,

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(14Γ_228> 62. QUESTION 62. What is it that Zechariah the holy Prophet says: “and I lifted up my eyes

and saw, and behold a flying sickle, twenty cubits in length and ten cubits in width. And he said to me: this is the curse that goes forth over the face of all the earth.” And after a little: “and I will bring it out, says the Lord Almighty, and it will enter into the house of the thief and into the house of him who swears falsely in my name, and it will lodge in the midst of his house and will consume it and its timbers and its stones.” What is the sickle and the measure of both its length and width? And why is it flying? And who is the thief and the perjurer, and what is his house; what are the timbers, and what are the stones?

Response. God, who said, “I have multiplied visions, and I have been represented by the hand of the prophets,”

laid down beforehand the prefigurations of His wondrous visitation in the flesh for the salvation of men, diversifying them with symbols, showing one through one prophet, another through another, as each was capable of receiving it. Therefore, also to the great prophet Zechariah, bestowing the initiation into His own mysteries and, as it were, bringing before his eyes for comprehension the power of His future coming in the flesh, He wisely fashioned a sickle for him in the vision, teaching that He Himself was about to, He who in many forms (14Γ_230> mystically fashioned Himself in the visions of the prophets through types, willingly undergo in truth the fashioning of our nature, in order to show present in the events the truth foretold through the types.

The sickle, therefore, is our Lord Jesus Christ(1), the only-begotten Son and Word of God, who in Himself is simple by nature and both is and ever remains so, but for my sake, by the assumption of flesh intellectually ensouled, as He Himself knows, became composite in hypostasis, neither admitting confusion into one nature by the utmost hypostatic union with the flesh, nor being divided into a dyad of Sons by the utmost natural difference from the flesh—and by utmost, I mean of the hypostatic union, the completely indivisible, and of the natural difference, the utterly unconfused and unchangeable—because the mystery of the divine incarnation in no way implies also a hypostatic difference along with the natural otherness of the components from which He is constituted, nor indeed, along with the hypostatic union, a confusion into one nature; the one, so that the mystery of the Trinity might not receive an addition(2), the other, so that nothing might be by nature of the same kind and consubstantial with the divinity. For there was a coming together of two natures into a hypostasis, but not into one nature, so that both the one in hypostasis might be shown as resulting from the natures that came together in the union, and the difference of the things that came together into the indivisible union might be believed to remain, according to the natural property, apart from all alteration and confusion.

For if the coming together of the natures was for the generation of a nature(3), the mystery of our salvation would have been entirely unknowable to us, since we would have no way of being able to learn of God's condescension to us, if the flesh were changed into the divine nature through the union, or the divine were turned into the substance of the flesh, or if both were commingled in some kind of mixture for the generation of another (14Γ_232> nature apart from themselves, and neither of the natures from which it is composed bore its own definition unharmed. For whether the flesh [was changed] into the nature of the divinity, or the nature of the divinity was changed into flesh, or the mode of union into one nature impelled the natures toward the generation of another nature apart from these, I do not recognize the mystery of the divine incarnation, not finding after the union a natural

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(14Γ_228> 62. ΕΡΩΤΗΣΙΣ ΞΒ' Τί ἐστιν ὃ λέγει Ζαχαρίας ὁ ἅγιος Προφήτης· «καὶ ἦρα τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς μου

καὶ εἶδον καὶ ἰδοὺ δρέπανον πετόμενον μῆκος πήχεων εἴκοσι καὶ πλάτος πήχεων δέκα. Καὶ εἶπε πρός με· αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἀρὰ ἡ ἐκπορευομένη ἐπὶ πρόσωπον πάσης τῆς γῆς». Καὶ μετ᾽ ὀλίγα· «καὶ ἐξοίσω αὐτό, λέγει Κύριος Παντοκράτωρ, καὶ εἰσελεύσεται εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ κλέπτου καὶ εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ ὀμνύοντος ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου ψευδῶς, καὶ καταλύσει ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ οἴκου αὐτοῦ καὶ συντελέσει αὐτὸν καὶ τὰ ξύλα αὐτοῦ καὶ τοὺς λίθους αὐτοῦ». Τί τὸ δρέπανόν ἐστι καὶ τὸ μέτρον τοῦ τε μήκους καὶ τοῦ πλάτους; Καὶ διὰ τί πετόμενον; Καὶ τίς ὁ κλέπτης καὶ ἐπίορκος, καὶ τίς ὁ τούτου οἶκος· τίνα τε τὰ ξύλα, καὶ τίνες οἱ λίθοι;

Ἀπόκρισις. Ὁ φήσας Θεὸς, «ὁράσεις ἐπλήθυνα καὶ ἐν χερσὶ προφητῶν ὡμοιώθην», τῆς

ἐπὶ τῇ σωτηρίᾳ τῶν ἀνθρώπων διὰ σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ θαυμαστῆς ἐπιδημίας τοῖς συμβόλοις διαποικίλας προκατεβάλετο τὰς ὑποτυπώσεις, ἄλλην δι᾽ ἄλλου τῶν προφητῶν, ὡς ἕκαστος ἦν χωρητικός, προδεικνύμενος. Οὐκοῦν, καὶ τῷ μεγάλῳ προφήτῃ Ζαχαρίᾳ τῶν οἰκείων μυστηρίων δωρούμενος τὴν μύησιν καὶ οἷον ὑπ᾽ ὄψιν ἄγων αὐτῷ πρὸς κατανόησιν τῆς μελλούσης αὐτοῦ διὰ σαρκὸς παρουσίας τὴν δύναμιν, δρέπανον αὐτῷ κατὰ τὴν θεωρίαν σοφῶς διεσκεύασεν, διδάσκων ὡς αὐτὸς ἔμελλεν, ὁ τοῖς τύποις ἑαυτὸν πολυειδῶς (14Γ_230> ταῖς τῶν προφητῶν ὁράσεσι μυστικῶς διαπλάσας, τὴν ἡμετέραν ἑκουσίως κατ᾽ ἀλήθειαν ὑπελθεῖν φύσει διάπλασιν, ἵνα δείξῃ παροῦσαν τοῖς πράγμασι τὴν προμηνυθεῖσαν διὰ τῶν τύπων ἀλήθειαν.

∆ρέπανον οὖν ἐστιν ὁ Κύριος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός(1), ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ μονογενὴς Υἱὸς καὶ Λόγος, ὁ δι᾽ ἑαυτὸν μὲν κατὰ φύσιν ἁπλοῦς καὶ ὢν καὶ ἀεὶ διαμένων, δι᾽ ἐμὲ δὲ κατὰ πρόσληψιν σαρκὸς νοερῶς ἐψυχωμένης, ὡς οἶδεν αὐτός, γενόμενος καθ᾽ ὑπόστασιν σύνθετος, οὔτε τῇ κατ᾽ ἄκρον πρὸς τὴν σάρκα καθ᾽ ὑπόστασιν ἑνώσει τὴν εἰς μίαν φύσιν παραδεχόμενος σύγχυσιν, οὔτε τῇ κατ᾽ ἄκρον πρὸς τὴν σάρκα κατὰ τὴν φύσιν διαφορᾷ πρὸς Υἱῶν δυάδα τεμνόμενοςἄκρον δέ φημι τῆς μὲν καθ᾽ ὑπόστασιν ἑνώσεως τὸ παντελῶς ἀδιαίρετον, τῆς δὲ κατὰ φύσιν διαφορᾶς ἄκρον τὸ παντελῶς ἀσύγχυτον καὶ ἀναλλοίωτον, ὅτι μηδὲ συνεπάγεται παντελῶς τῇ κατὰ φύσιν τῶν ἐξ ὧν συνέστηκεν ἑτερότητι καὶ τὴν καθ᾽ ὑπόστασιν διαφορὰν τὸ μυστήριον τῆς θείας σαρκώσεως, οὔτε μήν τῇ καθ᾿ ὑπόστασιν ἑνώσει, τήν εἰς μίαν φύσιν σύγχυσιν· τὸ μὲν ἵνα μὴ προσθήκην λάβῃ τὸ τῆς Τριάδος μυστήριον(2), τὸ δὲ ἵνα μηδὲν ᾖ τῇ θεότητι κατὰ φύσιν ὁμογενὲς καὶ ὁμοούσιον. ∆ύο γὰρ φύσεων πρὸς ὑπόστασιν ἀλλ᾽ οὐ πρὸς φύσιν μίαν γέγονε σύνοδος, ἵνα καὶ τὸ καθ᾽ ὑπόστασιν ἓν ἐκ τῶν ἀλλήλαις συνδραμουσῶν φύσεων δειχθῇ κατὰ τὴν ἕνωσιν ἀποτελούμενον καὶ τὸ διάφορον τῶν συνελθόντων πρὸς τὴν ἀδιάσπαστον ἕνωσιν κατὰ τὴν φυσικὴν ἰδιότητα πιστευθῇ πάσης ἐκτὸς μένον τροπῆς καὶ συγχύσεως.

Εἰ γὰρ πρὸς φύσεως γένεσιν ἡ τῶν φύσεων γέγονε σύνοδος(3), ἀδιάγνωστον ἂν ἦν ἡμῖν παντελῶς τὸ τῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας μυστήριον, οὐκ ἔχουσι πόθεν ἢ πῶς δυνηθῆναι μαθεῖν τὴν πρὸς ἡμᾶς τοῦ Θεοῦ συγκατάβασιν, εἰς τὴν θείαν φύσιν διὰ τὴν ἕνωσιν τῆς σαρκὸς μεταβληθείσης ἢ τῆς θείας εἰς τὴν τῆς σαρκὸς οὐσίαν μετατραπείσης ἢ ἀμφοῖν πρὸς ἄλλης (14Γ_232> παρ᾽ ἑαυτὰς γένεσιν κατά τινα μίξιν συμφυρεισῶν καὶ μηδετέρας τῶν ἐξ ὧν ἐστι φύσεων τὸν λόγον ἀλώβητον φερουσῶν. Εἴτε γὰρ εἰς θεότητος φύσιν ἡ σάρξ, εἴτε πρὸς σάρκα ἡ τῆς θεότητος μετεβλήθη φύσις, εἴτε πρὸς ἄλλης γένεσιν φύσεως παρὰ ταύτας ὁ τῆς πρὸς φύσιν μίαν ἑνώσεως τρόπος τὰς φύσεις συνώθησεν, ἐγὼ τὸ μυστήριον τῆς θείας σαρκώσεως οὐκ ἐπιγινώσκω, φυσικὴν οὐχ εὑρίσκων μετὰ τὴν ἕνωσιν ἐν τῷ