Refutations of Certain Propositions 12–16

Against those who say: He is a Jew who does not confess that God was crucified. After so great a demonstration in all that went before, so varied and so plain, the opponents ought to have perceived the number of the refutations; but they did not hesitate to weave, in vain, other shameless objections. "He is a Jew," he says, "who does not confess that God himself was crucified." They have done well to remind us of the name owed to themselves. For they have drawn upon themselves kinship with those people, denying the saving becoming man and rejecting the coming together and union of the two natures. Who is the Jew: he who has received grace, or he who sits by the law according to the letter? Grace has taught us that the invisible God was manifested in visible flesh; they remained in the ancient tradition, which depicted the Godhead bare in various forms and shapes. How then do they call others Jews, when they themselves have shaken off the riches of the New Testament? Have they not heard that many prophets and righteous men longed to see what we see, and did not see it? What, then, did they not see? A sojourn of the Godhead? And how is it written: "God appeared to Abraham," he appeared to Isaac, he appeared to Jacob, he appeared to Moses, and to countless others? What then did they long for and not see? What we have been counted worthy to see: the ineffable and inseparable union of Godhead and manhood. Those, then, who confess the wonderful union of the Word and the flesh have obtained the strange spectacle; but those who set aside the assumption of the flesh are plainly convicted of having their portion with the Jews of old, who were not counted worthy to see with their sight what we have seen. For it belongs to Jews not to accept the Savior's dispensation in the flesh. To these those join themselves who reject the twofoldness of the natures; or rather they become liable to greater charges. For those did not know that he who worked so many wonders with the flesh was God; these, while professing to confess it, have declared things unworthy of the Godhead, contending to carry all the sufferings of the flesh that was taken up onto God the Word himself. But perhaps they will say (for they have learned to fight recklessly against what is plain): "We do not call the divine passible." How do you not say it, when you construct the argument with art? "He suffered," he says, "as he willed; yet we do not call him passible." Why do you pretend to spare the name, while daring the thing? If you accuse those who say that the divine did not suffer, how do you not confess that you call it passible? If he who does not speak of the suffering of the divine nature is, according to you, a Jew, then he who does is a Christian. And how do you not make the Jew, who confesses the divine impassible, preferable to yourselves, who declare it passible? So that you must either be called Jews, if you bear witness to the impassibility, or be named Christians according to your own definition, if you legislate the passion. Make plain the opinion you hold. "For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation." If the Word did not suffer, then the flesh did. If the flesh did not suffer, then the Word did. If neither of these, then some third thing. If nothing at all, then the passion did not take place. If the passion took place with nothing suffering, it was a seeming; we are saved by a seeming. Then you have deserted to the Manichees. And how do you flee their name, whose heirs you appear to be of their unbearable false doctrine? So you will appear worse than the Jews and not far from the Manichees. And why do we speak of Jews and Manichees? You have shown yourselves more daring than the very inventor of all evils, who sowed these tares among you, the devil, who envies all good things. When he saw the divine glory of the Savior at the Jordan, though stung by envy, he did not dare to bring his temptation until he saw hunger take hold of him, the mark of human need. He knew that impassibility and freedom from temptation are proper to the Godhead; but you declare hunger and thirst and all such things to belong to the Godhead itself, and plainly attach the passion of the cross to the Godhead itself. He, for the excess of his wickedness, was called a murderer of men from the beginning; but you, for the excess of your madness concerning God, call the Jews murderers of God; and you are not ashamed to assign to the Jews, the disciples, greater power than to the teacher of such things; and, according to the written charge, "knowing God, you do not glorify him as God." For you construct him as passible.

Against those who say that the angels too, eating at Abraham's, did not at all bear the nature of flesh. Having become fathers of many wicked devices, those who have contended to move the eternal boundaries of the lawful fathers were not content with their own offspring; but, wickedly stealing also the ill-born abortions of the ancient enemies of the apostolic church, they put them forward as a noble and perfect birth of doctrines, and through them brandish at us the teachings of the Manichees, telling marvels that the angels at Abraham's partook of food in their own nature, and declaring that the Godhead of the Master Christ in the same way took food and drink without flesh; although holy Scripture plainly shows that this happened not in nature, but in appearance only. For if what happened were by nature, those three ought either to be named men or to be called angels (for the difference between the two kinds is great): as men, showing nothing angelic by nature; as angels, appearing in no bodily member, being spirits. How then do they give them food by nature, as to men? Then they are falsely called angels. Or as to angels? And what share have spirits in perceptible food? Or perhaps they tell the fable that the angels too became men and enjoyed bodily foods with bodily organs? But if they change their ground and say that the feast was one of display, not of nature, they will surely either abandon the example as unsuitable, or be found introducing appearance instead of truth in the case of the Savior. How then do they dare to drag in the unlike as like? What has the story of the angels in shapes in common with this great dispensation? Did they appear? When, or where? Or of whom were they born, as the Master Christ was? Were they subjected to touch in the same way? Did they receive circumcision? Did they show progress or growth? Did they fast and afterward hunger? Did they grow weary from a journey and thirst? Did they know sleep as their own? Did they experience scourges? Did they taste death in like manner? Were they handed over to burial? Did they leave garments divided among many, teaching by experience that nothing is to be understood as seeming, but everything according to reality and truth? For if Christ had a body in seeming, as the angels had the form of men in seeming, then the Lord's garments too ought not to have appeared or been subjected to touch, as happened with the bodiless angels. How then do they shamelessly bring that which is in no way like to the matter before us, and try to join things that differ in so many ways? Let us consider side by side their arguments and ours. We say that the Lord truly ate according to the flesh, since this belongs to all flesh; they say that the angels ate, since the nature of angels then admitted such a thing. We have experience as witness; they lack other words and deeds to bear witness for them. We present hunger and thirst to them from the holy Scriptures; they will not be able to show either of these in the angels. We point to members according to the formation of every man; they to the nature of angels, which no one has dared to declare has members. And if there are no members, what receives the food? What makes it fine? What digests it? What holds it? What works the digestion? What follows, which I shall honor with silence? As, then, the angels, appearing as men, were not men by nature, so neither, though thought to eat, did they eat by nature; but they honored the hospitable character of Abraham by the form of sharing, showing his virtue worthy of imitation.

Against those who make each miracle small by denying the flesh. But neither have those who have broken themselves off to the opposite side from the choir of the orthodox left the Lord's miracles free and untroubled by their designs; tearing them down and diminishing them, they did not know their greatness, by denying the assumption of the flesh and ascribing these things to the bare Godhead. And let us consider in the facts themselves how from beginning to end they are shown great by the assumption of the flesh, but are found less if it is set aside. The birth from a virgin is the great and glorious prelude of the dispensation. If what was born took nothing from the holy Virgin, who would have wondered at what happened? One could not truly call her mother, knowing that nothing of hers was consubstantial with what came forth; nor judge it wonderful that she became a mother and remained a virgin, if indeed the Word granted us his presence without a perceptible body. Again, a swift advance in stature and wisdom and grace is spoken of. If you take away the flesh, who will accept, as praise of the Godhead, a growth and improvement of what is perfect from eternity, needing nothing more and unable to lose or take anything from outside? The flesh, then, makes the advance praiseworthy through its union with the Word. And we know the greatest witness that he did not commit sin from this: that there was true flesh in him and yet no trace of sin is seen. Whereas if sinlessness were now said of the Godhead alone, the hearers would rather laugh than wonder, since not only is the Godhead by nature always above all blame, but even tens of thousands of angels have kept themselves from sinning. But it is said for this reason: that the spotless flesh, taken from a sinful race, alone and first remained sinless by its union with God the Word. Hence the wrestling with the devil, too, and the victory over him become wonderful, because he who underwent the temptation, having the firstfruits of the flesh that had been defeated, made it victorious over its former conqueror, and gave nature the mastery over him who once mastered it by deceit. For this reason too he stripped off the holds brought against him by recalling the holy Scriptures, repelling the adversary not by the authority of the Godhead, but, as befits manhood, setting the light of the Scriptures against everything. But if God the Word by himself were declared sinless and unconquered, who would have been astonished at what is said? It is nothing strange that God does not sin nor is conquered by his own creature. When did he sin or was he conquered, that we should now receive what is said as wonderful? But it is strange that human nature should plainly display what is above nature. Since walking on the back of the sea fearlessly and without danger is easy for the Godhead, and even for angels, and no one would be astonished at seeing it; but for mere manhood it is altogether impossible. And he rightly shudders who sees feet of flesh making such a journey and considers the united power of the Word. But if anyone, setting the flesh aside, should say that the Word alone was seen on the waves, he has removed the weight of the miracle and borne witness to nothing great in the deed. For it is truly great and surpassing every mind, not when a light and weightless spirit is raised up on the waters, but when a dense and heavy body is carried upright above by a soft and easily yielding nature. To make this credible to all, the Lord at once let Peter too walk on the sea, until he took on the tossing of little faith. Peter's walking so showed the undoubted journey of the Master's flesh; his being no longer borne up when he doubted showed the immeasurable difference between them. Everywhere, then, the union of the flesh with the Word is shown to increase the glory of what happened. And in short, not even the trophy over death would be brilliant, unless human nature had plainly become stronger than the tyranny below by the power of the inseparably united Godhead; since that God, who can never be held, was not held is among the things probable and customary; but that flesh was not held, this is the first, this is strange. This too makes the Lord's entry through closed doors awe-inspiring, that the denseness of the flesh present with him was no hindrance, since what worked the wonder was greater than what hindered. But he who says that the thing happened without a human body makes it common to angels, to the souls of men, and to the hostile spirits, for whom, because of the fineness of their substance, such passage is unhindered. In addition, the Master's ascension into heaven gives us the same understanding: that we may know the life of God the Word in the heavens to be eternal, inseparable, uncircumscribed; but the strange assumption of the united flesh to have been newly made then, as it was moved where it had not been before, since it did not have by nature the right to be counted worthy of such things. [14] Against those who harm our race by not saying that the Savior took the firstfruits from our nature. All wickedness is a thing to be fled, hateful to God and hostile to men; but to begrudge some their own salvation and glory surpasses every excess of wickedness. This is what those now do who dare to say that the firstfruits were not taken by the Savior from our nature. And they transgress in many ways: fighting against the witness of the holy Scriptures, or rather the legislation of the Holy Spirit; daring to overshadow the Master's love for humankind; casting out the common benefit of human beings; and moreover declaring the great dispensation of the becoming man useless. He did not take flesh from our nature? How then did he dwell among us? How did he take hold of the seed of Abraham? How is it said, "From whom is Christ according to the flesh"? The prophets' predictions are false; God's promises to David are false: "Of the fruit of your loins I will set upon your throne"; falsely does the Lord name the faithful brothers; falsely did Paul say, "For we too are his offspring." Who would not be ashamed to overlook shamelessly so great a multitude of witnesses, to innovate absurdity of doctrines, to rob the Master of thanksgiving for these things, and to harm our whole race in them? The flesh that was taken is not from us? Then what hope of salvation do we have? The law is still unfulfilled for us; the charges of transgression still remain; the weight of the curse; the power of death; the condemnation of the race. If he who fulfilled the law had nothing from human substance, nature is still liable to the accusations. Perhaps those of our race will even bring a suit directly against the lawgiver, as having legislated superfluous and useless things for men, since no one could fulfil them. So the setting aside of the flesh becomes the ground of every blasphemy. It is necessary, then, necessary to believe the holy Scriptures, to confess the firstfruits from us, to glorify the love for humankind of him who took it, to be astonished at the wonder of the great dispensation, not to fear the curse of the law ("for Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law"), to reckon the fulfilment of the law, which came about through the firstfruits, to the whole lump, and to know what is fitting and consistent: that if God bare had fulfilled the law, which it is not even fitting to say, no other substance could share in the achievement; but since flesh from us is known in him who fulfilled the law, the boast of our race shines out, so that it fearlessly tramples the sting of death, which no longer has room against the nature whose firstfruits went first and trampled and blunted it, and gave all who believe the right to say: "Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O Hades, is your victory?" And again: "As through one man came death, so also through one man the resurrection of the dead." He says "through a man," not "from a man." For what was impossible to come about from a man came about easily through the man joined to God. So we reap the gift of the resurrection; so we receive the adoption; so we are called brothers of the Lord; so we become fellow heirs; so we have conquered the enemy in the firstfruits; so we receive confidence from it; so we make the trophy over the devil our own, brandishing at them the divine prowess of the flesh taken from us; so all of us who truly believe await being conformed to the body of his glory; so we find true the saying, "He raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places." For though we have not yet risen in our individual hypostasis, nor come to be in the heavenly places, through our kinship with him who ascended and descended we hold secure pledges in the hope of such things. How worthy of hatred, then, are those who strive by their own false doctrine to begrudge us such great goods, preventing our race from taking pride, separating the flesh which the Word wonderfully yoked to himself, opposing Paul when he cries, "What God has joined together, let man not separate," and hiring out their tongue to the devil to hide what was done against him! For nothing is so heavy and unbearable to him as to see the nature he led astray assumed in its firstfruits by the King of heaven, living nobly and beyond praise, becoming stronger than death, destroying his tyranny, taken up into heaven, counted worthy of the glorious seat, and known to all creation as one with him who assumed it, by the highest conjunction, by the undivided communion of glory, of a dignity beyond all words.

Against those who order us simply to believe what is said, and not to consider what is fitting or unfitting. Many terrible doctrines exist which the demon who hates the good has brought into human life, for the dangerous deception of those who receive them; but I do not know whether he ever labored with any such thing in former times as now. For each of the heresies has become the mother of this or that error; but the one now devised after all the others has renewed them all, surpassed them all, and shown itself beyond every birth of evils. Truly "it travailed with injustice, conceived trouble, and brought forth lawlessness." It travailed with a purpose of impiety, conceived the purpose of mischief by which others were led astray, brought forth the varied evil of self-willed innovation; and it commands all to follow with great authority: "Accept simply what is said," it says, "and let no one examine what is fitting in it or what unfitting." And it calls faith an untested assent, to harm, to what is unstable and unproven. Shall I believe without reason, and not examine what is possible, or profitable, or fitting, or dear to God, or suited to nature, or in agreement with the truth, or consistent with the aim, or befitting the mystery, or worthy of godliness? And what gain shall I have? Or what benefit for a mind that reckons none of these things, but lets the hearing be struck by the sound of words while the soul receives no understanding of what is said? This, among all those estranged from the truth, becomes the cause of error and of all evils. For which of the enemies of the catholic church does not demand that all he says be believed without judgment? Whether you name a Greek, or a Manichee, or an heir of Arius or of Apollinaris or of any other such, does he not decline examination in order to escape refutation? Does he not belch out some things from his own store, and cut other things out of the divine harmony of the Scriptures and drag them to his own aim, and put forward constructions about which, as he wishes, he declares that no one should busy himself? Then, if we submit our hearing simply to all, and neither refute the absurdity which proclaims itself from what they say, nor demand the solution of the conflict of doctrines that appears through their bad interpretation, who will find the way of truth any longer? Who will not fall easily over the cliff of false doctrine, not considering the unfittingness of the innovation nor demanding what befits the truth? What shall I believe with the heart unto righteousness, what shall I speak with the mouth unto salvation, when they maliciously put forward, "The Father who sent me is greater than I"? Shall I accept it simply? Agree rashly? Declare boldly that the Son is less than the Father, and reckon nothing at all: neither that the word belongs to the dispensation, nor that the same one says, "I and the Father are one," and, "That they may honor the Son as they honor the Father," and, "He who has seen me has seen the Father," and countless other things which make known the equality and the equal honor in all things? If, then, one must look at none of the difficulties that arise, nor give the fitting account of the things that arise and seem contrary, how shall I show in agreement things that, at first sight, so disagree with one another? How will the same one appear both only-begotten and firstborn, when it is plain to all that the two do not agree with each other in the one seen in a single nature? For the only-begotten, having no brothers, as being only-begotten, cannot be called firstborn; for Paul said "firstborn among many brothers"; while the firstborn, having brothers, as is likely, is no longer called only-begotten. Again the same one is called both recent and eternal: "Jesus Christ, yesterday and today the same, and for ever." The one is set against the other. If recent, how eternal? If eternal, surely not recent. And "without father, without mother, without genealogy": how does it not plainly fight with the other texts, by which we learn that he has a Father in heaven and a mother on earth, and that his genealogy is clearly given by the glorious evangelists? If without father, how of a heavenly Father? If without mother, how from the Virgin mother? If without genealogy, how "the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ"? Since, then, there are so many, and many more, things that seem to disagree with one another in this way, what do they order us to accept untested, and what to reject? For it is not possible to follow all alike for those who do not find the fitting solution of the supposed disagreement. If "only-begotten" is true, "firstborn" is not so. If "firstborn" is without falsehood, "only-begotten" is contrary. If "yesterday and today" is confessed, "eternal" is gone. If "without father" stands, having a Father will be undone. If "without mother" is fixed, having a mother will be overturned. If "without genealogy" holds, how shall we attend to the genealogy? If what has no beginning of days nor end is certain, how shall we understand what declares the beginning of days and the end: "When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king," and was crucified under Pontius Pilate? See, both a beginning of days and an end of life. What then shall we do, if one of the unbelievers demands an account from us, accusing holy Scripture of saying contrary things? Shall we say, "Believe everything"? And who would not leap away and laugh, being in no way able to accept as credible things that fight with one another and receive no solution? For when two statements are contrary, one must be convicted of falsehood. What shall we say to this? Or shall we too, when asked to believe the unproven and incoherent doctrines of heretics or Greeks, agree according to such a proposition? Away with it! Our teachings are neither incoherent nor in conflict with one another, when understood as they were spoken by the saints. Some things were said with reference to the dispensation made known to us, others with reference to the incomprehensible substance of the Word, and all are found in agreement and consistent, taken of the same one according to the two natures: so that what is recent belongs to the flesh, what is eternal to God. To have no beginning of days is proper to the Word; to be born in the days of Herod belongs to the firstfruits. Being wholly without genealogy refers to the existence of the Son from the Father before the ages ("For who will declare his generation?"); but having a clear genealogy refers to the birth of the same one according to the flesh. So too he is only-begotten according to the substance of the Word, and firstborn according to the dispensation in the flesh. So we shall either persuade or conquer the enemy, show holy Scripture in agreement, proclaim the glory of the mystery lawfully, and store up the fitting full assurance in our souls, neither believing without reason nor speaking without faith.