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His economy for man, the Incarnation. For the eternally existent, from the eternally existent beyond cause and reason, is never foreknown. For foreknowledge is of those things which have a beginning of their being through a cause. Christ, therefore, was foreknown, not as He was by nature for His own sake, but as He appeared according to the economy, having become so for our sake later.

For it was truly necessary for the Creator by nature of the essence of beings to also become the author of the deification which comes by grace; so that the giver of being might also appear as the bestower of eternal well-being. Since, therefore, no being whatsoever knows itself or another, what it is in essence; (625) it is reasonable that no being by nature has the foreknowledge of anything that will come to be, except for God who is beyond beings; who both knows Himself, what He is in essence, and has foreknown the existence of all things made by Him before they came to be, and who is going to bestow graciously upon beings, according to grace, the knowledge of what they themselves and one another are in essence; and to reveal the principles of their genesis, which pre-existed uniformly in Him.

For the argument that some people were foreknown as Christ's before the foundation of the world, to whom He was later manifested in the last times, as if they themselves existed before the foundation of the world together with the foreknown Christ; we reject this argument as being foreign to the truth, inasmuch as it introduces the essence of rational beings as co-eternal with God. For it is not possible ever to be completely with Christ, since in Him the consummation of the ages and the cessation of things that are moved is destined to occur, at which point no being whatsoever will be subject to change. But the word of Scripture called Christ unblemished and spotless, as being by nature, in both soul and body, completely foreign to the corruption of sin. For His soul had no blemish of evil, nor His body a stain of sin.

SCHOLIA. 1. A boundary is a limit of a region, a limit of things naturally finite; measure is the description of quantity in general, and the end of ages and of temporal natures. A limit is the circumscription of things finite in beginning and end according to generation. Creation is the subsistence of things brought forth out of non-being. The union of these, he says, was preconceived according to hypostasis, by providence, in relation to the one from whom these things came to be. So that both the being of beings might be preserved according to essence as is its nature; and that its subsistence, that is, its mode of being, might receive divine grace, all things having been transformed into immutability by union with God.

2. He says that knowledge is twofold: one which lies in reason and divine concepts, being present in form but not having the sensation of the things conceived; and the other, according to activity, which alone, without reason and concepts, has the true enjoyment in form.

3. Since, he says, through knowledge, reason is naturally able to signify the known, it moves the desire of those moved by it toward the enjoyment of what was signified.

4. Before all experience, he says, there exists a principle of knowledge; because enjoyment is naturally able to prevail only according to experience.

QUESTION 61.

" For the time has come for judgment to begin from the (628) house of God; and if it begins first with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the Gospel of God? and if the righteous one is scarcely

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οἰκονομίαν αὐτοῦ διά τόν ἄνθρωπον σάρκωσις. Τό γάρ ἀεί ὄν, ἐκ τοῦ ἀεί ὄντος ὑπέρ αἰτίαν καί λόγον, οὐδέποτε προγινώσκεται. Ἡ γάρ πρόγνωσις, τῶν ἀρχήν ἐχόντων τοῦ εἶναι δι᾿ αἰτίαν ἐστίν. Προεγνώσθη οὖν ὁ Χριστός, οὐχ ὅπερ ἦν κατά φύσιν δι᾿ ἑαυτόν, ἀλλ᾿ ὅπερ ἐφάνη κατ᾿ οἰκονομίαν δι᾿ ἡμᾶς γενόμενος ὕστερον.

Ἔδει γάρ ὡς ἀληθῶς τόν κατά φύσιν τῆς τῶν ὄντων οὐσίας δημιουργόν, καί τῆς κατά χάριν αὐτουργόν γενέσθαι τόν γενόμενον θεώσεως· ἵνα ὁ τοῦ εἶναι δοτήρ, φανῇ καί τοῦ ἀεί εὖ εἶναι χαριστικός. Ἐπεί οὖν οὐδέν τῶν ὄντων ἑαυτό τό παράπαν ἤ ἄλλο γινώσκει, ὅ τί ποτε κατ᾿ οὐσίαν ἐστίν· (625) εἰκότως οὐδέ τῶν γενησομένων οὐδενός οὐδέν τῶν ὄντων ἔχει κατά φύσιν τήν πρόγνωσιν, πλήν τοῦ ὑπέρ τά ὄντα Θεοῦ· τοῦ καί ἑαυτόν γινώσκοντος, ὅ τί ποτε κατ᾿ οὐσίαν ἐστί, καί πάντων τῶν ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ πεποιημένων, καί πρίν γενέσθαι, προεγνωκότος τήν ὕπαρξιν, καί μέλλοντος κατά χάριν φιλοτιμεῖσθαι τοῖς οὖσι, τήν ἑαυτῶν καί ἀλλήλων ὅ τί ποτε κατ᾿ οὐσίαν ὑπάρχουσι, γνῶσιν· καί τούς ἐν αὐτῷ μονοειδῶς προόντας τῆς αὐτῶν γενέσεως φανερῶσαι λόγους.

Τό γάρ δή λέγειν τινάς προεγνῶσθαι τόν Χριστόν πρό καταβολῆς κόσμου, ἐκείνοις, οἷς ὕστερον ἐφανερώθη ἐπ᾿ ἐσχάτων τῶν χρόνων· ὡς αὐτῶν ἐκείνων πρό καταβολῆς κόσμου ὄντων σύν τῶ προεγνωσμένῳ Χριστῷ· ὡς τῆς ἀληθείας ἀλλότριον ὄντα τόν λόγον, οἷα συναΐδιον τῷ Θεῷ τήν τῶν λογικῶν οὐσίαν εἰσάγοντα, παραγραφόμεθα. Οὐ γάρ ἐστι παντελῶς σύν Χριστῶ γενέσθαι ποτέ· εἴπερ ἐν αὐτῷ πέφυκεν ἡ τῶν αἰώνων ἀποπεράτωσις γίνεσθαι, καί ἡ στάσις τῶν κινουμένων· καθ᾿ ἥν οὐδέν ἔσται τό παράπαν τῶν ὄντων τρεπόμενον. Ἄμωμον δέ καί ἄσπιλον ὁ τῆς Γραφῆς τόν Χριστόν ἔφη λόγος, ὡς κατά ψυχήν καί σῶμα φύσει παντελῶς τῆς κατά τήν ἁμαρτίαν φθορᾶς ἀλλότριον. Οὐ γάρ ἔσχεν αὐτοῦ μῶμον κακίας ἡ ψυχή· οὐδέ τό σῶμα σπίλον τῆς ἁμαρτίας.

ΣΧΟΛΙΑ. α΄. Ὅρος μέν ἔστι περιοχῆς, πέρας τῶν φύσει πεπερασμένων· τό δέ μέτρον,

καθόλου ποσότητος περιγραφή, καί τέλος αἰώνων τε καί χρονικῶν φύσεων. Τό δέ πέρας ἐστί, περιφραφή τῶν ἀρχῇ τε καί τέλει κατά γένεσιν πεπερασμένων. Ἡ δέ κτίσις ἐστί, τῶν κατά παραγωγήν ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων ὑπόστασις. Τούτων ἕνωσις καθ᾿ ὑπόστασιν προεπενοήθη φησί κατά πρόνοιαν πρός τόν ἐξ οὗ ταῦτα γεγόνασιν. Ἵνα καί τό εἶναι τῶν ὄντων φυλαχθῇ κατ᾿ οὐσίαν ὡς πέφυκε· καί τό ὑποστῆναι, ἤγουν πῶς εἶναι κατά χάριν δέξηται θείαν, τῇ πρός τόν Θεόν ἑνώσει πάντων πρός ἀτρεψίαν μεταποιηθέντων.

β΄. ∆ιττήν εἶναι λέγει τήν γνῶσιν· τήν μέν ἐν λόγῳ κειμένην καί θείοις νοήμασι, κατ᾿ εἶδος παροῦσαν τήν αἴσθησιν τῶν νοηθέντων οὐκ ἔχουσαν· τήν δέ, κατ᾿ ἐνέργειαν, μόνην ἔχουσαν δίχα λόγου καί νοημάτων τῶν ἀληθῶν τήν κατ᾿ εἶδος ἀπόλαυσιν.

γ΄. Ἐπειδή, φησί, διά γνώσεως ὁ λόγος τό γνωστόν πέφυκεν ὑποσημαίνειν, κινεῖ τήν ἔφεσιν τῶν δι᾿ αὐτοῦ κινουμένων, πρός τήν τοῦ σημανθέντος ἀπόλαυσιν.

δ΄. Πρό πάσης πείρας, φησί, λόγος ὑπάρχει γνώσεως· ὅτι κατά τήν πεῖραν μόνην πέφυκε δυναστεύειν ἀπόλαυσις.

ΕΡΩΤΗΣΙΣ ΞΑ΄.

" Ὅτι καιρός τοῦ ἄρξασθαι τό κρίμα ἀπό τοῦ (628) οἴκου τοῦ Θεοῦ· εἰ δέ πρῶτον ἀφ᾿ ἡμῶν, τί τέλος τῶν ἀπειθούντων τῷ τοῦ Θεοῦ Εὐαγγελίῳ; καί εἰ ὁ μέν δίκαιος μόλις