Philippians 3:14

Further, many also use the fat of milk, called butter, for the lamp, plainly indicating by this enigma the abundant unction of the Word, since He alone it is who nourishes the infants, makes them grow, and enlightens them. Wherefore also the Scripture says respecting the Lord, “He fed them with the produce of the fields; they sucked honey from the rock, and oil from the solid rock, butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs;” and what follows He gave them. But he that prophesies the birth of the child says: “Butter and honey shall He eat.” And it occurs to me to wonder how some dare call themselves perfect and gnostics, with ideas of themselves above the apostle, inflated and boastful, when Paul even owned respecting himself, “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ. …

But let it not be thought that my reason for premising thus much concerning the liberty granted to the old, and the restraint imposed on the later time, is that I may lay a foundation for teaching that Christ’s advent was intended to dissolve wedlock, (and) to abolish marriage talons; as if from this period onward I were prescribing an end to marrying. Let them see to that, who, among the rest of their perversities, teach the disjoining of the “one flesh in twain;” denying Him who, after borrowing the female from the male, recombined between themselves, in the matrimonial computation, the two bodies taken out of the consortship of the self-same material substance. …

Although, most holy brethren, the day in which I receive your letters and writings is most ardently longed for by me, and to be reckoned among the chief and happiest, for what else is there now to make me more joyous? still I think that the day is to be deemed not less notable, and among special days, wherein I return to you similar communications, with the affection of love that I owe you, and write you letters with a corresponding interest. For nothing, most holy brethren, holds me bound with such bonds, nothing stirs and arouses me with such a stimulus of care and anxiety, as the fear lest you should think that any disadvantage is suffered by you by reason of my absence; and this I strive to remedy, in labouring to show myself present with you by frequent letters. …

But to those who have been delivered up, and have fallen, who also of their own accord have approached the contest, confessing themselves to be Christians, and have been tormented and thrown into prison, it is right with joy and exultation of heart to add strength, and to communicate to them in all things, both in prayer, and in partaking of the body and blood of Christ, and in hortatory discourse; in order that contending the more constantly, they may be counted worthy of “the prize of their high calling.” For “seven times,” he says, “a just man falleth, and riseth up again,” which, indeed, if all that have lapsed had done, they would have shown forth a most perfect penitence, and one which penetrates the whole heart.

For those who first, when the persecution waxed warm, leaped forth, standing around the judgment-seat, and beholding the holy martyrs who were hastening to the “prize of their high calling,” then, fired with a holy zeal, gave themselves up to this, using much boldness, and especially when they saw those who were drawn aside and lapsed, on their account they were roused mightily within, and, as it were by some inward voice, impelled to war down and subdue the adversary who was exulting; for this they earnestly contended, that he might not seem “to be wise in his own conceit,” on account of those things in which by reason of his subtlety they appeared to be inferior to him, even though it escaped his observation that he was overcome by those who with constancy endured the torments of the lash and scourge, and the sharp edge of the sword, the burning in the fire, and the immersion in the wa …

And not only on their own account do they experience these emotions, but also on account of those whose deliverance they desire and whose perdition they fear, and whose loss or salvation affects them with grief or with joy. For if we who have come into the Church from among the Gentiles may suitably instance that noble and mighty hero who glories in his infirmities, the teacher ( doctor ) of the nations in faith and truth, who also labored more than all his fellow-apostles, and instructed the tribes of God’s people by his epistles, which edified not only those of his own time, but all those who were to be gathered in, that hero, I say, and athlete of Christ, instructed by Him, anointed of His Spirit, crucified with Him, glorious in Him, lawfully maintaining a great conflict on the theatre of this world, and being made a spectacle to angels and men, and pressing onwards for the prize of h …

8. Some persons, however, find a difficulty in this faith; when they hear that the Father is God, and the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God, and yet that this Trinity is not three Gods, but one God; and they ask how they are to understand this: especially when it is said that the Trinity works indivisibly in everything that God works, and yet that a certain voice of the Father spoke, which is not the voice of the Son; and that none except the Son was born in the flesh, and suffered, and rose again, and ascended into heaven; and that none except the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove. They wish to understand how the Trinity uttered that voice which was only of the Father; and how the same Trinity created that flesh in which the Son only was born of the Virgin; and how the very same Trinity itself wrought that form of a dove, in which the Holy Spirit only appeared. …

1. We certainly seek a trinity, not any trinity, but that Trinity which is God, and the true and supreme and only God. Let my hearers then wait, for we are still seeking. And no one justly finds fault with such a search, if at least he who seeks that which either to know or to utter is most difficult, is steadfast in the faith. But whosoever either sees or teaches better, finds fault quickly and justly with any one who confidently affirms concerning it. “Seek God,” he says, “and your heart shall live;” and lest any one should rashly rejoice that he has, as it were, apprehended it, “Seek,” he says, “His face evermore.” And the apostle: “If any man,” he says, “think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. …

What commendation, however, is bestowed on Zacharias and Elisabeth which is not comprehended in what the apostle has said about himself before he believed in Christ? He said that, “as touching the righteousness which is in the law, he had been blameless.” The same is said also of them: “They were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” It was because whatever righteousness they had in them was not a pretence before men that it is said accordingly, “They walked before the Lord .” But that which is written of Zacharias and his wife in the phrase, in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, the apostle briefly expressed by the words, in the law. For there was not one law for him and another for them previous to the gospel. …

And in this prayer, unless we choose to be contentious, there is placed before our view a mirror of sufficient brightness in which to behold the life of the righteous, who live by faith, and finish their course, although they are not without sin. Therefore they say, “Forgive us,” because they have not yet arrived at the end of their course. Hence the apostle says, “Not as if I had already attained, either were already perfect. . .Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. …

See therefore how many facts of our nature, not of the past but of the present time, and not pertaining to the body only, but also to our inner man, we know nothing about, without deserving to be compared with the brute beasts. And yet this is the opprobrious comparison which you have thought me worthy of, because I have not complete knowledge of the past origin of my soul, although I am not wholly ignorant of it, inasmuch as I know that it was given me by God, and yet that it is not out of God. …

For from the place in which he undertook to say these things, he thus began, “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision, who serve God in the Spirit,”, or, as some codices have it, “who serve God the Spirit,” or “the Spirit of God,”, “and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” Here it is manifest that he is speaking against the Jews, who, observing the law carnally, and going about to establish their own righteousness, were slain by the letter, and not made alive by the Spirit, and gloried in themselves while the apostles and all the children of the promise were glorying in Christ. Then he added, “Although I may have confidence in the flesh. …