An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith — Book Iii

St. John of Damascus

  1. 1. Concerning the Divine Œconomy and God's care over us, and concerning our salvation.
  2. 2. — Concerning the manner in which the Word was conceived, and concerning His divine incarnation.
  3. 3. Concerning Christ's two natures, in opposition to those who hold that He has only one.
  4. 4. Concerning the manner of the Mutual Communication.
  5. 5. Concerning the number of the Natures.
  6. 6. That in one of its subsistences the divine nature is united in its entirety to the human nature, in its entirety and not only part to part.
  7. 7. Concerning the one compound subsistence of God the Word.
  8. 8. In reply to those who ask whether the natures of the Lord are brought under a continuous or a discontinuous quantity.
  9. 9. In reply to the question whether there is Nature that has no Subsistence.
  10. 10. Concerning the Trisagium ( the Thrice Holy ).
  11. 11. Concerning the Nature as viewed in Species and in Individual, and concerning the difference between Union and Incarnation: and how this is to be understood, The one Nature of God the Word Incarnate.
  12. 12. That the holy Virgin is the Mother of God: an argument directed against the Nestorians.
  13. 13. Concerning the properties of the two Natures.
  14. 14. Concerning the volitions and free-will of our Lord Jesus Christ.
  15. 15. Concerning the energies in our Lord Jesus Christ.
  16. 16. In reply to those who say If man has two natures and two energies, Christ must be held to have three natures and as many energies.
  17. 17. Concerning the deification of the nature of our Lord's flesh and of His will.
  18. 18. Further concerning volitions and free-wills: minds, too, and knowledges and wisdoms.
  19. 19. Concerning the theandric energy.
  20. 20. Concerning the natural and innocent passions.
  21. 21. Concerning ignorance and servitude.
  22. 22. Concerning His growth.
  23. 23. Concerning His Fear.
  24. 24. Concerning our Lord's Praying.
  25. 25. Concerning the Appropriation.
  26. 26. Concerning the Passion of our Lord's body, and the Impassibility of His divinity.
  27. 27. Concerning the fact that the divinity of the Word remained inseparable from the soul and the body, even at our Lord's death, and that His subsistence continued one.
  28. 28. Concerning Corruption and Destruction.
  29. 29. Concerning the Descent to Hades.

Man, then, was thus snared by the assault of the arch-fiend, and broke his Creator's command, and was stripped of grace and put off his confidence with God, and covered himself with the asperities of a toilsome life (for this is the meaning of the fig-leaves ); and was clothed about with death, that is, mortality and the grossness of flesh (for this is what the garment of skins signifies); and was banished from Paradise by God's just judgment, and condemned to death, and made subject to corruption. Yet, notwithstanding all this, in His pity, God, Who gave him his being, and Who in His graciousness bestowed on him a life of happiness, did not disregard man. But He first trained him in many ways and called him back, by groans and trembling, by the deluge of water, and the utter destruction of almost the whole race [[Genesis 6.13]], by confusion and diversity of tongues, by the rule of angels, by the burning of cities, by figurative manifestations of God, by wars and victories and defeats, by signs and wonders, by manifold faculties, by the law and the prophets: for by all these means God earnestly strove to emancipate man from the wide-spread and enslaving bonds of sin, which had made life such a mass of iniquity, and to effect man's return to a life of happiness. For it was sin that brought death like a wild and savage beast into the world Wisdom 2:24 to the ruin of the human life. But it behooved the Redeemer to be without sin, and not made liable through sin to death, and further, that His nature should be strengthened and renewed, and trained by labour and taught the way of virtue which leads away from corruption to the life eternal and, in the end, is revealed the mighty ocean of love to man that is about Him. For the very Creator and Lord Himself undertakes a struggle in behalf of the work of His own hands, and learns by toil to become Master. And since the enemy snares man by the hope of Godhead, he himself is snared in turn by the screen of flesh, and so are shown at once the goodness and wisdom, the justice and might of God. God's goodness is revealed in that He did not disregard the frailty of His own handiwork, but was moved with compassion for him in his fall, and stretched forth His hand to him: and His justice in that when man was overcome He did not make another victorious over the tyrant, nor did He snatch man by might from death, but in His goodness and justice He made him, who had become through his sins the slave of death, himself once more conqueror and rescued like by like, most difficult though it seemed: and His wisdom is seen in His devising the most fitting solution of the difficulty. For by the good pleasure of our God and Father, the Only-begotten Son and Word of God and God, Who is in the bosom of the God and Father [[John 1.18]], of like essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Who was before the ages, Who is without beginning and was in the beginning, Who is in the presence of the God and Father, and is God and mad