44. This then I consider the sense of this passage, and that, a very ecclesiastical sense [2068] . However, there is another way in which one might remark upon it, giving the same sense in a parallel way; viz. that, though it does not speak of the exaltation of the Word Himself, so far as He is Word [2069] (for He is, as was just now said, most high and like His Father), yet by reason of His becoming man it indicates His resurrection from the dead. For after saying, He hath humbled Himself even unto death,' He immediately added, Wherefore He hath highly exalted Him;' wishing to shew, that, although as man He is said to have died, yet, as being Life, He was exalted on the resurrection; for He who descended, is the same also who rose again [2070] .' He descended in body, and He rose again because He was God Himself in the body. And this again is the reason why according to this meaning he brought in the conjunction Wherefore;' not as a reward of virtue nor of advancement, but to signify the cause why the resurrection took place; and why, while all other men from Adam down to this time have died and remained dead, He only rose in integrity from the dead. The cause is this, which He Himself has already taught us, that, being God, He has become man. For all other men, being merely born of Adam, died, and death reigned over them; but He, the Second Man, is from heaven, for the Word was made flesh [2071] ,' and this Man is said to be from heaven and heavenly [2072] , because the Word descended from heaven; wherefore He was not held under death. For though He humbled Himself, yielding His own Body to come unto death, in that it was capable of death [2073] , yet He was highly exalted from earth, because He was God's Son in a body. Accordingly what is here said, Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him,' answers to Peter's words in the Acts, Whom God raised up, having loosed the bonds of death, because it was not possible that He should be holden of it [2074] .' For as Paul has written, Since being in form of God He became man, and humbled Himself unto death, therefore God also hath highly exalted Him,' so also Peter says, Since, being God, He became man, and signs and wonders proved Him to beholders to be God, therefore it was not possible that He should be holden of death.' To man it was not possible to succeed in this; for death belongs to man; wherefore, the Word, being God, became flesh, that, being put to death in the flesh, He might quicken all men by His own power.
45. But since He Himself is said to be exalted,' and God gave' Him, and the heretics think this a defect [2075] or affection in the essence [2076] of the Word, it becomes necessary to explain how these words are used. He is said to be exalted from the lower parts of the earth, because death is ascribed even to Him. Both events are reckoned His, since it was His Body [2077] , and none other's, that was exalted from the dead and taken up into heaven. And again, the Body being His, and the Word not being external to it, it is natural that when the Body was exalted, He, as man, should, because of the body, be spoken of as exalted. If then He did not become man, let this not be said of Him: but if the Word became flesh, of necessity the resurrection and exaltation, as in the case of a man, must be ascribed to Him, that the death which is ascribed to Him may be a redemption of the sin of men and an abolition of death, and that the resurrection and exaltation may for His sake remain secure for us. In both respects he hath said of Him, God hath highly exalted Him,' and God hath given to Him;' that herein moreover he may show that it is not the Father that hath become flesh, but it is His Word, who has become man, and receives after the manner of men from the Father, and is exalted by Him, as has been said. And it is plain, nor would any one dispute it, that what the Father gives, He gives through. the Son. And it is marvellous and overwhelming verily; for the grace which the Son gives from the Father, that the Son Himself is said to receive; and the exaltation, which the Son bestows from the Father, with that the Son is Himself exalted. For He who is the Son of God, became Himself the Son of Man; and, as Word, He gives from the Father, for all things which the Father does and gives, He does and supplies through Him; and as the Son of Man, He Himself is said after the manner of men to receive what proceeds from Him, because His Body is none other than His, and is a natural recipient of grace, as has been said. For He received it as far as His man's nature [2078] was exalted; which exaltation was its being deified. But such an exaltation the Word Himself always had according to the Father's Godhead and perfection, which was His [2079] .
[2023] Vid. de Syn. 4, note 6. and cf. Tertull. de Præscr. 19. Rufinus H. E. ii. 9. Vincent. Comm. 2. Hippolytus has a passage very much to the same purpose, contr. Noet. 9 fin.
[2024] Phil. ii. 9, 10.
[2025] Ps. xlv. 7.
[2026] Of Nicomedia. vid. Theod. H. E. i. 5.
[2027] §39 end.
[2028] Is. i. 2. LXX.
[2029] Phil. ii. 8.
[2030] The Arians perhaps more than other heretics were remarkable for bringing objections against the received view, rather than forming a consistent theory of their own. Indeed the very vigour and success of their assault upon the truth lay in its being a mere assault, not a positive and substantive teaching. They therefore, even more than others, might fairly be urged on to the consequences of their positions. Now the text in question, as it must be interpreted if it is to serve as an objection, was an objection also to the received doctrine of the Arians. They considered that our Lord was above and before all creatures from the first, and their Creator; how then could He be exalted above all? They surely, as much as Catholics, were obliged to explain it of our Lord's manhood. They could not then use it as a weapon against the Church, until they took the ground of Paul of Samosata.
[2031] Prov. viii. 30.
[2032] De Syn. 27 (15).
[2033] John xvii. 5.
[2034] Ps. xviii. 9, 13.
[2035] [De Incar. 54, and note.]
[2036] Ps. lxxxii. 1; Heb. LXX.
[2037] Col. i. 15. vid. infr. ii. §62.
[2038] In this passage Athan. considers that the participation of the Word is deification, as communion with the Son is adoption: also that the old Saints, inasmuch as they are called gods' and sons,' did partake of the Divine Word and Son, or in other words were gifted with the Spirit. He asserts the same doctrine very strongly in Orat. iv. §22. On the other hand, infr. 47, he says expressly that Christ received the Spirit in Baptism that He might give it to man.' There is no real contradiction in such statements; what was given in one way under the Law, was given in another and fuller under the Gospel.
[2039] Matt. xi. 27.
[2040] John x. 35.
[2041] p. 157, note 6.
[2042] tais ennoiais chromenoi, pros tas epinoias apentesamen. cf. ouchi epinoia, paranoia de mallon, &c. Basil. contr. Eunom. i. 6. init.
[2043] Phil. ii. 5-11.
[2044] homoios kata panta, de Syn. 21, note 10.
[2045] p. 162, note 3.
[2046] Ps. liv. 1.
[2047] Ib. xx. 7.
[2048] Heb. i. 6.
[2049] Ps. lxxii. 17, 5, LXX.
[2050] Scripture is full of mysteries, but they are mysteries of fact, not of words. Its dark sayings or ænigmata are such, because in the nature of things they cannot be expressed clearly. Hence contrariwise, Orat. ii. §77 fin. he calls Prov. viii. 22. an enigma, with an allusion to Prov. i. 6. Sept. In like manner S. Ambrose says, Mare est scriptura divina, habens in se sensus profundos, et altitudinem propheticorum ænigmatum, &c. Ep. ii. 3. What is commonly called explaining away' Scripture, is this transference of the obscurity from the subject to the words used.
[2051] John i. 1, 14.
[2052] Phil. ii. 6.
[2053] Heb. vi. 20; ix. 24.
[2054] When Scripture says that our Lord was exalted, it means in that sense in which He could be exalted; just as, in saying that a man walks or eats, we speak of him not as a spirit, but as in that system of things to which the ideas of walking and eating belong. Exaltation is not a word which can belong to God; it is unmeaning, and therefore is not applied to Him in the text in question. Thus, e.g. S. Ambrose: Ubi humiliatus, ibi obediens. Ex eo enim nascitur obedientia, ex quo humilitas et in eo desinit,' &c. Ap. Dav. alt. n. 39.
[2055] Ps. xxiv. 7.
[2056] Ps. lxxxix. 17, 18, LXX.
[2057] 1 Cor. i. 30.
[2058] Infr. §43.
[2059] [De Incar. §§46, 51, &c.]
[2060] ontos en humin ho theos. 1 Cor. xiv. 25. Athan. interprets en in not among; as also in 1 John iii. 24, just afterwards. Vid. en emoi. Gal. i. 24. entos humon, Luke xvii. 21, eskenosen en hemin, John i. 14, on which text Hooker says, It pleased not the Word or Wisdom of God to take to itself some one person among men, for then should that one have been advanced which was assumed and no more, but Wisdom, to the end she might save many, built her house of that Nature which is common unto all; she made not this or that man her habitation, but dwelt in us.' Eccl. Pol. v. 52. §3. S. Basil in his proof of the divinity of the Holy Spirit has a somewhat similar passage to the text, de Sp. S. c. 24.
[2061] John i. 12.
[2062] 1 John iii. 24.
[2063] Phil. iii. 21.
[2064] It was usual to say against the Apollinarians, that, unless our Lord took on Him our nature, as it is, He had not purified and changed it, as it is, but another nature; The Lord came not to save Adam as free from sin, that He should become like unto him; but as, in the net of sin and now fallen, that God's mercy might raise him up with Christ.' Leont. contr. Nestor. &c. ii. p. 996. Accordingly, Athan. says elsewhere, Had not sinlessness appeared [cf. Rom. viii. 3, pempsas] "in the nature which had sinned," how was sin condemned in the flesh?' in Apoll. ii. 6. It was necessary for our salvation,' says S. Cyril, that the Word of God should become man, that human flesh "subject to corruption" and "sick with the lust of pleasures," He might make His own; and, "whereas He is life and lifegiving," He might "destroy the corruption," &c....For by this means, might sin in our flesh become dead.' Ep. ad Success. i. p. 138. And S. Leo, Non alterius naturæ erat ejus caro quam nostra, nec alio illi quam cæteris hominibus anima est inspirata principio, quæ excelleret, non diversitate generis, sed sublimitate virtutis.' Ep. 35 fin. vid. also Ep. 28. 3. Ep. 31. 2. Ep. 165. 9. Serm. 22. 2. and 25. 5. It may be asked whether this doctrine does not interfere with that of the immaculate conception [i.e. that Christ was conceived sinless]; but that miracle was wrought in order that our Lord might not be born in original sin, and does not affect, or rather includes, His taking flesh of the substance of the Virgin, i.e. of a fallen nature. If indeed sin were of the substance' of our fallen nature, as some heretics have said, then He could not have taken our nature without partaking our sinfulness; but if sin be, as it is, a fault of the will, then the Divine Power of the Word could sanctify the human will, and keep it from swerving in the direction of evil. Hence We say not that Christ by the felicity of a flesh separated from sense could not feel the desire of sin, but that by perfection of virtue, and by a flesh not begotten through concupiscence of the flesh, He had not the desire of sin;' Aug. Op. Imperf. iv. 48. On the other hand, S. Athanasius expressly calls it Manichean doctrine to consider ten phusin of the flesh hamartian, kai ou ten praxin. contr. Apoll. i. 12 fin. or phusiken einai ten hamartian. ibid. i. 14 fin. His argument in the next ch. is on the ground that all natures are from God, but God made man upright nor is the author of evil (vid. also Vit. Anton. 20); not as if,' he says, the devil wrought in man a nature (God forbid!) for of a nature the evil cannot be maker (demiourgos) as is the impiety of the Manichees, but he wrought a bias of nature by transgression, and so death reigned over all men.' Wherefore, saith he, the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil;' what works? that nature, which God made sinless, and the devil biassed to the transgression of God's command and the finding out of sin which is death, did God the Word raise again, so as to be secure from the devil's bias and the finding out of sin. And therefore the Lord said, "The prince of this world cometh and findeth nothing in Me."' vid. also §19. Ibid. ii. 6. he speaks of the devil having introduced the law of sin.' vid. also §9.