Eranistes (The Beggar), or Polymorphus 2.7–2.15

Eranistes: Was not Moses, then, named mediator, though he was only human? Orthodoxos: He was a type of the truth, and the type does not have everything that the truth has. For this reason he was not God by nature, yet he was named god, in order to fulfil the type. “For see,” it says, “I have made you a god to Pharaoh”; and immediately, as to a god, he appointed him a prophet: “For Aaron your brother,” it says, “shall be your prophet.” But the truth is both God by nature and human by nature. Eranistes: And who would call a type something that does not have the clear features of the archetype? Orthodoxos: It seems, then, that you do not call the royal images images of the king? … Orthodoxos: And yet they do not have everything that the archetype has. In the first place, they are without soul and reason; then they lack the inner parts, I mean heart and belly and liver and whatever else is joined to these. Then they have the form of the senses but not their activities: they neither hear nor speak nor see; they do not write, they do not walk, they do nothing else that humans do; yet they are called royal images. So too Moses is a mediator and Christ is a mediator; but the one as an image and type, the other as the truth. And to show you this more clearly from another direction, recall what is said about Melchizedek in the letter to the Hebrews. … Orthodoxos: Those words in which the divine Apostle, comparing the Levitical priesthood with that of Christ, likened Melchizedek to the Master Christ in the other respects, but said that the Lord has the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek. Eranistes: I think the divine Apostle speaks thus: “For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of God Most High, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom Abraham also apportioned a tenth of everything, being first by interpretation king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, that is, king of peace, without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest perpetually.” I think you were speaking of these sayings. Orthodoxos: Of these I spoke; and I praise you for not cutting the passage short but setting it down whole. Tell me, then: does each of these fit Melchizedek by nature and in truth? [Eranistes:] And who is so bold as to unfit what the divine Apostle fitted? Orthodoxos: You say, then, that these things fit Melchizedek by nature? … Orthodoxos: Do you say that he was a human being, or that he had received some other nature?

Orthodoxos: Begotten or unbegotten? Eranistes: You put very absurd questions. Orthodoxos: You are the cause of them, plainly fighting against the truth. Answer, then. Eranistes: There is only one unbegotten, God the Father. Orthodoxos: Then we say that Melchizedek was begotten? … Orthodoxos: But the word about him teaches the opposite: “Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.” How, then, does “without father” fit him, and “without mother”? And how “having taken no beginning of being, nor going to receive an end”? For these things are beyond human nature. Eranistes: They really do exceed the measures of human nature. Orthodoxos: What, then? Shall we say that the Apostle spoke falsely? Eranistes: Far from it! Orthodoxos: How, then, is it possible both to bear witness to the Apostle's truthfulness and to fit to Melchizedek things beyond nature? [Eranistes:] … the passage is obscure, and much … Orthodoxos: For those who are willing to attend, understanding comes from the sense of the words. For the divine Apostle, having said, “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life,” added, “but made like the Son of God, remains a priest perpetually.” And he teaches us clearly that, of Melchizedek's attributes that are beyond human nature, the Master Christ is the archetype; and he said that Melchizedek was made like the Son of God. Let us examine it this way: do you say that the Lord had a father according to the flesh? [Eranistes: No;] for he was born of the holy Virgin alone. Orthodoxos: Then he has fittingly been named fatherless? … Orthodoxos: Do you say that according to the divine nature he had a mother? … Orthodoxos: For before the ages he was begotten of the Father alone. … having his birth from the Father, he has been called. “For his generation,” says the prophet, “who will declare?” … Orthodoxos: So too it belongs to him to have neither beginning of days nor end of life; for he is without beginning and indestructible, in short, eternal and coeternal with the Father. Eranistes: I too agree that this is so. But we must now consider how these things also fit the wonderful [Melchizedek]. Orthodoxos: As an image and type; and the image, as we said before, does not have everything that the archetype has. To the Savior, then, these things belong by nature and in truth; but to Melchizedek the history of ancient origins fitted them. For having taught us who was the father of the patriarch Abraham, and the father and mother of Isaac, and likewise of Jacob and of his sons, and having shown the genealogy of those born long before, it mentioned neither Melchizedek's father nor his mother, nor did it teach that he traced his descent from any of Noah's sons, so that he might become a type of the one who is truly motherless and fatherless. And the divine Apostle taught us to understand it so; for in this very passage he added this too: “But he who has no genealogy from them received tithes from Abraham, and blessed him who had the promises.”

Eranistes: And because the divine Scripture did not mention those who begot him, he can be called fatherless and motherless? Orthodoxos: If he were truly fatherless and motherless, he would not be an image but the truth. But since he has these things not by nature but by the arrangement of the divine Scripture, he shows the type of the truth. Eranistes: The image must have the [features] of the archetype. Orthodoxos: Is the human being called the image of God? [Eranistes: He] is [not] the image of God, but came to be according to the image of God. Orthodoxos: Hear, then, the Apostle saying, “For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God.” Eranistes: Let him be the image of God. Orthodoxos: Then according to your argument he ought to preserve the clear features of the archetype: to be neither created, nor composite, nor circumscribed. He ought likewise to create from nothing; to fashion all things by a word and without toil; and besides, not to fall ill, not to be dejected, not to be angry, not to sin, but to be immortal and incorruptible, and to have everything that the archetype [has]. Eranistes: The human being is not the image of God in all respects. Orthodoxos: True; and in whatever respects you grant that he is an image, you will certainly find him falling short of the truth by a very great measure. … Orthodoxos: Consider this too now: the divine Apostle called the Son the image of the Father; for he said, “who is the image of the invisible God.” Eranistes: What then? Does not the Son have everything that the [Father has]? Orthodoxos: [He is not] Father, nor uncaused, nor unbegotten. Eranistes: If he had these, he would not be [Son]. Orthodoxos: The statement I made, then, is true, that the image does not have everything that the archetype [has]. … Orthodoxos: So, then, the divine Apostle said that Melchizedek too was made like the Son of God. Eranistes: Let us grant that “without father, without mother, without genealogy” are as you have said; how shall we understand “having neither beginning of days nor end of life”? [Orthodoxos: The in]spired Moses taught us that Adam, at such and such an age, begot Seth, and after living so many more years reached the end of his life. So too he spoke of Seth, and Enosh, and the others. But of Melchizedek he kept silent about both the beginning of his birth and the end of his life. Then, according to the history, he has neither beginning of days nor end of life; but in truth it is the only-begotten Son of God who neither began to be nor will receive an end. Orthodoxos: In these God-befitting and truly divine attributes, then, Melchizedek is a type of the Master Christ; but in the high priesthood, which belongs to human beings rather than to God, the Master Christ became high priest according to the order of Melchizedek. For that man was high priest of the nations; and the Master Christ, on behalf of all human beings, [offered] the all-holy and saving …

Orthodoxos: It needed more, as you know; you said the passage was hard to understand. Eranistes: Let us return to the matter in hand. Orthodoxos: And what was the question before us? Eranistes: When I said that one should not call Christ human but God only, you brought forward many other testimonies, and in particular that apostolic saying which he set down when writing to Timothy: “One God, and one mediator of God and human beings, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” … [Orthodoxos:] … we turned aside. For when I said that the very name of mediator given to our Savior indicates the two natures, you said that Moses too was called mediator, though he was only human, not God and human. That is why I was compelled to go through these things, to show that the type does not have everything that the archetype has. Tell me, then: do you agree that the Savior Christ must also be named human? Eranistes: I call him God; for he is [the Son] of God. Orthodoxos: If you call him God because you were taught that he is the Son of God, call him human as well; for he often called himself Son of Man. Eranistes: The name “human” does not fit him as the name “God” does. Orthodoxos: As not being true, or for another reason? Eranistes: The name “God” is the name of the nature; but “human” is a designation of the dispensation. Orthodoxos: And do we say that the dispensation is true, or some kind of fantasy and falsehood? … Orthodoxos: If, then, the grace of the dispensation is true, and we call the incarnation of God the Word the dispensation, then the name “human” too is true. For having assumed [the nature] of a human being, he was called human. Eranistes: Before the passion he was called human, but after the passion no longer. Orthodoxos: And yet it was after the passion and the resurrection that the divine Apostle wrote the letter to Timothy in which he called the Savior Christ human. After the passion and the resurrection, writing to the Corinthians, he cries: “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead also came through a human being.” And teaching more clearly of whom he speaks, he added: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” After the passion and the resurrection, the divine Peter, speaking to the Jews, called him a man. After the ascension into heaven, the victorious Stephen, as he was being stoned, said to the Jews, “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” Let us not, then, suppose ourselves wiser than the great heralds of the truth.

Eranistes: I have not supposed myself wiser than the holy teachers; but I do not find the [need] of the name. Orthodoxos: Those, then, who deny the Lord's [humanity], [Marcion and Mani] and the others who suffer from this disease, how could you persuade them to confess the proclamation of the truth, except by bringing forward these testimonies and others like them, teaching that the Master Christ is not only God but also human? Eranistes: Perhaps one must bring these forward to them. Orthodoxos: And why do you not teach the faithful the truth of the doctrine? Or have you forgotten the apostolic law that bids us be ready to make a defense? Let us consider it this way. Does the best general fight the enemy alone, and shoot arrows, and hurl javelins, and break the phalanx, or does he also arm the soldiers, draw them up, and whet their spirits to courage? Eranistes: This is rather what he must do. Orthodoxos: For it is not the part of a general to run the risks and stand in the line himself while letting the soldiers sleep on both ears, but to rouse them too to the battle. … Orthodoxos: This the divine Paul did too. For writing to those who had believed, he said, “Take up the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” And again, “Stand, then, having girded your loins with truth,” and what follows. And remember what we said earlier, that the physician too adds the quality that is lacking to the nature. For if he finds the cold excessive, he adds the hot, and likewise with the others. This the Lord also did. Eranistes: And where will you show that the Lord did this? Orthodoxos: In the divine Gospels. Eranistes: Show it, then, and fulfil your promise. Orthodoxos: What did the Jews think that the Savior Christ was? … Orthodoxos: And were they entirely ignorant that he was also God? … Orthodoxos: Then ought not those who were ignorant to learn? … Orthodoxos: Hear, then, what he says to them: “Many works I have shown you from my Father; for which of them do you stone me?” And when they had said, “We do not stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God,” he added: “In your law it is written, I said, You are gods. If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, You are blaspheming, because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me; … that I am in my Father, and the Father is in me.” Eranistes: In what you have just read you have shown the Lord showing himself to the Jews as God, not as human. Orthodoxos: For they did not need to learn what they knew. That he was human they knew; that he was also God they did not know. He did this same thing with the Pharisees too. For, seeing them approach him as an ordinary man, he asked them thus: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” And when they said, “David's,” he added: “How, then, does David in the Spirit call him Lord? For he says, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand.” Then he reasons: “If, then, he is his Lord, how is he his son?”

Eranistes: You have brought forward a testimony against yourself. For the Lord openly taught the Pharisees not to call him son of David but Lord of David. By this he has shown that he wished to be called God, not human. Orthodoxos: You did not attend, it seems, to the divine teaching. For he did not refuse to be called son of David, but added that he must also be believed to be Lord of David. For this is what “If, then, he is his Lord, how is he his son?” clearly teaches. For he did not say, “If he is Lord, he is not son,” but “How is he his son?”, that is, in one respect Lord, and in another son. And this plainly shows both the Godhead and the humanity. Eranistes: There is no need of syllogisms. For the Lord plainly taught that he does not wish to be called son of David. Orthodoxos: Then he ought to have taught the blind men, and the Canaanite woman, and indeed the crowds not to call him son of David. For the blind men cried, “Son of David, have mercy on us”; and the Canaanite woman, “[Son of] David, have mercy on me; my daughter is badly possessed by a demon”; and the multitude, “Hosanna to the son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” And not only was he not displeased, but he even praised their faith. For he freed the blind men from their very long night; he healed the Canaanite woman's daughter, frenzied and raving, and [drove out] the most wicked demon. And when the chief priests and Pharisees were angry with those who cried, “Hosanna to the son of David,” not only did he not stop those who cried out, but he even confirmed the acclamation. “For truly, I say to you,” he said, … Eranistes: Before the resurrection he [accepted] these titles, condescending to the weakness of those who had never truly believed; but after the resurrection these names are superfluous. [Orthodoxos:] Where, then, shall we place the blessed Paul: among the perfect, or among the imperfect? Eranistes: One should not jest in serious matters. Orthodoxos: One should not neglect the reading of the divine oracles. Eranistes: And who is so thrice-wretched as to neglect his own salvation? Orthodoxos: Answer the question, and you will learn [your] ignorance. … Orthodoxos: Where do we place the divine Apostle? Eranistes: Clearly among the most perfect, and as the teacher of the perfect. Orthodoxos: And when did he begin his preaching? Eranistes: After the ascension of the Savior, and the coming of the [Holy] Spirit, and [the death] of Stephen … Orthodoxos: This man, at the very end of his life, writing his last letter to Timothy his disciple, and handing it to him by testament as a kind of inheritance from his father, set down this too: “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel.” And he pointed also to the sufferings he bore for the gospel, showing by this the truth of the gospel. “For in it,” he said, “I suffer hardship to the point of chains, as a criminal.” It would be easy for me to bring forward many other such testimonies, but …

Eranistes: You promised to show the Lord adding the missing teaching for those who needed it. You have said that he discoursed to the Pharisees and the other Jews about his own Godhead; but you have not shown that he also offered the teaching about the flesh. Orthodoxos: It was quite superfluous to discourse about the flesh that was seen, for it was plainly seen, and … However, to pass over what came before the passion, which is much and varied, after the resurrection he showed the disbelieving apostles not his Godhead but his humanity. “For see,” he says, “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.” See, we have fulfilled our promise; for we have shown that to those who did not know the Godhead the teaching about it was offered, and to those who disbelieved the resurrection of the flesh, the flesh was shown. Stop contending, then, and confess the two natures of the Savior. Eranistes: There were two before the union; but having come together they made one nature. Orthodoxos: And when do you say that the union took place? Eranistes: I say, immediately at the conception. Orthodoxos: And did not God the Word exist before the conception? Eranistes: I say that he is before the ages. Orthodoxos: And did the flesh coexist with him? Eranistes: Certainly not. Orthodoxos: But [it was formed] by the Holy Spirit after the angel's greeting? … Orthodoxos: Then there were not two natures before the union, but one only. For if the Godhead pre-exists, but the humanity does not coexist with it (for it was formed after the angelic greeting, and the union is joined to the forming), then there was one nature before the union, the one that always is and is before the ages. But let us examine this very point again. Do you think that the incarnation, or becoming human, is something other than the union? … Orthodoxos: And the union is joined to the assumption? … Orthodoxos: Then there was one nature before the incarnation. For if union and becoming human are the same, and he became human by taking human nature, and the form of God took the form of the servant, then there was one nature, the divine, before the union. Eranistes: And how are union and becoming human the same? Orthodoxos: … that these names do not differ. Eranistes: You have tricked me with your syllogisms. Orthodoxos: Let us take up the same argument again, if you like. … Orthodoxos: Does the incarnation have any difference from the union in the nature of the matter? Eranistes: A very great one. Orthodoxos: Teach me the kinds of this [difference]. Eranistes: The very sense of the names shows the difference. For incarnation indicates the assumption of the flesh, and union the joining of things that were apart. … Orthodoxos: [And do you say that] the incarnation [came before] the union?

Orthodoxos: But [you say that] the union took place in the conception? … Orthodoxos: Then if not even the briefest instant of time came between the taking of the flesh and the union, and the nature that was taken did not exist before the taking and the union, then incarnation and union signify the same thing; and so there was one nature before the union, or incarnation, but after the union it is fitting to speak of two, the one that took and the one that was taken. Eranistes: I say that Christ is from two natures, but I do not say two natures. Orthodoxos: Explain to us how you mean “from two natures”: as silver sprinkled with gold, as the … Eranistes: I say that this union resembles none of these; for it is unspeakable and inexpressible and … Orthodoxos: I too confess that the account of the union is beyond our reach. But that each nature remained intact even after the union, I was taught by the divine Scripture. Eranistes: And where did the divine Scripture teach this? Orthodoxos: All of it is full of this teaching. Eranistes: Give the proofs of what you say. Orthodoxos: Do you not confess the properties of each nature? Eranistes: After the union, by no means. Orthodoxos: Then let us learn this very point from the divine Scripture. Eranistes: I obey the divine Scripture. Orthodoxos: When, then, you hear the inspired John crying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” and “All things came to be through him,” and all the others of this kind, do you say that the flesh was in the beginning with God, and is God by nature, and made all things, or God the Word, begotten of the Father before the ages? Eranistes: I say that these things belong to God the Word; but I do not separate him from the flesh united to him. Orthodoxos: We neither separate the flesh from God the Word, nor make the union a confusion. Eranistes: I know one nature after the union. Orthodoxos: When did the evangelists write the Gospels? Before the union, or a very long time after the union? Eranistes: Clearly after the union, and the birth, and the miracles, and the passion, and the resurrection, and the ascension into heaven, and the [coming of the Spirit] … Orthodoxos: Hear, then, John saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be,” and what follows; and Matthew, “The book of the genesis of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham,” and what follows. And Luke too [traces] him … Abraham. [Fit] both these and those to one nature, then. But you could not; for being from Abraham is contrary to being in the beginning, and having a created ancestor to having made all things. Eranistes: By saying these things you [divide] the Only-[begotten] into two persons.

Orthodoxos: One Son of God I both know and worship, the Lord Jesus Christ; but I have been taught the difference between the Godhead and the humanity. But you, who say that one nature came about after the union, fit the openings of the Gospels to it. Eranistes: It seems you suppose the proposition very strong and perhaps unanswerable. Let it be easy and simple for you; only solve the question for us. Orthodoxos: Both belong to the Master Christ: being in the beginning, and springing from Abraham and David according to the flesh. Eranistes: You laid down the law that one must not speak of one nature after the union; do not transgress your own law, then, by mentioning flesh. Orthodoxos: Even without mentioning flesh it is easy to solve the proposition; for both [belong] to the Savior … Eranistes: I too say that both these and those belong to the Master Christ. Orthodoxos: But seeing two natures in him, and assigning to each what is suitable to it. But if Christ is one nature, how is it possible to fit contraries to it? For to have taken one's beginning from Abraham and David, or rather to have been born many generations after David, is contrary to being in the beginning. And again, to have sprung from things that were made is contrary to having made all things; and to have had human forefathers is contrary to being from God; and the recent is contrary to the eternal. And let us consider it this way: do we say that God the Word is the Creator of all things? Eranistes: So we have been taught to believe by the divine Scripture. Orthodoxos: And on what day after the creation of heaven and earth have we learned that Adam was formed? … Orthodoxos: And from Adam to Abraham, how many …? … Orthodoxos: And from Abraham to our Savior Christ, how many generations does the evangelist Matthew count? … Orthodoxos: If, then, the Master Christ is one nature, how is it possible for him both to be the Creator of all things visible and invisible, and after so many generations to be formed by the all-holy Spirit in a virgin womb? And how and where is he both Adam's maker and son of Adam's descendants? Eranistes: I said before too that both these and those fit him as God incarnate; for I know one incarnate nature of the Word. Orthodoxos: Nor do we, my good man, say that two natures of God the Word were made flesh; for we know one nature of God the Word. But we have been taught that the flesh by which he was made flesh is of another nature. And I think that you too agree to this. Tell me, then: do you say that the incarnation took place by some change?