Eranistes 1 part 6/13

For how could the simple and uncompounded nature, which comprehends all things, which is unattainable and uncircumscribed, have swallowed up the nature which it assumed? ERANISTES. As the sea, when it receives a drop of honey.

For that drop straightway vanishes, being mingled with the water of the sea.

ORTHODOXOS. The difference between the sea and the drop lies in quantity, and in one particular quality:

for the one is very great, the other very small;

and the one is sweet, the other salt;

but in all other respects one may find a very great kinship between them.

For both have a nature that is fluid and liquid and flowing;

and their being is alike created, and their lifelessness is likewise common, and indeed both this one and that one are called body.

It is therefore nothing improbable that natures so closely akin should undergo commixture, and that the one should be made to vanish by the other.

But here the difference is infinite, and so great that no image of the truth can be found.

I, however, will show that many things which are mingled together are not confounded, but remain unadulterated.

ERANISTES. And who has ever heard of an unmingled mingling? ORTHODOXOS. I will bring you to agree to this very thing.

ERANISTES. If what is to be said appears true, I will not set myself against the truth.

ORTHODOXOS. Answer then, either by nodding assent or by shaking your head, however the argument seems to you to stand.

ORTHODOXOS. And does light pass wholly through the whole of the air? ERANISTES. This too I grant.

ORTHODOXOS. And does not the mingling pass through the whole of the things mingled? ERANISTES. True.

ORTHODOXOS. And the air that has been illumined — do we not both see it and call it light? ERANISTES. Certainly.

ORTHODOXOS. Yet nevertheless, even when the light is present, we perceive both a dry quality and a moist one;

and often also a cold one and a hot one.

ERANISTES. We do perceive these things.

[ORTHODOXOS.] ... after its withdrawal, the air thereafter remains by itself alone.

ORTHODOXOS. Consider then this also:

when iron is brought into contact with fire, is it made red-hot? ERANISTES. Certainly.

ORTHODOXOS. And does the fire pass through the whole of its substance? ERANISTES. Yes.

ORTHODOXOS. How then does the utmost union, and the mingling which passes through the whole, not alter the nature of the iron? ERANISTES. But indeed it does alter it altogether.

For it is no longer thought to be iron, but fire;

and indeed it also has the operation of fire.

ORTHODOXOS. Does not the smith, then, no longer call it iron, nor bring it to the anvil, nor bring the hammer down upon it? ERANISTES. This is agreed.

ORTHODOXOS. Therefore the contact with fire did not destroy the nature of the iron.

ORTHODOXOS. If, then, even in bodies it is possible to find a mingling without confusion, it is plain madness to imagine a confusion in the case of the undefiled and unchangeable nature, and the destruction of the nature that was assumed — and that too when it was taken up for the benefit of the race.

ERANISTES. We do not speak of the destruction of the assumed nature, but of its change into the substance of the Godhead.

ORTHODOXOS. Does the human form then still possess its former circumscription? ERANISTES. By no means.

ORTHODOXOS. And when did it receive this change? ERANISTES. After the utmost union.

ORTHODOXOS. And when do you say that this took place? ERANISTES. I have said many times: at the conception.

ORTHODOXOS. And yet after the conception He both was an embryo in the womb and, when born, both was and was called an infant, and was worshipped by the shepherds; and likewise He both became a child and was so named by the angel.

Do you know these things, or do you suppose that we are inventing myths? ERANISTES. These things the narrative of the divine Gospels teaches, and it is not possible to gainsay them.

ORTHODOXOS. Let us then examine what follows as well.

Do we not confess that the Lord was circumcised? ERANISTES. We confess it.

ORTHODOXOS. Of what, then, was the circumcision — of the flesh or of the Godhead? ERANISTES. Of the flesh.

ORTHODOXOS. And was not the hungering and thirsting likewise? ERANISTES. By no means [otherwise].

ORTHODOXOS. Nor yet the walking and growing weary and sleeping, and, in a word, all the other things of this kind? ERANISTES. Surely not.

ORTHODOXOS. If, then, the union took place at the conception, but all these things happened after the conception and the birth, it follows that the manhood did not, after the union, lose its own nature.

ERANISTES. I did not define it precisely.

For it was after the resurrection from the dead that the flesh received its change into the nature of the Godhead.

ORTHODOXOS. Nothing then remained in it after the resurrection of those things which manifest the nature.

ERANISTES. If anything remained, then the divine change did not take place.

ORTHODOXOS. How then, when the disciples disbelieved, did He show them both His hands and His feet? ERANISTES. In the same way as He entered while the doors were shut.

ORTHODOXOS. But He entered while the doors were shut just as He came forth from the womb while the bolts of virginity remained in place, and just as He walked upon the sea.

But according to your argument the change of the nature had not yet taken place.

ERANISTES. The Master showed the apostles His hands, just as He wrestled with Jacob.

ORTHODOXOS. But the Lord does not permit us to understand it so.

For when the disciples supposed that they were beholding a spirit, the Lord drove out this suspicion and showed them the nature of the flesh.

For 'Why,' He says, 'are you troubled, and why do reasonings arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself.'

'Handle Me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you behold Me having.' And observe the exactness of the saying.

For He did not say 'being flesh and bones,' but 'having flesh and bones,' in order to show that the thing which has, according to nature, is one, and the thing which is had is another.

For just as that which took is one, and that which was taken is another, while one Christ is beheld out of both, so that which has stands in a very great difference from that which is had, yet does not divide into two persons the one who is contemplated in these.

And He asked for food, and taking it He ate, neither consuming the food in appearance only, nor supplying the need of the body.

ERANISTES. And yet one must necessarily accept one of two things:

for either He partook because He needed to, or, not needing to, He seemed indeed to eat but by no means partook of the food.

ORTHODOXOS. The body, having become immortal, had no need of food.

For concerning those who rise again the Lord said:

'There they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels.' That He nevertheless partook of the food, the apostles are witnesses.

For the blessed Luke, in the preface of the Acts, said that the Lord, while eating together with the apostles, charged them not to depart from Jerusalem. And the most divine Peter has said it yet more plainly:

'We who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead.' For since it is proper to those living the present life to eat, the Lord of necessity demonstrated the resurrection of the flesh through eating and drinking to those who did not believe it true.

This same thing He did also in the case of Lazarus and of the daughter of Jairus.

For having raised her, He commanded that food be given her, and He had Lazarus dining with Him, thereby showing the resurrection to be true.

ERAN. If we grant that the Lord truly ate, let us also grant that all men partake of food after the resurrection.

ORTH. The things done by the Savior for the sake of some particular dispensation are not a rule and definition of nature; for He arranged certain other things as well, which will by no means befall those who come back to life.

since He arranged certain other things as well, which will by no means befall those who come back to life.

ERAN. What are these? ORTH. Will not the bodies of those who rise become incorruptible and immortal? ERAN. So the divine Paul taught us.

'For it is sown,' he said, 'in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.'

'It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.'

'It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.'

'It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.' ORTH. But the Lord raises the bodies of all men unmaimed and unblemished;

for neither lameness nor blindness is found among those who rise;

yet in His own body He left the perforations made by the nails and the scar of His side, and of this both the Lord Himself and the hands of Thomas are witnesses.

ORTH. If, then, after the resurrection the Master partook of food, and showed His hands and His feet to the disciples, and the perforations of the nails in them, and moreover His side and the scar in it made by the wound, and said to them:

'Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you behold Me having,' then the nature of the body remained even after the resurrection, and was not changed into another substance.

ERAN. Is it then mortal and passible after the resurrection? ORTH. By no means, but incorruptible and impassible and immortal.

ERAN. If it is incorruptible and impassible and immortal, it has been changed into another nature.

ORTH. Then the bodies of all men too will be changed into another substance;

for all will be incorruptible and immortal;

or have you not heard the Apostle saying:

ORTH. Therefore the nature indeed remains, but its corruptible part is changed into incorruption, and its mortal part into immortality.

we call the ailing body and the healthy body alike by the same name.

ORTH. And yet we see a very great difference between them.

For the one is healthy and whole and unharmed;

while the other has either the eye gouged out, or the leg struck, or some other most grievous affliction.

ERAN. But both come to be about the same nature, both the health and the sickness.

ORTH. Then the body must be called a substance, and the disease and the health an accident.

For these things come upon the body and depart from it.

ORTH. Therefore corruption too and death must be named an accident, not a substance;

for they come upon it, and depart from it.

ORTH. Therefore the bodies of men also, when they rise, are freed from corruption and from mortality, but do not lose their own nature.

ORTH. And so the Master's body too rose incorruptible and impassible and immortal and glorified with the divine glory, and is worshipped by the heavenly powers;

yet it is nevertheless a body, having its former circumscription.

ERAN. In these things you seem to speak reasonably.

But after the ascension into the heavens, I do not think you will say that it was not changed into the nature of Godhead.

ORTH. For my part I would not say so, following human reasonings.

For I am not so bold as to assert anything passed over in silence by the divine Scripture.

Yet I have heard the inspired Paul crying out that 'God has appointed a day in which He is about to judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has ordained, having furnished proof to all by raising Him from the dead.' And I have learned also from the holy angels that 'He shall so come in like manner as the disciples saw Him going into heaven.'

But they saw a circumscribed nature, not an uncircumscribed one.

And I have heard also the Lord saying:

'You shall see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds of heaven.' And I know that what is seen by men is circumscribed.

For the uncircumscribed nature is invisible.

Moreover, His sitting upon the throne of glory, and setting the lambs on the right and the goats on the left, also shows what is circumscribed.

ERAN. Then neither before the incarnation was He uncircumscribed.

For the prophet saw Him encircled by the Seraphim.

ORTH. The prophet did not see God's very substance, but a certain vision accommodated to his power.

But after the resurrection all shall see the visible nature of the Judge.

ERAN. Having promised to speak no unwitnessed word, you bring us your own reasonings.

ORTH. I was taught these things by the divine Scripture.

For I have heard Zechariah the prophet saying:

'They shall look upon Him whom they pierced.' But how shall the fulfillment follow the prophecy, if those who crucified Him do not recognize the nature they crucified? And I have heard also the victorious Stephen crying out:

'Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.' But he saw the visible, not the invisible nature.

ERAN. These things are indeed so written.

But the body, after the ascension into the heavens, I do not think you will show to be called a body by the men who bore the Spirit.

ORTH. Chiefly the things already mentioned are indicative of the body;

yet I will nevertheless show the Master's body called a body even after the ascension.

Hear, then, the Apostle teaching:

'For our citizenship is in the heavens, from which also we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus, who will transform the body of our humiliation, that it may become conformed to the body of His glory.' Therefore it has not been changed into another nature, but has remained a body, filled indeed with divine glory and sending forth rays of light;

to that body the bodies of the saints shall become conformed.

But if that body was changed into another nature, then these too shall likewise be changed.

For they shall become conformed to it.

But if the bodies of the saints preserve the character of their nature, then the Master's body too likewise keeps its own substance unchanged.

ERAN. Then shall the bodies of the saints be equal to the Master's body? ORTH. In incorruption, and indeed in immortality, these too shall have a share.

And they shall share also in the glory, as the Apostle says:

as servants, and of that which enlightens toward that which is enlightened.

Nevertheless He imparted His own names to His servants, and being called Light, He called the saints light;

for 'You,' He says, 'are the light of the world.' And being named the Sun of righteousness, He says concerning His servants:

'Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun.' Therefore according to quality, not according to quantity, shall the bodies of the saints be conformed to the Master's body.

Behold, I have shown you plainly what you asked of us.

But if it seems good to you, let us consider this in yet another way.

ERANISTES: One must, as the proverb says, leave no stone unturned in order to discover the truth, and not least when divine doctrines are the matter at hand.

ORTHODOXOS: Tell me, then: the mystical symbols which are offered to God the Master by those who exercise the priesthood—of what are they symbols? ERANISTES: Of the Master's body and blood.

ORTHODOXOS: Of a body that exists, or of one that does not exist? ERANISTES: Of one that exists.

ORTHODOXOS: For the archetype of the image must indeed exist.

For painters, too, imitate nature and portray images of the things that are seen.

ORTHODOXOS: If, then, the divine mysteries are the antitypes of the body that exists, then the Master's body is even now a body—yet a divine and lordly body, not changed into the nature of the Godhead, but filled full of divine glory.

ERANISTES: Opportunely have you raised the subject of the divine mysteries,

for from this very point I will show you the change of the Master's body into another nature.

Answer, then, my questions.

ERANISTES: What do you call the gift that is offered before the priestly invocation? ORTHODOXOS: It is not fitting to say it plainly,

for it is likely that some of the uninitiated are present.

ERANISTES: Then let the answer be given in an enigmatic form.

ORTHODOXOS: The nourishment made from such-and-such seeds.

ERANISTES: And the other symbol—how do we name it? ORTHODOXOS: This too is a common name, signifying a kind of drink.

ERANISTES: And after the consecration, how do you name these things? ORTHODOXOS: The body and blood of Christ.

ERANISTES: And do you believe that you partake of the body of Christ and of his blood? ORTHODOXOS: I so believe.

ERANISTES: Just as, then, the symbols of the Master's body and blood are one thing before the priestly invocation, but after the invocation are changed and become something else, so the Master's body after the ascension was changed into the divine essence.

ORTHODOXOS: You are caught in the very nets you wove.

For not even after the consecration do the mystical symbols depart from their own nature;

for they remain in their former essence, and in their shape and form, and they are visible and tangible, just as they were before.

But they are understood to be what they have become, and are believed and worshipped as being those things which they are believed to be.

Set the image, then, beside the archetype, and you will see the likeness.

For the type must resemble the reality.

For that body too has its former form, and shape, and circumscription, and, in a word, the essence of a body;

but after the resurrection it became immortal and superior to corruption, and was counted worthy of the seat at the right hand, and is worshipped by all creation, inasmuch as it is called the body of the Master of nature.

ERANISTES: And yet the mystical symbol changes its former appellation;

for it is no longer called what it was called before, but is named 'body.'

The reality also, then, must be called God, and not body.

ORTHODOXOS: You seem to me to be ignorant.

For it is named not only 'body' but also 'the bread of life.'

Thus the Lord himself named it; and we ourselves call this very body a divine body, and life-giving, and belonging to the Master, and lordly, teaching that it is not the body of some common man, but of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God and man, both eternal and of recent time.

For Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and unto the ages. ERANISTES: You have gone through many arguments about this;

but I follow the saints who of old shone forth in the churches,

who divided the natures in speech.

ORTHODOXOS: I, for my part, will read to you their labors;

and you, I know well, will marvel at the immoderate degree of division which they inserted into their own writings while contending against the impious heresies.

Hear, then, those men whose testimonies I have already brought forward to you, saying these things directly and in express terms.

Of the holy Ignatius, bishop of Antioch and martyr.

From the epistle to the Smyrnaeans.

For I know and believe that even after the resurrection he was in the flesh; and when he came to Peter and those with him, he said to them, 'Take, handle me, and see that I am not a bodiless demon.' And immediately they touched him and believed.

Of the same, from the same epistle.

And after the resurrection he both ate and drank with them, as one united to the Father in a fleshly and yet a spiritual way.

Of Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons.

From the third book of the work Against Heresies.

He united, therefore, as we said before, man to God.

For if it had not been a man who conquered the adversary of man, the enemy would not have been justly conquered;

and again, if it had not been God who bestowed salvation, we would not have had it securely;

and if man had not been united to God, he would not have been able to partake of incorruption.

For it was necessary that the mediator between God and men, through his own kinship with both, should bring both together into friendship and concord, and should present man to God, and make God known to men.

Of the same, from the third book of the same treatise.

Everyone who believes that Jesus Christ has been begotten of God, knowing one and the same Jesus Christ, for whom the gates of heaven were opened because of his fleshly ascension, who also in the very same flesh in which he suffered will come, revealing the glory of the Father.

Of the same, from the fourth book of the work Against Heresies.

As Isaiah says, 'The children of Jacob shall sprout, and Israel shall bloom, and the whole world shall be filled with his fruit.' When, therefore, his fruit had been scattered throughout the whole world, those who once had borne fruit well were fittingly forsaken and removed from the midst,

for out of them, according to the flesh, Christ bore fruit, and the apostles as well;

but now they are no longer suitable for the bearing of fruit.

Of the same, from the same book.

He also examines the Ebionites:

how can they be saved, unless it was God who wrought their salvation upon the earth? Or how shall man pass into God, unless God was contained in man? Of the same, from the same book.

Those who proclaimed the Emmanuel born of the Virgin were making manifest the union of the Word of God with his own handiwork.

Of the same, from the same treatise.

For these things did not come to pass in appearance, but in the reality of substance.

But if, not being a man, he only appeared as a man, then neither did he remain what he truly was, the Spirit of God;

nor was there any truth in him;

for those things which he appeared to be, he was not.

We have said before that Abraham and the rest of the prophets beheld him prophetically, prophesying by means of a vision what was to come to pass.

If, then, even now he appeared in such a manner, not being what he appeared to be, then a certain prophetic vision has come to men, and one must yet await another coming of his, in which he will be such as he is now seen to be prophetically.

And we have demonstrated that it amounts to the same thing to say that he appeared in mere appearance, and that he received nothing from Mary.

For he would not truly have had flesh and blood, through which he redeemed us, unless he had recapitulated in himself the ancient formation of Adam.

Vain, therefore, are the followers of Valentinus who dogmatize thus, in order that they may cast out the life of the flesh.

Of the holy Hippolytus, bishop and martyr.

From the homily on the distribution of the talents.

One might say that these heterodox men also are near neighbours to such, since they go astray in like manner.

Denying the talent of His Godhead—or else, while confessing Him to be God, they in turn refuse Him His manhood, teaching that He deceived the eyes of those who beheld Him, as one who, being man, did not truly bear our humanity, but rather became a kind of phantom-like appearance; even as Marcion and Valentinus and the Gnostics, tearing the Word away from the flesh, cast away the one talent, namely the Incarnation.

From the same author, from the letter to a certain empress.

He calls Him, therefore, the firstfruits of them that have fallen asleep, inasmuch as He is the firstborn from the dead.

And for this reason three seasons of the year were prefigured with reference to the Saviour Himself, that He might accomplish the mysteries prophesied concerning Him.

At the Passover, that He might show Himself as the one about to be slain like a lamb and to be revealed as the true Passover, as the Apostle says: 'For our Passover, even Christ, was sacrificed for us.' And at Pentecost, that He might foreshadow the kingdom of heaven, being Himself the first to ascend into the heavens and to present man as a gift to God.

From the same author, from the homily on the great song.

He who drew up out of the lowest Hades the first-formed man, who had perished from the earth and was held fast in the bonds of death;

He who came down from above and carried up him that was below into the things above;

He who became the evangelist of the dead, the redeemer of souls, and the resurrection of the buried—this was He who became the helper of vanquished man, like unto him and after his likeness, the firstborn Word visiting the first-formed Adam in the Virgin;

He who is spiritual, seeking out him that is of the dust within the womb;

He who ever lives, seeking him that died through disobedience;

He who is heavenly, calling the earthly one up into the things above;

He who is nobly born, willing through His own obedience to show the slave to be free;

He who turned into adamant the man that was being dissolved into earth and had become food for the serpent, and, when this man had been hung upon a tree, declared him lord over the one who had conquered him; and for this reason, whereas Adam had been defeated through a tree, he is now found victorious through the tree.

From the same author, from the same homily.

For those who now do not acknowledge the Son of God as being in the flesh shall acknowledge Him when He comes as Judge in glory—Him who is now dishonoured in a body without glory.

From the same author, from the same homily.

For indeed the apostles, coming to the tomb on the third day, did not find the body of Jesus;

even as the sons of Israel, going up onto the mountain, sought for the burial-place of Moses, and did not find it.

From the same author, from the interpretation of the second psalm.

This One, who came forth into the world, was manifested as both God and man.

And His manhood one may easily perceive, when He hungers and is weary, and grows faint and thirsts, and in fear flees, and while praying is grieved, and sleeps upon a pillow, and begs to be spared the cup of suffering, and in agony sweats, and is strengthened by an angel, and is betrayed by Judas, and is dishonoured by Caiaphas, and is set at naught by Herod, and is scourged by Pilate, and is mocked by soldiers, and is nailed to a tree by the Jews, and crying out to the Father commits His spirit, and bowing His head expires, and has His side pierced with a spear, and, wrapped in a linen cloth, is laid in a tomb, and on the third day is raised by the Father.

He walks upon the sea, and makes one blind from birth to see, and raises up Lazarus who had been dead four days, and performs manifold mighty works, and forgives sins, and gives authority to His disciples.

From the same author, from the homily on the twenty-third psalm.

He comes to the heavenly gates; angels accompany Him, and the gates of the heavens are shut.

For no flesh had yet ascended into the heavens;

now for the first time flesh appears to the heavenly powers ascending.

It is said, therefore, to the powers by the angels who run before the Saviour and Lord:

'Lift up your heads, O ye rulers, and be ye lifted up, O everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall come in.' Of the holy Eustathius, bishop of Antioch and confessor.

From the homily on the titles of the inscription upon the pillar.

Hence, therefore, he wrote beforehand that He sits upon a holy throne, showing that He has been declared enthroned together with the most divine Spirit, on account of God who dwells in Him perpetually.

From the same author, from the homily concerning the soul.

Before the Passion He continually foretold His own bodily death, saying that He would be handed over to those about the chief priests, and He announced the trophy of the cross.

And after the Passion, having risen from the dead on the third day, when His disciples doubted that He had been raised, He appeared to them with that very body, confessing that He had all His flesh together with bones, and, presenting to their eyes His wounded side, He also showed them the marks of the nails.

From the same author, from the homily on the text, 'The Lord created me the beginning of His ways.' For Paul did not say 'conformed to the Son of God,' but 'conformed to the image of His Son,' showing that the Son is one thing and His image another.

For the Son, bearing the divine tokens of the Father's excellence, is the image of the Father;

since indeed those who are begotten like from like, the offspring, appear as true images of their begetters.

But the man whom He bore is the image of the Son.

Moreover, the very law of truth itself dictates this.

For the incorporeal Spirit of Wisdom is not conformed to bodily men, but rather the human character which was made corporeal by the Spirit—that which bears members equal in number with all others, and is clothed with a form like unto each.

From the same author, from the same homily.

That he says the body is conformed to men, he teaches us more clearly when writing to the Philippians:

'Our citizenship,' he says, 'is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall transform the body of our humiliation, that it may be made conformed to the body of His glory.' But if, in transforming the lowly body of men, He fashions it conformed to His own body, then from every side the calumny of our adversaries is shown to be stale and empty.

From the same author, from the same homily.

But just as the man born of the Virgin is said to have come into being from a woman, so also He is written to have been made under the law, in that from time to time He walked according to the injunctions of the law.

When especially, while He was yet a child eight days old, His parents eagerly hastened to circumcise Him, even as the evangelist Luke relates;