authors who have attempted to corrupt the apostolic faith, and who have dared to introduce a strange doctrine into the evangelical dogmas. The impious chapters, which they had sent with anathemas to the imperial city, they received, and by their own signatures, as they thought, confirmed them, clearly having sprouted from the bitter root of Apollinarius. A They partake also of the impiety of Arius and Eunomius; and if any one should wish to examine them accurately, they will not lack the impiety of Valentinus and Marcion either.
For in the first chapter, he rejects the economy that took place for our sake, teaching that the divine Word did not assume a human nature, but was Himself changed into flesh; and he dogmatizes that the incarnation of our Savior occurred by appearance and fantasy, not in truth. These are the offspring of the impiety of Marcion, Manes, and Valentinus. In the second and third chapters, B as if forgetting what he had set forth in the introduction, he introduces a hypostatic union, and a concurrence according to a physical union, teaching by these terms that a certain mixture and confusion have occurred between the divine nature and the form of a servant. This is a brood of the heretical innovation of Apollinarius. In the fourth chapter, he forbids the distinction of evangelical and apostolic expressions, and does not permit, according to the teachings of the orthodox Fathers, the expressions that befit God to be understood concerning the divine nature, while those that are humble and spoken in a human manner be applied to the assumed humanity; and from this, therefore, one may find those who are sensible of the kinship of this impiety. C For Arius and Eunomius, asserting that the only-begotten Son of God is a creature and made from non-existence, and a servant, dared to attribute the things spoken humbly by the Lord Christ and in a human manner to His divinity, and from this they fashioned a difference and dissimilarity of essence. Furthermore, to speak briefly, he proclaims that the very divinity of Christ, which is impassible and immutable, can suffer, and be crucified, and die, and be buried; a claim that truly surpasses the madness of Arius and Eunomius. For not even those who dared to call the Maker and Creator of all things a creature descended into such impiety. D He blasphemes also against the Holy Spirit, saying that He does not proceed from the Father, according to the word of the Lord, but that He has His existence from the Son. And this is the fruit of the seeds of Apollinarius; and it borders also on the evil husbandry of Macedonius. Such are the Egyptian offspring, truly more wicked descendants of an evil father. These, which should have been brought to abortion while still in the womb, or, if recently born, destroyed as pernicious and harmful to our nature, those noble men nurture, and with much zeal defend them for their own destruction, and that of those who deign to lend their ears to them.
A We, however, strive to preserve the ancestral inheritance unharmed, and we keep undefiled and incorrupt the faith which we received, and in which we were baptized and by which we baptize; and we confess our Lord Jesus Christ to be true God and true man, of a rational soul and body, begotten of the Father before the ages according to his divinity, but in the last days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary; we believe him to be the same, consubstantial with the Father according to his divinity, and consubstantial with us according to his humanity. For there has come to pass a union of two natures. Therefore, we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord; for we do not break the union, and we believe it to have come about without confusion, obeying the Lord who says to the Jews: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But if a mixture and a confusion had taken place, and one nature had been formed out of two, he ought to have said, “Destroy me, and in three days I will rise again.” But now, showing that God is one thing according to nature, and the temple another, yet both together are one Christ, he says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” clearly teaching that it was not God who was being destroyed, but the temple. And the nature of the latter was subject to destruction, while the power of the former raised up what was destroyed. We believe Christ to be both God and man, following the divine Scriptures. For that our Lord Jesus Christ is God, the blessed evangelist John cries out: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” And again: “The true light that lightens every man coming into the world.” And the Lord himself clearly teaches, saying: “He who has seen me, has seen the Father.” And, “I and the Father are one,” and, “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.” C And the blessed Paul says in the Epistle to the Hebrews: “Who being the radiance of his glory and the stamp of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power.” And in the one to the Philippians: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not account it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” And in the one to the Romans: “Whose are the fathers, and from whom Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.” And in the one to Titus: “Waiting for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ.” And Isaiah also cries out that “a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us, and the government has been placed upon his shoulder,” and he is called the name of him of great counsel, Angel, D wondrous, coun-
Aselor, God mighty, potentate, Prince of peace, Father of the age to come. And again he says, “Behind you they shall walk, being bound in chains; and they shall pray to you, because God is in you, and there is no God except you. For you are God, and we did not know it, the God of Israel, the Savior.” And the name Emmanuel signifies both God and man; for it is translated, according to the teaching of the Gospel, “God with us,” that is, God in man, God in our nature. The divine Jeremiah also prophesies, saying, “This is our God; no other shall be reckoned against him. He found out all the way of knowledge and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. After these things he was seen on earth, and conversed with men.” And one could find thousands of other utterances from the divine Gospels, from the writings of the apostles, and from the prophetic oracles, showing that our Lord Jesus Christ is the true God.
That he is also called man after the incarnation, the Lord himself teaches, debating with the Jews and crying out, “Why do you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you?” And the blessed Paul, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, saying, “For since by man came death, and by man came the resurrection of the dead.” And showing of whom he speaks, he explains what was said, speaking thus, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.” Writing to Timothy he likewise says, “One God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” And in the Acts, while addressing the Athenians, he says, “The times of this ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to repent; because he has appointed a day on which he is about to judge the world in righteousness, by the man whom he has ordained, having given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” And the blessed Peter, preaching to the Jews, says, “Men, Israelites, hear these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God did through him.” And the prophet Isaiah, predicting the passions of the Lord Christ, whom he had but a little earlier called God, calls him "man" with these words: “A man in the state of a blow, and knowing how to bear infirmity; he carries our sins and suffers for us.” And I would have collected other testimonies in harmony from holy Scripture and included them in the letter, had I not known your piety to spend your life in the meditation of the divine sermons, according to the man who is called blessed in the Psalms. Furthermore, of industry
A I shall leave the collection of testimonies and proceed to the matters set before us.
We profess, therefore, that our Lord Jesus Christ is true God and true man; we do not divide Him into two persons—for He is one—but we believe that two natures have been joined without confusion. For by this means we shall easily be able to refute the manifold blasphemy of the heretics; for the error of those who have risen against the truth is great and varied, as we shall immediately show. For Marcion and Manes claim that the divine Word did not assume a human nature, nor did they believe that our Lord Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin; but rather that the divine Word Himself was fashioned into the likeness of a man and appeared as a man, employing semblance rather than reality. Valentinus and Bardesanes accept the birth, but they deny the assumption of our nature, saying that the Son of God used the Virgin like some sort of conduit. Sabellius the Libyan, and Photinus, and Marcellus the Galatian, and Paul of Samosata, assert that a mere man was born of the Virgin, and they explicitly deny that the pre-temporal Christ is God. Arius and Eunomius contend that the divine Word assumed only a body from the Virgin. B Apollinarius, moreover, adds to the body an irrational soul, as if the incarnation of the divine Word had taken place for irrational beings, and not for rational ones; but the doctrine of the Apostles teaches that perfect man was assumed by perfect God. For the passage, "Who, existing in the form of God, took the form of a servant" (Phil. ii, 6), signifies this; for "form" is placed there in the stead of nature and substance; for it signifies that, having the nature of God, He took the nature of a servant. Therefore, in debating with the first inventors of impiety—Marcion, Manes, and Valentinus—we strive to demonstrate from the divine Scriptures that Christ the Lord is not only God, but also man. And by showing to the unlearned the incomplete doctrine concerning the dispensation held by Arius, Eunomius, and Apollinarius, we teach that the nature assumed was perfect, according to the divine oracles of the Spirit. Furthermore, we refute the impiety of Sabellius, Photinus, Marcellus, and Paul by testimonies brought forward from the holy Scripture, C and by showing that Christ the Lord is not only man, but also eternal God and consubstantial with the Father. That He assumed a rational soul, the Lord Himself teaches, saying: "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour" (John xii, 27). And again: "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Matt. xxvi, 38). And elsewhere: "I have power to lay down my soul, and I have power to take it again; no one taketh it from me." And the angel to D
Joseph: "Arise, take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel; for they are dead which sought the young child's life" (Matt. ii, 20). And the Evangelist likewise: "And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man" (Luke ii, 52). He increases in stature and wisdom, A certainly not the divinity, which is always perfect, but the human nature, which both comes into existence in time, and grows, and reaches maturity.
Wherefore, we say that all the human things of the Master Christ—I mean hunger, and thirst, and fatigue, and sleep, and fear, and sweat, and prayer, and ignorance, and whatever things of this kind belong to our first-fruits—the Word of God took upon Himself and joined to Himself, for the sake of our salvation. But the walking of the lame, and the resurrection of the dead, and the fountains of bread, and the transformation of water into wine, and all other miracles, we believe to be the works of the divine power. I say that the same Master Christ both suffers and looses sufferings: He suffers according to what B is seen, that is, truly according to His humanity; but He looses the sufferings according to the divinity that ineffably dwells within Him. The history of the holy Gospels clearly shows this. And from there we learn that, while lying in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes, He was proclaimed by a star, and worshipped by the Magi, and praised by angels; and we piously discern that the rags, and the swaddling clothes, and the lack of a bed, and the great poverty are proper to His humanity. But the journey of the Magi, and the guidance of the star, and the chorus of the angels herald the divinity of Him who was hidden. Thus, He flees into Egypt, and by flight avoids the rage of Herod; for He was man. And according to the Prophet, C He shakes the man-made idols of Egypt; for He was God. He is circumcised, and keeps the law, and offers sacrifices of purification, because He drew His origin from the root of Jesse. And He was subject to the law as man; and He dissolved the law afterwards, and gave the new testament; for He was the Lawgiver, and He had promised through the prophets that He Himself would give this. He was baptized by John; this shows our humanity. He is testified to from above by the Father, and is pointed out by the Spirit; this proclaims Him to have been before the ages. He hungered, but He also satisfied many thousands with five loaves; this is divine, that is human. He thirsted and asked for water, but He was the fountain of D life; the former is of human frailty, the latter of divine power. He slept in the boat, but He also calmed the storm of the sea; the former is of the passible nature, the latter of the creative and constitutive nature, and of Him who granted existence to all things. He was wearied by walking, but He also made the lame sound of foot, and raised the dead from their tombs; and the former was of our frailty, the latter of the super-mundane power. He feared death, and He loosed death; the one is a sign of a mortal, the other
is rather a sign of the immortal, or indeed of the Life-giver. He was crucified, according to the blessed Paul, through weakness; but He lives A by the power of God, according to the same. Let the name of weakness teach us that it was not the Omnipotent, the Uncircumscribed, the Immutable, and the Invariable that was nailed to the cross, but that nature which receives life from God, which, according to the teaching of the Apostle, died and was buried; both of which belong to the form of a servant. He shattered the bronze gates and broke the iron bars, dissolved the power of death, and after three days He raised up His own temple. These are the signs of the divine form, according to the word of the Lord: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Thus, in Christ alone, we contemplate His humanity through the things He suffered, but through His miracles we understand His divinity. For we do not divide the two natures into two Christs; and we know that the divine Word was begotten from the Father, and our first-fruits were taken from the seed of Abraham and David. Wherefore also the blessed Paul, speaking of Abraham, says: "He did not say, 'And to your seeds,' as of many, but as of one, 'And to your seed,' which is Christ." B And writing also to Timothy: "Remember," he says, "that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, of the seed of David, according to my gospel." And writing likewise to the Romans: "Concerning His Son," he says, "who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh." And again: "Whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh." And the evangelist: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." And the blessed Peter in the Acts: "Being a prophet," he says, "and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins He would raise up the Christ, and set Him upon his throne; he, foreseeing, spoke concerning His resurrection." And God Himself said to Abraham: "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." And Isaiah also: "There shall come forth a rod from the root of Jesse, and a flower from his root shall ascend, and the spirit of wisdom and understanding shall rest upon Him, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and piety, and the spirit of the fear of God shall fill Him." And C after a little: "And it shall be," he says, "that the root of Jesse and He who stands to rule over the nations; in Him shall the nations hope, and His rest shall be honor."
It is evident, therefore, from what has been said, that Christ according to the flesh was a descendant of Abraham and David, and possessed the same nature as they, but according to His divinity, He is the pre-eternal Son of God and Word, begotten of the Father in an ineffable manner and beyond human understanding, and exists co-eternal as radiance, and image, and Word. For just as the word in relation to the
mind and radiance from light cannot be separated, A so neither can the Only-Begotten Son from the Father. We say, therefore, that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Only-Begotten Son of God and the Firstborn; Only-Begotten before the incarnation, and after the incarnation; but Firstborn after the birth from the Virgin. For the name "Firstborn" seems in a way to be contrary to "Only-Begotten," because B "Only-Begotten" is the term for one born alone from someone, while "Firstborn" is the first among many brothers. The divine Scriptures say that the Word of God was born alone from the Father; but the Only-Begotten also becomes Firstborn, having taken our nature from the Virgin, and having deigned to call those who have believed in him brothers; so that the same person is Only-Begotten as God, but Firstborn as man. Thus, we, confessing the two natures, worship one Christ and offer Him one adoration. For we believe that the union took place from the very conception in the holy womb of the Virgin. For this reason, we call the holy Virgin both Theotokos (Mother of God) and Anthropotokos (Mother of Man), since the Master Christ Himself is explicitly called both God and man by the divine Scripture. And Emmanuel also proclaims the union of the two natures. But if we confess and say that Christ is God and man, who is so foolish as to avoid the expression "Anthropotokos," when it is placed alongside "Theotokos"? For we attribute both titles to the Master Christ; wherefore the Virgin has been honored and called "full of grace." Who, then, being in his right mind, would refuse C to call the Virgin by the names of the Savior, she who is exalted by believers for His sake? For the Son is not honored by her, but she is adorned with the most exalted titles for the sake of the Son.
If, therefore, Christ were only God, and had received the beginning of His being from the Virgin, then the Virgin should only be named and called Theotokos, as she who gave birth to Him who is God by nature. But if Christ is God and man, and as God He always was (for He did not have a beginning of being; He is co-eternal with the Begetter), while as man He sprouted forth from human nature at the end of the ages, he who wishes to formulate dogmas from both sides must weave the titles for the Virgin, showing which apply by nature and which by the union. But if someone wishes to speak in a panegyrical manner, and to weave hymns, and to recount praises, and wishes to use the more reverent names out of necessity, not formulating dogma as I said, but praising and D admiring the magnitude of the mystery as much as is possible; let him enjoy his desire, and let him use the great names, and let him praise and admire. For we find many such things among the orthodox teachers; but everywhere "the mean" should be honored. For I praise him who said that the mean is the best, even if it is not of our own flock
A This is the confession of the ecclesiastical faith; this is the decree of the evangelical and apostolic doctrine, for the sake of which we do not refuse to die, even three times and more, the grace of God helping us. These same things we attempted to teach those who at present are wandering in error, and we frequently challenged them to a discussion, striving to show them the truth; but we did not persuade them. For, fearing the clarity of the proofs, they fled from the contest; indeed, falsehood is truly weak and bound to darkness. "For everyone," it says, "who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed."
Since, therefore, after much labor we have not persuaded them to recognize the truth, we have returned to our own Churches, affected by both sorrow and joy: by joy, on account of our own opinion being void of all error; by sorrow, on account of the corruption of our members. Wherefore, I ask your holiness again and again that you supplicate our benign Lord and cry out: "Spare, O Lord, thy people, and do not make thy heritage an object of reproach." Feed us, O Lord, lest we become again such as we were in the beginning, when we did not obey thee, nor did we call upon thy name. See, O Lord, B that we have become a reproach to our neighbors, a derision and a mockery to those around us, because evil dogmas have been brought into thy heritage. They have polluted thy holy temple, for the daughters of the aliens have rejoiced at our evils, because we have been divided into many [groups], who were formerly of one mind and one voice. O Lord our God, give us the peace which we lost by neglecting thy commandments. O Lord, besides thee we know no other; we call upon thy name; make both one, and dissolve the wall of the barrier, that is, the impiety which has arisen. Gather us one by one, thou who art our new Israel, building Jerusalem and gathering the dispersed of Israel. Let us become again one flock, and may we all be pastured by thee; for thou art the good shepherd, who didst lay down thy life for the sheep. C Awake, why dost thou sleep, O Lord? Arise, and do not cast us off forever; rebuke the winds and the sea, and grant tranquility to thy Church and a cessation of the waves.
These things, and any others of this kind, I ask your piety to cry out in prayer to the God of all; for, being good and a lover of mankind, and always fulfilling the will of those who fear him, he will hear your petition and will dispel the present darkness, which is gloomier than the Egyptian plague, and will grant his own beloved tranquility, and will gather the dispersed, and will receive the cast-out. And there shall be heard the voice of jubilation and salvation in the tabernacles of the righteous. D Then we also shall acclaim him: "We have rejoiced for the days in which we