Letters 96.4–96.18

For the Father did not deprive him of the name of his nature after he was made man and poor for us, nor did he call him by another name when he was baptized in the river Jordan, but only-begotten Son: 'You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' Our likeness did not change the nature of his divinity, nor was his divinity turned into the likeness of our nature; but remaining what he was in the beginning, God the Word, and glorifying us in himself, he did not come, as Jeremiah did, to say: 'Woe is me, mother, why did you bear me, a man to be judged and condemned by the whole earth? I have not profited, nor has anyone profited me'; he who had come to give freedom. Nor did he cry out as Isaiah did: 'Woe is me, for, being a man with unclean lips and dwelling in the midst of a people with unclean lips, I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord of hosts.' For he himself was the King of glory, as it is written in the twenty-third Psalm, standing victorious on the cross and quelling hostile wars, so as to make man, formed from the earth, an inhabitant of heaven and to give him a share in his trophy.

Therefore, though those who think him changed into another do not want it, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever, never to have an end of his kingdom, as Origen's wicked error holds, lest with the end of his kingdom he should also be deprived of eternity; but he says before all: 'I am in the Father and the Father in me.' And wishing to teach us that the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father rule over all creatures, he confirmed this very point by adding, 'I and the Father are one,' lest anyone should divide his kingdom, one with the Father's, on the pretext of the human flesh. But if, according to Origen's madness, Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is one day to lose his kingdom, how did he say to the apostles, 'I and the Father are one,' if afterwards he will not have one rule with him, so that, of course, he has here the glory which he is to lay down there? And where will be the truth that the Son is always in the Father and the Father in the Son, if the Son's kingdom will not be sure? But let those who contend that this is so perish, unless they repent; and to them, moved with zeal for faith and piety, let Moses speak: 'Cursed are you in the city, and cursed in the field,' while the psalmist likewise rebukes them: 'Let sinners vanish from the earth, and the wicked, so that they be no more.'

Indeed I cannot know with what rashness Origen, inventing so much and following not the authority of the Scriptures but his own error, dared to bring into the open things harmful to all, and never thought there would be any man to oppose his assertions, if he mixed the subtleties of the philosophers into his own treatises. And proceeding from a bad beginning into certain fables and ravings, he made Christian doctrine a game and a jest, using by no means the truth of divine teaching but the judgement of the human mind; and with himself as master he swelled into such pride that he did not imitate the humility of Paul, who, full of the Holy Spirit, compared the gospel with the earlier apostles, lest perhaps he should be running or had run in vain; not knowing that it is the prompting of a demonic spirit to follow the sophisms of human minds and to think anything true outside the authority of the Scriptures. Let those at last be quiet who, dreaming of an end of Christ's kingdom, wish to be parasites of Origen's wordiness, and let them not, walking with the faithful, feign a faith they do not have. Let them rather learn that all deceit and fraud is one thing and shows another, trying to hide vices under the appearance of virtue. For since, in the shame of the cross which he suffered for us, Christ did not cease to be the Lord of glory, according to the blessed apostle, while the Jews cried out against him, 'You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself; if you are the Son of God, come down from the cross'; and since, suffering in the flesh and hanging on the cross, he showed the strength of his own majesty, making the sun stop from its course and wringing by the greatness of his signs the voice, full of faith, of the thief, 'Jesus, remember me, Lord, when you come into your kingdom': he will never, after the glory of the resurrection, lose his kingdom, however countless the stones of blasphemy Origen throws against him. Or what consistency is there in promising the disciples an everlasting kingdom, saying, 'Come, blessed of my Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,' and himself lacking what he gives to others? Or how, when Paul writes to the Corinthians, 'Without us you reign; and would that you did reign, that we too might reign with you,' can the kingdom of Christ be understood as coming to an end after long ages? Especially since John cries, 'He who comes from above is above all,' and the apostle writes, 'Whose are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh, is Christ, who is God over all, blessed for ever.'

So no one doubts that he who remains God for ever also has the kingdom, and is called everlasting King even over those to whom he has given possession of the kingdom, holding a rule befitting his divinity, and having nothing crude and new in himself except the assumption of human frailty. For if, according to Origen's madness, Christ's kingdom is to end after the cycles of many ages, it follows from his impiety to say that he will one day cease to be God as well; and he who sets limits to the kingdom is forced to think the same of the divinity, which by nature possesses everlasting rule. And if the Word of God reigns, he is certainly God; and by this reasoning it follows that whoever tries to put an end to his kingdom is driven to this, that he is forced to believe that Christ also ceases to be God. But let the unlearned teacher chatter these things with his impious followers; let us believe the kingdom of Christ eternal, and on the feast day sing with the angel and say, 'Of his kingdom there will be no end.' For if he is one with the Father, he will never cease from being one, and the union of Father and Son will never be divided into parts, nor, as it is said, 'they are one,' will they ever cease to be one.

Away, then, with these most foolish of mortals; or rather, let them go down alive into hell, as the psalmist testifies, and, seeing the teacher of their impiety there, cry out: 'You too have been taken, as we were, and you are in hell; your glory has gone down to hell,' and the rest. Such a shepherd of a diseased flock everywhere assails Christ with insults and exalts the devil with honour, asserting that the devil, cleansed of vices and sins, will one day receive his former glory, while Christ ceases to reign and is to be brought, together with the devil, under the Father's rule; so that the prophet exclaims in amazement at Origen's blasphemies rather than at the outcry of the Jews: 'The heaven was astonished at this and shuddered greatly, says the Lord, because it has done two evils.' Origen, asserting that Christ ceases to reign and that the devil will ascend to the height from which he fell, digging such a deep pit of his wickedness as cannot hold water, makes the devil, as far as in him lies, equal to the Son of God, while he takes from the Son the everlasting glory of his kingdom and subjects him with the demons to the Father's rule. But let such an impious voice be trampled down, and let us know that the kingdom of Christ is everlasting, since he himself says to his disciples: 'You have continued with me in my trials, and I will establish for you an eternal covenant, that you may eat and drink always at my table in my kingdom.' How can the word 'always' be fulfilled unless the kingdom is everlasting and to be closed by no end? The magi understood this and, turning to repentance, asked eagerly, 'Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.' The magi confess Christ as king, and Origen denies it, saying that he will not reign for ever, and he does not notice that he is like the Jews in their blasphemies.

We read in the gospel that when the Lord and Saviour, showing an example of his strength and patience, mounted the cross, Pilate wrote a title and put it over his head. And it was written: 'Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.' Many of the Jews read this title, which was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, 'Do not write that he is King of the Jews, but that he said he was King of the Jews.' Pilate answered, 'What I have written I have written.' Since, then, Pilate could not be brought by sedition or by prayers to remove Christ's kingship from the title, let Origen know that, without any compulsion, he is doing what the Jews did when he thinks the kingdom of Christ must end. They denied the King placed on earth; he tries, as far as in him lies, to disparage him reigning in heaven; so that he has Pilate as the accuser of his crime, who answered the Jews, 'What I have written I have written.' Let the prophetic word too come forward and proclaim the kingdom of Christ with all freedom: 'Rejoice, daughter of Zion; proclaim it, daughter of Jerusalem; be glad and exult with all your heart, daughter of Israel: the Lord has taken away your iniquities, he has redeemed you from the hand of your enemies; the King of Israel is in your midst; you will no longer see evil.' For those whom he has once saved he will not cast down again from heaven and let go, according to Origen's ravings and fables, so that they fall again from on high. And the words 'you will no longer see evil' are a sign of eternal security, that those who have once been set free and enjoy the possession of the kingdom of heaven will by no means be dragged down to earth by vices, nor be deprived of the help of God, who, according to the prophetic word, will set for them a wall and a bulwark, surrounding them with his power. So the psalmist sings: 'He who dwells in Jerusalem will not be moved for ever'; and the Lord declares: 'I will not leave you nor forsake you.' In vain does he dream that souls ascend to heaven and descend, now advancing, now slipping to lower things, so that through countless falls they often die and the passion of Christ is made void. For he who died once for us has given us the eternal joy of his victory, which no weight of vices diminishes. Nor does any man die more often, as Origen dared to write, wishing to confirm by the authority of the divine Scriptures the most impious doctrine of the Stoics.

But why do we mention these things, when he has burst out into such folly, or rather madness, as to bring another charge against the Saviour, saying that he is to be fastened to a cross among the powers above for the demons and spiritual wickedness too? He does not understand into what deep abyss of impiety he is falling. For if Christ, to suffer for men, became man, as the words of the Scriptures testify, it will follow that Origen must say that, to suffer for demons, he will become a demon. For he will be forced by necessity to infer this, so as not to seem inconsistent with what he began, and to imitate the blasphemies of the Jews, whom he always imitates; for they too spoke to Christ in the same way: 'You have a demon,' and, 'By Beelzebul, the prince of demons, you cast out demons.' But far be it that Christ should suffer for demons, lest he too become a demon. Those who believe this crucify the Son of God again and hold him up to contempt, who by no means will take hold of the seed of demons as he took hold of the seed of Abraham, lest he be crucified for them too. Nor will the demons, seeing God suffering for them, cry out with the prophet, 'He has borne our sins and grieves for us,' nor say with Isaiah, 'By his bruise we are healed'; nor will Christ be led like a sheep to the slaughter for demons as for the human race; nor will it be said for their salvation, 'He did not spare his own Son,' for neither will the demons cry out, 'He was handed over for our sins and rose for our justification.' Paul indeed writes plainly, 'For I delivered to you first of all what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,' calling them as witnesses and wishing to confirm by their authority what is doubtful; but Origen, without any testimony of the divine voice, tries to do violence to the truth and to find it with the lamp put out.

A patron of demons, not of men, he harasses the Son of God with repeated slanders and crucifies him anew, not understanding into what deep and horrible whirlpool of impiety he is being dragged. For it follows that one who has accepted the first points must accept what follows; and one who says Christ is crucified for the demons must accept that to them too it must be said, 'Take and eat; this is my body,' and, 'Take and drink; this is my blood.' For if he is to be crucified for the demons too, as this champion of new doctrines affirms, what privilege or what reason will there be that men alone share in his body and blood, and not the demons as well, for whom he shed his blood in the passion? But neither will the demons hear, 'Take and eat,' and, 'Take and drink,' nor will the Lord annul his own precepts, who said to his disciples: 'Do not give what is holy to dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you.' For the apostle too, writing, 'I do not want you to become partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons,' shows that it is impossible for demons to drink from the Lord's cup and partake of his table. The food of the devil is those who deny God, as Habakkuk says, 'His food is choice'; while the food of all the wicked is the accursed devil himself, as the prophet's oracle proclaims: 'You gave him as food to the Ethiopian peoples.' From all this it is proved that Christ cannot be crucified for demons, lest demons become partakers of his body and blood.

Since, then, the apostle also declares of the Saviour, 'For this he did once, offering himself,' and Origen so boldly contradicts that statement, it is time to bring forward this: 'Earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord: write this man down as disowned.' For what hell can receive these evils, what Tartarus can think of such things? What madness of giants was ever so rebellious as to build a tower of impiety? What wanton lust, dying with love of demons, has so spread the legs of its mind to every passing doctrine? Who has drunk so deeply of the vine of Sodom that, drunk with the wine of its fury, he has fallen with his whole heart? Who, watered by the eddies of the rivers of Babylon, has so abandoned the living springs of Israel? Who, going out of Jerusalem and becoming an imitator of Jeroboam son of Nebat, has built altars to so many errors and kindled the profane incense of altars? Why should not Dathan and Abiram, who sinned less, come before the judgement seat of Christ and condemn him by comparison with themselves, who outside the Saviour's church has filled the censers of various doctrines with diabolical fire? For the Lord, who says through the prophet, 'I have multiplied visions and been likened in the hands of the prophets,' did not teach him to bring forward counterfeit doctrines; nor did those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word of God, nor the choir of the prophets, who were once called seers, instruct him in these things. But he himself, by the judgement of his own mind, serving the fury of demons and deceived by the flattering error of his thoughts, sent a flock, and, so to speak, a swarm of perverse doctrines into the minds of the unlearned throughout the world. He is the one who opened his mouth to the rivers of Assyria and Babylon, who tried to sink with the waves the ship of the church, full of the good wares of saving doctrine, while he is lifted up by the praise of the ignorant and, expounding the sense of the Scriptures otherwise than the truth is, glories in his own confusion. For who wrote so countless, so talkative books, full of wordiness and ignorance, and joined days and nights in tireless study, so as to leave monuments of errors and deserve to hear, 'You have been deceived in your many ways'? For he used a very bad guide, popular favour; and, having written very many volumes of false knowledge and fighting against God with a rebellious mind, he mixed into the ointment of heavenly doctrines a kind of pus and the filth of his own stench, so that it might again be said to his soul, 'Unclean, notorious, and great in iniquities.' Nor would he listen to the prophet warning, 'Why do you love vanity and seek falsehood?' He fastens Christ to the cross for demons, so that he may become mediator not only of God and men but of demons too. But far be it from us to believe so monstrous a wickedness of the Saviour, that he should lose the temple of his body, which he deigned to raise for us, and fasten to himself another temple of demonic condition, so as to take on their likeness too and undergo the cross for them.

I beg you, dearest brothers, to pardon my grief as it resists impious doctrines. For while it strives to beat back the shamelessness of his followers, we have brought into the open the joints of his breastplate and the deceits of his poisoned breast, so that this too might be fulfilled in him: 'I will reveal your shame and show it to your lovers.' For among other things he so corrupts and violates the resurrection from the dead, which is the hope of our salvation, as to dare to say that our bodies are raised subject again to corruption and death. Answer me, head of impiety: how, according to the apostle Paul, did Christ conquer him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, if corruptible and mortal bodies are to rise again? What good has Christ's passion done us, if death and corruption are to possess our bodies again? Or what does the apostle mean when he writes, 'For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive,' if cruel death is to rule those who rise? Or how can those who believe these things say from the heart, 'Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,' when they want death to be stronger than he, since it is to destroy the bodies raised by him, and is not proved conquered in every respect? But even though Origen so impiously resists, Christ our Lord has conquered death and by his power destroyed the devil, who had the power of death, having prepared for us in heaven the triumph of his victories. Nor did he raise bodies so that they might perish again, but by their everlasting incorruption he destroyed death and corruption.

So, set free from all evils, let us celebrate the feast of the Lord's passion, and, seeing, according to the gospel parable, bulls and fatlings slaughtered by wisdom, let us feed on the stronger, sinewy, and richer foods of doctrine, so that, leaving the milk of infancy, we may take more solid nourishment, and flee ignorance, the cause of all evils. Ignorance, having bound the feet of many in various heresies, enjoys in Origen its greatest lover, who among other things dared to say that the Son is not to be prayed to, nor the Father with the Son, and after many ages renewed the blasphemy of Pharaoh, who said, 'Who is he, that I should hear his voice? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.' To say 'I do not know the Lord' is nothing other than what Origen says, 'The Son is not to be prayed to,' whom he certainly confesses as Lord. And though he has broken out into so open a blasphemy, yet he is to be prayed to, of whom the prophet testifies, saying, 'And they shall worship you and make supplication to you, for God is in you, and there is no God besides you'; and again, 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.' And Paul argues, 'How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?' We must first believe that he is the Son of God, so that calling on him may be right and consistent. And as one who is not God is not to be prayed to, so, on the contrary, one who is established to be God is to be worshipped. So Stephen too, on bended knees and praying for those who were stoning him, said to the Son, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.' In the name of Jesus Christ too every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, on earth, and under the earth; and 'every knee shall bow' is a sign of anxious and most humble prayer. So Origen does not believe the Son of God to be God, since he does not think he is to be worshipped, and he tears him with insults; and though he flatters himself on his memory of the Scriptures and thinks he understands them, he does not hear Moses speaking against him: 'The man who curses God shall bear his sin, and he who names the name of the Lord shall surely die; all the congregation shall stone him.' And who insults Christ so much as this man, who dared to say, 'He must not be prayed to,' granting him only the empty name of divinity?

But why must we linger over such impieties? Let us pass to another of his errors. He says that the bodies that rise are after many ages to be dissolved into nothing, and will not exist at all, except when souls, slipping down from the mansions of heaven to lower things, need new ones, which are made again as others, the former being wholly destroyed. Who, hearing this, does not tremble in mind and body? For if after the resurrection bodies are reduced to nothing, the second death will be stronger than the first, since it can wholly destroy bodily substance. Why does Paul write, 'Death will not have dominion over him; for the death he died, he died to sin once,' if bodies are to be wholly destroyed? Or how will the word 'once' stand firm, when the flesh, separated from the fellowship of the soul, is to be reduced to nothing? For what reason did he add, 'It is sown in corruption, it rises in incorruption; it is sown in weakness, it rises in power; it is sown in dishonour, it rises in glory; it is sown an animal body, it rises a spiritual body'? For if incorruption reduces bodies to nothing, it would have been consistent to say that they are kept for ever for corruption, and corruption would be stronger than incorruption. But far be it that Paul should write things contrary to himself, and that incorruption and corruption should have the same nature. If, as Origen falsely thinks, the body is to be raised not only corruptible but mortal, then corruption and incorruption, death and life, will be called one and the same; they will have the same power in the raised bodies, and corruption and incorruption, death and life, will be separated not in reality but only in name. But if a corruptible and mortal body is to rise, it would have been more consistent for the apostle to say: 'It is sown in corruption, it rises in corruption; it is sown in weakness, it rises in weakness; it is sown in dishonour, it rises in dishonour; it is sown an animal body, it rises an animal body.' But if he removes corruption, weakness, and dishonour from the raised bodies, and says on the contrary that bodies are to be clothed with incorruption, strength, and glory, and that a spiritual body is to be given in place of an animal one, death will be undone, and in the raised bodies immortality and incorruption will reign in place of death and corruption, because the body itself will rise immortal and incorrupt, so as to remain co-eternal with the soul. And so the Saviour, giving our bodies a pledge of salvation in the resurrection of his own body, cannot be believed to die again, as the apostle agrees: 'Christ, rising from the dead, will die no more; death will no longer have dominion over him'; lest, if it had dominion over him, it should have dominion over us.

Let Origen be confounded, among the other kinds of shameful things he invents, for giving his patronage to the magic arts too. For in his treatises he has spoken in these words: 'The art of magic does not seem to me the name of anything that really exists; but even if it does, it is not a work of evil nor something that can be held in contempt.' In saying this he shows himself a supporter of Elymas the magician, who resisted the apostles, and of Jannes and Jambres, who withstood Moses with magic arts. But Origen's patronage will have no force, because Christ by his coming destroyed the tricks of the magicians. Let the champion of new impiety answer, or rather let him hear plainly: if the art of magic is not evil, idolatry will not be evil either, which relies on the powers of the magic art. But if idolatry is evil, the art of magic will be evil too, from which idolatry subsists. And since idolatry has been destroyed by the majesty of Christ, it shows that its parent, the art of magic, has been dissolved with it, as the prophet clearly proclaims on this: 'Stand now in your enchantments and your many sorceries which you have learned from your youth, if they can profit you.' Since, then, the writings of the prophets testify to this, and no one has ever dared to record that the arts of the magicians are to be counted among the best things, and the public laws also punish magicians and sorcerers, I cannot know by what reason Origen, who boasts that he is a Christian, has become an imitator of the false prophet Zedekiah and made himself horns of iron, armed with which he advances against the doctrines of truth; and he knows nothing of the heavenly Jerusalem, nor imitates Moses and Daniel and Peter and the other saints, who, standing as it were in battle line, fought with tireless struggle against magicians and enchanters. With them let us lead the dances of the feast day, because, passing through the midst of the dangers of Babylon, we have escaped the poisons of Origen and obeyed the words of the prophet who commands: 'Go out of Babylon, you who flee from the land of the Chaldeans,' so as to enter Jerusalem, in which is the preaching of truth.

For although, in resisting falsehood, we have suffered something of what the three youths suffered, who in the furnace of the blazing fire overcame the nature of the flames, yet the Babylonian fire did not prevail against us; our hair was not singed (that is, the least doctrines of the church's truth), nor were our trousers changed, which wisdom wove for us from the testimonies of holy Scripture for the protection of our souls, nor is the smell of fire on us, the flame of perverse knowledge running about. For we have not accepted the teaching of the man who supposes that bodies came into being because of the falls of rational creatures, and says, following the etymology of the Greek word, that souls are so called because they lost the warmth of mind and of most fervent love toward God, so that they took their name from cold (psyche from psychos); lest we should think that the soul of the Saviour too was subject to the same trifles. Nor do we assert that the courses of the sun, moon, and stars and the most beautiful harmony in diversity of the whole world arose from prior causes and various sins and faults of souls, nor that God's goodness waited a long time, so as not to make visible creatures until the invisible had sinned. Nor do we call bodily substance 'vanity', as he thinks, conceding in other words to the doctrines of Manichaeus, lest the body of Christ too should be subject to vanity; for, filled with the food of it, we daily ruminate the words of him who says, 'Unless one eats my flesh and drinks my blood, he will have no part with me.' For if bodily nature is vain and worthless, according to Origen's error, why did Christ rise from the dead, why did he raise our bodies, and what does Paul mean when he writes, 'If the dead do not rise, neither has Christ risen; and if Christ has not risen, our faith is vain'?

From this it is clear that the nature of bodies is not vain, but that those are given to vanity who do not think it rises and remains for ever. He also condemns honourable marriage, denying that bodies come into being unless souls have first sinned in heaven and, cast down from there, have been bound in bodies as in certain prisons. Let him think as he wishes and speak as he does not fear to: let him hear us crying into his ears with Paul, 'Marriage is honourable and the bed undefiled.' And how is it undefiled if a soul stained with vices is surrounded by flesh? And Hannah, wife of Elkanah, will be guilty in asking for the seed of men, so that for the desire of a mere woman souls in heaven should be endangered and one of them, heavy with sin, should slip down to earth and forsake its former blessedness! Nor did Moses, when he prayed and said, 'The Lord your God multiply you, and behold, you are today like the stars of heaven in multitude; the Lord God of your fathers add to you a thousand times as many as you are and bless you, as he has said,' ask that crowds of souls sinning in heaven should found the nation of the people of Israel. How contrary that would be is quite plain: that he who prayed for the people's offence, 'If you forgive this people's sin, forgive; but if not, blot me out of the book you have written,' should ask that the children of Israel be multiplied; whereas, if he had known that they increased by the falls of souls, would he not rather have prayed that a baser nature should not be made because of the vices of a better substance? Why does David pray in the psalm, 'The Lord bless you from Zion, and may you see the good things of Jerusalem all the days of your life, and see your children's children,' if the race of a righteous man is increased by the sin of souls; and dare to say, 'Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord,' when he knows that sinning souls are bound with the chains of bodies and in such a prison pay the penalty of their sins by God's judgement? How does God say through the prophet, 'If you had listened to my commandments, your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea, and your seed like the sand, and the offspring of your womb like the dust of the earth'? For those who keep God's commandments should not receive as their reward the falls of souls from heaven, which, bound to bodies, multiply the increase of their offspring. If they wish to learn what the beginnings of the human race are, let them hear Moses saying, 'God took from the earth and formed man, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul,' that is, immortal. God too, blessing Adam and Eve, said, 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth.'