Five Tomes Against Nestorius

Who then is He Who was Incarnate, or in what way was He incarnate, what Godhead was incarnate, tell (O most excellent sir) to us who would learn it. Shall we grant that the Word, God out of God, was Incarnate, and say that He was made Man, as having been made as we and born in flesh? or shall we allow this in no wise, but suppose that a man came hereto, connected with God, according to thee? But you will (I suppose) say, that it is better and wise to think that the Word out of God was Incarnate and made flesh, according to the Scriptures: for one is not I suppose seen assuming that wherein one is, but if one come somehow to be in that wherein one was not at first, reason will forthwith admit that something new has been wrought regarding him. Hence it is unlearned to say that any of us having stepped forth of the definitions of human nature have been incarnate and been made flesh; but the Incarnation, or being made flesh, will beseem (and that with much reason) the Nature That is beyond humanity. But if He was truly Incarnate and has been made flesh, He is accredited as Man, and not connected with a man, by mere indwelling or external relation or connection, as you say. Yet even though He became Man, He possesseth the being God in all security, nor do we say that any change took place of the flesh into the Nature of Godhead, and we hold that neither did the reverse take place, for the nature of the Word hath remained what it is even when united to flesh. What no one therefore even in bare idea thinks of holding, why do you putting this in your book, as though actually uttered, pretend to be contending for the doctrines of piety? For the name mixture, some of the holy fathers too have put: but since you say that you are afraid lest any confusion be deemed to take place, as in the case of liquids mingled with one another, I rid you from your fears, for not so did they deem (how could they?) but they used the word improperly, anxious to declare the extreme union of the things that had come together; and we say that the Word of God came together with His proper Flesh, in union indissoluble and unalterable. And we find that the God-inspired Scripture itself too, does not look minutely into the word, but uses it rather improperly and simply. And verily the Divine Paul hath written of some, But the Word preached did not profit them, who wore not mixed in faith with its hearers. Were they of whom he spoke going to be mixed one with another, after this fashion, as wine with water, and to undergo a confusion of persons, or were they rather to be united in soul, as it is written in the Acts of the holy Apostles, And of the multitude of them that believed was the heart and the soul one? But this I suppose is the truth, not the other. Be free then from all fear on this score, for firmly established is the mind of the saints.

But since to say that the Nature of the Word was Incarnate is (I deem) nought else than to hold that It has been made Man and not without birth of woman (for this only way does the nature of human bodies know of), how were you not taught by the God-inspired Scripture the Birth after the flesh of the Only-Begotten? albeit yourself too, when the prophetic lessons were before you, Unto us a Child was horn, unto us a Son was given, say thus of the Child that was born, " Great the mystery of the gift, for this is the Babe That is seen, this the new-born That appears, this that needed bodily swaddling bands, this the just-born after the Essence that is seen, in the hidden part Everlasting Son, Son Creator of all, Son Who by the swaddling-bands of His own aid binds the instability of the creation. " And elsewhere again, " And the Babe is God All-free, so far removed is God the Word, O Arius, from being subject to God." In which words he styled even the body connected with Him God. And again, We recognise therefore the human nature of the Babe and His Godhead, we preserve the oneness of the Sonship in the nature of manhood and Godhead. " Lo here with all clearness you say that the Babe, the just-born, the visible, the new-born, the swaddled, is Son and Creator of all; and the Babe the holy Virgin hath borne to us. You know therefore that God has been born after the flesh, and this you have learnt out of the God-inspired Scripture. For who will be conceived to be Creator of all, save He alone through Whom the Father hath made all?

But I said (you will haply say) " in the secret part Son and Creator of all." Well, I agree, but I will ask you: You say that the hidden is the Word of God and that this is the Creator of all: how then did you but now point out as with your finger the Babe just-born and new-born and in swaddling clothes, and called this same both Son of God and Creator of all? or do you haply suppose that the Word out of God has been transformed into the nature of the flesh, and accuse yourself, not others, of daring to say this? Surely if the Babe be the hidden Son and Creator of all, and have been born of the holy Virgin, you have acknowledged with us even against your will that she is Mother of God in some unlooked-for way, since how is a babe God all-free? For if you use the word, all-free, in the sense in which each one of us too may be so conceived, as entrusted by God with the reins of his own free-will, what is there special in Him beyond the rest? or why do you put about Him the freedom, as some God-befitting and truly choice Dignity? albeit it is in the power of all upon the earth to possess it and indeed they already have it. But if the freedom here signify the being not subject to the laws of another, and He be free in such sort as the Divine Nature itself too is conceived of, how do you say that the new-born Babe is in case so august and befitting only the Supreme Nature and glory? albeit that all which is called into being is subject unto God and runs under the yoke of bondage. But you will perchance deem that that empty word of yours suffices unto all this, that I mean in respect of the natures being connected one with another, and that, not Personally, but rather in honour unvarying [in each] and equality of rank: for this is what you are always unlearnedly saying to us. But that in saying such things, you will be caught to be staying yourself upon rotten and fragile conceptions, will be shewn and not at length, when opportunity offers to us to speak upon this too.

But to these he subjoins some others by which he deems that he can shew and that skillfully that the mode of a generation like ours is unmeet and impossible. And our words he arrays against himself, and deems that he can over-master them easily and shew that they are nothing although they set forth the truth. He says thus:

"'If Christ (says he ) be God, and Christ be born of the blessed Mary, how is not the Virgin mother of God?' I hide none of their objections: for the lover of the truth takes and objects to himself all that comes of the falsehood;" and then he endeavours to apply the solution, using some such conceptions as these. " For the babe (he says) is formed in the womb, but so long as it have not yet been formed, it hath no soul, but being formed at length, it has a soul made it of God. As then the woman bears the body, God ensouls it, and the woman is not called mother of soul, because she bare a man endowed with soul, but rather mother of man, so (he says) the blessed Virgin too, even though she have borne a man, the Word of God passing forth along with him" (for this word did he use) "not therefore is she mother of God."