On the Incarnation of the Lord, against Nestorius 4.1–4.13

Now that three books have been completed, like most faithful and richly furnished witnesses, since their truth has been enriched not only by human but also by divine testimonies, they could indeed abundantly suffice us for the proof of our case through divine authority, since divine authority by itself suffices for its own cause. Yet because the whole series of the holy volumes is full of these testimonies, where there are as many witnesses as sentences, or rather where holy Scripture itself is in a way one single testimony of the divine mouth, we have thought some things should still be added, not because proof requires it but because of the wealth and abundance of material, so that whatever was not necessary for defense might all serve for ornament. Since, then, in the earlier books we proved the Lord Jesus Christ to be God while he was in the flesh and on earth, not only by prophetic and apostolic testimonies but also by those of the Gospels and of angels, let us now show that he who was born in the flesh was always God even before he took flesh; so that you may understand, from the testimonies of the divine volumes agreeing and as it were crying out together, that you must believe the same one to be both man and God after his bodily birth whom you believe to be God alone before his bodily birth; and that the one who after the virgin’s childbearing was God in the body is the same who before the virgin’s childbearing was God the Word. Learn, then, first from the apostle, the teacher of the whole world, that he who is without beginning, God, the Son of God, was made son of man at the end of the world, that is, in the fullness of times. For he says: “But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” Tell me now, then: before the Lord Jesus Christ was born of his mother Mary, did God have a Son or not? You cannot deny that he had. For the Son is never without the Father, nor the Father without the Son, because, just as the Son is so called from the Father, so the Father is so called from the Son.

You see, then, that when the apostle says “God sent his Son,” his own, surely, his own, to use the apostle’s very words, God sent his own Son. For he neither sent some other’s son, since he is said to have sent his own, nor could he have sent at all if there was no one to be sent. “He sent,” then, he says, “his Son, made of a woman.” Therefore, because he sent him, he sent one who existed; and because he sent his own, he sent not another’s but his own. Where now, then, is that argument of earthly cunning of yours: “No one gives birth to one older than herself”? Is not the Lord older than Mary? Is not the Son of God older than the daughter of man? Is not God, finally, older than man himself, since surely no man exists except from God? You see, then, that Mary bore not only one older than herself, not only, I say, one older than herself, but her own maker; and bringing forth her begetter she became parent of her parent. For as ready as it was for God to give birth to man, so ready was it for him to be born himself; as easy as it was to make man be born, so easy was it for himself to be born of man. For the power of God is not hemmed in within his own person, so that what is lawful for him in all things should not be lawful for him in himself; and he who in the nature of his Godhead has it that as God he can do all things should not have it in his own person alone that he can be God in man. Setting aside and rejecting, then, the trifling and perishable stupidities of earthly argument, we must believe the simple testimony and naked truth alone, and give credit about God only to those witnesses whom God sent and in whom he himself, so to speak, preached about himself. For it is right that we believe him about the knowledge of himself, since everything we know about him is his; for God could not be known by man unless he himself had given the knowledge of himself. And therefore it is just that we believe him entirely about what we know of him, since all that we know is his; because if we do not believe him from whom we know, the result is that we know nothing at all, while we do not believe him through whom we know.

Since, then, the preceding testimony made plain that God sent his Son, and that he who was always Son of God became son of man, let us see whether the same apostle said anything like this testimony elsewhere, so that the truth, already shining of itself, may shine more with a doubled light of testimonies. The same apostle, then, says: “God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” You surely see that the apostle did not say anything by chance or with an unconsidered word, such that he would let pass what he had once said, since chance or thoughtlessness could not befall one in whom the fullness of divine counsel and speech dwelt. What, then, does he say? “God sent his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” He repeats the same, he drives home the same, saying: “God sent his Son.” That outstanding and admirable teacher, knowing that the whole sacrament of the catholic faith is contained in this, that the Lord should be believed to have been born in the flesh and the Son of God to have been sent into this world, cries out this again and again, saying: “God sent his Son.” Nor is it surprising if he, specially sent to preach the gospel of the coming of God, proclaimed it so, since even before the law the lawgiver himself cried out, saying: “I pray, Lord, provide another whom you may send,” which is read much more plainly in the books of the Hebrews: “I pray, Lord, send him whom you will send.” The holy prophet, having in himself the longing of the whole human race, was asking God the Father, as with the voices of all human flesh, that the one who was to be sent by the Father for the redemption and salvation of all might be sent as quickly as possible, saying: “I pray, Lord, send him whom you will send.” “God sent,” then, he says, “his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Rightly, when he said that he was sent in the flesh, he excluded from him the sin of the flesh. For “God sent,” he says, “his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh”; that is, so that in the true taking of flesh it might be recognized that there was no reality of sin, and that as far as the body is concerned the reality might be understood, as far as sin is concerned only the likeness of sin. For since all flesh is sinful, but he had flesh without sin, he had in himself the likeness of sinful flesh while he was in the flesh, but lacked the reality of sin, because he was without sin. “God sent,” then, he says, “his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.”

Do you want to know how rightly the apostle preached this? Hear how it flowed into the apostle’s mouth as if from the very mouth of God, when the Lord says: “For God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” See, the Lord himself, as you see, declares that he was sent by God the Father for the salvation of the human race. But if you think it should be declared more plainly which Son God sent to save men (although his own and only-begotten Son is only one, and when he is said to have sent his Son, he is shown to have sent his only-begotten), hear the prophet David pointing out most plainly the one who was sent for human salvation. “He sent,” he says, “his Word, and healed them.” Can you turn this to the flesh, so as to say that only a man was sent by God to heal the human race? Surely you cannot. For the prophet David, with all the holy Scriptures, cries out against you, saying: “He sent his Word, and healed them.” You see, then, that the Word was sent to heal men; because, though healing was given through Christ, still it was the Word of God in Christ that healed all things through Christ. And so, Christ and the Word of God having been united through the sacrament of the incarnation, Christ and the Word of God became one Son of God out of both. The apostle John, wishing to declare this openly, said: “God sent his Son as Savior of the world.” You understand how he joined God and man by an inseparable bond. For Christ, who was born of Mary, is without doubt called Savior, according to that word: “For to you is born today a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” But here he names as Savior that very Word of God which was sent, saying: “God sent his Son as Savior of the world.”

It is plain, then, that through the sacrament of the Word of God united with man, the Word that was sent to save is called Savior, and the Savior born in the flesh is called Son of God through his fellowship with the Word; and so, the majesty of each name being undivided, because God is united with man, whatever is man and God is wholly called God. And therefore the same apostle rightly added: “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and the love of God is perfected in him.” He declares that one truly believes, he asserts that one is full of divine love, who believes that Jesus is the Son of God; and he testifies that the Son of God is the Word of God; and so he wants the only-begotten Word of God and Jesus Christ the Son of God to be understood as wholly one and the same. But do you want to know more fully that, although Christ according to the flesh was truly born a man of man, yet because of the ineffable unity of the sacrament by which man is united with God there is no distance at all between Christ and the Word? Hear the Lord’s gospel, or rather hear God himself speaking of himself: “This,” he says, “is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Above you heard that the Word of God was sent to heal men; here you hear that the one who was sent is Jesus Christ. Separate this, if you can, when you see that the unity of Christ and the Word is so great that not only is the Word said to be united with Christ, but because of that very unity Christ is now said to be the Word.

But perhaps you think this does not shine out enough, not because it shines too little, but because darkened unbelief always makes darkness for itself even in the light. Hear, then, the apostle embracing in a few words the whole sacrament of the Lord’s unity. “One,” he says, “is our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” Good Jesus, how great is the authority in your words! For what your servants say through you is yours. See how much this saying of the apostle embraces in a few words. “One,” he says, “is our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” Did he use any roundabout words to preach the sacrament of so great a mystery, or treat what he wanted us to understand in the narration of a long speech? “One,” he says, “is our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” With a simple and brief utterance he taught the secret of so great a majesty, with this confidence: he knew that his speech in the matter of God needed no long arguments, and that the Godhead gives credibility to his words. For when the proof lies in the authority of the speaker, showing the thing alone suffices to confirm what is said. “One,” then, he says, “is the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” Consider where you have read of the Word of the Father what you read of Christ. “All things,” says the gospel, “were made through him, and without him nothing was made.” The apostle says that all things are through Christ; the gospel says that all things are through the Word. Do the holy writings contradict each other? Surely not; but both the apostle, who said that all things were created through Christ, and the evangelist, who related that all things were made through the Word, want one and the same to be understood. Hear, I say, what God the Word of God declared about himself. “No one,” he says, “has ascended into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” And again: “What if you see,” he says, “the Son of Man ascending where he was before?” He said that the Son of Man had been in heaven; he related that the Son of Man came down from heaven. What is it? What are you muttering? Deny this, if you can. But you ask for the reason of the saying? I will not give it for now. God said it; God spoke: for me his word is the highest reason. I put away arguments, I put away disputations: the person of the speaker alone suffices me for belief. I may not doubt the truth of the saying, I may not deliberate. Why should I ask how what God said is true, when I ought not to doubt that what God has said is true? “No one,” he says, “has ascended into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” Surely the Word of the Father was always in heaven. And how did he relate that the Son of Man was always in heaven? Understand, then, that he taught that the one who was always Son of God is Son of Man, since he affirms that the one who lately came to be son of man was always in heaven. To this is added something greater: that the same Son of Man, that is, the Word of God, who he said had come down from heaven, he testifies to be in heaven even when he is speaking on earth. For “no one,” he says, “has ascended into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” Who, I ask, is it who says this? Christ, surely. And where was he when he was speaking? On earth, of course. And how does he testify both that he came down from heaven when he was born and that he is in heaven while he speaks, and say that he himself is the Son of Man, when surely none but God could come down from heaven, and while speaking on earth he could not be in heaven except by the infinity of God? Notice at last, then, and grasp that the Son of Man is the same as the Word of God, because he is son of man in that he is truly born of man, and Word of God in that the same one who speaks on earth remains always in heaven. And so it belongs to the human birth that he truly calls himself son of man, and to the divine infinity that he never at all withdraws from heaven. And therefore the apostle rightly taught, after the pattern of the divine words (“For he who descended,” he says, “is the same also who ascended above all the heavens, that he might fill all things”), that the one who descended is the same who ascended. But none could come down from heaven but the Word of God, who, “being in the form of God, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, made in the likeness of men, and found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” The Word of God, then, came down from heaven, and the Son of Man ascended; yet he says that the one who ascended is the one who descended. So you see that the Son of Man is the same as the Word of God.

And therefore, following the teaching of the divine word, we must now say fearlessly and without hesitation both that the Son of Man came down from heaven and that the Lord of majesty was crucified; because, according to the sacrament of the body he took, the Son of God became son of man, and in the son of man the Lord of majesty was crucified. And why say more? It would be long to say much about each point; for the day will fail me if I try to gather or explain everything that can be brought forward on this matter. For one who wished to do so would have to turn over and reread the whole of Scripture. For what is there that does not concern this, since everything was written for its sake? So some things must be said briefly and concisely, so that they can be said at all, and some listed rather than explained, and losses, so to speak, redeemed by losses, since it is fitting to pass over some things quickly so that we need not keep silent about nearly all. “The Son of Man,” then, says the Savior in the gospel, “came to save what was lost”; and the apostle: “It is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, of whom I am the first”; and John the evangelist too: “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” You see, then, that Scripture proclaims in one place that the Son of Man, in another that Jesus Christ, in another that the Word of God came into the world. Understand, then, that there is a difference of names, not of things, and that under the different form of the names there is one power. For although the one who came into the world is named now Son of Man, now Son of God, that is, the Word, yet one is meant under both names.

For since, according to the evangelist, the one through whom the world itself was made came into the world, and the one who is God, Creator of the world, became son of man, it makes no difference what he is named in each case, since he is understood to be God in all. For his condescension or his will does not prejudice his Godhead; rather it proves the Godhead itself the more, because whatever he willed, that he was. Therefore, because he willed it, he came into the world; because he willed it, he was born man; and because he willed it, he was called son of man. For all these, as they are names, so they are powers of God. Difference of name did not lessen the force of power in him. Whatever he has been called, in all he is one. Though there may be some difference in the form of the names, in the force of the names there is only one majesty.

But since so far we have used chiefly the witnesses of the Gospels and the apostles, as new ones, let us now bring forward old ones from the prophets, mixing new with old at times, so that all may understand that holy Scripture, with its whole body, as it were, cried out as with one mouth that the Lord would come in the flesh. That outstanding and admirable prophet Jeremiah, then, rich both in the gift of God and in testimony, to whom alone almost it fell to be sanctified before he was born, says: “This is our God; no other will be reckoned beside him. He found every way of discipline and gave it to Jacob his servant and to Israel his beloved. After this he was seen on earth and lived among men.” “This,” then, he says, “is our God.” You see that God is shown by the prophet as with a pointing hand and indicated as with a signifying finger. For “this,” he says, “is our God.” Tell me, then: what God was the prophet then showing by these signs and indications? The Father? And what need was there to show him whom all believed they knew? For the Jews, who lived under the law of God, were not then ignorant of God. But surely the aim was that they should know the Son of God as God. And therefore the prophet rightly said that the one who had found all discipline, that is, had given the law, would be seen on earth, that is, would come in the flesh: so that, since the Jews did not doubt that the one who had given the law was God, they might recognize that the one who would come in the flesh was God, when they heard that the one whom they believed to be God the lawgiver would be seen among men by taking human flesh; the same one also promising his own coming through the prophet: “For I myself who spoke, behold, I am here.” “No other,” then, says holy Scripture, “will be reckoned beside him.” Beautifully here the prophet, foreseeing perverse doctrines, shut out every thought of heretical perversity, saying: “No other will be reckoned beside him.” For this is the one born of God into God, whose command the work of the universe followed, whose will is the origin of things, whose order is the fabric of the world, who spoke all things and they were made, commanded all things and they were created. This, then, is the one who spoke to the patriarchs, dwelt in the prophets, was conceived of the Spirit, born of the virgin, seen in the world, lived among men, nailed the bond of sins to the wood of the cross, triumphed in himself over the powers hostile and opposed to us, killed death, gave all the faith of rising again, and by the glory of his own body destroyed the corruption of human flesh. These things, then, are peculiar to the one Lord Jesus Christ; and therefore no other will be reckoned beside him, because he alone, in this uniqueness of glory and blessedness, is God born of God. This, then, was the purpose of the prophetic teaching at that time: that the only-begotten Son of God the Father should be learned by all, and that, hearing that no other god is reckoned beside the Son, they should recognize that there is one God in Father and Son. “After this,” he says, “he was seen on earth and lived among men.” You see that here the coming and birth of the Lord are plainly indicated. For was the Father, who is read to be visible to the Son alone, ever seen on earth, or born in the flesh, or did he live among men? Surely not. You understand, then, that all these things were said of the Son of God. For since the prophet said that God would be seen on earth, and no other than the Son was seen on earth, the prophet without doubt said this of no other than the one of whom the event afterwards proved it was said. For since he said that God would be seen, he could truly say this of no other than the one who was truly seen afterwards. But enough of this. Let us now pass to other things. “The labor of Egypt,” says the prophet Isaiah, “and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, tall men, will pass over to you and be your servants; they will walk after you, bound in fetters, and they will worship you and pray to you, for God is in you, and there is no God besides you. For you are our God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior.” How well the divine writings always agree with one another! For the former prophet said “This is our God,” this one “You are our God.” In the one is divine teaching, in the other human confession. The one set forth the person of a master teaching, the other the person of a people confessing. For picture Jeremiah the prophet teaching daily in the church, as he does, and saying of the Lord Jesus Christ, “This is our God”: what else would the whole church answer, as it does, than what the other prophet said to the Lord Jesus, “You are our God,” so that past ignorance can rightly be joined to present confession, the people saying: “You are our God, and we did not know it”? For those who before, held by demonic superstitions, did not know God, can rightly say, once converted to the faith: “You are our God, and we did not know it.”

But if you would rather have this proved to you from the person of the Jews, consider the peoples of the Jews here and there turning to the faith and recognizing the Lord after that unhappy ignorance and impious persecution, and see whether they can rightly say: “You are our God, and we did not know it.” But I add something else, so as to prove this to you not only from Jews who confess but also from those who deny. Ask the Jews who still persist in sacrilege whether they know or believe in God: they will certainly confess that they know and believe. But ask, on the other hand, whether they believe in the Son of God: they will surely deny and blaspheme. You see, then, that the prophet spoke of the one whom the Jews have always not known and still do not know, not of the one whom they think they believe and confess. And therefore those from among the Jews who come to faith after ignorance can rightly say: “You are our God, and we did not know it.” For those who believe after ignorance rightly say that they did not know the one whom, while still not believing, they contend they do not know. For it is plain that, confessing after their ignorance, they say they formerly did not know the one whom, while denying, they still do not know.

“The labor,” he says, “of Egypt and the merchandise of Ethiopia and the Sabeans, tall men, will pass over to you.” No one doubts that in these names of different nations the coming of the nations that would believe is signified. And you cannot deny that the nations passed over to Christ, since, having taken the name of Christians, they passed over to the Lord Jesus Christ not only by faith but by the very name; for since they are called what they are, what was the work of faith became the sacrament of the name. “To you,” he says, “they will pass over, and they will be yours, and they will walk after you bound in fetters.” As there are bonds of constraint, so there are bonds of love, according to what the Lord says: “I drew them with the bonds of love.” For truly great are these bonds and of an unspeakable love, so that those who are bound by them rejoice in their chains. Do you want to know that this is true? Hear the apostle rejoicing and exulting in his bonds when he says, “I therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you,” and this: “I beseech you, being such a one as Paul the old man, and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus.” See how much he rejoiced in the merit of his bonds, by whose example he even called others on. And there is no doubt that in those in whom there is one love of the Lord there is one affection for the Lord’s binding, according to that word: “The multitude of those who believed had one heart and one soul.” “They will worship you,” he says, “and pray to you, for God is in you, and there is no God besides you.” The apostle plainly expounded the prophet’s saying when he said: “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” “In you,” then, he says, “is God, and there is no God besides you.” Rightly the prophet, saying “God is in you,” showed not only the one who was present but also the one who was in the one present: distinguishing the one dwelling from the one in whom he dwelt by indicating the natures, not by denying the unity.

“You are,” he says, “God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior.” Although Scripture has already shown by many clear signs of whom it was speaking, it still expressed the name of Christ most plainly in the name of Savior; for the Savior is the same as Christ, as the angel says: “For to you is born today a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” For no one doubts that Jesus in Hebrew means Savior, as the angel testifies to the holy virgin Mary, saying: “And you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” And lest you perhaps say that he was proclaimed Savior in the way it was said of others, “And the Lord raised up for them a savior, Othniel the son of Kenaz,” and again, “And he raised up for them a savior, Ehud the son of Gera,” he added: “for he will save his people from their sins.” But it is not within human power to redeem a people from the captivity of sin; that is possible only for the one of whom it was said: “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sin of the world.” For the others saved a people not their own but God’s, and not from sins but from enemies.

“You are,” then, he says, “our God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior.” Who do you think says this more, to whom do you judge it more fitting, Jews or Gentiles? If Jews, the Jews certainly did not know Christ, according to that word: “But Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood me,” and that: “And the world was made through him, and the world did not know him; he came to his own, and his own did not receive him.” If Gentiles, it is plain that the Gentile world, held by idols, did not know Christ, though it did not know the Father either; yet even if it knows him now, it knows him only through Christ. You see, then, that whether the believing people be from the Gentiles or from the Jews, each rightly says for itself: “You are our God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior”; because both the Gentiles, worshiping idols before, did not know God, and the Jews, denying the Lord, did not know the Son of God. And so both the one and the other rightly say of Christ: “You are our God, and we did not know it”; because those who did not believe did not know God, as those who denied the Son of God did not know him. If, then, Christ is to be believed as the truth speaks, as the Godhead declares, as finally Christ himself, who is both, proclaims, why, unhappy madness, do you strive to put something between Christ and God? Why do you seek to separate his body from the Son of God and try to divide God from himself? You tear apart what is united and separate what is joined. Believe the Word of God about God; for there is no way you could better confess the Godhead of God than by confessing it in the very words by which the Godhead taught itself. Know, then, according to the prophet, that the Lord himself is God, who found every way of discipline, who was surely both seen on earth and lived among men. He brought the light of faith into the world; he showed the light of salvation. For “God is the Lord, and he has shone upon us.” Believe him, then, love him, confess him; because when, as it is written, “every knee shall bow to him, of things in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father,” like it or not, you will not be able to deny that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. For this is the perfect strength of a perfect confession: always to confess God and the Lord Jesus Christ in the glory of God the Father.