Refutations of Certain Propositions

A letter of the same author, serving as a preface and as a lament over the turmoil of the churches. I admired your scholarly and truth-loving purpose, most faithful servant of Christ (for what could I find equal to that dignity?), Eustathius; and I admired it so much, and was so overcome, that I rose at once to the service you commanded, bringing readily the will, even if the power is lacking. For how could I either make my words equal to your warm zeal, or fill up the measure owed to the truth, or set out the bulk of the falsehood that now troubles us? Words full of every unreason and madness are being spoken, and spoken with all shamelessness and high-handedness, so that by this things never dared before are now more easily dared, and heretical wickedness no longer plots secretly and little by little against the simpler sort, but acts with youthful insolence as if it had authority over all, and gives orders against all, legislates, drags to what it pleases, demands obedience without delay, condemns, exacts penalties for exactness about godliness; it covers one man with insults, drives another from his homeland, weaves for this one the nooses of accusations, strips that one of the rank he holds, throws one down by boldness, carries off another by bluster. I say nothing of the chains, the prisons, the fines, the disgraces, the scourges, the pitiable spectacles of murders, which even after experience are disbelieved for their excess. And this drama is staged through many priests. O unholy daring! O unbearable judgment! Their preface to the liturgy and to teaching is that sweetest word, "Peace to all"; their task is to carry about the proclamation, to give many charges about gentleness, so that they may keep the saying, "In gentleness correcting those who oppose"; they fittingly urge, "We who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those who are not strong"; for they very piously keep the wise words of Paul, "Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn?" and, "I have become all things to all, that I might win all." Where now is, "Do not hate him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother"? Where now, "So that what is lame may not be turned aside but rather healed"? Where is, "Reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all patience and teaching"? Condemnation without trial, sentence without proof. Rashness is reckoned courage, cruelty is named zeal, deceit is counted wisdom. What loud-voiced tragedy is worthy of these things? The lament of Jeremiah is small beside the number and greatness of such evils. But lest we seem, for lack of proofs, to linger in lamentations, come, let us meet simply and truthfully each of the things they put forward; though even before words they have been refuted by their deeds, according to the divine law that says, "By their fruits you will know them." And the fruits of those now at work, it seems, are to scatter, not to gather; to persecute, not to bring back; to throw down, not to raise up; to wound, not to heal; to hate those who do not stray, not to seek those who stray. What was written without falsehood has plainly been fulfilled: "All who wish to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted; but evil men and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." The parts of our reply are set out below, divided in order as follows.

Against those who judge the truth by numbers alone. As we are about to engage, with God, in the contests against falsehood, let us call on the God of truth to guide us. For he has redeemed us from the falsehood of vanity, now crying out, "I am the truth," now charging us, "Take courage, I have overcome the world." How then are they not pitiable who assign the strength of an argument to numbers alone, and do not understand that the Master Christ gave to twelve disciples, simple, unlettered, poor, easily taken, courage against the whole world, preparing them not to follow the tens of thousands, but making the tens of thousands agree with the twelve? So the power of the truth is always strong, even if for a time it is found among few. But he who does not dare to give an account of the question before us, and has no store of proofs, and for that reason takes refuge in numbers, confesses his defeat, as having no provision for free speech. You brandish the multitude at us, as if threatening God with a second tower-building, in imitation of a crazed many-handed crowd. Let him show me the beauty of truth, and persuasion follows at once. But a multitude that acts on its own authority without proofs is able to frighten, but by no means to persuade. Or how many tens of thousands will persuade me to think day night? Or to know a bronze coin as gold, and accept it so? Or to take a plain poison instead of suitable food? Then, in earthly matters, shall we not perceive a multitude of false names, but in heavenly doctrines shall I follow unproven nods, departing from what was handed down of old and from long ago with much agreement and the witness of the Scriptures? Have we not heard the Lord saying, "Many are called, but few are chosen"; and again, "Narrow and hard is the way that leads to life, and few are those who find it"? Who of sound mind, then, does not pray to be among the few who enter to salvation through the narrow gate, rather than among the many who are pushed through the wide one into destruction? And who, had he happened to be present at the time of the contest of the blessed Stephen, would not wish to be of his portion, who alone was being stoned and set out for all to mock, rather than of the crowds who thought their credibility came from their wicked high-handedness? One man of good repute is to be preferred above tens of thousands priding themselves on arrogance, as we find also in the Old Testament: in it thousands of the people fell by a God-sent blow, but Phinehas alone stood and made atonement, and the plague ceased. But if he had said, "How will anyone dare against what has been done with one accord by so many? How shall I cast a vote against those who have decided so to live?" he would neither have been the champion, nor have stopped the evil; the rest would not have been saved, nor would God have granted his favor. It is good, then, good for one righteous man to speak freely and to break up the unjust agreement of many. But you, if you like, prefer the drowned multitude to Noah who was saved; allow me to run to the ark that holds the few. And you, if you wish, place yourself with the many in Sodom; I shall go with Lot, even if he alone parts profitably from the crowds. Yet for me too a multitude is to be respected: not one that flees examination, but one that offers proof; not one that avenges itself bitterly, but one that corrects like a father; not one that rejoices in innovation, but one that guards the ancestral inheritance. And what kind of multitude do you speak of to me? One hired by flattery and gifts, stolen by ignorance and lack of knowledge, fallen through cowardice and fear, one that has preferred the temporary enjoyment of sin to eternal life, as many have openly confessed? Do you strengthen falsehood by numbers? You have shown the intensity of the evil; for the more there are in evil, the greater the calamity.

Against those who order that one should not search or speak from the Scriptures, but be content with the faith they hold. That the unexamined agreement of the many is nothing, I think not even those who disagree with us will now gainsay. We must go on to what follows, and show how we must refute the daring of those who speak on their own authority without the witness of the Scriptures, and declare that study of the holy Scriptures is superfluous, as though each one's own faith were sufficient, and as though inquiry rather produced obscurity in us. These are the words of men who condemn their doctrine as unable to stand. But we, trusting in the truth of the mystery and in the help of him who cannot lie, who said, "Everyone who seeks finds," both seek as we ought and find what we ought, and speak with proof and listen with sincere purpose, so as to persuade our own, to refute our opponents, to profit ourselves through the search, and not to show the matter as unable to stand. Shall I neglect the Scriptures? From where, then, is knowledge? Shall I leave knowledge behind? From where is faith? Paul cries, "How will they believe if they do not hear?" and again, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God." He who hinders the word, then, stops up hearing and casts out faith. To be ignorant of the laws of the Romans is safe for no one; and those who hinder people from studying and learning the great decrees of the King of heaven, what plot do they not work? Scripture is the food of the soul. Stop, then, starving the inner man, O man, bringing on a savage famine, "not of bread and water, but of hearing the word of the Lord." Another inflicts the wounds, and do you prevent the bringing of the medicines? Stop declaring vain the varied wisdom of the medical books; respect that eunuch, the lover of learning, who was over all the treasure of the queen, and did not leave off reading even on the road; whose purpose the Master accepted, and at once sent him the teacher, adding knowledge to reading and leading him from the Scriptures to the Savior. Therefore he himself commanded, "Search the Scriptures," by "search" meaning a careful and sober examination of hidden things. From the holy Scriptures comes the revealing of what is unclear, the confirming of hopes, the fulfilment of promises, the finding of the Savior: "We have found him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote." Paul uses these words to establish the truth. But if Paul, the hearer of unspeakable words, the initiate of secret things, who had Christ speaking in him, does not simply use … how is it now safe to neglect the divine legislation and to speak what seems good from one's own heart? But there are some things that surpass our comprehension, I too say. Let us then learn this too from the Scriptures, so as to know that some things are to be sought as attainable. For it is neither godly to dare everything, nor holy to neglect everything. What we worship, all of us ought to know, as it is written: "We worship what we know." But how great, or of what kind, or how, or where, is for madmen to seek. But those who want to judge their own matters keep people from the Scriptures, on the pretext of not daring, as though they were inaccessible, but in truth in order to escape being refuted from them for their own false doctrine. And when they see their own ill-thinking hampered by the proof of the Scriptures, they set aside the purpose and use of the Scriptures; but when they think that some bare phrase, cut off from its own sequence, serves their own attempt, they drag it to their own construction, not serving the meaning it shows but forcing the syllables to their own malpractice, as they do with "The Word became flesh." [3] Against those who maliciously put forward "The Word became flesh." Many things have been devised for deceit by those who have fallen from the truth, whether through strife or through ignorance; but "The Word became flesh," which was said in a way beyond nature and beyond praise, has been chosen both by the enemies of old, in the heresies, and by our present opponents, as an invincible mystery, as they thought; and they have built it as a fortress against us, contriving to sally out from there and strike the phalanx of the orthodox, and to bind many in the tangle of the question: "The Word became flesh"; the one who became flesh himself received the passion. Who does not shudder at the madness of these words? Cutting off what is written, they spoke, and introduced what is not written. For he who said, "The Word became flesh," added, "and dwelt among us," so that we should at once understand twofold meanings: the Word, the flesh; that which dwells, that in which it dwells; and should take neither a turning nor an alteration nor anything of the kind in the unchangeable substance. For otherwise he would have said, "He became a dwelling," not "He dwelt among us," if indeed the nature of the Word itself had changed into the nature of flesh. But it is not possible to reason so about him who says, "See, see, that I am, and I have not changed." How then did he both become flesh and not change? By being united to flesh, not by being transformed into flesh. Therefore it is also said, "He was manifested in the flesh," not "the flesh was manifested"; and, "He took hold of the seed of Abraham," he says, not "he became the seed of Abraham by alteration"; and, "He had the body as a temple," not "he was changed into a temple"; and, "He who was in the form of God took the form of a servant," not "he became the form of a servant." If anyone, being contentious, will not consider what befits God, but wants to serve syllables without godly understanding, and to demand everything that ought not to be demanded, let him know that he declares himself wiser than the grace of the Holy Spirit, and does not accept the legislation from there, which, through many sacred voices, as was said before, has made the force of the phrase clear to us; and that not without daring he brings conflict into the divine words and condemns the holy doctrines as contrary to one another, if indeed "He became flesh" is contrary to "He took the form of a servant." But away with that, wretched man: neither is the divine changed, nor does holy Scripture fight against itself, but, interpreting itself to those who listen with love of truth, it is wholly acceptable and harmonious. This godly understanding, then, the divine books hand down to us; and "became" is written not so that we should think of a change of God the Word, but so that we should understand thereby the highest union; since he is not said to have committed sin, but to have been made sin: "For him who knew no sin," it says, "he made sin for us," not by the Word being transformed into an act of sin, or by having committed sin, but by taking our sin and doing away with it, as it is written, "He takes away our sins." Just as, then, he was made sin and became a curse not by being changed … so too he became flesh, not changed into it but united to it. Hence also a man, joined to God through faith and grace, is said to be one spirit: "He who is joined to the Lord," it says, "is one spirit"; not as though the man were changed into the nature of the Godhead, but as though such a union bestowed on him the spiritual dignity. In the same way the Word too did not change into the nature of flesh, but, being united to flesh, is said to have become flesh; just as a man joined to God is said to be spirit, not casting off his own substance but taking on the fellowship. But what is the wisdom of the opponents? "He remained what he was; he became what he was not." Then the indivisible nature was divided, and part of it remained, while … became an appearance; or it ought to be said simply, but it is not fitting to understand it. And what need is there of a word that means nothing? But as it was handed down from the beginning, what is said is firm, what follows is plain, the interpretation is clear, the understanding godly, the impossible uncontested, the fitting present together, the credible from many witnesses beyond dispute, the unchangeableness of the Godhead inviolate, and the passion belongs to what is called the temple, not to God who raised it. Besides, according to their account the Virgin is not even understood as mother. If the Word made himself flesh, he did not come forth having taken flesh from her. For how is she a mother from whom what was born took nothing? And how could a strange passage, like that through a pipe, be called a birth? They make the holy Virgin a vessel, then, not a mother. And they cannot even see that they put forward "The Word became flesh" rather against themselves. For if the Word is one thing and the flesh another, they are two, not one; but if the Word and the flesh are the same, "became" is undone. For the Word did not become the Word; and what is in the same thing did not become something else. So it is necessary either that "became" be overturned, or that the two natures be confessed. For "became" is said according to what truly appeared, with reference to the impression of those who saw, who did not then know the unseen God the Word: just as if someone should say, "The shepherd has been changed from a man into a sheep," when he has truly put on a sheep's form over the man, not by an unwilling necessity of nature, but by the judgment and good pleasure of his free choice alone.

Against those who say there is one nature in Christ. How then do some dare, after it has been shown that the Word and the flesh are two, to throw out the coming together of the two natures, fighting against all the holy Scriptures, bringing every insult on the nature that cannot be insulted, and begrudging the whole human race the divine becoming man? They throw out every prophecy of it, they who set aside the twofoldness of the natures. The nature of the flesh, receiving all that is said in lowlier terms, keeps the glory of the Word intact; if it is thrown out, everything must run together onto the Word. All hope and confidence for human beings comes through the union of the Word with our firstfruits. But those who say that the Word was turned into flesh have emptied the boast of our race and declared our bright hopes unsure. Abraham no longer takes pride, David no longer exults; the promises to him are false, if Christ according to the flesh does not rise from the fruit of his loins, but God the Word, having made himself flesh, granted his sojourn. How then are they not ashamed, fighting against the divine Scriptures, begrudging human beings, blaspheming God as passible, and declaring his promises false; or rather not only false, but pouring perjury on the God who cannot lie? "For the Lord swore truth to David," it says, "and he will not set it aside: of the fruit of his loins I will set upon his throne." If David contributed nothing from his substance, but the flesh was newly fashioned from the Word, and there is one nature in the Master Christ, then one must certainly think of him either as Lord of David or as son; for the one nature does not admit both. If he is God only, he is not properly Son; for he does not receive the beginning of his being from him; nor is he a true son who has nothing from the substance of the one called his father.

Against those who say that to confess the flesh as a nature is to preach a quaternity instead of a Trinity. Again I see the same mischief put forward by the opponents in other words. For having said above, simply, that those who understand the two, the form of God and the form of a servant, in one introduce two Sons, here again they slander those who believe that the flesh was assumed as a nature with preaching a quaternity. They say this on their own authority, not from any logical sequence; and they bring it not so much against us as against all the saints who preached such things through spiritual grace, enlightened by whom we were taught the undefiled confession in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and came to know the dispensation of the becoming man from two natures. But those who want to carry everything lowly onto the very Godhead of the Son set aside the nature of the flesh, so that its sufferings must of necessity be ascribed to God the Word, who would first have been turned into flesh and then have suffered the things of the flesh. And for this reason they brandish an accusation at the faithful, constructing what they please by their authority alone. For if we said that the flesh is of the substance of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, they would rightly call it a quaternity, as the same substance would be seen in four persons. But if we say what is true, that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, and the Holy Spirit consubstantial, and that he took the flesh to fulfil the dispensation, not to increase the substance, how do they make an addition to the number, when the nature of the flesh is so different, as if introducing another consubstantial person? And this, when it is not considered by itself, but is known in inseparable conjunction with God the Word, so that it is no longer seen as separate, nor counted together as consubstantial in an equal way. Our account, then, both confesses the becoming man and does not make a quaternity, as he says, and keeps the Word impassible, and agrees with all the holy Scriptures; but the opponents' legislation disobeys what has been written from the beginning, sets aside the assumption of the flesh, and declares that God the Word was changed and suffered, or that everything was displayed in appearance only. But if, because of the many benefits which we have received and hope to receive through the mediating spotless flesh, they compel us to take the flesh into the number of a quaternity, it is time for them also to take into the count of those named the garment, the hem of which the woman who carried the spring of blood touched in faith and stole her healing, and to bring the garment in as a fifth into the proclamation of the doxology; not as honored with the same place of union, but as taken up for a wonderful miracle. As, then, the garment, which received so great a grace from the spotless flesh and passed it on to the woman, made no addition to the number in the doxology, so we too, honoring the divine flesh inseparably united to the almighty Word, confess that we have found salvation through it, and yet keep the number of the Trinity untouched, since it is one with the Word in the inseparability of the union and the indivisibility of the worship. But whatever they say has happened that befits the divine nature, they take the power of God to build an unfitting idea, though Paul says: "It is impossible for God to lie" and "to deny himself"; and whatever is fitting to God and saving and God-befitting and loving to humankind, these they transfer to the impossible, not allowing the Master's wisdom the power both to take flesh and not to make a quaternity. Such is their contentious judgment: to confirm their own unfitting innovations by saying that God can do all things, but no longer to accept as true, possible, and profitable what is piously proclaimed by holy Scripture, rather to take it for tangling questions, and not to ascribe to the power of him who does all things what belongs to it beyond human comprehension.

Against those who say that to know the Master Christ as man is to have one's hopes in a man. Not content with problems so absurd and shameless, they have added another, more reckless pronouncement, saying that those who confess Christ as God and man according to each nature have their hopes in a man. On this it is good to ask them: must we obey the holy Scriptures, or, according to them, must we not? If we must, we have heard it from them, and let them accuse the Scriptures themselves. But if they say we must not, let them openly confess their implacable war against the sacred books, and we have no more argument with them, as with strangers. From the Scriptures we have heard: "A man in affliction, and knowing how to bear weakness"; and that he is Son of Man; "But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth." "One God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ." "The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." "The first Adam, but the last Christ." "Through a man came death, through a man the resurrection of the dead." So much in words, and very much more again in deeds. He was born a baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, nourished with milk, circumcised according to the law; he advanced in stature and wisdom and grace; he knew hunger, was not ignorant of thirst, felt toil, experienced trouble, distress, and grief; he was made like his brothers in all things, without sin. He was subjected to scourges, brought to the cross, pierced with nails, tasted death, was handed over to burial; his soul was in Hades, and, unable to be held there, was given back to the body, and the resurrection took place; then the touching and handling by those who disbelieved; then food, confirming the resurrection of the body; then the ascension into heaven, while many watched. So many testimonies in what is written, such full assurance in what happened, so many goods procured by the dispensation. And all this they tell us to overlook, and to go against so many and such great things, and not to confess according to nature the manhood demonstrated by them; though not a mere manhood. Against this it is time to set the apostolic voice: "We must obey God rather than men." The manhood is so ineffably and inseparably united to the Godhead that the same one is seen as a baby and a child and known as God. "A child has been born to us," says the prophet, "a son also has been given, and his name is called Angel of great counsel, wonderful, counsellor, mighty God." He is wrapped in swaddling clothes, but shows his uncircumscribed lordship to all creation. He was laid in a manger, but was glorified by the hymns of angels; he endured hunger and thirst, but fed thousands from five loaves, and, as he willed, showed an abundance of fragments, twelve baskets. In short, he tasted death, but destroyed the one who had the power of death; and in the very passion, the body was hanging on the cross, while God the Word in it was everywhere displaying his impassible sovereignty. The earth shook, the rocks were split, the sun was veiled, the curtain was torn, the tombs were opened, the dead leapt up, strange heralds of the destruction of death; all creation declared the invisible Godhead of the Crucified. What defense shall we have if we neglect so great a salvation, overlook such full assurance, and agree with the innovations of the contentious? That it is fitting in every way to know Christ the Savior as at once God and man, according to each nature, the stones would cry out even if we kept silent; but that those who believe in this way do not simply have their hopes in a man, must be shown clearly. Yet even if some difficulty arose, one ought to seek its solution or confess one's own ignorance, not depart from what is written. But now it is easy to find what is fitting: that we have our hopes in the incarnate presence of him who became man, in the saving dispensation of the Master, recognizing through the visible flesh the invisible God the Word, and believing that through its passion we receive impassibility; ascribing all that happened to the Godhead united to the flesh, and so offering one worship to God the Word incarnate and made man. For the woman who touched the hem was not convicted of having her hopes in a hem, but in the invisible power of him who was clothed in the garment whose hem it was. Nor did the man freed from blindness by spittle have his trust in spittle, but in the invincible authority of him who commanded him to receive healing so. Since now too those who approach the holy altar, embracing it and kissing it with fear and joy, do not rest simply on stone or wood, but on the grace remembered by the godly through the stone or wood. Or would you also accuse those who were once saved under the blessed Moses by looking at the bronze serpent lifted up of entrusting their salvation to a serpent? And if the image of the mystery showed such power through a serpent, how much more will the very archetype of grace give you through a man, as it has given the faithful its manifold benefits, according to him who said: "For as through a man came death, so through a man the resurrection of the dead."

Against those who say: God the Word suffered impassibly. Having answered briefly, as far as we could, many tangles put forward very clumsily, we do not know what to do with the one now before us; we do not want to jest, but we are compelled to give instruction above all in answer to so laughable a game, which even to state simply is to bring in mockery. "He suffered impassibly." O unthinkable wisdom! O playful teaching, building and pulling down at once, like the toys of children in the sand! "He suffered impassibly": before I hear the word, I forget the meaning of "suffered." For "impassibly," added to it, does not allow us to accept death and burial and resurrection, which are the sum of our salvation. For if he suffered, how impassibly? If impassibly, how did he suffer? Let us speak unspeakably and think unthinkingly! Who has seen one falling without falling, rising without rising, toiling without toil, thinking without thought, speaking without speech, helping without help, loosed without loosing, that we should say, "He suffered impassibly"? What a pitch of folly! What an insistence of madness! What a frenzy of senselessness! To bring, about the most awe-inspiring mystery, words that produce broad laughter; to promise reason and put forward unreason; to give an answer equal to giving none; to offer an interpretation more obscure, the mother of greater perplexity! How was none of the saints able to run up to such a height of contemplation, or to say that much-repeated phrase, "He suffered impassibly"? How did the books of many lines not make known to us this enormous revelation? Paul, who went up to the third heaven and heard unspeakable words in paradise, declared nothing of the kind. Surely it was not that he left to these men the explanation of the things that surpass us, and so did not say, "He suffered impassibly"? But he says, "He learned from the things he suffered"; and, "Tempted in all things according to likeness." "Tempted" has long since done away with the nonsense of such talk. For he who was tempted in all things according to likeness either suffered not impassibly, so as to keep "in all things according to likeness"; or he shows that the others too suffered impassibly, so as to save his likeness to them. So either one must confess that the Savior truly suffered, or that the others too suffered impassibly, according to whose likeness the Master is proclaimed to have been tempted. And what proof of endurance is there in suffering impassibly? How is Christ's endurance spoken of, if he did not feel pain? How is his unspeakable and incomparable tender love for human beings shown, if the passion took place without pain? Who would not choose to suffer, not only for friends but even for enemies, if it is possible to suffer impassibly? Why did the Master say, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," if he was going to accept the passion without pain? Why did he cry to the Father, "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass"? For what reason did he offer up prayers of supplication, with loud crying and tears, to him who was able to save him from death? Either, then, we must believe all of it true and confess the passion as real; or, if the passion is said to have happened impassibly, we must reckon everything a show, a seeming, and an appearance. If he did not truly suffer, neither did he truly rise at all. If he did not really taste death, neither did he quench the stings of death; we are still in our sins, death still reigns over all, we are still strangers to the inheritance. For if the death was deceptive, the testament too is false, and the inheritance not real. The law declares this to us: "A testament," it says, "is valid in the case of the dead." If, then, he who made the New Testament for us did not really die, the terms of the testament are void, and those called heirs are cast out. But away with such frenzy, O man! For the testator has died, and the testament has been ratified, and the inheritance is set before those who believe, and the punishment is prepared for the slanderers. For many are found false witnesses of God, saying that he raised Christ from the dead, whom he did not raise as truly dead, if indeed he suffered impassibly. And while Paul cries that Christ is subject to suffering, Paul's opponents reply, "impassibly."

Against those who say: God suffered as he willed. Those who want to complete a journey according to rule and are eager to avoid all straying will choose to suffer anything rather than leave the highway a little. In the same way those who want to walk the road of the truth of doctrines keep to the footprints of those who travelled without straying; and, learning the signs of the royal road with exactness, they refuse every turning aside and become wholly the truth's. Departing from this aim, those who now want to teach the contrary have abandoned the footprints of the orthodox fathers and misreckoned the signs of the theologians who showed the way, and have pursued many byways, some found long ago by others, some now newly invented by themselves; such is the unreasonable phrase, "God suffered as he willed." For, unable to show that the nature is passible, they did not hesitate to slander the will; and when asked about the nature, they answer about the will. If the nature is capable of suffering, let the will have its place; but if, even if willing were granted ten thousand times, it is impossible for the law of nature to be overturned, how is it not madness to say, "He suffered as he willed"? Or which of those of sound mind does not know that the will must agree with the nature? Not that one inclines to one thing and the other hastens to another; but that the nature remains within its own limits and the nature wills what befits nature and understanding; so that if someone should say that the nature has one thing and the will wills another, he has brought in conflict and war, the one attempting what it ought not, the other not accepting what it is not born to. For what is by nature capable of suffering is subject to suffering whether it wills or does not will; but as for what is by nature outside suffering, even if one granted the willing, which is impossible, who will make the substance accept what it is not born to? Every kind of living thing keeps the law of its own substance unshaken, and as it came to be from the beginning, so it lives always, and nowhere does willing overturn the order. Even if a man wills ten thousand times to become a bird, the will's efforts are idle, since nature prevails; and if he wills to have the soul of one of the irrational animals, he is laughed at for willing what is not fulfilled in deed. Then is it that every nature has freedom from tyranny and is stronger than every contrary will, and only the unchangeable and immortal substance of God accepts a contrary will and is defeated by the compulsion of willing? O wonder! She who keeps every substance within its own limits so easily departs herself from the limits of impassibility, and the one who created all things does not have as much as he has given to a creature? And from where at all has it become known that he willed? A prophet did not say it, an apostle did not proclaim it; but those who think it a small thing to look down on everything alone act with youthful insolence in bringing a strange legislation. We have neither read "suffered" nor found "as he willed." For which of the saints either saw the impassible and invisible one suffering, or understood the will concerning this? O the daring of men, leaping above the invisible powers! Who has passed beyond heaven? Who has gone beyond the thrones, the principalities, the authorities, the powers, the dominions? Who has flown above the seraphim? Who has seen what is unseen by them? Who has understood a nature of God that wills in this way and suffers what has not been revealed by the Scriptures? Neither is "suffered" said, nor is "as he willed" written. "He has done whatever he willed," we have heard; but that he suffered as he willed, we have nowhere learned. Why then do they bring what is unclear for confirmation? This is an addition to madness, not a proof of truth. But Christ suffered according to the flesh of mortals, not according to the immortal Word.

Against those who say that one must accept the words and not consider what they signify, as surpassing everyone. Scarcely have men been found who strive to overturn all human things, and who are eager that men should no longer be rational, nor learn with exactness the things good by nature, but simply agree to everything without testing, by accepting the words of the sacred books without examination and without correction, and not according to the godly purpose for which they were spoken. For if, as they have ordered, one should not consider what they signify, but should hear what is said simply and without testing, it remains that the prophets and the apostles sound in our ears in vain, that every word remains useless and ineffective, and that it sends no benefit to the hearers into the storerooms of their hearts. For so they command people to hear with the ears but not to understand with the heart, nor to consider the sequence of what is said, according to the threat that says, "Hearing you will hear, and you will not understand." For this reason they compel people to hear "The Word became flesh" simply, but no longer allow them to understand it piously, as though they had authority to drag each one's mind to what pleases them, not to what is fitting and profitable. Shall I hear the word and not seek the fittingness of the thought? Where then is either the sequence of the word or the profit of the hearer? Perhaps they command men to change into the habits of irrational animals, if they are to receive the noise of words with the hearing, but take in no gain of thoughts into the soul. Not so did Paul, the teacher of such things, charge us; nor did he declare that one must partake of anything without reason and discernment; but how? "Solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their faculties trained to distinguish good and evil." He advised maturity, praised training, advised making a sober distinction of good and evil. How then could anyone distinguish well without grasping the meaning of what is said? For just as one sick with a bad habit of body does not find the true quality of each food, so too a man who, through laziness or unreason, has the faculties of the soul untrained, tastes words but does not perceive their power, nor know the quality of the thoughts; he partakes of everything senselessly and unguardedly like irrational animals, taking in the harmful and the useful as it happens, and unable even to be counted among the clean animals, since he does not chew the cud and send on the rational food, made fine, to the inner man, but consumes it unworked and unsuitable, receiving harm rather than any benefit for the sustaining of life from his fault in sending it on. Or who does not know that … the divine law commands even one who is invited to dine at a ruler's table to consider intelligently what is set before him? So one must not snatch at words stripped of thoughts, but consider carefully what befits God, what profits us, what the truth allows, what agrees with the law, what suits nature, what is genuine in faith, firm in hope and unadulterated in love, unsullied in glory, superior to envy, worthy of grace; all of which are present in godly conceptions, as was made known in the case of "The Word became flesh," but are lacking, as is likely, to absurd innovations, which of necessity take refuge in such vain talk. The chief point of what is said: he who accepts the words and does not learn what they signify, how will he understand the things that seem at first sight to fight with one another? How will he find the fitting solution? How will he give an answer to those who wish to ask? How will he keep what is written: "To know how we ought to answer each one"?

Against those who say: God the Word suffered in the flesh. It makes me wonder how the inventors of new doctrines, introducing so many novelties, have not been able to have their fill of such innovation, but act with youthful insolence if they can devise anything strange to deceive the simpler sort, such as what is now put forward for examination: "God the Word suffered in the flesh." Again here there is much unreason and much absurdity. For it is unreason to say that one thing suffers in another, and absurdity to say, "The Word suffered." Not daring to say this bare, without a veil, they added "in the flesh," covering the unfittingness of their thought with a deceitful mask, like an ugly face. If the Word suffered, he suffered in himself; but if what suffered was something else, it has nothing to do with the Word, except only the insult, which by reference from the suffering body runs back to the Word united to it. But to say, "The Word suffered in the flesh," is unscriptural, unfitting, incoherent, inconsistent. But since they have decided to blaspheme without ceasing, and knew that "The Word suffered" is unacceptable to godly ears, they thought it right to add "in the flesh" as a medicine for the wounds of their words; whereas they ought neither to bring on the disease nor to care for a deceiving medicine. For none of these unreasonable devices is found to fit with the truth; rather it often fights with itself and finds no standing among those who listen with understanding. Neither is the Word passible in the flesh, nor is the flesh impassible in the Word; but the flesh admits suffering according to its own nature, and the Word has impassibility inseparable from his own substance. If, then, he suffers in the flesh, what should we say about the flesh? That it suffers in the Word, or that it does not suffer? If it does not suffer, impassibility has been granted to it; but if it suffers, … they have condemned both to suffering, so that the Word suffers in the flesh and the flesh suffers in the Word in its own nature. But perhaps they will say: "How then is it said, 'From whom is Christ according to the flesh'?" Say "Christ suffered," and you will find the name of the flesh running together with it. For he who says "God the Word" signifies a simple substance; but he who names "Christ" makes plain the conjunction of the two natures. And so it can be fitting to say, "Christ suffered," because this title declares both together, the impassible Word and the passible flesh that tasted death. Since Paul too did not say, "From whom is God," bare, but "From whom is Christ according to the flesh," so as to show that the one mentioned is from the Israelites according to the flesh, but according to the Godhead from the eternal Father; he did not say, "From whom is God in the flesh." Say the same yourself, and I am persuaded: "Christ suffered according to the flesh." But if you say that God suffered in the flesh, teach me clearly whether God and flesh are the same by nature, or one thing and another. If the same, God suffered in himself; for you call the flesh the same as God. But if one thing and another, how does this suffer in that, when every nature suffers in itself and not in another substance? A man does not suffer in a horse; the soul does not die in the flesh; but the flesh is dissolved and the soul is separated. And it is said that a man has died, which signifies the two, soul and flesh, and he is understood to have died in the way that is possible, that is, according to the flesh and not according to the immortal soul. So no one has said, "So-and-so's soul has died in the flesh," but "So-and-so the man," who is composed of soul and body, has died; and, declaring the soul immortal even after death, Scripture said that the righteous live for ever, as the holy Scripture bears witness. But every divine book accuses those men. How many prophets, how many apostles, how many evangelists! And nowhere, in any of them, such a phrase. But "Christ suffered" is proclaimed plainly everywhere: "Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us"; "that Christ must suffer"; "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." The cross of Christ, the body of Christ, the blood of Christ. How then do they pass by so great a cloud of witnesses and put their own authority before the legislation of the Spirit, daring against the commandment that cries, "Do not move the eternal boundaries which your fathers set"? Not heeding that the sacred and great choir of the holy fathers at Nicaea too, immediately after the confession of God the Father, placed the name of the Master Christ: "And in one Lord Jesus Christ"; and then added both the lofty things of the Godhead and the things of the dispensation of his manhood, as though this name alone received the different things fittingly and appropriately, according to the voice of the blessed Paul: "No one can lay another foundation than the one laid, which is Jesus Christ." Let us not then abandon the foundation, which receives everything according to each nature, admitting truly both the glory and the passion. If you say God alone, where will you build on it the need of the passions? If you say man alone, where will you place on it the wealth of the incomprehensible glory? But it is good to say Christ: reaping the glory in the Godhead, receiving the passion in the united manhood, and working every wonder and granting every gift to the faithful by the inseparable union. So it is shown that the divine is impassible, the passion real, the gain of human beings common, the word of truth clear, the foundation of the teaching unshaken, the greatness of the mystery glorious, the wonder of antiquity credible, the beauty of orthodoxy unadulterated, and the proclamation of all the saints in harmony. But to utter a phrase never yet spoken, and to anathematize all who have not said that God the Word suffered in the flesh, carries this rashness not only against the men of the present, but extends the daring against all the heralds and teachers from the beginning. And why do they flee the name of the Master Christ, on which we have been commanded to believe? "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved." It is good to have the hopes of salvation in this name. "For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." "In the name of Jesus Christ every knee will bow, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father." He is the judge of the living and the dead; Stephen, as he was being perfected, called on him: "Lord Jesus Christ, receive my spirit." "One Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things." He is Savior, he is Redeemer; "Christ is all." Why do they flee the much-longed-for name? This drove out diseases: "In the name of Jesus Christ rise and walk." This put demons to flight: "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene to come out of her." How then, abandoning this as displeasing to them, have they set down what lies in none of the saints: "The Word suffered in the flesh"?

Against those who say: What penalty will the Jews pay, if they did not kill God? It is not possible, it seems, to check with words the unreasoning impulse of contentious men; but even if someone brings ten thousand irrefutable proofs, he has shown the truth but has not persuaded the workers of falsehood. For so those cut off from the truth, after many plain demonstrations, do not leave their own aim nor come to the straight road; but taking up byways they wander along cliffs, putting forward unreasonable questions, and they are not ashamed to say: "How will the Jews be punished, if they have not killed God?" Alas for the shameless daring! Alas for the deceitful attempt! To avenge Christ they tear apart the things of Christ: "So that the Jews may be made to pay a worthy penalty," they say, "let everything be overturned, let doctrine be tampered with, let God be blasphemed, let the impassible be called passible, let glory be insulted, let the ends of the earth go astray." Man, do not avenge God by insulting God. I hate an advocacy that brings dishonor; better that a Jew should gain than that Christians should be put to shame; better that those who did the deed should escape than that he who suffered should get such an advocate; better that they should find pardon than that he should get the reputation of being changeable and passible in his Godhead. Why do you give the Jews the greatest boast, as though they had been able to overcome the Godhead itself? For they would not even have had the temple had not the one who dwelt in it permitted it, who also raised it when it was destroyed, while he himself remained undestroyed. Why do you cast a vote against the will of him who suffered? Why do you grieve those whom you supposedly avenge more than those who dared the deed grieved them? Why do you overturn the truthful declarations of Christ the Savior? He himself said at the time of the passion: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And do you demand a penalty, as if they had known the presence of God and committed murder against God? Stop daring things worse than the lawlessness of those who crucified him. They killed Christ thinking him a mere man; you, confessing him true God, by your fine vengeance declare him changeable, passible, and dead. And by as much as impiety against God is more daring than thinking to wrong a man, by so much is he more wretched who murders God the Word in vain with his tongue than those who in vain drove the nails into the Lord's flesh. Yet it is not because you are more deserving of the fearful condemnation that we excuse them; but we both keep impassibility for the Godhead of the Master Christ and bear witness to the passion in the united manhood, and confess that the Jews are required to pay the penalty as having acted impiously against the Godhead itself directly, through their madness against him. Or do we not see even now that those who often stretch out lawless hands against a temple dedicated to God, for insult or destruction, though they act against wood or stones, receive punishment as though they had stretched out their daring against God? And if a lifeless temple receives such vengeance, will not a living, spotless temple, a temple joined to God ineffably and inseparably, be avenged much more, since he himself suffered unjustly and the insult runs back to God in the temple, who became one with it and worked many wonders? For the Jews may not find a defense, as though they had sinned against a mere man, since the manifold wonders did not allow the God-befitting and glorious character of the power at work to be hidden. For who would not have shuddered at what happened from the beginning? The birth according to prophecy, the place known, the manner remarkable, the time not uncertain, every word carried into deed; the course of a star declaring it, the hymn of angels, magi drawn from afar to bring gifts, Herod the king troubled, all Judea shaken; the clear manifestation of him who takes away the sin of the world; Simeon holding the child and interpreting the salvation of God; Anna prophesying; John bearing witness at the Jordan; the voice of the Father from heaven making him known to all as the beloved Son; the coming of the Spirit in the form of a dove, falling on his head; water changed into wine; five loaves multiplied wonderfully for the enjoyment of thousands, and twelve baskets of fragments left over; sufferings put to flight by a word; demons driven out by command, or rather confessing from afar the unbearable character of his authority; the dead torn at once from the tyranny of death; the hem of a garment bringing healing to the sick woman and publishing the power of the hidden Godhead. The whole nature of the elements at the time of the passion was troubled in many ways at the destruction of the visible temple and the insult to the inseparable God; the resurrection of him who suffered was attested by those who crucified him; for guarding the one who had suffered, they were defeated by the wonderful dead man. Such and many more were the things that declared the hidden Godhead. And how will those escape the punishment for fighting against God who were eager, out of ingratitude, to be blind to such brilliant proofs?

Against those who say: He is a Jew who does not confess that God was crucified. After so great a demonstration in all that went before, so varied and so plain, the opponents ought to have perceived the number of the refutations; but they did not hesitate to weave, in vain, other shameless objections. "He is a Jew," he says, "who does not confess that God himself was crucified." They have done well to remind us of the name owed to themselves. For they have drawn upon themselves kinship with those people, denying the saving becoming man and rejecting the coming together and union of the two natures. Who is the Jew: he who has received grace, or he who sits by the law according to the letter? Grace has taught us that the invisible God was manifested in visible flesh; they remained in the ancient tradition, which depicted the Godhead bare in various forms and shapes. How then do they call others Jews, when they themselves have shaken off the riches of the New Testament? Have they not heard that many prophets and righteous men longed to see what we see, and did not see it? What, then, did they not see? A sojourn of the Godhead? And how is it written: "God appeared to Abraham," he appeared to Isaac, he appeared to Jacob, he appeared to Moses, and to countless others? What then did they long for and not see? What we have been counted worthy to see: the ineffable and inseparable union of Godhead and manhood. Those, then, who confess the wonderful union of the Word and the flesh have obtained the strange spectacle; but those who set aside the assumption of the flesh are plainly convicted of having their portion with the Jews of old, who were not counted worthy to see with their sight what we have seen. For it belongs to Jews not to accept the Savior's dispensation in the flesh. To these those join themselves who reject the twofoldness of the natures; or rather they become liable to greater charges. For those did not know that he who worked so many wonders with the flesh was God; these, while professing to confess it, have declared things unworthy of the Godhead, contending to carry all the sufferings of the flesh that was taken up onto God the Word himself. But perhaps they will say (for they have learned to fight recklessly against what is plain): "We do not call the divine passible." How do you not say it, when you construct the argument with art? "He suffered," he says, "as he willed; yet we do not call him passible." Why do you pretend to spare the name, while daring the thing? If you accuse those who say that the divine did not suffer, how do you not confess that you call it passible? If he who does not speak of the suffering of the divine nature is, according to you, a Jew, then he who does is a Christian. And how do you not make the Jew, who confesses the divine impassible, preferable to yourselves, who declare it passible? So that you must either be called Jews, if you bear witness to the impassibility, or be named Christians according to your own definition, if you legislate the passion. Make plain the opinion you hold. "For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses unto salvation." If the Word did not suffer, then the flesh did. If the flesh did not suffer, then the Word did. If neither of these, then some third thing. If nothing at all, then the passion did not take place. If the passion took place with nothing suffering, it was a seeming; we are saved by a seeming. Then you have deserted to the Manichees. And how do you flee their name, whose heirs you appear to be of their unbearable false doctrine? So you will appear worse than the Jews and not far from the Manichees. And why do we speak of Jews and Manichees? You have shown yourselves more daring than the very inventor of all evils, who sowed these tares among you, the devil, who envies all good things. When he saw the divine glory of the Savior at the Jordan, though stung by envy, he did not dare to bring his temptation until he saw hunger take hold of him, the mark of human need. He knew that impassibility and freedom from temptation are proper to the Godhead; but you declare hunger and thirst and all such things to belong to the Godhead itself, and plainly attach the passion of the cross to the Godhead itself. He, for the excess of his wickedness, was called a murderer of men from the beginning; but you, for the excess of your madness concerning God, call the Jews murderers of God; and you are not ashamed to assign to the Jews, the disciples, greater power than to the teacher of such things; and, according to the written charge, "knowing God, you do not glorify him as God." For you construct him as passible.

Against those who say that the angels too, eating at Abraham's, did not at all bear the nature of flesh. Having become fathers of many wicked devices, those who have contended to move the eternal boundaries of the lawful fathers were not content with their own offspring; but, wickedly stealing also the ill-born abortions of the ancient enemies of the apostolic church, they put them forward as a noble and perfect birth of doctrines, and through them brandish at us the teachings of the Manichees, telling marvels that the angels at Abraham's partook of food in their own nature, and declaring that the Godhead of the Master Christ in the same way took food and drink without flesh; although holy Scripture plainly shows that this happened not in nature, but in appearance only. For if what happened were by nature, those three ought either to be named men or to be called angels (for the difference between the two kinds is great): as men, showing nothing angelic by nature; as angels, appearing in no bodily member, being spirits. How then do they give them food by nature, as to men? Then they are falsely called angels. Or as to angels? And what share have spirits in perceptible food? Or perhaps they tell the fable that the angels too became men and enjoyed bodily foods with bodily organs? But if they change their ground and say that the feast was one of display, not of nature, they will surely either abandon the example as unsuitable, or be found introducing appearance instead of truth in the case of the Savior. How then do they dare to drag in the unlike as like? What has the story of the angels in shapes in common with this great dispensation? Did they appear? When, or where? Or of whom were they born, as the Master Christ was? Were they subjected to touch in the same way? Did they receive circumcision? Did they show progress or growth? Did they fast and afterward hunger? Did they grow weary from a journey and thirst? Did they know sleep as their own? Did they experience scourges? Did they taste death in like manner? Were they handed over to burial? Did they leave garments divided among many, teaching by experience that nothing is to be understood as seeming, but everything according to reality and truth? For if Christ had a body in seeming, as the angels had the form of men in seeming, then the Lord's garments too ought not to have appeared or been subjected to touch, as happened with the bodiless angels. How then do they shamelessly bring that which is in no way like to the matter before us, and try to join things that differ in so many ways? Let us consider side by side their arguments and ours. We say that the Lord truly ate according to the flesh, since this belongs to all flesh; they say that the angels ate, since the nature of angels then admitted such a thing. We have experience as witness; they lack other words and deeds to bear witness for them. We present hunger and thirst to them from the holy Scriptures; they will not be able to show either of these in the angels. We point to members according to the formation of every man; they to the nature of angels, which no one has dared to declare has members. And if there are no members, what receives the food? What makes it fine? What digests it? What holds it? What works the digestion? What follows, which I shall honor with silence? As, then, the angels, appearing as men, were not men by nature, so neither, though thought to eat, did they eat by nature; but they honored the hospitable character of Abraham by the form of sharing, showing his virtue worthy of imitation.

Against those who make each miracle small by denying the flesh. But neither have those who have broken themselves off to the opposite side from the choir of the orthodox left the Lord's miracles free and untroubled by their designs; tearing them down and diminishing them, they did not know their greatness, by denying the assumption of the flesh and ascribing these things to the bare Godhead. And let us consider in the facts themselves how from beginning to end they are shown great by the assumption of the flesh, but are found less if it is set aside. The birth from a virgin is the great and glorious prelude of the dispensation. If what was born took nothing from the holy Virgin, who would have wondered at what happened? One could not truly call her mother, knowing that nothing of hers was consubstantial with what came forth; nor judge it wonderful that she became a mother and remained a virgin, if indeed the Word granted us his presence without a perceptible body. Again, a swift advance in stature and wisdom and grace is spoken of. If you take away the flesh, who will accept, as praise of the Godhead, a growth and improvement of what is perfect from eternity, needing nothing more and unable to lose or take anything from outside? The flesh, then, makes the advance praiseworthy through its union with the Word. And we know the greatest witness that he did not commit sin from this: that there was true flesh in him and yet no trace of sin is seen. Whereas if sinlessness were now said of the Godhead alone, the hearers would rather laugh than wonder, since not only is the Godhead by nature always above all blame, but even tens of thousands of angels have kept themselves from sinning. But it is said for this reason: that the spotless flesh, taken from a sinful race, alone and first remained sinless by its union with God the Word. Hence the wrestling with the devil, too, and the victory over him become wonderful, because he who underwent the temptation, having the firstfruits of the flesh that had been defeated, made it victorious over its former conqueror, and gave nature the mastery over him who once mastered it by deceit. For this reason too he stripped off the holds brought against him by recalling the holy Scriptures, repelling the adversary not by the authority of the Godhead, but, as befits manhood, setting the light of the Scriptures against everything. But if God the Word by himself were declared sinless and unconquered, who would have been astonished at what is said? It is nothing strange that God does not sin nor is conquered by his own creature. When did he sin or was he conquered, that we should now receive what is said as wonderful? But it is strange that human nature should plainly display what is above nature. Since walking on the back of the sea fearlessly and without danger is easy for the Godhead, and even for angels, and no one would be astonished at seeing it; but for mere manhood it is altogether impossible. And he rightly shudders who sees feet of flesh making such a journey and considers the united power of the Word. But if anyone, setting the flesh aside, should say that the Word alone was seen on the waves, he has removed the weight of the miracle and borne witness to nothing great in the deed. For it is truly great and surpassing every mind, not when a light and weightless spirit is raised up on the waters, but when a dense and heavy body is carried upright above by a soft and easily yielding nature. To make this credible to all, the Lord at once let Peter too walk on the sea, until he took on the tossing of little faith. Peter's walking so showed the undoubted journey of the Master's flesh; his being no longer borne up when he doubted showed the immeasurable difference between them. Everywhere, then, the union of the flesh with the Word is shown to increase the glory of what happened. And in short, not even the trophy over death would be brilliant, unless human nature had plainly become stronger than the tyranny below by the power of the inseparably united Godhead; since that God, who can never be held, was not held is among the things probable and customary; but that flesh was not held, this is the first, this is strange. This too makes the Lord's entry through closed doors awe-inspiring, that the denseness of the flesh present with him was no hindrance, since what worked the wonder was greater than what hindered. But he who says that the thing happened without a human body makes it common to angels, to the souls of men, and to the hostile spirits, for whom, because of the fineness of their substance, such passage is unhindered. In addition, the Master's ascension into heaven gives us the same understanding: that we may know the life of God the Word in the heavens to be eternal, inseparable, uncircumscribed; but the strange assumption of the united flesh to have been newly made then, as it was moved where it had not been before, since it did not have by nature the right to be counted worthy of such things. [14] Against those who harm our race by not saying that the Savior took the firstfruits from our nature. All wickedness is a thing to be fled, hateful to God and hostile to men; but to begrudge some their own salvation and glory surpasses every excess of wickedness. This is what those now do who dare to say that the firstfruits were not taken by the Savior from our nature. And they transgress in many ways: fighting against the witness of the holy Scriptures, or rather the legislation of the Holy Spirit; daring to overshadow the Master's love for humankind; casting out the common benefit of human beings; and moreover declaring the great dispensation of the becoming man useless. He did not take flesh from our nature? How then did he dwell among us? How did he take hold of the seed of Abraham? How is it said, "From whom is Christ according to the flesh"? The prophets' predictions are false; God's promises to David are false: "Of the fruit of your loins I will set upon your throne"; falsely does the Lord name the faithful brothers; falsely did Paul say, "For we too are his offspring." Who would not be ashamed to overlook shamelessly so great a multitude of witnesses, to innovate absurdity of doctrines, to rob the Master of thanksgiving for these things, and to harm our whole race in them? The flesh that was taken is not from us? Then what hope of salvation do we have? The law is still unfulfilled for us; the charges of transgression still remain; the weight of the curse; the power of death; the condemnation of the race. If he who fulfilled the law had nothing from human substance, nature is still liable to the accusations. Perhaps those of our race will even bring a suit directly against the lawgiver, as having legislated superfluous and useless things for men, since no one could fulfil them. So the setting aside of the flesh becomes the ground of every blasphemy. It is necessary, then, necessary to believe the holy Scriptures, to confess the firstfruits from us, to glorify the love for humankind of him who took it, to be astonished at the wonder of the great dispensation, not to fear the curse of the law ("for Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law"), to reckon the fulfilment of the law, which came about through the firstfruits, to the whole lump, and to know what is fitting and consistent: that if God bare had fulfilled the law, which it is not even fitting to say, no other substance could share in the achievement; but since flesh from us is known in him who fulfilled the law, the boast of our race shines out, so that it fearlessly tramples the sting of death, which no longer has room against the nature whose firstfruits went first and trampled and blunted it, and gave all who believe the right to say: "Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O Hades, is your victory?" And again: "As through one man came death, so also through one man the resurrection of the dead." He says "through a man," not "from a man." For what was impossible to come about from a man came about easily through the man joined to God. So we reap the gift of the resurrection; so we receive the adoption; so we are called brothers of the Lord; so we become fellow heirs; so we have conquered the enemy in the firstfruits; so we receive confidence from it; so we make the trophy over the devil our own, brandishing at them the divine prowess of the flesh taken from us; so all of us who truly believe await being conformed to the body of his glory; so we find true the saying, "He raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places." For though we have not yet risen in our individual hypostasis, nor come to be in the heavenly places, through our kinship with him who ascended and descended we hold secure pledges in the hope of such things. How worthy of hatred, then, are those who strive by their own false doctrine to begrudge us such great goods, preventing our race from taking pride, separating the flesh which the Word wonderfully yoked to himself, opposing Paul when he cries, "What God has joined together, let man not separate," and hiring out their tongue to the devil to hide what was done against him! For nothing is so heavy and unbearable to him as to see the nature he led astray assumed in its firstfruits by the King of heaven, living nobly and beyond praise, becoming stronger than death, destroying his tyranny, taken up into heaven, counted worthy of the glorious seat, and known to all creation as one with him who assumed it, by the highest conjunction, by the undivided communion of glory, of a dignity beyond all words.

Against those who order us simply to believe what is said, and not to consider what is fitting or unfitting. Many terrible doctrines exist which the demon who hates the good has brought into human life, for the dangerous deception of those who receive them; but I do not know whether he ever labored with any such thing in former times as now. For each of the heresies has become the mother of this or that error; but the one now devised after all the others has renewed them all, surpassed them all, and shown itself beyond every birth of evils. Truly "it travailed with injustice, conceived trouble, and brought forth lawlessness." It travailed with a purpose of impiety, conceived the purpose of mischief by which others were led astray, brought forth the varied evil of self-willed innovation; and it commands all to follow with great authority: "Accept simply what is said," it says, "and let no one examine what is fitting in it or what unfitting." And it calls faith an untested assent, to harm, to what is unstable and unproven. Shall I believe without reason, and not examine what is possible, or profitable, or fitting, or dear to God, or suited to nature, or in agreement with the truth, or consistent with the aim, or befitting the mystery, or worthy of godliness? And what gain shall I have? Or what benefit for a mind that reckons none of these things, but lets the hearing be struck by the sound of words while the soul receives no understanding of what is said? This, among all those estranged from the truth, becomes the cause of error and of all evils. For which of the enemies of the catholic church does not demand that all he says be believed without judgment? Whether you name a Greek, or a Manichee, or an heir of Arius or of Apollinaris or of any other such, does he not decline examination in order to escape refutation? Does he not belch out some things from his own store, and cut other things out of the divine harmony of the Scriptures and drag them to his own aim, and put forward constructions about which, as he wishes, he declares that no one should busy himself? Then, if we submit our hearing simply to all, and neither refute the absurdity which proclaims itself from what they say, nor demand the solution of the conflict of doctrines that appears through their bad interpretation, who will find the way of truth any longer? Who will not fall easily over the cliff of false doctrine, not considering the unfittingness of the innovation nor demanding what befits the truth? What shall I believe with the heart unto righteousness, what shall I speak with the mouth unto salvation, when they maliciously put forward, "The Father who sent me is greater than I"? Shall I accept it simply? Agree rashly? Declare boldly that the Son is less than the Father, and reckon nothing at all: neither that the word belongs to the dispensation, nor that the same one says, "I and the Father are one," and, "That they may honor the Son as they honor the Father," and, "He who has seen me has seen the Father," and countless other things which make known the equality and the equal honor in all things? If, then, one must look at none of the difficulties that arise, nor give the fitting account of the things that arise and seem contrary, how shall I show in agreement things that, at first sight, so disagree with one another? How will the same one appear both only-begotten and firstborn, when it is plain to all that the two do not agree with each other in the one seen in a single nature? For the only-begotten, having no brothers, as being only-begotten, cannot be called firstborn; for Paul said "firstborn among many brothers"; while the firstborn, having brothers, as is likely, is no longer called only-begotten. Again the same one is called both recent and eternal: "Jesus Christ, yesterday and today the same, and for ever." The one is set against the other. If recent, how eternal? If eternal, surely not recent. And "without father, without mother, without genealogy": how does it not plainly fight with the other texts, by which we learn that he has a Father in heaven and a mother on earth, and that his genealogy is clearly given by the glorious evangelists? If without father, how of a heavenly Father? If without mother, how from the Virgin mother? If without genealogy, how "the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ"? Since, then, there are so many, and many more, things that seem to disagree with one another in this way, what do they order us to accept untested, and what to reject? For it is not possible to follow all alike for those who do not find the fitting solution of the supposed disagreement. If "only-begotten" is true, "firstborn" is not so. If "firstborn" is without falsehood, "only-begotten" is contrary. If "yesterday and today" is confessed, "eternal" is gone. If "without father" stands, having a Father will be undone. If "without mother" is fixed, having a mother will be overturned. If "without genealogy" holds, how shall we attend to the genealogy? If what has no beginning of days nor end is certain, how shall we understand what declares the beginning of days and the end: "When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king," and was crucified under Pontius Pilate? See, both a beginning of days and an end of life. What then shall we do, if one of the unbelievers demands an account from us, accusing holy Scripture of saying contrary things? Shall we say, "Believe everything"? And who would not leap away and laugh, being in no way able to accept as credible things that fight with one another and receive no solution? For when two statements are contrary, one must be convicted of falsehood. What shall we say to this? Or shall we too, when asked to believe the unproven and incoherent doctrines of heretics or Greeks, agree according to such a proposition? Away with it! Our teachings are neither incoherent nor in conflict with one another, when understood as they were spoken by the saints. Some things were said with reference to the dispensation made known to us, others with reference to the incomprehensible substance of the Word, and all are found in agreement and consistent, taken of the same one according to the two natures: so that what is recent belongs to the flesh, what is eternal to God. To have no beginning of days is proper to the Word; to be born in the days of Herod belongs to the firstfruits. Being wholly without genealogy refers to the existence of the Son from the Father before the ages ("For who will declare his generation?"); but having a clear genealogy refers to the birth of the same one according to the flesh. So too he is only-begotten according to the substance of the Word, and firstborn according to the dispensation in the flesh. So we shall either persuade or conquer the enemy, show holy Scripture in agreement, proclaim the glory of the mystery lawfully, and store up the fitting full assurance in our souls, neither believing without reason nor speaking without faith.

Against those who do away with the difference of the natures after the passion and the ascension. Great and ageless is the power of the truth: often attacked by many, it shows by its very works that it is unconquered in the end. For see, many of those armed against it, having shot many arrows of false doctrine and knowing that these were driven back by the firm weapon of proof and returned empty and ineffective upon themselves, have last of all shot an arrow that can be broken by plainer refutations. "Even if one grants," he says, "that there came about a coming together of two natures in Christ, yet after the passion and the ascension we shall no longer think of two, nor believe that there is any difference by nature between the Word and the flesh." What do you say? What do you declare? Is the difference of the natures gone, and no mark of them remains? What, then, shall we call what is before us? The Word alone (for you would not say flesh, thinking you honor him in this)? And how do you not insult him, thinking his substance to be such that another, created substance can change into it? For what can be contained by lesser things is common to many, not peculiar to one. But to that whose sole property is to be inaccessible, how can another inaccessible thing be added? And you not only insult the Word, but also make the hypostasis of the flesh vanish. For of that of which no mark is left any longer, in what way shall we understand the glory? If it is known in being, it is rightly glorified; but if it does not have being, how does it reap the greatness of glory? Unless you show what is honored, you do not declare the surpassing greatness of the glory. One must therefore confess the unconfused union of the two, neither to the change of the one who took nor to the vanishing of what was taken, but to a communion of glory proclaimed in one person. For even if you persist in naming both together "the Word alone," though nature resists, not even so will you hide the difference: since the one was from the beginning and the other came to be later; and the one is invisible and intangible from infinity to infinity, while the other passed from visible and tangible to invisible and impalpable; and the one is unalterable once for all, while the other came through alteration to a better lot. Then, if what remains is the Word alone, why was it not said, "The flesh became Word," but "The Word became flesh"? And who is so mad and crazed as to dare to say that the divine substance took on the substance of another Godhead, arising from another nature, so as to make one think of an increase, through such an addition, of what is by nature without need and perfect? And how do the divine words, even after the strange ascent, still proclaim the distinctive things of the flesh, the coming again, the being seen in the same manner? Or will you legislate against the angels too, who said plainly, "This Jesus, who was taken up from you, will come in the same way as you saw him going into heaven"? All of this points to the flesh, seen now here, now there: "as you saw him," that is, with the eyes of the flesh. He who does not accept this so fights not only against the angels, but also stands against the sacred words of the Holy Spirit. How does the Master Christ intercede for us? As the Word alone? And where then is his equal honor and dignity with the Father, if he intercedes as one lower, and does not act with authority, having equal almightiness? … plainly it belongs to the firstfruits to intercede for its own lump, so that he may show how great is his relation to the nature of the flesh. And whom does the most clear proclamation of the all-wise Paul not put to shame: "God, overlooking the times of ignorance, commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, having given assurance to all by raising him from the dead"? Has the difference been done away with? Did he not say God in a man? Did he not show God who raises and the man who rose? But though he showed the difference, he did not omit the inseparability. For he did not say God with a man, but God in a man. And how shall we understand, "They will look on him whom they pierced," unless the nature of the flesh that received the nails itself clearly shows the marks? For it was not the invisible and intangible substance of the Godhead that was going to bear traces for the conviction of many; but the nature taken from the passible race will convict the lawlessness of the impious, as they are forced to recognize in the wounded flesh their own outrages. So it has been shown that the properties of the natures differ, that the gain of the becoming man is beyond dispute, that the attempt of the opponents is shameless, and that the power of the truth is invincible.