4. From Hermes and the Sibyl against the Pagans.

What do you say, pagan? You claim, if God delighted in a son, He needed a marriage; if He shunned marriage, He is alone without a son. For what could be found similar to God, that could be joined to God and bear a son to God? Then, if, as you say, God has a son, you no longer worship one God. What do we do? We have received a weapon thrown by a foreigner; what shall we return? Whatever weapon we send, even if it reaches him, it is of no use. Why? Because he is hard. How hard is he? He is like stone: he worships idols; and it is written, Let them become like them, all who make them, and all who trust in them ¹, not the presumption of a man trusting in his own strength. Against this Jew, however, I do not struggle: his own scriptures fight against him, the Law and the Prophets fight against him: and either he will be saved, conquered and humbled, or he will be punished, proud and stubborn. The Lord said to Moses: Behold, I send my angel before you, to guard you on the way, and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Observe him, and listen to his voice, and do not think him to be despised. You have heard the angel, recognize the Lord: do not think him to be despised. Hear further what you should fear: Do not, he says, think him to be despised. Why? Because he will not forgive when you sin, and my name is in him ². Who is he so great, to whom God has given both His power and His name? The Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory ³. And how do we prove that when an angel is mentioned, God should be understood? You have it in the book called Genesis: Two angels came to Sodom in the evening, while Lot was sitting at the city gate: when he saw them, he rose and went to meet them ⁴. What more? He received them and served them as strangers. By the custom of hospitality, he was freed from the danger of the city, escaped the temporal fire, and obtained eternal reward. Learn, Christians, to show hospitality without discrimination, lest perhaps the one to whom you close your house, to whom you deny kindness, is Christ himself. Let us not stray further from the proposed action. Angels came to Lot and said: See and notice, because angels are said to speak. What did the angels say? Save your soul, do not look back ⁵. Because no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God ⁶. Nor stand in all the surrounding region; do not cling to earthly pleasures: but save yourself on the mountain ⁷; let your hope be in God, lest you perish with the Sodomites. And Lot said to them. See a man who sees, not blind, like the Jews and Sabellians; not bleary-eyed, like the Arians: but having healthy eyes, like Catholic Christians. He saw angels and understood the Lord. What did he say to the angels? And Lot said to them: My lord, since your servant has found favor before you, and you have magnified your mercy, which you have shown to me, to save my soul ⁸. It is a great thing, when I want to strike the Jew thus, Moses, a very strong man, wielded the spear of his word and sent it, so that through the Jew it might pass to the Sabellian and strike the Arian. What are you doing, holy Lot? You see angels, not one, but two, and you say, My lord. You speak to one, you pray to one; and do you not fear that you might seem to do injury to the other? Far from it, he says. Withdraw, Jews; withdraw, Sabellians, because you do not see; withdraw, Arians, because you see little. I see; and because I see what I see, I neither despise nor err. I see two, I see equals. I ask one, I do no injury to anyone: because I do not divide the Father from the Son. For that you may understand that I am not mistaken, when I pray to two as one, see whether two or one responds to my prayers. He asked to have refuge and live in a small and nearby city. He is answered. Let us see how many respond. The words of the book follow, And he said to him: as if the response is singular. Follow further, let us see: Behold, I have also accepted your prayers in this, that I will not overthrow the city for which you have spoken. Hurry, and save yourself there: because I cannot do anything until you enter there ⁹. [P. 1105] Do you see, Jew, that an angel is mentioned, and that he is God? Do you hear, Arian, two, the Father and the Son, speaking: yet not the same Father as the Son, because of the Sabellians; but the Father and the Son? Do you hear what is said, I have accepted your prayers? Do you hear what he says, I will not overthrow the city? Do you hear, I cannot do anything? Let the Jew read the angel, understand God; let the Sabellian read that two came; let the Arian read that one responded: and let them not despise, but flee error, lest they reach the fire. But to show more fully that the angel mentioned should be understood as God, let us recite the following of this reading: Therefore, he says, the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven ¹⁰. What is, the Lord from the Lord, but the Son from the Father? As also in another place: The Lord said to my Lord, that is, the Father to his Son, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool ¹¹. Again in Exodus, The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the bush, and he saw that the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed. And Moses said: I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush. Behold, the angel himself is the Lord. And it follows saying, Moses, Moses. And he said, Who are you, Lord? The Lord said to him, Do not come near; take off your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. Hear still what he said to him: I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob ¹². And therefore let the Jew hear the angel so that he may understand the Lord and fear God: let the Sabellian confess the Father, so that he does not deny the Son: let the Arian confess the Father and the Son, so that he does not diminish the Son. Joshua also, as the book written in his name says, when he was fighting against enemies, in the very battle array, saw a man standing against him, holding a drawn sword: and he went to him, and said: Are you for us, or for our adversaries? Who answered: No, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord, and now I have come ¹³. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped. And now follow, Jew, your leader. He sees, he asks, and he worships. Vision has communion: for what is seen is both recognized and not recognized. Therefore, vision has communion, questioning has ignorance, worship has faith. Whom does he see? A man. Who is this man? He is the one whose coming was foretold against enemy nations, desired, expected. [ And he is a man, he says, and who shall know him?] Who is the commander of the army of the Lord? Is he not the one who, when asked in the Gospel who he was, answered, The beginning, who also speaks to you ¹⁴? Why are you troubled, Joshua? Why did the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain against the Lord and against his Anointed ¹⁵? You see him armed, do not fear: I do not come against you, but for you; because I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel ¹⁶. What is it, Joshua, that you see, ask, and worship? Hear: I see a man; I ask whom I see; I hear whom I do not see; I worship, not what I see, but what I believe: because faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God ¹⁷. What then do you seek? Consider, and follow: I see a man, but what I understand is beyond the sons of men. I do not know what flashes at me, and as if something bright shines from hiding. I go to him, because he comes to me: I will search out what I see, this great sight. Whom I see is both a man and not a man. Indeed, he is a man for the Manichaean; and more than a man for the Jew. Go on, my Joshua, my leader, go on. Why, unless because when you seek me, you acquire me? Behold, I come, I find a man: inside I do not know what I understand; it is obscure, I do not yet see: the face of Moses is straight, the veil hinders the sight (Exod. [P. 1106] XXXIV, 33), the truth is hidden. I do not recognize what it is, there is need for questioning. Say, you man, Are you for us or for our adversaries? If he is for the adversaries, he is both a man and an enemy: if he is for us, he is both a man and a Savior. He comes after me, but he was made before me ¹⁸. If he is Jesus, he is a Savior. Let Jesus question Jesus, let the former question the latter, but still the lesser the greater; let the deficient question the growing: let the figure question the truth; indeed, let the figure understand the truth: so that the day may dawn, and the temporal darkness be removed. Behold, I come, I know that a spirit does not have flesh and bones ¹⁹; I touch the flesh: I seek, I see him armed. The mystery is still hidden. I question the man, I hear the word; I remove the veil, I worship God. In that which Joshua saw and did not know, he signified the furious nation of the Jews, who if they had seen and known, would never have crucified the Lord of glory ²⁰: but in that which he believed by hearing and worshiped, he signified this people of whom it is written, A people whom I did not know served me; by the hearing of the ear they obeyed me ²¹. Hear still, you who deny that God begot a Son, hear what the Father says through the prophet Isaiah: Shall I, who cause others to give birth, not give birth myself, says the Lord ²²? I who grant generations to others, shall I remain barren? says the Lord your God, to whom it was said, You are my Son, today I have begotten you ²³. Why do you provoke me, Arian, and mock when you hear, today? With God, there is never a tomorrow, never a yesterday, but always today: the year is not turned by the cycles of months, the month is not completed by succeeding and receding days, the hours do not change, the times or moments do not vary, where the day is neither concluded by an end nor begun by a beginning. Let the Jew hear still what the Lord says through the prophet, let the Arian hear: let all who say that the Son of God either does not exist or is lesser hear. I am God, and there is no other. And what of the Son, Lord, if you alone are God? Hear still, why do you hurry? I have sworn by myself. Where there is an oath, there is no doubt. I have sworn by myself, the word of righteousness shall go forth from my mouth. Behold, you have the Son: The word of righteousness shall go forth from my mouth, and shall not return. What is, shall not return? Lest the Sabellian say that the Son is the same as the Father, the word that went forth shall not return: because the Father is the Father; the Son is the Son. Let the loquacity of the heretics, having no shame, be silent for a while: let the Lord fulfill the sentence; and either no one will oppose the Son of God, or whoever becomes an adversary will be confounded. The word of righteousness shall go forth from my mouth, and shall not return; because to me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess. And what of the Son? Hear then in the Lord's saying: To me belong the highest righteousness and dominion. So then, what next? To him they shall come, and all who oppose him shall be confounded ²⁴. Go now, all of you, Pagans, Heretics, Jews; oppose and resist the Son of God: to him you shall come, and all who resist him shall be confounded.