CONCERNING THE TRINITY. 319 stance? What, then,hast thou to do with the form of a body, if thou hatesta body ? Nay, thou wiltbe refutedas to the hatred of bearing about the substance of a body, since thou hast been willing even to take up itsform. For thou oughtestto have hated the imitationof a body, if thou hatedstthe reality; because,if thou art something else,thou oughtestto have come as something else,lestthou shouldestbe calledthe Son of the Creator if thou hadst even the likenessof fleshand body. Assuredly, if thou hatedst being born because thou hatedst the Creator's marriage union,thou oughtestto refuseeven the likenessof a man who isborn by the marriageof the Creator. Neither, therefore,do we acknowledge that that is a Christ of the hereticswho was (as itis said)in appearance and not in reality;for of those things which he did,he could have done nothing real,if he himself was a phantasm, and not reality.Nor him who wore nothing of our body in himself, seeinghe receivednothingfrom Mary ; neitherdid he come to us,sincehe appeared as a vision,not in our substance. Nor [do we acknowledge]that[to be Christ]who chose an etherealor starryflesh,as some hereticshave pretended. Nor can we perceiveany salvationof ours in him, ifwe do not even recognisethe substanceof our body [inhim] ; nor, in short,any other who may have worn any other kind of fabulous body of hereticaldevice. For all such fablesas these are confuted as well by the nativityas by the death itselfof our Lord. For John says: " The Word was made flesh,and dwelt among us ;" 1 so that,reasonably,our body should be in Him, because indeed the Word took on Him our flesh. And forthisreasonblood flowedforthfrom His hands and feet,and from His very side,so that He might be proved to be a sharerin our body by dying accordingto the laws of our dissolution.And thatHe was raisedagain in the same bodilysubstancein which He died,isproved by the wounds ofthatverybody,and thusHe showed thelawsof our resurrectionin His flesh,in thatHe restoredthe same body in His resurrectionwhich He had from us. For a law of 1Johni.14.