Incapable of Suffering, Part 2

Well then: in the story of Abraham you were not content with the letter. You unfolded it and made the meaning clear. Examine the meaning of the apostle’s words in exactly the same way, and you will see that it was not at all the divine nature that was not withheld, but the flesh nailed to the cross. And the truth is easy to see even in the type. Do you regard Abraham’s sacrifice as a type of the offering made on behalf of the world? [a] Not at all. Nor can I make words spoken for rhetorical effect in the churches a rule of faith. You certainly ought to follow the teachers of the church. But since you wrongly set yourself against them, hear the Savior himself speaking to the Jews: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” Notice that the Lord calls his suffering “a day.” [d] I accept the Lord’s testimony, and I do not doubt the type.

Now compare the type with the reality, and you will see, even in the type, that the Godhead cannot suffer. In the one and in the other there is a father; in the one and in the other a dearly loved son, each carrying the material for the sacrifice. The one carried the wood on his shoulders, the other the cross. It is said that the top of the hill was honored by the sacrifice of both. There is a correspondence, too, in the number of days and nights and in the resurrection that followed. For Isaac had been slain by his father’s willing heart, and on the third day after the generous God had ordered the deed to be done, he rose to new life at the voice of the one who loves humankind. A lamb was seen caught in a thicket, giving an image of the cross, and it was slain in place of the boy. Now if this is a type of the reality, and in the type the only son was not sacrificed, but a lamb was put in his place, laid on the altar, and completed the mystery of the offering, then why do you hesitate, in the reality, to attribute the suffering to the flesh and to proclaim that the Godhead cannot suffer? [e] In your remarks on this type you present Isaac as coming back to life at God’s command. So there is nothing unfitting if we fit the reality to the type and declare that God the Word suffered and came to life again. I have said again and again that the type cannot possibly match the reality it pictures in every respect, and this is easy to see in the present case too. Isaac and the lamb fit the image as far as the difference of their natures goes; but as far as the separation of their distinct persons goes, they do not. We preach so close a union of Godhead and humanity that we understand one undivided person. We acknowledge the same one to be both God and man, visible and invisible, bounded and unbounded, and to the one person we apply all the attributes that point both to Godhead and to humanity. Now the lamb, a creature without reason and not gifted with the divine image, could not possibly prefigure the return to life. So the two divide between them the type of the mystery of the plan of salvation: the one supplies the image of death, the other the image of the resurrection. We find exactly the same thing in the sacrifices of Moses, for in them too we can see a type sketched out beforehand of the suffering that brought salvation. [f] Which sacrifice of Moses foreshadows the reality? The whole Old Testament, so to speak, is a type of the New. That is why the divine apostle says plainly, “the law, having a shadow of the good things to come,” and again, “Now all these things happened to them as examples.” The image of the original is shown very clearly by the lamb slain in Egypt and by the red heifer burned outside the camp. The apostle refers to this too in the letter to the Hebrews, where he writes, “Therefore Jesus also, so that he might make the people holy with his own blood, suffered outside the gate.” [j] But no more of this for the present. I will, however, mention the sacrifice in which two goats were offered, one slain and the other let go. In these two goats there is an image, given in advance, of the two natures of the Savior: in the one let go, of the Godhead that cannot suffer; in the one slain, of the humanity that can. [l]

Do you not think it irreverent to compare the Lord to goats? Which do you think is more fit to be shunned and hated, a serpent or a goat? A serpent is plainly hateful, for it injures those who come within its reach, and often hurts people who have done it no harm. A goat, on the other hand, is listed by the law among the animals that are clean and may be eaten. Now hear the Lord comparing the suffering that brought salvation to the bronze serpent. He says, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” If a bronze serpent was a type of the crucified Savior, what impropriety do we commit in comparing the suffering that saved us with the sacrifice of the goats? [m] Because John called the Lord “a lamb,” and Isaiah called him “lamb” and “sheep.” [n] But the blessed Paul calls him “sin” and “curse.” As curse, then, he fulfills the type of the accursed serpent; as sin, he explains the figure of the sacrifice of the goats. For in the law a goat, not a lamb, was offered for sin. So too the Lord in the Gospels compared the righteous to lambs and sinners to young goats. And since he was appointed to suffer not only for the righteous but also for sinners, he fittingly foreshadows his own offering through both lambs and goats. [o] But the type of the two goats leads us to think of two persons. The humanity’s capacity for suffering and the Godhead’s incapacity for it could not possibly both be prefigured at once by one goat. The one that was slain could not have shown the living nature. So two were taken, to explain the two natures. The same lesson may well be learned from another sacrifice. Which? The one in which the lawgiver commands that two clean birds be offered: one to be slain, and the other, after being dipped in the blood of the one slain, to be let go. Here too we see a type of the Godhead and of the humanity: of the humanity slain, and of the Godhead taking the suffering as its own. [p] You have given us many types, but I have no use for riddles. Yet the divine apostle says that the narratives are types. Hagar is called a type of the old covenant; Sarah is compared to the heavenly Jerusalem; Ishmael is a type of Israel, and Isaac of the new people. So you must accuse the loud trumpet of the Spirit of giving riddles to us all. [q]

However many arguments you press on me, you will never persuade me to divide the suffering. I have heard the voice of the angel saying to Mary and the women with her, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” [r] This is quite in keeping with our ordinary way of speaking: we call the part by the name that belongs to the whole. When we go into the churches where the holy apostles, or prophets, or martyrs are buried, we sometimes ask, “Who is it that lies in this shrine?” And those who can tell us answer, perhaps, “Thomas the apostle,” or “John the Baptist,” or “Stephen the first martyr,” or some other of the saints, naming them by name, though perhaps only a few scant relics of them lie there. But no one who hears these names, which belong to body and soul together, imagines that the souls too are shut up in the caskets. Everyone knows that the caskets hold only the bodies, or even small portions of the bodies. The holy angel spoke in exactly the same way when he called the body by the name of the person. [s] But how can you prove that the angel was speaking to the women about the Lord’s body? First of all, the tomb itself is enough to settle the question. For neither a soul nor the Godhead, whose nature is unbounded, is committed to a tomb; tombs are made for bodies. Further, the divine Scripture teaches this plainly, for this is how the holy Matthew tells what happened: “When evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who himself was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be handed over. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut out in the rock. And he rolled a great stone against the door of the tomb and went away.” See how often he mentions the body, to stop the mouths of those who blaspheme the Godhead. The thrice-blessed Mark takes the same course, and I will quote his account as well: “And now, when evening had come, because it was the Day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, came and went in boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. And Pilate wondered whether he was already dead; and calling the centurion to him, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time. And when he learned it from the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. And he brought fine linen, took him down, wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a tomb,” and so on. Notice with admiration how the terms agree, and how consistently and continually the word “body” is brought in. The illustrious Luke too tells in just the same way how Joseph asked for the body, and, after receiving it, gave it the proper rites. And the divine John tells us still more: “Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took the body of Jesus. And Nicodemus also came, who at first had come to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Then they took the body of Jesus and wound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the Jewish custom of burial. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid. So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish Day of Preparation, for the tomb was close at hand.” Notice how often the body is mentioned. The evangelist shows that it was the body that was nailed to the cross, the body that Joseph asked of Pilate, the body taken down from the tree, the body wrapped in linen cloths with the myrrh and aloes; and then he gives it the name of the person, and Jesus is said to have been laid in a tomb. So too the angel said, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay,” naming the part by the name of the whole. And we constantly do just the same. We say, “In this place so-and-so was buried,” not “the body of so-and-so.” Everyone in his right mind knows that we are speaking of the body. And this way of speaking is customary in the divine Scripture. We read that Aaron died and they buried him on Mount Hor; that Samuel died and they buried him at Ramah; and there are many similar cases. The divine apostle uses the same way of speaking about the death of the Lord. “I delivered to you first of all,” he writes, “what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures,” and so on. [t]

In the passages we have just read, the apostle does not mention a body, but Christ, the Savior of us all. You have brought evidence against your own side and wounded yourself with your own weapon. You seem to have very quickly forgotten the long discussion in which I proved to you over and over that the body is spoken of by the name of the person. This is what the divine apostle is doing now, and it can easily be proved from this very passage. Let us look at it. Why did the divine writer write this to the Corinthians? Some people had misled them into believing that there is no resurrection. When the teacher of the world learned this, he supplied them with his arguments for the resurrection of bodies. Then why does he bring in the resurrection of the Lord, when he wants to prove the resurrection of bodies? Because it is enough to prove the resurrection of us all. In what way is his death like the death of everyone else, so that the resurrection of all may be proved by his resurrection? The reason the only Son of God became man, suffered and died was that he might destroy death. So after he rose, by his own resurrection he proclaims the resurrection of all. But who, hearing of the resurrection of God, would ever believe that the resurrection of all human beings would be just like it? The difference of the natures does not let us believe the argument for the resurrection. He is God and they are human beings, and the difference between God and human beings is beyond measure. They are mortal and subject to death, like the grass and the flower. He is almighty. But after he became man, God the Word had a body, and through it he showed his likeness to human beings. Yes, and for this reason the suffering, the death and the resurrection all belong to the body. In proof of this, the divine apostle in another place promises renewal of life to all. To those who believe in the resurrection of their Savior, yet regard the general resurrection of all as a fable, he exclaims, “Now if Christ is preached as risen from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen; and if Christ is not risen, … your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.” So from the past he confirms the future, and from what they disbelieve he disproves what they believe. For he is saying: If the one seems impossible to you, then the other will be false; if the one seems real and true, then let the other seem true as well. For here too a resurrection of the body is preached, and this body is called the firstfruits of the others. After many arguments he affirms the resurrection of this body directly: “But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” And he does not only confirm the argument for the resurrection; he also reveals the mystery of the plan of salvation. He calls Christ man to prove that the remedy fits the disease. [aa] Then the Christ is only a man. Far from it! On the contrary, we have confessed again and again that he is not only man but eternal God. But he suffered as man, not as God. And the divine apostle teaches us this clearly when he says, “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.” And in his letter to the Thessalonians he strengthens his argument about the general resurrection by the resurrection of our Savior, in the passage, “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus.” [ac] The apostle proves the general resurrection by means of the Lord’s resurrection, and it is clear that in this case too what died and rose was a body. For he would never have tried to prove the general resurrection by it unless there were some kinship between the substance of the one and of the other. Yet I will never agree to attribute the suffering to the human nature alone. It suits my view to say that God the Word died in the flesh. We have often shown that what is immortal by nature cannot die in any way. If, then, he died, he was not immortal. And see what dangers lie in the blasphemy of those words! He is immortal by nature, but he became man and suffered. Then he underwent change. For how else could he, being immortal, submit to death? But we have agreed that the substance of the Trinity cannot change. Since, then, his nature is above change, he in no way shared in death.

The divine Peter says, “Christ has suffered for us in the flesh.” [ad] This agrees with what we have said, for we have learned the rule of doctrine from the divine Scripture. Then how can you deny that God the Word suffered in the flesh? Because we have not found this expression in the divine Scripture. But I have just quoted you the words of the great Peter. You seem not to notice the distinction between the terms. What terms? Do you not regard the Lord Christ as God the Word? In the case of our Lord and Savior, the name Christ means the Word made flesh, Immanuel, God with us, both God and man. But the name “God the Word,” used by itself, means the simple nature that is before the world, above time, and without a body. That is why the Holy Spirit, who spoke through the holy apostles, nowhere attaches suffering or death to this name. [ae] If the suffering is attributed to the Christ, and God the Word, after being made man, was called Christ, then I hold that anyone who says that God the Word suffered in the flesh is not being unreasonable at all. That is an attempt dangerous and rash in the extreme. But let us look at the question this way. Does the divine Scripture say that God the Word is from God and from the Father? True. And it speaks of the Holy Spirit as likewise being from God? Agreed. But it calls God the Word the only Son. It does. It nowhere gives the Holy Spirit this name. No. Yet the Holy Spirit too has its existence from God the Father. True.

We grant, then, that the Son and the Holy Spirit are both from God the Father. But would you dare to call the Holy Spirit Son? Certainly not. Why not? Because I do not find this term in the divine Scripture. Or begotten? No. Why not? Because I do not learn this from the divine Scripture either. But what name can properly be given to what is neither begotten nor created? We call it uncreated and unbegotten. And we say that the Holy Spirit is neither created nor begotten. No, it is neither. Would you dare, then, to call the Holy Spirit unbegotten? No. But why do you refuse to call what is uncreated by nature, but not begotten, unbegotten? Because I have not learned it from the divine Scripture, and I am very much afraid of saying anything, or using any language, that Scripture does not use. Then, my good sir, I keep the same caution in the case of the suffering that brought salvation. You too, avoid all the divine names that Scripture has avoided in speaking of the suffering, and do not attribute the suffering to them. What names? The suffering is never connected with the name “God.”

But even I do not say that God the Word suffered apart from a body. I say that he suffered in the flesh. Then you are describing a manner of suffering, not freedom from suffering. No one would ever say this even about a human body. For who, unless he were altogether out of his mind, would say that the soul of Paul died in the flesh? This could never be said even of a great villain, for the souls even of the wicked are immortal. We say that such and such a murderer has been killed, but no one would ever say that his soul was killed in the flesh. But if we describe the souls of murderers and grave robbers as free from death, it is far more right to acknowledge as immortal the soul of our Savior, since it never tasted sin. If the souls of those who have gone most badly wrong have escaped death because of their nature, how could that soul, whose nature was immortal and which never received the least stain of sin, have swallowed death’s hook? It is quite useless for you to give me all these long arguments. We agree that the Savior’s soul is immortal. But what punishment do you not deserve? You say that the soul, which is created by nature, is immortal, and yet you would make the divine substance of the Word mortal. You deny that the Savior’s soul tasted death in the flesh, and yet you dare to maintain that God the Word, the Creator of all things, underwent the suffering. We say that he suffered without suffering. [af] And what man in his right mind would ever put up with such ridiculous riddles? Who ever heard of a suffering that does not suffer, or of an immortal mortality? What cannot suffer has never suffered, and what has suffered could not possibly be incapable of suffering. But we hear the divine Paul cry out, “who alone has immortality, dwelling in the light that no one can approach.” [ag] Then why do we say that the invisible powers too, and human souls, yes, and even the demons, are immortal? We do say so. But God is immortal absolutely. He is immortal not by sharing in it, but in his very substance; he does not have an immortality received from someone else. It is he himself who has given their immortality to the angels and to the others you have just mentioned. Moreover, when the divine Paul calls him immortal and says that he alone has immortality, how can you attribute to him the suffering of death? We say that he tasted death after he became man. But we have confessed over and over that he cannot change. If, being immortal before, he afterward underwent death through the flesh, then a change came first, before he underwent death. And if his life left him for three days and three nights, how do such statements fall short of the most extreme impiety? For I do not think that even those who are struggling against impiety can venture to let such words fall from their lips without danger.

Stop charging us with impiety. We too say that it was not the divine nature that suffered but the human. But we do say that the divine nature shared the suffering with the body. What can you mean by sharing in suffering? Do you mean that when the nails were driven into the body, the divine nature felt the pain? I do. Both now and in our earlier discussions we have shown that the soul does not share all the faculties of the body. Rather, the body, while it has the force of life in it, has its sense of suffering through the soul. And even if we grant that the soul shares the pain with the body, we will still find the divine nature incapable of suffering, for it was not united to the body in place of a soul. Or do you not acknowledge that he took a soul? I have acknowledged it often. And that he took a reasoning soul? [ah] Yes. If, then, he took the soul together with the body, and we grant that the soul shared the suffering with the body, then it was the soul, not the Godhead, that shared the suffering with the body; it shared it by receiving the pains through the body. But perhaps someone might agree that the soul shares suffering with the body, and yet deny that it shares death, because its nature is immortal. That is why the Lord said, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” If, then, we deny that the Savior’s soul shared death with the body, how could anyone accept the blasphemy that you and your friends presumptuously spread when you dare to say that the divine nature had a share in death? This is all the more inexcusable when the Lord shows at one time that it was the body that was being offered, and at another that it was the soul that was troubled. [ai]

And where does the Lord show that the body was being offered? Or are you going to bring me once more that well-worn passage, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”? Or, in your conceited self-satisfaction, are you going to quote me the words of the evangelist: “But he spoke of the temple of his body. So when he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this to them, and they believed the Scripture and the words he had said”? [ak] If you so detest the divine words that proclaim the mystery of his becoming man, why do you not cut out passages of this kind, like Marcion and Valentinus and Mani? For that is what they have done. But if this seems to you rash and impious, do not make fun of the Lord’s words. Follow the apostles instead, who believed after the resurrection that the Godhead raised again the temple the Jews had destroyed. [al] If you have any good evidence to offer, stop jeering and keep your promise. Remember especially the words in the Gospels where the Lord compared the manna with the true bread. I remember. In that passage, after speaking at some length about the bread of life, he added, “The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” In these words we can understand both the generosity of the Godhead and the gift of the flesh. [am] One quotation is not enough to settle the question. The Ethiopian eunuch had not read much of the Bible, but when he found one witness from the prophets, he was guided by it to salvation. But all the apostles and prophets, and all the preachers of the truth who have lived since then, are not enough to convince you. Still, I will bring you some further testimony about the Lord’s body. You surely know the passage in the Gospel story where, after eating the Passover with his disciples, our Lord pointed to the death of the lamb that was the type, and taught which body answered to that shadow. [an] Yes, I know it. Remember, then, what our Lord took and broke, and what he called it when he had taken it. I will answer in the veiled language of the mysteries, because of those not yet initiated. After taking it, breaking it, and giving it to his disciples, he said, “This is my body, which was given for you,” or, as the apostle has it, “broken”; and again, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.” [ap] So when he showed the type of the suffering, he did not mention the Godhead? No. But he did mention the body and the blood. Yes. And the body was nailed to the cross? Yes, it was.

Come, then, look at this. After the resurrection, when the doors were shut and the Lord came to the holy disciples and saw that they were terrified, what means did he use to drive out their fear and to put faith in its place? He said to them, “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” [ar] So when they disbelieved, he showed them the body? He did. Then the body rose? Clearly. And I suppose what rose was what had died? Yes. And what had died was what was nailed to the cross? Necessarily. Then by your own argument the body suffered? Your chain of arguments forces us to this conclusion.

Consider this too. Now I will be the questioner, and you answer as befits a lover of the truth. I will answer. When the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles, and that wonderful sight and sound drew thousands to the house, what did the chief of the apostles say about the Lord’s resurrection in the speech he made then? He quoted the divine David. He said that David had received promises from God that the Lord Christ would be born of his descendants, and that, trusting in these promises, David foresaw his resurrection as a prophet and said plainly that his soul was not left in Hades and that his flesh did not see decay. [as] So his resurrection is the resurrection of these. How can anyone in his right mind speak of a resurrection of the soul, which never died? How is it that you, who attribute the suffering, the death and the resurrection to the unchangeable and unbounded Godhead, have suddenly appeared before us in your right mind, and now object to linking the word “resurrection” with the soul? Because the word “resurrection” applies to what has fallen. [at] But the body does not gain its resurrection apart from a soul. It is renewed by the divine will, joined to its yoke-mate, and receives life. Was it not in this way that the Lord raised Lazarus? It is plain that the body does not rise alone. The divine Ezekiel teaches this more clearly still. He shows how the Lord commanded the bones to come together, and how they were all properly fitted together; how he made sinews and veins and arteries grow, with all the flesh that belongs to them and the skin that covers them all; and how he then ordered the souls to come back to their own bodies. [au] This is true. But the Lord’s body did not undergo this decay. It remained unharmed, and on the third day it received back its own soul. Agreed. Then the death belonged to what had suffered? Without question. And when the great Peter spoke of the resurrection, and the divine David too, they said that his soul was not left in Hades, and that his body did not undergo decay? [av] They did. Then it was not the Godhead that underwent death, but the body, by being separated from the soul?

I cannot put up with these absurdities. But you are fighting against your own arguments. It is your own words you are calling absurd. You slander me. Not one of these words is mine. Suppose someone asks what animal is at once reasoning and mortal, and someone else answers, “Man.” Which of the two would you call the author of the statement, the one who asked or the one who answered? The one who answered. Then was I not quite right to call the arguments yours? For by rejecting some points and accepting others in your answers, you confirmed them, I think. Then I will not answer any longer. You answer. I will answer. What do you say to the apostle’s words, “Had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”? In this passage he mentions neither body nor soul. [aw] Then you must not put the words “in the flesh” into it, for that is your clever invention for belittling the Godhead of the Word. You must attribute the suffering to the bare Godhead of the Word. No, no. He suffered in the flesh, but his bodiless nature was not capable of suffering by itself. Ah, but nothing must be added to the apostle’s words. When we know the apostle’s meaning, there is nothing absurd in adding what has been left out. But to add anything to the divine words is reckless and rash. To explain what is written and reveal its hidden meaning is holy and devout. Quite right. Then we two will do nothing unreasonable or unholy in examining the mind of the Scriptures. No. Then let us look together into what seems to be hidden. By all means.

Did the great Paul call the divine James the Lord’s brother? [ax] He did. But in what sense are we to regard him as a brother? By kinship with his Godhead or with his humanity? I will not agree to divide the united natures. But you have often divided them in our earlier discussions, and you will do the same now. Tell me: do you say that God the Word is the only Son? I do. And “only Son” means that there is no other son. [ay] Certainly. And the only Son cannot have a brother? Of course not, for if he had had a brother he would not be called the only Son. Then they were wrong to call James the brother of the Lord. For the Lord was the only Son, and the only Son cannot have a brother. No; but the Lord is not without a body, and the preachers of the truth are referring only to what concerns the Godhead. Then how would you prove the apostle’s word true? By saying that James was related to the Lord according to the flesh. See how you have brought back the very division you object to. There was no other way to explain the kinship. Then do not find fault with those who cannot explain similar difficulties any other way. Now you are getting the argument off track, because you want to dodge the question. Not at all, my friend. That too will be settled by the points we have examined. Look now: when you were reminded of James the brother of the Lord, you said that the kinship referred not to the Godhead but to the flesh. I did. Well then, now that you are told of the suffering on the cross, refer this too to the flesh. The apostle called the one who was crucified “Lord of glory,” and the same apostle called the Lord “brother of James.” [az] And it is the same Lord in both cases. If, then, you are right to refer the kinship to the flesh, you must also refer the suffering to the flesh. For it is utterly ridiculous to make a distinction about the kinship and then attribute the suffering to Christ without distinction. [ba] I follow the apostle, who calls the one who was crucified “Lord of glory.”

I follow him too, and I believe that he was the “Lord of glory.” For the body nailed to the wood was not the body of any ordinary man, but of the Lord of glory. But we must acknowledge that the union makes the names shared. Once more: do you say that the Lord’s flesh came down from heaven? Of course not. But that it was formed in the Virgin’s womb? Yes. Then how does the Lord say, “If you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before,” and again, “No one has ascended to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven”? [bb] He is speaking not of the flesh but of the Godhead. Yes, but the Godhead is from God the Father. Then how does he call him the Son of Man? The distinctive properties of the natures are shared by the person. For because of the union the same one is both Son of Man and Son of God, eternal and in time, Son of David and Lord of David, and so on with the rest. Very right. But it is also important to recognize that no mixing of the natures results from both having one name. That is why we are trying to distinguish how the same one is Son of God and also Son of Man, and how he is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” And by a reverent distinction of terms we find that the contradictions are in agreement. [bc] You are right. You say that the divine nature came down from heaven, and that because of the union it was called the Son of Man. In the same way, we ought to say that the flesh was nailed to the tree, but hold that the divine nature, even on the cross and in the tomb, was not separated from this flesh, though it received from it no sense of suffering. For the divine nature is by nature incapable of both suffering and death, and its substance is immortal and incapable of suffering. It is in this sense that the one who was crucified is called the Lord of glory: the title of the nature that cannot suffer is given to the nature that can, since, as we know, it is to the latter that a body is said to belong. [bd]