Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus.
“Now these things came to pass not in seeming but in essential truth, for if He appeared to be man though He was not man then the Spirit of God did not continue to be what in truth It is; for the Spirit is invisible; nor was there any truth in Him, for He was not what He appeared to be. And we have said before that Abraham and the rest of the prophets beheld Him in prophecy prophesying what was destined to come to pass in actual sight. If then now too He appeared to be of such a character, though in reality He was not what He appeared, then a kind of prophetic vision would have been given to men, and we must still look for yet another advent in which He will really be what He is now seen to be in prophecy. Now we have demonstrated that there is no difference between the statements that He only appeared in seeming and that He took nothing from Mary, for He did not really even possess flesh and blood whereby He redeemed us, unless He renewed in Himself the old creation of Adam. The sect of Valentinus are therefore vain in teaching thus that they may cast out the life of the flesh.”
Testimony of the holy Hippolytus, bishop and martyr, from his work on the distribution of the talents: —
“Any one might say that these and those who uphold otherwise are neighbours, erring as they do in the same manner, for even they either confess that the Christ appeared in life as mere man, denying the talent of His Godhead, or else acknowledging Him as God, on the other hand they deny the man, representing that He deluded the sight of them that beheld Him by unreal appearances; and that He wore manhood not as a Man but was rather a mere imaginary semblance, as Marcion and Valentinus and the Gnostics teach, wrenching away the Word from the flesh, and rejecting the one talent, the incarnation.”
Of the same from his letter to a certain Queen: —
“He calls Him ‘the first fruits of them that sleep,’ as being ‘the first born from the dead,’ and He, after His resurrection, wishing to show that that which was risen was the same as that which had undergone death, when the disciples were doubting, called Thomas to Him, and said, ‘Come hither handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see me have.’”
Of the same from his discourse on Elkanah and Hannah:—
“Wherefore three seasons of the year typified the Saviour Himself that He might fulfil the mysteries predicted about Him. In the Passover, that He might shew Himself as the sheep doomed to be sacrificed and shew a true Passover as says the Apostle, ‘Christ, God, our Passover was sacrificed for us.’ At Pentecost that He might announce the kingdom of heaven ascending Himself first into heaven and offering to God man as a gift.”
Of the same from his work on the great Psalm: —
“He who drew from the nethermost hell man first formed of the earth when lost and held fast in bonds of death; He who came down from above and lifted up him that was down; He who became Evangelist of the dead, ransomer of souls and resurrection of them that were entombed; this was He who became succourer of vanquished man in Himself, like man firstborn Word; visiting the first formed Adam in the Virgin; the spiritual seeking the earthy in the womb; the ever-living him who by disobedience died; the heavenly calling the earthly to the world above, the highborn meaning to make the slave free by His own obedience; He who turned to adamant man crumbled into dust and made serpents’ meat; He who made man hanging on a tree of wood Lord over him who had conquered Him and so by a tree of wood is proved victorious.”
“They who do not now recognise the Son of God in the flesh will one day recognise Him when He comes as judge in glory, though now in an inglorious body suffering wrong.”
“Moreover the apostles when they had come to the sepulchre on the third day did not find the body of Jesus, just as the children of Israel went up on the mountain, and could not find the tomb of Moses.”
Of the same from his interpretation of Psalm II.:—
“When He had come into the world He was manifested as God and Man. His manhood is easy of perception because He is ahungered and aweary, in toil He is athirst, in fear He flees, in prayer He grieves; He falls asleep upon a pillow, He prays that the cup of suffering may pass from Him, being in an agony He sweats, He is strengthened by an angel, betrayed by Judas, dishonoured by Caiaphas, set at nought by Herod, scourged by Pilate, mocked by soldiers, nailed to a cross by Jews, He commends His spirit to the Father with a cry, He leans His head as He breathes His last, He is pierced in the side with a spear and rolled in fine linen, is laid in a tomb, and on the third day He is raised by the Father. No less plainly may His divinity be seen when He is worshipped by angels, gazed on by shepherds, waited for by Simeon, testified to by Anna, sought out by Magi, pointed out by a Star, at the wedding feast makes water wine, rebukes the sea astir by force of winds, and on the same sea walks, makes a man blind from birth see, raises Lazarus who had been four days dead, works many and various wonders, remits sins and gives power to His disciples.”
Of the same from his work on Psalm XXIV.:—
“He comes to the heavenly gates, angels travel with Him and the gates of the heavens are shut. For He hath not yet ascended into heaven. Now first to the heavenly powers flesh appears ascending. The Word then goes forth to the powers from the angels that speed before the Lord and Saviour, ‘Lift the Gates ye princes and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors and the King of glory shall come in.’”
Testimony of the holy Eustathius, bishop of Antioch and confessor.
From his work on The Titles of the Psalms:—
“He predicted that He would sit upon a holy throne, shewing that He has been set forth on the same throne as the divine Spirit on account of the God that dwells in Him continually.”
Of the same from his work upon the Soul:—
“Before His passion in each case He predicted His bodily death, saying that He would be betrayed to the father of the High Priest, and announcing the trophy of the Cross. And after the passion, when He had risen on the third day from the dead, His disciples being in doubt as to His resurrection, He appeared to them in His very body and confessed that He had complete flesh and bones, submitting to their sight His wounded side and shewing them the prints of the nails.”
Of the same from his discourse on “The Lord formed me in the beginning of His ways”: —
“Paul did not say ‘conformed to the Son of God’ but ‘conformed to the image of His Son’ in order to point out a distinction between the Son and His image, for the Son, wearing the divine tokens of His Father’s Excellence, is an image of His Father; for since like are generated of like, offspring appear as very images of their parents, but the manhood which He wore is an image of the Son, as images even of different colours are painted on wax, some being wrought by hand and some by nature and likeness. Moreover the very law of truth announces this, for the bodiless spirit of wisdom is not conformed to bodily men, but the express image made man by the spirit bearing the same number of members with all the rest, and clad in similar form.”
“That he speaks of the body as conformed to those of men he teaches more clearly in his Epistle to the Philippians, ‘our conversation’ he says ‘is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body.’ And if by changing the form of the vile body of men He fashions it like unto His own body, then the false teaching of our opponents is shewn to be in every way worthless.”
“But as being born of the Virgin He is said to have been made man of the woman, so He is described as being made under the law because of His sometimes walking by the precepts of the law, as for instance when His parents zealously urged His circumcision, when He was a child eight days old, as relates the evangelist Luke, afterwards ‘they brought Him to present Him to the Lord,’ ‘bringing the offerings of purification’ ‘to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.’ As then the gifts of purification were offered on His behalf according to the law, and He underwent circumcision on the eighth day, the Apostle very properly writes that He was thus brought under the law. Not indeed that the Word was subject to the law, (as our calumnious opponents suppose) being Himself the law, nor did God, who by one breath can cleanse and hallow all things, need sacrifices of purification. But He took from the Virgin the members of a man and became subject to the law and was purified according to the rite of the firstborn, not because He submitted to this treatment from any need on His part of such observance, but in order that He might redeem from the slavery of the law them that were sold to the doom of the curse.”
Testimony of the holy Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria.
From his Second Discourse against heresies: —
“We should not have been redeemed from sin and the curse had not the flesh which the Word wore been by nature that of man, for we should have had nothing in common with that which was not our own; just so man would not have been made God, had not the Word which was made flesh been by nature of the Father and verily and properly His. And the combination is of this character that to the natural God may be joined the natural man, and so his salvation and deification be secure. Therefore let them that deny Him to be naturally of the Father, and own Son of His substance, deny too that He took very flesh of man from the Virgin Mary.”
Of the same from his Epistle to Epictetus:—
“If on account of the Saviour’s Body being, and being described in the Scriptures as being, derived from Mary, and a human Body, they fancy that a quaternity is substituted for a Trinity, as though some addition were made by the body, they are quite wrong; they put the creature on a par with the Creator, and suppose that the Godhead is capable of being added to. They fail to see that the Word was not made flesh on account of any addition to Godhead, but that the flesh may rise. Not for the aggrandisement of the Word did He come forth from Mary, but that the human race may be redeemed. How can they think that the body ransomed and quickened by the Word can add anything in the way of Godhead to the Word that quickened it?”
Of the same from the same Epistle:—
“Let them be told that if the Word had been a creature, the creature would not have assumed a body to quicken it. For what help can creatures get from a creature standing itself in need of salvation? But the Word, Himself Creator, was made maker of created things, and therefore in the fulness of the ages He attached the creature to Himself, that once more as a Creator He might renew it, and might be able to create it afresh.”