Theological Oration 3: On the Son 18–21

Now list for me, against these, the words of your ingratitude: “my God and your God,” “greater,” “created,” “made,” “sanctified”; and, if you like, “servant” and “obedient”; “gave,” “learned,” “was commanded,” “was sent,” “cannot do anything of himself,” or speak, or judge, or give, or will. Add these too: his ignorance, subjection, prayer, questioning, progress, being made perfect. Add, if you like, things lower still: sleeping, hungering, toiling, weeping, being in agony, shrinking back. Perhaps you would reproach him with the cross and death as well; you will pass over the resurrection and ascension, I think, since there is something for our side in them. You could pick up many more scraps besides, if you wanted to compose your God, a god in name only and falsely enrolled, but for us a true God, equal in honour. It would not be hard to go through each of these one by one and explain them to you in the most reverent sense, and to clear away the stumbling block in the texts, if you really stumble and are not deliberately malicious. But in one summary: apply the loftier expressions to the Godhead, to the nature that is above passions and body; and the lowlier ones to the compound, to the one who for your sake was emptied and became flesh, and, it is no worse to say, became man, and was then exalted; so that you may put an end to the fleshly and earthbound character of your doctrines, learn to be loftier, rise with the Godhead, and not remain among visible things but be lifted up with the things of the mind, and recognize which is the language of nature and which the language of the economy.

For he whom you now despise was once above you. He who is now man was once uncompounded. What he was, he remained; what he was not, he assumed. In the beginning he was, without cause (for what is the cause of God?); but later he came to be for a cause, and the cause was that you, the insolent, might be saved, you who despise the Godhead because it accepted your grossness. Through the mediation of the mind he had converse with flesh, and God on earth became man, since it was blended with God and became one, the higher prevailing, so that I might become God as much as he became man. He was born, but he had also been begotten; from a woman, but also a virgin. The one is human, the other divine. Here without a father, there without a mother; all this belongs to the Godhead. He was carried in the womb, but he was recognized by a prophet who was himself still in the womb, and who leapt before the Word for whose sake he came into being. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes, but he unwrapped the grave clothes when he rose. He was laid in a manger, but he was glorified by angels, made known by a star, and worshipped by magi. How can you stumble at what is seen, without regarding what is understood? He was driven into exile in Egypt, but he drives out the idols of the Egyptians. He had no form or beauty among the Jews, but to David he was fairer than the sons of men; and on the mountain he flashes like lightning and becomes brighter than the sun, initiating us into what is to come.

He was baptized as man, but he released sins as God; he did not need purification himself, but he came to sanctify the waters. He was tempted as man, but he conquered as God, and he bids us take courage, since he has conquered the world. He hungered, but he fed thousands, and he is the living and heavenly bread. He thirsted, but he cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink,” and he promised that believers would become springs. He grew weary, but he is the rest of the weary and heavily burdened. He was heavy with sleep, but he walks lightly on the sea, rebukes the winds, and lightens Peter as he sinks. He pays tax, but from a fish, and he is king of those who demand it. He hears himself called a Samaritan and demon-possessed, but he saves the man who went down from Jerusalem and fell among robbers; he is recognized by demons, drives out demons, drowns a legion of spirits, and sees the prince of demons fall like lightning. He is stoned, but not caught. He prays, but he hears prayer. He weeps, but he puts an end to weeping. He asks where Lazarus is, for he was man; but he raises him, for he was God. He is sold, and very cheaply, for thirty pieces of silver; but he redeems the world, and at a great price, his own blood. As a sheep he is led to the slaughter, but he shepherds Israel, and now the whole world. As a lamb he is dumb, but he is the Word, proclaimed by the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He is weakened and wounded, but he heals every disease and every weakness. He is lifted up on the tree and nailed to it, but by the tree of life he restores us; he saves even the robber crucified with him, and darkens all that is seen. He is given vinegar to drink and gall to eat; who is he? He who turned water into wine, who destroyed the bitter taste, who is sweetness and altogether desirable. He gives up his life, but he has power to take it again; the veil is torn, for the things above are revealed; the rocks are split; the dead rise first. He dies, but he gives life, and by death he destroys death. He is buried, but he rises. He goes down to Hades, but he brings up souls; he goes up to heaven, and he will come to judge the living and the dead and to test such arguments as yours. If the first set of things gives you a starting point for error, the second dissolves your error.

This is our reply to the riddle-mongers. We give it unwillingly, for idle talk and contradiction of words are not pleasant to the faithful (one adversary is enough), but necessarily, because of those who attack us, just as medicines exist because of diseases; so that they may know that they are not wise in everything, nor invincible in their superfluities that empty the gospel. For when we put forward the power of argument and abandon faith, and dissolve the trustworthiness of the Spirit by our inquiries, and then argument is overcome by the greatness of the realities (and it will certainly be overcome, since it starts from the weak instrument of our mind), what happens? The weakness of the argument appears to be the weakness of the mystery; and so cleverness of argument shows itself to be an emptying of the cross, as Paul too thinks. For faith is the fulfilment of our reasoning. May he who declares knots and loosens what is bound, who has put it into our mind to untie the strangling cords of violent doctrines, above all change these men too and make them believers instead of technicians, and Christians instead of what they are now called. This is what we urge: “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God,” and “Do not quench the Spirit”; or rather, may Christ be reconciled to you, and may the Spirit shine forth, late though it be. But if you are too contentious, may we at least keep the Trinity safe for ourselves and be kept safe by the Trinity, remaining sincere and without offence until the more perfect revelation of what we long for, in Christ our Lord himself, to whom be glory for ever. Amen.