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| Chapter XIV. He continues the discussion of the difficulty he has entered upon, and teaches that Christ is not subject but only according to the flesh. Christ, however, whilst in subjection in the Flesh, still gave proofs of His Godhead. He combats the idea that Christ is made subject in This. The humanity indeed, which He adopted, has been so far made subject in us, as ours has been raised in that very humanity of His. Lastly, we are taught, when that same subjection of Christ will take place.
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Chapter XIV.
He continues the discussion of the difficulty he has
entered upon, and teaches that Christ is not subject but only according
to the flesh. Christ, however, whilst in subjection in the Flesh,
still gave proofs of His Godhead. He combats the idea that Christ
is made subject in This. The humanity indeed, which He adopted,
has been so far made subject in us, as ours has been raised in that
very humanity of His. Lastly, we are taught, when that same
subjection of Christ will take place.
170. However, lest
anyone should cavil, see what care Scripture takes under divine
inspiration. For it shows to us in what Christ is made subject to
God, whilst it also teaches us in what He made the universe subject to
Himself. And so it says: “Now we see not yet all
things put under Him.”2739
For we
see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of
death.2740
It shows
therefore that He was made lower in taking on Him our flesh. What
then hinders Him from openly showing His subjection in taking on Him
our flesh, through which He subjects all things to Himself, whilst He
Himself is made subject in it to God the Father?
171. Let us then think of His
subjection. “Father,” He says, “if Thou be
willing, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not My will but Thine be
done.”2741
Therefore
that subjection will be according to the assumption of human nature; as
we read: “Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled
Himself, being made obedient unto death.”2742
The subjection therefore is that
of obedience; the obedience is that of death; the death is that of the
assumed humanity; that subjection therefore will be the subjection of
the assumed humanity. Thus in no wise is there a weakness in the
Godhead, but there is such a discharge of pious duty as
this.
172. See how I do not fear their
intentions. They allege that He must be subject to God the
Father, I say He was subject to Mary His Mother. For it is
written of Joseph and Mary: “He was subject unto
them.”2743
But if
they think so, let them say how the Deity was made subject to
men.
173. Let not the fact that He is said to have been
made subject work against Him, Who receives no hurt from the fact that
He is called a servant, or is stated to have been crucified, or is
spoken of as dead. For when He died He lived; when He was made
subject He was reigning; when He was buried He revived again. He
offered Himself in subjection to human power, yet at another time He
declared He was the Lord of eternal glory. He was before the
judge, yet claimed for Himself a throne at the right hand of God, as
Judge forever. For thus it is written: “Hereafter ye
shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God,
and coming in the
clouds of
heaven.”2744
He was
scourged by the Jews, and commanded the angels; He was born of Mary
under the law;2745
He was before
Abraham above the law. On the cross He was revered by nature; the
sun fled; the earth trembled; the angels became silent. Could the
elements see the Generation of Him Whose Passion they feared to
see? And will they uphold the subjection of an adorable Nature in
Him, in Whom they could not endure the subjection of the
body?
174. But since the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit are of one Nature, the Father certainly will not be in
subjection to Himself. And therefore the Son will not be in
subjection in that in which He is one with the Father; lest it should
seem that through the unity of the Godhead the Father also is in
subjection to the Son. Therefore, as upon that cross it was not
the fulness of the Godhead, but our weakness that was brought into
subjection, so also will the Son hereafter become subject to the Father
in the participation of our nature, in order that when the lusts of the
flesh are brought into subjection the heart may have no care for
riches, or ambition, or pleasures; but that God may be all to us, if we
live after His image and likeness, as far as we can attain to it,
through all.
175. The benefit has passed, then, from the
individual to the community; for in His flesh He has tamed the nature
of all human flesh. Thus, according to the Apostle:
“As we have borne the image of the earthly, so also shall we bear
the image of the heavenly.”2746
This thing certainly cannot come to pass except in the inner man.
Therefore, “laying aside all these,” that is those things
which we read of: “anger, malice, blasphemy, filthy
communication;”2747
as he also
says below: “Let us, having put off the old man with his
deeds, put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the
image of Him that created Him.”2748
176. And that thou mightest know that when
he says: “That God may be all in all,” he does not
separate Christ from God the Father, he also says to the
Colossians: “Where there is neither male nor female, Jew
nor Greek, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and
in all.”2749
So also
saying to the Corinthians: “That God may be all and in
all,” he comprehended in that the unity and equality of Christ
with God the Father, for the Son is not separated from the
Father. And in like manner as the Father worketh all and in all,
so also Christ worketh all in all. If, then, Christ also worketh
all in all, He is not made subject in the glory of the Godhead, but in
us. But how is He made subject in us, except in the way in which
He was made lower than the angels, I mean in the sacrament of His
body? For all things which served their Creator from their first
beginning seemed not as yet to be made subject to Him in
that.
177. But if thou shouldst ask how He was
made subject in us, He Himself shows us, saying: “I was in
prison, and ye came unto Me; I was sick, and ye visited Me:
Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye have done
it unto Me.”2750
Thou
hearest of Him as sick and weak, and art not moved. Thou hearest
of Him in subjection, and art moved, though He is sick and weak in Him
in whom He is in subjection, in whom He was made sin and a curse for
us.
178. As, then, He was made sin and a curse
not on His own account but on ours, so He became subject in us not for
His own sake but for ours, being not in subjection in His eternal
Nature, nor accursed in His eternal Nature. “For cursed is
every one that hangeth on a tree.”2751
Cursed He was, for He bore our
curses; in subjection, also, for He took upon Him our subjection, but
in the assumption of the form of a servant, not in the glory of God; so
that whilst he makes Himself a partaker of our weakness in the flesh,
He makes us partakers of the divine Nature in His power. But
neither in one nor the other have we any natural fellowship with the
heavenly Generation of Christ, nor is there any subjection of the
Godhead in Christ. But as the Apostle has said that on Him
through that flesh which is the pledge of our salvation, we sit in
heavenly places,2752
though
certainly not sitting ourselves, so also He is said to be subject in us
through the assumption of our nature.
179. For who is so mad as to think, as we
have said already,2753
that a seat of
honour is due to Him at the right hand of God the Father, when that is
granted to Christ according to the flesh by the Father of His
Generation, even a seat of a heavenly and equal power? The angels
worship, and dost thou attempt to overthrow the throne of God with
impious presumption?
180. It is written, thou sayest, that “when
we were dead in sins, He hath quickened us
in Christ, by Whose grace ye are saved,
and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus.”2754
I
acknowledge that it is so written; but it is not written that God
suffers men to sit on His right hand, but only to sit there in the
Person of Christ. For He is the foundation of all, and is the
head of the Church,2755
in Whom our
common nature according to the flesh has merited the right to the
heavenly throne. For the flesh is honoured as having a share in
Christ Who is God, and the nature of the whole human race is honoured
as having a share in the flesh.
181. As we then sit in Him by fellowship in
our fleshly nature, so also He, Who through the assumption of our flesh
was made a curse for us (seeing that a curse could not fall upon the
blessed Son of God), so, I say, He through the obedience of all will
become subject in us; when the Gentile has believed, and the Jew has
acknowledged Him Whom he crucified; when the Manichæan has
worshipped Him, Whom he has not believed to have come in the flesh;
when the Arian has confessed Him to be Almighty, Whom he has denied;
when, lastly, the wisdom of God, His justice, peace, love,
resurrection, is in all. Through His own works and through the
manifold forms of virtues Christ will be in us in subjection to the
Father. And when, with vice renounced and crime at an end, one
spirit in the heart of all peoples has begun to cleave to God in all
things, then will God be all and in all.2756
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