Eranistes (The Beggar), or Polymorphus 2.16–2.24

Eranistes: I do not know the manner, but I believe that he … Orthodoxos: You have craftily put forward ignorance, just like the Pharisees. For they too, seeing the strength of the Lord's question and suspecting the refutation, said, “We do not know.” But I cry out expressly that the divine incarnation is free of change. For if he was made flesh by some alteration and change, then after the change the divine names and works would by no means fit him. Eranistes: We have often confessed that God the Word is immutable. Orthodoxos: The nature of God the Word that was made flesh is one thing, and that of the flesh is another, which the nature of the divine Word assumed and so was made flesh, and … Orthodoxos: Then was he changed into flesh? … Orthodoxos: If, then, he was made flesh not by being changed but by taking flesh, and both these things and those fit him as God made flesh (for you said this just now), then the natures were not confused but remained unmixed. For if we understand it so, we shall also see the agreement of the evangelists. For of the one Only-begotten, I mean the Master Christ, one proclaims the divine things and another the human. And the Master Christ himself teaches us to understand it so, calling himself now Son of God and now Son of Man; at one time honoring his mother as the one who bore him, at another rebuking her as her Master; now accepting those who name him son of David, and now teaching those who do not know that he is not only son but also lord of David. And he calls Nazareth and Capernaum his homeland; yet again he cries, “Before Abraham came to be, I am.” You will find the divine Scripture full of very many such things. And these indicate not one nature but two. Eranistes: He who sees two natures in Christ divides the one Only-begotten into two sons. Orthodoxos: Then he who says that Paul is of soul and body has made the one Paul two Pauls. … Orthodoxos: I too know it. For here the union is natural, of things of the same time, created, and fellow servants; but in the case of the Master Christ the whole is of good pleasure, love for humankind, and grace. Yet even here, where the union is natural, the properties of the natures have remained unmixed. Eranistes: If the properties of the natures remained unmixed, how does the soul desire food along with the body? Orthodoxos: The soul does not desire food; for how could it, being immortal and above food? But the body, receiving the vital power from it, perceives the lack and longs to take what is lacking. So too it longs for rest after toil, and sleep after waking, and likewise with the rest. And so after the dissolution, no longer having the vital activity, it does not desire what is lacking … to hunger, and things like these? Orthodoxos: If these belonged to the soul, it would undergo hunger and thirst and the rest likewise even after its release from the body.

Eranistes: What, then, do you say are the properties of the soul? Orthodoxos: Being rational, simple, immortal, invisible. Eranistes: And of the body? Orthodoxos: Being composite, visible, mortal. Eranistes: And do we say that the human being is composed of these? … Eranistes: Do we, then, define the human being as a rational, mortal living creature? … Eranistes: And do we name him from both these and those? … Eranistes: Just as, then, we do not divide here, but call the same one both rational and mortal, so it is fitting to do with Christ too, and to fit to him both the divine and the human things. Orthodoxos: This argument is ours, even if you have not worked it out exactly. Consider it, then, this way. When we examine the account of the human soul, do we speak only of what belongs to its activity and nature? … thirsting and … belong to the soul … And when our discussion is about the body, again, do we not go through its properties only? Orthodoxos: But when the discussion is about the whole living creature, then we bring forward both these and those freely. For the properties both of the body and of the soul fit the human being. Orthodoxos: So, then, it is fitting to speak about Christ too: when discussing the natures, to assign to each what is suitable to it, and to know which are the properties of the Godhead and which of the humanity; but when we speak about the person, we must make the properties of the natures common, and fit both these and those to Christ the Savior, and call the same one both God and human, both Son of God and son of man, both son of David and lord of David, both seed of Abraham and maker of Abraham, and all the rest likewise. Eranistes: That Christ is one person, and that both the divine and the human belong to him, you have said very rightly, and I accept this definition of the faith. But to say, again, that when discussing the natures one must assign to each its properties seems to me to dissolve the union; and for this reason I do not admit these and similar statements. Orthodoxos: And yet when we examined the matters of soul and body, the distinction in those statements seemed admirable to you; you at once gave it praise. Why, then, do you not accept the same rule in the case of the Godhead and the humanity of the Master Christ? Or do you not even rank the Godhead and the humanity of Christ with soul and body? But you grant soul and body an unconfused union, and dare to say that the Godhead and the humanity of Christ underwent blending and confusion?

Eranistes: I have supposed that the Godhead of Christ, and indeed the flesh too, is more precious than soul and body by a great, indeed an infinite, measure; yet I say one nature after the union. Orthodoxos: And how is it not impious and wretched to say that the soul joined to the body did not at all undergo confusion, but that the Godhead of the Master of the universe could neither preserve its own nature unconfused nor keep the human nature it took within its own bounds, but blended the unblended and mixed the unmixed? For “one nature” makes one suspect these things. Eranistes: To me too the name “confusion” is to be avoided; but I decline to speak of two natures, so as not to fall into a pair of sons. Orthodoxos: But I strive to escape each of the two cliffs, that of impious confusion and that of impious division. For to me it is equally unholy to divide the one Son in two and to deny the duality of the natures. But tell me, by the truth: if one of the followers of Arius or of Eunomius [tried] to show [the Son] less than and inferior to the Father, saying what they are accustomed to say and bringing forward from the divine Scripture, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” and “Now my soul is troubled,” and the other such things, how would you solve his problems? How would you show that the Son is not lessened by these, nor of another substance, but begotten from the substance of the Father? Eranistes: I would say that the divine Scripture says some things in the manner of theology and others in the manner of the dispensation, and that one ought not … Orthodoxos: But he would say that in the Old [Testament] too the divine Scripture says many things in the manner of the dispensation. Such is: “Adam heard the voice of the Lord God walking”; and: “I will go down and see whether they are doing according to their outcry that comes to me; and if not, that I may know”; and: “Now I know that you fear God”; and many other such things. Eranistes: To these I would reply again that the difference among the dispensations is great. For in the Old there is a dispensation of such words, but here also of deeds. Orthodoxos: But he would ask, “Of what deeds?” Eranistes: He will hear at once: those of the incarnation. For the Son of God, having become human, shows by words and by deeds sometimes the flesh and sometimes the Godhead; as indeed here he showed the weakness of the flesh and of the soul, for fear is a passion [of the soul]. Orthodoxos: But if he took you up and said, “And yet he did not assume a soul, but a body only, and the Godhead, united to the body in place of a soul, [performed] all the functions of the soul” …? Eranistes: [I would answer him] by bringing forward the proofs from the divine Scripture, and showing that God the Word assumed not flesh only but also a soul.

Orthodoxos: And what proofs of this kind shall we find in Scripture? Eranistes: Have you not heard the Lord saying, “I have authority to lay down my soul, and I have authority to take it again; I lay it down of myself, that I may take it again”? And again, “My soul is now troubled”; and again, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death”; and what was said by David and interpreted by Peter, “His soul was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption”? These and similar sayings show clearly that God the Word assumed not a body only, but also a soul. Orthodoxos: You have brought forward the testimonies very fittingly and … But he would object that even before the incarnation God, speaking to the Jews, said, “My soul hates your fasting, and idleness, and your feasts.” Then, reasoning, he would say that just as in the Old [Testament] he mentioned a soul though he had none, so he did here too. Eranistes: But he will hear in turn that the divine Scripture is found speaking of God with bodily members too: “Incline your ear and hear me,” and “Open your eyes and see,” and “The mouth of the Lord has spoken these things,” and “Your hands made me and fashioned me,” and countless such things. If, then, even after the incarnation the soul is not to be understood as a soul, then neither is the body to be understood as a body; and the great mystery of the dispensation will be found to be an appearance, and we shall differ in nothing from Marcion and Valentinus and Mani, for they tell fables of this kind. Orthodoxos: And if, while we are discussing, someone of Apollinarius' band should suddenly arrive and say, “[What kind of] soul do you say that he assumed?”, what would you …? [Eranistes:] First, that I know one soul of the human being. Then I would add: but if you think there are two, and suppose one rational and the other irrational, I say that the rational was assumed. For you, it seems, [say that he] has the irrational one, holding our salvation to be incomplete. Orthodoxos: And if he asked for the proofs of these words? [Eranistes:] I would remind him of the oracles, that “the child Jesus grew and became strong in spirit, and the grace of God was upon him”; and again, “[Jesus increased] in stature and wisdom and grace with God and human beings.” And I would say that none of these fits the Godhead. For the body advances in stature, and the soul in wisdom, not the irrational soul but the rational. So God the Word assumed a rational soul.

Orthodoxos: Very nobly, my excellent friend, have you broken through the three phalanxes of the opponents. But that union, and the much-talked-of blending and confusion, you have dissolved in your argument not only into two but even into three; and you have shown not only the difference between Godhead and humanity, but have also divided the humanity itself in two, teaching that the soul is one thing and the body another, so that, by our reckoning, not two but three natures of our Savior Jesus Christ are understood. Eranistes: Do you not say that the substance of the soul is something other than the nature of the body? … Eranistes: How, then, did the argument seem absurd to you? Orthodoxos: Because [the one who will not say] two is forced to make three. [Eranistes:] For how could one argue otherwise with those who deny the assumption of the flesh, or of the soul, or of the mind, except by bringing forward the proofs about these from the divine Scripture? And how could one refute those who rage to …, except by showing that the divine Scripture said some things in the manner of theology and others in the manner of the dispensation? … Orthodoxos: This argument is true; for it is ours, or rather it belongs to all who have kept the apostolic rule unswerving. You yourself have become an advocate of our views. Eranistes: And how am I an advocate of yours, when I do not say two sons? Orthodoxos: When have you heard us saying two sons? Eranistes: He who says two natures says two … Orthodoxos: Then you say three sons; for you have spoken of three natures. Eranistes: It was not possible [otherwise] to dissolve the [arguments] of the opponents. Orthodoxos: Hear this same thing from us too; for we have the same opponents. Eranistes: But I do not say two natures after the union. Orthodoxos: And yet a moment ago you used these very arguments [about the time] after the union. But teach us, nevertheless, how you say one nature after the union: as one nature having come to be from both, or as one remaining and the other destroyed? Eranistes: I say that the Godhead remained, and that the humanity was swallowed up by it. Orthodoxos: These are fables of the Greeks and nonsense of the Manichees, and I am ashamed even to bring them into the open. For the former wrote in their stories of the swallowing of gods, the latter of the daughter of light. But we turn away from such words not only as impious but also as very foolish. For how could the simple and incomposite nature, which encompasses all things, the unreachable and uncircumscribed, swallow up … For that drop disappears at once when it is mixed with the water of the sea. [Orthodoxos:] The sea and the drop differ in quantity and in one quality: the one is very great and the other very small; the one is sweet and the other salt; but in the other respects very great kinship can be found. For both have a fluid, moist and flowing nature; being created belongs to them alike, and being inanimate is likewise common to them; and indeed both the one and the other are called body. It is not unlikely, then, that related natures should undergo blending, and that one should be made to vanish by the other. But here the difference is infinite, and so great that no image of the truth can be found. Yet I will show you many things blended that are not …

Eranistes: And who has ever heard of an unmixed blending? … Eranistes: If what is to be said appears true, [I will not contradict it]. Orthodoxos: Answer, then, by nodding no or yes, as the argument seems to you. Does the rising light seem to you to fill all the air, except where something remains [in shade]? … Orthodoxos: And does the light pass wholly through the whole of the air? Eranistes: This too I agree with. Orthodoxos: And does not blending pass through the whole of the things blended? … Orthodoxos: And the air that has been lit up, do we not both see and name it light? … Orthodoxos: Yet even while the light is present we perceive the dry quality and the moist, and often the cold and the hot. … Orthodoxos: And after the light has departed, the air remains thereafter by itself. … Orthodoxos: Consider this too, then: does iron that meets fire become red-hot? … Orthodoxos: And the fire passes through the whole of its substance? … Orthodoxos: How, then, does the extreme union, and the blending that passes through the whole, not change the nature of the iron? Eranistes: Indeed it changes it entirely. For it is no longer thought to be iron but fire, and indeed it has the activity of fire. Orthodoxos: Then the smith no longer calls it iron, nor brings it to the anvil, nor brings [the hammer] down on it? … Orthodoxos: Then the companionship of the fire did not ruin the nature of the iron. If, then, an unconfused blending can be found in bodies, it is plain madness to imagine confusion in the case of the pure and unalterable nature, and the disappearance of the nature that was assumed, and that when it was assumed for the benefit of the race. Eranistes: We do not speak of the disappearance of the assumed nature, but of its change into the substance of the Godhead. Orthodoxos: Then does the human [nature] still have its former circumscription? … Orthodoxos: And when did it receive this change? Eranistes: After the extreme union. Orthodoxos: And when do you say that this took place? Eranistes: I have said many times: at the conception. Orthodoxos: And yet after the conception he was an embryo in the womb, and when born he both was and was called an infant, and was worshiped by shepherds, and likewise both became a child and was so called by the angel. Do you know these things, or do you suppose that we are making up fables? Eranistes: The history of the divine Gospels teaches these things, and it is impossible to contradict them. Orthodoxos: Let us consider, then, what follows. Do we not confess that the Lord was circumcised? … Orthodoxos: Of what, then, was the circumcision? Of the flesh, or of the Godhead? … Orthodoxos: And of what was the growing and advancing in stature and wisdom? Eranistes: Clearly none of these fits the Godhead. Orthodoxos: Then neither do hungering and thirsting? … Orthodoxos: Nor walking, and growing weary, and sleeping, and simply all the other things of this kind. … Orthodoxos: If, then, the union took place at the conception, and all these things took place after the conception and the birth, then the humanity did not lose its own nature after the union.

Eranistes: I did not define it exactly. For it was after the resurrection from the dead that the flesh received the change into the nature of the Godhead. Orthodoxos: Then after the resurrection nothing remained in it of the things that show its nature? Eranistes: If anything remained, then the divine change did not take place. Orthodoxos: How, then, did he show his hands and his feet to the disciples when they disbelieved? Eranistes: In the same way as he entered when the doors were shut. Orthodoxos: But he entered when the doors were shut in the same way as he came out of the womb while the bars of the Virgin lay in place, and as he walked on the sea; and by your argument the change of the nature had not yet taken place then. Eranistes: The Master showed the apostles hands in the same way as he wrestled with Jacob. Orthodoxos: But the Lord does not allow us to understand it so. For when the disciples supposed that they were seeing a spirit, the Lord drove out their suspicion and showed the nature of the flesh: “Why are you troubled,” he says, “and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And see the exactness of the word. For he did not say “being flesh and bones” but “having flesh and bones,” to show that what has is one thing by nature and what is had is another. For just as what took is one thing and what was taken is another, yet one Christ is contemplated from both, so what has differs very greatly from what is had, yet does not divide the one understood in them into two persons. And the Lord, while the disciples still doubted, asked for food, and took it and ate, neither consuming the food in appearance nor filling a need of the body. Eranistes: And yet one of two things must be accepted: either he partook because he needed it, or, not needing it, he seemed to eat but did not partake of food at all. [Orthodoxos:] … he did not need it, his body having become immortal. For of those who rise the Lord said, “There they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels.” But that he did partake of the food, the apostles are witnesses. For blessed Luke said in the preface of the Acts that “the Lord, eating with the apostles, charged them not to depart from Jerusalem.” And the most divine Peter said more clearly, “We who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.” For since eating is proper to those in the present life, the Lord had to show the resurrection of the flesh by eating and drinking to those who did not think it real. He did this same thing also in the case of Lazarus and of the daughter of Jairus. For when he had raised her, he ordered that she be given something to eat; and he had Lazarus at table with him, showing by this that the resurrection was real.

Eranistes: If we grant that the Lord truly ate, let us grant that all human beings too will [eat] after the resurrection. Orthodoxos: What was done by the Savior for some purpose of the dispensation is not a rule and definition of nature; for he arranged some other things too that will not happen at all to those who come back to life. … Orthodoxos: Will not the bodies of those who rise become incorruptible and immortal? Eranistes: So the divine Paul taught us: “It is sown,” he said, “in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” Orthodoxos: But the Lord, who raises the bodies of all human beings without maim or harm (for there will be no lameness or blindness among those who rise), left in his own body the piercings made by the nails and the wound of the side; and the Lord himself and the hands of Thomas are witnesses of this. Orthodoxos: If, then, after the resurrection the Master partook of food, and showed the disciples his hands and his feet and the piercings of the nails in them, and indeed his side and the wound made in it by the blow, and said to them, “Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have,” then the nature of the body remained even after the resurrection, and was not [changed] into another. Eranistes: Then it is mortal and passible after the resurrection? Orthodoxos: By no means; rather incorruptible, impassible, and immortal. Eranistes: If it is incorruptible and impassible and immortal, … Orthodoxos: Then the bodies of all human beings too will be changed into another substance; for they will all be incorruptible and immortal. Or have you not heard the Apostle saying, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality”? … Orthodoxos: Then the nature remains, but its corruptibility is changed into incorruption and its mortality into immortality. Let us consider it this way: a sick body and a healthy body we call body alike. Eranistes: Since both share the same substance. Orthodoxos: And yet we see very great difference in them. For the one is healthy and sound and unharmed; the other has an eye cut out, or an injured leg, or some other very grievous affliction. Eranistes: But both occur in the same nature, both health and sickness. Orthodoxos: Then the body must be called a substance, and both sickness and health an accident. … For these things happen to the body …

Orthodoxos: Therefore it puts off both corruption and death … Orthodoxos: Then the bodies of human beings too, when they rise, are freed from corruption and mortality, but do not lose their own nature. … Orthodoxos: So too the Master's body rose incorruptible, impassible, and immortal, glorified with the divine glory, and is worshiped by the heavenly powers; yet it is a body, having its former circumscription. [Eranistes:] In these things you seem to say what is reasonable. But after the ascension into heaven, I do not think you will say that it was not changed into the nature of the Godhead. Orthodoxos: I would not say so, persuaded by human reasonings; for I am not so bold as to say something about which the divine Scripture is silent. [I hear], however, the divine Paul crying that “God has set 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.” And I have learned from the holy angels that he will come in the same way as the disciples saw him going into heaven. And they saw a circumscribed nature, not an uncircumscribed one. And I heard the Lord saying, “You will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven.” And I know that what is seen by human beings is circumscribed; for the uncircumscribed nature cannot be seen. And indeed sitting on a throne of glory, and setting the lambs at the right and the goats at the left, … Eranistes: Then neither before the incarnation was he uncircumscribed; for the prophet saw him surrounded by the seraphim. Orthodoxos: The prophet did not see the very substance of God, but a vision suited to his own capacity. But after the resurrection all will see the very nature of the Judge that is seen. Eranistes: Having promised not to say anything without a witness, you bring us your own reasonings. Orthodoxos: I was taught these things by the divine Scripture. For I heard the prophet Zechariah saying, “They will look on him whom they pierced.” And how will the end of the prophecy follow, if those who crucified him do not recognize the nature they crucified? And I heard the victorious Stephen too crying, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” And he saw the visible nature, not the invisible. … seated at the right hand of the power. Eranistes: These things are so written. But … body after the ascension into heaven, I do not think you will show [called a body] by the Spirit-bearing men. Orthodoxos: In fact what has been said already indicates the body; for what is seen is a body. Yet I will show that even after the ascension the Master's body is called a body. Hear, then, the Apostle teaching: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also await a Savior, the Lord Jesus, who will transform the body of our humiliation so that it becomes conformed to the body of his glory.” It has not, then, been changed into another nature, but has remained a body, filled, however, with divine glory and sending forth rays of light; to it the bodies of the saints will be conformed. But if it was changed into another nature, theirs too will be [changed] into that. But if the bodies of the saints keep the character of their nature, then the Master's too likewise keeps its own substance unchanged.