Against Heresies 3.18.1–3.20.4

It has been clearly shown that the Word, who existed in the beginning with God, through whom all things were made, who was also always present with the human race, has in the last times, at the time fixed beforehand by the Father, been united to his own handiwork and become a man capable of suffering. Thereby every objection is excluded of those who say: “If he was born then, Christ did not exist before.” For we have shown that the Son of God did not begin then, since he exists always with the Father; but when he was made flesh and became man, he recapitulated in himself the long line of human beings, providing us with salvation in brief, so that what we had lost in Adam, namely to be according to the image and likeness of God, we might recover in Christ Jesus.

For since it was not possible for the man who had once been conquered and dashed down through disobedience to be refashioned and to obtain the prize of victory, and again it was impossible for one who had fallen under sin to receive salvation, the Son accomplished both: being the Word of God, he descended from the Father, was made flesh, descended even to death, and completed the dispensation of our salvation. Exhorting us to believe in him without doubting, [the apostle] again says: “Do not say in your heart, Who has ascended into heaven? that is, to bring Christ down; or, Who has descended into the abyss? that is, to free Christ from the dead.” Then he adds: “For if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” And he gave the reason why the Word of God did this, saying: “For to this end Christ both lived and died and rose again, that he might be Lord of the living and the dead.” And again, writing to the Corinthians, he says: “But we proclaim Christ Jesus crucified.” And he adds: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?”

But who is it that shared food with us? Is it the Christ above whom they fabricate, who stretched himself out over Horos, that is, the Limit, and formed their Mother? Or is it rather Emmanuel, who is from the virgin, who ate butter and honey, of whom the prophet says, “He is a man, and who shall know him?” He it was who was proclaimed by Paul: “For I delivered to you first of all,” he says, “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and rose the third day according to the Scriptures.” It is plain, therefore, that Paul knows no other Christ but this one alone, who suffered, was buried, and rose, who was also born, and whom he also called man. For when he had said, “But if Christ is proclaimed as risen from the dead,” he added, giving the reason for his incarnation: “For since by a man came death, by a man also the resurrection of the dead.” And everywhere, when speaking of our Lord’s passion, his humanity, and his death, he used the name of Christ, as in this: “Do not destroy by your food him for whom Christ died.” And again: “But now in Christ you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” And again: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” And again: “And through your knowledge the weak brother will perish, for whom Christ died.” He signifies that it was not an impassible Christ who descended into Jesus, but that he himself, being Jesus Christ, suffered for us: he who lay down and rose again, who descended and ascended, the Son of God become the son of man, as the very name signifies. For in the name of Christ is implied he who anointed, and he who was anointed, and the anointing itself with which he was anointed. The Father anointed, and the Son was anointed, in the Spirit, who is the anointing; as the word says through Isaiah, “The Spirit of God is upon me, because he has anointed me,” signifying the anointing Father, the anointed Son, and the anointing, which is the Spirit.

And the Lord himself makes plain who it was that suffered. For when he had asked the disciples, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” and Peter had answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and had been praised by him because flesh and blood had not revealed it to him but the Father who is in heaven, he made it plain that this Son of Man is the Christ, the Son of the living God. “From that time,” it says, “he began to show the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the priests, and be rejected, and be crucified, and rise again on the third day.” He who was acknowledged by Peter as Christ, who called Peter blessed because the Father had revealed to him the Son of the living God, said that he himself must suffer many things and be crucified. And then he rebuked Peter, who thought him to be the Christ according to men’s opinion and shrank from his passion, and he said to the disciples: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; and whoever loses it for my sake will save it.” For Christ said these things openly, being himself the Saviour of those who would be handed over to death for their confession and would lose their lives.

But if he himself was not going to suffer, but was to fly away from Jesus, why did he exhort the disciples to take up the cross and follow him — a cross which, according to them, he himself did not take up, but abandoned the dispensation of the passion? For that he does not say this about the knowledge of the higher Cross, as some dare to explain it, but about the suffering which he was to undergo and which his disciples too were going to undergo, he showed by adding: “For whoever saves his life will lose it, and whoever loses it will find it.” And because his disciples were to suffer for his sake, he said to the Jews: “Behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and teachers, and some of them you will kill and crucify”; and to the disciples he said: “You will stand before governors and kings for my sake, and some of you they will scourge and kill and persecute from city to city.” He knew, then, both those who would suffer persecution and those who would be scourged and killed for his sake; and he speaks not of another cross but of the suffering which he himself would suffer first, and his disciples afterwards. Therefore his word also exhorted them: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but fear rather him who has power to send both body and soul into Gehenna”; and to keep the confessions made toward him. For he promised that he would confess before the Father those who confessed his name before men, but would deny those who denied him, and be ashamed of those who were ashamed of confessing him. And although these things are so, some have advanced to such rashness that they even despise the martyrs and censure those who are killed for confessing the Lord, who endure all that the Lord foretold and in this way strive to follow in the footsteps of the Lord’s passion, becoming martyrs of the one who suffered. These we hand over to the martyrs themselves. For when their blood is required and they attain glory, then all who have dishonoured their martyrdom will be put to shame by Christ. And from the fact that the Lord said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing,” the long-suffering, patience, compassion, and goodness of Christ are shown, so that he both suffered and himself excused those who had treated him badly. For the Word of God who said to us, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who hate you,” himself did this on the cross, loving the human race so much that he prayed even for those who were killing him. If anyone [compares the two], that one will be found much better, more patient, and truly good who, in his very wounds and blows and the other things they did to him, is beneficent and does not remember the wrong done to him, than the one who flew away and suffered neither injury nor insult.

The same objection also meets those who say that he suffered only in appearance. For if he did not truly suffer, no thanks are due to him, since there was no suffering; and when we begin truly to suffer, he will seem a deceiver, exhorting us to be beaten and to offer the other cheek, if he himself did not first truly suffer this. And as he deceived them, so that he seemed to them to be what he was not, he deceives us too, exhorting us to endure what he himself did not endure. We shall even be above the teacher, since we suffer and endure what the teacher neither suffered nor endured. But our Lord alone is truly teacher, and the Son of God is truly good and patient, the Word of God the Father become Son of Man. For he fought and conquered: he was man contending for the fathers, and through obedience paying off disobedience; for he bound the strong man and set the weak free, and gave salvation to his handiwork, destroying sin. For he is a most loving and merciful Lord, and loves the human race.

So he caused man to cleave to God and united him with God, as we said before. For if man had not conquered the enemy of man, the enemy would not have been justly conquered. Again, unless God had given salvation, we would not possess it securely. And unless man had been joined to God, he could not have become a partaker of incorruptibility. For the Mediator of God and men had, through his kinship with both, to bring both back into friendship and concord, and to bring it about that God should take up man and man should give himself to God. For by what means could we be partakers of adoption as sons, unless we had received from him through the Son that communion which is with him — unless his Word, made flesh, had shared it with us? Therefore he also passed through every age, restoring to all communion with God. So those who say that he was manifested only in appearance, and was neither born in the flesh nor truly made man, are still under the old condemnation, pleading the cause of sin, since according to them death has not been conquered, which “reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s transgression.” But the law, which was given through Moses, came and testified concerning sin that it is a sinner; it took away its kingdom, uncovering it as a robber and not a king, and showed it to be a murderer. But it burdened man, who had sin in himself, showing him to be guilty of death. For since the law was spiritual, it only made sin manifest, but did not destroy it; for sin did not rule over the Spirit, but over man. For he who was to begin to kill sin and to redeem man, who was guilty of death, had to become the very thing that man was, that is, man — man who had been dragged into slavery by sin and was held by death — so that sin might be killed by a man and man might go out from death. For as through the disobedience of one man, who was first formed from untilled earth, many were made sinners and lost life, so it was necessary that through the obedience of one man, who was first born from a virgin, many should be justified and receive salvation. So the Word of God was made man, as Moses also says: “God, his works are true.” But if he appeared as flesh without having been made flesh, his work was not true. But what he appeared to be, that he also was: God recapitulating in himself the ancient formation of man, to kill sin, abolish death, and give life to man; and for this reason his works are true.

But again, those who say that he was a mere man, begotten of Joseph, remain in the slavery of the old disobedience and die, not yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving freedom through the Son, as he himself says: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Not knowing him who is Emmanuel from the virgin, they are deprived of his gift, which is eternal life; and not receiving the Word of incorruption, they remain in mortal flesh and are debtors to death, not receiving the antidote of life. To them the Word says, describing his own gift of grace: “I said, You are gods, and all sons of the Most High; but you shall die like men.” He says this without doubt to those who do not receive the gift of adoption, but despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defrauding man of his ascent to the Lord and being ungrateful to the Word of God, who was made flesh for them. For this is why the Word of God became man, and he who is Son of God became Son of Man: … that, joined to the Word of God and receiving adoption, [man] might become a son of God. For we could not otherwise receive incorruption and immortality unless we had been united to incorruption and immortality. And how could we be united to incorruption and immortality unless incorruption and immortality had first become what we are, so that what was corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruption, and what was mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons?

Therefore, “Who shall declare his generation?” For “he is a man, and who shall know him?” But he knows him to whom the Father who is in heaven has revealed him, so that he understands that he who was born “not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man” is the Son of Man, and this is the Christ, the Son of the living God. For we have shown from the Scriptures that none at all of the sons of Adam is called God in the full sense, or named Lord. But that he himself, beyond all the men who then lived, is properly God and Lord and eternal King and Only-begotten and incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets and the apostles and by the Spirit himself, anyone can see who has attained even a little of the truth. The Scriptures would not testify these things of him if he had been a mere man like all others. But because he had in himself, beyond all, that illustrious generation which is from the Most High Father, and also underwent the illustrious generation from the virgin, the divine Scriptures testify both of him: that he was a man without comeliness and capable of suffering, sitting on the foal of an ass, given vinegar and gall to drink, despised among the people, and descending even to death; and that he is the holy Lord, Wonderful, Counsellor, beautiful in appearance, and mighty God, coming on the clouds as Judge of all. All these things the Scriptures prophesied of him.

For as he was man in order to be tempted, so he was also the Word in order to be glorified: the Word remaining quiescent, so that he could be tempted, dishonoured, crucified, and die; but the man being swallowed up in that [the Word] when he conquers, endures, … rises, and is taken up. This, then, is the Son of God, our Lord, being the Word of the Father and the Son of Man: since he had a human generation from Mary, who was descended from human beings and was herself a human being, he became the Son of Man. For this reason the Lord himself gave us a sign, in the depth below and in the height above, which man did not ask, because he did not hope that a virgin could become pregnant, that one who was a virgin could also bear a son, and that this offspring would be “God with us,” and would descend into the lower parts of the earth, seeking the sheep that had perished, which was indeed his own handiwork, and ascend to the height, offering and commending to the Father the man who had been found, making in himself the firstfruits of man’s resurrection; so that, as the head rose from the dead, so also the rest of the body — of every man who is found in life — may rise when the time of his condemnation, which was on account of disobedience, is fulfilled, growing together through joints and bands and strengthened by the increase of God, each of the members having its own fitting position in the body. For there are many mansions with the Father, because there are also many members in the body.

So God was magnanimous when man failed, foreseeing the victory that would be given back to him through the Word. For since power was being made perfect in weakness, it displayed the kindness of God and his most magnificent power. For as he patiently allowed Jonah to be swallowed by the sea monster, not that he might be swallowed and perish altogether, but that, having been vomited out, he might be more subject to God and glorify the more him who had given him an unhoped-for salvation, and might bring the Ninevites to firm repentance, so that they turned to the Lord who would free them from death, terrified by the sign that had happened to Jonah — as Scripture says of them: “And they turned each from his evil way and from the injustice that was in their hands, saying, Who knows whether God will repent and turn away his anger from us, and we shall not perish?” — so from the beginning God patiently allowed man to be swallowed up by the great sea monster, who was the author of the transgression, not that, swallowed up, he might perish altogether, but arranging beforehand and preparing the plan of salvation, which was accomplished by the Word through the sign of Jonah for those who held the same view of the Lord as Jonah, and confessed, and said: “I am a servant of the Lord, and I worship the Lord God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” So man, receiving from God an unhoped-for salvation, was to rise from the dead and glorify God, and speak the word prophesied by Jonah: “I cried to the Lord my God in my affliction, and he heard me from the belly of hell”; and was always to continue glorifying God and giving thanks without ceasing for the salvation he has obtained from him, “so that no flesh may boast in the presence of the Lord”; and so that man might never take a contrary view of God, supposing that the incorruption that is his belongs to him by nature, and, not holding the truth, be puffed up with empty pride as though he were by nature like God. For this, making him more ungrateful to the one who had made him, obscured the love that God had for man and blinded his mind, so that he did not perceive what is worthy of God, comparing himself with God and judging himself his equal.

This, then, was the magnanimity of God: that man, passing through all things and acquiring knowledge of moral discipline, then coming to the resurrection from the dead and learning by experience from what he has been delivered, may always be grateful to the Lord, having obtained from him the gift of incorruption, so that he might love him the more — for he to whom more is forgiven loves more; and that he may know himself, that he is mortal and weak; and understand God, that he is immortal and powerful to such a degree that he gives immortality to the mortal and eternity to the temporal; and understand also all the other powers of God displayed in himself, by which, being taught, he may think of God as befits God’s greatness. For the glory of man is God; but of the workings of God, and of all his wisdom and power, the receptacle is man. Just as a physician is proved in those who are sick, so also God is manifested in human beings. Therefore Paul also says: “For God has shut up all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all” — saying this not of spiritual Aeons but of man, who was disobedient to God and cast out from immortality, and afterwards obtained mercy, receiving through the Son of God the adoption that is through him. For he who holds, without pride and boasting, the true glory concerning created things and concerning him who made them — the most powerful God of all, who granted all things their being — and remains in his love and subjection and thanksgiving, will receive greater glory from him as he advances, until he becomes like him who died for him. For he too was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, to condemn sin, and, having now condemned it, to cast it out of the flesh; and to call man into his own likeness, appointing him an imitator of God, setting him under the Father’s rule so that he may see God, and granting him to receive the Father: the Word of God who dwelt in man and became Son of Man, to accustom man to receive God and to accustom God to dwell in man, according to the Father’s good pleasure.

For this reason, then, [the Lord gave] as the sign of our salvation him who is Emmanuel from the virgin — the Lord himself, because it was the Lord himself who saved them, since they could not be saved by themselves. And for this reason Paul, proclaiming the weakness of man, says: “For I know that in my flesh dwells no good thing,” signifying that the good of our salvation is not from us but from God. And again: “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” Then he brings in the deliverer: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Isaiah too says this: “Be strong, weak hands and feeble knees; take courage, you faint of heart; be strong, do not fear. Behold, our God renders judgment and will render it; he himself will come and save us.” This [he says] because we were to be saved not of ourselves but by God’s help.

Again, that he who would save us would be neither a mere man nor without flesh — for the angels are without flesh — [the prophet] proclaimed, saying: “Neither an elder nor an angel, but the Lord himself will save them, because he loves them and will spare them; he himself will deliver them.” And that this same one would begin to be a true, visible man, since he is the saving Word, Isaiah again says: “Behold, Zion, city; your eyes shall see our salvation.” And that it was not only a man who died for us, Isaiah [Jeremiah] says: “And the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, remembered his dead who had fallen asleep in the land of burial; and he descended to them to bring them the good news of the salvation that is from him, to save them.” The same thing the prophet Amos [Micah] also says: “He will turn and have mercy on us; he will dissolve our iniquities and cast our sins into the depth of the sea.” And again, indicating the place of his coming, he says: “The Lord has spoken from Zion, and from Jerusalem he has uttered his voice.” And that the Son of God, who is God, would come from the region that lies toward the south of the inheritance of Judah, and that he who was from Bethlehem, where the Lord was born, would send out his praise into all the earth, the prophet Habakkuk says: “God will come from the south, and the Holy One from Mount Ephraim. His power covered the heavens, and the earth is full of his praise. Before his face the Word will go, and his feet will go forth in the plains.” He clearly signifies that he is God, that his coming is in Bethlehem and from Mount Ephraim, which lies toward the south of the inheritance, and that he is man. For “his feet will go forth in the plains,” he says; and this is a sign proper to a man.