30. CONCERNING THE CREED OF ATHANASIUS
This is in complete harmony if only one God is acknowledged, so that there is no thought of three persons. If, in accordance therewith, the Creed of Athanasius is read, without allowing any other idea to enter, then full harmony is effected.
1. It is denied by no one that the Divine which took on the Human was His Divine, thus that the Lord suffered Himself to be born. Thence it follows that this is the Divine of Whom it is written in Matthew and in Luke. Nor was there another Father from whom He was conceived but the very Divine which He called His Father. Nor was there any other. This accords with the words in Matthew that Joseph "touched her not," [1:25] and again in Luke when Mary said that "she knew not a man" [1:34], and when Joseph "found that she was with child, and so was minded to put her away." [Matthew 1:19.]
2. The Divine of the Lord took on the Human. If the Divine is one, it follows that the Divine Itself, which is one, assumed the Human. Nor is any good done by the idea that the Divine which created the universe put on the Human. For in the Creed it is said that the Divine of the one Person, and the Divine of the other Person are entirely equal, as in these words - "Just as the Father is infinite, eternal, uncreate, omnipotent, God the Lord, so is the Son. For no one of them is first or last, greatest or least, but they are altogether equal." What, then, matters it whether I think that the Divine of the Lord or the Divine of the Father assumed the Human, so long as there exists the same idea in either case? Yet when it is said that the Divine of the Father put on the Human, the idea today in the Christian world is opposed. Nevertheless, it is exactly the same since the one Divine is altogether equal with the other.
3. It is said that the Lord was perfect God and perfect Man. Or, concerning the Human it is said that He was perfect Man consisting of a rational soul and a perfect body, and thence that he was Man from the nature of the mother. No one who thinks about this matter from the Divine order known to everyone, is able to accept it into his faith, for it would be to say that the Lord can exist as rational Man, or perfect Man from the mother alone. For was He not from the Father? And is it not the case that life and the initiament of life is from the father and its additions from the mother? To believe that the Lord was perfect Man from the mother alone, is quite contrary to all order and to what is said. Is there not the image of the father in children equally with that of the mother? The very love or ruling affection of the father stands out clearly in grandchildren and in families. In a word, there must be father and mother that man may be perfect man. How then is it to be believed that He was perfect Man from the mother?
4. Does it not then follow that the Divine was in the Lord from conception as is the soul in the case of every man.
5. This was considered by Athanasius when he said that God and Man are one Christ, not two but a united person like soul and body. From these statements it is clear that, according to our creedal faith, the Divine and the Human in the Lord are together in one Person, and not that the Divine is outside the Human as many crazily imagine.
6. Again, it is further stated that the two natures were not co-mingled, but that the Divine took to itself the Human. Neither are soul and body co-mingled with any man; but with every one, the soul clothes itself with a body and so takes to itself that which is called the human. In this also there is agreement.
7. And so when the Divine takes to itself the Human, uniting Itself with the Human as soul and body, so that there is one united person, then also the Human participates in the Divine, namely by becoming one [with it]. Thence also it can be confirmed that the Human, too, is Divine.
8. This also is confirmed in the Word, as in the Old Testament, that a Son was born whose name shall be God, The Everlasting Father, God with us, Jehovah our Righteousness. These names refer to the Human of the Lord, for it is said that thus shall the Son be called [Isaiah 9:6]; also elsewhere, as particularly in Revelation, where such things are said concerning "The Son of Man" by which name, also, the Divine Human of the Lord is meant.
