Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 76/82

So then, if the mind is not a hypostasis but a movement of our whole hypostasis, yet you call Christ 'mind' in respect to this part, do you then suppose that Christ is without hypostasis, and that he has made the indwelling of his enfleshed presence only in word and in appearance?

Likewise they had no answer to give.

And then our condition of life became greatly grievous (†) to us, because among the aforementioned brothers — worthy of praise as they were — mere contentions were sown, so that the aforementioned enemy of mankind, the devil, might always work out divisions among us.

Great, brothers, is the harm to the understanding that comes from such a cause.

For if from the beginning no discussion had been stirred up about this, it would have been the simplest thing.

For how has this innovation profited the world, or benefited the church? Has it not rather done harm, producing hatred and dissension? But since the argument has been put forward, it has become a fearsome thing.

For it does not tend to the better furtherance of our salvation.

For denial exists not only with respect to that part which one fails to confess, but even in the very smallest matter.

For one ought not, even in some chance matter, to stray from the way of truth.

Let us therefore speak also against this hypothesis, wishing neither to step outside our own manner of life nor to abandon the canon of the holy church of God and its confession.

For this has never been said by any of the ancients — neither by prophet, nor apostle, nor evangelist, nor by any of the commentators — until these our own times, from the time when such a sophistical statement came forth from the aforementioned most learned man.

A man setting out from such training, having been schooled in every dialectical and sophistic art, but also most venerable in the rest of his life, (†) and always ranked in the first place among those in love toward the orthodox — he remained so until this doctrine arose.

He even endured exile, because he was unwilling to go along with the Arians.

And what more need I say? Great is our grief, and our life is mourning, because the devil is ever accustomed to grieve us, as I have already said many times.

I will therefore begin to speak concerning this saying, so that, as I said, I may omit nothing of the truth.

What has it profited us to reject the mind from the enfleshed presence of Christ? For if, so to speak, your reasoning has been advanced entirely to help our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Word and Son of God — so that we should not say he took a mind, lest we should think a diminishment concerning his deity — then much more preferable to us would be the Manichaeans and the Marcionites and the other heresies, who are unwilling to attach flesh to him at all, so that they might not procure a diminishment for his deity.

But truth does not have its force according to the will of men, but according to its own governing wisdom and the incomprehensibility of its dispensation.

Therefore, since we confess in this way and do not hold the Manichaean view — for that man will win no favor thereby: thinking that, to Christ's praise, he says Christ did not take flesh, he will rather fall from the truth, confessing the enfleshed presence of Christ only in appearance — so also in the present case, for our brethren, this vulgar talk will turn out to be a vain and empty favor.

For it has been agreed both by them and by us — if they are unwilling to think otherwise, just as certain of them have often been caught and put under pressure — that, because of this, while denying that Christ took true flesh, as I have said above, some of them have dared to say that the flesh is consubstantial with his deity.

But let those be cast aside as men who have not repented, though they were convicted of such an absurdity by those among them who think rightly concerning the flesh.

For surely the same most reverent Apollinarius will not deny this somewhere.

If, then, the Word, having come, truly took flesh from Mary — not from the seed of a man but through the Holy Spirit — and having been truly conceived and having fashioned for himself the flesh, since he is God and the fashioner of the first-formed man and of all things, then the Word, having come, was not thereby diminished, but remained in his own unchangeable nature.

For in taking the flesh he did not undergo change, inasmuch as he is consubstantial with God the Father, and not alien to the Father and his Holy Spirit.

If, then, it has been clearly confessed that he took flesh and grew to maturity, then he is not without a soul.

For everything that grows, except immovable things, consists of soul and body, according to what is said: 'And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature,' so that through 'stature' he might show the flesh.

And 'stature' is perfected from the soul, as I have said, and the body.

And after saying 'he increased in stature,' it consequently says also 'in wisdom.'

But he who is the Wisdom of the Father — how did he increase in wisdom, if the vessel was alien to a human mind? And if he happened to be without a mind, how did he increase in wisdom together with soul and body? Do you see how forced is the reasoning of those who reject the mind? 'But,' he says, 'I do not say that he took a human mind, since otherwise we shall make him lustful, easily provoked.'

For in us the mind happens to be a thing that desires.

And simply put, great is the wrangling of men, as it is said: 'God made man simple, but they have made for themselves many devices.'

For if, by our altogether confessing that he took the human mind, we should suppose that he took to himself the very parts of our diminishment, then much more, when we confess that he took flesh, shall we grant, by the same reasoning, with respect to this part, that he was diminished in the flesh.

He was diminished, though the Word, having come, possessed true flesh; yet not even in his mind did he conceive anything unbefitting his deity, but the Lord, having come, accomplished whatever was fitting to flesh and soul and human mind, so that he might not disturb the coherence of his true enfleshed presence.

For it was fitting that he experience hunger and thirst and weariness and sleep, journeying and grief, weeping and indignation.

And these things, being consistently accomplished in him, made manifest, in their fittingness, the truth of his true enfleshed presence.

For it is not written that he desired an evil desire.

But he desired a good desire, saying, 'With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you.'

But desire does not arise from deity, nor from flesh alone, nor from a mindless soul, but from the complete enmanment of body and soul and mind and everything whatsoever that exists in a human being.

For the Word, having come, possessed these things: body and soul and mind and whatever else constitutes a human being, apart from sin, apart from defect, according to what is said: 'tempted in all things as a man, apart from sin.'

And if he was tempted in all things, then the Word, having come, possessed all things.

But possessing all these, he was unconquered in himself, and he kept them undefiled, being perfect God, born of flesh, and having perfectly fulfilled all things — as the one who fills the whole vessel, not divided by the ill-fitted practice of the flesh, nor drawn away by that alien disposition of mind that exists in us.

For our mind was not given to us for the purpose of sinning, but so that, by observing the matters examined within us from both sides, we might discern what is perfect, and might carry out righteousness and discern its opposite.

For the mind discerns words, the throat tastes food, the eye perceives, and the mind sees.

Sight, then, and taste, and discernment are the mind that exists in us, granted to us as a gift from God, yet not thereby assenting to whatever is always occurring, unless the person wills it.

But the flesh is always renounced throughout all Scripture on account of the desire that arises in it, yet Scripture does not altogether renounce the flesh itself; rather, the Word renounced the things that come from it, as the apostle said: 'For I know that there dwells not in me' — that is, in my flesh — 'anything good,' on account of the things that spring up from the flesh.

And in order to repel the reasoning of the heresies, lest they should suppose that the flesh has been despaired of with respect to the resurrection of the dead, he says: 'This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality' — so that, in rejecting the works of the flesh, which Scripture is accustomed to call 'flesh,' he might not be thought to be rejecting the hope of the resurrection of the flesh.

For he clearly renounced the base works that occur in it, but he showed the flesh itself to be a holy temple in him who sanctified his flesh, according to what is written: 'Pure religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, to keep oneself unspotted from the world'; and in another place: 'Blessed are those who have kept their flesh pure.'

And Scripture, speaking often against the flesh, has taught us that desires and pleasures spring up from it; but against the mind Scripture gives no such account — rather it says, 'I will sing with the mind, I will sing with the spirit,' and, 'if I again sing with the spirit, yet my mind is unfruitful.'

And you see that fruit resides in it — that is, in the mind.

And even if there is no fruit, he did not thereby reckon the mind altogether among sins, but rather, through it, declared where fruit is to be found.

But how will this impinge upon the power of our Lord's deity? What has dimmed his power? The womb of the holy woman? The virgin's womb? The passages of birth? The arms of Simeon? The reception of Anna? The carrying by Mary? The touches of the harlot? The hairs of a woman touching his feet? Or the tears? Or the laying in the tomb? For the linen cloth wrapping his body did not overcome that pure and most great power of his.

Nor by his entry through the conceiving of the holy virgin.

And having been born and lying in a manger, he did not escape the notice of the choir of angels.

And hosts were sent to serve as bodyguard at the entry of the King of the ages; hymns of victory were performed; peace was proclaimed among the shepherds.

But what dimmed his power? For while he was still an infant and being carried, there occurred signs of a star from the east, the coming of the Magi, both worship and the bringing of gifts, the scribes' inquiry for the king, and the answer and confession concerning him.

And all the other things which the narrative comprises — what did they inflict upon his deity? What kind of covering, as in us, did the possession by flesh impose upon him? He rebukes the surging waves and the winds and the sea, and the power of his deity is not restrained by the flesh, accomplishing what is proper by nature to his deity.

Moreover, although the bulk and weight of the flesh existed, he was not held down by weight.

For he walks upon the waters as upon dry land, as the unchangeable God, existing indeed in flesh, yet not being altered by the flesh.

And he cries with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come forth,' the flesh not being set in opposition to this, nor his deity being enslaved in the flesh by his perfect enmanment.

And I have many things to say concerning this.

But he also rises from the dead, and pries open the things pertaining to Hades, and having taken captivity captive, led it up; and having risen on the third day in that same holy flesh and holy soul and mind and the whole vessel, and being united in his deity, he became perfect man, having united his own enmanment to his deity, death no longer having dominion over him.

And being united with the deity, he made the coarse thing subtle, entering while the doors were shut, and after entering showing flesh and bones, so as to reveal the saving power, so as to show us our hope, that the Word, having come, perfected all things, and, having been taken up in that very body, sat gloriously at the right hand of the Father, not weighed down by bodily bulk, nor existing outside the body, but having raised the body as spiritual.

If that which is ours is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.

It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body — how much more, then, is this true of the only-begotten Son of God? Wherefore it has been fulfilled: 'You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption, nor will you leave my soul in Hades.'

But all these things I have said concerning his perfect enmanment, lest some should suppose that, because he assumed perfect flesh, he therefore also did the irrational things of the flesh.

For none of those who believe in him piously think or say this.

And if no one thinks that he did the irrational things of the flesh, neither should one think that he did the irrational things of the mind.

And that the Word, having come, became perfectly man — this is clear.

And if we say 'perfectly,' we do not have two Christs, nor two kings who are sons of God, but the same God, the same man — not as having dwelt in a man, but he himself having become wholly man; not being a man who came to advance toward deity, but God who came from the heavens and fashioned for himself his own enmanment according to his own powerful deity, as it says, 'The Word became flesh.'

And as for 'the Word became flesh' — in order that no one should suppose that there was first a man, and Christ came into the man, for this reason the divine Gospel set 'the Word' first, and then confessed the flesh, that 'the Word became flesh.'

For he did not say, 'The flesh became Word,' so as to show that it was the Word who came first from heaven, and who gave the flesh its subsistence in himself from the womb of the holy Virgin, and who fashioned the whole incarnation completely into himself.

For even if it says, 'The Word became flesh,' it does not mean that the Word was turned into flesh and the Word became flesh, or that the divinity was changed into flesh, but that God the Word, together with his divinity, took upon himself his own incarnation.

'And Jesus,' it says, 'advanced in stature and in wisdom.'

Having what is human, how did he advance? As I have already said:

as also the holy prophet of God, Isaiah, bears witness to this saying, declaring: 'Behold, my beloved servant shall understand, in whom I am well pleased.'

And do you see that 'shall understand' refers to the perfect incarnation? For no one who lacks a mind can understand, nor is this fulfilled with reference to the divinity;

for that which is understanding itself is not in need of understanding, nor does that which is wisdom itself need wisdom; rather, 'shall understand' is spoken with reference to the human mind.

But whence did he hunger? Tell me.

For if he were flesh alone, how could he have been mindful of hunger? And if he consisted only of soul and body, the soul not having the rational faculty of the mind — I do not mean the base sort of reasoning of the incarnation, but that ordered toward reasonable need, fittingly with the divinity — how could he have hungered, or have thought of hunger at all? And whence, tell me, was he grieved, if the soul did not have mind and the power of reasoning? For if the soul were irrational, or the flesh soulless, he would have fallen into neither grief nor despondency.

And there are many things we must know by reflection: that sophistical arguments turn out to be superfluous, and strike all the more those who wish to reason beyond what is fitting and who will not measure themselves by the measure spoken to us as exhortation by the most holy Apostle, who said, 'Not to think more highly than one ought to think.'

They also bring us certain sayings, [namely] that, it says, 'We have the mind of Christ.'

And they say, 'Do you see that Christ's mind is different from ours?' O, how great is the simplicity of men! For each inclines toward whatever he wishes, and precisely where he thinks he is being clever, he is found instead to be an ignoramus.

For since we are, as it has been said, unskilled in speech but not in knowledge, and since such men are exceedingly few — men who marvel at these things and set their minds in motion merely from words — a state of perplexity concerning our understanding befalls us, because they take this saying simply as a proof for their idle contentiousness, though the matter has no bearing whatsoever that would connect with such a relation.

'For,' it says, 'we have the mind of Christ.'

One must ask them, then, what Christ is, according to them, or what the mind of Christ might be.

But here they betray that they have conceived of Christ as one thing, and his divinity as another.

For if they suppose 'Christ' to mean the mind, while naming 'Christ' only the incarnate presence of Christ, then again they are attempting to lead us into a further inquiry.

And it is clear, then, that God the Word and Son of God is not so named from the incarnate presence alone.

But even if testimonies concerning him were given beforehand, calling him 'Christ' already before the incarnate presence, they have been fulfilled in that presence, since neither does the divinity exist apart from the name 'Christ,' nor is the incarnate presence and his incarnation named apart from that very appellation — as it is said: 'Do not say in your heart, Who shall ascend into heaven?' — that is, to bring Christ down;

'or who shall descend into the abyss?' — that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. And again the same [Scripture] says: 'that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.'

Now 'whom you have sent' bears a meaning that comes from above, yet it is not other than what was said by Peter, that 'Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by wonders and signs, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit,' and things similar to these.

Then again our sweetest brothers, wishing in every way to bring contentious notions to us, boldly proclaim that his divinity itself suffered, on the basis of the saying: 'For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.'

But some of his followers, not understanding this, I think, put it forward along with the rest, wishing to argue sophistically.

For I marvel indeed if he himself asserts this.

For indeed we too confess him Lord of glory, even in that very incarnate presence;

for the incarnate presence is not divided from the divinity, each aspect being reasonably understood, while the whole matter is united for us into one economy and one perfection.

For Christ is preached and believed by us to be capable of suffering — not that he suffered in himself as such, nor that the one who suffered was one and the Lord another, nor that the divinity suffered; but rather our Lord Jesus Christ suffered, while the divinity remained unchangeable and impassible — suffering in the flesh, and yet remaining impassible.

For if Christ died for us, and truly died, it was not the divinity that died, but he died in the flesh, according to what is said: 'put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit'; and again, 'Christ having suffered for us in the flesh.'

It has been marvelously confessed by us that he truly suffered, and truly remained impassible: the divinity did not suffer, because of its unchangeableness and impassibility and consubstantiality with the Father, while the flesh suffered, and the divinity was not divided from the incarnate presence in that suffering.

For both the divinity and the incarnation were present together when, on the cross, Christ suffered in the flesh but remained impassible in his divinity, so that we might have justification no longer in the flesh alone, but in the divinity as well, and so that salvation might come to us according to both — in the divinity and in the flesh.

For to us Christ is not a mere man, but the Word subsistent in himself, having become incarnate, and truly God having become man — we not having our hope in a man, but in the divinity; and we not having a God who suffers, but one who is impassible, yet who did not accomplish our salvation apart from suffering, but by dying for us and offering himself to the Father as a sacrifice for our souls, cleansing us by his blood, tearing up the handwriting that was against us and nailing it to the cross, just as the Scripture teaches us in every way.

And I could, if need arose, say many more things about these matters, by way of proof.

For indeed we have said elsewhere, clarifying this understanding concerning our sure salvation, that just as, if a stain occurs on a garment from the sprinkling of blood, the body of the one wearing it is not stained, and the stain on the garment is reckoned not to the garment but to the person wearing it — so also the suffering did not fall upon the divinity, but took place in the incarnation; yet it was not reckoned to the incarnation alone but — lest, in the economy of salvation, there be fulfilled the saying, 'Cursed is everyone who has his hope in man' — it was reckoned also to the divinity, the divinity not suffering, so that the salvation wrought through the suffering might be reckoned, in the divinity, to the holy church of God.

But again, let no one, being a hunter of mere words, prefer to reason from himself rather than from the riddle latent in the analogy.

For not every parable in Scripture is to be taken in every particular, as with 'Judah is a lion's whelp' — taken because of the beast's greater strength and most kingly bearing, but not because of its irrationality and rapacity.

So too with the garment: it is not put on and taken off repeatedly, but once, as it is said, he 'put on majesty,' and a second time he 'put on strength' and 'girded himself' — the word of the most holy Apostle being fulfilled thereby: 'He dies no more; death no longer has dominion over him.'

These things, then, being so, our brothers wish to bring forward to us, as proof, the saying, 'But we have the mind of Christ.'

But according to the argument they set forth on this view, they lead us to suspect that perhaps they have not understood the mind to be something other than Christ himself.

Do they mean a hypostasis of the divinity? Or is it customary for every exalted expression to be spoken of us in a figurative sense, to show forth what is being fulfilled within us?

For indeed every God-fearing person truly conducts his life not according to the human mind, but according to that of Christ — the mind filled by Christ with understanding, reasoning according to Christ in righteousness, having conducted his life in Christ by confession, being saved through Christ in righteous conduct.

For this is the mind of Christ, which is able to be within us without a containing place holding Christ.

For the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are everywhere present, and he exists within us spiritually, if we become worthy of him — no place enclosing him, or his Father, or his Holy Spirit; yet by the power of his divinity he is present in all things, and unmixed with all things, on account of his uncommunicable and incomparable essence and his pure and incomprehensible divinity.

But when the Apostle says, 'We have the mind of Christ,' what then are we to conclude? Did he have his own human mind, or, being filled with the mind of Christ, did he cast off his own mind and possess the mind of Christ in place of it? Not at all.

For every hearer would agree that he had his own mind, and was at the same time filled with that of Christ, who adorned him with piety, knowledge, and a heavenly, godly manner of life.

If, then, while possessing his own mind he was filled with the mind of Christ, then Christ himself, the Word, was 'mind' — if indeed one must speak so, since to some it has seemed fitting to call God 'mind.'

But I do not consider our mind to be a hypostasis — nor does any son of the Church — but rather a certain energy given by God and existing within us.

But Christ I call a hypostasis, as all the faithful likewise confess, and I confess him to be God and truly Lord, begotten of the Father, perfect from perfect, light from light, and God from God.

But nevertheless, by the same reasoning, he who is mind in himself — even as the holy Apostle teaches concerning him, 'We have the mind of Christ' — he himself, and those attested by him, each possessed his own mind, and yet again were filled with the mind of Christ, his grace thus being able to be perfected in them.

It will, then, differ in no way from this exact analogy to apply the same reasoning to Christ: that Christ, being mind in himself, even though he partook of a human mind — just as he partook of flesh and blood and possessed a human soul — was by no means taken captive by that mind.

For if the Apostle, who by nature possessed his own human mind, together with that which comes from a shared gift, favor, and grace, no longer conducted himself according to his own mind, but was adorned by the mind of Christ through some conduct transcending nature, how much more did God the Word — having in himself all perfection, being perfect in himself, God in himself, power in himself, mind in himself, light in himself — become the fulfiller, or rather the perfecter, of the mind and of the whole body, and in all things accomplish our salvation through his incarnate presence? One must therefore set aside such reasoning, which has no bearing on this subject, and set aside also the failure to confess that all things in Christ are perfect, apart from sin.

For the Word, having come, truly did all things, fulfilling what had been written beforehand concerning him, according to what is written: 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child,' and so forth:

going down [into Egypt], and being carried back from Egypt, and returning to Nazareth; coming to the Jordan and being baptized by John, and being tempted by the devil; truly choosing disciples and preaching the kingdom of heaven, so that all things are found to be true; being betrayed by Judas and seized by the Jews; being brought before Pontius Pilate and condemned by him to death; being delivered to the cross, saying, 'I thirst, give me to drink'; truly receiving vinegar mixed with gall, tasting it and accepting no more drink; truly being fastened to the cross, crying out, 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani'; truly bowing his head and breathing his last; truly having his body taken down and received; truly being wrapped by Joseph and laid in a tomb; truly having the tomb secured with a stone;

going down, in his divinity together with his soul, into Hades, and loosing those who were fettered, in valor and in power; ascending as God the Word together with his holy soul, with which he delivered [them] from captivity — all this, truly, within the space of three days; rising with body and soul and every faculty, truly; being found with the disciples for forty days; blessing them on the Mount of Olives, truly; ascending into heaven, truly, the disciples beholding him as he was taken up as far as the clouds, truly; having sat down, and sitting, at the right hand of the Father, truly, in that very body and in the divinity, in that very perfect incarnation by which he united all things into one, into a single spiritual perfection; being God, seated in glory, and coming truly to judge the living and the dead.

And nothing here is out of order, but all things have been wrought perfectly in him, in [complete] perfection.

Having judged it good to speak of these matters, we have deemed it right that they be stated up to this point.

But concerning the superfluous discourses which we have again heard reported from those who say such things, it is necessary to point these out as well.

We do not, however, fully believe that this is indeed what is being taught among them;

nevertheless, we will not pass over in silence what has been reported to us.

For some have even dared to say — that is, certain among them again say — concerning Mary, that after having given birth to Christ she was joined [in marital union] to her husband Joseph.

But I marvel indeed if they themselves say this.

There are those who say this, whom we ourselves have also numbered among the schismatic groups, and, having been requested, we wrote a letter in Arabia to certain persons against those who say this.

And we have said much about this matter there, in the treatise devoted to them.

In due course, God willing, I shall also treat this matter separately, on its own.