Eranistes 1 part 3/13

he does not, then, mean this, but that, having received the curse against us, he no longer leaves us to be accursed thereafter;

so also here he says that he became flesh, not by changing his essence into flesh, but by assuming it, while that essence remained untouched.

ORTH. And if it is your pleasure to give ear also to Severian, the shepherd of Gabala, I will bring his interpretation too before you; do you but lend your hearing.

For the phrase 'The Word became flesh' does not signify a falling-away of the nature, but the assumption of our nature.

For if you suppose that the word 'became' signifies a change, then, when you hear Paul saying, 'Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us,' do you take the expression to mean a change into the nature of a curse and a transformation? Just as, then, 'having become a curse' signifies nothing else than that he took upon himself the curse against us, so also 'The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us' presents nothing other than the assumption of the flesh.

ERAN. I admire these men for their harmony.

For all of them gave the same interpretation of the evangelical sayings, as though they had come together to one place and had written down a common opinion.

ORTH. Very great mountains and seas kept them apart from one another, yet the distance did no harm to their harmony;

for they were all inspired by one and the same spiritual grace.

You would have seen these men too writing in unison, and drawing their streams from the divine fountain, and themselves having become channels of the Spirit;

for you have taken up an implacable war against them.

But I will display to you the mind of the all-praised teachers of the Church concerning the divine incarnation, that you may know what they held concerning the nature that was assumed.

You have surely heard of that Ignatius, who through the right hand of the great Peter received the grace of the high priesthood, and, having guided the Church of Antioch, bound about himself the crown of martyrdom;

and Irenaeus, who enjoyed the teaching of Polycarp, and had become a light-bearer of the western Gauls;

and Hippolytus and Methodius, the high priests and martyrs, and the others, whose names I will append to their teachings.

ERAN. To my longing you will bring these testimonies also.

ORTH. Hear then the men setting forth the apostolic teaching.

Of the holy Ignatius, bishop of Antioch and martyr.

From the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans.

By the same, from the same epistle.

For what does it profit me, if someone praises me, but blasphemes my Lord, not confessing that he bore flesh? He who does not say this has utterly denied him, being himself a corpse-bearer.

By the same, from the same epistle.

For if these things were done by our Lord only in appearance, then I too am bound only in appearance.

And why have I given myself over to death, to fire, to sword, to wild beasts? But he who is near the sword is near God; he who is amid the wild beasts is amid God.

Only in the name of Jesus Christ, that I may suffer together with him, do I endure all things, he strengthening me, the perfect man, whom some, being ignorant of him, deny.

By the same, from the Epistle to the Ephesians.

By the same, from the same epistle.

By the same, from the same epistle.

There is one Physician, both fleshly and spiritual, begotten and unbegotten, God come in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, first passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord.

By the same, from the Epistle to the Trallians.

Of Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons.

From the third book of the work Against Heresies.

By the same, from the same book.

If, then, the first Adam had a man for his father and was begotten of seed, it would be reasonable to say also that the second Adam was begotten of Joseph.

But if that first man was taken from the earth, and his fashioner was God, then it was necessary that the man who was to be recapitulated in him — the man fashioned by God — should share the same likeness of birth as that first one.

... God, but brought it about that the fashioning should come to pass from Mary — so that there might not arise another fashioning, nor another being that is saved, but that this very same one might be recapitulated, the likeness being preserved.

Grievously, therefore, do they fall who say that he took nothing from the Virgin, in order that they might cast out the inheritance of the flesh and reject the likeness.

By the same, from the same book.

Since his descent into Mary would otherwise be superfluous.

For why did he even descend into her, if he was to receive nothing from her? And moreover, if he had taken nothing from Mary, he would not have partaken of the nourishment taken from the earth, by which the body that is taken from the earth is nourished;

nor would he, having fasted forty days like Moses and Elijah, have hungered, the body seeking its own proper nourishment;

nor would John his disciple, writing concerning him, have said:

'And to the pain of my wounds they added'; nor would he have wept over Lazarus, nor would he have sweated clots of blood;

nor would he have said, 'My soul is exceedingly sorrowful'; nor, when his side was pierced, would there have come forth blood and water.

For all these are tokens of the flesh that was taken from the earth, which he recapitulated in himself, saving his own handiwork.

By the same, from the same book.

For just as through the disobedience of the one man who was first fashioned out of the unwrought earth the many were made sinners and lost life, so it was necessary that through the obedience of the one man who was first born of a virgin, many should be justified and receive salvation.

By the same, from the same book.

'I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High; but you shall die like men.' This he says to those who did not receive the gift of adoption, but dishonored the incarnation of the pure begetting of the Word of God, and deprived man of his ascent to God, and were ungrateful to the Word of God who was made flesh for their sake.

For to this end the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having received the Word within him and having taken the adoption, might become a son of God.

By the same, from the same book.

The Spirit, then, having come down for the sake of the foreordained dispensation, and the only-begotten Son of God, who is also the Word of the Father, having come — when the fullness of time was come — being made flesh in man, and having fulfilled the whole dispensation according to man, Jesus Christ our Lord being one and the same, as the Lord himself testifies and the apostles confess and the prophets proclaim: all the teachings of those who invented Ogdoads and Tetrads and phantasms were shown to be false.

Of Hippolytus, bishop and martyr.

From the homily on the text, 'The Lord shepherds me.' The ark also, made of incorruptible woods, was himself the Savior.

For his incorruptible and undecaying tabernacle was proclaimed by this, namely, that it bred no rottenness of sin.

For he who has sinned and makes confession says:

'My wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.' But the Lord was without sin, taking from the incorruptible woods that which is according to man — that is, from the Virgin and the Holy Spirit — being covered within and without by the Word of God as with the purest gold.

By the same, from the homily on Elkanah and Hannah.

By the same, from the same homily.

By the same, from the same homily.

And the second [coming], that which was through the prophets as through Samuel, recalling and turning back the people from the bondage of the aliens.

And the third, in which he was present in the flesh, having taken up the man from the Virgin, who also, when he beheld the city, wept over it.

By the same, from the homily on the beginning of Isaiah.

By Egypt he likened the world, by the things made with hands, idolatry, and by the earthquake, its overthrow and dissolution.

And by the light cloud, the purest tabernacle, enthroned upon which our Lord Jesus Christ entered into this life to shake off error.

Of holy Methodius, bishop and martyr.

From the homily on the martyrs.

For so wonderful and worthy of all zeal is martyrdom, that the Lord Christ himself, the Son of God, honoring it, bore witness, not counting it robbery to be equal with God, that by this grace also he might crown the man into whom he descended.

Of holy Eustathius, bishop of Antioch and confessor.

From the interpretation of the fifteenth Psalm.

But indeed the [soul] of Jesus had experience of both.

For it came to be also in the region of human souls, and, having come to be outside the flesh, it lives and subsists.

It is therefore rational and consubstantial with the souls of men, just as the flesh also happens to be consubstantial with the flesh of men, having come forth from Mary.

By the same, from the homily on the soul.

What could they say, when they look upon the nurturings of the infant, or the growth of his stature, or the extension of his years, or the increase of his body? And, to leave aside speaking of the wonders wrought upon the earth, let them behold the raisings of the dead, the tokens of the Passion, the traces of the scourges, the welts of the blows, the pierced side, the marks of the nails, the pouring out of blood, the signs of death, and — to say it all in one word — the very resurrection of his own body.

By the same, from the same homily.

And indeed, if one looks to the birth of the body, he would plainly find that, having been born in Bethlehem, he was wrapped in swaddling clothes; that in Egypt he was nourished for a certain time on account of the plot of the accursed Herod; and that in Nazareth, having come to manhood, he grew up.

By the same, from the same homily.

For the tabernacle of the Word and God, through which the blessed Stephen beheld the divine glory, is not the same thing.

By the same, from the homily on the text, 'The Lord created me the beginning of his ways.' If, then, the Word received the beginning of his begetting from that point at which, having passed through the maternal womb, he put on the harmonies of the body, it is established that he came to be from a woman.

But if he was Word and God from the beginning with the Father, and we say that all things came to be through him, then he did not come to be from a woman — he who is, and who is the cause of all begotten things;

but he is by nature God, self-sufficient, infinite, incomprehensible;

and it was the man that came to be from a woman — he who was fashioned in the virginal womb by the Holy Spirit.

By the same, from the same homily.

For the temple, properly speaking — the pure and undefiled one — is the tabernacle set about the Word according to the manhood, wherein God, manifestly tabernacling, took up his dwelling.

And these things we do not say from mere probabilities;

for concerning this the Son of God by nature, foretelling the dissolution and resurrection of the temple, unambiguously furnishes us with instruction, saying to the murderous Jews:

'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' By the same, from the same homily.

When, therefore, the Word, having built [him] as a temple, put on the man, sojourning among men in the body, he displayed all manner of wonders invisibly, and sent forth the apostles as heralds of the everlasting kingdom.

By the same, from the interpretation of the second Psalm.

It is plain, then, that if the one who anoints proves to be God — he whose throne he said is eternal — then he who anoints is manifestly by nature God, begotten of God;

while the one who is anointed received an acquired virtue, adorned with an excellent temple-building, out of the divinity of him who dwells within him.

Of holy Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria and confessor.

'I am the vine, you are the branches;

my Father is the husbandman.' For we are kinsmen of the Lord according to the body;

and for this reason he himself said:

'I will declare your name to my brethren.' And just as the branches are consubstantial with the vine and are from it, so also we, having bodies of the same kind as the body of the Lord, receive of his fullness, and have that as our root unto the resurrection and unto salvation.

And the Father is called the husbandman;

For He Himself, through the Word, wrought the vine, which is the Lord's own body.

By the same author, from the same Apology.

And the Lord was called a vine because of the bodily kinship which He has with the branches, which are ourselves.

By the same author, from his greater discourse On the Faith.

That it is written, 'In the beginning was the Word,' plainly declares the Godhead;

but the words, 'The Word became flesh,' point to the Lord's manhood.

By the same author, from the same discourse.

And the passage, 'He shall wash His robe in wine' — that is, His body, the garment of the Godhead, in His own blood.

By the same author, from the same discourse.

For the word 'was' is referred to His Godhead;

but the words 'became flesh' refer to the body.

'The Word became flesh,' not by being dissolved into flesh, but by wearing flesh;

just as one might say that so-and-so has become an old man, though he was not born old from the beginning;

or that the soldier became a veteran, though he was not previously such as he has become.

John says, 'I was on the island of Patmos on the Lord's Day' — not that he came into being there or was born there, but he said 'I was in Patmos' in the sense of 'I found myself there.'

In this way the Word came to be in flesh, as it is said, 'The Word became flesh.' Hear the one who says:

'I became like a vessel that is destroyed,' and, 'I became like a man without help, free among the dead.' By the same author, from the Epistle to Epictetus.

For who ever heard such things? Who was the teacher? Who the learner? For 'out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.' But whence did these things come forth? What sort of Hades belched them up — to call the body from Mary consubstantial with the Godhead of the Word, or to say that the Word was changed into flesh and bones and hair and the whole body? And who ever heard in the Church, or among Christians at all, that the Lord bore a body by adoption and not by nature? By the same author, from the same Epistle.

And who, hearing that the Word made for Himself a passible body not from Mary but from His own substance, would call the one who says such things a Christian? And who devised this unlawful impiety, so as even to come to the thought and to say that whoever asserts the Lord's body to be from Mary no longer holds a Trinity but a Quaternity in the Godhead — as though for this reason those who are so disposed reckon the flesh which the Saviour put on from Mary to belong to the substance of the Trinity?

And again, whence did certain persons belch up an impiety equal to those already mentioned, so as to say that the body is not younger than the Godhead of the Word, but has been co-eternal with Him throughout, since it was constituted from the substance of Wisdom? By the same author, from the same Epistle.

Therefore the body from Mary is human by nature according to the divine Scriptures, and it was also true, since it was the same as ours;

for Mary is our sister, since we all are of Adam; and no one would doubt this, if he remembered what Luke wrote.

Of Saint Basil, Bishop of Caesarea.

From his interpretation of the fifty-ninth Psalm.

All the foreigners were made subject, bowing beneath the yoke of Christ;

for this reason He casts His shoe upon Edom.

And the shoe of the Godhead is the God-bearing flesh, through which He walked among men.

By the same author, from the treatise addressed to Bishop Amphilochius concerning the Holy Spirit.

saying that the [woman] came to be from the man, and the man through the woman, in the passage where he says that 'As the woman is from the man, so also the man is through the woman.' But at once showing the indifference of the usage, and at the same time correcting in passing the error of certain persons who suppose the Lord's body to be spiritual, he preferred the more emphatic expression, in order to show that the God-bearing flesh was compounded from the human lump.

For the phrase 'through the woman' would have suggested the notion of a merely passing generation;

but the phrase 'from the woman' sufficiently indicates the community of nature between the one who is born and her who bore him.

Of Saint Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzus.

From his former exposition addressed to Cledonius.

If anyone says that the flesh came down from heaven and is not from here and from us, let him be anathema.

For the sayings, 'The second man is from heaven,' and, 'As is the heavenly, such also are they that are heavenly,' and, 'No one has ascended into heaven except He who came down from heaven, the Son of Man,' and any other such saying, must be understood to be spoken on account of the union with the man — just as it is said that all things came to be through Christ, and that Christ dwells in our hearts, not according to what is visible of God, but according to what is apprehended by the mind; for the appellations are, as it were, blended, and so likewise are the natures.

By the same author, from the same discourse.

But let us see what reason they give for the incarnation, or rather the enfleshment, as they themselves state it.

If it was in order that God, who is otherwise uncontainable, might be contained, and might converse with men as under a veil by means of the flesh, then their mask is elegant and their drama is one of play-acting;

not to mention that He was able to converse with us in another way also, as He did before in the bush of fire and in a human form.

But if it was in order that He might loose the condemnation of sin, sanctifying like by like, then just as He needed flesh on account of the flesh that was condemned, and a soul on account of the soul, so also He needed a mind on account of the mind, which not only fell in Adam but was the first to suffer — as the physicians too say concerning maladies.

For that which received the commandment was also that which did not keep the commandment;

and that which did not keep the commandment was also that which dared the transgression;

and that which transgressed was also that which most of all stood in need of salvation;

and that which needed salvation was also that which was assumed.

Therefore the mind has now been demonstrated to have been assumed, even against their will, by what are called, as they say, geometrical necessities and proofs.

But you do something very like this: as if, when a man's eye were diseased and his foot were injured, you were to heal the foot but leave the eye untreated;

or, when a painter had painted something poorly, you were to alter what was painted, but pass by the painter as though he had done it rightly.

But if, being driven from these reasonings, they take refuge in the fact that it is possible for God to save the man even without a mind, then it is surely possible even without flesh, by will alone — just as He works and has worked all other things bodily.

Take away, then, together with the mind, the flesh also, so that your madness may be complete for you.

Of Saint Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa.

From his discourse on Abraham.

The Word, therefore, came down not naked, but having become flesh;

not the form of God, but the form of the servant.

This, then, is He who said that He could do nothing of Himself.

For not being able belongs to weakness;

for as darkness is opposed to light, and death to life, so weakness is set over against power.

But indeed Christ is the power of God.

Power is by no means impotent.

For if power were weak, what then would be that which is able? When therefore the Word declares that He cannot do, it is clear that He does not attribute the incapacity to the Godhead of the Only-begotten, but bears witness to the impossibility as belonging to the weakness of our nature.

And the flesh is weak, as it is written, that 'The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.' By the same author, from his work On the Perfect Life.

the Lawgiver, of whom Moses was a type, hewed out for Himself from our earth the tablets of [our] nature.

For it was not marriage that fashioned His God-receiving flesh, but He Himself becomes the stone-cutter of His own flesh, which was inscribed by the divine finger.

For the Holy Spirit came upon the Virgin, and the power of the Most High overshadowed her.

And when this had come to pass, [our] nature again possessed unbrokenness, having become immortal by the engravings of the finger.

By the same author, from his discourse Against Eunomius.

We say, then, that in the words preceding this, when he said that Wisdom had built herself a house, he intimates by that expression the constituting of the flesh of the Lord.

For the true Wisdom did not dwell in an alien building, but built for herself the dwelling-place out of the virginal body.

By the same author, from the same treatise.

The Word was before the ages, but the flesh came to be in the last times; and no one could reverse this and say either that this [flesh] is pre-eternal, or that the Word came to be in the last times.

By the same author, from the same treatise.

The saying 'He created me' does not come from that which is divine and undefiled, but, as has been said, from that which was assumed according to the divine economy out of our created nature.

By the same author, from the first discourse on the Beatitudes.

'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.' What is poorer, in the case of God, than the form of a servant? What is humbler, in the case of the King of all that exists, than willingly to come into fellowship with our impoverished nature? The King of kings and Lord of lords voluntarily puts on the form of servitude.

Of the holy Flavian, bishop of Antioch.

From the homily on John the Baptist.

Do not, then, conceive of the union in a bodily manner, nor take it to mean marital intercourse.

For your Maker fashions His own bodily temple, which is being born from you.

By the same author, from the discourse on the text, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.' Hear Him who says:

'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me.' You do not know, He says, the things which you read.

For I have come to you as the one anointed with the Spirit.

It is not the invisible nature that is anointed with the Spirit, but that which is of the same kind as ourselves.

Of Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.

For man did not come to be by a falling away from God, nor did God come to be from man by advancement.

For I speak of God and man.

But when you assign the sufferings to the flesh and the miracles to God, you assign them of necessity even against your will: the lowly words to the man born of Mary, and the exalted and God-befitting words to the Word who was in the beginning.

Whence in one respect I call myself equal to the Father, and in another the Father greater, not contradicting myself, but showing that I am both God and man:

God in respect of the lofty things, and man in respect of the lowly.

But if you wish to know how 'my Father is greater than I,' I spoke from the standpoint of the flesh, and not from the person of the Godhead.

By the same author, from the discourse on the text, 'The Son can do nothing of Himself.' What Adam in the heavens disobeyed? And who was moulded from a heavenly body, unlike the first-formed man at the beginning? But he who was of the earth was moulded from the beginning; he who was of the earth disobeyed; he who was of the earth was taken up.

Of the holy John, bishop of Constantinople.

From the discourse which he delivered when a Gothic ambassador had spoken before him.

See, from the very outset, what He does.

He clothes Himself with our nature, the nature that had grown weak, that had been defeated, so that through it He might do battle and wrestle anew.

By the same author, from the discourse on the Nativity.

For how is it not the utmost madness that they themselves bring in their own gods into stones and worthless wooden idols, and shut them up as though in some prison, and think it no shame either to do or to say such things, yet accuse us, saying that God, having fashioned for Himself a living temple out of the Holy Spirit, benefited the whole inhabited world through it? For if it be shameful for God to dwell in a human body, much more so in stone and wood, inasmuch as stone and wood are less honourable than man.

unless indeed our race seems to them to be even meaner than these senseless materials.

They bring down the essence of God into stones and dogs, and many of the heretics bring it down into things even more dishonourable than these.

But we would never even endure so much as to hear any of these things.

Rather we say this, that Christ took up from a virginal womb a flesh that was pure and holy and blameless and inaccessible to all sin, and set right His own vessel.

Rather we say this, that God the Word, having fashioned for Himself a holy temple, through it brought the heavenly manner of life into our own way of living.

By the same author, from the discourse that the things spoken and done in a lowly manner by Christ were not on account of any weakness of power, but on account of divers dispensations.

What, then, are the reasons why both He Himself and the apostles have said many lowly things concerning Him? The first and greatest reason is that He was clothed with flesh, and wished to convince all—both those then living and those coming after—that what was seen was no mere shadow nor outward appearance, but a true nature.

For if, though so many lowly and human things were spoken concerning Him both by Himself and by the apostles, the devil nevertheless was able to persuade some of the wretched and miserable among men to deny the Word of the economy, and to dare to say that He did not take flesh, and thus to do away with the whole foundation of His love for mankind—

if He had said none of these things, how many would not have fallen into this pit!

ORTHODOX: I have brought forward for you a few citations out of very many from the heralds of the truth, that I might not weary your ears with their multitude.

Yet even these suffice to show the aim of the mind of these praiseworthy men.

It would now be for you to say how the things that have been spoken seem to you.

ERANISTES: They have all spoken in harmony, and those who have cultivated the land toward the setting sun agree with those who have tilled the land toward the rising sun.

But I saw much distinction in their words.

Some of them also enjoyed their sacred voice and their admirable countenance;

but the greater part of them were adorned with the crowns of martyrdom.

Does it, then, seem to you a pious thing to move your blasphemous tongue even against these men? ERANISTES: This indeed I dread to do; yet the great distinction I do not accept.

ORTHODOX: But I will again contrive for you a paradoxical remedy.

For I will bring into the midst one of the teachers of your marvellous heresy, Apollinaris, and will show that he too understood the text, 'The Word became flesh,' in a manner similar to the holy Fathers.

Hear, then, in his book arranged by chapters, what sort of things he wrote concerning this.

From the book arranged by chapters.

If that which one assumes is not changed into this, and Christ assumed flesh, then He was not changed into flesh.

And again, immediately joining on, he says:

For He graciously gave Himself to us for kinship through the body, that He might save.

But that which saves is far better than that which is saved;

far better, therefore, is He than we, even in the embodiment.

But He would not be better if He had been changed into flesh.

And a little further on he speaks thus:

That which is simple is one, but that which is composite cannot be one.

He who asserts that the one Word has become flesh would be speaking of a change of that one Word.

But if the composite also is one—as man is—then he who, on account of the union with flesh, says, 'The Word became flesh,' is speaking of the one according to composition.

And once more, after a little, he has said these things also:

But the emptying declared him who emptied Himself to be not the Son of God, but the Son of man, according to the clothing-around, not according to a transformation.

ORTHODOX: See, the teacher of your doctrines has brought forward for you the very term 'clothing-around' as well.

And indeed in his little treatise on the faith he speaks thus:

We believe, then, that while the Godhead remained unaltered, its incarnation took place for the renewal of manhood.

For neither alteration, nor removal, nor circumscription came to pass concerning the holy power of God.

And we worship God who took flesh from the holy Virgin, and on this account is man in respect of the flesh, but God in respect of the Spirit.

And in another exposition he spoke thus: