// -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
.dt The Writings of Origen, Vol. 1 of 2 | Project Gutenberg
.pn on
.pn link
.de div.tnotes { padding-left:1em;padding-right:1em;background-color:#E3E4FA;border:1px solid silver;margin:1em 5% 0 5%;text-align:justify;}
.de abbr {border:none; text-decoration:none; font-variant:normal;}
// verse
.dm verse-start
.in +4
.sp 1
.fs 95%
.nf b
.dm-
.dm verse-end
.nf-
.fs 100%
.in -4
.sp 1
.dm-
// letter
.dm letter-start
.sp 1
.in +4
.dm-
.dm letter-end
.in -4
.sp 1
.dm-
.if h
.il fn=cover.jpg w=80%
.pb
.if-
// File: 001.png
.sp 4
.h1
The Writings of Origen, Vol. 1 of 2
// File: f001.png
.pn i
// File: f002.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.nf c
MURRAY AND GIBB, EDINBURGH,
PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY’S STATIONERY OFFICE.
.nf-
// File: f003.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.nf c
THE WRITINGS OF ORIGEN.
TRANSLATED BY
REV. FREDERICK CROMBIE, M.A.,
PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM, ST. MARY’S COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS.
VOL. I.
EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREET.
LONDON: HAMILTON & CO. DUBLIN: JOHN ROBERTSON & CO.
MDCCCLXIX.
.nf-
// File: f004.png
.pn +1
// File: f005.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2
CONTENTS.
.sp 2
#Introductory Notice:intro-notice#, #vii#
#Prologue of Rufinus to the De Principiis:intro-prologue#, #xi#
.sp 2
#ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS.:de-principiis#
#Preface:de-principiis-pref#, #1#
.sp 2
#BOOK I.:de-principiis-book-1#
#Chap. I. On God:de-principiis-b1-c1#, #8#
#Chap. II. On Christ:de-principiis-b1-c2#, #18#
#Chap. III. On the Holy Spirit:de-principiis-b1-c3#, #33#
#Chap. IV. On Defection, or Falling Away:de-principiis-b1-c4#, #43#
#Chap. V. On Rational Natures:de-principiis-b1-c5#, #44#
#Chap. VI. On the End or Consummation:de-principiis-b1-c6#, #53#
#Chap. VII. On Incorporeal and Corporeal Beings:de-principiis-b1-c7#, #59#
#Chap. VIII. On the Angels:de-principiis-b1-c8#, #65#
#Fragments from the First Book:de-principiis-b1-fragments#, #71#
.sp 2
#BOOK II.:de-principiis-book-2#
#Chap. I. On the World:de-principiis-b2-c1#, #72#
#Chap. II. On the Perpetuity of Bodily Nature:de-principiis-b2-c2#, #77#
#Chap. III. On the Beginning of the World, and its Causes:de-principiis-b2-c3#, #79#
#Chap. IV. The God of the Law and the Prophets, and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the same God:de-principiis-b2-c4#, #91#
#Chap. V. On Justice and Goodness:de-principiis-b2-c5#, #97#
#Chap. VI. On the Incarnation of Christ:de-principiis-b2-c6#, #105#
#Chap. VII. On the Holy Spirit:de-principiis-b2-c7#, #113#
#Chap. VIII. On the Soul (Anima):de-principiis-b2-c8#, #118#
// File: f006.png
.pn +1
#Chap. IX. On the World, and the Movements of Rational Creatures, whether good or bad; and on the Causes of them:de-principiis-b2-c9#, #126#
#Chap. X. On the Resurrection, and the Judgment, the Fire of Hell, and Punishments:de-principiis-b2-c10#, #136#
#Chap. XI. On Counter Promises:de-principiis-b2-c11#, #145#
.sp 2
#BOOK III.:de-principiis-book-3#
#Preface of Rufinus:de-principiis-b3-preface#, #154#
#Chap. I. On the Freedom of the Will:de-principiis-b3-c1#, #156#
#Chap. II. On the Opposing Powers:de-principiis-b3-c2#, #222#
#Chap. III. On Threefold Wisdom:de-principiis-b3-c3#, #237#
#Chap. IV. On Human Temptations:de-principiis-b3-c4#, #244#
#Chap. V. That the World took its Beginning in Time:de-principiis-b3-c5#, #253#
#Chap. VI. On the End of the World:de-principiis-b3-c6#, #262#
.sp 2
#BOOK IV.:de-principiis-book-4#
#Chap. I. That the Scriptures are divinely inspired:de-principiis-b4-c1#, #274#
#INDEX:de-principiis-index#, #357:Page_356#
.sp 2
#Letter to Origen from Africanus about the History of Susanna:letter-susanna#, #369#
#Letter from Origen to Africanus:letter-africanus#, #371#
#Letter from Origen to Gregory:letter-gregory#, #388#
.sp 2
#ORIGEN AGAINST CELSUS—:against-celsus#
#Book I.:against-celsus-book-1#, #393#
// File: f007.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=intro-notice
INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.
.sp 2
The name of the illustrious Origen comes before us
in this volume in connection with his works De
Principiis, Epistola ad Africanum, and Contra
Celsum. Of these, the first two have been given
entire, while of the third we have been able at present only
to give the first book. A full account of the life and writings
of the author will be prefixed to our next volume of his works.
Meanwhile, we restrict ourselves to a brief notice of the three
which have been mentioned.
It is in his treatise Περὶ Ἀρχῶν, or, as it is commonly
known under the Latin title, De Principiis, that Origen
most fully develops his system, and brings out his peculiar
principles. None of his works exposed him to so much
animadversion in the ancient church as this. On it chiefly was
based the charge of heresy which some vehemently pressed
against him,—a charge from which even his firmest friends
felt it no easy matter absolutely to defend him. The points
on which it was held that he had plainly departed from the
orthodox faith, were the four following:—First, That the
souls of men had existed in a previous state, and that their
imprisonment in material bodies was a punishment for sins
which they had then committed. Second, That the human
soul of Christ had also previously existed, and been united
to the Divine nature before that incarnation of the Son of
God which is related in the Gospels. Third, That our
material bodies shall be transformed into absolutely ethereal
// File: f008.png
.pn +1
ones at the resurrection; and fourth, That all men, and
even devils, shall be finally restored through the mediation
of Christ. His principles of interpreting Scripture are also
brought out in this treatise; and while not a little ingenuity
is displayed in illustrating and maintaining them, the serious
errors into which they might too easily lead will be at once
perceived by the reader.
It is much to be regretted that the original Greek of the
De Principiis has for the most part perished. We possess
it chiefly in a Latin translation by Rufinus. And there can
be no doubt that he often took great liberties with his author.
So much was this felt to be the case, that Jerome undertook
a new translation of the work; but only small portions of his
version have reached our day. He strongly accuses Rufinus
of unfaithfulness as an interpreter, while he also inveighs
bitterly against Origen himself, as having departed from
the catholic faith, specially in regard to the doctrine of the
Trinity. There seems, however, after all, no adequate reason
to doubt the substantial orthodoxy of our author, although
the bent of his mind and the nature of his studies led him
to indulge in many vain and unauthorized speculations.
The Epistle to Africanus was drawn forth by a letter
which that learned writer had addressed to Origen respecting
the story of Susanna appended to the book of Daniel.
Africanus had grave doubts as to the canonical authority
of the account. Origen replies to his objections, and seeks
to uphold the story as both useful in itself, and a genuine
portion of the ancient prophetical writings.
The treatise of Origen Against Celsus is, of all his works,
the most interesting to the modern reader. It is a defence
of Christianity in opposition to a Greek philosopher named
Celsus, who had attacked it in a work entitled Ἀληθὴς
Λόγος, that is, The True Word, or The True Discourse. Of
// File: f009.png
.pn +1
this work we know nothing, except from the quotations contained
in the answer given to it by Origen. Nor has anything
very certain been ascertained respecting its author. According
to Origen, he was a follower of Epicurus, but others have
regarded him as a Platonist. If we may judge of the work
by those specimens of it preserved in the reply of Origen,
it was little better than a compound of sophistry and slander.
But there is reason to be grateful for it, as having called forth
the admirable answer of Origen. This work was written in
the old age of our author, and is composed with great care;
while it abounds with proofs of the widest erudition. It is
also perfectly orthodox; and, as Bishop Bull has remarked,
it is only fair that we should judge from a work written
with the view of being considered by the world at large, and
with the most elaborate care, as to the mature and finally
accepted views of the author.
The best edition of Origen’s works is that superintended
by Charles and Charles Vincent de la Rue, Paris 1783,
4 vols. fol., which is reprinted by Migne. There is also an
edition in 25 volumes, based upon that of De la Rue, but
without the Latin translation, by Lommatzsch, Berlin 1831-1848.
The De Principiis has been separately edited by
Redepenning, Leipzig 1836. Spencer edited the Contra
Celsum, Cambridge 1677.
// File: f010.png
.pn +1
// File: f011.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h2 id=intro-prologue
PROLOGUE OF RUFINUS TO THE DE PRINCIPIIS.
.sp 2
I know that very many of the brethren, induced
by their thirst for a knowledge of the Scriptures,
have requested some distinguished men, well
versed in Greek learning, to translate Origen into
Latin, and so make him accessible to Roman readers. Among
these, when our brother and colleague[#] had, at the earnest
entreaty of Bishop Damasus, translated two of the Homilies
on the Song of Songs out of Greek into Latin, he prefixed
so elegant and noble a preface to that work, as to inspire
every one with a most eager desire to read and study Origen,
saying that the expression, “The King hath brought me into
his chamber,”[#] was appropriate to his feelings, and declaring
that while Origen in his other works surpassed all writers, he
in the Song of Songs surpassed even himself. He promises,
indeed, in that very preface, that he will present the books
on the Song of Songs, and numerous others of the works of
Origen, in a Latin translation, to Roman readers. But he,
finding greater pleasure in compositions of his own, pursues an
end that is attended with greater fame, viz. in being the author
rather than the translator of works. Accordingly we enter
upon the undertaking, which was thus begun and approved of
by him, although we cannot compose in a style of elegance
// File: f012.png
.pn +1
equal to that of a man of such distinguished eloquence;
and therefore I am afraid lest, through my fault, the result
should follow, that that man, whom he deservedly esteems as
the second teacher of knowledge and wisdom in the church
after the apostles, should, through the poverty of my language,
appear far inferior to what he is. And this consideration,
which frequently recurred to my mind, kept me silent,
and prevented me from yielding to the numerous entreaties of
my brethren, until your influence, my very faithful brother
Macarius, which is so great, rendered it impossible for my
unskilfulness any longer to offer resistance. And therefore,
that I might not find you too grievous an exactor, I gave
way, even contrary to my resolution; on the condition and
arrangement, however, that in my translation I should follow
as far as possible the rule observed by my predecessors,
and especially by that distinguished man whom I have mentioned
above, who, after translating into Latin more than
seventy of those treatises of Origen which are styled Homilies,
and a considerable number also of his writings on the
apostles, in which a good many “stumbling-blocks” are found
in the original Greek, so smoothed and corrected them in his
translation, that a Latin reader would meet with nothing
which could appear discordant with our belief. His example,
therefore, we follow, to the best of our ability; if not with
equal power of eloquence, yet at least with the same strictness
of rule, taking care not to reproduce those expressions
occurring in the works of Origen which are inconsistent
with and opposed to each other. The cause of these variations
we have explained more freely in the Apologeticus,
which Pamphilus wrote in defence of the works of Origen,
where we added a brief tract, in which we showed, I think,
by unmistakeable proofs, that his books had been corrupted
in numerous places by heretics and malevolent persons, and
especially those books of which you now require me to undertake
the translation, i.e. the books which may be entitled
De Principiis or De Principatibus, and which are indeed in
other respects full of obscurities and difficulties. For he
there discusses those subjects with respect to which philosophers,
// File: f013.png
.pn +1
after spending all their lives upon them, have been
unable to discover anything. But here our author strove, as
much as in him lay, to turn to the service of religion the
belief in a Creator, and the rational nature of created beings,
which the latter had degraded to purposes of wickedness.
If, therefore, we have found anywhere in his writings, any
statement opposed to that view, which elsewhere in his works
he had himself piously laid down regarding the Trinity, we
have either omitted it, as being corrupt, and not the composition
of Origen, or we have brought it forward, agreeably to
the rule which we frequently find affirmed by himself. If,
indeed, in his desire to pass rapidly on, he has, as speaking
to persons of skill and knowledge, sometimes expressed himself
obscurely, we have, in order that the passage might be
clearer, added what we had read more fully stated on the
same subject in his other works, keeping explanation in view,
but adding nothing of our own, but simply restoring to him
what was his, although occurring in other portions of his
writings.
These remarks, therefore, by way of admonition, I have
made in the preface, lest slanderous individuals perhaps
should think that they had a second time discovered matter
of accusation. But let perverse and disputatious men have
a care what they are about. For we have in the meantime
undertaken this heavy labour, if God should aid your prayers,
not to shut the mouths of slanderers (which is impossible,
although God perhaps will do it), but to afford material to
those who desire to advance in the knowledge of these things.
And, verily, in the presence of God the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Spirit, I adjure and beseech every
one, who may either transcribe or read these books, by his
belief in the kingdom to come, by the mystery of the resurrection
from the dead, and by that everlasting fire prepared
for the devil and his angels, that, as he would not possess for
an eternal inheritance that place where there is weeping and
gnashing of teeth, and where their fire is not quenched and
their worm dieth not, he add nothing to Scripture, and take
nothing away from it, and make no insertion or alteration,
// File: f014.png
.pn +1
but that he compare his transcript with the copies from
which he made it, and make the emendations and distinctions
according to the letter, and not have his manuscript incorrect
or indistinct, lest the difficulty of ascertaining the sense, from
the indistinctness of the copy, should cause greater difficulties
to the readers.
.fn #
Jerome is the person alluded to.
.fn-
.fn #
Cant. i. 4.
.fn-
// File: p001.png
.pn 1
.sp 4
.h2 id=de-principiis
ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS.
.sp 2
.h3 id=de-principiis-pref
PREFACE.
.sp 2
1. All who believe and are assured that grace and
truth were obtained through Jesus Christ, and
who know Christ to be the truth, agreeably
to His own declaration, “I am the truth,”[#]
derive the knowledge which incites men to a good and happy
life from no other source than from the very words and
teaching of Christ. And by the words of Christ we do not
mean those only which He spake when He became man and
tabernacled in the flesh; for before that time, Christ, the
Word of God, was in Moses and the prophets. For without
the Word of God, how could they have been able to prophesy
of Christ? And were it not our purpose to confine
the present treatise within the limits of all attainable brevity,
it would not be difficult to show, in proof of this statement,
out of the Holy Scriptures, how Moses or the prophets both
spake and performed all they did through being filled with
the Spirit of Christ. And therefore I think it sufficient to
quote this one testimony of Paul from the Epistle to the
Hebrews, in which he says: “By faith Moses, when he was
come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s
daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the
treasures of the Egyptians.”[#] Moreover, that after His
ascension into heaven He spake in His apostles, is shown
// File: p002.png
.pn +1
by Paul in these words: “Or do you seek a proof of Christ,
who speaketh in me?”[#]
2. Since many, however, of those who profess to believe in
Christ differ from each other, not only in small and trifling
matters, but also on subjects of the highest importance, as
e.g. regarding God, or the Lord Jesus Christ, or the Holy
Spirit; and not only regarding these, but also regarding
others which are created existences, viz. the powers[#] and the
holy virtues;[#] it seems on that account necessary first of all
to fix a definite limit and to lay down an unmistakeable rule
regarding each one of these, and then to pass to the investigation
of other points. For as we ceased to seek for truth
(notwithstanding the professions of many among Greeks and
Barbarians to make it known) among all who claimed it for
erroneous opinions, after we had come to believe that Christ
was the Son of God, and were persuaded that we must learn
it from Himself; so, seeing there are many who think they
hold the opinions of Christ, and yet some of these think differently
from their predecessors, yet as the teaching of the
church, transmitted in orderly succession from the apostles,
and remaining in the churches to the present day, is still preserved,
that alone is to be accepted as truth which differs in
no respect from ecclesiastical and apostolical tradition.
3. Now it ought to be known that the holy apostles, in
preaching the faith of Christ, delivered themselves with the
utmost clearness on certain points which they believed to be
necessary to every one, even to those who seemed somewhat
dull in the investigation of divine knowledge; leaving, however,
the grounds of their statements to be examined into by
those who should deserve the excellent gifts of the Spirit,
and who, especially by means of the Holy Spirit Himself,
should obtain the gift of language, of wisdom, and of knowledge:
while on other subjects they merely stated the fact
that things were so, keeping silence as to the manner or origin
of their existence; clearly in order that the more zealous of
their successors, who should be lovers of wisdom, might have
a subject of exercise on which to display the fruit of their
// File: p003.png
.pn +1
talents,—those persons, I mean, who should prepare themselves
to be fit and worthy receivers of wisdom.
4. The particular points[#] clearly delivered in the teaching
of the apostles are as follow:
First, That there is one God, who created and arranged all
things, and who, when nothing existed, called all things into
being—God from the first creation and foundation of the
world—the God of all just men, of Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos,
Enoch, Noe, Sem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve patriarchs,
Moses, and the prophets; and that this God in the
last days, as He had announced beforehand by His prophets,
sent our Lord Jesus Christ to call in the first place Israel
to Himself, and in the second place the Gentiles, after the
unfaithfulness of the people of Israel. This just and good
God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Himself gave the
law, and the prophets, and the gospels, being also the God of
the apostles and of the Old and New Testaments.
Secondly, That Jesus Christ Himself, who came \[into the
world], was born of the Father before all creatures; that,
after He had been the servant of the Father in the creation
of all things—“For by Him were all things made”[#]—He in
the last times, divesting Himself \[of His glory], became a man,
and was incarnate although God, and while made a man
remained the God which He was; that He assumed a body
like to our own, differing in this respect only, that it was
born of a virgin and of the Holy Spirit: that this Jesus
Christ was truly born, and did truly suffer, and did not
endure this death common \[to man] in appearance only, but
did truly die; that He did truly rise from the dead; and
that after His resurrection He conversed with His disciples,
and was taken up \[into heaven].
Then, thirdly, the apostles related that the Holy Spirit was
associated in honour and dignity with the Father and the
Son. But in His case it is not clearly distinguished whether
He is to be regarded as born or innate,[#] or also as a Son of
// File: p004.png
.pn +1
God or not: for these are points which have to be inquired
into out of sacred Scripture according to the best of our
ability, and which demand careful investigation. And that
this Spirit inspired each one of the saints, whether prophets
or apostles; and that there was not one Spirit in the men of
the old dispensation, and another in those who were inspired
at the advent of Christ, is most clearly taught throughout
the churches.
5. After these points, also, the apostolic teaching is that
the soul, having a substance[#] and life of its own, shall, after
its departure from the world, be rewarded according to its
deserts, being destined to obtain either an inheritance of
eternal life and blessedness, if its actions shall have procured
this for it, or to be delivered up to eternal fire and punishments,
if the guilt of its crimes shall have brought it down to
this: and also, that there is to be a time of resurrection from
the dead, when this body, which now “is sown in corruption,
shall rise in incorruption,” and that which “is sown in dishonour
will rise in glory.”[#] This also is clearly defined in
the teaching of the church, that every rational soul is possessed
of free-will and volition; that it has a struggle to
maintain with the devil and his angels, and opposing influences,[#]
because they strive to burden it with sins; but if
we live rightly and wisely, we should endeavour to shake
ourselves free of a burden of that kind. From which it
follows, also, that we understand ourselves not to be subject
to necessity, so as to be compelled by all means, even against
our will, to do either good or evil. For if we are our own
masters, some influences perhaps may impel us to sin, and
others help us to salvation; we are not forced, however, by
any necessity either to act rightly or wrongly, which those
// File: p005.png
.pn +1
persons think is the case who say that the courses and movements
of the stars are the cause of human actions, not only
of those which take place beyond the influence of the freedom
of the will, but also of those which are placed within our own
power. But with respect to the soul, whether it is derived
from the seed by a process of traducianism, so that the reason
or substance of it may be considered as placed in the seminal
particles of the body themselves, or whether it has any other
beginning; and this beginning itself, whether it be by birth
or not, or whether bestowed upon the body from without or
no, is not distinguished with sufficient clearness in the teaching
of the church.
6. Regarding the devil and his angels, and the opposing
influences, the teaching of the church has laid down that
these beings exist indeed; but what they are, or how they
exist, it has not explained with sufficient clearness. This
opinion, however, is held by most, that the devil was an angel,
and that, having become an apostate, he induced as many of
the angels as possible to fall away with himself, and these
up to the present time are called his angels.
7. This also is a part of the church’s teaching, that the
world was made and took its beginning at a certain time, and
is to be destroyed on account of its wickedness. But what
existed before this world, or what will exist after it, has not
become certainly known to the many, for there is no clear
statement regarding it in the teaching of the church.
8. Then, finally, that the Scriptures were written by the
Spirit of God, and have a meaning, not such only as is apparent
at first sight, but also another, which escapes the notice
of most. For those \[words] which are written are the forms
of certain mysteries,[#] and the images of divine things. Respecting
which there is one opinion throughout the whole
church, that the whole law is indeed spiritual; but that the
spiritual meaning which the law conveys is not known to all,
but to those only on whom the grace of the Holy Spirit is
bestowed in the word of wisdom and knowledge.
The term ἀσώματον, i.e. incorporeal, is disused and unknown,
// File: p006.png
.pn +1
not only in many other writings, but also in our own
Scriptures. And if any one should quote it to us out of the
little treatise entitled The Doctrine of Peter,[#] in which the
Saviour seems to say to His disciples, “I am not an incorporeal
demon,”[#] I have to reply, in the first place, that that work
is not included among ecclesiastical books; for we can show
that it was not composed either by Peter or by any other
person inspired by the Spirit of God. But even if the point
were to be conceded, the word ἀσώματον there does not convey
the same meaning as is intended by Greek and Gentile
authors when incorporeal nature is discussed by philosophers.
For in the little treatise referred to he used the phrase
“incorporeal demon” to denote that that form or outline
of demoniacal body, whatever it is, does not resemble this
gross and visible body of ours; but, agreeably to the intention
of the author of the treatise, it must be understood to
mean that He had not such a body as demons have, which
is naturally fine,[#] and thin as if formed of air (and for this
reason is either considered or called by many incorporeal),
but that He had a solid and palpable body. Now, according
to human custom, everything which is not of that nature is
called by the simple or ignorant incorporeal; as if one were to
say that the air which we breathe was incorporeal, because
it is not a body of such a nature as can be grasped and held,
or can offer resistance to pressure.
9. We shall inquire, however, whether the thing which
Greek philosophers call ἀσώματον, or “incorporeal,” is found
// File: p007.png
.pn +1
in holy Scripture under another name. For it is also to be
a subject of investigation how God Himself is to be understood,—whether
as corporeal, and formed according to some
shape, or of a different nature from bodies,—a point which is
not clearly indicated in our teaching. And the same inquiries
have to be made regarding Christ and the Holy Spirit, as
well as respecting every soul, and everything possessed of a
rational nature.
10. This also is a part of the teaching of the church, that
there are certain angels of God, and certain good influences,
which are His servants in accomplishing the salvation of men.
When these, however, were created, or of what nature they
are, or how they exist, is not clearly stated. Regarding the
sun, moon, and stars, whether they are living beings or without
life, there is no distinct deliverance.
Every one, therefore, must make use of elements and
foundations of this sort, according to the precept, “Enlighten
yourselves with the light of knowledge,”[#] if he would desire
to form a connected series and body of truths agreeably to
the reason of all these things, that by clear and necessary statements
he may ascertain the truth regarding each individual
topic, and form, as we have said, one body of doctrine, by
means of illustrations and arguments,—either those which he
has discovered in holy Scripture, or which he has deduced by
closely tracing out the consequences and following a correct
method.
.fn #
John xiv. 6.
.fn-
.fn #
Heb. xi. 24-26.
.fn-
.fn #
2 Cor. xiii. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
Dominationes.
.fn-
.fn #
Virtutes.
.fn-
.fn #
Species.
.fn-
.fn #
John i. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
Innatus. The words which Rufinus has rendered “natus an innatus”
are rendered by Jerome in his Epistle to Avitus (94 alias 59), “factus
an infectus.” Criticising the errors in the first book of the Principles,
he says: “Origen declares the Holy Spirit to be third in dignity and
honour after the Father and the Son; and although professing ignorance
whether he were created or not (factus an infectus), he indicated afterwards
his opinion regarding him, maintaining that nothing was uncreated
except God the Father.” Jerome, no doubt, read γενητὸς ἢ ἀγένητος,
and Rufinus γεννητὸς ἢ ἀγέννητος.—R.
.fn-
.fn #
Substantia.
.fn-
.fn #
1 Cor. xv. 42.
.fn-
.fn #
Virtutes.
.fn-
.fn #
Sacramentorum.
.fn-
.fn #
Eusebius (Eccles. Hist. iii. c. 36), treating of Ignatius, quotes from
his Epistle to the Church of Smyrna as follows: “Writing to the
Smyrnæans, he (Ignatius) has also employed words respecting Jesus, I
know not whence they are taken, to the following effect: ‘But I know
and believe that He was seen after the resurrection; and when He came
to Peter and his companions, He said to them, Take and handle me,
and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit.’” Jerome, in his catalogue
of ecclesiastical writers, says the words are a quotation from the
Gospel of the Nazarenes, a work which he had recently translated.
Origen here quotes them, however, from The Doctrine of Peter, on which
Ruæus remarks that the words might be contained in both of these
apocryphal works.
.fn-
.fn #
Dæmonium.
.fn-
.fn #
Subtile.
.fn-
.fn #
Hos. x. 12. The words in the text are not the rendering of the
authorized version, but that of the Septuagint, which has φωτίσατε
ἑαυτοῖς φῶς γνώσεως. Where the Masoretic text has וְעֵת (et tempus)
Origen evidently read דַּעַת (scientia), the similarity of Vau and Daleth
accounting for the error of the transcriber.
.fn-
// File: p008.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h3 id=de-principiis-book-1
BOOK I.
.sp 2
.h4 id=de-principiis-b1-c1
CHAPTER I. | ON GOD.
.sp 2
1. I know that some will attempt to say that, even
according to the declarations of our own Scriptures,
God is a body, because in the writings
of Moses they find it said, that “our God is a
consuming fire;”[#] and in the Gospel according to John,
that “God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth.”[#] Fire and spirit,
according to them, are to be regarded as nothing else than
a body. Now, I should like to ask these persons what they
have to say respecting that passage where it is declared that
God is light; as John writes in his epistle, “God is light,
and in Him there is no darkness at all.”[#] Truly He is that
light which illuminates the whole understanding of those
who are capable of receiving truth, as is said in the thirty-sixth
Psalm, “In Thy light we shall see light.”[#] For what
other light of God can be named, “in which any one sees
light,” save an influence of God, by which a man, being
enlightened, either thoroughly sees the truth of all things,
or comes to know God Himself, who is called the truth?
Such is the meaning of the expression, “In Thy light we
shall see light;” i.e. in Thy word and wisdom, which is Thy
Son, in Himself we shall see Thee the Father. Because He
is called light, shall He be supposed to have any resemblance
to the light of the sun? Or how should there be the
// File: p009.png
.pn +1
slightest ground for imagining, that from that corporeal
light any one could derive the cause of knowledge, and come
to the understanding of the truth?
2. If, then, they acquiesce in our assertion, which reason
itself has demonstrated, regarding the nature of light, and
acknowledge that God cannot be understood to be a body in
the sense that light is, similar reasoning will hold true of the
expression “a consuming fire.” For what will God consume
in respect of His being fire? Shall He be thought to
consume material substance, as wood, or hay, or stubble?
And what in this view can be called worthy of the glory of
God, if He be a fire, consuming materials of that kind?
But let us reflect that God does indeed consume and utterly
destroy; that He consumes evil thoughts, wicked actions,
and sinful desires, when they find their way into the minds
of believers; and that, inhabiting along with His Son those
souls which are rendered capable of receiving His word and
wisdom, according to His own declaration, “I and the
Father shall come, and we shall make our abode with him,”[#]
He makes them, after all their vices and passions have been
consumed, a holy temple, worthy of Himself. Those, moreover,
who, on account of the expression “God is a Spirit,”
think that He is a body, are to be answered, I think, in the
following manner. It is the custom of sacred Scripture,
when it wishes to designate anything opposed to this gross
and solid body, to call it spirit, as in the expression, “The
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life,”[#] where there can be
no doubt that by “letter” are meant bodily things, and by
“spirit” intellectual things, which we also term “spiritual.”
The apostle, moreover, says, “Even unto this day, when
Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart: nevertheless,
when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away:
and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”[#] For
so long as any one is not converted to a spiritual understanding,
a veil is placed over his heart, with which veil, i.e. a
gross understanding, Scripture itself is said or thought to be
covered: and this is the meaning of the statement that a
// File: p010.png
.pn +1
veil was placed over the countenance of Moses when he
spoke to the people, i.e. when the law was publicly read
aloud. But if we turn to the Lord, where also is the word
of God, and where the Holy Spirit reveals spiritual knowledge,
then the veil is taken away, and with unveiled face
we shall behold the glory of the Lord in the holy Scriptures.
3. And since many saints participate in the Holy Spirit,
He cannot therefore be understood to be a body, which being
divided into corporeal parts, is partaken of by each one of
the saints; but He is manifestly a sanctifying power, in
which all are said to have a share who have deserved to be
sanctified by His grace. And in order that what we say
may be more easily understood, let us take an illustration
from things very dissimilar. There are many persons who
take a part in the science[#] or art of medicine: are we therefore
to suppose that those who do so take to themselves the
particles of some body called medicine, which is placed
before them, and in this way participate in the same? Or
must we not rather understand that all who with quick and
trained minds come to understand the art and discipline
itself, may be said to be partakers of the art of healing?
But these are not to be deemed altogether parallel instances
in a comparison of medicine to the Holy Spirit, as they
have been adduced only to establish that that is not necessarily
to be considered a body, a share in which is possessed
by many individuals. For the Holy Spirit differs widely
from the method or science of medicine, in respect that the
Holy Spirit is an intellectual existence,[#] and subsists and
exists in a peculiar manner, whereas medicine is not at all of
that nature.
4. But we must pass on to the language of the Gospel
itself, in which it is declared that “God is a Spirit,” and
where we have to show how that is to be understood agreeably
to what we have stated. For let us inquire on what occasion
these words were spoken by the Saviour, before whom He
uttered them, and what was the subject of investigation.
We find, without any doubt, that He spoke these words to
// File: p011.png
.pn +1
the Samaritan woman, saying to her, who thought, agreeably
to the Samaritan view, that God ought to be worshipped on
Mount Gerizim, that “God is a Spirit.” For the Samaritan
woman, believing Him to be a Jew, was inquiring of Him
whether God ought to be worshipped in Jerusalem or on
this mountain; and her words were, “All our fathers worshipped
on this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is
the place where we ought to worship.”[#] To this opinion of
the Samaritan woman, therefore, who imagined that God was
less rightly or duly worshipped, according to the privileges of
the different localities, either by the Jews in Jerusalem or
by the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim, the Saviour answered
that he who would follow the Lord must lay aside all preference
for particular places, and thus expressed Himself:
“The hour is coming when neither in Jerusalem nor
on this mountain shall the true worshippers worship the
Father. God is a Spirit, and they who worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth.”[#] And observe how
logically He has joined together the spirit and the truth:
He called God a Spirit, that He might distinguish Him from
bodies; and He named Him the truth, to distinguish Him
from a shadow or an image. For they who worshipped in
Jerusalem worshipped God neither in truth nor in spirit,
being in subjection to the shadow or image of heavenly
things; and such also was the case with those who worshipped
on Mount Gerizim.
5. Having refuted, then, as well as we could, every notion
which might suggest that we were to think of God as in any
degree corporeal, we go on to say that, according to strict
truth, God is incomprehensible, and incapable of being
measured.[#] For whatever be the knowledge which we are
able to obtain of God, either by perception or reflection, we
must of necessity believe that He is by many degrees far
better than what we perceive Him to be. For, as if we were
to see any one unable to bear a spark of light, or the flame
of a very small lamp, and were desirous to acquaint such
a one, whose vision could not admit a greater degree of
// File: p012.png
.pn +1
light than what we have stated, with the brightness and
splendour of the sun, would it not be necessary to tell him
that the splendour of the sun was unspeakably and incalculably
better and more glorious than all this light which
he saw? So our understanding, when shut in by the fetters
of flesh and blood, and rendered, on account of its participation
in such material substances, duller and more obtuse,
although, in comparison with our bodily nature, it is esteemed
to be far superior, yet, in its efforts to examine and behold
incorporeal things, scarcely holds the place of a spark or
lamp. But among all intelligent, that is, incorporeal beings,
what is so superior to all others—so unspeakably and incalculably
superior—as God, whose nature cannot be grasped
or seen by the power of any human understanding, even the
purest and brightest?
6. But it will not appear absurd if we employ another
similitude to make the matter clearer. Our eyes frequently
cannot look upon the nature of the light itself—that is, upon
the substance of the sun; but when we behold his splendour
or his rays pouring in, perhaps, through windows or some
small openings to admit the light, we can reflect how great
is the supply and source of the light of the body. So, in
like manner, the works of Divine Providence and the plan
of this whole world are a sort of rays, as it were, of the
nature of God, in comparison with His real substance and
being. As, therefore, our understanding is unable of itself
to behold God Himself as He is, it knows the Father of
the world from the beauty of His works and the comeliness
of His creatures. God, therefore, is not to be thought of as
being either a body or as existing in a body, but as an uncompounded
intellectual nature,[#] admitting within Himself
no addition of any kind; so that He cannot be believed to
have within Him a greater and a less, but is such that He is
in all parts Μονάς, and, so to speak, Ἑνάς, and is the mind
and source from which all intellectual nature or mind takes its
beginning. But mind, for its movements or operations, needs
no physical space, nor sensible magnitude, nor bodily shape,
// File: p013.png
.pn +1
nor colour, nor any other of those adjuncts which are the properties
of body or matter. Wherefore that simple and wholly
intellectual nature[#] can admit of no delay or hesitation in its
movements or operations, lest the simplicity of the divine
nature should appear to be circumscribed or in some degree
hampered by such adjuncts, and lest that which is the beginning
of all things should be found composite and differing,
and that which ought to be free from all bodily intermixture,
in virtue of being the one sole species of Deity, so to speak,
should prove, instead of being one, to consist of many things.
That mind, moreover, does not require space in order to carry
on its movements agreeably to its nature, is certain from
observation of our own mind. For if the mind abide within
its own limits, and sustain no injury from any cause, it will
never, from diversity of situation, be retarded in the discharge
of its functions; nor, on the other hand, does it gain any
addition or increase of mobility from the nature of particular
places. And here, if any one were to object, for example,
that among those who are at sea, and tossed by its waves, the
mind is considerably less vigorous than it is wont to be on land,
we are to believe that it is in this state, not from diversity of
situation, but from the commotion or disturbance of the body
to which the mind is joined or attached. For it seems to be
contrary to nature, as it were, for a human body to live at
sea; and for that reason it appears, by a sort of inequality of
its own, to enter upon its mental operations in a slovenly and
irregular manner, and to perform the acts of the intellect
with a duller sense, in as great degree as those who on land
are prostrated with fever; with respect to whom it is certain,
that if the mind do not discharge its functions as well as
before, in consequence of the attack of disease, the blame is
to be laid not upon the place, but upon the bodily malady, by
which the body, being disturbed and disordered, renders to
the mind its customary services under by no means the well-known
and natural conditions: for we human beings are
animals composed of a union of body and soul, and in this way
\[only] was it possible for us to live upon the earth. But God,
// File: p014.png
.pn +1
who is the beginning of all things, is not to be regarded as
a composite being, lest perchance there should be found to
exist elements prior to the beginning itself, out of which
everything is composed, whatever that be which is called
composite. Neither does the mind require bodily magnitude
in order to perform any act or movement; as when the eye
by gazing upon bodies of larger size is dilated, but is compressed
and contracted in order to see smaller objects. The
mind, indeed, requires magnitude of an intellectual kind,
because it grows, not after the fashion of a body, but after that
of intelligence. For the mind is not enlarged, together with
the body, by means of corporal additions, up to the twentieth
or thirtieth year of life; but the intellect is sharpened by exercises
of learning, and the powers implanted within it for intelligent
purposes are called forth; and it is rendered capable
of greater intellectual efforts, not being increased by bodily
additions, but carefully polished by learned exercises. But
these it cannot receive immediately from boyhood, or from
birth, because the framework of limbs which the mind employs
as organs for exercising itself is weak and feeble; and it is
unable to bear the weight of its own operations, or to exhibit
a capacity for receiving training.
7. If there are any now who think that the mind itself
and the soul is a body, I wish they would tell me by way of
answer how it receives reasons and assertions on subjects
of such importance—of such difficulty and such subtlety?
Whence does it derive the power of memory? and whence
comes the contemplation of invisible[#] things? How does the
body possess the faculty of understanding incorporeal existences?
How does a bodily nature investigate the processes
of the various arts, and contemplate the reasons of things?
How, also, is it able to perceive and understand divine truths,
which are manifestly incorporeal? Unless, indeed, some
should happen to be of opinion, that as the very bodily shape
and form of the ears or eyes contributes something to hearing
and to sight, and as the individual members, formed by God,
have some adaptation, even from the very quality of their
// File: p015.png
.pn +1
form, to the end for which they were naturally appointed;
so also he may think that the shape of the soul or mind is to
be understood as if created purposely and designedly for perceiving
and understanding individual things, and for being
set in motion by vital movements. I do not perceive, however,
who shall be able to describe or state what is the colour
of the mind, in respect of its being mind, and acting as an
intelligent existence. Moreover, in confirmation and explanation
of what we have already advanced regarding the
mind or soul—to the effect that it is better than the whole
bodily nature—the following remarks may be added. There
underlies every bodily sense a certain peculiar sensible substance,[#]
on which the bodily sense exerts itself. For example,
colours, form, size, underlie vision; voices and sound, the
sense of hearing; odours, good or bad, that of smell; savours,
that of taste; heat or cold, hardness or softness, roughness or
smoothness, that of touch. Now, of those senses enumerated
above, it is manifest to all that the sense of mind is much the
best. How, then, should it not appear absurd, that under
those senses which are inferior, substances should have been
placed on which to exert their powers, but that under this
power, which is far better than any other, i.e. the sense of
mind, nothing at all of the nature of a substance should be
placed, but that a power of an intellectual nature should be
an accident, or consequent upon bodies? Those who assert
this, doubtless do so to the disparagement of that better substance
which is within them; nay, by so doing, they even do
wrong to God Himself, when they imagine He may be understood
by means of a bodily nature, so that according to their
view He is a body, and that which may be understood or
perceived by means of a body; and they are unwilling to
have it understood that the mind bears a certain relationship
to God, of whom the mind itself is an intellectual image, and
that by means of this it may come to some knowledge of the
nature of divinity, especially if it be purified and separated
from bodily matter.
8. But perhaps these declarations may seem to have less
// File: p016.png
.pn +1
weight with those who wish to be instructed in divine things
out of the holy Scriptures, and who seek to have it proved
to them from that source how the nature of God surpasses
the nature of bodies. See, therefore, if the apostle does not
say the same thing, when, speaking of Christ, he declares,
that “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born
of every creature.”[#] Not, as some suppose, that the nature
of God is visible to some and invisible to others: for the
apostle does not say “the image of God invisible” to men or
“invisible” to sinners, but with unvarying constancy pronounces
on the nature of God in these words: “the image
of the invisible God.” Moreover, John in his Gospel, when
asserting that “no one hath seen God at any time,”[#] manifestly
declares to all who are capable of understanding, that
there is no nature to which God is visible: not as if He were
a being who was visible by nature, and merely escaped or
baffled the view of a frailer creature, but because by the
nature of His being it is impossible for Him to be seen.
And if you should ask of me what is my opinion regarding
the Only-begotten Himself, whether the nature of God, which
is naturally invisible, be not visible even to Him, let not such
a question appear to you at once to be either absurd or impious,
because we shall give you a logical reason. It is one
thing to see, and another to know: to see and to be seen is a
property of bodies; to know and to be known, an attribute of
intellectual being. Whatever, therefore, is a property of
bodies, cannot be predicated either of the Father or of the
Son; but what belongs to the nature of deity is common to
the Father and the Son.[#] Finally, even He Himself, in the
Gospel, did not say that no one has seen the Father, save the
Son, nor any one the Son, save the Father; but His words
are: “No one knoweth the Son, save the Father; nor any
one the Father, save the Son.”[#] By which it is clearly shown,
that whatever among bodily natures is called seeing and being
seen, is termed, between the Father and the Son, a knowing
and being known, by means of the power of knowledge, not
// File: p017.png
.pn +1
by the frailness of the sense of sight. Because, then, neither
seeing nor being seen can be properly applied to an incorporeal
and invisible nature, neither is the Father, in the
Gospel, said to be seen by the Son, nor the Son by the Father,
but the one is said to be known by the other.
9. Here, if any one lay before us the passage where it
is said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God,”[#] from that very passage, in my opinion, will our
position derive additional strength; for what else is seeing
God in heart, but, according to our exposition as above,
understanding and knowing Him with the mind? For the
names of the organs of sense are frequently applied to the
soul, so that it may be said to see with the eyes of the heart,
i.e. to perform an intellectual act by means of the power of
intelligence. So also it is said to hear with the ears when it
perceives the deeper meaning of a statement. So also we say
that it makes use of teeth, when it chews and eats the bread
of life which cometh down from heaven. In like manner,
also, it is said to employ the services of other members, which
are transferred from their bodily appellations, and applied to
the powers of the soul, according to the words of Solomon,
“You will find a divine sense.”[#] For he knew that there
were within us two kinds of senses: the one mortal, corruptible,
human; the other immortal and intellectual, which he
now termed divine. By this divine sense, therefore, not of
the eyes, but of a pure heart, which is the mind, God may be
seen by those who are worthy. For you will certainly find
in all the Scriptures, both old and new, the term “heart”
repeatedly used instead of “mind,” i.e. intellectual power.
In this manner, therefore, although far below the dignity of
the subject, have we spoken of the nature of God, as those
who understand it under the limitation of the human understanding.
In the next place, let us see what is meant by the
name of Christ.
.fn #
Deut. iv. 24.
.fn-
.fn #
John iv. 24.
.fn-
.fn #
1 John i. 5.
.fn-
.fn #
Ps. xxxvi. 9.
.fn-
.fn #
John xiv. 23.
.fn-
.fn #
2 Cor. iii. 6.
.fn-
.fn #
2 Cor. iii. 15-17.
.fn-
.fn #
Disciplina.
.fn-
.fn #
Subsistentia.
.fn-
.fn #
John iv. 20.
.fn-
.fn #
John iv. 23, 24.
.fn-
.fn #
“Inæstimabilem.”
.fn-
.fn #
“Simplex intellectualis natura.”
.fn-
.fn #
“Natura illa simplex et tota mens.”
.fn-
.fn #
Some read “visible.”
.fn-
.fn #
“Substantia quædam sensibilis propria.”
.fn-
.fn #
Col. i. 15.
.fn-
.fn #
John i. 18.
.fn-
.fn #
“Constat inter Patrem et Filium.”
.fn-
.fn #
Matt. xi. 27.
.fn-
.fn #
Matt. v. 8.
.fn-
.fn #
Cf. Prov. ii. 5.
.fn-
// File: p018.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h4 id=de-principiis-b1-c2
CHAPTER II. | ON CHRIST.
.sp 2
1. In the first place, we must note that the nature of that
deity which is in Christ in respect of His being the only-begotten
Son of God is one thing, and that human nature which
He assumed in these last times for the purposes of the dispensation
[of grace] is another. And therefore we have first
to ascertain what the only-begotten Son of God is, seeing He
is called by many different names, according to the circumstances
and views of individuals. For He is termed Wisdom,
according to the expression of Solomon: “The Lord created
me—the beginning of His ways, and among His works,
before He made any other thing; He founded me before the
ages. In the beginning, before He formed the earth, before
He brought forth the fountains of waters, before the mountains
were made strong, before all the hills, He brought me
forth.”[#] He is also styled First-born, as the apostle has
declared: “who is the first-born of every creature.”[#] The
first-born, however, is not by nature a different person from
the Wisdom, but one and the same. Finally, the Apostle
Paul says that “Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom
of God.”[#]
2. Let no one, however, imagine that we mean anything
impersonal[#] when we call Him the wisdom of God; or
suppose, for example, that we understand Him to be, not a
living being endowed with wisdom, but something which
makes men wise, giving itself to, and implanting itself in, the
minds of those who are made capable of receiving His virtues
and intelligence. If, then, it is once rightly understood that
the only-begotten Son of God is His wisdom hypostatically[#]
existing, I know not whether our curiosity ought to advance
beyond this, or entertain any suspicion that that ὑπόστασις
// File: p019.png
.pn +1
or substantia contains anything of a bodily nature, since
everything that is corporeal is distinguished either by form,
or colour, or magnitude. And who in his sound senses ever
sought for form, or colour, or size, in wisdom, in respect of
its being wisdom? And who that is capable of entertaining
reverential thoughts or feelings regarding God, can suppose
or believe that God the Father ever existed, even for a
moment of time,[#] without having generated this Wisdom?
For in that case he must say either that God was unable to
generate Wisdom before He produced her, so that He afterwards
called into being her who formerly did not exist, or
that He possessed the power indeed, but—what cannot be
said of God without impiety—was unwilling to use it; both
of which suppositions, it is patent to all, are alike absurd and
impious: for they amount to this, either that God advanced
from a condition of inability to one of ability, or that, although
possessed of the power, He concealed it, and delayed the
generation of Wisdom. Wherefore we have always held
that God is the Father of His only-begotten Son, who was
born indeed of Him, and derives from Him what He is, but
without any beginning, not only such as may be measured by
any divisions of time, but even that which the mind alone
can contemplate within itself, or behold, so to speak, with
the naked powers of the understanding. And therefore we
must believe that Wisdom was generated before any beginning
that can be either comprehended or expressed. And since
all the creative power of the coming creation[#] was included
in this very existence of Wisdom (whether of those things
which have an original or of those which have a derived
existence), having been formed beforehand and arranged by
the power of foreknowledge; on account of these very
creatures which had been described, as it were, and prefigured
in Wisdom herself, does Wisdom say, in the words
of Solomon, that she was created the beginning of the ways
of God, inasmuch as she contained within herself either the
beginnings, or forms, or species of all creation.
// File: p020.png
.pn +1
3. Now, in the same way in which we have understood
that Wisdom was the beginning of the ways of God, and is
said to be created, forming beforehand and containing within
herself the species and beginnings of all creatures, must we
understand her to be the Word of God, because of her disclosing
to all other beings, i.e. to universal creation, the
nature of the mysteries and secrets which are contained
within the divine wisdom; and on this account she is called
the Word, because she is, as it were, the interpreter of the
secrets of the mind. And therefore that language which
is found in the Acts of Paul,[#] where it is said that “here is
the Word a living being,” appears to me to be rightly used.
John, however, with more sublimity and propriety, says in
the beginning of his Gospel, when defining God by a special
definition to be the Word, “And God was the Word,[#] and
this was in the beginning with God.” Let him, then, who
assigns a beginning to the Word or Wisdom of God, take care
that he be not guilty of impiety against the unbegotten
Father Himself, seeing he denies that He had always been
a Father, and had generated the Word, and had possessed
wisdom in all preceding periods, whether they be called times
or ages, or anything else that can be so entitled.
4. This Son, accordingly, is also the truth and life of all
things which exist. And with reason. For how could those
things which were created live, unless they derived their
being from life? or how could those things which are,
truly exist, unless they came down from the truth? or how
could rational beings exist, unless the Word or reason had
previously existed? or how could they be wise, unless there
were wisdom? But since it was to come to pass that some
also should fall away from life, and bring death upon themselves
by their declension—for death is nothing else than a
// File: p021.png
.pn +1
departure from life—and as it was not to follow that those
beings which had once been created by God for the enjoyment
of life should utterly perish, it was necessary that,
before death, there should be in existence such a power as
would destroy the coming death, and that there should be a
resurrection, the type of which was in our Lord and Saviour,
and that this resurrection should have its ground in the
wisdom and word and life of God. And then, in the next
place, since some of those who were created were not to be
always willing to remain unchangeable and unalterable in
the calm and moderate enjoyment of the blessings which they
possessed, but, in consequence of the good which was in
them being theirs not by nature or essence, but by accident,
were to be perverted and changed, and to fall away from
their position, therefore was the Word and Wisdom of God
made the Way. And it was so termed because it leads to the
Father those who walk along it.
Whatever, therefore, we have predicated of the wisdom of
God, will be appropriately applied and understood of the Son
of God, in virtue of His being the Life, and the Word, and
the Truth, and the Resurrection: for all these titles are
derived from His power and operations, and in none of them
is there the slightest ground for understanding anything of a
corporeal nature which might seem to denote either size, or
form, or colour; for those children of men which appear
among us, or those descendants of other living beings, correspond
to the seed of those by whom they were begotten,
or derive from those mothers, in whose wombs they are
formed and nourished, whatever that is, which they bring
into this life, and carry with them when they are born.[#] But
it is monstrous and unlawful to compare God the Father, in
the generation of His only-begotten Son, and in the substance[#]
// File: p022.png
.pn +1
of the same, to any man or other living thing engaged
in such an act; for we must of necessity hold that there is
something exceptional and worthy of God which does not
admit of any comparison at all, not merely in things, but
which cannot even be conceived by thought or discovered
by perception, so that a human mind should be able to apprehend
how the unbegotten God is made the Father of the
only-begotten Son. Because His generation is as eternal
and everlasting as the brilliancy which is produced from the
sun. For it is not by receiving the[#] breath of life that He
is made a Son, by any outward act, but by His own nature.
5. Let us now ascertain how those statements which we
have advanced are supported by the authority of holy Scripture.
The Apostle Paul says, that the only-begotten Son is
the “image of the invisible God,” and “the first-born of
every creature.”[#] And when writing to the Hebrews, he
says of Him that He is “the brightness of His glory, and
the express image of His person.”[#] Now, we find in the
treatise called the Wisdom of Solomon the following description
of the wisdom of God: “For she is the breath of the
power of God, and the purest efflux[#] of the glory of the
Almighty.”[#] Nothing that is polluted can therefore come
upon her. For she is the splendour of the eternal light, and
the stainless mirror of God’s working, and the image of His
goodness. Now we say, as before, that Wisdom has her existence
nowhere else save in Him who is the beginning of all
things: from whom also is derived everything that is wise,
because He Himself is the only one who is by nature a Son,
and is therefore termed the Only-begotten.
6. Let us now see how we are to understand the expression
“invisible image,” that we may in this way perceive
how God is rightly called the Father of His Son; and let
// File: p023.png
.pn +1
us, in the first place, draw our conclusions from what are
customarily called images among men. That is sometimes
called an image which is painted or sculptured on some material
substance, such as wood or stone; and sometimes a
child is called the image of his parent, when the features of
the child in no respect belie their resemblance to the father.
I think, therefore, that that man who was formed after the
image and likeness of God may be fittingly compared to the
first illustration. Respecting him, however, we shall see more
precisely, God willing, when we come to expound the passage
in Genesis. But the image of the Son of God, of whom we
are now speaking, may be compared to the second of the
above examples, even in respect of this, that He is the invisible
image of the invisible God, in the same manner as we
say, according to the sacred history, that the image of Adam
is his son Seth. The words are, “And Adam begat Seth in
his own likeness, and after his own image.”[#] Now this
image contains the unity of nature and substance belonging
to Father and Son. For if the Son do, in like manner, all
those things which the Father doth, then, in virtue of the
Son doing all things like the Father, is the image of the
Father formed in the Son, who is born of Him, like an act
of His will proceeding from the mind. And I am therefore
of opinion that the will of the Father ought alone to be sufficient
for the existence of that which He wishes to exist. For
in the exercise of His will He employs no other way than
that which is made known by the counsel of His will. And
thus also the existence[#] of the Son is generated by Him.
For this point must above all others be maintained by those
who allow nothing to be unbegotten, i.e. unborn, save God
the Father only. And we must be careful not to fall into
the absurdities of those who picture to themselves certain
emanations, so as to divide the divine nature into parts, and
who divide God the Father as far as they can, since even to
entertain the remotest suspicion of such a thing regarding
an incorporeal being is not only the height of impiety, but a
mark of the greatest folly, it being most remote from any intelligent
// File: p024.png
.pn +1
conception that there should be any physical division
of any incorporeal nature. Rather, therefore, as an act of the
will proceeds from the understanding, and neither cuts off any
part nor is separated or divided from it, so after some such
fashion is the Father to be supposed as having begotten the
Son, His own image; namely, so that, as He is Himself invisible
by nature, He also begat an image that was invisible.
For the Son is the Word, and therefore we are not to understand
that anything in Him is cognisable by the senses.
He is wisdom, and in wisdom there can be no suspicion of
anything corporeal. He is the true light, which enlightens
every man that cometh into this world; but He has nothing
in common with the light of this sun. Our Saviour, therefore,
is the image of the invisible God, inasmuch as compared
with the Father Himself He is the truth: and as compared
with us, to whom He reveals the Father, He is the image
by which we come to the knowledge of the Father, whom no
one knows save the Son, and he to whom the Son is pleased
to reveal Him. And the method of revealing Him is through
the understanding. For He by whom the Son Himself is
understood, understands, as a consequence, the Father also,
according to His own words: “He that hath seen me, hath
seen the Father also.”[#]
7. But since we quoted the language of Paul regarding
Christ, where he says of Him that He is “the brightness
of the glory of God, and the express figure of his person,”[#]
let us see what idea we are to form of this. According to
John, “God is light.” The only-begotten Son, therefore, is
the glory of this light, proceeding inseparably from [God]
Himself, as brightness does from light, and illuminating the
whole of creation. For, agreeably to what we have already
explained as to the manner in which He is the Way, and
conducts to the Father; and in which He is the Word,
interpreting the secrets of wisdom, and the mysteries of
knowledge, making them known to the rational creation;
and is also the Truth, and the Life, and the Resurrection,—in
the same way ought we to understand also the meaning of
// File: p025.png
.pn +1
His being the brightness: for it is by its splendour that we
understand and feel what light itself is. And this splendour,
presenting itself gently and softly to the frail and weak eyes
of mortals, and gradually training, as it were, and accustoming
them to bear the brightness of the light, when it has put
away from them every hindrance and obstruction to vision,
according to the Lord’s own precept, “Cast forth the beam
out of thine eye,”[#] renders them capable of enduring the
splendour of the light, being made in this respect also a sort
of mediator between men and the light.
8. But since He is called by the apostle not only the
brightness of His glory, but also the express figure of His
person or subsistence,[#] it does not seem idle to inquire how
there can be said to be another figure of that person besides
the person of God Himself, whatever be the meaning of
person and subsistence. Consider, then, whether the Son of
God, seeing He is His Word and Wisdom, and alone knows
the Father, and reveals Him to whom He will (i.e. to those
who are capable of receiving His word and wisdom), may not,
in regard of this very point of making God to be understood
and acknowledged, be called the figure of His person and
subsistence; that is, when that Wisdom, which desires to
make known to others the means by which God is acknowledged
and understood by them, describes Himself first of all,
it may by so doing be called the express figure of the person
of God. In order, however, to arrive at a fuller understanding
of the manner in which the Saviour is the figure of the
person or subsistence of God, let us take an instance, which,
although it does not describe the subject of which we are
treating either fully or appropriately, may nevertheless be
seen to be employed for this purpose only, to show that the
Son of God, who was in the form of God, divesting Himself
[of His glory], makes it His object, by this very divesting of
Himself, to demonstrate to us the fulness of His deity. For
instance, suppose that there were a statue of so enormous a
size as to fill the whole world, and which on that account
could be seen by no one; and that another statue were
// File: p026.png
.pn +1
formed altogether resembling it in the shape of the limbs,
and in the features of the countenance, and in form and
material, but without the same immensity of size, so that
those who were unable to behold the one of enormous proportions,
should, on seeing the latter, acknowledge that they
had seen the former, because it preserved all the features
of its limbs and countenance, and even the very form and
material, so closely, as to be altogether undistinguishable
from it; by some such similitude, the Son of God, divesting
Himself of His equality with the Father, and showing to us
the way to the knowledge of Him, is made the express image
of His person: so that we, who were unable to look upon
the glory of that marvellous light when placed in the greatness
of His Godhead, may, by His being made to us brightness,
obtain the means of beholding the divine light by
looking upon the brightness. This comparison, of course, of
statues, as belonging to material things, is employed for no
other purpose than to show that the Son of God, though
placed in the very insignificant form of a human body, in
consequence of the resemblance of His works and power to
the Father, showed that there was in Him an immense and
invisible greatness, inasmuch as He said to His disciples,
“He who sees me, sees the Father also;” and, “I and the
Father are one.” And to these belong also the similar expression,
“The Father is in me, and I in the Father.”
9. Let us see now what is the meaning of the expression
which is found in the Wisdom of Solomon, where it is said
of Wisdom that “it is a kind of breath of the power of God,
and the purest efflux of the glory of the Omnipotent, and the
splendour of eternal light, and the spotless mirror of the
working or power of God, and the image of His goodness.”[#]
These, then, are the definitions which He gives of God,
pointing out by each one of them certain attributes which
belong to the Wisdom of God, calling wisdom the power,
and the glory, and the everlasting light, and the working,
and the goodness of God. He does not say, however, that
wisdom is the breath of the glory of the Almighty, nor of
// File: p027.png
.pn +1
the everlasting light, nor of the working of the Father, nor
of His goodness, for it was not appropriate that breath should
be ascribed to any one of these; but, with all propriety, he
says that wisdom is the breath of the power of God. Now,
by the power of God is to be understood that by which He
is strong; by which He appoints, restrains, and governs all
things visible and invisible; which is sufficient for all those
things which He rules over in His providence; among all
which He is present, as if one individual. And although
the breath of all this mighty and immeasurable power, and
the vigour itself produced, so to speak, by its own existence,
proceed from the power itself, as the will does from the mind,
yet even this will of God is nevertheless made to become the
power of God.[#]
Another power accordingly is produced, which exists with
properties of its own,—a kind of breath, as Scripture says, of
the primal and unbegotten power of God, deriving from Him
its being, and never at any time non-existent. For if any
one were to assert that it did not formerly exist, but came
afterwards into existence, let him explain the reason why the
Father, who gave it being, did not do so before. And if he
shall grant that there was once a beginning, when that breath
proceeded from the power of God, we shall ask him again,
why not even before the beginning, which he has allowed;
and in this way, ever demanding an earlier date, and going
upwards with our interrogations, we shall arrive at this conclusion,
that as God was always possessed of power and will,
there never was any reason of propriety or otherwise, why
He may not have always possessed that blessing which He
desired. By which it is shown that that breath of God’s
power always existed, having no beginning save God Himself.
Nor was it fitting that there should be any other
beginning save God Himself, from whom it derives its birth.
And according to the expression of the apostle, that Christ
// File: p028.png
.pn +1
“is the power of God,”[#] it ought to be termed not only the
breath of the power of God, but power out of power.
10. Let us now examine the expression, “Wisdom is the
purest efflux of the glory of the Almighty;” and let us first
consider what the glory of the omnipotent God is, and then
we shall also understand what is its efflux. As no one can
be a father without having a son, nor a master without possessing
a servant, so even God cannot be called omnipotent
unless there exist those over whom He may exercise His
power; and therefore, that God may be shown to be almighty,
it is necessary that all things should exist. For if any one
would have some ages or portions of time, or whatever else
he likes to call them, to have passed away, while those things
which were afterwards made did not yet exist, he would undoubtedly
show that during those ages or periods God was
not omnipotent, but became so afterwards, viz. from the time
that He began to have persons over whom to exercise power;
and in this way He will appear to have received a certain
increase, and to have risen from a lower to a higher condition;
since there can be no doubt that it is better for Him
to be omnipotent than not to be so. And now how can
it appear otherwise than absurd, that when God possessed
none of those things which it was befitting for Him to possess,
He should afterwards, by a kind of progress, come into the
possession of them? But if there never was a time when
He was not omnipotent, of necessity those things by which He
receives that title must also exist; and He must always have
had those over whom He exercised power, and which were
governed by Him either as king or prince, of which we shall
speak more fully in the proper place, when we come to discuss
the subject of the creatures. But even now I think it
necessary to drop a word, although cursorily, of warning,
since the question before us is, how wisdom is the purest
efflux of the glory of the Almighty, lest any one should think
that the title of Omnipotent was anterior in God to the birth
of Wisdom, through whom He is called Father, seeing that
Wisdom, which is the Son of God, is the purest efflux of the
// File: p029.png
.pn +1
glory of the Almighty. Let him who is inclined to entertain
this suspicion hear the undoubted declaration of Scripture
pronouncing, “In wisdom hast Thou made them all,”[#] and
the teaching of the gospel, that “by Him were all things
made, and without Him nothing was made;”[#] and let him
understand from this that the title of Omnipotent in God
cannot be older than that of Father; for it is through the
Son that the Father is almighty. But from the expression
“glory of the Almighty,” of which glory Wisdom is the
efflux, this is to be understood, that Wisdom, through which
God is called Omnipotent, has a share in the glory of the
Almighty. For through Wisdom, which is Christ, God has
power over all things, not only by the authority of a ruler,
but also by the voluntary obedience of subjects. And that
you may understand that the omnipotence of Father and Son
is one and the same, as God and the Lord are one and the
same with the Father, listen to the manner in which John
speaks in the Apocalypse: “Thus saith the Lord God, which
is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”[#] For
who else was “He which is to come” than Christ? And as
no one ought to be offended, seeing God is the Father, that
the Saviour is also God; so also, since the Father is called
omnipotent, no one ought to be offended that the Son of
God is also called omnipotent. For in this way will that
saying be true which He utters to the Father, “All mine are
Thine, and Thine are mine, and I am glorified in them.”[#]
Now, if all things which are the Father’s are also Christ’s,
certainly among those things which exist is the omnipotence
of the Father; and doubtless the only-begotten Son ought
to be omnipotent, that the Son also may have all things which
the Father possesses. “And I am glorified in them,” He
declares. For “at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,
of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under
the earth; and every tongue shall confess that the Lord
Jesus is in the glory of God the Father.”[#] Therefore He
is the efflux of the glory of God in this respect, that He is
// File: p030.png
.pn +1
omnipotent—the pure and limpid Wisdom herself—glorified
as the efflux of omnipotence or of glory. And that it may
be more clearly understood what the glory of omnipotence is,
we shall add the following. God the Father is omnipotent,
because He has power over all things, i.e. over heaven and
earth, sun, moon, and stars, and all things in them. And
He exercises His power over them by means of His Word,
because at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, both of
things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the
earth. And if every knee is bent to Jesus, then, without
doubt, it is Jesus to whom all things are subject, and He it
is who exercises power over all things, and through whom all
things are subject to the Father; for through wisdom, i.e.
by word and reason, not by force and necessity, are all things
subject. And therefore His glory consists in this very thing,
that He possesses all things, and this is the purest and most
limpid glory of omnipotence, that by reason and wisdom, not
by force and necessity, all things are subject. Now the
purest and most limpid glory of wisdom is a convenient
expression to distinguish it from that glory which cannot be
called pure and sincere. But every nature which is convertible
and changeable, although glorified in the works of
righteousness or wisdom, yet by the fact that righteousness
or wisdom are accidental qualities, and because that which is
accidental, may also fall away, its glory cannot be called
sincere and pure. But the Wisdom of God, which is His
only-begotten Son, being in all respects incapable of change
or alteration, and every good quality in Him being essential,
and such as cannot be changed and converted, His glory is
therefore declared to be pure and sincere.
11. In the third place, wisdom is called the splendour of
eternal light. The force of this expression we have explained
in the preceding pages, when we introduced the similitude
of the sun and the splendour of its rays, and showed to the
best of our power how this should be understood. To what
we then said we shall add only the following remark. That
is properly termed everlasting or eternal which neither had a
beginning of existence, nor can ever cease to be what it is.
// File: p031.png
.pn +1
And this is the idea conveyed by John when he says that
“God is Light.” Now His wisdom is the splendour of that
light, not only in respect of its being light, but also of being
everlasting light, so that His wisdom is eternal and everlasting
splendour. If this be fully understood, it clearly shows
that the existence of the Son is derived from the Father, but
not in time, nor from any other beginning, except, as we
have said, from God Himself.
12. But wisdom is also called the stainless mirror of the
ἐνέργεια or working of God. We must first understand,
then, what the working of the power of God is. It is a sort
of vigour, so to speak, by which God operates either in creation,
or in providence, or in judgment, or in the disposal and
arrangement of individual things, each in its season. For as
the image formed in a mirror unerringly reflects all the acts
and movements of him who gazes on it, so would Wisdom
have herself to be understood when she is called the stainless
mirror of the power and working of the Father: as the Lord
Jesus Christ also, who is the Wisdom of God, declares of
Himself when He says, “The works which the Father doeth,
these also doeth the Son likewise.”[#] And again He says, that
the Son cannot do anything of Himself, save what He sees
the Father do. As therefore the Son in no respect differs
from the Father in the power of His works, and the work of
the Son is not a different thing from that of the Father, but
one and the same movement, so to speak, is in all things, He
therefore named Him a stainless mirror, that by such an expression
it might be understood that there is no dissimilarity
whatever between the Son and the Father. How, indeed,
can those things which are said by some to be done after the
manner in which a disciple resembles or imitates his master,
or according to the view that those things are made by the
Son in bodily material which were first formed by the Father
in their spiritual essence, agree with the declarations of Scripture,
seeing in the Gospel the Son is said to do not similar
things, but the same things in a similar manner?
13. It remains that we inquire what is the “image of His
// File: p032.png
.pn +1
goodness;” and here, I think, we must understand the same
thing which we expressed a little ago, in speaking of the
image formed by the mirror. For He is the primal goodness,
doubtless, out of which the Son is born, who, being in all respects
the image of the Father, may certainly also be called
with propriety the image of His goodness. For there is no
other second goodness existing in the Son, save that which
is in the Father. And therefore also the Saviour Himself
rightly says in the Gospel, “There is none good save one only,
God the Father,” that by such an expression it may be understood
that the Son is not of a different goodness, but of that
only which exists in the Father, of whom He is rightly termed
the image, because He proceeds from no other source but
from that primal goodness, lest there might appear to be in
the Son a different goodness from that which is in the Father.
Nor is there any dissimilarity or difference of goodness in the
Son. And therefore it is not to be imagined that there is a
kind of blasphemy, as it were, in the words, “There is none
good save one only, God the Father,” as if thereby it may
be supposed to be denied that either Christ or the Holy Spirit
was good. But, as we have already said, the primal goodness
is to be understood as residing in God the Father, from
whom both the Son is born and the Holy Spirit proceeds,
retaining within them, without any doubt, the nature of that
goodness which is in the source whence they are derived.
And if there be any other things which in Scripture are
called good, whether angel, or man, or servant, or treasure,
or a good heart, or a good tree, all these are so termed catachrestically,[#]
having in them an accidental, not an essential
goodness. But it would require both much time and labour
to collect together all the titles of the Son of God, such e.g.
as the true light, or the door, or the righteousness, or the
sanctification, or the redemption, and countless others; and to
show for what reasons each one of them is so given. Satisfied,
therefore, with what we have already advanced, we go on
with our inquiries into those other matters which follow.
.fn #
Prov. viii. 22-25. The reading in the text differs considerably from
that of the Vulgate.
.fn-
.fn #
Col. i. 15.
.fn-
.fn #
1 Cor. i. 24.
.fn-
.fn #
Aliquid insubstantivum.
.fn-
.fn #
Substantialiter.
.fn-
.fn #
Ad punctum alicujus momenti.
.fn-
.fn #
Omnis virtus ac deformatio futuræ creaturæ.
.fn-
.fn #
This work is mentioned by Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. B. iii. ch. iii. and
xxv., as among the spurious writings current in the church. The Acts
of Paul and Thecla was a different work from the Acts of Paul. The
words quoted, “Hic est verbum animal vivens,” seem to be a corruption
from Heb. iv. 12, ζῶν γὰρ ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ.
.fn-
.fn #
Or, “and the Word was God.”
.fn-
.fn #
“Quoniam hi qui videntur apud nos hominum filii, vel ceterorum
animalium, semini eorum a quibus seminati sunt respondent, vel carum
quarum in utero formantur ac nutriuntur, habent ex his quidquid illud
est quod in lucem hanc assumunt, ac deferunt processuri.” Probably the
last two words should be “deferunt processuris”—“and hand it over to
those who are destined to come forth from them,” i.e. to their descendants.
.fn-
.fn #
Subsistentia. Some would read here, “substantia.”
.fn-
.fn #
Per adoptionem Spiritus. The original words here were probably
εἰσποίησις τοῦ πνεύματος, and Rufinus seems to have mistaken the allusion
to Gen. ii. 7. To “adoption,” in the technical theological sense, the
words in the text cannot have any reference.—Schnitzer.
.fn-
.fn #
Col. i. 15.
.fn-
.fn #
Heb. i. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
ἀπόῤῥοια.
.fn-
.fn #
Wisd. vii. 25.
.fn-
.fn #
Gen. v. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
Subsistentia.
.fn-
.fn #
John xiv. 9.
.fn-
.fn #
Heb. i. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
Luke vi. 42.
.fn-
.fn #
Heb. i. 3. Substantiæ vel subsistentiæ.
.fn-
.fn #
Wisd. vii. 25, 26.
.fn-
.fn #
“Hujus ergo totius virtutis tantæ et tam immensæ vapor, et, ut ita
dicam, vigor ipse in propriâ subsistentiâ effectus, quamvis ex ipsa virtute
velut voluntas ex mente procedat, tamen et ipsa voluntas Dei nihilominus
Dei virtus efficitur.”
.fn-
.fn #
1 Cor. i. 24.
.fn-
.fn #
Ps. civ. 24.
.fn-
.fn #
John i. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
Rev. i. 8.
.fn-
.fn #
John xvii. 10.
.fn-
.fn #
Phil. ii. 10, 11.
.fn-
.fn #
John v. 19.
.fn-
.fn #
Abusive.
.fn-
// File: p033.png
.pn +1
.sp 4
.h4 id=de-principiis-b1-c3
CHAPTER III. | ON THE HOLY SPIRIT.
.sp 2
1. The next point is to investigate as briefly as possible
the subject of the Holy Spirit. All who perceive, in whatever
manner, the existence of Providence, confess that God,
who created and disposed all things, is unbegotten, and recognise
Him as the parent of the universe. Now, that to Him
belongs a Son, is a statement not made by us only; although
it may seem a sufficiently marvellous and incredible assertion
to those who have a reputation as philosophers among Greeks
and Barbarians, by some of whom, however, an idea of His
existence seems to have been entertained, in their acknowledging
that all things were created by the word or reason
of God. We, however, in conformity with our belief in that
doctrine, which we assuredly hold to be divinely inspired,
believe that it is possible in no other way to explain and bring
within the reach of human knowledge this higher and diviner
reason as the Son of God, than by means of those Scriptures
alone which were inspired by the Holy Spirit, i.e. the gospels
and epistles, and the law and the prophets, according to the
declaration of Christ Himself. Of the existence of the Holy
Spirit no one indeed could entertain any suspicion, save those
who were familiar with the law and the prophets, or those
who profess a belief in Christ. For although no one is able
to speak with certainty of God the Father, it is nevertheless
possible for some knowledge of Him to be gained by means
of the visible creation and the natural feelings of the human
mind; and it is possible, moreover, for such knowledge to be
confirmed from the sacred Scriptures. But with respect to
the Son of God, although no one knoweth the Son save the
Father, yet it is from sacred Scripture also that the human
mind is taught how to think of the Son; and that not only
from the New, but also from the Old Testament, by means
of those things which, although done by the saints, are figuratively
referred to Christ, and from which both His divine
// File: p034.png
.pn +1
nature, and that human nature which was assumed by Him,
may be discovered.
2. Now, what the Holy Spirit is, we are taught in many
passages of Scripture, as by David in the fifty-first Psalm,
when he says, “And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me;”[#]
and by Daniel, where it is said, “The Holy Spirit which is
in thee.”[#] And in the New Testament we have abundant
testimonies, as when the Holy Spirit is described as having
descended upon Christ, and when the Lord breathed upon His
apostles after His resurrection, saying, “Receive the Holy
Spirit;”[#] and the saying of the angel to Mary, “The Holy
Spirit will come upon thee;”[#] the declaration by Paul, that
no one can call Jesus Lord, save by the Holy Spirit.[#] In the
Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Spirit was given by the imposition
of the apostles’ hands in baptism.[#] From all which we
learn that the person of the Holy Spirit was of such authority
and dignity, that saving baptism was not complete except
by the authority of the most excellent Trinity of them all,
i.e. by the naming of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and by
joining to the unbegotten God the Father, and to His only-begotten
Son, the name also of the Holy Spirit. Who, then,
is not amazed at the exceeding majesty of the Holy Spirit,
when he hears that he who speaks a word against the Son
of man may hope for forgiveness; but that he who is guilty
of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit has not forgiveness,
either in the present world or in that which is to come![#]
3. That all things were created by God, and that there is
no creature which exists but has derived from Him its being,
is established from many declarations of Scripture; those
assertions being refuted and rejected which are falsely alleged
by some respecting the existence either of a matter co-eternal
with God, or of unbegotten souls, in which they would have
it that God implanted not so much the power of existence,
as equality and order. For even in that little treatise called
The Pastor or Angel of Repentance, composed by Hermas, we
// File: p035.png
.pn +1
have the following: “First of all, believe that there is one
God who created and arranged all things; who, when nothing
formerly existed, caused all things to be; who Himself contains
all things, but Himself is contained by none.”[#] And
in the book of Enoch also we have similar descriptions. But
up to the present time we have been able to find no statement
in holy Scripture in which the Holy Spirit could be
said to be made or created,[#] not even in the way in which
we have shown above that the divine wisdom is spoken of by
Solomon, or in which those expressions which we have discussed
are to be understood of the life, or the word, or the
other appellations of the Son of God. The Spirit of God,
therefore, which was borne upon the waters, as is written in
the beginning of the creation of the world, is, I am of opinion,
no other than the Holy Spirit, so far as I can understand;
as indeed we have shown in our exposition of the passages
themselves, not according to the historical, but according to
the spiritual method of interpretation.
4. Some indeed of our predecessors have observed, that
in the New Testament, whenever the Spirit is named without
that adjunct which denotes quality, the Holy Spirit is to be
understood; as e.g. in the expression, “Now the fruit of the
Spirit is love, joy, and peace;”[#] and, “Seeing ye began in
the Spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh?”[#] We
are of opinion that this distinction may be observed in the
Old Testament also, as when it is said, “He that giveth His
Spirit to the people who are upon the earth, and Spirit to
them who walk thereon.”[#] For, without doubt, every one
who walks upon the earth (i.e. earthly and corporeal beings)
is a partaker also of the Holy Spirit, receiving it from God.
My Hebrew master also used to say that those two seraphim
in Isaiah, which are described as having each six wings, and
calling to one another, and saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God of hosts,”[#] were to be understood of the only-begotten
Son of God and of the Holy Spirit. And we
// File: p036.png
.pn +1
think that that expression also which occurs in the hymn of
Habakkuk, “In the midst either of the two living things, or
of the two lives, Thou wilt be known,”[#] ought to be understood
of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. For all knowledge
of the Father is obtained by revelation of the Son through
the Holy Spirit, so that both of these beings which, according
to the prophet, are called either “living things” or “lives,”
exist as the ground of the knowledge of God the Father.
For as it is said of the Son, that “no one knoweth the Father
but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him,”[#]
the same also is said by the apostle of the Holy Spirit, when
he declares, “God hath revealed them to us by His Holy
Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, even the deep
things of God;”[#] and again in the Gospel, when the
Saviour, speaking of the divine and profounder parts of His
teaching, which His disciples were not yet able to receive,
thus addresses them: “I have yet many things to say unto
you, but ye cannot bear them now; but when the Holy
Spirit, the Comforter, is come, He will teach you all things,
and will bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I
have said unto you.”[#] We must understand, therefore, that
as the Son, who alone knows the Father, reveals Him to
whom He will, so the Holy Spirit, who alone searches the
deep things of God, reveals God to whom He will: “For
the Spirit bloweth where He listeth.”[#] We are not, however,
to suppose that the Spirit derives His knowledge through
revelation from the Son. For if the Holy Spirit knows the
Father through the Son’s revelation, He passes from a state
of ignorance into one of knowledge; but it is alike impious
and foolish to confess the Holy Spirit, and yet to ascribe to
Him ignorance. For even although something else existed
before the Holy Spirit, it was not by progressive advancement
that He came to be the Holy Spirit; as if any one
should venture to say, that at the time when He was not yet
the Holy Spirit He was ignorant of the Father, but that
after He had received knowledge He was made the Holy
// File: p037.png
.pn +1
Spirit. For if this were the case, the Holy Spirit would
never be reckoned in the unity of the Trinity, i.e. along
with the unchangeable Father and His Son, unless He had
always been the Holy Spirit. When we use, indeed, such
terms as “always” or “was,” or any other designation of
time, they are not to be taken absolutely, but with due
allowance; for while the significations of these words relate
to time, and those subjects of which we speak are spoken of
by a stretch of language as existing in time, they nevertheless
surpass in their real nature all conception of the finite
understanding.
5. Nevertheless it seems proper to inquire what is the
reason why he who is regenerated by God unto salvation has
to do both with Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and does
not obtain salvation unless with the co-operation of the entire
Trinity; and why it is impossible to become partaker of the
Father or the Son without the Holy Spirit. And in discussing
these subjects, it will undoubtedly be necessary to
describe the special working of the Holy Spirit, and of the
Father and the Son. I am of opinion, then, that the working
of the Father and of the Son takes place as well in saints as
in sinners, in rational beings and in dumb animals; nay,
even in those things which are without life, and in all things
universally which exist; but that the operation of the Holy
Spirit does not take place at all in those things which are
without life, or in those which, although living, are yet dumb;
nay, is not found even in those who are endued indeed with
reason, but are engaged in evil courses, and not at all converted
to a better life. In those persons alone do I think
that the operation of the Holy Spirit takes place, who are
already turning to a better life, and walking along the way
which leads to Jesus Christ, i.e. who are engaged in the
performance of good actions, and who abide in God.
6. That the working of the Father and the Son operates
both in saints and in sinners, is manifest from this, that all who
are rational beings are partakers of the word, i.e. of reason,
and by this means bear certain seeds, implanted within them,
of wisdom and justice, which is Christ. Now, in Him who
// File: p038.png
.pn +1
truly exists, and who said by Moses, “I am what I am,”[#] all
things, whatever they are, participate; which participation in
God the Father is shared both by just men and sinners, by
rational and irrational beings, and by all things universally
which exist. The Apostle Paul also shows truly that all
have a share in Christ, when he says, “Say not in thine
heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (i.e. to bring Christ
down from above;) or who shall descend into the deep?
(that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But what
saith the Scripture? The word is nigh thee, even in thy
mouth, and in thy heart.”[#] By which he means that Christ
is in the heart of all, in respect of His being the word or
reason, by participating in which they are rational beings.
That declaration also in the Gospel, “If I had not come
and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they
have no excuse for their sin,”[#] renders it manifest and patent
to all who have a rational knowledge of how long a time
man is without sin, and from what period he is liable to it,
how, by participating in the word or reason, men are said to
have sinned, viz. from the time they are made capable of
understanding and knowledge, when the reason implanted
within has suggested to them the difference between good
and evil; and after they have already begun to know what
evil is, they are made liable to sin, if they commit it. And
this is the meaning of the expression, that “men have no
excuse for their sin,” viz. that, from the time the divine
word or reason has begun to show them internally the
difference between good and evil, they ought to avoid and
guard against that which is wicked: “For to him who
knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”[#]
Moreover, that all men are not without communion with
God, is taught in the Gospel thus, by the Saviour’s words:
“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; neither
shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! but the kingdom of
God is within you.”[#] But here we must see whether this
does not bear the same meaning with the expression in
// File: p039.png
.pn +1
Genesis: “And He breathed into his face the breath of life,
and man became a living soul.”[#] For if this be understood
as applying generally to all men, then all men have a share
in God.
7. But if this is to be understood as spoken of the Spirit
of God, since Adam also is found to have prophesied of some
things, it may be taken not as of general application, but as
confined to those who are saints. Finally, also, at the time
of the flood, when all flesh had corrupted their way before
God, it is recorded that God spoke thus, as of undeserving
men and sinners: “My Spirit shall not abide with those
men for ever, because they are flesh.”[#] By which it is
clearly shown that the Spirit of God is taken away from all
who are unworthy. In the Psalms also it is written: “Thou
wilt take away their spirit, and they will die, and return to
their earth. Thou wilt send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall
be created, and Thou wilt renew the face of the earth;”[#]
which is manifestly intended of the Holy Spirit, who, after
sinners and unworthy persons have been taken away and
destroyed, creates for Himself a new people, and renews the
face of the earth, when, laying aside, through the grace of
the Spirit, the old man with his deeds, they begin to walk
in newness of life. And therefore the expression is competently
applied to the Holy Spirit, because He will take up
His dwelling, not in all men, nor in those who are flesh, but
in those whose land[#] has been renewed. Lastly, for this
reason was the grace and revelation of the Holy Spirit
bestowed by the imposition of the apostles’ hands after
baptism. Our Saviour also, after the resurrection, when
old things had already passed away, and all things had
become new, Himself a new man, and the first-born from
the dead, His apostles also being renewed by faith in His
resurrection, says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”[#] This is
doubtless what the Lord the Saviour meant to convey in
the Gospel, when He said that new wine cannot be put
into old bottles, but commanded that the bottles should be
// File: p040.png
.pn +1
made new, i.e. that men should walk in newness of life, that
they might receive the new wine, i.e. the newness of grace
of the Holy Spirit. In this manner, then, is the working
of the power of God the Father and of the Son extended
without distinction to every creature; but a share in the
Holy Spirit we find possessed only by the saints. And
therefore it is said, “No man can say that Jesus is Lord,
but by the Holy Ghost.”[#] And on one occasion, scarcely
even the apostles themselves are deemed worthy to hear the
words, “Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost
coming upon you.”[#] For this reason, also, I think it follows
that he who has committed a sin against the Son of man is
deserving of forgiveness; because if he who is a participator
of the word or reason of God cease to live agreeably to reason,
he seems to have fallen into a state of ignorance or folly, and
therefore to deserve forgiveness; whereas he who has been
deemed worthy to have a portion of the Holy Spirit, and
who has relapsed, is, by this very act and work, said to be
guilty of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Let no one
indeed suppose that we, from having said that the Holy
Spirit is conferred upon the saints alone, but that the benefits
or operations of the Father and of the Son extend to good
and bad, to just and unjust, by so doing give a preference
to the Holy Spirit over the Father and the Son, or assert
that His dignity is greater, which certainly would be a very
illogical conclusion. For it is the peculiarity of His grace
and operations that we have been describing. Moreover,
nothing in the Trinity can be called greater or less, since the
fountain of divinity alone contains all things by His word
and reason, and by the Spirit of His mouth sanctifies all
things which are worthy of sanctification, as it is written in
the Psalm: “By the word of the Lord were the heavens
strengthened, and all their power by the Spirit of His
mouth.”[#] There is also a special working of God the Father,
besides that by which He bestowed upon all things the gift
of natural life. There is also a special ministry of the Lord
Jesus Christ to those upon whom He confers by nature the
// File: p041.png
.pn +1
gift of reason, by means of which they are enabled to be
rightly what they are. There is also another grace of the
Holy Spirit, which is bestowed upon the deserving, through
the ministry of Christ and the working of the Father, in
proportion to the merits of those who are rendered capable of
receiving it. This is most clearly pointed out by the Apostle
Paul, when demonstrating that the power of the Trinity is
one and the same, in the words, “There are diversities of
gifts, but the same Spirit; there are diversities of administrations,
but the same Lord; and there are diversities of
operations, but it is the same God who worketh all in all.
But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to
profit withal.”[#] From which it most clearly follows that
there is no difference in the Trinity, but that which is called
the gift of the Spirit is made known through the Son, and
operated by God the Father. “But all these worketh that
one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every one severally
as He will.”[#]
8. Having made these declarations regarding the unity of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, let us
return to the order in which we began the discussion. God
the Father bestows upon all, existence; and participation in
Christ, in respect of His being the word of reason, renders
them rational beings. From which it follows that they are
deserving either of praise or blame, because capable of virtue
and vice. On this account, therefore, is the grace of the
Holy Ghost present, that those beings which are not holy
in their essence may be rendered holy by participating in it.
Seeing, then, that firstly, they derive their existence from
God the Father; secondly, their rational nature from the
Word; thirdly, their holiness from the Holy Spirit,—those
who have been previously sanctified by the Holy Spirit are
again made capable of receiving Christ, in respect that He
is the righteousness of God; and those who have earned
advancement to this grade by the sanctification of the Holy
Spirit, will nevertheless obtain the gift of wisdom according
to the power and working of the Spirit of God. And this I
// File: p042.png
.pn +1
consider is Paul’s meaning, when he says that to “some is
given the word of wisdom, to others the word of knowledge,
according to the same Spirit.” And while pointing out the
individual distinction of gifts, he refers the whole of them
to the source of all things in the words, “There are diversities
of operations, but one God who worketh all in all.”[#]
Whence also the working of the Father, which confers
existence upon all things, is found to be more glorious and
magnificent, while each one, by participation in Christ, as
being wisdom, and knowledge, and sanctification, makes progress,
and advances to higher degrees of perfection; and
seeing it is by partaking of the Holy Spirit that any one
is made purer and holier, he obtains, when he is made worthy,
the grace of wisdom and knowledge, in order that, after all
stains of pollution and ignorance are cleansed and taken away,
he may make so great an advance in holiness and purity, that
the nature which he received from God may become such as
is worthy of Him who gave it to be pure and perfect, so that
the being which exists may be as worthy as He who called
it into existence. For, in this way, he who is such as his
Creator wished him to be, will receive from God power
always to exist, and to abide for ever. That this may be the
case, and that those whom He has created may be unceasingly
and inseparably present with Him, who IS, it is the
business of wisdom to instruct and train them, and to bring
them to perfection by confirmation of His Holy Spirit and
unceasing sanctification, by which alone are they capable of
receiving God. In this way, then, by the renewal of the
ceaseless working of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in us, in
its various stages of progress, shall we be able at some future
time perhaps, although with difficulty, to behold the holy and
the blessed life, in which (as it is only after many struggles
that we are able to reach it) we ought so to continue, that
no satiety of that blessedness should ever seize us; but the
more we perceive its blessedness, the more should be increased
and intensified within us the longing for the same, while
we ever more eagerly and freely receive and hold fast the
// File: p043.png
.pn +1
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But if satiety
should ever take hold of any one of those who stand on the
highest and perfect summit of attainment, I do not think
that such an one would suddenly be deposed from his position
and fall away, but that he must decline gradually and
little by little, so that it may sometimes happen that if a brief
lapsus take place, and the individual quickly repent and return
to himself, he may not utterly fall away, but may retrace
his steps, and return to his former place, and again make
good that which had been lost by his negligence.
.fn #
Ps. li. 11.
.fn-
.fn #
Dan. iv. 8.
.fn-
.fn #
John xx. 22.
.fn-
.fn #
Luke i. 35.
.fn-
.fn #
1 Cor. xii. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
Acts viii. 18.
.fn-
.fn #
Cf. Matt. xii. 32 and Luke xii. 10.
.fn-
.fn #
Cf. Hermæ Past. Vis. v. Mandat. 12.
.fn-
.fn #
Per quem Spiritus Sanctus factura esse vel creatura diceretur.
.fn-
.fn #
Gal. v. 22.
.fn-
.fn #
Gal. iii. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
Isa. xlii. 5.
.fn-
.fn #
Isa. vi. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
Hab. iii. 2.
.fn-
.fn #
Luke x. 22.
.fn-
.fn #
1 Cor. ii. 10.
.fn-
.fn #
Cf. John xvi. 12, 13, and xiv. 26.
.fn-
.fn #
John iii. 8.
.fn-
.fn #
Ex. iii. 14.
.fn-
.fn #
Rom. x. 6-8.
.fn-
.fn #
John xv. 22.
.fn-
.fn #
Jas. iv. 17.
.fn-
.fn #
Luke xvii. 20, 21.
.fn-
.fn #
Gen. ii. 7.
.fn-
.fn #
Gen. vi. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
Ps. civ. 29, 30.
.fn-
.fn #
Terra.
.fn-
.fn #
John xx. 22.
.fn-
.fn #
1 Cor. xii. 3.
.fn-
.fn #
Acts i. 8.
.fn-
.fn #
Ps. xxxiii. 6.
.fn-
.fn #
1 Cor. xii. 4-7.
.fn-
.fn #
1 Cor. xii. 11.
.fn-
.fn #
1 Cor. xii. 6.
.fn-
.sp 4
.h4 id=de-principiis-b1-c4
CHAPTER IV. | ON DEFECTION, OR FALLING AWAY.
.sp 2
1. To exhibit the nature of defection or falling away, on
the part of those who conduct themselves carelessly, it will
not appear out of place to employ a similitude by way of
illustration. Suppose, then, the case of one who had become
gradually acquainted with the art or science, say of geometry
or medicine, until he had reached perfection, having trained
himself for a lengthened time in its principles and practice,
so as to attain a complete mastery over the art: to such an
one it could never happen, that, when he lay down to sleep
in the possession of his skill, he should awake in a state of
ignorance. It is not our purpose to adduce or to notice here
those accidents which are occasioned by any injury or weakness,
for they do not apply to our present illustration. According
to our point of view, then, so long as that geometer
or physician continues to exercise himself in the study of his
art and in the practice of its principles, the knowledge of
his profession abides with him; but if he withdraw from its
practice, and lay aside his habits of industry, then, by his
neglect, at first a few things will gradually escape him, then
by and by more and more, until in course of time everything
will be forgotten, and be completely effaced from the
memory. It is possible, indeed, that when he has first begun
to fall away, and to yield to the corrupting influence of a
// File: p044.png
.pn +1
negligence which is small as yet, he may, if he be aroused
and return speedily to his senses, repair those losses which
up to that time are only recent, and recover that knowledge
which hitherto had been only slightly obliterated from his
mind. Let us apply this now to the case of those who have
devoted themselves to the knowledge and wisdom of God,
whose learning and diligence incomparably surpass all other
training; and let us contemplate, according to the form of
the similitude employed, what is the acquisition of knowledge,
or what is its disappearance, especially when we hear from
the apostle what is said of those who are perfect, that they
shall behold face to face the glory of the Lord in the revelation
of His mysteries.
2. But in our desire to show the divine benefits bestowed
upon us by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which Trinity is
the fountain of all holiness, we have fallen, in what we have
said, into a digression, having considered that the subject
of the soul, which accidentally came before us, should be
touched on, although cursorily, seeing we were discussing a
cognate topic relating to our rational nature. We shall, however,
with the permission of God through Jesus Christ and
the Holy Spirit, more conveniently consider in the proper
place the subject of all rational beings, which are distinguished
into three genera and species.
.sp 4
.h4 id=de-principiis-b1-c5
CHAPTER