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| What in the Incarnate Word Belongs to Knowledge, What to Wisdom.
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Chapter 19.—What
in the Incarnate Word Belongs to Knowledge, What to
Wisdom.
24. And all these things which the
Word made flesh did and bare for us in time and place, belong,
according to the distinction which we have undertaken to
demonstrate, to knowledge, not to wisdom. And as the Word is
without time and without place, it is co-eternal with the Father,
and in its wholeness everywhere; and if any one can, and as much as
he can, speak truly concerning this Word, then his discourse will
pertain to wisdom. And hence the Word made flesh, which is Christ
Jesus, has the treasures both of wisdom and of knowledge. For the
apostle, writing to the Colossians, says: “For I would that ye
knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea,
and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; that
their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and
unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the
acknowledgment of the mystery of God which is Christ Jesus: in whom
are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”843
To what
extent the apostle knew all those treasures, how much of them he
had penetrated, and in them to how great things he had reached, who
can know? Yet, for my part, according to that which is written,
“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to
profit withal; for to one is given by the Spirit the word of
wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;”844
if these two
are in such way to be distinguished from each other, that wisdom is
to be assigned to divine things, knowledge to human, I acknowledge
both in Christ, and so with me do all His faithful ones. And when I
read, “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” I
understand by the Word the true Son of God, I acknowledge in the
flesh the true Son of man, and both together joined into one Person
of God and man, by an ineffable copiousness of grace. And on
account of this, the apostle goes on to say, “And we beheld His
glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth.”845
If we refer grace to knowledge, and
truth to wisdom, I think we shall not swerve from that distinction
between these two things which we have commended. For in those
things that have their origin in time, this is the highest grace,
that man is joined with God in unity of person; but in things
eternal the highest truth is rightly attributed to the Word of God.
But that the same is Himself the Only-begotten of the Father, full
of grace and truth,—this took place, in order that He Himself in
things done for us in time should be the same for whom we are
cleansed by the same faith, that we may contemplate Him steadfastly
in things eternal. And those distinguished philosophers of the
heathen who have been able to understand and discern the invisible
things of God by those things which are made, have yet, as is said
of them, “held down the truth in iniquity;”846
because they philosophized without
a Mediator, that is, without the man Christ, whom they neither
believed to be about to come at the word of the prophets, nor to
have come at that of the apostles. For, placed as they were in
these lowest things, they could not but seek some media through
which they might attain to those lofty things which they had
understood; and so they fell upon deceitful spirits, through whom
it came to pass, that “they changed the glory of the
incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and
to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.”847
For in such
forms also they set up or worshipped idols. Therefore Christ is our
knowledge, and the same Christ is also our wisdom. He Himself
implants in us faith concerning temporal things, He Himself shows
forth the truth concerning eternal things. Through Him we reach on
to Himself: we stretch through knowledge to wisdom; yet we do not
withdraw from one and the same Christ, “in whom are hidden all
the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge.” But now we speak of
knowledge, and will hereafter speak of wisdom as much as He Himself
shall grant. And let us not so take these two things, as if it were
not allowable to speak either of the wisdom which is in human
things, or of the knowledge which is in divine. For after a laxer
custom of speech, both can be called wisdom, and both knowledge.
Yet the apostle could not in any way have written, “To one is
given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge,”
except also these several things had been properly called by the
several names, of the distinction between which we are now
treating.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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