Antirrheticus adversus Apollinarium

For the very term "assumption" indicates the natural otherness of the one who assumed from that which was assumed. What, then, will prevent—even if these things hold—the God who was manifested in the flesh from being insulted through that absurd name-coining, so that even the one so constituted is called, according to the bold utterance of Apollinarius, a human-god? For neither the goat-stag, because the goat-nature was joined halfway to the whole deer, or the reverse happened in the mixing of the animals, so that the deer-part was joined to an unmingled goat—for this reason did the myth name it according to the manner stated; rather, the composition of the names interprets the participation in either nature in whatever way. So that, according to the prose-writer, if the same person is both man and God, having the conjunction in any way—whether the whole nature ran together or was defective—he will not escape that absurd compounding of the name. And if the Greeks, having learned these things from him, make a comedy of our mystery, certainly the one who provided the occasion for the blasphemy will fall under the prophetic curse, which says, Woe to him through whom my name is blasphemed among the nations! But let us consider what he again adds to what has been said. If from two perfect things, he says, neither is God in that in which man is, nor is man in that in which God is. But if, according to his account, the composite is granted to be from a deficient and a perfect thing, will not the same thing be said by those who dare such things—that in which God is, man is not, and in which man is, God is not?

For the account of deity and of humanity is in every way distinct, and no one would suspect that the diminution of humanity is a boundary of the divine nature; for that is not in this not being, or being imperfect, but each, understood by itself, is contemplated in its own names. For the one who hears "God" has, through this appellation, received together all that it is fitting to think concerning God, and the one who has received the appellation "man" has, through this word, stamped the whole nature; and the thought of what is said suffers no confusion in the names, so as to conceive the one in the other of the names. For neither is that signified in this, nor this in that, but each of the names abides in its natural meaning, and in no way will their significations be interchanged with one another. But "imperfect" and "perfect" become the supposition of other notions for the hearer. For we call perfect that which is fulfilled in its own account of nature, and imperfect the opposite. But neither of these, said by itself, interprets either man or God, but to whatever thing or name it is joined in designation, it suggests conceiving the thing signified as either full or deficient. How, then, if man is imperfect, is it established by Apollinarius that the imperfect is God, as though the truncation of our nature were a concomitant of the account of deity?

Again, advancing his argument to what follows, he says: "Man cannot save the world while remaining man and being subject to the common corruption of men." I say this too: for if human nature were sufficient of itself to attain the good for itself, the mystery would be superfluous. But since it was impossible to be outside of death unless God provided the salvation, for this reason the light shines in the darkness through the flesh, in order to banish from the flesh the destruction that comes from the darkness. But neither, he says, are we saved by God without his having mingled with us. The writer seems to be thinking soundly in what is said and to be leading his soul back to prudent reasonings; for in speaking of a mixture of things that are by nature distinct, he signifies the union. And he is mixed, he says, having become flesh, that is, man, just as the Gospel says, when he became flesh, then he tabernacled among us. Nor are these things discordant with sound reasoning, unless something of the tares' seed has been sown alongside him afterward. For this is our account, or rather the truth's: that then he tabernacled among us, when he became flesh, and conversely, then he became flesh, when he tabernacled among us. If, then, the flesh is from that source from which the tabernacling among us is, then before the virgin was announced by Gabriel, the Word was not yet flesh; and false is he who says that the human thing came down to us from above and that he existed before human nature—that

...man, through whom the divine was mingled with human life. But neither, he says, does he destroy the sin of men unless he became a sinless man, nor does he overthrow the kingdom of death over all men unless as a man he died and rose. Would that he had been fair-minded to the end in what he uttered from the Church! But again he returns to himself and says, accusing the Church's account, that we observe the passion in relation to the man, and he adds his own account to refute our supposition, as follows: "The death of a man," he says, "does not abolish death." To what end does he say these things? That the very Godhead of the Only-begotten, the very Power, the very Truth, the very Life, was put to death in the passion of the cross, so that during that three-day span of time there was no life, no power, no righteousness, no light, no truth, not even the Godhead itself. For he does not say that when one Godhead died another was left remaining, since in many places he is shown contending with Arius on this point and establishing that the Godhead of the Trinity is one, and when this was put to death in that event, as he builds up along with his argument, there was certainly no other. And how anyone could suspect that he does not make the Godhead mortal, I am unable to perceive. For death in the case of a man is nothing other than the dissolution of the composite; for neither in us, when the body is dissolved into the elements of which it is composed, does the soul also fall apart with the dissolution of the body, but the composite is dissolved, while the simple remains undissolved. If, then, death does not touch the soul, how is the Godhead put to death? Let those who do not know what they are saying tell us.

I will pass over what follows these things, as much of it belongs to the same argument. For he says in what comes next, arguing that the very divinity of the Only-begotten died, that "the death of a man does not abolish death, nor does one who has not died rise again"; from all these things, he says, it is clear that God himself died, inasmuch as, he says, it was not possible for Christ to be held by death. Since these things have their absurdity plainly evident, I think I must pass over them without examination, since anyone of sound mind is able by himself to perceive the impiety and absurdity of one who declares outright that God himself died, having undergone death in his own proper nature. However, it is perhaps reasonable to note this much, that not even the things he says in our person are free from falsehood, but there are among them things that have been fabricated maliciously for the slander of our account. For he says that we do not say that Christ existed from the beginning, so that the Word was God. But we do not deny that in the last days the power of God and the wisdom and the light and the life—all of which Christ is—were made manifest through the flesh; but to say that the Lord and Christ who is made known and named through these things never existed, we judge to be no more tolerable in impiety than the complete denial of the name. For one who does not say that Christ existed from the beginning (and Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God and every lofty and God-befitting name) would not say that anything else exists either, which is understood through this great name.

For just as in the name "man" there is the rational, the receptive of knowledge, and whatever other distinctive property of the nature is said to be, and if someone should say that man does not exist, by the rejection of the name all the remaining properties of the nature are certainly abolished together with it, in the same way, if Christ is the Power, the Wisdom, the express image, the radiance, the one who says that he did not exist from the beginning will certainly also abolish the things that are understood together with him. Therefore we say, always guided by the holy Scriptures, that Christ is contemplated together with the Father's eternity. For just as the Only-begotten is always God and God not by participation, nor does he pass over into divinity through some progress from a lower state, so also the Power and the Wisdom and every name befitting God is co-eternal with the divinity, so that nothing is added by way of increase to the glory of the nature that was not there from the beginning. But the name of Christ we say is contemplated in a distinctive way from eternity in relation to the Only-begotten, being led by hand to this conception by the very emphasis of the name. For the confession of this name contains the teaching of the holy Trinity, each of the believed persons being indicated in this appellation in the fitting way. And so that we may not seem to be saying anything of ourselves, we will set forth the words of the prophecy.

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. For in these words the passage signifies through the throne the rule over all things; and the scepter of uprightness interprets the impartiality of judgment; and the oil of gladness presents the power of the Holy Spirit, with which God is anointed by God—that is, the Only-begotten by the Father—because he loved righteousness and hated unrighteousness. If, then, there was ever a time when he was not a friend of righteousness but an enemy of unrighteousness, it would follow that one should say he was never anointed—he who is said to be anointed for this reason, that he loved righteousness and hated unrighteousness. But if he is always a friend of righteousness (for he would never hate himself, being himself righteousness), then clearly he is always seen in the anointing as well. Therefore, just as the righteous one is not unrighteous, so Christ would never be unanointed; and he who is never unanointed is always altogether Christ. Since, then, the one who anoints is the Father, and the anointing is the Holy Spirit, anyone would agree to this—at least anyone whose heart is not covered by the Jewish veil. How, then, does he say that we claim Christ is not from the beginning? Indeed, it is not because we confess that Christ is eternally, that we therefore also think of the flesh formed by him as always existing around him.

But we know the same one both before the ages and as Lord, and after the passion we again confess this same one, just as Peter says to the Jews: God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. And we say this not as though we saw a duality of Christs and lords in the one, but because the only-begotten God, being God by nature and Lord of all and King of all creation and Maker of things that exist and Corrector of things that have fallen, bore with great longsuffering that our nature too, which had fallen through sin, should not be thrust away from communion with him, but should again be received into life. And he himself is the life; therefore at the end of the human life, when our wickedness had already grown to its utmost, so that nothing of evil might be left uncured, then he receives the mingling with our lowly nature, and taking the human being into himself and himself becoming in the human being, just as he says to the disciples, I am in you and you in me, what he himself was, that he also made the one who was mingled with him; and he himself was always most high; therefore he also exalted the lowly; for surely the Most High above all things no longer needed to be exalted. And the Word was Christ and Lord; this the one who was mingled and taken up also becomes in the divinity; for the one who is Lord is not re-elected to lordship, but the form of the servant becomes Lord.

Therefore he is also called One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things; and Christ likewise is he who before the ages was clothed with the glory of the Spirit (for the anointing signifies this through symbols), and after the passion, having adorned with the same anointing the man united to him, he makes him Christ. For "Glorify me," he says—as if he were saying "anoint me"—"with the glory which I had with you before the world existed." And the glory contemplated before the world and before all creation and before all the ages, by which the only-begotten God is glorified, would not, according to our account, be anything other than the glory of the Spirit; for the word of piety hands down the holy Trinity alone as pre-eternal. "He who exists before the ages," says the prophecy concerning the Father; and concerning the only-begotten, the apostle says that "through him the ages came to be"; and the glory contemplated before the ages around the only-begotten God is the Holy Spirit. What therefore belonged to the Christ who was with the Father before the world existed, this also comes to be for the one united to Christ at the end of the ages. For "Jesus," it says, "the one from Nazareth, whom God anointed with the Holy Spirit." So let no one slander our account, as though we say that the only-begotten God is not always Christ; but he is always Christ, both before the economy and after it; but he is not man either before this or after these things, but only in the time of the economy. For neither was the man before the virgin, nor after the ascent into the heavens is the flesh still in its own properties. For "even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh," it says, "yet now we no longer know him.

For it is not that, because God appeared in flesh, he remained flesh; but since the human is changeable and the divine is unchangeable, the Godhead is immovable toward change, neither being altered toward the better nor toward the worse (for it does not admit the worse, and it does not have the better); but the human nature in Christ has used change toward the better, being altered from the corruptible to the incorruptible, from the perishable to the imperishable, from the short-lived to the eternal, from the bodily and formed to the bodiless and unformed. But since they say that we claim the man suffered, not God, let them hear this from us: that we confess the Godhead was in the one who suffered, but by no means that the impassible nature became passible. And so that what is said may become clearer, we hold this understanding: that human nature has its subsistence from a rational soul running together with a body; and the combination of both grows when some material starting point is first laid down for its constitution. And that matter, having been fashioned into life by divine power, becomes a human being, so that if someone were to grant by hypothesis that the creative power of God were not present together for the constitution of the one being formed, the matter would certainly remain idle and unmoved, not being given life through the productive energy.

Just as, then, in our case a certain life-giving power is observed in the matter from which the human being composed of soul and body is formed, so in the case of the virginity the power of the Most High, having been implanted immaterially through the life-giving Spirit in the undefiled body and having made the incorruption of the virgin the matter of the flesh, received the contribution from the virginal body toward what was being formed, and thus the new human being was truly created, the first and only one who displayed in himself this manner of subsistence, who was created according to God, not according to man, the divine power extending equally through the whole nature of the compound, so that neither part is deprived of the Godhead, but in both—in soul, I mean, and body—as is fitting, it is present in each appropriately and suitably. Just as, then, when the human being is born, the Godhead did not need to be born, existing before all ages and remaining forever, but once it has come to be in the constitution of the human being, it also appears together with him at the birth, so neither does the ever-living one need to rise, but in the one who is brought back to life through the divine power, it rises, not itself being raised (for it has not fallen), but raising in itself the one who has fallen. If, then, the divine nature needs neither birth nor resurrection, it is clear that the passion is accomplished not as though the Godhead suffers, but as being in the one who suffers and, through the union with the one who has suffered, appropriating his passion as its own.

For the divine nature, as has been said, having been implanted in the soul and the body in a manner suited to each and having become one with each through the blending, since, as it says, the gifts of God are irrevocable, it does not depart from either of these, but remains continually. For there is nothing that separates anyone from union with God except sin; and where the life is without sin, there the union with God is altogether inseparable. Since, then, sinlessness was through both—I mean through soul and body—the presence of the divine nature was, in all likelihood, in each. But when death brought about the separation of the soul from the body, the composite was divided, but the simple did not separate, but was in each without being torn apart. And a proof that God was in the body is that the flesh was preserved in incorruptibility after death; and incorruptibility is altogether God. And a proof that he did not depart from the soul is that through it the way into paradise was made ready for the robber. Since, then, the mystery of the divine power was fulfilled when it came to be in the twofold nature of humanity and deposited its life-giving energy in the kindred part through each—through the flesh to the body, and through the soul to the soul (I mean the rational soul, not the irrational; for the unintelligent is brutish and not human)—then the divinity that was from the beginning mingled with the body and the soul and remained to the very end is raised in the resurrection of the one who lay dead, and thus Christ is said to have been raised from the dead, the same both being Christ and becoming Christ.

He exists indeed according to his eternal kingdom, but he came to be when the angels announced to the shepherds the great joy that would come to all the people at the birth of the Savior, who is, it says, Christ the Lord, being named fittingly according to the word of Gabriel, who said that the Holy Spirit would come upon the virgin and the power of the Most High would overshadow her. Therefore he who was thus born is reasonably called both Christ and Lord: Lord because of the power of the Most High, Christ because of the Spirit of anointing. For it is not the eternal one who is then anointed, but rather the one of whom it says, You are my Son, today I have begotten you. For the today is the middle of the two divisions of time, the past and the future. But how is the maker of the ages begotten and anointed in a part of time? So that the divinity both has not died and has been raised: it has not died, because what is not composed is not dissolved; and it has been raised, because, being in that which was dissolved, it prepared for itself to be raised up together with the one who had fallen according to the law of human nature, so that, being present to each part as it brings forward what is its own, it might heal the nature of bodies through the body and that of souls through the soul; and again, having united through itself what was separated, it rises in the one that is lifted up.

And nothing prevents us from showing the mystery of the economy of the resurrection in bodily fashion: just as if a reed were split in two and someone at one end joined the extremities of the reed's segments, the whole piece of the reed would necessarily be fitted to the whole through the meeting and binding at the one end, being joined to the other end—so the union of the soul with the body that took place in him through the resurrection leads the whole human nature, which had been divided by death into soul and body, along its continuity to natural union by the hope of the resurrection, having fitted together the convergence of things that were separated. And this is what is said by Paul: that Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, and: As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. For according to the example of the reed, our nature was split off from the end that is in Adam through sin, when the soul was separated from the body by death; but from the part that is in Christ, nature takes itself up again, the division being wholly grown together again to itself in the resurrection of the man who is in Christ. For this reason, then, we die together with the one who died for us—I do not mean this necessary and common death of our nature; for that will happen even against our will—but since by his willing

It is necessary for those who wish to die with the one who died to devise for themselves a death that comes from their own choice; for imitation of the voluntary does not come about through the compulsory. Since, then, the death that lies upon each person by nature comes in every way and altogether, whether people wish it or not, and no one would reckon what happens altogether to the voluntary, for this reason we die together with the one who died voluntarily in another manner, being buried through baptism in the mystical water. For we were buried with him, it says, through baptism into death, so that the imitation of the resurrection might follow the imitation of the death. But let us turn to what follows in the argument. How, it says, does God become man without being changed from being God, unless a mind was established in the man? Did he understand what he uttered? He says that the divine is unchangeable, and he says this well; for that which always remains the same does not have a nature to become something other than what it is; but it comes to be in another, yet does not become another. What, then, is that mind, as Apollinarius says, which came to be in a man? Did it remain in the greatness of the unchangeable nature, or has it been made a transition to the lowly, enclosing itself within the smallness of the human, and becoming as great as this one is, so great was that one too? Therefore the human mind is equal to the divinity, if indeed, as Apollinarius says, the divine nature became the mind of a man. For if human nature receives either our mind or, instead of the mind, God in like manner, these things would be equal in magnitude to one another and equal in stature, if indeed in that in which the mind is contained, in this same thing the divinity also would be encompassed.

Just as if someone were to measure out grain or some other seed into an empty vessel, no one would say that what is equated by the same measure differs in quantity from the other; for it is equal to the wheat in its measure, when those seeds have been emptied out of the medimnus and the other work fills it up in turn. Therefore, if divinity comes in place of the mind, no one would say that divinity exceeds the mind, if indeed it is contained by nature in the same way as that. Either, then, the mind is equal to the divinity, as Apollinarius wishes, and having changed from this to that it was not altered; or if the mind is inferior to the divine, the one that came to be from that in this way was altered toward the more worthless. But who does not know that everything conceived in creation is equally below the unapproachable and inaccessible nature, so that the change is equal, whether one says that the divine was changed into a creature or into a mind? So that if Apollinarius does not think that coming to be in a mind is a change, neither does he attest unchangeableness to what was mingled, by the fact of being mixed with the human being without a mind. But if indeed he was not altered in becoming flesh, much more did he remain in the unchangeable when he made the mingling with the mind; but if by coming to be in a mind he charges change, the appropriation to the flesh also does not altogether escape the charge of alteration. He further says (for I pass over the things in between): If after the resurrection he has become God and is no longer a human being, how will the Son of Man send his angels? And how will we see the Son of Man coming on the clouds?

And how does he also say, before being united and deified, "I and the Father are one"? He sets these things out, establishing through what has been said that the nature of the body was not changed in any respect toward the more divine, but that the hairs, the nails, the form, the shape, the outline of the bulk, and the rest were still around him—clearly both the visible and the hidden parts of the members of the body. But I consider it superfluous to establish by argument that one ought not to think such low and earthly things about God, since the argument of the opponents itself proclaims the absurdity by itself. But so that he might not reckon the divine oracles as cooperating with him for his myth-making, I will run briefly through each of the things said. Since, he says, at the consummation of the whole the Son of Man is said to be the one who sends the angels, for this reason he thinks one must believe that he remains in human peculiarities forever; and he does not remember the voice of the Gospel, where in many places the Lord by his own words named the God over all "man." There was a man, a householder, who let out the vineyard to the farmers, who after the killing of the servants also sent his only-begotten son, whom the farmers cast out of the vineyard and kill. But who was that man who sent the only-begotten? And who was the son killed outside the vineyard? And does not the one who celebrates the marriage of the son himself appear in human fashion in the account?

But if it is necessary to say this too, that in aiding the weakness of those who despise the nature that is like in form to themselves and for this reason are unable to believe in his divinity, so that above all, having contracted the flabbiness of their mind by fear, he might tone them into faith, he says that the angels are sent by the Son of Man in the judgment, in order that the expectation of fearful things might heal their disbelief toward what appears among them. But also, he says, "You will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with glory and great power." And this is in harmony with what has been previously set out, whether [it refers] to that man who planted the vineyard and prepared the marriage feast for his son, or according to the meaning previously set out. And that the account is entirely removed from the lowly supposition of Apollinarius, and that such an account does not suggest understanding anything bodily about him, the proof is clear from the fact that it is added to the account that indicates his manifestation at the end of the ages, that the Lord will be seen by creation in the glory of his Father, so that by what has been said there is a necessity either to think that the Father too is furnished in a human way, in order that the Son who appears in human form may appear in the glory of the Father; or, if the majesty of the Father's glory is pure from every form that is observed in a shape, then neither is he who promises that he will be seen in the glory of the Father to be shaped in a human way. For one is the glory of man and another is the glory of the God over all. But, he says, conversing with men through flesh, that "I and the Father are one.

Oh, the folly of thinking that the statement, "the Lord, speaking through the flesh, is one with the Father," is a proof that his human manifestation would come afterward! Does he not by these words altogether establish by his argument that the Father also lives precisely in the flesh? For if the one who said that he himself is one with the Father meant this unity not according to the spiritual but according to the human, as Apollinarius supposes, then the Father is precisely what the Son was then seen to be according to the human. But the divine is far removed from every bodily conception. Therefore the union of the Son with the Father was not according to the human form, but according to the communion of the divine nature and power. And that these things are so, would become most clear from this, where he says to Philip: "He who has seen me has seen the Father." For the precise comprehension of the Son's majesty prepares one to see the archetype as in an image. But the incoherence and unintelligibility of what follows I will pass over, so that I may not vainly linger over futile things, by which he does not make clear even what he wishes to say to those who follow the writing attentively. For what contribution to his argument does "No one snatches from his hand the sheep given to him by the Father" make—I cannot see; and that by the Father's divinity he draws the sheep to himself; and, "If Christ," he says, "is united to the Father before the resurrection, how is he not united to the God within him?

For he himself, as if deliberately refuting his own fabrication, inserts this into his own arguments, by which the separation and union of the human with the divine is demonstrated. For the one who said, "If Christ is united to the Father, how is he not united to the God within him?"—so too the human in Christ, being other, is united to the God within him. These things, then, since they refute from the reading itself the erroneous and incoherent character of his doctrine, I will pass over in my argument; but I will mention only that one point: "The Savior," he says, "suffered hunger and thirst and weariness and agony and grief." Who being the Savior? God, he says in what precedes—not two persons, as though one were God and the other the human. Therefore God has suffered what he says he suffered, and he suffers what is incapable of suffering, not by the necessity of an unwilling nature, as a human does, but by the consequence of nature. Who will suffice to refute these vanities? In what does he see the necessity of nature to differ from the consequence of nature? For the truth sees the same meaning in both. For instance, I say this: it follows that one whose eyes are not healthy is weak in vision; and again I say this same thing, that it is necessary that if someone's eyes are not healthy, he is weak in vision. Is it not the same in both cases? For the one who spoke of necessity indicated what follows as a consequence; and the one who mentioned the consequence signified the necessary. What, then, does the wisdom of this writer intend by attributing the sufferings of nature to the Savior not by necessity of nature but by consequence of nature?

He says, "It was necessary that the passions be stirred by likeness to men." Did the one who said "it was necessary" not openly cry out necessity? Is this not the usage of Scripture? And from the Gospels themselves it is possible to take proofs of the argument. "It is necessary that scandals come; for these things must happen." Is not the meaning of each expression one and the same? For the one who said that it is a necessity for scandals to come indicated by that expression that scandals must come. And the one who said "these things must happen" foretold that what is necessarily bound to come to pass would come to pass. But again I shall pass over the next piece of nonsense as well, poured together in a heap and at random from empty reasonings. And he says at the end of his argument: "And though the body is in heaven, he is with us until the consummation of the age." Who is the one who is with us? Clearly the wordmonger, dividing the indivisible, does not understand. For if he sets the body aside in the heavenly place, and says that the Lord is with us, he openly brings about a certain separation and division by such a distinction in his argument. For he did not say that his body both remains in heaven and is with us, but that while the body is in heaven, we are not in heaven. Therefore he has believed in some other one besides the body that is in the heavens, who is with us who are on earth. These are the lofty teachings of Apollinarius. But we say that when he said these things he was taken up, and the one taken up is with us, and there is no division in him; but just as he is present in each one of us and comes to be in the midst, so also he extends to all the ends of creation, appearing equally to all the parts of the world.

If for us who are bodily he is present bodilessly, then neither is he present for the supramundane beings in a body. But now he says that the Lord, having been divided in this way incongruously, comes to be among those subject to him through opposites—bodiless to the fleshly, but in a body to the bodiless. For having established the flesh in heaven, he mingles himself with men spiritually. But all the things he, gasping as it were at the end of his discourse, clings to with unsubstantial notions like certain breaths, I think one must pass over unexamined, in which, being hard pressed, he calls the Greeks to the defense of his own myths, and whatever else is akin to these. Whoever wishes to understand the feebleness of the heresy throughout all its parts, let him go through the writings themselves; but we have not so much leisure as to delve into such arguments, which carry the refutation of their absurdity clear from themselves even before examination.