Against Praxeas 27

But why should I linger on things so plain, when I ought to engage those points by which they try to overshadow what is plain? For, hemmed in on every side by the distinction of Father and Son, which we arrange while their conjunction remains, as of sun and ray and of spring and river, yet through the undivided number of two and three, they try nonetheless to interpret it differently, to suit their own opinion, so as to distinguish both, Father and Son, equally within one person, saying that the Son is the flesh, that is, the man, that is, Jesus; and the Father the Spirit, that is, God, that is, Christ. And those who contend that the Father and the Son are one and the same now begin to divide them rather than unite them. For if Jesus is one and Christ another, the Son will be one and the Father another, since the Son is Jesus and the Father Christ. Such a monarchy they perhaps learned from Valentinus. But this suggestion of theirs too, making Jesus and Christ two, has already been beaten back by what was discussed before: that the one they make the Father has been called the Word of God, or the Spirit of God, and the power of the Most High. For these are not the one whose they are said to be, but are from him and his. And yet on this point they will be refuted another way too. “See,” they say, “it was proclaimed by the angel: ‘Therefore what will be born will be called holy, the Son of God.’ It was flesh that was born; so it will be the flesh that is the Son of God.” No, it was said of the Spirit of God. For certainly the virgin conceived of the Holy Spirit, and what she conceived she bore; so what was to be born was what had been conceived, that is, the Spirit, whose name also will be called Emmanuel, which is interpreted, “God with us.” But flesh is not God, so that it should have been said of it, “It will be called holy, the Son of God,” but he who was born in it, God, of whom the psalm too says, “For God was born a man in her, and built her by the will of the Father.” What God was born in her? The Word, and the Spirit, who was born with the Word by the Father's will. So, since the Word is in the flesh, this too must be asked: how the Word was made flesh, whether as if transfigured into flesh, or as having put on flesh. Rather, as having put it on. For God must be believed to be unchangeable and incapable of being reshaped, as being eternal. But transfiguration is the destruction of what was before. For whatever is transfigured into something else ceases to be what it had been and begins to be what it was not. But God neither ceases to be nor can be anything else. And the Word is God, and “the word of the Lord remains forever,” namely by continuing in its own form. And if it does not admit of being transfigured, it follows that it must be understood to have been made flesh in this way: in that it comes to be in the flesh and is manifested and seen and handled through the flesh; for the other passages too require it to be taken so. For if the Word became flesh by transfiguration and change of substance, Jesus will then be one substance made of two, of flesh and spirit, a kind of mixture, like electrum from gold and silver; and he begins to be neither gold, that is, spirit, nor silver, that is, flesh, since the one is changed by the other and a third thing is produced. Then Jesus will not be God, for the Word that was made flesh has ceased to be; nor man, for what was the Word is not properly flesh. So from both, while it is neither, it is a third thing, far other than either. But we find him set forth directly as both God and man, as this very psalm suggests, “For God was born a man in her, and built her by the will of the Father”; certainly in every respect Son of God and Son of Man, without doubt differing according to each substance in its own individuality, since the Word is nothing but God, and the flesh nothing but man. So the apostle too teaches of both his substances: “who was made,” he says, “of the seed of David”; this will be the man and Son of Man; “who was defined as Son of God according to the Spirit”; this will be God and the Son of God. We see a twofold condition, not confused but conjoined, in one person, God and man, Jesus (of Christ I defer speaking); and the individuality of each substance is so fully preserved that the Spirit carried out in him its own acts, that is, miracles and works and signs, and the flesh underwent its own sufferings: hungry under the devil, thirsty with the Samaritan woman, weeping for Lazarus, troubled even to death, and at last dead. But if it were a third thing, blended from both, like electrum, there would not appear such distinct proofs of each substance; rather, the Spirit would have done fleshly things and the flesh spiritual ones by exchange, or neither fleshly nor spiritual things but those of some third form, from the blending. Indeed, either the Word would have died or the flesh would not have died, if the Word had been converted into flesh; for either the flesh would have been immortal or the Word mortal. But since both substances acted distinctly, each in its own condition, therefore each had its own works and its own end. Learn, then, with Nicodemus, that what is born in the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Flesh does not become spirit, nor spirit flesh. Clearly they can be in one. Of these Jesus consisted: of flesh, man; of Spirit, God. The angel then declared him Son of God with respect to that part in which he was Spirit, reserving for the flesh that it should be called Son of Man. So the apostle too, calling him the mediator between God and men, confirmed that he is of both substances. Lastly: you who interpret the Son of God as the flesh, show who the Son of Man is. Or will he be the Spirit? But you want the Spirit to be held to be the Father himself, because “God is spirit”; as if there were not also the Spirit of God, just as the Word is God and also the Word of God.