21. If, therefore, they insist that the newness of this birth befitted that the Word of God should not become flesh of the seed of man, just as it should not be of the flesh of the virgin, why should not all this novelty consist in the fact that the flesh should have come from the flesh and not been born of seed? Perhaps I will enter into a hotter battle. "Behold," says [the prophet], "a virgin shall conceive. What will She receive? Of course, the Word of God, not the seed of a man, and definitely to bring forth a Son. For, he continues, she will also bear a Son. Hence, just as it was proper for Her to receive, so also belonged to Her that which She gave birth to, although what She received did not belong to Her. On the contrary, if the Word became flesh from Himself, then He took Himself and begotten Himself, and the prophecy is empty. For the Virgin did not receive or give birth, unless that which she begotten from the received Word was not her flesh. But is it not only the prophetic voice that is diminished here, or is it also the utterance of the angel announcing to the Virgin about the reception and birth? Is not the Scripture already diminished where the Mother of Christ is proclaimed? For how was She a Mother if He was not in Her womb? "Yet from Her womb He received nothing that made Him His Mother, in whose womb He was." "But even the flesh, which is alien to the [mother's] womb, does not need to mention it. Further, that which is born of oneself is not the fruit of the womb. Therefore let Elizabeth be silent, bearing in her womb a child – a prophet who already knew his Lord, and moreover herself filled with the Holy Spirit [112]. Then, for no reason, she says: "And whence is it that the Mother of my Lord has come to me? (Luke 1:43). If Mary bore Jesus in her womb, not as a Son, but as someone else's, then why does she [Elizabeth] say: Blessed is the fruit of Thy womb (42)? What is this fruit of the womb that did not come from the womb, that had no root in it, and did not belong to the One whose womb it was?

And in general, who is the fruit of this womb? Christ. Is it not precisely because He Himself is the flower of the branch that sprang up from the root of Jesse? But the root of Jesse is the family of David; the branch from the root is Mary, who came from David, the flower from the branch is the Son of Mary, called Jesus Christ. It will also be fruit, for color is fruit: for by color and from color every fruit becomes fruit. And what happened? They deny the fruit its flower, the blossom its branch, the branch its root, so that the root may not claim its possession through the branch, which proceeds from the branch, the flower and the fruit. For all the generations of the generation are numbered from the last to the first, so that now they need to know that the flesh of Christ belongs not only to the flesh of Mary, but also to the flesh of David through Mary, and to the flesh of Jesse through David. Therefore, God swears to David to place on the throne of David this fruit from the loins of David, that is, the offspring of his flesh (Ps. 131:11; Acts 2:30). But if He is from the loins of David, how much more from the womb of Mary, by which He was attached to the loins of David.

22. Then let [our opponents] try to erase the testimony of the demons who cried out to Jesus as the Son of David [113]; but they cannot remove the testimonies of the apostles if the testimonies of the demons are untrustworthy. First of all, Matthew himself, the most reliable narrator of the Gospel (for he was a companion of the Lord), begins his narration for no other reason with the words: The Book of the Genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, except in order to enlighten us about the carnal origin of Christ. And since His generation proceeds from these initial sources, and the generations gradually ascend to the birth of Christ, what else but the flesh of both Abraham and David, begetting an offshoot in its offspring, extends to the Virgin Herself and brings forth Christ, or, rather, Christ Himself descends from the Virgin? And Paul, being a disciple, teacher, and witness of the same Gospel — for he is also an apostle of Christ Himself [114] — affirms that Christ in the flesh (according to His own, of course) is descended from the seed of David (Rom. 1:3; 2 Tim. 2:8). This means that the flesh of Christ is from the seed of David. But if through the flesh of Mary He comes from the seed of David, then He comes from the flesh of Mary, since He is from the seed of David. Turn these words over as you like: either of the flesh of Mary that which is of the seed of David, or of the seed of David that which is of the flesh of Mary. All this contradiction is put an end to by the above-mentioned apostle, who determines that Christ is the seed of Abraham. But if it is Abraham's, how much more David's, for David is younger. In the same way he explains the promise of blessing the nations in the name of Abraham: "And in thy seed shall all nations be blessed" (Gen. 12:3). [The Lord], he says, did not say "in seeds," as of many "descendants," but of "seed," as of one, which is Christ (Galatians 3:8; 16). But if we read this and believe in it, then what attribute of the flesh should and can we recognize in Christ? Of course, it is not otherwise than the attribute of the flesh of Abraham, for Christ is the seed of Abraham; none other than Jesse's, for Christ is the flower from the root of Jesse; none other than David's, for Christ is the fruit of David's loins; not otherwise than Mary: for Christ is from the womb of Mary. And, above all and above all, it is none other than an attribute of Adam's flesh, for Christ is the Second Adam. The conclusion, then, is this: either let them recognize in Christ spiritual flesh, which in such a situation is deprived of substance in Christ; or let them think that His flesh was not spiritual, for it did not come from a spiritual trunk.

23. Mary's virginity ceases after the birth of Christ

23. And we recognize the fulfillment of the prophetic words of Simeon, which he pronounced over the Lord, then still a newborn child: "Behold, this one lies for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a contradictory sign" (Luke 2:34). And here is the sign of the birth of Christ, according to Isaiah: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son. Thus we recognize the contradictory sign, the conception and birth of the Virgin Mary, of which these "academicians" [115] say: "She gave birth and did not give birth, Virgin and not Virgin"; Perhaps it would be appropriate for us to say so, if it were necessary to talk about it at all. For if she gave birth of her own flesh, she did give birth; but since she did not give birth to the seed of a man, she did not give birth at all. She is a Virgin, for she did not know a man; but not the Virgin, for she gave birth [116]. However, it is not that She gave birth and did not give birth, and that the Virgin Who is not a Virgin is precisely because She is a Mother in Her bosom. We have nothing doubtful, nothing that appeals to a double interpretation. Light is light, and darkness is darkness; "yes" is "yes", and "no" is "no", and what is more than that is from the evil one (Matt. 5:37). She gave birth, Who gave birth. And if the Virgin conceived, then through her birth she became married, namely, according to the law of the open body. At the same time, there was no difference whether it was done by the allowed or released masculine power, — all the same, the bed was opened by the same sex. And the couch is the very one for the sake of which it is written about others: "Everything that is manly that opens the couch will be called sanctified unto the Lord" (Exodus 13:2). Who is truly holy, if not the Son of God? Who in the real sense opened the couches, if not He Who opened them, locked up? However, in marriage, they open up for everyone. And those beds were all the more open, for they were more firmly locked. And therefore it is more necessary to call Her not a Virgin than a Virgin, for She became a Mother as if suddenly, before She entered into marriage. And is it worth saying more about this, when the Apostle, on the same grounds, proclaimed that the Son of God was not made of a virgin, but of a woman, acknowledging the marital suffering of Her open beds? We have read, of course, in Ezekiel about a heifer that gave birth and did not give birth,[117] but see if the Holy Spirit had not already indicated you in His providence, disputing about the womb of Mary. Moreover, otherwise, contrary to His usual simplicity, He would not have proclaimed meaningfully through the mouth of Isaiah: "He shall receive and begin."

24–25. Heretics, by denying human flesh in Christ, thereby deny the resurrection. But both are certain

24. As for the words which Isaiah utters to ridicule heretics, and above all: "Woe to those who call bitter sweet and darkness light" (5:20), by which he refers to those who do not preserve such words in their proper meaning; [he cares] that the soul should be only that which is called it, the body only that which is considered to be it, and God only that which is preached. Therefore the Lord, foreseeing Marcion, says thus: I am God, and there is no other God besides Me (45:5). And when in another place He says the same thing, "There was no God before Me" (46:9), I think He is striking some genealogies of the Valentinian Aeons. And with the words: "Not of blood, not of flesh, and of the desire of man, but of God" (John 1:13), He answers Ebion. In the same way, the words: "Even if an angel from heaven preached good news to you otherwise than we preach the gospel, let him be accursed" (Galatians 1:8) are directed against the intricacies of the Apelles maiden Philoumena. It is certain that anyone who denies the coming of Christ in the flesh is the Antichrist (cf. 1 John 4:3). But he who calls His flesh by the unveiled, straightforward, and simple name of its nature, strikes all those who argue about it. Likewise, he who defines Christ Himself as one, shakes those who teach about the multiplicity of Christ. For they represent the one as Christ, and the other as Jesus; one escaping from the midst of the crowd, another being seized by it, one in solitude on a mountain among the clouds, glorious before the three judges, another pliable and plausible, one showing greatness of spirit, another trembling, and finally this one suffering, and this one resurrecting. Therefore they say that their own resurrection will be in another body [118]. But it is good that the same One will come from heaven (Acts 1:11), Who suffered, and the same One Who has risen will appear to all. And those who crucified Him will see and recognize Him,[119] they will surely recognize the very flesh against which they raged, and without which He could neither appear nor be recognized. Therefore let those who assert that in heaven sits senseless flesh, like the receptacle which Christ left, or that there is flesh and soul of the same kind, or only the soul, but without flesh at all.

25. However, enough has been said about the present subject. For I believe that the proof has already been built up that the flesh in Christ is human and born of a Virgin. It would be possible to confine oneself to a simple explanation of this, without entering into a contest with various contrary opinions. Yet we have stirred up this controversy also, giving in abundance the arguments of our adversaries, and the passages of Scripture which they use, in order to establish, by what we have proved, contrary to all heretics, what the flesh of Christ was, and whence it was, and what it was not. But since the conclusion, as well as the general introduction, deals with the resurrection of our flesh (which we intend to defend in another book), let it find its preparation here, for it is already clear what was the resurrection in Christ.

On Repentance

Lane. Y. Panasenko.

1. That race of people to which we ourselves once belonged, blind and deprived of the light of the Lord, consider repentance to be a state of mind that is suffering by nature, arising from the disapproval of any of its former opinions. However, they are as far removed from the understanding of repentance as they are from the Creator of reason, for reason is the work of God, since God, the Creator of all things, foresaw, arranged, and arranged everything according to reason, and did not want anything to be considered and understood without the help of reason. Therefore it inevitably turns out that those who do not know God do not understand His works either, for no treasure is revealed to outsiders. Therefore, sailing through life without the rudder of reason, they are unable to escape the storm that threatens our world. And how unwisely they act in repentance is evident from the fact that they apply it even to their good deeds. They repent of faith, of love, of simplicity, of patience, of compassion, if any of these have had an unfavorable outcome. They curse themselves for having done a good deed, and teach their souls to repent of good works, trying with all their might to fix it in their memory, lest they do anything good again. On the contrary, in repentance for the evil they have committed, they are not so zealous. So in their repentance they sin rather than do right.

2. If they had acted with the consciousness of their partaker of God, and through Him of reason, they would have first of all appreciated the importance of repentance, and would never have used it for the purpose of perverse correction; moreover, they would restrain repentance accordingly, because they would refrain from transgressions for the fear of God. For where there is no fear, there is no correction, and where there is no correction, repentance is necessarily in vain, for it is devoid of the fruit for which God planted it, that is, the salvation of man. For after so many great sins of human folly, which began with the ancestor Adam, after condemning man to the hardships of this world, expelling him from paradise and subjecting him to death, God immediately again propitiated himself, and even then carried by wrath, and promised forgiveness to His creation and image. That is why He chose a people for Himself and generously endowed them with the gifts of His Goodness, and when this people so many times proved ungrateful, God always called them to repentance. It was He who opened the mouths of all the prophets to prophecy, promising afterwards the grace with which He was to enlighten the whole world through His Spirit at the end of time, and He instituted the baptism of repentance, in order that by submission to repentance He might first prepare those whom by grace He had called to the promise appointed to the descendants of Abraham.