The Unmixed, Part 4

“‘Who can tell the mighty acts of the Lord, or make known all his praise?’ Who could put into words the greatness of his goodness toward us? Human nature is joined to the Godhead, while both natures remain independent.” [a]

The testimony of Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem. From his fourth lecture to those preparing for baptism, on the ten points of doctrine. [b] On the birth from a virgin: “Believe that this only Son of God came down from heaven to earth because of our sins. He took on himself this humanity, which has the same feelings and weaknesses as ours, and was born of the holy Virgin and of the Holy Spirit. This incarnation did not happen in appearance or as an illusion, but in reality. He did not merely pass through the Virgin as through a channel; he was truly made flesh from her. Like us he really ate, and he was really nursed by the Virgin. For if the incarnation was not real, then our salvation is a delusion. “The Christ was twofold: the visible man, the invisible God. As man he ate, truly like ourselves, for the flesh he wore had the same feelings and weaknesses as ours. As God he fed the five thousand with five loaves. As man he really died. As God he raised the dead on the fourth day. As man he slept in the boat. As God he walked on the waters.” [c]

The testimony of Antiochus, bishop of Ptolemais: [d] “Do not confuse the natures, and you will have a living understanding of the incarnation.”

The testimony of the holy Hilary, bishop and confessor, from the ninth book of his work On the Faith: [e] “Whoever does not know Jesus the Christ as truly God and as truly man does not really know his own life. For we run the same danger whether we deny that Christ Jesus is God the Spirit, or deny that he is the flesh of our own body. ‘Everyone therefore who confesses me before men, I also will confess before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.’ “The Word made flesh spoke these things; the man Christ Jesus, the Lord of glory, taught them, having been made Mediator for the salvation of the church in the very mystery by which he stood as Mediator between God and men. Being made one out of the natures united for this very purpose, he was one and the same through either nature, yet in such a way that in both he lacked nothing of either. This was so that he should not, by being born as man, cease to be God, nor, by remaining God, fail to be man. “This, then, is the blessedness of the true faith among men: to proclaim both God and man, to confess both Word and flesh, to recognize that God was also man, and not to be ignorant that the flesh is also Word.” [f] From the same writer, in the same book: “So God the only Son, born a man of a Virgin in the fullness of time, being himself appointed to carry out man’s advance to God, kept this order throughout all the words of the Gospels: he taught us to believe in him as the Son of God, and he kept us mindful to proclaim him as the Son of Man. Being man, he always spoke and acted as is proper to man, but in such a way that he never spoke in this same manner of speech, which touched both, without meaning to signify both God and man. “But from this the heretics take a pretext for catching simple and ignorant people in their traps. What our Lord said in keeping with his humanity they falsely claim was spoken in the weakness of his divine nature. And since one and the same person spoke all the words he used, they insist that everything he said he said about himself. “Now we ourselves do not deny that all his words that have come down to us belong to his own nature. But grant that the one Christ is man and God. Grant that when he was man he did not then first become God. Grant that when he was man he was then also God. Grant that after the Lord took humanity to himself, the Word was man and the Word was God. Then it necessarily follows that the mystery of his words is one and the same as the mystery of his birth. “Whenever, as the occasion requires, you distinguish in him the humanity from the Godhead, then try also to separate the words of God from the words of man. And whenever you confess God and man, then tell apart the words of God and of man. And when the words are spoken of God and man, and again of man wholly and wholly of God, consider the occasion carefully. If anything was said to signify what suited a particular occasion, apply the words to that occasion. “A distinction must be kept between God before the humanity; man and God; and wholly man and wholly God after the union of the humanity and the Godhead. So take care not to confuse the mystery of the incarnation in his words and acts. For according to the character of the kinds of natures, there must be a difference in the manner of speech: before the humanity was born; in keeping with the mystery, when it was still on its way to death; and again when it was everlasting. ‘For though in his birth and in his suffering and in his death he acted in keeping with our nature, he nevertheless accomplished all of it by the power of his own nature.’” [g] From the same writer, in the same book: “Do you see, then, that God and man are confessed in this way: death is said of the man, and the resurrection of the flesh is said of God? Consider the nature of God and the power of the resurrection, and recognize in the death the plan of salvation as it concerns the man. And since both the death and the resurrection came about, each in its own nature, keep in mind, I beg you, the one Christ Jesus, who was of both. I have shown you these points briefly so that we may remember that both natures were in our Lord Jesus Christ, ‘for, being in the form of God, he took the form of a servant.’” [h]

The testimony of the most holy bishop Augustine. [i] From his letter to Volusianus, the third letter: “But now he appeared as Mediator between God and man, so as to join both natures in the unity of his person, combining the ordinary with the extraordinary, and the extraordinary with the ordinary.” From the same writer, from his exposition of the Gospel according to John: [j] “What then, heretic? Since Christ is also man, he speaks as man; and do you slander God? In himself he lifts human nature on high, and you have the nerve to cheapen his divine nature.” From the same writer, from his book on the Exposition of the Faith: “It is ours to believe, but his to know. So let God the Word himself, after receiving everything that belongs to man, be man; and let the man, after being taken up and receiving everything that belongs to God, be nothing other than God. It must not be supposed, because he is said to have become incarnate and to have been mixed, that his substance was therefore made less. God knows that he mixes himself without the corruption of nature, and he is mixed in reality. He knows, too, that he so received into himself that nothing was added to him as an increase, just as he knows that he poured in his whole self so as to suffer no loss. “Let us not, then, following our weak understanding and guessing from what experience and the senses teach, suppose that God and man are mixed in the way that created things of equal rank are mixed together, and that out of such a blending of the Word and the flesh a kind of body was made. Far be it from us to believe this, lest we should suppose that two natures were brought into one hypostasis in the way that things are blended together. For a mixture of that kind means the destruction of both parts. “But Christ himself contains and is not contained. He examines us and is himself beyond examination. He fills and is not filled. He is everywhere at one and the same time, being whole in himself and pervading the universe. By pouring out his own power, as one moved with mercy, he was mingled with the nature of man, though the nature of man was not mingled with the divine.” [k]

The testimony of Severian, bishop of Gabala. [l] From his sermon On the Birth of Christ: “O mystery truly heavenly and yet on earth! A mystery seen and yet not visible! For that is what the Christ was after his birth: heavenly and yet on earth; holding and not held; seen and invisible; of heaven in the nature of his Godhead, on earth in the nature of his humanity; seen in the flesh, invisible in the spirit; held as to the body, not to be held as to the Word.”

The testimony of Atticus, bishop of Constantinople. [m] From his letter to Eupsychius: “How, then, was it fitting for the Most Wise to act? Through the flesh he took up, and through the union of God the Word with the man born of Mary, he is made of both natures. So the Christ, made one out of both, as he exists in his Godhead, remains in the dignity proper to his nature, which cannot suffer. But in the flesh, coming near to death, he shows at one and the same time the nature that is kin to his flesh how to despise death through death, and by his death he confirms the righteousness of the new covenant.”

The testimony of Cyril, bishop of Alexandria. From his letter to Nestorius: [n] “The natures that have been brought together into the true unity are distinct, and from both there is one God and Son. But the difference of the natures has not been taken away because of the union.” From the same writer, from his letter against the Easterners: [o] “There is a union of two natures. That is why we acknowledge one Christ, one Son, one Lord. In keeping with this understanding of the unmixed union, we acknowledge the holy Virgin as Mother of God, because the Word of God was made flesh and became man, and from the very moment of conception united to himself the temple taken from her.” [p] From the same writer: “There is one Lord Jesus Christ, even though the difference is recognized of the natures out of which, we say, the union beyond words was made.” From the same writer: “Therefore, as I said, while we praise the manner of the incarnation, we see that two natures came together in an inseparable union, without confusion and without division. For the flesh is flesh and in no way Godhead, although it became the flesh of God. In the same way the Word is God and not flesh, although he made the flesh his own in the plan of salvation.” [q] From the same writer, from his interpretation of the Letter to the Hebrews: “For although the natures that came together into unity are regarded as different and unequal to one another, I mean the nature of flesh and the nature of God, nevertheless the Son who was made of both is one.” From the same writer, from his interpretation of the same letter: “Yet though the Word of God, the only Son, is said to be united to flesh in hypostasis, we deny that there was any confusion of the natures with one another, and we declare that each remains what it is.” From the same writer, from his commentaries: “The Father’s Word, born of the Virgin, is called man, though he is God by nature, because he shared in flesh and blood as we do. For this is how he was seen by men on earth: not getting rid of his own nature, but taking on our humanity, complete as its own nature defines it.” [r] From the same writer, on the incarnation, in his Scholia, chapter 13: [s] “Before the incarnation, then, there is one who is truly God, and in his humanity he remains what he was and is and will be. So the one Lord Jesus Christ must not be separated into a man apart and a God apart. Rather, recognizing the difference of the natures and keeping them unmixed with one another, we declare that there is one and the same Christ Jesus.” From the same writer, after other commentaries: “We plainly perceive one thing dwelling in another, namely the divine nature in the humanity, without undergoing any mixing or any confusion, or any change into what it was not. For what is said to dwell in another does not become the same as that in which it dwells, but is rather regarded as one thing in another. But in the nature of the Word and of the humanity, the difference points out to us only a difference of natures, for out of both one Christ is perceived. That is why he says that the Word ‘pitched his tent among us,’ carefully keeping the freedom from confusion; for he recognizes one only Son, who was made flesh and became man.” [t]

Now, my friend, you have heard the great lights of the world. You have seen the rays of their teaching, and you have been taught exactly how, not only after his birth, but also after the suffering that brought salvation, and after the resurrection, and after his being taken up into heaven, they have shown that the union of the Godhead and the humanity is without confusion. I did not suppose that they distinguished the natures after the union, but I have found no end of distinction. It is madness and recklessness so much as to wag your tongue against those noble champions of the faith. But I will bring forward for you the words of Apollinarius, so that you may know that he too says the union is without confusion. Now hear his words.

The testimony of Apollinarius. [u] From his summary: “There is a union between what is of God and what is of the body. On the one side is the Creator, who is worshiped, who is eternal wisdom and power; these belong to the Godhead. On the other side is the Son of Mary, born in the last time, worshiping God, advancing in wisdom, strengthened in power; these belong to the body. The suffering on behalf of sin, and the curse, came; and they will not pass away, nor be changed into what is bodiless.” And again, a little further on: “Men are of one substance with the animals that lack reason, as far as the body without reason is concerned; but they are of another substance insofar as they have reason. In just the same way God, who is of one substance with men according to the flesh, is of another substance insofar as he is Word and Man.” [v] And in another place he says: “When things are mingled together, their qualities are mixed and not destroyed. So it happens that some things are separate from the parts mixed with them, as wine is from water. Yet here there is no mingling with a body, nor such as there is of bodies with bodies; rather, the mingling also preserves what is unmixed. So, as each occasion requires, the working of the Godhead either acts on its own or acts jointly. “That is what happened when the Lord fasted. While the Godhead acted jointly, in keeping with its being above all need, hunger was held back. But when it no longer set its freedom from need against the craving, then hunger arose, to the devil’s undoing. But if the mixture of the bodies suffered no change, how much more is that true of the Godhead?” [w] And in another place he says: “If the mixture of fire with iron, which makes the iron itself fire, does not change the iron’s nature, so too the union of God with the body brings no change to the body, even though the body extends its divine workings to whatever lies within its reach.” To this he immediately adds: “If a man has both soul and body, and these remain in unity, much more does the Christ, who has Godhead and body, keep both secure and unmixed.” And again, a little further on: “For human nature shares in the divine working as far as it is able, but it is as distinct from it as the least is from the greatest. Man is a servant of God, but God is not the servant of man, nor even of himself. Man is a creature of God, but God is not a creature of man, nor even of himself.”

And again: “Suppose someone takes the passage ‘The Son does what he sees the Father doing’ as said of the Godhead and not of the flesh, the passage in which he who was made flesh is distinguished from the Father, who was not made flesh. That person divides the divine working into two. But there is no division. So he is not speaking with reference to the Godhead.” [x] Again he says: “Just as a man is not a being without reason because in him what has reason is in contact with what has none, so the Savior is not a creature because in him the creature is in contact with the uncreated God.” To this he also adds: “The invisible, united to a visible body and seen through it, remains invisible. It remains without composition, because it is not bounded by the body. And the body, remaining within its own measure, receives the union with God as one that is given life; and it is not what is given life that gives life.” And a little further on he says: “Soul and body grow together from the beginning, yet their mixture does not make the soul visible because of the body, nor change it into the other properties of the body, so that it could be cut or made smaller. How much more, then, is God, who is not of the same nature as the body, united to the body without undergoing change! And if the human body remains in its own nature, and that while it is given life by a soul, then in the case of Christ the mingling does not so change the body that it is no longer a body.” And further on he says again: “Whoever confesses that, according to Scripture, soul and body are made one, contradicts himself when he says that this union of the Word with the body is a change, since no such change is seen even in the case of a soul.” Listen to him again, as he declares it plainly: “If those who deny that the flesh of the Lord endures are ungodly, much more are those who refuse to accept his incarnation at all.” And in his little book on the Incarnation he has written: “He speaks the words ‘Sit at my right hand’ as to a man. For they are not spoken to the one who, as God the Word, sits forever on the throne of glory, after his ascension from earth. They are said to him who has now been raised to the heavenly glory as man, as the apostles say: ‘For David did not go up into the heavens, but he himself says, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand.’ The order is human, for it gives the sitting a beginning. But it is a divine dignity to sit together with God, ‘whom thousands upon thousands serve, and before whom ten thousand times ten thousand stand.’” [y] And again, a little further on: “He does not put his enemies under him as God but as man, yet in such a way that the God who is seen and the man are the same. Paul too teaches us that the words ‘until I make your enemies your footstool’ are spoken to men, while he describes the victory as Christ’s own, as of course befits his divinity: ‘by the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself.’ See the Godhead and the humanity existing inseparably in one person.” [z] And again: “‘Glorify me with yourself, with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.’ He uses the word ‘glorify’ as man, but as God he reveals that he had this glory before the ages.” [aa] And again: “But let us not feel humbled, as though worshiping the Son of God, even in his human likeness, were a humiliation. Let us rather worship as though we were honoring a king who appears in poor clothing with his royal glory, all the more because the very garment he wears is glorified, as befitted the body of God and of the world’s Savior. That body is the seed of eternal life, the instrument of divine deeds, the destroyer of all wickedness, the slayer of death, and the leader of the resurrection. For though it had its nature from man, it drew its life from God, and its power and divine strength from heaven.” And again: “That is why we worship the body as the Word, and we partake of the body as of the spirit.” [ab]

Now it has been plainly shown to you that the writer who first brought in the mixture of the natures openly uses the argument of a distinction between them. So he has called the body a garment, a creature, and an instrument. He even went so far as to call it a slave, which none of us has ever dared to do. He also says that it was counted worthy of the seat at the right hand, and he uses many other expressions that your empty heresy rejects. But why, then, did the man who first brought in the mixture put so great a distinction into his arguments? The power of the truth forces even those who fight fiercely against her to agree with what she says. But, if you are willing, let us now begin a discussion of the Lord’s freedom from suffering. [ac] You know that musicians are in the habit of giving their strings a rest, and they slacken them by turning the pegs. If, then, things wholly without reason and soul need some relief, we who share in both will do nothing unreasonable if we measure out our labor in proportion to our strength. So let us put it off until tomorrow. The divine David charges us to give our attention to the divine sayings by night and by day. But let it be as you say, and let us keep the investigation of the rest of our subject until tomorrow. [ad]