Dialogue II.—The Unconfounded (part 2 of 3)

Orth.—But suppose he were to ask for proof of what you say?

Eran.—I could very easily give it. I shall quote the oracles of the Evangelists "The Child Jesus grew and waxed strong in spirit and the grace of God was upon him"¹²⁷² and again "Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and men."¹²⁷³ I should say that these have nothing to do with Godhead for the body increased in stature, and in wisdom the soul—not that which is without reason, but the reasonable. God the Word then took on Him a reasonable soul.

Orth.—Good Sir, you have bravely broken through the three fold phalanx of your foes; but that union, and the famous commixture and confusion, not in two ways only but in three, you have scattered and undone; and not only have you pointed out the distinction between Godhead and manhood, but you have in two ways distinguished the manhood by pointing out that the soul is one thing and the body another, so that no longer two, according to our argument, but three natures of our Saviour Jesus Christ may be understood.

Eran.—Yes; for did not you say that there is another substance of the soul besides the nature of the body?

Orth.—Yes.

Eran.—How then does the argument seem absurd to you?

Orth.—Because while you object to two, you have admitted three natures.

Eran.—The contest with our antagonists compels us to this, for how could any one in any other way argue against those who deny the assumption of the flesh, or of the soul, or of the mind, but by adducing proofs on these points from the divine Scripture? And how could any one confute them who in their readiness strive to belittle the Godhead of the only Begotten but by pointing out that the divine Scripture speaks sometimes theologically and sometimes oeconomically.

Orth.—What you now say is true. It is what I, nay what all say, who keep whole the apostolic rule. You yourself have become a supporter of our doctrines.

Eran.—How do I support yours, while I refuse to acknowledge two sons?

Orth.—When did you ever hear of our affirming two sons?

Eran.—He who asserts two natures asserts two sons.

Orth.—Then you assert three sons, for you have spoken of three natures.

Eran.—In no other way was it possible to meet the argument of my opponents.

Orth.—Hear this same thing from us too; for both you and I confront the same antagonists.

Eran.—But I do not assert two natures after the union.

Orth.—And yet after many generations of the union a moment ago you used the same words. Explain to us however in what sense you assert one nature after the union. Do you mean one nature derived from both or that one nature remains after the destruction of the other?

Eran.—I maintain that the Godhead remains and that the manhood was swallowed up by it.¹²⁷⁴

Orth.—Fables of the Gentiles, all this, and follies of the Manichees. I am ashamed so much as to mention such things. The Greeks had their gods' swallowings¹²⁷⁵ and the Manichees wrote of the daughter of light. But we reject such teaching as being as absurd as it is impious, for how could a nature absolute and uncompounded, comprehending the universe, unapproachable and infinite, have absorbed the nature which it assumed?

Eran.—Like the sea receiving a drop of honey, for straightway the drop, as it mingles with the ocean's water, disappears.

Orth.—The sea and the drop are different in quantity, though alike in quality; the one is greatest, the other is least; the one is sweet and the other is bitter; but in all other respects you will find a very close relationship. The nature of both is moist, liquid, and fluid. Both are created. Both are lifeless yet each alike is called a body. There is nothing then absurd in these cognate natures undergoing commixture, and in the one being made to disappear by the other. In the case before us on the contrary the difference is infinite, and so great that no figure of the reality can be found. I will however endeavour to point out to you several instances of substances which are mixed without being confounded, and remain unimpaired.

Eran.—Who in the world ever heard of an unmixed mixture?

Orth.—I shall endeavour to make you admit this.

Eran.—Should what you are about to advance prove true we will not oppose the truth.

Orth.—Answer then, dissenting or assenting as the argument may seem good to you.

Eran.—I will answer.

Orth.—Does the light at its rising seem to you to fill all the atmosphere except where men shut up in caverns might remain bereft of it?

Eran.—Yes.

Orth.—And does all the light seem to you to be diffused through all the atmosphere?

Eran.—I am with you so far.

Orth.—And is not the mixture diffused through all that is subject to it?

Eran.—Certainly.

Orth.—But, now, this illuminated atmosphere, do we not see it as light and call it light?

Eran.—Quite so.

Orth.—And yet when the light is present we sometimes are aware of moisture and aridity; frequently of heat and cold.

Eran.—Yes.

Orth.—And after the departure of the light the atmosphere afterwards remains alone by itself.

Eran.—True.

Orth.—Consider this example too. When iron is brought in contact with fire it is fired.

Eran.—Certainly.

Orth.—And the fire is diffused through its whole substance?

Eran.—Well?

Orth.—How, then, does not the complete union, and the mixture universally diffused, change the iron's nature?

Eran.—But it changes it altogether. It is now reckoned no longer as iron, but as fire, and indeed it has the active properties of fire.

Orth.—But does not the smith call it iron, and put it on the anvil and smite it with his hammer?

Eran.—Unquestionably.

Orth.—Then the nature of the iron was not damaged by contact with the fire. If then, in natural bodies, instances may be found of an unconfounded mixture, it is sheer folly in the case of the nature which knows neither corruption nor change to entertain the idea of confusion and destruction of the assumed nature, and all the more so when this nature was assumed to bring blessing on the race.

Eran.—What I assert is not the destruction of the assumed nature, but its change into the substance of Godhead.

Orth.—Then the human race is no longer limited as heretofore?

Eran.—No.

Orth.—When did it undergo this change?

Eran.—After the complete union.

Orth.—And what date do you assign to this?

Eran.—I have said again and again, that of the conception.

Orth.—Yet after the conception He was an unborn babe in the womb; after His birth. He was a babe¹²⁷⁶ and was called a babe, and was worshipped by shepherds, and in like manner became a boy, and was so called by the angel.¹²⁷⁷ Do you acknowledge all this? or do you think I am inventing fables?

Eran.—This is taught in the history of the divine gospels, and cannot be gainsaid.

Orth.—Now let us investigate what follows. We acknowledge, do we not, that the Lord was circumcised?

Eran.—Yes.

Orth.—Of what was there a circumcision? Of flesh or Godhead?

Eran.—Of the flesh.

Orth.—Of what was then the growth and increase in wisdom and stature?

Eran.—This, of course, is not applicable to Godhead.

Orth.—Nor hunger and thirst?

Eran.—No.

Orth.—Nor walking about, and being weary, and falling asleep?

Eran.—No.

Orth.—If then the union took place at the conception, and all these things came to pass after the conception and the birth, then, after the union, the manhood did not lose its own nature.

Eran.—I have not stated my meaning exactly. It was after the resurrection from the dead that the flesh underwent the change into Godhead.

Orth.—Then, after the resurrection, nothing of all that indicates its nature remained in it?

Eran.—If it remained, the divine change did not take place.

Orth.—How then was it that He shewed His hands and His feet to the disciples who disbelieved?

Eran.—Just as He came in when the doors were shut.

Orth.—But He came in when the doors were shut just as He came out from the womb, though the virgin's bolts and bars were undrawn, and just as He walked upon the sea. Then according to your argument not even yet had the change of nature taken place?

Eran.—The Lord shewed His hands to the Apostles in the same way as He wrestled with Jacob.

Orth.—No; the Lord does not allow us to understand it in this sense. The disciples thought they saw a spirit, but the Lord dispelled this idea, and shewed the nature of the flesh, for He said "Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."¹²⁷⁸ And observe the exactness of the language. He does not say "is not flesh and bones," but "has not flesh and bones," in order to point out that the nature of the possessor and the nature of that which is possessed are distinct and separate. Just in the same way that which took and that which was taken are separate and distinct, and the Christ is beheld made one of both. Thus the part possessing is entirely different from the part possessed; and yet does not divide into two persons Him who is an object of thought in them. The Lord, indeed, while the disciples were still in doubt, asked for food and took and ate it, not consuming the food only in appearance, nor satisfying to the need of the body.

Eran.—But one of these alternatives must be accepted; either He partook because He needed, or else, needing not, He seemed to eat, and did not really partake of food.

Orth.—His body now become immortal required no food. Of them that rise the Lord says: "they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as Angels."¹²⁷⁹ The apostles however bear witness that He partook of the food, for the blessed Luke in the preface to the Acts says "being assembled together with the apostles the Lord commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem"¹²⁸⁰ and the very divine Peter says more distinctly: "Who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead."¹²⁸¹ For since eating is proper to them that live this present life, of necessity the Lord by means of eating and drinking proved the resurrection of the flesh to them that did not acknowledge it to be real. This same course He pursued in the case of Lazarus and of Jairus' daughter. For when He had raised up the latter He ordered that something should be given her to eat¹²⁸² and He made Lazarus sit with Him at the table¹²⁸³ and so shewed the reality of the rising again.

Eran.—If we grant that the Lord really ate, let us grant that after the resurrection all men partake of food.

Orth.—What was done by the Saviour through a certain oeconomy is not a rule and law of nature. This follows from the fact that He did other things by oeconomy which shall by no means be the lot of them that live again.

Eran.—What do you mean?

Orth.—Will not the bodies of them that rise become incorruptible and immortal?

Eran.—So the divine Paul has taught us. "It is sown" he says "in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body."¹²⁸⁴

Orth.—But the Lord, who raises the bodies of all men, unmaimed and unmarred (for lameness of limb and blindness of eye are unknown among them that are risen),¹²⁸⁵ left in His own body the prints of the nails, and the wound in His side, whereof are witnesses both the Lord Himself and the hand of Thomas.

Eran.—True.

Orth.—If then after the resurrection the Lord both partook of food, and shewed His hands and His feet to His disciples, and in them the prints of the nails, and His side with the mark of the wound in it, and said to them, "Handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have"¹²⁸⁶ it follows that after His resurrection the nature of His body was preserved and was not changed into another substance.

Eran.—Then after the resurrection it is mortal and subject to suffering?

Orth.—By no means; it is incorruptible, impassible, and immortal.

Eran.—If it is incorruptible, impassible, and immortal, it has been changed into another nature.

Orth.—Therefore the bodies of all men will be changed into another substance, for all will be incorruptible and immortal. Or have you not heard the words of the Apostle, "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality"?¹²⁸⁷

Eran.—I have heard.

Orth.—Therefore the nature remains, but its corruption is changed into incorruption, and its mortal into immortality. But let us look at the matter in this way; we call a body that is sick and a body that is whole, in the same way, a body.

Eran.—Unquestionably.

Orth.—Wherefore?

Eran.—Since both partake of the same substance.

Orth.—Yet we see in them a very great difference, for the one is whole, perfect, and unhurt; the other has either lost an eye, or has a broken leg, or has undergone some other suffering.

Eran.—But to the same nature belong both health and sickness.

Orth.—So the body is called substance; disease and health are called accident.

Eran.—Of course. For these things are accidents of the body, and again cease to be so.

Orth.—In the same way corruption and death must be called accidents, and not substances, for they too are accidents and cease to be so.

Eran.—True.

Orth.—So the body of the Lord rose incorruptible, impassible, and immortal, and is worshipped by the powers of heaven, and is yet a body having its former limitation.

Eran.—In these points you seem to say sooth, but after its assumption into heaven I do not think that you will deny that it was changed into the nature of Godhead.

Orth.—I would not so say persuaded only by human arguments, for I am not so rash as to say anything concerning which divine Scripture is silent. But I have heard the divine Paul exclaiming "God hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead,"¹²⁸⁸ and I have learnt from the holy Angels that He will come in like manner as the disciples saw Him going into heaven.¹²⁸⁹ Now they saw His nature not unlimited. For I have heard the words of the Lord, "Ye shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven,"¹²⁹⁰ and I acknowledge that what is seen of men is limited, for the unlimited nature is invisible. Furthermore to sit upon a throne of glory and to set the lambs upon the right and the kids upon the left¹²⁹¹ indicates limitation.

Eran.—Then He was not unlimited even before the incarnation, for the prophet saw Him surrounded by the Seraphim.¹²⁹²

Orth.—The prophet did not see the substance of God, but a certain appearance accommodated to his capacity. After the resurrection, however, all the world will see the very visible nature of the judge.

Eran.—You promised that you would adduce no argument without evidence, but you are introducing arguments adapted to us.

Orth.—I have learnt these things from the divine Scripture. I have heard the words of the prophet Zechariah "They shall look on Him whom they pierced,"¹²⁹³ and how shall the event follow the prophecy unless the crucifiers recognise the nature which they crucified? And I have heard the cry of the victorious martyr Stephen, "Behold I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God,"¹²⁹⁴ and he saw the visible, not the invisible nature.

Eran.—These things are thus written, but I do not think that you will be able to show that the body, after the ascension into heaven, is called body by the inspired writers.

Orth.—What has been already said indicates the body perfectly plainly; for what is seen is a body; but I will nevertheless point out to you that even after the assumption the body of the Lord is called a body. Hear the teaching of the Apostle, "For our conversation is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body."¹²⁹⁵ It was not changed into another nature, but remained a body, full however of divine glory, and sending forth beams of light. The bodies of the saints shall be fashioned like unto it. But if it was changed into another nature, their bodies will be likewise changed, for they shall be fashioned like unto it. But if the bodies of the saints preserve the character of their nature, then also the body of the Lord in like manner keeps its own nature unchanged.

Eran.—Then will the bodies of the saints be equal with the body of the Lord?

Orth.—In its incorruption and its immortality they too will share. Moreover in its glory they will participate, as says the Apostle, "If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together."¹²⁹⁶ It is in quantity that the vast difference may be found, a difference as great as between sun and stars, or rather between master and slaves, and that which gives and that which receives light. Yet has He given a share of His own name to His servants and as He is Light, calls His saints light, for "Ye," He says, "are the Light of the world,"¹²⁹⁷ and being named servants and being named "Sun of Righteousness"¹²⁹⁸ He says of his servants "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the Sun."¹²⁹⁹ It is therefore according to quality, not according to quantity, that the bodies of the saints shall be fashioned like unto the body of the Lord. Now I have shewn you plainly what you bade me. Further, if you please, let us look at the matter in yet another way.

Eran.—One ought "to stir every stone," as the proverb says,¹³⁰⁰ to get at the truth; above all when it is a question of divine doctrines.

Orth.—Tell me now; the mystic symbols which are offered to God by them who perform priestly rites, of what are they symbols?

Eran.—Of the body and blood of the Lord.

Orth.—Of the real body or not?

Eran.—The real.

Orth.—Good. For there must be the archetype of the image. So painters imitate nature and paint the images of visible objects.

Eran.—True.

Orth.—If, then, the divine mysteries are antitypes of the real body,¹³⁰¹ therefore even now the body of the Lord is a body, not changed into nature of Godhead, but filled with divine glory.

Eran.—You have opportunely introduced the subject of the divine mysteries for from it I shall be able to show you the change of the Lord's body into another nature. Answer now to my questions.

Orth.—I will answer.

Eran.—What do you call the gift which is offered before the priestly invocation?

Orth.—It were wrong to say openly; perhaps some uninitiated are present.

Eran.—Let your answer be put enigmatically.

Orth.—Food of grain of such a sort.

Eran.—And how name we the other symbol?

Orth.—This name too is common, signifying species of drink.

Eran.—And after the consecration how do you name these?

Orth.—Christ's body and Christ's blood.

Eran.—And do you believe that you partake of Christ's body and blood?

Orth.—I do.

Eran.—As, then, the symbols of the Lord's body and blood are one thing before the priestly invocation, and after the invocation are changed and become another thing; so the Lord's body after the assumption is changed into the divine substance.

Orth.—You are caught in the net you have woven yourself. For even after the consecration the mystic symbols are not deprived of their own nature; they remain in their former substance figure and form; they are visible and tangible as they were before. But they are regarded as what they are become, and believed so to be, and are worshipped¹³⁰² as being what they are believed to be. Compare then the image with the archetype, and you will see the likeness, for the type must be like the reality. For that body preserves its former form, figure, and limitation and in a word the substance of the body; but after the resurrection it has become immortal and superior to corruption; it has become worthy of a seat on the right hand; it is adored by every creature as being called the natural body of the Lord.

Eran.—Yes; and the mystic symbol changes its former appellation; it is no longer called by the name it went by before, but is styled body. So must the reality be called God, and not body.

Orth.—You seem to me to be ignorant—for He is called not only body but even bread of life. So the Lord Himself used this name¹³⁰³ and that very body we call divine body, and giver of life, and of the Master and of the Lord, teaching that it is not common to every man but belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ Who is God and Man. "For Jesus Christ" is "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."¹³⁰⁴

Eran.—You have said a great deal about this, but I follow the saints who have shone of old in the Church; show me then, if you can, these in their writings dividing the natures after the union.

Orth.—I will read you their works, and I am sure you will be astonished at the countless mentions of the distinction which in their struggle against impious heretics they have inserted in their writings. Hear now those whose testimony I have already adduced speaking openly and distinctly on these points.

Testimony of the holy Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, and martyr:—

From the Epistle to the Smyrnæans:¹³⁰⁵ "I acknowledge and believe Him after His resurrection to be existent in the flesh: and when He came to them that were with Peter He said to them Take; handle me and see, for I am not a bodiless dæmon.'¹³⁰⁶ And straightway they took hold of him and believed."

Of the same from the same epistle:—

"And after His Resurrection He ate with them, and drank with them, as being of the flesh, although He was spiritually one with the Father."

Testimony of Irenæus, the ancient bishop of Lyons;—

From the third Book of his work "Against Heresies." (Chap. XX.)

"As we have said before, He united man to God. For had not a man vanquished man's adversary, the enemy would not have been vanquished aright; and again, had not God granted the boon of salvation we should not have possessed it in security. And had not man been united to God, he could not have shared in the incorruption. For it behoved the mediator of God and men, by means of His close kinship to either, to bring them both into friendship and unanimity, and to set man close to God and to make God known to men."

Of the same from the third book of the same treatise (Chapter XVIII):—

"So again in his Epistle he says Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God,'¹³⁰⁷ recognising one and the same Jesus Christ to whom the gates of heaven were opened, on account of His assumption in the flesh. Who in the same flesh in which He also suffered shall come revealing the glory of the Father."

Of the same from the fourth book (Chapter VII):—

"As Isaiah saith He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root. Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit.'¹³⁰⁸ So his fruit being scattered through the whole world, they who erst brought forth good fruit (for of them was produced the Christ in the flesh and the apostles) were abandoned and removed. And now they are no longer fit for bringing forth fruit."

Of the same from the same book (Chapter LIX):—

"And he judges also them of Ebion.¹³⁰⁹ How can they be saved unless it was God who wrought their salvation on earth, or how shall man come to God unless God came to man?"

Of the same from the same book (Chapter LXIV):—

"They who preach that Emmanuel was of the Virgin set forth the union of God the Word with His creature."

Of the same from the same treatise (Book V. Chap. I.):—

"Now these things came to pass not in seeming but in essential truth, for if He appeared to be man though He was not man then the Spirit of God did not continue to be what in truth It is; for the Spirit is invisible; nor was there any truth in Him, for He was not what He appeared to be. And we have said before that Abraham and the rest of the prophets beheld Him in prophecy prophesying what was destined to come to pass in actual sight. If then now too He appeared to be of such a character, though in reality He was not what He appeared, then a kind of prophetic vision would have been given to men, and we must still look for yet another advent in which He will really be what He is now seen to be in prophecy. Now we have demonstrated that there is no difference between the statements that He only appeared in seeming and that He took nothing from Mary, for He did not really even possess flesh and blood whereby He redeemed us, unless He renewed in Himself the old creation of Adam. The sect of Valentinus are therefore vain in teaching thus that they may cast out the life of the flesh."

Testimony of the holy Hippolytus, bishop and martyr, from his work on the distribution of the talents:¹³¹⁰—

"Any one might say that these and those who uphold otherwise are neighbours, erring as they do in the same manner, for even they either confess that the Christ appeared in life as mere man, denying the talent of His Godhead, or else acknowledging Him as God, on the other hand they deny the man, representing that He deluded the sight of them that beheld Him by unreal appearances; and that He wore manhood not as a Man but was rather a mere imaginary semblance, as Marcion and Valentinus and the Gnostics teach, wrenching away the Word from the flesh, and rejecting the one talent, the incarnation."

Of the same from his letter to a certain Queen:¹³¹¹—

"He calls Him the first fruits of them that sleep,' as being the first born from the dead,'¹³¹² and He, after His resurrection, wishing to show that that which was risen was the same as that which had undergone death, when the disciples were doubting, called Thomas to Him, and said, Come hither handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see me have.'"¹³¹³

Of the same from his discourse on Elkanah and Hannah:—

"Wherefore three seasons of the year typified the Saviour Himself that He might fulfil the mysteries predicted about Him. In the Passover, that He might shew Himself as the sheep doomed to be sacrificed and shew a true Passover as says the Apostle, Christ, God,¹³¹⁴ our Passover was sacrificed for us.' At Pentecost that He might announce the kingdom of heaven ascending Himself first into heaven and offering to God man as a gift."

Of the same from his work on the great Psalm:¹³¹⁵—

"He who drew from the nethermost hell man first formed of the earth when lost and held fast in bonds of death; He who came down from above and lifted up him that was down; He who became Evangelist of the dead, ransomer of souls and resurrection of them that were entombed; this was He who became succourer of vanquished man in Himself, like man firstborn Word; visiting the first formed Adam in the Virgin; the spiritual seeking the earthy in the womb; the ever-living him who by disobedience died; the heavenly calling the earthly to the world above, the highborn meaning to make the slave free by His own obedience; He who turned to adamant man crumbled into dust and made serpents' meat; He who made man hanging on a tree of wood Lord over him who had conquered Him and so by a tree of wood is proved victorious."

Of the same from the same book:—

"They who do not now recognise the Son of God in the flesh will one day recognise Him when He comes as judge in glory, though now in an inglorious body suffering wrong."

Of the same from the same book:—

"Moreover the apostles when they had come to the sepulchre on the third day did not find the body of Jesus, just as the children of Israel went up on the mountain, and could not find the tomb of Moses."

Of the same from his interpretation of Psalm II.:—

"When He had come into the world He was manifested as God and Man. His manhood is easy of perception because He is ahungered and aweary, in toil He is athirst, in fear He flees,¹³¹⁶ in prayer He grieves; He falls asleep upon a pillow, He prays that the cup of suffering may pass from Him, being in an agony He sweats, He is strengthened by an angel, betrayed by Judas, dishonoured by Caiaphas, set at nought by Herod, scourged by Pilate, mocked by soldiers, nailed to a cross by Jews, He commends His spirit to the Father with a cry, He leans His head as He breathes His last, He is pierced in the side with a spear and rolled in fine linen, is laid in a tomb, and on the third day He is raised by the Father. No less plainly may His divinity be seen when He is worshipped by angels, gazed on by shepherds, waited for by Simeon, testified to by Anna, sought out by Magi, pointed out by a Star, at the wedding feast makes water wine, rebukes the sea astir by force of winds, and on the same sea walks, makes a man blind from birth see, raises Lazarus who had been four days dead, works many and various wonders, remits sins and gives power to His disciples."

Of the same from his work on Psalm XXIV.:—

"He comes to the heavenly gates, angels travel with Him and the gates of the heavens are shut. For He hath not yet ascended into heaven. Now first to the heavenly powers flesh appears ascending. The Word then goes forth to the powers from the angels that speed before the Lord and Saviour, Lift the Gates ye princes and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors and the King of glory shall come in.'"¹³¹⁷

Testimony of the holy Eustathius, bishop of Antioch and confessor.

From his work on The Titles of the Psalms:—

"He predicted that He would sit upon a holy throne, shewing that He has been set forth on the same throne as the divine Spirit on account of the God that dwells in Him continually."

Of the same from his work upon the Soul:—

"Before His passion in each case He predicted His bodily death, saying that He would be betrayed to the father of the High Priest, and announcing the trophy of the Cross. And after the passion, when He had risen on the third day from the dead, His disciples being in doubt as to His resurrection, He appeared to them in His very body and confessed that He had complete flesh and bones, submitting to their sight His wounded side and shewing them the prints of the nails."

Of the same from his discourse on "The Lord formed me in the beginning of His ways":¹³¹⁸—

"Paul did not say conformed to the Son of God' but conformed to the image of His Son'¹³¹⁹ in order to point out a distinction between the Son and His image, for the Son, wearing the divine tokens of His Father's Excellence, is an image of His Father; for since like are generated of like, offspring appear as very images of their parents, but the manhood which He wore is an image of the Son, as images even of different colours are painted on wax,¹³²⁰ some being wrought by hand and some by nature and likeness. Moreover the very law of truth announces this, for the bodiless spirit of wisdom is not conformed to bodily men, but the express image¹³²¹ made man by the spirit bearing the same number of members with all the rest, and clad in similar form."

Of the same from the same work:—

"That he speaks of the body as conformed to those of men he teaches more clearly in his Epistle to the Philippians, our conversation' he says is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body.'¹³²² And if by changing the form of the vile body of men He fashions it like unto His own body, then the false teaching of our opponents is shewn to be in every way worthless."

Of the same from the same work:—

"But as being born of the Virgin He is said to have been made man of the woman,¹³²³ so He is described as being made under the law because of His sometimes walking by the precepts of the law, as for instance when His parents zealously urged His circumcision, when He was a child eight days old, as relates the evangelist Luke, afterwards they brought Him to present Him to the Lord,' bringing the offerings of purification' to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.'¹³²⁴ As then the gifts of purification were offered on His behalf according to the law, and He underwent circumcision on the eighth day, the Apostle very properly writes that He was thus brought under the law. Not indeed that the Word was subject to the law, (as our calumnious opponents suppose) being Himself the law, nor did God, who by one breath can cleanse and hallow all things, need sacrifices of purification. But He took from the Virgin the members of a man and became subject to the law and was purified according to the rite of the firstborn, not because He submitted to this treatment from any need on His part of such observance, but in order that He might redeem from the slavery of the law them that were sold to the doom of the curse."

Testimony of the holy Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.

From his Second Discourse against heresies:¹³²⁵—

"We should not have been redeemed from sin and the curse had not the flesh which the Word wore been by nature that of man, for we should have had nothing in common with that which was not our own; just so man would not have been made God, had not the Word which was made flesh been by nature of the Father and verily and properly His. And the combination is of this character that to the natural God may be joined the natural man, and so his salvation and deification be secure. Therefore let them that deny Him to be naturally of the Father, and own Son of His substance, deny too that He took very flesh of man from the Virgin Mary."

Of the same from his Epistle to Epictetus:—

"If on account of the Saviour's Body being, and being described in the Scriptures as being, derived from Mary, and a human Body, they fancy that a quaternity is substituted for a Trinity, as though some addition were made by the body, they are quite wrong; they put the creature on a par with the Creator, and suppose that the Godhead is capable of being added to. They fail to see that the Word was not made flesh on account of any addition to Godhead, but that the flesh may rise. Not for the aggrandisement of the Word did He come forth from Mary, but that the human race may be redeemed. How can they think that the body ransomed and quickened by the Word can add anything in the way of Godhead to the Word that quickened it?"

Of the same from the same Epistle:—

"Let them be told that if the Word had been a creature, the creature would not have assumed a body to quicken it. For what help can creatures get from a creature standing itself in need of salvation? But the Word, Himself Creator, was made maker of created things, and therefore in the fulness of the ages He attached the creature to Himself, that once more as a Creator He might renew it, and might be able to create it afresh."

From the longer Discourse "De Fide":—

"This also we add concerning the words Sit thou on my right hand,'¹³²⁶ that they are said of the Lord's body. For if the Lord saith, do not I fill heaven and earth,'¹³²⁷ as says Jeremiah, and God contains all things, and is contained of none, on what kind of throne does He sit? It is therefore the body to which He says Sit thou on my right hand,' of which too the devil with his wicked powers was foe, and Jews and Gentiles too. Through this body too He was made and was called High Priest and Apostle through the mystery whereof He gave to us, saying This is my Body for you'¹³²⁸ and my Blood of the New Testament' (not of the Old), shed for you."¹³²⁹ Now Godhead hath neither body nor blood; but the manhood which He bore of Mary was the cause of them, of whom the Apostles said Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you.'"¹³³⁰

Of the same from his book against the Arians:—

"And when he says Wherefore God hath also highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name'¹³³¹ he speaks of the temple of the body, not of the Godhead, for the Most High is not exalted, but the flesh of the Most High is exalted, and to the flesh of the Most High He gave a name which is above every name. Nor did the Word of God receive the designation of God as a favour, but His flesh was held divine as well as Himself."

Of the same from the same work:—

"And when he says the Holy Ghost was not yet because that Jesus was not yet glorified,'¹³³² he says that His flesh was not yet glorified, for the Lord of glory is not glorified, but the flesh itself receives glory of the glory of the Lord as it mounts with Him into Heaven; whence he says the spirit of adoption was not yet among men, because the first fruits taken from men had not yet ascended into heaven. Wherever then the Scripture says that the Son received and was glorified, it speaks because of His manhood, not His Godhead."

Of the same from the same work:—

"So that He is very God both before His being made man and after His being made mediator of God and men, Jesus Christ united to the Father in spirit, and to us in flesh, who mediated between God and men, and who is not only man but also God."

Testimony of the Holy Ambrosius, bishop of Milan.

In his Exposition of the Faith:—

"We confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, was begotten before all ages, without beginning, of the Father, and that in these last days the same was made flesh of the holy Virgin Mary, assumed the manhood, in its perfection, of a reasonable soul and body, of one substance with the Father as touching His Godhead and of one substance with us as touching His manhood. For union of two perfect natures hath been after an ineffable manner. Wherefore we acknowledge one Christ, one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; knowing that being coeternal with His own Father as touching His Godhead, by virtue of which also He is creator of all, He deigned, after the assent of the Holy Virgin, when she said to the angel Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word'¹³³³ to build after an ineffable fashion a temple out of her for Himself, and to unite this temple to Himself by her conception, not taking and uniting with Himself a body coeternal with His own substance, and brought from heaven, but of the matter of our substance, that is of the Virgin. God the Word was not turned into flesh; His appearance was not unreal; keeping ever His own substance immutably and invariably He took the first fruits of our nature, and united them to Himself. God the Word did not take His beginning from the Virgin, but being coeternal with His own Father He of infinite kindness deigned to unite to Himself the first fruits of our nature, undergoing no mixture but in either substance appearing one and the same, as it is written Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.'¹³³⁴ For the divine Christ, as touching my substance which he took is destroyed, and the same Christ raises the destroyed temple as touching the divine substance in which also He is Creator of all things. Never at any time after the Union which He deigned to make with Himself from the moment of the conception did He depart from His own temple, nor indeed through His ineffable love for mankind could depart.

"The same Christ is both passible and impassible; as touching His manhood passible and as touching His Godhead impassible. Behold behold me, it is I, I have undergone no change'—and when God the Word had raised His own temple and in it had wrought out the resurrection and renewal of our nature, He shewed this nature to His disciples and said Handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me,' not be' but have.'¹³³⁵ So He says, referring to both the possessor and the possessed in order that you may perceive that what had taken place was not mixture, not change, not variation, but union. On this account too He shewed the prints of the nails and the wound of the spear and ate before His disciples to convince them by every means that the resurrection of our nature had been renewed in Him; and further because in accordance with the blessed substance of His Godhead unchanged, impassible, immortal, He lived in need of nought, He by concession permitted all that can be felt to be brought to His own temple, and by His own power raised it up, and by means of His own temple made perfect the renewal of our nature.

"Them therefore that assert that the Christ was mere man, that God the Word was passible, or changed into flesh, or that the body which He had was consubstantial, or that He brought it from Heaven, or that it was an unreality; or assert that God the Word being mortal needed to receive His resurrection from the Father, or that the body which He assumed was without a soul, or manhood without a mind, or that the two natures of the Christ became one nature by confusion and commixture; them that deny that our Lord Jesus Christ was two natures unconfounded, but one person, as He is one Christ and one Son, all these the catholic and apostolic Church condemns."

Of the same:¹³³⁶—

"If then the flesh of all was in Christ or hath been in Christ subject to wrongs, how can it be held to be of one essence with the Godhead? For if the Word and the flesh which derives its nature from earth are of one essence, then the Word and the soul which He took in its perfection are of one essence, for the Word is of one nature with God both according to the Word of the Father, and the confession of the Son Himself in the words, I and my Father are one.'¹³³⁷ Thus the Father must be held to be of the same substance with the body. Why any longer are ye wroth with the Arians, who say that the Son is a creature of God, while you assert yourselves that the Father is of one substance with His creatures?"

Of the same from his letter to the Emperor Gratianus:¹³³⁸—

"Let us preserve a distinction between Godhead and flesh. One Son of God speaks in both, since in Him both natures exist. The same Christ speaks, yet not always in the same but sometimes in a different manner. Observe how at one time He expresses divine glory and at another human feeling. As God He utters the things of God, since He is the Word; as man He speaks with humility because He converses in my essence."

On the same from the same book:¹³³⁹—

"As to the passage where we read that the Lord of glory was crucified,¹³⁴⁰ let us not suppose that He was crucified in His own glory. But since He is both God and man, as touching His Godhead God, and as touching the assumption of the flesh, a man, Jesus Christ, the Lord of Glory, is said to have been crucified. For He partakes of either nature—that is the human and the divine. In the nature of manhood He underwent the passion in order that He who suffered might be said to be without distinction both Lord of Glory and Son of Man. As it is written He that came down from Heaven.'"¹³⁴¹

Similarly of the same:¹³⁴²—

"Let then vain questions about words be silent, as it is written, the kingdom of God is not in enticing words' but in demonstration of the spirit.'¹³⁴³ For there is one Son of God who speaks in both ways, since both natures exist in Him; but although He Himself speaks He does not speak always in the same way; for you see in Him at one time God's glory, at another time man's feeling. As God He utters divine things, being the Word; as man He utters human things, since in this nature He spoke."

Of the same from his work on the Incarnation of the Lord against the Apollinarians:¹³⁴⁴—

"But while we are confuting these, another set spring up who assert the body of the Christ and His godhead to be of one nature. What hell hath vomited forth so terrible a blasphemy? Really Arians are more tolerable, whose infidelity, on account of these men, is strengthened, so that with greater opposition they deny Father, Son and Holy Ghost to be of one substance, for they did at least endeavour to maintain the Godhead of the Lord and His flesh to be of one nature."

Of the same (from the same chapter):—

"He has frequently told me that he maintains the exposition of the Nicene Council, but in that examination our Fathers laid down that the Word of God, not the flesh, was of one substance with the Father, and they confessed that the Word came from the substance of the Father but that the flesh is of the Virgin. Why then do they hold out to us the name of the Nicene Council, while in reality they are introducing innovations of which our forefathers never entertained the thought?"

Of the same against Apollinarius:¹³⁴⁵—

"Refuse thou to allow that the body is by nature on a par with the Godhead. Even though thou believe the body of the Christ to be real and bring it to the altar for transformation,¹³⁴⁶ and fail to distinguish the nature of the body and of the Godhead we shall say to thee, If thou offer rightly and fail to distinguish rightly, thou sinnest; hold thy peace.'¹³⁴⁷ Distinguish what belongs naturally to us, and what is peculiar to the Word. For I had not what was naturally His, and He had not what was naturally mine, but He took what was naturally mine in order to make us partakers of what was His. And He received this not for confusion but for completion."

Of the same, a little further on:¹³⁴⁸—

"Let them who say that the nature of the Word has been changed into nature of the body say so no more, lest by the same interpretation the nature of the Word seem to have been changed into the corruption of sin. For there is a distinction between what took, and what was taken. Power came over the Virgin, as in the words of the angel to her, The power of the highest shall overshadow thee.'¹³⁴⁹ But what was born was of the body of the Virgin, and on this account the descent was divine but the conception human. Therefore the nature of the flesh and of the godhead could not be the same."¹³⁵⁰

The testimony of St. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea.

From his homily on Thanksgiving:—

"Wherefore when He wept over His friend He shewed His participation in human nature and set us free from two extremes, suffering us neither to grow over soft in suffering nor to be insensible to pain. As then the Lord suffered hunger after solid food had been digested, and thirst when the moisture in His body was exhausted; and was aweary when His nerves and sinews were strained by His journeying, it was not that His divinity was weighed down with toil, but that His body showed the wonted symptoms of its nature. Thus too when He allowed Himself to weep He permitted the flesh to take is natural course."

From the same against Eunomius:—

"I say that being in the form of God has the same force as being in God's substance for as to have taken the form of a servant shews our Lord to have been of the substance of the manhood, so the statement that He was in the form of God attributes to Him the peculiar qualities of the divine substance."¹³⁵¹

The testimony of the holy Gregorius, bishop of Nazianzus.

From his discourse De nova dominica:¹³⁵²—

"Believe that He will come again at His glorious advent judging quick and dead,¹³⁵³ no longer flesh but not without a body."

"In order that He may be seen by them that pierced Him¹³⁵⁴ and remain God without grossness."

Of the same from his Epistle to Cledonius:—

"God and man are two natures, as soul and body are two; but there are not two sons, nor yet are there here two men although Paul thus speaks of the outward man and the inward man.¹³⁵⁵ In a word the sources of the Saviour's being are of two kinds, since the visible is distinct from the invisible and the timeless from that which is of time, but He is not two beings. God forbid."

Of the same from the same Exposition to Cledonius:—

"If any one says that the flesh has now been laid aside, and that the Godhead is bare of body, and that it is not and will not come with that which was assumed, let him be deprived of the vision of the glory of the advent! For where is the body now, save with Him that assumed it? For it assuredly has not been, as the Manichees fable, swallowed up by the Son, that it may be honoured through dishonour; it has not been poured out and dissolved in the air like a voice and stream of perfume or flash of unsubstantial lightning. And where is the capacity of being handled after the resurrection, wherein one day it shall be seen by them that pierced Him? For Godhead of itself is invisible."

Of the same from the second discourse about the Son:—

"As the Word He was neither obedient nor disobedient, for these qualities belong to them that are in subjection and to inferiors; the former of the more tractable and the latter of them that deserve condemnation. But in the form of a servant He accommodates Himself to his fellowservants and puts on a form that was not His own, bearing in Himself all of me with all that is mine, that in Himself He may waste and destroy the baser parts as wax is wasted by fire or the mist of the earth by the sun."

Of the same from his discourse on the Theophany:—

"Since He came forth from the Virgin with the assumption of two things mutually opposed to one another, flesh and spirit, whereof the one was taken into God and the other exhibited the grace of the Godhead."

Of the same a little further on:—

"He was sent, but as Man. For His nature was twofold, for without doubt He thenceforth was aweary and hungered and thirsted and suffered agony and shed tears after the custom of a human body."

Of the same from his second discourse about the Son:—

"He would be called God not of the Word, but of the visible creation, for how could He be God of Him that is absolutely God? Just so He is called Father, not of the visible creation, but of the Word. For He was of two-fold nature. Wherefore the one belongs absolutely to both, but the other not absolutely.¹³⁵⁶ For He is absolutely our God, but not absolutely our Father. And it is this conjunction of names which gives rise to the error of heretics. A proof of this lies in the fact that when natures are distinguished in thought, there is a distinction in names. Listen to the words of Paul. The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, The Father of Glory,'¹³⁵⁷—of Christ He is God, of glory Father, and if both are one this is so not by nature but by conjunction. What can be plainer than this? Fifthly let it be said that He receives life, authority, inheritance of nations, power over all flesh, glory, disciples or what you will; all these belong to the manhood."

Of the same from the same work:—

"For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus.'¹³⁵⁸ As man He still pleads for my salvation, because He keeps with Him the body which He took, till he made me God by the power of the incarnation—though He be no longer known according to the flesh that is by affections of the flesh and though He be without sin."

Of the same from the same work:—

"Is it not plain to all that as God He knows, and is ignorant, He says, as man? If, that is, any one distinguish the apparent from that which is an object of intellectual perception. For what gives rise to this opinion is the fact that the appellation of the Son is absolute without relation, it not being added of whom He is the Son; so to give the most pious sense to this ignorance we hold it to belong to the human, and not to the divine."

Testimony of the Holy Gregorius, bishop of Nyssa.

From his catechetical discourse:—

"And who says this that the infinity of the Godhead is comprehended by the limitation of the flesh, as by some vessel?"

Of the same from the same work:—

"But if man's soul by necessity of its nature commingled with the body, is everywhere in authority, what need is there of asserting that the Godhead is limited by the nature of the flesh?"

Of the same from the same work:—

"What hinders us then, while recognising a certain unity and approximation of a divine nature in relation to the human, from retaining the divine intelligence even in this approximation, believing that the divine even when it exists in men is beyond all limitation?"

Of the same from his work against Eunomius:—

"The Son of Mary converses with brothers, but the only begotten has no brothers, for how could the name of only begotten be preserved among brothers? And the same Christ that said God is a spirit'¹³⁵⁹ says to His disciples Handle me,'¹³⁶⁰ to shew that the human nature only can be handled and that the divine is intangible; and He that said I go'¹³⁶¹ indicates removal from place to place, while He that comprehends all things and by Whom,' as says the Apostle, all things were created and by Whom all things consist,'¹³⁶² had among all existing things nothing without and beyond Himself which can stand to Him in the relation of motion or removal."

Of the same from the same work:—

"Being by the right hand of God exalted.'¹³⁶³ Who then was exalted? The lowly or the most high? And what is the lowly if it be not the human? And what is the most high save the divine? But God being most high needs no exaltation, and so the Apostle says that the human is exalted, exalted that is in being made both Lord and Christ.'¹³⁶⁴ Therefore the Apostle does not mean by this term He made' the everlasting existence of the Lord, but the change of the lowly to the exalted which took place on the right hand of God. By this word he declares the mystery of piety, for when he says by the right hand of God exalted' he plainly reveals the ineffable oeconomy of the mystery that the right hand of God which created all things, which is the Lord by whom all things were made and without whom nothing consists of things that were made,¹³⁶⁵ through the union lifted up to Its own exaltation the manhood united to It."

Testimony of St. Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.

From his discourse on "My Father is greater than I":¹³⁶⁶—

"Henceforth distinguish the natures; that of God and that of man. For He was not made man by falling away from God, nor God by increase and advance from man."

Of the same from his discourse on "the Son can do nothing of Himself":¹³⁶⁷—

"For after the resurrection the Lord shews both—both that the body is not of this nature, and that the body rises, for remember the history. After the passion and the resurrection the disciples were gathered together, and when the doors were shut the Lord stood in the midst of them. Never at any time before the passion did He do this. Could not then the Christ have done this even long before? For all things are possible to God.¹³⁶⁸ But before the passion He did not do so lest you should suppose the incarnation an unreality or appearance, and think of the flesh of the Christ as spiritual, or that it came down from heaven and is of another substance than our flesh. Some have invented all these theories with the idea that thereby they reverence the Lord, forgetful that through their thanksgiving they blaspheme themselves, and accuse the truth of a lie: for I say nothing of the lie being altogether absurd. For if He took another body how does that affect mine, which stands in need of salvation? If He brought down flesh from heaven, how does this affect my flesh which was derived from earth?"