Eusebius of Caesarea · a new plain-English translation from the Greek
1| But how could human beings come to know these things? Who ever conveyed them to mortal hearing? How could a tongue of flesh speak of things foreign to flesh and bodies? Who has looked upon the invisible King and seen these powers in him? The senses of bodies grasp the elements akin to bodies and the compounds formed from them; but no one has yet boasted of taking in with bodily eyes that invisible kingship over all things, nor has mortal nature ever perceived the beauty of wisdom. Who, by the senses of the flesh, has looked upon the face of justice? From where did the ideas of lawful rule and royal authority steal into human minds? From where came imperial power to a creature compacted of flesh and blood? And who has declared to those on earth the invisible and formless ideas, the incorporeal and formless essence?
2| There was, then, one interpreter of these things: the Word of God, who pervades all things, the father of the rational and intelligent essence in human beings, who alone depends from the Godhead of the Father and pours the streams that flow from the Father upon his own offspring. From him come to all people, Greeks and barbarians alike, the powers of reasoning that are self-taught by nature; from him come the ideas of reason and wisdom; from him the seeds of prudence and justice; from him the mastery of the arts; from him the knowledge of virtue, the beloved name of wisdom and the reverent love of philosophic learning; from him the knowledge of everything good and beautiful; from him the very conception of God and a life worthy of godliness; from him comes to a human being the strength of kingship and unconquerable power over all things on earth. When the Word, the father of rational beings, had set in the human soul the character made according to God's image and likeness, and had fashioned this living creature to be royal, he showed that it alone of all things on earth knows how to rule and to be ruled, and that it should practice beforehand and be taught in advance, here below, the promised hope of the heavenly kingdom. It was for this hope that he came; the Father of these children himself did not shrink from entering into fellowship with mortals. Tending his own seeds and renewing the gifts that come from above, he proclaimed to all the good news that they would share in a heavenly kingdom. He called them and urged them to be ready for the journey upward, having prepared the garment worthy of their calling. With unspeakable power he filled the whole world, all that the sun looks upon, with his preaching, shaping the heavenly kingdom after the likeness of the earthly one, toward which he spurs the whole human race to hasten, holding out to them this good hope.
Cite a passage by its number: every paragraph here has its own anchor (for example https://openscriptorium.com/read/eusebius/060-in-praise-of-constantine-chapter-4#p1), and the bracketed reference numbers link the same way.
← All of Eusebius of Caesarea: The Works of Eusebius of Caesarea