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| It Was Christ that Died. The Father is Incapable of Suffering Either Solely or with Another. Blasphemous Conclusions Spring from Praxeas' Premises.
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Chapter
XXIX.—It Was Christ that Died. The Father is Incapable of
Suffering Either Solely or with Another. Blasphemous Conclusions Spring
from Praxeas’ Premises.
Silence! Silence on such blasphemy. Let us be
content with saying that Christ died, the Son of the Father; and let
this suffice, because the Scriptures have told us so much. For even
the apostle, to his declaration—which he makes not without
feeling the weight of it—that “Christ died,”
immediately adds, “according to the Scriptures,”8175
in order that he may alleviate the harshness
of the statement by the authority of the Scriptures, and so remove
offence from the reader. Now, although when two substances are alleged
to be in Christ—namely, the divine and the
human—it plainly
follows that the divine nature is immortal, and that which is human is
mortal, it is manifest in what sense he declares “Christ
died”—even in the sense in which He was flesh and Man and
the Son of Man, not as being the Spirit and the Word and the Son of
God. In short, since he says that it was Christ (that is, the
Anointed One) that died, he shows us that that which died was the
nature which was anointed; in a word, the flesh. Very well, say you;
since we on our side affirm our doctrine in precisely the same terms
which you use on your side respecting the Son, we are not guilty of
blasphemy against the Lord God, for we do not maintain that He died
after the divine nature, but only after the human. Nay, but you do
blaspheme; because you allege not only that the Father died, but that
He died the death of the cross. For “cursed are they which are
hanged on a tree,”8176
—a curse
which, after the law, is compatible to the Son (inasmuch as
“Christ has been made a curse for us,”8177
but certainly not the Father); since,
however, you convert Christ into the Father, you are chargeable with
blasphemy against the Father. But when we assert that Christ was
crucified, we do not malign Him with a curse; we only
re-affirm8178
| 8178 Referimus: or,
“Recite and record.” | the curse
pronounced by the law:8179
nor indeed did the
apostle utter blasphemy when he said the same thing as we.8180
Besides, as there is no blasphemy in
predicating of the subject that which is fairly applicable to it; so,
on the other hand, it is blasphemy when that is alleged concerning the
subject which is unsuitable to it. On this principle, too, the Father
was not associated in suffering with the Son. The heretics,
indeed, fearing to incur direct blasphemy against the Father, hope to
diminish it by this expedient: they grant us so far that the
Father and the Son are Two; adding that, since it is the Son indeed who
suffers, the Father is only His fellow-sufferer.8181
| 8181 [This passage
convinces Lardner that Praxeas was not a Patripassian. Credib.
Vol. VIII. p. 607.] | But how absurd are they even in this
conceit! For what is the meaning of “fellow-suffering,” but
the endurance of suffering along with another? Now if the Father is
incapable of suffering, He. is incapable of suffering in company with
another; otherwise, if He can suffer with another, He is of course
capable of suffering. You, in fact, yield Him nothing by this
subterfuge of your fears. You are afraid to say that He is capable of
suffering whom you make to be capable of fellow-suffering. Then, again,
the Father is as incapable of fellow-suffering as the Son even is of
suffering under the conditions of His existence as God. Well, but how
could the Son suffer, if the Father did not suffer with Him? My
answer is, The Father is separate from the Son, though not from
Him as God. For even if a river be soiled with mire and mud,
although it flows from the fountain identical in nature with it, and is
not separated from the fountain, yet the injury which affects the
stream reaches not to the fountain; and although it is the water of the
fountain which suffers down the stream, still, since it is not affected
at the fountain, but only in the river, the fountain suffers nothing,
but only the river which issues from the fountain. So likewise the
Spirit of God,8182
whatever suffering
it might be capable of in the Son, yet, inasmuch as it could not suffer
in the Father, the fountain of the Godhead, but only in the Son,
it evidently could not have suffered,8183
| 8183 That which was open to
it to suffer in the Son. | as
the Father. But it is enough for me that the Spirit of God suffered
nothing as the Spirit of God,8184
since all that It
suffered It suffered in the Son. It was quite another matter for the
Father to suffer with the Son in the flesh. This likewise has
been treated by us. Nor will any one deny this, since even we are
ourselves unable to suffer for God, unless the Spirit of God be in us,
who also utters by our instrumentality8185
whatever pertains to our own conduct and suffering; not, however, that
He Himself suffers in our suffering, only He bestows on us the power
and capacity of suffering.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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