oul. After the example of that
devout and wise king hast thou also done, in that thou hast received me
in good hope, wherein, as I ween, thou shalt not be disappointed."
Ioasaph said unto him, "Fair and fitting hath been all thy speech; but
now I fain would learn who is thy Master, who, as thou saidest at the
first, spake concerning the Sower."

VII.

Again therefore Barlaam took up his parable and said, "If thou wilt
learn who is my Master, it is Jesus Christ the Lord, the only-begotten
Son of God, 'the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings, and
Lords of lords; who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which
no man can approach unto'; who with the Father and the Holy Ghost is
glorified. I am not one of those who proclaim from the house-top their
wild rout of gods, and worship lifeless and dumb idols, but one God do
I acknowledge and confess, in three persons glorified, the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost, but in one nature and substance, in one glory
and kingdom undivided. He then is in three persons one God, without
beginning, and without end, eternal and everlasting, increate,
immutable and incorporeal, invisible, infinite, incomprehensible, alone
good and righteous, who created all things out of nothing, whether
visible or invisible. First, he made the heavenly and invisible
powers, countless multitudes, immaterial and bodiless, ministering
spirits of the majesty of God. Afterward he created this visible
world, heaven and earth and sea, which also he made glorious with light
and richly adorned it; the heavens with the sun, moon and stars, and
the earth with all manner of herbs and divers living beasts, and the
sea in turn with all kinds of fishes. 'He spake the word and these all
were made; he commanded and they were created.' Then with his own
hands he created man, taking dust of the ground for the fashioning of
his body, but by his own in-breathing giving him a reasonable and
intelligent soul, which, as it is written, was made after the image and
likeness of God: after his image, because of reason and free will;
after his likeness, because of the likeness of virtue, in its degree,
to God. Him he endowed with free will and immortality and appointed
sovran over everything upon earth; and from man he made woman, to be an
helpmeet of like nature for him.

"And he planted a garden eastward in Eden, full of delight and all
heart's ease, and set thereto the man whom he had formed, and com