and that the Messiah is neither God nor the son of God in truth.
Hence the inference he tried to force upon them—that this would necessitate two Messiahs—falls to the ground.
As for his statement, “Mary must either have given birth to the Messiah or not,” we reply: She did indeed give birth to the Messiah, who is the human being, distinct from the divinity that you claim the Father begot. In this there are not two Messiahs, but one Messiah only—a created human being.
He also says, “If she gave birth to him, the birth must be either spiritual or physical; and if it was spiritual, then the Messiah is a single Son, a single hypostasis, a single Messiah.” This is a faulty division and a hollow, invalid argument, for Mary did not give birth in some spiritual fashion. Rather, the child emerged from her birth canal just as other women’s children emerge from theirs, whether her virginity remained intact or not.
With regard to his analogy of the iron plate: even if, for the sake of argument, it were an exact parallel, it would prove nothing beyond the bare possibility of their claim; it would still offer no evidence that this is what actually occurred. Where, then, is the proof that this is the case? The analogy provides nothing to confirm the Melkite position or to refute the stance of their opponents—much less so when the comparison itself is inexact.
For when fire unites with iron, the iron is altered from its former state so that it is no longer pure iron, nor is it pure fire; and wood