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| Chapter IV. What the difference is between Christ and the saints.
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Chapter IV.
What the difference is between Christ and the
saints.
Moreover there is between
Him and all the saints the same difference that there is between a
dwelling and one who dwells in it, for certainly it is the doing of the
dweller not the dwelling, if it is inhabited, for on him it depends
both to build the house and to occupy it. I mean, that he can choose,
if he will, to make it a dwelling, and when he has made it, to live in
it. “Or do you seek a proof,” says the Apostle, “of
Christ speaking in me?”2497
And elsewhere,
“Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be
reprobate?”2498
And again:
“in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by
faith.”2499
Do you not see
what a difference there is between the Apostle’s doctrine and
your blasphemies? You say that God dwells in Christ as in a man. He
testifies that Christ Himself dwells in men: which certainly, as you
admit, flesh and blood cannot do; so that He is shown to be God, from
the very fact from which you deny Him to be God. For since you cannot
deny that He who dwells in man is God, it follows that we must believe
that He, whom we know to dwell in men, is most decidedly God. All,
then, whether patriarchs, or prophets, or apostles, or martyrs, or
saints, had every one of them God within him, and were all made sons of
God and were all receivers of God (Θεοδόχοι),
but in a very different and distinct way. For all who believe in God
are sons of God by adoption: but the only begotten alone is Son by
nature: who was begotten of His Father, not of any material substance,
for all things, and the substance of all things exist through the only
begotten Son of God—and not out of nothing, because He is from
the Father: not like a birth, for there is nothing in God that is void
or mutable, but in an ineffable and incomprehensible manner God the
Father, wherein He Himself was regenerate, begat his only begotten Son;
and so from the Most High, Ingenerate, and Eternal Father proceeds the
Most High, Only Begotten, and Eternal Son. Who must be considered the
same Person in the flesh as He is in the Spirit: and must be held to be
the same Person in the body as He is in glory, for when He was about to
be born in the flesh,2500
| 2500 Idem credendus in
corpore qui creditur in majestate, quia nasciturus in carne non
divisionem, etc., (Petschenig): Gazæus reads Idem credendus
in majestate quia nasciturus in carne. Non divisionem, etc. | He made no division
or separation within Himself, as if some portion of Him was born while
another portion was not born: or as if some portion of Divinity
afterwards came upon Him, which had not been in Him at His birth from
the Virgin. For according to the Apostle, “all the fulness of the
Godhead dwelleth in Christ bodily.”2501
Not that It dwells in Him at times, and at times dwells not; nor that
It was there at a later date, and not an earlier one: otherwise we are
entangled in that impious heresy of Pelagius, so as to say that from a
fixed moment God dwelt in Christ, and that He then came upon Him; when
He had won by His life and conversation this; viz., that the power of
the Godhead should dwell in Him. These things then belong to men, to
men, I say, not to God,—that as far as human weakness can, they
should humble themselves to God, be subject to God, make themselves
dwellings for God, and by their faith and piety win this, to have God
as their guest and indweller. For in proportion as anyone is fit for
God’s gift, so does the Divine grace reward him: in proportion as
a man seems worthy of him: in proportion as a man seems worthy
of
God, so does he
enjoy God’s presence, according to the Lord’s promise:
“if any man love Me, he will keep My word; and I and My Father
will come to him and make Our abode with him.”2502
But very different is the case as regards
Christ; in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily: for He
has within Him the fulness of the Godhead so that He gives to all of
His fulness, and He—as the fulness of the Godhead dwells in
Him—Himself dwells in each of the saints in proportion as He
deems them worthy of His Presence, and gives of His fulness to all, yet
in such a way that He Himself continues in all that fulness,—who
even when He was on earth in the flesh, yet was present in the hearts
of all the saints, and filled the heaven, the earth, the sea, aye and
the whole universe with His infinite power and majesty; and yet was so
complete in Himself that the whole world could not contain Him. For
however great and inexpressible whatever is made may be, yet there are
no things so boundless and infinite as to be able to contain the
Creator Himself.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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