And so the heretics say that the Apostle wrote, "Therefore God also highly exalted Him, and gave Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth" (Phil 2:9-10).
They also cite David: "Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows" (Ps 44:8). Then they add, as though saying something wise, that if He was exalted and received grace "therefore," and was anointed "therefore," then He received a reward for His free choice.
And if He acted by free choice, then, without doubt, He is changeable by nature. Eusebius and Arius not only dared to say this, but also to write it. Their followers do not grow weary of proclaiming it in the marketplaces, not noticing what madness lies in their words.
For if He received what He has as a reward for His free choice, and would not have had it unless He had carried out what was required, then He was rightly called Son and God only because He received this for virtue and perfection. But He is not the true Son.
What proceeds from someone by nature is true birth. Such was Isaac from Abraham, and Joseph from Jacob. Such is the radiance from the sun. But those who are called sons for virtue and by grace have grace alone instead of nature, through receiving this name.
They are different from what has been given to them. Such are men who have received the Spirit by participation. Of them God said, "I have begotten and exalted sons, but they have rejected Me" (Isa 1:2). Clearly, this was because they were not sons by nature.
As soon as they changed, the Spirit was taken from them and they were rejected. Yet when they repent, God will receive them again and, giving them light, will again call them sons. He is the One who first granted them this grace.
Therefore, if they speak of the Savior in the same sense, it will follow that He is not true God, not true Son, and not like the Father. He will not have God as His Father according to essence itself.
He will have Him only according to grace given to Him. According to essence, He will have God as the Creator of His being, just as all creatures do.
And if He is such as the heretics assert, it will also become clear that in the beginning He did not even have the name Son. For He received it, they say, as a reward for His works and progress.
And this was not for anything else, but for what He showed when He became man and took "the form of a servant." For then, when He became "obedient even unto death," it is said of Him that He was exalted and received grace.
That is, He received the name, "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow" (Phil 2:7-8, 10). What, then, was He before, if now He is exalted, now begins to be worshiped, and now is called Son, when He became man?
It is evident that He did not perfect the flesh in the least. Rather, He Himself was perfected by the flesh, if, according to their evil-minded teaching, He was then exalted and called Son when He became man.
What, then, was He before this? Again it is necessary to ask them this, so that the end of their impiety may be seen. If the Lord is God, Son, and Word, but was not this until He became man, then either He was something else, different from this.
Afterward, for virtue, He became a participant in this, as we have already said. Or else they must necessarily say something else, may it turn upon their own heads: before this He was not, and by nature He is wholly man and nothing more.
But this is not the teaching of the Church. It is the thinking of the Samosatene and of the present Jews. Why, then, if they think like Jews, are they not circumcised like Jews? Why do they hypocritically cover themselves with Christianity while making war against it?
If the Son did not exist, or if He did exist but was perfected afterward, how is it that "all things were made through Him" (Jn 1:3)? And how did the Father rejoice in Him, if He is imperfect?
And if He Himself was only now perfected, how did He formerly "rejoice before" the Father (Prov 8:30)? If He received worship after death, how do we see Abraham worshiping Him in the tent, and Moses in the bush?
How did Daniel see that "ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands ministered to Him" (Dan 7:10)? If, according to the heretics, He was perfected only now, why did the Son Himself mention His supernal glory before the world?
He said, "Glorify Me, Father, with the glory which I had with You before the world was" (Jn 17:5). If, in their opinion, He is now exalted, why did He earlier "bow the heavens and come down"? And again, "the Most High gave His voice" (Ps 17:10, 14).
Therefore, if the Son had glory even before the creation of the world, and was Lord of glory and Most High, and came down from heaven, and was always worshiped, He was not perfected when He came down.
Rather, He Himself perfected those who needed perfection. And if He descended to perfect others, He did not receive the name Son and God as a reward. Rather, He Himself adopted us to the Father and deified men by becoming man Himself.
[...] What can be clearer and more convincing than this (Phil 2:6)? He did not begin from a lower degree and become more perfect. On the contrary, "being" God (Phil 2:6), He took "the form of a servant" (Phil 2:7).
By this taking He was not perfected, but "humbled Himself" (Phil 2:8). Where, then, is there a reward for virtue? Or what progress and perfection is there in abasement?
If He, being God, became man, and if it is said that He who descended from on high is exalted, where is God to be exalted? Since God is the Most High, it is again plain that the Word of this God must also be Most High.
Where, then, shall He who is in the Father and in all things like the Father be exalted further? Therefore He has need of no increase, and He is not such as the Arians suppose Him to be.
For if the Word came down for His own exaltation, and if this is the meaning of Scripture, what need at all was there for Him to humble Himself, in order to seek to receive what the Word already had?
And what grace did the Giver of grace receive? Or how did He receive the worshipful name, when He was always worshiped in His name? Even before He became man, the saints cried out, "O God, save me by Your name" (Ps 53:3).
And again, "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will be magnified in the name of the Lord our God" (Ps 19:6, 8). Thus the patriarchs worshiped Him. And concerning the angels it is written, "Let all the angels of God worship Him" (Heb 1:6).
If, as David sings in the seventy-first psalm, His name abides before the sun and before the moon, from generation to generation (Ps 71:5), how did He receive what He always had, even before He now received it?
Or how is He exalted, when He is Most High before He was exalted? Or how did He receive worship, when before receiving this now He was always worshiped?
This is not a veiled word, but a mystery of God. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1). But later, for our sake, "the Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14).
And now the statement "He highly exalted Him" does not mean that the essence of the Word is exalted, because it always was and is equal to God. Rather, this is the exaltation of the humanity.
This was not said beforehand, but when "the Word became flesh," so that it might be clear that "He humbled" and "He highly exalted" are said of the human nature. For what is capable of humility can also be exalted.
And if, because of the assumption of flesh, it is written "He humbled Himself," then plainly the word "He exalted" also refers to the flesh. Man had need of this because of the humility of the flesh and death.
The Word, being the image of the Father and immortal, took the form of a servant. For our sake, as man, in His flesh, He endured death, so that in this way He might bring Himself to the Father for us through death.
Therefore it is said of Him that, for our sake and on our behalf, He was exalted as man. Thus, as by His death we all died in Christ, so in Christ Himself we were again exalted.
We are raised from the dead and enter the heavens, "where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us" (Heb 6:20), "not into copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us" (Heb 9:24).
If Christ has now entered heaven itself for us, although before this He is forever the Lord and Maker of the heavens, then for this reason it is written that He is now exalted for us.
And as He, who sanctifies all, again says to the Father that He sanctifies Himself for us (Jn 17:19), not so that the Word may become holy, but so that He may sanctify all of us in Himself, so understand the present phrase "He exalted Him."
He did not exalt Him so that He might be exalted, for He is the Most High. He did so that He might become righteousness for us, and that we might be exalted in Him and enter the heavenly gates.
He Himself opened them for us when those who went before cried out, "Lift up your gates, O princes, and be lifted up, O everlasting gates, and the King of glory shall enter" (Ps 23:9).
For here also the gates were not shut to Him, the Lord and Creator of all things. This was written for our sake, for us to whom the door of Paradise was shut.
Therefore, according to the humanity, because of the flesh which He bore, it is said of Him, "Lift up the gates." And as of a man entering it is said, "He shall enter."
Again, according to the Godhead, because the Word is God, it is said of Him, "This is the Lord and King of glory." Of such exaltation, accomplished in us, the Spirit foretold in the eighty-eighth psalm.
He said, "In Your righteousness they shall be exalted, for You are the praise of their strength" (Ps 88:17-18). If the Son is righteousness, then He does not need exaltation. Rather, we are exalted by righteousness, that is, by Him.
And this phrase, "He gave Him," was written not for the sake of the Word Himself. For again, before He became man, angels and all creation worshiped Him, as has been said, because of His unity of properties with the Father.
This too was written for our sake and on our behalf. As Christ died and was exalted as man, so of Him as man it is said that He receives what He always had as God, so that this granted grace might extend also to us.
For the Word, having taken a body, was not diminished so as to need the reception of grace. Rather, He deified what He put on, and bestowed this upon the human race in greater measure.
Thus what in human opinion, because of the Cross, is "the foolishness of God" (1 Cor 1:25), became more honorable than all things. For in Him our resurrection is preserved.
Not Israel alone, but now all nations also, as the prophet foretold, abandon their idols and know the true God, the Father of Christ. Demonic illusion has been rendered inactive, and the one true God is worshiped in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
By the fact that they worship the Lord who appeared in the flesh and was called Jesus, and believe that He is the Son of God and that through Him the Father is known, it is clearly shown, as said above, that the Word, as Word, did not receive such grace.
Rather, we received it. For by our kinship with His body, we too have become the temple of God and have already been made sons of God. Therefore the Lord is now worshiped in us also.
Those who look upon us declare, as the Apostle said, that "God is truly" with these (1 Cor 14:25). Likewise John says in the Gospel, "As many as received Him, to them He gave power to become children of God" (Jn 1:12).
And in the epistle he writes, "By this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us" (1 Jn 3:24).
The sign of His goodness manifested to us is that we are exalted, because the Most High Lord abides in us. Grace is given for our sake, because the Lord who distributes grace became a man like us.
THEOSIS