέγοντες τῷ Πατρί. [Note, Exucontians = Arians.]

[2] ἀκοινωνήτους καὶ ξένας εἰσάγοντες λατρείας.

[3] ἐν μονάδι τὸ τριπλοῦν ἀσεβῶς κατὰ σύνθεσιν.

Section 2

II.

But the Church’s Confession, and the Creed that brings salvation to the world, is that which deals with the incarnation of the Word, and bears that He gave Himself over to the flesh of man which He acquired of Mary, while yet He conserved His own identity, and sustained no divine transposition or mutation, but was brought into conjunction with the flesh after the similitude of man; so that the flesh was made one with the divinity, the divinity having assumed the capacity of receiving the flesh in the fulfilling of the mystery. And after the dissolution of death there remained to the holy flesh a perpetual impassibility and a changeless immortality, man’s original glory being taken up into it again by the power of the divinity, and being ministered then to all men by the appropriation of faith.[1]

[1] ἐν τῇ πίστεως οἰκειώσει.

Section 3

III.

If, then, there are any here, too, who falsify the holy faith, either by attributing to the divinity as its own what belongs to the humanity—progressions,[1] and passions, and a glory coming with accession[2]—or by separating from the divinity the progressive and passible body, as if subsisted of itself apart,—these persons also are outside the confession of the Church and of salvation. No one, therefore, can know God unless he apprehends the Son; for the Son is the wisdom by whose instrumentality all things have been created; and these created objects declare this wisdom, and God is recognised in the wisdom. But the wisdom of God is not anything similar to the wisdom which man possesses, but it is the perfect wisdom which proceeds from the perfect God, and abides for ever, not like the thought of man, which passes from him in the word that is spoken and (straightway) ceases to be. Wherefore it is not wisdom only, but also God; nor is it Word only, but also Son. And whether, then, one discerns God through creation, or is taught to know Him by the Holy Scriptures, it is impossible either to apprehend Him or to learn of Him apart from His wisdom. And he who calls upon God rightly, calls on Him through the Son; and he who approaches Him in a true fellowship, comes to Him through Christ. Moreover, the Son Himself cannot be approached apart from the Spirit. For the Spirit is both the life and the holy formation of all things;[3] and God sending forth this Spirit through the Son makes the creature[4] like Himself.

[1] προκοπάς.

[2] δόξαν τὴν ἐπιγινομένην.

[3] μόρφωσις τῶν ὅλων.

[4] τὴν κτίσιν.

Section 4

IV.

One therefore is God the Father, one the Word, one the Spirit, the life, the sanctification of all. And neither is there another God as Father,[1] nor is there another Son as Word of God, nor is there another Spirit as quickening and sanctifying. Further, although the saints are called both gods, and sons, and spirits, they are neither filled with the Spirit, nor are made like the Son and God. And if, then, any one makes this affirmation, that the Son is God, simply as being Himself filled with divinity, and not as being generated of divinity, he has belied the Word, he has belied the Wisdom, he has lost the knowledge of God; he has fallen away into the worship of the creature, he has taken up the impiety of the Greeks, to that he has gone back; and he has become a follower of the unbelief of the Jews, who, supposing the Word of God to be but a human son, have refused to accept Him as God, and have declined to acknowledge Him as the Son of God. But it is impious to think of the Word of God as merely human, and to think of the works which are done by Him as abiding, while He abides not Himself. And if any one says that the Christ works all things only as commanded by the Word, he will both make the Word of God idle,[2] and will change the Lord’s order into servitude. For the slave is one altogether under command, and the created is not competent to create; for to suppose that what is itself created may in like manner create other things, would imply that it has ceased to be like the creature.[3]

[1] οὔτε Θεὸς ἕτερος ὡς Πατήρ.

[2] ἀργόν.

[3] This seems the idea in the sentence, οὐ γὰρ ἐξισωσθήσεται τῷ κτίσματι αὐτὸ κατ᾽ οὐδένα τρόπον, ἵν᾽ ὡς ὑπ᾽ ἐκείνου ἔκτισται, οὕτω καὶ αὐτὸ κτίσῃ τὰ ἄλλαα.

Section 5

V.

Again, when one speaks of the Holy Spirit as an object made holy,[1] he will no longer be able to apprehend all things as being sanctified in (the) Spirit. For he who has sanctified one, sanctifies all things. That man, consequently, belies the fountain of sanctification, the Holy Spirit, who denudes Him of the power of sanctifying, and he will thus be precluded from numbering Him with the Father and the Son; he makes nought, too, of the holy (ordinance of) baptism, and will no more be able to acknowledge the holy and august Trinity.[2] For either we must apprehend the perfect Trinity[2] in its natural and genuine glory, or we shall be under the necessity of speaking no more of a Trinity, but only of a Unity;[3] or else, not numbering[4] created objects with the Creator, nor the creatures with the Lord of all, we must also not number what is sanctified with what sanctifies; even as no object that is made can be numbered with the Trinity, but in the name of the Holy Trinity baptism and invocation and worship are administered. For if there are three several glories, there must also be three several forms of cultus with those who impiously worship the creature; for if there is a distinction in the nature of the objects worshipped, there ought to be also with these men a distinction in the nature of the worship offered. What is recent[5] surely is not to be worshipped along with what is eternal; for the recent comprehends all that has had a beginning, while mighty and measureless is He who is before the ages. He, therefore, who supposes some beginning of times in the life of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, therewith also cuts off any possibility of numbering the Son and the Spirit with the Father. For as we acknowledge the glory to be one, so ought we also to acknowledge the substance in the Godhead to be one, and one also the eternity of the Trinity.

[1] ἡγιασμένον ποίημα.

[2] Trias. [See vol. ii. p. 101.]

[3] Monas.

[4] συναριθμεῖν.

[5] τὰ πρόσφατα.

Section 6

VI.

Moreover, the capital element of our salvation is the incarnation of the Word. We believe, therefore, that it was without any change in the Divinity that the incarnation of the Word took place with a view to the renewal of humanity. For there took place neither mutation nor transposition, nor any circumscription in will,[1] as regards the holy energy[2] of God; but while that remained in itself the same, it also effected the work of the incarnation with a view to the salvation of the world: and the Word of God, living[3] on earth after man’s fashion, maintained likewise in all the divine presence, fulfilling all things, and being united[4] properly and individually with flesh; and while the sensibilities proper to the flesh were there, the divine energy maintained the impassibility proper to itself. Impious, therefore, is the man who introduces the passibility[5] into the energy. For the Lord of glory appeared in fashion as a man when He undertook the economy[6] upon the earth; and He fulfilled the law for men by His deeds, and by His sufferings He did away with man’s sufferings, and by His death He abolished death, and by his resurrection He brought life to light; and now we look for His appearing from heaven in glory for the life and judgment of all, when the resurrection of the dead shall take place, to the end that recompense may be made to all according to their desert.

[1] περικλεισμὸς ἐν νεύματι.

[2] δύναμιν.

[3] πολιτευσάμένος.

[4] συγκεκραμένος.

[5] τὸ πάθος.

[6] Meaning here the whole work and business of the incarnation, and the redemption through the flesh.—Migne.

Section 7

VII.

But some treat the Holy Trinity[1] in an awful manner, when they confidently assert that there are not three persons, and introduce (the idea of) a person devoid of subsistence.[2] Wherefore we clear ourselves of Sabellius, who says that the Father and the Son are the same. For he holds that the Father is He who speaks, and that the Son is the Word that abides in the Father, and becomes manifest at the time of the creation,[3] and thereafter reverts to God on the fulfilling of all things. The same affirmation he makes also of the Spirit. We forswear this, because we believe that three persons—namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—are declared to possess the one Godhead: for the one divinity showing itself forth according to nature in the Trinity[4] establishes the oneness of the nature; and thus there is a (divinity that is the) property of the Father, according to the word, “There is one God the Father;”[5] and there is a divinity hereditary[6] in the Son, as it is written, “The Word was God;”[7] and there is a divinity present according to nature in the Spirit—to wit, what subsists as the Spirit of God—according to Paul’s statement, “Ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.”[8]

[1] Trias.

[2] ἀνυπόστατον.

[3] δημιουργίας.

[4] φυσικῶς ἐν Τριάδι μαρτυρουμένη.

[5] 1 Cor. 8:6.

[6] πατρῷον.

[7] John 1:1.

[8] 1 Cor. 3:6.

Section 8

VIII.

Now the person in each declares the independent being and subsistence.[1] But divinity is the property of the Father; and whenever the divinity of these three is spoken of as one, testimony is borne that the property[2] of the Father belongs also to the Son and the Spirit: wherefore, if the divinity may be spoken of as one in three persons, the trinity is established, and the unity is not dissevered; and the oneness which is naturally the Father’s is also acknowledged to be the Son’s and the Spirit’s. If one, however, speaks of one person as he may speak of one divinity, it cannot be that the two in the one are as one.[3] For Paul addresses the Father as one in respect of divinity, and speaks of the Son as one in respect of lordship: “There is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him.”[4] Wherefore if there is one God, and one Lord, and at the same time one person as one divinity in one lordship,[5] how can credit be given to (this distinction in) the words “of whom” and “by whom,” as has been said before? We speak, accordingly, not as if we separated the lordship from the divinity, nor as estranging the one from the other, but as unifying them in the way warranted by actual fact and truth; and we call the Son God with the property of the Father,[6] as being His image and offspring; and we call the Father Lord, addressing Him by the name of the One Lord, as being His Origin and Begettor.

[1] τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸ καὶ ὑφεστάναι δηλοῖ.

[2] By the ἰδιότητα τοῦ Πατρός is meant here the divinity belonging to the Father.—Migne.

[3] οὐκ ἐστιν ὡς ἓν τὰ δύο ἐν τῷ ἑνί.

[4] 1 Cor. 8:6.

[5] καθ᾽ ὃ θεότης μιᾶς κυριότητος.

[6] τῷ ἰδιώματι τοῦ Πατρός.

Section 9

IX.

The same position we hold respecting the Spirit, who has that unity with the Son which the Son has with the Father. Wherefore let the hypostasis of the Father be discriminated by the appellation of God; but let not the Son be cut off from this appellation, for He is of God. Again, let the person of the Son also be discriminated by the appellation of Lord; only let not God be dissociated from that, for He is Lord as being the Father of the Lord. And as it is proper to the Son to exercise lordship, for He it is that made (all things) by Himself, and now rules the things that were made, while at the same time the Father has a prior possession of that property, inasmuch as He is the Father of Him who is Lord; so we speak of the Trinity as One God, and yet not as if we made the one by a synthesis of three: for the subsistence that is constituted by synthesis is something altogether partitive and imperfect.[1] But just as the designation Father is the expression of originality and generation, so the designation Son is the expression of the image and offspring of the Father. Hence, if one were to ask how there is but One God, if there is also a God of God, we would reply that that is a term proper to the idea of original causation,[2] so far as the Father is the one First Cause.[3] And if one were also to put the question, how there is but One Lord, if the Father also is Lord, we might answer that again by saying that He is so in so far as He is the Father of the Lord; and this difficulty shall meet us no longer.

[1] μέρος γὰρ ἅπαν ἀτελὲς τὸ συνθεσεως ὑφιστάμενον.

[2] ἀρχῆς.

[3] ἀρχή.

Section 10

X.

And again, if the impious say, How will there not be three Gods and three Persons, on the supposition that they have one and the same divinity?—we shall reply: Just because God is the Cause and Father of the Son; and this Son is the image and offspring of the Father, and not His brother; and the Spirit in like manner is the Spirit of God, as it is written, “God is a Spirit.”[1] And in earlier times we have this declaration from the prophet David: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens stablished, and all the power of them by the breath (spirit) of His mouth.”[2] And in the beginning of the book of the creation[3] it is written thus: “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”[4] And Paul in his Epistle to the Romans says: “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.”[5] And again he says: “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”[6] And again: “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”[7] And again: “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.”[8] And again: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost.”[9]

[1] John 4:24.

[2] Ps. 33:6.

[3] Κοσμοποιΐας.

[4] Gen. 1:2.

[5] Rom. 8:9.

[6] Rom. 8:11.

[7] Rom. 8:14, 15.

[8] Rom. 9:1.

[9] Rom. 15:13.

Section 11

XI.

And again, writing to those same Romans, he says: “But I have written the more boldly unto you in some sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the Gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. I have therefore whereof I may glory through Jesus Christ in those things which pertain to God. For I dare not to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me,[1] to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Holy Spirit.”[2] And again: “Now I beseech you, brethren, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and by the love of the Spirit.”[3] And these things, indeed, are written in the Epistle to the Romans.[4]

[1] [A reference to his canon, perhaps, recorded in 2 Cor. 10:13–16. Compare Rom. 15:20. The canonists erect the discrimination between Orders and Mission, upon these texts and (Acts 13:2, 3, etc.) Gal. 2:8, 9. See vol. i. p. 495, note 3.]

[2] Rom. 15:15–19. [Concerning which remarkable passage, see vol. v. p. 409, Elucidation I.]

[3] Rom. 15:30.

[4] [It is evident that St. Paul founded the Church at Rome. St. Peter (see note 13, supra) could only have come to Rome to look after the Jewish disciples there. Elucidation, p. 47, infra.]

Section 12

XII.

Again, in the Epistle to the Corinthians he says: “For my speech and my preaching was not in the enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”[1] And again he says: “As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.”[2] And again he says: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.”[3]

[1] 1 Cor. 2:4, 5.

[2] 1 Cor. 2:9–11.

[3] 1 Cor. 2:14.

Section 13

XIII.

Seest thou that all through Scripture the Spirit is preached, and yet nowhere named a creature? And what can the impious have to say if the Lord sends forth His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit?[1] Without contradiction, that implies a communion and unity between them, according to which there are neither three divinities nor (three) lordships; but, while there remain truly and certainly the three persons, the real unity of the three must be acknowledged. And in this way proper credit will be given to the sending and the being sent[2] (in the Godhead), according to which the Father hath sent forth the Son, and the Son in like manner sends forth the Spirit. For one of the persons surely could not (be said to) send Himself; and one could not speak of the Father as incarnate. For the articles of our faith will not concur with the vicious tenets of the heresies; and it is right that our conceptions should follow the inspired and apostolic doctrines, and not that our impotent fancies should coerce the articles of our divine faith.

[1] Matt. 28:19.

[2] The text is, οὕτω γὰρ (τὸ ἀποστέλλον) καὶ τὸ ἀποστελλόμενον, οἰκείως ἂν πιστεύοιτο, καθ᾽ ὁ, etc.

Section 14

XIV.

But if they say, How can there be three Persons, and how but one Divinity?—we shall make this reply: That there are indeed three persons, inasmuch as there is one person of God the Father, and one of the Lord the Son, and one of the Holy Spirit; and yet that there is but one divinity, inasmuch as the Son is the Image of God the Father, who is One,—that is, He is God of God; and in like manner the Spirit is called the Spirit of God, and that, too, of nature according to the very substance,[1] and not according to simple participation of God. And there is one substance[2] in the Trinity, which does not subsist also in the case of objects that are made; for there is not one substance in God and in the things that are made, because none of these is in substance God. Nor, indeed, is the Lord one of these according to substance, but there is one Lord the Son, and one Holy Spirit; and we speak also of one Divinity, and one Lordship, and one Sanctity in the Trinity; because the Father is the Cause[3] of the Lord, having begotten Him eternally, and the Lord is the Prototype[4] of the Spirit. For thus the Father is Lord, and the Son also is God; and of God it is said that “God is a Spirit.”[5]

[1] φυσικῶς κατ᾽ αὐτὴν τὴν οὐσιαν.

[2] οὐσία.

[3] ἀρχή.

[4] πρωτότυπος.

[5] John 4:24.

Section 15

XV.

We therefore acknowledge one true God, the one First Cause, and one Son, very God of very God, possessing of nature the Father’s divinity,—that is to say, being the same in substance with the Father;[1] and one Holy Spirit, who by nature and in truth sanctifies all, and makes divine, as being of the substance of God.[2] Those who speak either of the Son or of the Holy Spirit as a creature we anathematize. All other things we hold to be objects made, and in subjection,[3] created by God through the Son, (and) sanctified in the Holy Spirit. Further, we acknowledge that the Son of God was made a Son of man, having taken to Himself the flesh from the Virgin Mary, not in name, but in reality; and that He is both the perfect Son of God, and the (perfect) Son of man,—that the Person is but one, and that there is one worship[4] for the Word and the flesh that He assumed. And we anathematize those who constitute different worships, one for the divine and another for the human, and who worship the man born of Mary as though He were another than the God of God. For we know that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”[5] And we worship Him who was made man on account of our salvation, not indeed as made perfectly like in the like body,[6] but as the Lord who has taken to Himself the form of the servant. We acknowledge the passion of the Lord in the flesh, the resurrection in the power of His divinity, the ascension to heaven, and His glorious appearing when He comes for the judgment of the living and the dead, and for the eternal life of the saints.

[1] Note the phrase here, afterwards formulated, ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί. [This phrase, with abundant other tokens, makes it apparent that the work is not Gregory’s. It is further evident from section xviii. I should be glad to think otherwise.]

[2] καὶ θεοποιὸν ἐκ τῆς οὐσιας τοῦ Θεοῦ υπάρχον.

[3] δοῦλα.

[4] προσκύνησιν.

[5] John 1:1.

[6] ἶσον ἐν ἴσῳ γενόμενον τῷ σώματὶ.

Section 16

XVI.

And since some have given us trouble by attempting to subvert our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and by affirming of Him that He was not God incarnated, but a man linked with God; for this reason we present our confession on the subject of the aforementioned matters of faith, and reject the faithless dogmas opposed thereto. For God, having been incarnated in the flesh of man, retains also His proper energy pure, possessing a mind unsubjected by the natural[1] and fleshly affections, and holding the flesh and the fleshly motions divinely and sinlessly, and not only unmastered by the power of death, but even destroying death. And it is the true God unincarnate that has appeared incarnate, the perfect One with the genuine and divine perfection; and in Him there are not two persons. Nor do we affirm that there are four to worship, viz., God and the Son of God, and man and the Holy Spirit. Wherefore we also anathematize those who show their impiety in this, and who thus give the man a place in the divine doxology. For we hold that the Word of God was made man on account of our salvation, in order that we might receive the likeness of the heavenly, and be made divine[2] after the likeness of Him who is the true Son of God by nature, and the Son of man according to the flesh, our Lord Jesus Christ.

[1] ψυχικῶν.

[2] θεοποιηθῶμεν.

Section 17

XVII.

We believe therefore in one God, that is, in one First Cause, the God of the law and of the Gospel, the just and good; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, true God, that is, Image of the true God, Maker of all things seen and unseen, Son of God and only-begotten Offspring, and Eternal Word, living and self-subsistent and active,[1] always being with the Father; and in one Holy Spirit; and in the glorious advent of the Son of God, who of the Virgin Mary took flesh, and endured sufferings and death in our stead, and came to resurrection on the third day, and was taken up to heaven; and in His glorious appearing yet to come; and in one holy Church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and life eternal.

[1] ἐνεργόν.

Section 18

XVIII.

We acknowledge that the Son and the Spirit are consubstantial with the Father, and that the substance of the Trinity is one,—that is, that there is one divinity according to nature, the Father remaining unbegotten, and the Son being begotten of the Father in a true generation, and not in a formation by will,[1] and the Spirit being sent forth eternally from the substance of the Father through the Son, with power to sanctify the whole creation. And we further acknowledge that the Word was made flesh, and was manifested in the flesh-movement[2] received of a virgin, and did not simply energize in a man. And those who have fellowship with men that reject the consubstantiality as a doctrine foreign to the Scriptures, and speak of any of the persons in the Trinity as created, and separate that person from the one natural divinity, we hold as aliens, and have fellowship with none such.[3] There is one God the Father, and there is only one divinity. But the Son also is God, as being the true image of the one and only divinity, according to generation and the nature which He has from the Father. There is one Lord the Son; but in like manner there is the Spirit, who bears over[4] the Son’s lordship to the creature that is sanctified. The Son sojourned in the world, having of the Virgin received flesh, which He filled with the Holy Spirit for the sanctification of us all; and having given up the flesh to death, He destroyed death through the resurrection that had in view the resurrection of us all; and He ascended to heaven, exalting and glorifying men in Himself; and He comes the second time to bring us again eternal life.

[1] ποιήσει ἐκ βουλήσεως.

[2] κινήσει. [For the spiritual κινήσις, vol. iii. note 6, p. 622.]

[3] [Evidently after the Nicene Council; the consubstantiality, as a phrase and test of orthodoxy, belonging to the Nicene period.]

[4] διαπέμπων.

Section 19

XIX.

One is the Son, both before the incarnation and after the incarnation. The same (Son) is both man and God, both these together as though one; and the God the Word is not one person, and the man Jesus another person, but the same who subsisted as Son before was made one with flesh by Mary, so constituting Himself a perfect, and holy, and sinless man, and using that economical position for the renewal of mankind and the salvation of all the world. God the Father, being Himself the perfect Person, has thus the perfect Word begotten of Him truly, not as a word that is spoken, nor yet again as a son by adoption, in the sense in which angels and men are called sons of God, but as a Son who is in nature God. And there is also the perfect Holy Spirit supplied[1] of God through the Son to the sons of adoption, living and life-giving, holy and imparting holiness to those who partake of Him,—not like an unsubstantial breath[2] breathed into them by man, but as the living Breath proceeding from God. Wherefore the Trinity is to be adored, to be glorified, to be honoured, and to be reverenced; the Father being apprehended in the Son even as the Son is of Him, and the Son being glorified in the Father, inasmuch as He is of the Father, and being manifested in the Holy Spirit to the sanctified.

[1] χορηγούμενον.

[2] πνοήν.

Section 20

XX.

And that the holy Trinity is to be worshipped without either separation or alienation, is taught us by Paul, who says in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.”[1] And again, in that epistle he makes this explanation: “Now He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God, who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.”[2] And still more clearly he writes thus in the same epistle: “When Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”[3]

[1] 2 Cor. 13:13.

[2] 2 Cor. 1:21, 22.

[3] 2 Cor. 3:15–18.

Section 21

XXI.

And again Paul says: “That mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.”[1] And again he says: “Approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities,”[2] and so forth. Then he adds these words: “By kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God.”[3] Behold here again the saint has defined the holy Trinity, naming God, and the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And again he says: “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy.”[4] And again: “But ye are washed, but ye are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”[5] And again: “What! know ye not that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God?”[6] “And I think also that I have the Spirit of God.”[7]

[1] 2 Cor. 5:4, 5.

[2] 2 Cor. 6:4.

[3] 2 Cor. 6:6, 7.

[4] 1 Cor. 3:16, 17.

[5] 1 Cor. 6:11.

[6] 1 Cor. 6:19.

[7] 1 Cor. 7:40.

Section 22

XXII.

And again, speaking also of the children of Israel as baptized in the cloud and in the sea, he says: “And they all drank of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.”[1] And again he says: “Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: but all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.”[2] And again he says: “For if he who comes preaches another Christ whom we have not preached, or ye receive another spirit that ye have received not, or another gospel which ye have not obtained, ye will rightly be kept back.”[3]

[1] 1 Cor. 10:4.

[2] 1 Cor. 12:3–13.

[3] καλῶς ἂν εἴχεσθε. Referring perhaps to Gal. 1:8, 9.

Section 23

XXIII.

Seest thou that the Spirit is inseparable from the divinity? And no one with pious apprehensions could fancy that He is a creature. Moreover, in the Epistle to the Hebrews he writes again thus: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost?”[1] And again he says in the same epistle: “Wherefore, as the Holy Ghost saith, Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness; when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; for[2] they have not known my ways: as I sware in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest.”[3] And there, too, they ought to give ear to Paul, for he by no means separates the Holy Spirit from the divinity of the Father and the Son, but clearly sets forth the discourse of the Holy Ghost as one from the person of the Father, and thus as given expression to[4] by God, just as it has been represented in the before-mentioned sayings. Wherefore the holy Trinity is believed to be one God, in accordance with these testimonies of Holy Scripture; albeit all through the inspired Scriptures numberless announcements are supplied us, all confirmatory of the apostolic and ecclesiastical faith.

[1] Heb. 2:3, 4.

[2] διότι.

[3] Heb. 3:7–11.

[4] εἰρημένην.

A Fragment of the Same Declaration of Faith, Accompanied by Glosses.—From Gregory Thaumaturgus, as They Say, in His Sectional Confession of Faith

To maintain two natures[1] in the one Christ, makes a Tetrad of the Trinity, says he; for he expressed himself thus: “And it is the true God, the unincarnate, that was manifested in the flesh, perfect with the true and divine perfection, not with two natures; nor do we speak of worshipping four (persons), viz., God, and the Son of God, and man, and the Holy Spirit.” First, however, this passage is misapprehended, and is of very doubtful import. Nevertheless it bears that we should not speak of two persons in Christ, lest, by thus acknowledging Him as God, and as in the perfect divinity, and yet speaking of two persons, we should make a Tetrad of the divine persons, counting that of God the Father as one, and that of the Son of God as one, and that of the man as one, and that of the Holy Spirit as one. But, again, it bears also against recognising two divine natures,[1] and rather for acknowledging Him to be perfect God in one natural divine perfection, and not in two; for his object is to show that He became incarnate without change, and that He retains the divinity without duplication.[2] Accordingly he says shortly: “And while the affections of the flesh spring, the energy[3] retains the impassibility proper to it. He, therefore, who introduces the (idea of) passion into the energy is impious; for it was the Lord of glory that appeared in human form, having taken to Himself the human economy.”

[1] φύσεις.

[2] ἀδιπλασιάστως.

[3] δύναμις.

Elucidations

(The minister…to the Gentiles, p. 43.)

If St. Peter had been at Rome, St. Paul would not have come there (2 Cor. 10:16). The two apostles had each his jurisdiction, and they kept to their own “line of things” respectively. How, then, came St. Peter to visit Rome? The answer is clear: unless he came involuntarily, as a prisoner, he came to look after the Church of the Circumcision,[1] which was “in his measure;” and doubtless St. Paul urged him to this, the Hebrew Christians there being so large a proportion of the Church. St. Peter came “at the close of his life,” doubtless attended by an apostolic companion, as St. Paul was, and Barnabas also (Acts 15:39, 40). Linus probably laboured for St. Paul (in prison) among the Gentile Romans,[2] and Cletus for St. Peter among Jewish Christians. St. Peter survived all his martyred associates, and left Clement in charge of the whole Church. This most probable theory squares with all known facts, and reconciles all difficulties. Clement, then, was first bishop of Rome (a.d. 65); and so says Tertullian, vol. iii. p. 258, note 9.

That compendious but superficial little work, Smith’s History of the First Ten Centuries,[3] justly censures as “misleading” the usage, which it yet keeps up, of calling the early bishops of Rome “Popes.”[4] The same author utterly misunderstands Cyprian’s references to Rome as “a principal cathedra,” “a root and matrix,” etc.; importing into the indefinite Latin a definite article. Cyprian applies a similar principle, after his master Tertullian (vol. iii. p. 260, this series), to all the Apostolic Sees, the matrices of Christian churches.

[1] Origin says so, expressly. See Cave, Lives, i. p. 230.

[2] 2 Tim. 4:21.

[3] The Student’s Eccl. Hist., London, 1878.

[4] It accepts the statement that the earliest application of this term, by way of eminence, to the Bishop of Rome, is found in Evnodius of Pavia, circa a.d. 500. Robertson, vol. i. p. 560.

On the Trinity.

Fragment From the Discourse

On the Trinity.

————————————

Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop of Neo-Cæsareia in Pontus,[1] near successor of the apostles, in his discourse on the Trinity, speaks thus:—

I see in all three essentials—substance, genus, name. We speak of man, servant, curator (curatorem),—man, by reason of substance; servant, by reason of genus or condition; curator, by reason of denomination. We speak also of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: these, however, are not names which have only supervened at some after period, but they are subsistences. Again, the denomination of man is not in actual fact a denomination, but a substance common to men, and is the denomination proper to all men. Moreover, names are such as these,—Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob: these, I say, are names. But the Divine Persons are names indeed: and the names are still the persons; and the persons then signify that which is and subsists,—which is the essence of God. The name also of the nature signifies subsistence;[2] as if we should speak of the man. All (the persons) are one nature, one essence, one will, and are called the Holy Trinity; and these also are names subsistent, one nature in three persons, and one genus. But the person of the Son is composite in its oneness (unita est), being one made up of two, that is, of divinity and humanity together, which two constitute one. Yet the divinity does not consequently receive any increment, but the Trinity remains as it was. Nor does anything new befall the persons even or the names, but these are eternal and without time. No one, however, was sufficient to know these until the Son being made flesh manifested them, saying: “Father, I have manifested Thy name to men; glorify Thou me also, that they may know me as Thy Son.”[3] And on the mount the Father spake, and said, “This is my beloved Son.”[4] And the same sent His Holy Spirit at the Jordan. And thus it was declared to us that there is an Eternal Trinity in equal honour. Besides, the generation of the Son by the Father is incomprehensible and ineffable; and because it is spiritual, its investigation becomes impracticable: for a spiritual object can neither be understood nor traced by a corporeal object, for that is far removed from human nature. We men know indeed the generation proper to us, as also that of other objects; but a spiritual matter is above human condition, neither can it in any manner be understood by the minds of men. Spiritual substance can neither perish nor be dissolved; ours, however, as is easy to understand, perishes and is dissolved. How, indeed, could it be possible for man, who is limited on six sides—by east, west, south, north, deep, and sky—understand a matter which is above the skies, which is beneath the deeps, which stretches beyond the north and south, and which is present in every place, and fills all vacuity? But if, indeed, we are able to scrutinize spiritual substance, its excellence truly would be undone. Let us consider what is done in our body; and, furthermore, let us see whether it is in our power to ascertain in what manner thoughts are born of the heart, and words of the tongue, and the like. Now, if we can by no means apprehend things that are done in ourselves, how could it ever be that we should understand the mystery of the uncreated Creator, which goes beyond every mind? Assuredly, if this mystery were one that could be penetrated by man, the inspired John would by no means have affirmed this: “No man hath seen God at any time.”[5] He then, whom no man hath seen at any time,—whom can we reckon Him to resemble, so that thereby we should understand His generation? And we, indeed, without ambiguity apprehend that our soul dwells in us in union with the body; but still, who has ever seen his own soul? who has been able to discern its conjunction with his body? This one thing is all we know certainly, that there is a soul within us conjoined with the body. Thus, then, we reason and believe that the Word is begotten by the Father, albeit we neither possess nor know the clear rationale of the fact. The Word Himself is before every creature—eternal from the Eternal, like spring from spring, and light from light. The vocable Word, indeed, belongs to those three genera of words which are named in Scripture, and which are not substantial,—namely, the word conceived,[6] the word uttered,[7] and the word articulated.[8] The word conceived, certainly, is not substantial. The word uttered, again, is that voice which the prophets hear from God, or the prophetic speech itself; and even this is not substantial. And, lastly, the word articulated is the speech of man formed forth in air (aëre efformatus), composed of terms, which also is not substantial.[9] But the Word of God is substantial, endowed with an exalted and enduring nature, and is eternal with Himself, and is inseparable from Him, and can never fall away, but shall remain in an everlasting union. This Word created heaven and earth, and in Him were all things made. He is the arm and the power of God, never to be separated from the Father, in virtue of an indivisible nature, and, together with the Father, He is without beginning. This Word took our substance of the Virgin Mary; and in so far as He is spiritual indeed, He is indivisibly equal with the Father; but in so far as He is corporeal, He is in like manner inseparably equal with us. And, again, in so far as He is spiritual, He supplies in the same equality (æquiparat) the Holy Spirit, inseparably and without limit. Neither were there two natures, but only one nature of the Holy Trinity before the incarnation of the Word, the Son; and the nature of the Trinity remained one also after the incarnation of the Son. But if any one, moreover, believes that any increment has been given to the Trinity by reason of the assumption of humanity by the Word, he is an alien from us, and from the ministry of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. This is the perfect, holy, Apostolic faith of the holy God. Praise to the Holy Trinity for ever through the ages of the ages. Amen.

[1] The Arabic Codex reads falsely, Cæsareæ Cappadociæ.

[2] Or, the name signifies the subsistence of the nature—Nomen quoque naturæ significat subsistentiam.

[3] John 17:6.

[4] Matt. 3:17.

[5] John 1:18.

[6] τὸ κατ᾽ ἔννοιαν.

[7] προφορικόν.

[8] ἀρθρικόν.

[9] On these terms, consult the Greek Fathers in Petavius, de Trin., book vi. [See Elucidation below.]

Elucidation

Petavius, to whom the translator refers his readers, may be trusted in points where he has no theory of his own to sustain, but must always be accepted with caution. The Greek Fathers in this very series, from Justin[1] onward, enable us to put the later terminology to the test of earlier exposition (see examples in the notes to the Praxeas of Tertullian, and consult Dr. Holmes’ valuable note embodied in my elucidations).[2] We may go back to Theophilus for the distinction between the ἐνδιάθετος and the προφορικός, the immanent and the uttered Word.[3] Compare Tertullian, also, against Marcion.[4] Evidences, therefore, are abundant and archaic, indeed, to prove that the Ante-Nicene Fathers, with those of the Nicene and the Post-Nicene periods, were of one mind, and virtually of one voice.

[1] Vol. i. pp. 164, 166, 170, 178, 190–193, 263, 272; Irenæus, Ibid., 468, 546, etc.

[2] Vol. iii. p. 628. Compare (same volume) notes 15, p. 602, and 1, p. 604.

[3] Vol. ii. p. 98, notes 1, 2; also p. 103, note 5.

[4] Vol. iii. p. 299, note 19.

Twelve Topics on the Faith.

Topic I

Twelve Topics on the Faith.

Wherein is Given Also the Formula of Excommunication, and an Explication is Subjoined to Each. Works of Grester, vol. xv. p. 434, Ratisbon, 1741, in fol., from a manuscript codex.

————————————

If any one says that the body of Christ is uncreated, and refuses to acknowledge that He, being the uncreated Word (God) of God, took the flesh of created humanity and appeared incarnate, even as it is written, let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could the body be said to be uncreated? For the uncreated is the passionless, invulnerable, intangible. But Christ, on rising from the dead, showed His disciples the print of the nails and the wound made by the spear, and a body that could be handled, although He also had entered among them when the doors were shut, with the view of showing them at once the energy of the divinity and the reality of the body.

Yet, while being God, He was recognised as man in a natural manner; and while subsisting truly as man, He was also manifested as God by His works.[1]

[1] This paragraph is wanting in a very ancient copy.

Topic II

If any one affirms that the flesh of Christ is consubstantial with the divinity, and refuses to acknowledge that He, subsisting Himself in the form of God as God before all ages, emptied Himself and took the form of a servant, even as it is written, let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could the flesh, which is conditioned by time, be said to be consubstantial[1] with the timeless divinity? For that is designated consubstantial which is the same in nature and in eternal duration without variableness.

[1] ὁμοουσιος.

Topic III

If any one affirms that Christ, just like one of the prophets, assumed the perfect man, and refuses to acknowledge that, being begotten in the flesh of the Virgin,[1] He became man and was born in Bethlehem, and was brought up in Nazareth, and advanced in age, and on completing the set number of years (appeared in public and) was baptized in the Jordan, and received this testimony from the Father, “This is my beloved Son,”[2] even as it is written, let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could it be said that Christ (the Lord) assumed the perfect man just like one of the prophets, when He, being the Lord Himself, became man by the incarnation effected through the Virgin? Wherefore it is written, that “the first man was of the earth, earthy.”[3] But whereas he that was formed of the earth returned to the earth, He that became the second man returned to heaven. And so we read of the “first Adam and the last Adam.”[4] And as it is admitted that the second came by the first according to the flesh, for which reason also Christ is called man and the Son of man; so is the witness given that the second is the Savior of the first, for whose sake He came down from heaven. And as the Word came down from heaven, and was made man, and ascended again to heaven, He is on that account said to be the second Adam from heaven.

[1] Reading ἐκ παρθένου for ἐκ παθόντος.

[2] Matt. 3:17.

[3] 1 Cor. 15:47.

[4] 1 Cor. 15:45.

Topic IV

If any one affirms that Christ was born of the seed of man by the Virgin, in the same manner as all men are born, and refuses to acknowledge that He was made flesh by the Holy Spirit and the holy Virgin Mary, and became man of the seed of David, even as it is written, let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could one say that Christ was born of the seed of man by the Virgin, when the holy Gospel and the angel, in proclaiming the good tidings, testify of Mary the Virgin that she said, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?”[1] Wherefore he says, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of the Highest.”[2] And to Joseph he says, “Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins.”[3]

[1] Luke 1:34.

[2] Luke 1:35.

[3] Matt. 1:20, 21.

Topic V

If any one affirms that the Son of God who is before the ages is one, and He who has appeared in these last times is another, and refuses to acknowledge that He who is before the ages is the same with Him who appeared in these last times, even as it is written, let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could it be said that the Son of God who is before the ages, and He who has appeared in these last times, are different, when the Lord Himself says, “Before Abraham was, I am;”[1] and, “I came forth from God, and I come, and again I go to my Father?”[2]

[1] John 8:58.

[2] John 13. and 16.

Topic VI

If any one affirms that He who suffered is one, and that He who suffered not is another, and refuses to acknowledge that the Word, who is Himself the impassibie and unchangeable God, suffered in the flesh which He had assumed really, yet without mutation, even as it is written, let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could it be said that He who suffered is one, and He who suffered not another, when the Lord Himself says, “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be killed, and be raised again the third day from the dead;”[1] and again, “When ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the Father;”[2] and again, “When the Son of man cometh in the glory of His Father?”[3]

[1] Matt. 16:21.

[2] Matt. 26:64; Mark 14:62.

[3] Matt. 16:27.

Topic VII

If any one affirms that Christ is saved, and refuses to acknowledge that He is the Saviour of the world, and the Light of the world, even as it is written,[1] let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could one say that Christ is saved, when the Lord Himself says, “I am the life;”[2] and, “I am come that they might have life;”[3] and, “He that believeth on me shall not see death, but he shall behold the life eternal?”[4]

[1] Isa. 9.; Matt. 4.; John 1.; 3.; 8.; 9.; 12.

[2] John 11:25; 14:6.

[3] John 10:10.

[4] John 8:51.

Topic VIII

If any one affirms that Christ is perfect man and also God the Word in the way of separation,[1] and refuses to acknowledge the one Lord Jesus Christ, even as it is written, let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could one say that Christ is perfect man and also God the Word in the way of separation, when the Lord Himself says, “Why seek ye to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God?”[2] For God the Word did not give a man for us, but He gave Himself for us, having been made man for our sake. Wherefore He says: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But He spake of the temple of His body.”[3]

[1] διαιρετῶς.

[2] John 8:40.

[3] Or, and incorruptible.

Topic IX

If any one says that Christ suffers change or alteration, and refuses to acknowledge that He is unchangeable in the Spirit, though corruptible[1] in the flesh,[2] let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could one say that Christ suffers change or alteration, when the Lord Himself says, “I am and change not;”[3] again, “His soul shall not be left in Hades, neither shall His flesh see corruption?”[4]

[1] John 2:20, 21.

[2] [Christ’s flesh being incorruptible, transubstantiation cannot be true: the holy food is digested in its material part.]

[3] Mal. 3:6.

[4] Ps. 16:10; Acts 2:31.

Topic X

If any one affirms that Christ assumed the man only in part, and refuses to acknowledge that He was made in all things like us, apart from sin, let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could one say that Christ assumed the man only in part, when the Lord Himself says, “I lay down my life, that I might take it again, for the sheep;”[1] and, “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed;”[2] and, “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life?”[3]

[1] John 10:17.

[2] John 6:55.

[3] John 6:56.

Topic XI

If any one affirms that the body of Christ is void of soul and understanding,[1] and refuses to acknowledge that He is perfect man, one and the same in all things (with us), let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could one say that the body of the Lord (Christ) is void of soul and understanding? For perturbation, and grief, and distress, are not the properties either of a flesh void of soul, or of a soul void of understanding; nor are they the sign of the immutable Divinity, nor the index of a mere phantasm, nor do they mark the defect of human weakness; but the Word exhibited in Himself the exercise of the affections and susceptibilities proper to us, having endued Himself with our passibility, even as it is written, that “He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.”[2] For perturbation, and grief, and distress, are disorders of soul; and toil, and sleep, and the body’s liability to wounding, are infirmities of the flesh.

[1] ἄψυχον και ἀνόητον.

[2] Isa. 53:4.

Topic XII

If any one says that Christ was manifested in the world only in semblance, and refuses to acknowledge that He came actually in the flesh, let him be anathema.

Explication.

How could one say that Christ was manifested only in semblance in the world, born as He was in Bethlehem, and made to submit to the circumcising of the flesh, and lifted up by Simeon, and brought up on to His twelfth year (at home), and made subject to His parents, and baptized in Jordan, and nailed to the cross, and raised again from the dead?

Wherefore, when it is said that He was “troubled in spirit,”[1] that “He was sorrowful in soul,”[2] that “He was wounded in body,”[3] He places before us designations of susceptibilities proper to our constitution, in order to show that He was made man in the world, and had His conversation with men,[4] yet without sin. For He was born in Bethlehem according to the flesh, in a manner meet for Deity, the angels of heaven recognising Him as their Lord, and hymning as their God Him who was then wrapped in swaddling-clothes in a manger, and exclaiming, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will among men.”[5] He was brought up in Nazareth; but in divine fashion He sat among the doctors, and astonished them by a wisdom beyond His years, in respect of the capacities of His bodily life, as is recorded in the Gospel narrative. He was baptized in Jordan, not as receiving any sanctification for Himself, but as gifting a participation in sanctification to others. He was tempted in the wilderness, not as giving way, however, to temptation, but as putting our temptations before Himself on the challenge of the tempter, in order to show the powerlessness of the tempter.

Wherefore He says, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”[6] And this He said, not as holding before us any contest proper only to a God, but as showing our own flesh in its capacity to overcome suffering, and death, and corruption, in order that, as sin entered into the world by flesh, and death came to reign by sin over all men, the sin in the flesh might also be condemned through the selfsame flesh in the likeness thereof;[7] and that that overseer of sin, the tempter, might be overcome, and death be cast down from its sovereignty, and the corruption in the burying of the body be done away, and the first-fruits of the resurrection be shown, and the principle of righteousness begin its course in the world through faith, and the kingdom of heaven be preached to men, and fellowship be established between God and men.

In behalf of this grace let us glorify the Father, who has given His only begotten Son for the life of the world. Let us glorify the Holy Spirit that worketh in us, and quickeneth us, and furnisheth the gifts meet for the fellowship of God; and let us not intermeddle with the word of the Gospel by lifeless disputations, scattering about endless questionings and logomachies, and making a hard thing of the gentle and simple word of faith; but rather let us work the work of faith, let us love peace, let us exhibit concord, let us preserve unity, let us cultivate love, with which God is well pleased.

As it is not for us to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in His own power,[8] but only to believe that there will come an end to time, and that there will be a manifestation of a future world, and a revelation of judgment, and an advent of the Son of God, and a recompense of works, and an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, so it is not for us to know how the Son of God became man; for this is a great mystery, as it is written, “Who shall declare His generation? for His life is taken from the earth.”[9] But it is for us to believe that the Son of God became man, according to the Scriptures; and that He was seen on the earth, and had His conversation with men, according to the Scriptures, in their likeness, yet without sin; and that He died for us, and rose again from the dead, as it is written; and that He was taken up to heaven, and sat down at the right hand of the Father, whence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead, as it is written; lest, while we war against each other with words, any should be led to blaspheme the word of faith, and that should come to pass which is written, “By reason of you is my name[10] continually blasphemed among the nations.”[11]

[1] John 11:33; 12:27; 13:21.

[2] Matt. 26:38.

[3] Isa. 53:5.

[4] Baruch 3:38.

[5] Luke 2:14.

[6] John 16:33.

[7] Rom. 5:12; 8:3.

[8] Acts 1:7.

[9] Isa. 53:8.

[10] Or, the name of God.

[11] Isa. 52:5.

Elucidations

These “twelve anathemas,” as they are called, do evidently refute the Nestorians and later heretics. Evidently, therefore, we must assign this document to another author. And, as frequent references are made to such tests, I subjoin a list of Œcumenical or Catholic Councils, properly so called, as follows:—

1. Jerusalem, against Judaism,[1]a.d. 50.

2. Nicæa, against Arianism (1),[2]a.d. 325.

3. Constantinople (I.), against Semi-Arianism (2), a.d. 381.

4. Ephesus, against Nestorianism (3), a.d. 431.

5. Chalcedon, against Eutychianism (4), a.d. 451.

6. Constantinople (II.), against Monophysitism (5), a.d. 553.

7. Constantinople (III.), against Monothelitism (6),[3]a.d. 680.[4]

These are all the undisputed councils. The Seventh Council, so called (a.d. 537), was not a free council, and was rejected by a free council of the West, convened at Frankfort a.d. 794. Its acceptance by the Roman pontiffs, subsequently, should have no logical force with the Easterns, who do not recognise their supremacy even over the councils of the West; and no free council has ever been held under pontifical authority. The above list, therefore, is a complete list of all the councils of the undivided Church as defined by Catholic canons. There has been no possibility of a Catholic council since the division of East and West. The Council of Frankfort is the pivot of subsequent history, and its fundamental importance has not been sufficiently insisted upon.

[1] As widely different from the other councils as the Apostles from their successors, and part of its decisions were local and temporary. For all that, it was the greatest of councils, and truly General.

[2] These numbers indicate the ordinary reckoning of writers, and is correct ecclesiastically. The Council of Jerusalem, however, is the base of Christian orthodoxy, and decided the great principles by which the “General Councils” were professedly ruled.

[3] Theological students are often puzzled to recall the councils in order, and not less to recall the rejected heresies. I have found two mnemonics useful, thus: (1) INCE and (CCC) three hundred; (2) JAS. NEMM. Dulce est desipere, etc.

[4] a.d. 325 to 680 is the Synodical Period. Gregory I. (Rome) placed the first four councils next to the four Gospels.

On the Subject of the Soul.

Preface

On the Subject of the Soul. A Topical Discourse by our holy father Gregory, surnamed Thaumaturgus, bishop of Neo-Cæsareia in Pontus, addressed to Tatian.

————————————

You have instructed us, most excellent Tatian,[1] to forward for your use a discourse upon the soul, laying it out in effective demonstrations. And this you have asked us to do without making use of the testimonies of Scripture,—a method which is opened to us, and which, to those who seek the pious mind, proves a manner of setting forth doctrine more convincing than any reasoning of man.[2] You have said, however, that you desire this, not with a view to your own full assurance, taught as you already have been to hold by the Holy Scriptures and traditions, and to avoid being shaken in your convictions by any subtleties of man’s disputations, but with a view to the confuting of men who have different sentiments, and who do not admit that such credit is to be given to the Scriptures, and who endeavour, by a kind of cleverness of speech, to gain over those who are unversed in such discussions. Wherefore we were led to comply readily with this commission of yours, not shrinking from the task on account of inexperience in this method of disputation, but taking encouragement from the knowledge of your good-will toward us. For your kind and friendly disposition towards us will make you understand how to put forward publicly whatever you may approve of as rightly expressed by us, and to pass by and conceal whatever statement of ours you may judge to come short of what is proper. Knowing this, therefore, I have betaken myself with all confidence to the exposition. And in my discourse I shall use a certain order and consecution, such as those who are very expert in these matters employ towards those who desire to investigate any subject intelligently.

First of all, then, I shall propose to inquire by what criterion the soul can, according to its nature, be apprehended; then by what means it can be proved to exist; thereafter, whether it is a substance or an accident;[3] then consequently on these points, whether it is a body or is incorporeal; then, whether it is simple or compound; next, whether it is mortal or immortal; and finally, whether it is rational or irrational.

For these are the questions which are wont, above all, to be discussed, in any inquiry about the soul, as most important, and as best calculated to mark out its distinctive nature. And as demonstrations for the establishing of these matters of investigation, we shall employ those common modes of consideration[4] by which the credibility of matters under hand is naturally attested. But for the purpose of brevity and utility, we shall at present make use only of those modes of argumentation which are most cogently demonstrative on the subject of our inquiry, in order that clear and intelligible[5] notions may impart to us some readiness for meeting the gainsayers. With this, therefore, we shall commence our discussion.

[1] [A person not known.]

[2] [True to the universal testimony of the primitive Fathers as to Holy Scripture.]

[3] [Aristotle, Physica. Elucidation I.]

[4] ἐννοίαις.

[5] εὐπαράδεκτα.

Section 1

I. Wherein is the Criterion for the Apprehension of the Soul.

All things that exist are either known by sense[1] or apprehended by thought.[2] And what falls under sense has its adequate demonstration in sense itself; for at once, with the application, it creates in us the impression[3] of what underlies it. But what is apprehended by thought is known not by itself, but by its operations.[4] The soul, consequently, being unknown by itself, shall be known property by its effects.

[1] αἰσθήσει.

[2] νοήσει.

[3] φαντασίαν.

[4] ἐνεργειῶν.

Section 2

II. Whether the Soul Exists.

Our body, when it is put in action, is put in action either from without or from within. And that it is not put in action from without, is manifest from the circumstance that it is put in action neither by impulsion[1] nor by traction,[2] like soulless things. And again, if it is put in action from within, it is not put in action according to nature, like fire. For fire never loses its action as long as there is fire; whereas the body, when it has become dead, is a body void of action. Hence, if it is put in action neither from without, like soulless things, nor according to nature, after the fashion of fire, it is evident that it is put in action by the soul, which also furnishes life to it. If, then, the soul is shown to furnish the life to our body, the soul will also be known for itself by its operations.

[1] ὠθούμενον.

[2] ἑλκόμενον.

Section 3

III. Whether the Soul is a Substance.

That the soul is a substance,[1] is proved in the following manner. In the first place, because the definition given to the term substance suits it very well. And that definition is to the effect, that substance is that which, being ever identical, and ever one in point of numeration with itself, is yet capable of taking on contraries in succession.[2] And that this soul, without passing the limit of its own proper nature, takes on contraries in succession, is, I fancy, clear to everybody. For righteousness and unrighteousness, courage and cowardice, temperance and intemperance, are seen in it successively; and these are contraries. If, then, it is the property of a substance to be capable of taking on contraries in succession, and if the soul is shown to sustain the definition in these terms, it follows that the soul is a substance. And in the second place, because if the body is a substance, the soul must also be a substance. For it cannot be, that what only has life imparted should be a substance, and that what imparts the life should be no substance: unless one should assert that the non-existent is the cause of the existent; or unless, again, one were insane enough to allege that the dependent object is itself the cause of that very thing in which it has its being, and without which it could not subsist.[3]

[1] οὐσία.

[2] τῶν ἐναντίων παραμέρος εἰναι δεκτικόν, παραμέρος, here apparently = in turn, though usually = out of turn.

[3] The text has an apparent inversion: τὸ ἐν ᾧ τὴν ὕπαρξιν ἔχον καὶ οὗ ἄνευ εἶναι μὴ δυνάμενον, αἴτιον ἐκείνου εἶναι τοῦ ἐν ᾧ ἐστί. There is also a variety of reading: καὶ ὁ ἄνευ τοῦ εἶναι μὴ δυνάμενον.

Section 4

IV. Whether the Soul is Incorporeal.

That the soul is in our body, has been shown above. We ought now, therefore, to ascertain in what manner it is in the body. Now, if it is in juxtaposition with it, as one pebble with another, it follows that the soul will be a body, and also that the whole body will not be animated with soul,[1] inasmuch as with a certain part it will only be in juxtaposition. But if again, it is mingled or fused with the body, the soul will become multiplex,[2] and not simple, and will thus be despoiled of the rationale proper to a soul. For what is multiplex is also divisible and dissoluble; and what is dissoluble, on the other hand, is compound;[3] and what is compound is separable in a threefold manner. Moreover, body attached to body makes weight;[4] but the soul, subsisting in the body, does not make weight, but rather imparts life. The soul, therefore, cannot be a body, but is incorporeal.

Again, if the soul is a body, it is put in action either from without or from within. But it is not put in action from without; for it is moved neither by impulsion nor by traction, like soulless things. Nor is it put in action from within, like objects animated with soul; for it is absurd to talk of a soul of the soul: it cannot, therefore, be a body, but it is incorporeal.

And besides, if the soul is a body, it has sensible qualities, and is maintained by nurture. But it is not thus nurtured. For if it is nurtured, it is not nurtured corporeally, like the body, but incorporeally; for it is nurtured by reason. It has not, therefore, sensible qualities: for neither is righteousness, nor courage, nor any one of these things, something that is seen; yet these are the qualities of the soul. It cannot, therefore, be a body, but is incorporeal.

Still further, as all corporeal substance is divided into animate and inanimate, let those who hold that the soul is a body tell us whether we are to call it animate or inanimate.

Finally, if every body has colour, and quantity, and figure, and if there is not one of these qualities perceptible in the soul, it follows that the soul is not a body.[5]

[1] ἔμψυχον.

[2] πολυμερής.

[3] σύνθετον.

[4] ὄγκον.

[5] [These are Aristotle’s accidents, of which, see Thomas Aquinas and the schoolmen passim.]

Section 5

V. Whether the Soul is Simple or Compound.

We prove, then, that the soul is simple, best of all, by those arguments by which its incorporeality has been demonstrated. For if it is not a body, while every body is compound, and what is composite is made up of parts, and is consequently multiplex, the soul, on the other hand, being incorporeal, is simple; since thus it is both uncompounded and indivisible into parts.

Section 6

VI. Whether Our Soul is Immortal.

It follows, in my opinion, as a necessary consequence, that what is simple is immortal. And as to how that follows, hear my explanation: Nothing that exists is its own corrupter,[1] else it could never have had any thorough consistency, even from the beginning. For things that are subject to corruption are corrupted by contraries: wherefore everything that is corrupted is subject to dissolution; and what is subject to dissolution is compound; and what is compound is of many parts; and what is made up of parts manifestly is made up of diverse parts; and the diverse is not the identical: consequently the soul, being simple, and not being made up of diverse parts, but being uncompound and indissoluble, must be, in virtue of that, incorruptible and immortal.

Besides, everything that is put in action by something else, and does not possess the principle of life in itself, but gets it from that which puts it in action, endures just so long as it is held by the power that operates in it; and whenever the operative power ceases, that also comes to a stand which has its capacity of action from it. But the soul, being self-acting, has no cessation of its being. For it follows, that what is self-acting is ever-acting; and what is ever-acting is unceasing; and what is unceasing is without end; and what is without end is incorruptible; and what is incorruptible is immortal. Consequently, if the soul is self-acting, as has been shown above, it follows that it is incorruptible and immortal, in accordance with the mode of reasoning already expressed.

And further, everything that is not corrupted by the evil proper to itself, is incorruptible; and the evil is opposed to the good, and is consequently its corrupter. For the evil of the body is nothing else than suffering, and disease, and death; just as, on the other hand, its excellency is beauty, life, health, and vigour. If, therefore, the soul is not corrupted by the evil proper to itself, and the evil of the soul is cowardice, intemperance, envy, and the like, and all these things do not despoil it of its powers of life and action, it follows that it is immortal.

[1] φθαρτικόν.

Section 7

VII. Whether Our Soul is Rational.

That our soul is rational, one might demonstrate by many arguments. And first of all from the fact that it has discovered the arts that are for the service of our life. For no one could say that these arts were introduced casually and accidentally, as no one could prove them to be idle, and of no utility for our life. If, then, these arts contribute to what is profitable for our life, and if the profitable is commendable, and if the commendable is constituted by reason, and if these things are the discovery of the soul, it follows that our soul is rational.

Again, that our soul is rational, is also proved by the fact that our senses are not sufficient for the apprehension of things. For we are not competent for the knowledge of things by the simple application of the faculty of sensation. But as we do not choose to rest in these without inquiry,[1] that proves that the senses, apart from reason, are felt to be incapable of discriminating between things which are identical in form and similar in colour, though quite distinct in their natures. If, therefore, the senses, apart from reason, give us a false conception of things, we have to consider whether things that are can be apprehended in reality or not. And if they can be apprehended, then the power which enables us to get at them is one different from, and superior to, the senses. And if they are not apprehended, it will not be possible for us at all to apprehend things which are different in their appearance from the reality. But that objects are apprehensible by us, is clear from the fact that we employ each in a way adaptable to utility, and again turn them to what we please. Consequently, if it has been shown that things which are can be apprehended by us, and if the senses, apart from reason, are an erroneous test of objects, it follows that the intellect[2] is what distinguishes all things in reason, and discerns things as they are in their actuality. But the intellect is just the rational portion of the soul, and consequently the soul is rational.

Finally, because we do nothing without having first marked it out for ourselves; and as that is nothing else than just the high prerogative[3] of the soul,—for its knowledge of things does not come to it from without, but it rather sets out these things, as it were, with the adornment of its own thoughts, and thus first pictures forth the object in itself, and only thereafter carries it out to actual fact,—and because the high prerogative of the soul is nothing else than the doing of all things with reason, in which respect it also differs from the senses, the soul has thereby been demonstrated to be rational.

[1] ἐπεὶ μηδὲ στῆναι περὶ αὐτὰ θέλομεν.

[2] νοῦς.

[3] ἀξίωμα. [Elucidation II.]

Elucidations

I.

(Substance or accident, p. 54.)

This essay is “rather the work of a philosopher than a bishop,” says Dupin. He assigns it to an age when “Aristotle began to be in some reputation,”—a most important concession as to the estimate of this philosopher among the early faithful. We need not wonder that such admissions, honourable to his candour and to his orthodoxy, brought on him the hatred and persecutions of the Jesuits. Even Bossuet thought he went too far, and wrote against him. But, the whole system of Roman dogma being grounded in Aristotle’s physics as well as in his metaphysics, Dupin was not orthodox in the eyes of the society that framed Aristotle into a creed, and made it the creed of the “Roman-Catholic Church.” Note, e.g., “transubstantiation,” which is not true if Aristotle’s theory of accidents, etc., is false.[1] It assumes an exploded science.

II.

(Prerogative of the soul, p. 56.)

If this “Discourse” be worthy of study, it may be profitably contrasted, step by step, with Tertullian’s treatises on kindred subjects.[2] That the early Christians should reason concerning the Soul, the Mind, the immortal Spirit, was natural in itself. But it was also forced upon them by the “philosophers” and the heretics, with whom they daily came into conflict. This is apparent from the Anti-Marcion[3] of the great Carthaginian. The annotations upon that treatise, and those On the Soul’s Testimony and On the Soul, may suffice as pointing out the best sources[4] of information on speculative points and their bearings on theology. Compare, however, Athenagoras[5] and the great Clement of Alexandria.[6]

[1] See Bacon’s apophthegm, No. 275, p. 172, Works, London, 1730.

[2] Vol. iii. pp. 175–235, this series.

[3] Vol. iii. pp. 463, 474; also pp. 532, 537, 557, 570, and 587.

[4] Compare, also, Bishop Kaye’s Tertullian, p. 199, etc.

[5] E.g., vol. ii. p. 157, etc.

[6] Vol. ii. pp. 440, 584 (Fragment), and what he says of free-will.

Four Homilies.

On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary

Four Homilies. [This very homily has been cited to prove the antiquity of the festival of the Annunciation, observed, in the West, March 25. But even Pellicia objects that this is a spurious work. The feast of the Nativity was introduced into the East by Chrysostom after the records at Rome had been inspected, and the time of the taxing at Bethlehem had been found. See his Sermon (a.d. 386), beautifully translated by Dr. Jarvis in his Introduction, etc., p. 541. Compare Tertullian, vol. iii. p. 164, and Justin, vol. i. p. 174, this series. Now, as the selection of the 25th of March is clearly based on this, we may say no more of that day. Possibly some Sunday was associated with the Annunciation. The four Sundays preceding Christmas are all observed by the Nestorians in commemoration of the Annunciation.]

————————————

The First Homily.

To-day are strains of praise sung joyfully by the choir of angels, and the light of the advent of Christ shines brightly upon the faithful. Today is the glad spring-time to us, and Christ the Sun of righteousness has beamed with clear light around us, and has illumined the minds of the faithful. To-day is Adam made anew,[1] and moves in the choir of angels, having winged his way to heaven. To-day is the whole circle of the earth filled with joy, since the sojourn of the Holy Spirit has been realized to men. To-day the grace of God and the hope of the unseen shine through all wonders transcending imagination, and make the mystery that was kept hid from eternity plainly discernible to us. To-day are woven the chaplets of never-fading virtue. To-day, God, willing to crown the sacred heads of those whose pleasure is to hearken to Him, and who delight in His festivals, invites the lovers of unswerving faith as His called and His heirs; and the heavenly kingdom is urgent to summon those who mind celestial things to join the divine service of the incorporeal choirs. To-day is fulfilled the word of David, “Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad. The fields shall be joyful, and all the trees of the wood before the Lord, because He cometh.”[2] David thus made mention of the trees;[3] and the Lord’s forerunner also spoke of them as trees[4] “that should bring forth fruits meet for repentance,”[5] or rather for the coming of the Lord. But our Lord Jesus Christ promises perpetual gladness to all those who believe on Him. For He says, “I will see you, and ye shall rejoice; and your joy no man taketh from you.”[6] To-day is the illustrious and ineffable mystery of Christians, who have willingly[7] set their hope like a seal upon Christ, plainly declared to us. To-day did Gabriel, who stands by God, come to the pure virgin, bearing to her the glad annunciation, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured![8] And she cast in her mind what manner of salutation this might be. And the angel immediately proceeded to say, The Lord is with thee: fear not, Mary; for thou hast found favour with God. Behold,[9] thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call[10] His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, and He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever: and of His kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?”[11] Shall I still remain a virgin? is the honour of virginity not then lost by me? And while she was yet in perplexity as to these things, the angel placed shortly before her the summary of his whole message, and said to the pure virgin, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” For what it is, that also shall it be called by all means. Meekly, then, did grace make election of the pure Mary alone out of all generations. For she proved herself prudent truly in all things; neither has any woman been born like her in all generations. She was not like the primeval virgin Eve, who, keeping holiday[12] alone in paradise, with thoughtless mind, unguardedly hearkened to the word of the serpent, the author of all evil, and thus became depraved in the thoughts of her mind;[13] and through her that deceiver, discharging his poison and refusing death with it, brought it into the whole world; and in virtue of this has arisen all the trouble of the saints. But in the holy Virgin alone is the fall of that (first mother) repaired. Yet was not this holy one competent to receive the gift until she had first learned who it was that sent it, and what the gift was, and who it was that conveyed it. While the holy one pondered these things in perplexity with herself, she says to the angel, “Whence hast thou brought to us the blessing in such wise? Out of what treasure-stores is the pearl of the word despatched to us? Whence has the gift acquired its purpose[14] toward us? From heaven art thou come, yet thou walkest upon earth! Thou dost exhibit the form of man, and (yet) thou art glorious with dazzling light.”[15] These things the holy one considered with herself, and the archangel solved the difficulty expressed in such reasonings by saying to her: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And fear not, Mary; for I am not come to overpower thee with fear, but to repel the subject of fear. Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God. Question not grace by the standard of nature. For grace does not endure to pass under the laws of nature. Thou knowest, O Mary, things kept hid from the patriarchs and prophets. Thou hast learned, O virgin, things which were kept concealed till now from the angels. Thou hast heard, O purest one, things of which even the choir of inspired men[16] was never deemed worthy. Moses, and David, and Isaiah, and Daniel, and all the prophets, prophesied of Him; but the manner they knew not. Yet thou alone, O purest virgin, art now made the recipient of things of which all these were kept in ignorance, and thou dost learn[17] the origin of them. For where the Holy Spirit is, there are all things readily ordered. Where divine grace is present, all things are found possible with God. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” And if He is the Son of God, then is He also God, of one form with the Father, and co-eternal; in Him the Father possesses all manifestation;[18] He is His image in the person, and through His reflection the (Father’s) glory shines forth. And as from the ever-flowing fountain the streams proceed, so also from this ever-flowing and ever-living fountain does the light of the world proceed, the perennial and the true, namely Christ our God. For it is of this that the prophets have preached: “The streams of the river make glad the city of God.”[19] And not one city only, but all cities; for even as it makes glad one city, so does it also the whole world. Appropriately, therefore, did the angel[20] say to Mary the holy virgin first of all, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee;” inasmuch as with her was laid up the full treasure of grace. For of all generations she alone has risen as a virgin pure in body and in spirit; and she alone bears Him who bears all things on His word. Nor is it only the beauty of this holy one in body that calls forth our admiration, but also the innate virtue of her soul. Wherefore also the angel[20] addressed her first with the salutation, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured,[21] the Lord is with thee, and no spouse of earth;” He Himself is with thee who is the Lord of sanctification, the Father of purity, the Author of incorruption, and the Bestower of liberty, the Curator of salvation, and the Steward and Provider of the true peace, who out of the virgin earth made man, and out of man’s side formed Eve in addition. Even this Lord is with thee, and on the other hand also is of thee. Come, therefore, beloved brethren, and let us take up the angelic strain, and to the utmost of our ability return the due meed of praise, saying, “Hail,[22] thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee!” For it is thine truly to rejoice, seeing that the grace of God, as he knows, has chosen to dwell with thee—the Lord of glory dwelling with the handmaiden; “He that is fairer than the children of men”[23] with the fair virgin; He who sanctifies all things with the undefiled. God is with thee, and with thee also is the perfect man in whom dwells the whole fulness of the Godhead. Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the fountain of the light that lightens all who believe upon Him! Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the rising of the rational Sun,[24] and the undefiled flower of Life! Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the mead[25] of sweet savour! Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the ever-blooming vine, that makes glad the souls of those who honour thee! Hail, thou that art highly favoured!—the soil that, all untilled, bears bounteous fruit: for thou hast brought forth in accordance with the law of nature indeed, as it goes with us, and by the set time of practice,[26] and yet in a way beyond nature, or rather above nature, by reason that God the Word from above took His abode in thee, and formed the new Adam in thy holy womb, and inasmuch as the Holy Ghost gave the power of conception to the holy virgin; and the reality of His body was assumed from her body. And just as the pearl[27] comes of the two natures, namely lightning and water, the occult signs of the sea; so also our Lord Jesus Christ proceeds, without fusion and without mutation, from the pure, and chaste, and undefiled, and holy Virgin Mary; perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, in all things equal to the Father, and in all things consubstantial with us, apart from sin.

Most of the holy fathers, and patriarchs, and prophets desired to see Him, and to be eye-witnesses of Him, but did not attain hereto. And some of them by visions beheld Him in type, and darkly; others, again, were privileged to hear the divine voice through the medium of the cloud, and were favoured with sights of holy angels; but to Mary the pure virgin alone did the archangel Gabriel manifest himself luminously, bringing her the glad address, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured!” And thus she received the word, and in the due time of the fulfilment according to the body’s course she brought forth the priceless pearl. Come, then, ye too, dearly beloved, and let us chant the melody which has been taught us by the inspired harp of David, and say, “Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest; Thou, and the ark of Thy sanctuary.”[28] For the holy Virgin is in truth an ark, wrought with gold both within and without, that has received the whole treasury of the sanctuary. “Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest.” Arise, O Lord, out of the bosom of the Father, in order that Thou mayest raise up the fallen race of the first-formed man. Setting these things forth,[29] David in prophecy said to the rod that was to spring from himself, and to sprout into the flower of that beauteous fruit, “Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thine ear, and forget thine own people and thy father’s house; so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty: for He is the Lord thy God, and thou shalt worship Him.”[30] Hearken, O daughter, to the things which were prophesied beforetime of thee, in order that thou mayest also behold the things themselves with the eyes of understanding. Hearken to me while I announce things beforehand to thee, and hearken to the archangel who declares expressly to thee the perfect mysteries. Come then, dearly beloved, and let us fall back on the memory of what has gone before us; and let us glorify, and celebrate, and laud, and bless that rod that has sprung so marvellously from Jesse. For Luke, in the inspired Gospel narratives, delivers a testimony not to Joseph only, but also to Mary the mother of God, and gives this account with reference to the very family and house of David: “For Joseph went up,” says he, “from Galilee, unto a city of Judea which is called Bethlehem, to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child, because they were of the house and family of David. And so it was, that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered; and she brought forth her son, the first-born of the whole creation,[31] and wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”[32] She wrapped in swaddling-clothes Him who is covered with light as with a garment.[33] She wrapped in swaddling-clothes Him who made every creature. She laid in a manger Him who sits above the cherubim[34] and is praised by myriads of angels. In the manger set apart for dumb brutes did the Word of God repose, in order that He might impart to men, who are really irrational by free choice, the perceptions of true reason. In the board from which cattle eat was laid the heavenly Bread,[35] in order that He might provide participation in spiritual sustenance for men who live like the beasts of the earth. Nor was there even room for Him in the inn. He found no place, who by His word established heaven and earth; “for though He was rich, for our sakes He became poor,”[36] and chose extreme humiliation on behalf of the salvation of our nature, in His inherent goodness toward us. He who fulfilled the whole administration[37] of unutterable mysteries of the economy[38] in heaven in the bosom of the Father, and in the cave in the arms of the mother, reposed in the manger. Angelic choirs encircled Him, singing of glory in heaven and of peace upon earth. In heaven He was seated at the right hand of the Father; and in the manger He rested, as it were, upon the cherubim. Even there was in truth His cherubic throne; there was His royal seat. Holy of the holy, and alone glorious upon the earth, and holier than the holy, was that wherein Christ our God rested. To Him be glory, honour, and power, together with the Father undefiled, and the altogether holy and quickening Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of the ages. Amen.

[1] ἀνακεκαίνισται; others ἀνακέκληται, recovered.

[2] Ps. 96:11–13.

[3] ξύλα.

[4] δένδρα.

[5] Matt. 3:8.

[6] John 16:22.

[7] Others, ὁσίως, piously.

[8] Luke 1:28.

[9] Or, διό, wherefore.

[10] Or, καλέσουσι, they shall call.

[11] Luke 1:29, etc.

[12] χόρευσα.

[13] Or, τῷ τῆς καρδίας φρονήματι, in the thoughts of her heart.

[14] ὑπόθεσιν; others ὑπόσχεσιν, the promise.

[15] καὶ λαμπάδα φωτὸς ἀπαστράπτεις.

[16] θεοφόρων.

[17] Or, ὑποδέχου καὶ μάνθανε, and receive thou and learn.

[18] φανέρωσιν.

[19] Ps. 46:4.

[20] Or, archangel.

[21] Or, gifted with grace.

[22] Or, rejoice.

[23] Ps. 45:2.

[24] τοῦ νοητοῦ ἡλίου ἡ ἀνατολή; others, ἡλίου τῆς δικαιοσύνης, the rising of the Sun of righteousness.

[25] λειμών.

[26] ἀσκήσεως; better κυήσεως, conception.

[27] There is a similar passage in Ephræm’s discourse, De Margarita Pretiosa, vol. iii.

[28] ἁγιάσματος. Ps. 132:8.

[29] πρεσβεύων.

[30] Or, and they shall worship Him. Ps. 45:10, 11.

[31] πρωτότοκον πασῆς τῆς κτίσεως. [Or, the heir, etc.]

[32] Luke 2:4–7.

[33] Ps. 104:2.

[34] Ps. 80:1.

[35] Or, the Bread of life.

[36] 2 Cor. 8:9.

[37] Or, righteousness.

[38] Or, the whole administration of the economy in an unutterable mystery.

On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary. Discourse Second

The Second Homily.

On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary. “The Encomium of the same holy Father Gregory, bishop of Neo-Cæsareia in Pontus, surnamed Thaumaturgus on the Annunciation to the all-holy Mary, mother of God, and ever-virgin.”

Discourse Second.

It is our duty to present to God, like sacrifices, all the festivals and hymnal celebrations; and first of all, the annunciation to the holy mother of God, to wit, the salutation made to her by the angel, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured!” For first of all wisdom[1] and saving doctrine in the New Testament was this salutation, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured!” conveyed to us from the Father of lights. And this address, “highly favoured,”[2] embraced the whole nature of men. “Hail, thou that art highly favoured”[2] in the holy conception and in the glorious pregnancy, “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”[3] And again the Lord, who came for the purpose of accomplishing a saving passion, said, “I will see you, and ye shall rejoice; and your joy no man taketh from you.”[4] And after His resurrection again, by the hand of the holy women, He gave us first of all the salutation “Hail!”[5] And again, the apostle made the announcement in similar terms, saying, “Rejoice evermore: pray without ceasing: in everything give thanks.”[6] See, then, dearly beloved, how the Lord has conferred upon us everywhere, and indivisibly, the joy that is beyond conception, and perennial. For since the holy Virgin, in the life of the flesh, was in possession of the incorruptible citizenship, and walked as such in all manner of virtues, and lived a life more excellent than man’s common standard; therefore the Word that cometh from God the Father thought it meet to assume the flesh, and endue the perfect man from her, in order that in the same flesh in which sin entered into the world, and death by sin, sin might be condemned in the flesh, and that the tempter of sin might be overcome in the burying[7] of the holy body, and that therewith also the beginning of the resurrection might be exhibited, and life eternal instituted in the world, and fellowship established for men with God the Father. And what shall we state, or what shall we pass by here? or who shall explain what is incomprehensible in the mystery? But for the present let us fall back upon our subject. Gabriel was sent to the holy virgin; the incorporeal was despatched to her who in the body pursued the incorruptible conversation, and lived in purity and in virtues. And when he came to her, he first addressed her with the salutation, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured! the Lord is with thee.” Hail, thou that art highly favoured! for thou doest what is worthy of joy indeed, since thou hast put on the vesture of purity, and art girt with the cincture of prudence. Hail, thou that art highly favoured! for to thy lot it has fallen to be the vehicle of celestial joy. Hail, thou that art highly favoured! for through thee joy is decreed for the whole creation, and the human race receives again by thee its pristine dignity. Hail, thou that art highly favoured! for in thy arms the Creator of all things shall be carried. And she was perplexed by this word; for she was inexperienced in all the addresses of men, and welcomed quiet, as the mother of prudence and purity; (yet) being a pure, and immaculate, and stainless image[8] herself, she shrank not in terror from the angelic apparition, like most of the prophets, as indeed true virginity has a kind of affinity and equality with the angels. For the holy Virgin guarded carefully the torch of virginity, and gave diligent heed that it should not be extinguished or defiled. And as one who is clad in a brilliant robe deems it a matter of great moment that no impurity or filth be suffered to touch it anywhere, so did the holy Mary consider with herself, and said: Does this act of attention imply any deep design or seductive purpose? Shall this word “Hail” prove the cause of trouble to me, as of old the fair promise of being made like God, which was given her by the serpent-devil, proved to our first mother Eve? Has the devil, who is the author of all evil, become transformed again into an angel of light; and bearing a grudge against my espoused husband for his admirable temperance, and having assailed him with some fair-seeming address, and finding himself powerless to overcome a mind so firm, and to deceive the man, has he turned his attack upon me, as one endowed with a more susceptible mind; and is this word “Hail” (Grace be with thee) spoken as the sign of gracelessness hereafter? Is this benediction and salutation uttered in irony? Is there not some poison concealed in the honey? Is it not the address of one who brings good tidings, while the end of the same is to make me the designer’s prey? And how is it that he can thus salute one whom he knows not? These things she pondered in perplexity with herself, and expressed in words. Then again the archangel addressed her with the announcement of a joy which all may believe in, and which shall not be taken away, and said to her, “Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God.” Shortly hast thou the proof of what has been said. For I not only give you to understand that there is nothing to fear, but I show you the very key to the absence of all cause for fear. For through me all the heavenly powers hail thee, the holy virgin: yea rather, He Himself, who is Lord of all the heavenly powers and of all creation, has selected thee as the holy one and the wholly fair; and through thy holy, and chaste, and pure, and undefiled womb the enlightening Pearl comes forth for the salvation of all the world: since of all the race of man thou art by birth the holy one, and the more honourable, and the purer, and the more pious than any other: and thou hast a mind whiter than the snow, and a body made purer than any gold, however fine, and a womb such as the object which Ezekiel saw, and which he has described in these terms: “And the likeness of the living creatures upon the head was as the firmament, and as the appearance of the terrible crystal, and the likeness of the throne above them was as the appearance of a sapphire-stone: and above the throne it was as the likeness of a man, and as the appearance of amber; and within it there was, as it were, the likeness of fire round about.”[9]

Clearly, then, did the prophet behold in type Him who was born of the holy virgin, whom thou, O holy virgin, wouldest have had no strength to bear, hadst thou not beamed forth for that time[10] with all that is glorious and virtuous. And with what words of laudation, then, shall we describe her virgin-dignity? With what indications and proclamations of praise shall we celebrate her stainless figure? With what spiritual song or word shall we honour her who is most glorious among the angels? She is planted in the house of God like a fruitful olive that the Holy Spirit overshadowed; and by her means are we called sons and heirs of the kingdom of Christ. She is the ever-blooming paradise of incorruptibility, wherein is planted the tree that giveth life, and that furnisheth to all the fruits of immortality. She is the boast and glory of virgins, and the exultation of mothers. She is the sure support of the believing, and the succourer[11] of the pious. She is the vesture of light, and the domicile of virtue.[12] She is the ever-flowing fountain, wherein the water of life sprang and produced the Lord’s incarnate manifestation. She is the monument of righteousness; and all who become lovers of her, and set their affections on virgin-like ingenuousness and purity, shall enjoy the grace of angels. All who keep themselves from wine and intoxication, and from the wanton enjoyments of strong drink, shall be made glad with the products of the life-bearing plant. All who have preserved the lamp of virginity unextinguished shall be privileged to receive the amaranthine crown of immortality. All who have possessed themselves of the stainless robe of temperance shall be received into the mystical bride-chamber of righteousness. All who have come nearer the angelic degree than others shall also enter into the more real enjoyment of their Lord’s beatitude. All who have possessed the illuminating oil of understanding, and the pure incense of conscience, shall inherit the promise of spiritual favour and the spiritual adoption. All who worthily observe the festival of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God, acquire as their meet recompense the fuller interest in the message, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured!” It is our duty, therefore, to keep this feast, seeing that it has filled the whole world with joy and gladness. And let us keep it with psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. Of old did Israel also keep their festival, but then it was with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, of which the prophet says: “I will turn their feasts into afflictions and lamentation, and their joy into shame.”[13] But our afflictions our Lord has assured us He will turn into joy by the fruits of penitence.[14] And again, the first covenant maintained the righteous requirements[15] of a divine service, as in the case of our forefather Abraham; but these stood in the inflictions of pain in the flesh by circumcision, until the time of the fulfilment. “The law was given to them through Moses” for their discipline; “but grace and truth” have been given to us by Jesus Christ.[16] The beginning of all these blessings to us appeared in the annunciation to Mary, the highly-favoured, in the economy of the Saviour which is worthy of all praise, and in His divine and supra-mundane instruction. Thence rise the rays of the light of understanding upon us. Thence spring for us the fruits of wisdom and immortality, sending forth the clear pure streams of piety. Thence come to us the brilliant splendours of the treasures of divine knowledge. “For this is life eternal, that we may know the true God, and Jesus Christ whom He hath sent.”[17] And again, “Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life.”[18] For on this account the treasure of the knowledge of God is revealed to them who search the divine oracles. That treasure of the inspired Scriptures the Paraclete has unfolded to us this day. And let the tongue of prophecy and the doctrine of apostles be the treasure of wisdom to us; for without the law and the prophets, or the evangelists and the apostles, it is not possible to have the certain hope of salvation. For by the tongue of the holy prophets and apostles our Lord speaks, and God takes pleasure in the words of the saints; not that He requires the spoken address, but that He delights in the good disposition; not that He receives any profit from men, but that He finds a restful satisfaction in the rightly-affected soul of the righteous. For it is not that Christ is magnified by what we say; but as we receive benefits from Him, we proclaim with grateful mind His beneficence to us; not that we can attain to what is worthy therein, but that we give the meet return to the best of our ability. And when the Gospels or the Epistles, therefore, are read, let not your attention centre on the book or on the reader, but on the God who speaks to you from heaven. For the book is but that which is seen, while Christ is the divine subject spoken of. It brings us then the glad tidings of that economy of the Saviour, which is worthy of all praise, to wit, that, though He was God, He became man through kindness toward man, and did not lay aside, indeed, the dignity which was His from all eternity, but assumed the economy that should work salvation. It brings us the glad tidings of that economy of the Saviour worthy of all praise, to wit, that He sojourned with us as a physician for the sick, who did not heal them with potions, but restored them by the inclination of His philanthropy.

It brings us the glad tidings of this economy of the Saviour altogether to be praised, to wit, that to them who had wandered astray the way of salvation was shown, and that to the despairing the grace of salvation was made known, which blesses all in different modes; searching after the erring, enlightening the blinded, giving life to the dead, setting free the slaves, redeeming the captives, and becoming all things to all of us in order to be the true way of salvation to us: and all this He does, not by reason of our goodwill toward Him, but in virtue of a benignity that is proper to our Benefactor Himself. For the Saviour did all, not in order that He might acquire virtue Himself, but that He might put us in possession of eternal life. He made man, indeed, after the image of God, and appointed him to live in a paradise of pleasure. But the man being deceived by the devil, and having become a transgressor of the divine commandment, was made subject to the doom of death. Whence, also, those born of him were involved in their father’s liability in virtue of their succession, and had the reckoning of condemnation required of them. “For death reigned from Adam to Moses.”[19] But the Lord, in His benignity toward man, when He saw the creature He Himself had formed now held by the power of death, did not turn away finally from him whom He had made in His own image, but visited him in each generation, and forsook him not; and manifesting Himself first of all among the patriarchs, and then proclaiming Himself in the law, and presenting the likeness of Himself[20] in the prophets, He presignified the economy of salvation. When, moreover, the fulness of the times came for His glorious appearing, He sent beforehand the archangel Gabriel to bear the glad tidings to the Virgin Mary. And he came down from the ineffable powers above to the holy Virgin, and addressed her first of all with the salutation, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured.” And when this word, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured,” reached her, in the very moment of her hearing it, the Holy Spirit entered into the undefiled temple of the Virgin, and her mind and her members were sanctified together. And nature stood opposite, and natural intercourse at a distance, beholding with amazement the Lord of nature, in a manner contrary to nature, or rather above nature, doing a miraculous work in the body; and by the very weapons by which the devil strove against us, Christ also saved us, taking to Himself our passible body in order that He might impart the greater grace[21] to the being who was deficient in it. And “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” And appropriately was grace sent to the holy Virgin. For this word also is contained in the oracle of the evangelic history: “And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house and lineage of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary;”[22] and so forth. And this was the first month to the holy Virgin. Even as Scripture says in the book of the law: “This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month among the months of the year to you.”[23] “Keep ye the feast of the holy passover to the Lord in all your generations.” It was also the sixth month to Zacharias. And rightly, then, did the holy Virgin prove to be of the family of David, and she had her home in Bethlehem, and was betrothed rightfully to Joseph, in accordance with the laws of relationship. And her espoused husband was her guardian, and possessor also of the untarnished incorruption which was hers. And the name given to the holy Virgin was one that became her exceedingly. For she was called Mary, and that, by interpretation, means illumination. And what shines more brightly than the light of virginity? For this reason also the virtues are called virgins by those who strive rightly to get at their true nature. But if it is so great a blessing to have a virgin heart, how great a boon will it be to have the flesh that cherishes virginity along with the soul!

Thus the holy Virgin, while still in the flesh, maintained the incorruptible life, and received in faith the things which were announced by the archangel. And thereafter she journeyed diligently to her relation Elisabeth in the hill-country. “And she entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth,”[24] in imitation of the angel. “And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leapt with joy in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.”[24] Thus the voice of Mary wrought with power, and filled Elisabeth with the Holy Ghost. And by her tongue, as from an ever-flowing fountain, she sent forth a stream of gracious gifts in the way of prophecy to her relation; and while the feet of her child were bound in the womb,[25] she prepared to dance and leap. And that was the sign of a marvellous jubilation. For wherever she was who was highly favoured, there she filled all things with joy. “And Elisabeth spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Blessed art thou among women.”[26] For thou hast become to women the beginning of the new creation.[27] Thou hast given to us boldness of access into paradise, and thou hast put to flight our ancient woe. For after thee the race of woman shall no more be made the subject of reproach. No more do the successors of Eve fear the ancient curse, or the pangs of childbirth. For Christ, the Redeemer of our race, the Saviour of all nature, the spiritual Adam who has healed the hurt of the creature of earth, cometh forth from thy holy womb. “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” For He who bears all blessings for us is manifested as thy fruit. This we read in the clear words of her who was barren; but yet more clearly did the holy Virgin herself express this again when she presented to God the song replete with thanksgiving, and acceptance, and divine knowledge; announcing ancient things together with what was new; proclaiming along with things which were of old, things also which belong to the consummation of the ages; and summing up in a short discourse the mysteries of Christ. “And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour,” and so forth. “He hath holpen His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy, and of the covenant which He established with Abraham and with his seed for ever.”[28] Thou seest how the holy Virgin has surpassed even the perfection of the patriarchs, and how she confirms the covenant which was made with Abraham by God, when He said, “This is the covenant which I shall establish between me and thee.”[29] Wherefore He has come and confirmed the covenant with Abraham, having received mystically in Himself the sign of circumcision, and having proved Himself the fulfilment of the law and the prophets. This song of prophecy, therefore, did the holy mother of God render to God, saying, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour: for He that is mighty hath done to me great things, and holy is His name.” For having made me the mother of God, He has also preserved me a virgin; and by my womb the fulness of all generations is headed up together for sanctification. For He hath blessed every age, both men and women, both young men and youths, and old men. “He hath made strength with His arm,”[30] on our behalf, against death and against the devil, having torn the handwriting of our sins. “He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts;” yea, He hath scattered the devil himself, and all the demons that serve under him. For he was overweeningly haughty in his heart, seeing that he dared to say, “I will set my throne above the clouds, and I will be like the Most High.”[31] And now, how He scattered him the prophet has indicated in what follows, where he says, “Yet now thou shalt be brought down to hell,”[32] and all thy hosts with thee. For He has overthrown everywhere his altars and the worship of vain gods, and He has prepared for Himself a peculiar people out of the heathen nations. “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.” In these terms is intimated in brief the extrusion of the Jews and the admission of the Gentiles. For the elders of the Jews and the scribes in the law, and those who were richly privileged with other prerogatives, because they used their riches ill and their power lawlessly, were cast down by Him from every seat, whether of prophecy or of priesthood, whether of legislature or of doctrine, and were stripped of all their ancestral wealth, and of their sacrifices and multitudinous festivals, and of all the honourable privileges of the kingdom. Spoiled of all these boons, as naked fugitives they were cast out into captivity. And in their stead the humble were exalted, namely, the Gentile peoples who hungered after righteousness. For, discovering their own lowliness, and the hunger that pressed upon them for the knowledge of God, they pleaded for the divine word, though it were but for crumbs of the same, like the woman of Canaan;[33] and for this reason they were filled with the riches of the divine mysteries. For the Christ who was born of the Virgin, and who is our God, has given over the whole inheritance of divine blessings to the Gentiles. “He hath holpen His servant Israel.”[34] Not any Israel in general, indeed, but His servant, who in very deed maintains the true nobility of Israel. And on this account also did the mother of God call Him servant (Son) and heir. For when He had found the same labouring painfully in the letter and the law, He called him by grace. It is such an Israel, therefore, that He called and hath holpen in remembrance of His mercy. “As He spake to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.” In these few words is comprehended the whole mystery of the economy. For, with the purpose of saving the race of men, and fulfilling the covenant that was made with our fathers, Christ has once “bowed the heavens and come down.”[35] And thus He shows Himself to us as we are capable of receiving Him, in order that we might have power to see Him, and handle Him, and hear Him when the speaketh. And on this account did God the Word deem it meet to take to Himself the flesh and the perfect humanity by a woman, the holy Virgin; and He was born a man, in order that He might discharge our debt, and fulfil even in Himself[36] the ordinances of the covenant made with Abraham, in its rite of circumcision, and all the other legal appointments connected with it. And after she had spoken these words the holy Virgin went to Nazareth; and from that a decree of Cæsar led her to come again to Bethlehem; and so, as proceeding herself from the royal house, she was brought to the royal house of David along with Joseph her espoused husband. And there ensued there the mystery which transcends all wonders,—the Virgin brought forth and bore in her hand Him who bears the whole creation by His word. “And there was no room for them in the inn.”[37] He found no room who founded the whole earth by His word. She nourished with her milk Him who imparts sustenance and life to everything that hath breath. She wrapped Him in swaddling-clothes who binds the whole creation fast with His word. She laid Him in a manger who rides seated upon the cherubim.[38] A light from heaven shone round about Him who lighteneth the whole creation. The hosts of heaven attended Him with their doxologies who is glorified in heaven from before all ages. A star with its torch guided them who had come from the distant parts of earth toward Him who is the true Orient. From the East came those who brought gifts to Him who for our sakes became poor. And the holy mother of God kept these words, and pondered them in her heart, like one who was the receptacle of all the mysteries. Thy praise, O most holy Virgin, surpasses all laudation, by reason of the God who received the flesh and was born man of thee. To thee every creature, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, offers the meet offering of honour. For thou hast been indeed set forth as the true cherubic throne. Thou shinest as the very brightness of light in the high places of the kingdoms of intelligence;[39] where the Father, who is without beginning, and whose power thou hadst overshadowing thee, is glorified; where also the Son is worshipped, whom thou didst bear according to the flesh; and where the Holy Spirit is praised, who effected in thy womb the generation of the mighty King. Through thee, O thou that art highly favoured, is the holy and consubstantial Trinity known in the world. Together with thyself, deem us also worthy to be made partakers of thy perfect grace in Jesus Christ our Lord: with whom, and with the Holy Spirit, be glory to the Father, now and ever, and unto the ages of the ages. Amen.[40]

[1] Or, before all wisdom.

[2] Or, gifted with grace.

[3] Luke 2:10.

[4] John 16:22.

[5] Matt. 28:9.

[6] 1 Thess. 5:16–18.

[7] εν τῇ ταφῇ; others, ἐν τῇ ἁφῇ = in the touch or union of the holy body.

[8] ἄγαλμα.

[9] Ezek. 1:22, 26, 27.

[10] Or, by His throne.

[11] Or example, κατόρθωμα.

[12] Or, truth.

[13] Amos 8:10.

[14] Cf. Jer. 31.

[15] Or, justifying observances, δικαιώματα.

[16] Cf. John 1.

[17] John 17:2.

[18] Or, ye will find eternal life. John 5:39.

[19] Rom. 5:14.

[20] ὁμοιούμενος.

[21] Or, joy.

[22] Luke 1:26, 27. [Marah = bitterness, Exod. 15:23.]

[23] Ex. 12:2. [The name Mary is misinterpreted, infra.]

[24] Luke 1:41.

[25] Or, and with the bound feet of her child in the womb.

[26] Luke 1:42, 43.

[27] Or, resurrection.

[28] Luke 1:46, etc.

[29] Gen. 17:11; Rom. 4:11.

[30] Luke 1:51.

[31] Isa. 14:14.

[32] Isa. 14:15.

[33] Matt. 15:27.

[34] Luke 1:54.

[35] Ps. 18:9.

[36] μέχρις ἑαυτοῦ.

[37] Luke 2:7.

[38] Ps. 80:1.

[39] ἐν τοῖς ἄκροις τῶν νοητῶν βασιλειῶν. Others read νότου = in the high places of the kingdoms of the south.

[40] The close is otherwise given thus: To whom be the glory and the power unto the ages of the ages. Amen.

On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary (3)

The Third Homily.

Again have we the glad tidings of joy, again the announcements of liberty, again the restoration, again the return, again the promise of gladness, again the release from slavery. An angel talks with the Virgin, in order that the serpent may no more have converse with the woman. In the sixth month, it is said, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a virgin espoused to a man.[1] Gabriel was sent to declare the world-wide salvation: Gabriel was sent to bear to Adam the signature of his restoration; Gabriel was sent to a virgin, in order to transform the dishonour of the female sex into honour; Gabriel was sent to prepare the worthy chamber for the pure spouse; Gabriel was sent to wed the creature with the Creator; Gabriel was sent to the animate palace of the King of the angels; Gabriel was sent to a virgin espoused to Joseph, but preserved for Jesus the Son of God. The incorporeal servant was sent to the virgin undefiled. One free from sin was sent to one that admitted no corruption. The light was sent that should announce the Sun of righteousness. The dawn was sent that should precede the light of the day. Gabriel was sent to proclaim Him who is in the bosom of the Father, and who yet was to be in the arms of the mother. Gabriel was sent to declare Him who is upon the throne, and yet also in the cavern. The subaltern was sent to utter aloud the mystery of the great King; the mystery, I mean, which is discerned by faith, and which cannot be searched out by officious curiosity; the mystery which is to be adored, not weighed; the mystery which is to be taken as a thing divine, and not measured. “In the sixth month Gabriel was sent to a virgin.” What is meant by this sixth month? What? It is the sixth month from the time when Elisabeth received the glad tidings, from the time that she conceived John. And how is this made plain? The archangel himself gives us the interpretation, when he says to the virgin: “Behold, thy relation Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is now the sixth month with her, who was called barren.”[2] In the sixth month—that is evidently, therefore, the sixth month of the conception of John. For it was meet that the subaltern should go before; it was meet that the attendant should precede; it was meet that the herald of the Lord’s coming should prepare the way for Him. In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent to a virgin espoused to a man; espoused, not united; espoused, yet kept intact. And for what purpose was she espoused? In order that the spoiler might not learn the mystery prematurely. For that the King was to come by a virgin, was a fact known to the wicked one. For he too heard these words of Isaiah: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son.”[3] And on every occasion, consequently, he kept watch upon the virgin’s words, in order that, whenever this mystery should be fulfilled, he might prepare her dishonour. Wherefore the Lord came by an espoused virgin, in order to elude the notice of the wicked one; for one who was espoused was pledged in fine to be her husband’s. “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph.” Hear what the prophet says about this man and the virgin: “This book that is sealed shall be delivered to a man that is learned.”[4] What is meant by this sealed book, but just the virgin undefiled? From whom is this to be given? From the priests evidently. And to whom? To the artisan Joseph. As, then, the priests espoused Mary to Joseph as to a prudent husband, and committed her to his care in expectation of the time of marriage, and as it behoved him then on obtaining her to keep the virgin untouched, this was announced by the prophet long before, when he said: “This book that is sealed shall be delivered to a man that is learned.” And that man will say, I cannot read it. But why canst thou not read it, O Joseph? I cannot read it, he says, because the book is sealed. For whom, then, is it preserved? It is preserved as a place of sojourn for the Maker of the universe. But let us return to our immediate subject. In the sixth month Gabriel was sent to a virgin—he who received, indeed, such injunctions as these: “Come hither now, archangel, and become the minister of a dread mystery which has been kept hid, and be thou the agent in the miracle. I am moved by my compassions to descend to earth in order to recover the lost Adam. Sin hath made him decay who was made in my image, and hath corrupted the work of my hands, and hath obscured the beauty which I formed. The wolf devours my nursling, the home of paradise is desolate, the tree of life is guarded by the flaming sword, the location of enjoyments is closed. My pity is evoked for the object of this enmity, and I desire to seize the enemy. Yet I wish to keep this mystery, which I confide to thee alone, still hid from all the powers of heaven. Go thou, therefore, to the Virgin Mary. Pass thou on to that animate city whereof the prophet spake in these words: ‘Glorious things were spoken of thee, O city of God.’[5] Proceed, then, to my rational paradise; proceed to the gate of the east; proceed to the place of sojourn that is worthy of my word; proceed to that second heaven on earth; proceed to the light cloud, and announce to it the shower of my coming; proceed to the sanctuary prepared for me; proceed to the hall of the incarnation; proceed to the pure chamber of my generation after the flesh. Speak in the ears of my rational ark, so as to prepare for me the accesses of hearing. But neither disturb nor vex the soul of the virgin. Manifest thyself in a manner befitting that sanctuary, and hail her first with the voice of gladness. And address Mary with the salutation, ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured,’ that I may show compassion for Eve in her depravation.” The archangel heard these things, and considered them within himself, as was reasonable, and said: “Strange is this matter; passing comprehension is this thing that is spoken. He who is the object of dread to the cherubim, He who cannot be looked upon by the seraphim, He who is incomprehensible to all the heavenly[6] powers, does He give the assurance of His connection with a maiden? does He announce His own personal coming? yea more, does He hold out an access by hearing? and is He who condemned Eve, urgent to put such honour upon her daughter? For He says: ‘So as to prepare for me the accesses of hearing.’ But can the womb contain Him who cannot be contained in space? Truly this is a dread mystery.” While the angel is indulging such reflections, the Lord says to Him: “Why art thou troubled and perplexed, O Gabriel? Hast thou not already been sent by me to Zacharias the priest? Hast thou not conveyed to him the glad tidings of the nativity of John? Didst thou not inflict upon the incredulous priest the penalty of speechlessness? Didst thou not punish the aged man with dumbness? Didst thou not make thy declaration, and I confirmed it? And has not the actual fact followed upon thy announcement of good? Did not the barren woman conceive? Did not the womb obey the word? Did not the malady of sterility depart? Did not the inert disposition of nature take to flight? Is not she now one that shows fruitfulness, who before was never pregnant? Can anything be impossible with me, the Creator of all? Wherefore, then, art thou tossed with doubt?” What is the angel’s answer to this? “O Lord,” he says, “to remedy the defects of nature, to do away with the blast of evils, to recall the dead members to the power of life, to enjoin on nature the potency of generation, to remove barrenness in the case of members that have passed the common limit,[7] to change the old and withered stalk into the appearance of verdant vigour, to set forth the fruitless soil suddenly as the producer of sheaves of corn,—to do all this is a work which, as it is ever the case, demands Thy power. And Sarah is a witness thereto, and along with her[8] also Rebecca, and again Anna, who all, though bound by the dread ill of barrenness, were afterwards gifted by Thee with deliverance from that malady. But that a virgin should bring forth, without knowledge of a man, is something that goes beyond all the laws of nature; and dost Thou yet announce Thy coming to the maiden? The bounds of heaven and earth do not contain Thee, and how shall the womb of a virgin contain Thee?” And the Lord says: “How did the tent of Abraham contain me?”[9] And the angel says: “As there were there the deeps of hospitality, O Lord, Thou didst show Thyself there to Abraham at the door of the tent, and didst pass quickly by it, as He who filleth all things. But how can Mary sustain the fire of the divinity? Thy throne blazes with the illumination of its splendour, and can the virgin receive Thee without being consumed?” Then the Lord says: “Yea surely, if the fire in the wilderness injured the bush, my coming will indeed also injure Mary; but if that fire which served as the adumbration of the advent of the fire of divinity from heaven fertilized the bush, and did not burn it, what wilt thou say of the Truth that descends not in a flame of fire, but in the form of rain?”[10] Thereupon the angel set himself to carry out the commission given him, and repaired to the Virgin, and addressed her with a loud voice, saying: “Hail, thou that are highly favoured! the Lord is with thee. No longer shalt the devil be against thee; for where of old that adversary inflicted the wound, there now first of all does the Physician apply the salve of deliverance. Where death came forth, there has life now prepared its entrance. By a woman came the flood of our ills, and by a woman also our blessings have their spring. Hail, thou that are highly favoured! Be not thou ashamed, as if thou wert the cause of our condemnation. For thou art made the mother of Him who is at once Judge and Redeemer. Hail, thou stainless mother of the Bridegroom[11] of a world bereft! Hail, thou that hast sunk in thy womb the death (that came) of the mother (Eve)! Hail, thou animate temple of temple of God! Hail, thou equal[12] home of heaven and earth alike! Hail, thou amplest receptacle of the illimitable nature!” But as these things are so, through her has come for the sick the Physician; for them that sit in darkness, the Sun of righteousness; for all that are tossed and tempest-beaten, the Anchor and the Port undisturbed by storm. For the servants in irreconcilable enmity has been born the Lord; and One has sojourned with us to be the bond of peace and the Redeemer of those led captive, and to be the peace for those involved in hostility. For He is our peace;[13] and of that peace may it be granted that all we may receive the enjoyment, by the grace and kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ; to whom be the glory, honour, and power, now and ever, and unto all the ages of the ages. Amen.

[1] Luke 1:26, 27.

[2] Luke 1:36.

[3] Isa. 7:14.

[4] Isa. 29:11.

[5] Ps. 87:3.

[6] Or, angelic.

[7] ὑπερορίοις μέλεσιν.

[8] Or, and after her.

[9] Gen. 18.

[10] Ps. 72:6. [A sub-allusion, in bad taste, to Semele.]

[11] νυμφοτόκε. The Latin version gives it as = sponsa, simul et mater. [Apostrophe not worship.]

[12] ἱσόῤῥοπον.

[13] Eph. 2:14.

On the Holy Theophany, or on Christ’s Baptism

The Fourth Homily.

O ye who are the friends of Christ, and the friends of the stranger, and the friends of the brethren, receive in kindness my speech to-day, and open your ears like the doors of hearing, and admit within them my discourse, and accept from me this saving proclamation of the baptism[1] of Christ, which took place in the river Jordan, in order that your loving desires may be quickened after the Lord, who has done so much for us in the way of condescension. For even though the festival of the Epiphany of the Saviour is past, the grace of the same yet abides with us through all. Let us therefore enjoy it with insatiable minds; for insatiate desire is a good thing in the case of what pertains to salvation—yea, it is a good thing. Come therefore, all of us, from Galilee to Judea, and let us go forth with Christ; for blessed is he who journeys in such company on the way of life. Come, and with the feet of thought let us make for the Jordan, and see John the Baptist as he baptizes One who needs no baptism, and yet submits to the rite in order that He may bestow freely upon us the grace of baptism. Come, let us view the image of our regeneration, as it is emblematically presented in these waters. “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.”[2] O how vast is the humility of the Lord! O how vast His condescension! The King of the heavens hastened to John, His own forerunner, without setting in motion the camps[3] of His angels, without despatching beforehand the incorporeal powers as His precursors; but presenting Himself in utmost simplicity, in soldier-like form,[4] He comes up to His own subaltern. And He approached him as one of the multitude, and humbled Himself among the captives though He was the Redeemer, and ranged Himself with those under judgment though He was the Judge, and joined Himself with the lost sheep though He was the Good Shepherd who on account of the straying sheep came down from heaven, and yet did not forsake His heavens, and was mingled with the tares though He was that heavenly grain that springs unsown. And when the Baptist John then saw Him, recognising Him whom before in his mother’s womb he had recognised and worshipped, and discerning clearly that this was He on whose account, in a manner surpassing the natural time, he had leaped in the womb of his mother, in violation of the limits of nature, he drew his right hand within his double cloak, and bowing his head like a servant full of love to his master, addressed Him in these words: I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?[5] What is this Thou doest, my Lord? Why dost Thou reverse the order of things? Why seekest Thou along with the servants, at the hand of Thy servant, the things that are proper to servants? Why dost Thou desire to receive what Thou requirest not? Why dost Thou burden me, Thy servitor, with Thy mighty condescension? I have need to be baptized of Thee, but Thou hast no need to be baptized of me. The less is blessed by the greater, and the greater is not blessed and sanctified by the less. The light is kindled by the sun, and the sun is not made to shine by the rush-lamp. The clay is wrought by the potter, and the potter is not moulded by the clay. The creature is made anew by the Creator, and the Creator is not restored by the creature. The infirm is healed by the physician, and the physician is not cured by the infirm. The poor man receives contributions from the rich, and the rich borrow not from the poor. I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me? Can I be ignorant who Thou art, and from what source Thou hast Thy light, and whence Thou art come? Or, because Thou hast been born even as I have been,[6] am I, then, to deny the greatness of Thy divinity? Or, because Thou hast condescended so far to me as to have approached my body, and dost bear me wholly in Thyself in order to effect the salvation of the whole man, am I, on account of that body of Thine which is seen, to overlook that divinity of Thine which is only apprehended? Or, because on behalf of my salvation Thou hast taken to Thyself the offering of my first-fruits, am I to ignore the fact that Thou “coverest Thyself with light as with a garment?”[7] Or, because Thou wearest the flesh that is related to me, and dost show Thyself to men as they are able to see Thee, am I to forget the brightness of Thy glorious divinity? Or, because I see my own form in Thee, am I to reason against Thy divine substance, which is invisible and incomprehensible? I know Thee, O Lord; I know Thee clearly. I know Thee, since I have been taught by Thee; for no one can recognise Thee, unless He enjoys Thine illumination. I know Thee, O Lord, clearly; for I saw Thee spiritually before I beheld this light. When Thou wert altogether in the incorporeal bosom of the heavenly Father, Thou wert also altogether in the womb of Thy handmaid and mother; and though held in the womb of Elisabeth by nature as in a prison, and bound with the indissoluble bonds of the children unborn, leaped and celebrated Thy birth with anticipative rejoicings. Shall I then, who gave intimation of Thy sojourn on earth before Thy birth, fail to apprehend Thy coming after Thy birth? Shall I, who in the womb was a teacher of Thy coming, be now a child in understanding in view of perfect knowledge? But I cannot but worship Thee, who art adored by the whole creation; I cannot but proclaim Thee, of whom heaven gave the indication by the star, and for whom earth offered a kind reception by the wise men, while the choirs of angels also praised Thee in joy over Thy condescension to us, and the shepherds who kept watch by night hymned Thee as the Chief Shepherd of the rational sheep. I cannot keep silence while Thou art present, for I am a voice; yea, I am the voice, as it is said, of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.[8] I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me? I was born, and thereby removed the barrenness of the mother that bore me; and while still a babe I became the healer of my father’s speechlessness, having received of Thee from my childhood the gift of the miraculous. But Thou, being born of the Virgin Mary, as Thou didst will, and as Thou alone dost know, didst not do away with her virginity; but Thou didst keep it, and didst simply gift her with the name of mother: and neither did her virginity preclude Thy birth, nor did Thy birth injure her virginity. But these two things, so utterly opposite—bearing and virginity—harmonized with one intent; for such a thing abides possible with Thee, the Framer of nature. I am but a man, and am a partaker of the divine grace; but Thou art God, and also man to the same effect: for Thou art by nature man’s friend. I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me? Thou who wast in the beginning, and wast with God, and wast God;[9] Thou who art the brightness of the Father’s glory;[10] Thou who art the perfect image of the perfect Father;[11] Thou who art the true light that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world;[12] Thou who wast in the world, and didst come where Thou wast; Thou who wast made flesh, and yet wast not changed into the flesh; Thou who didst dwell among us, and didst manifest Thyself to Thy servants in the form of a servant; Thou who didst bridge earth and heaven together by Thy holy name,—comest Thou to me? One so great to such a one as I am? The King to the forerunner? The Lord to the servant? But though Thou wast not ashamed to be born in the lowly measures of humanity, yet I have no ability to pass the measures of nature. I know how great is the measure of difference between earth and the Creator. I know how great is the distinction between the clay and the potter. I know how vast is the superiority possessed by Thee, who art the Sun of righteousness, over me who am but the torch of Thy grace. Even though Thou art compassed with the pure cloud of the body, I can still recognise Thy lordship. I acknowledge my own servitude, I proclaim Thy glorious greatness, I recognise Thy perfect lordship, I recognise my own perfect insignificance, I am not worthy to unloose the latchets of Thy shoes;[13] and how shall I dare to touch Thy stainless head? How can I stretch out the right hand upon Thee, who didst stretch out the heavens like a curtain,[7] and didst set the earth above the waters?[14] How shall I spread those menial hands of mine upon Thy head? How shall I wash Thee, who art undefiled and sinless? How shall I enlighten the light? What manner of prayer shall I offer up over Thee, who dost receive the prayers even of those who are ignorant of Thee?When I baptize others, I baptize into Thy name, in order that they may believe on Thee, who comest with glory; but when I baptize Thee, of whom shall I make mention? and into whose name shall I baptize Thee? Into that of the Father? But Thou hast the Father altogether in Thyself, and Thou art altogether in the Father. Or into that of the Son? But beside Thee there is no other Son of God by nature. Or into that of the Holy Spirit? But He is ever together with Thee, as being of one substance, and of one will, and of one judgment, and of one power, and of one honour with Thee; and He receives, along with Thee, the same adoration from all. Wherefore, O Lord, baptize Thou me, if Thou pleasest; baptize me, the Baptist. Regenerate one whom Thou didst cause to be generated. Extend Thy dread right hand, which Thou hast prepared for Thyself, and crown my head by Thy touch, in order that I may run the course before Thy kingdom, crowned like a forerunner, and diligently announce the good tidings to the sinners, addressing them with this earnest call: “Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world!”[15] O river Jordan, accompany me in the joyous choir, and leap with me, and stir thy waters rhythmically, as in the movements of the dance; for thy Maker stands by thee in the body. Once of old didst thou see Israel pass through thee, and thou didst divide thy floods, and didst wait in expectation of the passage of the people; but now divide thyself more decidedly, and flow more easily, and embrace the stainless limbs of Him who at that ancient time did convey the Jews[16] through thee. Ye mountains and hills, ye valleys and torrents, ye seas and rivers, bless the Lord, who has come upon the river Jordan; for through these streams He transmits sanctification to all streams. And Jesus answered and said to him: Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.[2] Suffer it to be so now; grant the favour of silence, O Baptist, to the season of my economy. Learn to will whatever is my will. Learn to minister to me in those things on which I am bent, and do not pry curiously into all that I wish to do. Suffer it to be so now: do not yet proclaim my divinity; do not yet herald my kingdom with thy lips, in order that the tyrant may not learn the fact and give up the counsel he has formed with respect to me. Permit the devil to come upon me, and enter the conflict with me as though I were but a common man, and receive thus his mortal wound. Permit me to fulfil the object for which I have come to earth. It is a mystery that is being gone through this day in the Jordan. My mysteries are for myself and my own. There is a mystery here, not for the fulfilling of my own need, but for the designing of a remedy for those who have been wounded. There is a mystery, which gives in these waters the representation of the heavenly streams of the regeneration of men. Suffer it to be so now: when thou seest me doing what seemeth to me good among the works of my hands, in a manner befitting divinity, then attune thy praises to the acts accomplished. When thou seest me cleansing the lepers, then proclaim me as the framer of nature. When thou seest me make the lame ready runners, then with quickened pace do thou also prepare thy tongue to praise me. When thou seest me cast out demons, then hail my kingdom with adoration. When thou seest me raise the dead from their graves by my word, then, in concert with those thus raised, glorify me as the Prince of Life. When thou seest me on the Father’s right hand, then acknowledge me to be divine, as the equal of the Father and the Holy Spirit, on the throne, and in eternity, and in honour. Suffer it to be so now; for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. I am the Lawgiver, and the Son of the Lawgiver; and it becometh me first to pass through all that is established, and then to set forth everywhere the intimations of my free gift. It becometh me to fulfil the law, and then to bestow grace. It becometh me to adduce the shadow, and then the reality. It becometh me to finish the old covenant, and then to dictate the new, and to write it on the hearts of men, and to subscribe it with my blood,[17] and to seal it with my Spirit. It becometh me to ascend the cross, and to be pierced with its nails, and to suffer after the manner of that nature which is capable of suffering, and to heal sufferings by my suffering, and by the tree to cure the wound that was inflicted upon men by the medium of a tree. It becometh me to descend even into the very depths of the grave, on behalf of the dead who are detained there. It becometh me, by my three days’ dissolution in the flesh, to destroy the power of the ancient enemy, death. It becometh me to kindle the torch of my body for those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. It becometh me to ascend in the flesh to that place where I am in my divinity. It becometh me to introduce to the Father the Adam reigning in me. It becometh me to accomplish these things, for on account of these things I have taken my position with the works of my hands. It becometh me to be baptized with this baptism for the present, and afterwards to bestow the baptism of the consubstantial Trinity upon all men. Lend me, therefore, O Baptist, thy right hand for the present economy, even as Mary lent her womb for my birth. Immerse me in the streams of Jordan, even as she who bore me wrapped me in children’s swaddling-clothes. Grant me thy baptism even as the Virgin granted me her milk. Lay hold of this head of mine, which the seraphim revere. With thy right hand lay hold of this head, that is related to thyself in kinship. Lay hold of this head, which nature has made to be touched. Lay hold of this head, which for this very purpose has been formed by myself and my Father. Lay hold of this head of mine, which, if one does lay hold of it in piety, will save him from ever suffering shipwreck. Baptize me, who am destined to baptize those who believe on me with water, and with the Spirit, and with fire: with water, capable of washing away the defilement of sins; with the Spirit, capable of making the earthly spiritual; with fire, naturally fitted to consume the thorns of transgressions. On hearing these words, the Baptist directed his mind to the object of the salvation,[18] and comprehended the mystery which he had received, and discharged the divine command; for he was at once pious and ready to obey. And stretching forth slowly his right hand, which seemed both to tremble and to rejoice, he baptized the Lord. Then the Jews who were present, with those in the vicinity and those from a distance, reasoned together, and spake thus with themselves and with each other: Was it, then, without cause that we imagined John to be superior to Jesus? Was it without cause that we considered the former to be greater than the latter? Does not this very baptism attest the Baptist’s pre-eminence? Is not he who baptizeth presented as the superior, and he who is baptized as the inferior? But while they, in their ignorance of the mystery of the economy, babbled in such wise with each other, He who alone is Lord, and by nature the Father of the Only-begotten, He who alone knoweth perfectly Him whom He alone in passionless fashion begat, to correct the erroneous imaginations of the Jews, opened the gates of the heavens, and sent down the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, lighting upon the head of Jesus, pointing out thereby the new Noah, yea the maker of Noah, and the good pilot of the nature which is in shipwreck. And He Himself calls with clear voice out of heaven, and says: “This is my beloved Son,”[19]—the Jesus there, namely, and not the John; the one baptized, and not the one baptizing; He who was begotten of me before all periods of time and not he who was begotten of Zacharias; He who was born of Mary after the flesh, and not he who was brought forth by Elisabeth beyond all expectation; He who was the fruit of the virginity yet preserved intact, and not he who was the shoot from a sterility removed; He who has had His conversation with you, and not he who was brought up in the wilderness. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: my Son, of the same substance with myself, and not of a different; of one substance with me according to what is unseen, and of one substance with you according to what is seen, yet without sin. This is He who along with me made man. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This Son of mine and this son of Mary are not two distinct persons; but this is my beloved Son,—this one who is both seen with the eye and apprehended with the mind. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him. If He shall say, I and my Father are one,[20] hear Him. If He shall say, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,[21] hear Him. If He shall say, He that hath sent me is greater than I,[22] adapt the voice to the economy. If He shall say, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?[23] answer ye Him thus: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.[24] By these words, as they were sent from the Father out of heaven in thunder-form, the race of men was enlightened: they apprehended the difference between the Creator and the creature, between the King and the soldier (subject), between the Worker and the work; and being strengthened in faith, they drew near through the baptism of John to Christ, our true God, who baptizeth with the Spirit and with fire. To Him be glory, and to the Father, and to the most holy and quickening Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of the ages. Amen.

[1] καταδύσεως.

[2] Matt. 3:13.

[3] Or, armies.

[4] Or subaltern, ἐν τῂ στρατιωτικῇ μορφῇ.

[5] Matt. 3:14.

[6] Or, because for my sake Thou hast been born as I have been.

[7] Ps. 104:2.

[8] Matt. 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4; John 1:23.

[9] John 1:1.

[10] Heb. 1:3.

[11] Or, of the perfect Light; to wit, the Father.

[12] John 1:9.

[13] Luke 3:16; John 1:27.

[14] Ps. 136:6.

[15] John 1:29.

[16] Or, the Hebrews.

[17] Or, with my name.

[18] Or, to the Saviour’s object.

[19] Matt. 3:17; 17:5; Mark 1:11; Luke 9:35.

[20] John 10:30.

[21] John 14:9.

[22] John 14:28.

[23] Matt. 16:13.

[24] Matt. 16:16.

Elucidations

I can do no better than follow Dupin as to the authorship of these Homilies. He thinks the style of Proclus (of Constantinople) may be detected in them, though the fourth is beyond him for eloquence, and has even been thought worthy of St. Chrysostom. It was produced after Nicæa, and probably after Ephesus, its somewhat exaggerated praises of the θεοτόκος being unusual at an earlier period. The titles of these Homilies are the work of much later editors; and interpolations probably occur frequently, by the same hands.

On All the Saints.

On All the Saints

Grant thy blessing, Lord.

It was my desire to be silent, and not to make a public[1] display of the rustic rudeness of my tongue. For silence is a matter of great consequence when one’s speech is mean.[2] And to refrain from utterance is indeed an admirable thing, where there is lack of training; and verily he is the highest philosopher who knows how to cover his ignorance by abstinence from public address. Knowing, therefore, the feebleness of tongue proper to me, I should have preferred such a course. Nevertheless the spectacle of the onlookers impels me to speak. Since, then, this solemnity is a glorious one among our festivals, and the spectators form a crowded gathering, and our assembly is one of elevated fervour in the faith, I shall face the task of commencing an address with confidence.[3] And this I may attempt all the more boldly, since the Father[4] requests me, and the Church is with me, and the sainted martyrs with this object strengthen what is weak in me. For these have inspired aged men to accomplish with much love a long course, and constrained them to support their failing steps by the staff of the word;[5] and they have stimulated women to finish their course like the young men, and have brought to this, too, those of tender years, yea, even creeping children. In this wise have the martyrs shown their power, leaping with joy in the presence of death, laughing at the sword, making sport of the wrath of princes, grasping at death as the producer of deathlessness, making victory their own by their fall, through the body taking their leap to heaven, suffering their members to be scattered abroad in order that they might hold[6] their souls, and, bursting the bars of life, that they might open the gates[7] of heaven. And if any one believes not that death is abolished, that Hades is trodden under foot, that the chains thereof are broken, that the tyrant is bound, let him look on the martyrs disporting themselves[8] in the presence of death, and taking up the jubilant strain of the victory of Christ. O the marvel! Since the hour when Christ despoiled Hades, men have danced in triumph over death. “O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory?”[9] Hades and the devil have been despoiled, and stripped of their ancient armour, and cast out of their peculiar power. And even as Goliath had his head cut off with his own sword, so also is the devil, who has been the father of death, put to rout through death; and he finds that the selfsame thing which he was wont to use as the ready weapon of his deceit, has become the mighty instrument of his own destruction. Yea, if we may so speak, casting his hook at the Godhead, and seizing the wonted enjoyment of the baited pleasure, he is himself manifestly caught while he deems himself the captor, and discovers that in place of the man he has touched the God. By reason thereof do the martyrs leap upon the head of the dragon, and despise every species of torment. For since the second Adam has brought up the first Adam out of the deeps of Hades, as Jonah was delivered out of the whale, and has set forth him who was deceived as a citizen of heaven to the shame of the deceiver, the gates of Hades have been shut, and the gates of heaven have been opened, so as to offer an unimpeded entrance to those who rise thither in faith. In olden time Jacob beheld a ladder erected reaching to heaven, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. But now, having been made man for man’s sake, He who is the Friend of man has crushed with the foot of His divinity him who is the enemy of man, and has borne up the man with the hand of His Christhood,[10] and has made the trackless ether to be trodden by the feet of man. Then the angels were ascending and descending; but now the Angel of the great counsel neither ascendeth nor descendeth: for whence or where shall He change His position, who is present everywhere, and filleth all things, and holds in His hand the ends of the world? Once, indeed, He descended, and once He ascended,—not, however, through any change[11] of nature, but only in the condescension[12] of His philanthropic Christhood;[13] and He is seated as the Word with the Father, and as the Word He dwells in the womb, and as the Word He is found everywhere, and is never separated from the God of the universe. Aforetime did the devil deride the nature of man with great laughter, and he has had his joy over the times of our calamity as his festal-days. But the laughter is only a three days’ pleasure, while the wailing is eternal; and his great laughter has prepared for him a greater wailing and ceaseless tears, and inconsolable weeping, and a sword in his heart. This sword did our Leader forge against the enemy with fire in the virgin furnace, in such wise and after such fashion as He willed, and gave it its point by the energy of His invincible divinity, and dipped it in the water of an undefiled baptism, and sharpened it by sufferings without passion in them, and made it bright by the mystical resurrection; and herewith by Himself He put to death the vengeful adversary, together with his whole host. What manner of word, therefore, will express our joy or his misery? For he who was once an archangel is now a devil; he who once lived in heaven is now seen crawling like a serpent upon earth; he who once was jubilant with the cherubim, is now shut up in pain in the guard-house of swine; and him, too, in fine, shall we put to rout if we mind those things which are contrary to his choice, by the grace and kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory and the power unto the ages of the ages. Amen.

[1] The codex gives δημοσιεύουσαν, for which we read δημοσιεύειν.

[2] The codex gives ἀτελής, for which εὐτελής is read by the editor.

[3] Reading θαῤῥούντως for θαῤῥοῦντος.

[4] This is supposed by the Latin annotator to refer to the bishop, and perhaps to Phædimus of Amasea, as in those times no one was at liberty to make an address in the church when the bishop was present, except by his request or with his permission.

[5] Or, the Word.

[6] σφίγξωσι.

[7] Or, keys.

[8] κυβιστῶντες.

[9] 1 Cor. 15:55.

[10] Χριστότητος, for which, however, χρηστότητος, benignity, is suggested. [Sometimes are intended ambiguity.]

[11] μεταβάσει.

[12] συγκαταβάσει.

[13] Or, benignity.

Elucidations

The feast of All Saints is very ancient in the Oriental churches, and is assigned to the Octave of Pentecost, the Anglican Trinity Sunday. See Neale, Eastern Church, vol. ii. pp. 734, 753. In the West it was instituted when Boniface III. (who accepted from the Emperor Phocas the title of “Universal Bishop,” a.d. 607) turned the Pantheon into a church, and with a sort of practical epigram called it the church of “All the Saints.” It was a local festival until the ninth century, when the Emperor Louis the Pious introduced it into France and Germany. Thence it came to England. It falls on the 1st of November.

The gates of the church at Rome are the same which once opened for the worship of “all the gods.” They are of massive bronze, and are among the most interesting of the antiquities of the city.

The modern gates of St. Peter’s, at Rome, are offensive copies of heathen mythology; and among the subjects there represented, is the shameful tale of Leda,—a symbol of the taste of Leo X.

On the Gospel According to Matthew

( Chapter VI. 22, 23 .)

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

The single eye is the love unfeigned; for when the body is enlightened by it, it sets forth through the medium of the outer members only things which are perfectly correspondent with the inner thoughts. But the evil eye is the pretended love, which is also called hypocrisy, by which the whole body of the man is made darkness. We have to consider that deeds meet only for darkness may be within the man, while through the outer members he may produce words that seem to be of the light:[1] for there are those who are in reality wolves, though they may be covered with sheep’s clothing. Such are they who wash only the outside of the cup and platter, and do not understand that, unless the inside of these things is cleansed, the outside itself cannot be made pure. Wherefore, in manifest confutation of such persons, the Saviour says: “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” That is to say, if the love which seems to thee to be light is really a work meet for darkness, by reason of some hypocrisy concealed in thee, what must be thy patent transgressions!

[1] The text is apparently corrupt here: ἄξια μὲν σκότους πράγματα ἐννοούμενον ἔσωθεν· διὰ δὲ τῶν ἔξωθεν μερῶν φωτὸς εἶναι δοκοῦντα προφέον ῥήματα. Migne suggests ἐννοοῦμεν τόν and προφέροντα.

Scripture Index

Every Scripture reference identified in this book, sorted in canonical Bible order. Tap a reference to jump to the verse where it appears.

Matthew

Matthew 6:22–23On the Gospel According to Matthew

Acts
Acts 15:39–40Elucidations
2 Corinthians
2 Corinthians 10:16Elucidations

Colophon

Additional Writings and Fragments
by Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus.

This edition was produced by
Royal Archives.

The text is set in Palatino and Georgia. Polytonic Greek is set in SIL Gentium.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
August 16, 2026.

Table of Contents

- Title Page

- Copyright

- A Sectional Confession of Faith.

- Section 1
- Section 2
- Section 3
- Section 4
- Section 5
- Section 6
- Section 7
- Section 8
- Section 9
- Section 10
- Section 11
- Section 12
- Section 13
- Section 14
- Section 15
- Section 16
- Section 17
- Section 18
- Section 19
- Section 20
- Section 21
- Section 22
- Section 23

- A Fragment of the Same Declaration of Faith, Accompanied by Glosses.—From Gregory Thaumaturgus, as They Say, in His Sectional Confession of Faith

- Elucidations

- On the Trinity.

- Fragment From the Discourse

- Elucidation

- Twelve Topics on the Faith.

- Topic I
- Topic II
- Topic III
- Topic IV
- Topic V
- Topic VI
- Topic VII
- Topic VIII
- Topic IX
- Topic X
- Topic XI
- Topic XII
- Elucidations

- On the Subject of the Soul.

- Preface
- Section 1
- Section 2
- Section 3
- Section 4
- Section 5
- Section 6
- Section 7
- Elucidations

- Four Homilies.

- On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary

- On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary. Discourse Second

- On the Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary (3)

- On the Holy Theophany, or on Christ's Baptism

- Elucidations

- On All the Saints.

- On All the Saints
- Elucidations
- On the Gospel According to Matthew

- Scripture Index

- Colophon