Topic III.
If any one affirms that Christ, just like one of
the prophets, assumed the perfect man, and refuses to acknowledge that,
being begotten in the flesh of the Virgin,
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He became man and was born in Bethlehem,
and was brought up in Nazareth, and advanced in age, and on completing
the set number of years (appeared in public and) was baptized in the
Jordan, and received this testimony from the Father, “This is my
beloved Son,”
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even as it is
written, let him be anathema.
Explication.
How could it be said that Christ (the Lord)
assumed the perfect man just like one of the prophets, when He, being
the Lord Himself, became man by the incarnation effected through the
Virgin? Wherefore it is written, that “the first man was of
the earth, earthy.”
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But whereas he that was formed of
the earth returned to the earth, He that became the second man returned
to heaven. And so we read of the “first Adam and the last
Adam.”
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And as it
is admitted that the second came by the first according to the flesh,
for which reason also Christ is called man and the Son of man; so is
the witness given that the second is the Savior of the first, for whose
sake He came down from heaven. And as the Word came down from
heaven, and was made man, and ascended again to heaven, He is on that
account said to be the second Adam from heaven.
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Reading
ἐκ
παρθένου
for
ἐκ
παθόντος
.
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Matt. iii. 17
.
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1 Cor. xv. 47
.
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1 Cor. xv. 45
.