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| Thereafter he shows that there are not two Christs or two Lords, but one Christ and one Lord, and that the Divine nature, after mingling with the Human, preserved the properties of each nature without confusion, and declares that the operations are, by reason of the union, predicated of the two natures in common, in the sense that the Lord took upon Himself the sufferings of the servant, and the humanity is glorified with Him in the honour that is the Lord's, and that by the power of the Divine Nature that is made anew, conformably with that Divine Nature Itself.
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§5. Thereafter he
shows that there are not two Christs or two Lords, but one Christ and
one Lord, and that the Divine nature, after mingling with the Human,
preserved the properties of each nature without confusion, and declares
that the operations are, by reason of the union, predicated of the two
natures in common, in the sense that the Lord took upon Himself the
sufferings of the servant, and the humanity is glorified with Him in
the honour that is the Lord’s, and that by the power of the
Divine Nature that is made anew, conformably with that Divine Nature
Itself.
His next charge too has its own
absurdity of the same sort. For he reproaches us with saying that there
are “two Christs,” and “two Lords,” without
being able to make good his charge from our words, but
employing falsehood at discretion to suit his fancy. Since, then, he
deems it within his power to say what he likes, why does he utter his
falsehood with such care about detail, and maintain that we speak but
of two Christs? Let him say, if he likes, that we preach ten Christs,
or ten times ten, or extend the number to a thousand, that he may
handle his calumny more vigorously. For blasphemy is equally involved
in the doctrine of two Christs, and in that of more, and the character
of the two charges is also equally devoid of proof. When he shows,
then, that we do speak of two Christs, let him have a verdict against
us, as much as though he had given proof of ten thousand. But he says
that he convicts us by our own statements. Well, let us look once more
at those words of our master by means of which he thinks to raise his
charges against us. He says “he” (he, that is, who says
“Him God made Lord and Christ, this Jesus Whom ye
crucified”) “is not setting forth to us the mode of the
Divine existence, but the terms which belong to the
Incarnation…laying stress by the demonstrative word on that in
Him which was human and was seen by all.” This is what he wrote.
But whence has Eunomius managed by these words to bring on the stage
his “two Christs”? Does saying that the demonstrative word
lays stress on that which is visible, convey the proof of maintaining
“two Christs”? Ought we (to avoid being charged with
speaking of “two Highests”) to deny the fact that by Him
the Lord was highly exalted after His Passion? seeing that God the
Word, Who was in the beginning, was Highest, and was also highly
exalted after His Passion when He rose from the dead, as the Apostle
says. We must of necessity choose one of two courses—either say
that He was highly exalted after the Passion (which is just the same as
saying that He was made Lord and Christ), and be impeached by Eunomius,
or, if we avoid the accusation, deny the confession of the high
exaltation of Him Who suffered.
Now at this point it seems right
to put forward once more our accuser’s statement in support of
our own defence. We shall therefore repeat word for word the statement
laid down by him, which supports our argument as
follows:—“The blessed John,” he says, “teaches
us that God the Word, by Whom all things were made, has become
incarnate, saying ‘And the Word was made flesh.’”
Does he understand what he is writing when he adds this to his own
argument? I can hardly myself think that the same man can at once be
aware of the meaning of these words and contend against our statement.
For if any one examines the words carefully, he will find that there is
no mutual conflict between what is said by us and what is said by him.
For we both consider the dispensation in the flesh apart, and regard
the Divine power in itself: and he, in like manner with ourselves, says
that the Word that was in the beginning has been manifested in the
flesh: yet no one ever charged him, nor does he charge himself, with
preaching “two Words”, Him Who was in the beginning, and
Him Who was made flesh; for he knows, surely, that the Word is
identical with the Word, He who appeared in the flesh with Him Who was
with God. But the flesh was not identical with the Godhead, till this
too was transformed to the Godhead, so that of necessity one set of
attributes befits God the Word, and a different set of attributes
befits the “form of the servant733
| 733 This
statement would seem to imply that, at some time after the Incarnation,
the Humanity of Christ was transformed to the Divine Nature, and made
identical with It. From other passages in what has preceded, it would
seem that this change in the mutual relation of the two Natures might,
according to the words of S. Gregory, be conceived as taking place
after the Passion. Thus it might be said that S. Gregory
conceived the union of the two Natures to be, since the Passion (or,
more strictly, since the “exaltation”), what the
Monophysites conceived it to be from the moment of the Incarnation. But
other phrases, again, seem to show that he conceived the two Natures
still to remain distinct (see note 4 inf.). There is, however,
ample justification in S. Gregory’s language for the remark of
Bp. Hefele, that S. Gregory “cannot entirely free himself from
the notion of a transmutation of the Human Nature into the
Divine.” (Hefele, Hist. of the Councils, Eng. Trans. vol.
iii. p. 4.) | .” If,
then, in view of such a confession, he does not reproach himself with
the duality of Words, why are we falsely charged with dividing the
object of our faith into “two Christs”?—we, who say
that He Who was highly exalted after His Passion, was made Lord and
Christ by His union734
with Him Who is
verily Lord and Christ, knowing by what we have learnt that the Divine
Nature is always one and the same, and with the same mode of existence,
while the flesh in itself is that which reason and sense apprehend
concerning it, but when mixed735
| 735 ἀνακραθεῖσα
πρὸς τὸ
θεῖον. | with the Divine no
longer remains in its own limitations and properties, but is taken up
to that which is overwhelming and transcendent. Our contemplation,
however, of the respective properties of the flesh and of the Godhead
remains free from confusion, so long as each of these is contemplated
by itself736
| 736 Here S.
Gregory seems to state accurately the differentiation of the two
Natures, while he recognizes the possibility of the communicatio
idiomatum: but it is not clear that he would acknowledge that the
two Natures still remain distinct. Even this, however, seems to
be implied in his citation of Phil. ii. 11, at a later
point. | , as, for example, “the Word was
before the ages, but the flesh came into being in the last
times”: but one could not reverse this statement, and say that
the latter is pretemporal, or that the Word has come into being in the
last times. The flesh is of a passible, the Word of an operative
nature: and neither is the flesh capable of making the things that are,
nor is the power possessed by the Godhead capable of suffering. The
Word was in
the beginning with God, the man was subject to the trial of death; and
neither was the Human Nature from everlasting, nor the Divine Nature
mortal: and all the rest of the attributes are contemplated in the same
way. It is not the Human Nature that raises up Lazarus, nor is it the
power that cannot suffer that weeps for him when he lies in the grave:
the tear proceeds from the Man, the life from the true Life. It is not
the Human Nature that feeds the thousands, nor is it omnipotent might
that hastens to the fig-tree. Who is it that is weary with the journey,
and Who is it that by His word made all the world subsist? What is the
brightness of the glory, and what is that that was pierced with the
nails? What form is it that is buffeted in the Passion, and what form
is it that is glorified from everlasting? So much as this is clear,
(even if one does not follow the argument into detail,) that the blows
belong to the servant in whom the Lord was, the honours to the Lord
Whom the servant compassed about, so that by reason of contact and the
union of Natures the proper attributes of each belong to both737
| 737 Here is
truly stated the ground of the communicatio idiomatum: while the
illustrations following seem to show that S. Gregory recognized this
communicatio as existing at the time of our Lord’s
humiliation, and as continuing to exist after His
“exaltation”; that he acknowledged, that is, the union of
the two Natures before the “exaltation,” and the
distinction of the two Natures after that event. | , as the Lord receives the stripes of the
servant, while the servant is glorified with the honour of the Lord;
for this is why the Cross is said to be the Cross of the Lord of
glory738
, and why every tongue confesses that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father739
.
But if we are to discuss the
other points in the same way, let us consider what it is that dies, and
what it is that destroys death; what it is that is renewed, and what it
is that empties itself. The Godhead “empties” Itself that
It may come within the capacity of the Human Nature, and the Human
Nature is renewed by becoming Divine through its commixture740
with the Divine. For as air is not retained
in water when it is dragged down by some weighty body and left in the
depth of the water, but rises quickly to its kindred element, while the
water is often raised up together with the air in its upward rush,
being moulded by the circle of air into a convex shape with a slight
and membrane-like surface, so too, when the true Life that underlay the
flesh sped up, after the Passion, to Itself, the flesh also was raised
up with It, being forced upwards from corruption to incorruptibility by
the Divine immortality. And as fire that lies in wood hidden below the
surface is often unobserved by the senses of those who see, or even
touch it, but is manifest when it blazes up, so too, at His death
(which He brought about at His will, Who separated His soul from His
Body, Who said to His own Father “Into Thy hands I commend My
Spirit741
,” Who, as He says, “had power to
lay it down and had power to take it again742
”), He Who, because He is the Lord of
glory, despised that which is shame among men, having concealed, as it
were, the flame of His life in His bodily Nature, by the dispensation
of His death743
| 743 Altering Oehler’s punctuation, which would connect
ἐν τῇ κατὰ τὸν
θάνατον
οἰκονομί&
139·, not with συγκαλύψας, but with ἀνῆψε. | , kindled and inflamed it once more by
the power of His own Godhead, fostering into life that which had been
brought to death, having infused with the infinity of His Divine power
that humble first-fruits of our nature, made it also to be that which
He Himself was—making the servile form to be Lord, and the Man
born of Mary to be Christ, and Him Who was crucified through weakness
to be Life and power, and making all that is piously conceived to be in
God the Word to be also in that which the Word assumed, so that these
attributes no longer seem to be in either Nature by way of division,
but that the perishable Nature being, by its commixture with the
Divine, made anew in conformity with the Nature that overwhelms it,
participates in the power of the Godhead, as if one were to say that
mixture makes a drop of vinegar mingled in the deep to be sea, by
reason that the natural quality of this liquid does not continue in the
infinity of that which overwhelms it744
| 744 Here
may be observed at once a conformity to the phraseology of the
Monophysites (bearing in mind that S. Gregory is not speaking, as they
were, of the union of the two Natures in the Incarnation, but of the
change wrought by the “exaltation”), and a suggestion that
the Natures still remain distinct, as otherwise it would be idle to
speak of the Human Nature as participating in the power of the
Divine. | . This is our
doctrine, which does not, as Eunomius charges against it, preach a
plurality of Christs, but the union of the Man with the Divinity, and
which calls by the name of “making” the transmutation of
the Mortal to the Immortal, of the Servant to the Lord, of Sin745
to Righteousness, of the Curse746
to the Blessing, of the Man to Christ. What
further have our slanderers left to say, to show that we preach
“two Christs” in our doctrine, if we refuse to say that He
Who was in the beginning from the Father uncreatedly Lord, and Christ,
and the Word, and God, was “made,” and declare that the
blessed Peter was pointing briefly and incidentally to the mystery of
the Incarnation, according to the meaning now explained, that the
Nature which was crucified through weakness has Itself also, as we have
said, become, by the overwhelming power of Him Who dwells in It, that
which the Indweller Himself is in fact and in name, even Christ and
Lord?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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