Saturday, June 20, 2020

God is still incarnate

"He is very God and has ascended into the heavens and taken his seat at the Father’s right hand in glory, not by discarding his body but by uniting it to spirit in the perfection of one Godhead, just as our own bodies, though 'sown as natural bodies' for now, 'will be raised spiritual; though sown in corruption for now, will be raised in incorruption; though sown in mortality for now will be raised in immortality.'
    "Now if such is the case with our [own] bodies, how much more with that holy, inexpressible, incomparable pure body united with God [(ἐκεῖνο τὸ ἅγιον καὶ ἀνεκδιὴγητον καὶ ἀσύγκριτον καὶ ἀκραιφνὲς τῷ θεῷ συνηνωμένον)], the one body in its final uniqueness?  The apostle testifies to this and says, 'Even if we knew Christ after the flesh, now know we him no more.'  It is not that he separated his flesh from his Godhead; as it was and united with his Godhead, no longer fleshly but spiritual, as the scripture says, 'according to the Spirit of holiness after the resurrection from the dead of your Lord Jesus Christ.'  At the same time [he displayed] this flesh divine, impassible and yet having suffered—and having been buried, having risen, having ascended in glory, coming to judge the quick and the dead [(τοῦτον ὁμοῦ θεὸν ἔχουσα, ἀπαθῆ καὶ παθόντα, καὶ ταφέντα καὶ ἀναστάντα, καὶ ἀνελθόντα ἐν δόξῃ, ἐρχόμενον κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκροὺς)]. . . ."

     St. Epiphanius of Salamis, De fide 17.7-11 (at the close of the Panarion), trans. Frank Williams (The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books II and III, De fide, 2nd rev. ed. (Leiden, Brill, 2012), 675-676).  For an accessible modern (if not the standard critical) edition of the Greek see Opera 3, ed. Dindorf (Leipzig:  Weigel, 1861), p. 578 l. 17-p. 579 l. 16.

No comments: