51

The Logos of one energy is not known as one in substance, nor will the motion of both ever be known in any way at all. For God, who always exists according to nature, having become by super-infinite power, as he willed, a sinless man, is what he was, with all that God is conceived to be; and what he has become, he is, with all that man is conceived and by nature known to be. Always remaining steadfast in himself according to each, by which he acted both divinely and humanly together, preserving himself perfectly and naturally un-altered according to the definition of each.

Of the same, from the same discourse, 5.

21. For a certain Beron recently, with certain others, having abandoned the fantasy of Valentinus,

were enticed by a worse evil, saying: That the flesh assumed by the Word became of the same operation as the divinity, on account of the assumption; and that the divinity became of the same passion as the flesh, on account of the emptying; dogmatizing at once a change and a mixture and a confusion, and the mutual alteration of both into each other. For if the assumed flesh, having been emptied for the flesh, became of the same operation as the divinity, it is evidently also God by nature, with all that God is naturally conceived to be. And if the divinity, having been emptied for the flesh, became of the same passion, it is evidently also flesh by nature, with all that flesh is naturally known to be. For things that are of like and same operation with one another, and are entirely of the same nature and of the same passion, do not admit of a difference of nature; and with their natures confused, Christ will be a dyad, and with the persons divided, a tetrad, which is most to be shunned. And how for them is Christ one and the same, at once God by nature and (185) man? And what existence, according to them, will he have, having become man by a change of divinity, and God by a transformation of flesh? For the falling away of these into one another is the complete destruction of both; but let the argument be considered by us again in another way.

Of the same, from the same discourse, 6.

22. A pious dogma has been established for Christians: both according to nature itself and the energy,

and everything else naturally pertaining to him, that God is equal and identical to himself, having in himself nothing of his own that is at all unequal and unfitting. If therefore according to Beron the assumed flesh has become of the same natural energy as him, it is evident that it has also become of the same nature as him, with all that the nature is: unoriginate, unbegotten, infinite, eternal, incomprehensible, and as many of these things by way of pre-eminence as the theological word supernaturally beholds in the divinity; and both have suffered a change, with neither still having the essential definition of its nature preserved. For one who acknowledges the same operation of different natures introduces at once a natural confusion and a personal division of them; their natural existence having become completely unknowable by the change of the properties.

51

οὐχ εἷς κατά τήν οὐσίαν γνωρίζεται Λόγος μιᾶς ἐνεργείας, οὐδέποτε καθοτιοῦν ἀμφοτέρων γνωσθήσεται κίνησις. Ὁ γάρ ἀεί κατά φύσιν ὑπάρχων Θεός, ὑπεραπείρῳ δυνάμει γενόμενος, ὡς ἠθέλησεν, ἄνθρωπος ἀναμάρτητος, ὅπερ ἦν, ἐστί, μεθ᾿ ὅσων νοεῖται Θεός· καί ὅπερ γέγονεν, ἐστί, μεθ᾿ ὅσων νοεῖται καί γνωρίζεσθαι πέφυκεν ἄνθρωπος. Ἑαυτοῦ καθ᾿ ἑκάτερον ἀεί μένων ἀνέκπτωτος, οἷς θεϊκῶς ὁμοῦ καί ἀνθρωπίνως ἐνήργησε, τέλειον κατά τόν ἑκάτερον λόγον σώζων ἑαυτοῦ φυσικῶς ἀναλλοίωτον.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ, ἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ λόγου ε΄.

ΚΑ΄. Βήρων γάρ τις ἔναγχος, μεθ᾿ ἑτέρων τινῶν, τήν Βαλεντίνου φαντασίαν ἀφέντες,

χείρονι κακῷ κατεπάρησαν, λέγοντες· Τήν μέν προσληφθεῖσαν τῷ λόγῳ σάρκα γενέσθαι ταυτουργόν τῇ θεότητι, διά τήν πρόσληψιν· τήν θεότητα δέ γενέσθαι ταυτοπαθῆ τῇ σαρκί, διά κένωσιν· τροπήν ὁμοῦ καί φύρσιν καί σύγχυσιν, καί τήν εἰς ἀλλήλους ἀμφοτέρων μεταβολήν δογματίζοντες. Εἰ γάρ ἡ προσληφθεῖσα σάρξ γέγονε κενωθεῖσα τῇ σαρκί ταυτουργός τῇ θεότητι, δηλονότι καί φύσει Θεός, μεθ᾿ ὅσων φυσικῶς νοεῖται Θεός. Καί εἰ γέγονε κενωθεῖσα τῇ σαρκί ταυτοπαθής ἡ θεότης, δηλονότι καί φύσει σάρξ, μεθ᾿ ὅσων φυσικῶς γνωρίζεσθαι πέφυκε σάρξ. Τά γάρ ἀλλήλοις ὁμοεργῆ καί ταὐτουργά, καί ὁμόφυλα πάντως καί ταυτοπαθῆ διαφοράν οὐκ ἐπιδέχεται φύσεως· καί φύσεως αὐτῶν συγκεχυμένων, ἔσται δυάς ὁ Χριστός, καί προσώπων μεμερισμένων τετράς, τό φευκτότατον. Καί πῶς αὐτοῖς εἷς καί ὁ αὐτός Θεός ὁμοῦ φύσει καί (185) ἄνθρωπος, ὁ Χριστός; Ποίαν δέ κατ᾿ αὐτούς ἕξει τήν ὕπαρξιν, μεταβολῇ θεότητος γενόμενος ἄνθρωπος, καί σαρκός μεταποιήσει Θεός; Ἡ γάρ εἰς ἀλλήλας τούτων μετάπτωσις, παντελής ἐστιν ἀμφοτέρων ἀναίρεσις· σκοπείσθω δέ πάλιν ἡμῖν ἑτέρως ὁ λόγος.

Τοῦ αὐτοῦ, ἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ λόγου στ΄.

ΚΒ΄. Εὐσεβές κεκύρωται δόγμα Χριστιανοῖς· κατ᾿ αὐτήν τε φύσιν καί τήν ἐνέργειαν,

καί πᾶν ἕτερον αὐτῷ προσφυές, ἴσον ἑαυτῷ καί ταυτόν εἶναι τόν Θεόν, μηδέν ἑαυτῷ τῶν ἑαυτοῦ παντελῶς ἄνισον ἔχοντα καί ἀκατάλληλον. Εἰ τοίνυν κατά Βήρωνα τῆς αὐτῆς αὐτῷ προσληφθεῖσα φυσικῆς ἐνεργείας γέγονεν ἡ σάρξ, δηλονότι καί τῆς αὐτῆς αὐτῷ γέγονε φύσεως, μεθ᾿ ὅσων ἡ φύσις, ἀναρχίας, ἀγεννησίας, ἀπειρίας, ἀϊδιότητος, ἀκαταληψίας, καί τῶν ὅσα τούτων καθ᾿ ὑπεροχήν ὁ θεολογικός ὑπερφυῶς ἐνορᾷ τῇ θεότητι λόγος· καί τροπήν ἀμφότερα πέπονθεν, μηδετέρου τόν τῆς φύσεως οὐσιώδη λόγον ἔτι σωζόμενον ἔχοντος. Ὁ γάρ ἑτεροφυῶν εἰδώς ταυτουργίαν, σύγχυσιν ὁμοῦ φυσικήν, καί διαίρεσιν αὐτῶν εἰσηγεῖται προσωπικήν· ἀδιαγνώστου παντελῶς τῇ τῶν ἰδιωμάτων μεταβολῇ τῆς φυσικῆς αὐτῶν γενομένης ὑπάρξεως.