Therefore, God is our refuge and strength. To him who is able to say, I can do all things in him, Christ, who strengthens me,^[1] God is strength. Now, it is the privilege of many to say, God is our refuge, and Lord, you have been our refuge. But to say it with the same feelings as the prophet is the privilege of few. For there are few who do not admire human interests but depend wholly on God and breathe him and have all hope and trust in him. And our actions convict us whenever in our afflictions we run to everything else rather than to God. Is a child sick? You look around for an enchanter or one who puts superstitious marks on the necks of the innocent children; or finally, you go to a doctor and to medicines, having neglected him who is able to save. If a dream troubles you, you run to the interpreter of dreams. And, if you fear an enemy, you cunningly secure some man as a patron. In short, in every need you contradict yourself in word, naming God as your refuge; in act, drawing on aid from useless and vain things. God is the true aid for the righteous person. Just as a certain general, equipped with a noble heavy-armed force, is always ready to give help to an oppressed district, so God is our helper and an ally to everyone who is waging war against the wiliness of the devil, and he sends out ministering spirits for the safety of those who are in need.

The resurrection of the Lord is our hope, the Lord’s ascension our glorification. Today, you see, we are celebrating the feast of the ascension. So if we are to celebrate the Lord’s ascension in the right way, with faith, with devotion, with reverence as God-fearing people, we must ascend with him and lift up our hearts. In ascending, however, we must not get above ourselves. Yes, we should lift up our hearts, but to the Lord. As you know, not lifting up hearts to the Lord is due to pride; lifting up hearts to the Lord is called taking refuge. After all, we say to the one who has ascended, Lord, you have become a refuge for us.

He rose again, you see, to give us hope, because what rises again is what first dies. So it [Christ’s resurrection] was to save us from despair at dying and from thinking that our whole life ends with death. We were anxious, I mean, about the soul, and he by rising again gave us an assurance even about the flesh. So he ascended—who did? The one who descended.^[1] He descended in order to heal you; he ascended in order to lift you up. You will fall if you have lifted yourself up; you remain standing if you have been lifted up by him. So, lift up your hearts, but to the Lord—that is taking refuge. Lifting up your heart, but not to the Lord, that is pride. So let us say to him as he rises again, Since you, O Lord, are my hope; and as he ascends, You have placed your refuge very high.^[2] How, I mean, can we possibly be proud, if we lift up our hearts to him, seeing that he humbled himself for our sakes, so that we should not remain proud?

It is plain then from the above that the Scriptures declare the Son’s eternity; it is equally plain from what follows that the Arian phrases he was not and before and when^[1] are in the same Scriptures predicated of creatures. Moses, for instance, in his account of the generation of our world, says, And every plant of the field, before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.^[2] And in Deuteronomy, When the most High gave to the nations their inheritance.^[3] And the Lord said, If you love me, you will rejoice because I said, I go to the Father, for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes to pass, that when it comes to pass, you might believe. And concerning the creation he says in the words of Solomon, Before the world existed, when there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth.^[4] And, Before Abraham was, I am.^[5] And concerning Jeremiah he says, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.^[6] And David in the psalm says, Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, you are God from everlasting and world without end.^[7] And in Daniel,^[8] Susanna cried out with a loud voice and said, O everlasting God, you know the secrets, and know all things before they are.^[9] Thus it appears that the phrases once was not, and before it came to be, and when and the like, belong to things that have an origin and were created, which come out of nothing but are alien to the Word.

Whatever there is in the world, it fades away, it passes. As for this life, what is it but what the psalmist said: In the morning it will pass like the grass; in the morning it will flower and pass away; in the evening it will fall, it grows hard and withers.^[1] That is what all flesh is.^[2] That is why Christ, that is why the new life, that is why eternal hope, that is why the consolation of immortality has been promised us and in the flesh of the Lord has already been given us. It was from us, after all, that that flesh was taken that is now immortal and that has shown us what he accomplished in himself. It was on our account, you see, that he had flesh. I mean, on his own account in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.^[3] Look for flesh and blood; where is it to be found in the Word? Because he wished really and truly to suffer with us and to redeem us, he clothed himself in the form of a servant^[4] and came down here though he was here, in order to be plainly visible though he had never been absent; and he that had made humanity wished to be made human; to be created of a mother, though he had created his mother. He mounted the cross; he died and showed us what we already knew about, being born and dying. In his humility he went through with those hoary old experiences of ours, so familiar, so well known.

You have kept our iniquities before you. Nothing eludes you; night does not conceal our sins, nor does the darkness cover them; all things are clear before you: Our life in light of your scrutiny. This is expressed much better in the Hebrew: our hidden sins in the light of your scrutiny. Whatever we do, whatever we think we are doing in secret, lies open before your eyes. All our days have passed away.^[1] Our life hurries on at a great pace, and when we least expect it, it slips away, and we die. These very words we speak are of death, and we do not take thought. We have spent our years like a spider.^[2] Meditate on these words of the psalmist. In the same way that the spider produces, as it were, a thread and runs to and fro, back and forth, and weaves the whole day long, and his labor, indeed, is great but the result is nil; so, too, human life runs about hither and thither. We search for possessions, and we accumulate wealth; we procreate children; we labor and toil; we rise in power and authority; we do everything; and do not realize that we are spiders weaving a web.

And so the human race was held fast in a just condemnation, and all people were children of wrath—of that wrath of which it is written, All our days are spent; and in your wrath we have fainted away. Our years shall be considered as a spider. Or as Job says of this same wrath, Man, born of a woman, living for a short time, is full of wrath.^[1] And of this wrath the Lord Jesus also speaks: He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; he who does not believe in the Son does not have life, but the wrath of God rests on him.^[2] He does not say it will come but it rests upon him, for everyone is born with it. And that is why the apostle says, We were by nature children of wrath even as the rest.^[3] Since people were lying under this wrath because of original sin—sin still more heavy and destructive in proportion as the sins added on it were great or numerous—there was the need for a mediator, that is, a reconciler, who would placate this wrath by the offering of one sacrifice, of which all the sacrifices under the law and the prophets were foreshadowings.

For in the most general sense it holds good that it is apparently not possible for any person to remain altogether without experience of ill. For, as one says, the whole world lies in wickedness;^[1] and again, Most of the days of human life are labor and trouble. But you will perhaps say, What difference is there between being tempted, and falling or entering into temptation? Well, if one is overcome by evil—and he will be overcome unless he struggles against it himself and unless God protects him with his shield—that person has entered into temptation, and is in it and is brought under it like one that is led captive. But if one withstands and endures, he is indeed tempted; but he has not entered into temptation or fallen into it. Thus Jesus was led up of the Spirit, not indeed to enter into temptation but to be tempted of the devil.^[2] And Abraham, again, did not enter into temptation, neither did God lead him into temptation, but he tried [tested] him; yet he did not drive him into temptation. The Lord, moreover, tested the disciples. Thus the wicked one, when he tempts us, draws us into the temptations, as dealing himself with the temptations of evil. But God, when he tests, presents the tests as one untempted by evil. For God, it is said, cannot be tempted by evil.^[3] The devil, therefore, drives us on by violence, drawing us to destruction; but God leads us by hand, training us for our salvation.

Let everyone above all have this zeal in common so that having made a beginning they not hesitate or grow fainthearted in their labors or say, We have spent a long time in ascetic discipline. Instead, as though we were beginning anew each day, let each of us increase in fervor. For the entire lifetime of a human being is very brief when measured against the age to come; accordingly, all our time here is nothing compared with life eternal. Everything in the world is sold according to its value and things of equal value are exchanged, but the promise of eternal life^[1] is purchased for very little. For it is written, The days of our life are seventy years or, if we are strong, perhaps eighty; more than this is pain and suffering. When we persevere in ascetic discipline for all eighty or even one hundred years, we will not reign for the equivalent of those one hundred years. Instead of a hundred years, we will reign forever and ever. And although we are contested on earth, we will not receive our inheritance here; we have promises in heaven instead. Once more: when we lay aside this perishable body we receive it back imperishable.^[2] LIFE OF ST.

They say concerning Abba Apollo, who lived in Scete, that he was originally a rude and brutish herdsman, and that he [once] saw in the fields a woman who was with child and that, through the operation of the devil, he said, I wish to know the condition of the child that is in the womb of this woman, and that he ripped her open and saw the child in her belly; then straightway he repented, and he purged his heart, and having repented he went to Scete and revealed unto the fathers what he had done. And when he heard them singing the psalms and saying, The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and with difficulty [we come] to fourscore years, he said to the old men, I am forty years old this day, and I have never prayed; and now, if I live for forty years more, I will never rest nor cease nor refrain from praying to God continually that he may forgive me my sins. And from that time onwards he did even as he had said, for he never toiled with the work of his hands, but he was always supplicating God and saying, I, O my Lord, like a man, have sinned, and do you, like God, forgive me; and he prayed this prayer both by night and by day instead of reciting psalms. And a certain brother who used to dwell with him once heard him say in his prayer, now as he spoke he wept, and groaned from the bottom of his heart and sighed in grief of heart, O my Lord, I have vexed you; have pity on me, and forgive me so that I may enjoy a little rest. Then a voice came to him that said, Your sins have been forgiven you, and also the murder of the woman; but the murder of the child is not yet forgiven you. And one of the old men said, The murder of the child also was forgiven to him, but God left him to work because this would prove beneficial to his soul.

So make your right hand known that fettered we may gain wisdom of heart. Some codices say trained; others fettered. Trained implies one thing; fettered, another. What, then, is the meaning of make your right hand known? Why have you restrained your right hand so long, God? Why draw back your hand and keep it idle beneath your garment?^[1] says another psalm. Here is its meaning: we are lying prostrate in sickness; we are powerless in our sins; send forth your right hand and raise us up. Why do you keep your right hand so long idle beneath your cloak? Your heart overflows with a goodly theme;^[2] send forth your right hand and set us free. Make known to us the mystery that has been hidden from generation to generation. Make your right hand known. What are you pilfering, Arius?^[3] The psalmist did not say, Make your right hand, for God was never without his right hand. But what did he say? Your right hand, that you have always had and that has been in your bosom,^[4] make it known to us. Because we are not able to know him abiding in his Godhead, he assumes our humanity, and in that way we know him.

Thus, if Isaiah says, The everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth;^[1] and Susanna said, O everlasting God;^[2] and Baruch wrote, I will cry to the Everlasting in my days, and shortly after, My hope is in the Everlasting, that he will have you, and joy is come to me from the holy One;^[3] yet forasmuch as the apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says, Who being the radiance of his glory and the expression of his person;^[4] and David too in the ninetieth psalm, And the brightness of the Lord be on us, and, In your light shall we see light,^[5] who has so little sense as to doubt the eternity of the Son? For when did humankind see light without the brightness of its radiance, that he may say of the Son, There was once, when he was not, or Before his generation he was not.^[6]