Dialogues. The “Eranistes” or “Polymorphus” of the Blessed Theodoretus, Bishop of Cyrus.
“When therefore the blessed Paul says the Father ‘raised’ the Son ‘from the dead’ John tells us that Jesus said ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up…but He spake’ of His own ‘body.’ So it is clear to them that take heed that at the raising of the body the Son is said by Paul to have been raised from the dead, for he refers what concerns the body to the Son’s person, and just so when he says ‘the Father gave life to the Son’ it must be understood that the life was given to the Flesh. For if He Himself is life how can the life receive life?”
Of the same from his work on the Incarnation:—
“For when the Word was conscious that in no other way could the ruin of men be undone save by death to the uttermost, and it was impossible that the Word who is immortal and Son of the Father should die, to effect His end He assumes a body capable of death, that this body, being united to the Word, who is over all, might, in the stead of all, become subject to death, and because of the indwelling Word might remain incorruptible, and so by the grace of the resurrection corruption for the future might lose its power over men. Thus offering to death, as a sacrifice and victim free from every spot, the body which He had assumed, by His corresponding offering He straightway destroyed death’s power over all His kind; for being the Word of God above and beyond all men, He rightly offered and paid His own temple and bodily instrument, as a ransom for all souls due to death. And thus by means of the like (body) being associated with all men, the incorruptible Son of God rightly clothed all men with incorruption by the promise of the resurrection, for the corruption inherent in death no longer has any place with men, for the sake of the Word who dwelt in them by the means of the one body.”
“Wherefore, after His divine manifestations in His works, now also on behalf of all He offered sacrifice, yielding to death His own temple instead of all, that He might make all men irresponsible and free from the ancient transgression, and, exhibiting His own body as incorruptible firstfruits of the resurrection of mankind, might shew Himself stronger than death. For the body, as having a common substance—for it was a human body, although by a new miracle its constitution was of the Virgin alone—being mortal, died after the example of its like; but by the descent of the Word into it no longer suffered corruption, according to its own nature, but, on account of God the Word who dwelt within it, was delivered from corruption.”
“Whence, as I have said, since it was not possible for the Word being immortal to die, He took upon Himself a body capable of death, in order that He might offer this same body for all, and He Himself in His suffering on behalf of all through His descent into this body might ‘destroy Him that hath the power of death.’”
Of the same from the same work: —
“For the body in its passion, as is the nature of bodies, died, but it had the promise of incorruption through the Word that dwelt within it. For when the body died the Word was not injured; but He was Himself impassible, incorruptible, and immortal, as being God’s Word, and being associated with the body He kept from it the natural corruption of bodies, as says the Spirit to Him ‘thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption.’”
The testimony of the holy Damasus, bishop of Rome: —
“If any one say that, in the passion of the Cross, God the Son of God suffered pain, and not the flesh with the soul, which the form of the servant put on and assumed, as the Scripture saith, Let him be anathema.”
Testimony of the holy Ambrosius, bishop of Milan.
From his book on the Catholic faith:—
“There are some men who have reached such a pitch of impiety as to think that the Godhead of the Lord was circumcised, and from perfect was made imperfect; and that the divine substance, Creator of all things, and not the flesh, was on the tree.”
“The flesh suffered; but the Godhead is free from death. He yielded His body to suffer according to the law of human nature. For how can God die, when the soul cannot die? ‘Fear not,’ He says, ‘them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul.’
If then the soul cannot be slain how can the Godhead be made subject to death?”
Testimony of the holy Basilius, bishop of Cæsarea:—
“It is perfectly well known to every one who has the least acquaintance with the meaning of the words of the Apostle that he is not delivering to us a mode of theology but is explaining the reasons of the œconomy, for he says ‘God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ.’ Thus he is plainly directing his argument to His human and visible nature.”
Testimony of the holy Gregorius, bishop of Nazianzus.
From his letter to the blessed Nectarius, bishop of Constantinople:—
“The saddest thing in what has befallen the churches is the boldness of the utterances of Apollinarius and his party. I cannot understand how your Holiness has allowed them to arrogate to themselves the power of assembling on the same terms with us.”
And a little further on:—
“I will no longer call this serious; it is indeed saddest of all that the only begotten God Himself, Judge of all who exist, the Prince of Life, the Destroyer of Death, is made by him mortal and alleged to receive suffering in His own Godhead. He represents the Godhead to have shared with the body in the dissolution of that three days death of the body, and so after the death to have been again raised by the Father.”
Of the same from his former exposition to Cledonius:—
“It is the contention of the Arians that the manhood was without a soul, that they may refer the passion to the Godhead and represent the same power as both moving the body and suffering.”
Of the same from his discourse about the Son:—
“It remained for us to treat of what was commanded Him and of His keeping the commandments and doing all things pleasing to Him; and further of His perfection, exaltation, and learning obedience by all that He suffered, His priesthood, His offering, His betrayal, His entreaty to Him that hath power to save Him from death, His agony, His bloody sweat, His prayer and similar manifestations, were it not clear to all that all these expressions in connexion with His Passion in no way signify the nature which was immutable and above suffering.”
Of the same from his Easter Discourse (Or. ii.):—
“‘Who is this that cometh from Edom?’ and from the earth, and how can the garments of the bloodless and bodiless be red as of one that treadeth in the wine-fat? Urge in reply the beauty of the garment of the body which suffered and was made beautiful in suffering, and was made splendid by the Godhead, than which nothing is lovelier nor more fair.”
Testimony of Gregory, bishop of Nyssa.
From his catechetical oration:—
“And this is the mystery of the dispensation of God concerning the manhood and of the resurrection from the dead, not to prevent the soul from being separated from the body by death according to the necessary law of human nature, and to bring them together again through the resurrection.”
“The flesh which received the Godhead, and which through the resurrection was exalted with the Godhead, is not formed of another material, but of ours; so, just as in the case of our own body, the operation of one of the senses moves to general sensation the whole man united to that part, in like manner just as though all nature were one single animal, the resurrection of the part pervades the whole, being conveyed from the part to the whole by what is continuous and united in nature. What then do we find extraordinary in the mystery that the upright stoops to the fallen to raise up him that lies low?”
“It would be natural also in this part not to heed the one and neglect the other; but in the immortal to behold the human, and to be curiously exact about the diviner quality in the manhood.”
Of the same from his work against Eunomius:—
“’Tis not the human nature which raises Lazarus to life. ’Tis not the impassible power which sheds tears over the dead. The tear belongs to the man; the life comes from the very life. The thousands are not fed by human poverty; omnipotence does not hasten to the fig tree. Who was weary in the way, and who by His word sustains all the world without being weary? What is the brightness of His glory, what was pierced by the nails? What form is smitten in the passion, what is glorified for everlasting? The answer is plain and needs no interpretation.”
Of the same from the same treatise:—
“He blames them that refer the passion to the human nature. He wishes himself wholly to subject the Godhead itself to the passion, for the proposition being twofold and doubtful, whether the divinity or the humanity was concerned in the passion, the denial of the one becomes the positive condemnation of the other. While therefore they blame them who see the passion in the humanity, they will bestow unqualified praise on them that maintain the Divinity of the Son of God to be passible. But the point established by these means becomes a confirmation of their own absurdity of doctrine; for if, as they allege, the Godhead of the Son suffers while that of the Father in accordance with its substance is conserved in complete impassibility, it follows that the impassible nature is at variance with the nature which sustains suffering.”
The testimony of the holy Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium.
From his discourse on the text “Verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath everlasting life”: —
“Whose then are the sufferings? Of the flesh. Therefore if you give to the flesh the suffering, give it also the lowly words; and ascribe the exalted words to Him to Whom you assign the miracles. For the God when He is in the act of working wonders naturally speaks in high and lofty language worthy of His works and the man when He is suffering fitly utters lowly words corresponding with His sufferings.”
Of the same from his discourse on “My Father is greater than I”: —
“But when you give the sufferings to the flesh and the miracles to God, you must of necessity, though unwillingly, give the lowly words to the man born of Mary, and the high and lofty words becoming God, to the Word who existed in the beginning. The reason why I utter sometimes lofty words and sometimes lowly is that by the lofty I may show the nobility of the indwelling Word, and by the lowly make known the infirmity of the lowly flesh. So at one time I call myself equal to the Father and at another I call the Father greater; and in this I am not inconsistent with myself, but I shew that I am God and man; God by the lofty and man by the lowly. And if you wish to know in what sense my Father is greater than I, I spoke in the flesh and not in the person of the Godhead.”
Of the same from his discourse on “If it be possible let this cup pass from me”: —