反亞流神學文集 第 2 章 第 3/10 段

For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not from the beginning of the world until now, nor shall be: and unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved; but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened (Matthew 24:21-22). That the whole man is also signified by the appellation of soul, the series of the Old Testament thus demonstrates, when it is said: And all the souls of Jacob were seventy-five (Genesis 46:27). Again in the same Testament: Whatever soul shall sin before the Lord unwillingly, in any of the commandments of the Lord which ought not to be done, and shall do one of these: if indeed the anointed priest who is prince shall sin, that so the people may not do, let him offer (or,

he shall offer) for his sin, in which he has sinned, an unblemished bullock of the herd to the Lord (Leviticus 4:1-3). Behold, a soul is spoken of, and next the anointed priest is named, so that when we hear 'soul' we may recognize the whole man at the same time. Nor in the New Testament could the expression of this signification be lacking: since indeed when the disciples, strengthened by the coming of the Holy Spirit, having cast off dread, entered upon the office of public preaching, the sermon of Peter being completed, the book of the Acts of the Apostles, as Luke narrates, thus reads: Those therefore who received his word were baptized; and there were added in that day about three thousand souls (Acts 2:41).

Whoever strives to deny that men are signified here by the name of souls, must of necessity show how souls without bodies could be believed to have received the sacrament of baptism from the apostles. Something similar to this place blessed Peter also sets down in his Epistle: In the days of Noah, he says, while the ark was being built, in which few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water (1 Peter 3:20). Since therefore it is manifest that by the custom of the Scriptures the whole man is designated sometimes by the appellation of flesh, sometimes of soul alone, surely it is shown that when the evangelist says: The Word was made flesh, nothing else ought to be understood than the Word was made man. CHAPTER XVIII. The Mediator Christ therefore assumed the whole man.

On account of the two natures in Christ, both the man is called the Son of God and God the Son of man. In Christ there is true flesh and a true soul. Therefore indeed the man Christ Jesus is proclaimed by the Apostle the Mediator of God and men; for because the Word was God, in that God assumed the whole man for us, the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. The Word indeed was made flesh in that there is one person of God and man in Christ: But He dwelt among us, because in Christ the true and whole divine and human substance remains. For the Word dwelling in the man was not changed into man.

But where could the Word dwell most of all, than in that substance which He made after His own image, that is, in the soul of that man whom He assumed? Which we perceive to be prophetically (or, by prophecy) intimated by spiritual grace through Solomon, when it is said: The soul of the just is the seat of wisdom (Wisdom 7:27). For that it may be shown that Christ dwells especially in the substance of the soul, let Paul offer us the support of his attestation in truth, who says: For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is named:

that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts (Ephesians 3:16-17). Behold, he both names the soul, and calls it the heart, where he affirms Christ to dwell. Whence it is clearly known that the Word, God, assumed the whole man, since it is proved that the indwelling of the Son of God is shown in the soul rather than in the flesh. The truth of this inseparable sacrament, whereby God deigned to assume the whole man, and the whole man is shown to remain assumed in God, made both that which is naturally of man to be called the Son of God, and that which is naturally of God the Father to be called the Son of man, the angel saying to Mary:

The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you: therefore that which shall be born of you holy shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35). Mark's declaration too is not discordant, setting down for his Gospel such an opening: The Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God (Mark 1:1). Nathanael also, of whom He had said: Can anything good come from Nazareth (John 1:46)? does not hesitate to call Him the Son of God: Rabbi, he says, You are the Son of God, You are the King of Israel (ibid., 49). Where Jesus, that He might show the full mystery of His piety, not only gladly heard that which is naturally always from the Father, but also most evidently proclaimed that which was mercifully made of a woman, saying:

Amen, amen I say to you, you shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man (ibid., 51). On account of this unity of person in Christ, and the unconfused truth of the divine and human substance, one and the same Christ is both called a Child by Isaiah, and equally proclaimed Son and God, as he says: A Child is born to us, a Son is given to us; whose government is upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, God, Mighty (Isaiah 9:6). In one Christ there are not two persons, so that one should be called Child, and another God;

but in one person there is full God and perfect man, because substantially the Child is one thing, and God another, while yet personally the Child is not one and God another. For there is one Son, both Child and God, because the Child, who is born to us, and the same Son who is given to us, His name is called Wonderful, Counselor, God, Mighty. Yet this Child, as He had true flesh, so also had a true soul, that that true divinity might both assume the whole nature of man to be renewed, and might be able to renew the nature assumed, as was shown above, Luke bearing witness: For the Child—that is, Jesus—increased in age and in wisdom and in grace with God and men (Luke 2:52).

Therefore the Lord Himself did not omit to show in Himself either the name of flesh or of soul, showing indeed that He had most true flesh, when He says: That which is born of the flesh is flesh (John 3:6). Whose full truth shone forth also by the manifestation of His works, when the infant, being born, is not only wrapped in swaddling clothes and confined in a narrow manger, but also, receiving circumcision, is shown to have true flesh. Moreover, even after the resurrection He informs the hesitating disciples, saying: Handle and see, that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me to have (Luke 24:39). That He had also assumed a soul together with the flesh, He ceased not to intimate neither by name nor by deed, when He says:

I lay down my soul for my sheep (John 10:15); and My soul is troubled (John 12:27); and the rest, which shall be shown below. That He assumed this soul not without a rational intellect, the divine oracle through Isaiah thus demonstrates: Behold, my Child shall understand, and shall be exalted, and shall be greatly magnified. CHAPTER XIX. The last argument from the Acts of the Apostles, concerning the true flesh and soul of Christ. And although many things remain by which our assertion might be confirmed, yet, since the course of our discourse hastens to the end of the little book, we shall set down from the Acts of the Apostles also an evident token of this sacrament, the sermon of the blessed apostle Peter, which he uttered forth from that wonderful new spiritual inebriation. Here (or,

Hence), when, instructing the Jews out of divine authority, he had set forth the utterance of David, which, taught by God, he had sung from the person of Christ, saying: I foresaw the Lord before me always, for He is at my right hand, that I be not moved. Therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced, moreover my flesh also shall rest in hope. Because You will not leave my soul in hell, nor will You give Your holy one to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life, You will fill me with joy with Your countenance (Psalm 16:8-11). When blessed Peter had recalled this testimony of the psalm, that he might show it to have been manifestly said concerning Christ, he added, following on:

Men and brethren, let me freely speak to you concerning the patriarch David, that he both died, and was buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this present day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn to him with an oath, that of the fruit of his loins one should sit upon his throne, foreseeing this he spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, that neither was His soul left in hell, nor did His flesh see corruption (Acts 2:29-31). This testimony we have thought fit to insert in the present place, so that the evident distinction of names and things might teach both flesh and soul together in Christ. But a more suitable place will be given to it, when we shall speak concerning the mystery of the Lord's passion (below, book).

(in chapters 22, 23, and 24); where also there is that which He said: 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death'; and 'Now is my soul troubled'; and 'Greater love than this hath no man, than that a man lay down his soul for his friends.' These we hope, with the Lord's help, to treat in such a way that the true substance of both flesh and soul in Christ may be shown, demonstrated not only by words but also by the manifest tokens of natural functions. CHAPTER XX. Epilogue of the first book, concerning the divine and human nature of the Mediator in one person. The argument of the two books that follow.

Accordingly, if the truth of our salvation is believed to reside in the Saviour, it follows that in the one and same Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, the undivided and unconfused perfection of the divine and human substance must not be denied; since the Son of God, begotten of the Father's substance, neither lost the everlastingness of the divine nature when He took upon Himself that which was temporal for the eternal salvation of temporal beings; nor was He deprived of the lordship of His natural and true divinity, He who exalted the truth of the servant's form which He had assumed into an unending and inamissible lordship; nor could the true Power be weakened when it took up our infirmity, that Power which removed the defect of infirmity from the infirm; nor could He be imperfect who granted perfection to the imperfect.

Nor did the divinity of Christ descend locally to the nether world—that divinity which, without any mass, is so wholly present everywhere that, though no place can be without it, yet no place can locally contain it. For the true and infinite substance of God is ineffably whole in each single creature and whole in all; it is not lessened in the least things nor increased in the great; it is not enclosed by time, not circumscribed by quantity, not begun by any beginning, not to be ended by any term: by which substance the whole man was both created unto righteousness and, after his ruin, taken up without sin. Now therefore, since concerning the mystery of the Mediator (as far as He Himself, who is the Word of the Father, has granted by the gift of His grace)—

—the truth of our discussion has left nothing ambiguous, whereby one and the same Christ is shown naturally to have the whole Godhead from the Father and to have the whole nature of man in the man, it must next be provided against this: that upon certain persons who think carnally of the things that are divine, the error of the falsehood they have conceived pours itself the more grievously, in that they confess the divinity of Christ either to have come locally from heaven or to have descended locally to hell; and who also do not hesitate to affirm that Christ, having suffered in the flesh, suffered together also in His divinity. For the demonstrating, therefore, of the truth of these matters (as far as shall suffice), I have appointed separate little books to treat each one, so that the one may set forth the immense divinity of the Son of God;

and the third indeed may contain the mystery of the Lord's passion with the most manifest clearness of things. Let this first book, then, close with the moderation of debate that has been kept, so that God may open for us the door of speech unto the things which are next to be discussed. THE SECOND BOOK. ON THE IMMENSITY OF THE DIVINITY OF THE SON OF GOD. CHAPTER I. The incomprehensibility of the divine Trinity. The infinite Essence. Man, since he does not fully know that which is in himself, can far less know God who is above him. As often as the infirmity of the human condition, about to know itself, strives somewhat to pass beyond the bounds of its own littleness, and, made pregnant with the conception of heavenly illumination, begins to travail with the inquiry into its Creator and Redeemer, that alone—

—that immutable everlastingness of the Trinity, as I judge, will be found to be an incomprehensibility worthy of wonder, which so surpasses all that we can think or perceive, just as it surpasses all that we are. This the truthful series of the divine volumes attests to us, Isaiah saying: 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts' (Isaiah LV, 8, 9). What skill of human learning, then? what liveliness of mind? what sagacity of heart could touch the secret of that Essence (that is, of the Trinity, which is the one true and only God)?

—that Essence which neither began to be nor ceases; in whose substance there is nothing which was not, and nothing that was can cease to be; nothing of which is enclosed by place, because the whole is immense; nothing of which is anticipated by a beginning, because the whole is everlasting; which by this token especially showed itself to be everlasting, uncreated, and immutable, when out of nothing—that is, out of that which did not exist—it was able to create that which had come to be;

—and which exalted the rational part of its creation above the rest with this privilege of grace: that, endowed with the gift of eternity and reason, it might hence clearly not at all doubt that the Essence of its Creator and Restorer is altogether without beginning, since it had come to know that it, though not made without beginning, would nevertheless never thereafter be consumed by total abolition. Hence likewise it would forthwith be admonished by how great a height of infinity and incomprehensibility the creative Power and Wisdom of all things exceeds the measure of the intellectual creature, since the full knowledge of its own comprehensibility—comprehensible indeed and finite to the Creator, yet incomprehensible and infinite to itself—wearied the rational creature itself.

But when it perceived that the investigation of its own nature, which is not outside itself, was both inmost to it and hidden, so that, though it be not above itself and be within itself, it cannot trace out the whole of itself as it is, then, so much the more trembling and marvelling at the greatness of the supernal infinity that exceeds all bounds of intelligence—whose peace (as Paul says) 'surpasseth all understanding' (Philippians IV, 7), whose judgments also are 'a great deep' (Psalm XXXV, 7)—it might look to be borne up by the humble ascent alone to the knowledge of the Most High, from whom by the fall of proud thought it once deserved to be separated. CHAPTER II. The angelic nature could not repair man, because it too fell.

But this it could never at all attempt, if it had lacked either an exemplar or a beginning. There had to be sought, therefore, one whose eternal equality might justify the impious, whose truth might instruct the ignorant, whose power might make firm the weak, so that (as its being) it might remain to be reformed, be informed by light, be confirmed by power. But could man find this through man alone, or in any single man whatsoever? By no means. For what man could exist as a physician of the human wound, when a fellowship of natural vice encompassed all in the corrupted root? Or how could he by himself alone bring healing to the wounded, whose own origin was held fast in the wound?

Or in what manner could he exist as a universal bestower of beneficence, whom nature showed to be in need of another's help? Man, therefore, drained of the riches of true salvation and deprived of the perennial possession of good things, was perhaps to be raised up by angelic aid; so that he who, foul in the prison-house of his house of clay, had been unable in any degree to aspire to the faculty of a purer life, might be helped by the grace of angelic assistance, whereby he might lay aside the filth of his former offence and take up again the dignity of the purity he had long since lost. Nevertheless, neither could this gift of restoration be obtained by angelic support. For the angelic nature would then be in some measure fit to repair man, if by the mutability of falling it had never naturally been bound fast:

—but since it truly testifies by the proof of a consubstantial ruin that it is in need of help, assuredly it is recognized that what cannot suffice for its own stability can far less avail to effect the restoration of man. That its own powers were sufficient for its own keeping might not unfitly be believed, if no part of it had slipped into the worse. For the natural unity, embracing the whole of the angelic nature, would doubtless remain wholly upheld by the firm foundation of impassibility, if it could not be subject to suffering, nor ever suffer in the remainder what it could not endure in the whole. But since a certain part of it is seen to have been rolled down from the lofty summit of blessedness into deepest and perpetual misery, the blessed Peter saying:

—that 'God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them into the dungeons of the darkness of hell, to be reserved to be punished at the judgment' (2 Peter II, 4)—assuredly it is recognized that all could have been oppressed by one uniform fellowship of ruin, unless that Power had defended from the fall of depravity whom it willed, that Power which alone could not naturally be changed or corrupted. CHAPTER III. The divine Power alone both repaired man and guarded the angel. Christ the Power and Wisdom of the Father. Christ is naturally God, immense, most high, everlasting. So is the Father in the Son as the Son in the Father.

That same Power, therefore, was also necessary for repairing man, because no other could guard the standing angel from ruin save that which could repair fallen man after his ruin. One grace worked in both: in the one, that he might rise; in the other, that he might not fall; in the latter, that he might not be wounded; in the former, that he might be healed. From the one it repelled infirmity, the other it did not suffer to be made infirm; to the one it was food, to the other medicine. But whoever is soundly wise does not doubt that this One is the Son of God, who is the Power and Wisdom of the Father: the Wisdom which ordered all things, the Power which created all things; the Wisdom which enlightens, the Power which affords help; the Wisdom, because immutable; the Power, because insuperable.

He who by His infinite natural power is always present to every creature, and being immense is never absent; who has this being in Himself naturally, which the Father is, and therefore was able both to establish the angel in the heights and, for the reparation of fallen man, to descend to the lower regions, as He Himself testifies, saying: 'I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me, of the Father' (John VI, 38). Certain persons, when they hear that He descended, strive to affirm His descent to be local, because they know not how, as is fitting, to consider the power of God, nor are they able to recognize that God was so made man for man that, having taken the form of man, the divine substance remained immutable;

—nor do they understand Him to have been born in time in such a way as to hold that as everlasting He always existed. These are they who also scorn to consider how He descended, while He remained immense, or how He was humbled, who remained most high. For if His nature be inquired into, He is essentially God, because 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' He is also everlasting, because He is 'the everlasting power of God, and divinity' (Romans I, 20). He is immense, because Jeremiah says of Him: 'He is great, and hath no end; lofty and immense' (Baruch III, 25). And a little after, that he might show he had said these things of the Son, he added: 'This is our God, and no other shall be accounted beside him.'

'He hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath given it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. After this he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men' (Baruch III, 36, 37, 38). But who would dare to deny the Son of God to be the Most High? Of whom David says: 'Mother Sion shall say: A man, and a man is made in her, and the Most High himself hath founded her' (Psalm LXXXVI, 5). Of whom also Zachariah, at the birth of John, thus prophesies: 'And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Most High: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways' (Luke I, 76).

If, then, He is taught to be naturally God, if immense, if most high, if He is also everlasting, let it be said what is better than God, what greater than the immense, what higher than the most high, what prior to the everlasting. God, therefore, does not differ from the Father; the immense lacks not the Father's equality; the most high is not deprived of loftiness; nor is the everlasting later in origin. For because in God the Father there can be nothing mutable, of God was born God; because there is nothing local, from the immense proceeded the immense; because in God there is nothing lowly, the most high begat the most high; and because nothing initial could be found in God, the everlasting brought forth the everlasting. That generation showed no separation of the Father and the Son,

—but excluded the error of confusion, lest we should scarcely believe Him to be begotten whom we heard to be one with the Father. Of God could God be born, but the immense could not be separated from the immense. For He came forth as begotten, He did not depart: for such is that divine and unspeakable nativity, that whom the Father begat of Himself, He might have in Himself. This rule of ours the unity of His very true divinity shows us through Isaiah, the said prophet saying: 'For in thee is God, and there is no God beside thee. For thou art God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel, the Saviour. They shall be ashamed and confounded, all that oppose thee, and shall go in confusion' (Isaiah XLV, 16, 17).

But who are they that oppose the Son of God, save those who through natural unity deny that the Father is in Him and He in the Father, and who through a natural diversity dare, by the vice of treacherous unbelief, to separate the Father and the Son? For so is the Father in the Son as the Son is in the Father; the natural unity there so shows both to be equal, that the immense begat the immense, and the immense begotten of the immense had nothing less of the paternal immensity. CHAPTER IV. The Father made all things through the Son. I pray thee, illustrious ruler, do not suppose that these things which we speak of God are to be thought of corporeally. He who made surpasses all things which He made. Whose it is to be substantially without beginning, His alone it is to have begotten substantially without beginning;

—whose it is by His ineffable immensity to fill the whole of what He made, His it is by the unity of nature to be wholly in the Son, and always to have the whole Son in Himself, whom He begat. If the Son did not order all things with the Father, He is not the Wisdom which says: 'When he prepared the heavens, I was present with him, and when he separated his seat over the winds; when he made strong the clouds above, and when he set firm the fountains beneath the heaven' (Proverbs VIII, 28, 29); and lower down: 'When he made strong the foundations of the earth, I was with him ordering all things.' But if Wisdom is not believed to be coeternal with the Father, it is necessary that God also be declared mutable in an order that was begun. If the Son did not make all things, He ought neither to be called the Power nor the Hand.

And where is that which is said through the prophet: 'Heaven is my seat, and the earth my footstool: what house will ye build for me, saith the Lord? or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things?' (Isaiah LXVI, 1, 2)? For the evangelist also says: 'All things were made by him, and without him was made nothing' (John I, 3). If the Son is anywhere lacking, He is not immense; if no air uttered Him forth, He ought not to be called Word; if He was not begotten of the womb of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, then by a false name (which be far from us) is He called true God, of whom John testifies that 'this is the true God, and eternal life' (1 John V, 20).

'In the beginning also was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.' Here is shown everlastingness, here is found immensity, here is manifested the essential nature. For that which was in the beginning never was not, because it always was; that which was with God was not local, but was immense, because since God is not local, the Word which was with God was not in a place; but that the Word was God in the unity of nature and the truth of the name—this surely was that which that God was with whom the Word who was God was. CHAPTER V. An objection concerning what is said, 'In the beginning,' and not 'before the beginning,' the Word was. Christ the beginning and the end. Christ eternal life.

How the catholic truth understands Christ to be the beginning and the end. Or perhaps, because we have heard it said 'In the beginning He was,' shall we dare to assign to the Son some beginning of existing, and therefore is He not believed to have been born without a beginning, because John testifies that He was not before the beginning, but in the beginning? Far be it that this insipid thought should touch the mind of any wise man! far be it that this should, by the contagion of deadly treachery, infect in anyone the purity of the Christian religion! For who would not consider that to be worthily called the beginning which could be anticipated by no beginning? For whatsoever thou shalt wish to think of before any beginning, this it is necessary thou confess to be the true beginning.