福音的預備 第 7 章 第 2/4 段

After the aforementioned Hebrews, since the race of their descendants was increasing into a great multitude, and already the nation of the Jews, having been formed from them, was daily growing more numerous and multiplying, the pious manner of life of their ancient God-beloved forefathers gradually weakened and grew dull among them, while their sojourn among the Egyptians so far overpowered the multitude of the aforementioned that their ancestral virtue passed into oblivion, and their lives were carried about into the same manner as the Egyptians, so that they seemed in no way to differ from the Egyptians in character.

At this point, then, when they had been reduced to such a state, the God of their forefathers sends forth Moses as leader and lawgiver, confirming through oracles the promises made to their ancestors; and then, having accomplished through him the recorded wonders and marvelous divine signs, he sets forth the law fitted to the character of those who would hear it.

Those who, through foolishness, did not emulate their ancestral virtue, being as it were diseased and passion-ridden in their souls, received the corresponding polity—some things being openly ordained by Moses in plain terms, others hinted at through hidden meanings, Moses having laid down for them to guard and observe symbols and shadows, but not the naked truth.

And indeed the Jewish polity, having begun from this point somewhere from Moses, endures until the very coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, in accordance with the voices of their own prophets, since indeed this too was a pronouncement of Moses himself and of the later prophets—that the laws and ordinances of Moses should not cease before the things of Christ appeared, namely the things of the new covenant, which has been proclaimed through our Savior to all the nations; which indeed came to its end here, as has also been proclaimed.

But since we have briefly gone through the life of the Hebrews before Moses, and have set forth the character of their piety, it is time also to examine their doctrinal manner, from the writing of Moses and the prophets after him.

First of all, then, that wondrous theologian and lawgiver himself, laying down through his own writing for the Jewish nation a polity befitting piety, did not think it right to make use of the common and well-trodden preambles of speech; but, before setting forth every law that commands what is to be done and forbids what is not, and the public and civic ordinances concerning contracts with one another, he thought it necessary to make the beginning of his teaching from the ancestral theology, considering no other learning proper to laws befitting piety than the theology handed down to him from the forefathers of old.

He begins, then, from God, according to the ancestral theology of the forefathers of the Hebrews—not as it pleased the Egyptians and Phoenicians or the rest of the nations, who cast down the venerable appellation upon a multitude, considering as gods the visible luminaries in heaven, but also the invisible and unseen—either those departed from among men, or the earthly and aerial demons—according to what has been refuted by us before.

But rather, having made the beginning of the whole discourse from the cause of all things, the maker of things invisible and visible, he teaches that this one is the lawgiver of the constitution of the universe, having established him, as it were, king of one great city, the cosmos.

Beginning thus, he instructs us to consider this one to be not only the author and lord of the laws that would shortly afterward be ordained by him for men, but also of the things in the nature of the universe.

For he presents him as king and lawgiver of the whole cosmos; for by his nod and power the coming-into-being of all things occurred, while by his laws and ordinances again, in orderly way and due arrangement, the whole age is governed.

For by the word and law of God, first of all, heaven was made firm; and the heavy and solid mass of earth, contrary to its own nature, is marvelously suspended upon the more subtle of the elements; by the word and divine law of God, night and day revolve in their alternating course; by the word of God and law, the sun itself and moon and the choir of the remaining stars accomplish their fitting course in becoming order; by the law of the all-king, the changes of the seasons and the alterations of the times, and the cycles of the year, and the yearly seasons, are fulfilled in the all-harmonious concord of the universe; by the law of God winter withdraws before spring, this by the nearest turnings of the seasons; and the depths of the sea, surging in wintry floods, are by divine law shut up within their own proper seas, so that they do not dare to transgress the boundaries of the sacred laws; and the dry substance of earth, watered by rain-streams and snows again supplied in due measure by divine law, brings forth countless kinds of plants and animals.

And, in a word, the all-mothering nature of the universe, having been enslaved by the command of God, yields to divine laws and to the will of the God who rules over all; for this so great a cosmic order was not constituted at random, nor as it chanced, nor by some automatic and irrational motion, nor is this great and most beautiful work of craftsmanship the product of a causeless nature, but it is the handiwork of the all-wise architect of the universe, and is governed by his words and sacred laws.

Beginning from this point, the prophet, having ordained laws concerning the nature of the universe even before the legislation for men, first of all exhorted us above all things to give heed to the all-king God, and not to be slothful concerning his laws, since indeed the sun itself, and heaven and cosmos, and earth and all things upon earth, and whatever are deemed works of nature, are enslaved to his commands and ordinances, his sacred laws and words.

Wherefore all the more it is fitting that the human race, being no small part of the whole, should, in due sequence, adhere to the divine ordinances, and not fall short of the individual elements. For God legislated to the earth in the beginning, saying, 'Let the earth bring forth grass of herbage, sowing seed according to its kind, and a fruit-bearing tree making fruit'; and the earth, at once with the word showing its obedience to the law, has not to this day neglected the divine ordinance.

So too the watery substance: God having said, 'Let the waters bring forth creeping things having living souls, and birds flying above the firmament of heaven,' with the word the deed was rendered, and it may still be seen to this day yielding its obedience to the law.

But if indeed the sun and moon and stars, the divine law having also determined for them their proper courses, and their being for signs and for seasons and for days and for years, do not neglect this legislation, what excuse of pardon would still be left to you, who make light of the divine laws?

Having thus given us this preliminary instruction, the wondrous one both captivated us and fittingly made us zealous emulators of his own knowledge of God and piety, since we have been unable to find anything similar to these among the theologians of the aforementioned nations.

After the first theology, he proceeds to the second doctrine, at once natural and philosophical. After the knowledge concerning God, and the arrangement concerning the universe, he proceeds in order to what is second also in nature; and this was the doctrine concerning the nature of man, since indeed after the knowledge of God it is necessary to know oneself in some measure; wherefore next he instructs what man is, and what it is that leads him to the knowledge and piety of God, and what is the life befitting man's foremost part. Having then distinguished the account concerning soul and body, he defines the true man as consisting in the soul, partaking of an intellectual, incorporeal, and rational substance, as having been fashioned according to the image of God; while the body is an earthly garment of the soul; and to these he adds a third—the breath of life, a certain unifying power, connecting that which was taken from the earth to that which was made according to the image of God.

And he narrates that the first sojourn of this man came to be in the thrice-blessed paradise of God, filled with immortal and eternal goods; but by the law of God, he too, like the others, having been subjected in the beginning of the whole order, through inattention and transgression of the divine commandment, was deprived of the thrice-desired life.

These things, then, Moses philosophizes in the preambles of the sacred laws, all but proclaiming beforehand that we should not neglect our own proper dignity, and the likeness to the divine which we have obtained, from which also the immortality of the soul has been allotted to us.

For it is not lawful that the image of a king should be effaced; and the archetypal and true image of the God of all things is his Word, being very Wisdom itself and very Life itself, and Light and Truth, and whatever else good and excellent one might conceive; while the image of the image is the human mind, wherefore it has also been acknowledged to have come into being according to the image of God.

And he thought it necessary that those who were about to give heed to the sacred laws should be instructed beforehand in these things, and should remember what it is that was taken from the earth and will again be resolved into earth, and what it is in us that is superior and akin to God, and how it is fitting to treat each of the things mentioned—neither to insult nor to be impious toward the man made according to the image of God, nor to defile oneself with shameful and lawless deeds, but to bear always a longing for that first and thrice-blessed sojourn and life, and to hasten to return, making it a prayer to attain to that first and thrice-blessed life and dignity; but also to prepare oneself already from here for that departure yonder, since it is not otherwise possible for the profane and unpurified to set foot upon those sacred things, from which even the first man, through inattention, having despised the divine commandment, has fallen away.

In addition to these things, the hierophant adds another most essential doctrine, teaching us not to be in doubt that there is present to each person a certain evil demon lying in wait, envious and hating the good, and from the beginning a plotter against the salvation of men.

He names this one dragon and serpent, black and akin to darkness, full of venom and wickedness; and he says that this one, out of envy of our divinely inspired life, even now attempts to trip up and drag down each one of those who cling to God; and that by his deceit our forefathers of the race also fell from their more divine portion; wherefore it is necessary always to be on guard against the malicious contrivances of the one thus described.

And why need we anticipate these things, when it is now fitting at last to go through each of the things declared, directly from the very scriptures themselves? Let us then begin first from God, calling upon him first of all as our helper, through our Savior.

The account according to them, then, beginning the origin of theology from the creative and demiurgic power of the universe, sets this forth not by syllogisms nor by plausible arguments, but rather in a more dogmatic and didactic manner, being inspired by the Holy Spirit; under whose influence Moses, thus divinely borne, began his theology in this way: 'In the beginning God made heaven and earth.'

Then it says: 'And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And again God said, Let there be a firmament: and it was so. And again God said, Let the earth bring forth grass of herbage, sowing seed according to its kind and likeness, and every fruit-bearing tree making fruit, whose seed is in itself, according to its kind upon the earth: and it was so. And again God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, to shine upon the earth; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years: and it was so. And again God said, Let the waters bring forth creeping things having living souls, according to their kind, and every bird of heaven according to its kind: and it was so. And again, let the earth bring forth four-footed creatures, and creeping things, and wild beasts of the earth according to their kind: and it was so.'

In saying these things, the scripture, by 'God said,' sets forth that God, by his divine nod, willed that beings should come into existence in this manner—not that it is necessary to suppose he speaks with voice and syllables—but summing up the whole account, this book says: 'This is the book of the generation of heaven and earth, in the day that God made heaven and earth, and all things in them.'

Such then is the theology of the Hebrews, teaching that all things consist together by the creative word of God. Then it further teaches that the universe has not thus been left desolate, as an orphan bereft of a father, by him who constituted it, but that it is forever governed by the providence of God, so that God is not only demiurge and maker of all things, but also savior and administrator and king and ruler, presiding forever over the sun itself and moon and stars and the whole heaven and cosmos, beholding all things with a great eye and with divine power, present to all things heavenly and earthly alike, and ordering and administering all things in the cosmos.

Just as, then, also the prophets who came after these, themselves likewise speaking under divine inspiration, at one time proclaimed, speaking as it were from the very divine person: 'I am a God near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off. Shall a man do anything in secret, and I shall not know it? Do not I fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.'

At other times, thus theologizing: 'Who has measured the water in his hand, and the heaven with a span, and all the earth with a handbreadth? Who has weighed the mountains in a balance, and the valleys in a scale? Who has known the mind of the Lord, and who has become his counselor?' And again: 'He who set up the heaven as a vault, and stretched it out as a tent to dwell in.' And again: 'Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has displayed all these things.' And thereafter: 'The Lord, the Lord God, who made heaven and established it, who made firm the earth and the things in it, and gives breath to the people upon it, and spirit to those who tread upon it: I am the Lord God.' And thereafter: 'I stretched out the heaven alone, and made the earth firm: I am the Lord God, there is none besides me.'

And again: 'Thus shall you say to them: The gods that have not made heaven and earth shall perish from the face of the earth, and from under this heaven. The Lord, who made the earth by his power, has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has stretched out the heaven, and brought up clouds from the end of the earth; he made lightnings for the rain, and brought forth winds out of his treasuries. Every man has become foolish from lack of knowledge.'

And again: 'Where shall I go from your spirit, and where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I go down into Hades, you are present. If I should take my wings toward the dawn, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me.'

But these things, and things similar to these, belong to the theologians after Moses—who are indeed also Hebrews—theologizing in harmony with the most ancient forefathers; but concerning the God-beloved and thrice-blessed men before Moses, who are also indeed the first Hebrews, and first of all himself, Abraham—who has also been recorded as forefather of the whole Jewish nation—listen.

'And Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I will stretch out my hand to the Most High God, who created heaven and earth.' And even before Abraham, Melchizedek is introduced, priest of the Most High God, blessing Abraham with these words: 'Blessed be Abraham of the Most High God, who delivered your enemies into your hand; and blessed be the Most High God, who created heaven and earth.'

Further, in addition to these, the account introduces Abraham speaking thus to his own servant: 'Put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven, and the God of the earth.' And he adds: 'The Lord God of heaven, and the God of the earth, who took me from my father's house, and from the land of my birth.'

In addition to all these, in the theophany to him, when Moses inquired what he ought to consider God to be, the oracle says: 'I am the One who is; thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, He who is has sent me to you.'

Let these things then be set forth from among countless others concerning the theology of the Hebrews. Is it, then, worthy to compare and set beside them, in comparison, the theologies of the wise Greeks—some of whom have declared that there is no God at all; others, that the stars are gods, which are but glowing masses fixed like nails or plates in the heaven; others, that fire is a technical/artistic force proceeding methodically; and some, that the cosmos is not governed by the providence of God, but by some irrational nature; others, that only the heavenly things are governed by God, but not the things upon earth; and again, that the cosmos is unbegotten, and did not come into being by God at all, but subsists automatically and by chance; and others, that the constitution of the universe came about from atoms and fine, soulless and irrational bodies?

But such, in brief, are the things from the oracles among the Hebrews concerning the God of all things. It remains for us next to consider what the Hebrews have philosophized concerning the origin of created things, after speaking of the God of all things.

Thales of Miletus declared water to be the origin of all things, Anaximenes air, Heraclitus fire, Pythagoras numbers, Epicurus together with Democritus atomic bodies, Empedocles the four elements. Let us then also examine the oracles among the Hebrews.

After the unbeginning and unbegotten essence of the God of all things—unmixed and beyond all comprehension—they introduce a second essence and divine power, which subsists first as the origin of all generated things and has come to be from the first cause, calling it Word and Wisdom and the Power of God.

This is first taught by Job, who says: 'But where has wisdom been found? And what is the place of understanding? Mortal man does not know its way, nor indeed has it been found among men, but we have heard of its fame. The Lord established its way, and he knows its place.'

And David too, somewhere in the Psalms, addressing Wisdom by another name, says: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established'—thus extolling in this manner the Word of God, the craftsman of all things. And moreover his son Solomon, in this fashion, personifies Wisdom herself, saying: 'I, Wisdom, have made my dwelling in counsel and knowledge, and I have called upon understanding. Through me kings reign, and rulers decree justice.'

And again: 'The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works; he founded me before the age, in the beginning, before he made the earth, before the depths were made, before the mountains were settled, and before all the hills he begets me. When he was preparing the heaven, I was present with him, and when he set the springs under heaven securely, I was with him, fitting all things together. I was the one in whom he delighted daily, and I rejoiced before him at all times, when he rejoiced upon completing the inhabited world.'

These things Solomon says in the Proverbs. And these too are said somewhere in his own person: 'I will declare what wisdom is and how she came to be, and I will not hide mysteries from you, but I will trace her out from the beginning of her generation.' To which he adds next: 'For she is a spirit that is intelligent, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, mobile, clear, undefiled, all-powerful, all-surveying, and pervading all spirits that are intelligent, pure, and most subtle.'

For Wisdom is more mobile than any motion, and she pervades and penetrates all things because of her purity. For she is a vapor of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled falls into her. For she is a radiance of eternal light, an unspotted mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness. She extends mightily from one end to the other, and orders all things well.

And indeed this divine Word, sent forth by the Father for the salvation of men, Scripture introduces in various ways. It relates how he appeared to Abraham and Moses and the other prophets beloved of God, and how through oracles he both taught much and foretold things to come, whenever it records that he was seen as God and Lord and came into conversation with the prophets.

And that he also came to the knowledge of all men, sent by the Greater One as a savior of the sick and physician of souls, Scripture prophesies thus somewhere: 'He sent his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.' And again elsewhere it says: 'Swiftly his word shall run.' Hence also the evangelical teaching, renewing the prophetic and ancestral doctrine, sets forth theology in this way: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This one was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.'

Fittingly, then, in the same spirit, the all-wise Moses too, at the beginning of his account of cosmogony, in the previously-stated beginning, says that God made heaven and earth. And he introduces God as conversing with him, as with his own firstborn Word, regarding the creation of man, in what he writes: 'And God said, \"Let us make man according to our image and likeness.\"'

This too the psalmist hinted at, when, discoursing about the first cause, he himself says: 'He spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created'—plainly signifying the ordering and command of the first cause toward the second, as of a father toward a son. For it is surely altogether clear that everyone who says something says it to someone else, and one who commands, commands someone other than himself.

And again Moses, expressly mentioning two Lords—namely Father and Son—relates as follows, concerning the punishment of the impious, saying: 'And the Lord rained down from the Lord upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire.'

In agreement with these, David too, singing, said: 'The Lord said to my Lord, \"Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.\"' And proceeding further, he hinted at his hidden generation, ineffable to all, saying: 'From the womb, before the morning star, I have begotten you.'

But so that you may not think that I am contriving these things myself, I will present to you a Hebrew man as interpreter of the meaning in Scripture—one thoroughly versed in his own ancestral matters and instructed in the doctrine by teachers—if indeed Philo is such a man for you. Listen, then, to him also, and see how he interprets the divine utterances:

Why does he speak as if of another god, saying 'I made man in the image of God,' but not 'in my own image'? This has been most excellently and wisely uttered as an oracle. For nothing mortal could be made in the likeness of the Most High and Father of all, but rather in the likeness of the second God, who is his Word.

For it was necessary that the rational imprint in the soul of man be stamped by the divine Word, since the God who exists prior to the Word is superior to every rational nature; and it was not lawful for anything begotten to be made like unto him who transcends the Word, existing in the best and a certain preeminent form.

Let this stand for me from the first book of Philo's Questions and Answers. The same author, in the first book On Husbandry, also calls his firstborn Word 'Son of God,' in this way: 'All these things does God, the shepherd and king, lead in accordance with justice, having set over them, as a law, his upright Word and firstborn Son, who, like some viceroy of a great king, shall take up the care of this sacred flock.'

And again in the second book the same author writes, verbatim, as follows: 'If, then, one wishes to escape the difficulties involved in the questions raised, let him say frankly that nothing material is so strong as to be able to bear the weight of the universe; rather, the eternal Word of the everlasting God is the most secure and steadfast support of all things.'

This Word, stretched from the middle to the extremities and from the extremities to the middle, runs the unconquerable course of nature, gathering together all the parts and binding them tight. For the Father who begot him made him an unbreakable bond of the universe.

Fittingly, therefore, the whole earth will not be dissolved by all the water which its bosoms contain, nor will fire be extinguished by air, nor conversely will air be set ablaze by fire, since the divine Word sets himself as a vocal boundary between voiceless elements, so that the whole may resound in harmony as in written music, the Word mediating and arbitrating, through persuasive concord, the threats of the opposites.

These are the words of Philo. And Aristobulus too, another wise man of the Hebrews, who flourished during the reign of the Ptolemies, confirms this doctrine as ancestral, addressing to Ptolemy himself an interpretation of the sacred laws, in which he says the following:

The same might also be transferred to wisdom, for all light is from her. Hence some of those belonging to the sect of the Peripatetics have said that she holds the rank of a lamp. For those who follow her continually will remain untroubled throughout their whole life. But more clearly and more beautifully one of our ancestors, Solomon, said that she exists before heaven and earth; and this is in accord with what has been said before.

These, then, and things like these, the children of the Hebrews have philosophized concerning this matter. Would not this, then, be the most god-befitting of accounts—one which attributes the origin of the constitution of the universe to the rational and all-wise power of God, or rather to Wisdom herself and to the Word of God himself, rather than to lifeless and irrational elements?

Such, then, are the teachings among the Hebrews concerning the origin of all things. Let us now consider also what they teach concerning the constitution of the rational beings that come after the first origin.

After the unbeginning and unbegotten essence of God the great King, they teach of a beginning begotten from none other than the Father—being firstborn and fellow-worker of the Father's counsel, and modeled after him.

And this beginning, they teach, holds the first place among all things generated after it, on account of which they are accustomed to call it the Image of God, the Power of God, the Wisdom of God, the Word of God, and indeed also the Commander-in-Chief of the Lord's host, and the Angel of Great Counsel.

As for the intelligent and rational powers that come after this beginning, they teach that these cannot be described in human speech, because of both their multitude and their differences in kind—except insofar as it is possible to approach the matter through examples drawn from analogy with visible things: the sun, the moon, and the stars, and heaven itself, which encompasses all things within itself.

'For there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars,' says the divine apostle; 'for star differs from star in glory.'