Three Books against the Nestorians and Eutychians

it is said that the word "age" is frequently understood of a definite time, both among secular writers and in the sacred Scriptures, but that it cannot be understood in this way regarding punishment. For Christ himself said 37 that some would go "into life eternal," and others "into punishment eternal." ^B Either, therefore, we have accepted a definite span of life, which would be absurd, or both terms refer to that which is endless.

These points, then, for the demonstration of dogmas relying on true opinions, and for the refutation of those who embrace the depraved opinions of sects, Christ our God, that dispenser of good things, has provided for us in the very opening of our mouth; to whom be glory and power, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and unto the ages. Amen.

OF THE MONK LEONTIUS: THREE BOOKS AGAINST THE NESTORIANS AND THE EUTYCHIANS, WHICH UNTIL NOW EXISTED ONLY IN LATIN, TRANSLATED BY FR. TURRIANUS, IN H. CANISIUS’S LECTIONES ANTIQUAE, IN THE BASNAGIUS EDITION, VOL. I, P. 535 ET SEQ.; BUT NOW AT LAST THEY APPEAR IN GREEK FROM AN ANCIENT AND RARE MANUSCRIPT OF THE VATICAN LIBRARY.

PROLOGUE

^B When men dear to God and studious of divine dogmas had approved the disputations which we have frequently held in public, they exhorted us to provide them in writing with certain designations of the doubts and solutions of those matters on which we have often discoursed, so that these might be for them, as someone has said, a remedy for forgetfulness, a stimulation of memory, and a restoration of time which blots out all things. But we, having been frequently importuned, have delayed, both on account of many other things, and especially on account of two: the one, indeed, being that we were not equal to the task of writing, since we have neither received an external education, nor have we as yet attained the spiritual doctrine which divine grace supplies to those who are pure in heart; for I am not ashamed, being conscious of my own insignificance, when

^A those who are ostensibly wise are themselves entirely ignorant of this: moreover, the ungrateful memory which these men have of the olden labors which the holy Fathers undertook, brought much sloth to my mind regarding obedience to the commands of charity. For to those whom books written and published with such grace and wisdom of God, and also with the fullness of secular philosophy and other learning, have not persuaded, how could this brief discourse of mine, proceeding from the poverty of both my mind and tongue, be able to persuade?

^B However, we have now at last determined to obey the kindly commands, even if we did not do so at first; for they did not command us to take care of those who are already robust and in a sound state. And so we have composed three books in all; of which the first contains in summary the objections and counter-arguments of the contrary and falsely named knowledge of Nestorius and Eutyches, encompassing almost all of their questions in a few words; and we have divided the book into chapters, so that each chapter might contain those things which could be referred to it. The inscription of this book has been adapted to the subject matter at hand: A Refutation of the contradictory fiction of Nestorius and Eutyches regarding the divinity and humanity of Christ, because the one, using specious names with respect to the divinity, and the other with respect to the humanity, as to each seemed fit, hand down a fabricated doctrine.

^C The second book is directed against those of our own side who have approached the corrupt opinion of those who held that the body of Christ was incorruptible before the resurrection, who are on that account called Aphthartodocetae. Most justly, however, are they to be accused who know the difference, properties, and operations of the one and only Lord and God and Savior of us, Jesus Christ. For those who set themselves against the natures, and deny their difference after the union, and wickedly confuse the properties and operations that are within them, we do not so much laugh at on account of their ignorance, as we grieve for and pity them on account of their impiety, since they are in doubt about the manner of the union of the natures, which they neither concede nor premise as existing. For it behooved them first to have it laid down and fixed as a principle that the nature of Christ’s divinity and the nature of His humanity ^D exist and are preserved after the union, and thus to inquire afterward how they stand in relation to each other, and how they are. The style of this book is formed in the manner of a debate and dialogue, and nothing, I think, has been left out of those things which related to the question at hand and were useful. Moreover, so that the persons might not be confused, the person of the one in doubt has an asterisk marked upon it; the person of the one resolving the doubts, the figure of a cross. Nor was this done rashly. For by the mark of the star, we signify the tenuous and unexpressed knowledge of the person in doubt; but the defender of the truth we have armed with the trophy of the cross. This book is therefore inscribed: A Dialogue against those of our own who have joined themselves to the corrupt opinion of the Aphthartodocetae—that is, of those who held that the body of Christ was incorruptible before the resurrection.

^A The third and final book contains the refutation of those who pretend to hold the great and ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, while professing the doctrines of Nestorius. For these men, just like the rest of the followers of heresies, appear to accept the divine Scriptures and the preceding holy councils; yet they do not hold their internal convictions in accordance with them, but use them as a mask for their own impiety in order to deceive the simpler-minded—just as Apollinarius and Macedonius used the Council of Nicaea; Nestorius, besides that one, also the Council of Constantinople; and Eutyches, in addition to others, the Council of Ephesus. Thus, these men too pretend to accept the holy Council of Chalcedon, at once concealing their own impiety under the trustworthy reputation of those persons, and at the same time paving the way for their own assault against the truth. We, desiring to uncover their cunning along with the impiety intertwined with it, have directed our refutation back to the first Fathers of this impiety, bringing their origins and the fountains of their godlessness into the open; thus, we strive to block them off once and for all, and to stem the impious flood by the simple refutation of the truth. For in this way, the remaining flow of impiety will be made to vanish, since it is natural for the results of evil to be destroyed along with the destruction of their origins. We have divided the book of refutations into chapters, writing a number at the head of each chapter for the sake of easy memorization. The book is inscribed as follows:

On the Tacit Simulation and Origin of Nestorian Impiety, and the Exposure and Triumph over its Fathers.

^B We request those who are about to read this modest composition to grant us pardon if, at times, we have not dealt a mortal blow to our adversaries, or if we appear to have defended the truth more weakly than was fitting. ^C For we all equally fall short of the dignity of the subjects; yet in our zeal and love for piety, one of us excels another. Each person will, of course, receive a measure of grace according to their own preparation. We would also urge the reader that, if anything we have said seems to them not clearly expressed—either because of the abstruseness of the question or because of the varied significance and property of certain terms—they should not condemn it upon the first reading. For if they turn their attention to what has been said a second time or more often, they will find the meaning of what is said explained. ^D The reward perfect in itself for the labor put into inquiry will be the finding of the truth. Furthermore, we have appended to each book the authorities that support the positions we have laid out, confirming the truth of what has been said by the testimony of the ancients.

BOOK ONE: CONFUTATION OF THE TWO CONTRADICTORY FICTIONS, THAT OF NESTORIUS AND EUTYCHES, REGARDING THE DIVINITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST

^A It is my intention to set forth and explain the concepts of hypostasis and substance—that is, person and nature (for both are the same and concern the same thing)—which are confused and unexplained among those who are currently accounted wise. I also intend to explain other chapters related to the primary question, with God assisting us and supporting the weakness of our reasoning through the merit of your prayers; having confidence in these, I have applied myself to the treatment of this question. We are not unaware that those who oppose us—and who maintain a single conflict against us and the holy Fathers—dishonor us just as they do them, even though we follow and defend their teaching; or rather, they inadvertently honor us by sharing with us the reproaches they cast upon them. For these same men trifle with divine things and assault the theologians with abuse; and what wonder is there if they despise us, who are nothing? In them, this alone is worthy of admiration: that they studiously neglect every virtue that consists in action, yet command themselves to be wise; they are prudent solely by command, as it were, and by edict; it is their mere desire that has rendered them learned, so that one of the more urbane men has wittily and daintily named them ^B "acrophilosophers." But we must not, because of their depraved will, abandon our frankness or our struggle; on the contrary, we should be stimulated and spurred to fortitude by the contests of the blessed men, so that the same thing may happen to us as happens to iron, which, when it is most hot, is tempered and hardened by being immersed in cold water. And we, while we struggle against these men, are strengthened for the prize of the contest. Come then, let us, with the penetrating word, like a two-edged sword, cleave through their line of battle, arrayed as it is on both sides against the truth, and breaking through from right and left, let us cast them down, beginning here. The disciples of Nestorius in the idol-worship of Christ’s humanity, and the disciples of Eutyches in their fiction—or rather, the disciples of both fictions, for it is well that a pious and ^C

Book 1

^A ... a living man, as he called the authors of the contrary fiction; for some say that the divinity in the Saviour exists by appearance, and others the humanity. Nestorius defends his theory of the divinity by [appealing to] his good pleasure and dignity; Eutyches [defends] his ineffable flesh in place of that which is natural and ours. Thus, with honorable names and decorous words, as if with feigned colors, they strive to embellish the foulness of an impiety which is indeed contrary, but nonetheless equal. As if our aim were to use elegant names, and not rather to gaze upon the truly golden face of truth, than which nothing is more lovely, even if no elegant or splendid thing be added to it. For it has no need of ornaments, since it shines with natural beauty; nor of words, as if of pigments for a painted and fallacious appearance. These men, therefore, fighting both against themselves and against the truth, have divided the war against it by means of contraries, abusing the same propositions for their own respective ends, so that the agreement of this contrary impiety is overturned by the disciples of the same truth with a single argument of truth, and the concord of wickedness brings forth a copious victory: for by the same arguments with which we refute one of those who are linked in impiety, by these same we ^B at once refute the other.

It should, however, be noted that the same thing has happened regarding the incarnation with Eutyches and Nestorius, as happened regarding the Trinity with Sabellius and Arius; for those men also, through contraries, fell into the same evil. Sabellius, indeed, because of the substance, confounded the hypostases into one hypostasis; but Arius, because of the hypostases, divided the substance along with them. These men, conversely, do the opposite: Nestorius divides the natures into hypostases, while Eutyches commingles the natures into one nature. For by the same disputations and arguments that the Trinity was divided by the men of earlier times, by those same we find the oikonomia—that is, the incarnation—to be confounded by those of later times. And those by whom the oikonomia is now divided, the others confound the divinity by them. Come then, let us bring their sophistic propositions into the midst of our discourse, and as if in a court of law, let us give place to their accusations; and thus we shall endeavor to dissolve those things which they have uselessly and vainly devised against the truth.

For they say: "If you say there are two natures in one Christ, and a nature is not without a hypostasis, therefore there must be two hypostases." Now, as I have said, the struggle is common to both, although the goal is different. For those, that is, the Nestorians, have used the same argument so that they might introduce hypostases along with the natures; while the others, that is, the Eutychians, [have used it] so that through the hypostases they might abolish the natures too. But let those who follow the party of Eutyches hear this. For we have one common struggle against both, and another which is specific towards...

them. ^A What is it that you say? Do you speak simply of one nature? No, they say, but of one incarnate. And nothing prevents us from joining with you, for we hold the one nature of the Word which you speak of, as being granted and conceded by you. But let the dispute be concerning the other nature, which we call a nature other than that of the Word, but which you are accustomed to call "flesh." What do you say concerning this flesh? Does it possess a nature or substance, or even a part of a nature? As for the amount, it is in your power to call it whatever you wish—a half, a third part, or any other minimal portion. And so that I may employ the same form of argument with you, is the flesh ^B lacking in substance, or void of nature? And how will you escape your own difficulty? For if the flesh is without substance, or outside of nature, show what it is and how it happens to be, and we will be satisfied. But if it is the height of ignorance to posit a flesh that is not what it is even called, or is not called what it is, how will you escape the proposition which you yourselves have put before us? For if the flesh is not lacking in substance, that is, if it does not lack a nature, and there is no nature without a hypostasis, then the flesh cannot be without a hypostasis. It is time, therefore, for you either to do away with the nature of the flesh entirely, or to assign two hypostases to the Lord, according to your own law, which says: "There is no nature without a hypostasis." For if there is no nature without a hypostasis, and you speak of the nature of the Word, you will then give a hypostasis to the Word also. And thus, ^C the question remains concerning the flesh: whether, if it does not have its own nature, it is called flesh, and being so called, has a hypostasis; or if, not having a hypostasis, it also loses its nature. Thus, then, you are caught in your own difficulties, and no trickery will make you outside the reach of the charges of which you have accused us. If you solve even one question, you will appear worthy of great honor. If there is no nature without a hypostasis, and yet you concede that the Lord is from two natures, then he must also be from two hypostases. We leave it to your judgment, then, to decide who is guilty of the Nestorian division of hypostases. We dismiss you, then, as refuted by these arguments. But with those who err from the truth in the opposite way to ^D us, we shall dispute as follows:

Against the Nestorians and Eutychians

It is not the same thing, O men, to be a hypostasis and to be enhypostaton, just as it is one thing to be a substance and another to be in a substance. For a hypostasis indicates a particular individual, while enhypostaton signifies the substance. And a hypostasis defines a person by its characteristic properties, while enhypostaton signifies that it is not an accident which has its existence in another and is not discerned in itself. Such are all qualities, even those called substantial, of which none is a substance—that is, a thing existing by itself—but is that which is always discerned in relation to a substance, such as color in a body and knowledge in a soul. He, therefore, who says, "There is no nature without a hypostasis," speaks the truth; however, he does not conclude rightly when he reckons that what is not without a hypostasis is a hypostasis—just as if someone were to say that there is no body without a shape, speaking the truth, and then were to conclude incorrectly that the shape is a body.

^A Nature, therefore, that is, substance, can never exist without a hypostasis; yet nature is not a hypostasis, for it does not reciprocate. For while a hypostasis is also a nature, a nature is no longer [necessarily] also a hypostasis. For nature receives the definition of essence; but a hypostasis [receives] also that of existing in itself; and while the one holds the definition of the species, the other is indicative of the individual. And the one reveals the character of a universal thing, while the other distinguishes its own particularity from the common. In short, things of the same nature are properly called consubstantial, and those for which the definition of existence is common; but the definition of a hypostasis is either things which are the same according to nature but differ in number, or things composed of different natures, which at the same time possess a communion of existence and hold it in one another—and in this way I say they participate in existence, not as complementaries of each other’s substance (which is what is seen in substances and in those things which are substantially predicated of them, which are called qualities), but as though the one nature and substance were not contemplated by itself, but together with the one that is composed and grown together with it. This is something one might find in other things too, and not least in the soul and body, for which the hypostasis is common, but the nature is proper, and the definition ^B is different.

Against the Opponents of the Union

But they say: "Even if man is composed of things of different species, neither of them possesses existence without the other. The Word, however, exists even before his humanity. And while man consists of imperfect parts, Christ has perfect parts, and in this respect, they could not even rightly be called parts." How, then, do you take the composition of man as similar to that of the Word and the incarnation, when it possesses nothing similar? These are the objections raised by the Nestorians, that is, the patrons of the contrary opinion and of division. For it pleases the others—the Eutychians, I mean—to say that the example is not taken aptly or conveniently, but very ignorantly, and as the confusion of the prototype demands, as if it were a vivid image of that [confusion]. But that this is not our own invention, but one we have received from our ancestors, as the proverb has it, "son from father," the writings of the theologians testify, ^C in which they used this example of man composed of soul and body in the matter of the union. Yet they do not act rightly who apply force to make the example hold in the same way as the prototype. For it would no longer be an example if it did not have something dissimilar. For we did not take man as an example because the parts were prior, nor because they were simultaneous, nor because they were imperfect. We grant, indeed— ^D that someone who takes the example to a further, more complete union is not called a hypostasis. Soul and body, of which man is composed and completed in his species or human nature, are enypostatic. This agrees with the definition of Damascene in *Logic*, ch. 44.

^A And those people, by treating the example badly, call them imperfect, whereas they are not so according to the account of existence, as we shall demonstrate later. We took the example in order to declare that the Word is united to the substance itself—namely, to the body taken from us—and is never seen without it, although it preserves the difference even in the union, just as the common man also does. For in neither case are the properties seen to be confused. For our soul has not become visible and mortal from being invisible and immortal, nor has the Word become visible or mortal, although both our soul and the Word have come to be in a visible and mortal body. For it preserves without lack each of the aforementioned: both the common man, consisting of soul and body, and the Savior, subsisting from divinity and humanity. But they take the example not insofar as it is ^B similar, but insofar as it differs, and they labor poorly over their questions; just as if, when we take the splendor of the sun for the sake of an example in the case of the Word and the Father, because of the connection of the emission of the splendor with the sun, they harass us as if by this reasoning we were making the Word not to subsist by itself.

That man is not composed of imperfect parts, at least according to the account of what it is to be one or the other, even if, in relation to the definition of the whole man, it does not receive the account of the parts as the whole, you may learn here. For what would be lacking to the soul, having a separate and own life, to be an incorporeal, self-moving substance? For this indicates that it is immortal and imperishable. And what is lacking to the body to be a body? Those who define it say that a body is that which is extended in three dimensions, or a natural organic body potentially having life; for both of these definitions will fit our body appropriately. Therefore, ^C these are not imperfect when taken by themselves, even if they are called imperfect again in relation to the subsistence of the whole in which they are parts. For by this account, one would not go astray if he interpreted the mystery concerning Christ. For it is imperfect if one takes it either as God naked or as man likewise naked without divinity, so that from this it appears that there is a double definition of perfection in Christ, one that is spoken of simply, ^D and another that is viewed in relation, according to the great Gregory. For the Word is perfect and full and provides perfection; and the soul of man is perfect, in relation to the definition of its existence. But not even the Word is a perfect Christ, even if he were a perfect God, without the humanity being joined to him; nor is the soul a perfect man, even if it has a perfect substance, without the body being conceived with it. And it is necessary to note this, that times and places are not included in the definitions of things, just as types are not. For they only hold the account of those things without which something cannot exist. Furthermore, every definition of the present matter is [index: entries preserved]

^A of that which presently is, not of that which will subsequently result from it. Otherwise, nothing among those things that come into being could receive a definition of the essence it possesses, because nothing persists; but all things are changed into all things, undergoing birth and decay. Indeed, all rational substances, which receive "more" and "less" according to virtue, and which at one time exist in this way and at another in that, are observed in motion. For to remain in the same state is not characteristic of created nature, since it is said of God alone properly: "But Thou art the same" (Ps. ci, 28).

^B But, say the defenders of division, the soul is circumscribed in the body and receives passions and endures pains; why, if the Word is thus united to the soul, should it not be permitted to you also to subject Him to the same things, and to make the Word passible and circumscribed? What then? Do you not rather do these things yourselves, I would ask, which you charge against us? For you have feared to unite the Word to flesh and to the whole man, as if it were necessary that He be circumscribed and suffer. If, therefore, the Word is by nature able to suffer, or admits of circumscription of place, these things will be in Him for His own sake, and not on account of the union with a passible and circumscribed body; and thus He would be passible and circumscribable, even if He had not suffered nor been circumscribed. But if by nature He is immutable, and uncircumscribed, and impassible, even if He is in a body, He will preserve the property of impassibility and the account of immutability. For it is not observed that when He created the world, and brought it into this form when it did not exist before, He descended from the supra-mundane, and from that which is above essence, into these things which are in the world or around the world; or that He came from an uncircumscribed state to be circumscribed. Wherefore, He was not circumscribed, neither before, when He created the world and all that is in it, nor later, when the Son of God encompassed in Himself the great world in the small one, man. And what is the wonder? Since even the soul of man does not suffer these things simply because it is in a body, but because it has a nature to suffer them even when it is separated from the body; ^C otherwise it would fall under sight, and die, and suffer other things of the sort which belong to the body. Yet it has not suffered these things, because it possesses these things according to substance, naturally received from God. But it suffers, inasmuch as it has passive powers with which it migrates from the body, which the souls that are in Hades and their bonds declare, on account of which Christ was present there: "Who," as Peter says, "preached remission to the spirits that were in prison" (1 Pet. iii, 19). Impure demons also declare this, who are and shall be punished, although they are freed from human bodies.

But the soul indeed suffers simply, because it received passive powers fitted for its own utility; but it also suffers bodily passions on account of the union ^D with the mixture of the body to which it is joined, and the property of the places in which it might reside; to suffer...

^A being something it is simply born to do, it is receptive of such a passion. It is, moreover, circumscribed by the reason of its existence. ^B It is said to be circumscribed in a second way, insofar as it lives in a circumscribed body. It is affected also according to God by divine things, though by no means on account of the body. For how could it be on account of the body, which frequently resists? But rather on account of itself and its own nature, when the appetitive faculty is stretched with love toward God, and when the irascible faculty is manfully braced and steadfastly aligned with the appetitive faculty; while the rational faculty receives the immaterial appearances of things unseen without shadow or darkness, and is uniquely illuminated. And it has been well said by a man wise in God before us (c): “There is one good and eternal desire, which is that which longs for true knowledge.” For when the soul defiles these faculties, it falls into vice and ignorance, and it does not derive these vices from the body, even if some of them are carried out through the body; of which the Word of God could never receive anything, being immutable and unchangeable by nature. ^C Yet, because of the impassibility of His nature, He will not refuse to be joined substantially to human nature, lest the refusal might appear to be a true passion, and [lest He might seem] to fear to be in those things in which the souls of the zealous, having Him as helper and ally, have received no harm from the body, but have rather been full of God, having used the body not as an adversary but as a helper.

1.

of relations [is found]; for things which the same-species share with the different-species, by these they are distinguished among themselves; and with what they are distinguished from the different-species, by these they are joined among themselves. ^A For by number they are distinguished among themselves, but by definition they are joined among themselves, being distinguished from things of a different species. Since, therefore, two relations are contemplated according to the same Word, one according to which the Son is the same as the Father, and another according to which the Son is distinguished from Him; and the one is declared by the designation of nature, ^B while the other is known by the name of hypostasis: they, interchanging these relations, attribute to the flesh the relation that distinguishes [the Word] from the Father, being ignorant that the nature of God, which is the substance of the Word, is [the] whole of a perfect [thing] in a perfect [thing]; but that the property of generation has caused it to be called hypostasis and Son; just as, in turn, in the Father, the property of unbegottenness and of cause has manifested [Him as] hypostasis and Father. The same must be understood also concerning the Holy Spirit; for the nature of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit does not have the power of being complementary, as if it were less in one than in three. And this is the Trinity by nature, which is one thing of those who are seen in the Trinity, since it is not from three imperfects that one perfect [is made], ^C but from three perfects one supraperfect and anteperfect [is made], as the great Dionysius says somewhere. Since, therefore, six relations are contemplated by us, two of the Father to the Word, and of the Word to the Father; then two of the Word to the flesh, and of the flesh to the Word; and furthermore, two of Christ to us, and of ours to Him; there come to be three general conjunctions. And the first relation of the conjunctions is thus positioned, just as the third is from the first, but the second is from the middle; for those things by which the extremes agree with each other, they have in a contrary manner in the middle; just as, conversely, the middle [does]. For those things by which it has a contrary relation to itself, it has a convenient relation to the extremes; and those things by which, again, it has a convenient relation to itself, it has a contrary relation ^D to the extremes. These things having been briefly stated, I will endeavor to explain them by an example. Let there be set three things: soul simply, body simply, and man consisting of soul and body; and the relations of these among themselves, such as soul to soul, soul to its own body, man to soul simply, and to body simply. For soul to soul is united by the identity of substance, but is distinguished by the difference of hypostasis; this is the first and the last relation of the conjunctions. But soul to its own body is distinguished by the difference of nature, yet is united by the account of hypostasis, which the mutual life has rendered; this the second and middle relation preserves. Man, however, being related to body simply and to soul simply, as being wholly distinct from these, on account of the relation to his own parts, makes a second communion with them. Wherefore, Christ, being related to us and to the Father, thus...

^A being the whole made up of parts, through his own parts acts as mediator to the extremes, being the whole hypostasis in relation to us, and, along with his divinity, in relation to humanity, with the relations that exist according to distinction and union, which he has with himself, being made known through his own parts, and which he possesses towards the Father and us, through the affinity of the parts to the extremes. But one must listen to the mention of parts with discernment; for I do not say that these are parts as being imperfect by nature, but as complementary to the person of the hypostasis of Christ. For so it was said by Gregory and Cyril, that the whole is not one nature, both in an absolute sense and in a relative sense, and both as imperfect and perfect.

What then do they say? Do we not say one nature of man, although we know the things that have come together are different? Why ^B then does it trouble you, just as here we do not call the natures a nature to the destruction of the property of the parts, that we appear to do the same thing in the case of Christ? But you heap insults upon us and deride us, as if we were inventing a confusion in Christ, because we signify the parts by the appellation of the whole. If you wanted to call the parts by the name of the whole, you ought indeed to have declared the whole also by the naming of the parts, and thus there would have been no grudge against us. But by calling the Lord "flesh" or "man" instead, you would signify the whole from the part, and not by calling two natures one. For often speaking improperly causes a discrepancy of dogma. Whence we, according to the Divine Scriptures and the speculations handed down by the Fathers, ^C often signify the whole from the part, and the parts by the name of the whole, calling the Word the Son of Man, and confessing the Lord of Glory to have been crucified. But we do not thereby, through the communication of idioms, destroy the proper reason of the property of each one in the same. Furthermore, these are also clarified to us by their proper names, when we contemplate the communication of idioms in the one hypostasis, but recognize the property which is in the community in the difference of the natures. But you, using the example of man, destroy the example along with the prototype itself. For we say one nature of man, not as you would say, bringing the nature of the flesh into the substance of the soul, or the reverse; nor do we say that one is ^D made of out the other, nor that either is made out of the other. But we call this nature, not looking to the relation of the parts (for there is no reason that would harm their difference of nature even in the union), but we predicate the signification of the universal and the species of the particular and proper. For since, as those who discern logical arguments hand down, particulars participate in the universals, and universals are predicated of particulars; and of the individuals, there is a community towards the species according to [19-20] Communication of individuals. The communication of individuals to the species is according to nature, and not according to appellation: because the individual naturally participates in the species, which with

^A respect to the common appellation, permits the part to be called by the name of the whole, as I said. For since the one nature represents the whole of the human species, and nothing of those things numbered under the same species is of a different substance, the part is reasonably named by the appellation of the common. For it is not possible to find any particular human who exists in a different species relative to the universal human. But in Christ, such an order of relation is not found; for there is no species of "Christs," as there is of humans, so that from these, one might, in a way proper to the universal and common Christ, be called Christ himself, and one nature be said in relation to them and from them, such that we might call Him both one and two natures: one, indeed, by reason of the commonality of nature, but two, by reason of its parts, just as it is observed in us. For when the cause that is in us is not found in Him, that which is properly and aptly said in our case cannot be transferred to Him. It is manifest, however, here why humanity is called one, and yet two natures: one it has on account of the communication of the species, but two it possesses on account of the inalterability of its parts. But in Christ, since there is no species, how can two natures be called one? For we find three modes only, by which anything is said to be of one nature: either because it is a species; or because it participates in a species; or because by a confusion from diverse ^C species, a thing of a different species is brought to pass, which participates in both, and is neither purely the one nor the other—that which those who treat of these things call adulterate.

Against the denial of the two natures

Furthermore, lest two natures be spoken of in Christ, you oppose such doubts as these: for not so that you might speak of both two and one, as is the case in us, but so that you might speak of one only; for thence, even against your will, the passion of confusion comes upon you, and neither does the passion of division recede. For it is not necessary that one nature be one in number, but rather as many and as numerous as are the hypostases that fulfill that nature. Let us consider it also in this way: things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. Let an equilateral right-angled triangle be described; for as the first side is to the second, and the second to the third, so is the first to the last. Write down, therefore, the three sides, ^D and assign three persons to each side; and you will find that just as the first is to the middle, and the middle to the last, so the first will be to the last. Why do I say these things? Because if you allow the nature of the Word and of the flesh to be called one, it is communicated by nature; but the individual is not predicated of the nature in direct and customary predication; for we do not say: "Man is Peter." But the contrary occurs in the communication of universals to particulars. For this communication is according to appellation or predication, when universals are predicated of particulars by direct predication; for we say: "Peter is man."

^A And why do I say this? Because if you grant that there is one nature spoken of for both the Word and the flesh, yet you confess that there is one nature of the Word and the Father, you will therefore grant that there is one nature of the flesh and the Father. ^B "But we do not say," they state, "that the nature of each is one in the same way, but in the case of the Father and the Son, it is according to the identity of nature, whereas here it is according to the reason of union; therefore, what is called one by union is not the same as what is called one by nature." But if it is not the same, but rather it is that by one thing and this by another, then the same thing will be both one and two: one by union, but two by natures. If not this, then the same thing will be, according to the same respect, both consubstantial and heterousian, both one nature and not one nature; what could be more absurd than this? In this way, the one nature as spoken of by you does not escape either the division which nature possesses in the multitude of persons participating in it, nor the confusion which it has introduced into the identity of the composite nature, while it exhibits neither of the united things after the union. To us, however, both have been, by the grace of God, beautifully preserved: both the distinction of the united things, which we proclaim even in the union of the double nature, and the identity of the person, which is summarized through the concurrence of the united natures into one hypostasis.

^C As you thought best, you explained that in each individual man two natures are spoken of, and yet one; from which what follows, if not that in Christ we must confess not two natures only, but even three? How then, when confessing the one, do you refuse the other? Although the necessity of the argument compels you to say this, even if you are unwilling. What then do we say to these things? What else, but what is befitting for them, that the wisdom of a fool, according to Scripture (Eccli. xxi, 21), is as words not weighed or considered? For, when they do not masticate their own words, and therefore do not digest them, they emit to us—how shall I say it without nausea and disgust?—not well-smelling eructations and vapors from the evil foods of ignorance. For, whereas every investigation should examine what is in doubt and conclude an argument from what is conceded, these men (for they are not wise, except in their own lack of learning) pose what is conceded by all as if it were a matter for investigation, and represent what is manifest as if it were obscure. For the nature of man, according to the common notions of all, signifies soul and body, and—as I have often said—it signifies the parts along with the whole. These men, however, take as a doubtful matter what has departed from the thought of all, as if one of us were asserting that man is something double, either body alone or soul alone; and therefore they wish to speak of three natures in Christ, as if the nature of man were not sufficient to bring with it its parts. For we speak of two natures, not of God and flesh, nor

^A of God and soul, but of God and man. For the nature of man is not, strictly speaking, the nature of a part. So he who has spoken of man or the nature of man has made the natures clear; but he who has named Christ has named neither a name that is certain and subject to our notions, nor has he made the thing clear. And the various and mutually conflicting opinions concerning Him among Christians, which would not exist if the name of Christ at once signified the truth of the underlying thing, demonstrate this. Now the appellation of man is common, and familiar to all, and especially to Christians. But the name of Christ is like the name of an art or a science. For just as those names of art and science are known only to those who have grasped that discipline, so for those only who are learned in divine things is the truth hidden in this name explained. They themselves testify that what I say is true, who always affirm that Christ consists of two natures, and never have called Him to be of three natures, ^B even though they do attribute a rational soul to the flesh of Christ; for if they themselves were to begin with this lack of learning, and were to confess Him to be of three natures, we too would be content to accept what is confessed as being that from which He comes to be preserved in that in which these things are known to be: since they will be forced to say that He is from not just three, but from many more, as we shall demonstrate; because a simple and general notion of things makes us have universal—and not explained—knowledge: but the division of these things by reflection leads us to perfect knowledge of those things from which they consist. For this reason we make a division ^C of the whole into parts; but to attempt to divide into parts of parts after the first division is ridiculous. For it does not proceed thus far and stop here, but extends the inquiry to infinity.

For instance, so that what I say might be understood, the parts of man are body and soul; but the parts of his parts, in the soul, are the substance partaking of reason, and the incorporeal quality; and this is partly the faculty of reasoning, which is the chief, partly that of anger, partly that of desire, and that chief part among these forms notions; and it thinks, and remembers, and consults, and opines. The part of anger desires, and declines; the part of desire has the faculty of repelling, and of effecting, and many other things are divided beneath these. Let that question ^D be omitted now, whether these are in the soul as parts, or as powers, or faculties: and which are which. For we are not dealing with these things now. Again, the division of the body is made into similar and dissimilar parts; and of the dissimilar, into head, and hands, and feet; and these into bones, and flesh, and nerves; and these again into four elements; and these into matter and form. Many other things also are philosophized by the sons of physicians concerning natural faculties, of which they call one the faculty of attracting, another of retaining, another of changing,

^A and of separating another. There is also much talk about sense and imagination, and about the vital and organic spirit; which contains the animal, which, as they say, is another spirit besides the rational one.

As, therefore, it is sufficient, in order to signify all these things, to say "flesh" or "body of a man," and again it is sufficient by naming the rational soul to declare the parts into which it is divided (for it is not pleasing to the faithful, nor is it their custom, to speak in a technical manner); so it is sufficient to have said "man" or "human nature" to represent and declare everything of which he is composed and in which he is recognized. But these men speak capturingly, not to show a perfect man, but to calumniate the Lord and to alienate Him from our nature; as if He had either not assumed our humanity from the beginning or had not kept intact the pledge of the salvation of the whole nature which He had from us, which could not fail. But let them know that the confession of the parts, as I have said, is an indication that the whole is intact; but the repeated division of the parts into parts ^B is not of dogmatic brevity, nor of the concise speech according to the Gospel, but of skeptical speculation and of an artifice that is superfluous and for most people difficult to understand. For the parts of Christ, unconfused, are divinity and humanity. But the soul and body are not parts of Christ, but parts of the part; which being declared, by the perfect signification of the nature of humanity, the subdivision into the natures of the parts is superfluous, unless they wish to introduce the remainder of the division after the subdivisions which we used before in the case of the common man, so that hence it would be necessary to profess not only three, according to them, but even more natures in Christ: than which, what could be more ridiculous?

Since the whole war has been stirred up because the manner of the union is unknown to many, and for this reason ^C is doubtful to all, it is necessary to philosophize about it, so that we may know whether we disagree on this very point, or whether, while we agree on this, our inquiry is about what the union effects; and whether the controversy is about the things themselves, or about the words signifying the things themselves. For when the inquiry has been reasoned out clearly in this way, and the truth of the matters has been revealed, he who contradicts in ignorance or in impiety will be revealed, either to be corrected or to be censured in judgment.

Some have stated that the union of the divinity with the humanity was made according to substance, others according to energy, others according to will. ^D There are also some who, either having or affecting an excessive reverence toward God, stated that it was made in none of these ways, but pronounced it to be ineffable and nameless, whether they truly held this or not, for they certainly feared being accused of impiety. For we have even now seen some who, when they had a very clear and common notion of the union, called it "ineffable," so that they might not only make the opposite follow from the opposite—that is, by saying it is "ineffable" they might make it common—but that they might also evade the arguments by which they were being refuted. Just as others, indeed, concerning the flesh of the... [ineffable,]

Lord, preferred to appear in a feigned manner rather than defend that a confusion had taken place in that union, declaring that He was incarnate as He willed and as He alone knows. For it is not in order to prove these things that they betake themselves to a reverence that is truly alien to reverence—otherwise the truth would have led them to its own light—but so that they might licentiously abuse impiety, they flee to honorable terms as if to a certain strong and impregnable bulwark. Truly, indeed, the union ^A according to substance, and substantial, and in hypostasis can neither be spoken nor understood. For how could things that differ so greatly according to nature, and are so far apart, come together, and yet, once united, not be confused; but rather it is one, and two are recognized, and they are neither confounded in the oneness of the person, nor divided into ^B hypostases because of the properties of the natures? Faith alone grasps these things, and the divine Word, which declares these things not by the pronunciation of a voice, but by the illumination of the intelligence; and it instructs those who are worthy, not by sounding doctrine, but by a silent one.

Therefore, concerning those who suffer from a sickness regarding reverence, as long as their purpose is not manifest, no word should be spoken. But those who neither take confidence from the light, if they have obtained it, nor are troubled that they have souls surrounded by darkness, let them be rejected by us as incurable. But concerning others, we shall argue thus: Those who declare that the union was not made ^C according to substance, but according to operation, or good pleasure, or some other such habit of this kind, do not in any way approach the truth. Indeed, they have divided among themselves falsehood, which is manifold, with some pulling off one part of it and others another, and they are reconciled among themselves in a single aberration from the truth. For what kind of union can this be, and how is it worthy of the name of that union which is above nature, and which alone is after the only and first [union], if it does not connect things and bring them into the same [substance]? Whence it is a matter of wonder to me that, while these men profess and celebrate a union of this kind, they set against it that the natures are not confused and that they are immutable. For what mutation can they rightfully suspect in the division of things, who confound dignities ^D into a single dignity (for dignities can never become a dignity without confusion, just as natures cannot become one nature without mutation) while they separate substances? For the union of things is not the union of dignity. Otherwise, we would unite all those who have attained to divine dignity into one with the divine substance, and we would teach that there are two natures in each of the saints; for the quantity of dignity entirely divides those things which differ according to dignity; but by as much as it is present, by so much will it unite the natures; for it will not entirely separate them, since that which connects them is not entirely separated. For in as much as they participate in dignity, they must also participate in the reason of nature.

^A If, however, they wish to join the remaining saints, besides Christ, to some other person of the Trinity, let that be within the power which they possess in their impiety; for they have indeed been called gods, and sons of God, and holy spirits, according to the saying: "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. vi, 17). How, then, since all rational and blessed creation, as much as exists in angels and as much as exists in men, has been filled with the deifying and adoptive grace of the Spirit, did the One born of the Virgin alone come to be called God and Son of God in the Word, and is worshiped according to the Word by every rational nature? For it behooved the impious to know that, even if the preeminent part of the varied distribution belongs to those who are higher compared to those who are lower, yet the charisma of operation and the gift of dignity is common to all; and they should either join these with the Word of God, or with whichever one of those contemplated in the holy Trinity they wish, or with the whole ^B adorable Trinity in two natures, and divide into two, or three, or four hypostases. Or, if not with these, they should join them with the nature of the Word of God, and either compose them into one Son, or make Him homonymously the Son in comparison with the prototype Son; and not think these things, but utter others. For since the natural sonship is one, from participation in which all sonship exists, it is necessary that the man they fabricate must either participate in the natural sonship, or that which is produced by grace; and they must either join him to the Only-Begotten, as unions according to substance return what belongs to one nature to the other, or, not enduring to be pious, openly exclude him by assigning him to the company of the rest. But they do not speak out their impiety (for by nature evil is something that lacks ^C boldness), nor do they love the truth, nor do they fear the rewards of a deceitful tongue.

But let these men be driven out from the divine choir, along with the parents of this impiety, Nestorius and those who have become his mystagogues and initiates. But the truth of the union according to substance must be proclaimed with a loud voice, and one must philosophize concerning this, as it pleases the truth itself. For it is no small danger if one, having turned aside from it, should fall into the opposite, which is an equal evil: I mean confusion. But in order that the difference may be known to us between those who are united according to substance and are not changed into those things which are accustomed to be changed by union, and what the form of the first union is, and what the effect of the second, let the division ^D now be made. All things that exist are joined to one another by general communities, and again are divided from one another by specific differences, and they neither confuse what is divided by unions, nor separate what is united by divisions. But rather, if one must speak paradoxically and according to the Fathers, they are united dividedly, and are distinguished unitedly. The account of unions and divisions is twofold. For some things are united by species, but divided by hypostases. Other things are divided by species, but are united by

hypostases; and of those that are united by species ^A but divided by hypostases, some possess a simple union and distinction, while others are composite. Now, let us leave aside for the present the discussion of those that possess a simple relation, for the explanation of them part by part does not pertain to the present inquiry, and would meanwhile avoid the knowledge and instruction of many things. We must speak, however, concerning those relations of things of different species that are according to composition—that is, connection, or mixture, or union, or whatever it pleases one to call these substantial relations—leaving to those who contend over names the significations that are, as they themselves suppose, more emphatic or more proper. For we who hasten toward understanding have no leisure for choosing words.

Of those things, therefore, that exist substantially and are united according to substance, some even in union preserve the own-account of their existence; others are confused and destroy and remove that ^B which is supreme in things united. The relation of the former, which is discerned between them and in them, makes one thing from both, and, so to speak, demonstrates it to be one in number, while preserving the difference of essence within the same identity of the union; and an example of this is, among animals, the man who is of our nature; and among simple or natural bodies, such is the relation between things that have hypostasis and can exist by themselves.

For example, it is permitted to discern this in a lamp; for the wick is one thing, and the fiery substance of the fire is another; yet being with one another and in one another, both make one lamp. As one might say, even if it seems harsh, the fire is "wooden," and the wood is "fiery." And the latter indeed has partaken of the splendor of fire, while the former, that is, the fire, has partaken of the ^C earthy thickness from the wick, and each has rendered to the other in turn its own properties, while both otherwise remain in their proper fixity and unconfused.

But let no one who is poorly occupied and abusing his leisure carp at the example if it has anything dissimilar—by bringing forward oil, which is the medium in this union, or the underlying oily quality, or the fact that it does not last for a long time but is reduced to ash—remembering what we said before concerning an example and its definition. The same union can be found in fire with air, and air with water; for the mixture of water with earth touches upon the form that confuses the union; it prepares for the moist and thin, and especially for those things that are according to the change of ^D qualities and the variation proceeding from mutual affection. For I pass over speaking of the qualities that, even when substances are separated, are often united among themselves without mixture, just as the splendors of the shining stars, being united among themselves and with the air, preserve the property of the quantity in the quality; art, which is an imitator of nature, demonstrates this. If, therefore, anyone, as the great Dionysius says, should enclose many lit torches in one house, and then take one out of the house from among them all, there will go forth together with this one its own light,

^A nor will it leave any of its own light behind for them; and, to speak generally, nothing of the things united undergoes mutation or confusion, unless each of the things united possesses passible qualities. For if they are not of such a kind, the one possessing the faculty of acting will act and will not suffer, while the passible one will suffer and will not act. But in those cases where there is a common principle of reciprocity, these, according to the predominance or equality of the causative factors of passion which they possess in one another, both suffer and act upon each other to a greater or lesser degree. Just as happens in the case of all things that are melted, both in metals and in all those things that physicians or craftsmen are accustomed by their art to combine or smelt using fire.

These things ^B then having been distinguished by us, it must be known that things which have a power of mutual change and transformation, consisting of many-formed and heterogenous elements, preserve nothing of what is in the composition pure after the composition, but rather the art of the property of all things, mixing and confusing them, has produced from all things, beyond all things, a different kind, one completely mixed; and there has resulted a jumble and confusion of many hypostases and natures, preserving neither the property of the hypostasis nor the common element of the nature, but having produced something different from these, and identical to none of the things from which it was made. If, therefore, divinity and humanity, having been united according to essence, do not preserve in the union their own natural property, they are confused; and neither divinity nor humanity has remained, but a different species of essence has been fashioned from them, and not these things that exist have resulted. What could be more impious or detestable to ^C even imagine, let alone to think or teach? It remains, therefore, out of the examination of the argument of union according to essence, to understand the unconfused property of both the divinity and the humanity according to the previous examples, collecting from all of them a certain faint image of the truth which surpasses all things, which demonstrates that one result is produced from these—whether it be called person, or hypostasis, or atom, or subject, or whatever else one chooses to call it, I do not contend. For our discourse previously struck down and drove away those who divide by means of union those who are distinguished by dignity or authority or some such relative habit, exposing those who divide the natures from the hypostases and who acknowledge no communion or reciprocation between them. ^D

These things having been said, according to the small measure of intelligence given to us by God, we send the reader on to the teachings of the God-speaking Fathers, from whom we also, having drawn these things, have endeavored to give drink as in a small vessel to those who are lovers of the truth through the discourse of our humble mind. And you, being reached by the truth, should have these things as a remedy for forgetfulness, and after our final departure from this life as a memorial of love, so that the good of love may not flow away and pass by with time. But restrain the more audacious, and lead the simpler by the hand to the pure and liquid radiance of the truth, which through these things in

seen in the holy Fathers; and pray for us, who, as our conscience testifies, have endured to write these things out of love, even against our own will. But to God we give thanks for every gift of His in all things, unto the ages of ages. Amen.

PROEM OF TESTIMONIES OF THE HOLY FATHERS

As I intend to set forth the testimonies of the holy Fathers for the confirmation of our own words, I beg the reader to fix his mind; for the instruction of those admirable counselors of the Holy Spirit requires an intelligent listener. For discourse labors when it is received by ears burdened with the filth of ignorance. For as a golden ornament, as the wise man says in the Proverbs, and a sardius of great price set in it, so is a wise word in the ears of those who listen well. Therefore, let us purge our hearing, according to the divine sense, from every burden formed by presumption and rendering the mind deaf. For we shall now produce a cloud of witnesses, as the Apostle says, if peradventure those who resist may yield to such as these. Indeed, on account of the contentiousness handed down to them by their forebears, we have not brought forward ambiguous authority, or that which could be received in a twofold sense, nor have we cited ignoble Fathers as witnesses; but rather, we have called upon the most illustrious, who were the most splendid lights of the world, to bear testimony. We have produced most manifest and by no means dubious testimonies, so that we might exclude every device of theirs against the truth. We have not recited those testimonies which say "from which," or "out of which," or "by whom," and concerning which (namely, natures) "before the union," as they like to call it, or "in the union," and not also "after the union"—if indeed, according to their wisdom, this is the end of such union—but we have pointed out the saints who, in their testimonies, spoke of "in which," and "through which," and "both," and "through both," and "both natures," and "substances" existing and preserved in the union, and undivided into infinite time in the union according to the hypostatic substance.

^C If, however, anyone does not revere the multitude or the authority of the persons—just as that impious man, whom Scripture describes, does not; for it says: "An impious man is he who does not revere the person of an honorable man"—but produces instead unknown authorities, and those not recognized either from themselves or from others, in opposition to these of ours, let him first demonstrate that these are not the words of those men, and thus we shall receive them. For as long as these retain sufficient firmness, on account of the splendor of their books and the nobility of the Fathers, we shall either not receive those others from the start, as being in conflict with these; or, if we do receive them, we shall receive them as agreeing with these, and in no way at variance. For to attempt to bring the theologians into contradiction, and to say that they have disagreed with themselves—this enterprise, once undertaken, is not against us, but against their own ^D opinion.

^A or rather against that of Paul, and it is against the authority of the Holy Spirit, and of Christ who spoke in him. For after the apostles and the prophets, God has set in the Church teachers, according to the inscrutable dispensation of the Spirit, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. Therefore, he who does not accept those Fathers who are clear and famous in the Church of God, clearly resists the ordinance and constitution of God.

What, then, is the difference between substance and hypostasis, that is, between nature and person? One may learn this from the great luminaries, Basil and Gregory, who brought the questions we are now investigating under a rule and definition, clearly and distinctly teaching what substance is, and what hypostasis is, and how nature is the same as substance, ^B and hypostasis as person, and how and concerning whom these things are spoken. They taught also about their pronouns, and the intersection—having the theology in reverse order to the economy—in accordance with the joining and swapping of these names. After setting these forth, we will bring into our midst other holy teachers, having cited one or two authorities that might place the whole mind of the holy ones before our eyes. For these are sufficient for the reverence and shame of the prudent. For as for those who are not such, not even the whole company of the holy ones would persuade them, even if we were to drain all their teachings and pour them over these people simultaneously.

In the Latin edition of Leontius, many authorities of the Fathers follow. However, since they are read either in the works of the Fathers already published by us, or in the Council of Chalcedon (Rom. ed., Act IV, part III), which we are about to publish in the edition of the Councils, for the sake of shortening the volume, we omit most of those authorities here, having retained only a very few, which we subjoin here.

Proclus of Constantinople on the text: "A child is born to us."

He is truly God and truly man, ^C of one substance with the Father, insofar as he was God; and of the same nature as me, insofar as he was made without sin. The divine nature is uncreated; that which was assumed from me is genuine; and there is one Son, not with the natures divided into two hypostases, but, by the stupendous incarnation, uniting the two natures into one hypostasis.

Of Saint Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons and martyr.

For just as the ark was gilded inside and outside with pure gold, ^D so too the body of Christ was pure and radiant; decorated within by the Word, and without by the Spirit—

so that the brilliance of both natures might be shown.

Saint Hippolytus, Bishop and Martyr, from the Blessings of Balaam.

Saint Peter, Bishop of Alexandria and Martyr, from the homily on the Advent of our Savior.

Saint Cyriacus, Bishop of Paphos and Confessor, who was one of the Fathers of the Synod of Nicaea, from the homily on the Theophany.

Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan and Confessor, from the book Against Apollinaris.

From the same, from the work to Sabinus the bishop (33)

^A Therefore, being in the perfection of divinity, he emptied himself, and received the perfect and entire nature according to man; just as nothing was lacking to God, so nothing was lacking to the perfection according to man, so that he might be perfect in either nature.

Of the holy Gelasius, bishop of Caesarea, and himself one of the hundred and fifty Fathers of the synod, from the Interpretation of the Creed

But the human tongue alone could not do this; for the nature was weak. Therefore, God and man came into the same, so that the body might minister, but God might manifest the action through it. All things are twofold, and all things are true, and all things are perfect; and let every heretical mouth be stopped. God is with us; with us is he who is with the Father; with us is he who is from us; My flesh, he says, is from them. But the one is always, the other is for our sake. And the divinity is indeed always, but the humanity is for our sake (34).

From the same, from the same work

But we, illuminated by the divine Word, let us guard the nobility of the Only-begotten without insult, neither rejecting the Word because of the lowliness of the flesh, nor despising the flesh because of the height of the divinity; but rather let us honor the Word as God, and the flesh as the temple of God. ^B

Of the great Ephraim, from the homily on the pearl (35)

The precious pearl participates in two natures, so as to show Christ: that being the Word of God, he was born man from Mary; he did not have the nature in part, since he would not have been another animal. He has a perfect double nature, so that he might not lose the two. Neither was he seen as a demigod upon earth, nor did he ascend as a semi-man into the heavens; from the perfect he is perfect, from man he is man, from God he is God, from the Virgin he is Christ.

Of the holy Flavian, bishop of Antioch, from his work on the Gospel according to John

For he who put on our nature showed himself through the cloud of the body, ^D so that we might learn both of his natures, both the man who was seen, and the divinity which worked through the body (36).

Of Antioch, bishop of Ptolemais ^A, the blessed Cyril makes mention of this authority. Do not confound the natures, and you will not falter regarding the economy, that is, the mystery of the incarnation. Hold fast to God: attribute to God what is worthy of Him. Receive the humanity: return to the humanity what is worthy of it.

Scholion of Leontius. In everything above, we have endeavored to bring forward the authorities both of the blessed Cyril and of the Fathers who preceded him, which would both confirm and interpret his whole mind; so that all may know that neither he, nor any other of the Fathers, said "out of two" or "from both" to negate "in two." For in many places, contending against the division of Nestorius ^B, he set down not only "out of which," but also used the preposition "in" for both natures, as it is easy to learn from the authorities of his that we have appended. Moreover, in all his discourses, we have endeavored to bring forward only those authorities which have no ambiguity, and which not even the insane will be able to interpret perversely.

Having brought forward again several testimonies of Saint Cyril, which, because they appear in published works, we have omitted, Leontius concludes this first book thus: "Thus far the refutation and overthrow of the contrary fiction and opinion of Nestorius and Eutyches regarding the divinity and humanity of Christ." ^C

BOOK TWO

AGAINST THOSE OF OUR OWN WHO ADHERE TO THE CORRUPT OPINION OF THE INCORRUPTICOLAE

We have solved, to the best of our ability in the preceding pages, with God’s help, the arguments brought forward by the "falsely named knowledge," ^D which those who are of the contrary fiction (for we shall not cease to call them by this name, for indeed it is right) use against us, imagining that they lead the simpler people away from the truth. But now I shall set out to unfold and explain the consideration of another question and problem. May Christ God and the Word, and light, and life, and truth, be the leader of our discourse, breathing into us understanding, so that we may be able to correctly understand and

expound with grace and heavenly wisdom those things that pertain to the matter of our proposed argument.

^A If, therefore, I saw the discord that has now arisen among our adversaries against each other remaining among themselves alone, and not striving to extend even unto us, perhaps I would have considered the battle and array of the enemies a gain; for as they are struck and overturned by themselves, they would have caused us no trouble, but would have provided us with nothing more than a mere spectacle of war. We would have grieved only for their ruin; for they dared to reject the house of David, as the Scripture says, and neglected the concord with the house of Jeroboam, nor did they keep it, but became rent and divided from one another and against one another; so that it is allowed for the more discerning to know the tree by its fruit, as the Savior said, since the turbulent spirit that acts within them is shown most clearly by their multi-faceted divisions. For it is innate to impiety to be fond of enmity and war. But now, the ill-will and dissension of these enemies against one another is doing us harm. O the ignorance! And we have become more miserable than those among them who hold the second place in malice, for we cannot even see and keep what is ours as well as our enemies can theirs. Indeed, if the father of the schisms of one party knew what was necessary, and feared to undertake a war openly against the truth, we, on the other hand, have made their recognition an approach to ignorance, and have become even more senseless than our enemies.

^B For when Severus and Julian, the two origins of one impiety, disagreed among themselves—foolishly so with regard to their own principles, but prudently with regard to the truth itself—and contended about the corruptible and the incorruptible, those who were of the party of Severus, to tell the truth, were gaining from the wickedness of their enemies; for what no one had been able to persuade them to say before this, this present ill-will against their own compelled them to confess. But when they began to cast their eyes toward the splendor of the truth, that turning of theirs became a cause of blindness for some of ours, who joined themselves to the worse side and, by a single word, reached the same point as the adversaries; and for the sake of the beauty of the name, they discarded the entire plan of the economy. For as I said, while they were seeking unintelligently with respect to the principles of the truth whether the body of the Lord—which our Lord, having taken up from us for our sake, deigned to wear—should be called corruptible and passible, Severus, though late, yet finally came to his senses concerning himself, and gained a battle against his own, being compelled to confess and proclaim difference and properties. But it would befit his wisdom, and those who emulate him, to proclaim difference and properties not as regards subject things; and while refusing to confess two natures, not to fear...

^A the properties of the corruptible and the incorruptible, nor the division of the duality, which, turning upside down and confusing everything, he formerly attacked; and how, in the present, should one not be less than fearful? Or how should one not admire his erudition—he who proclaims participation with a clear voice, but not only fails to preserve the source from which that participation is derived, but even strives to fight against it? For if he speaks of the body as being by nature passible, and assigns natural passions to it, and this even after the union, then let this wise man answer us: do not natural things proceed from nature, just as artificial things proceed from art?

But let us reserve what pertains to him for longer books, or for those who have more leisure than we do. But what will you say ^B of those who always proclaimed these things clearly and with a loud voice, and furthermore confessed one operation of the flesh and another of the divinity, and passion regarding the body and impassibility regarding the Word; and who, if they granted a communication of these operations to the union, and spoke of them interchangeably of either nature on account of the distinct property of the other varying in the same subject, now, as if by necessity, contradict themselves and assent to the incorruptible? Concerning whom I know not what I ought to say: whether to admire their steadfastness or to praise their levity, since the soul, greedily invited by a single decorous word, has been abducted and twisted toward a specious fallacy. We know that this has happened to others in the past and in the present. For indeed, some in former times joined themselves ^C to the deceit of the Encratites, having been dragged down into the abyss of Manes by the elegance of a word. Others, defiled by the impurity of those who were called Cathari (that is, "the pure"), were corrupted by nothing other than that specious name. Many, too, of the recent and the ancient, whose names it would be most laborious to count, have fallen into the heresy of Nestorius through their corrupt defense of the impassibility of the Word.

In sum, we know that entire fleets of souls, as if by some Scylla or the Charybdis set against it, have been seized and submerged, having ignorantly stumbled at the lowly words and deeds of Christ our God, because of His condescension toward us. For what else armed and ^D inflamed with fury against us the infinite nations of the Gentiles or the Jewish hosts, if not, as Paul named it, the foolishness of the preaching? And who would not admire the erudition of the new dogmatists, if, according to their trifles, it were possible for all the famed martyrs and all the confessors to obtain the crowns for piety without torments through these two words, if indeed they happened to have learned them? But those who remained bereft of such great wisdom of theirs departed as a mere by-product of deceit, not having become pillars of strength in their lives; for no one, I suppose, among the most cruel and malevolent persecutors would have exacted any penalty from any Christian, if they had confessed that He who was born of the Virgin, and crucified, and buried, and raised from the dead, was a name only. For what

^A envy would have entered into them, when the resurrection of a human being was being proclaimed? And indeed, they were not moved by envy against any other of those who were either mythically or truly reported to have been recalled to life, although there were many such. Nor, if according to the new wisdom of these men, the very body of Christ is impassible, immutable, and unchangeable, does it depend upon the same power to blasphemously call it invisible, untouchable, and intangible, without quantity and without quality, and in sum, incorporeal—all of which they think of together under this admirable name of "incorruptibility."

For what kind of distribution is it to attribute some divine names to Him, and to deprive Him of others; and to cut away a large part of His dignity and honor, by positing a body that is—as they themselves suppose—above substance, above nature, and incorporeal? Who, moreover, among the unbelievers would be grieved if we were to say that the body of the Lord was not by nature visible, that it did not take food and drink, that it did not sleep, or suffer, and that it did not undergo all the other human weaknesses besides these without sin? For it is surely manifest to all that many such things have already been done by the law of miracle, not by the reason of nature. For the multitude of the Jews would not have been driven to such a pitch of madness if some argument had persuaded them that the body which was crucified by them, suffered, and was buried by His acquaintances, was not in all respects like us and truly of human nature. For as the Holy Scripture is filled with many ^B manifestations of God (Theophanies), it is possible to perceive that the good providence of our God concerning us, as the reason of the utility of those whom it was counseling demanded, accommodated itself to human forms and actions, operations and sayings; yet none of these led them to suspect human things about God, even if they were dispensed by Him humanly. The very things they dared to do, however, persuade the Jews that the Lord is a man like us in all things, even if the miracles did not persuade them that He was also God, raised above all by the excellence of His nature.

Thus, ^D the impassibility of the ungodly against Christ, regarding the Only-Begotten Word, and the incorruptibility—contrary to our salvation—of the flesh, as held by the sophists of our time, is revealed to be truly affected by passion and corruption. For the former does not make Him who is above us to be with us, while the latter does not allow Him who is with us to remain as we are, until the time of the medicine arrives, and our humanity, by reason and order, ascends and is raised to that which is above us. For how shall we possess the likeness of God if we do not suffer together with Him who suffered? And how did He suffer, if He did not suffer as we do? Therefore, He has not suffered as we do, if He did not remain as we do. But He is not glorified at all if He did not receive according to the flesh that which He always possessed according to the spirit.

^A

But someone from among those who are wise in such matters, who recently was conversing with me, said that it was sufficient for the Lord to have taken on humanity in order for us to be saved.

Q. But, I said to him, why would not the will alone suffice for salvation? A. It would suffice, he said. Q. How then, I said, did He not save us by will alone? A. He replied, because it was not His pleasure to use power [to save us], but rather charity and justice. For the former belongs to a master’s necessity, the latter to a father’s care. The former was mere force, while the latter involved voluntary condescension; furthermore, the former was His alone, while the latter is also ours. For simply wishing is not what follows God, but also doing those things which persuade and move to shame those whom He saves.

^B O. Excellent, O admirable one, said I; for this reason, as it seems to me, a new manner of benefit toward us was introduced, following the frequent and manifold providence shown toward the human race from the beginning, such that this alone remained as the remedy of salvation. For we would find no remedy more powerful for turning [us] toward the better than the mystery of the incarnation. For by this way and method He who alone is the wise physician of our souls, by receiving into Himself the passions of men, healed the sickness of all.

A. It is not right, therefore, for those who hold the correct view to confess otherwise than that the admirable and great mystery of the divine incarnation is most sufficient for our perfect salvation. O. Nor I myself, I said, could ever say that these things are not so; but we would most gladly learn the manner of the incarnation, for the sake of the curiosity of the mind, so that it might be revealed more clearly. A. Consider along with me, he said, if you like. O. Since, then, I said, it was necessary for God not only to wish but also to do something for us, it was necessary that what was done should be of such a kind that it would have no excess of wisdom [beyond what was necessary]. A. You speak well, he said, since there could not be a more appropriate one; for it would have needed that former [method], and not this, for the perfect completion of what was intended.

^C O. You speak rightly of these things, my friend, I said; but that other point is worthy of much consideration. For if the Lord had united to Himself only flesh, would not our salvation have been in greatest danger? A. Most certainly, he said. O. For the soul, I said, especially needed purification, and for that reason it was assumed, because it was the first to suffer, and therefore the first to be condemned. ^D

^A Since [H] he, the Divine, said, you speak.

O. Therefore, having substantially assumed the whole man—I mean the one composed of a rational and intelligent soul and body—He worked out the salvation of the whole man, cleansing like with like.

[H] A. You speak these things most beautifully, he said, and most perfectly.

O. But I [said] to him: Therefore, just as if in taking a soul, He had not taken mine; or if He had taken mine, yet not mine as it exists substantially in all respects, then something other than my soul would have been what was saved.

A. Obviously, he said, for the salvation would have belonged entirely to that one to which it was found to be identical.

O. In the same way, I said, if He had taken flesh, but not mine—or if it were mine, but in some way altered—it would have a difference. If it were not also passible and in all respects in agreement with those things that belong to our flesh, then necessarily the salvation would have belonged to that flesh to which He had deigned to assimilate the flesh united to Him.

^B A. And who, he said, has proceeded to such a point of madness that he does not confess these things to be true, and does not count those who do not hold them among the condemned?

O. Those, I said, certainly, who define His body as having been impassible and incorruptible.

A. We do not say, he said, that the body became impassible by nature, but by the union with the Word.

O. It makes no difference, I said, the second from the first, but it has the same power to harm, if the Lord’s flesh utterly refuses kinship with the passibility of our body.

A. How, he said, do you say this?

O. Because, I said, the point at issue is not whether it became incorruptible by union or by [a change in its] nature, but whether it kept the marks and signs of our nature without any change, sin alone excepted.

A. As far as regards the primary constitution of it, he said, and its having its origins from the Theotokos—who is our sister according to nature, and who participates in every property of the human composition.

^C O. The answer required a clearer explanation, he said, one which might explain the question to us more brightly. For I cannot understand it simply from what you have said.

A. What, he said, did I say that was obscure?

O. Do you say, I asked, that the body of the Virgin having been transmuted and alienated from its own nature by the power of the Word, our nature thus united to Him from the womb itself has become otherwise; or that while the Virgin remained in the properties of nature, the first principles—I mean the virginal blood—were transmuted, and the flesh has become incorruptible?

A. Some, he said, and I think ^D those of the simpler sort, attach themselves to the former opinion, more than is fitting;

they honor the Virgin, yet without foreseeing the absurdity that arises from it, and that if any such thing had happened to the Virgin, she would have been deprived of the very suitability for giving birth.

O. You speak most truly, I said. For that which has become incorruptible would never be capable of carrying a child and giving birth according to the flesh. But the coming of the Holy Spirit neither took away nor hindered the Virgin from her aptitude for generating. On the contrary, it led her in a supernatural way to a conception arranged without seed. And this, too, comes to my mind to consider: if, as they think, the Virgin herself became incorruptible by the visitation of the Spirit, then she would necessarily have been the root of the incorruptibility of our race, and not the divine shoot produced from her.

A. You speak very well, he said; for it has not been reported anywhere that the life of the Virgin ^B underwent a change of natural state. For the coming of the Holy Spirit brought purity of soul and sanctification to her flesh, but it did not effect a change of substance or of nature in her.

O. Add this, I said, to what has been said: that the Spirit indeed filled the Virgin with the power of conception, so that nature, being above nature, might produce a stalk without plowing, and a branch springing forth supernaturally from a virginal root.

A. Truly said, good sir.

O. But now, my friend, I said, it is time that we consider charitably and calmly what follows. Since we agree that the Virgin remained the same in nature, and did not pass into a different state of nature than that in which she was from the beginning, did not the pledge of our own nature, in the course and order of nature, observe the times of childbirth?

A. Indeed, he said.

O. For, I said, being slowly fashioned and formed ^C in the virginal womb, he progressed by the law of birth toward the perfect maturity of an infant, as it is possible to perceive from the words of the Gospel, when it says: "And the days were fulfilled that she should be delivered." Where, concerning the birth, just as concerning the first conception, a wonderful and new miracle is wrought, in that neither did the birth break the virginity, nor did the virginity hinder the birth.

A. You speak divinely, he said.

O. But, I said, just as the conception happened above our nature, it was not alien to nature; so too the generation, while possessing this miraculous character, did not change the nature of Him who was born for our sake, but rather the branch and fruit ^D grew forth, similar to the womb that gave birth.

A. We, he said, hold such views regarding the flesh of Christ, that at the very beginning of the conception, it touched the virginal womb, and that what was assumed...

^A was transformed into incorruptibility; for how could it be possible for it not to put off the corruptible nature, when it had been united to the immortal Word?

O. Nay, I said, you seem to me to be unmindful of your own words. For earlier you admitted that the Virgin, the Mother of God, remained unchanged, and that the Author of times, when He was formed, did not refuse to dwell in the womb for the time of human conception. How then does He who condescended to dwell in the womb of a mother, and fulfilled the times of gestation—He who in nothing excelled the Virgin, our fellow creature, except only in holiness—as if from some regret, deem unworthy the nature of His own body, and this despite the fact that He, in all things, was born without difference to her who gave Him birth?

H. To these things, he said, all will commonly agree. But that the body, which He took from the womb, corruptible from the Virgin, He immediately changed into incorruptibility, is the view of those who seem to us to think rightly.

O. And where, I said, is the reason and the time of the common life and conversation, which was most useful and necessary for us, if the likeness to us, as you say, was displayed in a point and moment of time, and then quickly changed; when we were in need not only of this, but that the Lord should converse with us, and pass through all things through which human nature, having its beginning, and proceeding through the middle, arrives at its own end?

H. For what, he said, was the obstacle, even if the union had made the body impassible?

O. And how, I said to him, would He either have lived with men from the beginning, or undertaken the sufferings for us, if it had been denied from the first union that He should be like us, passible and mortal?

H. He suffered, he replied, but not indeed from the necessity of nature, but by the reason of the economy, the Word permitting Him to suffer.

O. What was said, I said, differs in nothing from an enigma. For how did He have a nature superior to sufferings, and yet, contrary to nature, was allowed to suffer the things of the nature of the flesh? For if the union of the Word bestowed impassibility upon the flesh, He would not have deprived it of that which had been given and once attributed to it. Furthermore, if through the union ^D of the Word it had received the inability to be corrupted, it is time for you also to dare to wickedly tear asunder the supernatural and admirable union. For it was not possible for what was free from passion by reason of the union to suffer, unless the union were first destroyed; just as darkness could never exist, unless the cause and light withdrew; and, to speak simply, nothing proceeding from a containing cause is naturally fit to remain in the effects, if the cause is not present. Consider also this: that if He endured to be with it while it was suffering, He would also endure to be united to a body that was passible.

A. Was it, then, he said to us, not by the will of

^B the Word that the flesh suffered, but by the laws of nature? O. And who, I replied, would say this—that it was not by the will of the Word that any of the things that happen naturally occurred to the flesh, and not rather by His permission that the flesh, being naturally adapted to suffer, underwent those things which are natural, without sin? For it did not become passible through the Word being something superior to the nature of passions. On the contrary, there are times when it even prevailed over natural passions, when the Word granted it, as a general rule, mastery over the passions, so that the union of the Word with the flesh might be inseparable and forever indissoluble, while the non-participation in passions was not always permitted to the body. For it did not possess this lack of suffering from the union, but from the will of the One who was united, who managed this at the appropriate time and for some useful purpose. For if this were not true, it would be necessary to confess one of two things: either that it [the flesh] suffered nothing at all, being by nature impassible on account of the union, or that, if it did suffer, it was entirely severed from the union.

A. If, therefore, he said, as you say, the flesh, while possessing a nature adapted to suffering, endured both other things and death on our account, our boastings, in which we boasted as if it had suffered on our account, will depart and perish.

O. That the flesh of the Lord suffered ^C on our account, I said, good sir, is said in two ways: first, because the passion occurred to it by the permission of the Word (for being able to prevent it, He did not prevent it, as the great Athanasius says); and second, because, having appeared superior to all sin, it did not owe death for its own sake, if indeed death made its entry into the world at the beginning because of sin and has passed through the whole of human nature, in which, as Paul says, all have sinned (Rom. v, 12). For there is not, nor has there been from all time, a soul of man pure from voluntary or involuntary sin. Nay, I would even say, that the souls of the holy Fathers, if not in deed, at least in thought, have admitted some stain of vice. And this one can clearly hear from the Lord teaching, when He says: *The prince of this world is coming, and in me he finds nothing* (Joan. xiv, 30). For when He said, *in me* and *nothing*, He plainly signified that He alone remained free from all sin, even that of thought. Wherefore the condemnation of sin, finding no place in Him, came to a halt ^D and was confined, and from the guilty ones it subsequently retreated. For death died when it tasted of the flesh that had not sinned. To imagine, however, that the flesh was by nature exempt from passion and immortal—that it did not admit into its nature what it did not spontaneously accept—is first of all to be ignorant of this: that willing and not willing are not properties of the flesh, but of the rational soul, in which is observed the power of free will and the propensity and inclination of the will in either direction. Furthermore, they render it guilty, which willed what was contrary to nature; and it chose that to which

^A it was not naturally disposed. This is the ultimate limit of sin.

Nor must this be passed over without observation: that since three causes are discerned from which every act proceeds—one indeed is from natural power; another, from the depravation of a habit according to nature; a third is considered according to an ascent and progress toward the better—of these, the first is natural, the second is contrary to nature, and the third is and is named above nature. Now, that which is contrary to nature, as the name itself implies, being a certain falling away from natural habits and powers, harms the substance itself and its natural operations. But the natural act proceeds from an unimpeded cause, supported by nature. And the act above nature raises, elevates, and strengthens toward more perfect things, and toward those things which it could not have accomplished ^B if it had remained in those things which are according to nature. Therefore, the things which are above nature do not destroy the things which are according to nature, but rather lead and impel us so that we may be able to do what is according to nature, and receive the virtue for those things which are above these.

H. By a more familiar example, he says, clarify what you mean; for my mind does not yet grasp it.

O. Consider, I say, thus: just as one may see in things made by art how art changes the material into another form through craftsmanship, and transfers the natural deformity of the underlying matter to a more beautiful habit and shape, and calls it forth more toward utility—for art grants what nature did not have—in this way flutes, and lyres, and other instruments of that kind emit sounds ^C by the force of art; just so, the art of sculpture changes both other things and gold into infinite kinds of irrational animals, and indeed into human forms. And again, mechanical art has devised astronomical spheres, and horological devices, and other things of that sort. It would be long to count the forms by which technological reason, while nature remains within its own boundaries and is in no way harmed, adds beauty and utility from art. In the same way, in order that we may use for an example for divine and higher things those things that are lowly and bear an echo of the truth—albeit in a very small degree—consider for me the flesh of the Lord, with the laws of nature preserved after the union above nature and ^D marvelous; even those things which are above nature have a place, while nature possesses what is according to nature. And the miracle ceases to be when that which is above nature changes nature, and the magnificence which applies violence to nature is turned into insult.

H. And to me, he says, these things seem true: yet in such a way that the passions should happen to the flesh by way of a miracle, but that it should be unable to suffer, and its immortality, should rest upon the indissoluble laws of nature.

O. And whence, I said, did you receive this, good man? Who has become the master of this strange and foreign wisdom? Do you not know that the law of nature

^A is not that which is rare, but that which is always, or at least for the most part, observed and remains? Therefore, our Lord, having lived with us in the flesh for thirty-three whole years, by in no way shrinking from our habits, honored humanity, using food and drink and sleep, and applying all other things naturally, which established the truth of the body that was taken; and being thirty years old, He did not begin to perform miracles before this. For let no one cite to me the childhood miracles of the Lord, derived from a childish mind; this age held the perfect trial of virtue and the mature time for doctrine, when He preached the true Gospels to us, and for the confirmation of divine doctrines, He fortified the things that were said with the wonder of miracles; and He is seen here using the natural and blameless habits of the body to such an extent that He bore the reputation of being a glutton and a wine-drinker, while similarly to us He fulfilled the measure of necessity. What more can you say, as to how He was always seen in our form, even when associating with the multitude, and differing in nothing from the many in appearance? For the crowds pressed ^B against Him, as Peter says, and he who betrayed Him gave signs by which those who were to kill God might recognize Him, because of the resemblance, as one of our own said, of the Lord's appearance to the appearance of the disciples. Now these things proceeded from His first birth until the ascent on the cross, and also the three-day burial, in a certain sequence and natural order; but for the manifestation of the divinity, which was not yet declared to the multitude, He rarely, in relation to the whole course of life, performed miracles concerning His body—for the manifestation, as I said, of His divinity, not for the denial of the truth of the body. Therefore, walking upon the sea, He does not sink; and He is transfigured on the mountain; fasting for forty days in total, He forgot natural necessity; He arose from virginal bowels with the flower of virginity kept safe and intact; these things He performed miraculously to declare the treasury of the divinity, not to destroy and change the humanity that was taken. And to put it briefly, the divine and secret miracles which He did were signs and tokens of the divinity; but the sufferings, and before them the conception, and the birth, and the swaddling clothes, and the increase in age, and all other things which were done according to the law of nature ^C concerning His body, demonstrated Him to be a true man and of the same substance as us. But that which had almost escaped my mind, I will add that too. ^D H. Tell me, he said, what it is. O. I have pondered, I said, that this statement is held to be correct and pious by all: that just as the Lord, while communicating all things of Himself to the flesh, did not depart from Himself, and remains fixed and stable in His natural state, so also His humanity, persisting in those things which belong to its nature, and having natural faculties, and

common and sinless passions, never abandoning the definition of our perfection which it essentially possesses, became participant of all the good things from the Word; or rather, having the Word Himself as the fountain of good things, it pours forth from itself all that belongs to the Word, because of the Word. For let us not think we are saying something great about the Lord's flesh, ^A if we attribute to it that which neither honored it, nor took away our honor; for it was not the Word's work to deprive it of our properties while it remained with us, nor was it the work of the humanity, which has kinship with us, to be too proud to share our sufferings, unless we intend to fall away from the imitation of His divinity. Nor is it right to cast upon the Lord's flesh, as if it were something great, those things which will be common to the just and the unjust after the resurrection, I mean immortality and incorruption, and before these, not hungering and thirsting and ^B desiring sleep. For here one can truly say that there is glory in the confusion of those who, through "honor," dishonor both us and the Lord's flesh—the flesh of the Lord, by depriving it of what is ours, and us, by making us fall away from what belongs to the Lord's flesh; for He will not glorify, as one who does not suffer with us, He who glorifies through suffering.

A. Behold now, he said, even if unwillingly, you have distinguished the corruptible from the passible; for the bodies of sinners undergo suffering in the punishment, together with their souls, but they do not, I suppose, fall into death or corruption because of that suffering; so that it is evident from this that the corruptible is not the same as the passible, since those things suffer, yet are not corrupted.

O. But, my good sir, I said, I do not mean this—that every passion causes the sufferer to perish, but such passions, and of such a kind. As for the punishments in Hades, therefore, and the bitter awareness that rises from them, we would not say that it is their nature to corrupt the subject; for—if one dares to say it—they even contribute something to the lasting endurance of the punished. And one might see this same thing happening in medical treatments; for they refresh and warm the nature by pricking it deeply, and do not allow it to wither away in insensibility, but instead preserve it through pain, ^D and through the burning heat they bring about intensity and density. But human passions and the natural passions of the flesh, which the Lord accepted, are somehow of such a nature as to wither the flesh, to fatigue and afflict it, and finally to dissolve it, which we have recognized as having happened even at the cross. And with dissolution, as far as nature is concerned, corruption follows. Human passions, therefore, know how to grieve nature, and to injure the composite, and finally introduce separation and subject it to corruption, things which the Lord, in a manner similar to us,

^A partook of, according to the great teaching of the Apostle.

H. What else, he said, have you endeavored to persuade and demonstrate by these things that have been said, if not that since Christ is passible, and this by the nature of the body, not by the will of the divinity, he will necessarily be corruptible? For we are not ignorant that this is what you are aiming at: which indeed we will never concede, even if you add infinite things to these. For we must rather believe the chief of the apostles, Peter, and furthermore David, the king chosen by God, and the prince of the prophets, who said that his flesh did not see corruption.

O. Since you have at last, I said, departed from human thoughts and probabilities, ^B and have taken refuge in the divine Scriptures; and a memory of a certain prophetic saying, which seemed to stand in opposition to the things said by you, has also occurred to us, I ask that you now clarify this for us.

H. What, said he, is this that you are saying?

O. That which the divine Jeremiah, I replied, spoke in the Lamentations, demonstrating prophetically Him who was to dissolve the lamentations, Christ the Lord, saying, "He was taken in our corruptions." And another thing of this sort spoken from the person of the Lord through the prophet can be found, saying, "What profit is there in my blood, while I descend into corruption?" For both the inscription of the psalm, and the whole sequence of the words, suggest to us to understand Christ ^C mystically prefigured through the psalm, according to the interpretation of the theologians. Indeed, even Peter himself is seen speaking most weightily to those not believing in the resurrection of the Savior, that God raised him up, no longer to return to corruption; but the fact that he says "no longer to return" clearly declares that he of whom he said this was not foreign to the receiving of corruption. Do you not therefore think that these things stand in opposition to the things brought forward by you, and entangle us in greater bonds of questioning?

H. By the truth, he said, these are full of much obscurity, unless they obtain some interpreter who might direct the discrepancy that appears to be in them toward the aim of the truth.

O. Come then, I said, O most excellent and noble man, explain what is shrouded ^D in the obscurity of these [passages], and uncover the truth for us, whether you have learned it from yourself or have received it from another.

H. It does not seem to me, said he, that you have found a very beautiful or specious excuse, when you have shrouded the truth in greater obscurity by means of contradictory authorities: so that the question might secretly include doubt, and the doubt might secretly include the concession of a falsehood. For my part, whether anyone interprets for us the doubtfulness of the authorities or not, I shall never depart from my opinion; since the Scripture cries out openly, that

^A his soul was not left in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption.

O. Was it, I asked him, because it was naturally disposed to corruption that it did not see corruption? Or, if it is not so, answer me.

A. Because it was not so disposed by nature, he replied immediately, without any hesitation at all.

O. Therefore, I said, it is necessary for you to confess this same thing regarding the soul; for the Prophet, speaking in the person of the Savior, gives thanks that his soul was not left in hell, nor did his flesh see corruption, joining both together.

A. Indeed, he said, I would say the same thing regarding the soul of the Lord, that it did not have a nature such that it could be left in hell. ^B

O. Shall we then, I asked, not grant that it even descended into hell?

A. He said, This I would not deny, but certainly it was not naturally disposed to be held there.

O. Does the soul of the Lord, then, I asked, differ in nature from our own souls?

A. Not because it differs, he said, but being united to the Lord, it was higher and superior to the jurisdiction of hell.

O. Therefore, I said, not because of its own nature (for it possessed this similar to all other souls), but because of the divinity of the Word, with whom it also descended into hell, it was not only freed from being held, but also loosed ^C the bonds of those who were held there and believed in him.

A. That, he said, is how it is.

O. Similar things, I said, may also be understood regarding the flesh of the Lord: that in as much as it pertains to the similarity of his flesh to the bodies of other men, just as it died, so too it could have become corrupt. Yet that it was not corrupted does not demonstrate a change of nature, but the almighty and active power of the divine will; just as walking upon the sea was not a manifestation of the nature of the body, but a sign of divinity. Thus, for it to be dead was proper to the nature of the body; but for it not to be corrupted, it signified ^D the power of the divinity.

A. I myself also think it is so.

O. And why then, I said to him, when you offer [your thoughts] correctly, do you not also divide them correctly, according to the word, by attributing to the flesh the things that belong to nature, and the things that are above it to the ineffable and suprasubstantial power of the Word? For in this way you will resolve the discrepancy of the aforementioned authorities, and you will attain the truth: by saying that his being caught in our corruptions signifies what was inherent in nature, and his having descended into corruption signifies that he came to places and

things, yet did not see corruption; because the Word prevented the experience of it, so that this, too, might be among the other [gifts], a special grace in the resurrection, with incorruptibility having begun from him and in him, and having passed—and being about to pass—to the entire human mass, of which, having become the first-fruits, he has leavened the whole mass in himself. ^A

H. We have heard, he said, the divine Scripture saying that Christ has suffered, and the great-minded Paul declares that Christ is passible according to the flesh; yet that Christ is corruptible, no Scripture has delivered so explicitly and in plain words. For the fact that he was contained by corruption does not entirely signify this.

O. Do you say, then, I said to him, that Scripture declared him only to have suffered, or also to have been born according to the flesh from the Virgin?

A. This too, he said, is among the things that are granted. For how else could we understand that passage, "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ"? (Matt. 1, 1).

O. Therefore, I said, does the generation of him, which is proclaimed by Scripture, refer to his suffering?

A. I agree, he said.

O. What then? Have we not also received from Scripture, I said, the growth of his body?

A. Certainly, he said.

O. But that which external philosophers call "alteration" (ἀλλοίωσιν), do you think, I said to him, that it proceeds from the power of suffering, or not? ^B

A. And where do we find such a thing in Scripture?

O. We are instructed by the saving Word himself, I said, when he says openly: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matt. xxvi, 41). And again regarding him, the divine Apostle says, "Though he was crucified out of weakness, yet he lives by the power of God" (II Cor. XIII, 4). But what is weakness other than an alteration and change of the habitual power? And the great Isaiah also says: "A man existing in a blow, and knowing how to bear infirmity" (Isa. LIII, 3). And after a little: "And we saw him, and he had no form or glory; but his form was without honor, and failing beyond the sons of men" (Isa. LIII, 2-3). Is there, therefore, any other reason to call it "failing" (ἔκλειψιν) and "infirmity," than the alteration resulting from the passion, which the body has suffered, having become colorless, and not preserving the color naturally blooming on the body, ^C because the heat has retreated into the depth, and the surface, due to the contraction of the blood, has grown cold and changed to paleness?

A. You speak most correctly, he said; and it seems to me that in this you are imitating the great Basil, who writes physiologically about the passions of the body.

O. And none of the things said are mine, I said; I have taken everything from the Fathers; but let us consider, if you please, what follows.

A. What is it? he said.

O. Since it has been openly granted from the holy Scriptures, I said, about the birth, and growth, and al- ^D

alteration ^A, let us seek the remaining pairings, and see if we can find them in the divine Scriptures. H. I understand what you wish to effect by this. Since you have obtained the concession of the movement of the Lord from place to place, you are attempting to prove the points concerning reduction and corruption: which you will never conclude, as it seems to me. O. You speak rightly, I said, looking to my own weakness; but the truth, being helped, helps those who defend it. Does it then seem to you that hungering and thirsting are appetites for food and drink? H. It seems so, he said. O. And do you not ^B suppose, I said, that appetites occur concerning those things that are lacking? H. Certainly. For what else is appetite but the desire for that which is missing, to replenish that which has flowed away? O. Most excellently have you defined the term of appetite; for even the great Basil says that the Lord hungered, when the solid food had been exhaled from his body; and you know clearly what follows these things. We say that to be taken by sleep is nothing else than that the sentient spirit is languid and relaxed, just as we say that fatigue is an excessive extension of the muscles and nerves; for in these cases the things that belong to nature flag and are diminished; and they need sleep to recreate the vital and sentient power, and need rest so that the tensions ^C of the feet, or of the hands, or of the whole body, might be relaxed after some journey, or from other labor, being weary from exertion. Nature requires food and drink—of the solids and liquids of which we are constituted—when they have been dissipated, and it has need of the reintroduction of that which has already been emptied and has flowed away. A. This is so in our bodies, he said, excellent sir; but it is not so in the flesh of the Lord. O. But if these things did not occur in this way in the flesh of the Lord, and in the same manner, I said to him, I would say confidently that He was not born at all. For show us another way. For you surely cannot say that it was a phantasy, ^D that is, an empty appearance. A. May I never be so insane, he said; for truly these things did take place, but with the intent of the Word, and the permission of the flesh. O. You spoke well, I said to him; for he will not attain a better change who does not say and think that the natural passions happened to the flesh by the permission of the Word. A. Thus do we also believe, he said; for God is not, by his own will, nor was He, able to be comprehended by men. O. Since, therefore, excellent sir, generation, alteration, growth, and local movement are granted to the body of the Lord, what hinders, tell me, our attributing the remaining pairing to it? A. So, according to your words, he said, is He also corruptible?

O. Absit, ^A respondi. A. How, he said, do you say this? O. Because it is not even right, I said. A. For what reason? he said.

O. Because, I said, it was necessary for Him to taste our passions, even to the experience of death, yet not to remain in corruption in act; nay rather, just as in all things He had what is ours, and what is above us, so also in death itself: for to have died is ours, and is the cure of our mortality; but not to have been corrupted was of the stronger power of the Word, who prevented the experience, by no means allowing His flesh to be corrupted, so that from it the first-fruits of immortality might pass over into us also; therefore, that corruption did not occur is of divine power, which cannot be overcome, and by way of miracle, but not by the law of nature.

A. But indeed, he said, the Lord was also called the new Adam; but how would this be said, if He had not taken the body of the first-formed? Now the first-formed was incorruptible before he sinned; therefore the body of the Lord was also incorruptible: for indeed He remained altogether without sin.

O. But I, I said, whether the body of the first-formed was corruptible or not, I do not yet say, so long as they who say this are not ashamed not to attribute the immortality of the first-formed to the Lord. For they will necessarily grant that He died, unless they wish to bring upon themselves the charge of phantasy, ^B that is, of an empty vision, in Adam who truly died: yet to hold that the Lord took such a body, as was not only the body of Adam, but our body, I would contend most confidently; for since the disease is common, it is very unreasonable that He should be seen at all like one, but unlike all the rest, who certainly, by reason of the communion of His through all things, were in need of the reason of healing. But whence, O good man, do you hold that the body of the first-formed was incorruptible? For it did not have immortality in its constitution; much less did it have incorruptibility, otherwise, I think, it would never have had need of the tree of life, as of a future immortal, for the use of the vital fruit of which sin deprived him, as the Fathers say, as though he were to be immortalized by the participation of the vital fruits: but regarding these things, it is not the time for discussion now, since this is not a dogma ^C concerning Adam. For what is now set before us in the question is that the Lord united to Himself according to hypostasis such flesh as the condemned Adam had after the transgression, and all of us who are of the same lump. For the Lord did not come to save one empty of sin, so that He might be made like to him, but him who was entangled in sin and had already fallen, so that, having had compassion on him, He might raise him up. Otherwise, how would He have paid the debt for us? Or repaired the ruin? Or become a rule of virtue? And set forth for all in Himself the most perfect life as a standard of the best mode of living?

A. And how, he said, will any one be able to imitate the life of the Lord? ^D

O. ^A The fact, I said, that the flesh of the Lord is identical with our own, has rendered an assimilation to Him possible, so that it may be permitted to Paul and to those like him to say: "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ"; and to the Lord Himself: "Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart." Furthermore, death, having died through the death of the Lord, would never have refrained from the rest of men, had it not assailed him who first fell in all respects just as it had him; yet, having tasted of Him, its teeth were so blunted, to use the language of Scripture, that it no longer dares to touch those who are like Him, and even vomits forth those whom it had previously swallowed. For the operation, I think, clearly demonstrates the nature of the remedy; for it compelled him who had devoured what was of the same nature to vomit it up. ^B And how, moreover, could the law of conflict be observed in the trial thus applied, if the nature which is being tempted did not possess a natural likeness to Him who fell? For it is not victory, but violence—to join battle contrary to the laws of the contest. Now the law of the contest is to overcome, through him who formerly fell, the one who had already conquered, and by this method and way to repair the victory that had been lost. How could we also imitate Him who, by reason of the difference of the instrument, excelled in virtue, when it is required of us that we make ourselves like in a passible and corruptible body to one who is incorruptible? For this seems to me similar to one ordering another, by law, to practice the art of a copper-smith with tools for wood-working. For if this were the case, ^C then to fail in the imitation would be entirely blameless. For the example is not near at hand, and for those imitating this, it would be a triumph to surpass the teacher, while they live and struggle in a weaker nature. I omit saying that it is impossible to find the laws of practical and human virtue in an incorruptible body, to which, because it is above human passions, neither is there hunger, so that there is no temperance; nor labor, so that there is no endurance; nor insult, so that there is no humility; nor anything of this sort, lest by enumerating them one by one I become tedious. Nor is it a great thing to say that there is no manifestation of virtue to be seen in an incorruptible and needy-less nature. For where there is no nature that suffers, there is no contest; ^D and if there is no contest, there is no victory; and if there is no victory, neither are there crowns. It is to such a degree of absurdity that the fine name of "incorruptibility" has driven you.

H. It vehemently disturbs, he said, the great mystery of the union, if the Word did not grant to His body from the beginning that it should be incorruptible, but reserved it for the future, just as for us ourselves.

O. It would be worthy of greater reverence, I said, to say that the Lord’s assumption and His sitting at the right hand in the heavens took place after some time, and not that the incorruptibility

^A from the first union. For it is not fitting for me in any other way ever to magnify Him.

H. But if this also has happened, he said, there would be no further advantage to us from it.

O. Wherefore? I said.

H. Because, he said, we are not governed in this way; nor is the kingdom of heaven given to us immediately in accordance with that very first birth, whether natural or the birth from baptism.

O. Grant to me, I said to him, that I might possess the mystery of incorruptibility in this way; for what need was there that He should afterwards undertake the ordering of a common life, if we do not already have the perfection of the entire mystery in Him according to the first formation of His body? For if these things are not so, then we find that the entire economy done for our sake did not happen, but only the prologue of the mystery itself.

H. How, he said, do you say this? For I do not understand what has been said.

O. That, as you say, I said, He will indeed be incarnate for our sake and for our incorruptibility from thence; but why He lived in the world, and suffered, and rose again, I know not. But if the purpose was to raise up him who had fallen, and to redeem him from death, and to call him to life and resurgence, and to make him radiant with an incorruptible body, and these things could not have been abundantly present to us otherwise than if the Lord had demonstrated each of these things in His own flesh: yet all these things, as you suppose, were perfected by the Lord from the beginning of the union, His body being made incorruptible by the union itself. We have, therefore, from that very first beginning of the mystery the whole of the mystery; and the subsequent economy is superfluous. For just as if complete health were restored to the sick by a first medicine, the subsequent effort ^B of the physicians after the illness has been overcome once is superfluous: so if from the very union with the flesh He infused into us the good of incorruptibility, all the rest of the cycle and scope of the mystery is superfluous. But I think that this happens to you because you are ignorant that the account of the formation of the body is one thing, and the mode of the union is another. And that the former resulted from the presence and advent of the Holy Spirit, who formed it as a creative agent; but the latter not from an energy or operation of the Word, but from a total and substantial union. For the power of the Holy Spirit provided fruitfulness to the Virgin, as someone among us has very elegantly said; and the formation of the substance of the body was constituted from the Holy Spirit according to His creative operation, but the matter was taken from the Theotokos. The Word, however, dwells ^C in the temple fabricated for Him by the Holy Spirit in that very first formation, not waiting, as someone rightly said, for the completion of the temple, but from the first beginning of the ineffable economy, that is, of the incarnation, joined in the workshop of nature itself, He surrounded Himself with the entire edifice. For ^D the body not having been made, so from without

^A did He come, but enveloping Himself, He carries about our own image like a statue. Therefore, the property of the body is not to be known from the union of the Word, but from the power of the Spirit, shaping and fashioning it, apart from the primary instruments of nature; but the sinlessness and the whole holiness, and the integrity of the whole toward the whole that has taken up the union and mixture, and the fact that He both is and is called the one Son, and that the characters of the entire filial property appear most clearly, this was brought about by the connatural union of the Word—of which the blessedness is inseparable, since the union itself is also indivisible. So that we have learned that the constitution and property of the body came to be from the operation of the Spirit; but the union, not from the bare operation of the Word, but from the substantial mixture of the Word Himself.

And these things we have discussed with the person who spoke to us recently, having resolved to the best of our ability the questions that seemed to him unassailable. We ask those who will read this modest treatise of ours to return to the sacred treatises of the Fathers, from which we also have taken our starting points, and have written these things; and we have brought forward the testimonies for the confirmation of the things stated. May the Lord grant to both parties, seeking and searching with a love for truth and according to His will, to find revealed to them the truth, which is Christ who is God over all, to whom be glory and power unto the ages. Amen.

Preface to the Testimonies against the Aphthartodocetae

Since by the grace of Christ we have resolved to the best of our ability the questions that had the appearance of probability, and have promised to add the assurance of the testimonies of the ancients to what has been said, receive by faith the swarm of testimonies, harmonious and musical, sounding forth the melody of truth. But if anyone, having learned to trample upon his own conscience, rejects the testimonies we have set forth, and offers others of the same witnesses,, which he thinks are conflicting, that which must first be said to him is this: that he who makes the Fathers join battle with themselves, and strives to lead them into contradiction with one another, has clearly taken up war against them; nor is he ^C more [doing this than ^D] all heretics do, with either supposititious, or badly understood and perversely twisted [testimonies]. They gloried especially, however, in the testimonies of Gregory Thaumaturgus, Athanasius, Julius the Roman pontiff, Cyril of Alexandria, and Erechthius—a man clearly obscure and infected with the Eutychian leaven—as Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, shows in Photius, both from the testimony of others and from the actual writings of Erechthius.

^A For He waged war against them, and He did not so much overthrow what was ours as He confirmed His own. Moreover, we have this also to say: that the true Fathers of the Church, who received the word of the teaching charism in the same Spirit, neither disagreed with others nor, indeed, with themselves. It is no great thing to say that they did not differ in other matters, and least of all in the problem now being agitated, even if it seems so to those who have drunk deep of the undiluted wine of ignorance and who dare to transfer the dizziness of their own drunkenness onto the settled and sober truth of the Fathers. For we must believe that it was not they who were speaking, but the Spirit of their Father who was speaking in them. For those who are not such are worthy to be called false teachers, being convicted—by the very fact that they fight against themselves and are divided—of having not the spirit of peace, but the spirit of the adversary and the friend of sedition.

How, then, will some one say, do we find them to have called the body ^B both corruptible and incorruptible? I would say in no other way than in two modes: because they were accustomed to use "incorruptible," according to the idiom of Scripture, in place of "sinless" and "pure" and "exempt from every stain of wickedness." And again, they called the same body of Christ, indifferently and without regard for time, both corruptible and incorruptible. When they called it corruptible, they were looking toward the time of the economy according to the flesh; but when they called it incorruptible, they looked toward the time from the resurrection and into the infinite age thereafter. And if anyone should say that by the pledge of incorruptibility it already possessed the incorruptibility of the Word, on account of which, although it had a corruptible nature, it was not permitted to be corrupted, I do not contend. That these things are true, the following testimonies will demonstrate, which distinguish the times for us—not inarticulately or confusedly, but most clearly and explicitly—during which they said the body of Christ was passible and corruptible, and how after the resurrection we possess in it the riches of incorruptibility in reality and in name.

We omit the following patristic authorities in Leontius, because they are readily available in their published works. We shall therefore recite only three, as being taken from works now lost.

Of Saint Ambrose from the book Against Apollinarius.

Of Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, from the first tome on Matthew.

Of the same, from the tome of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

economically, so that He might rule over both the dead and the living. But since the body of Life instantly revived, having overcome corruption, we shall be pious if we attribute the accomplishment of such venerable things not to the nature of the flesh, but to the power of the Word.

Since these things have been said with one consent by the illustrious Fathers of the Church, they are found to have been truly full of the same Spirit, and they themselves held exactly the same opinions. I wished indeed, if it could have been done, to append all the testimonies of all of them; but lest the reader be delayed by the multitude, we have endeavored to bring forward a few, and not none at all, which might contain the form and rule of the truth which was in them all. We refer the industrious man to their complete books, in which he will find what is perfect and polished, more so than in our own books. ^A

BOOK III. AGAINST THE INCORRUPTICOLAS, WHO FOLLOW THE SECRET AND PRIMORDIAL IMPIETY OF THE NESTORIANS, AND AN INQUISITION AND TRIUMPH REGARDING THIS SAME HERESY.

(Ang. Mai, Spicileg. Rom. t. X, p. 661)

^B About to add this third book to my two previous ones, both as an act of thanksgiving to God and as a triumph over and denunciation of the impious, I shall pray that the Lord be present with us now also as an assistant to our understanding, and that by His own Word He may direct our word, quickened by the grace of the Holy Spirit. For if, with God assisting us, we proceed to other things and to this matter which is at hand, there will be for us a complete reward for our labors—that very assistance itself—and for those on whose behalf and for whose sake these words are written, it will be a pledge of utility, if not equal to the dignity of the subject, at least proportional to our own powers. But we are also excused in the present case in another way. For we produce an ancient debt, which it is most just to pay before all other debts. This, indeed, ought to have been paid long ago, but because of great and long-standing poverty, it is now finally, though with difficulty, and not as much as is worthy, beginning to be paid. ^C

For against those—to erect for God a column and to conduct a triumph over whom I have just proposed, since they no longer conceal their impiety and store it away in secret, drawing many into deception by hiding it, but appear from afar and thus become things to be fled from and turned away from—I myself once belonged to their company and number. For when I was a young man at that time, they stole away both my time and my reasoning, having employed for this purpose every instrument of malice. For I had purposed [to study] the precision of the dogmas, which, after—as the proverb says,

^A I have tasted, so to speak, with the tip of my finger, I grew eager, and in point of zeal I fell short in nothing. But they, having laid hold of me like a blind man desiring a road, attempted to cast me into the abyss of their own impiety. But grace appearing to me from above snatched me from the midst of their teeth, even when I had already become the most ready prey, and instilled in me a most ardent desire for virtue and for the pilgrimage to be undertaken for its sake. And how was He who guided Israel in that wilderness not to become the companion of my own journey? He did not let me go until He had delivered me into the hands of divine men, who not only did wipe away and cleanse all that bleariness, but also filled the eye of my soul with sacred light from the books of divine wisdom, from which they had drawn both the truth and the rest of the virtue that had purified my own hands and mind. Could I, therefore, not have justly been accused by men of gratitude of the utmost impiety, if I had persisted in consigning these things to total silence?

That I did not from the beginning, nor even at that very hour, so to speak, in which I was deemed worthy to see, compose a speech in thanksgiving, let God forgive me; and let each of those whom God loves also forgive me. For it was not out of ungrateful memory, but in order not to seem to have taken thanksgiving for these things as an occasion for a hasty and insolent writing, that I bridled my speech. Now, however, since a just cause has arisen and stirred us up, and one that does not allow for silence, I have made haste both to discharge the debt and to satisfy the desire. And I should be of greater authority than all others, both in producing belief in what is to be said ^B and in shaming the impious, if they happen to be willing; for experience, as they say, is more reliable than words. May Christ be present as my witness, and His Father, that I am not about to speak concerning them out of hatred for some or favor toward others; but because I pity them first of all, and then because I always lament the multitude of those whom they have deceived. Thirdly, I wished to bring help to prevent those who are currently in danger of falling, to whom I wished to mix this discourse as an antidote to poison. Furthermore, I also feared the judgment, if the very misery from which I had been liberated had not made me merciful. So that, if nothing else, I might at least offer this fruit to Him who redeemed and saved me; I mean the fruit of warning others. And let them not be annoyed with me if I have dared to utter what they themselves did not shudder to think. Come, therefore, let us bring into the middle the schemes devised by them against the truth, which they have used against those who have begun to be wretchedly ensnared and captured by their snares.

I.

II.

^A vilament of those more simple they propose, not indeed feeling in accordance with it—for I do not know if they yield the first place of opinion against it to anyone else—yet, by imposing its grave person upon themselves in their act through simulation, they lie hidden at the very beginnings of the task they have undertaken. But when they have once persuaded someone to accept the synod, or have chanced upon someone who does accept it, they inquire which of the Fathers he is accustomed to handle and follow. Then, if the person questioned happens to respond: "Either the great eye of the Church, John, or those two great luminaries, those two, I mean, of Cappadocia, or the most brilliant light-bringer, Athanasius"—they immediately change ^B their expression; for they do not suffer them even to be named. Yet, lest they frighten the one they wish to ensnare in the very first meeting, and he thus fly off, they say: "Good, indeed, are those Fathers, yet they are not better than our own." But if he should ask for their names, they say: "Read first, and then you will know who and how great they are, whose names, wretch, you have not even learned yet."

III. For they promise many other gifts and aids, and the resources of the Emperor, if he should be in need, and the first rank in the magistracy, and the company of the learned whom they have as associates. O the immensity of evils! They do not depart before their target succumbs—whether to ignorance, or to need, or to flattery, or to any other of those things with which they know how to entrap those who do not guard their heart with every care. ^C

IV. Then, after they have him captured, and have him obedient in the things they wish, if their prey is a monk, they urge him to read the books of the gentiles, if indeed he appears suitable for reading them. And after having greatly mocked the simplicity of the monastic order, saying that fasting, or vigils, or withdrawal are nothing (for indeed they disparage the practical virtue, that is, the virtue consisting in action, and cannot bear even the name of it with an equable mind), they urge him to change his habit, as it is an impediment to the study of political virtue, that is, that which is practiced in the city. They promise that they will co-opt him into the order of the clergy, or assist him in some other way, provided he becomes a participant in their impiety. But if he is a secular person, they promise him gifts suited to him—not, indeed, telling the truth (for this is their "blessed" state amidst their evils)—but ^D by thus leading him on with deceitful hope, they compel him to gape after them. And although these things are recounted briefly, yet the time presses.

V. Having therefore commemorated one or two of their kind, I shall turn to the great master of their ignorance. For when they themselves saw daily, among the faithful, a just hatred growing against their own impious dogmas and against the prince and president of their impiety, they devised something very bitter against their own life. For they say to us in their masked performance: "Let Nestorius be bid farewell; he who was the father of him shall also be the father of the same dogmas."

^A VI. What is more admirable than this—though I wish to pass it by, I am not allowed to—is that since they have imitated the cunning malice of the Manichaeans (for they could not live otherwise), just as they divided themselves into those whom they call "the elect" and the "indifferent," so these men have divided themselves into those who emulate Nestorius himself and value his communion highly, and those who anathematize Nestorius but feign the communion of the Church. And that this is no fabrication of mine, the Witness of all hidden things bears testimony; for when one of the faithful was being coerced by them to hold communion with them and to be enrolled in the clergy of the Church, when they saw him becoming sluggish at such a horrible undertaking: "Why are you troubled," they said, "if you use the Church as a praetorium, and the clergy as an army, while you keep our faith and embrace communion with us?" And when that man began to doubt concerning this very thing he was hearing, and said it was impossible to hold communion both with them and with the Church, "You ought not," they said, "to be troubled by such an economy. For the bread that is set forth as a type of the body of Christ has participated in more of a blessing than the bread that is sold in the marketplace, or that which the Philomarianites offer in the name of Mary."

^B VII. It is now time to recount the praises of their great teacher, Theodore; for they say that he is the man whom the great John, inasmuch as he had fallen from the resolve of the monastic institution and had abjured his vow, strove to pull back with two letters, as if with two strong and long ropes, from the depth of intemperance into which he had fallen.

VIII. They say that he was no more than eighteen years old when he raged against the holy Scriptures; for I cannot call the interpretations he composed upon them anything other than rages against the Scriptures.

IX. They likewise say that when he wished to seize Tarsus, the eye of Cilicia, after Diodorus—who had been the author, leader, and father of his evils and his impiety—had departed from this life, he was prevented from this attempt by Theophilus of Alexandria; for those who were suffering under the tyranny sent an embassy to him.

X. This execrable man, when he was expounding the Scriptures in the most celebrated church of Antioch, as it was formerly called but is now called Theopolis, dared, among many other things, to vituperate the term ^C Theotokos, that is, "Mother of God," so that he thereby stirred up the entire populace against himself.

XI. This wicked man never ceased, in every perverse interpretation of the divine Scriptures, to mock and ridicule the labors of the holy doctors who had worked upon them. But I seem now to be affected, as the great Basil said,

by a blow as one correcting a homicide. ^A But come now, pass over, and praise the interior adornment; and perceive what they keep in secret and remote from the common folk, I mean the hidden and inner sanctum of impiety. I will not bring forth things that should—as they say—be left unsaid, but I will reveal the execrable dogmas of ^A godlessness. Let no one be ill-disposed toward us for what is said, since we are not the authors of these evils that are being heard, nor did we provide the causes for them to be told; for many books carry their impious mysteries. Indeed, I myself would pray to God that such mysteries of iniquity were covered in silence and darkness. But now, it is not so that I might make you disciples of evils, but rather that I might deliver you from grave ills, that I have betaken myself to these narratives—fleeing them myself with the greatest zeal, and crying out with the loudest voice I can to all: “Flee, you people, flee; flee far from precipices and chasms; flee from books filled with every heresy of impious doctrines.” ^{B B}

XII. This wise man—as those who studiously follow him will call him—this great Theodore, because it was a small thing for him to contend with men, attacks and dares to set himself against the glory of the Holy Spirit, while interpreting in a lowly and base manner all the high Scriptures which the saints handed down by His inspiration, and while separating them from the number of the sacred Scriptures divinely prescribed and marked out.

XIII. The great servant of God, Job, an animate column of fortitude, and a living ^C testimony written for all time, he reviled with abusive words, though [he had been] written of in about two thousand verses, and he abrogated the Scripture of the Holy Spirit concerning him, which the great James, the brother of the Lord, confirming in his Catholic Epistle, said: *You have heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord.* For we have heard neither of the patience nor have we witnessed the end concerning him from any other source than the Scripture regarding him.

XIV. For which reason, I suppose, he abrogates and invalidates the very epistle of the great James and the others that follow as Catholic. For it was not enough for him to undertake a war against the Old Scripture in imitation of Marcion, but it was necessary to fight also against the New Scripture, so that his battle against the Holy Spirit might be clearer and more illustrious.

XV. The inscriptions of the most holy Hymns, and Psalms, and Odes he cast out entirely, and he referred all the Psalms in a Jewish manner to those around Zorobabel and Ezechias, attributing only three to the Lord. ^D

XVI. Indeed, even the most holy Song of Songs, praised by all who are learned in divine things and by all Christians, known to the Churches throughout the whole world, and held even by the Jews, the enemies of the cross of Christ, in admiration—this, the man who is bold and unbridled in his audacity, interpreting it according to his own whorish mind and tongue, cut out from the holy Books with incredible boldness.

^A XVII. For what was he not about to do, he who in himself acted as the inventor and father of impiety? He rejected, therefore, the two books of Chronicles, the first and the second alike, adding evil to evil, and furthermore repudiated Ezra.

^B XVIII. Therefore, he attacks the divine Scriptures, and from the two more splendid kinds of combat against the Holy Spirit, he takes for himself the lauded one; he abstains from the second, and yields it to others—is it so that they might struggle in them and win? By no means. But because, as he supposed, the contest against the holy Scriptures was finished and completed for him, he fulfills a second course equal to the first; and so that he might not grow weary in attacking them one by one, he stands against the first formation of the Christian religion, and abolishes the deifying symbol of those who are regenerated—the faith, I say, of the Nicene synod—not only mutilating it, but utterly destroying the whole faith and handing over another in place of it, teaching that such great luminaries were as nothing, nor shuddering at so bold a crime. For another symbol of faith, or rather I should say of perfidy, he publishes, as I have said; for after the faith in God the Father and the Only-Begotten Son and the Holy Spirit, he wrote that one must believe also in the Lord Jesus Christ, introducing a fourth person into the holy Trinity, and dividing into two persons the things of the one Christ and our God; he attributes to the true Son those things which are divine, but to his own private Christ, those things which befit a man and are human, and before this, the birth from the Virgin.

^C XIX. He dares another evil, not second to those mentioned above: for he prates about another Mass [Liturgy] besides that which was handed down to the Churches by the Fathers, neither revering that of the Apostles, nor that written by the great Basil in the same Spirit, deeming them worthy of some account; in which Mass he filled the celebration—that is, the mystery of the Eucharist—with blasphemies, not with prayers. Is there, then, any other Antichrist to be expected, who is worthy to be awaited, who so hates the things of Christ and attempts to overthrow them? I, for my part, do not think so. It is enough, I say, for this man, in all things, to be in the place and stead of him.

^D XX. Hear, moreover, other things of his, which it would have been good and most desirable not even to hear. The judgment of God, announced by a clear voice in all the holy Scriptures, which has not remained even to those who are far removed from the religion of the Christians, unheard of—which is the foundation of those who stand, and the raising up of those who have fallen, and the medicine for sinners, and the fitting end for the devil—which not even the devil and the demons dared to deny, when they said to the Savior: "What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?"—this judgment, and Gehenna, and the darkness, and the gnashing of teeth, and all other things which holy Scripture threatens to the impious and to sinners, this wretched man mocks, neither expecting the judgment himself, and commanding others not to fear it:

^A but experience will persuade him, for he did not fear the threats, and this impious man was not afraid to commit these things to writing, being truly void of fear and truly mocking the fire-bearing earthquake, from whose face, as in the devil, the judgments of God have been taken away.

XXI. For these reasons they love you, wretched man, who are of your own faction: this is the drug you have concocted for them to drive out the fear of God, a truly bitter and tearful drug. This was the impiety of Eunomius, which you have imitated, concerning whom what was said was unbelievable, until (would that it never happened) these things were placed in your books. And your teaching has surpassed Eunomius, who instructed to give place to the passions and not to present trials to the mind. ^B

XXII. Your disciple was Barsumas, who governed Persia wickedly with your impious dogmas and with an indifference in the conduct of life, having legislated that no one, neither among the clergy nor a layman, should abstain from illicit bed and from polygamies; for he considered drunkennesses and revelries to be gifts of God.

XXIII. Those of your sect have translated your works into the speech and language of the Chaldeans and Armenians, who have delivered to the nations a heresy worse and more impious than the Arian heresy; for this is what those of the Arian conventicles have been eager to emulate, except that these led the barbarians of the West, and those the nations of the East, each bringing them to their own impiety. ^C

XXIV. These things are small for you. But add for me the fictitious transgression of Adam, which he suffered by the decree of God, so that the world might have a ready-made pretext for him, the sentence and exile—most unjust—of one who had not sinned but was condemned by calumny. For did not Christ come on account of this root of evils and the rest of the impiety and wickedness of men that followed, as a good shepherd to save the sheep, Adam, the one straying, who was snatched away from the fold of the hundred?

XXV. Add, if you wish, the angels created together with your darkness; for the holy psalmist, playing the lyre in the Spirit to the praise of God, is not for you a suitable and authoritative enough expounder of their nature ^D who says: "Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire." For the "makes" is of the present time, which by the proper usage of holy Scripture signifies the past time, as he immediately teaches when he subjoins: "Who founds the earth," that is, who has founded it; nor are you moved when at other times in the Scriptures angels have appeared as lights and shining like lightning.

XXVI. Add also the substantial darkness of the Manichaeans, existing before the visible creation as a primary thing; was it unbegotten, or was it made by God? ^A

XXVII. Furthermore, you act foolishly in your wisdom by saying that the Antichrist of the devil will not be punished, but will be destroyed and reduced to nothing; so that a benefit might accrue to souls—that is, the fear of God—which they would not otherwise have had. For judgment is taken away by you, not that which comes from the enjoyment of good things, nor from the natural and hidden longing for God, but only from the utter destruction of the Antichrist and his reduction to non-existence.

XXVIII. Grant, then, that not everything that is exists from the creation and providence of God, but that many useless things have arisen from accident and the consequence of events, not happening because God willed it, but following from the nature of things, God not preventing them; the passage of time would fail us if it were our intention to count every single grape in your Sodomite vineyard. But you do not weary of taking pleasure in your impieties, O you who are most fertile and productive in evils! You assume that God is not good—that is, not good by substance—and that He is not the fountain and source of every good and every virtue, from whom all good things flow substantially. Tell us, from where did He receive good? For He is not, in your opinion, good of Himself. And what is the origin and source of this good? You are not far, or hardly far, from the grandiloquence of Marcion and his principles. ^B

XXIX. Now our discourse reaches the very summit of your impieties. From where did the man fashioned for the equation of the Trinity come to you, so that he might be its animate idol, commensurate with the infinite life of all things that are, whom you present to be worshipped instead of the Trinity by all creation, both visible and invisible, now and hereafter? Did not the law of Moses persuade you when it ordered you to worship the Lord God and to serve Him only? Nor did the Savior himself, who cast this in the teeth of the tempter? ^C

XXX. But you, as I said, imagine that your Christ is another animate idol created by the Trinity itself: you calumniate the Trinity itself, as if it taught the worship of a creature. This differs in no way from the ancient error by which man fell away from God and served the creature instead of the Creator. Unless you are contriving an error more grievous than that old one. For you do not teach that this happens only to men, but to every creature created by the Trinity after the Trinity. For you do not teach that worship should be eternally directed to a God-man, but to a man honored by the title of God. O you herald of these evil gospels! You proclaim that worship should be referred to your Christ, which is the same as if you were to proclaim that the worship which is referred to the Trinity should be referred, for example, to a king. But I would gladly ask you, how, or whom you yourself

say he worships? If it is himself, it is most ridiculous; if it is the Trinity, then it must be through some intermediary; for he is not the same through himself, if he alone of all is found to have this honor, to worship no one; ^A since he alone has not possessed your mediator, and who is a boundary instead of God, or whom you give for Christ to be honored alone, but not bringing in the one who so honored him, as honoring?

XXXI. How sweet and pleasant you are! For you fashion an honorable and elegant birth and upbringing for this man, and one almost slightly more excellent than a prophetic birth. You say that the Word of God, according to foreknowledge, in the very formation which was taking place in the womb, wished to grant the union to him, knowing that he would never depart from his purpose regarding the virtues. ^B

XXXII. You cover him also with the darkness of ignorance, knowing nothing except what seemed good to the Word united to him according to dignity. How so? By introducing him full of ignorance, do you not also introduce him full of sin? For sin flows from ignorance as a river from a spring; or perhaps you will argue that ignorance helped him, since what is done out of ignorance contrary to reason generally merits pardon, provided it is not very grave. Yet you say he was ignorant to such a degree that, when he was tempted, he did not know who it was that was tempting him; and you allow that he was not even clean from the sin of thought, not only [he] but even the saints, and you do not even think sin of thought to be sin. ^C

XXXIII. Do you not shudder to teach that the passions of the soul were more troublesome to him than those of the body? For you state this clearly; and [you say] that he subdued pleasures with a stronger reason.

XXXIV. You grant that by the progress of virtues he was purified little by little, and became more apt daily to receive the good things which were to be present to him from God, as a man.

XXXV. You baptize him, so that from that time, and not before, having been perfected according to the virtue of the law, he might be called perfect Christ, and might lay hold of the evangelical life, and fulfill it. Do you not also say that for this reason time was shortened for him (for he might have grown weary in the course of time), ^D and therefore he discovered a short way of salvation, which is the cross?

XXXVI. You drive him to the cross against his will, as one about to die not less for himself than for the whole world; as though he could not otherwise attain the glory of the ascension into heaven and the session at the right hand of God, unless he were perfected through martyrdom. I know not who the man is, and whence, who takes upon himself at your hand such a momentous task, and an economy so great and so excellent that it surpasses far not the nature of man, but every created nature.

XXXVII. He feared death, not as shaping us in himself, and dissolving our fear in himself, but as one zealously fleeing from it; which he would never have consented to endure voluntarily, had it not been for your long

^A and prolix admonition, which you weave and attribute to the angel. For you do not refuse to slander the angels, when you say that the divine hymn of the angel, and that which he sang in praise of the victory of Christ, as being God, was offered to the Savior—by this admirable and supernatural act of fear, a truly real fear, by which we were about to be freed from the bitter and cruel tyrant of men, death—as if he were some timid and effeminate man, and altogether a friend of himself, assisted by the angel by way of consolation; you speak insanely and foolishly. For that which says: "There appeared an angel of the Lord strengthening him," both other Fathers have interpreted, and the old man from Cyprus, the great Epiphanius, I say, and for the confirmation of this contemplation they have brought forward that which was said by the God-taught Moses in that great song: "And let all the angels of God strengthen him." But as for you, who say impiously that he needed the long consolation of the angel, you hasten to raise up the soul of Christ, which you imagine was swallowed up by the fear of death and prostrated by sadness, from that fear which he experienced concerning death. For he was in the greatest danger, and the whole universe was shaken because of him. You say these things are false; I would have traded much, and valued much, to have been able to expose them. But now, your brilliant and admirable struggles against the incarnation of the Word are witnesses, and your wars, feigned and simulated against heretical adversaries, but truly undertaken against the truth; because, when it was your intention to oppose it, and you knew that what you had undertaken could not be accomplished, you exchanged the inscription of the war against the truth for an inscription of war against heretics. Indeed, your ravings against the Magusæans ^B proclaim this, as do the rest of your false interpretations of the Scriptures: for nowhere are those admirable labors of yours not spread abroad, which took their origin from Paul of Samosata, and through those who came between, reached down to Diodorus, who was the leader of your evils. But they have been so elaborated and cultivated by you, and have received such a magnitude of growth, that your most abundant river covers its impious source.

XXXVIII. A stream was led from a fountain, and a narrow trench, which could not contain the whole flux of your impiety, Nestorius. And if it could contain it, it did not dare to pour out your fountains for all to see; not indeed from a sluggishness of the will—for I will excuse you—but because it did not have room ^C on account of the crowd of men with whom it was confined. But you, because you lived quietly with your impiety, drank up its entire river. That man, however, after he had taken one piece of filth from your mud and your mire-filled dogmas, proposed it publicly, and forbade solely the word Theotokos, that is, Deipara; artfully ^D standing against the principles of truth, and against the first birth of our God according to the flesh, while destroying all the sequence of the mystery...

^A Nevertheless, he was caught and suffered the ultimate punishment, being cast out from the divine choir along with the impieties in which his worship, cultivated from what you have taken, labored; and he paid the fitting penalty for your doctrines. These things are sufficient to represent the impiety of this man, which, as the proverb says, reveals the lion from its claws. If anyone, however, does not believe these things—for they are indeed worthy of not being believed—I do not blame him, nor do I complain that this happens, because the fact that these things do not appear incredible shows that he who believed easily is not inexperienced in such evils. For what is prepared and at hand to win assent is also most prepared for experience. But as for us, the experience which we have gathered from his books, and which we have heard from those who zealously imitated him, does not permit us not to believe, even though we might wish to. ^B And how indeed could I disbelieve, having experienced the trial of evils within myself?

XXXIX. These men (for they are not wise, except at doing harm), since they cannot defend these things, set before us the great Basil, who wrote to Diodorus and approved certain of his writings concerning the Trinity; for they cannot speak of the incarnation, so they parade about certain other Fathers who wrote of him or made mention of him. ^C XL. They do not admire Origen, even though Gregory, who derived his name from working miracles, in the oration he composed at his departure, pursued his praises in infinite cycles. And why do I speak of Origen? Since Apollinarius, who strayed from the truth in exactly the opposite direction, boasts that innumerable letters were written to him by Athanasius the Great and Serapion, and by others who were at that time shining stars and defenders of the truth; and if anyone takes into his hands the ecclesiastical history which Timothy, disciple of Apollinarius, composed, he will find no other end proposed for such great labor than the commendation of Apollinarius, which he compiled from the fact that infinite letters were written and returned by him and to him. ^D And it seems to me that they would, by the same reasoning, commend Demas to us—because Paul commended him to the Romans—and number Judas in the choir of the apostles, because he often partook of food with the Savior. But let them hear from us, that if they wish to hold written letters in greater reverence than the truth, they will be forced to approve not only Theodore or Diodorus, but also many others, whom even they themselves do not wish to.

XLI. What, furthermore, is that argument: "In those things," he says, "in which you correct Theodore or Diodorus, we find the remaining Fathers to be guilty also." And they bring forward

from Serapion ^A that saying: "God put on man"; from Basil: "The man bearing God"; they scrape together, as if with fingernails, that saying from the Gregories—of whom one said: "Let God be called not the God of the Word, but of Him who was seen"; and the other: "And the stripes of the servant, concerning whom the Lord is"—and other similar little phrases of the remaining Fathers, of the kind which are: "He took up," "He assumed," "He put on," and "He was twofold," and all other such terms which declare the difference of the natures of Christ united according to substance. ^B And, beyond all else, Cyril's "hypostases," and "the man from Mary," and "the temple from the Virgin." And the "mixture," and "commingling," and "natural coherence," and "deification," and "the blood of God," and "the cross," and "the passion"; and what is more, the "second birth of the Word according to the flesh"; though they say the same things, these men do not listen.

And what need is there to speak concerning the union according to substance and the hypostasis of the two natures, than which nothing is more one, and more naturally coherent? First, therefore, this is worth considering: that our controversy is not about words, but about the manner of the whole mystery of Christ. ^C This, however, is not to be approved or accused simply through this word or that, or based on certain terms, but from the primary principles. For all heresy makes its contention around these. For after the principles, all agree among themselves about the words, so that they even claim the very words of the Scriptures for themselves, adapting them to their own purpose. And what are their principles? The manner, clearly, of the union, which occurred according to substance and not according to habit; so that the Word might be in perfect humanity as, according to the Apostle, the inner man in us is co-subsistent, and contributes to the definition of the whole after the union, just as the Fathers who deposed Paul of Samosata ^D declared.

But neither do we care for those who stand against the truth in opposition to us, who bring forward words that they think are suited to them, as if by using them we would profess the corruption of nature or the confusion, nor do we admit those which are brought forward by us ourselves to defend what you consider the fiction of divinity, or your vain hope in a mere man, as if they were set forth by the Fathers; because, as I said, our dispute is not about words, but about the very things, and the union and natural coherence of these, which the Fathers judged to have been effected according to substance; whereas you introduce it according to habit and will: and by this union you forcibly fortify anthropolatry, than which what can be more impious? For it was the impiety solely of Paul, Marcellus, Photinus, Nestorius, and Theodore to think in such a way, who openly defined Christ as being only a man: which indeed each one privately, and all the masters of the divine Church in common, have accused and rejected with a concordant sentence; and most

of all the last of ^A all the holy synods that preceded it, which became the seal against the Chalcedonians, and which has utterly demolished your rampart of impiety, having strengthened the symbol of faith, and having proclaimed with brilliant praises the true destroyer of your impiety, the Lion who rightly rose up against the deceitful fox Eutyches, and destroyed and annihilated the hidden impiety with refutatory discourses, crowning him with the honors that were his due.

XLII. But they say, "Those men were condemned, but of these, no one was judged." This, O good men, they did not obtain out of innocence, but out of the excessive zeal which they applied in order to remain hidden; for they did not allow their impiety to be brought into the public sphere, because they knew it was not safe for them. Moreover, the Arian heresy, which was then raging and devouring the Churches like a fierce flame, provided many with leisure ^B to remain hidden [alt-version omitted], just as it did for the impious Apollinarius and Macedonius. It is fitting here to relate the adage, trite in the art of medicine: "When two diseases prevail in the body, the more violent one obscures the lesser." By this reason and path, Apollinarius grew as a kind of spleen (that I may speak according to your teacher, and grant you something in the arguments), taking on a size beyond nature in the sickness of the whole body. By the same example, I can compare your own case. For the zeal of the Fathers, occupied with the most necessary and urgent matters, caused the parents and authors of your impiety to remain hidden, especially since, in those matters which concerned the Trinity, they feigned that they were fighting alongside them against the enemies of the Trinity; and in that way they feigned benevolence, preparing for themselves ^C hiding places under the guise of an agreement in thought. For wickedness is a most difficult thing to detect when covered by the mask of benevolence.

XLIII. For in the anathema against the most miserable Nestorius (for truly miserable he is, as he alone underwent the punishment for the slaughter, having taken the dagger from others, as they say), they themselves were cast out together with him. For in the complete disciple, who, as the Scripture says, is like his master, they reaped the fruits of their labors. Yet, if anyone were to investigate this, he would discover that they were indeed accused, both frequently by many others, and by the most ardent persecutors of your impiety, Cyril and Proclus. Of whom the former composed a whole writing against them. Though some endured to write a defense ^D that introduced a topic more substantial than the accusation against them, the latter, that is Proclus, wrote an epistle to the Armenians. To this epistle he appended the chapters of the blasphemies of Theodore to demonstrate his impiety. But what need is there to speak of the holy Rhabula (54-56), bishop of Edessa, a man who is said to have been a prophet? His boldness and refutation, after those who were then followers of the impiety of Theodore could not endure them, they attacked with deceit after many of his perils,

^A believing the drama within. If, therefore, we persuade you by this means, and you are converted—even if late—preferring the truth to persons, this is better, and thanks be to God; but if not, we shall weep for you, as you are worthy of lamentations and wailing. But we shall hang ourselves upon God, and holding fast to the blessed hopes, we shall never cease from those things which our Fathers held, and which they, with great kindness, transmitted and delivered to us through the intervening ages; this alone reaping by way of gain: that we guard their deposit without offense, which the holy Church of God perseveres and will persevere in guarding without change or addition, until the great and illustrious advent of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be glory and power unto the ages. Amen.

Prologue to the authoritative [citations] of Theodore the heretic.

From the blasphemies of Theodore, we have endeavored to set forth a few out of many, for a demonstration of his total perversity regarding dogma, so that from these we may prove also concerning the rest, that we have falsely accused him of nothing, nor those who think as he does. For if it were possible to find all his treatises easily, we would not have hesitated to produce him himself as a witness ^B concerning all the points of which we have accused him. But since we were able to find his book against the incarnation only with difficulty and with great labor and many schemes (for they take great care to deliver his works primarily to those who are not instructed in such matters), for this reason we have been able, in the present, to collect only those things said by him against the incarnation of the Savior. But if anyone disbelieves, and has the leisure and the inclination, let him search out his vanity composed on Genesis and the book against Job, and the perverted interpretation which he has made on the Epistle to the Hebrews, and indeed on those to the Corinthians and Galatians, and those things written by him against the Magusæans, and his blind forward-looking preview of the sacred Psalms, and those things he wrote against Basil on behalf of Eunomius (for thus I call the apology filled with every accusation written for his cause); and those written on the Gospel according to Matthew and John, and indeed also Luke ^C, ^D

^A and his other works, not to enumerate them one by one; and one will see the depth of every impiety of Marcion and Valentinus—add also the more execrable and more impious opinion, and one more wickedly undertaken, than that of Manichæus, the fountain of evils. We, however, as we have said, in order not to appear to be leaving the things said against him without witnesses, have used many ways and methods, and have been able to find only that which he composed against the incarnation, from which we have also made haste to set forth these citations. If God permits, and time does not fail us, we shall compose another book against him, in which at our leisure we shall collect every one of his impieties from his own books, and show with which of the heretics each one has a kinship, and by his own authorities. Moreover, we shall show his madness in its entirety, and the opinion he holds against all the Fathers, which is in everything contrary to them, from his own most sacred writings; to these, we shall add refutations against him. But for now, I shall be content with the more summary writing composed against him, so that he may not, by hiding completely, harm the simpler ones; and let those who follow him know that they are commending and defending a man whose impiety it is not easy even to grasp, even if one wished to do so most of all.

All previous authorities of Theodore of Mopsuestia having been brought forward here, which, because they exist among the Works of Theodore, in Volume LXVI of this Patrology, col. 672, we have omitted, Leontius adds this:

^C And these things indeed the impious Theodore, driven by madness against our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, wrote blasphemously, saying that God the Word is one thing, and Jesus Christ another: the former bestowing a benefit, the latter having received a benefit; the former saving, the latter saved. But he who says these things openly denies the salvation brought to us through the Lord Christ. For he who has received a benefit from another, that is to say, he who has been saved, how can he be able to save others? Those, therefore, who think these things, of whose body and blood do they think they partake in the communion? Of Him who bestowed the benefit, or of him who received it? But if it is of God the Word who bestowed the benefit, how do they say this, not confessing that He was incarnate and became man? If, however, it is that of the one who received the benefit, their hope is vain, as they profess anthropolatry; and those who place their hope in man are cursed, because they have worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

I have deemed it necessary to set forth a few authorities of those who were the original authors of this impiety, by which it is possible to perceive that they themselves were interconnected in this impiety.

Diodorus, from the book Against the Synusiasts.

I urge you to be fortified and firm for the diligent knowledge of the dogmas. The Son is perfect before the ages; the Son of God assumed as perfect that which He took from David. You will say

^A to me: "Do you therefore preach two sons?" I do not preach two sons of David; for I did not say that God the Word is the son of David. Nor do I say there are two sons of God according to substance, for I do not affirm there are two from the substance of God, when I say that God the Word, who is before the ages, dwelt in that which is from the seed of David.›

From the same [author], from the same book:

‹The man born of Mary is Son by grace, but God the Word is [Son] by nature: the former by grace and not by nature, the latter by nature and not by grace. For the body from our race, the sonship according to grace, the glory, and the immortality will suffice; for it has become the temple of God the Word, let it not be exalted above its nature; and let God the Word not be insulted in place of the thanksgiving which we owe Him. And what is the insult of joining Him with the body, and thinking that He stands in need of the body ^B for perfect sonship? For not even God the Word Himself wishes to be the son of David, but his Lord. But as for the body being called the Son of David, He not only did not begrudge it, but He even came for this very purpose.›

And after other things: ‹And when the discourse is concerning the generations according to nature, let not God the Word be suspected of being the son of Mary; for a mortal begets a mortal according to nature, and produces a body [that is] consubstantial. And God the Word did not undergo two generations, [but] one before the ages, and the other in later times.›

From the same Diodorus, from the same book:

‹If anyone should wish to name the Son of God, God the Word, as son of David by an abuse of terms, on account of the temple of the Word of God that is from David, let him name it thus; and let him call that which is from the seed of David the Son of God by grace and not by nature: not ignoring the natural ^C fathers, nor overturning the order, nor saying that the incorporeal and [the One] before the ages is from God and from David, and [is] both passible and impassable.›

From the same [author], from the same book:

‹The Son of God is for no one's sake; for He is Son by nature; the flesh is Son for the sake of the Son; and why do I say for the sake of the Son? The flesh is for our sake. And do not think the word to be blasphemous; but demand the proofs. If men had not sinned, there would have been no need of law. For "the law is not laid down for the just." If those who were under the law had not increased sin, there would have been no need of grace. Was it not because the law could not kill sin, [was it not] for our sake that He assumed flesh, that He might bring ^D a remedy for death and the sentence of death, having been crucified and dead, and having risen again? If the deception had not progressed, and [if there were not] the sentence of death against us, what need was there for this economy of the cross? What need was there to put on a body? Did He not assume the flesh for our sake?›

But time now calls us to bring into the midst the first father of this impiety, from whom they also happened to receive its seeds. This is Paul, the weed of the devil

to bring forward. ^A And this Paul is the bitter weed of the devil, sprung from Samosata. But it is also right to denounce publicly the pestilent fruit of Nestorius, the last of that first root, so that between these extremes the illustrious and blasphemous pair, I mean Diodore and Theodore, may be recognized as aptly and appositely placed. Perhaps they will be able, though late, to return from drunkenness to sobriety, if they once understand to whom and to how great fathers of their evils their first knowledge pertains, and how from them, through those in the middle, this last branch of impiety has sprouted, the fruit of which they hasten, gathering it greedily, to consume. ^B There is, moreover, a refutation of both—I mean of Paul and Nestorius—proposed from the testimony publicly set forth, as they say, by Eusebius, who at that time was flourishing in the power of judging, but was later entrusted with the steering-oars of the Church of the Dorylaeans; and who, having a divine zeal, as is testified, was the first to detect and expose the heresy of Nestorius and of Eutyches, being subjected to infinite dangers for the sake of piety. Hear, therefore, how and with what collections of blasphemies from the man of Samosata he joined together the blasphemies of Nestorius, and showed that the most mindless intention of both is one. If, however, anything of these Siren songs—the song, I say, of Theodore and Diodore—differs from that deadly strain, we commit the judgment to those who are able to hear and judge without danger.

Testimony proposed in a public place, and displayed in the Church.

^C ‹ I adjure him who receives this document, by the holy Trinity, to show it to the bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and laymen living in Constantinople; and further, also to give them a copy of it for the refutation of the heretic Nestorius, because he thinks the same as the Paul of Samosata who was anathematized one hundred and sixty years ago by orthodox bishops. The things said by both are these:

Paul said: Mary did not give birth to the Word. Nestorius, agreeing, said: O good sir, Mary did not give birth to the divinity. ^D Paul said: For it did not exist before the ages. Nestorius said: And they attribute a mother in time to the God who is the author of the ages. Paul said: Mary received the Word, and she is not older than the Word. Nestorius said: How then did Mary give birth to one older than herself? — Paul said: Mary gave birth to a man equal to us. Nestorius said: A man who is born from a virgin. — Paul said: But more excellent in all things, because the grace that is upon him is from the Holy Spirit, and from the promises, and from the Scriptures. Nestorius said: For I have seen, he says, the Spirit descending like a dove and remaining upon him. 42

42 John 1:32.

He granted to him the assumption. Commanding the apostles, he says, whom he chose through the Holy Spirit, he was taken up; this is what granted such great glory to Christ. Paul said: "Lest the one anointed from David be alien to wisdom, nor wisdom thus dwell in another; for it was in the prophets, but more so in Moses and in many lords, but more so in Christ as in a temple." And elsewhere he says that Jesus Christ is one thing, and God the Word is another. Nestorius said that it is not possible for Him who is before all the ages to be born again, and that by divinity.

Look, the transgressor is clearly shown saying: He who was born of the Father was not born of Mary. Look, he agrees with the heretic Paul who says that the Word is one thing ^B and Jesus Christ is another, and not one, as the orthodox faith proclaims. Thus far the testimony.

Of Paul of Samosata. "Man is anointed, the Word is not anointed; the Nazarene is anointed, our Lord is not. For the Word was greater than the Lord Christ. For Christ became great through wisdom; but the Word is from above, while Jesus Christ is a man from below. Mary did not bring forth the Word; for Mary was not before the ages. Mary is not older than the Word; but she brought forth a man equal to us, though more excellent in all things, because he was from the Holy Spirit."

Of the same, from the Dialogue against Malchion. "So that neither the one anointed from David may be alien to wisdom, nor wisdom thus dwell in another."

Of the same. "He who was seen was not wisdom; for it could not be found in a figure, nor in the appearance of a man; for it is greater than the things that are seen."

Of Nestorius. "It was a great thing for the Virgin Christ-bearer to give birth to humanity, as an instrument of the divinity of God the Word; which was sufficient for her for excellent honor, namely to have given birth to a mediator joined to the dignity of God." ^C

We have brought together and compared these few things from many, wishing to show the agreement and consistency of these men with the ancient heretics, their fathers. Anyone who wishes can read the encyclical letter written against Paul of Samosata by the holy synod that deposed him, and also the dialogue which the presbyter Malchion wrote while disputing against him. For he will certainly recognize how true a disciple of his Theodorus is; for he uses almost the same words, so that their books do not seem to be written, but transcribed; or rather, those of Paul translated by Theodorus into his own. But how the holy Fathers, and the holy Churches which they governed, thought concerning the union from the beginning,

^A one may clearly know from the holy synod held against Paul of Samosata, and from their encyclical letter; in which, among other things, they accuse him in these very words: "He says, therefore, in his commentaries (they are speaking of Paul), that he preserves the dignity of wisdom."

And after other things: ^B "But if he was coupled according to formation and generation, this happens to man." And again: "For wisdom was not congenerated with the humanity, as we believe, substantially, but according to quality."

And after other things: "But what does he mean by saying that the formation of Jesus Christ is different and other than ours? It differs from ours in this one very great matter, that they claim his constitution to be such that the God Word is in him, which is in us the inner man."

And after other things: "If it means that wisdom resided in him as in no one else; this indeed declares the same mode of indwelling, but it excels in measure and multitude; for example, twice as much, or however much more or less than twice as much, with him knowing it from wisdom, or others. But the catholic and ecclesiastical canons do not allow this, but rather [they hold that] those [others] had participated in wisdom inspiring them from without, and that it is something else in them; but that wisdom itself has come in its own person substantially into the body from Mary."

And after other things: "And yet, he says, that two sons do not exist. But if Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and wisdom is also a Son, and wisdom is one thing and Jesus Christ is another, two sons exist."

And after other things: ^C "But understand the connection with wisdom differently, according to instruction and participation, and not as a substance made substantial in the body."

And after other things: "Neither was God, who bore and put on the human body, primarily free from human passions; nor was the human body primarily free from divine works in him in whom it was, and through whom it performed these works. He was formed primarily as man in the womb, and subordinately God was in the womb, having his substance joined with the human."

Confutation from the acts against Paul of Samosata by Malchion: "Did I not say before, that you do not concede that the only-begotten Son, who exists eternally before all creation, is in the whole Savior—that is, united according to substance?" ^D

(We omit the following testimonies of Nazianzen, Nyssen, Athanasius, Cyril, and Isidore of Pelusium, which can be read in our published editions of their works.)

Saint Ephrem, from the Discourse on the Pearl against Marcion.

^A “Let the nature which you do not know how to explain be a testimony to you, in what you see and handle: that the Son is born without seed, and two contrary things have conspired together by substance, with the hypostasis being revealed in each nature.”

I think it has been demonstrated through everything that the opinion of Theodore and his followers is the same as that of Paul of Samosata, and that it differs from and is opposed to the holy Fathers. Let it depend upon the power of those who encounter these works to cling to the truth, and to grant to it, that it might bear the reward of victory.

ADMONITION TO THE TREATISE AGAINST THE NESTORIANS.

Leontius, a Byzantine by nation but a Jerusalemite by residence—having professed the monastic life in the Laura of St. Sabas near the holy city—exercised his talent, in which he excelled greatly, during the end of the sixth century of Christ, particularly against the Monophysites and Nestorians, two sects of contrary opinion, of whose zeal and labor some short works remain as witnesses, found in the ancient collections of Canisius, which were soon amassed in the twelfth volume of Galland’s *Bibliotheca*. Now, I, having long been devoted to the study of the books of the Oriental Churches, and therefore intent on investigating with particular care the errors which had been dictated by their ancient teachers, have often found Leontius to be an excellent guide; and I have undertaken to publish in the present volume his treatise against the Nestorians, which has not yet been given to the light. It is a copious and excellent work, defending its position not so much by the authority of others as by convicting the adversary with the acuteness of its own reasoning.

Indeed, this work is divided into eight books (although the last is missing) and encompasses all the objections of the Nestorians against the Catholic dogma, with the invincible refutations of our Leontius. For the work proceeds through contradiction and apology: in Book I, *On the conjunction of the divine nature of the Word with the human*; in II, *On the single person of Christ*; in III, *On the one Son, Christ*; in IV, *On the Virgin Theotokos*; in V, *On Christ as God and man*; in VI, *On Christ as God-made-man, not as a man who is theophoros*; in VII, *On that statement: "One of the Holy Trinity suffered in the flesh."* In VIII, which as I said is missing, the impiety of the Nestorians was refuted for denying the hypostatic union and inventing I know not what other unions in reality—such as of honor, of dominion, of affection, of indwelling—that is, any moral conjunction whatsoever, but not one that is hypostatic and natural. For this is the root of the Nestorian error, this is the virulent power of the heresy by which the divine incarnation is brought to ruin, Christ is truly deposed from his divinity, and it is denied that God was born of the most blessed Mary. ^B For, as the Emperor Justinian observes in his theological epistle (in our Vol. VII, p. 299), the impious Nestorius said: "Nowhere does the holy Scripture say that God was born of the Virgin Theotokos." Then, after having spoken, using sacred words, of Moses as the god of Pharaoh, of Israel as the son of God, and of Saul and Cyrus as christs, he concluded with this horrendous blasphemy: "Thus we speak also of the Lord Christ, and of God, and of the Son, and of the holy one, and of Christ."

It was certainly important to know from which disciples or doctors of the sect Leontius derived so many objections; but since he conceals their names, one must think of those very many Nestorian writers, as much as the age allows, whom the Chaldean Ebediesus lists from chapter 59 onwards, along with Assemani’s appendix, in which occurs a very copious number of authors who champion the Nestorian dogma of a moral union and a double person. And indeed, so that we might not happen to marvel at such subtlety of argument in barbarians, we discover in the said catalogue various logical treatises and interpretations of Aristotelian dialectic. Furthermore, there is a notable passage regarding the Persians in the chronographer George Hamartolus (in our work, p. 375): "They say that they acutely understand the connections, fallacies, and complexities of arguments; and that they convict those with whom they speak with brief statements; for they are said to be well-versed in the art of the syllogism, and both to use and refute foreign arguments."

^A They say, moreover, that the Indians are even wiser and endowed with a sharper intellect. Indeed, our neighbors, the nomadic Ishmaelites, are embellished with much sagacity of character, intelligence, and skill, and they possess a sharp mind and cunning for discerning truth above all else, for refuting falsehood, and for distinguishing the worse from the better. But there were also many authors of the Nestorian persuasion in the Greek tongue: for it is well established that the Orientals brought their error into their fatherland from Greek cities; for from the time when the schism of the Oriental bishops who favored John of Antioch against Saint Cyril occurred at the Council of Ephesus, the first and truer origin of Nestorianism among the Orientals is to be traced to that very source. ^B Clearly, while the Nestorians did not obey the Ephesian synod, and a little later the Eutychians or Monophysites rejected and detested the Council of Chalcedon, two most terrible heresies drove their roots deeper and have contaminated the entire Orient to this very day. How ruinous it is to dissent from the Church! I know, indeed, that among the leaders of heresy, and among the "holy" doctors, as the miserable Chaldeans call them, are numbered men of old, Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose commemoration and feast, along with Nestorius', they perform in their menaia and liturgy; yet Diodorus died in the peace of the Church; wherefore his writings are condemned by Catholics, not his person: Theodore was likewise dead before the condemnation of Nestorius and the Ephesian Council. Nevertheless, from that time of schism, the school of Edessa, where both tongues, Greek and Aramaic, were heard, was infected by the Nestorian contagion, which it retained for a long time, as Theodorus Lector and other authors relate in Assemani, ^C *Bibl. Or.*, vol. III, part II, p. 926, with many books of Diodorus and Theodore having been turned there into the vernacular language, until the walls of that corrupt school were torn down by order of the Emperor Zeno, and a temple of Saint Mary, Theotokos, was substituted in its place. But if the Chaldeans are indignant that the name "Nestorian" is attached to them (as Ebediesu also testifies to me in Book X), they nevertheless retain the thing itself; and the Greeks and Egyptians, whether Catholic or Monophysite, on account of the name of Nestorius which is most familiar to them, applied to the Orientals who are followers of the same error, as often happens, the appellation of the heresy which is famous among them. ^D The Nestorians are certainly very angry with Cyril, especially since the Council of Ephesus, whom they contemptuously call "the Egyptian": for even in our Leontius, page 465, not Severus but Cyril is to be understood in this sentiment: *I am, and I am not changed, cries God. The Word is united to the flesh according to hypostasis, cries the Egyptian.* He who accepts Cyril as speaking the truth makes God a liar. (In which place it is not incredible that the famous book of Severus, inscribed *Philalethes*, or *Cyril*, is also hinted at.) To which objection (which it is fair to refute here) Leontius responds thus, using a similitude: *If union is simply change, every soul united to a body has been changed.* But I am not going to say more about the work of Leontius, which, since it is a treasury of very sharp reasonings, cannot be brought to a summary; and therefore this work must be handled assiduously by diligent investigators of Nestorian depravity, and especially by doctors of theology.