§ 41
One might well be utterly astonished at the Greeks. They laugh at what is no matter for laughter, while they are blind to a disgrace of their own, which they have set up in stocks and stones and do not see. Still, since our argument is not at a loss for proofs, let us put these men to shame as well, and on reasonable grounds, drawing chiefly on the things that we ourselves can see. For what is there on our side that is absurd, or that deserves derision?
Is it simply that we say the Word has been made manifest in a body? But they themselves will agree that this has happened without any absurdity, if only they will show themselves friends of the truth. Now if they deny outright that there is any Word of God at all, they are wasting their breath, mocking at what they do not know.
But suppose they confess that there is a Word of God; that He is the ruler of all; that in Him the Father has fashioned the creation; that by His providence the whole receives light and life and being; and that He reigns over all things, so that from the works of His providence He is known, and through Him the Father. Then consider, I ask you, whether they are not raising the laugh against themselves without knowing it.
The philosophers of the Greeks say that the universe is a great body, and in saying so they speak the truth. For we see the universe, and we see its parts, and they fall under our senses. If, then, the Word of God is in the universe, which is a body, and has entered both the whole of it and every one of its parts, what is surprising or absurd in our saying that He has entered into man as well? For if it is absurd that He should come to be in a body at all, then it would be absurd that He should have entered the whole, and should be giving light and movement to all things by His own providence. The whole, after all, is itself a body.
But if it is fitting that He should enter the universe and be made known in the whole, then it would be fitting also that He should appear in a human body, and that this body should be given light by Him and should be at work. For the race of men is a part of the whole, just as the rest of it is. And if it is unseemly that the part should become His instrument for the knowledge of His Godhead, then it would be the height of absurdity that He should be made known through the whole world at all.
§ 42
Think of it in this way. A man's whole body is moved and lit up by the man himself. Now suppose someone were to say that it was absurd for that man's power to reach even to the toe of his foot. He would be thought a fool, because he grants that the man pervades his whole body and works in it, and then refuses to let him be in the part as well. In the same way, whoever grants and believes that the Word of God is in the universe, and that the universe is lit up and moved by Him, would not think it absurd that one human body also should receive movement and light from Him.
But perhaps their objection is that the human race is a thing made, and has come out of nothing, and that for this reason it is unseemly of us to speak of the Saviour appearing in a man. If that is their objection, it is high time they cast Him out of the creation as well. For the creation too came from non-being into being through the Word.
But if the creation is a thing made, and it is still not absurd that the Word should be in it, then neither is it absurd that He should be in man. For whatever they conclude about the whole, they are bound to think the same about the part. Man, as I said before, is a part of the whole. So it is in no way unfitting that the Word should be in man, and that all things should have their light and their movement and their life from Him and in Him, as even their own writers say: in Him we live and move and have our being.
What is left in what we say that deserves mockery, if the Word uses as an instrument for His manifestation the very thing in which He already is? For if He were not in it, He could not have used it at all. And if we have already shown that He is in the whole and in each of its parts, what is incredible in His showing Himself in the things where He already is?
For by His own powers He is wholly present in each thing and in all of them, ordering all things without stint. Now if He had willed to use a voice, and so to make Himself and His Father known, by means of the sun, or the moon, or heaven, or earth, or water, or fire, no one would have called that absurd. For He holds all things together at once, and is present with all of them and in the particular part as well, and there shows Himself, though unseen. In just the same way, then, it would be no absurdity that He who orders all things and gives life to all, having willed to make Himself known through men, should use a human body as His instrument for the manifesting of the truth and the knowledge of the Father. For humanity too is a part of the whole.
Consider the mind. It is present through the whole man, and yet it is expressed by one part of the body, by the tongue, and no one, I take it, says that the being of the mind is lessened on that account. In the same way, if the Word who pervades all things has used a human instrument, this would appear in no way unseemly. For if, as I said before, it is unseemly for Him to have used a body as an instrument, then it is unseemly for Him to be in the whole as well.
§ 43
Then why, they may ask, did He not appear through other and nobler parts of the creation? Why did He not use a nobler instrument, the sun, or the moon, or the stars, or fire, or the upper air, instead of a man only? Let them understand that the Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach those who were suffering.
For a man bent on display would need only to appear and to astound those who saw him. But it belongs to one who heals and teaches not simply to arrive, but to come for the benefit of those in need, and to appear only so far as those who need him can bear. Otherwise, by going beyond what the sufferers needed, he would trouble the very people who needed him, and the appearing of the divine would be of no use to them.
Now nothing in the creation had gone astray in its notions of God, except man alone. The sun did not swerve from its order, nor the moon, nor heaven, nor the stars, nor water, nor the upper air. Knowing their Maker and King, the Word, they remain as they were made. Men alone turned away from the good, and then invented things that are not, in place of the truth, and assigned the honor due to God, and the knowledge of Him, to demons and to men figured in stone.
And so, quite reasonably, since it was unworthy of God's goodness to overlook a thing so grave, and since men could not know Him even while He was ordering and governing the whole, He takes to Himself a part of the whole as an instrument, the human body, and enters it. His purpose was that, since they could not know Him in the whole, they might at least not fail to recognize Him in the part; and that, since they could not look up to His invisible power, they might at least be able to reason to Him and behold Him from what resembled themselves.
For being men, they will be able to know the Father of the Word more quickly and more nearly through a body of their own kind, and through the divine works done by means of it, judging by comparison that what is done by Him is not human but the work of God. And if it were absurd, as they say, for the Word to be known through the works of the body, then it would be absurd all over again for Him to be known from the works of the universe. For just as He is in the creation and yet takes on nothing of the creation, but rather all things take on His power, so also, while He used the body as an instrument, He shared in none of the body's properties, but rather Himself made the body holy.
For even Plato, who is held in such repute among the Greeks, says that the one who begot the universe, seeing it storm-tossed and in danger of sinking into the region of unlikeness, takes his seat at the helm of its soul and comes to its aid and sets right all its failings. What, then, is incredible in what we say, if, when humanity was going astray, the Word took His seat upon it and appeared as man, so that He might bring it safely through the storm by His steering and His goodness?
§ 44
But perhaps, shamed into agreeing with all this, they will want to say something else. They will say that God, wishing to school men and to save them, ought to have done it by a nod alone, just as He did long ago when He established all things out of nothing, and that His Word ought not to have touched a body.
To this objection of theirs one might reasonably reply as follows. Long ago, when nothing whatever existed anywhere, a nod and a bare act of will were all that was needed for the making of the universe. But once man had been made, and the need that arose was to heal not what did not exist but what had been made, it followed that the Physician and Saviour should come among things already made, so that He might heal what existed. For this reason He became man, and used the body as a human instrument.
For if it did not have to happen in this way, how was the Word, wishing to use an instrument, to arrive? Or where was He to take it from, if not from the things already made, which needed His Godhead to reach them through one of their own kind? What did not exist had no need of salvation, so that a command alone would have been enough. It was man, already in existence, who was going to ruin and perishing. And so with good reason the Word used a human instrument, and unfolded Himself into all things.
Next, this also must be understood. The corruption that had set in was not outside the body; it had grown onto it. So it was necessary that life should be bound closely to the body in place of corruption, in order that, just as death had come to be in the body, so life also might come to be in it. Now if death had been outside the body, life too would have had to come to it from outside. But if death was bound closely into the body, and mastered it as though it belonged there, then life also had to be bound closely into the body, in order that the body, having put on life in exchange, might cast off corruption.
Besides, even if the Word had come to be outside the body and not in it, death would indeed have been defeated by Him in the most natural way, since death has no strength against Life. Yet the corruption that had grown onto the body would have remained in it none the less. For this reason the Saviour reasonably put on a body, so that, once the body had been bound closely to Life, it might no longer remain in death as a mortal thing, but might rise again and remain immortal, as having put on immortality.
For once it had put on corruption, it could not have risen again unless it had put on life. And death of itself would never appear except in a body. This is why He put on a body: so that He might find death in the body and blot it out. For how could the Lord have been shown to be Life at all, if He had not made the mortal alive?
Consider stubble. By nature fire destroys it. Suppose a man keeps the fire away from the stubble; then the stubble is not burned, yet it remains stubble still, and still fears the threat of the fire, since fire by nature consumes it. But suppose he were to clothe the stubble in a thick coat of asbestos, the substance said to be proof against fire; then the stubble no longer fears the fire, because it has its safety from the covering that cannot burn.
In just this way one may speak of the body and of death. If death had been kept from the body by a command alone, the body would have been mortal and corruptible none the less, according to the nature of bodies. But so that this should not happen, the body put on the incorporeal Word of God, and now it fears neither death nor corruption, since it has life as its garment, and corruption is done away in it.
§ 45
Consistently, then, the Word of God took up a body and made use of a human instrument. He did so in order to give life to the body; and in order that, just as He is known in the creation through His works, so He might work in man also, and might show Himself everywhere, leaving nothing empty of His own divinity and of the knowledge of Him. For I say the same thing again, taking up what I said before. The Saviour did this so that, just as He fills all things everywhere by His presence, so He might fill all things with the knowledge of Him, as the divine Scripture also says: the whole earth was filled with the knowledge of the Lord.
For if a man wishes to look up to heaven, he sees its ordering. Or if he cannot look up to heaven, and looks only as far as men, then through the works he sees the Saviour's power, beyond all comparison with the power of men, and he learns that among men He alone is God the Word. Or if a man has turned aside among demons, and stands in terror of them, he sees Him driving them out, and he judges Him to be their master. Or if a man has sunk into the nature of the waters, and thinks these are God, as the Egyptians revere the water, he sees that nature changed by Him, and he learns that the Lord is the Creator of the waters.
And if a man has gone down even to Hades, and stands in awe of the heroes who went down there, taking them for gods, still he sees His Resurrection accomplished, and His victory over death, and he reckons that among them Christ alone is the true Lord and God. For the Lord touched all the parts of the creation, and set them all free from every deception, and showed that deception up for what it was, as Paul says: having stripped off the principalities and the powers, He triumphed on the Cross. This the Lord did, so that no one might any longer be able to be deceived, but might everywhere find the true Word of God.
For in this way man is at last encompassed on every side, and beholds the divinity of the Word spread out everywhere, that is, in heaven, in Hades, in man, upon the earth. He is no longer deceived about God, but worships Him alone, and through Him comes rightly to know the Father. By these arguments, then, on grounds of reason, the Greeks in their turn will fairly be put to shame by us. But if they think the arguments are not enough to shame them, then let them at least be assured of what we say from the things that are plain before the eyes of all.
§ 46
When did men begin to abandon the worship of idols, if not from the time when the true Word of God came among men? When did the oracles among the Greeks, and everywhere else, cease and fall empty, if not when the Saviour showed Himself upon the earth? When did those who are called gods and heroes by the poets begin to be convicted of being merely mortal men, if not from the time when the Lord raised His trophy over death, and kept incorruptible the body He had taken, raising it from the dead?
When did the deceit and the madness of the demons fall into contempt, if not when the Power of God, the Word, the Master of all things, and of these demons too, came down for the weakness of men and appeared upon the earth? When did the art of magic and its schools begin to be trodden underfoot, if not when the divine appearing of the Word took place among men? And in a word, when did the wisdom of the Greeks become foolishness, if not when the true Wisdom of God showed itself upon the earth?
In former times, the whole inhabited world and every place was led astray by the worship of idols, and men thought nothing else to be gods but the idols. But now, over the whole inhabited world, men are leaving the superstition of the idols and taking refuge with Christ; and, worshipping Him as God, they come through Him to know the Father whom they did not know.
And here is the marvel. The objects of worship were many and various; each place had its own idol; and the one they called a god among themselves had no power to pass over to the neighboring place and persuade the people next door to worship him. He was barely served even among his own, since no one worshipped his neighbor's god, but each man kept to his own idol, thinking it lord of all. Yet against all this, Christ alone is worshipped among all peoples as one, and everywhere as the same. What the weakness of the idols could not do, namely persuade even those living close at hand, Christ has done. He has persuaded not only those close at hand but the whole world without exception to worship one and the same Lord, and through Him God, His own Father.
§ 47
In former times, every place was full of the deceit of the oracles. The oracles at Delphi and Dodona, and in Boeotia and Lycia and Libya and Egypt, and those of the Cabiri, and the Pythoness, were held in wonder by the imagination of men. But now, from the time when Christ began to be proclaimed everywhere, their madness too has ceased, and there is no longer anyone among them who prophesies. In former times, demons used to work upon men's imagination, taking possession of springs or rivers, of trees or stones, and so astounding the foolish by their tricks. But now, since the divine appearing of the Word has taken place, their illusion has ceased. A man has only to use the Sign of the Cross, and he drives out their deceits.
In former times, men thought that Zeus and Cronos and Apollo and the heroes named by the poets were gods, and they went astray in revering them. But now that the Saviour has appeared among men, those others have been stripped bare as mortal men, and Christ alone has been made known among men as true God, God the Word of God. And what would one say about the magic they hold in such wonder? Before the Word came to dwell among us, it was strong and active among Egyptians and Chaldeans and Indians, and it astounded those who saw it. But by the presence of the truth, and by the appearing of the Word, it too has been refuted and brought entirely to nothing.
As for the wisdom of the Greeks and the loud pretensions of the philosophers, I think no one needs any argument from us, since the wonder is before the eyes of all. It is this. The wise among the Greeks wrote so much, and could not persuade even a few from the neighboring places about immortality and a life of virtue. Yet Christ alone, by ordinary words and through men not clever with the tongue, has persuaded crowded churches of men throughout the world to despise death and to set their minds on immortality, to overlook what is temporary and to look toward what is eternal, and to think nothing of glory upon earth and to lay claim to immortality alone.
§ 48
These things that we say do not stop at words. They have the witness of truth from experience itself. Let anyone who wishes come forward and look at the mark of virtue in the virgins of Christ, and in the young men who keep themselves in holy chastity, and at the assurance of immortality in so great a chorus of His martyrs. And let the man come who wishes to make trial of what has been said. In the very presence of the illusion of demons, and of the deceit of the oracles, and of the wonders of magic, let him use the Sign of that Cross which they laugh at, and let him merely name Christ. He will see how by this the demons flee, the oracles cease, and all magic and sorcery is brought to nothing.
Who then is this Christ, and how great is He, who by His own naming and His own presence has overshadowed all things everywhere and brought them to nothing, who alone is strong against them all, and who has filled the whole inhabited world with His teaching? Let the Greeks, who are so ready to laugh and never blush, answer us.
For if He is a man, how has one man surpassed the power of all whom they themselves hold to be gods, and by His own power shown them to be nothing? And if they call Him a magician, how is it possible that by a magician all magic is brought to nothing rather than confirmed? If He had conquered human magicians, or had prevailed over one only, they might reasonably have held that He surpassed the rest by a superior art. But if His Cross has won the victory over all magic without exception, and over the very name of it, then it would be clear that the Saviour is not a magician. The very demons invoked by other magicians flee from Him as from their master.
Who then is He? Let the Greeks, whose only serious pursuit is mockery, tell us. Perhaps they might say that He too was a demon, and that this is the source of His strength. But even in saying this they will bring the laugh upon themselves, for they can be put to shame once more by our earlier proofs. For how is it possible that one who drives out demons should be a demon?
If He merely drove out demons, it might reasonably have been held that He prevailed against the lesser by the ruler of the demons, which is what the Jews said to Him when they wished to insult Him. But if all the madness of the demons is driven out and put to flight at the naming of His name, then it would be plain that here too they are wrong, and that our Lord and Saviour Christ is not, as they suppose, some demonic power.
If, then, the Saviour is not simply a man, nor a magician, nor some demon, but has by His own Godhead brought to nothing and overshadowed the notions found in the poets, and the illusion of the demons, and the wisdom of the Greeks, then it would be plain, and it will be confessed by all, that this is truly the Son of God, the Word and Wisdom and Power of the Father. And this is borne out by His works, which are not human but above man, and are recognized as truly the works of God, both from what is plainly seen and from the comparison with men.
§ 49
For what man ever born formed a body for himself from a virgin alone? Or what man ever healed such diseases as the common Lord of all? Or who has restored what was lacking from a man's birth, and made one blind from birth to see? Asclepius was made a god among them because he practiced medicine and devised herbs for bodies that were sick. He did not fashion the herbs himself out of earth; he discovered them by a science drawn from nature.
But what is that beside what the Saviour did? He did not heal a wound; He fashioned the creature's very coming to be, and restored what He had made. Heracles is worshipped as a god among the Greeks because he fought against men who were his equals and killed wild beasts by cunning. What is that beside what was done by the Word, in driving away from men diseases and demons and death itself? Dionysus is revered among them because he became the teacher of drunkenness to men, while the true Saviour and Lord of all, for teaching self-control, is mocked by these people.
But let that pass. And what is all of it beside the other wonders of His Godhead? At what man's dying was the sun darkened and the earth shaken? Men are dying to this day, and they died of old as well. When did any such wonder happen at their death? Or, to pass over the deeds done through His body and to mention those after His rising again: what man's teaching, of all who have ever been, has held good from one end of the earth to the other, one and the same throughout, so that reverence for him has winged its way through every land? Or why, if Christ is a man and not God the Word, as they say, do their own gods not prevent the worship of Him from crossing into the very country where those gods are? Why is it rather the Word Himself who, dwelling here, by His teaching stops their worship and puts their illusion to shame?
§ 50
Many before Christ have been kings and tyrants of the earth, and many are recorded among the Chaldeans and the Egyptians and the Indians as wise men and magicians. Which of these, I do not say after his death but even while still alive, was ever able to fill the whole earth with his own teaching? Which of them drew so great a multitude away from the superstition of the idols as our Saviour has brought over to Himself?
The philosophers of the Greeks composed many works with plausibility and skill in words. What have they shown to compare with the Cross of Christ? Their subtleties kept their plausibility until the philosophers themselves died; and even where they seemed strongest while they lived, they were rivals among themselves, contending in declamations against one another.
But here is the strangest thing of all. The Word of God taught in poorer language, and overshadowed the most accomplished sophists. He brought their teachings to nothing, drawing all men to Himself, and He filled His own churches. And the marvel is this: that by going down to death as man, He brought to nothing the loud utterances of the wise about idols.
For whose death ever drove out demons? Or whose death did demons ever fear as they feared the death of Christ? Where the name of the Saviour is named, from that place every demon is driven out. And who has so stripped away the passions of the soul from men, that whoremongers are chaste, and murderers hold the sword no longer, and those who were once mastered by cowardice play the man? And in a word, who persuaded the men among the barbarians, and the heathen in their own countries, to lay aside their madness and to set their minds on peace, if it is not the faith of Christ and the Sign of the Cross? Who else has given men such assurance about immortality as the Cross of Christ and the Resurrection of His body?
For though the Greeks told every kind of falsehood, they were still unable to invent a resurrection of their own idols, since it never occurred to them at all whether it were possible for the body to exist again after death. And here above all one might commend them, because by taking that view they exposed the weakness of their own idolatry, while they conceded the possibility to Christ, so that from this too He might be made known among all as the Son of God.
§ 51
Who among men, after his death or even while living, ever taught about virginity, and did not think this virtue impossible among men? But Christ our Saviour, the King of all, had such power in His teaching about it that even children who have not yet reached the lawful age promise the virginity that lies beyond the law.
What man was ever able to cross so far: to the Scythians and the Ethiopians, or the Persians, or the Armenians, or the Goths, or those said to live beyond the Ocean, or those beyond Hyrcania, or to pass among the Egyptians and the Chaldeans, men who give their minds to magic and are superstitious beyond nature and savage in their ways? Who ever preached to such peoples at all about virtue and self-control and against the worship of idols, as the Lord of all has done, the Power of God, our Lord Jesus Christ?
He not only preached through His own disciples; He also persuaded those peoples in their minds to put away the savagery of their manners, to revere their ancestral gods no longer, but to acknowledge Him, and through Him to worship the Father. For in former times, while they served idols, Greeks and barbarians made war upon one another, and were cruel even to their own kin.
It was not possible for anyone to cross land or sea at all without arming his hand with swords, because of their irreconcilable fighting among themselves. Their whole way of living was carried on by arms; the sword took the place of a staff for them, and was their support in every need. As I said before, they served idols and poured out sacrifices to demons, and yet, holding such views, they could not in any way be schooled out of the superstition of the idols.
But when they came over to the teaching of Christ, then, marvelously indeed, they were pricked in conscience, and they laid aside the cruelty of their murders. They no longer set their minds on war. All is at peace with them now, and from this time on what makes for friendship is what they desire.
§ 52
Who then has done these things? Who has joined in peace, men who hated one another, if not the beloved Son of the Father, the common Saviour of all, Jesus Christ, who by His own love endured all things for our salvation? For from of old, the peace He was to bring about was foretold, where the Scripture says: they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their pikes into sickles, and nation shall not take up the sword against nation, and they shall learn war no more.
And this is not incredible, for even now those barbarians who have an inborn savagery of manners are mad against one another while they still sacrifice among their idols, and cannot bear to remain a single hour without a sword. But when they hear the teaching of Christ, at once they turn from war to farming, and instead of arming their hands with swords they stretch their hands out in prayer.
In a word, instead of fighting among themselves, from then on they arm against the devil and against the demons, and make war on these by self-control and by the soul's own virtue. This is a mark of the Saviour's divinity, that what men could not learn among idols they have learned from Him; and it is no small exposure of the weakness and the nothingness of the demons and the idols.
For the demons knew their own weakness, and for this reason they long ago set men to make war against one another, so that men, if ever they ceased from strife with one another, might not turn to the battle against the demons. And indeed those who are made disciples of Christ do not war with each other, but stand arrayed against demons by their habits and by their acts of virtue. They drive them out; they mock at their leader the devil; and in youth they are self-controlled, in temptations they endure, in labors they persevere, when insulted they are patient, and when robbed they think nothing of it. And the marvel is this: they think nothing even of death, and they become martyrs of Christ.
§ 53
And let me mention one mark of the Saviour's divinity that is altogether astonishing. What mere man, or magician, or tyrant, or king, was ever able by himself to hazard so much, and to do battle against the whole of idolatry, and against the whole army of demons, and all magic, and all the wisdom of the Greeks, though they were still so strong and still flourishing and astounding everyone? Who ever stood against them all at a single stroke, as our Lord did, the true Word of God?
Invisibly He exposes the error of each man, and He alone carries off all men as spoil from every one of these powers. So those who used to worship idols now trample upon them; those who were admired for magic burn their books; and the wise prefer the interpretation of the Gospels to all other studies.
Those they used to worship they are now leaving behind; and Him they used to mock as crucified, Him they now worship as Christ, confessing Him to be God. Those called gods among them are driven out by the Sign of the Cross, while the crucified Saviour is proclaimed in the whole inhabited world as God and the Son of God. And the gods worshipped among the Greeks are denounced as shameful by their own people, while those who receive the teaching of Christ live a more self-controlled life than they.
If, then, these things and things like them are human, let anyone who wishes point to works of the same kind among men of former times, and let him persuade us. But if they are not the works of men but of God, and plainly appear so, why are the unbelievers so irreligious as not to recognize the Master who has done them?
For they are in the same case as if a man should fail to recognize, from the works of the creation, the God who made them. If they had known His Godhead from His power over all things, they would have known that the works of Christ done through the body are also not human, but are the works of the Saviour of all, the Word of God. And had they known it so, then, as Paul said, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.