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Note: Review the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed
from last week's class.
Ambrose
of Milan (+397)
On the Death of his Brother
Book 1
11. [Jesus Christ] wept for what affected us, not himself;
for the Godhead sheds no tears; but he wept in that nature
in which he was sad; he wept in that in which he was crucified,
in that in which he died, in that in which he was buried.
He wept in that which the prophet this day brought to our
minds: "Mother Sion shall say, a human was made in her,
and the Most High himself established her" (Ps 87.5).
He wept in that nature in which he called Sion Mother, born
in Judaea, conceived by the Virgin. But according to his divine
nature he could not have a mother, for he is the creator of
his mother. So far as he was made, it was not by divine but
by human generation, because he was made human, God was born.
12. But you read in another place: "Unto us a child
is born, unto us a Son is given" (Is 9.6). In the word
child is an indication of age, in that of Son is the "fulness
of the divinity" (Col 2.9). Made of his mother, born
of the Father yet the same person was both born and given.
You must not think of two but of one. For one is the Son of
God, born of the Father and sprung from the Virgin, differing
in order, but in name agreeing in one, ... for "a human
being was made in her and the Most High established her."
Human indeed in the body, the most high in power. And though
he be God and human in diversity of nature, yet is he at the
same time one in each nature. One property, then, is peculiar
to God's own nature, another he has in common with us, but
in both is he one, and in both is he perfect [=communion of
properties].
13. Therefore it is no subject of wonder that God made him
to be both Lord and Christ (Acts 2.36). God made him Jesus,
him, that is, who received the name in his bodily nature.
God made him of whom also the patriarch David writes: "Mother
Sion shall say, a human, yes, a human is made in her."
But being made human, he is unlike the Father, not in Godhead
but in his body; not separated from the Father, but differing
in office, abiding united in power, but separated in the mystery
of the passion.
Book 2
46. Why should more be said? By the death of one the world
was redeemed. For Christ, had he willed, need not have died,
but he neither thought that death should be shunned as though
there were any cowardice in it, nor could he have saved us
better than by dying. And so his death is the life of all.
We are signed with the sign of his death, we show forth his
death when we pray; when we offer the sacrifice we declare
his death, for his death is victory, his death is our mystery,
his death is the yearly recurring solemnity of the world.
What now should we say concerning his death, since we prove
by this divine example that death alone found immortality,
and that death itself redeemed itself. Death, then, is not
to be mourned over, for it is the cause of salvation for all;
death is not to be shunned, for the Son of God did not think
it unworthy of him, and did not shun it. The order of nature
is not to be loosed, for what is common to all cannot admit
of exception in individuals.
Ambrose, On the Sacrament of the Incarnation
Chapter 5
39. He was, therefore, immortal in death and incapable of
suffering even as he suffered; for the affliction of death
did not grasp him since he was God, and at the same time the
lower world saw him since he was a human being. In the end
he "gave up his spirit" (Mt 27.50), but he gave
it up like one who is in charge of laying down and assuming
a body, and so he did not lose the spirit. [He was crucified
and underwent the pains of the passion]; he became the sin
of all and washed away the sins of humanity. Finally he died
... so that his death might become the life of those who have
died.
Chapter 7
65-66. When he took on the flesh of the human being, it follows
that he took on the perfection and plenitude of becoming flesh;
for there is nothing imperfect in Christ. ... He assumed a
soul, but he assumed and took on a perfect, human, rational
soul. I say took on a soul for the Word of God did not become
alive in its flesh by replacing its soul. The Word, rather,
assumed both our flesh and our soul by assuming human nature
perfectly. ... What good is it, however, if he did not redeem
me totally? But the one who says, "Are you angry with
me, who healed a man totally on the Sabbath?" (Jn 7.23)
did redeem me completely.
76. God the Word was not in its flesh to replace the soul
that is rational and capable of comprehending God. The Word
of God took on both a soul that is rational and capable of
understanding, human, and of the same substance [~homoousios?]
as our souls, and flesh that is like ours and of the same
substance as ours, and thus became a perfect human being,
but without any stain of sin. ... His flesh and soul, therefore,
are of the same substance as our soul and flesh.
Ambrose, Concerning the Faith (Book 3)
Chapter 2
7. It was a bodily weakness, then, that is to say, a weakness
of ours, that he hungered; when he wept, and was sorrowful
even unto death, it was of our nature (cf. MT 4.2; Jn 11.35;
MT 26.38). Why ascribe the properties and incidents of our
nature to the divinity? That he was even, as we are told,
"made," is a property of a body (see Jn 1.14). Thus,
indeed, we read: "Sion our mother shall say: 'He is a
human being,' and in her he was made a human, and the Most
High himself laid her foundations" (Ps 87.5). "He
was made a human being," mark you, not "God was
made."
8. But what is he who is at once the Most High and human,
what but "the Mediator between God and humanity, the
man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for us"?
(1 Tim 2.5-6) This place indeed refers properly to his incarnation,
for our redemption was made by his blood, our pardon comes
through his power, our life is secured through his grace.
He gives as the Most High; he prays as a human. The one is
the office of the Creator, the other of a Redeemer. Be the
gifts as distinct as they may, yet the giver is one, for it
was fitting that our maker should be our redeemer (see Heb
2.10).
Chapter 5
35. At the same time, becoming does not always imply creation
for we read: "Lord, You have become our refuge,"
(Ps 90.1) and "You have become my salvation" (Ps
118.14). Plainly, here is no statement of the fact or purpose
of a creation, but God is said to have become my "refuge"
and has turned to my "salvation," even as the Apostle
has said: "Who became for us Wisdom from God, and righteousness,
and sanctification, and redemption," (1 Cor 1.30) that
is, that Christ was "made" for us, not created of
the Father. Again, the writer has explained in the sequel
in what sense he says that Christ was made Wisdom for us:
"But we preach the Wisdom of God in doctrine of mystery,
which Wisdom is hidden, foreordained by God before the existence
of the world for our glory, and which none of the princes
of this world knew, for had they known they would never have
crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor 2.7-8). When the
mystery of the passion is set forth, surely there is no speaking
of an eternal process of generation.
36. The Lord's cross, then, is my wisdom; the Lord's death
my redemption; for we are redeemed with his precious blood,
as the Apostle Peter said (1 Pet 1.19). With his blood, then,
as man, the Lord redeemed us, who also, as God, has forgiven
sins (see Mk 2.8-12).
Chapter 7
46. Hereby we are brought to understand that the prophecy
of the incarnation, "The Lord created me the beginning
of his ways for his works," (Prov 8.22) means that the
Lord Jesus was created of the Virgin for the redeeming of
the Father's works. Truly, we cannot doubt that this is spoken
of the mystery of the incarnation, for as much as the Lord
took upon him our flesh, in order to save the works of his
hands from the slavery of corruption, so that he might, by
the sufferings of his own body, overthrow him who had the
power of death (Heb 2.14). For Christ's flesh is for the sake
of things created, but his Godhead existed before them, seeing
that he is before all things, while all things exist together
in him (Col 1.17).
47. His divinity, then, is not by reason of creation, but
creation exists because of the divinity; even as the apostle
showed, saying that all things exist because of the Son of
God, for we read as follows: "But it was fitting that
he, through whom and because of whom are all things, after
bringing many sons to glory, should, as captain of their salvation,
be made perfect through suffering" (Heb 2.10). Has he
not plainly declared that the Son of God, who, by reason of
his divinity, was the Creator of all, did in after time, for
the salvation of his people, submit to the taking on of the
flesh and the suffering of death?
48. Now for the sake of what works the Lord was "created"
of a virgin, he himself, whilst healing the blind man, has
shown, saying: "In him must I work the works of the one
who sent me" (Jn 9.4). Furthermore, he said in the same
Scripture, that we might believe him to speak of the incarnation:
"As long as I am in this world, I am the Light of this
world," (Jn 9.5) for, so far as he is man, he is in this
world for a season, but as God he exists at all times. In
another place, too, he says: "Lo, I am with you even
unto the end of the world" (MT 28.20).
49. Nor is there any room for questioning with respect to
"the beginning," seeing that when, during his earthly
life, he was asked, "who are you?" He answered:
"The beginning, even as I tell you" (Jn 8.25). This
refers not only to the essential nature of the eternal divinity,
but also to the visible proofs of virtues, for hereby has
he proved himself the eternal God, in that he is the beginning
of all things, and the author of each several virtue, in that
he is the head of the Church, as it is written: "Because
he is the head of the Body, of the Church, who is the beginning,
first-begotten from the dead" (Eph 4.15).
50. It is clear, then, that the words "beginning of
his ways," which, as it seems, we must refer to the mystery
of the putting on of his body, are a prophecy of the incarnation.
For Christ's purpose in the incarnation was to pave for us
the road to heaven. Mark how he says: "I go up to my
Father and your Father, to my God and your God" (Jn 20.17).
Then, to give you to know that the Almighty Father appointed
his [sic.] ways to the Son, after the incarnation, you have
in Zechariah the words of the angel speaking to Joshua clothed
in filthy garments: "Thus said the Lord Almighty: 'If
you will walk in my ways and observe my precepts'" (Zech
3.7). What is the meaning of that filthy garb save the putting
on of the flesh?
Chapter 15
... The Arians, inasmuch as they assert the Son to be "of
another substance," plainly acknowledge substance in
God. The only reason why they avoid the use of this term is
that they will not, as Eusebius of Nicomedia has made it evident,
confess Christ to be the true Son of God.
123. How can the Arians deny the substance of God? How can
they suppose that the word "substance," which is
found in many places of Scripture, ought to be debarred from
use, when they themselves do, yet, by saying that the Son
is of another substance, admit substance in God?
124. It is not the term itself, then, but its force and consequences,
that they shun, because they will not confess the Son of God
to be true [God]. For though the process of the divine generation
cannot be comprehended in human language, still the fathers
judged that their faith might be appropriately distinguished
by the use of such a term, as against that of "heterousios,"
following the authority of the prophet, who said: "who
has stood in the truth (substantial) of the Lord, and seen
his Word?" (Jer 23.18) Arians, therefore, admit the term
"substance" when it is used so as to square with
their blasphemy. In contrary fashion, when it is adopted in
accordance with the pious devotion of the faithful, they reject
and dispute against it.
125. What other reason can there be for their unwillingness
to have the Son spoken of as "homoousios," of the
same substance, with the Father, but that they are unwilling
to confess him the true Son of God? This is betrayed in the
letter of Eusebius of Nicomedia. "If," writes he,
"we say that the Son is true God and uncreated, then
we are on the way to confessing him to be of one substance
(homoousios) with the Father." When this letter had been
read before the Council assembled at Nicea, the Fathers put
this word in their exposition of the faith. Because they saw
that it daunted their adversaries; in order that they might
take the sword, which their opponents had drawn, to smite
off the head of those opponents' own blasphemous heresy.
126. Vain, however, is their plea, that they avoid the use
of the term, because of the Sabellians [modalists], whereby
they betray their own ignorance, for a being is of the same
substance (homoousion) with another, not with itself. Rightly,
then, do we call the Son "homoousios" (of the same
substance), with the Father, for as much as that term expresses
both the distinction of persons and the unity of nature.
127. Can they deny that the term "ousia" is met
with in Scripture, when the Lord has spoken of bread, that
is, "epiousioi [subsistence]" (MT 6.11)? What does
"ousia" mean, whence comes the name, but from "ousiaei,"
that which endures for ever? For he who is, and is for ever,
is God; and therefore the divine substance, abiding everlastingly,
is called ousia. Bread is epiousioi, because, taking the substance
of abiding power from the substance of the Word, it supplies
this to heart and soul, for it is written: "And bread
strengthens man's heart" (Ps 104.15).
Chapter 8
105. But in the faith of the Church one and the same is both
Son of God the Father and Son of David. For the mystery of
the incarnation of God is the salvation of the whole of creation,
according to that which is written: "That without God
he should taste death for every human;" (Heb 2.9) that
is, that every creature might be redeemed without any suffering
at the price of the blood of the Lord's divinity. As it stands
elsewhere: "Every creature shall be delivered from the
bondage of corruption" (Rom 8.21).
106. It is one thing to be named Son according to the divine
substance, it is another thing to be so called according to
the adoption of human flesh. For, according to the divine
generation, the Son is equal to God the Father; and, according
to the adoption of a body, he is a servant to God the Father.
"For," it says, "he took upon him the form
of a servant" (Phil 2.7). The Son is, however, one and
the same. On the other hand, according to his glory, he is
Lord to the holy patriarch David, but his Son in the line
of actual descent, ... acquiring for himself the rights that
go with the adoption into our race.
107. ... To whom is this said, if not to Christ, who being
in the form of God, emptied himself and took upon him the
form of a servant [kenosis]. But what can be in the form of
God, except that which exists in the fulness of divinity?
108. Learn, then, what this means: "He took upon him
the form of a servant." It means that he took upon him
all the perfections of humanity in their completeness, and
obedience in its completeness. ... "Servant" means
the human being in whom he was sanctified; it means the human
in whom he was anointed; it means the human in whom he was
made under the law, made of the Virgin; and, to put it briefly,
it means the human in whose person he has a mother ... .
Ambrose, On the Holy Spirit
Book 1, Chapter 9
105. But what wonder, since both the Father and the Son are
said to be Spirit. Of which we shall speak more fully when
we begin to speak of the unity of the name. Yet since the
most suitable place occurs here, that we may not seem to have
passed on without a conclusion, let them read that both the
Father is called Spirit, as the Lord said in the Gospel, "for
God is Spirit;" (Jn 4.24) and Christ is called Spirit,
for Jeremiah said: "The Spirit before our face, Christ
the Lord" (Lam 4.20).
106. So, then, both the Father is Spirit and Christ is Spirit,
for that which is not a created body is spirit, but the Holy
Spirit is not commingled with the Father and the Son, but
is distinct from the Father and from the Son. For the Holy
Spirit did not die, who could not die because he had not taken
flesh upon him, and the eternal divinity (ROM 1.20) was incapable
of dying, but Christ died according to the flesh.
107. For of a truth he died in that which he took of the
Virgin, not in that which he had of the Father, for Christ
died in that nature in which he was crucified. But the Holy
Spirit could not be crucified, who had not flesh and bones,
but the Son of God was crucified, who took flesh and bones,
that on that cross the temptations of our flesh might die.
For he took on him that which he was not that he might hide
that which he was; he hid that which he was that he might
be tempted in it, and that which he was not might be redeemed,
in order that he might call us by means of that which he was
not to that which he was.
109. ... Therefore do you also crucify sin, that you may
die to sin; he who dies to sin lives to God. Do you live to
him who spared not his own Son, that in his body he might
crucify our passions. For Christ died for us, that we might
live in his revived body. Therefore not our life but our guilt
died in him, "who," it is said, "bore our sins
in his own body on the tree; that being set free from our
sins we might live in righteousness, by the wound of whose
blows we are healed" (1 Pet 2.24).
Ambrose, On Repentance
Book 1, Chapter 3
12. Interpreting which truth, the apostle says: "For
God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh,
and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us" (ROM 8.3-4). He
does not say "in the likeness of flesh," for Christ
took on himself the reality not the likeness of flesh; nor
does he say in the likeness of sin, for he did not sin, but
was made sin for us (see 2 Cor 5.21). Yet he came "in
the likeness of sinful flesh" that is, he took on him
the likeness of sinful flesh, the likeness, because it is
written: "He is a human being, and who shall know him?"(Jer
17.9 [LXX]). He was man in the flesh, according to his human
nature, that he might be recognized, but in power was above
man, that he might not be recognized, so he has our flesh,
but has not the failings of this flesh.
13. For he was not begotten, as is every man, by intercourse
between male and female, but born of the Holy Spirit and of
the Virgin; he received a stainless body, which not only no
sins polluted, but which neither the generation nor the conception
had been stained by any admixture of defilement. For we men
are all born under sin, and our very origin is in evil, as
we read in the words of David: "For lo, I was conceived
in wickedness, and in sin did my mother beget me" (Ps
51.5). Therefore the flesh of Paul was a body of death, as
he himself says: "Who shall deliver me from the body
of this death?" (ROM 7.24) But the flesh of Christ condemned
sin, which he felt not at his birth, and crucified by his
death, so that in our flesh there might be justification through
grace, in which before there had been pollution by guilt.
Augustine
of Hippo (+430)
On Perseverance (Second Book, On Predestination
of Saints)
Chapter 67
67.a. There is no more eminent instance, I say, of predestination
than the Mediator [Jesus] himself. If any believer wishes
thoroughly to understand this doctrine, let him consider him,
and in him he will find himself also. The believer, I say;
who in him believes and confesses the true human nature that
is our own, however singularly elevated by assumption by God
the Word into the only Son of God, so that he who assumed,
and what he assumed, should be one person in Trinity. For
it was not a Quaternity that resulted from the assumption
of humanity, but it remained a Trinity, inasmuch as that assumption
ineffably made the truth of one person in God and human. Because
we say that Christ was not only God, as the Manichean heretics
contend; nor only human, as the Photinian heretics assert;
nor in such wise man as to have less of anything which of
a certainty pertains to human nature - whether a soul, or
in the soul itself a rational mind, or flesh not taken of
the woman, but made from the Word converted and changed into
flesh - all which three false and empty notions have made
the three various and diverse parties of the Apollinarian
heretics. But we say that Christ was true God, born of God
the Father without any beginning of time; and that he was
also true or real human, born of human mother in the certain
fulness of time; and that his humanity, whereby he is less
than the Father, does not diminish anything from his divinity,
whereby he is equal to the Father. For both of them are One
Christ - who, moreover, most truly said in respect of the
God, "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10.30) and most
truly said in respect of the man, "My Father is greater
than I" (Jn 14.28).
67.b. He, therefore, who made of the seed of David this righteous
man, who never should be unrighteous, without any merit of
his preceding will, is the same who also makes righteous men
of unrighteous, without any merit of their will preceding;
that he might be the head, and they his members. He, therefore,
who made that man with no precedent merits of his, neither
to deduce from his origin nor to commit by his will any sin
which should be remitted to him, the same makes believers
on him with no preceding merits of theirs, to whom he forgives
all sin. He who made him such that he never had or should
have an evil will, the same makes in his members a good will
out of an evil one. Therefore he predestinated both him and
us, because both in him that he might be our head, and in
us that we should be his body, he foreknew that our merits
would not precede, but that his doings should.
Augustine, City of God
Book 21, Chapter 15
a. Nevertheless, in the "heavy yoke that is laid upon
the sons of Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother's
womb to the day that they return to the mother of all things,"
(Sir 40.1) there is found an admirable though painful reminder
teaching us to be sober-minded, and convincing us that this
life has become penal in consequence of that outrageous wickedness
which was perpetrated in Paradise, and that all to which the
New Testament invites belongs to that future inheritance which
awaits us in the world to come, and is offered for our acceptance,
as the earnest that we may, in its own due time, obtain that
of which it is the pledge.
b. Now, therefore, let us walk in hope, and let us by the
spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, and so make progress
from day to day. For "the Lord knows them that are his"
(2 Tim 2.19) and "as many as are led by the Spirit of
God, they are sons of God" (ROM 8.14) but by grace, not
by nature. For there is but one Son of God by nature, who
in his compassion became Son of Man for our sakes, that we,
by nature sons and daughters of human beings, might by grace
become through him sons and daughters of God. For he, abiding
unchangeable, took upon him our nature, that thereby he might
take us to himself; and, holding fast his own divinity, he
became partaker of our infirmity, that we, being changed into
some better thing, might, by participating in his righteousness
and immortality, lose our own properties of sin and mortality,
and preserve whatever good quality he had implanted in our
nature perfected now by sharing in the goodness of his nature.
For as by the sin of one human we have fallen into a misery
so deplorable, so by the righteousness of one human, who also
is God, shall we come to a blessedness inconceivably exalted.
c. Nor ought any one to trust that he has passed from the
one human being to the other until he shall have reached that
place where there is no temptation, and have entered into
the peace which he seeks in the many and various conflicts
of this war, in which "the flesh lusts against the spirit,
and the spirit against the flesh" (Gal 5.17). Now, such
a war as this would have had no existence if human nature
had, in the exercise of free will, continued steadfast in
the uprightness in which it was created. But now in its misery
it makes war upon itself, because in its blessedness it would
not continue at peace with God; and this, though it be a miserable
calamity, is better than the earlier stages of this life,
which do not recognize that a war is to be maintained. For
better is it to contend with vices than without conflict to
be subdued by them. Better, I say, is war with the hope of
peace everlasting than captivity without any thought of deliverance.
We long, indeed, for the cessation of this war, and, kindled
by the flame of divine love, we burn for entrance on that
well-ordered peace in which whatever is inferior is for ever
subordinated to what is above it. But if (which God forbid)
there had been no hope of so blessed a consummation, we should
still have preferred to endure the hardness of this conflict,
rather than, by our non-resistance, to yield ourselves to
the dominion of vice.
Augustine, On the Trinity
Book 1, Chapter 6
9. They who have said that our Lord Jesus Christ is not God,
or not very God, or not with the Father the One and only God,
or not truly immortal because changeable, are proved wrong
by the most plain and unanimous voice of divine testimonies;
as, for instance, "In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God" [John's
prologue]. For it is plain that we are to take the Word of
God to be the only Son of God, of whom it is afterwards said,
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,"
on account of that birth of his incarnation, which was wrought
in time of the Virgin. But herein is declared, not only that
he is God, but also that he is of the same substance with
the Father; because, after saying, "And the Word was
God," it is said also, "The same was in the beginning
with God: all things were made by Him, and without Him was
not anything made." Not simply "all things;"
but only all things that were made, that is; the whole creature.
From which it appears clearly, that he himself was not made,
by whom all things were made. And if he was not made, then
he is not a creature; but if he is not a creature, then he
is of the same substance with the Father. For all substance
that is not God is creature; and all that is not creature
is God. And if the Son is not of the same substance with the
Father, then he is a substance that was made: and if he is
a substance that was made, then all things were not made by
him; but "all things were made by Him," therefore
he is of one and the same substance with the Father. And so
he is not only God, but also very God. And the same John most
expressly affirms this in his epistle: "For we know that
the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding,
that we may know the true God, and that we may be in His true
Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life."
Book 2, Chapter 5
9.a. Perhaps some one may wish to drive us to say, that the
Son is sent also by himself, because the conception and childbirth
of Mary is the working of the Trinity, by whose act of creating
all things are created. And how, he will go on to say, has
the Father sent Him, if he sent himself? To whom I answer
first, by asking him to tell me, if he can, in what manner
the Father has sanctified him, if he had sanctified himself?
For the same Lord says both; "Say that of Him,"
he says, "whom the Father has sanctified and sent into
the world, you blaspheme, because I said, I am the Son of
God;" while in another place He says, "And for their
sake I sanctify myself." I ask, also, in what manner
the Father delivered Him, if He delivered Himself? For the
Apostle Paul says both: "Who," he says, "spared
not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all;" while
elsewhere he says of the Saviour Himself, "Who loved
me, and delivered himself for me." He will reply, I suppose,
if he has a right sense in these things, because the will
of the Father and the Son is one, and their working indivisible.
In like manner, then, let him understand the incarnation and
nativity of the Virgin, wherein the Son is understood as sent,
to have been wrought by one and the same operation of the
Father and of the Son indivisibly; the Holy Spirit certainly
not being thence excluded, of whom it is expressly said, "She
was found with child by the Holy Ghost." For perhaps
our meaning will be more plainly unfolded, if we ask in what
manner God sent the Son. God commanded that he should come,
and he, complying with the commandment, came. Did God then
request, or did God only suggest? But whichever of these it
was, certainly it was done by a word, and the Word of God
is the Son of God. Wherefore, since the Father sent him by
a word, his being sent was the work of both the Father and
the Word; therefore the same Son was sent by the Father and
the Son, because the Son himself is the Word of the Father.
For who would embrace so impious an opinion as to think the
Father to have uttered a word in time, in order that the eternal
Son might thereby be sent and might appear in the flesh in
the fullness of time?
b. But assuredly it was in that Word of God itself which
was in the beginning with God and was God, namely, in the
wisdom itself of God, apart from time, at what time that wisdom
must needs appear in the flesh. Therefore, since without any
commencement of time, the Word was in the beginning, and the
Word was with God, and the Word was God, it was in the Word
itself without any time, at what time the Word was to be made
flesh and dwell among us. And when this fullness of time had
come, "God sent His Son, made of a woman," that
is, made in time, that the Incarnate Word might appear to
humanity; while it was in that Word himself, apart from time,
at what time this was to be done; for the order of times is
in the eternal wisdom of God without time. Since, then, that
the Son should appear in the flesh was wrought by both the
Father and the Son, it is aptly said that he who appeared
in that flesh was sent, and that he who did not appear in
it, sent him; because those things which are transacted outwardly
before the bodily eyes have their existence from the inward
structure (apparatus) of the spiritual nature, and on that
account are filly said to be sent. Further, that form of human
which he took is the person of the Son, not also of the Father;
on which account the invisible Father, together with the Son,
who with the Father is invisible, is said to have sent the
same Son by making him visible. But if he became visible in
such way as to cease to be invisible with the Father, that
is, if the substance of the invisible Word were turned by
a change and transition into a visible creature, then the
Son would be so understood to be sent by the Father, that
he would be found to be only sent; not also, with the Father,
sending. But since he so took the form of a servant, as that
the unchangeable form of God remained, it is clear that that
which became apparent in the Son was done by the Father and
the Son not being apparent; that is, that by the invisible
Father, with the invisible Son, the same Son Himself was sent
so as to be visible. Why, therefore, does he say, "Neither
came I of myself?" This, we may now say, is said according
to the form of a servant, in the same way as it is said, "I
judge no man."
Book 13, Chapter 11
15. But what is meant by "justified in his blood?"
(ROM 5.9) What power is there in this blood, I beseech you,
that they who believe should be justified in it? And what
is meant by "being reconciled by the death of God's Son?"
(ROM 5.10) Was it indeed so, that when God the Father was
angry with us, he saw the death of the Son for us, and was
kindly disposed towards us? Was then the Son already so far
kindly disposed towards us, that God even deigned to die for
us; while the Father was still so far angry, that except the
Son die for us, God would not be appeased? And what, then,
is that which the same teacher of the Gentiles himself says
in another place: "What shall we then say to these things?
If God be for us, who can be against us, the God that spared
not his [sic.] own Son, but delivered him up for us all ...
(ROM 8.31ff.). Pray, unless the Father had been already appeased,
would he have delivered up his own Son, not sparing him for
us? Does not this opinion seem to be as it were contrary to
that? In the one, the Son dies for us, and the Father is reconciled
to us by his death; in the other, as though the Father first
loved us, God on our account does not spare the Son, but for
us delivers him up to death. But I see that the Father loved
us also before, not only before the Son died for us, but before
God created the world; the apostle himself being witness,
who says, "According as God has chosen us before the
foundation of the world" (Eph 1.4). Nor was the Son delivered
up for us as it were unwillingly, the Father not sparing him;
for it is said also concerning God, "who loved me, and
delivered up himself for me" (Gal 2.20). Therefore together
both the Father and the Son, and the Spirit of both, work
all things equally and harmoniously; yet we are justified
in the blood of Christ, and we are reconciled to God by the
death of God's Son.
Chapter 17
22. There are many other things also in the incarnation of
Christ, displeasing as it is to the proud, that are to be
observed and thought of advantageously. And one of them is,
that it has been demonstrated to humans what place they have
in the things which God has created; since human nature could
so be joined to God, that one person could be made of two
substances, and thereby indeed of three: God, soul, and flesh,
so that those proud malignant spirits, who interpose themselves
as mediators to deceive, although as if to help, do not therefore
dare to place themselves above humans because they have not
flesh; and chiefly because the Son of God deigned to die also
in the same flesh, lest they, because they seem to be immortal,
should therefore succeed in getting themselves worshipped
as gods. Further, that the grace of God might be commended
to us in the human Christ without any precedent merits; because
not even he himself obtained by any precedent merits that
he should be joined in such great unity with the true God,
and should become the Son of God, one Person with God; but
from the time when he began to be human, from that time he
is also God; whence it is said, "The Word was made flesh"
(Jn 1.14). Then, again, there is this, that the pride of human,
which is the chief hindrance against his cleaving to God,
can be confuted and healed through such great humility of
God. Persons learn also how far they have gone away from God;
and what it is worth to them as a pain to cure them, when
they return through such a Mediator, who both as God assists
humans by divinity, and as human agrees with humans by his
weakness. For what greater example of obedience could be given
to us, who had perished through disobedience, than God the
Son obedient to God the Father, even to the death of the cross?
(Phil 2.8) Where could the reward of obedience itself be better
shown, than in the flesh of so great a Mediator, which rose
again to eternal life? It belonged also to the justice and
goodness of the Creator, that the devil should be conquered
by the same rational creature which he rejoiced to have conquered,
and by one that came from that same race which, by the corruption
of its origin through one, he held altogether.
Chapter 18
23.a. For assuredly God could have taken upon the divinity
to be human, that in that humanity God might be the Mediator
between God and humans, from some other source, and not from
the race of that Adam who bound the human race by his sin;
as God did not create him whom God first created, of the race
of someone else. Therefore God was able, either so, or in
any other mode that God would, to create yet one other, by
whom the conqueror of the first might be conquered. But God
judged it better both to take upon man through whom to conquer
the enemy of the human race, from the race itself that had
been conquered; and yet to do this of a virgin, whose conception,
not flesh but spirit, not lust but faith, preceded.
23.b. Nor did that concupiscence of the flesh intervene,
by which the rest of human beings, who derive original sin,
are propagated and conceived; but holy virginity became pregnant,
not by conjugal intercourse, but by faith - lust being utterly
absent - so that that which was born from the root of the
first human might derive only the origin of race, not also
of guilt. For there was born, not a nature corrupted by the
contagion of transgression, but the one only remedy of all
such corruptions. There was born, I say, a human having nothing
at all, and to have nothing at all, of sin; through whom they
were to be born again so as to be freed from sin, who could
not be born without sin. ... It was necessary, therefore,
that this carnal concupiscence should be entirely absent,
when the offspring of the Virgin was conceived; in whom the
author of death was to find nothing worthy of death, and yet
was to slay him in order that he might be conquered by the
death of the author of life: the conqueror of the first Adam,
who held fast the human race, conquered by the second Adam,
and saving the Christian race, freed the human race from guilt,
through him who was not in guilt, although he was of the race;
that that deceiver might be conquered by that race which he
had conquered by guilt. And this was so done, in order that
humans may not be lifted up, but "that he that glorieth
should glory in the Lord" (2 Cor 10.17). For he who was
conquered was only human; and he was therefore conquered,
because he lusted proudly to be a god. But he who conquered
was both human and God; and therefore he so conquered, being
born of a virgin, because God in humility did not, as God
governs other saints, so govern that human, but bore him [as
a Son]. These so great gifts of God, and whatever else there
are, which it is too long for us now upon this subject both
to inquire and to discuss, could not exist unless the Word
had been made flesh.
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