And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
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Theophylact of Ochrid
AD 1107
And the Word was made flesh:
Having said that we may become sons of God, if we so desire, by believing in Christ, here he adds the cause of such a great gift. The Evangelist is saying, "Do wish to learn what enabled us to be adopted as sons of God? It is this—that the Word was made flesh." When you hear He was made flesh, do not think that He abandoned His divine nature and was changed into flesh. He would not be God if He had been changed and altered. Instead, remaining what He was, He became what He was not. Here is where Apollinarius of Laodicea formed his heresy. He taught that our Lord and God did not assume the whole nature of a man, that is, a body and a rational soul, but took on flesh only, and not the rational and spiritual soul of a man. Christ God had no need of a human soul, he said, since His divine nature governed His human body, in the same manner as we have a soul which governs and moves our body. To support his argument, so he imagined, Appolinarius used these very words, And the Word was made flesh. He said, "The text does not say that He became man, but flesh. Therefore, Christ did not assume a human soul with mind and reason, but only flesh, without a human mind or reason." But was that pitiable man ignorant that Scripture often mentions the part for the whole? For example, when it refers to the whole man it often names him by one part only, the soul: "Let every soul which is not circumcised be put to death." [See Gen. 17:14.] Instead of saying, "Let every man," it mentions the part, namely, the soul. In another example, Scripture names the whole from the part, in this case, the flesh, when it says, And all flesh shall see the salvation of God. [Is. 40:5] Here "all flesh" means "every man." In exactly the same manner here, instead of saying, "The Word became man," the Evangelist says, The Word was made flesh, naming the man, composed of both body and soul, by one part only. Because flesh is alien to the divine nature, perhaps the Evangelist used the word flesh to show the boundless condescension of God, Who astounds us by His ineffable love for man, in that, for our salvation, He took upon Himself something that was completely alien and foreign to His divine nature, namely, our flesh. Our soul has some kinship with God, but flesh shares nothing whatsoever with the divine. Therefore I think that the Evangelist here uses only the word flesh, not because the soul had no part in what was assumed, but as a stronger indication of the marvelous and fearful mystery of the Incarnation. If the Word had not assumed a human soul when He took flesh, our souls would still remain unhealed. For what He did not assume, He did not sanctify. The soul was the first to fall, for it was the soul which first succumbed to the words of the serpent and was deceived in Paradise, and then the hand, following after its lady and mistress, reached out to touch. How laughable it is, then, to suppose that the handmaid, the flesh, should be assumed, sanctified, and healed, while the mistress, the soul, should be left unassumed and unhealed. Away with Appolinarius! When we hear that the Word was made flesh, we believe that He became perfect man, for Scripture habitually uses either "body" or "soul" to refer to the whole man. Nestorius is also refuted by these words. He claimed that God the Word Himself did not become that Man which was conceived from the most holy blood of the Virgin, but instead, that the Virgin gave birth to a man. To this man, filled with grace and with all virtue, was joined the Word of God, giving him power over unclean spirits. Thus Nestorius taught that there were two sons: one, the man Jesus, born of the Virgin, and the other, the Son of God, joined to the man and inseparable from him, but "inseparable" only by grace, by closeness, and by love, because he was a virtuous man. Teaching these things, Nestorius chose to be deaf to the truth. For if he had so desired, he would have heard this blessed Evangelist say, The Word was made flesh. Is Nestorius not clearly refuted here? The Word Himself became man. The Evangelist did not say that the Word found a man and was joined to him, but He Himself became a man. Eutyches, Valentinus, and Manes are also here rebutted. They taught that the Word of God appeared in semblance only. Let them hear also that the Word was made flesh. The Evangelist did not say that the Word appeared to be flesh, or was imagined to be flesh, but that He became flesh in truth and in essence, not by phantasy. It is foolish and absurd to believe that the Son of God, Who is Truth and is called Truth, would have made a lie of His Incarnation. For what is phantasy, if not a false appearance?
