Dialogues ("Eranistes" or "Polymorphus")

Orth.— It therefore needs no transition for it is everywhere.

Eran.— True.

Orth.— And that which needs no transition needs not to travel.

Eran.— That is clear.

Orth.— And that which does not travel does not grow weary.

Eran.— No.

Orth.— It follows then that the divine nature, which is uncircumscribed, and needs not to travel, was not weary.

Eran.— But the divine Scripture says that Jesus was weary, and Jesus is God; “And our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things.”

Orth.— But the exact expression of the divine Scripture is that Jesus “was wearied” not “is wearied.” We must consider how one and the other can be applied to the same person.

Eran.— Well; try to point this out, for you are always for forcing on us the distinction of terms.

Orth.— I think that even a barbarian might easily make this distinction. The union of unlike natures being conceded, the person of Christ on account of the union receives both; to each nature its own properties are attributed; to the uncircumscribed immunity from weariness, to that which is capable of transition and travel weariness. For travelling is the function of the feet; of the muscles to be strained by over exercise.

Eran.— There is no controversy about these being bodily affections.

Orth.— Well then; the prediction which I made, and you scoffed at, has come true; for look; you have shown us what belongs to manhood, and what belongs to Godhead.

Eran.— But I have not divided one son into two.

Orth.— Nor do we, my friend; but giving heed to the difference of the natures, we consider what befits godhead, and what is proper to a body.

Eran.— This distinction is not the teaching of the divine Scripture; it says that the Son of God died. So the Apostle;— “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son.” And he says that the Lord was raised from the dead for “God” he says “raised the Lord from the dead.”

Orth.— And when the divine Scripture says “And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him” would any one say that his soul was committed to the grave as well as his body?

Eran.— Of course not.

Orth.— And when you hear the Patriarch Jacob saying “Bury me with my Fathers,” do you suppose this refers to the body or to the soul?

Eran.— To the body; without question.

Orth.— Now read what follows.

Eran.— “There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife. There they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife and there I buried Leah.”

Orth.— Now, in the passages which you have just read, the divine Scripture makes no mention of the body, but as far as the words used go, signifies soul as well as body. We however make the proper distinction and say that the souls of the patriarchs were immortal, and that only their bodies were buried in the double cave.

Eran.— True.

Orth.— And when we read in the Acts how Herod slew James the brother of John with a sword, we are not likely to hold that his soul died.

Eran.— No; how could we? We remember the Lord's warning “Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.”

Orth.— But does it not seem to you impious and monstrous in the case of mere men to avoid the invariable connection of soul and body, and in the case of scriptural references to death and burial, to distinguish in thought the soul from the body and connect them only with the body, while in trust in the teaching of the Lord you hold the soul to be immortal, and then when you hear of the passion of the Son of God to follow quite a different course? Are you justified in making no mention of the body to which the passion belongs, and in representing the divine nature which is impassible, immutable and immortal as mortal and passible? While all the while you know that if the nature of God the Word is capable of suffering, the assumption of the body was superfluous.

Eran.— We have learned from the Divine Scriptures that the Son of God suffered.

Orth.— But the divine apostle interprets the Passion, and shows what nature suffered.

Eran.— Show me this at once and clear the matter up.

Orth.— Are you not acquainted with the passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews in which the divine Paul says “For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren saying 'I will declare your name unto my brethren, in the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto You.' And again, 'Behold I and the children which God has given me.'”

Eran.— Yes, I know this, but this does not give us what you promised.

Orth.— Yes: even these suggest what I promised to show. The word brotherhood signifies kinship, and the kinship is due to the assumption of the nature, and the assumption openly proclaims the impassibility of the Godhead. But to understand this the more plainly read what follows.

Eran.— “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same that through death He might destroy him that has the power of death...and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life subject to bondage.”

Orth.— This, I think, needs no explanation; it teaches clearly the mystery of the œconomy.

Eran.— I see nothing here of what you promised to prove.

Orth.— Yet the divine Apostle teaches plainly that the Creator, pitying this nature not only seized cruelly by death, but throughout all life made death's slave, effected the resurrection through a body for our bodies, and, by means of a mortal body, undid the dominion of death; for since His own nature was immortal He righteously wished to stay the sovereignty of death by taking the first fruits of them that were subject to death, and while He kept these first fruits (i.e. the body) blameless and free from sin, on the one hand He gave death license to lay hands on it and so satisfy its insatiability, while on the other, for the sake of the wrong done to this body, he put a stop to the unrighteous sovereignty usurped over all the rest of men. These firstfruits unrighteously engulfed He raised again and will make the race to follow them.

Set this explanation side by side with the words of the Apostle, and you will understand the impassibility of the Godhead.

Eran.— In what has been read there is no proof of the divine impassibility.

Orth.— Nay: does not the statement of the divine Apostle, that the reason of His making the children partakers of the flesh and blood was that through death He might destroy him that has the power of death, distinctly signify the impassibility of the Godhead, and the passibility of the flesh, and that because the divine nature could not suffer He assumed the nature that could and through it destroyed the power of the devil?

Eran.— How did He destroy the power of the devil and the dominion of death through the flesh?

Orth.— What arms did the devil use at the beginning when he enslaved the nature of men?

Eran.— The means by which he took captive him who had been constituted citizen of Paradise, was sin.

Orth.— And what punishment did God assign for the transgression of the commandment?

Eran.— Death.

Orth.— Then sin is the mother of death, and the devil its father.

Eran.— True.

Orth.— War then was waged against human nature by sin. Sin seduced them that obeyed it to slavery, brought them to its vile father, and delivered them to its very bitter offspring.

Eran.— That is plain.

Orth.— So with reason the Creator, with the intention of destroying either power, assumed the nature against which war was being waged, and, by keeping it clear of all sin, both set it free from the sovereignty of the devil, and, by its means, destroyed the devil's dominion. For since death is the punishment of sinners, and death unrighteously and against the divine law seized the sinless body of the Lord, He first raised up that which was unlawfully detained, and then promised release to them that were with justice imprisoned.

Eran.— But how do you think it just that the resurrection of Him who was unlawfully detained should be shared by the bodies which had been righteously delivered to death?