God is not defiled by pure flesh

For they themselves dare to bring down the substance of God even into cats and dogs, and many of the heretics into things still more dishonorable than these. But we neither say any of these things, nor would we ever endure to hear them. What we say is this: Christ took up pure flesh, holy and blameless and untouched by all sin, from a virgin womb, and he set right his own creature. And those men, along with the Manichaeans who share their impiety, bring the substance of God into dogs and apes and beasts of every kind—for they say the soul in all these comes from that substance—yet they do not shudder or sink down in shame. But they say that we speak things unworthy of God, because we do not allow any of these things even to enter our mind, and we say what was fitting and proper for him: that he came and set right his own work by this manner of birth. Tell me, man, what are you saying? You say that the soul of murderers and sorcerers is from the substance of God, and you dare to accuse us because we do not endure any of these things, nor do we bear to hear them said, but we judge those who say them to be partners in impiety? What we say is this: God built for himself a holy temple, and through it he brought the citizenship of the heavens into our life. And how would you not be worthy of ten thousand deaths, both for the accusations you bring against us and for the impieties you never stop committing? For if it is unbecoming for God to dwell in a pure and blameless body, as you say, it is far more unbecoming for him to dwell in the body of a sorcerer, a grave-robber, a robber, an ape, a dog—not in the holy and blameless body that now sits at the right hand of the Father. For what harm could come to God from this plan of salvation, or what stain? Do you not see this sun, whose body is perceptible and corruptible and perishable, even if Greeks and Manichaeans choke ten thousand times when they hear these things? And not only the sun, but the earth and the sea and all visible creation is subjected to vanity. Listen to Paul making this clear when he says: 'For the creation was subjected to vanity, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope' (Romans 8:20). Then, showing what it means to be subjected to vanity, he adds: 'Because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God' (Romans 8:21). So now it is perishable and corruptible; for to be enslaved to corruption is nothing other than to be corruptible. If then the sun, being a corruptible body, sends out its rays everywhere and has dealings with mire and pollutions and many other such things, yet suffers no harm to its own purity from contact with bodies, but draws back its rays still pure, sharing its own excellence with many of the bodies that receive it while taking on not even the slightest stench or pollution—how much more the Sun of Righteousness, the Lord of the bodiless powers, when he came into pure flesh, was not only not defiled, but made that very flesh purer and holier.