The Master of Nature and the Incarnation

He voluntarily offers his own soul for the sheep. Just as, existing in the form of God, he emptied himself by taking the form of a slave, not compelled by any necessity, so also he willingly undergoes death, not held by force, but coming to the passion of his own accord.

For what did he suffer, Master? For the salvation of mankind, he says. And I state the manner. Because the race of men was subjected to the decree of death through Adam, who was formed from a virgin earth, and I am the one casting out the decree of death, it was impossible for the punishment to be lifted from man unless I myself recalled my own decree; therefore, having taken the form of a man in likeness to Adam from a virgin womb, I undergo death, so that as God I might loose the decree and as man I might receive death on behalf of men.

I do this so that I might free man not by authority, but by sympathy. For if God had been the one who succeeded through a man sinning, the succeeding would not have been great. But now, because of this, I have become man, and for the sake of the one who abolished the law, I fulfilled the law, so that the race of men might spring forth from the intimacy of the one who succeeded.

Therefore also now, in the person of Adam, I receive the decree of death, so that he might receive through me the grace of the resurrection. Adam, having sinned, brought in death; I, having succeeded, brought in the resurrection. And because death reigned from Adam until Moses, and reigned because the body holds the accomplice of sin at hand, therefore I took up that same body which seems to be the instrument of sin, so that, having abolished sin, I might prove man free from sin.

Otherwise, because men were living an evil life, entangled in sin, since their life was more akin to death, therefore I choose the good death over the evil life and undergo death, so that those participating in the good death might enjoy the true life; and they enjoy it through baptism. For as many as are baptized are baptized into my death, so that just as I was raised from the dead, so also they might walk in a newness of life. And let no one wavering say that darkness does not work light, nor blackness produce whiteness, how then death...

How is it the life? For the matter is clearly beyond nature. But do not seek a natural order in me. For I am the master of nature, who at times allows nature to act according to its nature, and at times guides it beyond nature. For when I wish to manage something wondrously, then even nature, having denied its own order, does that which my guiding spirit directs.

And this is clear from the observed arrangement; I say something like this: the sun and the moon are fire according to nature, but the crystallized solid, which I called heaven, is water. If therefore you seek a natural course, how is the fire kept by the water, or how is the crystallized solid not dissolved and flowed away by the heat of the fire? And so that I may not occupy your soul regarding the observed arrangement, I persuade you, having manipulated the economy through it, that it is not right to seek a course in the paradoxical wonders of nature.

For calculate that, being God, I condescended to a human body. This indeed is first against nature. For tell me, how could the human body, which is divided by a hair, contain the uncontainable, the immeasurable, the one being everywhere, the one encompassing the whole inhabited world, the one measuring the heaven with a spark, the earth with a dragon, and the sea with a cup? For that he contained is clear, since even the full essence of deity dwelt in the flesh bodily (Colossians 2:9). But as for 'how', he says. For I know what I manage, but you are not able to hear; for the knowledge of the secret things surpasses mortal hearing, such that even if at times I wish to interpret something through a multitude of mercies, I interpret it not as nature is, but as you are able to learn; for this reason also, suppressing the blindness of those who will seem wise, I was saying: He who thinks he knows something, has not yet known anything, as it is necessary to know.

Since you have heard that being the Word I have become flesh (John 1:14), but you are ignorant of the 'how'. For how was I in the flesh, as a body in a body or as a soul in a body? Surely I suffered with the suffering body, but I did not suffer. For the nature of God does not fall into passion. Just as I have become flesh without ceasing to be God, so also I underwent passion without falling into passion. I was born through economy, I died for the salvation of men; rather, I died because of this, because I was born. Do not therefore seek in me either the order of birth or...