Chapter XX. [5172] Argument.--It is Proved from the Scriptures that Christ Was Called an Angel. But Yet It is Shown from Other Parts of Holy Scripture that He is God Also.
But if some heretic, obstinately struggling against the truth, should persist in all these instances either in understanding that Christ was properly an angel, or should contend that He must be so understood, he must in this respect also be subdued by the force of truth. For if, since all heavenly things, earthly things, and things under the earth, are subjected to Christ, even the angels themselves, with all other creatures, as many as are subjected to Christ, are called gods, [5173] rightly also Christ is God. And if any angel at all subjected to Christ can be called God, and this, if it be said, is also professed without blasphemy, certainly much more can this be fitting for Christ, Himself the Son of God, for Him to be pronounced God. For if an angel who is subjected to Christ is exalted as God, much more, and more consistently, shall Christ, to whom all angels are subjected, be said to be God. For it is not suitable to nature, that what is conceded to the lesser should be denied to the greater. Thus, if an angel be inferior to Christ, and yet an angel is called god, rather by consequence is Christ said to be God, who is discovered to be both greater and better, not than one, but than all angels. And if "God standeth in the assembly of the gods, and in the midst God distinguisheth between the gods," [5174] and Christ stood at various times in the synagogue, then Christ stood in the synagogue as God,--judging, to wit, between the gods, to whom He says, "How long do ye accept the persons of men?" That is to say, consequently, charging the men of the synagogue with not practising just judgments. Further, if they who are reproved and blamed seem even for any reason to attain this name without blasphemy, that they should be called gods, assuredly much more shall He be esteemed God, who not only is said to have stood as God in the synagogue of the gods, but moreover is revealed by the same authority of the reading as distinguishing and judging between gods. But even if they who "fall like one of the princes" are still called gods, much rather shall He be said to be God, who not only does not fall like one of the princes, but even overcomes both the author and prince of wickedness himself. And what in the world is the reason, that although they say that this name was given even to Moses, since it is said, "I have made thee as a god to Pharaoh," [5175] it should be denied to Christ, who is declared to be ordained [5176] not to Pharaoh only, but to every creature, as both Lord and God? And in the former case indeed this name is given with reserve, in the latter lavishly; in the former by measure, in the latter above all kind of measure: "For," it is said, "the Father giveth not to the Son by measure, for the Father loveth the Son." [5177] In the former for the time, in the latter without reference to time; [5178] for He received the power of the divine name, both above all things and for all time. But if he who has received the power of one man, in respect to this limited power given him, still without hesitation attains that name of God, how much more shall He who has power over Moses himself as well be believed to have attained the authority of that name?
[5172] According to Pamelius, ch. xv.
[5173] [Ps. xcvii. 7; John x. 36; Hippol., p. 153, supra.]
[5174] Ps. lxxxii. 1, 2, etc.
[5175] Ex. vii. 1.
[5176] [The full meaning of which only comes out in the Gospel and in 2 Pet. i. 4. The lie of Gen. iii. 5, is made true in Christ.]
[5177] John iii. 34, 35.
[5178] [Rev. xi. 15.]
Chapter XXI. [5179] Argument.--That the Same Divine Majesty is Again Confirmed in Christ by Other Scriptures.
And indeed I could set forth the treatment of this subject by all heavenly Scriptures, and set in motion, so to speak, a perfect forest of texts concerning that manifestation of the divinity of Christ, except that I have not so much undertaken to speak against this special form of heresy, as to expound the rule of truth concerning the person of Christ. Although, however, I must hasten to other matters, I do not think that I must pass over this point, that in the Gospel the Lord declared, by way of signifying His majesty, saying, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will build it up again." [5180] Or when, in another passage, and on another subject, He declares, "I have power to lay down my life, and again to take it up; for this commandment I have received of my Father." [5181] Now who is it who says that He can lay down His life, or can Himself recover His life again, because He has received it of His Father? Or who says that He can again resuscitate and rebuild the destroyed temple of His body, except because He is the Word who is from the Father, who is with the Father, "by whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made;" [5182] the imitator [5183] of His Father's works and powers, "the image of the invisible God;" [5184] "who came down from heaven;" [5185] who testified what things he had seen and heard; who "came not to do His own will, but rather to do the will of the Father," [5186] by whom He had been sent for this very purpose, that being made the "Messenger of Great Counsel," [5187] He might unfold to us the laws of the heavenly mysteries; and who as the Word made flesh dwelt among us, of us this Christ is proved to be not man only, because He was the son of man, but also God, because He is the Son of God? And if by the apostle Christ is called "the first-born of every creature," [5188] how could He be the first-born of every creature, unless because according to His divinity the Word proceeded from the Father before every creature? And unless the heretics receive it thus, they will be constrained to show that Christ the man was the first-born of every creature; which they will not be able to do. Either, therefore, He is before every creature, that He may be the first-born of every creature, and He is not man only, because man is after every creature; or He is man only, and He is after every creature. And how is He the first-born of every creature, except because being that Word which is before every creature; and therefore, the first-born of every creature, He becomes flesh and dwells in us, that is, assumes that man's nature which is after every creature, and so dwells with him and in him, in us, that neither is humanity taken away from Christ, nor His divinity denied? For if He is only before every creature, humanity is taken away from Him; but if He is only man, the divinity which is before every creature is interfered with. Both of these, therefore, are leagued together in Christ, and both are conjoined, and both are linked with one another. And rightly, as there is in Him something which excels the creature, the agreement of the divinity and the humanity seems to be pledged in Him: for which reason He who is declared as made the "Mediator between God and man" [5189] is revealed to have associated in Himself God and man. And if the same apostle says of Christ, that "having put off the flesh, He spoiled powers, they being openly triumphed over in Himself," [5190] he certainly did not without a meaning propound that the flesh was put off, unless because he wished it to be understood that it was again put on also at the resurrection. Who, therefore, is He that thus put off and put on the flesh? Let the heretics seek out. For we know that the Word of God was invested with the substance of flesh, and that He again was divested of the same bodily material, which again He took up in the resurrection and resumed as a garment. And yet Christ could neither have been divested of nor invested with manhood, had He been only man: for man is never either deprived of nor invested with himself. For that must be something else, whatever it may be, which by any other is either taken away or put on. Whence, reasonably, it was the Word of God who put off the flesh, and again in the resurrection put it on, since He put it off because at His birth He had been invested with it. Therefore in Christ it is God who is invested, and moreover must be divested, because He who is invested must also likewise be He who is divested; whereas, as man, He is invested with and divested of, as it were, a certain tunic of the compacted body. [5191] And therefore by consequence He was, as we have said, the Word of God, who is revealed to be at one time invested, at another time divested of the flesh. For this, moreover, He before predicted in blessings: "He shall wash His garment in wine, and His clothing in the blood of the grape." [5192] If the garment in Christ be the flesh, and the clothing itself be the body, let it be asked who is He whose body is clothing, and garment flesh? For to us it is evident that the flesh is the garment, and the body the clothing of the Word; and He washed His bodily substance, and purified the material of the flesh in blood, that is, in wine, by His passion, in the human character that He had undertaken. Whence, if indeed He is washed, He is man, because the garment which is washed is the flesh; but He who washes is the Word of God, who, in order that He might wash the garment, was made the taker-up of the garment. Rightly, from that substance which is taken that it might be washed, He is revealed as a man, even as from the authority of the Word who washed it He is manifested to be God.
[5179] According to Pamelius, ch. xvi.
[5180] John ii. 19.
[5181] John x. 18.
[5182] John i. 3.
[5183] [John v. 19. The infirmities of language are such that cunning men like Petavius can construct anti-Nicene doctrine out of Scripture itself; and the marvel is, that the Christian Fathers before the Council of Nicæa generally use such precision of language, although they lacked the synodical definitions.]
[5184] Col. i. 15.
[5185] John iii. 31, 32.
[5186] John iv. 38.
[5187] Isa. ix. 6.
[5188] Col. i. 15. [But not a creature, for the apostle immediately subjoins that He is the Creator and final Cause of the universe. Moreover, the first-born here seems to mean the heir of all creation, for such is the logical force of the verse following. So, prototokeia (in the Seventy) = heirship. Gen. xxv. 31.]
[5189] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[5190] Col. ii. 15.
[5191] Perhaps the emendation homine instead of homo is right. "He puts on and puts off humanity, as if it were a kind of tunic for a compacted body."
[5192] Gen. xlix. 11.