Fragment 11

But haply they will say that the Flesh did not wholly depart from being what it was, but that it was as it were immingled with God the Word unto a natural oneness. And what do we say to this? First of all, sirs, there is full much difficulty, the reasoning hereon will be weak if ye decide to retain to the Nature of the Word Its unchangeable Being and unalterable Existence (for in no wise will it change unto what it was not): either when it has suffered this It has been shaken from Its God-befitting stability and from the settledness that is inherent in it by Nature, or howsoever one calls it: but I think that it is wise that we should in no wise be able to conceive that ought of things that are could abide in the Nature of the Godhead: for this too is likewise impossible.

Yet if they are well off in examples that can persuade that in commingling and mixture of things mentioned the inherent property of either will be wholly imparticipate of the quality of the other, let them bring forward their examples: for we say that the name corn-mixture will in no wise harm the force of the truth. But if they say that flesh and Word are mixed after the manner of liquids, how do they not know that liquids mixed one with other, say wine and honey, are no longer simply what they were, but are changed into something else by the addition of a quality of a different species?

Hence if they say that the Flesh has been commingled with the Word, there is every need of saying that each of the above-mentioned leaves being what it was, and makes up of both some one intermediate thing, of a different nature full surely from what each was individually and as yet unmingled one with other. Then what results? I would fain ask of our opponents whither matters will proceed, since they say that the Nature of God is henceforth mingled with flesh (for it hath not remained in identity, if their mixture, as has been said, is true). Either therefore they will say that He has this advance for the better, or else a sinking down to the baser, according to reasonable understanding of things. If then they say that He has been displayed superior to Himself, they have given the vote of superiority to the flesh by reason of which He is perceived to have sprung up to the higher: if they say that this was not so but rather that He sank into the worse: the flesh verily did Him too wrong even as it does to ourselves, although we say that He let Himself down to emptiness and entered into the likeness us ward, not in order that Himself might be seen suffering somewhat in His own Nature, but that He might render us who are in flesh and blood superior to flesh and might make us, beyond the measures of human nature, sons of God.

But if as the perverted ones say He have been commingled with flesh, borne aside unto what He was not, how they say that He has not been wronged I cannot conceive; haply He is found to have lost in addition, the very being the Form of the Father, the Likeness and Impress of His Person and to be no longer in equality with Him but rather in a depression and abasement of both Nature and glory.