Chapter 5

§ 1.

It is therefore one only and the same God, Who folds the Heaven like a scroll,¹ and renews the face of the earth: Who made things temporal for man’s sake, that ripening among them he might bear the fruit of immortality, and Who brings in over and above eternal things for His own mercy’s sake,² that He may shew to the ages to come the unutterable riches of His goodness; Who was announced by the Law and the Prophets, Whom Christ avowed to be His Father. Now He and no other is the Maker, and He is God over all.³ As Esaias saith: I am witness, saith the Lord God, and My Servant, Whom I have chosen, that ye may know, and believe and understand, that I am He. Before Me there was no other God, and shall not be after Me. I am God, and without Me there is none that saveth.⁴ I have declared and have saved. And again, I am the first God, and over the things to come, I am.

For He saith not these things inconsistently, nor loftily, nor in boasting: but it being impossible without God to learn of God, He teaches men by His Word to know God. You see that to such as are ignorant of these things, and therefore think that they have found another Father,⁵ one justly says, Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.

§ 2.

For our Lord and Master in that answer which He made to the Sadducees,⁶ who say there is no resurrection, and thereby dishonour God and disparage the Law, did at once affirm the Resurrection and reveal the Deity, saying unto them,⁷ Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.⁸ For concerning the Resurrection saith He, of the dead, have ye not read what is spoken by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?⁹ And He added, He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him. Hereby, you see, He made it plain, that He Who spake from the bush to Moses, and manifested Himself to be the God of the Fathers, He is the God of the Living. For who is God of the Living, but the same Who is God, and above Whom is no other God? Whom the Prophet Daniel also proclaimed, when Cyrus King of the Persians had said to him,¹⁰ Why dost thou not worship Bel?¹¹ He said, Because I worship not idols made with hands, but the Living God, Who established Heaven and Earth, and hath power over all flesh. Again he said,¹² I will worship the Lord my God, for He is the Living God.

He therefore Who was worshipped by the Prophets as Living God, He is the God of the living, and His Word; Who both spake to Moses, and rebuked the Sadducees, and gave us the Resurrection: to such as are blind making known both: I mean the Resurrection and God. For if He is God not of the dead but of the living, and if in this place He is called the God of the Fathers who are asleep, undoubtedly they live unto God and have not perished,¹³ being children of the Resurrection. But the Resurrection is our Lord Himself:¹⁴ according to His own words, I am the Resurrection and the Life. And the Fathers are His Sons: for it is said by the Prophet,¹⁵ Thy Sons are made unto Thee as Thy Fathers. Christ therefore Himself, with the Father, is God of the living, Who spake unto Moses, Who was also manifested to the Fathers.

§ 3.

And teaching this same lesson He said to the Jews,¹⁶ Your Father Abraham rejoiced that he might see My day, and saw it,¹⁷ and was glad. For why? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted unto him for righteousness. First, indeed, that He is God alone,¹⁸ the Maker of Heaven and Earth; and next, that He will make his seed as the stars of Heaven. This is that which is spoken of by Paul,¹⁹ As lights in the world. Justly therefore, leaving his earthly kindred, did he follow the Word; leading here the life of a stranger, that he might have his citizenship with the Word.

§ 4.

And justly did the Apostles also, having their birth from Abraham, leave the ship and their Father, and follow the Word.²⁰ Justly then likewise do we, having the same faith with Abraham, take up our Cross, as Isaac his Wood, and follow.

For in Abraham,²¹ mankind had learned before, and had been used, to follow the Word of God. Since indeed Abraham,²² according to his faith, having followed the commandment of God’s Word,²³ did with a ready mind give up his only-begotten and beloved son, for a sacrifice unto God: that God again might be well pleased to afford unto Abraham’s whole seed His only-begotten and dearly beloved Son to be a Sacrifice for our redemption.

§ 5.

Abraham therefore did vehemently exult,²⁴ being a Prophet, and seeing by the Spirit the day of the Lord’s Advent, and the ordering of His Passion, by whom he also himself, and all who believe in God as he believed, were beginning to be saved.

It follows,²⁵ that to Abraham our Lord was not unknown, Whose Day he desired to see: nor yet the Father of our Lord. For he had learned of the Word of the Lord, and believed Him: wherefore also it was accounted unto him by the Lord for righteousness. Seeing it is the Faith which is towards God Most High, which justifies a man:²⁶ and therefore he said, I will lift up mine hand unto the Most High God, Who established Heaven and Earth. But all this they try to overturn who are evil-minded, on account of one expression, and that assuredly not well understood among them.