SAINT SOPHRONIUS OF JERUSALEM SYNODICAL LETTER TO SERGIUS PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE
To our lord in all things most holy, and most blessed brother and fellow-minister Sergius, Archbishop and Patriarch of Constantinople, Sophronius, an unprofitable servant of the holy city of Christ our God.
A O wonder! O wonder! Most blessed ones, how dear to me is silence now, and how much dearer than it was before, since I have fallen from an unconcerned quiet into a tumult of affairs and am overwhelmed by certain earthly billows! O wonder! O wonder! Honored of God, how sweet to me now is this insignificance, and how much sweeter than before, since I have ascended from dung and earth, and from ineffable and great poverty, to the hierarchical throne; and I see a great surge joined to the wave, and danger accompanying the surge. For by no means do pleasant things appear as pleasant before the experience and knowledge of unpleasant things, as they appear after the experience and onset of sorrows. Thus health is desirable to those who fall ill after health; thus tranquility is most welcome to those who are tempest-tossed after tranquility; thus riches are lovely to those who are in want after possessing wealth. And whoever considers all these things will see that they themselves continue to exist in their natural and essential quality, just as they appeared before the experience of their opposites, yet they emerge B better after the knowledge of these things, and much more precious to those who have received them, and not only that, but also more delightful and much more to be desired. And this, our praiseworthy Job will declare most brilliantly, as he who has had the experience of both, and as one setting forth the right judgments, and he would be a just judge of the things discussed by us, establishing a verdict that is impartial and incorrupt. What then does that invincible combatant say, having suffered the change of pleasant things and coming into a surging sea of distressing ones? "Oh that I were as in the months of old, as in the days when God watched over me, when his lamp shone upon my head, and by his light I walked through darkness; when I was happy in my journeys; when the Lord watched over my tabernacle; when I was exceedingly opulent and my servants were in my retinue; when my ways flowed with butter, and my mountains flowed with milk; when I would go forth early in the city, and in C the streets my
seat was placed? The young men saw me and hid themselves; the elders rose up; men of mature age ceased to speak, laying their finger upon their mouth; and they that heard me called me blessed. A Therefore, I too, most blessed ones, may rightly cry out with Job, the victor by five-fold trial, being struck by the memory of the good things that were formerly mine. These were a calm and quiet life, and a humility that knew no storm. Who will set me as in the months of days past, when God kept me free from trouble, as when His lamp shone over my head, when I lived a peaceful and unfluctuating life; when I walked by His light in darkness; when I gathered the grapes of silence; when I was enriched by the fruits of serenity, when I delighted in the blossoms of tranquility; when I rejoiced in the flowers of security; when I was crowned with the buds of fearlessness; when I was feasted upon the graces of freedom from care; when I enjoyed earthly poverty; when I ploughed the furrows of safe manure; when I sailed the sea of unfluctuating poverty; B when I gladdened myself with the beauties of my humble cell; when I ate as my earth-sprung nourishment that honey-flowing manna, another Israel and himself seen, and feasted upon peaceful and heavenly joys without murmuring or ungrateful intent?
Since, therefore, these things—and even more than these—have been brought to pass for me, thrice-wretched, by the great necessity and force of those God-loving clerics, and devout monks, and faithful laity, and all the citizens of this holy city of Christ our God, who have compelled me with a violent hand and forced me in tyrannical fashion, by judgments which I neither know nor understand, C I entreat and exhort you, most holy ones, not only to assist me with your pure prayers to the Lord while I am tossing upon the sea of this life—and indeed while I am in danger—and to strengthen me as I stagger from faint-heartedness, but also to bring me into the undertaking of work through God-inspired instructions: this, as fathers and progenitors; and that, as brothers and blood-kin. Give me, therefore, paternally and fraternally, what I ask, for it is indeed just; and I shall follow your guidance and shall merit an attachment to you, which faith weaves for the like-minded, and hope unites for the right-minded, and divine charity joins for the God-minded—a threefold cord, which is bound together by these three divine virtues; it knows no loosening, nor does it suffer a breaking, D nor does it admit of separation, but is truly unbreakable, gathering into one piety those who have been enriched by its divine link.
Since, however, a certain apostolic and ancient tradition has prevailed in the holy Churches throughout the entire world, that those who are brought to the episcopacy should sincerely entrust and reveal all things to those who guide the episcopacies before them—how they think, and how they hold the faith which Paul, the most wise, has committed to them most securely, so that their labors may not be in vain—
for all their running would become vain if the faith were violated in any respect. A For that blessed man, having listened to the voices of God, and having had heaven itself as his school, and having become a temporary spectator of Paradise, and having inquired of words unspeakable to other men—he feared and trembled, and as he himself says, he was afraid lest, having preached the saving proclamation of Christ to others, he himself should become a castaway. Whence also the heavenly disciple of Christ went up to Jerusalem, and subjected himself to those who were disciples before him, and made known to those who seemed to excel others the evangelical doctrine which he was preaching, and made them partakers of his teaching, assuring it [as a safeguard] for himself B and for those who, after him, were to receive his teachings; whereby he became a pattern of salvation proven to all who might wish to follow in his footsteps. Therefore, we also, serving this custom and considering as an excellent law everything that was done fittingly in former times, especially being strengthened by the apostolic undertaking, write as to how we hold regarding the faith. And we send it to you, who are taught by God, for your approval, so that we may not be thought to have transgressed the eternal boundaries which our fathers set, for you are those who know not only how to distinguish approved doctrines from uncertain ones, but who are also able and powerful to restore exactly those things that are lacking, on account of the perfect love in Christ. C I come, therefore, to declare those things which, born and nurtured from the beginning in the holy and catholic Church, I have learned, and which I have perceived to understand from my tenderest years, and have heard from you, the God-inspired ones, who preach them.
I believe, then, most blessed ones, just as I have believed from the beginning, in one God the Father almighty, utterly without beginning and eternal, the Maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, who was eternally and impassibly begotten from Him, God and Father; and who knows no other beginning than the Father, nor has his substance from anywhere else than from the Father himself; Light from Light, consubstantial, true God from true God, co-eternal. And in one Holy Spirit who proceeds eternally from God the Father, and who is to be acknowledged D as Light and God, co-eternal with the Father and the Son, consubstantial and of the same tribe, and of the same essence and nature, and likewise also of the same divinity. We believe in a Trinity consubstantial and co-honored, and co-throned, co-natural and kindred and co-glorious, summed up into one divinity and gathered into one common lordship, without personal confusion and without substantial division. For we believe in a Trinity in a Monad, and we glorify a Monad in a Trinity: a Trinity, indeed, in three subsistences, but a Monad in the singular nature of the divinity. For the holy Trinity is numerable in its personal subsistences, but the all-holy Monad is outside of all numbering. And while—
A It possesses an indivisible division, and maintains an unconfused conjunction; for it is divided by the numerable subsistences, and numbered by the personal differences, yet it is united by the identity of essence and nature, and it admits of no complete separation. The Monad is both unitary and singular, and escapes all numbering according to essence. For one God is firmly believed by us, since one deity is also loudly proclaimed, even if it be known in a Trinity of persons. And one Lord is announced to us, because one lordship is firmly acknowledged, even if it be shown in three subsistences. It is not that, insofar as God is one and one deity exists, He is divisible and partitionable into three gods, or brought forth into three deities; nor is it that, insofar as the Lord is one, the one Lord is separated and extended into three lords, or expanded into three lordships. B The impiety of the Arians is that which cuts the one God into unequal gods, divides the one deity into dissimilar deities, and separates the one lordship into three heterogenous lordships. Nor is the Trinity, insofar as it is the one God and is known as such, and three subsistences are proclaimed, and it is worshipped in three persons, and the Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit are named, constrained, or composed, or confused—condensing itself into one subsistence, and drawing itself into one unnumbered person. That is the depravity of the Sabellians, confusing the three subsistences into one substance, and blending these three persons into one person. For where is the Trinity, O most impious men, if according to you the Trinity itself is gathered into one person, and is running together into one C confused subsistence? Or where is the Monad, O most mad men, if the Monad is to be brought out into three essences, and expanded into three natures, and multiplied into three deities?
For both are impious in the eyes of the orthodox, and have utterly swerved from piety: both the singular according to subsistence, and the ternary according to natures. For the former leads straight to Judaism, and carries away with it him who speaks it; the latter rolls toward Hellenism, and rolls along with it him who asserts it. And he who madly speaks this with Arius is altogether Hellenizing, or he who impiously receives that with Sabellius is Judaizing. And therefore it has been well ordained by the theologians that we should conceive of the Monad D by the one and singular deity, and by the identity of the essential and natural lordship; but of the Trinity by the three unconfused subsistences, and by the difference of the numerable personal distinction; so that neither the one Sabellian remains, being viewed in every way and turning away from the whole subsistential multitude, nor does it glorify the three...
A nor does it cast away every voice of unity concerning deity, essence, and nature. Just as, therefore, we have been taught to think of one God, so we have received to confess one deity; and as we have learned to revere three subsistences, so we have been instructed to glorify three persons, not knowing another one God besides the three persons, nor knowing the three persons of the Trinity—who are the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit—as something other than the one God. And for this reason, we proclaim that where the three are, there is the deity, and we announce that the three are one, to whom the deity belongs; or, to speak more accurately and clearly, that which the deity is and is known to be. For the same thing is both known as one and believed as three and glorified as three, and is truly announced as one. And neither is the one, insofar as it is one, received as three; nor are the three, according to what the three are, perceived as one, which is miraculous and truly full of all astonishment. B For this very thing is both numerable and avoids numeration: numerable indeed by its three own subsistences, but avoiding numeration by the singularity of its deity. For the oneness of its essence and nature does not allow for it to be numbered at all, so that it may not introduce a difference in deity, and consequently, in essence and nature, and produce a multitude of gods instead of the one principle. For every number possesses an inherent difference, and every difference and distinction brings with it an innate number.
The blessed Trinity is therefore numbered, not by essences, nor by natures, nor by different deities, or by triple dominions—far be it, as the Arians are mad, and those who lead the way in a new tritheism, who babble [of] three essences and three dominions and likewise three deities C as well—but by intellectual subsistences and properties, subsisting by themselves, divisible in number, but not divisible in deity. For the most holy Trinity is divided undividedly, and is joined again in a divided way. For while having division in the persons, it remains undivided and uncut in essence and nature, and likewise also in deity. D And for this reason, we do not say there are three gods, nor do we glorify three natures in the holy Trinity, nor do we proclaim three essences in it, nor do we confess three deities—not consubstantial, not of another substance, not of the same origin, nor of another origin, nor do we allow those things which are predicated of it in the singular to be led into a multitude, nor do we permit anyone to divide its unity; nor do we acknowledge any three gods, or know of any three natures, or any three essences of the deity, not unbegotten, or foreign-begotten, not of the same species, or of another species; but we have not known, nor do we know those who know, any gods, or natures, or essences, or deities at all, but rather we punish with anathemas those who receive or think such things or know them. For we know one origin, the one deity; one kingdom, one
A power, one operation, one counsel, one will, one dominion, one movement, whether creative of all things that follow it, or providential, or constitutive and sustaining, one lordship, one eternity, and whatsoever is unique and uncoupled of the one essence and nature in the three personal subsistences. We neither confuse the subsistences, bringing them into one subsistence, nor divide the one essence, cutting it into three essences and thereby dividing the one deity; but there is one God, one deity shining in three subsistences, and three subsistences and persons are known in one deity. For this reason, the Father is perfect God, the Son is perfect God, the Holy Spirit is perfect God, because each person has the same and one B indivisible, undiminished, and perfect deity. And as God, each is established as the same when considered by itself by the mind which separates the inseparable; but as Father and Son and Holy Spirit, one is not said to be one thing, and another another, and another another. Hence these things are proclaimed to those who are God-possessed: God, and God, and God, but in the three, one God. For the Father is not one God, and the Son another God, nor again the Holy Spirit another God, since the Father is not another nature, nor the Son another nature, nor again is the Holy Spirit another nature. For this suggests many and different gods, and brings forth many and different deities. But the Father is God, the Son is God; and likewise the Holy Spirit is God, C as the one indivisible and undiminished deity fills the three persons, and is existing in each entirely and wholly. For the deity does not undergo division. And it fills the three persons fully and completely, not divisibly or in part, but existing most fully in each, and remaining one, even if it might appear in three persons; and it does not run off into a multitude of deities, even if it is in three subsistences, so that the truly impassible and incorporeal might not suffer some bodily division. And it knows not how to suffer the properties of the creature.
D Therefore, with the fact that the Father is God the Father, and is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit, but is what the Son is according to essence, and is what the Holy Spirit is according to nature—there exists also, with the fact that the Son is God, the Son himself; and he is neither the Father nor the all-holy Spirit, but he is what the Father is proclaimed to be according to nature, and what the Holy Spirit is perceived to be according to essence. And there exists, with the fact that the Holy Spirit is God, the Holy Spirit; and he is neither perceived as the Father, nor taken as the Son, but is what the Father is believed to be according to essence, and what the Son is announced to be according to nature. The one [is so] according to nature,
and because of the nature, and the identity of substance, and the kinship of essence; the other, however, because of the differentiating properties of these three, and because of the dissimilarity of the properties, which A inconfusibly distinguish each person. For just as each possesses being God inconvertibly, so also it holds the property by which the person itself is distinguished, immutable and immovable, which is inherent in it alone, and distinguishes it from the very other persons, and preserves the connatural, and co-honored, and consubstantial, and co-sedent Trinity without confusion. The Trinity, therefore, is not only one, perfect by the perfection of the Godhead, but is super-perfect, and beyond the glory of the Godheads, and is not divided nor alienated by eternity and rule. For there is nothing created or servile in the Trinity, nor anything added, as if it did not once exist and later entered in. For the Son did not fail the Father, nor the Holy Spirit the Son, but the same Trinity is always inconvertible and immutable. And indeed concerning the holy, and consubstantial, and sempiternal, and principal, and creator of all, and queen Trinity, how I think, and glorify, and worship (as far as it is permitted briefly to speak), I have clearly and plainly set forth to you. For the brevity of these synodical syllables does not permit anything further. Since you are God-inspired, there has been handed down to me, B as if to the holy Fathers who according to the truth of this very one who oversees all things, how I also think and hold and preach regarding the incarnation of the one from the same venerable Trinity, God the Word, and Son, and [regarding] his most merciful and admirable, that is, supreme, emptying, and his divine and deifying descent to us who are of earth. Writing this synodical letter, I set it forth, and send it to your all-wise hearing.
I also believe concerning this, most holy ones, that God the Word, the only-begotten Son of the Father, who before all ages and times was born impassibly of the same God and Father, putting on pity and mercy for humanity regarding our human fall, by his own voluntary will, and by the will of God the Begetter, C and by the divine good pleasure of the Spirit, not separated from the bosom of the Begetter, descended to us in humility. For he is one, as with the same will to the Father and to the Spirit, so also [one] in infinite essence and nature; in no way undergoing circumscription, or the local passage according to us; knowing naturally how to perform the divine operation, and having entered the untouched womb, which was illuminated by the purity of virginity, of Mary the holy, and illustrious, and wise in the things of God, liberated from all contagion, D and of body, and of soul, and of intellect, he who was incorporeal is incarnated, and assumes our form, who according to the divine essence, as to habit and species, is unformable; and he is embodied according to us, the incorporeal one, and becomes man in truth, always being known as God, and from maternal communion...
A he is shown to be received, and the timeless one accepts a temporal beginning; not by phantasy does he become all these things, as seems to the mad Manichaeans and Valentinians, but in truth and reality, having emptied himself entirely by paternal and his own will, and having taken up our entire lump, I mean the flesh consubstantial to us, and the rational soul of the same nature as our souls, and a mind similar to our mind. For these things are man, and are known as man; and he has become man in truth from that very ultimate conception in the most holy Virgin. For he wished to be called man, so that by a similar he might cleanse the similar, and save the kindred by the kindred, and enlighten the connatural by the connatural. Therefore the holy Virgin is taken, and both body and soul are sanctified, and thus she ministers to the incarnation of the Creator as one pure and chaste and undefiled. The Word and God therefore becomes incarnate, not being joined to our flesh having been pre-formed, or having been joined to a body pre-existing and pre-fashioned according to him, or being compounded with a pre-existing soul, but when these came into existence, then the Word himself and God was compounded with them naturally, having the union contemporary with the existence, and not having been at any time B before the most true coming-together with the Word, being by themselves, or having existed at all as some other human being of those like us, but having the existence as concomitant with the natural coming-together of the Word, and not having this as preceding even by the twinkling of an eye, as Paul of Samosata babbles, and Nestorius. For at once there is flesh, at once it is the flesh of the Word of God; at once there is rational, ensouled flesh, at once it is the rational, ensouled flesh of the Word of God; for it had its existence in him and not by itself.
For at once with the conception of the Word these were brought forth unto subsistence, and were united to him according to subsistence at the same time as they were led unto subsistence—the truly true and indivisible one, which suffers neither division nor admits of change and confusion—being C brought forth by him, and subsisting in him, and being compounded with him, and bearing no time at all in total of its own subsistence that would precede the union with him that is without confusion and without division. Therefore from the immaculate virginal blood of the most holy and immaculate Virgin Mary, the Word, truly having become incarnate as man, even when being carried in the virginal womb, and having fulfilled the time of the lawful pregnancy, being made like us humans in all things natural and not bringing sin, and not disdaining our most passion-prone lowliness, is born as God in a human body, and likewise also in form D.
A having a rational and incorporeal soul, which He Himself animated in Himself, and by no means another [soul] with a rational spirit, and He kept the one who gave birth to Him a Virgin, and displayed her as Theotokos properly and truly, even if the demented Nestorius is torn apart, and his army, which rebels against God, weeps and laments and wails, and is torn apart again with him. For it was God who was born of the holy Theotokos Mary, and who, for our sake, accepted a second and temporal birth, after His first and eternal birth from the Father, the natural and ineffable birth, even if, being incarnate, He was born due to the likeness to us humans: wholly God to be praised, wholly the same appearing as perfect Man. God the same to be known; perfect Man the same to be recognized; for He had the union out of two natures, of Deity and humanity, and was recognized in two perfect natures, in Deity and in humanity.
Neither did any change or confusion intervene in the union, nor was any division or section introduced into the differentiation and duality of the forms, or rather of the substances, after the union; even if this grieves the raving Nestorius, and that other thing wastes away the foolish Eutyches B. For those things which are united to one another according to subsistence neither admit change, nor do they recognize division, nor do they know the characteristics of confusion, nor do they grasp the marks of section. Which, as it appears, Eutyches and Nestorius, being ignorant, and not having learned the power of the union according to subsistence, according to which the Word was made flesh and the flesh, animated and intellectual, was immutably deified: the one is cast into the sea of confusion, the other is carried away into the abyss of division. And for this reason, the one shrinks from confessing the duality of natures, while the other draws back from preaching the one incarnate nature of God the Word, or even fears C to speak of one composite subsistence of His; fearing the fears of cowards where no fear dwells. But we, with a vivid sense, putting away the servile madness of both of these, and standing intrepid upon the rock of piety, and preaching the concurrence according to subsistence of the Word to the flesh which is of us, intellectual and animated, and worshipping one Christ and the incarnate Son the Word, we assert one composite subsistence of Him, and we announce Him in two natures, and we believe in two births of the same God the Word: one indeed from God the Father, which we know to be timeless and eternal; and a second from the Theotokos mother, which we know to be recent and temporal D; and we glorify one nature of God the Word incarnate in Him, but not as Apollinaris and Eutyches and Dioscorus say, but as the wise Cyril has handed down to us. And we claim that the characteristics of the natures are preserved, and the next page begins: ...difference of those united we proclaim, the one as in nature said to be and being in quality...
difference of the united [elements] is recounted; which is spoken of as natural, and exists in quality, but is understood in essence and exists in quantity. And we neither fear the Nestorian section, nor do we dread the Eutychian mutation; for we do not say, as the senseless Nestorius does, that A the union is merely relative, nor do we dream of this convention as being one of equal honor, or of same-will, or of mere inclination of wills and identity of purpose. Nor, like Eutyches, thrust out from God, do we prattle about a confusion and mutation of the Word of God and of the intellectually animated flesh—or rather, a composition of natures, substances, and forms B—from which the miraculous convention has taken place in Christ. Whence, walking the royal and middle path, we both abhor confusion and loathe section; but we adore in our soul only the unconfused and at the same time indivisible union of deity and humanity, which alone the natural union according to subsistence understands how to recognize.
For by this [union] deity and humanity, being joined to one another, have so C fared that they neither undergo mutation nor suffer division. For the principle of the union—of the natural, I say, and according to subsistence (for I know no other union in Christ besides this)—does not ignore the difference, but it utterly banishes the division; and it preserves those things which have run together into a union unchangeably, and does not admit a partitioning of the united things. And for this reason, naming Christ out of deity and humanity, and out of two natures, we proclaim the same to be both God and man, and diphyite—that is, D born twice [biform]—and double according to the natures. Likewise, also, we know him to be perfect in deity, and the same perfect in humanity; and therefore we teach him to be in two natures, and we assert this same one to be consubstantial with the Father as God, and we assert this same one to be consubstantial with his mother and with us as man: visible and invisible, created and likewise uncreated, body and bodiless, touchable and untouchable, circumscribed and uncircumscribed, earthly and heavenly, flesh—this same one, animated and rational—and deity, recent and eternal, humble and most high, and whatever else is found inseparably of the dual nature; even if the one existed always, as having an eternal nature, while the other was made for our sake in the latter times unchangeably, as having assumed the human nature. For if the union was unchangeable and indivisible, even as it is unchangeable and remains indivisible, both are expressed as inalterably different, and as shining together indivisibly in otherness. These are the natures and substances and forms
Synodical Letter to Sergius of Constantinople
from which the ineffable union has come to be, and in which one and the same Christ is perceived.And that which is one remains one—the effect produced from them—no longer divided into two, and showing those things from which it is composed without division or change. This is the A subsistence and the composite person, which has come into existence from an unconfused mixture, and which knows no division of the constituents; it is the lot of this [person] both to be one and to remain one, undivided; and it neither becomes two—insofar as it exists as one—nor does it confuse and reduce to a single unity the natural and essential identity of those things from which it has naturally been brought together. Rather, it is one and two, known as the same thing: one according to subsistence and person, but two according to the natures themselves and their natural properties, from which it has received the lot of being one, and has preserved the remaining double in its nature.
B Whence the same Christ and Son and Only-begotten remaining one is beheld as undivided in both natures, and operates the things that are of both substances according to the essential quality or natural property belonging to each. For if he had a singular and uncoupled nature, just as he has a singular subsistence and person, he would not have acted thus, nor would the one and the same Son and Christ perfectly have performed what belonged to both. For when has the Godhead, apart from a body, naturally operated the works of a body? Or when has a body, devoid of the Godhead, performed the acts that are essentially known to belong to the Godhead? But Emmanuel, being one and in the same [person] both, that is to say God and man, truthfully performed the things belonging to both natures, operating what was done according to one thing and then another. Inasmuch as he is God, the same performs the divine things; inasmuch as he is man, the same performs the human things. Wishing to show himself to all as the same God and man, for this reason he does both divine and human things, and similarly speaks and utters. And it is not one who worked the miracles and another who attained to human things and suffered the passions, as Nestorius desires, but one and the same is Christ and Son, who has performed both the divine and human things, yet according to one thing and then another, as the divine Cyril C declared. Since in both he possessed the authority unconfused, and not only that, but also indivisible. For in that he was the same as God, he was eternal and performed miracles; in that the same was known as man, he was recent and performed the humble and human things. For just as in Christ each nature preserves its property undiminished, so also each form operates with the communion of the other that which it possesses as its own; the Word operating that which is of the Word, with the communion, clearly, of the body; and the body performing that which is of the body, communicating with it. D
A For these things are known in one subsistence, and they repel the most abominable division. For they did not operate their own properties separately, in such a way that we would suspect a division of them.
Let not Nestorius, that erratic soul, exult because of this, deceiving himself, as if each form in the one Christ and Son operated what it had as its own with the communion of the other. For neither did the one diverge from the other to perform that which it had as its own; for according to him we do not venerate two Christs and Sons who operate—one indeed, according to nature, the Son and Christ, in things that are miraculous, and another, by grace, the Son and Christ, in things that are humbler. B And even if we dogmatize two forms operating in common, each according to its own natural property, we do so that we may say that the same Son and Christ, the one who naturally works the high and the humble things, does so according to the natural and essential quality of each of his two natures. For the natures, remaining unchangeable and unconfused, and being clearly known as two, and not being united in confusion, were not entirely deprived of these things, and were shown in one subsistence.
Let not Eutyches and Dioscorus vainly leap forth, those propagators of an impious confusion that does not exist; but each nature was performing its own work with the communion of the other, C shunning division and knowing naught of conversion, and keeping the difference in relation to the other, while preserving the communion and composition indissoluble and unbreakable. Hence, we who think piously and stand upon the bounds of Orthodoxy, just as we say that one and the same Christ and Son operates both—since he is the same who is God and man—and we conceive of no confusion, so also, in asserting that each form operates its own properties with the communion of the other, since there have stood two forms in the one and same Christ naturally operating their own properties, we conceive of no division at all—as Eutyches wants to do on one side, and Nestorius wants to slander us on the other, standing against each other and dividing an impious war against us who are pious. D Considering these as nothing, we know the operation of each nature—I mean the essential, natural, and appropriate operation, proceeding indivisibly from each essence and nature, according to the natural and essential quality inherent in it, and bringing with it the inseparable and at the same time unconfused cooperation of the other essence. For this is what makes the difference in the operations that are in Christ, just as the existence of the natures makes the difference of the natures. For divinity and humanity are not the same according to the quality naturally present in each, even if they have run together in an ineffable way into one subsistence, and into one without confusion...
and have made one and the same Christ and Son for us, following their subsistence in the concurrence A and composition according to subsistence, and are composed. For God the Word is God the Word, and not flesh, although He assumed flesh endowed with a rational soul, and united it to Himself by a natural union and according to subsistence. Truly, the flesh is flesh endowed with a rational soul, not the Word, although it is seen as the flesh of God the Word. And for this reason, we do not say they have the same operation, undistinguished from one another after the natural and unconfused—that is, the true and subsistence-based—union; nor do we say that theirs is one and the same operation (whether essential and natural and utterly indistinguishable), lest we collapse them into one essence and one nature, a notion played with by the boys of the Acephali and impudently put forward by them in these very terms.
Just as, therefore, we confess two natural operations of each of the essences and natures from which the unconfused union for us in Christ has come to pass—making Him one Christ and Son, fully God and the same fully recognized as man—lest we confuse the natures which are united without confusion, since, according to those who are skilled in such things, natures are known only by their operations, and it is innate to grasp the difference of essences always from the difference of operations: so too B we teach that every utterance and operation, whether it be divine and heavenly or human and earthly, proceeds from one and the same Christ and Son, and from His one composite and singular subsistence, He who was God the Word incarnate, who also brought forth each operation inseparably and unconfusedly according to His own natures, naturally from Himself: according to His divine nature, by which He was also consubstantial with the Father, the divine and ineffable [operation]; and according to the human [nature], by which the same remained consubstantial with us men, the human and earthly [operation]—the one friendly and conformable to each nature; and not letting any of those who look upon Him be scandalized, as if the same were not God and man, who naturally worked these and those things. In the fact that the same one Christ and Son worked both, He blocks the foul efflux of Nestorius—for we do not, as we have said, suppose there are two Christs and sons, according to him, working these and those [things]; but C in the fact that He manifested what is proper to each nature, remaining unconfused after the union, and brought forth the operation D of each of them in like manner—by the natural reason that recognizes the natures and naturally explains the proper nature from which each was inseparably and naturally brought forth and substantially bubbled up—He turns back the growth of Eutyches that loves confusion. Hence the birth
A from us, he is nourished with milk, and grows, and undergoes the physical transitions of age, until he arrives at the perfection of human maturity; and he accepts our hunger and thirst, and the fatigue from traveling, after the manner of our own. For he also practiced for us the act of walking in the same way, which, being performed humanly and proceeding according to a human substance, served as a demonstration of his human nature. Whence he moved from place to place just as we do, since he truly became man, and possessed our nature unimpaired, and endured the circumscription of a body, and put on the form appropriate to us. For bodily—that is, of the body—is also the appearance of the figure, according to which he was conceived in the womb and fashioned, and which he has always preserved and keeps to the endless age. B For this reason, being hungry, he was fed; for this reason, being thirsty, he was given to drink, and drank as a man. For this reason, as a child, he was carried, being borne in virginal arms and laid in a mother's bosom. For this reason, becoming weary, he sat down, and needing sleep, he slept. But he also suffered when struck, endured pain when scourged, and underwent the bodily sufferings of having his hands and feet pierced upon the cross; for he gave, whenever he wished, the opportunity to the human nature to perform and suffer its own things in the natural way, so that his incarnation might not be judged a mere phantasy or some empty sight and reputation. For he did not accept these things involuntarily or by necessity, even if he accepted them naturally and humanly, and performed and acted with human movements—far be this abominable suspicion! C For it was God who consented to suffer these things carnally, and by his own passions he saved us, and through them he dispensed insensibility to us. But when he himself willed to suffer and act and operate humanly, and decided to benefit those who were watching—for whose sake he also truly became man—and not when the natural and carnal movements willed to be moved naturally toward action, even though the godless conspirators were daringly eager to fulfill their plots. For he put on a body that was passable, mortal, and corruptible, and subject to our natural and irreproachable passions; and he allowed this body, in a way becoming its own nature, to suffer and act until the resurrection from the dead. There, indeed, he abolished our passable, mortal, and corruptible state, and granted us freedom from these. All things therefore that are lowly and human, he demonstrated in this way—simultaneously voluntary and natural—remaining God even in these things. For he was himself the storehouse of his own human passions and actions, and not only the storehouse, but also the arbiter, even though he was by nature passable because he had been naturally incarnated. And for this reason his human experiences were beyond those of a man—not, indeed, because it was not a human nature, but because he became man voluntarily; and having become man, he accepted these things voluntarily and not tyrannically or by necessity, as is sometimes the case with us beyond our will, but when and to the extent that he himself willed, and he himself permitted...
both to those who inflicted afflictions and to the sufferings themselves, which occurred according to nature. But those divine, brilliant, and supreme A things, which clearly surpass our lowliness, which were miracles and prodigies, and the manifestation of wonderful works—such as the seedless conception, the leaping of John within the womb, the incorrupt birth, the undefiled virginity, which is inviolable before the birth, in the birth, and after the birth, the heavenly instruction of the shepherds, the star-voiced convocation of the Magi, the gift-bearing along with the adoration, the knowledge of letters without instruction («For how does this man know letters, they say, having not learned?»), partly rebuking the malicious desire of his friends' ignorance, the wine-like replenishment from water, the strengthening of the weak, the sight of the blind, the raising of the mutilated, the binding of the paralytics, the straight-running motion of the lame, the super-shining cleansing of the lepers, the sudden satisfaction of the hungry, the blinding of those who persecuted, the calming of the winds, the tranquil stillness of the sea, the bodily walking upon the waters, the expulsion of unclean spirits, the sudden commotion of the elements, the spontaneous opening of the tombs, the three-day resurrection from the dead, the deathless destruction of corruption, the never-failing overthrow of death, B the unhindered exit with the stone and the seal of the tomb being kept watch, the irresistible entry while the doors were shut, the most wonderful and bodily ascent from earth to heaven, and all things similar to these—are things that transcend the nature of discourse and the power of language, and surpass every human intellect. All these things, performed beyond human speech and nature, were admittedly proofs of the divine essence and nature of the Word of God, even though they were performed through flesh and body, and were not accomplished without flesh endowed with a rational soul. And yet, because of these things, we do not imagine the Word of God to be fleshless, nor do we teach that he is without a body, because he performed things that exceed bodies. For truly the Word has been made flesh, and, having been truly incarnate, he has been embodied, and one Son was known, who brought forth from himself every operation, divine and human, small and great, humble and heavenly, carnal and incorporeal, visible and invisible, circumscribed and uncircumscribed, corresponding to the duality of his natures, and of itself unceasingly proclaiming and ardently announcing it.
One and the same therefore, according to subsistence, being the Son, indivisible, the same is recognized as having two natures, according to one of which he wrought divine signs, C while according to the other he accepted humble things. And for this reason those instructed by God, who have been crowned for Christ the true God, and have received the claim from God, assert [that... the most divine syn...] D
understandings: just as when you hear the opposing voices regarding the one Son, you correctly divide what is said according to the natures; if it be something great and divine, assigning it to the divine nature; if it be something small and human, attributing it to the human. For in this way you will escape the discordance of the voices, with each nature receiving what is proper to it, and you will acknowledge the one Son, both before all ages and in the recent time, according to the holy Scriptures.
But they also assert this regarding the one Son: no one should separate any operation from the one Son. But let him make known by means of the account to which nature that which is being performed belongs, through its own operation. Therefore, it has been most excellently explained by them that I confess one Emmanuel (for thus is the God-Word named as incarnate), B and that the same one performs all things, and not one and then another, both the sublime and the most trivial, without any distance, through which the unconfused quality of his natures is recognized, and he is not at all divided into two substances and persons; but he is one and the same Son and Christ, inseparable, recognized in two natures without division. And we confirm that all things belong to this one Son, and we believe all his voices and his operations, even if some of them are divine, some are human, and others hold a certain middle order, as possessing in this same God both what is divine and what is human.
Of this power we declare that what is called the common and the God-human operation arises—not as one thing existing, but as being of a different kind and distinct—which the God-bearing Dionysius, he who was divinely captured C at the Areopagus by the divine Paul, declared, as having within it both what is divine and what is human, and, through the most graceful and composite expression, fully revealing the operation of each substance and nature. Therefore, glorifying the God-Word as being before the ages and co-eternal with the Father, we proclaim that he underwent a temporal birth, in which he was born, having been incarnate from the Virgin Mary, who is truly and properly the Theotokos. And for this reason, it is rightly believed by the pious that he was born by two births. And the same one, being perfect in deity, was the same one perfect in humanity; D not divided by the difference of the substances, nor bringing the natures to a substantial identity through the identity of the subsistence and of the person; but he remained inseparable in those natures from which he was revealed regarding his subsistence, all things wisely and truly undergoing—the natural and blameless works and passions—things far from stain and pollution, and in which no trace of sin is found; for he committed no sin, nor was any guile found in his mouth at all. And having lived among us in a human way, being recognized as perfect man, even though he remained God without deficiency, and having worked miracles as was fitting,
was found; and he conversed with us as a human, insofar as he was known to be perfect man, while the same being remained God without diminution, and performing miracles, as was fitting.
For he was recognized as perfect God, although he was mixed with human and intellectually animated flesh. He ascends to his spontaneous passion and is voluntarily betrayed to the Jews; or rather, he voluntarily betrays himself to them for the salvation of men. He is bound, and buffeted, and spat upon, and scourged, and mocked, and is clothed in a purple cloak as the King of all, and a reed is handed to him as a royal scepter in a kingly manner; and he is condemned by Pilate as judge, and at last is fastened to the gibbet, and is stained with blood on his hands and feet, being nailed to the saving cross. He is lifted up with thieves, and is given vinegar to drink, and tastes of gall; and with a loud cry he delivers his soul to the Father, and his side is pierced by a spear, and after death he pours forth B both water and saving blood. Dead, he is taken down from the cross, and is prepared for burial, and is seasoned with myrrh, and is buried in a three-day burial; and rising on the third day, he proceeds from the tomb, and he raises up all the dead with himself from the tomb, leading them from corruption to his own unending life through his own resurrection from the dead. And rising from the dead, he appears to the disciples, and gives assurance of the resurrection of his own flesh by food and drink and by the touch of apostolic hands, and imparts the all-holy Spirit to them, as being akin and connatural to himself. And he is lifted into heaven—or rather, as Lord of the heavens he ascends—and sits at the right hand of the Begetter, having the Father’s chair, royal and supreme. Whence he will also come again to pass judgment on the living and the dead, and to render to each according to his works, as he has acted, whether he has wrought C good and noble deeds, or evil and blameworthy ones. Him, together with the Father and the Spirit, we believe to reign over all, a kingdom truly immortal, and one that shall admit of no end or termination. But I have also briefly demonstrated concerning the incarnation dispensation—that is to say, the admirable incarnation of the Word of God and his assimilation to us humble ones—as I speak and think. But concerning the constitution of the visible world, which came to be from the beginning, and its consummation, which it shall not long receive, I confess, O God-honored ones, that the one God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that eternal nature that knows no beginning—fashioned all things, not only those which are visible, but also those which are invisible; D and he brought them from nothingness into being, and he planned those things which were not before, and prudently brought forth the myriad differences of these things. For the Father has made all things through the Only-Begotten Son in the Holy Spirit, which also he sustains with wise providence, presiding as God over his own works, and having set a temporal beginning for all things; he subjected the sensible things to a temporal end, but the intelligible and invisible things he deemed worthy of a greater honor, and they do not die at all, nor are they corrupted according to the nature of sensible things.
A Thus the souls of men remain incorrupt; thus the angels continue immortal—not possessing a nature that is truly, as we have said, incorrupt, or an essence that is inherently immortal, but having obtained by the grace of God that which bestows immortality and is the agent of incorruption for them. But merely because the souls of men have, by the grace of God, repelled the corruption which naturally resides in all created things, we shall not for this reason suppose them to have existed before their bodies, or imagine that they existed before the production and joining together of this visible world in some eternal life, nor shall we affirm that they possessed a heavenly life, living a B fleshless and bodiless life in heaven when they did not yet exist, as the deranged Origen maintains, and his fellow-initiates and like-minded accomplices, Didymus and Evagrius, and the rest of their circle, concerned with myths. They not only err in this by holding opinions similar to the dogmas of the Greeks and besmirching the nobility of the Christians, but they also foolishly deny the resurrection of these bodies with which we are now clothed, babbling many terrible things worthy of their impious fables. To rebuke them, it suffices to cite what is said by Paul to the Corinthians: "For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen" (1 Cor. xv, 16), and the rest. And thus, as their thoughts vanish, that which follows will be added: "Therefore your faith is vain." Is not the resurrection of this C flesh a part of our adorable confession? For we are required to confess the resurrection of the flesh when we approach the saving baptism. For this reason, as it has been observed by some of the wise, the entire bright and illustrious dispensation of the Only-Begotten was brilliantly enacted, that He might save the image and render the flesh immortal. Not only are these madmen deluded in this, wandering away from the straight path—for their impiety is, by comparison, the more bearable—but they have also asserted many other things contrary to our apostolic and patristic tradition, D rejecting the planting of paradise, refusing to believe that Adam was formed in the flesh, blaming the formation of Eve from him, refuting the sound of the serpent, forbidding the belief that the hierarchies of the heavenly orders were thus created by God from the beginning, but imagining them to be the result of a prior condemnation and transgression. Just as they suppose that all rational beings were produced in a unity of minds, they babble in a way that is at once atheistic and mythical, reviling the creation of the supercelestial waters, wishing for an end to punishment, and bringing in the complete corruption of all sensible things; and regarding all rational beings—angels, men—
and demons—they assert a restoration, and again pour the differences of these back into a mythical unity; A while Christ himself—whom they in their delirium teach, and not the one whom we piously preach—they declare to be no different from us in glory, or honor, or kingdom, or dominion, but rather they bubble over with demonic [teachings]; and bringing forth thousands of things from the diabolical and impious treasury of their hearts, they give their neighbor to drink, not with one murky subversion, but with thousands, and they kill the souls of men—wretched ones for whom Christ deemed it worthy to die, and for whose redemption He poured out His divine blood, and, as a gift surpassing all value, most divinely laid down His own soul. But we, having been given to drink of the rational and guileless milk of the straight and immaculate and chaste faith, and having tasted the good word of God, repel all their dark dogmas, and are free from all the empty talk of these nefariously speaking men; and walking in the footsteps of our fathers, we speak of the consummation of the present age, and we believe that that life which is to be after the present life will endure eternally; and we hold that punishment is immortal; that [life, which] unceasingly gladdens the doers of praiseworthy works, [while that punishment which] incessantly afflicts and even tortures those who have become lovers of evil here, and who did not wish to repent before they departed and exited from here: "For their worm shall not die," says Christ the judge and the truth, "and their fire shall not be extinguished." B
To think and believe these things, O most wise ones, we have received from the apostolic and evangelical, and from the prophetic and legal, and from the paternal and doctrinal preaching, and we have made them manifest—clear—to you, who are all-wise, and we have hidden nothing from you. It is therefore logical and fitting, and consistent with the ancient tradition, to make manifest in writing the sacred councils of our paternal and most holy assemblies, which we cherish as lights for our souls, and which we pray to keep throughout the ages, so that we may share with them in the blessed life, as their noble children and successors. Therefore, we accept the four great and sacred and universal councils regarding the divine dogmas of the Church, brightened by evangelical radiances and adorned by the multitude of evangelical characteristics. C We say that the council of the three hundred and eighteen God-bearing Fathers at Nicaea takes precedence among these, which, having been gathered by divine command, cast down the contagions of the Arian madness. After it, in time—though not in glory or grace—a second assembly was gathered, which was called together in the imperial city. D One hundred and fifty God-wise Fathers were there, who
A, led by God, fulfilled this council, which extinguished the three-pronged lightning of Macedonius, Apollinaris, and Magnus, and snatched the assemblies of the pious from such grievous affliction.
Third after this, in time alone, I glorify the council which sat in Ephesus, the first, by divine will; for the so-called second council of Dioscorus is found to be of one mind with the reprobate opinion of Eutyches. This first council was known to be the gathering of two hundred holy Fathers; it cast down the man-worshipper Nestorius and all his Christ-rebellious impiety.
Fourth after these three, in time alone, a God-wise company of six hundred and thirty altogether praiseworthy Fathers and luminaries of the faith is gathered, which in Chalcedon held its divine assembly by God’s direction, and had as a fellow-combatant Euphemia the martyr, who even until today B fights for their definition of the faith, and makes much and unceasing discourse concerning their famous and great gathering. It slays the profane duality—I mean Eutyches and Dioscorus—and blocks their God-opposing malice, which flows down like a stream from the Apollinarian fountain and fills all the rivulets of impiety. And it casts out, along with the most impious heresy of these men, the most foul heresy of the God-opposing Nestorius by means of its own orthodox assertions; for it had gathered even against this one, as it still breathed in impudence. Whence it also utterly deadened it and drove it from the ecclesiastical courts.
Upon these great and ecumenical, most venerable and most sacred C gatherings of the holy and blessed Fathers, equal in honor, I accept also a fifth, other than these and after these, a holy and ecumenical council constituted universally, which was celebrated in the queen of cities, while Justinian was then wielding the scepter of the Roman empire, and all its noble decrees; which, while confirming the famous council at Chalcedon D, also destroys and casts away to perdition, fundamentally, the insane Origen and all his dream-like vanities and writings full of manifold impiety; and the doctrines of Evagrius, along with those of Didymus, all their pagan and monstrous, and indeed also their fabulous, ravings. After them, it plucks out Theodore of Mopsuestia, the teacher of the God-opposing Nestorius, and as a filthy weed, with his blasphemous writings, it casts him from the Catholic Church. And the writings of Theodoret, which were badly and impiously produced against Cyril, the champion of piety, and all those which accused the twelve chapters of the same divine Cyril, as well as the first holy council of Ephesus, and the rightness of our faith, in order to favor the impious Nestorius, it likewise makes them subject to the same condemnation, as also those which he had written in defense of Diodore and Theodore.
A With these he also rooted out the letter which is said to have been written to Maris the Persian, as being not only an opponent of right dogmas, but also filled with every impiety. As for those holy, great, and ecumenical four holy councils, I embrace them and cherish them with one mind; and in addition to these, I honor, revere, and venerate this fifth one also, and I willingly accept all their contents, both in dogmas and diverse teachings, as well as in the anathemas and definitions against those who hold heretical opinions. Whence I also approve and accept those whom they accepted and approved; and I anathematize and reject as many as they subjected to anathema and deemed to be outcasts from our holy catholic Church. Following these blessed and holy five synods, I acknowledge one and only one definition of faith, and I know one learning and symbol, which the all-wise and blessed holy multitude of the three hundred and eighteen God-bearing Fathers at Nicaea uttered by the Holy Spirit; B which the gathering of the hundred and fifty God-inspired Fathers at Constantinople also confirmed; and which the first synod of the two hundred divinely-inspired Fathers at Ephesus confirmed; and which the conventicle of the six hundred and thirty most holy Fathers at Chalcedon accepted and stabilized, and declared to be kept inviolate, unbreakable, and immovable in a flourishing manner.
We also receive and embrace with the same arms all the divine and God-taught writings of the most holy Cyril, as being full of all correctness C and exposing all the impiety of the heretics, and especially those two synodical letters to the God-hated and God-accursed Nestorius, the second and also the third, to which are joined the twelve chapters, which burned up all the malice of Nestorius with coals equal in number to the holy apostles. Together with these, I also receive the synodical letter written to the most holy bishops of the East, in which he also called their voices holy, and confirmed the peace with them. Along with which we also count the letters of the Eastern bishops themselves, and we call them indissoluble, as being accepted by the divine Cyril himself, and testified by him as orthodox in unequivocal terms. D Similarly, like these holy writings of the all-wise Cyril, I receive as holy and to be honored equally, as a propagator of the same right faith and as God-given and God-inspired, the letter of the great and illustrious Leo, the most holy light of the Roman Church, or rather of all Churches under the sun; which, clearly moved by the divine Spirit, he wrote against the accursed Eutyches and the God-hated and senseless Nestorius, to Flavian, the praiseworthy bishop of the Queen of Cities. This I also call and define as a pillar of orthodoxy, following the holy Fathers who thus rightly defined it, inasmuch as it instructs us in all orthodoxy and destroys all heretical depravity, and of our holy
A Catholic Church, shielding the God-guarded courtyards. Together with this divine syllable and writing, I embrace, kiss, venerate, and with my whole soul cling to all his epistles and dogmas, as having proceeded from the mouth of Peter, the chief of the Apostles. These, as I said before, I receive, along with the five holy and divine councils of our blessed Fathers, and all the writings of the all-wise Cyril, and especially those written against the madness of Nestorius, as well as the letter of the eastern bishops written to the same divine Cyril—which he himself attested to be orthodox—and whatever Leo, the most holy administrator of the most holy Roman Church, has written, and especially what he drafted against the Eutychian and Nestorian profanity: these I acknowledge as definitions of Peter, the others as those of Mark. Indeed, I also accept all the God-taught doctrines of all the prominent instructors of our Catholic Church, whether they are contained in spoken words and writings, or in any epistles whatsoever. And, to speak concisely, I receive and embrace everything which our holy Catholic Church receives; and conversely, I refute and anathematize everything, and consider it profane, which she herself wisely abhors and deems contrary to her own piety—not only pamphlets, little words, things contrary to God, and private [spurious] dogmas, but also heretical and blasphemous persons who act as teachers of blasphemous sects. And that nothing may be lacking for your satisfaction, I also express those very persons whom I anathematize and declare to be condemned, not only with tongue and mouth, but in heart and spirit, inasmuch as they have been shown to be in all things adversaries to our holy Catholic faith.
Anathema, therefore, in perpetuity, and condemnation from the holy, consubstantial, and adorable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be upon: first, Simon Magus, who, as the worst of all, was the first to initiate the worst heresies; after him, Cleobius, Menander, Philetus, Hermogenes, Alexander the Coppersmith, Dositheus, Gortheus, Saturninus, Masbotheus, B Hadrian, Basilides, Isidore his son, and someone worse than him in madness, Ebion, Carpocrates, Epiphanes, Prodicus, Cerinthus, and Merinthus, Valentinus, Florinus, Blastus, Artemon, Secundus, Cassianus, Theodotus, Heracleon, Ptolemy, Marcus, Colorbasus, Ademis the Carystian, Theodotus the cobbler, another Theodotus, Euphrates the Persian, Monoimus the Arab, Hermogenes, Tatian the Syrian, Severus, Asclepiodotus, Bardesanes, Harmonius his son, and his equal in error, Hermophilus, Cerdon, Sacerdon, Marcion the Pontian, Apelles, Apollonides, Potitus, Prepon, Pithon, C Syneros, Theodotus the money-changer, Montanus, Priscilla and Maximilla, his mad disciples, Nepos, Helcesaeus, Origen, another Origen who is also
A another, namely, Adamantius; Sabellius the Libyan; Novatus; Paul of Samosata; Epigenus; Cleomenes; Noetus of Smyrna; Manes, from whom that impious madness took its name; Sabbatius; Arius; Meletius; Aetius; Eunomius; Asterius; Eudoxius; Donatus; B Macedonius, who fought against the Holy Spirit and justly received the name of Pneumatomachus; Apollinarius of Laodicea, and his son Apollinarius; Magnus; Polemon; Coelestius; Pelagius; Julian, the defenders of this same madness; Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Nestorius, the most foul preachers of the filthy worship of man; Cyrus and John the Cilicians, most godless proponents of the same atheism; Eutyches; Dioscorus, the defender and advocate of Eutyches; Barsumas; Zooras; Timothy who is called Aelurus; Peter Moggus, that is, the Stammerer; and Acacius, who contrived the Henoticon—that is, the "cenoticon"—vanity of Zeno; Lampetius, the author of that unmentionable heresy of the Marcionites; Didymus and Evagrius, the most foul originators of Origenist vanity. Peter the Fuller, who dared to add the cross to the Trisagion hymn. Another Peter, a contagion of an Iberian and barbarous mind, and Esaias, a colleague of this Peter, who spread another heresy of the Acephali among the Acephali. With all these, and before all, and after all, and according to all, and above all, let Severus be anathema, the most savage disciple of these men, who was shown to be a most cruel tyrant over all the Acephali, both new and old, and a most savage enemy of the holy Catholic Church, and a most iniquitous adulterer of the most holy Church of Antioch, and an C abominable corrupter. Also Theodosius of Alexandria, Anthimus of Trapezunt; Jacob of Syria; Julian of Halicarnassus; Felicissimus; Gaianus of Alexandria, from whom the heresy of the Gaianites or Julianists arose; Dorotheus, a champion of the same impious heresy; Paul the Black, who was so not only in name but also in truth; John the Grammarian, surnamed Philoponus, that is, "lover of labor," but rather "Malaeoponus," that is, "useless laborer"; Conon and Eugenius—these three, tritheists, that is, thrice-cursed champions of a triple deity; Themistius, who was the father, begetter, and most wicked sower of ignorance, who raved that Christ, our true God, did not know the day D of judgment, not knowing what he himself—already cast off by God—was asserting, and not recognizing what he was uttering in his ignorance. For if he had not been ignorant of the power of his own words, he would certainly not have given birth to such lethal ignorance, nor would he have fervently defended the foulness of ignorance: claiming that Christ was ignorant of the day of consummation and judgment—not according to his being as eternal God, but according to his having truly become man—belching this out from a foolish mind and making him a mere man. And, branding this monstrosity with the name of the "Acephalic," and one nature, enotic-
- A composition of our same Savior Christ, imagining it. Let Peter the Syrian also be with him, anathema, and Sergius the Armenian, the leaders of the minor, [*] tritheism, and not even in this agreeing with themselves, nor thinking the same things similar to one another. Damian, indeed, is a surpassing adversary to these B, but a new Sabellius shown in our times. With whom also let their successors in impiety be anathema and sub-anathema: Athanasius the Syrian, and Anastasius the Apozygarius, and those who receive their incongruous concord incongruously and ignorantly, and are led astray by them like unreasoning beasts; and who indeed speak as if they were agreeing in a friendly way with one another, but are wounding one another with hostile anathemas.
Let Benjamin the Alexandrian, and John, and Sergius, and Thomas, and Severus of the Syrians, who still live an accursed life and are cruelly attacking piety, also be clothed with them and girded with anathema and sub-anathema. Let Menas the Alexandrian also share in the condemnation of these present anathemas, he who is a champion and defender of the heresy of the Gaianites, and publicly attacking the preaching of the truth, and all who are partners and kin with him, and his peers in impiety. Let all the heresies that have flourished after the coming of Christ, and have dared to attack the Church of Christ, be subjected to the same anathemas as them, that is to say: the Nicolaitans, the Euchites, the Caians, the Adamians, the Marbilite, the Borborians, the Nasenes, the Stratiotics, the Aphonites, the Sethians, the Sophianites, the Ophites, the Antitactites, the Peratics, the Hydroparastatae, the Encratites, the Marcionists, the Phrygians, the Pepuzians, the Artotyrites, the Tascollurgians, the Tessarecaidecatites, the Nazareans, the Melchisedechians, the Antidicomarianites, the Tatherians, the Martians, the Dulians, the Anthropomorphites, the Hieracites, the Messalians, the Eutychians, the Acephali, the Versumophiles, the Isaianites, the Agnoites, the Jacobites, the Tritheites, and whatever other impious and God-rejected heresy has existed besides them.
Therefore, all the aforementioned arch-heretics, and the most impious heresies and schisms named after them, I anathematize and sub-anathematize with soul, and heart, and mouth, and mind, and
A words, and discourses. And every other author of heresy who is lost, and every other most profane heresy, and every other schism cast off by God, as many as our holy Catholic Church anathematizes. I also anathematize and sub-anathematize all those who consent with them, who have emulated the same impieties as they, and have died in them without repentance, and those who even now persist in them, and who fight against the preaching of our Catholic Church, and attack our right and immaculate faith. And I anathematize again, in like manner, all their writings that are repugnant to God, which they have composed against our most holy Catholic Church, and have written against our right and immaculate faith. I anathematize, moreover, along with these profane heresies, every other heresy hateful to God and deserving of curses, which our holy Catholic Church is accustomed to anathematize and condemn, as well as their leaders and progenitors, and their shameful and most foul discourses and little books; while I honor, and hold to, and believe, and venerate only the dogmas of our holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, which I have set forth for you in part and briefly, on account of the conciseness of the synodical letters, as I have said; with which, indeed, I pray to depart from here, whenever God shall command this to come to pass.
Whence I also beseech your paternal holiness, B that upon receiving these letters from my humility in synodical order, you might regard them with paternal eyes, and look upon them with brotherly vision: and if anything has been faulted through ignorance, or has been omitted through forgetfulness, or has been overlooked through haste, or has been less than fully expressed through conciseness, and is not mentioned at all, or has been silenced through incapacity of language, or through the weight of the tongue and the excessive weakness of the voice, or through the infirmity of rustic words, and has been passed over against our will, do you fulfill them with additions and expressions proceeding from paternal fullness, and set them right with corrections, and grant them a most beloved strength, worked through brotherly efforts and watered by paternal intentions: so that neither that which is lacking in them should appear for all time as imperfect, nor that which is weak, and which perhaps slipped out most often through ignorance, should remain forever invalid and should sicken C throughout its whole life. Which, when it shall have been done by you in a friendly and genuine manner, will indeed enrich and save me, but will testify to you, most blessed one, of your dear affection of compassion—this being the same as to speak of the love of a son and of brotherhood. And so, being enriched by you, and having what was wanting restored, and what was weak medicated, and what was lame set upright, and being crowned with paternal and brotherly riches, what kind of thanks am I to return to you, and what joy with these, [may it be considered]
A or what supreme delight shall I be recognized to enjoy! But God alone knows this; though I myself also know it, O you who are honored by God, who gain such compassion for myself and reap a brilliant benefit. Perhaps you yourselves will also know and learn this, if you see the fervor of my heart for piety, and if you behold with the eyes of the soul how much it inclines toward charity. Therefore, ceasing to ask more of you with these words (for I know that you will fulfill these even before our most humble requests, being inflamed by the fire of brotherly love and alight B with paternal longing), I implore—and I will never cease imploring—that you may most fervently cherish me in your prayers and supplications to God, as I fear and tremble and am unable to bear the weight of the yoke laid upon me; and not only this, but that you may also pasture with me this flock of Christ, which I have indeed been entrusted to shepherd, but am unable to do so unless you assist me with your support, in order to shepherd it and nourish it with certain divine and useful shoots, and to keep it unharmed and uninjured. And for this reason, I intercede and pray that this flock may suffer no harm whatsoever from my inexperience and lack of skill, and from my weakness in not being able to govern it properly, lest I be judged at the day of judgment as if I myself had harmed it, and undergo eternal C punishment, like those who steal and slaughter and destroy the most precious sheep of Christ God. For I know clearly, and I understand that I am to be held to account by Christ, the Prince of Shepherds, for their salvation and growth, and for their abundance, which is brought to peak by the best pastures. But if you are able, O you who are honored by God—if Christ grants the ability—strive to help us, lest I myself, and these most precious sheep of Christ, be captured by beasts on account of my weakness.
I bring you an equally abundant request: that you make an earnest and unceasing petition and prayer to God for our Christ-loving and most serene emperors, who have received the steering-oars of the empire from God; so that God, who is compassionate and D merciful—and who also has power equal to His will—being appeased by your God-acceptable prayers, may grant them a long abundance of years, and may give them the greatest victories and trophies over the Barbarians, and crown them to the children of their children, and encompass them with divine peace, and grant them strong and powerful scepters, breaking the arrogance of all the Barbarians, and especially of the Saracens, who because of our sins have now unexpectedly risen up against us, and are plundering everything with a cruel and beastly mind, and with impious and godless audacity. Wherefore we ask you all the more, most holy ones, to pour out most earnest petitions to Christ, so that He may mercifully accept these from you and quickly overthrow them.
down as a footstool, just as before, beneath our emperors whom God preserves; so that they who hold our imperial rule on earth may fare well, resting from the tumults of war; and that with them all their commonwealth may also fare well, being firmly secured by their scepters, and through them may partake of the fruits of joy in a peaceful state. Therefore, I justly implore your fraternal affection to look with a placid countenance and receive with appropriate condescension Leontius, the God-beloved deacon of the holy Resurrection of Christ our God, and chancellor B and chief notary of our venerable secretum; and our most devout brother Polyeuctus, who are the ministers of this our synodical writing. For this is indeed your most special mark, by which you always strike those who behold you with wonder: that you exist in such great sublimity, and yet are clothed in such great humility. But do you also embrace them spiritually and joyfully with all your own brilliant qualities, and bestow upon them spiritual and glorious provisions for the soul, and send them back to us quickly, eager and rejoicing that they have been deemed worthy to behold such a prelate of the Byzantines; and do you also gladden our own insignificance, C as they splendidly recount to us your affairs, and the health of soul granted by God, and the health of body bestowed by God: and as they bring the desired writings, which illumine for us the true faith, render white the habit of the soul, instruct us in pastoral discipline, and make us most constant in shewing the flock of Christ committed to us here, so that, guarded by the protection of discernment and knowledge, we may ward off the raging and insidious wolves with the staff of pastoral vigilance from the sheepfolds divinely committed to us by Providence; and that we may present the people committed to us immune from danger to the Creator, to receive munificently from the most just Judge the reward for our labors. With all my heart, I—the humble and least one—and all the brothers who are with me, greet the God-beloved and joyful brotherhood that is with you, most holy ones, in Christ our God; fare well in the Lord, and pray for me, most holy brother.