Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadChurch Fathers: Nicene Fathers Vol 05: 15.10.04 Dogmatical & Historical Pt. 4
TOPIC: Nicene Fathers Vol 05 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 15.10.04 Dogmatical & Historical Pt. 4
Other Subjects in this Topic:
Fragment I.
By the omnipotent will of God all things are made, and the things that are made are also preserved, being maintained according to their several principles in perfect harmony by Him who is in His nature the omnipotent God and maker of all things,hyperlink His divine will remaining unalterable by which He has made and moves all things, sustained as they severally are by their own natural laws.hyperlink For the infinite cannot in any manner or by any account be susceptible of movement, inasmuch as it has nothing towards which and nothing around which it shall be moved. For in the case of that which is in its nature infinite, and so incapable of being moved, movement would be conversion.hyperlink Wherefore also the Word of God being made truly man in our manner, yet without sin, and acting and enduring in man's way such sinless things as are proper to our nature, and assuming the circumscription of the flesh of our nature on our behalf sustained no conversion in that aspect in which He is one with the Father, being made in no respect one with the flesh through the exinanition.hyperlink Burns He was without flesh,hyperlink He remained without any circumscription. And through the flesh He wrought divinelyhyperlink those things which are proper to divinity, showing Himself to have both those natures in both of which He wrought, I mean the divine and the human, according to that veritable and real and natural subsistence,hyperlink (showing Himself thus) as both being in reality and as being understood to be at one and the same time infinite God and finite man, having the naturehyperlink of each in perfection, with the same activity,hyperlink that is to say, the same natural properties;hyperlink whence we know that their distinction abides always according to the nature of each, and without conversion. But it is not (i.e., the distinction between deity and humanity), as some say, a merely comparative (or relative) matter,hyperlink that we may not speak in an unwarrantable manner of a greater and a less in one who is ever the same in Himself.hyperlink For comparisons can be instituted only between objects of like nature, and not between objects of unlike nature. But between God the Maker of all things and that which is made, between the infinite and the finite, between infinitude and finitude, there can be no kind of comparison, since these differ from each other not in mere comparison (or relatively), but absolutely in essence. And yet at the same time there has been effected a certain inexpressible and irrefragable union of the two into one substance,hyperlink which entirely passes the understanding of anything that is made. For the divine is just the same after the incarnation that it was before the incarnation; in its essence infinite, illimitable, impassible, incomparable, unchangeable, inconvertable, self-potent,hyperlink and, in short, subsisting in essence alone the infinitely worthy good.
Fragment II.
The God of all things therefore became truly, according to the Scriptures, without conversion, sinless man, and that in a manner known to Himself alone, as He is the natural Artificer of things which are above our comprehension. And by that same saving act of the incarnationhyperlink He introduced into the flesh the activity of His proper divinity, yet without having it (that activity) either circumscribed by the flesh through the exinanition, or growing naturally out of the flesh as it grew out of His divinity,hyperlink but manifested through it in the things which He wrought in a divine manner in His incarnate state. For the flesh did not become divinity in nature by a transmutation of nature, as though it became essentially flesh of divinity. But what it was before, that also it continued to be in nature and activity when united with divinity, even as the Saviour said, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."hyperlink And working and enduring in the flesh things which were proper to sinless flesh, He proved the evacuation of divinity (to be) for our sakes, confirmed as it was by wonders and by sufferings of the flesh naturally. For with this purpose did the God of all things become man, viz., in order that by suffering in the flesh, which is susceptible of suffering, He might redeem our whole race, which was sold to death; and that by working wondrous things by His divinity, which is unsusceptible of suffering, through the medium of the flesh He might restore it to that incorruptible and blessed life from which it fell away by yielding to the devil; and that He might establish the holy orders of intelligent existences in the heavens in immutability by the mystery of His incarnation,hyperlink the doing of which is the recapitulation of all things in himself.hyperlink He remained therefore, also, after His incarnation, according to nature, God infinite, and more,hyperlink having the activity proper and suitable to Himself,-an activity growing out of His divinity essentially, and manifested through His perfectly holy flesh by wondrous acts economically, to the intent that He might be believed in as God, while working out of Himselfhyperlink by the flesh, which by nature is weak, the salvation of the universe.
Fragment III.
Now, with the view of explaining, by means of an illustration, what has been said concerning the Saviour, (I may say that) the power of thoughthyperlink which I have by nature is proper and suitable to me, as being possessed of a rational and intelligent soul; and to this soul there pertains, according to nature, a self-moved energy and first power, ever-moving, to wit, the thought that streams from it naturally. This thought I utter, when there is occasion, by fitting it to words, and expressing it rightly in signs, using the tongue as an organ, or artificial characters, showing that it is heard, though it comes into actuality by means of objects foreign to itself, and yet is not changed itself by those foreign objects.hyperlink For my natural thought does not belong to the tongue or the letters, although I effect its utterance by means of these; but it belongs to me, who speak according to my nature, and by means of both these express it as my own, streaming as it does always from my intelligent soul according to its nature, and uttered by means of my bodily tongue organically, as I have said, when there is occasion. Now, to institute a comparison with that which is utterly beyond comparison, just as in us the power of thought that belongs by nature to the soul is brought to utterance by means of our bodily tongue without any change in itself, so, too, in the wondrous incarnationhyperlink of God is the omnipotent and all-creating energy of the entire deityhyperlink manifested without mutation in itself, by means of His perfectly holy flesh, and in the works which He wrought after a divine manner, (that energy of the deity) remaining in its essence free from all circumscription, although it shone through the flesh, which is itself essentially limited. For that which is in its nature unoriginated cannot be circumscribed by an originated nature, although this latter may have grown into one with ithyperlink by a conception which circumscribes all understanding:hyperlink nor can this be ever brought into the same nature and natural activity with that, so long as they remain each within its own proper and inconvertible nature.hyperlink For it is only in objects of the same nature that there is the motion that works the same works, showing that the beinghyperlink whose power is natural is incapable in any manner of being or becoming the possession of a being of a different nature without mutation.hyperlink
Fragment IV.
For, in the view of apostles and prophets and teachers, the mystery of the divine incarnation has been distinguished as having two points of contemplation natural to it,hyperlink distinct in all things, inasmuch as on the one hand it is the subsistence of perfect deity, and on the other is demonstrative of full humanity. As long, therefore,hyperlink as the Word is acknowledged to be in substance one, of one energy, there shall never in any way be known a movementhyperlink in the two. For while God, who is essentially ever-existent, became by His infinite power, according to His will, sinless man, He is what He was, in all wherein God is known; and what He became, He is in all wherein man is known and can be recognised. In both aspects of Himself He never falls out of Himself,hyperlink in His divine activities and in His human alike, preserving in both relations His own essentially unchangeable perfection.
Fragment V.
For lately a certain person, Beron, along with some others, forsook the delusion of Valentinus, only to involve themselves in deeper error, affirming that the flesh assumed to Himself by the Word became capable of working like works with the deityhyperlink by virtue of its assumption, and that the deity became susceptible of suffering in the same way with the fleshhyperlink by virtue of the exinanition;hyperlink and thus they assert the doctrine that there was at the same time a conversion and a mixing and a fusinghyperlink of the two aspects one with the other. For if the flesh that was assumed became capable of working like works with the deity, it is evident that it also became God in essence in all wherein God is essentially known. And if the deity by the exinanition became susceptible of the same sufferings with the flesh, it is evident that it also became in essence flesh in all wherein flesh essentially can be known. For objects that act in like manner,hyperlink and work like works, and are altogether of like kind, and are susceptible of like suffering with each other, admit of no difference of nature; and if the natures are fused together,hyperlink Christ will be a duality;hyperlink and if the personshyperlink are separated, there will be a quaternity,hyperlink -a thing which is altogether to be avoided. And how will they conceive of the one and the same Christ, who is at once God and man by nature? And what manner of existence will He have according to them, if He has become man by a conversion of the deity, and if he has become God by a change of the flesh? For the mutationhyperlink of these, the one into the other, is a complete subversion of both. Let the discussion, then, be considered by us again in a different way.
Fragment VI.
Among Christians it is settled as the doctrine of piety, that, according to nature itself, and to the activity and to whatever else pertains thereunto, God is equal and the same with Himself,hyperlink having nothing that is His unequal to Himself at all and heterogeneous.hyperlink If, then, according to Beron, the flesh that He assumed to Himself became possessed of the like natural energy with them, it is evident that it also became possessed of the like nature with Him in all wherein that nature consists,-to wit, non-origination, non-generation, infinitude, eternity, incomprehensibility, and whatever else in the way of the transcendent the theological mind discerns in deity; and thus they both underwent conversion, neither the one nor the other preserving any more the substantial relation of its own proper nature.hyperlink For he who recognises an identical operationhyperlink in things of unlike nature, introduces at the same time a fusion of natures and a separation of persons,hyperlink their natural existencehyperlink being made entirely undistinguishable by the transference of properties.hyperlink
Fragment VII.
But if it (the flesh) did not become of like nature with that (the deity), neither shall it ever become of like natural energy with that; that He may not be shown to have His energy unequal with His nature, and heterogeneous, and, through all that pertains to Himself, to have entered on an existence outside of His natural equality and identity,hyperlink which is an impious supposition.
Fragment VIII.
Into this error, then, have they been carried, by believing, unhappily, that that divine energy was made the property of the flesh which was only manifested through the flesh in His miraculous actions; by which energy Christ, in so far as He is apprehended as God, gave existence to the universe, and now maintains and governs it. For they did not perceive that it is impossible for the energy of the divine nature to become the propertyhyperlink of a being of a different naturehyperlink apart from conversion; nor did they understand that that is not by any means the property of the flesh which is only manifested through it, and does not spring out of it according to nature; and yet the proof thereof was clear and evident to them. For I, by speaking with the tongue and writing with the hand, reveal through both these one and the same thought of my intelligent soul, its energy (or operation) being natural; in no way showing it as springing naturally out of tongue or hand; nor yet (showing) even the spoken thought as made to belong to them in virtue of its revelation by their means. For no intelligent person ever recognised tongue or hand as capable of thought, just as also no one ever recognised the perfectly holy flesh of God, in virtue of its assumption, and in virtue of the revelation of the divine energy through its medium, as becoming in nature creative.hyperlink But the pious confession of the believer is that, with a view to our salvation, and in order to connect the universe with unchangeableness, the Creator of all things incorporated with Himselfhyperlink a rational soul and a sensiblehyperlink body from the all-holy Mary, ever-virgin, by an undefiled conception, without conversion, and was made man in nature, but separate from wickedness: the same was perfect God, and the same was perfect man; the same was in nature at once perfect God and man. In His deity He wrought divine things through His all-holy flesh,-such things, namely, as did not pertain to the flesh by nature; and in His humanity He suffered human things,-such things, namely, as did not pertain to deity by nature, by the upbearing of the deity.hyperlink He wrought nothing divine without the body;hyperlink nor did the same do anything human without the participation of deity.hyperlink Thus He preserved for Himself a new and fitting methodhyperlink by which He wrought (according to the manner of) both, while that which was natural to both remained unchanged;hyperlink to the accreditinghyperlink of His perfect incarnation,hyperlink which is really genuine, and has nothing lacking in it.hyperlink Beron, therefore, since the case stands with him as I have already stated, confounding together in nature the deity and the humanity of Christ in a single energy,hyperlink and again separating them in person, subverts the life, not knowing that identical operationhyperlink is indicative of the connatural identity only of connatural persons.hyperlink
The Discourse on the Holy Theophany.
1. Good, yea, very good, are all the works of our God and Saviour-all of them that eye seeth and mind perceiveth, all that reason interprets and hand handles, all that intellect comprehends and human nature understands. For what richer beauty can there be than that of the circlehyperlink of heaven? And what form of more blooming fairness than that of earth's surface? And what is there swifter in the course than the chariot of the sun? And what more graceful car than the lunar orb?hyperlink And what work more wonderful than the compact mosaic of the stars?hyperlink And what more productive of supplies than the seasonable winds? And what more spotless mirror than the light of day? And what creature more excellent than man? Very good, then, are all the works of our God and Saviour. And what more requisite gift, again, is there than the elementhyperlink of water? For with water all things are washed and nourished, and cleansed and bedewed. Water bears the earth, water produces the dew, water exhilarates the vine; water matures the corn in the ear, water ripens the grapecluster, water softens the olive, water sweetens the palm-date, water reddens the rose and decks the violet, water makes the lily bloom with its brilliant cups. And why should I speak at length? Without the element of water, none of the present order of things can subsist. So necessary is the element of water; for the other elementshyperlink took their places beneath the highest vault of the heavens, but the nature of water obtained a seat also above the heavens. And to this the prophet himself is a witness, when he exclaims, "Praise the Lord, ye heavens of heavens, and the water that is above the heavens."hyperlink
2. Nor is this the only thing that proves the dignityhyperlink of the water. But there is also that which is more honourable than all-the fact that Christ, the Maker of all, came down as the rain,hyperlink and was known as a spring,hyperlink and diffused Himself as a river,hyperlink and was baptized in the Jordan.hyperlink For you have just heard how Jesus came to John, and was baptized by him in the Jordan. Oh things strange beyond compare! How should the boundless Riverhyperlink that makes glad the city of God have been dipped in a little water! The illimitable Spring that bears life to all men, and has no end, was covered by poor and temporary waters! He who is present everywhere, and absent nowhere-who is incomprehensible to angels and invisible to men-comes to the baptism according to His own good pleasure. When you hear these things, beloved, take them not as if spoken literally, but accept them as presented in a figure.hyperlink Whence also the Lord was not unnoticed by the watery element in what He did in secret, in the kindness of His condescension to man. "For the waters saw Him, and were afraid."hyperlink They wellnigh broke from their place, and burst away from their boundary. Hence the prophet, having this in his view many generations ago, puts the question, "What aileth thee, O sea, that thou reddest; and thou, Jordan, that thou wast driven back? "hyperlink And they in reply said, We have seen the Creator of all things in the "form of a servant,"hyperlink and being ignorant of the mystery of the economy, we were lashed with fear.
3. But we, who know the economy, adore His mercy, because He hath come to save and not to judge the world. Wherefore John, the forerunner of the Lord, who before knew not this mystery, on learning that He is Lord in truth, cried out, and spake to those who came to be baptized of him, "O generation of vipers,"hyperlink why look ye so earnestly at me? "I am not the Christ; "hyperlink I am the servant, and not the lord; I am the subject, and not the king; I am the sheep, and not the shepherd; I am a man, and not God. By my birth I loosed the barrenness of my mother; I did not make virginity barren.hyperlink I was brought up from beneath; I did not come down from above. I bound the tongue of my father;hyperlink I did not unfold divine grace. I was known by my mother, and I was not announced by a star.hyperlink I am worthless, and the least; but "after me there comes One who is before me"hyperlink -after me, indeed, in time, but before me by reason of the inaccessible and unutterable light of divinity. "There comes One mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire."hyperlink I am subject to authority, but He has authority in Himself. I am bound by sins, but He is the Remover of sins. applyhyperlink the law, but He bringeth grace to light. teach as a slave, but He judgeth as the Master. I have the earth as my couch, but He possesses heaven. I baptize with the baptism of repentance, but He confers the gift of adoption: "He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." Why give ye attention to me? I am not the Christ.
4. As John says these things to the multitude, and as the people watch in eager expectation of seeing some strange spectacle with their bodily eyes, and the devilhyperlink is struck with amazement at such a testimony from John, lo, the Lord appears, plain, solitary, uncovered,hyperlink without escort,hyperlink having on Him the body of man like a garment, and hiding the dignity of the Divinity, that He may elude the snares of the dragon. And not only did He approach John as Lord without royal retinue; but even like a mere man, and one involved in sin, He bent His head to be baptized by John. Wherefore John, on seeing so great a humbling of Himself, was struck with astonishment at the affair, and began to prevent Him, saying, as ye have just heard, "I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me? "hyperlink What doest Thou, O Lord? Thou teachest things not according to rule.hyperlink I have preached one thing (regarding Thee), and Thou performest another; the devil has heard one thing, and perceives another. Baptize me with the fire of Divinity; why waitest Thou for water? Enlighten me with the Spirit; why dost Thou attend upon a creature? Baptize me, the Baptist, that Thy pre-eminence may be known. I, O Lord, baptize with the baptism of repentance, and I cannot baptize those who come to me unless they first confess fully their sins. Be it so then that I baptize Thee, what hast Thou to confess? Thou art the Remover of sins, and wilt Thou be baptized with the baptism of repentance? Though I should venture to baptize Thee, the Jordan dares not to come near Thee. "I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me? "
5. And what saith the Lord to him? "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."hyperlink "Suffer it to be so now," John; thou art not wiser than I. Thou seest as man; I foreknow as God. It becomes me to do this first, and thus to teach. I engage in nothing unbecoming, for I am invested with honour. Dost thou marvel, O John, that I am not come in my dignity? The purple robe of kings suits not one in private station, but military splendour suits a king: am I come to a prince, and not to a friend? "Suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness: "I am the Fulfiller of the law; I seek to leave nothing wanting to its whole fulfilment, that so after me Paul may exclaim, "Christ is the fulfilling of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."hyperlink "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Baptize me, John, in order that no one may despise baptism. I am baptized by thee, the servant, that no one among kings or dignitaries may scorn to be baptized by the hand of a poor priest. Suffer me to go down into the Jordan, in order that they may hear my Father's testimony, and recognise the power of the Son. "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." Then at length John suffers Him. "And Jesus, when He was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and the heavens were opened unto Him; and, lo, the Spirit of God descended like a dove, and rested upon Him. And a voice (came) from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."hyperlink
6. Do you see, beloved, how many and how great blessings we would have lost, if the Lord had yielded to the exhortation of John, and declined baptism? For the heavens were shut before this; the region above was inaccessible. We would in that case descend to the lower parts, but we would not ascend to the upper. But was it only that the Lord was baptized? He also renewed the old man, and committed to him again the sceptre of adoption. For straightway "the heavens were opened to Him." A reconciliation took place of the visible with the invisible; the celestial orders were filled with joy; the diseases of earth were healed; secret things were made known; those at enmity were restored to amity. For you have heard the word of the evangelist, saying, "The heavens were opened to Him," on account of three wonders. For when Christ the Bridegroom was baptized, it was meet that the bridal-chamber of heaven should open its brilliant gates. And in like manner also, when the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and the Father's voice spread everywhere, it was meet that "the gates of heaven should be lifted up."hyperlink "And, lo, the heavens were opened to Him; and a voice was heard, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
7. The beloved generates love, and the light immaterial the light inaccessible.hyperlink "This is my beloved Son," He who, being manifested on earth and yet unseparated from the Father's bosom, was manifested, and yet did not appear.hyperlink For the appearing is a different thing, since in appearance the baptizer here is superior to the baptized. For this reason did the Father send down the Holy Spirit from heaven upon Him who was baptized. For as in the ark of Noah the love of God toward man is signified by the dove, so also now the Spirit, descending in the form of a dove, bearing as it were the fruit of the olive, rested on Him to whom the witness was borne. For what reason? That the faithfulness of the Father's voice might be made known, and that the prophetic utterance of a long time past might be ratified. And what utterance is this? "The voice of the Lord (is) on the waters, the God of glory thundered; the Lord (is) upon many waters."hyperlink And what voice? "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This is He who is named the son of Joseph, and (who is) according to the divine essence my Only-begotten. "This is my beloved Son"-He who is hungry, and yet maintains myriads; who is weary, and yet gives rest to the weary; who has not where to lay His head,hyperlink and yet bears up all things in His hand; who suffers, and yet heals sufferings; who is smitten,hyperlink and yet confers liberty on the world;hyperlink who is pierced in the side,hyperlink and yet repairs the side of Adam.hyperlink
8. But give me now your best attention, I pray you, for I wish to go back to the fountain of life, and to view the fountain that gushes with healing. The Father of immortality sent the immortal Son and Word into the world, who came to man in order to wash him with water and the Spirit; and He, begetting us again to incorruption of soul and body, breathed into us the breath (spirit) of life, and endued us with an incorruptible panoply. If, therefore, man has become immortal, he will also be God.hyperlink And if he is made God by water and the Holy Spirit after the regeneration of the layerhyperlink he is found to be also joint-heir with Christhyperlink after the resurrection from the dead. Wherefore I preach to this effect: Come, all ye kindreds of the nations, to the immortality of the baptism. I bring good tidings of life to you who tarry in the darkness of ignorance. Come into liberty from slavery, into a kingdom from tyranny, into incorruption from corruption. And how, saith one, shall we come? How? By water and the Holy Ghost. This is the water in conjunction with the Spirit, by which paradise is watered, by which the earth is enriched, by which plants grow, by which animals multiply, and (to sum up the whole in a single word) by which man is begotten again and endued with life, in which also Christ was baptized, and in which the Spirit descended in the form of a dove.
Footnotes
300 toij ekasta fusikoij diecagomena nomoij. Anastasius makes it naturalibus producta legibus; Capperonnier, suis quaeque legibus temperata vel ordinata.
301 troph gar tou kata fusin apeirou, kineisqai mh pefukotoj, h kinhsij; or may the sense be, "for a change in that which is in its nature infinite would just be the moving of that which is incapable of movement!"
302 mhd eni pantelwj o tauton edti tw IIatri genomenoj tauton th sarki dia thn kenwsin. Thus in effect Combefisius, correcting the Latin version of Anastasius. Baunius adopts the reading in the Greek Codex Nicephori, viz., enwsin for kenwsin, and renders it, "In nothing was the Word, who is the same with the Father, made the same with the flesh through the union: " nulla re Verbum quod idem est cum Patre factum est idem cum carne propter unionem.
303 dixa sarkoj, i.e. what He was before assuming the flesh, that He continued to be in Himself, viz., independent of limitation.
304 qeikwj.
305 Or existence, uparcin. Anastasius makes it substantia.
306 ousian.
307 energeiaj.
308 fusikhj idiohtoj.
309 kata sugkrisin. Migne follows Capperonnier in taking sugkrisij in this passage to mean not "comparison" or "relation," but "commixture," the "concretion and commixture" of the divine and human, which was the error of Apollinaris and Eutyches in their doctrine of the incarnation, and which had been already refuted by Tertullian, Contra Prexeam, c. xxvii.
310 Or, "for that would be to speak of the same being as greater and less than Himself."
311 upostasin.
312 autosqenej.
313 swthrion sarkwsin.
314 oud wsper thhj autou qeorhtoj outw kai authj fusikwj ekfuomenhn.
315 Matt. xxvi. 41.
316 swmatwsewj.
317 Referring probably to Eph. i. 10.
318 uperapeiroj.
319 autourgwn.
320 logoj.
321 The text is, dia twn anomoiwn men uparxonta. Anastasius reads mh for men.
322 oswmatwsewj.
323 thj olhj qeothtoj.
324 sunefu.
325 Kata sullhyin panta perigrafousan noun.
326 oute mhn eij t auton autw feresqai fusewj pote kai fusikhj energeiaj, ewj an ekateron thj idiaj entoj menei fusikhj atreyiaj. To feresqai we supply again pefuke.
327 ousian.
328 The sense is extremely doubtful here. The text runs thus: omofuwn gar monwn h tautourgoj esti kinhsij shmainousa thn ousian, hj fudikh kaqesthke dunamij, eterofuouj idiothtoj ousiaj dinai kat oudena logon, h genesqai dxa trophj dunamenhn. Anasnsius renders it: Connaturalium enim tantum per se operans est notus, manifestans substantiam, cujus naturalem constat esse virtutern: diversae naturae proprietatis substantia nulla natura: esse vel fieri sine convertibilitate valente.
329 ditthn kai diafopan exon diegnwstai thn en pasi fusikhn qewrian.
330 The text goes, ewj an oux, which is adopted by Combefisius. But Capperonnier and Migne read oun for oux, as we have rendered it.
331 Change, kinhsij.
332 menei anekptwtoj.
333 genesqai tautourgon th qeothti.
334 tautopaqh th sarki.
335 kenwsin.
336 sugxusin.
337 omoergh.
338 sugkexumenwn/. [Vol. iii. p. 623].
339 duaj.
340 proswpwn.
341 tetraj, i.e., instead of Trinity [the Triaj].
342 metaptwsij. [Compare the Athanasian Confession].
343 ison eautw kai tauton.
344 akatallhlon.
345 thj idiaj fusewj ousiwdh logon.
346 tautourgian.
347 diaresin proswpikhn.
348 uparcewj.
349 idiwmatwn.
350 fusikhj ecw gegonwj isothtoj kai tautothtoj.
351 idiwma.
352 eterofanouj ousiaj.
353 dhmiourgon.
354 enousiwsaj.
355 Or sensitive, aisqhtikon.
356 anoxh pasxwn qeothtoj.
357 gumnon swmatoj.
358 amoiron drasaj qeothtoj.
359 kainopreph tropon.
360 to kat amfw fusikwj analloiwton.
361 eij pistwsin.
362 enanqrwphsewj. [See Athanasian Creed, in Dutch Hymnal.]
363 mhden exoushj faulothtoj.
364 energeiaj monadi.
365 tautorgian.
366 monhj thj twn omofuwn proswpwn omofuouj tautothtoj.
367 diskou.
368 selhniakou stoixeiou.
369 poluphghtou twn astrwn mousiou.
370 fudewj.
371 stoixeia.
372 Ps. cxlviii. 4.[Pindar ( =Ariston men udwr, Olymp., i. x), is expounded and then transcended.]
373 aciopistian.
374 Hos. vi. 3.
375 John iv. 14.
376 John vii. 38.
377 Matt. iii. 13.
378 Ps. xlvi. 4.
379 Economically.
380 Ps. lxxvii. 16.
381 Ps. cxiv. 5.
382 Phil. ii. 7.
383 Matt. iii. 7.
384 John i. 20.
385 ou parqenian esteirwsa. So Gregory Thaumaturgus, Sancta Theophania, p. 106, edit. Vossii: "Thou, when born of the Virgin Mary,... didst not loose her virginity; but didst preserve it, and gifted her with the name of mother."
386 Luke i. 20.
387 Matt. ii. 9.
388 John i. 27.
389 Matt. iii. 11.
390 paraptw.
391 It was a common opinion among the ancient theologians that the devil was ignorant of the mystery of the economy, founding on such passages as Matt. iv. 3, 1 Cor. ii. 8. (Fabricius.) [See Ignatius, vol. i. p. 57 this series.]
392 gumnoj.
393 aprostateutoj.
394 Matt. iii. 14.
395 akanonista dogmatizeij.
396 Matt. iii. 15.
397 Rom. x. 4.
398 Matt. iii. 16, 17.
399 Ps. xxiv. 7.
400 fwj aulon genna fwj aproston. The Son is called "Light of Light" in the Discourse against Noetus, ch. x. [See p. 227 supra.] In fwj aprositon the reference is to 1 Tim. vi. 16.
401 epefanh ouk efanh. See Dorner's Doctrine of the Person of Christ, div. i. vol. ii. p. 97 (Clark).
402 Ps. xxix. 3.
403 Luke ix. 5. [Compare the Paradoxes, attributed to Racon, in his Works, vol. xiv p. 143; also the Appendix, pp. 139-142.]
404 rapizomenoj, referring to the slap in the process of manumitting slaves.
405 Heb. i. 3.
406 Matt. xxvi. 67. [From which proceeds His Church.]
407 That is, the sin introduced by Eve, who was formed by God out of Adam's side. (Fabricius.)
408 estai kai Qeoj, referring probably to 1 Pet. i. 4, ina dia toutwn genhsqe qeiaj koinwnoi fusewj, "that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature." [See vol. iii. p. 317, note 11. Tertullian anticipates the languge of the "Athanasian Confession,"-"taking the manhood into God; " applicable, through Christ, to our redeemed humanity. Eph. ii. 6.; Rev. iii. 21.]
409 kolumbhqraj.
410 Rom. viii. 17.