Refutatio et Eversio 1 part 18/21

And this is shown by what he writes in a similar way to the Empress Constantia, in the passage he composed concerning the Transfiguration of the Savior.

For having first discussed the natures pertaining to Christ — concerning which he wrongly holds the opinion of mixture and confusion, contrary to the doctrine of the Church — he immediately adds:

"When his face flashed like the sun, and his garments [became] like light"

...with colors and shadow-paintings? And proceeding further, where he monstrously fables that our [images] are just the same as those of the unbelieving nations, warring against Christ he relates such things as these:

"Unless one should paint, like the unbelieving nations, things that in no way whatsoever resemble him, just as a painter who paints nothing that resembles [its subject];"

"for such things also those [nations] would produce when making idols, whenever they wish to fashion and depict — as they suppose — a god, or, as they might say, one of the heroes, or something of that sort: nothing resembling [the original];"

"for since they are not able to paint truly, they sketch strange shadow-figures, engraving man-like shapes."

Do you see the agreement? Do you see the wicked concurrence and harmony concerning the naming of [these images as] "dead things"? How they resound and concur with one another? How, being fellow-workers and advocates of wickedness, they have concocted their accusation against the Church of Christ? And already in many other instances too, should one investigate the god-hated opinions of this wretched pairing, one would most easily discover them opposed not to Epiphanius alone, but indeed to the whole doctrine and mind of the Church.

But I proceed to the rest of the fool's [words], where he says:

"How is it that you paint angels — who are spirits and ever-living — among the dead, and [then] venerate them, while the prophet says:"

"He who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire"? Who will not understand that these are indeed not the ravings of Epiphanius, unless he is exceedingly contentious and quarrelsome? For we do not say that Epiphanius was ignorant of the making of the gold-wrought Cherubim — far from it — since, being of Jewish descent, he was very well versed in the things written concerning the ancient Tabernacle, and had himself received a calling from above to pass over into the ranks of the Christians — unless indeed one must suppose that the things written concerning his life are false.

But this sower of these bitter tares seems, in what he says concerning the angels, to accept the prophet, yet he accuses God, and he accuses Moses too — the former, as having legislated in vain things he thought were not lawful; the latter, as having served to no purpose in the making of the Cherubim, both because he made [them] and because [they were] dead things — the plate wrought and turned out of the dead material of gold, and all the other things ordained concerning that ancient Tabernacle.

He would indeed have been worthy of much [credit], had he at least conducted himself according to the letter [of the Law] and the things then established by custom;

but he had removed himself far from the Jewish polity, unwilling to perceive that he who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire is the very same one who also commanded his own servant Moses to construct all those things according to the pattern shown him on the mountain.

which things indeed Paul also calls "the holy of holies" and "the Cherubim of glory," that is, "glorified [Cherubim]";

for indeed they had been deemed worthy of great glory, being situated together especially with the innermost parts of the Tabernacle.

This wretched man contends against the whole Church together with the truth, and he contends not least against the advocate who was taken along [as supposed ally] by these vain men;

who, [far from being] an advocate, has turned out to be a formidable accuser of their faction.

This is John, the illustrious leader of the Church, who, sufficing us in place of many [other witnesses], will smite and instruct the foolish, relating such things as these in his discourse on the vestment of the priest:

"I too have loved the wax-painted image, filled with piety;"

"for I saw an angel in an image driving away clouds of barbarians;"

"I saw the tribes of barbarians being trampled down, and David speaking the truth:"

"Lord, in your city you will set their image at nought."

And scarcely having glutted himself with drunken abuse against the saints, the god-hated man arms his God-warring tongue also against the God of the saints, and rages madly against the economy of the Only-Begotten, and — what is a still greater lawlessness — dares even further, and says:

"But I have heard that some even undertake to paint the incomprehensible Son of God;"

"which is a thing to shudder even to hear, and to believe it is blasphemy."

For this reason he also calls [Christ] merely "Son of God" [without further qualification], since he also refers the cross and the whole Passion to the divinity (and this is the blasphemous doctrine of the Arian madmen and of the Theopaschites, that is, the Docetists) — making no mention whatsoever of the flesh, so that, being an incomprehensible God, he might not even be painted;

since if indeed he has truly and properly become incarnate, he will also be comprehensible;

and if he could be comprehended, he would certainly also be able to be painted — and thus his doctrine would utterly collapse.

For since he supposed that the things written by the holy Evangelists could easily be evaded, and indeed that the truth contained in them could be misconstrued, and that the plain sense could sometimes be transposed into allegories, and that some things had perhaps been written otherwise merely to please, as though by the Teacher, as though [they were] mere bare sounds and words, counterfeited, void of the realities [they describe] — whereas, wherever Christ himself were depicted in images just as he became incarnate, he would necessarily lie before the eyes of men together with what he did and what he suffered for the sake of our freedom, and the incarnation would be signified as free of falsehood, and the truth of the very events would be made clearly manifest through the things depicted, and from this, [the images] having acquired an unimpeachable [character] for credibility, would lead those who behold [them] to full assurance and conviction concerning the things signified, and would expose the ingratitude of those who reject the Gospel — for this reason, then, he makes it his whole earnest endeavor, by whatever means, to prevent the events of the theophany from being engraved in images, so that thereafter the plague of Docetism might have room to speak boldly.

But what do we say in reply to these things? That, admittedly, the divine Word, insofar as he is God, is both incomprehensible and inconceivable to every mind and every reason;

for to conceive of God is difficult, and to express [him] is impossible, as some of the ancients somewhere said;

and the manner of the mystery of the divine incarnation surpasses every mind and every word altogether.

But if the Unoriginate begins, and the Invisible is seen, and the One above time takes on a temporal extension, and the Word is made dense, and the Untouchable is touched, and — to say it altogether — God becomes man, and he who, before all ages, shone forth from the Father timelessly and impassibly, in the last times of the age, having made use of the law of condescension and of loving-kindness toward his own creation, is born of a holy, immaculate, ever-virgin [mother] whose soul and flesh had been beforehand purified by the Spirit, ineffably and inexplicably, as he himself knows [how]; and [if] God, together with a flesh ensouled by a rational and intellectual soul, has also become a perfect man in every respect according to us, without sin, and has endured the voluntary Passion through the cross, and has consorted with death, and on the third day has returned from Hades to life — how shall it not, by logical consequence, be confessed and believed that this same one is also comprehensible? For if, insofar as he is the Word, God and simple, he is incomprehensible, then it is necessary indeed that, insofar as he has become a composite man, he will be comprehended.

And if being incomprehensible follows upon the bodiless, and the invisible, and the shapeless, and the quantity-less, and the magnitude-less, and upon anything else of this sort, how shall being comprehensible not likewise follow upon the embodied and visible, in which shape and bulk and size and magnitude and color, and the threefold [dimension] according to extension, inhere? For it cannot be granted that the same [predicate], while following properly and distinctly from one of two opposed and stated terms, should also follow soundly and properly from both alike;

for even though both [predicates] concern the same [subject], the two are nevertheless not the same as each other.

If, then, Christ has come forth as one out of both — of divinity and of flesh — and these are contrary to one another, how shall the incomprehensible not also be comprehensible, so that in one and the same [subject] the contrary distinctions of each of the two natures out of which he was composed might be preserved, their properties [preserved] without failure, and — these being preserved — confusion might be removed, and the division be shown to be absent from the oneness of the hypostasis, according to which these [natures] have come together — even as the preaching of the Catholic and Apostolic Church further teaches?

Through the Gospel, for [it is written in] the Gospel:

"These things have been handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the Word — who indeed both saw [them], and whose hands touched [them], and who ate together with him who was seen, and drank together [with him], and this even after the return to life from the dead;"

"and indeed they present themselves to us as unimpeachable witnesses of both his wonders and his sufferings."

And these things are sufficient to establish the upright mind of the Church.

But since our purpose is set before us to show that those wicked doctrines are foreign to Epiphanius, come now, let us clearly examine what understanding he himself held concerning the Lord's body, having gathered a few [excerpts] out of many, from his genuine works acknowledged by all.

In his book called the Ancoratus, at any rate, he relates the following:

"Again we shall say much concerning [the words] 'My God and your God,' having said that it is possible for one who has understanding to know, from the very sequence [of the passage], that it has reasonably been said thus:"

"'For he is man, and who shall know him?' In this the divine writing suggests the two [natures], both the visible and the invisible;"

"for on account of the visible it was fittingly said, 'My God'; and on account of the invisible it was said, 'My Father' — with neither reading of these words being contested."

From which it is shown that Epiphanius knew the twofold nature of the one hypostasis according to Christ.

How then are these things in agreement with those who vainly speak only of the incomprehensible in the case of Christ? For by saying "visible," the comprehensible is introduced, just as by "invisible" the incomprehensible [is introduced];

so that, as the opposite holds true for one of the pairs, so also, by logical consequence, it will hold for the other.

For if the incomprehensible follows upon the invisible, it remains, then, of necessity, that by analogy the comprehensible follows upon the visible.

Epiphanius is thus shown to hold, together with the incomprehensible, also the comprehensible in the case of Christ.

And again, a little later, he says:

"And it is fulfilled in the Word of God and Son of God, in the saying:"

"He is truly man,"

"and who shall know that he is God? Therefore man and God participate together [in him] — unknown to men on account of the incomprehensible, yet man, truly born of Mary without the seed of a man."

In these words, having set forth that Christ is unknown on account of the incomprehensible, by what he adds next he hints at his being knowable through the comprehensible that is conjointly conceived [with him];

for these [terms] will differ in nothing from the visible and invisible, but will hold analogously.

and "truly man, from Mary" — this [phrase] is understood to establish [this comprehensible aspect].

And if this is true, and the visible is shown to be also comprehensible, it is necessary that, precisely on this account, Christ is also able to be depicted;

for comprehension is also one form of circumscription/depiction, as has also been shown before.

So that Epiphanius too knew that the bodily form of Christ is able to be depicted;

for thus do his own words, set before us, teach us both to understand and to reason [in this matter].

And a little later, in a longer discourse, he adds that: "And he hungered and thirsted" — having, in the [divine] economy, the necessary custom belonging to the incarnation — "and [was subject] to bear grief and toil, and to weep," so that he might demonstrate the flesh to be true, and refute the error of Mani, [namely] that he had not put on the body in mere semblance, but in truth.

And: "That the Word came having a body and a soul, and whatever a man consists of — let the divine Scriptures of the Old and New Testament persuade them."

And it is not out of place to add, besides these, also other of his words that hold the same [sense]:

"For whatever is in man, and whatever man consists of, these things the Only-Begotten came and took, so that, being God, in the perfect man he might perfectly accomplish the whole of salvation, leaving out nothing of man, lest the part left out should again become a portion for the devil's food."

[thus speaks] the God-bearing teacher — no division whatsoever being conceived in the one hypostasis according to Christ.

The true Epiphanius, then, knows Christ to be depictable and comprehensible according to our nature. And one might find him [saying this] still more clearly, discoursing at length on the opinion he held concerning the Lord's body in his writings against Origen, and dwelling upon it more carefully in many other places besides.

Moreover, the same [Epiphanius], having composed his treatise against the heresies, then coming to our [orthodox] faith, and, near the end of the treatise, discoursing concerning the Passion of Christ, confesses that his body was truly buried, according as the pious account of our confession holds, and that it remained lifeless for three days and motionless, and enclosed in a tomb with a stone, and a seal set upon it.

How then shall he who knows these things hold Christ to be incomprehensible with respect to the body? From here, proceeding in his discourse to the Resurrection, he states that: "The divinity having been united without interruption to the holy body that had previously suffered, he arose and united it to himself into one spirit, into one unity, into one doxology, into his own one divinity."

For he appeared in truth and was touched by Thomas, and ate with the apostles and lodged with them for forty days and forty nights;

but he entered though the doors were shut, and after entering he showed his sinews and bones, the mark of the nails and the mark of the spear, that it was a true body—

If, then, these things are comprehensible, how will it agree with the incomprehensible one, unless they will grant that bones and sinews and the marks of the nails are also incomprehensible? By these things the apostolic saying is also resolved, which says:

Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet we no longer know him thus — not because he separated the flesh from the divinity, nor set it aside when ascending into the heavens, but as still existing and united with God, no longer existing according to flesh but according to the spirit of holiness, from the resurrection of the dead, of Jesus Christ our Lord — having this one together as God, impassible, yet having suffered and been buried and risen and ascended in glory, and coming to judge the living and the dead, as he says in truth:

of whose kingdom there shall be no end

If then these things are confessed as belonging to Epiphanius, who would come to such an extreme of ignorance and baseness as not to agree that those things are opposed to these? And that letter, holding so great a divergence, is judged to be far removed from the opinion and belief of Epiphanius, since the father of that document does not even posit that Christ truly assumed a body, but holds that he appeared only in outward form and in mere semblance;

from which he also advocates Christ's incomprehensibility and undepictability

Since, then, Epiphanius has scarcely been extricated from fellowship with the phantasiasts and from blasphemy, let him now be summoned by us, not as an advocate, nor even as one examined alongside them, but as one who refutes their deceit;

and let us examine what he writes against Valentinus and Marcion and Manes, who originated this madness

and from the many things he has contended against them, it will suffice for these to be cited

For, discoursing against the so-called heresy of the Dimoiritai, he speaks as follows:

But others have spoken into our ears, saying that the Lord, when he came, took not this flesh of ours, nor one like ours, but a different one from ours;

And would that they had said this by way of doxology and praise—

for we too say that the body is holy and undefiled;

for he committed no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth

and this is clear to everyone who holds and thinks piously concerning Christ;

but we say that it is that very same body — which he indeed took from ours — that in him is undefiled, his own body;

but in us who have sinned, it is not because the body is alien and foreign to us, inferior and diminished, but because of our own sins and transgressions — for this reason;

for the Lord did not take one body while we have another, but it is the very same body, preserved in him and kept undefiled

nor holding fast the head of the faith, from which the whole body, being supplied and knit together through joints and ligaments, grows with the growth of God, as the apostle says — but perhaps, their hearing having been muddied by certain outsiders, they too, drawing nearer to Valentinus and Marcion and Mani, supposedly for the honor of Christ, indulge in fantasy rather than speak the truth

As soon as they hear from us that Christ had a body like ours, they immediately resort to their own myths of contentiousness, saying that he had nails and flesh and hair and whatever else — but not such as we have, rather that he had other nails and other flesh, and everything else not such as we possess, but supposedly different from ours — again wishing, sophistically, to bestow upon Christ these vain words, in accordance with Valentinus and the aforementioned heresies

When we confess all things concerning Christ completely, they behave officiously, as it is written concerning such people who meddle and accomplish nothing. For, disturbing the understanding of the more simple-minded, they immediately say:

Did he, then, have need of the things customary to the flesh — whether for relieving himself, or for the privy, or the other things which seem to be clever but are rather dreadful and nonsensical — as the prophet says:

For who has required these things at your hands? And let these things stand forth as a triumph over the company of those who dream concerning the embodiment of Christ, so that from the very things by which they suppose to establish themselves, they may from there suffer an extraordinary downfall

Nevertheless, this holy man also knows that a twofold account is given of the created likeness — by grace, and by resemblance and imitation;

which is said not only by Epiphanius, but also by anyone who has not become bereft of mind and reason

And he establishes this in his so-called books of the Panarion, in which he makes his argument against the Anomoeans, speaking somewhat as follows:

For everything created is unlike its creator, even if it should be made similar by grace;

and the creator is unlike the creature, even if he should attempt to adorn it with various colors — unless indeed that which is imprinted is meant only for resemblance and representation, in imitation merely of outward appearance

From this, then, Epiphanius sufficiently emboldens and rouses us to depict Christ in colors;

since indeed, conformed to his image — to speak in apostolic terms — by grace through faith we too are so accounted; as a creature, we depict the Creator by way of resemblance and representation;

and this will justly silence those who argue to the contrary

For just as the Son, being like God the Father in essence in every respect, insofar as he is God the Word, is and is called his image, and for this reason is uncircumscribable and undepictable, since the Father too is such — so likewise, being like his mother according to nature, insofar as he is perfect man, he is and is called the image of man;

in this respect, then, he is also circumscribable and depictable, since his mother too is such;

for the same one is both God and man

Let these things persuade us that indeed this too was Epiphanius's judgment, he who in all things followed the doctrines of the Church

for if he had held the contrary view, the occasion would have afforded him as much opportunity as he could have wished to say so;

but as it is, by clearly bringing forward impressions and representations, he has not thought anything contrary to himself

And these are the doctrines and writings that are proper to and universally agreed to belong to the true Epiphanius;

but as for those that come from the false and fabricated 'Epiphanius,' it is necessary to observe how they stand opposed to ecclesiastical tradition and belief — and indeed whether they are even consistent with themselves

Now in the treatise at hand, a little earlier he was saying that he had seen icons of the apostles, when he wrote that some had dared, having plastered the wall, to paint their falsely-named icons;

but here he puts forward mere hearsay and report:

I have heard, he says, that some promise to paint the incomprehensible Son of God — not that some had actually painted him, nor that he had yet witnessed it done — but in the notorious letter to the emperor Theodosius:

Is it fitting for us to have God as one who is painted? — as though indignant, he brings the accusation, as if he had actually witnessed this

that indeed they reproduce him through colors, he says, and paint him on walls and on curtains for the consolation of our folly, and that they paint the Savior as having hair, adding also the reason for this appearance — that they depict him as a Nazarene, since indeed the Nazarenes have long hair

But in the letter to John, bishop of Aelia, he writes that, passing by somewhere, he saw in a church a curtain on which a human likeness was painted; and, as one who did not remember having seen it, he was hearing from others, being instructed as to what sort of thing had been seen

If, then, he is shown to be at variance and to contend with himself, scarcely would he have made peace with the pious teaching and with the Church

To ascribe, then, such levity and such strangeness and instability of mind to the holy Epiphanius is absurd and clumsy

But he shudders and is afraid at the mere hearing of it, and considers even the believing of it to be blasphemous

For what reason? Not on account of Christ's being painted, but on account of his having been made flesh;

for Christ was burdensome to him, both when embodied and when seen in an icon;

for if he had accepted the one, he would have confessed the other also

These things having thus been said by us, it is worthwhile not to pass over unexamined the things that were left out in between — which indeed they omitted on account of the excessive weight of the blasphemy — and thus to attach what follows after

for such are the things that were omitted:

For how does anyone say that one should paint the incomprehensible, the indescribable, the inconceivable, and the uncircumscribable one, whom Moses was not able to gaze upon? If anyone is not senseless, nor darkened concerning the light or untaught and unlearned concerning wisdom; if anyone's soul has not been hardened, and the eyes of whose heart are not blinded to the radiance of the right faith, but rather honors the word of truth and desires to contend zealously for piety — he will here grasp more securely the blasphemy of that accursed one, in which he clearly uncovers his fantastical and deceptive opinion;

whence all the strength and glory of the present-day dogmatists is stripped away

He posits Christ as incomprehensible and indescribable and uncircumscribable

but as for the incarnation or the embodiment, what need is there to speak of it? He never even deigns to admit that he was seen or that it took place

for through these very things by which he thinks to honor God, he in fact abolishes God's loving condescension

And he confirms this when he brings forward Moses as one who was not able to gaze upon him, yet does not in any way call to mind those who say, 'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard and have seen with our eyes and our hands have handled, concerning the word of life,' and that 'The life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and declare,' and that 'We ate and drank with him,' and whatever else is proclaimed through the evangelical preaching — by which the Lord's sojourn and life among men is shown, according to truth and not, as his nonsense would have it, in seeming and fantasy, and is believed by us

But who it was that, in the times of Moses, had become man and appeared as Christ — he upon whom Moses was unable to gaze — this, the soul of that deranged and frenzied man, and his newly-hatched disciples, might well know;

Thus openly has he denied the mystery of the Word's incarnation

And what follows after these things is even more evident

For what does he add? That 'Some say that, since he became a perfect man from Mary the ever-virgin, for this reason we make him merely a man'

Here we see Valentinus and Marcion speaking, and Manes as well

For what is more indicative of Manichaean frenzy than this? Some say:

for he himself does not say it, nor does he endure to confess it

And was it for this reason that he became man — that you might be able to paint with your hand the incomprehensible one, through whom all things came into being? He puts forward the phrase 'for this reason he became man' mockingly, as it were, and with irony

And he levels an accusation against the one who thinks thus, as follows:

You, the Christian, say that he became man because...

Then, as though drawing the conclusion of what he had wickedly and impiously reasoned, he adds:

"He is not, then, like the Father, nor does he give life to the dead."

Why does he say this? Because: if he is depicted, he is comprehensible;

if he is comprehensible, he became man;

if he became man, he is not like the Father.

And how is this not absurd? For the Son is like the Father;

and since the Father is incomprehensible and cannot be depicted, therefore the Son too has these same properties;

therefore the Son did not become man, lest he be comprehended;

and he will not be comprehended, lest he be depicted;

and he will not be depicted, so that he may be like the Father.

Thus, starting from the premise of his indepictability, one will by this analysis detect the blasphemy expressed all the more vividly.

"He is not, then," he says, "like the Father."

So then, since he has not been comprehended by you, you cannot depict him with your own hands, and therefore he did not become man—

Or does he, in your view, not even have a mother? But indeed he does have a mother.

For how could he not? He therefore became man, and therefore he has also been comprehended;

therefore in every respect he is also depicted, since the mother too is depicted.

Thus might one reply, bringing forward a counter-argument.

But it would more justly be said, rather, that the immoderate blasphemy of his argument falls upon that one himself, since he is not even willing to grant Christ a mother.

But as you all say: then he does not give life to the dead either, if he is depicted—he says—and it is the same to say "if he became man," as the argument concluded;

that is: if he gives life, he did not become man, according to him.

Is it not the case that, because he was put to death in the body, and rising up from Hades, he raises together with himself those who from ages past had been held fast in the snares of death? If, then, he was put to death, how did he not become man? How is he not comprehensible precisely in respect of having become man? How is he not depicted? And the body of Christ is life-giving;

for it is the flesh of God and the body of life—which that man, by rejecting, has failed to attain to true life, and though still living has died.

To what, then, does his argument come? Either to disbelieving that the Word was truly and properly embodied, being led astray by the deception of docetism, or, if this be granted, to his having been estranged from likeness to the Father.

Next it would be fitting to append to these passages the parts of the text that were set aside, in which, judaizing, he asserts the following:

"For where did he, when he came upon the earth, command you to do this—to make a likeness of him and to venerate or look upon it? This ordinance is clearly of the evil one, so that you may despise God."

If you believe that God came upon the earth, having appeared to men as a man, you would have recognized him as he came, that is, God together with flesh;

and the hidden and intellectually apprehended aspect, as incomprehensible and undefined, you would already have known to be indepictable, but you would rightly have depicted the visible aspect, as being defined and comprehended;

but now, holding a phantom notion, you impiously and godlessly proscribe together with the visible also the intellectually apprehended aspect.

But it is now time to question you in turn: