The heathen indeed are not content to name Christ God because of the suffering of the body and the cross and the death, and they consider that the miracles were [accepted] |8 in error. And they are not differentiated in name, because there is indeed no distinction between them, in that all of them are heathen.
2. Wherefore the Jews do not admit that he is Christ.
But the Jews do not confess that he is Christ because of the Cross and the death, in that they look for the advent of Christ in all great glory and dominion.
3. Wherefore the Manichaeans do not admit that Christ is also man by nature, but only God.
The Manichaeans also, and those who have sprung up from them and among them, declare that he is not man but only God / because of the miracles; but as touching his human [qualities], they place them in schema and illusion and not in nature.
4. Wherefore the Paulinians and the Photinians profess that our Lord Christ himself is only a man and that he is not also God.
But the Paulinians say that he is not God but only man because of the birth and death; but they attribute to him miracles as to any of the saints.
5. Wherefore the Arians profess that Christ is neither God whole and without needs, nor yet a man, but half God and half man.
The Arians confess that he is halt God and half man of soulless body and of created divinity; deeming him inferior to men in saying that there is not a soul in him and again deeming him inferior also to God in saying that he is not uncreate and without needs. But because of the incarnation and the birth of a woman and the death they consider that in his human [qualities] he became God, and they confuse his divine with his human [qualities], attributing his incarnation not to [his own] authority, but to an overruling command, saying that the union with the flesh resulted in one |9 nature and not / according to the use of the prosôpon of the dispensation on our behalf, but even as the soul and the body are bound [together] in one nature and [the soul] suffers sensibly the sufferings of the body whether it will or not, even though it has not of itself [the means] to accept them in that it has not a body in which to suffer. So also they say that God has only one nature in the body, suffering of necessity, whether he will or not, the sufferings of that nature which he took upon himself, as though he was not of the nature of the Father impassible and without needs. And this they say in order that they may not show him alone to be endowed with authority and command, so that even the command which he accepted is a punishment, and from a punishment which lies in his nature there is no escape; and, while he wished it not, he suffered the sufferings of the body by virtue of the sensibility of the nature: he hungered and thirsted and grew weary and feared and fled and died, and he rose not by his nature but by the authority and the might of the Father; and in short they say that he naturally endured whatsoever appertained to the sensible nature which he assumed.
6. Which the sects are which agree with the Manichaeans.
. . . . In the midst of these there sprang up heresies, some of the Manichaeans and others of them from the Paulinians.
7. And which those are which agree with the Arians. |10
. . . / 8. And wherein they are far removed from them, and in what again they adhere to them. They are far removed from them ....
9. Wherefore he has not written [the names of] the chiefs of these sects but only their dogmas.
But we wish to decline to [give] the names of their chiefs, so as not to prolong our discussion nor to be found to have omitted any point in the inquiry by first becoming entangled in [questions of] names.
10. What the statements are of those who say that by nature God the Word became flesh without having taken a body.
So they accused the Manichaeans of saying that the body of our Lord Christ was not truly a nature but a fiction and an illusion; but they tolerate miracles for the most part only of God, either as though it were impossible or even as though it were not decent that they should come about through the body.
Sophronius. It appertains to the omnipotent and infinite nature to be able to do everything; by its will then all other things are limited while it is not limited by anything, and it, as God, can do what cannot be [done] by any one else. For it cannot be [created] by a nature or a cause greater than itself, by which it possesses [the property] of being / and of not being God. And on account of this they fear to confess that the flesh truly came into being, lest in saying this they assume that God is the flesh ; they say: How could this be, seeing that we confess that the body is God, for even that which is supposed to be flesh is the nature of God and is the same and nothing else?
11. How water which becomes ice is in its nature ice, |11 becoming that which it was not without receiving it from outside: so they say that God the Word became a body without having taken a body from outside.
As, after running and flowing water is frozen and becomes solid, we say that it is nothing but water which has become solid, so God truly became flesh though he was by his nature God; and he was in everything and he acted as God. And, as touching [the operations of] the flesh, he both did [them] also in truth, and he suffered also as flesh, and he became flesh in the womb, and in that he became [it] he both was born and grew up truly as flesh; and, after he had chosen to become it, he both hungered and thirsted and grew weary and suffered and was crucified truly, seeing that he was truly flesh. For as water, which cannot be broken because it is frozen, can in truth be broken / and truly accepts the suffering of the nature which it has become, so also God who became flesh in truth accepted truly all [the sufferings of] the nature which he became without having been expelled from his [own] nature.
12. As he was revealed in human form to Abraham and Jacob without having taken bodily frame from outside, so also was his incarnation.
As also he was seen of our fathers Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the rest of the saints in truth in visible nature, walking in him who walked and talking in him who talked, and eating and drinking in him who ate [so also was his incarnation]; for nothing is done of God through deception, but everything in truth and in nature; for he is the creator and the creator does nothing in schema and in illusion but in nature and in truth. But those things which were not in the nature of the creator are rightly said to be fiction and illusion, since they cannot be seen in [virtue of] their nature.
13. How they take the [ words ] ' truly and not in nature ', and in how many ways ' truly ' is said.
Nestorius. Truly then they say that God became flesh?
Sophronius says : We confess / that he became flesh truly but not by his nature, in that he who became, became [so] |12 in truth, and he is the nature but not in the nature. Indeed the flesh has not always existed, but, as flowing water when frozen has the nature of ice though it is not so in its nature but has become [so], thus also has God truly become flesh, and he is the nature of the flesh and not in his nature, in that he is not it always but he became [so] afterwards. For this is truly the Incarnation, in his nature to become flesh and man and not in illusion nor in schema nor in fiction without hypostasis, which truly would be no incarnation. He therefore who wants to suppose that it came about in fiction flees from the truth.