65. The Scripture, then, having, as I showed
above, discovered the twofold nature in Christ, that you might
understand the presence of both Godhead and Manhood, here begins with
the flesh; for it is the custom of Holy Writ to begin without fixed
rule sometimes with the Godhead of Christ, and descend to the visible
tokens of Incarnation; sometimes, on the other hand, to start from its
humility, and rise to the glory of the Godhead, as oftentimes in the
Prophets and Evangelists, and in St. Paul. Here, then, after this
use, the writer begins with the Incarnation of our Lord, and then
proclaims His Divinity, not to confound, but to distinguish, the human
and the divine. But Arians, like Jew vintners, Cf.
Athanasius, Third Oration Against the Arians, §
35—“But should any man, noticing the divinity revealed in
the action of the Word, deny the reality of the body, or marking the
things peculiar to the body, deny the presence of the Word in flesh or
judging from His human experiences and behaviour, conceive a low esteem
of the Word, such a person, like the Jew vintner, mixing water with his
wine, will hold the Cross a scandal, and, like a heathen philosopher,
regard the preaching as folly—which is just the state of the
ungodly followers of Arius.” Horace, Sat. I. v. 3,
4—“inde Forum Appî, Differtum nautis, cauponibus
atque malignis.” mix water with the wine, confounding
the divine generation with the human, and ascribing to the majesty of
God what is properly said only of the lowliness of the
flesh.