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introducing herself in its place. This alone, properly speaking, presents man as being in the image of the Creator, wisely subjecting what is in our power to reason; but not inclining reason to this; and persuading the will to proceed according to nature, in no way rebelling against the principle of nature; according to which all, just as we have one nature, so also one mind and one will, can have toward God and one another, having no division with respect to God and one another, whenever we choose to be in accord with the law of grace, through which we renew the law of nature according to our will. For it is impossible for those who have not first been joined to God in harmony to be able to agree with one another in will.

For since in the beginning the devil who deceived man, having deceived him by the assault of pleasure through self-love with a wickedly contrived deceit, divided us in will from God and from one another, having perverted what was upright, and divided nature in this way, he cut it into many opinions and fantasies, and the method (397) and discovery for each evil, in time he established as law, having made use of our own faculties for this purpose, and having placed in all a wicked support for the permanence of evil, that which is incompatibility in will; from which he persuaded man once and for all to be turned from his natural motion, and to move his desire toward what was forbidden and away from what was commanded, and to establish for himself the three greatest and original evils, which are, simply speaking, the progenitors of all wickedness: I mean ignorance, self-love, and tyranny, which are dependent on one another and subsist through one another. For from ignorance of God comes self-love. And from this comes tyranny towards one’s kin; and no argument will contradict this; since these were established by the mode of misusing one's own faculties, of reason, and desire, and spiritedness; whereas it was necessary by reason, instead of ignorance, to be moved in utmost solitude toward God through knowledge in seeking; and by desire, pure of the passion of self-love, to be driven by longing toward God alone; and with spiritedness, separated from tyranny, to strive to attain God alone; and from these and for the sake of which these exist, to fashion the divine and blessed love, which both joins the God-lover to God, and shows him to be God. Since these things have evilly come to pass for man according to his own will, but by the deceit of the devil, God who both made nature, and wisely heals it when it has been weakened by wickedness, for the love he has for us, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, having unchangeably united this to himself in his hypostasis, having become man wholly according to us, from us, and for us, to such an extent, that he was considered by the unbelieving not to be God; although he is so much God as the ineffable and true account of piety supposes for the faithful, in order to destroy the works of the devil, and having restored the faculties uncorrupted to nature, might renew the power of love for union with himself, and of men with one another, the rival of self-love; which is and is known to be the first sin, and the first offspring of the devil and the mother of the passions after it; which he who presented himself worthy of God destroyed through love, and with it he destroyed also the whole throng of wickedness, which has no other basis or cause of existence after this one. For such a one no longer knows pride, the mark of godless conceit, the composite and strange evil. He is ignorant of the glory that falls, and with itself casts down those puffed up by it. He withers envy, which justly withers first those who have it, by making his kinsmen his own through voluntary goodwill; and anger and blood-guiltiness and wrath and deceit and hypocrisy and irony and malice and greed, and all the things by which the one man has been divided,

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ἑαυτῆς ἀντεισάγουσα. Αὕτη μόνη, κυρίως εἰπεῖν, κατ᾿ εἰκόνα τοῦ Κτίσαντος τόν ἄνθρωπον ὄντα παρίστησι, τῷ μέν λόγῳ σοφῶς τό ἐφ᾿ ἡμῖν ὑποτάσσουσα· τούτῳ δέ τόν λόγον οὐχ ὑποκλίνουσα· καί πείθουσα τήν γνώμην κατά τήν φύσιν πορεύεσθαι, μηδαμῶς πρός τόν λόγον τῆς φύσεως στασιάζουσαν· καθ᾿ ὅν ἅπαντες, ὥσπερ μίαν φύσιν, οὕτω δέ καί μίαν γνώμην καί θέλημα ἕν, Θεῷ καί ἀλλήλοις ἔχειν δυνάμεθα, οὐδεμίαν πρός Θεόν καί ἀλλήλους διάστασιν ἔχοντες, ὅτ᾿ ἄν τῷ νόμῳ τῆς χάριτος, δι᾿ οὗ τόν νόμον τῆς φύσεως γνωμικῶς ἀνακαινίζομεν, στοιχεῖον προαιρούμεθα. Ἀμήχανον γάρ τούς μή πρότερον Θεῷ καθ᾿ ὁμόνοιαν συναφθέντας, ἀλλήλοις συμβαίνειν δύνασθαι κατά τήν γνώμην.

Ἐπειδή γάρ κατ᾿ ἀρχάς τόν ἄνθρωπον ὁ ἀπατήσας διάβολος, δόλῳ κακούργως μεμηχανημένῳ διά φιλαυτίας, δι᾿ ἡδονῆς προσβολήν ἀπατήσας, Θεοῦ καί ἀλλήλων ἡμᾶς κατά τήν γνώμην διέστησε, τό τε εὐθές διατρέψας, καί τήν φύσιν κατά τόν τρόπον τοῦτον μερίσας, κατέτεμεν εἰς πολλάς δόξας καί φαντασίας, καί τήν ἐφ᾿ ἑκάστῳ κακῷ μέθοδόν τε (397) καί εὕρεσιν, τῷ χρόνῳ νόμον κατέστησε, ταῖς ἡμῶν πρός τοῦτο δυνάμεσι συγχρησάμενος, καί πονηρόν πρός διαμονήν τοῦ κακοῦ τοῖς πᾶσιν ἐνθέμενος ἔρεισμα, τό κατά τήν γνώμην ἀσύμβατον· ἀφ᾿ οὗ τόν ἄνθρωπον ἅπαξ τῆς κατά φύσιν κινήσεως τραπῆναι παρέπεισε, καί πρός τό κεκωλυμένον ἀπό τοῦ ἐπιτετραμμένου κινῆσαι τήν ὄρεξιν, καί τρία τά μέγιστα καί ἀρχαῖα κακά, καί πάσης ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν κακίας γεννητικά ἑαυτῷ ὑποστήσασθαι· ἄγνοιαν, φημί, καί φιλαυτίαν, τυραννίδα, ἀλλήλων ἐξηρτημένας καί δι᾿ ἀλλήλων συνισταμένας. Ἐκ γάρ τῆς περί Θεοῦ ἀγνοίας, ἡ φιλαυτία. Ἐκ δέ ταύτης, ἡ πρός τό συγγενές τυραννίς ἐστι· καί οὐδείς ἀντερεῖ λόγος· τῷ κατά παράχρησιν τρόπῳ τῶν οἰκείων δυνάμεων, λόγου τε καί ἐπιθυμίας καί θυμοῦ, ταύτας ὑποστησαμένων· δέον λόγῳ μέν, ἀντί τῆς ἀγνοίας πρός τόν Θεόν διά γνώσεως κατά ζήτησιν μονώτατον κινεῖσθαι· δι᾿ ἐπιθυμίας δέ, τοῦ τῆς φιλαυτίας πάθους καθαρόν κατά πόθον πρός τόν Θεόν μόνον ἐλαύνεσθαι· καί τῷ θυμῷ τυραννίδος κεχωρισμένῳ, πρός το Θεοῦ μόνου τυχεῖν ἀγωνίζεσθαι· καί τήν ἐκ τούτων καί δι᾿ ἥν ταῦτα, θείαν καί μακαρίαν ἀγάπην δημιουργῆσαι, τήν Θεῷ συνάπτουσάν τε, καί Θεόν ἀποφαίνουσαν τόν φιλόθεον. Ἐπειδή ταῦτα κατά θέλησιν μέν ἰδίαν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ἀπάτην δέ τοῦ διαβόλου συμβέβηκε κακῶς περί τόν ἄνθρωπον, ὁ τήν φύσιν καί ποιήσας Θεός, καί ἀσθενήσασαν ὑπό κακίας σοφῶς ἐξιώμενος, δι᾿ ἀγάπην τήν πρός ἡμᾶς, ἑαυτόν ἐκένωσε μορφήν δούλου λαβών, ἀτρέπτως ἑαυτῷ καθ᾿ ὑπόστασιν ταύτην ἑνώσας, ὅλος καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς ἐξ ἡμῶν δι᾿ ἡμᾶς τοσοῦτον γενόμενος ἄνθρωπος, ὅσον τοῦ μή Θεός εἶνα τοῖς ἀπίστοις ἐνομίζετο· καίτοι τοσοῦτον ὑπάρχων Θεός, ὅσον τοῖς πιστοῖς ὁ ἄῤῥητος τῆς εὐσεβείας καί ἀληθής ὑποτίθεται λόγος, ἵνα καταλύσῃ τά ἔργα τοῦ διαβόλου, καί τῇ φύσει ἀχράντους ἀποδούς τάς δυνάμεις, πάλιν τῆς πρός αὐτόν συναφείας, καί ἀλλήλους τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἀνακαινίσῃ τῆς ἀγάπης τήν δύναμιν, τήν τῆς φιλαυτίας ἀντίπαλον· τῆς πρώτης ἁμαρτίας, καί πρώπου γεννήματος τοῦ διαβόλου καί παθῶν τῶν μετ᾿ αὐτήν μητρός καί οὔσης καί γινωσκομένης· ἥν δι᾿ ἀγάπης ἀφανίσας ὁ ἑαυτόν Θεοῦ παρασχόμενος ἄξιον, συνηφάνισεν αὐτῇ καί πάντα τόν τῆς κακίας ὄχλον, βάσιν ἄλλην ἤ αἰτίαν τοῦ εἶναι μετά ταύτην οὐκ ἔχοντα. Οὐκέτι γάρ οἶδεν ὁ τοιοῦτος ὑπερηφανίαν, τό γνώρισμα τῆς ἀντιθέου οἰήσεως, τό σύνθετον κακόν καί ἀλλόκοτον. Ἀγνοεῖ δόξαν τήν πίπτουσαν, καί ἑαυτῇ τούς κατ᾿ αὐτήν φυσωμένους καταβάλλουσαν. Μαραίνει φθόνον, τόν τούς ἔχοντας πρῶτον δικαίως μαραίνοντα, δι' εὐνοίας ἑκουσίου τούς συγγενεῖς οἰκειούμενος· θυμόν τε καί μιαιφονίαν καί ὀργήν καί δόλον καί ὑπόκρισιν καί εἰρωνείαν καί μῆνιν καί πλεονεξίαν, καί πάντα οἷς ὁ εἷς μεμέρισται ἄνθρωπος,