The book "Concerning the Orthodox Faith" Donatus Veronensis caused to be printed at Verona first in Greek only, and presented it to Clement the Seventh in the year 1531. Not till the year 1548 did he produce a version containing both the Greek and Latin, and again in the year 1575. Next, in the year 1577, Jacobus Billy published at Paris his own translation without the Greek text: and it was printed again in that same city in the years 1603 and 1617.
Here it will not be superfluous to call to mind that the great part of the first book, as they say, of the work "Concerning the Orthodox Faith" exists as the sixth volume of the works of Cyril of Alexandria, inscribed in that teacher's name, a result to be doubtless attributed to the carelessness of some copyist who found these writings of the Damascus along with others of Cyril.
An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.
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Book I.
Chapter I.--That the Deity is incomprehensible, and that we ought not to pry into and meddle with the things which have not been delivered to us by the holy Prophets, and Apostles, and Evangelists.
No one hath seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him [1406] . The Deity, therefore, is ineffable and incomprehensible. For no one knoweth the Father, save the Son, nor the Son, save the Father [1407] . And the Holy Spirit, too, so knows the things of God as the spirit of the man knows the things that are in him [1408] . Moreover, after the first and blessed nature no one, not of men only, but even of supramundane powers, and the Cherubim, I say, and Seraphim themselves, has ever known God, save he to whom He revealed Himself.
God, however, did not leave us in absolute ignorance. For the knowledge of God's existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature. This creation, too, and its maintenance, and its government, proclaim the majesty of the Divine nature [1409] . Moreover, by the Law and the Prophets [1410] in former times and afterwards by His Only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, He disclosed to us the knowledge of Himself as that was possible for us. All things, therefore, that have been delivered to us by Law and Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists we receive, and know, and honour [1411] , seeking for nothing beyond these. For God, being good, is the cause of all good, subject neither to envy nor to any passion [1412] . For envy is far removed from the Divine nature, which is both passionless and only good. As knowing all things, therefore, and providing for what is profitable for each, He revealed that which it was to our profit to know; but what we were unable [1413] to bear He kept secret. With these things let us be satisfied, and let us abide by them, not removing everlasting boundaries, nor overpassing the divine tradition [1414] .
[1406] St. John i. 18 (R.V.).
[1407] St. Matt. xi. 27.
[1408] 1 Cor. ii. 11.
[1409] Wisd. xiii. 5.
[1410] Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
[1411] Dionys., De div. nom., c. 1.
[1412] Greg. Naz., Orat. 34.
[1413] Reading hoper de ouk edunametha for hoper de oun edunametha. Cod. Reg. 3379 gives kai ho ou dunametha.
[1414] Prov. xxii. 28.
Chapter II.--Concerning things utterable and things unutterable, and things knowable and thing unknowable.
It is necessary, therefore, that one who wishes to speak or to hear of God should understand clearly that alike in the doctrine of Deity and in that of the Incarnation [1415] , neither are all things unutterable nor all utterable; neither all unknowable nor all knowable [1416] . But the knowable belongs to one order, and the utterable to another; just as it is one thing to speak and another thing to know. Many of the things relating to God, therefore, that are dimly understood cannot be put into fitting terms, but on things above us we cannot do else than express ourselves according to our limited capacity; as, for instance, when we speak of God we use the terms sleep, and wrath, and regardlessness, hands, too, and feet, and such like expressions.
We, therefore, both know and confess that God is without beginning, without end, eternal and everlasting, uncreate, unchangeable, invariable, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, invisible, impalpable, uncircumscribed, infinite, incognisable, indefinable, incomprehensible, good, just, maker of all things created, almighty, all-ruling, all-surveying, of all overseer, sovereign, judge; and that God is One, that is to say, one essence [1417] ; and that He is known [1418] , and has His being in three subsistences, in Father, I say, and Son and Holy Spirit; and that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in all respects, except in that of not being begotten, that of being begotten, and that of procession; and that the Only-begotten Son and Word of God and God, in His bowels of mercy, for our salvation, by the good pleasure of God and the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, being conceived without seed, was born uncorruptedly of the Holy Virgin and Mother of God, Mary, by the Holy Spirit, and became of her perfect Man; and that the Same is at once perfect God and perfect Man, of two natures, Godhead and Manhood, and in two natures possessing intelligence, will and energy, and freedom, and, in a word, perfect according to the measure and proportion proper to each, at once to the divinity, I say, and to the humanity, yet to one composite person [1419] ; and that He suffered hunger and thirst and weariness, and was crucified, and for three days submitted to the experience of death and burial, and ascended to heaven, from which also He came to us, and shall come again. And the Holy Scripture is witness to this and the whole choir of the Saints.
But neither do we know, nor can we tell, what the essence [1420] of God is, or how it is in all, or how the Only-begotten Son and God, having emptied Himself, became Man of virgin blood, made by another law contrary to nature, or how He walked with dry feet upon the waters [1421] . It is not within our capacity, therefore, to say anything about God or even to think of Him, beyond the things which have been divinely revealed to us, whether by word or by manifestation, by the divine oracles at once of the Old Testament and of the New [1422] .
[1415] ta te tes theologias, ta te tes oikonomias.
[1416] Dionys., De div. nom. c. 1; Greg. Naz., Orat. 34 and 37.
[1417] ousia, substance, being.
[1418] hupostasesi, hypostases, persons.
[1419] mia de suntheto hupostasei.
[1420] ousia, substance, being.
[1421] Dionys., De div. nom., c. 2.
[1422] Ibid. c. 1.