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| His union with the body is based upon His relation to Creation as a whole. He used a human body, since to man it was that He wished to reveal Himself.
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§42. His union with the body is based
upon His relation to Creation as a whole. He used a human body, since
to man it was that He wished to reveal Himself.
For just as, while the whole body is quickened
and illumined by man, supposing one said it were absurd that
man’s power should also be in the toe, he would be thought
foolish; because, while granting that he pervades and works in the
whole, he demurs to his being in the part also; thus he who grants and
believes that the Word of God is in the whole Universe, and that the
whole is illumined and moved by Him, should not think it absurd that a
single human body also should receive movement and light from Him. 2.
But if it is because the human race is a thing created and has been
made out of nothing, that they regard that manifestation of the Saviour
in man, which we speak of, as not seemly, it is high time for them to
eject Him from creation also; for it too has been brought into
existence by the Word out of nothing. 3. But if, even though creation
be a thing made, it is not absurd that the Word should be in it, then
neither is it absurd that He should be in man. For whatever idea they
form of the whole, they must necessarily apply the like idea to the
part. For man also, as I said before, is a part of the whole. 4. Thus
it is not at all unseemly that the Word should be in man, while all
things are deriving from Him their light and movement and light, as
also their authors say, “In313
him we live and
move and have our being.” 5. So, then, what is there to scoff at
in what we say, if the Word has used that, wherein He is, as an
instrument to manifest Himself? For were He not in it, neither could He
have used it; but if we have previously allowed that He is in the whole
and in its parts, what is there incredible in His manifesting Himself
in that wherein He is? 6. For by His own power He is united314
| 314 ἐπιβαίνων, see supra, note 3. | wholly with each and all, and orders all
things without stint, so that no one could have called it out of place
for Him to speak, and make known Himself and His Father, by means of
sun, if He so willed, or moon, or heaven, or earth, or waters, or
fire315
| 315 The
superfluous πεποιηκέναι
is ignored, being untranslateable as the text stands.
For a less simple conjecture, see the Bened. note. | ; inasmuch as He holds in one all things at
once, and is in fact not only in all but also in the part in question,
and there invisibly manifests Himself. In like manner it cannot be
absurd if, ordering as He does the whole, and giving life to all
things, and having willed to make Himself known through men, He has
used as His instrument a human body to manifest the truth and knowledge
of the Father. For humanity, too, is an actual part of the whole. 7.
And as Mind, pervading man all through, is interpreted by a part of the
body, I mean the tongue, without any one saying, I suppose, that the
essence of the mind is on that account lowered, so if the Word,
pervading all things, has used a human instrument, this cannot appear
unseemly. For, as I have said previously, if it be unseemly to have
used a body as an instrument, it is unseemly also for Him to be in the
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