Refutations of Certain Propositions 17

Against those who do away with the difference of the natures after the passion and the ascension. Great and ageless is the power of the truth: often attacked by many, it shows by its very works that it is unconquered in the end. For see, many of those armed against it, having shot many arrows of false doctrine and knowing that these were driven back by the firm weapon of proof and returned empty and ineffective upon themselves, have last of all shot an arrow that can be broken by plainer refutations. "Even if one grants," he says, "that there came about a coming together of two natures in Christ, yet after the passion and the ascension we shall no longer think of two, nor believe that there is any difference by nature between the Word and the flesh." What do you say? What do you declare? Is the difference of the natures gone, and no mark of them remains? What, then, shall we call what is before us? The Word alone (for you would not say flesh, thinking you honor him in this)? And how do you not insult him, thinking his substance to be such that another, created substance can change into it? For what can be contained by lesser things is common to many, not peculiar to one. But to that whose sole property is to be inaccessible, how can another inaccessible thing be added? And you not only insult the Word, but also make the hypostasis of the flesh vanish. For of that of which no mark is left any longer, in what way shall we understand the glory? If it is known in being, it is rightly glorified; but if it does not have being, how does it reap the greatness of glory? Unless you show what is honored, you do not declare the surpassing greatness of the glory. One must therefore confess the unconfused union of the two, neither to the change of the one who took nor to the vanishing of what was taken, but to a communion of glory proclaimed in one person. For even if you persist in naming both together "the Word alone," though nature resists, not even so will you hide the difference: since the one was from the beginning and the other came to be later; and the one is invisible and intangible from infinity to infinity, while the other passed from visible and tangible to invisible and impalpable; and the one is unalterable once for all, while the other came through alteration to a better lot. Then, if what remains is the Word alone, why was it not said, "The flesh became Word," but "The Word became flesh"? And who is so mad and crazed as to dare to say that the divine substance took on the substance of another Godhead, arising from another nature, so as to make one think of an increase, through such an addition, of what is by nature without need and perfect? And how do the divine words, even after the strange ascent, still proclaim the distinctive things of the flesh, the coming again, the being seen in the same manner? Or will you legislate against the angels too, who said plainly, "This Jesus, who was taken up from you, will come in the same way as you saw him going into heaven"? All of this points to the flesh, seen now here, now there: "as you saw him," that is, with the eyes of the flesh. He who does not accept this so fights not only against the angels, but also stands against the sacred words of the Holy Spirit. How does the Master Christ intercede for us? As the Word alone? And where then is his equal honor and dignity with the Father, if he intercedes as one lower, and does not act with authority, having equal almightiness? … plainly it belongs to the firstfruits to intercede for its own lump, so that he may show how great is his relation to the nature of the flesh. And whom does the most clear proclamation of the all-wise Paul not put to shame: "God, overlooking the times of ignorance, commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, having given assurance to all by raising him from the dead"? Has the difference been done away with? Did he not say God in a man? Did he not show God who raises and the man who rose? But though he showed the difference, he did not omit the inseparability. For he did not say God with a man, but God in a man. And how shall we understand, "They will look on him whom they pierced," unless the nature of the flesh that received the nails itself clearly shows the marks? For it was not the invisible and intangible substance of the Godhead that was going to bear traces for the conviction of many; but the nature taken from the passible race will convict the lawlessness of the impious, as they are forced to recognize in the wounded flesh their own outrages. So it has been shown that the properties of the natures differ, that the gain of the becoming man is beyond dispute, that the attempt of the opponents is shameless, and that the power of the truth is invincible.