And already I have completed the work which I undertook solely for the sake of the truth, and for the Church founded by Peter himself, not in the least to detract from the reputation A of Cajetan. The materials I have brought forward are most firm and most secure, from which it is established that Gregory was inaugurated as bishop of the Agrigentines by the Supreme Pontiff Agatho, while Justinian II was reigning with his father Constantine, and while the same Augustus held the scepter alone; furthermore, that he was vindicated from calumny in a Roman synod while Sergius sat on the chair of Peter, and at the same time was gifted by the pontiff with half of the Roman Canon for the people, which the same B Augustus Pogonatus, with most pious generosity, willed to be sacred. From this, let the Agrigentines understand both what a great bishop fell to their lot, and that their Church, having been augmented by such an ample and illustrious gift, must render thanks to the Panormitans, men most renowned in both holiness and the great pontificate, to whom, as a monument of an obedient spirit, they should set up an obelisk as a symbol of their gratitude and praise.
ANNO DOMINI DCCXCI.
ANONYMUS BECUCCIANUS
NOTITIA
(GALLAND. Vet. Patrum Biblioth. t. XII, p. 11.)Dominicus Becuccius, provost of the Church of Saint Felix ad Imam, edited at Florence in the year 1768, from a certain manuscript, a booklet of uncertain authorship, the title of which is *Dogmata orthodoxa*, etc. Its author nowhere appears. Our Gallandius, in his C writings, had referred to the author as Anonymus Damascenus. Becuccius, a man of great character, thinks he was a monk (p. 16), led by these arguments: first, because, as Mabillon testifies, it was the custom of monks to harvest certain things here and there from the Fathers, which they would append to the works of others, so that no pages in the codices would remain vacant at the end. Secondly, because he refers to John of Damascus by the title "our holy Father," who is known to have lived the life of a monk in the Laura of Saint Sabas. How much these points are worth, anyone can easily understand. It seemed best to me to name him D *Anonymus Becuccianus* after the name of his editor. For my part, I could easily believe him to be some pious layman who wrote out that brief and plain catechism for the religious education of his children, or a handbook, or an *Enchiridion*, as the ancients were accustomed to say. For toward the end he says: "I, indeed, my beloved sons, have set forth these holy dogmas for you... so that you may hold for certain that he who begot you believed thus," etc. Therefore, the fact that he bestowed the title of "our holy Father" upon Saint John of Damascus arises from the custom by which the Greeks were accustomed, piously and religiously, to call all saints by that name, even those who were not monks, or of the specific institute that we profess. Since, furthermore, our author is profuse in teaching the dogma concerning the veneration of images, it is clear that he lived after the Council of Nicaea I. Wherefore we have judged that he should not be placed before the year 791. Concerning the revelation of Gregory Thaumaturgus, see what Gallandius wrote regarding it.
ORTHODOX DOGMAS WHICH THE HOLY APOSTLES AND ALL THE HOLY FATHERS AND OECUMENICAL DOCTORS HAVE SET FORTH
We believe, just as we were baptized into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, in one God. For although the Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, yet there are not on this account three Gods, but one tri-hypostatic divinity. For in the Holy Trinity we confess one nature, one supersubstantial essence, one form, one kingdom, one power, one will, and one operation, one dominion, and one immutable A exaltation of the three hypostases, yet by this immutability moving all things by His divine command, providing for all, and administering all things according to what is profitable, even if these things are unknown to us. B We confess its three holy hypostases, three persons, or three individuals, not as one thing and another according to nature, but as one and another according to hypostasis: not differing from one another in nature, but rather in properties. For it is the property of the Father to be unbegotten, the property of the Son to be begotten, and the property of the Holy Spirit to proceed. The Father has not passed into the Son, nor has the Son become the Father or mother of God, nor has the Holy Spirit become Father or Son; but the Father was, and is, and shall be the Father; the Son, the Son; and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit. And we worship, and in confessing we glorify the blessed and super-divine Deity in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and these three hypostases in one Divinity; and we do not Judaize by reason of the monarchy, nor do we Hellenize by reason of the multiplication of the three hypostases. C Moreover, we do not say that there is anything greater, or lesser, or subordinate among the holy hypostases of the Divinity; but we glorify them all as co-beginningless, co-throned, and co-eternal; for the Divine is indeficient and beyond every nature and time. We believe, moreover, that the Son of God was begotten of
A the Father before all ages unchangeably and impassibly, without a mother, and through Him all things were made. And in the last times, by the good pleasure of the Father and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, the Son and Word of God descended and was incarnate of the holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, not changed in His divinity, nor feigning the economy; but being perfect God, He became perfect man, intellectual and animate; not bringing His flesh down from heaven, as some of the impious heretics have said, nor having passed through the holy Theotokos as through a pipe; but from the undefiled Theotokos He took it, and was born of her, keeping her a virgin even after the birth, being motherless in the former, and fatherless in the latter. B Whence we confess His two births, so that we may speak of Him as the same God and man. We do not say that there are two hypostases of Him, as the impious Nestorius dared to say, along with his followers; but we speak of one hypostasis of Him even after the incarnation. For His holy flesh subsisted in the hypostasis of the Word of God Himself, and it had and has this hypostasis; whence we confess one and the same God and man, our Lord Jesus Christ. For He is Himself the anointing and the anointed: anointing indeed as God, but anointed as man. And He was called Christ in His second birth, and not as the Origenists claim, before the ages. We speak of and confess Him as twofold in nature, namely perfect God and perfect man, passible indeed in His humanity, but impassible in His divinity; experiencing hunger and thirst, eating and drinking, laboring and sleeping voluntarily and according to the law of nature. And as God He performed divine and glorious things: turning water into wine, opening the eyes of the blind, raising the dead, walking upon the sea with dry feet, and the rest; C just as He accomplished human things as man. We acknowledge two wills of Him, and two energies, divine and human. And when you hear of two wills in the Lord, do not understand them to be fighting or opposing one another. But the human nature performed the same things that His divine will desired; for whatever He willed, He was able to do and did; for He was in need of nothing else. He suffered voluntarily, was scourged, spat upon, and crucified, and wounded in the side by a lance, from which blood and water flowed forth, the agent of salvation, and He died as man. But as God He arose by His own authority, raising those who had slept from the ages—not all, but the worthy. For forty days He conversed with His holy disciples after His resurrection from the dead, living with them, and was taken up into the heavens with His immaculately and life-creating body, while His holy disciples were looking on. We believe that He shall come again with incomparable glory to judge all as God, and to render to each according to his works. We worship
A His precious and holy passion, through which He honored us, glorifying His resurrection, and His blessed power and kingdom, unto the ages of ages. Amen.
We confess also one baptism for the remission of sins. Amen.
We confess the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come.
It must be known that the divinity of the Word remained inseparable from His holy flesh, even in the time of the passion, and in death; and in the tomb He was with the body, and in Hades with His holy soul, B and in heaven with the Father and the Spirit, and everywhere as God and Son of God, His divinity remaining impassible. And He deified His own flesh inconfusedly and unmixedly; the same is circumscribed and uncircumscribed.
Exposition of Theology, which the wonderworker Gregory was taught by our Lady the Theotokos and ever-Virgin Mary, and by Saint John the Theologian and Evangelist.
One God, Father of the living Word, of subsistent wisdom and power and of an eternal character; perfect begetter of the perfect, Father of an only-begotten Son. One Lord, alone from alone, God from God. Character and image of the divinity, active Word, Wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and power productive of the whole creation. True Son of a true Father; invisible of the invisible, and incorruptible of the incorruptible, immortal of the immortal, C and eternal of the eternal. One Holy Spirit, having existence from God, and having appeared through the Son, namely to men, the perfect image of the perfect Son, life and cause of the living; holiness and supplier of sanctification. In whom is manifested God the Father, who is over all and in all; and God the Son, who is through all. A perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and kingdom, not divided nor alienated. There is therefore nothing created or servile in the Trinity, nor anything superadded, as if it did not exist before and later entered in. For never did the Son fail the Father, nor the Spirit the Son. Nor was the monad ever increased into a duality, or the duality into a Trinity; but D the same Trinity remains always immutable and unalterable.
It must be known that nature, and form, and essence are one and the same. And hypostasis, and person, and individual, and character are one and the same.
The holy Mary, who gave birth to our Lord Jesus Christ, we worship and venerate.
Exposition of faith according to the revelation of Gregory, bishop of Neocaesarea.
A And we manifesty proclaim her as Mother of God, and Theotokos. For whoever does not confess holy Theotokos Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be Theotokos, let him be anathema, and let him be condemned to the more severe and painful punishment, because he has despised the only one to be honored, more glorious than the Cherubim, and more honorable than the Seraphim, the Lady of all creation. We also worship the precious and life-giving cross; for on it was crucified our God, and He sanctified it; and as we kiss it, we are filled with light and sanctification. We venerate the holy angels, namely all the heavenly powers, as God’s own domestics, servants, and ministers, as though we were enclosed and defended by a wall through them, having them as protectors and guardians. Moreover, we worship and honor holy John, the forerunner of Christ, and the holy apostles, prophets, and martyrs, and the renowned patriarchs and teachers, the holy and the just, as sincere servants and friends of our God. We also worship the holy image of the Lord Jesus Christ, not regarding it as God, but as the image of the same Christ and our God, knowing that the honor of the image is transferred to the prototype. We also worship and venerate the holy image of the immaculate Theotokos, and from it we receive sanctification and various healings, both of soul and body. We also worship the holy images of the holy angels and of all the saints.
C The holy gift, of which we Christians partake, is not a figure of the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, but it is that very holy body and precious blood of the Lord; whence those who worthily partake of it are filled with the holiness and glory of the Son of God. Orthodox priests we honor as angels of God. Moreover, we honor and venerate the relics of the martyrs and of all the saints as we would the saints themselves; for even if they seem to be but bare bones, yet they pour forth healings. Thus, therefore, do I believe; thus is my opinion; for thus I received it from my ancestors and from the blessed and holy ecumenical teachers. I believe, then, everything that has been preached by the holy apostles, and by Great Basil, Gregory the Theologian, Pope Leo of Rome, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, the thrice-blessed John Chrysostom, and our holy Father John the monk of Damascus, and by the rest of the theologians. Those who do not hold faith in their dogmas I excommunicate as impious and enemies of God. For I bless those whom they have blessed, and I curse those whom they have cursed.
Moreover, my beloved children, I have explained to you these holy dogmas, which I have collected from many books; and which I have explained in a summary, so that you may read them daily, and that through them your hearts may be strengthened in the true and orthodox faith; for certain and known
are those things which He who begot you also believed. In these is my hope, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come, when our Lord Jesus Christ, the true God, shall come in infinite glory to judge the world and to render to each according to his works, A while the superior powers attend Him in fear and trembling, and He delivers the prince of darkness and the rebellious spirits under him into Tartarus and eternal punishment, together with the Antichrist.
DEFINITION OF THE CATHOLIC FAITH
(From the Latin version of that illustrious man, Jo. Lamius).I believe in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the consubstantial Trinity, one divinity, one power, one authority, one will, one operation, that is, one God in three B indicated persons—intellectual, perfect, existing in themselves—distinct in number but not distinct in divinity; for the divinity is one in the three, and these three are one, in which whatever exists is the divinity. I confess, moreover, and believe in one of the holy and consubstantial Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before the ages, indeed, intemporally and incorporeally; but in the last days, for us and for our salvation, incarnate by the Holy Spirit and of Mary the Virgin and truly Theotokos, with a body ensouled by a rational and intellectual soul, having become man in all things according to likeness, except for sin; perfect in divinity and the same one perfect in humanity; consubstantial with the Father according to the divinity, and consubstantial with us according to the humanity; from two natures and C in two natures recognized, unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly.
A COMPENDIOUS EXPOSITION OF THE FAITH
Interrogation. How many natures do you confess in the holy, consubstantial, and uncreated Trinity? Response. I confess one nature. Interrogation. How many substances? Response. One substance. Interrogation. How many forms? Response. One form. Interrogation. How many wills? Response. One will. Interrogation. How many hypostases, or persons? D Response. I confess three hypostases—of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Interrogation. Who from the holy Trinity was made man? Response. The Son and Word. Interrogation. How many natures do you confess in the Son of God, who for us was made man?