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CPG 3646
Actual Author or Source Apollinaris
Source of Attribution to Julius I Apollinarian forgery
Text Greek: Lietzmann, Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule: Texte und Untersuchungen, 185-193.
Syriac: Flemming-Lietzmann 16-24
Other Translations
Source of Information Thompson, Correspondence of Julius I, xxxv-xxxvii, 173-175

1. The Lord is rightly confessed to have had a holy begetting from the beginning even according to the body. According to this his body differs from all other bodies. For it was not conceived in his mother as a whole person without his deity but by being joined to his deity, as the angel says, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, for the holy one born will be called the Son of God” (Lk 1:35) There was also a descent from heaven, not just a birth from a woman. For not only is it said that the one “born under woman” was “born under law” (Gal 4:4), but also that “no one has gone up into heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man” (Jn 3:13).

2. And the body cannot by itself be said to be a creature, for it is entirely unseparated from him whose body it is. Rather, it shares the name “uncreated” and being called “God,” because it accompanies God for a union, just as it is said, “The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14), and in the Apostle, “The last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45).

3. But it is necessary for us, as we attribute these glorious things to the body because of the conjoining of the deity and the unity with God, to also not in this way remove the inglorious things which are from the body: that he was “born of a woman” according to the Apostle (Gal 4:4) and that he was “formed from the womb as a servant for God” according to the Prophet (Is 49:5), that his whole person is named “man” and “Son of Man” and that he is counted after the many generations of Abraham after whom he became a man.

4. Yes, it is necessary to speak and hear about him in human terms. For instance, when the whole person is called man, let no one deny the divine essence which became a servant in name with the body. When he is named a servant according to the body, let no one deny the Lordly nature which became a servant along with the body with the name “servant.” Furthermore, when he is proclaimed to be a heavenly man who came from heaven, let no one deny the combination of the body from earth with the deity. For he is not divided either in fact or in name when the Lord is called “servant” and the uncreated is named the “formed,” by the union with the form of the servant and with the formed body.

5. It is confessed that in him the created is in union with the uncreated and the uncreated is in a mixing with the created, with one nature being comprised from each part as the Word also contributes a special activity for the whole person along with complete deity. The same thing is true in the case of an ordinary man. He is made of two incomplete parts which complete one nature and are shown by one name. For both the whole person is called “flesh” without the soul within it being removed, and, although there is something else besides the soul, the whole person is referred to as a “soul” without removing the body.

6. Therefore the Lord God who became man already had his generation beforehand even if he is born of a woman. He is Lord even if he has been changed to be like the servants. He is spirit even if he is demonstrated to be flesh according to the union with the flesh. He is not a man according to the Apostle (Gal 1:1) even if he is proclaimed by him to be a man (1 Tim 2:5). And, to speak of the whole person, the invisible God has been transformed by a visible body. The uncreated God is revealed by a created covering. He emptied himself according to the form of a servant (Phil 2:7), but he was unemptied and unchanged and undiminished according to his divine essence (for there is no change at all concerning the divine nature) nor did it shrink or grow.

7. And when he says, “Glorify me” (Jn 17:5) the voice is from the body and the glorification is concerning the body, but it is said in the case of the whole person because the whole person is one. And in turn when he refers to “the glory I had with you before the world existed,” he shows his always glorious deity. Even if he attributes it to the deity of itself, yet the speech is in the case of the whole person in common.

8. In this way he is also consubstantial with God according to the invisible spirit, with the flesh also being included with the name because it was united to what is consubstantial with God. And in turn he is consubstantial with men, with the deity also being included with the body because it was united to what is consubstantial with us. This occured without the nature of the body being changed by the union with what is consubstantial with God or by sharing of the name “consubstantial.” In the same way the nature of the deity has not been changed by the sharing of a human body or by receiving the flesh’s name: “consubstantial with us.”

9. For also Paul, speaking of “him who was from the seed of David according to the flesh” (Rom 1:3) says that Son of God undertook this birth, and not without having named the flesh he has said, “The flesh was from the seed of David.” And when he says, “Let this thought be in you which also is in Christ Jesus, who although being in the form of God did not consider being equal to God something to exploit” (Phil 2:5,6), he does not make a distinction and say, “Whose deity although being in the form of God did not consider being equal to God something to exploit.” In fact, the deity was neither named Jesus before he was born of a virgin nor was it anointed in the Holy Spirit, for the Word of God is the giver of the Spirit, not the one sanctified by the Spirit.

10. And he says, “I sanctify myself on their behalf so that they themselves may be sanctified in the truth” (Jn 17:19). He does not make a distinction and say, “I sanctify the flesh,” but he connects it and says, “I sanctify myself.” And yet, to the one who contemplates it with precision, it is not possible for him to be sanctified by himself. For if the whole person sanctifies, what is being sanctified? If the whole person is sanctified, what is doing the sanctifying? But at the same time he guards both the one person and the undivided appearance of one life, and he has placed the sanctifying and the being sanctified towards to the whole so that it may be precise and clear to us according to neither the Prophet’s passage nor the Apostle’s passage that one person is not sanctifying another person, like when the Spirit sanctified the Prophets and the Apostles, as Paul says concerning every church, “Called to be saints and sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor 1:2), and also the Savior himself says concerning the Apostles, “Sanctify them in the truth” (Jn 17:17).

11. For human nature is wholly in being sanctified and not in sanctifying. The angelic order is also this way, and every creature is sanctified and illuminated, but it is the Spirit who sanctifies and illuminates. The Word sanctifies and illuminates through the Spirit, but he is in no way sanctified, for he is Creator and not creature. But the acts—here of sanctifying and there of having a body—are allocated but they are united according to the union of the flesh with the deity, such that they are not divided, one as being the sanctifier and the other being the sanctified. And this incarnation is wholly sanctification.

12. For to those who were saying, “Although a man, you make yourself God” (Jn 10:33), the Savior responded with a word about his own humanity, saying, “Are you saying to the one whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming’ because I said I am the Son of God?” (Jn 10:36). What sanctification is he talking of here other than that of the flesh by the divinity? For in this way he gave life to the body by the sanctification of the deity and the dwelling of not a human soul, and he gave life to the whole person wholly by this connection. And when he said, “The one whom the Father sanctified and sent,” he says that the one who is at the same time the sanctifier and the sanctified, is sanctified, connecting the sanctifier to the sanctified.

13. And at any rate, elsewhere he interprets this sanctifying as being his birth from a virgin. “I have been born and I have come into the world for this: that I may witness to the truth” (Jn 18:37). For an ordinary man receives his soul and from the will of the flesh and the will of a man (Jn 1:13) and he is alive, as the spermatic fluid which is emitted carries the life-giving power into the mother who receives it. The holy infant is contrived from the approach of the Spirit and the overshadowing power with no spermatic fluid bringing about the divine life but with the spiritual and divine power providing the Virgin the divine conception and granting the divine pregnancy.

14. Indeed, in this way according to the manner of the union is Christ’s being exalted and his being given the name above every name (Phil 2:9), and yet the exaltation is of itself in the case of the flesh which goes up from below. But because it does not go up by itself, for this reason the whole person is named as having gone up in common. And the name being given to him refers to the flesh being glorified from its lack of glory, for glory cannot be given as a gift to the Word who always has had the glory. For he was in the form of God and was equal to God, the very thing which he was and has remained.

15. He says that he is equal to God even in the flesh when according to John he says that God is his own Father and making himself equal to God (Jn 5:18). Therefore his equality with God did not change, but his deity remained unchangeably in an identical condition. It cannot receive the things it already has. Being given the name above every name is said in the case of the whole person, just as whenever the flesh receives that which it does not have: what is impassible instead of sufferings, what is heavenly instead of the residence on earth, what is royal instead of service under men, being worshipped by every creature instead of worshipping.

16. And if someone dares to separate the idea of gift and the name above every name, he will properly say neither of them. For if it has been given to the Word as to someone who did not already have it, the name above every name is never given to him as a gift. And if it is not from a giving but from nature that he has this (just as he does have it according to his deity), it is not possible that it be given to him.

17. Therefore of necessity both what is bodily is spoken of as towards the whole person and what is divine is spoken of as towards the whole person. He who is not able to know in the united differences what is the property of each will unharmoniously fall into contradictions, but he who both knows their own properties and guards the union will neither falsify the nature nor fail to recognize the union.

Translated by AMJ

Last updated: 8-31-2012

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