On “Father”

1Again, as a soldier under orders, I take up the battle against the heretics, with Stephen, the general of piety, commanding the ranks. For just as Joshua routed the enemy while Moses prayed, so I too, with the martyr as my ally, subdue the enemies of the truth. I say this not because I trust in an abundance of words, but because I have confidence in the martyr's prayer; and so it is with confidence that I lay hold of these words. For I do not fear their bombast in speech. I do not fear the outworks of their evil-crafted deception. I have learned not to fear a fear where there was no fear. They say that Christ fears death and is afraid of it, but we, for Christ's sake, choose to die as many times as the days we live in the flesh, so that with bare head we may lead the truth in triumph. Therefore, as one who already holds the winning vote, I advance against them. For Christ encourages me through the prophet, saying: "Son of man, do not be afraid of their faces, for they will rage against you on every side. For you dwell in the midst of scorpions" (Ezekiel 2:6). I am not afraid of stinging scorpions. For I do not walk with bare feet; I have the sandals of the gospel of peace, so that even if I am bitten, I am not harmed. "And having shod your feet," he says, "with the readiness of the gospel of peace" (Ephesians 6:15). Come then, with the sandals of peace let us trample the many-formed head of the heretics, so that by the fearlessness with which we advance against them, we may teach them how greatly they err when they attach fear and timidity to the nature of the only-begotten. For those who think and speak everything without judgment and without reason, and who do not understand "Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass," vote fear against Christ and say that he is needy and lesser because he prays to the Father and seeks release from the necessity pressing upon him. Since, then, they slander the Word of God to insult God, and to reject the Spirit they chant the letter around, mocking and ridiculing the plan of salvation of Christ, and with cleverness of phrase and fluency of words they cover over their venomous bites, robbing the more innocent of their salvation—come, as those unskilled in words, let us call upon the very Word of God, so that he himself, becoming the interpreter of his own words, may expose their folly and strengthen our understanding. Tell us the meaning of what has been said, Master; unfold the leaf of the letter and show the fruit of the Spirit, so that we may not attend to the letter and die, but may run to the Spirit and enjoy life. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). Teach us as infants, and discipline the heretics as fools; for you are the instructor of fools and the teacher of infants. To us as infants, bare the breast of grace and offer the nipple of the Spirit. Pour out the pure milk of the gospel teaching. And make the folly of the heretics plain. For if they were not fools, they would not have woven a doctrine of blasphemy to destroy your divinity. For the fool has said in his heart, it says, "There is no God" (Psalm 14:1). Strip bare their mask of impiety, so that the drama of their hypocrisy may be exposed. Show that they carry your name around for this reason: to cover over the blasphemy of their own choice. Tell us, then, Master, for what reason you came to the passion and yet decline to suffer, and why you fear the threat of the Jews—you who command us not to fear those who kill the body (Matthew 10:28). And if you fear death at all, why do you not decline death? For if it lies within your power to suffer or not to suffer, you say in vain, "If it is possible, let it pass." For in you—

2it lies within your power either to accept the passion or to refuse it. But if it does not lie within you, then you fear with good reason, as one dragged to the passion unwillingly and against your will. And if you take up death for us unwillingly, how can you say, “I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:18)? And how, again, when you were mocking the threat of the Jews in another place, did you say, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19)? You who many times and in many ways prefigured death before death, and sketched the trophy of the cross before the cross—you who said that the Son of Man must be handed over and crucified and buried and rise on the third day—why do you now, when you have come under the cross, refuse death? For if the Son of Man must be handed over, how can you say, “If it is possible, let this cup pass”? And if you did not want to suffer at all, why did you put on a body capable of suffering? But if you put on a body capable of suffering and are going to the passion, why are you grieved and distressed? And how is it that when you were describing death, when you were narrating the passion, when you were prefiguring the cross, you were angry with Peter for saying, “Far be it from you, Lord; this shall never happen to you” (Matthew 16:22)—and you were so angry that you said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me, because you are not thinking the things of God but the things of men” (Matthew 16:23)? If refusing death is a human way of thinking, why do you now seek what you once prevented? And how do you now pray to escape death, you who once rebuked your disciple for fearing the assault of death? Are you not the one proclaimed beforehand by the law and the prophets? Was it not about you that the prophet Hosea said, “Thus says the Lord: I will deliver them from the hand of Hades, so that they may say, ‘Where is your victory, death? Where is your sting, Hades?’” (Hosea 13:14)? If you are the one who delivers from Hades, how do you fear death? And if you fear death—the death through which we hope to conquer death—then our hope is empty and our expectation is useless. If you fear death at all, in what shall we have hope of life from now on? And how can you say, “I am the life and the resurrection” (John 11:25)? For life does not fear death, and resurrection does not fear the passion. But you are the life and the resurrection. Why then do you frighten my soul? Why do you weaken the strength of my mind by bringing out words of fear? Were the things concerning Lazarus a phantom? Were the things concerning Jairus's daughter a dream? Were the things concerning the widow's son a shadow? No, what happened was truth. How then does the one who stripped death fear death? How does the one who raised stinking corpses with authority pray and fear to fall into death? And why do you fear falling into it at all? For even if you fall into it, you will free yourself. The one who raises others will far more raise his own body. So either explain the meaning to me, Master, or stop the saying and do not tear my soul apart or make my reasoning give way. For if you are the one who knows all things before they come into being, how do you now not know whether it is possible or impossible for the cup to pass? If you do not know, then Paul lies when he says, “No creature is hidden from your sight, but all things are naked and laid open to his eyes” (Hebrews 4:13). But if you do know, how can you say, “If it is possible”? A question belongs to one who does not know, not a statement to one who knows. So explain to us, Master, the meaning of what you have said. For now Eunomius rejoices; now Arius celebrates, seizing the saying as material for blasphemy. But they rejoice in vain. For there is no joy for the wicked, says the Lord (Isaiah 57:21). I do not fear death, as they say; I do not refuse the passion, as they suppose. For if I had not wanted to give life to the human race through death, I would not, being the impassible Word, have entered into flesh capable of suffering. But since I saw the human race held by deception and not by force, by the sorcery of demons and not by violence, I entered into your body, so that by preparing opposites from opposites I might set humanity free through every deception. For since the tyrant was boasting greatly that he had found sin and through sin brought in death, and had made Adam—the citizen of paradise, the appointed master of the world—a slave, a robber, and a tiller of the ground, for this reason I came to the earth as a king, having the flesh as a purple robe, so that having shorn the tyrant's boldness, I might dissolve deception with deception, march righteousness against sin, and set life against death. It is not because I fear death that I am afraid; for the matter is not involuntary, but the achievement is freely chosen.

3For I am the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep of his own free will (John 10:11). Just as, though I existed in the form of God, I emptied myself and took the form of a servant with no one forcing me (Philippians 2:6-7), so also I endure death willingly—not overpowered by force, but coming to the passion of my own free will. “Why then did you suffer, Master?” “For the salvation of human beings,” he says. And I will tell you the manner of it. Since the human race was made subject to the sentence of death through Adam, who was formed from virgin earth, and since I was the one who had cast out the sentence of death, it was impossible for the human being to be released from the punishment unless I myself recalled my own sentence. For this reason I took human form from a virgin womb, in the likeness of Adam, and I endure death, so that as God I may dissolve the sentence, and as a human being I may accept death on behalf of human beings. I do this so that I may set humanity free not by authority but by compassion. For if a human being had sinned and God had set things right, the achievement would not have been great. But as it is, for this reason I became a human being, and on behalf of the one who broke the law I fulfilled the law, so that the human race might glory in the kinship of the one who set things right. Therefore even now I receive the sentence of death on behalf of Adam, so that through me he may receive the grace of the resurrection. Adam stumbled and brought death in with him; I set things right and brought the resurrection in against it. And since death reigned from Adam until Moses (Romans 5:14)—and it reigned by holding the body subject as the co-worker of sin—for this reason I took up that same body which seemed to be the instrument of sin, so that by abolishing sin I might show the human being free from sin. And in another way: since human beings were living an evil life, entangled with sin, so that their life was worse than death, for this reason I chose the good death over the evil life and endure death, so that those who share in the good death may enjoy the true life. And they enjoy it through baptism. For all who are baptized are baptized into my death, so that just as I was raised from the dead, so also they may walk in newness of life (Romans 6:3-4). And let no one doubt and say, “Darkness does not produce light, nor does black produce whiteness—how then did death give birth to life?” That the matter is beyond nature is clear. But in my case do not look for the order of nature. For I am the master of nature, sometimes allowing nature to run according to nature, and sometimes driving it beyond nature. For whenever I wish to accomplish something extraordinary, then nature denies its own order and does whatever my command directs. And this is clear from the visible order of creation—I mean something like this: the sun and the moon are fire by nature, and the frozen water is a firmament, which I called heaven. If you look for the course of nature, how is the fire guarded by the water, or how is the frozen firmament not dissolved and melted by the heat of the fire? And so that I may not occupy your soul with the visible order of creation, I will lead you by the hand to the plan of salvation itself and persuade you that in paradoxical wonders one must not look for the course of nature. Consider that though I was God, I put on a human body. This is first of all beyond nature. For tell me, how could the human body, extended in three dimensions, contain the one who cannot be contained, the one without measure, the one who is everywhere, the one who circumscribes the whole world, the one who measures the heaven with a span and the earth with a handful and the sea with a cup (Isaiah 40:12)? That it did contain him is clear, since all the fullness of divinity dwelt in the flesh bodily (Colossians 2:9). But how—I know, he says. For I know what I arrange in my plan of salvation, but you cannot hear it. For the knowledge of ineffable things surpasses mortal hearing, so much so that even when I wish to explain something because of the abundance of my mercies, I explain it not as nature has it, but as you are able to learn. For this reason, putting down the pride of those who seem wise, I said: “The one who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:2). For you have heard that though I was the Word, I became flesh, but how—you do not know. How was I in the flesh—as a body in a body, or as a soul in a body? I shared in the suffering of the passible body, then, but I did not suffer. For the nature of God does not fall into passion. Just as I became flesh without ceasing to be God, so also I endured the passion without falling into passion. I was born for the plan of salvation; I died for the salvation of human beings. Rather, I died for this reason: because I was born.

4So do not ask about the manner of my birth or the way of my death. What nature does not accomplish, power brings to completion. Being God, then, I entered a human body. That was first of all contrary to nature—yet it did not become impossible because of nature, since it lay within my authority, the authority of the one who made nature. And again I permitted this very body to fall into the common death, so that the life that rules over death might display the activity of life even within death itself. For a living thing to live is no wonder, but for a dead thing to be made alive—that is great and astonishing. For this reason I allowed it to be dissolved, and after its dissolution I raised it, so that I might show that even when the body was subjected to death I remained without suffering, and that I not only raised my own body but raised together with it the bodies of the righteous who had fallen asleep before.

Willingly, then, out of love for humanity I endure death, and willingly again, according to a certain plan of salvation, I show fear of death. For I fear death so that I may deceive death. Just as in the wilderness, if I had not been hungry, the devil would not have approached. I was hungry for this reason: so that, thinking me to be another Adam, he might bring his snare. So here too I utter words of fear for this reason, as bait, so that I may hook death for myself. For the devil saw me performing many signs: strengthening the paralytic, loosening the tongues of the mute, opening the ears of the deaf, giving sight to the blind, turning the raging of the sea into calm, drying up the flow of the hemorrhaging woman through the touch of the fringe, raising Lazarus by a word, raising Jairus's daughter, calling back the widow's son from the dead. Seeing all these things and being persuaded by the very facts that I am the Son of God who appeared in human form according to the prediction of the prophets, he fears and dreads to nail me to a cross and hand me over to death, lest entering the form of a corpse I set the dead free.

What then do I do, so that I may turn the devil's fear into reckless arrogance and make death rush upon me? I flee so that he will pursue; I show fear so that he will take courage; I use humble words so that he will think I am one of the many, run to me, and swallow me. For if he does not swallow me, he cannot vomit out those he has swallowed. Therefore I speak words of fear, so that by deceiving the deceiver I may undo the deception. With deceitful words he deceived Adam; with fearful words I deceive the deceitful one. But he spoke deceptive words to destroy the human being; I speak words of fear to set the world free.

I am a fisherman fishing for fish. For just as a fisherman puts a worm on the hook, extends the rod, and sometimes lets the hook sink down and sometimes pulls and drags it, so that by making the worm appear to flee he prepares the fish to rush upon it—so I too, placing my body on the hook of my divinity like a worm—for I am a worm and not a man (Psalm 22:6)—sometimes I pull death in as if in fear, and sometimes I let the hook sink down as if taking courage, so that the devil, like a fish leaping upon the worm—that is, coming against the flesh—may without knowing it fall upon the hook of the divinity, and having fallen may be dragged up, so that what was said by Job may be fulfilled in him: You will draw the dragon with a hook (Job 41:1).

It was not because I feared death that I said, My soul is deeply grieved (Matthew 26:38). Nor was it because I feared the passion that I say, Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me (Matthew 26:39). For I do everything so that death may not escape me. I show fear as a human being, so that having been swallowed as a human being I may work as God. I use humble words, so that when he swallows the leaven of my body he may find the coal of the divinity dreadfully burning him. I show fear, so that he may chew my body, a mustard seed; he will find the sharpness of the divinity violently tormenting him. I show fear, so that he may swallow me as a human being. For if he swallows me, he will find the solid rock of the divinity shattering his teeth, so that what is written may be fulfilled in him: God will break the teeth in their mouths (Psalm 58:6).

For this reason, then, I hide the authority of the divinity and put forward the fear of the flesh, so that he may not be hunted by the power of the divinity, but may be brought down by the weakness of the body. For so that he may not boast as one defeated by God, for this reason I deceive him through the flesh, so that through the very things by which he plotted he may be plotted against. I conquer him, then, through the weakness of the body, so that he may not boast as one refuted by divine power. For to be defeated by the divinity—

5For him to be defeated by me would have brought him glory rather than shame. So now I conquer him through fearful and lowly and weak flesh—not tempting but being tempted, not striking but being struck, not killing but dying, not crucifying but being crucified, not beating but being beaten—so that the victory may not be credited to me, but so that through the form of a human being the prizes may be assigned to the human race. For this reason, then, I seem to fear, so that the devil like a fish may fall upon the bait, and death like a sparrow may be stuck to the birdlime. For since he deceived badly, for this reason he is deceived well. Since through bodily pleasure he bewitched the human race, for this reason through a body he is driven away from the race. What he did, he suffers; what he wrought against the many, this he endures from one. But what that one did was ruinous to those who suffered it, while what I do against him will be salvation for the inhabited world. For I deceive the deceiver through the body, so that once refuted he may no longer be able to deceive those whom he himself deceived through the body. He brings death; through it I provide resurrection. Unwillingly he benefits the race. For through the very things by which he brings death, he brings an occasion for resurrection. The plotter against all has suddenly become a benefactor of the inhabited world. He benefited the inhabited world by being deceived, devising a deception that profits the world and a trophy against his own tyranny. Just as one hurling a stone against a rock will not shatter the rock but will crush the stone, so also the devil, hurling death like a stone against my body, did not destroy my body—for you will not let your holy one see corruption (Psalm 16:10)—but shattered his own stings, unable to withstand the solid resistance. Let no one, then, condemn me for fear out of ignorance, nor hurl lowly words at the divinity. I am a shepherd according to the Word of the divinity. For he says, Shepherd of Israel, give heed, you who lead Joseph like a flock (Psalm 79:2 (Hebrew 80:1)), but a sheep according to

6the plan of salvation of the flesh. For as a sheep to slaughter I was led, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent (Isaiah 53:7). Since the devil lies in wait for me, wanting to seize my flesh as a sheep, but fearing the divinity as a shepherd he withdraws and flees, for this reason I hide my divinity as a shepherd and put forward my flesh as a sheep, so that he may take courage and approach, and approaching may seize it, and seizing my flesh as a sheep he may be destroyed by the two-edged sword of the Spirit. Stop, then, heretic, condemning me for fear and ignorance. For I am afraid so that I may show the assumption of the flesh to be no illusion. I say, 'My soul is troubled,' so that you may learn that I have not assumed a body without a soul, as the error of Apollinaris wants it. Do not, then, attach the passions of the flesh to the impassible Word. For I am God and man, heretic: God, as the miracles guarantee; man, as the sufferings testify. Since therefore I am God and man, tell me who it is who suffered. If God suffered, you have spoken blasphemy. But if the flesh suffered, why do you attach the passion to the one on whom you do not cast the fear? For when one suffers, another does not fear, and when a man is crucified, God is not troubled. And that the flesh suffered while the Word remained impassible, Isaiah is witness, who, seeing me bloodied in the Spirit, asked, 'Why are your garments red?' Your garments, he says, are red, and not you. For the body is wounded, but the Word of the divinity is not harmed. And Jacob the patriarch is witness, who says concerning me, 'He will wash his robe in wine and his wrap in the blood of the grape' (Genesis 49:11). What robe? The body. What blood? That which flowed from the side.

7But if you do not throw out my testimony, I testify about myself. For my testimony is true, even if you do not want it to be—the testimony I spoke to the Jews: “Why do you want to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you?” (John 8:40). He said “a man,” heretic—not God. So this man Jesus, killed by the Jews, is the one who fears. And do not confuse the Word with your ignorance. I fear for this reason: so that death may grapple with me as with a man, and be defeated as by God. But even in fearing, I do not entirely refuse the passion. For if I refused it, I would not have said, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass” (Matthew 26:39). For I knew that nothing is impossible for the Father. But if I asked for death to be carried away, and he did not carry it away, two absurdities arise. For if he did not carry it away because he was unable, or because he spared not and handed me over, then you are found, heretic, attaching fear to me and powerlessness to the Father. But when you say that I fear, you are pardoned because of the flesh; yet when you attribute powerlessness to the Father, you sin without excuse, saying that the power of God is weaker than death. And in another way you make me out to be stronger than the Father. Let me tell you how. For if I, while living in the flesh, raised Lazarus, Jairus’s daughter, and the widow’s son, and after dying in the flesh, again plundered more than five hundred dead from their tombs, but my Father—who had no experience of flesh or death—could not rescue me, his beloved Son, from dangers—as he himself says, “This is my beloved Son” (Matthew 3:17)—then see what you are getting into, heretic.

8By not granting me equality willingly, you grant me the greater thing against your will. The one you think you are disparaging for weakness, you are actually declaring stronger than the Father. For I, without even being urged on, rescued the souls held down in Hades. “Lord,” it says, “you brought up my soul from Hades” (Psalm 30:3). But he, even when urged on, did not free my troubled soul from the evils hanging over it. But let it not be so! For neither was the Father sparing or powerless when he did not free me from the passion, nor did I, in refusing the passion, ask for the cup to pass by. If the passion were involuntary, then I truly feared. But if the death was self-chosen, then I only appeared to fear, so that by deceiving the devil I might set humanity free. The devil did not see this, and so he dragged me down, intending to swallow me, not knowing that he would have to vomit up even those he had already swallowed. For the moment I stood in Hades, I stripped his tombs and laid bare his graves. I laid them bare not by fighting openly, but by invisibly providing the resurrection. I was releasing no one, and yet all were being released. I was saying nothing, and yet freedom was being proclaimed. I was calling no one, and yet all were running together. For the moment I stood there as king, the tyrant was despised. I shone as light, and the darkness was dissolved. You could see every prisoner looking at freedom, every captive dancing at the resurrection—so much so that the dead themselves were marveling at me for the victory and mocking death for its defeat, saying: “Where, death, is your sting? Where, Hades, is your victory?” (Hosea 13:14). And so it is. For all that has been said, let us send up glory to Christ, the king of all, for to him belong glory, honor, and worship, with the undefiled Father and the all-holy Spirit, to the ages of ages. Amen.