VII. It was as being "in form of a slave," not as Son of God that he was exalted.
[543] Although therefore the Lord Jesus Christ is one, and the true Godhead and true Manhood in Him forms absolutely one and the same person, and the entirety of this union cannot be separated by any division, yet the exaltation wherewith "God exalted Him," and "gave Him a name which excels every name," we understand to belong to that form which needed to be enriched by this increase of glory [544] . Of course "in the form of God" the Son was equal to the Father, and between the Father and the Only-begotten there was no distinction in point of essence, no diversity in point of majesty: nor through the mystery [545] of the Incarnation had the Word been deprived of anything which should be restored Him by the Father's gift. But "the form of a slave" by which the impassible Godhead fulfilled a pledge of mighty loving-kindness [546] , is human weakness which was lifted up into the glory of the divine power, the Godhead and the manhood being right from the Virgin's conception so completely united that without the manhood the divine acts, and without the Godhead the human acts were not performed. For which reason as the Lord of majesty is said to have been crucified, so He who from eternity is equal with God is said to have been exalted. Nor does it matter by which substance Christ is spoken of, since the unity of His person inseparably remaining He is at once both wholly Son of man according to the flesh and wholly Son of God according to His Godhead, which is one with the Father. Whatever therefore Christ received in time, He received in virtue of His manhood, on which are conferred whatsoever it had not. For according to the power of the Word, "all things that the Father hath" the Son also hath indiscriminately, and what "in the form of a slave" He received from the Father, He also Himself gave in the form of the Father. He is in Himself at once both rich and poor; rich, because "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing:" and poor because "the Word became flesh and dwelt in us [547] ." But what is that emptying of Himself, or that poverty except the receiving of the form of a slave by which the majesty of the Word was veiled, and the scheme for man's redemption carried out? For as the original chains of our captivity could not be loosed, unless a man of our race and of our nature appeared who was not under the prejudice of the old debt, and who with his untainted blood might blot out the bond of death [548] , as it had from the beginning been divinely fore-ordained, so it came to pass in the fulness of the appointed time that the promise which had been proclaimed in many ways might reach its long expected fulfilment, and that thus, what had been frequently announced by one testimony after another, might have all doubtfulness removed.
VIII. A protest against their faithlessness and inconsistency in this matter.
And so, as all these heresies have been destroyed, which through the holy devotion of the presiding Fathers have been cut off from the body of the catholic unity, and which deserved to be exiles from Christ, because they have made the Incarnation of the Word, which is the one salvation of those who believe aright, a stone of offence and a stumbling-block to themselves, I am surprised that you, beloved, have any difficulty in discerning the light of the Truth. And since it has been made clear by numerous explanations that the Christian Faith was right in condemning both Nestorius and Eutyches with Dioscorus, and that a man cannot be called a Christian who gives his assent to the blasphemous opinion of either the one or the other, I am grieved that you are, as I hear, doing despite to the teaching of the Gospel and the Apostles by stirring up the various bodies of citizens with seditions, by disturbing the churches, and by inflicting not only insults, but even death, upon priests and bishops, so that you lose sight of your resolves and profession [549] through your fury and cruelty. Where is your rule of meekness and quietness? where is the long-suffering of patience? where the tranquillity of peace? where the firm foundation of love and courage of endurance? what evil persuasion has carried you off, what persecution has separated you from the gospel of Christ? or what strange craftiness of the Deceiver has shown itself that, forgetting the prophets and apostles, forgetting the health-giving creed and confession which you pronounced before many witnesses when you received the sacrament of baptism you should give yourselves up to the Devil's deceits? what effect would "the Claws [550] " and other cruel tortures have had on you if the empty comments of heretics have had so much weight in taking the purity of your faith by storm? you think you are acting for the Faith and yet you go against the Faith. You arm yourselves in the name of the Church and yet fight against the Church. Is this what you have learnt from prophets, evangelists, and apostles? to deny the true flesh of Christ, to subject the very essence of the Word to suffering and death, to make our nature different from His who repaired it, and to reckon all that the cross uplifted, that the spear pierced, that the stone on the tomb received and gave back, to be only the work of Divine power, and not also of human humility? It is in reference to this humility that the Apostle says, "For I do not blush for the Gospel [551] ," inasmuch as he knew what a slur was cast upon Christians by their enemies. And, therefore, the Lord also made proclamation, saying: "he that shall confess Me before men him will I also confess before My Father [552] ." For these will not be worthy of the Son and the Father's acknowledgment in whom the flesh of Christ awakens no respect: and they will prove themselves to have gained no virtue from the sign of the cross [553] who blush to avow with their lips what they have consented to bear upon their brows.
IX. An exhortation to accept the catholic view of the Incarnation.
Give up, my sons, give up these suggestions of the devil. God's Truth nothing can impair, but the Truth does not save us except in our flesh. For, as the prophet says, "truth is sprung out of the earth [554] ," and the Virgin Mary conceived the Word in such wise that she ministered flesh of her substance to be united to Him without the addition of a second person, and without the disappearance of her nature: seeing that He who was in the form of God took the form of a slave in such wise that Christ is one and the same in both forms: God bending Himself to the weak things of man, and man rising up to the high things of the Godhead, as the Apostle says, "whose are the fathers, and from whom, according to the flesh is Christ, who is above all things God blessed for ever. Amen [555] ."
[515] It will be remembered that Leo himself knew not a word of the language, which will account for his uncertainty, consequent helplessness, and uneasiness in this and other cases where a knowledge of the language would have served him in excellent stead.
[516] I.e. so much good at all events has come from your objection that we know you are strongly opposed to Eutyches, at present my own special abhorrence.
[517] The whole of chap. ii. will be found repeated in Ep. clxv. chap. ii.
[518] Luke i. 43.
[519] Cf. Ep. xxii. chap. 3 "conatus-antiqua impii Valentini" (the adherent of Apollinaris and head of one of the sections of the Apollinarians after his death) "et Apollinaris mala dogmata renovare." The third dogma of Apollinaris was that "Christ's manhood was formed out of a divine substance." Bright, 147.
[520] Eutyches had expressly tried to guard himself against this imputation: Ep. xxi. chap. 3, "anathematizans Apollinarium Valentinum, Manem et Nestorium, &c." See Bright's valuable notes 32, 33, 34, and esp. 35, where he shows that "it was polemical rhetoric to say that he was reviving Apollinarian or Valentinian theories."
[521] It must be clearly understood that this ugly word is here and elsewhere employed to translate passibilis (pathetos) for no reason, except the necessity of the case: pati and paschein are both of far wider and broader signification than "suffer" or its synonyms: they are simply the passive of facere and poiein (prassein), and there is no proper equivalent in ordinary English parlance. This tendency of terms to become more and more narrow and of particular application is constantly meeting and baffling one in translating the Latin and Greek languages.
[522] Leo elsewhere also makes this hardly justifiable inference that Eutychianism is a new form of Docetism as this view was called; chap. vi. below, and Serm. lxv. c. 4 "isti phantasmatici Christiani," also xxviii. 4, and lxiv. 1, 2. That the Manichæans naturally held Docetic views on the Incarnation is obvious when we remember that their fundamental misconception was that matter is identical with evil.
[523] Marcion was the founder of one of the most formidable Gnostic sects towards the close of the second century: Tertullian wrote a famous treatise (still extant) against him. Like other Gnostics, his views involved him in Docetism.
[524] S. John i. 14.
[525] 2 Cor. v. 19.
[526] Prævaricatio: this is a legal term which is often used of sin (esp. in connexion with Adam's transgression). Its original technical meaning is the action of an advocate who plays into the enemy's hand. In theology the devil (diabolos) is man's adversary, and man himself is befooled into collusion with him by breaking God's Law.
[527] Potens ad privilegium: privilegium is another legal term signifying technically a bill framed to meet an individual case generally in a detrimental way, such bills being against the spirit of the Roman law: here Leo uses it in a sense more nearly approaching our English idea of "privilege."
[528] Rom. v. 20.
[529] Sub peccati præiudicio: yet a third legal term: præiudicium in Roman law was a semi-formal and anticipatory verdict by the judge before the case came on for final decision in court; in chapter vi. we have the verb præiudicare.
[530] Eph. v. 2.
[531] Cf. Ps. cxv. 5.
[532] The idea of vicarious death was not unfamiliar to the Greeks and Romans: e.g. Alkestis dying for her husband Admetos, and the fairly numerous examples of "devotion" of Roman Generals on the battlefield.
[533] S. John xii. 32, omnia: with the Vulgate.
[534] It is scarcely necessary to point out that the old story of the communicatio idiomatum' is here again discussed: cf. the Tome, chapters iv. and v.
[535] S. Matt. iii. 17, and Bright's note 5.
[536] S. John i. 29: the repetition of the Ecce (behold) is in accordance with the old Latin versions: cf. Westcott in loc.
[537] Considerable portions of this chapter are found repeated word for word in Sermon LXIV. chap. i. and iv.
[538] Lat. præiudicant, see note 3 to chap. iii., above.
[539] Isti phantasmatici Christiani, cf. note 5, above.
[540] Acts iv. 12.
[541] 1 Tim. ii. 6.
[542] Phil. ii. 6-11.
[543] The whole of this chapter is repeated with slight variations in his letter (CLXV.) to Leo the Emperor (chaps. 8 and 10).
[544] Quæ ditanda erat tantæ glorificationis augmento acc. to Leo's use of the gerundive, see Tome, chap. i quod...omnium regenerandorum voce depromitur.
[545] Here the word is actually mysterium, not, as usual, sacramentum.
[546] Sacramentum magnæ pietatis, 1 Tim. iii. 16: cf. Bright's note 8.
[547] S. John i. 1-3, 14.
[548] The reference is to Col. ii. 14.
[549] Viz. as monks as well as baptized members of the church.
[550] The Ungulæ (Claws) were among the numerous instruments with which Christians were tortured: cf. Tert. Apol. xii. 57, ungulis deraditis latera christianorum; Cypr. de lapsis chap. xiii. (cum) ungula effoderet, caro me in colluctatione deseruit.
[551] Rom. i. 16.
[552] S. Matt. x. 32.
[553] Viz. in Baptism.
[554] Ps . lxxxv. 12.
[555] Rom. ix. 5.