Fragment 12

It were therefore nothing hard to add very many discordant things to what have been said; but I think that one ought gladly to withdraw from thoughts tending to absurdity. We must therefore eschew commixture, for thus shall wo escape the mischiefs too that come thence. But some other argument (as they say) as to these things finds its way in. For the Divine Paul is found to have written, But if we have also known Christ after the flesh yet now no more do we know Him. Hence if ye know not Christ after the flesh (they say), one must needs say that the flesh changes, so that it is the Nature of the Word Himself: as God is He known.

But I suppose one would say straightway to this, 'When therefore he says of us too, But they which are in the flesh cannot please God, but YE are not in the flesh but in the spirit:----does he know that we are bare of flesh and blood? does he utter such things as though to disembodied spirits?' Yet how is it not jugglery to conceive or say this?

In regard to us then he calls by the name of flesh, the unreasonable and not irreprehensible passions of the flesh: but in regard to Christ the Saviour of us all, Who is All-Pure and knows not to transgress (for He did no sin), in other way beseems it that After the flesh be conceived of; for no longer is He in the infirmities of the flesh.