Eranistes 1 part 4/13

We confess that the Son of God became the Son of man, not in name, but in truth, having taken flesh from Mary the Virgin.

ERANISTES: I did not think that Apollinaris held these views;

for I held other opinions concerning the man.

ORTHODOX: See, then, you have learned that not only the prophets and apostles, and the teachers of the inhabited world ordained after them, but even Apollinaris, who composed the heretical drivel, both confesses God the Word to be unchangeable, and says that He was not turned into flesh, but took up flesh;

and this he said many times, as you have heard.

Do not, then, out of a love of contention, seek to conceal the teacher by means of the blasphemy.

For a disciple is not above his teacher, as the Lord has said.

ERANISTES: I too confess both that God the Word is unchangeable and that he took to himself flesh.

For to set oneself against so many witnesses is the height of madness.

ORTHODOXOS: Let us then depart, dissolving our gathering, and let us keep in mind the things we have confessed together.

But you must do one of two things: either resolve the questions raised, or agree with the things said by us.

ORTHODOXOS: I have accepted the challenge;

for I have judged it to be right and just.

ERANISTES: I will call to mind the conclusion.

For I remember that we agreed together that God the Word is unchangeable and took flesh, and that he did not himself turn into flesh.

ORTHODOXOS: You seem to hold fast to what has been decided;

for out of love for the truth you have recalled these things.

ERANISTES: And I said before as well, that whoever sets himself against so many and such teachers is most plainly mad;

and not least did Apollinarius put me to shame, saying the same things as the orthodox, even though in his discourses concerning the incarnation he manifestly travelled a contrary road.

ORTHODOXOS: Do we not then say that God the Word took to himself flesh? ERANISTES: Assuredly.

ORTHODOXOS: But what do we understand by 'the flesh'? A body only, as it seems to Arius and Eunomius, or a body and a soul? ERANISTES: A body and a soul.

ORTHODOXOS: What sort of soul? The rational soul, or the one called by some the vegetative or life-giving soul? For the fabulous quackery of Apollinarius's writings compels us to ask what we ought not.

ERANISTES: Does Apollinarius then speak of a difference of souls? ORTHODOXOS: He says that man is composed of three: of body, and of the life-giving soul, and again of the rational soul, which he calls mind.

But the divine Scripture knows one soul, not two;

and this the fashioning of the first man plainly teaches us.

God took dust from the earth and formed the man, and breathed into his face a breath of life, and the man became a living soul. And moreover in the Gospels the Lord said to the holy disciples:

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;

but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. And the most divine Moses, having set down the number of those who went down into Egypt and having said with how many each head of a tribe entered, added:

All the souls that entered into Egypt were seventy-five, reckoning one soul for each of those who entered.

And the divine apostle at Troas, when all supposed that Eutychus was dead, said:

ORTHODOXOS: But Apollinarius says there are two, and that God the Word took to himself the irrational soul, while in place of the rational soul he himself came to be in the flesh.

For this reason I asked what sort of soul you say was taken up along with the body.

ERANISTES: I for my part say the rational soul;

for I follow the divine Scripture.

ORTHODOXOS: Do we then say that the form of the servant was taken up complete by God the Word? ERANISTES: Complete.

For since the first man came wholly under sin, and lost the marks of the divine image, and the race followed its progenitor,

the Creator, of necessity willing to make new the image that had been obscured, took up the whole nature and stamped upon it marks far better than the former ones.

But I ask that first the meanings of the terms become clear to us, so that the discussion may proceed unhindered, and that no disputed point, being questioned midway, may break off the argument.

Ask, then, about whatever you wish.

ERANISTES: Jesus the Christ—what ought one to call him? Man or God? ORTHODOXOS: Neither without the other, but both.

For God the Word, having become man, was named Jesus Christ.

For it says, 'You shall call his name Jesus.'

But before the becoming man he was named God, and Son of God, and Only-begotten, and Lord, and God the Word, and Maker.

For it says, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God'; and, 'All things came into being through him'; and, 'Life was'; and, 'He was the true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world'; and whatever is akin to these and declarative of the divine nature.

But after the becoming man the same one was named Jesus and Christ.

ERANISTES: Then Jesus the Lord is God only.

ORTHODOXOS: You hear that it was God the Word who became man, and you call him God only? ERANISTES: Since he became man without being changed, but remained what he was, one must call him what he was.

ORTHODOXOS: God the Word is indeed unchangeable, and was and is and shall be;

but having taken a human nature he became man.

It befits us, therefore, to confess each nature, both the one that took and the one that was taken.

ERANISTES: One ought to name him from the higher nature.

ORTHODOXOS: That man—I mean the living being—is he simple or composite? ERANISTES: Composite.

ORTHODOXOS: Composed of what? ERANISTES: Of soul and body.

For the soul is rational and immortal, and is entrusted with the governance of the living being;

but the body is mortal and perishable, and, separated from the soul, is irrational and dead.

ORTHODOXOS: The divine Scripture, then, ought to name the living being from the better nature.

For it called those who entered into Egypt 'souls.'

For it says, 'In seventy-five souls Israel went down into Egypt.'

Has the divine Scripture called no one from the body? ERANISTES: Those who were enslaved to the flesh it called 'flesh.'

ORTHODOXOS: I will therefore remind you and teach you that it also called the exceedingly holy 'flesh.'

The apostles—what would you call them? Spiritual or fleshly? ERANISTES: Spiritual, and the foremost and teachers of the spiritual.

ORTHODOXOS: Hear then the divinely-inspired Paul saying:

But when it pleased him who set me apart from my mother's womb and called me through his grace to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him as good news among the nations, immediately I did not confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to those who were apostles before me. Did he then, in accusation of the apostles, so name them at that time? ERANISTES: Certainly not.

ORTHODOXOS: But naming them from the visible nature, and comparing the calling through men with the calling from heaven? ERANISTES: True.

'To you all flesh shall come'; and the prophet Isaiah prophesied that 'All flesh shall see the salvation of our God.' ERANISTES: It has been clearly demonstrated that, even apart from any accusation, the divine Scripture names the human nature from the flesh.

ORTHODOXOS: And I will show you the other point as well.

ERANISTES: What other point? ORTHODOXOS: That the divine Scripture, even when accusing some, names them from the soul alone.

ERANISTES: And where will you find this in the divine Scripture? ORTHODOXOS: Hear the Lord God speaking through Ezekiel the prophet:

The soul that sins, it shall die. And moreover through the great Moses he says:

The soul which, if it sins; and again:

And every soul that will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed. And many other such passages can be found.

ERANISTES: These things have been demonstrated.

ORTHODOXOS: If, then, where there is a certain natural union and a joining of things created, fellow-servants, and coeval, it is the custom of the divine Scripture to name this living being not from the better nature alone, but also from the lesser as well as the greater,

how do you accuse us, who, together with confessing him to be God, also name the Master Christ man—and this when very many things compel us to do so? ERANISTES: And what is it that compels you to name the Savior Christ man? ORTHODOXOS: The diverse and utterly contrary doctrines of the heretics.

ERANISTES: And which doctrines are contrary to which? ORTHODOXOS: That of Arius to that of Sabellius.

For the one divides the essences, while the other confounds the hypostases.

Arius introduces three substances,

while Sabellius speaks of one hypostasis in place of the three.

Tell me, then, how each disease ought to be healed:

should one apply a single remedy to both afflictions, or to each the medicine suited to it? ERANISTES: To each the one suited to it.

ORTHODOXOS: We shall therefore attempt to persuade Arius to confess one substance of the Holy Trinity, and we shall bring forward the proofs of this from the divine Scripture.

ORTHODOXOS: But in conversing with Sabellius we shall do the opposite.

For concerning the substance we shall bring forward no argument,

for he too confesses it to be one.

ORTHODOXOS: Rather we shall be zealous to heal what is diseased in his opinion.

ORTHODOXOS: And of what disease did we say he was sick? ERANISTES: We said that he goes lame concerning the hypostases.

ORTHODOXOS: Since, then, he says there is but one hypostasis of the Trinity, we shall show him the divine Scripture proclaiming the three hypostases.

ERANISTES: This indeed must be done thus,

but we have abandoned the argument set before us.

For it is concerning that very matter that we are gathering the proofs, and this you shall learn at once.

...the Godhead of Christ and his manhood? ERANISTES: By no means.

ORTHODOXOS: But do some affirm the Godhead alone, and others the manhood alone? ERANISTES: Yes.

ORTHODOXOS: And still others a part of the manhood? ERANISTES: So I think.

It is fitting for us to make clear how those who hold the one view, and how those who hold the other, are designated, so that the matter under inquiry may become plainer.

Simon and Menander and Cerdo and Marcion and Valentinus and Basilides and Bardesanes and Manes flatly denied the manhood of Christ.

But Artemon and Theodotus and Sabellius and Paul of Samosata and Marcellus and Photinus fell into the diametrically opposite blasphemy.

For they proclaim Christ to be a mere man, and deny the Godhead that existed before the ages.

Arius and Eunomius call the Godhead of the Only-begotten created, and say that he assumed a body only.

But Apollinaris confesses that the body assumed was ensouled, yet in his own arguments deprives the rational soul both of its honour and of its salvation.

This, then, is the diversity of the corrupted doctrines.

But do you yourself, as one who loves the truth, tell me: ought one to hold some discussion with these people, or must we look on as they are borne over the precipices and leave them to their wailing? ERANISTES: To despise the suffering is the work of misanthropy.

ORTHODOXOS: It is fitting, then, both to feel their pain with them and to heal them so far as we are able.

ORTHODOXOS: If, then, you knew how to heal bodies, and many crowded round you and asked you to treat them, showing various afflictions—such as fluxes of the eyes, and wounds of the ears, and toothaches, and some a tension of the sinews, others a slackening, and one an overflow of bile, another of phlegm—what would you have done, tell me? Would you have prepared one remedy for all, or the one suited to each affliction? ERANISTES: Clearly the one appropriate and curative for each.

ORTHODOXOS: Therefore, cooling the hot afflictions and warming the cold, relaxing the tense and strengthening the slackened with invigorating remedies, drying the sodden and moistening the dry, would you have driven out the diseases and restored the health that had been cast out by them? ERANISTES: Thus does the law of medicine command us to heal;

for the opposites, they say, are the remedies of their opposites.

ORTHODOXOS: And if you were a gardener, would you have applied the same care to all the plants, or to the pomegranate the care proper to it, and to the fig tree its own, and likewise to the pear tree, and to the apple tree, and to the vines the care suited to each?

ORTHODOXOS: And if you plied the shipwright's craft, and saw the mast-holder in need of new work, would you have applied to it the care that pertains to the rudders, or the care proper to the mast-holder? ERANISTES: These matters too are beyond dispute.

For each thing seeks its own proper treatment—a plant, a member of the body, tools, and the parts of a ship.

ORTHODOXOS: How then is it not a grievous thing to apply appropriate treatments to the body and to inanimate things, yet in the case of souls not to observe this same rule of healing? ERANISTES: It is exceedingly unjust, and full not only of injustice but of folly as well.

For those who do otherwise are themselves ignorant of the art of healing.

ORTHODOXOS: Therefore, in conversing with each heresy, shall we bring forward the remedy suited to it? ERANISTES: By all means.

ORTHODOXOS: And a suitable treatment is to add what is lacking and to take away what is in excess.

ORTHODOXOS: In attempting, then, to heal Photinus and Marcellus and those close to their door, what would we add to fulfil the rule of healing? ERANISTES: The confession of the Godhead of Christ.

ORTHODOXOS: But concerning the manhood we shall say nothing to them.

ORTHODOXOS: And in conversing with Arius and Eunomius about the incarnation of the Only-begotten, what would we persuade them to add to their own confession? ERANISTES: The assumption of the soul,

for they say that God the Word assumed a body only.

ORTHODOXOS: And what is lacking in Apollinaris, that he should be exact concerning the doctrine of the incarnation? ERANISTES: That he not separate the mind from the soul, but confess that the rational soul together with the body was assumed.

ORTHODOXOS: Shall we then discuss this matter with him also? ERANISTES: By all means.

ORTHODOXOS: And Marcion and Valentinus and Manes, and as many as are neighbours to these—what did we say they confess in this respect, and what do they utterly deny? ERANISTES: That they said they believe in the Godhead of Christ,

but they do not admit the doctrine concerning the manhood.

ORTHODOXOS: Therefore we shall be zealous to persuade these also to embrace the doctrine of the manhood, and not to call the divine economy a mere appearance.

ERANISTES: Thus it is fitting to do.

ORTHODOXOS: We shall therefore say to them that one must call Christ not only God, but also man.

ORTHODOXOS: And how is it possible, while we ourselves decline to call Christ man as well, to enjoin this upon others? For they will not yield to us as we exhort them, but will convict us of holding the same view as themselves.

ERANISTES: And how do we hold the same view as they, when we confess that God the Word assumed both flesh and a rational soul? ORTHODOXOS: If, then, we confess the realities, why in the world do we flee the names? ERANISTES: One ought to name the Saviour from the more honourable titles.

ORTHODOXOS: Keep, then, to this rule, and do not call him crucified, nor raised from the dead, nor whatever else is akin to these.

ERANISTES: But these are names of the saving sufferings,

and the denial of the sufferings is the abolition of salvation.

ORTHODOXOS: And the name 'man' is a name of nature;

and silence about this is a denial of the nature;

and the denial of the nature is the abolition of the sufferings;

and the abolition of these makes salvation vanish away.

ERANISTES: To know the nature that was assumed I count as profitable;

but to call the Saviour of the world 'man' is to belittle the glory of the Master.

ORTHODOXOS: Do you then deem yourself wiser than both Peter and Paul, and even than the Saviour himself? For the Lord said to the Jews:

'Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken to you the truth which I heard from my Father?' And in many places he called himself the Son of Man.

And the all-praiseworthy Peter, conversing with the Jewish people, spoke thus:

'Men of Israel, hear these words:

Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God.' And the blessed Paul, on the Areopagus, offering to those who stood by the saving proclamation, among many other things said this also:

'Now, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God commands all men everywhere to repent,

inasmuch as he has fixed a day on which he is about to judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all by raising him from the dead.' He, therefore, who declines the name laid down and proclaimed by the Lord and the apostles, supposes himself wiser than the great teachers, and indeed wiser than the very fountain of the wisest teachers.

ERANISTES: They offered this teaching to unbelievers;

but now the greater part of the world has come to believe.

ORTHODOXOS: Above all there still are both Jews and Greeks and countless bodies of heretics, and one must offer to each of these the teaching suited to them.

But even if we were all of one mind, tell me, what harm is there in confessing Christ to be both God and man? Or do we not behold in him perfect Godhead and likewise complete manhood, lacking in nothing? ERANISTES: These things we have confessed many times.

...we have confessed many times. ERANISTES: I have supposed it superfluous to call Christ man, especially when a believer is conversing with a believer.

ORTH. Do you consider the divine Apostle to be faithful? ERAN. Nay rather, the teacher of all the faithful.

ORTH. And do you deem Timothy worthy of this same title? ERAN. Indeed, as that man's disciple and the teacher of the rest.

ORTH. Hear then the teacher of teachers, as he writes to his most perfect disciple:

'There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.' Cease, then, from prattling in vain and laying down laws for us concerning the divine names.

And the very name 'mediator' here signifies both Godhead and manhood.

For it was not while being God alone that he was called mediator;

for how could he have mediated between us and God, having nothing that was ours? But since as God he is joined to the Father, having the same essence, while as man he is joined to us — for from us he took the form of a servant — he is fittingly named mediator, joining together in himself the things that stood apart by the union of the natures, I mean of Godhead and of manhood.

ERAN. Was not Moses then also called mediator, though he was but a man? ORTH. That man was a type of the truth;

and the type does not possess all the things that the truth possesses.

For which cause that man was not indeed God by nature, yet was nonetheless called God, that he might fulfil the type.

'Behold,' he says, 'I have made thee a god to Pharaoh.' And straightway, therefore, as to a god he also appointed him a prophet.

'Aaron,' he says, 'thy brother, shall be thy prophet.' But the truth is both God by nature and man by nature.

ERAN. And who would call that a type which does not possess the distinct characters of the archetype? ORTH. As it seems, you do not call the royal images 'images of the king'? ERAN. Certainly I do.

ORTH. And yet they do not possess all the things that the archetype possesses.

For first of all, they are without soul and without reason;

next, they are deprived of the inner parts — I mean the heart, and the belly, and the liver, and all the other organs that are joined together with these.

Then, they possess the form of the senses, but no longer their activities.

For they neither hear, nor speak, nor see;

they do not write, they do not walk, nor do they perform any other of the things proper to men;

but nonetheless they are called royal images.

So too both Moses is mediator and Christ is mediator;

but the one as image and type;

But that I may show it to you yet more clearly from another quarter, recall to me the things spoken concerning Melchizedek in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

ERAN. Which things? ORTH. Those in which the divine Apostle, comparing the Levitical priesthood with that of Christ, likened Melchizedek in other respects to the Master Christ;

and he said that the Lord holds the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek.

ERAN. I think the divine Apostle speaks thus:

'For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him;

to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth of all;

being first, by interpretation, king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, which is king of peace; without father, without mother, without genealogy;

having neither beginning of days nor end of life;

but made like unto the Son of God, he abides a priest continually.' Concerning these sayings, I think, you have spoken.

ORTH. Concerning these I did speak, and indeed I commend you, that you did not cut the passage short, but set it down whole.

Tell me, then: does each of these things fit Melchizedek in nature and in truth? ERAN. And who would be so audacious as to unfit what the divine Apostle fitted? ORTH. Do you say, then, that these things fit Melchizedek according to nature? ERAN. I do say so.

ORTH. Do you say that he was a man, or that he had received some other nature? ERAN. A man.

ORTH. Begotten or unbegotten? ERAN. You are bringing forward exceedingly absurd questions.

ORTH. You are manifestly the cause of these things, since you are fighting against the truth.

ORTH. Do we say, then, that Melchizedek was begotten? ERAN. Begotten.

ORTH. But the word concerning him teaches the contrary.

For call to mind the things you just now recited:

'Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.' How, then, does 'without father' fit him, and 'without mother'? And how also the having neither taken a beginning of existence, nor being about to receive an end? For these things are beyond human nature.

ERAN. These things do indeed transcend the measures of human nature.

ORTH. What then? Shall we say that the Apostle spoke falsely? ERAN. God forbid.

ORTH. How then is it possible both to attest truth to the Apostle, and to fit to Melchizedek the things that are beyond nature? ERAN. The passage is exceedingly obscure, and stands in need of very great unfolding.

ORTH. For those willing to give heed, the comprehension of the sense of the sayings is attainable.

For the divine Apostle, having said, 'Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life,' added, 'but made like unto the Son of God, he abides a priest continually.' And he clearly taught us that, in the things beyond human nature, the archetype of Melchizedek is the Master Christ, while Melchizedek is the image and type of the Master Christ;

for he said that Melchizedek was made like unto the Son of God.

Do you say that the Lord had a father according to the flesh? ERAN. By no means.

ORTH. Was he not then fittingly named 'without father'? ERAN. True.

ORTH. Do you say that he had a mother according to the divine nature? ERAN. Certainly not.

ORTH. For from the Father alone was he begotten before the ages.

ORTH. Therefore also he was addressed as 'without genealogy,' as having his generation from the Father ineffable.

'For his generation,' says the prophet, 'who shall declare?' ERAN. You speak truly.

ORTH. Thus it befits him to have neither beginning of days nor end of life;

for he is without beginning and imperishable, and, to speak briefly, eternal, and co-eternal with the Father.

ERAN. These things seem right to me too, thus stated.

It remains to consider how these things also fit the wondrous Melchizedek.

ORTH. As image and type;

and the image, as we have said before, does not possess all the things that the archetype possesses.

To the Saviour, then, these things pertain by nature and in truth;

but to Melchizedek the narrative of the ancient genealogy fitted these things.

And the divine Apostle taught us to understand it thus;

for in that very passage he also added these things:

'But he whose genealogy is not counted from among them received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him who had the promises.' ERAN. And because the divine Scripture made no mention of those who begot him, can he be called 'without father' and 'without mother'? ORTH. If he had been truly without father and without mother, he would not have been an image, but the truth itself.

But since he possesses these things not by nature, but according to the dispensation of the divine Scripture, he shows forth the type of the truth.

ERAN. The image ought to possess the distinct characters of the archetype.

ORTH. Is man called an image of God? ERAN. He is not an image of God, but was made according to the image of God.

ORTH. Hear then the Apostle saying:

'For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, being the image and glory of God.' ERAN. Let him be an image of God.

He ought in like manner to have created out of things that were not;

he ought to have fashioned all things by a word and without toil;

and besides these things, not to be sick, not to be despondent, not to be moved to anger, not to sin, but to be immortal and incorruptible, and to possess everything that the archetype possesses.

ERAN. Man is not the image of God in every respect.

ORTH. True; yet in whatever respects you may grant him to be an image, you will most certainly find him falling short of the truth by a very great measure.

ORTH. Consider this also:

the divine Apostle called the Son the image of the Father,

'Who is the image of the invisible God.' ERAN. What then? Does not the Son possess all that the Father possesses? ORTH. He is not Father, nor unbegotten, nor without cause.

ERAN. If He had these things, He would not be the Son.

ORTH. Then the statement I made is true, that the image does not possess everything that the archetype possesses? ERAN. It is true.

ORTH. In this same way, then, the divine Apostle also said that Melchizedek was made like unto the Son of God.

How shall we understand the phrase 'having neither beginning of days nor end of life'? ORTH. In writing the ancient genealogy, the inspired Moses taught us that Adam, being so many years old, begat Seth, and having lived on for so many years reached the end of his life.

In the same way he spoke also concerning Seth and Enosh and the rest.

But concerning Melchizedek he was silent both about the beginning of his birth and about the end of his life.

Therefore, according to the narrative, he has neither beginning of days nor end of life;

but according to the truth, the only-begotten Son of God neither began to be nor will receive an end.

ORTH. Now in respect of these things that befit God and are truly divine, Melchizedek is a type of the Master Christ;

but in respect of the high priesthood, which pertains rather to men than to God, the Master Christ became a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

For that man too was a high priest of the nations;

and the Master Christ offered up on behalf of all men the all-holy and saving sacrifice.

ERAN. We have expended many words upon this subject.

ORTH. It required still more, as you know;

for you said that the passage was hard to understand.

ERAN. Let us return to the subject before us.

ORTH. And what was it that we were inquiring into? ERAN. When I was saying that we ought not to call Christ 'man,' but only 'God,' you yourself brought forward many other testimonies, and in particular that apostolic saying which he set down in writing to Timothy:

'There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.' ORTH. I have recalled the point from which we digressed into this excursion.

For when I had said that the very name of 'mediator' itself indicates the two natures of our Saviour, you replied that Moses too was called a mediator, yet he happened to be only a man, not God and man.

For this reason, then, I was compelled to go through these matters, that I might show the type as not possessing everything that the archetype possesses.