But the host of his adversaries in their turn now mourned and lamented, being confounded with shame at the victory of the second Adam. Their chief accordingly finding himself unable to throw him down began to plot against him, with the Jews as his instruments, and having stirred up the Jewish mob against him and crucified and put him to death, imagined that he was at once and for ever rid of him. But when, not long afterwards, the resurrection----that wondrous, glorious, unexpected and mighty event----had taken place, and he had no longer to experience death or any other form of suffering whatever, but along with incorruption and immortality had obtained also immutability of soul; and when again he afterwards ascended heavenward in a chariot of cloud, |80 borne up like a conqueror who celebrates his triumph; then did he enter within the firmament, and was the first of all who opened up for us a new and living way. The angels therefore, clad in white raiment, rejoiced along with men, and brought the good tidings to the disciples and the women. But their adversaries, seeing the superiority to themselves and to the whole creation of the human nature, which they had at one time tripped up by the heels, but by which they were now thrown down, remained dumb with madness and overwhelmed with uttermost shame. Wherefore the Lord exclaimed to the disciples: Let not your hearts be troubled. I have overcome the world. And again: Lo! I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and all the power of the enemy ----as much as to say: Man of old having sinned when the serpent in Paradise assailed him, it was said to him: He shall lie in wait for thy heel, but thou for his head ; that is, Ye shall he divided and at enmity against each other, that man may not be under obedience to him. So the warfare was then waged on equal terms, each having the power to hurt the other; for the serpent watching for the heel of man, that is, besetting his path in order to hurt him on finding him out of the path, as he [153] could do by creeping about his heel; while man being of upward stature and on his guard, and not straying from his path, was able to bruise the head of the serpent. And now having conquered the serpent and brought him finally to shame, and having through his agency unjustly endured death for the whole race, and nailed the bond against it to the cross and blotted it out, I rose again on the third day victorious over death, and became the champion who has achieved victory for all the human race, for through me the victory has been extended to all humanity. Be ye therefore of good courage. Behold, I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and on all the power of the enemy. He says in effect the serpent is no longer able to hurt your heel, being himself trampled down under your feet. So then, just as Adam |81 had on the sixth day sinned by eating about mid-day of the fruit of the tree, and was cast out of the garden in the afternoon, so also on the sixth day and at the sixth hour, the Lord Christ for his sake endured in the flesh the Cross, by which we are saved. And just as again from the time of the transgression to the expulsion from the garden, all the angels were filled with great dismay, expecting nothing else than the destruction of man and of themselves and of the universe, so also during the Passion from the sixth hour until the ninth the whole creation was shrouded in darkness at the wickedness that was being perpetrated. And just as the two, Adam and Eve, were at the ninth hour cast out of Paradise, so also at the ninth hour the Lord Christ in the spirit and the thief entered into Paradise. On the same day, therefore, in which Adam was made, that is, on the sixth, there occurred both the Fall and the grief of the angels, the sentence of death and the expulsion from Paradise, so also at the time of the Passion, on the same day, there occurred the death of the Saviour by the tree of the Cross, the mourning of the creation, and in the afternoon the putting away of the mourning and the entrance into Paradise. Verify I say unto you, saith the Saviour to the thief, to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. Glory to God for ever and ever, Amen! But we must now return to our text.
Text.
Wherefore the angels did not desist from the ministrations which they rendered to men liable to death and corruption, for the Apostle speaks thus: For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, that is, they were unwilling to labour and serve to no purpose; but, he goes on to say, by reason of him who subjected it in hope. In what hope? Because, as is quite evident, after the transgression the angels, when they saw that God was not carrying into effect the sentence upon man, but treating him with loving care and providing him with clothing, came to entertain better hopes of man, so that they did not despair of him but ministered in his behalf. Then [154] |82 afterwards he says: And the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glory of the liberty of the sons of God ; that is, the angels themselves shall be delivered and with them the whole creation, when men shall be delivered from corruption and be glorified, and be made immortal, and the sons of God at the world's final consummation, when the form of this world shall pass away, and the resurrection of the dead shall take place, and the existing prder of things shall be changed. For when it shall come to pass in accordance with divine scripture that the stars shall fall, and the course of night and day cease, and the angels who move them be liberated through the exemption of men from corruption, who shall thus not at all need them, what then can these new law-givers say who think that the heaven is spherical, and assert that the stars are moved and yet move of themselves? For what useful purpose, let them tell us, if at least they define themselves to be Christians, will the heaven then perform revolutions? But away with these inept, these unstable men, for the Apostle yet again exclaims that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now, thereby again showing that the whole creation, and especially the angels themselves, are burdened in this state of existence from being subservient to corruption and mutation. For since they are themselves mutable they are constantly absorbed in reflections about mutation, thinking over and hoping for liberty and longing to obtain it; and obtain it they shall, as has been stated, when men rise from the dead. For unless they had themselves received a law prescribing what they should and should not do, they could not have fallen into sin, for some of them could not have transgressed (as they did) unless they had received this law from God. Those consequently who transgressed were cast |83 down from on high to the earth, for I saw ----it is the Lord who speaks---- Satan like lightning fall from heaven . But without law it is impossible there should be transgression, as saith the Apostle: For where there is no law there is no transgression, and Without the law sin is dead. So that the angels themselves in every way want to obtain freedom from the law and from mutation. Now, of this liberty, the cause has been and will be the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ. For all things, the Apostle saith, both those which are in heaven and those which are on the earth are summed up in Christ ; and, If any one is in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.
Note.
On the first day, that is the Lord's day, the foundation of the world and the beginning of the creation took place. God having begun in the evening to create those things which comprise the whole world, that is to say, heaven and earth, creating along with them the darkness and the water and the air and the fire which has been commingled with the earth, and the angels----producing all these at one time. Wherefore on the same day and the same night a new creation of the whole world again took place, for the whole world has its circumscription in man, because man, as has been frequently stated, is the bond which holds all the world together. When man, therefore, rose again on the same night of the Lord's day, incorruptible and immortal and unchangeable, he gave a pledge to the whole creation visible and invisible that it would obtain like benefits. Wherefore the Apostle saith: To sum up all things in the Christ, both the things that are in heaven and that are in the earth ; and: If any one be in Christ he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold all things have become new. He says all things, because; in man are contemplated things visible and invisible. He then who denies |84 to the Lord Christ the possession of perfect manhood is deceived by failing to understand the great dispensation which God has planned, as well as to conceive aright the Christian doctrine. In like manner again he who denies his perfect godhead is chargeable with guilt and is utterly misled. Since then this hope is placed before Christians, that the angels and the whole creation shall be renovated into a better and a blessed state of existence, who is so malignant and so impious as to abandon this hope and lean for support on the new and beguiling folly of the pagans? For he shall hear in that day from the Judge these words: Verify I say unto you I know you not; depart from me, all ye that work iniquity. For it is in sooth a great iniquity to reject the declarations of God, and in opposition to them to ascribe a spherical form to the heaven. For such men are incapable of receiving the blessed hope and manifestation of the glory of the great God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us; nor do they wish along with the faithful to hear the Lord Christ exclaiming from on high: Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, but always erring in their opinions they are whirled round in ceaseless revolution along with their sphere, without any hope that there will ever be a pause.
Text.
Since the heavenly bodies then, according to divine scripture, are moved in their orbits by invisible powers, and run their course through the north, and pass below the elevated part of the earth, it is possible, with such a configuration, for eclipses of the moon and the sun to be |85 produced. For the angelic powers, by moving the figures on rational principles and in regular order, and with greater speed than lies in us to apprehend, produce these phenomena, plying their labours by night and by day without ever pausing. For as on the one hand the pagans assert that underneath the earth these bodies revolve far out of sight, thus, as was before shown, advancing views not only out of harmony with the nature of things, but opposed to the divine testimony, so we on the other hand following divine scripture, conceive that the revolution and the course of the heavenly bodies have some slight obliquity, and affirm that they are accomplished in this manner. For this being so, eclipses of necessity follow, and we are thus opposed neither to the Deity nor to the nature of things. For God must be believed in preference to all the notions and all the teaching of men. And with reference again to the four elements, we say that God having first established the earth as being dry, made it the foundation of the universe because of its heaviness. Water again, which is the moist element, he set above the earth on account of its fluidity; and the two as being opposite in their qualities he thought good to place together on account of their good temperature. Next he placed above these the air, which is the cold element, and above the air again fire, which is the warm element, because these are both lighter than the other elements. They are, however, mutually opposed, and therefore the two elements which are placed together in the middle----water which is moist and air which is cold----having many mutual affinities, the one being of a fluid and the other of a porous nature, while both are soft to the touch, and |86 readily receiving into themselves the qualities of each other and of their opposites, impart them in return to each other and blend the whole together; these two elements, I say, he thought good to place in the middle between the other two, the dry and the warm, that all nature might not be destroyed and reduced to a cinder. For from the readiness with which these two middle elements pervade each other, the pagans have fallen into error, and turning things the opposite way call air moist and water cold; consequent upon this they bestow two qualities upon a single element, and frequently even four.
God again provided rains for the good of the earth through the angelic powers, who with the utmost exertion bring them up from the sea into the clouds, and in obedience to the divine command discharge them where-over the divine command directs, for saith scripture by the prophet Amos: He that calleth forth the water of the sea, and poureth it out over the face of the earth (Amos ix, 6; see also Zech. x, I; I Kings xviii, 41). With regard to earthquakes we affirm that they are not produced by wind, for we do not, like our opponents, have recourse to fables, but simply say that they occur by divine appointment, for saith scripture through David: He looketh upon the earth [157] and maketh it tremble (Psalm civ, 32; see also Acts ii, 2; Amos ix, 5; Haggai ii, 20; Isaiah, in sundry passages).
With regard again to the Antipodes, divine scripture does not suffer me either to say or hear anything about these fables: For he made, saith the Apostle, of one the whole race of men to dwell upon the whole face of the earth . He does not mean upon every face of the earth, but upon its face. The dead, again, that are buried in the earth, |87 he calls the subterraneans, as in the passage: That in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of beings celestial and terrestrial and subterranean ; where by beings celestial are meant the angels, by the terrestrial men, and by the subterranean those that are buried in the earth. For the Apostle says that this is to take place at the resurrection, when all, alike angels that are in heaven, men that are upon the earth, and the dead that are buried in the earth, shall all rise and bow the knee in the name of Jesus the Son of God. For we are said to tread upon the earth, in the sense of the expression as used in the passage: I have given you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions. To tread therefore implies treading above some one, but if we tread above any one he who treads in the opposite direction must be below him who treads above him; but according to those wiseacres, a spherical body has neither an above nor a below, and hence we neither tread nor are trodden on in return, nor do we at all walk on the earth. Consequently, all their theories are but inventions and fables.
With regard again to angels and demons and souls, divine scripture represents them as completely circumscribed, and as living in this world, as when the Apostle says: We are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men, as if they all lived in one and the same world. In Daniel also it speaks thus on the same point: And the prince of the Kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days, but lo! Michael one of the chief princes came to help me, and I left him there with the King of the Persians. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days. The expression he withstood me, and that other, he came and went away and I left him there, and others of like import, refer to beings whose |88 natures are circumscribed. It is, moreover, to be observed that archangels are entrusted with the administration and guardianship of particular nations and kingdoms: Yea, even that an angel attends each man as his guardian; as when the church says concerning Peter in Acts: It is his angel . The Lord likewise in the Gospels exclaims: For [158] their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven; thus plainly showing that each one of us has his angel, evidently as his guide and his guardian. For Deity alone is uncircumscribed, existing everywhere, and as the same and in the same manner. For if I ascend, saith David, into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into Hades thou art present there; if I should take to myself wings at morning ----that is, in the east---- and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ----that is, in the west---- even there shall thy hand lead me: evidently indicating here the uncircumscribed nature of the Deity. But this cannot be supposed to hold good of the angels, who in the passage above cited are said to have been left in a certain place. With respect to souls, divine scripture declares them to be circumscribed, and indicates them to be circumscribed by the body itself, as in the passage: Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me; thus speaking of the soul as being within. And again: My heart and my flesh. Here it uses the heart instead of soul, as if the soul had its seat in the heart, and was within the body, as when it again says: In my heart have I hid thy words that I might not sin against thee; that is, I have hid them in my soul. And again: Create in me a clean heart, O God ! meaning a clean soul. The Lord too speaks thus: Not that which goeth into a man defileth him, for it goes into the belly and is cast out into the draught, |89 but the things which proceed out of the heart ----that is, the soul---- these defile the man: such as evil thoughts and other things peculiar to the soul which he enumerates. Elsewhere again he says what is more adapted to put the Jews to shame: The Kingdom of God is within you, instead of saying: Ye ought always to have the Kingdom of God within the soul. And again, to the thief who believed in him he gave this promise: Verily I say unto you, to-day shall thou be with me in Paradise. Here as evidently as possible he speaks of the soul as in a place. And that he speaks with reference to the soul and not to the body, is evident from the fact that the body of the Lord was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in Jerusalem, and that of the thief was buried there also. Most manifestly therefore he speaks of the soul when saying: To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise. Besides, most of the evangelists when speaking of the death of the Lord say: He gave up the spirit ----that is, the spirit within----namely, the soul, which went out of the body. Another of the evangelists says: Having bowed his head, he gave up the spirit.
We have advanced the foregoing conclusions as expressive of the true Christian theory, having been moved to accept them by divine scripture, for they arc not inventions or conjectures of our own, but we have strictly followed what God has spoken to us through the prophets and the [159] Apostles and his own Son. Now, as all those who undertake to deal with such topics in dependence on their own reasonings and conjectures fall into endless perplexities and errors, and can say nothing with certainty, it behoves every true Christian to take refuge in God, the Maker of all, who knows the how and the why of everything, in order that we may not wander and be blown about by |90 every wind of the doctrine of men, according to what the Apostle says: In craftiness of speech and after the wiles of error, and thus even ourselves be condemned along with the world. Moses also in the Old Testament, in the Book of Numbers, gives expression to the same thoughts: And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto the children of Israel and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of each border a cord of blue: and it shall be unto you for a fringe, that ye may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them: and that ye go not about after your own follies and after your own eyes, after which ye used to go a whoring, that ye may remember and do all my commandments and be holy unto your God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the Land of Egypt to be your God: I am the Lord your God (Num. xv, 38). God himself in that passage teaches more clearly what the Apostle also has taught us, that we should not follow our own imaginations, but rather the divine precepts. God grant, O honoured Head, that we may abstain from these things, and cling instead to those that are divine, through the prayers of your Holiness, O most Christian Father, so that we may find mercy and grace before the throne of grace for evermore, Amen!
[Footnotes have been moved to the end and renumbered]
1. A play upon the name of Pamphilus, which means beloved by all.
2. Gr. th~j e1cwqen e0gkukli/ou paidei/aj. 'Egku&klion paidei/a , the circle of the arts and sciences taught in Greek schools.
3. Gr. tu&poj kai\ u(pografh_ .
4. Gr. w(j ta&cin 'Abramiai/an plhrw~n . Abram, or Abraham, of Cascar, who flourished about the beginning of the sixth century of our aera, retired into the desert of Scete and dwelt in a cave on Mount Izla, near Nisibis. He founded a monastic order among the Nestorians. The w(j plhrw~n of the text is translated both by Montfaucon and De la Croze: quum implevisset, but erroneously. The use of the present participle indicates that Patricius set out to teach in fulfilment of the vows of his order.
5. According to the Latin version of Montfaucon, it was Patricius who died at Byzantium, and Thomas who became Primate of Persia. This rendering, however, conflicts with the rules of Greek syntax, and states, besides, what is historically untrue. For from the Catalogue of the Nestorian Patriarchs it has been clearly proved that Patricius, who was a Magian and was called by the Syrians Abas or Mar-Abas, became Bishop Catholic of the whole of Persia. This passage has received much notice from writers on early ecclesiastical history, and has been used to show that Cosmas was himself a Nestorian.
The real founder of Nestorianism was Theodorus of Mopsuestia. "In the Persian School of Edessa", says Gibbon, "the rising generations of the faithful imbibed their theological idiom; they studied in the Syriac version the ten thousand volumes of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and they revered the Apostolic faith and holy martyrdom of his disciple Nestorius, whose person and language were equally unknown to the nations beyond the Tigris"; vol. viii, c. 47. Nestorius, a presbyter of Antioch, was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople in 428, but having been deposed by the Council of Ephesus, was banished first to Antioch and afterwards to the Greater Oasis in Upper Egypt, where he died before the year 450. The Nestorians, or Chaldaean Christians as they call themselves, are still numerous in the East, and retain their tendency to distinguish carefully between the human and divine natures of Christ, and their objection to call the Virgin Mary the Mother of God.
6. II Cor. v, 1.
7. Gen. i, 1.
8. Exod. xx, 11.
9. Gen. ii, i.
10. Ibid., 4.
11. Gen. xiv, 19.
12. Gen. xxiv, 2.