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generic to the individuals. And the composite is common to all the individuals under the composite species; therefore the composite primarily characterizes a composite nature in the individuals under it, but not a hypostasis.

And again, in another way, every definition of the individuals belonging under them is from the common and universal things; and from the generic things, all things under them naturally have the principle of their own description; because it is clear what the thing defined properly and primarily is. If this is true, as indeed it is, it is clear that the one who spoke of a composite hypostasis referred to a nature, declared that which inheres in the commonness of the substance, generically, in the individual of the hypostasis together with the properties that specifically characterize it. So that he who said, "a composite hypostasis belonging to some nature," said nothing other than "a composite nature, that is, a substance with properties." If, therefore, as has been shown, every composite nature has an involuntary union of its own parts with one another in the composition, and possesses its parts co-temporaneously with each other, and has come to be for the completion of the totality observed in beings according to each species; and clearly every hypostasis according to its nature has the same unvarying constitution as its own genus and species for its being. Let them show, then, the composite hypostasis of Christ as belonging to a composite nature, and let them infer that its parts are possessed co-temporaneously, and let them rightly bring the same charge against us. But as long as they cannot do this, they make the foundations of their own dogmas upon sand. For he who ignorantly forces Christ under these aforementioned absurdities, because he is a composite hypostasis, and is piously confessed by us to be so, has strayed far from the road that leads to the truth, or rather, to speak more properly, from the truth itself. For this great and venerable mystery of Christ, (529) neither as an individual does it have any universal and generic nature predicated of it as a species; nor is it itself a genus or a species predicated of the individuals naturally under it; so that it can be subjected to any of the aforementioned rules; as it does not have the coming together of the Word of God to the flesh in the composition equal and similar to composite things in their union with one another.

That the union of the Word to the flesh occurred only by assumption, as of one pre-existing and willing to be emptied for union with the flesh.

For in all natural composites universally, it is not the union of this to that by assumption that makes the constitution of a particular species, as from parts of a whole. But the simultaneous generation of the parts from non-being into being, in their union with one another at the same time as their being, makes the composition of the whole. But the mystery of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ did not come to be in this manner; but being God by nature, and the Son of God by nature, simple and incorporeal, and co-eternal with the Father, and creator of all the ages, by a philanthropic will, desiring it, He became man by the assumption of flesh; and for our sake, He who is simple by nature and incorporeal, became from us economically composite and embodied according to hypostasis, as the holy and great Dionysius the Areopagite divinely says in the first chapter of his work On the Divine Names, discoursing thus about the divine incarnation: "But preeminently philanthropic, because He truly and wholly shared in what is ours in one of His own hypostases; calling back to Himself, and restoring the human

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ἀτόμοις γενικόν. Πάντων δέ κοινόν τῶν ὑπό τό σύνθετον εἶδος ἀτόμων τό σύνθετον· ἄρα φύσιν ἐν τοῖς ὑπ᾿ αὐτήν ἀτόμοις σύνθετον προηγουμένως χαρακτηρίζει τό σύνθετον, ἀλλ᾿ οὐχ ὑπόστασιν.

Ἄλλως τε δέ πάλιν ἐκ τῶν κοινῶν καί καθ᾿ ὅλου πᾶς ἐστιν ὁρισμός τῶν ὑπ᾿ αὐτά τελούντων ἀτόμων· καί ἐκ τῶν γενικῶν πάντα φυσικῶς ἔχει τήν ἀρχήν τῆς οἰκείας ὑπογραφῆς τά ὑπ᾿ αὐτά· διά τό σαφές εἶναι τό τί κυρίως τε καί προηγουμένως ἐστί τό ὁριζόμενον. Εἰ δέ τοῦτό ἐστιν ἀληθές, ὥσπερ οὖν καί ἔστιν, δῆλον ὅτι ὁ εἰπώς σύνθετον ὑπό φύσιν ἀναγομένην ὑπόστασιν, τό ἐνυπάρχον τῷ κοινῷ τῆς οὐσίας, γενικῶς, τῷ ἀτόμῳ τῆς ὑποστάσεως συνεξέφηνε μετά τῶν αὐτήν ἰδικῶς χαρακτηριζόντων ἰδιωμάτων. Ὥστε ὁ φήσας, ὑπό τινα φύσιν τελοῦσαν ὑπόστασιν σύνθετον, οὐδέν ἕτερον εἶπεν, ἤ φύσιν ἤγουν οὐσίαν σύνθετον μετά ἰδιωμάτων. Εἰ τοίνυν, καθώς δέδεικται, πᾶσα φύσις σύνθετος ἀπροαίρετον ἔχει τήν πρός ἄλληλα τῶν οἰκείων μερῶν κατά τήν σύνθεσιν σύνοδον, καί ἀλλήλοις ὁμόχρονα κέκτηται τά μέρη, καί εἰς συμπλήρωσιν τῆς τά πᾶν κατ᾿ εἶδος ἕκαστον ἐν τοῖς οὖσι θεωρουμένης ὁλότητος γεγένηται· καί πᾶσα δηλονότι κατά τό πεφυκός ὑπόστασις τήν αὐτήν ἔχει τῷ οἰκείῳ γένει τε καί εἴδει ἀπαράλλακτον πρός τό εἶναι τήν σύστασιν. ∆είξωσιν οὖν ὑπό φύσιν σύνθετον τελοῦσαν τήν τοῦ Χριστοῦ σύνθετον ὑπόστασιν, καί ὁμόχρονα κεκτῆσθαι τά μέρη συναγαγέτωσαν, καί τήν αὐτήν δικαίως μέμψιν ἡμῶν κατηγορείτωσαν. Ἕως δι᾿ ἄν τοῦτο μή δύνωνται, κατά ψάμμου ποιοῦνται τῶν οἰκείων δογμάτων τά ἐρείσματα. Ὁ γάρ τόν Χριστόν τούτοις ὑπαγαγεῖν τοῖς προρηθεῖσιν ἀτόποις ἀμαθῶς βιαζόμενος, διά τό σύνθετον αὐτόν ὑπόστασιν καί εἶναι, καί παρ᾿ ἡμῶν εὐσεβῶς ὁμολογεῖσθαι, πολύ τῆς πρός τήν ἀλήθειαν ἀγούσης ὁδοῦ, μᾶλλον δέ κυριώτερον εἰπεῖν, τῆς ἀληθείας αὐτῆς ἀποπεπλάνηται. Τό γάρ μέγα τοῦτο καί σεπτόν τοῦ Χριστοῦ μυστήριον, (529) οὔτε ὡς ἄτομον καθ᾿ ὅλου τινά καί γενικήν ἔχει τήν ὡς εἶδος φύσιν αὐτοῦ κατηγορουμένην· οὔτε μήν αὐτό γένος ἐστίν, ἤ εἶδος τῶν ὑπ᾿ αὐτό φυσικῶς ἀτόμων κατηγορούμενον· ὥστε τινί δύνασθαι τῶν εἰρημένων ὑπαχθῆναι κανόνων· οἷα μηδέ τοῖς συνθέτοις κατά τήν πρός ἄλληλα σύνοδον, ἴσην καί ὁμοίαν ἔχον τήν τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου συνδρομήν πρός τήν σάρκα κατά τήν σύνθεσιν.

Ὅτι κατά πρόσληψιν ἡ πρός τήν σάρκα μόνη τοῦ Λόγου γέγονε ἕνωσις, ὡς προόντος, καί πρός ἔνωσιν σαρκός κενωθῆναι θελήσαντος.

Ἐπί γάρ πάντων καθ᾿ ὅλου τῶν κατά φύσιν συνθέτων, οὐχ ἡ τοῦδε πρός τόδε κατά πρόσληψιν σύνοδος, τήν τοῦ δέ τοῦ εἴδους, ὡς ἐκ μερῶν ὅλου ποιεῖται σύστασιν. Ἀλλ᾿ ἡ ἀθρόα τῶν μερῶν ἐκ τοῦ μή ὄντος εἰς τό εἶναι γένεσις, κατά τήν ἅμα τῷ εἶναι πρός ἄλληλα σύνοδον, ποιεῖται τοῦ ὅλου τήν σύνθεσιν. Τό δέ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν καί Θεοῦ καί Σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ μυστήριον, οὐ κατά τοῦτον τόν τρόπον γέγονεν· ἀλλά Θεός ὑπάρχων φύσει, καί Θεοῦ κατά φύσιν Υἱός ἁπλοῦς τε καί ἀσώματος, καί τῷ Πατρί συναΐδιος, καί πάντων δημιουργός τῶν αἰώνων, φιλανθρώπῳ βουλήσει θέλων κατά πρόσληψιν σαρκός γέγονεν ἄνθρωπος· καί δι᾿ ἡμᾶς, ἁπλοῦς κατά φύσιν καί ἀσώματος, ἐξ ἡμῶν γέγονεν οἰκονομικῶς καθ᾿ ὑπόστασιν σύνθετος καί ἐνσώματος, καθά φησιν ἐνθεαστικῶς ὁ ἅγιος καί μέγας Ἀρεοπαγίτης ∆ιονύσιος ἐν τῷ πρώτῳ κεφαλαίῳ τῆς Περί θείων ὀνομάτων συγγραφῆς περί τῆς θείας σαρκώσεως οὑτωσί διεξιών· "Φιλάνθρωπον δέ διαφερόντως, ὅτι τοῖς καθ᾿ ἡμᾶς πρός ἀλήθειαν ὁλικῶς ἐν μιᾷ τῶν αὐτῆς ὑποστάσεων ἐκοινώνησεν· ἀνακαλουμένη πρός ἑαυτήν, καί ἀνατιθεῖσα τήν ἀνθρωπίνην