Adamantius

Adamantius

(fourth century)

Adamantius is not the name of an author, but of a character in the Dialogue on the True Faith, falsely attributed to Origen and translated into Latin by Rufinus of Aquileia.

On the basis of the internal analysis of its terminology and concepts, scholarship places the Dialogue after the Council of Nicaea, therefore after 325, from which it takes several expressions, but within the first half of the fourth century.

In the Dialogue, Adamantius, the orthodox, and some disciples of Gnostic sects, including Marinus, are brought face to face before the pagan moderator Eutropius. The composition is divided into 5 books, all of them of interest for what they affirm about the real Incarnation of the Word. From the Marian point of view, books IV and V are the most important; by insisting precisely on the reality of the incarnation of Christ, they reveal and underline the real and virginal motherhood of Mary. The Dialogue presents arguments that will become common against the Manichaeans in the second half of the fourth century, concerning the non-unworthiness of the Incarnation and of the womb of a woman.

The author adopts the term Homoousios, the key to the Council of Nicaea of 325 and to orthodoxy against the Arian heresy, which denied the consubstantiality of the Word of God with the Father and admitted only His likeness. From this we see that the De recta in Deum fide cannot be from an earlier period.

Moreover, he also speaks of assuming man, instead of assuming human nature. It is the usual way of expressing oneself throughout the third and fourth centuries. Only later, after the clarifications of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451, is more attention given to the abstract term, because it is better suited to show the two natures, the divine and the human, united in the one person of the Word.

(Dialogue on the True Faith, I, 1. IV, V)

Adamantius: I believe that there is one God, creator and demiurge of the universe, and God the Word proceeding from Him and consubstantial with Him who always is, and who in the last times assumed man from Mary, and was crucified and rose from the dead.

Marinus. The subject of the discussion is Christ. I affirm that He took a heavenly body. Now, say what you affirm.

Adamantius: I say that He took it from the same substance as the protoplast Adam, from which we also come.

Marinus: At the outset the question is discussed whether it is not shameful to affirm that the Word of God assumed the flesh of a woman.

Adamantius: It would be shameful for the divinity, if any passion could befall the Word of God.
Marinus: How so?

Adamantius: You said that it is shameful to say that the Word of God became flesh. But the divinity suffers no shame, nor does it seek or long for glory: these are “passions”. Now, the divinity is incapable of passions. But I want to question you briefly.

Marinus: Go ahead.

Adamantius: Who created man?

Marinus: God!

Adamantius: The Father of the Word, that is, of Christ?

Marinus: The Father with the Word.

Adamantius: How did He create him?

Marinus: As the Scripture says: “Let us make man in our image and likeness. And God took the dust of the earth and formed man”.

Adamantius: After taking the dust of the earth, did God change it for the better or for the worse?

Marinus: For the better, of course!

Adamantius: Now, if God was not ashamed to take the dust of the earth and from the worse formed the better, should He be ashamed to take the one He formed?

Marinus: How do you say this?

Eutropius: Did you say, yes or no, that that man was made of clay?

Marinus: Yes.

Eutropius: Well then, which is more worthy of honor and glory, the dust of the earth or man?

Marinus: Man!

Eutropius: Then it is foolish to say that God did not dishonor Himself in the worse, but in the better. For if it was not shameful for God to take the dust of the earth, how would it be shameful for God to take man made in His likeness? (…)

Marinus: The same Word became flesh, without taking anything from outside.

Adamantius: But is the Word of God mutable or immutable?

Marinus: Immutable! (…)

Adamantius: If you say that the Word became flesh, but without taking a human body, you show who it is that suffered on the cross.

Marinus: He suffered, but in appearance.

Eutropius: In appearance, that is, phantastically, not in reality.

Adamantius: If He suffered in appearance and not in reality, in appearance Herod judged Him, in appearance Pilate washed his hands, in appearance Judas also betrayed Him (…). Thus human salvation too is all appearance, not reality. How then does Christ say of Himself: I am the truth? (…)

Adamantius: Before the Word of God came down and assumed man from the womb of a woman, no one had ascended to heaven. But after Him those who are of Christ also ascended there. Indeed, thus says the Apostle: “The first fruits, Christ. Then those who belong to Christ” (cf. 1 Cor 15:23). But the apostle foretold: “He who descended is the same who ascended” (Eph 4:10), in order to show the impassibility and immutability of the Word. Indeed, He who descended is the same who ascended, without having become anything other than what He was: God.

Eutropius: These words (of the Apostle) validate the statement of Adamantius. But I want both of you to propose your own definition on this.

Adamantius: The Word of God came down and assumed man from the immaculate Virgin Mary, in her womb, and Christ was born without the union of man, and it was He who was conceived by Mary by the work of the Holy Spirit, He who submitted Himself to all human “passions”, in order to save man.

Marinus: While the man was suffering, was the Word present or not?

Eutropius: State your own sentence first!

Adamantius: Allow me to answer. Then tell him your sentence. Yes, the Word of God was present to the man, but He suffered no indignity: like a diamond struck by an iron, it remains firm and, in fact, harms the one who wants to damage it. Or like asbestos thrown into the fire, it remains unharmed and intact, without being damaged. But not even fire cut by a knife is split: because the compactness of the fire, returning upon itself, remains undivided. If, then, material things show their energy before other material things, and cannot even perish, how much more did the Word of God, who by nature is impassible and immutable, remain impassible, keeping the “passions” far from Himself? But if you wish, I will show you from the Gospel that He was born of Mary.

Marinus: We too confess that He was born through Mary, but not from Mary. Indeed, just as water passes through a pipe, without carrying anything away, so also the Word came by means of Mary, but not from Mary.

Adamantius: Let us read the Gospel!

Eutropius: Read!

Adamantius: I have read what the angel said to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the Holy One who is born of you will be called the Son of God” (Lk 1:35).

Eutropius: Perhaps you will say that the voice of the angel too was only apparent. But what is more true than this, when the angel says: “Therefore also the Holy One who will be born of you”? He did not say: “who will be born through you”, but “from you”. Is it not foolish to say: as through a pipe and to confess that the Word passed through Mary, but to deny that He took something from her? And if you deny this out of a kind of decorum, as if the divinity could suffer indignity! Do you not realize, Marinus, that you accept what is more worthy of shame and deny what is more worthy, and more worthy of the divine plan? Indeed, if the Word did not consider it shameful to pass through Mary, neither did He consider it shameful to take something from her. Besides, what need did He have to pass through, if He had to take nothing?

Adamantius: If He did not assume man from Mary, what would become of the words of the Apostle? How could He be the firstborn among the dead, the first fruits of those who sleep?

To explore further the Marian testimony of the Fathers of the Church, consult the encyclical Redemptoris Mater of Saint John Paul II on Mary in the Christian tradition.

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