On the Incarnation 1

{A} Does the discourse we have given on the Godhead of the Only-Begotten seem to you to be well proportioned, well worked out, and sufficient for our purpose? {B} Very much so.

{A} I think it is in no way lacking in subtle scrutiny—at least so far as it appears to me.

And what do you yourself say, Hermias? {B} I would rightly praise it as correct and finely polished.

{A} Then, dropping all further delay over these matters, are you willing that we should speak of the incarnation of the Only-Begotten, and try to set forth as clearly as possible whatever is the mystery concerning him—so far as it is granted to those who see through a mirror in a riddle and know in part, according to the measure of the gift of the supply of the Spirit, as the divine Paul also writes? {B} Excellently said.

For no one says 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit, and no one says 'Jesus is accursed' except in Beelzebul.

But since you also seem inclined to lay hold of the dust of this contest, and to endure so heavy and hard-to-bear a labour, know that you will profit me too, before all others.

{A} Nothing, my friend, is undevised for the unintelligent; they most readily leap into the snare of Hades, as it is written, and into the trap of death, understanding neither what they say nor concerning what they make their assertions.

And what, you might ask, noble friend, are the rumours and the solemn little myths current with each of them?

Some have dared to declare that the Word from God did indeed appear as a man, but not that he actually bore the flesh from the Virgin.

They falsely ascribe to the mystery a mere semblance.

Others again, pretending to blush at seeming to worship a man, and declining to crown the flesh that is from earth with the highest glories, and out of excessive ignorance, sick with a spurious and corrupted reverence, say that the Word who was begotten from God the Father was transmuted into the nature of bones and sinews and flesh—broadly mocking, the wretches, the birth of Emmanuel from the Virgin, and charging unseemliness against so excellent and God-befitting an economy.

Others have believed that the God-Word, co-eternal with the Father, is of late origin, and was first summoned barely into existence at the time when he took the beginning of his birth according to the flesh.

There are even those impiously driven to such madness that they say the Word from God is without subsistence (anhypostatos)—merely an utterance conceived as bare expression, which came to be in a man.

Such are Marcellus and Photinus.

Neither have they kept their opinion concerning him at all sound and blameless.

For they divide the one Christ into two, and, as it were, inserting a gross cleavage, they all but display each one standing apart, contending that one is the perfect man born of the Virgin, and another is the Word from God the Father—not distinguishing what the nature of the Word is and what the nature of the flesh, nor content to dwell merely on the differences to this end.

For they would not have so erred from the true conception—since the nature of flesh and of God is not the same—but they set the one apart on its own as a man, and they name the other as God by nature and truly Son, though they wish to be Christians.

And indeed, composing certain little treatises about this, they have dared to say in these very words:

'The one who is Son by nature and in truth is the Word from God the Father; the other is son homonymously with the Son.'

'The Word of God is not flesh, but has taken up a man.'

'For the Only-Begotten is preeminently and in himself the Son of God, the Maker of all; but the man whom he took up, not being Lord by nature, is so styled homonymously with him, on account of the truly Son of God who took him up.'

'"No one knows the Son except the Father" indicates the Son who is from the Father by nature and in truth.'

'But what is said by Gabriel:

"for you have found favour with God, and behold, you shall conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus"—this applies to the man.'

But we shall not think thus.

How could we? For the argument of the heterodox will never persuade us to abandon the straight track and to traverse another, off the mark and crooked.

But do you bring to a finish what seems good, and try to tell me, for I am ready to listen and to learn most especially that which is unalloyed.

{A} How heavy a matter, and how altogether unwieldy a burden!

Or do you not know, my friend, that if anyone should choose to make a long discourse on each point and a thorough examination, he will spend no easily-numbered amount of time, and, enduring grievous and inescapable sweat, will scarcely succeed? {B} True.

{A} Setting aside, then, if it seems good, the need to suppose we must speak at length and quibble excessively, and casting but a small examination upon each point, come, let us speak—and before all others, to the Docetists:

You are deceived, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the great mystery of godliness, that is, Christ, who 'was manifested in flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.'

'Go and make disciples of all the nations'—or, if they shrink from doing this, let them at least choose to think rightly concerning Christ; and, having declared that they ought to bid farewell to their own ignorances, let them cling fast to the sacred Writings, and, hastening along the unerring path of the saints, proceed upon it to the truth itself.

For the mystery of godliness would, I think, be nothing other than the Word from God the Father himself, who was manifested in flesh.

For he was begotten through the holy Virgin, taking the form of a slave.

And indeed, signifying to the shepherds the God-Word who for our sake was in flesh:

'And this shall be the sign to you:

you shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes and lying in a manger.'

If the Word from God the Father did not truly become flesh, nor did the Virgin truly give him birth, nor did he take hold of the seed of Abraham, nor was he made like his brothers,

—for our condition is in no way a shadow or a semblance, but we are in bodies tangible and visible, clothed with this earth-born flesh, and are overcome by corruption and passions—

—then, if the Word did not become flesh, neither can he, having suffered in that wherein he himself was tempted, help those who are tempted.

For a shadow could not suffer anything.

The whole then truly vanishes for us into nothing.

For what back, then, did he give for us? Or upon what cheek, offering it to the smiters, did he hold out against the blows from the Jews? And in what manner could anyone suppose that one who had not appeared in flesh had his hands and feet pierced with nails? Or what side, tell me, did Pilate's spearmen pierce, and display to the onlookers the precious blood gushing forth together with water? And, if one must speak of what lies beyond this, neither did Christ die for us, nor indeed has he been raised.

And if this be accepted as true, faith is emptied, the cross—the salvation and life of the world—has perished, and the hope of those who have fallen asleep in faith is utterly destroyed.

For so it seemed good also to the blessed Paul:

'For I delivered to you,' he says, 'first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he has been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve; afterward he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, of whom the majority remain until now, but some also have fallen asleep.'

'Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born,' he says, 'he appeared also to me.'

'But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised.'

'And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, and our faith also is vain.'

'And we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified concerning God that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise—if indeed the dead are not raised.'

For tell me, in what manner could a shadow die? How then did the Father raise Christ, if he were a shadow and a semblance, and not subject to the bonds of death? Let their vomit then be gone, and let us reckon the things among them as mere fable and as the scummy off-scourings of an unholy counsel.

For the disciple of the Saviour forewarns us of such men, writing that 'many false prophets have gone out into the world.'

'By this is known the Spirit of God:

every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not from God.'

'And this is that of the Antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now is already in the world.'

For if he did not become man, nor indeed has ascended in flesh to the Father and God who is in the heavens, neither would he return from heaven in our likeness—as a man, that is, and in flesh.

Or do I not seem to you to speak accurately? {B} Very much so.

{A} But that yet others, out of measureless dullness, should think and hold that the Word begotten from God refused the birth through the holy Virgin, and dishonoured our nature, but rather was transmuted into the flesh that is from earth—this belongs to those who blaspheme the economy and who have chosen to find fault with the divine designs.

For the Maker of all things, the God-Word abundant in mercy, emptied himself, becoming man for our sake, born of a woman, that, since the children—that is, we—have shared in blood and flesh, he too might likewise partake of the same, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all those who through fear of death were through all their lives subject to bondage.

For thus said the sacred Writing.

But they define as unseemly so altogether excellent and best a counsel, and, as though it were possible for them to think better things, they even find fault with the designs of wisdom.

For they say that we ought not to ascribe to the Only-Begotten the birth-pang and travail-birth that is from a woman, but rather to think that the nature of the Word was transmuted into this decaying, earth-born body, and they imagine a change in the one who knows no change.

For the nature of God is firmly fixed in its own goods, and holds its abiding in those things wherein it is, unshakable.

For a nature that is originate and brought into existence in time may suffer alteration, and the matter will lie not outside fitting and true reason.

For that which has received any beginning of being at all has, as it were, already sown into it the necessity of being altered.

But God, who is beyond all mind, having his existence exempt from and superior to generation and corruption, will be superior also to change; and just as, by the principle of his own nature, he stands above and surpasses, I think, everything called into generation—and that by incomparable differences—so too in the things accustomed to befall those made by him, he will again stand far above, not knowing how to suffer what is naturally apt to do harm.

Therefore the Divine is in goods that are unchangeable, but the things of creation are in alteration and changes, having corruption close at the door.

And knowing this very well, and as the best of philosophers, the prophet Jeremiah cried out to God: 'You who sit through the age, and we who perish through the age.'

For the Divine will sit forever as upon its own thrones, reigning and prevailing over all things, and tyrannized by none of the passions.

But we, having a nature most prone to slide and altogether easily swayed toward alteration and change, perish through the age—that is, in every season and time we are corruptible and changeable.

Neither then could the Divine ever come to be in deflections, thrust out from its own steadfastness by any of the passions; nor could the corruptible and changeable nature—that is, the originate—ever grow rich in essential immutability, nor could creation boast in the goods of the divine nature as its own.

'The heavens shall perish, but you remain; and they shall all grow old like a garment, and like a mantle you shall roll them up, and they shall be changed.

But you are the same, and your years shall not fail.'

Where then has the Word from God remained the same, if it be accurate to say that, having let go of his firm and unshaken state, he descended into what he was not, and was transformed into the nature of flesh and into what is naturally corruptible? Are these things, then, not already nonsense and madness? {B} Indeed they are.

{A} For it would be high time, in opposing their ignorances with something yet more ignorant, to say that it is not unlikely that the flesh which is from earth might at some point be able to ascend to the nature of the Godhead, and to become a constituent of the highest of all essences.

For if the nature of the Godhead itself, according to their stupefaction, was transferred into the nature of flesh, nothing any longer prevents the lower and proper nature, the flesh, from soaring above and being remoulded into Godhead and into the highest essence.

But we will not gratify their senselessness with our compliance; rather we will hold fast to the divine Scriptures—the prophet saying:

'Behold, the Virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel'; and blessed Gabriel, setting his seal upon the pre-announcement and interpreting to the Virgin the verdict from above:

'a son, and you shall call his name Jesus'—we believe that Emmanuel was truly begotten of a woman, and we will not thrust away the bright and admirable boast of our own nature, thinking rightly.

For the Only-Begotten took hold not of his own nature—else our condition would in no way be in better case—nor yet of the nature of angels, but of the seed of Abraham, as it is written.

For thus, and not otherwise, was the race that had slipped into corruption to be saved.

{A} What then? Is not that, besides these things, worthy of utmost wonder, Hermias? {B} What sort of thing do you mean? {A} For some, all but bidding farewell to the God-inspired Scripture, and assigning their own mind to deceiving spirits, have come to such ill counsel and boyish folly as to think that the Maker of the ages, the God-Word co-eternal with God the Father, has the beginning of his existence concurrent with the birth according to the flesh, and to imagine as late-born the one who is beyond every age and time—as though only in the last and barely at the time of the incarnation did God become Father, and as though the one through whom are all things and in whom are all things rushed in, as it were, together into being and subsistence with the temple from the Virgin.

Have they not, then, already passed through to the very summit of evils—those who have most readily admitted so old-wives' and abominable a fable, and have filled their own mind with unmixed dullness? 'An opened tomb, truly, is their throat; with their tongues they practised deceit; the venom of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.'

for the word of the Psalmist is accurate.

{A} For is it not necessary that the one through whom are all things should also pre-exist all things? {B} Well said.

{A} And what then would they do, when John writes:

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.'

'All things came into being through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into being.'

'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life.

And the life was manifested, and we have seen, and we testify, and we declare to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us'—Christ himself signifying to the Jews the unsearchable antiquity of his own existence:

'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?'—he answered plainly:

'Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I am.'

But where 'was' is, with nothing added, and where moreover the 'I am' is plainly set, what beginning of generation could anyone discern? Or in what manner could the one who 'was' in the beginning, which is beyond all mind, admit being summoned into existence in time? Now if anyone should choose to contend against these things rather leisurely, it is in no way hard, by bringing forward the words of the God-inspired Scripture, to repel without injury the products of their stupefaction.

But things which are so manifestly diseased with reproof and have so very much of the unlovely, I think it superfluous even to deem worthy of consideration.

{A} Let us go, then, to that which is akin to what has been condemned.

For some counterfeit the beauty of the truth, as it were debasing some coin, raising the horn on high, and 'speaking iniquity against God,' as it is written.

They imagine the Only-Begotten as non-existent and not subsisting individually, and say that he is not in subsistence of his own, but came to be from God merely as an utterance and a word according to expression alone, and dwelt in a man—the wretches—and, having thus composed Jesus, they say he is holier than the saints, but not yet also God.

Therefore, as the disciple of the Saviour also wrote:

'Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who confesses the Son has the Father also.'

For both are known through both, and each is known in each, both by ourselves and by the holy angels.

For no one could learn what the Father is, unless he received in his mind a Son who subsists and has been begotten.

But neither again could one learn what the Son is, unless he clearly considered that the Father has begotten.

Therefore it is necessary, I think, and accurate to say, that if the Son is non-existent, neither could we truly conceive of the Father.

For where any longer is a Father, if he has not truly begotten? Or if he has begotten that which neither subsists nor exists at all, the thing begotten will be nothing.

For that which does not subsist is on a par with nothing—or rather, is altogether nothing.

Then God will be the Father of nothing.

But, most excellent men, I for my part would say to the expositors of such things: your wares are idle drivel; or at least, when one asks, tell me:

how is the love of God the Father toward us exceptional? And if he gave the Son for us—the Son who according to you does not subsist—then he gave nothing for us, and neither did the Word become flesh, nor undergo the precious cross, nor abolish the power of death, nor indeed come back to life again.

For if he is nothing and, according to you, non-existent, how could he come to be in these things? The word of the holy Scripture, then, has cheated those who have believed, and the steadfastness of faith vanishes into nothing.

{A} What then? Did not the divine word signify to us that the Son subsists 'in the form of God,' and call him an image and an impress of the Begetter? {B} Very much so.

{A} And are images as their archetypes? {B} How not? {A} Therefore, if the image is not enhypostatic, nor the impress conceived as in existence of its own, they will be granting, as by necessary reasoning, that the one of whom it is the impress is also without subsistence, and the unloveliness of the image will run back entirely, no doubt, upon the archetype.

{A} Then, tell me, Philip, being a most diligent disciple of Christ, did he deem worthy to behold the Father who is and subsists, saying:

'Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us'—or rather the one who is not and is without subsistence? {B} The one who is, clearly.

{A} If then the Son is nothing, inasmuch as he does not subsist—according to their unbridled audacity—on what ground did he present himself to us as an image and an exact knowledge of the Father, saying:

'Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.'

'Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? I and the Father are one.'

But I do not think anyone could discern the one who subsists in the one who does not subsist, nor could the existent ever be conceived as altogether identical with the non-existent.

And how will the Father be in the Son, and the Son again in the Father? Or is it not true to say that, if the Word is not in existence of his own, the Father himself would also be endangered—having within himself nothing, and being conceived to exist in nothing? For that which is not at all could no longer be conceived as anything.

{B} The argument is not without ruggedness.

For it is sick with very much absurdity in itself, yet nevertheless it brings the doctrine of our opponents round to discord.

{A} One might rightly be amazed in what manner the Father made the things that are in the Son who has not received being.

But if anyone should ask whether being is good for the things that are, or rather non-being perhaps, in what manner do you answer? {B} I would say that being is good.

For so would the matter stand by nature.

Therefore creation is in better case than the one through whom all things are called into being, if the latter is said not to subsist, while the former subsist and are conceived as being.

For 'living is the Word of God and active,' as it is written;

he could not be conceived as life if he did not subsist.

And he is life by nature—for he will in no way speak falsely.

Therefore, to say that the Word who has appeared from God does not subsist is a rotten falsehood and the off-scouring of a most idiotic mind.

For he himself said to Moses:

And how could that which truly is, but is not preserved in subsistence of its own, ever be conceived? {A} Therefore shall we rightly define the utter ignorance of those who have held these views? {B} Very much so.

{A} Yet neither would we praise those others, Hermias, who have been very well taught to hunt eagerly after the truth.

{B} Who? {A} Those who say that the flesh united to the Word was deprived of a rational soul.

For clothing the Word with flesh alone—flesh which has received only vital and sensory motion—they parade into the world a notion that assigns the activity of mind and soul to the Only-Begotten himself.

For they shudder—I know not how to say it—to confess that the Word is united to one who is perfectly man, that is, to one constituted of soul and body, according to the principle of humanity; they reckon the tradition of the faith from above and most ancient worthy of almost no account at all, but, having ignorantly chosen to follow their own will alone and human reasonings, they truly think contrary to what one ought to think.

{B} And what is their argument for such a doctrine? {A} I will tell you.

We say that the Mediator between God and men, according to the Scriptures, is composed both of our humanity, perfect according to its own principle, and of the one who has appeared from God by nature as Son, that is, the Only-Begotten.

We nonetheless acknowledge one Christ and Lord and Son, in the same one both existing and conceived as God and man.

And we are accustomed to keep the union altogether inseparable, believing the same one to be both only-begotten and firstborn.

Only-begotten as the Word from God the Father and as having appeared from his essence; but firstborn again inasmuch as he became man and is among many brothers.

For just as there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, so also there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.

For we acknowledge the Word, through whom are all things, to be God by nature, even if he became flesh, that is, man.

{A} But their views by no means accord very well with those held among us concerning this.

For they too admittedly receive one Christ Jesus—thinking excellently in this point—but they very much reject as utterly impious the dividing of Emmanuel into two.

Yet nevertheless, having stripped the flesh of the human and rational soul, they say that the Word from God is united to it.

And a plausible argument, as they think, has been devised by them toward this end.

For, they say, the things that have run together by composition toward the constitution of one perfect whole are wont to be seen as parts and as deriving from incomplete things, since that which is perfect in itself and as in its own nature has no need of composition from parts.

Therefore, they say, one must reasonably refuse to grant that the temple united to the Word was a perfect man, in order that the composition—whatever might be conceived in the case of Christ—may preserve its own principle accurately and irreproachably.

For if, they say, we compose Emmanuel out of a perfect man and the Word who is from the Father, the danger is no small one—rather, it would now somehow seem inescapable that, even against our will, we must think and say there are two sons and again two Christs.

{B} Then what shall we say against these men? {A} First, that the faith which is so very ancient and which has come down from the holy apostles themselves into—

—that this point is rightly so, but that other point ought rather to be otherwise—surely this is presumptuous; it would in truth be better to assign to the all-wise God the way of his own designs, and not arrogantly to find fault with what has been approved as good in his sight.

For we shall hear him saying plainly:

'For my counsels are not as your counsels, nor are my ways as your ways; but as heaven is distant from earth, so is my way distant from your ways, and your thoughts from my thinking.'

Then what they think has been wisely discovered will be caught out as utterly stale and ignorant.

For if anyone should choose to strip that divine temple of a rational soul, the union will not be of two incomplete things—far from it.

For admittedly, in relation to the whole man—I mean the one composed of soul and body—the flesh by itself and on its own is a part.

But God the Word would not be conceived as a part of anything, nor yet as incomplete, noble friends.

For he is all-perfect in his own nature.

Where then will there be a running-together of incomplete things toward some one perfect thing, if it is from a perfect Word and incomplete flesh—as far as concerns the principle relating to a perfect man complete according to his own nature? But we shall by no means worship two sons, nor shall we speak of two Christs, even if we believe that the running-together into unity of Emmanuel was effected from a perfect man and from God the Word.

For just as—according to what seems good to them—even if he should be said to be from flesh alone and the Word who appeared from God the Father, no manner of argument will persuade them, while setting the flesh apart and the Only-Begotten apart, to confess a pair of Christs, but they will receive Emmanuel as one Lord Jesus Christ—for they have recognized that one must think very rightly in this point—so too, even if we should say that God the Word was, as it were, brought together and united, ineffably and beyond mind, with a perfect man (that is clearly with one composed of soul and body), we shall not conceive of a pair of sons, but of one and the same, who is by nature God and has appeared from the very essence of God the Father, but in the last times of the age became man and was begotten through the holy Virgin, and is worshipped both by ourselves and by the holy angels according to the Scriptures.

{B} What then, if they should say that our condition needed only the visitation of the Only-Begotten, and that, willing to be seen by those on earth and to converse with men, and to show us the way of the gospel manner of life, he in an economic way clothed himself with flesh like ours? For the Divine, according to its own nature, is not visible.

{A} They will be caught having been ignorant of the aim of the incarnation, and having understood nothing at all of the great mystery of godliness.

For if the enfleshment—that is, the incarnation—of the Only-Begotten has its sole occasion in being seen by those on earth, yet added nothing else to human nature, how is it not now somehow better and wiser for us ourselves to agree with the opinion of the Docetists? For they, stripping the Word of flesh and of an earthen body together, fabricate the myth, the wretches, that he appeared on earth as a man; but it would turn out that they had plainly confessed themselves to be introducers of the noblest doctrines.

Or will you not say it is better—if the Word from God in no way profits human nature even though he became flesh—that he should be set free from fleshly defilement, and merely seem once to have made use of an earthen body, and so to have accomplished the proposed aim? {B} What then would be the reason of the visitation, or what the manner of the incarnation, and for what cause it was done—I would like to learn.

{A} Come then, noble friend, inquire of the sacred Writings, and fixing well the eye of your understanding upon the voices of the holy apostles, behold rightly the thing sought.

Our wise Paul, then, said—having Christ himself speaking within him:

that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all those who through fear of death were through all their lives subject to bondage.

And indeed, elsewhere too, recounting to us in another manner:

'For what the law could not do,' he says, 'in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to flesh but according to Spirit.'

Is it not then most plain and to none of those that are unapparent, that the Only-Begotten became as we are, that is, perfect man, in order that he might free our earthen body from the corruption introduced into it—having, by the economy according to union, descended into identity with us according to the law of life—and that, making the human soul his own, he might render it superior to sin, infusing into it, as it were a dye, the fixed and unchangeable quality of his own nature? {B} The matter is not unapparent, I think.

For it carries within itself the likely—or rather the true—reasoning.

{A} Just as, then, since the flesh of the Word who gives life to all things became his own, it leaps above the power of death and corruption, in the same manner, I think, since the soul of the one who knew no sinning became his own, it has henceforth a fixed standing in all goods, unalterable, and incomparably stronger than the sin that of old held tyranny.

For Christ is the first man 'who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,' having been set as a root and a first-fruits of those reshaped into newness of life in the Spirit; and he will transmit, as in participation and by grace, both the incorruption of the body and the security and steadfastness of the Godhead now to the whole human race.

And knowing this, the inspired Paul writes:

'For just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly.'

For by the image of the earthy he meant the proneness to sin, and the death cast upon us from this source.

But by the image of the heavenly—that is, of Christ—he meant the steadfastness unto sanctification, and the recovery from death and corruption and the renewal into incorruption and life.

We say, then, that the whole Word was united to the whole man.

For he would surely not have deemed the better part in us, that is, the soul, worthy of no account, granting the labours of his visitation to the flesh alone.

But the mystery of the economy was well accomplished through both.

And he made use, as of an instrument, of his own flesh for the works of the flesh and its natural infirmities and whatever is far from blame, and again of his own soul for the human and blameless passions.

For he is said to have hungered, and to have borne the fatigues from long journeys, and terrors and fears and grief and agony and the death upon the cross.

For with none compelling him, he laid down of his own accord his own soul for us, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

Giving in return his own flesh in exchange for the flesh of all—a gift truly of equal worth—and making his soul a ransom in place of the soul of all, even though he came back to life again, being life by nature as God.

And so the inspired Peter:

'Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath that of the fruit of his loins he would seat one upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, that neither was his soul left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.'

For it is not lawful to say that the flesh united to the Word could be held fast by perpetual corruption, nor again that the divine soul came to be held captive by the gates of Hades.

'For it was not left in Hades,' as the inspired Peter also said.

For he does not say that the nature wholly untouchable and unconquerable by death—that is, the Godhead of the Only-Begotten—was brought back up from the recesses beneath the earth.

For the matter would not have been deemed worthy of wonder unless the Word from God remained in Hades, by the activity and nature of the Godhead, paradoxically and beyond reason filling all things and present to all.

For the Divine is above place and circumscription and measured magnitude, itself being contained by nothing.

And it is paradoxical and to none of those that are unwondrous, that the body which is by nature corruptible came back to life;

for it had been united to the incorruptible Word.

And the divine soul, having received its running-together and union with him, descended into Hades, but, using a God-befitting power and authority, appeared also to the spirits there.

Therefore he also said to those in bonds:

'Come forth,' and to those in darkness:

And it seems to me that the inspired Peter said something of this sort concerning both the God-Word and his soul which came to be his through the economic union:

'For it is better, if the will of God should will it, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil, because Christ also once died for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in flesh but made alive in spirit.'

'In which also,' he says, 'he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who once were disobedient.'

For neither, I think, would they say that the Godhead of the Only-Begotten, naked and on its own, descended into Hades and preached to the spirits there, being altogether invisible;

for the Divine is forever superior to being seen.

But neither shall we grant that it was moulded, in semblance and by way of figure, into the form of a soul; rather we must everywhere reject the mere semblance.

But just as, with those still in flesh, he conversed in flesh, so also he preached to the souls in Hades, having as his own burden the soul united to him.

And the manner of the union is perhaps deep and truly ineffable, and not to be grasped by our understandings.

Yet nevertheless it is fitting to reason this much.

For to be over-busy about things not according to our measure is not without harm, and it is altogether most senseless to subject to scrutiny things beyond mind, and to attempt to think things which it is not possible to think.

Or do you not know that this deep mystery, which leaps beyond the mind in us, is honoured by an uninquisitive faith? But assigning the senseless saying 'How can these things come to be?' to that Nicodemus and to those like him, we shall without hesitation receive the things uttered as oracles through the divine Spirit, and we shall believe Christ himself when he says:

'Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak what we know, and we testify to what we have seen.'

{A} Let then all nonsense be gone, and every feeble myth, and false opinion, and the cheating of cleverly contrived little phrases.

For we by no means admit that which is naturally apt to harm, even if our opponents should clap us down with very practised and indeed bitter words.

For our divine mystery is not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit.

Being therefore God and Lord of all, according to the Scriptures, the Only-Begotten has appeared to us.

For he was seen upon earth and shone forth to those in darkness, having become man—not in semblance, far from it (for to think or say this is madness)—nor yet having been transferred into flesh by way of transposition and change (for the Word from God is unalterable and forever the same and in like condition)—nor yet having his existence contemporary with the flesh (for he himself is the Maker of the ages)—nor yet as a word without subsistence, nor as a bare utterance come to be in a man;

for the one who calls things that are not into existence and generation necessarily pre-exists;

for he himself is the life that has appeared from the life of God the Father, who both is and is conceived according to his own hypostasis;

the living and existing God-Word, co-eternal with God the Father, having taken the form of a slave, and just as he is perfect in Godhead, so also is he perfect in manhood—not composed into one Christ and Lord and Son from Godhead and flesh alone, but from two perfect things, I mean manhood and Godhead, paradoxically bound together into one and the same.

{B} Whom then did the holy Virgin bear? The man, or the Word from God? {A} And indeed this very thing is the wandering, and the missing of what is fitting and true.

For do not divide him for me, nor, separating him into a man individually and into God the Word, portray Emmanuel to us as having two persons.

Lest then someone should rightly blame us for choosing to think nothing right, but rather those things which were even condemned by the holy Scripture. For thus said one of the disciples of Christ:

'But you, beloved, remember the words spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they told you that in the last of the times there would come mockers, walking in mockery according to their own lusts of ungodliness.'

'These are they who set up divisions, sensual, not having the Spirit.'

{B} Are we then in no way to distinguish? {A} By no means.

—at least so as to say 'two' after the union, and to conceive each one apart by itself.

But one must know that the mind does indeed contemplate a certain difference of natures—for Godhead and manhood are surely not the same—yet it will admit, together with the conceptions concerning these, also the running-together of both into unity.

Therefore he sprang forth from God the Father as God, but from the Virgin as man.

For the Word who shone forth ineffably and beyond mind from God the Father is said to have been begotten also through a woman, having descended into manhood and let himself down into what he was not—not that he might remain emptied, but that he might be believed to be God even while appearing on earth in our form, not as having dwelt in a man, but as having himself become man by nature, together with the preserving of his own glory.

Behold, then, he plainly says that he was set apart 'unto the gospel of God,' though he writes openly:

'For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.'

'For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.'

'You are my Son, today I have begotten you'—though the 'today' somehow always indicates to us not the past but rather the present time.

{A} For those who set him apart and divide him, it is truly hard to attain and perplexing; but for those who bind Emmanuel fast into unity, the unalloyed knowledge of the sacred doctrines is near to lay hold of and very ready at hand.

And what was assumed is not alien to him, but truly his own.

It is therefore reckoned as one with him, just as indeed one might also contemplate the composition of a human being.

For he is woven together from things unlike in nature—I mean soul and body—but nevertheless the two together are conceived as one man.

Just as sometimes the whole living being is named from the flesh alone, and when the soul is named, the two together are understood—in the same manner, then, you will receive it also in the case of Christ himself.

{B} I do not quite follow; I would like to learn clearly.

{A} Speaking to the Jews, our Lord Jesus Christ said:

'If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham.'

'But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth—this Abraham did not do.'

And Paul also writes concerning him:

'Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to the one able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear, although he was a Son, learned obedience from the things which he suffered.'

Shall we then reckon Christ to be this very thing—a mere man, in no way risen above our condition? {B} God forbid.

{A} Shall we then grant that the wisdom and power of God came to such weakness as to fear death and to beg salvation from the Father, and shall we send Emmanuel away from being life by nature? Or, turning these things round to the manhood, and referring the lowly things in his words to the measure of our nature, shall we do something praiseworthy, and shall we behold his super-cosmic glory from the things in which he is God, having understood the same one to be both man and God, or rather God become man? {B} Tell how.

{A} Let then the most approved Paul come into our midst, crying out and saying these things:

'We speak wisdom among the perfect, yet a wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are being brought to nothing; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has known.'

'For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.'

'Who, being the radiance of his glory and the impress of his hypostasis, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification for our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels as he has inherited a more excellent name than they.'

And yet, to be and to be named Lord of glory—how is this not very far surpassing and beyond every created thing brought into generation? And I pass over the human things—for they are indeed very small—but I will say that even if one should name angels, and reckon up Principalities and Thrones and Dominions, and indeed should call to mind the highest Seraphim, he would confess them to come behind so far-surpassing a renown—if at least he has a mind not corrupted.

For I affirm that the prerogative is select, and must be reserved to the all-royal nature of all things alone.

How then could the crucified one be Lord of glory? And the radiance of the Father and the impress of the essence, who upholds all things by the word of his power, is said to have become better than the angels—having taken, as I think, the lesser, perhaps, when he appeared as man.

For it is written that 'we behold Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death.'

Shall we then thrust the Word who appeared from God the Father out of the essential preeminence that belongs to him and the exact likeness to him, beholding him as inferior to the renown of angels because of the lowliness of the economy? {B} By no means.

For I think one must neither altogether free the Word from God of the human things after his coming-together with flesh, nor again deprive the human element of the God-befitting glory, if it be conceived and spoken of as in Christ.

Nevertheless, know that some ask:

Who then is truly Jesus the Christ? The man from a woman, or rather the Word from God? {A} It is utterly silly to insist on superfluous things and to answer back to idle and foolish myth-mongering.

But I will say that it is perilous and not without harm to cut him in two and to set up the man and the Word apart, since the economy does not endure it, and the God-inspired Scripture cries aloud that there is one Christ.

For I say that neither the Word from God apart from manhood, nor the temple born from a woman, not united to the Word, ought to be named Christ Jesus.

For the Word from God, having been ineffably brought together with manhood by the economic union, is conceived as Christ—higher than manhood as God and Son by nature, but stooping a little below the God-befitting glory as man.

Therefore he sometimes said:

'He who has seen me has seen the Father.'

'I and the Father are one'; but again at another time:

'The Father is greater than I.'

For though he is not less than the Father in respect of being identical in essence and equal in every single thing whatsoever, he says he is in lesser things because of the human element.

And he is proclaimed through the sacred Writings sometimes as being wholly man, his Godhead being passed over in silence economically, and sometimes again as God, his manhood being kept silent.

But he is in no way wronged because of the coming-together of both into unity.

{B} How do you mean? For I do not quite understand.

{A} The Hebrew of the Hebrews and of the tribe of Benjamin, the called apostle, writes to those justified through faith and who have put to death the members of the flesh—I mean fornication and passion, evil desire, and covetousness:

'For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.'

He himself indeed said concerning his own disciples:

'Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given me, that they may be one as we are.'

'While I was with them, I kept them in your name which you have given me, and I guarded them, and not one of them perished except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.'

'But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.'