Answer to the Greeks: The Word in the Universe

But one cannot help being utterly astonished at the Gentiles. They laugh at what is no matter for joking, while they themselves are blind to their own disgrace, which they do not see they have set up in the shape of blocks of wood and stones. Still, since our argument does not lack proofs, come, let us put them to shame as well, on reasonable grounds, and mainly from what we ourselves also see. For what is there on our side that is absurd or deserves ridicule? Is it simply our saying that the Word has been revealed in the body? But even they will agree that this has happened without any absurdity, if they show themselves friends of the truth. [a]

If, then, they deny that there is a Word of God at all, they do so without grounds, mocking what they do not know. But suppose they confess that there is a Word of God, and that he is ruler of the universe; that in him the Father has made the creation; that by his providence the whole receives light and life and being; and that he reigns over all, so that he is known from the works of his providence, and through him the Father. Then consider, I beg you, whether they are not unwittingly turning the joke against themselves.

The philosophers of the Greeks say that the universe is a great body, and they are right. For we see it and its parts with our senses. If, then, the Word of God is in the universe, which is a body, and has united himself with the whole and with all its parts, what is surprising or absurd in our saying that he has united himself with man as well? For if it were absurd for him to have been in a body at all, it would be absurd for him to be united with the whole either, and to be giving light and movement to all things by his providence. For the whole is also a body. But if it is fitting for him to unite himself with the universe and to be made known in the whole, it must also be fitting for him to appear in a human body, and for that body to be lit up by him and set to work. For humankind is a part of the whole, as well as the rest. And if it is unfitting for a part to have been taken up as his instrument to teach people that he is God, it must be utterly absurd that he should be made known even by the whole universe.