Page:The Nestorians and their rituals, volume 2.djvu/93

 not the Who thus became Man; but this Parsopa they admit to be the second Person of the Glorious, in and by that Person equal with the  and the , and One in every way with the Infinite Self-Existent; and in and by His Parsopa likewise not less than the other Two Persons of the  in all the essential attributes of the Godhead, (though distinct through it) but ever One with the  and the  "in dominion and power, will, design, affection, honour and Parsopa," as Mar Abd Yeshua declares in his creed given in § 7.

The frequent occurrence, however, of the words "temple," "abode," and "tabernacle," as applied in the Nestorian rituals to the body of our blessed, seems at first sight to convey the idea that the Only-begotten selected some particular man, and then dwelt in Him, which interpretation in no way answers to the force of the scriptural declaration 'the Word was made flesh." But a passage in § 3 contradicts such an opinion. "When the angel assured the Virgin that her wonderful conception should be of the operation of the , she believed that what had been announced to her would take place; and forthwith the Word made for Himself a reasonable abode, and made it His temple. Not that He first formed it, and afterwards dwelt in it; for He wove a temple to clothe Himself withal, and clothed Himself therewith when He wove it, that this His clothing might not be any other than the clothing of the Word, which He wrought for Himself,"—that is, "He became what He was not before. He took into His own Infinite Essence man's nature itself, in all its original fulness, creating a body and soul, and, at the moment of creation, making them His own, so that they were never other than His, never existed by themselves or except as in Him, being properties or attributes of Him (to use defective words) as really as His Divine goodness, or His Eternal Sonship, or His perfect likeness to the. And whilst thus adding a new nature to Himself, He did not in any respect cease to be what He was before. How was that possible? All the while He was on earth, when He was conceived, when He was born, when He was tempted, on the cross, in the grave, and now at the right hand of ,—all the time through He was the Eternal and Rh