ON
THE INCARNATION
OR
BECOMING MAN OF THE SON OF GOD
By
Bishop Theophilos of
Translated and annotated[2]
from the original Greek
By
Fr GEORGE DION DRAGAS PhD,DD
Protopresbyter
1. The Mystery of the Incarnation. God who is all-powerful could have liberated the human
race from the hands of the Devil by a single command. Had he done that,
however, we would have known only his All-powerfulness, which we already
knew. We would not have known his Compassion and Love in spite of
the fact that we are hostile to him.
The Incarnation (literally Ensarkosis =En-flesh-ment)
of the Son of God is called such because of his extreme condescension and
because it was out of love that he who is not separated from the Father came
down to the lowest point, i.e. to the flesh, although when we speak
about flesh here we understand the whole man who is denoted by the
partial element of the flesh.
The Incarnation of the Son of God is the
supreme dogma of the Christian Faith, because it was by these means that we
were saved by grace. The whole Son of God became Man, personally (literally hypostatically
= existentially). In other words, he was perfect God and perfect man, with
two natures, Godhead and manhood, and one person (hypostasis), the
divine.
This mystery, says Dionysios
(the Areopagite) remains ineffable, although we
denote it with words. It is also unknowable, although we put it in our mind.
God Himself said to Moses: Go down and solemnly charge the people, lest
at any time they draw nigh to God to gaze, and a multitude of them fall
(Ex.
2. Why Did the Incarnation
As she conceived without a sperm, so
Christ was born without corruption. In other words, the Holy Mary and Theotokos, who was a Virgin before the birth, remained a
Virgin even after the birth. Thus Christ came out of her womb in an ineffable
manner, just as he entered into her in a manner, which involved no passion and
cannot be explained.
This is exactly what Ezekiels prophesy
stresses: Son of Man, This Gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened; and no one
shall pass through it, for the Lord God of Israel shall enter by it and come
out of it and the Gate shall remain shut (Ezekiel 44:2).
3. This Mystery of the Incarnation is inconceivable according to the prophet Jeremiah who
says: And he is a man, and who shall know Him? (Jer.
17:9). The great Paul also declares the same: And without doubt the Mystery
of our piety is Great: God appeared in the flesh (1 Tim.
This Mystery of the Incarnation is
inconceivable both to Angels and human beings. God Himself revealed it to
Moses, when he showed him through an opening his back parts, namely His
Incarnation. He did not show him his person, i.e. His Godhead, which no man can
ever see, not even an angel. At the Incarnation, then, God did not change what
he was, since he is unchangeable; rather he assumed what he was not because he is
a lover of man.
One may ask, how did the humanity receive the Godhead without being
burnt out? But is this not also the case with the burning Bush, which was not
burnt out? Where God is at work whatever is impossible becomes possible. The
burning iron receives the entire nature of fire, and yet the iron remains iron
and the fire, fire. It burns like fire, and like iron it undergoes changes,
which an iron undergoes and has a cutting edge when it is used.
4. The Godhead deified the Human Nature, which is now deified together with
its soul, which is endowed with mind, reason, will and energy. As a man, Christ
was exposed to the so-called natural but blameless passions. In others words,
he felt pain, thirst, weariness, even faintheartedness in a natural way. He did
not display, however, any blameworthy passions, i.e. those deriving from evil
choice. This was the case because he was united with God, who was the leader of
his rational soul and preserved Christ sinless.
Some of the Fathers say that the babe was
perfect already inside the belly of his mother. Others, however, say that he
grew gradually like all babes. This is a matter of opinion and not a heresy
that has an effect on the Mystery. The point is that just as Adam was made from
the soil, so Christ was made from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. The Holy
Spirit gave birth to the soul of Christ while his flesh was made from the blood
of the Virgin.
5. The Manner of the Incarnation. Saint Maximus
says that the Angels knew the impending Incarnation of the Son of God for the
salvation of human beings. What however, escaped their perception were the
unthinkable Conception and the manner of the Incarnation. How he could be
entirely in the Father and entirely inside all things which he fulfilled, and
also entirely inside the belly of the Virgin!
Nevertheless, Christs becoming man
differs from that of all other human beings. He is substantially a perfect man,
yet he differs because he is seedless, and because he falls under a different
law from that which pertains to the nature of composite beings. The Word of God
was conjoined with the flesh by means of assuming it in an ineffable manner.
Thus, only when Christ was born was the
message heard, Peace on earth and good will among men (Luke
6. The Name Jesus and the Greek Alphabet. The Name Jesus, which is the
Name above every other name (Phil. 2:9), means Savior for the Jews
and healer (iomenos) for the Greeks. And
indeed, Christ is the Healer of our souls and of the bodies of those who
believe in him. The curious point here, however, is that this great and divine
Name was indicated before hand through the Greek Alphabet, which consists of 24
letters!
As is known, the first eight letters of
this Alphabet from A to Θ
specify 8 monads. The following eight letters from I to Π specify 8 decades, and the following
eight letters from P to Ω
specify 8 hundreds. If we add them all up we form the number 888. The same
applies, however, if we add the numbers which are specified by the letters of
the Name JESUS: I(=10)+ Η(=8)+
Σ(=200)+ Ο(=70)+ Υ(=400)+ Σ(=200)=888. Τhis is exactly what the following verse
stresses: For if eight monads are to be added to eight decades and these to eight
hundreds they will denote to the human unbelievers the Name of their Savior
(Oracula Sibyllina).
7. Witnesses of the Gentiles about the God-Man. Witnesses to Christ being God and Man
are also found among many Gentiles:
a)
Josephus. The Jewish
historian Josephus says this about Christ: Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise
man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works a
teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him
both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when
Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to
the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he
appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold
these and other wonderful mysteries concerning him; and the tribe of the
Christians, so named from him are not extinct at this day (Antiquitates Judaicae,
Book 18,64.2). In other words, Josephus wonders whether Jesus was only a
man, since he did so many incredible things and taught in such a way that he
made many Jews and Greeks believe in him. Also, when the leaders of the Jews
delivered him to Pilate to be crucified, his disciples did not reject him, for
he was resurrected on the third day and appeared to them according to the
predictions of the prophets who had spoken about this and many more mysteries
concerning his person. Indeed his followers took his name and came to be called
Christians and their race has not ceased to exist to this day.
B) The Roman Emperor Augustus. Eusebius of Pamphilos
(Metropolitan of Caesarea in Palestine) reports that the Roman Caesar Augustus
went to the Oracle of Delphi and offered sacrifice there as a Greek in order to
ask Pythia who gave the oracles to tell him who would
reign after him. Pythia gave him the following
oracle: A Hebrew child, who will reign over the blessed gods, orders me to leave
this altar and return to Hades again. Depart, therefore,
silent from my altars
(Oracula, or Suda, Lexicon alpha).
When Caesar Augustus heard these things, he returned to
C)
Porphyry. The opponent
of the Christians Porphyry says the following: But now [the Gentiles] marvel
how the disease has befallen the city for so many years and there has been no
intervention either from Asclepius (the god of
health) or from any other gods. Because the honor offered to Jesus did not
leave room for any common help from the gods (Porphyrius,
Contra Christianos 80.3, or Eusebius, Preparatio Evangelica
V.1.10).
Their oracles ceased and their divinations
from their false gods, the demons. What else did the thoughtless and blind
gentiles wish to see in order to understand that the mighty power of the Lord
and God Jesus Christ? But the sages of the Greeks had proclaimed Christ even
before his incarnation.
D)
Orpheus. Orpheus says:
Voice,
I attest you, of the Father, which he uttered first. When he established the
world on his own will (Justin Martyr, Cohortatio
ad Gentiles, 16). And the next verse says: and when you look at the divine
word, attach yourself to him (Ibid. De Monarchia, and Clement Alexandrinus
Protrepticus and Stromata).
Just as the birth of Christ was seedless,
so also the divine generation was without birth pangs. It is a mistake to speak
of the birth pangs of the holy Virgin, i.e. that the feast on the day after
Christmas is connected with greeting the mother that recovers from the birth
pangs.
8. God Became Man in order to Conquer the Devil as
Man. Since he was born
in an ineffable manner, and received the homage of the Magi, and that unusual
star appeared in the sky, and he was fed with human milk, and grew up, and went
to the desert and fasted for forty days, the Devil thought that he was only a
man and could fall if tempted with hunger and so he started tempting him hard.
But Christ rebutted the enemy, putting forth the light of Scripture, not using
the power and authority of his Godhead, but following the natural sequence of
humanity. It was as a man, then, and not as God that Christ conquered the
Devil, because the Devil had conquered the first man at the beginning not as
God but as man. It was necessary, then,
that the Devil should be conquered by man. This is why the divine Dionysius the
Areopagite and Gregory the Theologian say, that Christ
conquered the Devil not by power but by right judgment and righteousness
(Dionysius De ecclesiasticae Hierarchia).
Luke the Evangelist says that Christ sustained all temptations, because he
scored victories over the three capital ones, gluttony, vainglory and avarice,
which give birth to all others. Thus He put the Devil to shame.
9. The Public Ministry of the God-Man and its
Conclusion in the Resurrection.
When Christ came down from the desert and gathered together his disciples, he
preached to the world for three years and produced many miracles, having first
completed the thirtieth year of his age. After all these things his disciple
Judas sold him by treachery, and Christ accepted it, because he wanted to
redeem us, human beings, who had been sold to the Devil through sin. He
deliberately handed Himself over to those who pursued him, because he wanted to
complete the divine economy and redeem the human race. He was crucified, died
and buried, and the Third Day he rose and appeared to his disciples and to the
women. Then, forty days later he blessed his disciples, and having taught them
about peace, he ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father
having fulfilled all things and having deified man.
Before the Resurrection of Christ took
place, three human beings appear in the Old Testament to have been risen from
the dead. The first one is the son of the widow from Zarephath
or Sarepta (cf. Luke
10. Epilogue From the Words of Dionysius the Areopagite.
We shall let Dionysius the Areopagite to close this
chapter. And first of all we shall recall what he says about the darkness,
which occurred when Christ was crucified. There is, he says, the witness of the
Greek astronomer Phlegon who said: In
the second year of the 202nd Olympiad a major eclipse of the Sun
occurred, the like of which had not been seen earlier, so that the stars
appeared in the sky (Johannes Malalas,
Chronographia). This is one additional witness
of the Greeks, which is connected with the Crucifixion of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
It is in this way, then, that we should
believe in and worship Jesus Christ, as God who became man, because the Son and
Word of God remains inseparable from his humanity. As
God He is other than the Flesh, but also as Flesh He is other than the Word.
Since, however, the Word of the Father, who is from God, Himself became man as
well, this is not the case of an other and an other
because of the indescribable union and summit. Thus, the Son is called: One and
Only, both before the summit of the Incarnation and after His union with the
Flesh. It is exactly for this reason that he said to the man who had been
previously blind and was healed by Him: Do
you believe in the Son of man? (John 9:35). And he answered, And
who is he Lord, that I might believe in Him (John
Truly,
how incomprehensible and lofty is this Mystery of the Incarnation of Christ!
Yet it is an absolute confirmation and revelation of Gods infinite love for us
human beings.
[1] Bishop
Theophilos of
[2] References to the texts cited by the author were not included in the original edition and were provided by the translator.