Saturday of the 10th week after Pentecost

(ap. Anselm.) Otherwise; Peter answered, Yea; meaning, yea, He does not pay. And Peter sought to acquaint the Lord that the Herodians had demanded tribute, but the Lord prevented him; as it follows, And when he had entered into the house, Jesus prevented him, saying, Of whom do the kings of the earth receive custom or tribute, (i. e. head-money,) of their children, or of strangers?

Is it not clear that the sons of kings are not subject to tax and those who are the heirs of a kingdom are free from service? But his words have inner meaning. A drachma was demanded of the people. Now the law moves toward that faith which was to be revealed through Christ. Therefore by the custom of the law this same drachma was demanded from Christ as though from an ordinary citizen. But to show that he was not subject to the law and to demonstrate the glory of his Father's dignity in himself, he offered as an example of earthly privilege the fact that kings' sons are not subject to census and tax. He is the Redeemer of our soul and body. Nothing should be demanded of him for his redemption, because it was necessary that a king's son be distinguished from the common lot. Therefore the king's son offers a stumbling block to the tax law in order to do away with it, he being free from the duty of the law.

(Verse 25) What do you think, Simon? Do the kings of the earth receive tribute or census from their sons or from strangers? And he said: From strangers. Jesus said to him: Therefore, the sons are free. Our Lord, both according to the flesh and according to the spirit, was the son of a king, either born of the lineage of David or begotten by the Almighty Word of the Father. Therefore, as a son of a king, he should not have to pay taxes, but because he took on the humility of the flesh, he had to fulfill all righteousness. And we, who are unhappy, are called by the name of Christ and yet do nothing worthy of such majesty: He endured the cross and paid tributes for us, we do not pay tributes for His honor, and we are like children of a king who are immune to paying taxes.

Our Lord was the son of a king both according to the flesh and according to the spirit, begotten either from the stock of David or from the Word of the almighty Father. Therefore as the son of a king he did not owe tax, but as one who had assumed the humility of the flesh he has to fulfill all justice. We unfortunates, who are enrolled under Christ's name and do nothing worthy of such great majesty, for us he both underwent the cross and paid our tax. But we do not pay him tribute in return for his honor and like the sons of a king we are immune from taxes.

Before any hint from Peter, the Lord puts the question to him, that His disciples might not be offended at the demand of tribute, when they, see that He knows even those things that are done in His absence. It follows, But he said, From strangers; Jesus said unto him, Then are the children free.

What then saith Peter? "He saith, Yea:" and to these indeed he said, that He payeth, but to Him he said it not, blushing perhaps to speak to Him of these things. Wherefore that gentle one, well knowing as He did all things, prevented him, "saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? of their own sons, or of strangers;" and when he said "of strangers," He replied, "Then are the sons free."

For lest Peter should suppose Him to say so, being told it by the others, He prevents him, partly indicating what hath been said, partly giving him leave to speak freely, backward as he was to speak first of these things.

And what He saith is like this, "I am indeed free from paying tribute. For if the kings of the earth take it not of their sons, but of their subjects; much more ought I to be freed from this demand, I who am Son, not of an earthly king, but of the King of Heaven, and myself a King." Seest thou how He hath distinguished the sons from them that are not sons? And if He were not a Son, to no purpose hath He brought in the example also of the kings. "Yea," one may say, "He is a Son, but not truly begotten." Then is He not a Son; and if not a Son, nor truly begotten, neither doth He belong to God, but to some other. But if He belong to another, then neither hath the comparison its proper force. For He is discoursing not of the sons generally, but of the genuine sons, men's very own; of them that share the kingdom with their parents.

Wherefore also in contradistinction He hath mentioned the "strangers;" meaning by "strangers," such as are not born of them, but by "their own," those whom they have begotten of themselves.

And I would have thee mark this also; how the high doctrine, revealed to Peter, He doth hereby again confirm. And neither at this did He stop, but by His very condescension declares this self-same truth; an instance of exceeding wisdom.

This speech has a twofold meaning. First, that the children of the kings of the earth are free with the kings of the earth; but strangers, foreigners in the land, are not free, because of those that oppress them, as the Egyptians did the children of Israel. The second sense is; forasmuch as there be some who are strangers to the sons of the kings of the earth, and are yet sons of God, therefore it is they that abide in the words of Jesus; these are free, for they have known the truth, and the truth has set them free from the service of sin; but the sons of the kings of the earth are not free; for whoso doth sin, he is the servant of sin. (John 8:34.)

We may hence gather as a consequence of this, that when any come with justice demanding our earthly goods, it is the kings of the earth that send them, to claim of us what is their own; and by His own example the Lord forbids any offence to be given even to these, whether that they should sin no more, or that they should be saved. For the Son of God, who did no servile work, yet as having the form of a slave, which He took on Him for man's sake, gave custom and tribute.

And when he was come into the house, Jesus spake first to him, saying, What thinkest thou, Simon? Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute? Of their own sons, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then indeed are the sons free. Being God, Christ knew what they had said to Peter although He had not heard the question. So He spoke first to Peter and said, "If earthly kings do not collect tax from their own sons, but from strangers, how would the heavenly King collect the two-drachma tax from Me, His own Son?" For this was paid, as I said above, to the priests and to the temple. "If earthly sons are free," that is, they pay nothing, "how much more so am I?"

Then Peter's response is presented: and he said: yes, i.e., it is true that he has not paid. Chrysostom says that lest he be troubled, he said yes, he pays. Then follows Christ's question, and then Peter's response. In the question two things are to be considered, namely, that he did not take fright at the announcement, because although he was in such a state, he was held to a certain indignity; and some are so disposed that when they see something lowly in a great person, they are immediately scandalized. Lest therefore they be scandalized, he came first, and therefore with the lowliness he attached something great, namely, that while absent he knew what had been said to Peter. All things are naked and open to his eyes, Hebrews 4:13. Likewise it should be noted that he commits the judgment to Peter, because he more frequently spoke to him, saying what is your opinion, Simon? Job 12:11: does not the ear discern words? The kings of the earth, of whom do they receive tribute or custom? There is a difference between tribute and custom: for tribute is given for fields and vineyards, but custom is given per head. Hence as a sign of his subjection, a subject man owes something; and this is called custom. From this he wishes to argue that since the sons of kings do not pay tribute, he himself is not bound; for he is the King of kings, through whom all reign. Likewise, according to the flesh, he was of royal descent. Who was made of the seed of David, according to the flesh, Romans 1:3. Chrysostom says that from this we can consider that he is a natural son, because first is mentioned he who is natural.

(Quæst. Ev. i. 23.) For, saith He, in every kingdom the children are free, that is, not under tax. Much more therefore should they be free in any earthly kingdom, who are children of that very kingdom under which are all the kingdoms of the earth.

(Verse 26) But that we may not offend them: go to the sea, and cast in a hook, and that fish which shall first come up, take: and when thou hast opened its mouth, thou shalt find a stater: take that, and give it to them for me and thee. What I should first admire in this place, I know not, whether the foreknowledge, or the greatness of the Saviour. The foreknowledge that he knew the fish would have a stater in its mouth, and that he himself would be the first to be caught. The greatness and power, if at his word a stater was immediately created in the mouth of the fish, and that which was to come to pass he effected by his speaking. But it seems to me, according to a mystical understanding, that this is the fish that was first caught, which was in the depths of the sea and dwelled in salty and bitter waters, so that through the second Adam the first Adam might be freed; and that which was found in its mouth, that is, in its confession, would be given back to Peter and the Lord. And indeed, the same thing is given a beautiful price, but it is divided, because it was given as a price for Peter, as if for a sinner; but our Lord had not committed any sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth (Isaiah 53). The stater is called so because it has two didrachms, to show the likeness of the flesh, while both the slave and the Lord are redeemed at the same price. But it also builds up the understanding of the listener: that the Lord was of such great poverty that he had no means to pay taxes for himself and his apostle. If someone wants to object: how did Judas carry money in the purse? We will answer that he thought it would be wrong to convert the resources of the poor for his own use, and he gave us the same example.

But our Lord was the son of the king, both according to the flesh, and according to the Spirit; whether as sprung of the seed of David, or as the Word of the Almighty Father; therefore as the king's son He owed no tribute.

And he said: from strangers. Then Christ's response is presented, because kings spare their own sons. Isaiah 3:15: why do you crush my people, and grind the faces of the poor? For it seems just. For he who presides ought to have care of his subjects; therefore his subjects ought to serve him as members serve the body. For just as the members of the body serve the whole body from what is their own, so every subject from his own goods ought to serve the community. Therefore the Lord concludes: then the children are free. Origen interprets it in one way thus: therefore the children of earthly kings are free, but the children of God are free before God. But what does this have to do with the matter at hand? Either he speaks of sons according to the flesh, and thus he was not a son according to the flesh; or according to the spirit, and then all Christians will be free. But this is against the Apostle: render to all men their dues; to whom tribute is due, tribute. I say that this was true of the one who was Son by nature. For he was truly free. But those who are free according to the spirit have freedom in the same way as they have sonship, through conformity to Christ, who is the firstborn among many brethren, Romans 8:29. Insofar as they are conformed to the firstborn, they are free. Philippians 3:21: who will reform the body of our lowness, made like to the body of his glory.

He establishes himself as lord and master of the sea, of the things in it and of all the elements, as the true Son of God the Father. For this fish provides a type of the church: once [it was] held by the brine of faithlessness and superstition, submerged in the depths of the sea and swamped by the storms and distress of worldly pleasures. But now [it is] raised up by the apostles' hook of teaching and the fishing nets of the Word to the knowledge of God, of him "who calls us from darkness to his amazing light."

Likewise, on that passage of Matthew 17: Go to the sea; the Gloss says: "The Lord was of such great poverty that He did not have the means to pay the tribute: Judas indeed had the common funds in the purse, but He deemed it wrong to use the goods of the poor for His own purposes, giving us this very example." If therefore Christ was of such great poverty that He could not pay a single coin, it is manifest that He was in the highest poverty.

He was also able to take the coin out of the earth, but he did not do so. [Instead he] made the miracle out of the sea, so that he might teach us the mystery rich in contemplation. For we are the fish snatched from the bitter disturbances of life. It is just as if we have been caught out of the sea on the apostles' hooks. In their mouths the fish have Christ the royal coin, which was rendered in payment of debt for two things, for our soul and for our body. Also for two peoples, the Jews and the Gentiles. Also in the same way for the poor and the wealthy, since the old law clearly demanded the payment of the half-shekel from both rich and poor alike.

(non occ.) Or because Jesus had not any image of Cæsar, (for the prince of this world had nothing in Him,) therefore He furnished an image of Cæsar, not out of their own stock, but out of the sea. But He takes not the stater into His own possession, that there should never be found an image of Cæsar upon the Image of the invisible God.

(ap. Anselm.) For by custom every several man paid a didrachma for himself; now a stater is equal to two didrachmas.

(in Ezech. 7. 4.) For we must cast about how, as far as we may without sin, to avoid giving scandal to our neighbours. But if offence is taken from truth, it is better that offence should come, though truth be forsaken.

When Peter is instructed to take the first fish, it is shown therein that he shall catch more than one. The blessed first martyr Stephen was the first that came up, having in his mouth a stater, which contained the didrachma of the new preaching, divided as two denarii, for he preached as he beheld in his passion the glory of God, and Christ the Lord.

Howsoever free then He was, yet seeing He had taken to Him lowliness of the flesh, He ought to fulfil all righteousness; whence it follows, But that they should not be offended, go to the sea.

I am at a loss what first to admire in this passage; whether the foreknowledge, or the mighty power of the Saviour. His foreknowledge, in that He knew that a fish had a stater in its mouth, and that that fish should be the first taken; His mighty power, if the stater were created in the fish's mouth at His word, and if by His command that which was to happen was ordered. Christ then, for His eminent love, endured the cross, and paid tribute; how wretched we who are called by the name of Christ, though we do nothing worthy of so great dignity, yet in respect of His majesty, pay no tribute, but are exempt from tax as the King's sons. But even in its literal import it edifies the hearer to learn, that so great was the Lord's poverty, that He had not whence to pay the tribute for Himself and His Apostle. Should any object that Judas bore money in a bag, we shall answer, Jesus held it a fraud to divert that which was the poor's to His own use, and left us an example therein.

Or; That fish which was first taken is the first Adam, who is set free by the second Adam; and that which is found in his mouth, that is, in his confession, is given for Peter and for the Lord.

And beautifully is this very stater given for the tribute; but it is divided; for Peter as for a sinner a ransom is to be paid, but the Lord had not sin. Yet herein is shown the likeness of their flesh, when the Lord and His servants are redeemed with the same price.

For after thus speaking, He saith, "But lest we should offend them, go thou and cast an hook into the sea, and take up the fish that first cometh up, and thou shall find therein a piece of money; that take, and give unto them for me and thee."

See how He neither declines the tribute, nor simply commands to pay it, but having first proved Himself not liable to it, then He gives it: the one to save the people, the other, those around Him, from offense. For He gives it not at all as a debt, but as doing the best for their weakness. Elsewhere, however, He despises the offense, when He was discoursing of meats, teaching us to know at what seasons we ought to consider them that are offended, and at what to disregard them.

And indeed by the very mode of giving He discloses Himself again. For wherefore doth He not command him to give of what they have laid up? That, as I have said, herein also He might signify Himself to be God of all, and the sea also to be under His rule. For He had indeed signified this even already, by His rebuke, and by His commanding this same Peter to walk on the waves; but He now again signifies the self-same thing, though in another way, yet so as to cause herein great amazement. For neither was it a small thing, to foretell that the first, who out of those depths should come in his way, would be the fish that would pay the tribute; and having cast forth His commandment like a net into that abyss, to bring up the one that bore the piece of money; but it was of a divine and unutterable power, thus to make even the sea bear gifts, and that its subjection to Him should be shown on all hands, as well when in its madness it was silent, and when, though fierce, it received its fellow servant; as now again, when it makes payment in His behalf to them that are demanding it.

"And give unto them," He saith, "for me and thee." Seest thou the exceeding greatness of the honor? See also the self-command of Peter's mind. For this point Mark, the follower of this apostle, doth not appear to have set down, because it indicated the great honor paid to him; but while of the denial he wrote as well as the rest, the things that make him illustrious he hath passed over in silence, his master perhaps entreating him not to mention the great things about himself. And He used the phrase, "for me and thee," because Peter too was a firstborn child.

Now as thou art amazed at Christ's power, so I bid thee admire also the disciple's faith, that to a thing beyond possibility he so gave ear. For indeed it was very far beyond possibility by nature. Wherefore also in requital for his faith, He joined him to Himself in the payment of the tribute.

This coin was not in Jesus' house but happened to be in the mouth of a fish in the sea. This too, I think, was a result of God's kindness. It was caught and came up on the hook belonging to Peter, who was the fisher of men. That which is figuratively called a fish was caught in order that the coin with the image of Caesar might be taken from it, that it might take its place among those which were caught by them who have learned to become fishers of men. Let him, then, who has the things of Caesar render them to Caesar, that afterwards he may be able to render to God the things of God. But since Jesus is the image of God the unseen and did not have the image of Caesar (for there was nothing in him that had anything to do with the prince of this world), he therefore took the image of Caesar from a suitable place in the sea, so as to pay it to the kings of the earth as the contribution of himself and his disciple. Jesus did this so that those taking the half-shekel might not suppose Jesus to be in debt either to them or to the kings of the earth. For he paid the debt, one he had never taken on or possessed or used to buy anything or made his personal possession, to prevent the image of Caesar ever being alongside the image of the invisible God.

Mystically; In the field of comfort, (for so is Capernaum expounded,) He comforts each one of His disciples, and pronounces him to be a son and free, and gives him the power of taking the first fish, that after His ascension Peter may have comfort over that which he has caught.

And when you see any miser rebuked by some Peter who takes the speech of his money out of his mouth, you may say that he is risen out of the sea of covetousness to the hook of reason, and is caught and saved by some Peter, who has taught him the truth, that he should change his stater for the image of God, that is for the oracles of God.

Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for Me and thee. Pay the tax, Christ says, lest they think that we despise and disdain the law, and we give offence. I am not paying because I owe the tax, but I make allowance for their weakness. We learn from this that we should not cause offense to anyone over things that do not harm us, but when we would be harmed by some action, then neither should we be concerned about those who unreasonably take offense. To show, therefore, that He is God and Ruler of the sea, He sent Peter to take the coin from the fish. At the same time we learn a mystery: the fish is our nature immersed in the depths of unbelief, but the apostolic word drew us up and found in our mouth the coin, the words of the Lord and the confession of Christ. For he who confesses Christ has in his mouth the coin which equals two of the two-drachma pieces. For Christ also has two natures, being both God and man. Thus the coin is Christ, which was given for two, the Jews and the Gentiles, the righteous and the sinners. And if you should see a miser who has nothing in his mouth except gold and silver, know that this man is like a fish swimming in the sea of life, and if a teacher like Peter can be found, he will hook this fish and extract from his mouth the gold and silver.

But that we may not scandalize them, etc. It is true that the Lord is free, but because he took the form of a servant, as is found in Philippians 2, therefore he did not refuse to pay, and in this he gave an example of humility. And in this payment three things are noted as praiseworthy and admirable. First, his meekness; hence he is gentle, as he himself testifies above at 11:29: learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart. He is properly called meek who wills to offend no one; 1 Corinthians 10:32: be without offense to the Jews and to the Gentiles and to the Church of God. But against this it is objected. Above at 15:12 it says that the disciples said: Lord, do you know that the Jews were scandalized at this saying? And the Lord said: let them alone; they are blind and leaders of the blind. He did not then care about the scandal, but here he does care. Hence it must be said that scandal sometimes arises from truth, and then it is not to be heeded; sometimes from weakness or ignorance, and such is to be heeded. But if he had not paid, their scandal would have been from ignorance, because they did not know God. Likewise, the poverty of Christ is to be admired, because he was so poor that he did not have the means to pay; 2 Corinthians 8:9: who being rich, became poor, that through his poverty you might be rich. One might object: did he not have a purse? It is true, but everything had been given for the use of the poor. He considered it robbery to spend on other uses what was intended for the use of the poor. Chrysostom says that he paid, so that while paying the tribute, on the one hand he might show his power, and on the other, a mystery. Go to the sea and cast in a hook, and the fish that shall first come up, take; and when you have opened its mouth, you shall find a stater. In that stater was the image of Caesar; and it signifies the devil, who had nothing in him; John 14:30: the prince of this world comes, and in me he has nothing. Therefore, because he had nothing of his own, he did not wish to pay from his own. Likewise, his providence; therefore he says that we ought to marvel at how he could know that a fish would immediately come that had a stater in its mouth. If it had not been there before but he created it anew, it is wonderful; but if he led it to the hook, it was of great providence. By this fish that first came to the hook is understood the first martyr, blessed Stephen, who had a stater in his mouth that was worth a didrachma, and was double; and it signifies Stephen himself, who saw both the divinity and the humanity. Or it can be understood of Adam. Likewise note that if someone often speaks of riches and money, he has a stater in his mouth; hence he who converts such a person takes the fish that has a stater in its mouth. Likewise humility is signified; hence take that and give it to them for me and for you. And in the fact that the tribute was paid for Peter and for himself, it is signified that through the passion of Christ, he acquired for himself the glory of the resurrection; Philippians 2:9: for which cause God also has exalted him. Peter and the others were redeemed from punishment and guilt. Or otherwise: because he suffered for himself, that he might acquire for his body the glory of the resurrection; for the people, that he might wash them from their sins. For he himself has washed us from our sins in his blood.

Such a Center has a saving power: and anyone who draws away from it is condemned, as drawing away from the means of humility. And in Matthew: "Unless you turn and become like little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven." In this center "He has wrought salvation," that is, in the humility of the cross.

First, by the authority of Christ himself, who says in Matthew 18: Unless you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven; but to make oneself little is nothing other than to become vile in one's own eyes and to wish to be regarded as vile by others.

Because Christ said we could only get into His world by being like children, many Christians have the idea that, provided you are 'good', it does not matter being a fool. But that is a misunderstanding. In the first place, most children show plenty of 'prudence' about doing the things they are really interested in, and think them out quite sensibly. In the second place, as St Paul points out, Christ never meant that we were to remain children in intelligence: on the contrary. He told us to be not only 'as harmless as doves', but also 'as wise as serpents'. He wants a child's heart, but a grown-up's head. He wants us to be simple, single-minded, affectionate, and teachable, as good children are; but He also wants every bit of intelligence we have to be alert at its job, and in first-class fighting trim. The fact that you are giving money to a charity does not mean that you need not try to find out whether that charity is a fraud or not. The fact that what you are thinking about is God Himself (for example, when you are praying) does not mean that you can be content with the same babyish ideas which you had when you were a five-year-old. It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any the less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain. He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have.

For instance, we often hear grown-up people complaining of having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train. Did you ever hear a small boy complain of having to hang about a railway station and wait for a train? No; for to him to be inside a railway station is to be inside a cavern of wonder and a palace of poetical pleasures. Because to him the red light and the green light on the signal are like a new sun and a new moon. Because to him when the wooden arm of the signal falls down suddenly, it is as if a great king had thrown down his staff as a signal and started a shrieking tournament of trains. I myself am of little boys' habit in this matter.

For my part, I should be inclined to suggest that the chief object of education should be to restore simplicity. If you like to put it so, the chief object of education is not to learn things; nay, the chief object of education is to unlearn things. The chief object of education is to unlearn all the weariness and wickedness of the world and to get back into that state of exhilaration we all instinctively celebrate when we write by preference of children and of boys. If I were an examiner appointed to examine all examiners (which does not at present appear probable), I would not only ask the teachers how much knowledge they had imparted; I would ask them how much splendid and scornful ignorance they had erected, like some royal tower in arms. But, in any case, I would insist that people should have so much simplicity as would enable them to see things suddenly and to see things as they are.

It is not only possible to say a great deal in praise of play; it is really possible to say the highest things in praise of it. It might reasonably be maintained that the true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke—that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls. When we are really holy we may regard the Universe as a lark; so perhaps it is not essentially wrong to regard the University as a lark.

Peter, oddly enough, made exactly the opposite request; he said he had long wished to be a pigmy about half an inch high; and of course he immediately became one. When the transformation was over he found himself in the midst of an immense plain, covered with a tall green jungle and above which, at intervals, rose strange trees each with a head like the sun in symbolic pictures, with gigantic rays of silver and a huge heart of gold. Toward the middle of this prairie stood up a mountain of such romantic and impossible shape, yet of such stony height and dominance, that it looked like some incident of the end of the world. And far away on the faint horizon he could see the line of another forest, taller and yet more mystical, of a terrible crimson colour, like a forest on fire for ever. He set out on his adventures across that coloured plain; and he has not come to the end of it yet.

If anyone says that I am making mountains out of molehills, I confess with pride that it is so. I can imagine no more successful and productive form of manufacture than that of making mountains out of molehills. But I would add this not unimportant fact, that molehills are mountains; one has only to become a pigmy like Peter to discover that.

He actually thought that fairy tales ought not to be told to children. That is (like a belief in slavery or annexation) one of those intellectual errors which lie very near to ordinary mortal sins. There are some refusals which, though they may be done what is called conscientiously, yet carry so much of their whole horror in the very act of them, that a man must in doing them not only harden but slightly corrupt his heart. One of them was the refusal of milk to young mothers when their husbands were in the field against us. Another is the refusal of fairy tales to children.

Strictly they do not see the prisoner in the dock; all they see is the usual man in the usual place. They do not see the awful court of judgment; they only see their own workshop. Therefore, the instinct of Christian civilisation has most wisely declared that into their judgments there shall upon every occasion be infused fresh blood and fresh thoughts from the streets. Men shall come in who can see the court and the crowd, and coarse faces of the policeman and the professional criminals, the wasted faces of the wastrels, the unreal faces of the gesticulating counsel, and see it all as one sees a new picture or a play hitherto unvisited.

In order to strike, in the only sane or possible sense, the note of impartiality, it is necessary to touch the nerve of novelty. I mean that in one sense we see things fairly when we see them first. That, I may remark in passing, is why children generally have very little difficulty about the dogmas of the Church. But the Church, being a highly practical thing for working and fighting, is necessarily a thing for men and not merely for children. There must be in it for working purposes a great deal of tradition, of familiarity, and even of routine. So long as its fundamentals are sincerely felt, this may even be the saner condition. But when its fundamentals are doubted, as at present, we must try to recover the candour and wonder of the child; the unspoilt realism and objectivity of innocence. Or if we cannot do that, we must try at least to shake off the cloud of mere custom and see the thing as new, if only by seeing it as unnatural. Things that may well be familiar so long as familiarity breeds affection had much better become unfamiliar when familiarity breeds contempt. For in connection with things so great as are here considered, whatever our view of them, contempt must be a mistake. Indeed contempt must be an illusion. We must invoke the most wild and soaring sort of imagination; the imagination that can see what is there.

There is only one reason why all grown-up people do not play with toys; and it is a fair reason. The reason is that playing with toys takes so very much more time and trouble than anything else. Playing as children mean playing is the most serious thing in the world; and as soon as we have small duties or small sorrows we have to abandon to some extent so enormous and ambitious a plan of life. We have enough strength for politics and commerce and art and philosophy; we have not enough strength for play.

But that paradise was not clear until Christianity had gradually cleared it. The pagan world, as such, would not have understood any such thing as a serious suggestion that a child is higher or holier than a man. It would have seemed like the suggestion that a tadpole is higher or holier than a frog. To the merely rationalistic mind, it would sound like saying that a bud must be more beautiful than a flower or that an unripe apple must be better than a ripe one. In other words, this modern feeling is an entirely mystical feeling. It is quite as mystical as the cult of virginity; in fact it is the cult of virginity. But pagan antiquity had much more idea of the holiness of the virgin than of the holiness of the child. For various reasons we have come nowadays to venerate children; perhaps partly because we envy children for still doing what men used to do; such as play simple games and enjoy fairy-tales. Over and above this, however, there is a great deal of real and subtle psychology in our appreciation of childhood; but if we turn it into a modern discovery, we must once more admit that the historical Jesus of Nazareth had already discovered it two thousand years too soon. There was certainly nothing in the world around him to help him to the discovery. Here Christ was indeed human; but more human than a human being was then likely to be. Peter Pan does not belong to the world of Pan but the world of Peter.

The child is, indeed, in these, and many other matters, the best guide. And in nothing is the child so righteously childlike, in nothing does he exhibit more accurately the sounder order of simplicity, than in the fact that he sees everything with a simple pleasure, even the complex things. The false type of naturalness harps always on the distinction between the natural and the artificial. The higher kind of naturalness ignores that distinction. To the child the tree and the lamp-post are as natural and as artificial as each other; or rather, neither of them are natural but both supernatural. For both are splendid and unexplained. The flower with which God crowns the one, and the flame with which Sam the lamplighter crowns the other, are equally of the gold of fairy-tales. In the middle of the wildest fields the most rustic child is, ten to one, playing at steam-engines. And the only spiritual or philosophical objection to steam-engines is not that men pay for them or work at them, or make them very ugly, or even that men are killed by them; but merely that men do not play at them. The evil is that the childish poetry of clockwork does not remain. The wrong is not that engines are too much admired, but that they are not admired enough. The sin is not that engines are mechanical, but that men are mechanical.

Christianity, even enormous as was its revolution, did not alter this ancient and savage sanctity; it merely reversed it. It did not deny the trinity of father, mother, and child. It merely read it backwards, making it run child, mother, father. This it called, not the family, but the Holy Family, for many things are made holy by being turned upside down.

And it must be remembered that the most purely practical science does take this view of mental evil; it does not seek to argue with it like a heresy, but simply to snap it like a spell. Neither modern science nor ancient religion believes in complete free thought. Theology rebukes certain thoughts by calling them blasphemous. Science rebukes certain thoughts by calling them morbid. For example, some religious societies discouraged men more or less from thinking about sex. The new scientific society definitely discourages men from thinking about death; it is a fact, but it is considered a morbid fact. And in dealing with those whose morbidity has a touch of mania, modern science cares far less for pure logic than a dancing Dervish. In these cases it is not enough that the unhappy man should desire truth; he must desire health. Nothing can save him but a blind hunger for normality, like that of a beast. A man cannot think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the organ of thought that has become diseased, ungovernable, and, as it were, independent. He can only be saved by will or faith. The moment his mere reason moves, it moves in the old circular rut; he will go round and round his logical circle, just as a man in a third-class carriage on the Inner Circle will go round and round the Inner Circle unless he performs the voluntary, vigorous, and mystical act of getting out at Gower Street. Decision is the whole business here; a door must be shut for ever. Every remedy is a desperate remedy. Every cure is a miraculous cure. Curing a madman is not arguing with a philosopher; it is casting out a devil. And however quietly doctors and psychologists may go to work in the matter, their attitude is profoundly intolerant--as intolerant as Bloody Mary. Their attitude is really this: that the man must stop thinking, if he is to go on living. Their counsel is one of intellectual amputation. If thy head offend thee, cut it off; for it is better, not merely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a child, but to enter it as an imbecile, rather than with your whole intellect to be cast into hell--or into Hanwell.

All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal it would vary; if the sun were alive it would dance. This is a fallacy even in relation to known fact. For the variation in human affairs is generally brought into them, not by life, but by death; by the dying down or breaking off of their strength or desire. A man varies his movements because of some slight element of failure or fatigue. He gets into an omnibus because he is tired of walking; or he walks because he is tired of sitting still. But if his life and joy were so gigantic that he never tired of going to Islington, he might go to Islington as regularly as the Thames goes to Sheerness. The very speed and ecstasy of his life would have the stillness of death. The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now, to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. Heaven may encore the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance.

As he ran he realized that the landscape around him was changing in shape though not in colour. The houses seemed to dwindle and disappear in hills of snow as if buried; the snow seemed to rise in tattered outlines of crag and cliff and crest, but he thought nothing of all these impossibilities until the boy turned to bay. When he did he saw the child was queerly beautiful, with gold red hair, and a face as serious as complete happiness. And when he spoke to the boy his own question surprised him, for he said for the first time in his life, "What am I doing here?" And the little boy, with very grave eyes, answered, "I suppose you are dead."

He had (also for the first time) a doubt of his spiritual destiny. He looked round on a towering landscape of frozen peaks and plains, and said, "Is this hell?" And as the child stared, but did not answer, he knew it was heaven.

All over that colossal country, white as the world round the Pole, little boys were playing, rolling each other down dreadful slopes, crushing each other under falling cliffs; for heaven is a place where one can fight for ever without hurting. Smith suddenly remembered how happy he had been as a child, rolling about on the safe sandhills around Conway.

Right above Smith's head, higher than the cross of St. Paul's, but curving over him like the hanging blossom of a harebell, was a cavernous crag of snow. A hundred feet below him, like a landscape seen from a balloon, lay snowy flats as white and as far away. He saw a little boy stagger, with many catastrophic slides, to that toppling peak; and seizing another little boy by the leg, send him flying away down to the distant silver plains. There he sank and vanished in the snow as if in the sea; but coming up again like a diver rushed madly up the steep once more, rolling before him a great gathering snowball, gigantic at last, which he hurled back at the mountain crest, and brought both the boy and the mountain down in one avalanche to the level of the vale. The other boy also sank like a stone, and also rose again like a bird, but Smith had no leisure to concern himself with this. For the collapse of that celestial crest had left him standing solitary in the sky on a peak like a church spire.

He could see the tiny figures of the boys in the valley below, and he knew by their attitudes that they were eagerly telling him to jump. Then for the first time he knew the nature of faith, as he had just known the fierce nature of charity. Or rather for the second time, for he remembered one moment when he had known faith before. It was when his father had taught him to swim, and he had believed he could float on water not only against reason, but (what is so much harder) against instinct. Then he had trusted water; now he must trust air.

He jumped. He went through air and then through snow with the same blinding swiftness. But as he buried himself in solid snow like a bullet he seemed to learn a million things and to learn them all too fast. He knew that the whole world is a snowball, and that all the stars are snowballs. He knew that no man will be fit for heaven till he loves solid whiteness as a little boy loves a ball of snow.

(interlin.) Except ye be converted from this ambition and jealousy in which you are at present, and become all of you as innocent and humble in disposition as you are weak, in your years, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven; and since there is none other road to enter in, whoso shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven; for by how much a man is humble now, by so much shall he be exalted in the kingdom of heaven.

(Ver. 3.) Amen I say to you, unless you are converted and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. It is not commanded to the apostles to have the age of children, but to have the innocence, and what they possess through years, let them possess through industry: so that they may be like little children in malice, not in wisdom.

One whose tender age should express to them the innocence which they should have. But truly He set Himself in the midst of them, a little one who had come not to be ministered unto, but to minister; (Mat. 20:28.) that He might be a pattern of holiness. Others interpret the little one of the Holy Spirit, whom He set in the hearts of His disciples, to change their pride into humility. (Vid. Origen. in loc.) And he said. Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. He does not enjoin on the Apostles the age, but the innocence of infants, which they have by virtue of their years, but to which these might attain by striving; that they should be children in malice, not in understanding. As though He had said, As this child, whom I set before you as a pattern, is not obstinate in anger, when injured does not bear it in mind, has no emotion at the sight of a fair woman, does not think one thing while he speaks another; so ye, unless ye have the like innocence and purity of mind, shall not be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Beside this obvious explanation let another be given as well. As an act of theological and ethical reflection, let us ask what sort of a child Jesus called to him and has set in the midst of the disciples. Think of it this way: The child called by Jesus is the Holy Spirit, who humbled himself. He was called by the Savior and set in the middle of the disciples of Jesus. The Lord wants us, ignoring all the rest, to turn to the examples given by the Holy Spirit, so that we become like the children—that is, the disciples—who were themselves converted and made like the Holy Spirit. God gave these children to the Savior according to what we read in Isaiah: "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me." To enter the kingdom of heaven is not possible for the person who has not turned from worldly matters and become like those children who had the Holy Spirit. Jesus called this Holy Spirit to him like a child, when he came down from his perfect completeness to people, and set it in the middle of the disciples.

And again to the disciples who asked craftily which should be greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and who lusted with crafty mind to rise a step above the others, He taught the simplicity of children, in whom there is no desire for dominion and rule, and whose thought hath never experienced the love of the honour of the world. "Verily I say unto you, that except ye be converted and become childlike and simple as children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."

After our Lord had rejected the companies of the wise, and the bands of cunning and crafty men, and had chosen those fishermen who were innocent and without instruction, He moreover taught them also to increase their simplicity, and not to abide in that first grade of their childlikeness only. And He took a child and set him in the midst of them, and looking at them all, He said, "Except ye be converted, and become like this child, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." And this our Lord did because He saw that they sought to depart from the mind of their simplicity through a question of position of honour and to receive one a grade above the other. A question such as this the simple never seek to enquire into, but this question was born of a mind which desired to examine into matters with craftiness. And our Lord rebuked this outcome of a troublesome question, and said to His disciples, chiding and reproving them, "If ye are Mine ye must be simple men, and if ye desire the kingdom of heaven, ye must be like unto this child; as ye desire to receive the life which is to come abide in sincerity. If ye wish to become wise in the word of life abide in your ignorance, for from being simple I do not desire that ye become cunning, but from being simple become ye wise. For he that runneth to become cunning from being simple goeth downwards, but he that runneth to become simple from being cunning goeth upwards. The cunning man receiveth not My doctrine, and for the reason that ye are simple children I have chosen you. Ye have rejected cunning in others, beware lest it be in you and I reject you because of it. Let this child be a proof to you that as he desireth nothing of the world, and asketh for nothing of the children of men, neither rank nor honour, neither riches nor power, but only the mere food and clothing of which his childhood hath need, so also do ye become children like unto him, and upright and simple like unto him, that ye may be to Me chosen disciples, and that ye may be found by Me to be even as I have chosen you." Behold then, by this command also did Jesus our Lord incite us to simplicity, and He warned us to become innocent and upright.

Likewise, the word of the Lord should be noted. And first he touches on its necessity; secondly, its efficacy. He says amen I say to you, unless you be converted, that is, free from this elation; Zech 1:3: turn to me, etc., and become as this little child, not in age, but in simplicity; 1 Cor 14:20: do not become children in sense, but in malice be children. There are many characteristics of little children. They do not desire great things; Rom 12:10: not minding high things. They are free from concupiscence; above, 5:28: whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And children do not have such concupiscence. Likewise, they do not remember enmity. Hence unless you become as this little child, that is, imitators of the qualities of little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. For no one shall enter unless he is humble; the humble in spirit shall be upheld by glory, Prov 29:23. Or you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven, i.e., the teaching of the Gospel, as below, 21:43: the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof. For entrance is through faith; hence unless you become, and if you shall not have believed as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven, because Mark 16:16: he who shall not believe, shall be condemned. Prov 29:23: the humble in spirit shall be upheld by glory.

Hyperichius said, 'The tree of life is high, and humility climbs it.'

The Lord teaches that we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless we revert to the nature of children, that is, we must recall into the simplicity of children the vices of the body and mind. He has called children all who believe through the faith of listening. For children follow their father, love their mother, do not know how to wish ill on their neighbor, show no concern for wealth, are not proud, do not hate, do not lie, believe what has been said and hold what they hear as truth. And when we assume this habit and will in all the emotions, we are shown the passageway to the heavens. We must therefore return to the simplicity of children, because with it we shall embrace the beauty of the Lord's humility.

He calls infants all who believe through the hearing of faith; for such follow their father, love their mother, know not to will that which is evil, do not bear hate, or speak lies, trust what is told them, and believe what they hear to be true. But the letter is thus interpreted.

"Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Just as this child whose example I show you does not persist in anger, does not long remember injury suffered, is not enamored inordinately by the sight of a beautiful woman, does not think one thing and say another, so you too, unless you have similar innocence and purity of mind, will not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven. Or it might be taken in another way: "Whosoever therefore humiliates himself like this child is greater in the kingdom of heaven," so as to imply that anyone who imitates me and humiliates himself following my example, so that he abases himself as much as I abased myself in accepting the form of a servant, will enter the kingdom of heaven.

(Verse 4.) Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Just like this little child, whose example I give to you, does not persist in anger, does not hold grudges, does not delight in seeing a beautiful woman, does not think one thing and say another; in the same way, unless you have such innocence and purity of heart, you will not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven. Or in another way: Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this little child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever imitates me and humbles himself as I have humbled myself, taking the form of a servant, he will enter the kingdom of heaven.

Or otherwise; Whoso shall humble himself as this little child, that is, whoso shall humble himself after My example, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. It follows, And whoso receiveth one such little one in my name, receiveth me.

And whoever shall receive one such little child, i.e., whoever is an imitator of childlike innocence, he is the greater, because the more humble, the more exalted: because he who humbles himself, shall be exalted, Luke 18:14. But a question can arise: for it seems that this is not true, because perfection consists in charity; therefore where there is greater charity, there is greater perfection. It must be said that humility necessarily accompanies charity. And you can see this if you consider who is humble. For just as in pride there are two things, a disordered affection and a disordered estimation of oneself, so, conversely, it is in humility, because one does not seek one's own preeminence, and likewise does not consider oneself worthy. This necessarily follows upon charity. Every man desires the preeminence of what he loves. Therefore the more a man has of humility, the more he loves God, and the more he despises his own preeminence, and the less he attributes to himself: thus the more a man has of charity, the more he also has of humility.

But the Lord is not moved against them, that He might show that perfect virtue has no feeling of revenge, nor is there any anger where there is fulness of love. For weakness must not be thrust out, but assisted. Let indignation be far from the religious, let the high-souled have no desire of vengeance. Hence it follows, But he turned and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.

But when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" And he turned and rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what kind of spirit you are of. Great and holy men, who already knew very well that this death, which separates the soul from the body, is not to be feared, according to their spirit who feared it, punished some sins with death, so that fear might be instilled in the living, and to those who were punished with death, death itself would not harm them, but the sin, which could increase if they lived, was not recklessly judged by those to whom God had given such judgment. From this it is that Elijah put many to death, both by his own hand and by fire called down from heaven. In his example, when the apostles wanted to call fire from heaven to consume those who would not give them lodging, the Lord rebuked in them not the example of the holy prophet, but the ignorance of vindicating, which was still in the novices, observing that they desired vengeance not out of love but out of hate. Therefore, after he had taught them to love their neighbor as themselves, and after the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them, such acts of vengeance were still found, although much more rarely than in the Old Testament. For there, serving more under fear, they were pressed; but here, being nurtured more in love, they were made free. For even at the words of the apostle Peter, Ananias and his wife fell down dead, nor were they raised up, but buried, and Paul says of a certain sinner: "Whom I have delivered to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved" (1 Corinthians 5).

The Lord blames them, not for following the example of the holy Prophet, but for their ignorance in taking vengeance while they were yet inexperienced, perceiving that they did not desire correction from love, but vengeance from hatred.

Secondly, as regards the reasonable reprehension in the word of the Lord, it is added: And turning, he rebuked them, saying: You do not know of what spirit you are. He says this because they believed themselves to be moved by a spirit of righteousness, yet they were moved by a zeal of bitterness, which they ought not to have been, as James 3 says: "But if you have bitter zeal, and there are contentions in your hearts, do not glory and be liars against the truth." And therefore it is said in 1 John 4: "Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are from God." For the spirit of Christ is a spirit of meekness, according to that word of Isaiah 61: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to proclaim to the meek"; and Isaiah 42: "Behold my servant, I will uphold him. I have placed my spirit upon him. A bruised reed he shall not break, and smoking flax he shall not extinguish." And these disciples ought to have had this spirit as good disciples and imitators of the Master.

Therefore God does not here take the semblance of man, but of a dove, because He wished to show the simplicity and gentleness of the new manifestation of the Spirit by the likeness of the dove. For the law was stern, and punished with the sword; but grace is joyous, and trains by the word of meekness. Hence the Lord also says to the apostles, who said that He should punish with fire those who would not receive Him, after the manner of Elias: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of."

For their benefit, he rebuked the disciples and gently restrained the sharpness of their wrath, not permitting them to grumble violently against those who sinned. He rather persuaded them to be patient and to cherish a mind that is unmovable by anything like this.

Christ rebuked them for their own good when they were enraged beyond measure at the hatred of the Samaritans. He did this so they might learn that as ministers of the divine tidings, they must rather be full of longsuffering and gentleness, not revengeful. They must not be given to wrath or savagely attack those who offend them.

For we must not always punish the offender, since mercy sometimes does more good, leading thee to patience, the sinner to repentance. Lastly, those Samaritans believed the sooner, who were in this place saved from fire.

The Son of Man did not come to destroy souls, but to save them. And you, therefore, he says, by whose Spirit you are signed, follow His deeds, now advising piously, but justly judging in fury.

After that He had taught them what it was to love their neighbour as themselves, and the Holy Ghost also had been infused into them, there were not lacking these punishments, though far less frequent than in the Old Testament, because the Son of man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. As if He said, And do you therefore who are sealed with His Spirit, imitate also His actions, now determining charitably, hereafter judging justly.

And therefore he adds: For the Son of man came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save them: because this coming was not of justice, but of mercy, according to that passage in John 3: "God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him"; whence from this end He received His name, so that He would be called Jesus, according to that passage in Matthew 1: "You shall call His name Jesus: for He shall save His people from their sins"; and Matthew 20: "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life as a redemption for many." And therefore he who has the spirit of Christ ought not to seek vengeance, but to show patience, according to that saying of Ambrose in the Gloss: "Perfect virtue," he says, "has no zeal for revenge: nor is there any wrath where there is the fullness of charity." Therefore it is said in Romans 12: "Not defending yourselves, beloved, but give place to wrath."

Third, as regards the memorable instruction in the Lord's deed, it is added: And they went to another village: in which He gave a model to the disciples that they should flee from men rather than contend with them; according to the model He gave His disciples in Matthew 10: "When they persecute you in one city, flee to another." Moreover, we have the example of this from Abraham and Lot, Genesis 13, where "Abraham said: 'Let there be no quarrel, I pray, between me and you: for we are brothers. If you go to the left, I will take the right.'" In this He taught perfect meekness, which befits the servants of Christ, according to that passage in 2 Timothy 2: "The servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle"; whence according to that passage in James 1: "Let every man be slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not work the justice of God." For if the Lord of majesty was unwilling to be angry at such great inhumanity, how much less ought we to be indignant at anyone? And this meekness ought especially to be found in the prelates of the Church: whence the Apostle in 2 Timothy 4: "Reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine"; since in the Psalm it is said: "Meekness has come upon us, and we shall be corrected." And Seneca says: "The spirit of man is noble, and is more easily led than dragged"; whence he himself says that the king of bees has no sting.

"The life," says He, "was manifested," not the soul. And again, "I am come to save the soul." He did not say, "to explain" it.

1. This text refers not to the eternal Word but to the Incarnate. And from not perceiving this they of the sect of Arius, Eusebius and his fellows, indulge impiety against the Lord. For they say, if all things were delivered (meaning by 'all' the Lordship of Creation), there was once a time when He had them not. But if He had them not, He is not of the Father, for if He were, He would on that account have had them always, and would not have required to receive them. But this point will furnish all the clearer an exposure of their folly. For the expression in question does not refer to the Lordship over Creation, nor to presiding over the works of God, but is meant to reveal in part the intention of the Incarnation (τῆς οἰκονομίας). For if when He was speaking they 'were delivered' to Him, clearly before He received them, creation was void of the Word. What then becomes of the text in Him all things consist Colossians 1:17? But if simultaneously with the origin of the Creation it was all 'delivered' to Him, such delivery were superfluous, for 'all things were made by Him' John 1:3, and it would be unnecessary for those things of which the Lord Himself was the artificer to be delivered over to Him. For in making them He was Lord of the things which were being originated. But even supposing they were 'delivered' to Him after they were originated, see the monstrosity. For if they 'were delivered,' and upon His receiving them the Father retired, then we are in peril of falling into the fabulous tales which some tell, that He gave over [His works] to the Son, and Himself departed. Or if, while the Son has them, the Father has them also, we ought to say, not 'were delivered,' but that He took Him as partner, as Paul did Silvanus. But this is even more monstrous; for God is not imperfect , nor did He summon the Son to help Him in His need; but, being Father of the Word, He makes all things by His means, and without delivering creation over to Him, by His means and in Him exercises Providence over it, so that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father Matthew 10:29, nor is the grass clothed without God Matthew 6:30, but at once the Father works, and the Son works hitherto cf.John 5:17. Vain, therefore, is the opinion of the impious. For the expression is not what they think, but designates the Incarnation.

2. Sense in which, and end for which all things were delivered to the Incarnate Son. For whereas man sinned, and is fallen, and by his fall all things are in confusion: death prevailed from Adam to Moses cf.Romans 5:14, the earth was cursed, Hades was opened, Paradise shut, Heaven offended, man, lastly, corrupted and brutalised cf.Psalm 49:12, while the devil was exulting against us—then God, in His loving-kindness, not willing man made in His own image to perish, said, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go?' Isaiah 6:8. But while all held their peace, the Son said, 'Here am I, send Me.' And then it was that, saying 'Go,' He 'delivered' to Him man, that the Word Himself might be made Flesh, and by taking the Flesh, restore it wholly. For to Him, as to a physician, man 'was delivered' to heal the bite of the serpent; as to life, to raise what was dead; as to light, to illumine the darkness; and, because He was Word, to renew the rational nature (τὸ λογικόν). Since then all things 'were delivered' to Him, and He is made Man, straightway all things were set right and perfected. Earth receives blessing instead of a curse, Paradise was opened to the robber, Hades cowered, the tombs were opened and the dead raised, the gates of Heaven were lifted up to await Him that 'comes from Edom?' Psalm 24:7, Isaiah 63:1. Why, the Saviour Himself expressly signifies in what sense 'all things were delivered' to Him, when He continues, as Matthew tells us: 'Come unto Me all you that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest' Matthew 11:28. Yes, you 'were delivered' to Me to give rest to those who had laboured, and life to the dead. And what is written in John's Gospel harmonises with this: 'The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand' John 3:35. Given, in order that, just as all things were made by Him, so in Him all things might be renewed. For they were not 'delivered' unto Him, that being poor, He might be made rich, nor did He receive all things that He might receive power which before He lacked: far be the thought: but in order that as Saviour He might rather set all things right. For it was fitting that while 'through Him' all things came into being at the beginning, 'in Him' (note the change of phrase) all things should be set right cf. John 1:3, Ephesians 1:10. For at the beginning they came into being 'through' Him; but afterwards, all having fallen, the Word has been made Flesh, and put it on, in order that 'in Him' all should be set right. Suffering Himself, He gave us rest, hungering Himself, He nourished us, and going down into Hades He brought us back thence. For example, at the time of the creation of all things, their creation consisted in a fiat, such as 'let [the earth] bring forth,' 'let there be' Genesis 1:3, 11, but at the restoration it was fitting that all things should be 'delivered' to Him, in order that He might be made man, and all things be renewed in Him. For man, being in Him, was quickened: for this was why the Word was united to man, namely, that against man the curse might no longer prevail. This is the reason why they record the request made on behalf of mankind in the seventy-first Psalm: 'Give the King Your judgment, O God?' Psalm 72:1: asking that both the judgment of death which hung over us may be delivered to the Son, and that He may then, by dying for us, abolish it for us in Himself. This was what He signified, saying Himself, in the eighty-seventh Psalm: 'Your indignation lies hard upon me' Psalm 88:7. For He bore the indignation which lay upon us, as also He says in the hundred and thirty-seventh: 'Lord, You shall do vengeance for me' Psalm 137:8.

3. By 'all things' is meant the redemptive attributes and power of Christ. Thus, then, we may understand all things to have been delivered to the Saviour, and, if it be necessary to follow up understanding by explanation, that has been delivered unto Him which He did not previously possess. For He was not man previously, but became man for the sake of saving man. And the Word was not in the beginning flesh, but has been made flesh subsequently cf.John 1:1 sqq, in which Flesh, as the Apostle says, He reconciled the enmity which was against us Colossians 1:20, 2:14, Ephesians 2:15-16 and destroyed the law of the commandments in ordinances, that He might make the two into one new man, making peace, and reconcile both in one body to the Father. That, however, which the Father has, belongs also to the Son, as also He says in John, 'All things whatsoever the Father has are Mine' John 16:15, expressions which could not be improved. For when He became that which He was not, 'all things were delivered' to Him. But when He desires to declare His unity with the Father, He teaches it without any reserve, saying: 'All things whatsoever the Father has are Mine.' And one cannot but admire the exactness of the language. For He has not said 'all things whatsoever the Father has, He has given to Me,' lest He should appear at one time not to have possessed these things; but 'are Mine.' For these things, being in the Father's power, are equally in that of the Son. But we must in turn examine what things 'the Father has.' For if Creation is meant, the Father had nothing before creation, and proves to have received something additional from Creation; but far be it to think this. For just as He exists before creation, so before creation also He has what He has, which we also believe to belong to the Son John 16:15. For if the Son is in the Father, then all things that the Father has belong to the Son. So this expression is subversive of the perversity of the heterodox in saying that 'if all things have been delivered to the Son, then the Father has ceased to have power over what is delivered, having appointed the Son in His place. For, in fact, the Father judges none, but has given all judgment to the Son?' John 5:22. But 'let the mouth of them that speak wickedness be stopped' Psalm 63:11, (for although He has given all judgment to the Son, He is not, therefore, stripped of lordship: nor, because it is said that all things are delivered by the Father to the Son, is He any the less over all), separating as they clearly do the Only-begotten from God, Who is by nature inseparable from Him, even though in their madness they separate Him by their words, not perceiving, the impious men, that the Light can never be separated from the sun, in which it resides by nature. For one must use a poor simile drawn from tangible and familiar objects to put our idea into words, since it is over bold to intrude upon the incomprehensible nature [of God].

4. The text John 16:15 , shows clearly the essential relation of the Son to the Father. As then the light from the Sun which illumines the world could never be supposed, by men of sound mind, to do so without the Sun, since the Sun's light is united to the Sun by nature; and as, if the Light were to say: I have received from the Sun the power of illumining all things, and of giving growth and strength to them by the heat that is in me, no one will be mad enough to think that the mention of the Sun is meant to separate him from what is his nature, namely the light; so piety would have us perceive that the Divine Essence of the Word is united by nature to His own Father. For the text before us will put our problem in the clearest possible light, seeing that the Saviour said, 'All things whatsoever the Father has are Mine;' which shows that He is ever with the Father. For 'whatsoever He has' shows that the Father wields the Lordship, while 'are Mine' shows the inseparable union. It is necessary, then, that we should perceive that in the Father reside Everlastingness, Eternity, Immortality. Now these reside in Him not as adventitious attributes, but, as it were, in a well-spring they reside in Him, and in the Son. When then you wish to perceive what relates to the Son, learn what is in the Father, for this is what you must believe to be in the Son. If then the Father is a thing created or made, these qualities belong also to the Son. And if it is permissible to say of the Father 'there was once a time when He was not,' or 'made of nothing,' let these words be applied also to the Son. But if it is impious to ascribe these attributes to the Father, grant that it is impious also to ascribe them to the Son. For what belongs to the Father, belongs to the Son. For he that honours the Son, honours the Father that sent Him, and he that receives the Son, receives the Father with Him, because he that has seen the Son has seen the Father Matthew 10:40; John 14:9. As then the Father is not a creature, so neither is the Son; and as it is not possible to say of Him 'there was a time when He was not,' nor 'made of nothing,' so it is not proper to say the like of the Son either. But rather, as the Father's attributes are Everlastingness, Immortality, Eternity, and the being no creature, it follows that thus also we must think of the Son. For as it is written John 5:26, 'As the Father has life in Himself, so gave He to the Son also to have life in Himself.' But He uses the word 'gave' in order to point to the Father who gives. As, again, life is in the Father, so also is it in the Son, so as to show Him to be inseparable and everlasting. For this is why He speaks with exactness, 'whatsoever the Father has,' in order namely that by thus mentioning the Father He may avoid being thought to be the Father Himself. For He does not say 'I am the Father,' but 'whatsoever the Father has.'

5. The same text further explained. For His Only-begotten Son might, you Arians, be called 'Father' by His Father, yet not in the sense in which you in your error might perhaps understand it, but (while Son of the Father that begot Him) 'Father of the coming age' Isaiah 9:6, Septuagint. For it is necessary not to leave any of your surmises open to you. Well then, He says by the prophet, 'A Son is born and given to us, whose government is upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Angel of Great Counsel, mighty God, Ruler, Father of the coming age' Isaiah 9:6. The Only-begotten Son of God, then, is at once Father of the coming age, and mighty God, and Ruler. And it is shown clearly that all things whatsoever the Father has are His, and that as the Father gives life, the Son likewise is able to quicken whom He will. For 'the dead,' He says, 'shall hear the voice of the Son, and shall live' cf.John 5:25, and the will and desire of Father and Son is one, since their nature also is one and indivisible. And the Arians torture themselves to no purpose, from not understanding the saying of our Saviour, 'All things whatsoever the Father has are Mine.' For from this passage at once the delusion of Sabellius can be upset, and it will expose the folly of our modern Jews. For this is why the Only begotten, having life in Himself as the Father has, also knows alone Who the Father is, namely, because He is in the Father and the Father in Him. For He is His Image, and consequently, because He is His Image, all that belongs to the Father is in Him. He is an exact seal, showing in Himself the Father; living Word and true, Power, Wisdom, our Sanctification and Redemption 1 Corinthians 1:30. For 'in Him we both live and move and have our being' Acts 17:28, and 'no man knows Who is the Father, save the Son, and Who is the Son, save the Father?' Luke 10:22.

6. The Trisagion wrongly explained by Arians. Its true significance. And how do the impious men venture to speak folly, as they ought not, being men and unable to find out how to describe even what is on the earth? But why do I say 'what is on the earth?' Let them tell us their own nature, if they can discover how to investigate their own nature? Rash they are indeed, and self-willed, not trembling to form opinions of things which angels desire to look into 1 Peter 1:12, who are so far above them, both in nature and in rank. For what is nearer [God] than the Cherubim or the Seraphim? And yet they, not even seeing Him, nor standing on their feet, nor even with bare, but as it were with veiled faces, offer their praises, with untiring lips doing nought else but glorify the divine and ineffable nature with the Trisagion. And nowhere has any one of the divinely speaking prophets, men specially selected for such vision, reported to us that in the first utterance of the word Holy the voice is raised aloud, while in the second it is lower, but in the third, quite low—and that consequently the first utterance denotes lordship, the second subordination, and the third marks a yet lower degree. But away with the folly of these haters of God and senseless men. For the Triad, praised, reverenced, and adored, is one and indivisible and without degrees (ἀ σχηματιστός). It is united without confusion, just as the Monad also is distinguished without separation. For the fact of those venerable living creatures Isaiah 6; Revelation 4:8 offering their praises three times, saying 'Holy, Holy, Holy,' proves that the Three Subsistences are perfect, just as in saying 'Lord,' they declare the One Essence. They then that depreciate the Only-begotten Son of God blaspheme God, defaming His perfection and accusing Him of imperfection, and render themselves liable to the severest chastisement. For he that blasphemes any one of the Subsistences shall have remission neither in this world nor in that which is to come. But God is able to open the eyes of their heart to contemplate the Sun of Righteousness, in order that coming to know Him whom they formerly set at nought, they may with unswerving piety of mind together with us glorify Him, because to Him belongs the kingdom, even to the Father Son and Holy Spirit, now and for ever. Amen.

All things have been handed over to me by my Father. When you read all things, you recognize the almighty, not discolored, not degenerate from the Father. When you read handed over, you confess the Son, to whom by nature all things of one substance are rightfully proper, not granted as a gift by grace. However, all things which he says were handed over to him are not to be understood as the elements of the world, which he himself created, but as those to whom the Father revealed the sacraments of the Son, being humble in spirit, and concerning whose salvation the same Son, when he spoke these things, rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. Of all these, he says elsewhere: All that the Father gives me will come to me (John VI).

And no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. This is not to be understood as though the Son could be known by no one except the Father alone, and the Father not only by the Son but also by those to whom the Son reveals him, but it refers to both when he says: And anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him, so that we may understand both the Father and the Son being revealed by the Son.

Third, he shows that one must rejoice in incomprehensible power, when he says: All things have been delivered to me by my Father. For in that he says: All things, without limit, delivered, he shows that his power is universal, according to that passage in John one: "All things were made through him," that is, through the Word; and again in chapter seventeen: "All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine." In that he adds: By my Father, he indicates that this power is natural, according to that passage in John five: "Whatever the Father does, all these things the Son likewise does." In both together he shows equality and immensity: hence the Gloss: "When you hear all things, you recognize the Omnipotent; when you hear delivered, you confess the Son, to whom all things are properly his own by right through the nature of one substance, not conferred as a gift through grace." And from this it is apparent that the power of the Son is immense and incomprehensible. And then he adds: And no one knows who the Son is except the Father, that is, no intellect perfectly comprehends this except the paternal intellect; and therefore the Holy Spirit is not excluded by this, but only created intellect, which cannot comprehend him, since he is immense. Hence Job eleven: "Can you perhaps comprehend the traces of God and discover the Almighty unto perfection? He is higher than heaven, and what will you do?" etc.

And because the Son is incomprehensible, therefore He can comprehend the Father. On account of which He adds: And who the Father is, except the Son: supply: no one knows: because, John 1, "No one has ever seen God except the Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." Since He alone comprehends, therefore He alone can reveal; and therefore He adds: And to whomever the Son wills to reveal. For the Son is the Wisdom and Word of the Father, and the Speaker manifests Himself through His Word; whence Wisdom 9: "Who will know Your mind, unless You give wisdom from on high?" Whence Chrysostom: "The philosophers, striving to inquire about God, confessed that they had found nothing else except that God is unknowable, just as one who undertakes to navigate an unnavigable ocean, when he cannot cross over, must necessarily return by the same way: so they began from ignorance and ended in ignorance. And the reason for this is that they were not disciples of Jesus Christ, who is the truth, nor did they have the Spirit, of whom John 16 says: 'When that Spirit of truth comes, He will teach you all truth.'"

For the new minds, which have newly become wise, which have sprung into being according to the new covenant, are infantile in the old folly. Of late, then, God was known by the coming of Christ: "For no man knoweth God but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him."

But "no one is good," except His Father. It is this same Father of His, then who being one is manifested by many powers And this was the import of the utterance, "No man knew the Father," who was Himself everything before the coming of the Son. So that it is veritably clear that the God of all is only one good, just Creator, and the Son in the Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen.

So God is good on His own account, and just also on ours, and He is just because He is good. And His justice is shown to us by His own Word from there from above, whence the Father was. For before He became Creator He was God; He was good. And therefore He wished to be Creator and Father. And the nature of all that love was the source of righteousness-the cause, too, of His lighting up His sun, and sending down His own Son. And He first announced the good righteousness that is from heaven, when He said, "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; nor the Father, but the Son." This mutual and reciprocal knowledge is the symbol of primeval justice.

Yet let him know that it was God Himself that promulgated the Scriptures by His Son. And he, who announces what is his own, is to be believed. "No one," says the Lord, "hath known the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him." This, then, is to be believed, according to Plato, though it is announced and spoken "without probable and necessary proofs," but in the Old and New Testament.

Now those that ruminate, but do not part the hoof, indicate the majority of the Jews, who have indeed the oracles of God, but have not faith, and the step which, resting on the truth, conveys to the Father by the Son. Whence also this kind of cattle are apt to slip, not having a division in the foot, and not resting on the twofold support of faith. For "no man," it is said, "knoweth the Father, but he to whom the Son shall reveal Him."

Now having said that all things were given Him by His Father, He rises to His own glory and excellence, showing that in nothing He is surpassed by His Father. Hence He adds, And no one knoweth who the Son is but the Father, &c. For the mind of the creatures is not able to comprehend the manner of the Divine substance, which passes all understanding, and His glory transcends our highest contemplations. By Itself only is known what the Divine nature is. Therefore the Father, by that which He is, knoweth the Son; the Son, by that which He is, knoweth the Father, no difference intervening as regards the Divine nature. And in another place. For that God is, we believe, but what He is by nature, is incomprehensible. But if the Son was created, how could He alone know the Father, or how could He be known only by the Father. For to know the Divine nature is impossible to any creature, but to know each created thing what it is, does not surpass every understanding, though it is far beyond our senses.

For the Lord, revealing Himself to His disciples, that He Himself is the Word, who imparts knowledge of the Father, and reproving the Jews, who imagined that they had [the knowledge of] God, while they nevertheless rejected His Word, through whom God is made known, declared, "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son has willed to reveal [Him]."

But the Son, administering all things for the Father, works from the beginning even to the end, and without Him no man can attain the knowledge of God. For the Son is the knowledge of the Father; but the knowledge of the Son is in the Father, and has been revealed through the Son; and this was the reason why the Lord declared: "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; nor the Father, save the Son, and those to whomsoever the Son shall reveal [Him]." For "shall reveal" was said not with reference to the future alone, as if then [only] the Word had begun to manifest the Father when He was born of Mary, but it applies indifferently throughout all time. For the Son, being present with His own handiwork from the beginning, reveals the Father to all; to whom He wills, and when He wills, and as the Father wills. Wherefore, then, in all things, and through all things, there is one God, the Father, and one Word, and one Son, and one Spirit, and one salvation to all who believe in Him.

Therefore have the Jews departed from God, in not receiving His Word, but imagining that they could know the Father [apart] by Himself, without the Word, that is, without the Son; they being ignorant of that God who spake in human shape to Abraham, and again to Moses, saying, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people in Egypt, and I have come down to deliver them." For the Son, who is the Word of God, arranged these things beforehand from the beginning, the Father being in no want of angels, in order that He might call the creation into being, and form man, for whom also the creation was made; nor, again, standing in need of any instrumentality for the framing of created things, or for the ordering of those things which had reference to man; while, [at the same time,] He has a vast and unspeakable number of servants. For His offspring and His similitude do minister to Him in every respect; that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Word and Wisdom; whom all the angels serve, and to whom they are subject. Vain, therefore, are those who, because of that declaration, "No man knoweth the Father, but the Son," do introduce another unknown Father.

(non occ.) He wishes to reveal as the Word, not without the exercise of reason; and as Justice, who knoweth rightly both the times for revealing, and the measures of revelation; but He reveals by removing the opposing veil from the heart, (2 Cor. 3:15) and the darkness which He has made His secret place. (Ps. 18:11.) But since upon this men who are of another opinion think to build up their impious doctrine, that in truth the Father of Jesus was sent down to the ancient saints, we must tell them that the words, To whomsoever the Son will reveal him, not only refer to the future time, after our Saviour uttered this, but also to the past time. But if they will not take this word reveal for what is past, they must be told, that it is not the same thing to know and to believe. To one is given by the Spirit the word of knowledge; to another faith by the same Spirit. (1 Cor. 12:8, 9.) There were then those who believed, but did not know.

To this Simon replied: "From the words of your master I shall refute you, because even he introduces to all men a certain God who was known. For although both Adam knew the God who was his creator, and the maker of the world; and Enoch knew him, inasmuch as he was translated by him; and Noah, since he was ordered by him to construct the ark; and although Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and all, even every people and all nations, know the maker of the world, and confess him to be a God, yet your Jesus, who appeared long after the patriarchs, says: 'No one knows the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any one the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son has been pleased to reveal Him.' Thus, therefore, even your Jesus confesses that there is another God, incomprehensible and unknown to all."

"'And that he does not really believe even the doctrines proclaimed by his teacher is evident, for he proclaims doctrines opposite to his. For he said to some one, as I learn, Call me not good, for the good is one. Now in speaking of the good one, he no longer speaks of that just one, whom the Scriptures proclaim, who kills and makes alive,—kills those who sin, and makes alive those who live according to His will. But that he did not really call Him who is the framer of the world good, is plain to any one who can reflect. For the framer of the world was known to Adam whom He had made, and to Enoch who pleased Him, and to Noah who was seen to be just by Him; likewise to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob; also to Moses, and the people, and the whole world. But Jesus, the teacher of Peter himself, came and said, No one knew the Father except the Son, as no one knoweth even the Son except the Father, and those to whom the Son may wish to reveal Him. If, then, it was the Son himself who was present, it was from the time of his appearance that he began to reveal to those to whom he wished, Him who was unknown to all. And thus the Father was unknown to all who lived before him, and could not thus be He who was known to all."

But after all, it is, I presume, the edification rather than the demolition of the law and the prophets which we have thus far found effected in Christ. "All things," He says, "are delivered unto me of my Father." You may believe Him, if He is the Christ of the Creator to whom all things belong; because the Creator has not delivered to a Son who is less than Himself all things, which He created by Him, that is to say, by His Word.

But "no man knoweth who the Father is, but the Son; and who the Son is, but the Father, and he to whom the Son will reveal Him." And so it was an unknown god that Christ preached! And other heretics, too, prop themselves up by this passage; alleging in opposition to it that the Creator was known to all, both to lsrµl by familiar intercourse, and to the Gentiles by nature.

He exults in spirit when He says to the Father, "I thank Thee, O Father, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent." He, moreover, affirms also that to no man is the Father known, but to His Son; and promises that, as the Son of the Father, He will confess those who confess Him, and deny those who deny Him, before His Father.

The Father delivers all things to the Son, because all things must be subject to the Son. God reigns over all in a twofold manner: first, over those who do not desire His Kingdom, and second, over those who do desire it. To give an example: God is my Master even if I do not wish it, because He is my Creator; and again, God is my Master when I, as a prudent servant, fulfill His will through the keeping of the commandments. Human nature was formerly in bondage and in the hands of God, even though it did not wish it, even though it served Satan. But when Christ endured the struggle on our behalf and, having freed us from the power of the devil, made us His servants and keepers of the commandments, from that time we became prudent servants both by nature and by choice; for the first servitude was only by nature, while the second was also by our choice. So the Lord now says: "All things have been delivered to Me by My Father," that is, all things must be subject to Me and fall under My dominion. This is similar to the other saying: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:18). And He says this because He reconciled all things (Col. 1:20), both in heaven and on earth. And in another sense: the Father delivers all things to the Son—all the works of the economy of our salvation. Therefore, for our sake neither the Father nor the Spirit became incarnate, or suffered, or rose again, but the Son accomplished all of this, and He became the captain of our salvation; therefore He says that all things have been delivered to Him. He spoke as if to say: My Father has entrusted all things to Me—to become incarnate, to suffer, to rise again, to save the nature that had fallen away. Since He said that all things have been delivered to Me, He now resolves, as it were, a certain perplexity. Lest anyone should think: why then did He deliver all things to You, and not to another, even to an Angel or an Archangel. He says: He delivered all things to Me because I am of one Nature and Essence with Him. And as no one knows Him, so no one knows Me either, except the Father alone. Therefore He rightly delivered all things to Me, as One consubstantial with Him and surpassing all knowledge, just as He too is above all knowledge. For the Father, He says, is known by the Son alone and by the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Notice: the Son knows the Father not through revelation, but creatures know Him through revelation, for they receive knowledge by grace; consequently, the Son is not created.

But that you may know that as the Son revealed the Father to whom He will, the Father also reveals the Son to whom He will, hear our Lord's words, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed it to thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

And turning to his disciples, he said: Blessed are the eyes that see the things you see, etc. Not the eyes of the scribes and Pharisees, who see only the body of the Lord, but those blessed eyes that can recognize his mysteries, about which it is said: And you have revealed them to little children. Blessed are the eyes of the little ones, to whom the Son is worthy to reveal both himself and the Father.

Matthew more clearly calls them prophets, and righteous men. For those are great kings, who have known how, not by yielding to escape from the assaults of temptations, but by mastering to gain the rule over them.

For those looking afar off saw Him in a glass and darkly, but the Apostles having our Lord present with them, whatever things they wished to learn had no need to he taught by angels or any other kind of vision.

The third firmness of faith is that which proceeds from the witness of truth as expressed through the inspired word: and this occurred with all the prophets. And we have heard this Word, for it is the Spirit that bears witness that Christ is the truth. Some have actually seen Him in the flesh. Hence in Luke: "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I say to you, many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and they have not seen it."

Fourth, He shows that one should rejoice over the desirable presence, with regard to which He adds: And turning to His disciples, He said: Blessed are the eyes that see what you see: therefore you can rightly rejoice, because you see Me both in mind and in body, since Abraham rejoiced, who saw only by faith, according to that passage of John 8: "Abraham, your father, rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it and was glad." And therefore as a figure of this it is said in 3 Kings 10 to Solomon: "Blessed are your men and blessed are your servants, those who stand before you always and hear your wisdom." This is said of Solomon as a figure of Christ, because, as He says of Himself in Matthew 12, "behold, something greater than Solomon is here." Whence this was a special gift.

He also gave the holy apostles power and might even to raise the dead, cleanse lepers, heal the sick, and by the laying on of hands to call down from heaven the Holy Spirit on anyone they wanted. He gave them power to bind and to loose people's sins. His words are "I say to you, whatever you will bind on earth, will be bound in heaven. Whatever you will loose on earth, will be loosed in heaven." These are the things we see ourselves possessing. Blessed are our eyes and the eyes of those of all who love him. We have heard his wonderful teaching. He has given us the knowledge of God the Father, and he has shown him to us in his own nature. The things that were by Moses were only types and symbols. Christ has revealed the truth to us. He has taught us that not by blood and smoke, but rather by spiritual sacrifices, we must honor him who is spiritual, immaterial and above all understanding.

He turns to them indeed, since He rejected the Jews, who were deaf, with their understandings blinded, and not wishing to see, and gives Himself wholly to those who love Him; and He pronounces those eyes blessed which see the things no others had seen before. We must however know this, that seeing does not signify the action of the eyes, but the pleasure which the mind receives from benefits conferred. For instance, if any one should say, He hath seen good times, that is, he has rejoiced in good times, according to the Psalm, Thou shall see the good of Jerusalem. (Ps. 128:5.) For many Jews have seen Christ performing divine works, that is to say, with their bodily sight, yet all were not fitted to receive the blessing, for they believed not; but these saw not His glory with their mental sight. Blessed then are our eyes, since we see by faith the Word who is made man for us, shedding upon us the glory of His Godhead, that He may make us like unto Him by sanctification and righteousness.

(in Joan. Hom. 8.) Now from this saying many imagine that the prophets were without the knowledge of Christ. But if they desired to see what the Apostles saw, they knew that He would come to men, and dispense those things which He did. For no one desires what he has no conception of; they therefore knew the Son of God. Hence He does not merely say, They desired to see me, but those things which ye see, nor to hear me, but those things which ye hear. For they saw Him, but not yet Incarnate, nor thus conversing with men, nor speaking with such authority to them.

If you look also into the next words, "Blessed are the eyes which see the things which ye see, for I tell you that prophets have not seen the things which ye see," you will find that they follow from the sense above, that no man indeed had come to the knowledge of God as he ought to have done, since even the prophets had not seen the things which were being seen under Christ.

Turning to the disciples, the Lord blesses them and indeed all who look upon Him with faith as He walks in the flesh and works miracles.

Having said above, No one knoweth who the Father is but the Son, and to whomsoever the Son will reveal him; He pronounces a blessing upon His disciples, to whom the Father was revealed through Him. Hence it is said, And he turned him unto his disciples, and said, Blessed are the eyes, &c.

Now He blesses them, and all truly who look with faith, because the ancient prophets and kings desired to see and hear God in the flesh, as it follows; For I say unto you, that many prophets and kings have desired, &c. (Matt. 13:17.)

For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. Abraham rejoiced that he might see the day of Christ, and saw it, and was glad. Isaiah also, and Micah, many other prophets saw the glory of the Lord, who for that reason are called seers. But all these seeing from afar and greeting (Him) saw through a glass and in a riddle (1 Cor. 13), but the apostles having the Lord in the present time, eating with Him, and learning by asking whatever they wished, by no means needed to be taught through angels or various visions. While Luke calls many prophets and kings, Matthew more explicitly calls them prophets and the righteous. For they are truly great kings, because they know how to not succumb by giving in to the impulses of their temptations, but to command by ruling over them.

The third firmness of faith is that which proceeds from the witness of truth as expressed through the inspired word: and this occurred with all the prophets. And we have heard this Word, for it is the Spirit that bears witness that Christ is the truth. Some have actually seen Him in the flesh. Hence in Luke: "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I say to you, many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, and they have not seen it."

And on this account He adds: But I say to you, that many prophets and kings wished to see what you see, and did not see it. Those sublime in knowledge and power desired the presence of Christ, according to that passage of Haggai 2: "The desired of all nations will come." Whence on account of their vehement desire it is said in Isaiah 64: "O that You would rend the heavens and come down!" and Numbers 24: "A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a scepter shall spring up from Israel"; and after: "Alas! who shall live when the Lord does these things?" Nor is it a wonder, because in the penultimate chapter of Esther it is said to Ahasuerus in the person of Christ: "You are exceedingly wondrous, lord, and your face is full of graces." And therefore they desired to see the presence of Christ.

They also desired to hear the teaching, and therefore he adds: And to hear what you hear, and they did not hear, that is, my words: because, as it is said in Hosea 10, "it is time to seek the Lord, when he shall come who will teach you justice." For this was the very greatest benefit, to hear God speaking, not through a subject creature, but in his own person and in a united creature. Commemorating which benefit, the Apostle says in Hebrews 1: "In many ways and by many modes God, speaking of old to the Fathers through the Prophets, in these last days" etc. Blessed is he who hears this speech humbly and obediently, according to that passage below in chapter eleven: "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it." Hence blessed are those who through faith saw and heard Christ on the way, according to that passage in Proverbs 8: "Blessed is the man who hears me and who watches at my gates daily and waits at the posts of my door." But most blessed are those who will see in the homeland, according to that passage in Revelation 19: "Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb."

Tell us, then, O children, whence is this, your beautiful and graceful contest of song? Who taught it you? Who instructed you? Who brought you together? What were your tablets? Who were your teachers? Do but you, they say, join us as our companions in this song and festivity, and you will learn the things which were by Moses and the prophet earnestly longed for.

(in Cant. 1:2.) But why does he say that many prophets desired, and not all? Because it is said of Abraham, That he saw the day of Christ and was glad, (John 8:56.) which sight not many, but few attained to; but there were other prophets and just men not so great as to reach to Abraham's vision, and the experience of the Apostles, who, He says, saw not, but desired to see.

"But also a witnessing voice was heard from heaven, saying, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him.' And in addition to this, willing to convict more fully of error the prophets from whom they asserted that they had learned, He proclaimed that they died desiring the truth, but not having learned it, saying, 'Many prophets and kings desired to see what ye see, and to hear what you hear; and verily I say to you, they neither saw nor heard.' Still further He said, 'I am he concerning whom Moses prophesied, saying, A Prophet shall the Lord our God raise unto you of your brethren, like unto me: Him hear in all things; and whosoever will not hear that Prophet shall die.' "

For the ancient prophets and kings, though they greatly desired to see the Lord in the flesh and to hear Him, were nevertheless not deemed worthy of this. And in another sense: since He said above that he knows the Father to whom the Son reveals Him, He now blesses the disciples as those who have already received this revelation. For through Himself He revealed the Father to them, since he who saw Him saw the Father (John 14:9). And no one among those saints who lived before the appearing and working of the Son of God in the flesh attained this blessing. Since they did not see the Lord in the flesh, through Whom the Father was known, it follows that they did not see the Father in the way the apostles saw Him.