Institutes & Conferences 3 part 6/11

These things, therefore, belong to men, to men, not to God—that, as far as human weakness avails, they may humble themselves to God, subject themselves to God, make themselves God's dwelling-place, and by faith and piety merit to have God as guest and dweller; because, according as anyone is fit for the gift of God, so does divine grace bestow gifts upon him; according as anyone is deemed worthy of God, so does he enjoy God's coming, according to that promise of the Lord: 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and I and my Father will come to him, and will make our abode with him.'

But far other is the matter and the reason concerning Christ, in whom all the fullness of divinity dwells bodily, and who so has the fullness of divinity in himself that he bestows upon all out of his fullness; who, the fullness of divinity dwelling in himself, so himself dwells in each of the saints according as he has deemed them worthy of his dwelling-place, and so imparts to all out of his fullness that he himself continually perseveres in his fullness:

He indeed, even while He was upon the earth in His own body, was nonetheless present within the souls of all the saints; He filled the heavens, the lands, the sea, and finally the whole universe by the infinitude of His power and majesty, and He was so wholly within Himself that yet the whole of the world could not contain Him; for however great and unspeakable are the things that have been made, none of them is so capacious and boundless as to be able to contain their very Maker. This, then, is He of whom the prophet says: 'Surely God is in thee, and there is none else beside thee. For thou art our God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Saviour' — He who was afterward assuredly seen upon the earth, and conversed with men; of whom also the prophet David, speaking in His person, says:

'From My mother's womb Thou art My God' — showing plainly that that Man of the Lord was never without the unity of God, since in Him, in the very womb of the Virgin, the fullness of the Godhead at once dwelt; just as elsewhere the same prophet says: 'Truth is sprung out of the earth, and righteousness hath looked down from heaven' — that we might understand, namely, that while the Son of God looked down from the heavens, that is, while righteousness came and descended, there was born of the Virgin's flesh not a phantom of a body but a true reality. He Himself is Truth, according to that testimony of His own truth:

'I am the Truth and the Life.' Therefore, since in the earlier books we have proved this Truth, that is, that the Lord Jesus Christ born of the Virgin is God, now, in accordance with what we proposed in the next book following, let us teach that He who was to be born of the Virgin was always foretold to be God. Thus the prophet Isaiah says: 'Cease ye from the man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?' — or, as it is more truly and more evidently in the Hebrew, 'for he is accounted exalted.' Beautifully, however, in saying 'Cease' he expressed by the word the force of one forbidding the disturbance of persecution. 'Cease ye,' he says, 'from the man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is accounted exalted.'

Did he not in one and the same sentence speak both of the assumption of a human body and of the truth of God? 'Cease ye,' he says, 'from the man, for he is accounted exalted.' Does he not seem to you, I ask, plainly to address the persecutors of the Lord, saying: 'Cease ye from the man whom ye persecute, for this man is God, and though He appear in the lowliness of human flesh, yet He abides in the loftiness of divine magnificence'?

And well, when the prophet says 'Cease ye from the man, whose breath is in his nostrils,' by the most certain designation of a human body he demonstrated the man — boldly indeed and confidently, as one who asserted the truth of the man as steadfastly as that of God; for this is the true and catholic faith, to believe that the Lord Jesus possessed the substance of a true body just as He possessed the truth of perfect divinity. Unless perchance you should think there is something to be doubted in this, that he placed 'exalted' for God: whereas indeed it is the custom of Sacred Scripture to say 'exalted' for God, as in that word of the prophet: 'The Most High gave His voice, and the earth was moved,' and: 'Thou alone art the Most High over all the earth,' and Isaiah also:

'For thus,' he says, 'saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity' — in which it is plainly to be understood that, since there he set 'the Exalted' with no addition of 'God,' therefore here too he named God under the title of 'the Exalted.' Therefore, since the divine word through the prophet evidently foretold the Lord Jesus Christ to be both man and God, let us see whether even now the new testimonies agree and accord with the old. 'That which was,' says the apostle John, 'from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life: and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and hath appeared unto us.'

You see how the old things are strengthened by the recent, and how the confirmation of the new preaching follows upon the ancient prophecy. Isaiah said: 'Cease ye from the man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for he is accounted exalted'; John, however, says, 'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled.' The former said that the man was to be persecuted by the Jews; the latter proclaimed that the man was handled by human hands: the former foretold that the very One whom he had announced as man was the exalted God; the latter recorded that He whom he taught to have been handled by men had always been God in the beginning.

Therefore it is most evident that both manifested the Lord Jesus Christ as both man and God, since the same One who is afterward man is always God, and thereby both man and God, because the very man is God. 'That which was, therefore,' he says, 'from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life: and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and hath appeared unto us.' You see by how many tokens, in how many ways, how varied, how manifold, that most beloved apostle, so closely bound to God, instils the mystery of the divine incarnation:

first, that He who was ever in the beginning was seen in the flesh, he testifies; then, lest that which he had said was heard and seen should seem too little to the unbelieving, he confirmed that He was also handled, that is, touched and grasped as much by his own hands as by those of others — well indeed excluding, through the manifestation of the assumed flesh, the notion of the Marcionite and Manichaean error, so that no one should believe a phantom to have been seen by men, since the apostle had proclaimed the truth of a body handled by himself.

Then he added 'the Word of life' and 'the life made manifest,' declaring that he had seen this, that he announced this, that he attested this — at once, namely, both fulfilling the office of faith and pressing terror upon unbelief, so that, since he assuredly attested that he was preaching, the one who had refused to hear should charge his own peril to himself. 'We declare,' he says, 'unto you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and hath appeared unto us': that this, which was ever with the Father, appeared unto men; that this, which was ever in the beginning, was seen by men; that this, which was the Word of life without beginning, was handled by human hands, he taught.

You see in how many ways, how varied, how manifold, how indivisible, how open, he set forth the mystery of the flesh united with God, so that no one at all can speak of the one apart from the other, who do not mention both together — as the same apostle also most evidently says elsewhere: 'For Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.' This is indeed that very thing which by the earlier testimony he said: 'That which was from the beginning, this our hands have handled':

not because the spirit in itself could be handled, but because the Word made flesh was in a certain manner handled in the man to whom it had been united; and therefore the same Jesus is 'yesterday and today,' that is, the same before the beginning of the world who is in the flesh, the same in the past who is in the present, the same also forever, because He is the same throughout all things who is before all things — and this whole is the Lord Jesus Christ. And how is He the same before the world's rising who was but lately born?

Namely, because the same One lately born in the man is the God before the rising of all things; and therefore Christ is named 'the whole' which God is, because so great is the unity of Christ and God that no one at all can any longer, whether saying 'Christ' fail to name God in the name of Christ, or saying 'God' fail to name Christ under the name of God; and thus, the mystery of both substances being wholly united to Himself through the majesty of the sacred nativity, whatever He was, namely both man and God, became wholly God. Whence the apostle Paul, seeing with the revealed eyes of faith the whole secret of inexplicable majesty in Christ, spoke thus, inviting the peoples who acknowledge the benefits of God to render thanks to God:

'Giving thanks,' he says, 'unto the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the lot of the saints in light; who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption, the remission of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for in Him were all things created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or powers: all things were created by Him and in Him: and He is before all, and all things consist in Him. And He is the head of the body, the Church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may hold the primacy:'

'For it pleased that in Him all fullness should dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, making peace through the blood of His cross, whether the things that are in heaven or the things that are on earth.' Does this too need any addition of interpretation, when it is expressed so copiously and so evidently that it has in itself not only the certainty of the things but also the clarity of exposition?

For he bids us give thanks to the Father, adding indeed a great cause for giving thanks, namely that He hath made us worthy of the portion of the saints, and having delivered us from the power of darkness hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption, the remission of sins — who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, because in Him and through Him all things were created, of which, just as He is the Maker, so also He is the Governor. And what after this? 'He is,' he says, 'the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.' Scripture names the resurrection as a kind of generation, because, just as generation creates life, so resurrection generates unto life.

Whence the resurrection itself is also called regeneration, according to that testimony of the Lord: 'Amen I say unto you, that ye who have followed Me, in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of His majesty, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' Therefore he calls Him the firstborn from the dead, whom above he proclaimed to be the Son and image of the invisible God. But who is the image of the invisible God except the Only-begotten, the Word of God? And how is He who is named the image and Word of the invisible God said to have risen from the dead? And yet what still is added? 'That in all things He may hold the primacy,' he says, 'because'

'in Him it pleased that all fullness should dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, making peace through the blood of His cross, whether the things that are in heaven or the things that are on earth.' Does the Creator of all things need the primacy of the universe, or does He who made them need the primacy of the things made by Himself? Or can it be said of the Word that in Him, who is the firstborn from the dead, it pleased that all fullness should dwell — He who, being the Only-begotten Son of God, the Word of God before the beginnings of all things, having the invisible Father in Himself, thus first possessed all fullness in Himself, that He Himself was the fullness of all things? And what finally?

'Making peace in all things,' he says, 'through the blood of His cross, whether the things that are in heaven or the things that are on earth.' He assuredly made most plain of whom he was speaking, whom he had named the firstborn from the dead. For were all things indeed reconciled and pacified through the blood of the Word or of the Spirit? Not at all. For no thing could fall into an impassible nature, nor could blood be poured out save that of a man, nor could any other die than a man: and yet the same One who in what follows is said to have died, is above proclaimed the image of the invisible God. How then is this?

Namely, because this was in every way guarded against by the apostles, lest there should seem to be any division in Christ, and lest the Son of God united in the Son of man should begin, through erratic interpretations, to have two persons, and, through depraved and impious opinions, He who was in Himself one should become double in us.

And therefore, beautifully and marvelously, the apostolic preaching descended from the Only-begotten Son of God Himself down to the Son of man united to the Son of God, so that, just as the very order of things, so also the discourse of doctrine ran its course, thus joining all things in an inseparable connection and as it were by a certain bridge, that without any division or interval at all you might find Him at the end of time whom you read of in the beginning of the world; and, no distraction of impious dissection being admitted at all, you might believe in one Son of God in flesh and in spirit, since the apostolic teaching had so united God and man alike through the mystery of the bodily nativity, that it might show you as reconciling all things on the cross the same One whom it had proclaimed before the beginning of the world as the image of the invisible God.

And though this was indeed spoken by the apostle, yet it is the teaching of the Lord. For the same thing which he taught in the apostle to the Christians, He Himself spoke of like import in the Gospel to the Jews, saying: 'But now ye seek to kill Me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard from God. For I came not of Myself, but He sent Me' — indicating assuredly that He is both God and man: man in this, that He proclaims Himself to be man; God in this, that He affirms Himself to be sent. For He must needs have been with Him from whom He had come, and He had come from Him by whom He said He was sent. Whence also came that most fitting reply, when the Jews said to Him: 'Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen Abraham?'

He answered with the voice of His eternity and majesty, saying: 'Amen, amen, I say unto you, before Abraham was made, I am.' I ask, then, whose saying you would have this to be? Christ's, assuredly, beyond doubt. And how could He who had been born in recent time say that He was before Abraham? Namely, through that Word of God to which He was wholly united, so that all might understand how great was the unity of Christ and God, since, whatever God spoke in Christ, the divinity of the One united to Him wholly claimed as its own. And well, conscious of His own eternity, He then answered the Jews in the body with that voice with which He had once spoken to Moses in spirit. For here He says: 'Before Abraham was made, I am,' but to Moses: 'I am that I am.'

By an admirable magnificence of speech He proclaimed the eternity of the divine nature, because nothing can be said of God so fittingly as that He is said always to be, since 'being' has neither the beginning of the past nor the term of the future. And therefore most plainly is that said of the nature of the eternal God which is best fitted to eternity. This indeed the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when He spoke of Abraham, showed by a diversity of speech, saying: 'Before Abraham was made, I am.' Of Abraham he said 'before he was made,' but of Himself 'I am' — namely, because to be made belongs to temporality, to be belongs to eternity. And therefore that 'was made' He assigned to the brevity of humanity, but that 'am' to His own nature.

And all these things assuredly Christ, who through the mystery of the united man and God, in Him who had always been, said that He Himself had already been. And when the apostle too desired to elucidate and make this plain to all, he spoke thus: 'For Jesus, saving the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.' But also elsewhere: 'Neither let us tempt Christ,' he says, 'as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents.' The excellent Peter also, chief of the apostles, says: 'And now why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we believe to be saved, even as they.'

That the people of God, freed from Egypt and led through the vast paths of the waters with dry feet, and preserved through the wide solitudes of the desert, was so by God alone without doubt, we know according to that word: 'The Lord alone did lead them, and there was no strange god with them.' And how does the apostle, by so many and so evident testimonies, proclaim both that the people of the Jews was freed from Egypt by Jesus, and that Christ was then tempted by the Jews in the desert, saying: 'Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents'? And the blessed apostle Peter proclaims that all the saints also, who lived under the law of the Old Testament, were saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Go now and flee hence, if you can, whoever you are, who, raging with a rabid and blasphemous spirit, suppose there to be no difference at all between Adam and Christ, and who deny Him to be God even after the Virgin's childbearing — show utterly how you might prove that He was not God even before the rising of His body. For behold, the apostle cries aloud that the people out of the land of Egypt was saved by Jesus, that in the desert Christ was tempted by the unbelieving, and that our fathers too, that is, the patriarchs and prophets, were saved through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Deny these things, if you can. Nor shall I wonder if you do so, and deny what all of us read, you who have denied what all of us believe.

Understand therefore at length that even then Christ led the people out of Egypt in God, and in God Christ was tempted by the tempting people, and Christ in God saved all the righteous by the bounty of His grace, because through the unity of the mystery both God so passed into Christ and Christ into God, that both whatever God did is said to have been accomplished by Christ, and whatever Christ afterward endured is said to have been endured by God. And therefore the prophet, saying 'There shall be no new god in thee, neither shalt thou worship a strange god,' preached with this sense and this spirit with which the apostle said Christ was the leader of the people of Israel out of Egypt, that he might perceive that He indeed who was born of the Virgin as man was always in God through the unity of the mystery.

Otherwise, unless it be so believed, either Christ is wholly not God, as with the heretics, or He is certainly believed, contrary to the prophet, to be a new god. But far be this from the catholic people of God, that it should seem either to dissent from prophecy or to agree with the heretics, and lest perchance the people of blessing incur that curse — that it be said to have placed its hope in man. For he who asserts the Lord Jesus Christ to have been born a solitary man must needs be liable to the curse in a twofold way, whether he believe in Him or believe not. For if he believes, 'Cursed is he who placeth his hope in man'; but if he believes not, cursed nonetheless assuredly, because, though he did not believe in the man, he has utterly denied God.

For this is that which, by the Lord revealing it to him, that most beloved John of God foresaw and spoke concerning Him who was speaking within him. 'Every spirit,' he says, 'that confesseth that Jesus is come in the flesh, is of God: and every one that dissolveth Jesus, is not of God: and this is antichrist, of whom ye have heard that he cometh, and now already is in the world.' O the admirable and singular loving-kindness of God, who, like a most careful and provident physician, foretold beforehand the diseases that were sometime to come into His Church, and, while foretelling the infirmity, gave the medicine out of that very foretelling — that all, namely, recognizing the encroaching sickness, might begin to shun far off and afar what they had learned was impending.

And therefore holy John says: 'Every one who dissolveth Jesus, is not of God: and this is antichrist.' Do you recognize him, heretic? Do you recognize that he already spoke these things openly and pointedly concerning you? For no one so dissolves Jesus as he who does not confess Him God. For since in this consists all the faith and all the worship of the Church — to confess Jesus true God — who could more dissolve His veneration and worship than he who denied the whole in that which we all worship? Beware therefore, I beseech you, beware lest anyone be able to call even you an antichrist. Do you think I revile or curse you? It is not mine, what I speak. Behold, the evangelist says: 'Every one who dissolveth Jesus, is not of God: and this is antichrist.'

If you do not dissolve Jesus and do not deny God, no one can call you an antichrist: but if you deny, why do you complain that anyone should say you are an antichrist? You have said this of yourself — you, I say, while you deny, have yourself said it. Do you wish to know that this is true? Tell me: when Jesus was born of the Virgin, what would you have Him to have been — man or God? If God only, you assuredly dissolve Jesus, you who deny that in Him a man was united to God: but if man only, you dissolve Him nonetheless, you who blaspheme, as you do, that He was born only a man. Unless perchance you think that you do not dissolve Jesus — you who deny that He was God, you who would dissolve Him even if you did not deny that a man was born together with God. But perhaps you would wish this made plainer by examples. Take one concerning each.

Manichaeus is outside the Church, because he asserts that Jesus was God only; Ebion, because he asserts He was man. For each of them denied and dissolved Him — the one by saying He was man only, the other by saying He was God only; because, although they said different things, yet the impiety of that very diversity is equal. Except that, if there can be any distinction among the magnitude of evils, your blasphemy is more injurious which asserts Him to be man only than that which asserts Him to be God only; because, although both are evil, it is nonetheless more insulting to have snatched the divine from the Lord than the human. This faith therefore alone is catholic, this alone is true: to believe the Lord Jesus Christ to be, just as God so also man, and just as man so also God.

For every one who dissolveth Jesus is not of God. But to dissolve is this: to wish to break what is united in Jesus and to separate what is indivisible. But what in Jesus is united and indivisible? Man assuredly, and God. Therefore he dissolves Jesus who separates and disrupts these. [Otherwise, if he does not disrupt and separate, then neither does he dissolve. But if he separates and disrupts, then assuredly he dissolves who separates and disrupts.] And therefore, to every man breaking forth into this blasphemy and madness, the Lord Jesus Himself, on His own behalf, cries out and attests in the Gospel that which He spoke to the Pharisees: 'What God hath joined together, let not man separate.'

And although there, where it was said by God, it seems to have been an answer to another matter, yet the depth of God, which was speaking not more of carnal than of spiritual things, willed it, though spoken of that, to be understood rather of this — because, when the Jews then believed that which you say, that Jesus was only a man without God, when the Lord was questioned concerning the fellowship of marriage, He instructed them not only about that but also about this, and, consulted about lesser matters, He answered also about higher and greater ones, saying: 'What God hath joined together, let not man separate.' This is: do not separate that which God has joined in Me; let not human impiety separate what divine majesty has united in Me. But do you wish to know more fully that it is so?

Hear the apostle discoursing about these very things concerning which the Saviour then taught, who indeed, as a master sent by God, expounded, as the weakness of the hearers could then grasp, those very things which God had proclaimed in mystery. For when he was disputing about carnal marriage, concerning which the Saviour had been questioned in the Gospel, he repeated those very testimonies of the Old Law which the Lord had then used — namely, that it might be understood that he was expounding the same matter who used the same testimonies. Adding besides, lest anything should seem lacking to the case, even carnal marriage, and the name too of woman and of man, whom he exhorted to mutual affection, he set it thus:

'Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church'; and again: 'So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as Christ the Church, because we are members of His body.' You see how, joining the names of Christ and of the Church to the names of man and of woman, he drew all men from a carnal hearing to a spiritual understanding. For when he had said all these things, he subjoined those testimonies which the Lord had used in the Gospel, saying: 'For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh.'

And what after this did he subjoin, as if with the great attestation of a loud cry? 'This is a great mystery (sacramentum),' he says. He utterly removed and cut off from this any carnal understanding, where he said the mystery to be wholly divine. And yet what did he subjoin after these things? 'But I speak,' he says, 'concerning Christ and the Church.' When he had said 'This is a great mystery,' he did not say 'this is the exposition of the mystery,' but what? 'But I speak concerning Christ and the Church' — that is, to say: that indeed is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the Church; that is, that, because perhaps not all can grasp that for the present, they may at least grasp this, which nonetheless does not differ from that nor is diverse, because both are concerning Christ.