The Ancoratus (The Well-Anchored Man)

The Ancoratus (The Well-Anchored Man)

Epiphanius of Salamis

AD 374

Written in AD 374 at the request of the church of Syedra in Pamphylia, which had been disturbed by heresies. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, sets out the faith of the church on the Trinity, the incarnation, the resurrection and the Holy Spirit, and ends with two creeds. It is a main source for the creed used at Constantinople in AD 381. An English version exists in print; this is a fresh translation made for SermonIndex.

Preface

Pref. Our divine and great father Epiphanius came from Eleutheropolis in Palestine, where he also became a father of monks. He first practiced the ascetic life by withdrawing to Egypt. When he returned, in the twentieth year of his age, he came back to the district around Eleutheropolis and built a monastery there. The work is called “The Well-Anchored Man” because, like an anchor, it steadies the mind that is searching for life and salvation. It gathers into one arrangement many parts of the faith. These are: the oneness of being of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; the complete coming of Christ in the flesh; the resurrection of the dead, eternal life, and the judgment of flesh and soul together; and, in part, a case against idols, heresies, Jews and others. It also contains the names of the eighty heresies, and clear answers to other questions raised by the divine Scripture. It was written for the people of Syedra in Pamphylia, who had asked for it in the letters placed before this treatise. These things were done in the ninetieth year [from ...], in the [consulship] of Valentinian [and] Valens, [the tenth and the sixth year] [the numbers in the Greek are garbled].

2 A letter written from Syedra, a city of Pamphylia, by Tarsinus, Matidius and other presbyters, to Epiphanius, bishop of Constantia in Cyprus. They ask for a statement of the faith concerning the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and about other parts of the same faith. 3 To the lord Epiphanius, bishop honored by God: Matidius, Tarsinus, Neon and Numerian, presbyters of the catholic church in Syedra, send greetings in the Lord God. 4 The devil, the enemy of mankind, is accustomed to stir up trouble in many ways and to sow his own seeds against the simpler people, those not yet brought to maturity and firmly established in the faith of the holy Trinity. Yet, as it is written, “the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal: the Lord knew those who are his.” 5 The heretics, ready for anything, have set aside blasphemy against Jesus and now commit impiety against God in another way. They “magnify their own tongue” against the Holy Spirit and “speak injustice on high.”

6 Even so, although countless people have been stirred up, we ourselves by the grace of the Lord have stood in the sound faith, not moved in any way from the right and healthy teaching. Many who seemed to have been deceived have been strengthened again by the grace of the Lord, through the letters of the blessed bishop Athanasius, worthy of remembrance, and of your most God-fearing fellow minister Proclianus. 7 But remnants of the evil teaching still remain among some. These need to be grafted by you, skilled farmers, into the good olive tree, or else cut out altogether. For this reason we write to your godliness and ask that your reverence would deign to send a letter to our church and set out the right and sound faith in a fuller account. Then the simpler people, and those still doubting about the faith, may be made firm through your holy letters, and the devil, the enemy of the church, may be put to shame through your holy prayers. We pray that you may be well for many years and remember us in your prayers to God.

8 A letter written by Palladius, a citizen of the same city of Syedra, and sent to the same Epiphanius, bishop of Callantia [that is, Constantia] in the island of Cyprus. He too was asking about the same matters. 9 To my master, beloved of my soul, Epiphanius, bishop honored by God: Palladius, a citizen of Syedra, sends greetings in the Lord God. 10 Those who sail across the great and open sea, as long as a calm breeze keeps the ship on course, give little thought to the small lakes lying along the shores. They suppose they will cross without any outcry. 11 But when a violent head wind falls on them, lifting great waves high on every side and washing over the ship, then they long for a calm harbor. They look all around at the land below them, and when they cannot anchor anywhere, they finally make for whatever island happens to lie nearby, getting safety for themselves by any means. When they come near it and slip in under the shelter of its jutting headlands, they are at last able, with difficulty, to escape the evils that were swamping them.

12 And now, my lord, we ourselves are being instructed in the saving word of God. We are eager to free ourselves from the tossing of the world and to bring our little boat into the unshaken harbor of Christ. But we have learned that some people are raising empty and, as it seems to me, senseless questions about the Holy Spirit. They say that he ought not to share in the glory of the Godhead and Lordship, but should be ranked in the role of a servant and messenger. Some go further and hold even lower and meaner opinions about him. 13 So we have been caught, as it were, in a violent and unsteady storm. We could find no one among us able to resolve these questions and set out the sound faith for us. So we hurried to bring the matter to your godliness, and we cry out, as we rightly may, with this voice: “Master, save us.”

14 We therefore appeal to your sincere and upright faith, which a good reputation has gone ahead of you to proclaim, and which trustworthy witnesses attest and declare. You have been appointed by the Savior for this very purpose. Be so good as to receive our request patiently. Be willing to set out in a written work, in a fuller and clearer account, the faith of the holy Trinity, and to send it to us. Then we may be confirmed in it and obtain what we are seeking. Those who already stand firm in it will be glad. Those who are stumbling may, if possible, be healed. And “God will be glorified in all.” 15 A letter written to Pamphylia, to those with the presbyter Matidius, and Tarantinus, Neon and Numisianus of Syedra, and Palladius, a member of the city council. It concerns the faith in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and other parts of the faith, namely the resurrection of the dead and the incarnation of Christ. It was written in the ninetieth year of Diocletian, in the month of July, concerning the matters they asked about in their own letters, as these are contained in them and set out above.

16 To my lords, my most honored brothers and fellow presbyters, Matidius, Tarsinus, [name missing], Numerianus, and all the rest who are with you; and to our dearly beloved children Palladius and Severianus. You have pursued a good zeal, and you have chosen for yourselves a blessed and much-desired life of orthodox faith and perfect condescension. You fulfill what the Savior said: “If you want to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor,” and “they sold their possessions and laid them at the apostles’ feet.” You are adding to your souls whatever is timely and unconquerable among us. Epiphanius, the least of the bishops, and the brothers with me, send greetings in the Lord God.

Chapter 1

1 Dearly beloved, I would count myself blessed already, even though I am not adequate to the virtuous way of life of those holy and earnest people who have been taken up by zeal for God. Yet I am thought worthy to be pricked by them, so as to rouse my mind and set it toward what is useful. 2 The humble outlook that is always in me tries to stay quietly patient and not to stretch out any further. It looks closely at what the apostle said: “so that I may not stretch myself beyond the measure of the rule which God has given us as a measure.” Yet now it is compelled to come to this task. 3 From every side, votes have come in, so to speak, from the zeal that God has put in you and from others of the same mind, I mean those who are zealous for orthodoxy. Among them is our child Hypatius, who came to me from the land of the Egyptians for this very purpose. These have moved me to put aside all laziness and all hesitation. I can no longer keep silent or treat as secondary the writing to you about the faith. You and our brothers are asking about the salvation that is ours, from the divine and holy Scripture. You want the firm foundation of the faith concerning the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and all the rest of the salvation in Christ. I mean the resurrection of the dead and the coming of the only-begotten in the flesh. You ask also about the holy covenant, old and new, and, in short, about the other things that establish perfect salvation.

4 So I received this proposal, with requests that were not few. They came from those around Conops, my fellow presbyter Conops, and his followers, and from others, and from your honors, my dearly loved children. They also came through our child Hypatius, who has come to me from Egypt for this very purpose. I saw many voices agreeing together, and I was stung in mind and heart. I considered the matter, and it seemed good to me to act on your written request without hesitation. I write this letter, small man that I am, not only willingly but even unwillingly, because of the sheer weight of your request and of those with you, and out of love for your longing.

Chapter 2

1 I am struck with great wonder at the plan of our Lord and God. In the abundance of his goodness he was pleased to give his Holy Spirit to all who seek him in truth. For I did not think, my dearly loved, that your letters and those of the people with you came about without God. I judged that the impulse began in you from the grace of God. 2 For truly, those who hold the right faith about the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, and who know how to speak in harmony and agreement with the most blessed apostle Peter, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” will plainly be called blessed by the Lord himself. So that holy man was called blessed when he heard, “Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah.” That means “son of Jonah,” for his father was called Jonah, and “bar” is translated “son” from the Hebrew language.

3 For this was the life which the only-begotten Son of God [had in view] for his own disciples when he said, “that they may have life in themselves.” And this is the life of which he said, “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent.” 4 In saying “the only true God,” then, he led us to a single rule, so that we would no longer be “enslaved under the elements of the world.” He did this so that there would be no more belief in many gods among us, and the thoughts of men would no longer be scattered into that kind of unfaithfulness, but turned to the unity of the only true God. For Scripture says, “The first unfaithfulness is the devising of idols.” 5 And he says, “and Jesus Christ whom you sent.” Who is Jesus Christ, if not God? And if Christ Jesus is God, as John says of him, “The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known,” then the Father is one God and the only true God, and the Only-begotten is God.

6 So the Son is not foreign to God or to the oneness. Because he is Son from the Father, for that reason he is the only true God. He is not like the falsely named gods, whom some of the Greeks regarded as gods though they are not gods. He is the only true God because the Only-begotten is alone from the One alone, and the Holy Spirit is alone as well. For there is a Trinity in a oneness, and one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Chapter 3

1 But this word frightens those who have not been counted worthy of the Holy Spirit [text uncertain]. For “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” 2 The Jews also say the name Jesus, but they do not regard him as Lord. The Arians also say the name, and they say “God” [text uncertain here], but they call him a made God and not a true one, because they have not shared in the Holy Spirit. 3 For unless someone receives the Holy Spirit, he does not call Jesus truly Lord, truly God, truly Son of God and truly eternal King. 4 Let those who hold this evil opinion learn [that the only-begotten Son of God does not bear witness about himself in all things] [text uncertain]. 5 For this is what he said in the gospel: “If I bear witness about myself, my witness is nothing. There is another who bears witness about me.”

6 And who is the other, if not the one who spoke from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I was well pleased”? Yet the same one who says, “If I bear witness about myself, my witness is nothing,” says again, “Even if I bear witness about myself, my witness is true.” And again, “The very works which the Father gave me bear witness about me.” And again, “Moses wrote about me,” and “Moses bears witness about me.” 7 First, “If I testify about myself, my testimony is nothing.” Many people glorify themselves and testify about themselves, so he cuts off the boasting of those who boast and of those who commend themselves. 8 But when he says, “Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true,” he shows that the testimony is not that of a mere man. He is God, speaking truly [in] his own [nature]. So the Father is true God, the Son is true God, and the Holy Spirit is true, being “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of truth.” This is a Trinity counted under one name.

9 Of the Father, the Son himself says, “that they may know you, the only true God.” A trustworthy witness [concerning the Son] is the one who leaned back on his breast and called him only-begotten. John did not add “true God” to “only-begotten God.” Instead it is written of the Father that he is true God, and of the Son that he is only-begotten God. In the reverse way, it is said of the Father that he is “light,” and of the Son that “the true light was.”

Chapter 4

1 Notice the precision of the Scriptures. The Father is light, yet “true” is not added to what is said of the Father, “light.” But of the Son it says “true light,” and no one dares to say otherwise. 2 For who would be so mad, or rather would bring such derangement on himself, as to dare to take on himself the suspicion of blasphemy? Who would say that the Father is not true light, just because he did not find “true” attached to the statement? 3 For if the genuine Son, begotten from him, is true light, then beyond doubt the Father who begot the Son is true light. He is the one who begot him without beginning and outside of time. 4 We must not dare to say that the Father is not true light, even though “true” is not attached. We know from ourselves, by thinking reverently, that he is true light even if it is not written, and we do not doubt it, so that we may not perish. In the same way it is written of the Son that the Son is God. Even if “true God” is not attached, we heap madness on ourselves if we dare to blaspheme and refuse to call the Son true God, even though the word is not attached.

5 For it is enough, in speaking of the one, to carry the whole bond of the Trinity. From the Father we understand that the Son is true God and the Spirit is true. The terms of equal weight in truth are set side by side with each of the names: to the Father, “true God,” and to the Son, “God”; 6 and the other way round, to the Son, “the true light,” and to the Father, “the light.” We join the two statements about deity: of the Father, “true God,” and of the Son, “true light”; of the Father, “the light,” and of the Son, “God.” From “light” and “God” we confess the one Godhead, and from “true God” and “true light” we confess the one unity of power.

Chapter 5

1 It is the same with the Holy Spirit. [The text here is damaged.] He says, “that one is coming, the Spirit of truth,” and again of himself, “I am the truth.” Of the Father he says, “the Spirit of my Father who speaks in you,” and of the Spirit, “my Spirit stands in your midst.” 2 The Spirit, working together with the Son in a way beyond words, “drives him out into the wilderness” “to be tempted by the devil.” And the Lord himself says, “the Spirit of the Lord, for whose sake he anointed me.” 3 The Holy Spirit speaks in the prophets: “Thus says the Lord Almighty,” and, “the Lord who speaks in the prophets,” “who establishes thunder and creates spirit.” The thunder is the sound people hear, and the spirit he creates is for the working of the rains that God sends on the earth. 4 Of created things he speaks like this: “establishing thunder and creating spirit,” for these are created. But “declaring his Christ to people” is no longer creating, no longer establishing, but “declaring him to people”:

5 the one truly begotten from the true, the uncreated, the unchangeable, the unaltering, the one who always is from the one who always is, the one who [through Moses and] always is. “The One who is,” Moses says, “has sent me.” And John says, “The one who is in the bosom of the Father, that one has declared him.” 6 The Father is “He who is.” The Son is “He who is,” the one “who is with the one who is,” begotten from him. He is not fused with the Father. He did not begin to be. He is always the true Son, existing with the Father, and the Father always begot the Son. 7 For there was never a time when the Father was not Father. There was never a time when the Son did not exist with the Father alone. For if there was a time when he was not Father, then he himself must have been the son of another father, before he became Father of the only-begotten.

8 Those who think they honor the Father in this way are completely irreverent. For in God no time, no season, no moment of time, no smallest part of an hour, no blink of an eye, no passing thought is admitted. As far as your mind can rise 9 to grasp and believe in a Son, it conceives a Father at the same time. For the name [text defective] is significant. If you call him Son, by saying “Son” you understand “Father,” for it is from the Son that the Father is understood to be Father. And when you call him Father, you indicate the Son, for a father is always called the father of a son.

Chapter 6

1 6. When, then, can you dare to say that the Father was not Father, so that you may also dare to say that the Son is not Son? [But if it is not right to add anything to the Father] (for the divine remains always the same and needs no addition, whether of glory or of advancement), learn not to blaspheme, you who make war on the faith, or rather who drive yourself away from the faith. Instead, always believe in an eternal Father who truly begot a Son, 2 the Son who always truly is with the Father who truly is. 3 He is begotten. For a Son who is always [with him] is not fused with the Father. He is not a brother alongside him. He is a true Son begotten from the Father, a Son by nature and not by adoption, a Son of the same substance as the Father. He is not merely [existing alongside him] but of the same substance. That is, he was not begotten from outside the Father, as some ironically suppose, wanting the Son to be Son by appointment and not in truth.

4 The bond of the faith is to say “of the same substance.” For if you say “of the same substance,” you have undone the power of Sabellius. For where “of the same substance” is said, it indicates a single [reality, or hypostasis]. 5 But it also signifies the Father as truly subsisting, the Son as truly subsisting, and the Holy Spirit as truly subsisting. 6 When someone says “of the same substance,” he does not mean something foreign to the same Godhead. He means that the Son is God from God, and the Holy Spirit is God, [of the Godhead, one Godhead], not three gods. 7 For even if we call both the Son and the Father God, we are not speaking of two gods. For our God is one, as blessed Moses says: “The Lord your God, the Lord is one.” 8 We do not speak of gods when we call the Father God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God [text defective], and not gods. For there is no polytheism in God. Through the three names the one Godhead of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit [is signified].

9 Nor are there two sons, for the Son is one, the only-begotten. The Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, always existing with the Father and the Son. He is not foreign to God but is from God, proceeding from the Father and receiving from the Son. 10 But just as the only-begotten Son is beyond comprehension, so is the Spirit. He is from God and is not foreign to the Father and the Son. Nor is he a fusion of Father and Son. Rather, there is a Trinity that always exists, of the same substance. There is no substance apart from the Godhead, and no other godhead apart from the substance. It is the same Godhead, and the Son and the Holy Spirit are from that same Godhead.

Chapter 7

1 7. The Spirit is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the Son. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son. He “searches the depths of God.” He announces the things of the Son in the world. He sanctifies the holy through the Trinity. He is third in the naming, since the Trinity is [the Father,] the Son and the Holy Spirit. For he says, “Go and baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit is the seal upon grace and the bond of the Trinity. He is not outside the number, not separated in the naming, not a stranger to the gift. But there is one God, one faith, one Lord, one gift, one church, one baptism. 2 For the Trinity is always a Trinity and never receives any addition. It is counted thus: Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

3 The Trinity is not a blending together, and nothing within it stands apart from its own unity. In the subsistence of perfection the Father is perfect, the Son is perfect, the Holy Spirit is perfect: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 4 The Spirit, on the other hand, is also ranked among the gifts: “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are different kinds of service, but the same Lord; and there are different kinds of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all.” 5 Let us not fall away from the subject before us, and let us not depart from the truth. We are not pleading God’s cause for him. We think rightly about him so that we may not perish, and we speak without claiming to have grasped him fully. We speak as human beings about what we have grasped. 6 For the honor due to God is boundless, and it extends ten thousand times beyond our understanding. The Trinity neither takes on any addition of glory nor loses anything of what is properly its own.

7 Nothing in the Trinity is created or made to come into being. The Father begets the Son. There was never a time when the Son did not exist. Nor was there ever a time when the Father was not called Father. He was always Father, and the Son was always Son. He is not a brother, but a Son begotten in a way that cannot be told and named in a way that cannot be grasped. He is always with the Father and never ceases to be. 8 So the Father is unbegotten, uncreated, and beyond grasp. The Son is begotten, yet also uncreated and beyond grasp. The Holy Spirit is eternal, not begotten and not created. He is not a brother, not an uncle, not a grandfather, not an offspring. He is the Holy Spirit from the same substance of the Father and the Son. For God is Spirit.

Chapter 8

1 Each of the names is single, and has no doubling. The Father is Father and has no counterpart. He is not paired with another father, so that there would not be two gods. 2 The Son is only-begotten, true God from true God. He does not bear the name of Father, and he is not a stranger to the Father, but is the Son of the Father. He is “only-begotten” so that the Son’s name may be single, and “God from God” so that Father and Son may be called one God. The Holy Spirit too is single in his name; he does not 3 bear the name of the Son, nor the title of the Father, but is called Holy Spirit in just that way, and is not a stranger to the Father. 4 For the only-begotten himself speaks of “the Spirit of the Father,” and “the one who proceeds from the Father,” and “he will receive from what is mine.” This is so that the Spirit would not be thought a stranger to the Father or to the Son, but of the same substance and the same Godhead: the divine Spirit, “the Spirit of truth,” the Spirit of God, the Spirit the Paraclete. He is called by a single name, has no counterpart, and is not made equal to any other spirit. He is not called by the name of the Son or named with the title of the Father, so that the single names would not become shared names.

5 Nevertheless, “God” is in the Father, “God” is in the Son, and “God” is in the Holy Spirit, since the Spirit is of God and is God. 6 For he is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son. This is not by any kind of composition, as in us soul and body are joined. Rather he is in the midst between the Father and the Son, from the Father and the Son, third in name. 7 For he says, “Go and baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Now if the Father baptizes into his own name, the name of God, and the seal is complete, sealed in us in the name of God, and if Christ baptizes into his own name, the name of God, and the seal is complete, sealed in us in the name of God, who will dare to wage war against his own soul by calling the Spirit a stranger to the Godhead?

8 For if we are sealed into the name of the Father, into the name of the Son, and into the name of the Holy Spirit, there is one seal of the Trinity. So there is one power of the Godhead in the Trinity. But if the one is God, and the others are created things and not God, on what ground are the two joined to the one in the seal of perfection? Were we then sealed into a royal name, the one of the Father, while the others are not royal, so that we are still enslaved to the elements and created things? Could the name of the Father alone not save, so that he took to himself two other elements by creating them, as the blasphemers suppose, in order that his Godhead might take on other powers as well and be able to save the one sealed by him, and that the human being created by him might receive redemption through the forgiveness of sins?

Chapter 9

1 Alas for such nonsense! Alas for such blasphemy! Where has another new unbelief crept into life, or rather, as I would say, a bad belief? For a bad belief is worse than unbelief. Unbelief, once it receives faith, will be set right. But a bad belief cannot be corrected and is saved only with difficulty, unless the anointing comes upon it from above. 2 The blessed Peter says to Ananias and those with him, “Why did Satan tempt you to lie to the Holy Spirit?” And he says, “You have not lied to men, but to God.” 3 So the Spirit, to whom those who held back part of the price lied, is God, from the Father and the Son. Paul agrees with this word when he says, “You are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” So the Spirit is God, as I said before. 4 For this reason holy people too will be called a temple of God, those who have the holiness of God dwelling in themselves. The foremost of the apostles bears witness to this. He was counted worthy to be pronounced blessed by the Lord, because the Father had revealed it to him.

5 So the Father reveals the true Son to him, and he is called blessed. And the same one again reveals his Holy Spirit. 6 It was necessary [that . . . text missing] the first of the apostles, the firm rock, “on which the church of the Lord is built, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” The gates of Hades are the heresies and the founders of heresies. For in every way the faith was made firm in him, who received the key of the heavens, who looses on earth and binds in heaven. 8 For in him are found all the subtle questions of the faith that people are seeking. 9 This is the one who denied three times and cursed three times before the cock crowed. Showing the greatness of his love for his own Master, he said emphatically, “Even if all deny you, I will not deny you,” so far as it depended on him. This is the one who wept at the voice of the cock,

10 so that he might truly confess that the arrest of the Son of God was real and not in appearance. By weeping at his arrest, when he was handed over by the Pharisees, Peter declared him to be a true man. This is the one who went off to Galatia [Galilee?] to fish, 11 the partner of the one who reclined on the Lord’s breast. For the one, learning from the Son and receiving from the Son the power of knowledge, revealed it. The other was helped by the Father, 12 laying down the foundation of the certainty of the faith. This is the one who, after he had been called, was again fishing in the boat on the [lake] of Tiberias. But the disciple whom Jesus loved heard the word the Savior spoke: “Children, do you have any fish to eat?” And the Savior says, “Cast to the right side of the boat, and you will find.” When Peter was astonished at what the word had brought about, John, whom Jesus loved, says, “It is the Lord.” He is a man according to the flesh, truly born of Mary and not in appearance, but God [according to]

13 his being, having come from the heavenly places, from the Father. This is the one who heard from him, “Peter, shepherd my lambs.” He was entrusted with the flock and guides it well in the power of his own Master. He confesses the truth about the flesh. He truly proclaims what the Father said about the Son. He points to the Spirit and to his dignity in deity. He gave the right hand of fellowship to Paul and Barnabas, along with James and John, so that “by three witnesses every word may be established.”

Chapter 10

1 For nothing can stand without two or three witnesses. It was by these that the faith too was confirmed in a riddle, through the law, among those who knew only the Father. They could not go further unless they received the power of the Son, were strengthened through the witness of the Father and the Son, and through the third witness received the Holy Spirit and were filled. 2 This is plain from the voices of the Cherubim and Seraphim, who cry out a third time, “Holy, holy, holy.” 3 For the praise in heaven is not completed with two voices. Nor do those same holy, invisible, spiritual living creatures cry out a fourth time, or give a fourth voice, or only a single one. They give three single voices: “Holy, holy, holy.” 4 And they do not say “holy ones, holy ones.” They do not make the one into something with many names, nor do they raise the number three to a peak. Three times they give the cry of holiness, but they utter the word as one and in the singular, so that they may not name a plurality of gods.

5 For God is one: the Father in the Son, the Son in the Father, with the Holy Spirit. For this reason he is “the Holy One who rests among the holy ones.” There is a true Father, truly subsisting; a true Son, truly subsisting; and a true Holy Spirit, truly subsisting. These three are one Godhead, one being, one doxology, one God. 6 You have named the Son, and in your mind you have taken in the Trinity. You have the Holy Spirit, and you have been counted worthy of the power of the Father and of the Son of God. You have glorified the Father, and you have pointed to the Son and the Holy Spirit. 7 But this is not by blending them together. The Father is Father, the Son is Son, and the Holy Spirit is Holy Spirit. Yet the Trinity is not estranged from unity and sameness. The Father is honored as being Father, the Son is honored as being Son, and the Holy Spirit is honored as being the true Spirit and the Spirit of God. So the Only-begotten says, “He who honors the Father honors the Son.” For in calling the Father “Father” you point to the Son, and you honor the Son. And, “He who honors the Son honors the Father.” For in naming the Son you honor the Father, since you are not claiming that Christ is less than the Father.

Chapter 11

1 For if among us human beings such a way of thinking is absent, and we do not want our sons to be lesser or diminished in comparison with the honor given to their fathers (for dishonor shown to the sons is reckoned as dishonor to the fathers), how much more would God and Father not wish his own Son to be made lesser? 2 So whoever supposes that the one who is truly the Father’s Son falls short of the Father’s glory will rather dishonor the [Father], giving him dishonor in place of honor, carried along by ignorance. 3 Just as the Son reveals the Father when he says, “No one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father,” so I dare to say that no one knows the Spirit except the Father and the Son, from whom he proceeds and from whom he receives.

4 How do they dare to say that the Spirit is foreign to God? They are seized by madness rather than truth. They do not learn the true voice of the trustworthy and holy apostle Paul, to whom Peter, the foremost of the apostles, who was counted worthy to hold the key of the kingdom, gave the right hand of fellowship; Paul, who heard from heaven, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” 5 He was counted worthy to hear “unspeakable words, which it is not permitted for a man to utter.” He is the one who says, “No one knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that dwells in him.” He wanted to speak of the things above by means of an example. He did not do it to liken the human example to God, but to reveal, through the example, a part of the things above.

6 For the whole creation gathered together, angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim with the heavenly host, heaven and earth, things on earth, in heaven and under the earth, lights and stars, dry land and sea, and absolutely everything in heaven and on earth, cannot show, nor be compared by an example to, their own Master. 7 For it is by grace that he gives the image to man, when he says, “God made man; he made him in the image of God.” Every man has the image as a gift of grace. 8 But no one will be made like his own Master. The one is invisible, the other visible; the one immortal, the other subject to death. The one is the source of all wisdom and has everything complete in himself, while man, who has the gift only in part, falls short of the most perfect things, unless God is willing to grant, according to worth, the perfection that comes through the gift to those who receive it.

Chapter 12

1 Nevertheless the same holy apostle used an example. “No one,” he says, “knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man that dwells in him. So also no one has known the things of God.” 2 And he did not say, “except the Spirit of God that dwells in him,” but only “the Spirit of God,” so that no one would think of the divine as composite or put together. 3 “Except,” he says, “the Spirit of God.” For the Spirit of God searches all things, even the depths of God. 4 So the Spirit of God, who searches the depths of God, is not a stranger to God. The divine Scripture rebukes us when it says, “Think about what has been commanded you; you have no need of hidden things,” and, “Do not seek what is too high for you, and do not examine what is deeper than you.” Should we then say the same of the Spirit, that he searches the depths of God [more and more, and not rather in a ridiculous way; the Greek here is unclear]?

5 Where does he search the depths of God? For what reason? Tell me, you fool. Does he do it as a busybody? As one meddling in another’s affairs? As one who does not want what is his own? Certainly not! 6 Rather, the saints are counted worthy to have the Holy Spirit dwell in them. When the Holy Spirit comes to be in the saints, he gives them the grace to search the depths of God, so that they may glorify him deeply. David confesses this too: “Out of the depths I cried to you, Lord.” They glorify him [without limit] and not in a small and cheap way, as the followers of the heresy of Arius do, and all those outside the church. 7 [From the time] the law was given through Moses, the heresies that split off after it before Christ’s coming in the flesh were eleven, and after his coming in the flesh there were sixty more. This leaves aside those before the law: these five, and the other four Greek heresies, which are the nine before the law. Altogether, all of them together with their mothers number eighty.

8 Of these, the mothers are five: Barbarism, Scythianism, Hellenism, Judaism, Samaritanism. From these, out of Hellenism come four heresies: the Pythagoreans, Platonists, Stoics and Epicureans. 9 From the law, before Christ’s coming in the flesh, come eleven. Seven are from the Jews: Scribes, Pharisees, Sadducees, Ossaeans, Nasaraeans, Hemerobaptists and Herodians. Four are from the Samaritans: Gorothenes, Sebuaeans, Essenes and Dositheans. Together that makes eleven springing up from the law, from the Jews and the Samaritans.

Chapter 13

1 13. So all those before Christ’s coming in the flesh, beginning from Adam and down to that coming, are twenty. After Christ’s coming in the flesh, down to the reign of Valentinian, Valens and Gratian, all the heresies that falsely took the name of Christ for themselves are sixty. They are numbered like this: 2 Menandrians [the name appears twice in the Greek], Satornilians, Basilidians, Nicolaitans, Gnostics (who are also called Stratiotics and Phibionites; by some Secundians, by others Socratites, by others Zacchaeans, and by some Coddians and Borborites), Carpocratians, Cerinthians (also called Merinthians), Nasoraeans, Valentinians [also twice in the Greek], Secundians (to whom Epiphanes and Isidore are joined), Ptolemaeans, Marcosians, Colorbasians, Heracleonites, Ophites, Cainites, Sethians, Archontics, Cerdonians, Marcionists, Lucianists, Apelleians, Severians, Tatianists, Encratites, the Phrygian sect (who are also Montanists and Tascodrugites), Pepuzians (who are also Priscillianists and Quintillianists, to whom the Artotyrites are joined), Quartodecimans (who keep the Passover on one day of the year), Alogi (who do not accept the Gospel and the Revelation of John), Sampsaeans (also called Elkesaites), Theodotians, Melchizedekians, Bardesanists, Noetians, Valesians, Cathari (who are also Novatians, and are called Montesians at Rome), Angelics, Apostolics (also called Apotactics), Stablesians, Origenists (who are also called the shameless), the Origenists of Adamantius, the sect of Paul of Samosata, Manichaeans (also called Acuanites), Hieracites, Melitians (who are the schism in Egypt), Arians (also called Ariomanites), the Audians (a schism, but not a heresy), Photinians, Marcellians, Semi-Arians, Pneumatomachians (who blaspheme the Holy Spirit of God), Adrianists, Aetians (who are also called Anomoeans, to whom Eunomius is joined, or rather “Anomos,” the lawless one), Dimoerites (who do not confess that Christ’s becoming man was complete, and who are also Apollinarians), those who say that holy Mary was joined to Joseph after she bore the Savior (whom we have called Antidicomarianites), and those who offer a little cake in her name (who are called Collyridians), Messalians (to whom the Martyrians from the Greeks are joined), and Euphemites and Satanians.

Chapter 14

1 14. In short, I have grown weary, and I am weary, of listing the names of so many heresies and going through their unlawful practices, and further of the two schisms, 2 I mean the Melitians in Egypt mentioned above, who split themselves off because of the fall of some during the persecution, and who were received by our people into their clergy after repentance— 3 There were also the Audians in Mesopotamia, whom I mentioned earlier. They are not strictly in heresy, though they too are a schism and do not hold a different faith. They quarrel only as private persons over the question of “the image.” They did not break away over the faith, and they cut themselves off for another reason: a self-chosen zeal for righteousness, as they imagine it. They refuse to share communion with bishops and presbyters who own gold and silver. They also keep the Passover at the same time the Jews do. For these reasons they split themselves off and estrange themselves from the unity of the orthodox church.

4 Those who have not received the Holy Spirit have not learned the depths of God. They have been broken off into these heresies, and into the schisms that rise from pretexts for quarreling. They abandoned the truth and walked down many paths, thinking now one thing, now another. 5 The same holy apostle says this, showing us why he said it: “We have received the Spirit of God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. And we speak of these things, not in words taught by wisdom, but in words taught by the Holy Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual,” and what follows. So the Spirit of God is not foreign to God. If he were foreign to God, how could he search the depths of God? 6 But what will you say to me, you vain man, who fight against yourself, so as not to say against the Holy Spirit of God? Why, vain man, do you wage war on the one who cannot be conquered? Why do you fight the one who cannot be fought down? “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” You are making yourself stumble, not the Word. You are trapping yourself, not the Spirit. You are estranging yourself from the grace of God, not the Son from the Father, nor the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.

Chapter 15

1 You will certainly speak with cleverness. For I have already heard of some, hard-hearted people, who twist the truth of our God and Savior into blasphemies. They say, “He searches the depths of God, but he does not comprehend them.” Their reason is that this phrase is not added to the saying; the apostle said only, “He searches the depths of God,” and “he comprehends” is not added. 2 What great folly! Was it really necessary, you God-struck man, after saying “searches” to say “comprehends”? By your dullness, would the matter be found lame if this word were not added? 3 But now you are left with no excuse. For Scripture gathers the truth from every side for the devout man. It is written of almighty God that “God tests the kidneys and searches the inner chambers of the belly.” If he tests the kidneys, does he not know what he is testing?

4 Or did Scripture declare the whole of knowledge to lie in testing? And it says “searching the inner chambers of the belly,” and again “comprehending” is not added. Then, if “comprehends” is not added to the saying, shall I bring death on myself by weaving “he does not comprehend” into the saying, as you reason, you fool? 5 So it is also said of the Holy Spirit that he searches, and there was no need to add that he also comprehends. For the saying itself shows that the knowledge of God and of the depths of God is in the Holy Spirit. Even if it does not say “comprehends,” understand it the same way, and do not destroy your own soul. 6 Just as we must not dare to say of the Father, “he searches but does not comprehend” (for he himself created man with the Son and the Holy Spirit; the Trinity is always a Trinity and never takes any addition), so too we must understand it of the Holy Spirit.

7 For when he says, “Let us make man” (for “in the beginning God made heaven and earth”), it signifies the voice of the Father calling to the work of creation. And in saying “let us make,” I would say it refers not only to the Son but also to the Holy Spirit. 8 For it says this: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the breath of his mouth.” So the Word works in creation with the Father, and the Holy Spirit works in creation with him too. 9 Then does the almighty God who made man not know the things of man, “searching the inner chambers of the belly”? No: the Word brings in this saying to show the fullness of God’s knowledge, so that none of us who sin may think anything is hidden from God. For he himself knows man and the things of man.

Chapter 16

1 So the Father searches “the storehouses of the belly” and knows them. The Spirit searches the depths of God and knows them. For he reveals the mysteries of God to the saints. He teaches them to glorify God profoundly, and he shows his own people that God cannot be comprehended. 2 So the Spirit is certainly not foreign to God. For Scripture did not say that angels search the depths of God, or archangels either. The Son of God says: “No one knows the day or the hour: neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” 3 But the foolish, who are not adorned with the Holy Spirit, suppose that there is something in the Father that is not in the divinity of the Son. Yet the holy Word of God himself says: “As the Father has life in himself, so the Son has life in himself,” and “All that belongs to my Father is mine.”

4 What are the things of the Father, if not these? Whatever belongs to the Father as God belongs also to the Son. If life belongs to the Father, it belongs also to the Son. If light belongs to the Father, clearly it belongs also to the Son. If immortality belongs to the Father, so it does to the Son. If incomprehensibility belongs to the Father, it belongs also to the Son. 5 Everything that is the Father’s is the Son’s. So if the Father’s things are his, then the knowledge that is in the Father is also in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. 6 If anyone supposes that the Son does not know the day, let the ignorant man learn, and let him stop blaspheming. I will set knowledge before him, and he will understand. Tell me, beloved (for I call you beloved; I hate no one, except only the devil, the works of the devil, and bad teaching that feeds on poison. For your part I pray that you may come to the truth of God and not destroy yourself by blaspheming against God).

7 For the words of the holy God are deep, and knowledge is given by the Holy Spirit through his gifts. For he says, “To one is given a word of wisdom, to another a word of teaching,” and so on, “and the same Spirit distributes to each one as he wills.” He says this to show you the authority of the Holy Spirit as well. 8 For when the same Spirit gives the gifts as he wills, then ask the Father to reveal the Son to you. Ask the Son to reveal the Father to you. And ask the Father again to give you the Son, to reveal the Holy Spirit to you, and to grant you to have him within you. Then the Holy Spirit, given to you, will reveal to you the whole knowledge of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, so that you may learn that in the Son there is no ignorance whatever, nor in the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 17

1 For even if angels fall short of the greater authority and knowledge, God forbid that the Son of God and his Holy Spirit should fall short. The Son speaks spiritually, the holy Word who came to us from the Father. But the natural, soul-bound men are put on trial, because they do not understand the wisdom of the Son, or rather the word of wisdom. I ask you, and tell me: 2 Who is greater, the Father or that day he speaks of? You will not dare to say the Father is not greater. So if the Father is greater than the day and the hour and everything made by him, whether already made or yet to be made, and no one knows him except the Son, then which is greater: to know the Father, or to know that day? It is plain that it is to know the Father. How then can the one who knows the greater things fall short in the lesser?

3 So if he knows the Father, he certainly knows the day also, and there is nothing in which the Son falls short in knowledge. 4 But you will say, “The Father, being greater, has the knowledge of everything, and the Son does not at all, just as he himself says, ‘My Father is greater than I.’” But the Son says this to honor the Father, as was fitting, though he himself has been honored more greatly by the Father. For it was right that the true Son should honor his own Father, in order to show that he is a true Son. 5 But in what way do you think he is greater? In circumference, or bulk, or time, or occasion, or rank, or deity, or immortality, or eternity? Do not think any of these. For in the deity nothing is unequal toward the Son. Rather, because the Father is Father, and because the Son is the true Son, he honors his own Father.

6 For [the divine nature] is not measured by bulk, so that the Father would be bulkier than the Son. Nor is it subject to time, so that the Father would be older than the Son. Nor is the Father set in a part of height (for he contains all things and is himself contained by nothing), so that the Son would be thought to have gone beyond him. For the Son sat down at the right hand of the Father. He did not say, “I went into the Father.” This was to put an end to Sabellius and to bring Arius down from his blasphemy.

Chapter 18

1 So do not look into what is not to be looked into, but honor the Son, so that you may honor the Father. And when you hear about God, “No one is good except one, God,” do not dare to declare the Son not good on the ground that the Son honors the Father so exceedingly. 2 For when he calls the Father good, he is not denying that he himself is good. Rather, he reveals himself all the more by not wanting honor from men and by referring the honor to his own Father. The purpose is that, from the goodness of the Father, the knowledge of the goodness of the Son of God may be known, who is begotten from the good Father, God. 3 For those who dare to say such a thing about the Son are very feeble, even if it follows, “One is good, God.” 4 For look, in many places the divine Scripture teaches us, calling things good. It speaks of a poor and wise child as good. It says, “Samuel was good with God and with men.” It says, “Saul, son of Kis, of the tribe of Benjamin, was good, taller than all Israel from the shoulder and upward.” It says, “It is good to go to the house of drinking.” It says, “Open, Lord, heaven, your good treasure.” It says, “A word is good above a gift.” It says, “A living dog is good above a dead lion.” It says, “Two are good above one.” It says, “The end of words is good above the beginning.” And it says, “If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,” speaking about fish and bread.

5 How then do you dare to imagine that the Son is disowning his own goodness, and is not, out of the surpassing degree of his honor, carrying the goodness over to 6 the Father? For he saw that the one who said to him, “Good teacher,” was [speaking] with the mouth and not with the heart. He wanted to expose him, because he was not persuaded by his lips but was examining his heart. In the same way he says in another place, “Why do you say to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do my words?” Here too he wanted to expose him. For the man called him a good teacher, and did not remain in his faith, in believing in his

Chapter 19

1 So then, he himself is the holy Word, living and subsisting, the heavenly King, the true Son, who is always with the Father, who came forth from [the Father], the “radiance of glory, the exact imprint of the substance,” the image of the Father in truth, enthroned with the one who begot him, whose “kingdom will have no end,” “the judge of the living and the dead.” 2 He is wisdom from wisdom, and fountain from fountain. For he says, “Me they have forsaken, the fountain of living water, and they have dug for themselves broken cisterns.” He is the ever-flowing river that “gladdens the city of God with its rushings.” He came forth from the fountain, and from him, [as it is said], 3 “rivers will flow from his belly.” He is the scepter of David, the root of Jesse, the flower from that root, the lion, the king from the tribe of Judah,

4 the rational sheep, the living stone, “the angel of the great counsel.” He truly became man and truly is God. He was not changed in his nature and did not alter his deity. He was born in the flesh; he is the Word made flesh. 5 The Word became flesh. Between “became” and the Word there stands the word “flesh.” He did not say “the Word, having become,” but after saying “the Word” he sets down “flesh” with no verb, and after “flesh” he says “became.” The purpose is that the “became” may be understood as from Mary, and that the Word may be understood as having come down from above, from the Father. — This holy, living Word, God from the Father, 6 He is “the angel of the great counsel,” the one who announces the things of the Father’s counsel, “Father of the age to come.” He himself said, “No one knows the day and the hour, not even the angels in heaven.” [For they do not know; and the Son, he means in the sense of the mind,] except the Father alone.

7 So if the Son knows the Father, and the Father is greater even than the day and the hour (and no one doubts this), how can the one who knows the greater be ignorant of the lesser? For no one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father. The Father is great because he knows the Son, and in the same way the Son is great because he knows the Father. 8 If, then, he knows the Father, who is the greater, how is he ignorant of the smaller thing, that is, the day and the hour? Search the Scriptures and learn the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit himself, who knows the Father and the Son, will reveal to you the knowledge of the Word, the Son of God. Then you will not wander from the truth and destroy your own soul.

Chapter 20

1 20. There are two kinds of knowing in the divine Scripture, two kinds of awareness: one by action and one by [simple awareness]. To set out like cases from [passages placed side by side], I will give many examples. In this way your mistaken mind, and the minds of those who think as you do, may be set straight. 2 Learn what the Scripture says about Adam: “They were naked in the garden, and they were not ashamed.” 3 But they were not blind, for they could see. If they could not see, how did they see the tree, that it was good for food and pleasing to look at? It says, “The woman took and ate, and she gave also to her husband who was with her.” 4 So they were not blind; their eyes were open. Though naked, they were not ashamed as they looked at each other, and being naked they knew themselves. But they knew by awareness, and not by deed.

5 After they had eaten from the tree and been cast out of the garden, after a long time it says, “Adam knew Eve his wife.” How, then, can this be? 6 They had seen each other naked, and they knew themselves by sight; but not by the act. Yet the Scripture called being joined to one another “knowledge.” 7 So the Scripture knows how to use “knowing” in more than one sense. Again it says this: “Jacob knew Leah his wife, and she conceived and bore a child.” Now he had known her before. For [with the light of day] he had spent seven years shepherding the sheep of Laban her father. He knew her with the awareness that comes through sight and acquaintance, and he knew her also through the act. 8 And “he knew Rachel his wife.” And again, in another place, it says, “David grew old, and they covered him with clothes, and he was not warm. And they said to the king, ‘Let a beautiful virgin be sought.’” Abishag the Shunammite was found. It says, “She was brought to the king, and she lay with him and kept him warm; and David did not know her.” She was with him, sharing his body and lying at his side.

9 What kind of knowing does it mean here? Knowing by sight, or knowing by act? Again: “The Lord knew those who are his.” Does he then not know those who are not his? And: “Depart from me, workers of lawlessness, for I never knew you.” Is there ignorance, then, in the Son of God? 10 And again: “You I have known out of all the nations.” Is he, then, ignorant of the rest of the nations? Never! The divine Scripture knows of knowledge in one sense as awareness and in another sense as action.

Chapter 21

1 21. So the Father’s only-begotten fulfilled the Father’s will and has already shown that all things are completed. For the Father knew the hour and the day. He knew it both by awareness and by act. For he himself knows all things. Even when the Son says, “The Father has given all judgment to the Son,” and the Father does not judge, yet by having given judgment to the Son he himself judges. For God is not cut off from judging those who are judged. And in the very fact that the Father does not judge, he has already judged. 2 The Son, for his part, knows when he is coming. For he himself brings the day, and he himself fixes it, [leads it on] and completes it. For it says, “That day comes like a thief in the night.” And it says, “You do not know [that it comes] in the night, so that the day may overtake you in darkness.”

3 If the servants of Christ are children of the day, does the Son himself, who brings the day, not know it? Must the day overtake him, instead of his bringing the day himself? Whoever thinks this will blaspheme, for he is reckoning things unworthy of the Father and the Son. 4 The Father knows the day and the hour in two ways: by knowledge and by action. He knows when it comes. He has also already decided, having appointed [the world] to be judged, and he has known it by action. 5 The Son of God knows when it comes. He himself brings it, and he is not ignorant of it. But he has not yet carried it out, which is to say he has [not yet known it] by action. For still the ungodly act ungodly, the unbelieving disbelieve, and the wickedly formed blaspheme. The devil is still at work, sins are still committed, injustice still prevails, and judgment is still patient. This lasts until he comes and knows the day by action, carries out vengeance, and saves those who hope in him in truth and who do not blaspheme his divinity, nor that of the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 22

1 In the case of the holy angels, such a dignity falls short in two ways. They are honored, since they have received this from the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. But this they lack: they do not know when the things appointed will take place. For the Father fixed the times by his own authority. But if the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, then the authority is not lacking on the Son’s side, since he is in the Father. 2 The lack comes from the angels’ side. Angels, archangels and powers are created, but the Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, and the Spirit of God is uncreated. 3 So the angels know the day and the hour neither by knowledge nor by action. They do not know when the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit wish to bring the day. Nor do they know it by the knowledge that comes from acting. For they have not yet been ordered to go out, to gather the weeds, to bind them in [bundles], and to burn them in unquenchable fire.

4 So they have not yet acted, and they do not know. The Father knows and has acted. The Son knows, but has not yet acted. This is what is meant by the saying, “Except the Father alone, neither the [angels] nor the Son.” 5 Let us grasp the force of the Scripture, so that the letter does not become death to us. For it says, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Let us take hold of the Spirit, so that we may be helped by the letter. It is not the letter that kills, for life is in the letter. It kills the person who approaches the letter without understanding and does not have the Spirit who explains, who opens the letter and reveals what is in it. 6 This holy Father gave his only-begotten Son, true and begotten from himself, and his Holy Spirit to his holy church. He gave them in one knowledge of harmony and in one bond of perfection. So in the name of the perfect Father, who is God, we receive the seal. In the name of the perfect Son, who is God, and in the name of the divine and perfect Spirit, we receive the seal.

7 O holy Trinity, numbered as three, a Trinity numbered in one name. For we do not speak of one and two, nor of a unit and another unit. We speak of a unity in a trinity and a trinity in a unity: one God, single in form and single in name, the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father, together with the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 23

1 Call witnesses of the truth for me. Call the boys who were saved from the Babylonian furnace. They were counted worthy to be thrown into the fire and yet not be consumed, and the fire was not put out. This was so that no one would suppose they had devised some new trick. They were in the fire and were not consumed in the fire, because of their right faith. In this God was teaching us through them which things are created and which are uncreated, which are made and which are not made, which things always exist and which things come from them and have come into being. 2 Those boys, once saved, wished to show a thankful mind toward the God who had saved them. They had hoped in him from the beginning and had not doubted. They had not bowed their necks to the image, or to the king’s arrogance and tyranny.

3 And when they wanted to offer something to God, they searched the depths of their hearts by the Holy Spirit, being holy men. They thought over heaven and everything in it, the earth and everything beneath it, and everything that exists, and they judged that none of it was worthy to be brought to God as an offering. (For they had no authority to offer to God what lay beyond themselves.) 4 They wished, as was fitting and within their power, to honor God with hymns alone. This is what is written: “Offer a sacrifice of praise,” and “A sacrifice of praise will glorify me.” Already, pricked in heart by the Holy Spirit, they had passed from the old covenant to the new. They had no need of sacrifices of animals or of whole burnt offerings. For they say, “There is no place to bear fruit, nor sacrifice, nor altar,” since all things were taken up in this.

5 Wishing to offer such praise, they set aside their own littleness and were carried along in humility. (“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”) Together with the grace of their deliverance they received this gift of humility. So they wanted to offer praise to God and not grow weary. 6 Having tested themselves against the unutterable glory of God, they judged it right to take creation along with them into the praise. They began to speak, embracing the whole of what God has made.

Chapter 24

1 24. They separated the things made from the one who made them, and the created things from the one who created them, and said, “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord.” They said “all” and left nothing out. 2 The Holy Spirit wished to mark out a complete knowledge, so that we would know what is divine and what has been made by God. We were not to mix the things that came from nothing with the eternal one, and so lose our understanding. So he gathered everything together under one count. 3 For the Holy Spirit revealed to them that they had been counted worthy to stand with angels, having become like angels. They were therefore not ignorant of the things in heaven, on the earth, and under the earth. 4 And these same holy men, as I said before, say: “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord.” They begin to number and distinguish which are the works and which the makers, which are the things that work and which the things that have been worked upon.

5 They count heaven, earth, the waters above the heaven, and angels (for the angels are created), thrones and powers (for these are created too), sun and moon (for they are made, not uncreated), clouds and showers of snow, winds, snows, lightnings, thunders, earth, sea, springs, deeps, rivers, all humanity, mountains, birds of the sky, cattle and wild animals, the souls of the holy, the spirits of the righteous, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, priests and servants of God. 6 For all these are made and created, brought into being by God through the Word and the Holy Spirit. “For by the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power.” 7 Notice, beloved brother, how they numbered everything, carried along by the Holy Spirit, yet did not number the Son among the things made. Neither did they number the Holy Spirit. They knew that the Godhead is one in a Trinity, and the Trinity one in a single Godhead. They glorified the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father, with the Holy Spirit: one holiness, one worship, one Godhead, one doxology.

Chapter 25

1 25. But the devil dares to stir up this too among people: to invent a charge of daring unbelief against the holy young men and to say, “They did not know how to name the Holy Spirit. They were Jews, and being Jews they did not even know the Son.” 2 But the words themselves at once refute the unbelief of these men of wrong belief. For it says, “And the appearance of the fourth was like the appearance of a son of God.” Here is the name of the Son of God. So there was no ignorance about this. [Nor was there ignorance of the Spirit] even before the time of the furnace, for Daniel was filled with the Holy Spirit and said, “I am clean from her blood.” They turned back to the court, and he judged the elders, being filled with the Holy Spirit. 3 So they knew the Son, and they knew the Father and the Holy Spirit. They did not leave out the names through ignorance, but for the sake of safety. For [he] says, “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord.” They did not say, “Bless the Lord, Son of God,” nor did they add, “Bless the Lord, Holy Spirit,” but, “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord.”

4 Let no one who goes hunting for excuses say, “They did not mention Cherubim or Seraphim, so these must not be works of God either.” The divine word has already taken precautions on every side against those who devise schemes for themselves. It foresaw the harm that would come to them and to the children. 5 The holy children raised their hymn three times over, and they brought forward created and made things for the praise of God. First they said, “Blessed are you, Lord God of our fathers, and praiseworthy and glorified is your name forever.” Then, after other things, “Blessed are you who sit upon the Cherubim.” And again, “Blessed are you who sit on the throne of the glory of your kingdom.” And, “Blessed are you who look into the depths, sitting upon Cherubim.” 6 The aim is that when he says “throne,” you understand Seraphim and Cherubim. From the name of the Cherubim, the depths, the holy throne and all the other names, you should understand from the number of everything named that these are counted among the other creatures as works. For when they have called all these things to the hymn, they immediately add, “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord,” so that Gabriel and Michael too will bless the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 26

1 26. The august angels in heaven sing the hymn of victory. With the Seraphim and Cherubim they glorify the Trinity in one mind, in one rank and of one substance, saying “Holy, holy, holy.” They make three voices, but they speak in unity and not with many names. 2 For they do not say “holy” a fourth time, so that they do not add to the naming of the Trinity. They do not say “holy” twice, so that the glory of perfection would not be incomplete. They say it three times, so that they sanctify the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit with the same honor. 3 And they do not say “holy” and “half-holy.” They say “holy” equally of each, glorifying the Trinity together with one voice, one word and one perfection: unity in Trinity and Trinity in unity. 4 For it was to bring us this knowledge that the only-begotten [Son] of God came. This understanding the Holy Spirit proclaimed to us. This perfection the Father revealed to us. In truth the Word made flesh gave us this life as a gift, and the Holy Spirit built for us this building.

5 “If anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,” and so on. For there is no other foundation: “No one can lay another foundation besides the one that is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” the Son of God, “whose building we are, and whose field we are,” “built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles.” We are to know that our building stands firm in truth, and that our foundation always is and never began to be. 6 But “not in everyone is there knowledge,” as the apostolic word says. It is in those who have been counted worthy, by the Holy Spirit, to know the mysteries of the truth. 7 For he himself, who revealed himself and his Father and the Holy Spirit, rebuked some who were in ignorance. He said, “You know neither the Scriptures nor their power.” And elsewhere again, “Let the one who has ears to hear, hear.” And again, he said to the Samaritan woman, “If you knew who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him.” And again, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are of.”

8 So knowledge is not in everyone. “Each one has different gifts from God,” and the holy word says, “From the one to whom more is given, more will be demanded.” Some receive a little, some nothing at all, and others receive abundantly.

Chapter 27

1 27. That these things are so, one can find from what is said in the divine Scriptures themselves. Most of divine Scripture is spoken spiritually, especially about our life, I mean the knowledge of the Lord. Whatever words are deeper and give our soul more abundant assurance have become a stumbling block to those who have not grasped the knowledge of God. 2 As the prophet Hosea says, “Who is wise, and will understand these things?” and “The one to whom a word of the knowledge of the Lord is given will know them. For the ways of the Lord are straight, but the ungodly will stumble in them.” 3 The ways are straight, but the ungodly stumble on the ways of the Lord, though these ways are a stumbling block to people. Those who stumble on the stone of stumbling stumble without distinction: “For they stumbled on the stone of stumbling and were offended.”

4 At once the Jews saw the only-begotten Son of God come in the flesh, working signs from God. They had not been counted worthy of heavenly knowledge, and they said, “Who is this man who speaks blasphemies?” At another time they said, “If this man were from God, he would not break the Sabbath.” So they did not know his deity, and thought he was only a mere man. 5 Others did recognize him as God, but they did not know his perfect glory. They heard the deep words spoken about him, and about the economy of the flesh worked out for our salvation, and they stumbled over his deity. Their own thinking made them stumble. 6 The Jews stumbled when they heard, and these people stumble in the same way when they hear. The Jews saw what had been foretold in the prophets, but they did not know that it was fulfilled in the coming of Christ in the flesh, and so they were thrown into confusion.

7 These people, in their turn, hear the things foretold about his economy, but they understand them in a shallow way, and so they are thrown into confusion. They bring forward, for their own ruin, what was said for our building up. They say, “He said, ‘I am going to my God and your God, and my Father and your Father.’ Do you see? ‘Your’! He too is one of the created things.” They dare to say this in blasphemy.

Chapter 28

1 You see, then, that it is the economy of his coming in the flesh that makes them stumble. Let them go back to the beginning and ask about times or seasons. For “his goings forth,” it says, “are from the days of eternity.” Let us look, then, at what came before these things. The Father says, “Let us make man in our image and likeness.” He did not say, “I will make man in my image.” 2 Be convicted, you who have a hardened heart, as it is written, “But their heart was hardened.” Learn that the Son is always with the Father. For the words “Let us make” do not point to one person alone, but to the Father speaking to the Son. 3 Be convicted also, you who say the Son is unlike the Father. In saying “in our image,” he did not separate the likeness of the Son from the Father, and he did not divide any part of the Father’s sameness from the Son. For he did not say “in my image,” or “in your image.” He showed instead one essence and one deity of the Father, the Son and the Spirit. For he says, “in our image and likeness.” So the deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is one, and man was made in the image of the one deity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

4 You too be convicted, Arius, and hear the Father saying to the Son, “Let us make,” calling the Son a fellow-creator. I have often heard some people say that the Son made nothing, but that what came to be “came to be through him.” But if it came to be through him, then he also made it, as has been clearly shown. 5 For the Word, the master craftsman, is the maker of all things, and the Father works through him. Let them hear him plainly say, “My Father works until now, and I work.” In saying this, he here calls his Father a fellow-worker with himself. 6 But again, do not let your reasoning deceive you, so that you come to the Son as to a servant and not as to the true Master. If he were a servant and not the true Master, how did he take the form of a servant when he came, he who was in the form of God? And how did he empty himself, if he did not have fullness? So come to the Son as to perfect God, and as to the Son who is from the Father.

Chapter 29

1 And do not say out of ill will, “But the Father said to the Son, ‘Let us make,’ while the Son did not say to the Father, ‘Let us make.’ And the Son does not say, ‘I work and my Father works,’ but puts the Father first as the one who speaks and works.” 2 You say this foolishly, and you want to think of the divine as having many origins. But there is one origin and one and the same deity. Nowhere here does the Son say “my God.” I do not say this to deny the honor the Son has toward the Father, but to show how the order of the deity stands. 3 And again it says, “Adam heard God walking in the paradise in the cool of the evening.” Nowhere does the Son say “my God and your God.” Here he speaks of God as complete in himself.

4 And again, “And God spoke to Noah.” Nowhere is such an expression found there. 5 “And God appeared,” it says, “to Abraham as he sat by the oak of Mamre. And behold, three men! And he ran to meet them and bowed down to the ground and said: If I have found favor before you...” Scripture does this to show the one as God, and the two who accompanied him as his angels. 6 It is about this same one that Scripture says, “God went up from Abraham.” And he himself is the one who says to him, “Shall I hide anything from my servant Abraham?” “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah,” he says, “has multiplied before me,” and so on. And nowhere in these times does the phrase “my God and your God” appear. 7 “And the two men came into Sodom.” This is because the one who went up was above, and Abraham was left behind by the two who went into Sodom for its destruction. Of the one who went up, Scripture says, “And the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord.” There was no need for the phrase “my God and your God.”

8 Moses also says in the Song, “And let all the angels of God worship him.” Now he says “angels of God” and “fire from the Lord,” and he does not say simply “angels.” He does this to show that the Father and the Son have one kingdom. The angels are not divided under different rulers; they belong to God, and they worship the Son, who is God. For an angel does not worship an angel. And nowhere here is there “my God and your God.”

Chapter 30

1 David says, “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” “The Lord,” he says, “to my Lord.” For the dispensation of the flesh did not yet exist, and it was on its account that there was need for him to say “my God and your God.” 2 “Behold, the virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which is translated, ‘God with us.’” Even then there was not yet any need to say “my God and your God.” 3 And: “And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are not the least among the thousands of Judah; for out of you shall come to me a ruler in Israel, and his goings forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity.” Other copies read: “And you, Bethlehem, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a leader, and he will shepherd my people Israel.” You see that there was still no need to say “my God and your God.”

4 But when the prophecy of Jeremiah, and likewise of Isaiah, was being fulfilled, that the Word would be born of a virgin and take flesh (as Jeremiah says, “And he is man, and who will know him?”), then he shared in the flesh. Without the seed of a man he formed for himself that same holy flesh from Mary, the God-bearer, as it is said, “born of a woman.” Having shared in what is ours, he says “my God,” because of what is ours. 5 But because of the eternity of his true sonship by nature, he says “my Father.” Because of his grace toward his disciples, he says “your Father.” And because of the disciples’ own nature in relation to his divinity and to his eternal Father, he says “your God.” 6 For he is God of the disciples, but Father of the Lord by nature, and Father of the disciples by grace. The Father is God of the Son because of the flesh. But he is Father because of the eternity and incomprehensibility of his begetting and true sonship: in truth he is his Father, having begotten him without time and without beginning according to his divinity.

7 It was necessary for the Son to call him his God because of the dispensation he carried out for our sake. He is always with the Father, the Word begotten without beginning. But in the flesh he was born of Mary at the end of the days, born according to the flesh from Mary, that same holy virgin, through the Holy Spirit.

Chapter 31

1 31. Let them, then, understand the depths of God’s work, and not turn grace into ingratitude by supposing that salvation for our sake is a dishonor to the unspeakable and incomprehensible nature of God. 2 “But,” they say, “it is written about God, ‘He will not hunger or thirst, and there is no searching out of his understanding.’ Yet about the Son it says that he hungered in the wilderness during the temptation. It also says, ‘Our God will not grow weary,’ yet the Lord Jesus grew weary on the road. And it says, ‘He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep,’ yet the Lord, they say, fell asleep in the 3 boat.” What empty speculations from people who reason like this! The holy Word came and took up our burdens for us. More than that, he became touchable, took flesh, and was found as a man. He was seized by the scribes and [text missing], saying: “I gave my back to the whips, and I did not turn my face away from the shame of spitting.”

4 He also “wept,” as it stands in the Gospel according to Luke in the uncorrected copies. Holy Irenaeus used this testimony in his work Against Heresies, against those who say that Christ appeared only in appearance. But the orthodox removed the passage. They were afraid, and did not grasp its purpose and its great strength. 5 He also “was in agony and sweated, and his sweat became like drops of blood, and an angel appeared to him, strengthening him.” 6 Not only this, but as a man he asks, “Where have you laid Lazarus?” About the woman with the flow of blood he asks, “Who touched me?” About those who were seeking him he asks, “Whom do you seek?” He also asks the disciples, as a man, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And he asked, “How many loaves do you have with you?” 7 That is what he said. And, weary from the journey, he sat down by the well in Samaria. Moreover, “the child grew and became strong in spirit,” and “Jesus advanced in stature and wisdom.” And there is this: “Before the child knows how to call father or mother, he will take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria.”

8 He is wisdom itself, the one who “teaches people knowledge,” who “planted the ear in man,” who gave articulate speech to the sons of men, and who “made the tongue of the stammering clear.” He endured all such things for our sake. He did so in order to keep the whole sequence of the incarnation, arranged for us, and so not destroy the stamp of the truth.

Chapter 32

1 But I do not want to leave unexplained the countless passages we have brought forward. We gathered them from the divine Scriptures, speaking as though in the person of those who oppose the truth, though they understand these passages badly. So I will set out, for each one, an understanding of the force in it, and the reason why it was said in terms of human experience. 2 Again we will say, having already said much about “my God and your God,” that anyone who has understanding can know from the very sequence that it was said with good reason, [as it stands]. 3 “For he is a man, and who will know him?” In this one saying the divine writing shows two things together, the visible and the invisible. On account of the visible, “my God” is reasonably said. On account of the invisible, the word “my” was spoken. The text contradicts neither of the two works.

4 For how could he not be known, if he was a man? But if he was not a man, how was he called a man? 5 Surely everyone who is born from human beings is known by human beings. He is known by the mother who bore him, by relatives, by the household, by neighbors, by those who share his dwelling, or by fellow citizens. 6 This cannot be fulfilled in a mere man. It is fulfilled in God the Word, the Son of God. In saying “He is a man,” and in truth also “who will know him?”, the text shows that he is God. He shares in human life, and yet he is God, unknown to human beings because he cannot be comprehended. 7 But he is truly a man, born from Mary without the seed of a man. The prophet proclaimed beforehand what was to come: “The virgin,” he says, “will conceive in the womb and will bear a son.”

8 If then she is a virgin, the arrangement of the conception was not from men. This is because, before that time, it had been said to Ahaz, “Ask a sign for yourself, either in the depth or in the height.” But Ahaz, humble-minded, says, “I will not ask, and I will not test the Lord my God,” and so he declined to ask for a sign. 9 Immediately, because he would not ask for a sign, God, who gives great gifts to human beings, granted two gifts. From the height he sent the Word, by his own will and by the Word’s own will. From the depth he arranged the flesh, by his own good pleasure, together with the Word himself. 10 For afterward it says, “and they will call his name Emmanuel.” It did not say “I will call,” but “they will call.” For God, who had once been unknown among them, was being revealed to men. Yet he does not receive the name as something new. For it did not say, “I will call his name Emmanuel,” but “they will call.”

Chapter 33

1 As for the words “born of a woman,” as I showed above, the point of “of a woman” is that “born” refers to the flesh, so that it may be plain to everyone that the Word is eternal. And if the saying “he will not thirst” is spoken about God, while it is said of the Son that he hungered and thirsted, then this was arranged for us out of necessity. 2 For how could the economy of salvation be found to be real, if he did not have the ordinary needs that belong to becoming man? In this he showed us the solutions to all the questions raised by the heretics. 3 For at once he dissolved the suspicion of the Manichaeans: by saying that he eats and drinks, he shows that his flesh is real. He also dissolved the method of the Lucianists and the force of Arius. 4 For Lucian and all the Lucianists deny that the Son of God took a soul. They say he had only flesh, so that they may attach to God the Word human suffering: thirst, hunger, weariness, weeping, grief, distress, and everything else found in his coming in the flesh. But it would be foolish to count these things against the deity of the Son of God.

5 “But,” they say, “flesh by itself neither eats nor drinks nor grows weary nor does the other things.” I agree myself that by itself it does not have these. 6 But the Word, when he came, took on the whole economy: flesh and soul and everything that is in a man. Hunger and weariness, thirst and grief and the rest were parts of the soul and the flesh. 7 For he weeps, in order to refute the error of Manichaeus, and to show that he was clothed in the body not in appearance but in truth. And he thirsts, to show that he has not only the flesh but also the soul. For it was not his deity that thirsted anywhere; rather [it was in the flesh] that he thirsted and grew tired from the journey, because of the union of flesh and soul.