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.

§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. Hence the exceptional and supra-natural gift of being in God’s Image, with the promise of bliss conditionally upon his perseverance in grace.

Thus do they vainly speculate. But the godly teaching and the faith according to Christ brands their foolish language as godlessness. For it knows that it was not spontaneously, because forethought is not absent; nor of existing matter, because God is not weak; but that out of nothing, and without its having any previous existence, God made the universe to exist through His word, as He says firstly through Moses: “In7    Gen. i. 1. the beginning God created the heaven and the earth;” secondly, in the most edifying book of the Shepherd, “First8    Herm. Mand. 1. of all believe that God is one, which created and framed all things, and made them to exist out of nothing.” 2. To which also Paul refers when he says, “By9    Heb. xi. 3. faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the Word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear.” 3. For God is good, or rather is essentially the source of goodness: nor10    c. Gent. xli. and Plato, Timæus 29 E. could one that is good be niggardly of anything: whence, grudging existence to none, He has made all things out of nothing by His own Word, Jesus Christ our Lord. And among these, having taken especial pity, above all things on earth, upon the race of men, and having perceived its inability, by virtue of the condition of its origin, to continue in one stay, He gave them a further gift, and He did not barely create man, as He did all the irrational creatures on the earth, but made them after His own image, giving them a portion even of the power of His own Word; so that having as it were a kind of reflexion of the Word, and being made rational, they might be able to abide ever in blessedness, living the true life which belongs to the saints in paradise. 4. But knowing once more how the will of man could sway to either side, in anticipation He secured the grace given them by a law and by the spot where He placed them. For He brought them into His own garden, and gave them a law: so that, if they kept the grace and remained good, they might still keep the life in paradise without sorrow or pain or care besides having the promise of incorruption in heaven; but that if they transgressed and turned back, and became evil, they might know that they were incurring that corruption in death which was theirs by nature: no longer to live in paradise, but cast out of it from that time forth to die and to abide in death and in corruption. 5. Now this is that of which Holy Writ also gives warning, saying in the Person of God: “Of every tree11    Gen. ii. 16, sq. that is in the garden, eating thou shalt eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, ye shall not eat of it, but on the day that ye eat, dying ye shall die.” But by “dying ye shall die,” what else could be meant than not dying merely, but also abiding ever in the corruption of death?

Ταῦτα μὲν οὗτοι μυθολογοῦσιν. Ἡ δὲ ἔνθεος διδασκαλία καὶ ἡ κατὰ Χριστὸν πίστις τὴν μὲν τούτων ματαιολογίαν ὡς ἀθεότητα διαβάλλει. Οὔτε γὰρ αὐτομάτως, διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀπρονόητα εἶναι, οὔτε ἐκ προϋποκειμένης ὕλης, διὰ τὸ μὴ ἀσθενῆ εἶναι τὸν Θεόν· ἀλλ' ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων καὶ μηδαμῆ μηδαμῶς ὑπάρχοντα τὰ ὅλα εἰς τὸ εἶναι πεποιη κέναι τὸν Θεὸν διὰ τοῦ Λόγου οἶδεν, ᾗ φησὶ διὰ μὲν Μωϋσέως· “Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν”· διὰ δὲ τῆς ὠφελιμωτάτης βίβλου τοῦ Ποιμένος· “Πρῶτον πάντων πίστευσον, ὅτι εἷς ἐστὶν ὁ Θεός, ὁ τὰ πάντα κτίσας καὶ καταρτίσας, καὶ ποιήσας ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος εἰς τὸ εἶναι.” Ὅπερ καὶ ὁ Παῦλος σημαίνων φησί· “Πίστει νοοῦμεν κατηρτίσθαι τοὺς αἰῶνας ῥήματι Θεοῦ, εἰς τὸ μὴ ἐκ φαινομένων τὰ βλεπόμενα γεγονέναι.” Ὁ Θεὸς γὰρ ἀγαθός ἐστι, μᾶλλον δὲ πηγὴ τῆς ἀγαθότητος ὑπάρχει· ἀγαθῷ δὲ περὶ οὐδενὸς ἂν γένοιτο φθόνος· ὅθεν οὐδενὶ τοῦ εἶναι φθονήσας, ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων τὰ πάντα πεποίηκε διὰ τοῦ ἰδίου Λόγου τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ· ἐν οἷς πρὸ πάντων τῶν ἐπὶ γῆς τὸ ἀνθρώπων γένος ἐλεήσας, καὶ θεωρήσας ὡς οὐχ ἱκανὸν εἴη κατὰ τὸν τῆς ἰδίας γενέσεως λόγον διαμένειν ἀεί, πλέον τι χαριζόμενος αὐτοῖς, οὐχ ἁπλῶς, ὥσπερ πάντα τὰ ἐπὶ γῆς ἄλογα ζῷα, ἔκτισε τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ εἰκόνα ἐποίησεν αὐτούς, μεταδοὺς αὐτοῖς καὶ τῆς τοῦ ἰδίου Λόγου δυνάμεως, ἵνα ὥσπερ σκιάς τινας ἔχοντες τοῦ Λόγου καὶ γενόμενοι λογικοὶ διαμένειν ἐν μακαριότητι δυνηθῶσι, ζῶντες τὸν ἀληθινὸν καὶ ὄντως τῶν ἁγίων ἐν παραδείσῳ βίον. Εἰδὼς δὲ πάλιν τὴν ἀνθρώπων εἰς ἀμφότερα νεύειν δυναμένην προαίρεσιν, προλαβὼν ἠσφαλίσατο νόμῳ καὶ τόπῳ τὴν δοθεῖσαν αὐτοῖς χάριν. Εἰς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ γὰρ παράδεισον αὐτοὺς εἰσαγαγών, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς νόμον· ἵνα εἰ μὲν φυλάξαιεν τὴν χάριν καὶ μένοιεν καλοί, ἔχωσι τὴν ἐν παραδείσῳ ἄλυπον καὶ ἀνώδυνον καὶ ἀμέριμνον ζωήν, πρὸς τῷ καὶ τῆς ἐν οὐρανοῖς ἀφθαρσίας αὐτοὺς τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν ἔχειν· εἰ δὲ παραβαῖεν καὶ στραφέντες γένοιντο φαῦλοι, γινώσκοιεν ἑαυτοὺς τὴν ἐν θανάτῳ κατὰ φύσιν φθορὰν ὑπομένειν, καὶ μηκέτι μὲν ἐν παραδείσῳ ζῆν, ἔξω δὲ τούτου λοιπὸν ἀποθνῄσκοντας μένειν ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ καὶ ἐν τῇ φθορᾷ. Τοῦτο δὲ καὶ ἡ θεία γραφὴ προσημαίνει λέγουσα ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ Θεοῦ· “Ἀπὸ παντὸς ξύλου τοῦ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ βρώσει φαγῇ· ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ ξύλου τοῦ γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρὸν οὐ φάγεσθε ἀπ' αὐτοῦ· ᾗ δ' ἂν ἡμέρᾳ φάγησθε, θανάτῳ ἀποθανεῖσθε.” Τὸ δὲ θανάτῳ ἀπο θανεῖσθε, τί ἂν ἄλλο εἴη ἢ τὸ μὴ μόνον ἀποθνῄσκειν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν τῇ τοῦ θανάτου φθορᾷ διαμένειν;