Fragment
II.
The God of all things therefore became truly,
according to the Scriptures, without conversion, sinless man, and that
in a manner known to Himself alone, as He is the natural Artificer of
things which are above our comprehension. And by that same saving
act of the incarnation1728
He introduced into the
flesh the
activity of His proper
divinity, yet without having it (that activity)
either circumscribed by the
flesh through the exinanition, or growing
naturally out of the
flesh as it grew out of His
divinity,
1729
| 1729
οὐδ᾽
ὥσπερ τῆς
αὐτοῦ
θεότητος
οὕτω καὶ
αὐτῆς
φυσικῶς
ἐκφυομένην. |
but manifested
through it in the things which He
wrought in a
divine manner in His
incarnate
state. For the
flesh did not become
divinity in
nature
by a transmutation of
nature, as though it became essentially
flesh of
divinity. But what it was before, that also it continued to be in
nature and activity when united with
divinity, even as the Saviour
said, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the
flesh is
weak.”
1730
And
working and enduring in the
flesh things which were proper to sinless
flesh, He
proved the evacuation of
divinity (to be) for our sakes,
confirmed as it was by
wonders and by sufferings of the
flesh
naturally. For with this purpose did the
God of all things become
man, viz., in order that by suffering in the
flesh, which is
susceptible of suffering, He might
redeem our whole race, which was
sold to
death; and that by working wondrous things by His
divinity,
which is unsusceptible of suffering, through the medium of the
flesh He
might restore it to that
incorruptible and
blessed life from which it
fell away by yielding to the
devil; and that He might establish the
holy orders of intelligent existences in the heavens in immutability by
the
mystery of His
incarnation,
1731
the doing of which is the recapitulation
of all things in himself.
1732
He remained therefore, also,
after His
incarnation, according to
nature,
God infinite, and
more,
1733
having the
activity proper and suitable to Himself,—an activity growing out
of His
divinity essentially, and manifested through His perfectly holy
flesh by wondrous acts economically, to the intent that He might be
believed in as
God, while working out of Himself
1734
by the flesh, which by nature is weak,
the salvation of the universe.
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