On the Incarnation of the Lord's Sacrament

6. The Jew Who Separates the Son from the Father

For this is a general sentence against all the impious. Thus if a Jew should offer, who separates the Son of the Virgin Mary from God the Father, it is said to him: If thou offer rightly, but dost not rightly divide, thou hast sinned: be still.

7. The Eunomian Error on Christ's Generation

If a Eunomian should offer, who proceeding from the fountain of Arian impiety, slips into the overflowing mire of his own faithlessness, asserting that the generation of Christ, which is above all things, is to be gathered from the traditions of Philosophy: whereas there is indeed one reason for created things, another for the power of divine secrets; to him too it is said: If thou offer rightly, but dost not rightly divide, thou hast sinned: be still.

8. Sabellius, Marcion, and Other Errors on Christ's Nature

This is said to the Sabellian, who confounds the Father and the Son. This is said to the Marcionite, who thinks the God of the New Testament is other than that of the Old. This is said to the Manichaean and to Valentinus, who did not think that the truth of human flesh was assumed by Christ. Paul of Samosata too and Basilides are numbered in the same lot of sentence.

9. Denying the Divinity of the Holy Spirit

Likewise also, by the authority of the same sentence, those are condemned who have denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. For some are either Judaizing Arians, or Arianizing Jews; because just as the latter separate the Son from the Father, so the former separate the Spirit from God the Father and the Son of God.

10. Novatus, Donatus, and the Unity of the Church

To Novatus too and Donatus, and to all who have striven to tear apart the body of the Church, it is said, man by man: If thou offer rightly, but dost not rightly divide, thou hast sinned. For it is the sacrifice of the Church that is offered to God, to whom Paul said: I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God. Wrongly, then, have they divided the sacrifice, by tearing apart the members of the Church.

11. Separating the Human Soul from Christ's Incarnation

This sentence strikes also those who separate the rational soul from the mystery of the Lord's incarnation, desiring to separate the nature of man from man. And these perhaps offer rightly to the Trinity: but they do not know how to distinguish the reason of human and divine nature; for the nature of God is simple, but man consists of a rational soul and a body. If you remove either, you have removed the whole nature of man.

12. Heresies That Persecute the Church from Within

Against all heresies, then, is this sentence directed, which persecute the Church under a brotherly name, but not in a brotherly manner. Since indeed, under the guise of the Christian name and a certain nominal kinship of faith, they desire to wound us with parricidal swords; because our conversion is toward them, and sinners lord it over us in this age. For the sinner lords it in this age, the just man in the kingdom of God.

13. A Warning Against Confusing Christ's Two Natures

Let us beware, therefore, lest anyone attempt to separate us from the chamber of the eternal King, and from the secret place of Mother Church, into which that soul in the Song of Songs signifies she brought the Word of God. Let us beware lest we separate the substance of the only-begotten Son's hidden nature from the bosom of the Father, and a certain paternal womb, and, by these words by which the truth of the assumed incarnation is established, contrive to bring prejudice upon the divine generation; lest it be said also to any of us: If thou offer rightly, but dost not rightly divide, thou hast sinned; be still; that is: if we do not know how to distinguish what is proper to the eternal divinity from what is proper to the incarnation; if we compare the Creator with his own works; if we say that the author of the ages began after the ages. For it cannot be that he through whom all things exist should be one among all things.

14. Scripture, Not My Own Word, Is to Be Believed

I do not wish to be believed on my own account; let Scripture be recited. It is not I who say of myself that in the beginning was the Word, but I hear it; I do not invent it, but I read it; which all of us read, but not all understand. And when it is read, we all hear it, and yet not all hear it: For the heart of some has grown gross, and their ears have heard heavily; that is, the ears of inward disposition. For it is not the flesh that sins, which keeps to its own office and receives the hearing, but the mind, a corrupt interpreter of pure hearing, which refuses to hear what is said, to understand what is read. Why do you close your ears as with wax and lead, and yet cannot exclude the Lord's benefits and the offices of nature? You hear unwillingly, you hear with distaste; you hear, lest you be able to make excuse for what you have not heard.

15. John the Fisherman Becomes a Witness to the Word

You hear, then, when it is read: In the beginning was the Word. Who says this? John, of course, that fisherman: but he says this not as a fisherman, but as a fisher of human affection; who now would catch not fish, but bring men to life. It is not his own that he says, but that of him who granted him the power of giving life. For as a fisherman he was more silent than the very fish he formerly caught; and concerning divine mysteries he was still more mute, not knowing the author of his own voice: but having been given life by Christ, he heard the voice in John, he recognized the Word in Christ.

16. The Word Precedes Heaven, Time, and the Angels

And therefore, full of the Holy Spirit, knowing that the beginning was not of time, but above times, he left the ages behind, and ascending in spirit above every beginning, he said: In the beginning was the Word—that is, let heaven remain behind; for it did not yet exist, when in the beginning was the Word. For although heaven has a beginning, God does not. Finally, in the beginning God made heaven and earth. It is one thing to say "he made," another to say "was." What is made, begins: what was, does not receive a beginning, but precedes it. Let the times also remain behind, since times come after heaven. Let the angels and archangels also remain behind. And if I do not find their beginning, yet there was a time when they were not. For they did not exist, who at some point began.

If therefore I cannot find their beginning, of whom it is certain that they have a beginning, how can I find the beginning of the Word, by whom every beginning, not only of created things but even of all our thoughts, is preceded?

17. The Word Was with God from Eternity

Clearly then he had expressed his everlasting divinity: but lest anyone should separate the eternity of the Word from the Father, so that we might believe it to be the same as belongs to the Word, which belongs to the Father, that good fisherman added: And the Word was with God. What he had said is to be understood thus: The Word was, as the Father was; since he was with the Father, and in the Father, and with the Father always. Indeed, just as we read of the Father, "he was," so too we read of the Word, "he was."

18. Understanding That the Word Was God

Why do you distinguish in understanding, when you do not distinguish in hearing? To belong to the Father is proper to the Word: to be with the Word is proper to the Father; for we read that the Word was with God. Thus if according to your opinion he at some time did not exist, then according to your opinion he also, with whom the Word was, did not exist in the beginning. For through the Word I hear, through the Word I understand that God existed. For if I believe the Word to be everlasting, which I do believe, I cannot doubt the eternity of the Father, whose Son is eternal.

If I suppose his generation to be temporal, it begins to share community with us; so that the Father seems to have begun to be: but if you do not doubt concerning the Father that it is not of God's nature to begin to be, you do not doubt concerning the Father that it is God's nature to have everlasting perfection; lest perhaps you should slip by the usage of human speech, while you call him Word and Son, therefore he added: And the Word was God.

19. The Word Is Not a Spoken Sound

He has, indeed, what the Father has, since he was God. How do you deny the eternity of him with whom he shares one name, God, together with the Father? Let not the sound, and a certain likeness of speech, deceive you: one thing is a word which has times, which is gathered together in syllables and composed of letters: not such a Word is the Son, because such is not the Father of the Word.

20. The Incorporeal Word Has No Time or Number

We must beware, then, lest here too we seem to introduce a question of corporeal utterance. God is incorporeal: an incorporeal being surely has no corporeal voice. If there is no corporeal voice in the Father, neither is the Son a corporeal word. If there is no body in the Father, neither is there time in the Father. If there is no time in the Father, surely there is none in the Word either. But if there is no time of a beginning in the Word, then neither is there number, nor degree, in the Word. For if there were number in the Word, then there would be many words. If many words, then many sons too. But there is one Word, which excludes both degree and number: one according to nature.

21. The Limits of Knowing Christ's Nature

Do not ask of what sort the nature is. I know this much better than I know it, if I may say so. This alone I know well, that I do not know what I cannot know. What we have seen, he says, and what we have heard, John says: he said that he knew well only this, what he had heard and what he had seen, he who reclined upon the breast of Christ. Therefore for him it is enough to have heard; for me it is not enough.

22. The Divinity Unseen, the Spirit Seen as a Dove

But what he heard, this he told me: and what he heard from Christ, this too I cannot deny to be true of Christ. Therefore what he heard, I have heard; and what he saw, I have seen; for he saw what he saw—not, of course, the divinity, which by its own nature cannot be seen. But because it could not be seen according to its own nature, it took on what was beyond the nature of divinity, that it might be seen according to the nature of a body. Finally, the Holy Spirit too was seen in a visible form, like a dove; because the divinity could not be seen in the truth of its own brightness.

23. Distinguishing Christ's Human and Divine Natures in the Sacrifice

Do not, then, interpret according to nature what is beyond the nature of divinity. For even if you believe that true flesh was assumed by Christ, and offer at the altars the body to be transfigured; yet you do not distinguish the nature of the divinity from that of the body, and it is said to you: If thou offer rightly, but dost not rightly divide, thou hast sinned. Divide what is mine, divide what is proper to the Word. I did not have what was his: and he did not have what is mine. He took up what is mine, that he might impart what is his: he took it up not to confound, but to fulfill. If you believe the assumption, yet contrive a confusion; you have ceased to be a Manichaean, yet you have not begun to be a son of the Church.

24. Against Attributing Suffering to the Divine Nature

If you believe in the assumption of the body, and you attach to the divinity a capacity for suffering along with it: you have avoided a portion of faithlessness, but not faithlessness itself; for you believe what you presume will profit you, not what is worthy of God.

25. Against Placing Time Before the Eternal Word

Again, if you believe that the God of the New and of the Old Testament is the same, but you place times and moments before his Word: more tolerable is Valentinus, who thinks not that the ages exist before God, but that gods are what the ages are; for it is a lesser sacrilege to join the ages to divinity than to set them before it.

26. Christ's Birth from the Virgin and His Eternity as Creator

If you believe again that Christ did not take his beginning from the Virgin, but nevertheless suppose that there is some beginning before Christ: the dispute is about impiety in distance of time; for you have denied him to be later than the Virgin, not later than time. But I will not deny that, according to the assumption of the body, he is later than the Virgin, and I will confess him to be the creator of time. For what do you gain, if you say that Christ is this or that kind of creature? A creature is changed; the divinity is not adored as changing.

27. Peter's Confession of Christ as the Son of God

Christ did not wish to be known in such a way, nor to be judged only by those merits which are above man. Finally, when he had asked: Whom do men say that I am? When some said Elias, others Jeremias, or one of the prophets; he approved no one's opinion: when Peter had said: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God; this one alone he praised, not without reason.

28. Peter and John as Joint Witnesses to Christ's Glory

Therefore John says it, Peter says it, Christ approved it, and do you not approve it, Arian? Do you not think that John and Peter are to be believed, whom alone, as it were, our Lord Jesus Christ trusted to be sufficient testimony of his glory for the faith of all? Finally, as though for the testimony of the Old and New Testament, Moses is joined with Elias, and Peter is frequently associated with John.

29. Peter Confesses Thou Art the Son of God

Peter says, Thou art; he does not say: Thou didst begin to be. Peter says: Thou art the Son of God; he does not say: Thou art a creature. John said this. If you have not yet believed, because you have not understood the mystery of him who reclined above wisdom, Peter repeated it. Christ commended both, the one by judgment, the other by mystery; for he added this, that you might read what was reclining upon Christ's breast, and understand that his head, in which the chief of all the senses is, was filled with a certain hidden wisdom. But if you do not think the mystery is to be understood, at least do not attack the judgment. Peter is praised, because he believed him whom he saw to be the Son of God; because he separated himself from the still crude opinions of the unlearned common people. Finally, when the Lord had asked what men thought of the Son of man, when the opinion of the crowd was being stated, Peter was silent.

30. Why Peter Stayed Silent Before Confessing Christ

You are silent then, Simon, and while others are answering, you are still silent; though you yourself are the first, who even without being asked, ask others: and do you not fear being reproved by the Lord, because you do not answer when questioned? "For this reason," he says, "I do not answer, because I am not being asked my own opinion, but another's; for I have read: That my mouth speak not the works of men: but it is the work of the faithless to proclaim their faithlessnesses. Therefore I am still silent, because I am not yet asked what I think: I will not utter with my lips what my mind has not approved. There will be a time when I shall answer. I too shall be asked what I think, then at last I shall answer what is mine; for it is mine to speak faith, to assert piety, to proclaim grace."

31. Peter's Silence Was Caution Not Slowness

He is silent, therefore, not as though slower of mind, more sluggish of speech, nor does he delay the service of his voice out of disdain: but as one being cautious, he avoids the danger of the common opinion, he who was not avoiding the danger to salvation. Finally, in what follows you have that he leapt from the boat, to meet the Lord, not desirous of glory, but hasty in obedience.

32. The Primacy of Peter's Confession Not of Honor

This one, then, who before was silent, that he might teach us that we ought not even to repeat the word of the impious: this one, I say, when he heard: But whom do you say that I am? Immediately, not forgetful of his place, exercised primacy: the primacy indeed of confession, not of honor; the primacy of faith, not of order. This is to say: Now let no one surpass me, now it is my part: I ought to make up for what I kept silent, what I was silent about ought to profit. My tongue has no thorns; faith ought to come forth without impediment. While others empty out the mud, though another's, yet uttered, of impiety, who said that Christ was either Elias, or Jeremias, or one of the prophets; for that utterance had mud, that utterance had thorns: while others, I say, wash this mud, while in others these thorns are cleared away, let our voice resound: Christ, the Son of God.

For me the speech is pure, on which the impiety, once expressed, has left no thorns.

33. Peter Called the Foundation of the Church

This, then, is Peter who answered on behalf of the other apostles, indeed before the others; and therefore he is called the foundation, because he knows how to preserve not only his own but also the common good. To him Christ gave his assent, the Father revealed it. For he who speaks of the true generation of the Father, took it from the Father, he did not take it from the flesh.

34. Faith Not Peter's Flesh Is the Church's Foundation

Faith, then, is the foundation of the Church: for it is not of the flesh of Peter, but of faith, that it was said, that the gates of death shall not prevail against it: but confession conquered hell. And this confession excluded not one heresy alone; for since the Church, like a good ship, is often beaten by many waves, the foundation of the Church ought to prevail against all heresies.

35. Christ the Giant of Two Natures Amid the Heresies

The day would fail me sooner than the names of the heretics and the various sects; yet against all of them this is the general faith, that Christ is the Son of God, both eternal from the Father, and born of the Virgin Mary. Whom the holy prophet David describes as a giant, as it were, in that, of twofold form and twin nature, he is one and the same possessor of divinity and body: who, like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, hath rejoiced as a giant to run the way. Bridegroom of the soul according to the Word: giant of the earth, because, running through the offices of our condition, though he was always God, eternal, he took up the mysteries of the incarnation, not divided, but one, because he is one in both, and one in each, that is, either in divinity or in body: for it is not one from the Father, another from the Virgin, but the same one, otherwise from the Father, otherwise from the Virgin.

36. Christ Rose According to the Flesh Not the Word

Generation does not prejudice generation, nor flesh divinity; because neither does the pledge prejudice the Father, nor the will the passion, nor the passion the will. For the same one was suffering, and was not suffering: was dying, and was not dying: was being buried, and was not being buried: was rising, and was not rising; because he was raising up his own body: because that which fell, this rises: that which did not fall, does not rise. He was rising, therefore, according to the flesh, which having died rose again: he was not rising according to the Word, which had not been dissolved into earth, but always remained with God.

37. Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me Understood of the Flesh

Therefore he was both dying according to the assumption of our nature, and not dying according to the substance of eternal life: and he was suffering according to the assumption of the body; that the truth of the assumed body might be believed: and he was not suffering according to the impassible divinity of the Word, which is wholly without share of grief. Finally the same one said: God, my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me? Because he was forsaken according to the flesh, he who according to divinity could neither be deserted nor forsaken. The same one also says: The words of my sins are far from my salvation, that is, let him who hears: Why hast thou forsaken me? Not be misled, but understand that these things are said according to the flesh, which are far removed and foreign to the fullness of divinity.

For the words of sins are foreign to God, because sins of words too are foreign: but since I took up sins that were another's, I also took up the words of another's sins; so that I may say that I was forsaken by God the Father, I who am always with God.

39. Immortal in Death Impassible in Suffering on the Cross

He was, therefore, immortal in death, impassible in suffering. For indeed, as God, he was not seized by the distress of death, and the same one, as man, the lower regions beheld. Finally he gave up his spirit, and yet, as arbiter of the putting off and the taking up again of the body, he gave up his spirit, he did not lose it. He was hanging on the cross, and he was moving all things. He was trembling on the wood, he whom the whole world was trembling at. He was amid torments, receiving wounds, and bestowing the heavenly kingdom. Made the sin of all, he was washing away the sins of the human race. At last he died, and a second and a third time, exulting and rejoicing, I say, he died; that his death might become the life of the dead.

40. The Miracle of the Tomb and the Harrowing of Hell

But not even his tomb lacks a miracle. For though he was anointed by Joseph, and buried in his monument, by a certain new work, he himself, though dead, was unlocking the tombs of the dead: and his body indeed was lying in the tomb; but he himself, free among the dead, was granting remission to those placed in the underworld, the law of death being loosed. His flesh, then, was in the monument, but his power was working from heaven. It was shown to all through the truth of the body, that the flesh was not the Word, but the flesh was of the Word. The flesh indeed tasted death, but not the impassible power of God: and if he put off the body, yet there was no loss to God from the body.

41. The Troubled Soul, Unchanging Wisdom, and Light in Hell

Why do you attribute to the divinity the distresses of the body, and join the infirmity of human sorrow to the divine nature? "Now," he says, "is my soul troubled". The soul was troubled, not the wisdom; for wisdom remained unchangeable, even though it was surrounded by the garment of flesh. For in that form of a servant was the fullness of the true light: and when he emptied himself, he was light. Finally he said: Walk while you have the light. And when he was in death, he was not in shadow. Finally, even to those placed in hell he poured forth the light of eternal life. There too the true light of wisdom was shining, it was illuminating hell, but it was not enclosed by hell. For what place is there for wisdom? Finally the just man says: But whence is wisdom found? And what place is there for discipline? Man does not know its way, nor is it found among men.

42. Wisdom Is Neither in Time nor in Place

Therefore Wisdom is neither in time nor in place, and thereby it signifies that it is beyond time. But how could it be in time, that which was in the beginning? How in place, that which was with God? If the Only-begotten Son is sought, he is found in the bosom of the Father by the evangelic spirit. Do you suppose the bosom of the Father is a place? And do you ask how he was born, when the prophetic man says: Man does not know his way? And do you reckon his origin according to men, when Job says that he is not found among men? And do you attribute death to Wisdom, of which the abyss says: It is not in me; and the sea says: It is not with me? Heaven does not say, It is not in me, but the abyss says, It is not in me. For not to the abyss, but to the Father he said: Into thy hands I commend my spirit.

His own soul, though it was in the abyss, is now not; because it is written: For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt thou allow thy Holy One to see corruption.

43. Christ's Resurrection and His Walking Upon the Sea

The sea, then, says: It is not with me, that is, our life, restless amid the waves of the age, says so. For his flesh is not among men, because we no longer know Christ according to the flesh. The earth says: It is not with me, because he rose again. Finally the Angel says: Why do you seek the living among the dead? And rightly the sea said: It is not with me; because he was above the sea. Finally, on the sea he was also walking in bodily footsteps, when, the sea being made subject, he also bade Peter walk upon the sea; who, though he wavered, wavered nevertheless not through the weakness of him who commanded, but through the infirmity of him who obeyed.

44. The Body Not Divinity Received the Scourging and Blows

Therefore do not mingle the darkness of our nature with the splendor of his glory, do not pour the cloud of human flesh over the light. Again, in preaching the passion, if you do not at all recognize that which is passible, you have refuted the piety of the Lord, you have denied your own salvation. Wherefore we ought to consider them out of their minds, who, hearing the Son of God saying: Why smitest thou me? Thought that the divine nature was subjected to injury. For he said: Why smitest thou me? But the divine nature did not feel the blow. He said: I have given my back to the scourges, and my cheeks to the palms of the hands: but my face I have not turned away from the shame of spitting. He named the back and the cheeks and the face, that is, the portions of the human body.

For what the flesh of the Word suffered, even while remaining in the flesh, the Word of God suffered in the flesh, as it is written: Christ having suffered in the flesh; referring it, indeed, to himself for the assumption of the body; so that he might himself take up upon himself what is ours, and clothe human things with what is his own.

45. The Flesh Truly Suffered Without Changing the Word

Rightly, then, according to its own nature the flesh also suffered, and by that suffering of the body the nature of the Word was not changed; for in truth our resurrection is, and therefore in truth the passion of Christ is preached.

46. Christ's Suffering Was Real Not Mere Appearance

For it is not, as some say, that he suffered in appearance, since he did not walk upon the sea in appearance either, which the disciples in the Gospel are recorded to have supposed. But they are excused, because: the Spirit had not yet been given; for Jesus had not yet been glorified. For us Christ has already been crucified and has risen: for us the Spirit has already been given, who is the assertor of truth. And the disciples indeed erred at one time, lest we afterward should be able to err. Therefore their error profits us. As men they erred, as disciples they believed.

47. Against Docetism and the Belief in Two Sons

Therefore we must condemn both those who preach that Jesus came in appearance, and also those who, by an opposite line of error, say that the one and same Son of God is not one; but that he who was born of God the Father is one, and he who was begotten of the Virgin is another; whereas the Evangelist says that the Word was made flesh; so that you should believe there is one Lord Jesus, not two.

48. Against Separating the Word from the Son

Some also have believed that the Word of God is one thing, the Son of God another: whereas the Evangelist testifies that this very one who in the beginning was the Word with God the Father came into his own. There are also those who have supposed that the Word was made unto Christ as unto one of the prophets, and not that he himself is the Word of God. But of none of the prophets was it said that the Word was made flesh. No prophet took away the sins of the world. Of none other was it said: This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Of none of the prophets do we read that he is the Lord of majesty, which the Apostle said of Christ, that the Jews crucified the Lord of majesty.

49. Against Claiming Christ's Flesh and Divinity Share One Nature

But while we refute these, others emerge who say that the flesh of the Lord and his divinity are of one nature. What hell has vomited forth such sacrilege? The Arians are already more tolerable, whose strength of perfidy grows through these men; so that they assert with greater contention that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not of one substance; because these men have attempted to say that the divinity of the Lord and his flesh are of one substance. Then, since these men say that the Word was converted into flesh, hair, blood, and bones, and was changed from its own nature; occasion is given to them to twist the infirmity of the flesh into an infirmity of divinity, a certain change of the divine nature having been made.

50. Against Claiming the Lord's Divinity Was Circumcised

There are also those who have advanced so far into impiety as to think that the divinity of the Lord was circumcised, and was made imperfect from perfect; and that on the wood it was not flesh but that operative substance divine of all things, congealed in the appearance of flesh, that hung. Who would not shudder? Who would listen to this, that not from the Virgin Mary, but from the divine substance, the Word of God made for itself passible flesh? By asserting which they slip so far as to contend that the body of the Lord was not assumed in time, but was always coeternal with the Word of God.

51. An Unnamed Author's Claim of One Nature in Christ

The authors of all these are those who said that the divinity and the flesh of the Lord were of one nature. For I read what I would not have believed, had I not read it myself: I read, I say, in the books of a certain man, so stated, that the instrument, and he by whom the instrument was moved, were of one nature in Christ. I have set this down for this reason, that the author's name might be discovered from his writings; and that men might notice that, however most refined the arguments and however adorned the speech, the force of truth cannot be obscured.

52. Correcting a Misuse of the Nicene Creed

And here he frequently reminds me that he holds to the treatise of the Council of Nicaea. But in that treatise our fathers said not that the flesh, but that the Word of God, was of one substance with the Father; and they confessed that the Word indeed proceeded from the paternal substance, but that the flesh was from the Virgin. How then is the name of the Council of Nicaea held forth, and new things introduced which our elders never held; when the Scriptures indeed say that Christ suffered according to the flesh, not according to divinity: the Scriptures say that the Virgin shall receive in the womb, and shall bring forth a Son? For she received power, and brought forth the Son, whom she received from herself.

53. Gabriel's Announcement and Paul's Witness to Christ's Human Birth

Finally, Gabriel too declares this in his own words, saying: And that which shall be born of you holy shall be called the Son of God. "Of you," he says, so that you might understand that what was born of her was according to man; for Mary generated of herself, so that what was generated of her, with the prerogative of the Lord's generation kept intact in it, might be the true nature of a body. But Paul too says that he was predestined unto the Gospel of God: which, he says, God had before promised through the prophets concerning his Son, who was made to him of the seed of David according to the flesh. And to the Galatians: But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman. And to Timothy he said: Be mindful that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead, of the seed of David.

54. The Sacrifice from Our Nature, the Reward from His

Therefore he received from us that which, as his own, he might offer for us, that he might redeem us from what was ours: and what was not ours, he might confer upon us from what was his by his divine bounty. According to our nature, therefore, he offered himself, that he might work beyond our nature. From what is ours is the sacrifice, from what is his is the reward: and you will find much in the same one both according to nature and beyond nature. For according to the condition of the body he was in the womb, was born, was suckled, was laid in a manger; but above the condition, a Virgin conceived, a Virgin brought forth: that you might believe he was God, who was renewing nature; and he was man, who according to nature was born of man.

55. The Word Remained Unchanged Through the Incarnation

For it is not, as some have interpreted, that the very nature of the Word was changed, which is always immutable, as he himself said: Behold, behold, that it, and I have not changed. But Paul also said: That Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, is the same forever; that is, he who was not changed according to the nature of the flesh, but remained immutable even in that very changeable quality of the human condition.

56. Why Christ Assumed Flesh to Redeem What Sinned

You have learned, then, that he offered a sacrifice from what is ours. For what was the cause of the incarnation, except that the flesh which had sinned should be redeemed by itself? What had sinned, therefore, this was redeemed. Therefore the divinity of the Word was not immolated, because the divinity of the Word had not sinned: and therefore the nature of the Word was not converted into the nature of flesh; because the divinity, immune from sin, ought not to offer itself for a sin it had not committed. For this Christ offered in himself, which he put on: and he put on what he had not had before. Therefore he did not put on the divinity of his own divinity, in which was the fullness of eternal divinity: but he assumed flesh, that he might strip off the spoil of the flesh, and in himself both crucify the devil's spoils and set up the trophies of virtue.

57. The Word, the Flesh, and the Question of One Substance

Therefore, if the flesh of all, even in Christ, lay subject to injury, how do you say it is of one substance with divinity? For if the Word and the flesh, which has its nature from earth, are of one substance, why should not the Word and the soul, which he took on as a perfect nature of humanity, be asserted to be of one substance? But the Word is of one substance with God according to the paternal profession, and the assertion of the Lord himself, who says: I and the Father are one. Is the Father then said to be of one substance with an earthly body? And still you are indignant at the Arians, because they say the Son of God is a creature; when you yourselves say that the Father is of one substance with creatures?

58. The Danger of Confusing the Word with Earthly Corruption

What else do you accomplish by saying these things, except either to compare the clay of Adam and our earth to the divine substance, or else to transfer divinity into the injury of earthly corruption? For by saying that the Word was made flesh and bones, you say that it was indeed converted into earth; since flesh and bones are of the earth.

59. How the Word Was Made Flesh

"It is so written," they say, "that the Word was made flesh". It is written, I do not deny it: but consider what follows; for there follows: And dwelt among us, that is, that Word which took on flesh, this dwelt among us, that is, dwelt in human flesh; and therefore he was called Emmanuel, that is, God with us. This Word, then, was made flesh, in the sense that he was made man. As also in Joel he said: I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh; for the future outpouring of spiritual grace is promised not upon irrational flesh, but upon men.

60. Christ Made Sin: A Scriptural Parallel

But if you hold to the letter, so as to suppose from what is written, that the Word was made flesh, that the Word of God was converted into flesh; do you not deny that it is written of the Lord, that he did no sin, but was made sin? Was the Lord, then, converted into sin? Not so; but because he took up our sins, he was called sin. For the Lord was also called a curse, not because the Lord was converted into a curse, but because he himself took up our curse: For cursed, he says, is he who hangs on a tree.

Do you marvel, then, that it is written: The Word was made flesh, when flesh was assumed by the Word of God; when of the sin which he did not have, it is written that he was made sin, that is, not by nature and operation of sin, as having been made in the likeness of sinful flesh; but that he might crucify our sin in his own flesh, he assumed, for our sake, the taking-on of the infirmities of a body already subject to the sin of the flesh.

61. Assumer and Assumed: Two Distinct Natures

Let them cease, then, to say that the nature of the Word was changed into the nature of the body; lest by a like interpretation the nature of the Word should seem to have been changed into contagion of sin. For it is one thing that he assumed, and another that which was assumed. Power came upon the Virgin, as the Angel also said to her, that the power of the Most High shall overshadow you. But the body was born of the Virgin; and therefore there is indeed a heavenly descent, but a human conception. Therefore the nature of the flesh and the nature of divinity could not be the same.

62. Renewing the Pledge to Complete the Discussion of the Father and the Son

I could pursue this at greater length, but I fear lest these very things seem to some either superfluous or prolix. For perhaps someone will say: Did you not promise that you would conclude the discussion of the divinity of the Father and the Son in those five books which you wrote? But what am I to do, when every day they sow new questions? The promise does not pass away, but the objection compels it further. For how can there be an end to a response, if there is no limit to the objection?

63. The Sorrow of Gethsemane and the Fullness of Human Nature

And yet in the preceding books I had pledged that I would complete the response concerning the divinity of the Father and the Son: but in this book concerning the sacrament of the Lord's incarnation a fuller treatment, as was proper, has been made. For since that which the Lord says: My soul is sorrowful even unto death; and below: My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me: yet not as I will, but as you will; is referred not to the compassion of the Holy Spirit, but to the affection of the rational soul and human nature assumed, it follows that we should establish, through the assertion of the Lord's sacrament, that the fullness of human nature was also in Christ, and that we should separate the Holy Spirit from the prejudice of infirmity. For he is not subject to infirmity who is not subject to passion.

64. Answering Fears That Christ's Soul Could Sin

I ask, then, for what reason some think that a soul was not assumed by the Lord Jesus; is it because there is fear lest Christ should fall by human sense? For they say that the concupiscence of the flesh fights against the law of the mind. But he who says this is so far from having thought that Christ would have been led by the law of the flesh into the bonds of sin, that he himself, placed in the heat of human frailty, believed that he could be helped through Christ, saying: Wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? The grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He, then, who was vindicating others from the slipperiness of the flesh—could he possibly fear that he himself might be overcome by some dominion of this flesh?

65. The Perfection of the Soul and Flesh Christ Assumed

But, as they would have it, he feared the enticements of this flesh. Then he ought also to have declined the assumption of flesh; lest he be drawn to the slippery path of error. But how could he fear the slippery path of sin, who had come to remit sin? And therefore, since he took on the flesh of man, it follows that he took on the perfection and fullness of the incarnation; for nothing in Christ is imperfect. He took on flesh, then, that he might raise it up: he assumed a soul, but a perfect soul, a rational, human soul he assumed and took on.

66. Scriptural Proof That Christ Possessed a Soul

For who can deny that he took up a soul, when he himself says: I lay down my soul for my sheep? And again: Therefore does the Father love me, because I lay down my soul, that I may take it up again. This is not said by way of parable, nor with a mere figurative sense in which one thing is said and another understood, as in that saying: Your new moons and sabbaths my soul hates: although even that saying could be referred to the soul of Christ, which was laid down for this reason, that it might abolish the error of Jewish superstition and establish the truth of the one sacrifice.

67. The Soul Laid Down and Taken Up Again

But let them doubt about this prophetic saying; the evangelic saying they cannot refute as being said of the soul's own property; since it was said concerning the death of the Lord and his resurrection; finally he adds: No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again. Therefore he lays down the same soul which he took up. He took it up, I say; for it was not that the very Word of God, living in his own flesh, was made in place of our soul: but just as he took up our flesh, so too he took up our soul, by the assumption of a perfect human nature. He assumed, I say, a soul, that he might bless the sacrament of his incarnation; he took up my affection, that he might amend it.

68. Christ's Redemption of the Whole Human Person

But what need was there to take up flesh without a soul; since certainly insensible flesh and an irrational soul is liable neither to sin nor worthy of reward? Therefore he took up for us that which in us was in greater peril. But what does it profit me, if he has not redeemed the whole of me? But he has redeemed the whole of me, who says: Are you indignant at me, who made a whole man well on the sabbath? He has redeemed the whole of me, because the faithful man rises again into a perfect man, not in part, but whole.

69. Christ's Mastery Over His Own Flesh and Soul

Let these merciful ones therefore cease to fear lest Christ was unable to govern his own flesh, or a perfect soul and human sense, he who governed even that colt of an ass, which no one before had sat upon. Shall he who planted the ear, not hear (Psa. XCIII, 9)? Shall he who ruled others not have been able to rule himself? Shall he who forgave sins have committed sin himself? Let these overly anxious ones, as if pedagogues of Christ, cease to fear lest even in him the concupiscence of the flesh should have oppressed the law of the mind, which did not oppress it in Paul, but only fought against it. The athlete of Christ counts the victories as his mind's own. Do these tremble lest the flesh should have wavered in the Lord, which conquered in the little servant?

70. Christ's Freedom From Fear for Himself

Christ does not want us to fear for him, the Lord does not want us to weep for him. Finally he says: Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, weep for yourselves. And to these he says: Do not fear for me, fear for yourselves. Have you not heard David saying: The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the defender of my life, of whom shall I be afraid (Psa. XXVI, 1)? And elsewhere: I will not fear what man may do to me (Psa. CXVII, 6); and elsewhere: I will not fear what flesh may do to me (Psa. LV, 5).

71. The Human Sense Assumed Without Sin

He says therefore: I was able to fear the fall of human nature, which man himself did not fear: I therefore, God before the flesh, God in the flesh, assumed the perfection of human nature: I took up the sense of man, but I was not puffed up by the sense of the flesh. By the sense of man I said that my soul was troubled: by the sense of man I hungered: by the sense of man I asked, I who am wont to hear those who ask: by the sense of man I advanced, as it is written: And Jesus advanced in age and wisdom and grace before God and men.

72. Christ's Advance in Wisdom According to His Humanity

How did the Wisdom of God advance? Let the order of the words teach you. There was an advance of age, and an advance of wisdom, but it is of the human. He therefore put age first, so that you might believe it was said according to man, for age belongs not to divinity, but to the body. Therefore if he advanced in the age of man, he advanced in the wisdom of man: but wisdom advances by sense, because wisdom comes from sense. Now Jesus advanced in age and wisdom. What sense was advancing? If human, then it too was taken up: if divine, then it is mutable through advancement. For what advances is certainly changed for the better: but what is divine is not changed: therefore what is changed is certainly not divine. Therefore it was the human sense that was advancing; therefore he took up a human sense.

73. The Growth and Filling of Christ's Human Wisdom

And that we may know he was speaking according to man, he prefaced it above, saying: And the child grew and was strengthened, and was filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him. And "child" is the name of our age: neither could the power of God be strengthened, nor could God grow, nor could the height of God's wisdom, nor the fullness of divinity, be filled up. Therefore what was being filled was not the wisdom of God, but ours. For how was he being filled, who descended in order to fill all things?

74. The Child's Ignorance and the Limits of Human Knowledge

But in what sense did Isaiah say that the child did not know father or mother? For it is written: Before the child knows his father or his mother, he shall receive the strength of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria. For future and hidden things do not escape the wisdom of God: but infancy, devoid of knowledge, through human ignorance certainly, does not know what it has not yet learned.

75. Answering the Charge of Dividing Christ

But it must be feared, you say, lest if we attribute to Christ two principal senses, or a twofold wisdom, we divide Christ. Do we divide Christ when we adore both his divinity and his flesh? Do we divide him when we venerate in him the image of God, and the cross? The Apostle certainly, who said of him: For although he was crucified from our weakness, yet he lives from the power of God; the same said that Christ is not divided. Do we also divide him when we say that he took up a rational soul and one capable of our understanding?

76. The Word United to a Human Soul and Flesh

For the God-Word himself was not in his flesh in place of a rational soul capable of understanding, but taking up a rational soul capable of understanding, and that soul human, and of the same substance of which our souls are, and flesh similar to ours, and of the same substance of which our flesh is, God the Word, taking it up, was also a perfect man, yet without any stain of sin; because he himself committed no sin, but was made sin for us; that we might be the righteousness of God in him. Therefore his flesh and soul are of the same substance as our soul and flesh.

77. Guarding Against a Fourth Uncreated Person

Nor do I fear that I may seem to introduce a tetrad, for we who assert this indeed worship the sole Trinity truly. For I do not divide Christ, when I distinguish the substance of his flesh and his divinity; but I proclaim one Christ with the Father and the Spirit of God, and I shall show that rather those who say the flesh of Christ is of one substance with his divinity introduce a tetrad. For that which is of the same substance is not thereby one, but is one thing; for indeed, confessing the Son to be of the same substance with the Father, in the treatment of the Nicene council, they believed not one person, but one divinity in the Father and the Son.

78. The Opponents' Own Introduction of a Fourth

Therefore when they say that the flesh was of the same substance of which the Son of God also was, they themselves fall into the absurdities of the vain assertion which they object to us, so as to divide Christ. And so they introduce a fourth uncreated thing, which we should worship, when only the divinity of the Trinity is uncreated.

79. Reopening the Question of the Unbegotten and Begotten

I had concluded the book: but it was a matter of religious duty, lest we should seem to have passed by something we were unable to resolve. For when certain persons had heard some time ago, us saying that the Son of God, who was begotten, could not be unequal to the Father who begot, although the one was begotten and the other begot, because generation is not a matter of power but of nature: against that question indeed they think their voice is closed off: but by a damnable evasion they shift their footing in the same place; so that they think a change of the question is made by a change of wording, saying: How can the unbegotten and the begotten be of one nature and substance?

80. The Absence of the Term Unbegotten in Scripture

Therefore, that I may answer, most clement Emperor, the question proposed to me through you; first of all, I find "unbegotten" nowhere in the divine Scriptures: I have not read it, I have not heard it. Of what sort of inconsistency, then, are men of this kind, that they say we usurp things which are not written; while we say the things that are written, and they themselves object that which is not written? Do they not oppose themselves, and detract from the authority of their own calumny?

81. Scripture's Witness to the Divine Substance

For they say that it is not written that there is a substance and nature of God; whereas indeed Scripture testifies that the Son of God the Father is the brightness of his glory and the character of his substance, and we have shown most fully in another book that many others also spoke of the divine substance.

82. Partakers of the Divine Nature

Who also would deny the divine nature; when the apostle Peter wrote in his epistle that the mercy of the Lord worked this through the suffering of the cross, that he might make us, he says, partakers of the divine nature? But also elsewhere Paul wrote: But then indeed, not knowing God, you served those who by nature are not gods. So we find it also in the Greek codices, whose authority is greater.

83. The Consequence of Denying a Divine Nature

What then do those achieve who deny that there is a divine nature, except that they now slander not only the Son but also the Father? For if it is denied that God is by nature, then he is by grace, as men are: or else he is falsely believed, as demons are, whose images are given the name "God." But let us follow the apostolic authority, so that we say that in idols there is no divine nature. If therefore it is not in idols, it is not in demons: it remains that in God is the divine nature and substance.

84. The Oneness of Nature in Father, Son, and Spirit

We have taught, therefore, by apostolic authority, that it is rightly said of God the Father that he is God by nature; let them now accept that the same nature which is the Father's is also the Son's, and the same is the Holy Spirit's; lest perchance they say likewise: We read indeed that the nature is divine, but we have not read of a unity of the divine nature. But since the Son himself said: I and the Father are one; he proved the unity of divinity. When he said: All things which the Father has are mine; and below: Father, all my things are yours, and yours mine; he asserted unity. When he said: The Father who abides in me, he himself does the works which I do; he declared unity most clearly.

85. Peter on the One Divine Nature

Then Peter shows that there is one divine nature: That he might make us, he says, partakers of the divine nature. For he could have said otherwise, if he had thought otherwise; he could, I say, have said: That he might make us partakers of divine natures; especially since through the Son we pass into partnership of the divine nature. Can he give what he does not have? Therefore there is no doubt that he gives from what he has; and therefore he who gives partnership of the divine nature, has the divine nature.

86. Paul on the Unity of Divine Nature

The apostle Paul also, saying: Those who by nature are not gods; shows that there is one nature of the true God. For he too could have said: Those who by natures are not gods, if he knew that there was a plurality of divine nature, so that there was one nature in the Father, another in the Son, another in the Holy Spirit. By saying therefore: They are not gods by nature; he expressed the unity of the divine nature.

87. The True God by Nature, Not Adoption

But what is it to be God by nature, except to be the true God? As he said to the Thessalonians: How you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God? For those are only feigned to be gods, but by nature God is living and true. For even in our own usage there is an adopted son, and a true son. We do not say that an adopted son is a son by nature: but we say that he is by nature who is a true son.

88. Nature and Substance Proven One and Divine

Therefore we have proved by reading that both nature and substance are divine: apostolic authority has also demonstrated that there is unity, not plurality, of the divine nature.

89. Dialecticians Contend with Words, Not Truth

Now let them assert where they have read of an "unbegotten" Father. But if, in the manner of dialecticians, they ask that this be conceded to them, that they may use as read what has not been read, they betray that they are carried along by zeal for contention, not seeking knowledge of the truth. For even in dialectic itself, if what they ask to be conceded to them is not conceded—by which they desire to find an approach to contention—they cannot find a starting point for disputing. And this occurs where the contention is more about the subtleties of disputation than about the examination of truth. For this is the glory of dialecticians, if they seem to overcome and refute truth with words: and on the contrary it is the definition of faith, that truth, not words, should be weighed. Finally, the simple truth of the fishermen excludes the words of the philosophers.

90. The Challenge to Cite Unbegotten in Scripture

What then is this assertion, where, if I do not grant them the word "unbegotten," they cannot find the starting-point of their assertion? Let them show where they have read it.

91. Arius as the Source of Unbegotten

It had slipped my mind: now I recall it. It is written, they say; for Arius said that the Father is unbegotten, and the Son begotten and created. Behold on whose authority they contend against the apostolic writings: let them contend, nonetheless, if only they will confess themselves to be disciples of Arius. For how do they deny the master whose invention they follow?

92. What Is Written and What Is Not

But if they say this, which Arius said: more justly ought I to say what the Apostle said. For he said "Father," he did not name him "unbegotten"; he said "Son," and he said "begotten Son." What I have read, I do not deny; rather I gladly use it: what I have not read, I ought not to use. Yet let them use, what we would not do in dialectic; unless perhaps they say that because we do not read "begotten" of the Father as of the Son, we ought therefore to reckon him "unbegotten."

93. The Holy Spirit Also Unbegotten by This Logic

This is understood, therefore it is not read. But if it is understood, then I have also not read "begotten" of the Holy Spirit: therefore the Spirit too, because he is not begotten, must according to your judgment be named "unbegotten." If therefore you say that "unbegotten" and "begotten" cannot be of one substance, it remains that concerning the Father and the Holy Spirit—since we read "begotten" neither of the Father nor of the Holy Spirit—you should not deny the unity of divine nature and substance. For if the whole force of your disputation lies in this, that the unbegotten and the begotten cannot be of one nature: then he who is not begotten, together with him who likewise is not begotten, is of one nature and substance. And if you think the Father greater for this reason, that he is not begotten, is then the Holy Spirit also greater than the Son?

94. The World Too Is Called Unbegotten

Many and countless examples can be adduced, whereby that which is not begotten is called "unbegotten." For many have said that the world itself is unbegotten, and have recorded that the matter of all things, which the Greeks call hylē, as it were material substance, is unbegotten. They see, then, that in this word there can be no special prerogative of power, unless perhaps they think they honor God by this very word by which the philosophers thought the world ought to be endowed. Is the Father then "unbegotten" in the same way as the world? Far from it. Or does this word alone befit God, when God is beyond the reach of all words? Nothing, then, is precious to God in that word which can be common with others.

95. Unbegotten, Unmade, and the Question of Nature

Yet still, as you wish it, let the prerogative of this word be inestimable, which is not designated by any authority, but is reckoned by your own judgment. What good, then, does it do, that you wish from a word to make a distance of nature, a distance of power, between the Father and the Son? Unbegotten, he says, and begotten cannot be of one nature and substance; or, as they sometimes say, unmade and made are not of one nature. For they do not make a distinction between unbegotten and unmade, nor do they wish there to be a distance between begotten or created, provided only they may call the Son a creature.

96. The Father Without Cause or Source

They say, then, that the Father, surpassing every cause, that is aitia, as the Greeks say, since he was not created from another, is not a son; since he is indeed a substance having no source or cause elsewhere from which he is: and therefore, they say, no other such substance can exist, since all things have from God the Father the cause of their subsisting. Whence they say it is not probable that the Son, because he is from the Father, and does not have from himself the cause of his being, but from the Father, should be similar to the Father: since the Father has no cause from another, while the Son, as they themselves allege, could not have existed, unless he had received this very thing—that he should exist—from the Father.

97. Begotten Signifies Generation, Not Nature

And therefore they say that the unbegotten and the begotten are dissimilar; as though, indeed—what I have often said elsewhere—generation belonged to power, not to nature. For when I say "begotten," I have expressed not a property of nature, but a signification of generation; and I will prove this by clearer examples. For if I say "son" generally, without adding whose, it can be understood as both son of man, and son of iniquity, and son of pestilence, and son of the devil, as Scripture testifies concerning the Jews: and, as is in common usage, both the offspring of a beast and the young of doves. And therefore in the appellation of "sons" there is no expression signifying nature. But if I wish to designate nature, I will either name "man," or call it "horse," or say "bird," so that nature may be understood.

98. Father and Son as Names of Relation

So then, if I wish to designate the divine nature, I ought to name "true God." But when I say "Son," I signify one begotten: when I also say "Father," I declare one who has begotten. Do not, therefore, make from this a distinction of nature, since this is the signifying term of one begetting and one begotten: but such signifying terms express the quality of substance; for there are many, as I said, sons, but there is a diversity of sons: one by nature, another by grace.

99. One Nature Despite Diverse Origins

There are many creatures, invisible and visible: invisible, such as Principalities and Powers, Thrones and Dominions: visible, such as sun, moon, stars, man, earth. Therefore there are diverse species, and diverse substances of creatures. And so if you wish to express the property of some creature, you will name either the sun, or the moon, or the stars: and thus is understood what it is that you thought should be signified.

100. But if you should say "made" or "created," which they sometimes say of the Son; since many things are made and created, you would seem to have signified not a property of substance, but a kind of quality. For substance is one thing, quality another. Finally, we have said elsewhere also that the Latins interpreted ousia in such a way that they called it "substance." But when the ousia of God is spoken of, what else is signified, except that God always is?

Which the very letters express, since the divine power, being ousa aei, that is, since it always is, is called ousia, one letter's order being changed for the sake of sound and brevity and elegance of speech. Therefore ousia signifies that God always is: but the appellation "unbegotten," as you wish it, or "begotten," declares how he is—that is, that the Father is not from another, nor the Son from himself. Here the species seems to be diverse. The species is indeed distinct, but the divinity is undivided.

101. You ask how this can be proved? Even in created things I will show diverse species, diverse beginnings in many cases, and yet one substance, and I will bring forward examples from the Scriptures. And so if this can hold true in things that are mortal, how can they impose upon the divinity of Father, Son, and Spirit the law of a certain necessity?

102. All flying creatures indeed that seem to be of the same kind are also assuredly of the same nature, as there is one kind and one nature of eagles, likewise of vultures, and of the other flying creatures according to their kind. But as to how flying creatures began to exist, we find three species, and we read that the causes of their origin are diverse. For it is written that God said: "Let the waters bring forth the creeping things having life, and the fowls that may fly". And a little after, when God had made paradise, and had placed man in it, it is written that God formed out of the earth the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air. Here, then, fowls are signified as formed out of the earth. Above too you have read that God said to the birds: "Increase and multiply"; doubtless enjoining an increase of generation from the union of male and female.

And so we observe that even things of one kind began to exist in a different manner: some from the waters, some from the earth, some from the generation of male and female; and yet these are of one nature, and have no dissimilarity of substance.

103. What indeed is so much of one nature as our flesh with the truth of the Lord's body? Yet each was brought about by diverse causes, arose from diverse beginnings. For the flesh of the Lord, begotten by the Spirit coming upon the Virgin, did not await the customary intercourse of male and female union: but our flesh, unless the genital organs of male and female sex sow the seeds in the natural furrows, does not know how to be formed within the maternal womb; and yet, though the cause of generation was diverse, the nature of the flesh in Christ is nevertheless one with that of all men.

104. For the Virgin's childbearing did not change nature, but renewed the manner of generation. Finally, flesh was born of flesh.

The Virgin, therefore, had of her own what she could give; for the mother gave nothing foreign, but conferred her own from her own womb, in an unaccustomed manner, but by an accustomed office. The Virgin, then, had flesh, which by the ordinary law of nature she transcribed into the fetus. The same, therefore, according to the flesh is the nature of Mary who bore and of him who was born, nor is he unlike his brethren; because Scripture says, that he might in all things be made like unto his brethren. The Son of God is indeed like unto us, not according to the fullness of divinity, but according to the truth of a rational soul, and, to speak more precisely, of a human and of our own body.

105. What shall we say of Adam himself, who, though formed from the slime of the earth, nevertheless begot sons partaking of his nature, sharers of his kind, heirs of the succession?

There were indeed diverse origins in the sons and the parent, but one nature of the human condition; nor did the dissimilarity of origin prejudice the likeness of substance. The son is therefore like the father even in those things which, on account of the frailty of the human condition, could not have the fullness of likeness: how then could the true Son of God the Father be unlike him?

But many, following the same sect, think themselves at variance in kind of argument with those who say the Son is unlike the Father in all things. Let us therefore discuss also the absurdities of these who say the Son is like, but not of one substance with the Father.

107. But things that are not of one nature are surely diverse and distant; and things of a distant nature, it follows, cannot be alike; unless perhaps you should say they are alike in appearance, unlike in truth. For milk and snow and the whiteness of a swan have the same-colored appearance, but preserve the discrepancy of a distant nature; nor is the difference of natures colored over by likeness of appearance.

108. How then do these men say the Father and the Son are alike, who deny unity of substance? Do they think them alike in form and figure and color? But these belong to the body, these indicate a certain composition. How, then, do we fit likeness according to color or form to what is invisible?

Or how can a creature be like the uncreated? How is he "the brightness of glory, and the express image of his substance", if, as they say, diverse glory means diverse substance?

109. According to glory, they say, and operation he is alike, and therefore the Son is called the image of God. Therefore if he is alike in some respects, not in all, he is alike in part, unlike in part. But it follows from this proposition that if he is alike only in part, not wholly, he is in part a composite image of God; and hence it follows that he himself also seems composite, whose image is composite. But if the composite preserves likeness only in part, its image cannot be alike in part.

110. But those who deny likeness according to unity of nature think him alike as others are. For they are wont to say: Why do you think that Scripture attributed much to the Son, because it called him "image"; when God himself said to men: "Be ye holy, because I also am holy"?

And the Son said: "Be ye perfect, as also your Father who is in heaven is perfect"? And they do not understand that this very thing proves: that the Son is like the Father not in part, but according to the fullness and perfection of divinity. Finally, if many are alike, why is the Son alone called the image of the invisible God, and the express image of his substance; unless because in him there is unity of the same nature, and the expression of his majesty?

111. For there is one likeness according to imitation, another according to nature: which the very words of the examples set forth also indicate; for Scripture says: "Be ye holy," that they may become so through imitation. To men, then, it is said: "Be," because they are not; but of himself God says, "I am holy," not indeed by any advancing process, but by an abiding nature. Then Wisdom says: "Be ye perfect," that they may begin to have what they do not have.

But of the Father he says: "As your Father who is in heaven is perfect." The Father, therefore, is perfect, who always is. Therefore his substance is called, in Greek, ousia, because he always is; or in Latin, substantia, because he abides in himself, and does not subsist by another's support.

112. Holy therefore is the Father, and perfect the Father; holy also and perfect the Son, as the image of God. And it is the image of God, because all things that are God's are seen in the Son, that is, everlasting divinity, omnipotence, and majesty. Such then as God is, His own attributes are seen in His image. Whence you must believe the image to be such as God is. For if you should take anything away from the image, it will certainly seem to have been taken away also from Him whose image it is: if you should believe the image to be lesser, God will appear lesser in the image.

For of whatever quality you shall have judged the image to be, of such quality will He seem to you, whose invisible image it is. The image has said: He who sees me, sees also the Father. And of whatever quality you shall have judged Him to be, whose image you believe the Son to be, of that same quality must the Son necessarily be judged by you. Whence, because the Father is uncreated, the Son also is uncreated; because the Father is not lesser, the Son is not lesser; because the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent.

113. It has been said, therefore, that even though they should presume to say "unbegotten," a word which they do not read in Scripture, nevertheless by that word nothing is hindered from our believing that Christ is of one nature and substance with the Father. But if of one nature, then certainly of one power.

114. And indeed this point is not more difficult for refuting the efforts of the faithless.

For how do they, who wish to presume upon what they do not show to be written, deny that Christ is omnipotent, on the ground that it is not so written? For we have shown above that Christ is omnipotent, and this is signified both in the Apocalypse of John the Evangelist, and in the prophecy of Zechariah, and in the Gospel. If anyone thinks these should be reviewed, let him turn back and repeat the earlier passages.

115. Yet what I there almost passed over on account of the heaping-up of testimonies, let them say of whom they think it was spoken, what Amos prophesied; for thus it is written: The Lord who touches the earth, and it trembles, and all who dwell in it shall mourn. And it shall rise like the river of Egypt, for He builds His ascent above the heaven, and confirms His promise upon the earth: who calls the water of the sea, and pours it out upon the face of the earth, the Lord Almighty is His name.

Do they not understand all these things to apply to the Son, who, descending, touched the earth, in His passion caused it to tremble, ascended from the earth into heaven, and descended from heaven upon the earth, as He Himself had promised?

116. But why do I labor over the Son, when Scripture also testifies that the Spirit is omnipotent? For it is written: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of His mouth all their power. And of Wisdom it is written that she has in herself the omnipotent Spirit; for Solomon says: For Wisdom, the artificer of all things, taught me (Wisdom 7:12). For in her is the spirit of understanding, holy, unique, manifold, subtle, easily moving, eloquent, undefiled, clear, inviolable, loving the good, keen, provident, unhindered, beneficent, kindly, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing all things, and penetrating through all intelligible spirits.