On the Incarnation against Apollinarius (Books I-II)

OF OUR HOLY FATHER ATHANASIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, ON THE INCARNATION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, AGAINST APOLLINARIUS. DISCOURSE ONE.

^A 1. It is the custom of a godly person to be tireless, my beloved, so that he may worship the Universe [id est universum] in silence, and with thanksgiving celebrate in a loud voice God the Benefactor, according to the saying of the Scripture that says: *He shall sit solitary and keep silence, and shall rest, and shall do what is proper to him* (Lam. III, 28). But the saying, *solitarius* (solitary), and *what is proper to him*, means to place his own conduct under judgment and to take thought for the commandment of God. ^B But because, observing a heavy exhaustion among those who seem to say the same things, thou hast asked me concerning the faith that is in us, and what is the blame of those who think they hold the orthodox view, yet who, in their great intemperance, do not fear to utter lawless things—those by whom the unstable in faith are led astray and do not perceive it; for if they happened to be established in the faith, they would not have been convinced by such words. ^C And their mind being at leisure, they have become receptive to such traditions, from which springs up a pride of intemperance and a multitude of wickedness. Being blinded by hatred, they pass by the messages of the prophets, and the teachings of the apostles, and the mandates of the Fathers, and even the very manifest words of the Lord himself. It is necessary for these to be refuted according to our strength, so that ^D some of them, having recovered, might see clearly, or—

unable to deceive others, possessing a very clear apprehension of Christ, might not understand either what they say or about what they make assertions.

2. For the Fathers have indeed said that the Son is consubstantial with the Father, and true God from true God, and perfect from perfect; then that for the sake of our salvation he descended, was incarnate, and became man, and subsequently suffered and rose again. And so that no one, hearing of the passion and resurrection, might suppose that God the Word was changed, they define the unchangeable and invariable nature of the Son with a verdict. ^A These men, however, either imagine a change in the Word or assume that the dispensation of the Passion is a mere phantasm, sometimes saying that the flesh of Christ is uncreated and heavenly, and sometimes saying it is consubstantial with the Godhead. Then, they say, in place of the interior man who is within us, a heavenly mind is in Christ. For that figure with which he was clothed, they say, was used like an instrument; for it was not possible for him to become a perfect man. For where there is a perfect man, there also is sin; and likewise, two perfect things cannot become one. ^B Otherwise, there would be in Christ that battle of sin which is in us; and he would require that purification customary among us, if Christ were shown to have assumed in himself that which thinks within us and moves the flesh, having become man. But he assumed, they say, a body without a mind, so that he himself might be the mind in it, entirely free from sin, both by reason of his divinity and by reason of the flesh, which is without a mind. For the flesh of him who moves the flesh—that is, him who thinks—does not sin, if he has not first conceived the act of sin in his mind, and if he has not operated through the body for the consummation of sin. Whence Christ has demonstrated the newness of the flesh by way of similitude: but the newness of him who thinks within us, each one exhibits in himself through imitation, and similitude, and abstinence from sin. ^C And thus Christ is understood to be without sin.

3. These are their sophistries, and their plans for distorting the truth; nor is their discourse one, for there are many diversions of unbelief, devised by human reasonings. Let us therefore set before them the will of the divine purpose (for he says, "The Lord has sworn, and will not repent" [Ps. CIX, 4]), and the consummation of the most true dispensation, and the grace of the most perfect benefit; and let us question them in return, so that we may explore their mind: whether they agree with the prophetic predictions; whether they follow the apostolic teachings; whether they walk in the precepts of the Fathers; whether they [acknowledge] those manifest

do not reject the undeniable sayings of the Lord, so that from the prophetic messages, and the apostolic teachings, and the events fulfilled by the Lord, there may result a confession of the truth and a refutation of the error. Answer, therefore, you inventors of a Gospel new in your eyes—which is no other Gospel—from where has it been preached to you to call the flesh increate, so that you must either imagine that the divinity of the Word has fallen into a mutation of flesh, or deem the economy of the passion, death, and resurrection to be a mere phantom? For the holy Trinity alone of the Godhead has appeared as increate, both eternal and unchangeable and immutable. But since Christ according to the flesh drew his origin from men, that is, from our brethren, as it is written, and is passible, and the firstborn from the resurrection of the dead, as the Law foretold, how do you say that what is increate is passible? Or how do you call what is passible, increate? For by saying that the increate substance of the Word is passible, you blaspheme against the divinity; and by calling the passible flesh—which was adapted to bones, and blood, and soul, and the whole of our body, and which became palpable and visible—increate, you fall into a double ruin: for you either assume the exhibition and tolerance of ^B the passion to be a phantom, according to the impiety of the Manichaeans, or you decide that the substance of the increate divinity is of such a nature. And why do you still find fault with those who imagine God in human form according to the flesh?

^C 4. But you say that it became increate by union with the Increate. From this point, however, your error shall be shown to be self-refuted; for the union of the flesh with the Godhead of the Word took place from the womb; for from there the Word, having arrived from heaven, gave it its origin, since it did not exist before the Word arrived, nor before the Theotokos Mary, whose lineage alone is recounted as being from Adam, and whose descent is from Abraham and David, along with Joseph who was betrothed to her—they both being one flesh, as it is written, not by mutual intercourse, but because they derived their origin from one and the same source; for it has been testified that they remained undefiled. Therefore, Christ is born in ^D Bethlehem of Judea, calling Joseph his father, who happens to be of the same origin from David as Mary.

^A And he was laid in swaddling clothes, and carried in the temple by Simeon, and brought to the circumcision of the flesh according to the law, and made progress in age and stature. If, therefore, he became uncreated by the union, how did he not appear perfect immediately, but, according to the will of the Word, the body received growth? But to ascribe growth to the Uncreated is impious. For that which is uncreated is said to be uncreated by its own nature, admitting neither increase nor decrease. But that which has anything in common with the Uncreated, or is united to him, is indeed called the property of the Uncreated, but is not itself said to be uncreated, lest the benefit of the union come into oblivion, and the debt of the benefit be abolished, and the human race, which still lives in infirmity, fall into desperation if it learns (as you say) that it has no kinship with God; and lest grace vanish. For who, hearing that the body of the Lord is uncreated, while knowing himself to be made and created, would not think that the holy Scriptures are false, and that he himself has no communion with Christ? If the Uncreated took on an uncreated body, then the first formation has perished, the archetype Adam has perished, from whom we have sprung until this day through the succession of the flesh. How then did Christ make us partakers of himself? What is it that the Apostle says: "For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all one" (Heb. 2:11)? ^C 5. Nor let anyone dare to imagine regarding the divinity of the Son, that he is from God in the same way that we are, as the most impious Arians dare to say: or at any rate that he is from God according to the appearance of the flesh, and according to the form of a servant, that is, of the first-created Adam, which he who exists in the form of God, being God, took upon himself. For among created things, that is called uncreated which has never existed, because it has never been made. Therefore, lest while you imagine that flesh never existed in the Word, you should be induced to deny the thing itself under a specious name, so as to confess nothing in the Uncreated. For the subsistence of the deity alone is understood as uncreated; so that it is impious to call the uncreated passible, or the passible uncreated. For it is impious to think that the created nature of man is not proper to the Word by union, but coeternal with him, and equalized to the nature of God through identity of nature. ^D For the Lord manifested the specimen of flesh and blood and bones, as well as of a soul that is saddened, troubled, and anxious. No one would say these are the nature of the deity; but they are things proper to God by nature, when it pleased the Word to undergo human generation, and his own...

workmanship, which had been dispersed in sin, corruption, and death, to establish in himself in the image of newness. Wherefore he effected the condemnation of sin upon the earth, the abolition of the curse upon the tree, the immunity from corruption in the tomb, and the breaking of death in Hades; passing through every place, that he might work out the salvation of the whole human being, showcasing the form of our image in himself. ^A For what need was there for God to deign to be born of a woman? What need for the maker of the ages to grow in stature and the numbering of years? Or again, what need for him of the cross, the tomb, or Hades—things to which we have fallen—unless he were seeking us, in order to make us alive through the form that is like to us, and to call us to the likeness and imitation of the perfect image? But how could there be an imitation unto perfection, if absolute perfection had not first existed? According to that saying of the Apostle: *Stripping off the old man, and putting on the new, who is created according to God in holiness and righteousness of the truth.*

6. From what, then, having been taught, do you say he is uncreated? If therefore nature becomes uncreated through change, then it also becomes invisible and immortal; not after having risen from the dead, but it would be utterly incapable of death. By what reason, then, is the Lord dead, if he who is uncreated came upon the earth in an uncreated manner? ^B Or how did he become visible and palpable, as it is written: *What we have seen, and our hands have handled*? Why then do you say things that are not written, nor is it lawful even to conceive of? For you will provide to all heretics the most impious opinion, which once held him who was called Rhetorius, whose impiety it is fearful even to mention. Either, then, deny the divine Scriptures, or, admitting them, do not devise to utter words of incurable fallacy beyond what is written. But again you say: "We do not worship a creature." O foolish ones! Why do you not consider that the body of the Lord, which was made, does not demand the worship that is owed to a created thing? For it became the body of the uncreated Word; and to him whose body it became, to him you bring even the worship. ^C It is therefore worshipped as is due, and it is worshipped divinely; for God is the Word, whose body it happens to be. For even when the women approached the Lord, he, forbidding them, said, *Do not touch me; for I have not yet ascended to my Father*, indicating that there is need of an ascent, and that there will be one ^D

^A. Nevertheless, when they approached, they held his feet and worshipped. They held feet, they worshipped God. They touched the feet of flesh and bones, but because they belonged to God, they worshipped God. And elsewhere the Lord said, *Handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have*, although he himself is spirit; for *God is Spirit* (Joan. IV, 24). And when he says he has them, and at the same time shows them, why does he say that *a spirit has not flesh and bones* (Luc. XXIV, 39), *as you see me*, he says, *not being such, but having them*? Is it not to teach that the nature of the spirit is ineffable ^B, yet this touching belongs to a body such as ours, which he acquired for himself from the Virgin, not by some mode of operation, but by natural generation: so that the body might be such by nature, and again, by nature, inseparable from the divinity of the Word? For thus also did his death come to pass: the body receiving it according to nature, but the Word, by his will, permitting it and by his own power delivering his own body to death; so that he might naturally suffer for us, and divinely rise again for us. And the whole business of his generation and death concerns our search and recovery.

7. Since these things are so, and are confessed in the Catholic Church of God, why do you ^C again say that the body is from heaven? And why did Christ bring this about? Answer: was it so that he might bring a body from heaven to earth, and make the invisible visible, and the incapable of insult, capable of insult; and the impassible and immortal, mortal and passible? And what benefit was there in these things, O foolish ones, if you say that those things were done in Christ which were done in the first-formed Adam? Unless Christ had restored Adam's fall into an incomparable reparation, appearing in the *likeness of sinful flesh*, and *condemning sin in the flesh*; so that ^D he might dwell on earth in flesh, and show the flesh to be incapable of sin, which Adam, having had it sinless from its first formation, had made capable of sin through transgression, and had fallen into corruption and death. This [flesh] Christ raises up by nature sinless, that he might show the Creator not to be the cause of sin; and he restored it to that primary formation of its own nature, so that he himself might be the specimen of sinlessness. In vain, therefore, do those who are led astray devise and say that the body of Christ [came] from heaven.

Although what Adam brought from heaven to earth, that Christ has raised from earth to heaven; and what Adam—when he was previously free from sin and liable to no condemnation—cast down into corruption and the condemnation of death, Christ has shown to be incorruptible, and indeed has shown himself to be a deliverer from death; so that he has the power on earth to forgive sins; from the tomb to manifest incorruptibility; in his descent into Hades to dissolve death, and to preach the resurrection to all. For God created man for incorruptibility (84), and made him an image of his own eternity. But by the envy of the devil, death entered into the world; yet he did not overlook him who was oppressed by the empire of death into corruption, when he himself became man; he did not turn into the mere form of a man, nor did he overlook the substance of man, nor did he make his manifestation a shadowy thing; but he who is by nature God is born as man, so that ^B both may be one, perfect in all things, demonstrating his natural and most true birth (85). Therefore it is said: "And he gave him a name which is above every name," to reign over the heavens, and to have authority to execute judgment.

8. For the Word of God, who created all things (86), appeared as the son of man, not becoming someone different, but being made the second Adam, so that from the very name we might recognize the truth. And the Apostle shows the first-formed one to be prior, showing first the "psychical" (animal/soulish), then the "spiritual." But in saying "psychical" and "spiritual," he is not showing one body and then another, but ^C the same body; the first, indeed, in the power and nature of the soul, and for that reason "psychical"; but the second in the power and nature of the Spirit, and for that reason "spiritual." For the Word of God is Spirit; for thus it is possible to understand what is said regarding us, when Scripture says: "But the spiritual man judges all (88) things; but the psychical man does not receive the things of the Spirit." Although the body of both is one, he shows that which partakes of the Spirit to be understood as "spiritual," while that which remains in the power of the soul alone (89) is shown to be "psychical." But why is it at all, if it is as you say, that Christ is not only called a man, as if some new man who had come from the heavens, but also became a son of man? If, therefore, he was made a son of man on earth, even though not from the seed of a man, but was born from the Holy Spirit (90), he is the son of the first-formed Adam, ^D

^A and will be understood as such. For no other man is recorded as having existed in heaven beside the Adam from the earth, so that he might have his body from the heavens, and be a son of man other than Adam. Therefore, Matthew records him as the son of Abraham and David according to the flesh; but Luke genealogizes him ^B as the son of Adam and of God. If, therefore, you are disciples of the Gospels, do not speak wickedness against God; but follow the things that are written and established. But if you wish to speak things other than what is written, why do you contend against us, who neither wish to hear nor to speak anything beyond what is written, since the Lord says: "If you abide in my word, you will truly be free."

9. How, then, can you still be considered faithful or Christians, you who neither advance according to the words of Scripture, nor have faith in the events that have taken place, but dare to define things that are above nature? Is it a small thing for you to be troublesome to men, and why are you troublesome to the Lord? For if those who did not believe the prophets were condemned, how much more those who do not believe the Lord himself? For those things which he himself willed, and which he did by his own discretion for the abrogation of sin and death, why do you dare to relate or conceive in another and different way? "If we confess him, he also will confess us; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful; for he cannot deny himself." What, then, is this great folly of yours, that you speak things which are not written, and hold opinions alien to piety? For you even dare to call the flesh consubstantial with the Divinity, not noticing that you have fallen into a twofold impiety. For you have applied your mind to this opinion for this reason: that you might either deny the flesh or blaspheme against the Divinity, saying: "Certainly we say that he who is born of Mary is consubstantial with the Father." But this supposed refinement of yours will be shown to be either inquisitive or foolish. For what believer would not confess that the God Logos who came, and went forth as man from the holy Virgin Mary, being consubstantial with the Father, became man from the seed of Abraham, of whom he is also recorded to be the son, and that the consubstantial God Logos became according to the flesh the son of David? Therefore both prophets and apostles and evangelists relate that Christ took his origin from the seed of David according to the flesh. How, then, when you say these things, do you not blush to declare the flesh which is genealogized from the seed of David consubstantial with the Logos? Or again, as if you were following what is written, neither walking according to the written words, nor being persuaded by the events that have occurred

^A David is narrated to have arisen, to assert that he is consubstantial with the Father? Or again, as we were saying, do you say these things foolishly, not understanding that what is consubstantial possesses the same nature, yet manifests its own proper perfection in itself? For just as the Son, confessed to be consubstantial with the Father, is acknowledged as perfect in the Perfect One, so too is the Holy Spirit: for the Trinity is consubstantial. Will you, therefore, attribute to the consubstantial flesh a perfection apart from the perfection of the Son? And according to you, a quaternity instead of a Trinity will be proclaimed. And what is this great contrivance of impiety?

10. But you say: The flesh has become consubstantial with the Logos. By what reasoning has it become consubstantial? Answer. It has become Logos, but it has also become Spirit. If, however, divinity comes to be at all ^B through change, or is a divinity not existing by nature, why then do you blame the Arians, who bring forward this very notion concerning the Logos? Although Scripture says, "The Logos became flesh," it is not said, "The flesh became Logos," but, "The Logos became flesh," because the flesh has become the Logos', and not that of some man; that is to say, God has become man. And it is said, "It became flesh," so that you would not overlook the name of the flesh. If, therefore, that natural union of the Logos with His own flesh, which took place without confusion, does not suffice for you; and that God has become man; now you neither hear, nor wish to believe, nor is it enough for you, when you hear of the body of God, which transcends every notion of praise, according to Him who says: "Who shall transform the body of our humiliation, so that it may be ^C conformed to the body of His glory;" which is the significance of the age to come, and is also called the body of His glory. And the Lord also says: "When the Son of man shall come;" He calls the Son of God, who has become the Son of man, the judge of the living and the dead, and King, and Master, and true God. But you wish to remove the name of the body, and to achieve that Christ might no longer be called man. With what disposition can you even now read the divine Scriptures? When Matthew indeed writes: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham;" but John: "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God." ^D

^A If you wish to consider the Word and God and the son of David separately, these would be two things formulated by your own mind; but if, instructed by the divine Scriptures, you believe that the Word, while being God, became the son of man, you will recognize that Christ is one and the same, both God and man; so that the dual proclamation of his advent might easily render his passion and impassibility persuasive. As when the Apostle says: "The man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for us, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen." And writing to Timothy he said: "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, of the seed of David." And he himself says again: "We proclaim his death until he comes." ^B [11.] If you remove the name of the flesh from the midst, and the doctrine which says that Christ is man, you either no longer proclaim his death until he comes, and by this you abolish the Scriptures; or, if you do proclaim the death of him who is consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit, while not confessing that he suffered in the flesh, you will be saying that the very deity of the Father and the Holy Spirit is capable of death: and you have become more impious than all the heretics. For the death of the flesh became the death of the consubstantial Word. For neither did the Father bear flesh, nor the Holy Spirit, as those who act impiously according to Valentinus imagine; but the Word became flesh. Therefore we, while confessing that Christ is God and man, do not at all say these things for the sake of division, God forbid! ^C but again in accordance with the Scriptures, so that since passion and death have occurred and are proclaimed until he comes, we may confess the passion and death to be of the flesh of the Word, but believe the Word himself to be immutable and invariable. Therefore he is the same who suffered and did not suffer: by his divine nature he is impassible and immutable and invariable, but in the flesh he suffered, as Peter said, and willed to taste of death: because he became the mediator of God and men, the man Christ, who gave himself a ransom for us; and again: Because he became ^D a mediator of God and men. Now, the mediator is not of one;

but God is one. ^A

12. Therefore, they also err who say that the one who suffered is one Son, and the one who did not suffer is another. For there is not one apart from the Word, he who has undergone death and suffering; but the impassible and incorporeal Word himself, having deigned to undergo the generation of human flesh, has fulfilled all things, that he might have something which he could offer on our behalf. And he is said to have become better than the angels; not that the Word himself, the creator of the angels, has become better, as if he were once inferior to them, but the form of the slave, which the Word himself made his own by natural generation, having sprung forth better than the generation of the first-created man, and he adopts us, as it has been said, to be fellow citizens of the saints and members of God’s household; ^B and it has become God's by nature, though the flesh is not, in its own right, consubstantial with the divinity of the Word, as if it were co-eternal; but it became his own by nature, and indivisible through the union, from the seed of David, and of Abraham, and of Adam, from whom we also have been begotten. But if the flesh is consubstantial with the Word and co-eternal, from this you would say that all creatures are co-eternal with God who created all things. And how are [those who are] entangled in such snares still Christians? For what is consubstantial, impassible, and incapable of death, does not admit union with what is consubstantial according to hypostasis, but rather according to nature; but according to hypostasis it exhibits its own perfection. ^C So through your supposedly pious invention, you either deny the flesh assumed from the Virgin and Theotokos, or you blaspheme the divinity. If, however, you confess the Son, and also the Holy Spirit, to be consubstantial with the Father in the same way as the flesh which suffered, why then do you still accuse us as if we were speaking of a quaternity instead of a Trinity, when you yourselves, even against your will, confess a quaternity instead of a Trinity, while you say that the flesh is consubstantial with the Trinity? Therefore, your faith is vain; for you think things equal to the impious Arians, wrongly interpreting that saying: The Word became flesh. ^D For the Word became flesh, not so that the Word might no longer be Word; but so that the Word might be in the flesh, he became flesh, that the Word might always be Word, and that the Word might have flesh, in which he accepted suffering and death in the human form, having descended even unto the tomb and Hades, in which he also accomplishes the resurrection from the dead, demonstrating the flesh, the blood, and the soul.

^A For what else did Marcion say than what you bring forward? Was it not that the body which appeared from heaven was in human likeness, and not in truth? And what else did Manichæus say? Does he not impiously affirm that the body was of a divine species, by a mere likeness alone, alien to human flesh, whose nature—not its operation—he calls sin? Such is the impiety of those people.

13. Wherefore it is not right for the pious man to use such fabrications of words: but it must be said that the Word, who before the ages is consubstantial with the Father, in the latter times, from the holy and Theotokos Virgin, restored the fashioning and creation of Adam, having made it his own by union; and thus Christ was seen as man, who before the ages was God. And we are members of Christ, as it is written, of his flesh and of his bones. To what end, therefore, is this contention of your inventions, that by human wisdom you define those things which surpass human intelligence, while you say that instead of our interior man, there was a heavenly mind in Christ? O ^B wicked opinion, and weak and unseemly words: of men, indeed, who have not first observed that Christ is not spoken of in a singular sense, but in that very name, which is unique, both things are signified, namely, divinity and humanity. ^C Therefore Christ is called man, and Christ is also called God, and Christ is God and man, and Christ is one. Vain, therefore, is your sophism, by which you strive to see something else in Christ besides Christ himself. For those who are called Christs abusively might perhaps be viewed according to your opinion: but he who by nature is the only true Christ will not be described by human reasoning, as you dare to do, being men indeed most full of arrogance. Neither indeed did any prophet, nor any apostle, nor any of the evangelists utter those things which you in your impudence dare to speak. For if Christ is one thing and the heavenly mind situated within him is another, and that mind is perfect, then according to you there will be two; and thus you fall back into that opinion which you seem to assail with curses. ^D Yet the prophets also possessed a heavenly mind, who spoke of heavenly and future things as if they were present. Why, therefore, do you conceive of saying these things at all, as if our interior man were not acknowledged in Christ? What then will you say concerning the soul, that both the body and the soul are the exterior man?

But just as the body and blood do not escape being touched or wounded, being visible things, show us also that the soul does not escape these things and is visible. Or, if you are unable to show this, it is manifest that the soul is neither seen nor can it be killed by a man as the body can, just as the Lord has said. Be convinced, therefore, that our ^A interior man is the soul: this is shown both by its first formation and is made clear by the subsequent dissolution; and these things are demonstrated not only in us, but were shown also in the very death of Christ: the former, indeed, reaching as far as the grave; the latter, passing through as far as hades. For, since these places are separated by a great measure, and the grave is receptive to bodily entry, the body was present there; but hades to that which is incorporeal.

14. For what reason then, while the Lord was present there incorporeally, was He deemed by death to be a man? It was so that to the souls held in chains, He might present the form of His own soul, which is not receptive to the bonds of death, as one that is receptive to them, and by being present to those present, might shatter the bonds of the souls held in hades, having fixed the limit of the resurrection; so that the Creator and Maker of man, who had also subjected him to the sentence of condemnation, being Himself present, might through Himself liberate man entirely in the form of His own self. For the power of death was never so great as to subject to itself the human soul of the Word and hold it in the bonds of its custody; nor, again, could corruption tyrannically snatch away the body and act toward its destruction, as if things were taking place without any providence. ^B For to think of the matter in such a way would be impious; but He who held the examination of the disobedience and brought about the judgment, gave a double verdict of punishment; saying to the earthly one: "Earth you are, and to earth you shall return" (Gen. III, 19), and thus corruption receives the body, at the Lord’s declaration; but to the soul, "By death you shall die" (Gen. II, 18), and thus man is divided into two parts and is condemned to depart into two ^C places. For this reason, there was a need for Him who had pronounced the sentence, that He Himself through Himself might dissolve His own decree, having been seen appearing in the form of the condemned, yet un-condemned and without sin; so that the reconciliation of God with man might take place, and the freedom of all humanity might arise through a man, in the newness of the image of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. But if to me

^A you are able to point out any other place of condemnation besides these two, you could deservedly say that man is divided into three parts: and that from two of the places the revocation has occurred, but in the third the bound part remains in chains. But if you cannot show any other place besides the sepulchre and the underworld, from which man has been perfectly rescued (because Christ liberated us by his perfect and most true form, similar to our own), why do you still bring forward such things, as if God were not yet reconciled to the human race? How, therefore, did the Savior arrive? Was it because he could not liberate the whole man? Or because he abhorred the mind that once sinned? Or as if he feared that he himself might become a participant in sin, if, being God, he became a perfect man? But they are full of impiety who think such things. For what definition of sin do you attribute, you who speak these things, saying that sin is from nature, as the most impious Manichæus said?

15. While you think such things, you are becoming accusers of the creator of nature. ^B When God fashioned Adam from the beginning, did he grant him sin as something innate? What need then was there for a commandment? Why did he condemn him because he sinned? And how did Adam not know good and evil before the disobedience? For the One whom God created in incorruption, and in the image of his own eternity, he made with a nature void of sin, and endowed with a free will: "But by the envy of the devil death entered into the world," 63 being the artisan and author of the transgression. And thus, from the transgression of the commandment of God, man became capable of the seed introduced by the enemy. And thereafter sin began to move in the nature of man toward every concupiscence: not that the devil had formed such a nature in him, far from it! ^C For neither can the devil be the creator of nature, according to the impiety of the Manichæans; but he caused a perversion of nature from the transgression: and so death reigned in all men. "For this," he says, "the Son of God arrived, that he might dissolve the works of the devil." 64 Which works of the devil did the Son of God dissolve? The substance which God made without sin, the devil perverted toward the transgression of the commandment of God and the discovery of the sin of death; this very substance, God the Word restored to himself, incapable of the devil's perversion and the discovery of sin. And therefore the Lord said: "The prince of this world comes, and in me he finds nothing." 65 But if the prince of this world finds nothing of his own works in Christ, much more does Christ find nothing from his own workmanship

^A in the prince of this world. Or is it for this reason that he found nothing in him, because Christ exhibited a perfect newness, so that he might work out the perfect salvation of the whole human being, soul and body, so that the resurrection might also be perfect? It is in vain, therefore, that the Arians act sophistically, assuming that the Savior took on flesh only, and impiously referring the understanding of passion to an impassible divinity. In vain, too, do you, ^B using another device, hold opinions equal to theirs, saying that he made use of the form that surrounded him, that is, of the organic [body]; but that instead of the inner man within us, a heavenly mind was in Christ. And how was he grieving and anxious and praying? And it is written, "And Jesus was troubled in spirit." These things, however, could be neither of a mindless flesh, nor of an immutable divinity, but of a soul having ^C intelligence, grieving, troubled, being anxious, and mentally perceiving the passion.

16. If, therefore, you do not wish to understand these things in this way, seeing that three understandings are set before you, of phantasy, and of blasphemy, and of truth, which would you choose? For if you suspect the things said to have been spoken as a mere show, even the things that happened might be considered a phantasy. But if they were said in truth, ^D and if the soul of the Lord had been entirely alien to its own understanding, having God the Word as its mind, it is impious to think that the immutable was turned into sorrow, and anxiety, and perturbation; even if the Gospels say that "Jesus was troubled in spirit." But the Lord demonstrates the mind when saying, "My soul is troubled." 67 If, then, the Lord demonstrates the understanding of his own soul, it is for the sake of sympathy with our soul, so that we might also understand the passion to be his, and [yet] confess him to be impassible. For just as he redeemed us by the blood of his flesh, so also he demonstrates the victory on our behalf through the understanding of his soul, saying, "I have overcome the world," 68 and elsewhere, "Giving ^A to us the victory." 69 But just as that blood would not be understood as common by the pious, as it is by the unbelievers, but as saving; so also the mentioned understanding is not wrapped in human weakness, but demonstrates the nature of God. And thus Christ would be called perfect God and perfect man; not as if of the divine [perfection... [alt-version omitted]

were changed into human perfection, which it is impious to say; nor again as if two perfections were confessed to be divided from one another, which is alien to piety; nor yet by the progress of virtue and the addition of justice—far be it!—but by the existence of a perfection that does not fail. So that both, being one, might be altogether perfect, the same being both God and man. For this reason the Lord said: “Now my soul is troubled, and is sore distressed.” But this “now” means the time when He Himself willed it. Yet certainly He signified what was real; for He would never have named a non-existent thing as if it were present, nor was the discourse held as if concerning things that existed only in appearance; for all these things happened naturally and in truth.

^B 17. Since, therefore, the Lord became man by nature and not by fiction, we cannot attribute sin to the Creator, either according to nature or according to action. For in our nature, the struggle of discovery still takes place, and an addition occurs through the introduction of the seed, on account of our weakness; but the incarnation of the Word, having occurred according to the nature of God, became incapable of receiving the things that are still carried out in us from our old age. Therefore we are taught to put off the old man and to put on the new. And it is truly a wonderful thing that God has become man, ^C and without sin; and that all things have been made new, so that His power might be revealed thereby. And whatever things He Himself ordained in nature by His own will, those He took upon Himself, as much as He willed: birth from a woman, growth in stature, the numbering of years, labor, and hunger, and thirst, and sleep, and sorrow, and death, and resurrection. For this reason, where the body of man had been corrupted, there Jesus puts forth His own body; and where the human soul was held fast in death, there Christ shows forth the human soul as being His own, ^D so that He might be present as man, He who could not be held in death, and might dissolve the hold of death, as God; so that where corruption had been sown, there incorruption might spring up; and where death had reigned in the form of the human soul, there the immortal One, being present, might show forth immortality; and thus might make us participants of His own incorruption and immortality, in the hope of the resurrection from the dead: so that this corruptible might put on incorruption, and this mortal might put on immortality, as it is written: “That as through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, so also through one man Jesus Christ grace might reign through righteousness unto life.”

æternam, ut scriptum est. Why then do you say, in place of the inner man within us, there is a heavenly mind in Christ? Is it because he was divided in two, the outer and the inner, and appeared in the sepulcher and in hell? But it was not possible for one thing to be given as a ransom for another; rather, he gave body for body, and soul for soul, and a perfect subsistence for the whole man. This is the Christological exchange, which the enemies of life, the Jews, reproached on the cross, passing by and shaking their heads. For hell would not have withstood the access of a bare Deity: this both the prophets and the apostles bear witness to. ^A

18. Furthermore, regarding what is said in the economy of the cross, one may observe how the Lord, by the shedding of blood, demonstrated the reality of the flesh; and by the addition of the water, he signified the immaculate purity, and [showed] that it was the body of God. And by crying out ^B and bowing his head, and yielding up the spirit, he indicated that which was within his own body, that is to say, the soul, concerning which he also said: "I lay it down for my sheep." So that no one could say the expiration was the departure (transmigration) of the Deity, but the withdrawal of the soul. For if death and the necrosis of the body had occurred by the departure of the Deity, he would have died ^C his own death, not ours. And who, I pray, would have descended into hell without the Deity being present? Where, then, is that soul which the Lord promised to lay down for his sheep, and about which the prophets also foretold? But if it was the withdrawal of the soul, for this reason it has been said—that he undertook our death, that is, that he endured our dissolution, just as he did our birth (73).

19. Your sophism is therefore vain; for how could death have happened if the Word had not ^D constituted for himself both the inner and the outer man (74), that is to say, body and soul? Or how did he give a ransom for all? Or how could the hold of death have received its complete dissolution, if Christ had not constituted in himself that which had sinned through the intellect—namely, the soul (75)—as sinless? If then death still reigns over the inner man—for over whom else did it ever reign, if not over the soul that had sinned through the intellect? As it has been said: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezech. XVIII, 4); for the sake of which Christ laid down his own soul as a ransom (77), giving it in exchange.

^A Whom, then, did God condemn from the beginning? The work of the Maker, or the action of the work? If God condemned the work of the Maker, He condemned Himself, and He will be like men. But if it is impious to think this of God, and He condemned the action of the work, then He removes the action and renews the work—for we are His handiwork, created unto good works. ^B 20. But again you say: "We say that God was born from Mary." How then do you say, like Marcion (79), that God appeared, and that God came in an untouchable manner, having a nature incapable of human flesh? Or how do you say He is God, like Paul of Samosata? For this is the rationale of his impiety (80): to confess that the One born of Mary is God, who indeed was predetermined before the ages, but who had the beginning of his existence from Mary. He confesses that the Word is effective from heaven, and that wisdom is in Him (and, through his own impiety, he attributes more to Him than you do), even as you say an heavenly mind in an ensouled body. But neither is an ensouled body already a perfect man (81), nor is an heavenly intelligence already God. For a body is called ensouled when the name of the soul is applied to it in a subsistent manner. But the body of a man is called a body, and not soul; and the soul of a man is called soul, and not body—the one being distinct from the other, that is, spirit from body. But who, He says, has known the mind of the Lord? The mind of the Lord is not yet the Lord, but the will of the Lord, or His counsel, or His efficacy toward something. With what mind, therefore, do you utter these words, and adulterate the Word of God with fictitious expressions? ^C But the Church of God has neither received nor handed down these things in such a way; but, as it is written, she holds that God the Word, who was with God before the ages, appeared at the consummation of the ages, and was born of the holy Virgin and of the Holy Spirit as the Son of man, as it is written: "Until she brought forth her firstborn Son" (Matth. I, 25), that He might become the firstborn among many brethren, while being Himself the true God; so that He might both suffer for our sake as man, and redeem us from passion and death as God. You imagine in vain, therefore, that you can effect the ^D novelty of Him who understands and moves the flesh within yourselves, thinking that this can come to pass through imitation; not understanding that imitation becomes imitation only when the work has already preceded it, otherwise it would not be called imitation. But when you confess only the novelty of the flesh in Christ, you err and blaspheme. For if it were possible [for you] to be moved by the One who moves the flesh...

without the help of Christ—and if what is acted follows the agent—what need was there of Christ’s advent?

21. Vain also are those who say that the Word came into one of the prophets. For which of the prophets, being God, became man? And why did the Law bring nothing to perfection? And why did death reign even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the protoplasts? Why, then, did the Lord say: *If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed*? Is it not according to the novelty and perfection which is in Him, by which we who believe are renewed, according to imitation and participation in the perfect novelty of Christ? ^B But you have contrived everything, so that you might construct a single opinion for denial. And indeed, defining the soul, you sometimes name it foolish, sometimes a sin subsisting in man; and sometimes you cast it out as the worker of sin. And you declare the flesh sometimes uncreated, sometimes heavenly, sometimes consubstantial with the Word, that you might confirm a perfect denial for yourselves. But just as Arius, having slipped from the faith into the ineffable and truest generation of the Son from the Father, invented passion, division, and flux, in order that by his impious words he might cast the unstable into the pit of lawlessness—*for the mouth of the wicked is a deep pit*—so in turn Sabellius, having conceived the Son to be without hypostasis, and the Holy Spirit as non-existent, and accusing [others of] introducing a division of divinity, and a numbering of principles and gods, is confirmed by a Jewish opinion. So also the Manichaean, denying faith in the incarnation and humanization assumed by the Lord, became altogether impious, saying that man is subject to two Creators, the evil and the good. In the same way, you too, like sycophants, either say that we admit two Sons, or you call us worshippers of man, or you cast sin in our way—not that you might be pious, but that you might provide a successful progress for your error through wicked inventions, and might turn the unstable away from the faith by your impious words. Nevertheless, *the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal*.

*Hebr. VII, 19. Joan. VIII, 36. Prov. XXII, 14.*

^A 22. I have written these things to you, beloved (although there was no need to write more; for the evangelical tradition is sufficient), both because you inquired about our faith, and for the sake of those who wish to cavil with their inventions, and do not consider that he who speaks from his own mind speaks lies. ^B Neither indeed is it possible for the human intellect to express the beauty or the glory of the body of Christ; but it is able to confess what has been done, as it is written, and to adore the true God, for the glory and confession of His kindness, and for the hope of our salvation. In Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

OF OUR HOLY FATHER ATHANASIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, ON THE SALUTARY ADVENT OF CHRIST, AND AGAINST APOLLINARIUS

BOOK TWO

^B 1. They who do not confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is one from God and man, as it is written in the Gospel: *Who was of Adam, who was of God* — let them say how they conceive of Him who, being in the form of God, took also the form of a servant; or how they understand that: *And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us*. For he who said that the Word was made flesh, says that He Himself laid down His own soul for us. Was it, then, in such a way that the Word underwent a change, and into flesh...

^A or a likeness of soul? Or did He bring about a phantom manifestation of the human form, as others of the heretics, wandering in error, say? But the Apostle does not permit this, having stated clearly: Who, being what He was, what did He take? For just as the form of God is understood as the fullness of the divinity of the Word, so too the form of the servant is acknowledged as the intellectual nature of human constitution together with the organic constitution: so that the "was" refers to the Word, and the "became" refers to the flesh acknowledged together with the soul—which is called the form of the servant, being understood as a certain intellectual constitution. For this reason, the deceased human being is called formless, and he is dissolved completely because the soul, which has an indissoluble nature, has departed from the body. Hence, Paul provides testimony regarding the intellectual nature, while John does so regarding the organic manifestation of the body, so that both may proclaim the whole mystery of the economy. For it is manifest that the pre-existing God the Word, before the advent in the flesh, was not a human being, but was God with God, being invisible and impassible.

2. Therefore, Christ—a name that is not brought forward ^B apart from the flesh, since passion and death follow that name—for Paul writes: "If Christ is passible, if He is the first from the resurrection of the dead," and elsewhere he says: "Christ our Passover was sacrificed," and that "the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for us." Not that He is not God, but that Christ is also human. Therefore: "Be mindful," he says, "of Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, of the seed of David according to the flesh." And for this reason, Scripture makes the bringing forward of both names in the demonstration of His subsistence; as God, He is understood invisibly and is truly such, but as a human being, He is touched visibly and truly exists; not in a division of persons ^C or of names, but by natural generation and indissoluble union: so that, with the passion being truly confessed in Him, the same One is admitted to be truly both passible and impassible. How, then, did the Word become Christ, being God, before He became human? For if the name "Christ" were proper to the divinity separated from the flesh, then it would have to be attributed to the Father also, and to the Holy Spirit; and the passion would also be common, as certain ones, led astray, say. Or even...

^A will you say that the impassible and incorporeal God the Word, even before the incarnation and the human nature were assumed, was capable of passion and death? Yet, I ask, how could the Son, who is consubstantial with the Father and indivisible according to his divine nature, be called subject to passion, being immutable and unchangeable, unless, having taken into himself from the Virgin’s womb the entire form of human structure, he became man, so that he might be a mutable man in his passion, and yet remain immutable, in so far as he is God?

3. Therefore, the anointing was performed, not because God stood in need of anointing, nor because the anointing occurred without God; but because God was the one applying the anointing, and it was being received by the body capable of receiving the anointing. It is, therefore, manifest that the Word did not become Christ without human flesh, having divided himself into an appearance of flesh or a likeness of soul. But remaining what he was, he took the form of a servant, not existing separate from the being which was made manifest in its display ^B by means of the passion, the resurrection, and the whole economy, as has been written and demonstrated. Tell me, therefore, why you have supposed God to have been born in Nazareth? For all heretics are accustomed to say this, just as Paul of Samosata confesses that God is from the Virgin, that God is seen from Nazareth, and that he therefore had the beginning of his existence—and had assumed the beginning of his kingship—while he confesses the Word to be active from heaven, and wisdom in him: that he is in his foreknowledge before the ages, but in his existence was manifested from Nazareth; so that, he says, one may be the God over all, the Father. Such is the impiety of this man. But Marcion and Manichaeus claim that God descended into the Virgin, and passed through untouched by a human nature that has fallen into sin ^C and is subject to the prince of wickedness. For if, they say, he took this (nature), then Christ would be subject to the prince of wickedness and would not be without sin; but they claim that he exhibited his own flesh from himself, in whichever likeness he pleased, namely, shown from heaven and returned to the heavens, and that it is entirely divinity. Valentinus, on the other hand, inventing that the flesh is a part of the deity, contends that the passion was common to the Trinity. But Arius confesses only flesh for the concealing of the deity; and in place of the man within us ^D (that is, the soul), he says that the Word was in the flesh; and the passion and the resurrection from the dead are divi[...].

^A ascribed to the deity, daring to attribute them. But Sabellius approves the opinion of Paul of Samosata and his followers; for, fearing the division of Arius, he has fallen into the error that removes (the persons) from the midst. To whom do you yourselves adhere, or whom do you wish to aid? Are you, as the proverb goes, "of every tribe"? For, while you deny faith in the union, while you resist the fullness, you agree with all the heretics mentioned above: and out of fear of division, in order to make excuses for yourselves, you have applied your mind to doing away with (the persons). But just as those who divide are insane, and those who take away are wandering, so those who remove (the persons) from the midst are perishing: since both the true incarnation has come to pass, and the truth has been seen, and grace has been ^B attested by testimony.

4. Why then do you use sophisticated arguments 4? For what reason do you use simulation? And why do you not say openly that he did not take the form of a servant and become man, but that he only appeared as a man? For that is the meaning of your interrogation, by which you fraudulently say, again and again, "the same and the same." And therefore you strive to oppose the true economy, and you attack us with calumnies, saying: "Those men say that Christ is a man who was made God." But what, then, is the meaning of: *In the beginning was the Word* 84; and that ^C *taking the form of a servant, he became man* 85? Or does he speak of a man who is with God, or does he speak of a man joined to God, or a man who died for the world and is a part of the world, or a man free from sin, or a man ruling over angels, or a man worshipped by creation, or a man who is the Lord, when the Apostle says: *Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ* 86; or a man crucified, who is the Lord of glory; or a man who hears: *Sit at my right hand* 87; or a man who is to come to judge the world? This is your muddy subversion, with which you give men to drink and make them drunk 88. Question the Jews, therefore, so that when you have heard these very words uttered by them against Christ and against those who believe in him, you may blush; learn also from other heretics who speak and think the same things as you. Let there be set forth, therefore, the dogmas of the heretics, and the opinion of your own mind, and the account of our faith, and the definition of the Gospel, and the preaching of the apostles, and the testimony of the prophets, and the understanding of the ^D economy that has been fulfilled.

5. Tell us, then, how you say that God was born from Nazareth 30, proclaiming the deity as the beginning of his generation according to Paul of Samosata; or

^A do you deny the generation of the flesh, according to Marcion and the other heretics, not walking according to the evangelical rule but wishing to speak from your own opinion? For this is why you say that God was born from a Virgin, and not God and man according to the evangelical definition: lest, if you confess the generation of the flesh, you might be compelled to admit it as natural, which in this matter you would indeed be saying truly; but you affirm that God was begotten, who displayed his own flesh only in appearance. For God did not derive the beginning of his birth from Nazareth: but the Word of God, who exists before the ages, appeared as man from Nazareth, born of Mary the Virgin, and of the Holy Spirit 34 in Bethlehem of Judea, from the seed of David and Abraham, and of Adam, as it is written: and he assumed everything from the Virgin, whatever God from the beginning fashioned and created for the constitution of man, except for sin. As the Apostle also says: "In all things for a likeness, apart from sin 80"; and he did not bring about a change of divinity, but by his own will effected an innovation of humanity; whereby the nations might become concorporal and comparticipes 90 of Christ, as the Apostle also writes: that the man might be truly God, and God might be truly man, that he might be even truly man and truly God; not of a man being toward God, as you say in your slander, disparaging the mystery of the Christians; but because it pleased the only-begotten God, by the fullness of his divinity, to restore to himself the archetype of the human formation and the new workmanship, out of the Virgin's womb through natural generation and an indissoluble union ^B; so that he might accomplish the saving work for men, and through passion, death, and resurrection might complete the redemption of men.

6. But you object: If he accepted everything, surely he also had human thoughts: but it is impossible for sin not to be in human thoughts ^C: how then will Christ be without sin? Answer for yourselves, then: If God is the creator of vitious thoughts, the proper workmanship must be joined to God: for he came to join his own workmanship to himself. But in that way, the judgment condemning the sinner will be unjust indeed. For if God created vitious thoughts, why is it that he condemns the sinner? Or how can such a judgment proceed from God? ^D But if Adam, before he transgressed the command of God, had such thoughts...

and how was it that he did not know good and evil? Being rational in his nature, and free in his thought, he had no experience of evil, but was endowed only with the knowledge of what is good, and was as it were of one character. ^A But after he had transgressed the commandment of God, he fell into vitious thoughts—not that God created the thoughts which bring us into captivity, but because the devil, through deceit, sowed them into the rational nature of men, which had been set in transgression and cast away from God; so that the devil established a law of sin in the nature of man, and death, which reigns through the work of sin. For this reason, therefore, the Son of God came, that He might destroy the works of the devil. But you say, "He destroyed them if He did not sin." But this is not the destruction of sin. For ^B the devil did not work sin in Him from the beginning, so that, upon His coming into the world and not sinning, sin might be destroyed; but it was in the rational and intellectual nature of man that the devil sowed and worked sin. Therefore it became impossible for nature, being rational and having sinned voluntarily, and having come under the condemnation of death, to recall itself to freedom, as says the Apostle: "For what was impossible for the law, in that it was weak through the flesh." For this reason, the Son of God came by Himself, that He might restore it in His own nature from a new beginning and a wonderful generation—not by dividing the constitution which had been made from the beginning, but by abolishing the super-sown rejection, as the prophet testifies, saying: "Before the child knows good or evil, ^C he rejects wickedness to choose the good." But if sinlessness had not appeared in the nature that had sinned, why was sin condemned in the flesh, since the flesh has neither the practice of sin, nor does sin fall into the divinity? Why does the Apostle say: "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound"? He is not indicating a place, but signifying a nature. "For as," he says, "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so also by one man, Jesus Christ, grace may reign through righteousness unto eternal life"; so that by the same nature through which the progression of sin occurred, by that same nature ^D the proof of righteousness might be given, and thus the works of the devil be destroyed, the nature of men being liberated from sin, and God being glorified.

^B 7. But you say again: If he is a part of the world, a part of the world cannot save the world. O fallacy of deception, and madness of blasphemy! Let them say from what Scripture this definition is taken, or rather this sophism of the devil; although the prophet says: *A brother does not redeem, a man shall redeem*; and elsewhere: *And a man was born in her, and the Most High himself founded her*. How then does Christ not save the world by becoming man, since it is manifest that in whatever nature sin was committed, in that same nature the abundance of grace has also appeared? And what is the abundance of grace? That the Word became man, while remaining God; so that he who was made man might be believed to be God: just as Christ also, while being man, is nevertheless God; because although he was God, he became man, and imparts salvation to those who believe in the form of man. For *if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved*. But God admits of no death, nor does he need a resurrection, but he raises others from the dead. Hence it was necessary that God should have something which he might offer for us, whether in death or in life; wherefore the Word, by becoming man, operates salvation all the more.

8. But you object again: In what way can a nature that is born in the habit of sin, and has received the succession of sin, be without sin? Since this is impossible, Christ will therefore be as one of the men. This is what Marcion felt, and this is the opinion that Manichæus introduced, placing the flesh of man and birth itself under the prince of wickedness, and ascribing to him the title of ruler; since *by whom anyone is overcome, to him he is rendered a slave*. You also renew the opinion of these men, while on a different pretext you subject the spiritual nature of man, which is understood to be the soul, to him, asserting that it is unable to avoid sin; however much you may call the soul carnal. But I do not know where you have learned these things, since this is admitted neither in the holy Scriptures, nor in the common opinion of men, for the Lord says: *Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul*. But if the soul is carnal, as your opinion holds, why does it not die and perish together with the body? And why does Peter say that the souls detained in hell

^A call them spirits, saying: *He went and preached to the spirits in prison* (1 Pet. III, 19). But you call and describe everything as being against nature, so that by not explaining the economy according to its natural sense, you might avoid affirming the truth: namely, that the Word truly became man. For you said that the word of God, saying, *The imagination of man's heart is set upon evil diligently from his youth* (Gen. VIII, 21), is proof; not understanding that when He said "from his youth," He signified that which is sown by the enemy and is lethal. Therefore, the Lord swore truth to David, that of the fruit of his loins He would raise up Christ according to the flesh; not a man who would appear to be a man by a change of divinity (for what need would there have been for the Lord to swear to David?), but one who would take the form of a servant, be born of a Virgin, and deign to receive the increase of age and stature in our way, as the Apostle says: ^B *Since therefore the children shared in flesh and blood, He himself likewise* (Heb. II, 14) shared in the same; "likewise" in that He is not from seed, but from the Spirit; but "of the same" in that He did not share in others, but came from the seed of David and of Abraham and of Adam, as it is written.

9. Why then, ignoring the holy Scriptures and the manifestation of the truth, do you say: If He did not appear as a man from Himself, but by assuming a human substance became man, then He was joined to a man; and shall the Lord of glory who was crucified also be a man? If, then, you hear Peter saying: *God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ* (Act. II, 36), how do you understand this making? If you apply it to the divinity of the Word, why do you still reproach the Arians, when you think the same as they do? But if you apply it to the form of a servant that is in the Word, why do you still fight with yourselves? ^C But you do not believe it in this way; for you say again: If the nature that sinned became in God, having committed no sin, it is then held by necessity; and what is held by necessity is violent. Say then: If not sinning comes about by necessity, then sinning will be according to nature; and you will therefore grant that the creator of nature is the worker of sin. But if such a thing is blasphemy, and if it is necessary that sin exists by accident, it is clear that not sinning was according to nature; and therefore the form of a servant, which appeared in the divinity of the Word, was not compelled by violence, but

rather, by nature and power, ^A demonstrates sinlessness, having dissolved the definition of necessity and the law of sin, and having led into captivity the tyrant of captivity, as the prophet says: "Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive" (Ps. LXVII, 19). For the Word, putting forward the form of a servant against the enemy, has wrought the victory through that which had once been defeated. For this reason also Jesus completed every temptation, because he took on all things that had experienced the trial of temptation, through which he has wrought the victory on behalf of men, saying: "Be of good courage, I have overcome the world" (Joan. XVI, 33). For the devil did not undertake the war against the divinity, which he did not know, for he would not have dared to do so; for this reason he said: "If thou be the Son of God" (Matth. IV, 3); but he undertook it against a man, whom he had formerly been able to lead into error, and from whom he extended the efficacy of his malice into all men. But while the soul of Adam ^B was held in the condemnation of death, and was crying out to its Master at all times, and those who had pleased God and had attained to righteousness by the natural law were being held together with Adam, and were lamenting and crying out with him, the Lord, having had mercy on the man whom he had created, willed, through the mystery which he manifested, to procure a new salvation for the human race, and to profligate the enemy who through envy had deceived man: he deigned to show the exaltation of man, by that union and communication with the Most High (in nature and in truth of the thing), greater than what can be understood.

10. Therefore the Word, who was God and the creator of the first man, came, that he might become man, so that man might indeed revive, but the iniquitous enemy might be profligated: which, born of a woman, restored in himself the form of man from the first creation, but his flesh, without carnal desires and without human thoughts, he exhibited ^C in the image of newness. For the will was that of the divinity alone; since the whole nature of the Word was present, under the appearance of human form, and also of the visible flesh of the second Adam, not in a division of persons, but in the existence of divinity and humanity. For this reason the devil approached Jesus as a man: but when he found in him no traces of his ancient superinduced seed, nor any ^D

^A progress of his operation, he was overcome, and with shame he retreated, weakened, and said: "Who is this who comes from Edom," that is, from the earth of men, "advancing violently with power?" For this reason the Lord also said: "The prince of this world comes, and in me he finds nothing." And yet we have learned that the second Adam also possessed a soul and a body, and the whole of the first Adam. For if "nothing" were spoken of in regard to human substance, how did he find the visible body of him who had said "nothing"? But the devil found nothing in him of those things which he himself had worked in the first Adam; and thus sin was destroyed in Christ. For this reason also the Scripture testifies: "Who committed no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth" (1 Pet. II, 22).

11. Why then do you say that it is impossible for a man who has once been taken captive to become free from captivity? In order that you might attribute the powerlessness to God, but the power to the devil, while you say that sin, having been induced by him, can never be destroyed in the nature of men, as the rest of the heretics also say; and that for this cause, the Divinity came—which had never been a captive—in the likeness of flesh and soul, so that it might remain itself free from captivity, ^B and thus appear as pure righteousness. When, then, was the righteousness of the Divinity not pure? And what benefit is there in these things for men, unless the Lord appeared with the same existence and in newness of nature, as the Apostle says: "Which he has inaugurated for us, a new and living way" (Heb. X, 20); saying: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life" (John XIV, 6). But you say that those who believe attain salvation by likeness and imitation, and not by renovation and the first-fruits themselves. How, then, could Christ exist as the firstborn among many brethren and the first-fruits of those who sleep, who is the head of ^C the body of the Church (Col. I, 18)? For faith that is seen according to what is manifest could not be called faith; but faith is that which believes in power that which is impossible, and in strength that which is weak, and in impassibility that which is susceptible to passion, and in incorruption that which is corruptible, and in immortality that which is mortal. This is a great mystery, as the Apostle says: "But I speak in Christ and in the Church" (Eph. V, 32). For the Divinity did not come to justify itself—for indeed it did not sin—but "though he was rich, he became poor for our sake, that we by his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. VIII, 9). How, then, did God become poor? ^D

It is because he took to himself the impoverished nature, ^A setting this forth in his own justice as suffering for men and being for men's sake, and being manifested from men, and having become entirely of God. For if he had not become the firstborn among many brethren, how would he have been seen as the firstborn from the dead? How, then, do you say, "God is he who suffered and rose again through the flesh"? Alas for such absurdity and blasphemy! Such are the daring deeds of the Arians. For they shamelessly put forward such blasphemy, having learned to name the Son of God "God" only ostensibly; although Scripture teaches that through God the passion took place in his flesh, and it is not said that God suffered through the flesh.

12. You, then, who have previously declared that you profess the consubstantiality, how do you drag the indivisible name into suffering? How do you drag the indivisible nature, the ineffable divinity, the immutable and unchangeable consubstantiality into suffering, and yet confess that he has risen from the dead? For if the Word, having transformed the flesh from himself, ^B has proceeded even to the suffering, having assumed nothing passible or capable of resurrection into himself, then he himself would be the one who suffered and rose from the dead; and the passion would be common to the Trinity, according to Valentinus, seeing that the Word is not distinguished from the Father according to the divine nature. But if you wish to understand these things in this way, what is the meaning of the promise through the prophets, or the genealogy of the evangelists, or the testimony of the apostles, or the presence of his mother Mary, or the growth in age, or the demonstration of eating, or the evidence of compassion in all things, or the imposition of his name, or that the Son of God has become the Son of man, or that the man Christ Jesus is he who gave himself as a ransom for us? Or that the Son of man must suffer many things and be killed, and on the third day rise from the dead? But if you do not believe that Christ is passible because he is man, ^C and impassible because he is God, but being pressed into a corner you reason that if you confess Christ to be both God and man, you are no longer speaking of one, but of two, then you are necessarily compelled either to state that the economy of the passion and death and resurrection is a mere appearance, according to Marcion and other heretics, or to name the divinity of the Word as passible, according to Arius and his ^D followers.

^A 13. For if, in reading the divine Scriptures, you have observed how in the Law and the Prophets, and in the Gospels and the Apostles, the Lord is everywhere declared first as man, and then the passion is recounted, it is so that no blasphemous words might ever be uttered against the divinity. For this reason, they have not spoken of a generation of the divinity of the Word, but they confess the Father and preach the Son; and they record the Christ as being from Mary, the son of David and of Joseph according to the flesh, by the assumption of the form of a servant, so that his humanity might be believed to be from human beings, and he might be acknowledged as God the Word from God the Father, bearing the passions on behalf of human beings, demonstrating in the suffering body—through the passible form which he had received from human beings—his own impassibility, in the dying his immortality, in the buried his incorruptibility, in the tempted his victory, and in the aging his renewal. For our old man was crucified with him; for in this consists the grace. ^B Yet nowhere does the divinity admit of passion apart from a suffering body, nor does it exhibit agitation and grief apart from a soul that is grieved and agitated, nor does it feel anxiety and pray apart from a mind that is anxious and praying. But indeed, even if the things said did not happen through a defect of nature, yet they were performed as a demonstration of existence. How then have you written that it is God who suffered through the flesh and rose again? For if it is God who suffered through the flesh and rose again, then you would also call the Father, and the Paraclete, passible, since the name is one, and the divine nature is one.

^C 14. From this statement it is possible to discern your way of thinking, which is certainly not that of those who fear God, nor of those who obey the divine Scriptures; when Moses writes concerning God that "our God is a devouring fire," but concerning his advent in the flesh, he says that the Lord would raise up a prophet from among your brothers, and [speaks of] "life hanging on a tree," as if the body of the Lord were given to us for life. And Isaiah also cries out concerning God, saying: "God is great, eternal, who constructed the ends of the earth, he shall not hunger nor grow weary," and so forth; but concerning the passion: "A man who is in ^D

^A affliction, and who knows how to bear infirmity." And what is meant by "who knows how to bear infirmity"? It is that the capacity for suffering is demonstrated from the One who has suffered. For this reason he also says: "Write with the pen of a man on a new scroll" (Isa. VIII, 1), and not of flesh without form. And the Apostle also says: "A man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us" (1 Tim. II, 5, 6). Therefore, to him who was born of the seed of David, he adds the resurrection, speaking according to the flesh; but concerning his divinity: "For the Word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword" (Hebr. IV, 12). The Lord also locates the passion in the Son of man, indicating what is done according to the flesh; but concerning his divinity he says: "I and the Father are one" (Joan. X, 30); and, "No one knows who the Son is, except the Father alone" (Matth. XI, 27). The Scriptures ^B nowhere handed down the blood of God without flesh, or that God suffered and rose again through the flesh. Such are the daring acts of the Arians, since they do not confess the Son of God to be true God. But the Holy Scriptures preach the blood and passion and resurrection of the body of God—that is, the resurrection which took place from the dead—in the flesh of God and of God the Word having become man. But you say the opposite, as if you were wiser than the apostles, more learned in the mysteries than the prophets, more excellent than the evangelists, and of greater authority than the Lord himself. By that feigned show of words, you indeed deny the truth, and speak against the dispensation of the divinity, which clearly appears even upon the cross: for the flesh is confirmed as present in the shedding of blood; and when the voice was uttered and the soul signified ^C, it does not manifest a separation of the divinity, but indicates the death of the body; for the divinity neither deserted the body in the sepulcher, nor was it separated from the soul in the underworld. For this is that which was said through the prophets: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption" (Psal. XV, 10). Therefore the Lord also said: "No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself" (Joan. X, 18), that is: "Being present, I demonstrate it."

15. Therefore, in the soul of Christ, the power of death was destroyed, and the resurrection from the underworld took place, and ^D

^A in corpore autem Christi, corruption was abolished, and incorruption shone forth from the tomb. Thus, neither was man separated from God, nor did God indicate any abandonment of man, nor was the death and the departure of the Spirit a departure of God from the body, but a separation of the soul from the body; for our own death was portrayed therein. But if God had been separated from the body, and in this way death were shown, how could the body, separated from the incorruptible God, display incorruption? Or how could the Word have made His descent into Hades? Or how could He have displayed the resurrection from Hades? Unless He Himself rose in the place of our soul, so that He might fashion the image of our own resurrection? And how is it possible to think such things about God? Your definition, therefore, is inconsistent with the holy Scriptures, and your opinion is ^B incompatible with the economy that has been fulfilled. And as for the saying, "Sit at my right hand," its dignity belongs not to man, but to God. But since the dignity of God became the dignity of man, so that the dignity of man might be believed to be the dignity of God, it was said: "Sit at my right hand," and, "Glorify me, Father, with the eternal glory." He does not say this because He is deprived of glory, but because He was in an inglorious body, so that He might manifest that the form of a servant is not separated from the divine glory, but that it displays this very glory. Therefore He says: "And I have glorified, and I will glorify it again," showing one and the same glory before the body and in the body, as ^C the Apostle says: "Having become so much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they." For to which of the angels did He ever say: "Sit at my right hand"? Surely, the Word, the maker of the angels, did not become better, as if He had been inferior before; but He showed the form of a servant that arose in Him to be better than the angels, or indeed than all creation, forasmuch as, being the image of the invisible God, He became the firstborn of all creation, as it is written in the Gospels: "Until she brought forth her firstborn Son." Therefore all things were created in Him, and in Him the passion had its place, and He Himself is the deliverer from passion and death, and through Him all things were made, and He ^D Himself is the head of the body of the Church, who is the firstborn from the dead, so that, as he says, He Himself might have the preeminence in all things.

16. How then do you say that the Creator of rational natures mingled flesh with Himself, and became a rational man? And how is He immutable and in-

-^Avariable, remaining what He was, if He did not fashion for Himself the rational form of a servant, so that the Word might remain immutable as He was, and yet the rational man be seen on earth as God? For the Lord is a heavenly man, not that He displayed flesh taken from heaven, but because He constituted that which He took from the earth as heavenly; and therefore, just as that heavenly one is, so also are those who have become heavenly through the participation of His holiness. And for this reason the things of the body are appropriated to Him.

But you object again: "How did they crucify the Lord of glory, if, according to you, they did not crucify the Word?" Far be it from us to say this! Rather, they treated the Word with ignominy when they nailed the body of the Word to the cross. For it is God who was treated with ignominy, but the passion, and the death, and the resurrection belonged to the flesh and the soul of God. On account of this, the Lord said to the Jews: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," ^B as the prophet says: "For whose sake His soul was delivered unto death," but not the Word Himself. And John also says: "He laid down His soul for us." How, then, were the Jews able to destroy the temple of God, and to sever the indissoluble union of the flesh with the Word, if, as you say, the death of the body occurred in such a manner? For the body would not have been deadened unless it were separated from someone. For if no dissolution occurred, neither did death; and if death did not occur, neither did the resurrection. Grant, therefore, that a dissolution and separation from the body took place, as it is written in the Gospels: "He breathed out," and "bowing His head He gave up the spirit," so that we might know what sort of spirit you think departed from the body, and that death thus occurred. For you said that by mingling with Himself flesh that has no subsistence, the Word manifested a truly rational and perfect man. If, therefore, the Word departed from the body, and death thus occurred, the Jews prevailed against God by dissolving the indissoluble union. ^C Thus, our own death did not occur there, if the extinction of the body resulted from the separation of God. But how could the body, when separated from the incorruptible God, remain in incorruptibility? Yet in that way there will be a wounding of the body, but a passion of the Word. For this reason you also affirm that God suffered, speaking consistently with yourselves, or rather, in agreement with the Arians; for these are the things they teach. And according to your opinion, the Word would also be raised from the resurrection. For it is necessary that He Himself should have received some beginning of the resurrection from hades, ^D so that the resurrection might be perfect, and the dissolution of death, and the release of the spirits who were kept there.

^A And if these things were suffered by the Word, where, I ask, is the immutability and invariability of the Word? And how, when the Word was seen openly in the underworld, was he considered a man in his death? Why also did the Lord say to the Jews: "I will raise him up," and not "I am rising from the underworld"? For if the Word, having occurred in death, had need of one to raise him from death, the victory will not be the Word's, but his who raised him. Why also was it foreshadowed through the prophets concerning his soul? Why did the Lord himself, while present, say in fulfilling the promise: "I lay down my life for my sheep"? The holy Scriptures teach clearly that this soul is a spirit; and the Lord himself also said: "The body indeed is killed by men, but they cannot kill the soul, inasmuch as it is a spirit." By this Spirit Jesus was troubled; the departure of this Spirit from the body took place on the cross. And thus the body was deadened, and its dissolution occurred, while God the Word remained immutable, both in the body and in the soul and in himself, who existed in the bosom of the Father, as an exhibition of immutability. ^B And in the form that became ours in him, he depicted there our death; so that in it he might also fitly prepare the resurrection for us, exhibiting the soul from the underworld and the body from the tomb: so that in death he might destroy death by the exhibition of the soul, and in the tomb he might render void corruption by the burial of the body; exhibiting immortality and incorruptibility from the underworld and from the tomb, having traversed our path in a form similar to ours, and having loosed the hold that was against us. And this was the wondrous thing; for in this the grace resided. But you, while confessing only the flesh, are ^C able to demonstrate neither the condemnation of sin, nor the dissolution of death, nor the completion of the resurrection, nor the immutability of the Word; because you have stepped outside the holy Scriptures, speaking things that the Arians cavil at, when the discourse concerning the soul is plainly held in the holy Scriptures, and the economy has been fulfilled, with all the proofs of its completion having been exhibited.

18. Furthermore, some of the heretics confess him who was seen, but do not believe in his divinity; while others, who confess him as God, deny the generation of his flesh, ^D and do not believe in his divinity; but while others who confess God, deny his flesh's generation.

^A And there are some who, while confessing flesh, deny the exhibition of his soul; and they have become like the mad children of the Arians, who weave together tortuous and crooked propositions, so that by stirring up questions about them, they might throw simpler souls into doubt, while they themselves, in the meantime, waver in the faith. In the same way, they too have learned to speak thus: "Who is this who was born of Mary? God, or man?" Then, if one says, "Man," he will not believe in his divinity, becoming in agreement with the heretics who have disbelieved in it; but if he says, "God," he will deny the generation of his flesh, and will be joined with the heretics who deny this. And then again: "Who is he who suffered? Who is he who was crucified? God, or man?" So that, if one says, "God," he might utter a blasphemous word according to the opinion of the impious Arians; but if he says, "Man," he might speak according to the Jewish opinion. ^B For this reason, the holy Scriptures proclaim that the Word is God, ineffably from the Father, and that this same one, in the last times, was born as man from a Virgin; so that neither should God be disbelieved, nor should the generation of the flesh be denied. But where the name of flesh appears, there the harmony of the whole composite is present, except for sin. And regarding the name of man, they apply the passion, and they do not exceed this, as it is written in the holy Scriptures; but regarding the divinity of the Word, they confess his immutability and his ineffability. Therefore, ^C they speak of the Word as God, but they narrate the generation of this same one as man, so that the selfsame one may be naturally and truly both: God, in regard to the eternity of the deity and the creation of things; but man, in regard to the generation from a woman, and the increase of stature and age. Thus, he is God regarding his life-giving benefits, and powerful in the performance of miracles; but man regarding the sympathies akin to our own, and the weaknesses which are ours. And the Word is God in the manifestation of immortality, ^D and incorruptibility, and immutability; but man by the fastening of the cross, and the nature of blood, and the burial of the body, and the descent into hell, and the resurrection from the dead. Thus Christ is raised from the dead, and being God, he raises the dead.

^A Likewise, they are vain who ascribe passibility to His divinity, or who do not have faith in His humanity, or who say the one is two; or those who attempt to measure His flesh, and dare to speak beyond the Scriptures concerning how much, or in what manner. For by such conjectures the mind of the heretics has slipped: Marcion, by declining from the truth through immoderate blasphemy; Manichaeus, by being seduced on account of an opinion about sin; Valentinus, by being misled through a pretense of knowledge; Paul of Samosata, and the one called Photinus, and those following them, by falling away from the deity on account of unbelief; and Arius, by blaspheming due to his own madness. But you, using similar cavils, speak of things which are not written, and in that way you subvert the simple. For it is sufficient to believe what is written and what has come to pass, as Paul says, "To the likeness in all things, without sin" (Hebr. IV, 15). And Peter says, "Christ therefore having suffered for us in the flesh, do you also arm yourselves with the same thought" (I Petr. IV, 1), and by inquiring no further, reject not the truth.

NOTICE CONCERNING THE TWO FOLLOWING EPISTLES.

At almost the same time, that is, either near the end of the year 371 or at the beginning of 372, we believe these letters were written to John and Antiochus and to Palladius: on this occasion, as one may conjecture. Basil, in order that he might accommodate himself to the state of the times, even though he ascribed to the Holy Spirit all things that can properly be ascribed to God, nonetheless abstained from the name "God," lest it be an offense to the hearers who were unaccustomed to that appellation. Since some monks bore this with difficulty, and were decrying the holy Doctor everywhere on this account, Athanasius most severely represses their audacity in the first epistle. In the second, however, he warns Palladius that he should be the author of peace by reconciling the monks who were disputing with Basil for the reason mentioned above: and he testifies that he highly approves of that pious simulation of Basil, who for the sake of the infirm became as an infirm person himself; he mentions also a letter written by himself to those same monks, which now, by the injury of time, is nowhere extant. Furthermore, who John and Antiochus are, as well as Palladius, Innocentius, and Dianias, mentioned here, is drawn out, as opportunity allows, in the Life of Athanasius.

Letter of our Holy Father ATHANASIUS, Archbishop of Alexandria, to JOHN and ANTIOCHUS the presbyters.

Athanasius to John and Antiochus, beloved sons and fellow-presbyters, greeting in the Lord.

1. I received your letter with joy, especially because you wrote from Jerusalem; and I am grateful to you, because you informed me ^C about the brothers gathered there, and about those who, under the pretext of raising questions, endeavor to trouble the simple. But concerning these, let the Apostle give instruction, "not to heed"