Kenosis

Christ "emptied Himself" (Philippians 2:7)

NPN2-03C - Theodoret, The Eranistes or Polymorphus, Dialogue 2, The Unconfounded, From His Work against Origen, Of the same treatise.

Of the same from the same treatise:--

"But you persist continually in your blasphemies attacking the Son of God, and using these words 'as the Son and the Father are one, so also are the soul which the Son took and the Son Himself one.' You are ignorant that the Son and the Father are one on account of their one substance and the same Godhead; but the soul and the Son are each of a different substance and different nature. For if the soul of the Son and the Son Himself are one in the same sense in which the Father and the Son are one, then the Father and the Soul will be one and the soul of the Son shall one day say 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father;'(1) but this is not so; God forbid. For the Son and the Father are one because there is no distinction between their qualities, but the soul and the Son are distinguished alike in nature and substance, in that the soul which is naturally of one substance with us was made by Him. For if the soul and the Son are one in the same manner in which the Father anti the Son are one, as Origen would have it, then the soul equally with the Son will be 'the brightness of God's glory and express image of His person.'(2) But this is impossible; impossible that the Son and the soul should be one as He and the Father are one. And what will Origen do when again he attacks himself? For he writes, never could the soul distressed and 'exceeding sorrowful' s be the 'firstborn of every creature.'(4) For God the Word, as being stronger than the soul, the Son Himself, says 'I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again.'(5) If then the Son is stronger than His own soul, as is agreed, how can His soul be equal to God and in the form of God? For we say that 'He emptied Himself and took upon Him the form of a servant.'(6) In the extravagance of his impieties Origen surpasses all other heretics, as we have shewn, for if the Word exists in the form of God and is equal to God and if be supposes thus daring to write the soul of the Saviour to be in the form of God and equal with God, bow can the equal be greater, when the inferior in nature testifies to the superiority of what is beyond it?"