human nature._
Accordingly, when we speak of God, we do not affirm two or three
principles, no more than we are at liberty to affirm two or three gods;
although, speaking of each, of the Father, or of the Son, or of the
Holy Ghost, we confess that each is God: and yet we do not say, as the
Sabellian heretics say, that the Father is the same as the Son, and the
Holy Spirit the same as the Father and the Son; but we say that the
Father is the Father of the Son, and the Son the Son of the Father,
and that the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son is neither the
Father nor the Son. It was therefore truly said that man is cleansed
only by a Principle, although the Platonists erred in speaking in the
plural of _principles_. But Porphyry, being under the dominion of
these envious powers, whose influence he was at once ashamed of and
afraid to throw off, refused to recognise that Christ is the Principle
by whose incarnation we are purified. Indeed he despised Him, because
of the flesh itself which He assumed, that He might offer a sacrifice
for our purification,--a great mystery, unintelligible to Porphyry's
pride, which that true and benignant Redeemer brought low by His
humility, manifesting Himself to mortals by the mortality which He
assumed, and which the malignant and deceitful mediators are proud of
wanting, promising, as the boon of immortals, a deceptive assistance
to wretched men. Thus the good and true Mediator showed that it is sin
which is evil, and not the substance or nature of flesh; for this,
together with the human soul, could without sin be both assumed and
retained, and laid down in death, and changed to something better by
resurrection. He showed also that death itself, although the punishment
of sin, was submitted to by Him for our sakes without sin, and must
not be evaded by sin on our part, but rather, if opportunity serves,
be borne for righteousness' sake. For he was able to expiate sins by
dying, because He both died, and not for sin of His own. But He has
not been recognised by Porphyry as the Principle, otherwise he would
have recognised Him as the Purifier. The Principle is neither the flesh
nor the human soul in Christ, but the Word by which all things were
made. The flesh, therefore, does not by its own virtue purify, but
by virtue of the Word by which it was assumed, when "the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us."[415] For, speaking mystically of eating His
flesh, when those who did not understand Him were offended and went
away, saying, "This is an hard saying, who can hear it?" He answered
to the rest who remained, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing."[416] The Principle, therefore, having assumed
a human soul and flesh, cleanses the soul and flesh of believers.
Therefore, when the Jews asked Him who He was, He answered that He
was the _Principle_.[417] And this we carnal and feeble men, liable
to sin, and involved in the darkness of ignorance, could not possibly
understand, unless we were cleansed and healed by Him, both by means
of what we were, and of what we were not. For we were men, but we were
not righteous; whereas in His incarnation there was a human nature, but
it was righteous, and not sinful. This is the mediation whereby a hand
is stretched to the lapsed and fallen; this is the seed "ordained by
angels," by whose ministry the law also was given enjoining the worship
of one God, and promising that this Mediator should come.