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| The sixth book shows that He Who came for man's salvation was not a mere man, as Eunomius, falsely slandering him, affirmed that the great Basil had said, but the Only-begotten Son of God, putting on human flesh, and becoming a mediator between God and man, on Whom we believe, as subject to suffering in the flesh, but impassible in His Godhead; and demonstrates the calumny of Eunomius.
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Book
VI.
§1. The sixth book shows
that He Who came for man’s salvation was not a mere man, as
Eunomius, falsely slandering him, affirmed that the great Basil had
said, but the Only-begotten Son of God, putting on human flesh, and
becoming a mediator between God and man, on Whom we believe, as subject
to suffering in the flesh, but impassible in His Godhead; and
demonstrates the calumny of Eunomius.
But I
perceive that while the necessities of the subject compelled me to
follow this line of thought, I have lingered too long over this
passage747
. I must now resume the train of his
complaints, that we may pass by none of the charges brought against us
without an answer. And first I propose that we should examine this
point, that he charges us with asserting that an ordinary man has
wrought the salvation of the world. For although this point has been to
some extent already cleared up by the investigations we have made, we
shall yet briefly deal with it once more, that the mind of those who
are acting as our judges on this slanderous accusation may be entirely
freed from misapprehension. So far are we from referring to an ordinary
man the cause of this great and unspeakable grace, that even if any
should refer so great a boon to Peter and Paul, or to an angel from
heaven, we should say with Paul, “let him be anathema748
.” For Paul was not crucified for us,
nor were we baptized into a human name749
.
Surely the doctrine which our adversaries oppose to the truth is not
thereby strengthened when we confess that the saving power of Christ is
more potent than human nature750
| 750 The
sense of this passage is rather obscure. S. Gregory intends, it would
seem, to point out that, although an acknowledgment that the suffering
Christ was more than man may seem at first sight to support the
Eunomian view of the passibility of the Godhead of the Son, this is not
its necessary effect. Apparently either οὐ μὴν must be
taken as equivalent to οὐ
μὴν ἀλλὰ,
or a clause such as that expressed in the translation must be supplied
before τοῖς
μὲν γὰρ
κ.τ.λ. | :—yet it may
seem to be so, for their aim is to maintain at all points the
difference of the essence of the Son from that of the Father, and they
strive to show the dissimilarity of essence not only by the contrast of
the Generated with the Ungenerate, but also by the opposition of the
passible to the impassible. And while this is more openly maintained in
the last part of their argument, it is also clearly shown in their
present discourse751
| 751 Altering Oehler’s punctuation, which here follows that of
the earlier editions. | . For if he finds
fault with those who refer the Passion to the Human Nature, his
intention is certainly to subject to the Passion the Godhead Itself.
For our conception being twofold, and admitting of two developments,
accordingly as the Divinity or the Humanity is held to have been in a
condition of suffering, an attack on one of these views is clearly a
maintaining of the other. Accordingly, if they find fault with those
who look upon the Passion as concerning the Man, they will clearly
approve those who say that the Godhead of the Son was subject to
passion, and the position which these last maintain becomes an argument
in favour of their own absurd doctrine. For if, according to their
statement, the Godhead of the Son suffers, while that of the Father is
preserved in absolute impassibility, then the impassible Nature is
essentially different from that which admits passion. Seeing,
therefore, that the dictum before us, though, so far as it is limited
by number of words, it is a short one, yet affords principles and
hypotheses for every kind of doctrinal pravity, it would seem right
that our readers should require in our reply not so much brevity as
soundness. We, then, neither attribute our own salvation to a man, nor
admit that the incorruptible and Divine Nature is capable of suffering
and mortality: but since we must assuredly believe the Divine
utterances which declare to us that the Word that was in the beginning
was God752
, and that afterward the Word made flesh was
seen upon the earth and conversed with men753
, we
admit in our creed those conceptions which are consonant with the
Divine utterance. For when we hear that He is Light, and Power, and
Righteousness, and Life, and Truth, and that by Him all things were
made, we account all these and such-like statements as things to be
believed, referring them to God the Word: but when we hear of pain, of
slumber, of need, of trouble, of bonds, of nails, of the spear, of
blood, of wounds, of burial, of the sepulchre, and all else of this
kind, even if they are somewhat opposed to what has previously been
stated, we none the less admit them to be things to be believed, and
true, having regard to the flesh; which we receive by faith as
conjoined with the Word. For as it is not possible to contemplate the
peculiar attributes of the flesh as existing in the Word that was in
the beginning, so also on the other hand we may not conceive those
which are proper to the Godhead as existing in the nature of the flesh.
As, therefore, the teaching of the Gospel concerning our Lord is
mingled, partly of lofty and Divine ideas, partly of those which are
lowly and human, we assign every particular phrase accordingly to one
or other of these Natures which we conceive in the mystery, that which
is human to the Humanity, that which is lofty to the Godhead, and say
that, as God, the Son is certainly impassible and incapable of
corruption: and whatever suffering is asserted concerning Him in the
Gospel, He assuredly wrought by means of His Human Nature which
admitted of such suffering. For verily the Godhead works the salvation
of the world by means of that body which encompassed It, in such wise
that the suffering was of the body, but the operation was of God; and
even if some wrest to the support of the opposite doctrine the words of
the Apostle, “God spared not His own Son,754
” and, “God sent His own Son755
,” and other similar phrases which seem
to refer, in the matter of the Passion, to the Divine Nature, and not
to the Humanity, we shall none the less refuse to abandon sound
doctrine, seeing that Paul himself declares to us more clearly the
mystery of this subject. For he everywhere attributes to the Human
element in Christ the dispensation of the Passion, when he says,
“for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection
of the dead756
,” and, “God, sending His
own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh757
” (for he says, “in the
flesh,” not “in the Godhead”); and “He
was crucified through weakness” (where by “weakness”
he means “the flesh”), “yet liveth by power758
” (while he indicates by
“power” the Divine Nature); and, “He died unto
sin” (that is, with regard to the body), “but liveth unto
God759
” (that is, with regard to the Godhead,
so that by these words it is established that, while the Man tasted
death, the immortal Nature did not admit the suffering of death); and
again; “He made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin760
,” giving once more the name of
“sin” to the flesh.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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