Homilies at the Council of Ephesus

Homily of Theodotus, bishop of Ancyra, delivered at Ephesus against Nestorius, in the church of John the Evangelist

What the physician is to our bodies, the priest is to our souls. For since error is a disease of souls and, when it lingers, brings on the death of punishment, the grace of the Spirit arranged the holy priesthood as a healing of souls; and it cut off the member seized by the disease, not without pity for that member, but sparing the other members. For since holding on to the rotten faith was bringing about the spread of the evil, it cuts off the member to cut short the evil; and this kind of treatment is not cruelty but therapy. For the physician weeps as he cuts off the member, but his care to spare the rest made the cutting a therapy. This kind of therapy is ancient and from above: so the saints cared for this all-venerable church. For the priest also has a sword, not to do harm but to heal. And grace, showing this from above, first revealed it to Jeremiah, saying: 'I have appointed you today over nations and over kingdoms, to root out and to dig down and to destroy, and to build up and to plant.' For piety is not planted unless evil is cut out. It is reasonable first to water, to use a farmer's care, to apply words of piety, to bring every kind of care to the member; but if the evil proves stronger than the care, cutting it out is the cure for those in such a state. For how could one care for those in such a state, who reproach God with the human things

and make grace a matter of reproach? What do you say? Tell me. 'I do not say,' he says, 'that God suffered.' If you look to the nature, you see rightly; but if you do away with the suffering altogether, you deny the economy. Do not reproach God who suffered, but look at the achievements of the sufferings. God came down into lowliness, not diminished in nature but bestowing grace. He remained what he was; he took on what he was not. He remained God because of his own nature; he became what you are because of his love for you. Do not, then, think the manner of his care an outrage; do not reproach the physician if he worked health in the lowliness of a body. For lowliness is not an outrage but a proof of love for humankind. He came down to you, not to remain below, but to lead you up to himself. Do not deny the descent, lest you lose the ascent. Accept the outrage that has brought forth glory for you. The nature was not outraged; rather, grace bestows good things on you. For your sake, the outraged servant, the Master

is outraged; he took up what is yours, since you abandoned what is his. We ran away from a good Master; we did not bear the grace given by the Master; we took the enjoyment of paradise as an advance; we wounded the law; we transgressed against the Lawgiver; we obeyed the enemy; we fell from honour. The runaway lived in this earthly place; he did not look up to the Master; pleasure held the fugitive down below; sin kept the runaway a prisoner; it despaired of our mind, as unable to look up to God. What then? Will my slowness deprive God of his finest possession, man? But the God of all did not endure this; for envy ought not to prevail over the Master's grace, nor ought God's gift to be defeated by the devil's plotting. What then does the Master do? He comes to the runaway, for the slave could not go to him. He comes to the servant, not in a master's dignity, not sending ahead an escort of angels, not setting phalanxes of archangels in motion, not moving fire, not shaking the elements; for that would have made the runaway flee. But he comes wishing to catch the fugitive, wanting to keep hold of his own possession. He does not frighten by what is seen, but calls to converse by the

lowliness of his appearance. He becomes a fellow servant, so that he may be shown to be Master. For this reason the great apostle too said: 'Let each of you have this mind which was also in Christ Jesus.' Here he says 'Jesus'. Whom, tell me? His mother gave the name to the infant: 'For you shall call his name Jesus.' Where is the one who divides Christ? Where is the one who has made our mystery a matter of a shared name, saying one Christ but supposing two, the one a slave and the other a master, the one suffering and the other not suffering? What benefit is there in the one name if two realities lie under it? 'Let each of you have this mind which was also in Christ Jesus.' He says 'Jesus' of this one who is seen, whom the virgin named so. 'Let each of you have this mind which was also in Christ Jesus.' For what did we think in Christ Jesus? 'Who, being in the form of God, did not count being equal with God a thing to be seized.' What is being said? One who has taken his freedom by seizure endures nothing servile, lest he bring his freedom into question. What then does he do? Since he was Master by nature, he did not count being equal with God a thing to be seized; for the economy did no harm to the Godhead. 'Who, being in the form of God, did not

count being equal with God a thing to be seized, but emptied himself.' Tell me the emptying of the Only-begotten. If he did not undergo human things, in what was he emptied? But when I say that God suffered, I say it keeping the nature impassible; for it was not a passible nature that attached suffering to God, but the union with what is passible. For since the loving Master resolved to suffer with his servant, yet had an impassible nature, by uniting to himself what is passible he fulfilled his purpose. So the Master came, so he came upon the fugitive: appearing as a fellow servant and doing good as Master, showing the form of a servant and bestowing the grace of a Master, hungering as a slave and making loaves spring forth as God, weary as a man and walking on the back of the sea as God, shrinking from the cross as a man. For by the sufferings he gave assurance of what was seen, and by the miracles he showed the one who was hidden. Thus, appearing as a man, he gathered us all into kinship with him. He set John over us as teacher, the son of thunder, who has bestowed on this metropolis the common treasure of the world, who set out the whole of piety in a single line: 'The Word,' he says, 'became flesh.' The one who is became flesh: he is by his nature, and he became by the economy. Through whom and with whom be glory and power to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, forever. Amen.

Homily of Theodotus, bishop of Ancyra, on the birth of the Saviour, read in the synod under Bishop Cyril

Splendid is the theme of the present feast, bringing common salvation to human beings; splendid too is the present assembly, receiving the grace with thanksgiving; and the grace is given abundantly to those who receive it with thanksgiving. For the measure of the gift is granted in proportion to the greatness of the thanksgiving of those who receive the grace, as when you receive a gift and give thanks to the giver: you have made no repayment for what you received. Receive the grace, then, you who have shown us this splendid festival. The theme of the feast is the manifestation of God to human beings, the sojourn of him who is ever present, the coming of him who fills all things, the visitation of him who sees all things. 'He came to his own,' it says, 'and his own did not receive him'; or rather, 'he was in the world, and the world came into being through him, and the world did not know him.' But this ignorance is not a charge against human beings. For because of the divinity of his nature God is beyond the reach of human reasonings; the mind of man is not of a nature to behold him. The divine nature escapes the mind of human beings; it is higher than our reasonings. We are therefore deprived of the knowledge of God because of his superior nature; and so that this may not happen, the invisible one takes on a visible nature, and the one not held by touch receives a body that can be touched. The invisible God becomes seen; the Word is touched; the only-begotten Child of God becomes kin to the slaves, so that the nature that surpasses man may not escape the knowledge of human beings.

And do not think the Son who was born a stranger to God. For long ago the coming of God was being rehearsed: he was known appearing ever in human figures, using materials that could be seen by us. Let the Jew, then, come forward into the midst; let him come forward who disbelieves the manifestation of God that appeared to human beings in human nature. Let him tell me: how did Moses see God? Did he see the invisible nature? By no means, for it is beyond the reach of human reasonings. How then did he see? Tell me: fire kindled from the bush and not destroying the bush. Why then do you disbelieve the one born of a virgin and not destroying her virginity? When you hear that God speaks from a bush and says to Moses, 'I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,' and that Moses falls down and worships, you believe, reckoning not the fire that is seen but God who speaks; but when I mention a virgin womb, do you loathe it and turn away? What is lowlier, tell me: a bush, or a pure virgin womb, free of the passions of sin? Do you not know that the ancient things are a rehearsal of the newer ones, of those that have now come to pass? For the mysteries are prefigured through the old. That is why a bush is kindled, fire appears and does not do what fire does, nor does it punish. Do you not see the virgin in the bush? Do you not see in the fire the love for humankind of the one who came? The judge is among those being judged, and no judgment takes place; the judge is among the condemned, and nowhere is there punishment. The judge came, but not to judge, rather to teach; not to condemn, but to heal. Do you see how that gentle fire revealed the love for humankind shown here? Do not wonder if God, being God, is born through a virgin womb; for God considers nothing an outrage that procures salvation for human beings. But do not suppose God's nature so lowly that it could ever come within reach of outrage. For none of the lowly things he chose for our sake outrages that nature; he makes the lesser things his own in order to save our nature. When, then, lowly things do not outrage the nature of the blessed God and work salvation for human beings,

how will you say that the causes of our salvation have become occasions of outrage to God? God, then, was seen today through a virgin, and the virgin remained a virgin and became a mother. For the giver of incorruption does not work corruption; the maker of immortality destroyed nothing. And since Photinus says that the one born is a mere man, not saying that the birth is God's, and supposes that the man who came forth from the womb is divided from God, let him tell me now how a human nature, born through a virgin womb, kept the mother's virginity incorrupt. For no man's mother has remained a virgin. Do you see how what happened gives me a twofold understanding of the one born? If he was born as we are, he was a man; but if he kept his mother a virgin, the one born is recognized by those of sound mind as God. For God came to dwell in the world, not passing from place to place, but putting on my nature, and, as I said, he who is invisible in nature wished to be seen. So he did not have from his birth the beginning of being God, but of appearing to human beings. For since he was God, he chose to become man through his love for us, so that we might embrace the judge as a kinsman, so that we who have no boldness from our own good deeds might have confidence. For those brought before the judgment seat who cannot speak boldly from their own virtues gain boldness as from a kinsman of their own. What then? God sojourns as man, not exchanging one place for another, but showing the invisible nature as visible, seen as a man and appearing as kin to human beings, as the evangelist too proclaims, saying, 'The Word became flesh.'

'And how,' he says, 'did the Word become flesh? How is it possible for God the Word to become man?' Do you ask the manner of God's wonders? If the incomprehensibility of the Word were within our reach, it would not be a wonder but a natural matter; but if what happened is a wonder and a sign, leave the explanation to the wonder-working Master. That it happened I want you to know, and to reap by faith the gain from what happened; how it happened, leave to the one who did it. Do you trust the physician when he gives orders and not busy yourself about the manner of the treatment, entrusting your own salvation to his art? Nor does anyone else unskilled busy himself about the craftsman's manner; he recognizes what is done and leaves the manner to the art. Yet you seek the reasons for all the wonders God has worked, as though you needed the reasons so that you too might work the same wonders as God? But what I said before, I say now too: a thing whose reason we recognize is not, in its nature, a wonder or a sign. What I mean is something like this: a builder builds a house; we know the reason, we recognize the materials put together, we can describe what has been made, even if through lack of skill we are not able to do it ourselves. The Only-begotten fashioned eyes for the man blind from birth out of clay: this is beyond our reason; it is called a wonder, not being searched out by human reasonings; it is called a sign, having happened beyond the usual nature. And that it happened we know, but we cannot tell the manner. For from clay pottery and brick are made; the fine make of eyes is not fashioned from it, thin membranes are not formed, the variety of sight is not composed, the exact roundness with such fair colour is not turned. Clay is not by nature able to be raised to the fine make of eyes. So what the nature of the earth does not admit (for it is not of a nature to admit the form of an eye), this form it received when the wonder-worker drew its nature toward his own will, not himself serving the reason of nature. No longer, then, fall back on the weakness of human nature, and do not say: How did the nature of man contain God? How did God become man? How did God the Word become visible flesh? But believe that he did become so,

and leave knowing the manner to the one who did it. And if you wish to make the matter clear by an example too, I will show you how the bodiless is embodied, the invisible is seen, the intangible is touched, not changed in its own nature, but taking on a form that is seen and touched. This spoken word, I mean that of human beings, which we use to associate with one another and to interpret our thoughts to one another, is a word not seen, nor touched by the hand, but only sounding in the hearing. But when I bring the spoken word as an example of the subsistent God the Word, do not think that I call God the Word a spoken word: away with it! For the Only-begotten is called the Word because the divine Scripture is interpreting the impassibility of his generation, since the mind of human beings too begets its word impassibly. That is why the divine Scripture sometimes addresses him as Son of the Father, sometimes names him Word, and elsewhere calls him radiance, saying each of these names of him so that you may understand what is said of Christ without blasphemy. For at different times it used different titles for him, wishing to make its teaching fitting for the glory of God.

What I mean is something like this. It calls the Only-begotten Son of the Father, wishing to present to his glory that he is of the same essence. For since your son is born of the same nature as you, the word of Scripture, wishing to show one essence of Father and Son, calls the Only-begotten, begotten from him, Son of the Father. Then, since birth and a son among us give an impression of the passion that attends birth, it also addresses this Son as Word, showing by this name the impassibility of his generation. But since one who has become a father, as a man, is admittedly shown to be older than his own son, the very title leading us to think of the father before the son, so that you may not suppose this in the case of the divine nature too, but may understand the Only-begotten as coexisting with the Father always, it calls the Only-begotten the radiance of the Father. For radiance is born from the sun, but is in no way thought to be later than the sun; rather, from the moment there is a sun, from then we understand the radiance too as born from the sun. Let 'radiance', then, show you that the Son always coexists with the Father; let 'Word' show the impassibility of the generation; let 'Son' make known that he is of the same essence.

But let us return to the subject, make plain the manifestation of God the Word born today, and show by an example how what by nature is not seen becomes seen, and what is not touched, because of its bodiless nature, is found to be touched. This word, then, which we utter, which we use in our conversations with one another, is a bodiless word, not appearing to sight, not touched by touch. But when the word puts on letters and characters, it becomes visible, it is grasped by sight, it is touched by touch. Suppose someone speaking to another: is the word that goes forth seen? Do we touch with the hand the word that is poured out? But if you write on paper what he said, what you did not see before you later see, and the form of the word that you did not touch before, you touch through the paper and the letters. Why? Because the bodiless word has put on the body of the paper and the shape of the characters. Since, then, the example has become clear and you have been reminded by an example drawn from ordinary experience, come, let us show how the only-begotten Son of God, God the Word, who before the ages was with the Father, being bodiless in nature, made human nature his own and was later born through a virgin, not taking a beginning of being God, but taking a beginning of appearing as man. For do not say: 'Since the Only-begotten was begotten of the Father, how was he born again of a virgin?' He was begotten of the Father by nature; he was born of a virgin by the economy; the former as God, the latter as man. For your word too is an offspring of your mind; but when you wish to set this word which your mind begot in characters and letters and want to imprint it on paper, you write the letters with your hand, and in a way you give birth to the word again through the hand. It did not take the beginning of its being when it was written by hand, nor did it come into being when the hand imprinted the letters; it was born of the mind, but the word received the beginning of its appearing from the hand

imprinting the letters. Since, then, the example is clear and the image most familiar, come, let us fit the image to the original. Here, the mind: there, understand the Father. Here you know a word born from the mind: there, understand an essential and subsistent Word begotten of the Father. Here you see a hand bringing forth a word through letters: there, understand a virgin bringing forth the Word through her body, not giving the Godhead a beginning through the birth, God forbid! but making God appear to human beings by his becoming man. He became what I am; necessarily he was born as I am, choosing with my nature necessarily my birth as well. That is why God the Word made birth his own, embraced the virgin as his mother, and came through a womb adorned with virginity. For God loathes none of the things he fashioned, since none of his works was unworthy of him. All things are good and very good, if we see them as the Fashioner saw them when they had been made: 'God saw all the things he had made, and behold, they were very good.' Look at all things with eyes free of passion, and like God you see them as very good. Banish passion, and you will know the nobility of what was made.

What wonder, then, if God made his dwelling in his own work and house? But you say it is worthy of him to dwell in heaven, and you think man an unworthy abode for him, judging things not by the truth of reasons but by passion and prejudice. For which is higher, tell me, heaven or man? Which is more precious to God, the sun or man? Do not, I beg you, attend to the brightness of the elements, nor prefer that nature for its fair colour, nor be dazzled by the leaping radiance of the sun, nor by the fact that I am clothed in skin and flesh, as the divine Job says; but consider the nobility of the rational soul. Look at the construction of man and admire the creature. It has a mind able to master and rule all creatures; it received hands that serve the mind's wisdom, instruments that fashion every kind of art; alone of all created things it has become free of necessity; man alone God created master of his own will. Do you not see the sun running compelled courses? Do you not see its uniform motion? Why? Because it has not become master of its own will. But you go forth free; you do what you will; you have no necessity thrusting you by force; you have been made free in soul. The sun is a slave of necessity, but man is free in his will. Which, then, is better, tell me, the slave or the free? The one under the yoke of necessity or the one released from all necessity? It is nothing wonderful or strange

if God dwelt in man, whom he embraced as his own image as soon as he fashioned him. For God showed his purpose for man at once, at the very beginning of creation, taking dust from the earth and fashioning him, and making him an image of his own Godhead. Why then did he fashion from so lowly a nature one whom he intended to honour by his construction? Why did he not make man by taking from the brightness of the sun, but forms him from earth and dust, the element that lies below and is trodden underfoot? For what reason, do you wish to learn? Since he intended to honour man with the image, he gives him a lowly nature, so that the excess of honour might not lift man up into folly, so that when he is honoured above his nature he might be humbled by the memory of his nature and recognize the greatness of the honour as due not to his own worth but to the grace of the giver. So this too was the love for humankind of the one who constructed him: that the image of God should have its nature from the earth. For it had its nature as a pledge

of modest thinking. So man is a noble creature, even if he was later outraged by the passions that crept in. For do not look at him after he stumbled, but consider the nobility of the image of God before the transgression of the law. Why then do you belittle the fallen one, forgetting his first construction and not reckoning his ancient honour, which God gave back to him again with great munificence by uniting his own image to himself? Nothing, then, happened unbecoming his love for humankind. For it is no outrage for a good master to share the servile things of a slave for the servant's benefit. The good one is not outraged by these things; rather, what he is is made known through such things. And do not wonder at the matter: even now, if you make yourself a house of God, he dwells in you too, though not as in Christ; for 'in Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.' But O the wonder! All the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in one, and fills all things and surpasses creation, being whole in one and separated from none of the creatures. And let what is said not seem impossible to you. For I too now utter a word: this word is in one, and the word has come to be in all; one has contained the whole word, and the word is not circumscribed by the multitude. If, then, a thing that comes into being and perishes dwells whole in one and comes to be in all, why does it seem a wonder to you if God both dwelt whole in a man and is found in all? [12] The theme of today's festival, then, is that God became man, choosing human things to give divine things, making the passions his own to grant impassibility, undergoing death to bestow immortality. And he acquired the passions of human beings as his own, not changing his nature, but making this his own by his will; and he does this very fittingly, having resolved to save man. For what reason, then, has he made the passions of human beings his own? Since he wished to destroy passion by passion and to abolish death by death, and wished to wrestle down like by like, he makes the cross his own, makes the blow his own, has made the bond his own, so that the passions, having become God's, might receive authority against the passions. For God's nature has not been wronged (for it did not receive the passions by any change of its own), and the passions receive from God strength against their like. For at last death, as having become God's, abolishes death, and by dying he dissolves the tyranny of death, since he was both God and man. For the Jews did not crucify a mere man, nor did they nail only the visible nature; they directed their outrages against the God in it, who had made the passions of the united nature his own. [13] And so that this too may become clear to you, let us bring the discussion back to the example given at the beginning. Let it be supposed

that a king utters a word and has it imprinted by letters on some paper, and sends to the cities the so-called sacra, a word clothed in paper and letters, granting freedom or bringing other royal gifts to those in need. But let some faithless and disobedient person, an enemy of the city and a foe of the emperor, receive this sacra, as it is called in the language of the Italians, take the paper, and tear it up. What was torn here? Tell me: the paper alone, or the royal word too? Indeed, if only the paper was torn, what was destroyed was cheap, and the one who tore it was not liable, or liable only for five obols. But he pays the ultimate penalty: he is punished and led away to death, not as having damaged paper only, but as having torn the royal word. And yet the emperor's word is impassible, neither taken in the hands in its own nature nor able to be torn; yet it too was torn, having made the passion of the paper and the letters its own. Do you see how the impassible receives passion when it shares a passible nature? For the word was not torn in its own nature, and yet it received the passion of the paper and of the

letters. Let the Jew, then, not take courage as having crucified a mere man. For what appeared was paper, but what was hidden in it was a Word royal by nature, not brought forth through a tongue. For the Only-begotten is called Word, not a spoken word but an essential and subsistent one, suffering nothing in his own nature, being the impassible Word, yet making his own the sufferings of what appeared. And as the royal word itself received the material of the letters, and the passion of the paper became the word's own, so the only-begotten Word of God has made his own the passions of the one who was nailed. Therefore, as the one who damaged an imperial sacra is led away to death as having torn the emperor's word, so the Jew who crucified what appeared pays the penalty, having extended his outrage to God the Word himself. For God thereafter avenges what was done as his own passion. But what has been said is enough, since we must take thought for your memory too; for an abundance of words overflowing the understanding of the hearers makes the hearer forget what was said. May it be, by the grace of God, that you embrace what has been said in your memory, benefit others from it, and in return inherit the kingdom of heaven; which may we all obtain by the grace of Christ, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen.

Of the same, delivered on the day of the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ; it too was read in the same synod

Splendid and paradoxical is the theme of the present feast: splendid because it has brought common salvation to human beings, paradoxical because it has overcome the law of nature. For nature does not know a woman who has given birth as still a virgin; but grace both showed her giving birth and kept her a virgin, made her a mother and did no harm to her virginity; for it was grace, guarding chastity. O virgin who has surpassed paradise! O earth unsown that has sprouted a saving fruit! For paradise sent up a race of ungrafted plants, plants that rose from the virgin earth of Eden; but this virgin is better than that earth. For she did not send up fruit trees, but the rod of Jesse, offering saving fruit to human beings. That earth too was virgin, and this one is virgin; but there God commanded trees to grow, while of this virgin the Creator himself became, according to the flesh, the shoot. Neither did that earth receive a graft before the trees, nor did this virgin wrong her virginity by the birth; and she has become more glorious than paradise. For paradise became God's cultivated field, but she cultivated God himself according to the flesh, who chose to be joined to the nature of man. Do you see how the mystery became paradoxical, thrusting aside the law of nature? Do you see a thing beyond nature happening by the power of God alone? Do you see the Word born beyond reason? For that the one born is the Word of God is clear from his not dissolving the virginity. She who bears mere flesh ceases to be a virgin; but since the Word of God was born in flesh, he keeps the virginity, showing himself to be the Word. And when you hear 'Word',

understand it as essential and subsistent, not this word poured out through the mouth. The only-begotten Son of God, then, who is also called the Word, is born, not taking from the birth the beginning of being the Word, but making the birth the beginning of becoming man. For he was God the Word before the ages, co-eternal with the one who begot him; but since he willed to become man for the sake of human beings, not by a change of the divine nature but by the wonder and will of God, he embraced the birth as the beginning of becoming man. That is why he is both born as man and as God the Word kept the virginity. For neither does our word, when it is born, destroy the mind, nor did the Word of God, essential and subsistent, when he chose birth, destroy virginity. What happened, then, is beyond the law of nature; descend no longer to the laws of nature. I tell you of a wonder: do not set your reasonings in motion. I tell you of God born, choosing birth, not beginning his Godhead. Being God, he made birth his own; the birth did not make him God. What he was, he remained, and he became what he was not. Wishing, then, to become by the economy what he was not, he chooses birth as the beginning of the economy. He became man, the nature not changed, the bounds of the divine essence not moved: 'For you are the same, and your years will not fail,' says the divine Scripture, and 'You are enthroned forever,' showing by this the unchangeability of the divine essence. And again: 'I am God,' he says, 'the same, and I have not changed.' Not, then, by the essence of God being moved did he become man, nor by its being changed into another nature. Otherwise what happened would not be a wonder, if by a change of nature he received another nature; for many such changes of things happen among us. But in this God works a wonder, that remaining what he was, he became what he was not; which the great apostle signified when he said: 'Who, being in the form of God': he says 'being', not 'having once begun to be', to show the permanence of the nature. 'Who, being in the form of God, did not count being equal with God a thing to be seized': he says 'being equal with God', not 'going to become so at some time'. Then again he cries: 'but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.' Do you see how he both remains what he was and emptied himself into the form of the servant, being the one and becoming the other, working a wonder, not changing his nature; willing it, not forced by a change of essence? For what God says, he does, even if what is said is beyond the law of nature. For he has a power able to work wonders that does not wait upon the laws of nature. That is why he both is God and is emptied into the form of a servant; is equal to God and becomes man; is before the ages and undergoes birth; and he works these wonders which the law of nature does not know.

Hence the mystery of Christ is reckoned foolishness by the Greeks, and the Jews call the account of the economy a stumbling block, as Paul too made plain, saying: 'We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, to Greeks foolishness.' Why foolishness to the Greeks? Because 'the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness to him.' For the natural man, sitting beside nature and searching out all things by the reasonings of the soul, reckons the wonders of God foolishness, since they do not carry the law of nature with them. For when a Greek hears that the Saviour entered when the door was shut, passing this thick body, which needs room, through it, he laughs, not believing the wonder but seeking the reason of the thing. And hearing that a virgin, having given birth, remained a virgin, he thinks the account foolishness, not having learned to believe God's wonder-working. So too, hearing that God became man without change, he thinks what happened impossible, demanding here too changes of nature. But Paul did not teach so, when he said that the one who is equal to God became man; for he says that he emptied himself, without casting off the fullness of the Godhead. That is why he said: 'We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, to Greeks foolishness.' And why foolishness to the Greeks, if a mere man was crucified? No one thinks foolish what happens according to nature. If he suffered what was natural to him, how is the story thought foolish? But since, he says, we preach Christ crucified, whom again we call the power of God and the wisdom of God (for 'to those who are called,' he says, 'both Jews and Greeks, we preach Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God'), we are thought by the Greeks to speak foolishness, since we preach, as he says, the wisdom of God crucified, to people who do not know how to believe God when he works wonders, but in all things set the reasonings of nature in motion and think that God is outraged by making passions his own in order to save what is passible. For they do not see the purpose achieved, which is saving and fitting for the goodness of God, but say only that God joined sufferings to himself, not considering the achievement of human salvation that came from it. But none of the things that save man outrages God, who is shown by them to be not passible but loving toward

humankind. 'But I do not dare,' he says, 'to attach human passions to God.' Then you do not say that he saves man by his passions, nor that by the cross he exposes the power of the devil, nor that he nailed our sin to the wood, nor that by his own passions he heals the passions of human beings; nor do you say that by death he abolished death. For if God did not make the passions his own, whence did the passions of Christ have such great achievements? How did they become powers? How is death destroyed by death, unless God made it his own? But these passions, made God's own, received from the Godhead the strength for such great achievements, as having become God's own, yet they did no harm to the essence of the Godhead, which remains always in its own impassibility. For how was the bond of sin against us nailed to the wood, if a mere man endured the cross? How did a cross crucify sin, or death dissolve the tyranny of death, unless these became God's and received power from him who made our things his own, not suffering by nature? The great apostle signified this when he said that none of the rulers of this age knew the mystery of the Lord's passion: 'for if they had known,' he says, 'they would not

have crucified the Lord of glory.' That is why we say both that he remains what he was and that he became what he was not. For remaining in essence what he was, he received passions, having united himself to the passible nature. He became subject without laying aside his kingship; he became man, remaining God and Word; being bodiless in nature, he became flesh without alteration. How, and in what way? Not as you can reason, but as he is able to work wonders. For when I tell you of a wonder, leave reasonings behind. Signs and portents are made firm by faith in God and are not searched out by reasons. None of the other wonders is according to our reason either, yet each of them happened, even if our reasoning does not reach the matter. These things the magi too confessed, believing a star and not busying themselves about nature. Barbarians receive wonders by faith, and you, the believer, why do you disbelieve, falling back on human reasoning? Those who came from Chaldea, as the evangelist told us today, showed the mystery by their very gifts to one who rightly discerns the purpose of the barbarians. For they bring a threefold kind of gift: gold, frankincense, myrrh; gold because the one honoured is king, frankincense because the one born was God (for this they were accustomed to bring to those they regarded as gods), and they also offer myrrh, indicating by it, I think, the suffering of death. Do you see how even the magi recognized that he both remained God and became man, accepting death? For he became what I am, so as to raise our nature to his own dignity. For the union does this, joining to each the things of the other. That is why, being God, he became man, so that man too might become God, raised by this conjunction to divine glory, so that one and the same is both glorified as God and suffers human things. And all who confess a union of Godhead and humanity would agree with us on this. For what has been united is no longer named two but one; yet in thought you divide it again and consider each separately. Then you dissolve the union; for it is impossible at once to keep the union and to consider each separately. But what has been united has become one indissolubly

one and no longer becomes two. 'But I separate them only in thought,' he says. Then by that same thought you have dissolved the union; for by whatever you set the one apart from the other, by that you have also cut the conjunction. Why then do you undo the saving economy, thinking of two and setting aside the union? But as the great apostle too says, 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever,' calling one and the same both eternal God and man beginning from a point in time, let us too confess the same as God and man, the one being before, the other having come to be later. 'But how,' he says, 'has the Only-begotten become a slave, remaining what he was and becoming what he was not?' Do you wish to learn this? Learn that he became so; but how he became so, only the wonder-worker knows. For neither can you tell me how the river of the Egyptians became blood, the nature of the water remaining unchanged.

For the Hebrews used it as water, but for the Egyptians the Nile became blood; it became what it was not, remaining what it was. Tell me the manner. But you cannot tell it; for it is a wonder of God, which thrusts reasonings aside. And how did the light in Egypt become darkness, not quenched but remaining what it was? For it was day for the

Israelites, and the light surrounded them brightly; but for the Egyptians this light became darkness, and the thing seen, being one, was at once both light and darkness, not changed from the one and becoming the other. For it became darkness without the light suffering anything, God working the wonder and not waiting upon the law of nature. How, then, did the water of the Nile, remaining water, become blood? Or how did the light, remaining in its own nature, become darkness? For the one was not destroyed and the other produced. The nature of the water was not destroyed, and the Hebrews showed it, having it to drink; but this nature remained within

its own bounds and became blood, which it was not, God showing the wonder beyond reason. And the Babylonian flame, how did it become dew for the three youths? For it was flame and became dew, and both are shown by what they did. That it was dew, the three youths teach, who were cooled by it; and that it was flame, the Babylonians who were burned up by it show. Do you see how the fire remained fire and became dew? Not two things, nor two natures, but what was seen was one and the same. For what was flame became dew, and the righteous bear witness. Ask me no longer, then, the manner of God's signs. For again I say to you: show by the wonders that something happened, but leave it to God to know the reason of the wonders. Then tell me: God works these wonders, keeping the flame and making it dew, not changing the flame and turning it into dew, wishing to undo the tyrant's sentence, to avenge those wronged, and to consume the guilty barbarians; and to save the world, do you doubt that he himself, remaining God, became man? He did not need to change the flame to produce dew; and wishing himself to become man for the salvation of human beings, did he need to change his own nature? The fire remained and became dew, and you say: How does he remain God and become man? For since God, wishing to save our nature, accomplished our salvation not through others but through himself, since all creation was too weak for our salvation, we being held fast by both evil and error (for the long habit of evil had become for human beings a second nature, thrusting nature aside): a prophet prophesied, but the word was too weak, overcome by evil; angels became ministers of our salvation (and the great Paul testifies, saying of angels: 'Are they not all ministering spirits sent out for service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?'); an angel, superior in nature, ministered for our salvation, but man was not saved, being eagerly given over to wickedness. All things, then, were too weak against the negligence of human beings; for the evil of the wicked overcame the zeal of the good. Not that God is overcome, but because he entrusts virtue to the choice of free will: he does not thrust you by necessity to good deeds, nor drag you unwilling to virtue, so that, having made virtue voluntary for you,

he might make it your own achievement. What then? Since prophets had been defeated, teachers were ineffective, the law was too weak, and angels failed in their zeal, the will of human beings not yielding to good things, the Maker of nature himself came to dwell, wishing to set a defeated nature upright. And he comes, not crashing as God, nor striking the ears with thunders, nor wrapping himself in thick darkness and showing a fearful fire in the darkness, nor frightening the hearers with the sound of a trumpet, as once he appeared to the Jews, producing fear; not frightening the servant, but rather calling him by grace and goodness. He brings no escort of archangels; he does not move the camps of the angels. For he did not wish to frighten the runaway, who had become a fugitive from his laws; but the Lord of all comes in the form of a servant, wrapped in poverty, so as not to frighten the prey. He is born in an obscure place, choosing an unseen field for his birth; he is born through a poor virgin and takes on all things poor, so as to catch man quietly for salvation. For if he had been born in splendour and had come wrapped in great wealth, the unbelievers would have said that the spending of wealth worked the change of the world. If he had chosen great Rome as his city, they would have reckoned the change of the world to the power of its citizens. If he had become the son of an emperor, they would have ascribed the benefit to power. Had he been the son of a lawgiver, they would have ascribed the benefit to his ordinances. But what does he do? All poor and lowly, all modest and unseen by most, so that the Godhead alone might be known as having re-ordered the world. That is why he chooses a poor mother, a poorer homeland; he becomes needy in money. And let the manger interpret the need to you. For there being no bed on which the Lord might lie, he is placed in a manger, and the want caused by need becomes a most beautiful sign of prophecy. For he was laid in a manger, signifying that he would be food even for the irrational. For the Word of God drew to himself rich and poor, the eloquent and those slow of speech, living with poverty and laid in a manger. Do you see how the want of need worked prophecy and the poverty showed the one who became poor for us to be accessible to all? For no one was without courage from fear of Christ's overwhelming wealth; the height of kingship prevented no one from coming to him; but he appeared common and poor, who set himself forth to all for salvation. For the Word of God is laid in a manger, and through the medium of his body, so that rational and irrational alike may freely partake of the saving food. And perhaps the prophet too cried this beforehand, describing the mystery of this manger, when he said: 'The ox knew its owner, and the donkey the manger of its lord; but Israel did not know me, and the people did not understand me.' For even if the saying has a simpler sense, showing the Hebrew to be more ungrateful than the irrational animals, yet it could also show this, pointing to the manger of the Lord, on which, laid, he became food for the more irrational. For the prophet does not speak of a manger indefinitely, but called it 'the manger of its lord', marking, I think, this manger definitely by the article. And let whoever wishes philosophize on these things, delighting in the varied contemplation of divine Scripture;

but we have shown that the rich one became poor for us, in the principle of his Godhead making salvation easy for all to grasp. The great Paul signified this when he said: 'For our sake he became poor, though he was rich, so that we by his poverty might become rich.' And who was the rich one? In what was he rich? And how did he become poor for us? Let those tell us who divide the man from God the Word and separate what is united by recalling the natures, who call Christ two and bring forward '(one) in thought only' as their defence. Who, then, being rich, tell me, became poor with my poverty? The visible man, whom you separate from the Godhead? But he was never rich; he was poor, born of poor ancestors. Who then was the rich one, and in what was he rich, who became poor for us? God, he says, was rich in creation. Then God also became poor, making the poverty of what was seen his own. For the same one was both rich in Godhead and became poor for us. For you would not say that the man was rich, poor as he was both in nature and in money; nor would you say that the one rich in the dignity of Godhead became poor without attaching human things to him. That is why the apostle too, joining the glory of the Godhead to human sufferings, not wishing to divide in thought or separate in speech what was united, said that the same one was rich in Godhead and poor in sufferings, the one for his own sake, the other having suffered for ours. If the one rich in Godhead becomes poor with the poverty of human beings, how did he not also suffer the rest, having once chosen to become man through love for humankind?

But so much for these things. Look, I beg you, at the poorest dwelling of the one who is rich in heaven; look at the manger of the one seated on the cherubim; look at the swaddling clothes of the one who bound the sea with sand; look at the poverty below, reckoning his wealth above. For so you would see the greatness of grace and of love for humankind, if you reckon God's so great condescension. For in this very poverty the wealth of his Godhead is shown, a star pointing out the poor one to the magi and leading the barbarians to the manger of the poor one. And angels too, rejoicing, proclaimed this poor one to the shepherds, singing the wealth of his Godhead. For the magi brought the frankincense to the one who appeared, as to God, not separating nature from nature nor cutting the united one by thoughts; once they knew by the wonder that the one appearing was God, they offer him frankincense, showing by this very gift his divine dignity. Nor did the angels separate what was born from God the Word by thoughts such as yours; knowing one and the same, both seen and understood, they cried, saying: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men'; not saying one thing, as you do, and thinking another, confessing in words one Christ Jesus but dividing the same in thought, as you do, having thoughts at war with your words; but they glorify one and the same God. So in poverty and in a manger he appeared to all. That is why he is both in swaddling clothes and glorified by angels, … not that the star came down to the magi (for the stars do not change their places); but since the land of the Chaldeans has many who attend to the movement of the stars, the superior power guiding the magi took on the character of a star, so that from what the Chaldeans had learned they might learn what they did not know, and, attending to astronomy, might be taught the mysteries of Christ by the stars themselves. For that it was not a star but an angelic power guiding the barbarians to piety, the evangelist himself shows, saying that this star sometimes appeared even by day and sometimes was hidden, and at another time saying that it guided the magi and went with them to Bethlehem, which no one would say any of the stars does, but rather a power appearing in the form of a star to the astronomers. And what is said of the star, 'it stood over the child', will show clearly that what appeared was a power. For none of the stars set in heaven would have become visible standing over the child, since the greatness of the distance, deceiving the judgment of sight, makes neither the standing nor the motion of the stars visible to perception. 'The star,' it says, 'stood over where the child was.' So the star that appeared left its height and became lower, so as to show by its standing the birth of the king. For the magi sought him as king, asking about the king's birth and saying to the Jews: 'Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star in the East and have come to worship him.' You seek a king, O magus: why do you offer frankincense as to God? 'But I know him as king and I have recognized him as God; that is why I offer him both gold and frankincense, showing by the gifts at once both God and king.'

But he who then drew the magi to piety by an ineffable power has now also gathered this bright festival today, no longer laid in a manger but set forth on this saving table. For that manger became the mother of this table; that is why he is laid in it, so that he might be eaten from this table and become saving food for the faithful. The manger showed forth this splendid table; the virgin sprouted these choirs of virginity; the lowliness of the little house in Bethlehem showed forth these renowned churches; and the swaddling clothes of that time have now become ransoms from sins. Do you see the achievements now appearing from the poverty of that time? Do you see poverty become the mother of so much wealth? Does the brief lowliness of the Only-begotten here below do harm, when it has brought so much wealth to the world? Why then do you reproach Christ with the lowliness at Bethlehem? Why do you bring poverty forward, not reckoning the gains that came to the world from it? Why do you call suffering unworthy of God, when it has procured so many goods? Why do you take away from the Only-begotten the wounds which poured out such salvation for human beings? Why do you sit beside the sufferings and not see the achievements now coming from them? Why do you call suffering unworthy of God, by which the tyranny of the devil has been dissolved? Why do you call poverty unworthy of God, through which the world is rich in piety? Why do you call death unworthy of God, by which God destroyed death? For what reason do you not call the cross God's, by which God triumphed over the evil of the demon? Why do you not call this alone God's, which nailed my sin to the wood? Do not slander sufferings from which impassibility is born; do not disparage lowliness from which the devil's tyranny is dissolved; do not reproach God with the blow by which he freed man from sin; do not call God's bond unworthy, by which he loosed the bond of the chains of sin; do not call poverty unworthy of God, since by it the devil, rich in error, became poor; do not condemn the cross, which overthrew the altars; do not belittle the nails by which Christ fixed the world into one mind of piety. Do not reckon the lowly things, but the achievements that came from them of the one who suffered, which you would not say came from the suffering of a mere man, if you have a mind and are persuaded by what is seen. And why do you call lowly what God embraced for the salvation of human beings? For if they are and are called sufferings by nature, yet they have become the healing of our passions; no longer call them sufferings, then, but cures of our sufferings. And do not bring me the members of the virgin as a reproach to the Godhead. For their nature is not unworthy either, even if the passions of dishonour that came in afterwards damaged the nobility of the body. For the members are not shameful by nature, but are outraged through unfitting desire. For if they were shameful by nature, God would not have fashioned them with his own hands, since God is the maker not of shameful things but of the finest: 'For God saw all the things he had made, and behold, they were very good.' For nothing that came into being from God is evil in its own nature, nor did God make anything shameful; but we, falling from our first construction, outraged our nature by unfitting desires. If, then, God is not slandered for having fashioned the members of the woman, neither is he outraged by dwelling in them; for in his own creation God

dwells not unworthily. And if you say: How did he leave heaven and dwell in a womb? I in turn will tell you that, being God, he became man for the sake of human beings, remaining God, his essence not being displaced. I confess, therefore, the same as God and man: God before the ages, and man having come to be, beginning from the birth; not two, but one; not spoken of as one while thought of as twofold, for thought must not fight against speech. We do not think of two while confessing one; for what is joined by economy and wonder neither speech nor thought separates. But if anyone separates in thought what is joined, he has thought of it as dissolved, and the thought becomes false, having separated (evidently) what is always joined. Thought, then, must be in agreement with speech. Do you say that Christ is one, the same God and man? Then think of him as one too. But if you say one and think two, you have your thought at war with your speech. Do not, then, speak of two separated by some difference. For if you unite in speech, do not cut in thought; and if you cut in thoughts, you have denied the union. Do not, then, bring your reasoning down to separated natures, when God has worked the highest union. Believe the wonder and do not search out by reasonings what happened. Do not destroy the wonder by striving to find its reason; for where the reason is known the wonder does not remain. If the reason of what happened is known, what happened is no longer a sign or a wonder; but if it is a sign and a wonder, leave reasonings behind and take up faith, confessing one Lord Jesus Christ, the same both God and man, separated neither by thoughts nor by reasonings, so that we may not, by separating in reasonings what is united, deny the saving economy. For since the union of God and man is known through the economy, the one who separates the union has denied the economy. Let us then believe the wonders of the economy, so that Christ, being believed, may grant the kingdom of heaven to those who confess this grace; which may we all obtain by the grace of Christ, to whom be glory forever. Amen.