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TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 09 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 29.02.14 Orthodox Faith Bk III Pt 6
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Chapter XXII.
Concerning His growth.
He is, moreover, said to grow in wisdom and age and grace289 , increasing in age indeed and through the increase in age manifesting the wisdom that is in Him290 ; yea, further, making men’s progress in wisdom and grace, and the fulfilment of the Father’s goodwill, that is to say, men’s knowledge of God and men’s salvation, His own increase, and everywhere taking as His own that which is ours. But those who hold that He progressed in wisdom and grace in the sense of receiving some addition to these attributes, do not say that the union took place at the first origin of the flesh, nor yet do they give precedence to the union in subsistence, but giving heed291 to the foolish Nestorius they imagine some strange relative union and mere indwelling, understanding neither what they say nor whereof they affirm292 . For if in truth the flesh was united with God the Word from its first origin, or rather if it existed in Him and was identical in subsistence with Him, how was it that it was not endowed completely with all wisdom and grace? not that it might itself participate in the grace, nor share by grace in what belonged to the Word, but rather by reason of the union in subsistence, since both what is human and what is divine belong to the one Christ, and that He Who was Himself at once God and man should pour forth like a fountain over the universe His grace and wisdom and plenitude of every blessing.
Chapter XXIII.
Concerning His Fear.
The word fear has a double meaning. For fear is natural when the soul is unwilling to be separated from the body, on account of the natural sympathy and close relationship planted in it in the beginning by the Creator, which makes it fear and struggle against death and pray for an escape from it. It may be defined thus: natural fear is the force whereby we cling to being with shrinking293 . For if all things were brought by the Creator out of nothing into being, they all have by nature a longing after being and not after non-being. Moreover the inclination towards those things that support existence is a natural property of them. Hence God the Word when He became man had this longing, manifesting, on the one hand, in those things that support existence, the inclination of His nature in desiring food and drink and sleep, and having in a natural manner made proof of these things, while on the other hand displaying in those things that bring corruption His natural disinclination in voluntarily shrinking in the hour of His passion before the flee of death. For although what happened did so according to the laws of nature, yet it was not, as in our case, a matter of necessity. For He willingly and spontaneously accepted that which was natural. So that fear itself and terror and agony belong to the natural and innocent passions and are not under the dominion of sin.
Again, there is a fear which arises from treachery of reasoning and want of faith, and ignorance of the hour of death, as when we are at night affected by fear at some chance noise. This is unnatural fear, and may be thus defined: unnatural fear is an unexpected shrinking. This our Lord did not assume. Hence He never felt fear except in the hour of His passion, although He often experienced a feeling of shrinking in accordance with the dispensation. For He was not ignorant of the appointed time.
But the holy Athanasius in his discourse against Apollinarius says that He did actually feel fear. “Wherefore the Lord said: Now is My soul troubled294 . The ‘now’ indeed means just ‘when He willed,’ but yet points to what actually was. For He did not speak of what was not, as though it were present, as if the things that were said only apparently happened. For all things happened naturally and actually.” And again, after some other matters, he says,” In nowise does His divinity admit passion apart from a suffering body, nor yet does it manifest trouble and pain apart froth a pained and troubled soul, nor does it suffer anguish and offer up prayer apart from a mind that suffered anguish and offered up prayer. For, although these occurrences were not due to any overthrow of nature, yet they took place to shew forth His real being295 .” The words “these occurrences were not due to any overthrow of His nature,” prove that it was not involuntarily that He endured these things.
Chapter XXIV.
Concerning our Lord’s Praying.
Prayer is an uprising of the mind to God or a petitioning of God for what is fitting. How then did it happen that our Lord offered up prayer in the case of Lazarus, and at the hour of His passion? For His holy mind was in no need either of any uprising towards God, since it had been once and for all united in subsistence with the God Word, or of any petitioning of God. For Christ is one. But it was because He appropriated to Himself our personality and took our impress on Himself, and became an ensample for us, and taught us to ask of God and strain towards Him, and guided us through His own holy mind in the way that leads up to God. For just as He296 endured the passion, achieving for our sakes a triumph over it, so also He offered up prayer, guiding us, as I said, in the way that leads up to God, and “fulfilling all righteousness297 “ on our behalf, as He said to John, and reconciling His Father to us, and honouring Him as the beginning and cause, and proving that He is no enemy of God. For when He said in connection with Lazarus, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. And I know that Thou hearest Me always, but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me298 , is it not most manifest to all that He said this in honour of His Father as the cause even of Himself, and to shew that He was no enemy of God299 ?
Again, when he said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: yet, not as I will but as Thou wilt300 , is it not clear to all301 that He said this as a lesson to us to ask help in our trials only from God, and to prefer God’s will to oar own, and as a proof that He did actually appropriate to Himself the attributes of our nature, and that He did in truth possess two wills, natural, indeed, and corresponding with His natures but yet in no wise opposed to one another? “Father” implies that He is of the same essence, but “if it be possible” does not mean that He was in ignorance (for what is impossible to God?), but serves to teach us to prefer God’s will to our own. For that alone is impossible which is against God’s will and permission302 . “But not as I will but as Thou wilt,” for inasmuch as He is God, He is identical with the Father, while inasmuch as He is man, He manifests the natural will of mankind. For it is this that naturally seeks escape from death.
Further, these words, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me303 ? He said as making our personality His own304 . For neither would God be regarded with us as His Father, unless one were to discriminate with subtle imaginings of the mind between that which is seen and that which is thought, nor was He ever forsaken by His divinity: nay, it was we who were forsaken and disregarded. So that it was as appropriating our personality that He offered these prayers305 .
Chapter XXV.
Concerning the Appropriation.
It is to be observed306 that there are two appropriations307 : one that is natural and essential, and one that is personal and relative. The natural and essential one is that by which our Lord in His love for man took on Himself our nature and all our natural attributes, becoming in nature and truth man, and making trial of that which is natural: but the personal and relative appropriation is when any one assumes the person of another relatively, for instance, out of pity or love, and in his place utters words concerning him that have no connection with himself. And it was in this way that our Lord appropriated both our curse and our desertion, and such other things as are not natural: not that He Himself was or became such, but that He took upon Himself our personality and ranked Himself as one of us. Such is the meaning in which this phrase is to be taken: Being made a curse for our sakes308 .
Chapter XXVI.
Concerning the Passion of our Lord’s body, and the Impassibility of His divinity.
The Word of God then itself endured all in the flesh, while His divine nature which alone was passionless remained void of passion. For since the one Christ, Who is a compound of divinity and humanity, and exists in divinity and humanity, truly suffered, that part which is capable of passion suffered as it was natural it should, but that part which was void of passion did not share in the suffering. For the soul, indeed, since it is capable of passion shares in the pain and suffering of a bodily cut, though it is not cut itself but only the body: but the divine part which is void of passion does not share in the suffering of the body.
Observe, further309 , that we say that God suffered in the flesh, bat never that His divinity suffered in the flesh, or that God suffered through the flesh. For if, when the sun is shining upon a tree, the axe should cleave the tree, and, nevertheless, the sun remains uncleft and void of passion, much more will the passionless divinity of the Word, united in subsistence to the flesh, remain void of passion when the body undergoes passion310 . And should any one pour water over flaming steel, it is that which naturally suffers by the water, I mean, the fire, that is quenched, but the steel remains untouched (for it is not the nature of steel to be destroyed by water): much more, then, when the flesh suffered did His only passionless divinity escape all passion although abiding inseparable from it. For one must not take the examples too absolutely and strictly: indeed, in the examples, one must consider both what is like and what is unlike, otherwise it would not be an example. For, if they were like in all respects they would be identities, and not examples, and all the more so in dealing with divine matters. For one cannot find an example that is like in all respects whether we are dealing with theology or the dispensation.
Chapter XXVII.
Concerning the fact that the divinity of the Word remained inseparable from the soul and the body, even at our Lord’s death, and that His subsistence continued one.
Since our Lord Jesus Christ was without sin (for He committed no sin, He Who took away the sin of the world, nor was there any deceit found in His mouth311 ) He was not subject to death, since death came into the world through sin312 . He dies, therefore, because He took on Himself death on our behalf, and He makes Himself an offering to the Father for our sakes. For we had sinned against Him, and it was meet that He should receive the ransom for us, and that we should thus he delivered from the condemnation. God forbid that the blood of the Lord should have been offered to the tyrant313 . Wherefore death approaches, and swallowing up the body as a bait is transfixed on the hook of divinity, and after tasting of a sinless and life-giving body, perishes, and brings up again all whom of old he swallowed up. For just as darkness disappears on the introduction of light, so is death repulsed before the assault of life, and brings life to all, but death to the destroyer.
Wherefore, although314 He died as man and His Holy Spirit was severed from His immaculate body, yet His divinity remained inseparable from both, I mean, from His soul and His body, and so even thus His one hypostasis was not divided into two hypostases. For body and soul received simultaneously in the beginning their being in the subsistence315 of the Word, and although they were severed from one another by death, yet they continued, each of them, having the one subsistence of the Word. So that the one subsistence of the Word is alike the subsistence of the Word, and of soul and body. For at no time had either soul or body a separate subsistence of their own, different from that of the Word, and the subsistence of the Word is for ever one, and at no time two. So that the subsistence of Christ is always one. For, although the soul was separated from the body topically, yet hypostatically they were united through the Word.
Chapter XXVIII.
Concerning Corruption and Destruction.
The word corruption316 has two meanings317 . For it signifies all the human sufferings, such as hunger, thirst, weariness, the piercing with nails, death, that is, the separation of soul and body, and so forth. In this sense we say that our Lord’s body was subject to corruption. For He voluntarily accepted all these things. But corruption means also the complete resolution of the body into its constituent elements, and its utter disappearance, which is spoken of by many preferably as destruction. The body of our Lord did not experience this form of corruption, as the prophet David says, For Thou will not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption318 .
Wherefore to say, with that foolish Julianus and Gaianus, that our Lord’s body was incorruptible, in the first sense of the word, before His resurrection is impious. For if it were incorruptible it was not really, but only apparently, of the same essence as ours, and what the Gospel tells us happened, viz. the hunger, the thirst, the nails, the wound in His side, the death, did not actually occur. But if they only apparently happened, then the mystery of the dispensation is an imposture and a sham, and He became man only in appearance, and not in actual fact, and we are saved only in appearance, and not in actual fact. But God forbid, and may those who so say have no part in the salvation319 . But we have obtained and shall obtain the true salvation. But in the second meaning of the word “corruption,” we confess that our Lord’s body is incorruptible, that is, indestructible, for such is the tradition of the inspired Fathers. Indeed, after the resurrection of our Saviour from the dead, we say that our Lord’s body is incorruptible even in the first sense of the word. For our Lord by His own body bestowed the gifts both of resurrection and of subsequent incorruption even on our own body, He Himself having become to us the firstfruits both of resurrection and incorruption, and of passionlessness320 . For as the divine Apostle says, This corruptible must put an incorruption321 .
Chapter XXIX.
Concerning the Descent to Hades.
The soul322 when it was deified descended into Hades, in order that, just as the Sun of Righteousness323 rose for those upon the earth, so likewise He might bring light to those who sit under the earth in darkness and shadow of death324 : in order that just as He brought the message of peace to those upon the earth, and of release to the prisoners, and of sight to the blind325 , and became to those who believed the Author of everlasting salvation and to those who did not believe a reproach of their unbelief326 , so He might become the same to those in Hades327 : That every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth328 . And thus after He had freed those who had been bound for ages, straightway He rose again from the dead, shewing us the way of resurrection.
Footnotes
289 St. Luke ii. 52.
290 Athanas., Contr. Arian., bk. iv.; Greg. Naz., Ep. I. ad Cled., and Orat. 20; Cyril, Contr. Nest., bk. iii.; Greg. Nyss., Contr. Apoll., II. 28, &c.
291 Text has peiqomai: surely it should be peiqo/menoi.
292 1 Tim. i. 1.
293 Max., Dial. cum Pyrrh.
294 St. John xii. 27.
295 S. Athanas., De salutari adventu Christi, contra Apollinarem towards the end.
296 St. Matt., Greg. Naz, Orat. 36
297 St. Matt. iii. 15
298 St. John xi 42.
299 Greg, Naz., Orat. 42; Chyrs., Hom. 63 in Joan.
300 St. Matt. xxvi. 39
301 Chyrs. In Cat. In St. Matt. xxvi
302 Greg., Orat. 36
303 St. Matt. xxvii. 46.
304 Greg., Orat. 36; Cyril, De recta fide; Athanas., Contr. Arian., bk. Iv.
305 Greg. Nyss., Orat. 38
306 Max. ad Marin. In solut. I dubit. Theod.
307 Greg. Naz., Orat. 36; Athanas., De Salut. Adv. Christi
308 Gal. iii. 15.
309 Photius, Cod. 46
310 Athan., De salut. Adv. Christi
311 Is. liii. 9 ; St. John i. 29.
312 Rom. v. 12.
313 Greg., Orat. 42
314 Cf. Epiph., Hoeres. 69; Greg. Nyss., Contr. Eunom., II. p. 55.
315 u9po/stasij, hypostasis.
316 Leont. De sect., Act. 10, and Dial.cont.Aphthartodoc.
317 Anast Sinait., Hodegus, p. 295
318 Ps. xvi. 10
319 Anast. Sinait., Hodegus, p. 293.
320 1 Cor. xv. 20.
321 Ibid. 53.
322 Cf. Ruf., Expos. Symbol. Apost.; Cassian, Contr. Nestor, bk. vi.; Cyril, Calech. 14.
323 Mal. Iv. 2.
324 Is. Ix. 2.
325 Is. Lxi. I; St. Luke iv. 19.
326 1 Pet. iii. 19.
327 Iren., iv. 45; Greg. Naz., Orat. 42.
328 Phil. ii. 10.BOOK IV