Chapter 3

7. But there is a far readier sense, and one free from all these ambiguities, if Christ is understood to have said, “Today you shall be with me in paradise,” not with respect to what He was as man, but with respect to what He was as God. For Christ as man was on that day to be in the tomb as to His flesh, and in hell as to His soul; but the same Christ as God is always everywhere. For He is the light which shines even in darkness, although the darkness does not comprehend it. He is the Power and the Wisdom of God, of which it is written that it “reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly,” and that it “reaches everywhere because of its pureness, and nothing defiled falls into it.” Wherever paradise may be, therefore, whoever of the blessed is there is there with Him who is everywhere.

8. For since Christ is God and man — God, in that He says, “I and the Father are one”; man, in that He says, “The Father is greater than I”; the same being the only-begotten Son of God from the Father, and the son of man of the seed of David according to the flesh — both of these must be kept in view in Him when He speaks, or when Scripture speaks of Him, and we must observe which thing is said in respect of which. For as one man is a rational soul and flesh, so also one Christ is the Word and man. Accordingly, as regards the Word, Christ is the Creator, for “all things were made by Him”; but as regards the man, Christ was created, for He “was made of the seed of David according to the flesh,” and “was made in the likeness of men.” Likewise, because there are two things in man, soul and flesh, as to His soul He was “sorrowful even unto death,” and as to His flesh He suffered death.

9. And yet when we call Christ the Son of God, we do not separate the man from Him; nor, when we call the same Christ the son of man, do we separate God from Him. For as man He was on earth, not in heaven where He now is, when He said, “No man has ascended into heaven, but He that came down from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven”; although in respect of His being the Son of God He was in heaven, while in respect of His being the son of man He was still on earth and had not yet ascended into heaven. In the same way, though it is in respect of His being the Son of God that He is the Lord of glory, and in respect of His being the son of man that He was crucified, the apostle nevertheless says, “For had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.” And so the son of man was in heaven in respect of His Godhead, and the Son of God was crucified on earth in respect of His manhood. As, therefore, it could rightly be said that the Lord of glory was crucified, although that suffering belonged to the flesh alone, so it could rightly be said, “Today you shall be with me in paradise,” although in His human lowliness He was on that day to be in the tomb through His flesh and in hell through His soul, while in His divine unchangeableness He had never withdrawn from paradise, since He is always everywhere.

10. Do not doubt, then, that the man Christ Jesus is now there, from where He will come; and call to mind and faithfully hold the Christian confession, that He rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and from nowhere but there will come to judge the living and the dead. And He will come, as the voice of the angels testifies, in the same way as He was seen to go into heaven — that is, in the same form and substance of flesh, to which He has indeed given immortality but has not taken away its nature. In respect of this form He is not to be thought of as diffused everywhere. For we must beware of so affirming the divinity of the Man that we take away the reality of the body. Nor does it follow that what is in God is everywhere in the way that God is. For the most truthful Scripture says of us too that in Him we live and move and have our being; and yet we are not everywhere as He is. But that Man is in God in another way, because God too is in that Man in another way, in a manner proper and singular to Him. For God and man are one person, and both together are the one Christ Jesus: everywhere in that He is God, but in heaven in that He is man.

Chapter 4

11. And yet even when God is said to be diffused everywhere, we must resist carnal thinking and withdraw the mind from the bodily senses, so as not to suppose that God is spread through all things with a spatial magnitude, as earth, or water, or air, or this light of ours is spread — for every magnitude of that kind is less in a part of itself than in the whole — but rather in the way in which wisdom is great, even in a man whose body is small. And if there are two wise men, of whom one is larger in body, but neither is wiser, that wisdom is not greater in the greater man and less in the lesser, nor less in one man than in two; but it is as great in the one as in the other, and as great in each as in both together. For if they are wise in exactly equal measure, the two together are not wiser than each alone; just as, if they are equally immortal, the two together do not live more than each alone.

12. Indeed, the very immortality of the body, which has gone before in the flesh of Christ and is promised to us at the end, though it is a great thing, is certainly not great in bulk; but, although it is possessed in a bodily way, it is a kind of incorporeal excellence. For though the immortal body itself is less in a part than in the whole, its immortality is as complete in the part as in the whole; and though some members are larger than others, yet some are not more immortal than others. So too now, when we are sound in every part, according to the measure of health in the present body, we do not say that the health of the whole hand is greater than that of a finger because the whole hand is larger than the finger; but in these unequal members health itself is equal, when the smaller are so compared with the larger that what cannot be as great as another can nevertheless be as sound. There would indeed be greater health in the greater members if the greater were sounder; but since it is not so, but the greater and the lesser are equally sound, there is certainly an unequal quantity in the bulk of the members, but an equal health in things unequal.

13. Since, then, a body is a kind of substance, its quantity lies in the magnitude of its bulk; but its health is not its quantity but its quality. The quantity of a body, therefore, could not achieve what its quality could. For since its parts are set apart from one another and cannot be in the same place together, because each occupies its own space — the smaller parts smaller spaces and the greater parts greater — its quantity could not be whole, nor as great, in each of its parts; but the quantity is ampler in the ampler parts and less in the lesser, and in no part is it as great as it is throughout the whole. But the quality of the body which is called health, when the whole body is sound, is as great in the greater parts as in the lesser; for those parts which are less great are not therefore less sound, nor are those which are larger therefore sounder. Far be it from us, then, to suppose that what the quality of a created body can do in a body, the very substance of the Creator cannot do in Himself.

14. God, then, is diffused through all things. For He Himself says by the prophet, “I fill heaven and earth”; and what I quoted a little before of His Wisdom, “It reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly”; and again it is written, “The Spirit of the Lord has filled the world”; and it is said to Him in one of the psalms, “Where shall I go from Your Spirit, and where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I descend into hell, You are present.” But God is diffused through all things in such a way that He is not a quality of the world, but the creative substance of the world, ruling the world without toil and upholding it without burden. Yet He is not diffused through spaces of place as a bulk is diffused, so that in half the body of the world there should be half of Him, and in the other half the other half, and so the whole of Him throughout the whole; but He is whole in heaven alone, and whole in earth alone, and whole in heaven and earth together, and contained in no place, but whole everywhere in Himself.

15. So is the Father, so the Son, so the Holy Spirit, so the Trinity, one God. For they have not divided the world among themselves into three parts, each to fill one, as if the Son or the Holy Spirit would have nowhere to be in the world if the Father had occupied the whole. That is not how the true, incorporeal and unchangeable Godhead is. For they are not bodies, whose magnitude is greater in three together than in each one; nor do they hold places with their bulk, so that, being set apart in space, they cannot be in the same place together. For if the soul, when placed in a body, finds there not only no confinement, but even a certain breadth — a breadth not of bodily places but of spiritual joys — when there comes to pass what the apostle says, “Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God?”; and if it could only be said most foolishly that the Holy Spirit has no room in our body because our soul has filled the whole of it; how much more foolish is it to say that the Trinity is hindered anywhere by any confinement, so that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit cannot be everywhere together!

Chapter 5

16. But this is far more wonderful: that though God is everywhere whole, He does not dwell in all. For it cannot be said to all what the apostle says, either in the words I have already quoted, or in these: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” And so, on the contrary, he says of some, “But if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” And who would dare to think — unless it be one wholly ignorant of the inseparability of the Trinity — that the Father or the Son could dwell in anyone in whom the Holy Spirit does not dwell, or the Holy Spirit in anyone in whom the Father and the Son do not? We must therefore confess that God is everywhere by the presence of His Godhead, but not everywhere by the grace of His indwelling. It is because of this indwelling, in which beyond all doubt the grace of His love is acknowledged, that we do not say, “Our Father, who are everywhere,” although this too is true, but “Our Father, who are in heaven”: so that in prayer we may rather call to mind His temple, which we ourselves also ought to be; and in so far as we are His temple, in so far do we belong to His fellowship and to the household of His adoption. For if the people of God, not yet made equal to His angels, is called His temple while still on this pilgrimage, how much more is He in His temple in heaven, where the people of the angels is, to whom we are to be gathered and made equal when, our pilgrimage ended, we receive what has been promised!

17. Since, then, He who is everywhere does not dwell in all, neither does He dwell equally even in those in whom He does dwell. For what else is meant by Elisha’s asking that the Spirit of God which was in Elijah might be in him twofold? And how, among all the saints, are some holier than others, except by having God as their indweller more abundantly? How then was what we said above true, that God is everywhere whole, when He is more in some and less in others? But we must not look carelessly at what we said, that He is whole everywhere in Himself — not, that is, in the things of which some receive Him more and others less. For He is said to be everywhere because He is absent from no part of things, and whole because He does not present a part of Himself to one part of things and another part to another — equal parts to equal parts, a smaller to the smaller and a greater to the greater — but is equally present as a whole, not only to the whole of creation, but to every part of it. And those are said to be far from Him who by sinning have become most unlike Him; and those are said to draw near to Him who by living devoutly recover His likeness. Just as the eyes are rightly said to be the further from this light the blinder they are. For what is so far from light as blindness, even though the light is at hand and floods the eyes that are extinguished? But the eyes are rightly said to draw near to the light which, as health returns, improve by recovering their sight.

Chapter 6

18. Further, since we thought that our saying that God is everywhere whole could hardly be understood distinctly unless we added “in Himself,” I see that this must be explained more carefully. For how is He everywhere, if He is in Himself? Everywhere, because He is nowhere absent; but in Himself, because He is not contained by the things to which He is present, as though He could not be without them. For take away from bodies their spaces of place, and they will be nowhere; and because they will be nowhere, they will not be at all. Take away the bodies themselves from the qualities of bodies, and there will be nothing for them to be in, and so they must of necessity cease to be. For when a body is equally sound, or equally white, throughout its whole bulk, its health or whiteness is not greater in one part of it than in another, nor greater in the whole than in a part, since the whole is plainly no sounder or whiter than the part. But if it is unequally sound or unequally white, it may be that the health or the whiteness is greater in the smaller part, when the smaller members are sounder or whiter than the greater; so true is it that what is called great or small in qualities does not depend on bulk. And yet, if the bulk itself of the body, however great or however small, is taken away altogether, its qualities will have nothing to be in, although they are not to be measured by bulk. But God is not the less Himself because He is received less by one to whom He is present. For He is whole in Himself; and He is in the things in which He is not in such a way as to need them, as though He could not be except in them. And just as He is not absent from one in whom He does not dwell, but is present as a whole, although that one does not possess Him, so also to one in whom He does dwell He is present as a whole, although that one does not receive the whole of Him.

19. For He does not divide Himself among the hearts or bodies of men in order to dwell in them, giving one part of Himself to this one and another part to that, as this light of ours is divided through the doorways and windows of houses. Rather, consider a sound. Though it is a bodily and passing thing, a deaf man does not receive it, a man hard of hearing does not receive the whole of it, and among those who hear, though they stand equally near to it, one receives it more than another in proportion as his hearing is sharper, and less in proportion as it is duller; and yet the sound does not ring out more or less variously, but is equally at hand to all in the place where they are. How much more excellently, then, is God — a nature incorporeal and unchangeably living, who cannot, like a sound, be drawn out and divided through lapses of time, nor needs the space of the air as His place in which to be at hand to those present, but remaining in eternal stability in Himself — able to be present as a whole to all things, and as a whole to each; although those in whom He dwells possess Him according to the diversity of their capacity, some more fully and others less, those whom He Himself, by the grace of His goodness, builds up as His most beloved temple!

20. And indeed “divisions of gifts” are spoken of, as through the parts and members of one body, in which all together are one temple and each one singly is a temple; for God is not greater in all than in each, and it often happens that many receive Him less and one receives Him more. But when the apostle had said, “Now there are divisions of gifts,” he at once added, “but the same Spirit”; and again, when he had listed those divisions of gifts, he says, “But all these works the one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will.” Dividing, then, but not Himself divided, because He is one and the same. But those are called divisions in the same way as those of the members in the body; because the ears have not the same office as the eyes, and so the other members are distributed in harmony among their different offices: and yet, when we are in health, they all rejoice together in one common and equal soundness, not diverse, not greater here and less there, though they themselves are unlike. Of this body Christ is the Head; the unity of this body is set forth in our sacrifice, as the apostle briefly signified when he said, “We, being many, are one bread, one body.” Through our Head we are reconciled to God, because in Him the Godhead of the Only-begotten was made partaker of our mortality, that we too might be partakers of His immortality.

21. This mystery is far from the hearts of the proud who are wise, and therefore not Christians, and on that account not truly wise either. I mean even those wise men who knew God; because, as the apostle says, “when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks.” But you know in which sacrifice it is said, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.” From the lowliness of this sacrifice their arrogance and their stately airs are far removed. And therefore it is a thing greatly to be wondered at, how God is the indweller of some who do not yet know God, and is not the indweller of some who do know Him. For those do not belong to the temple of God who, when they knew God, glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks; and to the temple of God belong little children sanctified by the sacrament of Christ and regenerated by the Holy Spirit, who by reason of their age certainly cannot yet know God. So that the former could know Him and not possess Him, and the latter could possess Him before they knew Him. But most blessed are those for whom to possess God is the same as to know Him; for that knowledge is the fullest, the truest and the happiest.

Chapter 7

22. At this point we must now also deal with the question which you added after signing your letter: “If little children are still ignorant of God, how could John, even before he was born, leap in his mother’s womb at the coming and presence of the mother of the Lord?” For after mentioning that you had read my book On the Baptism of Little Children, you added: “I should like to know what you think about women with child, since the mother of John the Baptist answered the faith of belief on behalf of the child.”

23. These are certainly the words of Elizabeth, John’s mother: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, as soon as the voice of your salutation sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.” But in order to say this, as the evangelist said beforehand, she was filled with the Holy Spirit; and it was beyond doubt by His revelation that she knew what the leaping of the babe signified — that is, that the mother of Him had come whose forerunner and pointer-out he was to be. That leaping, then, could have been a sign of so great a matter, to be understood by those who were older, and not understood by the little one. For when this was related earlier in the Gospel it was not said, “The babe in her womb believed,” but “leaped”; nor did she herself say, “The babe leaped in my womb in faith,” but “leaped for joy.” And we see leaping not only in little children, but even in beasts, which certainly does not come from any faith, or religion, or rational knowledge of any kind. But this leaping was plainly something unheard of and new, because it was in the womb, and at the coming of her who was to bear the Saviour of men. For this reason it was marvellous, for this reason it is to be counted among the great signs; for this reason this leaping, a kind of greeting returned to the mother of the Lord, was, as miracles are wont to be, wrought by God in the infant, not by the infant as a man would do it.

24. And yet, even if the use of reason and will was so far hastened in that child that, while still within his mother’s womb, he could already recognise, believe and consent — for which in other little children one has to wait for age to make them able — even this is to be counted among the miracles of the divine power, and not to be drawn into an example of human nature. For when God so willed, even a dumb beast of burden spoke with reason; and men have not on that account been advised to wait for the counsels of asses in their deliberations. I therefore neither despise what was done in John, nor lay down from it a rule for what is to be thought about little children; rather, I proclaim it as wonderful in him precisely because I do not find it in others. That struggle of the twins in Rebecca’s womb is indeed somewhat similar; but that too was so much a portent that the woman sought an oracle of God because of it, and heard that two peoples were prefigured in those two infants.

25. But if we wished to prove in words that little children, who do not yet know even human things, do not know divine things, I fear we should seem to do violence to our very senses by trying to persuade by speech where the evidence of the truth very easily surpasses all the power and office of speech. Do we not see that even when they have begun to utter some signs of articulate voice, and to pass out of infancy to the beginnings of speech, they still think and say such things that, if they stayed at that point and remained such as the years went on, no one, not even a great fool, would doubt that they were fools? Unless perhaps we are left to believe that little children were wise while they were crying in infancy, or even in the silence of the womb, but that after they began to talk with us they came, in the course of growing, to the ignorance which we see. You see how absurd it is to think this; since the understanding of children, when it bursts out into words of some sort — an understanding which is certainly next to nothing compared with what their elders know — may yet be called intelligence when compared with the state in which they are born. For why is it that, in that great safeguard of their salvation when the grace of Christ comes to their aid, their struggling against it with such cries and movements as they can make is not imputed to them, and all their resistance is counted as nothing until the sacraments are completed in them by which what they have contracted from the original condemnation is expiated — why, unless because they so little know what they do that they are not even judged to do it? For if they already had the free use of reason and will, by which their assent ought to be given to that sanctification, what Christian does not know how great an evil it would be to resist so great a grace, and that what was done would not only profit them nothing, but that guilt would even increase from it?

Chapter 8

26. We say, then, that the Holy Spirit dwells in baptized little children, although they do not know it. For they do not know Him, though He is in them, just as they do not know their own mind; whose reason in them, which they cannot yet use, is like a spark lulled to sleep, to be awakened by the coming of age. Nor ought this to seem strange in little children, since the apostle says even to some of riper years, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” — people of whom he had said a little before, “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God”; and whom he also calls little ones, little not in age of body but of mind. So they did not perceive by knowledge the Holy Spirit who dwelt in them; and, though the Holy Spirit dwelt in them, they were still natural men and not yet spiritual, because they could not yet perceive by knowledge the Spirit who was their indweller.

27. But He is said to dwell even in such as these, because He works in them secretly that they may be His temple, and He brings this to completion in those who advance and persevere in advancing. For “we are saved by hope,” as the apostle says; though in another place he says, “He saved us by the washing of regeneration.” Since, then, he says here, “He saved us,” as though salvation itself had already been given, he explains in the other place how this is to be understood, when he says, “For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for what we do not see, then do we with patience wait for it.” For many things are spoken of in the divine Scriptures as though they had been done, when they are understood to be still in hope. Of this kind is what the Lord said to His disciples: “All things that I have heard of my Father I have made known to you”; which was said so entirely in hope of what was to come that He afterwards says to them, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” In those mortals in whom He dwells, then, He is at work on the very building of His dwelling-place, which He completes not in this life but in another after this life, when death shall be swallowed up in victory and it shall be said to it, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” And what is the sting of death, but sin?

28. On this account, though we are now born again of water and the Spirit, and all our sins — whether the sin of origin from Adam, in whom all have sinned, or those of our deeds, words and thoughts — have been blotted out in the cleansing of that washing, yet, because we remain in this human life, which is a trial upon the earth, we rightly say, “Forgive us our debts.” And this prayer is said by the whole Church, which the Saviour cleanses by the washing of water in the word, that He may present it to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing — that is to say, then, when it shall be made perfect in reality, where now it walks by advancing in hope. For how is it now without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, when, either in all the men belonging to it who already use the reason of the mind and the free choice of the will and carry the burden of mortal flesh, or at any rate — as even the contentious themselves must confess — in many of its members, it truthfully says, “Forgive us our debts”?

29. Since, therefore, in those who advance, in whom He dwells while they are mortal, He justifies them more and more as they are renewed from day to day, hears them as they pray, and cleanses them as they confess, that He may present to Himself a temple without blemish for ever, He is rightly said not to dwell in those who, when they knew God, glorified Him not as God, neither gave thanks. For by worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator, they did not wish to be the temple of the one true God; and so, in wishing to have Him along with many others, they brought it about more easily that they did not have Him at all, than that they mingled Him with many false gods. And He is rightly said to dwell in those whom, called according to His purpose, He has taken up to be justified and glorified, even before they are able to know His incorporeal nature, which is everywhere whole — so far as it can be known in part, through a glass and in an enigma, by a man in this life, however far he has advanced. For among those in whom He dwells there are many such as those to whom the apostle says, “I could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to carnal, as to little ones in Christ. I have fed you with milk, not with meat; for you were not yet able, nor indeed are you able even now.” For to these also he says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” If the last day of this life finds such as these even before they reach the spiritual maturity of mind at which they are fed not with milk but with solid food, He who dwells in them will perfect in them whatever of understanding they lacked here, since they have not departed from the unity of the body of Christ, who has become our way, nor from the fellowship of the temple of God. And in order that they may not depart from it, they hold perseveringly in the Church the rule of faith common to little and great, and walk in that to which they have attained; and if they are otherwise minded in anything, until God reveals it to them, they do not make dogmas of their carnal thoughts, because they do not harden themselves by standing still in contentious defences, but toil onward, as it were by walking, that is by advancing, obtaining clearness of understanding through the devoutness of faith.

Chapter 9

30. This being so, these two things which happen in one man, to be born and to be born again, belong to two men: the one to that first man, Adam, the other to the second, who is called Christ. “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual,” says the apostle, “but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven, heavenly. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. As we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of Him who is from heaven.” And again he says, “By one man came death, and by one man the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” “All” and “all” he said, because no one comes to death except through the former, and no one to life except through the latter. In the first was shown what the free choice of man could do to bring death; in the second, what the help of God could do to bring life. In short, the first man was only man; but the second is God and man. For sin was committed when God was forsaken; righteousness is not done without God. And for this reason we would not die unless we came from his members by carnal descent, nor would we live unless we were members of the other by spiritual union. Hence it was needful for us to be born and to be born again, but for Him, for our sake, only to be born. For we, by being born again, pass from sin to righteousness; but He made no passage to righteousness from any sin. Yet by being baptized He commended the more highly, by His lowliness, the sacrament of our regeneration, signifying by His passion our old man and by His resurrection our new.

31. For the disobedience of concupiscence, which dwells in mortal flesh and causes the same members to be moved even apart from the choice of the will, is so brought within bounds by conjugal chastity that from parents lawfully joined are begotten those who need to be born again. Yet Christ did not will that His flesh should come by such a coming together of male and female; but from a virgin, who felt no such desire in His conception, He took the likeness of sinful flesh for us, whereby the flesh of sin might be cleansed in us. “For as by the offence of one,” says the apostle, “judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” For no one is born except by the working of carnal concupiscence, which is derived from the first man, who is Adam; and no one is born again except by the working of spiritual grace, which is given through the second man, who is Christ. Wherefore, if we belong to the one by being born and to the other by being born again, and no one can be born again before he is born, then surely He was born in a singular way who had no need to be born again; because He made no passage from sin, in which He never was, nor was He conceived in iniquity, nor did His mother nourish Him in sins in her womb: because the Holy Spirit came upon her and the power of the Highest overshadowed her; therefore that Holy Thing which was born of her is called the Son of God. For the good of marriage does not extinguish the evil of the disobedient members, but tempers it, so that carnal concupiscence, being in a manner restrained, may at least become conjugal chastity. But the Virgin Mary, to whom it was said, “And the power of the Highest shall overshadow you,” in conceiving her holy offspring under such a shade, was not heated by any burning of this concupiscence. Leaving aside, then, this corner-stone, I do not see how men are built up into a house of God, so as to have God dwelling in them, except when they have been born again; which they cannot be before they are born.

Chapter 10

32. Whatever opinion, then, we hold about women with child — or rather about human beings still set within their mothers’ wombs — whether we think that they can or cannot be granted some kind of sanctification, either because of John, who, though not yet brought forth into this light, yet leaped for joy (and who would believe that this could have happened except by the working of the Holy Spirit?), or because of Jeremiah, to whom the Lord says, “Before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you,” yet that sanctification by which we are made, each of us, temples of God, and all of us together one temple of God, belongs only to those who have been born again; which men cannot be unless they have been born. And no one will end well the life into which he was born, unless he has been born again before he ends it.

33. But if anyone says that a human being is already born even while he is still in his mother’s womb, and brings a testimony from the Gospel, because it was said to Joseph of the Virgin, the mother of the Lord, when she was with child, “For that which is born in her is of the Holy Spirit,” does a second birth, then, come in addition to this birth? Otherwise it will no longer be the second, but the third. But when the Lord spoke on this matter, He said, “Except a man be born again,” counting as the first birth, of course, that which happens when the mother brings forth, not when she conceives and is with child — the birth that is from her, not the birth that is in her. For we do not say that a man whom his mother has brought forth is born again, as though he were born a second time who had already been born once in the womb; but, not counting that birth which makes a woman pregnant, a man is said to be born by being brought forth, so that he may be born again of water and the Spirit. It is according to this birth from His mother that the Lord Himself also is said to have been born in Bethlehem of Judah. If, then, a man could be regenerated in the womb by the grace of the Spirit, since it still remains for him to be born, he would be born again before he was born; which can by no means be. Accordingly, human beings, once born, are brought into the framework of the body of Christ, as into the living structure of the temple of God, which is His Church, not by works of righteousness which they have done, but by being born again through grace — brought, as it were, out of a mass of ruin into the strength of a building. For apart from this building, which is being raised to be made blessed as the eternal dwelling of God, all the life of man is unhappy, and ought rather to be called death than life. Whoever, then, is to be dwelt in by God, so that the wrath of God may not abide on him, will not be a stranger to this body, this temple, this city. But everyone who has not been born again is a stranger to it.

Chapter 11

34. Moreover, the Mediator, when He was made manifest, willed that the sacrament of our regeneration should be made manifest. But to the righteous men of old it was something hidden, although they too were saved by the same faith, which was to be revealed in its own time. For we do not dare to set the faithful of our own time above the friends of God through whom these things were prophesied to us, since God so presents Himself as the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob as to call this His name for ever. And if circumcision is believed to have served the saints of old in place of baptism, what shall be answered about those who pleased God before this commandment was given, and yet not without faith? For “without faith,” as it is written to the Hebrews, “it is impossible to please God.” “Having the same spirit of faith,” says the apostle, “according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak.” He would not say “the same” unless the same Spirit of faith had been theirs too. And as they, when the same sacrament was hidden, believed that the incarnation of Christ was to come, so we too believe that it has come; and both by us and by them His coming to judgment is awaited as yet to come. For there is no other mystery of God but Christ, in whom those who have died in Adam must be made alive; because “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,” as we have discussed above.

Chapter 12

35. Wherefore God, who is everywhere present and everywhere whole, does not dwell in all, but only in those whom He makes His most blessed temple, or His most blessed temples, delivering them from the power of darkness and translating them into the kingdom of the Son of His love, which begins with regeneration. But He is said to have a temple in one sense by way of signification, when it is made by the hands of men from lifeless things — as the tabernacle was made of wood, curtains, skins and such movable things, and as the temple too was built by King Solomon of stones, wood and metals — and in another sense in that very reality which was prefigured by those signs. Hence it is said, “You also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house”; and hence again it is written, “For we are the temple of the living God, as God says: I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

36. Nor ought it to trouble us that some mighty work is done through certain persons who do not belong to this temple, or do not yet belong to it — that is, in whom God does not dwell, or does not yet dwell — as it was done through the man who cast out devils in the name of Christ, though he did not follow Christ, whom the Lord commanded to be allowed, because of the commendation of His name which was profitable to many. He says too that many will say to Him at the last day, “In Your name we have done many mighty works”; to whom He would certainly not answer, “I never knew you,” if they belonged to the temple of God which He blesses by dwelling in it. Cornelius too, the centurion, before he was incorporated into this temple by regeneration, saw an angel sent to him, and heard him say that his prayers had been heard and his alms accepted. For God does these things as One present everywhere, or through His holy angels.

37. As for that sanctification of Jeremiah before he came forth from the womb — although some take it as a type of the Saviour, who had no need of regeneration — yet even if it is taken of the prophet himself, it may quite fittingly be understood according to predestination; just as the Gospel calls those not yet regenerated sons of God, where, when Caiaphas had said of the Lord, “It is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not,” the Gospel at once went on to add, “And this he spoke not of himself; but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation; and not for that nation only, but that also He should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad.” He called them children of God, certainly, who were to be found, besides the Hebrew nation, in all the other nations as well, not yet believers, not yet baptized. How, then, children of God, except according to predestination, according to which the apostle too says that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world? But it was that gathering together in one that was to make them children of God. For “in one” does not mean some bodily place, since the prophet foretold of such a calling of the Gentiles, “And they shall worship Him, every one from his place, all the isles of the nations”; but “gather together in one” means into one spirit and into one body, whose one Head is Christ. Such a gathering is the building of the temple of God. Such a gathering is made, not by carnal generation, but by spiritual regeneration.

Chapter 13

38. God, therefore, dwells in each one as in His temples, and in all gathered together into one as in His temple. And as long as this temple is tossed on the waves of this world like Noah’s ark, there comes to pass what is written in the psalm, “The Lord dwells in the flood” — although, because of the many peoples of believers in all nations, whom the Apocalypse signifies by the name of waters, “The Lord dwells in the flood” may also fittingly be understood. But there follows, “And the Lord shall sit King for ever” — in His very temple, that is, when it is now established in eternal life after the tossing of this world. God, then, is present everywhere, and everywhere present as a whole; not dwelling everywhere, but in His temple, to which by grace He is kind and gracious; and He is received as He dwells, by some more fully and by others less.

39. But of our Head Himself the apostle says, “For in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Not “bodily” because God is bodily. Either the word is used figuratively — as though in the temple made with hands He had dwelt not bodily but in shadow, that is, by signs that went before — for he calls all those observances shadows of things to come, using this word too in a figurative sense; for the most high God, as it is written, “does not dwell in temples made with hands” — or else, at least, “bodily” is said because God dwells, as in a temple, in the body of Christ also, which He took of the Virgin. For hence it is that when He had said to the Jews who asked for a sign, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” the evangelist, explaining next what this meant, says, “But He spoke of the temple of His body.”

40. What then? Do we think that the difference between the Head and the other members is this: that in any member, however eminent, such as some great prophet or apostle, although the Godhead dwells in him, yet not all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in him, as it does in the Head, which is Christ? For in our body too there is sense in each of the members, but not so much as in the head, where it is present in its entire fivefold form: there are sight, and hearing, and smell, and taste, and touch; but in the other members there is touch alone. Or, besides this, that all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in that body as in a temple, is there some other thing that makes the difference between that Head and the excellence of any member? There is indeed: that by a certain singular taking up of that Man, one person was made with the Word. For of none of the saints could it be said, or can it be said, or will it be possible to say, “The Word was made flesh.” None of the saints, however excellent in grace, has received the name of Only-begotten, so that what the Word of God Himself is before the ages, this should be said of him together with the manhood taken up. That taking up, then, is singular, and cannot in any way be shared with any holy men, however excellent in wisdom and holiness. And in this there is a sufficiently plain and clear proof of divine grace. For who would be so sacrilegious as to dare to affirm that any soul could, by the merit of its free will, bring it about that it should be another Christ? How, then, could one soul alone have merited to belong to the person of the only-begotten Word, by a free will given to all in common and by nature, unless a singular grace had granted it — a grace which it is right to proclaim, but of which it is wicked to wish to sit in judgment?

41. If, according to our strength and as far as the Lord has helped us, we have handled these things rightly, then, when you strain your thought to conceive of God as present everywhere — not diffused through spaces set apart, as with some bulk or extension, but whole everywhere — turn your mind away from all the images of bodies which human thought is accustomed to turn over. For it is not so that wisdom is thought of, nor justice, nor, finally, charity, of which it is written, “God is charity.” But when you think of His dwelling, think of the unity and the congregation of the saints: above all in heaven, where He is said to dwell especially because there His will is done by the perfect obedience of those in whom He dwells; and then on earth, where He dwells as He builds His house, which is to be dedicated at the end of the world. But as to Christ our Lord, the only-begotten Son of God, equal to the Father, and the same the son of man than whom the Father is greater, do not doubt that He is present everywhere as a whole, as God; that He is in the same temple of God as the God who dwells in it; and that He is in some place of heaven, by reason of the measure proper to a true body. But since it delights me to talk with you, I do not know whether I have kept within the measure of a sufficient discourse, as though I were making up for long silence with much talk. But because by the devoutness and goodwill with which you were beforehand with me you have so entered into my heart that I am truly conversing as with a friend, whatever you find profitably worked out in the labour of my pen, give thanks to God for it; and if you perceive any faults of mine, forgive them as a very dear friend, wishing me, with the same sincerity of love with which you grant me pardon, a remedy for them too.