Chap. XLII.—Of Religious Wisdom: the Name of Christ Known to None, Except Himself and His Father.

I will now say what wise religion, or religious wisdom, is. God, in the beginning, before He made the world, from the fountain of His own eternity, and from the divine and everlasting Spirit,1492    [This refers to the Spirit of the Father, as Cyprian (vol. v. p. 516), “My heart hath breathed out a good Word.”]   begat for Himself a Son incorruptible, faithful, corresponding to His Father’s excellence and majesty. He is virtue, He is reason, He is the word of God, He is wisdom. With this artificer, as Hermes says, and counsellor, as the Sibyl says, He contrived the excellent and wondrous fabric of this world. In fine, of all the angels, whom the same God formed from His own breath,1493    De suis spiritibus.   He alone was admitted into a participation of His supreme power, He alone was called God. For all things were through Him, and nothing was without Him. In fine, Plato, not altogether as a philosopher, but as a seer, spoke concerning the first and second God, perhaps following Trismegistus in this, whose words I have translated from the Greek, and subjoined: “The Lord and Maker of all things, whom we have thought to be called God, created1494    [Plato does not speak dogmatically, but with a marvellous intuition of truth. The Son is “begotten, not made.”]   a second God, who is visible and sensible. But by sensible I mean, not that He Himself receives sensation, but that He causes sensation and sight. When, therefore, He had made this, the first, and one, and only one, He appeared to Him most excellent, and full of all good qualities.” The Sibyl also says that God the guide of all was made by God, and another, that  

as those examples which I have brought forward in my books declare. Him the prophets, filled with the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, proclaimed; of whom especially Solomon in the book of Wisdom, and also his father, the writer of divine hymns—both most renowned kings, who preceded the times of the Trojan war by a hundred and eighty years1495    This is an error. Both David and Solomon lived after the supposed taking of Troy.  —testify that He was born of God. His name is known to none, except to Himself and the Father, as John teaches in the Revelation.1496    Rev. xix. 12.  Hermes says that His name cannot be uttered by mortal mouth. Yet by men He is called by two names—Jesus, which is Saviour, and Christ, which is King. He is called Saviour on this account, because He is the health and safety of all who believe in God through Him. He is called Christ on this account, because He Himself will come from heaven at the end of this dispensation1497    In sæculi hujus consummatione.   to judge the world, and, having raised the dead, to establish for Himself an everlasting kingdom.  

CAPUT XLII. (Div. Inst. lib. IV, c. 3 et 7.) De sapientia religiosa; Christi nomen nulli notum, nisi ipsi et Patri.

Dicam nunc, quid sit vel sapiens religio, vel sapientia religiosa. Deus in principio, antequam mundum institueret, de aeternitatis suae fonte, deque divino ac perenni spiritu suo Filium sibi ipse progenuit, incorruptum, fidelem, virtuti ac majestati patriae respondentem. Hic est virtus, hic ratio, hic sermo Dei, 1049A hic sapientia. Hoc opifice, ut Hermes ait, et consiliatore, ut Sibylla, et praeclaram et mirabilem hujus mundi fabricam machinatus est. Denique ex omnibus angelis, quos idem Deus de suis spiritibus 1049A figuravit, solus in consortium summae potestatis adscitus est, solus Deus nuncupatus. Omnia enim per ipsum, et sine ipso nihil. Denique Plato de primo ac secundo Deo non plane ut philosophus, sed ut vates locutus est, fortasse in hoc Trismegistum secutus, cujus verba de Graecis conversa subjeci: « Dominus et factor universorum, quem Deum vocari existimavimus, secundum fecit Deum visibilem et sensibilem. Sensibilem autem dico, non quod ipse sensum accipiat, sed quod in sensum mittat et visum. Cum ergo hunc fecisset primum, et solum, et unum, optimus ei apparuit, 1049B et plenissimus omnium bonorum. Sibylla quoque Deum dicit ducem omnium a Deo factum; et alia, Deum Dei filium esse noscendum,» sicut ea, quae in libris posui, exempla declarant. Hunc prophetae divino spiritu pleni praedicaverunt; quorum praecipue Salomon in libro Sapientiae, item pater ejus, coelestium scriptor hymnorum, ambo clarissimi reges, qui Trojani belli tempora CLXXX annis antecesserunt, hunc ex Deo natum esse testantur. Hujus nomen nulli esse notum, nisi ipsi et Patri, sicut docet Joannes in Revelatione. Hermes ait non posse nomen ejus mortali ore proferri. Ab hominibus tamen duobus vocabulis nuncupatur, Jesus, quod est Salvator, et Christus, quod est Rex. Salvator ideo, quia est sanatio et salus omnium qui per eum credunt 1049C in Deum; Christus ideo, quia ipse de coelo in saeculi hujus consummatione venturus est, ut judicet mundum, et, resurrectione mortuorum facta, regnum sibi constituat aeternum.