Chapter II.

The incidents properly affecting the body which Christ for our sake took upon Him are not to be accounted to His Godhead, in respect whereof He is the Most Highest. To deny which is to say that the Father was incarnate. When we read that God is one, and that there is none other beside Him, or that He alone has immortality, this must be understood as true of Christ also, not only to avoid the sinful heresy above-mentioned (Patripassianism), but also because the activity of the Father and the Son is declared to be one and the same.

7. It was a bodily weakness, then, that is to say, a weakness of ours, that He hungered; when He wept, and was sorrowful even unto death, it was of our nature. Why ascribe the properties and incidents of our nature to the Godhead? That He was even, as we are told, “made,” is a property of a body. Thus, indeed, we read: “Sion our mother shall say: ‘He is a man,’ and in her He was made man, and the Most High Himself laid her foundations.”448    Ps. lxxxvii. 5. The R.V. renders “Yea, of Zion it shall be said, This one and that one was born in her.” The verse is rather prophetic of the universality of Christ’s Church than of the Incarnation.    Col. ii. 3. “He was made man,” mark you, not “He was made God.”449    He could not “be made” God if we use the Name “God” in its proper sense, but St. Ambrose probably had in his mind the sense which the Arians attached to the name, as applicable to the Son. According to them, it was a sort of “courtesy-title.”    St. Ambrose perhaps meant that John Baptist had, for a space, lost the prophetic Light, when he doubted, and sent disciples to enquire of Jesus. The darkness of the dungeon had drawn a cloud over the prisoner’s soul, and for a time he was in the state described by Isaiah ix. 1, walking in darkness and the shadow of death, the state of the people of Israel (represented by the synagogue) at the time of our Lord’s Advent. See S. Matt. iv. 12–16.

8. But what is He Who is at once the Most High and man, what but “the Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus Who gave Himself as a ransom for us”?450    1 Tim. ii. 5.    S. Matt. xi. 3. This place indeed refers properly to His Incarnation, for our redemption was made by His Blood, our pardon comes through His Power, our life is secured through His Grace. He gives as the Most High, He prays as man. The one is the office of the Creator, the other of a Redeemer. Be the gifts as distinct as they may, yet the Giver is one, for it was fitting451    Cf. Anselm. “Cur Deus Homo?” I. 5; II. 6.    S. John iii. 13. that our Maker should be our Redeemer.

9. Who indeed can deny that we have plain evidence that Christ is the Most High? He who knows otherwise makes the sacrament of Incarnation to be the work of God the Father.452    The Incarnation was a sacrament, being the outward visible sign of the divine love.    Ps. xxiv. 7. St. Ambrose follows the LXX. But that Christ is the Most High is removed beyond doubt by what Scripture hath said in another place, concerning the mystery of the Passion: “The Most High sent forth His Voice, and the earth was shaken.”453    Ps. xviii. 7, 14.    Ps. xxiv. 8. And in the Gospel you may read: “And thou, child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord, to prepare His ways.”454    S. Luke i. 76.    Isa. liii. 2. Who is “the Highest”? The Son of God. He, then, Who is the Most High God is Christ.

10. Again, whilst God is everywhere said to be One God, the Son of God is not separated from this Unity. For He Who is the Most High is alone, as it is written: “And let them know that Thy Name is the Lord: Thou alone art Most High over all the earth.”455    Ps. lxxxiii. 18.

11. And so the adversaries’ injurious conclusion is rejected with contempt and disgrace, which they drew from the Scripture speaking of God: “Who alone hath immortality and dwelleth in light unapproachable;”456    1 Tim. vi. 16. for these words are written of God, which Name belongs equally to Father and to Son.

12. If, indeed, wheresoever they read the Name of God, they deny that there is any thought of the Son [as well as the Father], they blaspheme, inasmuch as they deny the Son’s Divine Sovereignty, and they shall appear as though they shared the sinful error of the Sabellians in teaching the Incarnation of the Father. Let them, indeed explain how they can fail to interpret in a sense blasphemous to the Father the words of the Apostle: “In Whom ye did also rise again, by faith in the working of God, Who raised Him from the dead.”457    Col. ii. 12. Let them also take warning from what follows of what they are running upon—for this is what comes after: “And though ye were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He quickened us with Him, pardoning us all our offences, blotting out the handwriting of the Ordinance, which was opposed to us, and removed it from our midst, nailing it to His Cross, divesting Himself of the flesh.”458    Col. ii. 13–14.

13. We are not, then, to suppose that the Father Who raised the flesh is alone [God]; nor, again, are we to suppose the like of the Son, Whose Body459    “Body”—in the orig. “templum.” Cf. 1 Cor. vi. 19. was raised again. He Who raised, did surely also quicken; and He who quickened, also pardoned sins; He who pardoned sins, also blotted out the handwriting; He Who blotted out the handwriting, also nailed it to the Cross: He who nailed it to the Cross, divested Himself of the flesh. But it was not the Father Who divested Himself of the flesh; for not the Father, but, as we read, the Word was made flesh.460    S. John i. 14. You see, then, that the Arians, in dividing the Father from the Son, run into danger of saying that the Father endured the Passion.

14. We, however, can easily show that the words treat of the Son’s action, for the Son Himself indeed raised His own Body again, as He Himself said: “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it again.”461    S. John ii. 19. And He Himself quickens us together with His Body: “For as the Father raiseth the dead and quickeneth them, so also the Son quickeneth Whom He will.”462    S. John v. 21. And He Himself hath granted forgiveness for sins, saying, “Thy sins be forgiven thee.”463    S. Luke v. 20. He too hath nailed the handwriting of the record to His Cross, in that He was crucified, and suffered in the body. Nor did any divest Himself of the flesh, save the Son of God, Who invested Himself therewith. He, therefore, Who hath achieved the work of our resurrection is plainly pointed out to be very God.

CAPUT II.

Quae corporis sunt a Christo pro nobis suscepti, divinitati non tribuenda: secundum hanc illum altissimum; quod qui neget, eum Patri ascribere incarnationem. Cum Deus legitur solus esse, aut solus habere immortalitatem, id etiam intelligendum de Christo, tum ut memorata impietas declinetur, tum quia eadem Filii ac Patris asseritur operatio.

0591B 7. Corporis est igitur, hoc est, nostrum est, quod esurivit: nostrum est, quod flevit, quod tristis fuit usque ad mortem. Cur ad divinitatem quae sunt nostra referuntur? Corporis est, quod etiam factus asseritur. Denique sic habes: Mater Sion dicet: Homo, et homo factus est in ea, et ipse fundavit eam Altissimus (Psal. LXXXVI, 5). Homo, inquit, factus est, non Deus factus est.

8. Qui autem idem altissimus, idem homo, nisi Mediator Dei, et hominum, homo Christus Jesus, qui dedit semetipsum redemptionem pro nobis (I Tim. II, 5, 6)? Et hoc utique ad incarnationem pertinet; redemptio enim nostra per sanguinem, remissio 0591C per potestatem, vita per gratiam. Quasi altissimus donat, quasi homo precatur: aliud creatoris, aliud redemptoris est. Distincta licet, unius tamen auctoris beneficia sunt; decuit enim ut ille nos redimeret, qui creavit.

9. Quis autem neget Christum esse altissimum significatum? Nam qui aliter sentit, Deo Patri sacramentum incarnationis ascribit. Sed hinc dubitari non potest quod altissimus Christus sit; cum etiam alibi dixerit de mysterio passionis: Dedit vocem suam Altissimus, et mota est terra (Psal. XVII, 14). Et in Evangelio habes: Et tu, puer, propheta Altissimi vocaberis; praeibis enim ante faciem Domini parare vias ejus (Luc. I, 76). Qui altissimus? Dei Filius. Ergo qui altissimus Deus, Christus est.

0591D 10. Et solus utique cum dicitur Deus, non separatur etiam Dei Filius. Qui enim altissimus, solus, sicut scriptum est: Et cognoscant quoniam nomen tibi Dominus, tu solus altissimus super omnem terram (Psal. LXXXII, 19).

11. Unde etiam illud explosum est, quod solent ad calumniam derivare, quia de Deo scriptum est: Qui solus habet immortalitatem, et lucem habitat inaccessibilem (I Tim. VI, 16); de Deo enim scriptum est, quod est commune nomen Patri et Filio.

499 12. Nam si ubicumque Deum legunt, negant etiam Filium designari; et impii sunt, divinitatis 0592A potentiam Filio denegando, et incarnatum Patrem Sabelliana impietate astruere videbuntur. Dicant enim quomodo illud non impie de Patre intelligere possint, quod Apostolus ait: In quo et consurrexistis per fidem operationis Dei, qui suscitavit illum a mortuis (Coloss. II, 12); et advertant de sequentibus quid incurrant; sequitur enim: Et cum mortui essetis delictis et praeputio carnis vestrae, vivificavit nos cum illo, donans nobis omnia delicta, delens quod adversum nos erat chirographum decreti, quod erat contrarium nobis: et ipsum tulit de medio, affigens illud cruci, exuens se carne (Ibid., 13, 14).

13. Ergo non Deus Pater solus intelligendus est, qui suscitavit carnem: et non etiam Filius, cujus templum resuscitatum est. Qui suscitavit, utique et 0592B vivificavit: qui vivificavit, et delicta donavit: qui delicta donavit, et chirographum tulit: qui chirographum tulit, affixit illud cruci: qui affixit illud cruci, carnem se exuit. Sed Pater non se exuit carnem; non enim Pater caro factus est, sed Verbum, sicut legimus, caro factum est (Joan. I, 14). Videtis ergo quod Ariani dum separant a Patre Filium, in id periculum incidant, ut Patrem passum esse commemorent.

14. Nos autem facile docemus de Filii dictum operatione; nam et ipse corpus suum resuscitavit, sicut ipse dixit: Solvite templum hoc, et in triduo resuscitabo illud (Joan. II, 19). Et ipse vivificat nos cum suo corpore: Sicut enim Pater suscitat mortuos et vivificat; sic et Filius quos vult, vivificat 0592C (Joan. V, 21). Et ipse delicta donavit dicens: Dimissa sunt tibi peccata tua (Luc. V, 20). Et ipse chirographum affixit cruci, qui crucifixus est per corporis passionem. Nec alius se carnem exuit, nisi Dei Filius, qui carnem se induit. Ipse ergo significatur Deus, qui opus nostrae resurrectionis operatus est.