Chapter 2

§ 1.

Vain also are those who say that God came into what was not His own, like one coveting other men’s goods;¹ in order to present that man who had been made by another, unto that God who neither made nor created him, but rather from the beginning was without any human creation of His own. His coming therefore was not just, who by their account came into what was not His own; neither did He truly redeem us with His own Blood, if He was not truly made Man, making restitution unto His creature, of that which was spoken of in the beginning, how that Man was made after the Image and Likeness of God; not spoiling another of his own by fraud, but righteously and mercifully assuming what belonged to Himself: on the one hand, as regards the Apostasy, righteously redeeming us therefrom by His own Blood, on the other hand, as regards us who are redeemed, mercifully. For we gave Him nothing before, nor does He desire aught of us, as one in need: but we are in need of communion with Him: and therefore He mercifully poured Himself out, that He might gather us into the Bosom of the Father.²

§ 2.

And vain³ altogether are they,⁴ who despise God’s entire plan, and deny the salvation of the flesh, and scorn its new Birth, saying that it cannot receive incorruption. But if the flesh may not be saved, of course neither did the Lord redeem us by His own Blood,⁵ nor is the Cup of the Eucharist the Communion of His Blood, nor the Bread which we break the Communion of His Body. For Blood is not, except by veins and flesh, and the rest of that human substance, wherein the Word of God was truly created. By His own Blood He redeemed us: as also saith His Apostle,⁶In whom we have redemption through His Blood, the Forgiveness of sins.

And because we are members of Him, and are nourished by the Creature, which creature is His gift unto us, in that He causeth His sun to rise,⁷ and raineth, according to His will:—that chalice which is of the creature,⁸ He professed to be His own Blood, wherewith He imbueth⁹ our blood; and the bread which is of the creature, He affirmed to be His own Body, from which He nourisheth our bodies.

§ 3.

Since therefore both the cup which is mingled and the bread which is made received the Word of God,¹⁰ and the Eucharist becometh the Body of Christ, and of these the substance of our flesh groweth and subsisteth:—how say they that the Flesh is not capable of the gift of God, which is eternal life?—that flesh which is nourished by the Body and Blood of the Lord, and is a member of Him: as blessed Paul saith in his Epistle to the Ephesians, We are members of His Body, of His Flesh,¹¹ and of His Bones. He saith not this of a spiritual and invisible sort of man (for the spirit hath not flesh and bones): but of that dispensation which relates¹² to the true Man, consisting as it does of flesh and nerves and bones: which both receives nourishment from His cup, which is His Blood, and growth from the bread, which is His Body. And even as the wood of the vine arched down into the ground beareth fruit in its due time, and the corn of wheat falling into the earth, and mouldering, is raised up manifold by the Spirit of God, Who upholdeth all things: and afterwards by the Wisdom of God cometh to be used by men, and haying received to itself the Word of God, becometh an Eucharist, i.e., the Body and Blood of Christ: so also our bodies, nourished thereby, and put into the ground, and dissolved therein, shall rise again in their own time, the Word of God giving them resurrection to the glory of God and His Father: who in very deed wins immortality for that which is mortal, and on that which is corruptible freely bestoweth incorruption: because the power of God is made perfect in weakness: lest we, as having our life of ourselves, should at any time be puffed up and exalted against God,¹³ bearing an ungrateful mind: and that, being taught by experience, how that we have our everlasting continuance of His excellency, not of our own nature, we might neither miss of God’s glory, such as it really is, nor be ignorant of our own nature: but might behold what God can do, and what benefits man is receiving: and might never fail of the true idea of things that are, as they are; I mean to say, both of God and man. May it not be, as we said before, that on this very account God permitted us to be dissolved into earth, that we going through all kinds of discipline, might be in all things exact for the time to come, misunderstanding neither God nor ourselves?