An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

Book I — God and the Trinity

An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith is the masterwork of John of Damascus (c. 675–749), completing his trilogy The Fount of Knowledge. Written at the monastery of Mar Saba in Palestine, it became the first systematic theology of Eastern Christianity and profoundly influenced both Eastern and Western scholasticism, including Thomas Aquinas.

Book I — On God

Chapter I — That the Deity is Incomprehensible

No one has seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him (John 1:18). The Deity, therefore, is ineffable and incomprehensible. For no one knoweth the Father, save the Son, nor the Son, save the Father (Matt. 11:27). And the Holy Spirit, too, so searches the deep things of God that even the angels have not full knowledge of God, but only so much as He has graciously revealed to them.

God, then, is infinite and incomprehensible, and all that is comprehensible about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility. But all that we can affirm concerning God does not show forth God's nature, but only the qualities of His nature. For when you say that God is good, or just, or wise, or any such thing, you do not tell what God is in His nature, but what He is like. Again, when you say that He is being, you do not tell what He is, but that He is not not-being.

Chapter II — That God Exists

That God exists is not altogether unknown, even to those who are in voluntary ignorance of Him. For the knowledge of God's existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature. Also, the very organisation of creation, its preservation and government, proclaim the majesty of the Divine nature. Moreover, through the Law and the Prophets in former times, and afterwards through His Only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, He disclosed to us the knowledge of Himself as that knowledge was possible for us.

All things that exist are either created or uncreated. If, then, things are created, it follows that they were created by some cause. For nothing that has come into being has come into being out of nothing. But if they are uncreated they are, in consequence, also immutable; for things that are produced in different ways by different causes are also mutable. Who, then, will refuse to grant that not one of the things we see is uncreated? For all are mutable and subject to alteration. But that which is uncreated is immutable and unalterable. There is one God, without beginning, without end, eternal, constant, uncreate, unchangeable, immutable, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, invisible, impalpable, uncircumscribed, unlimited, infinitely powerful, simple in energy, sovereignly ruling, life-giving, omnipotent.

Chapter III — On the Nature of Divinity: That it is Incomprehensible

It is plain, then, that God exists, but as to what His nature and essence is, this absolutely transcends our understanding and is quite unknowable. For it is evident that God has no body. For how could that which is infinite, and boundless, and formless, and intangible, and invisible, and simple, and uncompound, be circumscribed within a body? And, again, how could that which has no parts be circumscribed? For everything circumscribed is circumscribed either as body or as the reason or nature of something incorporeal.

Chapter VIII — On the Holy Trinity

We believe in one God, one principle, without beginning, uncreate, unbegotten, indestructible and immortal, everlasting, infinite, uncircumscribed, boundless, of infinite power, simple, uncompound, incorporeal, passionless, immutable, unchangeable, unseen, the fountain of goodness and justice, the light of the mind, inaccessible; a power known by no measure, measured only by His own will alone (for all things that He wills He can); creator of all created things, seen or unseen, of all the maintenance and preserver and governor; above all essence and life and word and thought; His own very light, His own very goodness, His own very life, His own very essence, inasmuch as He does not derive His being from another, but is Himself the fountain of being to all things that be; of the divine essence, that is to say, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God.

We believe, further, in one Father, the beginning and cause of all: begotten of no one: without cause or generation, alone subsisting: creator of all: but Father of one only by nature, His Only-begotten Son and our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Producer of the most Holy Spirit. And in one Son of God, the Only-begotten, our Lord, Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father, before all the ages, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, through Whom all things are made.

And we believe in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son: the object of equal adoration and glorification with the Father and Son, since He is co-essential and co-eternal: the Spirit of God, direct, authoritative, the fountain of wisdom, and life, and holiness: God existing and addressed along with Father and Son: uncreate, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting, all-powerful, of infinite power, Lord of all creation and not under any lord; deifying, not deified; filling, not filled; shared in, not sharing in; sanctifying, not sanctified; the intercessor, receiving the supplications of all.

Book II — Creation and Human Nature

Book II — On the Created World and Human Nature

Chapter II — On the Æon or Age

God, Who is good and more than good, did not find satisfaction in self-contemplation, but in His exceeding goodness wished certain things to come into existence which would enjoy His benefits and share in His goodness. So He brought all things out of nothing into being and created them, both what is invisible and what is visible. Yea, even man, who is a compound of the visible and the invisible.

And He creates by thought, and this thought becomes the work fulfilled by the Word and completed by the Spirit. The one God is in three Hypostases; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He made all creation, He Who is infinite and inexpressible, transcending all thought and understanding.

Chapter XII — On Man

God with His own hands creates man from visible and invisible nature in His own image and likeness. He formed his body from earth and by His own inbreathing gave him a rational and understanding soul, which last we say is the divine image — for the phrase "in His image" can only refer to the intellectual faculty and free will, while "in His likeness" means the likeness in virtue so far as that is possible.

The soul is a living essence, simple, incorporeal, invisible in its proper nature to bodily eyes, immortal, reasoning and intelligent, formless, making use of an organised body and being the source of its powers of life and growth and sensation and generation, mind being its purest part and not something different from it; it is free in its actions and subject to change, that is, mutable in will, as it is a created nature; having received all these things naturally from the grace of the Creator, of which graces it will come short through its own free choice.

Chapter XXX — On Free Will

Since this is so, sin must be voluntary. For if it is not voluntary it cannot be sin. And God, Who is just, would not condemn the involuntary. But He commands us to struggle against the devil, and when we have overcome him we receive the crown of glory; but if we are too idle to struggle and are overcome, we are condemned. And how could He command us to flee from sin if sin were not voluntary? Virtue, therefore, is voluntary: for it is only that which is done of our own free choice that is praiseworthy. It follows, then, that both virtue and vice are in our own power, that is, they are voluntary.

We should observe that the angels also, though created good by their Maker, became evil by their own choice. Their fall is a kind of death to them, just as death came upon man by Adam's fall. For after the fall there is no repentance for them, just as there is none for men after death.

Book III — The Incarnation of the Word

Book III — On the Incarnation

Chapter I — On the Divine Dispensation and God's Care for Us

Since God, Who is good and all good, Who is the fulness of goodness, was not satisfied with the contemplation of Himself, but by a superabundance of goodness wished certain things to exist which would be the recipients of His benefits and share in His goodness, He brought all things out of nothing into being and created them, both what is invisible and what is visible. Nay, even man, who is a compound of the visible and the invisible.

But the evil one also, because he bore ill-will towards us, tempted man and brought him to the death of sin, and through this sin, death entered into the world. But God, in pity for us, sent His only-begotten Son and our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is the hypostatic wisdom and power of God, for our salvation — not ashamed to take upon Himself the form of a servant (Phil. 2:7), and to be made in the likeness of men and to be found in fashion as a man (Phil. 2:8).

Chapter II — On the Two Natures

We believe, then, in one God, one principle, without beginning, uncreate, unbegotten, indestructible and immortal, everlasting. And in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, our Lord, Who was born of the Father before all the ages, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, by Whom all things were made; Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary and was made man.

We confess, therefore, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is perfect God and perfect man, at the same time acknowledging Him to consist of rational soul and body; that He is consubstantial with the Father in His divinity, and consubstantial with us in His humanity; that He is like us in all things, sin except. That before the ages He was begotten of the Father according to His divinity, but in the last days He was born for us and for our salvation of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary who is properly and truly the Mother of God because of the Word becoming flesh. And that the union took place without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the difference of the natures not being destroyed by the union, but rather the properties of each being preserved and combining in one Person and in one subsistence.

Chapter VI — On the Nature Contemplated in the Species

Christ is born: not of the seed of man, but of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, most truly and really. He was not born as we are merely in a way of likeness, but truly and really. He was not as a phantom, but truly and naturally. He was truly born of the Virgin. He assumed all our nature truly and exactly. For He did not take upon Himself the nature of man in some other way, but truly.

He was crucified truly: not in appearance or in semblance, but genuinely. He died and was buried truly. He rose again on the third day, truly, as He had said. He ascended into heaven truly: truly and no mere appearance of sitting at the right hand of the Father in the glory of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead truly.

Book IV — Sacraments, Icons, and the Last Things

Book IV — On the Sacraments, the Church, and the Last Things

Chapter XIII — On the Holy and Immaculate Mysteries of the Lord

We believe also in one holy, catholic and apostolic Church. And in one baptism of repentance, for the remission of sins and life everlasting. And in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come.

The bread and the wine are not merely figures of the body and blood of Christ (God forbid!) but the deified body of the Lord itself: for the Lord has said, "This is My body," not, "This is a figure of My body": and "My blood," not, "a figure of My blood" (Matt. 26:26–28). And on a previous occasion He had said to the Jews, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, ye have no life in you. For My flesh is meat indeed and My blood is drink indeed (John 6:53–55)."

But if some persons called the bread and wine antitypes of the body and blood of the Lord, as did the divine Basil, they did not say so after the consecration but before the consecration, so calling the offering itself.

Chapter XVI — On Images

Seeing that some find fault with us for worshipping and honouring the image of our Saviour and that of our Lady, and those, too, of the rest of the saints and servants of Christ, let them remember that in the beginning God created man after His own image. On what grounds, then, do we shew reverence to each other unless it is because we are made after God's image? For as Basil, that much-versed expounder of divine things, says, the honour given to the image passes over to the prototype.

In former times God, Who is without form or body, could never be depicted. But now when God is seen in the flesh conversing with men, I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter; I worship the Creator of matter Who became matter for my sake, Who willed to take His abode in matter; Who worked out my salvation through matter. Never will I cease honouring the matter which wrought my salvation! I honour it, but not as God. How could God be born out of lifeless things? And the Son of God became man and took flesh from the Virgin, and was seen on earth in the flesh, and mixed with men; how then can I not make an image of Him Whom I have seen?

Chapter XXVI — Concerning the Resurrection

We believe also in the resurrection of the dead. For there will be in truth, there will be, a resurrection of the dead! And by resurrection we mean resurrection of bodies. For resurrection is the second state of that which has fallen. For the souls are immortal and, so, how could they rise again? For if death is defined as the separation of soul from body, resurrection surely is the re-union of soul and body, and the second state of the living creature that had suffered dissolution and downfall.

It is, then, this very body, which is corruptible and put down, that will rise again incorruptible. For He Who made it in the beginning from the dust of the ground will raise it up again, even as He Himself beareth witness: "For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth" (John 5:28–29). And the divine Apostle says: "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Cor. 15:42–44).