ℹ️ This corpus has no verse-level morphological tagging. Lemmas come mainly from word-level tagging of other books in the same language (not from this verse), falling back to dictionary form-matching for the rest. Rare homographs can still be misread; verify against the original and a specialist lexicon where precision matters.
ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
alteration, but by the assumption of flesh animated by a rational and intellective soul, remaining what he was — perfect God — and becoming what he was not — perfect man — having assumed a nature, not a hypostasis; a nature not without hypostasis, but one that subsisted in him and had him as its hypostasis;
For the soul has one nature, and the flesh another — the soul an incorporeal and immaterial one, the body a material one — but since they belong to one person, they have one hypostasis.
the second Adam, the Lord, is from heaven. It is called a Trinity, because there are three hypostases of the Godhead: the Father, the only-begotten Son, and the Holy Spirit.
If, then, the hypostasis of the only-begotten Son of God is one, and the hypostasis of the son of the Virgin is another, then either the only-begotten Son of God has been cast out and the son of the Virgin brought in his place, or the son of the Virgin is not worshiped, or four sit upon the throne and we worship a Quaternity.
But may it never be that we worship a Quaternity, but rather the Holy and adorable Trinity: one Father, one hypostasis; one Son and Word of God incarnate, one hypostasis together with his flesh; one Holy Spirit, one hypostasis; an all-holy and glorified Trinity.
The beginning of the existence and hypostasis of every infant is the seed deposited by the father in the womb of the woman; the woman, conceiving this, supplies her own blood, and thus the infant is formed.
What, then, did she conceive? The Word of God? For the Holy Spirit mediated in place of union, and dwelt in her, and the Son and Word of God was conceived; and he himself became flesh, ensouled with a rational and intellective soul, and he himself, as it were a divine seed, became the hypostasis for the flesh — one hypostasis of two natures, both divinity and humanity.
For being perfect God, he became perfect man, and he is one Son of God and of man: motherless as God, from the Father; fatherless as man, from the mother — the same one, having two natures, one hypostasis;
for if two hypostases, twins born of one father and one mother, are not one son but two, how could a hypostasis begotten of a father of a different essence, and a hypostasis begotten of a mother of a different essence, be one son? For the Father and God is not of the same essence as the Virgin.
And if two hypostases of human beings, even being consubstantial, would not be one son, how could two hypostases of different essence be one son? It is necessary, then, either to say that Christ and the God-Word are two sons, or to confess one hypostasis and one Son.
declaring that, being God, he also became flesh; and that, just as there is one God the Father, so too there is one Lord Jesus Christ, God's own and only-begotten Son, given by the Father for the world, and who suffered; and that the Christ who arose, according to the flesh, from the Israelites, is, over all, God blessed forever, and the power of God and the wisdom of God, and heir of all things, and maker of the ages, and the radiance of the Father's glory and the imprint of his hypostasis, and great God, and, being in the form of God, took the form of a servant — and other things akin to these;
for these things, and such as these, are said of one and the same Christ, and not of one person and another, nor of one hypostasis and another, that is, not of one Son and Christ and a different one.
And how, moreover, would Christ himself, our God, speak truly in declaring himself to be prior to Abraham, and older than the foundation of the world, and to have come down from heaven, and to be by nature light and life and resurrection, and crying out:
"I and the Father are one," and "he who has seen me has seen the Father," and other sayings like these — by which he is shown to be not a mere man, recently come into being, but God incarnate, and one Christ, Son of God, in two natures: I mean, in divinity, according to which he was known as one with the Father and God; and in humanity, according to which he is of a different essence from the Father, but of the same essence as us who are earthly, and in nothing at variance with us as regards nature — he is not one hypostasis and another, but one and the same hypostasis, bearing within itself, without confusion and without change, one nature and another: the one uncreated, pre-eternal, and creative of creatures; the other created and recent.
For humanity is not co-eternal, of the same form and same essence as divinity, nor has it come down from heaven; but since it was one and the same God the Word who united humanity to himself according to hypostasis, for this reason he spoke of himself sometimes in lofty terms befitting God, and sometimes in lowly terms befitting man.
Hence he also wished to be understood as both David's Lord and David's son, and he accepted as pious both those who called him Son of God and those who named him Son of David: the former, as signifying his invisible divinity and pre-eternal begetting from God the Father; the latter, as proclaiming the visible essence and true nature of his humanity.
And the only-begotten will no longer be called "only-begotten," since another has been brought in alongside him by adoption; and the one will be the elder, the other the younger; the one natural and legitimate, the other adopted and illegitimate.
Moreover, if we should dare to introduce a fourth hypostasis — the one born of the Virgin Mary — and worship it together with the tri-hypostatic Godhead, we shall be found worshiping a strange, new, and recent god, which is altogether forbidden to do; and, in pagan fashion, we shall be subjected to the charge of man-worship, and condemned by the curse pronounced upon worshipers of men;
But we neither impiously introduce another hypostasis alongside the three hypostases of the Godhead, which alone are to be worshiped and revered — since we have been taught by the divinely inspired oracles not to call the one Son and Christ two sons and two Christs — nor do we, in a manner hateful to God, tolerate worshiping a mere man; but we serve and worship the one composite Christ, of divinity and humanity, and perfect in both essences from which and in which he was composed, who is ever worshiped together with the Father and the all-holy Spirit, honoring his divinity and his humanity with a single act of worship, since these are united according to hypostasis inseparably and without any division, and constitute one person.
one Father, one hypostasis; one Son and Word of God incarnate, one hypostasis together with his flesh; one Holy Spirit, one hypostasis; an all-holy and glorified Trinity.
For just as a sword that has been made fiery in the flame is still one sword even after the heating, so, and even more so, Christ is one, and one hypostasis, even after the incarnation.
And just as I fear to touch the fiery sword, not on account of the nature of the iron, but on account of the nature of the fire united to it, so I worship God the Word incarnate, and I worship together with him the flesh, not on account of the nature of the flesh, but on account of God the Word who has been united to it.
And indeed, in the case of the king and his garment, the union is not according to hypostasis, nor unbreakable, nor everlasting; but in the case of Christ our God, the union is according to hypostasis, unbreakable, and everlasting.
If, then, he has two natures, it is necessary to confess in him the natural properties of the two natures, perfectly and without deficiency, if indeed we know him to be perfect God and perfect man.
for he did not first not exist and then begin to exist, but he was always, in the manner of begetting, being God: [having] the capacity of willing, the capacity of operating, almighty, infinitely powerful, creative, all-working, infinite, uncircumscribed, incomprehensible, unsearchable, immortal, all-ruling, sustaining, good, wise, just, saving, simple by nature and uncompounded, unchangeable, unalterable, all-seeing, foreknowing of things to come, all-containing or all-comprehending, unparticipated in essence yet participable in operation, not in nature;
self-determining and all-powerful, beneficent, communicative of good, illuminating, invisible, intangible, supra-divine, supra-essential; and, simply put, all that the Father has belongs also to the Son, except unbegottenness.
"All that is mine is yours, and yours is mine." But what is proper to his hypostasis is that he is Son, begotten of the Father, and not that he is an unbegotten Father, nor a begetter.
For he was begotten of the Father impassibly, without conjugal union — that is, without mixture — as light from fire, or rather, as perfect light from perfect light.
Having spoken, then, of the properties of Christ's divine nature, which he had from the Father, let us also speak of the natural properties of his human nature, which he had from his assumption of that which is from us.
For if, being perfect God, he became, for our sake and like us, perfect man, it is clear that, just as he has all the natural properties of divinity and, in this respect, is perfect God, so also he will have all the natural properties of humanity — that is, all the natural faculties of humanity, both active and passive — in order that he might be perfect man;
Let it be established beforehand that we have received naturally from the Creator the capacity for every operation, use, action, and passive experience, and that these are natural;
for it is impossible for any nature whatsoever to make use of an action, or to perform an operation, or to undergo a passive experience, the capacity for which it did not receive according to nature.
For example, the earth cannot sprout unless it has received according to nature the sprouting capacity from the Creator; nor can water bring forth life — so to speak — the generation of fish, and contribute to the sprouting of the earth's produce, unless it received such a capacity from the Creator; nor can a plant grow, unless it received the growth-capacity; nor can a bird fly, unless it received the capacity for flying; nor can a land animal walk, nor a reptile crawl, unless each received such a capacity.
He therefore shares with inanimate bodies in the mixture and composition from the four elements; with plants, in this as well as in the nutritive and growth-capacity, and further in the seed-producing capacity; with irrational animals, in these as well, but also in the vital faculty and in the irrational appetite — that is, anger and desire — and in the imaginative and memorative faculties, and in sensation and in locomotive movement (locomotive movement being the movement of the whole body), and in the vocal and respiratory faculties, and in movement from place to place.
And he is joined to the incorporeal and intellective powers through his rational faculty, and through the rational appetite of the intellect, which is willing — the first movement of the intellect;
Proper to the body are: division, flux, and change in quality — that is, cooling, heating, moistening, and drying — and the organization of the members.
And, prior to these, what is most proper to the soul, distinguishing it from the essence of the angels, is that it lives its life in a body and imparts to it life and movement, and that it freely, according to its own appetite (that is, willing), governs the body and the irrational appetite — desire and anger — and the movement that follows impulse, and naturally rules its own body as its own natural slave.
Common to soul and body — of which the soul imparts to the body — are: the vital faculty, the imaginative faculty (that is, the faculty apprehensive or discriminative of sensible things), and the sensitive faculty itself, that is, the five senses;
sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch; further, the faculty of memory and motion according to impulse, the nutritive and growth faculties, and the irrational appetite — I mean anger and desire — hunger and thirst, weariness and spitting, pleasure and grief and displeasure, fear, timidity and anguish, distress, disturbance, sweat, and death (for death is the separation of the soul from the body), and the whole economy of nourishment and growth.
All these are irrational affections and operations — operations and powers of the nature (wherefore all natural things are gifts bestowed by God upon the nature), yet affections, because every created creature is moved and operates in a passible manner;
change in respect of quality — that is, whitening, blackening, cooling, heating, sickness, and the like — these are affections; and likewise the organization of the members, that is, their formation;
but intellection and rational appetite, and discursive reasoning, inquiry, consideration, deliberation, judgment, disposition, and choice, opinion, and the impulse toward use, are operations.
We call this rational appetite an operation, because it is self-determining, exercising authority over the irrational affections, judging and governing and reining them in — anger, desire, sensation, and motion according to impulse.
These were given to man by the Creator for service: desire, toward God and the things He wills; anger, against the devil and sin, and for the strengthening of desire with courage.
The irrational appetite, then, is given for the constitution of the animal substance; but the rational and self-determining appetite is given so that it may, in self-determining fashion, rein in every natural motion, and be subject, and subject that motion, to the law of the Creator.
Intellection and appetite, then, are joined together in man, so that, being rational, we may not involuntarily undergo the affections of irrational creatures.
For the mind, desiring in a self-determining way, thinks and considers and inquires and deliberates and discerns and is disposed toward what has been judged, and chooses, and is impelled toward the act — rationally, intellectually, and appetitively;
If, then, man was created as a rational being, king over all irrational creation, how shall he not be self-determining over the irrational affections within him? Being, then, appetitive, rational, and intellectual, he thinks and reasons appetitively, and desires rationally, intellectually, and self-determiningly.
Of the faculties common to soul and body, the vital faculty is rather an operation; and the imaginative, sensitive, and memorative faculties, and motion according to impulse, are passible operations or operative affections; but anger and desire, hunger and thirst, weariness, fear, timidity and anguish, pleasure, grief, spitting and sweat, the nutritive and growth faculties, and, above all, death, are affections.
For if the will is subjected to the law of God, and the mind governs, according to His law, the things obedient to it — I mean all the movements of the soul, and especially anger and desire, for these are obedient to reason — we have wrought virtue and fulfilled righteousness.
Being, then, by nature slaves of the Creator, and possessing self-determination, which constitutes virtue (for what is done by compulsion is neither virtue nor pleasing), we received a law, so that we might recognize that we have a Master — lest, walking in darkness, we should fall into pits;
so that our longing and goodwill toward the Master might be made known — and so that we might share with God in the good, in order that the good might belong to the one who chose it no less than to the one who supplied its seeds;
so that, by keeping what is according to nature, we might attain what is above nature — incorruption and deification — through union with the divine, by likeness to it insofar as the will is able, through the will's capacity;
For if our willing is not subjected to the divine will, but the self-determining mind uses anger and desire according to its own deliberate disposition and choice, it has wrought vice;
So then, self-determination is the first good befitting the rational nature; and to use self-determination and to exercise mastery over and hold sway over the irrational affections — I mean anger and desire — is virtue; but to betray self-determination and be overcome by the irrational affections, and to live irrationally and bestially, this is vice, this is sin.
For the manner of life of irrational creatures does not befit the rational being; rather, it befits him to use even the irrational affections rationally, and to regulate them by reason, and to lead and guide them with authority, and himself to be led and to yield to the divine law, and to use these affections as the Lord has ordained.
Just as, then, for the Monophysites — I mean the Acephali — saying that nature and hypostasis are the same thing became the cause of their saying that there is one nature in Christ, lest they should divide Christ into two hypostases; and further, for those of like mind with Nestorius, [it became the cause] of their saying there are two hypostases, lest they should confuse the two natures of Christ into one; so also for the Monothelites, not knowing the difference between the natural will and the hypostatic will — that is, the gnomic will — became the cause of their saying there is one will in Christ.
For at times it signifies the willing, that is, the faculty of willing; at other times, the thing willed itself, that which underlies the willing, that is, the very thing which someone wills.
for sight is the very faculty of seeing by which we see, operating in the eye, while the visible is the very thing seen, whether a stone or a piece of wood or something of the sort.
Does every man, then, possess the faculty of willing, or not? It is clear that every man possesses the ability to will, and every man possesses willing;
has there ever been anyone who willed nothing? But not every man wills the same thing; rather, one wills this, another that; nor does every man will in the same manner, but one wills well, another ill, each according to his own deliberate disposition.
So then, willing — that is, the faculty of willing, and the simple act of willing itself — is natural; but the thing willed, that is, willing something in particular, is gnomic and hypostatic.
For one must know that willing is one thing, to will is another, to will something in particular and in a particular manner is another, the thing willed is another, the faculty of willing is another, and the one who wills is another — just as sight is one thing, to see is another, to see something in particular and in a particular manner is another, the visible is another, the faculty of sight is another, and the one who sees is another.
The 'capable of seeing' is that which possesses by nature the visual faculty, as man possesses by nature the faculty of seeing, even if he is asleep, even if he has been blinded;
In the same way, the willing is itself the very faculty of willing which is given to the soul by nature from the Creator, that is, the capacity to will.
How one wills is to will well, that is, to will rightly and according to the law of God to unite with one's own wife, or wickedly and contrary to the law of God with another man's.