These things were fulfilled according to the type in the case of Zerubbabel and Jeshua, the son of Jozadak. However, this prophecy was not altogether fulfilled, for many would rise up against them—not only their neighbors but also later on the Macedonians and finally the Romans. But the prophecy proclaims the everlasting nature of grace. Therefore, it is clear that these things were not fulfilled during their lifetimes but during the lifetimes of the apostles, for they alone had the gift of the Holy Spirit. . . . The Jews shamelessly endeavor to apply this to Zerubbabel. But they need to understand that he was no king—just a popular leader—and he was not called Jozadak. Neither is the meaning of the name appropriate to him, the word meaning the Lord our righteousness or, in the Syriac rendering, Lord, make us righteous—neither of which applies to Zerubbabel. Since, however, he was a type of Christ the Lord and brought back the captives from Babylon to Judah, just as the Lord transferred those enslaved by the devil to truth, anyone applying this to him in the manner of a type would do nothing beyond reason. It is necessary that we understand, however, that it is the Lord Jesus Christ, a descendant of David according to the flesh, who is proclaimed by the prophets as the righteous dawn, the righteous king and the Lord of righteousness.

There was only one remedy in the secret of the divine plan that could help the fallen living in the general ruin of the entire human race. This remedy was that one of the sons of Adam should be born free and innocent of original transgression, to prevail for the rest by his example and by his merits. This was not permitted by natural generation. There could be no clean offspring from our faulty stock by this seed. The Scripture says, Who can make a clean thing conceived of an unclean seed? Isn’t it you alone?^[1] David’s Lord was made David’s Son, and from the fruit of the promised branch sprang. He is one without fault, the twofold nature coming together into one person. By this one and the same conception and birth sprung our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom was present both true Godhead for the performance of mighty works and true manhood for the endurance of sufferings.

The church is the seed of Abraham. Jeremiah says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say, ‘The Lord lives, who led the children of Israel from the north country and from every region where they had been driven.’ He will restore them to their own land which he gave to their ancestors, so that we may know that he who raises up from the stones children to Abraham^[1] in the New Testament is he who will gather, according to the Old Testament, those who will be saved from all the nations.

Let their way become dark and slippery, and let the angel of the Lord pursue them.^[1] He demanded that the situation of sinners be wholly arduous, so that their way, which seems to them clear and firm as they linger pleasurably on it, may become dark and slippery so that they cannot stand on it any longer. As the prophet Jeremiah says, Therefore their way has become slippery in the dark. They shall be thrown down and fall on it. But if they decide to linger further in their evil ways, he asks that the Lord’s power pursue them, so that he may not cause them to cling to their sins as they hasten to aspire after their own destruction. What a blessed proliferation of so many obstacles! How vehement is the prayer in this verse that the most salutary opposition is afforded them!

As children of light and truth, flee from division and wicked doctrines. Where the shepherd is, there you follow as sheep. For there are many wolves that appear trustworthy, who, by means of a pernicious pleasure, carry captive^[1] those that are running toward God, but they shall have no place in your unity. So, as children of light and truth, avoid the dividing your unity and the wicked doctrine of the heretics, from whom a defiling influence has gone forth into all the earth.

The Lord cries out and says, Do not listen to the words of the prophets who invent a vain vision for themselves, which they speak as false prophets from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to them that reject the words of the Lord, Peace shall be yours.^[1] They who themselves have neither peace nor the church are now offering peace; they who have withdrawn from the church are permitting the bringing back and recalling of the lapsed. God is one, and Christ, one, and the church, one, and the chair established on Peter by the voice of the Lord, one. Another altar cannot be set up or a new priesthood be made contrary to the one altar and the one priesthood.

Against such people as these the Lord cries out, from these he reins in and recalls his erring people, saying, Do not listen to the words of the prophets who invent a vain vision for themselves, which they speak as false prophets from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those who reject the words of the Lord, ‘Peace shall be yours’ and to all who walk according to their own desires, to everyone who walks in the error of his heart, they have said, ‘No evil shall come on you.’^[1]

The guilt decreed against the wicked heretics is inevitable. They reject the words of the holy apostles and evangelists and pervert them to that meaning that seems to them to be right without due examination. They fall from the straight way and wander from the doctrines of piety, deceiving and being deceived.^[1] For while, so to speak, they have bidden farewell to the sacred Scriptures, they speak from their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord, as Scripture says.^[2] Even though the blessed Evangelist John wrote to us, that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,^[3] they drag to the exact opposite both the tenet concerning him and the quotation that proves it, saying that the only-begotten Word of God was not in the beginning, nor true God, and he was not even with God, that is in union with him by nature; God, who has no body, cannot be imagined to be confined to in any one place.

God gives the promise, I will deliver them from the hand of the grave, and from death I will redeem them.^[1] So the blessed prophets are in harmony with the decrees from on high. They speak to us not of their own heart or of the will of people but from the mouth of God,^[2] as it is written. It is the Holy Spirit speaking within them that declares in every matter what is the sentence of God and his almighty and unalterable will.^[3] The prophet Isaiah has said to us, Your dead shall arise. Those in the graves shall be raised. They who are in the earth shall rejoice. For the dew from you is healing to them.^[4]And by the dew I imagine he means the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, and that influence that abolishes death as being that of God and of life.

I know other persons, however, whom an abysmal lack of wisdom and prudence so deceives and tricks that they think that the faith that they pretend to have will help them before God without the works of justice. They commit abominable crimes without fear by reason of this kind of error, while they believe that God is the avenger not of crimes but of lack of faith. Not only are they willing thus to ruin themselves, but also they strive by their snares to trap others in whom there is not light of divine knowledge. Do not listen to the words of the prophets who invent a vain vision for themselves, which they speak as false prophets from their own heart and not from the mouth of the Lord. They say to those that reject the words of the Lord, Peace shall be yours, and to all who walk according to their own desires, to everyone who walks in the error of his heart, they have said, No evil shall come on you.^[1]

We must, however, examine such things carefully. For there assuredly are people who have not been counted worthy of Christ’s grace but make the reputation of being saints and honorable an opportunity for gain. Of such one may say that they are bold and shameless hypocrites, who seize honors for themselves, even though God has not called them to it. They praise themselves and imitate the bold doings of the false prophets of old, of whom God said, I have not sent the prophets, yet they ran. I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. And so, too, may he say of these, I have not sanctified them, but they falsely assume the gift for themselves. They have not been counted worthy of my grace, but they wickedly seize those things that I bestow only on those who are worthy to receive them. These, making a show of fasting, walk sadly with downcast looks, while full of fraud and baseness. And often they pride themselves on letting their nails grow long. They are especially fond of their jaundiced complexion. Though no one compels them, they delight in enduring such misery as people have to bear in prison, hanging collars on their necks and even putting shackles on their hands and feet. The Savior has commanded us to avoid such persons, saying, Beware of those who come to you in sheep’s clothing but within are ravening wolves.^[1]

It is the custom in Scripture, after what is bitter, to say kind things for encouragement, and after what is good to say more bitter words. Scripture does this in order that, when they have disdained the wealth of the goodness of God, they may not store up for themselves anger in a day of anger.^[1] Hence God said, If anger comes, it will not withdraw unless God has accomplished what he wants. And if God wants, anger also occurs, in order that what God wants does occur. For if anyone does not want to be in the will of the Word of God, the anger^[2] is unleashed on him. Thus let us not show a need for an anger or wrath that disciplines.

What if these formulas also are scriptural, and of these two formulas, one is used with such clearness that one knows it has not been invented by me but has already been authorized by sacred Scripture? David, who sings hymns in the book of Psalms, which is called the key of all the mysteries, in the thirty-fifth psalm chants a psalm to God, sings praise to God in this way: For in you is the source of life. In your light we shall see the light.^[1] Do we think that that is addressed to God or to Christ or to both? Because to both, it is rightly addressed, for in the Father is the Son, and in the Son is the Father. But if it is addressed to God the Father, it will be this: If they had stood in my substance, they would have also seen my Word.^[2] But if it is addressed to the Son, it will be this: Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father also.^[3]

This enables us to see that the Council of Nicaea breathes the spirit of Scripture. God says in Exodus,^[1] I am that I am, and through Jeremiah, Who is in his substance and has seen his word?^[2] and just below, if they had stood in my subsistence and heard my words.^[3] Now subsistence is essence and means nothing else but very being, which Jeremiah calls existence, in the words and they heard not the voice of existence.^[4]

From this time on, bid everything farewell for these five days and begin to observe the feast. Away with the business of the law courts! Away with the business of the city council! Away with daily affairs together with their contracts and business deals! I wish to save my soul. What does it profit a person if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his soul?^[1] The Magi went forth from Persia. You go forth from the affairs of daily life. Make your journey to Jesus. It is not far to travel if we are willing to make the trip. We need not cross the sea or climb the mountain crests. If you prove your piety and full compunction, you can see him without leaving home, you can tear down the whole wall, remove every obstacle and shorten the length of the journey. As the prophet said, I am a God near at hand and not a God afar off,^[2] and, The Lord is close to all who call on him in truth.^[3]

If God were distant from us in place, you might well doubt, but he is present everywhere. To him who strives with purposeful intent, God is near. For this reason also the psalmist said, I will fear no evil, for you are with me,^[1] and God again, I am a God near at hand and not a God afar off.^[2] Then, just as our sins separate us from him, so do our righteous deeds draw us near to him. For while you are yet speaking, it is said, I will say, ‘Here I am.’^[3]

He was fully conscious of his own wound and the power of him from whom nothing can be hidden, who says through the prophet, I am a God near at hand and not a God afar off.^[1] For nobody can escape the notice of him who fills heaven and earth, and nobody can conceal from him the secrets of his heart.

He has been more obedient to human authority than to God. It matters not whether he has published what he has done with less either of disgrace or of guilt among people. Be that as it may, he will not be able to escape and avoid God his judge, seeing that the Holy Spirit says in the Psalms, Your eyes did see my substance, that it was imperfect, and in your book shall all people be written.^[1] And again, People see the outward appearance, but God sees the heart.^[2] The Lord also forewarns and prepares us, saying, And all churches shall know that I am he who searches the reins and heart.^[3] He looks into the hidden and secret things and considers those things that are concealed; nor can anyone evade the eyes of the Lord, who says, I am a God near at hand and not a God afar off. If a person shall be hidden in secret places, shall I not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth?^[4] He sees the heart and mind of every person, and he will not judge our deeds alone, but even our words and thoughts. He looks into the minds and the wills and conceptions of all people, in the very lurking places of the heart that are still closed up.

The closer our mind approaches Christ in a more exalted and lofty way and presents itself nearer the splendor of his light, the more it will it be made to shine more magnificently and clearly in his light as also he says through the prophet: Draw near to me, and I shall draw near to you, says the Lord.^[1] And again he says, I am a God who draws near and not a God afar off.^[2]

He also observes the rule, Whether you eat or drink or whatever else you do, do all to the glory of God.^[1] But one who departs from the strict observance of the commandment in performing his actions clearly shows that he has given small thought to God. Mindful, therefore, of the voice of him who said, Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord and again, Am I a God at hand and not a God afar off? Also, Where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.^[2] We should perform every action as if under the eyes of the Lord and think every thought as if observed by him. Thus, fear will abide constantly within us who hate iniquity, as it is written,^[3] insolence, pride, and the ways of the wicked, and love will be made perfect,^[4] fulfilling the words of the Lord: I seek not my own will but the will of him that sent me.^[5]

I have known all that is hidden and all that is open to view. I was a pupil of Wisdom, who formed them all.^[1] There, in brief, you have the profession of our philosophy. The process of learning about these, if practiced under good supervision, leads upward via Wisdom, who formed the whole universe, to the ruler of the universe, a being hard to catch, hard to track down, who always distances himself in retreat from his pursuer. But this same ruler, distant as he is, has—truth be told!—drawn near. I am God who is near at hand, declares the Lord.^[2] In his essential being he is distant—how could a creature subject to birth ever draw near to the unborn and the uncreated?—but very close by the exercise of that power that had enfolded all things in its embrace. It is written, Can anyone act in secret without my seeing him? Yes, the power of God is always present, touching us with a power that sees, is good and instructs.

But let our speech and petition when we pray be under discipline, observing quietness and modesty. Let us consider that we are standing in God’s sight. We must please the divine eyes in our bodily manner and with appropriate restraint of voice. For as it is characteristic of a shameless person to be noisy with his cries, so it is fitting for the modest to pray with moderated petitions. Moreover, in his teaching the Lord has bidden us to pray in secret—in hidden and remote places, in our very bedchambers—which is best suited to faith, that we may know that God is everywhere present, hears and sees all and in the plenitude of his majesty penetrates even into hidden and secret places, as it is written, I am a God at hand, and not a God afar off. If a person shall hide himself in secret places, shall I not then see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth?^[1]

Of what creature can it be said that it fills all things, as it written of the Holy Spirit: I will pour my Spirit on all flesh.^[1] This cannot be said of an angel. Lastly, Gabriel, when sent to Mary, said, Hail, full of grace,^[2] plainly declaring the grace of the Spirit that was in her, because the Holy Spirit had come on her, and she was about to have her womb full of grace with the heavenly Word. It is the Lord who fills all things, who says, I fill heaven and earth. If, then, it is the Lord who fills heaven and earth, who can judge the Holy Spirit to be without a share in the dominion and divine power, seeing that he has filled the world, and what is beyond the whole world, filled Jesus, the Redeemer of the whole world? For it is written, But Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, departed from the Jordan.^[3] Who, then, except one who possessed the same fullness could fill him who fills all things?

God says, I will dwell in them.^[1] Elsewhere also it stands that God said, Come, let us go down and confound their language.^[2] God, indeed, never descends from any place, for he says, I fill heaven and earth. He seems to descend when the Word of God enters our hearts, as the prophet has said: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.^[3] We are to do this, so that, as he himself promised, he may come together with the Father and make his home with us.^[4] It is clear, then, how he comes.

Since we are in his image and likeness, as Scripture says,^[1] let us presume to speak, just as he expresses himself in the fullness of his majesty and sees all things—sky, air, earth, sea—embracing all and penetrating each one, so that nothing passes his notice and nothing exists unless it exists in him and depends on him and is full of him, as he says: I fill heaven and earth, declares the Lord.

How shall I call on my God—my God and my lord? For when I call on him, I ask him to come into me. And what place is there in me into which my God can come—into which God can come, even he who made heaven and earth? Is there anything in me, O Lord my God, that can contain you? Do indeed the heaven and the earth that you have made and in which you have placed me, contain you? Or, since nothing could exist without you, does whatever exists contain you? Why, then, do I ask you to come into me, since I indeed exist and could not exist if you were not in me? Because I am not yet in hell, though you are even there. For if I go down into hell, you are there.^[1] I could not exist, O my God, I could not exist at all, unless you were in me. Or should I not rather say that I could not exist unless I were in you, from whom, through whom and in whom are all things?^[2] It is even so, O Lord, even so. Where do I ask you to be, since I am in you? Or, from where can you come into me? Where may I go beyond heaven and earth, in order that my God may then come into me, he who has said, I fill heaven and earth.

A person’s conscience accuses itself if he doesn’t love someone who loves him, or love in return someone who loves him, expecting nothing from that person but indications of his love. So he mourns if someone dies, experiences the gloom of sorrow, that saturating of the heart in tears. All sweetness turns into bitterness on the loss of the life of the dying, the death of the living. Blessed is the one who loves you and has his friend in you. . . . For he alone loses none dear to him. All are dear to him who cannot be lost. And who is this but our God, the God who created heaven and earth^[1] and fills them, because by filling them he created them? No one loses you but the one who leaves you.

It was by this same divine creative force, which knows not what it is to be made but only how to make, that roundness was given to the eye, to the apple and to other objects that are by nature round and that we see all about, taking on their form with no extrinsic cause but by the intrinsic power of the Creator, who said, Do I not fill heaven and earth? and whose wisdom reaches from end to end mightily and orders all things sweetly.^[1]

The question still remains whether they will see God with their eyes open and by means of these bodily eyes. For, of course, if spiritual eyes in a spiritual body can see no better than our present eyes can see, then it will certainly be impossible for even spiritual eyes to behold God. If the spiritual realm, without material form, circumscribed by no place but everywhere wholly present, is to be visible to the eyes of a spiritual body, then those eyes will most certainly have to have a power altogether unlike the power of any eyes on earth. It is true that we say that God is in heaven and on earth, and he himself through a prophet says, I fill heaven and earth. But this does not mean that in heaven we shall say that God has one part there and another part on earth. For he is entirely in heaven, and he is entirely on earth. He is in both simultaneously, not merely successively—which is utterly impossible in the case of any material substance.

Accordingly, we must consider that one and the same nature of the Trinity fills the whole in such a way that there is no place where it is not. So, it is everywhere complete and in no way contained in a place. It is complete in individual spirits and bodies and complete at the same time in all creatures. Now we are not speaking about grace by which God with a free gift of his mercy offers himself to human beings for their salvation, but about nature by which God both fills and contains all the things which he made; according to this, he says, Do I not fill heaven and earth?

How, again, can justice be done to the scriptural fact that God pervades and fills the universe (Do not I fill heaven and earth?’ says the Lord, and, The spirit of the Lord fills the world^[1]) if part of it limits him and part of it is limited by him? It cannot, for he must either occupy a complete vacuum and our universe vanish—involving the blasphemy that God has been rendered corporeal and does not possess the universe he made; or his body must be contained by bodies, which is impossible; or he must be knit through them as a contrasted strand, like liquids in mixture, parting some, parted by others—which is a more absurd old wives’ tale than even Epicurus’s atoms. It follows, then, that talk of God’s body has no solid body to it and must collapse. What if we call God immaterial, the fifth element envisaged by some, borne along the circular drift? Let us assume that he is some immaterial, fifth body, incorporeal, if they wait for it so to suit their free-drifting, self-constructing argument—I will not quarrel over the point. What place will he have in the moving drift of things—leaving out of account the blasphemy of identifying the creatures’ motion with their creator’s, the mover’s (if they will concede the term) with that of the moved? What moves this fifth element? What moves the whole? What moves that which moves the whole? And so on ad infinitum. Must not this moving fifth element be in space? Suppose that they call it something other than the fifth element, an angelic body, say. What grounds have they for asserting that angels are bodies? What are these bodies? How far will God transcend angels who are his ministers? If supra-angelic, a countless swarm of bodies will be fetched in, an abyss of nonsense with no halting place.

So we have proved that God is not a body. No divinely inspired teacher has asserted or accepted that idea; the verdict of our fold is against it. He can only be incorporeal. But the term incorporeal, though granted, does not give an all-embracing revelation of God’s essential being. The same is true of ingenerate, unoriginate, immutable, and immortal, indeed of all attributes applied or referred to God. For what has the fact of owning no beginning, of freedom from change, from limitation, to do with his real, fundamental nature? No, the full reality is left to be grasped, philosophically treated and scrutinized by a more advanced theorist of God. Just as predicating is body or is begotten of something or other where these predicates are applicable is not enough clearly to set out the things, but you must also, if an object of knowledge is to be displayed with adequate clarity, give the predicates their subject (people, cows and horses, you see, are corporeal, begotten and mortal), so, in the same way, an inquirer into the nature of a real being cannot stop short at saying what it is not but must add to his denials a positive affirmation (and how much easier it is to take in a single thing than to run the full gamut of particular negations!). The point of this is that comprehension of the object of knowledge should be effected by negation of what the thing is not and by positive assertion of what it is. A person who tells you what God is not but fails to tell you what he is is rather like someone who, asked what twice five is, answers not two, not three, not four, not five, not twenty, not thirty, no number, in short, under ten or over ten. He does not deny it is ten, but he is also not settling the questioner’s mind with a firm answer. It is much simpler, much briefer, to indicate all that something is not by indicating what it is, than to reveal what it is by denying what it is not.

This is all common sense, surely, but now that we have proved deity incorporeal, we shall take the examination a stage further. The problem is this: is deity located in space or not? If it is not, then your shrewd critic might ask how it can even exist at all. Granted that what does not exist has no spatial location, it may well be the case that what has no spatial location does not exist. But if deity is spatially located there are two possible consequences: either the universe contains it, or it is located above the universe. Taking the first alternative, then, it is either contained in a part of the universe or the whole of it. Supposing deity is contained in a part of the universe, it will be delimited by something smaller; if in the whole, by something larger, quite different in relative scale, I mean, as between deity inside and the surrounding universe, granted the universe is going to be contained by the universe and all spatial location to have its bounding line. These consequences follow the hypotheses that the universe contains God. Again, where was it before the universe was created? This produces a considerable problem, you see. If, on the other hand, deity is located above the universe, what is the dividing line between it and the universe? Where is this higher place? How are higher and lower levels to be recognized; where there is no dividing line between to separate them? There will have, surely, to be something in between, something to bound the universe off from what lies above it. In that case this something in between must have the very spatial location we rejected. I do not now insist on the fact that deity must be delimited if it be mentally comprehended, for comprehension is one form of delimitation.

Why have I made this digression, too labored, I dare say, for the general ear but in tune with the prevalent fashion in discussions, a fashion that despises noble simplicity and substitutes tortuous conundrums? I did it to make the tree known by its fruits, to make the darkness that activates dogmas like these, I mean, known by the obscurity of their expression. I did not do it to gain a reputation for startling oratory or extraordinary wisdom as a marvelous Daniel for showing hard sentences and dissolving doubts.^[1] No, I wanted to make plain the point my sermon began with, which was this: the incomprehensibility of deity to the human mind and its totally unimaginable grandeur. Not that deity resents our knowledge: resentment is a far cry from the divine nature, serene as it is, uniquely and properly good, especially resentment of its most prized creation. What can mean more to the Word than thinking beings, since their very existence is an act of supreme goodness? It is not that he treasures his own fullness of glory, keeping his majesty costly by inaccessibility. It would be utterly dishonest, utterly out of character not merely for God but also for an ordinary good person with anything of a proper conscience about him to get himself the senior place by keeping others out.

Therefore, God is poured forth in all things. He says by the prophet, I fill heaven and earth, and, as I quoted a short time before of his wisdom, He reaches from end to end mightily and orders all things sweetly.^[1] It is likewise written, the Spirit of the Lord filled the whole world,^[2] and one of the psalms has these words addressed to him: Where shall I go from your Spirit, or where shall I flee from your face? If I ascend up into heaven, you are there. If I descend into hell, you are there.^[3]

Yet God so permeates all things as to be not a quality of the world but the very creative substance of the world, ruling the world without labor, sustaining it without effort. Nevertheless, he is not distributed through space in a physical sense so that half of him should be in half of the world and half in the other half of it. He is wholly present in all of it in such a way as to be wholly in heaven alone and wholly in the earth alone, and wholly in heaven and earth together; not confined in any place, but wholly in himself everywhere.

Through the indescribable wisdom of God residing in the Word, we understand that all things are with him and the Word himself is all things. Is not the beauty of the field in a manner with him, since he is everywhere and has said, Heaven and earth I fill? What is not with him, of whom it is said, If I shall have ascended into heaven, you are there. If I descended into hell, you are present?^[1]

Listen to him: Come to me, all you who labor.^[1] You do not put an end to your labor by running away. You prefer to run away from him, do you, not to him? Find somewhere, and run away there. But if you cannot run away from him, for the good reason that he is present everywhere, the next thing to do is to run away to God, who is present right where you are standing. Run away, then. So, you see, you have run away beyond the heavens, he is there. You have gone right down to hell, he is there. Whatever solitary places of the earth you may choose, there he is, the one who said, I fill heaven and earth. So if he fills heaven and earth and there is nowhere you can run away to from him, do not go on laboring with all that trouble. Run away to him where he is present right beside you, to avoid experiencing him as he comes to judge you.

So the aspect he chose was the one by which Christ came into the world. He came, after all, insofar as he was man. Because insofar as he was God, he was always here. Is there anywhere God is not, I mean, seeing that he said, I fill heaven and earth? Christ is certainly the power of God and the wisdom of God. Of this wisdom it says, She reaches from end to end mightily and disposes all things sweetly.^[1] So then, he was in this world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.^[2] He was here, and yet he also came. He was here by divine greatness; he came by human weakness. So because he came by human weakness, that is why Paul declared his coming by saying, The word is human. The human race would not have been set free unless the Word of God had agreed to be human. After all, people are said in particular to be human who show some humanity, above all by giving hospitality to human persons. So if human beings are called human because they receive human beings into their homes, how human must that one be who received humanity into himself by becoming human?

Jesus said, He that sent me is with me.^[1] He had already said this before, but he is constantly reminding them of this important point. He sent me, and He is with me. If then, O Lord, he is with you, it is not so much that the One has been sent by the other but rather that you both have come. And yet, while both are together, one was sent, the other was the sender. Incarnation is a sending, and the incarnation itself belongs only to the Son and not to the Father. The Father therefore sent the Son but did not withdraw from the Son. For it was not the case that the Father was absent from the place to which he sent the Son. For where could the Maker of all things not be? Where could he not be who said, I fill heaven and earth?

And how will it be possible to set the text, Do not I fill heaven and earth? says the Lord, side by side with the whole world understood as Jesus’ shoe? It is worthwhile, however, to give attention to whether we must understand the words in relation to the fact that the Word and Wisdom have permeated the whole world, and the Father is in the Son, as we presented it, or he who first girded himself with all creation, because the Son was in him, granted to the Savior, since he was second after him and God the Word, to pervade the whole creation.

Elsewhere we read the words of the prophet: Do I not fill heaven and earth? God tells why he fills all things: because I am with you to save you.^[1] Behold, the Lord shows us not only his rule and its all pervading fullness but also the power and benefits accruing from this very fullness. For the fullness of divinity carries as its reward the salvation of what it fills. Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, said, for in him we live and move and are.^[2]

If the sun, being corporeal, for it is visible and susceptible to disintegration, cannot be polluted when it passes through corpses, putrid mud and many other evil-smelling substances, much more impervious to such pollution is the maker of the sun, the creator of the universe, the incorporeal one, the invisible, the unchangeable, the one who always remains the same. And that those things are so the following reflection will bear out. We both assert and believe that his nature is infinite, for we have heard him exclaim: Do I not fill the heavens and the earth? says the Lord.

Fire is called the Gospel and salvation is called preaching, or fire could also refer to participation in the Holy Spirit, which is similar to experiencing fire. And indeed, this is also why the most wise John the Baptist concerning himself and all of us said, I baptize you with water for repentance^[1] etc., [looking ahead] to our Savior Jesus Christ [who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire]. Rightly, therefore, did Christ say, I have come to bring fire upon the earth, and I wish that it were already kindled.^[2]

Thus, I am against the prophets who steal my words, says the Lord. The prophet includes this with reference to the false prophets who were stealing true prophecies from true prophets and then passing them on in secret to someone whom they forbade to speak about this. What they had in mind was the following: If the prophecy was fulfilled, they would say, See, we have a witness that we were prophesying the same thing. But if the prophecy was not fulfilled, they would blame Jeremiah and other true prophets, as if they deceived people.

However, there is another kind of false prophet who would say anything to please listeners. They would reassure people, No calamity will come on you, and according to the custom of false prophets, they would support this claim in the name of the Lord. They are like those against whom Jeremiah spoke previously, those who mix their false dreams with pronouncements of the Spirit and deceive the people.

Since the false prophets also avail themselves of the phrase thus says the Lord, pretending to be the true prophets, there is need of signs that distinguish each of them. Therefore there was, according to the apostle, a gift of distinguishing spirits,^[1] and one who possessed this gift distinguished spirits, both the divine and the bad ones, just as a moneychanger distinguishes genuine currency from counterfeit. But aside from this general knowledge, what was just said also suffices for distinguishing. For, my word, he says, is not empty and a nourishment for what is irrational, but it is like wheat and nourishment for what is rational.