many things should join in witnessing that this One had come; and that so, freed from the burden of these many things, we should come to that One, and dead as we were in our souls by many sins, and destined to die in the flesh on account of sin, that we should love that One, who, without sin, died in the flesh for us; and by believing in Him now raised again, and by rising again with Him in the spirit through faith, that we should be justified by being made one in the one righteous One; and that we should not despair of our own resurrection in the flesh itself, when we consider that the one Head had gone before us the many members; in whom, being now cleansed through faith, and then renewed by sight, and through Him as mediator reconciled to God, we are to cleave to the One, to feast upon the One, to continue one.
Chap. viir. — In what manner Christ loilU that all shall he one in Himself.
12. So the Son of God Himself, the Word of God, Himself also the Mediator between God and men, the Son of man,^ equal to the Father through the unity of the Godhead, and partaker with us by the taking upon Him of humanity, inter- ceding for us with the Father iti that He was man,^ yet not concealing that He was God, one with the Father, among other things speaks thus: " Neither pray I for these alone," Ho says, " but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent me. And the glory which Thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one." ^ Chap, ix, — The same argument continued.
He did not say, I and they are one thing; * although, in that He is the head of the church, which is His body,^ He might have said, I and they are, not one thing,^' but one per- son,^ because the head and the body is one Christ; but in order to show His own Godhead consubstantial with the Father (for which reason He says in another place, " I and my Father are 122 ON THE TEINITY. [BOOK IV.
one " ^), in His own kind, that is, in the consubstantial parity of the same nature. He wills His own to be one,^ but in Him- self; since they could not be so in themselves, separated as they are one from another by divers pleasures and desires and uncleannesses of sin; whence they are cleansed through the Mediator, that they may be one^ in Him, not only through the same nature in which all become from mortal men equal to the angels, but also through the same will most harmoniously conspiring to the same blessedness, and fused in some way by the fire of charity into one spirit. For to this His words come, " That they may be one, even as we are one; " namely, that as the Father and Son are one, not only in equality of sub- stance, but also in will, so those also may be one, between whom and God the Son is mediator, not only in that they are of the same nature, but also through the same union of love. And then He goes on thus to intimate the truth itself, that He is the Mediator, through whom we are reconciled to God, by saying, " I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one." * Chap. x. — As Christ is the Mediator of life, so the devil is the mediator of death.
1 3. Therein is our true peace and firm bond of union with our Creator, that we should be purified and reconciled through the Mediator of life, as we had been polluted and alienated, and so had departed from Him, through the mediator of death. For as the devil through pride led man through pride to death; so Christ through lowliness led back man through obedience to life. Since, as the one fell through being lifted up, and cast down [man] also who consented to him; so the other was raised up through being abased, and lifted up [man] also who believed in Him. For because the devil had not himself come thither whither he had led the way (inasmuch as he bare indeed in his ungodliness the death of the spirit, but had not undergone the death of the flesh, because he had not assumed the covering of the flesh), he appeared to man to be a mighty chief among the legions of devils, through whom he exercises his reign of deceits; so puffing up man the more, who is eager for power more than righteousness, through the CHAP. XII.] OF MIRACLES DONE BY DEMONS. 123 pride of elation, or through false philosophy; or else entangling him through sacrilegious rites, in which, while casting down headlong by deceit and illusion the minds of the more curious and prouder sort, he holds him captive also to magical trickery; promising too the cleansing of the soul, through those initia- tions which they call reXeral, by transforming himself into an angel of light,^ through divers machinations in signs and pro- digies of lying.
Chap. xi. — Miracles which are done hy demons are to he spurned.
14. For it is easy for the most worthless spirits to do many things by means of aerial bodies, such as to cause wonder to souls which are weighed down by earthly bodies, even though they be of the better affected. For if earthly bodies themselves, when trained by a certain skill and practice, exhibit to men so great marvels in theatrical spectacles, that they who never saw such things scarcely believe them when told; why should it be hard for the devil and his angels to make out of corporeal elements, through their own aerial bodies, things at which the flesh marvels; or even by hidden inspirations to contrive fan- tastic appearances to the deluding of men's senses, whereby to deceive them, whether awake or asleep, or to drive them into frenzy? But just as it may happen that one who is better than they in life and character may gaze at the most worthless of men, either walking on a rope, or doing by various motions of the body many things difficult of belief, and yet he may not at all desire to do such things, nor think those men on that account to be preferred to himself; so the faithful and pious soul, not only if it sees, but even if on account of the frailty of the flesh it shudders at, the miracles of demons, yet will not for that either deplore its own want of power to do such things, or judge them on this account to be better than itself; especi- ally since it is in the company of the holy, who, whether they are men or good angels, accomplish, through the power of God, to whom all things are subject, wonders which are far greater and the very reverse of deceptive.
Chap. xii. — The devil the mediator of death, Christ of life.
15. In no wise therefore are souls cleansed and reconciled to God by sacrilegious imitations, or curious arts that are impious, 124 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK IV.
or magical incantations; since the false mediator does not translate them to higher things, but rather blocks and cuts off the way thither through the affections, malignant in propor- tion as they are proud, which he inspires into those of his own company; which are not able to nourish the wings of virtues so as to fly upwards, but rather to heap up the weight of vices so as to press downwards; since the soul will fall down the more heavily, the more it seems to itself to have been carried upwards. Accordingly, as the Magi did when warned of God,^ whom the star led to adore the low estate of the Lord; so we also ought to return to our country, not by the way by which we came, but by another way which the lowly King has taught, and which the proud king, the adversary of that lowly King, cannot block up. For to us, too, that we may adore the lowly Christ, the "heavens have declared the glory of God, when their sound went into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world." ^ A way was made for us to death through sin in Adam. For, " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned."^ Of this way the devil was the mediator, the persuader to sin, and the caster down into death. For he, too, applied his one death to work out our double death. Since he indeed died in the spirit through ungodliness, but certainly did not die in the flesh: yet both persuaded us to ungodliness, and thereby brought it to pass that we deserved to come into the death of the flesh. We desired therefore the one through wicked persuasion, the other followed us by a just condemnation; and therefore it is writ- ten, " God made not death," ^ since He was not Himself the cause of death; but yet death was inflicted on the sinner, through His most just retribution. Just as the judge inflicts punishment on the guilty; yet it is not the justice of the judge, but the desert of the crime, which is the cause of the punish- ment. Whither, then, the mediator of death caused us to pass, yet did not come himself, that is, to the death of the flesh; there our Lord God introduced for us the medicine of correction, which He deserved not, by a hidden and exceeding mysterious decree of divine and profound justice. In order CHAP. XIII.] THE DEATH OF CHRIST VOLUNTARY. 125 therefore, that as by one man came death, so by one man might come also the resurrection of the dead;^ because men strove more to shun that which they could not shun, viz. the death of the flesh, than the death of the spirit, i.e. punishment more than the desert of punishment (for not to sin is a thing about which either men are not solicitous or are too little solicitous; but not to die, although it be not within reach of attainment, is yet eagerly sought after); the Mediator of life, making it plain that death is not to be feared, which by the condition of humanity cannot now be escaped, but rather ungodliness, which can be guarded against through faith, meets us at the end to which we have come, but not by the way by which we came. For we, indeed, came to death through sin; He through righteousness: and, therefore, as our death is the punishment o.f sin, so His death was made a sacrifice for sin.
Chap. xiii. — The death of Christ voluntary. How the Mediator of life subdued the mediator of death. How the devil leads his own to despise the death of Christ.
16. Wherefore, since the spirit is to be preferred to the body, and the death of the spirit means that God has left it, but the death of the body that the spirit has left it; and since herein lies the punishment in the death of the body, that the spirit leaves the body against its will, because it left God willingly; so that, whereas the spirit left God because it would, it leaves the body although it would not; nor leaves it when it would, unless it has offered violence to itself, whereby the body itself is slain: the spirit of the Mediator showed, how it was through no punishment of sin that He came to the death of the flesh, because He did not leave it against His will, but because He willed, when He willed, as He willed. For in that He is so commingled [with the flesh] by the word of God as to be one, hence He says: " I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay down my life that I might take it again." ^ And, as the Gospel tells us, they who were present were most astonished at this, that after that word, in which He set forth the figure of our sin, He immediately gave up His spirit. For they who are hung on the cross are commonly tortured by a pro- 126 ON THE TRINITY. [BOOK IV.
longed death. Whence it was that the legs of the thieves were broken, in order that they might die directly, and be taken down from the cross before the Sabbath. And that He was found to be dead already, caused wonder. And it was this also, at which, as we read, Pilate marvelled, when the body of the Lord was asked of him for burial.^ 17. Because that deceiver then, — who was a mediator to death for man, and feignedly puts himself forward as to life, under the name of cleansing by sacrilegious rites and sacri- fices, by which the proud are led away, — can neither share in our death, nor rise again from his own: he has indeed been able to apply his single death to our double one; but he cer- tainly has not been able to apply a single resurrection, which should be at once a mystery of our renewal, and a type of that waking up which is to be in the end. He then who being alive in the spirit raised again His own flesh that was dead, the true Mediator of life, has cast out him, who is dead in the spirit and the mediator of death, from the spirits of those who believe in Himself, so that he should not reign within, but should assault from without, and yet not prevail. And to him, too. He offered Himself to be tempted, in order that He might be also a mediator to overcome his temptations, not only by succour, but also by example. But when the devil, from the first, although striving through " every entrance to creep into His inward parts, was thrust out, having finished all his alluring temptation in the wilderness after the baptism;^ because, being dead in the spirit, he forced no entrance into Him who was alive in the spirit, he betook himself, through eagerness for the death of man in any way whatsoever, to effecting that death which he could, and was permitted to effect it upon that mortal element which the living Mediator had received from us. And where he could do anything, there in every respect he was conquered; and wherein he received outwardly the power of slaying the Lord in the flesh, therein his inward power, by which he held ourselves, was slain. For it was brought to pass that the bonds of many sins in many deaths were loosed, through the one death of One which no sin had preceded. Which death, though not due, the CHAP, xiil] the two mediatoes. 127 Lord therefore rendered for us, that the death which was due might work us no hurt. For He was not stripped of the flesh by obligation of any authority, but He stripped Himself. For doubtless He who was able not to die, if He would not, did die because He would: and so He made a show of princi- palities and powers, openly triumphing over them in Himself.^ For whereas by His death the one and most real sacrifice was offered up for us, whatever fault there was, whence princi- palities and powers held us fast as of right to pay its penalty, He cleansed, abolished, extinguished; and by His own resur- rection He also called us whom He predestinated to a new life; and whom He called, them He justified; and whom He justified, them He glorified.^ And so the devil, in that very death of the flesh, lost man, whom he was possessing as by an absolute right, seduced as he was by his own consent, and over whom he ruled, himself impeded by no corruption of flesh and blood, through that frailty of man's mortal body, whence he was both too poor and too weak; he who was proud in pro- portion as he was, as it were, both richer and stronger, ruling- over him who was, as it were, both clothed in rags and full of troubles. For whither he drove the sinner to fall, himself not following, there by following he compelled the Eedeemer to descend. And so the Son of God deigned to become our friend in the fellowship of death, to which because he came not, the enemy thought himself to be better and greater than ourselves. For our Eedeemer says, " Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."^ Wherefore also the devil thought himself superior to the Lord Himself, inasmuch as the Lord in His sufferings yielded to him; for of Him, too, is understood what is read in the Psalm, "For Thou hast made Him a little lower than the ans^els:"* so that He, being Himself put to death, although innocent, by the unjust one acting against us as it were by just right, might by a most just right overcome him, and so might lead captive the captivity wrought through sin,^ and free us from a captivity that was just on account of sin, by blotting out the handwriting, and redeeming us who were to be justified 128 ox THE TRINITY. [BOOK IV.
although sinners, through His own righteous blood uni'ight- eously poured out.
18. Hence also the devil mocks those who are his own until this very day, to whom he presents himself as a false mediator, as though they would be cleansed or rather entangled and drowned by his rites, in that he very easily persuades the proud to ridicule and despise the death of Christ, from which the more he himself is estranged, the more is he believed by them to be the holier and more divine. Yet those who have remained with him are very few, since the nations acknow- ledge and with pious humility imbibe the price paid for them- selves, and in trust upon it abandon their enemy, and gather together to their Eedeemer. For the devil does not know how the most excellent wisdom of God makes use of both his snares and his fury to bring about the salvation of His own faithful ones, beginning from the former end, which is the beginning of the spiritual creature, even to the latter end, which is the death of the body, and so " reaching from the one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things."^ For wisdom "passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness, and no defiled thing can fall into her. " ^ And since the devil has nothing to do with the death of the flesh, whence comes his exceeding pride, a death of another kind is prepared in the eternal fire of hell, by which not only the spirits that have earthly, but also those who have aerial bodies, can be tormented. But proud men, by whom Christ is de- spised, because He died, wherein He bought us with so great a price,^ both bring back the former death together with men to that miserable condition of nature, which is derived from the first sin, and will be cast down into the latter death with the devil. And they on this account preferred the devil to Christ, because the former cast them into that former death, wliither he himself fell not through the difference of his nature, and whither on account of them Christ descended through His great mercy: and yet they do not hesitate to believe them- selves better than the devils, and do not cease to assail and denounce them with every sort of malediction, while they know them at any rate to have nothing to do with the suffering CHAP. XIV.] CHRIST THE MOST PERFECT VICTIM. 129 of this kind of death, on account of which they despise Christ. N"either will they take into account that the case may pos- sibly be, that the Word of God, remaining in Himself, and in Himself in no way changeable, may yet, through the taking upon Him of a lower nature, be able to suffer somewhat of a lower kind, which the unclean spirit cannot suffer, because he has not an earthly body. And so, whereas they them- selves are better than the devils, yet, because they bear a body of flesh, they can so die, as the devils certainly cannot die, who do not bear such a body. They presume much on the deaths of their own sacrifices, which they do not perceive that they sacrifice to deceitful and proud spirits; or if they have come to perceive it, think their friendship to be of some good to themselves, treacherous and envious although they are, whose purpose is bent upon nothing else except to hinder our return.
Chap. xiv. — Christ the most -perfect victim for cleansing our faults. In every sacrifice four things are to he considered.
19. They do not understand, that not even the proudest of spirits themselves could rejoice in the honour of sacrifices, unless a true sacrifice was due to the one true God, in whose stead they desire to be worshipped: and that this cannot be rightly offered except by a holy and righteous priest; nor unless that which is offered be received from those for whom it is offered; and unless also it be without fault, so that it may be offered for cleansing the faulty. This at least all desire who wish sacri- fice to be offered for themselves to God. Who then is so righteous and hoty a priest as the only Son of God, who had no need to purge His own sins by sacrifice,-^ neither original sins, nor those which are added by human life? And what could be so fitly chosen by men to be offered for them as human flesh? And what so fit for this immolation as mortal flesh? And what so clean for cleansing the faults of mortal men as the flesh born in and from the womb of a virgin, without any infection of carnal concupiscence? And what could be so acceptably offered and taken, as the flesh of our sacrifice, made the body of our priest? In such wise that, whereas four things are to be considered in every sacrifice, — to whom it is ^ Heb. vii. DE TRIN. I 130 ON THE TRINITY. [bOOK IV.
offered, by whom it is offered, what is offered, for whom it is offered, — the same One and true Mediator Himself, reconciling: US to God by the sacrifice of peace, might remain one with Him to whom He offered, might make those one in Himself for whom He offered. Himself might be in one both the offerer and the offering.
Chap. xv. — They are proud who think they are able, hy their own rigJifeoiisness, to be cleansed so as to see God.
20. There are, however, some who think themselves capable of being cleansed by their own righteousness, so as to contem- plate God, and to dwell in God; whom their very pride itself stains above all others. Tor there is no sin to which the divine law is more opposed, and over which that proudest of spirits, who is a mediator to things below, but a barrier against things above, receives a greater right of mastery; unless either his secret snares be avoided by going another way, or if he rage openly by means of a sinful people (which Amalek, being interpreted, means), and forbid by fighting the passage to the land of promise, he be overcome by the cross of the Lord, which is prefigured by the holding out of the hands of Moses.^ Eor these persons promise themselves cleansing by their own righteousness for this reason, because some of them have been able to penetrate with the eye of the mind beyond the whole creature, and to touch, though it be in ever so small a part, the light of the unchangeable truth; a thing which they deride many Christians for being not yet able to do, who, in the meantime, live by faith alone. But of what use is it for the proud man, who on that account is ashamed to embark upon the ship of wood, to behold from afar his country beyond the sea? Or how can it hurt the humble man not to behold it from so great a distance, when he is actually coming to it by that wood upon which the other disdains to be borne?
Chap. xvi. — The old philosophers are not to be consulted concerning the resu7'rection and concerning things to come.
21. These people also blame us for believing the resurrec- tion of the flesh, and rather wish us to believe themselves con- cerning these things. As though, because they have been able to understand the high and unchangeable substance by CHAP, xvil] Transcendental philosophy. 131 the things which are made,^ for this reason they had a claim to be consulted concerning the revolutions of mutable things, or concerning the connected order of the ages. For pray, be- cause they dispute most truly, and persuade us by most cer- tain proofs, that all things temporal are made after a science that is eternal, are they therefore able to see clearly in the matter of this science itself, or to collect from it, how many kinds of animals there are, what are the seeds of each in their beginnings, what measure in their increase, what numbers run through their conceptions, births, ages, settings; what motions in desiring things according to their nature, and in avoiding the contrary? Have they not sought out all these things, not through that unchangeable wisdom, but through the actual history of places and times, or have trusted the written experience of others? Wherefore it is the less to be wondered at, that they have utterly failed in searching out the succession of more lengthened ages, and in finding any goal of that course, down which, as though down a river, the human race is sailing, and the transition thence of each to its own appropriate end. For these are subjects which historians could not describe, inasmuch as they are far in the future, and have been experienced and related by no one. ISTor have those philosophers, who have profited better than others in that high and eternal science, been able to grasp such sub- jects with the understanding; otherwise they would not be inquiring as they could into past things of the kind, such as are in the province of historians, but rather would foreknow also things future; and those who are able to do this are called by them soothsayers, but by us prophets: