with a view to our salvation and restoration, and with the
CHAP. IV.] THE INCARNATION. 351
And it is my opinion tliat this is the very consideration to which was due the circumstance that He introduced to the apprehension of His servant Moses the kind of name [which He then adopted]. For v^^hen he asked of Him by whom lie should say that he was sent, in the event of the people to whom he was being sent despising him, he received his answer when He spake in this wise : " I am that I am."
Thereafter, too. He added this : " Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, He that is {Qui est) has sent me unto you.">
7. From this, I trust, it is now made patent to spiritual minds that there cannot possibly exist any nature contrary to
God. For if He is,—and this is a word which can be spoken with propriety only of God (for that which truly is remains unchangeably ; inasmuch as that which is changed has been something which now it is not, and shall be something which as yet it is not),—it follows that God has nothing contrary to Himself. For if the question were put to us, What is contrary to white ? we would reply, black ; if the question were. What is contrary to hot ? we would reply, cold if the question were. What is contrary to quick ? we would reply, slow ; and all similar interrogations we would answer in like manner. When, however, it is asked. What is contrary to that lulhich is ? the right reply to give is, that which is not
8. But whereas, in a temporal dispensation, as I have said, with a view to our salvation and restoration, and with the goodness of God acting therein, our changeable nature has been assumed by that unchangeable Wisdom of God, we add the faith in temporal things which have been done with salutary effect on our behalf, believing in that Son of God who WAS BORN THROUGH THE HOLY GhOST OF THE VlRGlN MaRY. For by the gift of God, that is, by the Holy Spirit, there was granted to us so great humility on the part of so great a God, that He deemed it worthy of Him to assume the entire nature of man {totum honiincm) in the womb of the Virgin, inhabiting the material body so that it sustained no detriment
» Ex. iii. 14.