Second section
Divine incarnation
قال الذهبي الفم في يسوع أنه “أقرب إلينا من قرب الجسم من الرأس” (العظة 49: 3 على يوحنا)
وقال نيقولاس كابازيلاس أنه “أقرب إلينا من نفسنا ذاتها” (مين 150: 712)
1 – مدخل
After generations and generations of the Old Testament people being freed from pagan ideas, and being established in the belief in the unity of God, in the transcendence of God from matter and limitation, and in the belief that God is an infinite and all-powerful spirit, the course of thought and history was broken by a new miracle from the wonders of heaven: an angel in Nazareth announcing to Mary, the most pure and holy, the new Eve, that God was coming into the world through her.
لقد اختار الله قبلها كثيرين من الشعب المختار، فمنحهم البركة وفوض المهام الإلهية إليهم. ولكن ملء الزمان واكتمال الطهارة والقداسة لم يبلغا المرام إلا في الفتاة المختارة مريم البتول: “لما حان ملء الزمان أرسل الله ابنه مولوداً من امرأة” (1).
Who is Mary? We do not know the exact history of her life. But the angel’s announcement and God’s choice of her as the mother of his beloved son Jesus indicate her sublime essence.
What was she doing when the angel entered? What state was she in? Was she praying? Was she in a state of spiritual rapture? We don’t know for sure. But she was definitely at the peak of her closeness to God.
How did you meet the angel? The account of the Evangelist Luke (2) تدل على أن عمق تواضعها قد استغرب السلام والبشارة وأنها خافت. لم يكن التجسد عملاً قسرياً بل قبولاً منها إرادياً. لذا فحديث الملاك معها تدرج نحو جوابها: “ها أنذا أمة الرب فليكن لي بحسب قولك” (3).
سألت الملاك عن كيفية الحبل، لأنها استغربت أن تصبح حبلى وقد عزمت على عيش البتولية الدائمة. فطمأنها الملاك إلى أن “الروح القدس يحلّ عليكِ وقوة العلي تظللكِ، ولذلك فالقدوس المولود منك يُدعى ابن الله” (4).
God offers Mary, through the angel, that the Son of God may take flesh from her body, from her womb as a repository for Him, for He whom the heavens and the earth cannot contain.
And the course of history stopped for a moment: either Mary would respond on behalf of humanity with a yes or she would respond with a no.
Mary's pure conscience had to resolve the situation, so Mary chose to please God and save mankind.
هي باكورتنا هي تقدمتنا لله. بها صارت السماء أرضاً والأرض سماء، فأضحى بطنها “ارحب من السماوات”، “وظهر فردوساً عقلياً فيه الغرسة الإلهية التي نأكل منها فنحيا ولا نموت مثل آدم”.
أمام عرض الله، كان جواب مريم: “ها أنذا أمة للرب”. إنها خادمة، أمة للرب مستعدة لقبول إرادته وتنفيذ مشيئته. “ها أنذا” هي حاضرة جاهزة، تعرض نفسها للرب، تستسلم لرغبته، تقبل تدبيره لخلاص بني البشر: “فليكن لي بحسب قولك”، إني أريد أن يكون ما أراده الله.
في هذه اللحظة، بعد هذا الجواب الحاسم، تم السر الخفي منذ الدهور، سر اتحاد الله والإنسان فاتحد ابن الله بالإنسان وتم تجسد الكلمة: “والكلمة صار جسداً وحل فينا” (5).
فما هو سر التجسد؟ إنه سر الحبل بابن الله في أحشاء العذراء، وذلك أن الابن الأقنوم الثاني من الثالوث القدوس ضم إلى أقنومه طبيعتنا البشرية التي نحتها لنفسه من الكلية الطهارة مريم. “من أجلنا نحن البشر ومن أجل خلاصنا”.
وقد حدد دستور الإيمان وكرر المجمعان الرابع والسادس المسكونيان هذين السببين: “من أجلنا نحن البشر” ، “ومن أجل خلاصنا”.
Adam sinned in Paradise, departed from God, and was expelled from the Garden. At a time when his natural powers were good and directed toward God, he chose disobedience and evil, so dissolution and corruption entered his will, and God’s judgment of spiritual death was carried out upon him, so physical death and decay were the result of his spiritual death. (6).
لقد قال الله له: “يوم تأكل منها تموت موتاً” (7). The immediate death was spiritual. So (then after a long old age the known death occurred) and corruption passed to us (8).
But the love of God, which surpasses all reason and understanding, and which every heart and tongue cannot praise, thank, and be humbled before, did not want us to perish and remain far from it until the end, and for death and the abyss to swallow up the children of men without hope. (9).
Therefore the Holy Trinity was pleased, in the abundance of His mercies, to show at the appointed time what He had willed before the ages for us and for our salvation, to restore us to union with Him and make us partakers of the divine nature. (10).
فأرسل الأقنوم الثاني الابن الحبيب كلمة الله الأزلية “الخروف المذبوح قبل الدهور”، الذي وهو في صورة الله أخلى ذاته آخذاً صورة عبد، وصائراً في شبه البشر وموجوداً كبشر في الهيئة، فوضع نفسه وصار يطيع حتى الموت موت الصليب (11). فهذا الخضوع للمشيئة الإلهية، هذا الإخلاء، حمل الرب يسوع على أن يصير “رجل الأوجاع” (12) For our sake, he suffers everything that Adam's fall brought upon us, except sin.
The human nature that He took upon Himself is capable of suffering what we suffer because of the fall, for He subjected it to that for our sake, so before the resurrection there was in Him the capacity for decay and pain that He wanted out of love for us.
His divine light was hidden except on the day of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, although his divine light was always present in his body. (13)Since the defect that afflicted Adam created three barriers between us and God: nature, sin, and death, Christ overcame them one by one. He overcame nature through His incarnation, which united humanity with divinity, and overcame sin through His death, and overcame death, the last of the enemies, through His resurrection. (14)The important stage was the incarnation. When God passed this stage, the last two victories became guaranteed and natural and inevitable.
“منذ أن لبس الكلمة الجسد، كل سم الحية قد انطفأ فيه (في الجسد)… وفي الوقت نفسه، الموت نتيجة الخطيئة قد مُحي”، كما يقول القديس أثناسيوس (15) Our Orthodox theology emphasizes the incarnation a lot.
The incarnation was a measure issued by God’s will, not by His essence. Therefore, the essence of God did not undergo any change because of the incarnation. The divinity of the Trinity, including the divinity of the Son, remained the same as it was before the incarnation. (16).
For with God there is no change or shadow of turning. He is the same from eternity to eternity. As for the incarnation, God intended to save us, to restore us and to unite us with Himself.
In our Orthodox theology (which agrees with the teachings of the Church Fathers) (17) Salvation shows a negative action such as rescue from something. (18) The incarnation goes beyond that to appear as a special act in which God united with man.
We strongly affirm that God became man so that man could become God since Saint Irenaeus (second century) and even since Pentecost and with Peter (1 Peter 1:4) and Ignatius of Antioch until this day. (19)In the Church Fathers’ defense against Arianism, Apollinarianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism (one nature) and Monothelitism (one will), the main argument was that our deification, sanctification, salvation and becoming adopted children of God are matters that cannot be accomplished through Jesus Christ unless Jesus is a perfect mediator who unites all divinity and all humanity in the unity of the hypostasis. (20). وقد عبر القديس مكسيموس المعترف عن عقيدة الآباء هذه أحسن تعبير فتعادل في نظره التجسد وعمل تأليهنا. فقال “إن التجسد يصنع من الإنسان إلهاً بمقدار ما صار الإله إنساناً” (21), we turn (22)A kind of equilibrium is established between our being and Christ. (23)Jesus is fully God and fully man in two natures united in one person.
This belief is clear in the divine book and the history of the church.
2- Historical overview (24)
Christianity emerged in a unified, pure environment and later spread in a pagan environment that contributed to the Eastern, Greek and Roman civilizations, clashing with the Jewish mentality on the one hand and with the Greek religious and philosophical doctrines on the other.
Heresies denying the divinity of Christ (the Ebionites) and denying his true human nature (the Docetists) appeared since the apostolic era.
John the Evangelist struggled against this, then Saint Ignatius of Antioch, then the fathers of the second century until Arius appeared in the fourth century, when the heresy took on unprecedented expansion and methods. Arius denied the divinity of the Son. (25) He said that the Word of God replaced the human spirit. Thus, Jesus is not equal to the Father or to us.
The Church adhered to its belief that God is one in essence and triune in persons, that is, according to persons.
Some have argued that Jesus was a dual person. In 352 (according to Litzmann and 360 according to others), Apollinarius, Bishop of Laodicea, responded with his heresy that Jesus was a perfect God united with an animal body and soul, so that the Word of God took the place of the Spirit. (26).
At that time, the great scholars of the faith hastened to refute his statements and clarify the Church’s teaching on the incarnation and the two natures of Christ and their union. His teaching was condemned by Athanasius the Great through the Council of Alexandria in 362, and Saint Basil disowned him. The two Gregorians took up the struggle and clarified the doctrine, and the two letters of Gregory the Theologian to Cledonius were: A beacon that illuminated the church حتى المجمع الرابع المسكوني (الخلقيدوني) إذ لعبت فيه دوراً بارزاً. وقد أطلق عبارته الشهيرة “ما لم يتخذه (الابن) لم يخلص” (27).
ويعني بذكل أن المسيح أخذ طبيعة بشرية كاملة ذات نفس عاقلة: “فالخطيئة من فعل النفس. ولذلك كان لا بد من مداواة النفس في التجسد”.
For the body without the soul cannot sin. Any diminution of human nature in Christ renders salvation and deification incomplete and the encounter between God and man incomplete.
Therefore, the Church Fathers emphasized the completeness of human nature in Christ. If the soul, mind, or will (i.e. the will) were lost, man’s encounter with God would be incomplete.
Man, in his entirety, had to meet God, in his entirety, in a harmonious unity, in order for reconciliation between God and man to be achieved.
If nature is deficient or lacks will or action, man is in an imperfect position with God.
In reaction to Apollinarius, Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsis (Syria), head of the Antiochian school, Theodorus, Bishop of Mopsuestia (Mopsuestia), and Nestorius went too far in their resistance to Apollinarianism, emphasizing the completeness of human nature to the point of making it a hypostasis. When Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, dared to protect his Antiochian priest Anastasius, who attacked the designation of Our Lady Mary as the Mother of God, a new theological battle began, which ended with the victory of Saint Cyril of Alexandria (the Third Ecumenical Council in 431) and his reconciliation with John, Patriarch of Antioch in 433.
But the problem broke out again when the monk Eutyches (Eutyches) began to learn about the mixture of the two natures. Events developed and personal issues played their role as they had played before since the heresy of Arius.
Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria, adopted Eutyches and disagreed with Saint Leo, Pope of Rome, and Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople.
Things developed badly until the year 451, when the Fourth Ecumenical Council was held in October. Anatolius, Patriarch of Constantinople, acknowledged on 22/10/451 that there was no doctrinal disagreement with Dioscorus. But personal differences played a role in the division. Dioscorus was not a Eutyches. (28)
The aforementioned Fourth Council finally defined the doctrine of the hypostasis and the two natures, and the Sixth Ecumenical Council completed the definition.
وكان الخلاف دائراً ضد نسطوريوس على مسألة طبيعتي المسيح وطريقة اتحادهما. فتقول النسطورية “بوجود طبيعتين وأقنومين وشخص البنوة وإرادة واحدة وسلطة واحدة”. وتجعل الاتحاد بين الأقنومين رابطة معنوية لا حقيقية تتم في الشخص لوحده لا في الأقنوم.
It establishes a difference between the person and the hypostasis that permits the secondary nature of the union and thus its weakness.
The infidel Eutyches say that the two natures are mixed.
The proponents of the One Nature (the Aqat, the Syriacs, the Armenians, and the Ethiopians) say that there are two natures united in one nature in which all human or human qualities and characteristics and all divine qualities and characteristics are combined without mixing, without change, and without transformation. And the hypostasis is one, which is the hypostasis of the incarnate Word of God.
They do not believe in one purely divine nature as is rumored about them, but in one divine nature with the attributes of divinity. (29) And humanity.
وعقيدتهم صحيحة في الأساس وخلافهم معنا “مجرد خلاف في التعبير” (30)Its origin is the adherence to the literal meaning of some of the expressions of Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the lack of attention to the letter of reconciliation between him and John of Antioch. The Fourth Council of Chalcedon reconciled the Alexandrian and Antiochian theological expressions, and defined the word Physis. By nature without hypostasis (31).
فهم مازالوا يأخذون كلمة “طبيعة Physis” بمعنى أقنوم (32)The history of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries is full of bitter disputes over our most important theological terms. (33).
(1) Galatians 4:4.
(2) Luke 1:26-39.
(3) Luke 1:38
(4) 1: 35
(5) John 1:14
(6) راجع “The consequences of serious sin” و “Comparative theology on the consequences and transmission of serious sin“…. (الشبكة)
(7) Genesis 2:17 and also 3:3
(8) راجع تعليم الآباء في كتاب مايندورف ص 181-185 “المدخل إلى دراسة غريغوريوس بالاماس” (فرنسي) وفي الفصل الرابع من هذا الكتاب. لمكسيموس تحاليل دقيقة وعسيرة عن الطبيعة والإرادة والأقنوم صرفنا النظر عنها هنا.
(9) See (الخلاص بين المفهوم الأبائي الأرثوذكسي، والبدع المتأثرة بـ “انسلم، لوثر وكالفن”)… (الشبكة)
(10) 1 Peter 1:4
(11) Philippians 2:6-8. In the Christmas Eve Canon, the passages speak of suffering as an expression of our faith in the Lamb slain before the ages, and of the connection between the incarnation and birth and suffering, and of Jesus being a man of sorrows, sufferings and emptiness from his birth.
(12) Isaiah 53:3.
(13) Maximus the Confessor in Loski pp. 144-145 and Damascene 3:25.
(14) Nicholas Cabazilas: Life in Christ Chapter 3 and also Damascene 4:13 and 1 Corinthians 15.
(15) Men 26:296 These ideas are also evident in his book On the Incarnation.
(16) Loski: 134 and its sources.
(17) إن لاهوتنا الأرثوذكسي هو لاهوت وتعليم الآباء وليس يتفق معه فقط… وغاية وضع الشماس عبارة “المتفق مع تعاليم آباء الكنيسة” ضمن قوسين، أن يقول هذا. (الشبكة)
(18) Loski: 131
(19) راجع المصادر في مقالنا عن الظهور الإلهي في ص 76 و77 من عدد نيسان 1979 من مجلة “النور”. أما تأليه الطبيعة البشرية وتأليهنا فلا يعنيان استحالة جوهرنا إلى جوهر إلهي بل نفوذ القوى الإلهية energies إلى الطبيعة البشرية. لاهوتنا الأرثوذكسي يُفرق بين جوهر الله والقوى الإلهية.
(20) ايريناوس ضد الهرطقات في مين 7: 937، 1074-1102/ 1121 – ايبوليتوس، مين 10: 732 و870 – أثناسيوس الكبير، مين 26: 96 و293-296 و273 و393 – كيرلس الأورشليمي، الميمر 12: 1 و13 و14 و16 – غريغوريوس النيسي، مين 45: 8 و1152 و1157 و1252 – دامسوس بابا روما، مين اللاتيني 13: 353 و 353 – كيرللس الإسكندري في مواضع عديدة منها: مين 74: 564- و557- لاونديوس البيزنطي 86: 1268 و1324-1325 و1348 و1325 – وصفرونيوس البطريرك الأورشليمي، مين 87: 3162 – والدمشقي، مين 95: 161. راجع أيضاً قاموس الروحانية 3: 1376-1398.
(21) Maximus, Min 90:1204
(22) 280-281.
(23) 324 and 340.
(24) Review of general references in general history, history of beliefs, and history of Christian literature by Dr. Asad Rustum.
(25) أي أنكر مساواة لاهوت الابن للاهوت الآب…. (الشبكة)
(26) nous باليونانية. [“بجسد ونفس حيوانية” أي بدون روح… (الشبكة) ]
(27) The Epistle to Cledonius. Cyril took it from him, as will be shown.
(28) راجع الحاشية رقم 3 و5 في “1: 4 – المجمع الرابع المسكوني ونتائجه (أوطيخا، وديسقوروس)” من هذا الكتاب… (الشبكة)
(29) يقول الشماس اسبيرو -مؤلف الكتاب- بعد 25 سنة من تاريخ هذا الكتاب، في كتاب سألتني فأجبتك، ص 311: “طبيعة يسوع الإلهية هي طبيعة الآب، فلا يمكن أن تصبح صفة”… (الشبكة)
(30) عن الأرشيدياكون وهيب عطالله جرجس: “تعليم كنيسة الإسكندرية فيما يختص بطبيعة السيد المسيح ص 15-20 و 36، القاهرة عام 1961.” إلا أننا نستغرب قوله: “لا نجرؤ على القول أنه إله وإنسان معاً” (ص15) مع أن رسالة المصالحة واضحة وكذلك آباء مدرسة الإسكندرية ومنهم كيرللس كما سيجيء ويتمسك المؤلف بعد نبسبة عبارة “طبيعة واحدة متجسدة” إلى اثناسيوس وكيرللس مع أن النقد أثبت أنها لأبوليناريوس، فاندست تحت اسم مستعار.
(31) نود التنبيه مُجدداً أن الشماس اسبيرو عندما كتب هذا الكتاب، كانت كنيستنا الأرثوذكسية تعيش في جو تأمل فيه أن تعود الكنائس اللاخلقيدونية إلى الشركة مع الكنيسة الأرثوذكسية، على ضوء ما تم في عهد قداسة البابا كيرلس السادس. وعلى ضوء هذا الجو العام وضع الشماس اسبيرو كتابه، فلم يببحث في أمور اللاهوت المقارن. مع أنه لمّح إلى أن إيمانهم خاطئ عندما قال “طبيعة إلهية لها صفات اللاهوت والناسوت”.. ونزيد فنقول أن “الأرشيدياكون وهيب عطالله جرجس” قد اصبح فيما بعد أسقفاً للتعليم في الكنيسة القبطية تحت اسم “الأنبا غريغوريوس”. وقد كان لنا في المنتدى بحث صغير عن تعليم الكنيسة القبطية حول خريستولوجيتها، في تعليم الأنبا غريغوريوس، نرجو أن تراجعه here…. (الشبكة)
(32) This is clear on pages 15, 18 and 36 of the previous reference.
(33) review:
Prestige: God in the Patrisite thought.
Any extended history of doctrine or of the Church will show the tremendous efforts made to define the meaning of theological terms.