Theodosius of Alexandria

ANNO DOMINI DXXXV. THEODOSIUS THE ALEXANDRIAN. NOTITIA. (Ang. Mai, Spicileg. Rom. t. III, p. 710.)

Timothy succeeded to the Alexandrian cathedra, already stained by the worst errors, followed by Theodosius, who became the author of the new sect of the Theodosians or Corrupticolae. And indeed, Saint Sophronius (Mirac. XII, p. 170) mentions that the heretical Theodosians were still prevalent at Alexandria in the following century, that is, the seventh. Cosmas also recites some fragments of this Theodosius in Greek (lib. x, p. 331), but they are not at all consistent with our copious Arabic codex 101, to which we return anew.

THEOLOGICAL FRAGMENTS

EPISTLE

I confess that the Word of God is consubstantial with his Father God, and that he never ceased to be what he was in existing with Him, Light from Light, Truth from Truth, the living image of the Father from whence He possesses existence; and finally, having taken on flesh, He was made man. We affirm to those who wisely and lovingly heed this great mystery, that the Word, being God by nature, was furthermore made man, without however ceasing to be his true divinity; that He voluntarily took on poverty, and omitted nothing that pertains to humanity; that He was made one with the flesh, without the change of His own properties; I speak of the flesh with its passions, and with a rational and intelligent soul; that He assumed our likeness in all things without sin. For the Scriptures say that He committed no iniquity, nor was any guile found in his mouth. For it was fair that in the nature which Adam had, He should also obtain the victory and destroy death. Wherefore Paul, as if to teach us the cause for which our Savior was made man, says: "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. II, 14, 15). If we, over whom the demon triumphed, were of one nature, and God the Word were of another, ^A outside our own, and if He had not assumed the nature with which He was made one essentially, and had rendered it impassible and immortal while He was taking on flesh, as certain heresiarchs have boldly asserted, then our faith would be empty, nor would it appear as a great thing that the Lord had triumphed over the devil. Again, unless Christ had brought back victory over him, and had not had in his own flesh those qualities which can exist without sin—namely, unless His flesh were on a par with ours, both as regards essence and as regards capacity for suffering—finally, unless He had destroyed death by His own flesh, the sting of death, which is sin, would never have been destroyed, and consequently the power of death itself would not have been extinguished. But since He in reality drew his origin from the seed of David, and assumed the likeness of us, his own brethren, in all things, sin alone excepted, as wise Paul says, He triumphed by his own death, which He voluntarily received into his nature, which is passable; and He had truly taken upon himself our passions, as many as are devoid of sin: He triumphed, I say, over him who holds the power of death. ^B Although as God He is truly impassible. Why then should we not glory in such a victory, having been vindicated from servitude into liberty? Who would not marvel at the mystery of the Scriptures, which expel Eutyches, and declare him and his followers to be strangers to the Church?

LETTER OF THE SAME THEODOSIUS, PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA, WRITTEN FROM EXILE TO THE CHRISTIAN PEOPLE OF ALEXANDRIA.

^A Since you are Christians, brothers, you ask of me that I announce the straight dogma of the faith to you. Yet I well know that he who is about to teach the learned ought not to be an ignoramus, lest he invite a rich man to his banquet as if he were a pauper. But my capacity for understanding is brief, and as Moses once said, I do not dare to speak, and I am of slow tongue. Meanwhile, however, in order to refresh your souls, o lovers of God, I signify to you that I retain a straight and in no way distorted faith: and I say that I believe in the God of my fathers, the almighty God, and in his beloved Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and also in the life-giving Holy Spirit, according to the decrees of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers gathered at Nicaea, as well as those one hundred and fifty who gathered in the royal city, and the others who celebrated the council at Ephesus and deposed the impious Nestorius; as well as those who likewise stripped Apollinaris of his authority, and proposed for us to believe in the one nature of the Word of God. I confess, moreover, that the Son whom we adore is one, God and man at once. I confess that the holy Virgin Mary is the mother of the Word of God, who is from God the Father, and that she gave birth to him in the flesh. I confess the salutary sufferings borne by our Lord Jesus Christ for our redemption, and that he himself suffered in the flesh, died in the flesh for us, and established himself as the firstborn of the dead, who is life and, inasmuch as he is God, the giver of life. To all heresiarchs I say anathema, especially those who were the authors of these evils. (Theodosius continues by anathematizing by name Nestorius, Theodore, Theodoret, the adversary of Cyril, and Ibas; then a certain Andreas, and, what is more horrible, the entire Council of Chalcedon—which holy council St. Sophronius, in Mirac. xxxix, p. 487, says was especially hated by the Egyptian heretics—and Pope Leo, by whom he says the individual Emmanuel was divided into two natures. He soon proceeds:) I also say anathema to Eutyches, and to all those who deny that Christ is consubstantial with us in the flesh, but affirm that he is so with the Father in his divinity. Anathema, finally, to those who have attacked the twelve chapters of our holy father Cyril or anything else from his volumes.

We have set these things forth briefly to your charity. Let us now consider the words of the great prophet Moses, who commanded that two trumpets be fashioned of pure silver, so that ^B by them the priest might, when there was need, summon the Israelitic people to the tabernacle of the testimony. The wise Cyril interprets this thus, namely, that the priests of God must be gathered not once but twice. For thus the true Israel is called to the council, that is to say, the mind that looks toward God; and the faithful doctrine is delivered regarding the divinity and the incarnation which he wrought for our sake; so that the interior man might be created, a new man, I say, in the image of his creator. Wherefore we too have embraced the holy doctrines of that spiritual trumpet, namely, the divine Cyril.

We offer consolation to you all, faithful and true Israelites, and we all hasten to the true tabernacle of the testimony, which the one Christ has acquired for us with his own blood. Again therefore I say and believe in the almighty God, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, begotten of the Father before all ages, light of light, true God of true God. He for our salvation was made flesh from the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit working, and he turned out to be a man entirely similar to us, except for sin; because he did no iniquity, nor was guile found in his mouth. Hence it must be that the nature of Adam, in which he brought back victory, should obtain the triumphal crown through the death of Christ. For since he was crucified while living, he was made life, and the destroyer of death. The Apostle declared this cause of the admirable union, saying: Because the children have shared in flesh and blood, he also in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver them. For he never took hold of angels, but rather the seed of Abraham. Assuredly it was not difficult for God to destroy him who holds the empire of death; but rather he [was] freed.

^A For he willed to deliver him whom the demon had defeated; therefore he took from him what he truly took; he also received passions, insofar as they befitted him, and did not render him liable to sin. It would be otherwise, however, if the Word had come to us with a celestial body, or had assumed flesh without innocent passions, as the Phantastici wish, for we would not have reached glory at all. Now, because he was born of the seed of Abraham and made himself like his brothers in all things, save for sin, as we have said until now; and since he underwent passions in the flesh and even death for our sake, who otherwise, insofar as he is God, is impassible and immortal—for indeed we have acquired beautiful glory, and have been freed from the terrors of bitter death.

May these things be firm and ratified among you at all times. We also confess another person of the most holy Trinity, namely the life-giving Spirit who proceeds from the Father and is equally glorified with the Father and the Son. Farewell in the Lord. I show you, my dearest ones, my love in the Lord. Pray also for my weakness, that our most clement Lord may keep us in the right faith until the final breath, which is our only hope. To the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be praise now and always, through all the ages of ages. Amen.

So then, my most beloved brothers, believe. (The furious man goes on to heap up his anathemas against the orthodox who confess two natures in Christ. Then he proceeds against the Phantastici, the Incorrupticolae, and other heretics.) If anyone shall say that the Word before His resurrection possessed a body without those passions that are devoid of sin, so that ^B it was similar to a phantom or a shadow, let him be anathema. If anyone shall say that the life-giving body of Christ was corrupted in the tomb, let him be anathema; for it is written, “His soul did not remain in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption.” If anyone shall say that in the sacred body and precious blood of Christ, which we lift up upon the altar while we perform their liturgy, commemorating his death and passion, that a passion or death or corruption intervenes, let him be anathema.

HOMILY

DELIVERED BY THEODOSIUS, ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA, IN WHICH HE CONFESSES THE EQUALITY OF THE HOLY TRINITY, AGAINST THE PERFIDIOUS MEN OF HIS OWN TIMES.

That sonorous voice of the prophet Isaiah says, in chapter 6, when he had seen the great glory of God: “I saw the Lord of hosts sitting upon a throne high and lifted up; the Seraphim were surrounding him; six wings were to one, and six wings to the other; with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet; and with two they flew; and they cried one to another saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord of hosts.” By these voices three names were implied, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three persons, three subsistences. They said “Lord of hosts” to demonstrate to us amply that there is one God. They said one and simultaneously three, because God is in three hypostases or persons, yet one regarding nature, just as the holy Trinity is one.

Of these persons there is one power, one glory, one divinity, one empire. The Father did not exist in such a way at one time that he later begot the Son or the Holy Spirit; but the ^D Father is eternal in such a way that the Son and the Holy Spirit are co-eternal with Him. The Son is begotten of the Father, but the Spirit is diffused by the same. The Trinity is uncreated. And the Son was not created, but begotten of God the Father; and finally the Spirit is diffused from this very one. Let us therefore turn away from that bitter voice and diabolical words of Arius, the enemy of truth, whose name should not be mentioned. For all the heavenly orders shuddered when he uttered that harsh voice, namely that the Son of God is a creature. Let us equally repudiate the perfidy of the enemies of the Holy Spirit, who wage war against Him while affirming that He is established under a foreign command; by which statement these perfidious adversaries bring imperfection upon the holy Trinity. Nor let us admit the cursed words of Sabellius, who recognizes only one person in the holy Trinity.

Truly, the Seraphim, gifted with many eyes, did not teach us in that way—those who were unable to gaze upon that fire, namely the Lord of hosts, with whose glory heaven and earth are filled. Now, He who looks upon the earth and makes it tremble [is] God the Word,

^A who is in the bosom of the Father, consubstantial with the Father in all things, He descended from heaven and was incarnate of the holy Virgin Mary, and became man, not in the likeness of a phantom, but in the truth of reality, for the salvation of the human race; and He assumed for Himself from our very substance a body, common with us, sin excepted, endowed with a soul and mind—a rational soul, I say; and He made it one body with Himself according to person, without confusion or commixtion, mutation or conversion. The divinity was not changed into a body, nor did the body pass into divinity, but each nature remains within its own limits (8). Nor are these two natures divided—not at all; which is what Nestorius says, who divided the Indivisible, namely the one Christ, into two ^B natures (9) after the ineffable union, and received two in God in place of the one Son Jesus Christ our Lord, dividing the indivisible God, and constituting a quaternity in place of the Trinity. For he says that we ought to believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and also in Christ; trampling upon that divine voice which cries out in the Gospel: *I and the Father are one* [John x, 30]; and: *He who sees me, already sees my Father* [John xiv, 9]. But if we perchance admit this duality, just as the impious Nestorius speaks, are we to worship out of two? God or man? If we say that we worship the Christ born of the Virgin, or Emmanuel, which is translated "God with us," we shall be rebuked by the voice of the Father crying out over the Jordan: *This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased* [Matt. iii, 17]. For He did not say, "This is the son of Mary," but said: *He in whom I am well pleased is my beloved Son*, not according to humanity but according to divinity; for He is not the son of Mary according to divinity (if it be viewed separately), but according to the economy of the humanity which He assumed from the God-bearing Mary without human seed, so that He might become one with the body according to person. And thus God the Word received the salvific passion in His own body, with which He was one according to person.

Afterwards, Theodosius gradually deflects toward Monophysite doctrine, and inveighs openly against the holy Roman Pontiff Leo on account of that dogmatic epistle to Flavian of Constantinople, ^C the author of which the Greek Church has called a pillar of faith. Theodosius, however, most falsely and calumniously says that Christ was divided by him not only into two natures but also into two persons. For Leo says among other things: "One and the same is, which must often be said, truly the Son of God, and truly the son of man." And presently: "The unity of person in either nature is to be understood." And finally: "We confess one Son of God and Word and flesh." Theodosius then proceeds to the questions of Saint Dionysius of Alexandria with Paul of Samosata; whereby it comes about that we gain from this a new testimony of the truth of that Dionysian epistle, of which there is long discussion in the preface of the most recent Roman edition of the works of the aforementioned father, who preceded Theodosius in the Alexandrian see with better doctrine and reputation. He also mentions the errors of the Manichaeans, the Phantasiasts, and the Eutychians against the Lord’s incarnation. For it is proven that the Monophysites also dissented from Eutyches, whose gross heresy Severus and other more recent [writers] greatly tempered. Finally, Theodosius also ^D rebukes Julian of Halicarnassus, who was the prince of the Incorrupticolae. Having now interposed many things, mixing truth with error, he speaks thus: We do not say Christ is in two natures after the union, but with our holy Fathers we say that Christ consists of deity and humanity; and that these two make one according to person. Wherefore we also affirm with the great apostle Peter that Christ suffered in the flesh, although living in spirit; [that He] suffered in the body in which was the divinity. Nor do we say that any of the passions extended as far as the divinity; for we rather deny that; but we say that the divinity knew the passions which were inflicted upon the body. Indeed, if perchance we were to affirm that the passions of the body were unknown to the divinity, we would be inventing a phantom with Eutyches, etc.

He then objects to himself as if from Arius that passage: *The Lord created me as the beginning of his works* [Prov. viii, 22]. He contends that this expression is to be understood not of the deity of the Word, but of the body assumed by the Word. This body, he says, united to the deity, is the wisdom of God; this body is the head of the Church, the prince and firstborn of the dead. For this reason Christ is called Emmanuel, namely God with us, or man and God. For this reason also this body, coupled to the Word, is called the beginning of the works of God, etc. I omit many things which Theodosius says to this effect from the prophets and the Gospels, among which he also strives to remove the crime of patripassianism from himself and his sect. For he says manifestly that the deity is superior to all passions; [and] that Christ suffered and died as man, and is impassible and immortal as God. Finally, he thus concludes, speaking of the one Christ composed of deity and humanity, with a signal testimony concerning the body and blood of the Lord present in the Eucharist. If this body, he says, which we consume, and this precious blood, are not of God the Word, but only the body and blood of a man, then the Jews themselves will rebuke us, who saw the very life of them suspended before their own eyes, and yet did not believe Him; and rebuking [us] they will say: Why do you rebuke us, as if we had crucified God?

(8) If Theodosius were consistent, his error would be seen as a mere war of words. (9) Understand "two separate natures," which was the opinion of Nestorius, who thought that the deity had supervened upon the man Christ, as if upon some prophet, by a certain moral and gracious conjunction.

^A Oriental churches, although heretical, had no doubt that the body and blood of the Lord were hidden under the species of bread and wine!

OTHER FRAGMENTS

Of Theodosius, Bishop of Alexandria, on the fortieth day of the Assumption of the Lord.

Today human nature is transferred to heaven: today heaven is opened and man enters therein.

By the same, in another sermon.

It is not a great thing that God should have conquered the devil.

By the same, in the Great Church, after the reading of the Gospel saying: "Father, if it be possible, let it pass," etc.

The passions of this flesh, and the indications of the passion, such as anguish, sweat, sorrow, and the agitation of the soul, are symbols of human nature.

By Theodosius of Alexandria.

Furthermore, there is a single divine operation belonging to both, inasmuch as we are accustomed to attribute all divine and blameless affections to one and the same [person].

* * *

^B And Cosmas: What are the adversaries going to say to these things? How can he, both in respect of the figure and in respect of the dogma, fail to provide testimony for us? ^C O pope, what great power of truth there is, which draws even its adversaries against their will to itself!

** Idem Cosmas. O marvelous thing! Here too, the very truth itself lays bare their rash contention. For if he says it is not a great thing for God to conquer while fighting with the devil—for to say the contrary would be of extreme madness: for to God, not only the devil, but also every creature is subject, and is reckoned as nothing; who is it that does not openly signify that it is the man who fights with the devil and overcomes? For this is clearly a great thing, since he had previously said that man, as a victor, had entered into heaven. But that he holds to this goal, he signifies again by crying out in these words: "For it was necessary, it was truly necessary that this nature, once conquered, should be adorned with a crown"; as if he were to say, this very nature which was overcome by the devil in paradise, namely, man; whom he has often and in many ways recounted as having been made better by the resurrection; this one, I say, he has declared with confidence to have been brought into heaven.

*** Idem Cosmas. O marvelous thing! They produce these things while quarreling with us, rending the Churches, and acting tyrannically. Where is it written that he was in an agony and sweated, except in Luke, who says: "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him"? How do they dare to say those things, while on the contrary they condemn those who dare to recount such things? Is it not plain that they act contentiously? Putting this aside, let us come to his predecessor who died recently, Timothy the Younger, and let us make it plain that he too, even against his will, agrees with our writings. For he writes, explaining that very passage in a sermon for holy Pascha, in the church of Saint Victor, after the reading from the prophet Isaiah which says: "He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearer is dumb": and in the exposition, after having made mention of this saying, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass," he holds as follows: ^D * φύσις γάρ ἐστιν, etc. (supra col. 267 C, in Timotheo).