Antirrheticus Against Apollinarius 1 part 2/7

"And the man Christ," he says, "pre-exists — not as though the Spirit, that is, God, were something other than he, but as the Lord's being, in the nature of the God-man, a divine Spirit."

These, then, are the very words of the pamphleteer, verbatim.

But since, owing to a certain feebleness in his power of expression, the thought is not altogether clear in its lucidity, I shall first strip the meaning that lies within it bare of the murkiness of the wording, and then set forth the argument for examination.

"The man Christ pre-exists," he says —

he conceives, together with the Word who was "in the beginning," the man who appeared, as pre-existing before his manifestation, and he works out the thought further through what follows.

For he says that the Spirit is not other than he, thereby contriving through this that the very deity of the Son is, from the beginning, man — which is shown more clearly by the argument that follows:

for he says that the Lord, in the nature of the God-man, was a divine spirit.

He has made the nature of God and of man one, and has given the name "man" to the blending together of the two.

This, then, is the sense of what has been said: that he who was manifested through flesh from the Virgin is conceived as pre-existing among beings — not only in respect of the eternity of his deity, as we all believe, but also in respect of the flesh itself.

For to what has been said he adds, as testimony for such a supposition, "Before Abraham came to be, I am";

and John's saying, "He was before me";

and "One Lord, through whom are all things";

and "He is before all things."

and a certain saying of Zechariah, which — since it is dragged in forcibly for this purpose — I shall pass over.

Now for my part, if this construction of absurdity lay hidden beneath some covering of ideas, I would rightly labor over refuting what was concealed;

but since it proclaims its impiety plainly and openly, I do not know what more could be accomplished by any words of ours.

If the flesh is before the ages, if the one from Mary existed before Abraham came to be, then the Virgin is older than Nahor;

then Mary is even before Adam.

Yet why do I say this? It seems that she is even earlier than the constitution of created beings, and more ancient than the very ages themselves.

For if he became flesh in the Virgin, and the flesh is called "Jesus," and it is testified through the Apostle that that one is "before all things," then, it would seem, our noble author contrives that Mary too must be conceived together with the eternity of the Father.

And I pass over in silence the things that too plainly betray themselves, toward which the absurdity of this novel doctrine is carried by logical consequence;

for the perceptive reader will see the absurdity from what follows, even if we do not expose the indecency in so many words.

But let us pass over the foul stench of these notions, marking only this much: that if the flesh is before the ages, then the deity was not "emptied," the Son did not exist "in the form of God," he did not put on "the form of a servant";

but rather, what he was by nature, this was now [merely] manifested — he was not humbled.

May the Logos be gracious to this discourse — but I pass over in silence what remains.

If the flesh is before all things, then all things are from weakness, and not from power;

"For the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

...to him who was flesh before the ages [belong] the toil, the grief, the tear, the thirst, the sleep, the want through hunger, and — what is even more unreasonable than this —

But since "a Child was born to us," as the divine voice says, and "the Lord was seen by the shepherds, wrapped in swaddling clothes," as Luke says, and that "Jesus advanced in stature and wisdom and grace," being brought to completion, until he came to the full measure of manhood, walking a path through nature — what will those who behold the flesh as existing before the ages say? By what bodily measure did it exist before the ages? For in his life as a man he passed through the whole course of growth.

Was that man — the one who existed before all creation — a child? Or a mere infant, or a youth, or straightaway in a mature body? But if they say "a child," they will certainly also have to give the reason why, though so vast an age had passed, he had not yet arrived at the fullness of manhood. And if they say "mature," we shall demand to learn this: how, in the process of human generation, is he contracted into the smallness of an infant? Where does he leave the excess of the body? How is the bulk diminished to so small a compass? And then again, how does he bring the bulk of the body back to its own [full] measure? Does he resume, through gradual growth, what he had from the beginning, or does he add something else to himself through nourishment? But if they say the former, they will certainly show that the nourishment was superfluous;

but if they do not deny that the Lord partook of nourishment, what will they say concerning the flesh that was left behind above, of which, in all likelihood, the greater part was left behind, and only so much was taken from it as the Virgin's womb could hold? For they will surely spin some marvel about this too, and will compose, through these devices, yet other doctrines — to whatever point the logical sequence of the absurdity of their myths of necessity leads them on.

And one might not unreasonably raise this further question against those who teach that this divine incarnation is before the ages:

for if they suppose the flesh to have always been about him, yet say that the flesh is God, and every flesh offers resistance to what touches it, and what offers resistance is material and composite, and what is composite is of course also dissoluble — then by all this necessity requires that he too be constructed as material, and composed of diverse parts, and by nature awaiting dissolution.

For we know, from the time when he dwelt among men in human fashion, from what elements his body had its composition;

that it too consisted of flesh and bones and blood, after the likeness of other men — this is known both from the mark of the nails, and from the blood poured out by the spear, and from the fact that the Lord said this to those who did not believe what appeared before them: "Touch me [and see] and know, that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me having."

If, then, the divine incarnation, as Apollinarius says, did not have its beginning from the Virgin, but existed even before Abraham and before all creation, it was surely of the very same kind that was seen by the disciples — solid and resistant, made up of flesh and bones.

Then these things always were, and there occurred for him no descent whatever to lowliness — rather, what was hidden, being divine by nature, was now manifested at the time of his becoming human.

What such a thing did Arius devise, or what did Eunomius, who is worse than he, devise for the overthrow of the glory of the Only-Begotten, comparable to what is contrived for us by Apollinarius through such pamphleteering? A God possessing flesh before the ages — a being with bones, and hair, and made up of skin and sinews and flesh and fat, composed of diverse parts, and not having in himself what is simple and uncomposite — this in place of the Word who was "in the beginning" and "was with God," who in the last days, through his fellowship with the lowliness of our nature, became flesh out of love for mankind, and for this reason was commingled with man and received in himself the whole of our nature, so that, through this commingling with the divine, the human might be deified together with it, since through that firstfruit the whole lump of our nature is sanctified along with it.

...the erroneous supposition attached to each of the divine [testimonies] which he adduced for this purpose;

for it would be superfluous to prolong the discourse by examining in detail things that are already plainly evident at first glance.

For, as testimony that he is always in flesh and blood, he adduced the apostolic saying which states that "through him we have received redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins through his flesh" — but that this looks toward a different meaning, I do not think any who possess mind would doubt.

For who does not know the divine mystery, that the "author of our salvation," like a shepherd, goes after the sheep that has strayed? And we human beings are that sheep, who were driven away from the rational hundred through sin.

and he takes up the whole sheep upon his own shoulders;

for the straying was not in a part of the sheep, but since the whole had wandered away, the whole also is brought back;

it is not the case that only the hide is carried while the inward parts are left behind, as Apollinarius would have it.

But this sheep, having come to be upon the shoulders of the shepherd — that is, in the divinity of the Lord — becomes one with him through the assumption.

For this reason, wishing to seek out and save that which was lost, when he had found what was sought, he took up upon himself that which was found;

for the sheep no longer moved by its own feet that had once gone astray, but was carried by the divinity.

For this reason the sheep that appeared — that is, the man — was visible, but his footprints, according to what is written, were not known.

For he who bore the sheep upon himself imprinted no trace of sin or error upon human life;

but such traces as it was fitting for God to imprint through the course of his life appeared — namely, teachings, healings, the raising of the dead to life, and the other miracles.

This sheep, then, the shepherd, having taken it up upon himself, became one with it;

for this reason he also speaks to the flocks with the voice of the sheep.

For how could human weakness have sustained the impact of a divine voice? But he converses with us in a human manner — or, as one might say, in a 'sheep-like' manner — saying, 'My sheep hear my voice.'

He, then, who as shepherd took the sheep up upon himself, and who through it speaks to us, is both sheep and shepherd:

in the one who was assumed, a sheep;

but in the one who assumed him, a shepherd.

Since, then, it was necessary that the good shepherd lay down his life for the sheep, in order that through his own death he might destroy death, then the pioneer of our salvation becomes, for human nature, both together — priest and lamb — having wrought death in that which was able to receive fellowship in the passion.

For since death is nothing other than the dissolution of soul and body, he who united himself to both — I mean, to the soul and to the body — is separated from neither (for 'the gifts of God are without repentance,' as the apostle says);

but having apportioned himself to both body and soul, through the soul he opens paradise to the thief, while through the body he brings to a halt the working of corruption;

and this is the destruction of death: that corruption become inoperative, vanishing away within the life-giving nature;

for what came to pass in these becomes a common benefit and grace for our nature.

And thus he who is present in both joins together, through the resurrection, all that had been separated — he who, by his own authority, gives up the body to the heart of the earth, as it is written, and lays down the soul of himself, saying to the Father, 'Into your hands I commit my spirit,' and to the thief, 'Today you will be with me' in paradise — speaking truly in each case;

for one must not believe that divine mode of life which is called 'paradise' to be anywhere other than in the spacious palm of the Father, as the prophet also says, addressing the Jerusalem above, speaking in the person of the Lord: 'Upon my hands I have painted your walls, and you are before me continually.'

Thus, then, he comes to be even in death, and yet is not mastered by death;

for the composite is divided;

but the uncompounded does not admit of dissolution;

rather, the uncompounded nature remains present throughout the division of the composite, and although the soul departs from the body, it is separated from neither.

And the proof is the operation, as has been said — which wrought incorruption in the case of the body, and, in the case of the soul, life in paradise.

Yet the simple and uncompounded is not split apart together with the separation of these, but effects rather the opposite — it makes them one;

for by that which is in itself indivisible it brings even what has been divided into union; and this is what is indicated by him who said, 'God raised him from the dead.'

For it is not pious to suppose the same of the Lord's resurrection as when Lazarus or one of the others who were restored to life is brought back to living by a power foreign to himself;

but the Only-begotten God himself raises up the man who was commingled with him, having both separated the soul from the body and again united the two together; and thus the common salvation of our nature comes to be;

whence he is also named 'the pioneer of life';

for in him who died for us and was raised, the Only-begotten God reconciled the world to himself, having ransomed us — all who share with him in flesh and blood — like captives taken by the spear, through our kindred blood; so that the apostolic saying looks to this very point, which says that we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins through his flesh.

This is our own account, which we have understood from the apostle's words just cited, and not as that [Apollinarius] holds.

Let the one who judges examine with due care which view is the more pious: whether, as we say, the glory tabernacles by way of economy in our earth, or, as that one says, the flesh does not become an acquisition to the divinity consequent upon its beneficence, but is consubstantiated and connatural with it.

But if the prophet Zechariah, in these riddles, is speaking of some other, I think there is no need to inquire in this discourse whether the sense looks to the Lord or to some other.

For he says: 'Sword, awake against my herdsman, and against the man who is my kinsman.'

We, for our part, think that the passage moves the sword threateningly against those who have dealt unjustly with their own kinsmen;

but Apollinarius says that it raises the sword against the Lord, because of the title 'herdsman,' not knowing that in many places of Scripture the text calls those appointed to rule both 'shepherds' and 'herdsmen.'

And again, whatever [texts] are dragged in from the Epistle to the Hebrews toward the same purpose exhibit an absurdity in their construction so manifest that it is easy for anyone to perceive, if he shares even a little in good sense.

For since it is written, 'In these last days God has spoken to us in a Son, he who spoke of old to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and many manners,' it is, he says, a proof that the human [element] of the God who appeared to us is pre-eternal;

for he speaks thus, word for word, as he supposedly interprets the apostle:

'And it is manifest in these words that the very man who spoke to us the things of the Father is God, maker of the ages, radiance of glory, the imprint of his essence — inasmuch as he is, by his own spirit, God, and does not have within himself another God besides himself; he himself, through himself — that is, through the flesh — having purified the world of sins.'

These things Apollinarius says word for word, and nothing in what has been said has been falsified by us.

If, then, the man who spoke is the maker of the ages, as it seems good to the pamphleteer, and the flesh is the radiance, and the form of a servant characterizes the essence of God, it no longer seems to me right to contend against what has been said, but rather to lament the senselessness of those who accept such a bizarre novelty of speech —

receiving food and asking for water —

is this the one who, precisely in respect of that fleshly and human aspect, is conceived in thought as prior to the constitution of existing things, and is the nature of the flesh — that composite, hard, and resistant nature — called God? Let every pious ear be stopped, lest the divine and undefiled doctrines be defiled, being outraged with such carnal passions by those who reduce the divine to the human.

For who does not know that God, manifested to us in flesh, according to the doctrine of pious tradition, is immaterial, invisible, and uncompounded, and was and is unbounded and uncircumscribed, being everywhere and pervading all creation, but according to what appeared was seen in human circumscription? For it is altogether necessary that every body be encompassed by some surface.

This surface, then, of the body enclosed within it, is its boundary;

and everything enclosed by a boundary is confined within a certain determinate quantity;

but what is bounded cannot be unbounded.

But indeed the prophet says: 'Of his greatness there is no end.'

If, then, the divine nature is flesh, as the pamphleteer says, and this [flesh] is necessarily comprehended within the boundary of a surface, how does the greatness of God, according to the prophet, extend into the infinite? Or how is the unbounded conceived through the bounded, the infinite through the finite? Rather — as we have already said above — how can strength come from death? For if, as he says, the very man who spoke is the maker of the ages — he himself through himself, that is, through the flesh, as Apollinarius interprets it, making all things — and yet the flesh was named 'weak' by the divine voice itself, then it follows that the pamphleteer supposes might, strength, power, and all the lofty and God-befitting conceptions to be nothing other than offspring of weakness.

And this is not yet so terrible; but as the argument proceeds, through the examination of what follows in sequence, it touches upon blasphemy against the Father himself.

For he says that the man is the radiance of God's glory, and that in the fleshly god — which he has fashioned like an idol through the vanity of his reasonings — the essence of God is stamped.

Just as, then, the ray is akin to the sun, and the light that shines forth from the lamp is akin to the flame, and the imprint of a man shows a human essence, so likewise altogether, if that which appeared to us was radiated forth from the glory of the Father, and its imprint of that essence is flesh, then, by consequence, the nature of the Father too is constructed as fleshly.

For surely he would not say that the incorporeal is characterized by a body, or that the visible radiates forth from the invisible;

but as the glory is, such evidently is the radiance also; and as the imprint is, such altogether also is the essence — so that, if this [imprint] is body, one must not think that [essence] to be at all incorporeal.

But he also makes mention of the doctrine set forth at Nicaea, in which the common council of the fathers proclaimed the 'homoousion.'

Now no one would call something of a different kind 'consubstantial'; rather, 'consubstantial' applies altogether to those things of which the account of substance is one and the same.

If, then, the Son is a fleshly god — being, by his pre-eternal name, that very thing which he is by nature, flesh — and it is not disputed, even by the pamphleteer himself, that he is consubstantial with the Father, and those things are consubstantial with one another which are described under one and the same account of substance, then Apollinarius likewise supposes the nature of the Father also to be somehow human and fleshly, in order to preserve the term 'consubstantial' for both; so that he is left with one of two alternatives: either, calling the Father incorporeal, he will consign the fleshly divinity of the Son to a different substance, or, confessing the divinity and substance to be common alike to Father and Son, he will strip the flesh even from the divine nature of the Father as well.

But as though correcting this absurdity, he says earlier, interpreting the saying of Zechariah as seems fit to him, taking it as spoken in the person of the Father concerning the Son, that the word 'kinsman' was used, which is equivalent to 'connatural' and 'consubstantial';

...of the term. But what he then contends for is this:

How, then, is his fleshly god united with flesh before the constitution of the world, when the ages did not yet exist, nor was there any other thing of creation? For flesh is among the many and the last of the things that came to be within creation.

With what flesh, then, was he united, when human nature had not yet come into being? But perhaps he knows some other flesh besides that of man.

And how does he say that the very man who spoke to us the things of the Father is that God, maker of the ages? Who will unravel for us the absurdity of these strange riddles — a man before he became man; flesh prior to its own creation; that which came to be in the last times called pre-eternal; and however many other such things he sets forth confusedly in his account?

But let the pamphleteer wander, as he thinks fit, in the trackless wastes of his own reasonings;

we, however, having set forth the apostolic teaching mentioned by this very man himself, for the refutation of his impious suppositions, will proceed to what follows in our discourse.

'Who, existing in the form of God,' he says —

he did not say 'having a form similar to God,' which is said of the one made according to the likeness of God, but 'existing in the very form of God itself';

for all that belongs to the Father is in the Son.

Therefore also the eternity, the quantitylessness, the immateriality, and the incorporeality [are in the Son], so that in every respect the form of the Father's character might be preserved in the Son;

what notion of any difference or variation does equality leave room for? And how could 'equal' be applied to things that differ in nature? For if the one is fleshly in nature, and the other is free from flesh, how could anyone bring such a thing into equality with what is not such? 'He emptied himself,' he says, 'taking the form of a servant.'

What is the form of a slave? Surely, the body.

For we have heard nothing else besides this from the fathers.

Therefore the one who said that he "took the form of a slave"—and the form is flesh—says that he, who is one thing according to the divine form, took the form of a slave, which is by nature a different thing.

But also the phrase "he emptied himself" clearly shows that he was not always this which appeared to us, but that, in the fullness of the Godhead, being equal to God, he was inaccessible and unapproachable, and especially incapable of being contained by the smallness of human nothingness;

but he became capable of being contained by the perishable nature of the flesh at that time when, as the apostle says, he emptied himself, and diminished together with our smallness the ineffable glory of his Godhead, so that what he was, was great and perfect and incomprehensible, but what he took was equal in magnitude to the measure of our nature.

"For being made," he says, "in the likeness of men and in fashion"—clearly as one who did not from the beginning have about himself the likeness of such a nature, nor was shaped according to any bodily pattern.

For how could the impression of a shape be stamped upon that which is bodiless? But he comes to be in a shape at that time when, being shaped, he clothes himself with it.

And this is the nature of the body.

"Being found, then, as a man"—for indeed he is also a man, even if not wholly a man, but "as a man" because of the mystery according to the virginity, so that it might thereby become evident that he was not in every respect subject to the laws of human nature, but, having settled himself in life in a divine manner, and not needing the cooperation of marriage for the fashioning of his own creation, he is found not in every respect a common man, on account of the singularity of his composition, but "as a man."

And thus he humbled himself, becoming man without change.

For if he had been this from the beginning, in what would the humbling have consisted? But now the Most High has humbled himself through his union with the lowliness of our nature.

...of shared feeling; thus he who was united to our nature makes our sufferings his own, just as Isaiah says, that he himself took up our weaknesses and bore our sicknesses, undergoing the blow on our behalf, so that by his bruise we might be healed;

not that the Godhead was bruised, but the man who, through the union, was joined to the Godhead, whose nature is able to receive a bruise;

And these things come to pass so that, through the very same paths again, the path of evil might be dissolved.

For since death entered through the disobedience of the first man, for this reason it is banished through the obedience of the second man.

For this reason he becomes obedient unto death, so that through obedience he might heal the offense that came from disobedience, and through the resurrection from the dead he might do away with the death that entered together with the disobedience.

For the resurrection of man from death is the annihilation of death;

This is, as it were, a seal set upon the reasoning already given.

For it is clear that the Most High has no need to be exalted, but it is the lowly that is raised up to a height, now becoming what it was not before;

for human nature, having been united to the Lord, is raised up together with the Godhead, and that which is exalted is the very thing that is lifted up out of lowliness;

and the lowly thing is the form of a slave, which through this exaltation becomes both Christ and Lord.

And since the man in Christ was, according to the order proper to human nature, addressed by a name particular to himself through the sacred instruction given to the Virgin by Gabriel, and the human element, as has been said, was named Jesus, while the divine nature is incomprehensible by any name, and the two have become one through the commingling;

for this reason God also is named from the human element.

For at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and the man becomes above every name—which is proper to the Godhead, which cannot be signified by any nominal designation—so that, just as the exalted comes to be in the lowly, so the lowly might in turn receive the exalted properties;

for just as the Godhead is named through the man, so that which was lifted up together with the Godhead out of lowliness becomes above every name;

And just as the dishonor of the form of a slave has its reference to the God who was commingled with the slave, so also the worship of the Godhead, offered by all creation, comes to be directed to the one who was united to the Godhead; and thus, "at the name of Jesus Christ every knee shall bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

But it seems that he, as if blushing at himself and being ashamed of the absurdity of what has been said, in a certain manner retracts what he has constructed, and wishes to establish that the Son's likeness to men is something that came about afterward, as a later addition.

For he says: "Behold, in the same Jesus Christ, the equality with the Father pre-exists, while the likeness to men comes about afterward."

He seems to be repenting of what he has said; and let him only do this from the heart, turning away from his absurd opinion, and we too shall cease from our refutations.

But it seems that, by what he does, he is laying the groundwork for another absurdity through this apparent fair-mindedness in these matters.

He says, word for word, as follows: "And what is clearer than this, that one thing is not together with another, namely, a perfect God together with a perfect man?" Now it should be evident to all who know how to follow an argument that this statement has not the slightest connection with what has preceded.

But I shall postpone for a little while the demonstration of the impiety and folly of such a supposition, and for now I shall try to direct my argument in order, word by word, against what has been written, so far as anything is at once obviously blameworthy.

For he says that there is not a perfect God together with a perfect man.

Now here he has left it ambiguous which of the two things he named he considers imperfect, and because of the unclarity of what is meant, the mind looks equally toward either one; and from what we have heard it is impossible to discern concerning which of the two he supposes the imperfection to hold—whether concerning God, or concerning man, or whether he thinks it applies equally to both.

He says that he himself is God in spirit, possessing the glory of God, but man in body, having borne the inglorious form of men.

He said "God," and he also said "man";