Against Apollinarius 1 part 2/3

If, then, you are unwilling to understand these things in this way, given that three notions lie before us — illusion, blasphemy, and truth — which would you choose? For by supposing that what was said was said in mere appearance, the things that happened would also be reckoned as illusion.

But if it was spoken in truth, and yet the soul of the Lord had become wholly estranged from its own understanding — having God the Logos as its mind — then to conceive that the unchangeable was turned into grief, distress, and trouble is impious;

even though the Gospels say that Jesus was troubled in spirit;

but the Lord shows his own mind, having said:

If indeed the Lord displays the understanding of his own soul, it is for sympathy with our soul, so that we may thus understand that the suffering, too, was his own, and yet confess him to be impassible.

For just as by the blood of his flesh he redeemed us, so too by the understanding of his soul he displays the victory on our behalf, saying:

But just as the blood would not be understood by the pious as common, as it is by unbelievers, but as saving;

so too the understanding here spoken of is not encompassed by human weakness, but displays the nature of God.

And thus Christ might be said to be perfect God and perfect man;

not as though the divine perfection had been transformed into human perfection, which is impious;

nor indeed as though two perfections were confessed according to division, which is alien to piety;

nor according to progress in virtue and the acquisition of righteousness — far be it!

but according to an undiminished existence;

so that he might be one in both respects, perfect in all things, the very same being God and man.

"Now my soul is troubled, and it is in anguish."

And "now" means: when he willed it.

Nevertheless, he was displaying what truly was;

for he did not name as present that which was not real, as though the things that happened were spoken of in mere appearance;

for all things came to pass by nature and in truth.

For in our nature the struggle over sin's invention still continues, and there is a yielding to what is sown upon us, because of our weakness;

but the enfleshment of the Logos, having come to be according to the nature of God, became incapable of admitting those things which, from our old nature, still operate within us;

and for this reason we are taught to put off the old man and put on the new.

And in this is the marvel: that the Lord became man, and yet without sin;

because he became wholly newness, so that he might show forth his power.

And whatever things he himself, in willing it, ordained for his nature, he took up into himself — as many as he willed: that is, birth from a woman, growth in stature, the passing of years, weariness, hunger, thirst, sleep, grief, death, and resurrection.

so that, as man, he might be the one not held fast by death, and, as God, might loose the dominion of death;

so that where corruption was sown, there incorruption might spring up;

and where death reigned in the form of a human soul, the immortal one, being present, might display immortality;

and thus might make us partakers of his own incorruption and immortality, in the hope of the resurrection from the dead;

so that this corruptible might put on incorruption, and this mortal might put on immortality, as it is written:

"so that, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, so also through one man, Jesus Christ, grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life," as it is written.

How then do you say, "Instead of the inner man that is within us, there was a heavenly mind in Christ"? Was it not rather that, having divided the outer and the inner in two, he displayed himself both in the tomb and in Hades? But it was not possible to give one thing in exchange as a ransom for another;

but he gave body for body, and soul for soul, and a complete existence on behalf of the whole man;

this is the exchange wrought by Christ, which the Jews, enemies of life, reviled upon the cross as they passed by, shaking their heads.

For Hades could not have endured the unveiled entrance of the Godhead;

to this both the prophets and the apostles testify.

It is also possible to perceive what has been said in the economy of the cross;

how the Lord, by the shedding of blood, displayed the reality of the flesh;

and by the addition of water, he showed the undefiled purity, and that the body was God's own;

and having cried out, and bowed his head, and given up his spirit, he signified the inner part of his own body, that is, the soul;

concerning which he had also said, "I lay down my life for my sheep."

So that no one could call the expiring of breath a departure of the Godhead, but a withdrawal of the soul.

For if death, and the mortification of the body, came about through a departure of the Godhead, then he died his own peculiar death, and not ours.

And how did he descend into Hades with the Godhead unveiled? Where then is the soul which the Lord promised to lay down for the sheep, concerning which the prophets also foretold? But if a withdrawal of the soul took place, it is for this reason said that he took up our own death, that is, having submitted to the dissolution proper to us, just as also to birth.

Vain, then, is your sophistry;

since how could death have come about, unless the Logos had constituted for himself both the inner and the outer, that is, body and soul? And how would he have given a ransom in exchange on behalf of the whole? Or how would the dominion of death have received its complete undoing, if Christ had not constituted within himself, sinless, the soul — that which had sinned according to its own understanding? Then death still reigns over the inner man;

for over what else did it ever reign, if not over the soul that sinned in its understanding? As it is said:

"The soul that sins, it shall die;"

on behalf of which Christ laid down his own soul, giving it in exchange as a ransom.

And what, from the beginning, did God condemn? The formation made by the Former, or the deed of the thing formed? If God condemned the formation made by the Former, he condemned himself;

but if it is impious to think this of God, then he condemned the deed of the thing formed; he therefore takes away the deed, and makes new the formation;

for we are his workmanship, created for good works.

We call him who was of Mary, God.

How then do you say, like Marcion, that God "sojourned" among us, and that God came near without truly touching human flesh, having a nature incapable of receiving human flesh? Or how do you speak of God, as does Paul of Samosata? For this is the pretense of that man's impiety: to confess that the one from Mary is God, foreordained indeed before the ages, but having had the beginning of his existence from Mary.

But he confesses an active Word from heaven, and wisdom in him — granting more than you do, according to his own impiety;

just as you say there is a heavenly mind in an ensouled body.

But neither is an ensouled body already a complete human being, nor is a heavenly mind already God.

For a body is called "ensouled" when upon it the name of "soul" is borne in a really subsisting manner.

But the body of a human being is called "body," and not "soul";

and the soul of a human being is called "soul," and not "body," the one being distinct from the other, that is, spirit as distinct from body.

But "who," it says, "has known the mind of the Lord?" The mind of the Lord is not yet the Lord, but the Lord's will, or counsel, or activity directed toward something.

How then do you contrive to say these things, peddling the Word of God with fabricated words? But the Church of God has neither received it so, nor handed it down so;

but, as it is written, [it has received and handed down] God the Word, who was with God before the ages, having come to dwell among us at the completion of the ages, and having been born of the holy Virgin and of the Holy Spirit as the Son of Man, as it is written:

"until she had borne her firstborn Son";

so that he might become firstborn among many brethren, he himself being true God;

so that he might also suffer on our behalf, as a human being, and redeem us from suffering and death, as God.

You imagine in vain, then — supposing that, because that which thinks and governs the flesh is already present in yourselves, you are able to work out this newness through imitation —

not understanding that imitation comes about as the imitation of a reality that precedes it;

since otherwise it could not be called imitation.

But in confessing in Christ a newness of the flesh alone, you err and blaspheme.

For if it were possible for human beings, through that which governs the flesh, to work out this newness for themselves apart from Christ — and that which is led indeed follows that which leads —

what need was there of Christ's coming? Vain too are those who say that the Word came to dwell upon one of the prophets.

"If the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed" — is this not in accordance with the newness that is in him, and the perfection through which we too, who have believed, are renewed, by imitation of and participation in the perfect newness of Christ? But you have devised everything, so that you might construct a single doctrine of denial.

And the soul — by reinterpretation, calling it now a deranged mind, now sin subsisting in its own reality, now the very agent of sin — you thrust out;

and the flesh, now as uncreated, now as heavenly, now as consubstantial with the Word, so that you might confirm for yourselves a complete denial.

And just as Arius, having slipped away from the faith concerning the ineffable and most true begetting of the Son from the Father, invented beforehand suffering, division, and flux;

so that through impious words he might cast the unsteadfast down into the pit of lawlessness;

for "a deep pit is the mouth of the lawless";

so again, likewise, Sabellius, having conceived the Son as without hypostasis, and the Holy Spirit as without real existence,

accusing [the orthodox faith] of dividing the Godhead, and of a plurality of principles, and a numbering of gods, is himself established in the Jewish opinion;

In the same way you also, slandering, say that we speak of two Sons, and you call us man-worshippers, or in turn bring the charge of sin against us — not that you might act piously, but that you might make your error appear plausible by evil inventions, and turn the unsteadfast aside from the faith by your impious words.

Yet the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal:

even though there was really no need to write anything more;

for the evangelical tradition is sufficient;

but since you asked concerning the faith that is among us, and indeed for the sake of those who wish to wrangle with their own inventions, and who do not consider that "he who speaks from his own resources speaks a lie" —

For neither the beauty nor the glory of the body of Christ is attainable for the mind of man to declare;

[yet we offer] the glory and confession of his loving-kindness toward humanity, and the hope of our salvation, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Let those who do not confess our Lord Jesus Christ to be one, out of God and man, as it is written in the Gospel, "of Adam, of God" — let them say how they have understood the one who, existing in the form of God, is God, and yet took the form of a servant; or how they have understood the saying, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

For he who said that "the Word became flesh" also said that "he himself gave his soul on our behalf."

Is it then as though the Word underwent a change into a transformation of flesh, or a mere likeness of soul —

or as though he made a merely illusory display of the human form, as the other heretics erroneously say? But the Apostle does not allow this, having clearly said, "being who, he took what."

For just as "the form of God" is understood as the fullness of the Word's divinity;

so also "the form of a servant" is confessed as the mind-endowed nature of human constitution, together with its bodily condition;

so that "he was" may be understood as referring to the Word, and "he became" may be confessed as referring to the flesh together with the soul;

which is called "the form of a servant," being understood as a certain mind-endowed constitution.

Whence Paul bears witness to the mind-endowed nature, while John bears witness to the bodily manifestation of the body, so that each of them might proclaim the whole mystery of the economy.

Therefore the name "Christ" is not applied apart from the flesh;

since suffering and death follow upon the name, as Paul writes:

"if Christ is subject to suffering, if he is first of the resurrection of the dead";

"Christ our Passover has been sacrificed";

and that "the man Christ Jesus gave himself as a ransom on our behalf."

Not that Christ is not God, but that Christ is also a human being.

And for this reason Scripture applies both names, in demonstration of his real existence;

God being understood invisibly, yet truly existing; man being touched visibly, and truly existing;

not in a division of persons or of names, but in a natural birth and an indissoluble union;

so that, the suffering being truly confessed in him, the same one may be truly and jointly confessed to be both passible and impassible.

How then did the Word, being God, become Christ before he became man? For if the name "Christ" belongs properly to the Godhead apart from flesh, then it must also be applied to the Father and to the Holy Spirit;

and the suffering will also be common to all, as some who have erred say.

Or will you also say that God the Word himself, impassible and incorporeal, was capable of suffering and death even before the incarnation and the becoming human? And how could the Son, who is consubstantial with the Father and undivided according to the divine nature, be called passible — being unchangeable and immutable — unless, having taken from the womb of the Virgin the whole form of human constitution into himself, he became man;

he became man, not as though God needed anointing, nor again as though the anointing came about apart from God, but with God bestowing the anointing, and [the anointing] being received in the body that is capable of receiving it.

It is therefore evident that the Word did not become Christ apart from human flesh, dividing himself into a mere display of flesh, or a mere likeness of soul;

but remaining what he was, he took the form of a servant — a form not lacking the reality made manifest in its display, through the suffering, the resurrection, and the whole economy, as it is written and has been shown.

Tell us, then, how have you supposed God to have come into being in Nazareth? For indeed all heretics are accustomed to say this: as Paul of Samosata confesses God from the Virgin, God appearing from Nazareth, and from that point having the beginning of his existence, and receiving the beginning of a kingdom;

and he confesses an active Word from heaven, and wisdom in him;

existing, by foreordination, before the ages, but manifested, in actual existence, from Nazareth;

so that, he says, the one God over all may be the Father alone.

But Marcion and Mani say that God came to dwell in the Virgin, and passed through untouched, and was incapable of communing with human nature — that nature which has fallen under sin, and is subject to the ruler of wickedness —

for if he had taken up this nature, he too would be subject to the ruler of wickedness, and Christ would not be without sin;

but rather that he displayed a flesh of his own, produced out of himself according to a mere likeness, as he willed — appearing from heaven, departing into the heavens, and being wholly divinity.

Valentinus, again, says that the suffering is common to the Trinity, imagining the flesh to be a part of the Godhead.

Arius, on the other hand, confesses flesh alone, assumed for the concealment of the Godhead;

and in place of the inner man within us, that is, the soul, he says that the Word came to be in the flesh, daring to attribute the experience of suffering, and the resurrection from Hades, to the Godhead.

Sabellius, in turn, has shown himself to hold the opinion of Paul of Samosata and his followers;

for, fearing the division stemming from Arius, he has fallen into the destructive error [of denying distinction].

But you — to whom do you adhere, or whom do you wish to help? Or, as the saying goes, have you become "a motley of every sort"? For you have agreed with all the aforementioned heretics, disbelieving in the union;

and contradicting the fulfillment, you have gone over into destruction, alleging fear of division as your pretext.

But just as those who divide are mad, and those who subtract have erred, so those who negate perish;

since the dispensation has come to pass in truth, and the truth has been manifested, and grace is attested —

Why then, making excuses, do you play the sophist? Why, dissembling, do you conceal the truth, and do not say openly that he did not become man by taking the form of a servant, but that he appeared as a man? This is the question your argument raises — you who, under pretext, keep saying 'the very same one, the very same one.'

They say that Christ is a man who was made divine.

And where then is the saying, 'In the beginning was the Word'? And the saying that 'having taken the form of a servant he became man'? Does it speak of a man who merely existed alongside God, or of a man joined together with God, or of a man who died for the world while himself being a part of the world, or of a man not separated from sin, or of a man ruling over angels, or of a man worshiped by creation, or of a man who is Lord, as the Apostle says —

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ —

or a man who was crucified, while being the Lord of glory, or a man who hears —

or a man coming to render judgment.

This is your murky subversion, which you give people to drink, and make them drunk with.

Ask then the Jews, so that, hearing from them these words spoken against Christ and against those who have believed in him, you may blush with shame;

and learn also from the other heretics, who speak and think the same things.

The rule of the Gospel, the preaching of the apostles, the testimony of the prophets, and the understanding of the fulfilled dispensation —

so that you may never, by confessing a birth of flesh, call it natural — thereby confirming the truth of our account —

but instead say that God was born, displaying his own flesh only in seeming appearance.

For God does not exhibit merely a beginning of birth from Nazareth;

rather, he took from the Virgin everything that God from the beginning formed and made for the constitution of man, apart from sin;

as also the Apostle says —

'In every respect like us, apart from sin' — not exhibiting a change of his divinity, but effecting a renewal of humanity, according to his own will;

so that the Gentiles might be fellow members of the body and fellow partakers with Christ, as also the Apostle writes —

so that the man might truly be God, and God might truly be man, so that he might be both truly man and truly God;

not a man merely existing alongside God, as you say in your slander, ridiculing the mystery of the Christians;

but the only-begotten God, in the fullness of his divinity, was pleased to raise up for himself, from the womb of the Virgin, the archetypal formation of man — a new creation — through a natural birth and an indissoluble union;

so that he might accomplish the saving work on behalf of mankind, working out the salvation of mankind through suffering, death, and resurrection.

But you say that, if he took everything, then surely he also had human reasonings;

and it is impossible that sin should not be present in human reasonings;

and how then will Christ be without sin? Tell me then —

if God is the maker of sinful reasonings, then his own creation must be charged back to God;

for he would then have come only to have his own handiwork held against him.

But again, the judgment condemning the sinner would be unjust;

for if God created sinful reasonings, how does he condemn the sinner? And how could such a judgment possibly come from God? But if Adam too were subject to such reasonings even before he disobeyed God's commandment, how then did he not know good and evil? He was rational by nature, yet free in his reasoning, having no experience of evil, knowing only the good, and being, as it were, a man of a single, undivided disposition;

but having disobeyed God's commandment, he fell under the power of sinful reasonings;

not because God created the reasonings that take us captive, but because the devil, through deceit, sowed them into man's rational nature once it had fallen into transgression and been cast away from God — so that the devil established a law of sin in the nature of man, with death reigning through the work of sin.

But this is not the resolution of sin.

For the devil did not originally work sin in that man so that, when he came into the world and did not sin, sin might thereby be dissolved;

but the devil worked sin by sowing it in the rational and intellective nature of man.

'For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh...'

the Son of God came to establish this in his own nature, by a new beginning and a wondrous generation;

not dividing the original constitution of human nature, but annulling the transgression that had been sown into it, as the prophet testifies, saying —

'Before the child knows good or evil, he refuses wickedness so as to choose the good.'

But if sinlessness was not manifested in the very nature that had sinned, how then was sin condemned in the flesh — since the flesh does not itself have the capacity to act, nor does the divinity know sin? How then does the Apostle say —

'Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more'? — not describing a place, but positing a nature;

'For, as he says, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin, death, so also through one man, Jesus Christ, grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life';

so that through the very nature by which the advance of sin occurred, through that same nature the manifestation of righteousness might also occur;

and thus the works of the devil might be undone, human nature being freed from sin, and God be glorified.

If Christ is merely a man, he will be a part of the world;

but a part of the world cannot save the world.

O device of deceit, and reckless madness of blasphemy!

For let them say from what Scripture this rule comes — or whether it is a sophistry of the devil;

and yet the prophet says —

'A brother does not redeem; a man will redeem.'

'And a man was born in her, and the Most High himself founded her.'

How then does Christ not save the world, having become man? — since it is plainly evident that in the very nature in which sin was committed, in that same nature the abundance of grace has come to be.

But what is this abundance of grace? That the Word became man, while remaining God;

so that, even in becoming man, he might be believed to be God;

just as Christ, though being man, is God — because, being God, he became man — and saves those who believe, in the form of man.

'For if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.'

But God does not undergo death, nor does he need resurrection, but raises others from the dead.

Hence it became necessary for God to have something to offer on our behalf, whether in death or in life;

so that the Word saves all the more precisely because he became man.

And how can the nature that has come into the habit of sin, and has inherited the succession of sin, be without sin? This is impossible;

and so Christ too will be merely one among men.

But Marcion too held these views;

this same opinion Mani also introduced, placing the flesh of man, and birth itself, under the ruler of evil, and calling him 'the Ruling Power';

for by whatever a man is overcome, to that he is also enslaved.

You too renew the opinion of these men, in another way — by additionally surrendering the intellective nature of man, which is called 'soul,' and declaring this to be inescapably bound to sin;

and, what is more, you have even written that the soul is carnal — where you learned this, I cannot tell;

for this can be found neither in the holy Scriptures, nor in the common reasoning of mankind, since the Lord says —

'Do not fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.'

And how, if the soul is fleshly as you claim, does it not die along with the body and perish together with it? And how also does Peter, calling the souls held in Hades 'spirits,' say —

'He went to preach the resurrection to the spirits shut up in prison'? But you speak of and name everything contrary to nature, lest, by describing the dispensation according to nature, you should thereby confirm the truth concerning the Word — that the Word truly became man as well.

For you have said that it is the voice of God that declares: "The understanding of man is intently set upon evil things from his youth."

not understanding that, in saying "from youth," he indicated that which comes from procreation and is subject to mortality—

not so as to establish that Christ was so according to the flesh;

but rather, having taken the form of a servant, in the forbearance of a birth from a woman and an increase of stature like our own, as the Apostle says:

"Since therefore the children have shared in blood and flesh, he himself likewise partook of the very same things;"

"likewise," indeed, in that it was not from seed, but from the Spirit;

How then, having passed over the holy Scriptures and the manifestation of the truth, do you say that, if he did not appear as a man of himself, but became man by taking on a human existence—

will the crucified Lord of glory also be a man? If then you hear Peter saying:

"This Jesus, whom you crucified, God has made both Christ and Lord"—of what do you take this "making" to be spoken? If indeed of the deity of the Logos, why then do you still find fault with the Arians, holding the very same views as they do? But if of the form of a servant that is in the Logos, why then do you still contend with yourselves? But you have not believed it in this way;

If the nature that had sinned came to be in God without committing sin, then it is held fast by necessity;

and that which is held by necessity is a thing done under compulsion.

If not sinning comes about by necessity, then sinning will be according to nature;

you will then have to grant that the creator of that nature is the active author of sin—

But if such a thing is blasphemy, while sinning yet happens by necessity—

it is quite evident that not sinning came about according to nature.

"You ascended on high, you led captivity captive."

For the Logos, putting forward the form of a servant against the enemy, achieved the victory through that very thing which had once been defeated.

"Take courage, I have conquered the world."

For the devil did not wage war against the deity, which he did not know—indeed, he would not have dared to;

"If you are the Son of God—"

but against man, whom he had once been able to deceive, and from that one he extended the working of his wickedness to all mankind.

But since the soul of Adam was held under the condemnation of death, and cried out continually to its own Master, and since those who had pleased God and been justified under the natural law, being held together with Adam, mourned and cried out along with him, God, having had mercy on the man whom he had made, was pleased, through the manifestation of a mystery, to accomplish a salvation of a new kind for the human race—both to bring about the overthrow of the enemy who had deceived through envy, and to display an incalculable exaltation of man through union and communion with the Most High, in nature and in truth.

And he was born of a woman, having raised up in himself the form of man from the first molding, in a manifestation of flesh apart from fleshly desires and human reasonings, in the image of a new creation.

For the willing belongs to deity alone;

since indeed the whole nature of the Logos is manifest in the manifestation of the human form and the visible flesh of the second Adam—not in a division of persons, but in the coexistence of deity and humanity.

"The ruler of this world is coming, and he finds nothing in me."

And yet we have learned that the second Adam possesses both a soul and a body, and the whole of the first man.

For if the "nothing" referred to the existence of the man, how did he find the visible body, when he had said "nothing"? But he did not find in him those things which he himself had wrought in the first Adam;

and thus sin was abolished in Christ;