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| He then gives a notable explanation of the saying of the Lord to Philip, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;” and herein he excellently discusses the suffering of the Lord in His love to man, and the impassibility, creative power, and providence of the Father, and the composite nature of men, and their resolution into the elements of which they were composed.
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§3.
He then gives a notable explanation of the saying of the Lord to
Philip, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;” and
herein he excellently discusses the suffering of the Lord in His love
to man, and the impassibility, creative power, and providence of the
Father, and the composite nature of men, and their resolution into the
elements of which they were composed.
Sufficient defence has been
offered on these points, and as for that which Eunomius says by way of
calumny against our doctrine, that “Christ was emptied to become
Himself” there has been sufficient discussion in what has been
said above, where he has been shown to be attributing to our doctrine
his own blasphemy.780
| 780 See
above, Book V. §4. | For it is not one who
confesses that the immutable Nature has put on the created and
perishable, who speaks of the transition from like to like, but one who
conceives that there is no change from the majesty of Nature to that
which is more lowly. For if, as their doctrine asserts, He is created,
and man is created also, the wonder of the doctrine disappears, and
there is nothing marvellous in what is alleged, since the created
nature comes to be in itself781
. But we who have
learnt from prophecy of “the change of the right hand of the Most
High782
| 782 Ps. lxxvii.
10 (LXX.). This application of the passage is also made by Michael
Ayguan (the “Doctor Incognitus”), who is the only
commentator mentioned by Neale and Littledale as so interpreting the
text. | ,”—and by the “Right
Hand” of the Father we understand that Power of God, which made
all things, which is the Lord (not in the sense of depending upon Him
as a part upon a whole, but as being indeed from Him, and yet
contemplated in individual existence),—say thus: that neither
does the Right Hand vary from Him Whose Right Hand It is, in regard to
the idea of Its Nature, nor can any other change in It be spoken of
besides the dispensation of the Flesh. For verily the Right Hand of God
was God Himself; manifested in the flesh, seen through that same flesh
by those whose sight was clear; as He did the work of the Father,
being, both in fact and in thought, the Right Hand of God, yet being
changed, in respect of the veil of the flesh by which He was
surrounded, as regarded that which was seen, from that which He was by
Nature, as a subject of contemplation. Therefore He says to Philip, who
was gazing only at that which was changed, “Look through that
which is changed to that which is unchangeable, and if thou seest this,
thou hast seen that Father Himself, Whom thou seekest to see; for he
that hath seen Me—not Him Who appears in a state of change, but
My very self, Who am in the Father—will have seen that Father
Himself in Whom I am, because the very same character of Godhead is
beheld in both783
.” If, then, we believe that the
immortal and impassible and uncreated Nature came to be in the passible
Nature of the creature, and conceive the “change” to
consist in this, on what grounds are we charged with saying that He
“was emptied to become Himself,” by those who keep prating
their own statements about our doctrines? For the participation of the
created with the created is no “change of the Right Hand.”
To say that the Right Hand of the uncreated Nature is created belongs
to Eunomius alone, and to those who adopt such opinions as he holds.
For the man with an eye that looks on the truth will discern the
Right Hand of the
Highest to be such as he sees the Highest to be,—Uncreated of
Uncreated, Good of Good, Eternal of Eternal without prejudice to Its
eternity by Its being in the Father by way of generation. Thus our
accuser has unawares been employing against us reproaches that properly
fall upon himself.
But with reference784
| 784 Oehler’s punctuation, while it does not exactly follow that
of the earlier editions, still seems to admit of emendation
here. | to those who stumble at the idea of
“passion,” and on this ground maintain the diversity of the
Essences,—arguing that the Father, by reason of the exaltation of
His Nature, does not admit passion, and that the Son on the other hand
condescended, by reason of defect and divergence, to the partaking of
His sufferings,—I wish to add these remarks to what has been
already said:—That nothing is truly “passion” which
does not tend to sin, nor would one strictly call by the name of
“passion” the necessary routine of nature, regarding the
composite nature as it goes on its course in a kind of order and
sequence. For the mutual concurrence of heterogeneous elements in the
formation of our body is a kind of a combination harmoniously conjoined
out of several dissimilar elements; but when, at the due time, the tie
is loosed which bound together this concurrence of the elements, the
combined nature is once more dissolved into the elements of which it
was composed. This then is rather a work than a passion of the nature785
| 785 The
word πάθος, like the
English word “passion,” has a double sense: in one sense it
connotes a tendency to evil action or evil habit—and in this
sense Christ was not subject to passion. In another sense it has no
such connotation, and it is in this sense (a sense, Gregory would say,
somewhat inexact), that the term is used to express the sufferings of
Christ:—to this case, it may be said, the inexact use of the
English word is for the most part restricted. | . For we give the name of
“passion” only to that which is opposed to the virtuous
unimpassioned state and of this we believe that He Who granted us
salvation was at all times devoid, Who “was in all points tempted
like as we are yet without sin786
.” Of that, at
least, which is truly passion, which is a diseased condition of the
will, He was not a partaker; for it says “He did no sin, neither
was guile found in His mouth787
”; but the
peculiar attributes of our nature, which, by a kind of customary abuse
of terms, are called by the same name of
“passion,”—of these, we confess, the Lord did
partake,—of birth, nourishment, growth, of sleep and toil, and
all those natural dispositions which the soul is wont to experience
with regard to bodily inconveniences,—the desire of that which is
lacking, when the longing passes from the body to the soul, the sense
of pain, the dread of death, and all the like, save only such as, if
followed, lead to sin. As, then, when we perceive His power extending
through all things in heaven, and air, and earth, and sea, whatever
there is in heaven, whatever there is beneath the earth, we believe
that He is universally present, and yet do not say that He is any of
those things in which He is (for He is not the Heaven, Who has marked
it out with His enfolding span, nor is He the earth, Who upholds the
circle of the earth, nor yet is He the water, Who encompasses the
liquid nature), so neither do we say that in passing through those
sufferings of the flesh of which we speak He was “subject to
passion,” but, as we say that He is the cause of all things that
are, that He holds the universe in His grasp, that He directs all that
is in motion and keeps upon a settled foundation all that is
stationary, by the unspeakable power of His own majesty, so we say that
He was born among us for the cure of the disease of sin, adapting the
exercise of His healing power in a manner corresponding to the
suffering, applying the healing in that way which He knew to be for the
good of that part of the creation which He knew to be in infirmity. And
as it was expedient that He should heal the sufferings by touch, we say
that He so healed it; yet is He not, because He is the Healer of our
infirmity, to be deemed on this account to have been Himself passible.
For even in the case of men, ordinary use does not allow us to affirm
such a thing. We do not say that one who touches a sick man to heal him
is himself partaker of the infirmity, but we say that he does give the
sick man the boon of a return to health, and does not partake of the
infirmity: for the suffering does not touch him, it is he who touches
the disease. Now if he who by his art works any good in men’s
bodies is not called dull or feeble, but is called a lover of men and a
benefactor and the like, why do they slander the dispensation to usward
as being mean and inglorious, and use it to maintain that the essence
of the Son is “divergent by way of inferiority,” on the
ground that the Nature of the Father is superior to sufferings, while
that of the Son is not pure from passion? Why, if the aim of the
dispensation of the Incarnation was not that the Son should be subject
to suffering, but that He should be manifested as a lover of men, while
the Father also is undoubtedly a lover of men, it follows that if one
will but regard the aim, the Son is in the same case with the Father.
But if it was not the Father Who wrought the destruction of death,
marvel not,—for all judgment also He hath committed unto the Son,
Himself judging no man788
; not doing all things
by the Son for the reason that He is unable either to save the lost or
judge the sinner, but because He does these things too by His own
Power, by which He works all things. Then they who were saved by the
Son were saved by the Power of the Father, and they who are judged by
Him undergo judgment by the Righteousness of God. For
“Christ,” as the Apostle says, “is the Righteousness
of God789
,” which is revealed by the Gospel; and
whether you look at the world as a whole, or at the parts of the world
which make up that complete whole, all these are works of the Father,
in that they are works of His Power; and thus the word which says both
that the Father made all things, and that none of these things that are
came into being without the Son, speaks truly on both points; for the
operation of the Power bears relation to Him Whose Power It is. Thus,
since the Son is the Power of the Father, all the works of the Son are
works of the Father. That He entered upon the dispensation of the
Passion not by weakness of nature but by the power of His will, one
might bring countless passages of the Gospel to show; but these, as the
matter is clear, I will pretermit, that my discourse may not be
prolonged by dwelling on points that are admitted. If, then, that which
comes to pass is evil, we have to separate from that evil not the
Father only, but the Son also; but if the saving of them that were lost
is good, and if that which took place is not “passion790
| 790 That
is, “passion” in the sense defined above, as something with
evil tendency. If the γινόμενον
(i.e. the salvation of men) is evil, then
Father and Son alike must be “kept clear” from any
participation in it. If it is good, and if, therefore, the means (the
actual events) are not “passion” as not tending to evil,
while, considered in regard to their aim, they are φιλανθρωπία, then there is no reason why a share in their fulfilment
should be denied to the Father, Who, as well as the Son, is
φιλάνθρωπος, and Who by His own Power (that is, by Christ) wrought the
salvation of men. | ,” but love of men, why do you alienate
from our thanksgiving for our salvation the Father, Who by His own
Power, which is Christ, wrought for men their freedom from
death?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
