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AND from his confession or rather lamentation we have thought it well
to quote some part, for two reasons: that their recantation might be a
testimony to us, and an example to those who are weak, and that they might
not be ashamed to follow in their amendment, the men whom they were not
ashamed to follow in their error; and that they might be cured by a like
remedy as they suffered from a like disease. He then acknowledging the
perverseness of his views, and seeing the light of faith, wrote to the
Gallican Bishops, and thus began: "I scarcely know, O my most venerable
lords and blessed priests, what first to accuse myself of, and what first
to excuse myself for. Clumsiness and pride and foolish ignorance together
with wrong notions, zeal combined with indiscretion, and (to speak truly) a
weak faith which was gradually failing, all these were admitted by me and
flourished to such an extent that I am ashamed of having yielded to such
and so many sins, while at the same time I am profoundly thankful for
having been able to cast them out of my soul." And after a little he adds:
"If then, not understanding this power of God, and wise in our conceits and
opinions, from fear lest God should seem to act a part that was beneath
Him, we suppose that a man was born in conjunction with God, in such a way
that we ascribe to God alone what belongs to God separately, and attribute
to man alone what belongs to man separately, we clearly add a fourth Person
to the Trinity and out of the one God the Son begin to make not one but two
Christs; from which may our Lord and God Jesus Christ Himself preserve us.
Therefore we confess that our Lord and God Jesus Christ the only Son of
God, who for His own sake was begotten of the Father before all worlds,
when in time He was for our sakes: made man of the Holy Ghost and the ever-
virgin Mary, was God at His birth; and while we confess the two substances
of the flesh and the Word, we always acknowledge with pious belief and
faith one and the same Person to be indivisibly God and man; and we say
that from the time when He took upon Him flesh all that belonged to God was
given to man, as all that belonged to man was joined to God. And in this
sense 'the Word was made flesh:' not that He began by any conversion or
change to be what He was not, but that by the Divine 'economy' the Word of
the Father never left the Father, and yet vouchsafed to become truly
man, and the Only Begotten was incarnate through that hidden mystery which
He alone understands (for it is ours to believe: His to understand). And
thus God 'the Word' Himself receiving everything that belongs to man, is
made man, and the manhood which is assumed, receiving everything that
belongs to God cannot but be God; but whereas He is said to be incarnate
and unmixed, we must not hold that there is any diminution of His
substance: for God knows how to communicate Himself without suffering any
corruption, and yet truly to communicate Himself. He knows how to receive
into Himself without Himself being increased thereby, just as He knows how
to impart Himself in such a way as Himself to suffer no loss. We should not
then in our feeble minds make guesses, in accordance with visible proofs
and experiments, from the case of creatures which are equal, and which
mutually enter into each other, nor think that God and man are mixed
together, and that out of such a fusion of flesh and the Word (i.e., the
Godhead and manhood) some sort of body is produced. God forbid that we
should imagine that the two natures being in a way moulded together should
become one substance. For a mixture of this sort is destructive of both
parts. For God, who contains and is not Himself contained, who enters into
things and is not Himself entered into, who fills things and is not Himself
filled, who is everywhere at once in His completeness and is diffused
everywhere, communicates Himself graciously to human nature by the infusion
of His power." And after a little: "Therefore the God-man, Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, is truly born for us of the Holy Ghost and the ever-virgin
Mary. And so in the two natures the Word and Flesh become one, so that
while each substance continues naturally perfect in itself, what is Divine
imparteth without suffering any loss, to the humanity, and what is human
participates in the Divine; nor is there one person God, and another person
man, but the same person is God who is also man: and again the man who is
also God is called and indeed is Jesus Christ the only Son of God; and so
we must always take care and believe so as not to deny that our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, Very God (whom we confess as existing ever with the
Father and equal to the Father before all worlds) became from the moment
when He took flesh the God-man. Nor may we imagine that gradually as time
went on He became God, and that He was in one condition before the
resurrection and in another after it, but that He was always of the same
fulness and power." And again a little later on: "But because the Word of
God vouchsafed to come down upon manhood by assuming manhood, and
manhood was taken up into the Word by being assumed by God, God the Word in
His completeness became complete man. For it was not God the Father who was
made man, nor the Holy Ghost, but the Only Begotten of the Father; and so
we must hold that there is one Person of the Flesh and the Word: so as
faithfully and without any doubt to believe that one and the same Son of
God, who can never be divided, existing in two natures (who was also
spoken of as a "giant" ) in the days of His Flesh truly took upon Him
all that belongs to man, and ever truly had as His own what belongs to God:
since even though He was crucified in weakness, yet He liveth by the
power of God."
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