1. 1. The crown of victory is promised only to those who contend. Now in the divine Scriptures we continually find a crown promised to us if we conquer. But, lest it take too long to recall many texts, in the apostle Paul we read most plainly: I have finished my work, I have completed my course, I have kept the faith; there now remains for me a crown of righteousness (See 2 Tim 4:7–8). We ought, then, to know who that adversary is whom, if we conquer him, we shall be crowned for conquering. For he is the one whom our Lord first conquered, so that we too, abiding in him, might conquer. And the Power and Wisdom of God, the Word through whom all things were made (See 1 Cor 1:24; John 1:3), who is the only Son of God, remains forever unchangeable above every creature. And since even the creature that has not sinned is under him, how much more is every sinful creature under him? Therefore, since all the holy angels are under him, far more are all the transgressing angels under him, whose prince is the devil. But because he had deceived our nature, the only-begotten Son of God deigned to take up that very nature of ours, so that the devil might be conquered by means of it, and so that the one whom he always holds beneath himself he might make to be beneath us as well. The Lord points to him when he says: The prince of this world has been cast out (See John 12:31). Not that he was cast outside the world, as certain heretics suppose, but cast out of the minds of those who cleave to the word of God and do not love the world, of which he is the prince; for he rules over those who love temporal goods, which are contained in this visible world—not that he is the lord of this world, but the prince of the desires by which everything that passes away is coveted, so that those who neglect the eternal God and love what is unstable and changeable lie beneath him. For the love of money is the root of all evils; and some in their craving for it have wandered from the faith and entangled themselves in many sorrows (See 1 Tim 6:10). Through this desire the devil reigns in a person and holds his heart. Such are all who love this world. But the devil is cast out when a person renounces this world with his whole heart. For in this way one renounces the devil, who is the prince of this world, when one renounces its corruptions, its pomps, and its angels. And so the Lord himself, now bearing the nature of a man in triumph, says: Know that I have conquered the world (See John 16:33).

2. 2. But many say: How can we conquer the devil, whom we do not see? Yet we have a master who has deigned to show us how invisible enemies are conquered. For the Apostle said of him: Stripping himself of the flesh, he made an example of the principalities and powers, confidently triumphing over them in himself (See Col 2:15). There, then, the invisible powers that are hostile to us are conquered, where the invisible desires are conquered; and so, because within our very selves we conquer the desires for temporal things, we must within our very selves also conquer the one who reigns in a person by means of those desires. For when it was said to the devil, You shall eat earth (See Gen 3:14), it was said to the sinner, You are earth, and to earth you shall go (See Gen 3:19). The sinner, then, was given as food to the devil. Let us not be earth, if we do not wish to be eaten by the serpent. For just as what we eat we convert into our own body, so that the food itself becomes, with respect to this body, what we are, so by evil ways—through wickedness and pride and impiety—each person becomes what the devil is, that is, like him; and he is made subject to him, as our body is subject to us. And this is what is meant by being eaten by the serpent. Whoever, therefore, fears that fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels (See Matt 25:41), let him take pains to triumph over him within himself. For those who assail us from without we conquer within, by conquering the desires through which they have dominion over us. And whomever they find like themselves they drag with them to punishment.

3. 3. So too the Apostle says that within himself he fights against the powers outside. For he says: Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers of this world, the rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavens (See Eph 6:12). For even this air is called heaven, where the winds and clouds and storms and whirlwinds occur, as Scripture too says in many places: And the Lord thundered from heaven (See Ps 18:13 (17:14)); and the birds of heaven; and the flying things of heaven, since it is plain that birds fly in the air. And in ordinary speech we too call this air heaven, for when we ask about clear or cloudy weather, we sometimes say, What is the air like? and sometimes, What is the sky like? I have said this so that no one may suppose that the evil demons dwell where God has set the sun and the moon and the stars. The Apostle calls these evil demons spiritual because in the divine Scriptures the evil angels too are called spirits. And he calls them the rulers of this darkness because he calls sinful men, over whom they have dominion, darkness. For this reason he says in another place too: For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord (See Eph 5:8), because from being sinners they had been justified. Let us not, then, think that the devil dwells in the highest heaven with his angels, from which we believe he fell.

4. 4. For thus the Manichees went astray, who say that before the constitution of the world there was a race of darkness which rebelled against God; in which war these wretched people believe that the omnipotent God could not otherwise come to his own aid except by sending a part of himself against that race. The princes of that race, as they say, devoured the part of God and were tempered, so that the world could be fashioned out of them. Thus they say that God came to his victory with great calamities and torments and miseries to his own members—which members, they say, are mingled with the dark inward parts of those princes, in order to temper them and restrain them from their fury. And they do not understand how sacrilegious their sect is, in that they believe the omnipotent God waged war with the darkness not by means of a creature he had made, but by means of his very own nature—which it is impious to believe. And not only this, but also that those who were conquered were made better, because their fury was checked, while the nature of God which conquered was made utterly wretched. For they say that through that very mingling it lost its understanding and its blessedness, and was entangled in great errors and disasters. Even if they were to say that at some point it is wholly purified, they would still be asserting great impiety against the omnipotent God, in believing that a part of him was tossed about in errors and punishments for so long a time without any guilt of sin. But as it is, the unhappy people dare to say further that it cannot even be wholly purified; and that the very part which could not be purified serves as a bond, so that by it the tomb of malice may be wrapped up and fastened; and that thus that part of God which sinned in nothing remains there forever wretched, fixed for eternity in the prison of darkness. This they say in order to deceive simple souls. But who is so simple as not to perceive that these things are sacrilegious, by which they assert that the omnipotent God was overcome by necessity, so as to give over his good and innocent part to be overwhelmed by such disasters and defiled by such filth, and could not set all of it free, and bound with eternal bonds what he could not free? Who, then, would not curse these things? Who would not understand that they are impious and abominable? But when those people lay hold of someone, they do not say these things first; for if they did say them, they would be laughed at, or shunned by everyone. Instead, they pick out passages from the Scriptures which simple people do not understand, and through them they deceive untrained souls by asking whence evil comes. This is just what they do with that passage written by the Apostle: the rulers of this darkness, and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavens (See Eph 6:12). For those deceivers question and interrogate a person who does not understand the divine Scriptures about how there can be rulers of darkness in heaven, so that, when he cannot answer, he may be led astray by them through curiosity; for every untaught soul is curious. But whoever has well learned the catholic faith and is fortified by good morals and true piety, even though he may not know their heresy, answers them nonetheless. For one cannot be deceived who already knows what belongs to the Christian faith—which is called catholic, spread throughout the world, and, under the Lord's governance, secure against all the impious and sinners, and against the negligent even among its own.

5. 5. Since, then, we were saying that the apostle Paul said we have a wrestling against the rulers of darkness and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavens, and we have also shown that this air nearest the earth is called heaven, we must believe that we contend against the devil and his angels, who rejoice in our disturbances. For the Apostle himself in another place calls the devil the prince of the power of this air (See Eph 2:2). Yet that passage where he says the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavens (See Eph 6:12) can also be understood otherwise, so that he did not say that the transgressing angels themselves are in the heavens, but rather that we are, of whom he says in another place: Our citizenship is in heaven (See Phil 3:20); so that we, established in the heavens—that is, walking in the spiritual precepts of God—contend against the spiritual forces of wickedness, which try to draw us away from there. The more, then, must we ask how we can fight and conquer against those whom we do not see, lest the foolish suppose that we ought to contend against the air.

6. 6. And so the Apostle himself teaches, saying: I do not fight as one beating the air, but I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, having preached to others, I myself should be found a castaway (See 1 Cor 9:26–27). He also says: Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ (See 1 Cor 11:1). Hence we must understand that the Apostle too triumphed within himself over the powers of this world, just as he had said of the Lord, whose imitator he professes to be. Let us, then, also imitate him, as he urges, and chastise our body and bring it into subjection, if we wish to conquer the world. For through its unlawful delights and pomps and harmful curiosity this world—that is, the things in this world which by their harmful delight bind together the lovers of temporal things—can have dominion over us and compel us to serve the devil and his angels. If we have renounced all these, let us bring our body into subjection.

7. 7. But lest anyone perhaps ask just this—how it comes about that we subject our body to servitude—it can easily be understood and done, if we first subject our very selves to God with good will and sincere love. For every creature, willing or unwilling, is subject to the one God and Lord. But we are admonished to serve the Lord our God with our whole will. For the righteous person serves freely, while the unrighteous serves in chains. Yet all serve divine providence: some obey as children and do with it what is good; others are bound as slaves, and what is just is done with them. So the omnipotent God, the Lord of all creation, who, as it is written, made all things very good (See Gen 1:31), has so ordered them that he does good both by means of the good and by means of the wicked. For what is done justly is done well. And justly the good are blessed, and justly the wicked suffer punishments. Therefore God does good both by means of the good and by means of the wicked, since he does all things justly. The good, however, are those who serve God with their whole will; the wicked serve by necessity, for no one escapes the laws of the Almighty. But it is one thing to do what the law commands, another to suffer what the law commands. Therefore the good act according to the laws, the wicked suffer according to the laws.

7. 8. Nor let it trouble us that in this life, on account of the flesh they bear, the righteous endure many grievous and harsh things. For they suffer nothing evil who can already say what that spiritual man the Apostle exults and proclaims, saying: We glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation works patience, and patience tested character, and tested character hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (See Rom 5:3–5). If, then, in this life, where there are so many torments, good and righteous men, when they suffer such things, can not only bear them with an even mind but even glory in the love of God, what are we to think of that life which is promised to us, where we shall feel no trouble from the body? For the body of the righteous does not rise to that for which the body of the impious rises, as it is written: We shall all rise, but we shall not all be changed (See 1 Cor 15:51). And lest anyone suppose that this change is promised not to the righteous but rather to the unrighteous, and think it to be a penalty, he goes on to say: And the dead shall rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed (See 1 Cor 15:52). Whoever, then, are wicked are ordered in this way: that each harms himself, and all harm one another in turn. For they crave what is loved to their own ruin and what can easily be taken from them; and this they take from one another when they persecute one another. And so those from whom temporal things are taken are tormented, because they love them, while those who take them away rejoice. But such joy is blindness and the height of misery; for it entangles the soul all the more and leads it to greater torments. For a fish, too, rejoices when, not seeing the hook, it devours the bait; but when the fisherman begins to draw it in, its inward parts are first wrenched, and then, from all its joy, by means of the very bait over which it rejoiced, it is dragged off to be consumed. So it is with all who count themselves blessed because of temporal goods: they have taken the hook and wander about with it; the time will come when they will feel what great torments they devoured along with their greed. And so the wicked do the good no harm, for they take from them what they do not love; for what they do love, and from which they are blessed, no one can take from them. But the torment of the body afflicts wicked souls miserably, while it purifies good souls firmly. Thus it comes about that both the wicked man and the wicked angel serve divine providence as soldiers, but they do not know what good God works through them. And so they are paid their wages not for any merit of service, but for the merit of their malice.

8. 9. But just as these souls, which have a will to harm and a reason for deliberating, are ordered under the divine laws so that no one may suffer anything unjust, so all things—both animals and corporeal things—are administered, each according to its kind and in its own order, being subject to the laws of divine providence. For this reason the Lord says: Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them falls to the ground without the will of your Father (See Matt 10:29). For he said this wishing to show that whatever men count most worthless is governed by the omnipotence of God. For thus Truth declares that the birds of heaven are fed by him and the lilies of the field are clothed by him (See Matt 6:26–30), and says that even the hairs of our head are numbered (See Matt 10:30). But since God by himself cares for pure rational souls—whether in the best and great angels or in human beings serving him with their whole will—while he governs the rest through these, that too could most truly be said by the Apostle: For God has no care for oxen (See 1 Cor 9:9). For in the holy Scriptures God teaches human beings how they are to deal with human beings and to serve God himself; but how they are to deal with their cattle they themselves know—that is, how to govern the welfare of their cattle by practice and skill and natural reason, all of which they have received from the great resources of their Creator. Whoever, then, can understand how God, the founder of all creation, governs it through holy souls, which are his ministers in the heavens and on the earth—since these holy souls too were made by him and hold the first place in his creation—whoever, then, can understand, let him understand, and let him enter into the joy of his Lord (See Matt 25:21).

9. 10. But if we cannot do this so long as we are in this body and are pilgrims away from the Lord (See 2 Cor 5:6), let us at least taste how sweet the Lord is (See Ps 34:8 (33:9)), since he has given us the Spirit as a pledge (See 2 Cor 5:5), in whom we may feel his sweetness; and let us long for that very fountain of life, where we may be flooded and watered with sober inebriation, like a tree that is planted by the running waters and gives fruit in its season, and its leaves shall not fall (See Ps 1:3). For the Holy Spirit says: But the sons of men shall hope under the covering of your wings; they shall be inebriated by the abundance of your house, and you shall give them to drink of the torrent of your delight. For with you is the fountain of life (See Ps 36:7–9 (35:8–10)). Such inebriation does not overthrow the mind, but rather snatches it upward and grants forgetfulness of all earthly things—if only we can now say with our whole affection: As the deer longs for the fountains of waters, so my soul longs for you, O God (See Ps 42:1 (41:2)).

10. 11. But if perhaps, on account of the sicknesses of soul which it has contracted from the love of this world, we are not yet fit to taste how sweet the Lord is, let us at least believe the divine authority which he willed to be in the holy Scriptures concerning his Son, who was made for him from the seed of David according to the flesh (See Rom 1:3), as the Apostle says. For all things were made through him, as it is written in the Gospel, and without him was made nothing (See John 1:3). He took pity on our weakness—a weakness we deserved not by his work, but by our own will. For God made man incorruptible (See Wis 2:23) and gave him free choice of will. For he would not be the best of creatures if he served God's precepts by necessity rather than by will. It is altogether easy, in my judgment—a thing which those refuse to understand who have deserted the catholic faith and yet wish to be called Christians. For if they confess with us that our nature is not healed except by acting rightly, let them confess that it is not weakened except by sinning. And therefore we must not believe that our soul is the same as what God is; for if it were this, it would not be changed for the worse either by its own will or by any necessity, since God is understood to be in every way unchangeable. But these things are understood not by those who love to speak of what they do not know, in contention and rivalry and desire for vain glory, but by those who think of the Lord with Christian humility, in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart. This weakness of ours, then, the Son of God deigned to take up, and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (See John 1:14)—not that that eternity was changed, but that it showed to the changeable eyes of men a changeable creature, which it took up in unchangeable majesty.

11. 12. But there are foolish people who say: Why could not the Wisdom of God set men free in some other way, without taking up a man, and being born of a woman, and suffering all those things from sinners? To them we say: He could certainly have done so, but if he had done it otherwise, it would likewise have displeased your folly. For if he did not appear to the eyes of sinners, his eternal light, which is indeed seen through the inner eyes, they could not see with defiled minds. But as it is, because he deigned to admonish us visibly, in order to prepare us for things invisible, he displeases the greedy because he did not have a body of gold; he displeases the unchaste because he was born of a woman (for the unchaste greatly hate the fact that women conceive and give birth); he displeases the proud because he most patiently bore insults; he displeases the soft because he was tortured; he displeases the timid because he died. And so that they may not seem to be defending their own vices, they say that this displeases them not in a man, but in the Son of God. For they do not understand what the eternity of God is, which took up a man, and what that human creature itself is, which by its changes was being called back to its former firmness, so that we might learn, with the Lord himself teaching, that the infirmities we have gathered by sinning can be healed by acting rightly. For it was being shown to us to what fragility a man has come by his own fault, and from what fragility he is freed by divine aid. And so the Son of God took up a man, and in him endured human things. This medicine for human beings is so great that it cannot be conceived. For what pride can be healed, if it is not healed by the humility of the Son of God? What greed can be healed, if it is not healed by the poverty of the Son of God? What wrath can be healed, if it is not healed by the patience of the Son of God? What impiety can be healed, if it is not healed by the love of the Son of God? Finally, what timidity can be healed, if it is not healed by the resurrection of the body of Christ the Lord? Let the human race raise up its hope and recognize its own nature; let it see how great a place it has in the works of God. Do not despise yourselves, you men; the Son of God took up a man. Do not despise yourselves, you women; the Son of God was born of a woman. Yet do not love things carnal, for in the Son of God we are neither male nor female. Do not love things temporal, for if they were rightly to be loved, the man whom the Son of God took up would love them. Do not fear insults and crosses and death, for if they did harm to a man, the man whom the Son of God took up would not have suffered them. This whole exhortation, which is now everywhere preached, everywhere venerated, which heals every obedient soul, would not be among human affairs if all those things had not been done which displease the most foolish. Whom does vicious boasting deign to imitate, so that it can be led to attain virtue, if it is ashamed to imitate him of whom it was said before he was born that he shall be called the Son of the Most High (See Luke 1:32), and who is now, among all nations—which no one can deny—called the Son of the Most High? If we think much of ourselves, let us deign to imitate him who is called the Son of the Most High; if we think little of ourselves, let us dare to imitate the fishermen and tax collectors who imitated him. O medicine that takes counsel for all, that presses down all that is swollen, restores all that is wasting away, cuts away all that is superfluous, guards all that is necessary, repairs all that is lost, corrects all that is depraved! Who now would exalt himself against the Son of God? Who would despair of himself, for whom the Son of God willed to be so lowly? Who would think the blessed life to lie in those things which the Son of God taught us to despise? To what adversities would he yield, who believes that human nature was kept safe in the Son of God through such great persecutions? Who would think the kingdom of heaven closed to himself, who knows that tax collectors and harlots imitated the Son of God? With what perversity would he not be free, who gazes upon and loves and follows the deeds and words of that man in whom the Son of God offered himself to us as an example of life?

12. 13. And so now both males and females, and every age, and every dignity of this world, has been stirred to the hope of eternal life. Some, neglecting temporal goods, fly to things divine. Others yield to the virtues of those who do these things, and praise what they do not dare to imitate. But a few still murmur, and are tormented by empty spite: whether those who seek their own interests in the Church, though they may appear to be catholics; or heretics seeking glory from the very name of Christ; or Jews desiring to defend the sin of their impiety; or pagans afraid to lose the curiosity of empty license. But the catholic Church, spread far and wide throughout the whole world, breaking their assaults in earlier times, has grown stronger and stronger—not by resisting, but by enduring. Now, however, it laughs at their treacherous questions by faith, examines them with diligence, and resolves them with understanding. It pays no heed to those who accuse its chaff, because it carefully and diligently distinguishes the time of harvest, the time of the threshing floors, and the time of the granaries; but those who accuse its wheat it either corrects, if they are erring, or, if they are envious, it counts among the thorns and the weeds.

13. 14. Let us, then, subject our soul to God, if we wish to subject our body to servitude and to triumph over the devil. Faith is the first thing that subjects the soul to God; then come the precepts of living, by keeping which our hope is strengthened, and charity is nourished, and what before was only believed begins to shine forth. For since knowledge and action make a person blessed, just as in knowledge error is to be avoided, so in action wickedness is to be avoided. And whoever supposes that he can know the truth while he still lives wickedly is in error. Now wickedness is to love this world and to count as great the things that are born and pass away; and to covet them and labor to acquire them; and to rejoice when they abound; and to fear lest they perish; and to be saddened when they perish. Such a life cannot see that pure and sincere and unchangeable truth, and cleave to it, and now no longer be moved for eternity. And so, before our mind is purified, we ought to believe what we are not yet able to understand, since it was most truly said through the prophet: Unless you believe, you will not understand (See Isa 7:9).

13. 15. The faith is handed down in the Church most briefly, and in it are commended the eternal things, which cannot yet be understood by the carnal; and the temporal things, past and future, which the eternity of divine providence has accomplished, and will accomplish, for the salvation of human beings. Let us, then, believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: these are eternal and unchangeable—that is, one God, an eternal Trinity of one substance; God from whom are all things, through whom are all things, in whom are all things.

14. 16. Nor let us listen to those who say that the Father alone exists, and has no Son, and that the Holy Spirit is not with him, but that this same Father is sometimes called the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit. For they do not know the Principle from whom are all things, and his Image through whom all things are formed, and his holiness in which all things are ordered.

15. 17. Nor let us listen to those who are indignant and annoyed because we do not say that three gods are to be worshiped. For they do not know what one and the same substance is, and they are deluded by their own fantasies, because they are accustomed to seeing three animals, or any three bodies whatever, separated bodily in their own places; so they suppose that the substance of God is to be understood in this way. And they greatly err, because they are proud, and they cannot learn, because they are unwilling to believe.

16. 18. Nor let us listen to those who say that the Father alone is the true and eternal God, but that the Son was not begotten of him, but made by him out of nothing, and that there was a time when he was not, yet that he holds the first place in all creation; and that the Holy Spirit is of less majesty than the Son, and was himself made after the Son; and that these three have different substances, like gold and silver and bronze. For they do not know what they are saying, and from those things which they have grown accustomed to seeing through fleshly eyes they transfer empty images into their disputations. For in truth it is a great thing to behold with the mind a generation which does not take place out of any time, but is eternal; and to behold that very Love and Holiness by which the Begetter and the Begotten are ineffably joined to one another: it is a great and difficult thing to behold these things with the mind, even if the mind be calm and tranquil. It cannot, then, come about that those should see these things who gaze too much on earthly generations, and to that darkness add still more smoke, which they do not cease to stir up for themselves by their daily contentions and conflicts, having souls dissolved by the affections of the flesh, like wood saturated with moisture, in which the fire vomits forth only smoke and cannot have bright flames. And this indeed can most rightly be said of all heretics.

17. 19. Believing, then, in the unchangeable Trinity, let us also believe in the temporal dispensation for the salvation of the human race. Nor let us listen to those who say that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is nothing other than a man, yet so righteous that he is worthy to be called the Son of God. For the catholic teaching has cast these too outside; because, deceived by the desire for vain glory, they wished to dispute contentiously before they understood what the Power of God and the Wisdom of God is, and what is meant by the Word in the beginning, through whom all things were made (See John 1:1,3), and how the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (See John 1:14).

18. 20. Nor let us listen to those who say that the Son of God did not take up a true man, nor was born of a woman, but displayed to those who saw him a false flesh and a feigned image of a human body. For they do not know how the substance of God, which administers all creation, cannot possibly be defiled; and yet they proclaim that this visible sun scatters its rays through all the dregs and filth of bodies, and everywhere keeps them clean and pure. If, then, visible clean things can be touched by visible unclean things and not be defiled, how much more did the invisible and unchangeable Truth—taking up a soul through a spirit, and a body through a soul, with the whole man taken up—free him from all infirmities without any defilement of itself? And so they suffer great difficulties, and, while they fear what cannot happen—namely, that Truth might be defiled by human flesh—they say that Truth lied. And although he commanded, saying, Let it be in your mouth: Yes, yes; No, no (See Matt 5:37), and the Apostle cries out, In him there was no yes and no, but in him there was yes (See 2 Cor 1:19), these people contend that his whole body was a false flesh, so that they may not seem to themselves to be imitating Christ unless they lie to their own hearers.

19. 21. Nor let us listen to those who indeed confess the Trinity in one eternal substance, but dare to say that the man himself, who was taken up in the temporal dispensation, did not have a human mind, but only a soul and a body. This is to say: He was not a man, but had the members of a human body. For beasts too have a soul and a body, but they do not have reason, which is proper to the mind. But if those are to be cursed who deny that he had a human body, which is the lowest thing in a man, I wonder that these people are not ashamed who deny that he had what is the best thing in a man. For the human mind is much to be lamented if it is conquered by its own body—since indeed it was not reformed in that man, in whom the human body itself has now received the dignity of a heavenly form. But far be it that we should believe this, which rash blindness and proud loquacity has fabricated.

20. 22. Nor let us listen to those who say that the man who was born of the virgin was taken up by that eternal Wisdom in the same way that other men are made wise by it, who are perfectly wise. For they do not know the mystery proper to that man, and they suppose that he had this one thing more than the rest of the most blessed—that he was born of a virgin. Yet if they would consider this well, they might perhaps believe that he deserved this beyond the rest precisely because this very taking-up also has something proper to it beyond the rest. For it is one thing to be made merely wise through the Wisdom of God, and another to sustain in oneself the very person of the Wisdom of God. For although the nature of the body of the Church is the same, who does not understand that there is yet a great distance between the head and the rest of the members? For if the head of the Church is that man, by whose taking-up the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (See John 1:14), the rest of the members are all the saints, by whom the Church is perfected and completed. Therefore, just as the soul animates and gives life to our whole body, but in the head it both senses by living, and by hearing, and by smelling, and by tasting, and by touching, while in the rest of the members it senses only by touching—and so all things are subject to the head for acting, while the head is placed above for taking counsel, because the head in a certain manner sustains the person of the soul itself, which takes counsel for the body, for it is there that all sense appears—so for the whole people of the saints, as for one body, the head is the Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (See 1 Tim 2:5). And therefore the Wisdom of God, and the Word in the beginning, through whom all things were made (See John 1:1,3), did not take up that man as it takes up the rest of the saints, but in a far more excellent and far more sublime way: as he alone had to be taken up, in whom Wisdom might appear to men, as it was fitting for it to be shown visibly. Therefore other men—whoever they are, or could have been, or could be—are wise in one way, and that one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus (See 1 Tim 2:5), in another way, who not only has the benefit of that very Wisdom through which any men become wise, but also bears its person. For of the other wise and spiritual souls it can rightly be said that they have within them the Word of God through whom all things were made (See John 1:3); but of none of them can it rightly be said that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (See John 1:14), which is most rightly said of our Lord Jesus Christ alone.

21. 23. Nor let us listen to those who say that only a human body was taken up by the Word of God, and so understand what was said, And the Word was made flesh (See John 1:14), as to deny that that man had either a soul or anything of a man except flesh alone. For they err greatly; nor do they understand that flesh alone was named in what was said, The Word was made flesh, because to the eyes of men, for whose sake that taking-up took place, flesh alone could appear. For if it is absurd and altogether unworthy that that man should not have had a human spirit, as we treated above, how much more absurd and unworthy is it that he should have had neither spirit nor soul, and should have had only that which even in cattle is more worthless and lowest, that is, a body? Let this impiety too, then, be excluded from our faith, and let us believe that the whole and perfect man was taken up by the Word of God.

22. 24. Nor let us listen to those who say that our Lord had such a body as appeared in the dove which John the Baptist saw descending from heaven and remaining upon him as a sign of the Holy Spirit. For in this way they try to persuade people that the Son of God was not born of a woman: because, if he had to be shown to fleshly eyes, he could, they say, take up a body in the same way the Holy Spirit did. For that dove, they say, was not born of an egg, and yet it could appear to human eyes. To these the first answer is that there, where we read that the Holy Spirit appeared to John in the form of a dove, we also read that Christ was born of a woman; and one ought not to believe the Gospel in part and disbelieve it in part. For whence do you believe that the Holy Spirit was shown in the form of a dove, except that you read it in the Gospel? Therefore I too believe from there that Christ was born of a virgin, because I read it in the Gospel. But the reason why the Holy Spirit was not born of a dove, as Christ was born of a woman, is this: that the Holy Spirit had not come to set doves free, but to signify to human beings innocence and spiritual love, which was visibly figured in the form of a dove. But the Lord Jesus Christ, who had come to set human beings free, among whom both males and females belong to salvation, neither disdained males, because he took up a male, nor females, because he was born of a female. To this is added a great mystery: that, since death had come to us through a woman, life might be born for us through a woman; so that from both natures, that is, the feminine and the masculine, the devil, being conquered, might be tormented, since he had rejoiced over the overthrow of both. For it would have been too little punishment for him if both natures had been freed in us, unless we were also freed through both. Nor do we say this in such a way as to say that the Lord Jesus Christ alone had a true body, while the Holy Spirit appeared deceptively to the eyes of men; but we believe both those bodies to be true bodies. For just as it was not fitting that the Son of God should deceive men, so it was not seemly that the Holy Spirit should deceive men; but for the omnipotent God, who fashioned all creation out of nothing, it was not difficult to form a true body of a dove without the ministry of other doves, just as it was not difficult for him to fashion a true body in the womb of Mary without the seed of a man; since corporeal creation served the command and will of the Lord both in the womb of a woman to form a man, and in the world itself to form a dove. But foolish and wretched people do not believe that what either they themselves cannot do, or have never seen in their own life, could have been done by the omnipotent God.

23. 25. Nor let us listen to those who, for this reason, wish to compel us to number the Son of God among creatures, because he suffered. For they say: If he suffered, he is changeable; and if he is changeable, he is a creature, because the substance of God cannot be changed. With them we too say both that the substance of God cannot be changed, and that a creature is changeable. But it is one thing to be a creature, and another to take up a creature. The only-begotten Son of God, then, who is the Power and Wisdom of God (See 1 Cor 1:24), and the Word through whom all things were made (See John 1:3), because he cannot be changed at all, took up the human creature, which, fallen, he deigned to raise up, and, grown old, to renew. Nor was he in it changed for the worse through his passion, but rather he changed it for the better through his resurrection. Nor, on that account, is it to be denied that the Word of the Father, that is, the only Son of God, through whom all things were made (See John 1:3), was born and suffered for us. For we say that the martyrs too suffered and died for the kingdom of heaven; and yet in that suffering and death their souls were not slain. For the Lord says: Do not fear those who kill the body, but can do nothing to the soul (See Matt 10:28). Just as, then, we say that the martyrs suffered and died in the bodies they bore, without the slaying or death of their souls, so we say that the Son of God suffered and died in the man whom he bore, without any change or death of his divinity.

24. 26. Nor let us listen to those who deny that the Lord's body rose such as it was laid in the tomb. For if it had not been such, he himself would not have said to his disciples after the resurrection: Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have bones and sinews, as you see me to have (See Luke 24:39). For it is sacrilegious to believe that our Lord, since he himself is Truth, lied in anything. Nor let it trouble us that it is written that he suddenly appeared to the disciples with the doors shut (See John 20:19), so that for this reason we should deny that it was a human body, because we see it to be against the nature of this body to enter through shut doors. For all things are possible to God. For it is plain that to walk upon the waters too is against the nature of this body; and yet not only did the Lord himself walk before his passion, but he also made Peter walk. So, then, after the resurrection too he did with his body what he willed. For if he could, before his passion, make it bright like the splendor of the sun, why could he not, after his passion as well, reduce it in a moment of time to whatever subtlety he willed, so that he could enter through shut doors?

25. 27. Nor let us listen to those who deny that our Lord carried up that same body with him into heaven, and recall what is written in the Gospel: No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven (See John 3:13); and they say that, because the body did not descend from heaven, it could not ascend into heaven. For they do not understand that the body did not ascend into heaven: for the Lord ascended, but the body did not ascend; rather, it was lifted up into heaven by him who, lifting it up, ascended. For if someone descends, for example, from a mountain naked, and, when he has descended, clothes himself, and, clothed, ascends again, we rightly say, of course: No one has ascended except the one who descended; nor do we take into account the garment which he carried up with him, but we say that he alone, who is clothed, has ascended.

26. 28. Nor let us listen to those who deny that the Son sits at the right hand of the Father. For they say: Does God the Father have a right side or a left, like bodies? Nor do we think this of God the Father, for God is not defined and bounded by any bodily form. But the right hand of the Father is the everlasting blessedness which is promised to the saints, just as his left hand is most rightly called the everlasting misery which is given to the impious; so that right hand and left are understood not in God himself, but in creatures, in the manner we have described. For the body of Christ, which is the Church, will also be at that right hand, that is, in that blessedness, as the Apostle says, because he raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavens (See Eph 2:6). For although our body is not yet there, nevertheless our hope is already there. For this reason the Lord himself, after the resurrection, commanded the disciples whom he found fishing to cast their nets on the right side. And when they had done so, they caught fish, all of which were large—that is, they signified the righteous, to whom the right hand is promised. This is what he signified when he said that in the judgment too he would set the sheep at the right and the goats at the left.

27. 29. Nor let us listen to those who deny that there will be a day of judgment, and recall what is written in the Gospel, that the one who believes in Christ is not judged, while the one who does not believe in him has already been judged. For they say: If the one who believes will not come into judgment, and the one who does not believe has already been judged, where are those whom he is to judge on the day of judgment? They do not understand that the Scriptures speak in such a way as to convey a past time for a future time: as we said above, that what the Apostle said of us, that he made us sit together in the heavens (See Eph 2:6), has not yet been done; but because it most certainly is to be, it was said as though it were already done. So too the Lord himself said to the disciples: All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you (See John 15:15); and a little later he says: I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now (See John 16:12). How, then, had he said, All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you, except that what he was most certainly going to do through the Holy Spirit, he spoke of as though he had already done it? So, then, when we hear, He who believes in Christ will not come into judgment, let us understand that he will not come to damnation. For judgment is used for damnation, as the Apostle says: Let not the one who does not eat judge the one who eats (See Rom 14:3); that is, let him not think ill of him. And the Lord says: Do not judge, lest you be judged (See Matt 7:1). For he does not take from us the understanding of judging, since the prophet also says: If you truly love righteousness, judge rightly, you sons of men (See Ps 58:1 (57:2)); and the Lord himself says: Do not judge according to appearances, but judge with a just judgment (See John 7:24). But in that place where he forbids judging, he admonishes this: that we should not condemn anyone whose thought is not open to us, or of whom we do not know what sort he will afterward be. So, then, when he said, He will not come into judgment, he meant this: that he will not come to damnation. But he who does not believe has already been judged: this he said because he has already been condemned by the foreknowledge of God, who knows what threatens those who do not believe.

28. 30. Nor let us listen to those who say that the Holy Spirit, whom the Lord promised to the disciples in the Gospel, came either in the apostle Paul, or in Montanus and Priscilla, as the Cataphrygians say, or in some Manes or Manichaeus, as the Manichees say. For these people are so blind that they do not understand the plain Scriptures, or so negligent of their own salvation that they do not read them at all. For who, when he has read it, will not understand—whether in the Gospel, which was written after the Lord's resurrection, where the Lord says: I send the promise of my Father upon you; but sit here in the city until you are clothed with power from on high (See Luke 24:49)? And in the Acts of the Apostles, after the Lord had withdrawn from the eyes of the disciples into heaven, when ten days had passed, on the day of Pentecost—do they not notice that the Holy Spirit came most openly, and, while they were in the city, as he had earlier admonished them, filled them, so that they spoke in tongues? For the different nations which were then present, each of those listening understood their own language. But these people deceive those who, being negligent of the catholic faith, and of their own faith too, which is plain in the Scriptures, are unwilling to learn; and—what is more grievous and much to be lamented—while they occupy themselves negligently in the Catholic Church, they lend a diligent ear to heretics.

29. 31. Nor let us listen to those who deny that the holy Church, which is the one catholic Church, is spread throughout the world, but think that it flourishes in Africa alone, that is, in the party of Donatus. So deaf are they to the prophet who says: You are my Son, today I have begotten you; ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession (See Ps 2:7–8). And there are many other things, written either in the books of the Old or of the New Testament, which most openly declare that the Church of Christ is spread throughout the earth. And when we set these before them, they say that all these things were fulfilled before the party of Donatus existed, but that afterward the whole Church perished, and that its remnants remained in the party of Donatus alone. O proud and wicked tongue! Not even if they truly lived in such a way as at least to keep peace among themselves afterward! But as it is, they do not notice that in Donatus himself was fulfilled what was said: With what measure you have measured, it will be measured back to you (See Matt 7:2). For just as he tried to divide Christ, so he himself is divided by his own followers in daily cutting-apart. To this also pertains what the Lord says: For whoever strikes with the sword shall die by the sword (See Matt 26:52). For the sword in that place, since it is set down in an evil sense, signifies a discordant tongue, by which that unhappy man then struck the Church, but did not slay it. For the Lord did not say: He who kills with the sword shall die by the sword; but: He who uses the sword, he says, shall die by the sword. Therefore that man struck the Church with a contentious tongue, by which he is now himself cut apart, so that he utterly perishes and dies. And yet the apostle Peter did that earlier deed not out of his own pride, but out of a love for the Lord which, though carnal, was nonetheless love. And so, when admonished, he put back his sword; but this man did not do so even when conquered. Indeed, when he pleaded his cause with bishop Caecilian, in the hearing of the bishops at Rome whom he himself had requested, he could prove none of the things he had alleged; and so he remained in schism, so as to die by his own sword. But his people, when they do not heed the prophets and the Gospel, in which it is most openly written that the Church of Christ is spread among all nations, and instead heed schismatics who seek not God's glory but their own, sufficiently show that they are slaves, not free, and that they have had their right ear cut off. For Peter, erring in his love for the Lord, cut off the right ear of a slave, not of a free man. By this he signifies that those who are struck by the sword of schism are both slaves of carnal desires, not yet led out into the liberty of the Holy Spirit so as no longer to trust in man, and do not hear what is right, that is, the Lord's glory most widely spread through the catholic Church, but hear the left-hand error of human pride. Yet since the Lord says in the Gospel that when the Gospel has been preached among all nations, then the end will come, how do these people say that all the other nations have already fallen from the faith, and that the Church has remained in the party of Donatus alone, when it is plain that, since this party was cut off from unity, some nations have afterward come to believe, and there are still some who have not yet believed, to whom the Gospel does not cease to be preached daily? Who would not marvel that there is anyone who would wish to be called a Christian, and yet is carried away against the glory of Christ with such great impiety that he dares to say that all the peoples of the nations, who even now still come to the Church of God and hasten to believe in the Son of God, act in vain, because some Donatist does not baptize them? Without doubt people would curse these things, and leave such men without delay, if they sought Christ, if they loved the Church, if they were free, if they kept their right ear whole.

30. 32. Nor let us listen to those who, although they rebaptize no one, have nonetheless cut themselves off from unity, and have preferred to be called Luciferians rather than Catholics. For in that they understand that the baptism of Christ is not to be repeated, they do rightly. For they perceive that the sacrament of the holy washing is nowhere except from the catholic Church; but that the branches cut off carry with them that form which they had received in the vine itself before they were cut off. For these are they of whom the Apostle says: Having a form of piety, but denying its power (See 2 Tim 3:5). For the great power of piety is peace and unity, because God is one. This they do not have, because they are cut off from unity. And so, if any of them come to the Catholic Church, they do not repeat the form of piety which they have, but they receive the power of piety which they do not have. For the Apostle most openly teaches that branches cut off can be grafted in again, if they do not remain in unbelief (See Rom 11:23). And since the Luciferians understand this, and do not rebaptize, we do not blame them; but since they too wished to be cut off from the root, who would not recognize that this is to be detested? And especially because the thing that displeased them in the catholic Church is the very thing that belongs to truly catholic holiness. For nowhere ought the bowels of mercy to be so strong as in the catholic Church, so that, like a true mother, she may neither proudly insult her sinning children, nor be slow to forgive those who have been corrected. For not without cause does Peter, among all the Apostles, sustain the person of this catholic Church: for to this Church the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given, when they were given to Peter. And when it is said to him, it is said to all: Do you love me? Feed my sheep (See John 21:17). The catholic Church, then, ought gladly to forgive her children when they are corrected and strengthened in piety; for, in Peter himself bearing her person—both when he had wavered on the sea, and when he had carnally tried to call the Lord back from his passion, and when he had cut off the ear of the slave with the sword, and when he had denied the Lord himself three times, and when he had afterward fallen into superstitious dissembling—we see that pardon was granted, and that, corrected and strengthened, he came all the way to the glory of the Lord's passion. And so, after the persecution which had been carried out through the Arian heretics, after the peace which the Catholic Church indeed holds in the Lord had been restored even by the princes of this world, the bishops who had consented to the perfidy of the Arians in that persecution, being corrected, many of them chose to return to the Catholic Church, condemning either what they had believed or what they had pretended to believe. These the catholic Church received into her maternal bosom, as she received Peter after he had been admonished, at the cock's crow, of his denial, or as she received that same Peter after his evil dissembling, corrected by the voice of Paul. But those people, proudly receiving this love of their mother, and impiously reproaching it—because they did not rejoice with Peter rising after the cock's crow—deserved to fall with Lucifer, who used to rise in the morning.

31. 33. Nor let us listen to those who deny that the Church of God can forgive all sins. And so these wretched people, while they do not understand the rock in Peter, and are unwilling to believe that the keys of the kingdom of heaven were given to the Church, have themselves let those keys slip from their hands. These are they who condemn widows, if they marry, as adulteresses, and proclaim themselves to be purer than the apostolic teaching. If they were willing to acknowledge their own name, they would call themselves worldly rather than pure. For, being unwilling to be corrected if they have sinned, they have chosen nothing else than to be condemned along with this world. For those to whom they deny the pardon of sins, they do not preserve by any soundness, but rather withhold the medicine from the sick; and they force their widows to burn, whom they do not permit to marry. For they are not to be held wiser than the apostle Paul, who preferred that they marry rather than burn.

32. 34. Nor let us listen to those who deny that there will be a resurrection of the flesh, and recall what the apostle Paul says: Flesh and blood shall not possess the kingdom of God (See 1 Cor 15:50); not understanding what the Apostle himself says: This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (See 1 Cor 15:53). For when this has been done, it will no longer be flesh and blood, but a heavenly body. This the Lord also promises when he says: They will neither marry nor take wives, but will be equal to the angels of God (See Matt 22:30; Luke 20:36). For they will live no longer for men, but for God, when they have been made equal to the angels. Flesh and blood, then, will be changed, and will become a heavenly and angelic body. For the dead will rise incorrupt, and we shall be changed (See 1 Cor 15:52): so that both this is true, that the flesh will rise, and this is true, that flesh and blood will not possess the kingdom of God.

33. 35. Suckled on this simplicity and sincerity of faith, let us be nourished in Christ; and while we are little ones, let us not crave the foods of grown people, but let us grow in Christ on the most healthful nourishments, with good morals being added, and Christian righteousness, in which is the love of God and neighbor, perfected and made firm: so that each of us may triumph over the devil our enemy and his angels, within himself, in Christ whom he has put on. For perfect love has neither desire for this world nor fear of this world; that is, neither desire to acquire temporal things, nor fear of losing temporal things. Through these two gates the enemy enters and reigns, who is to be driven out first by the fear of God, then by love. We ought, therefore, to crave all the more eagerly the most open and most evident knowledge of the truth, the more we see ourselves making progress in love and, by its simplicity, having a heart that is cleansed, because it is by that inner eye that truth is seen: for blessed, he says, are the pure of heart, for they shall see God (See Matt 5:8). So that, rooted and grounded in love, we may prevail to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know also the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God (See Eph 3:17–19); and that, after these contests with the invisible enemy—since to those who are willing and loving the yoke of Christ is easy and his burden light (See Matt 11:30)—we may merit the crown of victory.