Chapter 2. On Becoming Man Christ Came in the Flesh That Belonged to Him. He Gave Man Salvation through Redemption and t
Chapter 2
1. Senseless, too, are those who assert that the Lord came to what did not belong to him, as if he were greedy of others’ possessions, in order to present the man who was made by another god to the God who neither made nor created anything, but who even from the beginning was deprived of a creation of men that was his own. Then, his coming, which according to them was into another’s domain, was not just. Nor, if he was not truly made man, did he truly redeem us by his blood, restoring to his handiwork what was said of it in the beginning, namely, that man was made to the image and likeness of God, since he did not snatch away deceitfully what belonged to another, but justly and kindly took back what belonged to himself; as far as we who were redeemed are concerned, he did it kindly. For we did not give to him anything beforehand, nor does he want anything from us as if he were indigent; but we need communion with him. For that reason he kindly poured himself out that he might gather us into the Father’s bosom.
2. Altogether senseless are they who hold in contempt God’s entire economy and deny salvation to the flesh and spurn its regeneration, asserting that it is not capable of imperishability. Now, if this flesh is not saved, neither did the Lord redeem us with his blood, nor is the cup of the Eucharist a communion in his blood, nor is the bread we break a communion in his body. To be sure, blood is only from the veins and flesh and from the rest of the human nature, which, however, the Word of God truly became, and so he redeemed us by his blood. The Apostle, for example, says, In whom we have redemption through his blood, and the remission of sins.
And since we are his members, we are also nourished by the creation; he himself furnishes us with the creature by making the sun rise and making it rain as he wills. He confessed that the cup which is from the creation is his Blood, from which he gives growth to our blood; and he affirmed that the bread which is from the creation is his Body, from which he gives growth to our bodies.
3. When, therefore, both the cup that has been mixed and the bread that has been made receive the Word of God and become the Eucharist of the Blood and Body of Christ, from which the substance of our flesh gets its growth and consistency, how, then, can they deny that flesh is capable of receiving God’s gift, which is eternal life—that flesh which is nourished by Christ’s Body and Blood, and that is his member? As the Blessed Paul said in his Letter to the Ephesians, Because we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. He did not say this of some spiritual and invisible man—for a spirit has not bones and flesh—but of that composition which is a true man, which consists of flesh, nerves, and bones, and is nourished from the cup, which is his Blood, and gets its growth from the bread, which is his Body.
By way of illustration, a branch of the vine, when placed in the ground, will produce fruit in due time, and the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and decomposes rises multiplied, through God’s Spirit, who holds all things together. After that, all these things, through wisdom, serve the use of men. Besides, when they receive the Word of God, they become the Eucharist, which is Christ’s Body and Blood. Now, in like manner, our bodies, having been nourished by the Eucharist and buried in the earth, and decomposed into earth, will rise in due time, when the Word of God bestows resurrection on them for the glory of God the Father, who truly surrounds this mortal body with immortality and gratuitously grants imperishability to the perishable. [All this] is because God’s power is made perfect in weakness, so that we might not have life as if from ourselves, and become puffed up and extol ourselves against God, taking an ungrateful attitude; but that by experience we might learn that we possess perpetual continuance because of his greatness, but not because of our nature. Likewise, that we might neither be deprived at any time of the knowledge about God just as he is, nor be ignorant of our nature, but that we might know both what God is capable of and what benefit man receives, and so might not stray at any time from the true understanding of the things that exist just as they are, that is, those of God and of man. And, perhaps, as we have already mentioned, God allowed our dissolution into earth that, having been disciplined in every respect, we might in the future be careful in all things and be ignorant neither of God nor of ourselves.