Eranistes 1 part 7/13

and afterwards they brought Him up into the temple to present Him to the Lord, performing the offerings of purification, so as to give a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. If, therefore, the gifts of purification were offered on His behalf according to the law, and He bore circumcision on the eighth day, in this respect too he writes, not unreasonably, that He was made under the law.

But neither was the Word subject to the law, as the calumniators suppose, being Himself the Law, nor did God have need of sacrifices of purification, He who by a single inclination cleanses and sanctifies all things;

nor did He endure to receive ministrations from the supply of these things, but rather that He might redeem out of the bondage of the law those who had been sold to the sentence of the curse.

Of the holy Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.

From the second homily against the heresies.

And just as we would not have been set free from sin and from the curse, unless the flesh which the Word put on had been by nature human flesh—for we had nothing in common with what is alien to us—

—for we had nothing in common with what was alien—

so likewise man would not have been deified, unless the Word who became flesh had been by nature from the Father, and true, and His own.

Therefore let those who deny that the Son is by nature from the Father and proper to His essence also deny that He took true and human flesh from Mary the ever-Virgin.

From the same author, from the letter to Epictetus.

If, because it is and is said in the Scriptures that the body of the Saviour is from Mary and is human, they think that instead of a Trinity a Quaternity is spoken of, as though an addition were made on account of the body, they greatly err, equating the thing made with the Maker, and supposing that the Godhead can receive an addition.

And they were ignorant that the Word became flesh not for any addition to the Godhead, but that the flesh might be raised;

nor did He come forth from Mary that the Word might be made better, but that He might redeem the human race.

How, then, is it possible that the body which was redeemed and made alive through the Word should make an addition of Godhead to the Word that made it alive? From the same author, from the same letter.

Let them hear that, if the Word were a creature, He would not have taken on the created body in order to make it alive.

For what help is there for creatures from a creature, when it itself also stands in need of salvation? But since the Word, being Creator, Himself became the fashioner of the creatures, for this reason at the consummation of the ages He Himself framed the created thing, that again, as Creator, He might renew it and be able to create it anew.

From the same author, from the greater homily concerning the faith.

But the things which we set forth concerning 'Sit thou on my right hand,' that it is spoken with reference to the Lord's body—

For if the Lord says, 'I fill heaven and earth,' as Jeremiah declares, and God contains all things but is contained by none, upon what kind of throne does He sit? It is, then, the body to which He says, 'Sit thou on my right hand.' From the same author, from the same homily.

But the body which admits of progress and growth in stature is itself a creature and a thing made.

From the same author, from the same homily.

It is, then, the body to which He says, 'Sit thou on my right hand,' the body of which the devil, together with the wicked powers, and both Jews and Greeks, became the enemy.

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you from God. From the same author, from the treatise Against the Arians.

For it is not the Most High who is exalted, but the flesh of the Most High that is exalted; and to the flesh of the Most High He granted the name that is above every name.

And it was not the Word of God who received the beginning of being called God, but His flesh that was together with Him accounted divine.

From the same author, from the same discourse.

And when it says, 'The Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified,' it means His flesh not yet glorified.

It is not the Lord of glory who is glorified, but the flesh of the Lord of glory itself that receives glory, ascending together with Him into heaven.

Whence He says, 'And the spirit of adoption was not yet among men,' because the firstfruits taken from among men had not yet ascended into heaven.

So then, whatever Scripture says—that the Son received and was glorified—it says on account of His humanity, not on account of His divinity.

From the same author, from the same discourse.

Therefore this One is true God, both before He became man and after He became man—the mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ, who is united to the Father according to spirit, but to us according to flesh; who mediated between God and men; who is not only man, but also God.

Of the holy Ambrose, bishop of Milan.

We confess our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father without beginning before all ages according to His divinity, and in these last days the same One made flesh of the holy Virgin Mary, having taken a complete manhood consisting of a rational soul and a body, of one substance with the Father according to His divinity, and of one substance with us according to His humanity.

Not that God the Word was changed into flesh, nor indeed that He appeared as a phantom;

but that, preserving unchangeably and immutably His own essence, He took the firstfruits of our nature and united it to Himself.

God the Word did not take His beginning from the Virgin, but existing coeternal with His own Father, out of His great goodness He deigned to unite the firstfruits of our nature to Himself—not by being mingled, but appearing as one and the same in both essences, according to what is written:

'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' For Christ as God is destroyed according to the essence I possess, which He assumed, and the same One raises up the destroyed temple according to the divine essence, according to which He is also the Creator of all things.

Never after the union—which from the very conception He deigned to unite to Himself—did He either depart from His own temple, nor, on account of His unspeakable love for mankind, was He able to depart.

But the same One is both passible and impassible;

passible according to His humanity, impassible according to His divinity.

'For see, see Me, that I am He, and I am not changed.'

Having therefore raised up His own temple, God the Word, and having wrought in it the resurrection and renewal of our nature, and having shown it to His own disciples, He said, 'Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see Me having'—not being them, but having them—so that, contemplating both the one who has and the one who is had, you might behold that no mingling, no change, no alteration, but a union has come to pass.

And that, according to the blessed essence of His divinity remaining unchangeable, immutable, impassible, immortal, and lacking nothing, He permitted all the sufferings by way of concession to be brought upon His own temple, and raised it up by His own power, and through His own temple wrought the complete renewal of our nature.

Those who say that God the Word is passible, or that He was changed into flesh, or that He possessed a body consubstantial with Himself, or that He brought this body from heaven, or that it was a phantom, or who call God the Word mortal and in need of resurrection from the Father, or that He assumed a soulless body, or a mindless man, or that the two natures of Christ, being confused by commingling, became one nature, and who do not confess that in our Lord Jesus Christ there are two unconfused natures but one person—inasmuch as He is one Christ, one Son—these the catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.

Therefore, if the flesh of all men has in Christ been subjected to indignities, how is it reckoned to be of one hypostasis with the divinity? For if the Word and the flesh, which has its nature from the earth, are of one hypostasis, then the Word and the soul, which He assumed complete, are of one hypostasis.

For the Word is of one nature with God, according to the confession of the Father and the Son Himself, which says, 'I and the Father are one.' Therefore the Father too ought to be reckoned of the same essence with the body.

And why then are you still incensed at the Arians, who say that the Son of God is a creature, while you yourselves say that the Father is of one essence with the creatures? From the same author, from the letter to the emperor Gratian.

Let us preserve the distinction of divinity and flesh.

If the Son of God answers on behalf of both, since in Him both natures exist, it is the same One who speaks, yet not always to us in one and the same manner.

Observe in Him at one time uttering glory, at another human sufferings.

As God He speaks divine things, inasmuch as He is the Word;

as man He speaks lowly things, inasmuch as He speaks in my hypostasis.

From the same author, from the same discourse.

Whence, concerning that which was read, that the Lord of glory was crucified, let us not suppose that He was crucified in His own glory.

But since this One is both God and man—according to His divinity God, and according to His assumption of the flesh man, Jesus Christ—He is said to be the Lord of glory who was crucified.

For He partakes of both natures, that is, the human and the divine.

For in the nature of the man He endured the suffering, so that undividedly the One who suffered may be called both Lord of glory and Son of man, as it is written, 'He who came down from heaven.' Of the same author.

Let the vain disputes about words therefore be silent.

For the kingdom of God, as it is written, is not in persuasive words, but in the demonstration of power.

Let us preserve the difference between the flesh and the divinity.

For there is one Son of God, one who speaks both, since each nature is in Him.

But even if it is the same One who speaks, He nevertheless does not always speak in one manner.

For you see in Him at one time the glory of God, at another the sufferings of men.

As God He speaks divine things, inasmuch as He is the Word;

as man He speaks the things that are human, inasmuch as He spoke in this nature.

From the same author, from the discourse on the incarnation of the Lord, against the Apollinarians.

But while we were refuting these, others sprang up, saying that the body of Christ and the divinity are of one nature.

What Hades belched forth so great a blasphemy? For the Arians are by now more tolerable, whose unbelief is strengthened by these men, so that there is even greater contention against confessing the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit to be of one essence;

inasmuch as these men undertook to say that the divinity of the Lord and the flesh are of one nature.

to keep the exposition to himself;

but in that examination our fathers declared that not the flesh, but the Word of God, is of one essence with the Father.

And they confessed that the Word proceeded from the essence of the Father, but that the flesh derives from the Virgin.

Do not, therefore, desire the body to be equal in nature to the divinity.

Accordingly, I for my part did not have that which was His;

and He for His part did not have that which was mine.

And He took that which was mine, in order to impart what was His own to us;

and this He received for fulfillment, not for confusion.

Let them therefore cease who say that the nature of the Word has been changed into the nature of flesh;

lest, by the same interpretation, the nature of the Word should seem, once changed, to have become conformed also to the sufferings of the body.

For that which assumed is one thing, and that which was assumed is another.

and on this account the descent is divine, but the conception is human.

The nature both of the spirit of the body and of the divinity could not be one and the same.

Of the holy Basil, bishop of Caesarea.

From the discourse on thanksgiving.

permitting neither to be enfeebled toward the passions, nor to be insensible to griefs.

As therefore the Lord accepted hunger, when the solid nourishment in Him had been consumed, and admitted thirst, when the moisture in the body had been used up;

and He grew weary, when the muscles and sinews had been overstrained by the journey;

not that the divinity was oppressed by the fatigue, but that the body received the symptoms that naturally follow.

Of the same author, on the work against Eunomius.

For I say that to exist in the form of God is able to mean the same as to exist in the essence of God.

For just as to have taken the form of a servant signifies that our Lord came to be in the essence of humanity, so he who says 'existing in the form of God' establishes the propriety of the divine essence.

Of Saint Gregory, bishop of Nazianzus.

From the oration on the New Lord's Day.

That He will come again with His glorious advent, to judge the living and the dead.

No longer flesh, yet not incorporeal either, but clothed in a body more godlike, by means known to Himself, so that He may both be seen by those who pierced Him and remain God beyond all grossness of matter.

By the same, from the epistle to Cledonius.

For there are two natures, God and man, since there are also soul and body; but there are not two Sons.

For neither here are there two men, even though Paul thus calls that which is within man and that which is without.

And if one must speak concisely: the elements out of which the Saviour is are one thing and another, since the visible is not the same as the invisible, nor the timeless the same as that which is subject to time;

yet He is not one person and another—by no means!

By the same, from the earlier statement to Cledonius.

If anyone says that the flesh has now been laid aside, and that the Godhead is bare of a body, and does not confess that He both is and shall come with that which He assumed, may he not behold the glory of His advent.

For where is the body now, if not with Him who assumed it? For surely it is not, according to the ravings of the Manichaeans, deposited in the sun, that it might be honoured through dishonour;

or was poured out into the air and dissolved, like the nature of a voice, or the flow of a fragrance, or the course of a lightning-flash that does not stand still.

And where then is the being touched after the resurrection, in which He shall one day be seen by those who pierced Him? For the Godhead in itself is invisible.

By the same, from the second oration concerning the Son.

For as Word, He was neither obedient nor disobedient;

for these things belong to those who are under authority, and to those of a lower rank;

the one belonging to the more well-disposed, the other to those deserving of judgement.

But as the form of a servant, He condescends to His fellow servants and takes the form of what is alien, bearing in Himself the whole of me together with all that is mine, that in Himself He may consume the worse, as fire consumes wax, or as the sun consumes the vapour of the earth.

By the same, from the oration on the Theophany.

Since therefore He came forth from the Virgin with the assumption made out of the two things opposed to one another, flesh and spirit,

of which the one was assumed into God, while the other bestowed the grace of the Godhead.

He was sent indeed, but as man.

By the same, in the second oration concerning the Son.

But He would be called God—not of the Word, but of that which is seen.

For how could He be God of Him who is properly God? Just as He is also Father—not of that which is seen, but of the Word.

So that the one term applies to both properly, while the other applies not properly, but in a manner opposite to how it applies in our case.

For in our case He is God properly, but Father not properly.

And this is what produces the error among the heretics: the coupling of the names, since these are interchanged on account of the union.

But this is a sign: whenever the natures are distinguished in thought, the names too are divided along with them.

As Paul says, 'That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.' God of Christ indeed, but Father of glory.

For even though the two together are one, yet it is not by nature, but by conjunction.

What could be more familiar than these things? Let a fifth point be stated: that He receives life, or judgement, or the inheritance of the nations, or authority over all flesh, or glory, or disciples, or whatever else is said.

And these things belong to His humanity.

By the same, from the same oration.

For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. For He still intercedes even now as man on behalf of my salvation.

For He is with the body which He assumed, until He make me God by the power of His incarnation, even though He is no longer known according to the flesh—I mean the fleshly passions, and apart from our sin.

By the same, from the same oration.

Surely it is plain to all, that He knows as God, but is ignorant, as He says, as man, if one separates the visible from that which is conceived by the mind.

For the fact that the appellation of the Son is absolute and unrelated, since there is not added to 'the Son' any 'of something,' gives rise to this supposition.

So that one should understand the ignorance in the more reverent sense, reckoning it to the human element and not to the divine.

Of Saint Gregory, bishop of Nyssa.

And who says this, that the infinity of the Godhead was circumscribed by the boundary of the flesh, as though by some vessel? By the same, from the same oration.

But if the soul of a man, being mingled with the body by the necessity of nature, comes to be everywhere by its power, what necessity is there to say that the Godhead is enclosed within the nature of the flesh? By the same, from the same oration.

What hinders us, having recognized a certain union and approach of the divine nature to the human, from also preserving in that approach the conception befitting God—believing that the divine is beyond all circumscription, even though it be among men? By the same, from the oration Against Eunomius.

But if He who is of Mary converses with brethren, while the Only-begotten has no brethren;

'Handle me,' He says, that He might show that only the human nature is tangible, but the divine is intangible.

And He who said 'I go' signifies a change of place;

but He who comprehends all things—in whom, as the apostle says, all things were created, and in whom all things hold together—has nothing among existing things outside of Himself, which might come to be by any motion or change of place.

By the same, from the same oration.

'Being therefore exalted by the right hand of God.' Who then was exalted? The lowly, or the Most High? And what is the lowly, if not the human? And what else besides the divine is the Most High? But surely God has no need to be exalted, being Himself the Most High;

therefore the apostle says that the human was exalted.

And it was exalted by becoming Lord and Christ.

Accordingly, the apostle, by the word 'He made,' does not set forth the pre-eternal existence of the Lord, but the transformation of the lowly into the exalted, which came about at the right hand of God.

For through this word the mystery of godliness is made clear.

For He who said, 'Being exalted by the right hand of God,' openly reveals the ineffable economy of the mystery: that the right hand of God, which is the maker of all existing things—which is the Lord, through whom all things came to be, and apart from whom nothing that has come to be subsisted—this same right hand raised up to its own height, through the union, the man who was united to it.

Of Saint Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.

For neither did man come to be by a falling away from God, nor did God come to be out of man by advancement.

By the same, from the oration on the text, 'The Son can do nothing of Himself.' For after the resurrection the Lord shows both things: both that the body is not of such a kind, and that this is the very thing that rose.

The disciples were gathered together after the passion and the resurrection, and, the doors being shut, the Lord stood in their midst.

Never before the passion did He do this.

For could not Christ have done this even long before? For all things are possible to God.

But He did not do it before the passion, lest you should think the economy an illusion or a semblance, nor should you suppose that Christ's flesh was spiritual, nor descended from heaven, nor of a different substance from our own flesh.

For certain persons, having imagined all these things and supposing that they thereby honour the Lord, have unwittingly, through their thanksgiving, blasphemed against themselves, and have charged the truth with falsehood, to the point that the falsehood proves altogether irrational.

For if He assumed another body, what is that to my body which stands in need of salvation? If He brought down flesh from heaven, what is that to my flesh which was taken from the earth? By the same, from the same oration.

But that you might not again think the risen thing to be something else, when Thomas doubted the resurrection, He shows him the marks of the nails, He shows him the traces of the wounds.

Was He not able to heal Himself, and that after the resurrection, He who had healed all men even before the resurrection? But by those things through which He shows the marks of the nails, He conveys that it is this same body;

while by those things through which He enters when the doors are shut, He shows that it is not of such a kind.

The one, that He might fulfil the manner of the economy, having raised up that which had been put to death; but not of such a kind, that it might not again fall under corruption, nor again undergo death.

Of the blessed Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria.

of our likeness, in which He has come to share, being changed into the nature of the Godhead, nor is His Godhead changed into our likeness.

For He remains what He was from the beginning, namely God;

and He remains such, while also fashioning within Himself our existence.

By the same author, from the same treatise.

But indeed you do not keep quiet; you blaspheme again, slandering the Son of God, and saying in these very words:

Just as the Son and the Father are one, so also the soul which the Son assumed and He Himself are one — being ignorant that the Son and the Father are one on account of the one essence and the same Godhead;

whereas the soul and the Son are, the one relative to the other, a distinct essence and nature.

For if, just as the Father and the Son are one, so also the soul of the Son and the Son are one, then the Father and the soul will also be one, and the soul of the Son will at some point also say:

'He who has seen Me has seen the Father.' But this is not so — God forbid!

For the Son and the Father are one, since there are not different Godheads;

but the soul and the Son are other both in nature and in essence, since the soul too came into being through Him, being of the same essence as ourselves.

For if in the manner in which the Father and the Son are one, in that same manner also the soul and the Son are one — according to Origen's argument — then the soul too will be, like the Son, 'the radiance of the glory of God, and the express image of His substance.' But surely this is impossible;

it is therefore impossible that the Son and His soul are one in the way that He Himself and the Father are one.

And what will he do, again falling into self-contradiction? For he writes thus:

For surely the soul which was troubled and deeply grieved was not the Only-begotten and Firstborn of all creation.

For God the Word, being superior to the soul, is Himself the Son who says, 'I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again.' If then the Son is superior to His own soul — as indeed He is confessed to be superior — how can His soul be equal to God and in the form of God? For by declaring that this very soul is the one that emptied itself and took the form of a servant, he became, by the excess of his impieties, more notorious than the other heretics, as we have noted.

For if the Word exists in the form of God and is equal to God, and he supposes that the soul of the Saviour exists in the form of God and is equal to God — having dared to write thus — how is that which is equal 'superior'? For things that surpass in nature bear witness to the 'superiority' over those beneath them.

Of Saint John, Bishop of Constantinople.

From a sermon delivered in the Great Church.

And your Master led a man up into heaven, yet you will not so much as share the marketplace with him.

And why do I say into heaven? He seated him upon a royal throne, yet you even drive him out of the city.

By the same author, on the beginning of the forty-first Psalm.

Paul does not cease, even to this day, saying, 'On behalf of Christ we are ambassadors, as though God were entreating through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.' And he did not even stop there, but taking a first-fruits from your own nature, He seated it 'far above all rule and authority and power and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.' What could be equal to this honour? The first-fruits of our race — which had so greatly offended, which had been dishonoured — sits in such exaltation, and enjoys such honour.

By the same author, concerning the division of tongues.

For consider what it is to behold our nature borne upon the Cherubim, and all the angelic power poured around it.

And observe for me the wisdom of Paul, how many names he seeks out in order to set forth the love of God for mankind.

For he did not simply say 'grace,' nor simply 'riches,' but 'the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness.' By the same author, from a doctrinal sermon, that the lowly things spoken and done by Christ were not through weakness of power, but through diverse dispensations.

By the same author, against those who say that demons govern the affairs of men.

Nothing was more worthless than man, and nothing has become more honoured than man.

This was the last portion of the rational creation.

But the feet became the head, and were carried up to the royal throne through the first-fruits.

For just as some generous and munificent man, seeing someone who has escaped from a shipwreck and been able to save only his naked body from the waves, receives him with open hands, wraps him in a splendid robe, and brings him to the highest honour — so also did God do with our nature.

Man cast away all that he had — his boldness, his converse with God, his dwelling in Paradise; he exchanged it for a wretched life, and just like one naked from a shipwreck, so he came forth from there.

But God, receiving him, straightway clothed him, and leading him by the hand little by little, brought him up into heaven.

By the same author, from the same sermon.

But God made the gain greater than the loss, and led up our nature to the royal throne.

And Paul cries out, saying, 'He raised us up together with Him and seated us together with Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.' By the same author, to those who fast at the first Passover.

He opened the heavens, He made friends of those who were hated, He led them back into heaven, He seated our nature at the right hand of the throne, and He bestowed on us ten thousand other good things.

By the same author, from the sermon on the Ascension.

This distance, then, and this height, our nature ascended.

See where it lay below, and where it climbed above.

There was no descending lower than where man descended, nor any ascending higher than where He led him up again.

By the same author, from the commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians.

'According to His good pleasure,' he says, 'which He purposed in Him' — that is, what He desired, this He travailed to bring forth, so to speak, namely to declare to us the mystery.

And what is this? That He wills to seat a man on high.

By the same author, from the same commentary.

Concerning this, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ speaks — not concerning God the Word.

By the same author, from the same commentary.

'And when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ.' And again, Christ is in the midst, and the matter is trustworthy.

For if the beginning lives, so also do we;

He gave life both to Him and to us;

do you see that all these things are said concerning Him according to the flesh? By the same author, from the Gospel according to John.

For why does he add, 'And He dwelt among us'? It is as if to say: do not suspect anything improper from the word 'became.'

For I did not speak of a change of that unchangeable nature, but of a tabernacling and an indwelling.

And that which tabernacles cannot be the same as the tabernacle;

but one thing tabernacles in another;

since otherwise there would be no tabernacling.

For nothing dwells within itself.

But I said 'other' according to essence.

For by the union and conjunction God the Word and the flesh are one, no confusion having taken place, nor any obliteration of the essences, but a certain ineffable and unutterable union.

By the same author, from the Gospel according to Matthew.

And just as someone, standing in the space between two parties separated from one another, stretching out both his hands and taking hold of each side, might join them together — so also He Himself did, joining the old to the new, the divine nature to the human, His own things to ours.

By the same author, from the sermon on the Ascension of Christ.