(28) Wherefore, they say, what does it mean before Lucifer? I will answer this: if the utterance before Lucifer points to His miraculous birth from Mary, then many others were born before the ascent of this star. Therefore, what is surprising about Him, and why does the Scripture mention what is common to many as something exceptional? Moreover, there is a difference in the expressions: to give birth and to exorcise. In the saying "to give birth" is contained the concept of the beginning of the work, and "to beget" means nothing else than to produce that which already exists. Therefore, if you refer this utterance to the body, then you should know that it did not receive the beginning of existence when the gospel was preached to the shepherds at night, but when the angel spoke to the Virgin. Then it was not night, for it is not said. But there was a night when he came out of the womb. This difference is made evident by the Scriptures, and the one is called the birth 485 before the dawn, and the other the coming out of the womb, as in the twenty-first Psalm: Thou hast plucked me out of the womb (v. 10). Moreover, he did not say: before the dawn of Lucifer, but simply: before Lucifer. Therefore, if this saying is to be understood about the body, then it is necessary for the body to be before Adam, because the stars are before Adam. Or it is necessary to find the meaning in this writing, and we can borrow this from John. In the Apocalypse it is said: I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who have enlarged their garments, let there be an area for them on the living tree, and the gates shall enter into the city. Outside are dogs, and sorcerers, and fornicators, and murderers, and idolaters, and everyone who does and loves lies. And Jesus sent messengers of my angel to testify to you in the churches. I am the root and the family of David, and the bright morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come; And hear and say, Come. And thirst, let him come, and let him take the water of the beast (22:13-17). Thus, if the race of David is the bright and morning star, then the appearance of the Saviour in the flesh, which was preceded by the birth of God, is clearly called Lucifer. Why does what is said in the Psalm mean this: "Out of Myself I begot Thee before I appeared in the flesh," because the expression before Lucifer means the same as before the incarnation of the Word.

(29) Consequently, there are passages in the Old Testament that speak clearly of the Son, although it is superfluous to doubt this. For if anything is not said in the Old Testament, that is, everything is new, then let these lovers of disputes say: Where in the Old Testament does it speak of the Spirit of the Comforter? True, it is said about the Holy Spirit, but about the Comforter nowhere. Is it therefore that one is the Holy Spirit, 486 and another is the Comforter, and moreover the Comforter, since it is not mentioned in the Old Testament, is something new? But let it not be that the Spirit should be called new, or divided, and the one called the Holy Spirit, and the other the Comforter! One and the same Spirit, then and now sanctifying and comforting those who receive Him as one and the same Word-Son, and then still bringing the worthy into sonship, because in the Old Testament there were sons adopted not through anyone else, but through the Son. For if the Son of God was not before Mary, then how is He before all, when there are sons before Him? Why did the Firstborn, being the later of many? But the Comforter is not later than others, because he was before all, and the Son is not new, because in the beginning was the Word. And as the Spirit and the Comforter are one and the same, so the Son and the Word are one and the same. And just as the Saviour says of the Spirit, not dividing but understanding one and the same thing: "But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father hath sent in My name" (John 14:26), so John similarly says: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us, and we saw His glory, the glory of the only-begotten of the Father" (1:14), for here also He did not divide, but testified to the identity. As one is the Comforter, and another is the Holy Spirit, but one and the same, so not one is the Word, and another is the Son, but the Word is the Only-begotten; for the Evangelist does not speak of the glory of the flesh, but of the glory of the Word. Therefore, whoever dares to separate the Word and the Son, let him separate the Spirit and the Comforter. But if the Spirit is not divided, then the Word is also indivisible; He Himself is the Son, and Wisdom, and Power.

As for the utterance beloved, even those who are versed in the expression of words know 487 that it is equivalent to the utterance only-begotten. For Homer says of Telemachus, the only-begotten son of Odysseus, in the second book of the Odyssey:

"Why are you, dear child, such thoughts in your heart

Holding? Why else do you want to go to a distant land?

Behold, you alone, our beloved. Far from the homeland

God-born, Odysseus perished among the unknown nations."

Thus, Telemachus, being alone with his father, is called the beloved.

30) Some of the followers of Samosata, separating the Word from the Son, say that the Son is Christ, and the other is the Word, and as a pretext for this they take a passage from the Acts, and what Peter said beautifully, they understand badly. Here is this passage: The Word of the ambassador to the son of Israel, preaching the gospel of peace to Jesus Christ. This is the Lord of all (10:36). For they say: "The Word spoke through Christ, as it is said of the prophets: This is what the Lord says; but there was one prophet, and another was the Lord." To this we can object with a similar passage in the first Epistle to the Corinthians: "Those who wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also establish you even to the end who are innocent in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1:7). As it is not another Christ who establishes the day of another Christ, but Himself in His day that confirms those who wait, so the Father sent the Word, made flesh, so that the man who came into being might preach by Himself. That is why the Apostle adds immediately after this: "This is the Lord of all." And the Lord of all is the Word.

(31) And Moses said to Aaron, "Come to the altar, and do your sin for your sake, and your burnt offering, and pray for yourself and for your house: and make the gifts of men, and pray for them, as the Lord commanded Moses" (Lev. 9:7). Thus, if Blessed Peter speaks of the Word of God sent to the children of Israel by Jesus Christ, then it is necessary to understand not another under the name of the Word, but another under the name of Christ, but one and the same because of unity in His Divine and humane condescension and incarnation. But if it is understood in two ways, then without the separation of the Word, as the divine John also said: "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt in us." For this reason, what Blessed Peter said well and correctly, misunderstanding and misunderstanding, the followers of Samosata do not stand in the truth. In the Divine Scriptures, the name "Christ" refers to both together, for example, when it is said: "Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:24). Therefore, if Peter says that the Word was sent to the children of Israel by Jesus Christ, then let this be understood in the sense that the incarnate Word appeared to the children of Israel, so that it would be in accordance with what was said: and the Word was made flesh. If, however, they understand differently and, confessing the Word of God as He is, the man He has taken upon Himself, with whom we believe He has been united, separate Him from Him, saying that He was sent by Jesus Christ, then they do not understand that they contradict themselves. For here they understand the Word of God separately from the Divine Incarnation, and therefore they belittle it, hearing that the Word was flesh, and they reason in a pagan way, because they really assume that the Divine Incarnation is a change of the Word. 489

(32) But there is no change. Let it not be so! Just as John preaches here an ineffable unity after the dead have been devoured by life, and by life from the end, as the Lord said to Martha: "I am life" (John 11:25), so Blessed Peter, when he says that the Word was sent by Jesus Christ, thereby signifies Divine unity. Just as he who hears that the Word was made flesh will not think that the Word is no longer there (which, according to what has been said before, is absurd), so he who hears that the Word was united with the flesh, let him understand the one simple Divine mystery. But the unity of God, the Word, and man, will be shown more clearly and indubitable than any reasoning, as the Archangel said to the Mother of God Herself; For He says, The Holy Spirit shall come upon Thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow Thee: to the same shall he that be born holy shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). Therefore the followers of Samosata unwisely separate the Word when it is clearly proved that He was united to man from Mary. He was not sent by the Word, but the Word that dwells in Him sent, saying, "Go and teach all nations" (Matthew 28:19).

(33) And often in Scripture speech is expressed in a loose and simple way. Thus, one will find it in the book of Numbers; it is said, Moses spake unto Raguel the Midianite, the father-in-law of Moses, Num. 10:29. It is not one Moses who says this, but another to whom Raguel was a father-in-law, but Moses is one and the same. If in this way the Word of God calls Himself Wisdom, power, right hand, arm, and other such names, and if, through love for mankind, He enters into unity with us, putting on our firstfruits and merging with it, then it follows that one and the same Word has justly taken upon Himself other names. John's saying, "In the beginning was the Word, and He was to God, and is God Himself, and 490 all things are nothing without Him," clearly shows that man is also a creature of the Word of God. Therefore, if, taking upon Himself this incarnate one, He renews him with firm renewal for endless abide, and for this reason unites with him, raising him to the Divine lot, then can it be said that the Word was sent by man from Mary, and the Lord of the Apostles can be numbered among the other Apostles, that is, among the prophets sent by Him? How can an ordinary person be called Christ? But, being united with the Word, He is justly called Christ and the Son of God, just as the prophet of old clearly proclaimed in Him the Father's hypostasis and said of Him: "I will send My Son Christ." And on the Jordan it was declared: This is My beloved Son. For, having fulfilled the promise, the Father, not without reason, indicated that He was the One whom He had promised to send.

(34) Wherefore by the name of Christ we understand both together, that is, the Word of God, united in Mary to Him who is of Mary; for in Her womb the Word made Himself a house, as in the beginning from the land of Adam, or rather, more divine than this. Of this also Solomon, knowing clearly that the Word is also called Wisdom, says: "Wisdom shall make unto Thee a house" (Proverbs 9:1); and the Apostle, explaining this, says: "Of His house we are" (Hebrews 3:6); and in another place he calls the same house a temple, because it is fitting for God to dwell in the temple, the image of which he commanded the Old Testament to create through Solomon from stones: why did the image cease with the manifestation of the truth? For when the ungrateful set out to assert that the image is truth itself, and to destroy the true temple, which we firmly believe is the union of the Godhead and humanity, then he did not threaten them, but, knowing that they were daring to rise up against themselves, he said, "Destroy this church, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:10). And by this our Saviour clearly showed that everything that people plan soon comes to ruin. For if the Lord does not build a house, and preserve the city, those who build it labor in vain, and watch over it (Psalm 126:1). Therefore, the Jewish collapsed, because there was a shadow; but the Church was established, because it was founded on rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). It was the custom of the Jews to say, "How can thou, O man, make unto thyself God" (John 10:33)? And Samosatsky is their student. Because (and naturally) he teaches to his own people, which he himself has learned. But we do not have such information about Christ, if we have listened to Him Himself and learned from Him, putting aside the old man, which decays in the lusts of the delightful, and having put on the new, created according to God in righteousness and the likeness of truth (Ephesians 4:22-24). Therefore, piously imagine that Christ is both together.

35) If the Scriptures in many places call the body of Christ Christ, for example, when Blessed Peter says to Cornelius: "Jesus, who is of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 10:38), and also to the Jews: "Jesus of Nazareth, the man of God known in you" (2:22); and also Blessed Paul to the Athenians: "O Man, Whom thou hast ordained, giving faith to all, having raised Him from the dead" (17:31); we find that the message and the epistle in many places mean one and the same thing with the anointing; wherefore it may be understood from this that there is no disagreement in the words of the saints, but that they call the union of God the Word with man from Mary in different ways, namely, sometimes by anointing, sometimes by the 492 epistle, and sometimes by the announcement — then what Blessed Peter said has the right meaning and preaches the true Divinity of the Only-begotten, without separating the hypostasis of God the Word from man from Mary. Let it not be so! For how would he begin to separate who has heard many times: I and the Father are one, and He who has seen Me in the form of the Father? For this reason, even after the Resurrection, the same body, with the door shut, enters into the general assembly of the apostles, and what seemed incredible in this, he resolves, saying: "Touch me, and see: for the spirit hath not flesh and bone, as ye see me possessing" (Luke 24:39). He did not say, "Touch this body or the person whom I have received," but, "Me." Why can no excuse be found by the Samosatsky, who denies the unity of God the Word in the testimony of so many, and of God the Word Himself, Who addresses His gospel to all, certifying it by eating food and allowing Him to be touched, which of course was done, because when He gave or served Him food, they undoubtedly touched the hands. It is said, "And they gave Him a portion of the fish baked and of the honeycomb bees, and having eaten before them, and having taken the rest, He gave it to them" (vv. 42-43). And so, if not as Thomas touched Him, then in another tangible way, He confirmed them. But if you want to see the sores, then learn from Thomas; for it was said to him, "Bring thy hand, and put it into my side, and bring thy finger, and see my hands" (John 20:27). By naming His ribs and hands, God the Word shows Himself as a whole, both man and God; for the Word, as can be understood, now makes Himself felt holy through the body, when He enters through the closed door, suddenly appearing with the body and allowing them to be ascertained. Let it be said as sufficient 493 for the strengthening of the faithful and for the correction of the unbelievers.