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of flesh existing before the ages, the labor, the grief, the tear, the thirst, the sleep, the want from hunger, and what is still more illogical than this. But since a Child was born to us, as the divine voice says, and the Lord was seen by the shepherds in swaddling clothes, as Luke says, <and> that Jesus advanced in age and wisdom and grace, being perfected, until he came to the measure of humanity, walking the path of nature, what will they say, <those who> see the flesh before the ages? Of what measure of body was he before the ages? For in his life as a man he passed through every stage of life. Was that man, who existed before all creation, a boy, or a speechless infant, or a youth, or immediately in a perfect body? But if they say a boy, they will surely also add the reason, how after so great an age had passed he did not reach the perfection of age? But if they say a perfect one, we shall ask to learn this, how in his human birth he is contracted into infantile smallness? Where does he leave the surplus of his body? How is his bulk reduced into a small compass?

Then again, how does he bring back the bulk of his body to its proper measure? Does he take back through gradual growth what he had from the beginning, or does he add 3,1.150 something else to himself through food? But if they say the original, they will certainly prove food to be superfluous; but if they do not deny that the Lord partook of food, what will they say about the flesh left above, the majority of which was likely left behind, and only so much of it was taken as the Virgin's womb could contain? For they will surely invent some marvel about it and through these things compose other doctrines, to which the consequence of the absurdity of their myths would <necessarily> lead them. But let these things too be passed over. But one might not unreasonably inquire this of those who dogmatize that that divine incarnation is pre-eternal. For if they suppose he always has the flesh about him, and they say the flesh is God, but all flesh is resistant to the touch, and what is resistant is material and composite, and what is composite is certainly also dissoluble, it is entirely necessary through these things for him to be constructed as material and composed of different things and naturally awaiting dissolution. For we know, when he dwelt among men as a man, of what things his body had its composition; that it too was of flesh and bones and blood in likeness to others, both from the print of the nails and from the blood poured out by the spear and from the Lord saying these things to those who disbelieved what they saw: Handle me [and see] and know, that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see me to have. If therefore the divine incarnation, as Apollinarius 3,1.151 says, did not have its beginning from the Virgin, but was even before Abraham and before all creation, it was certainly of such a kind as it was seen by the disciples, solid and resistant, comprised of flesh and bones. Therefore these things always were, and there was no descent for him to what is lowly, but what was hidden, being divine by nature, this was manifested at the time of the incarnation.

What such thing did Arius, or what did his inferior Eunomius, devise for the overthrow of the glory of the Only-begotten, as is constructed for us by Apollinarius through such a treatise? a God of flesh before the ages, something bony and hairy and comprised of skin and sinews and flesh and fat and composed of different things and not having the simple and uncompounded in himself, the Word who was in the beginning and was with God, who in the last days through love for mankind became flesh in communion with the lowliness of our nature, for this reason being mingled with man and receiving our entire nature into himself, so that by the mixture with the divine the human might be deified together with it, through that first-fruit the entire lump of our nature being sanctified together. But I think it is necessary to pass over

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σαρκὸς ὄντι πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων, τὸν κόπον, τὴν λύπην, τὸ δάκρυον, τὴν δίψαν, τὸν ὕπνον, τὴν κατὰ πεῖναν ἔνδειαν καὶ τὸ ἔτι τούτου παραλογώτερον. ἐπειδὴ δὲ Παιδίον ἐγεν νήθη ἡμῖν, καθὼς ἡ θεία φωνὴ λέγει, καὶ Ὤφθη παρὰ τῶν ποιμένων ἐν σπαργάνοις ὁ κύριος, καθώς φησιν ὁ Λουκᾶς, <καὶ> ὅτι Προέκοπτεν Ἰησοῦς ἡλικίᾳ καὶ σοφίᾳ καὶ χάριτι, τελειούμενος, ἕως ἐπὶ τὸ μέτρον προῆλθε τῆς ἀνθρωπότητος ὁδῷ βαδίζων διὰ τῆς φύσεως, τί ἐροῦσιν <οἱ> πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων τὴν σάρκα βλέποντες, ποίῳ μέτρῳ τοῦ σώματος πρὸ τῶν αἰώνων ἦν; διὰ πάσης γὰρ ἐν τῷ κατὰ ἄνθρωπον βίῳ διεξῆλθε τῆς ἡλικίας. ἆρα παῖς ἦν ἐκεῖνος ὁ ἄνθρωπος, ὁ πρὸ πάσης τῆς κτίσεως ὤν, ἢ βρέφος νήπιον ἢ μειράκιον ἢ εὐθὺς ἐν τελείῳ τῷ σώματι; ἀλλ' εἰ παῖδα λέγουσι, πάντως καὶ τὴν αἰτίαν προσθήσουσι, πῶς τοσούτου παρελθόντος αἰῶνος ἐπὶ τὸ τέλειον τῆς ἡλικίας οὐκ ἔφθασεν; εἰ δὲ τέλειον λέγουσι, τοῦτο μαθεῖν ἀξιώσομεν, πῶς ἐν τῇ ἀνθρωπίνῃ γενέ σει συστέλλεται εἰς τὴν νηπιώδη βραχύτητα; ποῦ καταλείπει τὸ περιττεῦον τοῦ σώματος; πῶς εἰς ὀλίγην περιγραφὴν ὁ ὄγκος ἀποσμικρύνεται;

Εἶτα πάλιν πῶς πρὸς τὸ ἴδιον μέτρον ἐπανάγει τὸν ὄγκον τοῦ σώματος; πότερον ὅπερ εἶχεν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἀναλαμβάνων διὰ τῆς κατ' ὀλίγον αὐξήσεως ἢ ἕτερον 3,1.150 ἐν ἑαυτῷ διὰ τῆς τροφῆς προστιθείς; ἀλλ' εἰ μὲν τὸ ἀρχαῖον φήσουσι, περιττὴν πάντως τὴν τροφὴν ἀποδείξουσιν· εἰ δὲ οὐκ ἀρνοῦνται τροφῆς μετεσχηκέναι τὸν κύριον, τί ἐροῦσι περὶ τῆς ἄνω καταλειφθείσης σαρκός, ἧς τὸ πολὺ κατὰ τὸ εἰκὸς κατελείφθη, μόνον δὲ τοσοῦτον ἀπ' αὐτῆς ἐλήφθη, ὅσον ἡ νηδὺς τῆς παρθένου ἐχώρησεν; πάντως γάρ τι καὶ περὶ αὐτῆς τερατεύσονται καὶ συνθήσουσι διὰ τούτων ἕτερα δόγματα, ἐφ' ἅπερ <ἂν> αὐτοὺς ἡ ἀκολουθία τῆς ἀτοπίας τῶν μύθων κατ' ἀνάγκην προάγηται. Ἀλλὰ παρείσθω καὶ ταῦτα. ἐκεῖνο δέ τις οὐκ ἂν ἀλόγως ἐπιζητήσειε παρὰ τῶν τὴν θείαν ἐκείνην σάρκωσιν προαιώ νιον δογματιζόντων. εἰ γὰρ πάντοτε τὴν σάρκα περὶ αὐτὸν οἴονται, θεὸν δὲ εἶναι τὴν σάρκα φασί, πᾶσα δὲ σὰρξ ἀντίτυπός ἐστι τῷ ἁπτομένῳ, τὸ δὲ ἀντίτυπον ὑλῶδες καὶ σύνθετον, τὸ δὲ σύνθετον καὶ διαλυτὸν πάντως, ἀνάγκη πᾶσα διὰ τού των καὶ ὑλικὸν αὐτὸν ἐγκατασκευάζεσθαι καὶ ἐκ διαφόρων συγκείμενον καὶ ἀναμένοντα φυσικῶς τὴν διάλυσιν. οἴδαμεν γάρ, ὅτε ἀνθρωπικῶς τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐπεχωρίαζεν, ἐκ τί νων εἶχε τὸ σῶμα τὴν σύνθεσιν· ὅτι διὰ σαρκῶν καὶ ὀστέων καὶ αἵματος καθ' ὁμοιότητα τῶν ἄλλων κἀκεῖνο ἦν ἔκ τε τοῦ τύπου τῶν ἥλων καὶ ἐκ τοῦ προχεθέντος διὰ τῆς λόγχης αἵματος καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πρὸς τοὺς ἀπιστοῦντας τῷ φαινομένῳ εἰπεῖν ταῦτα τὸν κύριον ὅτι Ψηλαφήσατέ με [καὶ ἴδετε] καὶ γνῶτε, ὅτι τὸ πνεῦμα σάρκα καὶ ὀστέα οὐκ ἔχει, ὥσπερ ἐμὲ θεωρεῖτε ἔχοντα. εἰ οὖν ἡ θεία σάρκωσις, καθὼς ὁ Ἀπολινά 3,1.151 ριος λέγει, οὐ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐκ τῆς παρθένου ἔσχεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸ τοῦ Ἀβραὰμ καὶ πρὸ πάσης κτίσεως ἦν, τοιαύτη πάντως ἦν, οἵα τοῖς μαθηταῖς ἑωρᾶτο, στερρὰ καὶ ἀντιτυπὴς σαρκί τε καὶ ὀστέοις διειλημμένη. οὐκοῦν ταῦτα πάντοτε ἦν καὶ οὐδεμία πρὸς τὸ ταπεινὸν αὐτῷ γέγονε κάθοδος, ἀλλὰ τὸ λανθάνον, θεῖον κατὰ φύσιν ὄν, τοῦτο τῷ τῆς ἐναν θρωπήσεως ἐφανερώθη καιρῷ.

Τί τοιοῦτον Ἄρειος, τί δὲ ὁ τούτου χείρων Εὐνόμιος ἐπὶ καθαιρέσει τῆς δόξης τοῦ μονογενοῦς ἐνενόησεν, οἷον διὰ τῆς τοιαύτης ἡμῖν λογο γραφίας ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀπολιναρίου κατασκευάζεται; θεὸς ἔν σαρκος πρὸ αἰώνων, ὀστώδης τις καὶ τετριχωμένος καὶ δέρματι καὶ νεύροις καὶ σαρκὶ καὶ πιμελαῖς διειλημμένος καὶ ἐκ διαφόρων συγκείμενος καὶ τὸ ἁπλοῦν τε καὶ ἀσύνθετον ἐν ἑαυτῷ μὴ ἔχων, ὁ λόγος ὁ ἐν ἀρχῇ ὢν καὶ πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ὤν, ὁ ἐπ' ἐσχάτων ἡμερῶν τῇ πρὸς τὸ ταπεινὸν τῆς φύσεως ἡμῶν κοινωνίᾳ σὰρξ ὑπὸ φιλανθρωπίας γενόμενος, διὰ τοῦτο τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἀνακραθεὶς καὶ πᾶσαν ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὴν ἡμετέραν φύσιν δεξάμενος, ἵνα τῇ πρὸς τὸ θεῖον ἀνακράσει συναποθεωθῇ τὸ ἀνθρώπινον διὰ τῆς ἀπαρχῆς ἐκείνης παντὸς συναγιαζομένου τοῦ τῆς φύσεως ἡμῶν φυράματος. Ἀλλὰ παραδραμεῖν οἶμαι χρῆναι