Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
God, then, the maker and founder of all things, as we said in the second book, before he set about this magnificent work of the world, begot a holy and incorruptible spirit, whom he would call his son. And although he afterward created countless others, whom we call angels, this one alone he judged worthy of the title of the divine name, as "firstborn," since he is strong with the power and majesty of his father. That he is the son of the most high God and possesses supreme power is confirmed not merely by the prophets' voices agreeing together, but also by what Trismegistus proclaimed and what the Sibyls foretold. Hermes, in that book entitled the Perfect Discourse, uses these words: "He who governs and fashioned everything that is, the one we are accustomed to name God, made a second god, visible and open to perception — perceptible, I mean, not because he himself has perception (whether he does or not will be addressed later), but because he directs that second god toward perception and toward sight — and having made this being first, unique, and singular, he found him beautiful and utterly filled with every good thing, so he marveled at him and cherished him deeply as his own child." The Erythraean Sibyl opens her song by tracing its origin to the most high God, and toward its close she hails the son of God, in the following lines, as guide and ruler over everything: "the all-nourishing creator, who set sweet breath in all things and made God the guide of all." And again at the end: "another has God given to faithful men to honor." And another Sibyl declares that he ought to be known thus: "know him as your God, the son of God." And indeed he himself is the son of God who spoke through Solomon, that wisest king full of the divine spirit, the words which we set down below: "The Lord brought me into being as the first of his undertakings, the start of all his works; he set me in place before the age began: earlier than the earth's forming, earlier than the depths being fixed, earlier than the springs of water breaking forth, he brought me to birth ahead of every hill. The Lord shaped the far regions and the uninhabited edges under the sky. While he was fitting the heavens together, I stood at his side, and while he was setting apart his own throne; while he was raising sturdy clouds over the winds and steadying the springs beneath the sky, while he was laying down earth's massive foundations, I was there with him, arranging all things. I was the one he delighted in. Day after day I took joy before him, as he rejoiced over the finished sphere." That is why Trismegistus names him God's craftsman, and the Sibyl calls him counselor: God the Father equipped him with wisdom and power of such a degree that he relied on this son's counsel and hands in shaping the world.
Perhaps someone may ask at this point who this one is, so powerful, so dear to God, and what name he bears, whose first birth not only preceded the world but whose foresight ordered it and whose power built it. The first thing to grasp is this: even the angels dwelling in heaven have no knowledge of his name — only he himself and God the Father know it — and it will stay hidden, as scripture attests, until the divine plan reaches completion; nor, further, can a human mouth pronounce it, as Hermes teaches in these words: "behind this cause stands the will of a God who is good, and no human mouth is capable of uttering his name." And a little later, to his son: "There is, my child, a certain unspeakable and holy account concerning the one Lord of all, and concerning God who thinks of all things in advance, whom it is beyond man to utter." But although his name, which the most high Father set upon him from the beginning, is known to no one but himself, he nevertheless has one designation among the angels and another among men. Among men, indeed, he is named Jesus. Christ is not a personal name at all, but a designation of authority and rule — the very term the Jews applied to their own kings. Yet the sense of this title needs unpacking, on account of those who mistakenly, through a shift of one letter, call him "Chrestus." Among the Jews there was a long-standing rule requiring a sacred oil to be prepared, so that anyone summoned to the priesthood or to kingship could be anointed with it, and just as now among the Romans the purple garment is the mark of royal dignity assumed, so among them the anointing with the sacred ointment conferred the name and the power of kingship. But since the ancient Greeks used to say chriesthai for "to be anointed," which is now called aleiphesthai, as that line of Homer shows — "and when the maidservants had bathed them and anointed them with oil" — on this basis we give him the name Christ — meaning Anointed — which in Hebrew is rendered Messiah. Hence in certain Greek writings, badly translated from the Hebrew, one finds written "eleimmenos," from aleiphesthai. But by either name kingship is signified — not that he was to obtain this earthly kingdom, whose time has not yet come, but rather a heavenly, everlasting one — a topic reserved for discussion in the final book. Now, however, let us speak of his first birth.
First of all, we bear witness that he was born twice: first in spirit, afterward in flesh. Hence in Jeremiah it is said thus: "before I formed you in the womb, I knew you." And again: "blessed is he who existed before he was born" — which has happened to no one but Christ. Though he was from the beginning the son of God, he was born again a second time according to the flesh. This twofold birth of his has brought great error into human minds and has spread darkness even over those who held to the mysteries of the true religion. But we shall show this plainly and clearly, so that lovers of wisdom may be instructed more easily and carefully. Whoever hears that he is called the son of God must not conceive in his mind so monstrous a notion as to suppose that God produced offspring through the union and intercourse of some woman — a thing which only a bodily creature subject to death does. But God, since he was still alone, with whom could he have united himself? Or since he was of such great power that he could accomplish whatever he willed, he certainly had no need of another's partnership in order to create — unless perhaps we should suppose, as Orpheus thought, that God is both male and female, as though he could not have generated otherwise unless he possessed the power of both sexes, as if he had either coupled with himself or could not have brought forth without coupling. But Hermes too held this same opinion, when he calls him "his own father" and "his own mother." But if that were so, then just as the prophets call him father, so he would also be called mother. How then did he beget? First, divine works can neither be known nor recounted by anyone; yet the sacred writings instruct us — it is set down there — that this son of God is to be understood as God's Word, and that, in the same way, the rest of the angels are God's spirits. For speech is a spirit uttered together with a voice signifying something. Yet since spirit and speech issue from different organs — spirit through the nostrils, speech through the mouth — a great gulf separates this son of God from the rest of the angels. The others emerged from God as spirits without voice, since they were fashioned not to hand down God's teaching but to serve. He, by contrast, though likewise spirit, came forth from God's mouth accompanied by voice and sound, in the manner of speech — precisely because he was destined to employ his voice among the people, being the one who would in time carry God's teaching and heavenly mystery to humankind. God addressed him first of all, so that speaking through him God could reach us, and so that he could disclose God's voice and intention to us. He is rightly, then, termed God's speech and word, because God took hold of the sounding spirit issuing from his own mouth — conceived not in a womb but in thought — and by an inexpressible power belonging to his majesty shaped it into a being alive with its own understanding and wisdom; and in the same way he formed his other spirits into angels. Our own spirits can dissolve, since we ourselves are mortal; God's spirits, by contrast, live, endure, and perceive, since he himself is deathless and the source of feeling and life. Even our voices, though they scatter into the air and fade, mostly survive once fixed in writing — so how much more should we trust that God's voice lasts forever, carried along with sense and power, flowing from the Father the way a stream flows from its source! And if anyone is astonished that a god could be brought forth from God through the sending-out of a voice and a spirit, that astonishment will surely vanish once he becomes acquainted with the sacred sayings of the prophets. Even those unfamiliar with the divine scriptures may perhaps know already that Solomon and David his father were exceptionally powerful kings who were prophets besides; of the two, the later one to reign came a hundred and forty years before the fall of Troy. David, the composer of the sacred hymns, writes in this way in Psalm 32: "by the word of God the heavens were made firm, and by his spirit all their host." And again in Psalm 44: "my heart has poured forth a good word; I speak of my works to the king" — testifying, clearly, that no one but the son alone has knowledge of God's works, since he is God's word and is destined to reign without end. Solomon likewise demonstrates that this same figure is God's word, the one through whose hands the fabric of the world was made. "I," he says, "issued from the mouth of the Highest before every created thing. In the heavens I brought it about that unfailing light should rise, and I wrapped the whole earth in cloud. I made my home in the heights, and my throne rests on a pillar of cloud." John hands down the same truth in this form: "At the origin the Word already existed, and the Word was present alongside God, and the Word was God himself. This one was present alongside God at the origin. Everything came to be through him, and apart from him not one thing came to be."
But the Greeks say logos better than we say verbum or sermo: for logos signifies both speech and reason, given that he embodies at once God's voice and God's wisdom. Even the philosophers were not ignorant of this divine speech, since Zeno proclaims that the ordainer of nature and the maker of the universe is the Logos, giving him also the names fate, the compulsion driving all things, God, and the mind of Jupiter — following, of course, that custom by which they are accustomed to take Jupiter for God. But the words are no obstacle, so long as the sense agrees with the truth. What Zeno named the mind of Jupiter is, in fact, the spirit of God. As for Trismegistus, who somehow tracked down almost the whole of the truth, he often described the power and majesty of the Word, as that earlier passage shows, in which he confesses that there is a certain ineffable and holy discourse, whose full account exceeds the measure of man. I have spoken briefly, as best I could, of the first birth. Now, concerning the second, since it is on this that controversy chiefly turns, we must discuss it at greater length, so that those eager to grasp what is true may be offered a clear beam of insight.
Men need above all to grasp this: from its very outset, the design of the most high God was arranged so that, as the world's age drew near its end, God's son had to come down to earth, there to raise up a temple for God and to teach righteousness — and this not through the might of an angel nor any heavenly power, but as a man, bound by mortal limits. His teaching work complete, wicked hands would seize him and hand him over to death; yet by his own power he would master death and rise from it, so that the man he had put on and carried within himself might be given hope of conquering death and a place among the rewards of immortality. In order that nobody be left unaware of this design, we shall demonstrate that everything now fulfilled in Christ was foretold in advance. Let no one lend credence to our assertion unless I show that the prophets, long ages beforehand, foretold that the son of God would one day be born as a man, and would work wonders, and would scatter the worship of God across every land on earth, and would at last be fixed to a gibbet, and would rise again on the third day. And when I have proved all this from the very writings of those who did violence to their own God while he made use of a mortal body, what else will stand in the way of its being clear that true wisdom is found in this religion alone? Now from the beginning the origin of the whole mystery must be told. Our ancestors, who were the chief men of the Hebrews, when they were suffering from barrenness and want, crossed over into Egypt for the sake of grain, and staying there a long time, were oppressed under the intolerable yoke of slavery. Then God took pity on them: after four hundred and thirty years he led them out, delivering them from the grip of Egypt's king, with Moses as their guide — the very man through whom God later gave them the law. In that leading-out God showed the power of his majesty. For he brought the people across the middle of the Red Sea, an angel going before and splitting the water, so that the people could walk on dry ground — which, as the poet more truly says, the wave stood around, curved into the shape of a mountain. Hearing of this, the tyrant of the Egyptians pursued them with a great force of his own men, and having rashly plunged into the still-open sea, he perished, his entire army lost with him, once the waters closed back together. The Hebrews, having entered the wilderness, saw many wonders. When thirst afflicted them, a single strike of the rod against the rock sent a spring of water bursting forth, giving the people relief; then later, hunger struck, and bread rained down from the sky. A wind, moreover, drove quails straight into their camp, leaving them satisfied with more than mere heavenly bread — a truly abundant meal. Yet for these divine kindnesses they did not render honor to God, but, once freed from slavery and once thirst and hunger had been set aside, having slipped into wantonness, they gave their hearts over to the impious customs of Egypt. Indeed, once Moses their guide had climbed the mountain and remained there forty days, they fashioned a golden head of an ox, which they call Apis, to go before them as a standard. Offended by this sin and crime, God visited the impious and ungrateful people with grievous punishments as they deserved, and subjected them to the law which he had given through Moses. Afterward, when they had settled in a certain desert part of Syria, they lost their old name of Hebrews, and, since the chief of their tribe was Judah, they were called Jews, and the land they inhabited, Judea. At first no king ruled over them; rather, ordinary magistrates governed the people according to the law — holding office not for a single year, as Roman consuls did, but through an unbroken tenure. Then, the title of judges having been removed, royal power was introduced. But while the judges held their government, they often took up corrupt religions, and God, offended by them, repeatedly subjected them to foreigners, until, softened again by the people's repentance, he freed them from servitude. Likewise under the kings, harassed by the wars of their neighbors on account of their offenses, at last they were captured and led away to Babylon, and paid the penalty of their impiety in heavy servitude, until Cyrus came to the throne, who at once restored the Jews by edict. From then on they had tetrarchs down to Herod, who lived under the rule of Tiberius Caesar: in the fifteenth year of whose rule — in the consulship of the two Gemini, ten days before the Kalends of April — the Jews nailed Christ to a cross. Such is the sequence of these events, the pattern preserved within the secrets of holy scripture. But first I shall show for what reason Christ came to earth, so that the foundation and reasoning of the divine religion may become clear.