On the Soul against the Arians · §3 · Eustathius of Antioch

Why the Arians deny Christ a soul

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Eustathius is refuting the Arian claim that Christ took a soulless body, and here he explains their motive and then cites Jeremiah's words about God rejecting intercession for murderers.

Why, then, do they make so much of showing that Christ took up a soulless body, fabricating earthy deceits? So that if they are able to corrupt some people and get them to define the matter this way, they may then attach the alterations of the passions to the Spirit and easily persuade them that the changeable was not begotten from the unchangeable nature. Jeremiah, speaking in agreement with these things, introduces the voices of God which he serves, and through them shows that God does not accept even the intercessions of the righteous, if they should choose to plead on behalf of murderers. And the Lord said to me, saying, “If Moses and Samuel stood before my face, my soul is not toward them” (Jeremiah 15:1).

Greek

15 ∆ιὰ τί δὲ περὶ πολλοῦ ποιοῦνται δεικνύναι τὸν Χριστὸν ἄψυχον ἀνειληφέναι σῶμα, γεώδεις πλάττοντες ἀπάτας; Ἵνα εἰ δυνηθεῖεν ὑποφθεῖραί τινας, ταῦθ' οὕτως ἔχειν ὁρίζεσθαι, τηνικαῦτα τὰς τῶν παθῶν ἀλλοιώσεις τῷ θείῳ περιάψαντες Πνεύματι, ῥᾳδίως ἀναπείσωσιν αὐτοὺς, ὡς οὐκ ἔστι τὸ τρεπτὸν ἐκ τῆς ἀτρέπτου φύσεως γεννηθέν. 16 Σύμφωνα δὲ τούτοις διεξιὼν ὁ αὐτὸς Ἱερεμίας εἰσηγεῖται τὰς τοῦ Θεοῦ διακονούμενος φωνὰς, δι' ὧν δείκνυσιν, ὅτι μήτε τὰς τῶν δικαίων προσίεται πρεσβείας, εἰ βουληθεῖεν τῶν μιαιφόνων χάριν ἀξιῶσαι. Καὶ εἶπε Κύριος πρός με λέγων· Ἐὰν στῇ Μωϋσῆς καὶ Σαμουὴλ πρὸ προσώπου μου, οὐκ ἔστιν ἡ ψυχή μου πρὸς αὐτούς.

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About this text

On the Soul against the Arians attributed to Eustathius of Antioch.

Eustathius of Antioch (fl. c. 320–337) wrote this treatise against Arian teachers who claimed that Christ took a body without a human soul. He was bishop of Beroea before becoming bishop of Antioch shortly before the Council of Nicaea in 325. He wrote to defend the full humanity of Christ and to show that the Word was truly united to a human soul as well as a body.

The Arians taught that the divine Word assumed a soulless body, so that all the changes and sufferings of Christ could be attributed to the divine Spirit. Their goal was to persuade people that what is changeable could not be born from the unchangeable nature, and so to deny that the Son is begotten from the Father's unchangeable nature. Eustathius answers by pointing to Christ's infancy, growth, suffering, death, and resurrection as proof of a real human body with a soul.

A reader will meet Christ, the thief crucified with him, the blessed Stephen, Herod, and the prophets Jeremiah, Moses, and Samuel. The treatise uses the promise to the thief on the cross to show that Christ's human soul, united to the Word, led the thief's soul into paradise while Christ's body still lay in the tomb. Old Testament names appear in their Greek forms, such as Mōysēs for Moses, Samouēl for Samuel, and Hieremias for Jeremiah, and Psalm numbering follows the Septuagint.

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Translated from PG 18 (Greek)

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