A do not suggest that the same Word of God was emptied in appearance only, but in reality, and they proclaim to us one and the same Person, as attested by both prophetic and apostolic preaching, calling Him the same one, both God and man. Therefore, the conception from the Virgin is God’s; the birth is God’s; the likeness to us in all things, and the assimilation rendered for our sake in the economy of salvation, is God’s; the passion is God’s; the preaching to those in prison and in darkness is God’s; the resurrection is God’s; the ascension into heaven is God’s. He who could not be contained, for our sake, through the flesh which He took from Mary, endured to be enclosed and circumscribed in a virginal womb. He who exceeds all things by far is contained by flesh. Upon Him in whom no change can fall, human form was assumed. The impassible, of His own will, suffered for us and on our behalf in His own flesh. He who is inseparable from God the Father was seen upon the earth, as it is written, and conversed with men. He who could not be touched was pierced by a spear by the lawless. The impassible endured the voluntary B cross for our sake; the immortal light offered Himself to death, and indeed to the death of the cross. He who was in the bosom of the Father did not refuse to be taken up into heaven through His own flesh. But as for those who say that the Word of God assumed some man who was like us, and deny that He—the living and effective Word of God, who subsists in His own Person as the true Son of God—was made man and lived among us in human form by the economy of salvation for our sake, the holy Synod which was held in the city of Ephesus rejects and casts them out.
Disputation on the same subject
CQuestion. Why did God, who cannot be contained, suffer Himself to be contained in a virginal womb? Answer. Because it pleased Him to redeem the race of mortals and to set it free from servitude into liberty.
Question. Why did He who is without beginning endure to be born of a woman? Answer. Since all men had come under a curse—for they were ruled by sin—He was therefore brought back to the very foundations of our birth, that He might sanctify both the birth of His kinsmen and the womb itself.
Question. How was the Word of God, being unchangeable and immutable, reckoned among men and made man? Answer. Wishing to save the human race, He willed for our sake to dwell among us according to the D economy of salvation, and to be made like unto us in all things, sin excepted.
SCHOLIA DE INCARNATIONE VERBI DEI
A Q. How do you dare to attribute sleep, and labor, and hunger, and the cross, and all things subject to corruption to the impassible One? Resp. Spare me the blasphemies, I pray you, man. I have already said before that the Word of God put on passible flesh, as the divine Scriptures have handed down to us, and was united to it; and through it the Son of God, God the Word, appeared, and with it endured sleep and labor and all things human, sin alone excepted—not that He was subject to corruption, for the incorruptible and life-giving Word of God is far superior to corruption and death—but that He might drive corruption away from the human race. I do not think it can be reckoned as a crime against a king if, wishing to save his own possession, he puts on the form of a slave. And how will anyone dare to reproach Him who is free by nature, that for our sake He became man, and was dispensatorily present in our affairs? Embrace the kindness of the Father, who grants His own Son for our sake; do not pry curiously into the matter, I beg you. For this knowledge is not from Greek wisdom, nor from a worldly mindset; it is alien to both. "Blessed are you," says the Lord to Peter, "Simon Bar-Jona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." The gift of the divine visitation of the Son of God is a heavenly one.
B Q. How did the maker of all things, God the Word—He who cannot be touched, nor seen, nor changed, and who does not brook circumscription—endure the cross and death upon a vile piece of wood? Resp. We say that the Word of God endured death and the cross through His own flesh, and He endured these things so that He might render us immune to death and corruption. For He laid down His own soul for us, not one that was foreign or alien to the Word of God; for the union is ineffable. For He Himself said, "I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it up again." It is proper to this soul to be troubled, to endure sorrow, to depart from the body, just as it is peculiar to the flesh to be wearied, to be crucified, to be raised, and to endure being placed on high. Yet all these things are said to belong to God, and they are His; for the soul is God’s, and the body is God’s.
C Q. How was the omnipotent Word of the Father involved in resurrection, and the incorruptible one in corruption? Resp. His flesh did not endure corruption, nor did the Word of God Himself. For because you distinguish poorly, you also inquire poorly. For the prophet had long before cried out concerning Him: "You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption." The Son of God endured voluntary passion, He who contains the uncontainable Father within Himself, and is Himself in turn contained by the Father; for while being contained by the Father and existing in the Father’s bosom, He was ineffably contained also in His own flesh. And on the third day He rose again, having despoiled Hades, and the Son of God appeared to us with His own flesh, so that He might deliver us also from death and corruption.