Jeremias 17:9

3. But who is it that has had fellowship with us in the matter of food? Whether is it he who is conceived of by them as the Christ above, who extended himself through Horos, and imparted a form to their mother; or is it He who is from the Virgin, Emmanuel, who did eat butter and honey, of whom the prophet declared, “He is also a man, and who shall know him?” He was likewise preached by Paul: “For I delivered,” he says, “unto you first of all, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried, and rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures.” It is plain, then, that Paul knew no other Christ besides Him alone, who both suffered, and was buried, and rose gain, who was also born, and whom he speaks of as man. …

2. For this reason [it is, said], “Who shall declare His generation?” since “He is a man, and who shall recognise Him?” But he to whom the Father which is in heaven has revealed Him, knows Him, so that he understands that He who “was not born either by the will of the flesh, or by the will of man,” is the Son of man, this is Christ, the Son of the living God. For I have shown from the Scriptures, that no one of the sons of Adam is as to everything, and absolutely, called God, or named Lord. But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth. Now, the Scriptures would not have testified these things of Him, if, like others, He had been a mere man. …

Learn now (over and above the immediate question) the clue to your error. We affirm, two characters of the Christ demonstrated by the prophets, and as many advents of His forenoted: one, in humility (of course the first), when He has to be led “as a sheep for a victim; and, as a lamb voiceless before the shearer, so He opened not His mouth,” not even in His aspect comely. For “we have announced,” says the prophet , “concerning Him, (He is) as a little child, as a root in a thirsty land; and there was not in Him attractiveness or glory. …

He is not undone, he says, but revolves as it were, and goes round himself. Moreover, also, cities in which we dwell, because we turn and go round in them, are denominated “Poleis.” In this manner, he says, the Phrygians call this one “Aipolis,” inasmuch as he everywhere ceaselessly turns all things, and changes them into their own peculiar (functions). And the Phrygians style him, he says, “very fruitful” likewise, “because,” says he, “more numerous are the children of the desolate one, than those of her which hath an husband;” that is, things by being born again become immortal and abide for ever in great numbers, even though the things that are produced may be few; whereas things carnal, he says, are all corruptible, even though very many things (of this type) are produced. …

In Jeremiah: “And He is man, and who shall know Him?” Also in Numbers: “A Star shall arise out of Jacob, and a man shall rise up from Israel.” Also in the same place: “A Man shall go forth out of his seed, and shall rule over many nations; and His kingdom shall be exalted as Gog, and His kingdom shall be increased; and God brought Him forth out of Egypt. His glory is as of the unicorn, and He shall eat the nations of His enemies, and shall take out the marrow of their fatnesses, and will pierce His enemy with His arrows. He couched and lay down as a lion, and as a lion’s whelp. …

Jeremiah, like Isaiah, is one of the greater prophets, not of the minor, like the others from whose writings I have just given extracts. He prophesied when Josiah reigned in Jerusalem, and Ancus Martius at Rome, when the captivity of the Jews was already at hand; and he continued to prophesy down to the fifth month of the captivity, as we find from his writings. Zephaniah, one of the minor prophets, is put along with him, because he himself says that he prophesied in the days of Josiah; but he does not say till when. Jeremiah thus prophesied not only in the times of Ancus Martius, but also in those of Tarquinius Priscus, whom the Romans had for their fifth king. For he had already begun to reign when that captivity took place. …

8. In the same prophet the inquirer would find clear proof that Christ is not merely one of the great men that have appeared in the world. For Jeremiah goes on to say: "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord: for he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places of the wilderness, in a salt land not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is: for he shall be as a tree beside the water, that spreadeth out its roots by the river: he shall not fear when heat cometh, but his leaf shall be green; he shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." On hearing this curse pronounced in the figurative language of prophecy on him that trusts in man, and the blessing in similar style on him …

40. As for the reason why, though it is concealed among strangers whose wife the Church is, it is not hidden whose sister she is, it is plainly because it is obscure and hard to understand how the human soul and the Word of God are united or mingled, or whatever word may be used to express this connection between God and the creature. It is from this connection that Christ and the Church are called bridegroom and bride, or husband and wife. The other relationship, in which Christ and all the saints are brethren by divine grace and not by earthly consanguinity, or by the father and not by the mother, is more easily expressed in words, and more easily understood. For the same grace makes all the saints to be also brethren of one another; while in their society no one is the bridegroom of all the rest. …

But that it belongs to God only to know men’s secrets, hear what saith the prophet, “Thou most entirely aloneknowest the hearts;”and again, “God trieth the hearts and reins;” and Jeremiah too saith, “The heart is deep above all things, and it is man, and who shall know him?”and, “Man shall look on the face, but God on the heart.” And by many things one may see, that to know what is in the mind belongs to God alone.

42. As you have listened already to Moses and Isaiah, so listen now to Jeremiah inculcating the same truth as they: This is our God, and there shall be none other likened unto Him, Who hath found out all the way of knowledge, and hath given it unto Jacob His servant and to Israel His beloved. Afterward did He shew Himself upon earth and dwelt among men . For previously he had said, And He is Man, and Who shall know Him ? Thus you have God seen on earth and dwelling among men. Now I ask you what sense you would assign to No one hath seen God at any time, save the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father , when Jeremiah proclaims God seen on earth and dwelling among men? The Father confessedly cannot be seen except by the Son; Who then is This who was seen and dwelt among men? He must be our God, for He is God visible in human form, Whom men can handle. …

12. Interpreting which truth, the Apostle says: “For God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us.” He does not say “in the likeness of flesh,” for Christ took on Himself the reality not the likeness of flesh; nor does He say in the likeness of sin, for He did no sin, but was made sin for us. Yet He came “in the likeness of sinful flesh;” that is, He took on Him the likeness of sinful flesh, the likeness, because it is written: “He is man, and who shall know Him?” He was man in the flesh, according to His human nature, that He might be recognized, but in power was above man, that He might not be recognized, so He has our flesh, but has not the failings of this flesh.