Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Concerning the one compound subsistence of God the Word.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
VII.—Concerning the one compound subsistence of God the
Word.
We hold then that the divine subsistence of God the Word
existed before all else and is without time and eternal, simple and
uncompound, uncreated, incorporeal, invisible, intangible,
uncircumscribed, possessing all the Father possesses, since He is of
the same essence with Him, differing from the Father’s
subsistence in the manner of His generation and the relation of the
Father’s subsistence, being perfect also and at no time separated
from the Father’s subsistence: and in these last days,
without leaving the Father’s bosom, took up His abode in an
uncircumscribed manner in the womb of the holy Virgin, without the
instrumentality of seed, and in an incomprehensible manner known only
to Himself, and causing the flesh derived from the holy Virgin to
subsist in the very subsistence that was before all the ages.
So then He was both in all things and above all
things and also dwelt in the womb of the holy Mother of God, but in it
by the energy of the incarnation. He therefore became flesh and
He took upon Himself thereby the first-fruits of our compound
nature2015
| 2015 ἀπαρχὴν τοῦ
ἡμετέρου
φυράματος. | , viz., the flesh
animated with the intelligent and rational soul, so that the very
subsistence of God the Word was changed into the subsistence of the
flesh, and the subsistence of the Word, which was formerly simple,
became compound2016
| 2016 σύνθετον
γενέσθαι τὴν
πρότερον
ἁπλῆν οὖσαν
τοῦ Λόγου
ὑπόστασιν,
σύνθετον δὲ
ἐκ δύο
τελείων
φύσεων. | , yea compounded
of two perfect natures, divinity and humanity, and bearing the
characteristic and distinctive property of the divine Sonship of God
the Word in virtue of which it is distinguished from the Father and the
Spirit, and also the characteristic and distinctive properties of the
flesh, in virtue of which it differs from the Mother and the rest of
mankind, bearing further the properties of the divine nature in virtue
of which it is united to the Father and the Spirit, and the marks of
the human nature in virtue of which it is united to the Mother and to
us. And further it differs from the Father and the Spirit and the
Mother and us in being at once God and man. For this we know to
be the most special property of the subsistence of Christ.
Wherefore we confess Him, even after the
incarnation, the one Son of God, and likewise Son of Man, one Christ,
one Lord, the only-begotten Son and Word of God, one Lord Jesus.
We reverence His two generations, one from the Father before time and
beyond cause and reason and time and nature, and one in the end for our
sake, and like to us and above us; for our sake because it was for our
salvation, like to us in that He was man born of woman2017
| 2017 Text, καὶ χρόνῳ
κυήσεως. Various
readings, καὶ
τρόπῳ
κυήσεως: καὶ
χρόνῳ καὶ
κυήσει: καὶ
νόμῳ
κυήσεως. | at full time2018
| 2018 Cf. Ruf.,
Expos. Symb.; Epiph., in the epilogue to his De Hær.;
Joan. Scyth., Epist. Dionys. 4. | ,
and above us because it was not by seed, but by the Holy Spirit and the
Holy Virgin Mary2019
| 2019 Μαρίας is absent in
most mss. | , transcending the
laws of parturition. We proclaim Him not as God only, devoid of
our humanity, nor yet as man only, stripping Him of His divinity, nor
as two distinct persons, but as one and the same, at once God and man,
perfect God and perfect man, wholly God and wholly man, the same being
wholly God, even though He was also flesh and wholly man, even though He was also
most high God. And by “perfect God” and
“perfect man” we mean to emphasize the fulness and
unfailingness of the natures: while by “wholly God”
and “wholly man” we mean to lay stress on the singularity
and individuality of the subsistence.
And we confess also that there is one incarnate
nature of God the Word, expressing by the word
“incarnate2020
| 2020 Expositio fidei a
Patribus Nicænis contra Paul. Samos.III. p. conc.
Ephes. | ” the essence
of the flesh, according to the blessed Cyril2021
| 2021 Commonit. ad
Eulog. et Epist. 2 ad Success.; cf. supr. ch.
vi. et infr. ch. xi. | . And so the Word was made flesh and
yet did not abandon His own proper immateriality: He became
wholly flesh and yet remained wholly uncircumscribed. So far as
He is body He is diminished and contracted into narrow limits, but
inasmuch as He is God He is uncircumscribed, His flesh not being
coextensive with His uncircumscribed divinity.
He is then wholly perfect God, but yet is not
simply2022
| 2022 ὅλος μὲν οὖν
ἐστι Θεὸς
τέλειος, οὐχ
ὅλον δὲ
Οεός. | God: for
He is not only God but also man. And He is also wholly2023
perfect man but not simply2024
man, for He is not only man but also
God. For “simply2025
” here has
reference to His nature, and “wholly2026
” to His subsistence, just as
“another thing” would refer to nature, while
“another2027
| 2027 Greg. Naz.,
Orat. 51. | ” would
refer to subsistence2028
| 2028 The following is
added in R. 2927: ἐν
πᾶσι μὲν ἦν,
καὶ ὑπὲρ τὰ
πάντα, καὶ ἐν
τῇ γάστρι τῆς
Θεομήτορος,
ἀλλ᾽ ἐν
ταύτῃ τε,
ἐνεργεί& 139·
τῆς
σαρκώσεως.
This is assuredly an interpolation. | .
But observe2029
that although
we hold that the natures of the Lord permeate one another, yet we know
that the permeation springs from the divine nature. For it is
that that penetrates and permeates all things, as it wills, while
nothing penetrates it: and it is it, too, that imparts to the
flesh its own peculiar glories, while abiding itself impossible and
without participation in the affections of the flesh. For if the
sun imparts to us his energies and yet does not participate in ours,
how much the rather must this be true of the Creator and Lord of the
Sun2030
| 2030 Leontius de
sectis, Act. 3. | .E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
