On the Incarnation 1 part 2/3

{A} They will be caught having been ignorant of the aim of the incarnation, and having understood nothing at all of the great mystery of godliness.

For if the enfleshment—that is, the incarnation—of the Only-Begotten has its sole occasion in being seen by those on earth, yet added nothing else to human nature, how is it not now somehow better and wiser for us ourselves to agree with the opinion of the Docetists? For they, stripping the Word of flesh and of an earthen body together, fabricate the myth, the wretches, that he appeared on earth as a man; but it would turn out that they had plainly confessed themselves to be introducers of the noblest doctrines.

Or will you not say it is better—if the Word from God in no way profits human nature even though he became flesh—that he should be set free from fleshly defilement, and merely seem once to have made use of an earthen body, and so to have accomplished the proposed aim? {B} What then would be the reason of the visitation, or what the manner of the incarnation, and for what cause it was done—I would like to learn.

{A} Come then, noble friend, inquire of the sacred Writings, and fixing well the eye of your understanding upon the voices of the holy apostles, behold rightly the thing sought.

Our wise Paul, then, said—having Christ himself speaking within him:

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.

And indeed, elsewhere too, recounting to us in another manner:

'For what the law could not do,' he says, 'in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to flesh but according to Spirit.'

Is it not then most plain and to none of those that are unapparent, that the Only-Begotten became as we are, that is, perfect man, in order that he might free our earthen body from the corruption introduced into it—having, by the economy according to union, descended into identity with us according to the law of life—and that, making the human soul his own, he might render it superior to sin, infusing into it, as it were a dye, the fixed and unchangeable quality of his own nature? {B} The matter is not unapparent, I think.

For it carries within itself the likely—or rather the true—reasoning.

{A} Just as, then, since the flesh of the Word who gives life to all things became his own, it leaps above the power of death and corruption, in the same manner, I think, since the soul of the one who knew no sinning became his own, it has henceforth a fixed standing in all goods, unalterable, and incomparably stronger than the sin that of old held tyranny.

For Christ is the first man 'who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,' having been set as a root and a first-fruits of those reshaped into newness of life in the Spirit; and he will transmit, as in participation and by grace, both the incorruption of the body and the security and steadfastness of the Godhead now to the whole human race.

And knowing this, the inspired Paul writes:

'For just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly.'

For by the image of the earthy he meant the proneness to sin, and the death cast upon us from this source.

But by the image of the heavenly—that is, of Christ—he meant the steadfastness unto sanctification, and the recovery from death and corruption and the renewal into incorruption and life.

We say, then, that the whole Word was united to the whole man.

For he would surely not have deemed the better part in us, that is, the soul, worthy of no account, granting the labours of his visitation to the flesh alone.

But the mystery of the economy was well accomplished through both.

And he made use, as of an instrument, of his own flesh for the works of the flesh and its natural infirmities and whatever is far from blame, and again of his own soul for the human and blameless passions.

For he is said to have hungered, and to have borne the fatigues from long journeys, and terrors and fears and grief and agony and the death upon the cross.

For with none compelling him, he laid down of his own accord his own soul for us, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

Giving in return his own flesh in exchange for the flesh of all—a gift truly of equal worth—and making his soul a ransom in place of the soul of all, even though he came back to life again, being life by nature as God.

And so the inspired Peter:

'Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath that of the fruit of his loins he would seat one upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, that neither was his soul left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.'

For it is not lawful to say that the flesh united to the Word could be held fast by perpetual corruption, nor again that the divine soul came to be held captive by the gates of Hades.

'For it was not left in Hades,' as the inspired Peter also said.

For he does not say that the nature wholly untouchable and unconquerable by death—that is, the Godhead of the Only-Begotten—was brought back up from the recesses beneath the earth.

For the matter would not have been deemed worthy of wonder unless the Word from God remained in Hades, by the activity and nature of the Godhead, paradoxically and beyond reason filling all things and present to all.

For the Divine is above place and circumscription and measured magnitude, itself being contained by nothing.

And it is paradoxical and to none of those that are unwondrous, that the body which is by nature corruptible came back to life;

for it had been united to the incorruptible Word.

And the divine soul, having received its running-together and union with him, descended into Hades, but, using a God-befitting power and authority, appeared also to the spirits there.

Therefore he also said to those in bonds:

'Come forth,' and to those in darkness:

And it seems to me that the inspired Peter said something of this sort concerning both the God-Word and his soul which came to be his through the economic union:

'For it is better, if the will of God should will it, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil, because Christ also once died for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in flesh but made alive in spirit.'

'In which also,' he says, 'he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who once were disobedient.'

For neither, I think, would they say that the Godhead of the Only-Begotten, naked and on its own, descended into Hades and preached to the spirits there, being altogether invisible;

for the Divine is forever superior to being seen.

But neither shall we grant that it was moulded, in semblance and by way of figure, into the form of a soul; rather we must everywhere reject the mere semblance.

But just as, with those still in flesh, he conversed in flesh, so also he preached to the souls in Hades, having as his own burden the soul united to him.

And the manner of the union is perhaps deep and truly ineffable, and not to be grasped by our understandings.

Yet nevertheless it is fitting to reason this much.

For to be over-busy about things not according to our measure is not without harm, and it is altogether most senseless to subject to scrutiny things beyond mind, and to attempt to think things which it is not possible to think.

Or do you not know that this deep mystery, which leaps beyond the mind in us, is honoured by an uninquisitive faith? But assigning the senseless saying 'How can these things come to be?' to that Nicodemus and to those like him, we shall without hesitation receive the things uttered as oracles through the divine Spirit, and we shall believe Christ himself when he says:

'Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak what we know, and we testify to what we have seen.'

{A} Let then all nonsense be gone, and every feeble myth, and false opinion, and the cheating of cleverly contrived little phrases.

For we by no means admit that which is naturally apt to harm, even if our opponents should clap us down with very practised and indeed bitter words.

For our divine mystery is not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit.

Being therefore God and Lord of all, according to the Scriptures, the Only-Begotten has appeared to us.

For he was seen upon earth and shone forth to those in darkness, having become man—not in semblance, far from it (for to think or say this is madness)—nor yet having been transferred into flesh by way of transposition and change (for the Word from God is unalterable and forever the same and in like condition)—nor yet having his existence contemporary with the flesh (for he himself is the Maker of the ages)—nor yet as a word without subsistence, nor as a bare utterance come to be in a man;

for the one who calls things that are not into existence and generation necessarily pre-exists;

for he himself is the life that has appeared from the life of God the Father, who both is and is conceived according to his own hypostasis;

the living and existing God-Word, co-eternal with God the Father, having taken the form of a slave, and just as he is perfect in Godhead, so also is he perfect in manhood—not composed into one Christ and Lord and Son from Godhead and flesh alone, but from two perfect things, I mean manhood and Godhead, paradoxically bound together into one and the same.

{B} Whom then did the holy Virgin bear? The man, or the Word from God? {A} And indeed this very thing is the wandering, and the missing of what is fitting and true.

For do not divide him for me, nor, separating him into a man individually and into God the Word, portray Emmanuel to us as having two persons.

Lest then someone should rightly blame us for choosing to think nothing right, but rather those things which were even condemned by the holy Scripture. For thus said one of the disciples of Christ:

'But you, beloved, remember the words spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they told you that in the last of the times there would come mockers, walking in mockery according to their own lusts of ungodliness.'

'These are they who set up divisions, sensual, not having the Spirit.'

{B} Are we then in no way to distinguish? {A} By no means.

—at least so as to say 'two' after the union, and to conceive each one apart by itself.

But one must know that the mind does indeed contemplate a certain difference of natures—for Godhead and manhood are surely not the same—yet it will admit, together with the conceptions concerning these, also the running-together of both into unity.

Therefore he sprang forth from God the Father as God, but from the Virgin as man.

For the Word who shone forth ineffably and beyond mind from God the Father is said to have been begotten also through a woman, having descended into manhood and let himself down into what he was not—not that he might remain emptied, but that he might be believed to be God even while appearing on earth in our form, not as having dwelt in a man, but as having himself become man by nature, together with the preserving of his own glory.

Behold, then, he plainly says that he was set apart 'unto the gospel of God,' though he writes openly:

'For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord.'

'For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.'

'You are my Son, today I have begotten you'—though the 'today' somehow always indicates to us not the past but rather the present time.

{A} For those who set him apart and divide him, it is truly hard to attain and perplexing; but for those who bind Emmanuel fast into unity, the unalloyed knowledge of the sacred doctrines is near to lay hold of and very ready at hand.

And what was assumed is not alien to him, but truly his own.

It is therefore reckoned as one with him, just as indeed one might also contemplate the composition of a human being.

For he is woven together from things unlike in nature—I mean soul and body—but nevertheless the two together are conceived as one man.

Just as sometimes the whole living being is named from the flesh alone, and when the soul is named, the two together are understood—in the same manner, then, you will receive it also in the case of Christ himself.

{B} I do not quite follow; I would like to learn clearly.

{A} Speaking to the Jews, our Lord Jesus Christ said:

'If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham.'

'But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth—this Abraham did not do.'

And Paul also writes concerning him:

'Who in the days of his flesh, having offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears to the one able to save him from death, and having been heard for his godly fear, although he was a Son, learned obedience from the things which he suffered.'

Shall we then reckon Christ to be this very thing—a mere man, in no way risen above our condition? {B} God forbid.

{A} Shall we then grant that the wisdom and power of God came to such weakness as to fear death and to beg salvation from the Father, and shall we send Emmanuel away from being life by nature? Or, turning these things round to the manhood, and referring the lowly things in his words to the measure of our nature, shall we do something praiseworthy, and shall we behold his super-cosmic glory from the things in which he is God, having understood the same one to be both man and God, or rather God become man? {B} Tell how.

{A} Let then the most approved Paul come into our midst, crying out and saying these things:

'We speak wisdom among the perfect, yet a wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are being brought to nothing; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has known.'

'For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.'

'Who, being the radiance of his glory and the impress of his hypostasis, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had made purification for our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels as he has inherited a more excellent name than they.'

And yet, to be and to be named Lord of glory—how is this not very far surpassing and beyond every created thing brought into generation? And I pass over the human things—for they are indeed very small—but I will say that even if one should name angels, and reckon up Principalities and Thrones and Dominions, and indeed should call to mind the highest Seraphim, he would confess them to come behind so far-surpassing a renown—if at least he has a mind not corrupted.

For I affirm that the prerogative is select, and must be reserved to the all-royal nature of all things alone.

How then could the crucified one be Lord of glory? And the radiance of the Father and the impress of the essence, who upholds all things by the word of his power, is said to have become better than the angels—having taken, as I think, the lesser, perhaps, when he appeared as man.

For it is written that 'we behold Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death.'

Shall we then thrust the Word who appeared from God the Father out of the essential preeminence that belongs to him and the exact likeness to him, beholding him as inferior to the renown of angels because of the lowliness of the economy? {B} By no means.

For I think one must neither altogether free the Word from God of the human things after his coming-together with flesh, nor again deprive the human element of the God-befitting glory, if it be conceived and spoken of as in Christ.

Nevertheless, know that some ask:

Who then is truly Jesus the Christ? The man from a woman, or rather the Word from God? {A} It is utterly silly to insist on superfluous things and to answer back to idle and foolish myth-mongering.

But I will say that it is perilous and not without harm to cut him in two and to set up the man and the Word apart, since the economy does not endure it, and the God-inspired Scripture cries aloud that there is one Christ.

For I say that neither the Word from God apart from manhood, nor the temple born from a woman, not united to the Word, ought to be named Christ Jesus.

For the Word from God, having been ineffably brought together with manhood by the economic union, is conceived as Christ—higher than manhood as God and Son by nature, but stooping a little below the God-befitting glory as man.

Therefore he sometimes said:

'He who has seen me has seen the Father.'

'I and the Father are one'; but again at another time:

'The Father is greater than I.'

For though he is not less than the Father in respect of being identical in essence and equal in every single thing whatsoever, he says he is in lesser things because of the human element.

And he is proclaimed through the sacred Writings sometimes as being wholly man, his Godhead being passed over in silence economically, and sometimes again as God, his manhood being kept silent.

But he is in no way wronged because of the coming-together of both into unity.

{B} How do you mean? For I do not quite understand.

{A} The Hebrew of the Hebrews and of the tribe of Benjamin, the called apostle, writes to those justified through faith and who have put to death the members of the flesh—I mean fornication and passion, evil desire, and covetousness:

'For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.'

He himself indeed said concerning his own disciples:

'Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given me, that they may be one as we are.'

'While I was with them, I kept them in your name which you have given me, and I guarded them, and not one of them perished except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.'

'But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.'

Do you understand, then, how in these passages it seems that he is signified, as it were, from the manhood alone, as is the case with us?

{A} For we shall by no means suppose that he is hidden and absent from the world, though he says plainly:

'Amen, amen, I say to you, that wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.'

'Behold, I am with you all the days, until the consummation of the age.'

And you might see the most sacred Paul himself, on many occasions, indifferent to the need of proclaiming him also as man.

For Paul says he is an apostle 'not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ.'

'And I make known to you the gospel,' he says, 'which was preached by me, that it is not according to man.'

'For neither did I receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.'

And indeed he also says elsewhere:

'But even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him so.'

Who then is Jesus the Christ, who flashes forth upon Paul so ineffable, unerring, and divine a revelation of his own mysteries? Is it not the Word who became flesh, and who did not for our sake dishonour the birth from a woman? {B} Very much so.

'for behold, you shall conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.'

And I think this name was given anew to the Word from the Father through the voice of the angel.

For thus the prophetic oracle had also cried out beforehand:

'And they shall call his name the new name which the Lord shall name it.'

{A} When, therefore, the Son and Only-Begotten, co-eternal with the Father and before every age, became man in the last times of the age, and was begotten through a woman, and was marked out as Son, and was styled also firstborn, and came to be among many brothers—then also the Father by nature determines the name, following, so to speak, the laws of fatherhood.

For you would gladden us greatly, having well understood the manner of the economy.

{B} The same one, then, is both only-begotten and firstborn.

{A} Do not suppose by yourself that it is otherwise than thus, my good fellow.

For the Only-Begotten as God is firstborn among us by the economic union, and among many brothers as man, so that we too, as in him and through him, might be sons of God both by nature and by grace.

By nature, as in him and in him alone; but we by participation and by grace, through him in the Spirit.

Just as, then, the being only-begotten became proper to the manhood in Christ because of its being united to the Word by the economic conjunction, so the being among many brothers and the being firstborn became proper to the Word because of his being united to flesh.

But having his being God firmly fixed, and being forever superior to change, he does not depart from his own glory.

Therefore the holy and all-blessed multitude of the spirits above has also been commanded to worship him together with us.

For it would surely have been very likely that they should refuse the worship, and shrink from honouring him when they saw the lowliness of the manhood, and should not deem worthy to glorify the one who for our sake became as we are, departing as far away as possible from seeming to have been led astray.

For the mystery concerning Christ was still unseen even to them, but the Spirit revealed it to them, and did not allow the sanctified ones to fall into impiety.

Therefore the inspired Paul says:

'But when he again brings the Firstborn into the inhabited world, he says:'

"And let all the angels of God worship Him."

For He who by His natural property surpasses the whole inhabited world, existing outside it as God, has entered into it, appearing as a part of the world like a man; yet not on this account did He slip away from His divine glory.

For He is worshipped as the Only-begotten, even if He should be called firstborn—which is plainly something most fitting to the measures of His humanity.

{B} Shall we then worship Emmanuel as a man? {A} God forbid.

That would already be nonsense, deception, and error.

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping things."

For shall not we ourselves become equal to and like-minded with those just mentioned, exchanging the glory of God for a lie in the likeness of an image of corruptible man, if we offer worship to Emmanuel as to a mere man and one of those like us? {B} Most certainly.

{A} What then? Will not the very host of angels on high be ranked together with those who have come to such madness? {B} Necessarily.

{A} And we shall, I suppose, fasten upon the herd of the nations an inescapable charge of having gone astray, and the harm of their ancient guilt will be hard to wash away.

For it is in error, I think, even now no less than of old, and has failed to recognize the path that leads straight on.

And the blessed Paul, it seems, addressed them in vain when he said:

"But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?" For what other God have they come to know, if Christ, in whom they have believed, is not God by nature? And if they have served a man, they are caught in the snares of the ancient error.

Or is what I say not true? {B} Indeed it is.

{A} Consider then how, by necessary reasonings, we are now all but driven—even against our will—to the duty of wisely worshipping the Son as God by nature, even in the form that has appeared like ours, since the coming-together into unity is fully capable of doing away with whatever might at times grieve us into a suspicion of mere humanity.

{B} How do you mean? {A} For the nature of the Word, having taken to itself what is human, will not be mere humanity, but rather, overcoming what was assumed by its own glory, it is preserved in an unshaken abiding of the glory befitting God.

Thinking thus, the disciples worshipped, saying:

"Truly Thou art the Son of God," even though they saw Him walking step by step and in flesh like ours;

for He ran upon the crest of the wave marvelously, as God.

{B} And who was it that said to the woman in Samaria:

"Ye worship that which ye know not; we worship that which we know"? Then how shall He be one who is worshipped, if He is ranked among the worshippers? {A} And indeed, my friend, that little word "Who is this?" which you keep uttering again and again, has, I know not how, been invented for the unintelligent.

For Christ is in no way divided.

But He who spoke with the woman was the one and only Lord Jesus Christ, ineffably composed of the worshipping humanity and the worshipped Godhead—just as, indeed, one might also speak of Him in another way.

For in so far as He is God, He would be understood to be Himself the Lord of glory; but in so far as He became man, glorified by participation from God, He also had need of glory, saying:

"Father, glorify Thy Son."

But "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," according to what is written.

Just as, then, there is one faith—that in Christ—and truly one baptism, although we are baptized and have believed into Father and Son and Holy Spirit, so too, I think, in the same manner and reasoning, there is one worship of the Father and of the incarnate Son and of the Holy Spirit.

For the Only-begotten will in no way be thrust out from being worshipped by us ourselves and by the holy angels, even though He became flesh and dwelt among us, and was named firstborn among many brethren.

For otherwise, what would then be the meaning of faith in Him? How is it not worth seeing? For I do not think that those who would choose to think rightly would say that we have believed only into the Word begotten of God, stripping Him of His flesh.

Nor again shall we leave this point unsaid:

{B} What do you mean? {A} For our faith is exercised not as into one of us, nor indeed as into a man, but as into God who is truly and by nature in the person of Christ.

And the wise Paul will lend support to this argument, writing:

"For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord;

and ourselves your servants for Christ's sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Behold, then, clearly and plainly the light of the knowledge of God the Father shone forth in the face of Christ.

"He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; I and the Father are one."

But the divine impress is not bodily, but consists in power and in the glory most befitting God.

And this was pure and unmixed in Christ;

He deemed it right to be made known also through these things, and through the surpassing nature of His works He willed that His hearers should rise up to conceptions concerning Him, while the visible flesh quietly diminished Him in their estimation.

"For if I do not the works of My Father," He says, "believe Me not."

And I think Christ said these things at that time, knowing the matter was not unprofitable for their benefit.

For since some supposed that He who had become man for our sake was not God by nature, but simply a mere man like us, and on this account held faith in Him to be unacceptable,

of necessity, cutting away the fear and the hesitation that went with it, He referred faith to the nature of the Godhead, as in the person of the Father, and not assigning it to our lowliness, saying:

"He that believeth on Me believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me; and he that beholdeth Me beholdeth Him that sent Me."

O you who hear My words, do not hold what concerns Me to be small and cast down to the ground;