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| Chapter X. He explains what it means to confess, and what it means to dissolve Jesus.
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Chapter X.
He explains what it means to confess, and what it means
to dissolve Jesus.
For this it is which
John, the man so dear to God, foresaw from the Lord’s own
revelation to him and so spoke of Him, who was speaking in him.
“Every spirit,” he says, “which confesseth Jesus come
in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not
of God: and this is the spirit of Antichrist, of whom you have heard
already, and he is now already in the world.”2526
| 2526 S. John iv. 2, 3. It will be noticed that Cassian quotes
this passage with the reading “Qui solvit Jesum,” where the
Greek has ὁ μὴ
ὁμολογεῖ τὸν
᾽Ιησοῦν.
Λύει is found in no Greek
ms., uncial or cursive, and the only Greek
authority for it is that of Socrates who says it was the reading in
“the old copies.” “Qui solvit” was
probably an early gloss, current in very early days in the West, being
found in Tertullian (adv. Marc. v. 16; De Jejun. i.) and in all Latin
mss. whether of the Vetus or Vulgate (with a
single exception), and finally becoming universal in the Fathers of the
Western Church. Cf. Westcott on the Epp. of S. John, p. 156,
sq. | O the marvellous and singular goodness of
God, who like a most careful and skilful physician, foretold beforehand
the diseases that should come upon His Church, and when He showed the
mischief beforehand, gave in showing it, a remedy for it: that all men
when they saw the evil approaching, might at once flee as far as
possible from that which they already knew to be imminent. And so Saint
John says, “Every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God; and
this is the spirit of Antichrist.” Do you recognize him, O you
heretic? Do you recognize that it is plainly and markedly spoken of
you? For no one thus dissolves Jesus but he who does not confess that
He is God. For since in this consists all the faith and all the worship
of the Church; viz., to confess that Jesus is very God; who can more
dissolve His glory and worship than one who denies the existence in Him
of all that we all worship? Take then, I beseech you, take care lest
any one may even term you Antichrist. Do you think that I am reviling
and cursing? What I am saying is not my own idea: for lo, the
Evangelist says, “Every one that dissolveth Jesus is not of God;
and this is Antichrist.” If you do not dissolve Jesus, and deny
God, no one may call you Antichrist. But if you deny it why do you
accuse any one for calling you Antichrist? While you are denying it, I
declare you have said it of yourself. Would you like to know whether
this is true? Tell me, when Jesus was born of a Virgin, what do you
make Him to be—man or God? If God only, you certainly dissolve
Jesus, as you deny that in Him manhood was joined to Divinity. But if
you say He was man, none the less do you dissolve Him, as you
blasphemously say that a mere
man (as you will have it) was born.
Unless perhaps you think that you do not dissolve Jesus, you who deny
Him to be God, you who would certainly dissolve Him even if you did not
deny2527
| 2527 Non negares
(Petschenig). Gazæus has denegares. | that man was born together with God. But
possibly you would like this to be made clearer by examples. You shall
have them in both directions. The Manichees are outside the Church, who
declare that Jesus was God alone: and the Ebionites, who say that he
was a mere man. For both of them deny and dissolve Jesus: the one by
saying that He is only man, the other by saying that He is only God.
For though their opinions were the opposite of each other, yet the
blasphemy of these diverse opinions is much the same, except that if
any distinction can be drawn between the magnitude of the evils, your
blasphemy which asserts that He is a mere man is worse than that which
says that He is only God: for though both are wrong, yet it is more
insulting to take away from the Lord what is Divine than what is human.
This then alone is the Catholic and the true faith; viz., to believe
that as the Lord Jesus Christ is God so also is He man; and that as He
is man so also is He God. “Every one who dissolves Jesus is not
of God.” But to dissolve Him is to try to rend asunder what is
united in Jesus; and to sever what is but one and indivisible. But what
is it in Jesus that is united and but one? Certainly the manhood and
the Godhead. He then dissolves Jesus who severs these and rends them
asunder. Otherwise, if he does not rend them asunder and sever them, he
does not dissolve Jesus: But if he rends them asunder he certainly
dissolves Him.2528
| 2528 The last
sentences are placed in brackets by Petschenig. | E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
