Chapter 34.—Christ the First Way to God.

38.  And mark that even when He who is Himself the Truth and the Word, by whom all things were made, had been made flesh that He might dwell among us, the apostle yet says:  “Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we Him no more.”42    2 Cor. v. 16.  For Christ, desiring not only to give the possession to those who had completed the journey, but also to be Himself the way to those who were just setting out, determined to take a fleshly body.  Whence also that expression, “The Lord created43    A.V. possessed. me in the beginning of His way,”44    Prov. viii. 22. that is, that those who wished to come might begin their journey in Him.  The apostle, therefore, although still on the way, and following after God who called him to the reward of His heavenly calling, yet forgetting those things which were behind, and pressing on towards those things which were before,45    Comp. Phil. iii. 13. had already passed over the beginning of the way, and had now no further need of it; yet by this way all must commence their journey who desire to attain to the truth, and to rest in eternal life.  For He says:  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life;”46    John xiv. 6. that is, by me men come, to me they come, in me they rest.  For when we come to Him, we come to the Father also, because through an equal an equal is known; and the Holy Spirit binds, and as it were seals us, so that we are able to rest permanently in the supreme and unchangeable Good.  And hence we may learn how essential it is that nothing should detain us on the way, when not even our Lord Himself, so far as He has condescended to be our way, is willing to detain us, but wishes us rather to press on; and, instead of weakly clinging to temporal things, even though these have been put on and worn by Him for our salvation, to pass over them quickly, and to struggle to attain unto Himself, who has freed our nature from the bondage of temporal things, and has set it down at the right hand of His Father.

CAPUT XXXIV. Prima ad Deum via, Christus.

38. Vide quemadmodum cum ipsa Veritas, et Verbum per quod facta sunt omnia, caro factum esset, ut habitaret in nobis (Joan. III, 3, 14), tamen ait Apostolus: Et si noveramus Christum secundum carnem, sed jam non novimus (II Cor. 5, 16). Ille quippe qui non solum pervenientibus possessionem, sed etiam viam praebere se voluit venientibus ad principium viarum , voluit carnem assumere: unde est etiam illud, Dominus creavit me in principio viarum suarum (Prov. VIII, 22); ut inde inciperent, qui vellent venire. Apostolus igitur quamvis adhuc ambularet in via, et ad palmam supernae vocationis sequeretur vocantem Deum, tamen ea quae retro sunt obliviscens, et in ea quae ante sunt extentus (Philipp. III, 12-14), jam principium viarum transierat; hoc est, eo non indigebat, a quo tamen aggrediendum et exordiendum iter est omnibus qui ad veritatem pervenire, et in vita aeterna permanere desiderant. Sic enim ait, Ego sum via, et veritas, et vita (Joan. XIV, 6); hoc est, per me venitur, ad me pervenitur, in me permanetur. Cum enim ad ipsum pervenitur, etiam ad Patrem pervenitur; quia per aequalem ille cui est aequalis agnoscitur; vinciente et tanquam agglutinante nos Spiritu sancto, quo in summo atque incommutabili bono permanere possimus. Ex quo intelligitur quam nulla res in via tenere nos debeat, quando nec ipse Dominus, in quantum via nostra esse dignatus est, tenere nos voluerit, sed transire; ne rebus temporalibus, quamvis ab illo pro salute nostra susceptis et gestis, haereamus infirmiter, sed per eas potius curramus alacriter, ut 0034 ad eum ipsum, qui nostram naturam a temporalibus liberavit, et collocavit ad dexteram Patris, provehi atque pervehi mereamur.