Oration on “The Lord Created Me”

1If the Word received a beginning of generation from the time when he passed through his mother's womb and wore the bodily frame, then it follows that he came from a woman. But if the Word was God from the beginning with the Father, and we say that all things were made through him, then the one who exists and is the cause of all generated things did not come from a woman. Rather, he is by nature self-sufficient God, boundless, incomprehensible. What came from a woman is the man, the one formed in the virginal womb by the Holy Spirit.

For the pure and undefiled temple, properly speaking, is the tent around the Word according to the man, where God visibly pitched his tent and dwelt. And we do not say this from mere likelihood. The natural Son of God, foretelling the destruction and resurrection of the temple, equips us by teaching beyond doubt when he says to the murderous Jews, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19).

So when the Word had built the man as a temple and wore him, he visited human beings in a body and displayed all kinds of wonders invisibly, and he sent out the apostles as heralds of the eternal kingdom.

For Paul did not say that we are conformed to the Son of God, but conformed to the image of his Son, showing that the Son is one thing and his image another. The Son, bearing the divine marks of the Father's excellence, is the image of the Father; for when like offspring are born from like parents, the children appear as true images of their begetters. But the man whom he wore is the image of the Son, as images are painted from unlike colors: some are handmade by art, while others come into being by nature and likeness. Besides, the very law of truth dictates this. For the incorporeal Spirit of Wisdom is not conformed to bodily human beings; rather, the man given body by the Spirit is the imprint, bearing members equal in number to all other human beings and clothed in the same form as each of them.

That he means the body is conformed to human bodies, he teaches us more clearly when writing to the Philippians: "Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory" (Philippians 3:20-21). If he transforms the lowly body of human beings and makes it conformed to his own body, then the slander of the opponents has been shown to be stale on every side.

2Just as the man born from the virgin is said to have come into being from a woman, so too Scripture writes that he came under the law, because at times he walked according to the law's ordinances. This was especially so when his parents eagerly hurried to circumcise him as an eight-day-old child, as the evangelist Luke reports. Afterwards they brought him up to the temple to present him to the Lord, performing the purification offerings and giving a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord: a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. If, then, the purification gifts were offered for him according to the law, and he wore the eight-day circumcision, it is not unreasonable that Scripture writes that he came under the law.

But the Word was not subject to the law, as the slanderers suppose, since he himself is the law. Nor did God need cleansing sacrifices, since with a single turn he cleanses and sanctifies all things. Rather, even if he took up the human instrument from the virgin and wore it, and came under the law, being purified according to the requirements for the firstborn, he did not endure these ritual services because he himself needed their benefit. He did so to redeem from the slavery of the law those who had been sold under the penalty of the curse.

For the man who died rises on the third day. When Mary eagerly wished to touch his holy limbs, he answered her and cried out: "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brothers and say to them: I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God" (John 20:17). The words "I have not yet ascended to my Father" were not spoken by the Word, the God who comes from heaven and dwells in the Father's bosom, nor by the Wisdom who encompasses all created things. Rather, the man fitted together from members of every kind made this declaration. He is the one raised from the dead, who had not yet gone up to the Father after death but was keeping in store the firstfruits of his going forth.

Paul clearly names the crucified man himself the Lord of glory when he writes, since God also made him Lord and Christ, as the apostles say when speaking with one mind to Israel according to the flesh: "Let all the house of Israel therefore know with certainty that God made him Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified" (Acts 2:36). God therefore made the Jesus who suffered Lord. He did not make the Wisdom Lord, nor the Word, who from the beginning holds the power of lordship. He made Lord the one who stretched out his hands upon the cross, lifted high.

3If it is incorporeal, it does not fall under the touch of hands or get encompassed by visible eyes. It does not endure a wound, is not nailed with nails, has no share in death, is not hidden in the earth, is not shut up in a tomb, and does not rise from graves. Jesus himself cries out, “No one takes my life from me; I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:18). Since he held authority over both as God, he permitted them to destroy the temple when they laid hands on it recklessly, but by raising it he was working more gloriously. It has been shown from irrefutable votes that he himself through himself raised up his own house, having built it anew.

The Son’s mighty works must also be attributed to the most divine Father, for the Son does not create without the Father, according to the unbreakable declarations of the sacred writings. For this reason, at one time the most divine Begetter is written to have raised Christ from the dead, and at another the Son promises that he will raise his own temple. If, then, from what has been examined the Spirit of Christ has been shown to be impassible, the accursed ones attack the apostolic definitions to no purpose. For if Paul said that the Lord of glory was crucified, clearly looking to the man, it will not be necessary on that account to attach suffering to the divine. Why then do they weave this together, saying that Christ was crucified out of weakness?

But if it were fitting to attach some form of weakness to him, one might say it is consistent to attach these things to the man, not indeed to the fullness of the Godhead, nor to the dignity of the highest Wisdom, nor to the God who is written by Paul to be over all (Romans 9:5). This is the manner of weakness on account of which he is written to have come to death according to Paul: for he lives by the power of God, the man clearly dwelling together with the Spirit, since the one believed to be in him has been shown by the preceding definitions to be the power of the Most High.

If he mounted the virginal womb and did not diminish his authority, neither is the Spirit defiled when the body is nailed to the wood of the cross. For the body was crucified lifted up, but the Spirit of Wisdom dwelt within the body, and mounted the heavenly places, and encompassed all the earth, and ruled the depths, and searched out and judged the souls of each, and did all things together as God in his accustomed way.

4The highest Wisdom is not shut up and contained inside bodily masses, the way wet and dry materials are locked inside vessels and are contained by their containers rather than containing them. Instead, Wisdom is a divine and inexpressible power. It encompasses and strengthens both the innermost and outermost parts of the temple, and extending beyond from there, it holds all masses together at once by containing them.

If the sun, which is a visible body and perceptible to the senses, endures so many and such great assaults everywhere on earth without changing its order or feeling a small or great blow, do we suppose that the incorporeal Wisdom is defiled and changes its nature if its temple is nailed to a cross, or undergoes dissolution, or sustains a wound, or receives corruption? No: the temple suffers, but the undefiled substance remains altogether unstained in its dignity.

From here I will now proceed to what was done. What then? Since a very great council assembled at Nicaea for these reasons, some two hundred and seventy in number gathered together (I cannot write the exact figure because of the crowd's great size, since I did not investigate this with complete diligence), when the manner of the faith was being examined, the written statement of Eusebius was put forward as clear proof of blasphemy. When it was read before everyone, it immediately brought immeasurable disaster to those who heard it because of its deviation, and caused irreparable shame to the one who wrote it.

When the cabal of Eusebius and his party was clearly convicted, and the lawless document was torn up before the eyes of all, certain men acting by arrangement, putting forward the name of peace, silenced all those accustomed to speak most excellently. The Arians, fearing that they might be expelled from so great a council assembled in one place, leaped forward and anathematized the condemned doctrine, signing with their own hands in agreed documents. Having seized the presiding seats through the greatest possible maneuvering, when they ought to have submitted, they now secretly and now openly promote the opinions that had been voted down, plotting against those who refute them with various schemes. Wanting to make their weed-like plantings secure, they fear the officials, and in this way they make war on the heralds of piety. But we do not believe that godless men can ever prevail over the divine. For even if they grow strong again, they will be defeated again, according to the prophet Isaiah of august voice.