On the First Principles, Book 4

But since, in discussing such great and weighty matters, it is not enough to entrust the whole matter to human senses and common understanding, and, so to speak, to make visible pronouncements about invisible things, we must also bring in the passages of testimony of the divine Scriptures to prove what we say. That these passages of testimony may have sure and undoubted credibility, whether for what we are to say or for what has already been said, it seems necessary first to show that the Scriptures themselves are divine, that is, inspired by the Spirit of God. As briefly as we can, then, we will set out on this subject too, bringing forward from the divine Scriptures themselves the things that have rightly moved us; that is, first concerning Moses, the lawgiver of the Hebrew nation, and from the words of Jesus Christ, the author and head of the Christian religion and teaching. For though there have been very many lawgivers among the Greeks and barbarians, and countless teachers or philosophers professing to assert the truth, we remember no lawgiver who was able to instill such affection and enthusiasm into the minds even of foreign nations that they would either willingly receive his laws or defend them with all their strength of mind. No one, then, has been able to make what seemed to him the truth so welcome and so deeply rooted, not only in many other foreign nations but even in one nation, that the knowledge or belief of it reached everyone. And indeed it cannot be doubted that lawgivers wished their laws to be kept by all people, if it could be, and that teachers wished the truth as they saw it to be known to all. But knowing that they could not do this at all, and that there was no such power in them as might call even foreign nations to the observance of their laws or doctrines, they did not dare even to attempt or begin this at all, so that the attempt itself, ineffective and impossible to complete, would not show poor judgment in this too. But throughout the whole world, in all Greece and in all the foreign nations, there are countless and immense numbers who, leaving their ancestral laws and those whom they thought to be gods, have given themselves to the observance of the law of Moses and to the discipleship and worship of Christ; and this not without immense hatred stirred up against them by the worshipers of images, so that they are often subjected by them to tortures and sometimes even led to death; and yet they embrace and keep the word of Christ's teaching with all affection. And one may see how in a short time this religion has grown, advancing through the punishments and deaths of its worshipers, and through the plundering of their goods and every kind of torture endured from these people; and this is the more wonderful because its teachers themselves are neither very skilled nor very numerous; yet “this word is preached throughout the whole world,” so that “Greeks and barbarians, wise and unwise” receive the religion of the Christian teaching. From this there is no doubt that it is “not by human” strength or “resources” that this comes about, that the word of Christ Jesus grows strong, with all power and belief, in the minds and hearts of all. For that these very things were foretold by him and confirmed by his divine oracles is plain when he says, “You will be brought before governors and judges for my sake, as a testimony to them and to the nations”; and again, “This Gospel will be preached among all the nations”; and again, “Many will say to me on that day: Lord, Lord, did we not eat and drink in your name, and cast out demons in your name? And I will say to them: Depart from me, workers of wickedness; I never knew you.” If these things had indeed been said by him and yet what was foretold had not happen, perhaps they might have seemed less true and to have no authority. But now, since the things foretold by him are happening, and were foretold with such power and authority, it is most plainly declared that he who became man and delivered saving commands to human beings is truly God. What, then, must be said of the fact that the prophets had foretold of him that “rulers would not fail from Judah, nor leaders from his thighs, until he should come for whom it is reserved,” namely the kingdom, and “until the expectation of the nations should come”? For it is most plainly apparent from history itself, and from what is seen today, that from the times of Christ there have been no more kings among the Jews. And all those Jewish displays in which they took great pride and in which they rejoiced, whether in the beauty of the temple or in the ornaments of the altar, and all those priestly headbands and robes of the high priests, were all destroyed together. For the prophecy was fulfilled which had said: “For many days the sons of Israel will sit without king, without prince; there will be no sacrifice, nor altar, nor priesthood, nor oracles.” We use these passages of testimony, then, against those who seem to assert, concerning what Jacob said in Genesis, that it was said of Judah, and who say that a ruler still remains from the race of Judah, namely the one who is the ruler of their nation, whom they call the patriarch, and that his descendants will not fail who are to remain until the coming of that Christ whom they picture for themselves. But if what the prophet says is true, that “for many days the sons of Israel will sit without king, without prince, and there will be no sacrifice, nor altar, nor priesthood”; and if, as is certainly the case, since the temple was overthrown “no sacrifices” are offered, “no altar” is found, and “no priesthood” exists, then it is most certain that “rulers have failed from Judah,” as it is written, and “a leader from his thighs, until he came for whom it is reserved.” It is established, then, that “he has come for whom it is reserved,” in whom is also “the expectation of the nations.” And this is plainly seen to be fulfilled in the multitude of those who from different nations have believed in God through Christ. In the song of Deuteronomy, too, it is indicated by prophecy that because of the sins of the former people there would be the election of a foolish nation, none other than this which was made through Christ. It says this: “They provoked me with their idols, and I will provoke them to jealousy; with a foolish nation I will provoke them.” It is quite clearly to be recognized, then, how the Hebrews, who are said to have “provoked” God by those who are not gods and to have angered him “with their idols,” were themselves provoked to jealousy by “a foolish nation,” which God “chose” through the coming of Christ Jesus and his disciples. For so the apostle says: “Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you are wise according to the flesh, not many powerful, not many noble; but God chose what is foolish in the world, and the things that are not, to destroy the things that were before.” Let not “Israel according to the humanity boast,” then, for so it is called by the apostle; let not, I say, “humanity boast in the presence of God.” But what must be said of the things prophesied about Christ in the Psalms, especially in the one entitled “A song for the beloved,” where it is said that his “tongue” is “the pen of a swiftly writing scribe, fair in beauty above the human beings,” because “grace is poured out on his lips”? The sign of “the grace poured out on his lips” is this: that although only a short time passed in his teaching (for he taught for a year and some months), the whole world was nevertheless filled with his teaching and with the faith of his religion. For “there arose in his days righteousness and abundance of peace,” lasting “until” the end, which end is called “the taking away of the moon”; “and he rules from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.” A “sign” was also given to the house of David: “For a virgin conceived in the womb and bore Emmanuel,” which is interpreted, “God with us”; and what the same prophet says was fulfilled: “God is with us. Know this, you nations, and be overcome.” For “we have been overcome” and conquered, we who are from the nations, and we are, as it were, what he captured in his victory, we who have bowed our necks to his grace. The place of his birth too was foretold in the prophet Micah, who says: “And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah; for from you will come a leader who will rule my people Israel.” The weeks of years also were fulfilled up to Christ the leader, which the prophet Daniel had foretold. Present too is the one who was foretold through Job as about “to destroy the great beast,” who also “gave power” to his own disciples “to step on serpents and scorpions and on all the power of the enemy, without being harmed at all by it.” And if anyone considers the journeys of Christ's apostles to each place, where, sent by him, they preached the Gospel, he will find that what they dared to undertake is beyond human strength, and that their being able to accomplish what they dared is from God. If we consider how people hearing a new teaching brought in by them could receive them, or rather that often those who wished to destroy them were restrained by a divine power that was present with them, we will find that nothing in this was done by human strength, but all was brought about by divine power and providence, “signs and mighty works without doubt bearing clear testimony to their word and teaching.” These things having been briefly shown, namely concerning the divinity of Jesus Christ and the fulfillment of all that had been prophesied about him, I think it is proved at the same time that the Scriptures themselves which prophesied about him are divinely inspired, those which foretold either his coming, or the power of his teaching, or the taking up of all the nations. To this must be added that both the prophecy of the prophets and the law of Moses were shown and proved to be divine and divinely inspired chiefly from the time when Christ came into this world. For before the things foretold by them were fulfilled, although they were true and inspired by God, they could not be shown to be true, because they had not yet been proved to be fulfilled. But the coming of Christ declared that what they had said was true and divinely inspired, since before it had certainly been held uncertain whether the outcome of what had been foretold would be fulfilled. And if anyone considers the prophetic sayings with all the enthusiasm and reverence they deserve, it is certain that in the very act of reading and examining them more carefully he will be struck in mind and sense by some more divine breath, and will recognize that the words he reads were not produced by human beings but are the words of God; and he will perceive for himself that these books were written not by human art nor by mortal eloquence but, so to speak, in a divine style. The splendor of Christ's coming, then, illuminating the law of Moses with the brightness of truth, drew away the veil that had been laid over its letter, and opened to all who believe in him all the good things that were covered and hidden within it. It would be a laborious task to list one by one the things foretold by the prophets long ago and how or when they were fulfilled, so as to seem to strengthen those who doubt by means of them; since anyone who wishes to know these things more carefully can gather proofs more abundantly from the books of truth themselves. But if to those less learned in the divine disciplines the meaning beyond human ability does not at once appear at first sight of the literal wording, it is no wonder; for divine things come down to human beings rather in a hidden way, and are the more hidden the more one is unbelieving or unworthy. For though it is certain that all things that exist or are done in this world are ordered by God's providence, some appear plainly enough to be arranged under the government of providence, while others are unfolded so secretly and incomprehensibly that the reason of divine providence is wholly hidden in them; so that sometimes some people do not believe that certain things belong to providence, because the reason is hidden from them by which the works of divine providence are ordered with a kind of inexpressible skill; yet this reason is not equally hidden from all. For even among human beings it is perceived less by one and more by another; and better than by any human being on earth, whoever he may be, it is known by the inhabitant of heaven. The reason of bodies is clear in one way, that of trees in another, that of animals in another; but that of souls is hidden in yet another way; and how the different motions of rational minds are ordered by divine providence is hidden more from human beings, but also, to a considerable extent, from the angels, I think. But just as divine providence is not refuted, least of all for those who are certain of it, because its works or arrangements cannot be grasped by human minds, so neither will the divine inspiration of holy Scripture, which extends through its whole body, be thought not to exist because the weakness of our understanding cannot trace out in each phrase the hidden and secret meanings; for the treasure of divine wisdom is hidden in the humbler and coarser vessels of words, as the apostle also indicates when he says, “We have this treasure in clay vessels,” “so that the power of divine strength may shine out the more,” since no coloring of human eloquence is mixed into the truth of the doctrines. For if our books had enticed people to believe by the art of rhetoric or by philosophical cleverness, “our faith” would without doubt be thought “to consist in the art of words and in human wisdom, and not in the power of God.” But now it is known to all that “the word of this preaching” has been received by very many throughout almost the whole world in such a way that they understood that what they believed rested “not on persuasive words of wisdom but on the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” Therefore, since we have been led to faith and belief by heavenly, indeed by more than heavenly, power, so that we worship God alone, the creator of all, let us also strive with all our might, “leaving behind the elementary teaching of Christ,” which is the first beginning of knowledge, to “be carried on to perfection,” so that the “wisdom” that is handed on to “the mature” may be handed on to us also. For so he promises, to whom the preaching of this wisdom was entrusted, when he says: “But we speak wisdom among the mature, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the rulers of this world, who are coming to nothing.” By this he shows that this wisdom of ours has nothing in common with the wisdom of this world as regards elegance of speech. This wisdom, then, will be inscribed in our hearts more clearly and perfectly if it is laid open to us “according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept hidden for eternal ages but has now been made known through the prophetic Scriptures” and “through the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” “to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Misunderstanding Scripture has led many into heresies

Having briefly set out these things, then, concerning the inspiration of the divine Scriptures by the Holy Spirit, it seems necessary also to explain how some, not reading or understanding them rightly, have given themselves over to very many errors, because the way by which one must proceed to the understanding of the divine writings is unknown to very many. Indeed the Jews, through the hardness of their hearts and because they wished to seem wise to themselves, did not believe in our Lord and Savior, supposing that what was prophesied about him must be understood according to the letter: that is, that he ought to have “preached release to the captives” in a way perceived by the senses and visible, and that he ought first to have built the city which they truly think to be “the city of God,” and at the same time to have “cut off the chariots of Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem,” and also to have “eaten butter and honey, so that before he knew how to express evil he might choose the good.” They also thought it was prophesied that “the wolf,” the four-footed animal, would at the coming of Christ “feed with lambs, and the leopard lie down with young goats, that the calf and the bull would feed together with lions and be led to pasture by a little child, that the ox and the bear would lie down together in the pastures and their young be raised together, and that lions too would stand at the mangers with oxen and eat straw.” Seeing that none of all these things prophesied of him had been done according to the history, in which they believed above all that the signs of Christ's coming were to be looked for, they would not receive the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ; on the contrary, as if he had taken the name of Christ for himself against right and law, that is, against the faith of prophecy, they nailed him to the cross. Then the heretics, reading what is written in the law, “A fire has been kindled from my anger”; and, “I am God, jealous, repaying the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation”; and, “I repent that I anointed Saul king”; and, “I am God, who make peace and create evils”; and again, “There is no evil in a city which the Lord has not done”; and, “Evils came down from the Lord upon the gates of Jerusalem”; and that “an evil spirit from God choked Saul”; and many other things like these which are written, did not dare to say that these were not the Scriptures of God, but supposed them to belong to that creator God whom the Jews worshiped, who, they thought, must be believed to be only just and not also good; and that the Savior came to announce to us a more perfect God, whom they deny to be the creator of the world, disagreeing among themselves with various opinions on this very point; since, having once withdrawn from faith in God the creator, who is the God of all, they gave themselves over to various inventions and stories, inventing certain things and saying that some things are visible and made by one, and others invisible and founded by another, as the fancy and vanity of their own souls suggested to them. And some too of the simpler ones among those who are seen to be held within the faith of the church think indeed that there is none greater than God the creator, holding in this a right and sound opinion; but they think such things of him as ought not to be thought even of the most unjust and cruel of men. But the cause of the false understanding of all those of whom we have spoken above was none other than this: that holy Scripture is understood by them not according to the spiritual sense but according to the sound of the letter. Therefore we will try, according to the modest measure of our understanding, to show those who believe that the holy Scriptures are not composed of any human words but were written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and were handed down and entrusted to us too by the will of God the Father through his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, what seems to us the right way of understanding them, keeping that rule and discipline which the apostles received from Jesus Christ and handed down by succession to their successors as well, who teach the heavenly church. And indeed that certain mystical arrangements are indicated through the holy Scriptures, all, I think, even the simpler believers, confess. But what these are, or of what kind, anyone of right mind who is not troubled by the vice of boasting will more reverently admit that he does not know. For if someone, for example, puts to us the case of Lot's daughters, who seem to have joined with their father against what is lawful, or of the two wives of Abraham, or of the two sisters who were married to Jacob, and of the two female servants who increased the number of his sons, what else can be answered than that these are certain mysteries and forms of spiritual things, but that it is not known to us of what kind they are? And when we read of the construction of the tabernacle, we hold it for certain that these things that are written are figures of certain hidden things; but to fit them to their proper measures and to open and discuss them one by one is, I think, very difficult, not to say impossible. Yet, as I said, that this description is full of mysteries does not escape even the common understanding. And all that narrative which seems to be written about marriages, or the birth of sons, or various battles, or any other histories whatever, what else is to be believed than that they are forms and figures of hidden and sacred things? But because people apply little enthusiasm to exercising their minds, or think they know before they learn, it comes about that they never begin to know. But if neither enthusiasm is lacking nor a teacher, and if these things are sought as divine and not as human, that is, religiously and piously, and with the hope that they will be opened in very many points by God's revelation, since to human senses they are very difficult and hidden, then perhaps the one who seeks in this way will find what it is lawful to find. But perhaps it may be thought that this difficulty lies only in the prophetic sayings, since it is agreed by all that the prophetic style is always thick with figures and enigmas: what, then, when we come to the Gospels? Is there not there too a hidden, inner sense, as being the sense of the Lord, which is revealed only through the grace that he had received who said, “But we have the mind of Christ, that we may know the things given us by God, which we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in the teaching of the Spirit”? And now the things that were revealed to John: if anyone reads them, how will he not be amazed that there is so great a concealment of inexpressible mysteries in them, in which even those who cannot understand what is hidden in them nevertheless plainly understand that something is hidden? And the letters of the apostles, which seem to some to be plainer, are they not filled with meanings so deep that through them, to those who can understand the sense of divine wisdom, the brightness of an immense light seems to pour as through a small opening? Since, then, these things are so, and many in this life go astray, I do not think it is without danger to declare lightly that anyone knows or understands the things which, in order to be opened, need “the key of knowledge,” the key which the Savior said was with “the experts in the law.” Here, though by way of digression, I think we should ask those who say that before the Savior's coming there was no truth among those who were occupied with the law, how it can be said by our Lord Jesus Christ that “the keys of knowledge” were with those who had in their hands the books of the law and the prophets. For so the Lord said: “Woe to you, teachers of the law, for you have taken away the key of knowledge; you yourselves did not enter, and those who wished to enter you hindered.” But, as we had begun to say, the way which seems to us the right one for understanding the Scriptures and searching out their sense is, we think, of this kind, since we are taught by Scripture itself how we ought to think about it. In Solomon, in Proverbs, we find some such command about the handling of divine Scripture: “And you,” he says, “write these things to yourself threefold, in counsel and knowledge, that you may answer words of truth to those who put questions to you.” Each one, then, ought to write the understanding in their soul in three ways of the divine writings: that is, that the simpler may be built up by what is, so to speak, the very body of the Scriptures (for so we call this common and historical understanding); that those who have already begun to make some progress, and can see something more, may be built up by the very soul of Scripture; and that those who are mature, and like those of whom the apostle says, “We speak wisdom among the mature, yet not the wisdom of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed; but we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery, which God determined beforehand before the ages for our glory,” may be built up by the “spiritual law,” which “has a shadow of the good things to come,” as by the spirit. For as a human being is said to consist of body, soul and spirit, so also does holy Scripture, which has been granted by divine generosity for the salvation of human beings. We see this indicated also in the little book of the Shepherd, which seems to be despised by some, where Hermas is ordered “to write two little books” and later himself “to announce to the elders of the church” what he had learned from the Spirit. It is written in these words: “And you will write two little books, and give one to Clement and one to Grapte. And let Grapte instruct the widows and orphans, and let Clement send to all the cities that are outside; but you will announce to the elders of the church.” Grapte, then, who is ordered to instruct the “orphans” and “widows,” is the pure understanding of the letter itself, by which childish souls are instructed that have not yet deserved to have God as their father and are therefore called “orphans.” And they are also “widows,” who have withdrawn from that unjust man to whom they had been joined contrary to the law, but remain “widows” because they have not yet advanced to being joined to the heavenly “bridegroom.” “Clement” is ordered to send what has been said to those who are already withdrawing from the letter, into “the cities that are outside,” as if he said: to those souls which, built up by these things, have begun to be outside care for the body and outside fleshly desires. And he himself is ordered to announce what he had learned from the Holy Spirit, not by letters nor by a book but by the spoken voice, to the elders of the churches of Christ, that is, to those who bear a mature sense of wisdom according to their capacity for spiritual teaching. But we must certainly not be unaware that there are some places in the Scriptures in which what we have called the body, that is, the sequence of the historical understanding, is not always found, as we will show in what follows; and there are places where only what we have called the soul, or the spirit, is to be understood. I think this is indicated in the Gospels too, when it is said that there were “six water jars” set there for the purification of the Jews, “holding two or three measures each.” By this, as I said, the Gospel word seems to indicate, concerning those whom the apostle calls Jews “in secret,” that they are purified by the word of Scripture, receiving sometimes “two measures,” that is, the understanding of the soul or of the spirit according to what we said above, and sometimes “three,” when the reading can also preserve for edification the bodily understanding, which is that of the history. And “six water jars” are fittingly mentioned with reference to those who are purified while placed in this world; for we read that this world and everything in it were completed in six days, which is a perfect number. How great the usefulness of this first understanding, which we have called historical, is, the whole multitude of believers is witness, who believe both faithfully enough and simply; nor does what lies open to all need much argument. Of the understanding which we said above is, as it were, the soul of Scripture, the apostle Paul has given us very many examples, as for instance first in the letter to the Corinthians. “For it is written,” he says, “You must not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain.” Then, explaining how this command ought to be understood, he adds: “Is it for oxen that God cares? Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope of a share.” And very many other things of this kind, interpreted in this way from the law, give great instruction to those who hear them. A spiritual explanation, on the other hand, is of this kind: if someone can show of what “heavenly things” those who are Jews “according to the flesh” “serve the copy and shadow,” and of what “good things to come the law has a shadow,” and anything else of this kind found in the holy Scriptures; or when it is asked what that “wisdom hidden in a mystery” is, “which God determined beforehand before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew”; or what the apostle himself says when, using certain examples from Exodus or Numbers, he says that “these things happened to them in a figure, but were written for our sake, on whom the ends of the ages have come,” and gives us an occasion of understanding, so that we may notice of what things these events that happened to them were figures, when he says, “For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” And in another letter he recalls concerning the tabernacle the saying that had been commanded to Moses: “You must make everything,” he says, “according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” And writing to the Galatians, and as it were reproaching certain people who seem to themselves to read the law and yet do not understand it, because they do not know that there are allegories in what is written, he says to them with a kind of rebuke: “Tell me, you who wish to be under the law, have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. But the one by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, and the one by the free woman according to the promise; and these things are allegorical. For these are two covenants,” and the rest. Here this too must be noticed, how carefully the apostle said, “You who wish to be under the law,” and did not say, “you who are under the law,” “have you not heard the law?” “Heard” means: do you understand or recognize. And in the letter to the Colossians, briefly embracing and compressing the sense of the whole law, he says: “Let no one, then, judge you in food or in drink, or in festival days, or new moon, or sabbath, which are a shadow of things to come.” And writing to the Hebrews too, and discussing those who are of the circumcision, he says: “Those who serve the copy and shadow of heavenly things.” But perhaps, after these passages, those who receive the writings of the apostle as divinely spoken will not doubt about the five books of Moses. But concerning the rest of the history, they may ask whether the things related there too are to be said to have “happened in a figure” to those of whom they are written. We have observed that this also is stated in the letter to the Romans, where the apostle cites an example from the third book of Kingdoms, saying, “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bent the knee to Baal.” Paul took this as said figuratively of those who are called Israelites “according to election,” to show that the coming of Christ has benefited not only the Gentiles now but also very many of the race of Israel who have been called to salvation. Since this is so, we will sketch, by way of example and pattern, as far as things can occur to us, how divine Scripture is to be understood by us on each of these points; first repeating and pointing out that the Holy Spirit, by the providence and will of God, through the power of his only-begotten “Word,” who “was in the beginning God with God,” enlightened the ministers of truth, the prophets and apostles, to know the mysteries of those things or causes which take place among human beings or concerning human beings. By “human beings” I now mean souls placed in bodies. And they, presenting these mysteries that had been made known and revealed to them through the Spirit as if they were narrating certain human deeds or handing down certain legal observances and commands, described them figuratively; so that not just anyone who wished might have these things set before his feet to trample on, but only one who had given himself to such studies with all chastity, self-control and vigilance, so that through these he might perhaps search out the sense of the Spirit of God hidden in the depths and concealed under the ordinary narrative of the words, which looks toward something else; and so might become a companion in the knowledge of the Spirit and a sharer in the divine counsel; because the soul cannot come to the perfection of knowledge in any other way than by being inspired by the truth of divine wisdom. Accordingly, what is chiefly presented by these men filled with the divine Spirit concerns God, that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; then, filled with the divine Spirit, as we said, they presented the mysteries of the Son of God, how “the Word became flesh,” and for what reason he came down even to taking up “the form of a servant.” Then it necessarily followed that they should also teach the race of mortals by divine words about rational creatures, both heavenly and earthly, the more blessed and the lower; and also about the differences of souls and where these differences arose; then what this world is and why it was made; and also where so great and so dreadful a wickedness on earth comes from, and whether it is on earth only or in other places too: these things it was necessary for us to learn from the divine words. Since, then, the intention of the Holy Spirit was to enlighten about these and similar matters the holy souls that had devoted themselves to the ministry of truth, there was in the second place this aim: that, for the sake of those who could not or would not give themselves to the effort and diligence by which they might deserve to be taught or to recognize such great things, he should, as we said above, wrap up and conceal hidden mysteries in ordinary words, under the cover of a certain history and narrative of visible things. So a narrative of the visible creation is brought in, and the making and forming of the first man, then the offspring that followed from him in succession; some of the deeds done by the righteous are related, and sometimes certain sins of theirs are also mentioned, as of human beings; then some things done shamelessly or wickedly by the ungodly are also written. In a wonderful way, too, a narrative of battles is set out, describing now the victors and now the defeated, through which certain inexpressible mysteries are declared to those who know how to examine such sayings. And in the writing of the law, by an admirable discipline of wisdom, the law of truth is inserted and prophesied; each of these things has been woven by a certain divine art of wisdom as a kind of garment and veil of spiritual senses; and this is what we called the body of holy Scripture, so that through this very garment of the letter, as we called it, woven with the art of wisdom, very many might be built up and make progress who otherwise could not. But since, if the coherence of this garment, that is, of the history and the law, had been kept in everything and its order preserved, we, having a continuous course of understanding, would certainly not believe that there was anything else enclosed within the holy Scriptures beyond what was indicated at first sight, divine wisdom for this reason arranged for certain stumbling-blocks or interruptions of the historical sense to occur, by inserting in the middle certain impossible and incongruous things; so that the very interruption of the narrative, like barriers set before the reader, might resist him, denying him the road and passage of this common understanding, and, shutting us out and driving us back, might call us to the beginning of another way, so that, by the entrance of a narrow path, it might open to us the immense breadth of divine knowledge on a higher and more eminent road. We must also know this: since the chief aim of the Holy Spirit is to keep the coherence of the spiritual sense, whether in things that are to be done or in things already done, wherever he found that the things done according to the history could be fitted to the spiritual sense, he composed the fabric of both orders in one narrative, always hiding the secret sense more deeply; but where the history of events could not fit the spiritual coherence, he sometimes inserted certain things that either did not happen or could not happen at all, and sometimes things that could indeed happen but did not. Sometimes he does this in a few words, which according to the bodily understanding do not seem able to keep the truth, and sometimes by inserting many; this is found especially often in the legislation, where there are many things that are plainly useful in the bodily commands themselves, but some in which no reason of usefulness whatever is seen, and sometimes even impossible things are decreed. All these things, as we said, the Holy Spirit arranged so that, since what lies on the surface can be neither true nor useful, we might be called back to the search for a truth sought more deeply and examined more carefully, and might search for a sense worthy of God in the Scriptures, which we believe to be inspired by God. The Holy Spirit arranged these things not only in what was written up to the coming of Christ, but, being one and the same Spirit and proceeding from the one God, he did the same likewise in the Gospels and the apostles. For even the narratives he inspired through them he did not weave without the art of his wisdom of the kind we explained above. For this reason in them too he mixed in many things by which the historical order of the narrative, interrupted or broken off by its own impossibility, might turn back and recall the attention of the reader to the examination of the inner understanding. But that what we say may be recognized from the things themselves, let us now knock at the very places of Scripture. To whom, I ask, that has understanding, will it seem consistently said that the first, second and third day, in which “evening” and “morning” are named, were without sun and moon and stars, and the first day even without a sky? Who will be found so simple as to think that, like some farmer, “God planted trees in paradise, in Eden toward the east,” and planted in it a “tree of life,” that is, a visible and tangible piece of wood, so that someone eating from that tree with bodily teeth would receive life, and again, eating from another tree, would gain the knowledge “of good and evil”? And when “God” is said “to walk in paradise after midday,” “and Adam to hide under a tree,” I do not think anyone doubts that these things are presented by Scripture in a figurative way, so that certain mystical things may be indicated through them. And “Cain,” going out “from the face of God,” plainly moves the prudent reader to ask what “the face of God” is, and how anyone can “go out” from it. But not to stretch out the present work further than is right, it is very easy for anyone who wishes to gather from the holy Scriptures things that are written as having happened, which nevertheless cannot be believed to have happened fittingly and reasonably according to the history. This kind of writing is also found abundantly in the books of the Gospels, as when the devil is said to have set Jesus “on a high mountain,” in order to “show him from there all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” How could this seem to have been done according to the letter, either that Jesus was led up by the devil “onto a high mountain,” or that the devil “showed” to his bodily eyes “all the kingdoms of the world,” the kingdom of the Persians, of the Scythians and of the Indians, as lying below and next to one mountain, or how their kings are glorified by people? And whoever reads attentively will find very many other things like these in the Gospels, from which he will notice that in these narratives that seem to be presented according to the letter, things are inserted and woven in that the history does not admit, but that the spiritual understanding holds. Similar things are found in the passages containing commands as well. In the law of Moses it is commanded that “every male who has not been circumcised on the eighth day will be cut off”; which is very inconsistent, since, if the law were handed down to be kept according to the history, it ought certainly to have been commanded that the parents be punished who did not circumcise their sons, or those who raise the infants. But as it is, Scripture says: “The uncircumcised male,” that is, “the one who has not been circumcised on the eighth day, will be cut off from his people.” And if we must also inquire into impossible laws, we find that an animal called the tragelaphus, or stag-goat,, which cannot exist at all, is among the clean animals that Moses commands to be eaten; and the lawgiver forbids the griffin to be eaten, which no one remembers or has heard of ever falling into human hands. And of the much-celebrated observance of the Sabbath he says this: “You must sit each one in your houses; no one must move from his place on the day of the Sabbath.” This is certainly impossible to observe according to the letter; for no human being can sit for a whole day without moving from the place where he sat. About each of these points, those who are of the circumcision, and whoever wish nothing more to be understood in the holy Scriptures than what is indicated by the letter, think that the questions of the tragelaphus, or stag-goat,, the griffin and the vulture should not even be raised; and they invent certain empty and trivial stories, bringing forward from some unidentified traditions about the Sabbath that each person's place is counted within two thousand cubits. Others, among whom is Dositheus the Samaritan, find fault with explanations of this kind, but themselves lay down something more ridiculous: that in whatever posture, place and position one is found on the Sabbath day, one should remain so until evening; that is, if sitting, one should sit the whole day, and if lying down, lie the whole day. And the command, “Do not lift a burden on the Sabbath day,” seems to me impossible. For from such things the teachers of the Jews have run off into “endless stories,” as the holy apostle says, saying that it is not counted a “burden” if someone wears shoes without nails, but that it is a “burden” if someone wears sandals with nails; and that if someone carries something on one shoulder they judge it a “burden,” but if on both shoulders they will deny that it is a “burden.” Now if we look for similar things in the Gospels as well, how will it not seem absurd, if it is understood according to the letter, that it is said, “Greet no one on the way”? Yet the simpler believers think that our Savior commanded this to the apostles. And how can it seem possible to observe, especially in those places where a very harsh winter is made rougher by “icy frosts,” that one should have “neither two tunics nor shoes”? And that one who is “struck on the right cheek” is commanded “to offer the left as well,” when everyone who strikes with the right hand strikes the left cheek? This too must be counted among the impossibilities, what is written in the Gospel, that “if the right eye causes you to stumble, it should be pulled out.” For even if we suppose that it is said of bodily eyes, how will it seem consistent that, since one sees with both eyes, the blame for the stumbling should be referred to one, and that to the right one? Or who will be held free of the greatest crime if he lays hands on himself? But perhaps the letters of the apostle Paul will seem to be free of such things. Yet what does he mean when he says, “Was anyone called circumcised? Let him not pull forward a foreskin”? First, if one considers it carefully, it does not seem to be said with reference to the matters he had in hand; for his discourse was giving commands about marriage and chastity, so that these words will certainly seem to be mentioned unnecessarily in such a context. Second, what harm would it do, if it were possible for someone to pull forward the foreskin in order to avoid the unsightliness that comes from circumcision? Third, it is certainly impossible in every way for this to be done. All these things have been said by us to show that the aim of the Holy Spirit, who chose to give us the divine Scriptures, is not that we should be built up by the letter alone, or by it in all things, since we often find it impossible and not sufficient in itself, that is, since through it sometimes things not only irrational but even impossible are indicated; but that we should understand that certain things have been woven into this visible history which, when considered and understood inwardly, produce a law useful to human beings and worthy of God. But so that no one suspects us of saying that we think no history in Scripture happened, because we suspect that some of it did not happen; or that no commands of the law stand according to the letter, because we say that some cannot be kept according to the letter, where either reason or the possibility of the thing does not allow it; or that we do not think that what is written about the Savior was fulfilled in a way perceived by the senses as well, or that his commands are not to be kept according to the letter: we must answer that we hold it clearly settled that in very many things the truth of the history both can and must be kept. For who can deny that Abraham was buried in the double cave in Hebron, and Isaac and Jacob too, and each of their wives? Or who doubts that Shechem was given to Joseph as his portion? Or that Jerusalem is the chief city of Judea, in which the temple of God was built by Solomon? And countless other things. For the things that stand according to the history are far more numerous than those that contain a purely spiritual sense. Then again, who would not affirm that the commandment which enjoins, “Honor your father and mother, that it may be well with you,” is enough even without any spiritual interpretation and is necessary for those who keep it, especially since Paul, repeating it in the same words, has confirmed this very commandment? And what need is there to speak of what is said, “You must not commit adultery, you must not kill, nor steal, you must not bear false witness,” and the rest of this kind? As for what is commanded in the Gospel, there can be no doubt at all that very many things are to be observed according to the letter, as when he says, “But I say to you, do not swear at all”; and when he says, “Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart”; and what is commanded in the apostle Paul: “Warn the undisciplined, comfort the discouraged, support the weak, be patient with all,” and very many other things. Nevertheless, if one reads more attentively, I do not doubt that in very many cases he will be uncertain whether this or that history is to be thought true according to the letter or less true, and whether this or that command is to be observed according to the letter or not. Therefore one must strive with much enthusiasm and effort, so that every reader may understand with all reverence that he is dealing with divine, not human, words set down in the holy books. The understanding, then, which we see ought to be followed worthily and consistently in the holy Scriptures is, we think, of this kind. The divine writings declare that a certain nation on earth was chosen by God, which they have called by many names: sometimes this whole nation is called Israel, sometimes Jacob; and especially when this nation was divided into two parts by Jeroboam son of Nebat, the ten tribes that came under him were called Israel, while the other two, with which was also the tribe of Levi and the tribe descended from the royal line of David, were named Judah. The whole region that this nation possessed, which it had received from God, was called Judea, in which the chief city was Jerusalem; and it is called the mother-city as being, as it were, the mother of many cities. The names of these cities you will find scattered frequently in the other divine books too, but gathered together in one place in the book of Joshua son of Nun. Since these things are so, the holy apostle, wishing somehow to raise our understanding from the earth and lift it up, says in a certain place, “Look at Israel according to the flesh”; by which he certainly indicates that there is another Israel, which is not “according to the flesh” but according to the spirit. And again in another place he says, “For not all who are of Israel are Israel.” [The following passage survives in Greek and is absent from Rufinus’s Latin translation.] "Nor is someone a Jew by outward appearance; nor is circumcision what is outward in the flesh; but someone is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter." For if the judgment of the Jew depends on the inward state, we must understand that as there is a bodily race of Jews, so there is a race of those who are Jews inwardly, and that there are secret reasons for souls having this noble lineage. There are, moreover, many prophecies concerning Israel and Judah which relate the things that would happen to them. Now, let me ask, do not such great prophecies written on their behalf, because in the literal sense they are trivial and exhibit none of the lofty dignity of a promise made by God, require a mystical interpretation? And if the promises are spiritual, though expressed by means of things perceived by the senses, those to whom the promises are given also are not "bodily." And, not to spend more time over the argument concerning the person who is a Jew inwardly and the Israelite in the inner person, enough having been said for any but unintelligent readers, we return to our subject, and say that Jacob was the father of the twelve patriarchs, they the ancestors of the clan leaders, and these again the ancestors of the rest of Israel. So, then, the "bodily" Israelites are traced up to the clan leaders, and the rulers to the patriarchs, and the patriarchs to Jacob and those still farther back; but as for the spiritual Israelites, of whom the "bodily" were the type, do they not spring from the "clans," the "clans" from the tribes, and the tribes from one man who had no such "bodily" descent, but the better, he too being born of Isaac, and he of Abraham, all going back to Adam, who, as the Apostle says, is Christ? For every family line below the God of all began from Christ, who, being next after the God and Father of all, is in this way the father of every soul as Adam is the father of all human beings. And if Eve has been made by Paul to represent the Church, it is no wonder that Cain, who was born of Eve, and all after him who trace their descent from Eve, should be types of the Church, since in a special sense they sprang from the Church. Taught by him, then, that there is one “Israel according to the flesh” and another according to the spirit, when the Savior says, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” we do not take this as those do who are earthly-minded, that is, the Ebionites, who by their very name are called poor (for “Ebion” means “poor” among the Hebrews); but we understand that there is a race of souls which is called Israel, as the interpretation of the name itself indicates, for “Israel” is interpreted “a mind seeing God” or “a man seeing God.” Again, the apostle reveals such things about Jerusalem: “The Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother.” And in another of his letters he says, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to a multitude of angels praising together, and to the church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven.” If, then, there are souls in this world that are called Israel, and in heaven a city that is named Jerusalem, it follows that the cities said to belong to the nation of Israel have the heavenly Jerusalem as their mother-city; and accordingly we understand this of all Judea, of which we think the prophets also spoke in certain mystical narratives, when they prophesied anything about Judea or about Jerusalem, or when the holy histories declare that this or that kind of invasion happened to Judea or Jerusalem. Whatever, then, is narrated or prophesied about Jerusalem, if we listen to the words of Paul as of “Christ speaking in him,” we must understand as said, in keeping with his view, of that city which he calls the heavenly Jerusalem, and of all those places or cities which are said to be cities of the holy land, of which Jerusalem is the mother-city. For it is of these cities that we must think the Savior too, wishing to call us to a higher understanding, promises to those who have managed well the money entrusted to them by him that they will have authority “over ten cities” or “over five cities.” If, then, the prophecies made about Judea and Jerusalem, and about Israel and Judah and Jacob, signify certain divine mysteries when they are not understood by us in a fleshly way, it certainly follows that the prophecies uttered about Egypt and the Egyptians, or about Babylon and the Babylonians, and about Sidon and the Sidonians, are not to be understood as prophesied about the Egypt that lies on earth, or about Babylon, Tyre or Sidon. For what the prophet Ezekiel prophesied about Pharaoh king of Egypt cannot fit any man who seems to have reigned in Egypt, as the very context of the reading plainly shows. Likewise what is said about the prince of Tyre cannot be understood as said of some man as king of Tyre. And what is said in many places in Scripture, and especially in Isaiah, about Nebuchadnezzar, how can we possibly take it of a man? For it is not a man who is said “to have fallen from heaven,” or who was “Lucifer,” or “who rose in the morning.” Nor do I know whether anyone who has understanding could take what is said in Ezekiel about Egypt, that it is “to be laid waste for forty years,” so that no “human foot” will be found in it, and that it is to be so devastated by war that human blood will rise through the whole land up to the knees, as said of this earthly Egypt, which borders on Ethiopia. But we must consider whether it may not be understood more worthily in this way: as there is a heavenly Jerusalem and Judea, and without doubt a nation living in it which is called Israel, so it is possible that there are also certain places near these which seem to be called Egypt, or Babylon, or Tyre, or Sidon, and that the princes of those places, and the souls, if any live in those places, are called Egyptians, Babylonians, Tyrians and Sidonians. From these, too, in accordance with the manner of life that they lead there, a kind of captivity seems to come about, by which they are said to have gone down from Judea into Babylonia or into Egypt, from better and higher places, or to have been scattered among various other nations. For perhaps, as those who leave this world by this common death are distributed according to their acts and merits, as they have been judged to deserve, some into the place called “the underworld,” others “into the bosom of Abraham,” and through various places or dwellings; so also from those places, as if dying there, if one may say so, they come down from the upper regions into this underworld. For the underworld to which the souls of the dying are led from here is, I believe, called by Scripture “the lower underworld” because of this distinction, as it says in the Psalms: “And you have rescued my soul from the lower underworld.” Each of those, then, who come down to earth is appointed, according to his merits or to the place he had there, to be born in this world in different places, or nations, or ways of life, or illnesses, or to be born to religious or of less pious parents; so that it sometimes happens that an Israelite comes down among the Scythians and a poor Egyptian is brought to Judea. Yet our Savior came to gather “the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel”; and when very many of the Israelites did not accept his teaching, those who were from the nations were called. For this reason it will seem to follow that the prophecies uttered about the individual nations should rather be referred to souls and to their various heavenly dwellings. And the histories of the events said to have happened to the nation of Israel, or to Jerusalem, or to Judea, when this or that nation attacked them, must be examined and searched out, since in very many cases they did not take place bodily, to see how these things rather fit those nations of souls which lived in this heaven that is said “to pass away,” or which must be thought to live there even now. But if anyone demands from us evident and quite clear proofs of these things from the holy Scriptures, we must answer that it was the counsel of the Holy Spirit rather to hide these things and to cover them more deeply in what seem to be histories of events, in which some are said to go down into Egypt, or to be taken captive into Babylonia, or in those very regions some are “greatly humbled” and brought under the service of masters, while others in those very places of captivity were held famous and magnificent, so that they held powers and principalities and ruled over peoples. All these things, as we said, are hidden and concealed and covered in the histories of holy Scripture, because “the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and in his joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Consider carefully here whether it is not indicated that the very soil and surface, so to speak, of Scripture, that is, what is read according to the letter, is the “field,” full and flowering with plants of every kind, while that higher and deeper spiritual understanding is the very “treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden,” which the Holy Spirit through Isaiah calls “dark, invisible and hidden treasures”; and that, in order that they may be found, there is need of the help of God, who alone can “break” the “bronze gates” by which they are shut in and hidden, “and shatter the iron bolts and bars” by which entrance is barred to all the things written and covered in Genesis about the different kinds of souls, and about those seeds and generations which either belong to kinship with Israel or are separated farther from its offspring; and also what that descent “into Egypt of the seventy souls” is, so that the “seventy souls” become in Egypt “like the stars of heaven in multitude.” But since not all who were from them are “the light of this world” (“for not all who are of Israel are Israel”), some from these seventy souls also become “like the sand that is by the seashore, innumerable.” This descent of the holy fathers into Egypt, that is, into this world, may be seen to have been granted by the providence of God for the enlightenment of the rest and the instruction of the human race, so that through them the other souls might be enlightened and helped. “For to them first were entrusted the words of God,” because that race alone is said “to see God”; for this is what the name Israel means when interpreted. And now it follows that we should apply and interpret accordingly the fact that Egypt is struck with ten plagues so that it may let the people of God go out, and what is done in the desert with the people, and that the tabernacle is constructed from the contributions of the whole people, and that the priestly garment is woven, and whatever is said about the vessels of the ministry, because, as it is written, they truly contain in themselves “a shadow” and form “of heavenly things.” For Paul says plainly of them that they “serve the shadow and copy of heavenly things.” In this same law is also contained by what laws and ordinances they are to live in the holy land. Threats are also set before those who break the law; and for those who needed purification various kinds of purification are passed on, as for people who would often be defiled, so that through these they might at last come to that one purification after which it is no longer permitted to be defiled. The people itself is also brought to a census, though not all of them; for childish souls have not yet reached the age to be counted by the divine command, nor even those souls that cannot become the head of another but are themselves subject to others as to a head, whom Scripture has named “women”; they are certainly not brought into that number which is commanded by God, but only those are numbered who are called men, to show, that is, that the women cannot be numbered separately, but are included in those who are called men. Above all, however, those come to the holy number who are ready to go out to the wars of Israel, who can fight against those opponents and enemies whom “the Father subjects to the Son sitting at his right hand,” so that “he may destroy every ruling authority and power”: so that by these ranks of his soldiers, who, “serving as soldiers” for God, “do not entangle themselves in worldly affairs,” he may overthrow the kingdoms of the enemy; by whom “the shields of faith” are carried and the “weapons” of wisdom brandished, on whom “the helmet of the hope of salvation” flashes and “the breastplate of love” protects the chest filled with God. Such soldiers seem to me to be indicated, and to be prepared for wars of this kind, those who in the divine books are ordered by God's command to be numbered. But far more glorious and perfect than these are those indicated whose very “hairs of the head” are said to be numbered. Those who were punished for their sins, whose bodies “fell in the desert,” seem to bear the likeness of those who made considerable progress, but for various reasons could not at all reach the goal of perfection, because they are said “to have grumbled,” or “worshipped idols,” or “committed sexual immorality,” or to have thought something such as it would certainly not be lawful even to conceive in the mind. Nor do I think it without a hidden meaning that certain men who had many cattle and many animals go ahead and seize a place suitable for pasture and the feeding of cattle, which the right hand of Israel's warfare had defended first of all. Having asked Moses for this place, they are separated beyond the streams of the Jordan and set apart from possession of the holy land. This Jordan may be seen, according to the pattern of “heavenly things,” to water and flood thirsty souls and the senses that lie near it. Here not even this will seem pointless: that Moses hears from God what is written in the law of Leviticus, while in Deuteronomy the people become hearers of Moses and learn from him what they could not hear from God. For this reason Deuteronomy is called, so to speak, the second law; which to some will seem to signify this very thing, that as the first “law,” which “was given through Moses,” ceases, a second legislation seems to be shaped, which is handed on in a special way by Moses to Joshua his successor, who is certainly believed to bear the form of our Savior, by whose second law, that is, the commands of the Gospel, all things are brought to perfection. But we must consider whether it may not rather seem to indicate this: that as in Deuteronomy a clearer and plainer legislation is declared than in what was written first, so also, beyond that coming of the Savior which he fulfilled in humility when he “took the form of a servant,” that clearer and more glorious second coming “in the glory of his Father” is indicated, and in it the pattern of Deuteronomy will be fulfilled, when in the kingdom of heaven all the saints will live by the laws of that “eternal Gospel”; and as by his present coming he has fulfilled the “law” which “has a shadow of good things to come,” so by that glorious coming the shadow of this coming too will be fulfilled and brought to perfection. For so the prophet said of him: “The breath of our face, Christ the Lord, of whom we said that under his shadow we will live among the nations”; that is, when he will more worthily transfer all the saints from the Gospel for this present age to the “eternal Gospel,” as John indicated in Revelation concerning the “eternal Gospel.” But in all these things we should be content to bring our understanding into line with the rule of faithful devotion, and to think of the words of the Holy Spirit in this way: that the discourse does not shine as something composed in the eloquence of human weakness, but, as it is written, “All the glory of the king is within,” and the “treasure” of divine meanings is enclosed within the “frail vessel” of the humble letter. But if anyone, out of curiosity, seeks the explanation of each point, let him come and hear with us how the apostle Paul, searching “by the Holy Spirit,” who “searches even the depths of God,” “the depth of divine wisdom and knowledge,” and yet not able to reach the end and, so to speak, the deepest knowledge, cries out in despair of the matter and in amazement, and says: “O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” And in what despair of perfect comprehension he cried this out, hear him saying: “How unsearchable are the judgments of God, and how untraceable his ways!” For he did not say that “the judgments of God” can be searched only with difficulty, but that they cannot be searched at all; nor did he say that his “ways” can be traced only with difficulty, but that they cannot be traced. For however far someone advances in searching, and progresses by more focused study, helped also by the grace of God and “enlightened” in understanding, he will not be able to reach the perfect end of the things that are sought. Nor has any created mind the possibility of comprehending them in any way; but as it finds a little of the things sought, it sees again others that must be sought; and if it reaches these too, it will see in turn many more from them that ought to be sought. Therefore the supremely wise Solomon too, looking into the nature of things through wisdom, says: “I said, I will become wise; and wisdom itself was made far from me, far more than it was; and who will find its profound depth?” And Isaiah, knowing that the beginnings of things cannot be found by mortal nature, nor even by those natures which, though more divine than the human, were nevertheless themselves made or created, knowing, then, that neither beginning nor end can be found by any of these, says: “Tell the former things, what they were, and we will know that you are gods; or announce the last things, what they are, and then we will see that you are gods.” For my Hebrew teacher too used to teach this: that because the beginning or end of all things cannot be comprehended by anyone except only the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, Isaiah said in the figure of his vision that there were only two seraphim, who “with two wings cover the face” of God, “with two the feet, and with two fly, crying to one another and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of your glory.” Since, then, the seraphim alone have both pairs of their wings at the face of God and at his feet, we must dare to declare that neither “the army of the holy angels” nor the holy “thrones, nor dominions, nor principalities, nor powers” can know fully the beginning of all things and the ends of the universe. But we must understand that these holy spirits and powers which he has listed are indeed nearest to those beginnings, and reach heights beyond the others; yet whatever these powers have learned by the revelation of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, though they will be able to attain very much, and the higher much more than the lower, it is nevertheless impossible for them to comprehend everything, because it is written, “Very many of the works of God are in secret.” So each of us should always seek, according to our strength, to “stretch ourselves out to the things that are ahead, forgetting the things that are behind,” both “toward better works” and toward a purer sense and understanding, “through Jesus Christ our Savior,” “to whom be glory forever.” Let everyone, then, who cares for the truth “care little about names and words,” since different nations have different customs of speech; and let him pay more attention to what is meant than to the words by which it is meant, especially in matters so great and so difficult; as when it is asked, for example, whether there is any substance in which neither color nor shape nor touch nor size is to be conceived, perceptible to the mind alone, which each one names as he chooses. For the Greeks called it asōmaton, that is, incorporeal, while the divine Scriptures have named it “invisible,” because the apostle declares that God is “invisible”: for he says that Christ is “the image of the invisible God.” And again he says that through Christ “all things were created, visible and invisible.” By this it is declared that among creatures too there are certain substances “invisible” by their own nature. But these, though they themselves are not bodily, nevertheless use bodies, even though they themselves are better than bodily substance. But that substance of the Trinity which is the beginning and cause of all things, “from which are all things, and through which are all things, and in which are all things,” must be believed to be neither a body nor in a body, but wholly incorporeal. These brief remarks should be enough, though as a digression, yet prompted by the sequence of the subject itself, in order to show that there are some things whose meaning cannot properly be explained at all in any “words of human language,” but is expressed rather by a simpler understanding than by any precise use of words. Our understanding of the divine writings must also follow this rule, so that what is said in them may be judged not by the poverty of the language but by the divinity of the Holy Spirit who inspired their writing.

Summary (of Doctrine) Regarding the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Other Topics Discussed in the Preceding Pages

[Review of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the other things said above.] It is now time, having gone through the things said above as best we could, to review each point as a reminder of what we have said here and there, and first of all to repeat what concerns the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. God the Father, since he is both invisible and inseparable from the Son, did not beget the Son by emission from himself, as some think. For if the Son is an emission of the Father, and “emission” means such a generation as the offspring of animals or of human beings usually is, then necessarily both the one who emitted and the one who was emitted is a body. For we do not say, as the heretics think, that some part of the substance of God was turned into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father out of things that do not exist, that is, outside his own substance, so that there was a time when he was not; but, setting aside every bodily notion, we say that the Word and Wisdom was begotten of the invisible and incorporeal God without any bodily change or experience, as the will proceeds from the mind. Nor will it seem absurd, since he is called “the Son of love,” if in this way he is thought of as the Son of will too. John also indicates that “God is light,” and Paul indicates that the Son is “the radiance of eternal light.” As, then, light could never exist without its radiance, so neither can the Son be understood without the Father, the Son who is called “the exact imprint of his being,” and the Word and the Wisdom. How, then, can it be said that there was a time when the Son was not? For this is nothing other than to say that there was a time when truth was not, when wisdom was not, when life was not; whereas all these fully express the being of God the Father. For these cannot be cut off from him or ever separated from his substance. Though in our understanding they are said to be many, yet in reality and substance they are one, and in them is “the fullness” “of divinity.” But even this, when we say that there never was a time when he was not, must be understood with allowance for the limits of language; for these very words carry the meaning of a word indicating time, that is, “when” and “never”; but what is said of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit must be understood as above all time, above all ages, and above all eternity. For this Trinity alone surpasses every way of understanding, not only of time but of eternity. All other things, which are outside the Trinity, are to be measured in ages and times. This Son of God, then, as he is the “Word” and “God,” who “was in the beginning with God,” no one will consistently suppose to be contained in any place; nor as he is wisdom, nor as he is truth, nor as he is life, or righteousness, or sanctification, or redemption. For none of these needs a place in order to act or to work anything; but each of them is to be understood with reference to those who share in his power and working. But if someone says that, through those who share in the Word of God, or in his wisdom, or truth, or life, the Word and Wisdom himself seems to be in a place, we must answer him that there is no doubt that Christ, as he is Word and Wisdom and all the rest, was in Paul; and so Paul said, "Or do you seek proof of Christ who speaks in me?" and again, "I live, yet no longer I, but Christ lives in me." Since, then, he was in Paul, who will doubt that he was likewise in Peter, and in John, and in each of the saints, and not only in those who are on earth but also in those who are in heaven? For it is absurd to say that Christ was in Peter and in Paul, but not in Michael the archangel and in Gabriel. From this it is clearly seen that the divinity of the Son of God was not enclosed in any place; otherwise it would have been only in that place and not in another; but by the majesty of his incorporeal nature, since it is enclosed by no place, it is understood to be absent from none. Only this difference must be understood: that even though he is in different beings, as we said, in Peter or Paul or Michael or Gabriel, he is not in all of them in the same way. For he is more fully and clearly and, so to speak, more openly in the archangels than in other holy people. This is plain from the fact that when the saints come to the highest perfection, they are said to become like the angels, or equal to them, according to the saying of the Gospel. This establishes that Christ is in each one as much as the measure of his merits allows. Having briefly repeated these things about the doctrine of the Trinity, we should next briefly recall that through the Son are said to have been created all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers: "all things were created through him and in him, and he is before all, and all things hold together in him, who is the head." In agreement with this, John too says in the Gospel that "all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made." And David, signifying the mystery of the whole Trinity in the creation of all things, says: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the spirit of his mouth." Next we should recall the bodily coming and incarnation of the only-begotten Son of God. In this we must not think that the whole majesty of his divinity was shut up within the confines of a very small body, so that the whole Word of God, and his wisdom, and substantial truth and life, was either torn away from the Father or confined and limited to his small body, and is not thought to have worked anywhere besides; but our confession of faith must carefully hold both truths together, so that neither is it believed that anything of divinity was lacking in Christ, nor is it thought that any division at all was made from the Father's substance, which is everywhere. For John the Baptist too indicates something of this kind when, while Jesus was bodily absent, he said to the crowds: "Among you stands one whom you do not know, who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie." For this certainly could not be said of one who was absent, as far as bodily presence is concerned, that he stood among those among whom he was not bodily present. This shows that the Son of God was present both wholly in the body and wholly everywhere. Let no one, however, suppose that by this we affirm that some part of the divinity of the Son of God was in Christ and the rest elsewhere or everywhere; this can be thought only by those who do not know the nature of an incorporeal and invisible substance. For it is impossible to speak of a part of what is incorporeal, or for any division of it to be made; but he is in all, and through all, and above all, in the way we said above, that is, in the way in which he is understood as wisdom, or Word, or life, or truth; and by this understanding every confinement to place is without doubt excluded. The Son of God, then, wishing for the salvation of the human race to appear to human beings and to live among them, took up not only a human body, as some think, but also a soul, like our souls in nature, but in purpose and power like himself, and such as could consistently fulfill every purpose and arrangement of the Word and Wisdom. That he had a soul the Savior himself shows most plainly in the Gospels, saying: "No one takes my soul from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again." And again: "My soul is sorrowful even to death." And again: "Now my soul is troubled." For the Word of God is not to be understood as the soul that is sorrowful and troubled, since he says by the authority of his divinity, "I have power to lay down my soul." Yet we do not say that the Son of God was in that soul in the way he was in the soul of Paul or Peter and the other saints, in whom Christ is believed to speak as he did in Paul. Of all of these we must think what Scripture says, that no one is clean from filth, not even if his life is but one day long. But this soul which was in Jesus chose the good before it knew evil; and because it loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God anointed it with the oil of gladness above its companions. It is anointed with the oil of gladness, then, when it is joined to the Word of God in a spotless union; and through this, alone of all souls, it was incapable of sin, because it was fully able to receive the Son of God; and therefore it is one with him, and is named by his titles and called Jesus Christ, through whom all things are said to have been made. Of this soul, since it had received into itself the whole wisdom and truth and life of God, I think the apostle also spoke when he says: "Your life is hidden with Christ in God; but when Christ, your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." For what other Christ is to be understood here, who is said to be hidden in God and afterwards to appear, but the one who is said to have been anointed with the oil of gladness, that is, filled with God in its very being, in whom he is now said to be hidden? For this reason Christ is set before all believers as an example: because as he always, even before he knew evil at all, chose the good, and loved righteousness and hated wickedness, and therefore God anointed him with the oil of gladness, so too each one, after a fall or an error, should cleanse himself of his stains with this example set before him, and, having a guide for the journey, walk the steep road of virtue; so that in this way perhaps, as far as possible, through imitating him we may share in the divine nature, as it is written that whoever says he believes in Christ ought himself to walk as he walked. This Word, then, and this Wisdom, by imitating whom we are called wise or rational, becomes all things to all, that he may win all; he becomes weak to the weak, that he may win the weak; and because he becomes weak, it is said of him, "Though he was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God." Finally, to the Corinthians, who were weak, Paul says that he knows nothing "among them except Jesus Christ, and him crucified." Some want the apostle’s words also to be understood as referring to that soul itself, when it first took a body from Mary: "Who, being in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant"; so that without doubt he might restore it to the form of God by better examples and teachings, and call it back to that fullness from which he had emptied himself. As by participation in the Son of God one is adopted as a son, and by participation in wisdom one is made wise in God, so too by participation in the Holy Spirit one is made holy and spiritual. For it is one and the same thing to receive participation in the Holy Spirit as in the Father and the Son, since the nature of the Trinity is one and incorporeal. What we have said about the participation of the soul must be understood in the same way of angels and heavenly powers as of souls, since every rational creature needs participation in the Trinity. As for the account of this visible world, since a very great question is usually raised about it too, as to how it stands, we have spoken of it above as best we could, both for those within our faith who seek the reason for believing as well, and for those heretics who stir up disputes against us and very often throw around the word 'matter', which not even they have yet been able to understand; about this I think it necessary to give a brief reminder now too. First we must know that we have never yet found the very word 'matter' used in the canonical Scriptures for the substance that is said to underlie bodies. For when Isaiah says, "And he will devour hylē, that is, matter, like hay," speaking of those who are placed in punishment, he used 'matter' for sins. And if the word 'matter' is perhaps written somewhere else, it will nowhere, I think, be found to mean what we are now investigating, except only in the Wisdom that is called Solomon's, which book is certainly not held by all to be authoritative. There, however, we find it written as follows: "For your all-powerful hand, which created the world out of formless matter, did not lack the means to send against them a multitude of bears or fierce lions." Very many, indeed, think that matter itself is meant in what Moses wrote at the beginning of Genesis: "In the beginning God made heaven and earth; but the earth was invisible and unformed." For by 'invisible and unformed earth' Moses seemed to them to indicate nothing other than formless matter. But if this is truly matter, it follows that the first principles of bodies are not unchangeable. For those who have laid down as the principles of bodily things atoms, or things that cannot be divided into parts, or things that are divided into equal parts, or some one element, could not place among the principles the name of matter, that is, what properly signifies matter. For when they place matter beneath every body as a substance changeable, alterable and divisible throughout, they do not place it beneath, according to its own property, as something apart from qualities. With them we too agree, since we wholly deny that matter should be called unbegotten or unmade, in keeping with what we showed earlier as well as we could, when we showed that from water and earth, air or heat, different fruits are produced through different kinds of trees; or when we taught that fire, air, water and earth change into one another, one element being transformed into another by a kind of mutual kinship; and also when we proved that the substance of flesh comes from the food of human beings or animals, and that the moisture of natural seed is turned into solid flesh and bones. All these things are proof that bodily substance is changeable and passes from any quality into any other. Yet we must know that substance never exists without qualities, but that it is by the understanding alone that what underlies bodies and is capable of quality is distinguished as matter. Some, then, wishing to inquire more deeply into these things, have dared to say that bodily nature is nothing other than qualities. For if hardness and softness, hot and cold, wet and dry are qualities, and when these or others of the kind are taken away nothing else is understood to underlie them, then all things will seem to be qualities. Hence those who assert this have tried to argue that, since all who say matter is unmade confess that the qualities were made by God, it is found by this that, even according to them, matter is not unmade, if indeed all things are qualities, which are declared by all without contradiction to have been made by God. But those who wish to show that qualities are added from outside to a certain underlying matter use examples of this kind: Paul, without doubt, is either silent or speaking, awake or asleep, or holds a particular bodily posture, for he is either sitting, standing or lying down. These are temporary states of human beings, without which they are hardly ever found. Yet our mind does not clearly define him by any of these, but we so understand or consider him through them that we do not at all grasp the account of his being in the fact that he is awake, or asleep, or speaking, or silent, or in whatever other things must happen to human beings. If, then, one can consider Paul to be without all these things that can happen to him, so too one will be able to understand the underlying substance without qualities. When, then, our mind, removing every quality from its thought, gazes, so to speak, at the bare point of the underlying substance alone and fixes on it, without regard to the softness or hardness, the heat or cold, the wetness or dryness of the substance, then by a kind of imagined thought it will seem to gaze at matter stripped of all these qualities. But perhaps someone will ask whether we can also find in the Scriptures some occasion for this understanding. Something of this kind seems to me to be signified in the Psalms, when the prophet says, “My eyes have seen your imperfect being.” In this the mind of the prophet, examining the beginnings of things with a keener gaze and separating matter from its qualities by thought and reason alone, seems to have perceived God's “imperfect,” which is understood to be completed when qualities are added. Enoch too says in his book: “I walked as far as the imperfect”; which I think can be understood in a similar way, namely that the prophet's mind “walked,” examining and discussing each of the visible things, until it came to that beginning in which it saw “imperfect” matter without qualities. For it is written in the same little book, Enoch himself saying: “I saw all the materials”; which is understood as if he said, “I saw all the divisions of matter,” which were broken off from one into the individual kinds, that is, of human beings, of animals, of the sky, of the sun, and of all the things in this world. After this we have shown above, as well as we could, that all things that exist were made by God, and that there is nothing that was not made except the nature of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and that God, who is good by nature, wishing to have those to whom he might do good and who would rejoice in receiving his benefits, made creatures worthy of him, that is, able to receive him worthily, whom he also says “he has begotten as sons.” And he made all things in number and measure; for with God nothing is either without limit or without measure. For by his power he comprehends all things, and he himself is comprehended by the understanding of no creature. For that nature is known to itself alone: for the Father alone knows the Son, and the Son alone knows the Father, and the Holy Spirit alone “searches even the depths of God.” Every creature, then, is marked off with him within a certain number and measure, that is, either the number of rational beings or the measure of bodily matter. Since intellectual nature had to use bodies, being found to be changeable and alterable by the very condition in which it was made (for what did not exist and began to exist is shown by this very fact to be of a changeable nature, and so has neither virtue nor wickedness as part of its essential being, but as an acquired attribute), since, then, as we said, rational nature was changeable and alterable, so that according to its merits it would use a different clothing of body, of this or that quality, it was necessary that, just as God foreknew the future differences of souls or of spiritual powers, so he should also make a bodily nature which, by the change of its qualities, could be changed at the Creator's will into whatever the case required. This must last as long as the things last that need its clothing; and there will always be rational natures that need bodily clothing: therefore there will always be a bodily nature too, whose clothing rational creatures must use; unless someone thinks he can show by some arguments that a rational nature can lead a life without any body. But how difficult that is, and how nearly impossible for our understanding, we have shown above in discussing each point. I think it will certainly not seem contrary to this work of ours if we also briefly repeat, as well as we can, what concerns the immortality of rational natures. Everyone who participates in something is without doubt of one substance and one nature with anyone else who participates in the same thing. For example, all eyes participate in light, and therefore all eyes that participate in light are of one nature. But although every eye participates in light, yet because one sees more sharply and another more dimly, not every eye participates in light equally. And again, every sense of hearing receives voice or sound, and therefore every hearing is of one nature; but according to the quality of pure and sound hearing, each one hears more quickly or more slowly. Let us pass, then, from these examples perceived by the senses to the contemplation of intellectual things. Every mind that participates in intellectual light must without doubt be of one nature with every mind that participates in intellectual light in the same way. If, then, the heavenly powers receive a share in intellectual light, that is, in the divine nature, by participating in wisdom and sanctification, and the human soul receives a share in the same light and wisdom, these too will be of one nature with one another and of one substance; and the heavenly powers are free from decay and immortal: without doubt the substance of the human soul too will be free from decay and immortal. And not only so, but since the very nature of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in whose intellectual light alone the whole creation has a share, is free from decay and eternal, it is entirely consistent and necessary that every substance that has a share in that eternal nature should also itself endure forever, imperishable and eternal, so that the eternity of divine goodness may be understood in this too, since those who receive his benefits are also eternal. But as in the examples a diversity in the reception of light was preserved, when the gaze of the one looking was described as duller or sharper, so too in participation in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit a diversity must be preserved according to the attentiveness of the senses or the capacity of the mind. Otherwise, let us consider whether it does not even seem irreverent toward God that a mind capable of God should undergo the destruction of its substance; as if this very ability to understand and perceive God could not be enough to ensure its continued existence; especially since, even if through negligence the mind falls away so that it does not receive God into itself purely and wholly, it always has in itself, as it were, certain seeds of restoring and renewing a better understanding, when “the inner person,” who is also called rational, is called back “to the image and likeness” of God who created him. Therefore the prophet also says: “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will worship before him.” But if anyone dares to claim that the essential being of someone who was made in the image and likeness of God can perish, he extends, I think, the charge of irreverence toward God even to the Son of God himself; for he too is called the image of God in the Scriptures. Or else let whoever would have it so accuse the authority of Scripture, which says that humanity was made in the image of God. In human beings the marks of the divine image are plainly recognized, not through the form of the body, which decays, but through sound judgment, through justice, through moderation, through courage, through wisdom, through discipline, in short through the whole chorus of virtues, which, while they are in God by his very nature, can be in a human being through effort and through the imitation of God, as the Lord also indicates in the Gospel, saying, "Be merciful, therefore, as your Father is merciful," and, "Be perfect, as your Father is perfect." From this it is plainly shown that in God all these virtues always exist and can never come or go, whereas human beings acquire them gradually and one by one. So they seem through these to have a kind of kinship with God; and although God knows all things, and nothing of intellectual things is hidden from him (for God the Father alone, and his only-begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit have knowledge not only of the things they created but also of themselves), yet the rational mind too, advancing from small things to greater and from visible things to invisible, can come to a more perfect understanding. For it is placed in a body, and from these things perceived by the senses, which are bodily, it advances to things beyond the senses, which are incorporeal and intellectual. But to keep anyone from thinking it improper to speak of senses in relation to intellectual things, we will use as an example the saying of Solomon: "You will find a divine sense." By this he shows that intellectual things are to be sought not by a bodily sense but by another, which he calls divine. It is with this sense that we must look at each of the rational things we spoke of above, and with this sense that what we say must be heard and what we write considered. For the divine nature knows even what we turn over silently within ourselves. About the things we have said, and about the rest that follow from them, we must think according to the pattern we have set out.