A of Christ's body made one body, and not two. And just as the body of the Lord, having been born of the holy Theotokos, was subject to corruption until the resurrection, being pierced by the nails and the lance; so also the body of which we partake receives the whole economy. The bread lies on the holy table, as in the womb of the Virgin: the holy Spirit descends, as the angel said to the Virgin when she asked: "How shall this be, since I know not a man?" "The holy Spirit shall come upon thee"; so also on the table the holy Spirit descends, and it becomes the body of Christ. Then, through the hands of the priest, it is elevated as on the cross, and is buried B among us, and the economy is brought to completion: for it indeed renders us incorrupt. For truly, so long as it is eaten by us, we say that it is corruptible. For how, if it could not be corrupted, would it be broken and eaten? But after the partaking it is already incorruptible, passing into the consistency and into the substance of our soul: incorruptible and without corruption, for our own incorruption. Such is our belief, and such is our faith. But pray for us, O holiest one. C
BY THE SAME, CHAPTER V: On the immaculate body, of which we partake.
A 1. The body of our Lord and God of which we partake, brethren, is that very body which He took from our substance, which He assumed from the immaculate and Theotokos. For we shall not attribute two bodies to Christ; for one is His body, and one sacrifice He offered for us to God and the Father. For although we frequently perform the mystical bloodless sacrifice—because in every place and time every believer partakes of the divine body and blood—yet it is the same sacrifice. For we offer the same body, the same Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. B For otherwise, if this were one thing and that another, many sacrifices, not one, would have been offered for us, as the divine Apostle has spoken diversely in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "For such a high priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's. For this he did once, when he offered up himself." And later: "But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, C not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." And after a few words: "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others; for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation." And again: D "And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: but this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us. For after He had said...
"This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Now where there is remission of these, there is no more offering for sin. B
2. Just as the infant born of a woman is a perfect human being, but by eating and drinking it grows, yet does not assume another body, nor do we say that it has two or many bodies, but one, that which was born from the mother, and nature works the growth through its natural economy; so also now, since Christ is our head and we have become fellow-members of his body, and we are his body which is ever growing. And we have become fellow-members of him through participation in his flesh and his blood: "For taking bread and the cup of wine and water, He gave thanks and blessed it, and said: This is my body." And in place of the natural economy, the bread and wine mixed with water, through His Word, have become His body and blood. Just as His body before the resurrection from the dead was corruptible, being broken, eaten, and drunk, yet altogether incorrupt; for why would He have done this before the resurrection rather than after the resurrection? Because the body which is incorruptible [as it is] after the resurrection is not broken, nor eaten, nor drunk; nor does an incorruptible body possess blood, nor indeed could it justly be called flesh, as Gregory, surnamed the Theologian, says in his Oration on Baptism: C"Believe," he says, "that Christ the Son of God is to come again with glory to judge the living and the dead; not as flesh existing any longer; yet not without a body, but having a body of a more divine nature, in a way known only to Himself: so that He may be seen by those who pierced Him, and yet remain God, free from all grossness."
Therefore, this body and blood of our God which we partake of is corruptible, since it is broken and poured out, eaten and drunk; and just as the growth of our own body fulfills the entire natural economy of the body's structure from the beginning, so also the celebration of the holy mysteries fulfills the entire spiritual and supernatural economy of the flesh-taking of the Word of God. D
3. For in our case, the seed of the father is in a way the beginning of the formation of the infant's body, and then nourishment from the mother's blood takes the lead, and a transformation of the underlying material into an organic body occurs according to the power given to nature by the Creator of our nature and its powers; and thus flesh, blood, bones, and the rest of the members are constituted through attractive, retentive, and alterative—that is, nutritive—powers. Similarly, the addition that comes to the body through eating is brought about through the nutritive—that is, the attractive, retentive, and alterative—power, forming the body’s growth. Therefore, in the growth B of the Lord's body also, one had to contemplate the entire divine economy of His incarnation, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, and incorruption. For the Lord's body did not become incorrupt from the beginning, but was corruptible and capable of suffering until the resurrection; but after the burial, it became incorrupt, when by divine power it rose from the dead and made us incorruptible.
4. By what manner, then, did this happen? The holy Virgin was in the place of the table, possessing the matter of the body; then, according to the angel's voice, the Holy Spirit [Luc. 1, 35.] came upon her. Then the power of the Most High overshadowed her; the divine Word, the divine Person, assumed flesh from her. And so it lies here, as in the womb of the Virgin, so in the mystical table, the matter being the bread and the mixture of wine and water. For the mother C was also nourished by these [Liturgia S. Jacobi.] and provided the body's matter for the fetus. The priest says, like the angel, "That the Holy Spirit, descending, may sanctify and make this bread the holy body of Christ, and this cup the precious blood of Christ." And this happens, not by a natural economy, but by one that is supernatural, for the increase of the Lord's body and blood into one body, and not two.
5. Then it is raised in the hands of the priest as on the cross, and it is distributed as broken, and thus it is buried in us, and makes us incorruptible. For this is the end of the economy. It is not corrupted in us, just as the Lord's body was not corrupted in the tomb. But until we receive it, it undergoes all things that belong to corruption. It is broken by us with reverence and faith; and it is often dishonored and cast aside by the hands of the wicked, and by mice and worms; but it is not corrupted, nor does it pass into non-being. For it is invisibly gathered into one body. D For the Lord was also circumcised, and on the cross He poured out blood from His feet, and hands, and side, but into one
was circumcised, and on the cross from his feet, hands, and side he poured forth blood; which, however, coalesced into one and the same body: for the whole body rose again and entire. Christ said: “Do this in my remembrance. For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall show the death of the Son of man.” But the memory of death is corruption. For death itself is corruption, even if not total destruction.......
This chapter was found on a very ancient, worn parchment, drafted by his own hand in individual letters with much labor. But the remaining parts, although they lack an ending, were collected as far as it was possible, so that they might not perish entirely.
* 1 Cor. xi, 25, 26.
NOTE. (*) In the printed editions and Reg. 2935, these things precede the oration or homily; they follow, however, in R. 2424.
After the works which were attributed to John of Damascus, I thought it proper to append two interpolations of the book *De fide orthodoxa*, which I had omitted when the sheets were scattered. I had found the first in the Royal codices 2930, 3109, 3445, and Colb. 2765, in chapter 3 of book III, after these words: “God who is perfect is the same, and man who is perfect” (see p. 207), and thus it absurdly cuts the author’s context. It proceeds thus:
B Furthermore, all the parts of a composite nature, since they did not exist before, received existence to complete the universe; nor could it have been impossible for those things which exist at the same time to form one composite nature, since they received this definition and natural law from the Author of nature, so that from similar beings, similar beings might be produced in a succession of order. But of those natures which are joined in the Lord, the one is without beginning and outside of time, while the other began and is subject to time; nor did a species emerge from them for the completion of the whole (otherwise God would not have rested on the seventh day from his works), nor were they joined by a natural bond, but by an unusual and supernatural method. Moreover, those things which are unusual and above nature do not constitute anything natural. Nor can it be said that there is any nature of a bush that is so familiar with fire that it is not consumed; nor is there any nature of a man lifted into the air or even into heaven; nor, again, a nature of a human body that is sprinkled with dew in the midst of fire: but we say that these things occur, beyond the common laws of nature, in one hypostasis. In a similar way, we know that the incarnation of the Lord in the one person of the most holy Trinity was effected in such a way that we teach that the junction of the natures came to exist not according to the law of nature, but by a supernatural dispensation: the law of natures being, of course, not preserved, by which from Christ a Christ might be born, which would produce many persons of Christs; but rather there is one composite person from two natures and in two natures, and two natures simultaneously: each nature, clearly, even after the conjunction, both in its definition, and in its proper laws, and in that which is between C But even of every composite nature the parts have simultaneously had their production from non-being into being for the completion of the whole; and it is impossible for things existing at the same time to constitute one composite nature, receiving such a definition and natural limit only from the Creator, so that by the law of nature they might be generated in succession like from like. But in the case of the Lord of the united natures, the one is without beginning and timeless, but the other is generated and subject to time; and no species has come into being for the completion of the whole, since God ceased from his works on the seventh day; nor were they united naturally, but paradoxically and supernaturally. And things that are paradoxical and supernatural do not produce things that are natural. For we do not say that the nature of a bush [when it] comes into contact with fire is not burned, nor [do we say this of] the nature of a man having become lifted up as into heaven, nor of the nature of a human body being dew-moistened in fire; but we say that these are paradoxical things happening in one hypostasis. Thus also, concerning the incarnation of the Lord, we say that the union of the natures has occurred in one hypostasis of the hypostases of the Godhead, not by the law of nature, but by a supernatural economy; and not by a limit of natures, so that from Christ a Christ is born, a procurer of many hypostases of Christs, but one composite [person] from two natures, and in two natures, and two natures, each nature even after the union keeping its own proper limit and law, and the difference with respect to each other. For indeed in the case of man, insofar as the difference between soul and body with respect to each other is considered, we say there are two natures; but insofar as the natural difference of hypostasis from hypostasis is not considered, [we say it is] one. And those which differ according to hypostasis are said to be of one nature, because they are of the same kind. But being of one hypostasis, and differing according to essence, and united according to hypostasis, the therefore of different kinds