Exposition of the Faith 1 part 14/15

Concerning Scripture. One is the God proclaimed by both the Old and New Testaments, who is praised and glorified in the Trinity, the Lord having said:

'I came not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it' (for He Himself accomplished our salvation, for which all Scripture and every mystery exists), and again:

'For these testify of Me,' and the apostle having said:

'In many portions and in many ways God spoke of old to our fathers in the prophets; in these last days He has spoken to us in a Son.'

Through the Holy Spirit, therefore, both the law and the prophets, the evangelists and apostles and pastors and teachers spoke.

All Scripture, then, being God-breathed, is assuredly profitable.

Wherefore it is most excellent and most profitable for the soul to search the divine Scriptures.

For just as a tree planted by the channels of waters, so too a soul watered by the divine Scripture is enriched and yields ripe fruit—an orthodox faith—and is adorned with evergreen leaves, that is, with deeds pleasing to God;

for from the holy Scriptures we are guided both to virtuous action and to undefiled contemplation.

For in them we find encouragement to every virtue and aversion from every vice.

If, then, we are lovers of learning, we shall also be learned in many things;

for by diligence and toil and the grace of the Giver, all things are accomplished.

For he who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened.

Let us therefore knock at the most beautiful paradise of the Scriptures—the fragrant, the sweetest, the most lovely, which fills our ears with the manifold songs of spiritual, God-bearing birds, which touches our heart, comforting it when grieved and soothing it when angered, and filling it with everlasting joy; which lifts up our understanding upon the gold-gleaming, resplendent back of the divine Dove, and upon her most radiant wings carries us up to the only-begotten Son and heir of the Husbandman of the spiritual vineyard, and through Him brings us to the Father of lights.

But let us not knock carelessly; rather, eagerly and persistently;

For thus it shall be opened to us.

If we read once and twice and do not understand what we read, let us not lose heart, but persevere, ponder, and inquire;

for 'Ask,' it says, 'your father, and he will declare to you; your elders, and they will tell you.'

Let us draw from the fountain of this paradise the ever-flowing and purest streams that leap up to eternal life; let us delight, let us revel insatiably;

for they possess grace that is never spent.

And if we are able to glean anything useful even from those outside, that is not among the forbidden things.

Let us become approved money-changers, heaping up the genuine and pure gold, but rejecting the counterfeit.

Let us take the most excellent sayings, but cast to the dogs the ridiculous gods and the alien myths;

for from these we may gain very great strength.

Now it should be known that there are twenty-two books of the Old Testament, according to the letters of the Hebrew tongue.

For they have twenty-two letters, of which five are doubled, so that they become twenty-seven;

for Kaph is doubled, and Mem, and

Nun, and Pe, and Tsade.

Therefore the books too are in this way reckoned as twenty-two, but are found to be twenty-seven, because five of them are doubled.

For Ruth is joined to Judges and is reckoned by the Hebrews as one book;

the first and second of Kingdoms are one book;

the third and fourth of Kingdoms are one book;

the first and second of Chronicles (Paralipomena) are one book;

the first and second of Esdras are one book.

Thus, then, the books are composed in four pentateuchs, and two others remain, so that the canonical books are as follows:

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy;

this is the first pentateuch, which is also the Law.

Then another pentateuch, the so-called Writings, by some called Hagiographa, which are as follows:

Joshua the son of Nun, Judges together with Ruth, First Kingdoms with Second, one book, Third Kingdoms with Fourth, one book, and the two of Chronicles, one book;

The third pentateuch, the poetical books:

Job, the Psalter, the Proverbs of Solomon, Ecclesiastes by the same, the Song of Songs by the same.

The fourth pentateuch, the prophetic:

the Twelve Prophets, one book; Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel.

Then those of Esdras, the two joined into one book, and Esther.

But the Panaretos, that is, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Jesus—which the father of Sirach set forth in Hebrew, and which his grandson Jesus, the son of Sirach, translated into Greek—are virtuous and good, but are not counted nor were they placed in the ark.

Of the New Testament there are four Gospels:

that according to Matthew, that according to Mark, that according to Luke, that according to John;

the Acts of the holy apostles through Luke the evangelist;

seven catholic epistles:

one of James, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude;

fourteen epistles of the apostle Paul, the Revelation of John the evangelist, and the canons of the holy apostles through Clement.

Concerning the things said of Christ. Of the things said of Christ there are four general modes:

First, some belong to Him even before the incarnation; second, some at the union; third, some after the union; fourth, some after the resurrection.

First: of the things before the incarnation there are six modes.

(1) Some of them indicate the connaturality and consubstantiality with the Father, such as 'I and the Father are one,' and 'He who has seen Me has seen the Father,' and 'who, being in the form of God,' and the like.

(2) Some indicate the perfection of the hypostasis, such as 'the Son of God,' and 'the express image of His hypostasis,' and 'the messenger of great counsel,' 'Wonderful, Counsellor,' and the like.

(3) Some indicate the mutual coinherence of the hypostases, such as 'I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,' and the inseparable repose, as 'Word,' 'Wisdom,' 'Power,' and 'Radiance.'

For just as the word is in the mind (I mean the essential word), and likewise wisdom, and power in that which is able, and radiance in light—inseparably established, welling forth from them—so it is here.

(4) Some indicate that He is from the Father as from a cause, such as 'My Father is greater than I';

for from Him He has both His being and all that He has—His being by way of begetting and not by way of creation, as in 'I came forth from the Father,' and 'I live because of the Father'; and all that He has, not by way of impartation nor by way of teaching, but as from a cause, as in 'The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it.'

For if the Father is not, neither is the Son;

for the Son is from the Father and in the Father, and not after the Father.

Likewise also the things He does are from Him and with Him;

for there is one and the same—not similar, but the very same—will and operation and power of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

(5) Some indicate that the Father's good pleasure is fulfilled through His operation—not as through an instrument or a slave, but as through His essential and enhypostatic Word and Wisdom and

Power, because one motion is contemplated in the Father and the Son, as in 'All things were made through Him,' and 'He sent His word and healed them,' and 'that they may know that You sent Me.'

(6) Some are spoken prophetically; and of these, some refer to things future as though present, such as 'He shall come manifestly,' and the saying of Zechariah, 'Behold, your king comes to you,' and the word spoken by Micah, 'Behold, the Lord comes forth out of His place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth';

and some refer to things future as though already past;

such as 'This is our God; afterward He appeared upon earth and lived among men,' and 'The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works,' and 'Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows,' and the like.

Now the things before the union may also be said of Him after the union, but the things after the union can in no way be said of Him before the union—except prophetically, as we have said.

Second: of the things at the union there are three modes.

(1) When we frame our discourse from the higher element, we speak of the deification of the flesh, and its being made Word, and its supreme exaltation, and the like, indicating the riches that accrued to the flesh from its union and natural conjunction with the Most High God the Word.

(2) When from the lower element, we speak of the incarnation of the Word, His becoming man, His self-emptying, His poverty, His humility;

for these and the like are predicated of the Word and God from His mingling with the human.

(3) When from both together, we speak of union, communion, anointing, natural conjunction, conformation, and the like.

It is on account of this third mode that the two aforementioned modes are spoken.

For through the union it is made clear what each element received from its fitting together and coinherence with that which subsists with it;

for on account of the hypostatic union the flesh is said to be deified and to become God and to be of one godhead with the Word, and the God Word is said to be made flesh and to become man and to be called a creature and to be named 'the last'—not as though the two natures were changed into one composite nature (for it is impossible for contrary natural properties to come to be at once in one nature), but as the two natures, being united according to hypostasis, possess their mutual coinherence without confusion and without change.

And this coinherence came about not from the flesh, but from the godhead;

for it is impossible for the flesh to permeate through the godhead; but the divine nature, having once permeated through the flesh, gave also to the flesh the ineffable coinherence with itself, which indeed we call the union.

Now it should be known that in the first and second modes of the things at the union the converse is observed.

For when we frame our discourse concerning the flesh, we speak of deification and being made Word and supreme exaltation and anointing (for these come from the godhead, but are contemplated with respect to the flesh);

but when concerning the Word, we speak of self-emptying, incarnation, becoming man, humility, and the like—which, as we said, are predicated of the Word and God from the flesh;

for He Himself endured these things willingly.

Third: of the things after the union there are three modes.

First, that which indicates the divine nature, such as 'I am in the Father, and the Father in Me,' and 'I and the Father are one'; and all the things that are predicated of Him before the incarnation will also be predicated of Him after the incarnation, except that He had not taken flesh and its natural properties.

Second, that which indicates the human nature, such as 'Why do you seek to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth?' and 'So must the Son of Man be lifted up,' and the like.

And of these things written concerning Christ the Saviour in a manner befitting man, whether in words or in deeds, there are six modes.

(1) Some of them were done and spoken naturally, according to the economy, such as the birth from the Virgin, the growth and progress according to age, the hunger, the thirst, the weariness, the tears, the sleep, the piercing of the nails, the death, and the like—as many as are natural and blameless passions;

for in all these there is indeed a mingling of the divine with the human, except that the body is believed to be truly such, the divine suffering none of these things, but through them effecting our salvation.

(2) Some are by way of accommodation, such as His asking, 'Where have you laid

Lazarus?', the running to the fig tree, the withdrawing or retiring, the praying, and the 'He made as though He would go further.'

For of these and the like He had need neither as God nor as man, but He fashioned Himself in a manner befitting man, in accordance with what the need and benefit required; for example, the prayer, in order to show that He is not opposed to God, and that He honours the Father as His cause; the asking, not because He was ignorant, but that He might show that He is truly man while also being God;

and the withdrawing, in order to teach us not to be rash nor to give ourselves up.

(3) Some are by way of appropriation and reference, such as 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?' and 'Him who knew no sin He made to be sin for us,' and 'having become a curse for us,' and 'the Son Himself shall be subjected to Him who subjected all things to Him.'

For neither as God nor as man was He ever forsaken by the Father, nor did He become sin or a curse, nor does He need to be subjected to the Father;

for as God He is equal to the Father and is neither opposed nor subjected, and as man He never became disobedient to His Begetter, so as to need subjection.

Appropriating, then, our person and ranking Himself with us, He said these things;

for we were the ones liable to sin and the curse, as disobedient and rebellious, and therefore forsaken.

(4) Some are by way of the distinction made in thought.

For if you separate in thought the things that are in reality inseparable—that is, the flesh from the Word—He is called both servant and ignorant;

for He was of the servile and ignorant nature; and if the flesh had not been united to God the Word, it would have been servile and ignorant; but because of the hypostatic union with God the Word, it was neither servile nor ignorant.

In this way too He called the Father His God.

(5) Some are for the sake of manifestation and confirmation toward us, such as 'Father, glorify Me with the glory which I had with You before the world was' (for He Himself was and is glorified, but His glory had not been manifested and confirmed to us), and the saying of the apostle, 'who was designated Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead' (for through the miracles and the resurrection and the descent of the Holy Spirit it was manifested and confirmed to the world that He is the Son of God), and 'He advanced in wisdom and grace.'

(6) Some are by way of appropriating the person of the Jews, numbering Himself with the Jews, as He says to the Samaritan woman:

'You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.'

The third mode is that which indicates the one hypostasis and sets forth both natures together, such as 'I live because of the Father, and he who eats Me shall also live because of Me,' and 'I go to the Father, and you will see Me no more,' and 'they would not have crucified the Lord of glory,' and 'No one has ascended into heaven except He who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven,' and the like.

Fourth: of the things after the resurrection, some are befitting God, such as 'baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son (that is, as of God) and of the Holy Spirit,' and 'Lo, I am with you all the days until the consummation of the age,' and the like (for as God He is with us); and some are befitting man, such as 'they took hold of His feet,' and 'there they shall see Me,' and the like.

Fifth: of the human-befitting things after the resurrection there are various modes.

Some are real, yet not according to nature but according to the economy, in order to confirm that the very body that had suffered was raised—such as the wounds, the eating and drinking after the resurrection; some are real according to nature, such as moving from place to place without effort, and entering through closed doors; some are by way of accommodation, such as 'He made as though He would go further'; some belong to both together, such as 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God,' and

'The King of glory shall come in,' and 'He sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high'; and some are by way of His ranking Himself with us in the manner of the distinction according to mere thought, such as 'My God and your God.'

We must therefore assign the exalted things to the divine and superior nature, which is above passions and body, the lowly things to the human, and the common things to the composite—that is, to the one Christ, who is God and man—and to know that both belong to one and the same Lord Jesus Christ;

for, knowing what is proper to each and seeing both wrought by one, we believe rightly and shall not be led astray.

From all which the difference of the united natures is known, and that godhead and manhood are not the same in natural quality, as the most divine Cyril says.

Yet there is one Son and Christ and Lord; and since He is one, His person is also one, in no way divided on account of the recognition of the natural difference, since the hypostatic union is not parted.

That God is not the cause of evils. One must know that it is customary for the divine Scripture to call God's permission His operation, as when the apostle says in the epistle to the Romans:

'Has not the potter authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honour and another for dishonour?' For He Himself indeed makes both these and those;

for He alone is the Maker of all things, but it is not He who fashions them honourable or dishonourable, rather each one's own free choice does.

And this is plain from what the same apostle says in the second epistle to Timothy:

'In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earthenware, and some for honour and some for dishonour.'

'If anyone, then, cleanses himself from these, he will be a vessel for honour, sanctified and useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.'

And it is plain that the cleansing comes about voluntarily;

for 'If anyone,' he says, 'cleanses himself,' and the corresponding converse answers in turn:

'But if he does not cleanse himself, he will be a vessel for dishonour, useless to the Master, fit to be broken in pieces.'

The aforesaid text, then, and 'God has shut up all unto disobedience,' and 'God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear'—all these are to be understood not as God operating, but as God permitting, on account of free will and because the good is not coerced.

It is therefore customary for the divine Scripture to speak of His permission as His operation and His doing.

Moreover, when it says that God creates evils, and that 'there is no evil in a city which the Lord has not done,' it does not show God to be the cause of evils; but since the word 'evil' is ambiguous, signifying two things:

for sometimes it signifies that which is evil by nature, which is contrary to virtue and to the will of God; and sometimes that which is evil and painful to our perception, that is, afflictions and calamities.

These latter, though seemingly evil since they are grievous, are in truth good;

for to those who understand they become occasions of conversion and salvation;

these the Scripture says come to be through God.

And it should be known that of these too we ourselves are the cause.

For the involuntary evils are the offspring of the voluntary ones.

And this too should be known, that it is customary for the Scripture to express in a causal way things that ought to be expressed in a consequential way, as in 'Against You only have I sinned and done this evil in Your sight, that You may be justified in Your words and prevail when You are judged.'

For the sinner did not sin in order that God might prevail, nor did God need our sin so that He might be shown victorious thereby (for He bears off the prize of victory incomparably over all, even over those who do not sin, since He is the Creator and incomprehensible and uncreated, and has His glory by nature and not as something acquired); but because, when we sin, He is not unjust in bringing wrath, and in pardoning those who repent He is shown victorious over our wickedness.

But we do not sin for this purpose; rather, the matter merely turns out so—just as if someone were sitting at work, and a friend came to visit, he might say, 'The friend came so that I should do no work even today.'

The friend did not come in order that he should do no work, but it merely happened so;

for being occupied with receiving the friend, he does no work.

Such things are called consequential, because the matters turn out so.

And God does not will to be the only righteous one, but for all to be made like Him as far as they are able.

That there are not two principles. That there are not two principles, one good and one evil, we shall know from the following:

for the good and the evil are contrary to one another and destructive of one another, and cannot subsist in one another or together with one another.

Each of them, then, will be in a part of the whole.

And first, each of them will be circumscribed, not only by the whole, but also by a part of the whole.

Then, who is it that has apportioned a region to each? For they will not say that they are brought together and reconciled with one another, since the evil is not evil if it is at peace with the good and reconciled to it, nor is the good good if it is disposed in friendship toward the evil.

But if some other has assigned to each its own abode, that one will rather be God.

And of necessity one of two things must hold: either they touch and destroy one another, or there is something between them in which neither the good nor the evil exists, like some partition separating both from one another.

And then there will be no longer two, but three principles.

And of necessity one of two things must hold concerning these: either they are at peace, which the evil cannot be (for what is at peace is not evil), or they are at war, which the good cannot be (for what is at war is not perfectly good); or the evil is at war while the good does not war back, but is destroyed by the evil, or is grieved and harmed—which is not a mark of the good.

There is therefore one principle, good, freed from all evil.

But if this is so, they say, whence comes evil? For it is impossible for evil to have its origin from the good.

We say, then, that evil is nothing other than the privation of the good and a turning aside from that which is according to nature to that which is contrary to nature;

for nothing is evil by nature.

For all things that God made are very good, inasmuch as they came to be.

Thus, then, while they remain as they were created, they are very good; but when they voluntarily depart from that which is according to nature and come to that which is contrary to nature, they come to be in evil.

By nature, then, all things are servants and subjects of the Creator.

When, therefore, any of the creatures voluntarily revolts and becomes disobedient to its Maker, it constitutes evil within itself;

for evil is not any kind of substance nor a property of substance, but an accident—that is, a voluntary turning aside from that which is according to nature to that which is contrary to nature, which is sin.

Whence, then, comes sin? It is the invention of the free will of the devil.

Is the devil, then, evil? In respect of how he came to be, he is not evil, but good;

for he was created by the Creator as a bright and shining angel, endowed with free will as a rational being; but he voluntarily departed from the virtue that is according to nature and came to be in the darkness of evil, having removed himself far from God, the only good and light-maker;

for from Him every good is made good, and in so far as he is removed from Him in will (not in place), he came to be in evil.

For what reason did God create those whom He foreknew would sin and not repent? God, out of His goodness, brings the things that come to be from non-being into being, and is the foreknower of the things that shall be.

If, then, they were not going to come to be, neither would they have been going to be evil, nor would they have been foreknown.

For knowledge is of things that are, and foreknowledge of things that shall certainly be;

for first comes being, and then being good or evil.

But if, on account of God's goodness, He had prevented those who were going to come to be from coming to be, because they would be evil of their own choice, then evil would have prevailed over the goodness of God.

God therefore makes all things that He makes good;

but each becomes good or evil by his own free choice.

If, then, the Lord did say:

'It would have been better for that man if he had not been born,' He did not say it in disparagement of His own creation, but of the wickedness that came upon His creature from its own choice and slothfulness.

For the slothfulness of his own will rendered the

Creator's benefit useless to him—just as if someone, having been entrusted with wealth and rule by a king, should tyrannize over his benefactor, whom He will worthily subdue and punish if He should see him persisting in his tyranny to the end.

Concerning the law of God and the law of sin. The Divine is good and more than good, and so is His will;

for that is good which God wills.

And the law is the commandment that teaches this, so that, abiding in it, we may be in the light.

And the transgression of this commandment is sin.

And this comes about through the assault of the devil and through our own uncoerced and voluntary acceptance;

and this too is called a law.

When, therefore, the law of God mounts upon our mind, it draws us to itself and pricks our conscience.

And our conscience too is called the law of our mind.

And the assault of the evil one—that is, the law of sin—mounting upon the members of our flesh, makes its assault upon us through it.

For once we voluntarily transgressed the law of God and accepted the assault of the evil one, we gave it entrance, having sold ourselves to sin by our own act.

Whence our body is readily led toward it.

Therefore the odour and sense of sin laid up in our body—that is, the desire and pleasure of the body—is also called the law in the members of our flesh.

Now the law of my mind—that is, my conscience—delights in the law of God, that is, in the commandment, and wills it.

But the law of sin, that is, the assault made through the law that is in the members, that is, of the body's desire and inclination and motion and of the irrational part of the soul, wars against the law of my mind, that is, the conscience, and takes me captive—even though I will and love the law of God and do not will sin—by a kind of commingling, through the smoothness of pleasure and the body's desire and the irrational part of the soul, as I have said; it leads astray and persuades one to become a slave to sin.

But God, doing what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh (for He assumed flesh, but in no way sin) and condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in those who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

For the Spirit helps our weakness and supplies power to the law of our mind against the law that is in our members.

For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered—that is, He teaches us what we should pray for.

So that it is impossible to accomplish the commandments of God except through patient endurance and prayer.

Against the Jews, concerning the Sabbath. The seventh day is called the Sabbath, and it signifies rest;

for on it God rested from His works, as the Scripture says.

Wherefore also, the number of days advancing up to seven, it cycles round again and begins from the first.

This number was held in honour among the Jews, since God commanded that it be honoured—not casually, but with the gravest penalties for its transgression.

And He commanded this not without purpose, but for certain reasons mystically discerned by those who are spiritual and clear-sighted.

So far as I, who am unlearned, can know—to begin from the lower and grosser matters: