Eranistes (The Beggar), or Polymorphus 3.31–3.37

Of the same, from the same discourse. “Hence, as I said before, the Word, since it was not possible for him to die, for he was immortal, took to himself a body that could die, so that he might offer it as his own in place of all, and that, as himself suffering on behalf of all because of his coming into the body, he might destroy the one who has the power of death.” Of the same, from the same discourse. “For the body, suffering, died according to the nature of bodies; but it had the assurance of incorruption from the Word who dwelt in it. For when the body died, the Word was not put to death too; but he himself was impassible and incorruptible and immortal, as being the Word of God, and, being united with the body, he rather kept away from it the corruption that is natural to bodies, as the Spirit also says to him, ‘You will not let your holy one see corruption.’” Of Saint Damasus, bishop of Rome. From the exposition. “If anyone says that in the passion of the cross it was the Son of God and God who endured the pain, and not the flesh with the soul, which the form of a servant put on, which he took to himself, as the Scripture has said, let him be anathema.” … From the work On the Catholic Faith. “But there are some who have gone so far in impiety as to think that the Godhead of the Lord was circumcised, and became imperfect from perfect; and that on the wood it was not the flesh, but that divine substance, the Creator of all things.” Of the same, from the same. “The flesh suffered; the Godhead is free from death. He allowed the body to suffer by the law of human nature. For how can God die, when the soul cannot die? ‘Do not fear,’ he says, ‘those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.’ If, then, the soul cannot be killed, how [could] the Godhead fall under death?” Of Saint Basil … to [one who has considered] the intent of the apostolic saying, that it does not hand down to us a mode of theology, but indicates the accounts of the dispensation. “For God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified”: with the demonstrative word [it points] to what is human in him and visible to all … Of Saint Gregory, bishop of Nazianzus. From the letter to the blessed Nectarius, bishop of Constantinople. “The most grievous of all our church misfortunes is the boldness of the Apollinarists, whom your holiness, I do not know how, overlooked when they procured for themselves the authority to hold assemblies on an equal footing with us.”

And a little after. “And this is not yet the terrible thing; but the most grievous of all is that he makes the only-begotten God himself, the judge of all that is, the author of life, the destroyer of death, mortal, and holds that he received the passion in his own Godhead, and that in that three-day deadness of the body the Godhead too was put to death together with the body, and so was raised again from death by the Father.” Of the same, from the first exposition to Cledonius. “If the man is without a soul, that is what the Arians say too, so that they may carry the passion over to the Godhead, as the one that moves the body being also the one that suffers.” Of the same, from the discourse on the Son. “It remained [to speak] of his being commanded, and having kept the commandments, and having done always what pleases him; and further of his being made perfect, and exalted, and learning obedience from what he suffered, and of his high priesthood and offering, and betrayal, and prayer to him who was able to save from death, and the agony, and the drops of blood, and the prayer, and anything else of this kind — if it were not plain to all that such terms concern what suffers, and do not hint at the immutable nature that is too high to suffer.” Of the same, from the discourse on Pascha. “‘Who is this who comes from Edom,’ and from the things of earth? Or how are the garments red of him who is bloodless and incorporeal, as of one who has trodden the winepress, and a full winepress? Put forward the beauty of the robe of the body, made splendid by the passion and by the Godhead, than which nothing is lovelier …” Of Saint Gregory, bishop of Nyssa. From the Catechetical Discourse. “And this is the mystery of God’s dispensation concerning death, and of the resurrection from the dead: not to prevent the soul from being separated from the body by death, according to the necessary sequence of nature, but to bring them back to each other again through the resurrection.” Of the same, from the same discourse. “For since the flesh that received God, which through the resurrection was raised up together with the Godhead, was from no other source but from our lump: just as, in the case of our body, the activity of one of the sense organs brings the whole that is united to that part into a common sensation, so, as though the whole nature were one living being, the resurrection of the part passes through to the whole, according to the continuity and unity of the nature, being imparted from the part to the whole. What, then, do we learn in the mystery that is beyond what is reasonable, if the one who stands stoops down to the fallen, to raise up

the one who lies there?” Of the same, from the same discourse. “… it would be consistent in this part too not to look at the one and overlook the other, but in the death to see the human, and in the man to search out what is more divine.” Of the same, from the treatise against Eunomius. “The human nature does not give life to Lazarus, nor does the impassible power weep for the one lying dead; but the tear is proper to the man, and the life to the true Life. Human poverty does not feed the thousands; the almighty power does not run to the fig tree. Who is it that is weary from the journey, and who is it that without toil established the whole world by a word? What is the radiance of glory? What is pierced through with the nails? What form is struck in the passion, and what form is glorified from eternity? These things are plain, even if no one interprets them in words.” Of the same, from the same treatise. “He finds fault with those who ascribe the passion to the human nature. He surely wishes to subject the Godhead itself to the passion. For since the supposition is twofold and ambiguous — whether it was the divine or the human that was in the passion — the accusation of the one is surely the establishment of the other. If, then, they blame those who see the passion in the man, they will surely praise those who say that the Godhead of the Son is passible. And what is established by this becomes an advocate of the absurdity of their doctrine. For if, according to their argument, the Godhead of the Son suffers, while that of the Father is kept in complete impassibility in its substance, then the impassible nature is [foreign] to the one that admits the passion …” Of Saint Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium. From the discourse on “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.” “Whose, then, are the sufferings? The flesh’s. Then if you give the sufferings to the flesh, give it the lowly words too; and to him to whom you ascribe the miracles, assign the exalted words. For God, who works wonders, fittingly speaks lofty things, worthy of his works; while the man who suffers rightly utters lowly things, suited to his sufferings.” Of the same, from the discourse on “My Father is greater than I.” “When you give the sufferings to the flesh and the miracles to God, you necessarily give, even against your will, the lowly words to the man from Mary, and the exalted and God-befitting words to the Word who was in the beginning. For this is why I utter now exalted, now lowly words: so that through the lofty words I may show the nobility of the indwelling Word, and through the lowly ones make known the weakness of the lowly flesh. Hence I sometimes call myself equal to the Father, and sometimes call the Father greater: not fighting against myself, but showing that I am God and man — God from the lofty words, man from the lowly. And if you wish to know how ‘my Father is greater than I,’ I said it from the flesh, and not from the person

of the Godhead.” Of the same, from the [discourse] on “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” “Do not, then, hurl the sufferings of the flesh at the impassible Word. For I am God and man, heretic: God, as the miracles guarantee; man, as the sufferings bear witness. Since, then, I am God and man, tell me, who is it that suffered? If God suffered, you have spoken blasphemy; but if the flesh suffered, why do you not attach the passion to that to which you ascribe the fear? For when one suffers, another does not fear; and when a man is crucified, God is not troubled.” Of the same, from the discourse against the Arians. “And so as not to draw out the discourse at length, I ask you briefly, heretic: did the one begotten of God before the ages suffer, or Jesus, born of David in later times? If the Godhead suffered, you have spoken blasphemy; but if the man, as the truth is, why then do you not attach the passion to the man?” Of the same, from the [discourse] on the Son. “For Peter, having said, ‘God has made him both Lord and Christ,’ added, ‘this Jesus whom you crucified, him God raised from the dead.’ It was not the Godhead that was put to death, but the man; and the one who raised him is the Word, the power of God, who said in the Gospel, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ So if it is said, ‘God has made him, who was put to death and rose from the dead, both Lord and Christ,’ he means the flesh, and not the Godhead of the Son.” Of the same, from the discourse on “The Son can do nothing of himself.” “For the Life did not have a nature to be held fast by corruption; therefore the Godhead was not dragged down into suffering — how could it be? — but the humanity was renewed into incorruption. ‘For this mortal,’ he says, ‘must put on immortality, and the perishable …’ ‘This mortal’ he pointed out with a demonstrative word, so that not of another …” … On the Lord’s day of Pascha. “For this reason the cross too is proclaimed by us with boldness, and the Lord’s death is confessed by us, though the Godhead suffered nothing (for the divine is impassible), but the body fulfilled the dispensation.” Of the same, on Judas the betrayer. “So when you hear that the Lord was betrayed, do not bring the divine dignity down to cheapness, nor attach the bodily sufferings to the divine power. For the divine is impassible and unalterable. For even if he took the form of a servant out of love for humankind, he was not changed in nature; but remaining what he was, he allowed the divine body to experience death.” From a Festal volume. “For the souls of irrational creatures are not taken up and laid down again, but perish together with their bodies and are dissolved into dust. But the Saviour, having taken his soul from his own body at the time of the cross, put it back into it, raising it from the dead. Assuring us of this, he foretold it, crying out through the Psalmist: ‘You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption.’” Of the blessed Gelasius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine. From the discourse on the Epiphany. “He was bound, wounded, crucified, handled; he bore bruises, he received the wound of a spear. All these things the body born of Mary endured. But the one begotten of the Father before the ages no one could harm. For the Word did not have [such] a nature. For how does anyone take hold of Godhead? How does he wound it? How does he draw blood from the incorporeal nature? How does he wrap it in the bands of burial? Grant, then, that you cannot harm it, and honor the Godhead, constrained by the argument of necessity.” From the discourse on “My Father is working until now” … “[What sign do] you show us, that you do these things?” What, then, does he himself say? “‘Destroy this temple,’ he says, ‘and I will raise it up in three days,’ speaking of his own body; but they did not understand it.” And a little after. “How did the evangelist not pass it by, but added the correction, saying, ‘But he was speaking about the temple of his body’? For he did not say, ‘Destroy this body,’ but ‘the temple,’ to show God dwelling in it. ‘Destroy this temple,’ far better than the Jewish one. For that one had the law, this one the Lawgiver; that one the letter that kills,

this one the Spirit that gives life.” Of the same, from the discourse “That the things said and done in a lowly way were not from weakness of power, but for various purposes of the dispensation.” “How, then, does he say here, ‘If it is possible’? He shows us the weakness of human nature, which does not choose simply to be torn away from the present life, but shrinks back and hesitates, because of the love for the present life put into it by God from the beginning. For if, when he had said so many and such great things, some dared to say that he did not take flesh, what would they not have said if none of these things had been said?” Of the same, from the same discourse. “See how they also foretold his earlier age. Ask, then, the heretic: does God fear, and shrink back, and hesitate, and grieve? And if he says that … then stand back, and set him below with … [the divinity] gives up its own activity … its nature. But now it hides it, because [he was] not a mere … of the devil, or rather lower even than he; for not even he will dare to say this. And if he says that none of these things is worthy of God, say: then neither does God pray. For apart from these things there will be another absurdity too, if the words are God’s. For the words show not only agony, but also two wills, one of the Son and one of the Father, contrary to each other. For to say, ‘Not as I will, but as you,’ is the language of one showing this.” Of the same, from the same discourse. “For if this was said of the Godhead, a contradiction arises, and many absurdities are born of it. But if of the flesh, the words have reason, and no charge could arise. For it is no condemnation of the flesh that it does not wish to die; for this belongs to nature. And he displays all the things of nature apart from sin, and that in great abundance, so as to stop the mouths of the heretics. So when he says, ‘If it is possible, let this cup pass from me,’ and, ‘Not as I, but as you will,’ he shows nothing else than that he truly clothed himself with flesh that fears death. For to fear death, and to shrink back, and to be in agony belong to it. Now, then, having shown it forsaken and bare … its weakness, so that he might confirm its nature too, that he was a man …” From the discourse on the seals. “The Jews fight against what appears, not knowing what does not appear; and they crucify the flesh, but they do not destroy the Godhead. For if, together with the letter, which is the clothing of a word, my word is not destroyed, would God the Word, the fountain of life, have died together with the flesh? The suffering concerns the body; the impassibility, the dignity.” Look, we have shown you those who cultivated the eastern and the western, and indeed the southern and northern parts of the world, accusing your empty heresy and openly proclaiming the impassibility of the divine nature; and each tongue, I mean the Greek and the Latin, proclaiming a harmonious confession about divine things. Eranistes: I too admire the harmony of the men; yet I observed much division in their words … the Son offers to the Father and the Father to the Son, and into the dispensation of the Saviour. … the struggle against opponents is the cause of the excess. And this is what gardeners like to do too. When they see a plant bent over, they not only raise it to the straight line, but bend it beyond the straight to the other side, so that by the greater [bending it may come] to stand [straight]. But so that you may know that those who strive to strengthen this many-shaped heresy are eager to outdo even the ancient heresiarchs by the excess of their blasphemies, hear again the writings of Apollinarius, which proclaim the impassibility of the divine nature, and that [the passion] belongs to the body. Of Apollinarius. From the book in chapters. “John said that the temple that was destroyed was the body of the one who raises it up. And the body is wholly one with him, and not someone else beside him. And if the body of the Lord has become one with the Lord, the properties of the body have become his properties because of the body.” And: “For this is the truth, that the conjunction with the body is not by a circumscribing of the Word, so that he would have nothing more than the embodiment. Therefore even in death immortality remains about him. For if he is above this composition, he is also above the dissolution; and death is dissolution. For neither was he encompassed by the composition — for then the

world would have been emptied — nor in the dissolution did he have the want that comes from dissolution, as the soul does.” And again: “Just as the Saviour says that the dead come forth from the tombs, although the souls do not come forth from there, so he says that he himself will rise from the dead, although it is the body that rises.” And in another, similar writing he has written this: “To rise from the dead belongs to man; to raise up belongs to God. Christ is both; therefore he was God and man. If Christ were man only, he would not give life to the dead; and if God only, he would not give life to some of the dead apart from the Father. But Christ is both; therefore the same one is God and man. If Christ were man only, he would not save the world; and if God only, he would not save it through suffering. But Christ is both; therefore he is both God and man. If Christ were man only, [or] if God only, he would not be mediator between human beings and God.” And a little after: “Flesh, then, is an instrument of life fitted to the sufferings for the divine purposes; and neither the words nor the deeds are the flesh’s own; and though it is subjected to the sufferings as befits flesh, it prevails over the sufferings, because it is the flesh of God.” And a little after again: “The Son came to dwell in the world, having taken flesh from the Virgin, which he filled with the Holy Spirit for the sanctification of us all. Having handed death over to death, he destroyed death through the resurrection, for the resurrection of us all.” And in the work On Faith he says this: “And while the sufferings took place about the flesh, the power had its own impassibility. Impious is he who refers the passion to the power.” And in the [work] on … , showing that the same one was raised from the dead as man, but reigns as God over the impassible …

[Orthodoxos:] You have seen, meanwhile, one of the teachers of the empty heresy plainly proclaiming the impassibility of the Godhead, and calling the body a temple, and insisting very strongly that God the Word raised it. Eranistes: I have heard it and marvelled, and I am very much ashamed that [we followed] the innovation of this man too … Orthodoxos: And I will furnish you with a witness from another herd of heretics too, who expressly proclaims the impassibility of the Godhead of the Only-begotten. Eranistes: Whom do you mean? Orthodoxos: You have perhaps heard of Eusebius the Phoenician, who became bishop of Emesa, the city near Lebanon. Eranistes: I have come across some of his writings, and found him agreeing with the doctrines of Arius. Orthodoxos: He belonged to that band; but nevertheless, while trying to show that the Father is greater than the Only-begotten, he proclaims the Godhead of the one he makes lesser to be impassible, and he took up long and quite admirable contests on its behalf. Eranistes: I long very much for you to bring me these words too. [Orthodoxos: I will bring you his] testimony, to satisfy your longing. Hear the man crying out, and regard him as speaking to us: “Why does he fear death? Lest he suffer something from death? For what was death to him? Was it not the power withdrawing from the flesh? For the power did not receive a nail, that it should fear. For our soul, though it is with the body, does not suffer what the body suffers: the eye is blinded, and the mind is strong; the foot is cut off, and the reasoning is not lame. Nature bears witness to this, and the Lord puts his seal on it, saying, ‘Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul.’ If they cannot kill the soul — not because those who do it do not wish to, but because they cannot, even if they wish — [and the soul cannot] suffer what belongs to the body yoked to it, does he who created the soul and fashioned the body suffer what belongs to the body, even if he does indeed take up into himself the sufferings of the body? But Christ suffered for us, and we do not lie: ‘The bread that I will give is my flesh,’ which he gave for us. What was seized was seized; what was crucified was crucified. But he who has authority both to dwell and to withdraw says this: ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit’ — not into the hands of those forcing his departure. I am not contentious; I even keep away from contention. But I wish to inquire with you about disputed matters as with brothers. Do I not speak the truth when I say that the power could not receive the sufferings of the flesh? I, then, am silent; let whoever wishes say what the power suffered. Did it fail? See the danger. Was it quenched? See the blasphemy. Did it no longer exist? For that is the death of a power. Say what could take hold of it, so that it suffered, and I will not contend. But if you cannot say, why are you angry with me because I do not say it? What you cannot name, it did not receive. Drive a nail into a soul, and I will grant it into the power. … what is ‘suffered with’? As the nail into the flesh, so the pain into the power. Let us say this … For pain certainly follows suffering. But if even a body often despises pains when the mind is strong, through its strength … either what it suffered, or what it suffered with it. What then? Did Christ not die for us? How did he die? ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ The spirit withdrew, the body remained; the body remained breathless. Did he not die, then? He died for us. The shepherd offered the sheep, the priest offered the victim; he gave himself for us. And ‘He who did not spare his own Son, but gave his Son up for us all.’ I do not reject the sayings; I seek the meaning of the sayings. The Lord says that the bread of God came down from heaven. And interpreting it — even if I cannot speak more clearly because of the mysteries — he says this much: ‘It is my flesh.’ Did the flesh of the Son come down from heaven? It did not come down from heaven. How, then, does he say, ‘The bread of God lives, and has come down from heaven,’ and then interpret it? Because the power, having assumed [the flesh], came down from heaven, what the power has is reckoned to the flesh. Then turn it round: what the flesh suffers is reckoned to the power. How did Christ suffer for us? He was spat upon, he was struck on the cheek, they put a crown around his brow, his hands and feet were dug through. All these sufferings concern the body, but they are referred to the one who dwells in it. Throw a stone at the image of the king: what is said? ‘You have insulted the king.’ Tear the king’s robe: what is said? ‘You have risen against the king.’ Crucify the body of Christ: what is said? ‘Christ died for us.’ But what need is there of me and of you? Let us go to the evangelists. How did you receive from the Lord how the Lord died? They read, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ The spirit above, and the body on the