Dialogues ("Eranistes" or "Polymorphus")

Eran.— But yet it is said that they saw.

Orth.— Yes; it is said; but we both in the exercise of reverent reason, and in reliance on the Divine utterances, which exclaim distinctly, “No man has seen God at any time,” affirm that they did not see the Divine Nature, but certain visions adapted to their capacity.

Eran.— So we say.

Orth.— So also then let us understand of the angels when we hear that they daily see the face of your Father. For what they see is not the divine substance which cannot be circumscribed, comprehended, or apprehended, which embraces the universe, but some glory made commensurate with their nature.

Eran.— This is acknowledged.

Orth.— After the incarnation, however, He was seen also of angels, as the divine apostle says, not however by similitude of glory, but using the true and living covering of the flesh as a kind of screen. “God,” he says, “was made manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels.”

Eran.— I accept this as Scripture, but I am not prepared to accept the novelties of phrase.

Orth.— What novelties of phrase have we introduced?

Eran.— That of the “screen.” What Scripture calls the flesh of the Lord a screen?

Orth.— You do not seem to be a very diligent reader of your Bible; if you had been you would not have found fault with what we have said as in a figure. For first of all the fact that the divine apostle says that the invisible nature was made manifest through the flesh allows us to understand the flesh as a screen of the Godhead. Secondly, the divine apostle in his Epistle to the Hebrews, distinctly uses the phrase, for he says, “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of Jesus by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say his flesh; and having an High Priest over the House of God. Coming with truth drawing near with a true heart in fullness of faith.”

Eran.— Your demonstration is unanswerable, for it is based on apostolic authority.

Orth.— Do not then charge us with innovation. We will adduce for you yet another prophetic authority, distinctly calling the Lord's flesh a robe and mantle.

Eran.— Should it not appear obscure and ambiguous we will say nothing against it, and be thankful for it.

Orth.— I will make you yourself testify to the truth of the promise. You know how the Patriarch Jacob, when he was addressing Judah, limited the sovereignty of Judah by the birth of the Lord. “A prince shall not fail Judah, nor a leader from his loins until he shall have come to whom it is in store and he is the expectation of the Gentiles.” You have already confessed that this prophecy was uttered about the saviour.

Eran.— I have.

Orth.— Remember then what follows; for he says “And unto him shall the gathering of the people be...he shall wash his robe in wine and his mantle in the blood of the grape.”

Eran.— The Patriarch spoke of garments, not of a body.

Orth.— Tell me, then, when or where he washed his cloak in the blood of the grape?

Eran.— Nay; tell me you when he reddened his body in it?

Orth.— Answer I beseech you more reverently. Perhaps some of the uninitiated are within hearing.

Eran.— I will both hear and answer in mystic language.

Orth.— You know that the Lord called himself a vine?

Eran.— Yes I know that he said “I am the true vine.”

Orth.— Now what is the fruit of a vine called after it is pressed?

Eran.— It is called wine.

Orth.— When the soldiers wounded the Saviour's side with the spear, what did the evangelist say was poured out from it?

Eran.— Blood and water.

Orth.— Well, then; he called the Saviour's blood blood of the grape, for if the Lord is called a vine, and the fruit of the vine wine, and from the Lord's side streams of blood and water flowed downwards over the rest of his body, fitly and appropriately the Patriarch foretells “He shall wash his robe in wine and his mantle in blood of the grape.” For as we after the consecration call the mystic fruit of the vine the Lord's blood, so he called the blood of the true vine blood of the grape.

Eran.— The point before us has been set forth in language at once mystical and clear.

Orth.— Although what has been said is enough for your faith, I will, for confirmation of the faith, give you yet another proof.

Eran.— I shall be grateful to you for so doing, for you will increase the favour done me.

Orth.— You know how God called His own body bread?

Eran.— Yes.

Orth.— And how in another place he called His flesh grain?

Eran.— Yes, I know. For I have heard Him saying “The hour has come that the Son of man should be glorified,” and “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; but if it die it brings forth much fruit.”

Orth.— Yes; and in the giving of the mysteries He called the bread, body, and what had been mixed, blood.

Eran.— He so did.

Orth.— Yet naturally the body would properly be called body, and the blood, blood.

Eran.— Agreed.

Orth.— But our Saviour changed the names, and to His body gave the name of the symbol and to the symbol that of his body. So, after calling himself a vine, he spoke of the symbol as blood.

Eran.— True. But I am desirous of knowing the reason of the change of names.

Orth.— To them that are initiated in divine things the intention is plain. For he wished the partakers in the divine mysteries not to give heed to the nature of the visible objects, but, by means of the variation of the names, to believe the change wrought of grace. For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as grain and bread, and, again, called Himself a vine, dignified the visible symbols by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had changed their nature, but because to their nature He had added grace.

Eran.— The mysteries are spoken of in mystic language, and there is a clear declaration of that which is not known to all.

Orth.— Since then it is agreed that the body of the Lord is called by the patriarch “robe” and “mantle” and we have reached the discussion of the divine mysteries, tell me truly, of what do you understand the Holy Food to be a symbol and type? Of the godhead of the Lord Christ, or of His body and His blood?

Eran.— Plainly of those things of which they received the names.

Orth.— You mean of the body and of the blood?

Eran.— I do.

Orth.— You have spoken as a lover of truth should speak, for when the Lord had taken the symbol, He did not say “this is my godhead,” but “this is my body;” and again “this is my blood” and in another place “the bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world.”

Eran.— These words are true, for they are the divine oracles.

Orth.— If then they are true, I suppose the Lord had a body.

Eran.— No; for I maintain him to be bodiless.

Orth.— But you confess that He had a body?

Eran.— I say that the Word was made flesh, for so I have been taught.

Orth.— It seems, as the proverb has it, as if we are drawing water in a pail with a hole in it. For after all our demonstrations and solutions of difficulties, you are bringing the same arguments round again.

Eran.— I am not giving you my arguments, but those of the gospels.

Orth.— And have I not given you the interpretation of the words of the gospels from those of prophets and apostles?

Eran.— They do not serve to clear up the point at issue.