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is contained by their own God, for those who have received unerring knowledge, what must they do other than seek their own God and not meddle with the dead nor ask those deprived of all life about living things? For this is foolish and stupid. Having therefore the word of God and the evangelical law, given to you for help, learn from it concerning whatever you wish and conform to it, since it is never possible for it to be turned aside from the truth by gifts; for the law of God is not of a nature to be perverted by money, as tends to happen in the divinations of the superstitious, with many of their sorcerers contriving and often selling the oracles they invent for the deception of those who consult them, but the law of God is not like that, but being itself true, "it will teach you the truth concerning all things." But if you do not heed the law of God, a harsh famine will come upon you, and it will be that, when you are hungry, you will be grieved and you will speak evil of the ruler and of your ancestral ways, and they will look up to heaven above and they will look down upon the earth below, and behold, severe distress, affliction and anguish and darkness, so as not to see, and he who is in anguish will not be in distress until a time. These things have been said to those not willing to search out the law of God and conform to it and attend to it alone; for he says at one point: You have heard that he has given a law for help, an incorruptible and unbribable law, to which you must conform, turning away from all deception of demonic activity, and be deceived neither by oracles nor by divinations; for the law of God is sufficient for you in place of all things. But if anyone should fall away from this, he will be delivered to famine, "not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the word of the Lord"; for if he should become a transgressor of the divine law and an apostate from it, having been scandalized by those who propose demonic oracles and divinations, a famine of spiritual food will overtake him, and distraction and provocation, so as to fall into blasphemous thoughts, cursing his former king, whom he also named his God. But according to the Seventy, those delivered to the aforementioned famine, since their soul is not nourished with the life-giving food of the law, will be grieved and will speak evil of the ruler and their ancestral ways, as if the ancestral ways contained nothing venerable, that is, the ecclesiastical ordinances handed down to us by our fathers, they will speak evil of them and of the ruler, blaspheming the one who presides over the divinely-inspired readings, even the Word himself, the Christ of God, the ruler of the evangelical law. Therefore they will be clothed in darkness in their soul, since they have become apostates from the divine law and have been given over to external deceptions. And they will be held by affliction and distress, so that all, looking up to heaven and gazing down to earth, no longer see light, but only affliction and anguish. But the phrase, "he who is in anguish will not be in distress until a time," Symmachus has translated thus: "Faintness and anguish and darkness and expulsion; for there is no faintness, for whom there is no affliction." And he says that these things will happen concerning those who have abandoned the divine law, having fallen away after the first grace and again being dragged down by the error of the polytheistic nations. 1.54 We will say that the present passage of the prophecy is connected with the words concerning Emmanuel, but while in the preceding parts the aforesaid things went through concerning those who disbelieved him, in the parts at hand, very consistently, the present things have been said concerning those who received him. And who were the first to have received the Christ of God, it is possible to learn from the evangelical scripture, in which these things have been said: "But when Jesus heard that John had been delivered up, he withdrew into Galilee. And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum by the sea, in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali;

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ἰδίου θεοῦ περιέχεται, τοὺς τὴν ἀπλανῆ γνῶσιν ἀνειληφότας, τί χρὴ πράττειν ἢ τὸν ἑαυτῶν θεὸν ἐπιζητεῖν καὶ μὴ τοὺς νεκροὺς πολυπραγμονεῖν μηδ' ἐρωτᾶν περὶ πραγμάτων ζώντων τοὺς πάσης ζωῆς ἐστερημένους; μωρὸν γὰρ καὶ ἠλίθιον τοῦτό γε. Ἔχοντες οὖν τὸν τοῦ θεοῦ λόγον καὶ τὸν νόμον τὸν εὐαγγελικόν, εἰς βοήθειαν ὑμῖν δεδομένον, ἐξ αὐτοῦ μανθάνετε περὶ ὧν ἂν θέλοιτε καὶ τούτῳ στοιχεῖτε, ἐπεὶ μήποτε οἷόν τέ ἐστιν αὐτὸν δώροις ἐκστῆναι τοῦ ἀληθοῦς· οὐ γὰρ πέφυκε παρατρέπεσθαι χρήμασιν ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ νόμος, ὁποῖα φιλεῖ γίνεσθαι ἐν ταῖς τῶν δεισιδαιμόνων μαντείαις πολλὰ τῶν παρ' αὐτοῖς γοήτων τεχναζομένων καὶ πιπρασκόντων πολλάκις οὓς ἀναπλάττουσι χρησμοὺς πρὸς ἀπάτην τῶν χρωμένων, ἀλλ' οὐχὶ καὶ ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ νόμος τοιοῦτος, ἀληθὴς δὲ ὢν αὐτὸς «ὑμᾶς διδάξει τὴν περὶ πάντων ἀλήθειαν». εἰ δὲ τῷ νόμῳ τοῦ θεοῦ μὴ προσέχοιτε, ἥξει ἐφ' ὑμᾶς σκληρὰ λιμός, καὶ ἔσται, ὡς ἂν πεινάσητε, λυπηθήσεσθε καὶ κακῶς ἐρεῖτε τὸν ἄρχοντα καὶ τὰ πάτρια, καὶ ἀναβλέψονται εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἄνω καὶ εἰς τὴν γῆν κάτω ἐμβλέψονται, καὶ ἰδοὺ ἀπορία στενή, θλῖψις καὶ στενοχωρία καὶ σκότος, ὥστε μὴ βλέπειν, καὶ οὐκ ἀπορηθήσεται ὁ ἐν στενοχωρίᾳ ὢν ἕως καιροῦ. πρὸς τοὺς μὴ βουλομένους ἐξερευνᾶν τὸν τοῦ θεοῦ νόμον καὶ αὐτῷ στοιχεῖν καὶ μόνον αὐτὸν περιέπειν ταῦτα λέλεκται· ἅπαξ μὲν γάρ φησιν· ἀκηκόατε ὅτι νόμον εἰς βοήθειαν δέδωκεν, νόμον ἀδέκαστον καὶ ἀδωροδόκητον, ᾧ δεῖ στοιχοῦντας πᾶσαν ἀποστρέφεσθαι δαιμονικῆς ἐνεργείας πλάνην καὶ μηθ' ὑπὸ χρησμῶν μηθ' ὑπὸ μαντειῶν ἀπατᾶσθαι· ἔστι γὰρ ὑμῖν ἀντὶ πάντων αὐτάρκης ὁ τοῦ θεοῦ νόμος. εἰ δέ τις ἐκπέσοι τούτου, παραδοθήσεται λιμῷ, «οὐ λιμῷ ἄρτου οὐδὲ δίψει ὕδατος, ἀλλὰ λιμῷ τοῦ ἀκοῦσαι λόγον κυρίου»· εἰ γὰρ παραβάτης γένοιτο τοῦ θείου νόμου καὶ ἀποστάτης αὐτοῦ σκανδαλισθεὶς ὑπὸ τῶν τοὺς χρησμοὺς καὶ τὰς μαντείας τὰς δαιμονικὰς προϊσχομένων, λιμὸς τροφῶν λογικῶν τοῦτον διαδέξεται καὶ ἔκστασις καὶ παροξυσμὸς ὡς καὶ εἰς βλασφήμους ἐκπεσεῖν λογισμούς, καταρώμενον τὸν πάλαι βασιλέα ἑαυτοῦ, ὃν καὶ θεὸν ἑαυτοῦ ὠνόμαζεν. κατὰ δὲ τοὺς Ἑβδομήκοντα οἱ τῷ λεχθέντι λιμῷ παραδοθέντες, ἅτε μὴ τρεφόμενοι τὴν ψυχὴν τῇ ζωοποιῷ τοῦ νόμου τροφῇ, λυπηθήσονται καὶ κακῶς ἐροῦσι τὸν ἄρχοντα καὶ τὰ πάτρια, ὡς μηδὲν σεμνὸν περιεχόντων τῶν πατριῶν, δηλαδὴ τῶν ἐκκλησιαστικῶν θεσμῶν τῶν πατρόθεν ἡμῖν παραδοθέντων, κακῶς ἐροῦσιν αὐτά τε καὶ τὸν ἄρχοντα βλασφημοῦντες τὸν καθηγούμενον τῶν θεοπνεύστων ἀναγνωσμάτων, λόγον αὐτόν τε τὸν Χριστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ τὸν ἄρχοντα τοῦ εὐαγγελικοῦ νόμου. διὸ τὴν ψυχὴν σκότῳ περιβληθήσονται, ἅτε δὴ ἀποστάται γενόμενοι τοῦ θείου νόμου καὶ ταῖς ἔξωθεν ἀπάταις ἐκδοθέντες. καὶ θλίψει δὲ καὶ ἀπορίᾳ συσχεθήσονται, ὡς ἀναβλέψαντας ἄνω πάντας εἰς οὐρανὸν καὶ κάτω εἰς γῆν ἀτενίζοντας μηκέτι φῶς ὁρᾶν, μόνην δὲ θλῖψιν καὶ στενοχωρίαν. τὸ δέ· οὐκ ἀπορηθήσεται ὁ ἐν στενοχωρίᾳ ὢν ἕως καιροῦ, ὁ Σύμμαχος οὕτως ἡρμήνευσεν· ἔκλυσις καὶ στενοχωρία καὶ σκότος καὶ ἐξωσμός· οὐ γὰρ ἔκλυσις, ᾧ οὐκ ἔστι θλῖψις. ταῦτα δέ φησιν ἔσεσθαι περὶ τοὺς τὸν θεῖον ἀπολιπόντας νόμον, ἀπορρεύσαντας δὲ μετὰ τὴν πρώτην χάριν καὶ πάλιν ὑποσυρέντας τῇ τῶν πολυθέων ἐθνῶν πλάνῃ. 1.54 Τὴν προκειμένην περικοπὴν τῆς προφητείας ἠρτῆσθαι φήσομεν τῶν περὶ τοῦ Ἐμμανουὴλ λόγων, ἀλλ' ἐν μὲν τοῖς ἔμπροσθεν περὶ τῶν ἀπιστησάντων αὐτῷ διεξῄει τὰ προλεχθέντα, ἐν δὲ τοῖς μετὰ χεῖρα σφόδρα ἀκολούθως περὶ τῶν παραδεξαμένων αὐτὸν τὰ προκείμενα λέλεκται. τίνες δὲ ἦσαν οἱ πρῶτοι τὸν Χριστὸν τοῦ θεοῦ παραδεδεγμένοι, μαθεῖν ἐστιν ἀπὸ τῆς εὐαγγελικῆς γραφῆς, ἐν ᾗ λέλεκται ταῦτα· «ἀκούσας δὲ Ἰησοῦς ὅτι Ἰωάννης παρεδόθη ἀνεχώρησεν εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν. καὶ καταλιπὼν τὴν Ναζαρὲτ ἐλθὼν κατῴκησεν εἰς Καφερναοὺμ τὴν παραθαλασσίαν ἐν ὁρίοις Ζαβουλὼν καὶ Νεφθαλείμ·