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| The Whole Number of Spiritual Sheep; Man a Second Choir, After the Angels, to the Praise of God; The Parable of the Lost Sheep Explained.
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Chapter VI.—The
Whole Number of Spiritual Sheep; Man a Second Choir, After the Angels,
to the Praise of God; The Parable of the Lost Sheep
Explained.
Now, since He truly was and is, being in the
beginning with God, and being God,2563
He is the chief Commander and Shepherd
of the heavenly ones, whom all reasonable creatures obey and attend,
who tends in order and numbers the multitudes of the blessed
angels. For this is the equal and perfect number of immortal
creatures, divided according to their races and tribes, man also being
here taken into the flock. For he also was created without
corruption, that he might honour the king and maker of all things,
responding to the shouts of the melodious angels which came from
heaven. But when it came to pass that, by transgressing the
commandment (of God), he suffered a terrible and destructive fall,
being thus reduced to a state of death, for this reason the Lord says
that He came from heaven into (a human) life, leaving the ranks and the
armies of angels. For the mountains are to be explained by the
heavens, and the ninety and nine sheep by the principalities and
powers2564
which the
Captain and Shepherd left when He went down to seek the lost one.
For it remained that man should be included in this catalogue and
number, the Lord lifting him up and wrapping him round, that he might
not again, as I said, be overflowed and swallowed up by the waves of
deceit. For with this purpose the Word assumed the nature of man,
that, having overcome the serpent, He might by Himself destroy
the condemnation which
had come into being along with man’s ruin. For it was
fitting that the Evil One should be overcome by no other, but by him
whom he had deceived, and whom he was boasting that he held in
subjection, because no otherwise was it possible that sin and
condemnation should be destroyed, unless that same man on whose account
it had been said, “Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return,”2565
should be
created anew, and undo the sentence which for his sake had gone forth
on all, that “as in Adam” at first “all die, even
so” again “in Christ,” who assumed the nature and
position of Adam, should “all be made alive.”2566
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