Chapter 2 (24): 1. In What Sense, According To Them, He Is Called Predestined.
36 | THE SENTENCES, BOOK 3
17. CASSIODORUS. And so, in saying 'God is man,' either the habit is predicated, or the person, but humanized. And Cassiodorus appears to show that a humanized person is what is being predicated, saying: "He was made, so to speak, a humanized God, who does not cease to be God, even in the taking of flesh."!' Yet this may be taken in different ways: as to say 'God was made one who is humanized,' or 'Christ is made a God who is humanized'; for either of these may certainly be said. And so, when 'God was made man' is said, according to them, it has a manifold meaning: that he is understood to have taken human nature, or to have begun to be the Word humanized. Yet it does not follow that, if he began to be the Word humanized, that he would have begun to be the Word.
Nor, if God is made the Word humanized, does it follow that he was made the Word. As when concerning someone we say: Today he began to be a good man or was made a good man, and yet he did not begin to be a man or was made a man today.
Chapter 2 (24)
1. IN WHAT SENSE, ACCORDING TO THEM, HE IS CALLED PREDESTINED.
According to them, Christ, insofar as he is a man, is said to be predestined to be Son of God: because it was predestined by God from eternity, and it was conferred on him in time through grace, that he, being a man, be the Son of God. For he did not always have this, but took it in time through grace.
2. HE CONFIRMS THE EXPOSITION BY AUTHORITY.—AUGUSTINE. Au-
gustine appears to have noted this in the book To Prosper and Hilary, saying: "Jesus was predestined so that he who was going to be the son of David according to the flesh, should be Son of God in power."
3. And when Christ is said to be less than the Father according to his being a man, they understand this to be said according to habit, that is, insofar as he has a man united to himself. Hence Augustine, in On the Trinity, book 1: "God the Son is equal in nature with God the Father, but less in habit. For in the form of a servant, he is less than the Father; in the form of God, he is equal to the Father."
4. WHY HE IS NOT CALLED A DEIFIED MAN. And because the manner of the incarnation is to be taken according to habit, therefore they hand down that he is called God made man, and not a deified man. Hence John of Damascus: "We do not call him a deified man, but God made man.'"
"Cassiodorus, Expositio Psalmorum, Ps. 56, division.
'Augustine, De praedestinatione sanctorum, c15 n31.
Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 1 c7 n14.
*John of Damascus, De fide orthodoxa, bk 3 c2.