正統信仰闡釋 第 1 章 第 11/15 段

On the natural and blameless passions. We confess that he assumed all the natural and blameless passions of man.

For he assumed the whole man and all that belongs to man, except sin;

for sin is not natural, nor was it sown in us by the Creator, but it arises voluntarily from the devil's sowing in our self-determined choice, not holding sway over us by force.

Now the natural and blameless passions are those not in our power, which entered into human life from the condemnation following the transgression;

such as hunger, thirst, weariness, pain, weeping, corruption, the shrinking from death, fear, agony (out of which come the sweats, the clots of blood), the aid given by angels on account of the weakness of the nature, and the like, which are naturally present in all men.

All these things, therefore, he assumed, that he might sanctify all.

He was tempted and conquered, that he might procure for us the victory and give to the nature power to conquer the adversary, so that the nature which of old had been conquered might, by the very means through which it was conquered, conquer him who of old had conquered.

The evil one, then, attacked from without, not through reasonings, as also in the case of Adam;

for in his case too it was not through reasonings, but through the serpent.

But the Lord repelled the attack and dispersed it like smoke, that the passions which assailed him and were conquered might become easy for us also to overcome, and that thus the new Adam might restore the old.

Indeed, our natural passions were in Christ both according to nature and above nature.

For according to nature they were moved in him, when he permitted the flesh to suffer its own proper things;

but above nature, because in the Lord the natural things did not precede the will;

for nothing constrained is observed in him, but all things are voluntary;

for willing he hungered, willing he thirsted, willing he was afraid, willing he died.

On ignorance and servitude. It must be recognized that he assumed the nature that is ignorant and in servitude;

for the nature of man is a servant of God who made it, and does not have the knowledge of things to come.

If, then, according to the theologian Gregory, you separate the visible from the intelligible, the flesh is said to be both servant and ignorant; but on account of the identity of the hypostasis and the inseparable union, the soul of the Lord was enriched with the knowledge of things to come, as also with the other divine signs.

For just as the flesh of men according to its own nature is not life-giving (but the flesh of the Lord, united hypostatically to God the Word himself, did not depart from its natural mortality, yet became life-giving on account of the hypostatic union with the Word), and we cannot say that it was not and is not always life-giving—so the human nature does not essentially possess the knowledge of things to come;

but the soul of the Lord, on account of the union with God the Word and the hypostatic identity, was enriched, as I said, together with the other divine signs, also with the knowledge of things to come.

And it must be known that we cannot call him a servant either;

for the names of servitude and lordship are not marks of nature, but of relation, as also are those of fatherhood and sonship.

For these are indicative not of essence, but of relation.

As, then, we said concerning ignorance, that if by subtle conceptions, that is, by fine imaginings of the mind, you should separate the created from the uncreated, the flesh is a servant, unless it had been united to God the Word.

But once united hypostatically, how shall it be a servant? For Christ, being one, cannot be a servant of himself, being Lord;

for these terms are not among those spoken absolutely, but in reference to another.

...of the Father? Are not all things, then, that the Father has also the Son's, if indeed he is the servant of the Father, but in no way of himself?

And how does the apostle say concerning us:

'So that you are no longer a servant, but a son,' we having been adopted through him—if indeed he himself is a servant? He is, then, called a servant appellatively, not being this himself, but for our sake having taken the form of a servant, and being called a servant together with us.

For being impassible, he became a servant to sufferings for our sake, and became a minister of our salvation.

But those who call him a servant divide the one Christ into two, just like Nestorius.

We, however, declare him to be Master and Lord of all creation, the one Christ, the same who is at once both God and man, and who knows all things;

for in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

On progress. He is said to progress in wisdom and stature and grace—increasing, indeed, in stature, but through the increase of stature bringing into manifestation the wisdom inherent in him; and further, making the progress of men in wisdom and grace, and the fulfillment of the Father's good pleasure—that is, the knowledge of God and the salvation of men—his own progress, and appropriating in every respect that which is ours.

But those who say he progressed in wisdom and grace as receiving an increase of these things do not say that the union came about from the very first moment of the flesh's existence, nor do they hold the hypostatic union, but, persuaded by the empty-minded Nestorius, they fabricate a relative union and a mere indwelling, knowing neither what they say nor concerning what they make their assertions.

For if the flesh was truly united to God the Word from the very first moment of its existence—or rather, existed in him and had the hypostatic identity with him—how was it not perfectly enriched with all wisdom and grace? Not as itself partaking of the grace, nor participating by grace in the things of the Word, but rather, on account of the hypostatic union, the human and the divine things having become those of the one Christ, since the same was at once both God and man, [the flesh] being a fountain pouring forth grace and wisdom and the fullness of all good things into the world. On fear. The name of fear has a twofold meaning.

For there is a natural fear, when the soul is unwilling to be divided from the body, on account of the natural sympathy and affinity implanted in it from the beginning by the Creator, by reason of which it naturally is afraid and agonizes and shrinks from death.

According to nature, fear is a power that clings to existence by way of shrinking.

For if all things were brought from nonbeing into being by the Creator, they naturally have the longing for being and not for nonbeing.

And the proper natural characteristic of these is the impulse toward the things that constitute them.

And so God the Word, having become man, had this longing—showing in the things constitutive of nature the impulse toward food and drink and sleep, naturally desiring and experiencing these; but in the things destructive [of nature] showing the impulse so as voluntarily, at the time of the passion, to make the shrinking from death.

For even if the things that happened came about by the law of nature, yet not by constraint as in our case;

for he willingly accepted the natural things by willing them.

So that this fear and dread and agony belong to the natural and blameless passions, which are not subject to sin.

There is again a fear that arises from a betrayal of the reasonings, or also from unbelief and ignorance of the hour of death, as when at night we are afraid at some noise occurring;

this is contrary to nature, which also in defining we describe thus:

Fear contrary to nature is an irrational shrinking.

This [fear] the Lord did not admit;

wherefore he was never afraid except at the time of the passion, although he often drew himself together [in fear] by way of the economy.

And that he was truly afraid, the holy Athanasius says in his discourse against Apollinaris:

For this reason the Lord said:

'Now is my soul troubled.'

And this 'now' means, 'when he willed'; yet nevertheless he displays that which truly is;

for he did not name as present that which did not exist, as though the things spoken came about merely in appearance.

For by nature and in truth all things came about.

[Neither does] the divinity admit suffering apart from a suffering body, nor does it display agitation and grief apart from a soul that grieves and is agitated, nor is it distressed and does it pray apart from a mind that is distressed and prays; but, even if the things that happened did not come about by a defeat of nature, yet they came about by way of a manifestation of [his real] existence.

And the [phrase] 'not to come about by a defeat of nature' signifies the not undergoing these things involuntarily.

On the prayer of the Lord. Prayer is an ascent of the mind to God, or a request for fitting things from God.

How, then, did the Lord pray in the case of Lazarus and at the time of the passion? For his holy mind needed neither the ascent to God, being once for all united hypostatically to God the Word, nor the request from God;

but appropriating our person and forming in himself that which is ours and becoming an example to us and teaching us to ask from God and to stretch upward toward him, and through his holy mind making for us the way of ascent to God.

For just as he endured the sufferings, winning for us the victory over them, so also he prays, making for us, as I said, the way of ascent to God, and reconciling for us his own Father, and honoring him as his own origin and cause, and showing that he is not opposed to God.

For when he said in the case of Lazarus:

'Father, I thank you that you have heard me.

And I knew that you always hear me; but because of the crowd standing by I said it, that they might believe that you sent me'—is it not most clear to all that, honoring his own Father as his origin and cause, he shows that he is not opposed to God? But when he said:

'Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me;

nevertheless, not as I will, but as you [will]'—is it not somehow clear to all that he is teaching us in temptations to ask help from God alone, and to prefer the divine will to our own, and showing that he truly appropriated the things of our nature, and that according to truth he possesses two natural wills, corresponding to his natures, yet not contrary? 'Father,' he says, as consubstantial, 'if it be possible'—not in ignorance (for what is impossible to God?), but instructing us to prefer the divine will to our own;

for this alone is impossible, that which God does not will nor permit.

'Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you'—as God, being identical in operation with the Father; but as man, he displays the will natural to his humanity;

for this naturally shrinks from death.

And the [cry] 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' he uttered by appropriating our person;

for neither is the Father his God, unless—when the visible is separated from the intelligible by subtle imaginings of the mind—he be ranked with us; nor was he forsaken by his own divinity; rather it was we who were the forsaken and overlooked.

So that, appropriating our person, he prayed these things.

On appropriation. It must be known that there are two appropriations:

one natural and essential, and one personal and relative.

The natural and essential, then, is that according to which, out of love for mankind, the Lord assumed our nature and all our natural things, having become man by nature and in truth, and having experienced the natural things;

and the personal, when one assumes the person of another by reason of relation—I mean pity or love—and on his behalf utters words concerning him that in no way pertain to himself; according to which he appropriated our curse and our forsakenness and the like, which are not natural—not himself being or becoming these, but taking on our person and being ranked with us.

On the suffering of the body of the Lord and the impassibility of his divinity. He himself, then, the Word of God, endured all things in the flesh, while his divine and only impassible nature remained impassible.

For of the one Christ, composed of divinity and humanity, existing in divinity and humanity, when he suffered, the passible part suffered as being of a nature to suffer, but the impassible part did not suffer with it.

For the soul, being passible, when the body is cut, itself not being cut, suffers along with it and

the divinity, being impassible, did not suffer with the body.

And it must be known that we say God suffered in the flesh, but in no way that the divinity suffered in the flesh, or that God suffered through the flesh.

For just as, when the sun shines upon a tree, if an axe should cut the tree, the sun remains uncut and unaffected, much more does the impassible divinity of the Word, united hypostatically to the flesh, remain impassible when the flesh suffers.

And just as, if one should pour water on red-hot iron, the one is of a nature to suffer from the water (I mean the fire, for it is quenched), but the iron remains unharmed (for it is not of a nature to be destroyed by the water), much more, when the flesh suffered, did the only impassible divinity not admit the suffering, while remaining inseparable from it;

for it is not necessary that the examples should resemble [the thing] entirely and without deficiency.

For in examples it is necessary that both the like and the unlike be discerned, since otherwise it would not be an example;

for that which is alike in all respects would be the very same thing and not an example—and especially in the case of divine things.

For it is impossible to find an example like in all respects, both in theology and in the economy.

That the divinity of the Word remained inseparable from the soul and the body even in the death of the Lord, and that one hypostasis remained. Our Lord Jesus Christ, being without sin—for he who takes away the sin of the world did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth—was not subject to death, since it was through sin that death entered into the world.

He dies, therefore, receiving the death that was on our behalf, and offers himself to the Father as a sacrifice for us;

for it was against him that we had sinned, and it was fitting that he should receive the ransom on our behalf, and that thus we should be loosed from the condemnation;

for far be it that the blood of the Master should be offered to the tyrant.

Death, then, draws near, and swallowing the bait of the body, is pierced through by the hook of the divinity; and having tasted of the sinless and life-giving body, it is destroyed and gives back all those whom of old it had swallowed.

For just as darkness vanishes at the introduction of light, so corruption is driven away at the assault of life, and life comes to all, but corruption to the corrupter.

Although, therefore, he died as man, and his holy soul was separated from his undefiled body, yet the divinity remained inseparable from both—I mean from the soul and from the body—and not even thus was the one hypostasis divided into two hypostases;

for both the body and the soul had their existence from the beginning in the same way in the hypostasis of the Word, and in death, though separated from one another, each of them remained having the one hypostasis of the Word.

So that the one hypostasis of the Word was the hypostasis of the Word and of the soul and of the body;

for neither the soul nor the body ever had its own hypostasis apart from the hypostasis of the Word;

and the hypostasis of the Word was always one and never two.

So that the hypostasis of Christ is always one.

So that, even if the soul was separated from the body in respect of place, yet hypostatically it was united through the Word.

On corruption and decay. The name of corruption signifies two things.

For it signifies these human passions:

hunger, thirst, weariness, the piercing of the nails, death—that is, the separation of the soul from the body—and the like.

According to this signification we say the body of the Lord was corruptible;

for all these things he voluntarily assumed.

But corruption also signifies the complete dissolution and disappearance of the body into the elements out of which it was composed;

which by many is rather called and named 'decay.'

Of this the body of the Lord had no experience, as the prophet David says:

'For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will you allow your Holy One to see decay.'

To say, then, according to the foolish Julian and Gaianus, that the body of Christ was incorruptible according to the first signification of corruption before the resurrection, is impious.

For if it was incorruptible, it was not consubstantial with us, but also in appearance and

not in truth came about the things which the gospel says came about—the hunger, the thirst, the nails, the piercing of the side, the death.

But if they came about in appearance, then the mystery of the economy is a deception and a stage-show, and in appearance and not in truth did he become man, and in appearance and not in truth have we been saved.

But away with this! And let those who say these things be without share in salvation.

But we have obtained, and shall obtain, the true salvation.

But according to the second signification of corruption we confess the body of the Lord to be incorruptible—that is, undecaying—as the God-bearing fathers have handed down to us.

After, however, the resurrection of the Savior from the dead, we say that the body of the Lord is incorruptible also according to the first signification;

for to our body too the Lord gave, through his own body, both the resurrection and the subsequent incorruption, he himself having become for us the firstfruits of the resurrection and of incorruption and of impassibility.

'For this corruptible must put on incorruption,' says the divine apostle.

On the descent into Hades. The deified soul descends into Hades, that, just as the Sun of righteousness rose upon those on earth, so also the light might shine upon those who sit under the earth in darkness and the shadow of death;

that, just as to those on earth he proclaimed peace, release to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and became to those who believed the cause of eternal salvation, but to those who disobeyed a reproof of unbelief, so also to those in Hades;

that to him every knee might bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and thus, having loosed those who from the ages had been bound, he again returned from the dead, having made for us the way to the resurrection.

On the things after the resurrection. After the resurrection from the dead he put off all the passions—I mean corruption, and hunger and thirst, and sleep and weariness, and the like.

For although he tasted of food after the resurrection, yet not by the law of nature (for he did not hunger), but by way of the economy, confirming the truth of the resurrection, that it is the very same flesh which both suffered and rose;

and he put off none of the parts of his nature, neither body nor soul, but possesses both the body and the rational and intellectual soul, having both will and energy, and thus ascended into the heavens, and thus sits at the right hand of the Father, willing both divinely and humanly our salvation, and working it—divinely the providence and preservation and governance of all things, but humanly remembering his sojournings on earth, both seeing and knowing that he is worshiped by all the rational creation.

For his holy soul knows both that it is united hypostatically to God the Word, and that it is worshiped together [with him] as the soul of God and not simply as a soul.

And the ascending from earth into the heavens and the descending again are energies of a circumscribed body;

'For thus,' he says, 'he shall come again to you, in like manner as you saw him going into heaven.'

On the session at the right hand of the Father. We say that Christ sat down bodily at the right hand of God and the Father, but we do not mean a local right hand of the Father.

For how should the uncircumscribed have a local right hand? For right and left belong to things that are circumscribed.

But by the right hand of the Father we mean the glory and honor of the divinity, in which the Son of God, existing before the ages as God and consubstantial with the Father, having in the last times become incarnate, also sits bodily, his flesh having been glorified together [with him];

for he is worshiped with one worship together with his flesh by all creation.

If Christ is two natures, either you serve the creation also, worshiping a created nature, or you say that one nature is to be worshiped and one not to be worshiped. We worship the Son of God together with the Father and the

Holy Spirit—incorporeal before the incarnation, and now the same one incarnate and become man, while being God.

His flesh, then, according to its own nature—if you separate the visible from the intelligible by subtle conceptions—is not to be worshiped, as being created; but having been united to God the Word, it is worshiped on account of him and in him.

For just as the king is worshiped both naked and clothed, and the purple robe, as mere purple, is trodden upon and cast about, but having become the royal garment is honored and glorified, and if anyone should treat it shamefully he is for the most part condemned to death; and just as bare wood is not untouchable to the touch, but having come into contact with fire and become a coal becomes untouchable, not for its own sake but on account of the fire joined to it—and it is not the nature of the wood that is untouchable, but the coal, that is, the kindled wood—so the flesh, according to its own nature, is not to be worshiped, but is worshiped in the incarnate God the Word, not for its own sake, but on account of the God the Word united to it hypostatically; and we do not say that we worship mere flesh, but the flesh of God, that is, God incarnate.

Why the Son became man, and not the Father nor the Spirit, and what he accomplished by becoming man. The Father is Father and not Son, the Son is Son and not Father, the Holy Spirit is Spirit and not Father nor Son;

Or how could the property be one that is moved and shifts about? For this reason the Son of God becomes Son of man, that the property may remain unmoved;

for being Son of God he became Son of man, having become incarnate of the holy Virgin, and did not depart from his own property.

And the Son of God became man, that he might again bestow upon man that for which he had made him;

for he made him according to his own image, intellectual and self-determining, and according to his likeness—that is, perfect in virtues, so far as is attainable to human nature;

for these are, as it were, characters of the divine nature:

freedom from care and distraction and guile, goodness, wisdom, righteousness, freedom from all evil.

Having, then, established man in communion with himself (for he made him for incorruption), through the communion with himself he led him up toward incorruption.

But since by the transgression of the commandment we both darkened and confounded the characters of the divine image, and being in evil were stripped of the divine communion (for what fellowship has light with darkness?), and having come outside of life fell under the corruption of death—since he imparted the better and we did not keep it, he partakes of the worse, I mean of our nature, that through himself, in himself, he might renew that which is according to the image and likeness, and teach us the virtuous manner of life and make it through himself easy of access to us, and by the communion of life set us free from corruption, becoming the firstfruits of our resurrection, and that he might renew the useless and shattered vessel, that he might redeem us from the tyranny of the devil—having called us to the knowledge of God—and might strengthen and train us through patience and humility to wrestle down the tyrant.

Indeed, the worship of demons has ceased, creation has been sanctified by the divine blood, altars and temples of idols have been cast down, the knowledge of God has been planted, the consubstantial Trinity, the uncreated Godhead, is worshiped, one true God, the Creator and Lord of all things;

virtues are practiced as a way of life, the hope of resurrection has been bestowed through the resurrection of Christ, the demons shudder at men who of old were their subjects; and the marvel is that all these things have been accomplished through the cross and sufferings and death.

Into all the earth the gospel of the knowledge of God has been preached, not routing the adversaries by war and weapons and armies, but a few poor, unlettered, persecuted, ill-treated, put-to-death men, by preaching one who was crucified in the flesh and died, prevailed over the wise and the mighty;

for the all-powerful power of the Crucified attended them.

...has been overcome, and now that which of old was loathed and hated [death] is preferred to life.

These are the achievements of the coming of Christ; these are the tokens of his power.

For it was not as through Moses that he saved one people out of Egypt and from the bondage of Pharaoh by parting the sea; rather he delivered all humanity from the corruption of death and from the bitter tyrant, sin—not leading to virtue by force, not burying in the earth and burning with fire and commanding to stone those who sin, but persuading men by gentleness and long-suffering to choose virtue and to contend in the toils on its behalf and to delight in them;

for of old, when they sinned, they were chastised, and yet they still clung to sin, and sin was reckoned to them as a god;

but now, for the sake of godliness and virtue, they choose tortures and rackings and death.

Well done, O Christ, Word and Wisdom and Power of God, and almighty God!

What of all these things could we, the destitute, render to You in return? For all things are Yours, and You ask of us nothing but that we be saved—You Yourself granting even this, and in Your unutterable goodness counting it a grace to those who receive—to You be thanks, who gave us being and graciously granted us well-being—and who, when we had fallen from this, again led us back to it through Your ineffable condescension.

To those who ask whether the hypostasis of Christ is created or uncreated. The hypostasis of God the Word, before the incarnation, was simple and incomposite and bodiless and uncreated; but having become incarnate it became also the hypostasis of the flesh, and became composite of the Godhead which it ever possessed and of the flesh which it assumed, and it bears the properties of the two natures, being known in two natures—so that the same one hypostasis is both uncreated in respect of its Godhead and created in respect of its manhood, visible and invisible.

—since otherwise we are forced either to divide the one Christ by speaking of two hypostases, or to deny the difference of the natures and to introduce change and confusion.

Concerning when Christ was so named. Not, as some falsely allege, was the mind united to God the Word before the incarnation from the Virgin and from then called Christ;

this is an offshoot of the nonsense of Origen, who dogmatized a pre-existence of souls.

But we say that the Son and Word of God came to be and was called Christ from the time when He took up His dwelling in the womb of the holy Ever-Virgin and without change became flesh, and the flesh was anointed with the Godhead;

for this is the anointing of the manhood, as the theologian Gregory says.

And the most holy Cyril of Alexandria too, writing to the emperor Theodosius, says thus:

"For I myself affirm that neither should the Word who is from God be named Christ Jesus apart from manhood, nor again the temple born of a woman, not united to the Word;

for the Word from God is understood as Christ when He has been ineffably brought together with manhood by a union according to the divine economy."

And to the empresses thus:

"Some say that the name 'Christ' is fitting also to the Word begotten of God the Father alone and properly, considered and existing in Himself.

But we have not been taught so to think or to speak;

for it was when the Word became flesh that we say He was then also named Christ Jesus.

For since He was anointed with the oil of gladness, that is, with the Holy Spirit, by God and the Father, on this very account He is named Christ.

And that the anointing concerns the human element, none of those accustomed to think rightly would doubt."

And the all-renowned Athanasius too, in his treatise on the saving manifestation, says somewhere as follows: