though the nature of the bread has remained," is to be understood only concerning the species and properties of the bread. Nor did he intend to deny the change of the bread and the wine into the body and blood of Christ; for that truly happens, and he acknowledges it. A And if it has been obliterated by age in one place, let it receive light from another. I am compelled to admit that this is true of the manuscript of this epistle; although it is 500 years old, it is written with little accuracy and requires help from the Greek manuscript, or at least from another Latin one. In the one I saw, sometimes words are continuous, sometimes a simple vowel E is written instead of the diphthong Æ; T instead of D, and vice versa D instead of T; sometimes the words are so corrupted that they cannot be restored to health without the aid of other manuscripts. I opine that the negligence of the scribes deterred Peter Martyr from editing it. I pass over the translation, which seems less accurate, or indeed downright barbaric. I have not thought that benevolent readers would be offended by all these flaws of mine, since I suppose that we are giving the epistle exactly as we received it (as it is currently being rendered in Latin in the way it was written, a fragment of which was published by Peter Martyr and has long agitated the minds of learned men). B For who, when he has read it, could grasp the mind of John Chrysostom, or observe on what occasion, or with what intention, those words were written? But even further, one might wonder at the summary and unusual divine charity of a most loving man, who, although he was oppressed by countless troubles and by continual terrors concerning the incursions of the Isaurians—as he writes in his epistles to Olympias—was nearly exhausted; nevertheless, having heard that his friend the monk Caesarius had fallen into the heresy of the Apollinarians and the Synousiasts, he endeavored in this epistle to turn him away from heresy out of his incredible goodness and to call him back to the way of sincere piety. How much the Apollinarian heresy was then spreading, and how many it had invaded, can be gathered from the fact that Diodorus of Tarsus, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Theophilus of Antioch, to omit many others, wrote against the Apollinarians and Synousiasts. And so that John might recall Caesarius from that error, C and indeed to the Catholic faith, which confesses that in Christ there are two natures, not confused, in one person, he brings in the analogy of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, in which bread after consecration is not yet called bread, but body of Christ. Even though the nature of the bread, he says, has remained in it, it is preached as one body of the Son, and not two bodies. By which words the holy doctor assumes and acknowledges the true and real presence of the body of Christ in the Eucharist; otherwise, no comparison would exist between the human and divine nature in Christ and the Eucharist. Chrysostom himself, in his 2nd Homily to the people of Antioch: "For D Elijah left his mantle to his disciple, and the Son of God, ascending, left his flesh to us; but Elijah, having put it off, left it; Christ also left it to us, and having it, he ascended: for Elijah indeed left his mantle to his disciple, but the Son of God ascending into heaven left his flesh to us: but Elijah departed; Christ both left his flesh to us, and having it, he ascended." And in Homily 83 on Matthew: "So also in the mysteries we do; not looking only at what lies before us, but contemplating his words. For his Word is unerring, but our sense is easily deceived. This never failed, but that is frequently mistaken. Since then the Word says, 'This is my body', let us both be persuaded, and believe, and look at it with our intellectual eyes." I would excerpt all these passages from Chrysostom, in which he speaks similarly concerning the most holy Eucharist, if I were to compose an entire book; but it will be more pleasant and salutary for you to read them at the source.
THE EPISTLE OF THE BLESSED JOHN, BISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE, TO CAESARIUS THE MONK, AT THE TIME OF HIS EXILE, BEGINS.
We have inspected the letters of your reverence; we have inspected them, however, not without tears; for how shall we not weep, and constrain our soul with grief, seeing a brother who from boyhood chose a solitary life, and who conducted himself consummately—that is, perfectly—in matters of piety, suddenly fallen by the darts of heretics?
cogor; qui licet sit annorum 500, parum tamen emendate scriptus est, et opem a Græco præcipue Codice, aut ab alio saltem Latino, postulat. In eo quem vidi, aliquando voces continu antur. A And you might perhaps say that you have come from error to that which is better, and give thanks to those who brought forward that wonderful book, which your best writings call great, as it clearly proclaims B a substantial concurrence and a divine mixture to have taken place between divinity and flesh, and that from this a single nature was formed. This, O wonderful one, is the absurdity of the senseless Apollinarius; this is the most impious heresy of those who introduce a mixture and a conflation.
Possess yourself again, therefore, beloved, and return to the former order, away from that abominable opinion, which is that of Apollinarius and those who are called C Synusiasts. That impious thought, constantly flowing into the minds of men, knows how to harm those who live according to our simplicity. For the teacher of their heart is free; Apollinarius, even if this reverence of yours does not correctly handle matters. But for us, remembering your conversation with us: perceiving from that which you wrote the error that persists concerning your affection, and their folly; not only concerning the mystery of the dispensation, but concerning the conjunction of names, we have devised, with the Lord helping our infirmity, to make manifest to all an ostentation for the refutation of the evil opinion of those who brought to you the heretical book; and for the correction of your reverence.
Therefore, when you acknowledge, beloved, that which is simple of nature, which is uncompounded, which is unchangeable, which is invisible, which is immortal, which is incircumscriptible, which is incomprehensible, and such things as these. But saying "man," you signify that which is weak of nature, hunger, thirst, tears over Lazarus, fear, the emission of sweat, and the like, by which the divine is outside.
But when you say "Christ," you have conjoined both: D whence it is also said that the same is passible and impassible; passible in flesh, but impassible in deity. These same things are preached of the Son, and of Christ, and of Jesus, and of the Lord: for these names are common, and indicate two essences, the conjunction of which in heretics makes error, since they use the common name of Christ. But we, when these common names are used, when the mystery of the dispensation must be confessed. For if you were to say that God suffered in any way, you would say what is impossible and blasphemous; but you have declined the impiety of other heresies: if you were to say that the man who brought it forth, you would find an edifice, the temple of flesh. It is never said that he dwells outside, for the time is not yet when he is no temple. And if they perhaps ask, and how does the Lord say, *Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I have heard from God* (John 8.40)? It is well and most wisely to be said: for he was not deprived of the indwelling deity; but he wished to signify the passible nature, and made a memorial of the man: because of which he is both God and man, Christ. Therefore, because of the impassibility, man because of the passion. One Son, one Lord, the same one, clearly possessing the unity of natures, one power, even if they are not consubstantial, and each preserves its unmixed property, because of which the two are not confused. Just as before the bread is sanctified, we name it bread; but it is sanctified by divine grace through the priest, it is delivered from the appellation of bread; but it is deemed worthy of the appellation of the Lord's body, even if the nature of bread has remained in it, and we do not preach two bodies, but one body of the Son.
So here too, with the divine
indwelling
nature, that is, the nature residing in the body, one Son, one person, the composite they fashioned. Acknowledged, however, without confusion in an indivisible understanding, not in one nature alone, but in two perfect ones. For on one, how is it unconfused? How is it indivisible? How could a union ever be spoken of? For on itself the composite has fashioned it as acknowledged. The two together. To speak of one nature in Christ. Recognized... perfect ones.A
759 Being such, union is sometimes spoken of as being united to itself, whether it is one; or that it is impossible for it to be confused or divided. What, then, did hell vomit forth to speak of one nature in Christ? We think that by naming only the divine, they do not altogether deny the one—I speak of our salvation—or by retaining the human, they are making a denial of the divine nature. Let them state what it is that lost what was proper to it. For if it is one, the union is saved for us in every way, and those things which are proper to the union must be preserved. For if not, it is not a union, but a confusion and an abolition. But soon, shifting to the answer of the questioners, they leap to something else, which is not relevant to the question, and they utter inconsistent voices. "God endured and did not endure," and if they are asked to state the manner, they retreat into ignorance, saying, "As He willed," the memory of Christ fleeing from among them. After these things, being rebuked for this, they soon say, "And Christ is not God, but also man." And again they say: "After the unity, it is not proper to speak of two natures." Attend to the meaning of the word. You spoke of a union? You do not find the union of one being made, as we said before, "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14): but the subtlety of those speculating is also sought. For he added, "And dwelt among us." Does it not seem to you that the one who dwells is something other than the habitation? B "If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor 2:8). When you again say "Lord," it does not signify a proper name, but a common one, susceptible to passion and impassibility. For they are accustomed to pretend this: "We think it is not the body and blood of God that we receive faithfully and piously—not because it possesses body and blood, that which is by nature divine—but because He makes what is of the flesh His own." O lack of judgment! O impious thought! For the mystery of the dispensation is endangered among them, and again they do not allow the Lord's body to be confessed as a true body. For by thought they imagine it to have been converted into deity, building up from this one 760 nature, and not finding even to say whose it is, so that by inventing passion for the divinity on all sides, according to Apollinarius, they fall away from promised goods. Do we not think they will tremble hearing these things? Do they not consider the eternal judgment and the voice of the Lord saying, "I am, and I do not change" (Malachi 3:6). "The flesh is weak, but the spirit is willing." "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matt 26:41, 39, 38). "Touch and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me have" (Luke 24:39). Do we think these things are appropriate to deity? Let them hear also Peter saying, "Christ having suffered for us in the flesh" (1 Pet 4:1); and he did not say, "in the deity"; and again: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt 16:16). He said "of the Living," not "of the Dying," and whatever is similar to these, the divine Scripture teaches us, to which the heretics do not cease to be violent.
C Avoiding these novelties of words, my beloved, let us return to that which lies before us, to confess piously, and very piously, Christ who was encompassed by death as perfect in deity and perfect in humanity, one only-begotten Son, not to be divided into a duality of sons: yet bearing within himself the unmixed properties of the two natures, inconvertibly; not one and another—far be it—but one and the same Lord Jesus, God the Word, clothed in our flesh, and that not inanimate or irrational, as the impious Apollinarius says. Let us apply our mind to these things: let us flee those who divide the nature. For even if there is a twofold nature, nevertheless the union is indivisible and indissoluble, to be confessed in one person of the sonship and one subsistence. D Let us flee those who prodigiously speak of one nature after the union: for by the thought of one, they are driven to attach passion to the impassible God, denying the dispensation and seizing the gehenna of the devil. I think these things are sufficient for the measure of the letter for the confirmation of your love, O wondrous man.