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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 129 Pages
Page 77
2. If, then, the sojourn of the Lord in flesh has never taken place, the Redeemer [3174] paid not the fine to death on our behalf, nor through Himself destroyed death's reign. For if what was reigned over by death was not that which was assumed by the Lord, death would not have ceased working his own ends, nor would the sufferings of the God-bearing flesh have been made our gain; He would not have killed sin in the flesh: we who had died in Adam should not have been made alive in Christ; the fallen to pieces would not have been framed again; the shattered would not have been set up again; that which by the serpent's trick had been estranged from God would never have been made once more His own. All these boons are undone by those that assert that it was with a heavenly body that the Lord came among us. And if the God-bearing flesh was not ordained to be assumed of the lump of Adam, what need was there of the Holy Virgin? But who has the hardihood now once again to renew by the help of sophistical arguments and, of course, by scriptural evidence, that old dogma [3175] of Valentinus, now long ago silenced? For this impious doctrine of the seeming [3176] is no novelty. It was started long ago by the feeble-minded Valentinus, who, after tearing off a few of the Apostle's statements, constructed for himself this impious fabrication, asserting that the Lord assumed the "form of a servant," [3177] and not the servant himself, and that He was made in the "likeness," but that actual manhood was not assumed by Him. Similar sentiments are expressed by these men who can only be pitied for bringing new troubles upon you. [3178]
[3174] Lutrotes. cf. Acts vii. 35, where R.V. gives redeemer as marginal rendering. Lutrotes=payer of the lutron, which is the means of release (luo). The word is used of Moses in the Acts in a looser sense than here of the Saviour.
[3175] On the use of "dogma" for heretical opinion, cf. De Sp. S. note on S: 66.
[3176] dokesis.
[3177] Phil. ii. 7.
[3178] On the Docetism of Valentinus vide Dr. Salmon in D. C. Biog. i. 869. "According to V. (Irenaeus i. 7) our Lord's nature was fourfold: (1) He had a psuche or animal soul; (2) He had a pneuma or spiritual principle derived from Achamoth; (3) He had a body, but not a material body, but a heavenly one....(4) The pre-existent Saviour descended on Him in the form of a dove at His Baptism. When our Lord was brought before Pilate, this Saviour as being incapable of suffering withdrew His power;" (cf. the Gospel of Peter, "The Lord cried, saying, My Power, my Power, Thou hast left me.'") "and the spiritual part which was also impassible was likewise dismissed; the animal soul and the wonderfully contrived body alone remaining to suffer, and to exhibit on the cross on earth a representation of what had previously taken place on the heavenly Stauros. It thus appears that Valentinus was only partially docetic." But cf. Iren. v. 1, 2, and iii. 22.
Reference address : https://elpenor.org/basil/letters-3.asp?pg=77
