De incarnatione unigeniti

Of Saint Cyril, On the Incarnation of the Only-Begotten, and that Christ is one and Lord according to the Scriptures. {A} Do you think, then, that our discourse concerning the divinity of the Only-Begotten has been well proportioned and carefully elaborated, and is sufficient for us? {B} Indeed, yes. {A} But I think it lacks some fine scrutiny, at least in my own opinion. What do you say, Hermeias? {B} I would naturally praise it as being correct and polished. {A} Having set aside any further delay on these matters, do you wish to speak concerning the incarnation of the Only-Begotten? And to articulate as clearly as possible what the mystery concerning him is, at least insofar as it is possible for those who see in a mirror and in a riddle and know in part according to the measure of the gift of the supply of the Spirit, as the divine Paul writes? {B} You have spoken excellently. For no one says "Lord Jesus" except in the Holy Spirit, and no one says "Anathema Jesus" except in Beelzebul. But since you seem to touch upon the dust of this matter and to undertake such a heavy and difficult labor, know that you will benefit me before others. For I would most gladly inquire into the true and unadulterated and wholly blameless discourse concerning Christ. For some are intoxicated with various opinions, distorting into ugliness the oracles concerning him that have been delivered by the New and the Older Scripture. {A} Nothing is unpretentious for the ignorant, my friend, but they most readily leap into the pit of Hades, according to what is written, and into the snare of death, not understanding either what they say or about what they make assertions.

You would say, then, noble one, what are the common rumors and the venerable little tales in each case? {B} Certainly. For some have dared to say that the Word from God appeared as a man, but not that he also bore the flesh from the Virgin, and they falsely claim only the semblance of the mystery. Others again, pretending to blush at the thought of worshipping a man, and refusing to crown the flesh from the earth with the highest honors, and suffering from excessive ignorance a spurious and corrupted piety, say that the Word born from God the Father was transformed into a nature of bones and sinews and flesh, laughing broadly at the birth of Emmanuel from the Virgin, the wretches, and denouncing the impropriety of this most excellent and God-befitting economy. And some have believed that the Word of God, coeternal with the Father, is of later origin, and that he was summoned into existence only then when he received the beginning of his birth in the flesh. There are also those who have been impiously driven to such madness as to say that the Word from God is without subsistence, but is simply a word understood only as utterance in a man. These are Marcellus and Photinus.

It seems also to others that they believe that the Only-begotten truly became man and was in the flesh, but not that the assumed flesh was also fully ensouled with a rational soul and a mind like ours, and they compress into a unity, as they suppose, both the Word from God and the temple from the holy Virgin, saying that the Word dwelt in it and made the assumed body his own, but that he himself fills the place of the rational and intellectual soul. Others again advocate the opposite to these opinions and are opposed to their views, asserting that the Emmanuel is composed and woven together from the Word from God, a rational soul, and a body, that is, a complete humanity simply. Yet they have not preserved a sound and entirely blameless opinion concerning him. For they divide the one Christ into two, and introducing a thick cut between them, they show each as if standing separately, insisting that the one born from the Virgin is a complete man, and the other is the Word from God the Father, not distinguishing what the nature of the Word and of the flesh is, nor wishing to dwell only on the differences in this regard. For they would not have missed the true understanding in this, since the nature of flesh and of God is not the same, but they place the one as a man separately and apart, and name the other as God by nature and truly Son, even though they wish to be Christians. And indeed, writing some little treatises about this, they have dared to say in these very words:

For the one who is by nature and truly Son is the Word from God the Father, while the other is son only homonymously with the Son. And again after other things: The Word of God is not flesh, but has taken up a man. For the Only-begotten is primarily and in himself Son of God, the creator of all, while the man whom he assumed, not being Lord by nature, is called Son of God homonymously because of the one who assumed him, truly God’s Son. For the saying, “No one knew the Son except the Father,” indicates the Son who is by nature and in truth from the Father. But the statement made by Gabriel, “Do not fear, Mary; you have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus,” applies to the man. But those are their views. We, however, will not think thus. Why? For the argument of the heterodox will by no means persuade us to leave the straight path and proceed on another, one outside the mark and distorted. But you, go ahead and finish what you think and try to tell me, for I am ready to hear and learn, especially what is unadulterated. {A} How heavy the matter is, and how utterly difficult to bear the burden! Or do you not know, my dear friend, that if one should choose to make a long and thorough examination of each point, he will spend not a little time, and after enduring grievous and inescapable sweat, will barely succeed? {B} True. {A} Let us then, if you please, set aside the need to think at length and to speak very precisely, and applying only a brief examination to each point, come, let us speak, and before all else, against the Docetists.

You are deceived, not knowing the Scriptures, nor indeed the great mystery of piety, that is, Christ, who was manifested in flesh, justified in Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among nations, believed in the world, taken up in glory. And I think it necessary either that those of the opposite opinion pass a shameful verdict on the ancients and call the mystagogues of the world false speakers, to whom Christ himself said, "Go, disciple all the nations," or if they shrink from doing this, to choose to think rightly concerning Christ, and having said that it is necessary to bid farewell to their own ignorances, to cling firmly to the sacred Scriptures, and traversing the unerring path of the saints, to go to the truth itself. For the mystery of piety would be, I think, nothing other than the Word from God the Father himself, who was manifested in flesh. For he was born through the holy Virgin, taking the form of a servant. And he was seen also by angels, who, honoring the one born, say, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men." And indeed to the shepherds, indicating the Word of God in flesh for our sake: "Behold," they say, "today a Savior has been born to you, who is Christ the Lord in the city of David. And this is the sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger." But if there is a birth through a Virgin, and a manifestation in flesh, how is it not idle foolish talk, how is it not madness and nonsense to inscribe the name of seeming upon such a palpable and manifest economy? For if it was shadow and seeming, and not incarnation

Truly, the Virgin did not give birth, nor did the Word from God the Father take hold of the seed of Abraham, nor was he made like the brothers. For our condition is not a shadow or an illusion anywhere; rather, we are in tangible and visible bodies, clad in this earthborn flesh, and we are subject to corruption and passions. Therefore, if the Word did not become flesh, he cannot, being himself tempted in that which he suffered, help those who are tempted. For a shadow would suffer nothing. So then, the whole thing for us truly vanishes into nothing. For what back did he present on our behalf? Or what cheek did he lay down for those striking him, enduring the blows from the Jews? And how could anyone suppose that one not appearing in flesh was pierced through hands and feet with nails? Or tell me, what side did Pilate's spearmen pierce, showing the onlookers the precious blood gushing up together with water? And if one must speak beyond these things, neither did Christ die for us, nor was he raised. If this is accepted as truth, faith is emptied, the cross—the salvation and life of the world—is gone, and the hope of those who have fallen asleep in faith is utterly destroyed. For the blessed Paul also seemed to hold this well: "For I delivered to you first," he says, "what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, of whom most remain until now, while some have also fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to Jacob, then to all the apostles, and last of all, as if to an abortion, he says, he appeared also to me. And again after other things: If Christ is proclaimed to have risen from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen. If Christ has not risen, then our proclamation is empty, and our faith is empty. And we are found to be false witnesses of God, because we have testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if indeed the dead are not raised. For would the shadow have died, tell me, in what manner? How then did the Father raise Christ, if he is a shadow and an illusion, and not subject to the bonds of death? Let their vomit be gone, then, and let us consider their tale as a myth and the offscourings of an unholy counsel. For the disciple of the Savior writes, foretelling such men to us, that many false prophets have gone out into the world. In this the Spirit of God is recognized. Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ to have come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus to be from God is not from God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he is coming, and now he is already in the world. For if he had not become man, nor ascended in the flesh to the Father and God in the heavens, he would not return from heaven to us, clearly as a man and in the flesh. Or do I not seem to you to speak truly? And indeed.

But that some, from boundless dullness, should think and hold that the generation through the holy Virgin of the Word who came from God is to be repudiated, and that his nature is to be dishonored in our likeness, and that rather he was diverted into flesh from the earth—this belongs to those who blaspheme the economy and have chosen to censure the divine designs. For the creator of all things, the Word of God, abundant in mercy, emptied himself for our sake, becoming man, being born of a woman, so that, since we children—that is, we—have partaken of blood and flesh, he likewise might share in the same, in order that through death he might abolish the one holding power over death, that is, the devil, and free those who throughout life were subject to slavery through fear of death. For thus the sacred text says. But these men determine the impropriety of this so beautiful and excellent plan, and as if it were in their power to think better things, they censure the designs of wisdom. For they say that we ought not to record the labor and birth from a woman of the Only-Begotten, but rather to suppose that the nature of the Word was transformed into this corrupt and earthborn body, and they imagine a change in that which knows no change. For the nature of God is fixed in its own goods and has an unshakable permanence in what it is. For a nature that is created and brought into existence in time might undergo alteration, and the matter would not lie outside what is fitting and true. For that which has received a beginning of being at all has, as it were, already co-implanted in it the necessity of being altered.

God, who is beyond every mind, having his existence removed from and superior to generation and decay, will also be superior to change. And just as by the principle of his own nature he stands above and transcends everything called to generation, and this by incomparable differences, so too in those things that customarily happen to beings that have come into existence through him, he will again stand above, not knowing how to suffer what is naturally inclined to do injustice. Therefore, the divine is in unchangeable goods, while the things of creation are in alteration and changes and have corruption close at hand. Knowing this well and philosophizing excellently, the prophet Jeremiah cried out to God: "You sit for eternity, and we perish for eternity." For the divine always sits as on its own thrones, ruling and prevailing over all things, and tyrannized by none of the passions. But we, having a nature that is very easily turned and readily inclined to alteration and change, perish for eternity, that is, at every time and moment we are both perishable and changeable. Thus, neither would the divine ever come to be in deviations, thrust out from its own stability by any of the passions, nor would the perishable and alterable nature, that is, the created nature, ever acquire essential unchangeability, nor would creation boast of the goods of the divine nature as its own. For it will reasonably hear: "What do you have that you did not receive?" And that the nature of the Word is completely unchangeable and unalterable, while the created nature is completely alterable, one could easily observe from the blessed David chanting in the Spirit:

The heavens will be destroyed, but you endure, and all things will grow old like a garment, and you will roll them up like a cloak, and they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will not fail. Where, then, has the Word from God himself remained, if it is true to say that, having abandoned being firmly and unshakably established, he has descended into what he was not, and has been transformed into the nature of flesh and into that which is naturally subject to decay? Is this not already nonsense and madness? Yes, indeed. For it is time to speak more ignorantly, opposing their ignorance, that it is not unlikely that the flesh from the earth might at some time be able to ascend to the nature of divinity and become a constituent of the highest of all substances. For if the nature of divinity itself, according to their stupidity, has migrated into the nature of flesh, there is nothing to prevent the flesh from soaring above its own lower nature and being transformed into divinity and into the highest substance. But we will not grant compliance to their foolishness; rather, we will adhere to the divine Scriptures, and to the prophet saying: Behold, the Virgin will conceive in her womb and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel, and to the blessed Gabriel sealing the proclamation and interpreting the divine decree to the Virgin: Do not fear, Mary, for behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear

Son, and you will call his name Jesus. We believe that Emmanuel was truly born of a woman, and we will not reject the bright and admirable boast of our own nature, thinking rightly. {B} You have spoken excellently. For the Only-Begotten did not seize hold of his own nature—for that would have done nothing to improve our condition—nor even that of the angels, but of the seed of Abraham, as it is written. For it was thus and not otherwise that the race which had slipped into corruption was to be restored. {A} What then? Is not that also worthy of admiration in addition to these things, O Hermeias? {B} What sort of thing do you mean? {A} For some, having virtually bid farewell to the inspired Scripture and assigning their own meaning to deceptive spirits, have reached such a point of evil counsel and childish folly that they think the creator of the ages, the God Word coeternal with God the Father, must have had the beginning of his existence accompany the birth of the flesh, and they imagine as late-born the one who is beyond every age and time, as if in the last and most recent times of the incarnation God became a Father, and as if the one through whom all things exist and in whom all things exist entered into being and subsistence together with the temple from the Virgin. Have they not then already arrived at the utmost limit of evils, those who have so readily accepted such an old-womanish and abominable myth and filled their own mind with sheer dullness? A tomb, truly, is their open throat; with their tongues they dealt treacherously; the venom of asps is under their lips; their mouth is full of curse and bitterness. {B} I agree.

For the word of the Psalmist is true. {A} For is it not necessary that the one through whom all things exist should also pre-exist all things? {B} You speak well. {A} What then would they do, when John writes: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This one was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be." And again: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have beheld, and our hands have touched, concerning the word of life. And the life was manifested, and we have seen, and we bear witness, and we announce to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us," while Christ himself indicates to the Jews the invisible antiquity of his own existence. For since they said: "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" he clearly answered: "Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I am." And where the "was" is, with nothing added, and indeed the "I am" is clearly placed, what beginning of generation could one discern? Or in what way would the one who is in the beginning, beyond every mind, accept being called into existence at a time? If, then, someone should choose to contend more leisurely with these things, it is not difficult to repel the harm from their stupidity by bringing forward the words of the divinely inspired Scripture. But things so clear, which have the refutation inherent and are very much lacking in beauty, I think it is superfluous to deem worthy of concern. {B} You speak well. {A} Therefore, let us go to that which is akin to the condemned view.

For some corrupt the beauty of the truth, as if adulterating a coin, raising up the horn to a height and speaking injustice against God, as it is written. They imagine the Only-Begotten as non-existent and not subsisting individually, and that he is not in a hypostasis of his own, but simply a word and a speech that came forth from God only in utterance, and they say, the wretches, that he dwelt in a man, and having thus composed Jesus, they say he is holier than the holy, but no longer also God. Therefore, as the disciple of the Savior also wrote: Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either; the one who confesses the Son also has the Father. For both are known through both, and each in the other, both by us ourselves and by the holy angels. For one could not learn what the Father is unless he received in his mind a Son subsisting and begotten. But neither could one learn again what the Son is, unless he clearly considered that the Father has begotten. Therefore, I think it is necessary and true to say that if the Son is non-existent, we would not even conceive of the Father truly. For where would the Father still be, if he has not truly begotten? Or if he has begotten that which does not subsist nor exist at all, the begotten will be nothing. For that which does not subsist is equal to nothing, or rather is absolutely nothing. Then God would be Father of nothing.

But, my good sirs, I would say to the interpreters of such things, your talk is idle nonsense; or at least answer me this: how is the love of God and Father toward us exceptional? And if he gave the Son for us, who according to you does not subsist, then he gave nothing for us, and the Word neither became flesh, nor underwent the precious cross, nor abolished the power of death, nor rose again. For if he is nothing and non-existent according to you, how could he be involved in these things? Then the word of holy Scripture has deceived those who have believed, and the firmness of faith is gone to nothing. {B} May it not be so. {A} What then? Did not the divine word signify to us that the Son exists in the form of God, calling him image and character of the Begetter? {B} Indeed. {A} And are images like their archetypes? {B} How could they not be? {A} Therefore, if the image is not hypostatic, nor is the character conceived as existing in itself, they will grant that the one of whom it is the character is also non-subsistent by necessary reasoning, and the ugliness of the image will somehow ascend to the archetype. Is that not so? {B} Indeed. {A} Then tell me: Philip, being very learned in Christ, asked to see the Father who is and subsists, saying, "Lord, show us the Father, and that is enough for us," or did he ask for the one who is not and is non-subsistent? {B} The one who is, clearly. {A} If then the Son is nothing, since he does not subsist, according to their unbridled audacity, did he present himself to us as an image and exact knowledge of the Father, saying,

I have been with you for so long, and you have not known me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? I and the Father are one. But I do not think that anyone could ever behold that which subsists in that which does not subsist, nor could one ever conceive of that which exists as entirely identical with that which does not exist. And how will the Father be in the Son, and the Son in the Father? Or is it not true to say that if the Word does not exist in his own subsistence, the Father himself would also be at risk, having in himself that which is nothing, and being thought to exist in nothing? For that which is not at all could no longer be conceived of as anything. {B} This argument is not without difficulty. For it labors under a great deal of absurdity, yet it nevertheless leads the doctrine of the opposing party into the repugnant. {A} One might reasonably wonder in what manner the Father has placed existing things in the Son, who has not received being. And if someone should ask whether being is good for things that exist, or whether it is rather a matter of chance that they are not, how would you answer? {B} I would say that being is good. For by giving being to things that never were, the Creator has shown himself to be good, and is good. {A} You have spoken excellently. For the matter would be so by nature. Therefore, is creation in a better state than the one through whom all things are called into generation, if he is said not to subsist, while they subsist and are conceived of as being in existence? {B} Away with this blasphemy! For the Word of God is living and active, as it is written. Therefore he also said: I am the life. {A} But

Life could not be conceived as not subsisting. And life is according to nature, for it will never be false. Therefore, the claim that the Logos who came forth from God does not subsist is a rotten falsehood and a product of the most foolish mind. {B} Absolutely. For He Himself said to Moses: I am the one who is. And how could that which truly is ever be conceived as not preserved in subsistence by itself? {A} So then, shall we rightly condemn the extreme ignorance of those who have taken up these positions? {B} Yes, indeed. {A} Nor would we praise those, Hermeias, who have been well taught to hunt for the truth. {B} Who? {A} Those who say that the flesh united to the Logos lacks a rational soul. For by clothing the Logos only in flesh that has received vital and sensory motion, they bring Him into the world, attributing the activity of mind and soul to the Only-Begotten. For they shudder, I know not how to say it, at confessing that the Logos is united to a complete human being, according to the definition of humanity, that is, one composed of soul and body, valuing the tradition of the ancient and most primitive faith as of little account, but having ignorantly chosen to follow only their own will and human reasonings, and truly thinking contrary to what one ought to think. {B} And what is the reasoning behind their doctrine? {A} I will explain. We say that the mediator between God and men, according to the Scriptures, is composed both of the humanity like ours, complete according to its own definition, and of the Son who came forth from God by nature, that is, the Only-Begotten.

We maintain that a certain conjunction and a union beyond reason of unequal and dissimilar natures has been effected. Nevertheless, we acknowledge one Christ, one Lord, one Son, existing and conceived at once as both God and man. We are accustomed to preserve the union entirely undivided, believing the same to be both only-begotten and firstborn. Only-begotten as Logos from God the Father, having come forth from his substance, and firstborn in that he became man, among many brothers. For just as God the Father is one, from whom are all things, so also is the Lord Jesus Christ one, through whom are all things. For we acknowledge as God by nature the Logos through whom are all things, even if he became flesh, that is, man. {B} You have spoken most correctly. {A} But the opinions of those men do not at all agree with ours on this matter. For they themselves admittedly accept one Christ Jesus, thinking most excellently in this respect, but they are very much repelled, as impious, from dividing Emmanuel into two. Yet they strip the flesh of a human and rational soul, and say that the Logos from God is united to it. And they have devised a plausible argument, as they think, for this. For, they say, things that have come together by composition for the constitution of one perfect whole are seen as parts and from imperfect things, not needing, as being perfect in itself and as in its own nature, the composition from parts.

Therefore, they say, it is reasonable to renounce giving a perfect man as the temple united to the Word, so that the composition, which might be conceived in the case of Christ, might preserve its own precise and irreproachable account. For if, they say, we compose Emmanuel from a perfect man and the Word who is from the Father, the fear is not small, but rather it will now somehow appear inescapable that we must, even unwillingly, think and speak of two sons and two Christs. Then what shall we say in reply to these things? First, that it is not fitting to disturb the most ancient tradition of the faith, which has come down to us from the holy apostles themselves, with excessive subtleties, nor to submit what is beyond the mind to extreme investigations, nor to come forward as if some definers and rashly say that such and such is correct, while such and such ought to have been otherwise and truly was better, but rather to entrust to the all-wise God the path of one's own inquiries, and not to reproach arrogantly what has been approved by him as good. For we shall hear him saying clearly: "For my plans are not like your plans, nor are my ways like your ways, but as the heaven is distant from the earth, so my way is distant from your ways, and your thoughts from my thought." Then what they think they have wisely discovered will be caught out as utterly stale and ignorant. For if one should choose to strip that divine temple of a rational soul, the union will not be of two incomplete things, far from it.

For it is admittedly the case that, in relation to the whole human being—I mean the one composed of soul and body—the flesh alone and by itself is a part. But the God Word would not be conceived as a part of anything, nor is he incomplete, O noble ones. For he is perfect in his own nature. Where, then, will there be a convergence of incomplete things into one complete thing, if it is from a complete Word and incomplete flesh, insofar as concerns the account of a complete and fully constituted human being according to its own nature? We will not worship two Sons anywhere, nor will we speak of two Christs, even if we believe that the convergence into unity of Emmanuel has been accomplished from a complete human being and from the God Word. For just as, according to what seems good to them, even if it were said to be from the flesh alone and from the Word who came forth from God the Father, no argument will persuade them to place the flesh as a part and the Only-begotten as a part and to confess a dyad of Christs, but they will accept one Lord Jesus Christ, Emmanuel—for they have learned to think quite correctly in this matter—so too, even if we say that the God Word has been conjoined and united, ineffably and beyond understanding, with a complete human being—clearly the one from soul and body—we will not conceive a dyad of Sons, but one and the same, who is by nature God and has come forth from the very substance of God the Father, and in the last times of the age became human and was born through the holy Virgin, and is worshipped by us and by the holy angels according to the Scriptures.

What then, if they should say that our nature alone needed the presence of the Only-Begotten, but that he, wishing to be seen by those on earth, to associate with human beings, and to show us the way of the evangelical life, economically took on flesh like ours? For the divine is by its own nature invisible. They will be caught having been ignorant of the purpose of the incarnation, and having understood the great mystery of piety not at all. For if the sole occasion for the Only-Begotten's flesh-taking, or incarnation, is to be seen by those on earth, and it added nothing else to human nature, why is it not better, in some way, and wise for us ourselves to agree with the opinion of the Docetists? Those wretches, stripping the Word of flesh and an earthly body, mythologize that he was seen on earth as a man, but they have manifestly acknowledged him as the introducer of the finest things, would that it were so. Or will you not say it is better, if the Word from God benefits human nature in no way and has become flesh, to be freed from fleshly impurity, but to have once seemed to have used an earthly body, and thus to have accomplished the set purpose? What then would be the reason for the presence, or what the manner of the incarnation, and for the sake of what has it been done, I would wish to learn. Come then, noble one, inquire of the holy Scriptures, and fixing the eye of your mind well upon the voices of the holy apostles, observe carefully what is sought. For the wise Paul said to us, having Christ himself speaking within him:

For since children have partaken of blood and flesh, he likewise partook of the same, so that through death he might nullify the one holding power over death, that is, the devil, and release all those who throughout life were subject to bondage through fear of death. And indeed elsewhere he sets forth another manner for us: "For the impossibility of the law," he says, "in which it was weak through the flesh, God, by sending his own Son in the likeness of flesh of sin and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh, so that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." Is it not, then, most evident and not obscure to any existing thing that the Only-Begotten became like us, that is, a perfect human being, in order to free our earthly body from the introduced corruption, having descended by the economy of union into identity according to the law of life, and making his own soul human, to show it superior to sin, having dyed it, as it were, with the fixed and immutable quality of its own nature? I think the matter is not obscure. For it bears within itself a plausible, or rather a true, reasoning. Just as, then, since the flesh of the Life-giving Word has become, it transcends the power of death and corruption, so in the same way, I think, since it has become the soul of the one who knows no transgression, it henceforth possesses an unalterable stability in all goods, and is incomparably stronger than the sin that formerly tyrannized.

For Christ is the first man who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth; he has been placed as a root and firstfruits of those who are being remolded into a newness of life in Spirit, and he will transmit to the whole human race the incorruption of the body and the steadfastness and firmness of divinity, as by participation and grace and once for all. And knowing this, the inspired Paul writes: "For just as we have worn the image of the earthly, we shall also wear the image of the heavenly." For by the image of the earthly he meant the propensity to slip into sin, and the death that has been cast upon us from that source. And by the image of the heavenly, that is, of Christ, he meant steadfastness in sanctification and the recovery and renewal from death and corruption into incorruption and life. We say, therefore, that the Word is united with the whole man as a whole. For he would not have deemed the better part in us, that is, the soul, worthy of no account, bestowing the labors of his sojourn only on the flesh. Rather, the mystery of the economy was accomplished well through both. He used his own flesh as an instrument for the works and natural infirmities of the flesh that are far from blame, and his own soul for the human and blameless passions. For he is said to have hungered, to have undergone the toils of long journeys, and to have experienced terrors, fears, grief, anguish, and death on the cross. For under no compulsion, he voluntarily submitted his own soul on our behalf, so that he might rule over both the dead and the living.

He renders his own flesh as a ransom for the flesh of all, a truly equivalent gift, and makes his soul a counter-price for the soul of all, even though he lived again, being by nature life as God. And indeed the inspired Peter says: "Brothers, it is possible for me to speak with frankness to you about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is among us to this day." Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God swore to him by oath that from the fruit of his loins he would set one upon his throne, he foresaw and spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, that neither was his soul abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. For it is not lawful to say that the flesh united to the Word could be held by perpetual decay, nor that the divine soul could be detained at the gates of Hades. For it was not abandoned to Hades, as the inspired Peter said. For he does not say that the nature utterly unseizable and unconquerable by death, that is, the divinity of the Only-begotten, was brought back from the nethermost depths. For the matter would not have been deemed worthy of wonder if the Word from God had not remained in Hades, by the energy and nature of his divinity paradoxically and beyond reason filling all things and being present to all. For the divine is above place and limitation and measurable magnitude, itself contained by nothing. And it is paradoxical and a wonder to none of existing things that a body lived again, which is by nature perishable, for it was united to the imperishable Word.

The divine soul, having obtained its confluence and union with him, descended into Hades, employing a power and authority befitting God, and manifested itself to the spirits there. For this reason it also said to those in bonds, "Come out," and to those in darkness, "Be uncovered." And it seems to me that the inspired Peter says something of this sort concerning the Word of God and his soul, which came to be in accordance with the union of the economy: "For it is better, while doing good, if the will of God so desires, to suffer than to do evil, because Christ once died for sins, a just man for the unjust, in order to bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh but brought to life in the spirit." In which, he says, going to the spirits in prison, he proclaimed to them, who had once been disobedient. For I do not think they would say that the bare and self-existent divinity of the Only-Begotten descended into Hades and proclaimed to the spirits there, being altogether invisible; for the divine is always superior to being seen. But neither shall we grant that it was formed into the form of a soul by semblance and pretense, and the pretense must be rejected everywhere. But just as he associated with those still in the flesh while having flesh, so also he proclaimed to the souls in Hades, having as his own vehicle the soul united to him. And the manner of the union is perhaps deep and truly ineffable, and not to be grasped by our minds. Nevertheless, it is fitting to consider this: that it is not without harm to pry into things not within our scope, and it is utterly foolish to subject to scrutiny things beyond the mind and to attempt to conceive what cannot be conceived.

Do you not know that this deep mystery, which surpasses the mind within us, has been honored with uninvestigating faith? But to speak without understanding, asking how these things can happen, ascribing that to Nicodemus and those like him, we will unhesitatingly accept what is oracularly proclaimed through the divine Spirit, and we will also believe Christ himself saying, "Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak what we know, and we testify to what we have seen." {B} You speak well. {A} Let all nonsense, then, be gone, and weak myth, false opinion, and the deception of embellished little phrases. For we do not admit anything prone to being damaged, even if those on the opposite side should assail us with excessively practiced and even bitter words. For our divine mystery lies not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit. Therefore, being God and Lord of all, according to the Scriptures, the Only-begotten appeared to us. For he was seen on earth, and shone upon those in darkness, becoming man, not in appearance—far from it, for that would be madness to think or say—nor was he carried into flesh by way of change or transformation, for the Word from God is unchangeable and always remains the same and in the same state; but neither does he have his existence contemporaneous with the flesh, for he himself is the maker of the ages; nor did he become in man as a non-substantial word or as a mere utterance, for he who calls non-existent things into existence and generation necessarily pre-exists; for he himself is life manifested from the life of God and Father, who exists and is conceived in his own hypostasis.

But he did not merely take on flesh devoid of a rational soul; he was truly born of a woman and appeared as a man—the living, existing, and coeternal God Word with God the Father, having taken the form of a servant. And just as he is perfect in divinity, so also is he perfect in humanity, not composed from divinity and flesh alone into one Christ, Lord, and Son, but from two perfect entities—namely, humanity and divinity—paradoxically bound together into one and the same. {B} What then did the holy Virgin bear? The man or the Word from God? {A} Indeed, this is the error and the failure to hit what is fitting and true. Do not, I beg you, divide or separate into a distinct man and a distinct God Word, fashioning Emmanuel for us as a double-faced being. Would anyone not justly mock us for choosing to think nothing right, but rather those things condemned even by holy Scripture? For one of Christ's disciples said: "But you, beloved, remember the words previously spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they told you that at the end of the times there will come mockers in mockery, following their own desires of impieties. These are those who separate the spiritual, having no Spirit." {B} So then, is it not to be divided in any way? {A} Not at all. Especially, to speak of two after the union and to conceive of each separately is not to be done.

It should be noted, then, that the mind perceives a certain difference of natures—for divinity and humanity are not the same anywhere—but it will also admit, together with the conceptions about these, the convergence of both into unity. Therefore, he sprang from God the Father as God, and from the Virgin as man. For the Word, who shone forth from God the Father ineffably and beyond understanding, is said to have been born also through a woman, having descended into humanity and lowered himself into what he was not, not in order to remain emptied, but in order to be believed to be God even when appearing on earth in a form like ours, not as dwelling in a man, but as having himself become a man by nature, while also preserving his own glory. And indeed, the divine Paul, gathering together into one economically things that are far apart from each other in terms of consubstantiality and separated by an immeasurable difference—namely divinity and humanity—and signifying from both the one Christ and Son and God, says: "Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who became from the seed of David according to the flesh, who was determined to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness." Behold, he clearly says that he himself was set apart for the Gospel of God, even though he writes openly: "For we do not proclaim ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord." And again: "For I judged that I knew nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified." And having named him Son of God, he says that he was born from the seed of David, and he insists that he was determined also as Son of God.

How then, tell me, is God the one who sprang from the seed of David? And the Son who is before the ages and eternally Son, inasmuch as he is from God, in what way was he defined as Son of God, as if he were brought into the beginnings of his existence? For he himself said about himself: "The Lord said to me, 'You are my Son, today I have begotten you,'" although the word "today" always indicates for us not the past time but rather the present moment. {B} I have been not moderately perplexed, but I would say that this is exceedingly difficult for many others as well to be able to understand. {A} For those who separate and divide into parts, it is truly difficult and perplexing, but for those who bind Emmanuel into a unity, the unadulterated knowledge of the sacred doctrines is near and very ready. For the Son who is coeternal with the Father and Son before every age, since he has descended into human nature, not having slipped away from being God, but having assumed the human, would reasonably be thought to have been born also from the seed of David and to have his birth in humanity as most recent. And what is assumed is not alien to him, but truly his own. Therefore it is reckoned as one with him, just as, of course, one may observe the composition of a human being. For it is woven from things dissimilar in nature—I mean soul and body—but nevertheless the combination is conceived as one human being. Just as sometimes the whole living being is named from the flesh alone, and when the soul is named, the combination is understood, so then in the same way you will accept this also in the case of Christ.

For there is one Son and one Lord Jesus Christ, both before the flesh and when he appeared as man, and we will not deny the Master who purchased us, even if he is signified to us through human things and from the measures of the kenosis. {B} I do not follow very well, but I would like to learn clearly. {A} Our Lord Jesus Christ said, speaking to the Jews: If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you; this Abraham did not do. And Paul also writes about him: He who in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the one able to save him from death, and having been heard because of his piety, although he was Son, learned obedience from what he suffered. Shall we then reckon Christ as a mere man, and in no way raised above ourselves? {B} May it not be. {A} Shall we grant that the wisdom and power of God descended to such weakness as to fear death, to beg to be saved from the Father, and shall we expel Emmanuel from being life by nature? Or, by turning toward the humanity and reducing the unseemliness in words to the measure of our nature, shall we do something praiseworthy, and from which, because he is God, we shall behold his supercosmic glory, understanding the same to be both man and God, that is, God incarnate? {B} Explain how. {A} Let then the most excellent Paul come into our midst, crying out and saying these things:

We speak wisdom among the perfect, but wisdom not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away, but we speak the wisdom of God hidden in mystery, which none of the rulers of this age have known. For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. And indeed, in addition to these things: He who is the radiance of the glory and the character of his hypostasis, bearing all things by the word of his power, having made purification of our sins, sat at the right hand of the majesty in the heights, having become so much greater than the angels as he has inherited a name more distinct than theirs. And yet, to be and to be called Lord of glory, how is this not exceedingly transcendent and beyond every generated and derived thing that has come into generation? And I pass over human things—for they are indeed very small—but I will say this, that even if one were to name angels, and enumerate Powers and Thrones and Dominions, and indeed even if one were to mention the highest Seraphim, they would confess that they come behind such transcendent glory, if they have a mind not corrupted. For I declare that the privilege is exceptional, and must be reserved for the sole all-queenly nature of the universe. How then could the crucified one be Lord of glory? But the radiance of the Father and the character of the essence, the one bearing all things by the word of his power, is said to have become greater than the angels, perhaps having taken the lesser, as I think, when he appeared as man. For it is written: "But we see Jesus, having been diminished a little compared to angels, crowned with glory and honor through the suffering of death.

Shall we then cast out the Word from God the Father, who has appeared, from the substantial preeminence that belongs to him and from his exact likeness to him, seeing him overcome by the glory of angels because of the meanness of the economy? By no means. For I think it necessary neither to separate the Word from God entirely from human things after his union with flesh, nor to deprive the human of glory befitting God, if it is understood and spoken of in Christ. But know that some ask: Who then is truly Jesus Christ? The man from a woman, or the Word from God? It is utterly foolish to argue at length and to respond with empty nonsense. I will say, however, that it is dangerous and not without harm to divide into two and set apart man and Word, since the economy does not permit it, and the divinely inspired Scripture proclaims one Christ. For I say that neither the Word from God without humanity, nor the man born of a woman, a temple not united to the Word, should be called Jesus Christ. For the Word from God, united with humanity in an ineffable economic union, is understood as Christ, being above humanity as God and Son by nature, but descending a little from the glory befitting God as man. Therefore, at one time he said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father. I and the Father are one," but at another time again, "My Father is greater than I." For not being inferior to the Father in respect of identity of substance and in everything that is equal, he says he is in lesser things because of the human.

It is proclaimed also through the holy Scriptures, at one time as though he is wholly man, his divinity being passed over in silence for reasons of economy, and at another time again as God, his humanity being passed over in silence. But he is in no way wronged by the union of both into one. {B} How do you mean? For I do not understand very well. {A} The Hebrew of Hebrews and of the tribe of Benjamin, the called apostle, writes to those who have been justified through faith and have mortified the members of the flesh—I mean fornication and passion, evil desire, and covetousness: "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." And he himself said concerning his own disciples: "Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given me, that they may be one as we are. When I was with them, I kept them in your name which you have given me, and I guarded them, and none of them perished, except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to you, and I speak these things in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." Do you understand, then, how from his humanity alone, as it were, he seems to be signified in these things? {B} You have spoken most correctly. {A} For we would suppose that he is somehow hidden and absent from the world, although he says clearly: "Truly, truly I say to you that wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them." And again: "Behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the age." And you would see even the most holy Paul himself often being negligent of the need to proclaim him also as man.

For Paul says, "I am an apostle not from men nor through men, but through Jesus Christ." And again in addition to these: "I make known to you the Gospel," he says, "the Gospel proclaimed by me, that it is not according to man. For I did not receive it from a man, nor was I taught it, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ." And indeed elsewhere he says, "Even if we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we no longer know him." Who then is Jesus Christ, who flashes forth to him such an ineffable, unerring, and divine revelation of his own mysteries? Is it not the Word become flesh, and not disdaining birth from a woman for our sake? Certainly so. For I will recall the blessed Gabriel saying to the holy Virgin: "Do not fear, Mary; for you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus." And I think this is a new name given to the Word from the Father through the angel's voice. For the prophetic oracle had already proclaimed thus: "And they will call his name the new name which the Lord will name him." Therefore, when the Son, coeternal with the Father and only-begotten before all ages, became man in the last times of the age, and was born through a woman, and was defined as son, and was also called firstborn, and became among many brothers, then the natural father defines the name, following, so to speak, the laws of fatherhood. For you delight us excellently by understanding the manner of the economy. Therefore the same one is both only-begotten and firstborn. For do not suppose otherwise in your own mind than this, my friend.

The Only-Begotten, as God, is firstborn among us by economic union, and as man among many brothers, so that we also, in him and through him, are sons of God both naturally and by grace. Naturally, as in him alone; participatively and by grace, we through him in the Spirit. Just as, then, the property of being only-begotten in Christ has become proper to the humanity because of its union with the Word by economic conjunction, so the property of being among many brothers and being firstborn is proper to the Word because of his union with flesh. But having his being God firmly established, and ever being superior to change, he does not depart from his own glory. Therefore, even the holy and all-blessed multitude of the higher spirits has been commanded to worship him along with us. For it was indeed likely that they would have refused worship, and hesitated to honor the mean appearance of the humanity, and not deign to glorify the one who became like us for our sake, withdrawing as far as possible to avoid seeming to be in error. For the mystery concerning Christ was still unseemly even to them, but the Spirit revealed it to them, and did not allow the sanctified to be impious.

Therefore the divine Paul says: "But when he introduces the Firstborn into the inhabited world, he says: 'And let all the angels of God worship him.'" For he who by natural property surpasses the whole inhabited world and exists outside it as God, has entered into it, having become a part of the world as a man, yet not because of this has he fallen away from his divine glory. For he is worshipped as the Only-Begotten even if he is called Firstborn, which is manifestly most fitting to the measures of humanity. {B} Shall we then worship Emmanuel as a man? {A} God forbid. This would already be nonsense and deception and error. We would differ in no way from those who worshipped the creation instead of the Creator and Maker, who exchanged the truth of God for falsehood, according to what is written; if we should think similarly, we shall certainly be included with them: "Claiming to be wise, they became foolish and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of a corruptible image of a man and of birds and of quadrupeds and of reptiles." For shall we not ourselves be both co-workers and of like mind with those mentioned, exchanging the glory of God for falsehood in the likeness of a corruptible image of a man, if we offer worship to Emmanuel as to a mere man and one of ourselves? {B} Indeed. {A} What then? Will not even the heavenly multitude of angels be arrayed with those who have reached this point of madness? {B} Necessarily. {A} But we shall, I think, affix an indelible charge of error and join it to the herd of the nations, and the harm of the ancient accusations will be hard to wash away.

For he is deceived, I think, even now, no less than before, and has ignored the straight path. And it seems the blessed Paul is superfluous in addressing them and saying: "But then, not knowing God, you served gods that are not gods by nature. But now, having known God—or rather, having been known by God—how do you turn back again to the weak and poor elements, to which you again wish to serve from the beginning? For what God have they known, if not Christ, who is God by nature, in whom they have believed? And if they have worshipped a man, they are caught in the snares of the ancient deception." Or is what I say not true? {B} Certainly it is. {A} See then how from necessary syllogisms we are now all but compelled, even unwillingly, to the duty of reverently worshipping as God the Son, who is such by nature, even in the form that has appeared among us, since the convergence into unity is not incapable of obliterating whatever might cause suspicion of humanity. {B} What do you mean? {A} For the nature of the Word, having assumed the human element, will not be mere humanity; rather, it overcomes the assumed element by its own glory, and is preserved in the unshaken permanence of its divine dignity. Thinking this, the disciples worshipped, saying: "Truly you are the Son of God," even though they saw him walking step by step and in flesh like us; for he paradoxically walked on the crest of a wave as God. {B} And who was it that said to the woman in Samaria: "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know"? Then how will he be worshipped who is ranked among those who worship?

And yet, my dear friend, you keep repeating that little phrase "Who then?"—a phrase invented, I know not how, for the unintelligent. For Christ is in no way divided. The one who conversed with the woman was the one and only Lord, Jesus Christ, composed ineffably both from the worshipping humanity and from the worshipped divinity, just as one might also speak of him in another manner. For insofar as he is God, he would be understood as the Lord of glory himself; but insofar as he became, by participation from God, the man who is glorified, he was in need of glory, saying: "Father, glorify your Son." But there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, according to what is written. Just as there is one faith, that in Christ, and truly one baptism—even though we who are baptized and have believed are baptized into Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—so, I think, in the same manner and reasoning, there is one worship of the Father, of the Son who became incarnate, and of the Holy Spirit. For the Only-Begotten will in no way be excluded from being worshipped by us and by the holy angels, even if he became flesh and dwelt among us, and was called the firstborn among many brothers. For what then would become of the account of faith in him? Is it not worth seeing? For I do not think that those who would choose to think rightly would say that we have believed only in the Word born from God, stripping him of his flesh. Nor, on the other hand, will we allow that to be said; for it will be spoken. {B} What do you mean? {A} For faith is not directed toward him as toward one of us, nor indeed as toward a man, but it is performed as toward God, who is by nature and truly in the person of Christ.

The wise writer Paul will also concur with this argument: "For we do not proclaim ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord. And we proclaim ourselves your servants through Christ, because it is God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' who shone in our hearts for the illumination of the knowledge of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ." Behold, clearly and manifestly, the illumination of the knowledge of God and Father shone forth in the face of Christ. Therefore he also said: "He who has seen me has seen the Father; I and the Father are one." The divine character is not bodily, but in power and glory most befitting God. This was pure in Christ; he deemed it worthy to be known through these things, and he wished his hearers to ascend through the superiority of his deeds to the concepts concerning him, the visible flesh gently diminishing him. For he says: "If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me. But if I do, even if you do not believe me, believe my works." And I think that Christ, knowing that this matter was not without benefit, said these things at that time. For since some thought that he who became incarnate for our sake was not God by nature, but simply a mere man like us, and therefore made faith in him inadmissible, he necessarily cut short that fear and the hesitation arising from it, attributing faith to the nature of the divinity, as in the person of the Father, and not assigning it to the pettiness like ours, and said: "He who believes in me does not believe in me, but in the one who sent me; and he who sees me sees the one who sent me." Is it not equivalent to say:

O my listeners, do not think small and lowly thoughts about me; know that when you put forward faith in me, the one seen in the flesh, you will not have believed simply in a man, but in the Father himself, through me, the Son, who is in every respect equal and indistinguishable, having been made flesh for your sake and having taken on a humble covering, humanity, yet possessing a nature that is of the same essence and activity, and completely unimpaired in identity of glory with him. {B} So it seems. {A} And you might learn in another way that he does not reject faith, but receives it without any division or difference, as in his own person, even though he has become flesh. For when he healed the man born blind, and implanted sweet but unfamiliar light in him, he was naturally marveled at by all. But the one freed from the affliction was judged among the Jews, and acknowledged the physician. Christ, meeting him, said, "Do you believe in the Son of God?" And when the other cried out, "Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?" he answered, saying, "You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he." And he said, "I believe, Lord." And he worshipped him. Yet how is it not evident to all that the divine and highest nature is completely invisible? For no one has ever seen God, according to what is written.

If, then, separating his human nature from himself, as though he had appeared as this very thing, the Word from God the Father, bare and alone, deemed it right to be believed, why would he not rather have commanded that one who had been well affected should consider what the nature of God is, which it is, and he pointed it out in bodily form, so that it might be beheld even with one's own eyes when present? For he said, "And you have seen him, and the one speaking with you is that one." Or shall we not say that he pointed out the flesh? {B} Yes, indeed. {A} Then how could he himself be the flesh, unless he were understood in union, as he himself existing as his own, just as, of course, would be the case with us? For one would point out the human being in our case, that is, the one consisting of soul and body, not in a divided or incomplete manner, even from his flesh alone. {B} I agree; you speak correctly. {A} And the wise John has written somewhere for us: "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." And one might also adduce, no less, the divine Peter speaking clearly and openly to the Jews: "Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning the benefit of a weak man, in what way this man has been saved, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that it is in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you in good health.

And again after other things: And there is salvation in no other. For there is no other name given among men under heaven in which we must be saved. Who then is the one who both underwent death and arose in glory and is from Nazareth, if not Jesus Christ, that is, the one who was ineffably born from the Father before all ages, but also in the last and final time of the age, and bodily from a woman? Therefore, the one who accepts faith in him will carry off the exceptional prize; for he will be called a son of God. For as many as received him, he gave them authority, it says, to become children of God, who were born not from blood, nor from the will of the flesh, nor from the will of a man, but from God. For in order that he himself might be preeminent in all things, as it is written, he was born through a woman. But since he is the firstfruits of creation being reformed through sanctification toward God, and before the others he himself was shown to be born of the Spirit, transcending the union of man and woman, and not condemning nature with dishonor and blemish—for marriage is honorable, and the one who fashioned from the beginning made them male and female—but rather assigning human things, as it were, to the greater and incomparably superior. For he wished us to be called born of the Spirit, not of men. And indeed, he says, do not call anyone your father on earth; for there is one Father of yours, the heavenly one, and you are all brothers. Therefore, believing in him is entirely blameless, and moreover it is honored with the forgetting of transgressions. For the eminent Paul writes thus again:

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law unless through faith in Jesus Christ, we also have believed in Christ Jesus. I will by no means hesitate to say again, repeating what I have already stated, that Christ Jesus is not understood as the bare and self-existent Word from God, but when he assumed the human element and was interwoven with flesh. In this state, being seen and appearing in a form like ours, the Father presented him to the holy apostles, with a voice from above uttered thus: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I have taken delight; listen to him." Understand, therefore, that it is not in this way, he says, that my Son exists, so that he might be considered partwise as one in another, but that he might be understood as one and the same through an economic union. It is improper to object, and it is among the most dangerous things, that John writes here: "This is the testimony of God, that he has testified concerning his Son; he who believes in the Son of God has the testimony of God within himself.

The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he did not believe in the testimony which God has borne concerning his Son. And he has borne witness that this one, who is with flesh and in the form of a servant, is uniquely and particularly my true Son. What then? Shall we not also grant that the glorious grace of holy baptism, and the life-giving power in it, and the participation in God through sanctification in the Spirit, are accomplished through Jesus Christ? Necessarily. For I will recall John saying, "The one coming after me is stronger than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you in holy Spirit and fire." Therefore, O comrade, shall we say that it is a work of our humanity to be able to baptize in holy Spirit and fire? And how could that be? But when he spoke of a man who had not yet arrived and was not yet seen, he said that he would baptize in fire and holy Spirit, not instilling into those being baptized a Spirit that is alien, in a servile and ministerial way, but as God by nature with supreme authority, his own and proper Spirit, through which the divine character is also imprinted upon us. For we are remolded as into the divine image, into Christ Jesus, not undergoing a physical reshaping—for it is quite foolish to think this—but through partaking of the holy Spirit, possessing Christ himself within ourselves, so that we already joyfully cry out that: "Let my soul rejoice in the Lord; for he has clothed me with a garment of salvation and a tunic of gladness." For all of you who have been baptized into Christ,

You have put on Christ, he says. So then, have we been baptized into a man, and shall we say that this is true? Hush, man. What are you doing, you there? You are casting our hope down to earth. For we have been baptized not simply into a man, but into God incarnate, who remits penalty and the ancient charges to those who have received faith in him. And indeed the divine Peter said, speaking to Jews: Therefore repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For in absolving the sins of the one who cleaves to him, he then anoints him with his own Spirit, which he himself, as Word from God the Father, instills, and which wells up for us from his own nature, but he places the gift as common, so to speak, to the economy with flesh because of the union, and as man he breathed corporeally. For he breathed upon the apostles, saying, Receive the Holy Spirit, and he does not give the Spirit by measure, according to the saying of John, but instills it from himself, just as indeed the Father does. And indeed the divine Paul, setting aside entirely the difference in this matter, is seen sometimes attributing it to God and Father, sometimes again to the Son. For he writes thus: But you are not in flesh, but in Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if someone does not have the Spirit of Christ, that one is not his. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.

We have therefore established that the Spirit is proper to the Son, and not only insofar as He is the Word manifested from the Father, but even if He should be conceived as having become man like us. Proper, as from the Father in a consubstantial offspring, to the Word that sprang from Him, even if He is said to have received it when He became man, He who is not deprived of the attributes of divinity as in His own nature. And indeed, He Himself, being the life of all, because of the ineffable generation from the living Father, is said to be made alive together with us. Nevertheless, it is possible to see Him granting to His own flesh the glory of divine energy, while appropriating the things of the flesh, as it were, through an economic union, and investing His own nature with them. How do you mean? Would you not say that it is most fitting for the Word, who is by nature from God the Father, that the power to bestow life from above and from heaven should belong to Him, to those into whom He wishes to instill life? I say so. What then? Would you grant that the power to create in a divine manner belongs to human things? Not I. Why then does He make us alive as God, not only by our partaking of the Holy Spirit, but also by setting before us the flesh that was assumed? For He said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves." And when the Jews were once mocking Him, and had somehow undertaken to cast a vote for the better things against the blessed Moses, saying openly, "Our fathers ate the manna in the desert, as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' What sign do you do, that we may believe you?

What are you doing, as if you have brought down the body from above and from heaven? He says: Amen, amen, I say to you, it is not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, the true bread. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. And again, in addition to these things, almost pointing to himself with his finger as embodied, he says: I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread which I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live through the Father, so he who eats me will also live through me. Yet how is it not true to say that the flesh has not come down from the heavens, but was from the Virgin, according to the Scriptures? But the Word is not edible, but rather gathers both into one, and as it were mixes together the properties of the natures, and is seen by us through countless words.

For Nicodemus, who did not understand the mystery but cried out ignorantly, "How can these things be?" he says, "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man." And again, to the Jews, who were afflicted with the same lack of instruction as that man and chose to mock him, I know not how, because he said that his own body was life-giving and from heaven, he says, "Does this scandalize you? Then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?" Shall we not say that Emmanuel was born of a woman? How could we not? Where, then, was he before? Or how has he ascended to where he himself says he is, even though the body united to him was born through the holy Virgin? And would we not agree that the flesh from the earth is incapable of giving life, insofar as it pertains to its own nature? True. How, then, tell me, is the flesh life-giving? Or how could that which is from the earth be understood as also from heaven? By union, I think, with the living and heavenly Word. Know that you have thought very rightly and in accordance with the sacred writings. For it would not be otherwise, even when he is not thought of apart from flesh, that he is also divinely the Creator. I will again make the divine Paul a supporter of the argument, as he has written thus:

Giving thanks to God and Father, who has deemed us worthy of the portion of the lot of the saints in the light, who has delivered us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have redemption, the remission of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation, because in him all things were created, both those in the heavens and those on earth, the visible and the invisible, whether Thrones, or Dominions, or Principalities, or Powers, all things are created through him and into him, and he is before all things, and all things subsist in him, and he is the head of the body of the Church, who is the beginning, firstborn from the dead, so that he might be preeminent in all things, because in him the whole fullness deigned to dwell, and through him to reconcile all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, both those on earth and those in the heavens. Behold then again, he says plainly that through him and into him all things were created, and indeed that he is before all things, and that all things subsist in him, and he says that he is firstborn from the dead, having made peace through his blood both those in the heavens and those on earth. Then who is the firstborn from the dead, if not Christ Jesus, that is, the Word in flesh and with flesh?

For the Word, being God, would never die, nor would he be conceived as the Creator of all things if he were a man like us, unless he had created as God, and unless he were conceived without flesh after the union, and unless he were the firstborn from the dead, inasmuch as he appeared as man, without casting off his being God through the incarnation. Do you think it necessary to rebuke these things? {B} Not at all. {A} You would also see elsewhere the spirit-bearing fathers proceeding by the same arguments. For John says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This one was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be." And Paul again: "One God the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." But if there were something intervening after the Word was united with flesh, and dividing into a duality, I mean as in a pair of sons, according to your opinion, how would all things have been created through Jesus Christ? But indeed all things were created through him. It is therefore evident that the things naturally and individually inherent in the Word, who is from the Father, have been preserved for him even when he became flesh. It is therefore dangerous to dare to divide. For there is one Lord Jesus Christ, and through him the Father has created all things. {B} True. {A} Therefore he is both Creator divinely, and life-giver as life, and again composed of human and superhuman properties into one intermediate thing. For he is the mediator between God and men, according to the Scriptures, being God by nature, and not without flesh, and truly man, and not a mere man like us, but being what he was even when he became flesh.

For it is written that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. For do we not believe that Emmanuel was born through the holy Virgin in the last times of the age? Yes. For we will not contradict the divine Scriptures. But does not "yesterday," tell me, and "today" signify for us, dear friend, the present time and the time already past? I affirm it. How then could he be the same with respect to the past time, when he had not yet taken fleshly birth? Because the Word was in the beginning, and as having appeared from God the Father from eternity and unchangeably, he also possesses in his own nature the eternal and unchangeable. I praise this opinion; for it is here and very correct. But to one who is inquiring, would you explain, good sir? What? Is not the name Jesus Christ quite recent, and concurrent with the times of the incarnation, for the Word? Indeed, this has been shown to us through very many arguments. Understand then that it says Christ Jesus, and not simply the Word, is the same yesterday and today and forever. How could human nature possess unchangeableness and persistence in identity, when it undergoes change, and especially the change from non-existence to existence and life? Has the sacred text then erred for us, and does it say that he who did not exist yesterday existed before? I would not say this. Far from it. Christ Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever. I will least of all deny the Word's antiquity and steadfastness, even if he became flesh.

I will consider that he is made manifest again as being yesterday and pre-existing, through union with his own flesh. And indeed the deranged Jew was disgusted and attempted to stone him, not accepting the faith. For he was amazed that, although seen by us as a man, he bore witness to himself as having the seniority of pre-human antiquity, saying as God: "Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I am." When to this they said: "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" And John also said: "The one coming after me has become before me, because he was before me." And yet, knowing and naming Emmanuel as a man, how does he say that the one born later and after him is before him and first? {B} He says he is before him and first in respect of glory, as indeed it occurs to me to think. {A} And indeed that this understanding is counterfeit and ignorant you will learn not from lengthy arguments. For if we accept "before" in the better sense of glory, by the same reasoning we will say that "after" clearly indicates the second in renown. It has thus turned out, it seems, that Christ is inferior to John's glory, and to suppose he runs behind, foolishly. For he said: "A man comes after me." {B} Alas for the absurdity. For we will not think it is so, having rightly considered what is written in the Psalms: "For who in the clouds will be equal to the Lord? And who will be likened to God among the sons of God?" {A} Therefore one must attribute to him, even with flesh, the most ancient, as to God united by nature with flesh and accustomed to share the goods of his own nature with his own body. {B} You have spoken excellently.

You would learn that this is so and correctly stated also from other testimonies, friend, if you should choose. For God somewhere said concerning the flesh of Christ from the seed of David through one of the holy prophets: "And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephrathah, you are small to be among the thousands of Judah; from you one shall come forth to be ruler in Israel, and his goings out are from the beginning, from days of eternity." And concerning the sons of Israel the most holy Paul says: "That all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from a spiritual rock that followed them. And the rock was Christ." Observe then in Christ Jesus, by economic union, the specifically most ancient property of the Word. Or is the argument not clear? For it says very well that the Bethlehemite, as a man and from a woman, has his goings out from the beginning of eternity. For the Word who became man was in the beginning and before every age, and he himself was the rock, making thirsty Israel drunk with unexpected and unhoped-for streams, although he was born according to the flesh and the human in the last times, and anointed for his mission into the world by God the Father. For he is named Christ for no other reason than this; and Christ was the rock, according to Paul. Will you say the matter is doubtful? Not at all. And the wise John will also contend and strive together with the argument, almost gathering together the natures and bringing into a mingling the power of the properties proper to each. For see what he says:

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we have beheld and our hands have touched concerning the Word of life—and life was manifested, and we have seen, and we bear witness, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us. Behold, he who was from the beginning, he says, was clearly seen, and also submitted to touch. For Thomas cried out: "My Lord and my God," having measured with his finger both the side of the body and the perforations of the nails. And the divine Luke says that the holy apostles became both eyewitnesses and servants of the Word. For the bodiless one became visible, and the intangible one tangible, not having as an alien covering the flesh from the earth, but having made it his own temple, and being known together with it as God and Lord. And you know that the most holy Paul somewhere wrote: "For none of us lives for himself, and none dies for himself. For if we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die for the Lord. Whether then we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this Christ died and lived, that he might rule over both the dead and the living." It is evident, then, that he has truly ruled over the dead and the living, for no other reason than that he alone died and rose again. {B} It is evident. {A} Whom then, noble one, do we say underwent death and came to life again? {B} The Son, evidently. {A} But that it is the Son, you speak well, and I will praise you for it. Yet I would like to learn from you whether the Word from God the Father is mortal and subject to corruption, or is beyond death and corruption, as life is? {B} I affirm the latter.

Then how did he come to be among the dead and free, according to the Scriptures? For the Word would not die in himself at all. Because his flesh died, he is said to have suffered this. Most correctly and unerringly. Therefore, not apart from flesh, but rather with it and together with it, he who died and was raised by the law of the flesh and by our nature assumed the glory of lordship. He showed that dying is a human passion, but reviving is a divine act, so that through both he might be known as both like us and above us, as God and Lord of all, and that he who has come to be with us might be seen with the Father. Thus Nathanael, recognizing him, said: Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel. And he himself said to his disciples: You call me Lord and Teacher, and you speak rightly, for I am. And confirming this by deed, he remits sins, and he gave authority over unclean spirits so that they might cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity among the people. Was not the man with crippled feet, who sat by the Beautiful Gate, healed in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth? And did not Aeneas shake off such a long illness and escape a disease so hard to avoid, to whom the divine Paul said: Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. True.

From every side, then, driven toward the truth, and earnestly striving to track what is approved by the holy Scriptures, and following the opinions of the fathers, we believe that the one from the root of Jesse, the one from the seed of David, the one from a woman according to the flesh, the one with us under the law as a man and above us above the law as God, the one for our sake and with us among the dead, the one above us for his own sake as life-giving and life, is truly the Son of God, neither stripping the human of divinity, nor divesting the Word of humanity after the ineffable interweaving, but confessing one and the same Son, from two realities, ineffably manifested into one thing from both, according to union, that is, the highest, and not a transformation of nature. For how great the profit is for those who hold this opinion, the disciple of Christ will clarify by saying: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And that Jesus Christ, the one from David according to the flesh, is by nature and truly the Son of God, inasmuch as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the wise John will seal by saying: And we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us understanding so that we may know the true God, and we are in the true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life, and through him and with him, God and Father, the glory together with the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.