The Divine Paul writes, Though there be gods many and lords many in heaven and in earth, yet to us One God the Father of Whom all things and we of Him, and One Lord Jesus Christ through Whom all things and we through Him. Yea and the very wise John said of God the Word, that All things were made through Him, and without Him was nothing made, and the blessed Gabriel declared the Gospel to the Holy Virgin saying, Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb and, bear a Son, and shalt call His Name Jesus. Since then the Divine Paul declares that all things were made through Jesus Christ, and the Divine Evangelist confirms the force of the sentence and preaches that He |191 was God the Maker of all things, speaking truly, and the Angel's voice too points out that Jesus Christ was truly born of the Holy Virgin: yet we do not say that Jesus Christ was mere man , nor do we conceive of God the Word apart from His human nature but, we say that He was made One out of both, as God made Man, the Same begotten Divinely out of the Father as Word, and humanly out of woman as Man: not as though called to a second beginning of being then when He is said to have been born after the flesh: but begotten indeed before all ages, yet when the time came wherein He must fulfil the economy, born also of a woman after the flesh. Therefore, albeit others are called by like name christs, yet is there One Jesus Christ through Whom are all things, not that a man was made Maker of all things, but that God the Word, through Whom all things were made, like as we took part of flesh and blood, and was called Man, yet lost not what He was; for so, so made in flesh is He rightly understood to be Maker of all.
7. How Emmanuel is One.
Once for all in the last ages is God the Word said to have been made Man, and (as Paul saith) was manifested by the Sacrifice of Himself . And what is the Sacrifice? He offered His own Body for us for an odour of a sweet savour to God the Father, and entered in once into the holy place not by the blood of goats and hulls, but by His own Blood, for so to them who believe on Him obtained He eternal redemption. Therefore very many before Him were saints but no one of them was called Emmanuel. Why? For not yet had the time come, when He was to be with us, i.e., to come in our nature through flesh, Who is superior to every creature. One therefore is Emmanuel, for once was the Only-Begotten made Man, when He underwent fleshly Birth through the holy Virgin. For it was said to Jesus too, I |192 will be with thee, yet was he not Emmanuel; He was also with Moses, yet neither was he called Emmanuel. As often therefore as we hear the name, With us is God, given to the Son, let us wisely conceive that not so was He with us in the last times, as He is sometimes said to have been with the saints, for with them He was as a helper only: but with us He was, because He was made like us, not losing His own nature, for He is unchangeable as God.
8. What we say the union is.
Union is arrived at in many ways: for some severed in disposition and mind and at variance one with another are said to be united in friendly agreement, laying aside their differences. And we say that things are united which are joined to one another or brought together in other ways, either by juxta-position or mixture or composition. When therefore we say that the Word of God was united to our nature, the mode of union is clearly above man's understanding; for it is not like one of those mentioned, but wholly ineffable and known to no one of those who are, save only to God Who knoweth all things.
And no marvel, if we are overcome by such ideas, when if we accurately investigate our own matters how they be, we confess that the grasp of them is beyond the understanding that is in us. For after what mode we conceive that the soul of man is united to his body, who can tell? But if we, who are wont to conceive and avail to speak scantly and with difficulty must form our judgement of things so subtil and beyond understanding and speech; we say that it will befit to conceive (yet altogether less than the truth is our word) that of such sort is the union of |193 Emmanuel, as one reckons that the soul of man too has with its own body. For the soul makes its own the things of the body although in its own nature imparticipate of its sufferings, both physical and those brought on it from without. For the body is moved to natural desires and the soul which is in it shares the perception thereof by reason of the union, but participates in no way, yet thinks that the achievement of the desire is its own enjoyment. And even though the body be struck by any or be cut with steel, it co-grieves, its own body suffering, yet will itself in its own nature suffer nought of the things inflicted.
Nevertheless above this too do we say that the union is in the case of Emmanuel. For it were necessary that the soul united thereto should grieve along with its own body, that so, fleeing the disgrace, it might submit a tractable neck to God. But of God the Word, it were absurd to say that He were co-percipient of the contumelies (for free from passion is the Godhead and not in our condition), yet has He been united to flesh possessed of a reasonable soul, and when it suffered, He was impassibly in cognizance of what befell it and brought to naught as God the infirmities of the flesh, yet made them His own as belonging to His own Body: thus is He said both to hunger and be weary and suffer for us.
Hence the union of the Word with the human nature may be not unaptly compared with our condition. Foras the body is of other nature than the soul, yet is one man |194 produced and said to be of both; so too out of the Perfect Person of God the Word, and of manhood perfect in its own mode, is One Christ, the Same God and Man in the Same. And the Word (as I said) makes its own the sufferings of Its own Flesh, because Its own is the Body and not another's: and It shares with Its own Flesh the operation of the God-befitting might that is within It; so that it should be able both to quicken the dead and to heal the sick.
But if we must, using examples out of the God-inspired Scripture, shew as in type the mode of the union, come let us say it, as we are able.
9. Of the coal.
The Prophet Isaiah says, There was sent unto me one of the Seraphim and in his hand a live coal which he took with the tongs from off the altar and he said to me, Lo this touched thy lips and shall take away thine iniquities and purge thy sins. But we say that the live coal fulfils to us the type and image of the Incarnate Word, Who, if He touch our lips, i. e., when we confess the faith Him-ward, doth then both make us pure from every sin and free us from the pristine charges against us.
Natheless one may see in the coal, as in an image, the Word of God united to the human nature, yet not losing the being what He is, but rather trans-elementing what He had taken, or united, unto His own glory and operation. For as fire having to do with wood and entering into it, seizes hold of it, and removes it not from being wood, but transmutes it rather into the appearance and force of fire, and inworks all its own property therein, and it is now reckoned one with it, so shall you conceive of Christ too. For God united ineffably with the manhood, hath kept it what we say that it is, and Himself hath remained what He was; but once united, is accounted one with it, making His own what is its, and Himself too introducing into it the operation of His own Nature. |195
10. That the flesh having a reasonable soul hath become the Body of the unembodied Godhead, and that by severing them one from another, we shall wholly and surely undo the plan of the economy in Christ.
In the Song of Songs our Lord Jesus Christ Himself has been introduced to us saying, I am the flower of the plain, the lily of the vallies. As then the smell is something unembodied, for it uses as its own body that wherein it is, yet is the lily conceived of as one out of both, and the failing of one utterly destroys the plan thereof, for in the object is the smell and the object is its body: so shall we conceive of the Nature of the Godhead in Christ too, that it sheds forth on the world the savour of His own more than earthly Excellence , as in the object His human Nature, and that the unembodied by Nature became by economic union all-but embodied also, because It willed to be recognized through the Body; for It hath wrought therein things God-befitting. Hence will the Unembodied be rightly conceived of as in His own Body, even as in the flower too, the object, is the scent, yet both together is called lily.
11. That the Word being co-brought to true union with the human nature, the things united have remained unconfused.
The holy Tabernacle was reared by the will of God in the wilderness and in it was manifoldly typified Emmanuel. The God of all said therefore to the divine Moses, And thou shalt make an ark of incorruptible wood, two cubits and a half its length, and a cubit and half its breadth and a cubit and a half its height, and thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, within and without shalt thou overlay it. But the wood that will not rot will be a type of the incorruptible Body (for cedar does not rot); gold as matter surpassing all others will indicate to us the Excellence of the Divine Essence. |196
But observe how the whole ark was overlaid with pure gold within and without. For God the Word was united to the holy Flesh, and this (I deem) is it that the ark was overlaid without. But that He made His own the reasonable Soul also that was within the Body, will this shew, viz., that He bade that it should be overlaid within also. And that the Natures or Hypostases have remained unconfused, shall we see hence. For the gold that was spread upon the wood, remained what it was, and the wood was rich in the glory of the gold; yet it ceased not from being wood.
But that the ark is taken as a type of Christ one may be assured of through many proofs. For it used to precede them of Israel, seeking rest for them; Christ too somewhere says, I go to prepare a place for you.
12. That the Word being God was made Man, and that not man merely honoured with bare connection was called to equal Dignity or Authority with God the Word, as some suppose.
The Divine Paul says that great is the Mystery of godliness. And this is true, for the Word was manifested in the flesh, since He is God; justified in Spirit, for in no wise is He seen to be holden by our infirmities, albeit for us made Man, for He did no sin; seen moreover of angels, for neither were they ignorant of His generation after the Flesh; He was preached moreover unto the Gentiles, as God made Man; and thus believed on in the world. And this the Divine Paul proved thus writing, Wherefore remember that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands, that at that time ye were without Christ, aliened from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without |197 God in the world. The Gentiles were therefore without God in the world, when they were without Christ; but when they acknowledged Him to be truly and by Nature God, themselves too were acknowledged by Him confessing the faith. And He was received up into glory, Divine glory that is; for blessed David sings, God is gone up in joy. For He went up verily with Body, not in bare Godhead, for God was Incarnate.
We believe therefore, not in one like us honoured with Godhead by grace, lest we be caught worshippers of a man, but rather in the Lord Who appeared in servant's form, and Who was truly like us and in human nature, yet remained God, for God the Word, when He took flesh, laid not down what He was, but is conceived of the Same God alike and Man.
Thus is the faith and rightly. But if any say, What harm if a man like us be conceived of as laying hold on Godhead and not God rather be made man? we shall answer that there are a thousand things which may be brought to bear against this, and which all but tell us that we ought firmly to strive against it and not thus to believe.
For come before ought else, let us look at the mode of the economy with Flesh and thoroughly investigate the nature of our condition; the nature of man was perilled and was brought down to the extreme of ill, condemned to curse and death and involved in the toils of sin, was straying and was in darkness, it knew not Him Who is by Nature and truly God, it worshipped the creature more than the Creator. How then could it be freed from such ills? Or do we say that it was lawful for it to lay hold on the Divine Nature, albeit it did not at all know what the Dignity of the Supreme Nature is, it which was holden of unlearning and darkness, and denied by the soil of sin? how was it like that it could mount up to the All-Pure Nature and lay hold on glory which none can lay hold of, except he receive it? For let it be supposed that by knowledge for example, and through knowing we say that it lays hold thereof: who is to teach it? For how shall they believe |198 except they hear? But this is not at all to take hold of Godhead, and to seize the glory that beseems It.
Hence it will be more meet (and reasonably so) to conceive that God the Word through Whom are all things, desiring to save that which was lost; by co-abasementunto us, lowered Himself to what He was not, in order that the nature of man too might become what it was not, eminent in the Dignities of the Divine Supremacy by union with Him, and should be rather brought up to what was above nature, than bring down unto what was alien from His Nature, the Unchangeable, as God. It behoved that the Incorruptible should lay hold on the nature subject to corruption, that He might free it from the corruption, it behoved that He Who knew not to sin should be made conformal with those who were under sin, that He might make sin to cease: for as where is light, there surely darkness will have no work, so where incorruption is present, is all necessity that corruption flee, and that, since He Who knew not sin hath made His own that which was under sin, sin should come to nought.
But that the Word, being God, was made Man, and not rather that Christ was Man deified, I will endeavour to shew from the Holy Scriptures also. Blessed Paul says therefore of the Only-Begotten, Who being in the Form of God thought not the being equal with God a thing to seize, but emptied Himself taking servant's form, made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow of heavenly and earthly and infernal and every tongue confess Lord Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father.