A natural laws, remaining immovable, with God, the maker of all things, and His divine will, by which He has made and moves all things, continuing with them. For the infinite, in no way or manner, admits of motion, not having where nor around what it might be moved. For change in that which is by nature infinite, and which is not of a nature to be moved, is its motion. Wherefore also the Word of God, having truly become man in our image without sin, having performed and suffered humanly what things of the nature are without sin, and having endured for us the circumscription of natural flesh, underwent no change, nor did He experience any mutability whatever in consequence of the emptying; for to Him, the same is done for the Father as is done for the flesh. But just as He was without flesh, He remained exempt B from all circumscription; and through the flesh He performed divinely things that are of the Godhead; showing Himself as both, through which He worked in both ways, I say, divinely and humanly, according to that which is truly the true and natural substance; Being and being understood as God infinite and simultaneously circumscribed man, having the perfection of both perfectly, with the same operation, that is, natural property; from which we know the difference between them, always remaining by nature without change. (ζ) But not as some say, by way of comparison, lest we call the same being, in relation to Himself, and beyond what is fitting, greater and lesser. For comparisons exist of things of the same nature, not of those which are of a different nature. For that which is made is not compared in any way of C reasoning to God the maker of all things, nor the finite to the infinite, nor the end to the infinity, since they always and in all things differ naturally from one another, but not by way of comparison. Although a certain ineffable and indissoluble union of both has come about in one hypostasis, (25) escaping every knowledge of every created thing entirely. For the divine, as it was before the incarnation, is also after the incarnation, by nature infinite, unconditioned, impassible, incomparable, unalterable, immutable, self-potent; and to say all in a word, subsisting substantially, the only good of infinite power.
Of the same, from the same discourse. II.
II. Therefore, He has truly become, according to the Scriptures, not changed, the God of all, a man without sin; as D
A He alone knows, existing as the natural Artificer of those things which are above sense, having simultaneously in the very saving incarnation produced for the flesh the operation of His own divinity, not circumscribed for it by reason of the emptying; nor even as from His own divinity, so also from the flesh itself naturally emanating; but in whatever things He as incarnate performed divinely, through it [the flesh] those things were manifested. For the flesh did not become (for nature is not changed) the deity, nor did the deity become flesh by nature; but what it was, even when united to the divinity, it remained in nature and operation B—as the Savior said: «The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak» (Matt. xxvi, 42)—in which, having performed and suffered those things which belonged to sinless flesh, He made manifest the emptying of His divinity for our sake, which was naturally confirmed by the miracles and the passions of the flesh. For because of this, the God of all became man: that, suffering in the passible flesh, He might redeem our entire race which had been sold to death; and by His impassible divinity working wonders through the flesh, He might lead it back to that immortal and blessed life from which it had fallen, compliant to the devil; and that He might strengthen the holy orders of intellectual substances in heaven toward immutability by the mystery of His incarnation; the work of which is the recapitulation of all things in Him. Therefore, even having been incarnate, He remained God, infinite according to nature, having an operation akin and suitable to Himself: one which, indeed, originates substantially from the divinity, but which is manifested dispensatorily in miracles through His most holy flesh, so that He might be believed to be God, working out the salvation of all through flesh that is weak by nature.
Of the Same, from the Same Discourse. III.
C III. For indeed, in order that I might clarify by a paradigm that which was said concerning the Savior, my natural word is akin and suitable to me, as I am a soul rational and intellectual, whose natural operation and primary power is to be self-moving, ever-moving, the word naturally flowing from it. Which, having expressed in words and well-traced in characters—the tongue indeed D organically, when necessary, brings forth, and with letters artificially—I show it to be heard, not existing through dissimilar things, nor escaping through dissimilar things. For my natural word is not of the tongue and letters, even though I make its utterance through them; but it is mine, because I speak according to nature, and through both, I pronounce it as my own: that is, from my intellectual soul, it has always...
A naturally derived, and by my bodily tongue, it has been organicaly produced, as I said, when it is appropriate. Just as, therefore, in us—to the extent that we can estimate what is in every way inestimable—the rational power of the soul is produced inconvertibly through our physical tongue, which is according to nature: so also in the glorious incarnation of God, through His most holy flesh, in whatever matters He operated divinely, the operation of the whole deity, which is omnipotent and the maker of all things, was exhibited without change, remaining without any circumscription according to nature, even though B it shone through flesh, which is by nature circumscribed. For a nature that is not created according to nature cannot be circumscribed by a generated nature, even if it co-existed with it in a conception that circumscribes all intellect; nor, moreover, can there at any time be a transition of nature and natural operation into it, as long as each remains within its own natural inconvertibility. For the motion that manifests the substance, of which the natural power consists, belongs only to those of common nature; it is by no reasoning possible for a substance of a different nature C to be or to become such without change.
Of the same, from the same discourse. IV.
IV. For the mystery of the divine incarnation is known to the apostles, prophets, and teachers to have a double and distinct natural theory in all things, being demonstrative of the perfect deity and the full humanity. Until the Word be recognized as one in substance and of one operation, of which both may be, the motion will never be known at any time. For God, always existing according to nature, having become by super-infinite power, as He willed, a man without sin, is what He was, with whatever attributes God is known; and what He has become, He is, with whatever attributes a man is naturally known to be. Remaining D always without fallback according to each nature—those through which He operated both divinely and humanly—He saves within Himself the perfection according to the reason of each in a naturally unchangeable way.
Of the same, from the same discourse. V.
V. For a certain Bero, lately, along with some others, having abandoned the fantasy of Valentinus, became entangled in a worse evil, saying that the flesh assumed by the Word was the very thing that operated what the divinity operated; and that the divinity was capable of suffering together with the flesh on account of the emptying; dogmatizing at once convertibility, commixtion, or confusion, and the change of both into one another. For if the assumed flesh
A has become a co-worker with the divinity, it is clear that it is also by nature God, with all those attributes by which God is naturally understood. And if the divinity has become emptied and admits of the same passions as the flesh, it is clear that it is also by nature flesh, with all those attributes by which flesh is naturally known to be constituted. For things which are mutually cooperative, and produce the same work, and are wholly of the same nature, and admit of the same passions, do not admit of a difference of nature. And if their natures are confused, Christ will be a duality, and with separated persons, a quaternity—which is most to be avoided. And how, according to them, will he be one and the same, God both by nature and man, Christ? What existence, then, will he have according to them, becoming man by a change of divinity, and God by a transformation of flesh? For the transition of these into one another is the complete destruction of both. Let the discourse now be considered by us in another way.
Of the same, from the same discourse. VI.
VI. A pious dogma has been established for Christian believers, that according to the same nature and operation, and everything else that is commensurate with Him, God is equal to Himself and remains the same, having nothing at all belonging to Him that is unequal or inconsistent with Himself. If, therefore, according to Berones, the flesh that was assumed by Him became of the same operation, there is no doubt that it was also made of the same nature as Him, along with all that belongs to that nature—that is, unoriginatedness, unbegottenness, infinity, eternity, incomprehensibility, and whatever else the theological discourse contemplates most amply in the Godhead according to superiority: and both have suffered change, with neither retaining the essential reason of its own nature. B For he who considers the same operation of things of different natures introduces at once a natural confusion and a personal division of them; the natural existence of their properties having become totally unrecognizable through the transmutation.
Of the same, from the same discourse. VII.
VII. But if it was not of the same nature with Him, it will not at any time become of the same natural operation with Him; lest he appear to have an operation that is unequal and inconsistent according to nature, and to have become an alien to his own equality and C identity in all those things which are natural to Him, which is thoroughly impious.
Of the same, from the same discourse. VIII.
VIII. But they have been led into this error, having falsely believed that the divine operation which was manifested through the flesh in the miracles became the property of the flesh; by which Christ, substantiating the whole, holds fast that according to which He is understood as God. For they did not know that it is impossible for the operation of a divine nature to become the property of a substance of a different nature without change; nor did they understand that it is not in any way a property of flesh that which is indeed manifested through it, but does not naturally spring from it—even though the proof of this is clear and evident to them. For I, speaking with my tongue and writing with my hand, one and the
same thought of my intellectual soul I manifest through both, not indicating that its natural operation arises naturally from the tongue or the hand; nor does it become their thought, or what is called such, because of its manifestation through both. A For no wise man knows the tongue or the hand to be discursive; just as he does not know the all-holy flesh of God to be creating by nature, because of its being assumed and because the divine operation was made clear through it. But with piety he confesses, believing that for the sake of our salvation, and to bind the universe to immutability, the Creator of all things, from the all-holy ever-virgin Mary, by an immaculate conception, without change, having endowed Himself with an intellectual soul together with a sensible body, became man by nature, a stranger to wickedness: being Himself wholly God, and Himself wholly man; Himself wholly God and man together by nature. He acts out divine things by His all-holy flesh by deity—not because these things exist by the nature of the flesh—and He suffers human things by humanity—not because these exist by the nature of deity—by the condescension of the deity. He works nothing divine stripped of the body; nor does He, the same, perform anything human devoid of deity; maintaining for Himself the mode according to both, unchangeable, through which He worked both in a becoming manner, for the approval of His perfect and true incarnation, which has nothing of depravity. B Bero, therefore, being thus disposed, as I said, by the monad of operation, confusing the deity and humanity of Christ naturally together, and dividing them personally, destroys the life: C ignoring that the same operation is only indicative of the identity of the consubstantiality of people of the same nature.
SYLLOGISMS.
Concerning the divinely wise testimonies, and others, of the same Saint Anastasius.
I. Behold now, this most holy and great doctor, and faithful witness of the truth, in harmony with all the other holy founders of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of God, confesses and proclaims with a loud voice that, just as there are two natures according to the unconfused and indivisible union, so also there are two wills and two operations, agreeing and befitting the natures, divine as has been said, and human, uncreated and created, not beginningless and originated, as of God at once and of man, of one and the same our Lord Jesus Christ, and he bids us confess it without prevarication. D He defines it as most difficult, and in every way impossible, that those who wish to live piously should confess one will and operation, or one nature of His deity and humanity. On account of which he rejects and condemns as impious and alien to our immaculate Christian faith those who dogmatize such a thing in him, and protests that we should do this. For concerning the two natures and operations of our Saviour Christ, that I may briefly expound a few things from his sacred utterances, this is evidently set forth.