Christian Topography 1 part 14/22

To Timothy, again in Ephesus, he charges in writing to guard against the false teachers and not to give heed to their myths; and he strengthens him in the doctrines and hands down ecclesiastical canons;

'That you may know,' he says, 'how one ought to conduct oneself in the household of God.' He also speaks of certain heresies that will appear at the last time and turn away from the truth, and he foretells that they will not advance for the better, but will become manifest, and their folly will be evident to all

To Titus, again, in Crete likewise, he hands down ecclesiastical canons and strengthens him in the doctrines, and he employs rebuke toward the Cretans, as being liars and fickle and deceitful, and led astray by those of the circumcision

...toward the saints — whose slave Onesimus, though he was useless, [Paul] transformed and made pious, and the great Apostle exhorts Onesimus's master to receive him no longer as a slave, but as a brother

And in all his Epistles he exhorts everyone, through right faith and a good life, to enter into the dwelling-place of the heavens, and not to fail of the good things laid up for the righteous;

with whom also count us worthy, though we are unworthy, O Lord God, you who have compassionate goodness, maker of all things

Paul wrote to the Hebrews in Hebrew, as a Hebrew;

and it was translated into the Greek tongue, as they say, by Luke or by Clement, and likewise also the Gospel according to Matthew

Let us return to the matter proposed. It is now necessary to observe, O most God-loving one, the agreement of Moses the cosmographer, and of all the prophets and evangelists and apostles, [to see] how all of them, in agreement, relate that God made the whole universe [consisting of] two conditions

For this reason, when God began to make the creation, on the second day he made the firmament and bound it to the first heaven at the middle of the height from the earth to the heaven, dividing the one space into two spaces;

and he ordained that the one, the lower [space], should be this world, while the upper [space] he prepared from the beginning to be the world to come, according to his purpose from above

For our hope is not in this temporary life, but in the endless life to come, in which there exist adoption and redemption and immutability and righteousness and sanctification and blessedness, and perfect knowledge, and every good thing whatsoever is laid up for us to receive from God — having been tested here beforehand in both good things and evil, so that we might know, as far as is possible, the power of the good things provided to us, having in some manner become sons of God and being glorified with glory and inexpressible joy

For this reason also, here, we the faithful partake symbolically of the mysteries of the body of the Lord Christ after baptism, so that after the resurrection from the dead, attending upon the Lord Christ, we may partake of his glory, drawing glory from his glory

For this reason it is also called 'partaking' (metalepsis), just as it is also written thus in the Apostle:

'But we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit'; which is to say:

When the Lord appears, all the faithful, most manifestly, without a veil, behold the glory of the Lord as in a kind of mirror, and are transformed into the same image which the Lord has, receiving from his glory into our own glory

For this is also what the partaking of the mysteries signifies: to partake of his glorified body, as it were beholding in a mirror and partaking of his glory

For from his fullness we all receive, he supplying it and not being diminished

And the phrase 'even as from the Lord, the Spirit' means to say this:

Just as Moses received from the Lord, so we receive through the Holy Spirit

[Marginal note.] Just as here, at our birth, we are nourished by the milk of our parents — that is, being constituted for life from their flesh and blood — so we have been ordained to be nourished, in a more mystical manner, by the body and blood of the Lord Christ, since he is also our father in the age to come, as Scripture seems [to teach], we receiving our being from him and through him, and being regenerated as to the manner of our being, unto eternal life

Here, there is fleshly birth and the nourishment of milk, suitably constituting the one born for life;

in the mysteries, there is the type of regeneration through water and spirit, and the mystical nourishment of the body and blood of Christ unto eternal life, exhorting and drawing the one who believes and partakes;

[in the age to come, there is] rising from the tombs and being regenerated and being reformed, and properly the partaking of the glorified, immortal, incorruptible, and immutable body and soul of Christ

Glory to God, the creator and renewer of all things, forever

Let us again return to the matter proposed. Divine Scripture is accustomed to speak of the creation as having come about from the Father, the incarnation as from the Son, and the regeneration from the dead as from the Holy Spirit;

not that the Father does only this one thing, or the Son only that, or the Holy Spirit only that, but altogether the Holy Trinity works both the creation and the incarnation and the resurrection

But, as has been said, divine Scripture is accustomed, for the purpose of setting forth the one God as existing in three hypostases, to make distinctions thus: to the Father, as the cause of being, it attributes the world; to the Son, as the offspring, it attributes the cause of the incarnation, since it has the worth of adoption and is a source of knowledge; and to the Holy Spirit, as proceeding from the Father, since his power is life-giving and sanctifying, it attributes the regeneration and the redemption and the sanctification of the condition to come

For just as the sun has in itself both an illuminating power and a heating power, and cannot be conceived apart from them, so also the Father has from himself the two powers, not being able to be conceived apart from them, namely the Son and the Holy Spirit;

and just as the sun is a fiery body, yet its illuminating activity is one thing and its heating activity another, and the heating activity is not the illuminating one, nor the illuminating the heating, while yet the sun and its powers exist inseparably in one another, so also in the case of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: the Father is one God together with his two powers, existing inseparably in one another, yet contemplated by the mind as distinct in hypostasis

For here God is properly incorporeal, but the illustration is dim, as befits an illustration.

It is also possible to take an example from our own soul:

for just as the soul has within itself an indwelling word and mind, and the rational faculty is one thing and the intellectual faculty another, and the word proceeds from the soul inseparably, not being cut off from it, and likewise the mind too, but they are in it and from it and with it, so also is it with God.

Hence John the Evangelist too, using this example, called the Son 'Word,' as proceeding from the Father, being with the Father, and being of the same substance:

but the apostle Paul, more corporeally, called him 'Radiance,' using the example of the sun.

But the old Scripture says, 'Let us make man according to our image and according to likeness':

'Let us make' and 'our' it uttered in the plural, but 'according to image' and 'likeness' do not mean the same thing; 'according to image' is one thing, and 'according to likeness' is another.

And 'according to image' has this sense: that man alone, as having all things in himself — visible and invisible, intelligible and perceptible, rational and irrational, immortal and mortal, incorruptible and corruptible — shows that God is a single creator of all things that exist; and in this respect he is an image of God, because he recognizes Him to be the one creator of the universe, as also the Apostle cries out:

'For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God' — expressly saying that man came to be for the glory of God, and on this account calling him image, since man alone is able to recognize that God is the one creator of the universe, He who fashioned man as the one living being drawn from all natures.

But 'according to likeness' has this sense: that Adam became a father and not a son, bringing forth from his own substance, by procession, Eve — who is called neither son nor sister — and, by generation, his own son Seth, again from his own substance; bringing forth the one by generation and the other by procession, producing the two from his own substance in different ways each time:

he having had a beginning, those who came from him also have a beginning:

but since God and the Father is without beginning, those who came from Him likewise came forth without beginning, being co-existent with Him eternally, just as radiance and heat co-exist with the sun, and just as word and mind co-exist with our soul, according to the examples of the divine Scripture.

Some fathers also used more corporeal examples for the Holy Trinity — some the example of an ever-flowing spring pouring forth two rivers from itself, others that of a tree, as root, branch, and fruit.

But all, whether apostles or fathers, being men as all men are, spoke more corporeally, inspired as they were by the Spirit, speaking as it were in examples — examples, however, that fall very far short of the divine substance:

but in the state to come, rising again as spiritual beings, we shall know God more precisely.

Thus, then, wishing here to set forth the hypostases, the divine Scripture has often used this manner of speech, attributing creation to the Father, the incarnation to the Son, and the resurrection to the Holy Spirit:

yet in truth it is the Holy Trinity that accomplishes all things.

And the blessed Moses too, in saying, as from God, 'Let us make man' — the utterance is indeed plural, but it can also be understood as referring to only two.

Since, then, from the beginning God did not choose to hand down to us the confession of the Holy Trinity explicitly, lest we should conceive of them too corporeally, as bodies, and suspect there to be three gods, coming then to the creation of man He uttered enigmatically a plural expression, which could also be understood as referring to only two.

But after some time He declares an even more plural expression again, saying:

'Come, let us go down and confuse their tongues':

'come' can no longer be understood as referring to only two, but also to three and more.

Again, then, after a great many years — lest we should be led into thinking of a multitude of gods — He fixed His utterance once more enigmatically concerning the Trinity, through Isaiah, saying 'holy' three times, yet joining it to one God, saying:

'Lord of Sabaoth, the whole earth is full of His glory' — thereby indicating both the number of the three hypostases and the oneness of the Godhead.

But concerning the Master Christ according to the flesh, He taught plainly, saying:

'Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit' — naming one name, yet dividing it into three hypostases.

And since He was about to proclaim these things plainly through the form of a servant, foreshadowing this at the creation of man, He first uttered the plural expression:

'Let us make man.' The text. When, then, the Lord comes from heaven, He brings with Himself into the kingdom of heaven the faithful, the righteous, and the worthy — both men and angels — but of the rest, He leaves some outside the firmament, and others below, around the earth, just as He also says in the Gospel, concerning the consummation, thus:

'Then there will be two in the field: one is taken and one is left':

'and two women grinding at the mill: one is taken and one is left' — meaning to say:

By those 'in the field' are meant all who are in the world, whether rich or of middling means — clearly, in whatever rank a person is found worthy, he is taken up into heaven, but if he is not worthy, he is left on earth:

then by those 'at the mill' He means the slaves — that even among the slaves, if they are found worthy, they are taken up into heaven, but if unworthy, they are left on earth:

and by speaking in the masculine of the first group and in the feminine of the second, He signified the difference of sex:

whether they are found to be male or female — this applies both to the righteous and to sinners.

The apostle Paul also indicates this in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, saying as follows:

'...of the glory of His might, when He comes to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at among all who believed' — saying throughout, he too, that great and ineffable glories are laid up for the faithful saints, but for the unfaithful a destructive judgment, that is, a punishment proportionate to that state.

For everyone who does not partake of the saints, of the glories, and of the blessedness laid up for the righteous, is found in destruction, in utmost punishment, and in much regret.

Every Christian, then, ought to enslave himself and submit henceforth to God, and to believe the whole of the divine Scripture, both Old and New Testament, and to be an exact guardian of doctrines and to conduct an upright life befitting the faith; and to reject — as we confessed when we were about to approach baptism — and to renounce every satanic, heretical, and Greek error, and unbelief, and vanity, and hopeless hope.

For those who persist in such things will be greatly harmed — those, for instance, who reckon and predict eclipses as a divine science, possessing no hope beyond this, but both deceiving and being deceived: if, say, someone robbed of a cloak or something else went to these 'prophets' and heard from them — should he chance upon them while they were lying — the truth; but if not, not even that.

Such are the hopes of the vain-minded, who bestow the spherical shape upon the heaven:

they are able to hope for nothing beyond these things — neither resurrection, nor the kingdom of heaven, nor a better state — since, in thrusting away the sphere, they destroy even the very hope which they hold.

May it be granted to us, O honored master, at the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, through the prayers of all the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, and teachers, to be numbered among those on the right hand, and to hear together with them that extraordinary and blessed voice which says:

'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.' To Him be the glory, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto the ages of ages.

Marginal note concerning heaven. That the angels too are in this world the divine Scripture makes most clearly evident; the Apostle speaks thus:

'We have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men' — since both pass their existence in this world; likewise David also says:

'Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the heights; praise Him, all His angels, praise Him, all His hosts, sun and moon, all the stars and light' — thereby showing that all things from the firmament down below, existing at a height beneath the firmament, are together in one place:

and having spoken first of heaven, and then of the angels, he adds again:

'Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, and the water that is above the heavens' — mentioning the water alone, in agreement with Moses, as being above the firmament, and, according to the Hebrew idiom, saying 'heavens' instead of 'heaven.'

Likewise also in Daniel the three youths, singing hymns, said:

'Bless the Lord, you heavens; all waters that are above the heaven' — they too clearly mentioning the water above the heaven, and showing that all other things are beneath the firmament:

and these too spoke first of heaven, and then of the angels.

Likewise again David makes mention, saying:

'Who stretches out the heaven like a curtain, who covers His upper chambers with waters, who makes His angels spirits' — he too again showing the waters as higher than the firmament, as if in an upper chamber and forming a roof, and then again mentioning the angels.

But the Lord declared most plainly, saying:

'No one has ascended into heaven except He who came down from heaven.' For unless it be in the second state, neither angels nor men enter into heaven, as has been shown.

Grant that we too, O lover of mankind, though we conform to Your rule and believe, yet being unworthy on account of our disorderly deeds — You who alone are munificent, compassionate, and full of mercy, our Savior, with the Father and the Spirit, unto the ages.

The text. The entire purpose of the treatise and of the diagram is to show that from beginning to end God, through all the men of old, and further through Moses the cosmographer and all the prophets and apostles, made known what He had prepared — two states, this present one and the one to come — and made known also the shape of the whole world; and that Christians, rather than others, follow their own first principles, showing that the ends too are consistent with their own first principles, and thereby declaring the goodness of God, which grants a cessation to this place of instruction, to its struggles, to corruption, and to death, but has manifested in the Lord Christ immortality, incorruptibility, immutability, sanctification, and eternal righteousness for all men — just as He had prepared, from the foundation of the world, the second place, that in the heavens, the second state, just as also, through the tabernacle, He foreshadowed this to us again in type; and that the opinion of the Greeks is without hope, since they neither expect a second state nor believe that there will be a resurrection of our bodies, but rather, both deceiving and being deceived, rolling about in their minds together with their own sphere, they consider it impossible for God to raise the bodies of all men — though, as wise men, they ought to know that if God is the judge of the thoughts and hearts of all men and is able to discern the thoughts of each from eternity, how much more is He able to discern the bodies of each man? For if He is able to discern the things of the spirit, much more the bodies.

For at the consummation He shakes all creation from its foundations — heaven and earth together, and the rest of the elements — and each of them gives back the human body which it holds, that body being distinguished by His power:

for just as one sifting in a sieve will find the thing sought in the middle, so, when all creation is shaken, those who are sought will be found in the midst.

'Yet once more I will shake,' He says through the prophet, 'not only the earth, but also heaven':

and 'yet once more,' said the Apostle, signifies the removal of the things being shaken, as of things that were made, so that the things not being shaken may remain.

'Therefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, through which we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe.' And the Lord, speaking of the consummation, says thus:

'And the stars of heaven will fall to the earth, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken':

'and then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with power and great glory':

'and then He will send His angels with a great trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of earth to the other end of heaven.' And again, to the Thessalonians, the Apostle says in the first Epistle:

'For the Lord Himself, with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.'

'Then we who are alive, who remain, will together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.' Likewise he says in the First Epistle to the Corinthians:

'We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.'

'For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.'

...being carried up, walking aloft in the air, they inherit with Christ the kingdom of heaven, they will reign with Christ, with Christ they possess heaven as their dwelling place, with Christ they are granted to tread the entrance of the tabernacle not made with hands, with Christ they are proclaimed, together with the holy angels, citizens of the heavenly city Jerusalem, rejoicing with Christ, exulting with Christ, being exalted with Christ, wearing crowns with Christ, being glorified with Christ, enjoying with Christ the throne of grace, enjoying with Christ righteousness, sanctification, redemption, blessedness, and every eternal and ineffable good.

What nation or what sect possesses and believes such hopes, except the Christians alone? The Greeks disbelieve, being without hope, loving the wisdom of this world, which is not even able of itself to grasp a single one of these matters, unless some divine illumination should attend it.

Likewise also the Jews, having disbelieved in the Christ who appeared, who openly proclaimed and established all these things, both through himself and through the apostles, have failed of all these things.

But the Samaritans and the Montanists, being more stiff-necked than the Jews, unable to be instructed from Moses and the figures of the world, but also disbelieving the prophets, confessing neither angel nor spirit nor immortal rational soul, and themselves too, equally with the Greeks, rejecting the resurrection of bodies — all these fail of all these things.

Likewise the Manichaeans again, hating bodies and not confessing their resurrection, but supposing them to be the creations of an evil god and expecting their destruction, are themselves also deprived of all these good things, together with him whom they have ordained for themselves as a god concerning the earth, being condemned as impious.

Likewise also all the heretics, as many as reject the assumption of our flesh and our soul at the time of the incarnation, and as many as reject, curtailing the divinity of the Son and diminishing the divinity of the Holy Spirit — all these are themselves also deprived of all these good things.

For only those who confess one God in three hypostases — without beginning, eternal, uncircumscribed, invisible, intangible, incorruptible, immortal, impassible, incorporeal, unlimited, incomprehensible, uncomposite, without parts, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible, known and worshiped in Father and Son and Holy Spirit — and who, at the last of days, at the time of the incarnation, willed to renew the world which he had created...

Taking again, from the holy virgin Mary, from our lump, God the Word — together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, without seed — recreates the small world, the bond of all creation, that is, man, and unites him to himself from that very instant, in a union exceptional and inalienable, so that the assumption is not conceived of as prior to the union, but formation and assumption and union are simultaneous;

he permitted [him] to suffer and to be put to death, and having perfected [him] through the resurrection, led [him] up into heaven, and honored [him] with the session at his right hand, and appointed him judge of all.

Likewise, together with him, those who have lived well also enter into the bridal chamber together with the bridegroom, curtailing neither the divinity nor the humanity;

these dance together with Christ and reign together with him in heaven, hearing from him at the consummation:

'Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.' But concerning the day of the consummation no one knows, except God alone.

But they say that unless men become equal in number to the angels, the world is not brought to its consummation;

'He set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels of God,' as it were;

He set the boundary of the nations in this: that they should become equal in number to the angels

Indeed the Apostle also says:

But the Lord too appears to hint at this, saying:

'In the resurrection they are equal to angels'

As many of you, then, as are Christians and lay hold of this hope, and have as example and type the Master Christ, when you read this book, pray for me the sinner, that the Lord of all may not overlook me, but having mercy may make me numbered together with you, with those on the right hand, overlooking our transgressions, and that I may not fail of this ineffable blessedness — by your prayers and supplications, and by the compassion and love of mankind and grace of Christ the Savior of us all, with whom to the Father be glory, together with the Holy Spirit, now and always and unto the ages.

Good God, compassionate, longsuffering and full of mercy, have mercy on me your unworthy servant, and do not condemn me for my sins; for you care about all things and know the hidden things of each one's thoughts — that out of longing for you, and being asked by your own compassions, I have not hidden the compassion and goodness and mercies handed down to me by you, for the benefit of those who read, from among your teachers whom you granted me by the providence of our Savior Christ, unto the ages.

T. Concerning the Size of the Sun. Book ʹ. Some, after they had come to the end of reading the book, raised issues with us about the shape of the world, saying:

'How is it possible, according to you, for the sun — which exceeds the earth's size by many measures — to be hidden beneath the high northern parts of the earth? For on the sphere so called by us, however much greater the sun may be than the earth, it will certainly cast a shadow upon the other part of the earth.'

To them we said most concisely that such a thing is false and a fabrication, having demonstrated this first from the very klimata acknowledged by them, showing that they have different shadows, and then also from what we ourselves witnessed with our own eyes in the region of Axum in Ethiopia.

For at the beginning of the summer solstice, on the twenty-fifth of the month Payni, at the sixth hour of the day, the sun being already near the meridian, we clearly saw that the shadow of a man inclines toward the south.

And I myself also, here in the city of the Alexandrians, at that very time — I mean on the twenty-fifth of Payni and up to the thirtieth — at the sixth hour of the day, standing beneath the sun, showed the shadow inclining toward the northern parts by one foot, and one foot only.

And Alexandria is, according to them, the third klima.