(41) We come now to the unbelief of
the Gentiles; and this is indeed a matter for complete astonishment,
for they laugh at that which is no fit subject for mockery, yet
fail to see the shame and ridiculousness of their own idols.
But the arguments on our side do not lack weight, so we will
confute them too on reasonable grounds, chiefly from what we
ourselves also see.
First of all, what is there in our belief that is unfitting or
ridiculous? Is it only that we say that the Word has been manifested
in a body? Well, if they themselves really love the truth, they
will agree with us that this involved no unfittingness at all.
If they deny that there is a Word of God at all, that will be
extraordinary, for then they will be ridiculing what they do
not know. But suppose they confess that there is a Word of God,
that He is the Governor of all things, that in Elim the Father
wrought the creation, that by His providence the whole receives
light and life and being, and that He is King over all, so that
He is known by means of the works of His providence, and through
Him the Father. Suppose they confess all this, what then? Are
they not unknowingly turning the ridicule against themselves?
The Greek philosophers say that the universe is a great body,
and they say truly, for we perceive the universe and its parts
with our senses. But if the Word of God is in the universe, which
is a body, and has entered into it in its every part, what is
there surprising or unfitting in our saying that He has entered
also into human nature? If it were unfitting for Him to have
embodied Himself at all, then it would be unfitting for Him to
have entered into the universe, and to be giving light and movement
by His providence to all things in it, because the universe,
as we have seen, is itself a body. But if it is right and fitting
for Him to enter into the universe and to reveal Himself through
it, then, because humanity is part of the universe along with
the rest, it is no less fitting for Him to appear in a human
body, and to enlighten and to work through that. And surely if
it were wrong for a part of the universe to have been used to
reveal His Divinity to men, it would be much more wrong that
He should be so revealed by the whole!
(42) Take a parallel case. A man's personality
actuates and quickens his whole body. If anyone said it was unsuitable
for the man's power to be in the toe, he would be thought silly,
because, while granting that a man penetrates and actuates the
whole of his body, he denied his presence in the part. Similarly,
no one who admits the presence of the Word of God in the universe
as a whole should think it unsuitable for a single human body
to be by Him actuated and enlightened.
But is it, perhaps, because humanity is a thing created and brought
into being out of non-existence that they regard as unfitting
the manifestation of the Savior in our nature? If so, it is high
time that they spurned Him from creation too; for it, too, has
been brought out of non-being into being by the Word. But if,
on the other hand, although creation is a thing that has been
made, it is not unsuitable for the Word to be present in it,
then neither is it unsuitable for Him to be in man. Man is a
part of the creation, as I said before; and the reasoning which
applies to one applies to the other. All things derive from the
Word their light and movement and life, as the Gentile authors
themselves say, "In Him we live
and move and have our being."[1]
Very well then. That being so, it is by no means unbecoming that
the Word should dwell in man. So if, as we say, the Word has
used that in which He is as the means of His self-manifestation,
what is there ridiculous in that? He could not have used it had
He not been present in it; but we have already admitted that
He is present both in the whole and in the parts. What, then,
is there incredible in His manifesting Himself through that in
which He is? By His own power He enters completely into each
and all, and orders them throughout ungrudgingly; and, had He
so willed, He could have revealed Himself and His Father by means
of sun or moon or sky or earth or fire or water. Had He done
so, no one could rightly have accused Him of acting unbecomingly,
for He sustains in one whole all things at once, being present
and invisibly revealed not only in the whole, but also in each
particular part. This being so, and since, moreover, He has willed
to reveal Himself through men, who are part of the whole, there
can be nothing ridiculous in His using a human body to manifest
the truth and knowledge of the Father. Does not the mind of man
pervade his entire being, and yet find expression through one
part only, namely the tongue? Does anybody say on that account
that Mind has degraded itself? Of course not. Very well, then,
no more is it degrading for the Word, Who pervades all things,
to have appeared in a human body. For, as I said before, if it
were unfitting for Him thus to indwell the part, it would be
equally so for Him to exist within the whole.
(43) Some may then ask, why did He not
manifest Himself by means of other and nobler parts of creation,
and use some nobler instrument, such as sun or moon or stars
or fire or air, instead of mere man? The answer is this. The
Lord did not come to make a display. He came to heal and to teach
suffering men. For one who wanted to make a display the thing
would have been just to appear and dazzle the beholders. But
for Him Who came to heal and to teach the way was not merely
to dwell here, but to put Himself at the disposal of those who
needed Him, and to be manifested according as they could bear
it, not vitiating the value of the Divine appearing by exceeding
their capacity to receive it.
Moreover, nothing in creation had erred from the path of God's
purpose for it, save only man. Sun, moon, heaven, stars, water,
air, none of these had swerved from their order, but, knowing
the Word as their Maker and their King, remained as they were
made. Men alone having rejected what is good, have invented nothings
instead of the truth, and have ascribed the honor due to God
and the knowledge concerning Him to demons and men in the form
of stones. Obviously the Divine goodness could not overlook so
grave a matter as this. But men could not recognize Him as ordering
and ruling creation as a whole. So what does He do? He takes
to Himself for instrument a part of the whole, namely a human
body, and enters into that. Thus He ensured that men should recognize
Him in the part who could not do so in the whole, and that those
who could not lift their eyes to His unseen power might recognize
and behold Him in the likeness of themselves. For, being men,
they would naturally learn to know His Father more quickly and
directly by means of a body that corresponded to their own and
by the Divine works done through it; for by comparing His works
with their own they would judge His to be not human but Divine.
And if, as they say, it were unsuitable for the Word to reveal
Himself through bodily acts, it would be equally so for Him to
do so through the works of the universe. His being in creation
does not mean that He shares its nature; on the contrary, all
created things partake of His power. Similarly, though He used
the body as His instrument, He shared nothing of its defect,[2] but rather
sanctified it by His indwelling. Does not even Plato, of whom
the Greeks think so much, say that the Author of the Universe,
seeing it storm-tossed and in danger of sinking into the state
of dissolution, takes his seat at the helm of the Life-force
of the universe, and comes to the rescue and putseverything right?
What, then, is there incredible in our saying that, mankind having
gone astray, the Word descended upon it and was manifest as man,
so that by His intrinsic goodness and His steersmanship He might
save it from the storm?
(44) It may be, however, that, though
shamed into agreeing that this objection is void, the Greeks
will want to raise another. They will say that, if God wanted
to instruct and save mankind, He might have done so, not by His
Word's assumption of a body, but, even as He at first created
them, by the mere signification of His will. The reasonable reply
to that is that the circumstances in the two cases are quite
different. In the beginning, nothing as yet existed at all; all
that was needed, therefore, in order to bring all things into
being, was that His will to do so should be signified. But once
man was in existence, and things that were, not things that were
not, demanded to be healed, it followed as a matter of course
that the Healer and Savior should align Himself with those things
that existed already, in order to heal the existing evil. For
that reason, therefore, He was made man, and used the body as
His human instrument. If this were not the fitting way, and He
willed to use an instrument at all, how otherwise was the Word
to come? And whence could He take His instrument, save from among
those already in existence and needing His Godhead through One
like themselves? It was not things non-existent that needed salvation,
for which a bare creative word might have sufficed, but man--man
already in existence and already in process of corruption and
ruin. It was natural and right, therefore, for the Word to use
a human instrument and by that means unfold Himself to all.
You must know, moreover, that the corruption which had set in
was not external to the body but established within it. The need,
therefore, was that life should cleave to it in corruption's
place, so that, just as death was brought into being in the body,
life also might be engendered in it. If death had been exterior
to the body, life might fittingly have been the same. But if
death was within the body, woven into its very substance and
dominating it as though completely one with it, the need was
for Life to be woven into it instead, so that the body by thus
enduing itself with life might cast corruption off. Suppose the
Word had come outside the body instead of in it, He would, of
course, have defeated death, because death is powerless against
the Life. But the corruption inherent in the body would have
remained in it none the less. Naturally, therefore, the Savior
assumed a body for Himself, in order that the body, being interwoven
as it were with life, should no longer remain a mortal thing,
in thrall to death, but as endued with immortality and risen
from death, should thenceforth remain immortal. For once having
put op corruption, it could not rise, unless it put on life instead;
and besides this, death of its very nature could not appear otherwise
than in a body. Therefore He put on a body, so that in the body
He might find death and blot it out. And, indeed, how could the
Lord have been proved to be the Life at all, had He not endued
with life that which was subject to death? Take an illustration.
Stubble is a substance naturally destructible by fire; and it
still remains stubble, fearing the menace of fire which has the
natural property of consuming it, even if fire is kept away from
it, so that it is not actually burnt. But suppose that, instead
of merely keeping the fire from it somebody soaks the stubble
with a quantity of asbestos, the substance which is said to be
the antidote to fire. Then the stubble no longer fears the fire,
because it has put on that which fire cannot touch, and therefore
it is safe. It is just the same with regard to the body and death.
Had death been kept from it by a mere command, it would still
have remained mortal and corruptible, according to its nature.
To prevent this, it put on the incorporeal Word of God, and therefore
fears neither death nor corruption any more, for it is clad with
Life as with a garment and in it corruption is clean done away.
(45) The Word of God thus acted consistently
in assuming a body and using a human instrument to vitalize the
body. He was consistent in working through man to reveal Himself
everywhere, as well as through the other parts of His creation,
so that nothing was left void of His Divinity and knowledge.
For I take up now the point I made before, namely that the Savior
did this in order that He might fill all things everywhere with
the knowledge of Himself, just as they are already filled with
His presence, even as the Divine Scripture says,
"The whole universe was filled with
the knowledge of the Lord."[3]
If a man looks up to heaven he sees there His ordering; but
if he cannot look so high as heaven, but only so far as men,
through His works he sees His power, incomparable with human
might, and learns from them that He alone among men is God the
Word. Or, if a man has gone astray among demons and is in fear
of them, he may see this Man drive them out and judge therefrom
that He is indeed their Master. Again, if a man has been immersed
in the element of water and thinks that it is God--as indeed
the Egyptians do worship water--he may see its very nature changed
by Him and learn that the Lord is Creator of all. And if a man
has gone down even to Hades, and stands awestruck before the
heroes who have descended thither, regarding them as gods, still
he may see the fact of Christ's resurrection and His victory
over death, and reason from it that, of all these, He alone is
very Lord and God.
For the Lord touched all parts of creation, and freed and undeceived
them all from every deceit. As St. Paul says,
"Having put off from Himself the principalities
and the powers, He triumphed on the cross,"[4]
so that no one could possibly be any longer deceived, but
everywhere might find the very Word of God. For thus man, enclosed
on every side by the works of creation and everywhere--in heaven,
in Hades, in men and on the earth, beholding the unfolded Godhead
of the Word, is no longer deceived concerning God, but worships
Christ alone, and through Him rightly knows the Father.
On these grounds, then, of reason and of principle, we will fairly
silence the Gentiles in their turn. But if they think these arguments
insufficient to confute them, we will go on in the Next
chapter
to prove our point from facts.