Letter 282

To Priscillianus the Deacon. If you assert that the words you put forward were spoken in the person of our Master Jesus Christ in the Panaretos [the book of Wisdom, called "all-virtuous"] by Solomon, then how is it that the author of that discourse says of himself that he came to be from pleasure and from sleep [Wisdom 7:2]? Confess, therefore, that you have missed the mark. For the conception of the Savior in the flesh of the Virgin came about altogether without pleasure and without pollution, undefiled and spotless, pure and incorruptible.

Εἰ ἐκ προσώπου τοῦ Δεσπότου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χρι- στοῦ φάσκεις τὰ προβληθέντα παρὰ σοῦ ῥήματα εἰρῆσθαι ἐν τῇ Παναρέτῳ ὑπὸ τοῦ Σολομῶντος, πῶς φησιν ἑαυτὸν ὁ συγγραφεὺς τοῦ λόγου ἐξ ἡδονῆς, καὶ ὕπνου λέγει γεγενῆσθαι; Ὁμολόγησον τοίνυν ἠστοχηκέναι. Ἡ γὰρ τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ τῆς Παρθένου σύλληψις, ἀνήδοντος παντελῶς καὶ ἀῤῥύ- παντος, ἀμίαντός τε καὶ ἄσπιλος καθαρά τε καὶ ἄφθαρτος γέγονεν.