and wood—or any other substance—when it is burned and turns into fire is no longer pure wood, yet it is not simple, unmixed fire either.

It is the very nature of two things that unite to be transformed, each of them, into a third essence and a third nature that is neither the one nor the other. When water and milk, for instance, are blended, they yield a third essence and a third nature: neither unmixed milk nor unmixed water. The same applies to fire when it unites with iron, wood, or anything else: what results is a third essence—neither pure iron, nor pure wood, nor pure fire. True, once the iron cools it is still called iron, yet its reality has been altered; fire softens it and purges its dross, and after its union with the fire it is no longer as it was before. Wood, for its part, becomes charcoal, which is itself a third substance. For it is the nature of fire to work upon every body according to that body’s properties: it acts upon iron in one way and upon wood in another.

Likewise, whenever any two entities unite, they become a third essence, a third hypostasis, and a third nature.

Accordingly, if—as they claim—the divinity and the humanity have united, then the attributes of divinity must have been transformed and so must the attributes of humanity, so that divinity is no longer divinity and humanity is no longer humanity; rather, they have become a third essence that is neither divinity nor humanity. They repudiate that conclusion, yet it is the inevitable outcome—and it is invalid. For the Lord of all worlds does not change, nor do His attributes pass over into the attributes of