1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother.
The most-wise apostle Paul says that he was chosen and placed into ministry for Christ “by the will of God.” He thereby rejects the glory of the false prophets and apostles. He speaks in the Spirit and has Jesus himself dwelling in his soul. That is why he says in one place, “And I think that I too have the Spirit of God,”2 and in another, “Since you desire proof that Christ is speaking in me.”3 He says that he is Christ’s servant, even though God alone rules and has authority over all things. After all, the statement “All things are your servants”4 is addressed to God. So is he not clearly ascribing to Christ the natural and truly God-befitting glory of lordship? [321]
He proclaims Jesus to be God truly and by nature by the fact that he calls himself an apostle of Jesus. No one would be an apostle of human beings; one would only be an apostle of one who is God by nature. Furthermore, he shows that he was not called to his apostolic office against the will of the Father, nor does he speak from his own heart like the false prophets, but he is a minister of the oracles of God. And he makes Timothy the coauthor of the letter because Timothy is tested and follows in his footsteps. The fact that they agree makes him all the more persuasive. As the law says, “Every matter will be established by the mouth of two or three witnesses.”5
To the church of God that is in Corinth.
They write, “to the church of God that is in Corinth,” even though the church is said to belong to Christ since he presented her to himself as a holy virgin.6 Therefore, if the church belongs to God, and Christ presented her to himself, then he who is from holy Mary, theotokos,7 is himself God by nature.
1:2 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
If he did not believe that the Son was God by nature, would he not have to say, “Grace to you and peace from God the Father” alone? But in fact he includes Christ and makes him a co-bestower of the graces that the divine nature imparts. So he is clearly not unaware that he is God by nature. [322] Therefore, we must include the Son along with the Father in the definition of identity and consubstantiality so that we recognize that one God supplies spiritual blessings. When he mentions Christ Jesus, he is referring to the Word of God, who appeared in the flesh. And if Christ is the supplier of the things that God the Father himself supplies, does that not make him God by nature according to the union with his own flesh that takes place in the oikonomia? The most-wise Paul too says the following about the Israelites: “To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Christ, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.”8
1:18-20 As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been “Yes and No.”
No one says, “‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”9 And “the Spirit is the truth,” as it is written.10 Filled, then, with the truth, or rather with the Holy Spirit, the heralds of the gospel oracles could not lie. Whatever they said about Christ was altogether definitive and correct. This is confirmed when Christ himself says, “For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”11 So when some try to slander him by claiming that he contradicts himself when he sometimes proclaims Jesus to be God by nature and sometimes proclaims him to be man, he denies that there is any contradiction. It is as if he is compelled to attack their misrepresentation. He assures us that his word is not equivocal and obscure but straightforward and true [323] by saying, “Our word to you has not been ‘Yes and No.’” This means that his word is not self-contradictory. It does not suffer from inconsistency by praising something in one moment and blaming it the next. Rather, he is telling the truth in his proclamation. So “God is faithful”—that is, he is true and does not lie.
The Greek elite12 will have various opinions about their supposed gods, saying both “Yes” and “No.” That is because they do not have the truth, but rather falsehood. Therefore, they vacillate between different opinions. But he who is truly the natural Son of the Almighty God—how could he be “Yes and No”? . . . And the Son who is from him by nature, “whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I,” cannot be “Yes and No.” Every statement about him that comes through the voice of the theologians13 is true. “In him,” he says, “every one of God’s promises is a ‘Yes,’” that is, in him we have every lavish gift and promise from God the Father. And this happens in the “Yes,” that is, in the truth. These promises have reached their maximum point through Christ. “For death has been swallowed up in victory,”14 the power of decay has been shaken, and weakness will cease along with dishonor, just as the most-wise Paul said in his former epistle. We have been made heirs and participants in the very kingdom of the saints. He who sits on the divine judgment seat, in whom is the “Yes,” will say to us, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”15 We are servants as far as our nature is concerned, but we have been called out of slavery into the dignity of freedom through him. We have been called from decay to incorruption. We have been freed from slavery to the devil. Therefore, every promise [324] of God contains only a “Yes” through Christ. A “No” (which is a denial) is utterly impossible, since he himself is the truth. This also proves in a singular fashion that he is by nature God. After all, if he cannot falsify the promises but will rather fulfill them for the saints, even though God the Father is the one who give the good gifts, how could he not be the true and natural Son—God from God, in whom is “every generous act of giving and every perfect gift”16 without falsification?
Because Christ’s word cannot lie, Paul adds, “For this reason it is through him that we say the ‘Amen,’ to the glory of God.” He himself is the mediator. We have access to the Father through him alone. In him is every spiritual gift. That is why we end every prayer through him, that is, with the “Amen.” On top of that, the Son himself teaches us this when he says to the holy apostles, “On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.”17 That is why it is “through him that we say the ‘Amen,’ to the glory of God the Father.” It is our custom to close every prayer in the name of Christ. We can easily see that it is fitting for him to share in the doxology from the prophecy of the blessed Jacob: “Judah, your brothers shall praise you,”18 since Christ sprang from the tribe of Judah according to the flesh. And then there is the prophet Isaiah, who says, “I saw the Lord of hosts sitting on a throne, high and [325] lofty,” and the seraphim standing around him calling him “holy” and referring to him as the “Lord of hosts” and saying that heaven and earth are full of his glory. The wise John proves that Isaiah saw the Son himself when he says, “Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke about him.”19 Since the Father is glorified through him, and since he has been placed as a “sacrifice of atonement”20 and has become a “minister in the sanctuary”21 according to his human nature, he offers the prayer of each of the saints as a spiritual sacrifice. For our “Amen” is through him. And we should not consider him excluded from the due worship and glorification that we and the multitude of holy spirits above owe him along with the Father. The divinely inspired Paul said somewhere, “And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, ‘Let all God’s angels worship him.’”22 And who is there who cannot see that he is Only Begotten according to that nature by which he is recognized to be God? After all, he is the only one who came from the only Father. But since he came down into our condition, he came to have many brothers,23 and at that point he was established as having first place.24 In addition to the fact that he is Only Begotten as God, he is also called firstborn according to his human nature.
1:21 But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ . . .
God the Father “establishes us in Christ.” He sets in place an orthodox and unshakeable faith in the souls of all by convincing them that Christ is true God by nature, even though he is found to be in our form, since he who is above all creation was begotten of a woman according to the flesh. So when Peter confessed his faith in clear words, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,”25 our Lord Jesus Christ himself answered, “Blessed are you, Simon [326] son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” Since the mystery was immense, it makes sense that he would need mystagogy from above given by the Father. Therefore, it is God himself who “establishes us in Christ and has anointed us, by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.” And on the basis of these words, it should be evident to us that the Son was not “Yes and No.” Rather, God is true, and “in him is a Yes” for all good things. Now when it says God has put his seal on us and anointed us and that he gives us “his Spirit as a first installment,” once again Christ is the one who accomplishes these things in us. And he does so not as an underling or as one anointing and sealing us with someone else’s Spirit, but it is his own Spirit and the Spirit of the Father. The Holy Spirit is inseparably in both because of the identity of essence. But he came to creation from the Father through the Son. Jesus breathed on the holy apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,”26 and we too have been sealed in the divine and spiritual image through him and in him. The divine apostle himself wrote to the Galatians and said, “My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.”27 Now if we receive in ourselves the riches of the divine image by being formed to be like Christ, then he himself is the image and precise likeness of God the Father. He is not like us. We have been called to this similarity by participation in holiness, but he has it essentially and by nature. After all, there could be no dissimilarity between him who is God by nature and the one born of his essence, who is also truly God by nature. The most-wise John says that the Son has been sealed by God the Father: “He who received his testimony has set his seal because God is true.”28 [327] However, he has not been sealed in the same way that we have, but the Father inscribes himself, as it were, entirely in the nature of the Son and impresses himself, so to speak, on him essentially. That is why he said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”29
2:14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.
The apostles give thanks as they labor and undergo trials, and they boast in their trials for the sake of Christ. Just as Christ was led in triumph for us when he endured death on the tree and was made perfect through sufferings,30 so also they say that they are led in triumph for him. That means they are made known to people everywhere, they are famous because of their trials, and they overcome the world because they are willing and even eager to suffer all things for the name of Christ.31 They are—they are!—sharers in his sufferings. And, as it says, they are partakers in “the glory to be revealed.”32 Furthermore, they say that the one who leads them in triumph is God—not that he throws them into suffering or heaps tribulation upon them, but that according to his will, as they proclaim Jesus to people everywhere under heaven, they encounter trials for his sake. That is because without trials, they could not be famous. The fruit of all this is that they suffer “in Christ,” that is, on account of Christ. This is glorious and fills them with good hope.
What then is the “fragrance” of the knowledge of God the Father, which is made known to the world “in every place” through the holy apostles, [328] as they themselves say? The divinely inspired Paul himself teaches us the answer when he says, “For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.”33 And again, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”34 Now how can one who was begotten of a woman and who endured the cross and underwent death (though he did come to life again) be the “fragrance” of the knowledge of God the Father if, as some think, Christ was a mere man like us or the mere bearer of God?35 No, he is God by nature, even though the Word of God did take on human nature in the oikonomia. He cannot exude the scent of God the Father’s nature by being like us and nothing more, nor could he who endured death become the fragrance of him who does not know death. How then is Christ the “fragrance” of the knowledge of the Father? Is it not clear that he is this in that he is understood to be (and actually is) God, even though he appeared in the flesh for our sake? Otherwise, how could those who proclaim Christ show the world him who is truly God by nature? How could they see Jesus in the first place? How could the holy mystagogues say that God the Father reconciles the world to himself in Christ36 if he has not brought the Word who sprang from the Father into unity with the human nature, since this is what the carefully devised oikonomia requires? After all, the divinely inspired disciples, speaking in the Spirit, declare not that the Word of God dwelt in a man, but that he became flesh—that is, he was united to flesh that has a rational soul. That is how he who was crucified could also be the Lord of glory.37 [329] We, therefore, know him in the flesh. But even when he is not in the flesh but is by himself, so to speak, before he becomes flesh, the Word of God is the “fragrance” of the knowledge of God the Father since by his own nature he gives us the scent of the one he comes from. Now if what I say is true, how could he be originate or numbered among those who have their origin from nothing? The fragrance of the uncreated one could not itself come into being, nor could it exist originately. We cannot see the originate nature in one who is unoriginate, nor can we see the unoriginate nature in one who is originate. Yet the Son has revealed the Father in himself. Therefore, he is God by nature because of the identity of essence. We too, then, should say to the Son, “Your name is perfume poured out.”38 For through him and in him we know God the Father, from whom he was begotten.
2:15-17 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
They send forth our Lord Jesus Christ as an aroma to God the Father in three ways. First, they have him dwelling in them and inhabiting them through the Holy Spirit. Second, they proclaim him to people everywhere and spread the word about him as they offer their zeal in this endeavor to God as a fragrant sacrifice. And third, they are conformed to him and are perfected through the same suffering. Next they say that they are the aroma of Christ “among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one a fragrance from [330] death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.” We will now examine this statement. If we interpret it appropriately, it would be reasonable for us to understand those who are being saved and those who are perishing to refer to those who believe and those who reject the faith, who do not acknowledge him who is truly God by nature but worship the creature rather than the Creator.39 These people do not accept the message of the divine proclamation. Instead, they ridicule it and think that the mystery of Christ is foolishness.40 So they receive the “fragrance of the knowledge” of the Father “from death to death.” This expression means they are dead because of their ignorance and hard hearts, and they are caught almost falling into the second death. However, those who have been brought by their instruction in the law to an incipient knowledge of God are in that sense alive. And if they were to believe, they would receive the aroma of the knowledge of the Father “from life to life.” After all, Christ says somewhere to God the heavenly Father, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”41 Next he says, “Who is sufficient for these things?” And rightly so. It is truly difficult to find someone who can speak of the mystery of Christ correctly and without error the way the divinely inspired disciples could. They set straight the perversity of the heterodox, who habitually and intently focus on “peddling God’s word,” as it were, and who always love to mix their explanation of the faith with error and falsehood. It is impossible to find any truth among them that is unmixed, so to speak, and unadulterated. The divine mystagogues, however, when they are speaking by the Spirit do and say everything “as persons of sincerity in God’s presence.” [331]
3:2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts.
We have no need of verbal testimony. By your deeds, you have been shown to be respectable and faithful disciples of Christ, and so you crown the head of your teachers and show us to be respectable as well. Therefore, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts”—that is, You are always and perpetually in our memory since we are always proud of you.
3:3 Not on tablets of stone but on the fleshly tablets of the heart.
He confirms his statement with prophetic testimony: “Not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart.” He is pointing out that God said somewhere through the voice of the prophet, “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt because they did not remain in my covenant, though I overlooked it, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds, and I will write it on their hearts. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.”42 Indeed, in ancient times the divinely inspired Moses received the law as a pedagogue on tablets of stone, as it is written.43 And we say that this has become a type of the hard heart of the Jews. It shows that the law has not penetrated into their minds, but just like on stone it barely scratches the surface and is utterly dispensable and quite easy to spit out. [332] Indeed, God says somewhere, “These people draw near to me with their mouths and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.”44 Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the other hand, inscribes his holy and divine law in us “on fleshly tablets of the heart,” meaning sentient tablets. That is why he said through the voice of the prophet Ezekiel, “And I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may walk in my commands.”45 So anyone who does not lean on the shadows given through Moses or hold to the law written in ink as on tablets of stone, but rather has the law written in the mind by the Spirit—that person is the “letter of Christ, known by all.” [333]
3:4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God . . .
Paul knows that the honor of his apostleship is not due to human power, but rather to the power of the Almighty God, who extends it to those who are worthy to receive it through Christ the mediator. That is why it says that the saints have all good things in Christ,46 and also that “every perfect gift is from above, from the Father of lights.”47 Now Christ is the one through whom all things are and in whom all things are.48 He is the mediator between us and God in accordance with the oikonomia, but he is also the one who carries out all things that originate from God the Father in that he is the Father’s own wisdom and power. What is this confidence through Christ toward God? Listen to what he says next: “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us.”49 (“For all wisdom is from the Lord,” as it is written.)50 “But our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”51 And what is the “letter”? It is the [334] type contained in the law. It refers to those things that are still accomplished in shadows. “Spirit,” on the other hand, is the power of worship that is in Christ. It makes people spiritual when they approach it through faith. And just as the type is less than the truth, to the same extent those who serve the type are inferior to those who minister to the truth. After all, Christ sprinkles us with his own blood, and not merely for the “purification of the flesh,”52 which of course even the rituals of the law accomplish. No, more than that, he purifies “our conscience from dead works”53 and drives us away from transgression. On top of that, he freely grants us the hope of life as well. Indeed it is true that “whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.”54 That is because he has promised them resurrection of their bodies and a return to an incorruptible and unending life.
3:10 Indeed, what once had glory has lost its glory because of the greater glory.
Once again he takes up the incomparably surpassing honor of divine apostleship. He compares the ministries, skillfully presenting what is proper to each one. Then he makes clear that the ministry in Christ through the Spirit is the more illustrious of the two. The thrust of his meaning runs along these lines, but he does not express it with the greatest clarity. It does not seem to be very easy to see even for those who are eager to see it. After all, what [335] does “what once had glory has lost its glory . . .” actually mean? He is trying to say something like this: Moses “had glory,” he says, as a minister of the law that was set aside, but since the glory of the new proclamation in Christ surpasses the first glory, he declared that the former glory seems to have no glory at all. You know that when it is still night and night’s shadow darkens everything, the orb of the moon blazes, as it were, and the chorus of the stars has its own glory. But when the sun rises and unfurls the glory of its brilliance, the light of the moon is overcome by the superior light and seems to have no brightness at all. I think you should understand the meaning of this passage in the same way. You see, he is saying that “what once had glory” (that is, the ministry of the law), even though it received glory from God, seems to lose its original glory “because of the greater glory” (that is, the glory given to the minister of the divine gospel proclamation). What is less always gives way to what is in first place.
3:11 For if what was set aside came through glory, much more has the permanent come in glory!
What has been “set aside”? The shadow and the law, or rather, the type. What is “the permanent”? The Word of God. Therefore, the shadow was “in glory” but the teachings of Christ are in more illustrious glory. They are permanent since they will surpass any glory under heaven.
3:12 Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness.
What hope is that? To be made competent by God and prepared by grace to be “ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter.”55 And it is fitting for such people to speak “with great boldness,” ashamed neither of the impotence of the types, [336] nor of the simplicity of the hearers. Indeed the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in the souls of the believers and allows them easily to understand even deep sayings.
3:13 Not like Moses, who put a veil over his face.
Here again in this passage the disciples of Christ are more illustrious in glory because they have the clear and irresistible word of proclamation that contains nothing obscure, as Moses’ proclamation does. When the Israelites failed the test by making the calf even after such great miracles, Moses put on a mask and he used a veil when he spoke the divine law to them. He was teaching them through enigmas that they were not strong enough to see the true face of the law (that is, Christ). Rather, they were attending to what amounts to its second face, the shadow that has no glory. This shadow and type is no longer in effect. It ceased when the new covenant was introduced along with Christ, who is “the end of the law” that was set aside. And so Christ, the veiled glory of Moses, was “the end of the law” that was set aside.56 Those who remove the shadow and strip off the visible second face, as it were, that is contained in the letter, will see Emmanuel represented in many ways at each point, both as he endures slaughter for the sake of the world and as he saves the earth under heaven so that he may be glorified among us and worshiped by the holy angels. The light of the Savior’s glory is truly inaccessible to the minds of the Jews. Since all spiritual contemplation focuses on the mystery of Christ, and the unhappy Jews do not accept faith in him, the veil has remained over them, but it is eliminated in Christ. [337]
3:16 But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.
The Lord himself is the light and he reveals the “deep and hidden things.”57 He shows the true shining face of the law to the wise who are sanctified by the Spirit and who are themselves made to shine through faith in Christ. After all, the law is a teacher that leads people to Christ.58 And if it is appointed to lead to someone besides itself, then it does not set its students before itself, but it leads them away to what is better and greater than itself. That is why, you know, the divinely inspired Paul says that he counts what is in the law to be rubbish “because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ.”59
3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
They must become spiritual, since there is no other possible way to contemplate Christ, who is the “end” of what was being “set aside,” I mean the law. When that happens, the veil is in every way completely “removed,” and they will see the holy Moses with a bare and unveiled face, no longer having the mask of the letter or the covering of the surface narrative. Those who are in this condition are the ones who in Christ have abundantly received the free revelation of the Spirit. And if wherever the Spirit is, there is complete “freedom,” how could the Spirit not be free by nature? And if that is so, then he has left behind the limits of slavery. He is no longer originate, but should rightly be classified with the supreme free nature that shares in the power over all things. After all, the Spirit is of the Father, and he came to creation from the Father in Christ. [338]
3:18 And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
Now Moses put on a veil, as you know, because the Israelites were not able to look at “the glory of his face.”60 That is because they were natural61 and carnal and uninitiated in the faith. But we who are faithful, whose heart is enlightened by the illumination of the Spirit and who know how to see clearly with the mind’s eye, gaze on the Lord “with unveiled faces.” That is because he has spoken with us and appeared to us in glory and in the ultimate divine supremacy. We recognize him to be God and the “imprint” of the Father’s “hypostasis.”62 And so we contemplate his divine and ineffable nature as in a mirror in the sense that the mind of the believers is refashioned, as it were, from study of the law to training in the gospel. It is transformed, so to speak, into spiritual knowledge, no longer putting up with shadows or types, but raised from the glory of the law to pass over to another glory, that which is in Christ through the Spirit. Therefore, we “are being transformed into the same image.” When we change the types into the truth and from the shadow of the law we sketch the mystery of Christ in our thoughts, then we will find the same glory in that image. After all, if glory was given to the ministers of the law, then the glory of the holy priests who have been made competent by God to be ministers of a “new covenant, not of letter but of spirit,”63 is even greater and incomparably surpasses the first glory. I presume it is quite clear and obvious to everyone who exists that those who make the complete transition from instruction in the law to exquisite knowledge of the gospel [339] should be understood to go from the first “glory,” as it were, into another “glory” as they are reshaped, so to speak, into what is better. Indeed, the one who brings about this change in them is the Spirit, who sets us free from slavery to the law. In him we cry, “Abba! Father!”64 as sons and free people. There is no other way to see the depth of what the law sketches except through the Holy Spirit alone. He is the one who searches “even the depths of God.”65 We maintain that “depths of God” refers to the knowledge treasured up in the Holy Scriptures. The divinely inspired David, you know, prayed to God along these lines when he said, “Open my eyes, and I will understand the wondrous things from your law.”66 And the Savior himself considered a person wonderful who ascends from knowledge of the law to spiritual knowledge, that is, knowledge of the gospel. He said, “Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a rich man who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”67 What is in the law is old, while what is in Christ is new. Now if any wish to understand our transformation into the same image “from glory to glory” in a different way, they should think of it like this: Those of us who know Christ are also reckoned among the children of God and are in every way in glory. But at the time of the resurrection, we are transformed “into the same image from glory to glory; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” Christ, who graced us with “the first installment of the Spirit,”68 will supply the rest at that time and will refashion “the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory.”69 [340]
Since the mystagogue says, “For this comes from the Lord, the Spirit,” and, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” we will not put up with the slander of the unholy heretics, who claim that the Spirit is numbered among originate beings. After all, if wherever the Spirit is, there is complete “freedom,” how could the Spirit not be free by nature? And if that is so, then he transcends the rank of slavery. The Spirit is of the Father, and he came from the Father to creation in Christ.
4:4 To keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Since the holy proclamation shines like the sun and every faithful person beholds the “glory of Christ” in a mirror with an unveiled face, no one who thinks rightly will blame the ignorance of some on the divine proclamation. So why (if it is possible to know) do those whose minds are hardened by the devil’s deception reject this knowledge, while those who are superior to the devil’s perversity, who are wise and have good sense, abound in it? Well, let’s say that this passage was recounting the story of some barbarians who were subject to the yoke of slavery, and someone else took pity on those who fell into this condition and released them from the hardship of their circumstances. But then they preferred being under the yoke to being free, and they further considered their misfortune to be inevitable. Tell me, would you blame the one who compassionately set before them the security of freedom? Or would you indict them for their foolishness instead? Along the same lines, the God of the universe has provided for those who want to believe in the Son that they should gaze on his glory with a naked and unveiled face. But [341] those who cling to the devil’s worthless darkness and foolishly refuse to accept the light of the evangelical oracles have strayed far from this grace. “The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,” would have shined on them as well. And he calls Satan the “god of this world,” not because he is God by nature, but because some people think he is—those who do not know the one who is true God by nature. And the following point deserves another round of wonder. Paul speaks of the theologia, and he also clearly articulates the mystery of the oikonomia of the Only Begotten in the flesh.70 Note that he explicitly refers to the apostolic proclamation as “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” Christ is said to be from God because he is his Son by nature. Yet at the time of his anointing he is said to have been anointed with the oil of gladness71 by God the Father, even though he himself is the supplier of the Spirit. Therefore, once the Only Begotten Word of God has come to be in our form and has appeared as a man on the earth, then and only then is he correctly understood to be “Christ” and is called by that name. So the faith that is proclaimed to the world is not faith in one like us, a mere human being among others who also bear the Spirit. No, they proclaim that the Word of God has appeared in human form and that the Only Begotten is the firstborn among many brothers. What else could we understand “the light of the gospel of his glory” to be, [342] except that he is understood to be God and the image of the Father, not in the same way as we are, but essentially and by nature? Now we are surely not claiming that the Father himself, as if by some deficiency, is thought to have come into the flesh. The beauty of his image does not consist in that. Rather, it is fitting to think of it as follows: that the Word was God, and before the flesh he was the imprint and natural likeness of his begetter. Then, when he became like us, he still had the form of the Father, but he also had the humanity that came from his oikonomia. He is considered, then, to be one with his own flesh, and he is the “image” of the Father in this sense: in that he is both God and has been begotten from him by nature.
4:6 Who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
The mystagogue makes it clear in this passage that faith is directed to God, even though it is brought about in the face of Christ. Both the Jews and the Greeks have been called to the knowledge of Christ. The latter are led from error and false worship to the true knowledge of God, while the former are led to a more precise knowledge of the law. For this reason even the divinely inspired Paul is found to place little value on the teachings of the law “because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ.”72 So since the mystagogues proclaim Christ, and those who believe in God believe in the one true God, how could Christ not be God? He is not a bastard or a so-called God, or (more precisely) of a different nature than the Father, but he is true God since he is from him by nature. The erring mind is full of spiritual darkness and demonic deception. But God promised to shine the “light” on us out of darkness. He said somewhere through the voice of Isaiah, “The people sitting in darkness have seen [343] a great light. Those who live in the land and shadow of death—on them the light will shine.”73 And the divinely inspired David adopts the persona of those in gloom and darkness when he says, “It is you who light my lamp, O Lord. My God, you light up my darkness.”74 Since the Father’s promise to us has finally been fulfilled and the divine spiritual light has shone on us, we now know his glory “in the face of Christ.” Now if Christ is not truly God by nature, have we seen the Father’s glory in him? I hear God the Father clearly saying, “My glory will I give to no other.”75 But look, he has given it to the Son! Therefore, he is not another beside him (except insofar as he exists in his own hypostasis) so that the Father may not be exposed as lying when he places his own glory “in the face” of the Son. The fact that the Father is God by nature is made known in and through the Son After all, the Son is his face and image and the radiance of his hypostasis. The Son is revealed by the Father, and the Son in turn reveals the Father to us in himself. [344]
4:7 In clay jars.
He refers to the ordinary style of his language as “clay jars.” That is because the divine mysteries have not been handed down to us in pompous words, but in a style that is accessible to all so that all may learn and understand. What then, Paul? Was it not possible for the God who makes everyone wise to make the holy apostles exceedingly elegant with no trouble at all? Could he not give them far more refinement than they actually have, along with the ability to astonish those they meet with the sound of their words? Of course, Paul says, since God is the one who supplies wisdom. But he enclosed the divine treasure for us “in clay jars,” that is, in a meager outward appearance. Why? “So that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” That is how they persuaded everyone to come to faith. Now if their own language had been dazzling, the faith of the called would in some cases seem not to have been a result of his power. But since they made their case with unadorned words, no one doubts that the “extraordinary power” in this case belongs to God.
Since we live in the world of the senses, we call the bodies that we wear “clay jars,” meaning something like the following: because we are still wearing the flesh that hinders the contemplation of the truth, we have the knowledge of the Trinity—that “extraordinary” knowledge—“not of ourselves,” but it is made known to us by the “power” of God. [345]
4:8-10 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed.
Out of devotion to him, they manifestly endure even death itself. But even if it happens that they suffer this, they live anyway because they are going to be alive to God. As the word of wisdom says, “In the eyes of human beings they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace, and their hope is full of immortality.”76 Paul then explains the meaning of this trouble when he says, “Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.” We maintain that there are two kinds of death meant here. One is noetic and spiritual. The other is experienced by the bodily senses. His Only Begotten Word is God and came from God by nature. But he made the flesh from the ground his own, and he put on this mortal human body, having a rational soul. And what was his motive? He did it to kill sin in the flesh and to blunt the sting of the natural impulses77 in the flesh that carry us off to foreign pleasures. Since the Word is God, it was not for himself that he succeeded at transcending our passions. After all, he knew no sin.78 Rather, he transformed the entirety of human nature in himself into a holy and blameless life when he became a human being and came to be in our form. He has come to have “first place in everything”79 so that by following in his footsteps we too may have his death in ourselves, that is, the neutralization of the power of sin in the flesh. [346] In this way we will also be able to take on blamelessness, resulting in life. One may take this phrase, “the death (and life) of Jesus,” in another way as well. He became obedient to God the Father, as it is written,80 even to the point of death, and he laid down his life for the sheep.81 Furthermore, he “died to sin once for all” (that is, for the sin of the world, since he gave himself as an atonement through faith), “but the life he lives, he lives to God.”82
Now the mystagogues carry around this mortification in their bodies, which happens through suffering and extends even to the point of death, so that the “life of Jesus,” as Paul says, “may be made visible in our bodies.” For they too will live to God. They will live a holy, blameless, and blessed life. The sense of the previous passage proves that in the present passage he is thinking about his own death and life. It contains a description of the trials and sufferings that anyone must undergo who wants to complete the glorious course of an apostle. He confirms this view when he interprets what he said and immediately adds the following:
4:11 For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake . . .
With these words he shows that they would gladly endure the death of the flesh out of devotion to Christ. Their goal is not to look at present realities, but rather to look ahead to the future and to the reward for their [347] labors. They think nothing of the sweat of their struggles. Instead, they exult in the blessings from above because they are focused on the breadth of God’s generosity. That is why they are “given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in mortal flesh.” And what is the “life of Jesus”? Immortality, sanctification, and great glory beyond that of this world. That is how it will seem to us when the judge descends from heaven for us. He will transform “the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.”83 “So death is at work in us, but life in you.”84 You see, the mystagogues of the world beneath the sun have imitated their Lord. They have laid down their lives so that we who once were wandering may obtain that life that comes from faith in Christ. That is why they address our Lord Jesus Christ through the voice of the psalmist and say, “Because of you we are being killed all day long, and accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”85
4:16 Therefore, we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.
It is fitting and not without a touch of elegance to consider the passage at hand in relation to the experience common to just about everyone who undertakes to be godly: “For the flesh is opposed [348] to the Spirit, and the Spirit is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other,” as it is written.86 Now we maintain as an ironclad principle that when the flesh is degraded in some way and its impulses are weakened, that is when the other factor (that is, the mind of the spirit) is at its strongest. He adds the “therefore” as an explanation and a kind of recollection of the reason for the passage at hand. He had said that “while we live, we are being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible”87 in our hearts. He now says that since we have this hope and we exult in the future, “we do not lose heart” as we fix our gaze on the beauty of the coming glory. But if trouble should come, we bear it gallantly. That is because if we suffer as human beings and we endure some harm to our body, we will not be weakened by this. For “our inner nature is being renewed.” It is a common story. When by the labors of asceticism “our outer nature is wasting away,” that is when by necessity “our inner nature is being renewed day by day.”88 You could understand this passage in another way as well. As they proclaimed Jesus to both the Jews and the Greeks, they endured terrible and unbearable persecutions, and their bodies were injured by these tribulations. But the greater the tribulation, the greater and more abundant the reward of grace that would reasonably follow, I am sure. [349]
4:17-18 For this light momentary affliction that is beyond all measure is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.
He strengthens the mind of those who want to be athletes by downplaying the struggles and exalting the crowns that belong to the victors. He does this by using the word “light” to describe the afflictions while using the word “weight” to describe the glory. He refers to the attacks experienced in this life as moderate because they are “momentary,” even if they may be “beyond all measure.” But he says they will result in an “eternal weight of glory,” since the blessings of the coming age are beyond calculation. Therefore, we must not look at the temporary things that are seen but at the eternal things that are not seen.
5:1 For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is destroyed . . .
He refers to the tent (or rather our body) periphrastically as “the earthly house of our tent,” as it is written in Job, “Those who live in houses of clay, of whom we also are formed from the same clay.”89 We know, he says, that when death destroys the “earthly house of our tent” (that is, our body), we will receive not long after (at the time of the resurrection) a habitation from heaven (that is, imperishability). And he says that this imperishability is from above for two reasons: first because it is given by God, and second because all who live in the city above (I mean the ranks of the holy angels) live in imperishable and indestructible bodies. The nature of angels, after all, is far removed from [350] this earthly coarseness. That is why he describes imperishability with the phrases “building from God” and “a house not made with hands” and indeed “eternal.”
5:2 For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.
We “groan” for this reason: weighed down by perishability, we yearn to be clothed with the “heavenly dwelling” from above (that is, imperishability). Now we groan not because we want to get rid of what we are now, but rather because we want to be clothed with imperishability. We pray for the building “not made with hands,” and “if we have put it on, we will not be found naked.” Indeed, it is true that “a perishable body weighs down the soul.”90 And we have made this weighing down by perishability the occasion for our groaning, but we yearn to be clothed with the “heavenly dwelling” from above (that is, imperishability). Finally, what else does “being clothed” mean than that imperishability is surely wrapped around the body that we now have? Therefore, “we groan.”
5:3-4 If we have put it on, we will not be found naked.
When he says “if,” he is not expressing doubt, but he is making it clear and giving solid proof that when we wrap the heavenly dwelling from above around our current tent (that is, our earthly body), we will not be naked. So he uses “if” instead of “when,” so that what he is saying is something like this: when we have put it on, we will not experience the loss of our first body, nor will we be naked of our current body. He makes that clear through what follows. “What is mortal will be swallowed up by [351] life.” It does not disappear or go into complete nonexistence, but it is transformed into imperishability, just as it was created in the beginning. It is written that God took dust from the ground and formed the man.91 In order that what is perishable might be swallowed up by life (since the flesh is perishable by nature), “he breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.”92 But death got between them through sin. Then, as the divinely inspired Paul himself says, it pleased God the Father to “recapitulate all things in Christ.”93 He came to renew us through the Spirit to what we were from the beginning. And he himself is the one who “prepared us for these things” as God and “has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” Therefore, the life-giving Spirit has been put into us by Christ as a kind of reliable pledge of the imperishability that will be given us at the end times of the world—now as firstfruits, but then the resurrection of the dead in full measure. Then—then!—perishability will be totally destroyed and we will go out, as the prophet says, and leap “as young calves released from their halters.”94 Indeed, we will jeer at perishability and say, “Where is your penalty, O Death? Where is your sting, O Hades?”95 For sin and death will be put to an end, and Christ will rule over the saints in imperishability. And in order that what is perishable (that is, the flesh that is perishable by nature) may be “swallowed up by life,” “God breathed into his face the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.”96 [352]
5:5-21 Who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
Those who have the Spirit as a guarantee and who are rich with the hope of the resurrection lay hold of what they look forward to in the future. Grasping it as already present, they say, “So from now on we regard no one according to the flesh,” since we are all spiritual and not subject to fleshly perishability. I think that he uses the word “flesh” in this passage to mean the perishability of the flesh. Since the Only Begotten has shone on us, we have been transformed after the pattern of the Word, who gives life to all things. Just as we were subject to the bonds of death when sin ruled over us, so also when the righteousness in Christ entered, we shook off perishability. Therefore, no one is in the flesh—that is, in the weakness of the flesh—which is what, among other things, perishability is reasonably understood to be. And after he says that he regards “no one according to the flesh,” he suspects that some people have strange ideas, so he adds, “Even if we regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him so no longer.” It is as if he had chosen to say, “The Word became flesh and lived in us,”97 and he submitted to death according to the flesh for the life of [353] all, and that is how we once regarded him. But from now on, “we regard him so no longer.” Even though he is in the flesh, he came back to life on the third day and is with the Father in heaven. Therefore, we understand him to be above the flesh. Since he died once, “he will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.”98 So if the captain of our life is in this condition, then we too, following in his footsteps, must surely be considered to be not in the flesh, but above the flesh. So the divinely inspired Paul is quite right when he says, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old has passed away; see, the new has come!” “Old” refers to the statement, “Earth you are and to earth you will return.”99 It also refers to the statement in the book of Moses, “The human imagination is intently bent on evil from youth.”100 In addition, “old” refers to the contents of the law. He says that all of that has passed away since we have been justified by faith in Christ, and the power of the curse has been put to an end. He who trampled the power of death came back to life for us, and we know him as true God by nature. We worship him in spirit and in truth, as the Son serves as a mediator and gives to the world the blessing101 from above and from God the Father. Because of this, you see, the divinely inspired Paul quite wisely says, “All this if from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.” After all, the mystery of the oikonomia in the flesh and the renewal that came through it surely did not take place apart from the will of the Father. The mystagogue then adds to this that the Father reconciled us to himself “through Christ.” The Greeks were at war with him through the error of [354] polytheism, and the Jews through their desire to latch on to the shadows of the law and their refusal to allow the true form of worship. For through him we have access,102 and “no one comes to the Father,” as he himself says, “except through me.”103 Therefore, “all this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”
Next let us observe that when Christ gave them the ministry of reconciliation (since they were appointed by him to their apostolic office), it says that the one who gave this ministry is “God.” For this reason, they proclaim him to be God and equal in glory with the Father, knowing that one lordship and authority belongs to both. So what sort of ministry is it? What is its definition? What is the manner of the reconciliation? He adds this information when he says, “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself”—that is, God was the one who was reconciling the world to himself in Christ. By faith in Christ, he says, we have peace with God, or are reconciled. And the forgiveness of our transgressions, which God the Father grants to us, is the clear proof of this. The Son reaches out with authority as God and says to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven.”104 Therefore, in Christ (that is, in the prosopon of Christ), God “reconciles the world to himself, not counting [355] their trespasses against” the sinners. And since we have been ordained to the priesthood of the gospel message, he says, and the “message of reconciliation” has been given to us (since we are ministers of God), we must pray for those who believe; and to those who want to fall away, we must adopt the prosopon105 of Christ himself, as it were, and say, “We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” by believing in him, namely, the one for whom we are “ambassadors.” After all, Christ is the “gate” and he is the “way.”106
Now it was likely that some would disregard the gospel proclamation and place no value on the truly acceptable time of salvation107 and finally reject the faith. So the mystagogue devises something else for them that has the power to convert them and easily persuade them not to fall into indifference but rather to lay hold of the life in Christ. He says of God the Father, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” It is as if he were to say, “He arranged that he who has never sinned should suffer the punishment of the worst sinners so that he may render us righteous who have received faith in him.” That is why he “endured the cross, disregarding its shame.”108 The one who was worth as much as all died for all. Now when he is said to have become “sin,” you should not suppose that he has committed sin. After all, the Word is God; he does not know how to sin. Rather, you should understand it to mean that he has been given by God the Father for our sins. In fact, the animals slaughtered for sin in accordance with the law of Moses are referred to as “sin” in just the same way. For example, it is written in the prophets concerning those [356] ordained as priests, “They will feed on the sin of my people; they will set their hearts on their iniquities.”109 That is because the ministers in charge of the divine altars ate the sacrifices for sin in accordance with the law. Therefore, this wise thought has great power to convert those who want to neglect the faith: he who knew no sin was condemned and suspended from a cross with sinners for us so that “we might become the righteousness of God.” For we have been justified by God the Father “not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to the greatness of his mercy”110 through faith in Christ.
10:1 I myself, Paul, appeal to you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ . . .
There were many Athenian wise men living among the Corinthians who considered the Savior’s cross to be foolishness111 and had the same opinion of the one who announced the message of the divinely inspired Scriptures. They called the blessed Paul himself a vagabond and a babbler,112 together with the other saints. Others, of the circumcision party, were implanted among the believers. They praised circumcision and the sacrifices of the law, and they claimed that the blessed Paul abandoned them, thinking that he chose to make unholy war against the ancient oracles. So those in Corinth who were zealous for the faith were quite understandably stirred up against these people, and they wanted to lay hands on them as enemies of the divine proclamation. But this state of affairs was quite ugly and far removed from the gentleness that is fitting for the saints. “For the Lord’s servant must not fight,” as it is written, “but be kindly [357] to everyone, correcting opponents with gentleness.”113 Therefore, he commands them, saying, “I myself, Paul,” a priest of the divine mysteries, a steward and apostle, one you should emulate, one who urges you to say with me, “For to me living is Christ and dying is gain”114—“I appeal to you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ,” “who when he was abused did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.”115 He takes the opportunity to remind them of Christ’s life to make them meek and gentle. “I myself, Paul,” he says, am “humble when face-to-face with you,” neither exultant nor eager for strife and contention. I am “bold when I am away,” but I ask that now “when I am present I need not show boldness.”116 And I ask that your attitude be the same and that you take no audacious actions against those who think that we “walk according to the flesh,”117 (that is, that we are living carnally in quarreling and jealousy). “For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you,” he says, “are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations?”118 It is fitting, therefore, that those who want to follow the Savior’s gentleness and who do not want to live carnally should be beyond the suspicion of these people. After all, if some do not believe, we should not subdue them by striking them with clubs, but we should wait for their willing conversion to God.119
10:3-6 Indeed, we live in the flesh, but we do not wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but they have divine power.
Now those who know how to prove themselves in battle and counter those who make war against them in the flesh would quite reasonably possess a full complement of fleshly armor. They would have helmets and breastplates, shields and swords, and equipment that would enable them to conquer. But for us, our battle and our mode of warfare require spiritual armor. [358] Indeed, the divinely inspired Paul puts it very well. He says that those who consider themselves soldiers in Christ must be adorned with this sort of magnificent equipment. They put on righteousness as their breastplate120 along with the helmet of salvation “and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”121 In addition to this, they take up the “shield of faith,” by which all the fiery arrows of the evil one are extinguished.122 Therefore, the weapons of the saints are not fleshly, but spiritual. They have “divine power,” and they are capable of “destroying strongholds” (by which I mean the teachings of the Greeks and the heretics) and of showing their arguments to be unsound, utterly crude, and ignorantly constructed. And so we will put down such arguments “and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God.” And we will take every thought prisoner “to obey Christ.” That means we will tear down every proud thought of the godless that is raised up against God, and we will glorify him with appropriate language without imagining anything ignoble about him. We will also help the rest by escorting them on a correct and unerring road for their thoughts so that we may “punish every disobedience” once our own obedience is complete. After all, the one who will be “great in the kingdom of heaven”123 is not the one who teaches only, but the one who chooses to supplement the lesson with the boast of good works.124
13:3-4 Since you desire proof. . . . For we are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live in him by the power of God.
He threatens those who previously sinned in Corinth that unless they choose to do what is right and to live a holy life, he will not spare them “again.”125 The word “again” calls to mind the trouble he already had with them. Because he wants to give a stern rebuke to the sinners, his language will be vehement as he attempts to persuade them from [359] what has already taken place as well as from what is expected to take place in the future. So he says, “Since you desire proof that Christ is speaking in me.” You are probably expecting, he is saying, to see in what follows whether Christ is speaking in me and whether he finally engages in rebuke. But do not think, as some arrogant unbelievers now suppose, that he is weak. No, “he is powerful in you” (that is, in believers and those subject to him to whom he gives the care that they need), and he converts sinners. “He is powerful in you.” That means that he acts as God and he shows the words of the saints to be true. And you will find my message to be powerful in every way, since I am not the one speaking, but Christ is speaking in me. When he mentions those who are so utterly silly as to imagine that Christ is actually weak because he underwent the cross and endured the insensibility (or rather godlessness) of the Jews, he gives a useful answer. At just the right time, he brings up the power of the mystery and recounts the voluntary emptying of the Only Begotten along with the incomparable supremacy of his glory that comes after it. [Yes, he admits, as those who are far from the faith think, “he was crucified in weakness,” he suffered as a human being, and he willingly endured death in the flesh. But we must also know that in addition to that, once he had despoiled Hades and trampled on the power of death, he came back to life on the third day, not using human power, [360] but ineffable divine power. After all, the power to do all these things could belong only to God. The result was that he destroyed the power of death itself, and though his body was overcome by death, he crowned that body with the grace of imperishability. So he did willingly endure a brief weakness, at least according to the nature of the flesh. For example, he is said to hunger and thirst and grow weary and indeed die according to the oikonomia. However, he “lives by the power of God.” And he did not receive the power to do all things from someone else, but he had it on his own and it was in him essentially. For he who suffered in the flesh for us is God by nature.
And because of this he said to the assembly of the Jews (since he did not refuse the weakness of the flesh that he took on, and he did not depart from the supreme power of his nature): “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”126 And if Saint Paul is telling the truth that he heard God say, “My power is made perfect in weakness,”127 how is it not be correct to say that in the first place Emmanuel was weak in the flesh and strong as God?128
Therefore, if they are offended by the cross, let them marvel at the resurrection.]129 Since he is said to “live by the power of God,” you should just as surely understand the Son himself to be the power of God.
[361] [We must say of him not only that he completely died, but also that he was wrapped in cloth, an act that decisively attests to the death of Emmanuel. Moreover, he was left in the grave, from which he came back to life, as I just said. Therefore, since he died in the body, he has completely convinced us that he has a body. And then, when the Word of God trampled on death, he proved that he is truly God by nature. Just as he acted in a human way when he endured death, so also he operated in a divine way when he conquered death.]130