The royal purple was wool; and the blood of the murex mingled with it provided it with a bright purple color. When, therefore, it was handled by the fingers and spun, becoming warp, it is clear that the wool—and not the dye—underwent the twisting. Likened to the wool is the man, and to the purple color the God-Word, who was united in the passion and the cross, but did not in every part succumb to the passion. Again, let there be a tree having within itself the ray of the sun. When it is being cut, we observe that the striking iron is borne from above against the ray within it first, and the ray appears to receive the blow first, before the tree is struck. Just as, therefore, the brightness, although it is there, is not cut, is not divided: so also the Divinity could neither be separated, nor cut, nor suffer; but the flesh succumbed to the passion, and could be cut and suffer, as the tree there. A
We add to our Latin version the Italian rendering by D. Maffei, which has been sent to us, so that nothing from the cares and labor of that most celebrated man may be lost.
OF ST. CHRYSOSTOM TO CAESARIUS.
It is a pious thing to confess Christ, surrounded by death, perfect in His divinity; the unique and only-begotten Son, not divided into a duality of sons, nor bearing in Himself the unconfused properties of the two inseparable natures; not one thing and another—far from it—but one and the same Lord Jesus Christ, God-Word clothed in flesh, and this not without soul and without mind, as the impious Apollinarius said. And if it still seems impossible to some that two things be in one, and be seized together, and be crucified together, and with all this only one of them suffer the ignominy, I shall endeavor to demonstrate this with a human similitude. The royal purple was wool; the blood of the shell-fish, mixed with it, gave it the purple color. When, however, it was spun from the fingers and wound into a ball, having become thread, it is clear that the wool and not the dye suffered that twisting. Now, similar to the wool is man, and to the purple color the God-Word, who was united in the passion and in the cross, but did not in every part succumb to the passion. Likewise, let us posit a tree that has within itself the ray of the sun. When it is cut, we see that the iron with which it is struck flashes first from above against the ray that is in it, and it seems that the ray, before the tree, suffers the blow: but as the ray, although it may be there, is not cut nor struck, so the divinity could neither be separated, nor wounded, nor suffer; but the flesh succumbed to the torments, which could suffer and be wounded, like the tree in the aforementioned case.
D. MAFFEI’S CONCLUSION
We see here that, just as the first part agrees well with the Latin version toward the end, so we have nothing in it of all the second part, which contains the two similitudes, whence it appears that in the codex from which this compiler copied, our Epistle was recorded5 much differently. It will be answered that perhaps the second part belongs to another author or another monument, and that between one part and the other there should interpose another title, omitted by error by the copyist. I, upon this, would not dare to affirm either the pro or the contra, and I have neither the time nor the desire to undertake a long research on this account; but I can well say that, on one side, the manuscript does not favor this suspicion, while in it, every time that an author or document is changed, a new title is prefixed and a new line is begun; C and on the other, that those two comparisons tie in very well with the intention of the Epistle, in the beginning of which the error of those who, from orthodox sentiment, imagined D *passionem apponi* to the Divinity, is touched upon and refuted. Perhaps this style will not appear to some to be that of St. John Chrysostom; but to no one else does the style of St. John Chrysostom appear to be even that of the other fragments printed beforehand. I will not refrain from saying that this Epistle renders itself very suspicious to me, also from the knowledge that in the infinite codices containing the works of St. John Chrysostom it is not found: for it is certain that such a general omission of an authentic monument could not have originated except from its extreme rarity; but we see in the manuscripts of Italy, of France, of Holland, of England, that this Epistle was most known and common, where one part, where another, being found among various collectors of sentences and sayings who had it in hand; from which it seems possible to argue that it was only because it was not heeded, and because it was not reputed legitimate by all the copyists and compilers of the works of