Eran.--Who in the world ever heard of an unmixed mixture?
Orth.--I shall endeavour to make you admit this.
Eran.--Should what you are about to advance prove true we will not oppose the truth.
Orth.--Answer then, dissenting or assenting as the argument may seem good to you.
Eran.--I will answer.
Orth.--Does the light at its rising seem to you to fill all the atmosphere except where men shut up in caverns might remain bereft of it?
Eran.--Yes.
Orth.--And does all the light seem to you to be diffused through all the atmosphere?
Eran.--I am with you so far.
Orth.--And is not the mixture diffused through all that is subject to it?
Eran.--Certainly.
Orth.--But, now, this illuminated atmosphere, do we not see it as light and call it light?
Eran.--Quite so.
Orth.--And yet when the light is present we sometimes are aware of moisture and aridity; frequently of heat and cold.
Eran.--Yes.
Orth.--And after the departure of the light the atmosphere afterwards remains alone by itself.
Eran.--True.
Orth.--Consider this example too. When iron is brought in contact with fire it is fired.
Eran.--Certainly.
Orth.--And the fire is diffused through its whole substance?
Eran.--Well?
Orth.--How, then, does not the complete union, and the mixture universally diffused, change the iron's nature?
Eran.--But it changes it altogether. It is now reckoned no longer as iron, but as fire, and indeed it has the active properties of fire.
Orth.--But does not the smith call it iron, and put it on the anvil and smite it with his hammer?
Eran.--Unquestionably.
Orth.--Then the nature of the iron was not damaged by contact with the fire. If then, in natural bodies, instances may be found of an unconfounded mixture, it is sheer folly in the case of the nature which knows neither corruption nor change to entertain the idea of confusion and destruction of the assumed nature, and all the more so when this nature was assumed to bring blessing on the race.
Eran.--What I assert is not the destruction of the assumed nature, but its change into the substance of Godhead.
Orth.--Then the human race is no longer limited as heretofore?
Eran.--No.
Orth.--When did it undergo this change?
Eran.--After the complete union.
Orth.--And what date do you assign to this?
Eran.--I have said again and again, that of the conception.
Orth.--Yet after the conception He was an unborn babe in the womb; after His birth. He was a babe [1276] and was called a babe, and was worshipped by shepherds, and in like manner became a boy, and was so called by the angel. [1277] Do you acknowledge all this? or do you think I am inventing fables?
Eran.--This is taught in the history of the divine gospels, and cannot be gainsaid.
Orth.--Now let us investigate what follows. We acknowledge, do we not, that the Lord was circumcised?
Eran.--Yes.
Orth.--Of what was there a circumcision? Of flesh or Godhead?
Eran.--Of the flesh.
Orth.--Of what was then the growth and increase in wisdom and stature?
Eran.--This, of course, is not applicable to Godhead.
Orth.--Nor hunger and thirst?
Eran.--No.
Orth.--Nor walking about, and being weary, and falling asleep?
Eran.--No.
Orth.--If then the union took place at the conception, and all these things came to pass after the conception and the birth, then, after the union, the manhood did not lose its own nature.
Eran.--I have not stated my meaning exactly. It was after the resurrection from the dead that the flesh underwent the change into Godhead.
Orth.--Then, after the resurrection, nothing of all that indicates its nature remained in it?
Eran.--If it remained, the divine change did not take place.
Orth.--How then was it that He shewed His hands and His feet to the disciples who disbelieved?
Eran.--Just as He came in when the doors were shut.
Orth.--But He came in when the doors were shut just as He came out from the womb, though the virgin's bolts and bars were undrawn, and just as He walked upon the sea. Then according to your argument not even yet had the change of nature taken place?
Eran.--The Lord shewed His hands to the Apostles in the same way as He wrestled with Jacob.
Orth.--No; the Lord does not allow us to understand it in this sense. The disciples thought they saw a spirit, but the Lord dispelled this idea, and shewed the nature of the flesh, for He said "Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." [1278] And observe the exactness of the language. He does not say "is not flesh and bones," but "has not flesh and bones," in order to point out that the nature of the possessor and the nature of that which is possessed are distinct and separate. Just in the same way that which took and that which was taken are separate and distinct, and the Christ is beheld made one of both. Thus the part possessing is entirely different from the part possessed; and yet does not divide into two persons Him who is an object of thought in them. The Lord, indeed, while the disciples were still in doubt, asked for food and took and ate it, not consuming the food only in appearance, nor satisfying to the need of the body.
Eran.--But one of these alternatives must be accepted; either He partook because He needed, or else, needing not, He seemed to eat, and did not really partake of food.
Orth.--His body now become immortal required no food. Of them that rise the Lord says: "they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are as Angels." [1279] The apostles however bear witness that He partook of the food, for the blessed Luke in the preface to the Acts says "being assembled together with the apostles the Lord commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem" [1280] and the very divine Peter says more distinctly: "Who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead." [1281] For since eating is proper to them that live this present life, of necessity the Lord by means of eating and drinking proved the resurrection of the flesh to them that did not acknowledge it to be real. This same course He pursued in the case of Lazarus and of Jairus' daughter. For when He had raised up the latter He ordered that something should be given her to eat [1282] and He made Lazarus sit with Him at the table [1283] and so shewed the reality of the rising again.
Eran.--If we grant that the Lord really ate, let us grant that after the resurrection all men partake of food.
Orth.--What was done by the Saviour through a certain oeconomy is not a rule and law of nature. This follows from the fact that He did other things by oeconomy which shall by no means be the lot of them that live again.
Eran.--What do you mean?
Orth.--Will not the bodies of them that rise become incorruptible and immortal?
Eran.--So the divine Paul has taught us. "It is sown" he says "in corruption; it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." [1284]
Orth.--But the Lord, who raises the bodies of all men, unmaimed and unmarred (for lameness of limb and blindness of eye are unknown among them that are risen), [1285] left in His own body the prints of the nails, and the wound in His side, whereof are witnesses both the Lord Himself and the hand of Thomas.
Eran.--True.
Orth.--If then after the resurrection the Lord both partook of food, and shewed His hands and His feet to His disciples, and in them the prints of the nails, and His side with the mark of the wound in it, and said to them, "Handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have" [1286] it follows that after His resurrection the nature of His body was preserved and was not changed into another substance.
Eran.--Then after the resurrection it is mortal and subject to suffering?
Orth.--By no means; it is incorruptible, impassible, and immortal.
Eran.--If it is incorruptible, impassible, and immortal, it has been changed into another nature.
Orth.--Therefore the bodies of all men will be changed into another substance, for all will be incorruptible and immortal. Or have you not heard the words of the Apostle, "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality"? [1287]
Eran.--I have heard.
Orth.--Therefore the nature remains, but its corruption is changed into incorruption, and its mortal into immortality. But let us look at the matter in this way; we call a body that is sick and a body that is whole, in the same way, a body.
Eran.--Unquestionably.
Orth.--Wherefore?
Eran.--Since both partake of the same substance.
Orth.--Yet we see in them a very great difference, for the one is whole, perfect, and unhurt; the other has either lost an eye, or has a broken leg, or has undergone some other suffering.
Eran.--But to the same nature belong both health and sickness.
Orth.--So the body is called substance; disease and health are called accident.
Eran.--Of course. For these things are accidents of the body, and again cease to be so.
Orth.--In the same way corruption and death must be called accidents, and not substances, for they too are accidents and cease to be so.
Eran.--True.
Orth.--So the body of the Lord rose incorruptible, impassible, and immortal, and is worshipped by the powers of heaven, and is yet a body having its former limitation.
Eran.--In these points you seem to say sooth, but after its assumption into heaven I do not think that you will deny that it was changed into the nature of Godhead.
Orth.--I would not so say persuaded only by human arguments, for I am not so rash as to say anything concerning which divine Scripture is silent. But I have heard the divine Paul exclaiming "God hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained whereof He hath given assurance unto all men in that He hath raised Him from the dead," [1288] and I have learnt from the holy Angels that He will come in like manner as the disciples saw Him going into heaven. [1289] Now they saw His nature not unlimited. For I have heard the words of the Lord, "Ye shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven," [1290] and I acknowledge that what is seen of men is limited, for the unlimited nature is invisible. Furthermore to sit upon a throne of glory and to set the lambs upon the right and the kids upon the left [1291] indicates limitation.
Eran.--Then He was not unlimited even before the incarnation, for the prophet saw Him surrounded by the Seraphim. [1292]
Orth.--The prophet did not see the substance of God, but a certain appearance accommodated to his capacity. After the resurrection, however, all the world will see the very visible nature of the judge.
Eran.--You promised that you would adduce no argument without evidence, but you are introducing arguments adapted to us.
Orth.--I have learnt these things from the divine Scripture. I have heard the words of the prophet Zechariah "They shall look on Him whom they pierced," [1293] and how shall the event follow the prophecy unless the crucifiers recognise the nature which they crucified? And I have heard the cry of the victorious martyr Stephen, "Behold I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God," [1294] and he saw the visible, not the invisible nature.
Eran.--These things are thus written, but I do not think that you will be able to show that the body, after the ascension into heaven, is called body by the inspired writers.
Orth.--What has been already said indicates the body perfectly plainly; for what is seen is a body; but I will nevertheless point out to you that even after the assumption the body of the Lord is called a body. Hear the teaching of the Apostle, "For our conversation is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." [1295] It was not changed into another nature, but remained a body, full however of divine glory, and sending forth beams of light. The bodies of the saints shall be fashioned like unto it. But if it was changed into another nature, their bodies will be likewise changed, for they shall be fashioned like unto it. But if the bodies of the saints preserve the character of their nature, then also the body of the Lord in like manner keeps its own nature unchanged.
Eran.--Then will the bodies of the saints be equal with the body of the Lord?