On the Unity of Christ

B. But (he says) the being said to suffer will impress on God the Word much ill-repute and will besides perchance bring accusation upon our august mystery.

A. Yet despising the shame He chose to suffer in the flesh for our sakes according to the Scriptures: and I would account it a frailty of Jewish mind and a dread charge of Gentile infatuation, to think it right to be ashamed of the suffering on the cross. The Divine Paul writes, Seeing that both Jews ask for signs and Greeks seek for wisdom, but WE preach Christ [73] Crucified, to the Jews an offence, to the Gentiles foolishness, but to them which are called, Jews and Greeks, Christ God's Power and God's wisdom, because the folly of God, is wiser than men and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

B. How? for I do not at all understand.

A. Does he not say that the Suffering on the cross was an offence to the Jews, foolishness to the Greeks? for the one said, when they saw Him hanging from the wood, wagging their blood-thirsty heads at Him, If Thou art the Son of God, come down from the cross and we will believe Thee (for they supposed that worsted by their might He was taken and suffered, for they were in error, supposing that He was not truly Son of God but looking to the flesh alone): and the Greeks able in no wise to understand the depth of the Mystery deem it folly that it should be said by us, that Christ died for the life of the world. Yet is this very thing that seemeth to he folly, wiser than men. For deep is the word and verily replete with the highest wisdom, that I mean in regard to Christ the Saviour of us all, and that which is thought to be weakness by the people of the Jews, is stronger than men. For the Only-Begotten Word of God hath saved us, putting on likeness to us in order that having suffered in the flesh and risen from the dead He might set forth our nature superior to death and decay. And that which has been achieved is beyond the reach of our estate. Hence stronger than men is that which seemeth to have been wrought in infirmity as ours and as it were in suffering, and it affords proof of God-befitting power.

B. Then how will the Same (they say) suffer and not suffer [74]?

A. By suffering in His own flesh and not in the Nature of Godhead. And wholly ineffable is the plan of these things and no mind can attain ideas so subtil and exalted: yet following reasonings which tend to right belief and viewing the plan of what is fit, we neither alienate Him from being said to suffer, lest we first say that the Birth too after the flesh is not His but another's, nor do we define that the things pertaining to the flesh have been wrought upon His Divine and Supremest Nature: but He will be conceived of (as I said) as suffering in His own flesh, albeit not suffering in His Godhead after some such mode as this. And every force of illustration is feeble and comes behind the truth, yet it sends into the mind a subtil imagination of the reality and as it were from what is before it, brings it up unto the height which is beyond the reach of words. For [75] as iron or other such matter in contact with the onset of fire gives it admission and travails with the flame: and if now it chance to be struck by ought, the matter [struck] admits of injury, but the nature of the fire is in nought damaged by that which strikes; thus will you conceive in regard of the Son being said to suffer in the flesh, not to suffer in His Godhead. And petty (as I said) is the force of the illustration, but it bears nigh to the truth them who choose not to disbelieve the holy Scriptures.

B. You say well.

A. For if the flesh ineffably and above mind and reason united to Him were not made absolutely the Word's own, how will it be conceived of as life-giving? For I am (He says) the Living Bread Which came down from Heaven and giveth life to the world, if any one eat of this bread he shall live for ever, and the bread which I shall give is My flesh for the life of the world. But if so be the flesh, belong to a son other than He, appropriated to Him by a non-essential connection, and called by favour to equality of honour, how doth He name it His own, though He cannot lie? and how will another person's flesh too quicken the world, if it have not been made the own flesh of Life, i. e. of the Word which is forth of God the Father, of Whom the Divine John says, And we know that the Son of God is come and He gave us understanding in order that we might know Him and we are in His Very Son [76] Jesus Christ: this is the true God and Everlasting Life?

B. But I suppose that they would say to this, that it had been clearly said by Him, Verily verily I say to you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, ye have not life in you. WE therefore understand (they say) that the honoured body and blood are not those of God the Word but of the son of man which has been connected with Him.

A. Then wherever will they put the mighty Mystery of piety? for destroyed is the emptying of God the Word, Who was in the Form and Equality of the Father and chose for our sakes to take bondman's form and be made in likeness of us, and to partake blood and flesh, and to make the economy of the Incarnation His largess to all under Heaven. For through it have been saved, the Father summing up all things in Him [77], both the things in Heaven and the things on earth, as it is written. If therefore they say that not He is the Only-Begotten, Who says in God-befitting way and human wise alike, And the bread which I will give is My flesh for the life of the world, but that some son of man other than He conceived of apart by himself hath saved us, it is not the Lord Himself, as it is written, but one from among ourselves: and the things which are subject to decay are quickened henceforth, not through God Who is mighty to quicken, but by one of them who are subject to decay, who received along with us life of favour: but if it is true that the Word has been made flesh according to the Scriptures and appeared on earth and conversed with men, having bondman's form as His own, He will be called also son of man; and if some feel ashamed at this, they will be caught placing themselves under charge of unlearning. For in no other way was it possible that flesh should become life-giving, albeit of its own nature subjected to the need of decaying, except it have become the Proper flesh of the Word Which quickeneth all things; for thus it inworks what is His, replete with His Life-giving Power. And no marvel. For if it is true that fire having intercourse with matter, renders it warm, though not warm of its own nature (for it puts into it full richly the operation of its inherent power): how does not rather the Word being God put His own Life-giving Power and Operation into His Proper flesh, united to it and making it His own, without confusion, without turning and in mode as Himself knoweth?

B. It is therefore necessary to confess that it hath entirely become (none other intervening) the Proper Body of the Word that is forth of the Father, though ensouled with reasonable soul.

A. Most certainly, if we define aright the unerring word of the faith and are lovers of the doctrines of the truth and track the faith of the holy Fathers, not borne aside from the right way nor letting go the King's path-way, carried off by the vain-speakings of some unto a debased mind, but rather built up on the very Foundation, i. e. Christ: for other foundation can no man lay than is laid, as the in truth wise master-builder and Priest of His Mysteries has written.

We believe therefore that One is the Son of God the Father and conceived of in One Person, our LORD JESUS CHRIST, begotten forth of God the Father Divinely as Word before every age and time: in the last times of the age the Same made according to the flesh from forth a woman: and to Him we allot both the God-befitting and the human, and His we say was the birth after the flesh and the suffering upon the cross, for that He made His own the whole that belonged to His Proper flesh [78], yet hath remained Impassible in the Nature of the Godhead. For thus to Him boweth every knee and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord unto the glory of God the Father, Amen.

[73] ^u The Syriac translation reads, Jesus Christ.

[74] ^x See above pp. 302 sqq. and notes f, g, h.

[75] ^y See Disc. iii against Arians, § 31 fin.p. 444 O.T. note k, where this passage too is referred to.

[76] ^z in order that we might--------Very Son. Thus both the Greek manuscript and the syriac translation here.

[77] ^a see S. Iren. 1.10. 1; 6. 20. 2, and 21.1, pp. 33,497. O.T.

[78] ^b To note g on page 303 maybe added another striking passage from S. Athanasius taken from his celebrated Letter to Epictetus, Bishop of Corinth, the same Letter which John Archbishop of Antioch and his Bishops set so much store by. With it may be compared S. Cyril's kindred expression in his Scholia § 13 fin. above p. 202, " the suffering is said to be His, because His too is that which suffered and He was in the suffering Body, He unknowing to suffer." S. Athanasius says, "And it was marvellous that He it was Who suffered and did not suffer, suffered for that His own Body suffered and He was in it while suffering, suffered not because the Word being God by Nature is Impassible. And He, the Unembodied, was in the suffering Body; the Body had within it the Impassible Word Which annulleth the weaknesses of His Body. And this He did and it happened thus, in order that Himself receiving ours and offering them in sacrifice might annul them, and clothing us now with what is His might cause the Apostle to say, This decaying must put on incorruption and this mortal put on immortality. S. Ath. to Epictetus, § 6 t. i. 906."