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Since in Christ there is a twofold nature, and the one-in so far as
he is thought of as God-resembles the head of the body, while the
other may be compared with the feet,-in so far as he, for the sake of
our salvation, put on human nature with the same passions as our
own,-the following work will be complete only if we begin with the
chief and lordliest events of all his history. In this way will the
antiquity and divinity of Christianity be shown to those who suppose it
of recent and foreign origin, and imagine that it appeared only
yesterday No language is sufficient to express the origin and the
worth, the being and the nature of Christ. Wherefore also the divine
Spirit says in the prophecies,
"Who shall declare his generation?"
Isaiah 13:8
For none knoweth the Father except the Son, neither can any one know
the Son adequately except the Father alone who hath begotten him.
For alone who beside the Father could clearly understand the Light
which was before the world, the intellectual and essential Wisdom
which existed before the ages, the living Word which was in the
beginning with the Father and which was God, the first and only
begotten of God which was before every creature and creation visible
and invisible, the commander-in-chief of the rational and immortal
host of heaven, the messenger of the great counsel, the executor of
the Father's unspoken will, the creator, with the Father, of all
things, the second cause of the universe after the Father, the true
and only-begotten Son of God, the Lord and God and King of all
created things, the one who has received dominion and power, with
divinity itself, and with might and honor from the Father; as it is
said in regard to him in the mystical passages of Scripture which speak
of his divinity:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
the Word was God."
John 1:1
"All things were made by him; and without him was not anything
made."
John 1:3
This, too, the great Moses teaches, when, as the most ancient of
all the prophets, he describes under the influence of the divine
Spirit the creation and arrangement of the universe. He declares that
the maker of the world and the creator of all things yielded to Christ
himself, and to none other than his own clearly divine and first-born
Word, the making of inferior things, and communed with him respecting
the creation of man. Says he:
"For God said, Let us make man in our image and in our likeness."
Genesis 1:26
And another of the prophets confirms this, speaking of God in his
hymns as follows:
"He spake and they were made; he commanded and they were created."
Psalm 33:9
He here introduces the Father and Maker as Ruler of all, commanding
with a kingly nod, and second to him the divine Word, none other than
the one who is proclaimed by us, as carrying out the Father's
commands. All that are said to have excelled in righteousness and
piety since the creation of man, the great servant Moses and before
him in the first place Abraham and his children, and as many righteous
men and prophets as afterward appeared, have contemplated him with the
pure eyes of the mind, and have recognized him and offered to him the
worship which is due him as Son of God. But he, by no means
neglectful of the reverence due to the Father, was appointed to teach
the knowledge of the Father to them all. For instance, the Lord
God, it is said, appeared as a common man to Abraham while he was
sitting at the oak of Mambre. And he, immediately failing down,
although he saw a man with his eyes, nevertheless worshiped him as
God, and sacrificed to him as Lord, and confessed that he was not
ignorant of his identity when he uttered the words,
"Lord, the judge of all the earth, wilt thou not execute righteous
judgment?"
Genesis 18:25
For if it is unreasonable to suppose that the unbegotten and immutable
essence of the almighty God was changed into the form of man or that it
deceived the eyes of the beholders with the appearance of some created
thing, and if it is unreasonable to suppose, on the other hand, that
the Scripture should falsely invent such things, when the God and
Lord who judgeth all the earth and executeth judgment is seen in the
form of a man, who else can be called, if it be not lawful to call him
the first cause of all things, than his only pre-existent Word?
Concerning whom it is said in the Psalms, "He sent his Word and
healed them, and delivered them from their destructions." Moses most
clearly proclaims him second Lord after the Father, when he says,
"The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from
the Lord." The divine Scripture also calls him God, when he
appeared again to Jacob in the form of a man, and said to Jacob,
"Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy
name, because thou hast prevailed with God." Wherefore also Jacob
called the name of that place "Vision of God," saying, "For I
have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." Nor is it
admissible to suppose that the theophanies recorded were appearances of
subordinate angels and ministers of God, for whenever any of these
appeared to men, the Scripture does not conceal the fact, but calls
them by name not God nor Lord, but angels, as it is easy to prove by
numberless testimonies. Joshua, also, the successor of Moses,
calls him, as leader of the heavenly angels and archangels and of the
supramundane powers, and as lieutenant of the Father, entrusted with
the second rank of sovereignty and rule over all, "captain of the host
of the Lords" although he saw him not otherwise than again in the form
and appearance of a man. For it is written:
"And it came to pass when Joshua was at Jericho that he looked and
saw a man standing over against him with his sword drawn in his hand,
and Joshua went unto him and said, Art thou for us or for our
adversaries? And he said unto him, As captain of the host of the
Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and
said unto him, Lord, what dost thou command thy servant? and the
captain of the Lord said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy
feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy."
Joshua 5:13-15
You will perceive also from the same words that this was no other than
he who talked with Moses. For the Scripture says in the same words
and with reference to the same one, "When the Lord saw that he drew
near to see, the Lord called to him out of the bush and said,
Moses, Moses. And he said, What is it? And he said, Draw not
nigh hither; loose thy shoe from off thy feet, for the place whereon
thou standest is holy ground. And he said unto him, I am the God of
thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob."
And that there is a certain substance which lived and subsisted before
the world, and which ministered unto the Father and God of the
universe for the formation of all created things, and which, is called
the Word of God and Wisdom, we may learn, to quote otherproofs in
addition to those already cited, from the mouth of Wisdom herself,
who reveals most clearly through Solomon the following mysteries
concerning herself: "I, Wisdom, have dwelt with prudence and
knowledge, and I have invoked understanding. Through me kings
reign, and princes ordain righteousness. Through me the great are
magnified, and through me sovereigns rule the earth." To which she
adds: "The Lord created me in the beginning of his ways, for his
works; before the world he established me, in the beginning, before
he made the earth, before he made the depths, before the mountains
were settled, before all hills he begat me. When he prepared the
heavens I was present with him, and when he established the fountains
of the region under heaven I was with him, disposing. I was the one
in whom he delighted; daily I rejoiced before him at all times when he
was rejoicing at having completed the world." That the divine Word,
therefore, pre-existed and appeared to some, if not to all, has thus
been briefly shown by us.
But why the Gospel was not preached in ancient times to all men and to
all nations, as it is now, will appear from the following
considerations. The life of the ancients was not of such a kind as to
permit them to receive the all-wise and all-virtuous teaching of
Christ. For immediately in the beginning, after his original life of
blessedness, the first man despised the command of God, and fell into
this mortal and perishable state, and exchanged his former divinely
inspired luxury for this curse-laden earth. His descendants having
filled our earth, showed themselves much worse, with the exception of
one here and there, and entered upon a certain brutal and insupportable
mode of life. They thought neither of city nor state, neither of arts
nor sciences. They were ignorant even of the name of laws and of
justice, of virtue and of philosophy. As nomads, they passed their
lives in deserts, like wild and fierce beasts, destroying, by an
excess of voluntary wickedness, the natural reason of man, and the
seeds of thought and of culture implanted in the human soul. They gave
themselves wholly over to all kinds of profanity, now seducing one
another, now slaying one another, now eating human flesh, and now
daring to wage war with the Gods and to undertake those battles of the
giants celebrated by all; now planning to fortify earth against
heaven, and in the madness of ungoverned pride to prepare an attack
upon the very God of all.
On account of these things, when they conducted themselves thus, the
all-seeing God sent down upon them floods and conflagrations as upon a
wild forest spread over the whole earth. He cut them down with
continuous famines and plagues, with wars, and with thunderbolts from
heaven, as if to check some terrible and obstinate disease of souls
with more severe punishments. Then, when the excess of wickedness had
overwhelmed nearly all the race, like a deep fit of drunkenness,
beclouding and darkening the minds of men, the first-born and
first-created wisdom of God, the pre-existent Word himself,
induced by his exceeding love for man, appeared to his servants, now
in the form of angels, and again to one and another of those ancients
who enjoyed the favor of God, in his own person as the saving power of
God, not otherwise, however, than in the shape of man, because it
was impossible to appear in any other way. And as by them the seeds of
piety were sown among a multitude of men and the whole nation,
descended from the Hebrews, devoted themselves persistently to the
worship of God, he imparted to them through the prophet Moses, as to
multitudes still corrupted by their ancient practices, images and
symbols of a certain mystic Sabbath and of circumcision, and elements
of other spiritual principles, but he did not grant them a complete
knowledge of the mysteries themselves. But when their law became
celebrated, and, like a sweet odor, was diffused among all men, as a
result of their influence the dispositions of the majority of the
heathen were softened by the lawgivers and philosophers who arose on
every side, and their wild and savage brutality was changed into
mildness, so that they enjoyed deep peace, friendship, and social
intercourse. Then, finally, at the time of the origin of the Roman
Empire, there appeared again to all men and nations throughout the
world, who had been, as it were, previously assisted, and were now
fitted to receive the knowledge of the Father, that same teacher of
virtue, the minister of the Father in all good things, the divine and
heavenly Word of God, in a human body not at all differing in
substance from our own. He did and suffered the things which had been
prophesied. For it had been foretold that one who was at the same time
man and God should come and dwell in the world, should per form
wonderful works, and should show himself a teacher to all nations of
the piety of the Father. The marvelous nature of his birth, and his
new teaching, and his wonderful works had also been foretold; so
likewise the manner of his death, his resurrection from the dead,
and,finally, his divine ascension into heaven. For instance,
Daniel the prophet, under the influence of the divine Spirit, seeing
his kingdom at the end of time, was inspired thus to describe the
divine vision in language fitted to human comprehension: "For I
beheld," he says, "until thrones were placed, and the Ancient of
Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow and the hair of his head
like pure wool; his throne was a flame of fire and his wheels burning
fire. A river of fire flowed before him. Thousand thousands
ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood
beforehim. He appointed judgment, and the books were opened." And
again, "I saw," says he, "and behold, one like the Son of man
came with the clouds of heaven, and he hastened unto the Ancient of
Days and was brought into his presence, and there was given him the
dominion and the glory and the kingdom; and all peoples, tribes, and
tongues serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall
not pass away, and his kingdom shall not be destroyed." It is clear
that these words can refer to no one else than to our Saviour, the
God Word who was in the beginning with God, and who was called the
Son of man because of his final appearance in the flesh. But since we
have collected in separate books as the selections from the prophets
which relate to our Saviour Jesus Christ, and have arranged in a
more logical form those things which have been revealed concerning him,
what has been said will suffice for the present.
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