An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith — Book IV

St. John of Damascus

  1. 1. Concerning what followed the Resurrection.
  2. 2. Concerning the sitting at the right hand of the Father.
  3. 3. In reply to those who say If Christ has two natures, either you do service to the creature in worshipping created nature, or you say that there is one nature to be worshipped, and another not to be worshipped.
  4. 4. Why it was the Son of God, and not the Father or the Spirit, that became man: and what having became man He achieved.
  5. 5. In reply to those who ask if Christ's subsistence is create or uncreate.
  6. 6. Concerning the question, when Christ was called.
  7. 7. In answer to those who enquire whether the holy Mother of God bore two natures, and whether two natures hung upon the Cross.
  8. 8. How the Only-begotten Son of God is called first-born.
  9. 9. Concerning Faith and Baptism.
  10. 10. Concerning Faith.
  11. 11. Concerning the Cross and here further concerning Faith.
  12. 12. Concerning Worship towards the East.
  13. 13. Concerning the holy and immaculate Mysteries of the Lord.
  14. 14. Concerning our Lord's genealogy and concerning the holy Mother of God.
  15. 15. Concerning the honour due to the Saints and their remains.
  16. 16. Concerning Images.
  17. 17. Concerning Scripture.
  18. 18. Regarding the things said concerning Christ.
  19. 19. That God is not the cause of evils.
  20. 20. That there are not two Kingdoms.
  21. 21. The purpose for which God in His foreknowledge created persons who would sin and not repent.
  22. 22. Concerning the law of God and the law of sin.
  23. 23. Against the Jews on the question of the Sabbath.
  24. 24. Concerning Virginity.
  25. 25. Concerning the Circumcision.
  26. 26. Concerning the Antichrist.
  27. 27. Concerning the Resurrection.

After Christ was risen from the dead He laid aside all His passions, I mean His corruption or hunger or thirst or sleep or weariness or such like. For, although He did taste food after the resurrection [[Luke 24.43]], yet He did not do so because it was a law of His nature (for He felt no hunger), but in the way of economy, in order that He might convince us of the reality of the resurrection, and that it was one and the same flesh which suffered and rose again. But He laid aside none of the divisions of His nature, neither body nor spirit, but possesses both the body and the soul intelligent and reasonable, volitional and energetic, and in this wise He sits at the right hand of the Father, using His will both as God and as man in behalf of our salvation, energising in His divine capacity to provide for and maintain and govern all things, and remembering in His human capacity the time He spent on earth, while all the time He both sees and knows that He is adored by all rational creation. For His Holy Spirit knows that He is one in substance with God the Word, and shares as Spirit of God and not simply as Spirit the worship accorded to Him. Moreover, His ascent from earth to heaven, and again, His descent from heaven to earth, are manifestations of the energies of His circumscribed body. For He shall so come again to you, says he, in like manner as you have seen Him go into Heaven [[Acts 1.11]].