Questions and Answers to the Orthodox

Contents

Reading pages: 1–24 · 25–47 · 50–73 · 75–93 · 95–109 · 110–127 · 129–144 · 145

1. 1Three questions: why the orthodox are few if God abolished the old worship (the answer cites the few chosen and the narrow way); how prophets differ from pagan oracles (God foretold through both, but only the prophets' words about the true God came true); and what advantage the baptized Christian has if those who know God's will are punished more.
2. 4Heretics are justly punished, since they did not seek the truth wholeheartedly, refused it when shown, and founded their sects out of love of glory; whoever seeks the truth with his whole heart finds it.
3. 5Miracles in heretical churches do not confirm their error: as God sends sun and rain on the unjust to their judgment, so he works powers among heretics, and Christ will reject even wonder-workers he never knew.
4. 6Several questions: why the risen will be impassible though they feel joy or pain (their state is fixed and unchanging); why comparing rest and punishment changes nothing in the age to come; why God is not the author of evil (free choice, not knowledge, makes us good or bad); how biblical anthropomorphism differs from pagan myth; and why God, who contains all things, is greater than all and preserves no evil by nature.
5. 13Infants and the unborn will rise too: God who gives them incorruption can give them perception of the goods prepared, he made nothing in vain, and Scripture speaks of the vengeance for the infants slain by Herod.
6. 14Heretics who join the orthodox are not rebaptized or reordained: their error is corrected by change of belief, their baptism completed by anointing with chrism, and their ordination by the laying on of hands.
7. 15Job's curse on the day of his birth was a wish that he had not been born, spoken in extreme affliction and not meant to be fulfilled; once relieved, he no longer held that view.
8. 16Human offspring share their parents' essence but come later, because parents exist before they beget; God begets as he exists, so the Son is not later than the Father.
9. 17God is one in the indivisible essence and three persons in the distinct hypostases; the names of the Trinity belong to the hypostases, not to the essence.
10. 18“Son of God” and “Son of the Father” mean the same, since what belongs to the person belongs to its essence; and twitching or palpitations are bodily motions, not omens, and Christians should not read the future from them.
11. 20Two questions: why Christ called the apostles fishers of men (men must die to their old life); and whether monks troubled by involuntary sexual dreams must abstain from communion (no: dreams are not in our power; only delight in them is culpable, and grief and tears suffice).
12. 22That the wheat seems almost to have failed while tares multiply was foretold by Christ and the apostles; yet the wheat will last to the end, for the sake of the elect, and tares imply wheat.
13. 23Christ's prayer for the disciples' sanctification was answered, because it was offered after Judas had already perished by leaving the group at the Last Supper.
14. 24The talismans of Apollonius of Tyana worked by natural science and materials, whereas Christ's miracles came by divine authority without matter; Christ silenced the demon in Apollonius' statue and the other pagan gods.
15. 25Scripture praises Moses not for Egyptian learning as such but because, renowned for learning and position, he put piety above both and chose to suffer with God's people.
16. 26The Egyptian magicians turned well water into blood after Moses had turned the river; Moses' miracles truly changed things, while the magicians' were demonic illusions.
17. 27Moses carried Joseph's bones despite the law against touching the dead because his oath to Joseph was the greater obligation; Scripture often excuses such necessary breaches, and need not explain everything.
18. 28Corpses are shunned for their stench, not their deadness, as the use of animal parts shows; the uncleanness of the dead signifies a soul dead in sin; and Christ, no longer under the law after his baptism, was not defiled by touching the dead.
19. 29When the paralytic was let down through the roof, the crowd inside was warned and moved aside, and only part of the roof was opened.
20. 30Every person has a guardian angel; angels not yet assigned to a person serve in other ministries, and the guardians accompany soul and body in life and the soul after death.
21. 31Rain comes at God's command, as Scripture says; the claim that sorcerers control rain and hail is hearsay and not credible.
22. 32God made human nature mortal but did not make death; death entered through disobedience, as Enoch and Elijah, mortal by nature yet still alive, show.
23. 33Four questions: a person's lifespan is not fixed by fate (Deut 22:25–27 compares rape to murder, and Hezekiah's years were added to an unfixed life); the flood covered the whole earth; animals are clean by nature but some were called unclean by the law, partly against Egyptian animal worship; and God's “repenting” shows his unchanging justice and mercy.
24. 37John's baptism, a prelude to the Gospel, was above the law, since the law could not give pardon through repentance and faith in Christ.
25. 38John the Baptist sent his disciples to Jesus because rumors attributed Jesus' miracles to Elijah or Jeremiah; Jesus answered with miracles showing he was the one John had pointed out.
26. 39Christ's drawing of all to himself will be fulfilled at the end, when every power is abolished; and the Father draws to the Son by giving the Son power to draw all, so the two sayings agree.
27. 40When a demon is driven out by invisible power, it leaves no trace, because that power makes it afraid to approach the healed person again.
28. 41The demoniac's strength to break chains was the demon's own, not given to his body; and pagan claims that the gods punished disobedience to oracles are refuted by paganism's defeat, against which it could use only human force.
29. 43Three questions: the animals entered the ark in pairs and sevens of each sex; Isaiah's vision shows Christ and the cleansing power of his flesh in the Eucharist, while Ezekiel's living creatures foretold Nebuchadnezzar's fate and the end of Israel's captivity; and Ezekiel is called “son of man” because his vision of dry bones prefigures the resurrection by the Son of man.
30. 46Nothing in creation is evil by nature; abstaining from or using the goods of life is praiseworthy when done rightly and blameworthy when not, and evil arises only from misuse by free choice.
31. 47Three questions: Scripture's addresses to heaven and earth are meant for their rational inhabitants; “Do not touch me” told Mary not to cling to Christ as before, since he was weaning the disciples from his bodily presence; and God made one pair of each kind and created Adam's garments of skin directly, not from slaughtered animals.
32. 50The answer explains Alleluia as “praise with song the One who is”; the explanation of Hosanna is lost.
33. 51God's rewarding and punishing according to desert does not imply change in him, since his justice is always the same.
34. 52Saul killed the mediums not from piety but to protect his throne from David; the apparition at Endor was a demon in Samuel's form, though God allowed the prophecy to be true, as he sent a lying spirit to Ahab.
35. 53The risen keep their sexual organs as a reminder of how God's wisdom preserved the race through birth; and Moses' warnings were set to song because melody shapes the soul's disposition to the words.
36. 55A fragment mentioning remedies for bodily diseases and King Solomon; the rest is lost.
37. 56Infants who die baptized receive the goods of baptism through the faith of those who brought them; unbaptized infants do not.
38. 57Scripture's many heavens do not contradict Moses: there are two heavens in substance, the first heaven and the firmament, but the regions of the air are also called heavens.
39. 58Christ's foreknowledge did not cause Judas' betrayal, for foreknowledge follows what will happen rather than causing it; and the setting of the stars is explained by the horizon, as with ships at sea, without making the heaven a sphere.
40. 60The dead will rise in their own recognizable forms, to show God's knowledge, to prove that the same persons rise, and so that judgment may be just; the story of Lazarus and the rich man teaches that no benefit can be gained after death; and God alone has immortality by his own essence.
41. 62The first three days, before the sun was made, were real days of twelve hours, measured by the alternation of light and darkness that God fixed and later assigned to the sun and moon.
42. 63Psalm 19's “tent in the sun” means the heavens are the sun's tent, as the Syriac rendering and Psalm 104 show; and Jonah's three days in the fish are a type of Christ's three days in the tomb, not of his death, since the reality must exceed the type.
43. 65Christ was betrayed on Thursday night, not Wednesday, since he was tried that night and crucified the next day; and “Son of man” does not imply a human father, for Luke says he was only supposed to be Joseph's son, and as Joseph was Heli's son by law, so Christ was Joseph's son without marital union.
44. 67Isaiah's “Who will declare his generation?” refers to Christ's divine birth, which has no genealogy, while his birth in the flesh from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary is recorded.
45. 68The soul is not the blood but an invisible, immortal reality distinct from the body, as God's sparing Job's soul and Christ's saying about those who kill the body show.
46. 69The number seven has no power of its own over nature's processes; it is honored in Scripture as the number of creation and God's rest; and joy in God's gifts is permitted when joined with humility rather than pride.
47. 71The answer finds in Scripture's language of “the last days” and “the fullness of time,” spoken in the sixth millennium, support for the view that the world will last six thousand years.
48. 72God is not grudging for not making all creatures gods: a created god is impossible, since God is by definition uncreated, and a world needs different parts, as a body needs feet as well as eyes.
49. 73Evil is a turning from the good, not its necessary contrast, and what preceded the world was simply nothing; and paganism cannot return as true religion did, since the end is the judgment by fire through Christ, whose kingdom is everlasting, and persecution only strengthened Christianity.
50. 75At death the souls of the just are led by angels to paradise, where they see angels and Christ, and the souls of the unjust to Hades; both await there the resurrection and the final requital.
51. 76The penitent thief's soul in paradise perceives its joys by an intellectual perception that does not need the body; and the soul separated from the body is not dead or insensible, since death belongs to the ensouled body, not to the soul.
52. 78David, restored by repentance, remained after God's heart, so Christ could descend from Bathsheba, though the child of the adultery died; and Josiah's violent death punished his disobedience to the prophet's warning, while his idolatrous sons' captivity refutes pagan claims of the gods' revenge.
53. 80Elisha's curse on the jeering youths was a deserved severity that taught their parents, who mocked Elijah's ascension, not to dishonor the prophets; and demons still deceive through mediums among unbelievers, since not all things are yet subjected to Christ.
54. 82Seven questions: demons' names (Beelzebul, Belial) were learned from the demons through magic; sacrifices before the law were accepted but not commanded, and Abraham's served as prophecy; Elisha's double portion meant greater power, shown in raising two dead; the saints raised at the crucifixion rose complete and remain immortal; Origen's work explains Hebrew words and measures; Herod heard of Jesus' miracles late; and infants, unable to choose, do not sin, so Scripture's “no one is sinless” does not touch them or Christ.
55. 89The sheet in Peter's vision held only unclean animals, as his refusal shows; it foreshadowed the reception of the gentiles, whose hearts God cleansed by faith in Christ.
56. 90Joseph and Moses could marry foreign wives because, unlike the patriarchs' sons, they were in no danger of being turned from piety and instead brought their wives to it.
57. 91Adam, being rational, already had the notion of death and of shame without having seen them; and the answer distinguishes Scripture's terms judgments, ordinances, law, testimony, commandments, and precepts.
58. 93The waters above the firmament protect it from the luminaries' heat, steady it, and temper the air; at the end the present heaven and earth will pass away for a new creation, as Scripture's images of the rolled-up scroll and worn-out garment show, refuting those who call the heaven eternal.
59. 95In the new creation the air will remain for movement, as believers will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air; and the infants slain by Herod and the children who sang Hosanna are rightly praised, since they suffered and sang by God's grace, and God avenges their sufferings.
60. 97The law's repeated washings and sacrifices only cleansed ritual faults and punished real crimes without mercy, while grace offers sinners repentance as a physician for every sin, so grace is the more loving.
61. 98Two questions: fear of God is compatible with perfect love, since we fear to lose what we love until the contest is over; and the law's animal sacrifices honored God as the offering of the worshiper's own soul, unlike pagan human sacrifice, while Jephthah is praised for keeping his rash vow, which God allowed as a warning against open-ended vows.
62. 100Miracles continued in churches seized by heretics because they are worked by the orthodox saints and martyrs to whom those churches belong; and Christians learn in the right order, for the apostles preached Christ from the law, which is the Gospel foretold, as the Gospel is the law fulfilled.
63. 102Circumcision was given to Abraham as a seal of his faith that his aged body would beget a son, and passed to his descendants as a memorial; Christians receive instead the circumcision of Christ in baptism, putting off Adam and putting on Christ.
64. 103Keeping the law was possible, as the blameless Zechariah and Elizabeth show, since its sum is to love God and neighbor; men sin from unwillingness, not inability, which is why not all fall into the same sins.
65. 104David's pardon for adultery and murder came not from the law, which grants none for such crimes, but from grace, which offers repentance and leads sinners back to obedience; pardon is above the law and on its behalf.
66. 105Christ prayed often, as he hungered and thirsted, by his own will, to show that he truly shared our human nature against those who would deny it.
67. 106Differences of intelligence come from the bodily blend of the elements and the proportions of the organs, which change with age, and also from God's gifts, as with Solomon and the gifts of the Spirit.
68. 107The church keeps simple singing but rejects the instruments, dancing, and castanets fit for children; sung psalms calm the passions, repel evil thoughts, strengthen martyrs, and console the faithful as the sword of the Spirit.
69. 108The answer argues that the Jews' ignorance in crucifying Christ was excusable only until the resurrection exposed it; persisting in unbelief afterward, they did not receive the pardon Christ prayed for, which is given only to those who acknowledge their sin.
70. 109Christ will judge “the living” who are alive at his coming and “the dead” who rise from their tombs, as Paul and John say.
71. 110The hundredfold reward is fulfilled in spiritual kin and in the Church's abundance, as when the wealthy supported desert monks; and God, whose power is not measured like nature's, can raise even bodies that have been cut up or burned.
72. 112Christ did not confirm the apostles' hope of an earthly kingdom; the Spirit later taught them that the risen life has no food, drink, or marriage, and that God's kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy.
73. 113Creating did not add to God's perfection, which lies in what he is in himself; creation adds only relations to him, as being the beginning of number adds nothing to the number one.
74. 114Three questions: God's being creator in potentiality before creating implies no lack, since his power acts by will, not natural necessity; Christians do not kneel on Sundays and from Easter to Pentecost, as a sign of the resurrection, a custom Irenaeus traces to the apostles; and the risen Christ either created his clothing or took it from elsewhere.
75. 117The risen Christ entered through shut doors with his real body, as he walked on the sea, by divine power and not by becoming spirit; the stone was rolled away only so that the empty tomb and grave clothes could be seen.
76. 118Seven questions run together: why Christians pray facing east (as the more honored direction, received from the apostles); why Cain's offering was rejected (he kept the better for himself); why sinners who rise do not inherit God's kingdom (the kingdom belongs to the just only); anathema and katathema (fragmentary); Christ's “hour” (God's providence, not fate); why man, who can become evil, is still the best of creatures; and why the pious receive no earthly reward (their reward is future, though God has shown his providence in history).
77. 125Paul's words to the high priest and about Alexander were not curses or revenge but prophecies of God's judgment, fitting an apostle who leaves vengeance to God.
78. 126Prosperity is given by God to pious and impious alike and proves nothing about religion; cities were laid waste under paganism too, while Christianity ended human sacrifice and brought less war.
79. 127Animals that prey on one another and on men do not prove two creators, as the Manichaeans claim: one good God made them for human service, food, and discipline, and their mortality shows they are not gods; irrational nature cannot be evil.
80. 129Using the letters iota and pi (one stroke and three strokes of the same line), the answer argues that God is one in essence and three in hypostases without composition, since he is eternal and uncreated, unlike a letter made of parts.
81. 130The heaven is a vault resting on the waters, the waters on the earth, and the earth on God's command, so Christians are not caught in the Greeks' difficulties about place; and Luke's genealogy does not contradict Matthew's, since only Heli was Joseph's father by law, all others being natural fathers.
82. 132Levirate marriage was lawful even for a married brother, since the law allowed more than one wife, and it gave the dead man an heir and kept the inheritance in the tribe; and Christ, born of Joseph's wife without his seed, was Joseph's son as Joseph was Heli's son by law, as the evangelists' written genealogies show.
83. 134Scripture calls the law “Moses” as we call a book by its author's name; and Christ is truly Emmanuel, as Matthew shows and the Church confesses, even if no one called him by that name during his life.
84. 136Three questions: Christ did not slight his mother, whom he honored and obeyed, but blessed her for hearing and keeping God's word; the baptismal anointings follow the right order, since Mary's anointing of Jesus anticipated his burial; and God justly struck the people for Saul's and David's faults, since a kingdom is one body and the people's suffering punishes the king.
85. 139Father, Son, and Spirit are one God because they share one essence and differ only in their modes of existence (unbegotten, begotten), as Adam, Eve, and Seth share one human nature though they came into being in different ways.
86. 140The Jews knew Jesus as the heir in the sense of the parable (a man above all men by his works) but did not know God would raise him and make him heir of all, so their ignorance was willing; and those called blameless under the law were cleansed by sacrifice and confession, whereas Christ alone was sinless.
87. 142Angels who appeared in God's rank, like men such as judges, were called gods for the sake of a task entrusted to them, and ceased to be so called when it was done; a further, garbled question about man called God is begun.
88. 144God is not composite though he has a hypostasis, a will, and a Son, because, unlike creatures, his being and his having are not parts: he is whole in each.
89. 145Blood is forbidden so that men may not be like beasts that lap up blood; and the Theban story of Menoeceus' self-sacrifice does not prove that pagan oracles have power, since the one God decides the outcome of wars, as with the Assyrian, the rod and saw of his anger, and the pagan tales of Tiresias and the Fates refute themselves.