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15. But they who will have these texts understood only of the
Father, and not of the Son or the Holy Spirit, declare the Son to
be visible, not by having taken flesh of the Virgin, but aforetime
also in Himself. For He Himself, they say, appeared to the eyes
of the Fathers. And if you say to them, In whatever manner, then,
the Son is visible in Himself, in that manner also He is mortal in
Himself; so that it plainly follows that you would have this saying
also understood only of the Father, viz., "Who only hath
immortality;" for if the Son is mortal from having taken upon Him
our flesh, then allow that it is on account of this flesh that He is
also visible: they reply, that it is not on account of this flesh that
they say that the Son is mortal; but that, just as He was also
before visible, so He was also before mortal. For if they say the
Son is mortal from having taken our flesh, then it is not the Father
alone without the Son who hath immortality; because His Word also
has immortality, by which all things were made. For He did not
therefore lose His immortality, because He took mortal flesh; seeing
that it could not happen even to the human soul, that it should die
with the body, when the Lord Himself says, "Fear not them which
kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." Or, forsooth,
also the Holy Spirit took flesh: concerning whom certainly they
will, without doubt, be troubled to say if the Son is mortal on
account of taking our flesh in what manner they understand that the
Father only has immortality without the Son and the Holy Spirit,
since, indeed, the Holy Spirit did not take our flesh; and if He
has not immortality, then the Son is not mortal on account of taking
our flesh; but if the Holy Spirit has immortality, then it is not
said only of the Father, "Who only hath immortality." And
therefore they think they are able to prove that the Son in Himself
was mortal also before the incarnation, because changeableness itself
is not unfitly called mortality, according to which the soul also is
said to die; not because it is changed and turned into body, or into
some substance other than itself, but because, whatever in its own
selfsame substance is now after another mode than it once was, is
discovered to be mortal, in so far as it has ceased to be what it was.
Because then, say they, before the Son of God was born of the
Virgin Mary, He Himself appeared to our fathers, not in one and
the same form only, but in many forms; first in one form, then in
another; He is both visible in Himself, because His substance was
visible to mortal eyes, when He had not yet taken our flesh, and
mortal, inasmuch as He is changeable. And so also the Holy
Spirit, who appeared at one time as a dove, and another time as
fire. Whence, they say, the following texts do not belong to the
Trinity, but singularly and properly to the Father only: "Now unto
the King eternal, immortal, and invisible, the only wise God;"
and, "Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man
can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see."
16. Passing by, then, these reasoners, who are unable to know the
substance even of the soul, which is invisible, and therefore are very
far indeed from knowing that the substance of the one and only God,
that is, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, remains ever
not only invisible, but also unchangeable, and that hence it possesses
true and real immortality; let us, who deny that God, whether the
Father, or the Son, or the Holy Spirit, ever appeared to bodily
eyes, unless through the corporeal creature made subject to His own
power; let us, I say ready to be corrected, if we are reproved in a
fraternal and upright spirit, ready to be so, even if carped at by an
enemy, so that he speak the truth in catholic peace and with peaceful
study inquire, whether God indiscriminately appeared to our fathers
before Christ came in the flesh, or whether it was any one person of
the Trinity, or whether severally, as it were by turns.
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