Oration I Against the Arians 42–51

42. And “he granted him,” too, is not written because of the Word himself. For again, even before he became man he was worshipped, as we said, by the angels and all creation, in virtue of what is proper to the Father; but this too is written of him because of us and for us. For as Christ died and was exalted as man, so as man he is said to “receive” what he always had as God, so that such a grace, once given, might reach us as well. For the Word was not lessened by taking a body, so as to seek to receive grace; rather he deified what he put on, and, more than that, “granted” this to the human race. For just as he was always worshipped, being the Word and “being in the form of God,” so, being the same and having become man and been called Jesus, he has none the less the whole creation under his feet, “bending the knee” to him “in this name” and “confessing” that the Word's becoming flesh and enduring death in the flesh did not happen to the dishonor of his Godhead, but “to the glory of God the Father.” And it is the Father's glory that man, who was made and was lost, should be found, and, having died, should be made alive, and should become God's temple. For while the powers in heaven, angels and archangels, always worshipped him, and now also worship the Lord “in the name of Jesus,” this grace and high exaltation is ours: that even having become man, the Son of God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers will not be astonished to see all of us, who are of one body with him, brought into their realms. This would not have happened otherwise, unless he who “was in the form of God” had taken “the form of a servant” and had “humbled himself,” allowing his body to come “to death.”

43. See, then: what men thought “the foolishness of God” because of the cross has become more honored than all things. For our resurrection is stored up in it; and no longer Israel alone, but now all the nations, as the prophet foretold, abandon their idols and acknowledge the true God, the Father of Christ; and the illusion of the demons has been abolished, and he alone who is truly God is worshipped in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the fact that the Lord, even having come in a body and been called Jesus, is worshipped and believed to be the Son of God, and that through him the Father is known, would show, as has been said, that it was not the Word, as Word, who received such grace, but we. For because of our kinship with his body we too have become “God's temple,” and have been made sons of God, so that the Lord is now worshipped in us too, and those who see “report,” as the apostle said, “that God is truly among them.” Just as John says in the Gospel, “But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become children of God”; and in the letter he writes, “By this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.” And this too is a mark of the goodness he has shown us: we have been exalted because the Most High Lord is in us, and grace is given because of us, because the Lord who supplies the grace has become man like us; but the Savior himself “humbled himself” by taking our lowly body, and “took the form of a servant,” putting on the flesh that had been enslaved to sin. And he himself has gained nothing from us for his improvement, for the Word of God lacks nothing and is full; rather, we have been improved by him. For he is “the light that enlightens every man coming into the world.” And in vain do the Arians lean on the conjunction “therefore,” because Paul says, “Therefore God also highly exalted him.” For in saying this he did not mean a prize of virtue or the improvement of his advance, but the cause of the exaltation that has come to us. And what is this but that he who “was in the form of God,” the Son of a noble Father, “humbled himself” and became a servant in our place and for us? For if the Lord had not become man, we would not have been redeemed from our sins and risen from the dead, but would have remained dead under the earth; nor would we have been exalted to heaven, but would have remained in Hades. So “he highly exalted” and “he granted” are said because of us and for us.

44. This, then, I think is the meaning of the text, and a thoroughly ecclesiastical one. But one might also approach the text a second way, saying the same things in parallel: that it does not signify that the Word himself, as Word, is exalted (for he is, as was said a little before, most high and like the Father), but that, because of his becoming man, the text points to the resurrection from the dead. For having said, “he humbled himself to death,” he at once added, “therefore he highly exalted,” wishing to show that, although as man he is said to have died, yet, being life, he was exalted by the resurrection. For “he who came down is the same who also rose.” For he came down bodily; but he rose because he himself was God in a body. And this again is why, in this sense, he added the conjunction “therefore”: not as indicating a “reward of virtue” or of advance, but the cause for which the resurrection took place, and the cause for which all other men from Adam until now have died and remained dead, but he alone rose whole from the dead. And this cause is what he himself said before: that, being God, he became man. For all other men, being only from Adam, died and had death “reigning” over them; but this one is “the second man, from heaven,” for “the Word became flesh.” And such a man is called “man from heaven” and “heavenly,” because the Word “came down from heaven”; therefore he “was not held by death.” For even though he humbled himself, allowing his own body to come to death, since it was capable of death, yet he was highly exalted from the earth, because he was the Son of God in a body. So what is said here, “therefore God also highly exalted him,” is equal to what Peter says in the Acts: “whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” For as it is written in Paul, since “being in the form of God” he became man and “humbled himself to death, therefore God also highly exalted him,” so it is said by Peter too that, since, being God, he became man, and the signs and wonders showed him to be God even to those who saw them, therefore “it was not possible for him to be held by death.” It was not possible for a man to accomplish this, for death belongs to men. Therefore the Word, being God, became flesh, so that, “put to death in the flesh,” he might make all alive by his own power.

45. But since he is said to be “exalted,” and that God “granted” him, and the heretics think this is a defect or a passion of the Word's substance, it is necessary to say how these things too are meant. He is said to be exalted from “the lower parts of the earth,” since death too is said to be his. Both are said to be his because it was his body, and not another's, that was exalted from the dead and taken up into heaven. And again, since the body is his, and the Word is not outside it, it is natural that when the body is exalted, he himself, as man, is said to be “exalted” because of the body. If, then, he did not become man, let these things not be said of him; but if “the Word became flesh,” the resurrection and the exaltation must be spoken of him as of a man, so that the death said to be his may be a ransom for the sin of men and the abolition of death, and the resurrection and exaltation may remain secure for us because of him. In both cases he said, “God highly exalted him,” and “God granted him,” so as to show from this too that it is not the Father who became flesh, but his Word who became man, who “receives” in a human way from the Father and is “exalted” by him, as has been said. And it is clear, and no one would doubt it, that what the Father gives, he gives through the Son. And this is a paradox and truly able to astonish: the grace that the Son gives from the Father, the Son himself is said to “receive”; and the exaltation that the Son effects from the Father, with this the Son himself is “exalted.” For he who is the Son of God himself became also Son of Man. As Word, he gives what comes from the Father; for all things that the Father does and gives, he does and supplies through him. But as Son of Man, he himself is said in a human way to receive what comes from himself, because the body, which by nature receives grace, is not another's but his own, as has been said. For he received according to the exaltation of the man; and the exaltation was his being deified. But the Word himself always had this according to his Father's Godhead and completeness.

46. What is written in the apostle, then, having this meaning, refutes the impious; and what is said by the hymn-writer has the same right sense again, which these men misinterpret but the psalmist shows to be reverent. For he too says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.” See, you Arians, and recognize the truth even from this. The psalmist has called all of us “companions” (that is, sharers) of the Lord. If he were “from nothing” and one of the things originated, he too would have been one of those who share. But since he praised him as eternal God, saying, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,” and has shown that all other things share in him, what must we think but that he is other than things originated, and that he alone is the true Word of the Father, the radiance and the wisdom, in which all originated things share, and by which they are sanctified in the Spirit? So here too he is “anointed,” not so that he may become God, for he was so even before this; nor so that he may become king, for he reigned eternally, “being the image” of God, as the oracle shows; but this too, again, is written for us. For the kings of Israel became kings when they were anointed, not having been kings before, like David, Hezekiah, Josiah, and the others. But the Savior, on the contrary, being God, and always reigning with the kingdom of the Father, and being himself the one who supplies the Holy Spirit, is nevertheless now said to be “anointed,” so that, being said as man to be anointed with the Spirit, he might again prepare for us men not only exaltation and resurrection but also the indwelling and intimacy of the Spirit. The Lord himself indicated this in his own person when he said in the Gospel according to John, “I have sent them into the world, and for them I sanctify myself, so that they too may be sanctified in the truth.” In saying this he showed that he is not the one sanctified but the one who sanctifies. For he is not sanctified by another, but he sanctifies himself, so that we may be sanctified in the truth. And he who sanctifies himself is Lord of sanctifying. How, then, does this happen? What is he saying, but this: “I, being the Word of the Father, give the Spirit to myself become man; and in the Spirit I sanctify myself become man, so that from now on in me, who am truth (‘your Word is truth’), all may be sanctified”?

47. And if he sanctifies himself for our sake, and does this when he has become man, it is quite clear that the descent of the Spirit on him in the Jordan was a descent on us, because he bore our body. And it did not happen for the improvement of the Word, but again for our sanctification, so that we might share in his anointing, and it might be said of us, “Do you not know that you are God's temple, and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” For when the Lord, as man, was washed in the Jordan, it was we who were washed in him and by him. And when he received the Spirit, it was we who were made capable of receiving it by him. For this reason he was not anointed with oil like Aaron or David or all the others, but otherwise, above all his companions, “with the oil of gladness,” which he himself interprets as the Spirit, saying through the prophet, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me”; just as the apostle too said, “how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit.” When, then, were these things said of him, but when, having come in the flesh, he was baptized in the Jordan and “the Spirit came down upon him”? And yet the Lord himself says, “The Spirit will take from what is mine,” and, “I send him,” and to the disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And nevertheless he who supplies others, as Word and radiance of the Father, is now said to be “sanctified,” because again he has become man, and the body that is sanctified is his. From that time, then, we too have begun to receive the anointing and the seal, as John says, “And you have an anointing from the Holy One,” and the apostle, “And you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.” So what is said is because of us and for us. What advance in improvement, then, and what “reward of virtue,” or of any conduct at all, on the Lord's part is shown from this? For if he had become God from not being God, if, not being king, he had been promoted to kingship, your argument would have had a shadow of plausibility. But if he is God, and “the throne of his kingdom is eternal,” where could God advance? Or what was lacking to him who sits on the Father's throne? And if, as the Lord himself said, the Spirit is his, and takes from what is his, and he himself sends him, then it is not the Word, as Word and Wisdom, who is anointed with the Spirit given by him, but the flesh assumed by him, which is anointed in him and by him, so that the sanctification that came to the Lord as man might come to all men from him. “For the Spirit,” he says, “does not speak on his own,” but it is the Word who gives him to those who are worthy. This too is like the text discussed before. For as the apostle wrote, “who, being in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant,” so David praises the Lord, who is eternal God and king, but was sent to us and assumed our body, which is mortal. For this is what he signifies when he sings, “Myrrh and stacte and cassia from your garments.” And this is shown by Nicodemus and by Mary's companions, when he “came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, a hundred pounds,” and they brought what they had prepared for the burial of the Lord's body.

48. What advance, then, was it for the immortal to take on the mortal? Or what improvement for the eternal to put on the temporal? And what reward could be greater for God, the eternal King, who is in the bosom of the Father? Do you not see that this too was done and written because of us and for us, so that the Lord, having become man, might make us, who are mortal and temporal, immortal, and bring us into the eternal kingdom of heaven? Are you not ashamed of lying against the divine oracles? For when our Lord Jesus Christ came among us, we were improved, being set free from sin; but he himself is the same. He did not change because he became man (for the same thing must be said again), but, as it is written, “The Word of God abides forever.” Indeed, just as before his becoming man, being the Word, he supplied the Spirit to the saints as his own, so too, having become man, he sanctifies all by the Spirit and says to the disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And he gave it to Moses and to the seventy others; and through him David prayed to the Father, saying, “Do not take your Holy Spirit from me.” And having become man he said, “I will send you the Paraclete, the Spirit of truth”; and he sent him, being without falsehood, the Word of God. So “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,” remaining unchangeable; and he is the same who gives and receives: giving as the Word of God, receiving as man. So it is not the Word, as Word, who is improved, for he had all things and always has them; it is men, who have in him and through him the beginning of their receiving. For when he is now said in a human way to be anointed, it is we who are anointed in him; since also when he is baptized, it is we who are baptized in him. The Savior makes all this still clearer when he says to the Father, “And the glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one.” So it was because of us that he asked for glory, and that “he received,” “he granted,” and “he highly exalted” have been said: so that we may receive, and he may grant to us, and we may be exalted in him; just as he also “sanctifies himself for us, so that we may be sanctified in him.”

49. And if, because “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you” is added in the psalm, they again provide themselves with a pretext for what they want from the word “therefore,” let those who are ignorant of the Scriptures and inventors of impiety know that here too “therefore” does not signify a reward of the Word's virtue or conduct, but again the cause of his coming down to us and of the anointing of the Spirit that took place in him for us. For he did not say, “Therefore he anointed you, so that you might become God, or king, or Son, or Word”; for he was so before this and always is, as has been shown. Rather he said: “Since you are God and king, therefore you were anointed; since it belonged to no one else to join man to the Holy Spirit but you, the image of the Father, after which we too were made in the beginning; for the Spirit too is yours.” For the nature of things originated was not trustworthy for this, since angels had transgressed and men had disobeyed. Therefore there was need of God (and “the Word is God”), so that he himself might set free those who had come under a curse. If, then, he were “from nothing,” he would not himself be the Christ, being one of all things and himself too a sharer. But since he is God, being the Son of God, and is eternal King, being the radiance and exact imprint of the Father, therefore he is rightly the expected Christ, whom the Father announces to men, revealing him to his holy prophets, so that, as we came to be through him, so in him the redemption of all from their sins might take place, and all things might be ruled by him. And this is the cause of the anointing that took place in him and of the Word's coming in the flesh. Foreseeing this, the psalmist, praising his Godhead and his Father's kingdom, cries out, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom”; and announcing his coming down to us, he says, “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your companions.”

50. What is surprising or incredible, then, if the Lord who gives the Spirit is now said to be anointed with the Spirit himself, when on another occasion, need requiring it, he did not refuse, because of his humanity, to call himself even less than the Spirit? For when the Jews said that “he cast out the demons by Beelzebul,” he answered and said to them, to refute their blasphemy, “But if I cast out the demons by the Spirit of God.” See: the giver of the Spirit now says that he casts out the demons by the Spirit. And this is said for no other reason than the flesh. For since human nature is not able by itself to cast out demons except by the power of the Spirit, he said as man, “But if I cast out the demons by the Spirit of God.” Indeed, indicating that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is greater than blasphemy against his humanity, he said, “Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven,” like those who said, “Is not this the carpenter's son?” But those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit and ascribe the works of the Word to the devil will have a punishment they cannot escape. Such things the Lord said to the Jews as man; but to the disciples, showing his Godhead and majesty, and indicating that he is not less than the Spirit but equal, he gave the Spirit and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and “I send him; he will glorify me,” and, “whatever he hears he will speak.” Just as here, then, the Lord himself, the giver of the Spirit, does not refuse to say as man that “he casts out the demons by the Spirit,” in the same way, being the same giver of the Spirit, he did not refuse to say, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me,” because “he became flesh,” as John said. This was to show that in both respects it is we who need the grace of the Spirit to be sanctified, and who cannot cast out demons without the power of the Spirit. Through whom and from whom should the Spirit be given but through the Son, whose the Spirit is? And when could we receive him, except when the Word became man? And as the apostle's saying shows that we would not have been redeemed and highly exalted unless he who “was in the form of God took the form of a servant,” so David too shows that we would not otherwise have shared in the Spirit and been sanctified, unless the giver of the Spirit, the Word himself, had said that he was anointed with the Spirit for us. Therefore we have received securely, since he is said to have been anointed in the flesh. For since the flesh in him was sanctified first, and he is said, as man, to have received because of it, we have the grace of the Spirit following, “receiving from his fullness.”

51. And “You have loved righteousness and hated iniquity,” which is added in the psalm, does not show, as you again understand it, that the Word's nature is “changeable,” but rather signifies from this too his unchangeableness. For since the nature of things originated is changeable, and some transgressed and others disobeyed, as has been said, and their conduct is not secure, but it often happens that one who is now good later changes and becomes different, so that one who was just now righteous is found unrighteous a little later, therefore again there was need of one who is unchangeable, so that men might have the immutability of the Word's righteousness as an image and pattern for virtue. And this understanding has a reason that is sound to those who think rightly. For since “the first man Adam” changed, and “through sin death entered the world,” it was therefore fitting that the second Adam should be unchangeable, so that, even if the serpent should attack again, the serpent's deceit might be weakened, and, since the Lord is unchangeable and unalterable, the serpent might become weak in his attacks against all. For just as, when Adam transgressed, sin reached “to all men,” so, when the Lord became man and overthrew the serpent, such strength will pass to all men, so that each of us may say, “For we are not ignorant of his designs.” So it is fitting that the Lord, who always and by nature is unchangeable, “loving righteousness and hating iniquity,” is anointed and himself sent, so that, being and remaining the same, and taking the changeable flesh, he might “condemn sin in it,” and make it free, so that it could thereafter “fulfil the righteous requirement of the law” in itself, and so be able to say, “But we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in us.”