“Nothing was more worthless than man and than man nothing has become more precious. He was the last part of the reasonable creation, but the feet have been made the head, and through the firstfruits have been borne up to the kingly throne. Just as some man noble and bountiful, on seeing a wretch escaped from shipwreck who has saved nothing but his bare body from the waves, welcomes him with open hands, clothes him in a radiant robe, and exalts him to the highest honour, so too has God done towards our nature. Man had lost all that he had, his freedom, his intercourse with God, his abode in Paradise, his painless life, whence he came forth like a man all naked from a wreck, but God received him and straightway clothed him, and, taking him by the hand, led him onward step by step and brought him up to heaven.”
Of the same from the same work:—
“But God made the gain greater than the loss, and exalted our nature to the royal throne. So Paul exclaims 'And have raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places' at His right hand.”
Of the same from his third oration against the Jews:—
“He opened the heavens; of foes he made friends; He introduced them into heaven; He seated our nature on the right hand of the throne; He gave us countless other good things.”
Of the same from his discourse on the Ascension:—
“To this distance and height did He exalt our nature. Look where low it lay, and where it mounted up. Lower it was impossible to descend than where man descended; higher it was impossible to rise than where He exalted him.”
Of the same from his interpretation of the Epistle to the Ephesians:—
“According to His good pleasure, which He had proposed in himself, that is which He earnestly desired, He was as it were in labour to tell us the mystery. And what is this mystery? That He wishes to seat man on high; as in truth came to pass.”
Of the same from the same interpretation:—
“God of our Lord Jesus Christ speaks of this and not of God the Word.”
Of the same from the same interpretation:—
“'And when we were dead in sins He quickened us together in Christ.' again Christ stands in the midst, and the work is wonderful. If the first fruits live we live also. He quickened both Him and us. Do you see that all these things are spoken according to the flesh?”
Of the same from the gospel according to St. John:—
“Why does he add 'and dwelt among us'? It is as though he said: Imagine nothing absurd from the phrase 'was made.' For I have not mentioned any change in that unchangeable nature, but of tabernacling and of inhabiting. Now that which tabernacles is not identical with the tabernacle, but one thing tabernacles in another; otherwise there would be no tabernacling. Nothing inhabits itself. I spoke of a distinction of substance. For by the union and the conjunction God the Word and the flesh are one without confusion or destruction of the substances, but by ineffable and indescribable union.”
Of the same from the gospel according to St. Matthew:—
“Just as one standing in the space between two that are separated from one another, stretches out both his hands and joins them, so too did He, joining the old and the new, the divine nature and the human, His own with ours.”
Of the same from the Ascension of Christ:—
“For so when two champions stand ready for the fight, some other intervening between them, at once stops the struggle, and puts an end to their ill will, so too did Christ. As God He was angry, but we made light of His wrath, and turned away our faces from our loving Lord. Then Christ flung Himself in the midst, and restored both natures to mutual love, and Himself took on Him the weight of the punishment laid by the Father on us.”
Of the same from the same work:—
“Lo He brought the first fruits of our nature to the Father and the Father Himself approved the gift, alike on account of the high dignity of Him that bought it and of the faultlessness of the offering. He received it in His own hands, He made a chair of His own throne; nay more He seated it on His own right hand, let us then recognise who it was to whom it was said 'Sit on my right hand' and what was that nature to which God said 'Dust you are and to dust you shall return.'”
Of the same a little further on:—
“What arguments to use, what words to utter I cannot tell; the nature which was rotten, worthless, declared lowest of all, vanquished everything and overcame the world. Today it has been thought worthy to be made higher than all, today it has received what from old time angels have desired; today it is possible for archangels to be made spectators of what has been for ages longed for, and they contemplate our nature, shining on the throne of the King in the glory of His immortality.”
Testimony of St. Flavianus, bishop of Antioch.
From the Gospel according to St. Luke:—
“In all of us the Lord writes the express image of His holiness, and in various ways shows our nature the way of salvation. Many and clear proofs does He give us both of His bodily advent and of His Godhead working by a body's means. For He wished to give us assurance of both His natures.”
Of the same on the Theophany:—
“'Who can express the noble acts of the Lord, or show forth all His praise?' who could express in words the greatness of His goodness toward us? Human nature is joined to Godhead, while both natures remain independent.”
Testimony of Cyril, bishop Jerusalem.
From his fourth catechetical oration concerning the ten dogmas.
Of the birth from a virgin:—
“Believe thou that this only begotten Son of God, on account of our sins, came down from heaven to earth, having taken on Him this manhood of like passions with us, and being born of holy Virgin and of Holy Ghost. This incarnation was effected, not in seeming and unreality, but in reality. He did not only pass through the Virgin, as through a channel, but was verily made flesh of her. Like us He really ate, and of the Virgin was really suckled. For if the incarnation was an unreality, then our salvation is a delusion. The Christ was twofold— the visible man, the invisible God. He ate as man, verily like ourselves, for the flesh that He wore was of like passions with us; He fed the five thousand with five loaves as God. As man He really died. As God He raised the dead on the fourth day. As man He slept in the boat. As God He walked upon the waters.”
Testimony of Antiochus, bishop of Ptolemais: —
“Do not confound the natures and you will have a lively apprehension of the incarnation.”
Testimony of the holy Hilarius, bishop and confessor, in his ninth book, “de Fide”:
“He who knows not Jesus the Christ as very God and as very man, knows not in reality his own life, for we incur the same peril if we deny Christ Jesus or God the spirit, or the flesh of our own body. 'Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men him will I confess also before my Father which is in Heaven, but whosoever shall deny me before men him will I also deny before my Father which is in Heaven.' These things spoke the Word made flesh; these things the man Christ Jesus, Lord of Glory, taught, being made Mediator for the salvation of the Church in the very mystery whereby He mediated between God and men. Both being made one out of the natures united for this very purpose, He was one and the same through either nature, but so that in both He fell short in neither, lest haply by being born as man He should cease to be God, or by remaining God should not be man. Therefore this is the blessedness of the true faith among men to preach both God and man, to confess both word and flesh, to recognise that God was also man, and not to be ignorant that the flesh is also Word.”
Of the same from the same book: —
Source: Dialogues ("Eranistes" or "Polymorphus") (New Advent)