Chapter 7

So Barlaam, taking up his discourse again, said: "If you wish to learn who my Master is, it is the Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of those who reign and Lord of those who rule, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, who is glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit. For I am not of those who proclaim these many and disorderly gods, and worship these lifeless and deaf idols;

but I know and confess one God, glorified in three persons — the Father, I mean, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit — yet in one nature and essence, in one glory and kingdom undivided. This, then, is the one God in three persons: without beginning and without end, eternal and everlasting, uncreated, unchanging and bodiless, invisible, uncircumscribed, incomprehensible, alone good and just. He, having brought all things into being out of nothing, both the visible and the invisible, first creates the heavenly and invisible powers — certain innumerable multitudes, immaterial and bodiless, ministering spirits of the majesty of God; then this visible world, heaven and earth and the sea, which he made bright with light and adorned — heaven with the sun and moon and the stars, earth with all manner of growing things and various living creatures, and the sea in turn with the teeming kind of swimming things. These all, he spoke and they were brought forth; he commanded and they were created. Then he creates man with his own hands, taking dust from the earth for the fashioning of the body, and giving him a soul rational and intelligent through his own in-breathing — which soul is written to have been created according to the image and likeness of God: according to the image, by reason of its intelligence and free will; according to the likeness, by reason of its likeness to virtue, so far as is possible.

This man, having honoured him with free will and immortality, he made king of the things on earth; and out of him he made the female, a helper for him answering to himself. And, having planted a paradise in Eden toward the east, full of all gladness and delight, he set in it the man whom he had fashioned, commanding him to partake without hindrance of all the divine plants there, but laying down a commandment to taste of one alone not at all — which is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — speaking thus: 'On whatever day you eat of it, you shall surely die.' Now one of the aforesaid angelic powers, a leader of one host, having in himself no trace whatever of natural evil from the Creator, but having come into being for good, by his own free choice turned from the good to the evil, and was lifted up in madness, wishing to rise against the Master and God. Therefore he was cast out of his rank and his dignity, and, instead of that blessed glory and angelic name, was called the devil and was given the name Satan. For God cast him out as unworthy of the glory above; and there was dragged down with him and cast out also a great multitude of the order of angels under him,

who, having become evil in their choice, and, instead of the good, following the apostasy of their ruler, were named demons, as deceivers and impostors. The devil, then, having altogether renounced the good and taken on an evil nature, conceived envy against man, seeing himself cast out from so great a glory while man was being raised to such honour; and he contrived to cast him out from that blessed manner of life. Taking, then, the serpent as the workshop of his own deceit, through it he spoke with the woman, and, persuading her to eat of that forbidden tree in the hope of becoming a god, through her he deceived Adam also — for so the first-formed man was called. And the first man, having eaten of the plant of disobedience, is made an exile from the paradise of delight by the Creator, and, instead of that blessed life and undying manner of existence, falls — alas — into this wretched and miserable life, and at the last is condemned to death. Hence the devil, taking strength and glorying in his victory, when the race of men had multiplied,

set before them every road of evil. So that, wishing thence to cut off the great course of sin, God brought a flood upon the earth, destroying every living soul; but finding one alone righteous in that generation, he preserved him with wife and children in a certain ark and set him, sole survivor, upon the earth. But when the race of men began again to advance into a multitude, they forgot God and went forward into worse impiety, enslaved to various sins and corrupted by dreadful enormities, and divided into manifold error. For some thought that the universe was borne along of itself, and decreed that there was no providence, as though no Master presided over it; others introduced fate, committing the whole to the moment of birth; others worshipped many evil and passion-ridden gods, that they might have them as advocates of their own passions and dreadful deeds — of whom they fashioned forms and set up deaf images and senseless idols, and, shutting them up in temples, did them reverence, serving the creation rather than the Creator: some the sun and the moon and the stars, which God set to give light to this earthly world, though they are lifeless and senseless, enlightened and held together by the providence of the Creator and able of themselves to do nothing;

others fire and water and the remaining elements of the earth, lifeless and senseless as they are; and they, being living and rational, were not ashamed to worship such things. Others rendered worship to wild beasts and reptiles and four-footed cattle, showing themselves more brutish than the things they worshipped. Others fashioned the forms of certain shameful and base men, and called these gods, and named some of them male and some female — men whom they themselves set forth to be adulterers and murderers, irascible and jealous and full of wrath, slayers of fathers and of brothers, thieves and robbers, lame and crippled, sorcerers and madmen, some of them dead, some struck by thunderbolts, and beaten and bewailed, and enslaved to men, and become fugitives, and transformed into animals for wicked and shameful unions; whence men, taking occasion from their very gods, defiled themselves without fear with every uncleanness. And a dreadful darkening held our race in those times, and there was none who understood, none who sought after God. But a certain Abraham was found in that generation alone, having the senses of his soul in vigour, who through the contemplation of created things came to know the Creator. For, regarding heaven and earth and sea, sun and moon and the rest, he marvelled at this harmonious ordering; and, seeing the world and all things in it, he did not think them to have come into being and to be preserved of themselves,

nor did he ascribe the cause of such an ordering to the elements of the earth or to the lifeless idols; but through these he came to know the true God, and understood him to be the Creator and Sustainer of all. And God, receiving this man for his good sense and right judgement, made himself manifest to him — not as he is in his nature, for it is impossible for created nature to see God, but by certain providential manifestations, as he himself knows — and, putting a more perfect knowledge of himself into his soul, glorified him and made him his own servant; and Abraham, handing down godliness by succession to those who came of him, taught them to know the true God. For this reason the Master was pleased that his seed should come to a boundless multitude, and named them a people for his own possession; and when they had been enslaved to the Egyptian nation and to a certain tyrant Pharaoh, he led them out from thence with signs and dreadful and extraordinary wonders through Moses and Aaron, holy men glorified with the grace of prophecy — through whom he both chastised the Egyptians worthily of their wickedness, and led the Israelites (for so that people, the descendants of Abraham, was called) through the Red Sea on dry ground, the waters being divided and a wall made on the right and a wall on the left; and when Pharaoh and the Egyptians had entered in upon their track, the waters, returning, utterly destroyed them.

Then, leading the people through the desert for forty years with the greatest wonders and divine manifestations, and feeding them with bread from heaven, he gave a law written by God on tablets of stone, which he put into the hands of Moses upon the mountain — a figure and outline of things to come — leading them away from the idols and from all wicked deeds, and teaching them to worship the God who truly is, alone, and to hold fast to good works. By such marvels, then, he brought them into a good land, which long before he had promised to give to the seed of that patriarch Abraham. And it would be long to relate how many great and wonderful things, glorious and extraordinary, beyond number, he showed toward them — through all of which this was his aim: to draw the race of men away from every lawless worship and deed, and to lead it back to its ancient estate. But still our nature was enslaved to the self-rule of error, and death reigned over men, sending all, by the tyranny of the devil and the condemnation of Hades, on their way. When we, then, had come into such calamity and misery, he who fashioned us and brought us from non-being into being did not overlook us, nor abandon to the end the work of his own hands,

but, by the good pleasure of God the Father and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, the only-begotten Son and Word of God, who is in the bosom of the Father, who is of one essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the pre-eternal, the without beginning, who is in the beginning, and is with God the Father, and is God, condescends to his own servants by a condescension unspeakable and incomprehensible; and, being perfect God, he becomes perfect man of the Holy Spirit and of Mary the holy Virgin and Mother of God — not from the seed of man, or will, or union — conceived in the undefiled womb of the Virgin, but of the Holy Spirit, just as also, before the conception, one of the archangels was sent to announce to the Virgin that strange conception and that unspeakable birth. For without seed was the Son of God conceived of the Holy Spirit; and, framing for himself in the womb of the Virgin flesh ensouled with a rational and intelligent soul, he came forth in one person, but in two natures, perfect God and perfect man, keeping the virginity of her who bore him undefiled even after the birth, and, becoming in all things subject to like sufferings with us, yet without sin, he took up our weaknesses and bore our diseases. For since through sin death entered into the world,

it was necessary that he who was to redeem should be sinless and not liable to death through sin. And having lived among men for thirty years, he was baptized in the river Jordan by John, a holy man and one set above all the prophets. And when he was baptized, a voice came from heaven from God the Father, saying: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' And the Holy Spirit came down upon him in the form of a dove. And from then he began to do great and wonderful signs, raising the dead, giving light to the blind, driving out demons, healing the deaf and the crippled, cleansing lepers, and on every side renewing our nature that had grown old, instructing and teaching by deed and word the road of virtue, leading away from corruption and guiding to the eternal life. Hence he chose twelve disciples, whom he also called apostles; and he charged them to proclaim the heavenly way of life which he came upon the earth to show forth, and by his dispensation to make us, the lowly and earthly, heavenly. But out of envy of his wonderful and godlike manner of life and of his boundless miracles, the chief priests and leaders of the Jews, among whom indeed he made his dwelling, raging madly, and forgetting all those wonderful signs and marvels which he had done for them, condemned him to death,

seizing one of his disciples for the betrayal; and, having taken him, they gave over the life of all things into the hands of the heathen — he accepting these things by his own free will. For he came to suffer all things for us, that he might free us from our passions. And, having shown much insolence toward him, at the last they condemned him to the cross. And he endured all things in the nature of the flesh which he had taken up from us, while his divine nature remained without suffering. For being of two natures, the divine and that which he had taken up from us, the human nature suffered, but the godhead remained without suffering and immortal. So our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified in the flesh, being sinless. For he did no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth, and he was not subject to death; for through sin, as I have said before, death entered into the world; but for our sake he died in the flesh, that he might redeem us from the tyranny of death. He went down into Hades, and, having crushed it, freed the souls shut up there from the beginning of the ages. Laid in a tomb, on the third day he rose again, conquering death and granting to us the victory over it,

and, having made the flesh incorruptible — he the giver of incorruption — he appeared to the disciples, granting them peace and through them to the whole race of men. And after forty days he ascended into the heavens, and so sits at the right hand of the Father; and he is also to come again to judge the living and the dead, and to render to each according to his works. And after his glorious ascension into the heavens, he sent the all-holy Spirit upon his holy disciples in the form of fire, and they began to speak in strange tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. From this, then, by his grace they were scattered into all the nations, and proclaimed the orthodox faith, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all the commandments of the Saviour. So they gave light to the nations that had gone astray, and abolished the superstitious error of the idols. And though the enemy, not bearing his defeat, even now raises wars against us the faithful,

persuading the foolish and senseless still to hold fast to idolatry, yet his power has become weak, and his swords have failed utterly before the power of Christ. Behold, I have made known to you my Master and God and Saviour in a few words; but you will know him more perfectly, if you receive his grace in your soul and are counted worthy to become his servant."