Chapter XIV.

He continues the discussion of the difficulty he has entered upon, and teaches that Christ is not subject but only according to the flesh. Christ, however, whilst in subjection in the Flesh, still gave proofs of His Godhead. He combats the idea that Christ is made subject in This. The humanity indeed, which He adopted, has been so far made subject in us, as ours has been raised in that very humanity of His. Lastly, we are taught, when that same subjection of Christ will take place.

170. However, lest anyone should cavil, see what care Scripture takes under divine inspiration. For it shows to us in what Christ is made subject to God, whilst it also teaches us in what He made the universe subject to Himself. And so it says: “Now we see not yet all things put under Him.”1079    Heb. ii. 8. For we see Jesus made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.1080    Heb. ii. 9. It shows therefore that He was made lower in taking on Him our flesh. What then hinders Him from openly showing His subjection in taking on Him our flesh, through which He subjects all things to Himself, whilst He Himself is made subject in it to God the Father?

171. Let us then think of His subjection. “Father,” He says, “if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not My will but Thine be done.”1081    S. Luke xxii. 42. Therefore that subjection will be according to the assumption of human nature; as we read: “Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, being made obedient unto death.”1082    Phil. ii. 8. The subjection therefore is that of obedience; the obedience is that of death; the death is that of the assumed humanity; that subjection therefore will be the subjection of the assumed humanity. Thus in no wise is there a weakness in the Godhead, but there is such a discharge of pious duty as this.

172. See how I do not fear their intentions. They allege that He must be subject to God the Father, I say He was subject to Mary His Mother. For it is written of Joseph and Mary: “He was subject unto them.”1083    S. Luke ii. 51. But if they think so, let them say how the Deity was made subject to men.

173. Let not the fact that He is said to have been made subject work against Him, Who receives no hurt from the fact that He is called a servant, or is stated to have been crucified, or is spoken of as dead. For when He died He lived; when He was made subject He was reigning; when He was buried He revived again. He offered Himself in subjection to human power, yet at another time He declared He was the Lord of eternal glory. He was before the judge, yet claimed for Himself a throne at the right hand of God, as Judge forever. For thus it is written: “Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”1084    S. Matt. xxvi. 64. He was scourged by the Jews, and commanded the angels; He was born of Mary under the law;1085    Gal. iv. 4. He was before Abraham above the law. On the cross He was revered by nature; the sun fled; the earth trembled; the angels became silent. Could the elements see the Generation of Him Whose Passion they feared to see? And will they uphold the subjection of an adorable Nature in Him, in Whom they could not endure the subjection of the body?

174. But since the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one Nature, the Father certainly will not be in subjection to Himself. And therefore the Son will not be in subjection in that in which He is one with the Father; lest it should seem that through the unity of the Godhead the Father also is in subjection to the Son. Therefore, as upon that cross it was not the fulness of the Godhead, but our weakness that was brought into subjection, so also will the Son hereafter become subject to the Father in the participation of our nature, in order that when the lusts of the flesh are brought into subjection the heart may have no care for riches, or ambition, or pleasures; but that God may be all to us, if we live after His image and likeness, as far as we can attain to it, through all.

175. The benefit has passed, then, from the individual to the community; for in His flesh He has tamed the nature of all human flesh. Thus, according to the Apostle: “As we have borne the image of the earthly, so also shall we bear the image of the heavenly.”1086    1 Cor. xv. 49. This thing certainly cannot come to pass except in the inner man. Therefore, “laying aside all these,” that is those things which we read of: “anger, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication;”1087    Col. iii. 8. as he also says below: “Let us, having put off the old man with his deeds, put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created Him.”1088    Col. iii. 9, 10.

176. And that thou mightest know that when he says: “That God may be all in all,” he does not separate Christ from God the Father, he also says to the Colossians: “Where there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all.”1089    Col. iii. 11. So also saying to the Corinthians: “That God may be all and in all,” he comprehended in that the unity and equality of Christ with God the Father, for the Son is not separated from the Father. And in like manner as the Father worketh all and in all, so also Christ worketh all in all. If, then, Christ also worketh all in all, He is not made subject in the glory of the Godhead, but in us. But how is He made subject in us, except in the way in which He was made lower than the angels, I mean in the sacrament of His body? For all things which served their Creator from their first beginning seemed not as yet to be made subject to Him in that.

177. But if thou shouldst ask how He was made subject in us, He Himself shows us, saying: “I was in prison, and ye came unto Me; I was sick, and ye visited Me: Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these ye have done it unto Me.”1090    S. Matt. xxv. 36, 40. Thou hearest of Him as sick and weak, and art not moved. Thou hearest of Him in subjection, and art moved, though He is sick and weak in Him in whom He is in subjection, in whom He was made sin and a curse for us.

178. As, then, He was made sin and a curse not on His own account but on ours, so He became subject in us not for His own sake but for ours, being not in subjection in His eternal Nature, nor accursed in His eternal Nature. “For cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”1091    Gal. iii. 13. Cursed He was, for He bore our curses; in subjection, also, for He took upon Him our subjection, but in the assumption of the form of a servant, not in the glory of God; so that whilst he makes Himself a partaker of our weakness in the flesh, He makes us partakers of the divine Nature in His power. But neither in one nor the other have we any natural fellowship with the heavenly Generation of Christ, nor is there any subjection of the Godhead in Christ. But as the Apostle has said that on Him through that flesh which is the pledge of our salvation, we sit in heavenly places,1092    Eph. ii. 6. though certainly not sitting ourselves, so also He is said to be subject in us through the assumption of our nature.

179. For who is so mad as to think, as we have said already,1093    Cf. ch. v. that a seat of honour is due to Him at the right hand of God the Father, when that is granted to Christ according to the flesh by the Father of His Generation, even a seat of a heavenly and equal power? The angels worship, and dost thou attempt to overthrow the throne of God with impious presumption?

180. It is written, thou sayest, that “when we were dead in sins, He hath quickened us in Christ, by Whose grace ye are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”1094    Eph. ii. 5, 6. I acknowledge that it is so written; but it is not written that God suffers men to sit on His right hand, but only to sit there in the Person of Christ. For He is the foundation of all, and is the head of the Church,1095    Eph. v. 23. in Whom our common nature according to the flesh has merited the right to the heavenly throne. For the flesh is honoured as having a share in Christ Who is God, and the nature of the whole human race is honoured as having a share in the flesh.

181. As we then sit in Him by fellowship in our fleshly nature, so also He, Who through the assumption of our flesh was made a curse for us (seeing that a curse could not fall upon the blessed Son of God), so, I say, He through the obedience of all will become subject in us; when the Gentile has believed, and the Jew has acknowledged Him Whom he crucified; when the Manichæan has worshipped Him, Whom he has not believed to have come in the flesh; when the Arian has confessed Him to be Almighty, Whom he has denied; when, lastly, the wisdom of God, His justice, peace, love, resurrection, is in all. Through His own works and through the manifold forms of virtues Christ will be in us in subjection to the Father. And when, with vice renounced and crime at an end, one spirit in the heart of all peoples has begun to cleave to God in all things, then will God be all and in all.1096    1 Cor. xv. 28.

CAPUT XIV.

Prosequitur coeptam difficultatem, et Christum non nisi secundum carnem subjectum docet: sed ipsum dum carne subjiceretur, praebuisse tamen signa divinitatis. Repugnare ut secundum hanc subjiciatur: humanitatem vero quam adoptavit, ita in nobis subditam esse, quo pacto in eadem ejus humanitate exaltatur et nostra. Denique quando futura sit eadem illa Christi subjectio, explicatur.

0682D 171. Et tamen ne quis calumnietur, videte quid divinitus inspirans Scriptura praecaverit; ostendit enim nobis in quo subjectus erit Deo Christus, dum docet in quo sibi universa subjecerit. Ideoque dicit: Nunc autem non videmus omnia ei subjecta (Hebr. II, 8). Nam paulo minus quam Angelos minoratum vidimus Jesum propter passionem mortis. Ostendit itaque minorem factum in carnis susceptione. Quid igitur impedit quin etiam subjectionem in carnis susceptione 0683A significet, per quam subjiciet sibi omnia, dum in ipsa Patri Deo est ipse subjectus?

172. Consideremus itaque ejus subjectionem: Pater, inquit, meus, si vis, transfer calicem hunc a me: verum non mea voluntate, sed tua fiat (Luc. XXII, 42). Ergo secundum humanae naturae assumptionem erit illa subjectio; quia sicut legimus: Specie inventus ut homo, humiliavit semetipsum, factus obediens usque ad mortem (Phil. II, 8): subjectio utique obedientiae est, obedientia mortis, mors assumptionis humanae; assumptionis ergo humanae erit illa subjectio. Nequaquam igitur divinitatis infirmitas, sed dispensatio ista pietatis est.

173. Vide quam non timeam eorum propositiones. Illi objiciunt subjiciendum Patri Deo, ego lego 0683B Mariae subditum matri; quia scriptum est de Joseph et Maria: Et erat subditus illis (Luc. II, 51). Aut si hoc putant, dicant quia hominibus erat subjecta divinitas.

174. Non igitur praejudicet quia subjectus dicitur, cui non praejudicat, quia servus legitur, quia crucifixus asseritur, mortuus praedicatur. Qui cum moreretur, vivebat; cum subjiceretur, regnabat: cum sepeliretur, resuscitabat; ac subjectum se potestati praebebat humanae, alias se Dominum majestatis declarabat aeternae. Erat sub judice, et ad dexteram Dei solium sibi judex perpetuus vindicabat. Scriptum est denique: Amodo videbitis Filium hominis sedentem ad dexteram virtutis Dei, et venientem in nubibus coeli (Matth. XXVI, 64). Vapulabat a Judaeis, imperabat angelis: natus 582 ex Maria sub Lege erat, 0683C ante Abraham supra Legem erat (Galat. IV, 4). In cruce venerandus natura: denique sol refugit, terra contremuit, conticuerunt angeli (Matth. XXVII, 51). Cujus igitur passionem elementa videre timuerunt, hujus generationem videre potuerunt? Et in quo subjectionem corporis non tulerunt, in eo subjectionem naturae venerabilis sustinebunt?

175. Sed cum unius naturae sint Pater et Filius et Spiritus sanctus, utique non erit Pater sibi ipse subjectus. Et ideo non erit in eo subjectus Filius, in quo cum Patre unum est; ne per unitatem divinitatis videatur et Pater Filio esse subjectus. Ergo sicut in illa cruce non divinitatis plenitudo, sed nostra fragilitas erat subdita: ita etiam postea subjectus erit Filius Patri, in nostrae utique participatione naturae; 0683D ut, subjectis carnis illecebris, non divitiae sint cordi, non ambitio, non voluptas: sed omnia nobis Deus sit, si per omnia quantum capere possumus, ad ejus imaginem, similitudinemque vivamus.

176. Ad communitatem igitur beneficium transivit a specie; quia in sua carne naturam totius humanae carnis edomuit. Et ideo juxta Apostolum: Sicut portavimus imaginem hujus terreni, portemus et imaginem hujus coelestis (I Cor. XV, 49). Quod utique nisi per interiorem hominem non potest evenire. Deponentes igitur universa, hoc est, illa quae legimus; 0684A iram, animositatem, blasphemiam, turpiloquium (Coloss. III, 8); et sicut infra dictum est: Exspoliantes nos veterem hominem cum actibus suis, induamus novum, qui renovatur in agnitionem, secundum imaginem ejus, qui creavit eum (Ibid., 9, 10).

177. Et ut scires, quia cum dicit: Ut sit Deus omnia et in omnibus, a Deo Patre non separet et Christum, ipse ad Colossenses dicit: Ubi non masculus, inquit, et femina, Judaeus et Graecus, Barbarus et Scytha, servus et liber: sed omnia et in omnibus Christus (Coloss. III, 11). Ergo etiam ad Corinthios dicens: Ut sit Deus omnia et in omnibus (I Cor. XV, 28), et unitatem et aequalitatem cum Deo Patre complexus est Christi; quia nec a Patre Filius separatur. Et similiter sicut Pater omnia et in omnibus, 0684B ita omnia in omnibus etiam Christus operatur. Si ergo Christus quoque in omnibus omnia operatur (I Cor. XII, 6), non utique in divinitatis majestate subjectus est, sed in nobis. Quomodo autem subjectus est in nobis, nisi eo modo quo minor angelis factus est, in corporis scilicet sacramento? In eo enim nondum subjecta ei omnia videbantur, quae creatori suo a principio sui utique serviebant.

178. Quod si quaesieris quemadmodum sit subjectus in nobis, ipse ostendit dicens: In carcere eram, et venistis ad me: infirmus eram, et visitastis me. Quod enim uni horum minimorum fecistis, mihi fecistis (Matth. XXV, 36 et seq.). Infirmum audis, et non moveris: subjectum audis, et moveris; cum in eo infirmus, in quo subjectus, in quo peccatum atque 0684C maledictum pro nobis factus est.

179. Sicut igitur non propter se, sed propter nos peccatum atque maledictum factus est: ita non pro se, sed pro nobis erit subjectus in nobis, non in natura subjectus aeterna, neque 583 in natura maledictus aeterna: Maledictus enim omnis qui pendet in ligno (Galat. III, 13). Maledictus, quia nostra maledicta suscepit: subjectus quoque, quia subjectionem nostram ipse suscepit, sed in servilis formae assumptione, non in Dei majestate; ut dum ille nostrae fragilitatis se praeberet in carne consortem, nos in virtute sua divinae faceret consortes naturae (II Petr. I, 4). Non quo aut hoc nobis cum superna Christi generatione naturale consortium, aut divinitatis in Christo sit illa subjectio: sed sicut in illo per carnem illam, 0684D quae est pignus nostrae salutis, sedere nos in coelestibus Apostolus dixit (Ephes. II, 6), utique non sedentes; sic et ille per nostrae assumptionem naturae dicitur subjectus in nobis.

180. Quis enim tam demens qui putet, ut supra diximus (Cap. 5 et seq.), quod ad dexteram Dei Patris sedes sibi venerabilis debeatur; cum licet etiam secundum carnem Christo ea a Patre, generationis tamen supernae et aequalis potentiae deferatur? Angeli adorant, et tu tibi praesumptione sacrilega solium Dei sternis?

0685A 181. Scriptum est, inquies, quia cum mortui essemus peccatis, convivificavit nos in Christo, cujus gratia estis salvi facti; et simul suscitavit, simulque fecit sedere in coelestibus, in Christo Jesu (Ephes. II, 5, 6). Agnosco scriptum: sed non ut homines sedere ad dexteram sibi patiatur Deus, sed ut in Christo sedere; quia ipse est omnium fundamentum, et ipse est caput Ecclesiae (Ephes. V, 23), in quo communis secundum carnem natura praerogativam sedis coelestis emeruit: in Christo enim Deo caro, in carne autem humani natura generis omnium hominum particeps honoratur.

182. Sicut nos ergo in illo sedemus per corporeae communitatem naturae, ita et ille qui per susceptionem nostrae carnis maledictum pro nobis factus 0685B est; cum maledictum utique in benedictum Filium Dei non cadat: ita, inquam, et ille per obedientiam omnium erit subjectus in nobis; cum Gentilis crediderit, cum Judaeus agnoverit, quem crucifixit; cum Manichaeus adoraverit, quem in carne venisse non credidit; cum Arianus omnipotentem confessus fuerit, quem negavit; cum postremo in omnibus fuerit sapientia Dei, justitia, pax, charitas, resurrectio. Per sua igitur opera Christus et genera diversa virtutum erit in nobis Patri subditus; cum vitiis abdicatis, et feriante delicto, unus in omnibus Deo coeperit in uno sensu populorum omnium spiritus adhaerere, tunc erit Deus omnia et in omnibus (I Cor. XV, 28).