Eranistes (The Beggar), or Polymorphus 2.25–2.33

Eranistes: Then the bodies of the saints will be equal to the Master's body? Orthodoxos: They too will share in incorruption, and indeed in immortality. They will share in the glory too, as the Apostle says, “If indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him.” But in quantity much difference can be found, as great as that of the sun to the stars, or rather that of a master to slaves, and of what gives light to what is lit … Yet he has given his own names to the slaves: being called light, he called the saints light: “For you,” he says, “are the light of the world.” And being named sun of righteousness, he says of the slaves, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun.” In quality, then, not in quantity, the bodies of the saints will be conformed to the Master's body. See, we have shown you expressly what you required of us. But if you like, let us consider this in another way too. Eranistes: One must move every stone, as the proverb says, to find the truth, especially when divine doctrines are in question. Orthodoxos: Tell me, then: the mystical symbols offered to God by those who serve as priests, of what are they symbols? Eranistes: Of the Master's body and blood. Orthodoxos: Of the real body, or not of a real one? … Orthodoxos: Excellent; for the archetype of the image must exist. For painters too imitate nature and paint the images of things that are seen. If, then, the divine mysteries are antitypes of the real body, then the Master's body is a body even now, not changed into the nature of the Godhead but filled with divine glory. Eranistes: You have raised the discussion of the divine mysteries at the right moment; for from this I will show you the change of the Master's body into another nature. Answer, then, my questions. … Eranistes: What do you call the gift that is offered, before …? Orthodoxos: One ought not to say it plainly, for it is likely that some uninitiated are present. … Orthodoxos: The food made from such and such seeds. Eranistes: And the other symbol, how do we name it? [Orthodoxos:] This too is a common name, signifying a kind of drink. … Eranistes: And after the consecration, how do you name these? Orthodoxos: Body of Christ and blood of Christ. Eranistes: And you believe that you partake of the body of Christ …? … Eranistes: Just as, then, the symbols of the Master's body and blood are one thing before the priestly invocation, but after the invocation are changed and become another thing, so the Master's body after the [ascension] was changed into the divine substance. Orthodoxos: You are caught in the nets you wove yourself. For not even after the consecration do the mystical symbols depart from their own nature; for they remain in their former substance, and shape, and form, and are visible and tangible, just as they were before. But they are understood to be what they have become, and are believed and worshiped, as being those things which they are believed to be. Set the image, then, beside the archetype, and you will see the likeness; for the type must resemble the truth. For that body too has its former form, and shape, and circumscription, and in a word the substance of a body; but after the resurrection it became immortal and above corruption, and was deemed worthy of the seat at the right hand, and is worshiped by all creation, since it is called the body of the Master of nature.

Eranistes: And yet the mystical symbol changes its former name; for it is no longer named what it was called before, but is called body. So the truth too must be called [God], and not body. Orthodoxos: You seem to me to be ignorant. For it is called not only body but also bread of life; so the Lord himself named it. And the body itself we name divine body, and life-giving, and the Master's and the Lord's, teaching that it is not the body of some ordinary human being but of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God and human. “For Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Eranistes: You have gone through many arguments about this; but I follow the saints who shone in the churches long ago. Show me, then, those men dividing the natures in speech after the union. Orthodoxos: I will read you their labors; and you will wonder, I know well, at the measurelessness of the division which they set down in their own writings in their contest against the impious heresies. [Hear], then, those whose testimonies we have already brought you, saying these things plainly and expressly.

Of holy Ignatius, bishop of Antioch and martyr. From the letter to the Smyrnaeans: “For I know and believe that he is in the flesh even after the resurrection. And when he came to those around Peter, he said to them, ‘Take, touch me, and see that I am not a bodiless demon.’ And at once they touched him and believed.” Of the same, from the same letter: “And after the resurrection, … although spiritually united to the Father.” Of Irenaeus, the ancient bishop of Lyons. From the third book of the [work] Against the Heresies: “He united, then, as we said before, the human being to God. For if a human being had not conquered the adversary of the human being, the enemy would not have been justly conquered; and again, if God had not granted the salvation, we would not have it securely; and if the human being had not been united to God, he could not have shared in incorruption. For the mediator of God and human beings had, through his own kinship with each, to bring both into friendship and concord, and to present the human being to God and make God known to human beings.” Of the same, from the third book of the same treatise: “Therefore again in the letter he says, ‘Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God,’ knowing one and the same Jesus Christ, to whom the gates of heaven were opened because of his ascension in the flesh, who will also come in the same flesh in which he suffered, revealing the glory of the Father.” Of the same, from the fourth book: “As Isaiah says, ‘The children of Jacob will sprout, and … will blossom … its fruit.’ Since, then, its fruit was scattered over the whole world, it was rightly abandoned, and … was taken out of the midst; those things which once bore fruit well (for from them Christ according to the flesh was borne as fruit, and the apostles), but now are no longer fit for bearing fruit.” Of the same, from the same book: “And he will examine the Ebionites too: how can they be saved, unless it was God who worked their salvation on earth? Or how will a human being pass into God, unless God has passed into a human being?” Of the same, from the same book: “Those who proclaimed the Emmanuel from the Virgin showed the union of the Word of God with his own handiwork.”

of his.” Of the same, from the same treatise: “For these things did not happen in appearance, but in the reality of truth. But if, not being human, he appeared human, he neither remained in truth what he was, the Spirit of God, since the Spirit is invisible, nor was there any truth in him; for he was not those things which he appeared to be. And we said before that Abraham and the other prophets saw him prophetically, prophesying by vision what was to be. If, then, now too he appeared such, not being what he appeared to be, there has been some prophetic vision for human beings, and one must await yet another coming of his, in which he will be such as he is now seen prophetically. And we have shown that it is the same thing to say that he appeared in seeming and that he took nothing from Mary. For he would not truly have had flesh and blood, by which he redeemed us, unless he had recapitulated in himself the ancient fashioning of Adam. Vain, then, are those of Valentinus' school who teach this, so that they may cast out the life of the flesh.” Of holy Hippolytus, bishop and martyr. From the discourse on the distribution of the talents: “One might say that these and the heterodox are neighbors, erring in a similar way. For they too either confess that Christ appeared in life as a mere human being, denying the talent of his Godhead, or, confessing God, they deny the human being in turn, teaching that he deceived the eyes of those who beheld him, as one who had not worn a human being, but rather that there was some phantasmal seeming; as Marcion and Valentinus and the Gnostics, tearing the Word away from the flesh, throw away the one talent, the incarnation.” Of the same, from the letter to a certain queen: “He calls him, then, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, as the firstborn of the dead; who, having risen and wishing to show that what had been raised was what had also died, when the disciples doubted, called Thomas and said, ‘Come, touch and see; for a spirit does not have bone and flesh as you see that I have.’” Of the same, from the discourse on Elkanah and Hannah: “And for this reason three seasons of the year were prefigured with reference to the Savior himself, so that he might fulfil the mysteries prophesied about him: at the Passover, so that he might show himself as the one who was to be sacrificed like a sheep and shown to be the true Passover, as the Apostle says, ‘Our Passover, Christ our God, was sacrificed for us’; and at Pentecost, so that he might foreshow the kingdom of heaven, himself first ascending into heaven and offering the human being as a gift to God.” Of the same, from the discourse on the Great Song: “He who drew up from lowest Hades the first-formed human being, who had perished from the earth and was held in the bonds of death; he who came down from above and brought the one below up to the things above; he who became the evangelist of the dead, the redeemer of souls, and the resurrection of the buried: this was he who became the helper of the conquered human being, like him in his likeness, the firstborn Word visiting the first-formed Adam in the Virgin; the spiritual seeking the earthy in the womb; the ever-living [seeking] the one who died through disobedience; the heavenly calling the earthly to the things above; the noble wishing to make the slave free through his own obedience; he who turned the human being, who was dissolving into earth and had become the serpent's food, into adamant, and showed him, hung on the tree, to be Lord over the one who had conquered him; and therefore through the tree he is found victorious.

” Of the same, from the same discourse: “For those who do not now recognize the Son of God incarnate will recognize him as Judge coming in glory, the one who is now insulted in an inglorious body.” Of the same, from the same discourse: “For the apostles, coming to the tomb on the third day, did not find the body of Jesus, just as the sons of Israel went up the mountain and sought the burial place of Moses, and did not find it.” Of the same, from the interpretation of the second psalm: “He who came forth into the world was manifested as God and human. And his humanity is easy to perceive when he hungers, and grows weary, and in his toil thirsts, and in fear flees, and in prayer is grieved, and sleeps on a pillow, and asks that the cup of suffering pass from him, and in agony sweats, and is strengthened by an angel, and is betrayed by Judas, and is dishonored by Caiaphas, and is set at naught by Herod, and is scourged by Pilate, and is mocked by soldiers, and is nailed to the tree by the Jews, and crying out to the Father commits his spirit, and bowing his head breathes his last, and is pierced in the side with a lance, and is wrapped in a linen cloth and laid in a tomb, and on the third day is raised by the Father. And again his divinity can be seen plainly when he is worshiped by angels, and beheld by shepherds, and awaited by Simeon, and testified to by Anna, and sought by magi, and signified by a star, and makes water wine at a wedding, and rebukes the sea driven by the force of the winds, and walks on the sea, and makes one blind from birth see, and raises Lazarus dead four days, and performs various mighty works, and forgives sins, and gives authority to the disciples.” Of the same, from the discourse on the twenty-third psalm: “He comes to the heavenly gates; angels accompany him, and the gates of heaven are shut. For he has not yet ascended into heaven; now for the first time flesh appears to the heavenly powers ascending. It is said, then, to the powers by the angels who run before the Savior and Lord, ‘Lift up your gates, you rulers, and be lifted up, eternal gates, and the King of glory shall come in.’” Of holy Eustathius, bishop of Antioch and …: “From there, then, he foretold that he would sit on a holy throne, showing that he has been shown to share the throne with the most divine Spirit, because of the God who dwells in him continually.” Of the same, from the discourse On the Soul: “Before the passion he foretold his bodily death on each occasion, saying that he would be handed over to those around the high priests, and announcing the trophy of the cross. After the passion, having risen from the dead on the third day, when the disciples doubted that he had been raised, he appeared to them in the body itself and confessed that he has all flesh, with bones; and putting before their eyes his wounded side, he also shows them the prints of the nails.”

Of the same, from the discourse on “The Lord created me the beginning of his ways”: “For Paul did not say, ‘conformed to the Son of God,’ but ‘conformed to the image of his Son,’ showing that the Son is one thing and his image another. For the Son, bearing the divine marks of the Father's excellence, is the image of the Father; since, when like are born from like, the offspring appear as true images of those who begot them. But the human being whom he wore is the image of the Son; for images can be painted even from unlike colors, and some are made by hand by convention, while others come about by nature and likeness. Besides, the very law of truth prescribes this. For it is not the bodiless spirit of Wisdom that is conformed to bodily human beings, but the human form embodied by the Spirit, which bears limbs equal in number to those of all others and is clothed in a form like that of each.” Of the same, from the same discourse: “That he says the body is conformed to human bodies, he teaches us more clearly when writing to the Philippians: ‘Our citizenship,’ he says, ‘is in heaven, from which we also await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humiliation so that it becomes conformed to the body of his glory.’ And if, transforming the lowly body of human beings, he makes it conformed to his own body, the slander of the opponents has been shown stale on every side.” Of the same, from the same discourse: “But just as the human being born of the Virgin is said to have come from a woman, so he is also written to have come under the law, by walking at times according to the ordinances of the law; especially when, as a child eight days old, his parents eagerly hastened to circumcise him, as the evangelist Luke relates: ‘And afterward they brought him up to the temple to present him to the Lord,’ performing the offerings of purification, ‘to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.’ If, then, the gifts of purification were offered for him according to the law, and he bore circumcision on the eighth day, in this respect he not unreasonably writes that he came under the law. But neither was the Word subject to the law, as the slanderers suppose, since he is himself the law; nor did God need sacrifices of purification, he who cleanses and sanctifies all things at a single stroke. But if, having taken the human instrument from the Virgin, he wore it, and came under the law, being purified according to the dues of the firstborn, he underwent these observances not because he himself needed what they supplied, but to redeem from the slavery of the law those who had been sold to the penalty of the curse.” Of holy Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. From the second discourse against the heresies: “And just as we would not have been freed from sin and the curse unless the flesh that the Word put on had been human by nature (for we would have had nothing in common with what was foreign to us), so the human being would not have been deified unless the Word who became flesh was by nature from the Father, and true and his own. For this is why such a conjunction took place: that he might join what is human by nature to him who is by nature of the Godhead, and that its salvation and deification might be secure. Therefore let those who deny that the Son is by nature from the Father and proper to his substance deny also that he took true and human flesh from Mary

the virgin.” Of the same, from the letter to Epictetus: “If, because the Savior's body is, and is said in the Scriptures to be, from Mary and human, they think that a Tetrad is spoken of instead of a Trinity, as though an addition were made because of the body, they err greatly, putting the thing made on a level with the Maker, and supposing that the Godhead can receive an addition. And they did not know that the Word became flesh not for an addition to the Godhead, but so that the flesh might rise; nor did the Word come forth from Mary in order to be improved, but in order to redeem the human race. How, then, do they think that the body redeemed and given life through the Word makes an addition to the Godhead of the Word who gave it life?” Of the same, from the same letter: “Let them hear that if the Word were a creature, he would not have assumed the created body in order to give it life. For what help is there for creatures from a creature, which itself needs salvation? But since the Word, being Creator, himself became the maker of creatures, for this reason at the consummation of the ages he himself put on what is created, so that again, as Creator, he might renew it and be able to create it anew.” From the greater [discourse] On the Faith: “These things we have set out about ‘Sit at my right hand,’ that it is said to the Lord's body. For if ‘I fill heaven and earth, says the Lord,’ as Jeremiah says, and God contains all things and is contained by nothing, on what throne does he sit? It is, then, the body to which he says, ‘Sit at my right hand,’ the body of which the devil with the evil powers, and Jews and Greeks, became enemies. Through this body he became and was called high priest and apostle; through it he handed on the mystery to us, saying, ‘This is my body, which is for you,’ and, ‘The blood of the new covenant (not of the old), which is poured out for you.’ But the Godhead has neither body nor blood; [through] the human being whom he wore from Mary he became the cause of these; of him the apostles said, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God.’” Of the same, from the tome to the Arians: “And when he says, ‘[Therefore] God also highly exalted him and granted him the name that is above every name,’ he speaks of the temple of his body, not of the Godhead. For the Most High is not exalted, but the flesh of the Most High is exalted, and to the flesh of the Most High he granted the name above every name. And the Word of God did not receive by grace being called God, but his flesh with him …

Of the same, from the same discourse: “It is the body, then, to which he says, ‘Sit at my right hand’ … he says, which is his body … received being called from the beginning. And when he says, ‘The Holy Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified,’ he speaks of his flesh, not yet glorified. For the Lord of glory is not glorified, but the flesh of the Lord of glory itself receives glory as it ascends with him into heaven. Hence he says that the Spirit of adoption was not yet among human beings, because the firstfruits taken from human beings had not yet ascended into heaven. Whatever, then, the Scripture says the Son received and how he was glorified, it says because of his humanity, not his Godhead.” Of the same, from the same discourse: “So this one is true God, both before he became human and after he became mediator of God and human beings, Jesus Christ, united to the Father according to the spirit and to us according to the flesh; who mediated between God and human beings, being not only human but also God.” Of holy Ambrose, bishop of Milan. In an exposition of faith: “We confess our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father without beginning before all ages according to the Godhead, and in the last days the same made flesh from the holy Virgin Mary, having assumed the perfect human being, of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the humanity. For a union of two perfect natures has taken place inexpressibly. Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, knowing that, being coeternal with his own Father according to the Godhead, according to which he is also the Creator of all things, he deigned, after the consent of the holy Virgin, when she said to the angel, ‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,’ ineffably to build for himself a temple from her, and to unite it to himself from the very conception; not bringing down from heaven a body coeternal with him from his own substance, but taking it from the lump of our substance, that is, from the Virgin, and uniting it to himself. God the Word was not changed into flesh, nor did he appear as a phantom; but keeping his own substance immutably and unalterably, he took the firstfruits of our nature and united it to himself. God the Word did not take a beginning from the Virgin, but, being coeternal with his own Father, he deigned in his great goodness to unite to himself the firstfruits of our nature, not being blended, but appearing one and the same in both substances, according to what is written: ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ For Christ [is destroyed] according to my [nature] …, and the same raises the destroyed temple according to the divine substance, according to which he is also the Creator of all things. Never after the union, which he deigned to make with himself from the very conception, did he depart from his own temple, nor could he depart from it, because of his unspeakable love for humankind. But the same is passible and impassible: passible according to the humanity, impassible according to the Godhead. ‘See, see me, that I am, and I have not changed.’ Having raised, then, his own temple, God the Word, having worked in it the resurrection and renewal of our nature, and showing this to his disciples, said, ‘Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me’, not being but having, so that you, perceiving both the one who has and what is had, may see not a blending, not a change, not an alteration, but a union that has taken place. For this reason he also showed the prints of the nails and the piercing of the lance, and ate before the disciples, so that by all means he might assure them that the resurrection of our nature had been renewed in him; and that, remaining in the blessed substance of the Godhead immutable, unalterable, impassible, immortal, without need, he allowed by permission all the sufferings to be brought upon his own temple, and raised it by his own power, and through his own temple accomplished the perfect renewal of our nature. Those who say that Christ is a mere human being, or that God the Word is passible, or was changed into flesh, or had a body of one substance with him, or brought it down from heaven, or that it is a phantom; or who say that God the Word, being mortal, needed resurrection from the Father; or that he assumed a soulless body or a mindless human being; or that the two natures of Christ, confused by blending, became one nature; and who do not confess that in our Lord Jesus Christ there are two unconfused natures but one person, inasmuch as there is one Christ, one Son: these the catholic …

and apostolic Church.” Of the same: “If, then, the flesh of all human beings is subject in Christ, how is it thought to be of one hypostasis with the Godhead? For if the Word and the flesh, which has its nature from the earth, are of one hypostasis, then the Word and the soul, which he assumed complete, are of one hypostasis. For the Word is of one nature with God, according to the confession both of the Father and of the Son himself, which says, ‘I and the Father are one’; then the Father too must be thought to be of the same substance with the body. And why are you still angry with the Arians, who say that the Son of God is a creature, when you yourselves say that the Father is of one substance with creatures?” Of the same, from the [discourse] on the distinction of Godhead and flesh: “The one Son of God answers to both, since both natures are in him. The same one speaks, but not always in one way, but in another. Attend to him, speaking now of glory, now of human sufferings. As God he speaks the divine things, since he is the Word; as human he speaks the lowly things, since he speaks in my hypostasis.” Of the same, from the same discourse: “Hence, when it is read that the Lord of glory was crucified, let us not think that he was crucified in his own glory. But since this one is God and human, God according to the Godhead and, according to the assumption of the flesh, the human Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory is said to have been crucified. For he partakes of each nature, that is, the human and the divine. For he underwent the suffering in the nature of the human being, so that the one who suffered may be said, without division, to be both Lord of glory and Son of Man, as it is written, ‘He who descended from heaven.’” Likewise, from the same: “Let vain inquiries about words, then, be silent. For the kingdom of God, as it is written, is not in persuasive words but in demonstration of power. Let us keep the distinction of the flesh and the Godhead. For one is the Son of God; one speaks both, since each nature is in him. But even if the same one speaks, he does not always speak in one way. For you see in him now the glory of God, now the sufferings of the human being. As God he speaks the divine things, since he is the Word; as human he speaks the human things, since he spoke in this nature.” Of the same, from the discourse on the incarnation: “But while we were refuting these, others sprang up, saying that the body of Christ and the Godhead are of one nature. What Hades belched forth such blasphemy? The Arians are now more tolerable, whose unbelief is strengthened by these men, so that with greater contentiousness they deny that the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are of one substance, since these men have tried to say that the Godhead of the Lord and the flesh are of one nature.”