Chapters 8–14

Chapter VIII. In how many ways “Throughwhom” is used; and in what sense “with whom” is more suitable.  Explanation of how the Son receives a commandment, and how He is sent

17.  When, then, the apostle “thanks God through Jesus Christ,” and again says that “through Him” we have “received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith among all nations,” or “through Him have access unto this grace wherein we stand and rejoice,” he sets forth the boons conferred on us by the Son, at one time making the grace of the good gifts pass through from the Father to us, and at another bringing us to the Father through Himself.  For by saying “through whom we have received grace and apostleship,” he declares the supply of the good gifts to proceed from that source; and again in saying “through whom we have had access,” he sets forth our acceptance and being made “of the household of God” through Christ.  Is then the confession of the grace wrought by Him to usward a detraction from His glory?  Is it not truer to say that the recital of His benefits is a proper argument for glorifying Him?  It is on this account that we have not found Scripture describing the Lord to us by one name, nor even by such terms alone as are indicative of His godhead and majesty.  At one time it uses terms descriptive of His nature, for it recognises the “name which is above every name,” the name of Son, and speaks of true Son, and only begotten God, and Power of God, and Wisdom, and Word.  Then again, on account of the divers manners wherein grace is given to us, which, because of the riches of His goodness, according to his manifold wisdom, he bestows on them that need, Scripture designates Him by innumerable other titles, calling Him Shepherd, King, Physician, Bridegroom, Way, Door, Fountain, Bread, Axe, and Rock.  And these titles do not set forth His nature, but, as I have remarked, the variety of the effectual working which, out of His tender-heartedness to His own creation, according to the peculiar necessity of each, He bestows upon them that need.  Them that have fled for refuge to His ruling care, and through patient endurance have mended their wayward ways, He calls “sheep,” and confesses Himself to be, to them that hear His voice and refuse to give heed to strange teaching, a “shepherd.”  For “my sheep,” He says, “hear my voice.”  To them that have now reached a higher stage and stand in need of righteous royalty, He is a King.  And in that, through the straight way of His commandments, He leads men to good actions, and again because He safely shuts in all who through faith in Him betake themselves for shelter to the blessing of the higher wisdom, He is a Door.

So He says, “By me if any man enter in, he shall go in and out and shall find pastare.”  Again, because to the faithful He is a defence strong, unshaken, and harder to break than any bulwark, He is a Rock.  Among these titles, it is when He is styled Door, or Way, that the phrase “through Him” is very appropriate and plain.  As, however, God and Son, He is glorified with and together with the Father, in that “at, the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  Wherefore we use both terms, expressing by the one His own proper dignity, and by the other His grace to usward.

18.  For “through Him” comes every succour to our souls, and it is in accordance with each kind of care that an appropriate title has been devised.  So when He presents to Himself the blameless soul, not having spot or wrinkle, like a pure maiden, He is called Bridegroom, but whenever He receives one in sore plight from the devil’s evil strokes, healing it in the heavy infirmity of its sins, He is named Physician.  And shall this His care for us degrade to meanness our thoughts of Him?  Or, on the contrary, shall it smite us with amazement at once at the mighty power and love to man of the Saviour, in that He both endured to suffer with us in our infirmities, and was able to come down to our weakness?  For not heaven and earth and the great seas, not the creatures that live in the water and on dry land, not plants, and stars, and air, and seasons, not the vast variety in the order of the universe, so well sets forth the excellency of His might as that God, being incomprehensible, should have been able, impassibly, through flesh, to have come into close conflict with death, to the end that by His own suffering He might give us the boon of freedom from suffering.  The apostle, it is true, says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”  But in a phrase of this kind there is no suggestion of any lowly and subordinate ministry, but rather of the succour rendered “in the power of his might.”  For He Himself has bound the strong man and spoiled his goods, that is, us men, whom our enemy had abused in every evil activity, and made “vessels meet for the Master’s use” us who have been perfected for every work through the making ready of that part of us which is in our own control.  Thus we have had our approach to the Father through Him, being translated from “the power of darkness to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”  We must not, however, regard the œconomy through the Son as a compulsory and subordinate ministration resulting from the low estate of a slave, but rather the voluntary solicitude working effectually for His own creation in goodness and in pity, according to the will of God the Father.  For we shall be consistent with true religion if in all that was and is from time to time perfected by Him, we both bear witness to the perfection of His power, and in no case put it asunder from the Father’s will.  For instance, whenever the Lord is called the Way, we are carried on to a higher meaning, and not to that which is derived from the vulgar sense of the word.  We understand by Way that advance to perfection which is made stage by stage, and in regular order, through the works of righteousness and “the illumination of knowledge;” ever longing after what is before, and reaching forth unto those things which remain, until we shall have reached the blessed end, the knowledge of God, which the Lord through Himself bestows on them that have trusted in Him.  For our Lord is an essentially good Way, where erring and straying are unknown, to that which is essentially good, to the Father.  For “no one,” He says, “cometh to the Father but [“by” A.V.] through me.”  Such is our way up to God “through the Son.”

19.  It will follow that we should next in order point out the character of the provision of blessings bestowed on us by the Father “through him.”  Inasmuch as all created nature, both this visible world and all that is conceived of in the mind, cannot hold together without the care and providence of God, the Creator Word, the Only begotten God, apportioning His succour according to the measure of the needs of each, distributes mercies various and manifold on account of the many kinds and characters of the recipients of His bounty, but appropriate to the necessities of individual requirements.  Those that are confined in the darkness of ignorance He enlightens:  for this reason He is true Light.  Portioning requital in accordance with the desert of deeds, He judges:  for this reason He is righteous Judge.  “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son.”  Those that have lapsed from the lofty height of life into sin He raises from their fall:  for this reason He is Resurrection.  Effectually working by the touch of His power and the will of His goodness He does all things.  He shepherds; He enlightens; He nourishes; He heals; He guides; He raises up; He calls into being things that were not; He upholds what has been created.  Thus the good things that come from God reach us “through the Son,” who works in each case with greater speed than speech can utter.  For not lightnings, not light’s course in air, is so swift; not eyes’ sharp turn, not the movements of our very thought.  Nay, by the divine energy is each one of these in speed further surpassed than is the slowest of all living creatures outdone in motion by birds, or even winds, or the rush of the heavenly bodies:  or, not to mention these, by our very thought itself.  For what extent of time is needed by Him who “upholds all things by the word of His power,” and works not by bodily agency, nor requires the help of hands to form and fashion, but holds in obedient following and unforced consent the nature of all things that are?  So as Judith says, “Thou hast thought, and what things thou didst determine were ready at hand.”  On the other hand, and lest we should ever be drawn away by the greatness of the works wrought to imagine that the Lord is without beginning, what saith the Self-Existent?  “I live through [by, A.V.] the Father,” and the power of God; “The Son hath power [can, A.V.] to do nothing of himself.”  And the self-complete Wisdom?  I received “a commandment what I should say and what I should speak.”  Through all these words He is guiding us to the knowledge of the Father, and referring our wonder at all that is brought into existence to Him, to the end that “through Him” we may know the Father.  For the Father is not regarded from the difference of the operations, by the exhibition of a separate and peculiar energy; for whatsoever things He sees the Father doing, “these also doeth the Son likewise;” but He enjoys our wonder at all that comes to pass out of the glory which comes to Him from the Only Begotten, rejoicing in the Doer Himself as well as in the greatness of the deeds, and exalted by all who acknowledge Him as Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, “through whom [by whom, A.V.] are all things, and for whom are all things.”  Wherefore, saith the Lord, “All mine are thine,” as though the sovereignty over created things were conferred on Him, and “Thine are mine,” as though the creating Cause came thence to Him.  We are not to suppose that He used assistance in His action, or yet was entrusted with the ministry of each individual work by detailed commission, a condition distinctly menial and quite inadequate to the divine dignity.  Rather was the Word full of His Father’s excellences; He shines forth from the Father, and does all things according to the likeness of Him that begat Him.  For if in essence He is without variation, so also is He without variation in power.  And of those whose power is equal, the operation also is in all ways equal.  And Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God.  And so “all things are made through [by, A.V.] him,” and “all things were created through [by, A.V.] him and for him,” not in the discharge of any slavish service, but in the fulfilment of the Father’s will as Creator.

20.  When then He says, “I have not spoken of myself,” and again, “As the Father said unto me, so I speak,” and “The word which ye hear is not mine, but [the Father’s] which sent me,” and in another place, “As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do,” it is not because He lacks deliberate purpose or power of initiation, nor yet because He has to wait for the preconcerted key-note, that he employs language of this kind.  His object is to make it plain that His own will is connected in indissoluble union with the Father.  Do not then let us understand by what is called a “commandment” a peremptory mandate delivered by organs of speech, and giving orders to the Son, as to a subordinate, concerning what He ought to do.  Let us rather, in a sense befitting the Godhead, perceive a transmission of will, like the reflexion of an object in a mirror, passing without note of time from Father to Son.  “For the Father loveth the Son and sheweth him all things,” so that “all things that the Father hath” belong to the Son, not gradually accruing to Him little by little, but with Him all together and at once.  Among men, the workman who has been thoroughly taught his craft, and, through long training, has sure and established experience in it, is able, in accordance with the scientific methods which now he has in store, to work for the future by himself.  And are we to suppose that the wisdom of God, the Maker of all creation, He who is eternally perfect, who is wise, without a teacher, the Power of God, “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” needs piecemeal instruction to mark out the manner and measure of His operations?  I presume that in the vanity of your calculations, you mean to open a school; you will make the one take His seat in the teacher’s place, and the other stand by in a scholar’s ignorance, gradually learning wisdom and advancing to perfection, by lessons given Him bit by bit.  Hence, if you have sense to abide by what logically follows, you will find the Son being eternally taught, nor yet ever able to reach the end of perfection, inasmuch as the wisdom of the Father is infinite, and the end of the infinite is beyond apprehension.  It results that whoever refuses to grant that the Son has all things from the beginning will never grant that He will reach perfection.  But I am ashamed at the degraded conception to which, by the course of the argument, I have been brought down.  Let us therefore revert to the loftier themes of our discussion.

21.  “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; not the express image, nor yet the form, for the divine nature does not admit of combination; but the goodness of the will, which, being concurrent with the essence, is beheld as like and equal, or rather the same, in the Father as in the Son.

What then is meant by “became subject”?  What by “delivered him up for us all”?  It is meant that the Son has it of the Father that He works in goodness on behalf of men.  But you must hear too the words, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law;” and “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Give careful heed, too, to the words of the Lord, and note how, whenever He instructs us about His Father, He is in the habit of using terms of personal authority, saying, “I will; be thou clean;” and “Peace, be still;” and “But I say unto you;” and “Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee;” and all other expressions of the same kind, in order that by these we may recognise our Master and Maker, and by the former may be taught the Father of our Master and Creator.  Thus on all sides is demonstrated the true doctrine that the fact that the Father creates through the Son neither constitutes the creation of the Father imperfect nor exhibits the active energy of the Son as feeble, but indicates the unity of the will; so the expression “through whom” contains a confession of an antecedent Cause, and is not adopted in objection to the efficient Cause.

Chapter IX. Definitive conceptions about the Spirit which conform to the teaching of the Scriptures

22.  Let us now investigate what are our common conceptions concerning the Spirit, as well those which have been gathered by us from Holy Scripture concerning It as those which we have received from the unwritten tradition of the Fathers.  First of all we ask, who on hearing the titles of the Spirit is not lifted up in soul, who does not raise his conception to the supreme nature?  It is called “Spirit of God,” “Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father,” “right Spirit,” “a leading Spirit.”  Its proper and peculiar title is “Holy Spirit;” which is a name specially appropriate to everything that is incorporeal, purely immaterial, and indivisible.  So our Lord, when teaching the woman who thought God to be an object of local worship that the incorporeal is incomprehensible, said “God is a spirit.”  On our hearing, then, of a spirit, it is impossible to form the idea of a nature circumscribed, subject to change and variation, or at all like the creature.  We are compelled to advance in our conceptions to the highest, and to think of an intelligent essence, in power infinite, in magnitude unlimited, unmeasured by times or ages, generous of Its good gifts, to whom turn all things needing sanctification, after whom reach all things that live in virtue, as being watered by Its inspiration and helped on toward their natural and proper end; perfecting all other things, but Itself in nothing lacking; living not as needing restoration, but as Supplier of life; not growing by additions; but straightway full, self-established, omnipresent, origin of sanctification, light perceptible to the mind, supplying, as it were, through Itself, illumination to every faculty in the search for truth; by nature unapproachable, apprehended by reason of goodness, filling all things with Its power, but communicated only to the worthy; not shared in one measure, but distributing Its energy according to “the proportion of faith;” in essence simple, in powers various, wholly present in each and being wholly everywhere; impassively divided, shared without loss of ceasing to be entire, after the likeness of the sunbeam, whose kindly light falls on him who enjoys it as though it shone for him alone, yet illumines land and sea and mingles with the air.  So, too, is the Spirit to every one who receives it, as though given to him alone, and yet It sends forth grace sufficient and full for all mankind, and is enjoyed by all who share It, according to the capacity, not of Its power, but of their nature.

23.  Now the Spirit is not brought into intimate association with the soul by local approximation.  How indeed could there be a corporeal approach to the incorporeal?  This association results from the withdrawal of the passions which, coming afterwards gradually on the soul from its friendship to the flesh, have alienated it from its close relationship with God.  Only then after a man is purified from the shame whose stain he took through his wickedness, and has come back again to his natural beauty, and as it were cleaning the Royal Image and restoring its ancient form, only thus is it possible for him to draw near to the Paraclete.  And He, like the sun, will by the aid of thy purified eye show thee in Himself the image of the invisible, and in the blessed spectacle of the image thou shalt behold the unspeakable beauty of the archetype.  Through His aid hearts are lifted up, the weak are held by the hand, and they who are advancing are brought to perfection.  Shining upon those that are cleansed from every spot, He makes them spiritual by fellowship with Himself.  Just as when a sunbeam falls on bright and transparent bodies, they themselves become brilliant too, and shed forth a fresh brightness from themselves, so souls wherein the Spirit dwells, illuminated by the Spirit, themselves become spiritual, and send forth their grace to others.  Hence comes foreknowledge of the future, understanding of mysteries, apprehension of what is hidden, distribution of good gifts, the heavenly citizenship, a place in the chorus of angels, joy without end, abiding in God, the being made like to God, and, highest of all, the being made God.  Such, then, to instance a few out of many, are the conceptions concerning the Holy Spirit, which we have been taught to hold concerning His greatness, His dignity, and His operations, by the oracles of the Spirit themselves.

Chapter X. Against those who say that it is not right to rank the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son

24.  But we must proceed to attack our opponents, in the endeavour to confute those “oppositions” advanced against us which are derived from “knowledge falsely so-called.”

It is not permissible, they assert, for the Holy Spirit to be ranked with the Father and Son, on account of the difference of His nature and the inferiority of His dignity.  Against them it is right to reply in the words of the apostles, “We ought to obey God rather than men.”

For if our Lord, when enjoining the baptism of salvation, charged His disciples to baptize all nations in the name “of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,” not disdaining fellowship with Him, and these men allege that we must not rank Him with the Father and the Son, is it not clear that they openly withstand the commandment of God?  If they deny that coordination of this kind is declaratory of any fellowship and conjunction, let them tell us why it behoves us to hold this opinion, and what more intimate mode of conjunction they have.

If the Lord did not indeed conjoin the Spirit with the Father and Himself in baptism, do not let them lay the blame of conjunction upon us, for we neither hold nor say anything different.  If on the contrary the Spirit is there conjoined with the Father and the Son, and no one is so shameless as to say anything else, then let them not lay blame on us for following the words of Scripture.

25.  But all the apparatus of war has been got ready against us; every intellectual missile is aimed at us; and now blasphemers’ tongues shoot and hit and hit again, yet harder than Stephen of old was smitten by the killers of the Christ.  And do not let them succeed in concealing the fact that, while an attack on us serves for a pretext for the war, the real aim of these proceedings is higher.  It is against us, they say, that they are preparing their engines and their snares; against us that they are shouting to one another, according to each one’s strength or cunning, to come on.  But the object of attack is faith.  The one aim of the whole band of opponents and enemies of “sound doctrine” is to shake down the foundation of the faith of Christ by levelling apostolic tradition with the ground, and utterly destroying it.  So like the debtors,—of course bona fide debtors—they clamour for written proof, and reject as worthless the unwritten tradition of the Fathers.  But we will not slacken in our defence of the truth.  We will not cowardly abandon the cause.  The Lord has delivered to us as a necessary and saving doctrine that the Holy Spirit is to be ranked with the Father.  Our opponents think differently, and see fit to divide and rend asunder, and relegate Him to the nature of a ministering spirit.  Is it not then indisputable that they make their own blasphemy more authoritative than the law prescribed by the Lord?  Come, then, set aside mere contention.  Let us consider the points before us, as follows:

26.  Whence is it that we are Christians?  Through our faith, would be the universal answer.  And in what way are we saved?  Plainly because we were regenerate through the grace given in our baptism.  How else could we be?  And after recognising that this salvation is established through the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, shall we fling away “that form of doctrine” which we received?  Would it not rather be ground for great groaning if we are found now further off from our salvation “than when we first believed,” and deny now what we then received?  Whether a man have departed this life without baptism, or have received a baptism lacking in some of the requirements of the tradition, his loss is equal.  And whoever does not always and everywhere keep to and hold fast as a sure protection the confession which we recorded at our first admission, when, being delivered “from the idols,” we came “to the living God,” constitutes himself a “stranger” from the “promises” of God, fighting against his own handwriting, which he put on record when he professed the faith.  For if to me my baptism was the beginning of life, and that day of regeneration the first of days, it is plain that the utterance uttered in the grace of adoption was the most honourable of all.  Can I then, perverted by these men’s seductive words, abandon the tradition which guided me to the light, which bestowed on me the boon of the knowledge of God, whereby I, so long a foe by reason of sin, was made a child of God?  But, for myself, I pray that with this confession I may depart hence to the Lord, and them I charge to preserve the faith secure until the day of Christ, and to keep the Spirit undivided from the Father and the Son, preserving, both in the confession of faith and in the doxology, the doctrine taught them at their baptism.

Chapter XI. That they who deny the Spirit are transgressors

27.  “Who hath woe?  Who hath sorrow?”  For whom is distress and darkness?  For whom eternal doom?  Is it not for the transgressors?  For them that deny the faith?  And what is the proof of their denial?  Is it not that they have set at naught their own confessions?  And when and what did they confess?  Belief in the Father and in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, when they renounced the devil and his angels, and uttered those saving words.  What fit title then for them has been discovered, for the children of light to use?  Are they not addressed as transgressors, as having violated the covenant of their salvation?  What am I to call the denial of God?  What the denial of Christ?  What but transgressions?  And to him who denies the Spirit, what title do you wish me to apply?  Must it not be the same, inasmuch as he has broken his covenant with God?  And when the confession of faith in Him secures the blessing of true religion. and its denial subjects men to the doom of godlessness, is it not a fearful thing for them to set the confession at naught, not through fear of fire, or sword, or cross, or scourge, or wheel, or rack, but merely led astray by the sophistry and seductions of the pneumatomachi?  I testify to every man who is confessing Christ and denying God, that Christ will profit him nothing; to every man that calls upon God but rejects the Son, that his faith is vain; to every man that sets aside the Spirit, that his faith in the Father and the Son will be useless, for he cannot even hold it without the presence of the Spirit.  For he who does not believe the Spirit does not believe in the Son, and he who has not believed in the Son does not believe in the Father.  For none “can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost,” and “No man hath seen God at any time, but the only begotten God which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”

Such an one hath neither part nor lot in the true worship; for it is impossible to worship the Son, save by the Holy Ghost; impossible to call upon the Father, save by the Spirit of adoption.

Chapter XII. Against those who assert that the baptism in the name of the Father alone is sufficient

28.  Let no one be misled by the fact of the apostle’s frequently omitting the name of the Father and of the Holy Spirit when making mention of baptism, or on this account imagine that the invocation of the names is not observed.  “As many of you,” he says, “as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ;” and again, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death.”  For the naming of Christ is the confession of the whole, shewing forth as it does the God who gave, the Son who received, and the Spirit who is, the unction.  So we have learned from Peter, in the Acts, of “Jesus of Nazareth whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost;” and in Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me;” and the Psalmist, “Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”  Scripture, however, in the case of baptism, sometimes plainly mentions the Spirit alone.

“For into one Spirit,” it says, “we were all baptized in one body.”  And in harmony with this are the passages:  “You shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost,” and “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.”  But no one on this account would be justified in calling that baptism a perfect baptism wherein only the name of the Spirit was invoked.  For the tradition that has been given us by the quickening grace must remain for ever inviolate.  He who redeemed our life from destruction gave us power of renewal, whereof the cause is ineffable and hidden in mystery, but bringing great salvation to our souls, so that to add or to take away anything involves manifestly a falling away from the life everlasting.  If then in baptism the separation of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is perilous to the baptizer, and of no advantage to the baptized, how can the rending asunder of the Spirit from Father and from Son be safe for us?  Faith and baptism are two kindred and inseparable ways of salvation:  faith is perfected through baptism, baptism is established through faith, and both are completed by the same names.  For as we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, so are we also baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost; first comes the confession, introducing us to salvation, and baptism follows, setting the seal upon our assent.

Chapter XIII. Statement of the reason why in the writings of Paul the angels are associated with the Father and the Son

29.  It is, however, objected that other beings which are enumerated with the Father and the Son are certainly not always glorified together with them.  The apostle, for instance, in his charge to Timothy, associates the angels with them in the words, “I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels.”  We are not for alienating the angels from the rest of creation, and yet, it is argued, we do not allow of their being reckoned with the Father and the Son.  To this I reply, although the argument, so obviously absurd is it, does not really deserve a reply, that possibly before a mild and gentle judge, and especially before One who by His leniency to those arraigned before Him demonstrates the unimpeachable equity of His decisions, one might be willing to offer as witness even a fellow-slave; but for a slave to be made free and called a son of God and quickened from death can only be brought about by Him who has acquired natural kinship with us, and has been changed from the rank of a slave.  For how can we be made kin with God by one who is an alien?  How can we be freed by one who is himself under the yoke of slavery?  It follows that the mention of the Spirit and that of angels are not made under like conditions.  The Spirit is called on as Lord of life, and the angels as allies of their fellow-slaves and faithful witnesses of the truth.  It is customary for the saints to deliver the commandments of God in the presence of witnesses, as also the apostle himself says to Timothy, “The things which thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men;” and now he calls the angels to witness, for he knows that angels shall be present with the Lord when He shall come in the glory of His Father to judge the world in righteousness.  For He says, “Whoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God, but he that denieth Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God;” and Paul in another place says, “When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his angels.”  Thus he already testifies before the angels, preparing good proofs for himself at the great tribunal.

30.  And not only Paul, but generally all those to whom is committed any ministry of the word, never cease from testifying, but call heaven and earth to witness on the ground that now every deed that is done is done within them, and that in the examination of all the actions of life they will be present with the judged.  So it is said, “He shall call to the heavens above and to earth, that he may judge his people.”  And so Moses when about to deliver his oracles to the people says, “I call heaven and earth to witness this day;” and again in his song he says, “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth;” and Isaiah, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth;” and Jeremiah describes astonishment in heaven at the tidings of the unholy deeds of the people:  “The heaven was astonished at this, and was horribly afraid, because my people committed two evils.”  And so the apostle, knowing the angels to be set over men as tutors and guardians, calls them to witness.  Moreover, Joshua, the son of Nun, even set up a stone as witness of his words (already a heap somewhere had been called a witness by Jacob), for he says, “Behold this stone shall be a witness unto you this day to the end of days, when ye lie to the Lord our God,” perhaps believing that by God’s power even the stones would speak to the conviction of the transgressors; or, if not, that at least each man’s conscience would be wounded by the force of the reminder.  In this manner they who have been entrusted with the stewardship of souls provide witnesses, whatever they may be, so as to produce them at some future day.  But the Spirit is ranked together with God, not on account of the emergency of the moment, but on account of the natural fellowship; is not dragged in by us, but invited by the Lord.

Chapter XIV. Objection that some were baptized unto Moses and believed in him, and an answer to it; with remarks upon types

31.  But even if some are baptized unto the Spirit, it is not, it is urged, on this account right for the Spirit to be ranked with God.  Some “were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”  And it is admitted that faith even before now has been put in men; for “The people believed God and his servant Moses.”  Why then, it is asked, do we, on account of faith and of baptism, exalt and magnify the Holy Spirit so far above creation, when there is evidence that the same things have before now been said of men?  What, then, shall we reply?  Our answer is that the faith in the Spirit is the same as the faith in the Father and the Son; and in like manner, too, the baptism.  But the faith in Moses and in the cloud is, as it were, in a shadow and type.  The nature of the divine is very frequently represented by the rough and shadowy outlines of the types; but because divine things are prefigured by small and human things, it is obvious that we must not therefore conclude the divine nature to be small.  The type is an exhibition of things expected, and gives an imitative anticipation of the future.  So Adam was a type of “Him that was to come.”  Typically, “That rock was Christ;” and the water a type of the living power of the word; as He says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.”  The manna is a type of the living bread that came down from heaven; and the serpent on the standard, of the passion of salvation accomplished by means of the cross, wherefore they who even looked thereon were preserved.  So in like manner, the history of the exodus of Israel is recorded to shew forth those who are being saved through baptism.  For the firstborn of the Israelites were preserved, like the bodies of the baptized, by the giving of grace to them that were marked with blood.  For the blood of the sheep is a type of the blood of Christ; and the firstborn, a type of the first-formed.  And inasmuch as the first-formed of necessity exists in us, and, in sequence of succession, is transmitted till the end, it follows that “in Adam” we “all die,” and that “death reigned” until the fulfilling of the law and the coming of Christ.  And the firstborn were preserved by God from being touched by the destroyer, to show that we who were made alive in Christ no longer die in Adam.  The sea and the cloud for the time being led on through amazement to faith, but for the time to come they typically prefigured the grace to be.  “Who is wise and he shall understand these things?”—how the sea is typically a baptism bringing about the departure of Pharaoh, in like manner as this washing causes the departure of the tyranny of the devil.  The sea slew the enemy in itself:  and in baptism too dies our enmity towards God.  From the sea the people came out unharmed:  we too, as it were, alive from the dead, step up from the water “saved” by the “grace” of Him who called us.  And the cloud is a shadow of the gift of the Spirit, who cools the flame of our passions by the “mortification” of our “members.”

32.  What then?  Because they were typically baptized unto Moses, is the grace of baptism therefore small?  Were it so, and if we were in each case to prejudice the dignity of our privileges by comparing them with their types, not even one of these privileges could be reckoned great; then not the love of God, who gave His only begotten Son for our sins, would be great and extraordinary, because Abraham did not spare his own son; then even the passion of the Lord would not be glorious, because a sheep typified the offering instead of Isaac; then the descent into hell was not fearful, because Jonah had previously typified the death in three days and three nights.  The same prejudicial comparison is made also in the case of baptism by all who judge of the reality by the shadow, and, comparing the typified with the type, attempt by means of Moses and the sea to disparage at once the whole dispensation of the Gospel.  What remission of sins, what renewal of life, is there in the sea?  What spiritual gift is there through Moses?  What dying of sins is there?  Those men did not die with Christ; wherefore they were not raised with Him.  They did not “bear the image of the heavenly;” they did “bear about in the body the dying of Jesus;” they did not “put off the old man;” they did not “put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him which created him.”  Why then do you compare baptisms which have only the name in common, while the distinction between the things themselves is as great as might be that of dream and reality, that of shadow and figures with substantial existence?

33.  But belief in Moses not only does not show our belief in the Spirit to be worthless, but, if we adopt our opponents’ line of argument, it rather weakens our confession in the God of the universe.  “The people,” it is written, “believed the Lord and his servant Moses.”  Moses then is joined with God, not with the Spirit; and he was a type not of the Spirit, but of Christ.  For at that time in the ministry of the law, he by means of himself typified “the Mediator between God and men.”  Moses, when mediating for the people in things pertaining to God, was not a minister of the Spirit; for the law was given, “ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator,” namely Moses, in accordance with the summons of the people, “Speak thou with us,…but let not God speak with us.”  Thus faith in Moses is referred to the Lord, the Mediator between God and men, who said, “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me.”  Is then our faith in the Lord a trifle, because it was signified beforehand through Moses?  So then, even if men were baptized unto Moses, it does not follow that the grace given of the Spirit in baptism is small.  I may point out, too, that it is usual in Scripture to say Moses and the law, as in the passage, “They have Moses and the prophets.”  When therefore it is meant to speak of the baptism of the law, the words are, “They were baptized unto Moses.”  Why then do these calumniators of the truth, by means of the shadow and the types, endeavour to bring contempt and ridicule on the “rejoicing” of our “hope,” and the rich gift of our God and Saviour, who through regeneration renews our youth like the eagle’s?  Surely it is altogether childish, and like a babe who must needs be fed on milk, to be ignorant of the great mystery of our salvation; inasmuch as, in accordance with the gradual progress of our education, while being brought to perfection in our training for godliness, we were first taught elementary and easier lessons, suited to our intelligence, while the Dispenser of our lots was ever leading us up, by gradually accustoming us, like eyes brought up in the dark, to the great light of truth.  For He spares our weakness, and in the depth of the riches of His wisdom, and the inscrutable judgments of His intelligence, used this gentle treatment, fitted for our needs, gradually accustoming us to see first the shadows of objects, and to look at the sun in water, to save us from dashing against the spectacle of pure unadulterated light, and being blinded.  Just so the Law, having a shadow of things to come, and the typical teaching of the prophets, which is a dark utterance of the truth, have been devised means to train the eyes of the heart, in that hence the transition to the wisdom hidden in mystery will be made easy.  Enough so far concerning types; nor indeed would it be possible to linger longer on this topic, or the incidental discussion would become many times bulkier than the main argument.