82. Wherefore he accepted for himself to become incarnate. Now God indeed perfected the dispensation, nor came it about by means of any other lest, when he fell into such contempt and weakness, his commandment should be considered worthy of scorn and further lest jealousy should straightway be aroused against man. But he received in his being him / who could endure every thing, and he raised up as witnesses of the humiliation of his humanity angels who should strengthen him, that none might say that it was suffering without suffering, since he strengthened it that it might not suffer, and therefore it had no reason not to obey. For everything whatsoever could without doubt be conceived or said concerning him and what he knew that people said concerning him----though they could not say it either because they feared or because they were obedient----that he did that he might leave no single cause of doubt; for they were not convinced of this mystery, but it was hidden even from principalities and authorities and from all powers and it was revealed unto them as a matter of knowledge and all of them confessed, after this explanation, the design which has done away with all designs and conquered them. And he has shown that his incarnation was a universal dispensation for all those who have been accounted equal with him in one |75 purpose and in one persuasion, to stand against the enemy of them all, whom he has driven out and whose authority he has suppressed, so that there is no more place for his deception and for his jealousy.
83 For what cause, when he defeated and convicted Satan, who is the enemy of all, he did not destroy him but allowed him again to act.
/ And he continues to deceive that it may be made manifest for his own condemnation and that of those who are persuaded by him, though he has no more such strength for his deception; and for the sake of the victory of those who are not persuaded by him; for none will be crowned unless he strives lawfully. Therefore after the victory and after the bringing to nought of death Christ has remained [sharing] in the [same] state of life----a state of life which was brought to nought in Christ----in order that those who are in Christ might comport themselves after the likeness of Christ, not only by the grace of the Resurrection but also by the works and manner of life of each one of them; for the former is universal but the latter individual. And, that it might not be thought that the construction of the nature of Christ was unique and distinct, that it was constructed to be without sin and for that reason conquered, he brought it about that he should be conquered by many myriads, in our own nature in the state of life in which Christ [conquered], by those who keep the exact commandments in such wise that according to the law they comport themselves in the body almost after a manner of life without bodily frame; and in times of distress and afflictions and in all frailty they endure the provocations and the excitements of nature together with violent assaults from without. And thus they have conquered in all things, so that the increase of the defeat of Satan |76 becomes an increase [in the observance] of the commandments, while the latter thought that the fall of men would become much easier by an identical manner of life.
/ 84. For what reason Satan attained unto all this exaltation so as to rise up openly against God and make himself equal with God.
And therefore, as he ran to and fro, his defeat became great; and then in consequence of this he increases his wickedness and reveals it and displays an unbounded audacity in rising up openly against God and making himself comparable with God and likening himself unto his incarnation, deceiving not through anything else nor by anything else than by his own prosôpon and by a sublime deception. And because Christ had done away with the deception as touching their gods and their incantations, the former also did away with the things of the latter by deceiving. He put under his own prosôpon all things appertaining to gods and sects and incantations and other such things, of which he is the controller, for the sake of making himself great, so that he alone might be considered God. For he makes use of man as an instrument which he has drawn away and led up to boundless evil, making man even to participate in the privation of Divine knowledge, as enemies are wont to act; and of necessity and out of rage he does these things which shall be utterly undone and abolished together with all his primacy. And when it has come to an end and he has nothing else to do, it will remain / for him to pour forth all his wickedness and to be revealed to all as having fought against his Creator, in return for having made him and having given him such might and having allowed him to make use of his might, and having endured him when he fought with all these things. [But] God gathers together all those who would blot out and bring to nought his tyranny. For he has then no device which can be devised against the elect of God, since all things have been in all things fulfilled, both his deception and his evasion of the commandments, and he has been conquered in every thing, in secret and openly, |77 both as to his persuasiveness and as to all his force of which he has made use in the weakening and humiliation of the body. And he acted also in regard to the saints in like manner as he acted in regard to Christ, in order by all means to cast them into cruel distresses, but they were not conquered thereby. But in that he ceased not of himself after he was conquered by Christ nor again after he was defeated by the saints, Christ brought his primacy to an end by the death which unjustly came upon him, and it was utterly brought to nought by the death of the saints, which by audacity and improperly he brought upon them. And [God] made him submit to a just judgement for the sake of us whom unjustly he distressed and with whom he combated for our destruction, and because of all his devices and his deceptions and every kind of his ingratitude and his arrogance and his tyranny in opposition to God and to his saints. For all the time / of the long-suffering of God was given for repentance and that he might come to himself and know his folly and his boldness in things impossible.
85. What thoughts Satan thought against God, Though he was able to afflict him passibly and to win him over to the exaction of the ransom, he did this not, but let him make use of his anger as he willed; for long-suffering toward those who are envenomed by wickedness works an increase of their wickedness, so that, when they see it and are accurately convinced of it, they do the opposite to those who see it not; for there is no repressing the increase of what is wicked in those who carry out their wishes in opposition to God; for either they think concerning the long-suffering of God that, because he is unable to cast them down into sufferings, in that they possess an immortal nature, he will on this account be long-suffering with them, and for this reason they do those things which are contrary to God, or else, although they grant that he is able to do everything, they do those things which are contrary to his will, because, when he wishes it, he will of his long-suffering cause them to change from their wickedness. Since he wills this, they rise up against his will, doing this or |78 that which is contrary / to what he wills. They do not ask to have redemption by him on account of their enmity and their infinite boldness, but they embitter him exceedingly so that he destroys them, in that they ask neither to be under God nor to live. And we shall see [Satan] condemned by a condemnation apart from men in a just judgement, when he shall have neither defence nor [counter-]accusation. For God let him do everything that he willed in such wise that there is not any cause at all to rescue him; for he destroyed him not indeed in a single moment by caprice nor further did he let him go without condemnation. Since in fact God left him no single cause of deliverance, for this he prepared himself to be by all means beyond repression; as one then who is the prey of jealousy and ambition, he desists not from his jealousy till the object of his jealousy [is attained] according to his will, and he is an example to all who are ungrateful. For him and all those who after his likeness have fallen into this sickness God judges justly and examines them and condemns them in the sight of all; and they are hated by common consent, and in him [men] see all ingratitude and all boldness and arrogance and all wiles and all falsehood and all impiety which springs up and grows great and is brought to fulness, so that it cannot even receive any increase.
86. Concerning this: that at the time of condemnation Satan will be hated by all / and even by his own, in so much as he has been unto them a cause of punishment .
For this reason all this time of long-suffering has been given unto him, and it is given unto him until the day of judgement to do whatever he will, lest there should be left unto him any cause for being able to do anything in it; but a time of long-suffering and of authority has been given unto him; and after that he will be fully judged and distinguished from the righteous together with all those who have participated with him in tyranny; by them also will he be hated and accused as having been the cause of their condemnation. As in purity of love, in word and in deeds each will love God as good and |79 just, as wise and as mighty, and as the Maker and as God, and, since they will obtain an example of just judgement without respect of persons, of the good and of the wicked, all classes of rational beings will duly learn the examination of the arguments for good and for evil, and for what reason God allows each man to choose it according to his will, and lets those who choose the good endure evils and is long-suffering toward those who have chosen the opposite thereof and who fight against his will, that they may do whatsoever they choose. And in this wise / the administration of this world is carried on: thus will it be administered by God until the end.
87. The Consummation.
And after this, seeing that everything has been well [done], we shall be in the joy of the world to come, having no cause [to fear] deprivation thereof nor that we shall have further need of instruction.
88. Concerning this: that it was needful that there should be a union of two natures, and that it was not right that it should take place otherwise.
For these reasons, then, and for similar causes, the incarnation of God took place justly: true God by nature and true man by nature. For there would not have been any [union] of these, if one of these natures had been left out. If God became not incarnate, and if he became not [incarnate] in a man [formed] of the nature of men, [it is] in fact as if it took place in deception and the truth [would be] what the words of Satan would have been, that Christ surely rejected as contemptible his [physical] formation after his image. Therefore there would have been no teaching of humility and of obedience and of condescension: that he, who when he had not taken the likeness of a servant was the similitude and the likeness of God, should be found in the likeness as a man. But there would rather be a justification of the words of Satan, who had contemned [him], because / he had seen him inferior in his nature to the image and the likeness of the honour of God. And as for all the angels, though they were |80 convinced of him as of God and were not able to dare to speak against him, this reason forced them not to blame Satan in anything [but to treat him] as one who had been cast down into sufferings which were not right for him, for the sake of the boundless honour of human nature, though he was blamed for this that he ought to have obeyed any commandment whatsoever of God. And since there was this suffering in their soul, they served him for the sake of him who commanded them, though not with a good will.
89. Concerning this: that, even if he were in the schema of a man but not in the nature of a man, the doctrine of an incarnation would not become established.
Although a man were to grant that he became incarnate,yet [in placing the Incarnation] in the schema of a man but not in the nature of a man, he would predicate the same repudiation of human nature.
90. Concerning this: that, even if he were to change his own nature into the nature of a man, the doctrine of the Incarnation would not have been established.
And even if he changed his own ousia for the ousia of a man, it seems that he would have surely repudiated the nature of a man, since he would have been in his own ousia and not in the ousia of man; for this ousia is his, not of the earth but of the nature of God the Word, and therefore / God the Word appears to have grown in wisdom in a human manner of life, so as to remain without sin as one who is a man while he is God the Word by his own ousia. Thus also he comported himself as a man though he was not man by nature but God the Word; both when he had combated and conquered the adversary and when he suffered, he who was impassible by his nature suffered, and similarly also in these other things. And even if we say that he took a man and that he changed the nature of the man into his own ousia, did he not set aside the victory of the things which are rejected, which constitute man? And for this reason he changed the nature of the flesh which was rejected for him, lest God should be abased in his |81 being in the nature of a man; and in this way neither were his manner of life and sufferings and death those of a man, nor again were they for the sake of men. And so it was no more through the death of God, nay rather, if God had been condemned to death, if he had willed to avoid it he would have set it aside without his own death rather than through a schema of death. But. since he was God and immortal, in his prosôpon which was not guilty he accepted death, that is, [accepted] the mortal and changeable [ prosôpon ], [so] that he was able to fight against defeat through the commandments and the observances, so that victory might fall to his image and to his likeness, that it might / be the same who accepted death as defeat and to whom [God] gave immortality as a release from guilt, in that he was preserved without stain in his own image. And as he condemned him when guilty, so also when he conquered he exalted the name which is above all names; and he obtained it not by commandments and through ordinances but by victory in his own right not to be taken away from him, just as a son, who was formerly under authority, on growing up and becoming adult, has authority to become a son, although he was already such as a son is.
91. Concerning this: that, even if any one were to grant that the union was by natural composition, or by mixture, or by confusion, or by intermingling of the natures, the doctrine of an incarnation would not have been established.
On account of this very thing, even if any one were to grant that God the Word accepted humanity in his own nature, either by mixture, or by confusion, or by participation of ousia, and sets at nought this nature of man, he shows that this human nature is to be rejected and that it could not be preserved without sin, since his nature conquered not ,but he who came into being from both of them; and he shows that Satan, since he was incapable, was defeated, and [that] in having defeated at the beginning man who sinned, he defeated him who could not be without sin because he was not of the sinless nature of |82 God the Word / but of the nature of sinful man. And Satan appeared to speak with man in judgement but was surely defeated by God, of whose nature it is to be defeated of nothing. And both of these [theories] are absurd, in that he commanded Satan and man to do impossibilities. But if the things which were commanded had been possible to do and had not been observed, justly would Satan have been condemned; for, when he could obey, he obeyed not but rose up against God by means of the schema of a man and slandered God before man as jealous, and man before God as ungrateful; and he is the enemy of all and has received a just judgement and has been openly convicted. He has in fact been conquered by Christ through his humanity and by the saints, for openly he rose up and still is risen up against God, and he has shown that, if he had not been able to deceive the first man, he afterward would have fought against God openly and not in the schema of this man or that, and although he could do nothing, he had it in his intention to do whatever he desired like the Lord, as one who was in everything able to act and to persuade and to fight. And he was able to destroy him in that moment, since he was worthy of destruction. But others would not have learnt / that wickedness is powerful and extinguishes itself, unless they had by all means known that they received subjection [to God] as a grace and from this subjection obtained grace not to show themselves bold against God and thereby themselves also to be parted from God with the former. How then would he have made the Incarnation a stumbling-block by mixture, or by confusion, or by natural participation, so that he might not be supposed [to be] God nor even man, but one who is of them both and is neither simple nor undivided? So therefore he is [combined] with humanity, as a judge in a judgement and in a true trial, possessing it in his own prosôpon and [having it] obedient unto himself in everything. And it is not he who combats and is judged, but to the extent of appropriation he has |83 brought it nigh unto his own image and not to the nature of the invincible and impassible ousia of the divinity. For Satan had no commission from God to make him disobedient to him, but to convince God that his own man was disobedient to him. He, who in everything accepted obedience with a good intention, exalted his honour in his own image to show that he is a just judge.
92. Concerning this: that, even if one were to grant one nature by natural composition, either with flesh without soul or [ in flesh ] animated by an animal / soul or by a rational soul according to a natural union, the doctrine of an incarnation would not have been established.
But in this way neither those who say, as the Arians, that the flesh was united to God by a natural composition and that it suffered by natural sufferings, nor again those who say that the union took place with the rational soul and the flesh in such wise that it suffered by a natural sensibility the sufferings of the body and of the unreasonable and irrational soul, establish in truth the doctrine of the incarnation. Do they not say this, that by a deception Satan was conquered by him who had been conquered, and that the latter conquered not by his own might but had need of a champion, that is of God who created him, who fought either openly or in secret? For in that Satan, having held no contest with God, was conquered by God, he conquered by having shown unto all that the love of God toward man was unjust and that the exaltation of humanity resulted as it were in the scorn of all and the subjection and the prostration of all supremacy and all authority. Now if he sought to do that for man, he could do it even without this deception and cunning, for that which he says he also does. Nor further indeed hid he himself when he made use of this schema; for he who seeks to hide himself, so long as it escapes him not that, if discovered, he will surely be confuted, is himself / his own accuser. So they are |84 constrained to say the contrary of what they seek to say, so that they accuse God and make excuse for the evil one, and they put forth all [their] might in vain and reason contrary to the incarnation of God.
93. Concerning this: that things which are composed in one nature [ are so ] either that they may be supreme or that they may be under supremacy and especially wider the soul, which is supreme in the composite nature, if God the Word is naturally composed.
Those things indeed which are composed and brought to fullness to [form] a nature [are so] either that they may be constituted chief and in control or that they may be under a chief and a controller. If then, because the rational soul is in need of being controlled, it is in need of participation in God the Word that he may be controller either of the body or of the rational or of the animal soul, then by him he obtained the victory, if it is fair to call victory that of another nature which is distinct and unlike and unequal to men, its companions. It seems that he acts in schema and forcibly subjects all to him[self] and brings [them] under his authority by force like God, so that he who was defeated by his very own choice could not escape owing to his defeat nor observe the commandments in his own nature, except by God the Word who is the conqueror for all time. It is not, in fact, / wonderful and worthy of praise that God the Word became in the body and observed all the observances of the soul and of the body. For |85 if he had not remained in his nature above the nature of the body or of the soul or of the intelligence, he would surely have been required [to do so], since the rational soul also sufficed to observe the commandments; but if the latter had not sufficed and for this reason there had been need of the incarnation of God the Word that for all he might support the sufferings of the body and of the soul and of the intelligence in a natural union which would have united the nature, he would have suffered as the body, as the soul [and] as the intelligence in the mixture. But since he was not conquered as one of them, it appears that he was outside their nature and therefore was not caught by those things whereby each one of them was caught. Together with this [there is] another absurdity which they predicate in limiting God himself by the necessity of nature and ascribing, as the Manichaeans, to hylê such might that it drags after it by authority and its own force whosoever receives it, and that he suffers in all ways the actual bodily sufferings [namely] whatever God the Word suffered when he condescended to the body and supported these bodily sufferings in his own nature when he was scourged by hunger and thirst, by the natural bonds of the body, though in his own nature he was exempt from these things; he desired and he was angered / and was fearful and was suffering, and suffered naturally all these sufferings of the body and the soul, because he was composed of [one] nature. For he, who is composed of [one] nature, of necessity adheres in the nature to all the nature's own properties, whether of a man or of God or of any other nature to which he is naturally united and combined. And however one would be willing to say that he is in nothing distinct from me, yet those who are composed of [one] nature support of necessity that nature's own proper qualities which are naturally and not voluntarily theirs. But that God ihe Word is so voluntarily and not by force: I have authority over my life, that I should lay it down and I have authority to take it again. Therefore the words of the Divine Scriptures befit not Christ in any other manner than this; but as we have |86 examined and found, all refer not to the union of the nature but to the natural and hypostatic prosôpon.
[A selection of the footnotes has been transcribed]
1. Viz. the Syriac Translator: this title is added by Bedjan.
2. These lines are only fragmentarily preserved.