Teaching Christianity (continued)
infirmity as ours, and had given us an example of how to live, in no other mode than the human one, because we too are human. But we, of course, when we come close to her, are acting wisely; so when she came to us, she was thought by proud men to have acted rather foolishly. And when we come close to her, we grow strong; so when she came to us she was reckoned to have been made weak. But the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Cor 1:25). So since she herself is our home, she also made herself for us into the way home. [11]
How God's Wisdom came to us and healed us
12, She is present everywhere, indeed, to inner eyes that are healthy and pure; but to those whose inner eyes are weak and unclean, she was prepared to be seen by their eyes of flesh as well. For because in the wisdom of God the world was unable to come to know God through wisdom, it was God's pleasure through the folly of the preaching to save those who believe (1 Cor 1:21).
12. So it was not by locomotion through space that she is said to have come to us, but by appearing to mortals in mortal flesh. So she came where she already was, because she was in the world, and the world was made through her. [12] But human beings, greedy to enjoy the creature instead of the creator, had taken on the coloring of this world—and so were most aptly called by the name of "the world"; that is why they did not recognize her, and why the evangelist said, And the world did not know him (Jn 1:10). And so it was in the Wisdom of God that the world was unable to come to know God through wisdom. So why did she come, when she was already here, if not because it was God's pleasure through the folly of the preaching to save those who believe?
13, How did she come, if not by the Word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us? [13] It is something like when we talk; in order for what we have in mind to reach the minds of our hearers through their ears of flesh, the word which we have in our thoughts becomes a sound, and is called speech. And yet this does not mean that our thought is turned into that sound, but while remaining undiminished in itself, it takes on the form of a spoken utterance by which to insert itself into their ears, without bearing the stigma of any change in itself. That is how the Word of God was not changed in the least, and yet became flesh, in order to dwell amongst us.
14, 13. Any treatment, of course, is a way to health; so this treatment undertook to restore sinners to complete health. And just as when doctors bind up wounds, they do not do it untidily, but neatly, so that the bandage, as well as being useful, can also to some extent have its proper beauty, in the same sort of way Wisdom adapted her healing art to our wounds by taking on a human being, curing some of our ills by their contraries, others by homoeopathic treatment. It is the kind of way a doctor treating the body's wounds sometimes applies contraries, like something cold to a hot inflamation, or something moist to a dry condition, or other things of that kind; and he also applies like to like, as for example a round plaster to a round wound, or an oblong to an oblong one, and does not apply the same sort of bandage to all the limbs, but fits like to like. That is how the Wisdom of God treats the ills of humanity, presenting herself for our healing, herself the physician, herself the physic.
So because man had fallen through pride, she applied humility to his cure. We were deceived by the wisdom of the serpent; we are set free by the folly of God. On the one hand, while her true name was Wisdom, she was folly to those who took no notice of God; on the other hand while this is called folly, it is in fact Wisdom to those who overcome the devil. We made bad use of immortality, and so ended up dying; Christ made good use of mortality, so that we might end up living. When a woman's mind was corrupted, the disease entered in; from a woman's body preserved intact, health and salvation issued forth. That our vices are cured by the example of his virtues belongs to the same list of contraries. Now as regards homoeopathic remedies being applied to our limbs and wounds, examples are that those led astray through a woman were set free by one born of a woman, human beings by a human being, mortals by a mortal, the dead by a death. Those who are not held back, by the necessity of completing a work just begun, from reflecting on many other instances of the sort, will appreciate how well furnished the Christian medicine cupboard is with both contrary and homoeopathic remedies.
The death, resurrection and ascension of Christ are models for our spiritual death and resurrection in his body the Church, and also for our bodily death and resurrection at the end of the world
15, 14. Now indeed, the Lord's resurrection from the dead and his ascension into heaven, once believed, supports our faith with a very great hope. After all he very effectively demonstrated how willingly he had laid down his life for us, by having the power in this way to take it up again.[14] So what confidence and comfort must it give the hope of believers, when they consider how great the sufferer was, and how much he suffered for those who did not yet believe! Since, on the other hand, his coming is awaited from heaven as judge of the living and the dead, it strikes real fear in the hearts of the careless, to prompt their conversion to a more diligent practice of the faith, so that by living good lives they may be in a position to desire his coming, rather than to dread it because they are living bad ones.
What words, though, can express, or what thoughts can grasp the reward he is going to give us at the end, seeing that for our comfort and consolation on this journey he has given us so much of his Spirit? In the Spirit we already possess, amid the adversities of this life, that great confidence and love of the one whom we cannot yet see, as well as gifts proper to each one of us for the building up of his Church,[15] so that whatever he has shown us is to be done, we may do not only without grumbling, but even with positive delight.
16, 15. The Church, after all is his body, as the teaching of the apostle confirms, and it is also called his wife.[16] So while his body consists of many parts, having different functions, he binds it tightly together with the knot of unity and love, as its proper kind of health.[17] But during this age he trains and purges it with various kinds of salutary vexation and distress, so that once it has been snatched from this world, he may bind his wife the Church to himself for ever, not having any stain or wrinkle, or any such thing (Eph 5:27). 17, 16. Furthermore, we are still on the way, a way however not from place to place, but one traveled by the affections. And it was being blocked, as by a barricade of thorn bushes, by the malice of our past sins. So what greater generosity and compassion could he show, after deliberately making himself the pavement under our feet along which we could return home,[18] than to forgive us all our sins once we had turned back to him, and by being crucified for us to root out the ban blocking our return that had been so firmly fixed in place? [19]
18, 17. These then were the keys that he gave to his Church, so that whatever it loosed on earth would be loosed in heaven, and whatever it bound on earth would be bound in heaven;[20] which means that any who did not believe they were forgiven their sins in the Church would not be forgiven them, while those who did so believe and by amending their lives turned away from their sins, finding themselves in the bosom of the Church, would be healed by that very faith and amendment. Those on the other hand, who do not believe their sins can be forgiven them, become even worse through despair, as though nothing better remains for them than to be evil, seeing that they have no trust in the fruits of their conversion.
19, 18. Now, however, there is a certain death of the spirit, consisting in the abandonment of previous habits and way of life, which comes about by repentance; and in the same sort of way the death of the body consists in its ceasing to be animated by the soul as formerly. And just as the spirit is refashioned for the better after the repentance which has abolished its old habits of depravity, so too we are to believe and hope that the body, after this death which we all owe to the chains of sin, is going to be changed for the better at the time of the resurrection. Thus it will not be flesh and blood taking possession of the kingdom of God, which cannot be; but this perishable thing will put on imperishability, and this mortal thing will put on immortality (1 Cor 15:50.53), and will cause the spirit no trouble, because it will not experience any need, but will be quickened in perfect peace by a perfect and blissful soul.
20, 19. Those, however, whose spirits do not die to this world and this age, and do not even begin to be remodeled on the truth, are dragged down by the death of the body into a more grievous death still. Nor will they come to life again to be changed into a heavenly condition, but to pay the ultimate penalty for their sins.
21, And so this is the conviction of faith, and this is how we must believe that things stand: that neither the human spirit nor the human body will experience total extinction, but that the godless will rise again to unimaginable punishments, the godly on the other hand to eternal life.
God alone is to be enjoyed
22, 20. Among all the things there are, therefore, those alone are to be enjoyed which we have noted as being eternal