On the Trinity 14

And yet the heretic still hesitates to say that Christ is God, though he sees him proved God by so many facts and sayings. If Christ is only man, how did he, coming into this world, come to his own, when a man made no world? If Christ is only man, how is the world reported to have been made through him, when it is reported that the world was not made through man, but man was established after the world? If Christ is only man, how is Christ not only from the seed of David, but the Word became flesh and dwelt in us? For although the first-formed man was not from seed either, yet the first-formed man was not compounded from the union of the Word and flesh: for he is not the Word become flesh and dwelling in us. If Christ is only man, how does he who came from heaven testify to what he has seen and heard, when it is agreed that man cannot come from heaven, since he cannot be born there? If Christ is only man, how are things visible and invisible, Thrones, Virtues, and Dominions, reported to have been created through him and in him, when the heavenly Virtues could not have been made through a man, since they must have existed before man himself? If Christ is only man, how is he present everywhere when called upon, when this is not the nature of man but of God, to be able to be present in every place? If Christ is only man, why is a man invoked in prayers as Mediator, when the invocation of a man is judged ineffective for granting salvation? If Christ is only man, why is hope placed in him, when hope in man is declared accursed? If Christ is only man, why may Christ not be denied without the destruction of the soul, when it is declared that a sin committed against a man can be forgiven?

If Christ is only man, how does John the Baptist testify and say, “He who comes after me has been set before me, because he was before me”? For if Christ is only man, born after John, he could not be before John, unless he preceded him in that he is God. If Christ is only man, how is it that whatever the Father does, the Son also does likewise, when man cannot do works like the heavenly works of God? If Christ is only man, how is it that as the Father has life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself? For after the example of God the Father a man cannot have life in himself, since he is not glorious in eternity, but has been made in the material of mortality. If Christ is only man, how does he say, “I am the bread of eternal life, who came down from heaven”, when a man, himself mortal, can neither be the bread of life, nor have come down from heaven, since no material of frailty was established in heaven? If Christ is only man, how does he say that no one has ever seen God the Father except him who is from God; he has seen God? For if Christ is only man, he could not have seen God, because no one among men has seen God; but if, being from God, he saw God, he wished to be understood as more than man, since he saw God. If Christ is only man, why does he say, “What if you should see the Son of man ascending where he was before?” Now he ascended into heaven; he was therefore there, since he returns to where he was before. And if he was sent from heaven by the Father, he is certainly not only man: for man, as we have said, could not come from heaven. It was not, then, as man that he was there before; but he ascended to where he had not been. But the Word of God, which was there, came down: the Word, I say, of God, and God, through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made. It was not, then, as man that he came thus from heaven; but the Word of God, that is, God, came down from there.