Fragment V.
For lately a certain person, Beron, along with
some others, forsook the delusion of Valentinus, only to involve
themselves in deeper error, affirming that the flesh assumed to Himself
by the Word became capable of working like works with the
deity1748
| 1748
γενέσθαι
ταυτουργὸν
τῇ θεότητι. |
by
virtue of
its assumption, and that the
deity became susceptible of suffering in
the same way with the
flesh1749
by
virtue of the exinanition;
1750
and thus they
assert the
doctrine that there was at the same time a conversion and a
mixing and a fusing
1751
of the two aspects one with the other. For if the
flesh that was
assumed became capable of working like works with the
deity, it is
evident that it also became
God in essence in all wherein
God is
essentially known. And if the
deity by the exinanition became
susceptible of the same sufferings with the
flesh, it is evident that
it also became in essence
flesh in all wherein
flesh essentially can be
known. For objects that act in like manner,
1752
and
work like works, and are altogether
of like
kind, and are susceptible of like suffering with each other,
admit of no difference of
nature; and if the natures are fused
together,
1753
| 1753
συγκεχυμένων.
[Vol. iii. p. 623]. |
Christ will be
a duality;
1754
and if the
persons
1755
are separated,
there will be a quaternity,
1756
| 1756
τετράς, i.e., instead of
Trinity [the Τριὰς]. |
—a thing which is altogether to be
avoided. And how will they conceive of the one and the same
Christ, who is at once
God and man by nature? And what manner of
existence will He have according to them, if He has become man by a
conversion of the deity, and if he has become God by a change of the
flesh? For the mutation
1757
| 1757
μετάπτωσις.
[Compare the Athanasian Confession]. |
of these, the one into the other, is a
complete subversion of both. Let the discussion, then, be
considered by us again in a different way.
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