Who, then—who could fully recount the Father, so as to discover the powers of this Word? For just as He is the Father’s Word and Wisdom, so, in condescending to created things, He becomes for their knowledge and understanding of the One who begot Him Sanctification itself and Life itself, the Door and the Shepherd and the Way, King and Ruler, Savior over all, Life-giver and Light, and providence over all things.
Having from Himself such a good Son and Creator, the Father did not hide Him away, unseen by created things. Rather, day by day He reveals Him to all through the ordering and life of all things that exist through Him. And in Him and through Him the Father also manifests Himself, as the Savior says: “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” Thus the Word must necessarily be in the One who begot Him, and the One begotten must continue eternally with the Father.
This being so, and since nothing lies outside Him—heaven and earth and everything in them all depend on Him—foolish people have nevertheless pushed aside the knowledge of Him and reverence for Him. They have honored things that do not exist before things that do, and instead of the God who truly exists they have deified things that do not exist, “serving the creation rather than the Creator,” and in this they suffer something senseless and impious.
It is as if someone were to admire the works more than the craftsman, or, struck with amazement at the works in a city, to trample on the one who made them; or as if someone praised a musical instrument but cast aside the one who made and tuned it. Foolish people, greatly blinded in their sight! For how else would they have known a building or a ship or a lyre, if the shipbuilder had not made the ship, the architect had not built the building, and the musician had not put the lyre together?
Just as anyone who reasons in this way is mad and beyond all madness, so those who do not recognize God and do not worship His Word, the Savior of all, our Lord Jesus Christ, do not seem to me sound in mind. Through Him the Father orders and holds all things together and exercises providence over the whole.
Since you have faith in Him and reverence for God, Christ-loving friend, rejoice and be full of hope, because the fruit of faith and piety toward Him is immortality and the kingdom of heaven, provided only that the soul is adorned according to His laws. For just as eternal life is the prize for those who conduct their lives according to Him, so for those who travel the opposite path rather than the path of virtue there is great shame and a danger for which there is no pardon on the day of judgment, because, although they knew the way of truth, they acted contrary to what they knew.
Who, then—who could fully recount the Father, so as to discover the powers of this Word? For just as He is the Father’s Word and Wisdom, so, in condescending to created things, He becomes for their knowledge and understanding of the One who begot Him Sanctification itself and Life itself, the Door and the Shepherd and the Way, King and Ruler, Savior over all, Life-giver and Light, and providence over all things.
Having from Himself such a good Son and Creator, the Father did not hide Him away, unseen by created things. Rather, day by day He reveals Him to all through the ordering and life of all things that exist through Him.
And in Him and through Him the Father also manifests Himself, as the Savior says: “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.” Thus the Word must necessarily be in the One who begot Him, and the One begotten must continue eternally with the Father.
This being so, and since nothing lies outside Him—heaven and earth and everything in them all depend on Him—foolish people have nevertheless pushed aside the knowledge of Him and reverence for Him. They have honored things that do not exist before things that do, and instead of the God who truly exists they have deified things that do not exist, “serving the creation rather than the Creator,” and in this they suffer something senseless and impious.
It is as if someone were to admire the works more than the craftsman, or, struck with amazement at the works in a city, to trample on the one who made them; or as if someone praised a musical instrument but cast aside the one who made and tuned it. Foolish people, greatly blinded in their sight! For how else would they have known a building or a ship or a lyre, if the shipbuilder had not made the ship, the architect had not built the building, and the musician had not put the lyre together?
Just as anyone who reasons in this way is mad and beyond all madness, so those who do not recognize God and do not worship His Word, the Savior of all, our Lord Jesus Christ, do not seem to me sound in mind. Through Him the Father orders and holds all things together and exercises providence over the whole.
Since you have faith in Him and reverence for God, Christ-loving friend, rejoice and be full of hope, because the fruit of faith and piety toward Him is immortality and the kingdom of heaven, provided only that the soul is adorned according to His laws. For just as eternal life is the prize for those who conduct their lives according to Him, so for those who travel the opposite path rather than the path of virtue there is great shame and a danger for which there is no pardon on the day of judgment, because, although they knew the way of truth, they acted contrary to what they knew.