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MOREOVER there is between Him and all the saints the same difference
that there is between a dwelling and one who dwells in it, for certainly it
is the doing of the dweller not the dwelling, if it is inhabited, for on
him it depends both to build the house and to occupy it. I mean, that he
can choose, if he will, to make it a dwelling, and when he has made it, to
live in it. "Or do you seek a proof," says the Apostle, "of Christ speaking
in me?" And elsewhere, "Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you except
ye be reprobate?" And again: "in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in
your hearts by faith." Do you not see what a difference there is between
the Apostle's doctrine and your blasphemies? You say that God dwells in
Christ as in a man. He testifies that Christ Himself dwells in men: which
certainly, as you admit, flesh and blood cannot do; so that He is shown to
be God, from the very fact from which you deny Him to be God. For since you
cannot deny that He who dwells in man is God, it follows that we must
believe that He, whom we know to dwell in men, is most decidedly God. All,
then, whether patriarchs, or prophets, or apostles, or martyrs, or saints,
had every one of them God within him, and were all made sons of God and
were all receivers of God (Theodo'choi), but in a very different and
distinct way. For all who believe in God are sons of God by adoption: but
the only begotten alone is Son by nature: who was begotten of His Father,
not of any material substance, for all things, and the substance of all
things exist through the only begotten Son of God--and not out of nothing,
because He is from the Father: not like a birth, for there is nothing in
God that is void or mutable, but in an ineffable and incomprehensible
manner God the Father, wherein He Himself was regenerate, begat his only
begotten Son; and so from the Most High, Ingenerate, and Eternal Father
proceeds the Most High, Only Begotten, and Eternal Son. Who must be
considered the same Person in the flesh as He is in the Spirit: and must be
held to be the same Person in the body as He is in glory, for when He was
about to be born in the flesh, He made no division or separation within
Himself, as if some portion of Him was born while another portion was not
born: or as if some portion of Divinity afterwards came upon Him, which had
not been in Him at His birth from the Virgin. For according to the Apostle,
"all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in Christ bodily." Not that It
dwells in Him at times, and at times dwells not; nor that It was there at a
later date, and not an earlier one: otherwise we are entangled in that
impious heresy of Pelagius, so as to say that from a fixed moment God dwelt
in Christ, and that He then came upon Him; when He had won by His life and
conversation this; viz., that the power of the Godhead should dwell in Him.
These things then belong to men, to men, I say, not to God,--that as far as
human weakness can, they should humble themselves to God, be subject to
God, make themselves dwellings for God, and by their faith and piety win
this, to have God as their guest and indweller. For in proportion as anyone
is fit for God's gift, so does the Divine grace reward him: in proportion
as a man seems worthy of him: in proportion as a man seems worthy of God,
so does he enjoy God's presence, according to the Lord's promise: "if any
man love Me, he will keep My word; and I and My Father will come to him and
make Our abode with Him." But very different is the case as regards
Christ; in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily: for He has
within Him the fulness of the Godhead so that He gives to all of His
fulness, and He--as the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him--Himself
dwells in each of the saints in proportion as He deems them worthy of His
Presence, and gives of His fulness to all, yet in such a way that He
Himself continues m all that fulness,--who even when He was on earth in the
flesh, yet was present in the hearts of all the saints, and filled the
heaven, the earth, the sea, aye and the whole universe with His infinite
power and majesty; and yet was so complete in Himself that the whole world
could not contain Him. For however great and inexpressible whatever is made
may be, yet there are no things so boundless and infinite as to be able to
contain the Creator Himself.
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