That Christ Is One 1 part 5/5

Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

Moreover, having risen, he sat down at the right hand of the Father, in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named.

{A} But the thing said to be "of equal honor" with another would not be rather one in number, as I have already said, but one with another.

{B} Will you then make this clear to us [still further]?

and other things too; and taking up a not-ignoble defense on behalf of the sacred doctrines as a kind of full panoply, I will set up the truth against those who think distorted things.

For that the only-begotten Word of God — without any other son beside him mediating the economy and conjoined to him relatively — abolished the dominion of death, but rather he himself did so through himself, he will give assurance, saying:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

But when God and the Father lifts up high the love toward the world, declaring it to have come to be exceedingly great and supernatural, why do those on the opposite side belittle it, saying that not the true Son was given for us, but one of those like us, having the grace of sonship by adoption, exalting him to the place of the natural Son — though it is the Only-begotten who was given for us? And then, when John has clearly written:

The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father — how could one not be amazed at their ignorance, who thrust the only-begotten God the Word out of the economy, and bring in instead, as I said, someone adorned with externally-derived glories and having the name of Godhead as something acquired? And then what great and admirable thing will be seen any longer in the love of the Father, if he gave for the world some part of the world, and that a small one? Or perhaps it could even be said without reproach that the world has been redeemed having nothing from God, but served toward this by its own parts.

{A} He himself, then, would in his own nature suffer nothing whatsoever.

For being incorporeal as God, he will assuredly lie altogether outside of suffering.

But since, according to his own utterance — I mean that through the lyre of the Psalmist — a body was prepared for him by the Father, he came embodied to do his will.

And this was the redemption through the precious cross, and the recapitulation of all things, very well accomplished through him and unto him.

And the most excellent Paul will assist in what I have said, having written thus:

Let each of you have this mind in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not count it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men;

and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

For who do you say is the one who, being in the form of God and the Father, and then, though it was permitted to remain in equality with him, did not count that so transcendent and God-befitting dignity, and the supremacy over all things, a thing to be grasped? Is it not he who shone forth from him, God the Word? Then how is the matter not evident to all? But this same one, in the form and equality of the Father, taking the form of a servant — not by a relative conjunction, but Being made in the likeness of men and found in fashion as a man — for he was also God along with this — humbled himself, and became also obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

{B} But it has been said concerning him, they object, that God gave him the name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus <Christ> every knee should bow.

But that which the Word was — clearly, God — how could it be conceived as receiving? It is therefore necessary to say that the name above every name was rather given to the assumed man, lest, thinking something improper concerning the Only-begotten, we be caught out.

we say it was given to him by the Father, in order that he might be conceived as God even in his humanity, and that he who endured our lowliness might be in the highest heights — so that no new and newly-appeared god be introduced to angels and men, one having the glory of Godhead not essentially indwelling, but separated off from outside, and as it were only in the will of God and the Father. {B} To the very Word, then, begotten of God the Father, do we say the name above every name was given? {A} Most assuredly.

And our argument proceeds not off the mark, if indeed it is not falsely stated that he did not count being equal with God a thing to be grasped, but somehow descended into that which is not in glory, insofar as he appeared as man.

The Father is greater than I — and yet there belongs to him, and ever indwells in him insofar as he is conceived and is God, and is begotten of him by nature, the having of an absolute identity with respect to anything whatsoever, and the exulting in the glory of Godhead.

It was therefore necessary that he who descended for our sake to the measure of humanity should not seem to have slipped from the brilliance and supremacy that belong to him by nature, but, in our self-emptying, should have the fullness divinely, and in lowliness the height, and that what belongs to him by nature should, as if given, be worshipped by all on account of his humanity.

For to him every knee bows, of things in heaven and on earth, and every order glorifies him.

For Jesus Christ is believed to be Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

And so he said to the Father and God who is in the heavens:

Father, glorify me with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

{A} Tell me then: was the man, whom they say was assumed by the Only-begotten according to a relative conjunction, pre-existent before the world? {B} By no means.

{A} Who, then, is the one asking for the glory which he says was already indwelling in himself before the very foundation of the world, since he is always and continually with God? Is it not God the Word, coeternal with the Father, sharing his throne and co-subsisting with him, concerning whom the all-wise evangelist John says:

The Word was with God, and the Word was God? {B} For how not? {A} Just as, then, being the Lord of glory and then lowering himself through the midst into the ignobility of the servant's form, he asks for the assumption of the glory that is ever in him, doing this in a manner befitting man; so too, being ever God, he ascends from our measures to the supremacy and glory of his own Godhead, in order that — as now to one Son, the natural and true one, even though he became like us and was made flesh — every knee may bow, as I said just now.

For thinking these things, I believe, and believing thus, we shall free heaven and earth from the charges of man-worship.

For it is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.

{B} The argument on this point would need very many supports.

Come then, and explain the mystery to us through other considerations as well.

{A} Then I will indeed go on, and that quite readily.

The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second from heaven; and indeed of the Son himself: That I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

And this is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day.

Who, then, do they say is the one who descended from heaven? For the body was begotten of a woman.

{B} The Word, of course, begotten of God the Father.

For I think they would not choose to think anything other than this.

And the all-wise John has somewhere written:

He who comes from above is above all.

but that of the Father? Would anyone among us then suppose that the Son begotten of God and the Father comes after the gentleness of God and the Father, and that he is by no means good, and that to raise up what was given and to deliver it from corruption is out of tune with him? {B} We run that risk.

{A} And yet we would reckon, and quite fittingly, that since he is the genuine offspring of a good Father, he too would be conceived as being good, or rather as goodness itself.

For by its fruit the tree is known, according to his own utterance.

He who has seen me has seen the Father.

{A} We say that it was not against the Son's will to abolish death and to drive away corruption from human bodies.

For he does not delight in the destruction of the living, and the generative beginnings of the world are salvific, according to what is written.

But through the envy of the devil death entered into the world.

But there was no other way for the joyless dominion of death to be shaken down, except only through the incarnation of the Only-begotten.

For this reason he appeared like us, and made his own the body that was subject to corruption, according to the principles inherent in its nature, so that — since he himself is the life, for he was begotten of the Father who is life — he might implant his own good in it, that is, life.

And once he had chosen, out of gentleness and love for mankind, to undergo likeness with us, it was necessary that suffering too should come about, since the impiety of the Jews behaved insolently toward him.

But the ignobility involved in suffering was burdensome to him.

And so, when the time arrived in which he had to endure the cross for the life of all, in order to show that suffering was not against his will, he made his approach in a manner befitting man, and as it were in the guise of prayer, saying:

Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

He says that the one from heaven came down — not to make that which grieved him against his will, but in order to accomplish the resurrection for those on earth, which indeed he alone newly inaugurated for human nature.

For he became the firstborn from the dead according to the flesh, and the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

{B} The suffering, therefore, would be said to be his and no other's, insofar as he appeared as man, even though he remained impassible insofar as he is conceived as God.

The first man Adam became a living soul; the last Adam a life-giving spirit.

{B} Do we then say that the last Adam is a name given to the Word who is from God? {A} Not as bare, as I said, but rather as having become in likeness to us.

We say, therefore, that it is he himself — if indeed [the giving of life] is not human but rather God-befitting.

And he is also called the last Adam, as having come from Adam according to the flesh, and as a second beginning of those on earth, human nature being re-elemented in him into newness of life — the life in sanctification and incorruption — through the resurrection from the dead;

for death was thus abolished, since the life-by-nature did not permit its own body to be subjected to corruption, inasmuch as it was not possible for Christ to be held by it, according to the utterance of the inspired Peter.

{A} But consider for me this too, besides these things.

{B} What is it you mean? {A} Christ once said to the holy apostles:

Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

We have therefore been baptized into the holy and consubstantial Trinity — that, I mean, in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Or is what I have said not true? {B} [And] how not? {A} Do we not †

† conceive the Father as the one who begot, and the Son in turn as the only-begotten God the Word, begotten of him by nature? {B} Most certainly.

{A} How then have we been baptized into his death, according to the utterance of the blessed Paul:

For all of us, he says, who were baptized into Christ, were baptized into his death.

But since, being God by nature, he is conceived as beyond suffering, and then willed to suffer in order to save those under corruption, he was made like in all things to those on earth, and endured the birth according to the flesh from a woman, and made his own, as I said, a body capable of tasting death and again of returning to life, so that, while he himself remained impassible, he might be said to suffer in his own flesh.

For he <thus> saved that which was lost.

And so he clearly declared:

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his own life for the sheep.

No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself.

I have authority <to lay it down, and authority> to take it again.

But it belonged to no one of us, nor indeed to a common man, to have authority to lay down a life and to take it up again.

And the Only-begotten and true Son both laid it down and took it up, placing us outside the snares of death.

And one might see this very well also in the books of Moses, as prefigured in shadows in the things of old;

for the slaying of the lamb delivered those of Israel from death and corruption, and turned away the destroyer.

And the matter was indeed a type of Christ.

For Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, that he might abolish the joyless dominion of death, and by his own blood acquire all that is under heaven.

For we were bought with a price, and we are not our own.

For one died for all, the one more worthy than all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf.

And Paul too will assist, saying:

For I through the law died to the law, that I might live to God.

I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith, the faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for [me].

We are therefore all Christ's, and through him we have been reconciled to the Father, since he suffered in the flesh for us, that he might present us cleansed.

And you, who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by your evil works, yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblemished and blameless before him.

Understand, then, how he says that his own blood and his own flesh were what was given for us, lest we should say that it belongs to another son beside him — one conceived separately, honored by a bare conjunction, having an acquired glory and not an essential preeminence, a thing thrown over him like a patch or a kind of mask, both the name of sonship and of the Godhead that is above all things.

For to one who is of such a nature, as those on the opposite side have determined to think, it would in no way fit that he should be able to say:

For how is that true which is not as it is said to be, but is sluggish and as it were falsely-named? But indeed Christ is truth, and above all things as God.

For the Word remained what he was, even though he became flesh, so that he who is beyond all and has come to be in all might, through the humanity that is being saved, keep his being beyond everything and beyond the measures of creation.

{B} But they say that much ignobility will be smeared upon God the Word by his being said to suffer.

{A} But despising the shame, he chose to suffer in the flesh for us, according to the Scriptures.

And I would reckon it a sickness of the Jewish mind and a grievous charge of Greek folly, to seem to be ashamed of the suffering on the cross.

And so the inspired Paul writes:

the power of God and the wisdom of God; because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

{B} In what way? For I understand it least of all.

{A} Does he not say that the suffering on the cross became a stumbling block to the Jews, but foolishness to the Greeks? For the one group, seeing him hung upon the wood and shaking their murderous heads at him, said:

If you are the Son of God, come down <now> from the cross, and we will believe in you.

For they supposed that, being overcome by their own strength, he had been caught and had suffered.

For they were deceived, not believing him to be truly the Son of God, but looking only at the flesh.

The Greeks, indeed, being able in no way to comprehend the depth of the mystery, consider it foolishness that it is said by us that Christ died for the life of the world.

But this very thing that seems to be foolish is wiser than men.

For the word is deep, and truly full of the highest wisdom — the word, I mean, concerning Christ the Savior of us all; and what was considered weakness among the crowds of the Jews is stronger than men.

For the only-begotten Word of God saved us, having put on likeness with us, in order that, having suffered in the flesh and been raised from the dead, he might show our nature to be mightier than death and corruption.

And what has been accomplished is beyond our power.

Therefore, that which seemed to have been done in our weakness and as it were in suffering is stronger than men, having in it a demonstration of God-befitting power.

{B} Then how, they say, could the same one suffer and not suffer? {A} By suffering in his own flesh, and not in the nature of the Godhead.

And the argument concerning these things is altogether ineffable, and no mind could attain to thoughts so subtle and so exalted.

Following, however, the reasonings that lead to rectitude, and observing the principle of what is fitting, we neither alienate from him the being said to suffer — lest, even before this, we should say that the birth according to the flesh too belonged not to him but to some other — nor do we determine that the things of the flesh were done to his divine and most exalted nature;

but he would be conceived, as I said, to suffer in his own flesh, while yet not suffering in the Godhead, in some such manner.

And the whole power of illustrations is feeble, and comes behind the truth.

Nevertheless, it puts into the mind a faint image of the matter, and as it were from the things at hand it will lift us up to the height and to that which is beyond speech.

For just as iron, or some other such material, when it has come into contact with the assaults of fire, receives it and labors with the flame; and if it should perhaps be struck by someone, the material indeed receives the harm, but the nature of the fire is in no way wronged by the one striking — so too you will understand in the case of the Son being said to suffer in the flesh, but not to suffer in the Godhead.

And small, as I said, is the power of illustrations, yet it somehow carries near to the truth those who have chosen not to disbelieve the sacred Scriptures.

{A} For if the flesh that was united to him ineffably and beyond mind and speech did not become directly proper to the Word, how could it be conceived as life-giving? For I am, he says, the living bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world.

If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.

But if the flesh belongs to another son beside him, appropriated to him by a relative conjunction and called by grace to equal honor, how does he name it his own, though he does not know how to lie? And how could the flesh of someone else give life to the world, unless it had become proper to the Life — clearly, of the Word who is from God the Father, concerning whom the inspired John says:

And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, that we may know him; and we are in his true Son Jesus Christ.

This is the true God and eternal life.

{B} But I think they would say, in answer to this, that it was said by him very clearly:

unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.

We understand, then, they say, that the honored body and the blood belong rather not to God the Word, but to the man who was conjoined to him.

{A} Then where in the world would they place the great mystery of godliness? For the self-emptying of God the Word is, as it seems, done away with — he who is in the form and equality of the Father, but chose for our sake to take the form of a servant, and to come into likeness with us, and to share in flesh and blood, and to bestow the economy of the incarnation upon the whole world under heaven.

For it has been saved through it, the Father recapitulating all things in him, both the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, as it is written.

If, then, they say that it is not the Only-begotten himself who speaks, both in a God-befitting and in a human way:

And the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world — but that some other one beside him, conceived individually as Son of Man, saved us — then it is not he who is Lord, according to what is written, but one of us; and what is under corruption is henceforth made alive not rather through God who is mighty to give life, but by one of those under corruption, who by grace received life together with us.

But if it is true that the Word became flesh, according to the Scriptures, and was seen on earth and associated with men, having the form of the servant as his own, he will be called also Son of Man — and even if some are vexed at this, casting themselves into the charges of ignorance, they would be caught out.

For there was no other way for the flesh to become life-giving — though by its own nature it was subject to the necessity of corruption — unless it had become proper to the Word who gives life to all things.

For thus it wrought the things proper to him, having brought to birth his life-giving power.

And no wonder; for if it is true that fire, coming into contact with materials — though they are not hot by their own nature — renders them hot;

for it puts into them, and that very abundantly, the operation of the power that is in it;

how would God the Word not all the more put into his own flesh the life-giving power and operation of himself, having united himself to it and declared it his own — without confusion, without change, and in the manner that he himself knows? {B} It is therefore necessary to confess together that — with no other one mediating at all — the body became entirely proper to the Word who is from the Father, even though it be conceived as ensouled with a rational soul.

{A} Most assuredly — if we hold straight the unerring word of the faith, and are lovers of the doctrines of truth, and trace out the faith of the holy fathers, not being carried away from the straight path, nor abandoning the royal road and being carried off by the idle tales of certain people into a counterfeit mind, but rather being built up upon the very foundation, that is, Christ — for no one can lay any other foundation than the one which is laid, as the wise master-builder and minister of his mysteries has truly written.

We believe, therefore, that the Son of God and the Father is one, and that our Lord Jesus Christ is conceived in one person: begotten on the one hand of God and the Father divinely as the Word before every age and time, and the same one, on the other, in the last times of the age, become according to the flesh of a woman; and we ascribe to him both the things befitting God and the human things, and we say that the birth according to the flesh and the suffering on the cross became his — he appropriating all the things of his own flesh, yet remaining impassible in the nature of the Godhead.

For thus every knee bows to him, and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.