TATIAN ON THE HOLY TRINITY

Chapter 4. The Christians Worship God ALONE

For what reason, men of Greece, do you wish to bring the civil powers, as in a pugilistic encounter, into collision with us? And, if I am not disposed to comply with the usages of some of them, why am I to be abhorred as a vile miscreant? Does the sovereign order the payment of tribute, I am ready to render it. Does my master command me to act as a bondsman and to serve, I acknowledge the serfdom.

Man is to be honoured as a fellow-man; God alone is to be feared, — He who is not visible to human eyes, nor comes within the compass of human art. Only when I am commanded to deny Him, will I not obey, but will rather die than show myself false and ungrateful. Our God did not begin to be in time: He alone is without beginning, and He Himself is the beginning of all things. God is a Spirit, John 4:24

not pervading matter, but the Maker of material spirits, and of the forms that are in matter; He is invisible, impalpable, being Himself the Father of both sensible and invisible things.

Him we know from His creation, and apprehend His invisible power by His works.

Romans 1:20 I refuse to adore that workmanship which He has made for our sakes.

The sun and moon were made for us: how, then, can I adore my own servants? How can I speak of stocks and stones as gods?

For the Spirit that pervades matter is inferior to the more divine spirit; and this, even when assimilated to the soul, is not to be honoured equally with the perfect God.

Nor even ought the ineffable God to be presented with gifts; for He who is in want of nothing is not to be misrepresented by us as though He were indigent. But I will set forth our views more distinctly.

Chapter 5. The Doctrine of the Christians as to the Creation of the World

God was in the beginning; but the beginning, we have been taught, is the power of the Logos.

For the Lord of the universe, who is Himself the necessary ground (ὑπόστασις) of all being, inasmuch as no creature was yet in existence, was alone; but inasmuch as He was all power, Himself the necessary ground of things visible and invisible, with Him were all things; with Him, by Logos-power (διὰ λογικῆς δυνάμεως), the Logos Himself also, WHO WAS IN HIM, subsists.

And by His simple will the Logos SPRINGS FORTH; and the Logos, not coming forth in vain, BECOMES THE FIRST-BEGOTTEN work of the Father. Him (the Logos) we know to be the beginning of the world.

But He came into being by participation, not by abscission; for what is cut off is separated from the original substance, but that which comes by participation, making its choice of function, does not render him deficient from whom it is taken.

For just as from one torch many fires are lighted, but the light of the first torch is not lessened by the kindling of many torches, so the Logos, coming forth from the Logos-power of the Father, has not divested of the Logos-power Him who begot Him.

I myself, for instance, talk, and you hear; yet, certainly, I who converse do not become destitute of speech (λόγος) by the transmission of speech, but by the utterance of my voice I endeavour to reduce to order the unarranged matter in your minds.

And as the Logos, begotten in the beginning, begot in turn our world, having first created for Himself the necessary matter, so also I, in imitation of the Logos, being begotten again, and having become possessed of the truth, am trying to reduce to order the confused matter which is kindred with myself.

For matter is not, like God, without beginning, nor, as having no beginning, is of equal power with God; it is begotten, and not produced by any other being, but brought into existence by the Framer of all things alone.

Chapter 6. Christians’ Belief in the Resurrection

And on this account we believe that there will be a resurrection of bodies after the consummation of all things; not, as the Stoics affirm, according to the return of certain cycles, the same things being produced and destroyed for no useful purpose, but a resurrection once for all, when our periods of existence are completed, and in consequence solely of the constitution of things under which men alone live, for the purpose of passing judgment upon them.

Nor is sentence upon us passed by Minos or Rhadamanthus, before whose decease not a single soul, according to the mythic tales, was judged; but the Creator, God Himself, becomes the arbiter.

And, although you regard us as mere triflers and babblers, it troubles us not, since we have faith in this doctrine.

For just as, not existing before I was born, I knew not who I was, and only existed in the potentiality (ὐπόστασις) of fleshly matter, but being born, after a former state of nothingness, I have obtained through my birth a certainty of my existence; in the same way, having been born, and through death existing no longer, and seen no longer, I shall exist again, just as before I was not, but was afterwards born.

Even though fire destroy all traces of my flesh, the world receives the vaporized matter; and though dispersed through rivers and seas, or torn in pieces by wild beasts, I am laid up in the storehouses of a wealthy Lord.

And, although the poor and the godless know not what is stored up, yet God the Sovereign, when He pleases, will restore the substance that is visible to Him alone to its pristine condition.

Chapter 7. Concerning the Fall of Man

For the heavenly Logos, A SPIRIT EMANATING the Father and a Logos from the Logos-power, in imitation of the Father who begot Him made man an image of immortality, so that, as incorruption is with God, in like manner, man, sharing in a part of God, might have the immortal principle also.

The Logos, too, before the creation of men, was the Framer of angels.

And each of these two orders of creatures was made free to act as it pleased, not having the nature of good, which again is with God alone, but is brought to perfection in men through their freedom of choice, in order that the bad man may be justly punished, having become depraved through his own fault, but the just man be deservedly praised for his virtuous deeds, since in the exercise of his free choice he refrained from transgressing the will of God.

Such is the constitution of things in reference to angels and men. And the power of the Logos, having in itself a faculty to foresee future events, NOT AS FATED, but as taking place by the choice of free agents, foretold from time to time the issues of things to come; it also became a forbidder of wickedness by means of prohibitions, and the encomiast of those who remained good.

And, when men attached themselves to one who was more subtle than the rest, having regard to his being the first-born, and declared him to be God, though he was resisting the law of God, then the power of the Logos excluded the beginner of the folly and his adherents from all fellowship with Himself.

And so he who was made in the likeness of God, since the more powerful spirit is separated from him, becomes mortal; but that first-begotten one through his transgression and ignorance becomes a demon; and they who imitated him, that is his illusions, have become a host of demons, and through their freedom of choice have been given up to their own infatuation…

Chapter 13. Theory of the Soul’s Immortality

The soul is not in itself immortal, O Greeks, but mortal. Yet it is possible for it not to die.

If, indeed, it knows not the truth, it dies, and is dissolved with the body, but rises again at last at the end of the world with the body, receiving death by punishment in immortality.

But, again, if it acquires the knowledge of God, it dies not, although for a time it be dissolved. In itself it is darkness, and there is nothing luminous in it. And this is the meaning of the saying, The darkness comprehends not the light. John 1:5

For the soul does not preserve the spirit, but is preserved by it, and the light comprehends the darkness.

The Logos, in truth, is the light of God, but the ignorant soul is darkness.

On this account, if it continues solitary, it tends downward towards matter, and dies with the flesh; but, if it enters into union with the Divine Spirit, it is no longer helpless, but ascends to the regions whither the Spirit guides it: for the dwelling-place of the spirit is above, but the origin of the soul is from beneath.

Now, in the beginning the spirit was a constant companion of the soul, but the spirit forsook it because it was not willing to follow.

Yet, retaining as it were a spark of its power, though unable by reason of the separation to discern the perfect, while seeking for God it fashioned to itself in its wandering many gods, following the sophistries of the demons.

But the Spirit of God is not with all, but, taking up its abode with those who live justly, and intimately combining with the soul, by prophecies it announced hidden things to other souls.

And the souls that are obedient to wisdom have attracted to themselves the cognate spirit; but the disobedient, rejecting the minister of the suffering God, have shown themselves to be fighters against God, rather than His worshippers…

Chapter 15. Necessity of a Union with the Holy Spirit

But further, it becomes us now to seek for what we once had, but have lost, to unite the soul with the Holy Spirit, and to strive after union with God.

The human soul consists of many parts, and is not simple; it is composite, so as to manifest itself through the body; for neither could it ever appear by itself without the body, nor does the flesh rise again without the soul.

Man is not, as the croaking philosophers say, merely a rational animal, capable of understanding and knowledge; for, according to them, even irrational creatures appear possessed of understanding and knowledge.

But man alone is the image and likeness of God; and I mean by man, not one who performs actions similar to those of animals, but one who has advanced far beyond mere humanity — to God Himself.

This question we have discussed more minutely in the treatise concerning animals.

But the principal point to be spoken of now is, what is intended by the image and likeness of God.

That which cannot be compared is no other than abstract being; but that which is compared is no other than that which is like.

The perfect God is without flesh; but man is flesh.

The bond of the flesh is the soul; that which encloses the soul is the flesh.

Such is the nature of man’s constitution; and, if it be like a temple, God is pleased to dwell in it by the spirit, His representative; but, if it be not such a habitation, man excels the wild beasts in articulate language only — in other respects his manner of life is like theirs, as one who is not a likeness of God.

But none of the demons possess flesh; their structure is spiritual, like that of fire or air.

And only by those whom the Spirit of God dwells in and fortifies are the bodies of the demons easily seen, not at all by others — I mean those who possess only soul; for the inferior has not the ability to apprehend the superior.

On this account the nature of the demons has no place for repentance; for they are the reflection of matter and of wickedness.

But matter desired to exercise lordship over the soul; and according to their free-will these gave laws of death to men; but men, after the loss of immortality, have conquered death by submitting to death in faith; and by repentance a call has been given to them, according to the word which says, Since they were made a little lower than the angels.

And, for every one who has been conquered, it is possible again to conquer, if he rejects the condition which brings death.

And what that is, may be easily seen by men who long for immortality.