Eran. -I could very easily give it. I shall quote the oracles of the Evangelists "The Child Jesus grew anti waxed strong in spirit and the grace of God was upon him" and again "Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favour with God and men." I should say that these have nothing to do with Godhead for the body increased in stature, and in wisdom the soul-not that which is without reason, but the reasonable. God the Word then took on Him a reasonable soul.
Orth. -Good Sir, you have bravely broken through the three fold phalanx of your foes; but that union, and the famous commixture and confusion, not in two ways only but in three, you have scattered and undone; and not only have you pointed out the distinction between Godhead and manhood, but you have in two ways distinguished the manhood by pointing out that the soul is one thing and the body another, so that no longer two, according to our argument, but three natures of our Saviour Jesus Christ may be understood.
Eran. -Yes; for did not you say that there is another substance of the soul besides the nature of the body?
Orth. -Yes.
Eran. -How then does the argument seem absurd to you?
Orth. -Because while you object to two, yon have admitted three natures.
Eran. -The contest with our antagonists compels us to this, for how could any one in any other way argue against those who deny the assumption of the flesh, or of the soul, or of the mind, but by adducing proofs on these points from the divine Scripture? And how could any one confute them who in their readiness strive to belittle the Godhead of the only Begotten but by pointing out that the divine Scripture speaks sometimes theologically and sometimes oeconomically.
Orth. -What you now say is true. It is what I, nay what all say, who keep whole the apostolic rule. You yourself bare become a supporter of our doctrines.
Eran. -How do I support yours, while I refuse to acknowledge two sons?
Orth. -When did you ever hear of our affirming two sons?
Eran. -He who asserts two natures asserts two sons.
Orth. -Then you assert three sons, for you have spoken of three natures.
Eran. -In no other way was it possible to meet the argument of my opponents.
Orth. -Hear this same thing from us too; for both you and I confront the same antagonists.
Eran. -But I do not assert two natures after the union.
Orth. -And yet after many generations of the union a moment ago you used the same words. Explain to us however in what sense you assert one nature after the union. Do you mean one nature derived from both or that one nature remains after the destruction of the other?
Eran. -I maintain that the Godhead remains and that the manhood was swallowed up by it.
Orth. -Fables of the Gentiles, all this, and follies of the Manichees. I am ashamed so much as to mention such things. The Greeks had their gods' swallowings and the Manichees wrote of the daughter of light. But we reject such teaching as being as absurd as it is impious, for how could a nature absolute and uncompounded, comprehending the universe, unapproachable and infinite, have absorbed the nature which it assumed?
Eran. -Like the sea receiving a drop of honey, for straightway the drop, as it mingles with the ocean's water, disappears.
Orth. -The sea and the drop are different in quantity, though alike in quality; the one is greatest, the other is least; the one is sweet and the other is bitter; but in all other respects you will find a very close relationship. The nature of both is moist, liquid, and fluid. Both are created. Both are lifeless yet each alike is called a body. There is nothing then absurd in these cognate natures undergoing commixture, and in the one being made to disappear by the other. In the case before us on the contrary the difference is infinite, and so great that no figure of the reality can be found. I will however endeavour to point out to you several instances of substances which are mixed without being confounded, and remain unimpaired.
Eran. -Who in the world ever heard of an unmixed mixture?
Orth. -I shall endeavour to make you admit this.
Eran. -Should what you are about to advance prove true we will not oppose the truth.
Orth. -Answer then, dissenting or assenting as the argument may seem good to you.
Eran. -I will answer.