Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Remains of the Second and Third Centuries/Melito, the Philosopher/Chapter 4

by Various

III.

From the Discourse on the Cross.^[1]

On these accounts He came to us; on these accounts, though He was incorporeal, He formed for Himself a body after our fashion,^[2]—appearing as a sheep, yet still remaining the Shepherd; being esteemed a servant, yet not renouncing the Sonship; being carried in the womb of Mary, yet arrayed in the nature of His Father; treading upon the earth, yet filling heaven; appearing as an infant, yet not discarding the eternity of His nature; being invested with a body, yet not circumscribing the unmixed simplicity of His Godhead; being esteemed poor, yet not divested of His riches; needing sustenance inasmuch as He was man, yet not ceasing to feed the entire world inasmuch as He is God; putting on the likeness of a servant, yet not impairing^[3] the likeness of His Father.  He sustained every character^[4] belonging to Him in an immutable nature:  He was standing before Pilate, and at the same time was sitting with His Father; He was nailed upon the tree, and yet was the Lord of all things.

Footnotes

1. By the same.
2. Or “wove—a body from our material.”
3. Lit. “changing.”
4. Lit. “He was everything.”