but human nature could not be consumed in its restoration, since its condemned part will not be consumed by the eternity of punishment. And since it belongs to punishment to consume, but to grace to restore, the Redeemer of the human race must be confessed as full God, assuming a full man, full of the grace by which God deigned to become man, and full of the truth by which the very God who was made man remains unchanged, as he had already said before through the prophet: 'See that I am, and am not changed' (Mal. 3:6). Of whom also Paul records that blessed David sang: 'Thou shalt change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the selfsame' (Heb. 1:12; Ps. 101:28).
One therefore and the same Christ, in that he is full of grace, having nothing less of human nature, was born a full man from man; and in that he is full of truth, having nothing less of the paternal divinity, is begotten full God from the Father. For the Only-begotten of the Father was not full of grace, if in the Son of God there was something less of man; nor was he full of truth, if in the same son of man there was something less of deity. That ineffable God, therefore, begotten naturally of the Father without beginning, after the fullness of time had come, that, sent by the Father, he might be made of a woman, made under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Gal. 4:5),
is wholly reigning in the bosom of the Father, wholly forming himself in the womb of the Virgin. CHAPTER VIII. Christ is wholly in the Father and wholly in the womb of his mother. Christ, rich in himself, became poor for our sake. For neither did a part of him remain in the Father and a part of him descend into the Virgin, since he wholly remained in the Father what he was, and wholly became in the Virgin what he was not: wholly with the Father filling and containing the whole world, wholly building for himself a house in the womb of the Virgin (for it is written: 'Wisdom hath built herself a house' [Prov. 9:1]), wholly in the eternal Father, wholly in the assumed man, wholly in heaven, wholly in the world, wholly also in hell:
thus he took the whole man into himself, being true and most high God, and thus the fullness of divinity, while the truth of the divine and human substance remained unconfusedly, joined itself to a full man, so that, the unity of person henceforth abiding for ever, neither could the man Christ be disjoined from his divinity, nor the same God Christ be disjoined from his humanity. For this the remedy of our weakness demanded, that just as the natural unity abides in the Father and the Son, so the personal unity might abide in Christ; and that just as the personal distinction does not make two substances in the Father and the Son, so the natural distinction might not make two persons in Christ;
and again, just as the natural unity does not confound the Father and the Son, so the personal unity would not confound the man and the Word; and just as the only-begotten Son can never be separated from God his begetter through the unity of nature, so the assumed man could never be separated from God the assumer through the unity of person; yet in such a way that, although Christ could never at any time be either confounded or divided, one and the same Christ might both, out of the truth of the human passion, render back what had been ours, and, out of the truth of the divine impassibility, bestow what had been his own: so that, while he was made poor while remaining in his own riches, he might make us rich out of the poor, on whom he had conferred the infinite riches of his poverty.
This the Vessel of Election is seen manifestly to announce, saying: 'For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich' (2 Cor. 8:9). Therefore this inseparable unity of person, in which God and man is one Christ, brought it about both that the man Christ should be born of God by grace, the truth and fullness of human nature being preserved, and that the same God Christ should voluntarily suffer in the flesh, the impassible fullness of the divine substance being preserved. For just as he is one of whom the Apostle says: 'Whose are the fathers, of whom according to the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever' (Rom. 9:5);
so he is one of whom the same Apostle says: 'For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives by the power of God' (2 Cor. 13:4). There is therefore one Christ, in whom crucified there was the true weakness of the flesh, and in whom living there shone forth the power of true deity; God having what is human in the truth of human nature, and man having what is divine in the truth of the divine substance. Hence he is proclaimed incomprehensible on the cross, inviolable in the wound, impassible in the passion, immortal in death. CHAPTER IX. When Christ suffered, God did not suffer with him.
While certain persons attend too little to these things, they do not hesitate to subject the divinity of Christ to the passion, and, hearing that Christ suffered in the flesh, they think that God suffered together with the flesh, attending too little to the fact that that divine and unchangeable substance of the Son of God both took up suffering in passible flesh, and yet could not feel suffering together with the flesh. This indeed blessed Peter confirms in the truth of divine inspiration, and says: 'Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind' (1 Pet. 4:1). Who, if he had known that the divinity of Christ was passible, it would have sufficed for him to say: 'Since therefore Christ suffered,' nor would he have added, 'in the flesh.'
But because he knew that in one and the same Christ the human nature had been passible before death, and the divine substance always remains impassible, therefore he confesses that Christ suffered in the flesh, whose divinity he knew to remain utterly impassible. CHAPTER X. The divinity of Christ, although it assumed passible flesh, nevertheless remained impassible, because it is unchangeable. But perhaps it will be said that Christ is proclaimed to have suffered in the flesh for this reason: because the divinity, which before the flesh could not suffer, assuming passible flesh, also perceived the passion together with the flesh, since, on account of the assumption of passible flesh, it, being impassible, could not remain impassible in the passion.
But if this is so, then first the divinity of Christ is asserted to be changeable, and the Apostle is contradicted, who, proclaiming the Son of God Jesus Christ to be unchangeable, plainly says to the Corinthians: 'For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not Yea and Nay, but in him it was Yea' (2 Cor. 1:19). And that he might show that very "Yea" to be utterly unchangeable, he again speaks thus to the Hebrews, where he plainly records that it was said of the Son: 'Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou remainest; and they shall all wax old as a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the selfsame' (Heb.
1:10-11). But what is it to be the selfsame, but to be unchangeable? Just as he testifies of himself, saying: 'I am who am; and thou shalt say to the children of Israel: He who is hath sent me unto you' (Exod. 3:14). But if anyone, wishing to demonstrate a difference of divinity between the Father and the Son, should assert that this place in which it is said, 'I am who am,' pertains to the person of the Father alone, let him first remember that he will confess that it was the Father who appeared to Moses; then, that if there the Father appeared in his own substance, then the Father was visible. But if he even now remains visible, then God is no longer invisible to bodily eyes; but if he was then indeed seen substantially, but afterwards is thought to have been rendered invisible:
then God, being previously subject to changeableness, was surely imperfect, and afterwards, made unchangeable by advancement, received the state of full perfection. But if from imperfect he was made perfect, then another must be sought who is believed to have always been perfect, from whom this one who was imperfect received the gift of perfection. CHAPTER XI. God, invisible in himself, appeared visibly through a subject creature. As the Father is unchangeable, so also is the Son. But if Christian minds and ears do not tolerate these things, let it be believed that God never appeared visibly to men through his own substance, but through a subject creature (as he himself willed); and let the Son be believed equally invisible,
just as the Father; who, as remaining timeless he was able to establish temporal things, so remaining invisible he was able to appear visibly in those visible things which he created. Even though this place in which it is said, 'I am who am,' be assigned by anyone to the person of the Father, not even so is the Son to be believed to be sundered from the equality of the paternal unchangeableness. Since, just as the Father says: 'I am who am,' so the Apostle says of the Son, as we set forth above: 'He was not Yea and Nay, but in him it was Yea.' And again: 'But thou art the selfsame.' Since therefore that singular "IS," just as it is found in the Father, so is found in the Son, either both are believed unchangeable, or both are subjected to changeableness.
But since it is exceedingly impious that we should call the Father changeable, this without doubt is pious: that, as we proclaim the Father unchangeable, so we proclaim the Son unchangeable; and if the divinity of the Son is unchangeable, then surely nothing accrued to him or departed from him in time, since that which subsists immutable by natural truth receives nothing of changeableness. It remains, therefore, that we confess the divinity of Christ, which holy Scripture commends as unchangeable, to have so suffered in the flesh, that we nevertheless believe it did not suffer together with the flesh. For God suffered in the flesh for this reason, because God took passible flesh; but he did not suffer together with the flesh for this reason, because, while suffering in the flesh, the divine nature remained impassible.
The unity of person in Christ, not the confusion of the divine and human nature, made the passion common to the divinity and the flesh. CHAPTER XII. On account of the unity of person, the Lord of glory is said to have been crucified, and the author of life to have been slain. Through this unity of person the Lord of glory is asserted to have been crucified, as blessed Paul says: 'For if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory' (1 Cor. 2:8). On account of this unity of person the author of life is said to have been slain, as in the Acts of the Apostles Peter rebukes the Jews, saying: 'And ye desired a murderer to be granted unto you, but killed the author of life' (Acts 3:14-15). But who would call any mere man the author of life, unless God had assumed a man for us?
Therefore from the time that God, the author of life, assumed a man into the unity of person, from that time that man obtained the name of author of life; just as from the fact that the Son of God assumed a man in the virginal womb, from that time God and man together began to be called one Son of God, the angel saying to Mary: 'The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God' (Luke 1:35). Of whom also a little above he says to the same Virgin: 'Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest' (ibid., 31).
But not only is the Son of God, according to that which was born of man, called Christ, but also that man is called God, on account of the fact that he is assumed by God, which the book of Psalms undoubtedly shows us, in which it is said: 'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; the sceptre of thy kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness. Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows' (Ps. 44:7-8). CHAPTER XIII. The anointing too is to be referred to the man rather than to God. That this anointing is to be referred rather to the man, blessed Peter shows, saying: 'Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power' (Acts 10:38).
What, then, could be proclaimed "of Nazareth," save the human nature in Christ? For to such a degree is it the humanity, not the divinity, of Christ that is proclaimed "of Nazareth," that even Philip, who calls him "of Nazareth," reckoned him the son of Joseph: as, speaking to Nathanael, he says: 'We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets did write, Jesus the son of Joseph of Nazareth' (John 1:46). This one, therefore, who is said to be anointed with the Holy Spirit, is named God in the Davidic song; but how could that man have the name of God, save because, assumed by God, he possessed together with him one dignity of name? But if in that which is said, 'God, thy God, hath anointed thee' (Ps.
44:8), the divine nature is believed to be understood, in which the Son is thought to be anointed by God, then the true God surely stood in need of the gift of sanctification, before the same one should be born a true man in the flesh. CHAPTER XIV. There is nothing intermediate between the Father and the Son, through which the Son might be anointed. God anointed Christ according to the flesh. Let it be said, then, what could be holier than the Son of God, by whose anointing sanctification was either given to him not previously possessed, or perfected which was in him imperfect? And if anything is said to be better than the Son of God (to whom they think the Father alone is to be preferred), without doubt, whatever it is, they will confess it to be equal to the Father.
But whether it be made co-equal with the Father, or even placed after the Father, it is meanwhile preferred to the Son—whatever else it is. Unjustly, therefore, is the Holy Spirit joined to the Father and the Son in baptism, when rather that ought to have been joined to the Father and the Son which, by the merit of a superior sanctification, ought to have been set before the Son. But what sort of power would that be believed to be, which sanctified by anointing the divinity of the Son of God, and could not sanctify his flesh? For surely, if it could fully sanctify the man Christ, there was no need that he should be anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power. Let it be considered, therefore, lest perhaps the Holy Spirit is to be believed more powerful and holier both than the Son of God himself and than that power by which he is said to be anointed:
for Jesus of Nazareth—that is, the Son of God according to the flesh, as blessed Peter's assertion makes clear—God anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power. But if the man Christ could not be fully sanctified without the grace of the Holy Spirit, the conferring of that anointing will be called superfluous. But if he could be fully sanctified without the Holy Spirit, and Christ the man did not have the full grace of sanctification without the Holy Spirit—inasmuch as he it was 'whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world' (John 10:36), and who said of himself: 'And I sanctify myself' (John 17:19);
and in whom the sanctification of the Holy Spirit is likewise recognized, since God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power—how does anyone dare to call the Holy Spirit less than the Father or the Son, without whom he sees that the perfection of sanctification cannot stand? But why is it doubted that the Holy Spirit is signified by the name of oil, when both David and Peter, by the term as much of oil as of the Holy Spirit, proclaim one sacrament of the Lord's anointing? For David says: 'God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows,' and he surely signifies the man, when he names "fellows": for that divinity of the Son of God has the fellowship of no creature, since with a creature it has no natural consortium:
God, therefore, was anointed in the flesh, so that in that man Christ, whom his mother both conceived and bore without sin, there might be recognized the full grace of divine sanctification, which was to be conferred upon the faithful in the name of the Trinity. For this reason blessed Peter says: 'Jesus of Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power' (Acts x. 38). And yet this Jesus of Nazareth is called 'God' in the psalm: whence, I ask, unless because God and man are one Christ? And therefore, while the natural, unconfused, and inseparable truth of the person of man and God abides in unity, just as God the Christ took the name of man in the man, so the same man Christ received in God the title of the Godhead. CHAPTER IV.
Christ assumed not a heavenly but a human body. One and the same Christ is both the Son of Man and the Son of God. For if the personal unity of the name of God and man in Christ does not come from a natural conjunction, then consequently the second man, whom Paul proclaims to be heavenly from heaven, would be thought to have naturally nothing from the Virgin, and according to a heavenly nature would be said to have the substance of a heavenly flesh—especially since the Lord Himself also professes concerning Himself: 'No one has ascended into heaven except him who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven' (John iii. 13).
But if Christ is to be believed to have taken on a heavenly and not a human body, how will the prophecy of David's psalm be upheld in its truth, where it is written: 'That glory may dwell in our land, truth has sprung out of the earth' (Ps. lxxxiv. 10, 12)? And who would dare to deny that Christ is the truth, since He named Himself by this very name, saying: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life' (John xiv. 6)? If, then, truth has sprung out of the earth, how is the second man heavenly from heaven, unless because the matter of an earthly body, taken up by the Son of God, passed over into a heavenly name through fellowship with the Godhead? And again, how does the Son of Man descend from heaven, unless because the Son of God descended not by local motion but by the affection of His mercy?
He who, just as He deigned in the flesh assumed from man to be born, so, on account of the one person of the God assuming and the man assumed, He who was the Son of God deigned to be called the Son of Man. In order that this unity of person might be known without any confusion of the two substances, Christ asks His disciples, saying: 'Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?' (Matt. xvi. 13). And when they at once reported the opinion of the crowd, then the character of the true faith is properly sought from them, so that the falsehood of human error might be removed: this, therefore, is the Lord's ensuing question: 'But whom do you say that I am?'—I, indeed, the Son of Man?
There at once Peter the apostle, supported by the firm foundation of divine revelation, confessed the sacrament of universal salvation: 'You are,' he said, 'the Christ, the Son of the living God.' What is this? As far as the ignorant are concerned, does the answer fit the question? For Peter is asked about the Son of Man, and he confesses the Son of God. Did he perhaps hear Jesus who was asking too little, or did he himself not hold to the truth in his confession? By no means: for how could the error of man be praised by the mouth of the truth? But what Christ truly was, this the questioner said; and what Christ truly was, this He heard from the mouth of the confessing Peter.
For Christ the Son of Man was the Son of the living God, and not undeservedly did He by the divine voice merit blessedness, who by His own voice put forth the truth; on account of this He hears: 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven.' Christ Himself too had already confessed that He was the Son of God, when He declared that it had been revealed to Peter by His Father who is in heaven. Yet I judge this not to be passed over idly, that to Christ, who first named Himself the Son of Man, Peter says: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God': for indeed the Son of God, having taken on the humility of the flesh, ought to display in Himself the sacrament of His great mercy;
but redeemed man ought in the Son of Man to proclaim the true substance of the divine nativity, so that while the benefit of gratuitous compassion is shown by the Redeemer, the homage of divine confession might be rendered by the redeemed; and that no one might doubt Him to be true God of the nature of the Father, whom he had known to be true man of the nature of man—and thus, Him whom it was established to be true man by the sufferings of man, we might believe the same to be true God by the works of the Godhead, the Son Himself saying: 'If you will not believe me, believe the works' (John x. 38). One therefore and the same is Christ, who by human weakness endured suffering, and by the omnipotence of divine power accomplished the miracles of His benefits. CHAPTER XVI.
In Christ the natures are led without confusion or change. In Christ there is the whole man, of a true soul and flesh. From the raising of Lazarus there is proved in Christ soul, flesh, and divinity. The divinity neither was disturbed by the soul nor departed from the dying flesh. For from the very beginning of the virginal conception, the personal unity so abode in Christ, and the unconfused truth of each nature so endured, that neither could man be torn from God, nor God be separated from the man He had assumed; nor yet did God consume the man, nor did the man change God in anything; and although in Christ's death the soul was to forsake the dying flesh, yet the divinity of Christ, being assumed, could be separated neither from the soul nor from the flesh.
Therefore, because that God assumed the whole man, He showed in Himself in truth the sufferings of the whole man; and indeed having a rational soul, He both took on and endured whatever there was of the soul's weakness, apart from sin, so that while He conquered the sufferings of the human soul in the soul which He received, He might also free our souls from their infirmities. Taking on human flesh also, He had in the truth of that same flesh the truth of a voluntary suffering; so that, having died in the flesh, He might slay in Himself the whole death of man, and, rising immortal unto eternal life, He might bestow on us the grace of eternal life.
Therefore the true Christ, in His human soul, about to raise Lazarus (as the evangelist says) 'groaned in spirit and troubled Himself'; and the same true Christ, in His human flesh, when He had said, 'Where have you laid him?' They say to Him, 'Lord, come and see,' 'and Jesus wept' (John xi. 33-35). The same true Christ also, in His divine nature, neither forsook His soul when He troubled Himself, because He Himself troubled Himself; nor departed from His flesh when He wept, because Jesus shed tears; and yet that very divinity, remaining in soul and flesh unchangeable and impassible according to the divine nature, could neither shed tears nor feel any disturbance at the death of the friend.
So too, as the passion drew near, Christ is troubled according to His soul, He Himself saying: 'Now is my soul troubled' (John xii. 27). Likewise on the cross Christ dies according to the flesh, the Apostle saying: 'For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures' (1 Cor. xv. 3, 4).
Since, then, it has been distinguished by evident manifestation what in Christ was proper to the soul, what to the flesh, and what also to the Godhead—since one and the same Christ was both troubled and dead—yet in both cases the truth of God and man is so preserved that, although Christ was troubled according to the soul as the passion drew near, and the same Christ died according to the body on the cross, the divinity of Christ, remaining undisturbed and immortal, neither departed from the troubled soul nor from the dying body, and yet was neither troubled in the trouble of the soul nor did it die in the death of the body: for there is one Christ, 'who was delivered up on account of our offenses, and rose again on account of our justification' (Rom.
iv. 25), just as, truly dead, He could not die, so in a true passion He remained impassible. CHAPTER XVII. Christ demonstrates in Himself the truth of each nature. Christ's person is one, although the nature is not single. He, in order to demonstrate in Himself both the true mortality of man and the true immortality of the Godhead, when the Jews said: 'What sign do you show us, that you do these things?' Jesus answered and said to them: 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up' (John ii. 18, 19). But what that temple was, the holy evangelist showed, saying: 'But He spoke of the temple of His body' (Ibid. 21).
There was shown, therefore, both the truth of the human substance, which the Jews could destroy in Christ, He Himself willing it; and the truth of the divine nature, by which Christ could raise up the temple of His body: for when, Christ having died, the soul forsook the flesh, then that temple was destroyed, which had been built up of soul and flesh; and when the soul returned to the flesh, then that temple was raised up on the third day: and yet, on account of the one person of the God-man Christ, the same one died in His body who raised up the temple of His body.
So too, when, according to the oracle of Isaiah prophesying, He 'gave His back to the scourges, His cheeks to the palms, and did not turn away His face from the confusion of spitting' (Isa. l. 6), God suffered all these things in the flesh, yet did not suffer-with the flesh, because God felt the suffering in the flesh, though He did not feel it with the flesh. For there is one person of the God-man Christ, which Paul also commends, saying: 'For what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it is for your sake in the person of Christ' (2 Cor. ii. 10); and although the person in Christ is one, yet the substance in Christ is not one: because true God so assumed true man that in the truth of the human assumption He did not lose the truth of the Godhead;