he led me upon the paths of justice for his name's sake' (Ps. 22:2). In turn, the mercy and truth of the Lord (Ps. 24:10), by which assuredly one walks not by the step of the body, but rather by the affection of the soul. This doctrine of walking blessed John intimates to us, saying: 'He who says he abides in Christ ought, just as he walked, himself also to walk' (1 John 2:6). By which way Christ himself commands that he be followed, saying: 'If you would be perfect, go, sell all that you have, and give to the poor; and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me' (Matt. 19:21). Not therefore by bodily step alone does anyone follow Christ, or stray from Christ.
Indeed, the quality of this error the Lord himself and our Savior showed, while he rebuked the Sadducees, saying: 'You err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God' (Matt. 22:29). For this reason assuredly they miserably erred, because they did not know him who is the power of God. As, therefore, the knowledge of the power of God holds fast to the heavenly journey, so ignorance is the mother of error. Which blessed David also showed, saying of certain men: 'They have not known, neither have they understood; they walk in darkness' (Ps. 81:5). By these and testimonies of this kind it is most evidently demonstrated that the error of that sheep is to be attributed not only to the body, but also to the soul;
namely for this reason, that even if some sin seems to be committed bodily by a man, it takes its beginning from the heart, nor is anything accomplished outwardly, unless this be put forth inwardly by the judgment of thought. The truth of this thing Truth itself showed us, thus speaking to the disciples: 'For from the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. These are the things that defile a man' (Matt. 15:19). In this, therefore, does each one err, in which he defiles himself by the assent of evil thought. CHAPTER X. From the parable of the sheep carried back it is proved that the whole man was assumed by Christ. Christ received the Church into marriage through his soul.
Christ is rightly called the head, the Church the body. Wherefore, since that error is understood to be at once of the soul and of the body, if the Son of God, without a rational soul, took only the flesh of man, he carried back to the house the inferior part of that sheep, but the better part (which God forbid) he abandoned to perpetual error: for it is manifest that he called back that which he carried back upon his own shoulders. But if he himself professes to have carried back the whole sheep laid upon his own shoulders, let the whole man be recognized in Christ. For then is the redemption of man to be believed, if in the Son of God the fullness of the human assumption, that is, of that sheep carried back, was not lacking. For God saved in us that which he took for us;
and God the Son of God made that nature partaker of eternal salvation, which he joined to himself in the unity of person: that nature he introduced into the heavenly palace, with which the Bridegroom went forth from the chamber of the virginal womb: for he himself, 'as a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, rejoiced as a giant to run the way' (Ps. 18:6-7). But who would strive to say that the bride of the Word of God was the flesh, not the soul? to which soul it was long ago said by the Lord himself through the prophet: 'And I will betroth you to me forever; and I will betroth you to me in justice, and in judgment, and in mercy, and in loving-kindness' (Hos. 2:19). Of which mystery Isaiah too stood forth a faithful witness, who from the person of Christ speaking says these things:
'Rejoicing I will rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall exult in my God, who has clothed me with the garment of salvation, and has surrounded me with the robe of justice, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels' (Isa. 61:10). Behold, one is the bridegroom, the same is also the bride, who testifies that he also has a soul: which, that he might show it to have been assumed not without understanding, he showed the heart (which is proper to the human soul) to have exulted in God together with the flesh, from the person of the man assumed, saying: 'My heart and my flesh have exulted in the living God' (Ps. 83:2).
But since the Lord, receiving the first-fruits of nature, so received in his own soul the souls of all the faithful — as in his own body the body of all the faithful — through the unity of nature and the grace of justification: through this he took the whole Church into marriage of perpetual incorruptibility for himself; the wondrous sacrament of which betrothal the faithful servant of the Bridegroom so commends to the bride herself, that it may be understood to be more of the mind than of the body, saying: 'For I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, so your senses may be corrupted, and fall away from the simplicity that is in Christ' (2 Cor. 11:2-3).
There, therefore, the spiritual adulterer seeks to corrupt the chastity of the virginal marriage, where he perceives that fidelity of wedlock is owed to be kept to the heavenly Bridegroom. But in vain does the Apostle command the chastity of the soul to be guarded, if the man assumed by God did not have in himself the first-fruits of this conjunction; especially since the same Teacher of the nations does not cease to preach Christ and the Church as head and body, saying: 'According to the working of the might of his power which he wrought in Christ Jesus, raising him from the dead, and setting him at his right hand in the heavenly places above every principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
and he put all things under his feet, and gave him to be head over all the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all' (Eph. 1:20-22). In another place too it is said: 'The man is the head of the woman, as Christ is the head of the Church, himself the Savior of the body' (Eph. 5:23). How then shall the soul of the Church be able to be saved, if the soul was lacking to the Savior? or what kind of effect of deliverance shall be believed to follow in the body, which did not go before in the head? For as he says to his own faithful: 'If the Son sets you free, then you shall be truly free' (John 8:36), so also concerning himself he declares: 'For he has become like a man without help, free among the dead' (Ps.
(Psalm 87:5). Therefore what the Head made free in itself, this it also freed in the body; for entering into the house of the strong man and binding the strong man (Matthew 12:29), He there freed from bondage that which He had first taken up in Himself on behalf of the servant; nor will anything else reign in the body than what went before (or, proceeded) in the Head to heaven. Paul, bearing the belief of this matter faithfully and confidently, exults and says: But our conversation is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). There, then, he does not doubt that his own soul dwells, where he is confident that the human soul reigns in Christ; wherefore he also urges the Colossians with the utterance of such preaching, saying: If you have risen (or, you have risen)
you have risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. CHAPTER XI. Another argument from Peter. Nor is that in any way to be omitted, that Peter commends in Christ, with a great wonder of preaching, that He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. For thus he says: Christ died for us (or, for you), leaving you an example, that you should follow His steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth (1 Peter 2:22).
For if the Son of God did not have a human soul in the assumption of the flesh, and this is believed to have been said by blessed Peter concerning His divinity, what is it that is said as a great thing to the praise of Christ, that His divinity could be free from the stain of sin, since it is proper to God not only not to sin, but even to save from sin? He therefore alone can grant pardon, because He alone cannot admit fault; therefore He alone is the physician of the wounded, because the divine nature never receives a wound in itself. But if this is believed to be referred to the flesh of Christ, how can justice be preserved by our souls, to which the assumption of Christ, cited as apostolic example, gave no pattern?
But that blessed Peter might show that righteousness—which He commands us to imitate—had gone before in both the soul and the flesh of Christ together, he added, following on: Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; which pertains properly to the patience of the soul. Wherefore in another place also he says: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing: because to this you are called, that you should inherit a blessing (1 Peter 3:9). Of this blessing our Savior commends the beginning as coming forth from the heart, saying: A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things (Matthew 12:35).
It is agreed, therefore, that goodwill resides in the soul, whence we can render blessing to those who curse us. But that blessed Peter might show the example both of the soul and of the flesh in Christ, when he had said: Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again, he added, following on: When He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judges justly; who bore our sins in His own body upon the tree, that we, being separated from our sins, should live with righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed (or, we were). For you were as sheep going astray; but now you are converted to the shepherd and bishop of your souls (1 Peter 2:23-25). CHAPTER XII. Christ is rightly called both shepherd, and sheep, and lamb.
Another argument from Leviticus, because Christ, since He was High Priest, was bound by the law to be a whole man. The Son of God, therefore, is the visitor and shepherd of our souls, because He deigned to become the receiver of a human soul, to whom, in the person of the human nature He was to assume, it is said in the psalm: Receive me according to Your word, and I shall live (Psalm 119:116). Christ, then, is our shepherd, whose sheep apostolic authority testifies we are; yet He, that He might fully deign to show Himself the receiver of our nature, did not disdain to call Himself not only shepherd but also sheep; as indeed of whom, moved (or, touched) by the Holy Spirit, the prophet testifies:
Like a sheep He was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer He was dumb, so He opened not His mouth (Isaiah 53:7); and He Himself again through Jeremiah: I was like an innocent lamb led to be sacrificed, and I knew not: they devised a wicked device against me, saying: Come, let us put wood into His bread (Jeremiah 11:19); concerning whom also John the Baptist proclaims: Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins (or, sin) of the world (John 1:29). Peter the apostle also sets forth things not unlike concerning Christ (or, concerning whom), saying:
Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, silver or gold, from your vain conversation received from the tradition of your fathers, but with the precious blood, as of a lamb undefiled and immaculate, that is, of Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19). One and the same therefore is the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, Himself both shepherd and sheep, Himself both bridegroom and bride, Himself both priest and victim, one and the same both the offerer of the gift and made the gift of the offerer, so that neither might the offerer depart from the quality of the gift, nor the gift differ from the merit of the offerer. For if He had anything less of human nature, He could neither take the person of a high priest, nor be offered for sins: for in the law he could not exercise the priesthood, if any man (or,
of men) had something less in himself, he could not exercise the priesthood; nor was it lawful for anyone to offer for sacrifice a beast that was diseased or imperfect: but who would doubt that our high priest is Jesus Christ, whom Paul evidently commends under this title: But having (he says) a great High Priest, who has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one tempted in all things according to the likeness, without sin. Let us therefore come with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace in seasonable help (Hebrews 4:14-16). And that he might show this office of the priesthood to belong to human nature, he added:
For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that pertain to God, that he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins; who can have compassion on those who are ignorant and err, since he himself also is compassed with infirmity. And by reason thereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins. And no man takes this honor to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was. So also Christ did not glorify Himself to be made a high priest, but He that said to Him: You are my Son, this day have I begotten You (Hebrews 5:1-5). Yet He calls this high priest tempted in all things according to the likeness, without sin. But in what things He was tempted, he clearly showed above, saying:
For nowhere does He take hold of angels, but He takes hold of the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things He ought to be made like unto His brethren, that He might become merciful, and a faithful high priest toward God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that in which He Himself suffered and was tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted (Hebrews 2:16-18). CHAPTER XIII. Another argument from Paul, because Christ was tempted both in flesh and in soul. If then in that in which He was tempted He gives help to the tempted, surely in that in which He was not tempted He ministers no help to the tempted; whence it follows that those who assign to Christ only human flesh, and deny the soul, seek the help of Christ in the flesh alone, but in the soul remain destitute:
For the Son of God helps in man that which He assumed for man. But if they delight to merit the help of Christ both in soul and in flesh, they must of necessity confess (as the truth holds) that He was tempted alike both in soul and in flesh. Both the human soul, therefore, and the flesh together were tempted in Christ. But if both the soul and the flesh were tempted together in Christ, both were together assumed by Him; and if He deigned to assume both, He deigned without doubt to save both.
For it was fitting, and agreeable to our salvation, that the true God, alone substantially born of the true Father, should assume a true human soul and flesh, which He Himself made; that in both He might fight with the tempter, in both conquer, and thereafter in both minister help to the tempted, since in both He offered to the weak and to those about to die the example of victory. That saying also, which the Truth itself uttered, demonstrates the mystery of the Mediator by manifest token, saying: For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). Let us attend, therefore, to what perished by the fall of the earthly man, and let us acknowledge what was sought by the coming of the heavenly man.
Let us consider what the servant sold by sinning (or, by sin), and it will appear what the Lord redeemed by assuming. Let us attend to what the robber wounded in the seduction of man, that it may be clear what the physician healed in the assumption of man. Did not the first man, composed of flesh and soul together, receive the commandment of God? But if he is known to have received God's commandment in both, in both he ought to have kept the obedience of the commandment. But if the commandment was to be obeyed in both, by both the transgression was committed: for as sin was begun by the desire of the soul, so it was completed by the carnal eating: and therefore, because the whole man incurred the guilt of transgression, the devil took the whole man captive to himself.
2:62
Quodsitotustenebaturcaptivitatisvinculo, totuseguitliberatorisauxilio. Siautemtotamdebuitliberarepietas, totumdebuitsusciperedivinamajestas. TotiusergofuithominisaDeosuscipiendanatura, quoniamintolofuitcaptivitascaptivanda, utntotasimulacquirereturde. captivatacaptivitatevictoria : et (al. ut), secundumprædicationisapostolicæsen. tentiam , captivamducenscaptivitatem (Ephes. IV, 8), principatusetpotestatestraduceretconfidenter, palamtriumphansillosinsemetipso (Coloss. II, 15). CAPUTXIV. Aliaratioadivisioneperquatuormembra. Adextremumdicaturcurabillaineffabilidivinitatenonfueritanimaenaturasusceptacumcarne ?
But if the whole was held by the bond of captivity, the whole had need of the help of a deliverer. And if piety ought to free the whole, the divine majesty ought to assume the whole. The whole nature of man, therefore, was to be assumed by God, since the captivity to be captured was in the whole, so that in the whole together victory might be won over the captured captivity: and (or, that), according to the sentence of apostolic preaching, leading captivity captive (Ephesians 4:8), He might confidently lead forth principalities and powers, openly triumphing over them in Himself (Colossians 2:15). CHAPTER XIV. Another argument from the division into four members. Finally, let it be said why the nature of the soul was not assumed together with the flesh by that ineffable divinity?
Was it not made by God? Or was it not corrupted by sin? Or did the universal medicine despise it as viler than the flesh? Or was the Almighty unable to cure it, wounded by the wound of sin? But those who hold the first and last of these are rebels both against the power of the Creator and against the might of the Savior, if either they think any creature was not made by God, or they say that the power of the Almighty is too weak to confer salvation upon the soul. But as for the two middle ones, they consider neither the sin of the rational creature, nor its merit;
not understanding that that which grants life to the flesh cannot be viler than its own flesh, and that that which by intelligence could better resist the tempter was the more grievously wounded. That almighty power, therefore, and holy wisdom, neither despised as foreign that which it knew to have been made by itself, nor scorned to heal that which it knew to have been more grievously wounded, nor excluded from the remedy of salvation that which it had made superior to the flesh: but as the devil struck down the whole man by deceiving, so God saved the whole by assuming: that the same might be acknowledged as the Creator and Redeemer of the whole creature, who was able both to make what was not, and to repair what had fallen away. CHAPTER XV. Another argument, from the name of the Mediator, that He may have in Himself the whole nature.
Moreover, all who desire to be partakers of eternal salvation ought to acknowledge alike and to hold that the man Christ Jesus is not called in vain the Mediator of God and men, save because the same God assumed into Himself the whole nature of man, and the same man has in Himself the whole substance of the deity (or, divinity). For because through sin man was separated from God, between the wrathful God and the sinning man there ought indeed to intervene such a person of a Mediator, who, for the propitiating of God to man, might have in Himself the whole and true God born of God, and, for the reconciling of man to God, might contain in Himself the whole and true man born of man, and thus from both and in both there might be one Christ, so that the fullness of the deity
might not consume the man it assumed, but advance him; and the fullness of humanity might neither diminish the immense, nor change the impassible deity: and so the nature of man, which had been changed for the worse, might through Him be wholly restored, than whom nothing is better. Therefore the Mediator of God and men deigned to show Himself full God and full man. CHAPTER XVI. Other arguments also from various places of Scripture. But if anyone doubts, or does not at all believe, let him choose whether he wishes what we assert to be demonstrated to him by name or by deed: for Holy Scripture, in one and the same Christ, has passed over neither the appellation of God nor of man, the evangelist saying:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: the same was in the beginning with God; all things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing (John 1:1-2). And a little after: The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (ibid., 14). He surely asserts that Word to have been made flesh which he had mentioned above to be God, so that he might show the same to be true God from the Father, who is true man from man. He shows besides in what respect we should believe Him to be naturally eternal from God the Father, and in what respect we ought to accept Him as made man in time from man, showing one thing in the opening, another in what follows. The eternity of the Son of God, therefore, is asserted, while the Word is proclaimed to be God in the beginning.
There he does not say the Word was made, since he knew it to be begotten of the Father; there is no name of time, where there is eternity, which can have neither beginning nor end. But when he comes to the appellation of flesh, then the Word is said to be made flesh, that we might acknowledge that He who had not been made, but was always born of the Father, then willed to be made, when He deigned—being made His own work—to repair what He had made. In this deed blessed Paul too took care to profess, as the truth of the manhood, so the truth of the time, saying: But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Galatians 4:4-5).
This very thing, agreeing everywhere with the prophets (or, the prophetic writings), the apostolic authority preserves, so that, proclaiming Christ made, it may clearly show both what He was made, and whence He was made: that it may be acknowledged that the Lord of all things so took the form of a servant, that He took true flesh not from elsewhere, but from man. David, therefore, says: Mother Sion shall say: A man, and a man was made in her, and the Most High Himself founded her (Psalm 87:5). Behold, in one Christ, as one person is asserted without doubt, so the truth of God and man is shown unconfused: for He who was made man in her, the Most High Himself founded her. To this saying that apostolic word is altogether to be compared:
Whose are the fathers, of whom is Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever (Romans 9:5). What David says: And a man was made in her, this Paul confirms, saying: Whose are the fathers, of whom is Christ according to the flesh; and what David asserts: The Most High Himself founded her, this Paul follows, saying: Who is over all, God blessed forever. The Old Testament chimes with the New; David agrees with John and Paul. Whom David calls true man, because Mother Sion shall say: A man, and a man was made in her, the same he believes and proclaims to be true God, because the Most High Himself founded her. Whom John knew to be true man, hearing Him say:
You seek to kill me, a man, who have told you the truth (John 8:40); the same he shows to be true God, saying: This is the true God, and eternal life. He recognizes Christ as true man, because the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and shows the same to be true God, because in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Whom Paul knew to be true man, because by voluntary love the Lord of man was made of a woman, and the Lord of the law was made under the law (Galatians 4:4) (as he himself testifies: Because God sent His Son, made of a woman, made under the law; and because He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; and: Whose are the fathers, of whom is Christ
is according to the flesh); the same he ceases not to confess as true God, saying: Who is over all, God blessed forever. CHAPTER XVII. An objection, that Christ was made flesh, therefore He lacked a soul. Flesh for the whole man. Soul for the whole man. Nor indeed are we unaware that this is objected on the other side: that when the Word is said to be made flesh, and He was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and Whose are the fathers, of whom is Christ according to the flesh, in the aforesaid places the carnal understanding of certain men is so held by the name of the flesh, that, the flesh having been assumed, Christ is not believed to have assumed also a rational soul. But those who so think give less heed to the fact that it is a feature of human speech, whereby not seldom the whole is signified by a part.
Let them know, therefore, that in the Holy Scriptures the whole man is sometimes shown by the name of flesh only, and sometimes by the appellation of soul alone; the truth of which matter I shall easily teach thoroughly, not only from the Old Testament, but also from the New. David signifies the whole man by the name of flesh, saying: Hear, O God, my prayer, to You shall all flesh come (Psalm 65:2). But what is all flesh, if not every man? Similarly by the same in another psalm it is said: In God I will hope, I will not fear what flesh can do to me (Psalm 56:5). And that he might show that by the name of flesh he designated the whole man, a little after he says again identically: In God I will praise the word, in God (or,
in the Lord) I will praise His word; in God I will hope, I will not fear what man can do to me (ibid., 11). With these sayings the sayings of Isaiah also agree, when, announcing the coming of our Savior in the flesh, he says: The crooked things shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God (Isaiah 40:4-5). But what is all flesh, if not every man? Or shall we perhaps so raise up lifeless flesh, that we do not hesitate to attribute to it divine vision? In the New Testament also the very Creator and Lord of the human race is found to have named the whole man by the name of flesh, when, foretelling the quality of the extreme tribulation, He speaks these words to His disciples: