B Therefore, the Prophet proclaimed elsewhere, saying: "O Lord, bow the heavens and descend; touch the mountains, and they shall smoke; flash forth lightning, and You shall scatter them." This he said, announcing the destruction of the powers of Hades to those who were still sitting in the shadow of death; and that this was indeed accomplished by the burial and resurrection of the Lord, we are abundantly convinced. For in another chapter we again hear the Psalmist saying: "Ascending to the height, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts to men." For by His resurrection, the only-begotten Son of God, having snatched the human race from the captivity of death, and having ascended above the heavens, armed those who are eager for righteousness (for He is the King of glory), daily fortifying with rational breastplates those who fight under Him beneath the standards of humility; for it was fitting for Him to perfect praise out of the mouth of infants and nursing babes, and to utterly reject those who pridefully thought themselves perfect. For humility is truly the seal of piety; therefore, they who did not believe that, according to the prophecy, we would live in the light of the living after the resurrection of Christ, have reaped the fruit of their own madness. C
III. But let us, brothers, consider once again the words of the Psalmist, so that we may see once more with the eyes of the intellect the Lord ascending into the heavens upon a cloud; for my reason persuades me for the time being to hold back the testimony of the apostles, lest I seem to the insane to be relying on an argument useful to myself, when in fact every apostolic word receives its testimony from prophetic truth; for the words of the apostles are nothing other than the offspring of prophetic oracles. For what the prophets hinted at concerning the incarnation of the Lord through foreknowledge, the apostles, inspired by the same Holy Spirit, recounted with present knowledge. Since, as it is written, "As the years draw near, You shall be known, and as the time is present, You shall be demonstrated." Let us therefore say again: "O Lord, our Lord, how admirable is Your name in all the earth! For Your magnificence is exalted above the heavens," in order that we may know clearly that the incarnation of the Lord, and His return from earth to the heavens, of which we celebrate the memory today, has filled the world with the knowledge of God. For as long as He was upon the earth, the many thought but little of the greatness of His glory; D but after He had manifestly ascended into the heavens, having fulfilled all the will of the Father as was fitting, the earth was filled with wonder and with the knowledge of the matter, seeing the Lord of all ascending or being assumed. He was lifted up, that is, He was exalted above all the heavens, according to the prophecy, as man; but He ascended as God; for it says: "God is ascended with a joyful shout, the Lord with a trumpet call."
IV. The Prophet would not have used these words
A had he not foreseen His return with the unerring eye of foreknowledge. For how was it reasonable for Him to say, "Exalt Yourself above the heavens, O God, and Your glory above all the earth"? Or again: "God is ascended with a joyful shout," unless the theologian had foreseen both His descent and His ascent through the foreknowledge of the Spirit? For this reason, as I said before, the Scripture sometimes says He was "lifted up," and at other times that He "ascended," so that we might believe Him to be the same God and man in one subsistence. For by His divinity He ascended; but because of His body, He is said to have been "lifted up," that is, taken up. Therefore, one must understand through everything that it is He Himself who descended and who ascended above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things with His goodness, and [also] that He might first lift up His apostles—having cleansed them from the passions of sin through the descent of the Holy Spirit B—into perfect sublimity. For what does it say? "Exalt Yourself above the heavens, O God, and Your glory above all the earth, so that Your beloved ones may be delivered." For those who were in all things participants of His passion, and who became eyewitnesses and heralds of His majesty, are truly the beloved of the Lord in the first instance.
V. Therefore, the prophets proclaimed one and the same Lord; and they did not, as some suggest, confuse the form of His incarnation into one nature. But the expressions appropriate to His divinity they declared C magnificently; those appropriate to His body, however, they tempered according to the human standard, so that they might teach clearly that He who ascended, or rather who was lifted up to the heavens, is the Lord—He who exists from the Father; yet He who was born of the Virgin remains man, being one in form and one in subsistence. For He who is incorporeal, having fashioned Himself by the assumption of flesh, ascended visibly for this reason, from the place whence He had descended invisibly to clothe Himself in flesh. Therefore, He was taken up in glory, is believed in with power, and is expected with fear, until He again has the prophetic cloud as the vehicle of His descent; for the prophets also foretold that He would have a cloud as a minister at that time, so that a corporeal and yet light substance might bear the Lord, who had himself become corporeal, once again. He indeed carries all things by His will D as God; but He will be carried as man, so that He might not seem, even then, to neglect the laws of the nature which He assumed for the sake of our souls.
VI. Wherefore the divine Paul has also taught us that the saints will be caught up in the clouds, when the Lord, who is expected, comes upon a cloud. For that which is appropriate to God incarnate on account of the body, will also be appropriate to occur for us who are to be deified, because of the riches of His grace, since God desires to make men gods through His kindness. Let no one, therefore, brothers, imagine—regarding the density of human nature, which the holy Word of God is seen to have substantially united to Himself—let no one, I say, imagine that it has been changed by the rays of His divine and glorious substance, such that the two natures do not continue to subsist inseparably. For not, that
phantastic figure for Himself, but the glorious God was incarnate so that He might forever abolish by His communion the evil habit sown in man by the serpent, the devil. Therefore, the incarnation of the Word changed the habit, not the nature, so that we might put off the memory of evil and put on the love of God; not indeed that we are transformed into what we were not, but that we are renewed in glory according to that which we once were. To Him, therefore, be glory and power, who descended from heaven invisibly, and ascended thither visibly, who is before the ages, and now, and forever. Amen.
ADMONITION TO THE FOLLOWING SERMON OF MARCUS DIADOCHUS AGAINST THE ARIANS.
(GALLAND., Veterum Patrum Biblioth., t. V, Proleg., p. xxiv.)1. Scholars inquire who this Marcus Diadochus was, and their opinion is not unified. Wetstein (a) conjectures that this name refers to one of the Alexandrian bishops who were successors of Mark the Evangelist; in the same sense in which it is read regarding Athanasius in his Encomium: "He is raised to the throne of Mark, no less a successor in piety than in his presidency." But it seems to be suggested cleverly that: whether you consider that this ecclesiastical writer is called not "the successor of Mark" but "Marcus Diadochus"; or whether you note that several Marks are listed in the series of Alexandrian prelates; or finally, whether you understand that some among the bishops of other sees are simply inscribed with the name Diadochus. Furthermore, the other conjecture of the same learned man, by which he is led to think that he was our blessed Marcus and the same as he who is mentioned by Saint Maximus as the blessed Diadochus (b), is of no better standing. For the latter is neither marked by the first name of Mark, nor is he anywhere known to have sharpened his pen against the Arians; for that person, famous in the middle of the 7th century, as we shall say in its place, wrote various ascetic works, praised by the holy Fathers against the Monophysites and Monothelites. On the contrary, the author of whom we are speaking is rightly judged to have flourished during the 4th century, while the Arians were stirring up trouble in the Church.
II. It seems, therefore, that the learned men have conjectured more rightly who believe that our blessed Father is one of those two B Egyptian bishops, one of whom is reported to have governed the churches of Philae, the other of Zygris: who, as Athanasius testifies (c), were first driven into exile by the Arians; afterwards, however, with Constantius removed from the living, they were recalled from exile under Julian the Apostate and were present at the synod of Alexandria convened in the year 362, as the same Athanasius writes (d). Indeed, we have discovered two other Egyptian bishops named Mark (e), ordained by Alexander, bishop of Alexandria; the former of whom was deported to the upper Oasis, and the latter to the Ammonian region: if you should prefer one or the other of these to be our Marcus Diadochus, I would not indeed object: although the opinion regarding the two former Marks is more pleasing.
III. But whoever this Marcus Diadochus may be of whom this discourse treats, there exists a C *Sermon against the Arians* inscribed with his name, which John Rudolf Wetstein brought to light at the end of the last century from an illustrious manuscript codex of the library of Basel, which includes the works of Saint Athanasius, at the end of the Origenian work *On Prayer*. Having passed over the Wetstein version, we have added another which, having been elaborated more accurately to the rule of the text, was presented to us beyond expectation by the honorable John Baptist Galliciolli, a man learned in Greek and Hebrew; to whose candid humanity and benevolence we publicly, and indeed willingly, profess that we owe a great deal.