Eranistes (The Beggar), or Polymorphus 1.9–1.16

Eranistes: The patriarch spoke of clothes, not of a body. Orthodoxos: Show, then, when or where [he washed his clothes] in the blood of the grape … Eranistes: You show that the body was reddened with these. Orthodoxos: I ask you to answer in a more mystical way; for perhaps some who are uninitiated are standing by. Eranistes: So I will listen, and so I will answer. Orthodoxos: Do you know that the Lord called himself a vine? Eranistes: I know that he said, “I am the true vine.” Orthodoxos: And the fruit of the vine, when pressed, what … Orthodoxos: And when the soldiers wounded the Savior's side with the lance, what do those who wrote the Gospels say poured out of it? Eranistes: Blood and water. Orthodoxos: Then he called the Savior's blood the blood of the grape. For if the Master has been named a vine, and the fruit of the vine is called wine, and streams of blood and water poured out from the Master's side and passed down through the rest of the body, then fittingly and aptly did the patriarch foretell, “He will wash his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape.” For just as we name the mystical fruit of the vine, after the consecration, the Master's blood, so he named the blood of the true vine the blood of the grape. Eranistes: The present argument has been demonstrated at once mystically and clearly. Orthodoxos: Even if what has been said is sufficient for your faith, still I will add another proof to confirm the truth. Eranistes: You will do me a favor by doing so; for the benefit … Orthodoxos: Do you know that God called his own [body] bread? … Orthodoxos: And elsewhere he named his flesh wheat? Eranistes: I know this too. For I heard him saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” and “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Orthodoxos: And in the handing on of the mysteries he called the bread body, and the mixed cup blood. … Orthodoxos: But by nature, too, the body would properly be called body, and the blood blood. … Orthodoxos: But our Savior exchanged the names: to the body he gave the name of the symbol, and to the symbol the name of the body. So, having named himself a vine, he called the symbol blood. … Eranistes: This you have spoken truly. But I wanted to learn the reason for the exchange of names. Orthodoxos: The aim is clear to those initiated into divine things. For he wished those who partake of the divine mysteries not to attend to the nature of the things that are seen, but, through the exchange of names, to believe the change that has come about by grace. For he who called his body, which is body by nature, wheat and bread, and again named himself a vine, honored the visible symbols with the name of the body and blood, not changing their nature, but … grace …

Eranistes: Both the mystical things have been spoken mystically, and what is not known to all has been clearly shown. Orthodoxos: Since, then, it is agreed that the Master's body was named robe and garment by the patriarch, and we have entered on the discussion of the divine mysteries, tell me, by the truth: of what do you consider the all-holy food to be a symbol and type? Of the Godhead of the Master Christ, or of the body and blood? Eranistes: Clearly of those whose names they have received. Orthodoxos: You mean of the body and the blood? … Orthodoxos: You have spoken as a lover of truth. For the Lord, taking the symbol, did not say, “This is my Godhead,” but “This is my body,” and again, “This is my blood”; and elsewhere, “And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Eranistes: These things are true, for they are divine oracles. [Orthodoxos: If they are] true, then the Lord surely had a body. Eranistes: Do I, then, say that he is bodiless? … Eranistes: I say that the Word became flesh; for so I was taught. … we are drawing water into a [leaking] jar; for after all those proofs and the solutions of the objections, you bring forward the same things. Orthodoxos: Did I not offer you the interpretation of the Gospel sayings from the prophetic and apostolic [writings]? Eranistes: Those do not suffice to resolve the question. Orthodoxos: And yet we showed that, being invisible, he was manifested through flesh. And we have been taught by the divine men the kinship of the flesh itself: “For he takes hold of the seed of Abraham.” And the Master God said to the patriarch, “In your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed”; and the Apostle: “For it is evident that the Lord has sprung from Judah.” And we brought forward many other such testimonies. But since you long to hear others too, hear the Apostle saying, “For every high priest taken from among human beings is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices”; “hence it is necessary for this one too to have something to offer.” … Orthodoxos: The divine Apostle himself teaches this clearly in that very passage. For a little later he says thus: “Therefore, coming into the world, he says: Sacrifice and offering you did not want, but a body you prepared for me.” He did not say, “You changed me into a body,” but “A body you prepared for me.” And he indicates the forming of the body by the Spirit, according to the word of the Gospel: “For do not fear,” it says, “to take Mary your wife; for what has been begotten in her is of the Holy Spirit.” Eranistes: Then the Virgin gave birth to a body only. Orthodoxos: It seems you have not grasped even the arrangement of the syllables, much less the meaning. For [the angel] was teaching Joseph the manner of the conception, not of the birth. For he did not say, “What is born of her,” that is, made or formed, “is of the Holy Spirit.” For since Joseph, not knowing the mystery, suspected adultery, he was clearly taught that the forming was the Spirit's. Indicating this through the prophet, he said, “But a body you prepared for me”; and the divine Apostle, being spiritual, interpreted the prophecy. If, then, it is proper to priests to offer gifts, and Christ was called priest according to his humanity, and offered no other sacrifice but his own body, then the Master Christ had a body.

Eranistes: I have often said that I too do not say that God the Word appeared without a body; yet I say not that he assumed a body, but that he became flesh. Orthodoxos: As the proverb has it, it seems, [we are] … As I see, … to bring forward against [the followers of] Valentinus and Marcion. Or rather, not even they ever dared to say that the immutable nature was changed into flesh. Eranistes: Reviling is foreign to Christians. [Orthodoxos:] … we [do not revile], but we are much vexed that you fight over undisputed things as though they were disputed. Yet I will try to dissolve your ignoble love of strife. Answer, then: do you remember the promises made by God to David? [Eranistes: I remember those] recorded in the eighty-eighth psalm; which of them, then, are you asking about at present? Orthodoxos: Those about the Master Christ. Eranistes: You yourself recall the words; for you yourself promised to bring forward the proofs. Orthodoxos: Hear, then, the prophet at the very beginning of the psalm hymning God. For having foreseen with prophetic eyes the lawlessness of the people that was to come and the captivity that would come because of it, he hymned his own Master for his promises that do not lie. He spoke thus: “Your mercies, Lord, I will sing forever; to generation and generation I will proclaim your truth with my mouth. For you said: Mercy will be built up forever; in the heavens your truth will be prepared.” By all these the prophet teaches both the promise made by God out of love for humankind and the truthfulness of the promise. Then he says what he promised and to whom, showing God himself speaking: “For I made a covenant,” he says, “with my chosen ones.” He called the patriarchs chosen. Then he adds: “I swore to David my servant.” And he says also what he swore about: “I will prepare your seed forever, and I will build your throne to generation and generation.” Tell me, then, whom [you take to be] the seed of David … Eranistes: The promise was made about Solomon. Orthodoxos: Then he also made his covenants with the patriarchs about Solomon. For before what was said about David he recalled the promises made to them: “For I made a covenant,” he says, “with my chosen ones.” And he promised the patriarchs to bless all the nations in their seed. Show me, then, the nations blessed through Solomon. Eranistes: This promise, then, was fulfilled not through Solomon but through our Savior …

Orthodoxos: Then the Master Christ brought the promises made to David to their fulfilment. Eranistes: I think that God made these promises either about Solomon or about Zerubbabel. Orthodoxos: A little while ago you were using the arguments of Marcion, Valentinus, and Mani; now you have gone over to the band diametrically opposed to them, and you plead the cause of the shamelessness of the Jews. This is characteristic of those who turn aside from the straight road: for this way … Eranistes: The Apostle [excludes] those who use reviling … Orthodoxos: If they revile without cause. For the divine Apostle himself sometimes uses this form at the right moment: he calls the Galatians foolish, and of others he says, “people corrupted in mind, disqualified regarding the faith,” and again of others, “whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame,” and what follows. Eranistes: What occasion for reviling, then, did I give you? Orthodoxos: That you plead for the most obvious enemies of the truth. Or does it not seem to you a most reasonable ground for indignation among the godly, [to plead for those who are hostile] to the truth? Eranistes: How, and in what way? Orthodoxos: The Jews fit such prophecies to Solomon and to Zerubbabel, so that … But the very words refute their lawlessness. “For I will prepare your throne forever,” he says. Not only did Solomon and Zerubbabel, to whom they fit such prophecies, reach the end of life after living a fixed time, but the whole race of David has also been extinguished. For who today knows [anyone] of David's [line]? Eranistes: Are not the so-called patriarchs of the Jews of David's lineage? … Eranistes: But where do they come from? Orthodoxos: From Herod the foreigner, who was an Ascalonite on his father's side and an Idumaean on his mother's. Besides, they themselves have completely disappeared, and time has passed since their rule too came to an end. But the Master God promised not only to keep the seed of David forever, but also to guard the kingdom undissolved. “For I will build your throne,” he said, “to generation and generation.” Yet we see both his race gone and the kingdom come to an end. And though we see this, we know that the God of the universe does not lie. Eranistes: Clearly God does not lie. Orthodoxos: If, then, God is true, as indeed he is, and he promised David both to keep his race forever and to preserve the kingdom without break in succession, yet we see neither the race nor the kingdom (for both have ceased), how shall we persuade those who contradict that God does not lie …

Orthodoxos: Since, then, you have agreed, come, let us examine together the middle of the psalm as well; for we shall know the sense of the prophecy more clearly. … I too. Orthodoxos: God, having promised many things about this seed (that he will rule over sea and land, will be higher than the kings on earth, will be called God's firstborn, and will call God Father with confidence), added this too: “Forever I will keep my mercy for him, and my covenant will be faithful to him; and I will establish his seed forever and ever, and his throne as the days of heaven.” Eranistes: The promise is beyond human nature. For both the life and the honor are indestructible and eternal; but human beings are temporary. For their nature is short-lived, and kingship, even in life, has many … the greatness of the promise belongs to Christ the Savior alone. [Orthodoxos:] Then [attend] to the rest as well; for your opinion about this will become altogether firmer. For again the God of the universe says: “Once I swore by my holiness, that I will not lie to David. His seed will remain forever, and his throne as the sun before me, and as the moon established forever.” And showing the truth of the promise, he added, “And the witness in heaven is faithful.” Eranistes: One must believe without hesitation what has been promised by the faithful witness. For if we are accustomed to believe human beings who promise to tell the truth, even if they do not confirm their words by an oath, who is so stupid as to disbelieve the Maker of the universe when he adds an oath to his words? For he who forbids others to swear guaranteed with an oath, as the Apostle too says, the unchangeableness of his purpose, “so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to take hold of the [hope] set before us.” Orthodoxos: If, then, the promise is indisputably true, and we do not see among the Jews either the race or the kingdom of the prophet David, let us believe without doubt that our Lord Jesus Christ is called the seed of David according to his humanity. For he has both life and kingdom eternal. Eranistes: We do not doubt, but [believe] that this is so. Orthodoxos: These things too suffice to show clearly the humanity of our God and Savior, which he assumed from the seed of David. But in order to drive out all disagreement by the testimony of more witnesses, let us hear God, through the voice of the prophet Isaiah, recalling the promises to David. “For I will make with you,” he says, “an everlasting covenant.” And pointing to the lawgiver, he added: “the holy and faithful things of David.” For since he promised these things to David, and spoke them through Isaiah, he will also fulfil the promise. And what follows in the prophecy agrees with these. For he says: “Behold, I have given him as a witness among the nations, a ruler and commander among the nations. Behold, nations that do not know you will call upon you, and peoples who do not know you will flee to you for refuge.” These fit none of David's descendants. For which of David's descendants, as Isaiah says, was shown to be a ruler of nations? And what nations [called upon] any of David's descendants …

Eranistes: One ought not to [dispute] about plain matters; for these things truly belong to the Master Christ. Orthodoxos: Then let us pass to another prophetic testimony, and listen to the same prophet saying, “A rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up from the root.” Eranistes: I think this prophecy [was spoken] about Zerubbabel … Orthodoxos: If you listen to what follows as well, you will not remain in your opinion. For not even the Jews have understood this prediction so. For the prophet adds: “And the Spirit of God will rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and godliness; the spirit of the fear of God will fill him.” No one could fit these things to a mere human being; for even to the very holy the gifts of the Spirit are given by distribution. And the divine Apostle is a witness, saying, “For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit,” and what follows. But here the prophet has said that the one who sprang from the root of Jesse has all the workings … Orthodoxos: Then hear what follows as well; for you will touch … some of them even surpassing human nature. He speaks thus: “He will not judge by reputation, nor convict by what is said; but he will judge for the lowly with justice, and convict the glorious of the earth with uprightness; and he will strike the earth with the word of his mouth, and with the breath through his lips he will destroy the ungodly.” Of these predictions some are human and some divine: for justice, and truth, and uprightness and impartiality in judging show the virtue according to the humanity … Eranistes: Through these we have learned more clearly that the prophet foretold the coming of our Savior Christ. Orthodoxos: What follows will teach you the truth of the interpretation more plainly still. For he adds, “Then the wolf will graze with the lamb,” and what follows; by which he teaches both the difference of characters and the agreement of faith. And we have the experience of the facts as a witness to the prophecy. For those who abound in wealth and those who live with poverty, servants and masters, the ruled and the rulers, soldiers and private persons, and those who hold the scepters of the world, one font receives; one teaching is offered to all; one mystical table is set before all; and each of the believers enjoys an equal portion.

Eranistes: But these things show that the one prophesied is God. Orthodoxos: Not God only, but also human. For this reason, right at the beginning of this prophecy he said that a rod would spring from the root of Jesse; and, concluding the prediction, he took up the opening again. For he said: “And there shall be the root of Jesse, and the one who rises to rule nations; in him nations will hope, and his rest will be honor.” Jesse was the father of David, and the promise with oaths was made to David. He would not have called the Master Christ a rod springing from Jesse if he had known him as God only. And the prediction also foretold the change of the world. “For the whole earth,” it says, “was filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as much water to cover seas.” Eranistes: I have listened to the prophetic oracles. But I wanted to know clearly whether any of the apostles too … said that the Master Christ [sprang from David] according to the flesh. Orthodoxos: You have asked for nothing difficult, but for something quite easy and simple. Hear, then, the first of the apostles crying out: “Being a prophet, David, knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him to raise up the Christ according to the flesh from the fruit of his loins, to sit on his throne, foresaw and spoke of his resurrection, that his soul was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.” From these words you can learn that the Master Christ sprang from the seed of David according to the flesh, and that he had not flesh only but also a soul. Eranistes: Which other of the apostles proclaimed these things? Orthodoxos: The great Peter alone would have sufficed as a fellow witness to the truth; for the Master received the confession of the truth from him alone and confirmed it with the celebrated blessing. But since you long to hear others proclaiming this, hear Paul and Barnabas addressing the people in Antioch of Pisidia. For they, having mentioned David, added this: “From this man's seed God, according to the promise, raised up for Israel a Savior, Jesus,” and what follows. And the inspired Paul, writing to Timothy, [says] this too: “… from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel.” And writing to the Romans, right in the preface he mentioned the kinship with David. He said thus: “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,” and what follows. Eranistes: The proofs are many and true. But tell me, why did you pass over what follows in the testimony? Orthodoxos: Because you are in doubt about the humanity, not about the Godhead. If you were disputing about the Godhead, I would have brought you proofs about it. However, saying “according to the flesh” suffices to indicate the Godhead that is passed over in silence. For in teaching the kinship of an ordinary human being I do not say, “So-and-so is the son of so-and-so according to the flesh,” but simply “son.” So too the divine evangelist wrote the genealogy: “For Abraham,” he says, “begot Isaac,” and he did not add “according to the flesh,” for Isaac was only a human being. And he mentioned the others in the same way, for they were human beings, having nothing beyond nature. But the heralds of the truth, when speaking of the Master Christ and showing those who do not know it his kinship below, add “according to the flesh,” thereby signifying the Godhead, and teaching that the Master Christ is not human only but also God before the ages.

Eranistes: You have brought forward many testimonies, both apostolic and prophetic; but I believe the Evangelist who says, “The Word became flesh.” Orthodoxos: I too believe this divine teaching, but I understand it piously: that having taken flesh and a rational soul, he is said to have become flesh. But if God the Word took nothing from our nature, then the promises made by God to the patriarchs about … are not true, … the blessing of Judah, the promise to David is false, and the Virgin too is superfluous, since she contributed nothing of our nature to God made flesh; and the predictions of the prophets have no fulfilment. Then our preaching is empty, and our faith is empty, and the hope of the resurrection is vain. For the Apostle, it seems, lies when he says, “He raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” For if the Master Christ had nothing of our nature, he is falsely called our firstfruits; and no nature of a body has been raised from the dead, nor obtained the seat at the right hand in heaven. And if it has obtained none of these, how did God raise us up and seat us with Christ, when we have no natural connection with him? But it is impious to say this. For the divine Apostle, when the common resurrection had not yet happened and the kingdom of heaven had not yet been granted to believers, cries, “He raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” teaching that since the firstfruits of our race has obtained the resurrection and the seat at the right hand, we too shall certainly obtain the resurrection, and those who share the nature and have partaken of the faith share in the glory of the firstfruits. Eranistes: You have gone through many true arguments; but I wanted to know the meaning of the Gospel saying. Orthodoxos: You need no outside interpretation; for the Evangelist interprets himself. For having said, “The Word became flesh,” he added, “and dwelt among us”; that is, having dwelt among us, and using the flesh taken from us as a kind of temple, he is said to have become flesh. And teaching that he remained unaltered, he added: “And we beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” For though clothed in flesh, he showed his Father's nobility, and sent forth the rays of the Godhead, and let the radiance of his sovereign authority shine, revealing by his miracles the hidden nature. Like these words is what the divine Apostle wrote to the Philippians: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider being equal with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of human beings; and being found in fashion as a human being, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” See the kinship of the proclamations. The Evangelist said, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”; the Apostle, “taking the form of a servant.” The Evangelist again said, “We beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father”; the Apostle, “who, being in the form of God, did not consider being equal with God a thing to be grasped.” And in a word, both teach that he who was God and Son of God, clothed in the Father's glory and having the same nature and power as the one who begot him, who was in the beginning, and was with God, and was God, and created the creation, took the form of a servant. And he seemed to be only what was seen; but he was God, clothed in human nature and accomplishing the salvation of human beings. This is what “The Word became flesh” shows, and “being made in the likeness of human beings, and being found in fashion as a human being.” For the Jews saw only this; and so they said to him, “We do not stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” And again, “This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath” … unbelief, and for this reason they used these words. [And if] you find the apostles too saying these things before the resurrection, do you accept the interpretation? I hear them, then, in the boat, after the very great miracle of the calm, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even the sea and the winds obey him?”