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7. But just as this consequence must needs hold, so, too, on the other side the
just claims of God lie against it: that God should appear true to the law He had
laid down concerning death. For it were monstrous for God, the Father of truth,
to appear a liar for our profit and preservation. 2. So here, once more, what
possible course was God to take? To demand repentance of men for their
transgression? For this one might pronounce worthy of God; as though, just as
from transgression men have become set towards corruption, so from repentance
they may once more be set in the way of incorruption. 3. But repentance would,
firstly, fail to guard the just claim of God. For He would still be none the
more true, if men did not remain in the grasp of death; nor, secondly, does
repentance call men back from what is their nature—it merely stays them from
acts of sin. 4. Now, if there were merely a misdemeanour in question, and not a
consequent corruption, repentance were well enough. But if, when transgression
had once gained a start, men became involved in that corruption which was their
nature, and were deprived of the grace which they had, being in the image of
God, what further step was needed? or what was required for such grace and such
recall, but the Word of God, which had also at the beginning made everything out
of nought? 5. For His it was once more both to bring the corruptible to
incorruption, and to maintain intact the just claim of the Father upon all. For
being Word of the Father, and above all, He alone of natural fitness was both
able to recreate everything, and worthy to suffer on behalf of all and to be
ambassador for all with the Father.
8. For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word
of God comes to our realm, howbeit he was not far from us before. For no part of
Creation is left void of Him: He has filled all things everywhere, remaining
present with His own Father. But He comes in condescension to shew
loving-kindness upon us, and to visit us. 2. And seeing the race of rational
creatures in the way to perish, and death reigning over them by corruption;
seeing, too, that the threat against transgression gave a firm hold to the
corruption which was upon us, and that it was monstrous that before the law was
fulfilled it should fall through: seeing, once more, the unseemliness of what
was come to pass: that the things whereof He Himself was Artificer were passing
away: seeing, further, the exceeding wickedness of men, and how by little and
little they had increased it to an intolerable pitch against themselves: and
seeing, lastly, how all men were under penalty of death: He took pity on our
race, and had mercy on our infirmity, and condescended to our corruption, and,
unable to bear that death should have the mastery—lest the creature should
perish, and His Father’s handiwork in men be spent for nought—He takes unto
Himself a body, and that of no different sort from ours. 3. For He did not
simply will to become embodied, or will merely to appear. For if He willed
merely to appear, He was able to effect His divine appearance by some other and
higher means as well. But He takes a body of our kind, and not merely so, but
from a spotless and stainless virgin, knowing not a man, a body clean and in
very truth pure from intercourse of men. For being Himself mighty, and Artificer
of everything, He prepares the body in the Virgin as a temple unto Himself, and
makes it His very own as an instrument, in it manifested, and in it dwelling. 4.
And thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under
penalty of the corruption of death He gave it over to death in the stead of all,
and offered it to the Father—doing this, moreover, of His loving-kindness, to
the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in Him, the law involving the
ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord’s
body, and had no longer holding-ground against men, his peers), and that,
secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, He might turn them again
toward incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of His
body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing death from them like straw
from the fire.
9. For the Word, perceiving that no otherwise could the corruption of men be
undone save by death as a necessary condition, while it was impossible for the
Word to suffer death, being immortal, and Son of the Father; to this end He
takes to Himself a body capable of death, that it, by partaking of the Word Who
is above all, might be worthy to die in the stead of all, and might, because of
the Word which was come to dwell in it, remain incorruptible, and that
thenceforth corruption might be stayed from all by the Grace of the
Resurrection. Whence, by offering unto death the body He Himself had taken, as
an offering and sacrifice free from any stain, straightway He put away death
from all His peers by the offering of an equivalent. 2. For being over all, the
Word of God naturally by offering His own temple and corporeal instrument for
the life of all satisfied the debt by His death. And thus He, the incorruptible
Son of God, being conjoined with all by a like nature, naturally clothed all
with incorruption, by the promise of the resurrection. For the actual corruption
in death has no longer holding-ground against men, by reason of the Word, which
by His one body has come to dwell among them. 3. And like as when a great king
has entered into some large city and taken up his abode in one of the houses
there, such city is at all events held worthy of high honour, nor does any enemy
or bandit any longer descend upon it and subject it; but, on the contrary, it is
thought entitled to all care, because of the king’s having taken up his
residence in a single house there: so, too, has it been with the Monarch of all.
4. For now that He has come to our realm, and taken up his abode in one body
among His peers, henceforth the whole conspiracy of the enemy against mankind is
checked, and the corruption of death which before was prevailing against them is
done away. For the race of men had gone to ruin, had not the Lord and Saviour of
all, the Son of God, come among us to meet the end of death.
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