The Ferrara Council opened on 8 January, 1438, under the presidency of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, whom the pope had commissioned to represent him until he could appear in person. It had, of course, no other objects than those of Basle, i.e. reunion of the Churches, reforms, and the restoration of peace between Christian peoples. The first session of the council took place 10 January, 1438. It declared the Council of Basle transferred to Ferrara, and annulled in advance any and all future decrees of the Basle assembly. When Eugene IV heard that the Greeks were nearing the coast of Italy, he set off (24 January) for Ferrara and three days later made his solemn entry into the city…

In order that the vote of any estate might count, it was resolved that a majority of two-thirds should be required, and it was hoped that this provision would remove all possibility of the recurrence of the regrettable dissensions at Constance. At the second public session (15 February) these decrees were promulgated, and the pope excommunicated the members of the Basle assembly, which still continued to sit. The Greeks soon appeared at Ferrara, headed by Emperor John Palaeologus and Joasaph, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and numbered about seven hundred. The solemn sessions of the council began on 9 April, 1438, and were held in the cathedral of Ferrara under the presidency of the pope. On the Gospel side of the altar rose the (unoccupied) throne of the Western Emperor (Sigismund of Luxemburg), who had died only a month previously; on the Epistle side was placed the throne of the Greek Emperor. Besides the emperor and his brother Demetrius, there were present, on the part of the Greeks, Joasaph, the Patriarch of Constantinople; Antonius, the Metropolitan of Heraclea; Gregory Hamma, the Protosyncellus of Constantinople (the last two representing the Patriarch of Alexandria); Marcus Eugenicus of Ephesus; Isidore of Kiev (representing the Patriarch of Antioch); Dionysius, Bishop of Sardes (representing the Patriarch of Jerusalem); Bessarion, Archbishop of Nicaea; Balsamon, the chief chartophylax; Syropulos, the chief ecclesiarch, and the Bishops of Monembasia, Lacedaemon, and Anchielo. In the discussions the Latins were represented principally by Cardinal Giuliano Cesarini and Cardinal Niccolò Albergati. Andrew, Archbishop of Rhodes; the Bishop of Forlì; the Dominican John of Turrecremata; and Giovanni di Ragusa, provincial of Lombardy.

Preliminary discussions brought out the main points of difference between the Greeks and the Latins, viz. the Procession of the Holy Spirit, the azymes, purgatory, and the primacy. During these preliminaries the zeal and good intentions of the Greek Emperor were evident. Serious discussion began apropos of the doctrine of purgatory. Cesarini and Turrecremata were the chief Latin speakers, the latter in particular engaging in a violent discussion with Marcus Eugenicus. Bessarion, speaking for the Greeks, made clear the divergency of opinion existing among the Greeks themselves on the question of purgatory. This stage of the discussion closed on 17 July, whereupon the council rested for a time, and the Greek Emperor took advantage of the respite to join eagerly in the pleasures of the chase with the Duke of Ferrara.

When the council met again (8 Oct., 1438), the chief (indeed, thenceforth the only) subject of discussion was the Filioque. The Greeks were represented by Bessarion, Marcus Eugenicus, Isidore of Kiev, Gemistus Plethon, Balsamon, and Kantopulos; on the Latin side were Cardinals Cesarini and Niccolò Albergati, the Archbishop of Rhodes, the Bishop of Forlì, and Giovanni di Ragusa. In this and the following fourteen sessions, the Filioque was the sole subject of discussion. In the fifteenth session it became clear that the Greeks were unwilling to consent to the insertion of this expression in the Creed, although it was imperative for the good of the church and as a safeguard against future heresies. Many Greeks began to despair of realizing the projected union and spoke of returning to Constantinople. To this the emperor would not listen; he still hoped for a reconciliation, and in the end succeeded in appeasing the heated spirits of his partisans. Eugene IV now announced his intention of transferring the council to Florence, in consequence of pecuniary straits and the outbreak of the pest at Ferrara. Many Latins had already died, and of the Greeks the Metropolitan of Sardis and the entire household of Isidore of Kiev were attacked by the disease. The Greeks finally consented to the transfer, and in the sixteenth and last session at Ferrara the papal Bull was read, in both Latin and Greek, by which the council was transferred to Florence (January, 1439).

The seventeenth session of the council (the first at Florence) took place in the papal palace on 26 February. In nine consecutive sessions, the Filioque was the chief matter of discussion. In the last session but one (twenty-fourth of Ferrara, eighth of Florence) Giovanni di Ragusa set forth clearly the Latin doctrine in the following terms: “the Latin Church recognizes but one principle, one cause of the Holy Spirit, namely, the Father. It is from the Father that the Son holds his place in the ‘Procession’ of the Holy Ghost. It is in this sense that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, but He proceeds also from the Son.” In the last session, the same theologian again expounded the doctrine, after which the public sessions were closed at the request of the Greeks, as it seemed useless to prolong further the theological discussions. At this juncture began the active efforts of Isidore of Kiev, and, as the result of further parleys, Eugene IV submitted four propositions summing up the result of the previous discussion and exposing the weakness of the attitude of the Greeks. As the latter were loath to admit defeat, Cardinal Bessarion, in a special meeting of the Greeks, on 13 and 14 April, 1439, delivered his famous discourse in favour of reunion, and was supported by Georgius Scholarius. Both parties now met again, after which, to put an end to all equivocation, the Latins drew up and read a declaration of their faith in which they stated that they did not admit two “principia” in the Trinity, but only one, the productive power of the Father and the Son, and that the Holy Ghost proceeds also from the Son. They admitted, therefore, two hypostases, one action, one productive power, and one product due to the substance and the hypostases of the Father and the Son. The Greeks met this statement with an equivocal counter-formula, whereupon Bessarion, Isidore of Kiev, and Dortheus of Mitylene, encouraged by the emperor, came out strongly in favour of the ex filio.

The reunion of the Churches was at last really in sight. When, therefore, at the request of the emperor, Eugene IV promised the Greeks the military and financial help of the Holy See as a consequence of the projected reconciliation, the Greeks declared (3 June, 1439) that they recognized the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son as from one “principium” (arche) and from one cause (aitia). On 8 June, a final agreement was reached concerning this doctrine. The Latin teaching respecting the azymes and purgatory was also accepted by the Greeks. As to the primacy, they declared that they would grant the pope all the privileges he had before the schism. An amicable agreement was also reached regarding the form of consecration in the Mass (see EPIKLESIS). Almost simultaneously with these measures the Patriarch of Constantinople died, 10 June; not, however, before he had drawn up and signed a declaration in which he admitted the Filioque, purgatory, and the papal primacy. Nevertheless the reunion of the Churches was not yet an accomplished fact. The Greek representatives insisted that their aforesaid declarations were only their personal opinions; and as they stated that it was still necessary to obtain the assent of the Greek Church in synod assembled, seemingly insuperable difficulties threatened to annihilate all that had so far been achieved. On 6 July, however, the famous decree of union (Laetentur Coeli), the original which is still preserved in the Laurentian Library at Florence, was formally announced in the cathedral of that city. The council was over, as far as the Greeks were concerned, and they departed at once. The Latin members remained to promote the reunion with the other Eastern Churches–the Armenians (1439), the Jacobites of Syria (1442), the Mesopotamians, between the Tigris and the Euphrates (1444), the Chaldeans or Nestorians, and the Maronites of Cyprus (1445). This last was the concluding public act of the Council of Florence, the proceedings of which from 1443 onwards took place in the Lateran palace at Rome. (CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Council of Florence; emphasis mine)

At one of the meanings the biblical canon was also delineated and accepted by all.

The following is taken from: ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF FLORENCE (1438-1445). All emphasis is mine.

Session 11—4 February 1442

[Bull of union with the Copts]

Eugenius, bishop, servant of the servants of God, for an everlasting record. Sing praises to the Lord for he has done gloriously; let this be known in all the earth. Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the holy one of Israel. To sing and to exult in the Lord certainly befits the church of God for his great magnificence and the glory of his name, which the most merciful God has deigned to bring about on this very day. It is right, indeed, to praise and bless with all our hearts our Saviour, who daily builds up his holy church with new additions. His benefactions to his Christian people are at all times many and great and manifest more clearly than the light of day his immense love for us. Yet if we look more closely at the benefactions which the divine mercy has deigned to effect in most recent times, we shall assuredly be able to judge that in these days of ours the gifts of his love have been more in number and greater in kind than in many past ages.

For in less than three years our lord Jesus Christ by his indefatigable kindness, to the common and lasting joy of the whole of Christianity, has generously effected in this holy ecumenical synod the most salutary union of three great nations. Hence it has come about that nearly the whole of the east that adores the glorious name of Christ and no small part of the north, after prolonged discord with the holy Roman church, have come together in the same bond of faith and love. For first the Greeks and those subject to the four patriarchal sees, which cover many races and nations and tongues, then the Armenians, who are a race of many peoples, and today indeed the Jacobites, who are a great people in Egypt, have been united with the holy apostolic see.

Nothing is more pleasing to our Saviour, the lord Jesus Christ, than mutual love among people and nothing can give more glory to his name and advantage to the church than that Christians, with all discord between them banished, should come together in the same purity of faith. Deservedly all of us ought to sing for joy and to exult in the Lord; we whom the divine clemency has made worthy to see in our days such great splendour of the Christian faith. With the greatest readiness we therefore announce these marvellous facts to the whole Christian world, so that just as we are filled with unspeakable joy for the glory of God and the exaltation of the church, we may make others participate in this great happiness. Thus all of us with one voice may magnify and glorify God and may return abundant and daily thanks, as is fitting, to his majesty for so many and so great marvellous benefits bestowed on his holy church in this age. He who diligently does the work of God not only awaits merit and reward in heaven but also deserves generous glory and praise among people. Therefore we consider that our venerable brother John, patriarch of the Jacobites, whose zeal for this holy union is immense, should deservedly be praised and extolled by us and the whole church and deserves, together with his whole race, the general approval of all Christians. Moved by us, through our envoy and our letter, to send an embassy to us and this sacred synod and to unite himself and his people in the same faith with the Roman church, he sent to us and this synod the beloved son Andrew, an Egyptian, endowed in no mean degree with faith and morals and abbot of the monastery of St Anthony in Egypt, in which St Anthony himself is said to have lived and died. The patriarch, fired with great zeal, ordered and commissioned him reverently to accept, in the name of the patriarch and his Jacobites, the doctrine of the faith that the Roman church holds and preaches, and afterwards to bring this doctrine to the patriarch and the Jacobites so that they might acknowledge and formally approve it and preach it in their lands.

We, therefore, to whom the Lord gave the task of feeding Christ’s sheep’, had abbot Andrew carefully examined by some outstanding men of this sacred council on the articles of the faith, the sacraments of the church and certain other matters pertaining to salvation. At length, after an exposition of the catholic faith to the abbot, as far as this seemed to be necessary, and his humble acceptance of it, we have delivered in the name of the Lord in this solemn session, with the approval of this sacred ecumenical council of Florence, the following true and necessary doctrine.

First, then, the holy Roman church, founded on the words of our Lord and Saviour, firmly believes, professes and preaches one true God, almighty, immutable and eternal, Father, Son and holy Spirit; one in essence, three in persons; unbegotten Father, Son begotten from the Father, holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son; the Father is not the Son or the holy Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the holy Spirit, the holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son; the Father is only the Father, the Son is only the Son, the holy Spirit is only the holy Spirit. The Father alone from his substance begot the Son; the Son alone is begotten of the Father alone; the holy Spirit alone proceeds at once from the Father and the Son. These three persons are one God not three gods, because there is one substance of the three, one essence, one nature, one Godhead, one immensity, one eternity, and everything is one where the difference of a relation does not prevent this. Because of this unity the Father is whole in the Son, whole in the holy Spirit; the Son is whole in the Father, whole in the holy Spirit; the holy Spirit is whole in the Father, whole in the Son. No one of them precedes another in eternity or excels in greatness or surpasses in power. The existence of the Son from the Father is certainly eternal and without beginning, and the procession of the holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is eternal and without beginning. Whatever the Father is or has, he has not from another but from himself and is principle without principle. Whatever the Son is or has, he has from the Father and is principle from principle. Whatever the holy Spirit is or has, he has from the Father together with the Son. But the Father and the Son are not two principles of the holy Spirit, but one principle, just as the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit are not three principles of creation but one principle. Therefore it condemns, reproves, anathematizes and declares to be outside the body of Christ, which is the church, whoever holds opposing or contrary views. Hence it condemns Sabellius, who confused the persons and altogether removed their real distinction. It condemns the Arians, the Eunomians and the Macedonians who say that only the Father is true God and place the Son and the holy Spirit in the order of creatures. It also condemns any others who make degrees or inequalities in the Trinity.

Most firmly it believes, professes and preaches that the one true God, Father, Son and holy Spirit, is the creator of all things that are, visible and invisible, who, when he willed it, made from his own goodness all creatures, both spiritual and corporeal, good indeed because they are made by the supreme good, but mutable because they are made from nothing, and it asserts that there is no nature of evil because every nature, in so far as it is a nature, is good. It professes that one and the same God is the author of the old and the new Testament — that is, the law and the prophets, and the gospel — since the saints of both testaments spoke under the inspiration of the same Spirit. It accepts and venerates their books, whose titles are as follows.

Five books of Moses, namely Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Joshua, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, Esdras, Nehemiah, Tobit, Judith, Esther, Job, Psalms of David, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, Ezechiel, Daniel; the twelve minor prophets, namely Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi; two books of the Maccabees; the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; fourteen letters of Paul, to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, two to the Thessalonians, to the Colossians, two to Timothy, to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two letters of Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude; Acts of the Apostles; Apocalypse of John.

Hence it anathematizes the madness of the Manichees who posited two first principles, one of visible things, the other of invisible things, and said that one was the God of the new Testament, the other of the old Testament. It firmly believes, professes and preaches that one person of the Trinity, true God, Son of God begotten by the Father, consubstantial and coeternal with the Father, in the fullness of time which the inscrutable depth of divine counsel determined, for the salvation of the human race, took a real and complete human nature from the immaculate womb of the virgin Mary, and joined it to himself in a personal union of such great unity that whatever is of God there, is not separated from man, and whatever is human is not divided from the Godhead, and he is one and the same undivided, each nature perduring in its properties, God and man, Son of God and son of man, equal to the Father according to his divinity, less than the Father according to his humanity, immortal and eternal through the nature of the Godhead, passible and temporal from the condition of assumed humanity. It firmly believes, professes and preaches that the Son of God was truly born of the virgin in his assumed humanity, truly suffered, truly died and was buried, truly rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father and will come at the end of time to judge the living and the dead. It anathematizes, execrates and condemns every heresy that is tainted with the contrary. First it condemns Ebion, Cerinthus, Marcion, Paul of Samosata, Photinus and all similar blasphemers who, failing to see the personal union of the humanity with the Word, denied that our lord Jesus Christ was true God and professed him to be simply a man who by a greater participation in divine grace, which he had received through the merit of his holier life, should be called a divine man.

It anathematizes also Manes and his followers who, imagining that the Son of God took to himself not a real body but a phantasmal one completely rejected the truth of the humanity in Christ, Valentinus, who declared that the Son of God took nothing from his virgin mother but that he assumed a heavenly body and passed through the virgin’s womb like water flowing down an aqueduct; Arius, who by his assertion that the body taken from the virgin had no soul, wanted the Deity to take the place of the soul; and Apollinarius who, realizing that if the soul informing the body were denied there would be no true humanity in Christ, posited only a sensitive soul and held that the deity of the Word took the place of the rational soul.

It anathematizes also Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius, who asserted that the humanity was united to the Son of God through grace, and hence that there are two persons in Christ just as they profess there are two natures, since they could not understand that the union of the humanity to the Word was hypostatic and therefore they denied that he had received the subsistence of the Word. For according to this blasphemy the Word was not made flesh but the Word dwelt in flesh through grace, that is, the Son of God did not become man but rather the Son of God dwelt in a man.

It also anathematizes, execrates and condemns the archimandrite Eutyches who, when he understood that the blasphemy of Nestorius excluded the truth of the incarnation, and that it was therefore necessary for the humanity to be so united to the Word of God that there should be one and the same person of the divinity and the humanity; and also because, granted the plurality of natures, he could not grasp the unity of the person, since he posited one person in Christ of divinity and humanity; so he affirmed that there was one nature, suggesting that before the union there was a duality of natures which passed into a single nature in the act of assumption, thereby conceding a great blasphemy and impiety that either the humanity was converted into the divinity or the divinity into the humanity. It also anathematizes, execrates and condemns Macarius of Antioch and all others of similar views who, although they are orthodox on the duality of natures and the unity of person, yet have gone enormously wrong on Christ’s principles of action by declaring that of the two natures in Christ, there was only one principle of action and one will. The holy Roman church anathematizes all of these and their heresies and affirms that in Christ there are two wills and two principles of action.

It firmly believes, professes and preaches that never was anyone, conceived by a man and a woman, liberated from the devil’s dominion except by faith in our lord Jesus Christ, the mediator between God and humanity, who was conceived without sin, was born and died. He alone by his death overthrew the enemy of the human race, canceling our sins, and unlocked the entrance to the heavenly kingdom, which the first man by his sin had locked against himself and all his posterity. All the holy sacrifices sacraments and ceremonies of the old Testament had prefigured that he would come at some time.

It firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal prescriptions of the old Testament or the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, because they were instituted to signify something in the future, although they were adequate for the divine cult of that age, once our lord Jesus Christ who was signified by them had come, came to an end and the sacraments of the new Testament had their beginning. Whoever, after the passion, places his hope in the legal prescriptions and submits himself to them as necessary for salvation and as if faith in Christ without them could not save, sins mortally. It does not deny that from Christ’s passion until the promulgation of the gospel they could have been retained, provided they were in no way believed to be necessary for salvation. But it asserts that after the promulgation of the gospel they cannot be observed without loss of eternal salvation. Therefore it denounces all who after that time observe circumcision, the sabbath and other legal prescriptions as strangers to the faith of Christ and unable to share in eternal salvation, unless they recoil at some time from these errors. Therefore it strictly orders all who glory in the name of Christian, not to practise circumcision either before or after baptism, since whether or not they place their hope in it, it cannot possibly be observed without loss of eternal salvation.

With regard to children, since the danger of death is often present and the only remedy available to them is the sacrament of baptism by which they are snatched away from the dominion of the devil and adopted as children of God, it admonishes that sacred baptism is not to be deferred for forty or eighty days or any other period of time in accordance with the usage of some people, but it should be conferred as soon as it conveniently can; and if there is imminent danger of death, the child should be baptized straightaway without any delay, even by a lay man or a woman in the form of the church, if there is no priest, as is contained more fully in the decree on the Armenians.

It firmly believes, professes and teaches that every creature of God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because according to the word of the Lord not what goes into the mouth defiles a person, and because the difference in the Mosaic law between clean and unclean foods belongs to ceremonial practices, which have passed away and lost their efficacy with the coming of the gospel. It also declares that the apostolic prohibition, to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled, was suited to that time when a single church was rising from Jews and gentiles, who previously lived with different ceremonies and customs. This was so that the gentiles should have some observances in common with Jews, and occasion would be offered of coming together in one worship and faith of God and a cause of dissension might be removed, since by ancient custom blood and strangled things seemed abominable to Jews, and gentiles could be thought to be returning to idolatry if they ate sacrificial food.

In places, however, where the Christian religion has been promulgated to such an extent that no Jew is to be met with and all have joined the church, uniformly practising the same rites and ceremonies of the gospel and believing that to the clean all things are clean, since the cause of that apostolic prohibition has ceased, so its effect has ceased. It condemns, then, no kind of food that human society accepts and nobody at all neither man nor woman, should make a distinction between animals, no matter how they died; although for the health of the body, for the practice of virtue or for the sake of regular and ecclesiastical discipline many things that are not proscribed can and should be omitted, as the apostle says all things are lawful, but not all are helpful.

It firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the catholic church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the catholic church before the end of their lives; that the unity of the ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only for those who abide in it do the church’s sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia produce eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed his blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and the unity of the catholic church.

It embraces, approves and accepts the holy synod of 318 fathers at Nicaea, which was convened in the time of our predecessor most blessed Silvester and the great and most pious emperor Constantine. In it the impious Arian heresy and its author was condemned and there was defined that the Son of God is consubstantial and coeternal with the Father. It also embraces, approves and accepts the holy synod of 150 fathers at Constantinople, which was convoked in the time of our predecessor most blessed Damasus and the elder Theodosius and which anathematized the impious error of Macedonius, who asserted that the holy Spirit is not God but a creature. Those whom they condemn, it condemns; what they approve, it approves; and in every respect it wants what was defined there to remain unchanged and inviolate.

It also embraces, approves and accepts the first holy synod of 200 fathers at Ephesus, which is third in the order of universal synods and was convoked under our predecessor most blessed Celestine and the younger Theodosius. In it the blasphemy of the impious Nestorius was condemned, and there was defined that the person of our lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is one and that the blessed ever-virgin Mary should be preached by the whole church not only as Christ-bearer but also as God-bearer, that is as mother of God as well as mother of the man.

But it condemns, anathematizes and rejects the impious second synod of Ephesus, which was convened under our predecessor most blessed Leo and the aforesaid emperor. In it Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, defender of the heresiarch Eutyches and impious persecutor of holy Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, with cunning and threat led the execrable synod to an approval of the Eutychian impiety.

It also embraces, approves and accepts the holy synod of 630 fathers at Chalcedon, which is fourth in the order of universal synods and was held in the time of our predecessor most blessed Leo and the emperor Marcian. In it the Eutychian heresy and its author Eutyches and its defender Dioscorus were condemned, and there was defined that our lord Jesus Christ is true God and true man and that in the one and same person the divine and human natures remain entire, inviolate, incorrupt, unconfused and distinct, the humanity doing what befits man, the divinity what befits God. Those whom they condemn, it condemns; those whom they approve, it approves.

It also embraces, approves and accepts the fifth holy synod, the second of Constantinople, which was held in the time of our predecessor most blessed Vigilius and the emperor Justinian. In it the definition of the sacred council of Chalcedon about the two natures and the one person of Christ was renewed and many errors of Origen and his followers, especially about the penitence and liberation of demons and other condemned beings, were refuted and condemned.

It also embraces, approves and accepts the third holy synod of 150 fathers at Constantinople, which is sixth in the order of universal synods and was convened in the time of our predecessor most blessed Agatho and the emperor Constantine IV. In it the heresy of Macarius of Antioch and his adherents was condemned, and there was defined that in our lord Jesus Christ there are two perfect and complete natures and two principles of action and also two wills, although there is one and the same person to whom the actions of each of the two natures belong, the divinity doing what is of God, the humanity doing what is human.

It also embraces, approves and accepts all other universal synods which were legitimately summoned, celebrated and confirmed by the authority of a Roman pontiff, and especially this holy synod of Florence, in which, among other things, most holy unions with the Greeks and the Armenians have been achieved and many most salutary definitions in respect of each of these unions have been issued, as is contained in full in the decrees previously promulgated, which are as follows: Let the heavens be glad . . . 1; Exult in God . 2

However, since no explanation was given in the aforesaid decree of the Armenians in respect of the form of words which the holy Roman church, relying on the teaching and authority of the apostles Peter and Paul, has always been wont to use in the consecration of the Lord’s body and blood, we concluded that it should be inserted in this present text. It uses this form of words in the consecration of the Lord’s body: For this is my body. And of his blood: For this is the chalice of my blood, of the new and everlasting covenant, which will be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins.

Whether the wheat bread, in which the sacrament is confected, has been baked on the same day or earlier is of no importance whatever. For, provided the substance of bread remains, there should be no doubt at all that after the aforesaid words of consecration of the body have been pronounced by a priest with the intention of consecrating, immediately it is changed in substance into the true body of Christ.

It is asserted that some people reject fourth marriages as condemned. Lest sin is attributed where it does not exist, since the apostle says that a wife on her husband’s death is free from his law and free in the Lord to marry whom she wishes, and since no distinction is made between the deaths of the first, second and third husbands, we declare that not only second and third marriages but also fourth and further ones may lawfully be contracted, provided there is no canonical impediment. We say, however, that they would be more commendable if thereafter they abstain from marriage and persevere in chastity because we consider that, just as virginity is to be preferred in praise and merit to widowhood, so chaste widowhood is preferable to marriage.

FURTHER READING

MURATORIAN CANON

Athanasius’ Biblical Canon

The Biblical Canon of the 5th-6th Centuries

Gregory of Nazianzus’ Biblical Canon

The Synod of Laodicea’s Biblical Canon

John of Damascus’ Biblical Canon

The Biblical Books of the Apostolic Canons

MARTIN LUTHER, JAMES & NT CANON

100s AD

Tertullian

Of course the Marcionites suppose that they have the apostle on their side in the following passage in the matter of Christ’s substance — that in Him there was nothing but a phantom of flesh. For he says of Christ, that, being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant, not the reality, and was made in the likeness of man, not a man, and was found in fashion as a man, Philippians 2:6-7 not in his substance, that is to say, his flesh; just as if to a substance there did not accrue both form and likeness and fashion. It is well for us that in another passage (the apostle) calls Christ the image of the invisible God. Colossians 1:15 For will it not follow with equal force from that passage, that Christ is not truly God, because the apostle places Him in the image of God, if, (as Marcion contends,) He is not truly man because of His having taken on Him the form or image of a man? For in both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image (or fashion) and likeness and form shall be claimed for a phantom. But since he is truly God, as the Son of the Father, in His fashion and image, He has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, found in the fashion and image of a man. For when he propounded Him as thus  found in the manner of a man, he in fact affirmed Him to be most certainly human. For what is found, manifestly possesses existence. Therefore, as He was found to be God by His mighty power, so was He found to be man by reason of His flesh, because the apostle could not have pronounced Him to have become obedient unto death, Philippians 2:8 if He had not been constituted of a mortal substance. Still more plainly does this appear from the apostle’s additional words, even the death of the cross. Philippians 2:8 For he could hardly mean this to be a climax to the human suffering, to extol the virtue of His obedience, if he had known it all to be the imaginary process of a phantom, which rather eluded the cross than experienced it, and which displayed no virtue in the suffering, but only illusion. (Against Marcion, Book V, 20.4-5)

Clement of Alexandria

He awed men by the fire when He made flame burst from the pillar of cloud — a token at once of grace and fear: if you obey, there is the light; if you disobey, there is the fire; but since humanity is nobler than the pillar or the bush, after them the prophets uttered their voice — the Lord Himself speaking in Isaiah, in Elias — speaking Himself by the mouth of the prophets. But if you do not believe the prophets, but suppose both the men and the fire a myth, the Lord Himself shall speak to you, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but humbled Himself, Philippians 2:6-7 — He, the merciful God, exerting Himself to save man. And now the Word Himself clearly speaks to you, shaming your unbelief; yea, I say, the Word of God became man, that you may learn from man how man may become God. Is it not then monstrous, my friends, that while God is ceaselessly exhorting us to virtue, we should spurn His kindness and reject salvation? (Exhortation to the Heathens, Chapter 1. Exhortation to abandon the impious mysteries of idolatry for the adoration of the Divine Word and God the Father.)

Chapter 2. Our Instructor’s Treatment of Our Sins

Now, O you, my children, our Instructor is like His Father God, whose son He is, sinless, blameless, and with a soul devoid of passion; God in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father’s will, the Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the Father’s right hand, and with the form of God is God. He is to us a spotless image; to Him we are to try with all our might to assimilate our souls. He is wholly free from human passions; wherefore also He alone is judge, because He alone is sinless. As far, however, as we can, let us try to sin as little as possible. For nothing is so urgent in the first place as deliverance from passions and disorders, and then the checking of our liability to fall into sins that have become habitual. It is best, therefore, not to sin at all in any way, which we assert to be the prerogative of God alone; next to keep clear of voluntary transgressions, which is characteristic of the wise man; thirdly, not to fall into many involuntary offenses, which is peculiar to those who have been excellently trained. Not to continue long in sins, let that be ranked last. But this also is salutary to those who are called back to repentance, to renew the contest. (The Paedagogus (The Instructor), Book I)

200s AD

Hippolytus of Rome

After something from Apollinaris:—

HIPPOLYTUS: The word of prophecy passes again to Immanuel Himself. For, in my opinion, what is intended by it is just what has been already stated in the words, giving increase of beauty in the case of the shoot. For he means that He increased and grew up into that which He had been from the beginning, and indicates the return to the glory which He had by nature. This, if we apprehend it correctly, is (we should say) just restored to Him. For as the only begotten Word of God, being God of God, emptied Himself, according to the Scriptures, humbling Himself of His own will to that which He was not before, and took unto Himself this vile flesh, and appeared in the form of a servant, and became obedient to God the Father, even unto death, so hereafter He is said to be highly exalted; and as if nearly He had it not by reason of His humanity, and as if it were in the way of grace, He receives the name which is above every name, Philippians 2:7-9 according to the word of the blessed Paul. But the matter, in truth, was not a giving, as for the first time, of what He had not by nature; far otherwise. But rather we must understand a return and restoration to that which existed in Him at the beginning, essentially and inseparably. And it is for this reason that, when He had assumed, by divine arrangement, the lowly estate of humanity, He said, Father, glorify me with the glory which I had, John 17:5 etc. For He who was co-existent with His Father before all time. and before the foundation of the world, always had the glory proper to Godhead. He too may very well be understood as the youngest (son). For He appeared in the last times, after the glorious and honourable company of the holy prophets, and simply once, after all those who, previous to the time of His sojourn, were reckoned in the number of sons by reason of excellence. That Immanuel, however, was an object of envy, is a somewhat doubtful phrase. Yet He is an object of envy or emulation to the saints, who aspire to follow His footsteps, and conform themselves to His divine beauty, and make Him the pattern of their conduct, and win thereby their highest glory. And again, He is an object of envy in another sense — an object of ill-will, namely, to those who are declared not to love Him. I refer to the leading parties among the Jews — the scribes, in truth, and the Pharisees — who travailed with bitter envy against Him, and made the glory of which He could not be spoiled the ground of their slander, and assailed Him in many ways. For Christ indeed raised the dead to life again, when they already stank and were corrupt; and He displayed other signs of divinity. And these should have filled them with wonder, and have made them ready to believe, and to doubt no longer. Yet this was not the case with them; but they were consumed with ill-will, and nursed its bitter pangs in their mind.

(Some Exegetical Fragments of Hippolytus)

300s AD

Marius Victorinus

What does this mean—“being equal to God”? It means that he [the Son] is of the very same power and substance [as the Father]. … It is in this sense therefore that Christ was equal to God. Note that Paul did not say Christ was “similar to God,” for that would imply that Christ possessed some accidental likeness to the substance of God but not that he was substantially equal.²⁰ … Thus Christ is the form of God. The form of God is the substance of God. The form and image of God is the Word. The Word is forever with God. The Word is of one substance with the Father, with whom from the beginning it remains forever the Word. (Against the Arians, 1.21-22)

It would be a kind of robbery if two things were not equal by nature but were forced to be made equal or made equal through some accident. It therefore shows great confidence and bespeaks the very nature of divinity when Paul says of Christ that he did not think it robbery to be equal with God yet did not consider this equality something he had to fortify. (Ibid., 1.23)

God is the very principle of life. God is being itself. God contains life as a principle of life and so also understanding. But life and understanding are in a sense the form and image of what exists. What most truly exists is God. God is being itself, as many agree, and more so that which is above existence. The form of existence is motion, understanding and life…. Christ is said to be “the form of God” because Christ is life, consciousness and understanding. (Epistle to the Philippians, 2.6-8)

He received “the name that is above every name.” He received this name because of his saving word, because of the mystery of his passion, where death was vanquished by the very death of Christ. Through this grace he received the name. It was at that point that the name rightly accrued to him. But the reality to which the name pointed was already given before. The Word, the very power of God, did not become real for the first time only when it entered flesh. Rather it possessed its reality as the power, wisdom, action and work of God from the outset, when it was called the Word and when it indeed was the Word. It is that same Word that has now put on flesh … that has received the title of Son, which title is above every name. (Ibid., 2.9-11)

Gregory of Nyssa

He did not say “having a nature like that of God,” as would be said of [a man] who was made in the image of God. Rather Paul says “being in the very form of God.” All that is the Father’s is in the Son. (Antireticus Against Apollinarius)

It is obvious that the highest is in need of no exaltation. Only what is lowly can be lifted to the exalted state, becoming now what it was not before. Being united to the Lord the human nature is lifted up to share in his divinity. What is exalted is that which has been lifted up from lowliness. (Ibid.)

3. Gregory proceeds to discuss the relative force of the unnameable name of the Holy Trinity and the mutual relation of the Persons, and moreover the unknowable character of the essence, and the condescension on His part towards us, His generation of the Virgin, and His second coming, the resurrection from the dead and future retribution.

What then means that unnameable name concerning which the Lord said, Baptizing them into the name, and did not add the actual significant term which the name indicates? We have concerning it this notion, that all things that exist in the creation are defined by means of their several names. Thus whenever a man speaks of heaven he directs the notion of the hearer to the created object indicated by this name, and he who mentions man or some animal, at once by the mention of the name impresses upon the hearer the form of the creature, and in the same way all other things, by means of the names imposed upon them, are depicted in the heart of him who by hearing receives the appellation imposed upon the thing. The uncreated Nature alone, which we acknowledge in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, surpasses all significance of names. For this cause the Word, when He spoke of the name in delivering the Faith, did not add what it is — for how could a name be found for that which is above every name?— but gave authority that whatever name our intelligence by pious effort be enabled to discover to indicate the transcendent Nature, that name should be applied alike to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whether it be the Good or the Incorruptible, whatever name each may think proper to be employed to indicate the undefiled Nature of Godhead. And by this deliverance the Word seems to me to lay down for us this law, that we are to be persuaded that the Divine Essence is ineffable and incomprehensible: for it is plain that the title of Father does not present to us the Essence, but only indicates the relation to the Son. It follows, then, that if it were possible for human nature to be taught the essence of God, He Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth 1 Timothy 2:4  would not have suppressed the knowledge upon this matter. But as it is, by saying nothing concerning the Divine Essence, He showed that the knowledge thereof is beyond our power, while when we have learned that of which we are capable, we stand in no need of the knowledge beyond our capacity, as we have in the profession of faith in the doctrine delivered to us what suffices for our salvation. For to learn that He is the absolutely existent, together with Whom, by the relative force of the term, there is also declared the majesty of the Son, is the fullest teaching of godliness; the Son, as has been said, implying in close union with Himself the Spirit of Life and Truth, inasmuch as He is Himself Life and Truth.

These distinctions being thus established, while we anathematize all heretical fancies in the sphere of divine doctrines, we believe, even as we were taught by the voice of the Lord, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, acknowledging together with this faith also the dispensation that has been set on foot on behalf of men by the Lord of the creation. For He being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant Philippians 2:6, and being incarnate in the Holy Virgin redeemed us from death in which we were held, sold under sin , giving as the ransom for the deliverance of our souls His precious blood which He poured out by His Cross, and having through Himself made clear for us the path of the resurrection from the dead, shall come in His own time in the glory of the Father to judge every soul in righteousness, when all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.  But that the pernicious heresy that is now being sown broadcast by Eunomius may not, by falling upon the mind of some of the simpler sort and being left without investigation, do harm to guileless faith, we are constrained to set forth the profession which they circulate and to strive to expose the mischief of their teaching.

4. He next skilfully confutes the partial, empty and blasphemous statement of Eunomius on the subject of the absolutely existent.

Now the wording of their doctrine is as follows: We believe in the one and only true God, according to the teaching of the Lord Himself, not honouring Him with a lying title (for He cannot lie), but really existent, one God in nature and in glory, who is without beginning, eternally, without end, alone. Let not him who professes to believe in accordance with the teaching of the Lord pervert the exposition of the faith that was made concerning the Lord of all to suit his own fancy, but himself follow the utterance of the truth. Since then, the expression of the Faith comprehends the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, what agreement has this construction of theirs to show with the utterances of the Lord, so as to refer such a doctrine to the teaching of those utterances? They cannot manage to show where in the Gospels the Lord said that we should believe in the one and only true God: unless they have some new Gospel. For the Gospels which are read in the churches continuously from ancient times to the present day, do not contain this saying which tells us that we should believe in or baptize into the one and only true God, as these people say, but in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. But as we were taught by the voice of the Lord, this we say, that the word one does not indicate the Father alone, but comprehends in its significance the Son with the Father, inasmuch as the Lord said, I and My Father are one.  In like manner also the name God belongs equally to the Beginning in which the Word was, and to the Word Who was in the Beginning. For the Evangelist tells us that the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  So that when Deity is expressed the Son is included no less than the Father. Moreover, the true cannot be conceived as something alien from and unconnected with the truth.

But that the Lord is the Truth no one at all will dispute, unless he be one estranged from the truth. If, then, the Word is in the One, and is God and Truth, as is proclaimed in the Gospels, on what teaching of the Lord does he base his doctrine who makes use of these distinctive terms? For the antithesis is between only and not only, between God and no God, between true and untrue. If it is with respect to idols that they make their distinction of phrases, we too agree. For the name of deity is given, in an equivocal sense, to the idols of the heathen, seeing that all the gods of the heathen are demons, and in another sense marks the contrast of the one with the many, of the true with the false, of those who are not Gods with Him who is God. But if the contrast is one with the Only-begotten God , let our sages learn that truth has its opposite only in falsehood, and God in one who is not God. But inasmuch as the Lord Who is the Truth is God, and is in the Father and is one relatively to the Father , there is no room in the true doctrine for these distinctions of phrases. For he who truly believes in the One sees in the One Him Who is completely united with Him in truth, and deity, and essence, and life, and wisdom, and in all attributes whatsoever: or, if he does not see in the One Him Who is all these it is in nothing that he believes. For without the Son the Father has neither existence nor name, any more than the Powerful without Power, or the Wise without Wisdom. For Christ is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1 Corinthians 1:24; so that he who imagines he sees the One God apart from power, truth, wisdom, life, or the true light, either sees nothing at all or else assuredly that which is evil. For the withdrawal of the good attributes becomes a positing and origination of evil.

Not honouring Him, he says, with a lying title, for He cannot lie. By that phrase I pray that Eunomius may abide, and so bear witness to the truth that it cannot lie. For if he would be of this mind, that everything that is uttered by the Lord is far removed from falsehood, he will of course be persuaded that He speaks the truth Who says, I am in the Father, and the Father in Me ,— plainly, the One in His entirety, in the Other in His entirety, the Father not superabounding in the Son, the Son not being deficient in the Father — and Who says also that the Son should be honoured as the Father is honoured , and He that has seen Me has seen the Father , and no man knows the Father save the Son, in all which passages there is NO hint given to those who receive these declarations as genuine, of any variation of glory, or of essence, or anything else, between the Father and the Son.

Really existent, he says, one God in nature and in glory. Real existence is opposed to unreal existence. Now each of existing things is really existent in so far as it is; but that which, so far as appearance and suggestion go, seems to be, but is not, this is not really existent, as for example an appearance in a dream or a man in a picture. For these and such like things, though they exist so far as appearance is concerned, have not real existence. If then they maintain, in accordance with the Jewish opinion, that the Only-begotten God does not exist at all, they are right in predicating real existence of the Father alone. But if they do not deny the existence of the Maker of all things, let them be content not to deprive of real existence Him Who is, Who in the Divine appearance to Moses gave Himself the name of Existent, when He said, I am that I am : even as Eunomius in his later argument agrees with this, saying that it was He Who appeared to Moses. Then he says that God is one in nature and in glory. Whether God exists without being by nature God, he who uses these words may perhaps know: but if it be true that he who is not by nature God is not God at all, let them learn from the great Paul that they who serve those who are not Gods do not serve God. But we serve the living and true God, as the Apostle says 1 Thessalonians 1:10: and He Whom we serve is Jesus the Christ. For Him the Apostle Paul even exults in serving, saying, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ Romans 1:1 . We then, who no longer serve them which by nature are no Gods , have come to the knowledge of Him Who by nature is God, to Whom every knee bows of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Philippians 2:10-11 . But we should not have been His servants had we not believed that this is the living and true God, to Whom every tongue makes confession that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father Philippians 2:10-11 …

12. He thus proceeds to a magnificent discourse of the interpretation of Mediator, Like, Ungenerate, and generate, and of The likeness and seal of the energy of the Almighty and of His Works.

Again, what is the manifold mediation which with wearying iteration he assigns to God, calling Him Mediator in doctrines, Mediator in the Law? It is not thus that we are taught by the lofty utterance of the Apostle, who says that having made void the law of commandments by His own doctrines, He is the mediator between God and man, declaring it by this saying, There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus ; where by the distinction implied in the word mediator he reveals to us the whole aim of the mystery of godliness. Now the aim is this. Humanity once revolted through the malice of the enemy, and, brought into bondage to sin, was also alienated from the true Life. After this the Lord of the creature calls back to Him His own creature, and becomes Man while still remaining God, being both God and Man in the entirety of the two several natures, and thus humanity was indissolubly united to God, the Man that is in Christ conducting the work of mediation, to Whom, by the first-fruits assumed for us, all the lump is potentially united. Since, then, a mediator is not a mediator of one Galatians 3:20, and God is one, not divided among the Persons in Whom we have been taught to believe (for the Godhead in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is one), the Lord, therefore, becomes a mediator once for all between God and men, binding man to the Deity by Himself. But even by the idea of a mediator we are taught the godly doctrine enshrined in the Creed. For the Mediator between God and man entered as it were into fellowship with human nature, not by being merely deemed a man, but having truly become so: in like manner also, being very God, He has not, as Eunomius will have us consider, been honoured by the bare title of Godhead.

What he adds to the preceding statements is characterized by the same want of meaning, or rather by the same malignity of meaning. For in calling Him Son Whom, a little before, he had plainly declared to be created, and in calling Him only begotten God Whom he reckoned with the rest of things that have come into being by creation, he affirms that He is like Him that begot Him only by a special likeness, in a peculiar sense. Accordingly, we must first distinguish the significations of the term like, in how many senses it is employed in ordinary use, and afterwards proceed to discuss Eunomius’ positions. In the first place, then, all things that beguile our senses, not being really identical in nature, but producing illusion by some of the accidents of the respective subjects, as form, color, sound, and the impressions conveyed by taste or smell or touch, while really different in nature, but supposed to be other than they truly are, these custom declares to have the relation of likeness, as, for example, when the lifeless material is shaped by art, whether carving, painting, or modelling, into an imitation of a living creature, the imitation is said to be like the original. For in such a case the nature of the animal is one thing, and that of the material, which cheats the sight by mere color and form, is another. To the same class of likeness belongs the image of the original figure in a mirror, which gives appearances of motion, without, however, being in nature identical with its original. In just the same way our hearing may experience the same deception, when, for instance, some one, imitating the song of the nightingale with his own voice, persuades our hearing so that we seem to be listening to the bird. Taste, again, is subject to the same illusion, when the juice of figs mimics the pleasant taste of honey: for there is a certain resemblance to the sweetness of honey in the juice of the fruit. So, too, the sense of smell may sometimes be imposed upon by resemblance, when the scent of the herb camomile, imitating the fragrant apple itself, deceives our perception: and in the same way with touch also, likeness belies the truth in various modes, since a silver or brass coin, of equal size and similar weight with a gold one, may pass for the gold piece if our sight does not discern the truth.

We have thus generally described in a few words the several cases in which objects, because they are deemed to be different from what they really are, produce delusions in our senses. It is possible, of course, by a more laborious investigation, to extend one’s enquiry through all things which are really different in kind one from another, but are nevertheless thought, by virtue of some accidental resemblance, to be like one to the other. Can it possibly be such a form of likeness as this, that he is continually attributing to the Son? Nay, surely he cannot be so infatuated as to discover deceptive similarity in Him Who is the Truth. Again, in the inspired Scriptures, we are told of another kind of resemblance by Him Who said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness Genesis 1:26; but I do not suppose that Eunomius would discern this kind of likeness between the Father and the Son, so as to make out the Only-begotten God to be identical with man. We are also aware of another kind of likeness, of which the word speaks in Genesis concerning Seth — Adam begot a son in his own likeness, after his image Genesis 5:3 ; and if this is the kind of likeness of which Eunomius speaks, we do not think his statement is to be rejected. For in this case the nature of the two objects which are alike is not different, and the impress and type imply community of nature. These, or such as these, are our views upon the variety of meanings of like. Let us see, then, with what intention Eunomius asserts of the Son that  special likeness to the Father, when he says that He is like the Father with a special likeness, in a peculiar sense, not as Father to Father, for they are not two Fathers. He promises to show us the special likeness of the Son to the Father, and proceeds by his definition to establish the position that we ought not to conceive of Him as being like. For by saying, He is not like as Father to Father, he makes out that He is not like; and again when he adds, nor as Ungenerate to Ungenerate, by this phrase, too, he forbids us to conceive a likeness in the Son to the Father; and finally, by subjoining nor as Son to Son, he introduces a third conception, by which he entirely subverts the meaning of like. So it is that he follows up his own statements, and conducts his demonstration of likeness by establishing unlikeness. And now let us examine the discernment and frankness which he displays in these distinctions. After saying that the Son is like the Father, he guards the statement by adding that we ought not to think that the Son is like the Father, as Father to Father. Why, what man on earth is such a fool as, on learning that the Son is like the Father, to be brought by any course of reasoning to think of the likeness of Father to Father? Nor as Son to Son: — here, again, the acuteness of the distinction is equally conspicuous. When he tells us that the Son is like the Father, he adds the further definition that He must not be understood to be like Him in the same way as He would be like another Son. These are the mysteries of the awful doctrines of Eunomius, by which his disciples are made wiser than the rest of the world, by learning that the Son, by His likeness to the Father, is not like a Son, for the Son is not the Father: nor is He like as Ungenerate to Ungenerate, for the Son is not ungenerate. But the mystery which we have received, when it speaks of the Father, certainly bids us understand the Father of the Son, and when it names the Son, teaches us to apprehend the Son of the Father. And until the present time we never felt the need of these philosophic refinements, that by the words Father and Son are suggested two Fathers or two Sons, a pair, so to say, of ungenerate beings.

Now the drift of Eunomius’ excessive concern about the Ungenerate has been often explained before; and it shall here be briefly discovered yet again. For as the term Father points to no difference of nature from the Son, his impiety, if he had brought his statement to a close here, would have had no support, seeing that the natural sense of the names Father and Son excludes the idea of their being alien in essence. But as it is, by employing the terms generate and ungenerate, since the contradictory opposition between them admits of no mean, just like that between mortal and immortal, rational and irrational, and all those terms which are opposed to each other by the mutually exclusive nature of their meaning — by the use of these terms, I repeat, he gives free course to his profanity, so as to contemplate as existing in the generate with reference to the ungenerate the same difference which there is between mortal and immortal: and even as the nature of the mortal is one, and that of the immortal another, and as the special attributes of the rational and of the irrational are essentially incompatible, just so he wants to make out that the nature of the ungenerate is one, and that of the generate another, in order to show that as the irrational nature has been created in subjection to the rational, so the generate is by a necessity of its being in a state of subordination to the ungenerate.

For which reason he attaches to the ungenerate the name of Almighty, and this he does not apply to express providential operation, as the argument led the way for him in suggesting, but transfers the application of the word to arbitrary sovereignty, so as to make the Son to be a part of the subject and subordinate universe, a fellow-slave with all the rest to Him Who with arbitrary and absolute sovereignty controls all alike. And that it is with an eye to this result that he employs these argumentative distinctions, will be clearly established from the passage before us. For after those sapient and carefully-considered expressions, that He is not like either as Father to Father, or as Son to Son, — and yet there is no necessity that father should invariably be like father or son like son: for suppose there is one father among the Ethiopians, and another among the Scythians, and each of these has a son, the Ethiopian’s son black, but the Scythian white-skinned and with hair of a golden tinge, yet none the more because each is a father does the Scythian turn black on the Ethiopian’s account, nor does the Ethiopian’s body change to white on account of the Scythian — after saying this, however, according to his own fancy, Eunomius subjoins that He is like as Son to Father.  But although such a phrase indicates kinship in nature, as the inspired Scripture attests in the case of Seth and Adam, our doctor, with but small respect for his intelligent readers, introduces his idle exposition of the title Son, defining Him to be the image and seal of the energy of the Almighty. For the Son, he says, is the image and seal of the energy of the Almighty. Let him who has ears to hear first, I pray, consider this particular point — What is the seal of the energy? Every energy is contemplated as exertion in the party who exhibits it, and on the completion of his exertion, it has no independent existence. Thus, for example, the energy of the runner is the motion of his feet, and when the motion has stopped there is no longer any energy. So too about every pursuit the same may be said — when the exertion of him who is busied about anything ceases, the energy ceases also, and has no independent existence, either when a person is actively engaged in the exertion he undertakes, or when he ceases from that exertion. What then does he tell us that the energy is in itself, which is neither essence, nor image, nor person? So he speaks of the Son as the similitude of the impersonal, and that which is like the non-existent surely has itself no existence at all. This is what his juggling with idle opinions comes to — belief in nonentity! For that which is like nonentity surely itself is not.

O Paul and John and all you others of the band of Apostles and Evangelists, who are they that arm their venomous tongues against your words? Who are they that raise their frog-like croakings against your heavenly thunder? What then says the son of thunder? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And what says he that came after him, that other who had been within the heavenly temple, who in Paradise had been initiated into mysteries unspeakable? Being, he says, the Brightness of His glory, and the express Image of His person Hebrews 1:3 . What, after these have thus spoken, are the words of our ventriloquist ? The seal, quoth he, of the energy of the Almighty. He makes Him third after the Father, with that non-existent energy mediating between them, or rather moulded at pleasure by non-existence. God the Word, Who was in the beginning, is the seal of the energy: — the Only-begotten God, Who is contemplated in the eternity of the Beginning of existent things, Who is in the bosom of the Father , Who sustains all things, by the word of His power , the creator of the ages, from Whom and through Whom and in Whom are all things , Who sits upon the circle of the earth, and has meted out heaven with the span, Who measures the water in the hollow of his hand Isaiah 40:12-22, Who holds in His hand all things that are, Who dwells on high and looks upon the things that are lowly , or rather did look upon them to make all the world to be His footstool , imprinted by the footmark of the Word — the form of God is the seal of an energy. Is God then an energy, not a Person? Surely Paul when expounding this very truth says He is the express image, not of His energy, but of His Person. Is the Brightness of His glory a seal of the energy of God? Alas for his impious ignorance! What is there intermediate between God and His own form? And Whom does the Person employ as mediator with His own express image? And what can be conceived as coming between the glory and its brightness? But while there are such weighty and numerous testimonies wherein the greatness of the Lord of the creation is proclaimed by those who were entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel, what sort of language does this forerunner of the final apostasy hold concerning Him? What says he? As image, he says, and seal of all the energy and power of the Almighty. How does he take upon himself to emend the words of the mighty Paul? Paul says that the Son is the Power of God 1 Corinthians 1:24 ; Eunomius calls Him the seal of a power, not the Power. And then, repeating his expression, what is it that he adds to his previous statement? He calls Him seal of the Father’s works and words and counsels. To what works of the Father is He like? He will say, of course, the world, and all things that are therein. But the Gospel has testified that all these things are the works of the Only-begotten. To what works of the Father, then, was He likened? Of what works was He made the seal? What Scripture ever entitled Him seal of the Father’s works?

But if any one should grant Eunomius the right to fashion his words at his own will, as he desires, even though Scripture does not agree with him, let him tell us what works of the Father there are of which he says that the Son was made the seal, apart from those that have been wrought by the Son. All things visible and invisible are the work of the Son: in the visible are included the whole world and all that is therein; in the invisible, the supramundane creation. What works of the Father, then, are remaining to be contemplated by themselves, over and above things visible and invisible, whereof he says that the Son was made the seal? Will he perhaps, when driven into a corner, return once more to the fetid vomit of heresy, and say that the Son is a work of the Father? How then does the Son come to be the seal of these works when He Himself, as Eunomius says, is the work of the Father? Or does he say that the same Person is at once a work and the likeness of a work? Let this be granted: let us suppose him to speak of the other works of which he says the Father was the creator, if indeed he intends us to understand likeness by the term seal. But what other words of the Father does Eunomius know, besides that Word Who was ever in the Father, Whom he calls a seal— Him Who is and is called the Word in the absolute, true, and primary sense? And to what counsels can he possibly refer, apart from the Wisdom of God, to which the Wisdom of God is made like, in becoming a seal of those counsels? Look at the want of discrimination and circumspection, at the confused muddle of his statement, how he brings the mystery into ridicule, without understanding either what he says or what he is arguing about. For He Who has the Father in His entirety in Himself, and is Himself in His entirety in the Father, as Word and Wisdom and Power and Truth, as His express image and brightness, Himself is all things in the Father, and does not come to be the image and seal and likeness of certain other things discerned in the Father prior to Himself.

Then Eunomius allows to Him the credit of the destruction of men by water in the days of Noah, of the rain of fire that fell upon Sodom, and of the just vengeance upon the Egyptians, as though he were making some great concessions to Him Who holds in His hand the ends of the world, in Whom, as the Apostle says, all things consist Colossians 1:17, as though he were not aware that to Him Who encompasses all things, and guides and sways according to His good pleasure all that has already been and all that will be, the mention of two or three marvels does not mean the addition of glory, so much as the suppression of the rest means its deprivation or loss. But even if no word be said of these, the one utterance of Paul is enough by itself to point to them all inclusively — the one utterance which says that He is above all, and through all, and in all. (Against Eunomius, Book II)

Lucifer of Cagliari

It was he who was and is and always shall be in the form of the Father, the true Son, immutable and unchangeable because he is God and the all-powerful Son of the Almighty, who nonetheless deigned to lower himself for our salvation, so that he might cause us to rise even as we lay prostrate. (On Dying for the Son of God, 12)

Epiphanius

Suppose that when he became a slave he ceased being truly Lord. How then could it be said that in his coming the one who was “in the form of God took the form of a slave”? (Ancoratus, 28)

The Word tasted death once on our behalf, the death of the cross. He went to his death so that by death he might put death to death. The Word, becoming human flesh, did not suffer in his divinity but suffered with humanity. (Ibid., 92)

Methodius

Being in the image of God, [humanity] still needed to receive the likeness. The Word, having been sent into the world to perfect this, first of all took on our own form, even though in history it has been stained by many sins, so that we for our part, on whose account he bore it, should be once again capable of partaking in his divine nature. Hence it is now possible for us to receive God’s likeness. Think of a skilled painter painting a likeness of himself on a surface. So we may now imitate the same characteristics that God himself has displayed in his becoming a human being. We hold these characteristics before us as we go in discipleship along the path he set out. His purpose in consenting to put on human flesh when he was God was this: that we, upon seeing the divine image in this tablet, so to speak, might imitate this incomparable artist. (Symposium, 1.4.24)

Ambrosiaster

When he dwelt among humans, he appeared as God by his acts and works. “For the form of God” differs in nothing from God. Indeed, the reason for his being called the form and image of God is to make it apparent that he himself, though distinguishable from God the Father, is everything that God is…. His works revealed his form. Since his works were not those of a human, he whose work or form was that of God was perceived to be God. For what is “the form of God?” Is it not shown by the evidences given of his divinity—by his raising of the dead, his restoration of hearing to the deaf, his cleansing of lepers? (Epistle to the Philippians, 2.6-2.8.5)

Eusebius of Caesarea

[Paul] acknowledged Christ and no other to be the Son of God. The flesh that Christ assumed was called “the form of a slave” and “son of man.” But as to that birth which, unknown to all, was from the Father and before all ages, he was Son of God. (On the Theology of the Church, 1.2)

Gaudentius

He added “being found in human form” because the form of God, which is properly God himself, has never been seen by anyone. (Treatise 19, On the Priority of the Father, 28)

“Therefore,” he says, “God exalted him.” But who was it that was exalted? Evidently the one who underwent the torture of the cross and death. It was not God himself, who is always on high throughout. (Ibid., 29)

The “name that is above every name” is God. It is not given to God in order that he should become God. For God the Son was the Word in the beginning with the Father. But the man assumed by the Son takes on his mission. In this way the Son of God, who had always existed, remains still equally God when joined to the humanity that he received from the Virgin. (Ibid.)

Athanasius

Chapter 11. Texts Explained; And First, Philippians 2:9, 10. Whether the words ‘Wherefore God has highly exalted’ prove moral probation and advancement. Argued against, first, from the force of the word ‘Son;’ which is inconsistent with such an interpretation. Next, the passage examined. Ecclesiastical sense of ‘highly exalted,’ and ‘gave,’ and ‘wherefore;’ viz. as being spoken with reference to our Lord’s manhood. Secondary sense; viz. as implying the Word’s ‘exaltation’ through the resurrection in the same sense in which Scripture speaks of His descent in the Incarnation; how the phrase does not derogate from the nature of the Word.

37. But since they allege the divine oracles and force on them a misinterpretation, according to their private sense , it becomes necessary to meet them just so far as to vindicate these passages, and to show that they bear an orthodox sense, and that our opponents are in error. They say then, that the Apostle writes, ‘Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every name; that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Philippians 2:9-10;’ and David, ‘Wherefore God even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.’ Then they urge, as something acute: ‘If He was exalted and received grace, on a ‘wherefore,’ and on a ‘wherefore’ He was anointed, He received a reward of His purpose; but having acted from purpose, He is altogether of an alterable nature.’ This is what Eusebius and Arius have dared to say, nay to write; while their partizans do not shrink from conversing about it in full market-place, not seeing how mad an argument they use. For if He received what He had as a reward of His purpose, and would not have had it, unless He had needed it, and had His work to show for it, then having gained it from virtue and promotion, with reason had He ‘therefore’ been called Son and God, without being very Son. For what is from another by nature, is a real offspring, as Isaac was to Abraham, and Joseph to Jacob, and the radiance to the sun; but the so called sons from virtue and grace, have but in place of nature a grace by acquisition, and are something else besides the gift itself; as the men who have received the Spirit by participation, concerning whom Scripture says, ‘I begot and exalted children, and they rebelled against Me.’ And of course, since they were not sons by nature, therefore, when they altered, the Spirit was taken away and they were disinherited; and again on their repentance that God who thus at the beginning gave them grace, will receive them, and give light, and call them sons again.

38. But if they say this of the Saviour also, it follows that He is neither very God nor very Son, nor like the Father, nor in any wise has God for a Father of His being according to essence, but of the mere grace given to Him, and for a Creator of His being according to essence, after the similitude of all others. And being such, as they maintain, it will be manifest further that He had not the name ‘Son’ from the first, if so be it was the prize of works done and of that very same advance which He made when He became man, and took the form of the servant; but then, when, after becoming ‘obedient unto death,’ He was, as the text says, ‘highly exalted,’ and received that ‘Name’ as a grace, ‘that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow Philippians 2:8.’ What then was before this, if then He was exalted, and then began to be worshipped, and then was called Son, when He became man? For He seems Himself not to have promoted the flesh at all, but rather to have been Himself promoted through it, if, according to their perverseness, He was then exalted and called Son, when He became man. What then was before this? One must urge the question on them again, to make it understood what their irreligious doctrine results in. For if the Lord be God, Son, Word, yet was not all these before He became man, either He was something else beside these, and afterwards became partaker of them for His virtue’s sake, as we have said; or they must adopt the alternative (may it return upon their heads!) that He was not before that time, but is wholly man by nature and nothing more. But this is no sentiment of the Church. but of the Samosatene and of the present Jews. Why then, if they think as Jews, are they not circumcised with them too, instead of pretending Christianity, while they are its foes? For if He was not, or was indeed, but afterwards was promoted, how were all things made by Him, or how in Him, were He not perfect, did the Father delight Proverbs 8:30? And He, on the other hand, if now promoted, how did He before rejoice in the presence of the Father? And, if He received His worship after dying, how is Abraham seen to worship Him in the tent , and Moses in the bush? And, as Daniel saw, myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands were ministering unto Him? And if, as they say, He had His promotion now, how did the Son Himself make mention of that His glory before and above the world, when He said, ‘Glorify Thou Me, O Father, with the glory which I had with You before the world was John 17:5.’ If, as they say, He was then exalted, how did He before that ‘bow the heavens and come down;’ and again, ‘The Highest gave His thunder ?’ Therefore, if, even before the world was made, the Son had that glory, and was Lord of glory and the Highest, and descended from heaven, and is ever to be worshipped, it follows that He had not promotion from His descent, but rather Himself promoted the things which needed promotion; and if He descended to effect their promotion, therefore He did not receive in reward the name of the Son and God, but rather He Himself has made us sons of the Father, and deified men by becoming Himself man.

39. Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us. Since, if when He became man, only then He was called Son and God, but before He became man, God called the ancient people sons, and made Moses a god of Pharaoh (and Scripture says of many, ‘God stands in the congregation of Gods ‘), it is plain that He is called Son and God later than they. How then are all things through Him, and He before all? Or how is He ‘first-born of the whole creation,’ if He has others before Him who are called sons and gods? And how is it that those first partakers do not partake of the Word? This opinion is not true; it is a device of our present Judaizers. For how in that case can any at all know God as their Father? For adoption there could not be apart from the real Son, who says, ‘No one knows the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him Matthew 11:27.’ And how can there be deifying apart from the Word and before Him? Yet, says He to their brethren the Jews, ‘If He called them gods, unto whom the Word of God came John 10:35.’ And if all that are called sons and gods, whether in earth or in heaven, were adopted and deified through the Word, and the Son Himself is the Word, it is plain that through Him are they all, and He Himself before all, or rather He Himself only is very Son , and He alone is very God from the very God, not receiving these prerogatives as a reward for His virtue, nor being another beside them, but being all these by nature and according to essence. For He is Offspring of the Father’s essence, so that one cannot doubt that after the resemblance of the unalterable Father, the Word also is unalterable.

40. Hitherto we have met their irrational conceits with the true conceptions implied in the Word ‘Son,’ as the Lord Himself has given us. But it will be well next to cite the divine oracles, that the unalterableness of the Son and His unchangeable nature, which is the Father’s, as well as their perverseness, may be still more fully proved. The Apostle then, writing to the Philippians, says, ‘Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not a prize to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And, being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also highly exalted Him, and gave Him a Name which is above every name; that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father Philippians 2:5-11.’

Can anything be plainer and more express than this? He was not from a lower state promoted: but rather, existing as God, He took the form of a servant, and in taking it, was not promoted but humbled Himself. Where then is there here any reward of virtue, or what advancement and promotion in humiliation? For if, being God, He became man, and descending from on high He is still said to be exalted, where is He exalted, being God? This withal being plain, that, since God is highest of all, His Word must necessarily be highest also. Where then could He be exalted higher, who is in the Father and like the Father in all things ? Therefore He is beyond the need of any addition; nor is such as the Arians think Him. For though the Word has descended in order to be exalted, and so it is written, yet what need was there that He should humble Himself, as if to seek that which He had already? And what grace did He receive who is the Giver of grace ? Or how did He receive that Name for worship, who is always worshipped by His Name? Nay, certainly before He became man, the sacred writers invoke Him, ‘Save me, O God, for Your Name’s sake ;’and again, ‘Some put their trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God.’ And while He was worshipped by the Patriarchs, concerning the Angels it is written, ‘Let all the Angels of God worship Him Hebrews 1:6.’

41. And if, as David says in the 71st Psalm, ‘His Name remains before the sun, and before the moon, from one generation to another,’ how did He receive what He had always, even before He now received it? Or how is He exalted, being before His exaltation the Most High? Or how did He receive the right of being worshipped, who before He now received it, was ever worshipped? It is not a dark saying but a divine mystery. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;’ but for our sakes afterwards the ‘Word was made flesh.’ And the term in question, ‘highly exalted,’ does not signify that the essence of the Word was exalted, for He was ever and is ‘equal to God Philippians 2:6,’ but the exaltation is of the manhood. Accordingly this is not said before the Word became flesh; that it might be plain that ‘humbled’ and ‘exalted’ are spoken of His human nature; for where there is humble estate, there too may be exaltation; and if because of His taking flesh ‘humbled’ is written, it is clear that ‘highly exalted’ is also said because of it. For of this was man’s nature in want, because of the humble estate of the flesh and of death. Since then the Word, being the Image of the Father and immortal, took the form of the servant, and as man underwent for us death in His flesh, that thereby He might offer Himself for us through death to the Father; therefore also, as man, He is said because of us and for us to be highly exalted, that as by His death we all died in Christ, so again in the Christ Himself we might be highly exalted, being raised from the dead, and ascending into heaven, ‘whither the forerunner Jesus is for us entered, not into the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.’ But if now for us the Christ is entered into heaven itself, though He was even before and always Lord and Framer of the heavens, for us therefore is that present exaltation written. And as He Himself, who sanctifies all, says also that He sanctifies Himself to the Father for our sakes, not that the Word may become holy, but that He Himself may in Himself sanctify all of us, in like manner we must take the present phrase, ‘He highly exalted Him,’ not that He Himself should be exalted, for He is the highest, but that He may become righteousness for us , and we may be exalted in Him, and that we may enter the gates of heaven, which He has also opened for us, the forerunners saying, ‘Lift up your gates, O you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.’ For here also not on Him were shut the gates, as being Lord and Maker of all, but because of us is this too written, to whom the door of paradise was shut. And therefore in a human relation, because of the flesh which He bore, it is said of Him, ‘Lift up your gates,’ and ‘shall come in,’ as if a man were entering; but in a divine relation on the other hand it is said of Him, since ‘the Word was God,’ that He is the ‘Lord’ and the ‘King of Glory.’ Such our exaltation the Spirit foreannounced in the eighty-ninth Psalm, saying, ‘And in Your righteousness shall they be exalted, for You are the glory of their strength.’ And if the Son be Righteousness, then He is not exalted as being Himself in need, but it is we who are exalted in that Righteousness, which is He 1 Corinthians 1:30 .

42. And so too the words ‘gave Him’ are not written because of the Word Himself; for even before He became man He was worshipped, as we have said, by the Angels and the whole creation in virtue of being proper to the Father; but because of us and for us this too is written of Him. For as Christ died and was exalted as man, so, as man, is He said to take what, as God, He ever had, that even such a grant of grace might reach to us. For the Word was not impaired in receiving a body, that He should seek to receive a grace, but rather He deified that which He put on, and more than that, ‘gave’ it graciously to the race of man. For as He was ever worshipped as being the Word and existing in the form of God, so being what He ever was, though become man and called Jesus, He none the less has the whole creation under foot, and bending their knees to Him in this Name, and confessing that the Word’s becoming flesh, and undergoing death in flesh, has not happened against the glory of His Godhead, but ‘to the glory of God the Father.’ For it is the Father’s glory that man, made and then lost, should be found again; and, when dead, that he should be made alive, and should become God’s temple. For whereas the powers in heaven, both Angels and Archangels, were ever worshipping the Lord, as they are now worshipping Him in the Name of Jesus, this is our grace and high exaltation, that even when He became man, the Son of God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers will not be astonished at seeing all of us, who are of one body with Him , introduced into their realms. And this had not been, unless He who existed in the form of God had taken on Him a servant’s form, and had humbled Himself, yielding His body to come unto death.

43. Behold then what men considered the foolishness of God because of the Cross, has become of all things most honoured. For our resurrection is stored up in it; and no longer Israel alone, but henceforth all the nations, as the Prophet has foretold, leave their idols and acknowledge the true God, the Father of the Christ. And the illusion of demons has come to nought, and He only who is really God is worshipped in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the fact that the Lord, even when come in human body and called Jesus, was worshipped and believed to be God’s Son, and that through Him the Father was known, shows, as has been said, that not the Word, considered as the Word, received this so great grace, but we. For because of our relationship to His Body we too have become God’s temple, and in consequence are made God’s sons, so that even in us the Lord is now worshipped, and beholders report, as the Apostle says, that God is in them of a truth. As also John says in the Gospel, ‘As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become children of God John 1:12;’ and in his Epistle he writes, ‘By this we know that He abides in us by His Spirit which He has given us 1 John 3:24.’ And this too is an evidence of His goodness towards us that, while we were exalted because that the Highest Lord is in us, and on our account grace was given to Him, because that the Lord who supplies the grace has become a man like us, He on the other hand, the Saviour, humbled Himself in taking ‘our body of humiliation Philippians 3:21,’ and took a servant’s form, putting on that flesh which was enslaved to sin. And He indeed has gained nothing from us for His own promotion: for the Word of God is without want and full; but rather we were promoted from Him; for He is the ‘Light, which lightens every man, coming into the world John 1:9.’ And in vain do the Arians lay stress upon the conjunction ‘wherefore,’ because Paul has said, ‘Wherefore, has God highly exalted Him.’ For in saying this he did not imply any prize of virtue, nor promotion from advance , but the cause why the exaltation was bestowed upon us. And what is this but that He who existed in form of God, the Son of a noble Father, humbled Himself and became a servant instead of us and in our behalf? For if the Lord had not become man, we had not been redeemed from sins, not raised from the dead, but remaining dead under the earth; not exalted into heaven, but lying in Hades. Because of us then and in our behalf are the words, ‘highly exalted’ and ‘given.’ (Against the Arians, Discourse I)

John Chrysostom

Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God; but emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave Him the Name which is above every name: that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I have stated the views of the heretics. It is befitting that I now speak of what is our own. They say that the words, He counted it not a prize, are of wrongfully seizing. We have proved, that this is altogether vapid and impertinent, for no man would exhort another to humility on such grounds, nor in this sort does he praise God, or even man. What is it then, beloved? Give heed to what I now say. Since many men think, that, when they are lowly, they are deprived of their proper right, and debased, Paul, to take away this fear, and to show that we must not be affected thus, says that God, the only begotten, who was in the form of God, who was no whit inferior to the Father, who was equal to Him, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God.

Now learn what this means. Whatsoever a man robs, and takes contrary to his right, he dares not lay aside, from fear lest it perish, and fall from his possession, but he keeps hold of it continually. He who possesses some dignity which is natural to him, fears not to descend from that dignity, being assured that nothing of this sort will happen to him. As for example, Absalom usurped the government, and dared not afterwards to lay it aside. We will go to another example, but if example cannot present the whole matter to you, take it not amiss, for this is the nature of examples, they leave the greater part for the imagination to reason out. A man rebels against his sovereign, and usurps the kingdom: he dares not lay aside and hide the matter, for if he once hide it, straightway it is gone. Let us also take another example; if a man takes anything violently, he keeps firm hold of it continually, for if he lay it down, he straightway loses it. And generally speaking, they who have anything by rapine are afraid to lay it by, or hide it, or not to keep constantly in that state which they have assumed. Not so they, who have possessions not procured by rapine, as Man, who possesses the dignity of being a reasonable being.

But here examples fail me, for there is no natural preëminence among us, for no good thing is naturally our own; but they are inherent in the nature of God. What does one say then? That the Son of God feared not to descend from His right, for He thought not Deity a prize seized. He was not afraid that any would strip Him of that nature or that right, Wherefore He laid it aside, being confident that He should take it up again. He hid it, knowing that He was not made inferior by so doing. For this cause, Paul says not, He seized not, but, He counted it not a prize; He possessed not that estate by seizure, but it was natural, not conferred, it was enduring and safe. Wherefore he refused not to take the form of an inferior. The tyrant fears to lay aside the purple robe in war, while the king does it with much safety. Why so? Because he holds his power not as a matter of seizure. He did not refuse to lay it aside, as one who had usurped it, but since He had it as His own by nature, since it could never be parted from Him, He hid it.

This equality with God He had not by seizure, but as his own by nature. Wherefore He emptied Himself. Where be they who affirm, that He underwent constraint, that He was subjected? Scripture says, He emptied Himself, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death. How did He empty Himself? By taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man. It is written, He emptied Himself in reference to the text, each counting other better than himself. Since had He been subjected, had He not chosen it of His own accord, and of His own free will, it would not have been an act of humility. For if He knew not that so it must be, He would have been imperfect. If, not knowing it, He had waited for the time of action, then would He not have known the season. But if He both knew that so it must be, and when it must be, wherefore should He submit to be subjected? To show, they say, the superiority of the Father. But this shows not the superiority of the Father, but His own inferiority. For is not the name of the Father sufficient to show the priority of the Father? For apart from Him, the son has all the same things. For this honor is not capable of passing from the Father to the Son.

What then say the heretics? See, say they, He did not become man. The Marcionites, I mean. But why? He was made in the likeness of man. But how can one be made in the likeness of men? By putting on a shadow? But this is a phantom, and no longer the likeness of a man, for the likeness of a man is another man. And what will you answer to John, when he says, The Word became flesh? John 1:14 But this same blessed one himself also says in another place, in the likeness of sinful flesh. Romans 8:3

And being found in fashion as a man. See, they say, both in fashion, and as a man. To be as a man, and to be a man in fashion, is not to be a man indeed. To be a man in fashion is not to be a man by nature. See with what ingenuousness I lay down what our enemies say, for that is a brilliant victory, and amply gained, when we do not conceal what seem to be their strong points. For this is deceit rather than victory. What then do they say? Let me repeat their argument. To be a man in fashion is not to be a man by nature; and to be as a man, and in the fashion of a man, this is not to be a man. So then to take the form of a servant, is not to take the form of a servant. Here then is an inconsistency; and wherefore do you not first of all solve this difficulty? For as you think that this contradicts us, so do we say that the other contradicts you. He says not, as the form of a servant, nor in the likeness of the form of a servant, nor in the fashion of the form of a servant, but He took the form of a servant. What then is this? For there is a contradiction. There is no contradiction. God forbid! It is a cold and ridiculous argument of theirs. He took, say they, the form of a servant, when He girded Himself with a towel, and washed the feet of His disciples. Is this the form of a servant? Nay, this is not the form, but the work of a servant. It is one thing that there should be the work of a servant, and another to take the form of a servant. Why did he not say, He did the work of a servant, which were clearer? But nowhere in Scripture is form put for work, for the difference is great: the one is the result of nature, the other of action. In common speaking, too, we never use form for work. Besides, according to them, He did not even take the work of a servant, nor even gird Himself. For if all was a mere shadow, there was no reality. If He had not real hands, how did He wash their feet? If He had not real loins, how did He gird Himself with a towel? And what kind of garments did he take? For Scripture says, He took His garments. John 13:12 So then not even the work is found to have really taken place, but it was all a deception, nor did He even wash the disciples. For if that incorporeal nature did not appear, it was not in a body. Who then washed the disciples’ feet?

Again, what in opposition to Paul of Samosata? For what did he affirm? The very same. But it is no emptying of Himself, that one who is of human nature, and a mere man, should wash his fellow-servants. For what we said against the Arians, we must repeat against these too, for they differ not from one another, save by a little space of time; both the one and the other affirm the Son of God to be a creature. What then shall we say to them? If He being a man washed man, He emptied not, He humbled not Himself. If He being a man seized not on being equal with God, He is not deserving of praise. That God should become man, is great, unspeakable, inexpressible humility; but what humility is there in that one, who was a man should do the works of men? And where is the work of God ever called the form of God? For if he were a mere man, and was called the form of God by reason of His works, why do we not do the same of Peter, for he wrought greater deeds than Christ Himself? Why say you not of Paul, that he had the form of God? Why did not Paul give an example of himself, for he wrought a thousand servile works, and did not even refuse to say, For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 2 Corinthians 4:5

These are absurdities and trifles! Scripture says, He emptied Himself. How did He empty Himself? Tell me. What was His emptying? What His humiliation? Was it because He wrought wonders? This both Paul and Peter did, so that this was not peculiar to the Son. What then means, Being made in the likeness of men? He had many things belonging to us, and many He had not; for instance, He was not born of wedlock. He did no sin. These things had He which no man has. He was not what he seemed only, but He was God also; He seemed to be a man, but He was not like the mass of men. For He was like them in flesh. He means then, that He was not a mere man. Wherefore he says, in the likeness of men. For we indeed are soul and body, but He was God, and soul and body, wherefore he says, in the likeness. For lest when you hear that He emptied Himself, you should think that some change, and degeneracy, and loss is here; he says, while He remained what He was, He took that which He was not, and being made flesh He remained God, in that He was the Word. John 1:14

In this then He was like man, and for this cause Paul says, and in fashion. Not that His nature degenerated, nor that any confusion arose, but He became man in fashion. For when He had said that He took the form of a servant, he made bold to say this also, seeing that the first would silence all objectors; since when he says, In the likeness of sinful flesh, he says not that He had not flesh, but that that flesh sinned not, but was like to sinful flesh. Like in what? In nature, not in sin, therefore was His like a sinful soul. As then in the former case the term similarity was used, because He was not equal in everything, so here also there is similarity, because He is not equal in everything, as His not being born of wedlock, His being without sin, His being not a mere man. And he well said as a man, for He was not one of the many, but as one of the many. The Word who was God did not degenerate into man, nor was His substance changed, but he appeared as a man; not to delude us with a phantom, but to instruct us in humility. When therefore he says, as a man, this is what He means; since he calls Him a man elsewhere also, when he says, there is one God, one Mediator also between God and men, Himself man, Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5

Thus much against these heretics. I must now speak against such as deny that He took a soul. If the form of God is perfect God, then the form of a servant is a perfect servant. Again, against the Arians. Here concerning His divinity, we no longer find He became, He took, but He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; here concerning his humanity we find He took, He became. He became the latter, He took the latter; He was the former. Let us not then confound nor divide the natures. There is one God, there is one Christ, the Son of God; when I say One, I mean a union, not a confusion; the one Nature did not degenerate into the other, but was united with it.

He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross. See, says one, He voluntarily became obedient; he was not equal to Him whom He obeyed. O you obstinate ones and unwise! This does not at all lower Him. For we too become obedient to our friends, yet this has no effect. He became obedient as a Son to His Father; He fell not thus into a servile state, but by this very act above all others guarded his wondrous Sonship, by thus greatly honoring the Father.

He honored the Father, not that you should dishonor Him, but that you should the rather admire Him, and learn from this act, that He is a true Son, in honoring His Father more than all besides. No one has thus honored God. As was His height, such was the correspondent humiliation which He underwent. As He is greater than all, and no one is equal to Him, so in honoring His Father, He surpassed all, not by necessity, nor unwillingly, but this too is part of His excellence; yea, words fail me. Truly it is a great and unspeakable thing, that He became a servant; that He underwent death, is far greater; but there is something still greater, and more strange; why? All deaths are not alike; His death seemed to be the most ignominious of all, to be full of shame, to be accursed; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree. Deuteronomy 21:23; Galatians 3:13 For this cause the Jews also eagerly desired to slay Him in this manner, to make Him a reproach, that if no one fell away from Him by reason of His death, yet they might from the manner of His death. For this cause two robbers were crucified with Him, and He in the midst, that He might share their ill repute, and that the Scripture might be fulfilled, And he was numbered with the transgressors. Isaiah 53:12 Yet so much the more does truth shine forth, so much the more does it become bright; for when His enemies plot such things against His glory, and it yet shines forth, so much the greater does the matter seem. Not by slaying Him, but by slaying Him in such sort did they think to make Him abominable, to prove Him more abominable than all men, but they availed nothing.

And both the robbers also were such impious ones, (for it was afterward that the one repented,) that, even when on the cross, they reviled Him; neither the consciousness of their own sins, nor their present punishment, nor their suffering the same things themselves, restrained their madness. Wherefore the one spoke to the other, and silenced him by saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are in the same condemnation? Luke 23:40 So great was their wickedness. Wherefore it is written, God also highly exalted Him, and gave Him the Name which is above every name. When the blessed Paul has made mention of the flesh, he fearlessly speaks of all His humiliation. For until he had mentioned that He took the form of a servant, and while he was speaking of His Divinity, behold how loftily he does it, (loftily, I say, according to his power; for he speaks not according to His own worthiness, seeing that he is not able). Being in the form of God, He counted it not a prize to be equal with God. But when he had said, that He became Man, henceforth he fearlessly discourses of His low estate, being confident that the mention of His low estate would not harm His Divinity, since His flesh admitted this.

Ver. 9-11. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave Him the Name which is above every name: that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

Let us say against the heretics, If this is spoken of one who was not incarnate, if of God the Word, how did He highly exalt Him? Was it as if He gave Him something more than He had before? He would then have been imperfect in this point, and would have been made perfect for our sakes. For if He had not done good deeds to us, He would not have obtained that honor! And gave Him the Name. See, He had not even a name, as you say! But how, if He received it as His due, is He found here to have received it by grace, and as a gift? And that the Name which is above every name: and of what kind, let us see, is the Name? That at the Name of Jesus, says He, every knee should bow. They (the heretics) explain name by glory. This glory then is above all glory, and this glory is in short that all worship Him! But ye hold yourselves far off from the greatness of God, who think that you know God, as He knows Himself, and from this it is plain, how far off you are from right thoughts of God. And this is plain from hence. Is this, tell me, glory? Therefore before men were created, before the angels or the archangels, He was not in glory. If this be the glory which is above every glory, (for this is the name that is above every name,) though He were in glory before, yet was He in glory inferior to this. It was for this then that He made the things that are, that He might be raised to glory, not from His own goodness, but because He required glory from us! See ye not their folly? See ye not their impiety?

Now if they had said this of Him that was incarnate, there had been reason, for God the Word allows that this be said of His flesh. It touches not His divine nature, but has to do altogether with the dispensation. What means of things in heaven, and things in the earth, and things under the earth? It means the whole world, and angels, and men, and demons; or that both the just and the living and sinners,

And every tongue, should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. That is, that all should say so; and this is glory to the Father. Do you see how wherever the Son is glorified, the Father is also glorified? Thus too when the Son is dishonored, the Father is dishonored also. If this be so with us, where the difference is great between fathers and sons, much more in respect of God, where there is no difference, does honor and insult pass on to Him. If the world be subjected to the Son, this is glory to the Father. And so when we say that He is perfect, wanting nothing, and not inferior to the Father, this is glory to the Father, that he begot such a one. This is a great proof of His power also, and goodness, and wisdom, that He begot one no whit inferior, neither in wisdom nor in goodness. When I say that He is wise as the Father, and no whit inferior, this is a proof of the great wisdom of the Father; when I say that He is powerful as the Father, this is a proof of the Father’s power. When I say that He is good as the Father, this is the greatest evidence of His goodness, that He begot such (a Son), in no whit less or inferior to Himself. When I say that He begot Him not inferior in substance but equal, and not of another substance, in this I again wonder at God, His power, and goodness, and wisdom, that He has manifested to us another, of Himself, such as Himself, except in His not being the Father. Thus whatsoever great things I say of the Son, pass on to the Father. Now if this small and light matter (for it is but a light thing to God’s glory that the world should worship Him) is to the glory of God, how much more so are all those other things? (Homily on Philippians, Homily 7)

400s AD

Theodoret

But if [the Arians] think the “form of God” is not the being of God, let them be asked what they think is the “form of a slave.” … If the form of a slave is the being of a slave, then the form of God is God…. Furthermore, let us recognize also that the apostle uses the example of Christ as a lesson in humility…. If the Son was not equal to the Father but inferior, he did not obey in humility—he merely fulfilled his station. (Epistle to the Philippians 2.6)

Being God, and God by nature, and having equality with God, he thought this no great thing, as is the way of those who have received some honor beyond their merits, but, hiding his merit, he elected the utmost humility and took the shape of a human being. (Ibid.)

His humbling was not undertaken as a slave in relation to a master’s command. Rather he willingly undertook the saving work on our behalf. He obeyed as a son, not as a slave. (Ibid., 2.8)

Even to the most inattentive it is obvious that the divine nature needs nothing. He did not become human by being raised up from lowliness. Rather he abased himself from the utmost height. He did not receive what he did not have before but received as a man what he possessed as God. (Ibid., 2.9)

Fulgentius

Through the Son human nature was redeemed. It was human nature that he undoubtedly came to redeem. It was this human nature that the Son took up into the unity of his person. And because his humanity is never sundered from the Son of God, it therefore rules in heaven and earth over all angels and all humanity. (On the Incarnation, 12)

While the whole Word came to us when “the Word was made flesh,” the whole remained with the Father in Spirit, equal to the Father, from whom he is eternally begotten yet made less by the gracious assumption of flesh so that he could be visible to us. And by this the Lord from the Lord remained Lord “in the form of God.” In order that he might come to slaves he received “the form of a slave” from his handmaid. (Ibid., 21)

Augustine

Chapter 4.— Of the Son of God as Neither Made by the Father Nor Less Than the Father, and of His Incarnation

5. Wherefore The Only-Begotten Son of God was neither made by the Father; for, according to the word of an evangelist, all things were made by Him: nor begotten instantaneously; since God, who is eternally wise, has with Himself His eternal Wisdom: nor unequal with the Father, that is to say, in anything less than He; for an apostle also speaks in this wise, Who, although He was constituted in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. By this catholic faith, therefore, those are excluded, on the one hand, who affirm that the Son is the same [Person] as the Father; for [it is clear that] this Word could not possibly be with God, were it not with God the Father, and [it is just as evident that] He who is alone is equal to no one. And, on the other hand, those are equally excluded who affirm that the Son is a creature, although not such an one as the rest of the creatures are. For however great they declare the creature to be, if it is a creature, it has been fashioned and made. For the terms fashion and create mean one and the same thing; although in the usage of the Latin tongue the phrase create is employed at times instead of what would be the strictly accurate word beget. But the Greek language makes a distinction. For we call that creatura (creature) which they call κτίσμα or κτίσις; and when we desire to speak without ambiguity, we use not the word creare (create), but the word condere (fashion, found). Consequently, if the Son is a creature, however great that may be, He has been made. But we believe in Him by whom all things (omnia) were made, not in Him by whom the rest of things (cetera) were made. For here again we cannot take this term all things in any other sense than as meaning whatsoever things have been made.

6. But as the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, the same Wisdom which was begotten of God condescended also to be created among men. There is a reference to this in the word, The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways. For the beginning of His ways is the Head of the Church, which is Christ endued with human nature (homine indutus), by whom it was purposed that there should be given to us a pattern of living, that is, a sure way by which we might reach God. For by no other path was it possible for us to return but by humility, who fell by pride, according as it was said to our first creation, Taste, and you shall be as gods. Of this humility, therefore, that is to say, of the way by which it was needful for us to return, our Restorer Himself has deemed it meet to exhibit an example in His own person, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant; in order that He might be created Man in the beginning of His ways, the Word by whom all things were made.

Wherefore, in so far as He is the Only-begotten, He has no brethren; but in so far as He is the First-begotten, He has deemed it worthy of Him to give the name of brethren to all those who, subsequently to and by means of His pre-eminence, are born again into the grace of God through the adoption of sons, according to the truth commended to us by apostolic teaching. Thus, then, the Son according to nature (naturalis filius) was born of the very substance of the Father, the only one so born, subsisting as that which the Father is, God of God, Light of Light. We, on the other hand, are not the light by nature, but are enlightened by that Light, so that we may be able to shine in wisdom. For, as one says, that was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world. Therefore we add to the faith of things eternal likewise the temporal dispensation of our Lord, which He deemed it worthy of Him to bear for us and to minister in behalf of our salvation. For in so far as He is the only-begotten Son of God, it cannot be said of Him that He was and that He shall be, but only that He is; because, on the one hand, that which was, now is not; and, on the other, that which shall be, as yet is not. He, then, is unchangeable, independent of the condition of times and variation. And it is my opinion that this is the very consideration to which was due the circumstance that He introduced to the apprehension of His servant Moses the kind of name [which He then adopted]. For when he asked of Him by whom he should say that he was sent, in the event of the people to whom he was being sent despising him, he received his answer when He spoke in this wise: I Am that I Am. Thereafter, too, He added this: Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, He that is (Qui est) has sent me unto you. (On Faith and the Creed)

FURTHER READING

PHILIPPIANS 2: AN ADAM CHRISTOLOGY?

“The Form of a god”? The Translation of Morphē Theou in Philippians 2:6

Philippians 2:6 In Various English Translations

Carmen Christi: Worshiping Christ as God

Revisiting the Deity of Christ in Light of the Carmen Christi Pt. 1, Pt. 2

BEYOND THE VEIL OF ETERNITY

Carmen Christi: A Reformed Perspective

PLINY & CHRIST’S DEITY

NWT & JESUS’ EQUALITY TO FATHER

It is unlikely that the canonical Christian scriptures or other Christian writings were translated into Arabic before the rise of Islam. Thus we should probably think in terms of an indirect knowledge of Christian sources based on hearsay or ad hoc translation rather than on literary borrowing. But what were these sources? In broad terms Syriac Christian literature seems a strong candidate for several reasons. First, Syriac accounts for a large proportion of the borrowed words in the Qur’an and for the Qur’anic spelling of many Biblical names. The peculiar spelling of ‘Īsā still remains something of an enigma but the most plausible explanation is that it is derived from Isho, the Syriac name for Jesus. (Neal Robinson, Christ in Islam and Christianity [State University of New York Press (SUNY), Albany, NY 1991, p. 17; bold emphasis mine)

SYRIAC BIBLE

As far as the Syriac versions of the Bible are concerned, we know that translations already existed long before the rise of Islam. As the late renowned biblical scholar and textual critic Dr. Bruce M. Metzger noted:

“The several Syriac versions that fall to be considered in the present chapter begin with the earliest translation of the Gospels. Whether this was Tatian’s Diatessaron, a harmony of the four Gospels prepared about A.D. 170, or the Old Syriac version of the separate Gospels, is a question that scholars have debated for many years without reaching any generally accepted solution. How much of the rest of the New Testament was included in the Old Syriac version is difficult to ascertain. In any case, toward the close of the fourth or at the beginning of the fifth century a version of twenty-two books of the New Testament was available in a translation which came to be called at a later date the Peshitta Syriac version…” (Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission, and Limitations [Oxford University Press Inc., 1977], p. 3; bold emphasis mine)

Metzger also commented on the Jacobite/Syriac Orthodox and Assyrian Church of the East split in 431 AD over Miaphysitism and Nestorian Christological stances, and how these groups both employed the Peshitta:

The word ‘Peshitta’² is a passive participle of the verb… (‘stretched out’) signifying, among other meanings, what is simple or clear. The word appears to have been employed for the first time in designating a version of the Scriptures by the Jacobite Moses bar Kepha (d. 903),³ who applied it to the Syriac version of the Old Testament made from the Hebrew, in opposition to the version made by Paul of Tella from the Septuagint and supplied with complicated references drawn from Origen’s Hexapla. In the case of the New Testament the same version would merit such an epithet in contrast to the Harclean version, which was furnished with a textual apparatus. Others interpret the word as meaning widely diffused or current. According to this interpretation the name ‘Peshitta’ is parallel to the Latin Vulgata.⁴

The Peshitta version antedates the division of Syrian Christianity into two rival communities, and hence it was accepted by the Nestorians as well as by the Jacobites. In its official form it includes twenty-two books of the New Testament, the four minor Catholic Epistles (2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and Jude) and the Apocalypse being absent. It thus apparently reflects the canon according to the usage of the Church at Antioch in the fourth and fifth centuries. It does not include Luke xxii. 17-18 and the pericope de adultera (John vii. 53-viii. 11).

Syrian scribes devoted great care to the transcription of the Peshitta version. A remarkable accord exists among the manuscripts of every age, there being on the average scarcely more than one important variant per chapter.

At the beginning of the twentieth century Gregory¹ was able to enumerate more than 300 Peshitta manuscripts of the New Testament. Actually, however, the number is much larger, for Gregory did not include all the manuscripts that are in the libraries in the East. And since Gregory’s time other manuscripts have come to light, particularly in little-known collections in the West.² Among manuscripts that have been catalogued the following are noteworthy for one reason or another-usually by reason of age.³ (Ibid., pp. 48-49; bold emphasis mine)

Metzger mentions some of the most prominent and influential voices of these conflicting Christological understandings held by the Syriac speaking Christian communities before and during the rise of Islam:

One of the most influential leaders of the Monophysite branch of the Church at the beginning of the sixth century was Philoxenus (Mar Aksenaya’) of Mabbûg in eastern Syria, who, with his contemporary, Severus of Antioch, founded Jacobite Monophysitism. Despite acrimonious charges levelled against him by his theological opponents, his writings disclose him as an acute dialectician, a prolific author, a subtle theologian, and an uncompromising champion of the unity of the nature of Christ against what he regarded as the heresy of the two natures.^I

The work of translating the New Testament was performed in 507-8, when the prestige of Philoxenus was at its height. Inasmuch as Philoxenus did not know Greek, he commissioned Polycarp, chorepiscopus in the diocese of Mabbûg, to revise the Peshitta version in accordance with Greek manuscripts. Polycarp sometimes replaced Syriac words with synonyms, sometimes used different prepositions, and generally gave preference to the independent possessive pronoun over against the suffixes. It appears that Polycarp sought to make a more theologically accurate rendering of the Greek than the current Peshitta rendering. In addition to the books included in the earlier translation, the Philoxenian included (seemingly for the first time in Syriac) 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and the Book of Revelation. Since the Philoxenian version was made and sponsored by Jacobite ecclesiastics, it was used only by the Monophysite branch of Syriac-speaking Christendom. (Ibid., pp. 65-66; bold emphasis mine)

And here’s what Metzger wrote in regards to Syriac versions of the Holy Bible produced during the time that Muhammad allegedly lived:

A later translation was produced by Thomas of Harkel around 616, which is known as the Harclean version:

“The chief characteristic of the Harclean version is its slavish adaptation to the Greek, to the extent that even clarity is sacrificed… As compared with the Peshitta, the Harclean not infrequently uses a Greek loan-word instead of a native Syriac one.² This preference for transliteration shows itself even in the case of Semitic proper names, when, instead of allowing them to display their Semitic etymology, the reviser represents the Greek orthography… In short, the edition of the New Testament produced by Thomas appears to be a suitable counterpart to Paul of Tella’s Syro-Hexaplar-a painfully exact imitation of Greek idiom, even in the order of words, often in violation of Syriac idiom. As a result the modern scholar is hardly ever in doubt as to the Greek text intended by the translator.^I” (Ibid., pp. 69-70)

With the foregoing in perspective, I am now going to show how Syriac Christianity and its various Christological formulations, theological expressions, etc., have found their way into the text of the Arabic Quran. This should not come as a surprise seeing that Syriac and Arabic are cognate languages, with the Arabic script developing and evolving from Nabataean Aramaic, of which Syriac is an offshoot.  

AHAD & SAMAD: SYRIAC TERMS?

The 112^th surah proclaims that Allah is ahad and that he is also al-samad, the latter term being understood by specific Muslim expositors to be an affirmation of the Islamic deity be solid, not hollow:

Say, “He is Allah, Ahad (One). Allah, Al-Samad (The Absolute). Neither (He) begets nor (He) was born. And there was not for Him equivalent One.” S. 112:1-4 (Samy Mahdy https://www.islamawakened.com/quran/112/st87.htm)

God is Solid (al-samadu) (and does not need anyone’s help). S. 112:2 (Bijan Moeinian https://www.islamawakened.com/quran/112/st11.htm)  

“Allah is Samad.” (Absolute Self-Sufficient One beyond any need or defect, free from the concept of multiplicity, and far from conceptualization and limitation. The one into whom nothing can enter, and the One from whom no other form of existence can come out!) (Ahmed Hulusi https://www.islamawakened.com/quran/112/st63.htm)

Suffice it to say, these expressions can be found in the literature of the Christians before Muhammad’s time.

For instance. Jacob of Serugh (ca. 451–521) wrote a letter consoling the Najrani Christians for undergoing persecution for their beliefs. The Syriac terms employed echo those found in the aforementioned surah:

You have learned the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (ʾabā wa-brā w-ruḥā d-qudšā ilepton). And besides these three names, who are one and as one are three (w-ʿam hālēn tlātā šemhin d-itayhon ḥad w-ḥad tlātā), you accept no other name and number (šmā w-menyānā ḥrinā lā mqabbli-tton). (G. Olinder, Iacobi Sarugensis epistulae quotquot supersunt. (Syr. 57. = Syr. II, 45 [Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium]) [Peeters, Leuven 1937], p. 95 (1-4); bold emphasis mine)

And:

One is the Son, begotten of the Father before all the worlds (ḥad brā da-ylid men ʾabā meddem kull-hon ʿālmē).

One is who is the likeness of the Father in everything (ḥad da-dmā l-abu b-kull).

One is the only-begotten, who takes no other order and number like him (ḥad ʾiḥidāyā d-lā mqabbel ʿammeh sedra w-menyānā ḥrinā).

This one is the Son and the Lord and of the same nature as the Father (hu hānā brā wa-māryā wa-bar kyānā d-abu).

This one is from the Father and with the Father (hānā d-itaw men ʾabā w-ʿam ʾabā). (Olinder, p. 95 (14-19); bold emphasis mine)

In another letter, Jacob describes God fashioning a solid, hard body for Adam, using the Syriac phrase s’mad:

“He fashioned him and gave him form (ṣāreh), He made him into a solid and hard body (ṣmad ḥāṣeh).” (Jacques de Saroug: Quatre homélies métriques sur la création (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 508-509, Scriptores Syri 214-215), translated by Khalil Alwan [Peeters, Leuven 1989], Volume 2, p. 175)

What makes Jacob’s use of the term s’mad for Adam rather interesting is that Islamic tradition records a fable of Satan (called Iblis) looking at Adam’s lifeless body and arguing that this could not be Allah since the latter is solid, whereas the former is hollow who has holes which Satan could and did enter through!

According to Abu Kurayb–`Uthman b. Said-Bishr b. ‘Umarah–Abu Rawq–Dahhak–Ibn ‘Abbas: God commanded to lift up the soil from which Adam was to be made. He created Adam from sticky clay from stinking slime. He continued. It became stinking slime only after (having been compact) soil.⁵⁹³ He continued.

He created Adam from it with His own hand. He continued. It remained lying around as a body (jasad) for forty nights. Iblis used to come to it and kick it with his foot, whereupon it made sounds. He continued. This is (meant by) God’s word: “From salsal like potter’s clay.”⁵⁹⁴ He means: like something separated that is not compact. He continued. Then (Iblis) entered Adam’s mouth and left from his posterior, and he entered his posterior and left from his mouth. Then he said: You are not something for making sounds (salsalah). What, then, were you created for? If I am given authority over you, I shall ruin you, and if you are given authority over me, I shall disobey you.⁵⁹⁵

According to Masi b. Harun–Amr b. Hammad–Asbat–al-Suddi–Abu Malik and Abu Salih–Ibn ‘Abbas. Also (al-Suddi) Murrah al-Hamdini–Ibn Masud and some (other) companions of the Prophet: God said to the angels: “I am creating a human being from clay. When I have fashioned him and blown some of My spirit into him, fall down in prostration before him!”⁵⁹⁶ God created him with His own hands, lest Iblis become overbearing toward (Adam), so that (God) could say to (Iblis): You are overbearing toward something I have made with My own hand(s), which I Myself was not too haughty to make!? So God created Adam as a human being. He was a body of clay for forty years the extent of Friday(?)⁵⁹⁷ When the angels passed by him, they were frightened by what they saw. The angel most frightened was Iblis. He would pass by him, kick him, and thus make the body produce a sound as potter’s clay does. That is (meant) where God says: “From salsal like potter’s clay.”⁵⁹⁸ Then he would say: What were you created for? He entered his mouth and left from his posterior. Then he said to the angels: Don’t be afraid of that one, for your Lord is solid, whereas this one is hollow. When I am given authority over him, I shall ruin him.⁶⁰⁰ (History of Al-Tabari-General Introduction and From the Creation to the Flood, translated by Franz Rosenthal [State University of New York Press (SUNY), Albany, NY 1989], Volume 1, pp. 261-262; bold emphasis mine)

Elsewhere, Jacob wrote the following in respect to the Trinity:

God is one (ḥad alāhā), and he has a word (it leh melltā) and a spirit (it leh ruḥā). The Lord is one (māryā ḥad-u) and his word (w-mellteh) and his spirit (w-ruḥeh) are (one) with him (ʿammeh-ennon). Three persons (qnomē tlātā), one God (ḥad alāhā), limitless (d-lā mestayyak). The Trinity (tlitāyutā), one power (ḥdā mārutā), which is not commanded (d-lā metpaqdā). (F. Jacques de Graffin, Saroug: Homélies contre les Juifs. [Brepols, Turnhout, 1976], p. 50 (93-94); bold emphasis mine)

Ironically, the Quran echoes this Trinitarian belief within the same context of decrying the excesses of Christian devotion to Jesus:

People of the Book, go not beyond the bounds in your religion, and say not as to God but the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word (wa-kalimatuhu) that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him (wa’ruhun minhu). So believe in God and His Messengers, and say not, ‘Three’ (thalathatun). Refrain; better is it for you. God is only One God (wahidun). Glory be to Him — That He should have a son! To Him belongs all that is in the heavens and in the earth; God suffices for a guardian. S. 4:171 Arberry

In this next citation, Jacob blasts the so-called Nestorians for denying that Mary birthed God:

ܒܒܬܘܠܘܬܗ܀ ܘܛܢܬ ܟܠܬܐ ܒܪܬ ܐܝܡܡܐ ܕܡܟܝܪܐ ܠܗ: ܘܐܨܪܚܬ ܗܘܬ ܒܗ ܒܣܪܬܗ ܣܢܬܗ ܣܚܦܬܗ ܘܢܦܠ܀ ܒܓܠܝܐ ܢܐܡܪ: ܕܠܘ ܐܠܗܐ ܗܘ ܒܪ ܐܠ ܗܐ ܕܡܟܝܪܐ ܠܗ܀ ܐܡܪܚ ܒܙܒܢ ܗܘ ܕܐܫܬܢܝ ܕܢܐܡܪ ܗܟܢ: ܕܠܘ ܐܠܗܐ ܗܘ ܝܠܕܬ ܡܪܝܡ

ܘܡܢܘ ܡܡܪܚ ܕܩܕܡ ܟܠܬܐ

That one who had gone insane was so insolent at one point that he spoke as follows:

“It was not God that Mary bore in her virginity.”

The bride, the daughter of the day, who was married to him, grew envious. She railed against him, scorned him, despised him, knocked him down, and he fell. (Paulus Bedjan, Homiliae selectae Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis [Harrassowitz, Paris 1907], “Holy on the Faith”, Volume 3, p. 603, 21, p. 604, 3 https://archive.org/details/BedjanJacobOfSarugVol3; bold emphasis mine)⁽¹⁾  

64 Nestorios of Constantinople, Apology (Loofs, Nestoriana, 205): “Mary did not bear, O dear friend, the divinity, but she bore a human, [who was] an inseparable instrument of the divinity” (non peperit, optime, Maria deitatem, sed peperit hominem, divinitatis inseparabile instrumentum); Sermon 27 (ibid., 337; Ford Lewis Battles, trans., The Sermons of Nestorius [Pittsburgh, 1973], 114): “At once the pagan, receiving the reproach that God was born of Mary, moves forward against Christianity” (statim enim paganus cum reprehensione accipiens, quia de Maria deus natus est, infert adversus Christianum).

The Nestorians’ repudiation of God being born or begotten seems to be the very thing that the Quran is stating, but for a totally different reason–unless, of course, we assume a Syriac proto-Quran, which was later bastardized when it was rendered into Arabic. 

The Nestorians meant that God as God could never be born, since he is ever living and can never cease to be. Instead, God united or took to himself a human nature, which was produced in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit.

In that regard, it wasn’t God who was born but rather the Man Christ Jesus who was begotten of Mary, a human being who had been inseparably united to the divine Word or Logos from the very moment the human nature had been conceived.

The problem with such terminology is that it can easily lend itself to the charge that there are two subjects or Persons in this union. It is not hard to see why Nestorians were accused of positing a divine Person/Hypostasis known as the Logos and a human subject who came into being at conception in Mary’s womb, whom the Logos united to Himself.  

This leads me to my next point.

ADOPT OR UNITE: THAT IS THE QUESTION!

The Quran decries the notion that Allah has or would adopt or take on a son:

And they say: The Beneficent hath taken (ittakhadha) unto Himself a son (waladan). Assuredly ye utter a disastrous thing Whereby almost the heavens are torn, and the earth is split asunder and the mountains fall in ruins, That ye ascribe unto the Beneficent a son (waladan), When it is not meet for (the Majesty of) the Beneficent that He should choose a son (yattakhidha waladan). There is none in the heavens and the earth but cometh unto the Beneficent as a slave. S. 19:88-93 Pickthall

Had God wished to take (yattakhidha) to Himself a son (waladan), He could have chosen whom He pleased out of those whom He doth create: but Glory be to Him! (He is above such things.) He is God, the One, the Irresistible. S. 39:4 A. Yusuf Ali

And (we believe) that He – exalted be the glory of our Lord! – hath taken (ittakhadha) neither wife nor son (waladan), S. 72:3 Pickthall

The Arabic akhadha is used elsewhere with the connotation of adoption:

And he (the man) from Egypt who bought him, said to his wife: “Make his stay comfortable, may be he will profit us or we shall adopt him as a son (nattakhidhahu waladan).” Thus did We establish Yusuf (Joseph) in the land, that We might teach him the interpretation of events. And Allah has full power and control over His Affairs, but most of men know not. S. 12:21 Hilali-Khan

What makes this rather interesting is that akhadha without the diacritical marks (taskhil) can also be read as ahada (“to unite”).

“And they say: The All-Merciful has united (ittahada) a son… When it does not befit the All-Merciful that He should unite (yattahida)a son.” S. 19:88, 93

“Had God wished to unite(yattahida) a son…” S. 39:3

If this is was what the Quran intended to convey then this again supports the view of many scholars that the Islamic text was actually a collection of Christian hymns/sermons, which were originally in Syriac. At the very least, this would mean that the Quran came to criticize specific Christologies in order to affirm other particular Christological formulations.

For instance, the Quran may be condemning the view of “Nestorians” such as Babai the Great who taught that God the Word united to himself the manhood common to all human beings, in order to make that humanity one Son of God. Babai even employs the Syriac term which corresponds to the Arabic word ahada:

ii.6 Sixth Chapter: On why there was not a union of the Father, or of the Holy Spirit, or of the whole Trinity with the nature of our manhood, which was assumed by the parsopa of this worshipful dispensation, but by one of the qnome of the Trinity, that is, by God the Word, while the nature of the Godhead is one and co-essential with him.

[1] First, let us ask them: Why was there not a union of the Father, or of the Holy Spirit, or of the whole Trinity with the nature of our manhood, which was exalted and assumed for the parsopa of this worshipful dispensation, which was through our Lord Jesus Christ for the renewal and salvation of all, but by one of the qnome of the Holy Trinity, that is, by God the Word? That there was a union we have accepted and confess; and that God the Word was united (ethayyad) parsopicallyto our manhood and made it one Son with himself in one honor and authority we have believed and we hold without hesitation, without question. Again, concerning the manner¹ [of this taking], it is not for us to investigate or search out, for we have learned from the blessed Paul that the riches of Christ are unsearchable,² but that we should believe in the heart and confess with the mouth that we may be saved and justified.³ For we are children of believing Abraham through faith, concerning whom it was said, “Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him for righteousness.”⁴

[2] Without question this was committed to us by the Son of Thunder, who proclaimed this to the heavenly and to the earthly, and they accepted [it] without doubting: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”⁵ And after other things he said, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”⁶ How is the mind able to judge, or to investigate, or to grasp, or to interpret here, tell me? In the beginning God was with God— the Effulgence of the Father, the Image of his qnoma, Infinite from Infinite; but [also] Light from Light, God from God, Living from Living, Eternal from Eternal; the Father, utterly all of him, infinitely, and the infinite Son; and the Son, utterly all of him, in his divine nature, begotten of the Father eternally, and his Begetter not prior to him, and from the infinite Father and begotten of him and existing in him. The Father begets but is in his Son: “My Father is in me and I am in my Father.”⁷ How is his Begotten in him? How is the Father of his own Begotten in the Son? How is he with him, and eternal, and in the beginning? How is it the Son is not after his Cause qnomically, or the Father, who is the head, not qnomically before the Begotten who is from him?

[3] In the same way too what concerns the Holy Spirit moves quickly, incomprehensibly before all small minds: “He proceeds from the Father,”⁸ Infinite from Infinite, all of him in the Father, utterly all of him in the infinite Son, but they do not precede, as also they do not follow one another. And whenever the thinking of him who ventures to investigate is lifted up and hastens to understand the Father, at the same moment that he finds the Father, who was in the beginning in his eternal qnoma and in his Godhead in which there is no beginning, [he] likewise [finds] the Son, who was in the beginning with the Father eternally, like the example of radiance to a sphere, or a word to a soul, though not beginning and not ending, and the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father eternally, but does not begin in his procession, as also he does not end, the same who searches the depths of the Godhead. There is no space which separates; there is no interval which follows or precedes, and no bodily form, for God is Spirit. How is the bodiless and infinite the Begetter, Begotten, and Proceeding, but the Begetter is not the Begotten or the Proceeding, and the Begotten is not the Begetter or the Proceeding, and the Proceeding is not the Begetter or the Begotten, and these properties are not exchanged with one another, but while they are united they are distinct, and while they are distinct they are united in infinitude, not preceding one another and not following one another? If, then, these things lead to an investigation [of] their manner [of existence], how indeed can we search out the things of this dispensation without faith? For lo, all his works are indeed by faith, because not even his works are searchable, since they⁹ are from nothing, in all these different varieties which surpass numbering, along with others which have been or are to come. Why was the world not created prior to six thousand years, and why has it continued all this time and then is to be renewed? All these things we should leave to their Maker, and we should believe and stand firm as we have been commanded, and keep the commandments, so that we might be exalted in tranquil thought, without comprehension, in assurance of the hope higher than all comprehensible things. (The Book of Union of Babai the Great English Translation with Edited Syriac Text (Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity), edited by Mar Awa iii Royel, translated by Michael J. Birnie [Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands, 2024], iv.12 Twelfth Chapter: That the “anointing” is doubly spoken of concerning the manhood of our Lord, Volume 32, pp. 71, 73; bold emphasis mine)

1 ܐܬ熏ܝܢܟܝܐ

2 Cf. Rom. 11:33.

3 Rom. 10:10.

4 Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3.

5 Jn. 1:1.

6 Jn. 1:14.

7 Jn. 14:10.

8 Jn. 15:27.

9 I.e., his works. (Ibid., pp. 70, 72)

ALLAH IS NOT THE MESSIAH: A NESTORIAN CRITICISM?

At the same time, there are places in which the Quran seems to be upholding the Christological beliefs of the so-called Nestorians.

For instance, the Muslim scripture decries those who would argue that Allah is the Messiah the son of Mary:

They are unbelievers (kafara) who say, ‘God is the Messiah, Mary’s son (Allaha huwa almaseehu ibnu maryama).’ Say: ‘Who then shall overrule God in any way if He desires to destroy the Messiah, Mary’s son, and his mother, and all those who are on earth?’ For to God belongs the kingdom of the heavens and of the earth, and all that is between them, creating what He will. God is powerful over everything. S. 5:17 Arberry

They are unbelievers (kafara) who say, ‘God is the Messiah, Mary’s son (Allaha huwa al-maseehu ibnu maryama).’ For the Messiah said, ‘Children of Israel, serve God, my Lord and your Lord. Verily whoso associates with God anything, God shall prohibit him entrance to Paradise, and his refuge shall be the Fire; and wrongdoers shall have no helpers.’ S. 5:73 Arberry

Ironically, this formulation echoes the very same criticism levelled by the “Nestorians” against Cyril of Alexandria and Chalcedonian Christians:

[4] Therefore we have made the matter clear here because of heretics who, through two arch-heresies²⁶, have spoken impiously, and have been far from the truth and from each other: The Paulinians and Photinians, the children of Jewish vipers, say impiously, “When the Holy Spirit descended upon him in baptism he acquired the anointing and Sonship like the other ‘anointed ones’ of old, and he did not possess an anointing from the union within the womb which made him Son and Lord with God the Word,” by which this one denies the Godhead of the Son. So in the same way they spoke impiously as well who ascribe suffering to God the Word, for they also breathed out destruction in two arch-vipers, belching forth their destructive impiety in open rejection and wicked blasphemy in order to deny the taking of the Head of our race who was exalted in the union. The impious Cyril and the accursed Ḥenana, the spewer of all heresies, impiously spoke in the same way, that “‘Anointed’ is said because he came to human circumstances,” and, | “The finite was from the Infinite,” {138} and “He subjected himself to a measurable state.” These [in the one group] are the fathers of those [in the other], and it is the same clear denial (kpurya)—“The Anointed One is God” and “God is the Anointed One (Alaha huyu Meshicha),” and, “These designations do not indicate anything distinctive,” and, “As there is no distinction between the Only-begotten and the First-born,” and, “The two of them designate the same thing.” Therefore these impious ones all clearly rise up against the Holy Scriptures, and bring to nought each other and perish. But the truth is preserved in holy Church, that the name “Christ” is indicative of the parsopa of the union: “From whom is Christ in the flesh, who is God over all.”²⁷ But this name also indicates that by which²⁸ he is the Head of the Church through Baptism, and the First-born from the dead, for through him also the Church obtains the name of “Christianity”²⁹, which is [the state of] “anointedness”³⁰. So too are “Only-begotten” and “First-born” together with the designations: the sense of the two designations allows for a distinction, as we have shown in the things which preceded through the strength of Christ, to whom, and to whose Father, and to the Holy Spirit belong glory, honor, worship, and exaltation for ever and ever. Amen. (Birnie, The Book of Union of Babai the Great, p. 207; bold emphasis mine)

26 ? for ܐܬ熏ܫܝܒ營ܫܪ 

27 Cf. Rom. 9:5.

28 That is, by the “anointing”…

29 ܐܬ熏ܢܝܛܣ犯ܟ

30 ܐܬ熏ܚܝܫܡ (Ibid., 206)

Babai condemns anyone who thinks that the statements “The Anointed One is God” and “God is the Anointed One” are reciprocal, and convey the same meaning. As a “Nestorian,” he would only affirm the first proposition, namely, that Christ is God, while rejecting the latter as unbiblical and contrary to a sound, proper Trinitarian theology.  

The Quran only condemns the latter part, not the former, as Muslim author Neal Robinson noted when commenting on an ancient Nestorian Christian reference dated to 550 AD:

“… The text which dates from around 550 CE. concludes a discussion of the Trinity with the words ‘The Messiah is God but God is not the Messiah’. The Qur’an echoes ONLY the latter half of the statement. C. Schedl, Muhammad and Jesus (Vienna: Herder, 1978), p. 531.” (Neal Robinson, Christ In Islam and Christianity [State University of New York Press, Albany 1991], p. 197; bold emphasis mine)

As even one noted scholar of Islam stated:

Islamic scholar George Parrinder concurs:

“To say that God is Christ is a statement not found anywhere in the New Testament or in the Christian creeds. ‘God was in Christ’, said Paul, ‘reconciling the world to himself’. (2 Cor. 5, 19) But this reconciliation through Christ is quite different from saying that God is Christ. ‘You belong to Christ, and Christ to God’, said Paul again, putting the relationship into perspective. (1 Cor. 3:23)

“But in the early Church centuries there arose heresies, such as that of Patripassianism, which so identified Christ and God as to suggest that God the Father had suffered on the cross. About A.D. 200 Noetus had taught that Christ was God the Father, and therefore that the Father himself was born and suffered and died. These views were taken to Rome by Praxeas, of whom Tertullian said that ‘he drove out prophecy and brought in heresy, he put to flight the Comforter and crucified the Father’. The orthodox teaching of the Logos, the Word or ‘Son’ of God, was a defence against such heretical teaching, though it must be admitted that writers in later ages were not always careful enough in their use of these titles.” (Geoffrey Parrinder, Jesus in the Qur’ān [OneWorld Publishers, Oxford England, Reprinted 1996], 14. Trinity, pp. 133-134; bold emphasis mine)

It is also interesting that Babai employs the very Syriac cognate of the Arabic term kafara, namely kpurya, in describing any individual who would say that God is the Messiah.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE MUSLIMS?

As if the Syriac Christian influence upon the Quran couldn’t be any more obvious, the very expression that is used to describe a submitter to Allah, namely Muslim, can also be traced to Syriac origins!

In the Peshitta, the Syriac cognate mashlemana is employed with various shades of meaning:

“And the Pharisees and the Scribes who were from Jerusalem came unto Yeshua and they were saying: ‘Why do your disciples violate the tradition of the Elders (ayk mashlemanuta d-qashishe)? They do not wash their hands whenever they eat bread.’” Matthew 15:1-2 (https://biblehub.com/hpbt/matthew/15.htm)

“Yehuda the traitor (mashlemana – ‘the one who would surrender him’) answered and he said, “It is I, Rabbi?” Yeshua said to him, “You have said.”” Matthew 26:25 (https://biblehub.com/hpbt/matthew/26.htm)

Clearly, the theology and Christological language of Syriac Christianity have left an indelible mark on the Quran and Islamic beliefs.

FURTHER READING

Does the Quran Reject Christ’s Eternal Generation? Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3

THE PAGAN GODS ALLAH AND AHAD

AHAD: A PRE-ISLAMIC PAGAN DEITY?

“ALLAH ONE OF”: REVISITING THE ISSUE OF AHAD

ENDNOTES

(1) This quote is cited by Philip Michael Forness in Preaching and Religious Debate: Jacob of Serugh and the Promotion of his Christology in the Roman Near East (Full Text), p. 231, which can be accessed here: https://www.academia.edu/24899036/Preaching_and_Religious_Debate_Jacob_of_Serugh_and_the_Promotion_of_his_Christology_in_the_Roman_Near_East_Full_Text_.