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Holy Catechism

Nikolaos Voulgaris, tr. Daniel, 1893

Of the Incarnation of God

58. Ex. Upon this you have gratified us enough. Tell us now some few things about the unspeakable birth of the Son of God.

C. The Birth of the Son of God appears so clearly in Scripture, that the wretched Jews are certainly blind who still doubt about this mystery, and will not believe it. Therefore it reproves them vehemently, describing them as more unreasonable and senseless than asses and oxen. “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel doth not know Me;” so Isaiah prefaces about them, i. 3.

And concerning the timeless generation of Christ, the Prophet says in the second Psalm, “Thou art My Son, to-day have I begotten Thee.” To-day means the timeless and eternal condition of the Birth, because in the Godhead even what is future is altogether present and to-day, since God is altogether activity (“and activity removed from all activity” is the teaching of Cyril of Alexandria, in his book on the One God), and in Him the arithmetic of motion has no place for priority and posteriority. And in the 72nd Psalm, “His Name abideth before the sun,” he is clearly speaking throughout the psalm of the Son. And in Ps. cx. 1, “The Lord said to my Lord.” So here are two persons. And in v. 3, “From the belly before the dawn I begat Thee.” And in Proverbs viii. 22—25, “The Lord made Me the beginning of His ways for His works; before the age He founded Me; in the beginning, before He made the earth, and before He made the depths, before the fountains of waters issued, before the mountains were fixed, and before all the hills He begets Me.” So Wisdom discourses, that is the Son.

But concerning the birth in time, Scripture is no less clear. And first concerning His holy and seedless conception of the Virgin, we have Isaiah saying, ch. vii. 14, “Behold, the Virgin shall be with child;”¹ of His holy and stainless birth, we have the same, ch. ix. 6, “A Child was born to us; Whose sovereignty was upon His shoulder; God the mighty Ruler, the Father of the age to come.” And we have Baruch, ch. iii. 35, 37: “This is our God, none other shall be accounted of in comparison of Him. He was seen upon the earth, and conversed with men.” Actually combining at once the generation in time and the timeless generation, the same Isaiah said, xlviii. 16, “Have I not spoken in secret from the beginning? when it was, there was I (here is the timeless generation), and now the Lord and His Spirit hath sent Me” (here is the generation in time). And in ch. liii. 8, he could not stay from wondering at both one generation and the other. “His generation who shall declare?” since He was motherless in the timeless generation, fatherless in that in time.

59. Ex. Tell us further each several Prophecy of all Christ suffered and did according to the dispensation, whatever was here in the world.

C. Everything is clearly prophesied in Holy Scripture; and there is not one iota or tittle, which the Holy Ghost did not foretell. And first that He should be born in Bethlehem, appears in Micah v. 2: “And thou, Bethlehem, house of Ephratha, art thou of least account to be among the thousands of Juda? out of thee shall He come forth to Me to be the ruler of Israel; and His goings forth are from the beginning, from days of eternity.”

That the Wise Men should come from the East to worship Him, appears in the 82nd Psalm of David: “Kings of the Arabs and Saba shall bring gifts, and shall worship Him;” and in Isaiah lx. 6: “From Saba shall they come, bearing gold, and shall bring frankincense, and precious stone, and shall bring good tidings of the salvation of the Lord.”

The star which led the Magi to worship, this we have in Numb. xxiv. 17: “There shall rise a star out of Jacob, and there shall stand up a man out of Israel, and shall crush the princes of Moab, and spoil the sons of Seth, and have dominion over many nations.”

The slaughter of the children by Herod was bewept by Jeremiah, in ch. xxxi. 15. “A voice was heard in Rhama of lamentation and weeping and wailing, Rachel weeping over her sons.”²

The Preaching of the Forerunner we see in Isaiah xl. 3. “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God.”

The Temptation with which the devil tempted Christ we have in Zechariah iii. 1. “I saw Jesus the high priest standing; and the devil stood at his right hand to oppose him.”

The Preaching of Christ we have in Isaiah lxi. 1. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, for which cause He anointed Me; He hath sent Me to preach good tidings to the poor, to heal those that are broken in heart, to proclaim freedom to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to publish the acceptable year of the Lord.”

The wonders of Christ we have in Isaiah xxxv. 4, 5, 6. “So our God Himself shall come and save us; then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf hear; then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of stammerers shall be plain.”

The unbelief of the Hebrews appears in Isaiah vi. 10. “For the heart of this people waxed gross, and with their ears they heard dully, and their eyes they closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and convert.”

How, of His own disciples, one shall betray Him, this we have in the 41st Psalm of David. “He that eateth My bread, enlarged against Me his supplanting treachery.”

How He was to be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, appears in Zechariah xi. 12. “And they weighed for My wages thirty pieces of silver.”

The accusation of the false witnesses appears in Psalm xxvii. 12. “Unjust witnesses did rise up against Me, they questioned Me of what I knew not.” (Ps. xxxv. 11.)

The mocking of the Hebrews is in Jeremiah. “I became a mock unto this people.”³

Esdras foresaw the bonds. “Ye bound Me not as your Father that delivered you out of the land of Egypt.”⁴

The crown of thorns the same Jeremiah foresaw. “With thorns of their faults, this people hedged Me in.”⁵

How Christ should be dishonourably put to death, appears in Wisdom of Solomon ii. 19. “With despitefulness and torture let us examine Him, that we may know His gentleness, and prove His patience; let us condemn Him with a shameful death.”

How His death should take place aloft upon a cross, appears in the 22nd Psalm, 16. “They pierced My hands and My feet, they counted all My bones.”

With what injustice is seen in Isaiah liii. 9. “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.”

How Christ should have vinegar to drink, and gall, appears in Psalm lxix. 21. “They gave Me gall for My food, and for My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.”

How they should divide His garments, even casting lots, in Ps. xxii. 18. “They parted My raiment among themselves, and upon My vesture did they cast the lot.”

How He should be buried, in Psalm lxxxviii. 6. “They cast Me in the lowest pit, in dark places, and in the shadow of death.”

How He should rise again, appears in Ps. xvi. 10. “Thou wilt not leave My soul in Hades, neither wilt Thou give Thy holy one to see corruption.”

How that should be in three days, in Hosea vi. 3. “He will give us health after two days, on the third day we shall rise again.”

How He should crush the bonds of Hades, in Isaiah xlv. 2. “I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and crush the iron bars, and open to thee hidden treasures of darkness.”

How He should raise also the patriarchs, Jeremiah writes, “At His burying the dead shall be quickened.”⁶

How He should be taken up into heaven, this we have in Psalm lxviii. 17. “The Lord is among them on Sinai in the holy place; Thou wentest up on high.” “And His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem.” (Zech. xiv. 4.)

How in heaven He should sit on the right hand of God and the Father, in Ps. cx. 1. “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit on My right hand.”

How He should send forth the Holy Ghost, in Joel ii. 28. “And it shall be thereafter, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh, and they shall prophesy.”

How He should give another covenant, and not like that one which He gave to the Hebrews, appears in Jeremiah xxxi. (LXX. xxxviii.) 31. “Behold, days come, saith the Lord, and I will make with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant; not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I laid hold of their hand to bring them forth out of the land of Egypt.”

Likewise the time at which Christ should come into the world, was prophesied in Daniel ix. 24. “Seventy weeks were cut short over Thy people, and over the holy city, for sin to be finished, and to seal sins, and to wipe off transgressions, and to atone for iniquities, and to bring eternal righteousness, and to seal the vision and the Prophet, and to anoint the Holy of Holies,” Christ Himself, namely, even Messiah. About the counting of which weeks, Basil Seleucias discourses wonderfully.

How the Priesthood of the Hebrews and the Sacrifice should be abolished with utter desolation appears in the same chapter, ver. 27. “And at the half of the week shall My sacrifice and libation be taken away, and over the temple shall be abomination of desolations until the conclusion of the time.” And in Malachi i. 10. “Behold, among you the doors shall be shut, and ye shall not kindle My altar for nought.”

How at the coming of Christ the sovereignty of the Hebrews should be overwhelmed, appears in Gen. xlix. 10. “A ruler shall not fail from Judah, nor a governor from his thighs, until He shall come, for Whom it is reserved, and He is the expectation of the Gentiles.”

How the Gentiles should believe Him, in Isa. Iv. 4. “Lo, I have placed Him as a testimony among the nations, a ruler, and a commander of nations. Lo, nations which know Thee not shall call on Thee, and peoples which are not acquainted with Thee shall flee to Thee for refuge.”

The very banishment of idols appears in Zech. xiii. 2. “And it shall be in that day, saith the Lord of Sabaoth, I will destroy the names of the idols from the land, and there shall no more be remembrance of them.”

And finally the preaching of His holy Disciples and Apostles, we have this too in David, Ps. xix. 3. “Into all the earth their sound went forth.” And in Isa. lii. 7, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things.” And in Ps. lxviii. 11, “The Lord will give the word to those who bring good tidings in great power.”

Power which the mind of man can certainly never conceive, power beyond man, power of none other than God. “For not by movements of armies,” (thus the golden-tongued and golden-hearted Interpreter shows the mighty thought of the psalm,) “not by spending money, neither by strength of body, nor size of camps, nor any other such means were they conquerors; but by mere speech, speech fraught with large power; for it was an unspeakably mighty work, that the fisherman, and the publican, and the tentmaker by mere injunctions should raise the dead, expel demons, remove death, bridle the tongue of philosophers, close the mouth of orators, overcome kings and rulers, conquer barbarians and Greeks of every sort; for everywhere through the world they proclaimed the Word with authority.”

Peter at Antioch and at Rome; at Constantinople Andrew as far as Scythia, and all Epirus; John in Asia; in Æthiopia Matthew; James, son of Alpheus, in Jerusalem; he who succeeded the Lord’s Brother also at Cæsarea. (James the son of Zebedee received the crown of martyrdom before the Apostles were scattered through the world, so we find in Acts xii. 1.) Thomas among the Parthians and among the Persians as far as India; in the interior parts of Asia, Philip; in Armenia, Bartholomew; Simon Zelotes in Mesopotamia and Persia; in Arabia and Idumea, Jude; in Judæa and in Æthiopia, Matthias; the great Paul laboured more abundantly than they all. 1 Cor. xv. 10.

Cedrenus allegorizes the twelve fountains of water which the Israelites found at Elim, Ex. xv. 27, and the 70 stems of palm trees as being types of the holy Disciples of Christ. “The twelve fountains types of the twelve princes, and the 70 palm trees of their disciples together with whom they enlightened the world and poured out in showers the sweet and firm food of the knowledge of God.”⁷

In Jerusalem, James the Lord’s brother, surnamed Justus;⁸ Timothy in Ephesus, and in Greece as far as Illyricum; Titus in Crete, and in the neighbouring islands of the Ægean; Barnabas at Milan and elsewhere as the blessed Paul’s helper; in Damascus, Ananias; Stephen, the first Martyr, in Jerusalem; Philip, Stephen’s fellow deacon, in Asia; Nicanor, also one of the seven Deacons, at Jerusalem; Prochorus, also one of the seven, in Bithynia; Timon, also one of the seven, in Arabia; Nicolaus, one of the seven, in Sapria. This last fell away with Simon Magus. Parmenas, also one of the seven Deacons, expired in ministering to the holy Disciples and Apostles of Christ; Cleopas in Jerusalem, where he was also appointed bishop; Silas at Corinth; Silvanus at Thessalonica; Crescens at Chalcedon⁹ in Gaul; Epænetus at Carthage in Africa; in Pæonia or Hungary Andronicus; Amplias at Odessus in Bulgaria; in Macedonia Urban; Stachys at Argyropolis in Thrace; Apelles at Smyrna; Aristobulus in Britain; Narcissus at Patræ, also Herodion; Rufus at Thebes; Asyncritus in Hyrcania; Phlegon at Marathon in Attica; Hermes in Dalmatia; at Philippi in Thessaly Hermas; Patrobas at Neapolis; Agabus in Judæa; Linus in Old Rome; Caius at Ephesus; Philologus at Sinope; Olympas and Rhodion in Rome; Jason of Tarsus and Sosipater of Iconium in Corcyra; at Laodicea in Syria Lycius; Tertius after Sosipater at Iconium; Erastus in Jerusalem and at Paneas; Phygellus at Ephesus, he too fell away with Simon, like Nicolaus; Hermogenes at Megara in Achaia, 2 Tim. i. 15. The same befell Demas too, “having loved the present world,” 2 Tim. iv. 10. Quartus at Berytis in the Troad; at Cæsarea Apollos; Cephas at Cania; Sosthenes at Colophon; at Adriana Epaphroditus; at Dyrrachium Caesar; Mark at Apollonias; Joseph, surnamed Justus, at Eleutheropolis; Artemas at Lystra; Clement at Sardica, he was the first who of the Gentiles became a Christian;¹⁰ at Coronea Onesiphorus; at Chalcedon in Bithynia Tychicus; Carpus at Berœa; Evodus at Antioch; Philemon at Gaza; at Diospolis Zenas; Aquila at Heraclea; Prisca at Colophon in Ionia; Junias¹¹ at Apamea in Syria; Mark, surnamed John, at Byblus in Phœnicia; Mark the Evangelist at Alexandria; Luke, fellow labourer with the Apostles, at various places; Candace’s Eunuch in Arabia and all the Red Sea country; Pudens, Trophimus, and Aristarchus, in all things partners with Paul, were beheaded with him by Nero. See Dorotheus of Tyre in his Synopsis of the Preaching of the Apostles and Prophets, which he bequeathed to us from the times of Constantine the Great,

60. Ex. You have given quite a lengthy account. But why are not the Hebrews convinced? and why do they not declare at once their belief in the Son of God and the true Messiah?

C. We said, in the words of Isaiah, “The heart of this people grew thick, and they heard dully with their ears.” They are confounded when they see many places of Holy Scripture saying that with the coming of Messiah Israel is to rejoice, to be set free from bondage, the temple to be founded anew, and Christ to come with great glory, not in poverty and humiliation. Forasmuch as on the first point God Himself answers them. “I will call what was not My people,” He says, by the mouth of Hosea, ch. i. 10, “My people, and her that was not beloved, beloved; and it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ye are not My people, there shall they be called sons of the living God.” This is the Spiritual Israel which was glad at the coming of the true Messiah, and therefore the Holy Spirit predicted the joy, not for the Jewish Israel which is after the flesh. “For they are not all Israel which are of Israel; neither because they are Abraham’s seed, are they all children.” Rom. ix. 7.

Secondly, Isaiah answers them, that the freedom of Israel was not to be worldly, but quite spiritual. “But He was wounded for our sins, and by His stripes were we healed.” So ch. liii. 5; and David, Ps. lxxii. 14. “From usury and from injustice He shall redeem their souls.”

Thirdly, Haggai answers them, who, ch. ii. 9, says, “The last glory of this house shall be greater than the first glory,” adding at once that this latter Temple will be filled not with Hebrews, but with Gentiles, which are the Christians. “I will shake the heaven and the earth, and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake together all the nations, and the chosen things of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord Almighty.” This clearly is the holy Church of Christ, which likewise John saw in the spirit, Rev. xx. The temple of the Hebrews cannot any more be renewed to the end of the world. “And over the holy place shall be abomination of desolations until the close of the time,” as we saw in Dan. ix. 27.

Fourthly, Zechariah answers them, where he describes, ch. ix. 9, the coming of Messiah as mean and lowly. “Rejoice greatly, daughter of Sion, publish, O daughter of Jerusalem; lo, thy King cometh to thee, just and having salvation, Himself meek and mounted on an ass and a young foal,” and so on.

The glorified coming of Messiah shall take place at the end of the world, when He shall come to judge the world; respecting Whom the loud-voiced Isaiah says, ch. lxvi. 15, 16, “Behold, the Lord shall come, and His chariots be like a storm; to render vengeance in wrath, and His rejection in a flame of fire; for with the fire of the Lord shall all the earth be judged, and all flesh with His sword.”

Howbeit this race being naturally “intractable and misled in piety,” as it is described by the wise Synesius in his first Epistle, resting confidently in the letter, and avoiding the spirit, they have continually the shadow with them, not the light of Scripture and of grace; and this Christ said about His holy disciples themselves: “Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away, till all these things have come to pass.” Matt. xxiv. 34.¹²

61. Ex. What do you mean by letter, and what by spirit?

C. The letter is when Holy Scripture narrates without metaphors and figures of speech, which it contains in great number and of different sorts, and without which it was not possible for it to have the virtue of so many and such various meanings as it often conceals beneath the letter. Those figures of speech are said even to be the spirit of Holy Scripture; and according to the interpretation of the sacred Theologians of the Holy Church of Christ, they are of three kinds, Anagogic, Allegoric, and Tropical.

The anagogic sense or figure is that which leads up or exalts the mind of man from things earthly and sensual to the mystical and heavenly. So for instance the wonder which we have in the loth chapter of Joshua son of Nave. “And the Sun stood still, and the Moon was in station while God drove back their enemies.” By the anagogic method S. Augustine interprets it thus. By the Gibeonites are signified those under punishment; by the Sun, is signified the Godhead; by the Moon, the humanity of the blessed. As therefore the Gibeonites were then destroyed, so will those who are punished in the other life be tormented eternally and be put to death. And as then the Sun stood still and the Moon, so in the other life will the Blessed be in heaven, unchangeably united with God.

The allegorical sense is that which says one thing and means another, different from what the letter signifies. So S. Irenæus interpreting allegorically this very wonder of the son of Nave, which we spoke of, says that it is not possible (what he says is addressed to believers) for one to overturn the unseen enemies, of which the Gibeonites are a type, unless one has firm and unmoveable the hope for the heavenly light-shedding of the Sun and of the Moon, the patronage namely and help of Jesus Christ and the ever pure Mary.

The tropical intention is that which is concerned with the correction of character and morals. According to this, another Father, interpreting the same wonder of Joshua son of Nave, writes that the Gibeonites represent our evil deeds; the Sun and the Moon represent the beauties of the world and of fortune. So the tropical intention of the sense is that man cannot overturn evil deeds and sin, unless he limit and exercise authority over the goods which he possesses, without being ruled by them.

And in Genesis, ch. i., the Light which God made: this the doctors explain how it traversed like a bright cloud both one hemisphere and the other, and so produced that wonderful night-day upon the first and second and third days of Creation; although according to the letter the light itself was what God afterwards collected on the fourth day into this gigantic circle of the Sun.

Anagogically, however, it is explained as that light of glory, which God richly imparted to the blessed Angels, whom, according to the opinion of the great luminary of the Church, Gregory the Theologian, in his Divine Manifestations of the Saviour, God made previously to the visible world: and how, standing steadfast, abiding from the beginning in subjection to Him and impervertible, they are called Day and Light. Night, on the contrary, and Darkness, is the name given to the boastful and insubordinate spirits which Divine Justice cast for ever into the abyss. And this is the anagogic meaning of: “And God divided between the light and the darkness.”

Tropically: Light is the grace of God which enlighteneth the inward man; darkness is sin which obscures our conscience, in reference to which the Apostle, Eph. v. 8, says, “For ye were once darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord.” And God divided between the light and the darkness. “For what share hath righteousness with lawlessness? and what communion hath light with darkness?” 2 Cor. vi. 14.

Allegorically: A threefold law, as a threefold light, God created from the foundation of the world according to the Trinity of His Persons. First, the Physical Law, about which John writes, ch. i. 5, “And the light shineth in the darkness,” since even in those days of polytheism and darkness, the light itself of the physical law, if only in a few people, was never absent through 2,454 years¹³ from Adam, that is, to Moses. Secondly, the written law, which was from Moses to Christ; this was the light which for 1,539 years¹⁴ enlightened Judæa, according to Cedrenus’s chronology, and a light of such sort that at once on Moses’ receiving the written law, the Scripture says, “The appearance of the skin of his face was glorified,” Ex. xxxiv. 29. And to all the children of Israel “there was light; darkness and mist over all the land of Egypt,” Ex. x. 22. Thirdly, the law of grace, which lasts to the end of the age, Matt. xxviii. 20, by which “the people which sat in darkness saw a great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death a light sprang up,” Matt. iv. 16. “And God divided between the light and the darkness,” forasmuch as “whom He foreknew from the foundation of the world, them He foreordained: and whom He foreordained, them He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified,” Rom. viii. 29, 30, the doers of the law namely, Rom. ii. 13. “And He will set the sheep on His right hand. Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Behold the true light. “But the kids on the left, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil.” Behold the darkness. “And God called the light day;” behold the glory of the righteous! “and the darkness He called night;” behold the unceasing calamity of sinners!

So also the waters which are above the heavens, which we see in Scripture would be good according to the letter, these are none other than the crystal heaven, which God made as a firmament like crystal and frozen water above all the heavens (like an egg-shell according to many interpreters) and these too have a tropical, anagogic and allegorical meaning. I said, God made a firmament, since as well the crystal heaven as the fiery heaven, as being the seat of the Blessed, stands ever unmoved and firm, whereas all the rest are in perpetual motion. And the movement which we see the Moon effect from west to east in one month, Mercury, Venus and the Sun in one year, Mars in two years, Jupiter in twelve years, Saturn in 36, the starry heaven in 36 thousand years, so as in one hundred years only to move one degree, which is equal to one 360th part of the Zodiac—that movement the Primum Mobile completes from east to west, and with itself takes in the space of twenty-four hours the whole system of the spheres.

Tropically: Holy Scripture often regards the People as waters. “We must needs die, like water spilled upon the ground,” we read, 2 Sam. xiv. 14. And some waters are called heavenly waters and above the heavens, all that is who continually engage themselves in divine things, about whom the Apostle says, Phil. iii. 20, “our citizenship is in heaven.” Other waters are beneath the heavens, all who are devoted to earthly and corruptible things, like Martha, Luke x. 42, whom even Christ rebuked in this particular. “But Mary chose the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

Allegorically: The firmament is Christ standing at the hour of Judgment in the midst of the waters, that is between the sinners and the righteous. And He is called the firmament because then He will be altogether firm and not to be turned aside. “He shall not spare in the day of judgment,” says the Scripture, Prov. vi. 34, at which time He will separate the waters from the waters. “And He shall separate them as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats,” Matt. XXV. 32.

Anagogically: The firmament in the midst of the waters dividing the water under the firmament from the water above the firmament is the difference of estimation and of situation which will be in the other world between the foreordained and the reprobate: which will be such as that no one can overstep it. And this is that great gulf which Abraham, in the parable, spoke of to the rich man in his pain in the hour of punishment. “And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they who wish to pass from hence to you may not be able, and that those who would pass from thence to us may not cross over,” Luke xvi. 26.

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