On the Incarnation 1 part 1/3

{A} Does the discourse we have given on the Godhead of the Only-Begotten seem to you to be well proportioned, well worked out, and sufficient for our purpose? {B} Very much so.

{A} I think it is in no way lacking in subtle scrutiny—at least so far as it appears to me.

And what do you yourself say, Hermias? {B} I would rightly praise it as correct and finely polished.

{A} Then, dropping all further delay over these matters, are you willing that we should speak of the incarnation of the Only-Begotten, and try to set forth as clearly as possible whatever is the mystery concerning him—so far as it is granted to those who see through a mirror in a riddle and know in part, according to the measure of the gift of the supply of the Spirit, as the divine Paul also writes? {B} Excellently said.

For no one says 'Jesus is Lord' except in the Holy Spirit, and no one says 'Jesus is accursed' except in Beelzebul.

But since you also seem inclined to lay hold of the dust of this contest, and to endure so heavy and hard-to-bear a labour, know that you will profit me too, before all others.

{A} Nothing, my friend, is undevised for the unintelligent; they most readily leap into the snare of Hades, as it is written, and into the trap of death, understanding neither what they say nor concerning what they make their assertions.

And what, you might ask, noble friend, are the rumours and the solemn little myths current with each of them?

Some have dared to declare that the Word from God did indeed appear as a man, but not that he actually bore the flesh from the Virgin.

They falsely ascribe to the mystery a mere semblance.

Others again, pretending to blush at seeming to worship a man, and declining to crown the flesh that is from earth with the highest glories, and out of excessive ignorance, sick with a spurious and corrupted reverence, say that the Word who was begotten from God the Father was transmuted into the nature of bones and sinews and flesh—broadly mocking, the wretches, the birth of Emmanuel from the Virgin, and charging unseemliness against so excellent and God-befitting an economy.

Others have believed that the God-Word, co-eternal with the Father, is of late origin, and was first summoned barely into existence at the time when he took the beginning of his birth according to the flesh.

There are even those impiously driven to such madness that they say the Word from God is without subsistence (anhypostatos)—merely an utterance conceived as bare expression, which came to be in a man.

Such are Marcellus and Photinus.

Neither have they kept their opinion concerning him at all sound and blameless.

For they divide the one Christ into two, and, as it were, inserting a gross cleavage, they all but display each one standing apart, contending that one is the perfect man born of the Virgin, and another is the Word from God the Father—not distinguishing what the nature of the Word is and what the nature of the flesh, nor content to dwell merely on the differences to this end.

For they would not have so erred from the true conception—since the nature of flesh and of God is not the same—but they set the one apart on its own as a man, and they name the other as God by nature and truly Son, though they wish to be Christians.

And indeed, composing certain little treatises about this, they have dared to say in these very words:

'The one who is Son by nature and in truth is the Word from God the Father; the other is son homonymously with the Son.'

'The Word of God is not flesh, but has taken up a man.'

'For the Only-Begotten is preeminently and in himself the Son of God, the Maker of all; but the man whom he took up, not being Lord by nature, is so styled homonymously with him, on account of the truly Son of God who took him up.'

'"No one knows the Son except the Father" indicates the Son who is from the Father by nature and in truth.'

'But what is said by Gabriel:

"for you have found favour with God, and behold, you shall conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus"—this applies to the man.'

But we shall not think thus.

How could we? For the argument of the heterodox will never persuade us to abandon the straight track and to traverse another, off the mark and crooked.

But do you bring to a finish what seems good, and try to tell me, for I am ready to listen and to learn most especially that which is unalloyed.

{A} How heavy a matter, and how altogether unwieldy a burden!

Or do you not know, my friend, that if anyone should choose to make a long discourse on each point and a thorough examination, he will spend no easily-numbered amount of time, and, enduring grievous and inescapable sweat, will scarcely succeed? {B} True.

{A} Setting aside, then, if it seems good, the need to suppose we must speak at length and quibble excessively, and casting but a small examination upon each point, come, let us speak—and before all others, to the Docetists:

You are deceived, knowing neither the Scriptures nor the great mystery of godliness, that is, Christ, who 'was manifested in flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.'

'Go and make disciples of all the nations'—or, if they shrink from doing this, let them at least choose to think rightly concerning Christ; and, having declared that they ought to bid farewell to their own ignorances, let them cling fast to the sacred Writings, and, hastening along the unerring path of the saints, proceed upon it to the truth itself.

For the mystery of godliness would, I think, be nothing other than the Word from God the Father himself, who was manifested in flesh.

For he was begotten through the holy Virgin, taking the form of a slave.

And indeed, signifying to the shepherds the God-Word who for our sake was in flesh:

'And this shall be the sign to you:

you shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes and lying in a manger.'

If the Word from God the Father did not truly become flesh, nor did the Virgin truly give him birth, nor did he take hold of the seed of Abraham, nor was he made like his brothers,

—for our condition is in no way a shadow or a semblance, but we are in bodies tangible and visible, clothed with this earth-born flesh, and are overcome by corruption and passions—

—then, if the Word did not become flesh, neither can he, having suffered in that wherein he himself was tempted, help those who are tempted.

For a shadow could not suffer anything.

The whole then truly vanishes for us into nothing.

For what back, then, did he give for us? Or upon what cheek, offering it to the smiters, did he hold out against the blows from the Jews? And in what manner could anyone suppose that one who had not appeared in flesh had his hands and feet pierced with nails? Or what side, tell me, did Pilate's spearmen pierce, and display to the onlookers the precious blood gushing forth together with water? And, if one must speak of what lies beyond this, neither did Christ die for us, nor indeed has he been raised.

And if this be accepted as true, faith is emptied, the cross—the salvation and life of the world—has perished, and the hope of those who have fallen asleep in faith is utterly destroyed.

For so it seemed good also to the blessed Paul:

'For I delivered to you,' he says, '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 has been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve; afterward he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, of whom the majority remain until now, but some also have fallen asleep.'

'Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born,' he says, 'he appeared also to me.'

'But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised.'

'And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, and our faith also is vain.'

'And we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified concerning God that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise—if indeed the dead are not raised.'

For tell me, in what manner could a shadow die? How then did the Father raise Christ, if he were a shadow and a semblance, and not subject to the bonds of death? Let their vomit then be gone, and let us reckon the things among them as mere fable and as the scummy off-scourings of an unholy counsel.

For the disciple of the Saviour forewarns us of such men, writing that 'many false prophets have gone out into the world.'

'By this is known the Spirit of God:

every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not from God.'

'And this is that of the Antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now is already in the world.'

For if he did not become man, nor indeed has ascended in flesh to the Father and God who is in the heavens, neither would he return from heaven in our likeness—as a man, that is, and in flesh.

Or do I not seem to you to speak accurately? {B} Very much so.

{A} But that yet others, out of measureless dullness, should think and hold that the Word begotten from God refused the birth through the holy Virgin, and dishonoured our nature, but rather was transmuted into the flesh that is from earth—this belongs to those who blaspheme the economy and who have chosen to find fault with the divine designs.

For the Maker of all things, the God-Word abundant in mercy, emptied himself, becoming man for our sake, born of a woman, that, since the children—that is, we—have shared in blood and flesh, he too might likewise partake of the same, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all those who through fear of death were through all their lives subject to bondage.

For thus said the sacred Writing.

But they define as unseemly so altogether excellent and best a counsel, and, as though it were possible for them to think better things, they even find fault with the designs of wisdom.

For they say that we ought not to ascribe to the Only-Begotten the birth-pang and travail-birth that is from a woman, but rather to think that the nature of the Word was transmuted into this decaying, earth-born body, and they imagine a change in the one who knows no change.

For the nature of God is firmly fixed in its own goods, and holds its abiding in those things wherein it is, unshakable.

For a nature that is originate and brought into existence in time may suffer alteration, and the matter will lie not outside fitting and true reason.

For that which has received any beginning of being at all has, as it were, already sown into it the necessity of being altered.

But God, who is beyond all mind, having his existence exempt from and superior to generation and corruption, will be superior also to change; and just as, by the principle of his own nature, he stands above and surpasses, I think, everything called into generation—and that by incomparable differences—so too in the things accustomed to befall those made by him, he will again stand far above, not knowing how to suffer what is naturally apt to do harm.

Therefore the Divine is in goods that are unchangeable, but the things of creation are in alteration and changes, having corruption close at the door.

And knowing this very well, and as the best of philosophers, the prophet Jeremiah cried out to God: 'You who sit through the age, and we who perish through the age.'

For the Divine will sit forever as upon its own thrones, reigning and prevailing over all things, and tyrannized by none of the passions.

But we, having a nature most prone to slide and altogether easily swayed toward alteration and change, perish through the age—that is, in every season and time we are corruptible and changeable.

Neither then could the Divine ever come to be in deflections, thrust out from its own steadfastness by any of the passions; nor could the corruptible and changeable nature—that is, the originate—ever grow rich in essential immutability, nor could creation boast in the goods of the divine nature as its own.

'The heavens shall perish, but you remain; and they shall all grow old like a garment, and like a mantle you shall roll them up, and they shall be changed.

But you are the same, and your years shall not fail.'

Where then has the Word from God remained the same, if it be accurate to say that, having let go of his firm and unshaken state, he descended into what he was not, and was transformed into the nature of flesh and into what is naturally corruptible? Are these things, then, not already nonsense and madness? {B} Indeed they are.

{A} For it would be high time, in opposing their ignorances with something yet more ignorant, to say that it is not unlikely that the flesh which is from earth might at some point be able to ascend to the nature of the Godhead, and to become a constituent of the highest of all essences.

For if the nature of the Godhead itself, according to their stupefaction, was transferred into the nature of flesh, nothing any longer prevents the lower and proper nature, the flesh, from soaring above and being remoulded into Godhead and into the highest essence.

But we will not gratify their senselessness with our compliance; rather we will hold fast to the divine Scriptures—the prophet saying:

'Behold, the Virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel'; and blessed Gabriel, setting his seal upon the pre-announcement and interpreting to the Virgin the verdict from above:

'a son, and you shall call his name Jesus'—we believe that Emmanuel was truly begotten of a woman, and we will not thrust away the bright and admirable boast of our own nature, thinking rightly.

For the Only-Begotten took hold not of his own nature—else our condition would in no way be in better case—nor yet of the nature of angels, but of the seed of Abraham, as it is written.

For thus, and not otherwise, was the race that had slipped into corruption to be saved.

{A} What then? Is not that, besides these things, worthy of utmost wonder, Hermias? {B} What sort of thing do you mean? {A} For some, all but bidding farewell to the God-inspired Scripture, and assigning their own mind to deceiving spirits, have come to such ill counsel and boyish folly as to think that the Maker of the ages, the God-Word co-eternal with God the Father, has the beginning of his existence concurrent with the birth according to the flesh, and to imagine as late-born the one who is beyond every age and time—as though only in the last and barely at the time of the incarnation did God become Father, and as though the one through whom are all things and in whom are all things rushed in, as it were, together into being and subsistence with the temple from the Virgin.

Have they not, then, already passed through to the very summit of evils—those who have most readily admitted so old-wives' and abominable a fable, and have filled their own mind with unmixed dullness? 'An opened tomb, truly, is their throat; with their tongues they practised deceit; the venom of asps is under their lips; whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.'

for the word of the Psalmist is accurate.

{A} For is it not necessary that the one through whom are all things should also pre-exist all things? {B} Well said.

{A} And what then would they do, when John writes:

'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.'

'All things came into being through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into being.'

'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life.

And the life was manifested, and we have seen, and we testify, and we declare to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us'—Christ himself signifying to the Jews the unsearchable antiquity of his own existence:

'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?'—he answered plainly:

'Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I am.'

But where 'was' is, with nothing added, and where moreover the 'I am' is plainly set, what beginning of generation could anyone discern? Or in what manner could the one who 'was' in the beginning, which is beyond all mind, admit being summoned into existence in time? Now if anyone should choose to contend against these things rather leisurely, it is in no way hard, by bringing forward the words of the God-inspired Scripture, to repel without injury the products of their stupefaction.

But things which are so manifestly diseased with reproof and have so very much of the unlovely, I think it superfluous even to deem worthy of consideration.

{A} Let us go, then, to that which is akin to what has been condemned.

For some counterfeit the beauty of the truth, as it were debasing some coin, raising the horn on high, and 'speaking iniquity against God,' as it is written.

They imagine the Only-Begotten as non-existent and not subsisting individually, and say that he is not in subsistence of his own, but came to be from God merely as an utterance and a word according to expression alone, and dwelt in a man—the wretches—and, having thus composed Jesus, they say he is holier than the saints, but not yet also God.

Therefore, as the disciple of the Saviour also wrote:

'Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who confesses the Son has the Father also.'

For both are known through both, and each is known in each, both by ourselves and by the holy angels.

For no one could learn what the Father is, unless he received in his mind a Son who subsists and has been begotten.

But neither again could one learn what the Son is, unless he clearly considered that the Father has begotten.

Therefore it is necessary, I think, and accurate to say, that if the Son is non-existent, neither could we truly conceive of the Father.

For where any longer is a Father, if he has not truly begotten? Or if he has begotten that which neither subsists nor exists at all, the thing begotten will be nothing.

For that which does not subsist is on a par with nothing—or rather, is altogether nothing.

Then God will be the Father of nothing.

But, most excellent men, I for my part would say to the expositors of such things: your wares are idle drivel; or at least, when one asks, tell me:

how is the love of God the Father toward us exceptional? And if he gave the Son for us—the Son who according to you does not subsist—then he gave nothing for us, and neither did the Word become flesh, nor undergo the precious cross, nor abolish the power of death, nor indeed come back to life again.

For if he is nothing and, according to you, non-existent, how could he come to be in these things? The word of the holy Scripture, then, has cheated those who have believed, and the steadfastness of faith vanishes into nothing.

{A} What then? Did not the divine word signify to us that the Son subsists 'in the form of God,' and call him an image and an impress of the Begetter? {B} Very much so.

{A} And are images as their archetypes? {B} How not? {A} Therefore, if the image is not enhypostatic, nor the impress conceived as in existence of its own, they will be granting, as by necessary reasoning, that the one of whom it is the impress is also without subsistence, and the unloveliness of the image will run back entirely, no doubt, upon the archetype.

{A} Then, tell me, Philip, being a most diligent disciple of Christ, did he deem worthy to behold the Father who is and subsists, saying:

'Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us'—or rather the one who is not and is without subsistence? {B} The one who is, clearly.

{A} If then the Son is nothing, inasmuch as he does not subsist—according to their unbridled audacity—on what ground did he present himself to us as an image and an exact knowledge of the Father, saying:

'Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.'

'Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? I and the Father are one.'

But I do not think anyone could discern the one who subsists in the one who does not subsist, nor could the existent ever be conceived as altogether identical with the non-existent.

And how will the Father be in the Son, and the Son again in the Father? Or is it not true to say that, if the Word is not in existence of his own, the Father himself would also be endangered—having within himself nothing, and being conceived to exist in nothing? For that which is not at all could no longer be conceived as anything.

{B} The argument is not without ruggedness.

For it is sick with very much absurdity in itself, yet nevertheless it brings the doctrine of our opponents round to discord.

{A} One might rightly be amazed in what manner the Father made the things that are in the Son who has not received being.

But if anyone should ask whether being is good for the things that are, or rather non-being perhaps, in what manner do you answer? {B} I would say that being is good.

For so would the matter stand by nature.

Therefore creation is in better case than the one through whom all things are called into being, if the latter is said not to subsist, while the former subsist and are conceived as being.

For 'living is the Word of God and active,' as it is written;

he could not be conceived as life if he did not subsist.

And he is life by nature—for he will in no way speak falsely.

Therefore, to say that the Word who has appeared from God does not subsist is a rotten falsehood and the off-scouring of a most idiotic mind.

For he himself said to Moses:

And how could that which truly is, but is not preserved in subsistence of its own, ever be conceived? {A} Therefore shall we rightly define the utter ignorance of those who have held these views? {B} Very much so.

{A} Yet neither would we praise those others, Hermias, who have been very well taught to hunt eagerly after the truth.

{B} Who? {A} Those who say that the flesh united to the Word was deprived of a rational soul.

For clothing the Word with flesh alone—flesh which has received only vital and sensory motion—they parade into the world a notion that assigns the activity of mind and soul to the Only-Begotten himself.

For they shudder—I know not how to say it—to confess that the Word is united to one who is perfectly man, that is, to one constituted of soul and body, according to the principle of humanity; they reckon the tradition of the faith from above and most ancient worthy of almost no account at all, but, having ignorantly chosen to follow their own will alone and human reasonings, they truly think contrary to what one ought to think.

{B} And what is their argument for such a doctrine? {A} I will tell you.

We say that the Mediator between God and men, according to the Scriptures, is composed both of our humanity, perfect according to its own principle, and of the one who has appeared from God by nature as Son, that is, the Only-Begotten.

We nonetheless acknowledge one Christ and Lord and Son, in the same one both existing and conceived as God and man.

And we are accustomed to keep the union altogether inseparable, believing the same one to be both only-begotten and firstborn.

Only-begotten as the Word from God the Father and as having appeared from his essence; but firstborn again inasmuch as he became man and is among many brothers.

For just as there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, so also there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.

For we acknowledge the Word, through whom are all things, to be God by nature, even if he became flesh, that is, man.

{A} But their views by no means accord very well with those held among us concerning this.

For they too admittedly receive one Christ Jesus—thinking excellently in this point—but they very much reject as utterly impious the dividing of Emmanuel into two.

Yet nevertheless, having stripped the flesh of the human and rational soul, they say that the Word from God is united to it.

And a plausible argument, as they think, has been devised by them toward this end.

For, they say, the things that have run together by composition toward the constitution of one perfect whole are wont to be seen as parts and as deriving from incomplete things, since that which is perfect in itself and as in its own nature has no need of composition from parts.

Therefore, they say, one must reasonably refuse to grant that the temple united to the Word was a perfect man, in order that the composition—whatever might be conceived in the case of Christ—may preserve its own principle accurately and irreproachably.

For if, they say, we compose Emmanuel out of a perfect man and the Word who is from the Father, the danger is no small one—rather, it would now somehow seem inescapable that, even against our will, we must think and say there are two sons and again two Christs.

{B} Then what shall we say against these men? {A} First, that the faith which is so very ancient and which has come down from the holy apostles themselves into—

—that this point is rightly so, but that other point ought rather to be otherwise—surely this is presumptuous; it would in truth be better to assign to the all-wise God the way of his own designs, and not arrogantly to find fault with what has been approved as good in his sight.

For we shall hear him saying plainly:

'For my counsels are not as your counsels, nor are my ways as your ways; but as heaven is distant from earth, so is my way distant from your ways, and your thoughts from my thinking.'

Then what they think has been wisely discovered will be caught out as utterly stale and ignorant.

For if anyone should choose to strip that divine temple of a rational soul, the union will not be of two incomplete things—far from it.

For admittedly, in relation to the whole man—I mean the one composed of soul and body—the flesh by itself and on its own is a part.

But God the Word would not be conceived as a part of anything, nor yet as incomplete, noble friends.

For he is all-perfect in his own nature.

Where then will there be a running-together of incomplete things toward some one perfect thing, if it is from a perfect Word and incomplete flesh—as far as concerns the principle relating to a perfect man complete according to his own nature? But we shall by no means worship two sons, nor shall we speak of two Christs, even if we believe that the running-together into unity of Emmanuel was effected from a perfect man and from God the Word.

For just as—according to what seems good to them—even if he should be said to be from flesh alone and the Word who appeared from God the Father, no manner of argument will persuade them, while setting the flesh apart and the Only-Begotten apart, to confess a pair of Christs, but they will receive Emmanuel as one Lord Jesus Christ—for they have recognized that one must think very rightly in this point—so too, even if we should say that God the Word was, as it were, brought together and united, ineffably and beyond mind, with a perfect man (that is clearly with one composed of soul and body), we shall not conceive of a pair of sons, but of one and the same, who is by nature God and has appeared from the very essence of God the Father, but in the last times of the age became man and was begotten through the holy Virgin, and is worshipped both by ourselves and by the holy angels according to the Scriptures.

{B} What then, if they should say that our condition needed only the visitation of the Only-Begotten, and that, willing to be seen by those on earth and to converse with men, and to show us the way of the gospel manner of life, he in an economic way clothed himself with flesh like ours? For the Divine, according to its own nature, is not visible.