By Water & Blood

Chapter 11: How, not understanding the evangelical saying, he said that the Saviour’s flesh scandalizes and is of no benefit

—he, not attending to the sense of the saying, supposed that the Saviour was setting aside the flesh which he assumed from the holy Virgin. Then from this he tries to establish that after the consummation of the universe the Word in God will leave the flesh deserted of his own activity. He says, at any rate, in these very words (Nr. 104):

“For concerning the flesh which he had when he conversed with the disciples, he speaks thus: ‘Doth this offend you? What and if ye see the Son of man going away where he was before? The spirit giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing.’ If, then, he confesses that the flesh profits him nothing, how is it possible that what is from the earth and profits nothing should be with the Word in the ages to come, as though it were of benefit to him?”

You see what perversion of the gospel saying he employs, through not understanding the saving utterance of the Word—how it was said, and for what cause.