The Ancient Witnesses

Chapter 6: The Fullness of Time • 179

that there might be a mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, to make intercession for us.” 13 This last point I understood clearly: Christ’s humanity displayed both his royal lineage as well as his priestly role as mediator between God and man.

The Incarnation Ephrem of Syria came to the table to claim his

Commentary on the Diatessaron . He was the Eastern Church father who had conducted the choir during the Beginning of Time . When I told him we had just been discussing the humanity of Christ, he broke out in song: Why did the Lord clothe himself with humanity? Why did he dress himself in our flesh? How else could he conquer the passions Adam had put on? And how else could he overcome the oppression Adam now wore? Samson killed many with the jawbone of an ass, But the serpent killed the entire human race through Eve; So, with the flesh the Lord received from Eve—the same equipment used by the enemy to attack us—the Lord joined the battle, and conquered the world!

Why did the Lord clothe himself with humanity? Why did he dress himself in our flesh? If God had been victorious without the flesh, Then what praise could this flesh offer Him?

13 Augustine, Harmony, I.3.6 ( Patrologia Latina 34, 1044-1045; NPNF I, 6: 79). It was the Gospel of John and its emphasis on Christ’s divinity that alerted Augustine to the theme of humanity in Matthew and Luke. Just prior to the statement quoted above, he says, “John…had in view that true divinity of the Lord…in which he is the Father’s equal” (NPNF I.4.7).