基督教地誌 第 1 章 第 5/22 段

For we are said to tread upon the earth, as for instance when it says:

I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions. 'To tread,' then, is said to be 'to tread upon' something;

but if we tread upon something, then to 'tread oppositely' would be beneath that on which one treads.

But according to the wise, the spherical [body] has neither an above nor a below;

therefore we neither tread, nor tread oppositely, nor walk upon the earth at all;

and the things according to them are fabrications and myths.

But concerning angels and demons or souls, divine Scripture says that all are circumscribed and pass their existence in this world, as when the Apostle says:

We have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men — as passing their existence in one [and the same] world.

But also in Daniel it speaks concerning them thus:

And the prince of the kingdom of the Persians stood against me twenty-one days, and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, and I left him there with the prince of the kingdom of the Persians, and I came to make you understand what shall befall your people in the last days. Now, the 'stood against me,' and the 'he came' and 'departed,' and 'I left him there,' and all such things, belong to [beings that are] circumscribed.

For only the divine is uncircumscribed, being everywhere, in the same [state], and equally.

For if I ascend, David says, into heaven, you are there;

if I go down into Hades, you are present;

if I take my wings at dawn and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea — that is to say, of the west — for there too your hand shall guide me: [in this] he clearly signified here the uncircumscribed [nature] of God.

But in the case of angels, it is not possible to conceive this, since they are left behind, as was written above, in a place.

And concerning souls, divine Scripture says that they too are circumscribed and are circumscribed within the body itself, as [for instance]:

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me — as though it too were located within.

My heart and my flesh — that is to say, my soul and my flesh;

and it uses 'heart' in place of 'soul,' as though it were established there and within the body, as again when it says:

In my heart have I hidden your sayings — that is to say, in my soul;

Create in me a clean heart, O God — that is to say, soul.

It is not the things that go into [a man] that defile the man;

for it goes into the belly, and is cast out into the latrine;

but the things that go out from the heart — as it were, from the soul — these defile the man, such as evil thoughts and whatever other properties of the soul it enumerates.

And elsewhere again it speaks more admonishingly to the apostles:

The kingdom of God is within you — instead of saying that:

You ought always to have, according to the soul, the kingdom of God within you.

And again to the believing thief he promises, saying:

Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

'In paradise,' meanwhile, most evidently speaks of a place;

but that it speaks according to the soul, and not according to the body, is clear from the fact that the Lord's body was buried by Joseph in Jerusalem, and the thief's [body] also was buried there in the same place;

therefore it is most evidently according to the soul that it says, 'you are with me today in paradise.'

Moreover, most of the evangelists, concerning the death of the Lord, said that 'he breathed out,' as though the spirit — that is, the soul — being within, went out from the body.

For the other [evangelist], it says, having bowed his head, gave up the spirit.

And these things have been said by us in the manner of a Christian precept, being moved by divine Scripture, not fabricating or conjecturing on our own, but precisely obeying God, who has spoken through the prophets and apostles and his own Son.

For since all who wish to say anything of this sort from their own reasonings or from conjectures are for the most part perplexed and mistaken and unable to speak with precision, the truly Christian [person], who knows the how and the why, must take refuge in God, the creator of all, lest, being led astray and carried about by every wind in the teaching of men, as the Apostle also cries out, in the cunning of [their] words and the craftiness of deceit, we too should be found condemned together with the world.

And these very things Moses also relates in the Old [Testament], in Numbers, and says:

And the Lord said to Moses:

Speak to the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them, and let them make for themselves fringes upon the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and you shall put upon the fringes of the borders a thread of blue.

And it shall be to you on the fringes, and you shall see [them] and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and you shall not turn aside after your own minds and after your own eyes, by which you go whoring after them, so that you may remember and do all my commandments, and be holy to your God.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; I am the Lord your God — he himself also teaching more clearly that very thing which the Apostle also taught: not to follow one's own notions, but rather the divine commands.

May it be granted to us, O honored head, to abstain from these [human notions], and to hold fast to the divine [commands], through the prayers of your holiness, most Christian father, so that we may find mercy and grace before the throne of grace forever.

BOOK THREE. That divine Scripture is firm and trustworthy, and consistent with itself, and narrating in accordance with itself — both the Old and New Testament — signifying also the usefulness of the figures of the whole world.

First, men after the flood, having become elevated at [the time of] the god-battling tower-building, continually observing the stars, being led astray, conjectured this opinion — that is to say, that heaven is spherical.

For since the city where they were building the tower was that of the Babylonians, this must necessarily have been first an invention of the Chaldeans, whence they also fashioned a barbarian sphere.

Those, then, of the race of Abraham, being Chaldeans, having gone down into Egypt, themselves imparted this opinion to the Egyptians.

The Egyptians, again seizing the occasion more meddlesomely, themselves also intensified this opinion, until the Greeks too, sojourning in Egypt — Pythagoras and Plato and Eudoxus of Cnidus, the philosophers — themselves also, having partaken of it, elaborated it still further, having taken their starting points from the first [inventors].

...to the outer [regions] they found a plain in the land of Shinar.

And all being of one tongue, they deliberated with one accord, saying:

God destroyed the men before us with a flood;

if it should seem good to him to be angry again both with us and to destroy us with a flood, we shall all perish

But come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire, so that they may withstand the waters, and having built with bitumen let us make a high tower, whose top shall reach to heaven, so that being delivered from the flood we may be saved in the tower

And let us readily array ourselves for war against him, being nearest to him, while we are all together, before we are scattered

For this is what the saying signifies:

'And let us make ourselves a name before we are scattered upon the face of all the earth.' Having then begun to build, and wishing in a tyrannical manner to ascend into heaven, God, who loves mankind and is compassionate, knowing and foreknowing the man whom he had created self-determining and autonomous—the power of the rational faculty within him, yet the weakness of his flesh—being moved to compassion rather than to anger, again wrought a great dispensation, not allowing them to labour and toil in vain

For besides being crushed by their toil, they were being utterly destroyed as they rose to a height, being cast down from above by the violence of the winds, and scorched by the nearness of the sun, and again darkened by the dizziness of the height and cast down

He therefore divides and confounds their tongue into many tongues, and puts an end to their godless madness, and scatters them and settles them throughout all the earth

This is the cause of the division of the nations and of their dwelling upon the earth

In the last days, then, God being well pleased among men, as it is written:

'good will among men'—by his own counsel and goodness, to lead them up into heaven, he led up our firstfruits into heaven forty days after the resurrection

And again foreshadowing the ascent of the rest of mankind, on the day of Pentecost, having through the Holy Spirit gathered together the tongues which he had once divided, he gives them from heaven to the apostles, and they spoke in tongues the great works of God, even as the Spirit gave them utterance, so that all who stood by, gathered from all the nations, heard each in his own dialect the great works of God, and came to know the good will of God which he had shown among men—that whereas once men who acted tyrannically and wished to ascend into heaven remained unsuccessful, now by the good will of God the faithful are carried up into heaven

Marginal note. Here, the first men, having come to a height, were building the tower, and often observing the stars closely, and seeing some of the stars rising and others setting, turning in a manner as though upon a machine, they suspected that heaven was spherical in shape

For they were ignorant both of the shape of the earth, and that the stars are moved by angels in the air

For this reason they held this suspicion

These gates which pass through the tower they made, contriving on every side, so that, as they supposed, the tower might not be thrown down by the waters of the flood;

likewise they also built the brick, so that it might, as they supposed, withstand the water

For this is the tower being built

And they say that the extent of the width of the foundations occupies three miles by three miles

And they say also that it had its ascent on the outside, running round in a circle, so that the ascent might receive light through the windows

The text. While the Israelites were still dwelling in Egypt, Moses, having been born and reared in the palaces of Egypt, was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, having himself also received by sight the sphere and astronomy, or even magic, and the hieroglyphic letters—or rather, symbols of letters, for letters did not yet exist—and, simply put, having become a partaker of all their wisdom

he fled to the parts of Midian, where, having married, he had two sons

And while tending the flock of his own father-in-law, he led them to Mount Sinai, and he beholds the vision of that bush, how the bush was blazing with fire and was not consumed

Then, as he ran up to see the great wonder, an angel of God calls him by the name of God, and urges him to go to King Pharaoh in Egypt, to bring the sons of Israel out of the slavery of the Egyptians

And as he declined because of the impossibility of the matter—for he considered that, being one man alone, he could not fight against so great a king—God, through the angel, worked more boldly, reminding him of his forefathers, that from a barren woman and from those who had grown old he had marvellously raised up a great and numerous nation

And he prepares him beforehand to work wonders by means of the rod in his hand;

and Moses, being amazed at these wonders, is persuaded to go to Egypt

And having gone and had meetings with Pharaoh, since he was about to show him how God brought forth the whole creation—what things came first, what things second, and so on in order—he prepares him to work wonders and to transform the elements in the name of God, and to show to all the Egyptians and the Israelites, and through them also to all men together, that he was faithful to God in all that he said and did, thereby making them ready beforehand and preparing them so as to be readily accepted by them

And the enchanters also are permitted to contend with him—arts in which he himself had also been trained—and by the divine power he is set in array against them, being taught to despise such things, so that they gave up and said:

'This is the finger of God.' Having then changed the nature of the waters into blood and killed the fish, and again changed the blood into living, fertile water, and having again split the Red Sea and walled it up on this side and that before the Israelites and the Egyptians, he was thereafter readily accepted by them, saying:

'Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it divide water from water,' and it was so. Again, having made darkness for three days in succession among the Egyptians, but light among the Israelites, he was again readily accepted, saying:

'And darkness was upon the deep'

'And God divided the light from the darkness.' And he laid down a first, second, and third day without the course of the sun, moon, and stars, saying:

'God divided the light from the darkness.' Then again he brings forth frogs from the river and gnats from the earth, and he was faithful in what he said:

'Let the waters bring forth living creatures,' and it was so; and again:

'Let the earth bring forth this and that,' and it was so—and likewise all the rest of the wonders

Last of all, having slain the firstborn, he was faithful, saying last of all:

'God made man.' And just as we have said, he prepared him beforehand to be trusted by the Israelites, in what he said and did, they beholding with their own eyes the things that came to pass

Then, having led them out of Egypt and brought them through the Red Sea on dry land, and having led them to Mount Sinai, on which he had seen the divine vision, God, still working wonders before the people, sets the mountain ablaze and made it smoke;

and there came the sounds of trumpets resounding from heaven, and as they grew, they were heard becoming louder;

and having terrified them with tempest and darkness and thick gloom, thus most fearfully he spoke with Moses before the people upon the cloud

for another six days showing through visions that very cosmogony, working before his face day by day, as for instance on the first day the first heaven and earth, a house of vast magnitude, and within it water, air, fire mingled in the earth, darkness, angels—bringing forth all these things at once together out of that which in no way whatsoever existed

Then, using a voice for the instruction of the angels, he brings the light also into this house, illuminating everything as by a lamp

Then on the second day, out of the water he constructs the firmament, which binds together right in the midst of the height of heaven, dividing the waters, mediating between those above and those below

Two spaces therefore come to be, as it were an upper storey and a lower storey, of which the lower storey he fitted to be a dwelling for this mortal and changeable life, while the upper storey he made ready beforehand for the future immortal and unchangeable life

Marginal note. After the firmament had, by God, on the second day, come to be, dividing the one space in the middle and making it into two spaces, the great Moses expounded nothing further concerning the future state, that is, the upper space, but turned the whole discourse toward this present state, that is, the lower space, saying how he gathered together the waters and brought forth from the earth the green plants and the trees, and likewise adorned the heaven with stars, and again brought forth from the waters the birds and the water creatures, and likewise again from the earth the irrational living animals and man

Then again, being commanded to make the tabernacle in imitation of the cosmos, having divided the one tabernacle by the veil, he made it into two, an inner and an outer;

and into the outer one the priests continually performed the services, as it were in this world, but into the inner one none entered, save only the high priest once a year, as it were into the upper space in the heavens;

for this reason the inner tabernacle was also continually inaccessible to them, as holding the type of the heavenly things

And having expounded laws, and burdens, and places of chastisement, and instructions for those who transgress, God—suitably to that which he had been entrusted to expound, tending toward instruction—also made him work wonders, as when he encompassed the Egyptians with various plagues and punishments; and likewise whatever he did in the wilderness because of the sins and transgressions of the Israelites, in that he destroyed all of that generation, leaving none of them save two alone—he himself too having come to his end together with that generation

But when the Master Christ came for the salvation of the whole world, to bring the present state to an end and to reveal the state to come, and openly proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven had drawn near, fittingly to his proclamation he also worked wonders for the benefit of men, having done not a single one at all for the punishment of man: freeing those possessed by demons, healing the sick, strengthening the paralyzed, straightening the lame, refashioning the eyes of the blind, opening the ears of the deaf, loosing the tongues of the mute, cleansing lepers, changing the withered into a well-tempered life, by his power stanching the flowing fountains of men's blood, re-forging the dead who had decayed and grown foul, and preparing them, now living, to complete their course, announcing as good news to the poor treasures that cannot be plundered, stilling by his rebuke the violence of the winds and the wrath of the sea, and all the other things that are fitting to the evangelical proclamation and to the state that is to come

For in that state no demon troubles, no infirmity is present, sickness is put to flight, no injury of limbs, and no incontinence, and no want, and no fountains of blood, and no motions of the elements, and the last enemy, death, is destroyed

While the Jews were beholding all these things, since they had seen him work not even one sign for the punishment of men, save only two, and these not against a man but against the swine and the fig tree—against irrational and inanimate things—these too having come to pass as a demonstration of his power, they attempted to accuse him, saying:

occurring for the punishment of men

But the Lord, knowing their thoughts, answered them, saying:

'O evil and adulterous generation, it seeks a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For just as Jonah remained hidden three days in the belly of the sea-monster, and afterward came out alive, undecayed, so also I, dying and remaining in the earth three days, afterward rise from the dead alive and incorrupt.'

And at another time again, when he made a whip of cords and cast everyone out of the temple, they said to him:

'What sign do you show us, that you do these things?'—even though many signs had already come to pass from him

But he again said to them:

'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up'—answering the same thing on both occasions, meaning the resurrection of his own body—so that he might say:

'When you see me rising from the dead, and wonders coming to pass in my name, then you will know our power and our proclamation of the gospel, that my coming is not for the punishment of men, but for the resurrection and the immortality and the incorruptibility and the unchangeableness and the blessedness bestowed upon men.'

Fittingly, then, in accordance with what he taught, he also worked the signs

And this very thing Matthew also shows, saying thus:

'And Jesus went about the cities and the villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness'—so that he might say:

working wonders in proportion to what he preached

And John the evangelist says thus, that:

'Many of his disciples went back and no longer walked with him'

He therefore also said to the twelve:

'Do you also wish to go away?' And Peter, most swiftly answering on behalf of all, said:

'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed that you are the Holy One of God'—saying this also of himself:

'The very things you teach us, we see also coming to pass through works from you;'

For you promise us life and an eternal kingdom, and we see that everything done by you tends toward the life of mankind.

How then can we leave you and cling to another? Our portion, therefore, is with you, Lord Jesus Christ.

But someone might raise a difficulty, saying:

How, when he had performed not even one sign for the punishment of men, as you said, did he take a whip and strike those selling in the temple and cast them out of the sanctuary? Answer:

For he did not strike any human being at all, but employed a wonderful, fitting, and consistent order.

For he struck only the irrational creatures, as it is written:

"And having made a whip of cords, he cast all out of the sanctuary, both the sheep and the oxen," so as to indicate that he struck these as being ensouled indeed, yet irrational, driving all that was also offered for sacrifice according to the law out of the sanctuary, thereby signifying also that the Jewish order was ceasing.

But the inanimate and insensible things he pushed and overturned, as it is written:

"And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned the tables." But the rational beings he neither struck nor pushed, but instructed by word, as it is written, and said to those selling the doves:

"Take these things away from here, and do not make my Father's house a house of merchandise," showing through all these things that the things offered in the first tabernacle according to the law for sacrifice would cease, and a certain other order would be introduced instead, suited to the inner tabernacle, which was also a type of the heavenly things, that is, of the order to come.

But when those Jews perceived that he was hinting to them at the cessation of the Jewish order, they sought him out, saying:

"What sign do you show us, that you do these things?" And he, fittingly, from the very matter at hand, promised them enigmatically what he would do, namely the destruction of the temple and its renewal — that the destruction of the temple, that is, of his body, is the destruction of this world;

...of the order that is to come.

My argument, therefore, sir, is thus preserved: that he did nothing for the punishment of man, but for his benefit, just as he himself also proclaims elsewhere:

"For the Father did not send the Son to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him." The text. Then he gathers the water into one gathering and reveals the dry land, naming it earth, which had previously been covered by the waters.

And he makes the seas — that is, [the sea] surrounding this earth, and [the sea] on the inner side of the land beyond, called the Ocean — and the four gulfs that break in from it into this land, so that the Ocean, lying between this land here and the land beyond, might supply good air both to those who once dwelt beyond and to those who now dwell here, while the gulfs were fashioned so as to make this world navigable and passable, ever joining the scattered nations together in friendship by readily conveying necessary goods from nation to nation.

And he commands all kinds of fruits and trees and green grass to spring up from the earth.

And again on the fourth day he works from the light, dividing its purer part into the sun, and the rest into the moon and stars, adorning the things of heaven according to the all-harmonious ordering, and giving order and harmony to the universe, and giving to the invisible Powers a task and a law — to minister and serve and make preparation in advance for the sake of the image of God, that is, of man and all the things that came to be for his sake — while at the same time instructing those Powers and accustoming them to be under law, and exercising the goodwill or ill-will of their rational faculty.

Whence also some who had transgressed were cast down from heaven and fell from their rank.

"For I beheld," says the Lord, "Satan fallen like lightning from heaven."

For being puffed up on account of the ministry entrusted to him by God — to move the air and regulate it usefully, for the benefit of men and of the things made for man's sake — and thinking that he had arrived at this of his own accord, and having seized for himself the worship due to God, he was immediately cast down.

For again the Apostle, instructing Timothy not to hastily grant rank to a novice, that is, to one who has newly come to the faith, wrote thus:

"Not a novice, lest being puffed up he fall into the judgment and the snare of the devil" — which, he says, is what the devil suffered, being puffed up, so that he might not suffer the same.

The Apostle, therefore, clearly showed why he was cast down — namely, that he was puffed up, having considered himself to be God;

whence he also immediately wished to inflict his own disease upon man, saying:

"You shall be as gods." Marginal note. When Almighty God had brought forth all the angels together with heaven and earth — these not having previously existed — they all stood speechless, discerning as rational beings, and at the same time astonished, reasoning among themselves as to who indeed was the maker and producer of themselves and of the things that came to be along with them (for they observed themselves to be within these things, and not pre-existing), and further, whether the maker of themselves and of those other things was one and the same, or different and different, or again whether all things had come forth of their own accord, or which of the two might be greater than the other.

And while they were revolving this thought during the interval of that night — for that darkness, as it is written, God called Night — God, entering into their minds, suddenly formed a voice invisibly, saying:

"Let there be light." And along with the word, the deed, following from non-being, astonished them all, and at the same time it also taught them that he who had brought this forth out of non-being had likewise brought forth both themselves and the things along with them out of non-being.

And bowing down, they all invisibly worshiped God, who had brought forth both themselves and all things out of non-being.

And divine Scripture shows this in Job, speaking in the person of God, saying:

"When I made the stars, all my angels praised me with a loud voice and sang hymns" — signifying, from the one instance, concerning all that followed in succession.

...he brought forth: one, the first, namely light; and the other, our soul — the one visible, sensible, and irrational, and the other invisible, intellectual, and rational.

But all the other things he brought forth from things already existing, purposing thereby again to teach them that he himself is the maker of all creatures — both irrational and rational, sensible and intelligible, visible and invisible — having brought them from non-being into being.

It was not unreasonable that they, as rational beings, should again reason during that day-and-night, as to whether he who had brought forth this light had also brought forth heaven.

Using his voice again, he makes the second heaven before their eyes, having fixed it out of the waters in likeness to the form of the first heaven.

And again through this they were taught that he is the maker both of this and of the former heaven.

And he completes the works of the second day.