6 §. Chrysostom, S. Ambrose, and Pope Gregory, in addition to the instances in the text, refer to ‘I will go down now, and see whether they have done, &c., and if not, I will vow.’ Gen. xviii. 21. *The Lord came down Zo see the city and the tower, &c.’ Gen. xi. 5. ‘God looked down from heaven upon the children of men #o see, &c.’ Ps. liii, 3. ‘J¢ may be they will reverence My Son.’ Matt. xxi. 37; Luke xx. 13. ‘Seeing a fig-tree afar off, having leaves, He came, if haply He might find, &c.” Mark xi. 13. ‘Simon, lovest thou Me?’ John xxi. 15. vid. Ambros. de Fid. v.c.17. Chrys. 7% Matt. Hom. 77, 3. Greg. Epp. x. 39. Vid. also the instances, supr. § 37. Other passages may be added, such as Gen. xxii. 12. vid. Berti Of¢. t. 3. p. 42. But the difficulty of the passage lies in its sigeiyiog that there is a sense in which the Father knows what the Son knows not. _ ‘' 7 Or. i. 8, Ne 2+ 8 yeavrevnade, vid. Decr.18 init. de Fug. 4.. 9 rovOopuerte, vid. Decr. 16.
And what this is, we must state, that so also their corrupt?? meaning may be shewn. _ 51. Now Luke says, ‘And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in grace with God and man*.’ This then is the passage, and since they stumble in it, we are compelled to ask them, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, of the person concerning whom Luke speaks. And the case stands thus. Is Jesus Christ man, as all other men, or is He God bearing flesh? If then He is an ordinary?
man as the rest, then let Him, as a man, advance; this however is the sentiment of the Samosatene, which virtually indeed you entertain also, though in name you deny it because of men. But if He be God bearing flesh, as He truly is, and ‘the Word became flesh,’ and being God descended upon earth, what advance had He who existed equal to God? or how had the Son increase, being ever in the Father? For if He who was ever in the Father, advanced, what, I ask, is there beyond the Father from which His advance might be made? Next it is suitable here to repeat what was said upon the point of His receiving and being glorified. If He advanced; when He became man, it is plain that, before He became man, He was imperfect; and rather the flesh became to Him a cause of perfection, than He to the flesh. And again, if, as being the Word, He advances, what has He more to become than Word and Wisdom and Son and God’s Power? For the Word is all these, of which if one can anyhow partake as it were one ray, such a man becomes all-perfect among men, and equal to Angels. For Angels, and Archangels, and Dominions, and all the Powers, and Thrones, as partaking the Word, behold always the face of His Father. How then does He who to others supplies perfection, Himself advance later than they? For Angels even ministered to His human birth, and the passage from Luke comes later than the ministration of the Angels. How then at all can it even come into thought of man? or how did Wisdom advance in wisdom? or how did He who to others gives grace (as Paul says in every Epistle, knowing that through Him grace is given, ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all’), how did He advance in grace? for either let them say that the Apostle is untrue, and presume to say that the Son is not Wisdom, or else if He is Wisdom as Solomon said, and if Paul wrote, ‘Christ God’s Power and God’s Wisdom,’ of what advance did Wisdom admit further?
52. For men, creatures as they are, are capable in a certain way of reaching forward and advancing in virtuet. Enoch, for instance, was thus translated, and Moses increased and was perfected; and Isaac ‘by advancing became great?;’ and the Apostle said that he ‘reached forth3’ day by day to what was before him. For each had room for advancing, looking to the step. before him. But the Son of God, who is One and Only, what room had He for reaching forward? for all things advance by looking at Him; and He, being One and Only, is in the Only Father, from whom again He does not reach forward, but in Him abideth ever3*, To men then belongs advance; but the Son of God, since He could not advance, being perfect in the Father, humbled Himself for us, that in His humbling we on the other hand might be able to increase.
And our increase is no other than the renouncing things sensible, and coming to the Word Himself; since His humbling is nothing else than His taking our flesh. It was not then the Word, considered as the Word, who advanced; who is perfect from the perfect Father4, who needs nothing, nay brings forward others to an advance; but humanly is He here also said to advance, since advance belongs to mans. Hence the Evangelist, speaking with cautious exactness®, has mentioned stature in the advance; but being Word and God He is not measured by stature, which belongs to bodies. Of the body then is the advance; for, it advancing, in it advanced also the manifestation? of the Godhead to those who saw it. And, as the Godhead was more and more revealed, by so much more did His grace as man increase before all men. For as a child He was carried to the Temple; and when He became a boy, He remained there, and questioned the priests about the Law. And by degrees His body increasing, and the Word manifesting Himself® in it, He is confessed henceforth by Peter first, then also ¥ It is the doctrine of the [medieval and modern] Church that Christ, as man, was perfect in knowledge from the first, as if ignorance were hardly separable from sin, and were the direct consequence or accompaniment of original sin. Cf. Aug. de Pece. Mer. ii. 48. As to the limits of Christ’s perfect knowledge as man, Petavius observes, that we must consider ‘that the soul of Christ knew all things that are or ever will be or ever have been, but not what are only 27 fosse, not in fact.’ /ucarn. xi. 3, 6.
4 Or. ii. 36, n. 4. 5 Vid. Serm. May. de Hid. 18.
8 It is remarkable, considering the tone of his statements in the present chapter, that here and in what follows Athan. should resolve our Lord’s advance in wisdom merely to its gradual manifestation through the flesh [but he says expressly ‘the Manhood advanced in wisdom!’] and it increases the proof that his statements are not to be taken in the letter, and as if fully brought out and settled. Naz. says the same, £%. ad Cled. x01. p. 36. which is the more remarkable since he is chiefly writing against the Apollinarians, who considered a ¢avépwous the great end of our Lord’s coming; and Cyril. c. West?. iii. p. 87. Theod. Hor. v. tT. On the other hand, S. Epiphanius speaks of Him as growing in wisdom as man, Her. 77.p.1019g—24. and S Ambrose, /ucarn. 7i—14. Vid. however Ambr. de d. as quoted suér, § 45, n. 2.
FOUR DISCOURSES AGAINST THE ARIANS, by all, ‘ Truly this is the Son of God?;’ however wilfully the Jews, both the ancient and these modern”, shut fast their eyes, lest they see that to advance in wisdom is not the advance of Wisdom Itself, but rather the manhood’s advance in It. For-‘ Jesus advanced in wisdom and grace;’ and, if we may speak what is explanatory as well as true, He advanced in Himself; for ‘Wisdom builded herself an house,’ and in herself she gave the house advancement.; 53. (What moreover is this advance that is spoken of, but, as I said before, the deifying and grace imparted from Wisdom to men, sin being obliterated in them and their inward corruption, according to their likeness and relationship to the flesh of the Word?) For thus, the body increasing in stature, there developed in it the manifestation of the Godhead also, and to all was it displayed that the body was God’s Temple’, and that God was in the body. And if they urge, that ‘The Word become flesh’ is called Jesus, and refer to Him the term ‘advanced,’ they must be told that neither does this impair? the Father’s Light 3, which is the Son, but that it still shews that the Word has become man, and bore true flesh. And as we said4 that He suffered in the flesh, and hungered in the flesh, and was fatigued in the flesh, so also reasonably may He be said to have advanced in the flesh; for neither did the advance, such as we have described it, take place with the Word external to the flesh, for in Him was the flesh which advanced and His is it called, and that as before, that man’s advance might abide 5 and fail not, because of the Word which is with it. Neither then was the advance the Word’s, nor was the flesh Wisdom, but the flesh became the body of Wisdom®. Therefore, as we have already said, not Wisdom, as Wisdom, advanced in respect of Itself; but the manhood advanced in Wisdom, transcending by degrees human nature, and being deified, and becoming and appearing to all as the organ? of Wisdom for the operation and the shining forth 8 of the Godhead. Wherefore neither said he, ‘The Word advanced,’ but Jesus, by which Name the Lord was called when He became man; so that the advance is of the human nature in such wise as we explained above.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Texts EXPLAINED; TWELFTHLY, MATTHEW XXV1L 39; JOHN xii. 27, &c.
Arian inferences are against the Regula Fidei, as before.
DISCOURSE IIE He wept and the like, as man. Him God. God could not fear. His flesh feared.
54. THEREFORE as, when the flesh advanced, He is said to have advanced, because the body was His own, so also what is said at the season of His death, that He was troubled, that He wept, must be taken in the same sense’. For they, going up and down, as if thereby recommending their heresy anew, allege; “ Behold, ‘He wept,’ and said, ‘ Now is My soul troubled,’ and He besought that the cup might pass away; how then, if He so spoke, is He God, and Word of the Father?” Yea, it is written that He wept, O God’s enemies, and that He said, ‘I am troubled,’ and on the Cross He said, ‘ Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani,’ that is, ‘My Ged, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ and He besought that the cup might pass away 3. ‘Thus certainly it is written; but again I would ask you (for the same rejoinder must of necessity be made to each of your objections +), If the speaker is mere man, let him weep and fear death, as being man; but if He is the Word in flesh 5 (for one must not be reluctant to repeat), whom had He to fear being God? or wherefore should He fear death, who was Himself Life, and was rescuing others from ceath? or how, whereas He said, ‘ Fear not him that kills the body °,” should He Himself fear? And how should He who said to Abraham, ‘Fear not, for I am with thee,’ and encouraged Moses against Pharaoh, and said to the son of Nun, ‘ Be strong, and of a good courage7,’ Himself feel terror before Herod and Pilate? Further, He who succours others against fear (for ‘the Lord,’ says Scripture, ‘ is on my side, I will not fear what man shall do unto me®’), did He fear governors, mortal men? did He who Himself was come against death, feel terror of death? Is it not both unseemly and irreligious to say that He was terrified at death or hades, whom the keepers of the gates of hades? saw and shuddered? But if, as you would hold, the Word was in terror, wherefore, when He spoke long before of the conspiracy of the Jews, did He not flee, nay said when actually sought, ‘I am He?’ for He could have avoided death, as He said, ‘I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again;’ and ‘No one taketh it from Mer,’ 55. But these affections were not proper to the nature of the Word, as far as He was Word; but in the flesh which was thus affected was the Other texts prove He feared because I Scavoia, § 26 et passim.
Word, O Christ’s enemies and unthankful Jews! For He said not all this prior to the flesh; but when the ‘Word became flesh,’ and has become man, then is it written that He said this, that is, humanly. Surely He of whom this is written was He who raised Lazarus from the dead, and made the water wine, and vouchsafed sight to the man born blind, and said, ‘I and My Father are one*’ If then they make His human attributes a ground for low thoughts concerning the Son of God, nay consider Him altogether man from the earth, and not? from heaven, wherefore not from His divine works recognise the Word who is in the Father, and henceforward renounce their selfwilled3irreligion? For they are given to see, how He who did the works is the same as He who shewed that His body was passible by His permitting + it to weep and hunger, and to shew other properties ofa body. For while by means of such He made it known that, though God impassible, He had taken a passible flesh; yet from the works He shewed Himself the Word of God, who had afterwards become man, saying, ‘Though ye believe not Me, beholding Me clad in a human body, yet believe the works, that ye may know that “JI am in the Father, and the Father in Me5”’ And Christ’s enemies seem to me to shew plain shamelessness and blasphemy; for, when they hear ‘I and the Father are one°,’ they violently distort the sense, and separate the unity of the Father and the Son; but reading of His tears or sweat or sufferings, they do not advert to His body, but on account of these rank in the creation Him by whom the creation was made. What then is left for them to differ from the Jews in? for as the Jews blasphemously ascribed God’s works to Beelzebub, so also will these, ranking with the creatures the Lord who wrought those works, undergo the same condemnation as theirs without mercy.
56. But they ought, when they hear ‘I and the Father are one,’ to see in Him the oneness of the Godhead and the propriety of the Father’s Essence; and again when they hear, ‘He wept’ and the like, to say that these are proper to the body; especially since on each side they have an intelligible ground, viz. that this is written as of God and that with reference 1 Tb. x, 30. 2 dvOpwmov dAov, Orat. iv. 35 fin.
3 idtav, Orat. i. 52 fin.
4 This our Lord’s suspense or permission, at His will, of the operations of His manhood is a great principle in the doctrine of the Incarnation. Cf. Theophylact, zz Joh. xi. 34. And Cyril, Jragm. in Joan. p.685. Leon. £2. 35,3. Aug.2z Joan. xlix. 18. vid. note on § 57, sub. fin. The Eutychians perverted this doctrine, as if it implied that our Lord was not subject to the laws of human nature, and that He suffered mevely ‘by permission of the Word.’ Leont. af. Canis. t. 1. p.563- In like manner Marcion or Manes said that His ‘ flesh appeared from heaven in resemblance, ws noédncev.” Athan. contr, Afoll. ii. 3.
I dee ean aed acai bye ANC I to His manhood. For in the incorporeal, the properties of body had not been, unless He had taken a body corruptible and mortal*; for mortal was Holy Mary, from whom was His body. Wherefore of necessity when He was in a body suffering, and weeping, and _ toiling, these things which are proper to the flesh, are ascribed to Him together with the body. If then He wept and was troubled, it was not the Word, considered as the Word, who wept and was troubled, but it was proper to the flesh; and if too He besought that the cup might pass away, it was not the Godhead that was in terror, but this affection too was proper to the manhood. And that the words ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ are His, according to the foregoing explanations (though He suffered nothing, for the Word was impassible), is notwithstanding declared by the Evangelists; since the Lord became man, and these things are done and said as from a man, that He might Himself lighten? these very sufferings of the flesh, and free it from them 3. Whence neither can the Lord be forsaken by the Father, who is ever in the Father, both before He spoke, and when He uttered this cry. Nor is it lawful to say that the Lord was in terror, at whom the keepers of hell’s gates shuddered+ and set open hell, and the graves did gape, and many bodies of the saints arose and appeared to their own people 5. ‘Therefore be every heretic dumb, nor dare to ascribe terror to the Lord whom death, as a serpent, flees, at whom demons tremble, and the sea is in alarm; for whom the heavens are rent and all the powers are shaken. For behold when He says, ‘Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ the Father shewed that He was ever and even then in Him; for the earth knowing its Lord® who spoke, straightway trembled, and the vail was rent, and the sun was hidden, and the rocks were torn asunder, and the graves, as I have said, did gape, and the dead in them arose; and, what is wonderful, they who were then present and had before denied Him, then seeing these signs, confessed that ‘truly He was the Son of God’.’
57. And as to His saying, ‘If it be possible, let the cup pass,’ observe how, though He thus spake, He rebuked" Peter, saying, ‘Thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.’ For He willed? what Serne. ’, id. Q. Tertull. de Carn. Chr. 6. On he aa 4 Job xxxvill. 17, LXX. 5 Vid. Matt. xxvii. 52, aa Rnslee passage swpr. p. 88. 6 Searornv, § 14, &c.
7 Vid. Matt. xxvii. 54. Vid. Or. ii. 163 35, n. 2. Cf. Leo's Tome (£2. 28.) 40, Nyssen. contr. Eunom. iv. p. 161. Ambros. “pist. 1. 46. n. 7. vid. Hil. T7in. x. 48. Also vid. Athan. Sent, D. g fin. Sera. Maz. de Mid. 24.
* [The human will of the Saviour is in absolute harmony with He deprecated, for therefore had He come; but His was the willing (for for it He came), but the terror belonged to the flesh. Wherefore as man He utters this speech also, and yet both were said by the Same, to shew that He was God, willing in Himself, but when He had become man, having a flesh that was in terror. For the sake of this flesh He combined His own will with human weakness 3, that destroying this affection He might in turn make man undaunted in face of death. Behold then a thing strange indeed! He to whom Christ’s enemies impute words of terror, He by that so-called4 terror renders men undaunted and fearless. And so the Blessed Apostles after Him from such words of His conceived so great a contempt of death, as not even to care for those who questioned them, but to answer, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men5.’ And the other Holy Martyrs were so bold, as to think that they were rather passing to life than undergoing death. Is it not extravagant then, to admire the courage of the servants of the Word, yet to say that the Word Himself was in terror, through whom they despised death? But from that most enduring purpose and courage of the Holy Martyrs is shewn, that the Godhead was not in terror, but the Saviour took away our terror. For as He abolished death ‘by death, and by human means all human evils, so by this so-called terror did He remove our terror, and brought about that never more should men fear death. His word and deed go together. For human were the sayings, ‘Let the cup pass,’ and ‘ Why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ and divine the act whereby the Same did cause the sun to fail and the dead to rise. Again He said humanly, ‘Now is My soul troubled;’ and He said divinely, ‘I have power to lay down My life, and power to take it again®’ For to be troubled was proper the Divine, though psychologically distinct.] Cf. Anast. Hodeg. lapares 3 It is observable that, as elsewhere we have seen Athan. speak of the nature of the Word, and of, not the za¢uve of man as united to Him, but of flesh, humanity, &c. (vid. Or. ii. 4s, n. 2.) so here, instead of speaking of two wills, he speaks of the Word’s willing and human weakness, terror, &c. In another place he says still more pointedly, ‘ The;w2/Z was of the Godhead alone; since the whole zature of the Word was manifested in the second Adam’s human form and visible flesh.’ contr. Apoll. ii. 10. Cf. S. Leo on the same passage: ‘The first request is one of infirmity. the second of power; the first He asked in our [character] the second in His own...The inferior will give way to the superior i &c. Sern. 56, 2. vid. a similar passage in Nyssen. Antirrh. adv. <lpol. 32. vid. also 31. An obvious objection may be drawn from such passages, as if the will ‘of the flesh’ were represented as contrary (vid. foregoing note) to the wilLof the Word. The whole of our Lord’s prayer is offered by Him as man, because it is a prayer; the first part is not from Him as man, but the second which corrects it, from Him as;God [i.e. the first part is not human as contrasted with the second]; but thesformer part is from the sinless infirmity of our nature, the latter from His human will expressing its acquiescence in His Father's, that is, in His Divine Will. ‘ His Will,’ says S: Greg. Naz, ‘was not contrary to God being all deified, Q@ewOév dAov,’: 4 vouicopevn, vids Ovat. i. ro, : to the flesh, and to have power to lay down His life'7 and take it again, when He will, was no property of men but of the Word’s power. .For man dies, not by his own power, but by necessity of nature and against his will; but the Lord, being Himself immortal, but having a mortal flesh, had power, as God, to become separate from the body and to take it again, when He would. Concerning this too speaks David in the Psalm, ‘Thou shalt not leave My soul'in hades, neither shalt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption 8’ For it beseemed, that the flesh, corruptible as it was, should no longer after its own nature remain mortal, but because of the Word who had put it on, should abide incorruptible. For as He, having come in our body, was conformed to our condition, so we, receiving Him, partake of the immortality that is from Him, 58. Idle then is the excuse for stumbling, and petty the notions concerning the Word, of these Ario-maniacs, because it is written, ‘ He was troubled,’ and ‘He wept.’ For they seem not even to have human feeling, if they are thus ignorant of man’s nature and properties; which do but make it the greater wonder, that the Word should be in such a suffering flesh, and neither prevented those who were conspiring against Him, nor took vengeance of those who were putting Him to death, though He was able, He who hindered some from dying, and raised others from the dead. And He let His own body suffer, for therefore did He come, as I said before, that in the flesh He might suffer, and thenceforth the flesh might be made impassible and immortal 9, and that, as we have many times said, contumely and other troubles might determine upon Him and come short of others after Him, being by Him annulled utterly; and that henceforth men might for ever abide *° incorruptible, as a temple of the Word*. Had Christ’s enemies thus dwelt on these thoughts, and recognised the ecclesiastical scope as an anchor for the faith, they would not have made shipwreck of the faith, nor been so shameless as to resist those who would fain recover them from their fall, and to deem those as enemies who are admonishing them to be religious ™, 7 This might be taken as an illustration of the ut voluit sar. Or. i. 44, n. 11. And so the expressions in the Evangelists, * Into | Thy hands I commend My Spirit,’ ‘He bowed the head,’ ‘ He gave up the ghost,’ are taken to imply that His death was His free act. vid. Ambros. 2 loc.-Luc. Hieron. iz loc. Matt. also Athan. Se772. Maj. de Hid. 4. It is Catholic doctrine that our Lord, as man, submitted to death of His free will, and not as obeying an express command of the Father. Cf. S. Chrysostom on John x. 18. Theo-* phylact. zz Hedr. xii. 2; Aug. de Trin. iv. 16.
x2 Thus ends the exposition of texts, which forms the body of these Orations. It is remarkable that he ends as he began, with reference to the ecclesiastical scope, or Regula Hrdet, which has so often come under our notice, vid. Ov. il. 35, n. 2. 44, n. 1, as if distinctly to tell us, that Scripture did not so force its meaning CHAPTER XXX.
OBJECTIONS CONTINUED, AS IN CHAPTERS Vii.—x.
Whether the Son is begotten of the Father’s will? This virtually the same as whether once He was not? and used by the Arians to introduce the latter question. The Regula Fidei answers it at once in the negative by contrary texts. The Arians follow the Valentinians in maintaining a precedent will; which really is only exercised by God towards creatures. Instances from Scripture. Inconsistency of Asterius. If the Son by will, there must be another Word before Him. If God is good, or exist, by His will, then is the Son by His will. If He willed to have reason or wisdom, then is His Word and Wisdom at His will. The Son is the Living Will, and has all titles which denote connaturality. That will which the Father has to the Son, the Son has to the Father. The Father wills the Son and the Son wills the Father.