Section CXLVII

Moreover, if not the very mode and rationale itself, Hippolytus certainly teaches once again the amplitude of reparation when, after setting down these things concerning the Precursor¹: “He first evangelized even those who were in hell; taken away by the sword of Herod, he was made a precursor there also—namely, that there too he might announce that the descent of the Savior was to be awaited, who would free the souls of the saints from the hand of death,” he thus adds²:

Ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ ἀναστάσεως πάντων ἀνθρώπων ἦν ὁ σωτήρ, ἔδει τὸν κύριον μόνον ἀνίστασθαι ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν, δι’ οὗ ἡ κρίσις παντὶ τῷ κόσμῳ εἰσελεύσεται· ἵνα οἱ ἀξίως ἀγωνισάμενοι, ἀξίως καὶ παρ’ αὐτοῦ στεφανωθῶσιν· ὑπὸ τοῦ καλοῦ ἀγωνοθέτου, πρώτου τὸ στάδιον διηνυκότος· τοῦ ἀναληφθέντος εἰς οὐρανούς, καὶ ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ Πατρὸς καθεσθέντος, καὶ πάλιν ἐπὶ τῇ συντελείᾳ τοῦ κόσμου κριτοῦ³ πεφανερωθησομένου. But because the Savior was to be the author and principle of the resurrection of all men, it was fitting that the Lord alone should be raised from the dead, through whom judgment would enter into the whole world; so that those who had worthily discharged the contest might worthily be crowned by him also—namely, by the illustrious establisher of the contest, who first completed the course; who, received into heaven, sits at the right hand of God and the Father and is again to be manifested as judge at the consummation of the world.

With these things those agree splendidly which Hippolytus writes elsewhere concerning the rationale and end of the divine incarnation⁴, where he writes⁵:

For divinity was not made flesh through a change of nature—ἡ σὰρξ γενομένη τῇ φύσει θεότητος σὰρξ, namely, flesh made according to the nature of divinity—but, although joined to divinity, it remained what it was, that is, flesh infirm and passible by nature and operation, just as⁶ the Savior says: “The spirit⁷ indeed is prompt, but the flesh infirm.” In it, working and suffering without sin the things which belonged to the flesh, he indicated for us the emptying of divinity⁸, naturally confirmed by miracles and the sufferings of the flesh. Διὰ γὰρ τοῦτο γέγονεν ἄνθρωπος ὁ τῶν ὅλων Θεός, ἵνα σαρκὶ μὲν παθητῇ πάσχων, ἅπαν ἡμῶν τὸ τῷ θανάτῳ πραθὲν λυτρώσηται γένος· ἀπαθεῖ δὲ θεότητι διὰ σαρκὸς θαυματουργῶν, πρὸς τὴν ἀκήρατον αὐτοῦ καὶ μακαρίαν ἐπαναγάγῃ ζωήν· ἧς ἀπέπεσεν τῷ διαβόλῳ πειθόμενος. For this reason the God of all was made man, so that, suffering indeed in passible flesh, he might redeem our whole race which had been sold to death; but, working wonders through the flesh by impassible divinity, he might lead it back to that immortal and blessed life from which it had fallen by obeying the devil. And through the mystery of his incorporation he would establish the holy orders of the heavenly intellectual substances⁹ πρὸς ἀτρεψίαν, unto inconvertibility. The work of this mystery is the recapitulation of all in him. Therefore even when incarnate, he remained according to nature the super-immense God, having an operation cognate and suitable to himself: born substantially from divinity, but manifested dispensationally through the most holy flesh, ἵνα πιστευθῇ Θεὸς εἶναι, δι’ ἀσθενοῦς φύσει σαρκὸς αὐτουργῶν τὴν τοῦ παντὸς σωτηρίαν, that he might be believed to be God, working by himself through flesh infirm by nature the salvation of the universe.

To what, therefore, did the Only-begotten direct the work of σωμάτωσις, incorporation? Namely, to this: that a) through it he himself might be εἰς αὐτὸν ἀνακεφαλαίωσις, the recapitulation of all in him;

that b) he might accomplish by himself τὴν τοῦ παντὸς σωτηρίαν, the salvation of the universe; that c) ἅπαν ἡμῶν τὸ τῷ θανάτῳ πραθὲν λυτρώσηται γένος, he might redeem our whole race which had been sold to death; that d) he might call it back from the death into which it had fallen by obeying the devil, πρὸς τὴν ἀκήρατον καὶ μακαρίαν ἐπαναγάγῃ ζωήν, unto immortal and blessed life; and finally, that e) he might be believed and be πάντων ἀνθρώπων ὁ σωτήρ, the Savior of all men. But either these things suffice to prove universal reparation, or else no formulas and judgments could be desired even in one’s expressed wishes which would persuade and demonstrate it.