[Page] 38

[...of the incarnation of Christ:] "I confess Him [to be] Son of God and God according to the Spirit, and Son of Man according to the flesh; not two natures in the one Son—the one adorable and the other unadorable—but one nature of the incarnate Word of God." The same [author], in praise of the Virgin Mother of God: "One is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who became [incarnate] from the Virgin with one nature... I do not deny the nature, nor do I divide the union." Furthermore, Yovhan Oskeberan (in [his] *Commentary on the Epistle of Paul to the Philippians* [writes]): "Let us not confuse, nor let us introduce a division between [them]; for I confess a union, and not any destruction or dissolution of this nature into that, or of that [nature] into this, but I say [they are] united and become one." Likewise, Yovhan Imastasēr (in [his] *Discourse Against the Phantasiasts*) writes thus: "It was not that by asserting the two they refused to assert the one, or conversely, by confessing the one they stubbornly resisted coming to the confession of the two; but rather, shining forth boldly with both of these lamps of orthodox glory, they were made radiant, preaching Christ [as] two according to nature, and one according to union." Furthermore, our angel-like holy *vardapet* Grigor Narekatsʻi writes in [his] words concerning the Holy Trinity in this manner of speech: "The one Son of the only Father, and the only-begotten firstborn of the Virgin Mother of God, who bore the Lord; the Creator, being truly primordial, by a transformation became man; behold, not after the likeness of us earth-created beings who came to be, but [as something] new and wondrous, majestic among kings, who was not shown forth in the ages, and did not come into existence in times; the firstborn, according to the Psalmist, above all the kings of the earth; by an incorruptible commingling having formed our [nature] in the flesh, after the manner of the soul with the body, and of gold with fire, or to speak even more plainly, of light with air; neither changed nor separated" (in *Narek*, chapter 37). Behold, all of this above-written sound and orthodox confession of faith of the ancient God-inspired Holy Fathers corresponds precisely to the words of evident Evangelical and Apostolic truth: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only Begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14); "[That] which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we looked upon and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life—and the life was manifested..."