Orth.— We have frequently shown that what is naturally immortal can in no way die. If then He died He was not immortal; and what perils lie in the blasphemy of the words.
Eran.— He is by nature immortal, but He became man and suffered.
Orth.— Therefore He underwent change, for how otherwise could He being immortal submit to death? But we have agreed that the substance of the Trinity is immutable. Having therefore a nature superior to change, He by no means shared death.
Eran.— The divine Peter says “Christ has suffered for us in the flesh.”
Orth.— This agrees with what we have said, for we have learned the rule of dogmas from the divine Scripture.
Eran.— How then can you deny that God the Word suffered in the flesh?
Orth.— Because we have not found this expression in the divine Scripture.
Eran.— But I have just quoted you the utterance of the great Peter.
Orth.— You seem to ignore the distinction of the terms.
Eran.— What terms? Do you not regard the Lord Christ as God the Word?
Orth.— The term Christ in the case of our Lord and Saviour signifies the incarnate Word the Immanuel, God with us, both God and man, but the term “God the Word” so said signifies the simple nature before the world, superior to time, and incorporeal. Wherefore the Holy Ghost that spoke through the holy Apostles nowhere attributes passion or death to this name.
Eran.— If the passion is attributed to the Christ, and God the Word after being made man was called Christ, I hold that he who states God the Word to have suffered in the flesh is in no way unreasonable.
Orth.— Hazardous and rash in the extreme is such an attempt. But let us look at the question in this way. Does the divine Scripture state God the Word to be of God and of the Father?
Eran.— True.
Orth.— And it describes the Holy Ghost as being in like manner of God?
Eran.— Agreed.
Orth.— But it calls God the Word only begotten Son.
Eran.— It does.
Orth.— It nowhere so names the Holy Ghost.
Eran.— No.
Orth.— Yet the Holy Ghost also has Its subsistence of the Father and God.
Eran.— True.
Orth.— We grant then that both the Son and the Holy Ghost are both of God the Father; but would you dare to call the Holy Ghost Son?
Eran.— Certainly not.
Orth.— Why?
Eran.— Because I do not find this term in the divine Scripture.
Orth.— Or begotten?
Eran.— No.
Orth.— Wherefore?
Eran.— Because I no more learn this in the divine Scripture.
Orth.— But what name can properly be given to that which is neither begotten nor created?
Eran.— We style it uncreated and unbegotten.
Orth.— And we say that the Holy Ghost is neither created nor begotten.
Eran.— By no means.
Orth.— Would you then dare to call the Holy Ghost unbegotten?
Eran.— No.
Orth.— But why refuse to call that which is naturally uncreate, but not begotten, unbegotten?
Eran.— Because I have not learned so from the divine Scripture, and I am greatly afraid of saying, or using language which Scripture does not use.
Orth.— Then, my good sir, I maintain the same caution in the case of the passion of salvation; do you too avoid all the divine names which Scripture has avoided in the case of the passion, and do not attribute the passion to them.
Eran.— What names?
Orth.— The passion is never connected with the name “God.”
Eran.— But even I do not affirm that God the Word suffered apart from a body, but say that He suffered in flesh.
Orth.— You affirm then a mode of passion, not impassibility. No one would ever say this even in the case of a human body. For who not altogether out of his senses would say that the soul of Paul died in flesh? This could never be said even in the case of a great villain; for the souls even of the wicked are immortal. We say that such or such a murderer has been slain, but no one would ever say that his soul had been killed in the flesh. But if we describe the souls of murderers and violators of sepulchres as free from death, far more right is it to acknowledge as immortal the soul of our Saviour, in that it never tasted sin. If the souls of them who have most greatly erred have escaped death on account of their nature, how could that soul, whose nature was immortal and who never received the least taint of sin, have taken death's hook?
Eran.— It is quite useless for you to give me all these long arguments. We are agreed that the soul of the Saviour is immortal.
Orth.— But of what punishment are you not deserving, you who say that the soul, which is by nature created, is immortal, and are for making the divine substance mortal for the Word; you who deny that the soul of the Saviour tasted death in the flesh, and dare to maintain that God the Word, Creator of all things, underwent the passion?
Eran.— We say that He underwent the passion impassibly.
Orth.— And what man in his senses would ever put up with such ridiculous riddles? Who ever heard of an impassible passion, or of an immortal mortality? The impassible has never undergone passion, and what has undergone passion could not possibly be impassible. But we hear the exclamation of the divine Paul: “Who only has immortality dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto.”
Eran.— Why then do we say that the invisible powers too and the souls of men, aye and the very devils, are immortal?
Orth.— We do say so; that God is absolutely immortal. He is immortal not by partaking of substance, but in substance; He does not possess an immortality which He has received of another. It is He Himself who has bestowed their immortality on the angels and on them that you have just now mentioned. How, moreover, when the divine Paul styles Him immortal and says that He only has immortality, can you attribute to Him the passion of death?
Eran.— We say that He tasted death after the incarnation.
Orth.— But over and over again we have confessed Him immutable. If being previously immortal He afterwards underwent death through the flesh, a change having preceded His undergoing death; if His life left Him for three days and three nights, how do such statements fall short of the most extreme impiety? For I think that not even they that are struggling against impiety can venture to let such words fall from their lips without peril.
Eran.— Cease from charging us with impiety. Even we say that not the divine nature suffered but the human; but we do say that the divine shared with the body in suffering.
Orth.— What can you mean by sharing in suffering? Do you mean that when the nails were driven into the body the divine nature felt the sense of pain?
Eran.— I do.
Orth.— Both now and in our former investigations we have shown that the soul does not share all the faculties of the body but that the body while it receives vital force has the sense of suffering through the soul. And even supposing us to grant that the soul shares in pain with the body we shall none the less find the divine nature to be impassible, for it was not united to the body instead of a soul. Or do you not acknowledge that He assumed a soul?
Eran.— I have often acknowledged it.
Orth.— And that He assumed a reasonable Soul?
Eran.— Yes.
Source: Dialogues ("Eranistes" or "Polymorphus") (New Advent)