[362]1 A Fragment from the Preface
He has quite an erudite way of doing exegesis, and it is constructed with great subtlety and skill. He draws variously on the letter of the law, on spiritual conceptions, and on the multifaceted proclamation of the holy prophets. His goal is to provide the readers with complete, thorough teaching and to convince them that the words of Moses, which labor to give birth to the power of the truth, were types, while Christ himself is the truth. [363] Thus he shows that portrayal by type and shadow was utterly necessary for the ancients. On top of that, he shows us that even those who live gloriously by the law gain their renown and esteem in no other way than by faith in God, and that faith is the principal issue, as the holy fathers well know. He did not employ his usual opening and introduction since he was subject to suspicion and false accusation on the part of the Jewish believers. They charged that he joined them with Gentiles and taught everyone everywhere to place no value on the law and to despise the customs of their fathers as vain and to go down another path, as it were. This we learn from the Acts of the Apostles.3 So he proceeds with the greatest discretion and safeguards their customs. He does not mention the grace of his apostolic office, but he goes right to the importance of remembering the fathers and the holy prophets, believing that by this his message will be more readily accepted by them. So he says,
1:1 He spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
God spoke to the ancients by the Spirit through the mouth of the saints and the voice of the prophets. For example, he spoke through one of them to rebuke the foolishness of the Jews: “Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But as for you, receive my laws and my statutes, which I command by my Spirit to my servants the prophets.”4 Now if the ancients had the grace of prophecy by the Spirit, it was not without the Word of God who is from the Father, since he speaks to the saints in the same way as his Spirit does. Certainly no one would say (at least no one with any sense) that the Holy Spirit acts as an assistant to us [364] and that he receives the knowledge or revelation about the matter at hand from God the Word and in this way makes it known to us. If that is how it is, then he will be no different from the holy prophets. No, the Spirit is said to receive from him and make known to us5 in the sense that the Spirit knows all things that are in the Word. So too, the Only Begotten spoke to the ancients “long ago” and “in various ways” through the Holy Spirit as he commanded them to sketch out the great and grand mystery of his incarnation. So we can hear him say through the prophets, “It was I who multiplied visions, and by means of the prophets I was represented.”6 And again, “I am the one who speaks. I am here, as springtime on the mountains, as the feet of one who brings a message of peace, as one who brings good tidings.”7 After all, at the consummation of the ages the Son himself has spoken to us directly, no longer through the mediation of the prophet and the voice of the saints. The Only Begotten, who has become like us, has given us his words directly. We maintain that the Father spoke “by his Son.” He did not speak by some man who was appointed as a personal intermediary, who transmits to us not his own words but the words of someone else. No. He spoke with his own voice, which comes through the Son’s mouth speaking to us (since the flesh belongs to the Only Begotten himself, not to someone else). He is God by nature, and he became man while remaining God. That is how he reveals God the Father’s ineffable counsel to us. And that is why “his name will be called the Angel of the Great Counsel.”8
So Paul is correct when he says that in the last days, God the Father has spoken to us “by his Son.” He knew that Emmanuel was God and that the Word of God came to exist in human nature with us. He recognized him who is free [365] in the form of a slave. He confessed the fullness of him who emptied himself for our sakes. He gazed on the height of glory that belonged to him who lowered himself to humiliation for us, and who for that reason is said to be appointed as the “heir of all things,”9 even though he rules over all things in that he is both considered to be and is God. Then he returns to his own riches even with his flesh. He certainly did not remain in our poverty. He did not become flesh so that he could throw away his own God-befitting riches and remain poor with us. No, he did it so that we who suffer from a lack of divine gifts may be made rich by his poverty.10 You see, even though he is Son by nature and coeternal with the Father, when he underwent birth according to the flesh for us through the holy virgin, he said through David, “The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you.’”11 He said this because he was restoring the source of sonship to us. Now the word “today” refers to the present time, which is when he became flesh, though he is by nature the Lord of all. You can see this because John has testified of him that he “came to what was his own,”12 referring to his world as “what was his own.” And the Son summoned the world to the glory of his kingdom, a glory that did not belong to it, when he said, “I have been appointed king by him,”13 namely, by God the Father. He experienced these things so that he might be adopted as man (even though he is by nature God) and so open up a road through himself to participation in sonship for human nature. He also did this so that he might call those tyrannized by sin into the kingdom of heaven. Just as an inheritance passes from a father to all of his descendants, we possess calamity from Adam’s transgression in that we bear the curse and death. And in the same way, Christ’s glory will extend to the entire human race as well. After all, what the Only Begotten received was for our benefit, certainly not his own. He has fullness because he is God by nature, and he lacks absolutely nothing. Rather, he himself enriches the entire creation with blessings from above. [366]
So as man he has been appointed as “heir of all things”14 in accordance with the oikonomia in order to restore those on earth, who had been wickedly seized by the devil along with the evil powers, to be his own inheritance. Indeed, God the Father said to him, “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance,” and so forth.15 And when that is brought to completion, he speaks to his Father and refers to us as “those whom you have given me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me.”16 (Notice how when he ascends to the riches that he has by nature, he does so with his flesh as well.) Now if those in the world belonged to the Father, how could they be ascribed to the Word, who reigns with him? Well, he also said, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.”17 So how is he commanded to ask, and how does he receive the nations as his inheritance18 when he creates the ends of the earth as his own possession? When the Father and creator of all wanted to save humanity, which had foolishly skipped off from service to God, he sent the Only Begotten God, the Word, into the world to become flesh and live with humankind19 as man, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and to declare the acceptable year of the Lord.20 Therefore, even though he is said to receive and to be appointed as an heir on account of his humanity, we will not forget about the oikonomia.21 After all, how could he be poor at all except that he become poor (that is, human) for us while remaining God? The divinely inspired Paul persuades us to think this way when he adds the critical phrase “through whom he also created the ages.”22 So how could this be true as well? If the holy virgin bore Emmanuel for us in the last times of the age, how can Paul say that the ages were created by him? But he is quite right. The Word of God the Father, who was begotten before every age and time, [367] “in these last days”23 is said to come into being in a fleshly way from a woman. The recentness of the oikonomia will do absolutely no harm to him who has God-befitting antiquity by nature, nor will the immense age of his existence destroy his glory. For it is written, “Christ Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever.”24 Once he appeared in the flesh he testified to the immense age that he had in his divine nature. He will confirm this by saying to the Jews, “Truly, truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”25 And the divinely inspired John the Evangelist said, “He who comes after me is ahead of me because he was before me.”26 Christ is rich and preeminent in all things.
1:3 He is the radiance of his glory.
Just as the Father is unchangeable and always remains what he is (namely, the Father and not the Son), so also the Son stays in his own position, always remaining the Son and never being changed into the Father, so that even in this respect he is shown to be the “imprint” of the Father’s hypostasis. One may see the beauty of the parent’s surpassing excellence and glory conspicuous in him as well. He is “true God from true God” and “light from light,”27 just as he is life from life. He surpasses all creation to the same extent that the Father himself is understood to do so. For he is unoriginate from unoriginate, and he is not numbered among those things that have been brought from nonbeing into being. The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was God.28 How then could the claim of those who war against the Holy Scriptures be true when they say that he “was not”?29 If he is originate as they claim, then he will surely be subject along with everyone else and will receive the yoke of slavery. [368] He will differ in no way from those who have come into being through him. But in fact he is God from God. He “bears all things by his powerful word,” since “all things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.”30 Again, he himself bears all things up unshaken forever.
We just said that God revealed himself to the ancients through Moses and the prophets. We, on the other hand, are “taught by God,”31 as the prophet puts it. That is because we have the Word of God himself, who became a human being for us, as our teacher. He is the Creator of the ages, the radiance of the Father’s glory, and the imprint of his hypostasis. We have already looked at each of these things in turn, but we will add the following.
The Word is the almighty power of God the Father. “He spoke and they were begotten. He commanded and they were created. He established them forever and ever. He issued his command and it will not be disregarded.”32 Since the nature of things that are brought into being does not have incorruptibility and certainly does not have the ability to remain the same forever (as this is a property of the nature that is supreme over all), he “bears all things by his powerful word.” Because the Word is hypostatic33 and is begotten of God the Father by nature, his word is almighty and active and can easily accomplish all things. Next he adds, “When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” After showing him to be the imprint of the Father’s hypostasis and indeed the radiance of his glory, he proceeds logically to the oikonomia of the incarnation.34 Through this we have been saved and enriched with the forgiveness of sins and sanctified through [369] his blood. As the most-wise Paul himself says, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.”35 And John writes as follows concerning God the Father: “If we walk in the light, we have fellowship with him, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.”36 So we have been cleansed by the holy blood of Christ the Savior of us all, who “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” When did that happen? When he “made purification” through his blood. That is when he is said to have sat down and to have become “superior to the angels” and to inherit a “name that is more excellent than theirs.” That is because he is called the “Son.” The “Word became flesh,”37 though he is still the Word and the radiance of the Father’s glory and the imprint of his hypostasis. And when he did so, he did not perform the labor (so to speak) of the oikonomia in the flesh for his own nature. He “endured the cross, disregarding its shame,”38 and he also endured dishonor, violence, and spitting. But this was to free us by his own blood from every defilement and, once he made us pure, to unite us through himself to God the Father. “For through him we have access,”39 and he himself is the “door”40 and the “way.”41 Even though “the Word became flesh and dwelt in us”42 and made his own the body that he assumed from the holy virgin, he was still in the glory and nature of his divinity and he did not depart from the supreme throne of God the Father. He was a man on the earth, but he also filled heaven and all things. For a little while, he was made lower than the angels,43 at least according to the measure of his humanity. After all, human nature is inferior to the angels in glory. But even in this condition, he was “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”44 Knowing this, the divinely inspired Paul writes, “For you know the [370] grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty we might become rich.”45
1:4 Having become as much superior to the angels.
The word angel is a name indicating service and suggests to us the status of a household slave. The word Son, on the other hand, signifies the essential and natural being of the Father. Therefore, when he speaks of the Son being greater or more honorable, he is not making a comparison, lest anyone imagine that he is of the same kind as they are.46 No, he uses the word superior47 to communicate the difference between the Son’s nature and those things that are originate. And we have proof of this from the Holy Scriptures where David sings, “A day in your courts is superior to thousand elsewhere.”48 And Solomon proclaims, “Wisdom is superior to precious stones.”49 Now how could wisdom not be of a different substance and nature than stones from the earth? And what kinship is there between the courts of heaven and houses on earth? Therefore, in the same way there is no kinship between the Son and the angels. And since there is no kinship, the word superior is not used to make a comparison but a distinction on account of the difference between his nature and theirs. In fact, the apostle himself explains the word superior when he applies it to this precise difference between the Son and originate creatures: he is the Son, while they are slaves. The one, as Son, is seated at the right hand of the Father, while the others, as slaves, stand beside him and are sent and serve.
This is what is written. And it does not mean, O Arians, that the Son is originate. No, it means he is different from originate beings and belongs to the Father, since he is in his bosom.50 Nor does the phrase having become, which is written here, mean that the Son is originate, as you imagine. Now if he said simply [371] “having become” and nothing more, the Arians would have a pretext for their argument. But since he already called him “Son” and showed him throughout the entire passage to be different than originate beings, he also did not insert the phrase having become by itself but joined the word superior to it. He did not think that this phrase changed anything. He does use the phrase having become (which is equivalent to “having come into being”), but he does so knowing that it refers to the obviously genuine Son, so he also says that he is “superior.” When it comes to what is begotten,51 it makes no difference if one were to say it came into being or was created. Originate beings,52 on the other hand, since they are creatures, cannot be called begotten53 unless they later participate in the begotten Son. Then they too may be called begotten, not because of their own nature but because of their participation in the Son, which takes place in the Spirit. The Holy Scriptures know this too, as when they say of originate beings, “All things came into being through him,”54 and that in wisdom he made them all.55 But when it comes to begotten sons they say, “Seven sons and three daughters came into being56 for Job,”57 and, “Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac came into being.”58 So if the Son, who alone is from the substance of the Father as his own offspring, is different from originate beings, then the Arian pretext based on the words “having become” has been brought to nothing. Even if they are ashamed of this and are forced to repeat their argument that the words are spoken as a comparison and therefore the items compared are of the same kind so that the Son is of the same nature as the angels,59 they will immediately be ashamed because they are uttering the position of Valentinus and Carpocrates.60 One of these says that the angels belong to the same race as Christ, while the other says that angels created the world. So these people too, perhaps learning it from them, compare the Word of God to the angels. But those who imagine such things will be put to shame by the psalmist, who says, “Who among the sons of God can be compared with the Lord?”61 He also says, “Who among the gods is like you, O Lord?”62 [372] Let them hear, if they are willing to learn, that comparisons usually take place between items of the same kind, not items of different kinds, as everyone knows.
Therefore, no one would compare God with a human or a human with irrational animals or trees with stones due to the dissimilarity of the natures. Rather, God is an incomparable thing; a human is compared with another human, a tree is compared with a tree, and a rock with a rock. And no one would use the word superior in these comparisons. Rather, the term would be more than or more numerous. Thus Joseph is more beautiful than his brothers, and Rachel than Leah. And a star is not “superior” to another star, but it “differs in glory.”63 For items of different kinds, if someone wants to put them in juxtaposition with each other, that is when the word superior is used to indicate the distinction. It is used, for example, in the case of wisdom and stones. So if the apostle had said that the Son exceeded the angels by “as much more” or that he was “as much greater,” then you would have a basis for your argument, since he would be comparing the Son to the angels. But as it is, he says the Son is “superior” and he differs by “as much” as the Son is distinct from slaves. By saying this, he shows that the Son is different from the nature of the angels. Again, by saying that he laid the foundation for all things, he shows that the Son is different from all originate beings. And since he is different and of a different substance from the nature of originate beings, what comparison or likeness could there be between his essence and originate beings? That is why the Son did not say, “My Father is superior to me,”64 so that no one may suppose that he is foreign to the Father’s nature. Rather, he used the word greater,65 not in terms of size or time, but because of his begottenness from his Father. However, by saying that he is “greater,” he also indicated the property of his nature. The apostle, on the other hand, chiefly wanted to distinguish the essence of the Word from originate beings, so he said, [373] “Having become as much superior to the angels.” That is because he cannot be compared with them, or rather, he is different than they are. Focusing on the incarnation and the oikonomia that he carries out at that time, the apostle wanted to show that the Son is not like the former beings so that the grace that comes from him and through him may be superior to the ministry of the angels to the same degree that he differs in nature from those he sent out ahead of him. Tenants only collect the fruit, but the Son and master forgives debts and chooses the location for the vineyard.66
Now that is enough to put the enemies of the truth to shame. But because it says, “having become superior,” they do not want to understand “become” as equivalent to “is” when applied to the Son67 or to understand “become” as we have described it on the basis of the fact that his ministry has become “superior.” Instead, they think that with this phrase the Son is being called originate. All right then, let them hear this: If the Son is one of the angels, then let the phrase having become apply both to him and to them and let there be no difference between their natures. Either let them be sons too or let him be an angel. And let them all together sit down at the right hand of the Father, or else let the Son stand with them all as a ministering spirit since he too is sent into a ministry like theirs. But since Paul distinguishes the Son from originate beings when he says, “For to which of the angels did he ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’? Or again, ‘I will be his Father, and he will be my Son’?” . . .
1:6 And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world.
He calls him “firstborn,” not in the sense used by those who distort what is right [374] and classify him with creation, but because he is in all things preeminent. . . .68
. . . Marveling, they say, “Who is this that comes from Edom (that is, from the earth) from Bozrah (which in Greek means conflict or affliction) in garments stained crimson. Why are your robes red, and your garments like theirs who tread the wine press?”69 Then they ask this questions as well: “What are these wounds in the middle of your hands?” And he answers, “These wounds I received in the house of my beloved.”70 Now no one should think that he was under any compulsion to bear the marks of the nails after the resurrection and to ascend to heaven with them. That is worth very careful consideration. He showed the marks of the nails and his side to unbelieving Thomas so that he might ultimately convince him to say from a ready mind, “My Lord and my God!”71 In the same way, in my view, he appeared to the holy angels and showed them the character of his oikonomia in the flesh along with the signs of his suffering. He brought his crimson clothes and the very marks of the nails so that they might believe that the one who is truly God by nature has also become the Son of Man, taking his body from the holy virgin and emptying himself. He did this to present himself as an offering and sacrifice72 for all as a pleasing aroma to God the Father and so to save the world under heaven. Therefore, the holy multitude of angels worships him. They do not decline to worship him because he was the firstborn and a man among many brothers. Instead, they were taught the oikonomia and they recognize that the Son is from God by nature even after he became flesh. [375]
1:8 To the Son he says, “Your throne, O God.”
Is it not ignorant and audacious to meddle with that nature through which all things have been brought into being and which is older than all things? After all, they have come into being through it, and the Word of God is before every age. Yet these reckless people accuse him of being more recent, and they claim that he is originate. They do not realize that they are contradicted by the words of the Holy Spirit. Those who speak by the Spirit say that the ages were made through him.73 But they insist that he who transcends both thought and speech is originate. They have no idea what they are saying. God the Father did not come into existence in time, but he always existed even in the beginning. Since this is so, it is absolutely necessary to think that the Son existed with him so that God may truly be the Father. If the Son is the Father’s Word and wisdom and power and imprint and the radiance of his being, then let them enlighten us on this point: At what time was the Father irrational,74 since the Son did not exist? When was the fount of wisdom without his wisdom? When was he separated from his power? When did the radiance of his glory not exist in God? How could his imprint not be with him and in him always? You see, if these things came into being in time, then he was not the Father before they came into being. He was irrational and without wisdom, lacking strength, and separated from his imprint and radiance. But I think it is godless to think this, and it is proof of the grossest impiety. The Father always was. [376] Therefore, the Son was as well, always existing with his begetter.
1:9 You have loved righteousness.
The divinely inspired David cried out in prayer to God the Father in heaven on behalf of all humanity: “Command your power, O God. Strengthen, O God, what you have done among us!”75 Now the Son is the power of the Father through whom he fixed the heavens and founded the earth. He is the one who accomplished the ordering of all things. He also created man in his image and likeness as a worker of righteousness, superior to corruptibility and death. But when death reigned through sin and we were subject to corruptibility and “all turned aside; together they became worthless,”76 the Creator and Lord of all made provision for his creatures, as the situation demanded. God the Father was pleased to “recapitulate all things in Christ”77 and to restore them to their original condition.
David expresses the deep mystery of the incarnation when he lifts his voice to the natural Son of God the Father and says, “You loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”78 Now some think that these words do not apply to the Only Begotten, but that they were addressed only to the man who was begotten of the holy virgin. [377] There are many arguments to demonstrate the nonsense of those who think this. For example, he was not born as a regular man like us, devoid of the union with God, such that one could claim (as they do) that the God of the universe foreknew that he would love righteousness and hate wickedness by his own will alone. However, we could reasonably apply the psalmist’s statement to the Only Begotten, who appeared in human form, if we carefully consider the prophecies of Isaiah about him. He said this: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. He shall eat butter and honey before he knows either to prefer evil or choose the good. For before the child knows good or evil, he rejects evil to choose the good.”79 He both loved righteousness and hated wickedness because he truly is righteousness and God. After all, if the child could not yet (in time) know what is blameworthy and approve what is not, how could he have rejected the evil to choose the good? But he was, as I said, God in the flesh, and so he could not be separated from the natural good properties in him. Now I do not approve of what I am about to say, but if the argument of these senseless people is correct, then let the separate one who is honored by the prosopic80 union have his own virtue as well. But if they say that, I will reply: By what accomplishments will he be so great, even though he is by nature a human being, that he is deemed worthy to sit with God the Father on the divine thrones and bear the title Lord in natural equality with him? How does he have angels as worshipers who all serve him, even though the Scripture does not allow there to be a new god among us when it says, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him”?81 Now perhaps they will run to their usual defense [378] and say that because of his union with God he will be clothed with the glory of the divine nature. Then admit that the union is true and stop equivocating on the matter! You divide the natures and assign each one its place. You say that each one is unconnected, and you discover (I know not how) only a union of prosopa.82
Now we maintain that the following statement was addressed to him who is the Son of God by nature based on the fact that he has become like us (that is, a human being): “You loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.”83 Since the first man trampled on the divine command and human nature succumbed to the propensity to sin, the Word of God, who is unchangeable by nature and holy and righteous and hating injustice became like us and was anointed a slave. He was enrolled under God the Father because of his human nature, even though he is God, and he is said to have been anointed by him through the Holy Spirit, though he did not receive this for himself. After all, as God he is holy by nature. No, he was leading us by grace through himself, as it were, and making us worthy of the Father’s blessing, even though we offended him long ago both because of the transgression in Adam, and after that because of our own sin that tyrannizes us. “For it was no ambassador or angel” but the Lord himself who saved us.84 Whoever thinks that the Word of God the Father received sanctification into his own nature has sailed off into an enormous sea of blasphemies. If we say that the anointing or sanctification referred to in this passage was done in the last times of the age, how would we not be forced even against our will to admit that he was not holy by nature, or at least that he was not holy in the beginning before the anointing or for that matter during the countless ages before he became [379] like us, since he had no share in sanctification? And if that is true, he was not free from sin.
Furthermore, how can the most-wise Paul say that the Son is the radiance of the Father’s glory or similarly that he is the imprint of his hypostasis? An imprint, you see, completely impresses its shape on the archetype. So not even the Father himself is holy by nature. And then who would sanctify him? Therefore, we will say goodbye to the vomit of these people and confess that the Son is holy by nature just as, of course, the Father himself is. We further maintain that he was sanctified according to the flesh when he is said to have emptied himself by bearing the title of a man, in whom the sanctification dwells by participation from God and not by its own nature. And it is no surprise if the Word, who is God, lovingly appropriates the attributes of the human nature in the oikonomia. After all, how could he who wanted to undergo complete emptying turn around and reject its consequences? Therefore, if the Word of God the Father is considered on his own, he lacks no good thing and we maintain that he has the Holy Spirit as his own. But since, as I said, he became flesh, he anoints his temple85 with his own Holy Spirit. The Father does what could be done through no one else in Israel except the Son alone. Therefore, the Son is said to receive the Spirit as man in the oikonomia. “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth,” it says, “with the Holy Spirit and with power.”86 As God he gives the Spirit to those worthy to receive him. For example, he breathed on the holy apostles and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”87 And the divinely inspired Peter addressed the people of the Jews and said of him, “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear.”88 You hear in these words quite distinctly that he was exalted to the right hand of God and that he both received and [380] gave the Spirit. He was exalted, that is, after he had emptied himself. Just as he condescended to this willingly, so also he exalts himself along with his flesh, since he is the right hand of the Father through which all God-befitting works are accomplished. Accordingly, he exalts himself by the will of the Father when he breaks the bonds of death and says to the spirits below, “Come out!”89 and sits down at the right hand of the Father.
Now the natural Son was anointed by the oil of gladness when, after becoming like us, he called the Father his “God.” And it is not strange at all to say this. He said somewhere to the holy apostles, “I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”90 See, he clearly stated that his Father was his God on account of the human nature. And since we are called to adoption through him, he has the title brother to those who are slaves by nature, and he has given us his own Father. Now in our case, if we are called sons of the Father, we are still what we are (namely, human beings) and we are not unaware of the grace of him who honored us. So also in the case of him who is Son and Lord by nature, even if he should acknowledge the Father as his God on account of the flesh and his likeness to us, he does not stop being what he is. So we should not misunderstand words that are fitting because of his oikonomia in the flesh. Now come let us explain as best we can what it means when he is said to have been anointed “beyond his companions.” When we are anointed by the Holy Spirit, those who are like us by nature are separate from him to the same extent that the nature of God is understood to be separate from every originate being. But when the Word of God, who became a man like us, anoints his own temple with his own Spirit, he does not pour in a partial energy, nor does he present his temple with a first installment as he does with us. No, he fills it up with sanctification and his own power and glory. That is why he said, “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”91 [381]
The divinely inspired Paul leaves us in no doubt that even though he is said to have been anointed by the Father according to his human nature, he does not stop being what he was and is and will ever be, namely, God. Paul writes the following of the same person: “In the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hand; they will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like clothing; like a cloak you will roll them up, and like clothing they will be changed. But you are the same, and your years will never end.”92
Immediately then he adds the words: “But to which of the angels has he ever said, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’?”93 I think that anyone with any sense would understand that the one seated with the Father is none other than he who was begotten of the holy virgin according to the flesh. And Emmanuel further confirms our position when he says to the teachers of the Jews, “‘What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?’ They say to him, ‘The Son of David.’”94 Then Christ replies, “How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand’?”95 Understand, then, that he calls “Lord” the one anointed as man beyond his companions, and he says that “in the beginning” he founded the earth and made the heavens96 and that he exists always.97 That is because the Word of God the Father is eternal, while those things that came into being through him are not without beginning in their essence, since they have been called into being by God, who alone is said to “have immortality.”98 Nothing besides him is imperishable or indestructible. He goes on to add the clearest proof of the superiority that he has by nature: “To which of the angels did he say, ‘Sit at my right hand’? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?”99 After all, if he is seated on the divine thrones, [382] clothed in lordly honor even though he became the Son of David by taking a body from the holy virgin, while they stand beside him as the God and king of all, then who on earth could not see the difference between Christ and the angels? He is Son and God, while they boast a slave’s station and their legitimacy is determined by their obedience before the highest glory. Now someone might ask, And what kind of argument will convince us to think that he who was begotten of the holy virgin in the last times of the age also founded the earth in the beginning and raised up the heavens? That person will get this reply from us: if you would just consider the power of the true union, not a union of prosopa by will or good pleasure, you will find that the human attributes became his own because of God’s oikonomia and the attributes that are proper only to the Word are not foreign to the human nature when the Word is united to it. Since Emmanuel is the one and only true Son, we understand him to be both God and man.
2:8 Subjecting all things under his feet.
Raise your thoughts, he says, to the creation of humanity in the beginning and who the first man was. He closely examines how we were created by God in his image and likeness and how we were lavishly honored by receiving rule over the creatures of the earth. But since the head of our race (that is, Adam) broke the divine command and the human mind consequently fell sick with a severe propensity for transgression, we are stripped of glory and imperishability and the blessings we had in the beginning as we continue to live in the world. But we have been saved through Christ, and by his grace we have gained the means of recovering the gifts of long ago. The current passage covers the scope of this explanation. You see, the divinely inspired David was astonished [383] at his great kindness toward us. “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?”100 He is such a small, insignificant, earthly being. “You made him for a little while lower than the angels,”101 since we are of course inferior to the nature and glory of the holy angels. Then the God of all deemed us worthy to crown with “honor and glory,”102 and he made us resplendent. He appointed us as rulers over the creatures of the earth and installed us “over the works of his hands.”103
Now the blessed David quite reasonably marveled at our condition, but the most-wise Paul, who is a master craftsman when it comes to spiritual meanings, elegantly guides the sense of the words to a mystical interpretation. He uses the words “coming world”104 to describe the condition of the next age and our future recovery of the abundant supply of the gifts that had been given to us, which will take place at that time. For in Adam, as I said, we have fallen away from grace. The statement “Increase and multiply” and “subdue the earth”105 was addressed to the first man representing human nature as a whole. “But now,” Paul says, “we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.” Therefore, we will look for another time for this reality when what God said to us will be true, since God cannot lie. That is what Paul means when he says that God has subjected the coming world not to angels, but he has given it to those on earth.106
How could anyone doubt that the mystagogue is speaking of the coming world that is for us? Those who renounce the present world persuade us to seek the future one, and they advise us that we must press on “to the prize of the heavenly call”107 and to thirst for what the saints hope for: that all things will be subjected to them and they will have dominion over the earth. The Savior himself reminded us of this when he said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”108 So who is the one through [384] whom God the Father’s restoration of our condition takes place? Clearly, it is Christ. And we can express this fittingly through the lyre of the psalmist: “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup. You are the one who restores my inheritance to me.”109 Through him we have gained the recovery of the good gifts that were given to our nature in the beginning, and we have this “prize”110 as our possession. It is easy to see that this is how it is, since the divinely inspired Paul has written of him, “But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death.”111
You hear how the one enthroned with the Father and worshiped as God by the spirits in heaven is the highest of all. Thousands upon thousands of angels serve him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before him.112 Next the mystagogue brings him down into our condition and tells of his self-emptying, immediately adding how many good things were accomplished by it for human nature. Consider, after all, that he was “for a little while made lower than the angels”113 so that we might be enriched in him with blessings beyond our nature by the goodwill of God the Father. He raised us up with him and “seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ.”114 Since Christ, the Savior of us all, is seated with us, this boast will extend to the entire human race. After all, how have we been enriched by his poverty if our condition did not improve when he who is above all creation became like us? Therefore, when he became human, he was made for a little while lower than the angels so that he might honor human nature and raise it up once again to its original condition by being crowned with “glory and honor”115 in his human nature, even though as God he is the “Lord of glory.”116 Just as the transgression of Adam disgraced us, so also we have been glorified by the obedience of Christ on our behalf, who laid down his own life “so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”117 [385]
How was he made less than the angels when he is worshiped by them? Well, he came down to the level of humanity, took a body that by nature was capable of dying into himself, and willingly suffered. And he is crowned with the ultimate glory on account of his suffering because through it he destroyed death and rendered corruptibility powerless, since he is incorruptibility and life. Now when the Son became flesh and died due to his voluntary emptying, superiority belonged to the angels, since they are both incorporeal and beyond death. But he who was made “for a little while lower than the angels” because of the limits of his humanity still has the superiority of his divinity and is worshiped by them. He takes his seat on the divine thrones, and they stand around them and continually sing their praises, calling him the Lord of the powers. [386]
2:9 So that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
What it means that he “tasted” is clear to everyone, or at least I think it is. After he gave his body into death and in a fleshly way tasted the event, as it were, he came to life again and immediately trampled the power of death. So he who is said to have been for a little while made lower than the angels is himself the Word of God. He did not experience this lowering in his own nature, since he is always the same and remains what he is, immutable and unchangeable. But he experienced it humanly for us. Even though he was God by nature, he submitted to the limits of humanity according to the oikonomia. This belongs to the mystery concerning him, which deserves the highest wonder. Thus the prophet Habakkuk declared, “O Lord, I heard your report and was afraid; I considered your works and was in ecstasy.”118 And what happed was truly ecstasy beyond all wonder. But some people misunderstand the mystery itself (I know not how) and prattle on about it. In particular, in trying to explain the eighth Psalm they write, “Let us see, then, who the man is he is struck and amazed about—that the Only Begotten thought it worth being mindful of him and caring about him.” After this they add the explicit claim that “the words, ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?’119 do not refer to every man, but only to the Son.” And they try to prove the truth of their statement by stating that the blessed Paul attributes the psalm to his person [387] when he says, “We see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death.” Then they divide the natures and say that when David marvels about the one deemed worthy of mindfulness and care, he is referring only to the man born of the holy virgin. And he is deemed worthy of things beyond his nature on the grounds that the Word of God is his benefactor.
It seems they are unaware that we do not understand Christ Jesus as a regular man by himself and separate, nor do we describe him that way. Rather, he is the Word of God incarnate. So that the explanation of these matters may proceed and be made clear before a world that needs it, come let us first of all take up the contemplation of this psalm. Since he was a prophet, the divinely inspired David knew that in accordance with the true divine promise, one would come “from the fruit of his loins according to the flesh.”120 Yet he was not unaware that he who would lower himself to our condition at the right time would still be God by nature. So he dialogues with him in the eighth Psalm and addresses him as man and God simultaneously, acknowledging the one who is from both as God. In this sense he says, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Your magnificence was lifted above the heavens.”121 Where or before whom is Christ not majestic? How was his magnificence (or the brightness of his glory) not lifted above the heavens, if it is true that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”?122
What comes next should reasonably demonstrate that the divinely inspired psalmist says these things of the Word who appeared in human form and was united to the flesh. [388] He said, “Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have ordained praise.”123 When he raised Lazarus from the dead, everyone marveled at him. He “found a young donkey and sat on it,” at which point even children took the “branches of palm trees” and honored him with fitting worship and said, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”124 When others rebuked them, Jesus said, “Have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have ordained praise?’”125 When David sees the Son, almost incarnate already and riding on a colt, he is understandably astonished at this as he considers the fact that he sees the Son lowering himself to such indignity even though he is God by nature. Next, the blessed David sees that there is no other reason for this emptying than us. We needed to be rescued from perishability and snatched from the tyrannical hands of sin (I mean the hands of the devil). Therefore, he deems the mystery of the oikonomia in the flesh worthy of all admiration. That is why he says, “Lord, what is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?”126 After all, what is human nature compared to God? How can I even say this? What is the human race? Could those on earth be thought to have as great a position (as the ranks of the holy angels, I mean)? But even though humanity is nothing at all both in its nature and number, the Creator did not ignore us. He was mindful of us and deemed us worthy of care, since we are perishable. When he first brought us into existence, he made us for a little while lower than the angels. But he crowned us with honor and glory. He established us as the works of his hands and put all things under our feet.
This is the point of the entire psalm, [389] and the divinely inspired Paul expounds it with outstanding philosophy. He skillfully brings our diseased condition into the renewal that takes place through Christ. In him there is a “new creation.” The old has passed away and all things have become new.127 The Holy Spirit makes the same point through one of the holy prophets: “Take courage, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in you.128 He is strong to save you, and he will renew you in his love.”129
Then Paul shows that we are stripped of the glory that was given to us long ago. That is why he says, “We do not yet see everything in subjection to him.”130 Now we who choose to think rightly certainly do not imagine that he says these things about one man. Rather, he represents all of humanity in one person and says that he regained participation in the glory that was given in ancient times. Now we must describe the construction of the entire passage and the outcome of its skillful composition. He shows that man has lost the glory because of the transgression of Adam in order to explain how to get it back, just as one might show the poverty of the human race in order then to point out the one through whom we have been enriched. You see, he immediately adds, “We see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death.” The Word of God, who is God by nature as we have often said, lowered himself to the point of emptying and shared our name, as a “man” who “for a little while was lower than the angels,” so that he might become obedient to the Father “even to the point of death,”131 and he might crown human nature with glory and honor, since he is crowned as one of us even though he is the “Lord of glory.”132
But if anyone says the Word of God deemed the man begotten of the holy virgin to be worthy of mindfulness and care, and that he was that man’s benefactor and considered him worthy of honor that transcended his nature, such a person would drag, so to speak, the glory of the mystery down to the ground, [390] and would incur utter ridicule for that. Where is this Christ, who is a bare man? When do they think he was separate from the Word who is united to him? He is Emmanuel from his mother’s womb. He did not become this at a later time. So how can they say that God the Word deemed him worthy of care and mindfulness? They would be caught red-handed separating and dividing him into parts and presenting Christ and the Son to us as stripped of the Word who is united to him. After all, the one who deems him worthy of care and mindfulness must be different from the one to whom he gives these things. In that case, how is there still “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”?133 Even though there is a great difference between the natures, nevertheless the manner of union shows that there is one Son from both. Therefore, if we say that the Word of God deems him worthy of mindfulness, we are surely “worldly people devoid of the Spirit,” as it is written,134 since we are separating the one into two. But if he was in the beginning what he is now and he is Emmanuel from his mother’s womb, then unless we accept the manner of the union, the Word would necessarily be mindful of himself and deem himself worthy of care and be the benefactor of himself. The force of these considerations will lead us to bizarre results. After all, the Word’s body does not belong to anyone but the Word. Otherwise, who do the Holy Scriptures say emptied himself?
Now if they separate out on us the one begotten of the holy virgin and say that he underwent the emptying, how did the glorified one empty himself, since being deemed worthy of care and mindfulness and obtaining union with God is an honor and a glory that belongs to a human being like us? But if they should say that the emptying was done to the Only Begotten himself, then he did empty himself, since he suffered. After all, if suffering applies to someone, then emptying would apply to them even more. We have saved ourselves, however, if indeed the one begotten of the holy virgin is a man like us and not hypostatically united to the Word of [391] God, as they claim. In that case, how is Christ God, if he, along with us, was deemed worthy of mindfulness by God and gained a patron? This despite the fact that we approach him and pray to him as God, and ask him for an abundance of heavenly blessings as the one who divinely grants requests for all creation. [392]
2:14 Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise. [393]
I think that before we look at anything else, we must inquire carefully about what children the passage is talking about who “share flesh and blood,” and who “likewise” shares the same. When the only begotten Word of God lowered himself to the level of humanity, even though he is God and Lord by nature and is seated with God the Father, he was thereby classified as a brother to those who have been called by faith to God’s adoption. Then and only then did he say of us somewhere (fully preserving the exquisite craftsmanship of the oikonomia), “I will proclaim your name to my brothers,”135 and somewhere else, “Here I am and the children whom God has given me.”136
All things have been given to him by God the Father, and we have become his inheritance, even though in ancient times we were the “portions for foxes,” as David says.137 That is because we miserable people were subject against our will to herds of demons. But Christ won and inherited us all by his own blood. Indeed, he spoke to God his heavenly Father of “those whom you have given me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and the glory that you have given me I have given them.”138 Although he is the Son by nature, he says that he shares this glory with us by grace on account of his humanity. He remained what he was and gave us his own glory. He sealed us by his own Spirit for adoption and in him “we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”139 Therefore, we who are numbered among the children of God “share in flesh and blood”—that is, we are in blood and flesh and in perishable earthly bodies. For this reason, [394] the only begotten Word of God himself, who is life by nature, participated in the same things, and he did so precisely “likewise” so that he might destroy the one who has the power of death.
Since there was no other way that what was dominated by death and perishability and sin could be brought back to its original condition except through Christ alone, the blessed David pleaded for the mystery of the incarnation to be fulfilled at the appropriate time, saying, “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”140 This is the sense in which he is called Emmanuel. No longer did the Word of God stand far off, but he came very near to us by appearing as a man. He “likewise” shared flesh and blood with us since the earthly race (that is, humanity) had been conquered by death and perishability, and it seemed good to the God of the universe, because of his kindness and love, to “recapitulate all things in Christ,”141 so that death might finally be rendered powerless and yield for the first time to Christ, who won the victory for earthly bodies.
This—this!—is how the power of imperishability spreads to our entire race and how the divinely inspired Paul can be trustworthy when he writes, “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being.”142 What had succumbed had to—had to!—be healed and destroy death through the very flesh that was under the power of sin. When the flesh offended in Adam on account of his transgression, it fell under the power of death. In the same way when it became pleasing in Christ on account of his obedience, it was freed from the snares and fear of death. As a result, we leap for joy and shout at them, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O Hades, is your sting?”143 Since the only begotten Word of God is life [395] essentially, he united himself to mortal earthly flesh so that death might pounce on it like some wild beast and be defeated and rendered powerless. After all, it was impossible that life would yield to death. “For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the seed of Abraham. Therefore, he had to become like his brothers in every respect.”144 If the only begotten Word of God did not become man, but instead united the prosopon of a man to himself (as those people think who define the union as one of mere good pleasure or inclination of the will), how was he made “like his brothers in all things”? Would he not just be considered a brother—he who is beyond every originate being and who transcends creation with incomparable superiority (I mean superiority by nature)? How has he shared flesh and blood if they did not become his just as they are ours? Therefore, there is one Son and Lord by a hypostatic145 union, since the Word was brought together with human nature that shares flesh and blood and was made “like his brothers in all things.”
2:17–3:6 So that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest.
The divinely inspired Moses through type and shadow urged Israel on to divine knowledge and showed them the way of righteousness through the law. But he was “slow of speech and slow of tongue.”146 Therefore, at that time the God of the universe was known only to those throughout Judea,147 and from Dan to Beersheba and from the river to the sea. These were the borders of the land of the Jews. His name was great and exceedingly well known. Seeing this, the prophet David sings somewhere and says to him about Israel, “You have brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.”148 Then he adds, bounding Israel by the Euphrates River and the [396] Indian Sea to the south,149 “It sent out its branches to the sea, and its shoots to the River.”150 Here you see that the proclamation of the all-wise Moses was restricted and hardly even extended to Gentiles. And to those who have been called, he adds temporary blessings that soon wither as a reward for obedience and a recompense for life in the law. (I mean that he everywhere refers to the promised land.) The law has justified no one, since no one is justified before God by the law and it is “impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”151 But our Lord Jesus Christ has become a “merciful and faithful high priest to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.” Because he became this “when he was tempted,” he has helped those who are being tempted. He has called the world with a holy and “heavenly calling,” and he has become a “merciful high priest” because he was not a servant of the law, which condemns. Rather, with forgiving grace and love he has justified us through faith and has granted a washing away of our ancient faults. He was always merciful by nature, but God’s only begotten Word was appointed as a mediator between us and God through the incarnation so that just as he was always kind and merciful, so also he might be appointed high priest and have mercy on those on earth, acting in his characteristic and customary way, not separated from his own good attributes. And thus he might make the heavenly Father himself merciful to us. He also became “faithful” in accordance with the will of God the Father, presenting himself for us as a pleasing aroma and taking up the sins of us all “in his body to the tree,” as it is written.152 In this way he has helped those who are being tempted “because he himself suffered when he was tempted,” for “by his wounds” we have been healed, as it is written. Now understand that in this passage the phrase “when he was tempted” stands for “when he suffered or bore the temptation of those who crucified him.” By giving the body (in which he suffered) for all, [397] he freed us all from death, sin, and temptation. Therefore, he has helped those who are being tempted since one has died for all (and that one is worth more than all creation) “so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.”153
The divinely inspired Paul confirms that Christ suffered in the flesh and so made us holy when he says to both Gentiles and Jews, “And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him—provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard.”154 It was wise of him to say to those called to a living and enduring hope: “Therefore, brothers, holy partners in a heavenly calling, consider that Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in his house.” And he quite rightly refers to the calling through Christ as “heavenly” because the God of the universe will grant to those called through him not the temporary and fading blessings that the law of Moses gave to the ancients, but eternal blessings that are commensurate with those deemed worthy to receive them. So he has a possession that cannot be lost. We are also called “heavenly” in another sense, since Christ has become our leader and road and gate. Paul says, “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.”155 And again, “The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven.”156 We have therefore become heavenly, since we are being transformed into Christ through the Spirit, who is from heaven. For that [398] reason, even while we walk on earth, we have our “citizenship in heaven.”157 We have not, like the ancients, come to “something that can be touched, a fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice.”158 Rather, we have come to “Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.”159 After all, the blood of Abel cried out against his fratricidal murderer, while the precious blood speaks better words than Abel’s since it practically begs for the Father’s mercy on the world, and we have been sprinkled by it for our justification.
Let us consider, then, that “Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession, was faithful to the one who appointed him” (that is, as an apostle and high priest). He became “faithful” even to the point of death and a cross, placing himself in the goodwill of the Father so that he might make us imitators of him. And so because of him we do not fear to undergo death if it should come at some time because of our reverence and obedience to God. The blessed Peter too will summon us to this when he says, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.”160 And the Savior himself says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”161
Now the fact that he calls the Son “faithful” does no damage to his glory, since one may see that the word is utterly God-befitting since it is applied to God the Father himself. It is written that “God is faithful and there is no [399] unrighteousness in him; the Lord is righteous and holy.”162 And one of Christ’s disciples said, “Therefore, let those suffering in accordance with God’s will entrust themselves to a faithful Creator.”163 And indeed Paul said, “God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son.”164 What else does “faithful” mean in these passages except that he is steadfast, resolute, and worthy of faith in whatever he happens to say or decides to do? The Son became this when he sat down with the Father even in his humanity and when he endured the cross and death to accomplish the Father’s will. Thus he said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”165 We have been given to the Son as Savior and life-giver, and this was the work he had from the Father. You see, the Father accomplishes everything he wills through the Son in a God-befitting way, since the Son is his power and wisdom. That is why the Son himself said, “But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.”166 And David sings somewhere, “O God, command your strength. Strengthen, O God, what you have wrought in us.”167
Come let us examine carefully, if you please, what kind of priesthood the Son has and for whom he exercises it: whether it is a servile kind promoting the glory of another, or a kind that is perfectly fitting for the Son when it comes to his nature and not incompatible with the inner meaning of the incarnation. The ancient priests, in accordance with the law given by Moses, offered God worship in type and shadow. They offered the Son himself to the Father, [400] and they usually presented him as a pleasing aroma in a goat and a ram and a calf. You see, a young goat was slaughtered for sins in accordance with the faith of the Holy Scriptures, but in this there was a semblance of the truth. The most-wise Paul has written to us, “But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things to come, then through the greater and perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.”168 For the priests of the law, the power of the worship was effected by the blood of another since they worshiped with a “sketch and shadow” of the heavenly realities.169 But for Christ this is not so. Far from it! He has saved the earth under heaven with his own blood, and he has “become a priest, not through a legal requirement concerning physical descent, but through the power of an indestructible life.”170 He has offered himself on our behalf since the worship in types is powerless for justification, and indeed it was “impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”171 Therefore a second covenant needed to be sought, since the first was not perfect in itself.172 The Son, who is from the Father by nature, knew the Father’s will, so he became a human being for us in order to bring and offer himself for us all as a sacrifice to him. And the blessed Paul, who does not lie, would be our witness to this. He said of him, “Consequently, when he came into the world, he said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me; you have not asked for burnt offerings and sin offerings. Then I said: See, I have come to do your will, O God; it is written about me in the scroll of the book.’”173 Who then is the one who comes into the world? How is he said to have entered in the first place? [401] Is it not because he was previously outside it and he left his home, as it were?
The Word of God, then, came into the world not spatially174 but rather by nature when he appeared as part of the world. God the Father prepared a body for him that he might die in the flesh and so become a substitute for the life of all, in accordance with the Scriptures.175 Therefore, he became the “mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, because a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions under the first covenant.”176 So he is called the “high priest and apostle of our confession.” He performed that task exceedingly well and brought us to the Father as a pleasing spiritual aroma and as people already purified, since we approach him confessing the creed of our faith. Since we are commanded to make confession of the pure faith and the consubstantial Trinity,177 how is it not clear to all that he offers that confession not to someone else who ranks ahead of him and is superior by nature, but to himself with the Father and the Holy Spirit? Therefore, even after he has come to be in the flesh he is rightly understood to be God. After all, we are justified when we confess both that he has become flesh and that he remained the Word and he trampled the power of death for us, since he is life by nature as one who is from the life of the Father.
The blessed Paul offers even more proof that Emmanuel is God by nature and is truly the Son when he says that he has become “the apostle and high priest of our confession,” faithful to the “one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in his house. Yet Jesus is worthy of more glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.” Once again with these words I am struck with astonishment at the mystagogue. He skillfully sidesteps [402] Israel’s headlong rush into unbridled behavior, or at least their belief that they had to oppose Christ. He engages in a laudatory description of Moses, calling him “faithful.” Then he adroitly inserts the surpassing greatness of our Savior along with this. He says that Christ became the apostle and high priest and adds that he was faithful, just as of course Moses himself was. He expertly brings up Moses’ name and having prefaced it with the praise for the Word himself, he immediately shows that Moses is inferior to the glory of Christ. He says that Christ receives more honor “just as the builder of the house has more honor than the house itself.”
You can see how he exalts the Word of God, who has come to be in the flesh and is seen to be in the form of a slave in the oikonomia, placing him above the level of humanity and the limits of our servile condition. He says that he is the Creator of all things, and that means of Moses himself as well. And with these words he crowns him with the glory of lordship by nature. After all, if it is true that no creature can be the same in its essence as its creator, how could anyone doubt that the one who created Moses is greater in glory in every way? Observe as well that he says that the “apostle and high priest of our confession” has become “faithful to the one who appointed him” just as the priest Moses was, but he was deemed worthy of greater glory than Moses, “just as the builder of the house has more honor than the house itself.” Then he shows that Jesus is God by adding, “Every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.” Therefore, even though Christ is a human being like one of us, we must separate out those attributes that he has only from the time of his birth in the flesh. When the only begotten Son, who is older than the ages themselves, became human by the good pleasure of God the Father, [403] he took the title Christ Jesus. This was a new name for him, you see, and it coincided with the time of the oikonomia. But even though he has become flesh, he still has his existence before all time, and we should confess that he is the Creator of all. “For there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.”178 And again, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”179 How could he be the same “yesterday” while being begotten in the last times of the age? It is because the immense age of the nature of the Word of God cannot be lost, as I said, but necessarily remains his even in the time of the very recent oikonomia in the flesh. Indeed, he once made a statement to Israel about their forefather Abraham, saying, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.”180 But those who did not at all understand the mystery concerning him, but supposed that he was a mere human being like us and nothing more, ignorantly replied, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”181 And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”182 He is therefore the maker and creator of Abraham himself, and Moses, and all things. And we absolutely must say that the Creator exists before his creatures and his archetypal beauty shines forth prior to those created in his image. Therefore, the glory of Christ incomparably exceeds the level of Moses, or rather, it exceeds all things that have been called into existence. Next the divinely inspired Paul tries to confirm from another angle that his statement about these matters is both wise and true. “Moses was,” he says, “faithful in all God’s house as a servant to testify to the things that would be spoken later. Christ, however, was faithful over God’s house as a son, and we are his house.” Now observe how he assigns the rank of household servant to the blessed Moses because of his legitimate service [404] when he says that he was faithful “in God’s house to testify to the things that would be spoken later,” that is, to be a minister of the words from God. Not so with Christ! He was not faithful in the house as a servant, but as the Son and master over the Father’s house (that is, over us who have been justified by faith and sanctified by the Spirit). Moses tutored the ancients through the shadow of the law, and he received the reward of a genuine servant when God said to him, “But you, stand here by me.”183 But the reward is much greater in the case of Christ. He “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,”184 and he administered the Father’s house as Son and Lord. He dwells in us as God through his own Spirit, while the all-wise Moses dwelt in no one. We have not become participants in Moses or any other saint for that matter, but we participate in Christ both through the Spirit and the Mystical Blessing.185 God declared through one of the holy prophets, “I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall by my people.”186 Yet now that the time for this to be fulfilled has arrived, Christ is the one who dwells in us according to the ancient promise in order to make us temples of the living God (that is, of him) and through him to unite us to God the Father. Indeed, he said to the holy apostles, “On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”187 For “anyone united to the Lord is one spirit with him,” as it is written.188 Again, he juxtaposes us with God the Father by saying, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of all who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us, so that the world may believe [405] that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one.”189
Therefore, in Christ we have obtained the good of union with God the Father. And this glorious and resplendent honor surely remains in us if we maintain the “confidence and the pride that belong to hope” and also if we believe that the temple that comes from the holy virgin is not another Son, separate and apart from him who is from God the Father, but he “became flesh,” as the Scriptures say, “and dwelt in us.”190 He did not stop being God, but Jesus Christ is one Son and one Lord.
4:12 Piercing until it divides.
Now the words “piercing until it divides soul and spirit” can be understood this way: the proclamation from God divides and separates the parts of the soul, making the soul of the hearers receptive and capable of taking it in. [406]
6:8 Ground that produces thorns.
The frivolous soul could reasonably be compared with worthless salted soil. It often receives seeds sown by those who work the ground, but it produces absolutely nothing. Paul teaches us the outcome that will take place for that soul that does not use the gift God gave it. He says that its “end is to be burned.”191 Do you want to see through events as well that what he says is true? Israel was once fruit-bearing ground, “a luxuriant vine,” as it is written.192 And the blessed prophets were like clouds, watering it with the words of God. They were eager to help it, but it “yielded thorns”193 and became wild and overgrown. Therefore, it was given over to burning—that is, it was rendered completely useless and assigned to the fire.
9:4 Having a golden altar of incense . . .
There is a long discussion of the tabernacle and its contents. But we will summarize it briefly by saying that there were three areas of the tabernacle. The outer area was for everyone. After that was the first veil, which is also called a curtain194 [407] because it is drawn. It separated out the courtyard where everyone entered in common and where they sacrificed at the bronze altar. The middle area behind the curtain was where the priests entered and performed their respective rites of worship. This place was called “holy.”195 It was a type of ancient worship in that blood sacrifices were performed there. But the inner area was called the Holy of Holies, which was a type of our mystery. The apostle calls the tent after the bronze altar but before the holy of holies the “first” tent.196 It was in the middle, you see, separated from the courtyard by the curtain, and then after this middle tent the veil was placed. And beyond this was the tent called the holy of holies, which no one entered except the high priest alone, and he but once a year.197 In this tent was stored the ark containing the tablets of the law as well as the jar of manna and Aaron’s rod.198 Actually, Kings says that only the tablets were placed in the ark.199 Perhaps Paul added the staff and the jar from tradition.
9:5 Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat.
Observe how he makes the mercy seat an image of the Son, who became incarnate. That is when the Son became the mercy seat. In addition, he has the cherubim stand around in a circle, always facing him and looking at him. Furthermore, the prophet tells us that he beheld him “because he saw his glory and spoke about him.”200 “I saw the Lord of hosts,” he says, “sitting on a throne, high and [408] lofty.”201 And the seraphim stood around him and praised the Lord on the throne, stretching out their wings. They were also positioned in the same way in the holy tabernacle, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings. And if the golden cherubim could have cried out or spoken, they would have praised the only begotten Son, who is from God the Father by nature and who appeared in the form of a slave, as the Lord of hosts. [409]
9:19 And with various baptisms, regulations for the flesh imposed until the time comes to set things right.
The law has perfected no one when it comes to their conscience. Rather, it has introduced teachings about baptisms,202 descriptions of sprinkling “for the purification of the flesh.”203 The power of the law’s priesthood has basically ceased on this point. If anyone touched a dead body or a leper, or had a discharge, that person was baptized and thus was considered cleansed. These were “regulations for the flesh,” that is, fleshly commands for the fleshly justification of those who were considered unclean according to the flesh. But we can see from the Holy Scriptures themselves that God did not allow those in Israel’s bloodline to remain foolishly in the shadows of the law. He commanded them to sacrifice a lamb as a type of Christ and to eat it as they were ready to depart,204 indicating that the types will not last forever but will run, as it were, toward the truth. [410]
10:29 And outraged the Spirit of grace.
Just as a soldier who throws down his shield and runs away from battle should not be honored by a second insignia but should be punished and reprimanded for cowardice, in the same way I think that one who outrages such an august and admirable grace should not be honored by receiving the Spirit again, since the first grace was rejected. Rather, that person should be subject to punishment. “Their faithlessness” will not “nullify the faithfulness of God.”205 And if some turn back and despise him, we will not put it down to the unreliability of divine grace. No, the judge of all will punish those who do not resist falling to such a level of godlessness that they have “trampled the Son of God” and “outraged the Spirit of grace” in whom they were “sanctified” and became “partakers in the divine nature.”206 [411]
10:35 It brings a great reward.
That is because through endurance and through not hesitating to put extraordinary virtues into practice, but always thirsting after them, never being satisfied, and insatiably loving every good deed, they heap up approval for themselves by their actions. They have the same kind of desire that the lovers of wealth have, of whom it is written, “The lover of money will not be satisfied with money.”207 So if temporary earthly things that soon wither do not satisfy those people, should we not employ even more burning desire to obtain the things of God, which extend to limitless ages and hold unceasing contentment?
11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were established by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made from things that are visible.
Faith is an extraordinarily great good. It contains the riches of removing sins and cleansing from all filth. It bestows betrothal to God. It is the way to sanctification and adoption. In sum, it is the matchmaker of every good thing. That is how the fathers gained their fame. That is how they had resplendent and renowned glory. Many of them fought bravely even against death itself, and they were crowned with an unfading crown of glory.
11:7 By faith Noah, warned by God about events as yet unseen, respected the warning and built an ark to save his household.
Since the entire earth had “corrupted its ways,” as it is written,208 and the human heart had inclined [412] “to evil from youth,”209 God sent a flood over people throughout the entire earth, like one reclaiming some overgrown dry and barren garden. But he preserved one fertile plant in it, the virtuous Noah, so that through him the human race on earth might be saved again, as Noah was transformed into another beginning, as it were. “By faith Noah, warned, built an ark to save his household,” “in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.”210 A general death sentence was declared against everyone on earth (that is, the earth was full of sin and provoked the Creator to a wrath that was not his will). But Noah, who was righteous, was saved with his whole household. That is because he believed God when he commanded him to build the ark. The whole earth was baptized, but the ark swam on top of the water since it had God, the Savior of all, as its pilot. And it contained a remnant of mankind, together with women and children. By faith he has the boast . . .211
11:17-19 By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac.212
I cannot avoid admiring this great deed. The blessed Abraham was an old man. He lamented his childlessness and prayed to God for an heir from his wife. And then when he received one and placed in him the entire hope of his family and had in him the fulfillment of God’s promise, God commanded him to sacrifice him! What was the old man to do? I imagine he was in great despair. Nature compelled him to tender affection, but the divine command called him to obedience. He was attached to his child since that was all he had, but he also was afraid to offend God. The soul of that righteous man was just like a tall tree that practically staggers and is shaken as it is tossed to and fro by the blowing of the wind. [413] How then did he overcome the storm of testing? Paul, who knows the law better than anyone, teaches us this when he says, “By faith, when put to the test, he offered up Isaac, considering the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead.” What a solid faith! What steadfast reasoning fit for a saint! He ascribed to God the power to do all things. And what then? What goal did his faith reach? The Holy Scripture teaches us. “Abraham believed God,” it says, “and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”213
12:2b Who instead of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame.
Here we should keep in mind that it was certainly possible for him to enjoy the honors of his nature and exult in his incomparable divine superiority over all things. (That is what I think “the joy set before him” refers to.) But he emptied himself and descended into our condition so that he might endure death for all according to the flesh and then trample it through his resurrection from the dead, thus giving us access to the ability to return to life. His suffering was shameful and degrading, but when he raised his own temple, he cut a new path through death and overcame decay. As God from God (even though he appeared in the flesh), the Son did away with the disgrace of these experiences and the ugliness of their shame, and he was glorified because of his resurrection, even though before his resurrection he did not refuse the most dishonorable and ignoble death. [414]
12:2c He has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
When Daniel describes the divine prophetic vision for us, he places the Ancient of Days on the throne and surrounds him with thousands upon thousands of servants and ten thousand times ten thousand attendants.214 And Isaiah says that he saw the Son in no less glory. “I saw the Lord of hosts,” he said, “sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and the house was full of his glory. And seraphim stood around him.”215 Their cry contained a triple “holy” at the beginning, but it concluded with a single lordship.216 So does it not look to you like the Son is placed in the same glory? After all, where there is the highest throne and the superiority is distributed equally and the heavenly powers stand in a circle—which demonstrates the servile position of originate beings and testifies to the glory of the lordship of the one seated—how could there be any room for doubt that the Son is glorified with the natural lordship of the Father? But even though he has equal glory and is seated together on the throne, as the Son with the Father and as God with God, he nevertheless seems almost to ascend to his original glory, which was so manifest and transcendent, when on account of the flesh and his oikonomia in the flesh he hears, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool under your feet.”217 Whatever the divine nature lulls to sleep and puts under itself is certainly put under the feet of our Savior, who does not act in a human way. The fact that he became flesh is not the reason he rules over unbelievers, you see. Rather, the only begotten Word of God raises the lowly condition of his humanity to the highest honor of the divine nature and places himself in the chair of the divinity even with his flesh, and so he rules over all, and not without the Father. All things take place equally through both. The Father acts, but he has [415] the activity and will for whatever he does through the Son and in the Spirit along with him.
12:18-21 You have not come. . . . “I tremble with fear.”
Now Paul calls to mind the story of the time when God came down to Sinai in the form of fire, and “the sound of a trumpet blasted.”218 The sight was overwhelming for those who saw it, and the sound of the trumpet was unbearable. So they said, “We will no longer see this great fire, and we will not hear the voice of the Lord our God.”219
12:26 But now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven.”220
Heaven knew the mystery, and so did the entire earth. In the history of the world, there were two conspicuous changes in our way of life. They are called two covenants, or two earthquakes due to the renown of the event. One was from idols to the law, and the other was from the law to the gospel. And we proclaim a third earthquake: a change from here to there, where our condition will no longer be moved or shaken.
12:28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks.
I would gladly say to those who think that the kingdom of Christ has come to an end:221 Whose kingdom shall we say the apostle is thinking of here, which he says will be fixed firmly and will always be unshakeable? (That is what I think “cannot be shaken” means). Is he speaking of the kingdom of the Son in this passage, or the kingdom that will be given to the saints? If [416] they admit that the kingdom and superiority of the Son is superior to change, I think our opponents will be deeply embarrassed because of the random nonsense they have spewed. But if they omit the Son and say that the saints will have an unalterable reign, then right away they will appear to be superior to Christ himself since they gain an inheritance that surpasses his. That is because he gains a rule that can be lost, while they will gain everlasting joy and unshakeable glory. How could this uncivilized slander not be absolutely rejected? Having power and rule over all things would be fitting for no one other than Christ himself. And he possesses it not as an acquisition or a gift, as we do, but it follows from the inner reality of his natural lordship. We, on the other hand, will co-suffer and co-reign with him, as it is written.222 Therefore, he is the Lord of his reign, while we are adopted and honored by participation. Christ reigns, but they will co-reign with him. How will they have this unshakeable honor and reign forever if the rule of Christ (in which we maintain they participate) will be shaken and come to an end? If the one who rules and supplies them with their reign will stop reigning himself, where will that leave them, since they are founded on such a gulf? How will they still participate in him if that which called them to glory is now weak? Is it not necessary that those who endure what he endures should sink down with him and whatever depends on him should sit in the deepest pits, since what supports them has dragged them down? You see, when the basis of their glory and the foundation of their honor collapses, then the hope of the others will surely go with it into ignominy and abasement. Therefore, the words “When he hands over the kingdom”223 do not mean that he gets rid of it, but that he takes it away from others and brings it to the Father. However, he himself will rule it along with the Father. [417]
13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
Some passages are fitting for God, such as, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”224 Others are fitting for a man, such as, “But now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth.”225 [Others are in the middle, and this is one of them. It says that Christ]226 is “yesterday and today and forever.” Notice that the Spirit Bearer, who teaches the mystery concerning Christ from Christ himself, explicitly confesses that the Son has an unchangeable and unalterable nature. This is a thing that belongs only to God the Father and does not apply to anyone else among originate beings. So if only God the Father is unchangeable, and the Son has the same nature, always being what his begetter is, how could he be one of the originate beings? He alone competes with the one who produced him with respect to the ineffable nature of his essence. He alone is by nature what the Father is, save only that he is not the Father. In this passage the Spirit Bearer discloses that when the Word became a human being like us, he was not altered. He uses the word “yesterday” to refer to past time, “today” to refer to the present time, and “forever” to refer to the coming future time. But some people, since they take the words yesterday and today to refer to recent times, argue vehemently: how could one who is “yesterday and today” also be “forever”?227 But we will turn the force of the question around to its opposite: How could the Word, who is “forever,” take “yesterday and today” into himself if indeed Christ is one and not divided, as Paul says?228 Clearly, Jesus Christ is “yesterday and today” in a bodily way and he is “forever” in a spiritual way.
13:9 Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings.
Being “carried away” is used metaphorically of those who are driven mad, of those who are carried to and fro, of those [418] who bend like a reed to whatever pushes them and have no stability, even though Paul cries out, “Be steadfast, immovable!”229 And the Lord himself levels the most severe accusation against those who are easily carried away and scattered, and he decrees punishment for those who have the disease of turning away. Here he said of some of them, “They have loved to wander, they have not restrained their feet; therefore, the Lord was not pleased with them.”230 After all, established and unwavering stability is useful for whatever you do, and it is safe and secure.
13:11 Of those animals whose blood is brought in . . .
There are many other things said about this passage, but I omit them here because of their number. Christ died according to the flesh so that he might purify us with his own blood.
13:12-13 Let us then go to him . . .
Let us then “bear his abuse,” that is, the cross he bore for us. He himself said, “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”231 And we should understand “outside the gate” to mean “outside the world,” since the will to follow Christ takes us out of our worldly life. [419]
13:16 Doing good and sharing . . .
Look once again, I ask you, at how Paul here calls the Son God. He himself is the one who leads the whole creation to judgment. He repays “according to each one’s deeds,”232 and therefore receives those who treat their neighbor well, saying, “Come inherit the kingdom prepared for you, for I was hungry and you gave me food,”233 and so forth. He is called God by the truthful voice of the saints. He receives the sacrifices of those who do well. He renders to each one the appropriate reward. He sends the chorus of the saints into the kingdom of heaven. So how could he not be God? [420]
Cyril, from the commentary on the epistle to the Hebrews.234
Even though the only begotten Word of God could perhaps be said to be united to the flesh hypostatically, we maintain that there was no pouring of the natures into one another. Rather, we understand the Word to be united to the flesh with each nature remaining what it is.
Cyril, from the second book of his comments on Hebrews.
“Claiming to be wise, they became fools,” as it is written.235 They separate the two natures from each other and show us that each one is, in turn, unconnected from the other when they say that the union takes place only among prosopa236 and in mere agreement and identity of counsel and inclination of wills. I suppose that is just what is written in the Acts of the Apostles: [421] “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul.”237 Each of the believers in terms of their own hypostasis was separate from the others, but insofar as there was identity of will and unity of faith, they are said to have one soul and heart. So do they too intend to confess the unity of prosopa in the same sense? And a little later he says,238 And we deny that the nature of the Word of God is circumscribed in the human body, since God cannot be quantified. Then he adds, One may see in Christ a complete human nature in accordance with the constitution of his nature. Likewise, the Word who came from God is complete. Yet we will confess one Christ and Son from both, constructing the oikonomia not by a mere unity of prosopa, but gathering together the two natures into one reality in a manner that is ineffable and transcends reason, which only God himself knows. And we certainly do not say that some kind of pouring takes place between the natures so that the nature of the Word changes into the nature of the man, let’s say, or that the human nature changes into the nature of the Word himself. No, each nature is understood to be and is within the definition of its own nature. And we say that the union takes place when the Word dwells bodily in the temple that comes from the virgin. And a little later: Therefore, if anyone says that the union is of mere prosopa, thus completely separating the natures from each other, they have been carried off the straight path. [422]
Cyril, from the same commentary.
Observe that in the two goats, the one Christ (that is, the incarnate God) both dies in a fleshly way for our sins in order to sanctify the whole church by sprinkling with his blood, and at the same time he remains impassible in a divine way.
Cyril, from the commentary on the epistle to the Hebrews.
If he has perfected us through water and the Spirit, how could the same one not act in both a divine and human way at the same time, and as God and man in one?
Cyril, from the commentary on Hebrews, the second book.
Divinity and humanity came together with each other in an ineffable way that is beyond thought. Even though the two natures are different, as everyone knows, yet there is only one Son from both.
Cyril, from the commentary on the epistle to the Hebrews.
Although the natures of the things that combined into one (I mean the flesh and God) should be considered different and unequal to each other, yet there is only one Son from both. [423] And the temple united to the Word is animated with a rational soul like ours.
Cyril, from the commentary on the epistle to the Hebrews.
A mere human being like one of us did not have the ability to carry out the activity that belongs to life by nature. Therefore, when the very body of the Word, who became incarnate for us, tasted death for the salvation of all (even though he is life by nature), it did so “by the grace of God,” as the most holy Paul himself says.239 That way, no one would think that destroying death is an accomplishment of an earthly body. Rather, it is an accomplishment of the Word himself, who is united to it and is different from it by nature. [424]
Again he says in book two,240 interpreting the epistle to the Hebrews:241
When we said that the Word became flesh, we meant that the Word communicated hypostatically242 with the flesh in an ineffable manner. We cannot understand how. Then—then!—the persona of each hypostasis243 (distinguished mentally) came together with the natures into a unity.
Later in the same work, in the fourth book:244
Therefore, he says, humankind began to bloom again as from the second root of Christ, the Savior of us all. It was reborn, as it were, into imperishability and overcame the power of the ancient charge that stood against it through the ages.
The same, from his commentary on the epistle to the Hebrews:245
But the law of sin would not have been put to death in us, nor would death, the greatest enemy of all people, have been destroyed if the nature in which it was condemned by the Word’s own power had not truly been made the Word’s own. After all, it was not possible for an ordinary human being like us to destroy the reign of death. But it was destroyed through Christ. Now it is clear to everyone that God is certainly greater than we are. Therefore, since he was a man, it was as God that he was much greater than we are. And the temple that received the “fullness of deity”246 was holy. However, through the economic uniting, the temple is said and believed to be one with him who dwelt in it. Just as the Holy Spirit is in us and makes us the temple of God and shows us to be so, in the same way in the case of Christ himself we say that the Word of God dwells in the flesh as in a temple, and that as he dwells in it, he sanctifies it. Yet we maintain that although it is called a temple, nevertheless that which was assumed was his own so that it is considered to be one with him—not because it passed over into the divine nature, but because it went into a synthesis due to the economic uniting. For God was in the flesh for our sake. [425]
Because of this, he did not hesitate to say in his commentary on the epistle to the Hebrews:247
God the Word also rose again after he suffered in the flesh.
The same, from his book on the epistle to the Hebrews.248
He allowed his body to suffer death in the oikonomia “so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.”249 Since the body belonged to him who is Life, it immediately overcame corruption and returned to life. However, let us show reverence by attributing such an august achievement not to the nature of the flesh, but to the power of the Word.
This is what Saint Cyril teaches in the first book on the epistle to the Hebrews, writing the following:250
Now if you praise the Word of God as a man, then you are showing me that you despise him. But if you speak of the Word and remain silent about the other, you are showing that he was not in our condition. Of course, the nature of those things that are brought together with one another is different. But we believe that there is only one Son from the two, who is in the union in the oikonomia.251 Now if we say that the union occurred in the will alone or in the prosopon,252 I think we are depriving ourselves of the Word completely. Let’s say someone comes and asks us if we believe the Word of God is united to many others in the same way, since they say he gave the glory of his person to the holy apostles when he said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me,”253 and to the righteous and merciful, because they had shown mercy to them, “As much as you do to one of these little ones, you do to me.”254 Again, [426] we do not say that the Word is united to these others, but only to that temple who is from the holy virgin. The union, then, it is correct to confess, was brought about by the concurrence of the natures. It is not a union of mere prosopa.255 That ignorant idea is not found in the doctrine of the church.
In the second book on the epistle to the Hebrews, he writes these things concerning this prosopic union:
Now if someone says that it is right to worship him and to praise him with the glory of the heavenly beings because, though he is a man like us, he has honor because of the union of will or mere prosopon, as it were, then that wretched person is deceived by the idea that there is an equal rank between these two. He crowns the servant and the Lord, the creature and the Creator, man and God. And after other comments: they are persuading us, if they will allow it, that these people uttered nonsense. They separate the Word himself from the man. It is construed as a mere verbal unity when he receives honor because of the prosopic union. I do not endorse this view, but let us say he has this special virtue, if you please. Then let them answer this since we have to ask a question: For which upright actions did he who is completely human become this, even though he was in the human nature? And how will he be worthy of the divine thrones?
And in the third book he demonstrates. . . . For he also writes . . .
The things that we have said are from the Holy Scriptures, but those people have not been careful enough regarding the true union. I say that it is hypostatic, but they invent the idea that the union is merely in the prosopon alone. They refuse to call the true Son Emmanuel. Since they reject any change of the natures, as it were, they maintain and insist that he is one and another.256 [427]
From St. Cyril, from the fourth book on the epistle to the Hebrews.
He is therefore one Son and Lord in the hypostatic union, because the Word is united to the human nature and he shared in flesh and blood and for this reason became like his brothers in all things.257
Again, from the third book of Cyril’s comments on the epistle to the Hebrews.
Paul, then, shows us an excerpt from a hymn.258 First he gives the excerpt itself, and then on the basis of that excerpt he says, “Now we do not yet see everything subject to him.”259 They will never convince us, if we have a right will, to agree that Paul is saying these things about the one man, as though referring to that man united in one prosopon, or that Paul is saying that he was deprived of the possession of that glory which he was given from the beginning.
Again, from his commentary on the apostle’s epistle to the Hebrews.
He is quite right when he explicitly tells those who want a reward to seize “the prize of a heavenly call.”260 When temptations come, we should not sleep or let down our soul’s guard or worry, but fervently stretch out to pray to him who knows how to save and ask for deliverance from evil. For our kneeling is hard work and not without tears. A little later: Now the “good crop”261 [428] is a pure soul. It has no thought like this: I love pleasure more than God; I have produced thorns that I should have avoided. That person is headed for destruction by fire, just like land that is similarly thorny.262 God does not bestow rain from heaven or comfort through the Holy Spirit unless he deems the person worthy of compassion and care.
From Saint Cyril of Alexandria, from his commentary on the epistle to the Hebrews.
Expectation is hope for the outcome of things—the hope, that is, and the vigil. And so the creation longs for the revelation of the sons of God.263 For there is no way for it to know about this kind of birth—how or where it takes place—except through the ineffable oikonomia of God, who transforms all things into what is excellent. I am talking here about the impending consummation. Just as it was in the beginning, he speaks and in this way he molds the sons of God from contemptibleness into glory, from weakness into strength, from corruption into incorruptibility. They—they!—have set their sights on lives of glory and goodness. They have purified themselves by following the evangelical laws. In the same way creation is completely transformed into what is excellent and into a condition that it would only be right and proper for you to boast about on that day. St. Peter, therefore, allowed for no doubt about this when he plainly said, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will fall off their foundations, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything on it will be burned up.”264 And after that he added, “But in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.”265 And our Savior teaches us these things about the end of the age even more strongly when he tells the holy disciples: “Immediately after the suffering of those days, [429] the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.”266 And the prophetic word confirms for us that all the stars will fall: “And the sky will be rolled up like a scroll, and all the stars will fall like leaves from the vine or like leaves fall from a fig tree.”267 And so this condition of creation will also belong to the glory of the saints, that is, a condition that is good and fitting.