14. A *The Word was made flesh*, not resolved into flesh, but bearing flesh; just as if one were to say: "So-and-so has become an old man," not having been born as such from the beginning; or, "The soldier has become a veteran," not having been such before, as he has now become. John says, "I was,"—*I became*, he says, "in the island of Patmos, on the Lord's day;" not that he was generated there, or born there; but he said, "I was in Patmos," meaning, "I arrived." So also the Word arrived in the flesh, as it is written: *The Word was made flesh*. Hear Him saying: *I became as a vessel that is lost*, and, *I was made as a man without help, free among the dead*.
2. Was He man, or God? The apostle Peter explains this, knowing it better than we do, and says: *Taking Him down from the tree, they laid Him in a tomb; but God raised Him from the dead*. The dead body of Jesus, then, having been taken down from the tree and laid in a tomb, and having been buried by Joseph of Arimathea, was raised by the Word Himself, who said: *Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up*. For He who gives life to all the dead, also gave life to the man born of Mary, Christ Jesus, whom He assumed. For if, being on the cross, He raised the previously dissolved bodies of the saints, much more was He able to raise the body which He Himself bore, He who is the ever-living God the Word, as Paul says: *For the Word of God is living and effectual*.
3. Life, therefore, cannot die, but rather gives life to the dead. C He is, then, a fountain of life by His deity from the Father; but He who died, and who was raised from the dead, and who also intercedes for us, is man, born of the Virgin Mary, whom the deity of the Word assumed for our sake. The fact, therefore, that it is written, *In the beginning was the Word*, clearly indicates His deity. But that, *The Word was made flesh*, shows the Lord's humanity.
1031 4. It happened that Lazarus died, having been affected by disease; D but the Lord's humanity did not die because of some preceding illness, nor against His will; but of His own accord He approached the economy of death, being strengthened by the God the Word who dwelt within Him, who said: *No one takes my soul from me. I lay it down of myself; I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up*. It is, therefore, the deity of the Son that lays down and takes up the soul of the man He bore. For He assumed the complete man, so that He might give life to him completely, and with him to the dead.
5. For He Himself, being powerful and the Creator of all things, in the Virgin prepares for Himself a temple, the body, and makes it His own as an instrument, being known in it and dwelling in it. For this reason He takes to Himself a body capable of dying; so that the same body of the Word of God
A partaking of the Word, might be sufficient for death on behalf of all, and because of the indwelling Word, might remain incorruptible.
6. For the Word of God, being above all, B by offering His own temple and bodily instrument as a substitute for all, fulfilled the debt which was due in death. And because He, the incorruptible Son of God, was united with all by the likeness of the body, He naturally clothed all with incorruptibility in the promise of the resurrection. And the very corruption which follows death, according to man, no longer has a place, because of the Word that has dwelt in them through the one body. And just as when a great king enters a city and resides in one of the houses within it, such a city is undoubtedly rendered worthy of great honor, and no enemy or robber any longer dares to attack or destroy it, but rather it is accounted worthy of all care because of the king who has made his abode in one of its houses; so has it happened with our Savior. For since He came into our region and took up a dwelling in one of the bodies similar to ours, henceforth every C plot against man [has ceased].
7. For He was not circumscribed by the body, nor was He in the body in such a way that He was not elsewhere; nor was He moving the body while other things were deprived of His providence. But, what is most paradoxical, being the Word, He was not contained by anything, but rather He Himself contained all things. By the entry of the Word into the body, the body was no longer corrupted according to its own nature, but because of the indwelling Word of God, it became exempt from corruption. For the body indeed suffered, as it suffered according to the nature of bodies; but it had the nature of incorruptibility from the Word who dwelt within it.
8. The Son of God Himself D showed that the body which had become dead was deathless and incorruptible; and it was shown to all that the body did not die through any weakness of the nature of the indwelling Word, but in order that death might be destroyed in it by the power of the Savior.
9. What end was there to be for the body, when the Word had come upon it? It could not die, for it was mortal, and was being offered to death on behalf of all, for which reason the Savior had prepared it for Himself; yet it could not remain dead, as it was the temple of life. Wherefore, as mortal, it died; but because of the life that was in it, it rose again.
10. What incredible thing is said by us, when we say that the Word of God took His seat upon straying and fallen human nature, and became man, so that by His governance and goodness He might bring salvation to it when it was tossed by a storm? ***
11. To the soul, indeed, it pertains to contemplate the things within its own body by thought; but yet not [the things] externally.
to act upon those things A which are outside the body, nor to move those things which consist far from the body by its presence. Never, therefore, does a man, placed far away, move or transfer those things: for neither does anyone sitting at home, while thinking of things in heaven, move the sun or revolve the heaven; but he sees that those things are moved and created; yet not so that he is able to effect anything of them. But the Word of God is not of this kind in man; for it was not bound to the body, but rather itself occupied it with authority; so that it was at once in the body and in all things; and yet was outside all things, and in the Father alone.
12. Observe, I pray, B if they do not move laughter against themselves, who are accounted wise among the Greeks; while they say the world is a great body, and they speak truly while saying these things: for we perceive it and its individual parts, since they fall under the senses. If, therefore, the Word of God exists in the world itself, which is a body, and at the same time has pervaded all things and the parts of it as well; what is wonderful or what is absurd if we say that it has also arrived in man? And if, while the whole nature of created things exists, it is not absurd for the Word to be in it, it will not be absurd equally for it to be in man. It is not, therefore, unbecoming for the Word to be in man, and for all things to be illuminated and moved by it and in it.
13. Seeing, therefore, that Adam was deceived by the devil C and transgressed the commandment of his Maker, and had fallen under the curse and the hold of death, the Word of God, the Creator of all, having fashioned for Himself from the Virgin Mary, who drew her origin from Adam, a most pure body capable of containing the whole fullness of the Divinity bodily, and to bear human passions, that is to say, sufferings, He voluntarily delivered it up for the whole world; so that He might kill the devil, who once held the empire of death, by the death of His own body. But the blood does not flow from the spirit of the divinity of the Word; but from the man whom He assumed.
14. Illud. *I am the vine*; and, *My Father is greater than I*; item, *He created me*; and, *I am a worm and no man*; and whatever D things He said in the Gospels and in the prophets concerning Himself that were humble and abject, look to the body which He took for our sake. Nor do we ascribe the passible body, which He took for the salvation of the universe, to the Father: for all things were created by the Father through the Son. But the Son alone was begotten of the Father: wherefore the Word of God is the firstborn of all creation; for He is immutable from the immutable; therefore the body which He took for us is a created thing.
15. For having assumed Adam with his affections in all things except sin, [namely] Him who is called Jesus, so that through Him the lost sheep might be brought back to the Father.
A as a sheep led to the slaughter, and as a lamb silent before the shearer; A concerning whom Paul writes: "The man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for us." And in another place he says: "By a man [came] death, and by a man [came] the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be brought to life."
16. For through Him the Word all things were made and created, but He Himself was not made; rather, the Scriptures declare that the man Himself whom He assumed for our sake was made and created. For the Lord says: "Every branch remaining in me brings forth fruit"; and in the man whom He assumed, who was of the lineage of Adam, He brought to life that which was of the lineage of Adam.
17. Consider, I pray, that no one has hitherto known the Son of God as He is, until He manifested Himself to us. But the Son of man whom He assumed for our sake, we know, of whom Paul said: "Consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus, who is faithful to Him who made Him." Of whom also Stephen says: "I see the Son of man standing at the right hand of God"; B he did not say that he saw the Word or the Wisdom of the Father, but the Son of man, the Lordly body born of Mary.
18. As concerns what is written, "Jesus increased in age, and wisdom, and grace"; this is indeed said of the man who is understood to exist in the Savior, who at one time was an infant, and at one time progressed in age, and in wisdom and grace, beginning as it were at thirty years of age, as the evangelist Luke says. The body, indeed, which admits of both progress and age, is a created and fashioned thing. But Jesus Christ, who is understood as the man in the Savior, He it is who admits of the progression of age, at one time being an infant, at one time a man, beginning as it were at thirty years of age, as Luke says. C He, therefore, the man Christ Jesus who admits the succession of ages, who became a faithful apostle and high priest to Him who made Him, He it is who undergoes this progress.
19. Stephen says: "I see the Son of man standing at the right hand of the power of God"; he did not say that he saw the Word or the Wisdom of the Father, but the Son of man, the Lordly body taken from Mary, which Paul says sits at the right hand of God. Concerning which body David says prophetically from the person of the Father: "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." Since He foresaw that the enemies would be the devil and his ministering opposing powers, who were hostile to the Lordly man, D knowing also that the devil, who has the power of death, would be destroyed through His death. For those who diminish the deity of the Word, as if the Lord could not by Himself avenge Himself of His enemies—because, forsooth, the Father said to the Son: "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool"—let those ignorant men know, that this word was spoken concerning the man according to the flesh
For in David’s own words, it is written concerning the Lord’s man: "No enemy shall profit against him." The body, therefore, is that to which He says: "Sit at my right hand," whose enemy was the devil with the evil powers, as well as the Jews and Greeks. B
20. When the blessed Paul had said that all things were created in Him, he affirmed that He alone is before all things. For, being educated by the ancients—since he was learned in the law, and having diligently studied the proverbs of Solomon, and having discerned two modes of speaking regarding the Lord: one concerning the man whom He was about to assume from Mary, and another concerning the Word who was begotten eternally from the Father before all ages—he writes to Timothy concerning Jesus who was born of Mary: "Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, from the seed of David according to the flesh." But concerning the Word of God who is always with the Father, he said that He is before all things. Let those, therefore, who say that the Word of God was created as the beginning of works be refuted by all the saints, and let them hear from David that He is not a work, but the Creator of works, as he says: "The heavens are the works of your hands: they shall perish, but you shall remain." C
21. "Jesus Christ, yesterday and today, and the same for the ages," is said of the man who is understood in the Savior. He is the same who was once an infant, then advanced in age and grace, and was then beginning to be about thirty years old, as the evangelist Luke says. Now that body which admits of advancement and stature, that is, is a created thing and a work. Let those, therefore, who are refuted by the saints, and who say that the Word born of the Father is a created thing, either cease from their impious blasphemies, or be proclaimed by all as enemies of Christ. For where they feel themselves defeated, they confidently take refuge in the passage in Proverbs which says: "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works." But they stumble; for Solomon, prophesying by the inspiration of the Spirit concerning Him who was to come for the benefit of the whole world, to be created from Mary as the Lord’s man, said from His person: "The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works." D
22. Therefore, let every house of Israel know most assuredly, that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. The apostles, pointing with their finger to the very man of the Lord who was crucified, said: "God has made this Jesus both Christ and Lord." This very man of the Lord was openly created as the beginning of the ways written beforehand for our benefit, the prince of all the saints and of those who are called ways, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who was made and crucified.
A Concerning whom Jeremiah also said, according to the edition of the Septuagint translators: "The Lord created me as a new plantation of salvation, in which salvation men shall walk round about"; but according to Aquila, regarding the same passage, it says: "The Lord created a new thing in a woman." He calls this salvation "new" and not "old," created for us, and not before us. But whom he calls the new [thing] created in a woman, understand to be the man Jesus who is in the Savior. For Jesus is explained at one time as Savior, at another as salvation; salvation from the Savior, just as illumination is from light: him whom he says is the Lord Jesus, created for us as salvation, [as a] new [thing] in a woman, that is to say, in Mary, or rather, from Mary. Therefore, he whom Solomon says was created as the beginning of the ways, and whom Jeremiah says was created as a new salvation, and [a] new [thing] in a woman, him whom Wisdom built for herself as a house, namely Christ Jesus, we have proven by the testimony of the Scriptures. Now let us follow the rest, which some, either out of ignorance or out of a prejudiced opinion, persisting in error, neither wish to teach correctly nor to be taught.
25. If all were able to understand the divine oracles B in a spiritual manner, he would by no means desire to impart spiritual grace to them; nor would he give them milk to drink, if all were able to partake of solid food. But for those who are, as it were, infants in the word of divine knowledge, he ensures that they are imbued with the rudiments of primary instruction, as infants to be nourished with milk; inasmuch as they cannot yet be fed with the bread of the angels, that is, with God the Word, who lies hidden in human flesh.
24. It is proper, therefore, for us, as skilled dispensers of divine mysteries, to impart the word according to the capacity and ability of each. For old wineskins burst when they are unable to contain the new wine of the true vine, that is, the word of our Lord Jesus Christ. Since, therefore, some—or rather, many—who cannot yet be numbered among the disciples have, out of a certain rashness and petulance, approached the task of teaching, knowing neither what they say nor whereof they affirm, C being blinded in the eyes of their mind, and not endowed with a mind dedicated to the contemplation of God, as Jacob was, nor having a clean heart to see God; these, when they attribute to the deity of the Word the humble works and the voices testifying to poverty written concerning the man of the Savior, whom he bore for us, fall into error, and together drag the unskilled and the weak into error; for us, a necessity arises, as Judas writes, to explain through this letter what sayings belong to the deity of the Word, and which, conversely, to the human nature assumed for our sake. For just as gold coins and silver ones are kept together in one and the same purse, D and both bear the image of one king and the inscription of his name; yet the money-changer, with whom these things are, well knows how much the gold excels, and at what price [it is valued] in comparison to the lesser value of the silver; so also, if in one Scripture [you find passages] concerning the deity of the Son and concerning the [humanity] from
the body which he assumed for us from Mary; yet we shall recognize each of these things as discerning disciples of the one true Teacher. As many, therefore, as are the humble words and similar works, consider them written concerning the body of Jesus: and as many as are glorious and sublime, refer them to the deity of the Word. When after the fast he is pressed by hunger, it is the infirmity of the body; but when with five loaves he feeds five thousand, besides children and women, and twelve baskets of fragments remain over, it is the work of the deity of the Word. When he sleeps on a cushion in the boat, it is corporeal rest. When, walking upon the sea, he threatens the waves and the winds: "Peace, be still," he immediately hears those in the boat confessing with an oath: "Truly, you are the Son of God." When, standing at the tomb of Lazarus, he weeps, and when he was about to suffer, he says: "My soul is sorrowful even unto death," and is troubled, and the Spirit of the deity is indeed ready, B speaking for the whole economy, but the flesh is weak: it is the infirmity of the body to be sorrowful and to be troubled. When with the authority of one commanding he says: "Lazarus, come forth," and the dead man of four days, already decayed, arises, which had not happened since the beginning of creation: it is a sign of his deity. When, tired from his journey for our sake, he sits at the well, it is the body that is fatigued. When he says: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest"; it is the work of his deity to deliver from both bodily diseases and labors, and from dangers of the soul. When he is baptized by John, who committed no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth, it is the propitiation of the body for our sake; but when he commands the apostles to baptize all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, it pertains to his divine power. When he bends his knees and prays as a man, it is the confession of the body for our sake; but when, as he is C transfigured on the mount, Peter and James and John, not being able to bear his glory, incline their faces and knees to the earth before the glory of the deity: it is the power of the Word. When he strengthens the apostles by saying: "Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul," this is the hidden and powerful exhortation of the deity; when he prays that he might not die, it is the fear of the body. For before Adam transgressed, there was neither sorrow, nor fear, nor labor, nor hunger, nor death.
25. "I am," he says, "the way" of those who are being saved, and "the life" of the dead, and the "truth" of those who flee from falsehood, saying to those who are in darkness: "Be revealed." "I am the light of the world." For having clothed himself with Adam, together with his affections—sin apart—namely, him who was called Jesus, through him he offered the lost sheep to the Father, as a sheep upon
A the slaughter brought, or as a lamb before the shearer is dumb. Regarding whom Paul writes: *There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for us and for our sins.* And in another place the Apostle says: *By man came death, and by man came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.* And again, in another place, he writes: *The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.* By the first Adam, therefore, he denotes the first-formed man of the world; but by the second Adam, the man understood in the Savior, who is called Son of man, sheep, vine, bread, tree, grain of wheat, and things similar to these. He is also called Adam, even though the second differs greatly from the first. For the former was made from the earth, while the latter, being the Word of the Father, became flesh—not becoming emptied of being the Word because he bore flesh, just as gold is not deprived of its own beauty because it is enclosed in a shapeless purse.
26. When, however, our teacher says in another place, *Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus, who is faithful to him who made him*, B beware of thinking that the Word of God is a created thing, who is from the beginning with God the Father. For he does not say that the invisible deity is to be considered, but the Lord’s humanity, which Paul called the mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for us. Whom he said we should consider—Jesus, that is, who is faithful to him who made him—as the Lord says: *Consider the ravens, that they neither sow*, etc., and again: *Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.* He says that those things which are manifest are to be considered, and not angels or other invisible creations. For even if Habakkuk the prophet said: *I considered thy works, and was afraid*, he says that he considered the works, and not the creator of the works. And similarly, the Apostle says that the body of the Lord, which falls under C sight, ought to be considered, but not the invisible deity of the Word; *for no man has seen God at any time, neither can he see him*, although the Word was and is God, as the theologian John says. Him, therefore, whom we are taught to consider—the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for us, whom he calls apostle and faithful high priest—he bids us consider insofar as he is a created thing. All things, therefore, were indeed created; but the Word of God is not a creature, seeing he is the Son of God, but is begotten according to nature; for the Father created all things through the Word, as Paul says: *In him were all things created*; and as John says: *All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made.* But God does not create the Word himself, but begets him; for D through the Word all things were made and created; he himself, however, was not made, but the Scriptures indicate that he became man for our sake and was created.
A 27. The Lord says, "Every branch in me that bears no fruit..." and in the man whom He bore from the earth-born Adam, He will make alive the race of Adam, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, as Peter writes; for he says that He was put to death in the flesh for our sake, and not in His immortal and life-giving divinity. For the Lord says: "I am the life." Life, therefore, neither dies, but rather makes the dead alive. For just as light is not harmed in a dark place, nor can life suffer anything when it visits mortal nature; for the divinity of the Word is immutable and unchangeable.
28. "Who," he says, "has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor who will instruct him?" The Son alone is the counselor of the Father, and He has known His mind, He who says: "No one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son B except the Father, and to whom the Son reveals him." John says, therefore, concerning the Lord: "When he appears, we shall be like him, and we shall see him as he is." Observe that until now no one has seen the Son of God as He is, until He should manifest Himself to us; but we have seen the man He bore for our sake, of whom Paul said: "Consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus, who is faithful to the one who made him." Whom Stephen also mentions: "I see the Son of man standing at the right hand of the power of God." He did not say he saw the Word or the Wisdom of the Father, but the Son of man, the Lord's body from Mary; which Paul also says: "Who sits C at the right hand of God." Concerning this body David speaks prophetically from the person of the Father: "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet"; whom He foreknew would be enemies, the devil and the opposing powers that were working with him, which were hostile to the Lord's man, knowing through His death that they were to be brought to naught, and the devil who had the power of death, and the Jews who were His enemies, in whom that which is written is fulfilled: "Because they hated me without cause." For though they were being taught by Him things most useful for themselves, they dared to scourge and crucify Him, calling Him a Samaritan and possessed by a demon and a sinful man, D even though sin had been condemned by Him. Of whom it is written: "They shall look on him whom they pierced." When they see Him in the day of judgment judging the living and the dead, as John says concerning the Son: "As he gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of man," moved by repentance, tribe by tribe they shall say: "This is he whom we once held in derision," saying to Him: "You saved others, but you cannot save yourself." Therefore, the Lord's
A body is that which is written of through David: "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." For before this prophecy of David, the Word was in the bosom of the Father, and He had no enemies in heaven. For no one was with the Father before the creation except the Son and the Holy Spirit. For the Father, through the Son, made the infinite ages, the principalities, the powers, and every creature. Since, therefore, the God Word, who is the Lord of all, has nothing in common with anyone—neither property nor wealth—and no one is able to resist Him, how could He have enemies? For those who diminish the divinity of the Word, as if the Lord could not avenge Himself upon His enemies, suppose that the Father said to the Son: "Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool." But let the ignorant realize, even now, that this was written concerning the Savior insofar as He is viewed as a man. For it is written in the same David concerning the Lord's B man: "An enemy shall not prevail against you," and again: "The scourge shall not draw near your tabernacle."
29. "The Lord," he says, "has prepared His throne in heaven." It is one thing to say, "Heaven is my throne," and another for a throne to be prepared in heaven as if in some specific place. A great many words are required for the exposition of these things at present; but the aforementioned thrones denote the obedience of all created things. We have prefaced these remarks to the passage, "Sit at my right hand," because it was spoken concerning the Lord's body. For if, "I fill heaven and earth," says the Lord, as Jeremiah says, and God contains all things and is contained by none, upon what throne will He sit? It is therefore the body to which He says, "Sit at my right hand," of which the devil, along with the wicked powers, was also an enemy, as well as the Jews and Greeks who opposed the preachings of Christ; it is through this body that He became and is called High Priest and Apostle, through the mystery which He delivered to us, saying: "This is my body, which is given for you, and the blood of the New Covenant, not the Old, which is poured out for you." Yet the Divinity possesses neither body nor blood, but the man whom He took from Mary became the cause of these things, concerning whom the apostles said: "Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God." D By Nazareth he means the earthly city, not the heavenly one. And they call Him a man, not God, before the Jews and others who, like them, think according to the flesh even now. Both the apostles and the Lord Himself answered concerning Himself in a human manner, saying: "Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you?" He did not say, "You seek to kill me, who am God." For God, being impassible and immortal, abolishes death and vivifies the dead; for He says, "I am the life." And to Philip, as he heard—
and the believer, he teaches along with the rest of the apostles, and those similarly able to grasp it spiritually, saying: "He who has seen me has seen the Father; I and the Father are one," and, "I am in the Father and the Father in me." A
30. You have, therefore, from this very demonstration of the Scriptures, that it is the man of the Savior whom we are taught to consider as a created thing, but not the invisible divinity of the Word, which is hidden in the Father's bosom, and which no one has seen up to this time. And Paul knew this better than we do, saying: "A great light shone around me, and I fell to the ground. And I heard a voice saying to me: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads. And I said: Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said to me: I am Jesus, whom you persecute." He confesses that he was blinded by the glory and brilliance of the Lord's light, and that after three days, by his revelation and command, he recovered his sight. But if Paul, the vessel of election, was blinded because he could not bear the sight of the Lord's glory, who can teach us how we might consider and discern the divinity of the Word himself? But what I have often said, I will now repeat: he told us to consider the man of the Savior, Jesus, who is faithful to Him who made him. B
31. "Be imitators of me," he says, "as I am of Christ"; speaking, of course, of the man who is set as the foundation. For of the divinity of the Word, neither Paul nor anyone else can be an imitator, nor can we imitate Christ except in his sufferings and meekness, regarding which Peter says that we should follow in his footsteps; just as Paul also said that he was filling up what was lacking in the tribulations of Christ in his own flesh. Without controversy, therefore, he was in the foreknowledge, founded before the ages in the secrets of the Father's mind, whom the Father was to bring forth as the Lord’s man from Mary. And concerning the Lord’s body, it was openly prophesied to Judah: "Out of you shall come forth to me a ruler; and his beginning is from the beginning, from the days of eternity"; since in the consummation of the ages, God the Word assumed the man from the tribe of Judah. C
52. "When," he says, "all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to Him who subjected all things to him." Let us ask, therefore, who it is that is not subjected to God, unless all things are first subjected to him. For what did the Word who is from the Father not have subjected to him, before the economy of the man assumed for our sake? For all works are subjected to their Maker. But to the man who was assumed, not all things have been subjected even up to this time; for Paul says: "We do not yet see all things subjected to him." For to the Jews it is a scandal, and to the Gentiles foolishness, but to us who believe in him, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. When, therefore, every creature D
A in the clouds shall meet the Son, and be subjected to him; then the Son himself shall be subjected to the Father, having become for all creation a faithful apostle and high priest, so that God may be all in all: that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, one lordship, divinity, and kingdom. But if anyone says that it was not Jesus who was said to be subjected, but the Word, let him learn that Jesus is called and is the Son of God on account of the Word hidden within him; as Luke, when recording the genealogy, said: "And Jesus himself was beginning about the age of thirty, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph." And having gone through those who follow in the genealogy as far as Adam, he said: "Adam, who was of God"; in order to show that he wore both the body derived from Adam, and the divinity which he has from the Father.
33. Moreover, the Father brings this about and shows it, that he himself knows the day and hour of the judgment, and has delivered all judgment to him; so that, just as they honor the Father, they may honor the Son. But if he has delivered all judgment to him, that he might exercise it, it is clear indeed that the knowledge of it also—namely, when and how it may come to pass—has been delivered to him. He who does not know the day of judgment is Jesus, born of Mary; for the God the Word, who is from the heart of the Father, is ignorant of nothing, who knows all things before they come into being.
34. If, therefore, Jesus says: "My Father is greater than I," and yet says that he is equal to God; let us learn what the cause is, why he calls the Father both greater than himself and equal: the Father is greater than the Son on account of the B passible body which the Son bore; but he is equal, insofar as the Father, who is whole, eternally begat the Son who is whole and perfect.
35. Just as Esdras in a prophetic spirit speaks C as the person of Zorobabel, and that concerning the Son of God: "The truth lives, and prevails, and is strengthened, and remains unto the ages of ages"; he understands, of course, the body which he was about to bear for our sake, which was to be delivered to death; but not the truth hidden within him, that is, the Word of the Father. Indeed, when Jesus died, the truth descended into the heart of the earth; so that he, being the truth, might liberate those who had been deceived and circumvented by falsehood: just as if some king should go to a prison to visit those who are in bonds; for while he enters he is harmed in no way, but he assists those who are in custody; so God the Word, harmed in no way by the mortal body which he bore for our sake, brought help in the spirit of divinity to those who were dwelling in the prison of hell.
36. D When Jacob blesses Judah, from whom the Lord was to take on a human body, he says: "He shall wash his robe in wine, and his garment in the blood of the grape." And he did not do this in a historical sense at all; for he did not wash his own robe in wine. What, then, after he said he would wash his robe in wine, does he add: "And in the blood of the grape"? Is the wine one thing, and the blood of the grape another? Isaiah knows this better
A than we, who says: "His clothing is as one that treads the winepress. Full of the trodden." Therefore, the clothing that He prophesies to be washed in wine and in the blood of the grape is the garment. For He is the Artificer; since it would be irrational and disorderly for Him to wash His clothing in wine, a thing which it is not recorded that even any of the foolish among men has done. But because He knew beforehand by the Holy Spirit that the Son of God was about to bear a body for us from the Jewish people, which is named the vine and the vineyard, for this reason He said: "From a shoot you have ascended, my son Judah." And the washing of the stole in blood signifies the body of the clothing, by which body and blood, having washed away the sins of men, He clothed all men with His own body.
37. Therefore, let those be put to shame who separate the Son from the Father, just as the vine is separated from the vine-dresser, when they are informed by the holy Scriptures that that parable refers to the body of the Lord, and not to the Godhead. B For when He was performing the holy mystery, having given thanks, He said: "Drink from it, all of you; this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you"; even though the wine is not the blood of the Lord, but of the vine. Wherefore the Lord said concerning His own body: "I am the vine." But the blood does not proceed from the spirit of the divinity of the Word, but from the man whom He bore.
38. God says by the prophet Ezekiel: "Pastors, pastors! Do the pastors not feed themselves, and not the sheep? But you have not brought back that which had wandered, you have not sought that which had perished, you have not strengthened that which was weak, you have not bound up that which was lame; nay, you have even oppressed that which was strong with labor. For this reason I will raise up for Myself a faithful shepherd, My servant David; and he shall be shepherd and prince forever." C When Ezekiel was prophesying these things in Babylon, David had already been asleep for fourteen generations. But he prophesied the Lord-man, who was to be raised up from the seed of David, of whom Paul writes to Timothy: "Remember that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead from the seed of David according to the flesh."
39. If those who are carnal were unwilling to be taught by the spiritual, who have reached the knowledge of the Scriptures fully and perfectly; yet since they seem to teach the simpler and cruder men, they drag them into the pit. D Whereby that which is written is fulfilled: "If the blind leads the blind, both shall fall into the pit," that is, into Hades. If it were taken in a historical sense, the blind could indeed lead the blind; but it is understood of him who is blind concerning the knowledge of divine mysteries. For such men speak thus to each of the unlearned in these matters: "Did He not Himself say through Solomon: 'The Lord created me as the beginning of His ways for His works'? And through Himself and by His own mouth the Son says: 'The Father who sent Me is greater than I'; and again He said: 'I speak nothing of Myself; the Father has commanded Me what I should say and what I should speak.'"