Against Apollinaris, book two. About the saving coming of Christ

Essay “Against Appolinarius, book two. About the saving coming of Christ" (19 chapters), directed against Apollinaris of Laodicea (the younger), written around 380, after the death of St. Athanasius the Great. The treatise contains a detailed refutation of the errors of the Apollinarians, without mentioning the name of Apollinaris. The work defends the integrity of human nature in Christ, as well as the essential points of church Christology: - the doctrine of the duality of natures in Jesus Christ and their hypostatic union; - about the necessity for the work of redemption of the complete human soul in Christ, about His acceptance of a true human body from the Virgin Mary; - about the legality of Divine worship given by Christians to the Son of Man, etc. The author writes that in the Person and life of the God-man the deification of human nature took place in all its life moments. *The title of the work in Greek is Περὶ σαρκώσεως κατὰ ̓Απολλιναρίου. *The title of the work in Latin is De incarnatione contra Apollinarem. 1) Let those who do not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is one of God and man, according to what is written in the Gospel: “Adam, God’s” (Luke 3:38), say how they imagine in the image of God the real God and who took on the form of a servant, or how do they understand what was said: “The Word became flesh and dwelt in us” (John 1:14)? For he who said: “The Word became flesh” also said that Christ gave His soul for us. Do they mean transformation into flesh or assimilation to the soul, as if the Word had undergone change? Or do they imagine that the Word produced a dreamy manifestation of the human image, as other heretics claim in their error? But the Apostle does not allow this, clearly saying who accepted what. For just as by the image of God is meant the fullness of the Divinity in the Word, so by the slave form is recognized the mental nature and articulate composition of the human being, so that when saying “was” (John 1:1) the Word is understood, and when saying “was” (John 1:14) the flesh and soul are recognized, which is called the slave form, a kind of mental representation of the intelligent. being. For this reason, a dead person is called without a form and is completely destroyed, as soon as the soul, by which nature is indestructible, is separated from the body. Therefore, Paul presents testimony about the intelligent nature, and John about the articulate signs of the body, and both proclaim the entire mystery of the economy. For it is clear that God the Word, who existed before coming in the flesh, was not a man, but was God with God, invisible and impassive. 2) Therefore, the name “Christ” is not used separately from the flesh, because this name is followed by suffering and death, as Paul writes: “For Christ had to suffer, as the first from the resurrection of the dead” (Acts 26:23), and in another place he says: “Our Passover... Christ was devoured” (1 Cor. 5:7), and: “the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself redemption for us” ( 1 Tim. 2:5, 6); He says not because Christ is not God, but because He is also a man. This is why it is said: “Remember Jesus Christ, who was raised from the dead, from the seed of David according to the flesh” (2 Tim. 2:8). Therefore, Scripture brings together both names by pointing to being, both the invisibly intelligible and truly existing God, and the visibly tangible and truly existing man, and not by separation of persons or names, but by natural birth and inseparable unity, so that when suffering is truly confessed in Him, one and the same is truly confessed by both the suffering and the dispassionate. Therefore, how could the Word, who is God, become Christ before He became man? If the name "Christ" is the proper name of the Divinity apart from the flesh; this must be applied to both the Father and the Holy Spirit: then suffering will be common, as some erring people claim. Or would you really say that the impassive and disembodied God the Word himself was accessible to suffering and death even before his incarnation and becoming man? And how could the Son, consubstantial with the Father and indivisible with Him by Divine nature, being immutable and unchangeable, be called the sufferer of pleasure, if He had not become a man, having taken upon Himself in the virgin’s womb the whole image of the human composition, so that He could both be a man in suffering and be immutable, like God? 3) That is why there was anointing. It was not God who needed the anointing, and it was not without God that the anointing took place; but God both performed the anointing and received the anointing in a body capable of receiving it. From this it is clear that the Word did not become Christ without human flesh, and did not give Himself into the manifestation of flesh or the likeness of a soul; but remaining what it was, it assumed the form of a slave, not devoid of being, which undoubtedly appears, as is written and explained, in suffering, in resurrection and in the whole economy. Therefore, tell me, how do you think God came into being in Nazareth? For all heretics usually affirm this. Thus, Paul of Samosata confesses God from the Virgin, God who appeared from Nazareth, who began to exist there and began to reign; Although he recognizes the effective Word from heaven and the Wisdom in Him as existing before the ages by predestination, they came from Nazareth by being, so that, as he says, God the Father was one over all. Such is his wickedness. And Marcion and Manichaeus confess God, who appeared in the Virgin, who came untouchable, and who did not allow communication with human nature, which had fallen into sin and submitted to the prince of evil. For, if God took it upon Himself, then Christ will submit to the prince of evil and will not be without sin. On the contrary, they say, God from Himself in His likeness revealed His flesh, which, as He willed, appeared from heaven, and withdrew to heaven, and is entirely Divinity. Likewise, Valentine, imagining the flesh as a part of the Divinity, calls suffering common to the Trinity. Arius admits that flesh alone served to cover the Divinity; and instead of our inner man, that is, the soul, the Word was in the flesh, and thus dares to attribute the concept of suffering and resurrection from hell to the Divine. And Sabellius supports the opinion of Paul of Samosata and his followers; for, fearing the Aryan division, he fell into error, which destroys Persons. Who are you joining, or who are you going to help? Or are you, as they say, a rabble of all kinds; because you adhere to all the heretics mentioned, not believing in unity, and disputing completeness, you have gone into destruction, hiding behind the fear of separation? But just as those who divide are foolish, and those who separate are mistaken, so those who destroy division go to destruction, after the true economy has been completed, the truth has been revealed, and grace has been witnessed. 4) Therefore, why do you manage to invent excuses? Why are you hypocritically covering yourself, and not saying openly that you did not take on the form of a slave and did not become a man, but appeared as a man? For your reasoning leads to such a position when, apparently, you say: Himself and Himself. For this reason, you begin to talk about the true economy, slandering and saying: Christ is called a deified man. And what does it mean that it was said: “in the beginning was the Word”, and: “I received the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:7), became a man, or a man who is with God, or a man who is united with God, or a man who died for the world and is part of the world, or a man not involved in sin, or a man ruler of the Angels, or a man whom creation worships, or a man who is Lord, according to the word of the Apostle: “Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:1), or the man crucified and the Lord of glory, or the man to whom it was said: “Sit at my right hand” (Psalm 109:1), or the man who is coming to judge the court? Such is your “muddy” “corruption” with which you make people drunk and drunk (Habak. 2:15)! Therefore, ask the Jews, so that you may be ashamed when you hear from them these same words uttered against Christ and against those who believe in Him. Learn also from the example of other heretics who affirm and philosophize the same things. Therefore, let the heretical teachings, the conclusion of your wisdom, and the basis of our faith, the definition of the Gospel, the preaching of the Apostles, the testimony of the Prophets, the concept of the completed economy be offered on Wednesday. 5) So, tell me, why do you claim that God came from Nazareth, preaching with Paul of Samosata as if the beginning of the existence of the Divine, or denying the birth of the flesh with Marcion and other heretics, not agreeing with the Gospel definition, but wanting to speak your own? Therefore, you affirm that God was born from the Virgin, and not God and man were born, as the Gospel defines (so that, having confessed the birth of the flesh, you would not call it natural, and would not tell the truth), but God, who, as if in a ghost, revealed His flesh. – It is not the beginning of being that God reveals in Nazareth, but God the Word, who existed before the ages, appeared as man from Nazareth, having been born of the Virgin Mary and of the Holy Spirit in Bethlehem of Judea, according to what is written, from the seed of David, Abraham and Adam, having received from the Virgin everything that God at first formed into the composition of man and created, except for sin, as the Apostle says: “in the likeness of all, unless sin" (Heb. 4:15). not showing the transformation of the Divinity, but having done, according to His will, the renewal of humanity, “as if to be,” as the Apostle writes, “a tongue ... a steward and a partaker of Christ” (Eph. 3, 6), so that man is truly God, and God is truly man, and there is truly man and truly God, not because man is with God, as you slander, denigrating the Christian sacrament, but because the only-begotten God deigned, in the fullness of His Divinity in the womb of the Virgin, to recreate for Himself the creation of the archetype of man and a new creation by natural birth and indestructible unity, so that He may accomplish the saving work for men, through suffering, death and resurrection, achieving human salvation. 6) But say: “if you accepted everything, then, without a doubt, you also had human thoughts: in human thoughts it is impossible not to be sin; and how will Christ be “sin?” - So, say: if God is the Creator of sinful thoughts, then God should have appropriated what He created, because He came to bring His creation closer to Himself. But on the other hand, the court that condemns the sinner will be unjust. For if God created sinful thoughts, then why does he condemn the sinner? And how is it possible for such judgment to come from God? If Adam had such thoughts even before he disobeyed God’s commandment; then how did he not know good and evil? Being reasonable by nature, free in thought, having not experienced evil, knowing only good, and being, as it were, “like-minded” (Psal. 67:7), but having disobeyed God’s commandment, man fell into sinful thoughts, not because God created these thoughts that captivated him, but because the devil, through seduction, planted them in the rational nature of man, which became criminal and rejected from God, so that the devil decreed a sinful law in human nature, and for the sake of a sinful deed, death reigns. That is why “the Son of God has come to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). But you say: “I destroyed without sinning; and this is not the destruction of sin. For it was not in Him that the devil originally produced sin; why should sin be destroyed when he came into the world and did not sin?” – The devil produced sin by planting it in the rational and spiritual nature of man. Therefore, it was impossible for the rational and spiritual nature, which sinned voluntarily and was subjected to the condemnation of death, to return itself to freedom, as the Apostle says: “For what is weak in the law is not weak in the flesh” (Rom. 8:3). Therefore, the Son of God came personally to restore human nature in His nature from a new beginning and a miraculous birth, and did not divide the original composition, but rejected the all-depositing, as the Prophet testifies, saying: “before you know whether to conceive good or evil, he will reject the evil one, even if you choose what is good” (Is. 7:16). And if sinlessness did not appear in the sinned nature, then how would sin in the flesh be condemned, when the flesh itself did not commit sin, and the Divinity does not know sin? Why does the Apostle say: “where... sin multiplied, grace abounded" (Rom. 5:20)? Not describing the place, but understanding the nature, he says: “as by one man sin came into the world and died by sin”: so by one man “Jesus Christ grace reigned through righteousness into eternal life” (Rom. 5:12, 21), so that in the same nature in which the progress of sin took place, the manifestation of righteousness would become, and thus, upon liberation human nature from sin, the “works of the devil” were destroyed, and God was glorified. 7) But also say: “If Christ is a man, he will be part of the world; and part of the world cannot save the world.” - What a deceptive fiction! What crazy blasphemy! Let them say: from what scripture is this definition and this devilish falsehood taken? The Prophet says: “A brother will not deliver, will a man deliver?” (Psalm 48:8); and in another place: “a man was born in him, and he is the foundation and the Most High” (Psalm 86:5). Why should not the Word, made man, save the world, when it is known that in the same nature in which sin was committed, an abundance of grace appeared? What kind of excess of grace is this? That the Word became man, remaining God, so that, having become man, it was confessed to be God; since Christ, being a man, is God, because, being God, he became man, and in human form saves those who believe. For “if you confess the Lord Jesus with your lips, and believe in your heart, that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). But God is inaccessible to mortification, and has no need for resurrection, but He Himself raises from the dead. Therefore, there was a need to have something for God that He would offer for us, whether in death or in life. And therefore, the Word saves all the more because It became man. 8) But you also say: “How can a nature that has become accustomed to sin and accepted the inheritance of sin be without sin? This is impossible, which is why Christ will be like one of men.” - Marcion also thought so; Manichaeus also introduced this opinion, subordinating human flesh and birth itself to the prince of evil, and portraying him as a ruler; because “if anyone is overcome, he also has work to do” (2 Peter 2:19). You also renew their opinion in a different form, adding to the flesh the intellectual nature of man, which is the soul; and claiming that sin is inevitable for her too, at the same time you portray the soul as much as possible as carnal, I don’t know where you learned this from; because it is impossible to find this either in the Holy Scriptures or in the general human concept. The Lord says: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matthew 10:28). If the soul, in your opinion, is carnal; then why doesn’t it die and decay along with the body? Why did Peter, calling the souls kept in hell spirits, say: “He came down to those imprisoned in the spirit to preach the resurrection” (1 Peter 3:19)? But you affirm and name everything contrary to nature, so that, having depicted the economy in accordance with nature, you would not tell you the truth, that is, that the Word truly became man. You say: God himself said: “A man’s mind is diligent towards evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21), not realizing that when he said: “from youth”, he was pointing to everything that was evil and painful. Therefore, “the Lord swore to David in truth... from the fruit of his womb to raise up Christ according to the flesh” (Psalm 131:11, Acts 2:30), not a man who will appear after the transformation of the Divine (otherwise, what was the need for the Lord to swear to David?), but who took on the form of a slave, so that he endured birth from a wife and an increase similar to ours over the years, as he says Apostle: “before now the children have partaken of blood and flesh, and He has sincerely partaken of the same” (Heb. 2:14), - “sincerely”, because not from the seed, but from the Spirit, and the same, because not from another seed, but, as it is written, from the seed of David, Abraham and Adam. 9) Why, leaving the Holy Scriptures and obvious truth, say: “if He did not appear as a man of Himself, but became a man, taking upon Himself human existence; then it follows that he was united with a man, and the crucified Lord of glory will already be a man?” Therefore, if you hear Peter who says: “Christ and the Lord... God created this Jesus, whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36); then about whom will you understand the word: “created”? If about the Divinity of the Word, then what do you reproach the Arians for, thinking the same way as them? And if it’s about the image of a slave in the Word, then why do you contradict yourself? But this is not how you believe, because you also say: “If the sinned nature became in God without committing sin, it means that it is held back by necessity; but what is held by necessity is forced.” - Therefore, say: if not sinning is done by compulsion, then sinning will be a natural thing. Therefore, admit that the Creator of nature is the author of sin. If such a thought is blasphemous, and it was forced to sin, then it is clear that not sinning was a natural thing. Therefore, the image of a servant, which appeared in the Divinity of the Word, not subject to necessity, by nature and strength reveals sinlessness in itself, having destroyed the barrier of necessity and the law of sin, and captivated the tormentor who caught him captive, as the Prophet says: “thou hast ascended on high, thou hast taken captivity captive” (Psalm 67:19). The Word, opposing the enemy with the form of a slave, gains victory through the once defeated. Therefore, Jesus passed through all temptation, because He accepted everything with which temptation was experienced; and with this he won the victory for the people, saying: “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). For the devil raised up a war not against the Divinity, which he did not recognize (and he would not have dared to do this, which is why he said: “If you were the Son of God” - (Matthew 4:3), but against man, whom in ancient times he could lead into deception, and through the deceived one he spread the effect of his malice to all people. Because the soul of Adam was contained in the condemnation of death and incessantly cried out to its Master, as well as the soul those who pleased God and were justified by natural law were kept together with Adam, and with him they lamented and cried out; then God, having mercy on man whom He had created, deigned by the sacrament of His appearance to bring new salvation to the human race, to overthrow the enemy who deceived through envy, and to reveal the incomparable exaltation of man through his unity and communion with the Most High in his very nature and in reality. 10) Therefore, the Word, God and Creator of the first man, came to become man, to revive man and overthrow the evil enemy; and was born of a woman, having restored to Himself from the first creation a human form, in the manifestation of the flesh without carnal desires and human thoughts, in a renewed image; because in Him is the will of the one Divinity and the whole nature of the Word in the manifestation of the human form and the visible flesh of the second Adam, not in the division of persons, but in the existence of Divinity and humanity. Therefore, the devil approached Jesus as a man, but, not finding in Him the signs of his ancient omnipotence, nor success in the present enterprise, being put to shame and overcome, he yielded victory over himself, and in exhaustion said: “Who is this who came from Edom,” that is, from the land of men, “advancing with great strength?” (Isa.63, 1). That is why the Lord said: “The prince of this world is coming, and in Me he will find nothing” (John 14:30); although we know that the second Adam had both soul and body and the whole first Adam. For if the saying “nothing” applied to human existence, then how would He who said: “nothing” have acquired a visible body? But he did not find in Him anything that he himself produced in the first Adam. And thus in Christ sin is destroyed. That is why Scripture testifies: “He who did not commit sin, lest deceit be found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). 11) Why do you say that “it is impossible for a person once captured to become free from captivity?” In order to attribute impossibility to God and possibility to the devil, you, like other heretics, call his sin ineradicable in human nature, and assert that the Divinity, which cannot be captured in captivity, came in the likeness of flesh and soul, so that He Himself could remain free from captivity, and thus appear in pure truth. When was the truth of the Divine not pure? And what good is this to people if the Lord did not appear in the identity of being and not in the renewal of nature, as the Apostle says: “He has renewed for us... a new and living way” (Heb. 10:19-20), according to what was said: “I am the way and the life and the truth” (John 14:6)? But you say: “Those who believe are saved by likeness and imitation, not by renewal and firstfruits.” How did Christ become the firstborn of many brothers (Rom. 8:29) and the firstfruits of those who died (1 Cor. 15:20), “Who is the Head of the body of the church” (Col. 1:18)? For faith in the obvious cannot be called faith; but that is true faith, which recognizes the impossible as possible, the weak as strong, the suffering as impassive, the corruptible as incorruptible, the mortal as immortal. “This mystery is great,” as the Apostle says, “but I speak into Christ and into the Church” (Eph. 5:32). God did not come to justify Himself, because He did not sin, but “for the sake of our poverty He is rich, so that through His poverty we may become rich” (2 Cor. 8:9). How did God become poor? - So that He took into Himself the impoverished nature and offered it in His own truth, as suffering for men and existing above men, which appeared from men, and became entirely God's. For if he had not become the firstborn among many brothers, how could he have appeared as the firstborn from the dead? Why do you say: “God suffered and rose again in the flesh?” What absurdity and blasphemy! This is the audacity of the Arians; They fearlessly utter such blasphemies, having learned to falsely call the Son of God God, although Scripture teaches that God suffered in His flesh, and not God suffered in the flesh. 12) Why do you, who previously promised to confess the consubstantial, draw the indivisible Name, the most indivisible nature, the most ineffable Divinity, the immutable and unchangeable consubstantial into suffering into suffering and confessing it already as a result of the resurrection? For if the Word, having transformed Himself into flesh, came to the point of suffering, without accepting into Himself anything that would make one suffer or allow for resurrection; then It itself suffered and rose from the dead. And suffering, as Valentin taught, will be something common to the entire Trinity, because the Word, by Divine nature, is inseparable from the Father. If this is how you intend to understand this, what will the promises of the Prophets, the genealogy of the Evangelists, the testimony of the Apostles, the ministry of Mother Mary, growth over the years, eating food, showing compassion in everything, the naming of a name mean, or that the Son of God became the son of man, or what was said: “the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself redemption for us” (1 Tim. 2:5-6); or: “For it is fitting for the Son of Man to suffer much, and to be killed, and to rise from the dead on the third day” (Mark 8:31)? And if you do not believe that Christ is both suffering, because He is a man, and passionless, because He is God; when you are driven to the extreme, you reason that even if you confess Christ as God and man, you no longer recognize one, but two: in this case, it is necessary for you, either, in agreement with Marcion and other heretics, to call the economy of suffering, death and resurrection one ghost, or, in accordance with Arius and his followers, to call the Divinity of the Word afflictive. 13) For if, when reading the divine Scriptures, they paid attention to what was said everywhere in the Law and in the Prophets, in the Gospels and in the Apostles; then the Scriptures first call the Lord a man, and then speak of suffering, so as not to say anything blasphemous about the Divinity. Therefore, they do not speak about the birth of the Divinity of the Word, but they confess the Father and preach the Son, and from Mary they produce Christ according to the flesh, as the Son of David and Joseph, who took on the form of a slave, so that His humanity would be recognized as borrowed from men, and from God the Father we confess that God the Word came forth, who endured suffering for men in a pleasurable form borrowed from men and manifests in the suffering body there is dispassion, in the dying there is immortality, in the buried there is incorruption, in the tempted one there is victory, in the decayed body there is renewal, “as our old man is crucified with Him” (Rom. 6:6). And this is grace. But the Divine in no way accepts suffering without a suffering body, does not show confusion and sorrow without a grieving and confused soul, does not yearn and pray without a yearning and praying mind. However, everything that was said did not occur from the insufficiency of nature, but was accomplished as an indication of being. How do you write that God suffered in the flesh and rose again? For if God suffered in the flesh and rose again, then you will call both the Father and the Comforter suffering; because there is one name and one Divine nature. 14) From this same saying one can discern your thought, showing that you do not fear God and do not believe the divine Scriptures. Moses writes about God: “Our God consumes fire” (Deut. 4:24), and about His coming in the flesh he says: “The Lord will raise up a prophet from your brethren” (Deut. 18:15), and: “the life hanging on the tree” (Deut. 28:66), as if meaning the body of the Lord, in which our life. And Isaiah cries out for God, saying: “The great God, the eternal... who built the ends of the earth, will not hunger, nor will he be weary,” and so on. (Is.40, 28), about suffering he says: “a man is in the ulcer and knows to endure disease” (Is. 53, 3). What does it mean when it is said: “knowing to endure illness”? That which has come from the one who suffered has brought comfort. That is why it is said: “write... in human writing” on a new scroll (Is. 8:1), and not in writing that has no form of flesh. And the Apostle says: “the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself... for us” (1 Tim. 2:5-6). Therefore, having said: “according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:5), he attributes the resurrection to Him who came from the seed of David. About His Divinity he says: “For the Word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:12). And the Lord himself relates suffering to the Son of Man, showing that it is according to the flesh; about His Divinity he says: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), and: “no one knows the Son who He is except the Father” (Matthew 11:27). The Scriptures have nowhere taught us about the blood of God without the name of flesh, or that God suffered and rose again in the flesh. Such daring thoughts are characteristic of the Arians, because they do not recognize the Son of God as the true God; The saints of the Scriptures preach in the flesh of God about the blood and suffering of the flesh of God who became man, also about the resurrection of God’s body, and specifically about the resurrection from the dead. But you claim the opposite, as if you are wiser than the Apostles, more occult than the Prophets, more powerful than the Evangelists, or more authorized than the Lord himself, with your false praise you deny the truth and speak against the Divinity, and on the cross clearly showed the economy, when the outpouring of blood confirmed the existence of the flesh, and the spoken words testifying to the existence of the soul did not depict the excommunication of the Divinity, but showed the mortification flesh, and the fact that the Divinity, just as it did not leave the body in the tomb, was not separated from the soul in hell. For this means what was said by the Prophets: “Do not leave My soul in hell, lest Thy Reverend One see corruption” (Psalm 15:10). That is why the Lord said: “No one will take it from Me, but I set it about Myself” (John 10:18), that is, I show it by standing before Himself. 15) Therefore, by the soul of God the power of death was destroyed, the resurrection from hell was accomplished and preached to souls, and by the body of Christ corruption was brought into inaction and incorruption was revealed from the tomb, so that man was not separated from God, and God did not proclaim the abandonment of man, but the mortification and separation of the spirit was not the passing of God from the body, but the separation of the soul from the body; because our death was depicted there. And if God separated from the body and thus mortification followed; then how did the body, separated from the incorruptible God, manifest incorruptibility in itself? How did the Word descend into hell? Or, as revealed by the resurrection from hell? Has It really risen itself instead of our soul in order to represent the image of our resurrection? And is it possible to think this about God? Therefore, your position does not agree with the Holy Scriptures, and your thought is inconsistent with the completed economy, and what is said: “sit at My right hand” (Psalm 109:1) does not mean human, but God’s dignity. Since God's dignity has become human dignity, so that human dignity is recognized as the dignity of God; That’s what it says: “sit at My right hand,” and: “glorify Me... Father... with eternal glory” (John 17:5). Not being deprived of glory, but appearing in an unglorious body, he says this, wanting to show that the slave form is not separated from Divine glory, but reveals it in itself. That is why he says: “I will glorify you, and again I will glorify you” (John 12:28), showing that there is one glory both before taking on the body and in the body, as the Apostle says: “Being so much better than the angels, the name of the inheritance is so much more glorious than theirs.” To whom did the angel say, “Sit at my right hand?” (Heb. 1, 4, 13). Of course, the Creator of Angels, the Word, became better, not as less than the Angels, but because the servant’s image that shone in Him was revealed to be better than the Angels, or every creature. For the Word, being the image of the invisible God, became the firstborn of all creation, as it is written in the Gospels: “until you gave birth to your firstborn Son” (Matthew 1:25). That is why everything was created by Him, suffering was accomplished by Him, and He is the deliverer from suffering and death. “All this happened” (John. 1, 3); and “He is the head of the body of the Church, which is... Firstborn from the dead... that He may be, as it is said, preeminent in all” (Col. 1:18). 16) How do you assert that the Creator of rational natures, the Word, having dissolved the flesh with Himself, became a rational man? And how did the Immutable and Unchangeable, without creating for Himself a rational slave of the form, become a man, so that the Word could be immutable, remaining what it was, and a rational man, being God, become visible on earth? For the Lord is a heavenly man, not because He revealed flesh from heaven, but because He made the flesh taken from the earth heavenly. Therefore, “like the earthy one, so are the earthly ones,” according to the communion of His holiness (1 Cor. 15:48). For this reason, what is proper to the body is also assigned to Him. But you still say: “How did they crucify the Lord of glory”? – But they did not crucify the Word, as you think. Let this not happen! On the contrary, they rejected the Word, nailing the body of the Word to the tree. God was rejected, but suffering, death and resurrection took place in the flesh and soul of God. Therefore, the Lord said to the Jews: “Destroy this Church, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), as the Prophet says: “His soul was given over to death” (Is. 53:12), and not the Word itself; and John says: “He laid down His life for us” (1 John 3:16). Therefore, how could the Jews destroy the church of God and interrupt the union of the flesh with the Word, which had become indissoluble, if this is how the mortification of the body occurred, as you believe? The body could not be killed without being separated from something. If there was no permission, then there was no death. And if there was no death, then there was no resurrection. Therefore, assume that there was permission and separation from the body, as it is written in the Gospels, that “from the beginning” (Luke 23:46), and that, “bow your head, give up the spirit” (John 19:30), and then we will see what kind of spirit, according to your assumption, was separated from the body, and mortification occurred. For you said that the Word, having dissolved with Himself the flesh that had no independence, revealed a truly rational and perfect man. Therefore, if the Word was separated from the body and from this mortification occurred; then the Jews prevailed over God, breaking the indissoluble unity. And therefore, it was not our death there, if the mortification of the body occurred because God was separated from it. But how did the body, having been separated from the incorruptible God, remain incorruptible? Will the wound concern the body, but the suffering of the Word? Why do you claim that God suffered, saying this in accordance with your wisdom, or better yet, in accordance with the Arians. For this is how they teach. So, according to you, the Word will be raised up in the resurrection. For it is necessary that a certain beginning of resurrection be received in hell, so that both the resurrection and the destruction of death, and the deliverance of the spirits contained there, may be complete. 17) If the Word endured this, then where is the immutability and immutability of the Word? How is the Word, having undisguisedly appeared in hell, recognized as man in death? Why did the Lord say to the Jews: “I will raise Him up” (John 6:44), and not: I will rise from hell? If the Word, having undergone death, needed someone to raise Him from death, then the victory will not be His, but the One who raises Him. Why was it foretold about His soul through the mouth of the Prophets? Why did the Lord, at His appearance, fulfilling the promise, say: I lay down My life for My sheep (John 10:15)? That this soul is a spirit is clearly taught by both the Holy Scriptures and the Lord himself, when He said that the body is killed by people, but they cannot kill the soul, because it is a spirit. This is why “Jesus was troubled in spirit” (John 13:21). This spirit was separated from the body on the cross. Thus the body died and its resolution took place; and God the Word was immutable in the body, and in the soul, and in Himself, living in the bosom of the Father, as a demonstration of His immutability. In the same image, which was similar to ours in Him, He portrayed our death there, so that in Him He could prepare for us both the resurrection, returning the soul from hell, and the body from the tomb, in order to destroy death by the manifestation of the soul in death, and by burying the body in the tomb, bring corruption into inactivity, and from hell and from the tomb, revealing immortality and incorruptibility, in a body similar to ours, completing our journey, and resolving what we are contained in. in captivity. This was what was wonderful; This is what grace consisted of. But you, recognizing one flesh, cannot show either the condemnation of sin, or the destruction of death, or the accomplishment of the resurrection, or the immutability of the Word; because you wander outside the Holy Scriptures, saying what the Arians are lying about, while the Holy Scriptures clearly speak about the soul, and the economy is completed in the manifestation of all fullness and perfection. 18) But some of the heretics, confessing the Visible, do not believe in His Divinity; others, while confessing God, deny the birth of His flesh; others, recognizing the flesh, deny the manifestation of His soul, and are likened to the mad disciples of the Arians, who weave cunning and difficult questions in order, by arousing doubts, to win over simple people to their side when they themselves waver in the faith. Likewise, today's heretics have learned to ask: What is one born of Mary? God or man? Then, if you say to the questioner: “man,” he will express disbelief in His Divinity, agreeing with the heretics who do not believe in it. And if you say: “God,” then you will deny the birth of His flesh, and will join the heretics who deny it. Then he asks again: Who is the victim? Who is crucified? God or man? - so that again, if you say: “God,” you will utter a blasphemous word to him with the wicked Arians, and if you say: “man,” you will continue speaking according to the Jewish concept. Therefore, the Holy Scriptures preach that the Word is God from the Father ineffable, and that at the last time He was born of the Virgin by man, so that it would be impossible not to confess Him as God and to deny the birth of the flesh. Where the flesh is named, the Scriptures understand the structure of the whole composition, except for sin, and with the name of man they connect the concept of suffering, and do not extend further than what is written in the Holy Scriptures. Regarding the Divinity, the Words profess immutability and ineffability. Therefore, the Word of God is spoken, and the genealogy of man is set forth, so that one and the same person would naturally and truly be in both, to be God in the ever-present Divinity and the creation of the creature, and man in being born from a woman and growing with age, God in life-giving benefits and a mighty God in miracles, and man in sufferings similar to ours and in our weaknesses. And the Word is God in the manifestation of immortality, incorruptibility and immutability, and man in nailing to the cross, in the outpouring of blood, in the burial of the body, in the descent into hell, and in the resurrection from the dead. Thus, Christ is raised from the dead, and this God raises the dead. 19) Therefore, those who attribute suffering to His Divinity, or those who do not believe in His incarnation, or those who call the One two, or those who undertake to measure His flesh and dare to determine “how much” or “how” beyond the Scriptures, talk vainly. The minds of heretics stumbled in thoughts like these; Marcion deviated from the truth due to an excess of blasphemy; Manichaean is deceived by the idea of ​​the beginning of sin; Valentin sinned under the pretext of knowledge; and Paul of Samosata and the so-called Photinus with his followers fell due to lack of faith in the Divinity; Arius blasphemed out of madness. And you, going into such disputes, say what is not in Scripture, and seduce the unconfirmed. But it is enough to believe what is written and done, as Paul says: “in the likeness of all men, except sin” (Heb. 4:15); and also Peter: “For Christ, who suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourself with the same thought” (1 Peter 4:1), so that, having gone further than this, you do not reject the truth. You might be interested in: