7. From this, I trust, it is now made patent to spiritual minds that there cannot possibly exist any nature contrary to God. For if He is, — and this is a word which can be spoken with propriety only of God (for that which truly is remains unchangeably; inasmuch as that which is changed has been something which now it is not, and shall be something which as yet it is not), — it follows that God has nothing contrary to Himself. For if the question were put to us, What is contrary to white? we would reply, black; if the question were, What is contrary to hot? we would reply, cold; if the question were, What is contrary to quick? we would reply, slow; and born. We follow the Benedictine reading, qui post ejus et per ejus primatum in Dei gratia m renascuntur. But there is another, although less authoritative, version, viz. qui post ejus primitias in Dei gratia nascimur = all of us who, subsequently to His first-fruits, are born in the grace of God.
11 Luke viii. 21; Rom. viii. 15-17; Gal. iv. 5; Eph. i. 5; Heb. ii. 11.
12 Id existens quod Pater est, etc. Another version is. idem existens quod Pater Dens = subsisting as the same that God the Father is. J3 John i. 9.
14 The term dispensatio occurs very frequently as the equivalent of the Greek oIkovo/j-Co. = economy, designating the Incarnation. T3 Ex. iii. 14.
Chap. IV.]
;^5 all similar interrogations we would answer in like manner. When, however, it is asked, What is contrary to that which is? the right reply to give is, that which is not.
8. But whereas, in a temporal dispensation, as I have said, with a view to our salvation and restoration, and with the goodness of God acting therein, our changeable nature has been assumed by that unchangeable Wisdom of God, we add the faith in temporal things which have been done with salutary effect on our behalf, believing in that Son of God WHO WAS BORN THROUGH THE HOLY GHOST OF the Virgin Mary. For by the gift of God, that is, by the Holy Spirit, there was granted to us so great humility on the part of so great a God, that He deemed it worthy of Him to assume the entire nature of man (totum hominem) in the womb of the Virgin, inhabiting the material body so that it sustained no detriment {integrum), and leaving it1 without detriment. This temporal dispensation is in many ways craftily assailed b)T the heretics. But if any one shall have grasped the catholic faith, so as to believe that the entire nature of man was assumed by the Word of God, that is to say, body, soul, and spirit, he has sufficient defense against those parties. For surely, since that assumption was effected in behalf of our salvation, one must be on his guard lest, as he believes that there is something belonging to our nature which sustains no relation to that assumption, this something may fail also to sustain any relation to the salvation. 2 And seeing that, with the exception of the form of the members, which has been imparted to the varieties of living objects with differences adapted to their different kinds, man is in nothing separated from the cattle but in [the possession of] a rational spirit [rationali spiritu), which is also named mind (mens), how is that faith sound, according to which the belief is maintained, that the Wisdom of God assumed that part of us which we hold in common with the cattle, while He did not assume that which is brightly illumined by the light of wisdom, and which is man's peculiar gift?
9. Moreover, those parties3 also are to be abhorred who deny that our Lord Jesus Christ had in Mary a mother upon earth; while that dispensation has honored both sexes, at once the male and the female, and has made it plain that.not only that sex which He assumed pertains to God's care, but also that sex by which He did assume 1 Deserens. With less point, deferens has been suggested™ bearing it, or delivering it.
2 Or it may = he should fail to have any relation to the salvation. 3 Referring to the Manicheans.
this other, in that He bore [the nature of] the man (virum gerendo), [and] in that He was born of the woman. Neither is there anything to compel us to a denial of the mother of the Lord, in the circumstance that this word was spoken by Him: "Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come." 4 But He rather admonishes us to understand that, in respect of His being God, there was no mother for Him, the part of whose personal majesty (cujus majestatis personam) He was preparing to show forth in the turning of water into wine. But as regards His being crucified, He was crucified in respect of his being man; and that was the hour which had not come as yet, at the time when this word was spoken, "What have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come;" that is, the hour at which I shall recognize thee. For at that period, when He was crucified as man, He recognized His human mother (hominem matrem), and committed her most humanely (humanissime) to the care of the best beloved disciple.5 Nor, again, should we be moved by the fact that, when the presence of His mother and His brethren was announced to Him, He replied, "Who is my mother, or who my brethren?" etc.6 But rather let it teach us, that when parents hinder our ministry wherein we minister the word of God to our brethren, they ought not to be recognized by us. For if, on the ground of His having said, "Who is my mother?" every one should conclude that He had no mother on earth, then each should as matter of course be also compelled to deny that the apostles had fathers on earth; since He gave them an injunction in these terms: " Call no man your father upon the earth; for one is your Father, which is in heaven." 7 10. Neither should the thought of the woman's womb impair this faith in us, to the effect that there should appear to be any necessity for rejecting such a generation of our Lord for the mere reason that worthless men consider it unworthy (sordidi sordidam putanf). For most true are these sayings of an apostle, both that " the foolishness of God is wiser than men,"8 and that "to the pure all things are pure."9 Those,10 therefore, who entertain this opinion ought to ponder the fact that the rays of this sun, which indeed they do not praise as a creature of God, but adore as God, are diffused all the world over, through the noisomenesses of sewers and every kind of horrible thing, and that 6 Matt. xii. 48. 7 Matt, xxiii. 9.
10 In reference to the Manicheans.
[Chap. VII.
they operate in these according to their nature, and yet never become debased by any defilement thence contracted, albeit that the visible light is by nature in closer conjunction with visible pollutions. How much less, therefore, could the Word of God, who is neither corporeal nor visible, sustain defilement from the female body, wherein He assumed human flesh together with soul and spirit, through the incoming of which the majesty of the Word dwells in a less immediate conjunction with the frailty of a human body! ' Hence it is manifest that the Word - of God could in no way have been defiled by a human body, by which even the human soul is not defiled. For not when it rules the body and quickens it, but only when it lusts after the mortal good things thereof, is the soul defiled by the body. But if these persons were to desire to avoid the defilements of the soul, they would dread rather these falsehoods and profanities.
chap. 5. — of Christ's passion, burial, and resurrection.
11. But little [comparatively] was the humiliation (Jiwnilitas) of our Lord on our behalf in His being born: it was also added that He deemed it meet to die in behalf of mortal men. For " He humbled Himself, being made subject even unto death, yea, the death of the cross: "2 lest any one of us, even were he able to have no fear of death [in general], should yet shudder at some particular sort of death which men reckon most shameful. Therefore do we believe in Him who under Pontius Pilate was crucified and buried. For it was requisite that the name of the judge should be added, with a view to the cognizance of the times. Moreover, when that burial is made an object of belief, there enters also the recollection of the new tomb,3 which was meant to present a testimony to Him in His destiny to rise again to newness of life, even as the Virgin's womb did the same to Him in His appointment to be born. For just as in that sepulchre no other dead person was buried,4 whether before or after Him; so neither in that womb, whether before or after, was anything mortal conceived.
12. We believe also, that on the third day He rose again from the dead, the first-begotten for brethren destined to come after Him, whom He has called into the adoption of the 1 The Benedictine text gives, quibus intervenientibus habitat majestas Verbi ab humani corporis fragilitate secretins. Another well-supported version is, ad humani corporis fragiiitatem, etc.= more retired in relation to the frailty of the human body. 2 Phil. ii. 8.
3 For monumenti some editions give testa7>ienti=testament.
4 John xix. 41.
sons of God,5 whom [also] He has deemed it meet to make His own joint-partners and joint-heirs. 6 chap. 6. — of Christ's ascension into heaven.
13. We believe that He ascended into heaven, which place of blessedness He has likewise promised unto us, saying, "They shall be as the angels in the heavens," 7 in that city which is the mother of us all,8 the Jerusalem eternal in the heavens. But it is wont to give offense to certain parties, either impious Gentiles or heretics, that we should believe in the assumption of an earthly body into heaven. The Gentiles, however, for the most part, set themselves diligently to ply us with the arguments of the philosophers, to the effect of affirming that there cannot possibly be anything earthly in heaven. For they know not our Scriptures, neither do they understand how it has been said, " It is sown an animal body, it is raised a spiritual body."9 For thus it has not been expressed, as if body were turned into spirit and became spirit; inasmuch as at present, too, our body, which is called animal (atumale), has not been turned into soul and become soul (ani/na). But by a spiritual body is meant one which has been made subject to spirit in such wise1* that it is adapted to a heavenly habitation, all frailty and every earthly blemish having been changed and converted into heavenly purity and stability. This is the change concerning which the apostle likewise speaks thus: " We shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed."11 And that this change is made not unto the worse, but unto the better, the same [apostle] teaches, when he says, "And we shall be changed." I2 But the question as to where and in what manner the Lord's body is in heaven, is one which it would be altogether over-curious and superfluous to prosecute. Only we must believe that it is in heaven. For it pertains not to our frailty to investigate the secret things of heaven, but it does pertain to our faith to hold elevated and honorable sentiments on the subject of the dignity of the Lord's body.
chap. 7. — of Christ's session at the father's right hand.
14. We believe also that He sitteth at the right hand of the Father. This, however, is 7 Matt. xxii. 30. 8 Gal. iv. 26.
9 1 Cor. xv. 44.
10 Adopting the Benedictine reading, quod ita spiritui subditum est. But several mss. give quia ita coaptandum <\r/ = it is understood to be a spiritual body, in that it is to be so adapted as to suit a heavenly habitation.
11 1 Cor. xv. 51, according to the Vulgate's transposition of the negative. '-' 1 Cor. xv. 5J.
Chap. IX.]
Chap. IX.]
not to lead us to suppose that God the Father is, as it were, circumscribed by a human form, so that, when we think of Him, a right side or a left should suggest itself to the mind. Nor, again, when it is thus said in express terms that the Father sitteth, are we to fancy that this is done with bended knees; lest we should fall into that profanity, in [dealing with] which an apostle execrates those who " changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of corruptible man."1 For it is unlawful for a Christian to set up any such image for God in a temple; much more nefarious is it, [therefore], to set it up in the heart, in which truly is the temple of God, provided it be purged of earthly lust and error. This expression, " at the right hand,"' therefore, we must understand to signify a position in supremest blessedness, where righteousness and peace and joy are; just as the kids are set on the left hand, 2 that is to say, in misery, by reason of unrighteousness, labors, and torments. 3 And in accordance with this, when it is said that God " sitteth," the expression indicates not a posture of the members, but a judicial power, which that Majesty never fails to possess, as He is always awarding deserts as men deserve them {clig/m dignis tribuendd); although at the last judgment the unquestionable brightness of the only-begotten Son of God, the Judge of the living and the dead, is destined yet to be4 a thing much more manifest among men.
chap. 8. — of Christ's coming to judgment.
15. We believe also, that at the most seasonable time He will come from thence, and WILL JUDGE THE QUICK AND THE DEAD: whether by these terms are signified the righteous and sinners, or whether it be the case that those persons are here called the quick, whom at that period He shall find, previous to [their] death,5 upon the earth, while the dead denote those who shall rise again at His advent. This temporal dispensation not only is, as holds good of that generation which respects His being God, but also hath been and shall be. For our Lord hath been upon the earth, and at present He is in heaven, and [hereafter] He shall be in His brightness as the Judge of the quick and the dead. For He shall yet come, even so as He has ascended, according 3 Reading propter iniquitates, labores atque cruciatus. Several mss. give propter iniquitatis labores, etc. = by reason of the labors and torments of unrighteousness.
4 Readingya/Krrt sit; for which fuisura sit also occurs = is destined to shine much more manifestly, etc.
5 The text gives simply ante mortem. Some editions insert nostrum = previous to our death.
to the authority which is contained in the Acts of the Apostles.6 It is in accordance with this temporal dispensation, therefore, that He speaks in the Apocalypse, where it is written in this wise: "These things saith He, who is, and who was, and who is to come." 7 CHAP. 9. OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY.
16. The divine generation, therefore, of our Lord, and his human dispensation, having both been thus systematically disposed and commended to faith,8 there is added to our Confession, with a view to the perfecting of the faith which we have regarding God, [the doctrine of] the Holy Spirit, who is not of a nature inferior9 to the Father and the Son, but, so to say, consubstantial and co-eternal: for this Trinity is one God, not to the effect that the Father is the same [Person] as the Son and the Holy Spirit, but to the effect that the Father is the Father, and the Son is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit; and this Trinity is one God, according as it is written, " Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one God." I0 At the same time, if we be interrogated on the subject of each separately, and if the question be put to us, " Is the Father God?" we shall reply, "He is God.'' If it be asked whether the Son is God, we shall answer to the same effect. Nor, if this kind of inquiry be addressed to us with respect to the Holy Spirit, ought we to affirm in reply that He is anything else than God; being earnestly on our guard, [however], against an acceptance of this merely in the sense in which it is applied to men, when it is said, " Ye are gods." " For of all those who have been made and fashioned of the Father, through the Son, by the gift of the Holy Spirit, none are gods according to nature. For it is this same Trinity that is signified when an apostle says, " For of Him, and in Him, and through Him, are all things."12 Consequently, although, when we are interrogated on the subject of each [of these Persons] severally, we reply that that particular one regarding whom the question is asked, whether it be the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, is God, no one, notwithstanding this, should suppose that three Gods are worshipped by us.
8 Instead of /ideique commendata et diin'tia generatione, etc., another, but weakly supported, version is, fide atque commendata divina, etc., which makes the sense = The faith, therefore, having been systematically disposed, and our Lord's divine generation and human dispensation having been commended to the understanding, etc.
9 Xon minore natura quavt Pater. The Benedictine editors suggest minor for minore = not inferior in nature, etc.
10 Deut. vi. 4. " Ps. Ixxxii. 6. I2 Rom. xi. 36.
[Chap. IX.
17. Neither is it strange that these things are said in reference to an ineffable Nature, when even in those objects which we discern with the bodily eyes, and judge of by the bodily sense, something similar holds good. For take the instance of an interrogation on the subject of a fountain, and consider how we are unable then to affirm that the said fountain is itself the river; and how, when we are asked about the river, we are as little able to call it the fountain; and, again, how we are equally unable to designate the draught, which comes of the fountain or the river, either river or fountain. Nevertheless, in the case of this trinity we use the name water [for the.whole]; and when the question is put regarding each of these separately, we reply in each several instance that the thing: is water. For if I inquire whether it is water in the fountain, the reply is given that it is water; and if we ask whether it is water in the river, no different response is returned; and in the case of the said draught, no other answer can possibly be made: and yet, for all this, we do not speak of these things as three waters, but as one water. At the same time, of* course, care must be taken that no one should conceive of the ineffable substance of that Majesty merely as he might think of this visible and material * fountain, or river, or draught. For in the case of these latter, that water which is at present in the fountain goes forth into the river, and does not abide in itself; and when it passes from the river or from the fountain into the draught, it does not continue permanently there where it is taken from. Therefore it is possible here that the same water may be in view at one time under the appellation of the fountain, and at another under that of the river, and at a third under that of the draught. But in the case of that Trinity, we have affirmed it to be impossible that the Father should be sometime the Son, and sometime the Holy Spirit: just as, in a tree, the root is nothing else than the root, and the trunk {robur) is nothing else than the trunk, and we cannot call the branches anything else than branches; for, what is called the root cannot be called trunk and branches; and the wood which belongs to the root cannot by any sort of transference be now in the root, and again in the trunk, and yet again in the branches, but only in the root; since this rule of designation stands fast, so that the root is wood, and the trunk is wood, and the branches are wood, while nevertheless it is not three woods that are thus spoken of, but only one.
1 Corporetim = corporeal.
Or, if these objects have some sort of dissimilarity, so that on account of their difference in strength they may be spoken of, without any absurdity, as three woods; at least all parties admit the force of the former example,— namely, that if three cups be filled out of one fountain, they may certainly be called three cups, but cannot be spoken of as three waters, but only as one all together. Yet, at the same time, when asked concerning the several cups, one by one, we may answer that in each of them by itself there is water; although in this case no such transference takes place as we were speaking of as occurring from the fountain into the river. But these examples in things material (corporalia exetnpla) have been adduced not in virtue of their likeness to that divine Nature, but in reference to the oneness which subsists even in things visible, so that it may be understood to be quite a possibility for three objects of some sort, not only severally, but also all together, to obtain one single name; and that in this way no one may wonder and think it absurd that we should call the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God, and that nevertheless we should say that there are not three Gods in that Trinity, but one God and one substance.2 18. And, indeed, on this subject of the Father and the Son, learned and spiritual3 men have conducted discussions in many books, in which, so far as men could do with men, they have endeavored to introduce an intelligible account as to how the Father was not one personally with the Son, and yet the two were one substantially;4 and as to what the Father was individually (proprie), and what the Son: to wit, that the former was the Begetter, the latter the Begotten; the former not of the Son, the latter of the Father: the former the Beginning of the latter, whence also He is called the Head of Christ,5 although Christ likewise is the Beginning,6 but not of the Father; the latter, moreover, the Image7 of the former, although in no respect dissimilar, and although absolutely and without difference equal (om?ii?io et indiffcrcnter cequalis). These questions are handled with greater breadth by those who, in less narrow limits than ours are at present, seek to set 2 Many mss., however, insert colamus after Deutn in the closing sentence, sed unum Deu7ii unamque substantia}!:. The sense then will be = and that nevertheless we should worship in that Trinity not three Gods, but one God and one substance.
3 Spiritales, for which religiosi = religious, is also sometimes given.
4 Non unus esset Pater et Filius, sed unum essent =-■ how the Father and the Son were not one in person, but were one in essence.
5 1 Cor. xi. 3.
6 In reference probably to John viii. 25, where the Vulgate gives principium qui et loquor vobis as the literal equivalent for the Greek t<]v apxrjy 6,ti «ai AaAw iir)lv. 7 Col. 1. 15.
Chap. IX.]
forth the profession of the Christian faith in its totality. Accordingly, in so far as He is the Son, of the Father received He it that He is, while that other [the Father] received not this of the Son; and in so far as He, in unutterable mercy, in a temporal dispensation took upon Himself the [nature of] man (hominem), — to wit, the changeable creature that was thereby to be changed into something better, — many statements concerning Him are discovered in the Scriptures, which are so expressed as to have given occasion to error in the impious intellects of heretics, with whom the desire to teach takes precedence of that to understand, so that they have supposed Him to be neither equal with the Father nor of the same substance. Such statements [are meant] as the following: "For the Father is greater than I;"1 and, " The head of the woman is the man, the Head of the man is Christ, and the Head of Christ is God; " 2 and, " Then shall He Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him; " 3 and, " I go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God " 4 together with some others of like tenor. Now all these have had a place given them, [certainly] not with the object of signifying an inequality of nature and substance; for to take them so would be to falsify a different class of statements, such as, "I and my Father are one" (unum);s and, "He that hath seen me hath seen my Father also;"6 and, " The Word was God,"7 for He was not made, inasmuch as " all things were made by Him;"8 and, "He thought it not robbery to be equal with God: *'9 together with all the other passages of a similar order. But these statements have had a place given them, partly with a view to that administration of His assumption of human nature (administrationcm szcscepti hominis), in accordance with which it is said that " He emptied Himself:" not that that Wisdom was changed, since it is absolutely unchangeable; but that it was His will to make Himself known in such humble fashion to men. Partly then, I repeat, it is with a view to this administration that those things have been thus written which the heretics make the ground of their false allegations; and partly it was with a view to the consideration that the Son owes to the Father that which He is,10 — thereby also certainly owing this in particular to the Father, to wit, that He is equal to the same Father, or that He is His Peer (eidem Patri (Equalis atit par 9 Phil. ii. 9. [See R. V.] 10 Or it may be = that the Son owes it to the Father that He is.
est), whereas the Father owes whatsoever He is to no one.