On Physics

The minds of men recognize God as the maker of all things by natural judgment and movement. But the natural philosophers, marveling at things themselves, or rather stupefied, blinded by the force of wonder, have forgotten the very maker of all creation. For some, with most audacious impulse, contend that God does not exist, but that all things are generated of themselves by nature without God. Others, confessing both God and nature, set the nature of things equal to God: they say indeed that he made a certain force of nature, in that he is taught to have fashioned it by appropriating from it; but on the other hand that he suffers violence, in that nature dissolves what he himself established. Against these two kinds, which are opposed to each other, yet both of which blaspheme, an answer must be given: and first to those, I think, who are the more audacious, whom we said deny God, who is made manifest from his every creature.

For who doubts that the order which exists in the nature of things has been established by someone, and not by itself? Since the seasons assign to one another their measures and their yielding in turn: and the sun indeed, though it be brighter and more effective, and possessing the greatest power, yields to the lesser lights of the moon and the chorus of stars by night, nor can it always keep the day itself within the same span: the stars and the moon admit that very span of power which they have had: spring, autumn, winter, and summer are awaited and come, ordered within a predetermined span. And yet upon those very seasons force is sometimes brought to bear, so that they do not always do what is expected; but, something preventing them, they exceed their measure. What need is there to extend the discourse about the sea, about rivers, about the earth, the mountains, and the other elements, or about the crops that spring from them? Let us now proceed to what has been promised. II.

Creation itself declares some maker of itself: for it does not, in generating itself, consume itself again; since the purpose of making is one thing, and of consuming another: and if the nature of things always brought forth everything from itself, it would also have preserved everything; especially since those who grant that nature is eternal and without beginning are compelled to grant it also an eternal power: which power, since it is found in the things it generates, makes it necessary that the things generated also be eternal and without beginning: which the daily birth of things proves to be false. And if it be said that things themselves always exist, because they succeed one another in turn; yet in each individual thing the definition of birth and dissolution shows that, since each individual is constrained by this defect, the defect is fitted to all through that very individuality. Thus all things that have been made cannot be without definition: for they begin and are completed, they grow and they diminish.

From all of which it is found that there is someone who brings force upon nature, so that it always suffers this same defect. III. Having recognized these things from the physical arguments themselves, by which human sense has always confessed; now an answer must be given to those who posit such a maker as to be so needy that he did not fashion from his own, but by appropriating what belonged to another; so that he is found to be not only needy, but also unjust. For what had he to do with another's matter, if he could have had his own? Thus they seem compelled to confess God; yet not to understand the power of God, nor to marvel at him, who would fashion as a man does from matter set before him. To such a degree do they, as they suppose, lower his dignity, that they themselves make matter equal to God by birth, which suffers force from him and exerts force in return.

For it suffers when it generates; it acts when it dissolves; and both are brought to nothing. Then it must be demanded of them whether each preserves the property of its own birth? For if God is overcome, he has lost his own proper power in generation. Again, if matter is reformed by God, it has lost the form of its birth. Afterwards, when it has done with the work begun what it never did before, so as to generate when compelled by the maker; it received for a time some power from him in bringing forth. But if it received what it did not have, then the potency of eternity is already excluded by the power it received. On account of which I ask: whence is it proved to be unborn, which did not remain in the form of its own birth? Nor can that substance be in the same power and being which is changed in power, color, form, quality, and all its forces: that which succumbs to so many defects and necessities cannot be unborn.

And since it both exists and is proved not to be unborn, it remains that what it is should be recognized as born and made.

IV. This indeed is recognized to have been made not by many gods, but by one. For reason does not allow that there are many gods on account of the diversity of things or of powers; since in one earth diverse kinds of herbs, crops, and trees are produced, brought forth in diverse bodies, adorned with diverse colors, strengthened with diverse powers. Indeed our soul too, though it be one, establishes diverse contrivances of arts, teachings of disciplines, forms of institutions, the number of measures, the elevations of sounds, the effects of things, thoughts, and judgments of reason. But if in things so small so many effects of things are granted to one substance; how much more is that divinity, the begetter of these very things, recognized to be one, when the diversity of things could neither bring force upon so great a majesty nor take away its power? Then it must be asked in what manner they introduce many gods: whether all of them are creators of all things, or of individual things?

They cannot be makers of all things, because one suffices, as has been said. But if many gods are supposed to do this, it is necessary that each bring to individual things what they bestow. Whence what is brought by one is imperfect; and the contribution of the rest is lacking to the matter, because what it received from one does not suffice. And now the matter is better, which alone has received within itself the powers of all.

V. Then it is proved that individual things are not constituted by all of them: a stone does not subsist from the same things as a tree; nor a tree from the same as a beast; nor the race of fish from the same as wild animals; nor serpents or beasts from the same as man: but it is necessary to confess that there is less and more. Whence it is known that they are not all makers of each individual thing, nor do they reign over all. Since they have not contributed to all; and since different kinds have been brought in, and not all equal ones (for one differs from another), it is necessary that they be recognized as contributing less and more.

From which contribution a greater and a lesser is found according to their power: which distance does not allow that the divinity of birth is established as one for all: from which the quality of being unborn pertains again to one, the rest being excluded from being unborn: whence it is necessary that they be born. And now those who are born, not having from themselves what they are; it is proved that they do not have power from themselves either, but that it is given. But if they are not from themselves, and use a power that is given; how shall they be said to have made all things, having been manifested as belonging to creation themselves? And all these things indeed touch upon the case if all contribute to each individual.

But if not all, but individuals govern individual things, and one does not use the creation of another, but the whole age is divided, with individuals drawing and defending their own works to themselves, and we ourselves are not permitted to use the creation of another, how can living beings live, each separated from the rest? But if, on account of the harmony of their goodness, they themselves permit it—being indeed weak, who could not make their own stand except through the creation of another—they do not govern their own, but use is in control. But if use holds sway, he does not govern; from which it is recognized that he does not exist.

VI. And the world itself restrains the madness of these men, showing forth its creator, ruler, governor, and dispenser. For who, sending rains upon things belonging to others, nourishes by his own operation things that are another's? Who has joined together all the harmful oppositions of the seasons, by interposing a temperate balance, to serve usefulness? Who supplies the blowing of winds, for the sake of animation, to the births of things coming into being? God indeed is discerned from every creature, as it is written: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament announceth the works of his hands.

Here is found the founder, ruler, governor, and dispenser of all things: and when he is known, certain men, with perverse contentiousness, not comprehending the order of things through the weakness of their own mind, and not even understanding this very fact, that they do not know, bring charges against God with cunning of mind; either saying that things ought not to have been made in such a way that they should fall; or, from the fact that they do fall, that ignorance or malice must be ascribed to him. For he made them that they might exist: but if it comes to pass that they do not exist; either he was ignorant when making them of what would come to pass; or, knowing it, though willing to deliver them he could not; or, though he could, he handed them over through malice.

Neither of these is admitted with respect to divinity: for it is not right that divinity should have been ignorant of future things, nor that one willing to deliver should have been unable, nor that malice should be ascribed: he who willed and made, by the very fact that the will of making excludes the malice of neglecting. When these are removed, they cast upon God a third charge of impossibility. All these things must be explained. For he is not evil who willed and made, and because he made while willing. He who can do all things, or can do what he wills, will not be weak. Thus neither is he subject to ignorance: for since he always exists, future things cannot come to pass without him. VII. Let us now therefore seek the cause of things, lest by prolonging our discourse too long we allow room for error to those who lead others astray. He made all things that they might exist: this we profess without doubt.

It comes to pass that they do not exist: this also we cannot deny. But contraries cannot exist in the same thing, so that it should fall to his will both to exist and not to exist at the same time. For if he made them that they might exist, he always wills that they exist: and if he wills that they not exist, he ceases to will what he was willing: which defect indeed cannot befall God. But with two persons established as parties in the case, the founder and the founded, since the founder is free from blame, it remains that what has been founded is itself the cause of its own harm, and that it could not have fallen to the point of not existing without some fault.

Again, if the fault of the founded has made void the will of God, that fault itself is stronger than the founder: and therefore it is necessary to be reborn, so that, coming to him as what we were, we may make void what came to pass through fault; and the will of God may prevail, which was that we should exist.

Hence, condemned on account of fault, we are called back, the justice of God remaining the same and his power: justice, in that he judges; power, in that he calls back: not prevented from saving, he who is powerful enough that from what has fallen he can call back what he himself had made from nothing: and he who made from nothing will much more call back from something: and as the condemned fell by the just judgment and word of God, so likewise let him rise again by the word of his mercy: nor is he prevented from calling back who always exists; and his power, obeying his will, is the justice of power: but power, as it accomplishes, brings about what he wills, at the time he wills, or rather at the fitting time.

Nor shall the death of condemnation hinder his power; nor shall condemnation overcome the purpose of his will; but his mercy is not empty; nor is the grace of renewal without reason; for it is given to those who ask, just as they were condemned who did not ask. VIII. The reason for not granting pardon to the first sinners was this: when he was provoking them to repentance by his questioning, he saw them repelling their own salvation, and condemned them. But those who were born from them, and who fled to him, he pitied. For it is just that those who are willing and penitent, fleeing to him who is able to grant, should obtain: but that the ungrateful, the resistant, those who cast the blame of their deed upon God, established as the cause of their own condemnation, should be dismissed. That justice did not permit this grace to be given to the first-formed: it was not that he himself was unwilling to grant it, he who condemns.

He himself was before, who now is, and will be: who is now good, and was good before: who is now merciful, and was merciful before: always remaining in that which he is, who is immutable: since when he condemned them on account of fault, it is necessary to discern the fault itself, which we shall again inquire into from physical reasoning. Man was made not that he might furnish something to his creator, but that he himself might have dominion over the world; constituted from better things, he was rightly made rational: and this very thing the reason of the creature demanded, so that among the various things founded in the world, and constructed from the combination of all the elements, he who is better than all others should have power over the rest: not then forgetful of his creator; but subject to lordship through a commandment, he should hold the rest subject to himself.

But the subjection of this one, who is rational, requires a law, lest he himself be a god of all things, free from law: which law, reason demanding it, one must discern in what things it was to be given. Reason teaches that the law was to be given in those things in which he, being placed, was enjoying. And since food given at that time is found to be the chief thing, reason demanded that the law was given concerning this, and it is declared that he sinned in this. IX. Now in our investigation of the cause, reason has led us thus far.

As for the rest—what food, for what use, in what manner the law was given—history is necessary for us as we inquire, history that agrees with these physical reasonings already investigated by us: and since there is no other such history than what we have learned in the divine scriptures, with the physical reasonings themselves leading us into that very same history, let us inquire whether it is consonant that a law was laid down for man to abstain from one tree, while freely enjoying the rest. Scripture teaches that he, having transgressed the commandment, was punished with death: which certain men gravely accuse, saying that a law was given which could not be kept; that he himself, foreknowing future things, gave this commandment knowing that they would not observe it; that he commanded abstinence from that food whose desire would overcome the commandment.

Many other things also they say are contrary to the case: for either he ought not to have given, they say, this commandment which he gave knowing they would not observe it: or he would not have placed this tree, as it were an occasion of transgressing the commandment. For it was possible to command concerning the other things, in which desire did not arise, or to give that precept which man could keep. But if he could not by his own help protect him from sinning, he was weak: or he would not have permitted the tempter to approach, by whose persuasion he fell into fault.

But as it is, all things are contrary at once: both by making him such, he brought it about that he would be overcome; and he planted a harmful tree; and in this he gave a commandment which he knew they would not observe; and foreseeing by his prescience that he would sin, he let him go, and did not prevent the adversary from approaching to overthrow man; and moved by anger, he himself condemned to death the one whom he had set for life. But now you say that he came to free him, to suffer for him, who at that time was unwilling to pardon. Words of this kind they put forward through the inertness of their own mind; to all of which we must reply. X. And that a law ought to have been given we have already rightly proved: that he is subject to God through the law, to whom so many things had been made subject. We show that this law is not burdensome, as they say, but rather light and easy to keep.

For while he was enjoying all things, he was commanded to abstain from one. But if he had been commanded to use only one, with the rest forbidden, would it not seem just to you to keep the commandment of him who gave the license of enjoyment? Yet he who gave it did not do even this: which is also declared to have been possible. Do we not even in this world, on account of the harm of death or disease, abstain from very many things? Thus the commandment is shown to be possible. But if this is possible, how much more possible is it for one enjoying all things to keep himself from one? And how could a law have been given, if it is not conceded to command even in one thing? Because therefore a law ought to have been given, and it ought moreover to have been given in those things in which he was enjoying, it is rightly discerned that it was given in those very things.

Yet the tree was not an occasion of offence, nor ought the commandment to have been transferred to one rather than to this one: since in whatever thing the commandment had been placed, in that same thing also desire would follow. And the tree was not the occasion of desire, but he himself was his own author, who willed to desire. Nor let there now arise a complaint as to why he willed, since, being constituted rational, he had power over himself. The law itself also demands that he for whom it is laid down should have this power over himself: for to one who has no power of acting, the law is void for him: and if one is naturally enclosed by something, and seems to be restrained by a law placed by that same thing, the law is given more to the one who is not restrained than to him who governs the enclosed. Therefore power over himself was fittingly given: and man, having fittingly used it in that in which he had no power, is justly condemned.

XI. Now the sentence of transgression already foretold by the Lord—even an aid had been given to him so that he might know both what he ought to beware of, and what he would suffer from negligence if he had not been on guard. Nor was he weak by nature. For when the serpent approached to persuade the woman, where she willed the woman prevailed; and at the beginning of his words she understood him to be a liar and repelled him, as Scripture says: And the serpent said to the woman: why, did God indeed say, ye shall not eat of every tree which is in paradise? Believing he could deceive by a lie; and thinking she had even forgotten the divine commandment. To whom she immediately replied and repelled him thus.

And the woman said to the serpent: Of every tree which is in paradise we shall eat; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God said: Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. Preferring the divine command with the greatest judgment: by which he was refuted, and transferred himself to another device, saying, ye shall not die by death: for God knew that on the day ye eat of it, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. Whence, having conceived a desire for divinity, she cast aside what she had previously been providing for; now seeing something else from concupiscence, than what she had been seeing.

For then the woman says, that the tree is good for food, and that it is pleasing to the eyes; seeing from desire, not from the judgment of the mind; so that before she ate, she pronounced it to be good for food: and it was not the natural appearance of the tree nor its use that attracted her, from which, seeing it before, she abstained; but the desire of divinity enticed her.

XII. Nor need one ask why he permitted him to be tempted, whom, endowed with foreknowledge of the future, he had protected by his own aid lest he be deceived. But he, forgetful of his own salvation and unmindful of the words of God, was deceived by placing the persuasions of the woman before them. She made her husband a sharer in her sin. To these things her husband without questioning accepted and took. For she herself ate, says Scripture, and gave to her husband, and they ate.

Hence the condemnation was more just, and the judgment of death followed; in that he, having been warned, did not observe; and being called to repentance, not only repelled it, but also imputed the blame of his deed to God, saying: the woman whom thou gavest me, she gave to me, and I ate; ascribing to the Lord the cause of the sin, because he gave the woman: whereas knowing full well that she was a small portion of his own body, to whom he had even given a name, he ought not to have been subject to her, knowing her to be subject to him in every way; and recognizing himself also as the author of her body, birth, procreation, and even of her very name: since he ought not to have preferred her to himself, much less to the Lord God who commanded. For so many crimes one sentence was given.

Yet he did not judge moved by anger, as they say: for this defect cannot befall God, that he should appear subject to passion, that stirred up by anger he should impose the condition of death. For he is provoked by anger who, moved by sin, pronounces sentence: but he who before the transgression promulgated the judgment of the deed cannot be said to have been angry, who gave warning; since a warning is not anger, but a defence.

XIII. Next let us see what sentence he gave in the very event itself. Him who ate, so that he might be eternal, so that he might be God—God judged this very thing by condemning it; lest it should come to pass, which indeed the man thought would come to pass: and since every food pertains to strengthening the substance, this nourishment at any rate served to dissolve the substance. Thus neither did he foretell it in anger when he warned, nor afterward did he condemn in wrath what the man had presumed, by dissolving it. Nor did envy prevent him from eating, nor did envy take away divinity by forbidding the food that was harmful: for it was not fitting that he who could not keep himself from evil should know wickedness. But the knowledge of evil comes from the transgression of the commandment; into which he would not have fallen, had he been unwilling to eat.

For by following the Lord without distinction, he found good itself: by passing beyond the commandment, being conscious of himself, he came to know evil. Therefore to follow the commandment simply is good: to pass beyond it by desiring more is shown to be evil. For by distrusting the Lord's words, he transgressed the commandment. And now also the knowledge of good and evil began to exist, by thinking upon what he had done. The commandment was freeing him from this entanglement. Therefore, as reason indicates, conscious of his own evil he fled; and from the highest wisdom he was reduced to such great folly that he thought he could hide himself from God the creator of all things by concealing himself under a tree—God to whom even all the leaves of the trees and the tresses of the grasses are numbered; and who said of us that even the hairs of our head are numbered. Into so great an evil did he fall who began to have knowledge of evil and good!

From so great an evil did God free him at the time when he forbade!

XIV. Now that it has been made plain that envy did not prevent him from eating, it remains to show that envy did not take away divinity: which is nonetheless easily proved by the fact that we demonstrate it to have been restored. For from the beginning of creation up to the condemnation of death, we have recognized that God did all things rightly. Yet it seems that God's purpose was excluded by the deed of man; since he himself made them so that they might exist; but it came about that they did not exist, on account of guilt. But if the matter stood to such a degree that they should not exist, the purpose of him who made them would be defeated. But if it is reversed, sin is overcome by the recall, and the thing is restored to that very state for which it was made; so that the Lord may conquer the deeds of man, and not be conquered. And his power also requires this, that he might be shown to be omnipotent.

For if there is something he could not do, his power diminished excludes omnipotence: but omnipotence prevails over all things: and since it prevails over all things, it must prevail in this very matter as well, so that he who made from nothing may recall from death.

XV. It was therefore necessary that we return to what we were. But let us inquire in what manner. That first ungrateful one was condemned, who, called to repentance, did not obey. Yet he lived for some time afterward after the sentence, because God in his providence foresaw that just men were to be begotten from these very ones: nor was it just that what had the hope of begetting just men should be dissolved immediately: and those who are born just show that not nature sinned but the will; since, established with the same parents, they themselves keep the commandments: and the will is not a part of natural substance but a movement; yet a movement as it were as an indicator of thoughts by some association. But those just ones, of whom we have spoken, are the same as their parents in nature; unlike them in conduct, by repenting. And justice demands that the one who does not repent be passed over; that the one who repents be pardoned.

The order of repentance proceeds in such a way that it has its effect, through which, by pleasing God and hoping in his power, it seeks grace. The petition calls its creator to absolution; nor does it follow any other to grant by recalling, except him who made. For if he himself made them so that they might exist, but it came about that they do not exist, he will be better who restores to eternity than he who made what fell. Therefore to renew it belongs to God the creator; and he who made from nothing recalls also from the dead.

He is invoked to grant, being about to teach how the grace that is granted may be preserved, lest so great a gift be lost: again in such a way that man, feeling himself freed by the sentence of the present, just as he was before condemned, may differ in the manner of life, by which, using it and imitating God, he may come to divinity; and that divinity which before he thought had been usurped for himself through the tree without God, this he may be able to receive from God himself. Because I also said, you are gods and all sons of the Most High; but you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. He who laments that they lost what he said is proved not to have taken away divinity before through envy: and he who lamented comes to give the very same thing that we lost, when asked; by showing himself, by speaking, by giving, by recalling.

XVI. Yet it offends some that he came in a body: whereas he could not have appeared to men in any other way than in a body; nor could they see their own preservation except in a body: indeed he ought not to have freed them from the condemnation of death in any other way than in a body; so that he might show that this very thing which had perished was freed. But let us see in what manner. The first woman sinned: and she sinned while she was a virgin. This cause afterward made all who were born to be mortal. For the virgin received the sentence, by which, having been made mortal, she brought forth the rest as mortals. Through this virgin death held dominion. For which reason he who would give life ought to come through a virgin. The occasion of death entered through wood, but the woman from the side of the man. Therefore the side of the Lord is struck with wood, so that he might suffer also on behalf of the woman.

And not the whole side was the woman, but a portion of the side: for she was built from one of the ribs. Therefore not the whole side is opened, but that very place of the side is pierced, from which she was taken. Thorns and thistles the earth brought forth by the sentence of condemnation: therefore he is crowned with thorns and thistles: the substance of thorns, a curse. The crown was the form of victory: and so through those things by which sin began to exist, the Lord passing through them triumphed.

XVII. To those who look with human eyes it seems impossible that what is said should be so, that he who was to be born should be foretold to be born contrary to nature from a virgin; since it does not fall within human reason that he should be born in this way apart from all others, and be a son from a mother without a father: although this is most fitting for him, that he should not have an earthly father who has a heavenly father. Nor had he come to deny his own father, so as to be born of another; but that what was lacking in the nature of the one begetting, a virgin mother might supply for him. Nor ought the creator of all to be held under that condition of our generation; since even the first parents were not generated by intercourse. There are also many kinds of generating things in the world which are generated without union, secretly in many ways. The manner of conception, moreover, to one who examines it chastely, is possible.

He who is holy is proclaimed to have been born of the Holy Spirit; nothing incredible. But his holiness seems to be defiled by mixture; whereas there is no mixture. For to the virgin who was asking and inquiring into the causes of conception, the angel Gabriel said: the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: naming mixture by neither of the two; but by the coming of the Spirit, by the power of the Most High, nature is coagulated; so that what in others the seed effects, joining more holily, as befits God, through the undefiled body of the virgin he might be born. XVIII.

Nor is this recognized as incredible, since we know that in the world itself many things are so constrained; since when the sea was struck by the rod for the Jews crossing, the sea is indeed violently divided; but the wind, the spirit of the world, constrained the waves, as Scripture shows, which speaks thus: Moses stretched out his hand over the sea: and the Lord drove the sea back with a strong south wind all night: and made the sea dry; not emptied of water, certainly, but constrained. For it says: and the water was divided; and the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground; and the water was a wall to them on the right hand and on the left. Thus what was effected by the south wind is taught to have been constrained. And also the prophet the psalmist David, interpreting this very sign, says: he broke the sea asunder and led them through; he set the waters as in a bottle.

And if anyone, through the weakness of his own mind, preparing hardness of heart for himself, does not believe these proofs, let him look upon the force of winds, and understand the worldly breezes doing this very thing, which so constrain the rains running down in their falling drops that they are frozen in their very descent. What need is there to enumerate the other things which, constituted from moisture, are solidified by the aforesaid force? Nor is it necessary to linger long, since the effects of things cry out more in support of our assertions, which when God ordains them come to pass in nature—how much more in his own coming, so necessary, could the body of the virgin, from which it was hoped to flow, be constrained into the formation of the body to be assumed through the Holy Spirit?

XIX. What indeed seems to some to be unclean, is proved to be clean to those who examine it rightly. Before the flow from the body, a part still constituted in the body and mixed and congealed with the whole, does not receive the name of unclean while it lives. But when it has flowed away, and from that has been made dead, then it is unclean and dead; because it is now alien to nature, and cannot be vivified: but while it is in nature, congealed and coagulated it generates, not unclean. Thus truth finds that that was not unclean. But if we allow even those who say it is unclean, even so it is declared that holiness could not have been defiled by the unclean: since we see the sun, which we cannot deny to be his creature, so draw to itself the unclean filths of sewers, the drains of marshes, the rottenness of mud, that when it sends forth its power through its rays upon these things, it is nonetheless not polluted.

But if the creature is not polluted in these filths, much less is divinity itself polluted in a living holy body.

XX. Now that the holy and undefiled birth through the form of the body has been necessarily made manifest, in which the reason of our salvation demanded that he be present, it remains to prove why he who was born a little child in likeness to us grew, hungered, ate, thirsted, and undertook the other offices of the body, so that he also suffered death, and so shameful a death: after which death (which is incredible to those who resist) he is said, having been buried, to have risen again. And indeed it is manifest that the savior of flesh who came in flesh ought to have taken up ours and not another's: for if another's had been taken up, salvation would not pertain to us. Our flesh also having been taken up, he ought to have been born a little child from a virgin: for it was not fitting that a full-grown man should be born through a virgin, which is taught thus.

He was said to have been born, yet he was not proved to have been born: for how could a full-grown man be born through a virgin? So that him whom you do not believe to have been born as a little child, you would much less believe to have been brought forth as a man.

XXI. Yet let us acknowledge how divine his smallness is. He was conceived as a man, but without the origin of human seed. He was born as a man, but from a virgin, which is holy. Ignoble and without form, yet glorious: in nature an infant laid in a manger, yet proclaimed king by angels, and Son of God: savior of the human race, uniter of heaven and earth in glory, and maker of peace. This is most openly taught to the shepherds. For it is written thus: And it came to pass, while they were there (he speaks of Bethlehem) the days were fulfilled for her (that is, for Mary) that she should bring forth; and she brought forth her firstborn son, and they wrapped him and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the inn. And there were shepherds in that region, staying through the night and keeping the night watches over their flocks.

And the angel of the Lord stood by, and the brightness shone round about them, and they feared with great fear: and the angel said to them, fear not; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which is to all the people; for there is born to you today a savior, who is Christ Jesus in the city of David. And this is the sign to you: you shall find the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will. One angel announces the nativity, that he who was a little child before the age has been born to us today, because he then began to exist for men.

And lest he seem to have been announced as king only to those to whom it was said born to you today, the army of angels comes together, and says glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will. This glory of his appeared in heaven, and peace on earth to men of good will is announced by the angels. Do you perceive whether he seems like our infancy or not?

XXII. Is it any wonder that angels proclaimed the king, whom even the Magi, dwelling in a distant land, knew? When a sign had appeared to them from heaven, they understood that he was born, and came after long seeking, and when they found him they adored him. The sign of that star went before all other stellar signs: for the star which was the herald of the Lord's nativity did not shine as the others do in darkness, but blazed forth by day in the sun; surpassing both sun and day in its splendor; not as one fixed in the sky, but going before with wondrous appearance, it showed the way along the road to those pressing on in search of the Lord. At last it stood still above the house where it showed him to be whom it announced. Which Scripture attests: Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, Magi came from the east to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he that is born king of the Jews?

For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to adore him. When the Magi had seen him as a little child they adored him as king, as man, as God; and they offered gifts, by which gifts it was also foretold that he would suffer. For they offered frankincense as to God, gold as to a king, myrrh to one who would suffer. Such is the divine infancy—known, nurtured, and raised up! Yet knowing all things without a teacher. The Jews marveled when they saw him knowing letters without instruction, saying: How does this man know letters, having never learned? Confessing that he knew, and not denying that he had not learned: yet not comprehending whence he had it. When he speaks with the teachers of the Jews, he is found to be the teacher of teachers. For when he was still a little child of about twelve years, sitting in the midst of the masters, the teachers marveled with astonishment at his doctrine.

For thus Scripture says: And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. These things are proved by the Scriptures, but by physical reasoning they are found to be even more: for God, born in man, was bound to show such marks of his infancy.

XXIII. But if you ask the cause of his coming, it was necessary that he appear again as man. So great a divinity had to be hidden not from those who believed, but from the prince of this world, against whose oppression he had descended, and for the sake of our liberation. For that prince held his power not by his own authority, but by the Lord's sentence, because God had commanded that the sinner who did not repent should die. But the merciful one was bound to free the penitent. This justice, this divine power demanded, that he who held the guilty one by sentence should, if he seized one who was not guilty, by overstepping the sentence, lose his power. But no one is not guilty, since both by origin and by birth they are from mortal stock. But he who was born was proved to be the very one who had given the sentence; by which sentence he himself is not held as guilty, for though he took on flesh, he lived among men without sin.

As it is written: This is our God, and no other shall be accounted beside him. He found out all the way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant. After this he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men. This is he who conversed without sin, as it is again written: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. This flesh he brought forth without sin: which the prince of this world, foreseeing it as opposed to himself and not inclined to his will, and reckoning him to be only a man, dared to attack when he permitted it. But the Lord permitted it, so that the prince himself might be the cause of his own loss; for having claimed the guilty by sentence, by usurping this one who was not guilty, coming against the sentence which he held, he would lose his power.

Thus it was the purpose of reason to perform the functions of the body, so that he himself might show that the flesh he had taken on was the same flesh that had previously been condemned: but that the prince, seeing the functions of the flesh, might not perceive the deity, and so, coming against the sentence of God, might lose his power; because he dared to seize one whom he could plainly see was without guilt.

XXIV. For this cause, therefore, it came about that he showed the functions of the flesh, yet was not subject to those very functions. To prove that he had true flesh, he hungered; not so as to eat when overcome by fasting. Indeed, when for the proof of our flesh he had fasted beyond the capacity of nature for a space of forty days and forty nights, he is found to have been hungry, but not to have eaten; as Scripture says: And when forty days and forty nights were completed, he afterward hungered. Yet he did not eat; but he hungered. This was done for this manifest reason: that because for forty days, during which the devil had been fighting against the Lord with his temptations in the wilderness and had been overcome, he was not present; and lest, by recognizing God, he should flee; lest the so necessary benefits of his passion should perish, he hungered.

The devil, soon supposing him to be weak, attacked him again as a man, telling him to convert stones into bread even for the necessity of his body: and he neither did it nor ate. Thus he hungered for a cause; yet he was not subject to the cause. And not only in this place, but also when disciples offered bread to him as he hungered and said, Rabbi, eat; he answered: I have food to eat that you know not of. My food is to do the will of him who sent me, that I may accomplish his work.

XXV. He thirsted, to show through thirst the nature of the body; not because he had need of drink, since he himself is the fountain of living water. Indeed, where he is found to have thirsted—at the well of the Samaritan woman—when he had asked for water, and she, taking him for a Jew, had not given it, he offered the woman water by which she might quench her thirst forever, as it is written: Jesus was sitting by the well; and it was about the sixth hour; and a certain Samaritan woman came to draw water. And Jesus was sitting; and Jesus said to her: Give me to drink. For his disciples had gone into the city to buy food. But the woman answered Jesus, saying: You, being a Jew, how do you ask drink of me, who am a Samaritan woman?

And Jesus answered her: If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give me to drink; you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water. And the woman said to him: Lord, you have no vessel, and the well is deep; from where then do you have living water to give me? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, from which he drank with his sons and his cattle? And Jesus answered her: Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again: but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; but it shall be in him a fountain of water springing up into eternal life. Therefore he had not thirsted to receive, but to give, who by promising gave the divine gift. So that the woman, leaving her water-jar, forgetting her old thirst, proclaimed his coming to the rest of the Samaritans in Samaria.

This the Lord knew how to teach the woman, whom he already knew to be ready: not asking for earthly water, but from the asking giving living water, which makes a fountain springing up into eternal life.

XXVI. Jesus thirsted again on the cross, and cried out: I thirst. But the cause of his thirst was this. They had crucified him, and yet were not thus satisfied: they still had sins to commit: and whereas even to evil men placed in punishment the common feeling of nature owes compassion; upon this one, whose benefits they had experienced in the healing of their infirmities, and whom they had attacked without guilt, they heaped insults even after the cross, contrary to the natural movement of mercy; so filled were they with the spirit of fury, that they gave vinegar to one who thirsted. And he who had willingly undertaken the passion did not receive even this unwillingly: and as much as they were the bolder in inflicting torments, so much the more meek was he in receiving the injury: beholding the works of their malice as not yet complete, he cried out: I thirst.

They, to heap up the injury, gave vinegar: yet he himself did not provoke them to give him vinegar; but what they gave him, he received of his own accord. Such was the thirst of the Lord. Then, having received it, he cried out: It is consummated. And immediately he gave up his spirit. Jesus also slept, not overcome by sleep as it might appear, but so that there might be an order for the working of a miracle. For he slept so that the sea might be stirred up, so that the disciples in fear might ask for help, so that the prophecy of David might be fulfilled, which he pronounced in the hundred and sixth psalm, saying: Let his works be declared in exultation. They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters, these saw the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.

He spoke, and the storm wind stood up, and its waves were lifted high. And that he fulfilled the whole dispensation by conducting it thus, through death, and was about to ascend to the heavens, the psalmist immediately added, saying: He ascended even to the heavens, and descended even to the abyss.

XXVII. And this, though it must be believed to have been spoken by the divine Spirit, yet, as with the other things, let us also confirm this by a few physical arguments. Having freed us from death by the Lord's passion, he led us back again to the state of immortality; and us who were formerly unequal to heavenly things, he has now joined to heavenly beings. To some, however, this seems unjust; not because God cannot do it, but because it seems not to accord with his justice, since he had granted to the first-formed man, still empty of guilt and free from sin, only the lordship of paradise, judging this gift of God to be fitting; whereas now, after sin and offense, when the man is recalled, and it would not have been a small thing to return to what he had been, he has also granted him the heavenly kingdoms. Yet this is proved to be most just.

For if previously by his grace, to one who had earned it by no acts of devotion, he had granted the dwelling of paradise; surely now, against the impatience of the flesh and the desires of iniquity already stirred, against the prince of the world and his powers in resistance, with the world trodden underfoot, it was fitting to repay a heavenly reward; so that he who, by imitating God, had lived a divine life on earth while established in a body, might with that same body now made immortal inhabit the heavens, earthly things now removed.

Then to the cause of this gift there is added the consideration that it is fitting to bring the flesh of man into the heavens, of which flesh God deigned to be the inhabitant: nor can it seem that man has been made a dweller in heaven beyond his merit, whose sheath the Spirit God himself did not disdain: and it was just that the body in which God, by dwelling, deigned to visit the earth, through which, as a sharer in our nature, he led our race to immortality, should also be placed among the heavenly things. For where ought the dwelling of God to be, if not in the kingdom of God? And where is his kingdom, if not in the heavens?