That Christ Is One 1 part 2/5

"For surely," they say, "it is not one of those names which might be spoken by us also of the Father himself, or even of the Holy Spirit."

{A} The argument is not yet quite clear.

For it is possible to see in the God-inspired Scriptures that the title of the Son is set forth most abundantly and variously.

For he has been named God, and Lord, and light, and life, and moreover also king, and Lord of hosts, and holy, and almighty.

But if anyone should wish to say these same things of the Father himself, or at least of the Holy Spirit, he would not miss what is fitting;

for of one nature there will surely be also one pre-eminence of dignities.

If, then, "Christ" is truly a name fitting to the Only-begotten, let it go—they say—indiscriminately, along with the others, also for the Father himself and the Holy Spirit.

But since it is altogether implausible to apply it to the Father and to the Holy Spirit, neither, according to reason, will it apply to the Only-begotten himself.

{A} We too ourselves say that the names of the God-befitting dignities are common to Father and Son and Holy Spirit, and we are accustomed to crown together with equal honors the one who was begotten of the Father, namely the Son, and besides the Holy Spirit.

Except, O best of men—I would say—the name "Christ," and the thing itself, that is the anointing, has accrued to the Only-begotten together with the modes of the emptying, introducing to the hearers a clear manifestation of the becoming-man.

For that he was anointed in that he appeared as man, this would signify very well.

If, then, we were not examining the very account of the economy in the flesh, but it were set before us to behold the only-begotten Word of God as being somewhere outside, for the time being, of the measures of the emptying, it would indeed be most reasonably altogether silly to name "Christ" him who was not anointed.

But since the divine and most sacred Scripture says that he became flesh, the anointing would now also befit him, having come to pass in connection with the incarnation, which is his.

And so the all-wise Paul writes:

"For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all of one."

"I will declare your name to my brethren."

For he was sanctified together with us when he became as we are.

"Your throne, O God, is forever and ever."

"A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom."

"...You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows."

Understand, then, how, having called him God and given him a throne forever, he says he was anointed by God—plainly the Father—with an exceptional anointing above those who share in him, that is, above us.

For even if he became man, although being God the Word, yet even so he was in need of nothing of the good things of his own nature, being self-complete and "full of grace and truth," according to the word of John.

And he himself has perfectly unto every single God-befitting thing, but from his fullness we all received, according to what is written.

Therefore, appropriating together with the measures of his own humanity also the things belonging to it, he is named "Christ," even if he be not thought to have been anointed, according, I mean, to the nature of the Godhead, or at least in so far as he is understood to be God.

For tell me, how could he otherwise be understood as one Christ and Son and Lord, if the Only-begotten deems the anointing unworthy of him, and does not endure the measures of the emptying? {B} They go somehow by a different path than we, interpreting senselessly the mystery of godliness.

"And we say neither two sons nor two lords; but since God the Word, the only-begotten Son of the Father, is Son according to substance, to whom this one is conjoined and of whom he partakes, he shares in the appellation and honor of Son; and since God the Word, to whom this one is conjoined, is Lord according to substance, he shares in the honor."

"And therefore we say neither two sons nor two lords, since—when he who is Lord and Son according to substance is manifest—the one who was assumed for the sake of our salvation, having an inseparable conjunction with him, is carried up together with him into the naming and honor of the Son and the Lord."

{A} Alas for the folly and the witless mind of those who have somehow supposed these things to be so!

For the thing is unbelief and nothing else, and a novelty of impious inventions, and an overturning of the divine and sacred proclamations, which have cried aloud one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God—plainly the Word from God the Father, become man and incarnate—so that the same one is at once both God and man, and that of one are all things, both the God-befitting and besides the human.

For this one, existing and subsisting always, according to his being God, endured the birth according to the flesh from a woman.

Therefore both the existing and subsisting eternally and the being born according to the flesh in the last times belong to one and the same; who, being holy by nature as God, was sanctified together with us in that he appeared as man, to whom sanctification might befit.

And being in lordly dignities, and having the form of the slave as his own, he named the Father his God.

Being life and life-giving as God, he is said to be made alive by the Father in that he appeared as man.

...one dishonors the economy, which the Father himself also approved, if the things spoken through the voice of Paul are true:

"Him who knew no sin he made sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him"; and at another time again:

"He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up on behalf of us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?"

And, as is fitting, the mystery of the economy in the flesh has been turned round to the entirely opposite.

For it is not possible to see how, being God by nature and having appeared from God, the Word lowered himself into emptying, taking the form of a slave, and humbled himself; but rather, from the contrary side, man was carried up into the glory of the Godhead and the pre-eminence over all things, and received also the form of God, and was rather exalted, having become enthroned together with the Father.

Is not what I say true? {B} Most certainly.

For the law speaks the mystery of Christ, and concerning him Moses has written, who also became our tutor unto him.

But the faith somehow departs into nothing, for... altogether our august mystery has flowed away into nothing.

Which indeed the all-excellent Paul also makes plain, saying:

"Say not in your heart:

'Who shall ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down); or 'Who shall descend into the abyss?' (that is, to bring Christ up [from the dead])."

"But what does the Scripture say? 'The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart'—that is, the word of faith which we proclaim—that if you confess with your mouth, 'Lord Jesus,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved."

How then is the mystery of godliness still great and glorious and in the highest wonder, if one must believe that, as the perverse say, a man was assumed and conjoined relatively to God the Word, and died and came back to life and was carried up into heaven? And it might perhaps seem incredible to some, unless being God by nature and truly, he glories in the seats of the Godhead—the Son who is by nature having perhaps somehow been expelled—and the angels and archangels and, beyond these still, the Seraphim stand by, holding the ministering rank, not to the one who is according to truth the Son and God, but rather to a man who became rich in the name of sonship by participation and by insertion and in a manner according to us, and was deemed worthy of so most-God-befitting an honor.

For those on the opposite side shudder least of all even at saying this.

...has been filled? For that which is given and inserted would be liable to rejection, and that which is procured from outside does not have its loss free from suspicion.

And I pass over in silence what is still ill-sounding and discordant to put into words.

{B} "But even if he be understood as a man individually," they say, "by reference to God and in conception he has the worship from all creation."

{A} Then in what way, tell me, would it befit this much-bruited "reference" of theirs to be understood and spoken of by us? Come, let us busily search the divine and sacred Scripture, and behold from it the thing sought.

Now, having once slighted the reverence due to God, those of Israel bitterly assailed Moses and Aaron.

Then Moses and Aaron declared aloud:

"What are we, that you murmur against us? For your murmuring is not against us, but against God."

For they were offending against Moses and Aaron, but the deed touched the divine glory, and the manner of the suspicion of the insolent ones had its reference upon it.

Yet Moses and Aaron were not gods, nor did creation worship them by reference to God.

God was reigning, through the prophets, over Israel according to the flesh.

Then they came saying to the divinely-eloquent Samuel:

"Make us a king, like also all the other nations."

At this the Spirit-bearer was embittered, and very reasonably so, but he heard God saying:

"They have not rejected you, but rather me, that I should not reign over them."

Behold then again, here also clearly, the manner of the rejection has its reference unto God.

And indeed the Savior and Lord of all himself says concerning those in need:

"Inasmuch as you did it to one of these least, you did it to me."

{A} Is it then sufficient, for his needing to take the glory befitting God and to be carried beyond the measures of creation, merely to be conjoined to him? And will this make worshipful one who is not God? But I find someone saying to God through the lyre of the Psalmist:

"My soul has cleaved after you."

And the blessed Paul also writes:

"He who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit."

...holds the conjunction with much intensity.

{A} But why, then, dismissing "union"—although it is a term well-worn among us ourselves, and indeed one coming down to us from the holy Fathers—do they name it "conjunction"? And yet "union" in no way confuses the things of which it might be spoken, but rather shows the running-together into some one thing of the things conceived as united.

And it is not only the simple and uniform that might be called "one" wholly and altogether, but indeed also the things composed out of two or more, and even out of diverse kinds.

Therefore, most mischievously dividing into two the one Son who by nature and truly became man and is incarnate, they decline "union," but name it "conjunction," such as perhaps even some other might have toward God, as being bound, so to speak, by virtue and sanctification, according to what was rightly said by one of the prophets to those sinking into sloth:

"Gather yourselves together and be bound together, O nation undisciplined, before you become as a flower passing away."

And a disciple might be conjoined to a teacher according to the love of learning, and we to one another, not in one way, but in many.

Or perhaps even the assistant in some matter might reasonably be conceived as not unconjoined, according to free choice, to the one who took him for assistance.

But what the "conjunction" of the innovators seems rather to make clear to us:

Is it not, then, that through these arguments he is seen to be wholly and altogether other than the one who is by nature and truly Son? {B} I affirm it.

{A} But since they have once slipped into this ignorance, so as to suppose and say that the only-begotten Word of God did not rather himself become as we are, but took a man, in what manner then do they wish the assumption to be understood by us? For do they wish it as one taken up by him for the purpose of accomplishing something according to his will, just as indeed also one of the holy prophets†

†"I was no prophet, neither a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore fruit; and the Lord took me from the flock," and the Lord said to me:

"Go, prophesy to my people Israel"? For being a herdsman, he set him as a prophet, and made him a minister of his own wills.

{B} They would perhaps say that the assuming did not at all happen in this way, but rather as the phrase "taking the form of a slave" might be understood by us.

{A} Therefore, what was taken would reasonably be understood as having become, according to an indivisible union, the very own of the one who took it, so that Jesus is both God, and the truly-according-to-truth Son of God, one and only, as the Word from God the Father, begotten divinely before all ages and time, the same one according to the flesh from a woman in the last times of the age.

For the form of the slave was not another's, but became his own.

{B} How do you mean? {A} For tell me, would that which is by nature a slave not unfittingly be said to take the form of a slave, or that which is truly free, and lies essentially above the measures of slavery? {B} The free, I suppose.

For that which one is by nature, how could one still become it? {A} Behold then that, although the only-begotten Word of God became as we are, and entered into the measures of slavery according to the human element, the natural freedom bore witness to him in the contribution of the didrachmas, when he said:

"Then are the sons free."

And that which is superior always prevails, and the shame from slavery was done away by us.

And thus the dignity has passed over to us also.

For we too have been called sons of God, and have inscribed as Father him who is his own in a particular sense.

For the human things have become his too.

Therefore, in his being said to take the form of the slave lies the whole mystery of the economy in the flesh.

"My glory I will not give to another."

For how is he not another, in a particular sense, beside the one who is by nature and truly Son—he who is honored by a bare and mere conjunction, and is taken in the rank of an attendant, and is deemed worthy of sonship just as we ourselves, and has partaken of the glory from another, having been brought to this by gift and grace? {B} Should not Emmanuel then be divided into a man individually and into God the Word? {A} By no means.

And I say that he must be called God who has become man, and that this and that are at one and the same time the same one.

For neither has he departed from being God in becoming man, nor indeed does he hold the economy unacceptable, having dishonored the measure of the emptying.

{B} "Then was his body," they say, "consubstantial with the Word?"

"For thus, and not otherwise, would one and only Son be understood."

{A} And yet how are these things not already nonsense and a clear demonstration of a raving mind? For how could anyone see in identity of substance the things so far separated from one another by the accounts of nature? For Godhead is one thing, and humanity another.

Since of what things do we say the union came to pass? For one would not say that the things united are one in number, but rather two, perhaps, or even more than this.

{A} It must not be divided, as I said, into an individual otherness, the otherness consisting in being apart from one another and separately.

But rather it must be brought together into an unsundered union.

For the Word became flesh, according to the word of John.

{B} Have the two natures, then, been confused and become one?

{A} Then who would be so thunderstruck and unlearned as either to suppose that the divine nature of the Word was turned into what it was not, or that the flesh passed over, according to the mode of alteration, into the nature of the Word himself? For it is impossible.

Yet we say that there is one Son and one nature of him, even if he be conceived as having come to be in the assumption of flesh possessing a rational soul.

For the human element, as I said, became his, and is understood by us in no other way except that according to this very mode he is at once both God and man.

{B} Then would there not be two natures, of God and of man?

{A} Godhead and humanity are each something different, according to the accounts inherent in each.

But in Christ they were, strangely and beyond understanding, run together into unity, apart from confusion and change.

And the mode of the union is altogether inconceivable.

{B} And how, out of two—Godhead and humanity—would one Christ be conceived? {A} In no other way, I think, than in that in which things brought together with one another might be in an unsundered union, and the one beyond understanding, as I said.

{B} Such as what, namely? {A} Do we not say that the man understood according to us is one, and that there is one nature of him, although he does not have the single-form, but is rather composed of two—I mean of soul and body? {B} We do say so.

{A} Let no one, taking the flesh separately and setting apart from it the soul united to it, cut up the one man into two men, and corrupt the account of rightness! {B} And yet the all-wise Paul writes:

"...our outward man is being destroyed, yet the inward is being renewed day by day."

For he knew, he knew clearly, the things out of which the one is, and renders the difference apprehensible by contemplation alone.

And he names the inward man the soul, and indeed also the flesh the outward.

"I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh"; and indeed Moses, conversing with those of Israel:

"In seventy-five souls your fathers went down into Egypt"—and we shall find this coming to pass in the case of Emmanuel himself.

For after the union—I mean that with the flesh—even if one should call him Only-begotten and God from God, he would not be understood to exist apart from flesh or at least from humanity.

And even if one should call him man, this will not drive him away from being God and Lord.

{B} But if we say that there is one nature of the Son, even if he be conceived as incarnate, there is surely every necessity to confess that a mixing and blending came to pass, with the nature of man being, as it were, stolen away in him.

For what is man's nature compared to the pre-eminence of the Godhead? {A} Most certainly, O comrade, superfluous in speech is he who says that a mixing and blending came to pass, if indeed one nature of the Son, incarnate and become man, be confessed by us.

For one could not make the demonstration out of necessary and true syllogisms.

But if they set up their own will as a law for us, they have devised a counsel which they will in no way be able to establish.

For we must give heed not to them rather, but to the God-inspired Scripture.

But if they think it necessary—because man's nature is as nothing in comparison with the divine pre-eminence—that it be stolen away and consumed, as they themselves say, we shall reply again:

"You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God."

For it was not impossible for the goodness-loving God to render himself bearable to the measures of humanity; and this he showed us beforehand enigmatically, initiating Moses into the mystery, and depicting, as in types still, the mode of the becoming-man.

For he visited the bush in the form of fire in the wilderness, and the fire flashed about the shrub, yet it was not consumed.

And Moses marveled at the sight.

And yet how would the wood not be incompatible with the fire? And how could the easily-combustible material be bearable to the assaults of the flame?

But it was, as I said, a type of the matter of the mystery, showing the divine nature of the Word to be bearable to the measures of humanity, he himself so willing.

For nothing at all is impossible to him.

{B} Be well assured that they would not choose to think the same things.

{A} Therefore the argument advocated by them shall be caught, even unambiguously, making for us two sons and two christs.

{A} Then in what state of mind and sense might those who hold these opinions be? Or how do they not speak of a dyad of sons, separating from one another man and God? For if, according to them, the one is by nature and truly Son, but the other has sonship by grace and came to this dignity as one in whom the Word indwells, has he then anything greater than we have? For he dwells in us ourselves also, and to this very thing the most holy Paul confirms us, saying:

"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, of whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his Spirit, that Christ may dwell in your hearts."

For he is in us through the Spirit, in whom we cry out:

For by grace we too are sons and gods.

But we have been brought, altogether, into this transcendent and wondered-at dignity, as having the only-begotten Word of God dwelling within.

But it is utterly impious and senseless for them to say that Jesus was deemed worthy of adoption as a son, and that he received the glory pertaining to this as a matter of grace.

For first, as I said, he would on this view be conceived as another Son, Christ, and Lord in his own right, distinct from the true and natural one.

Then, in addition to this, yet another impossibility is introduced, one that not unreasonably stands in opposition to right reasoning.

{B} What sort of thing do you mean? {A} The all-wise John says concerning Christ:

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them he gave authority to become children of God.

So then, would one who possesses adoption by grace, and who holds as an acquired dignity the very being of what he is, be able to bestow on others what he himself only barely came to possess? Does not the matter seem implausible to you? {B} Indeed it does.

{A} And what does not belong by nature, but is rather introduced from outside, could it not, so far as is possible, also be cast away? {B} How could it not? {A} Then it would be among the possibilities that the Son could at some time even fall away from his sonship.

For what is not firmly grounded in the laws of nature is not free from the suspicion of being lost.

{A} And in yet another way one might observe how unseemly their teaching is, and how truly full of the utmost folly.

For if it is true that what exists by adoption and grace is always somehow in the likeness of what exists by nature and in truth, how are we sons by adoption, having our reference to him as to one who is truly Son, if he himself is among those who are such by grace, together with us? And how, in the gospel parables, is he sent as a son after the servants? Seeing him, the keepers of the vineyard said:

This is the heir; come, let us kill him.

Therefore he who appeared in flesh and came to be tried by the perversity of the Jews is truly Son, and free, as one plainly sprung from a free nature, and not among those under the yoke insofar as he is conceived as God; and even if the Son became, like us who are under the yoke of slavery, a son—being, as I said, by nature and in truth the Son, the one who is beyond the yoke and above creation, to whom we too, the sons by adoption and grace, have been conformed.

{B} We do not say, they assert, that the man is by nature Son of God, lest we should speak of two sons by nature.

Someone might say, I think, that the mystery of Christ would be an idle deception, if indeed it stands as the adversaries nonsensically maintain.

I think it is fitting that they too should hear from us what was said by Christ himself to the teachers of the Jews:

The Lord said to my Lord:

Thou art my Son—but neither does he say:

...and Authorities, and every name that is named? Observe how the Lord, when he says...

{B} They would perhaps say something in reply to these points as well, for I conjecture as much.

{A} And yet how does such an inquiry not contain a great deal of absurdity? And it would be quite out of tune with the power of the mystery and with those who love to contemplate the truth. {B} Tell me how.

For the Word who truly and by nature shone forth from God the Father, having entered into the assumption of flesh and blood, as I said just now, has remained the same—that is, by nature and in truth the Son of the Father, being one and only, and not as one alongside another, so that one single person of him may be conceived.

For by thus gathering into a true union, one surpassing mind and reason, things that by the principles of nature are kept apart by their unlikeness, we shall walk the unerring path of the faith.

Or do I not seem to you to have considered these things excellently? {B} Indeed you do.

{A} I will put yet another question to the adversaries.

Or if what I say is not true, let them tell on what grounds they divide, assigning the one who grants the glory and the authority, but bringing forward another as the one who received—and that as gaining this very thing in the rank of rewards and in the portion of a gift.

And the one who receives is in every way less and secondary to the one who gives, and that which partakes of the glory coming from another is less than the one who glorifies.

{B} I think they too would acknowledge the very greatest difference between God and men.

And the most holy Paul will teach this, saying concerning him that he became obedient to the Father unto death, even the death of the cross.

...for the Only-begotten, who is by nature and from God, how could what he already has be something given to him? {A} Then, if 'to receive' is not predicated of him, let it be tested minutely from what the inspired Paul himself wrote:

For let this mind be in each of you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, counted it not a thing to be grasped to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

And yet, as they themselves say and have resolved to think, he himself is the form of the servant.

Then how could he, as not having it, receive it? And how could he be conceived as a man, made in the likeness of men, and also be found as a man in fashion? Therefore the force of these reflections would turn them about, even against their will, toward the necessity of knowing the truth.

{B} What sort of thing? {A} For he who exists in the form of God the Father, God the Word, the express image of his subsistence, who in every respect whatsoever is equal in measure to the one who begot him, emptied himself.

And what is the emptying? It is to have come into the assumption of flesh and into the form of a servant—the likening of himself to us, of one who in his own nature is not as we are, but is above all creation.

Thus he humbled himself, lowering himself in the economy into the measures of humanity.

But even so he was God, as not having given away what belongs to him by nature.

Therefore he also said to the Father and God in the heavens:

Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

For it was necessary—indeed necessary—that he should both conform himself to the measures of humanity, and yet hold, essentially inherent in him, the surpassing excellence of the dignity befitting God, undiminished, just as it is also in the Father.

For in what way is it true that 'There shall be no new god in thee,' if, according to them, a man is made god by conjunction with the Word, and is shown forth as enthroned together with and sharing in the dignity of the Father? {B} Well said.

{A} And how would it be fitting to understand what was wisely said through the voice of Paul:

For though there be that are called gods, and lords many, whether in heaven or on earth, yet to us there is one God the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.

But since there is one Lord Jesus Christ, and since he who has well distinguished it declares that all things were brought into being through him, what shall we do, O good sirs, when you separate from the assumed man, as you say, the Word from God the Father? Whom shall we say became the maker of all things? {B} The Son who is by nature from God the Father, that is, the Only-begotten.

{A} But the hierophant of the divine mysteries says that all things were brought into existence through Jesus Christ, and that he is one and only.

I shall recall that, in examining the name 'Christ,' we said that it brings us a manifestation of anointing.

For behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.

For he shall save his people from their sins.