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'There is therefore,' he says, 'one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.' Consider that what you read here concerning the Word of the Father is what you read concerning Christ. 'All things,' says the Gospel, 'were made through him, and without him was made nothing that was made.' The Apostle says 'all things through Christ'; the Gospel says 'all things through the Word.' Do the sacred sayings contradict one another? By no means; rather, both the Apostle, who said that all things were created through Christ, and the Evangelist, who recorded that all things were made through the Word, wish one and the same to be understood. Hear, I say, what God the Word himself has declared concerning himself. 'No one,' he says, 'has ascended into heaven except him who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven,' and again:
'If you shall see,' he says, 'the Son of Man ascending where he was before?' He said that the Son of Man had been in heaven; he recorded that the Son of Man had descended from heaven. What is this? Why do you murmur? Deny it, if you can. But you seek the reason of the saying? For the present I do not render it. God said this, God has spoken: to me his word is the highest reason. I set aside arguments, I set aside disputations: the person of the speaker alone suffices me for belief. It is not permitted me to waver concerning the truth of what is said, it is not permitted me to deliberate. Why should I inquire how what God has said is true, when I ought not to doubt that what God has said is true? 'No one,' he says, 'has ascended into heaven except him who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.'
The Word of the Father assuredly was always in heaven. And how did he record that the Son of Man was always in heaven? Understand, then, that he taught that one to be the Son of Man who was always the Son of God, since he assuredly affirms that he who lately came to be as Son of Man was always in heaven. To this is added something even greater: that the same Son of Man, that is, the Word of God, whom he said descended from heaven, he testifies to be in heaven even then, while he speaks upon earth. For 'no one,' he says, 'has ascended into heaven except him who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.' Who, I ask, is it that speaks these things? Christ, assuredly. But where was he then, when he was speaking? Upon earth, of course.
And how does he testify both that he descended from heaven when he was born, and that he is in heaven when he speaks, and says that he is the same Son of Man—since assuredly none but God could descend from heaven, and since, while he speaks upon earth, he could not be in heaven except through the infinity of God? Attend, then, at last, and grasp that the Son of Man is the same as the Word of God, because he is both the Son of Man, in that he is truly born of man, and the Word of God, in that the same one who speaks upon earth remains always in heaven. And thus it belongs to his human nativity that he truly calls himself the Son of Man, but to his divine infinity that he in no way departs from heaven.
And therefore the Apostle well, teaching after the pattern of the divine words—for he says, 'He who descended, he it is also who ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things'—says that the same one descended who ascended. But none could descend from heaven except the Word of God, who indeed, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and found in fashion as a man, humbled himself, being made obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Therefore the Word of God descended from heaven, but the Son of Man ascended; and he says that the same one ascended who descended. Therefore you see that the Son of Man is the same as the Word of God.
And therefore, according to the teaching of the divine word, it must now be said without fear and without hesitation both that the Son of Man descended from heaven and that the Lord of majesty was crucified, because, according to the mystery of the assumed body, both the Son of God became the Son of Man, and in the Son of Man the Lord of majesty was crucified. And what more? It would be a long task to say many things about each point; for the day would fail me, if I should attempt to gather or explain all the things that can be brought to bear upon this matter. For to one who is willing, the whole of Scripture must be turned over and read again. For what things are there that do not pertain to this, since all things were written for the sake of this?
Briefly, then, and concisely, some things must be said, so that they can be said, and certain matters must rather be enumerated than expounded, and, so to speak, our losses must be redeemed by losses, since for this very reason it is fitting that some things be passed over hastily, lest it be necessary that nearly everything be kept silent. 'The Savior came,' therefore, it says in the Gospel, 'the Son of Man, to save that which was lost'; and the Apostle: 'Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first'; but also John the Evangelist: 'He came,' it says, 'unto his own, and his own received him not.'
You see, therefore, that Scripture proclaims that in one place the Son of Man, in another Jesus Christ, in another the Word of God, came into the world. Understand therefore that the difference is of appellations, not of realities, and that in the diverse variety of names there is one power. For although now the Son of Man, now the Son of God—that is, the Word—is named as having come into the world, yet one and the same is designated under either name. For since, according to the Evangelist, he came into the world through whom the world itself was made, and he became the Son of Man who is God the creator of the world, it makes no difference by what name he is called in each case, who in all is understood to be God.
For his condescension or his own will does not prejudice his divinity, since this rather proves that very divinity, because whatever he willed, that he was. Therefore both because he willed it he came into the world, and because he willed it he was born a man, and because he willed it he was called the Son of Man. For all these are, as they are titles, so also powers of God. In him the difference of name does not diminish the force of his power. By whatever name he is called, in all he is one. Though there be some diversity in the variety of titles, there is in the power of the names but one majesty.
But since up to this point we have used, chiefly and above all, the Gospel and apostolic writers as, so to speak, new witnesses, let us now bring forth the ancients from among the prophets, at times mingling the new with the old, so that all may understand that the sacred Scripture, with its whole body as it were and as with one mouth, has cried aloud that the Lord would come in the flesh. Thus says that eminent and admirable one, as rich in God's gift as in his testimony, to whom alone it fell to be sanctified before he was born, the prophet Jeremiah: 'This is,' he says, 'our God, and no other shall be accounted beside him. He found out every way of knowledge, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. After this he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men.' 'This is therefore,' he says, 'our God.'
You see God pointed out by the prophet as though with a pointing hand, and shown as though with a signifying finger: 'for this is,' he says, 'our God.' Tell me, then: what God was the prophet then demonstrating by these signs and indications? Was it perhaps the Father? And what need was there to point out him whom all believed they knew? For the Jews at that time were not ignorant of God, who lived under the law of God. But this rather was being accomplished: that they might know the Son of God to be God.
And therefore the prophet well said that he who had found out all knowledge, that is, who had given the law, would be seen upon earth, that is, would come in the flesh, so that—since the Jews did not doubt that he who had given the law was God—they might recognize that he who was to come in the flesh was God, when they should hear that he whom they believed to be God the lawgiver would be seen among men through the assumption of human flesh, that very one also promising his own coming through the prophet: 'For I myself who spoke, behold, I am here.' 'No other, therefore,' says the sacred Scripture, 'shall be accounted beside him.' Beautifully here the prophet, foreseeing perverse doctrines, shut out every notion of heretical perversity by saying: 'No other shall be accounted beside him.'
For this is the one born from God into God, whose command the work of the universe followed, whose will was the origin of things, whose bidding is the fabric of the world, who spoke all things, and they were made; who commanded all things, and they were created. This, therefore, is the one speaking to the patriarchs, abiding in the prophets, conceived by the Spirit, born of a virgin, seen in the world, conversing among men, nailing to the wood of the cross the handwriting of sins, triumphing in himself over the powers hostile and inimical to us, slaying death, granting to all the faith of rising again, destroying by the glory of his own body the corruption of human flesh.
To the one Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, these things are proper, and therefore no other shall be accounted beside him, because one God, born of God in this singularity of glory and blessedness, is he. This, therefore, was then being accomplished through the prophetic teaching: that the only-begotten Son of God the Father might be learned by all, and that, when they should hear that no other God is accounted beside the Son, they might recognize that in the Father and the Son there is assuredly one God. 'After this,' he says, 'he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men.' You see that clearly here the coming and nativity of the Lord is designated. For has the Father ever—who is read to be visible to none but the Son alone—been seen upon earth, or brought forth in the flesh, or conversed among men? By no means.
You understand, therefore, that all these things were said concerning the Son of God. For since the prophet said that God would be seen upon earth, and no other beside the Son was seen upon earth, the prophet without doubt said this concerning the same one about whom what was said, the event afterward proved. For since he said assuredly that God would be seen, he could not truly say this of any other than him who truly was afterward seen. But of this enough for now. Let us now pass on to other matters. 'The labor,' says the prophet Isaiah, 'the labor of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall pass over to you, and shall be yours: they shall walk after you, bound with fetters: and they shall adore you, and shall make supplication to you: for in you is God, and there is no God beside you.'
'For you are our God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Savior.' How well the divine writings always agree with themselves! For the earlier prophet said, 'This is our God'; but this one, 'You are our God.' In the former, assuredly, there is the divine teaching; in this, the human confession. The one set forth the person of the teaching master, the other the person of the confessing people. For suppose now that Jeremiah the prophet is teaching daily in the Church, as indeed he does, and saying of the Lord Jesus Christ, 'This is our God': what else would the whole Church reply, as indeed it does, than that which the other prophet said to the Lord Jesus, 'You are our God'? So that fittingly even past ignorance can be joined to the present confession, the people saying:
'You are our God, and we knew it not.' For well can these, who formerly, occupied with demonic superstitions, were ignorant of God, being converted to the faith, say: 'You are our God, and we knew it not.' But if you desire that this same thing be proved to you rather from the person of the Jews, consider, after that unhappy ignorance and impious persecution, the peoples of the Jews everywhere turning themselves to the faith and acknowledging the Lord, and see whether they can rightly say: 'You are our God, and we knew it not.' But I add yet another thing, that I may prove this to you not only from the Jews who confess, but even from those who deny. For ask those Jews who still persist in sacrilege whether they know or believe God:
they will assuredly confess that they know and believe him. But, on the contrary, ask whether they believe the Son of God: they will certainly deny it and blaspheme. You see, therefore, that the prophet spoke of him whom the Jews both never knew and still know not, not of him whom they suppose they both believe and confess. And therefore well can these, who from among the Jews come to the faith after their ignorance, say: 'You are our God, and we knew it not.' For rightly do these, who after ignorance believe, say that they did not know him whom, while still not believing, they contend that they do not know. For it is manifest that they say they formerly knew him not, confessing him after ignorance, whom they still know not while denying him.
'The labor,' he says, 'of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall pass over to you.' That in these names of diverse nations is signified the coming of the nations who would believe, is doubtful to none. And you cannot deny that the nations have passed over to Christ, inasmuch as, having received the name of Christianity, they passed over to the Lord Jesus Christ not by faith only, but even by the very name; for, since they are called by the same thing that they are, there was accomplished what was the work of faith—the mystery of the name. 'To you,' he says, 'they shall pass over, and shall be yours, and shall walk after you, bound with fetters.' As there are bonds of constraint, so are there bonds of love, according to that which the Lord says:
'I drew them with the bonds of love.' For truly great are these bonds of ineffable love, by which those who are bound rejoice in their chains. Do you wish to know that this is true? Hear the Apostle rejoicing and exulting in his bonds, when he says: 'I beseech you, therefore, I a prisoner in the Lord'; and that other: 'I beseech you, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus.' See how greatly he rejoiced in the merit of his bonds, by whose example he also incited others. And there is no doubt that among those in whom there is one love of the Lord, there is one affection of the Lord's bondage, according to that: 'And of the multitude of them that believed, the heart and soul was one.'
'They shall adore you,' he says, 'and shall make supplication to you, for in you is God, and there is no God beside you.' The saying of the prophet the Apostle clearly expounded, saying: 'For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.' 'In you, therefore,' he says, 'is God, and there is no God beside you.' Well the prophet, saying 'in you is God,' showed not only him who was present, but also him who was in the present one—dwelling, that is, in that in which he dwelt—distinguishing by the signification of natures, not by the denial of unity. 'You are,' he says, 'God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Savior.'
Although Scripture has already shown by many and evident signs of whom it spoke, yet it expressed most manifestly, in the name of Savior, the name of Christ, because the same Savior is assuredly the Christ, the angel saying: 'For there is born to you this day a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.' For that Jesus is interpreted 'Savior' in Hebrew is doubtful to none, as the angel testifies to the holy virgin Mary, saying: 'And you shall call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.' And lest perchance you should say that he was proclaimed Savior in the manner in which it was said of others—'And the Lord raised them up a savior, Othniel the son of Kenaz,' and again, 'And he raised them up a savior, Ehud the son of Gera'—he added:
'For he shall save his people from their sins.' But it is not within human power to redeem a people from the captivity of sin, which is possible assuredly to him alone of whom it was said: 'Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world.' For the others saved not their own people, but God's, and not from sins, but from enemies. 'You are, therefore,' he says, 'our God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Savior.' Whom do you rather think say this, to whom do you deem it rather to be fitting—the Jews or the Gentiles? If the Jews, the Jews assuredly did not know Christ, according to that: 'But Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood me,' and that: 'And the world was made through him, and the world knew him not:'
'He came unto his own, and his own received him not.' But if the Gentiles, it is manifest that the Gentile world, occupied with idols, knew not Christ, although it knew not even the Father; but yet even if it now knows him, it knows him only through Christ. You see, therefore, that whether the believing people be from the Gentiles or from the Jews, each fittingly says of itself: 'You are our God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Savior,' because both the Gentiles, formerly worshiping idols, were ignorant of God, and the Jews, denying the Lord, were ignorant of the Son of God. And through this both these and those well say of Christ: 'You are our God, and we knew it not,' because both those who did not believe were ignorant of God, and those who denied the Son of God.
If, therefore, Christ is to be believed—as truth speaks, as the Godhead testifies, as Christ himself finally proclaims, who is both—why do you strive, unhappy madness, to insert yourself between Christ and God? Why do you seek to separate his body from the Son of God, and endeavor to divide him, God, from himself? You cut apart things united and sunder things joined. Believe God concerning God: for by no means better could you confess the divinity of God, than if you should acknowledge it by that very voice by which the Godhead itself taught it of itself. For know, according to the prophet, that the Lord himself is God, who found out every way of knowledge, who assuredly was both seen upon earth and conversed among men. He himself brought the light of faith into the world, he himself showed forth the light of salvation.
'For God is the Lord, and he has shone upon us.' Him, therefore, believe, him love, him confess, because, when to him, as it is written, 'every knee shall bow, of things heavenly, earthly, and infernal, and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father,' willing or unwilling, you will not be able to deny that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. For this is the perfect power of the perfect confession: always to confess that God and Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. We said in the first book that that heresy, disciple and imitator of the Pelagian heresy,
in every way attempted and strove that the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, should be believed to be a mere solitary man, and that afterwards, having seized upon the way of virtue, he attained this by living piously and religiously—that through this sanctity of life he became worthy of one with whom the divine majesty might associate itself; and thus, the dignity of his sacred origin being entirely excluded from him, there was left to him only the choice of merits alone. They strive and labor for this: that, he being as it were sent into the common crowd and gathered as it were into the throng of the human race, all men might be able to merit through the conversation of good deeds whatever he had merited by living well:
a pestilential and deadly assertion, indeed, which, both detracting truth from God and promising falsehood to men, would be guilty in both of an abominable and damnable lie, while both it wrongs God with the injury of sacrilege and leads men into the hope of a false presumption—a most perverse and most impious assertion, granting to mortality what it had not, taking from God what he was. Of this deadly and pernicious depravity, then, this heresy which has now arisen anew, as it were rekindling revived ashes, has stirred up a new conflagration in the old embers: for it asserts that the Lord Jesus Christ was born a solitary man.
And therefore, what need is there that we inquire whether in the consequences of this perversity there be what is in the very head of its single wickedness? For it is superfluous to await what sort it may be in its later parts, which has already at the outset left no grounds at all for awaiting. For what reason is there to explore whether, after the likeness of the earlier heresy, it promises the same thing to man which—what is a most monstrous wickedness—it takes away from God, so that it is almost impious, when we see what has gone before, to inquire what follows? As if indeed any cause could be brought in the consequences by which he who has denied God might prove himself not impious. It says, therefore, as we have already often said, a new
heresy, namely, that the Lord Jesus Christ is a mere solitary man born of a virgin, and that therefore Mary is to be called Christotokos, not Theotokos, because she is the mother of Christ, not of God. It adds moreover to its sacrilegious assertion arguments as perverse as they are frivolous, saying: 'No one gives birth to one prior to herself.' As though indeed the nativity of the only-begotten God, foretold by the prophets, announced beforehand from ages past, were to be handled or estimated by human reasonings; or as though the virgin Mary herself—whoever you are, O heretic, who slander her concerning her childbearing—accomplished and completed by her own powers this thing that was done, so that human weakness should be cast up against her in so great a matter and so great a work.
If, therefore, anything in this matter was accomplished through man's work, seek human reasons: but if the whole of what was done is the power of God, why do you regard human impossibility, where you see the efficacy to be divine? But of this more fully hereafter. Now let us pursue what we began a little before, so that all may know that you are seeking fires in Pelagian ashes and stirring up old embers with new blasts of sacrileges. You say, therefore, that Christ was born a mere solitary man. This indeed also that heresy of Pelagian impiety, which we plainly showed in the first book, proclaimed: that Christ was born a mere solitary man.
You add moreover that the very Lord of all, Jesus Christ, is to be called a Theodochos-image, that is, not God, but a receiver of God—namely, that you should think him to be honored not on his own account, because he is God, but because he receives God in himself. This also that heresy which I mentioned before asserted: that Christ is to be worshiped not on his own account, namely because he was God, but because by good and pious deeds he had merited to have God in himself. You see, therefore, that you vomit forth Pelagian poison, that you hiss with a Pelagian spirit. Whence it is fitting that of you it should seem not so much a matter of judging as of having been judged, because, since you are of the same error, it is necessary that you be believed to be also of the same condemnation:
not to mention meanwhile that, in comparing God to an imperial statue, you have burst forth into so great an impiety and blasphemy of sacrilege, that you may quite rightly seem to have surpassed by this madness even Pelagius himself, who surpassed nearly all in impiety. You say, therefore, that Christ is to be called a Theodochos-image, that is, that he is to be honored not on his own account, because he is God, but because he received God in himself. In this way, therefore, you assert that there is no difference between him and all the holy men who ever were, because all holy men assuredly had God in themselves, since we are not ignorant that God was in the patriarchs and that God spoke in the prophets.
In short, we believe that all—I do not say apostles and martyrs only, but also all the saints of God and servants of God—have the Spirit of God in themselves, according to that: 'For you are the temple of the living God, as God said: I will dwell in them,' and again: 'Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?' And through this all these are Theodochoi, and thus in this way you call absolutely all men like unto Christ and equal to God. But far be this impiety of abominable error, that the Maker should be compared to his own workmanship, the Lord to his servants, God to earthly frailty of things earthly and heavenly, and that this injury should be done to him out of his own benefits—that, because he deigns to make man his dwelling, therefore he himself should be said to be the same as man.
Nay rather, this is the difference between him and all the saints, which is between the dwelling-place and the dweller—which assuredly, that it be dwelt in, belongs not to the dwelling-place but to the dweller, in whose judgment, namely, lies both the building of the dwelling-place and its use, that is, either, when he wills, to make the dwelling-place itself, or, when he has made it, to deign to dwell in it. 'Do you seek a proof,' says the Apostle, 'of Christ who speaks in me?' And elsewhere: 'Know you not that Christ Jesus is in you, unless perhaps you are reprobate?' And again: 'that Christ may dwell,' he says, 'in the inner man through faith in your hearts.' You see what a difference there is between the apostolic doctrine and your blasphemy. You say that God dwells in Christ as in a man:
he testifies that Christ himself dwells in men—which assuredly, as you say, flesh and blood cannot do, so that from this very thing, whereby you deny him to be God, he is proved to be God. For since you do not deny that he who dwells in a man is God, it is necessary that we most evidently believe him, whom you acknowledge to dwell in men, to be God. All, therefore, whether patriarchs, or prophets, or apostles, or martyrs, or finally all the saints, did indeed have God in themselves, and all became sons of God, and all were Theodochoi, but assuredly by a very different and dissimilar manner. For all who believe are, by adoption, sons of God, but the Only-begotten alone is Son by nature.
He is begotten of the Father from no matter whatsoever, because every thing and every matter of things is through the only-begotten Son of God; not out of nothing, because from the Father; not as it were a birth by division, because there is nothing empty or mutable in God:
but ineffably and inestimably God the Father, in those things which were unbegotten within himself, begot his Only-begotten; and thus from the unbegotten, supreme, and everlasting Father, the Only-begotten is the supreme and everlasting Son—the same to be held in the flesh who is held in the spirit, the same to be believed in the body who is believed in majesty; because, being about to be born in the flesh, he made no division or cutting-apart of himself, so that from some part of him not being born a part of him should be born, or that something of divinity should afterwards supervene in him which was born in him. For all—according to the Apostle—all the fullness of divinity dwells bodily in Christ, not because he at one time dwelt and at another did not dwell, nor because he afterwards existed and did not exist before; otherwise we sink down to that impiety of the Pelagian heresy, so that we should say that God, dwelling in Christ from a certain time, then supervened in him, when he by his life and conversation had merited that the power of divinity should dwell in him.