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ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xi-p8 | 2. But as the engrafted wild olive does not certainly
lose the substance of its wood, but changes the quality of its fruit, and
receives another name, being now not a wild olive, but a fruit-bearing
olive, and is called so; so also, when man is grafted in by faith and
receives the Spirit of God, he certainly does not lose the substance of
flesh, but changes the quality of the fruit [brought forth, i.e.,] of his
works, and receives another name, showing
that he has become changed for the better, being now not [mere] flesh and
blood, but a spiritual man, and is called such. Then, again, as the wild olive, if it be
not grafted in, remains useless to its lord because of its woody quality,
and is cut down as a tree bearing no fruit, and cast into the fire; so
also man, if he does not receive through faith the engrafting of the
Spirit, remains in his old condition, and being [mere] flesh and blood,
he cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Rightly therefore does the apostle
declare, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of
God;” and, “Those who are in the
flesh cannot please God:” not
repudiating [by these words] the substance of flesh, but showing that
into it the Spirit must be infused. And for this reason, he says, “This
mortal must put on immortality, and this corruptible must put on
incorruption.” And again he declares,
“But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the
Spirit of God dwell in you.” He sets
this forth still more plainly, where he says, “The body indeed is
dead, because of sin; but the Spirit is life, because of righteousness.
But if the Spirit of Him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you,
He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal
bodies, because of His Spirit dwelling in you.” And again he says, in the Epistle to the Romans,
“For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.” [Now by these words] he does not prohibit them
from living their lives in the flesh, for he was himself in the flesh
when he wrote to them; but he cuts away the lusts of the flesh, those
which bring death upon a man. And for this reason he says in
continuation, “But if ye through the Spirit do mortify the works of
the flesh, ye shall live. For whosoever are led by the Spirit of God,
these are the sons of God.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xii-p1 | 1. [The
apostle], foreseeing the wicked speeches of unbelievers, has
particularized the
works which he terms carnal; and he
explains himself, lest any room for doubt be left to those who do
dishonestly pervert his meaning, thus saying in the Epistle to the
Galatians: “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are
adulteries, fornications, uncleanness, luxuriousness, idolatries,
witchcrafts, hatreds, contentions, jealousies,
wraths, emulations, animosities, irritable speeches, dissensions,
heresies, envyings, drunkenness, carousings, and such like; of which I
warn you, as also I have warned you, that they who do such things shall
not inherit the kingdom of God.” Thus
does he point out to his hearers in a more explicit manner what it is [he
means when he declares], “Flesh and blood shall not inherit the
kingdom of God.” For they who do these things, since they do indeed
walk after the flesh, have not the power of living unto God. And then,
again, he proceeds to tell us the spiritual actions which vivify a man,
that is, the engrafting of the Spirit; thus saying, “But the fruit
of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, benignity,
faith, meekness, continence, chastity: against these there is no
law.” As, therefore, he who has
gone forward to the better things, and has brought forth the fruit of the
Spirit, is saved altogether because of the communion of the Spirit; so
also he who has continued in the aforesaid works of the flesh, being
truly reckoned as carnal, because he did not receive the Spirit of God,
shall not have power to inherit the kingdom of heaven. As, again, the
same apostle testifies, saying to the Corinthians, “Know ye not
that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not
err,” he says: “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor
thieves, nor covetous, nor revilers, nor rapacious persons, shall inherit
the kingdom of God. And these ye indeed have been; but ye have been
washed, but ye have been sanctified, but ye have been justified in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.” He shows in the clearest manner
through what things it is that man goes to destruction, if he has
continued to live after the flesh; and then, on the other hand, [he
points out] through what things he is saved. Now he says that the things
which save are the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our
God. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xii-p6 | 2. Since, therefore, in that passage he recounts those
works of the flesh which are without the Spirit, which bring death [upon
their doers], he exclaimed at the end of his Epistle, in accordance with
what he had already declared, “And as we have borne the image of
him who is of the earth, we shall also bear the image of Him who is from
heaven. For this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God.” Now this which he
says, “as we have borne the image of him who is of the
earth,” is analogous to what has been declared, “And such
indeed ye were; but ye have been washed, but ye have been sanctified, but
ye have been justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the
Spirit of our God.” When, therefore, did we bear the image of him
who is of the earth? Doubtless it was when those actions spoken of as
“works of the flesh” used to be wrought in us. And then,
again, when [do we bear] the image of the heavenly? Doubtless when he
says, “Ye have been washed,” believing in the name of the
Lord, and receiving His Spirit. Now we have washed away, not the
substance of our body, nor the image of our [primary] formation, but the
former vain conversation. In these members, therefore, in which we were
going to destruction by working the works of corruption, in these very
members are we made alive by working the works of the Spirit. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiii-p1 | 1. For as the flesh is capable of corruption, so
is it also of incorruption; and as it is of death, so is it also of life.
These two do mutually give way to each other; and both cannot remain in
the same place, but one is driven out by the other, and the presence of
the one destroys that of the other. If, then, when death takes possession
of a man, it drives life away from him, and proves him to be dead, much
more does life, when it has obtained power over the man, drive out death,
and restore him as living unto God. For if death brings mortality, why
should not life, when it comes, vivify man? Just as Esaias the prophet
says, “Death devoured when it had prevailed.” And again, “God has wiped away every
tear from every face.” Thus that former life is expelled, because
it was not given by the Spirit, but by the breath. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiii-p3 | 2. For the
breath of life, which also rendered man an animated being, is one thing,
and the vivifying Spirit another, which also caused him to become
spiritual. And for this reason Isaiah said, “Thus saith the Lord, who made heaven and
established it, who founded the earth and the things therein, and gave
breath to the people
upon it, and Spirit to those walking
upon it;” thus telling us that
breath is indeed given in common to all people upon earth, but that the
Spirit is theirs alone who tread down earthly desires. And therefore
Isaiah himself, distinguishing the things already mentioned, again
exclaims, “For the Spirit shall go forth from Me, and I have made
every breath.” Thus does he attribute
the Spirit as peculiar to God which in the last times He pours forth upon
the human race by the adoption of sons; but [he shows] that breath was
common throughout the creation, and points it out as something created.
Now what has been made is a different thing from him who makes it. The
breath, then, is temporal, but the Spirit eternal. The breath, too,
increases [in strength] for a short period, and continues for a certain
time; after that it takes its departure, leaving its former abode
destitute of breath. But when the Spirit pervades the man within and
without, inasmuch as it continues there, it never leaves him. “But
that is not first which is spiritual,” says the apostle, speaking
this as if with reference to us human beings; “but that is first
which is animal, afterwards that which is spiritual,” in accordance with reason. For there had been
a necessity that, in the first place, a human being should be fashioned,
and that what was fashioned should receive the soul; afterwards that it
should thus receive the communion of the Spirit. Wherefore also
“the first Adam was made” by the Lord “a living soul,
the second Adam a quickening spirit.” As, then, he who was made a living soul forfeited life when he
turned aside to what was evil, so, on the other hand, the same
individual, when he reverts to what is good, and receives the quickening
Spirit, shall find life. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiii-p8 | 3. For it is not one thing which dies and another
which is quickened, as neither is it one thing which is lost and another
which is found, but the Lord came seeking for that same sheep which had
been lost. What was it, then, which was dead? Undoubtedly it was the
substance of the flesh; the same, too, which had lost the breath of life,
and had become breathless and dead. This same, therefore, was what the
Lord came to quicken, that as in Adam we do all die, as being of an
animal nature, in Christ we may all live, as being spiritual, not laying
aside God’s handiwork, but the lusts of the flesh, and receiving
the Holy Spirit; as the apostle says in the Epistle to the Colossians:
“Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.”
And what these are he himself explains: “Fornication, uncleanness,
inordinate affection, evil concupiscence; and covetousness, which is
idolatry.” The laying aside of these
is what the apostle preaches; and he declares that those who do such
things, as being merely flesh and blood, cannot inherit the kingdom of
heaven. For their soul, tending towards what is worse, and descending to
earthly lusts, has become a partaker in the same designation which
belongs to these [lusts, viz., “earthly”], which, when the
apostle commands us to lay aside, he says in the same Epistle,
“Cast ye off the old man with his deeds.” But when he said this, he does not remove away the ancient
formation [of man]; for in that case it would be incumbent on us to rid
ourselves of its company by committing suicide. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiii-p11 | 4. But the apostle himself also, being one who had been
formed in a womb, and had issued thence, wrote to us, and confessed in
his Epistle to the Philippians that “to live in the flesh was the
fruit of [his] work;” thus
expressing himself. Now the final result of the work of the Spirit is the
salvation of the flesh. For what other visible fruit is there of the invisible Spirit,
than the rendering of the flesh mature and capable of incorruption? If
then [he says], “To live in the flesh, this is the result of labour
to me,” he did not surely contemn the substance of flesh in that
passage where he said, “Put ye off the old man with his
works;” but he points out that we
should lay aside our former conversation, that which waxes old and
becomes corrupt; and for this reason he goes on to say, “And put ye
on the new man, that which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of
Him who created him.” In this, therefore, that he says,
“which is renewed in knowledge,” he demonstrates that he, the
selfsame man who was in ignorance in times past, that is, in ignorance of
God, is renewed by that knowledge which has respect to Him. For the
knowledge of God renews man. And when he says, “after the image of
the Creator,” he sets forth the recapitulation of the same man, who
was at the beginning made after the likeness of God. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiii-p15 | 5. And that he, the apostle, was the very same person
who had been born from the womb, that is, of the ancient substance of
flesh, he does himself declare in the Epistle to the Galatians:
“But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s
womb, and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might
preach Him among the Gentiles,” it was
not, as I have already observed, one person who had
been
born from the womb, and another who preached the Gospel of the Son of
God; but that same individual who formerly was ignorant, and used to
persecute the Church, when the revelation was made to him from heaven,
and the Lord conferred with him, as I have pointed out in the third
book, preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God, who
was crucified under Pontius Pilate, his former ignorance being driven out
by his subsequent knowledge: just as the blind men whom the Lord healed
did certainly lose their blindness, but received the substance of their
eyes perfect, and obtained the power of vision in the very same eyes with
which they formerly did not see; the darkness being merely driven away by
the power of vision, while the substance of the eyes was retained, in
order that, by means of those eyes through which they had not seen,
exercising again the visual power, they might give thanks to Him who had
restored them again to sight. And thus, also, he whose withered hand was
healed, and all who were healed generally, did not change those parts of
their bodies which had at their birth come forth from the womb, but
simply obtained these anew in a healthy condition. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiii-p18 | 6. For the Maker of all things, the Word of God, who
did also from the beginning form man, when He found His handiwork
impaired by wickedness, performed upon it all kinds of healing. At one
time [He did so], as regards each separate member, as it is found in His
own handiwork; and at another time He did once for all restore man sound
and whole in all points, preparing him perfect for Himself unto the
resurrection. For what was His object in healing [different] portions of
the flesh, and restoring them to their original condition, if those parts
which had been healed by Him were not in a position to obtain salvation?
For if it was [merely] a temporary benefit which He conferred, He granted
nothing of importance to those who were the subjects of His healing. Or
how can they maintain that the flesh is incapable of receiving the life
which flows from Him, when it received healing from Him? For life is
brought about through healing, and incorruption through life. He,
therefore, who confers healing, the same does also confer life; and He
[who gives] life, also surrounds His own handiwork with incorruption. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiv-p1 | 1. Let our opponents—that is, they who speak
against their own salvation—inform us [as to this point]: The
deceased daughter of the high priest; the widow’s dead son, who was being carried
out [to burial] near the gate [of the city]; and Lazarus, who had lain four days in the tomb,—in what bodies did they rise again? In those same, no
doubt, in which they had also died. For if it were not in the very same,
then certainly those same individuals who had died did not rise again.
For [the Scripture] says, “The Lord took the hand of the dead man,
and said to him, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And the dead man sat
up, and He commanded that something should be given him to eat; and He
delivered him to his mother.” Again, He
called Lazarus “with a loud voice, saying, Lazarus, come forth; and
he that was dead came forth bound with bandages, feet and hands.”
This was symbolical of that man who had been bound in sins. And therefore
the Lord said, “Loose him, and let him depart.” As,
therefore, those who were healed were made whole in those members which
had in times past been afflicted; and the dead rose in the identical
bodies, their limbs and bodies receiving health, and that life which was
granted by the Lord, who prefigures eternal things by temporal, and shows
that it is He who is Himself able to extend both healing and life to His
handiwork, that His words concerning its [future] resurrection may also
be believed; so also at the end, when the Lord utters His voice “by
the last trumpet,” the dead shall be raised,
as He Himself declares: “The hour shall come, in which all the dead
which are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall
come forth; those that have done good to the resurrection of life, and
those that have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiv-p2 | Mark v. 22. Irenæus confounds the
ruler of the synagogue with the high priest. [Let not those who possess
printed Bibles and concordances and commentaries, and all manner of helps
to memory, blame the Fathers for such mistakes, until they at least equal
them in their marvellous and minute familiarity with the inspired
writers.] | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiv-p8 | 2. Vain, therefore, and truly miserable, are those who
do not choose to see what is so manifest and clear, but shun the light of
truth, blinding themselves like the tragic Œdipus. And as those who are
not practised in wrestling, when they contend with others, laying hold
with a determined grasp of some part of [their opponent’s] body,
really fall by means of that which they grasp, yet when they fall,
imagine that they are gaining the victory, because they have obstinately
kept their hold upon that part which they seized at the outset, and
besides falling, become
subjects of ridicule; so is it with
respect to that [favourite] expression of the heretics: “Flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;” while taking two
expressions of Paul’s, without having perceived the apostle’s
meaning, or examined critically the force of the terms, but keeping fast
hold of the mere expressions by themselves, they die in consequence of
their influence (περὶ αὐτάς),
overturning as far as in them lies the entire dispensation of God. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiv-p9 | 3. For thus they will allege that this passage refers
to the flesh strictly so called, and not to fleshly works, as I have
pointed out, so representing the apostle as contradicting himself. For
immediately following, in the same Epistle, he says conclusively,
speaking thus in reference to the flesh: “For this corruptible must
put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So, when
this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
the saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death,
where is thy sting? O death, where is thy victory?” Now these words shall be appropriately said at
the time when this mortal and corruptible flesh, which is subject to
death, which also is pressed down by a certain dominion of death, rising
up into life, shall put on incorruption and immortality. For then,
indeed, shall death be truly vanquished, when that flesh which is held
down by it shall go forth from under its dominion. And again, to the
Philippians he says: “But our conversation is in heaven, from
whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who shall
transfigure the body of our humiliation conformable to the body of His
glory, even as He is able (ita ut possit) according to the working
of His own power.” What, then, is this
“body of humiliation” which the Lord shall transfigure, [so
as to be] conformed to “the body of His glory?” Plainly it is
this body composed of flesh, which is indeed humbled when it falls into
the earth. Now its transformation [takes place thus], that while it is
mortal and corruptible, it becomes immortal and incorruptible, not after
its own proper substance, but after the mighty working of the Lord, who
is able to invest the mortal with immortality, and the corruptible with
incorruption. And therefore he says, “that
mortality may be swallowed up of life. He who has perfected us for this
very thing is God, who also has given unto us the earnest of the
Spirit.” He uses these words most
manifestly in reference to the flesh; for the soul is not mortal, neither
is the spirit. Now, what is mortal shall be swallowed up of life, when
the flesh is dead no longer, but remains living and incorruptible,
hymning the praises of God, who has perfected us for this very thing. In
order, therefore, that we may be perfected for this, aptly does he say to
the Corinthians, “Glorify God in your body.” Now God is He who gives rise to immortality. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiv-p12 | The original Greek text is preserved here, as above; the
Latin translator inserts, “in secunda ad Corinthios.” Harvey
observes: “The interpretation of the Scriptural reference by the
translator suggests the suspicion that the greater number of such
references have come in from the margin.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiv-p15 | 4. That he uses these words with respect to the body of
flesh, and to none other, he declares to the Corinthians manifestly,
indubitably, and free from all ambiguity: “Always bearing about in
our body the dying of Jesus, that also the life of Jesus Christ
might be manifested in our body. For if we who live are delivered unto
death for Jesus’ sake, it is that the life of Jesus may also be
manifested in our mortal flesh.” And
that the Spirit lays hold on the flesh, he says in the same Epistle,
“That ye are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, inscribed not
with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone,
but in the fleshly tables of the heart.” If, therefore, in the present time, fleshly hearts are made
partakers of the Spirit, what is there astonishing if, in the
resurrection, they receive that life which is granted by the Spirit? Of
which resurrection the apostle speaks in the Epistle to the Philippians:
“Having been made conformable to His death, if by any means I might
attain to the resurrection which is from the dead.” In what other mortal flesh, therefore, can
life be understood as being manifested, unless in that substance which is
also put to death on account of that confession which is made of God?
—as he has himself declared, “If, as a man, I have fought
with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the
dead rise not? For if the dead rise not, neither has Christ risen. Now,
if Christ has not risen, our preaching is vain, and your faith is vain.
In that case, too, we are found false witnesses for God, since we have
testified that He raised up Christ, whom [upon that supposition] He did
not raise up. For if the dead rise not, neither has Christ risen. But if Christ
be not risen, your faith is vain, since ye are yet in your sins.
Therefore those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in
this life only we have hope in Christ, we are more miserable than all
men. But now Christ has
risen from the dead, the
first-fruits of those that sleep; for as by man [came] death, by man also
[came] the resurrection of the dead.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xiv-p23 | 5. In all these passages, therefore, as I have already
said, these men must either allege that the apostle expresses opinions
contradicting himself, with respect to that statement, “Flesh and
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;” or, on the other hand,
they will be forced to make perverse and crooked interpretations of all
the passages, so as to overturn and alter the sense of the words. For
what sensible thing can they say, if they endeavour to interpret
otherwise this which he writes: “For this corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality;” and, “That the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our
mortal flesh;” and all the other
passages in which the apostle does manifestly and clearly declare the
resurrection and incorruption of the flesh? And thus shall they be
compelled to put a false interpretation upon passages such as these, they
who do not choose to understand one correctly. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xv-p1 | 1. And inasmuch as the apostle has
not pronounced against the very substance of flesh and blood, that it
cannot inherit the kingdom of God, the same apostle has everywhere
adopted the term “flesh and blood” with regard to the Lord
Jesus Christ, partly indeed to establish His human nature (for He did
Himself speak of Himself as the Son of man), and partly that He might
confirm the salvation of our flesh. For if the flesh were not in a
position to be saved, the Word of God would in no wise have become flesh.
And if the blood of the righteous were not to be inquired after, the Lord
would certainly not have had blood [in His composition]. But inasmuch as
blood cries out (vocalis est) from the beginning [of the world],
God said to Cain, when he had slain his brother, “The voice of thy
brother’s blood crieth to Me.” And as their blood will be inquired after, He said to those with
Noah, “For your blood of your souls will I require, [even] from the
hand of all beasts;” and
again, “Whosoever will shed man’s blood, it shall be shed for his
blood.” In like manner, too, did the Lord say to those who should
afterwards shed His blood, “All righteous blood shall be required
which is shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the
blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple
and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon
this generation.” He thus points out the recapitulation that
should take place in his own person of the effusion of blood from the
beginning, of all the righteous men and of the prophets, and that by
means of Himself there should be a requisition of their blood. Now this
[blood] could not be required unless it also had the capability of being
saved; nor would the Lord have summed up these things in Himself, unless
He had Himself been made flesh and blood after the way of the original
formation [of man], saving in his own person at the end that which had in
the beginning perished in Adam. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xv-p6 | 2. But if the Lord became incarnate for any other order
of things, and took flesh of any other substance, He has not then summed
up human nature in His own person, nor in that case can He be termed
flesh. For flesh has been truly made [to consist in] a transmission of
that thing moulded originally from the dust. But if it had been necessary
for Him to draw the material [of His body] from another substance, the
Father would at the beginning have moulded the material [of flesh] from a
different substance [than from what He actually did]. But now the case
stands thus, that the Word has saved that which really was [created,
viz.,] humanity which had perished, effecting by means of Himself that
communion which should be held with it, and seeking out its salvation.
But the thing which had perished possessed flesh and blood. For the Lord,
taking dust from the earth, moulded man; and it was upon his behalf that
all the dispensation of the Lord’s advent took place. He had
Himself, therefore, flesh and blood, recapitulating in Himself not a
certain other, but that original handiwork of the Father, seeking out
that thing which had perished. And for this cause the apostle, in the
Epistle to the Colossians, says, “And though ye were formerly
alienated, and enemies to His knowledge by evil works, yet now ye have
been reconciled in the body of His flesh, through His death, to present
yourselves holy and chaste, and without fault in His sight.” He says, “Ye have been reconciled
in the body of His flesh,” because the righteous flesh has
reconciled that flesh which was being kept under bondage in sin, and
brought it into friendship with God. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xv-p8 | 3. If, then, any one allege that in this respect the
flesh of the Lord was different from ours, because it indeed did not
commit sin, neither
was deceit found in His soul, while we,
on the other hand, are sinners, he says what is the fact. But if he
pretends that the Lord possessed another substance of flesh, the sayings
respecting reconciliation will not agree with that man. For that thing is
reconciled which had formerly been in enmity. Now, if the Lord had taken
flesh from another substance, He would not, by so doing, have reconciled
that one to God which had become inimical through transgression. But now,
by means of communion with Himself, the Lord has reconciled man to God
the Father, in reconciling us to Himself by the body of His own flesh,
and redeeming us by His own blood, as the apostle says to the Ephesians,
“In whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of
sins;” and again to the same he
says, “Ye who formerly were far off have been brought near in the
blood of Christ;” and again,
“Abolishing in His flesh the enmities, [even] the law of
commandments [contained] in ordinances.” And in every Epistle the apostle plainly testifies, that through
the flesh of our Lord, and through His blood, we have been saved. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xv-p12 | 4. If, therefore, flesh and blood are the things which
procure for us life, it has not been declared of flesh and blood, in the
literal meaning (proprie) of the terms, that they cannot inherit
the kingdom of God; but [these words apply] to those carnal deeds already
mentioned, which, perverting man to sin, deprive him of life. And for
this reason he says, in the Epistle to the Romans: “Let not sin,
therefore, reign in your mortal body, to be under its control: neither
yield ye your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield
yourselves to God, as being alive from the dead, and your members as
instruments of righteousness unto God.” In these same members, therefore, in which we used to
serve sin, and bring forth fruit unto death, does He wish us to [be
obedient] unto righteousness, that we may bring forth fruit unto life.
Remember, therefore, my beloved friend, that thou hast been redeemed by
the flesh of our Lord, re-established by His blood;
and “holding the Head, from which the whole body of the Church,
having been fitted together, takes increase”—that is, acknowledging the advent in the flesh of the Son
of God, and [His] divinity (deum), and looking forward with
constancy to His human nature (hominem), availing thyself also of
these proofs drawn from Scripture—thou dost easily overthrow, as
I have pointed out, all those notions of the heretics which were
concocted afterwards. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xv-p14 | “Et sanguine ejus redhibitus,” corresponding
to the Greek term ἀποκατασταθείς.
“Redhibere” is properly a forensic term, meaning to
cause any article to be restored to the vendor. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xv-p16 | Harvey restores the Greek thus, καὶ τὸν αὐτοῦ ἄνθρωπον βεβαίως ἐκδεχόμενος,
which he thinks has a reference to the patient waiting for
“Christ’s second advent to judge the world.” The phrase
might also be translated, and “receiving stedfastly His human
nature.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xvi-p1 | 1. Now, that He who at the
beginning created man, did promise him a second birth after his
dissolution into earth, Esaias thus declares: “The dead shall rise
again, and they who are in the tombs shall arise, and they who are in the
earth shall rejoice. For the dew which is from Thee is health to
them.” And again: “I will
comfort you, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem: and ye shall see,
and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish as the grass;
and the hand of the Lord shall be known to those who worship
Him.” And Ezekiel speaks as
follows: “And the hand of the Lord came upon me, and the Lord led me forth in the Spirit,
and set me down in the midst of the plain, and this place was full of
bones. And He caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there
were many upon the surface of the plain very dry. And He said unto me,
Son of man, can these bones live? And I said, Lord, Thou who hast made
them dost know. And He said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and thou
shalt say to them, Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord to these bones, Behold, I
will cause the spirit of life to come upon you, and I will lay sinews
upon you, and bring up flesh again upon you, and I will stretch skin upon
you, and will put my Spirit into you, and ye shall live; and ye shall
know that I am the Lord.
And I prophesied as the Lord had commanded me. And it came to pass, when
I was prophesying, that, behold, an earthquake, and the bones were drawn
together, each one to its own articulation: and I beheld, and, lo, the
sinews and flesh were produced upon them, and the skins rose upon them
round about, but there was no breath in them. And He said unto me,
Prophesy to the breath, son of man, and say to the breath, These things
saith the Lord, Come from
the four winds (spiritibus), and breathe upon these dead, that
they may live. So I prophesied as the Lord had commanded me, and the
breath entered into them; and they did live, and stood upon their feet,
an exceeding great gathering.”
And again he says, “Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will set your
graves open, and cause you to come out of your graves, and bring you into
the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord,
when I shall
open your sepulchres, that I may bring my people again out of the
sepulchres: and I will put my Spirit into you, and ye shall live; and I
will place you in your land, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. I have said, and I will do,
saith the Lord.” As we at once perceive that the Creator
(Demiurgo) is in this passage represented as vivifying our dead
bodies, and promising resurrection to them, and resuscitation from their
sepulchres and tombs, conferring upon them immortality also (He says,
“For as the tree of life, so shall their days be”), He is shown to be the only God who
accomplishes these things, and as Himself the good Father, benevolently
conferring life upon those who have not life from themselves. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xvi-p7 | 2. And for this reason did the Lord most plainly
manifest Himself and the Father to His disciples, lest, forsooth, they
might seek after another God besides Him who formed man, and who gave him
the breath of life; and that men might not rise to such a pitch of
madness as to feign another Father above the Creator. And thus also He
healed by a word all the others who were in a weakly condition because of
sin; to whom also He said, “Behold, thou art made whole, sin no
more, lest a worse thing come upon thee:” pointing out by this, that, because of the sin of disobedience,
infirmities have come upon men. To that man, however, who had been blind
from his birth, He gave sight, not by means of a word, but by an outward
action; doing this not without a purpose, or because it so happened, but
that He might show forth the hand of God, that which at the beginning had
moulded man. And therefore, when His disciples asked Him for what cause
the man had been born blind, whether for his own or his parents’
fault, He replied, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents,
but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” Now the work of God is the fashioning of man.
For, as the Scripture says, He made [man] by a kind of process:
“And the Lord took clay from the earth, and formed man.” Wherefore also the Lord spat on the ground and
made clay, and smeared it upon the eyes, pointing out the original
fashioning [of man], how it was effected, and manifesting the hand of God
to those who can understand by what [hand] man was formed out of the
dust. For that which the artificer, the Word, had omitted to form in the
womb, [viz., the blind man’s eyes], He then supplied in public,
that the works of God might be manifested in him, in order that we might
not be seeking out another hand by which man was fashioned, nor another
Father; knowing that this hand of God which formed us at the beginning,
and which does form us in the womb, has in the last times sought us out
who were lost, winning back His own, and taking up the lost sheep upon
His shoulders, and with joy restoring it to the fold of life. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xvi-p11 | 3. Now, that the Word of God forms us in the womb, He
says to Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee;
and before thou wentest forth from the belly, I sanctified thee, and
appointed thee a prophet among the nations.” And Paul, too, says in like manner, “But when it pleased
God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, that I might declare
Him among the nations.” As,
therefore, we are by the Word formed in the womb, this very same Word
formed the visual power in him who had been blind from his birth; showing
openly who it is that fashions us in secret, since the Word Himself had
been made manifest to men: and declaring the original formation of Adam,
and the manner in which he was created, and by what hand he was
fashioned, indicating the whole from a part. For the Lord who formed the
visual powers is He who made the whole man, carrying out the will of the
Father. And inasmuch as man, with respect to that formation which, was
after Adam, having fallen into transgression, needed the laver of
regeneration, [the Lord] said to him [upon whom He had conferred sight],
after He had smeared his eyes with the clay, “Go to Siloam, and
wash;” thus restoring to him both
[his perfect] confirmation, and that regeneration which takes place by
means of the laver. And for this reason when he was washed he came
seeing, that he might both know Him who had fashioned him, and that man
might learn [to know] Him who has conferred upon him life. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xvi-p15 | 4. All the followers of Valentinus, therefore, lose
their case, when they say that man was not fashioned out of this earth,
but from a fluid and diffused substance. For, from the earth out of which
the Lord formed eyes for that man, from the same earth it is evident that
man was also fashioned at the beginning. For it were incompatible that
the eyes should indeed be formed from one source and the rest of the body
from another; as neither would it be compatible that one [being]
fashioned the body, and another the eyes. But He, the very same who
formed Adam at the beginning, with whom also the Father spake, [saying],
“Let Us make man after Our image and likeness,” revealing Himself in these last times to men,
formed visual organs (visionem) for him who had been blind [in
that body which he had derived] from Adam. Wherefore also the
Scripture, pointing out what should come to pass, says, that when Adam
had hid himself because of his disobedience, the Lord came to him at
eventide, called him forth, and said, “Where art thou?” That means that in the last times the very same
Word of God came to call man, reminding him of his doings, living in
which he had been hidden from the Lord. For just as at that time God
spake to Adam at eventide, searching him out; so in the last times, by
means of the same voice, searching out his posterity, He has visited
them. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xvii-p1 | 1. And since Adam was moulded from this earth to
which we belong, the Scripture tells us that God said to him, “In
the sweat of thy face shall thou eat thy bread, until thou turnest again
to the dust from whence thou wert taken.” If then, after death, our bodies return to any other substance,
it follows that from it also they have their substance. But if it be into
this very [earth], it is manifest that it was also from it that
man’s frame was created; as also the Lord clearly showed, when from
this very substance He formed eyes for the man [to whom He gave sight].
And thus was the hand of God plainly shown forth, by which Adam was
fashioned, and we too have been formed; and since there is one and the
same Father, whose voice from the beginning even to the end is present
with His handiwork, and the substance from which we were formed is
plainly declared through the Gospel, we should therefore not seek after
another Father besides Him, nor [look for] another substance from which
we have been formed, besides what was mentioned beforehand, and shown
forth by the Lord; nor another hand of God besides that which, from the
beginning even to the end, forms us and prepares us for life, and is
present with His handiwork, and perfects it after the image and likeness
of God. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xvii-p3 | 2. And then, again, this Word was manifested when the
Word of God was made man, assimilating Himself to man, and man to
Himself, so that by means of his resemblance to the Son, man might become
precious to the Father. For in times long
past, it was said that man was created after the image of God, but
it was not [actually] shown; for the Word was as yet invisible,
after whose image man was created, Wherefore also he did easily lose the
similitude. When, however, the Word of God became flesh, He confirmed
both these: for He both showed forth the image truly, since He became
Himself what was His image; and He re-established the similitude after a
sure manner, by assimilating man to the invisible Father through means of
the visible Word. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xvii-p4 | 3. And not by the aforesaid things alone has the Lord
manifested Himself, but [He has done this] also by means of His passion.
For doing away with [the effects of] that disobedience of man which had
taken place at the beginning by the occasion of a tree, “He became
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross;” rectifying that disobedience which had occurred by reason of a
tree, through that obedience which was [wrought out] upon the tree [of
the cross]. Now He would not have come to do away, by means of that same
[image], the disobedience which had been incurred towards our Maker if He
proclaimed another Father. But inasmuch as it was by these things that we
disobeyed God, and did not give credit to His word, so was it also by
these same that He brought in obedience and consent as respects His Word;
by which things He clearly shows forth God Himself, whom indeed we had
offended in the first Adam, when he did not perform His commandment. In
the second Adam, however, we are reconciled, being made obedient even
unto death. For we were debtors to none other but to Him whose
commandment we had transgressed at the beginning. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xviii-p1 | 1. Now this being is the Creator (Demiurgus), who
is, in respect of His love, the Father; but in respect of His power, He
is Lord; and in respect of His wisdom, our Maker and Fashioner; by
transgressing whose commandment we became His enemies. And therefore in
the last times the Lord has restored us into friendship through His
incarnation, having become “the Mediator between God and
men;” propitiating indeed for us the Father
against whom we had sinned, and cancelling (consolatus) our
disobedience by His own obedience; conferring also upon us the gift of
communion with, and subjection to, our Maker. For this reason also He has taught us to say in
prayer, “And forgive us our debts;” since indeed He is our Father, whose debtors we were, having
transgressed His commandments. But who is this Being? Is He some unknown
one, and a Father who gives no commandment
to any one? Or is
He the God who is proclaimed in the Scriptures, to whom we were debtors,
having transgressed His commandment? Now the commandment was given to man
by the Word. For Adam, it is said, “heard the voice of the Lord God.” Rightly then does His Word say to man, “Thy sins are
forgiven thee;” He, the same against whom we had sinned in the beginning, grants
forgiveness of sins in the end. But if indeed we had disobeyed the
command of any other, while it was a different being who said, “Thy
sins are forgiven thee;” such an one is neither good, nor true, nor
just. For how can he be good, who does not give from what belongs to
himself? Or how can he be just, who snatches away the goods of another?
And in what way can sins be truly remitted, unless that He against whom
we have sinned has Himself granted remission “through the bowels of
mercy of our God,” in which “He has visited us” through His Son? | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xviii-p8 | 2. And therefore, when He had healed the man sick of
the palsy, [the evangelist] says, “The people upon seeing it
glorified God, who gave such power unto men.” What God, then, did the bystanders glorify? Was it indeed that
unknown Father invented by the heretics? And how could they glorify him
who was altogether unknown to them? It is evident, therefore, that the
Israelites glorified Him who has been proclaimed as God by the law and
the prophets, who is also the Father of our Lord; and therefore He taught
men, by the evidence of their senses through those signs which He
accomplished, to give glory to God. If, however, He Himself had come from
another Father, and men glorified a different Father when they beheld His
miracles, He [in that case] rendered them ungrateful to that Father who
had sent the gift of healing. But as the only-begotten Son had come for
man’s salvation from Him who is God, He did both stir up the
incredulous by the miracles which He was in the habit of working, to give
glory to the Father; and to the Pharisees, who did not admit the advent
of His Son, and who consequently did not believe in the remission [of
sins] which was conferred by Him, He said, “That ye may know that
the Son of man hath power to forgive sins.” And when He had said this, He commanded the paralytic man to take
up the pallet upon which he was lying, and go into his house. By this
work of His He confounded the unbelievers, and showed that He is Himself
the voice of God, by which man received commandments, which he broke, and
became a sinner; for the paralysis followed as a consequence of sins. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xviii-p11 | 3. Therefore, by remitting sins, He did indeed heal
man, while He also manifested Himself who He was. For if no one can
forgive sins but God alone, while the Lord remitted them and healed men,
it is plain that He was Himself the Word of God made the Son of man,
receiving from the Father the power of remission of sins; since He was
man, and since He was God, in order that since as man He suffered for us,
so as God He might have compassion on us, and forgive us our debts, in
which we were made debtors to God our Creator. And therefore David said
beforehand, “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and
whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed
sin;” pointing out thus that
remission of sins which follows upon His advent, by which “He has
destroyed the handwriting” of our debt, and “fastened it to
the cross;” so that as by means of a
tree we were made debtors to God, [so also] by means of a tree we may
obtain the remission of our debt. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xviii-p14 | 4. This fact has been
strikingly set forth by many others, and especially through means of
Elisha the prophet. For when his fellow-prophets were hewing wood for the
construction of a tabernacle, and when the iron [head], shaken loose from
the axe, had fallen into the Jordan and could not be found by them, upon
Elisha’s coming to the place, and learning what had happened, he
threw some wood into the water. Then, when he had done this, the iron
part of the axe floated up, and they took up from the surface of the
water what they had previously lost. By this
action the prophet pointed out that the sure word of God, which we had
negligently lost by means of a tree, and were not in the way of finding
again, we should receive anew by the dispensation of a tree, [viz., the
cross of Christ]. For that the word of God is likened to an axe, John the
Baptist declares [when he says] in reference to it, “But now also
is the axe laid to the root of the trees.” Jeremiah also says to the same purport: “The word of God
cleaveth the rock as an axe.” This
word, then, what was hidden from us, did the dispensation of the tree
make manifest, as I have already remarked. For as we lost it by means of
a tree, by means of a tree again was it made manifest to all, showing the
height, the length, the breadth, the depth in itself; and, as a certain
man among our predecessors observed, “Through the extension of the
hands of a divine person,
gathering together the two peoples to one God.”
For
these were two hands, because there were two peoples scattered to the
ends of the earth; but there was one head in the middle, as there is but
one God, who is above all, and through all, and in us all. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xviii-p18 | The Greek is preserved here, and reads, διὰ τῆς θείας ἐκτάσεως
τῶν χειρῶν—
literally, “through the divine extension of hands.” The old
Latin merely reads, “per extensionem manuum.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xix-p1 | 1. And such or so important a
dispensation He did not bring about by means of the creations of others,
but by His own; neither by those things which were created out of
ignorance and defect, but by those which had their substance from the
wisdom and power of His Father. For He was neither unrighteous, so that
He should covet the property of another; nor needy, that He could not by
His own means impart life to His own, and make use of His own creation
for the salvation of man. For indeed the creation could not have
sustained Him [on the cross], if He had sent forth [simply by commission]
what was the fruit of ignorance and defect. Now we have repeatedly shown
that the incarnate Word of God was suspended upon a tree, and even the
very heretics do acknowledge that He was crucified. How, then, could the
fruit of ignorance and defect sustain Him who contains the knowledge of
all things, and is true and perfect? Or how could that creation which was
concealed from the Father, and far removed from Him, have sustained His
Word? And if this world were made by the angels (it matters not whether
we suppose their ignorance or their cognizance of the Supreme God), when
the Lord declared, “For I am in the Father, and the Father in
Me,” how could this workmanship
of the angels have borne to be burdened at once with the Father and the
Son? How, again, could that creation which is beyond the Pleroma have
contained Him who contains the entire Pleroma? Inasmuch, then, as all
these things are impossible and incapable of proof, that preaching of the
Church is alone true [which proclaims] that His own creation bare Him,
which subsists by the power, the skill, and the wisdom of God; which is
sustained, indeed, after an invisible manner by the Father, but, on the
contrary, after a visible manner it bore His Word: and this is the true
[Word]. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xix-p3 | 2. For the Father bears the creation and His own Word
simultaneously, and the Word borne by the Father grants the Spirit to all
as the Father wills. To some He gives after
the manner of creation what is made; but to others
[He gives] after the manner of adoption, that is, what is from God,
namely generation. And thus one God the Father is declared, who is above
all, and through all, and in all. The Father is indeed above all, and He
is the Head of Christ; but the Word is through all things, and is Himself
the Head of the Church; while the Spirit is in us all, and He is the
living water, which the Lord grants to
those who rightly believe in Him, and love Him, and who know that
“there is one Father, who is above all, and through all, and in us
all.” And to these things does
John also, the disciple of the Lord, bear witness, when he speaks thus in
the Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things
were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.” And then he said of the Word Himself:
“He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world
knew Him not. To His own things He came, and His own people received Him
not. However, as many as did receive Him, to these gave He power to
become the sons of God, to those that believe in His name.” And again, showing the dispensation with
regard to His human nature, John said: “And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us.” And in
continuation he says, “And we beheld His glory, the glory as of the
Only-begotten by the Father, full of grace and truth.” He thus
plainly points out to those willing to hear, that is, to those having
ears, that there is one God, the Father over all, and one Word of God,
who is through all, by whom all things have been made; and that this
world belongs to Him, and was made by Him, according to the
Father’s will, and not by angels; nor by apostasy, defect, and
ignorance; nor by any power of Prunicus, whom certain of them also call
“the Mother;” nor by any other maker of the world ignorant of
the Father. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xix-p4 |
From this passage Harvey infers that Irenæus held the procession of the
Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son,—a doctrine denied by the
Oriental Church in after times. [Here is nothing about the
“procession:” only the “mission” of the Spirit is
here concerned. And the Easterns object to the double procession itself
only in so far as any one means thereby to deny “quod solus Pater
est divinarum personarum, Principium et Fons,”—ρίζα καὶ πηγὴ. See Procopowicz,
De Processione, Gothæ, 1772]. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xix-p11 | 3. For the Creator of the world is truly the
Word of God: and this is our Lord, who in the last times was made man,
existing in this world, and who in an invisible manner contains all
things created, and is inherent in the entire creation, since the Word of
God governs and arranges all
things; and therefore He came
to His own in a visible manner, and was made flesh, and hung upon the tree,
that He might sum up all things in Himself. “And His own peculiar
people did not receive Him,” as Moses declared this very thing
among the people: “And thy life shall be hanging before thine eyes,
and thou wilt not believe thy life.” Those therefore who did not receive Him did
not receive life. “But to as many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become the sons of God.” For it is
He who has power from the Father over all things, since He is the Word of
God, and very man, communicating with invisible beings after the manner
of the intellect, and appointing a law observable to the outward senses,
that all things should continue each in its own order; and He reigns
manifestly over things visible and pertaining to men; and brings in just
judgment and worthy upon all; as David also, clearly pointing to this,
says, “Our God shall openly come, and will not keep
silence.” Then he shows also the
judgment which is brought in by Him, saying, “A fire shall burn in
His sight, and a strong tempest shall rage round about Him. He shall call
upon the heaven from above, and the earth, to judge His
people.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xx-p1 | 1. That the Lord
then was manifestly coming to His own things, and was sustaining them by
means of that creation which is supported by Himself, and was making a
recapitulation of that disobedience which had occurred in connection with
a tree, through the obedience which was [exhibited by Himself when He
hung] upon a tree, [the effects] also of that deception being done away
with, by which that virgin Eve, who was already espoused to a man, was
unhappily misled,—was happily announced, through means of the
truth [spoken] by the angel to the Virgin Mary, who was [also espoused]
to a man. For just as the former was
led astray by the word of an angel, so that she fled from God when she
had transgressed His word; so did the latter, by an angelic
communication, receive the glad tidings that she should sustain
(portaret) God, being obedient to His word. And if the former did
disobey God, yet the latter was persuaded to be obedient to God, in order
that the Virgin Mary might become the patroness (advocata) of the virgin Eve. And
thus, as the human race fell into bondage to death by means of a virgin,
so is it rescued by a virgin; virginal disobedience having been balanced
in the opposite scale by virginal obedience. For in the same way the sin
of the first created man (protoplasti) receives amendment by the
correction of the First-begotten, and the coming of the serpent is
conquered by the harmlessness of the dove, those bonds being unloosed by
which we had been fast bound to death. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xx-p3 | [This word patroness is ambiguous.
The Latin may stand for Gr. ἀντίληψις,
—a person called in to help, or to take hold of the other end of a
burden. The argument implies that Mary was thus the counterpart or
balance of Eve.] | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xx-p4 | 2. The heretics
being all unlearned and ignorant of God’s arrangements, and not
acquainted with that dispensation by which He took upon Him human nature
(inscii ejus quæ est secundum hominem dispensationis), inasmuch
as they blind themselves with regard to the truth, do in fact speak
against their own salvation. Some of them introduce another Father
besides the Creator; some, again, say that the world and its substance
was made by certain angels; certain others [maintain] that it was widely
separated by Horos from him whom they represent as being the Father—that it
sprang forth (floruisse) of itself, and from itself was born.
Then, again, others [of them assert] that it obtained substance in those
things which are contained by the Father, from defect and ignorance;
others still, despise the advent of the Lord manifest [to the senses],
for they do not admit His incarnation; while others, ignoring the
arrangement [that He should be born] of a virgin, maintain that He was
begotten by Joseph. And still further, some affirm that neither their
soul nor their body can receive eternal life, but merely the inner man.
Moreover, they will have it that this [inner man] is that which is the
understanding (sensum) in them, and which they decree as being the
only thing to ascend to “the perfect.” Others [maintain], as
I have said in the first book, that while the soul is saved, their body
does not participate in the salvation which comes from God; in which
[book] I have also set forward the hypotheses of all these men, and in
the second have pointed out their weakness and inconsistency. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxi-p1 | 1. Now all these [heretics] are of much later date
than the bishops to whom the apostles committed the Churches; which fact
I have in the third book taken all pains to demonstrate. It follows,
then, as a matter of course, that these
heretics
aforementioned, since they are blind to the truth, and deviate from the
[right] way, will walk in various roads; and therefore the footsteps of
their doctrine are scattered here and there without agreement or
connection. But
the path of those belonging to the Church circumscribes the whole world,
as possessing the sure tradition from the apostles, and gives unto us to
see that the faith of all is one and the same, since all receive one and
the same God the Father, and believe in the same dispensation regarding
the incarnation of the Son of God, and are cognizant of the same gift of
the Spirit, and are conversant with the same commandments, and preserve
the same form of ecclesiastical constitution, and expect
the same advent of the Lord, and await the same salvation of the complete
man, that is, of the soul and body. And undoubtedly the preaching of the
Church is true and stedfast, in which one and the same way of salvation is
shown throughout the whole world. For to her is entrusted the light of
God; and therefore the “wisdom” of God, by means of which she
saves all men, “is declared in [its] going forth; it uttereth [its
voice] faithfully in the streets, is preached on the tops of the walls,
and speaks continually in the gates of the city.” For the Church preaches the truth everywhere, and she is the
seven-branched candlestick which bears the light of Christ. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxi-p2 | “Et eandem figuram ejus quæ est
erga ecclesiam ordinationis custodientibus.” Grabe supposes this
refers to the ordained ministry of the Church, but Harvey thinks it
refers more probably to its general constitution. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxi-p5 | 2. Those, therefore, who desert the preaching of the
Church, call in question the knowledge of the holy presbyters, not taking
into consideration of how much greater consequence is a religious man,
even in a private station, than a blasphemous and impudent sophist. Now,
such are all the heretics, and those who imagine that they have hit upon
something more beyond the truth, so that by following those things
already mentioned, proceeding on their way variously, inharmoniously, and
foolishly, not keeping always to the same opinions with regard to the
same things, as blind men are led by the blind, they shall deservedly
fall into the ditch of ignorance lying in their path, ever seeking and
never finding out the truth. It
behoves us, therefore, to avoid their doctrines, and to take careful heed
lest we suffer any injury from them; but to flee to the Church, and be
brought up in her bosom, and be nourished with the Lord’s
Scriptures. For the Church has been planted as a garden
(paradisus) in this world; therefore says the Spirit of God,
“Thou mayest freely eat from every tree of the garden,” that is, Eat ye from every Scripture of the
Lord; but ye shall not eat with an uplifted mind, nor touch any heretical
discord. For these men do profess that they have themselves the knowledge
of good and evil; and they set their own impious minds above the God who
made them. They therefore form opinions on what is beyond the limits of
the understanding. For this cause also the apostle says, “Be not
wise beyond what it is fitting to be wise, but be wise
prudently,” that we be not cast forth
by eating of the “knowledge” of these men (that knowledge
which knows more than it should do) from the paradise of life. Into this
paradise the Lord has introduced those who obey His call, “summing
up in Himself all things which are in heaven, and which are on
earth;” but the things in heaven are
spiritual, while those on earth constitute the dispensation in human
nature (secundum hominem est dispositio). These things, therefore,
He recapitulated in Himself: by uniting man to the Spirit, and causing
the Spirit to dwell in man, He is Himself made the head of the Spirit,
and gives the Spirit to be the head of man: for through Him (the Spirit)
we see, and hear, and speak. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxii-p1 | 1. He
has therefore, in His work of recapitulation, summed up all things, both
waging war against our enemy, and crushing him who had at the beginning
led us away captives in Adam, and trampled upon his head, as thou canst
perceive in Genesis that God said to the serpent, “And I will put
enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; He
shall be on the watch for (observabit) thy head, and thou on the watch
for His heel.” For from that time, He who
should be born of a woman, [namely] from the Virgin, after the likeness
of Adam, was preached as keeping watch for the head of the serpent. This
is the seed of which the apostle says in the Epistle to the Galatians,
“that the law of works was established until the seed should come
to whom the promise was made.” This fact
is exhibited in a still clearer light in the same Epistle, where he thus
speaks: “But when the fulness of time was come, God
sent forth His Son, made of a woman.” For indeed the enemy would not have been fairly vanquished,
unless it had been a man [born] of a woman who conquered him. For it was
by means of a woman that he got the advantage over man at first, setting
himself up as man’s opponent. And therefore does the Lord profess
Himself to be the Son of man, comprising in Himself that original man out
of whom the woman was fashioned (ex quo ea quæ secundum mulierem est
plasmatio facta est), in order that, as our species went down to
death through a vanquished man, so we may ascend to life again through a
victorious one; and as through a man death received the palm [of victory]
against us, so again by a man we may receive the palm against death. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxii-p6 | 2. Now the Lord would not have recapitulated in Himself
that ancient and primary enmity against the serpent, fulfilling the
promise of the Creator (Demiurgi), and performing His command, if
He had come from another Father. But as He is one and the same, who
formed us at the beginning, and sent His Son at the end, the Lord did
perform His command, being made of a woman, by both destroying our
adversary, and perfecting man after the image and likeness of God. And
for this reason He did not draw the means of confounding him from any
other source than from the words of the law, and made use of the
Father’s commandment as a help towards the destruction and
confusion of the apostate angel. Fasting forty days, like Moses and
Elias, He afterwards hungered, first, in order that we may perceive that
He was a real and substantial man—for it belongs to a man to
suffer hunger when fasting; and secondly, that His opponent might have an
opportunity of attacking Him. For as at the beginning it was by means of
food that [the enemy] persuaded man, although not suffering hunger, to
transgress God’s commandments, so in the end he did not succeed in
persuading Him that was an hungered to take that food which proceeded
from God. For, when tempting Him, he said, “If thou be the Son of
God, command that these stones be made bread.” But the Lord repulsed him by the commandment of the law, saying,
“It is written, Man doth not live by bread alone.” As to those words [of His enemy,] “If
thou be the Son of God,” [the Lord] made no remark; but by thus
acknowledging His human nature He baffled His adversary, and exhausted
the force of his first attack by means of His Father’s word. The
corruption of man, therefore, which occurred in paradise by both [of our
first parents] eating, was done away with by [the Lord’s] want of
food in this world. But he, being thus vanquished by
the law, endeavoured again to make an assault by himself quoting a
commandment of the law. For, bringing Him to the highest pinnacle of the
temple, he said to Him, “If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself
down. For it is written, That God shall give His angels charge concerning
thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest perchance thou
dash thy foot against a stone;” thus
concealing a falsehood under the guise of Scripture, as is done by all
the heretics. For that was indeed written, [namely], “That He hath
given His angels charge concerning Him;” but “cast thyself
down from hence” no Scripture said in reference to Him: this kind
of persuasion the devil produced from himself. The Lord therefore
confuted him out of the law, when He said, “It is written again,
Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God;” pointing out by the word contained in the law
that which is the duty of man, that he should not tempt God; and in
regard to Himself, since He appeared in human form, [declaring] that He
would not tempt the Lord
his God. The pride of reason, therefore,
which was in the serpent, was put to nought by the humility found in the
man [Christ], and now twice was the devil conquered from Scripture, when
he was detected as advising things contrary to God’s commandment,
and was shown to be the enemy of God by [the expression of] his thoughts.
He then, having been thus signally defeated, and then, as it were,
concentrating his forces, drawing up in order all his available power for
falsehood, in the third place “showed Him all the kingdoms of the
world, and the glory of them,” saying,
as Luke relates, “All these will I give thee,—for they are
delivered to me; and to whom I will, I give them,—if thou wilt
fall down and worship me.” The Lord then, exposing him in his true
character, says, “Depart, Satan; for it is written, Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.” He both revealed him by this name, and showed
[at the same time] who He Himself was. For the
Hebrew word “Satan” signifies an apostate. And thus,
vanquishing him for the third time, He spurned him from Him finally as
being conquered out of the law; and there was done away with that
infringement of God’s commandment which had occurred in Adam, by
means of the precept of the law, which the Son of man observed,
who did not transgress the commandment of God. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxii-p9 | The
Latin of this obscure sentence is: Quæ ergo fuit in Paradiso repletio
hominis per duplicem gustationem, dissoluta est per eam, quæ fuit in hoc
mundo, indigentiam. Harvey thinks that repletio is an error of the
translation reading ἀναπλήρωσις for
ἀναπήρωσις. This
conjecture is adopted above. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxii-p15 | 3. Who, then, is this Lord God to whom Christ bears
witness, whom no man shall tempt, whom all should worship, and serve Him
alone? It is, beyond all manner of doubt, that God who also gave the law.
For these things had been predicted in the law, and by the words
(sententiam) of the law the Lord showed that the law does indeed
declare the Word of God from the Father; and the apostate angel of God is
destroyed by its voice, being exposed in his true colours, and vanquished
by the Son of man keeping the commandment of God. For as in the beginning
he enticed man to transgress his Maker’s law, and thereby got him
into his power; yet his power consists in transgression and apostasy, and
with these he bound man [to himself]; so again, on the other hand, it was
necessary that through man himself he should, when conquered, be bound
with the same chains with which he had bound man, in order that man,
being set free, might return to his Lord, leaving to him (Satan) those
bonds by which he himself had been fettered, that is, sin. For when Satan
is bound, man is set free; since “none can enter a strong
man’s house and spoil his goods, unless he first bind the strong
man himself.” The Lord therefore exposes him as speaking
contrary to the word of that God who made all things, and subdues him by
means of the commandment. Now the law is the commandment of God. The Man
proves him to be a fugitive from and a transgressor of the law, an
apostate also from God. After [the Man had done this], the Word bound him
securely as a fugitive from Himself, and made spoil of his goods,—
namely, those men whom he held in bondage, and whom he unjustly used for
his own purposes. And justly indeed is he led captive, who had led men
unjustly into bondage; while man, who had been led captive in times past,
was rescued from the grasp of his possessor, according to the tender
mercy of God the Father, who had compassion on His own handiwork, and
gave to it salvation, restoring it by means of the Word—that is,
by Christ—in order that man might learn by actual proof that he
receives incorruptibility not of himself, but by the free gift of
God. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxiii-p1 | 1. Thus then does the Lord plainly
show that it was the true Lord and the one God who had been set forth by
the law; for Him whom the law proclaimed as God, the same did Christ
point out as the Father, whom also it behoves the disciples of Christ
alone to serve. By means of the statements of the law, He put our
adversary to utter confusion; and the law directs us to praise God the
Creator (Demiurgum), and to serve Him alone. Since this is the
case, we must not seek for another Father besides Him, or above Him,
since there is one God who justifies the circumcision by faith, and the
uncircumcision through faith. For if
there were any other perfect Father above Him, He (Christ) would by no
means have overthrown Satan by means of His words and commandments. For
one ignorance cannot be done away with by means of another ignorance, any
more than one defect by another defect. If, therefore, the law is due to
ignorance and defect, how could the statements contained therein bring to
nought the ignorance of the devil, and conquer the strong man? For a
strong man can be conquered neither by an inferior nor by an equal, but
by one possessed of greater power. But the Word of God is the superior
above all, He who is loudly proclaimed in the law: “Hear, O Israel,
the Lord thy God is one
God;” and, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart;” and, “Him shall thou adore, and Him alone shall thou
serve.” Then in the Gospel,
casting down the apostasy by means of these expressions, He did both
overcome the strong man by His Father’s voice, and He acknowledges
the commandment of the law to express His own sentiments, when He says,
“Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God.” For He did not confound the adversary by the
saying of any other, but by that belonging to His own Father, and thus
overcame the strong man. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxiii-p5 | 2. He taught by His commandment that we who have been
set free should, when hungry, take that food which is given by God; and
that, when placed in the exalted position of every grace [that can be
received], we should not, either by trusting to works of righteousness,
or when adorned with super-eminent [gifts of] ministration, by any means
be lifted up with pride, nor should we tempt God, but should feel
humility in all things, and have ready to hand [this saying], “Thou
shall not tempt the Lord
thy God.” As also the apostle
taught, saying, “Minding not high things, but consenting to things
of low estate;” that we should neither be
ensnared with riches, nor mundane glory, nor present fancy, but should
know that we must “worship the Lord thy God, and serve Him
alone,” and
give no heed to him who falsely promised
things not his own, when he said, “All these will I give thee, if,
falling down, thou wilt worship me.” For he himself confesses that
to adore him, and to do his will, is to fall from the glory of God. And
in what thing either pleasant or good can that man who has fallen
participate? Or what else can such a person hope for or expect, except
death? For death is next neighbour to him who has fallen. Hence also it
follows that he will not give what he has promised. For how can he make
grants to him who has fallen? Moreover, since God rules over men and him
too, and without the will of our Father in heaven not even a sparrow
falls to the ground, it follows that his
declaration, “All these things are delivered unto me, and to
whomsoever I will I give them,” proceeds from him when puffed up
with pride. For the creation is not subjected to his power, since indeed
he is himself but one among created things. Nor shall he give away the
rule over men to men; but both all other things, and all human affairs,
are arranged according to God the Father’s disposal. Besides, the
Lord declares that “the devil is a liar from the beginning, and the
truth is not in him.” If then
he be a liar and the truth be not in him, he certainly did not speak
truth, but a lie, when he said, “For all these things are delivered
to me, and to whomsoever I will I give them.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxiv-p1 | 1. He had indeed been
already accustomed to lie against God, for the purpose of leading men
astray. For at the beginning, when God had given to man a variety of
things for food, while He commanded him not to eat of one tree only, as
the Scripture tells us that God said to Adam: “From every tree
which is in the garden thou shalt eat food; but from the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, from this ye shall not eat: for in the day
that ye shall eat of it, ye shall die by death;” he then, lying against the Lord, tempted man, as the Scripture
says that the serpent said to the woman: “Has God indeed said this,
Ye shall not eat from every tree of the garden?” And when she had exposed the falsehood, and simply related the
command, as He had said, “From every tree of the garden we shall
eat; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden,
God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye
die:” when he had [thus]
learned from the woman the command of God, having brought his cunning
into play, he finally deceived her by a falsehood, saying, “Ye
shall not die by death; for God knew that in the day ye shall eat of it
your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and
evil.” In the first place, then,
in the garden of God he disputed about God, as if God was not there, for
he was ignorant of the greatness of God; and then, in the next place,
after he had learned from the woman that God had said that they should
die if they tasted the aforesaid tree, opening his mouth, he uttered the
third falsehood, “Ye shall not die by death.” But that God
was true, and the serpent a liar, was proved by the result, death having
passed upon them who had eaten. For along with the fruit they did also
fall under the power of death, because they did eat in disobedience; and
disobedience to God entails death. Wherefore, as they became forfeit to
death, from that [moment] they were handed over to it. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxiv-p6 | 2. Thus, then, in the day
that they did eat, in the same did they die, and became death’s
debtors, since it was one day of the creation. For it is said,
“There was made in the evening, and there was made in the morning,
one day.” Now in this same day that they did eat, in that also did
they die. But according to the cycle and progress of the days, after
which one is termed first, another second, and another third, if anybody
seeks diligently to learn upon what day out of the seven it was that Adam
died, he will find it by examining the dispensation of the Lord. For by
summing up in Himself the whole human race from the beginning to the end,
He has also summed up its death. From this it is clear that the Lord
suffered death, in obedience to His Father, upon that day on which Adam
died while he disobeyed God. Now he died on the same day in which he did
eat. For God said, “In that day on which ye shall eat of it, ye
shall die by death.” The Lord, therefore, recapitulating in Himself
this day, underwent His sufferings upon the day preceding the Sabbath,
that is, the sixth day of the creation, on which day man was created;
thus granting him a second creation by means of His passion, which is
that [creation] out of death. And there are some, again, who relegate the
death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since “a day of the Lord
is as a thousand years,” he did
not overstep the thousand years, but died within them, thus bearing out
the sentence of his sin. Whether, therefore, with respect to
disobedience, which is death; whether
[we consider] that, on
account of that, they were delivered over to death, and made debtors to
it; whether with respect to [the fact that on] one and the same day on
which they ate they also died (for it is one day of the creation);
whether [we regard this point], that, with respect to this cycle of days,
they died on the day in which they did also eat, that is, the day of the
preparation, which is termed “the pure supper,” that is, the
sixth day of the feast, which the Lord also exhibited when He suffered on
that day; or whether [we reflect] that he (Adam) did not overstep the
thousand years, but died within their limit,—it follows that, in
regard to all these significations, God is indeed true. For they died who
tasted of the tree; and the serpent is proved a liar and a murderer, as
the Lord said of him: “For he is a murderer from the beginning, and
the truth is not in him.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxv-p1 | 1. As therefore
the devil lied at the beginning, so did he also in the end, when he said,
“All these are delivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give
them.” For it is not he
who has appointed the kingdoms of this world, but God; for “the
heart of the king is in the hand of God.” And the Word also says by Solomon, “By me kings do reign,
and princes administer justice. By me chiefs are raised up, and by me
kings rule the earth.” Paul
the apostle also says upon this same subject: “Be ye subject to all
the higher powers; for there is no power but of God: now those which are
have been ordained of God.” And
again, in reference to them he says, “For he beareth not the sword
in vain; for he is the minister of God, the avenger for wrath to him who
does evil.” Now, that he spake these
words, not in regard to angelical powers, nor of invisible rulers—
as some venture to expound the passage—but of those of actual
human authorities, [he shows when] he says, “For this cause pay ye
tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, doing service for this
very thing.” This also the Lord
confirmed, when He did not do what He was tempted to by the devil; but He
gave directions that tribute should be paid to the tax-gatherers for
Himself and Peter; because “they are
the ministers of God, serving for this very thing.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxv-p9 | 2. For since man, by departing from God, reached such a
pitch of fury as even to look upon his brother as his enemy, and engaged
without fear in every kind of restless conduct, and murder, and avarice;
God imposed upon mankind the fear of man, as they did not acknowledge the
fear of God, in order that, being subjected to the authority of men, and
kept under restraint by their laws, they might attain to some degree of
justice, and exercise mutual forbearance through dread of the sword
suspended full in their view, as the apostle says: “For he beareth
not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, the avenger for
wrath upon him who does evil.” And for this reason too, magistrates
themselves, having laws as a clothing of righteousness whenever they act
in a just and legitimate manner, shall not be called in question for
their conduct, nor be liable to punishment. But whatsoever they do to the
subversion of justice, iniquitously, and impiously, and illegally, and
tyrannically, in these things shall they also perish; for the just
judgment of God comes equally upon all, and in no case is defective.
Earthly rule, therefore, has been appointed by God for the benefit of
nations, and not by the devil, who is never at rest at all, nay, who does
not love to see even nations conducting themselves after a quiet manner,
so that under the fear of human rule, men may not eat each other up like
fishes; but that, by means of the establishment of laws, they may keep
down an excess of wickedness among the nations. And considered from this
point of view, those who exact tribute from us are “God’s
ministers, serving for this very purpose.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxv-p10 | [Well says
Benjamin Franklin: “He who shall introduce into public affairs the
principles of primitive Christianity will change the face of the
world.” See Bancroft, Hist. U.S., vol. ix. p. 492.] | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxv-p11 | 3. As, then, “the powers that be are ordained of
God,” it is clear that the devil lied when he said, “These
are delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will, I give them.” For
by the law of the same Being as calls men into existence are kings also
appointed, adapted for those men who are at the time placed under their
government. Some of these [rulers] are given for the correction and the
benefit of their subjects, and for the preservation of justice; but
others, for the purposes of fear and punishment and rebuke: others, as
[the subjects] deserve it, are for deception, disgrace, and pride; while
the just judgment of God, as I have observed already, passes equally upon
all. The devil, however, as he is the apostate angel, can only go to this
length, as he did at the beginning, [namely] to deceive and lead astray
the mind of man into disobeying the commandments of God, and gradually
to darken the hearts of those who would endeavour to serve
him, to the forgetting of the true God, but to the adoration of himself
as God. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxv-p12 | 4. Just as if any one, being an apostate, and seizing
in a hostile manner another man’s territory, should harass the
inhabitants of it, in order that he might claim for himself the glory of
a king among those ignorant of his apostasy and robbery; so likewise also
the devil, being one among those angels who are placed over the spirit of
the air, as the Apostle Paul has declared in his Epistle to the
Ephesians, becoming envious of man, was
rendered an apostate from the divine law: for envy is a thing foreign to
God. And as his apostasy was exposed by man, and man became the [means
of] searching out his thoughts (et examinatio sententiæ ejus, homo
factus est), he has set himself to this with greater and greater
determination, in opposition to man, envying his life, and wishing to
involve him in his own apostate power. The Word of God, however, the
Maker of all things, conquering him by means of human nature, and showing
him to be an apostate, has, on the contrary, put him under the power of
man. For He says, “Behold, I confer upon you the power of treading
upon serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the
enemy,” in order that, as he
obtained dominion over man by apostasy, so again his apostasy might be
deprived of power by means of man turning back again to God. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxvi-p1 | 1. And not only
by the particulars already mentioned, but also by means of the events
which shall occur in the time of Antichrist is it shown that he, being an
apostate and a robber, is anxious to be adored as God; and that, although
a mere slave, he wishes himself to be proclaimed as a king. For he
(Antichrist) being endued with all the power of the devil, shall come,
not as a righteous king, nor as a legitimate king, [i.e., one] in
subjection to God, but an impious, unjust, and lawless one; as an
apostate, iniquitous and murderous; as a robber, concentrating in himself
[all] satanic apostasy, and setting aside idols to persuade [men] that he
himself is God, raising up himself as the only idol, having in himself
the multifarious errors of the other idols. This he does, in order that
they who do [now] worship the devil by means of many abominations, may
serve himself by this one idol, of whom the apostle thus speaks in the
second Epistle to the Thessalonians: “Unless there shall come a
failing away first, and the man of sin shall be revealed, the son of
perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called
God, or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God,
showing himself as if he were God.” The apostle therefore clearly
points out his apostasy, and that he is lifted up above all that is
called God, or that is worshipped—that is, above every idol
—for these are indeed so called by men, but are not [really] gods;
and that he will endeavour in a tyrannical manner to set himself forth as
God. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxvi-p2 | 2. Moreover, he (the apostle) has also pointed out this
which I have shown in many ways, that the temple in Jerusalem was made by
the direction of the true God. For the apostle himself, speaking in his
own person, distinctly called it the temple of God. Now I have shown in
the third book, that no one is termed God by the apostles when speaking
for themselves, except Him who truly is God, the Father of our Lord, by
whose directions the temple which is at Jerusalem was constructed for
those purposes which I have already mentioned; in which [temple] the
enemy shall sit, endeavouring to show himself as Christ, as the Lord also
declares: “But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation,
which has been spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy
place (let him that readeth understand), then let those who are in Judea
flee into the mountains; and he who is upon the house-top, let him not
come down to take anything out of his house: for there shall then be
great hardship, such as has not been from the beginning of the world
until now, nor ever shall be.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxvi-p4 | 3. Daniel too, looking forward to the end of the last
kingdom, i.e., the ten last kings, amongst whom the kingdom of those men
shall be partitioned, and upon whom the son of perdition shall come,
declares that ten horns shall spring from the beast, and that another
little horn shall arise in the midst of them, and that three of the
former shall be rooted up before his face. He says: “And, behold,
eyes were in this horn as the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great
things, and his look was more stout than his fellows. I was looking, and
this horn made war against the saints, and prevailed against them, until
the Ancient of days came and gave judgment to the saints of the most high
God, and the time came, and the saints obtained the kingdom.” Then, further on, in the interpretation of
the vision, there was said to him: “The fourth beast shall be the
fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall excel all other kingdoms, and
devour the whole earth, and tread it down, and cut it in pieces. And its
ten horns are ten kings which shall arise; and after them shall arise
another, who shall surpass in evil deeds all that were before
him, and shall overthrow three kings; and he shall speak words
against the most high God, and wear out the saints of the most high God,
and shall purpose to change times and laws; and [everything] shall be
given into his hand until a time of times and a half time,” that is, for three years and six months,
during which time, when he comes, he shall reign over the earth. Of whom
also the Apostle Paul again, speaking in the second [Epistle] to the
Thessalonians, and at the same time proclaiming the cause of his advent,
thus says: “And then shall the wicked one be revealed, whom the
Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of His mouth, and destroy by the
presence of His coming; whose coming [i.e., the wicked one’s] is
after the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and portents of
lies, and with all deceivableness of wickedness for those who perish;
because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be
saved. And therefore God will send them the working of error, that they
may believe a lie; that they all may be judged who did not believe the
truth, but gave consent to iniquity,” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxvi-p8 | 4. The Lord also spoke as follows to those who did not
believe in Him: “I have come in my Father’s name, and ye have
not received Me: when another shall come in his own name, him ye will
receive,” calling Antichrist
“the other,” because he is alienated from the Lord. This is
also the unjust judge, whom the Lord mentioned as one “who feared
not God, neither regarded man,” to
whom the widow fled in her forgetfulness of God,—that is, the
earthly Jerusalem,—to be avenged of her adversary. Which also he
shall do in the time of his kingdom: he shall remove his kingdom into
that [city], and shall sit in the temple of God, leading astray those who
worship him, as if he were Christ. To this purpose Daniel says again:
“And he shall desolate the holy place; and sin has been given for a
sacrifice,
and righteousness been cast away in the earth, and he has been active
(fecit), and gone on prosperously.” And the angel Gabriel, when explaining his vision, states with
regard to this person: “And towards the end of their kingdom a king
of a most fierce countenance shall arise, one understanding [dark]
questions, and exceedingly powerful, full of wonders; and he shall
corrupt, direct, influence (faciet), and put strong men down, the
holy people likewise; and his yoke shall be directed as a wreath [round
their neck]; deceit shall be in his hand, and he shall be lifted up in
his heart: he shall also ruin many by deceit, and lead many to perdition,
bruising them in his hand like eggs.” And then he points out the time that his tyranny shall
last, during which the saints shall be put to flight, they who offer a
pure sacrifice unto God: “And in the midst of the week,” he
says, “the sacrifice and the libation shall be taken away, and the
abomination of desolation [shall be brought] into the temple: even unto
the consummation of the time shall the desolation be
complete.” Now three years and six
months constitute the half-week. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxvi-p11 | This may
refer to Antiochus Epiphanes, Antichrist’s prototype, who offered
swine upon the altar in the temple at Jerusalem. The LXX. version has,
ἐδόθη ἐπὶ τὴν θυσίαν ἁμαρτία, i.e.,
sin has been given against (or, upon) the sacrifice. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxvi-p15 | 5. From all these passages are revealed to us, not
merely the particulars of the apostasy, and [the doings] of him who
concentrates in himself every satanic error, but also, that there is one
and the same God the Father, who was declared by the prophets, but made
manifest by Christ. For if what Daniel prophesied concerning the end has
been confirmed by the Lord, when He said, “When ye shall see the
abomination of desolation, which has been spoken of by Daniel the
prophet” (and the angel Gabriel
gave the interpretation of the visions to Daniel, and he is the archangel
of the Creator (Demiurgi), who also proclaimed to Mary the visible
coming and the incarnation of Christ), then one and the same God is most
manifestly pointed out, who sent the prophets, and made promise of the Son, and called us into His
knowledge. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxvii-p1 | 1. In a still
clearer light has John, in the Apocalypse, indicated to the Lord’s
disciples what shall happen in the last times, and concerning the ten
kings who shall then arise, among whom the empire which now rules [the
earth] shall be partitioned. He teaches us what the ten horns shall be
which were seen by Daniel, telling us that thus it had been said to him:
“And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, who have
received no kingdom as yet, but shall receive power as if kings one hour
with the beast. These have one mind, and give their strength and power to
the beast. These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall
overcome them, because He is the Lord of lords and the King of
kings.” It is manifest,
therefore, that
of these [potentates], he who is to come
shall slay three, and subject the remainder to his power, and that he
shall be himself the eighth among them. And they shall lay Babylon waste,
and burn her with fire, and shall give their kingdom to the beast, and
put the Church to flight. After that they shall be destroyed by the
coming of our Lord. For that the kingdom must be divided, and thus come
to ruin, the Lord [declares when He] says: “Every kingdom divided
against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided
against itself shall not stand.” It must
be, therefore, that the kingdom, the city, and the house be divided into
ten; and for this reason He has already foreshadowed the partition and
division [which shall take place]. Daniel also says particularly, that
the end of the fourth kingdom consists in the toes of the image seen by
Nebuchadnezzar, upon which came the stone cut out without hands; and as
he does himself say: “The feet were indeed the one part iron, the
other part clay, until the stone was cut out without hands, and struck
the image upon the iron and clay feet, and dashed them into pieces, even
to the end.” Then afterwards, when
interpreting this, he says: “And as thou sawest the feet and the
toes, partly indeed of clay, and partly of iron, the kingdom shall be
divided, and there shall be in it a root of iron, as thou sawest iron
mixed with baked clay. And the toes were indeed the one part iron, but
the other part clay.” The
ten toes, therefore, are these ten kings, among whom the kingdom shall be
partitioned, of whom some indeed shall be strong and active, or
energetic; others, again, shall be sluggish and useless, and shall not
agree; as also Daniel says: “Some part of the kingdom shall be
strong, and part shall be broken from it. As thou sawest the iron mixed
with the baked clay, there shall be minglings among the human race, but
no cohesion one with the other, just as iron cannot be welded on to
pottery ware.” And since an end shall
take place, he says: “And in the days of these kings shall the God
of heaven raise up a kingdom which shall never decay, and His kingdom
shall not be left to another people. It shall break in pieces and shatter
all kingdoms, and shall itself be exalted for ever. As thou sawest that
the stone was cut without hands from the mountain, and brake in pieces
the baked clay, the iron, the brass, the silver, and the gold, God has
pointed out to the king what shall come to pass after these things; and
the dream is true, and the interpretation trustworthy.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxvii-p8 | 2. If therefore the great God showed future
things by Daniel, and confirmed them by His Son; and if Christ is the
stone which is cut out without hands, who shall destroy temporal
kingdoms, and introduce an eternal one, which is the resurrection of the
just; as he declares, “The God of heaven shall raise up a kingdom
which shall never be destroyed,”—let those thus confuted
come to their senses, who reject the Creator (Demiurgum), and do
not agree that the prophets were sent beforehand from the same Father
from whom also the Lord came, but who assert that prophecies originated
from diverse powers. For those things which have been predicted by the
Creator alike through all the prophets has Christ fulfilled in the end,
ministering to His Father’s will, and completing His dispensations
with regard to the human race. Let those persons, therefore, who
blaspheme the Creator, either by openly expressed words, such as the
disciples of Marcion, or by a perversion of the sense [of Scripture], as
those of Valentinus and all the Gnostics falsely so called, be recognised
as agents of Satan by all those who worship God; through whose agency
Satan now, and not before, has been seen to speak against God, even Him
who has prepared eternal fire for every kind of apostasy. For he did not
venture to blaspheme his Lord openly of himself; as also in the beginning
he led man astray through the instrumentality of the serpent, concealing
himself as it were from God. Truly has Justin remarked: That before the Lord’s
appearance Satan never dared to blaspheme God, inasmuch as he did not yet
know his own sentence, because it was contained in parables and
allegories; but that after the Lord’s appearance, when he had
clearly ascertained from the words of Christ and His apostles that
eternal fire has been prepared for him as he apostatized from God of his
own free-will, and likewise for all who unrepentant continue in the
apostasy, he now blasphemes, by means of such men, the Lord who brings
judgment [upon him] as being already condemned, and imputes the guilt of
his apostasy to his Maker, not to his own voluntary disposition. Just as
it is with those who break the laws, when punishment overtakes them: they
throw the blame upon those who frame the laws, but not upon themselves.
In like manner do those men, filled with a satanic spirit, bring
innumerable accusations against our Creator, who has both given to us the
spirit of life, and established a law adapted for all; and they will not
admit that the judgment of God is just. Wherefore also they set about
imagining some other Father who neither cares about nor exercises a
providence
over our affairs, nay, one who even approves of
all sins. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxvii-p9 | The Greek text is here preserved by
Eusebius, Hist. Eccl., iv. 18; but we are not told from what work
of Justin Martyr it is extracted. The work is now lost. An ancient catena
continues the Greek for several lines further. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxviii-p1 | 1. If the Father, then,
does not exercise judgment, [it follows] that judgment does not belong to
Him, or that He consents to all those actions which take place; and if He
does not judge, all persons will be equal, and accounted in the same
condition. The advent of Christ will therefore be without an object, yea,
absurd, inasmuch as [in that case] He exercises no judicial power. For
“He came to divide a man against his father, and the daughter
against the mother, and the daughter-in-law against the
mother-in-law;” and when two are in one
bed, to take the one, and to leave the other; and of two women grinding
at the mill, to take one and leave the other: [also] at the time of the end, to order the reapers to collect
first the tares together, and bind them in bundles, and burn them with
unquenchable fire, but to gather up the wheat into the barn; and to call the lambs into the kingdom
prepared for them, but to send the goats into everlasting fire, which has
been prepared by His Father for the devil and his angels. And why is this? Has the Word come for
the ruin and for the resurrection of many? For the ruin, certainly, of
those who do not believe Him, to whom also He has threatened a greater
damnation in the judgment-day than that of Sodom and Gomorrah; but for the resurrection of believers, and
those who do the will of His Father in heaven. If then the advent of the
Son comes indeed alike to all, but is for the purpose of judging, and
separating the believing from the unbelieving, since, as those who
believe do His will agreeably to their own choice, and as, [also]
agreeably to their own choice, the disobedient do not consent to His
doctrine; it is manifest that His Father has made all in a like
condition, each person having a choice of his own, and a free
understanding; and that He has regard to all things, and exercises a
providence over all, “making His sun to rise upon the evil and on
the good, and sending rain upon the just and unjust.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxviii-p8 | 2. And to as many as continue in
their love towards God, does He grant communion with Him. But communion
with God is life and light, and the enjoyment of all the benefits which
He has in store. But on as many as, according to their own choice, depart
from God, He inflicts that separation from Himself which they have chosen
of their own accord. But separation from God is death, and separation
from light is darkness; and separation from God consists in the loss of
all the benefits which He has in store. Those, therefore, who cast away
by apostasy these forementioned things, being in fact destitute of all
good, do experience every kind of punishment. God, however, does not
punish them immediately of Himself, but that punishment falls upon them
because they are destitute of all that is good. Now, good things are eternal and
without end with God, and therefore the loss of these is also eternal and
never-ending. It is in this matter just as occurs in the case of a flood
of light: those who have blinded themselves, or have been blinded by
others, are for ever deprived of the enjoyment of light. It is not,
[however], that the light has inflicted upon them the penalty of
blindness, but it is that the blindness itself has brought calamity upon
them: and therefore the Lord declared, “He that believeth in Me is
not condemned,” that is, is not
separated from God, for he is united to God through faith. On the other
hand, He says, “He that believeth not is condemned already, because
he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God;”
that is, he separated himself from God of his own accord. “For this
is the condemnation, that light is come into this world, and men have
loved darkness rather than light. For every one who doeth evil hateth the
light, and cometh not to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made
manifest, that he has wrought them in God.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxix-p1 | 1. Inasmuch, then, as in this
world (αἰῶνι) some persons
betake themselves to the light, and by faith unite themselves with God,
but others shun the light, and separate themselves from God, the Word of
God comes preparing a fit habitation for both. For those indeed who are
in the light, that they may derive enjoyment from it, and from the good
things contained in it; but for those in darkness, that they may partake
in its calamities. And on this account He says, that those upon the right
hand are called into the kingdom of heaven, but that those on the left He
will send into eternal fire for they have deprived themselves of all
good. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxix-p2 | 2. And for this reason the apostle says: “Because
they received not the love of God, that they might be saved,
therefore God shall also send them the operation of error, that they may
believe a lie, that they all may be judged who have not believed the
truth, but consented to unrighteousness.” For when he (Antichrist)
is come, and of his own accord concentrates in his own person the
apostasy, and accomplishes whatever he shall do according to his own will
and choice, sitting also in the temple of God, so that his dupes may
adore him as the Christ; wherefore also shall he deservedly “be
cast into the lake of fire:” [this
will happen according to divine appointment], God by His prescience
foreseeing all this, and at the proper time sending such a man,
“that they may believe a lie, that they all may be judged who did
not believe the truth, but consented to unrighteousness;” whose coming John has thus described in the
Apocalypse: “And the beast which I had seen was like unto a
leopard, and his feet as of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion;
and the dragon conferred his own power upon him, and his throne, and
great might. And one of his heads was as it were slain unto death; and
his deadly wound was healed, and all the world wondered after the beast.
And they worshipped the dragon because he gave power to the beast; and
they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto this beast, and who
is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth
speaking great things, and blasphemy and power was given to him during
forty and two months. And he opened his mouth for blasphemy against God,
to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven.
And power was given him over every tribe, and people, and tongue, and
nation. And all who dwell upon the earth worshipped him, [every one]
whose name was not written in the book of the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. If any one have ears, let him hear. If any one
shall lead into captivity, he shall go into captivity. If any shall slay
with the sword, he must be slain with the sword. Here is the endurance
and the faith of the saints.”
After this he likewise describes his armour-bearer, whom he also terms a
false prophet: “He spake as a dragon, and exercised all the power
of the first beast in his sight, and caused the earth, and those that
dwell therein, to adore the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
And he shall perform great wonders, so that he can even cause fire to
descend from heaven upon the earth in the sight of men, and he shall lead
the inhabitants of the earth astray.” Let no one imagine that he performs these wonders by
divine power, but by the working of magic. And we must not be surprised
if, since the demons and apostate spirits are at his service, he through
their means performs wonders, by which he leads the inhabitants of the
earth astray. John says further: “And he shall order an image of
the beast to be made, and he shall give breath to the image, so that the
image shall speak; and he shall cause those to be slain who will not
adore it.” He says also: “And he will cause a mark [to be
put] in the forehead and in the right hand, that no one may be able to
buy or sell, unless he who has the mark of the name of the beast or the
number of his name; and the number is six hundred and
sixty-six,” that is, six times a
hundred, six times ten, and six units. [He gives this] as a summing up of
the whole of that apostasy which has taken place during six thousand
years. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxix-p8 | 3. For in as many days as this world was made, in so
many thousand years shall it be concluded. And for this reason the
Scripture says: “Thus the heaven and the earth were finished, and
all their adornment. And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day
the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all
His works.” This is an account of the
things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For
the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident,
therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxix-p11 | 4. And therefore throughout all time, man, having been
moulded at the beginning by the hands of God, that is, of the Son and of
the Spirit, is made after the image and likeness of God: the chaff,
indeed, which is the apostasy, being cast away; but the wheat, that is,
those who bring forth fruit to God in faith, being gathered into the
barn. And for this cause tribulation is necessary for those who are
saved, that having been after a manner broken up, and rendered fine, and
sprinkled over by the patience of the Word of God, and set on fire [for
purification], they may be fitted for the royal banquet. As a certain man
of ours said, when he was condemned to the wild beasts because of his
testimony with respect to God: “I am the wheat of Christ, and am
ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure
bread of God.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxix-p12 |
This is quoted from the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans, ch. iv. It is
found in the two Greek recensions of his works, and also in the Syriac.
See pp. 75 and 103 of this volume. The Latin translation is here
followed: the Greek of Ignatius would give “the wheat of
God,” and omits “of God” towards the end, as quoted by
Eusebius. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxx-p1 | 1. In the previous books I
have set forth the causes for which God permitted these things to be
made, and have pointed out that all such have been created for the
benefit of that human nature which is saved, ripening for immortality
that which is [possessed] of its own free will and its own power, and
preparing and rendering it more adapted for eternal subjection to God.
And therefore the creation is suited to [the wants of] man; for man was
not made for its sake, but creation for the sake of man. Those nations,
however, who did not of themselves raise up their eyes unto heaven, nor
returned thanks to their Maker, nor wished to behold the light of truth,
but who were like blind mice concealed in the depths of ignorance, the
word justly reckons “as waste water from a sink, and as the
turning-weight of a balance—in fact, as nothing;” so far useful and serviceable to the just, as
stubble conduces towards the growth of the wheat, and its straw, by means
of combustion, serves for working gold. And therefore, when in the end
the Church shall be suddenly caught up from this, it is said,
“There shall be tribulation such as has not been since the
beginning, neither shall be.” For
this is the last contest of the righteous, in which, when they overcome
they are crowned with incorruption. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxx-p4 | 2. And there is therefore in this beast, when he comes,
a recapitulation made of all sorts of iniquity and of every deceit, in
order that all apostate power, flowing into and being shut up in him, may
be sent into the furnace of fire. Fittingly, therefore, shall his name
possess the number six hundred and sixty-six, since he sums up in his own
person all the commixture of wickedness which took place previous to the
deluge, due to the apostasy of the angels. For Noah was six hundred years
old when the deluge came upon the earth, sweeping away the rebellious
world, for the sake of that most infamous generation which lived in the
times of Noah. And [Antichrist] also sums up every error of devised idols
since the flood, together with the slaying of the prophets and the
cutting off of the just. For that image which was set up by
Nebuchadnezzar had indeed a height of sixty cubits, while the breadth was
six cubits; on account of which Ananias, Azarias, and Mishaell, when they
did not worship it, were cast into a furnace of fire, pointing out
prophetically, by what happened to them, the wrath against the righteous
which shall arise towards the [time of the] end. For that image, taken as
a whole, was a prefiguring of this man’s coming, decreeing that he
should undoubtedly himself alone be worshipped by all men. Thus, then,
the six hundred years of Noah, in whose time the deluge occurred because
of the apostasy, and the number of the cubits of the image for which
these just men were sent into the fiery furnace, do indicate the number
of the name of that man in whom is concentrated the whole apostasy of six
thousand years, and unrighteousness, and wickedness, and false prophecy,
and deception; for which things’ sake a cataclysm of fire shall
also come [upon the earth]. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxi-p1 | 1. Such, then, being the state of the
case, and this number being found in all the most approved and ancient
copies [of the Apocalypse], and those men who saw John face
to face bearing their testimony [to it]; while reason also leads us to
conclude that the number of the name of the beast, [if reckoned]
according to the Greek mode of calculation by the [value of] the letters
contained in it, will amount to six hundred and sixty and six; that is,
the number of tens shall be equal to that of the hundreds, and the number
of hundreds equal to that of the units (for that number which [expresses]
the digit six being adhered to throughout, indicates the recapitulations
of that apostasy, taken in its full extent, which occurred at the
beginning, during the intermediate periods, and which shall take place at
the end),—I do not know how it is that some have erred following
the ordinary mode of speech, and have vitiated the middle number in the
name, deducting the amount of fifty from it, so that instead of six
decads they will have it that there is but one. [I am inclined to think
that this occurred through the fault of the copyists, as is wont to
happen, since numbers also are expressed by letters; so that the Greek
letter which expresses the number sixty was easily expanded into the
letter Iota of the Greeks.] Others then received this reading
without examination; some in their simplicity, and upon
their own responsibility, making use of this number expressing one decad;
while some, in their inexperience, have ventured to seek out a name which
should contain the erroneous and spurious number. Now, as regards those
who have done this in simplicity, and without evil intent, we are at
liberty to assume that pardon will be granted them by God. But as for
those who, for the sake of vainglory, lay it down for certain that names
containing the spurious number are to be accepted, and affirm that this
name, hit upon by themselves, is that of him who is to come; such persons
shall not come forth without loss, because they have led into error both
themselves and those who confided in them. Now, in the first place, it is
loss to wander from the truth, and to imagine that as being the case
which is not; then again, as there shall be no light punishment
[inflicted] upon him who either adds or subtracts anything from the
Scripture, under that such a person
must necessarily fall. Moreover, another danger, by no means trifling,
shall overtake those who falsely presume that they know the name of
Antichrist. For if these men assume one [number], when this [Antichrist]
shall come having another, they will be easily led away by him, as
supposing him not to be the expected one, who must be guarded
against. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxi-p2 | ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς σπουδαίοις καὶ ἀρχαίοις ἀντιγράφοις
This passage is interesting, as showing how very soon the autographs of
the New Testament must have perished, and various readings crept into the
mss. of the canonical
books. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxi-p3 | That is, Ξ into ΕΙ, according to
Harvey, who considers the whole of this clause as an evident
interpolation. It does not occur in the Greek here preserved by Eusebius
(Hist. Eccl., v. 8). | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxi-p5 | 2. These men, therefore, ought to learn [what really is
the state of the case], and go back to the true number of the name, that
they be not reckoned among false prophets. But, knowing the sure number
declared by Scripture, that is, six hundred sixty and six, let them
await, in the first place, the division of the kingdom into ten; then, in
the next place, when these kings are reigning, and beginning to set their
affairs in order, and advance their kingdom, [let them learn] to
acknowledge that he who shall come claiming the kingdom for himself, and
shall terrify those men of whom we have been speaking, having a name
containing the aforesaid number, is truly the abomination of desolation.
This, too, the apostle affirms: “When they shall say, Peace and
safety, then sudden destruction shall come upon them.” And Jeremiah does not merely point out his
sudden coming, but he even indicates the tribe from which he shall come,
where he says, “We shall hear the voice of his swift horses from
Dan; the whole earth shall be moved by the voice of the neighing of his
galloping horses: he shall also come and devour the earth, and the
fulness thereof, the city also, and they that dwell therein.” This, too, is the reason that this tribe is
not reckoned in the Apocalypse along with those which are saved. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxi-p8 | Rev. vii.
5–7. [The Danites (though not all) corrupted the Hebrew
church and the Levitical priesthood, by image-worship, (Judg.
xviii.), and forfeited the blessings of the old covenant.] | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxi-p9 | 3. It is therefore more certain, and less hazardous, to
await the fulfilment of the prophecy, than to be making surmises, and
casting about for any names that may present themselves, inasmuch as many
names can be found possessing the number mentioned; and the same question
will, after all, remain unsolved. For if there are many names found
possessing this number, it will be asked which among them shall the
coming man bear. It is not through a want of
names containing the number of that name that I say this, but on account
of the fear of God, and zeal for the truth: for the name Evanthas
(ΕΥΑΝΘΑΣ) contains the
required number, but I make no allegation regarding it. Then also Lateinos (ΛΑΤΕΙΝΟΣ)
has the number six hundred and sixty-six; and it is a very probable
[solution], this being the name of the last kingdom [of the four seen by
Daniel]. For the Latins are they who at present bear rule: I will not, however, make any boast
over this [coincidence]. Teitan too,
(ΤΕΙΤΑΝ, the first
syllable being written with the two Greek vowels ε and
ι, among all the names
which are found among us, is rather worthy of credit. For it has in
itself the predicted number, and is composed of six letters, each
syllable containing three letters; and [the word itself] is ancient, and
removed from ordinary use; for among our kings we find none bearing this
name Titan, nor have any of the idols which are worshipped in public
among the Greeks and barbarians this appellation. Among many persons,
too, this name is accounted divine, so that even the sun is termed
“Titan” by those who do now possess [the rule]. This word,
too, contains a certain outward appearance of vengeance, and of one
inflicting merited punishment because he (Antichrist) pretends that he
vindicates the oppressed. And besides this, it is an
ancient name, one worthy of credit, of royal dignity, and still further,
a name belonging to a tyrant. Inasmuch, then, as this name
“Titan” has so much to recommend it, there is a strong degree
of probability, that from among the many [names suggested], we infer,
that perchance he who is to come shall be called “Titan.” We
will not, however, incur the risk of pronouncing positively as to the
name of Antichrist; for if it were necessary that his name should be
distinctly revealed in this present time, it would have been announced by
him who beheld the apocalyptic vision. For that was seen no very long
time
since, but almost in our day, towards the end of
Domitian’s reign. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxi-p12 | 4. But he indicates the number of the name now, that
when this man comes we may avoid him, being aware who he is: the name,
however, is suppressed, because it is not worthy of being proclaimed by
the Holy Spirit. For if it had been declared by Him, he (Antichrist)
might perhaps continue for a long period. But now as “he was, and
is not, and shall ascend out of the abyss, and goes into
perdition,” as one who has no
existence; so neither has his name been declared, for the name of that
which does not exist is not proclaimed. But when this Antichrist shall
have devastated all things in this world, he will reign for three years
and six months, and sit in the temple at Jerusalem; and then the Lord
will come from heaven in the clouds, in the glory of the Father, sending
this man and those who follow him into the lake of fire; but bringing in
for the righteous the times of the kingdom, that is, the rest, the
hallowed seventh day; and restoring to Abraham the promised inheritance,
in which kingdom the Lord declared, that “many coming from the east
and from the west should sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxii-p1 | 1. Since,
again, some who are reckoned among the orthodox go beyond the
pre-arranged plan for the exaltation of the just, and are ignorant of the
methods by which they are disciplined beforehand for incorruption, they
thus entertain heretical opinions. For the heretics, despising the
handiwork of God, and not admitting the salvation of their flesh, while
they also treat the promise of God contemptuously, and pass beyond God
altogether in the sentiments they form, affirm that immediately upon
their death they shall pass above the heavens and the Demiurge, and go to
the Mother (Achamoth) or to that Father whom they have feigned. Those
persons, therefore, who disallow a resurrection affecting the whole man
(universam reprobant resurrectionem), and as far as in them lies
remove it from the midst [of the Christian scheme], how can they be
wondered at, if again they know nothing as to the plan of the
resurrection? For they do not choose to understand, that if these things
are as they say, the Lord Himself, in whom they profess to believe, did
not rise again upon the third day; but immediately upon His expiring on
the cross, undoubtedly departed on high, leaving His body to the earth.
But the case was, that for three days He dwelt in the place where the
dead were, as the prophet says concerning Him: “And the Lord
remembered His dead saints who slept formerly in the land of sepulture;
and He descended to them, to rescue and save them.” And the Lord Himself says, “As Jonas remained three
days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man
be in the heart of the earth.” Then also
the apostle says, “But when He ascended, what is it but that He
also descended into the lower parts of the earth?” This, too, David says when prophesying of Him, “And thou
hast delivered my soul from the nethermost hell;” and on His rising again the third day, He said to Mary, who was
the first to see and to worship Him, “Touch Me not, for I have not
yet ascended to the Father; but go to the disciples, and say unto them, I
ascend unto My Father, and unto your Father.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxii-p7 | 2. If, then, the Lord observed the law of
the dead, that He might become the first-begotten from the dead, and
tarried until the third day “in the lower parts of the
earth;” then afterwards rising in
the flesh, so that He even showed the print of the nails to His
disciples, He thus ascended to the
Father;—[if all these things occurred, I say], how must these men
not be put to confusion, who allege that “the lower parts”
refer to this world of ours, but that their inner man, leaving the body
here, ascends into the super-celestial place? For as the Lord “went
away in the midst of the shadow of death,” where the souls of the dead were, yet afterwards arose in the
body, and after the resurrection was taken up [into heaven], it is
manifest that the souls of His disciples also, upon whose account the
Lord underwent these things, shall go away into the invisible place
allotted to them by God, and there remain until the resurrection,
awaiting that event; then receiving their bodies, and rising in their
entirety, that is bodily, just as the Lord arose, they shall come thus
into the presence of God. “For no disciple is above the Master, but
every one that is perfect shall be as his Master.” As our Master, therefore, did not at once depart, taking flight
[to heaven], but awaited the time of His resurrection prescribed by the
Father, which had been also shown forth through Jonas, and rising again
after three days was taken up [to heaven];
so ought we also
to await the time of our resurrection prescribed by God and foretold by
the prophets, and so, rising, be taken up, as many as the Lord shall
account worthy of this [privilege]. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxii-p12 | The five following chapters were omitted in the earlier
editions, but added by Feuardentius. Most mss., too, did not contain them.
It is probable that the scribes of the middle ages rejected them on
account of their inculcating millenarian notions, which had been long
extinct in the Church. Quotations from these five chapters have been
collected by Harvey from Syriac and Armenian mss. lately come to light. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxiii-p1 | 1. Inasmuch, therefore, as the opinions of certain
[orthodox persons] are derived from heretical discourses, they are both
ignorant of God’s dispensations, and of the mystery of the
resurrection of the just, and of the [earthly] kingdom which is the
commencement of incorruption, by means of which kingdom those who shall
be worthy are accustomed gradually to partake of the divine nature
(capere Deum); and it is
necessary to tell them respecting those things, that it behoves the
righteous first to receive the promise of the inheritance which God
promised to the fathers, and to reign in it, when they rise again to
behold God in this creation which is renovated, and that the judgment
should take place afterwards. For
it is just that in that very creation in which they toiled or were
afflicted, being proved in every way by suffering, they should receive
the reward of their suffering; and that in the creation in which they
were slain because of their love to God, in that they should be revived
again; and that in the creation in which they endured servitude, in that
they should reign. For God is rich in all things, and all things are His.
It is fitting, therefore, that the creation itself, being restored to its
primeval condition, should without restraint be under the dominion of the
righteous; and the apostle has made this plain in the Epistle to the
Romans, when he thus speaks: “For the expectation of the creature
waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature has
been subjected to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath
subjected the same in hope; since the creature itself shall also be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the
sons of God.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxiii-p4 | 2. Thus, then, the promise of God, which He gave to
Abraham, remains stedfast. For thus He said: “Lift up thine eyes,
and look from this place where now thou art, towards the north and south,
and east and west. For all the earth which thou seest, I will give to
thee and to thy seed, even for ever.” And again He says, “Arise, and go
through the length and breadth of the land, since I will give it unto
thee;” and [yet] he did not
receive an inheritance in it, not even a footstep, but was always a
stranger and a pilgrim therein. And upon the death of Sarah his wife, when the
Hittites were willing to bestow upon him a place where he might bury her,
he declined it as a gift, but bought the burying-place (giving for it
four hundred talents of silver) from Ephron the son of Zohar the
Hittite. Thus did he await patiently
the promise of God, and was unwilling to appear to receive from men, what
God had promised to give him, when He said again to him as follows:
“I will give this land to thy seed, from the river of Egypt even
unto the great river Euphrates.” If, then,
God promised him the inheritance of the land, yet he did not receive it
during all the time of his sojourn there, it must be, that together with
his seed, that is, those who fear God and believe in Him, he shall
receive it at the resurrection of the just. For his seed is the Church,
which receives the adoption to God through the Lord, as John the Baptist
said: “For God is able from the stones to raise up children to
Abraham.” Thus also the apostle says
in the Epistle to the Galatians: “But ye, brethren, as Isaac was,
are the children of the promise.” And again,
in the same Epistle, he plainly declares that they who have believed in
Christ do receive Christ, the promise to Abraham thus saying, “The
promises were spoken to Abraham, and to his seed. Now He does not say,
And of seeds, as if [He spake] of many, but as of one, And to thy seed,
which is Christ.” And again, confirming his
former words, he says, “Even as Abraham believed God, and it was
accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore, that they which
are of faith are the children of Abraham. But the Scripture, foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith, declared to Abraham
beforehand, That in thee shall all nations be blessed. So then they which
are of faith shall be blessed with faithful Abraham.” Thus, then, they who are of faith shall be
blessed with faithful Abraham, and these are the children of Abraham. Now
God made promise of the earth to Abraham and his seed; yet neither
Abraham nor his seed, that is, those who are justified by faith, do now
receive any
inheritance in it; but they shall receive it at
the resurrection of the just. For God is true and faithful; and on this
account He said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the
earth.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxiv-p1 | 1. For this reason, when about to undergo His
sufferings, that He might declare to Abraham and those with him the glad
tidings of the inheritance being thrown open, [Christ], after He had
given thanks while holding the cup, and had drunk of it, and given it to
the disciples, said to them: “Drink ye all of it: this is My blood
of the new covenant, which shall be shed for many for the remission of
sins. But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of
this vine, until that day when I will drink it new with you in my
Father’s kingdom.” Thus,
then, He will Himself renew the inheritance of the earth, and will
re-organize the mystery of the glory of [His] sons; as David says,
“He who hath renewed the face of the earth.” He promised to drink of the fruit of the vine with His disciples,
thus indicating both these points: the inheritance of the earth in which
the new fruit of the vine is drunk, and the resurrection of His disciples
in the flesh. For the new flesh which rises again is the same which also
received the new cup. And He cannot by any means be understood as
drinking of the fruit of the vine when settled down with his [disciples]
above in a super-celestial place; nor, again, are they who drink it
devoid of flesh, for to drink of that which flows from the vine pertains
to flesh, and not spirit. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxiv-p4 | 2. And for this reason the Lord declared, “When
thou makest a dinner or a supper, do not call thy friends, nor thy
neighbours, nor thy kinsfolk, lest they ask thee in return, and so repay
thee. But call the lame, the blind, and the poor, and thou shall be
blessed, since they cannot recompense thee, but a recompense shall be
made thee at the resurrection of the just.” And again He says, “Whosoever shall have
left lands, or houses, or parents, or brethren, or children because of
Me, he shall receive in this world an hundred-fold, and in that to come
he shall inherit eternal life.” For what are the hundred-fold
[rewards] in this word, the entertainments given to the poor, and the
suppers for which a return is made? These are [to take place] in the
times of the kingdom, that is, upon the seventh day, which has been
sanctified, in which God rested from all the works which He created,
which is the true Sabbath of the righteous, which they shall not be
engaged in any earthly occupation; but shall have a table at hand
prepared for them by God, supplying them with all sorts of dishes. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxiv-p7 | 3. The blessing of Isaac with which he blessed
his younger son Jacob has the same meaning, when he says, “Behold,
the smell of my son is as the smell of a full field which the Lord has
blessed.” But “the
field is the world.” And
therefore he added, “God give to thee of the dew of heaven, and of
the fatness of the earth, plenty of corn and wine. And let the nations
serve thee, and kings bow down to thee; and be thou lord over thy
brother, and thy father’s sons shall bow down to thee: cursed shall
be he who shall curse thee, and blessed shall be he who shall bless
thee.” If any one, then,
does not accept these things as referring to the appointed kingdom, he
must fall into much contradiction and contrariety, as is the case with
the Jews, who are involved in absolute perplexity. For not only did not
the nations in this life serve this Jacob; but even after he had received
the blessing, he himself going forth [from his home], served his uncle
Laban the Syrian for twenty years; and not
only was he not made lord of his brother, but he did himself bow down
before his brother Esau, upon his return from Mesopotamia to his father,
and offered many gifts to him.
Moreover, in what way did he inherit much corn and wine here, he who
emigrated to Egypt because of the famine which possessed the land in
which he was dwelling, and became subject to Pharaoh, who was then ruling
over Egypt? The predicted blessing, therefore, belongs unquestionably to
the times of the kingdom, when the righteous shall bear rule upon their
rising from the dead; when also
the creation, having been renovated and set free, shall fructify with an
abundance of all kinds of food, from the dew of heaven, and from the
fertility of the earth: as the elders who saw John, the disciple of the
Lord, related that they had heard
from him how the Lord used
to teach in regard to these times, and say: The days will come, in which
vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch
ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in each one of the
shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten
thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five and twenty
metretes of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a
cluster, another shall cry out, “I am a better
cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.” In like manner [the
Lord declared] that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and
that every ear should have ten thousand grains, and every grain would
yield ten pounds (quinque bilibres) of clear, pure, fine flour;
and that all other fruit-bearing trees, and seeds and grass,
would produce in similar proportions (secundum congruentiam iis
consequentem); and that all animals feeding [only] on the productions
of the earth, should [in those days] become peaceful and harmonious among
each other, and be in perfect subjection to man. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxiv-p13 |
From this to the end of the section there is an Armenian version extant,
to be found in the Spicil. Solesm. i. p. 1, edited by M. Pitra,
Paris 1852, and which was taken by him from an Armenian ms. in the Mechitarist Library at
Venice, described as being of the twelfth century. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxiv-p17 | 4. And these things
are borne witness to in writing by Papias, the hearer of John, and a
companion of Polycarp, in his fourth book; for there were five books
compiled (συντεταγμένα) by
him. And he says in addition,
“Now these things are credible to believers.” And he says
that, “when the traitor Judas did not give credit to them, and put
the question, ‘How then can things about to bring forth so
abundantly be wrought by the Lord?’ the Lord declared, ‘They
who shall come to these [times] shall see.’ ” When
prophesying of these times, therefore, Esaias says: “The wolf also
shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall take his rest with the
kid; the calf also, and the bull, and the lion shall eat together; and a
little boy shall lead them. The ox and the bear shall feed together, and
their young ones shall agree together; and the lion shall eat straw as
well as the ox. And the infant boy shall thrust his hand into the
asp’s den, into the nest also of the adder’s brood; and they
shall do no harm, nor have power to hurt anything in my holy
mountain.” And again he says, in recapitulation, “Wolves and
lambs shall then browse together, and the lion shall eat straw like the
ox, and the serpent earth as if it were bread; and they shall neither
hurt nor annoy anything in my holy mountain, saith the Lord.” I am quite aware that some persons
endeavour to refer these words to the case of savage men, both of
different nations and various habits, who come to believe, and when they
have believed, act in harmony with the righteous. But although this is
[true] now with regard to some men coming from various nations to the
harmony of the faith, nevertheless in the resurrection of the just [the
words shall also apply] to those animals mentioned. For God is rich in
all things. And it is right that when the creation is restored, all the
animals should obey and be in subjection to man, and revert to the food
originally given by God (for they had been originally subjected in
obedience to Adam), that is, the productions of the earth. But some other
occasion, and not the present, is [to be sought] for showing that the
lion shall [then] feed on straw. And this indicates the large size and
rich quality of the fruits. For if that animal, the lion, feeds upon
straw [at that period], of what a quality must the wheat itself be whose
straw shall serve as suitable food for lions? | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxv-p1 | 1. Then,
too, Isaiah himself has plainly declared that there shall be joy of this
nature at the resurrection of the just, when he says: “The dead
shall rise again; those, too, who are in the tombs shall arise, and those
who are in the earth shall rejoice. For the dew from Thee is health to
them.” And this again Ezekiel
also says: “Behold, I will open your tombs, and will bring you
forth out of your graves; when I will draw my people from the sepulchres,
and I will put breath in you, and ye shall live; and I will place you on
your own land, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.” And again the same speaks thus: “These things
saith the Lord, I will
gather Israel from all nations whither they have been driven, and I shall
be sanctified in them in the sight of the sons of the nations: and they
shall dwell in their own land, which I gave to my servant Jacob. And they
shall dwell in it in peace; and they shall build houses, and plant
vineyards, and dwell in hope, when I shall cause judgment to fall among
all who have dishonoured them, among those who encircle them round about;
and they shall know that I am the Lord their God, and the God of
their fathers.” Now I have shown a
short time ago that the church is the seed of Abraham; and for this
reason, that we may know that He who in the New Testament “raises
up from the stones children unto
Abraham,” is He who will gather, according to the Old
Testament, those that shall be saved from all the nations, Jeremiah says:
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more
say, The Lord liveth, who
led the children of Israel from the north, and from every region whither
they had been driven; He will restore them to their own land which He
gave to their fathers.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxv-p7 | 2. That the whole creation shall, according to
God’s will, obtain a vast increase, that it may bring forth and
sustain fruits such [as we have mentioned], Isaiah declares: “And
there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every prominent hill,
water running everywhere in that day, when many shall perish, when walls
shall fall. And the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun,
seven times that of the day, when He shall heal the anguish of His
people, and do away with the pain of His stroke.” Now “the pain of the stroke” means
that inflicted at the beginning upon disobedient man in Adam, that is,
death; which [stroke] the Lord will heal when He raises us from the dead,
and restores the inheritance of the fathers, as Isaiah again says:
“And thou shall be confident in the Lord, and He will cause thee to
pass over the whole earth, and feed thee with the inheritance of Jacob
thy father.” This is what the Lord
declared: “Happy are those servants whom the Lord when He cometh
shall find watching. Verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself,
and make them to sit down [to meat], and will come forth and serve them.
And if He shall come in the evening watch, and find them so, blessed are
they, because He shall make them sit down, and minister to them; or if
this be in the second, or it be in the third, blessed are
they.” Again John also says
the very same in the Apocalypse: “Blessed and holy is he who has
part in the first resurrection.” Then, too,
Isaiah has declared the time when these events shall occur; he says:
“And I said, Lord, how long? Until the cities be wasted without
inhabitant, and the houses be without men, and the earth be left a
desert. And after these things the Lord shall remove us men far away
(longe nos faciet Deus homines), and those who shall remain shall
multiply upon the earth.” Then
Daniel also says this very thing: “And the kingdom and dominion,
and the greatness of those under the heaven, is given to the saints of
the Most High God, whose kingdom is everlasting, and all dominions shall
serve and obey Him.” And lest
the promise named should be understood as referring to this time, it was
declared to the prophet: “And come thou, and stand in thy lot at
the consummation of the days.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxv-p15 | 3. Now, that the promises were not announced to the
prophets and the fathers alone, but to the Churches united to these from
the nations, whom also the Spirit terms “the islands” (both
because they are established in the midst of turbulence, suffer the storm
of blasphemies, exist as a harbour of safety to those in peril, and are
the refuge of those who love the height [of heaven], and strive to avoid
Bythus, that is, the depth of error), Jeremiah thus declares: “Hear
the word of the Lord, ye
nations, and declare it to the isles afar off; say ye, that the Lord will scatter Israel, He will
gather him, and keep him, as one feeding his flock of sheep. For the Lord
hath redeemed Jacob, and rescued him from the hand of one stronger than
he. And they shall come and rejoice in Mount Zion, and shall come to what
is good, and into a land of wheat, and wine, and fruits, of animals and
of sheep; and their soul shall be as a tree bearing fruit, and they shall
hunger no more. At that time also shall the virgins rejoice in the
company of the young men: the old men, too, shall be glad, and I will
turn their sorrow into joy; and I will make them exult, and will magnify
them, and satiate the souls of the priests the sons of Levi; and my
people shall be satiated with my goodness.” Now, in the preceding book I have shown
that all the disciples of the Lord are Levites and priests, they who used
in the temple to profane the Sabbath, but are blameless. Promises of such a nature, therefore, do indicate in the clearest
manner the feasting of that creation in the kingdom of the righteous,
which God promises that He will Himself serve. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxv-p19 | 4. Then again, speaking of Jerusalem, and of Him
reigning there, Isaiah declares, “Thus saith the Lord, Happy is he who hath seed
in Zion, and servants in Jerusalem. Behold, a righteous king shall reign,
and princes shall rule with judgment.” And with regard to the
foundation on which it shall be rebuilt, he says: “Behold, I will
lay in order for thee a carbuncle stone, and sapphire for thy
foundations; and I will lay thy ramparts with jasper, and thy gates with
crystal, and thy wall with choice stones: and all thy children shall be
taught of God, and great shall be the peace of thy children; and in
righteousness shalt thou be built up.” And yet again
does he
say the same thing: “Behold, I make Jerusalem a rejoicing, and my
people [a joy]; for the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her,
nor the voice of crying. Also there shall not be there any immature
[one], nor an old man who does not fulfil his time: for the youth shall
be of a hundred years; and the sinner shall die a hundred years old, yet
shall be accursed. And they shall build houses, and inhabit them
themselves; and shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them
themselves, and shall drink wine. And they shall not build, and others
inhabit; neither shall they prepare the vineyard, and others eat. For as
the days of the tree of life shall be the days of the people in thee; for
the works of their hands shall endure.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxvi-p1 | 1. If, however, any
shall endeavour to allegorize [prophecies] of this kind, they shall not
be found consistent with themselves in all points, and shall be confuted
by the teaching of the very expressions [in question]. For example:
“When the cities” of the Gentiles “shall be desolate,
so that they be not inhabited, and the houses so that there shall be no
men in them and the land shall be left desolate.” “For, behold,” says Isaiah, “the day of the
Lord cometh past remedy,
full of fury and wrath, to lay waste the city of the earth, and to root
sinners out of it.” And again
he says, “Let him be taken away, that he behold not the glory of
God.” And when these things are
done, he says, “God will remove men far away, and those that are
left shall multiply in the earth.” “And
they shall build houses, and shall inhabit them themselves: and plant
vineyards, and eat of them themselves.” For all these and other words were unquestionably spoken in
reference to the resurrection of the just, which takes place after the
coming of Antichrist, and the destruction of all nations under his rule;
in [the times of] which [resurrection] the righteous shall reign in the
earth, waxing stronger by the sight of the Lord: and through Him they
shall become accustomed to partake in the glory of God the Father, and
shall enjoy in the kingdom intercourse and communion with the holy
angels, and union with spiritual beings; and [with respect to] those whom
the Lord shall find in the flesh, awaiting Him from heaven, and who have
suffered tribulation, as well as escaped the hands of the Wicked one. For
it is in reference to them that the prophet says: “And those that
are left shall multiply upon the earth,” And Jeremiah the prophet has pointed out, that as many
believers as God has prepared for this purpose, to multiply those left
upon earth, should both be under the rule of the saints to minister to
this Jerusalem, and that [His] kingdom shall be in it, saying,
“Look around Jerusalem towards the east, and behold the joy which
comes to thee from God Himself. Behold, thy sons shall come whom thou
hast sent forth: they shall come in a band from the east even unto the
west, by the word of that Holy One, rejoicing in that splendour which is
from thy God. O Jerusalem, put off thy robe of mourning and of
affliction, and put on that beauty of eternal splendour from thy God.
Gird thyself with the double garment of that righteousness proceeding
from thy God; place the mitre of eternal glory upon thine head. For God
will show thy glory to the whole earth under heaven. For thy name shall
for ever be called by God Himself, the peace of righteousness and glory
to him that worships God. Arise, Jerusalem, stand on high, and look
towards the east, and behold thy sons from the rising of the sun, even to
the west, by the Word of that Holy One, rejoicing in the very remembrance
of God. For the footmen have gone forth from thee, while they were drawn
away by the enemy. God shall bring them in to thee, being borne with
glory as the throne of a kingdom. For God has decreed that every high
mountain shall be brought low, and the eternal hills, and that the
valleys be filled, so that the surface of the earth be rendered smooth,
that Israel, the glory of God, may walk in safety. The woods, too, shall
make shady places, and every sweet-smelling tree shall be for Israel
itself by the command of God. For God shall go before with joy in the
light of His splendour, with the pity and righteousness which proceeds
from Him.” | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxvi-p8 | 2. Now all these things being such as they are, cannot
be understood in reference to super-celestial matters; “for
God,” it is said, “will show to the whole earth that is under
heaven thy glory.” But in the times of the kingdom, the earth has
been called again by Christ [to its pristine condition], and Jerusalem
rebuilt after the pattern of the Jerusalem above, of which the prophet
Isaiah says, “Behold, I have depicted thy walls upon my hands, and
thou art always in
my sight.” And the apostle, too, writing to the Galatians, says in like
manner, “But the Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the
mother of us all.” He does not say this with
any thought of an erratic Æon, or of any other power which departed from
the Pleroma, or of Prunicus, but of the Jerusalem which has been
delineated on [God’s] hands. And in the Apocalypse John saw this
new [Jerusalem] descending upon the new earth. For after the times of the kingdom, he says, “I saw a great
white throne, and Him who sat upon it, from whose face the earth fled
away, and the heavens; and there was no more place for them.” And he sets forth, too, the things connected
with the general resurrection and the judgment, mentioning “the
dead, great and small.” “The sea,” he says, “gave
up the dead which it had in it, and death and hell delivered up the dead
that they contained; and the books were opened. Moreover,” he says,
“the book of life was opened, and the dead were judged out of those
things that were written in the books, according to their works; and
death and hell were sent into the lake of fire, the second
death.” Now this is what
is called Gehenna, which the Lord styled eternal fire. “And if any one,” it is said, “was not found
written in the book of life, he was sent into the lake of
fire.” And after this, he says,
“I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth
have passed away; also there was no more sea. And I saw the holy city,
new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, as a bride adorned for her
husband.” “And I heard,” it is said, “a great
voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
and He will dwell with them; and they shall be His people, and God
Himself shall be with them as their God. And He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes; and death shall be no more, neither sorrow, nor crying,
neither shall there be any more pain, because the former things have
passed away.” Isaiah also
declares the very same: “For there shall be a new heaven and a new
earth; and there shall be no remembrance of the former, neither shall the
heart think about them, but they shall find in it joy and
exultation.” Now this is what has
been said by the apostle: “For the fashion of this world passeth
away.” To the same purpose did the Lord
also declare, “Heaven and earth shall pass away.” When these things, therefore, pass away above
the earth, John, the Lord’s disciple, says that the new Jerusalem
above shall [then] descend, as a bride adorned for her husband; and that
this is the tabernacle of God, in which God will dwell with men. Of this
Jerusalem the former one is an image—that Jerusalem of the former
earth in which the righteous are disciplined beforehand for incorruption
and prepared for salvation. And of this tabernacle Moses received the
pattern in the mount; and nothing is capable of
being allegorized, but all things are stedfast, and true, and
substantial, having been made by God for righteous men’s enjoyment.
For as it is God truly who raises up man, so also does man truly rise
from the dead, and not allegorically, as I have shown repeatedly. And as
he rises actually, so also shall he be actually disciplined beforehand
for incorruption, and shall go forwards and flourish in the times of the
kingdom, in order that he may be capable of receiving the glory of the
Father. Then, when all things are made new, he shall truly dwell in the
city of God. For it is said, “He that sitteth on the throne said,
Behold, I make all things new. And the Lord says, Write all this; for
these words are faithful and true. And He said to me, They are
done.” And this is the truth of
the matter. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxvii-p1 | 1. For since there are real men, so must there also be
a real establishment (plantationem), that they vanish not away
among non-existent things, but progress among those which have an actual
existence. For
neither is the substance nor the essence of the creation annihilated (for
faithful and true is He who has established it), but “the
fashion of the world passeth away;” that is, those things among which transgression has occurred,
since man has grown old in them. And therefore this [present] fashion has
been formed temporary, God foreknowing all things; as I have pointed out
in the preceding book, and have also shown, as far as was possible,
the cause of the creation of this world of temporal things. But when this
[present] fashion [of things] passes away, and man has been renewed, and
flourishes in an incorruptible state, so as to preclude the possibility
of becoming old, [then] there shall be the new heaven and the new earth,
in which the new man shall remain [continually],
always
holding fresh converse with God. And since (or, that) these things
shall ever continue without end, Isaiah declares, “For as the new
heavens and the new earth which I do make, continue in my sight, saith
the Lord, so shall your
seed and your name remain.” And as
the presbyters say, Then those who are deemed worthy of an abode in
heaven shall go there, others shall enjoy the delights of paradise, and
others shall possess the splendour of the city; for everywhere the
Saviour shall be seen
according as they who see Him shall be worthy. | null |
ccel/s/schaff/anf01.xml:ix.vii.xxxvii-p6 | 2. [They say, moreover], that there is this
distinction between the habitation of those who produce an hundred-fold,
and that of those who produce sixty-fold, and that of those who produce
thirty-fold: for the first will be taken up into the heavens, the second
will dwell in paradise, the last will inhabit the city; and that was on
this account the Lord declared, “In My Father’s house are
many mansions.” For all things belong to
God, who supplies all with a suitable dwelling-place; even as His Word
says, that a share is allotted to all by the Father, according as each
person is or shall be worthy. And this is the couch on which the guests
shall recline, having been invited to the wedding. The presbyters, the disciples of the apostles, affirm that this
is the gradation and arrangement of those who are saved, and that they
advance through steps of this nature; also that they ascend through the
Spirit to the Son, and through the Son to the Father, and that in due
time the Son will yield up His work to the Father, even as it is said by
the apostle, “For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under
His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” For in the times of the kingdom, the righteous
man who is upon the earth shall then forget to die. “But when He
saith, All things shall be subdued unto Him, it is manifest that He is
excepted who did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be
subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him who
put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.” | null |
Subsets and Splits