On the Incarnation of the Word.

 On the Incarnation of the Word.

 §2. Erroneous views of Creation rejected. (1) Epicurean (fortuitous generation). But diversity of bodies and parts argues a creating intellect. (2.) P

 §3. The true doctrine. Creation out of nothing, of God’s lavish bounty of being. Man created above the rest, but incapable of independent perseverance

 §4. Our creation and God’s Incarnation most intimately connected. As by the Word man was called from non-existence into being, and further received th

 §5. For God has not only made us out of nothing but He gave us freely, by the Grace of the Word, a life in correspondence with God. But men, having r

 §6. The human race then was wasting, God’s image was being effaced, and His work ruined. Either, then, God must forego His spoken word by which man ha

 §7. On the other hand there was the consistency of God’s nature, not to be sacrificed for our profit. Were men, then, to be called upon to repent? But

 §8. The Word, then, visited that earth in which He was yet always present and saw all these evils. He takes a body of our Nature, and that of a spot

 §9. The Word, since death alone could stay the plague, took a mortal body which, united with Him, should avail for all, and by partaking of His immort

 § 10. By a like simile, the reasonableness of the work of redemption is shewn. How Christ wiped away our ruin, and provided its antidote by His own te

 §11. Second reason for the Incarnation. God, knowing that man was not by nature sufficient to know Him, gave him, in order that he might have some pro

 §12. For though man was created in grace, God, foreseeing his forgetfulness, provided also the works of creation to remind man of him. Yet further, He

 § 13. Here again, was God to keep silence? to allow to false gods the worship He made us to render to Himself? A king whose subjects had revolted woul

 §14. A portrait once effaced must be restored from the original. Thus the Son of the Father came to seek, save, and regenerate. No other way was possi

 §15. Thus the Word condescended to man’s engrossment in corporeal things, by even taking a body. All man’s superstitions He met halfway whether men w

 §16. He came then to attract man’s sense-bound attention to Himself as man, and so to lead him on to know Him as God.

 §17. How the Incarnation did not limit the ubiquity of the Word, nor diminish His Purity. (Simile of the Sun.)

 § 18. How the Word and Power of God works in His human actions: by casting out devils, by Miracles, by His Birth of the Virgin.

 §19. Man, unmoved by nature, was to be taught to know God by that sacred Manhood, Whose deity all nature confessed, especially in His Death.

 §20. None, then, could bestow incorruption, but He Who had made, none restore the likeness of God, save His Own Image, none quicken, but the Life, non

 §21. Death brought to nought by the death of Christ. Why then did not Christ die privately, or in a more honourable way? He was not subject to natural

 §22. But why did He not withdraw His body from the Jews, and so guard its immortality? (1) It became Him not to inflict death on Himself, and yet not

 §23. Necessity of a public death for the doctrine of the Resurrection.

 §24. Further objections anticipated. He did not choose His manner of death for He was to prove Conqueror of death in all or any of its forms: (simile

 §25. Why the Cross, of all deaths? (1) He had to bear the curse for us. (2) On it He held out His hands to unite all, Jews and Gentiles, in Himself. (

 §26. Reasons for His rising on the Third Day. (1) Not sooner for else His real death would be denied, nor (2) later to (a) guard the identity of His

 §27. The change wrought by the Cross in the relation of Death to Man.

 §28. This exceptional fact must be tested by experience. Let those who doubt it become Christians.

 §29. Here then are wonderful effects, and a sufficient cause, the Cross, to account for them, as sunrise accounts for daylight.

 §30. The reality of the resurrection proved by facts: (1) the victory over death described above: (2) the Wonders of Grace are the work of One Living,

 §31. If Power is the sign of life, what do we learn from the impotence of idols, for good or evil, and the constraining power of Christ and of the Sig

 §32. But who is to see Him risen, so as to believe? Nay, God is ever invisible and known by His works only: and here the works cry out in proof. If yo

 §33. Unbelief of Jews and scoffing of Greeks. The former confounded by their own Scriptures. Prophecies of His coming as God and as Man.

 §34. Prophecies of His passion and death in all its circumstances.

 §35. Prophecies of the Cross. How these prophecies are satisfied in Christ alone.

 §36. Prophecies of Christ’s sovereignty, flight into Egypt, &c.

 §37. Psalm xxii. 16 , &c. Majesty of His birth and death. Confusion of oracles and demons in Egypt.

 §38. Other clear prophecies of the coming of God in the flesh. Christ’s miracles unprecedented.

 §39. Do you look for another? But Daniel foretells the exact time. Objections to this removed.

 §40. Argument (1) from the withdrawal of prophecy and destruction of Jerusalem, (2) from the conversion of the Gentiles, and that to the God of Moses.

 §41. Answer to the Greeks. Do they recognise the Logos? If He manifests Himself in the organism of the Universe, why not in one Body? for a human body

 §42. His union with the body is based upon His relation to Creation as a whole. He used a human body, since to man it was that He wished to reveal Him

 §43. He came in human rather than in any nobler form, because (I) He came to save, not to impress (2) man alone of creatures had sinned. As men woul

 §44. As God made man by a word, why not restore him by a word? But (1) creation out of nothing is different from reparation of what already exists. (2

 §45. Thus once again every part of creation manifests the glory of God. Nature, the witness to her Creator, yields (by miracles) a second testimony to

 §46. Discredit, from the date of the Incarnation, of idol-cultus, oracles, mythologies, demoniacal energy, magic, and Gentile philosophy. And whereas

 §47. The numerous oracles,—fancied apparitions in sacred places, &c., dispelled by the sign of the Cross. The old gods prove to have been mere men. Ma

 §48. Further facts. Christian continence of virgins and ascetics. Martyrs. The power of the Cross against demons and magic. Christ by His Power shews

 §49. His Birth and Miracles. You call Asclepius, Heracles, and Dionysus gods for their works. Contrast their works with His, and the wonders at His de

 §50. Impotence and rivalries of the Sophists put to shame by the Death of Christ. His Resurrection unparalleled even in Greek legend.

 §51. The new virtue of continence. Revolution of Society, purified and pacified by Christianity.

 §52. Wars, &c., roused by demons, lulled by Christianity.

 §53. The whole fabric of Gentilism levelled at a blow by Christ secretly addressing the conscience of Man.

 §54. The Word Incarnate, as is the case with the Invisible God, is known to us by His works. By them we recognise His deifying mission. Let us be cont

 §55. Summary of foregoing. Cessation of pagan oracles, &c.: propagation of the faith. The true King has come forth and silenced all usurpers.

 §56. Search then, the Scriptures, if you can, and so fill up this sketch. Learn to look for the Second Advent and Judgment.

 §57. Above all, so live that you may have the right to eat of this tree of knowledge and life, and so come to eternal joys. Doxology.

§4. Our creation and God’s Incarnation most intimately connected. As by the Word man was called from non-existence into being, and further received the grace of a divine life, so by the one fault which forfeited that life they again incurred corruption and untold sin and misery filled the world.

You are wondering, perhaps, for what possible reason, having proposed to speak of the Incarnation of the Word, we are at present treating of the origin of mankind. But this, too, properly belongs to the aim of our treatise. 2. For in speaking of the appearance of the Saviour amongst us, we must needs speak also of the origin of men, that you may know that the reason of His coming down was because of us, and that our transgression12    Cf. Orat. ii. 54, note 4. called forth the loving-kindness of the Word, that the Lord should both make haste to help us and appear among men. 3. For of His becoming Incarnate we were the object, and for our salvation He dealt so lovingly as to appear and be born even in a human body. 4. Thus, then, God has made man, and willed that he should abide in incorruption; but men, having despised and rejected the contemplation of God, and devised and contrived evil for themselves (as was said13    c. Gent. 3–5. in the former treatise), received the condemnation of death with which they had been threatened; and from thenceforth no longer remained as they were made, but14    Eccles. vii. 29; Rom. i. 21, 22. were being corrupted according to their devices; and death had the mastery over them as king15    Rom. v. 14.. For transgression of the commandment was turning them back to their natural state, so that just as they have had their being out of nothing, so also, as might be expected, they might look for corruption into nothing in the course of time. 5. For if, out of a former normal state of non-existence, they were called into being by the Presence and loving-kindness of the Word, it followed naturally that when men were bereft of the knowledge of God and were turned back to what was not (for what is evil is not, but what is good is), they should, since they derive their being from God who IS, be everlastingly bereft even of being; in other words, that they should be disintegrated and abide in death and corruption. 6. For man is by nature mortal, inasmuch as he is made out of what is not; but by reason of his likeness to Him that is (and if he still preserved this likeness by keeping Him in his knowledge) he would stay his natural corruption, and remain incorrupt; as Wisdom16    Wisd. vi. 18. says: “The taking heed to His laws is the assurance of immortality;” but being incorrupt, he would live henceforth as God, to which I suppose the divine Scripture refers, when it says: “I have17    Ps. lxxxii. 6, sq. said ye are gods, and ye are all sons of the most Highest; but ye die like men, and fall as one of the princes.”

Ἴσως θαυμάζεις τί δήποτε περὶ τῆς ἐναν θρωπήσεως τοῦ Λόγου προθέμενοι λέγειν, νῦν περὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς τῶν ἀνθρώπων διηγούμεθα. Ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἀλλότριόν ἐστι τοῦ σκοποῦ τῆς διηγήσεως. Ἀνάγκη γὰρ ἡμᾶς λέγοντας περὶ τῆς εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐπιφανείας τοῦ Σωτῆρος, λέγειν καὶ περὶ τῆς τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἀρχῆς, ἵνα γινώσκῃς ὅτι ἡ ἡμῶν αἰτία ἐκείνῳ γέγονε πρόφασις τῆς καθ όδου, καὶ ἡ ἡμῶν παράβασις τοῦ Λόγου τὴν φιλανθρωπίαν ἐξεκαλέσατο, ὥστε καὶ εἰς ἡμᾶς φθάσαι καὶ φανῆναι τὸν Κύριον ἐν ἀνθρώποις. Τῆς γὰρ ἐκείνου ἐνσωματώσεως ἡμεῖς γεγόναμεν ὑπόθεσις, καὶ διὰ τὴν ἡμῶν σωτηρίαν ἐφιλανθρωπεύσατο καὶ ἐν ἀνθρωπίνῳ γενέσθαι καὶ φανῆναι σώματι. Οὕτως μὲν οὖν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον πεποίηκε, καὶ μένειν ἠθέλησεν ἐν ἀφθαρσίᾳ· ἄνθρωποι δὲ κατολιγωρή σαντες καὶ ἀποστραφέντες τὴν πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν κατανόησιν, λογισάμενοι δὲ καὶ ἐπινοήσαντες ἑαυτοῖς τὴν κακίαν, ὥσπερ ἐν τοῖς πρώτοις ἐλέχθη, ἔσχον τὴν προαπειληθεῖσαν τοῦ θανάτου κατάκρισιν, καὶ λοιπὸν οὐκ ἔτι ὡς γεγόνασι διέμενον· ἀλλ' ὡς ἐλογίζοντο διεφθείροντο· καὶ ὁ θάνατος αὐτῶν ἐκράτει βασιλεύων. Ἡ γὰρ παράβασις τῆς ἐντολῆς εἰς τὸ κατὰ φύσιν αὐτοὺς ἐπέστρεφεν, ἵνα, ὥσπερ οὐκ ὄντες γεγόνασιν, οὕτως καὶ τὴν εἰς τὸ μὴ εἶναι φθορὰν ὑπομείνωσι τῷ χρόνῳ εἰκότως. Εἰ γὰρ φύσιν ἔχοντες τὸ μὴ εἶναί ποτε, τῇ τοῦ Λόγου παρουσίᾳ καὶ φιλανθρωπίᾳ εἰς τὸ εἶναι ἐκλήθησαν, ἀκόλουθον ἦν κενωθέντας τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τῆς περὶ Θεοῦ ἐννοίας καὶ εἰς τὰ οὐκ ὄντα ἀποστραφέντας, οὐκ ὄντα γάρ ἐστι τὰ κακά, ὄντα δὲ τὰ καλά, ἐπειδήπερ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὄντος Θεοῦ γεγόνασι, κενωθῆναι καὶ τοῦ εἶναι ἀεί. Τοῦτο δέ ἐστι τὸ διαλυθέντας μένειν ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ καὶ τῇ φθορᾷ. Ἔστι μὲν γὰρ κατὰ φύσιν ἄνθρωπος θνητός, ἅτε δὴ ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων γεγονώς. ∆ιὰ δὲ τὴν πρὸς τὸν ὄντα ὁμοιότητα, ἣν εἰ ἐφύλαττε διὰ τῆς πρὸς αὐτὸν κατανοήσεως, ἤμβλυνεν ἂν τὴν κατὰ φύσιν φθοράν, καὶ ἔμεινεν ἄφθαρτος· καθάπερ ἡ σοφία φησίν· “Προσοχὴ νόμων, βεβαίωσις ἀφθαρσίας”· ἄφθαρ τος δὲ ὤν, ἔζη λοιπὸν ὡς Θεός, ὥς που καὶ ἡ θεία γραφὴ τοῦτο σημαίνει λέγουσα· “Ἐγὼ εἶπα θεοί ἐστε, καὶ υἱοὶ ὑψίστου πάντες· ὑμεῖς δὲ ὡς ἄνθρωποι ἀποθνῄσκετε, καὶ ὡς εἷς τῶν ἀρχόντων πίπτετε.”