Ancoratus 1 part 3/12

For it says, 'Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord,' and they did not say, 'let the Son of God bless the Lord,' nor 'let the Holy Spirit bless the Lord,' but 'bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord.'

And lest one of those who hunt for pretexts for themselves should say —

'that they did not say Cherubim or Seraphim;'

'then not even these are works of God.'

For the divine Word took precaution in advance to secure all things against those who contrive devices for themselves, foreknowing the outrage [that would be done] against them and against the children.

For the same holy children trebled the hymn threefold, setting forth the created and made things for a hymn to God, and first saying, 'Blessed are you, Lord God of our fathers, and praised and glorified is your name forever,' then, after other words, 'Blessed are you who sit upon the Cherubim,' and again, 'Blessed are you who sit upon the throne of the glory of your kingdom,' and 'Blessed are you who behold the depths, sitting upon the Cherubim';

so that from the mention of the throne you might understand Seraphim and Cherubim, and from the name of the Cherubim, and of the depths, and of the sanctified throne, and of all the other names, you might understand, from the number of all the things named, that they are counted among the works, being numbered together with the rest.

For having summoned all these things to the hymn, they immediately add, saying, 'Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord,' so that Gabriel and Michael might bless Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

And the venerable angels in heaven sing the triumphal hymn, glorifying the Trinity together with the Seraphim and the Cherubim with one accord of glory, one order, and consubstantially, saying, 'Holy, Holy, Holy,' uttering three cries, yet speaking in unity and not with many names.

For they do not say 'holy' a fourth time, lest they add anything to the designation of the Trinity;

lest the glory of perfection be deficient, but [say it] three times, so that they might sanctify the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit with the same honor,

in perfection, glorifying the Trinity together in unity, and unity in Trinity.

For it was to teach us this knowledge that the only-begotten Son of God came; this understanding the Holy Spirit proclaimed to us; this perfection the Father revealed to us;

in truth, this life the Word, having become flesh, freely gave to us; this edifice the Holy Spirit built for us.

'For if anyone builds upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble,' and so forth,

for there is no other foundation;

for no one can lay another foundation than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whose building we are, and whose husbandry we are, having been built upon the foundation of the prophets and apostles, so as to know that our building is firm in truth, and that our foundation always exists and did not begin to be.

But knowledge is not in all, according to the apostolic word, but in those who have been deemed worthy by the Holy Spirit to know the mysteries of the truth.

For he himself who revealed himself and his own Father and the Holy Spirit, rebuking some who were in ignorance, said, 'You know neither the Scriptures nor their power'; and again elsewhere, 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear'; and again, 'If you knew who it is that is asking you for a drink, you would have asked him,' he said to the Samaritan woman; and again, 'You do not know of what spirit you are.'

Therefore knowledge is not in all;

for each has different gifts from God.

And the holy word says, 'To whomever more is given, more will be required of him,' inasmuch as some receive a little, some none at all, while others have received more abundantly.

And that these things are so may be found from the very words spoken in the divine Scriptures.

For since divine Scripture speaks spiritually for the most part, especially concerning our life — I mean the knowledge of the Lord — whatever words are deeper and more thoroughly secure our soul, these have become a stumbling-block to those who have not grasped the knowledge of God, as Hosea the prophet says: 'Who is wise, and he will understand these things? And he to whom the word of the knowledge of the Lord is given shall also know them;'

'for the ways of the Lord are straight, but the impious will stumble in them.'

For they are indeed straight, but the impious stumble in the ways of the Lord, these ways themselves being blameless of causing men to stumble.

Those, then, who stumble at the stone of stumbling, stumble indiscriminately;

for "they stumbled at the stone of stumbling and were scandalized."

For at once the Jews, seeing the only-begotten Son of God having come in the flesh and working divine signs, and not having been deemed worthy of the heavenly knowledge, said, "Who is this man who speaks blasphemies?" And at another time, "If this man were from God, he would not have broken the sabbath."

So then they were ignorant of his divinity, and considered him to be a mere man only.

But others, though they have indeed acknowledged him as God, yet not knowing his perfect glory, upon hearing the words spoken concerning him in their depth, and concerning the economy of the flesh transacted for our salvation, are misled and hold false opinion regarding his divinity.

For their understanding led them astray.

For as the Jews, upon hearing, were led astray, so also these, upon hearing, were led astray.

For those (the Jews) saw the things foretold beforehand by the prophets, but being ignorant that they were fulfilled in Christ's coming in the flesh, were thrown into confusion.

And these, in turn, hearing the things foretold on account of his economy, but understanding them merely in a bare sense, are thrown into confusion, and to their own ruin they put forward the very words spoken for our edification, saying:

"I ascend to my God and your God, and my Father and your Father."

"You see that he too is one of the created things" — this they blasphemously dare to say.

You see, then, that the economy of the incarnate coming misleads them.

For let them take the matter up from the beginning, and inquire concerning the times or the seasons:

for "his goings forth," it says, "are from the days of eternity."

Let us then see the things prior to these.

The Father says, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness," and he did not say, "I will make man according to my image."

Be refuted, you who have a hardened heart, according to what is written, "but their heart was hardened"; and learn that the Son is ever with the Father.

For to say "let us make" is not indicative of one person, but of the Father speaking to the Son.

Be refuted also, you who say the Son is unlike the Father:

for in saying "according to our image," he did not distinguish the likeness of the Son from that of the Father, nor did he divide anything of the Father's identity with respect to the Son.

For he did not say "according to my image" or "according to your image," but he made manifest the one essence and divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

For he says, "according to our image and likeness," so that the divinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is one, and man came to be according to the image of the one divinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Be refuted also, you, Arius, and hear the Father saying to the Son, "Let us make," calling the Son his fellow-creator.

For I have often heard some saying that the Son made nothing, but that through him the things that came to be, came to be.

But if it came to be through him, then he himself also made it, as has been clearly demonstrated.

For the Word, the master-craftsman, is the maker of all things, and it is through him that the Father works.

For let them hear him clearly saying, "My Father works until now, and I work."

For here too, in saying this, he calls his own Father his fellow-worker.

But again, let not your understanding deceive you, so that you approach the Son as a slave and not as a true Master.

For if he were a slave and not a true Master, how did he, who existed in the form of God, take on the form of a slave when he came? And how did he empty himself, if he did not possess that which is perfect? Approach the Son, then, as a perfect God, and as a genuine Son who is from the Father.

And do not say, out of ill will:

"But the Father said to the Son, 'let us make,' yet the Son did not say to the Father, 'let us make'; and the Son does not say, 'I work, and my Father works,' but places the Father first as the one speaking and working."

For you say this foolishly, and you wish to conceive the Godhead as having many first principles.

But there is one first principle, and it is the very same one divinity; and nowhere here does the Son say "my God."

I say this not denying the honor which the Son has toward the Father, but explaining how the order of the divinity stands.

And again, "Adam," it says, "heard God walking in paradise in the cool of the day."

And nowhere here does the Son say "my God and your God," but here he speaks of God as absolute, complete in himself.

And again, "And God spoke to Noah"; and nowhere does such an expression occur.

And "God appeared," it says, "to Abraham, as he was sitting by the oak of Mamre."

"And behold, three men" — and he ran to meet them and worshiped upon the ground, and said:

"If I have found favor before you" — so as to show that the one is God, and the other two who accompanied him are his angels.

For concerning this one it also says, "God went up from Abraham."

And it is he himself, the one who came to him, who says, "Shall I hide anything from my servant Abraham?" "The outcry," it says, "of Sodom and Gomorrah has been multiplied against me," and so on.

And nowhere at this time does "my God and your God" occur.

he having been left behind, apart from the two who entered into Sodom for its overthrow —

but concerning the one who went up, Scripture says, "And the Lord rained down upon Sodom and Gomorrah fire and brimstone from the Lord."

And there was no need of the expression to say "my God and your God."

And Moses says in the ode, "And let all the angels of God worship him."

But if it says "angels of God" and "fire from the Lord," and does not say "angels" alone, it is so as to show the one kingdom of the Father and the Son, the angels not being divided into separate dominions but belonging to God, and worshiping the Son as God;

for an angel does not worship an angel.

And nowhere here is "my God and your God."

"The Lord," it says, "said to my Lord:"

for the economy of the flesh was not yet, for the sake of which there was need to say "my God and your God."

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive in the womb and shall bear a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel," which, being interpreted, is "God with us."

And there was not yet need to say "my God and your God."

"And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, are by no means least among the thousands of Judah;"

"for out of you shall come forth to me one who is to be ruler in Israel, and his goings-forth are from the beginning, from the days of eternity"; and according to other copies, "And you, Bethlehem, are not the least among the leaders of Judah."

"For out of you shall come forth a leader, and he shall shepherd my people Israel."

And you see that there was not yet need to say "my God and your God."

But when the prophecy of Jeremiah, and likewise of Isaiah, was being fulfilled — namely, that the Word was born of a virgin and took flesh — just as Jeremiah says, "and he is a man,"

"and who shall know him?" — then, having partaken of the flesh, and having formed for himself, without the seed of a man, from the Theotokos Mary, that same holy flesh, according to what is said, "having been made of a woman," and having partaken of what is ours — on account of what is ours, he says "my God."

But on account of the eternal genuineness that is his by nature, he says "my Father"; and on account of his grace toward his own disciples, "your Father"; but on account of the disciples' own relation by nature toward his divinity and toward his eternal Father, "your God."

For the Father is God of the disciples, but Father of the Lord by nature, and Father of the disciples by grace;

and the Father is God of the Son on account of the flesh, but Father on account of the eternal and incomprehensible character of his begetting and genuineness, because he is truly his Father, having begotten him timelessly and without beginning according to the divinity.

But it was necessary to say "his God" on account of the economy which he wrought for our sake — he who is ever with the Father, having been begotten without beginning as the Word, but in the flesh, from Mary, having been begotten according to the flesh in the last of days — that same Mary, the holy virgin, through the Holy Spirit.

Let them, then, understand the deep things of God's dispensation, and let them not turn grace into ingratitude, reckoning as dishonor to the ineffable and incomprehensible nature of God the salvation wrought for us.

"But," they say, "it is written concerning God, 'He shall not hunger nor thirst, nor is there any searching out of his understanding'; but concerning the Son, that he hungered in the desert at the time of the temptation."

"And it says, 'our God shall not grow weary,' but the Lord Jesus grew weary on the journey;"

"and, 'he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep,' yet the Lord slept," it says, "in the boat."

O vain suppositions of those who reason such things!

My face I did not turn away from the shame of spittings.

But he also wept, as it stands in the Gospel according to Luke in the uncorrected copies—and the holy Irenaeus made use of this testimony in his work Against Heresies, against those who say that Christ appeared only in seeming; but the orthodox removed the saying, having been afraid and not understanding its purpose and its very great force—and being in an agony he sweated, and his sweat became as it were clots of blood, and an angel appeared, strengthening him.

All such things he endured for our sake, so that, by preserving the whole sequence of the incarnation dispensed on our behalf, he might not obscure the very character of the truth.

But so that we may not leave uninterpreted in this way the testimonies which we have adduced—gathered from the divine Scriptures as spoken in the person of those who argue against the truth, though wrongly understood by them—I shall state, for each, the sense of the force it contains, and for what reason it has been spoken in a manner accommodated to human feeling:

And again we shall say—having already spoken much concerning 'my God and your God'—how it stands, for one who has understanding, to know from the very sequence [of the passage] that it has been reasonably said.

For 'he is man, and who shall know him?' In this same place the divine writing intimates the two natures together, both the visible and the invisible: on account of the visible it was reasonably said, 'my God'; on account of the invisible, 'my Father' was spoken—neither expression being alleged to impute any creaturely making to the Word.

For how, if he was man, was he not known? But if he was not man, how was he called man? For assuredly every one who is born of human beings is known by human beings: by the one who bore him, by kinsfolk, by household members, by neighbors, by tent-companions, or fellow-citizens.

And it is impossible for this to be fulfilled in a mere man.

But it is fulfilled in God the Word, the Son of God: in the saying 'he is man,' because he truly is man; and in 'but who shall know him?' because he is God.

Because he shares in common with human beings, and yet he is God, unknown to human beings because of his incomprehensibility.

And he is man, truly born of Mary without the seed of a man;

'and the virgin,' it says—for the prophet proclaimed beforehand, before the time, what was to come: 'shall have in the womb,' and 'shall bear a son.'

If, then, she is a virgin, the dispensation of the conception is not from men, because before this time it had been said to Ahaz: 'Ask for yourself a sign, in the depth or in the height';

but he, being lowly-minded, said, 'I will not ask, nor will I put the Lord my God to the test,' declining to ask for a sign.

And immediately, because he did not ask for a sign, God, who bestows great gifts upon men, grants two gifts: sending the Word from on high by his own will and by the Word's own will, and dispensing the flesh from below by his own good pleasure together with the Word himself.

For afterward it says, 'and they shall call his name Emmanuel.'

And it did not say, 'I shall call,' but 'they shall call';

for God, who was once unknown among them, was being revealed.

But he does not receive the name only recently;

for it did not say, 'I shall call his name Emmanuel,' but 'they shall call [it so].'

As for 'made of a woman,' as has already been shown by me above, [it is said] so that in [the phrase] 'of a woman' the [fact of his] 'having become flesh' might be fulfilled, while the Word might be clearly declared to all as eternal.

And if indeed the saying, 'he shall not thirst,' is spoken concerning God the Word, while concerning the Son it is said that he hungered and thirsted, this has of necessity been dispensed for us.

For how would the dispensation be found to be in truth, if it did not have the necessary customary experience of the incarnation? In this he has shown us the solutions to all the questions of the heretics.

For at once he dissolved the notion of the Manichaeans;

for in saying that he eats and drinks, he indicates true flesh.

He dissolved the manner of the Lucianists and the force of Arius' argument;

for Lucian and all the Lucianists deny that the Son of God took a soul, and say that he had only flesh, so that, forsooth, they might attach to God the Word a human suffering—thirst and hunger and toil and weeping and grief and disturbance, and whatever else appears in his fleshly presence.

But it would be foolish to reckon these things to the deity of the Son of God.

'But,' they say, 'flesh, being by itself, neither eats nor drinks nor grows weary nor does the other things.'

And I myself agree that flesh, by itself, does not have these [experiences].

But the Word, having come, possessed the whole dispensation—both flesh and soul, and whatever else is in man;

and hunger and toil, and thirst and grief and the rest, belonged as parts to the soul and to the flesh.

For he weeps, in order to refute the error of Mani—that he was clothed with the body not in mere appearance, but in truth;

and he also thirsts, in order to show that he had not only flesh, but also a soul.

For his deity certainly did not thirst anywhere; rather, it was by the flesh and by the soul that he thirsted and grew weary from the journey, in accordance with what naturally attends flesh and soul.

And that the Word came possessing both body and soul, let the divine Scriptures of both the Old and the New [Testament] persuade them.

'You will not leave my soul to Hades, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption'—so that the composite nature of the Lord's manhood might be understood, and that clear knowledge concerning this might come to us: so that it might establish that the soul, together with the deity, remained present through the three days, in order to show the flesh to be holy, and that the deity, together with the soul, unrestrained, accomplished the mystery in Hades.

For elsewhere it also has another testimony, saying thus: 'free among the dead.'

The word 'free' signifies that Hades did not hold dominion over him, but that by his own will he had descended, together with the soul, as far as Hades.

And Peter says, 'because it was not possible for him to be held by it,' that is, by Hades.

And the Savior himself says, 'I have power to take my soul, and to lay it down'; and 'I am the good shepherd, who lays down his soul for the sheep'; and 'my soul is troubled,' he says, 'and what shall I say?'—speaking as though in uncertainty: 'What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour';

'but for this cause I came to this hour'—in order to show that his deity had willingly come to this;

and the [word] 'is troubled,' so that the form of the truth of his fleshly presence might not be falsified.

as [a king] who gives his back and flees, until the enemy, having taken courage, sets upon him as though the king were cowardly and weak, and pursues him—but the king, suddenly turning about with his own force, receives the weak and hostile [enemy] wholly into his power—so also our Lord did not fear death: he who, before he came to his suffering, had signified on the journey that the Son of man was about to be betrayed and crucified and to rise on the third day; and when Peter said, 'God be merciful to you, Lord' (far be it from you)—

'this shall never happen to you'—he rebuked him, saying, 'Get behind me, Satan,' because 'you are not minding the things of God, but the things of men.'

He, then, who foretold these things, and who had come precisely for this purpose—how does he afterward pray that the cup might pass, that he might not drink it? He who spoke, before his death, concerning his death—even so as not to be supposed a liar, he could not [truly] have prayed that the cup might pass;

but he provokes the adversary by means of this very persona, so that, the adversary supposing the Savior to fear death, might bring death upon him—unto salvation for those who die, through the dispensation.

But even if you hear that the Lord has died, know where the suffering of death has been fulfilled.

For Peter, the most preeminent of the apostles, interprets for you the matter concerning his death, saying, 'put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.'

For his deity, having undertaken to suffer in the flesh, is impassible, and was impassible, and remained impassible, its impassibility not being altered nor its eternity being changed.

And again, if the vain-minded should say:

'You cannot persuade us from such words that Christ had a soul,'

we have found above in the divine Scriptures, as Isaiah says in the person of God the Father concerning the Only-begotten: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, whom my soul has loved.'

What shall we understand concerning the Father—that he has taken a soul in himself, or that he has a soul? But who, talking foolishness, would understand this of the Father? What then do they say? Evidently, that the word has been spoken more figuratively.

If, then, they say that it is spoken more figuratively concerning the Father, then it is necessary to understand the same [figuratively] also concerning the Son.

For even if he says, 'my soul is troubled,' and 'I have power to give my soul, and to take it again,' 'he did not have a soul,' they say, 'but it has been spoken more figuratively.'

And their syllogistic reasoning seems to say something, though the truth stands self-evident from many proofs.

For each figure of speech is taken from the [proper] form to which it belongs.

For in the case of the Father, one must not dare [to speak literally of a soul], because he did not even bear flesh;

but since flesh is acknowledged among the Lucianists, that is, the Arians, there is no room for ambiguity.

'The Word became flesh,' and it did not say, 'The Word became flesh and soul.'

But against their contention, which is ignorant, I too say: 'God formed man, taking dust from the earth'—and from the [word] 'formed' he has encompassed all things together, and from [the phrase] 'the Word became flesh' he embraces all things.

For by the same reasoning we in turn bring this against them, likewise saying:

Behold, it says, 'God formed man,' and it did not say:

'he made for him a liver, or lungs, or a heart, or veins, or sinews, or whatever else there is in the body.'

Shall we, on this account, suppose that man is some single, undifferentiated whole, simply because Scripture did not minutely detail the composition of the whole living being? Not at all.

Just as, then, from the one term used it has comprehended the whole, so also it is quite evident that the Savior, from [the mention of] flesh, is understood to have taken a soul as well.

that he might grow weary and hunger, and [experience] whatever else is necessary to man.

And as for the fact that 'God will not grow weary, nor is there any searching out of his understanding,' while the Savior is found to have grown weary—it is not on this account that the Word, who has come down from above, is not from the essence of the Father.

For it was not above [in his divine state] that he grew weary, but in the flesh.

For it was necessary that the flesh should grow weary, lest it be reckoned to exist in mere semblance, but in truth.

And the other things too, as many as have such force, the nodding, the sleeping, are indicative of a man, as is being subject to touch.

For he took these things, and was found to be a man.

"For we have found," he says, "the Messiah, of whom Moses wrote."

But those who found him did so through the incomprehensible nature — that is, the enfleshed nature.

For since he was not to be found in his incomprehensibility, for this reason he was seized by the scribes, and gave his back to the scourges, and did not turn his face away from the shame of spittings, he wept, and whatever else is written concerning him.

But who could scourge or slap or spit upon God the Word in heaven, being such — ineffable and incomprehensible? But if the impassible Word of God suffered these things, then the suffering is bodily, outside his impassibility, and yet again not outside it, on account of his good pleasure.

And yet, although he himself did not suffer, the suffering has been reckoned to himself.

And just as a stain on a garment does not reach the body of the one wearing it, but the stain of the garment is reckoned to the wearer, so God suffered in the flesh, his divinity having suffered nothing.

But the suffering of the flesh, being worn by the divinity, was reckoned unto the divinity, so that in the divinity salvation might come to be for us.

But I remember the saying in the Gospel according to Luke, and I do not wish to leave it uninterpreted — that which is written, that having come to be in agony he sweated, and his sweat became as it were clots of blood.

And there appeared an angel of the Lord strengthening him.

But the deeper things of these words, as we are accustomed to say, and the necessary things — those who do not understand their force overturn themselves unto evil instead of good.

For nothing is more crucial than this.

For in saying "he came to be in agony," he shows that the man of the Lord was a true man.

And in order to show that he was a true man, and that the agony did not arise from the divinity, it says: "he sweated, and his sweat became as it were clots of blood."

The phenomenon is bodily, and not spiritual.

And there appeared an angel of the Lord strengthening him — not because he who is greater than the angels, to whom every knee bows, of things heavenly and earthly and under the earth, being ever God the Word and ever with the Father and begotten of him, had need of the angel's strength, but that he might fulfill what was sung in the great song of Moses in the wilderness, in which it said, "All the sons of God shall worship him, and let the angels of God strengthen him."

The phrase "let them strengthen him" — not as though they were supplying him with strength.

But since the doxology had force in these words to glorify God — by the angels indeed at once above, and by the spiritual living creatures crying out and saying, "Thine is the power, thine is the might, thine is the strength" — in this it shows the worshiping and the strengthening, that is, the giving to him of the might proper to strength, just as the angel also appeared, in the presence of the disciples, worshiping his own Master.

Not being ignorant of the excess of his loving-kindly dispensation, but marveling at the so great work of meekness that had come to be in him — that which defeated the devil, that which crushed the sting of death, that which triumphed over the principalities and powers, that which shattered sin.

And on account of the excess of the wonder, the angel said, worshiping, in the doxology:

"Thine is the strength, O Master."

"For you have prevailed against death and against Hades and against the devil, to crush his sting and to cast him out from humanity."

But if again he should say, "Where have you laid Lazarus?" — speaking after the manner of human passibility — or, concerning the woman with the flow of blood, "Who touched me?" or "Whom do you seek?" or "Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" or "the child grew and waxed strong," or "he advanced in stature and wisdom," or, "before the child knew how to call father or mother" — do you not see, from this very supposition, the surpassing character of the knowledge at work, namely that these narratives derive from flesh and humanity? For as many things as in the Old Testament, spoken from the person of God and the Father, condescend for the persuasion of men, partaking of an appearance of ignorance, yet not being unknown to God — these the Word, having come, has fulfilled, so that he might fulfill what was said: "My Father works until now, and I work."

"Where have you laid Lazarus?" he asked, having come near the place.

But before coming to the place, having heard from no one, he said to his disciples, "Lazarus our friend has fallen asleep."