The Lantern

Dialogues · Dialogue 230

CCEL

From his summary:-

"There is an union between what is of God and what is of the body. On the one side is the adorable Creator Who is wisdom and power eternal; these are of the Godhead. On the other hand is the Son of Mary, born at the last time, worshipping God, advancing in wisdom, strengthened in power; these are of the body. The suffering on behalf of sin and the curse came and will not pass away nor yet be changed into the incorporeal."

And again a little further on:-

"Men are consubstantial with the unreasoning animals as far as the unreasoning body is concerned; they are of another substance in so far forth as they are reasonable. Just so God who is consubstantial with men according to the flesh is of another substance in so far forth as He is Word and Man."

And in another place he says:-

"Of things which are mingled together the qualities are mixed and not destroyed. Thus it comes to pass that some are separate from the mixed parts as wine from water, nor yet is there mingling with a body, nor yet as of bodies with bodies, but the mingling preserves also the unmixed, so that, as each occasion may require, the energy of the Godhead either acts independently or in conjunction, as was the case when the Lord fasted, for the Godhead being in conjunction in proportion to its being above need, hunger was hindered, but when it no longer opposed to the craving its superiority to need, then hunger arose, to the undoing of the devil. But if the mixture of the bodies suffered no change, how much more that of the Godhead?"

And in another place he says:-

"If the mixture with iron which makes the iron itself fire does not change its nature, so too the union of God with the body implies no change of the body, even though the body extend its divine energies to what is within its reach."

To this he immediately adds:-

"If a man has both soul and body, and these remain in unity, much more does the Christ, who has Godhead and body, keep both secure and unconfounded."

And again a little further on:-

"For human nature is partaker of the divine energy, as far as it is capable, but it is as distinct as the least from the greatest. Man is a servant of God, but God is not servant of man, nor even of Himself. Man is a creature of God, but God is not a creature of man, nor even of Himself."

And again:-

"If any one takes in reference to Godhead and not in reference to flesh the passage the `Son doeth what He seeth the Father do,' wherein He Who was made flesh is distinct from the Father Who was not made flesh, divides two divine energies. But there is no division. So He does not speak in reference to Godhead."

Again he says:-

"As man is not an unreasoning being, on account of the contact of the reasoning and the unreasoning, just so the Saviour is not a creature on account of the contact of the creature with God uncreate."

To this he also adds:-

"The invisible which is united to a visible body and thereby is beheld, remains invisible, and it remains without composition because it is not circumscribed with the body, and the body, remaining in its own measure, accepts the union with God in accordance with its being quickened, nor is it that which is quickened which quickens."

And a little further on he says:-

"If the mixture with soul and body, although from the beginning they coalesce, does not make the soul visible on account of the body, nor change it into the other properties of the body, so as to allow of its being cut or lessened, how much rather God, who is not of the same nature as the body, is united to the body without undergoing change, if the body of man remains in its own nature, and this when it is animated by a soul, then in the case of Christ the commingling does not so change the body as that it is not a body."

And further on he says again:-

"He who confesses that soul and body are constituted one by the Scripture, is inconsistent with himself when he asserts that this union of the Word with the body is a change, such change being not even beheld in the case of a soul."

Listen to him again exclaiming clearly:-

"If they are impious who deny that the flesh of the Lord abides, much more are they who refuse wholly to accept His incarnation."

And in his little book about the Incarnation he has written:-