CPG 3665
Author Apollinaris
Greek Text Lietzmann, Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule: Texte und Untersuchungen, 250-253.

1. We confess that the Son of God, who was begotten eternally before the ages, in the last ages because of our salvation was born of Mary according to the flesh, as the divine Apostle teaches, saying, “But when the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Gal 4:4). And the same one is the Son of God and God according to the flesh and the Son of Man according to the flesh. The one Son is not two natures, one worshipped and one not worshipped, but one nature of God the Word, incarnate and worshipped along with his flesh with one worship. There are not two sons, one who is the true and worshipped Son of God and the other who is an unworshipped man from Mary and became the Son of God by grace as other men. But the one from God, as I said, is the one Son of God and the same one and not another was also born of Mary according to the flesh in the last days. As the angel said to the God-bearer Mary when she said, “How will this be, for I have not known a man?,” “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” (Lk 1:34-35).

2. Now the one born from the virgin Mary is the Son of God and true God by nature and not by grace and participation. According to only the flesh which is from Mary he is a man, but according to the spirit the same one is Son of God and God. He suffers our sufferings according to the flesh, as it is written, “Since Christ suffered in the flesh for our sake” (1 Pe 4:1), and again, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Rom 8:32), but he remains unsuffering and unchangeable according to the deity, according to what is said by the Prophet, “I am God and I do not change” (Mal 3:6). He dies our death according to the flesh for our sins so that he may get rid of death through his death for us, according to the Apostle who says, “Death was swallowed up in victory. Where, death, is your victory? Where, grave, is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55) and again, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). But he remains undying and unsubdued by death because of the deity, as the power of the Father is impassible, according to what Peter says. “For it was not,” he says, “possible that he be held by death” (Acts 2:24). He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father according to the flesh of the Word exalted from the earth into heaven, according to what is said by David and confirmed by the Lord himself and the Apostles, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand’” (Ps 110:1; Mt 22:44; Mk 12:36; Lk 20:42; Ac 2:34; Heb 1:13). But according to the deity he is uncircumscribed, surrounding every place along with the Father from eternity as the Father’s unspoken power, according to what Paul teaches, “Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1:24). The same Son of God and God is coming, as he promised, to judge the living and the dead, as the Apostle says, “The one who judges the hidden things of darkness and makes plain the hidden things of the hearts and brings the praise and blame as is worthy for each” (1 Cor 4:5).

3. But if anyone teaches contrary to these things from the divine Scriptures by saying that there is one who is the Son of God and another who is the man from Mary made to be a son by grace like us, such that there are two sons, the one a son of God by nature, the one from God, and the other by grace, the man from Mary, or if anyone says the flesh of our Lord is from above and not from the virgin Mary, or that deity was changed into flesh or commingled or transformed, or that the deity of the Son is passible or the flesh of our Lord, as that of a man, is unworshipped, and not worshipped as that of the Lord and God, the catholic church anathematizes this one, convinced by the divine Apostle when he says, “If anyone preaches to you a gospel other than the one you received, let him be anathema” (Gal 1:9).

Translated by AMJ

Last updated: 6-13-2013

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