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25. But I thought differently, thinking only of my Lord Christ
as of a man of excellent wisdom, to whom no man could be equalled;
especially for that, being wonderfully born of a virgin, He seemed,
through the divine care for us, to have attained so great authority of
leadership, for an example of contemning temporal things for the
obtaining of immortality. But what mystery there was in, "The Word
was made flesh,"' I could not even imagine. Only I had learnt out
of what is delivered to us in writing of Him, that He did eat,
drink, sleep, walk, rejoice in spirit, was sad, and discoursed;
that flesh alone did not cleave unto Thy Word, but with the human
soul and body. All know thus who know the unchangeableness of Thy
Word, which I now knew as well as I could, nor did I at all have
any doubt about it. For, now to move the limbs of the body at will,
now not; now to be stirred by some affection, now not; non, by signs
to enunciate wise sayings, now to keep silence, are properties of a
soul and mind subject to change. And should these things be falsely
written of Him, all the rest would risk the imputation, nor would
there remain in those books any saving faith for the human race.
Since, then, they were written truthfully, I acknowledged a perfect
man to be in Christ not the body of a man only, nor with the body a
sensitive soul without a rational, but a very! man; whom, not only
as being a form of truth, but for a certain great excellency of human
nature and a more perfect participation of wisdom, I decided was to be
preferred before others. But Alypius imagined the Catholics to
believe that God was so clothed with flesh, that, besides God and
flesh, there was no soul in Christ, and did not think that a human
mind was ascribed to Him. And, because He was thoroughly persuaded
that the actions which were recorded of Him could not be performed
except by a vital and rational creature, he moved the more slowly
towards the Christian faith. But, learning afterwards that this was
the error of the Apollinarian heretics, he rejoiced in the Catholic
faith, and was conformed to it. But somewhat later it was, I
confess, that I learned how in the sentence, "The Word was made
flesh," the Catholic truth can be distinguished from the falsehood of
Photinus? For the disapproval of heretics makes the tenets of Thy
Church and sound doctrine to stand out boldly? For them must be also
heresies, that the approved may be made manifest among the weak?
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