Chapter 19

§ 1.

And again those who call Him merely a man born of Joseph, die abiding in the slavery of their old disobedience, not yet blended with the Word of God the Father, nor receiving Liberty by the Son, according to His own saying,¹ If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. But they knowing not that Emmanuel Who is of the Virgin, are bereft of His gift, which is eternal Life. And not receiving the Word of incorruption, they continue in mortal flesh, and are bound by death as a debt, failing to take the antidote of life. To whom the Word saith,² setting forth His own gift of grace, I said, Ye are the sons of the Most High, all of you, and Gods; but ye die as men. These things He saith doubtless against those who have not received the gift of adoption, but dishonour the Incarnation which takes place by the pure generation of the Word of God, and defraud man of his ascent unto God, and are unthankful to the Word of God, Who for them was made flesh. For to this end, the Word of God was made man, and He Who is the Son of God, Son of Man, that man blended³ with God’s Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the Son of God. Since we could no otherwise receive incorruption and immortality, but by being united to Incorruption and Immortality. And how could we be united to incorruption and immortality, without Incorruption and Immortality being first made that which we are? that the corruptible might be swallowed up by Incorruption, and the mortal by Immortality;⁴ that we might receive the adoption of Sons.

§ 2.

Therefore, Who shall declare His generation?⁵ for He is a Man,⁶ and who will acknowledge Him? But that man knoweth Him, to whom the Father which is in Heaven hath revealed Him,⁷ to make him understand, that that Son of Man, who is born not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, That is Christ the Son of the Living God.

For that no one at all of the Sons of Adam is called God in the same sense as He is, or named Lord, we have shewn from the Scriptures.⁸ But that He, in the proper sense of the words, apart from all men that ever were, is God, and Lord, and King eternal, and the Only Begotten, and the Incarnate Word, and so proclaimed by all the Prophets and Apostles, and by the Spirit Himself:—this all may see, who touch ever so slightly on the truth. But such would not be the witness of the Scriptures concerning Him, were He a man only, just as other men. But because He had in Himself that origin, noble above all, which is of the Most High Father; and wrought out also the admirable Birth which is of the Virgin: therefore the divine Scriptures testify both concerning Him;⁹ how that He is both a Man, uncomely and apt to suffer, and sitting on the fole of an ass, and is drenched with vinegar and gall, and was despised among the people, and descended even unto death:¹⁰ and yet also the Holy Lord and the wonderful Counsellor, and fair to look upon, and the Mighty God, coming in the Clouds to judge all: all this, I say, the Scriptures prophesied concerning Him.

§ 3.

For as He was Man, that He might be tempted, so was He also the Word, that He might be glorified: the Word remaining inactive in His temptation and dishonour and crucifixion and death, but going along with the Man in His victory and endurance, and works of goodness, and resurrection and ascension.

He therefore, the Son of God, our Lord, being the Word of the Father:—and also Son of Man,—became Son of Man in that He had His human birth of Mary, who had her origin from among men, who herself also was a human being.

Wherefore the Lord also Himself hath given us a sign in the depth,¹¹ in the height above, such as man did not require, because neither had he any hope that a virgin might be with child, and bring forth a Son, and that this progeny should be God with us, and should descend into the lower parts of the earth,¹² seeking the sheep which was lost,¹³ (which indeed was His own creature); and then that He should ascend up on high, offering and commending to His Father that Man who had been found; offering in Himself the first-fruits of man’s resurrection: That as the Head rose again from the dead, so also the rest of the body of the whole Man, such as he is found in life, may rise again, the time of his condemnation for disobedience being fulfilled:¹⁴ growing up by joints and bands, and strengthened by the increase of God, each single member having its proper and suitable position in the Body. For there are many mansions in the Father’s House,¹⁵ even as there are many members in the Body.