Letters 1–45

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SAINT MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR: EPISTLES, PARTLY COMMON, PARTLY DOGMATIC AND POLEMICAL

I. EXHORTATORY DISCOURSE IN THE FORM OF AN EPISTLE ^A To the servant of God, the most illustrious lord George, Prefect of Africa.

No one, I think, who has been deprived of the enjoyment of the light in any way, desires to be gladdened by the sun’s ray as much as we, the all-humble, having been sated with your abundant excellence, desire to see you present again and to enjoy your beauty; for you are marked by those divine attributes of the virtues that accompany you, by which we previously knew you to be magnificently distinguished during your stay here. Through these we have been instructed more clearly that virtue is a matter of the will and the disposition of the soul, not of rank; and that being godlike is a matter of intention, not of dignity. For those in the depths of whose souls, blessed man, the power of love for God has been genuinely rooted, to them there has undoubtedly been granted the same state regarding the good—just as, conversely, those who are obsessed with the love of material things are easily fallen and scattered into a multitude of passions. And quite rightly so. For whoever, by the desire of his will, clings to God—who is one and alone, and impassible, and possesses nothing at all that is essentially different or co-contemplated from eternity (for nothing of those things that are from God reaches him as a companion or as something adventitious, because there is nothing that attains to him)—he himself also becomes one, and alone, and impassible, having escaped through a free inclination toward that one thing to become one and alone and immutable. Since there is only one thing that is desired by him, and that thing is strictly and truly immutable, because it is by its natural essence infinite, ^C he who is a lover of that One, as is to be expected, has himself become one and alone and immutable, as one who has, in every way, made the understanding motionless from the One. As for the…

^A But he who, through ignorance of the higher good, has bound the desire of his soul according to his own judgment to material things—which are by nature mutable, changing, and utterly unable to stand firm—is necessarily mutable, passible, and easily changed; having, in relation to those things that are moved by nature and suffer change, a disposition of soul that is itself moved and suffering along with them. He is mutable and passible, changing from one thing to another, and liable to fall; for being moved along with those things which are in motion and subject to change and corruption, he is himself similarly moved in the affection of his mind, and is affected and suffers along with the fall and the passion. ^A Therefore, let no circumstance, my blessed lord, be able to move or disturb that good and deific habit of yours, by which your mind and soul make their pilgrimage towards God and transcend all else; let not time, by irregularly changing the flow of material things along with itself, invert the stability of your mind; let not the terrifying threats of men, by posing fear, displace the steadiness of your noble disposition; let not the speech of flatterers, by sweetening the hearing with its utterance, slacken the vigor of your soul; let not the desire for vengeance, from the possibility that one might have the power to harm someone, corrupt the gentleness of your character; let not the longing for the glory of holding authority diminish the intensity of your love for the Divine. ^C For not holding authority over men is by no means a lack of glory before God or men; but rather, it is an increase of glory—insofar as the soul has been rendered entirely free from all tumult and anxiety of external things, just as my discourse maintains; and every person who piously discerns what is necessary, I suppose, will agree. For every man who is truly virtuous and a lover of God is self-sufficient for every happiness, needing no surrounding of external things to procure it. For he who has established the manifestations of divine qualities as the hallmarks of his own life possesses the full perfection of all good things, through which it is natural for the precise likeness unto God to come to pass for men; to which nothing else existing after God can be compared or held equal. ^D And to speak simply, let neither disease, nor health, nor wealth that drags one downward, nor poverty of perishable things, nor blame, nor praise, nor death, nor life, nor the present, nor the future, nor, in short, any other thing of those that exist or are coming to be, be able to corrupt that philosophy which has nurtured you, and which has brought you to such glory before both God and men. How will this come to pass? If we believe God in all that concerns us; and if we consent to seek absolutely nothing of those things for which we have not been commanded to seek from God; but rather to seek with all diligence everything that we are commanded to seek from God.

And this, indeed, in what way might it come about? Namely, if we entrust all our affairs to God, and in no way permit ourselves to seek anything other than what has been prescribed to us by God; but for those things which we have been commanded to seek from Him, we shall have sought with all diligence: and as for other things, those which according to God are placed in our will and power, we should wish ^A and pursue them in every way, and strive to shape ourselves by those very things. But for the others—those which, by every reckoning, do not require our judgment for them to come to pass or to cease—we should leave them to God, to carry them out with modest thanksgiving and faith, wherever He wills and desires, disagreeing in nothing at all from the reasons of His providence and administration; by which the whole universe, in an unknown way, is borne with secret and-beyond-words wisdom toward its own end according to the foreknowledge of God; even if the outcome of such matters comes about otherwise and contrary to what we hope. For He is the most wise guardian and overseer of our affairs, as one who did not acquire wisdom as an accidental gift, but is himself truly and essentially Wisdom, and is spoken of as such.

Let us desire to preserve only one thing sincerely: to love Him, as He said, with all our heart, and soul, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves; ^B diligently seeking every way to bring this divine command to its end; and the whole of the divine goal will be most fully accomplished for us by this summary, whatever dignity or rank we may shine in, or in whatever institution or state we sustain our life; whether we be rulers or subjects, wealthy or poor, enjoying prosperous health or possessing a body affected otherwise and infirm; and as for the rest, if there are any that do not follow our will through the affection of our mind, let us not be touched by any care for them. For what does it concern us, that which is not necessarily according to nature, nor by the judgment of the mind, out of that which we will, but which exists as our own? And perhaps, so that Scripture might insinuate this to us for consideration, it established no divine command for us in that name; lest, attempting things against nature for which the power has in no way been granted to us by our will, we might abuse the strength of our will in a blameworthy ^C endeavor; and therein show it to be weak, lacking those things which can in no way be subject to it; and at the same time might offer violence to God, imagining that the administration of Providence is our own and subject to our will; which uses a wise counsel for those things that flee from the power of our will, to punish the evils which we commit with our will and purpose as companions; and to increase and promote with a more accelerated course the goods that are within our own power. Let us therefore believe, by dividing those things which are not in us and of our power from those things which are in our power, that the former belong entirely to divine providence, while the latter—with divine providence as a companion—are also a deed and work of our own will. Therefore, let us believe that what is situated in us and in our power, if I may encompass it by a definition, is all that which, by the reason of virtue, or conversely by the manner of vice, follows our will because we desire it. But not in us [is that which...] ^D

exists as a natural fact, recognizing no author, it being our free will; and, indeed, what is natural in itself has neither the praise of virtue nor the stain of vice; yet by the use of those who possess it, it becomes or appears—to speak more properly—this or that. All those things, therefore, that are in our own power, which are in the highest sense good, as they are works of our own will together with God, and matters belonging to our own purpose—let us desire these intensely and esteem them of great value; and thus we shall be foals, obedient and manageable, for the divine grace, admitting the Word as a rider, who guides and directs the course of our virtues in an orderly manner. ^B But let us not at all desire those things which are not in our power, as they are not by nature, in themselves, vice or virtue, but are instruments of the will, which bring into the open the hidden impulse of the power that is in our own control, lest we corrupt the natural power of willing by misuse, attempting to grasp what is impossible, and what cannot be achieved by it alone. But let us entrust these things to God, and receive with thanksgiving every change of circumstances and events, which comes about profitably for us according to the saving will of God; so that not only through the same things, but also through things not the same, and through things uneven, the good of virtue may be ^C equally accomplished for us. For no one who yields and entrusts to God the governance and providence of things not in his own power ever loses his good hope, nor is he frustrated. And he is truthful who said in one place among his own words, the Wise One: "Look at the ancient nations, and see: who has believed in the Lord and been put to shame? Or who has called upon Him, and He has despised him?" ^D Since these things are in this manner, as the discourse running with truth has shown; and it has clearly set forth the property of those things that are subject to our will and those that are not, distinguishing them one from another by a definition such that they are not commingled; neither, when we are ordered to desist—as if we were suffering the loss of some good—should we struggle against it (for the magistrate is by no means the companion of those who wish, standing far apart from the logic of that which is of our own elective power; just as wealth and health, or anything else of such things that lie between, which are molded by us toward virtue or vice), nor, again, should we reject as something entirely evil that which is given, which may perhaps be an instrument of virtue to those who love God: but to offer all things to God with all diligence, in addition to all that is in their power, even the things that are not in their power, which are admitted to happen to them by divine dispensation, for those who have purposed it. For that which is not of itself by nature either good or evil is, reasonably, neither to be desired nor to be avoided. For those things without which we can become, be, and remain good and virtuous—and again, evil and destitute of all virtue—their possession is not absolutely necessary for us, nor indeed is their non-possession, for the birth and preservation of any good or evil. Since even of power, wealth, and

^A health, some who were deprived have acquired many treasures of eternal goods; others, on the contrary, possessing power, wealth, and health, have fallen away from all divine goods by their own resolve. And the poor Lazarus and the rich man who lived according to his times witness this. The former, deprived of all material power, health, and wealth, received the blessed rest in the bosom of Abraham; the latter, though excelling to the highest degree in these material things, was excluded from the saints by the gulf and condemned to possess the chastising fire as his portion. And again, David and Job, the great champions of truth, were tested by both types of life, which are diametrically opposed to one another in their configurations, and preserved virtue, increasing it through opposite circumstances. For virtue is not the work of riches, health, and power, nor, conversely, of their opposites, such that it should undergo a change according to changing circumstances, being altered along with events; rather, it is the work of a divine disposition, and of a mind fixed to the highest degree upon what is good, and established immutably according to God, preserving its own identity unchanging ^B amidst contrary conditions.

Therefore, let us welcome authority when it is given, and accept it as an instrument given to us by God for the sake of virtue. And again, let us not seek it when it is taken away, as if casting off a great and fearsome burden of anxiety; for in this way, when it is removed, the purpose of the Providence that is toward us, which kindly dispenses what is profitable to each, is revealed. For the Wise Man says: "Do not seek to become a judge, lest you be unable to root out iniquity; lest you fear the face of a powerful man and place a stumbling block in your uprightness; and lest you sin against the multitude of the city, and cast yourself into the crowd, and bind upon yourself a double sin." However, if thou shouldst wish to appear from these things, blessed one, thou hast fared no worse than those around thee. For the eyes of the Lord, as the same Wise Man said, looked upon thee for good, and raised thee up from thy humility, and lifted up thy head, and many marveled at thee, ^C and describe thy virtues to peoples and nations. And that which the Holy Spirit proclaimed beforehand through the great David ^D concerning the apostles: "Into all the earth their sound has gone out," which refers to the things done excellently by thee, and the sweet-smelling diffusion of thy virtues has reached to the ends of the world. For thou didst not eat thy bread alone, but didst share it abundantly with orphans, and from their youth thou didst nurture them like a father, and from their mother’s womb thou wast a guide to them in justice. Thou didst not look down upon the naked

^A perishing, and didst not cover them: nay, all the weak blessed thee, as one who didst warm their shoulders with the fleeces of thy sheep. Thou didst not place thy gold in the dust; namely, thou didst not spend it on the delights of thy flesh, but didst send all thy wealth into heaven, to prepare the goods of the soul. Thou wast not deceived by decaying riches, and upon them as they flowed away thou didst not set thy heart. Thou didst not dwell with scoffers, whose life is a disgrace, and whose life is filled with filth. Thy foot did not hasten to deceit; nor didst thou rejoice over the ruin of thy enemies, so that thy heart should say: Well done. The earth did not groan over thee; for thou didst not eat its strength alone without payment, nor didst thou oppress the souls of its masters. From unjust gifts thou didst restrain thy hands; and thou didst save the beggar from the hand of the powerful, and thou didst weep over every weak person; and seeing a man in difficulties, thou didst groan. Thou didst help orphans to whom there was no helper; and the mouths of widows blessed thee. For thou hast put on justice, and hast clothed thyself with right judgment, like a cloak. Thou wast an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame, and a father of the weak. Thou didst crush the jawbones ^B of the wicked, and from the midst of their teeth thou didst pull out the prey. And, to sum up, thou feedest the hungry, givest drink to the thirsty, receivest strangers, coverest the naked, visitest the infirm, and ministerest to those who are in prison; nay rather, through all these things thou gainest the favor of God; for thou accountedst it a thing more praiseworthy than all else, to provide for all these things with a ready mind. Therefore God has justly watched over thee, and His lamp shines above thy head; that is, the law of the commandments, glittering through the action of virtues, shines magnificently above thee; and by His light thou walkest in darkness; that is, by the knowledge of the pious contemplation of things, thou passest unharmed through the seduction and ignorance of this age, hastening to the light which no shadow dims. For to thee truly alone, which has happened to no ^C others, O beloved, it has fallen, that from the weight of empire and the amplitude of the fasces, thou shouldest not sully thy virtue, nor altogether submit the law of Christ to gold; but shouldest so enslave power to virtue, that thou shouldest shine forth by virtue and reason alone, as by signs, and shouldest become famous and celebrated everywhere for the glory of justice.

But if, shunning the hardships of the flesh as is meet, we think to procure for ourselves the comfort thereof through our authority, let us know that the comfort of the flesh was introduced into our life by the transgression of the divine command, and by man who preferred temporal things to eternal; but the hardship of the flesh was introduced by the observance of the divine command, and by God Who for this cause became man, and by Himself demonstrated and ordained it; and that the former was the cause of the alienation of men from paradise and the goods therein; but the latter [was the cause] of the return to ^D paradise, and of the ascension into heaven; and that most admirable of all things—

^A—which indeed surpasses every miracle, to be the cause of intimacy with God. Wherefore, let us embrace the troubles and labors of the flesh as an instrument of divine grace, in such a way that we are not changed as to our soul or our morals by the mutations of times and things; but let us utterly disregard its delights and relaxations and good condition, as a thing abominable and altogether dissoluble, to which it must happen that it suffer its own proper fate, nor exceed its own bounds, as the divine mouth of Christ, Gregory, has said; and so that it may burn away all the stains of the soul, so that we may become entirely of God and of Him alone, ^B shining forth with the divine rays through all our movements, both of soul and body. To speak briefly, let us become capable of the whole God, and let us be made, in our entirety, gods through grace, entirely through Him; so much so that we may appear to be another version of Him in all things, save only that we are not thought to be the same in essence. For this is the consummation and the highest perfection: that we bear in ourselves no mark at all of this age, lest through it we be in some way deprived of the divine state, and so that we may not sorrow bitterly, both because we have brought a stain upon our true integrity, and because we do not find the proper times and causes for amendment.

^C After the age assigned to our actions has passed, nothing at all of the present things will remain as it is now seen in its figure and position. There is nothing in those things which we use our eyes to behold that remains fixed for its possessors, and is not easily fallen and dissolved. Nothing lasts for those who have been overcome by the desire for things, persisting unmoved: not glory, not riches, not power, not health, not lack of reputation, not poverty, not servitude, not sickness, not beauty, not youth, not brightness, not deformity, not old age, not ignobility. All things pass, all things wither; all human things vanish like shadows, and every tumor of human authority is puffed away more easily than any bubble. For every man, he says, is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; the grass withered, and the flower fell. For all human things do in truth have, in their potentiality, their corruption conjoined with their birth; ^D and often, in some cases, the corruption even precedes the birth; so that through the mutual coming together of the extremes into one, what intervenes between them, more fleetingly than you can mark, dissolves. And this is so wisely contrived by Wisdom, that the very rationale of those things which are changed towards destruction may serve as a lesson to establish our faith in eternal things. Other things are swapped for others in turn, and each is turned into another as if by a circle; and by such an alternation they ensure their destruction rather than their birth.

Therefore, let us not bind to temporary things the soul which is not subject to destruction; nor let us weigh down the mind, dragging it down to the earth with the care of material things, the mind which is by nature free from earthly concretion. In accordance with that which is agreeable to nature, let us reasonably separate from one another...

those things which, according to their essence, are never the same with themselves; and without labor, and with the greatest ease, let us restrain the soul, which is vacant of all composition and which by nature is in no way liable to destruction, from a more licentious affection and lust for those things which perish. ^A Let us flee from Sodom—I mean the error and confusion of the senses regarding those things which are attained by sense—so that we may flee the conflagration, by which I mean the punishment of fire which altogether follows upon these things. Let us escape to the mountain to care for our salvation—that is, to the height of a life instituted according to divine reasons—lest we be caught, we who have not yet entirely departed from the senses, even though, like the blessed Lot, we may appear to be free from vice and depravity, in that we do not perform the same works as the Sodomites; ^B that is, those for whom the works of the senses come into use, which are consonant with vices and passions. Let us pass by with all our might those things which pass away, and which are in no way able to be held by us, having a transient flow as their nature and substance; for they leave to us only the disposition of the soul, which is evilly branded upon them, and on account of which every agony is in store to be visited upon the condemned. Let us readily let go of all things, or bestow them upon God through the needy, for whom deprivation is naturally our companion. Let us let go by our own resolve and will those things which are naturally both letting go and being let go of necessity. Let us not make the soul, which by nature images its Creator and which, after coming into existence, never receives an end to its being, and which is ordered to always seek God through all things and to hasten toward Him, a prisoner to things that come to be and pass away through an irrational attachment. ^C Let us not desire to have what we cannot hold, nor let us attach ourselves as if to eternal things to those which are altogether passing away. For the "figure of this world passes away," as the Apostle said, and "heaven and earth shall pass away," as the God of the Apostle has spoken. Let us accept the divine decree without falsehood, and let us reach in faith the power of the word, being assured by clear demonstration of the outcome of what is said. For he of whom the parts are subject to destructions and alterations—as one of our wise men has stated—to him the whole is clearly also subject, even if the time has not yet arrived in which these things will endure the whole; ^D since every man, from what he suffers every day, knows naturally that he will die, even if death has not yet arrived in reality.

Let us, therefore, become our own and God’s; or rather, let us be of God alone, and not at all of the flesh and the world. Let us be prepared to call upon our God, according to what is written: "Prepare to call upon thy God, O Israel," which is to say: let us be cleansed of the stains and defilements of evil, casting away from ourselves, as far as is possible, the very naked imaginations of the passions. For thus is he truly prepared, whoever desires to be prepared aright; so that we may receive through...

the light of the virtues, as if by certain divine colors, the accurate likeness to God in ourselves. For thus is He invoked worthily—he who is not ignorant of the manner in which God ought to be invoked; for preparation is, as I would say, the ^A alienation from the passions; but invocation is a genuine intimacy with God through the virtues. Or again, preparation is the radiance that comes to the worthy through the virtues; but invocation is the reception of deifying grace through true knowledge. For thus we shall be able to have white garments at all times, according to what is written; that is to say, bright and translucent modes of virtue, having no trace of darkness. And our soul will exult in God our Savior, rejoicing in the putting off of the old man, who is being destroyed according to the desires of deceit, and in the putting on of the new, who has been created according to God in spirit. ^B For God our God clothes us with a garment of salvation and a tunic of righteousness; that is to say, with a moral habit—the philosophical practice through the virtues—and with the unerring contemplative vision in the spirit, so that we may also enjoy the primeval goods of the divine and undefiled bridal chamber of the future. Upon all these things let us carefully attend to how we walk and what we resolve concerning ourselves; knowing that many incorporeal witnesses of what is done and thought by us are standing by—those who not only look upon what is visible to the eyes, but who peer into the souls themselves, ^C and as harsh censors refute that which lies hidden in the depths of the heart.

For many, in very truth, are the choirs of angelic Powers that encompass us from every side; and whatever is done or said by us, and even what passes through our minds, down to the very barest thought, they record with all diligence in heaven, for our refutation on the fearful day of judgment: when the entire creation of visible things, being shaken and moved with unspeakable urgency, shall be forced toward its own consummation; and heaven and earth shall pass away with a great noise and crash, and the elements set between them shall be dissolved by heat; and there shall be a new heaven and a new earth, ^D and the things that follow. When thrones are set, and the Ancient of Days sits, and books are opened, containing the written record of our works, words, and thoughts, faithfully and uncorruptedly; and thousands of thousands of angels minister to Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before Him; and a fearful, terrible threat of burning fire runs everywhere, encompassing all things around it, and melting the mountains like wax. For a river of fire, he says, was drawn before Him. When Tartarus, and the yawning and immense abyss, and the outer darkness, and the worm that does not die, shall be shown to be present; and when, over all these things, fear stands suspended among all who await the outcome and...

and the anxious expectation of the end, catching everyone in its grip; and the ministers of wrath, the angels, flashing forth avenging and penal fire, will stand ready, with flaming eyes and breathing fire, to punish every iniquity and every manner of crime. Then every creature, both of terrestrial and celestial beings (as many of the angels, and the powers higher than the angels, and as many of the human race as complete the number) shall stand with trembling, awaiting the formidable manifestation of the divine judgment; among all of which, the deeds of us all shall be read, and the uncovering of the hidden things shall take place, so that all may know one another's sins as clearly as each man reads his own, through the scroll of his own conscience. "For I will rebuke you," He says, "and will set your sins before your face." And again: "Their own thoughts shall beset them."

And behold there is the man and his work, and the examiner who cannot be deceived, having standing by the formidable and magnificent power of the heavenly orders; He sits on high, shining with every radiance of justice, and by a true and righteous decision, bestowing upon each what is his due: to those who, through their good deeds, have been placed on the right, He mildly grants the kingdom of heaven prepared from the foundation of the world; but those who, because of their bankruptcy of good works, have been allotted the position on the left, He banishes with wrath into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. ^B Who shall endure that raging fire? Who shall not shudder at the strange spectacle of that worm? Who shall be able to bear the speed and the weight of that outer darkness? Who shall support Tartarus as it bellows, and the abyss boiling up from its bottom along with it? Who, trembling, shall not quake at the harsh and grim gaze, and the downcast countenance, of the angels appointed for these torments? And what is the most grievous and terrible of all evils: who shall not fear the averted face of the God who is by nature most mild, and most humane, and most merciful, from whom every creature together turns away and loathes those who, through a hateful mind, have pierced themselves with such evils, justly indignant against them because they have forced the God who is both by nature and alone a lover of mankind to appear as such to them? ^C Who shall bear the endless shame of conscience that will accompany the manifestation of hidden things? Who shall be able to measure the unceasing weeping, and that bitter and useless tear, and the gnashing of teeth, and the wails of those pressed in the torments, or the pain from repentance lying in the midst of their heart, and burning away the depths of their soul justifiably? Who shall recount the anguish that arises in them from the fact that no hope of a due season for change remains, and that there is an end to the approaching punishment, and no further possibility of a turn back toward the good

^A For it is the final and only, and truly terrible and just judgment—and even more just than it is terrible, and perhaps for that very reason the more formidable, because it is just—which at once shuts up all the ages within itself according to the just decree of God. Who, having taken thought of the wailing and the sighing that are brought forth from the very depths of their hearts, and that touch even the marrow and bitterly consume the inward parts, will be able to restrain his own tears? Who, without pain and the dejection that comes with it, can endure such a lament and howling, and the words brought forth from repentance, both by each one of those who are being tormented toward himself, and by all toward all?

^B For then each one becomes a true judge of his own transgressions, when things appear bare in themselves, and free from every covering of deception. "Just is your judgment, O God; for you called us, and we did not obey; you offered words and exhortations, and we did not heed, but we made your counsels void; and we did not attend to your words." Therefore, justly have destruction, and ruin, and storm, and tribulation come upon us. And now we call upon you, and you do not listen; we seek mercy from you, and do not find it; for neither did we listen to your words, nor did we show mercy to our neighbor. For we who hated wisdom, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, nor wished to attend to the counsels of God, reap the fruits of such seeds of our own, and are filled with our own folly. ^C For the error of the age blinded us, and we did not know the mysteries of God; nor did we hope at all for any future reward of holiness. Therefore we were wearied in the paths of iniquity, and we traveled through desolate and inaccessible places—that is, places destitute of divine inspection—but the way of the Lord we did not know. And now what has pride profited us? or what have riches with boasting yielded us? All those things have passed away as a shadow, and as a messenger running by, and as a ship passing through the surging water, the track of which cannot be found when it has passed, nor the path of its keel in the waves; or as a bird when it has flown through the air, of whose journey no trace is found. ^D All those things have passed away, leaving this fire as our inheritance, to remain for all eternity.

"Just is your judgment, O God" (for we shall never cease to speak the same things). We were called, and we did not listen; we were corrected, and we did not heed. We were taught daily of these evils and torments, and we spurned what was said. At that time, words did not bring to us even the slightest feeling of pain, otherwise things would not now be tormenting us with such atrocious pain. What now constrains our life seemed to us madness, when those things were frequently chanted against us. O the sloth! O the error! O the evil counsels! O the evil

^A agreements! O the miracle of God’s just sentence concerning us in these matters! How for each form of our sins He rendered to us a fitting punishment. For because of the wretched and abominable pleasure of the flesh, we were justly condemned to possess this fearful Gehenna. We have been condemned to dwell in this gloom and in this terrible darkness, because we loved all things shameful—sights, and sounds, and words—and we preferred the horse races, the theaters, and the hunts above all divine goods together; in which the throngs of demons danced, and every divine visitation and knowledge through the angels was absent; where the dignity of temperance was outraged in many ways, while the evil and filth of licentiousness was conspicuously honored. ^B Justly have we now been deprived of the light, because during our temporal life we did not look upon the creation for the glory of God who made it; but we defiled our eyes, and ears, and tongue; nay, rather, through these we corrupted the soul, which was made in the image of God, with all the sights, and sounds, and words hateful to God, and with mutual envy toward one another. We have been cast into Tartarus, to be sorely tormented at once in its frozen depths; since we preferred pride over that high and lofty humility, the mediatrix of divine things; and we pushed away the firmness and rigor of virtue on account of the superabundant softening and dissipation of the flesh. Where now is our pride, and the arrogant disposition toward all that we had because of it, and the sluggish and dissolute softening of the flesh? O the imprudence! ^C Instead of immoderate laughter and the unchaste noise of the cheeks, there comes to us this heavy gnashing of teeth. Because we were unwilling to cultivate the learning of divine and saving words, but preferred the intemperance of drunkenness to the divine praise spoken by the mouth, we are now sorely punished as our tongue is parched by a fearful thirst. And we are reaping the worthy fruit of the hatred, envy, deceit, and hypocrisy with which we pursued our brothers—and from which and through which we reaped murder, slanders, false accusations, and the bitter memory of wrongs, and lies, and perjury—namely, this unsleeping worm that insatiably devours and feeds upon the depth of our soul. ^D Since we distorted the straightness of love, we made our heart crooked, and by corrupting the impassibility of the truth, we warped it; by voluntary hatred we created for ourselves an involuntary worm, and by lies we dug a far more wicked crookedness, through which we were not united to God, who is straight and upright. For He Himself said through the holy prophet David: *A crooked heart has not cleaved to me* (Ps. C, 3).

Therefore, we are receiving what is worthy of the things we have done; or rather, we are carrying away the fitting wages of our own disposition according to our resolve: for the fire of pleasure, the fire of Gehenna; and for the darkness of ignorance and deception, an everlasting darkness; and for the worm that devours through the malice of the heart, an agonizing and unsleeping worm.

^A And the worm that by hate and falsehood has crooked and bent the heart; and for the lascivious noise of cheeks and the roaring, the noise and the gnashing of teeth; and for the height of vain pride and dissipation, the fall and the fathomless depth, and the gloom of crouching. And to speak simply, for each of our voluntary evils, we justly receive the involuntary punishment appropriate to each. O our pitiable state! Why did we, miserable as we are, not extinguish the fires of the flesh through fasting and vigils and the meditation of divine words—things that are excellent and easy quenchers of fire—rather than saving ourselves to be roasted in this fire now? Why did we not accustom our eyes and ears and tongue to see and hear and speak according to nature, so that we would not now possess this gloom and the most heavy silence; but that we too might have enjoyed the Light and the Word and the wisdom of God along with the saints, having become viewers and hearers and singers of the divine glory? ^B If by means of love we had mortified the voluntary worm of hatred, and by means of truth had caused falsehood to vanish, we would now be established as free from this caustic worm, and from the rest of the evils that now grip our life. Just is the judgment of God. We do not find what we did not seek. The door of the kingdom of heaven is not opened to us, because we did not knock at the door of the virtues through action. We do not obtain the enjoyment of eternal goods, because we did not ask for the grace of knowledge through prayer. For we held no love for divine things, but having bound our mind to earthly things, we corrupted our whole life with them. And those things indeed all vanished like smoke and passed away; but the cause of their punishment remains forever, ^C never to pass away.

And these things, perhaps, they, having learned from their torments the power of divine justice (by which they were held in ignorance), will talk over with one another, as if to grasp it in a crude outline; but as for me, miserable wretch, what will become of me? On what merits of works can I rely to hope that I might be snatched from this dreadful condemnation, being as I am destitute of all virtue and knowledge? I fear lest, having been bound hand and foot, I be cast into a murky and dark land, into a land of everlasting darkness, ^D where there is no light, nor to see the life of men; inasmuch as I have willingly bound the practical powers of the soul to passions, and have hindered the steps of my soul from the divine course of the evangelical life. Woe is me for the dreadful shame, for that which never ends.

^A unless, by changing the manner of my life, I deliver myself from my many evils! Woe is me for the weeping and bitter tears, and the gnashing of teeth, unless, coming to my senses at last, I shake off the deep sleep of sloth and strip off the filthy garment of sin. Instead of light, darkness; instead of joy, sorrow; instead of relief, punishment and distress will surely receive me. And what is most pitiable of all, or, to speak more truly, more grievous—the very mention of which causes bitter torment, and how much more will it torment us in reality (Be propitious, O Christ, and save us from this pain)—is the separation from God and His holy powers; and the association with the devil and his evil demons, lasting forever; and the having of no hope of deliverance from these wretched things. For those whom, in this present age, we have chosen by our own will and judgment to associate with through our evil deeds, with them, we shall consequently and of necessity be condemned to exist in the age to come, even against our will. And it is more punishing and terrible than any other punishment, to exist forever with those who hate and are hated, and, even without further torments, to be separated from Him who loves and is loved. For God neither is hated—judging justly by those who are judged, being by nature Love, and being acknowledged as such—nor does He hate those who are judged; for He is in nature altogether free from passion.

If we believe that these things shall truly and without falsehood come to pass, ^C beloved, let us not neglect ourselves, but with all diligence, and with all the strength we have, while there is opportunity, let us flee from the deceiving world and its ruler. For the world is passing away, and all things in it are withering. For there shall be, in truth, there shall be a time when a fearful trumpet shall sound, emitting a strange voice, and all this whole structure shall be dissolved, falling away from the order that is now seen in it. And the visible world shall pass away, receiving its own consummation; but the world of intelligible things, which is now hidden, shall appear, bringing forth to the eyes and ears and minds of men mysteries that are altogether strange. And the trumpet, sounding according to the divine command, will at once and suddenly, as if from some sleep, awaken the countless myriads of human bodies from death, leading them to examination; and God will render to each, according to what he has done through the body, whether good or evil, the reward befitting his merit, concluding all things with a great, fearful, and final sentence. But may God grant that we all, both the saving fear of Gehenna and the precious desire for the kingdom of heaven (which may truly be said to be the same thing in both, God becoming and being called "all in all" to all, according to the quality of vice or virtue which each possesses), may ever keep before our eyes: the fear, indeed, by which we may attain complete abstention from evils,

^A and the indication of our ceasing from them; and the desire, by which we are abundantly impelled to perform good works with a joyful spirit.

These things let there be from me, the small and the poor, blessed one, as signs of the love towards you, for the sake of the protection and safety of the good things you possess; which I suppose you need, even you, who are greatly adorned with virtues in all respects. For I have no other way to be able to justly requite your many kindnesses towards me, than by thus ordaining and commanding. With me, all the venerable Fathers who inhabit this province by your bounty and grace, truly and unanimously greet you, praying to God day and night unceasingly with tears, that our George, he who is truly sweet both to behold and to name, be restored to us healthy and unharmed; so that with him we may pass through the present life blamelessly, and may attain the future grace of the philanthropic God and giver of good things; through the intercession on our behalf—and through her making God propitious to us—of our most holy, glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, with all the saints. Amen.

SCHOLIA

II. - From the same to John the cubicularius, on charity.

^A cultivating it in the proper ways; and now, having learned it from myself while present, and no less—if not even more—while absent, the suffering of all that is proper to and called divine charity, in order that you might possess this divine thing, that which is uncircumscribed and infinite according to virtue; [namely] not only to benefit those who are present, but also to be eager for those who are absent, even those separated by a great distance of place; and learning of its advancement in length at every moment through those coming here, and not least through your own precious letters—as though ^B by a mirror I were seeing the form of divine grace shining in you, expressed in vivid colors—I naturally rejoice and am glad; and, thanking God, the giver of good things, on your behalf, I do not cease, with the holy Apostle, to cry out: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places; being altogether convinced, and knowing your holy soul to be inseparably fastened by charity in the spirit to my own miserable one, having as a bond of friendship the law of grace, by which, invisibly joining myself to you, you make me bright, ^C effacing my disgrace from sin by the juxtaposition of your own virtues. For there is nothing in truth more God-like than divine charity, nor more mysterious, nor higher for men unto deification; because it gathers and holds within itself all the good things that the word of truth recounts in the form of virtue; and it is completely set apart from all things caught in the form of evil, as the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Following these is the mystery of charity, which makes us gods out of men, and which cuts short ^D the particular commandments toward the general principle, by which all are uniformly held together according to good pleasure, and from which they are multifariously dispensed according to the economy. For what kind of good does charity not possess? Does it not possess faith, the first principle of matters pertaining to piety, which assures the one who possesses it that God is, and that divine things are; and indeed with more certainty and persuasion than the eye, which, striking the external forms of sensible things, provides to those who see them an opinion about them? Does it not possess hope, which makes the truly subsistent good exist for itself, and possesses it more than the hand holds something [merely] material and thick that falls under the touch? And does it not give the enjoyment of things believed in and hoped for, bringing the future into the present through itself according to

fall away? Does it not grant us the enjoyment of those goods which we hold by faith and expect by hope, in such a way that it possesses what is future as if it were present, through the affection of a loving soul? ^A Does it not grant us the first seat and foundation of the virtues, namely the modesty of mind (that is, humility), by which we can know ourselves and uproot the vain swelling of pride? Does it not grant us meekness, by which we ward off the words of those who blame us as well as those who praise us, and repel the annoyance of evils contrary to one another, namely glory and ignominy? Does it not grant us the endurance of a gentle spirit, by which, even when injured, we preserve our former tenor of mind toward those who have harmed us, without being hostile to them with any hatred or rancor? Does it not grant us compassion, by which we voluntarily count the miseries and evils of others as our own, and do not allow ourselves to be ignorant of the necessity of our nature, nor of the fact that we are kin and brothers? Does it not grant us continence, patience, long-suffering, kindness, peace, and joy, by which we easily settle anger and desire, and their burning heat and conflagration? And, to speak briefly, love is the end of all good things, as it leads ^B those who walk in it to God, the supreme peak of goods and the author of every good, and presents them to Him, as it is faithful, steadfast, and abides forever.

For faith is the foundation of those things which follow it—namely hope and love—firmly establishing the truth within itself and presenting it to them. Hope, however, is the power of the end points, namely love and faith, manifesting by itself what is certain and established for both, as well as what is lovable, and teaching them to direct their course toward that within their own office. Love, finally, is the completion of these things, which, as the supreme object of desire, embraces the whole fully, and makes the movement of both toward that [end] to rest and stand still; in place of believing and hoping, it introduces by itself the blessed fruition of the present thing. This alone, to speak truly, shows man to be in the image of God, wisely submitting the faculty ^C of the will to reason, not inclining reason toward it; and persuading the will to walk according to the reasons of nature, differing in nothing from the reason of nature—by which, indeed, just as we have one nature, so also we can have one mind and one will with God and with others, having no separation from God and one another, provided that we opt to set out according to the law of grace, by which we renew the law of nature with the desire of our mind. For it is impossible that those who have not first adhered to God through concord should be able to agree with one another by the desire of their mind.

For because the seducer, the devil, having at the beginning deceived man through the craftiness of a wicked trick, devised through self-love, and through the suggestion of pleasure, separated us in will from God and from one another, and overturned our rectitude; and thus, having split our nature into parts, he had cut it into many opinions and diverse senses and thoughts, and [had blocked] the way ^D

^A had established a law for the invention of evil in time, using our own powers to this end, and—a most evil support for the persistence of wickedness—he had implanted in all men discord of souls; whereby, in truth, he had been the author of man’s turning from his natural movement, and of the diverting of his appetite from what was permitted to that which was forbidden, and [had led] him to acquire for himself the three greatest and most ancient evils—the seeds, to speak briefly, of all vice and depravity—namely ignorance, self-love, and tyranny, which are linked to one another and exist through one another. For from ignorance of God comes self-love. And from this comes tyranny against one's kindred; and no one speaks against it, in the manner of the misuse of one's own powers—of reason, of desire, and of irascibility—since these were given ^B so that, instead of ignorance, the reason should be moved by knowledge in seeking God alone; and so that, by desire, one should be driven by longing toward God alone, being purified of the passion of self-love; and so that, by irascibility separated from tyranny, one should strive to attain God alone; and that from these, and because of these, one should create a divine and blessed love, which joins one to God and makes the lover of God a god. Since these things have happened to man by the individual will of man, but by the deception of the devil, God, who created our nature and who wisely heals it when it has become weak through vice (such is His charity and love for us), emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant ^C and immutably uniting it to Himself in person, becoming so entirely man like us, from us, and for our sake, that to the unbelievers He was not thought to be God; yet being as much truly God as the ineffable and true doctrine of piety reveals to the faithful; that He might destroy the works of the devil, and, having returned the powers of nature to their purity, might renew the power of love—the antagonist of self-love—which is the first sin and the first offspring of the devil, and is known as the mother of the passions that follow it. By love, He who showed Himself worthy of God caused it to vanish, and with it vanished the whole throng of vice, which thereafter had no ^D other foundation or cause for its existence. For such a man no longer knows pride, the mark of the God-opposing conceit, that complex and strange evil. He is ignorant of vainglory, which falls and casts down those who are puffed up by it. He fades away envy—which first justly withers those who possess it—by winning over his kin through voluntary benevolence; and he has rooted out anger, murder, wrath, deceit, hypocrisy, irony, resentment, greed, and all things into which the one man has been divided. For self-love, as the source and, as I said, the mother of evils, is accustomed to bring forth all the evils that come from it and follow it.

^A Since this is absent, no kind of ^B wickedness or trace of it can exist at all; but rather, all the forms of virtue are introduced in its stead, filling up the power of love, which gathers together those things that have been divided, and fashions man once again toward one logos and manner of being, and levels and smooths out every inequality and difference in all men according to their will, and duly advances them toward a praiseworthy inequality—namely, that each one draws his neighbor toward himself according to his intention and prefers him in honor just as much as he previously desired to repel him and excel him—and he willingly releases and dismisses himself from himself for its sake, by the separation and divorce from those logoi and properties which were understood to be privately present in them through their will and the judgment of their reason; and he is gathered into a single simplicity, so to speak, in which no one is at all separated from the common, but each to each, and all to all, and to God more than to one another, they exist as one, having clearly manifested in themselves the one logos of being—which is most unique both by nature and by will—and the God who is understood in it, to whom it is the nature of the logos of the being of existing things to be contemplated, and to whom it is to be raised up as Cause and Maker, being kept by us through all vigilance, pure and undefiled, and through prudent zeal being cleansed, by means of virtues and the labors that accompany them, from the passions that riot against it.

Perhaps that great Abraham, having perfected this and having restored himself to the logos of the nature of being, or having restored the logos to himself, and by this means having both been returned to God and having received God (for both may be said, since the truth is contemplated in both), was deemed worthy to see and receive God in human form, as a guest and companion through the logos of humanity, which is perfect by nature; toward whom he was lifted up, having cast out the property of those things which are divided and divisible, no longer regarding any other man as being apart from himself, but knowing all as one, and as one knowing all—not, clearly, that of the will, concerning which there is faction and division as long as it remains incompatible with nature; but the one of nature, concerning which the exact and unvarying likeness stands, observing the most unique logos. By this we know that God is always revealed, and through it He endures to be manifested as good, appropriating the creatures as His own; since the creation cannot know God as He is of Himself. For neither was it possible, as is reasonable, for it to be gathered toward the simple and identical One—he who has not become identical to himself and simple, but is still divided by many parts according to his will in relation to his nature—unless first through philan-

^Athropy, by uniting the disposition to the nature, He showed for both one peaceful and non-discordant principle, moving primarily toward nothing at all other than what is after God; according to which the nature remains uncut and undivided in those who have received this gift, not being cut apart by the many differences of opinion. For no longer do they, becoming different persons in relation to this one or that one, divide the nature, but they remain the same in relation to the same beings, not looking to what is individual in each according to the will, as split things have been split, but to what is common and undivided in all according to nature, as that by which split things are gathered together—not bringing along with them to themselves any of the split things—and through which God reveals Himself to those who possess it, fashioning Himself according to the individuality of each one's virtue out of philanthropy, and deigning to be named from it. For it is a most perfect work of love, and the goal of the activity according to it, to arrange for the properties and titles of the things united by it to be mutually attributed through a relative exchange, so that the human may become god, and God may become and appear to be human, because of the one and unchanging will and movement of both according to the intent, as we find even in the case of Abraham and the rest of the saints. And perhaps this is what is said from the person of God: *In the hands of the prophets I was assimilated;* that is, God’s formation towards each one, according to the virtue of action existing in each, through great philanthropy. For the hand of every righteous man is his action by which he cultivates virtue, in which and through which God accepts the likeness to men.

Great, then, is the good of love, and the first and preeminent good of goods, as it unites God and men in relation to the one who has it, and causes the Creator of men to appear as man, because of the unchangeableness of the one being divinized towards God according to the good, as far as is possible for human. This, I assume, is what it is to act: to love the Lord God with all one’s heart and soul and strength, and one’s neighbor as oneself. Which is, that I may encompass it as in a definition, the inherent disposition of the whole towards the first good, with the whole providence of the entire human race according to nature; beyond which there is nothing more sublime to which the God-loving man can be raised, all the ways according to piety having been surpassed by him. This love we both know and name, not assigning it as one thing and another separately to God and to the neighbor, but as one and the same in its entirety; owed indeed to God, but which further joins men to one another. For it is an activity and clear proof of the perfect love towards God, the genuine disposition towards the neighbor through voluntary benevolence. ^{B C D}

^A For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, says the divine apostle John, cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the way of truth, which the Word of God, naming Himself, presents to those who walk in it as purified from all manner of passions for God and the Father. This is the gate through which, if anyone enters, he penetrates within the Holy of Holies itself and is accounted worthy to become a spectator of the inaccessible beauty of the holy and royal Trinity. This is the true vine, in which, if anyone is firmly rooted, he is deemed worthy to become a partaker of the divine richness. Because of this, every legal and prophetic and evangelical doctrine both exists and has been given, so that, having conceived a desire for the ineffable goods, we may confirm our longing through our manner of life; honoring and worshipping the workmanship as much as the maker, for the sake of the Maker by whose desire we are held, as much as reason and nature demand, apportioning equal honors to all and cutting away from nature every inequality appearing in regard to each person through preconceived opinion; and enclosing all within Himself according to the one power of identity.

^B On account of this, the Creator of nature Himself—a thing truly dreadful to hear—put on our human nature, which He immutably joined to Himself in His person, so that He might make stable what was being carried about and was unstable, and might gather it to Himself—gathered together with itself, and having no difference in the judgment and choice of its will toward Him or toward itself; and might make manifest the glorious way of love, which indeed is divine and deifying, and leads to God—nay, is even said to be God Himself—which the thorns of self-love had at the beginning covered u. And having typified in Himself the sufferings [undergone] on our behalf, He rendered it clear of all obstacles to all; casting away the stones that were in it through His disciples, as He Himself had once proclaimed before among the prophets, saying, Cast the stones forth from the way; and might persuade us to hold onto Himself and one another as much as He Himself, having preceded us, demonstrated by His own self, having endured to suffer on our behalf. ^D On account of this, all the saints have continuously resisted sin, having no regard for the life we now live, and they underwent various kinds of death so that they might be gathered from the world to themselves and to God, and might mend within themselves the schisms of nature. This is the true and blameless divine wisdom of the faithful, the end of which is the good and the truth; for the good is philanthropy, and the true is piety and religion according to faith; which are the proper marks and insignia of love; as it joins men to God and to one another, and therefore has the permanence of goods firm and outside the hazard of accidents.

Of this divine and blessed way, you also, as most genuine lovers of the divine and...

strive ^A to conduct the good contest to its end. Apply strenuous diligence to those things through which we attain the end of charity; namely, to humanity, brotherly love, hospitality, care for the poor, compassion, almsgiving, humility, gentleness, mildness, patience, freedom from anger, long-suffering, steadfastness, kindness, forbearance, benevolence, and peace toward all. Out of these, and by these, the grace of charity is fashioned, and it leads the man, whom God fashioned, to God who has made him divine. For charity, says the divine Apostle—or rather, Christ who spoke these things through him—is patient, is kind, is not envious, does not boast, is not puffed up, does not act dishonorably, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not ^B think evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices with the truth; it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Charity never fails, since it has as its possession God, the only one who is unfailing and unchangeable. And it renders the man who lives according to it such as this, so that, receiving you also, it may say through Jeremiah the prophet: "I say to you, This is the way of my commandments, and the law that exists for ever. All who hold it will come to life; but those who have abandoned it will die. Take hold of it, my son, and walk toward the splendor before its light. Do not give your glory to another, nor the things that are profitable to you to an alien nation. Blessed you are, because the things that are pleasing to your God are made known to you; and you have learned where prudence is, where strength is, where understanding is, where long length of life and life are. Where is the light of the eyes and peace? You have stepped onto the way, and I appeared to you from afar. For this reason, I will love you with an everlasting love, and I will have mercy on you in [my] compassion; and I will build you and you shall be built; and you shall go out with the assembly of those who rejoice, because you stood upon the ways and considered, and inquired about the ways of the Lord that are of old; and you saw where the good way is, and you walked in it, and you found purification for your soul." And again through Isaiah: "I am the Lord your God: I have shown you how to find the way of righteousness, in which you shall walk, and you have heard my commandments. For this reason, your peace has become like a river, and your righteousness as the wave of the sea." And I, ^C rejoicing in your good things, will dare to say with God, having borrowed from the great Jeremiah: "Blessed are you, for you have put off the garment of the mourning of your affliction—the old man, I mean, who is being corrupted according to the desires of deceit—and you have put on the beauty of the glory which is from God for ever—the new man, I mean, who is being created in spirit according to Christ in the image of him who created him; and you have clothed yourself with the mantle of righteousness which is from God; and you have placed the mitre of the glory of the Eternal upon your head; adorned with solid manners of virtues, and a certain and inoffensive reason of wisdom. Therefore God will show all things that are under

heaven your splendor, and will call your name Peace of righteousness, and glory of godliness.

I have no further words to express the hidden affection and sentiment of my soul. For I have nothing worthy of your good qualities and ornaments to offer to God and to you, except that I may, to the measure of my strength, wonder at and approve and praise your noble works; and congratulate you on this account, that through good works you reconcile God to yourselves, and through you I may celebrate the praise of virtue; and through the virtue that joins you to God, I may praise God Himself. For it appears to me one and the same thing to praise you, and virtue, and God, through whose gift you shine with the splendor of virtue: that virtue, I mean, which by grace makes you, as it were, gods to God, by the removal of human characteristics; and makes God ^B man to you by condescension, through the assumption, as far as is possible for man, of divine properties.

SCHOLIA

III. — From the same to the same.

Having received the venerable letters of your love in the Lord, along with the blessing sent to the most religious monks of the venerable monastery of the holy and glorious martyr George, I gave thanks to God for that readiness of yours toward what is good; because with all diligence you have loosed the bonds of those whom the straits of poverty bind, and thereby have yourselves been loosed from the bonds of sin; and by intending to feed their bodies, you have nourished your own souls with divine grace, and have given me a cause to gather the fruit of true ^D contemplation. For I realized, having recollected myself, what the cause might be why God ordained that all mortals should show mercy to one another and be shown mercy: because, wishing to unite men to one another not only by nature, but also by will and disposition of mind, and impelling the whole of the human race toward this, He inscribed the saving commandments for us with most clement kindness; but the self-love and wisdom of men, either having pushed away or philosophized away both their neighbors and the law, has cut the one nature into many parts; and having introduced the presently prevailing insensibility of it, by excellence

of will, has armed nature against itself. Therefore, whoever, with sober reasoning and nobility of mind, has been able to dissolve this inequality of nature, has had mercy on himself before others, having constructed his will according to nature, and having approached God through his will by way of nature. He has shown in himself what the manner of the Word who is in the image is; and how God, in the beginning, appropriately created our nature to be one, similar, and a clear likeness of His own goodness—constituting it, in all respects, as one with itself: peaceable, harmonious, free from faction, and bound to God and to itself by love, through which we long for God and sympathetically hold onto one another. He also had mercy on those who deserve to be pitied, not only by providing for them, but also by teaching how God, being hidden, is manifested through those who are worthy, so that those people also, in turn, reverencing the kindness shown to them by their neighbor, may easily lay claim to it as a gift and grace from God. But if someone, being able to do this, neglects those who are in need, he will be shown to have justifiably severed both them from himself and himself from God, as one who has ignored nature through his will, or rather, as one who has destroyed the goods inherent to nature through his own will. ^A These things, indeed, are true of those who have chosen the cruelty of the man-hater through their will ^B and, regarding their kindred and kin as less honorable than a few coins, and by their yearning for gold, have walled off the entrances of God toward them—wretchedly suffering the loss of the greater goods because of their own actions. ^C But those other things are true of those who wisely strive to unite the ruptures of nature in a philanthropic manner, and by love to cooperate with God, as much as lies within them, for the sameness of intention of all other men, despising everything on earth as true advocates of God through their deeds. This is what you, my beloved, have revealed yourselves to be, both now and before, by every word and manner, by a generous scattering of your possessions to all, eagerly dividing yourselves both in soul and body, and showing that your will is the same in reference to your nature—being excelled by nature in only one regard, that it has received from thence the seeds of created things; or rather, from God, from whom the powers of good things were also cast down into nature from the beginning. Therefore, having been magnificently ^D watered from God with many streams of graces, it is now and was formerly manifest to all, in every reason and mode, and by the skillful distribution of your means, how you with alert and ready will distribute yourselves to all, as much in spirit as in body; and you have shown that in you the will and the sentiment of the soul are one with nature—nature claiming for itself the pre-eminence only in that the will has obtained from thence the seeds of those things that are done excellently: or, rather, from God, from whom at the very first birth the powers and faculties of the good and honest were implanted in nature.

Therefore, with many showers of graces, magnificently from heaven...

^A you have distilled oil of humanity upon those other most reverend and most religious men whom I have mentioned; and by this, you have supported the infirmity of a nature already wavering from want, and have, as far as was possible, healed their affliction, worn away by poverty. Do not therefore cease from doing good to the needy, so that through emptying yourselves, you may have an undiminished fullness. And in the cheerfulness of soul, confirming your faith, hope, and love in God, “remove the bond and the stretching out of hands” [or choice] “and the word of murmuring,” as the divine oracle says in a certain place; which is about the necessity of giving, and not deliberating. To repentance always accompanies hesitation; a matter clearly more troublesome than if the grace had never been offered, or the gift never made. For it is completely explored and certain to us all, and no one knows sufficiently upon whom one ought to cast blame, whether upon those able to do good, or those needing to receive it; but this belongs to the future time, when it will be known ^B what and how great our own [deeds] are, and in what state they happen to be. For God has so wisely willed that in the present life, the abyss of his judgments should be veiled. Knowing this, the wise Preacher commanded that we cast our bread upon the water, as if it were not to be dragged away or perish, but to encounter us later with greater fruit and gain, for those who in simplicity of heart possess the giving for the sake of the good, by God and our Savior Christ, who receives all that is done by us to one another, however they may happen to be. For if, as a lover of mankind, he deigned to suffer for us and be put to death, what would he not willingly do for those who have become imitators of his humanity and clemency toward us? ^C

NOTE

(f) *And the stretching out of hands.* The Vulgate [is] close to the Hebrew: *and cease to extend your fingers*; or as if to reach for plunder: for they also interpret this regarding the hooked claws with which birds of prey swoop down on their quarry, Jeremiah XI, 9. Maximus here accepts the Seventy's [version] for *choice* (delectus), by which each person presumes that some are to be obliged and others neglected; by this discrimination he divides his own nature, and wanders far from the purpose of almsgiving and charity. Therefore, three vices are insinuated here: binding and chains (the very injury of violated justice); election or choice (as if it were the acceptance of persons); and finally, murmuring and detraction of the mouth. ^D Far from the truth is the nobleman [in his translation] who renders this as "ordination," and [it has] nothing to do with the intent of Scripture. Ordination is spoken of in the mysteries in ecclesiastical usage, which is the consecration and inauguration of sacred ministers by the laying on of hands, such as we have from Paul, not an election by the naked casting of votes in the Calvinist rite, as he who—not long ago—having translated into French a compendium of the illustrious Life of the martyr Peter of Alexandria which I myself edited in Greek and Latin, unhappily expressed. For where the author [says], *all other legitimate things having been observed, there he was thus elected*, namely Achillas the presbyter, successor of Peter; and *canonically and ecclesiastically*, according to the mind of the writer, *he was thus consecrated, ordained*: for our idiom does not reject this word. Whatever may be the truth concerning the rite of the Alexandrian Church, and whether presbyters in it truly had the ordination of bishops—out of whose body one, put in charge of the others, was called the sole bishop, to preserve unity, and so that there might be no occasion for schism in that Church—is a matter for other work and leisure, just as is the examination of the origins of Eutychius and his interpreters. Upon which argument the English presbyter John Pearson recently labored strenuously in his book *Vindiciae Epistularum S. Ignatii*, showing the lucubration of this recent man Eutychius to be straw-like and supported by no lights of antiquity. Meanwhile, it ought to be held as valid that it does not harm true faith and discipline if anything had crept into that Church in the age of Eutychius, and where it had begun, once upon a time, to be stained by errors and to make a secession from the Roman Church and the citadel of Catholic communion.

^A

IV. — By the same, to the same, concerning sorrow according to God.

I rejoice and am glad, finding in your entire letter that my blessed master is afflicted with this praiseworthy sorrow; for I am not ignorant that "sorrow according to God produces a repentance without regret unto salvation" (II Cor. vii, 10), in those whose entire power of soul is strengthened by the fear of God. It does not allow the soul, which has turned away from the divine tribunals, to be disposed toward perishable things contrary to nature. Because of them, the wicked confusion of the passions, which takes up residence in those who perform the course of this present life carelessly, prepares the wretched mind to be captured by the snares of the devil and reasonably establishes it as a teacher of all malice, inasmuch as it has subjected the natural operation, against nature, to the disorderly impulses of anger and desire. ^B For the soul which, through deception, has once bound its intellectual power to material things, is most resourceful and agile in the sole invention of base things. For this reason, night and day, I pray unceasingly, although I am burdened by many sins, that this saving sorrow may be preserved for my blessed master—the sorrow that is, in truth, an exacting mistress of the passions, but a venerable and glorious mother of the virtues; so that, protected by it, he may repel the wicked sting of sin. For truly, no one who has enclosed this in the depth of his heart is ever captured by the devil's arrows. No one who ^C invisibly fosters this in his soul fears the manifold onsets of the demons. No one who has chosen to live with it ever attaches himself to visible things. No one who has this as the hallmark of his life is stained by the filth of perishable things. No one who has bound this indissolubly to his reason permits his senses to be carried away in an unbridled manner toward what is improper. No one who has been imbued with this in his soul can possibly consider himself greater than another; on the contrary, he would believe himself to be, and consider himself to be, less than everyone. No one who has girded his mind with this falls away from the understanding of divine things. No one who has harmonized this with himself ^D throughout will be ignorant of the conditions of a pious life. The Holy Spirit creates this, descending into the hearts of the worthy. I know this alone to be the generator of the joy that is in the kingdom of heaven. For sorrow according to God is clearly a divine seed, providing as its ripe fruit the joy of eternal goods. This, the accurate inner reflection on the things we have lived...

^A renews. This the book of conscience, when laboriously read, of the sins we have committed, nourishes. This the memory of death, and the most acute pain occurring to the soul at the moment of departure, keeps alive, holding it suspended in constant expectation. This the terrifying and harsh investigation of the spirits of wickedness, which is to be encountered in the air against the soul, keeps utterly inextinguishable by constantly shaping it in the mind. For who, beloved, stained with the filth of sins like mine, does not fear the arrival of the holy angels by whom, receiving the end of the present life according to the divine decree, one must, willy-nilly, be driven out of the body, while they gnash their teeth in anger? Who, carrying with him a sullied conscience, does not fear the most savage and utterly brutal ^B attack of the evil demons, as each, throughout this air after our departure, cruelly tears the wretched soul towards himself by means of the intermediate passion and lust, shaming it by convicting it of the things it has done, and depriving it of all hope for future goods? This, the soul keeps healthily nourished in sorrow: a diligent mental knowledge of the future state of souls in hell, formed after that investigation against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the air; namely, how they pass their time in deep darkness and most oppressive silence, their food being the most bitter groanings and tears, and the dejection that follows these; anxious in expectation, yet so that they expect nothing beyond the just condemnation decreed by the sentence of God. ^C This sorrow is brought forth by the hope of the resurrection; by the majesty of the terrible and most glorious coming of Christ; by that most shudder-inducing day of judgment, continually meditated upon in the mind; according to which heaven and earth, and the entire adornment of things subject to our sight, will pass away like a whirlwind, as the elements, being set ablaze and dissolved by that immeasurable power of fire, purify for the entry of the Purer One that creation which was defiled by us. In which, thrones are set, and the Ancient of Days takes his seat ^D; and the countless hosts of holy angels and archangels stand by in a servile manner with fear and trembling; and the entire human race is brought to examination and the cognition of their cause; and the books are opened, in which the accounts of our works and words and thoughts are kept, having been diligently recorded in commentaries; from which all the things done by us will be laid bare to the gaze of every creature, so that others will clearly know the sins of others, and everyone will know their own, while reading without error the book of their own conscience. Then those who are placed on the right of the Judge will receive the promises of secret goods; but those who have obtained the position on the left will receive the eternal fire, the sleepless worm, the gnashing of teeth, the constant, everlasting tears, and the shame which will never have an end, by the very name of which anyone will be afflicted with greater pain,

and will be condemned to the unending torment in store, or to all the other forms of punishment together. The one who possesses the grief that is according to God ^A in no way forgets these truly fearful things and names; but, as if always seeing the Judge and being seen by Him, he will be disposed accordingly, and he will pass the present life piously and justly, doing, saying, or thinking nothing that is alien to divine grace and calling.

The offspring of this praiseworthy grief is the excellent and singular good among men, humility; by which the pious man and lover of God will in truth deem himself the least of all, ^B even if he should flourish in royal dignity. For he makes human weakness—under which all who have shared in the same nature are equal—the limit and rule of his own self-knowledge, in no way diverting his mind, because of his dignity, away from the reason of nature. The bulwark of this is meekness, which is a state that repels the unnatural movements of anger and desire, by which man receives a likeness to the angels, among whom there is neither raging and rabid anger, barking unseemly at those ^C whom the kinship of the same nature joins, nor desire, dissolving the tensions of the mind and gradually drawing the yearning toward earthly things; but reason alone, holding the entire sway, and fervently leading the mind toward the Word who is above cause and nature. The fruit of this is love, by which, being united to God and to one another, we will-out of care for one another—as much as is possible, as God, being merciful, cares for all. The end of this is the kingdom of heaven and the blessed enjoyment of the divine goods therein. For the grief that is according to God leads those who love and keep it to that end.

The characteristic signs of this grief ^D are that one accustoms the eyes to look upon creation only for the glory of the Creator, and to regard the affairs of one's neighbor without envy or jealousy; to keep the ears ready only for the reception of the words of God and for the entreaties of those who are in need of our help; to be diligently stopped up against every insult and the obscenity of shameful words; and to hallow the tongue with the praises of others, in no way defiling it with injurious words and insults against them. To speak in summary: let us fashion all the members of the body and of the soul according to what seems good to the Spirit, and let the entire goal of piety be accomplished in us.

These things, blessed one, we must search out in ourselves with all precision; if we find that we possess them, let us guard them with all care. But if it appears that we are devoid of all these things, let us strive with diligent labor to acquire them, humbling ourselves as men before all men for the sake of God and our common nature, and remaining meek and gentle toward those things that happen contrary to our own will.

Let us be generous to the poor, and hospitable to strangers; let us be ready to provide defense to those in need, as far as our ability allows; toward friends, let us be of one soul and one mind; toward acquaintances, in all things prudent; toward those of humbler station, approachable; toward the weak, sympathetic and humane; toward those who provoke us to anger, long-suffering; toward those who offend, prone to indulgence; and toward those whom sorrow and sadness affect, a gentle consolation. And, to speak in one word, let us become all things to all men, both for the fear of God and for the promised threat of future judgments. For without these things I have recounted, there is for all mortals absolutely no hope of salvation. ^B

These things, and more than these, my love for you compels me to say. I have no way to set a limit to it, a limit which might cause me to always have you before my mind and to exchange words as if with one present, and which compels me to converse through letters with one who is absent. Indeed, let us not receive the force of what is said in a perfunctory manner. For, among other things, such discourses as these will surely have us—both I who speak and those who hear—as either advocates or accusers on the ^C awesome day of judgment, depending on how we have been disposed toward them. May God grant that we all, both we who say something of what is our duty and those who hear, may be proven to be performers of all divine discourses, and not mere hearers and heralds only, by the grace of Christ our God and Savior, who has called us to His own glory and kingdom.

V. — To the Same, to Constantine.

If my blessed master truly rejoices through his letters as though conversing with me face to face, as he has written, it is clear ^D that he rejoices because he kindly accepts and approves my words. The proof of these words, however, lies in the fact that he who approves and gratefully accepts the teaching is himself moved in his soul by its principles. And the most certain demonstration of a soul so affected and prepared is the exhibition of the virtue contained in the teaching through the very work itself. Therefore, may my master provide me the most certain pledge of the exhortation to speak; may he show a prompt and eager spirit in performing the things that are handed down in speech; and it will come to pass, according to what is written, that I shall never restrain my lips, but will talk and discuss with him those things which are able to be profitable both to him and to me and to others, as far as it is permitted by the ability that God gives to all simply and without reproach.

^A Let us therefore become, beloved, eager doers of the works according to the commandment; and let us flee the error of this age, and let us not bind our soul to any of the delights thought to be in it. For the world is passing away, and all things in it wither, being by nature the spoils of corruption. Now, the proof of this eagerness concerning divine matters in those who long for salvation consists not only in the hatred of sin, and a life of leisure, and the alienation from wicked men, and the rejection of the soul from all things that perish; it consists also in the contempt of the flesh for the sake of virtue, and a firm and unyielding temperance against all things that deceitfully entice the soul through the senses. Through this we extinguish all licentious appetites and calm the disorderly movements of anger, not allowing the intellect to be enslaved and swept along by them, and—like a charioteer seized by headstrong horses—to be carried off toward the abyss, with no one to command and be able to check the irrational onrush of the creatures yoked to him. ^B But let us also hold to patience and endurance against all involuntary temptations, by which, even while suffering bodily, we remain passionless in soul and unconquered, not being cast down by any of those things that agitate us. Through both of these—I mean, temperance regarding those passions that are within our power, and patience regarding those that are not within our power—having been tested, we bring forth the virtues as fair and ripe fruits, as if from some most divine seed of the commandments. For example, we produce cognitive prudence against ignorance and superstition; courage against cowardice and rash boldness; temperance against licentiousness and stupidity; justice against injustice—by which I mean, against greed and deficiency; we arm ourselves with humility against pride; we bring forth condescension against haughtiness, moderation against conceit, long-suffering against faint-heartedness; and we attend to gentleness and meekness toward all, and to the cheerful distribution to those in need; we diligently provide for hospitality, brotherly love, and philanthropy; and we pursue peace and love, in which, as if in a certain lap of blessings, all the good things given to men by God are gathered and guarded. ^{C D} These things, my blessed master, everyone who loves the kingdom of heaven and hastens to flee the trial of the eternal punishments threatened to those who sin, strives by all means to perform and to guard according to his power; having as a helper in the keeping of such things—both of death, and of that which at the time of death

^A of the soul's abandonment, carrying with it nothing else except the conscience stained by the guilt of its evil deeds; and of the terrible examination, which will take place in this air, by the wicked spirits, I mean a deep reflection—and of the bitter and lightless imprisonment of souls now in Hades, a recollection; and of the shame, which is harder than all the punishments with which sinners are threatened, awaiting it before the just Judge and the heavenly Powers when hidden things are revealed. These things, and more than these, I have already written to the best of my ability, and I shall not cease writing, as far as I am able, having the longing for my beloved master, which considers him the exacter of such sayings.

But let us be sober and wakeful, that we may be on our guard, O blessed one, and take heed, lest we draw upon ourselves a greater condemnation; just as those who speak and hear divine things vainly and rashly. For we shall give an account to God for these words too on the day of judgment; both I who speak these things, and you who hear them; if it should come to pass for us that we let them go by idle and without fruit. May God grant, however, that we all might rather rejoice in all the words and doctrines of God, and be made doers of the divine and saving wills ^B contained in them, through the prayers and intercessions of our all-glorious and all-holy Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, and of all the saints. Amen.

VI. By the same, to the most holy and most blessed Archbishop John, in which he demonstrates that the soul is incorporeal.

Having received the venerable letter of your perfection, praised for its virtue, ^C and adorned with all magnificent modesty, it occurred to me at once both to admire and to be astonished; for instance, in considering how you have remained like unto yourself in both respects; whom neither sublimity renders inaccessible, nor humility renders contemptible. For having wisely tempered in yourself one kind of virtue out of both, you cause, with wonderful skill, the one to be perceived and to shine within the other; ^D for, by the lofty you are not unapproachable, nor by the humble are you held in contempt. For you have wisely tempered one form of virtue out of both for yourself, and you cause, with wonderful skill, the one to be perceived and to shine within the other,

^A in sublimity in humility, and conversely humility in sublimity. Therefore, servant of God, without delay or excuse, I receive what has been commanded by you, undertaking to demonstrate and show—relying rather on reasons derived from nature, and without citing testimonies from Scripture or the Fathers—whether the soul is a thing of such a kind as to have been created incorporeal: and indeed, I do this again, trusting in the drops of your doctrine, with which you have more gently bedewed me, parched as I was by ignorance in various ways.

But who are these audacious ones who assert that no created thing is incorporeal? And by what frivolous and foolish figments of the mind do they oppose your true doctrines and arguments? How is it, unless they are more contentious than is just, that they have not yielded to your argumentation, which is so accurate, indeed, that it is as far as possible from being able to be broken or overturned by any contrary reason or objection whatsoever? And that my present discourse may proceed by a more certain method, I shall place your own most wise argument, as an insuperable bulwark of the truth, at the very threshold, from which I shall begin; glorying in this, that I seize the opportunity and occasion from your own works.

^B 1. Since the body is by its own nature unmoved; and if the soul is also a body, even if it be, as they say, most subtle in its parts, in the way that it is body, it will not be moved. And if these things are so, whence comes our motion? And this continues into infinity, until we reach some created incorporeal being. But if they say that we are moved by God according to the primary cause, since I know that most of our motions are absurd and base, they will necessarily declare the divine Power to be the author of these as well.

^C 2. And again, if every corporeal existence, in any way that it may be, according to true reason and doctrine, is divided by quantity and quality, and completes the consideration of itself in bulk, form, surface, and shape, as being encompassed by necessary limits. For he who examines this has nothing outside of these that he can conceive in his mind. If, therefore, the soul is also a body, it is entirely circumscribed either by these, or is these, or is some one of these, or is in these, or in some of these, or is circumscribed by some of these; yet it is not circumscribed by these, nor is it these, nor some one of them, nor is it in these, nor in some of them, nor is it circumscribed by any of these; therefore, the soul is not a body.

^D 3. Item, if then it is not a matter of controversy for them that the soul exists; and since it exists, it is none of those things which the mind perceives, from which or by which bodies exist: not color, not shape, not impenetrability, not weight, not magnitude, not the three-dimensional measurement; and simply, since it is nothing at all of those things which are seized by the corporeal nature; being none of these, as the discourse has shown, it will necessarily be incorporeal, if indeed it exists in reality.

4. Furthermore, since every contraction and expansion into a greater mass, or unfolding, and division or section, are affections of bodies; and since that which is entirely free from all such contraction and expansion and from any division is altogether incorporeal, it becomes clear that the soul is incorporeal, as it is completely incapable of receiving any of these things. ^A

5. Likewise. If the whole of corporeal substance is divided into that which is animate and that which is inanimate, and if the soul is itself a body, it will necessarily be either an animate body or an inanimate one. But if it is animate, it will necessarily be animated by something—either a substance, or a power, or a quality acting as its animator. But to say that a soul is animated, just as light is illuminated or fire is heated, is utterly laughable. And if we say that it is a substance that animates the soul, we shall again call it either a body or incorporeal. And if we say it is a body, the discourse regarding this will constantly encounter the same absurd objections from previous absurdities, until it is jointly agreed that the soul is incorporeal. But if we say that it is a power, or a quality, that animates the soul, which is ^B something that gives life and motion to the substance, it will be involuntary and unsubstantial. Indeed, it would also result in an alternation and a state contrary to nature regarding the difference between ruling and being ruled; if the soul were indeed created by nature to rule the body, as an incorporeal substance, it would—according to their view—be ruled as a body by something that is not, by its essence, that which rules; I mean the power conceived according to quality; whereas the soul, being and subsisting in accordance with substance, would be ruled by that which is a mere quality, contrary to the common preconception of all. But if we say that it is an inanimate body, it will be devoid of sensation, incapable of imagination, irrational, and unintelligent. ^C Yet all these things exist and are seen around the soul and in the soul; therefore, the soul is not a body. That it possesses such a body, which is of a different substance, we do not refuse to admit, for we know it well; but to assert that it *is* a body, we altogether avoid as something of the greatest rashness and greatest ignorance, well aware that there is a great difference between *having* a body and *being* a body.

If, however, they do not accept calling the soul incorporeal because they call God incorporeal, fearing a groundless fear, lest they might elevate it to an equal glory and lot with God; let them also take away other things from us, so that their battle of madness might be completed for them—everything, of course, for which we have borrowed names from God as partakers of His work, and for which God, as the One who effects and provides or imparts, has deigned to be called by our names. ^D And what are these? Namely: to be, to live, to be illuminated, to be imbued with goodness, to contemplate, to understand. Some of these pertain to us by way of substance, others by way of movement, or intention, and the disposition of the soul. For we are said to be, and to live, and to be lights, and good, and endowed with intellect and reason. And in like manner we name God as being, and living, and light, and good, and Mind, and Word; whether it be because we are these things from the Cause,

or because we move as if by God’s agency, or because we exist in His act, that we assign these names from our own to God. ^A What reason, then, is there for them to say that the soul is these things and is so named, but yet is not incorporeal, for the reason that God is incorporeal? It must necessarily follow that either we should not use these names for ourselves, because they are attributed to God, or else we should not say of God what is a common naming for us as well. But we are indeed these things and are so named, not as being the same as God on account of these things, but as the caused is in relation to the Cause, or the participant in relation to the participated, or as existence in relation to its origin. Nor is this done comparatively or synonymously, as is the case with things of the same essence, but homonymously, and, so to speak, participatively; for the things are infinitely distant from one another in nature, unless it pleases someone to say, as is truly the case, that the Divine is above both nature and the thing, and that It far excels them.

^B Where, then, according to them, if it were granted that the soul is a body, would the reason for it being “according to the image” be preserved for us, unless we say that the soul must be similar to the Archetype in all respects? For just as we name the image in these things as intellectual, immortal, incorruptible, and invisible—those things which are marked by these gifts—so indeed, by calling it incorporeal, we designate it also as body-less, fleeing from all bulk and every similar, measurable dimension that results from the distance of parts; yet we also say that it is another thing from Him, regarding the property of its nature. Otherwise, it would no longer be an image, but an unvarying identity. ^C In those things, however, in which that similarity is perceived in the uncreated, immutable, and beginningless nature, we believe it to be clearly shown in the created, rational nature also—not in the same mode, but as if in the furthest echoes of a voice, a manifestation of the Word’s signification. And just as the most philosophical mind, through the things accomplished in beings by the arrangement of the universe, transfers its powers of thought to the pure and immaterial, and distinguishes the Mover from the things that are moved, and perceives that One who is alone and simple, existing of Himself, remaining the same, the Author and Creator of things, holding fast in the permanence of His own identity, inaccessible by nature to the rest; immutable, indeed, because He is immovable—for there is nothing toward which He who creates, fulfills, and is above all beings might be moved—and containing all things, as Creator, and knowing all things before they come to exist by the power of His infinite strength; ^D in the same mode of contemplation, looking through the varied, skillful, and harmonious motion of the members and parts of the microcosm—I mean, of man—to the motive Cause, it sees something other than the organic existence of the body. And it does not see it as a body within a body—which seems to be the case to the young, the vain, and the advocates of unproven dogmas—but

^A considers Him as simple and indivisibly one in those things which are divided and dissipated, and as indefinite in those which are contracted. He {the intellect} sees Him as changeable, as if He were moved; but as to one who is moved, as having an object toward which that movement is directed. Yet, regarding the change that comes from movement, he recognizes not the nature, but the judgment as the author ^B of it, whenever that judgment happens to be in error.

Change, therefore, as I think, does not exist regarding the soul's own substance (for otherwise it would undergo infinite mutations and would not remain the same in substance), but resides in the movement which is within our power, which, as is evident, allows itself to be driven by an arbitrary will. Therefore, what the adversaries say and affirm—namely, that the very perpetual movement of the soul toward God is subject to change—I judge to be the speech of those who do not speak truly, but of those who desire to deceive with a pretentious pomp of words, and do not seek with a zeal for piety what is accurately true. For who, having even a grain of reason ^C and not being devoid of all virtuous affection, could be unaware that that constant movement of the soul toward the Good is nothing other than the natural operation itself, elicited and flowing from the Cause for which it was also created? But change is a movement contrary to nature, inducing a frustration of this very cause. For change, in my view, is nothing other than a debility and a falling away from natural operations. Tell then, I pray you, and warn those prattling men, not to presume to compare God rashly with a creature. For the Deity, strictly speaking, is neither body, nor incorporeal, nor substance, nor any of the things which are understood or spoken of (not to go through everything one by one), but remains ^D incomprehensible when understood and ineffable when spoken of.

Let these things be stated by us by way of inquiry and seeking, not as a final decree. And if they satisfy the subject, as far as the constraints of a letter allowed, and do not fall too far short of your greatness of mind, thanks be to God, and to you who invited me to speak and admonished me of the matter. But if it also pleases you, and if the adversaries should not be convinced, we are ready, by the grace of God, to arrange a more vigorous battle against them, namely, to send forth against them the cloud of witnesses and testimonies that surrounds us [Heb. XII, 1], so that, having set aside the burden of this whole laborious and complex argument, and the stubborn war of words of the contentious, we may tranquilly hold the true knowledge of God and His creation. But if they are not fully adequate (which in any case must have happened) and have not sufficiently attained the mark, as having proceeded from a rude intellect and a feeble instrument, I pray you, beloved, to forgive me, since I dared to speak these things for the sake of obedience alone, as God, who searches the hearts [Psal. VII, 10], knows; and gently correct the one who did not desire

to be ignorant of things profitable, and lead by the hand with compassion him who desires to walk straight.

VII. — By the same to John the presbyter, [that the soul] even after death retains its intellectual activity and loses none of the faculties that are in it by nature.

On the second of the present month of August, in the first indiction, our common friend delivered to me the venerable letters of your paternal holiness. By reading them I was indeed greatly refreshed, for I learned that you, my masters, and next to God the authors of all good things for me, are in good health. For the Holy Spirit of God is so completely united to you, that even while you are absent, by merely viewing you with the eyes of my mind, I am regulated in my life and speech according to the ability I possess; as if God, appearing in my memory through you, were something I see and revere. ^A Yet I was not a little grieved by the dogma concerning the soul which, as you wrote, is being shamelessly preached over there, considering how much strength and boldness such a thing has acquired here as well. But what fills me with dejection here, and casts upon my mind a burden like a cloud, is that now almost everyone, and especially those who are supposedly prominent monks, are advocating a new-fangled dogma concerning the resurrection, so that they do not even consider as a conjecture that the precursors of the coming of the Antichrist are present; but rather they believe and assert that he is present, and, if one were able to weigh the matter with reason for a moment, they consider him who participates in such a thought ^B to have his own absurdity of what is being said bear witness and confirm faith in such an evil.

For they who sharpen their tongues shamelessly against all things, and consider nothing of what is done or said impiously to be fearful, say that bodies in the resurrection are held to life and preserved again by phlegm and blood, and yellow and black bile, and by the intake of air, and by the food perceived by the senses, and that nothing at all strange beyond our present life will appear through the resurrection, except for the fact that they will not be able to die again. I do not know how, with regard to all things in the Holy Scripture concerning both the soul and the resurrection of the dead through the prophets and apostles, ^C and through the Word of God Himself who conversed with us in the flesh, and especially those things which the divine Paul expounded and handed down separately to the Corinthians, they have voluntarily stopped up their ears and closed the eye of their soul so as not to understand—even though those things are so clear and easy to hear that no diligence of an interpreter is necessary for understanding them, and even though they have the very nature and character of things, no less than the divine oracles themselves, to teach them; such is their power that they are able to lead even the Barbarians to the knowledge ^D of the truth, presenting itself so clearly.

^A to those who require a demonstration of the points in question, having no shame.

For who, unless he has completely lost the function of reason, is unaware of this: that every nature, which is distinguished essentially by its own properties—and in this way demonstrates both the mode of its own substance and the difference by which it is unmixedly separated from other natures—if it were once stripped of the properties that contain and preserve its substance, will either not exist at all, or will become something other than what it was? Since, to suggest that it could still exist if its properties were entirely destroyed is something that not even by the most indulgent or ungrateful concession would one dare to claim. For it is so arranged that, when natural properties are corrupted, every subject is also corrupted along with them. For what, or where, would the ox, the horse, the lion, and other such things be, if the properties that contain the nature of each were lacking? And who—if he is of sound mind—would presume to say that these things exist without them? I do not understand. If, therefore, it is true that no thing can exist or be known without those qualities that naturally and truly characterize it, then those who deprive the soul of what is essentially innate to it—namely, the rational and intellectual faculty by which it always is and operates, by understanding and reasoning—are clearly also depriving it of its very existence, even if they do not say so. And, according to their opinion, it will be corruptible and mortal, having no existence after the death of the body; and what could be said that is more absurd than this? ^C But if they assume that it lives, even if only in word and not in reality—fearing the reproach of all—it will certainly also be moved. For all life of created things is manifested by motion. And if it is moved, it also certainly operates; for all motion is manifested through operation. And if it operates, it will surely operate in a natural way, not by an external mover or by accident. For it is not moved in a circle, or from place to place, or—to speak in a word—in the manner of bodies, but by mind and reason. ^D But if it lives and moves and operates by mind and reason, it certainly also reasons, understands, and knows. If it does not know and reason, then it does not operate, nor is it moved, nor does it live. For life cannot consist without innate motion, nor can natural motion be shown to exist if a corresponding operation is not present.

Furthermore, the soul is either rational and intellectual by itself and of its own reason, or it borrows this from the body. And if it is rational and intellectual by itself—that is, by its own essence—it is entirely self-subsistent. If it is self-subsistent by nature and by itself, it will also operate with the body, understanding and reasoning according to its nature, and it will never cease from the intellectual powers that are naturally present to it. For things that are naturally inherent in any being whatsoever remain inseparable as long as it exists and subsists. The soul, therefore, being always such from the moment it came into being, and subsisting by the one who thus

created it, always contemplates, reasons, and knows, both within itself and with the body, for its own sake and for the sake of its own nature. No argument, therefore, will be found capable of alienating the soul from those things that belong to it naturally, and not because of the body, after the dissolution of the latter. But if the soul is rational and intellectual because of the body, then, first of all, the body will be more honorable than the soul that came to be for its sake. Secondly, it will also derive its intellectual and rational faculty from the body, as if it had come to be for the sake of [the body]. ^B For if the soul is in no way able to think or reason without the body, then thinking and reasoning will necessarily accrue to it from the body. But if the soul possesses the power of thinking and reasoning from the body—as if it were unable to have these things without it, according to those who say so—then it will certainly not be self-subsistent; for how could it be self-subsistent if, without the body, it lacks that which characterizes it? And if it is not self-subsistent, then it is evidently not a substance. But a substance that is not self-subsistent? It would be an accident, having its being solely as naturally existing in the body, and after its dissolution, being able to be nothing at all. And there will be nothing left for those who are so carried away by madness in depriving themselves of the immortality of the soul—[the madness] of the vain labor of Epicurus and Aristotle, with whom, as is likely, the noble fellows are proud to associate themselves. And so much for this.

^C As for what they say regarding the resurrection, what seeker of virtue and piety, upon hearing it, would not acquire for himself an impassibility through passion—I mean, through indignation against them? For if, as they say, the body will rise again in the image of the present life, fashioned identically by the struggling humors, and will be nourished in the fearful presence of God after the consummation of this world, I do not believe they intend to suggest or conclude anything else by these things—to sum up concisely, cutting out the many things that could be said—than that death will be eternal and corruption will have no end. For if death is the corruption of bodies constituted in this way, and that which is by ^D signifies death and destruction: just as it is, so it is non-being and not-being.

subject to a natural antipathy—then they are always announcing death, by the very means through which they suppose the body to be constituted after the resurrection, if it is preserved to all eternity. One must believe that while the body rises again in essence and form, it is incorruptible and immortal, and, to use the words of the Apostle, instead of a natural body, a spiritual one, for it bears nothing of that alterable quality which constitutes it in corruption, as God, who will re-temper it for an impassible and honorable state, knows how to do; and one should not pry further into these matters with excessive curiosity.

Seeing the many who rejoice and take pleasure in such trifles, ^B *I was dumb and was humbled, and kept silence from good things* (Ps. XXXVIII, 3); for I judged that for every prudent and cautious person silence is more profitable than speech. And I walk about mourning and sorrowful within myself, considering how much the speeches of such men, scattering like sparks, are going to bring about the destruction of souls; and there is no one who can or is willing to defend the teaching that is brought into peril, because of the wickedness of the time that currently prevails. For this reason, I groan all the more, deploring my separation from you, for I have not available the powerful and Fatherly overseership of your holiness, which guards me from near at hand, delivers me from harmful things, and frequently bolsters my many failings with a word. ^C

VIII. — The same to the same.

Carnal love is of such a nature that it withers and fades with the passage of time, and is likewise distracted by the spaces of places, and as it were migrates together with those to whom it is joined by necessity. For it is centered upon the senses, which are in no way able to perceive things that are not present. But spiritual love always has those who are joined together according to it present to one another in the mind, even if they are separated bodily from one another; it does not admit of any circumscription by time or place. For it has its existence in the mind, which is not at all divided or enclosed by the division of bodies from one another by the spaces of places.^D

^A With this love, through which I was granted to be joined to you, most holy ones, from the beginning, I seem to see you always present before me, and to perceive you conversing; nor is there any time or place capable of separating me from the memory of you. For it shows you always present in spirit, puts to flight all the foul thoughts within me that cannot bear the immense fragrance of the divine grace that is within you; and I am persuaded, indeed, that it is not merely a phantom of the memory that I perceive you, most holy ones, but that I truly feel you present—a fact that I take as exact confirmation of your presence. For indeed, the power active within you by the grace of God, at the same time as the memory [of you], drives away the demons that harass me, providing a most clear indication of your presence. And it is no marvel if God, who works signs and wonders, causes those who are absent in body to be present in mind, as He Himself knows how, and [as happens also to] those who by His gift are divinely inspired to such things; and this is more than even when bodies are joined together locally. And if, by mere remembrance, ^B venerable Fathers, you provide such a reproof to my ignoble thoughts, invisibly visiting [me] in spirit, how much more if you were present before my eyes, and were sanctifying my hearing with divine words through a living voice, and were gloriously teaching me virtue through your own manner of life?

^B Therefore, I walk about mourning and downcast, longing for and seeking you, the good shepherd and teacher, who knows how to settle the wandering sheep in a place of pasture—I mean the state of virtue, which puts away the heat of the passions through practice—and who is able to nurture [it] upon the water of refreshment; I mean the grace of knowledge, which irrigates the mind through contemplation, and [who is the one] who turns my soul from wickedness to virtue, by divine words and example, and leads it into the paths of justice, showing the ways that are salvific according to piety; and who wisely consoles with rod and staff—that is to say, by the memory of eternal punishments, like a rod, leading away the one being introduced to wickedness, and by the exhortation of future goods, like a staff, supporting the one advancing in virtue through hope; which is what, I suppose, the Lord and Savior also symbolically hinted at, pouring wine and oil upon the wounds of the one who had fallen among thieves. ^C For the love of the kingdom of heaven, when tempered with the fear of the eternal fire of Gehenna, keeps the soul unharmed, binding it fast to the love of the Creator, having cut away every passionate thought through that astringency.

But fulfill now, venerable Father, even you yourself, the reed of divine Spirit and teaching, ^D

^A and call with pastoral and kindly intent him who is wandering without a shepherd on the mountains of ignorance and the hills of wickedness; and take him under your right hand, and bind up with compassion him who has been torn by many evil bites of the wolves of Arabia ^B — that is, of the West. For Arabia, as they say, denotes in the Greek tongue—if you interpret the name—the West. By Arabia, I understand—and perhaps not incorrectly, according to the words of spiritual interpretation—this flesh, which in those who are like me tyrannizes over the divine laws of the Spirit; which truly nourishes many shameless and savage wolves; which has in reality become a "West" because of sin, and truly merits that name. Upon it has ascended the good and merciful Shepherd, that good Shepherd who feeds Israel, God and the Word of God ^C, who sits upon the Cherubim, having clearly taken heed and seen the danger into which we had been cast; and for this reason, having manifested Himself and stirred up His own power, and having come in the flesh to grant salvation to those who were perishing; and to destroy the evil beasts that had thrived in it; and to make it a land of peace, a pasture for rational sheep who are led toward God through the practice of virtue. This land I have not yet safely crossed, neither by spiritual contemplation of the law—as Israel crossed Mount Seir ^D—nor have I traversed its desires impassibly through the practice of knowledge, as their brothers, the sons of Esau, who lived in Arabia, crossed it under the leadership of Moses, though they derived their origin from Jacob. But I still dwell in Arabia according to the sons of Esau, that is, in the West—I mean, in the flesh—not expecting another life after the present one because of the pleasures of the flesh. Yet every true Israelite, who sees God, does not endure even to dwell in it; he hastens to depart from the flesh through virtues, and desires to be present with the Lord through knowledge—He who is the land of promise, mystically existing and named after ineffable goods, the land truly flowing with milk and honey. For the Lord is the nurturer of those who are infants in Christian simplicity; and He is the joy and gladness of those who, by a life piously ordered, have advanced to the stature of men; as He nourishes those who fear Him with virtues like milk through action, and sweetens those who love Him with mystical insights like honey through spiritual contemplation. Do not, therefore, cease from shepherding me with compassion, who have been captured and torn by beasts, O venerable Father, with the teachings of truth,

^A nor from relieving me of the vices and the spirits of wickedness that incite them, which are wickedly devouring and consuming my inner man; and call me to yourself, and shelter me under your wings, if indeed all fear of perceptible enemies has truly departed, out of dread of whom, being a lover of life, I crossed such great expanses of the sea. Regarding this, I would especially ask you, most holy ones, that after you have informed me of your most clear and—according to God—robust health, which has been desired with all my prayers, you would more accurately declare this to me, and indicate by letter the entire situation currently prevailing there, as it truly is. For being weak of mind and very frail, and barely able to be sober even in peace, and hardly able to gather my mind, which is scattered by fear about many things, I wish to make the crossing with safety; as one imperfect in understanding, and unable to penetrate the reasons of the Providence that wisely manages the whole of things; lest perhaps, through ignorance, I lose heart at the various turns of events, and by yielding through weakness of patience in the struggles that arise from them, I lose the crowns that come from them, like a deserter and runaway from the order, when I ought to have demonstrated constancy in the face of evils in the exercise of virtue. As though present in person, I greet and embrace you, most holy ones, and all who are with you, entreating by your holy and acceptable prayers to be commended to Christ our God and Savior of all.

IX. — By the same, to Thalassius the presbyter and hegumen.

There are three things, as they say, that drive and draw man, or rather, toward which man voluntarily and with intent moves by his own power of choice: God, and nature, and the world. ^C And each of these, as it draws him, detaches him from the other two, changing the one being drawn toward itself, and making him by adoption that which it is known to be by nature—except for nature, for it is nature that preserves man truly as he is. For example, if it is God who acts and draws man, He knows how to make him a god by adoption; and to him who is being acted upon and drawn, He grants the gift of divinity, a power surpassing all nature, as the Good One, and clearly severs him from the other two (I mean the world and nature). But if it is nature that is acting and drawing man, it shows man to be what he is by nature, ^D existing as the mean between God and the world, as participating in neither of these by choice. But if it is the world that carries and draws him, it makes him a beast—that is, it makes the one being drawn mere flesh—by creating passion in him through deceit; by which it casts him far from God and nature, and teaches him to do all things that are contrary to nature. The extremes, therefore—I mean God and the world—are accustomed to call man away from one another and from the mean, I mean nature. The mean, however, which contains these...

^A extremes, if it should observe that man is looking only at it, separates him equally from the extremes; it allows him neither to emerge and rise up to God, nor, if it is ashamed, to let itself fall down to the world. As soon, therefore, as a man moves toward one of these according to the disposition of his will, he immediately changes his activity and changes his designation toward that very thing, being called carnal, or animal, or spiritual. The work and mark of the carnal is that he knows only how to do evil. Of the animal, that he neither wishes ever to do evil nor to suffer it. Of the spiritual, that he wishes to do only what is good, and if it happens that he suffers in the cause of virtue, he accepts it readily. If, therefore, you desire, O blessed one, to be led by the Spirit of God, as indeed you desire, ^B cut off from yourself the world and nature; or rather, cut yourself off from them, and do not refuse to suffer injuries. Do not decline to bear mockery, reproaches, and insults; and, to express it in a word, may you never cease, while being afflicted with evils, to deserve well of those who afflict you, and to remit to them all that is done, for the sake of God and virtue, according to Him who says: "If anyone wishes to go to law with you and to take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well." And again, according to the blessed Apostle, who says: "When we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; when we are slandered, we entreat."

Finally, if you have brought yourself to comply with my wish, blessed servant of God, pay a great debt of gratitude to those who have afflicted you; and even if it is necessary for you to suffer the loss of all things at their hands, take care not to refuse, but rather bless them while you are attacked by reproaches; endure while you suffer persecution; entreat while you are assailed with curses; lest it happen that you are carnal, as one who knows and wishes only to do injury; or animal, as one who cannot bear to be injured; but rather spiritual, who both knows and is accustomed only to do good voluntarily; and who, for the sake of virtue, understands how to suffer evil readily from those who wish to inflict injury; looking toward Jesus, the author of our salvation, who instead of all good things—which no one has ever yet been able to grasp in knowledge—readily endured all terrible things from sinners and for the sake of sinners. For this was the purpose assigned to Him who gave the commandments: to free man from the world and nature. And for this reason he who does not obey is reprobate; and in vain do those who are of the world put forward their children and grandchildren as an excuse, and do the superiors of the societies and gatherings of those who practice the monastic life put them forward, that the commandments might conveniently be rendered idle for them. For if we once grant this as true, it will be shown that the Lord has written a law of salvation for absolutely no one. Moreover, the Scripture, I think, calls the natural man "animal," ^D because the peculiarity of nature is accustomed to be regarded only concerning animate things, as those skilled in such matters relate, and those things entirely that come into being and pass away. These things, Master, I have written to you, because much—

that is, the burden of your reader—I found you distressed at the things that have happened. But pray powerfully, as one powerful to one who is powerful, to Him who is able to forgive sins, for Maximus, your servant and disciple, venerable Father. ^A

X. — To John the Cubicularius.

Since you have commanded me to write to you concerning the cause for which God, by a just judgment, has decreed that men should be subject to the authority of other men, although there is one and the same nature for all, which also shows all who partake of it to be equal in honor by the simple reason inherent in it, I will speak according to my ability, ^B hiding or suppressing nothing of what I have received from wise and blessed men, though I have cut away many things that could be said on this subject for the sake of brevity. True discourse, as they say, mystically dictates and teaches that man, who by the grace of God the Creator had obtained dominion over the entire visible world, by way of abuse, turned the movements of the powers of the intellectual substance inherent in him toward unnatural things; and, by a just judgment of God, he brought upon himself, and upon this whole world, the force of change and corruption which now prevails ^C and affects the senses; and this, surely, so that the power of the soul, impelled toward those things that are unnatural, might not endure immortal forever—which is not only the ultimate of wickedness and a manifest falling away from the true identity of the man himself, but also a clear denial of divine goodness.

Therefore, this life of men, most troublesome and full of groaning and lamentation, because of the great unreason and disorder of the matter that nourishes it, bears and is borne in different ways at different times; and, to speak ^D more accurately, it bears all men in its own bearing, and makes all participants in the evils within it; and it leaves no one at all free from its own turmoil. And this was ordained in accordance with the fitting reason of God’s wisdom, so that we, who unreasonably love this present life by disposition, might—even if late—by suffering evils from it on occasion, learn how much harm its friendship is known to cause, and understand that for us separation from it is far more useful than union with it; and that we might rightly and justly confirm our hatred toward it, and, despising the confusion and turmoil of visible things, might soberly transfer our desire to the stable identity of those things that are understood by the mind.

^A For this reason—that although we are scourged and suffer ten thousand terrible things, we do not endure to break the bond of friendship toward Him—God, in His providence, as one who is wise and good, established for men the law of kingship. He did this in order to restrain, from afar, the great rage of wickedness that He foreknew would come to pass in the life of man due to dissoluteness and relaxation; so that men would not become like the fish of the sea, devouring one another, with no one to oversee them or to prevent the unjust impulse of the stronger against the weaker. Therefore it is with good reason, I think, that kingship was necessarily introduced to the human race, having received its wisdom and power from God; and it was permitted that our nature, which was created with equal honor, should be divided into those who govern and those who are governed. ^B This was so that the one might dispose in a lawful manner those who obey the laws of nature, while the other might justly chasten those who, through stubbornness of mind, do not wish to yield to them. From this, justice is bestowed upon all, governed by both love and fear; by which, once the inequality of the individual will and choice is removed, the tranquil and peaceful equality of nature in all things is made to shine forth brilliantly. This would surely never have happened if fear had not chastened the mad impulse of the many toward absurdity, and forced them by the terror of threats to the tranquility of those who are modest and sober. For what reason is accustomed to persuade the modest and sober to embrace of their own will, this fear is accustomed to compel the foolish to practice even against their will.

^C For this cause I have learned that kingship was permitted to enter into the life of man, and I accept the account as true and as a teacher of the reason for it. But if there is also another reason for this according to the divine Scripture, I consider that it is something to be grasped only by those who are pure in mind. Yet, nevertheless, even this does not stray entirely from the purpose of the divine Scripture. For it narrates that God, in His indulgence, allowed to men who rejected the empire of God that they might themselves appoint a king over them; so that the disorder of anarchy, having no one to lead it, would not beget a plurality of rule, and thence produce a destructive sedition for the entire human race—since no one had been entrusted by divine decree with their care, neither to dispose by reason those who are tutored to gentleness through reason, nor to correct by the fear of power those who plot wickedness and, in their moral choice, corrupt within themselves the innate goodness of knowledge contrary to nature. ^D Whoever, therefore, among kings has endeavored to keep this law of kingship in this way, he truly appears as second to God upon earth, as he is a most faithful minister of the divine will, and, being subject to the empire of God, has rightly obtained the position of ruling over men. But whoever has cast aside this law and has decided that he should rule for his own sake and not for God’s, such a one will rightly do the opposite of these things; namely, by shaking off from himself those who are good through the power of a tyrant.

and by keeping himself far from any counsel or magistracy; but by bringing in the wicked with audacious temerity, and constituting them masters of all his own power: which, for those who govern and those who are governed, is the ultimate abyss of perdition. May God grant that we be willingly governed by Him, by the fulfilling of His life-giving commandments, and that we honor those who govern on earth according to His will, as guardians of His divine ordinances.

XI. — By the same to a Mother Superior, concerning a nun who had left the monastery, and who had repented.

^B The heralds of the truth, and they who became ministers of the divine grace, as many as from the beginning until us, each in his own times, have explained to us the saving will of God, say that nothing is so dear and lovable to God as the turning of men to Him through true repentance. And desiring to show that this is more divine than all other things, the God-originating Word of God and the Father—or rather [to say it is] the primary and only mark of His infinite goodness—condescended in an ineffable way, and deigned to converse with us in the flesh, acting and suffering and saying those things through which it behooved us, who were enemies and adversaries, to be reconciled to God and the Father, and, having become strangers to the blessed life, to be led back to it again. For not only did He heal our diseases by miracles, and by taking upon Himself our infirmities and the punishment of death—as if He Himself were liable, He who was immune from all guilt—did He pay our debt and free us from many and terrible transgressions; ^C but also, by teaching in many ways, He willed that we should become like unto Himself in the habit of compassion and in perfect love toward one another. For this reason He cried out: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." And: "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." And [He said] that He had come to "seek and to save that which was lost." And that He was "sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." And by the parable of the drachma He hinted that He had come to recover the image, which had been buried under the foulest dung of the passions. And: "Amen I say unto you, that there is joy in heaven (and on earth) over one sinner who does penance." For this reason, the one who had fallen among thieves, ^D and had been stripped of all his covering, and had been left half-dead from his wounds, He refreshed with wine and oil and bandages; and having placed him upon His own beast, He sets him down at the inn to be cared for; and having given what sufficed for his care, He promised that on returning He would give whatever else had been spent. For this reason, He says that the all-good Father leaned toward the returning prodigal son, and having embraced...

^A him through repentance, adorned him again with the beauty of his paternal glory, without reproaching him in the least for his previous acts. For this reason, having found the sheep that had strayed from the divine hundred, which was wandering upon the mountains and hills, He did not drive it away or wear it out with labor, but having placed it upon His own shoulders, He compassionately brought it back to the fold of the sheep in safety. For this reason, He cried out: "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And, "Take my yoke upon you." By "yoke," He calls the commandments, or rather the life ordered according to the Gospel; and by "burden," that which seems to be the laborious part of repentance: "For my yoke," He says, "is easy and my burden is light." And again, teaching divine justice and goodness, He commands, saying: "Be holy; be perfect; be merciful; be compassionate, as your heavenly Father." And, "Forgive, and it will be forgiven to you." And, "Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them," and things of this nature. And simply, so that I do not lengthen the letter by speaking of each case, for this reason He receives even harlots who repent, and tax collectors who turn back, and establishes them as heralds of the Gospel. For this reason, He gathers in thieves who confess and who purchase their salvation with their death ^B by fear, and leads them with Himself into paradise, confirming the promises of future good things. For this reason, He brings back to a sound mind those who are persecuting out of zeal, and corrects them, and having ordained them as apostles of the nations in His own place, He puts them forward; so that we might learn humanity and gentleness; and that when we ourselves sin, we might not easily despair, and that toward those who are sinning we might not remain unsympathetic and unfeeling; having God as our example in these things.

Since, therefore, we have been taught that these things are so in truth, and that it is the will of God that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth; and since we remember that its beginning and only cause of His admirable coming to us in the flesh was our own salvation; trusting in your holiness, I ask that you offer the very life-giving sufferings of God and our Savior Christ, by which we were redeemed from the power of darkness, in place of a supplication. For I believe that you, being a true disciple of the Son of God, carry within yourself the living and ^C effective Teacher through your entire manner of life and discipline, having cleaved to Him entirely from childhood; so that even through me, a humble and sinful man, possessing nothing worthy of your virtue,

^A you may honor the most humane self-emptying on our behalf, and may receive this sister who is repentant and has withered away under her tears. For great and ineffable is the contrition of her heart and the humility of her spirit, both for the sin which she has committed and for the separation from you which she has suffered. Do not, therefore, O blessed handmaid of God, despise a broken and humbled heart, which God has not despised; but becoming compassionate, merciful, kind-hearted, and sympathetic, imitate Him who for our sake willingly consented to die out of love for mankind; and deign to receive and embrace her, and do not refuse to confirm your love toward her. And support her with words and deeds of kindness and gentleness, and snatch her from the hands of the tyrant, and bind up with sympathy the wounds that have been inflicted upon her; lest, being cast down too much by sorrow, she be pierced by the thorn of despair, and the blood of a soul that has perished be required of us; or, to speak more truly, the soul that has been betrayed to the enemy of our life so that he may hold it under his bridle to do with it whatever he wishes—a soul which should have lived through our patience and gentleness. For we would be justly accused of neglecting the divine will and sufferings. ^B For equally, even if the word is harsh, it is nonetheless true: those who are unwilling to repent, and who do not receive those who are repenting, despise the good will of God and, as far as it lies within them, treat with despite His self-emptying on our behalf; because, while we ought to make the sufferings of others our own due to the equality of our nature, we have not, out of respect for God's goodness toward us, proven ourselves, if nothing else, to be imitators of those related to us in nature.

Knowing therefore, O blessed handmaid of God, that divine justice is appropriately applied to the dispositions of our souls, becoming such toward us as we have made ourselves toward one another, and rendering God toward us such as we have previously shown ourselves to be toward those of like passions, do not delay in receiving with open hands your suppliant and handmaid; but without hesitation, in imitation of God, put the sheep on your shoulders with all haste, and bring her into the safe fold, and preserve her from the wolves as unassailable for the future; so that you yourself may obtain such a Judge as the humane God and Savior Christ, at His terrible and supremely glorious appearing, when He shall render to you the eternal fruits of what you have sown. May we also attain to Him, propitious by His grace and love for mankind, through the prayers and intercessions of our Lady, the all-glorious Theotokos, and all His saints. Amen.

Epistola XII. By the same, to John the cubicularius, concerning the true doctrines of the Church of God; and against Severus the heretic.

Thinking it worth the effort (you who are dear to God and guarded by His protection) to withhold nothing of your affairs that has come to my knowledge, lest I fail to announce it to you—for this is what the law of our true love and its Lawgiver, Christ, who is love itself, commands, teaching us to reconcile one another through ourselves—I have composed this letter to you. I wish to inform you that in the month of November of the current fifteenth indiction, a certain man named Theodore, a Cancellarius, arrived here—a man truly noble and not without some freedom of manner, as far as one could judge from his appearance and bearing. He carried a letter, as he claimed, written by our common mistress, the God-protected Patricia, who is dear to God and guarded by His protection, addressed to the blessed servant of God, the most illustrious prefect of this province. The purpose of this letter was the dismissal of the nuns dwelling here: both those of the monastery of the spiritual mother Joanna of Alexandria, and those of the monastery known as Sacerdotis, who are of the sect of Severus. Severus, I say, who has used such madness and abundance of falsehood against the truth that even to this day he suffices to cause trouble and inconvenience to the holy Church of God. ^C But to no one else, from any of the other men of senatorial rank and the officials who are there subject to the ministry of the God-protected Patricia, who is dear to God and guarded by His protection, did he carry so much as a single syllable.

Wherefore, together with many others, I wondered and questioned within myself what the reason might be that my God-protected master did not deign to signify anything to me through him. And a great murmur—as is fitting, and as is wont to happen in such matters, as you know, my lord—arose among the faithful because of such a letter, and the respect and honor for our mistress, the most illustrious Patricia, in the Catholic Church of God all but diminished. It shook all those who dwell in this region of Africa, who were already firmly held by good anticipations concerning her piety, had not the aforementioned most illustrious prefect, using a method most befitting his prudence, everywhere proclaimed the letter to be false and spurious, and pretended to be indignant at the Cancellarius. Having by this occasion detected the Alexandrian and Syrian heretics through such a letter, he dealt with them as was fitting, casting some into prison and chastising others with blows, saying that they must not insult the expectations held concerning our mistress, the Patricia. For they were claiming shamelessly, relying—as I said—upon the letter, that she rejoiced in their doctrines; and...

there was no one into whose ears they were not ready to whisper this. Among their number was Thomas, the one called their bishop, one of those who were in the habit of visiting her freely and receiving great honor from her; this, most of all, disturbed and scandalized everyone. ^A Thus I, too, finding it necessary to go when called, refuted those who dared to say such things to their faces, and persuaded those who had heard them, that by the grace of Christ the Savior, neither she nor that man of holy memory, her husband, had ever in any way given their minds to heretics. Similarly, many others of the most devout monks who were sojourning here, and especially the blessed servants of God and our Fathers, surnamed Eucratades, saying the same things, delivered the many from such a false suspicion. To speak simply, the aforementioned most celebrated man sought by every means to prove her pure of all stain, and eager to show to all that she was faithful to God and worthy of honor.

I, however, have not yet been freed from the anxiety caused by this matter, I—being who I am, the least and worthless man, whereas you are those graced with great and divine favor—and I am still ^B distressed about this, and have not yet found what to judge or decide. For knowing that our common mistress, the most celebrated Patricia, has stood from her ancestors upon the unshakable rock of faith, and having been taught to breathe nothing else, so to speak, than the right faith in God, which the Catholic Church of God proclaims, I cannot believe that this letter is hers. And yet, seeing the aforementioned Chancellor swearing to it with fearful oaths, and asserting that he was sent here by her for this cause and this cause alone, I consider it a fearful thing to disbelieve. I stand in the middle, at the border of two sets of arguments, unable to find the victor or to pull the assent of my soul to one side. But, my blessed lord, to tell the truth and set forth whatever comes to my mind—and I pray you, receive me, for out of much sorrow of soul and my love for you, I speak with more daring confidence—if it is truly by the will and counsel of you, who are most dear to God and guarded by His protection, that the letter for the ^C aforementioned heretical women has gone forth from her (a thing I marvel at, but which I do not approve of), I conjecture that you are not immune from being burdened, nor free from grave fault. For I hear the divine Holy Scripture teaching how Josaphat, that most pious and faithful king of Judea, when he had become an ally to Achaab, king of Israel—who was stained with many defilements of idolatry—in the war he once waged against Syria, fell under the indignation of God, and this was charged to him as a sin, as God spoke to him through the prophet: "If to a man who is hateful to me, and who is an enemy to the Lord God, do you provide aid?" But even if she did this having been persuaded by others who suggested it, not even so do I agree or approve of what has been done.

^A Thinking of that Rehoboam, the son of the great Solomon, who, because he spurned the counsel of the elders and followed the counsel of the young men, was deprived of the greatest part of his kingdom; and considering also that it is utterly forbidden for those who ought to abstain from such things to involve themselves in canonical matters—and most especially for women, whom divine Scripture decrees it to be more profitable to keep silence than to draw breath.

There is, then, no way at all that aid should be provided to heretics, as heretics, even if it were freely permitted to provide everything to everyone; both for the reasons I have mentioned, lest we offend God by mistake, and because it is not fitting to provide them with the license to boast of their own falsehood and to stir up minds against piety (that is, the true faith); lest, having been brought into the open by our actions, they be able, like snakes, to strike some of the simpler sort with the bite of deception and dislodge them from the safe foundation of the faith, and lest we ourselves be found, though we do not wish it, to be participants and partners in the punishment that hangs over them for this reason.

For so it was that the most illustrious prefect, having at the beginning used his accustomed mercy even toward them, such that he donated to them a house worth a vast amount of gold for them to dwell in, along with an abundant supply of the remaining necessary furniture; but when he found them puffed up with the boastfulness of pride, he turned his mind away. For immediately, as if by prior agreement, they began to hold meetings and seduce the daughters of the faithful; and to provide hiding places for them, and to conceal the matter from their parents—who were anxious and concerned in the long time they spent searching for them—and to presume to perform expiations and sacrilegious baptisms. And when, stirred by the report of the matter and having investigated it, he had gone to them again and again, imploring them, and having for a long time and at great length urged them both to cease from such actions and to be united to the holy Church of God, and had achieved nothing thereby; finally, when he saw the evil was now ^B great and unbridled, and the people of the faithful whispering about what was happening, and fearing lest anything disorderly might proceed against them due to the boiling wrath of the faithful Roman populace against them—which could not endure even the mere name of the heretics—he thought it proper and lawful to consult the emperor about this matter. By a written suggestion, together with the most holy archbishop and the illustrious notables there, he reported everything to our most pious emperor and to the most holy patriarchs, both of Rome and of Constantinople.

And indeed, having received the serene letter of our most faithful emperor and the holy letter of the most blessed patriarchs, which provided that all heretics, as many as persevered in their error, were to be expelled from the province; but regarding the aforementioned women, if they should bring themselves to approach the holy and immaculate and life-giving communion of the Catholic Church, they were to retain their own convents unharmed; but if, opposing the truth, they refused to obey the imperial decree, they were to be ^C separated one by one continuously in the monasteries of the orthodox, and their affairs were to be handled according to the law, by which most of all

^A trust had been bolstered to feed their seducers abundantly, to be handed over to the public treasury; he performed all things zealously as he had been commanded. He persuaded all the heretics from Syria, and from Egypt and Alexandria and Libya, by the grace of Christ, to approach the holy Church of God; and as for the aforementioned women, those from the monastery of Sacerdos, because they had foolishly resisted the command of the pious master on account of their innate pride, he dispersed them among the venerable religious houses of the orthodox, in order to fulfill what had been piously and holily enjoined; becoming all things to all men for the sake of God—begging some, falling at the knees of others—until at last, when he had persuaded them, once they had learned what was required, to be united to the catholic Church of God, along with many other cœnobia; as for those of the Mother Joanna, since the truth of the ecclesiastical dogmas shone forth to them, they approached with all joy, and he restored to them all, both men and women, their own monasteries, having obtained a reward worthy of his own nobility of soul concerning divine things, in that he was adorned with the apostolic gifts and became a genuine mouth of the Lord, according to the divine saying that declares: "If you bring forth the precious from the vile, you shall be as my mouth." ^B Nay rather, having obtained this great and wonderful work as a prelude to the divine reward awaiting him, and as a most certain pledge of the glory that is to be with Christ.

I do not write these things, God forbid, wishing for the heretics to be afflicted, nor rejoicing in their distress, but rather rejoicing and exulting in their conversion. For what is more delightful to the faithful than that the children of God who were scattered ^C should be seen gathered into one? Nor do I advise you to prefer a harsh and unyielding spirit to one that is most humane and mild: God forbid that I should be so insane; but I ask and entreat this, that you perform and work what is good for all men with caution and great discernment and judgment, so that you may become all things to all men, just as each one may have need of your works and aid; only one thing I desire and demand of you: that you be entirely hard and inflexible so as to confer nothing upon heretics, from which their insane opinion might be established. For I define as inhumanity and a separation from divine love the attempt to give strength to error for the greater destruction of those who are already held by it. ^D

Exposition of the right confession.

Before all things and above all things, it is necessary that we be sober and watchful, and keep careful watch for the incursions of the thieves, so that we may not be robbed by them unawares; rather, let us keep safe the great and first remedy of our salvation—the noble inheritance of the faith, I mean—confessing it with soul and mouth with boldness, as the Fathers have taught us. Who, to those who...

^A from the beginning became eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, following, declared that the one [Son] of the holy and consubstantial, immaculate and blessed Trinity, the Son of God, God the Word, the radiance of the glory and the stamp of the Father’s substance, the creator of all creation, both visible and invisible, the infinite, the uncircumscribed, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the beyond-thought, who alone by the inclination of His will both made and sustains all things, who is measureless in goodness, became man for our sake and was incarnate of the holy, all-glorious ever-virgin Mary, strictly and in truth the Theotokos; having united to Himself in person—that is, by the manner of subsisting—flesh from her consubstantial with us, gifted with a rational and intellectual soul, not as if it existed beforehand even for a moment or the twinkling of an eye, but in God the Word Himself receiving both its being and its subsistence. ^B And being perfect God, He became perfect man, neither laying aside His being God by becoming man, which He was not, nor being hindered from becoming what He was not, man, because He remained what He was and is, God; but being this, He also became that, and confirmed both, attesting the divine in common with divine miracles and the human with human sufferings. And according to His own nature and substance toward the Father, [He is] uncreated, invisible, uncircumscribed, unalterable, immutable, impassible, incorruptible, immortal, the creator of all things; but according to the nature of His flesh and ours, the same [is] created, passible, circumscribed, comprehensible, mortal. The same, yes, but not according to the same—that is, not by the same definition—on account of those things from which and in which He has His being; the same consubstantial with God and Father according to His divinity, and the same consubstantial with us according to His humanity. He is twofold in nature, that is, in substance or essence; because, ^C being the mediator of God and men, it was necessary for Him to preserve properly His natural kinship with the things between which He mediates, by being both. So that in very truth, in Himself and through Himself, having united things earthly to things heavenly, He brings the material nature of men, which had been warring against God and Father because of sin, to God and Father, saved, beloved, and deified. Not by identity of substance, but by the ineffable power of the divine incarnation, He makes us partakers of the divine nature through His holy flesh, which is from us, as a first-fruits. Wherefore, the same [person] is known to be God and man at once, in reality and not by name alone; yet He is not ^D twofold in hypostasis, that is, in person, because the one and the same [person] both was before flesh and remained [the same] after flesh; nor was any addition or subtraction made to the holy Trinity by the incarnation of the Word. The same, having suffered indeed in the flesh for our sake, yet remains the same at all times, impassible by His divinity; so that our salvation is indeed in the death of the only-begotten Son of God—what a paradoxical and ineffable mystery!—and the divine glory and identity of His substance toward the Father remains perpetually undiminished.

On the distinction, or difference; and in what way it is necessary to confess two natures in Christ after the union.

^A Having thus been wisely and soundly expounded by the holy masters of the Church, it is entirely pious for us, following in their footsteps, to confess two natures that are dissimilar in substance, which have come together for the ineffable union; and to believe that these have remained unconfused even after they were united. To say that they have remained unconfused does not imply any division whatsoever—far be it from us to ever think that!—but signifies that the difference remains immutable. For difference and division are not the same thing. Difference is indeed the account ^B according to which the underlying subjects differ and are distinguished from one another; and it is indicative of how things are—that is, that the flesh is, by nature and substance, what it is; and again, that God the Word is, by nature and substance, what He is. Division, however, is a complete severance, or that which cuts the subjects entirely, placing them apart, singly, and subsisting in themselves, separated one from the other. If, then, such an account is preserved even after the union, showing that the Word has not been turned into flesh, and that the flesh has not departed from its natural definition, but confirming that each has remained in its proper substance, even though a union has occurred, how is it not entirely right and just to confess that the difference of the natures that have come together is preserved even after the union? If this is beyond controversy, as truth itself is a faithful witness, it is plain and manifest to all ^C that the things which have come together remain unconfused, the divinity not having been turned into flesh, nor the flesh having been changed into the nature of divinity. What argument, then, remains for anyone, if we wish to be led by the fear of God and to have the truth itself everywhere as the norm of divine dogmas, rather than our own fallible suspicion and conjecture, to be able to demonstrate that it is not reasonable to confess those things which remain intact?

Otherwise, concerning the same things.

^D In addition to all these things, the perpetual and constant judgment of the Fathers is that the accounts of the things which have come together remain intact; and these very things which have come together coalesce into one person and one hypostasis of the Son. If this is the case, how is it not again necessary, according to the judgment of the Fathers, that since we know the accounts remain intact, we should speak of the difference and distinction after the union, in the natural property of each of the things that have come together; and because we confess that both coalesce into one person and one hypostasis of the Son, we should accurately know that these things exist indivisibly. That the…

^A differentiation and distinction of the things that have come together, and indeed these very things that have come together, remain unharmed after the union, beyond all change and confusion, the most holy beacon of the Church, Cyril—to whom those who fight in vain against the holy Church of God feign to be more devoted—will be an ample witness. For in the second tome against the blasphemies of Nestorius, he writes as follows: "But since the mystery concerning Christ has been brought into our midst, the account of the union does not ignore the difference, but it excludes the division; not by confounding or mingling the natures, but because the Word of God, though He has become a partaker of flesh and blood, is nevertheless again understood and named as one and the same Son." And in the ^B *Apology to Andrew*—who had found fault with the third of the chapters—he says this: "But you will be free from all blame if you happen to know that the flesh is one thing according to its own nature, different indeed from the Word born of God the Father, and the Only-Begotten is another, according to the account of His own nature. But to know these things is by no means to divide the natures after the union." Behold also how the great Cyril openly employs the term "after the union," which the faithful, according to his mind, piously understand and declare. For he shows that the very reason for the things that have been united is that not the slightest thing is harmed by the union, and that, although a single person has been made from both, one has in no way been mingled with the other: but rather they are and remain unharmed, according to the constitution of each nature. For the most wise Cyril, knowing this, says: ^C "Neither have the natures been confounded with one another, because they constitute one person of the Son; nor have they been divided from one another, because they are and remain and are understood as one thing and another (that is, according to the account of substance) even after the union; and thus each remains with its natural property and difference, or distinction; by which the Word made the flesh His own, and the flesh is flesh by nature, and not God, even if it has become the flesh of the Word of God through the union."

How then is it not necessary, pious, and fitting, as we who are of the opinion and mind of the Fathers call the distinction after the union unharmed, even to think that in the one Christ the twin natures exist and are preserved unharmed (from which He is, and whose distinction or difference exists) after the union? We who know that these ^D have joined together into the indivisible union with no force anywhere to dissolve them, so that they have received not even the slightest mutation or conversion between themselves. For it is absolutely necessary that every distinction of some things be of those which are distinct, or every difference be of those which differ: for God is such by nature, not flesh, even though by the dispensation He has been made flesh by the power of the union of the Word of God.

NOTE. (r) This *Apology* does not seem to be extant. Cyril mentions it in his *Commonitorium to Eulogius*, and conjoins it with an *Apology or Response to Theodoret*: and the Refutations which I have written against the bishops Andrew and Theodoret, who wrote against the Chapters, were published.

^A and where nothing prevents a distinction and difference from being understood, there it is absolutely the case that things exist which are distinct and which differ. For such things are of such a kind that the one is, in a manner of speaking, gathered or inferred from the other; such as cause and effect, which are understood in relation to something within the same substance. If, then, the diverse essence of those things from which Christ is, has the force of a cause for producing a distinction, then by all means the distinction, as an effect, has the force of signifying the natural diversity of the united elements, as its own proper cause. For these are of such a sort that they imply one another by their own nature; and if one is named, it is utterly necessary to acknowledge the other; and on the other hand, if one is removed, it follows that we cannot speak of the other. It is necessary, therefore, that we speak of two things, ^B lest we introduce a simple and naked difference or distinction, and by this alone employ number; so that we may signify the distinction or difference of the natures which have come together, as they remain unimpaired even after the union, and are not divided. Besides, it is also more expeditious and true that a distinction or difference should be shown from the utterance of the things themselves, which has the power to signify the things, rather than that we should establish, from the mere word alone, that the things are things which are distinct and differ.

*That number neither divides nor is divided; nor does it, by its own inherent logic, introduce division into those things to which it is applied.*

But if some, setting their own opinion and judgment above the truth, say that number is a thing of such a kind that it has the power of dividing, or is itself divisible, or introduces division—and this is the reason why they, fearing a fear where there is no fear, refuse to say that the two natures which have come together in Christ remain after the union, lest any division or partition should be surreptitiously ^C introduced into the mystery of the Incarnation—I do not see what the rationale of their caution and prudence is in this matter. For either they pronounce themselves to be wiser in this than the holy Fathers who used such language and suspected no division, as though they mistakenly presume that they can scrutinize and penetrate divine things more spiritually, or else, while they consider the accounts of things in themselves, inflated by the opinion of their own sense, they have failed to recognize the truth that lay hidden from them. For who, having been versed for any length of time in the divine teachings of the Fathers, does not know that every number, as the great and God-bearing Gregory holds, is indicative of the quantity of the underlying things, and not, as they suppose, of the division of ^D things? For how could it even be capable of dividing, I would gladly ask them, that which does not exist in its own essence? For it is the property of substance that truly exists, to be able to effect something regarding something else. And how, moreover, will that be divided which, by its own logic, cannot even suffer or receive such a thing? For the experts in these matters have pronounced this to be the property of an accident, that is, of quality, of those things which are said to be in a subject. If, then, number, according to its own logic, possesses neither the power of dividing nor of being divided—for it is not the nature of an accident to produce anything, as it is not for a substance, nor to suffer anything, as it is for an accident—nor does it of necessity bring division upon itself...

for things which, even after they have been numbered, remain fitted together by nature, position, and their relationship to one another, remain firm, having suffered nothing new at all on account of the number. ^A For when we speak, for example, of ten men, or for that matter of any other thing that exists in itself, and designate a discrete quantity, we do not recognize that they have then received from the number their existence in themselves or their being divided from one another by their hypostases; but we know that they are such, and that there are so many of them, not by division, but we have designated by numbering the quantity of them. And again, when we speak of a stone that is of two or five colors, or of whatever things belong to continuous quantity, we do not divide the one stone into two or five stones; nor do we cut the colors within it from one another, ^B but we signify that so many colors exist in and around it, in an undistinguished way, as a substrate, without any cutting or division having occurred, or being able to occur, to the stone from the continuous quantity of the colors numbered around it; just as there is no confusion or mixing of the colors from the one substrate of the stone. For the stone, possessing uniqueness in its substrate, is shown to have the quantity of the colors around it in an undivided manner. And similarly, the colors of the stone itself, as they differ and are distinguished from one another by quality, while possessing quantity, since they go together again into the one stone as to a substrate by composition, possess their uniqueness without confusion, and it is one and the same stone, ^C neither divided by the quantity of the colors nor confused by the uniqueness of the substrate. And as it possesses a substance that has diverse definitions, it admits of number according to one aspect, but does not admit it according to another. Therefore, every number signifies not the relation or connection of things themselves—that is, their division and continuity—but the quantity of those things of which it is the number; for it introduces the principle of "how much" the quantity is, but not the principle of "how" they exist. For how could it possibly introduce along with itself the relationships of things, which both exist prior to it and can be known without it, and with which it has no indication of affinity, being separated from them by the mean of quantity? ^D For when we see a multitude of men, or horses, or oxen, and things of that kind, we know that they exist in themselves—each separately divided by their persons or hypostases—and we know this even without number, as I said before; but when we need the number to designate their quantity, we do not in any way posit it as the cause of their relationship, because we have absolutely no need of it to know that relationship. And again, when we look at a stone, or a flower, or an animal that is multicolored, and things similar to these, we in no way employ number to know that they are colored in various ways; but we do not deny that we use it when we wish to know the quantity of the colors that are in them.

How number is piously employed for the sake of indicating a distinction.

Therefore, it is not the case that what signifies the "how much" and the quantity brings about division; rather, it signifies quantity, but it introduces a distinction. For just as every distinction is indicative of some quantity that admits of number, introducing the rationale of "how it is"—for that which is non-quantitative is entirely without distinction, as it is simple in essence and quality—so too every number, being descriptive of the quantity of certain things that differ, according to the rationale of "how it is" or "how it subsists," is indicative of the difference of the subjects and not, in fact, introductorary of a relation. ^A That these things are so in truth, and that every number is indicative of difference and not of division, is testified to again by the most holy Cyril in his letter to Eulogius, writing word for word as follows: "So also with Nestorius, even if he says two natures, signifying the distinction of the flesh and of God the Word; yet he does not confess the union with us. For we, having united these, confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord; and henceforth, one incarnate nature of the Son." ^{B C} As if he were saying: "We, considering the all-wise dispensation of the mystery, whenever we wish to demonstrate that the distinction of those which have come together remains intact after the union, we speak of two natures—taking up the number according to contemplation alone, for the sake of declaring the distinction; but when we strive to define the ineffable manner of the union of the mystery, we say 'one incarnate nature of God the Word.'" For this, I think, is what he wishes to signify by the words: "We, however, having united these, confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord; and henceforth, one incarnate nature of the Word." That is: "We, confessing the union and accurately and piously articulating the manner of it, do not use a word that has the force of signifying a distinction for the purpose of explaining the union; but, appropriately using one term in the case of distinction and another in the case of union, we preserve the unconfused understanding of the things signified." From which it is evident that it was common to him and to Nestorius to speak of two natures, insofar as the distinction is recognized. But it was no longer common to confess the union as well by saying: "one Christ, one Son, one Lord, and one incarnate nature of the Word," which Nestorius did not accept saying. For the statement, "So also with Nestorius, even if he says two natures, signifying the distinction of the flesh and of God the Word; yet he does not confess the union with us," means nothing other than this: that Nestorius confesses the distinction with us by saying "two natures," but he does not confess the union with us, since he does not say "one Christ, one Son, one Lord, and one incarnate nature of the Word." And this is clear to those who are lovers of what is good and who are zealous to love the truth, from the fact that the teacher nowhere appears to forbid saying "two natures" after the union, but rather [forbids] dividing the natures after ^D

the union, or to teach that the distinction of those things which have come together after the union has been sublated; as it is possible to learn from myriads of his writings.

If, therefore, the union always stands, and the things united always remain unconfused, ^B and the distinction of the things united is always preserved—for which reason the number was adopted according to the Fathers—how is it not necessary, if indeed the union and the things united and the distinction of these things always stand and remain and are preserved, both to speak of "two natures" piously for the manifestation of the distinction of those that have come together, and, again, to confess "one incarnate nature of God the Word" for the indication of the union according to hypostasis, and not to have one of the phrases—that is to say, of these—subverted by the other, as the unwisdom of those who pretend to wisdom seems to imagine, so that neither confusion nor division is introduced? For by keeping silent the phrase that fittingly declares the distinction, we provide a place for confusion; and by not saying, on the other hand, the one that is significant of the union, how can we fail to understand the division ^C as being brought in? But they are always positioned and spoken of piously in one and the same Christ; yet not in the same sense, since the things signified are not the same as each other. For distinction and union are not the same thing, even though they both exist and are spoken of concerning the selfsame person and of the selfsame one. For when one of these is spoken and proclaimed separately from the other, it is imperfect for the declaration of the full power of the mystery, unless it takes the other along as a companion, and it is shown to be suspect; the one [is suspect] of division, on account of Nestorius, who denied the union according to hypostasis and who would not agree to confess that He who is uncircumscribed consented for our sake to be held by flesh; and the other [is suspect] of confusion, on account of Apollinarius and Eutyches, who denied the distinction of the things that have come together after the union, and who were ashamed to confess that the Invisible, on account of the natural property of the holy flesh He assumed from us, consented to be subject to our sense. ^D There is need, therefore, as it has been said, for those who wish to be truly pious both to confess one incarnate nature of God the Word, so that through this the supreme union may be shown; and, again, to speak of two natures, so that the distinction of those things which have come together and are preserved unconfused after the union may be declared; and for this, and for this alone, to adopt the number. For the Fathers did not consider it proper that the distinction be declared by any other phrase, as is reasonable. But if anyone, trusting in himself, is able to conceive of a more suitable phrase for the declaration of this [index: entries preserved]

^A utility, let him not, I pray, envy us, nor shall we envy him for his learning—not to say his audacity.

How the statement in the Epistle of Saint Cyril to Succensus ought to be understood, and that it does not conflict with those who say there is one incarnate nature of the Word, unless it be accepted with the impious meaning of Nestorius.

But if they say that the proposition of those who speak of two natures united indivisibly after the union still conflicts no less with those who say there is one incarnate nature of the Word—just as the holy Cyril teaches and hands down in his second Memorandum to Succensus—I hold that this is the position of those who either are ignorant of the words of the Fathers or are depraving and caviling at them, and who judge it more profitable for themselves to fight against the truth than to be found in concord with it. For it was fitting, as they know that we shall render an account even for a mere thought to the righteous Judge of our lives, that they should prudently and with the fear of God, while reading the writings of the Fathers, ^B which teach peace and concord, exert themselves not to make their words an argument for fighting and dissension. For to whom is it not manifest, even to one who pays the slightest attention, that the blessed Cyril is not seen to forbid such an expression simply, but only when offered with the evil mind of Nestorius, who claimed that the union had occurred by way of relation, as the blessed Cyril himself is shown to be a witness at the end of the same epistle? And, making his own intent manifest even to those who are excessively contentious, he speaks thus: "But the word 'indivisibly' which has been added seems in a certain way to have for us the significance of right doctrine. But they do not understand it so. For that word 'indivisible' is taken differently among them, in accordance with the vain inanities of speech of Nestorius. For they say that the man in whom He dwelt is indivisible from God the Word in parity of honor, in the same will and counsel ^C and authority. Therefore, they do not bring forward the words simply, but with a certain deceit and malicious counsel." Behold, the admirable teacher has clearly set forth that there is a double mode of what is called "indivisible": the one signifying the union that is in person and according to subsistence, which he also embraces and says has the significance of right doctrine; but the other, indicative only of conjunction by way of relation, which he also turns away from and exhorts the faithful to do the same, because from that same pronunciation of the word, it would be easy for the virus of heretical impiety to creep into the simpler folk through imprudence. Therefore, he maintains that to say "two [natures] indivisibly" is consistent with right doctrine according to his own sense, because he himself used to say that the union was in person; whereas from those who follow Nestorius ^D

^A the word "indivisible" is rendered suspect, because they imagined the union to have taken place solely according to relative connection.

Now, according to the Fathers, union ^B in person and according to hypostasis consists of those things which, although they are of diverse substances, come together into one person and hypostasis, each of the components keeping its natural property sincere, immutable, and undivided. Union which is by affection and habit, however, belongs to those things which exist for themselves separately in their own personal unities, consisting in parity of the movement of the will and a total agreement of the same spirit and opinion. Whoever, therefore, confesses the union that is in person, even if he says that two natures in Christ after the union are united indivisibly (meaning, clearly, by the union in person and according to hypostasis), does not depart in the least from the truth. For he confesses that the things from which Christ is composed remain unconfused, according to the judgment of the Fathers, for the reason that their own distinction and difference remains intact; and indeed he cannot understand those things which are by natural reason distinct from one another, in any way except in one person or hypostasis, and existing separately. But he who affirms a union placed in affection or consisting in habit, even if he were to say "indivisible" a thousand times and more, is deservedly subject to blame; since he asserts that the things signified are united by a certain affectionate disposition of friendship and have a state of indivision, in such a way that he can never claim that the God-Word, together with His own flesh taken from us—endowed with soul and mental sense—is one person or hypostasis. For it is impossible that from two singular persons—distinct by their own proper and singular reason from individuals of the same species—any one person and hypostasis should be made. Therefore, the holy Father Cyril does not ^C absolutely and simply reject the saying that there are two natures united indivisibly after the union; rather, he rejects the meaning that those who used that term poorly were forcing upon it.

Since, therefore, it has been demonstrated—if only moderately, yet, in my opinion, sufficiently, as far as could be signified through a letter—both from the holy Fathers and from the logical sequence of common concepts, that a number can neither cause, nor accept, nor introduce any division whatsoever, but signifies quantity alone, and does not touch upon habit, whatever that may be; what suspicion of cutting or division ^D is thereafter left for those who are rioting against the holy Church of God and are rashly cutting themselves off from the common body; not so much causing, as themselves suffering, and miserably dying and perishing through that separation and divorce; and for the fact that they disgrace the body of Christ, they heap punishment upon themselves, so that for this reason they reject the correct and pious confession of the faith, unless perhaps under the pretext of piety, in order not to seem to cut the union, the...

they attempt by this artifice to remove from themselves the suspicion of impiety.

^A That there is a distinction of things, that is to say of substances, in Christ, but not of qualities; and that every distinction of necessity introduces along with itself the quantity of those things of which it is said to be; and that quantity introduces its own defining number, whether the quantity be continuous or discrete.

It behooved them, if this were not truly the case, not to put forward the distinction or difference with a bare and empty utterance, as if it were posited for no object, thereby mocking and deceiving the simpler sort, but without any evasion to state and explain clearly what and how many are the things that are distinct and differ, and of which they confess there to be a distinction or difference. For if they believe that those things from which the union is formed remain safe and sound after the union, they must necessarily confess that the things which are safe and sound are two. For there are just as many things [subjects] that have come together into an indivisible union, having admitted from the union no alteration, or confusion, or diminution, or reduction, or change into one another. ^B But now, those who do not hold this opinion, having denied that the natures remain safe and sound after the union, have made themselves liable to charges, even if they do not wish it, by saying that the difference is preserved by quality alone, apart from the things themselves. This is openly the way of men who are joking and playing at games, and, were they not ridiculous, they would be bringing disgrace upon themselves; for they clearly evacuate the Gospel, laying it down that qualities can exist without underlying substances, and that a distinction or difference can be known without quantity. For those most wise men seem not to have known, as is proper, that every quality belongs entirely to an underlying substance, about which it is also considered and in which it is said to exist, not having any existence of its own; and that every difference, being an indication of the unlikeness and difference of some things from others according to the principle of "how they exist," is naturally inclined to introduce along with itself the quantity of the things that differ, whether they be substances, or qualities, or properties. And simply, to sum it up: of any other things whatsoever, of as many as they might claim to be different from one another, they have necessarily recognized the things that differ in quantity, whether they have discerned the difference by sense or by intellect. For it is impossible to demonstrate a difference without quantity. ^C For those things that are not entirely the same as one another can never admit one and the same definition of their existence. For what substance (or nature, if you will) compared to substance, or quality to quality, or property to property, or if there is anything else, is in every way the same? For we can never say that things which are in every way the same one with another, and which do not admit of a difference, have one and the same definition of "how they exist." But that for all things one and the same definition cannot be considered—since that has created the difference—even if those things are the same one with another—of which the definition of existence is different and not the same—shows that they cannot exist [as one]. And when we say that one thing differs from another, or one set of things from another set, we are signifying many, or at least two, and not one; even if, in another way and according to another mode and definition, we are able to say that they are of one and...

^A of one fire, the qualities and properties around it; and of one Christ, the natures from which and in which he is established and known; and of one man, the things from which he has been composed and in which he is known to exist. But in the hypostasis, both in the case of Christ and in the case of the man who is like us—that is to say, in the whole composed of these things as parts—both are most fully and properly admitted as having different definitions of existence for their parts. But they are not one by nature and essence, because the parts do not even admit the definition of existence of one another, nor are we able to know one and the same definition of existence for both. For the definition of divinity and humanity is not the same, just as, as is obvious to everyone, neither is that of the soul and the body. ^B Therefore, the definition of truth has never defined Christ as one, nor simply as a single complex nature. For the name 'Christ' does not exist as an indicator of essence or nature in the manner of a species, which is predicated of many individuals differing in hypostases, as the blessed Cyril says in his *Scholia*: “That the name 'Christ' possesses neither the power of a definition, nor does it signify the essence of anything; but it is understood as the hypostasis of the Word, having assumed, clearly, flesh possessed of an intelligent soul.” But neither does it forbid referring to man as one nature from soul and body—since the body is the same essence as the soul—but rather as one in the sense of a species, which is divided from other species by a constitutive difference, and is perhaps predicated of the individuals beneath it, as of a species, and contained by it. And it is not for this reason that it forbids the fact that the soul and the body are two according to the essential definition, as soul and body, and a different and different substance according to the definition of existence; ^C that is, the things from which, and in which, the man exists.

That it is impious, and fighting against the truth, to say that there is one composite nature of Christ.

For every composite nature, both to itself and to others, at the very moment it is brought forth into the nature of things, having obtained its own parts as coeval, and having been brought forth by the power of the Creator of the universe—who both makes things to be and preserves them in their existence—from non-being into being, and for the completion of the ornamentation of the whole, it follows necessarily that it possesses its own parts as naturally bound and intertwined with one another; as is the case in man, and in all other things that have been allotted to have a composite nature. For the soul, containing the body without any choice of its own, and being contained by it, ^D and offering life to it without a preference of will, by its own nature alone providing the 'being' that is in it, and naturally partaking of passion and pain on account of the capacity for these that resides within it; even if the...

^A certain persons among those true to the Church, having fallen into error concerning the dogmas regarding the soul, and inventing myths that the soul pre-exists in the Greek manner, or originates after in the Jewish manner, and supposing that a beginning—neither good nor god-pleasing—precede the creation of visible things, are adversely disposed toward such a teaching; however, to refute the rotten and absurd arguments of these people is, I judge, not the concern of the present time or discourse, and I shall return to the matter at hand.

Thus, therefore, as it is set forth, since every composite nature behaves [as it does], no one who has learned to think piously about divine things would ever dare to say that Christ is one composite nature; lest, by becoming inextricably involved in a certain natural consequence and train of thought, he be forced to say that he is entirely a creature and from non-existence, circumscribed and passible, and not consubstantial with the Father; and by supposing that the flesh is either co-eternal with the Word, or the Word co-temporal with the flesh—for such is the reasoning and teaching of every composite nature—he should render himself liable to dreadful charges. For that which is of a composite nature is, evidently, also composite by nature. But a thing that is composite by nature could never be of the same nature and substance as that which is simple by nature. Therefore, it is not ^B allowed for the pious to call Christ one composite nature, not only because of the absurdity which is gathered from such an expression, but also because it is apparent that none of the God-chosen Fathers has ever said this; [but rather] to confess Christ as one composite hypostasis and two natures, whereby he is known as consubstantial and of the same nature with the Father according to his divinity, and is acknowledged as the same with us, consubstantial and of the same nature according to the flesh; and that the same one is believed to be toward both the Father and us, as he exists as the mediator between God and man.

On the composite hypostasis

^C But if, because every composite hypostasis is shown to possess its own parts as co-temporal ^D with itself and with one another—and we do not deny that Christ is a composite hypostasis—our opponents were to say that we cannot shake off the blame for this, as having been caught in our own arguments: we reply that it would indeed be so, if we were to say it is composite in such a way as if it had a species which was predicated of it. But since we do not say this at all, we are not liable to any reproach whatsoever; for we know clearly that no composite hypostasis is itself composite in its own right, but [it is so] because of the nature which, when it is composite, also contains the species which is predicated, and under which that which is compared to it is brought: just as, of course, the particular, or singular, has within itself in the most complete way whatever is universal or common and generic; and nothing of the specific—which in the case of Christ no one whatsoever [index: entries preserved]

which it ascribes in broad and general terms to its own reason: a thing which no one from the very earliest times down to our own age has ever been recorded as having thought regarding the pious doctors and teachers of Christ; for in him neither genus nor species can be found such as might be predicated of him. For the God-ruling Word ^A did not come to us through the flesh by the logic of nature, but by the mode of the dispensation, having united our nature to Himself in hypostasis without failing, He renewed it. Thus, they have gained nothing from their much sophistication—to take up the sequence of the matters examined a little earlier—for they are turned back again into the quantity they have fled, being unable even to speak of the distinction in quality itself without quantity. For it is absolutely necessary that there be many—or at the very least two—qualities, as has been said before, ^B whose distinction they suppose to exist. For no person of sound mind would ever say that a quality alone, which is entirely unmixed with any other thing, is distinct from itself.

Therefore, it remains either that they cease bringing forward the naked distinction itself, which they understand as having the force of signifying that some things are distinct, or else that they accept with us the confession of truth; we, for our part, according to the judgment of the Fathers, take up the number in a pious manner in that sense alone, so that we may know that the things that have come together have remained unconfused. For otherwise, let them tell us, if they love us (if indeed there is in them an uncorrupted discourse of wisdom), how is it that, when they say that two things have run together into a union, and when they do not deny that these same things have remained unconfused even after the union—in such a way that neither has departed from its natural definition and account, even if both are reckoned into one person of the Son and one hypostasis—they do not confess that there are two, which even by their own judgment (if they speak truly) are preserved unimpaired? ^C And what is the logic of their diminution of the confession? What, finally, is the cause, and how have the two natures become one? Or if the union has remained immune from all diminution, what is the reason why those things which remain intact and undiminished are not named as such, and why will we willingly and easily allow one of the natures to be taken from us, and marvel at their great erudition as men who alone have appeared capable of the knowledge of things hidden from us? Yet they will never be able to present any discourse or reason sufficient to persuade us of this.

A Brief Confutation of the Objection of Severus against the Expression, "In two"

Even if they should flee for refuge to that final, fragile, and empty invention of Severus—which he carries about everywhere as if it were something subtly said, and boasts of and sings aloud, namely, to say: It is ridiculous to say that from two natures two natures are again produced by the union—as if they were drawing logical conclusions from an assumption granted by us. For whom of those instructed in the divine dogmas of the Church have they ever heard say that the union produced two natures from two? But if they care for the truth, they will not be able to say that they have ever heard such a thing. We say, rather, that the union has been made from two natures; but that the one [nature] resulting from them is... ^D

^A a composite [Christ], as it were, and that it preserves these very natures from which it was composed, as a whole [preserves its] parts, without deficiency, together with their natural properties, and that it guards and keeps them unmoved; and that it is kept and saved in them as a whole in its parts. From two natures, then, we do not say two natures, but we speak of one composite Christ, and [we say that He] contains these as His own complemental parts; and that He is present and acknowledged in them as in parts. For as long as it is believed that the things which have come together have remained unconfused, they always ^B remain unconfused, so that they are not two according to the natural mode of being, which each is naturally [constituted] to be according to essence—just as, therefore, [it is] also [in the case] of the existence of these according to the principle of the hypostasis, as long as the union exists; and it is always [so], according to the pious confession of the faithful, [and] it is impossible [to think otherwise].

Therefore, when we say that what is the same is both one and two, we do not say both of the same thing and in the same respect; but [we speak] according to one thing and another. For example, according to the principle of nature, [we call them] two, because they are the things from which the union [exists]. For we do not know the God Word to be the same according to nature as His own flesh; but according to the principle of the ^C hypostasis, [we call them] one. For we understand the God Word to be the same [being] with His own flesh according to hypostasis. Therefore, we do not foolishly collapse the natures into one nature, by saying that the natural difference is abolished in Christ, lest we introduce a changing of the Word and the flesh; nor, again, do we manically divide [Him] into two self-subsisting [entities], by positing a distinction also according to the principle of the hypostasis, lest we deny our own salvation—just like those who, from opposite directions, have divided impiety among themselves, Apollinarius together with Eutyches, and Nestorius: the former not recognizing the ^D natural distinction in Christ; the latter, in addition to this, introducing a personal [distinction] as well, both fell away from the truth. But, knowing that even in the union according to hypostasis the natural property is unmoved, we turn away from both the confusion and the division; we do not produce the union as a confusion, as if we were ignorant of the things that have been united, nor do we produce the division as a distinction, as if we knew the differing things to subsist separately by themselves.

This, I suppose, the great Theologian Gregory also seems to teach in his great Apologetic [Oration], when he says, "One from both, and both through one," as if he were saying: For just as the one [is] from both, that is to say, from the two natures, as a whole [is] from parts according to the principle of the hypostasis; so too, through the one according to hypostasis, as a whole, both the parts [are] according to the principle of nature, that is to say, the two. Which he explains more clearly in his second oration on the Son, saying, "For although even each is one, yet not..."

^A by nature, but by union and concurrence." The blessed Cyril is also known to hold this same view in his letter to Succensus, where, explaining the example of man, he says: "So that the two are no longer two, but the one living being is completed from both." He is almost crying out clearly in these words, that the things from which the composition is made—both in the formation of man, from soul and body, and in the mystery of Christ, from divinity and humanity—that they are two in their essential definition is by no means removed; otherwise they would no longer remain diverse essences. But that they should exist separately as two, each in its own distinct unit by itself, this the teaching of piety and the logic of true faith utterly rejects, lest we divide the one man or living being into two men or two living beings, and the one Christ into two Christs, or two Sons. For if the blessed Cyril had not judged it worth the effort to understand, feel, and teach this everywhere, he would not have denied that the distinction of the natures is removed on account of the union; he would not have spoken of "one and another," "different and different," "this and that," and yet "both are one Christ," and that the properties of the natures have remained unconfused. He would not have judged that the Word did not pass by nature into the nature of flesh, or that the flesh was not changed into the nature of the Word himself. He would not have known that divine men and interpreters, the God-inspired men, used the evangelical and apostolic words spoken about the Lord, some as common, as if about one person, and others as dividing them, as if about two natures. He would not have refused to call the whole, that is to say Christ, one nature, if he knew this to be based on piety. He would not have maintained that human nature is nothing other than flesh endowed with a rational soul, and by this very reasoning proven that the nature of humanity is perfect even in Christ. He would not have said that by the addition of that word, "Incarnate," the definition of our substance is brought in, and that by it that is signified. He would not have defined that it has the sense of a correct opinion to say "two natures united indivisibly," provided that the expression is not brought forward in the sense of Nestorius with fraud and guile. He would not have shown himself to be saying other things of this kind by the hundreds, as is clear to anyone who diligently attends to his writings.

^C Whence then, and from which teachers, will they demonstrate that the two natures in Christ, from which he also is, and which, according to their own opinion, as they say, remain after the union, ought not to be piously confessed by the faithful? For no one at all of the approved teachers is found to have decreed this; on the contrary, all of them have both said the opposite and taught the faithful to say it through their own words; unless, perchance, it has become habitual for them, according to their custom, to fabricate from their own hearts their own opinions, and, for the sake of deceiving the simpler folk, bring forth the fabrication as if it were the words of one of the Fathers. But these people, as it seems, counting it a disgrace to be obedient and to accommodate their faith, and those by whose guile they were formerly ^D

^A led astray, prefer a more precipitous affection to divine love, and account contention to be more important than piety; and because of this, in order that they might be honored by the people as priests, they foist upon them an error through the falsehoods which they invent against us. And they receive, as a reward for their error—which is, of course, perishable and earthly—evil in exchange for evil. They consider the praise and honor from God to be of less account than ^B the concord of the faith; they make no end to attacking the truth, and they never cease from turning away as many as they possibly can with all their might. Wherefore I, the least of all, beseech you, who are true children of the holy apostolic Church, in which, having been enlightened through the laver of divine regeneration, you have been deemed worthy to receive adoption in the Spirit from God, to withdraw from such people, calling to mind the holy Apostle Paul writing to the Romans in this manner: "I beseech you, brethren, to mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and ^C decline from them." For such as these do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches they deceive the hearts of the innocent. And again, concerning these same people, who are accustomed to stir up troubles in the Church of God, he writes to the Corinthians: "For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works." And the Lord himself, in the Gospels, noting the crafty mind and ^D fraudulent ways of these very people, and warning the faithful against them, proclaimed: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits." But also the holy evangelist John, in his first Catholic Epistle, calling the faithful to greater vigilance and sobriety, says: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world."

Always mindful of these words, I beseech you, blessed ones, to cultivate with all attention and diligence piety and that which is of the right faith, than which nothing more closely conciliates humans to God by the bond of friendship, and I wish even more that you turn away with all your might from all those who do not receive the pious and saving dogmas of the Church; and especially when you have learned that it is part of the teaching of the Antichrist, not to confess our Lord

^A and God Jesus Christ, as the great evangelist John plainly cries out. This, those who now war against the Church of God openly proclaim, denying the nature of the flesh, by not acknowledging that it is saved and exists in Christ; and they do not shudder—a thing more pitiable, or rather, more audacious—at putting themselves forward as heralds of the doctrine of the adversary. But while they choose to conduct themselves in this perilous way, they reap the fruit of their own folly, which is worthy of the reproach of impiety that is evident to all.

A brief exposition of the reception of the terms of the faith, which are rightly confessed in Christ according to the Catholic Church.

We, however, with God as our guide, who are nourished by the ^B herb of divine and ecclesiastical doctrine, possessing the inviolable glory of piety—which all holy Fathers who have been before us have piously promulgated in Christ—freely confess before God and men; since we piously set forth and receive each thought and reason as is fitting; just as we have long ago drunk in from the beginning from those who were ministers of grace, the saving word of the faith, and from those who instructed us. We confess, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ as composite from two natures (namely, from divinity and humanity): and ^C indeed in two natures, as we acknowledge Him to be in divinity and humanity. For just as by saying "from two natures," we glorify Him as being from divinity and humanity; so also by saying "in two natures," we rightly signify Him existing in divinity and humanity; since He is not separated into two after the union of those from which He consists and has as it were been composed, but is acknowledged as He in whom He always exists and is known. We confess these two natures, however, as united together hypostatically and inseparably, ^D and we believe Him to be truly the same person, both God and man, the names truly corresponding to the realities, just as we believe Him to be Son of God and God by nature and in truth, because of the identity of substance with God and the Father; so also [we believe Him] Son of man, and to have become man, and to be called such by nature and in truth, because of the natural kinship according to the flesh with her who gave birth to Him. For if we do not confess Him as in two natures, as God and man together, we shall be proved to be men who are saying that He is composed of mere names and not of realities—and not [that He is] in truth what is signified by the names. And so that nothing further might remain, as they themselves propose, for someone who intends to blaspheme, to establish and teach that there is nothing that we Christians adore or worship—which surpasses and exceeds by far all measure of impiety.

Therefore, that we may not be brought under the charge of blasphemy:

we do not cease to confess Christ ^A as being of two natures—as from deity, as has been said, and from humanity—and in two natures—as in deity and humanity—and as two natures, believing Him to be the same, both God and man. For we acknowledge Him not only *of* these, but also *these*; and not only *these*, but also *in* these, as the whole from the parts, and the whole in the parts, and knowing Him to be the whole through the parts. For if He who gave existence to all things that exist, and bestowed the power for their continuance, so that the species should not be mingled with one another ^B or change into one another, but that each thing should remain according to the reason by which it was created by Him—so that it is possible for those who are diligent and eager to contemplate divine things to recognize, as far as it is possible, the all-wise and learned Creator and Architect of the universe from the firm and fixed rationale of the natural property of each thing—then how much more will He confirm His own power of infinite strength in Himself; remaining what He was, and becoming what He was not, and not denying what He has become while remaining what He was, by being both things without fail or change, and existing immutably as both, without any deficiency.

^A And we piously speak of One incarnate nature of God the Word, meaning by flesh a soul endowed with intellect and reason; for by adding "incarnate," we bring in ^C an indication of our essence. For it is a circumlocution, which at once by name and by formula signifies the two natures through the union—by the name, the one nature of the Word, which signifies the commonality of the essence with the particularity of the hypostasis—and by the formula, the human, as the teacher himself says: "For what is the nature of humanity, but flesh animated in the manner of an intelligent being?" ^D So that he who speaks of one incarnate nature of God the Word signifies that God the Word is with ensouled flesh, for the true and uncorrupted pupil of piety understands the flesh to be something else entirely in its essence from God the Word. And when we speak of union according to hypostasis, we understand and confess that the union of the natures has occurred into one hypostasis, such that no one of them exists or is conceived by itself, but with that to which it is joined and with which it has grown together; nor yet again, according to the essential reason, has it been fused into the other, or suffered any diminution of natural perfection from the union. And again, we confess the "natural union" in place of saying "true," as the holy Cyril himself both spoke and interpreted these expressions; and this is not for the destruction of those things from which Christ is, namely, the two natures after the union, or any one of them, as Apollinarius, Eutyches, and Severus have published following Simon Magus, Valentinus, and Manes, as is easy for those who wish to see, by observing the harmony of their doctrines in the books of Severus himself, written against the aforementioned impious men.

^A Likewise, we affirm the two births of one and the same Christ: the one from God the Father before the ages, and the one for our sake in the final times, born from the holy Virgin; and in the same way we glorify both His miracles and His passions. We confess also the holy and most glorious Virgin to be truly and in reality Theotokos—not as though she were the mother of some mere man, even one who, in the blink of an eye, and in the moment before the union with the Word, had been pre-fashioned and subsequently, through the progress of works and through the pinnacle of virtue, had been deified—but as the mother of the Word of God Himself, who is one of the holy Trinity, and who, by an ineffable conception from her, was incarnate and perfectly became man.

^B The holy Church of God, having taught her children both to speak and to think these things piously, has entrusted them to be guarded by the divine and splendid light of knowledge; she beseeches us—through the prophets and apostles and Christ Himself, who joined her together and fitted her to Himself through His own passions—to take up a life and discipline that is fitting and conforms to the great profession of faith; considering what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, and being vigilant for it. For we have been taught that a virtuous way of life is no less necessary than the orthodox faith itself for attaining eternal life; lest, by building things upon the foundation of faith that are not fitting, through evil practices, and insulting the calling and the grace of adoption, we make ourselves liable to eternal fire instead of to joy and endless glory.

^C Therefore, seeing many ways of virtue—O blessed and sober lovers of the beauty of the blessed Christ—which have been given to men by the Lord of all, all having one aim, and all leading to one end (namely, salvation), let us not neglect our own salvation, nor let us waste the time given to us for repentance, the loss of which it is not possible to ever recover. But before we depart—as the great Job says in a certain place—whence we shall not return, into a land dark and gloomy, into a land of eternal darkness, where there is no light, and where one does not see the life of men, let us strive, each according to his own ability, to render God propitious to us. ^D For, according to the varied and diverse state of our souls, He, as good, has rightly instituted many ways, through whose path those walking blamelessly may be transported to the eternal dwellings; so that each one, choosing for himself the way he knows to be convenient and useful, and completing the course of his life through it, may obtain with happy success the most splendid places which we hope to receive in the heavens.

Therefore, according to the power and grace of Christ with which we are supported, let us engage in what is honorable and required of us. Let us compassionately relieve the hardship of the poor, and let us not neglect to soothe his destitution.

^A Let us revere that garment of incorruption which has been given to us, and not be hesitant to cover the nakedness of the naked. Let us suffer with those who are being worn down by the hardship of prison, by bodily weakness, and by the heavy burden of being strangers, and let us strive to make the difficulties of others our own. ^B So that, by imitating Him who took upon Himself our infirmities and bore our sicknesses in relation to our fellow creatures, and by honoring through our deeds His own philanthropic emptying for our sake, we too may be able to become worthy beholders and partakers of His glory. Let us not practice these things for the sake of the glory that comes from men, for after this present life there remains no account for its reception; but rather, let us dedicate ourselves wholly and truly to God, and by healing one another through mutual philanthropy—as He Himself is becoming all things to all men—let us both say and do everything through which we may please Him. ^C For thus, by the gradual progress of the virtues, we shall be able, God willing, to practice divine philosophy as we ought, and to be transformed toward the life above, having despised all things upon the earth. Let us consider it better and more precious to have the lowest rank before God ^D than to hold the first rank among earthly things before some king below. By approaching the state of holding such a view for ourselves, and by having accustomed the eyes of the soul to see the creation prudently and in quiet peace, we shall carry off a very great gain: to be well guided through the tumult and instability of visible things toward those things that are stable and immovable. And let us not endure to remain in them or become entangled by them; from which, by hating the chaos of the former and desiring the stability of the latter, we shall call upon abyss to abyss. Through the magnificent wonders in visible things, we shall understand, as far as is granted to human beings, the reasons for spiritual things. And thus, in silent stillness, by peering into the holy of holies, we shall recognize our own baseness, being taught mystically through the logia of the Spirit how, though we are earth and dust, we pass over into divine glory by the grace of Him who was well pleased, and how that which is by nature base and to be rejected is transformed into what manner of blessedness. And thus, being struck with awe at the spectacles of the Infinite, we shall pluck the strong fortress of the virtues—I mean humility, the very great and first gift of God—the fruit of true philosophy. Through this, we mortify the causes of the passions—I mean the senses, together with the kindred affinity of the sensible things toward them—and we cut ourselves off entirely from the world, so that with an undazzled eye of the soul we may be able to cast our gaze upon the intelligible. From these, or after which, the divine Love, having taken up the soul which has now truly been molded by humility and has finally become capable of receiving the image of the divine appearance, makes us friends instead of slaves; the epitome of the Law, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,” and with all

your soul, and the rest, gracefully granting that we allow none of the intellectual faculties within us to incline or stretch toward anything at all other than God. ^A Let us strive, therefore, while we have time, to bring to fruition the goal of the pious and Christian profession granted to us by the divine bounty. For since “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this present darkness,” against invisible tyrants and enemies who do not wage battle openly, but stir up wars in the hidden depths of the heart, let us take up the armor of God, just as the divine Apostle exhorts us, so that we may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand; and having girded our loins with truth, and put on the breastplate of righteousness, in which all the flaming arrows of the wicked one shall be quenched. Let us persist in all prayer and supplication, ^B and let us receive the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, which separates—to state it briefly—the worse from the better, and teaches the pious the discipline becoming to Christians. This is the work of perfect discernment: modesty of the eyes, continence of the tongue, chastening of the body, purity of mind, the extinguishing of anger, as the great Basil says in a certain place; a lofty flight toward God, and to struggle courageously against temptations, so that what is precious to us may remain secure. When we are constrained, let us add further effort; when we are despoiled of our goods, let us not contend in legal judgment: let us return love for hatred; let us meet persecutions with endurance, ^C curses with supplication, let us be put to death to sin, let us be crucified with Christ; let us transfer our whole love to God without entanglement.

These things I have written, my blessed master, not because I am ignorant of the steadfastness of your faith in Christ, and the dignity in him that grows through the keeping of the commandments; but because I wish you to know how great and what kind of struggle I have on your behalf, which burns in my heart with constant concern. And therefore I beseech and warn you to watch with greater vigilance those who act as the champions and defenders of heresies, lest one of them, seducing you with a lie composed for persuasion (which God forbid!), be able to stir up with the filth of their own impious dogmas the clear and vital spring of faith that is within you. For they possess a tongue that is a double-edged sword and a sharpened razor, ^D slaughtering souls and sending them into the snare of Hades and the abyss of darkness, and depriving them of the life which is in Christ through their deceitful and smooth language. May he himself...

^A, our Lord and God Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word of God and the Father, the Creator of all things visible and invisible, who for our sake, in accordance with his ineffable benevolence and mercy, and by the impulse of his own will, as he himself willed, underwent death, and rescued us by his own blood from the power of darkness—may he himself hold your right hand and lead you into the fear of him, and may he fill you with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, and may he persuade you to walk worthily of him, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of his truth, and may he strengthen you with all power according to the might of his glory for all edification and patience, and with joy and thanksgiving ^B may he keep you as fellow-laborers with the Gospel of his grace, and may he make you worthy of the portion of the saints in the light, through the prayers and supplications of our most glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, and of all the saints. Amen.

XIII. — Of the same, to Peter the Illustrious, a short treatise or book against the dogmas of Severus.

Truly, my blessed master has shown that bodily absence among friends has no power to diminish spiritual love, provided that they are joined to one another in thought and spirit by that love which is in God ^C; for he indeed did not deem himself unworthy to visit me, a humble and sinful man, who am in no way deserving of his love, by means of his venerable letters. Having received them, just as if he were present in spirit, I embraced them with joy and kissed them, and, as is customary, I gave thanks to the one God and Savior of all, Christ, having learned that he had completed his voyage over the watery path in safety. For my blessed master is truly sweet, whether present or absent; even when absent, he is no less lovable to all than when he is present, because of the grace of the poverty of the Holy Spirit that shines forth in him ^D; by the gift of which, everyone who sincerely cultivates it as a divine virtue becomes a holy temple for the dwelling of God in the Spirit, imitating him who humbled himself unto the form of a servant and gave in himself a specimen to mortals both in deed and in word. Imitating him, my blessed master has likewise inwardly acquired gentleness and humility. Gentleness, indeed, so that by extinguishing the passionate movements of anger and desire, he might become pleasing to God and to men. For gentleness is nothing other than the complete...

extinction of every motion of anger and desire in things that are unnatural: by which the divine will is clearly manifested to those who are endowed with it. For the great David says, chanting: *He will guide the meek in judgment, He will teach the meek His ways.* And humility, so that when the blindness of pride and the hardness of the soul are cut away, one may become both pleasing to God and mild and approachable to all men. For humility is the recognition, by everyone, of the superior and creative Cause in comparison with man, by which the disposition of men toward one another naturally arises, and the remission of offenses is granted to those who are in debt. For see, says the same great David again: *Look upon my humility and my labor, and forgive all my sins.* ^A

Thus indeed, when the blessed master holds himself to such a discipline of life and conduct, I pray that he be kept immovable in the foundation of faith in Christ, as his name promises, and above every triple-wave of heretical depravity, as a genuine son of the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of God; established upon the pious confession, against which the most wicked mouths of heretics, opened like the gates of Hades, shall prevail in nothing at all. For as for the bastards, and those bastily grafted from the wild olive tree into the good olive tree, I knew, even before you wrote, blessed ones, that according to the prophetic saying, *As a dog returning to its own vomit*, so would they return to the most fetid stench of their own faith—like other Simons, and Demases, and Hermogeneses, choosing of their own accord the lie over the truth; and harming in nothing, as they think, the heralds of piety by their apostasy, or rather, being themselves justly harmed by the deprivation of grace; and unable to possess even the present age—on account of which they departed from the truth—in a happy and pleasant manner, because its nature is unstable and subject to various changes, and it always passes by those who think they have become its masters and already hold it. ^C

For truly, every doctrine is unpleasant and full of stench and empty of all grace which does not profess that, in the one Christ after the union, there exist in a way that cannot be explained by any words, and remain whole, those things from which Christ is; but it denies almost the entire dispensation of God toward man, and amputates from the Word and God the body, endowed with reason and soul, which was taken from the immaculate, holy, and glorious Virgin and truly Mother of God. For it truly and in reality amputates it, even if it seems to confess it nakedly and in word only, so as to deceive the listeners; and he who denies that the nature of the flesh exists and is called, after the union, unconfusedly and indivisibly ^D united to the Word of God in person, or hypostasis, denies the incarnation entirely, under the false pretense of piety and religion, lest by mentioning number he should seem to tear the union, when he is actually denying the entirety of those things from which...

Christ is composed, after the union clearly denying their existence.

An explanation of number more in accordance with nature.

This, as it seems, is what happens to them because they are ignorant that no number, by its own inherent logic, divides or is divided; nor does it possess the power of division nor, indeed, of union. For it is not framed to act or suffer, being neither substance nor accident, those things around which the capacity to act and suffer resides; but only to signify the quantity of the underlying objects, however they may happen to be situated, whether joined or separated. For instance—to speak with some confidence—it signifies the name of quantity, yet without any configuration pertaining to it. For number does not, of necessity, create a natural distinction of things, nor a quantity, nor does it of itself create the cohesion of things coupled together in the same species; nor, indeed, is it a characteristic sign of any one property, in a general sense, of those individuals under the same species which are distinguished from one another by accidents. For to accomplish these things is the property of the divine wisdom and power, which created the entirety of this, and preserves each thing unconfused by the natural distinctions of the things around it; but, as I said, it serves only to manifest the quantity of things absolutely, and not of things *how* they are, just like a name appropriately applied to quantity. ^B

On difference, and more accurately concerning quantity, and the pious confession of them.

If, therefore, according to the Fathers, number is significant of the quantity of things, and not of their relation; and every quantity, considered in terms of natural diversity and (if I may so speak) otherness, admits in every respect of difference or distinction; and even those who war against the truth acknowledge a natural difference in Christ after the union, and the quantity of the things that differ—without which it is impossible for there to be difference, alongside the number signifying it, and without which it is impossible for quantity to be known in any way—then it is necessary for them to confess it after the union, if they wish to demonstrate the logic of their own dogma in an orderly, consecutive, and coherent manner. But if they deny the quantity of the natures preserved in Christ after the union, let them not dare to speak of difference or distinction regarding the natures from which Christ is after the union; knowing that whatever possesses difference or is distinct in any respect cannot be "one" in every logic and mode. But that which cannot be one in every logic and mode is, clearly, by some logic and mode, at least two or more. Therefore, those who say there is difference and distinction in Christ after the union cannot say that Christ is one after the union in every logic and mode. But if Christ after the union is not one in every logic and mode, then assuredly, by some logic and mode, Christ is two after the union. And if by some logic and mode Christ is two after the union, because of the difference of the natures in Him from which and in which He is—as the discourse has shown—it is clear...

^A that those who sacrifice to impiety in vain are those who speak of the difference of the natures from which Christ is after the union, while by silence they plainly abolish the natures themselves, the difference of which they [admit]. For the denial of things that exist and are preserved is truly an abolition. For if, according to them, the natures are not abolished after the union, and they both exist and are preserved, it is just that they should be confessed as being preserved after the union; or if it is not just for them to be confessed after the union, then it is not just to say that they exist or are preserved in Christ, and they have been abolished. For that which it is not just to name at all as existing is, I think, much more justly said not to exist. Either let them persuade us by reason how it is just not to confess in Christ those things from which Christ is, while they both exist and are preserved after the union ^B without any change or alternation, and without passing into one another according to the essential logic; and we shall willingly and obediently accept the deprivation of the confession of those things which are and are preserved in Christ. But just as Christ is not one after the union according to every logic and mode, so again He is not two after the union according to every logic and mode. But if Christ is not two after the union according to every logic and mode, He is surely one according to some logic and mode—that is, according to the personal identity, namely, the one hypostasis, according to which He cannot have difference and distinction. Since, therefore, the same Being is both one and two according to different logics and modes, it is worth our while to examine ^C according to which logic and which mode the same Being is both one and two.

That it is blasphemous to call Christ one nature simply.

If, therefore, they are going to say that He is one according to the logic of nature, the whole [Christ] will be, according to them, simply one nature without any difference or distinction whatsoever. But if we concede to them to say this, Christ, according to them, will be neither God, nor man, nor indeed a creature, nor Creator. For the nature that is spoken of simply does not admit any denomination of any of these things at all. But if, struggling to avoid the manifest absurdity, they say that Christ is one nature, but a composite one, they truly do not know into what depth of the mire of error the darkness ^D of impiety has driven them.

Concerning composite nature and its logic; and that those who call Christ one composite nature speak impiously.

For every composite nature, first of all, is not [indifferent or] [cont on next page...]

^A of its own will, nor is it the mistress of its own self, such that the parts come together for the sake of composing one another. Furthermore, it possesses parts that are coeval both with one another and with itself, existing in parity by a simultaneous origin, with neither part temporally preceding the other.

Moreover, it is known to have been brought into being to fill up a totality that grandly sketches the universe; none of these things is observed at all in Christ by those who wish to be pious. We must not, therefore, hold the union with the flesh of the Word to be involuntary and devoid of choice, nor define Christ—as if he were a part produced by the power that established the universe to fill up the whole—as having been brought into being [as a creature] alongside the other species ^B by the Word, or the flesh with the Word, as co-eternal, or as having no beginning of existence, or as having nothing more than the other species viewed according to universal nature. For this is the definition, the logic, and the law of every composite nature, just as the power of truth and the course of logical consequence guide those who pursue the investigation of beings with understanding to say. And who could any longer be of the party of the pious, thinking thus regarding God the Word, who exists before all ages—or rather, to speak more accurately, is the Maker of the ages—and who, by His own voluntary will, initiated for our sake, the humans, His free self-emptying, and became human for the sake of our correction and renewal, and not for the sake of filling up the universe? For it was by a manner of economy, and not by a law of nature, that the Word of God ineffably dwelt among humans through the flesh. Christ, therefore, is not a composite nature, according to the innovation ^C of those who make void the Gospel by the law of composite nature; for he is in his mode of existing altogether free from it. But he is a composite *person*, not possessing any nature that is predicated of him as being composite according to species. Which is also paradoxical: to behold a composite person, without a composite nature being predicated of him according to species.

But if, according to these same people, Christ is a composite nature—the admirable stronghold and sacred artifice of the arguments of Severus—he is either generic or singular. For it is impossible to conceive of any other middle ground besides these. Now, if Christ is a generic nature, he will clearly be predicated of many things that are distinct in number, and will exist only by contemplation ^D in those in which he has his existence, and will not be known by himself in any proper person or hypostasis, apart from the accidents that are observed in the individuals subject to him. For such is the definition and the logic of every generic nature; and thus a multitude of Christs would be introduced to us instead of one, having in no way any identity with God or with humans, because of the superfluous and unbridled madness of Severus against the truth. But if Christ is a singular nature, so that we may pass over saying that he is by no means a totality of nature circumscribed by one person, even if the one being mythologized

^A as the phoenix, as some great and at the same time constitutive example of his own glory, is brought forward at the last—for I fear even to say something regarding it, lest I be found worthy of derision for folly among the intelligent by attempting to show that a myth is a myth. For if the phoenix is a bird, it is entirely an animal. And if it is an animal, in the first place it is not entirely unique inasmuch as it is an animal. Furthermore, if it is an animal, it is also a body endowed with a soul and sense. But if the phoenix is a body endowed with a soul and sense, it is clearly also subject to generation and corruption. Let us ask those wise observers of existing things whether it is possible for any of the living and sentient bodies that are subject to generation and corruption to exist as unique according to hypostasis and nature, for whom the succession of one from another according to species is an evident character and limit of their being. Just as also the divine Scripture bears witness, providing for itself the certainty of the doctrine, when it introduces God commanding these things to the great Noah. And God said to Noah: "Enter thou and all thy house into the ark; for ^B I have seen thee righteous before me in this generation. And of all the clean cattle take to thee by sevens, the male and the female; but of the cattle that are not clean, two and two, the male and the female; and of all the clean birds of the air, by sevens, the male and the female; and of all the birds of the air that are not clean, two and two, the male and the female, to keep seed alive upon all the earth." To these, if the phoenix is numbered as a winged animal, it does not exist as a unique nature according to hypostasis, according to the divine pronouncement, so that we do not say these things as I was saying. For it is not pleasing to us to contend over unnecessary things; it is manifest to all that if Christ is a singular nature, he is consubstantial neither with God and the Father, nor with men. For that which is entirely singular according to its nature is altogether alienated from any ^C natural kinship with anything else whatsoever. But if, according to those men—as the Word has shown—Christ is entirely alienated from all existing things according to his nature, we shall urge those new teachers of dogmas to say what he is according to nature, and by what argument they venerate Christ, who, by their own premises of argumentation, is blasphemed by them as being nothing. ^D

^A If, therefore, a great and fearful danger necessarily follows, according to the power of the argument here rendered, for those who say that Christ is one according to nature—that is, one nature, whether it be called simple or composite, and whether this be generic, that is, common, or individual, that is, particular—let us with all diligence keep our hearts pure from such an opinion, that we may also be delivered from the threat which hangs over it. And truly, let us piously confess two [natures] in Christ, according to the principle of natural otherness, that is, the difference of the natures of which he consists, which are preserved even after the union, as parts in a whole; by which, of course, the parts never naturally coincide with one another, so long as each keeps the principle of its own nature toward the other unharmed and intact. ^B But let us confess one [person or hypostasis] according to the principle of hypostatic identity, according to which Christ as a whole accepts no differentiation, that is, division, from difference between himself and himself; since he is believed to be one hypostasis both before the flesh and after the incarnation, and is worshipped and glorified by us as one of the holy and royal Trinity. For the hypostasis of Christ is singular, as a whole, in no way divided in its characteristic property toward the extremes from which it is marked off. By "extremes" I now mean God and Father, from whom Christ was born divinely before the ages; and the holy, all-glorious Virgin and Mother, from whom the same was born humanly for our sake, preserving towards both extremes the identity of his own parts, without diminution, in its essence; to which parts, as Christ accepts the principle of difference, he does not depart from his own singular hypostasis. For every totality, and especially one understood according to composition, when viewed from its different parts, while keeping the identity of its own hypostasis singularly, also has the unconfused difference and distinction of its own parts toward one another, by which it preserves the uncorrupted principle of each part from the other according to essence. ^C Likewise, the parts themselves, as they enter into composition with one another, while retaining the true and in no way worn or diminished principle of nature, have the singular, indivisible identity of their own totality, by which they preserve the principle of the person or hypostasis as completely exempt from any division.

If, therefore, as the argument running with truth has shown, it is entirely impious in Christ to ordain one [hypostasis] according to the principle of nature, just as it is also, conversely, [impious] to ordain two according to the principle of hypostasis (for the one is peculiar to the stench of the followers of Apollinarius, who binds together and confuses the natures into one nature, and makes the dispensation entirely unrecognizable, and posits that there is truly no nature after the union; for he flees . . . ^D

suffer that which either of these is, each passing over and shifting into the other. But as for the Jewish madness of Nestorius—which divides the one person into two persons and denies the whole dispensation, that is, the mystery of Christ, and indeed refuses to say that God the Word was substantially united to the flesh in person or hypostasis—we, speaking correctly and as is ^A fitting, shall use language that directs the voices of the perverse toward the standard: we shall affirm two things by reason of natural diversity, or difference and distinction, and one thing by reason of person and hypostasis, so that the distinctness of the natures from which Christ exists may be preserved in Christ after the union, and the same singular person and hypostasis of the incarnate God the Word may likewise be kept safe, free from all multiplication. ^B For an inverted notation and confession of things destroys the substances according to the sense of the heretics, since truth in no way permits the proper appellations of things to be exchanged for one another. For this reason, we confess that Christ has two natures, as I said, according to the reason of the difference of the natures from which He is, and which remain unharmed in Him after the union, just as He is the same person who is God and man after the union.

Whoever says that Christ is God and man after the union necessarily confesses along with the names both natures after the union, provided he desires to believe correctly. For if Christ is God and man after the union, as the common confession holds, then clearly the things corresponding to the names also truly exist in Him after the union. For things are thought of prior to their proper names, and a name could never exist without a thing, ^C which itself provides to the name its standing, and in turn receives signification from it. But if, after the union, Christ does not have the things whose names exist, then according to their opinion, He will be shown to have the appellations stripped bare, as if adhering to nothing and void of things; and Christ will be God and man only in name, and not in fact and truth—than which what could be more impious? But if, avoiding the charge of such madness and insanity, they should say that the appellations in Christ after the union are not void of things, then just as they do not refuse to speak of the two appellations of Christ after the union, so let them also speak of the two natures of Christ—from which and in which He consists—after the union, of which those are the appellations, if indeed they believe with truth and faith that the things which were united are preserved really and according to nature after the union. ^D

On the expression "In two"; and on the pious confession regarding the one incarnate nature of the Word of God according to the Fathers; and the rejection of the one composite nature.

And again, we believe that He is indivisibly in two natures, namely in deity and humanity. For just as by saying that Christ is "out of two natures," out of deity and humanity, we understand Him to exist as an whole from parts, so also by saying "in two natures," we understand...

that His parts—that is, His deity and His humanity, out of which and in which He consists—are preserved. Again, we have been taught to believe, to say, and to preach, in accordance with Saint Cyril, the one nature of God the Word incarnate, possessing a soulful, intelligent, and rational nature; for by saying "incarnate," we understand the substance of our own nature to have been introduced into Him. And again, we attribute to the same and one Christ both His miracles and His sufferings, and His two births: that which is before the ages in an incorporeal way from the Father, and that which for our sake was brought about in time from the Mother and Virgin in a bodily way. For this reason, especially and according to truth, we confess her properly and truly to be the Theotokos, as she who brought forth in the last times the God-Word who was begotten of the Father before all ages, incarnate from her.

But we refuse entirely to call Christ one composite nature: not only for the aforementioned reasons, but also because it is evident that no one among the approved Fathers has ever been found to have uttered this expression; and because it is manifestly clear that it is the offspring of the heretic Apollinarius and his followers, the error of whom Severus, approving it, ^B has also merited by adorning it with his own terminology. For Christ is not a natural unity by composition, as Apollinarius and Severus think, so long as He preserves the diversities of the natures out of which He is, even after the union, unconfused and intact. Nor, on the other hand, is He a hypostatic duality, according to Nestorius, so long as those substances which have come together do not consist as separate, self-subsisting, and divided from one another; and so long as He who is the God-Word incarnate exists as one even after the incarnation, and did not assume a flesh that had pre-existed in its own proper nature—which then, as one utilizing the rational and intelligent soul, was united to Him—but rather, as the Fathers say, He is one composite hypostasis [person], in which the same One is both totally God, one of the holy and all-praised Trinity through the deity because of His humanity, and totally man, and one of the human race through the humanity because of the deity.

Regarding the composite hypostasis, a discourse more in accordance with nature; and an accurate proof that those who confess Christ as one composite hypostasis do not fall into the same absurdities as those who say He is one composite nature.

If someone, however, should suppose that the same absurdity is gathered against those who say Christ is one composite hypostasis, on the grounds that every composite hypostasis possesses its parts as coeval with one another, such a person does not, according to my reasoning, think correctly. For not every composite hypostasis possesses its parts as coeval with one another in their origin; rather [this is true only of that which] clearly exists under a composite nature, and possesses such a species as is predicated of it: which is, assuredly, that which [belongs to] the common and universal substance—that is, the nature—which...

is, that is to say, [existing] with [its] properties. If, therefore, the nature under which it is classed is composite, as is the species which is predicated of it, then it is absolutely necessary that it too should be composite, and that its parts should be coeval with one another, because of its substance, or nature, which is predicated of it, existing in such a way as to be the same as the species, apart from those distinguishing marks that set it apart. ^A For just as when we define a person spoken of simply, we say: "A person is a certain substance with properties," or "a certain substance which is inclusive of all the properties existing in its own individual," so also when we define a person in a definite and specific way, and not simply, we say: "A composite person is a certain substance composite with properties," or "a certain substance composite which is inclusive of all the properties existing in its own individual." For those things which are considered in common in all individuals constituted under the same species primarily characterize in those individuals that are subject to it the generic notion of substance, that is, of nature. And to all things contained under a composite species, it is common to be composite, and therefore the condition of being composite primarily characterizes nature in those individual subjects, and not the person.

^B Furthermore, every definition of individuals is from the common and universal things under which they are contained, and from general things all things that are subject to them naturally derive the principle of their own description, because it is clear and manifest what it is that, properly and primarily, is defined. ^C If this is true—as indeed it is—it is clear that he who said that a person is composite, being referred to a nature, has declared the element inherent in the common substance, generically, in the individual of the person, along with the properties specifically characterizing it. So that he who said that a person is composite, existing under some nature, said nothing else than a nature, that is, an essence, composite with properties. If, therefore, as has been proven, every composite nature has the conjunction of its own proper parts in the composition involuntary, and possesses its parts as coeval, and they come to be for the completion of the whole, viewed in each of the beings as a totality; and [if]—which is evident—every nature that is such by birth has existence unchangeable in its own genus and species to be the same: let them, therefore, demonstrate that the composite person of Christ exists under a nature that is composite, and let them collect that it possesses coeval parts, and let them justly hurl the same censure at us. But as long as they are unable to do this, they are building the foundations of their own dogmas upon sand. ^D For he who ignorantly strives to subject Christ to these aforementioned absurdities, because He is also a composite person and we piously confess Him to be such, has wandered far from the road leading to the truth, or rather, to speak more truly, from the truth itself. For this great and venerable mystery of Christ

^A neither has a universal and generic nature, after the manner of an individual, which might be predicated of it as a species; nor is it a genus or species such as might be predicated of the individuals existing under it by nature, so that it could be subjected to any of the aforementioned rules; for the concurrence of the Word of God with the flesh, according to the composition, has not gained a condition equal and similar to other composite things, in the way that parts in them come together.

That the union of the Word with the flesh occurred solely by assumption, as He pre-existed and willed to empty Himself for the union with the flesh.

For in all things that are composite by nature globally, the concurrence of one part with another by assumption does not constitute the species, as a whole from parts. But the simultaneous origination of the parts from nothing into being, by the very fact that they come into existence and come together with one another, makes up the composition of the whole. But the mystery of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ did not occur in this way; but being God by nature, and Son of God by nature, simple and bodiless, and co-eternal with the Father, and Creator of all the ages, by a philanthropic will and counsel, He became man by the assumption of flesh of His own accord; and for our sake, He who was simple and bodiless by nature became, by the dispensation, composite in person and incarnate from us, as the holy and great Areopagite, Dionysius, says divinely in the first chapter of his work

On the Divine Names

If, therefore, not according to the law and order of the nature of composite things, but by a rule other than the nature of composite things—for the Word of God was united to the flesh in an unspeakable manner by assumption—but not by having received existence at the same time as the flesh, for a composition intended to complete some whole according to species, as the word of truth clearly proclaims to all; then those who are ignorant vainly attempt to subject, against the law, the composition that exceeds every boundary and reason of nature to the laws under nature. ^C For this reason, he who says that the incarnation occurred by the assumption of flesh, both preserves the pre-eternal existence of the Word of God, and piously confesses His voluntary and spontaneous incarnation in time; and he preserves the difference of the Word Himself who assumed, and of the flesh that was assumed, even after the union, and… ^D

^A he who does not confess that the Word of God became man immutably by the assumption of flesh, will be unable to confess any of the things said in any way whatsoever. For if the Word did not pre-exist without beginning, how did He assume flesh of a different essence ^B by His own will? In which instance, most of all, as I think, is the union of that which is of a different nature properly said to have come to pass by assumption; as He alone, and in a unique manner, has impassibly and truly assumed that which is of a different essence, and has kept Himself immutable and unmultiplied in every respect and mode, and has granted to that which was assumed that it should not be destroyed or perish by any blemish. This, however, cannot happen at all in a nature subject to birth, in which the whole composition of the nature must emerge through the sudden meeting of the parts with one another to finish some whole in accordance with its species, keeping an equal proportion of the parts to one another in the whole, just as the case stands in us and in whatever other things have obtained a nature composed in accordance with species. For in us, the soul has natural powers of the body corresponding by proportion to its own operations, as being by nature capable of that [body] because of its having come into being simultaneously with the flesh in a single, sudden act. But the Word of God, having in no way or manner any powers of the nature assumed by Him that correspond to His own natural operations — for that which is above nature does not receive the measure of nature; nor is there anything at all in the things that are ^C naturally capable of Him — is therefore most singularly, by the assumption of flesh endowed with reason and intellect, become man, being the one who is and who pre-exists, and able to do all things; He who has renewed natures by a mode above nature, that He might save man.

I have learned this faith, and I was taught it both by our holy and blessed Fathers who have already departed this life, and by those who remain alive even now, and who have received the entrusted rudders of the holy Catholic Church of God, and who rightly steer it toward the harbor of the divine will; supported by whose prayers, I shall also depart, leaving behind the present life; offering this faith to God, in place of all merit and works, unstained and undefiled, and higher than every heretical storm. For I have no cause to glory in a life adorned with works of righteousness, I who, throughout this entire life of mine here, have become a voluntary transgressor of the divine laws.

^D And these things, in such manner as was possible, I have written briefly to you, my blessed lords, that you might know, if there be any benefit in what has been written, how you may even in part ward off the wolves hidden in sheep's clothing, who by their disorganized barking terrify the divine and gentle sheep of Christ's flock, and that you may not suffer yourselves to be led away by the lie that wickedly counterfeits the truth; but the voices and sentiments of the Fathers that defend the faith of the Church, I have not yet been able to insert into this writing, because of the great scarcity of books,

For you have there my blessed master, father, and teacher, the Lord Abbot Sophronius, a man truly sober and chaste in accordance with the meaning of his name, a wise patron of the truth, and an invincible defender of the divine dogmas, who is able to contend against all heresies both by word and by deed. Along with all other excellent qualities, he is also rich in a multitude of divine books, and he eagerly enriches those who wish to learn divine things. By frequenting him, therefore, I know well that you will receive the correct and unerring knowledge of all divine and saving dogmas. Farewell. ^B

XIV.— By the same, to the same, a dogmatic epistle.

God, being by nature good, has naught of evil in the things which it is his nature to perform. But man, becoming good through the diligence of his mind, is always shown to rejoice in those things which it is God’s nature to perform. For man has no other way of knowing what is good than by this sole disposition towards that which is done by God. For it is proper to God to produce good things; but it is proper to man to be disposed towards them. For it is a man’s virtue to show that he loves with a settled mind that which has been made by God. Therefore, if everything is good that has God as the cause of its own generation, then it is rightly said to be good; and the greatest of good things—the union and concord of those who are separated in matters of faith—is manifestly a work of God. And if this is absolutely true, I know that you rejoice to see those who were scattered gathered into one, as you yourselves are good, because of your own disposition towards good things. I entreat you, therefore, you who are guarded by God, to receive as good men the bearer of this my modest letter (an epistle, that is), the most God-loving deacon, Lord Cosmas, a man excellent and wise, and adorned with habits according to God, and… ^{C D}

that you might ^A enroll him among your own friends. And if there should be need to offer a petition on his behalf to the God-revered Pope, that he may recover his own rank of the diaconate, in the church in which he had been ordained, do not be reluctant. For he has received the teaching of the divine dogmas of the Church with such sincerity that he has become a distinguished defender of it by the fervor of his spirit. He has known this rule and law of piety: to deem that nothing of those things which Christ is, after the ineffable union, is to be denied—he who, indeed, is at once, in the same respect, truly both God and man. For he did not lose what he was, by truly becoming what he was not; for he is immutable. Nor did he alter what he became, remaining what he had been, for he is a lover of mankind and inclined toward the human race; but he exists wholly, by nature (truly, that is) in the person, as one out of two, and, being one by himself, he preserves both safe, without any change or fault, as He who truly exists in them through the union which is in the person or hypostasis.

For the union according to hypostasis, while having opposition to division, ^B yet not to the natural difference of those things united according to it, brings about the complete destruction of the former, but works the firm preservation of the latter, of which number is the manifestation. For one would never conceive of a difference entirely devoid of quantity, even if one were the wisest and most contentious master of words. For so long as the parts from which the whole is composed remain in the whole, preserved without confusion, the natural distinction of its parts from one another—those, that is, which are preserved by the reason of the union—is not unknown. And so long as the principle of the essential difference of the parts remains preserved in the whole, it is impossible that the quantity of the parts of the whole, being distinct from one another within it, should not be known; and of this, number has in itself the power of expression, but not division. For since such is the character of number, ^C not to signify the state of things (that is, union or division), but only quantity, simply (not as it may be in one way or another), if it is arranged thus by the principles of number as to signify quantity and not state, it does not in any way dissolve or destroy the union. He who uses number after the union signifies only this: the distinction of the natures from which Christ is, while recognizing that the natures have remained unconfused after the union; from which the one Christ and Lord and Son and God, clearly incarnate and having become perfectly man, exists. Therefore he also professes ^D that there is one nature of the Word himself, made flesh, having soul, endowed with intellect and reason, after the union, not being ignorant of the difference, but setting it aside and, as it were, placing the division outside, so that I, through these very words, of Apollinarius...

^A the confusion, and of Nestorius the division—evils which are diametrically opposed and extreme—are routed by the divine cause; and he becomes a true and sincere worshiper of the mystery, confessing the same [Word] as generated from above from the Father before all ages, and on earth the same—by the assumption, clearly, of flesh, ensouled rationally and intelligently—as born for our sake in the last times. And for this reason, he believes truly and in reality that the holy Virgin is Theotokos, because, having conceived the Word in place of seed, she has carried and given birth to Him incarnate from her; the same who works miracles; the same who of His own will endured the experience of human sufferings; the same crucified, buried, and risen on the third day according to the Scriptures; the same who was taken up into heaven in the flesh, from whence He descended to us without flesh, as He Himself knows, having as God by nature no movement from place to place. For He is by nature infinite, and for this reason is in no way contained by existing things, as existing free from all circumscription, and by nature a lover of mankind, and for this reason, He endured our fleshly birth by His own will, and became capable of being contained by our human faculties; the same who is to come with His own glory to judge the living and the dead, and to render to each ^B the distribution of the reward prepared according to merit.

Having embraced this confession with pleasure, the aforementioned most God-beloved lord Cosmas, I too received it rejoicing, and preferred his simple disposition in Christ to my own soul, having known it. And concerning the dogmatic chapters which he requested, I have given him in writing a short response, which it is fitting for you, also, most God-beloved ones, to receive and to exercise yourselves in. For you will benefit him through your own fine explanation applied to the text, filling in the meaning of those things which through the brevity of the work are wanting; and let this suffice concerning this matter. I remind you, most God-beloved ones, to be awake and to pray according to the Lord’s command, that we may not be caught in the snares of the temptations that surround us from every side. For if we are awake and sober, I know that we shall beware of the wiles of the demons; and if we pray, we shall draw to our aid the divine grace, which fights on our side and renders us victors over all opposing...

^A power, and delivers us from every error and ignorance. And we are especially bound to do this now, when, even apart from any commandment, nature itself becomes our teacher in taking refuge with God, taking circumstance itself as its counselor. For what is more distressing than the evils currently encompassing the world? What is more terrible to those who have perceived what is happening? What is more pitiable or fearful to those who are suffering? To see a desert-dwelling and barbarian race ^B running through others’ lands as if they were their own, and wild and untamed beasts—who, if you strip away the mere outward form of the face, possess nothing of humanity—ravaging a commonwealth established by noble customs and laws; and the Jewish people, who have long delighted in slaughter, and, as they think, win God’s favor by the one act of destroying His handiwork, and grow more insane on that account—outshining in the abundance of their wickedness and wealth all others whose names are famous for their depravity; and, in their delusion, thinking that the God to whom they are hateful is actually protecting them: the one people of all on earth most hostile to the faith, and for this reason best prepared for the reception of the opposing power, in every way and disposition leading the procession for the coming ^C of the evil one; and by their actions they signal the arrival of the Antichrist, since they ignored the coming of the true Savior; that hostile and lawless, misanthropic and godless people—who are even more misanthropic because they are godless—allowed to revel in outrages against the saints, as vengeance is near, so that it may be punished more justly, its utter tyranny and rebellion against God having been made manifest by its actions; the leading people of falsehood, the author of blood-guiltiness, and the enemy of truth; the bitter persecutor of my faith, by which the error of polytheism was abolished and the phalanxes of the demons were routed and put to flight! Through which *all nations have clapped their hands* (which are the prophetic words) *and shouted unto God with the voice of exultation; for the Lord is high, terrible; a great King over all the earth.* ^D He was made known mystically to them through the only-begotten Son who came in the flesh: Lord, as a Master enjoining virtue upon those who are willing to observe the commandments through the practice of action; High, as the provider of true knowledge to those who, through a desire for wisdom, hasten through contemplation to the apprehension of the mysteries stripped of symbols; Terrible, as a Judge and the avenger of transgressions; and King, as the dispenser to each of the things prepared according to merit; and

^A great, as One who, being above nature, produces opposites through opposites; and through suffering creates impassibility, and through death, life; and by a wondrous power, through the deprivations of His own flesh, bestows the immutable states of good things upon nature. And yet, not even thus does the foolish people blush, nor does it cease from persecuting faith and virtue. Which it clearly persecutes out of envy, as one that has fallen from both, and knows not that it has fallen, limping on both legs, and utterly unable—or, to speak more appropriately, unwilling—to rise from the fall of impiety; as one that always betrays faith and virtue for the sake of pride and pleasure, like an apostate, foolish, and uninstructed people. Having divided its life into these two, that apostate and lawless one makes the one—pride—the mother of defection from God, and the other—pleasure—the fuel for hatred of mankind; so that both God and the creation may be insulted by it: God, in that it spurns Him; and the creation, in that it corrupts it with the pollutions of its own practices. ^B What, I ask, is more terrifying than these things to the eyes and ears of Christians? To see, forsooth, a savage and monstrous nation permitted to stretch forth its hands against the divine inheritance. But the great multitude of our sins has caused these things to happen. For we have not lived worthily of the Gospel of Christ. We have all sinned, we have all acted iniquitously, we have all abandoned the way of the commandments, which says, "I am the way," and have behaved like wild beasts toward one another, remaining ignorant of the grace of human kindness and the mystery of the sufferings of God, who was incarnate for our sake; and we have traveled paths difficult and untrodden, surely confirming in our own disposition the relationships of the disgrace of the passions. ^C But let us watch and pray, lest our hearts be burdened further by surfeiting and drunkenness. For surfeiting is a wavering and uncertain mind regarding the doctrine of faith, at the time when persecution rages; and drunkenness is the loss of natural thoughts and reasons, through which we are able to attain true knowledge of things, at the time when, through sloth, the soul yields to the insults of temptations; and, becoming darkened, it suffers turbulence regarding, as I said, the word of faith. For if we pray and watch, we hold the faith in our Lord and God Jesus Christ all the more firmly, beholding—and receiving through experience—that of which He foretold the outcome; and we are not completely cast into confusion, nor do we endure turbulence in our soul as though suffering contrary to promise, but we hold the faith more firmly, seeing the prediction of the Lord being fulfilled through the events. But if the outcome of the things ^D foretold knows how to produce a confirmation of faith, much more so through the things that come to pass...

let us confirm our faith, finding Him who spoke to be truthful; and let us confess God Himself before men, fearing no death at all, so that He also may confess us before the Father ^A and may bring us, saved through the good confession, into which He Himself initiated us, to designate for us a pattern of good things, having performed the office of witness under Pontius Pilate, and having confessed the good confession—which would that we, by His gift, might imitate when time and occasion call, not rashly rushing into dangers for the sake of the doctrine of piety, but fleeing from persecutions as much as is possible, both as those who spare the persecutors, and as those who know and test our own natural infirmity. Instructing those who are children, and waiting for the Word who calls: who indeed, appearing in an invisible manner to those contending lawfully for the sake of piety, completes the course of martyrdom, as the One who alone is able to conquer sense and nature. For since martyrdom is a clear victory over sense and nature, by which the struggle of the mind and reason against the passions is wont to be inflamed; by the gift of which the love of God is strengthened, in an unheard-of way the Author Himself [persuades those who love Him to pass through death to Him, by whose desire they are held]. ^B To whom would that we also might merit to stand, shining forth in confessions unto Him, which we may also take with us as we depart from human things and pass over to the immortal world, through the prayers and intercessions of the all-holy Lady of us, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, and of all the saints. Amen.

SCHOLIUM. Whoever, he says, uses the phrase of the "two natures" solely for the manifestation of the difference in Christ, combats Apollinarius; and whoever again uses the phrase of "one incarnate nature of God the Word," excludes the division of Nestorius. For he who equally avoids the impiety of both of these professes both phrases. ^C

XV.—Of the same, regarding the common and the proper, that is, of essence and hypostasis, to Cosmas the most religious deacon of Alexandria.

To the most God-beloved and most religious deacon Cosmas, Maximus the humble, greeting. Since much and lengthy discourse has been stirred up among us regarding the divine incarnation, touching upon the subtle dogmas of piety, from which, having taken an occasion, you asked my humility, O man of God, to say what the common and universal is, and what the particular and proper, so that from this the whole account and doctrine of the union might become clear to us; I shall say nothing of my own at all, but what I have learned from the Fathers (changing nothing of their teaching on this matter) I shall set forth. ^D

^A Common, therefore, and universal—that is, generic—according to the Fathers, is the essence and nature; for they affirm that these are identical to one another. Proper and particular, however, is the hypostasis and person; for according to them, these are identical to one another. The great Basil declares this, writing the following to Terentius: "But if we, too, must in brief express our opinion on these matters, we shall say this: whatever relation the common has to the proper, the same has essence to hypostasis, that is, person. For each one of us shares in the common definition of essence, in that it is, and by the properties that are about him, one is such-and-such, and another is such-and-such." And again, the same, discussing such ^B matters to Amphilochius, says: "Essence and hypostasis have this difference, which the common has to the particular, as, for instance, the way animal has to this certain human being." And after other things: "Those who call essence and hypostasis the same are forced to admit only the persons as different." And again, teaching a certain canonical rule, he wrote, explaining the meaning of the word *consubstantial*: "This word also corrects the impiety of Sabellius. For it removes the identity of the hypostases and introduces a perfect understanding of the persons; for nothing is consubstantial to itself, but one thing to another. Thus it is rightly and piously posited, both discerning the property of the hypostases and representing the unvarying similarity of the nature." And again, in the second letter to the Neocaesareans, ^C he teaches, saying: "For it must also be understood that just as anyone who denies the commonality of the essence falls into the error of many gods, so too he who does not grant what is proper to the hypostases is carried off into Judaism." And again, in those things where he brought Eustathius the Armenian to subscribe, he is seen writing expressly: "It is fitting, therefore, to declare openly that they believe according to the words set forth by our Fathers at Nicaea, and according to the sense that is rightly conveyed by the words. For there are some who, even in this confession, deceitfully pervert the discourse of truth, drawing the meaning of the words within it toward their own will. Wherefore Marcellus dared to act impiously against the hypostasis of our Lord Jesus Christ, and explaining Him as a mere Word, dared to pretend that he had ^D taken his principles from there, interpreting the meaning of *consubstantial* wrongly. And some of those who follow the impiety of the Libyan Sabellius, assuming that hypostasis and essence are the same, draw from there the occasions for the construction of their own blasphemy, from the fact that it was written in the confession: 'If any say that the Son of God is from another essence or hypostasis, the holy and catholic Church anathemetizes him.' For they did not say that essence and hypostasis are the same. For if the terms indicated one and the same [notion], what need was there for both? But it is clear that for those who deny those things that are from the... essence, hypostasis,

[as others say, 'of another' essence;] thus they forbade both as foreign to the ^A ecclesiastical mind. For since they were not indicating their own mind, they said the Son is of the essence of the Father, not adding, 'of the hypostasis.' So that the former is set down for the suppression of the evil mind; but the latter has the declaration of saving doctrine. ^B

To this also agrees Gregory, who has the name of 'Theologian,' who in his first theological discourse is shown to say these things: "But when I say 'mean,' I say 'truth,' to which it is well to look, avoiding the mean-spirited contraction, and the more absurd division; lest, for fear of the impious superstition of multiple gods, our discourse about the deity, contracted into one substance or hypostasis, should leave us with bare and empty names, if we understand the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one and the same." And after a few things intervening: "Since it is necessary to preserve the one God, and to confess the three hypostases—that is, three persons—and each with its own property. By this reasoning, in my opinion, one God will be preserved, if we refer the Son and the Spirit to one author, not compounding or confounding them: and if we understand one and the same motion and will of the divinity, and identity of essence. We shall hold the three persons in such a way that no commixture, or resolution, or confusion is devised, lest the whole be ruined by those who extol the unity more intensely than is right." ^C And again, in the oration which he speaks to the citizens, and addresses them as supreme: "We believe in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of the same essence and glory, in whom also perfection in baptism consists, as much in names as in things (you know, you who have been initiated), when there is the renunciation of impiety and confession of the deity. And in this way we are perfected, signifying one by essence, and by indivisible adoration; and three by hypostases, that is, by persons, as it pleases some." But also in the oration on the holy lights, the same man says these things: "But when I say 'God,' you are enlightened by one and three lights: three indeed, in regard to properties, or hypostases, if it pleases anyone to call them that, or persons (for we will not quarrel about the words, so long as the syllables bring the same sense), but one, in regard to the definition of the essence, that is, of the deity." ^D Such, then, is the harmony of the divine dogmas which our god-speaking Fathers Gregory and Basil have shown to exist, expressly stating the same thing: that by 'essence' they indicate the nature, as common and universal; but by 'hypostasis,' the person, as individual and particular.

For, having been inspired by one and the same Spirit, they have handed down to the peoples the ^A correct confession of the faith. In accordance with these men, you will find that all those who, by the grace of the Spirit, have been entrusted with the helm of the Church, have also maintained the right doctrine of the pious faith, and have not deviated at all from this understanding.

A more natural proof, showing that nothing of existing things is identical to another in essence and ^B hypostasis; but that those which are the same in essence are different in their hypostases, while those which are the same in hypostasis are entirely different in essence.

If, however, essence and nature are the same, and person and hypostasis are the same, it is clear that things which are of the same nature and essence are necessarily different in hypostasis. For ^C in both respects, I mean in nature and in hypostasis, there is nothing among existing things that is identical to another. For those things that are united to one another by one and the same nature—that is, essence—that is, those that are of the same essence and nature, would never be united in one and the same hypostasis—that is, person; that is, it is not possible to have one person and one hypostasis. And things that are united by one and the same hypostasis—that is, person—would never be joined in one and the same essence—that is, nature; that is, being of one and the same essence and nature, they would never appear to have come to be. But those things that are united by one and the same nature—that is, essence—that is, those that are of one and the same essence and nature—are distinguished from one another by their hypostases—that is, persons—as is the case with angels and humans, and all creatures viewed in species and genus. For an angel is distinguished from an angel, a human from a human, an ox from an ox, and a dog from a dog by hypostasis, but not by nature and essence. The argument will even dare to say something greater: that not even in the very first cause, which is without beginning and maker of all things, do we perceive nature and hypostasis to be the same to one another; if indeed we know one essence and nature of the Godhead, existing in three hypostases ^D that are distinguished from one another by their properties; and three hypostases in one and the same essence and nature of the Godhead. For Unity in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, is the object of our worship: Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, one God; the Son not being the Father, but what the Father is; nor the Spirit being the Son, but what the Son is; for all that the Father is, except for unbegottenness, the Son is (for He is begotten), and all that the Son is, except for the generation, the Holy Spirit is (for He is proceeding). Of unbegottenness and of generation and of procession

^A in no way divide or cleave the one nature and power of the ineffable Godhead into three unequal or equal essences and natures; but they characterize the persons—that is, the hypostases—within which, or as which, the one Godhead—that is, essence and nature—exists. And things which are united according to one and the same hypostasis, that is, person—that is to say, things which are in one hypostasis and are complementary components of one person—differ by the principle of essence or nature, as is the case with the human soul and body, and with all those things that have attained a gathering together with one another according to hypostasis. For these do not happen to be consubstantial with one another.

Things, therefore, which are united according to one and the same essence, that is, nature—that is to say, things which are of one and the same essence and nature—are entirely consubstantial with one another, but are distinct ^B according to the hypostasis and the person, or the manner of subsistence. They are consubstantial (or, if you prefer, co-essential) by the principle of that essential commonality which is understood immutably in them in natural identity, according to which no one is, or is called, what he is more than another, but all receive one and the same definition and account of the essence. Yet they are distinct according to the hypostasis by the principle of that personal difference which distinguishes them, according to which one is distinguished from another, not coinciding with one another in the characteristics pertaining to the hypostasis; but each brings forward the account most proper to his own hypostasis through his own individual aggregate of properties, according to which he does not admit communion with those that are of the same species and consubstantial.

But things which are united according to one and the same hypostasis, that is, person—that is to say, those things which are complementary components ^C of one and the same hypostasis according to union—are co-hypostatic with one another, but are of a different essence. They are co-hypostatic by the principle of the individual personal unit completed from them by union, according to which the properties that separate any of the parts from their own essential distinctness, at the same time as they exist in union with one another, make them characteristics of the one hypostasis completed from them; according to which the identity that is seen between them admits of no difference whatsoever, as is the case with the human soul and body. For the properties that mark off the body of someone from the rest of the bodies, and the soul of someone from the rest of the souls, having run together according to union, both characterize at the same time and distinguish—for example, that of Peter or Paul—the hypostasis completed out of them from the rest of men, but do not distinguish the soul of Peter or Paul from his own body. For both, soul and body, ^D exist as the same thing as one another according to the principle of the one hypostasis or person completed out of them by union, because neither of these two subsisted for itself, separated from the other, before the composition out of them into the generation of the species. For generation and composition occur simultaneously, and simultaneously with the composition, the completion of the species from them. For they are of a different essence by the principle of the natural difference between them; according to which they do not at all admit...

the same individual definitions and reasons; but each renders another and different reason for its own essence, which never coincides with the reason of the other. We, ^A certainly, while preserving intact the essential distinction between soul and body, do not confound that person which is completed out of them: which would clearly be destroyed if the component parts or natures were converted and permeated one into the other.

But if, on account of the union of soul and body that happens at the same time as the birth of the species, a certain man is brought to completion; by the reason of the natural community of his own parts, he preserves the consubstantiality with other men; but by the reason of the identity of these same parts, he guards the ^B hypostatic difference from other men; being united to other men by the natural community of his own parts, to whom he is brought as one and the same nature according to the species; but divided from the rest of men by the hypostatic identity of his own parts, to whom he is brought as a different and distinct face (persona); by which reason he is distinguished from other men, and he keeps the unity of his own personal undivided monad entirely without difference; and by the reason through which he is produced to be united to other men, he keeps the difference of the essential otherness of his own parts unconfused and clear; from this source, the doctrine concerning the incarnation, that is, the becoming man, of the one ^C Word of God—of the holy and consubstantial and adorable Trinity—has become clear to us, and contains nothing enigmatic.

How Christ, being united by the essential communities of his own parts to the extremes, preserved the distinction of the parts between themselves: and by the identities of the parts, showed the same as a whole, a hypostasis or person, as a community of both.

Teaching us expressly that the Word of God, while being perfect according to nature and essence, by which he is the same as the Father and the Spirit and consubstantial, and according to ^D face and hypostasis, by which he is established as different from the Father and the Spirit, keeping the personal unconfused difference, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, and became perfectly man; that is to say, he became a perfect man, by the taking on, evidently, of flesh possessing an intelligent and rational soul, having obtained in him both its nature and its hypostasis; that is, its being and its existing, at the very same time of the conception of the Word; since the Word himself was found instead of seed—or rather as the very seed—of his own incarnation, and became composite according to hypostasis, the [one] who in nature is simple and devoid of every composition, one and the same in that eternity through...

which he remains unchanging, indivisible, and unconfused in the parts of which he consists; so that ^A he might exist as a mediator according to hypostasis for the parts of which he is composed, joining in himself the distance of the extremes, making peace, and reconciling human nature to God and the Father through the Spirit; as one who exists truly as God according to essence, and who truly became man by nature according to the dispensation; being neither divided by the natural difference of his own parts, nor confused by the unity of those same parts according to hypostasis. But by the principle of the essentiality of the parts of which he is composed, being united by nature to the Father ^B and the Mother, he was shown to preserve intact the distinction of the parts from one another; while by the principle of the property of his own parts according to hypostasis—the extremes, that is, the Father and the Mother—he was distinguished, and in the uniqueness of his own hypostasis he appeared as one who is completely undifferentiated, always being unified in accordance with the ultimate personal identity of his own parts ^C in relation to one another. For the community of one of the parts according to essence with the extremes, while preserving—in the unity of the one hypostasis—the unconfused difference of the other nature, did not allow the pious-minded to recognize one nature of both arising from the union, lest there occur a total loss of the parts according to essence, namely a generation of the one nature of the whole out of their composition, which would have no way to preserve the natural kinship with the parts of the extremes, if it did not save the difference according to essence between the parts of which he is composed after the union; but instead it presented to view one hypostasis composed from the union, preserved by the existence according to nature of the parts of which he is composed. Now the property of either of the parts according to hypostasis, which go into the composition of the whole Christ, when considered along with the community according to essence, established a common mark of the parts, characterizing the one hypostasis completed from them. For we say that the one hypostasis of Christ, which has been completed by their concurrence and meeting through a natural union—that is to say, a true and real one—is common to flesh and divinity ^D according to the ineffable union. I say "common," as one and the same hypostasis of the parts which has been manifested—or rather, the one and the same hypostasis of the Word, existing both now and before; yet before without cause, simple and devoid of composition, but afterwards, for a cause, having become—by the assumption of reasonably-souled flesh—truly and unchangingly composite in truth; according to which he is separated from the extremes (I mean the Father and the Mother) and is united with himself, having no difference whatsoever, so that there may not be a total destruction and ruin of the personal identity of the parts, nor a generation of the difference of the parts according to [that identity], dissolving the union according to hypostasis into a personal duality; not [that he is]

^A not having, that is, whereby it might manifest the personal identity of the parts among themselves as preserved, which personal distinction would divide into two persons. For while the commonality of the parts according to the hypostases separated the whole—that is, Christ—from the extremes, yet according to the essence, the commonality of the parts with the extremes united Christ, as a whole, essentially to the extremes.

For the flesh was not separated from the rest of the multitude of men by those properties by which it retained a distinction from the Word; nor, again, was it separated from us by those properties by which it was distinguished from the Word. But by those properties by which it was separated from us, it preserved a personal union, or identity, with the Word; and by those properties by which it was naturally united to us, it possessed an essential distinction from the Word. ^B Just as the Word, too, by those properties by which He was separated from the commonality of the Deity—as Son and Word—preserved a personal union, or identity, with the flesh; and by those properties by which, as God, He maintained a natural distinction from the flesh, He was essentially united to the Father and the Holy Spirit, while possessing a distinction and identity different with Himself and with the extremes—namely, being naturally united to the extremes by the commonalities of the parts, yet personally distinguished from the extremes by the properties ^C of the same (that is, the parts).

For when He manifested in the personal identity of His own parts that the distinction of the extremes was preserved with Himself, He also brought about, in the essential diversity of the parts, a natural identity of the extremes with the parts. And since He was united to the extremes by the commonalities of the parts, and separated from the extremes by their properties, it is evident that by those things through which He was united to the extremes, He preserved the natural distinction of the parts among themselves; and by those things through which He was distinguished from the extremes, He manifested the personal identity of the parts.

Therefore, Christ possessed both the common and the particular elements of each of the parts from which He was composed: the common, in the principle of essential identity of the extremes with their parts, according to which He preserved the distinction of the parts among themselves even after the union; but the particular, in the principle of personal identity of the parts, according to which He was separated from the extremes, preserving an unconfused distinction from them. For a true personal union, concerning each of the parts coming together to compose a certain whole—in that respect in which they simultaneously agree for the production of a certain whole—taking up the property that separates both from the essential commonality, together with the commonality, renders it hypostatic (one might say, existing truly "in person" and "in hypostasis"), but not a person and hypostasis. That is, it does not exist discretely and separately by itself, detached from those things that are of the same genus, or from that which subsists together with it to constitute a certain whole; which is the property of a person and a hypostasis. For that ^D which subsists by itself, discretely and separately, is a hypostasis; for if they say that a hypostasis is an essence with properties, differing in number from those of the same genus, and an "enhypostatic" thing is that which, while subsisting by itself...

^A in no wise subsists, but is contemplated in others, as a species in the individuals subject to it; or that which, together with another distinct in essence, enters into a composition for the generation of some whole; this, in as much as it differs by the properties that distinguish it from those of the same genus according to essence, to that same extent is it identified with the composite according to hypostasis. For it is not by those properties by which it is distinguished from those of the same genus that it is separated from that which is composite by union and subsistent together; but by those distinctive properties by which it differs from those of the same essence, by these it maintains its identity of hypostasis toward the composite, through the union maintained in the entirely singular face of the person; which is what the true doctrine maintains regarding the divine dispensation, that is, the incarnation. For by the same properties with which the flesh was distinguished and separated from us, by those same properties it had its personal identity with the Word; and by those properties with which, as Son, He was distinguished and separated from the Father and the Spirit, by these He maintained the singular power of the person with the flesh, in every way indivisible and unimpaired.

^B The flesh of the Word of God is therefore not a person. For never, not even as far as the swift thought of the mind can reach, was it separated by itself through properties distinguishing it from those of the same genus, nor did it have in the Word, to whom it is personally joined, its own distinguishing property apart from the common one; but it is *enypostatic*, as if having acquired the genesis of its being in Him and through Him; and having become flesh by union, and being united to Him according to hypostasis, by the principle of that property which distinguishes it from the rest of the multitude of men. And, to speak more clearly, it makes what is proper to the Word Himself its own according to hypostasis, just as it also does the common essence, of which the flesh truly became [part] through union.

That Christ, being perfect God and the same being perfect man, had both the common and the proper that belonged to Him, by which He provided for the union and distinction of the extremes.

Christ, since He was perfect God and the same was perfect man, had of what He was that which is common and that which is proper, by which He provided for the union and distinction of the extremes: by the union of the extremes with Himself, establishing the two natures from which He was composed as unimpaired within Himself; ^C but by the distinction of the extremes from Himself, representing and exhibiting the singularity of His own person.

For if the Word, being God by nature, became man without any change by assuming flesh endowed with an intelligent soul, it is clearly evident that, being one from both, and through the one truly making both His own, the same [Word] had both the common and the proper; by which He effected both the union and the distinction toward the extremes: for by the natural difference of His own parts from one another, He was essentially united to the extremes; but by the identity of those same parts, that is, [He was] distinguished from the extremes according to hypostasis. But if the same [subject] had both difference and identity, it is clear that the same would also be two. One, by the principle of His own undivided [nature] according to hypostasis

and two, by the principle of the essential difference ^A existing between its own parts, even after the union. For a distinction is an account by which the difference of the things signified is preserved between them, and the mode of being is declared. Identity, however, is an unchangeable and supreme likeness, by which the account of the thing signified remains entirely singular, and is in no way explained by a mode of distinction.

A brief disquisition on distinction, by which it is shown that the essential quantity of the things united is preserved.

If, therefore, the essential difference between the parts from which He is composed remains preserved after the union in Christ, it is a clear demonstration to the pious that the essential quantity of the united things remains undiminished after the union, while each part preserves, in the whole which is formed of them by composition, both the definition and the unchangeable account of its essence toward the other. But if the identity of the whole with its own parts—or, to speak more accurately, of the parts with one another—is also preserved hypostatically according to the composition of the whole from them, it is clear that the parts which fulfill the one hypostasis formed from them do not in any way differ from one another ^B. And thus there is no argument capable of showing either that the difference according to essence is confused, or that the oneness according to hypostasis is divided.

A more extensive and natural proof regarding distinction and quantity, and the number signifying them.

If, therefore, we speak of a difference in Christ after the union, and if it is the nature of difference in every way and of necessity to introduce quantity—the signifier of which we know to be number—then we reasonably adopt number solely for the manifestation of the difference of those things that are distinct after the union; we do not at all divide by number the things signified, but we declare the existence of the things united to be preserved, since every number is by nature capable of signifying only quantity, and not of dividing. For that which neither acts nor undergoes anything, how could it be the source of any relationship whatever? Since it belongs to essence alone to act, just as it belongs to an accident—that is, a quality—to undergo something; from which things, and from which relationships, those who practice such arguments say that they proceed. But to those of us who examine these things more accurately, the relationships are not the work of these—I mean of essence and of accident—but of the creative cause and power of all things, which implanted in each of the created things the account that constitutes what they are, and which displays their natural relationship to one another, whether that be [one of] affinity or of alienation ^C. And if the relationships do not strictly have essence as their creative cause, they would far less have number, which, insofar as it is not an essence, cannot act at all, and insofar as it is not an accident—that is, a quality—is not of a nature to undergo anything ^D. And if number is of a nature neither to act nor to undergo, then it is a sign indicating quantity, and not creating any relationship within the quantity being signified.

^A For it is not a genus, capable of being predicated of others; but, as I said, a sign indicative of ^B the genus which is predicated categorically of others.

And if number has neither the capacity to act nor to undergo, it is clear that insofar as it does not act, it is not indicative of any relationship—that is, of union or division; for this belongs, as I said, to another account. And insofar as it is of such a nature as not to undergo, it is not divided. For every number is in itself indivisible, not admitting the motion that affects sense (which they call alteration), which is the property of quality; nor the contraction and dilation, which is the property of substance; nor indeed the increase and decrease, which is the property of quantity. And if number has the power of signifying quantity—yet not of relationship, for it is the power of signifying quantity ^C simply, and not quantity as it is said in such a mode—it is clear that number is not of such a nature as to produce division or union, but only the indication of quantity, however we might understand this to exist. For to act is proper to substance, and to undergo is proper to an accident, that is, to quality; and number is neither of these.

For if it were a substance, it would also truly exist by itself, not needing another by whose help it might consist; but if it were an accident, that is, a quality, it would either constitute the most specific difference, and, involving the genus, would collect the definition of the subject, providing an indication of species and not of quantity; or, joined to the species, it would introduce the commonly-called difference and would effect the distinction of one from another ^D of the individuals reduced under the same species; or it would effect the properly-called difference in the aggregate of all the properties existing in the individuals; and it would show not only that the one signified through it was other than another, but also that it was different. But if no one at all employs number in the definitions of things, number is neither substance nor quality. And if number is none of these, it is clear that it is of such a nature neither to act nor to undergo. And if number does not have acting and undergoing, it follows that it does not unite at all, nor divide as if acting; nor indeed is it divided at all as if undergoing; but, by making an indication only of the quantity of things, it does not touch upon their relationship.

If, however, number has the power only of designating quantity, and not of any relationship that might be understood through it, then number is rather a certain word, if I may so speak, and an appellation cohering to quantity. Therefore, he who speaks of a distinction in Christ after the union has altogether understood, along with the distinction and following it, the quantity of those things which are distinct. For that which is completely simple is indeed not capable of distinction, because it is entirely identical to itself and monadic, and whole and altogether unrelated, as the genus in quantity has nothing predicated of it; and for this reason it is completely unnumbered. But he who, in the distinction, [thinks in] quantity...

for it is impossible for a difference to be known that is entirely devoid of quantity—and who employs number for the sole purpose of signaling [the difference], and not to divide the quantity thought of along with the difference, does not depart from the truth, so long as he signifies the quantity necessarily thought of with the difference by means of number. For, as I said, to every difference, in whatever way it is spoken of, quantity is necessarily thought of as accompanying it; and we have learned that number is by nature the indicator of this, but not the divider of it. ^A If, however, he is more attentive to the truth, he who signifies by means of number the quantity necessarily thought of along with the difference for the sake of the constitution of the mystery, so that he may not seem to profess a blurring of the united [natures], why is it not just and right, in the opinion of some, that we should deem it necessary to confess the essential quantity in Christ after the union, since it is indicated by number—as the discourse has explained at length—in order to be a mark of distinction, and not of division? If, then, the essential definition of each of the united parts has remained indissoluble and pure after the union, neither passing over into the definition nor the nature of the other, ^B clearly the divinity of Christ has remained divinity according to essence, not having migrated into the essence of the flesh; and conversely, his humanity has remained humanity according to essence, having suffered no change toward the nature of the divinity. If, moreover, neither the divinity of Christ nor his humanity have permeated one another due to the hypostatic union, but the natures have remained unconfused according to the great Cyril, then the difference of the natures preserved in Christ after the union is clearly established, and no word can gainsay it. If, however, the difference exists among those preserved unconfusedly in Christ after the union—and it is impossible for difference to be known [if it be] completely separated from quantity—let quantity be spoken of for the sake of indicating the difference of the things that differ, so that we may not be suspected of professing a difference that is somehow naked and not true. ^C For reason knows any naked difference to be one that does not possess the truth of things underlying it historically, those things of which it is the difference.

We, therefore, never saying that hypostasis and nature are the same in the strict sense, according to the teaching of the Fathers—as the discourse has already proven above—piously confess in Christ both the same and the different: the same, by the argument of the one hypostasis, according to which we confess God the Word himself with his own flesh, lest the all-praised Trinity receive a personal addition and become a quaternity; but the different, by the argument of the diversity of the essences from which he consists, according to which the parts of Christ do not at all migrate ^D into one another. For divinity and humanity could never be the same according to essence, lest something created be admitted as congeneric and coessential to the divinity through the union. For to say that nature is coessential to nature, we know that to be the act of an insane mind. It is not

for a nature is not congenite to a nature, ^A nor is it coessential. For we are accustomed to call things congenite and coessential only of those individuals which, being of the same species, are traced back to one essence.

^B That he who does not say that nature and hypostasis are the same, piously confesses unity and distinction in Christ; believing the one to proceed from the account of person, the other from the account of nature.

Holding this confession, we neither deny the distinction of the natures after the union, since we believe that the natures from which the one Christ was composed have remained unconfused after the union; nor are we ignorant of the hypostatic union, since we confess Christ to be one from the holy and consubstantial and adorable Trinity. But we also make the distinction of those things from which Christ is formed—which are truly preserved in Him—manifest after the union, by the addition of number, without any dissection or confusion, in order to remove the confusion of Apollinarius and Eutyches. And since we know the hypostatic union, we proclaim with a loud voice that the one nature of God the Word is incarnate, having flesh endowed with an intellectual soul, against the division of Nestorius. In this same way, we avoid also the confusion of Apollinarius, who denies the natural distinction of the united components after the union, and maintains that the flesh is identical with the Word by nature because of the union; and we also avoid the division of Nestorius, who asserts a hypostatic distinction in Christ, and cuts off the hypostatic identity of the flesh with the Word. ^C

That Severus, by saying that nature and hypostasis are the same, creates confusion in the union, and division in the distinction through which it is shown, both by extending the account of the Trinity into a quaternity of persons and by cutting the mystery of the Unity into a duality of divinities; and blasphemously deprives Christ of every essential existence.

Severus, however, who posits that essence and hypostasis—and nature and person—are one and the same, truly and properly, in the divine incarnation, neither knows an unconfused union, even if he pretends to teach it; nor does he set forth an indivisible distinction, although he boasts of this as well. But he creates a union according to the sense of Apollinarius, which is confusion; and a distinction according to the error of Nestorius, which is alienation. For if person and nature are the same, by no reasoning in his opinion will the flesh be the same as the Word, or anything distinct from Him. For by speaking of a distinction in Christ after the union as if it were in natural quality, he himself will also be found along with Nestorius to be dividing the union, since he introduces a hypostatic distinction of the flesh from the Word after ^D the union; because, in his opinion, the distinction as in natural quality cannot be understood otherwise than as it exists in personal quality, if indeed nature and person, or hypostasis, are the same. For it is necessary, when he speaks of it being distinguished as if in natural quality, that he also introduces it as if in hypostatic quality; so that he may show that the hypostasis is the same as the nature.

But if he does not speak of distinction according to hypostasis after the union, as one who fears division, let him not speak of natural distinction either after the union, ^A if he knows how to speak consistently with himself and is eager to observe the rules he has set for himself; since he knows that nature and hypostasis are the same among themselves, both by definition and by reason. But if, as it seems to Severus, the flesh has no difference from the Word according to both—I mean nature and hypostasis—let it be clearly the same, consubstantial and co-hypostatic, with the same (Word), according to the nonsense of Apollinarius. And if the flesh is consubstantial with the Word, it will also be consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit, and the Trinity will appear to have become a quaternity; since things that are consubstantial do not admit of a coming-together with one another according to hypostasis. But if the flesh is co-hypostatic with the Word, it will be ^B toward (the Word), who is of a different essence. For co-hypostatic things have a reason of essence toward one another that is entirely and in every way different. If, moreover, (the flesh) is, according to Severus, co-hypostatic with the Word after the union, then it is of a different essence, and Christ will be found to be severed into two natures after the union; if indeed, according to him, number entirely possesses the power of division. Thus, everything that fights against the truth is self-refuting and easily overthrown.

If, however, by saying that Christ has one composite nature after the union, he thinks to attribute to it a distinction, as if in natural quality: first of all, by the logic that the nature is composite, Christ will be consubstantial with nothing that exists at all; ^C since Christ is one and only one according to essence and nature. For nature, as has been said, would never be consubstantial with nature at all. And if He is consubstantial with none of the things that exist, He will neither be God at all, nor indeed man; or if He is God, he who asserts this will be held by the error of holding many gods, since, while saying that God the Father and the Holy Spirit are of an incomposite nature as being simple, he speaks of God the Christ as of a composite nature as not simple, and will be shown to be proclaiming two godheads: one simple, and one composite.

Furthermore, by speaking of the distinction as if in natural quality, if he says that the natures—of which the qualities are—underlie the different qualities, he will be shown to be indicating two natures himself after the union, ^D becoming an advocate—even if he does not wish it—of those against whom he was fighting. But if he says that the distinction is of bare qualities without the things themselves, let him speak of their union as well. For if the distinction is after the union, the union of these things is also clearly (after the union); and in a few syllables, he (brings in) the atomism of Epicurus and

^A of Manes, introducing a deceptive fantasy, wherein Christ does not truly exist for him in things themselves, but in empty qualities. And so Christ will be God only by quality, and not in reality. For immortality and mortality, which he says have a distinction ^B after the union, are affections of natures, not natures themselves. For where is mortality, if there is nothing that dies? Or immortality, if the nature which death does not touch does not exist? But wickedness is truly an inconsiderate thing, and that which seems to be wise is born to create a huge force of madness. It is more profitable for prudent and discreet men to maintain silence toward such people, than by refuting them, to appear to mock the mystery themselves. And truly Severus, feeling this way about Christ, has died with his own decrees and tenets.

A Brief Exposition of the Faith, and the Right Defense of the True Confession of the Fathers

^A And Christ does not possess any other mode of being and [existing as] Savior, and of being strictly so called, than that [mode consisting in] the natural persistence of those parts after the union from which he was composed. For not only from these [parts], but also in these—and to speak more strictly, these *are* Christ. We number, however, after the union, the things from which Christ is, not in such a way that we divide the natures—heaven forbid!—but only that we may make a declaration of their difference, which is preserved after the union. We confess a conjunction according to a natural union—that is, a true and real one—in accordance with holy Cyril, and we profess that the all-holy Virgin is the Theotokos properly and in truth; not simply and in word only, but as she who truly conceived the God Word himself, begotten ineffably from God and the Father before all ages, and who [ineffably] gave birth to him, having been ^B incarnate from her. And we speak of the miracles and the passions as belonging to the same, that is, to the one Christ who accomplishes things both divine and human: the divine [things] carnally, because through flesh, which is not deprived of natural energy, he brought forth the power of miracles; but the human [things] divinely, because without natural necessity, according to authority, he voluntarily accepted the trial of human passions. [We speak] of his cross, his death, his burial, his resurrection, and his ascension into the heavens, from whence, having descended as the Unoriginate, he did not pass through by changing places—he who by no reasoning can be contained by existing things. For he is free from every circumscription; but he appeared through the flesh as one who is by nature a lover of mankind, having become, according to a true generation from a woman, containable ^C as he willed, for those of our [own nature]. Therefore, we also offer to him, once incarnate, together with the Father and the Spirit, [the same] adoration.

If, therefore, with soul and mouth we call the holy Virgin [strictly/properly] the Theotokos, and confess the union according to hypostasis, and say that the conjunction according to union has come to pass naturally, and profess one Lord and Christ and Son, and one incarnate nature of God the Word, and believe that Christ is one of the holy Trinity, being worshipped and numbered together with the Father and the Spirit, how is it that we are reviled by the fearless, who dare to say everything falsely, as if we were dividing [the natures], solely because of the bare word of number, which—as has often been said—is brought forward by us for the sole purpose of expressing the preserved difference of the natures after ^D the union? If, then, the number of the quantity of things absolutely of necessity causes division, let someone demonstrate this, and we will embrace the calumny as true. But if they only harass and slander those who proclaim the true faith of the mystery, because of the vainglory from which they suffer, they themselves will give an account to God on the day of judgment, says the divine Apostle, for those whom they have dragged into error, they who have finished the course of the present life. 1 But those...

1 Rom. xiv, 12.

who are still alive, I pray that they may obtain the favor of God, who may convert them and lead them to the knowledge of the truth which they now oppose. For so it is profitable to speak, mindful of the command which bids us pray for those who curse and slander us.

I have, therefore, briefly discussed these points for you, servant of God, concerning which you inquired, that you might know for certain and easily understand that I am not disposed in my mind as certain of the followers of Severus spread among the public; as if I had one thing in my mind and uttered another in speech to those with whom it happens that I associate. Do not think this: but as I have learned and think, and believe, and have received from the Fathers, so I speak. And to speak more truly and properly, I put forward my very mind and thought, clothed in words as in a body. If I lie, may I never obtain the future blessedness; but may I suffer the loss of the promised goods as the fruit of my lie. But do you, I beseech you, since I have complied with such a ready and willing mind, repay me with the help of your prayers, so that Christ our God, the true salvation of those who fear Him, may heal the wounds of my soul by the power of the mystery of His life-giving sufferings for us; who alone with the Father and the Holy Spirit has glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

SCHOLIA

1. In the definition, he says, the community of those things which are of the same essence is considered. ^C 2. That the properties which characterize a composite hypostasis, he says, are common to its parts. 3. Accurate definition of hypostasis. 4. Definition, or description, of what properly exists in a person (the enypostaton). 5. Generic definition of difference. 6. Generic definition of identity. 7. Genus is called quantity, of which number is the signifier. 8. He spoke properly, because the respective definitions do not change into one another. For where there is not one definition, there is not one reason; and where there is not one reason, the mode of existence is distinct; and where the mode of existence is distinct, these are not the same in all respects. Therefore, nature and hypostasis (that is, person) are not the same because the mode of existence, and the reason, and the definition of these are not properly one. Therefore, generically, and perhaps in a certain respect, nature may be called hypostasis, but not properly.

XVI. — Of the same to the same.

Afflicted with many wounds of sorrow, on account of the slanders of those who are malevolent, and who in no place keep the fear of the Lord, I turn to you, O vigorous guardian of virtues, ^D

LETTER V

^A To the studious lord Georgius, your holy letter, O holy Father, has brought refreshment; it brought, on the one hand, the glad tidings of your health, which we all desire; and on the other hand, it signaled the stability of your true confession in our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God. Which, having been confirmed by the testing of sufferings, was transformed in you into immutability, when you considered the adversity of the present life as nothing, the prosperity of which you had long ago held in contempt, having shifted your entire desire toward the only things of the soul that are hoped for; which faith and a good conscience are wont to characterize: the former guarding the pious word, defiled in no way by the glamour of a false reputation; the latter producing a God-pleasing life, perfected by the observance of the commandments.

For there is need of both, I say, of word and of life, for one who has busied himself with preferring, above all things, the company of wisdom: so that we may also piously proclaim the mystery of the immutable emptying of the God of all for our sake through the flesh; confessing Christ to be in truth ^B both God and man together—the former being so without cause for His own sake, the latter having become so later for our sake. He did not lay aside what He was, for which He became what He was; for He is immutable. Nor did He deny what He became, for which He was what He was; for He is a lover of mankind. For to Him alone, truly being in the abundance of power, was it possible to become what He was not, without change and without confusion, and for both to remain strictly what He was and what He became, in the absolute singularity of His own hypostatic nature, not admitting division, on account of the distinction of those [natures] from which He was composed, which is preserved by nature in Him after the union: for if, having been united according to hypostasis to a flesh endowed with an intellectual soul, He showed Himself by miracles to be immutably what He was, He appeared also in His sufferings to be preserving without change what He had become; and through both—I mean miracles and sufferings—He bestowed upon us both the removal of sin ^C and the grace of deification.

Let us honor, therefore, by a manner of life brightened by the commandments, the calling of grace, not being shaken in any way by any pleasure or any pain; and let us show by the things we do or suffer that we are encompassed by none other than God, who gave Himself as a ransom and exchange for us, having entrusted our entire life to Him, both the present and the future; as those who, by Him—the Word—came into being at birth, and through Him by the manner of our training exist, and shall end in Him in the mystery of the deification which we hope for, according to grace; and let us, through the present life which seems to be suffering, recover the "ever to be," having demonstrated our disposition hidden toward God, which shifts in no way by any of the afflictions that befall us. ^D For we have believed that whatever life we have, both in this present age and in the future, is from Him; as those who exist from Him, who brought us into the nature of things; and through Him by the manner of discipline and instruction are what we are; and in Him shall attain the mystery of the deification we hope for.

Let us not, therefore, grow weary in tribulations, venerable Father, knowing that tribulation produces patience, and patience probation, and probation hope; and hope does not put to shame, ^A having assurance regarding the eternal enjoyment of those good things for which we suffer. But let us bear what befalls us nobly, looking unto the author of our salvation, Jesus, who, being true God, willingly accepted death for us, that we, being afflicted by torments, might rejoice, having become united with Him through death, leavened toward the resurrection of indestructible life. For the will of the divine law has been established to the effect that we, doing well, should suffer unjustly, as disciples of Christ, unto the condemnation of sin. This it was which the intelligible serpent, having deceived man—by persuasion—to transgress the divine commandment and to prefer the temporal things over the eternal, brought in upon us; for we received the power to trample upon it, provided we keep the grace that keeps us through the observance of the commandments—which observance, specifically, is perfected for those who love the Lord through the affliction of the flesh, both that which is voluntarily assumed ^B and that which is brought upon us by outside force, by the prudent judgment of reason. O you who have fixed all your desire upon Him, you do not feel the afflictions, holy Father, having the joy of those things hoped for to overcome the present tribulation; may we all attain to these, as Christ, our great God and Savior, knows how to distribute them to each of us as he is worthy, through the intercession of His immaculate and most holy Mother, the ever-virgin, and of all the saints. Amen.

XVII. — Of the same, to Julian the Scholastic of Alexandria, concerning the ecclesiastical dogma regarding the Lord’s incarnation.

^C With great joy and spiritual gladness, the honorable letter of my God-guarded master has filled me—humble and sinful as I am—and with me, so to speak, the whole of God’s holy Catholic Church; bringing to us the good news of the steadfast and unchangeable mind, both of himself and of my lord and master with him, the most wise Scholastic Christopemptus, regarding the correct, pious, and saving confession of faith in Christ, our true God: who for this purpose became man, that He might gather human nature to Himself, and cause it to cease being borne ^D erratically toward itself—or rather, being factional, divided, and possessing no stability against itself—because of the unstable movement of the mind regarding each individual thing. Wherefore, all of us who are most honorable, though we are sinners, thanking God for you, cease not to pray and beseech Him that for all time

^A you may hold fast to the saving confession of the faith; believing that the Son and Word of God and the Father, becoming truly man from men, for the sake of men, in the manner of men, without sin, did not change from being God, nor, having become man, has He been diminished as to His being truly man, having remained what He was, and is, and always shall be, God by nature. But, being God by essence and nature, He truly became man through economy for our sake, ineffably, by the assumption, clearly, of a flesh endowed with an intellectual and rational soul. Wherefore, the same one is ^B by nature and truly God, and the same one is by nature and truly man, as existing, in truth, without deficiency, the same one as both this and that; since neither of the natures brought together unto the union according to hypostasis, regarding the mystery of His incarnation, or rather of His perfect becoming-man, has in any way denied itself through the union, but rather keeps its own essential definition and limit—that is, its natural property—in relation to the other, unconfused and immutable after the union. For the union does not destroy the difference of the things brought together into one hypostasis; but it entirely thrusts out the division [that would exist] if they were set apart from each other.

Seeing, therefore, that those things of which Christ consists are preserved in Christ without diminution in their nature even after the union, how is it not right to confess the things of which Christ consists even after the union? ^C This, as some think who do not discern how treacherous and dangerous it is, and possessed of every harm to the soul, to fight against things that are manifest and to deny the truth that is clearly present—[a view] peculiar only to those who do not expect resurrection and judgment at all. For to whom is the doctrine of the truth not conspicuous and manifest, as simple and unsuperfluous, and having nothing puzzling about it at all? For if Christ is, in reality and truth, God and man after the union, and is not called God and man by mere title and name, it is clear that he who says and thinks that Christ is both God and man after the union has truly confessed the natures of which the names are names; unless he thinks that the appellations lie empty upon Christ, and are altogether destitute of realities. ^D What, then, has the holy, catholic Church of God done that is absurd, if she says that the things of which Christ consists are preserved in Christ according to an inseparable union, by nature, unconfusedly and indivisibly even after the union? And what has she thought that is alien to the teaching of the holy Fathers, if she judges that neither has the divine nature of the Word been turned into the nature of the flesh, nor has the nature of the flesh itself migrated into the nature of the Word due to the union, and if she teaches the faithful to think and say so after the union? Why, moreover, does she not rather confirm the tradition of the Fathers, by teaching us to think in this way, and by confessing one Lord, and one Christ, and the same one Son, and one of the same God who became incarnate

^A with flesh possessing a rational and intellectual soul, according to the interpretation of our holy and blessed Father Cyril, taking hold of the sound; for by saying "incarnate," he means that the nature of our substance is brought in, and he does not deny the nature of the flesh of the Word because of the union. For the things that are preserved according to nature, unconfusedly and immutably and indivisibly in an inseparable union in Christ, even after the union, without any diminution whatsoever, it is entirely most becoming and most just to confess them also after the union. For it is the property of true faith to confess what we have learned to think. If, therefore, the things of which Christ consists are preserved according to nature after the union, it is entirely just that they should also be considered to be in Christ after the union. But if it is just that the things of which Christ consists be considered preserved after the union, then to confess them would be far more just and most becoming, and a matter of the greatest concern for all who care for their salvation; since the demonstration of a true faith consists in the confession concerning it being complete. And so much for these matters. For there is no need to say more, as I am addressing you, men, indeed, of such a character, whom, with grace as a guide, nothing escapes of those things that pertain to the right faith in Christ.

Regarding those things, however, about which you have written to me, most honorable of all, I referred them to the blessed servant of God, the most praiseworthy prefect, ^C giving him also your venerable letters; and he promised readily that he would fulfill all your commands. And I do not cease to remind him, until by all means he brings to completion your command. May the Lord and God of all and Savior Jesus Christ, who for our sake willingly accepted death, and by his own blood redeemed us from the power of darkness, and gave us the new commandment, that we should love one another as much as we have been loved, himself take your right hand and lead you into every good work, and direct your holy steps; bearing you in the fullness of the fruits of justice into the wonderful place of his tabernacle, where there is the habitation of all who rejoice. ^D

XVIII. — By the same, in the person of George, the most praiseworthy prefect of Africa, to the nuns who had departed from the catholic faith in Alexandria.

I, indeed, truly thought that you were well established, and that you held the movements of your soul immovable from the right and irreproachable and inoffensive confession of the faith of Christ, and likewise from hope, reverencing the grace of God which had called you, and which had joined you to the living and whole and blameless body of the holy catholic and apostolic Church; and already...

^A having healed those flowing with the wasting disease of error and ignorance, and having made them useful members of the common body of the Church; in which the pious, and orthodox, and true, and saving doctrine of the apostolic faith is vigorously preached, gathering the whole world within its bosom; and always, as is desired, adding to the assembly of those it has already embraced, and showing that the soul and tongue of all, from the ends of the earth even to its ends, are one in spirit, in the concord of faith and agreement; which [faith], in a manner ineffable, the Word of God, the Creator of men, having truly assumed from men, for the sake of men, and as man, a soul having reason and intellect, and having become man—without changing His divinity, and clearly without sin—has taught us men to confess and to embrace, denying neither of His natures at all after the union, that is, after the Incarnation: neither the divine, in which He always is and remains God both for His own sake and as consubstantial with the Father; nor the human, in which the same One truly became man for our sake, as the Lover of mankind, and is consubstantial with us. For He was not changed from that which He was and is, and always will be by nature, God; nor, indeed, did He change the nature of that which He became—man—by an indivisible union of animated flesh, being one and the same God and man; being God and man not only by appellation and in word, but ^B truly by deed and in truth, and being, and being called, God and man properly. That which is from the union is one and singular according to hypostasis, but not according to nature, as the Fathers teach, saying: "For even if the composite is one, it is not one in nature, but in the conjunction; according to which, having condescended for our sake, as good, to become composite, He remains in that which is simple by nature, in which He is of the same kind and consubstantial with the Father, keeping it inviolate even after the Incarnation." For divinity and humanity are not the same. For even if the Word of God became man, through the assumption of flesh intellectually animated, united to Him indivisibly according to hypostasis, He became man; and He is in the same way, properly, both God and man, being and remaining both the one and the other, without lacking [anything]; not being confused ^C at the level of the supremely singular hypostasis, in which the concept of difference is entirely absent; nor being divided by the purity of the otherness of the natures of which He consists, in which the concept of difference is not at all abolished by the union.

Therefore, since the difference of the natures of which Christ consists is preserved unconfused even after the union, there is not, I think, any manner [of argument] that can demonstrate it is unjust to acknowledge the quantity of those things that are naturally different and yet preserved in Christ according to the indivisible union, ^D

[...in] ^A exist, and are indivisibly united in Christ and remain intact: for, of course, every distinction brings with it by all means a quantity of certain things, by which at least they are distinguished from one another. For without quantity, no one, even if he be most shrewd and ingenious, can claim there is a distinction, provided he is of sound mind and has at least a small regard for the truth; for he clearly knows that any distinction is either a difference in the essence of certain things, or a dissimilarity in quality and property, which the quantity of the underlying things—whether they are united or lack union—absolutely causes. For in cases where one and the same definition is not understood in every way, there is present an impression of quantity, of which distinction is the proper attribute and companion. If, therefore, in Christ, according to reason, as the Fathers teach, we speak of the unity of the person as being a concomitant of the union, it is altogether conformable and consonant with reason to say that quantity clings to the distinction of the natures from which Christ is, and which, even after the union, remain in Him unconfusedly and indivisibly; it is manifest that just as he who does not call Christ one incarnate nature of God the Word, by reason of the hypostatic union—rightly understood according to the interpretation of our most holy Father and teacher Cyril—does not believe that the union has taken place; so too he who refuses to confess two natures in Christ after the union cannot claim that the distinction is preserved. For the distinction resides in the natural difference of those things from which Christ is, after the union, and not in the dissimilarity of quality alone, without the natures which are subject to those qualities; for without these, it is impossible for quality to exist by itself and truly; lest ^C we introduce a bare, or rather, to speak more accurately, a false and non-existent, distinction.

Letter XIX

Being persuaded that you hold this confession of faith precisely according to the mind and opinion of the Fathers, I did not hesitate to write everywhere to all—to patriarchs, bishops, and magistrates, and even to our most pious and serene emperors themselves—giving thanks to God, and making known to all your genuine conversion and faith in Christ. Nor, indeed, did I ever think, as I said, that you would be so quickly carried away from your salutary calling. But since, because of my sins, the wicked one, who from the beginning of the world has been dragging the human race into ruin and destruction by the error of deceit, has also been able to persuade you to prefer the lie to the truth, and, for the sake of evil custom, to indulge more in seducers—who are taught nothing but to lure to death—than in God and the goods that are laid up for the saints, and, to use the words of the prophet, to return like dogs to your own vomit, I again and again command and warn you, if you are indeed so incurably...

^A possessed by that mindset, and it is firmly resolved by you, to despise the grace of Christ unto the end, that you deliver up to Theopemptos the servant—whom I have sent for this purpose (and for no other reason) with a written mandate, so that no ambiguity may arise for you regarding this matter—the gifts hitherto granted by me to you. And again, if it should seem good to our most pious, Christ-loving, and serene masters, and to the most holy patriarchs, that all matters concerning you should be learned through me, by the favor of God, from their serenity, regarding your apostasy and your great wickedness and ingratitude, I would judge it right for this to be done. For I will not be silent about such a great evil. But if you would call to mind the fearful judgment seat of Christ, before which, in the presence of angels and archangels and the whole host of the heavenly armies and all human nature, the trial concerning this matter will be conducted by me ^B against you, repent, and return again to God, who calls you back in his grace. And I wish for you to keep the possession 1 already gifted by me to you; and I will not cease, as long as I am managing to live this present and transitory life, from devising ways for your greater establishment. And I would not refuse to give myself as a ransom for your souls, if the time calls for this to be done out of necessity. And I will give it willingly, for God, through his grace, calls me to do so, if only you yourselves will again restore yourselves to Christ the God, and well heal the cutting and division that has come to you from his body through your returning.

XIX. — Of the same, to Pyrrhus, the most holy presbyter and hegumen.

When I had read your holy letter, most God-honored Father, I recognized your mind, which is wholly steeped in the Spirit, and I perceived that it had surpassed ^C natural intelligence as much as it had grasped wisdom that is divine and above nature. For through your letters, I seemed almost to see you present, your God-wise soul instructed by divine wisdom, shining only with the undefiled rays of the Spirit, by which it is natural for one to be transformed toward the more divine—he who to the Father of all...

^A is deemed worthy of adoption. And I recognized myself to be so much delivered from ignorance of the divine decrees, as much as I previously seemed supported by the knowledge of them. Wherefore, marveling at your diligence in all things, I uttered and cried out only that voice which once a certain woman also raised toward the Lord, when she was amazed at the power of His words, saying: *Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.* But I do not deem only your mother, venerable Father, blessed for having merited to become the mother of such an offspring; but I also [call blessed] your mind, which is ever conceiving, bringing forth, and laboring with pious speech; so that, through the grace of the Word who is above nature, it exists as a womb capable of the Spirit and of the will’s intimacy with the Word and reason. ^B And indeed, according to those fixed habits which are given forth from your heart, by which, like breasts, you nourish the Word through both practice and contemplation, it grows together with the provision of pious thoughts, conceptions, and modes; and—a thing unheard of!—it makes its own increase to be the deification of the mind that nourishes it. For what else could I say to you, venerable Father, when I beheld you made the parent of such Words, supported by which, as if from a certain mountain, you have proclaimed the judgment brought and set forth by the sublime knowledge of divine decrees—like tablets inscribed by the finger of God—by the new Mediator and great Moses among us and priest of priests, and by the president of the divine priesthood throughout the whole world? ^C This judgment the holy and only-adorable Trinity dictated through the aforementioned prelate as an instrument, and it bound the Churches together in a greater bond of concord, having scorned that which was generally thought to be a theological innovation made at Alexandria.

For this given judgment preserved in its entirety the understanding according to which our divine Fathers handed down the faith to be held by the holy Churches—namely, that they declared one and the same God the Word to be [the same] both before the flesh and with the flesh: which [nature or humanity] He, as one who is of an intelligent soul according to [His] hypostasis for our sake, assumed and united from the holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary; ^D indeed, having willed to be Himself the seed of His own incarnation, that He might also truly become man; and that He might show, through the seedless conception and the corruptionless birth, the nature renewed and suffering no diminution from the innovation. For the mystery was a voluntary emptying on account of the supreme goodness of God toward men, and not a loss of divinity through His willing descent and inclination into flesh. For He remained what He was, even having become what He was not; for He is immutable, and He preserved what He had become, remaining what He was, which assuredly...

^A demonstrated that He was most prone to humanity: by those things in which He suffered in a human way, showing that what He had become remained intact; and by those things in which He suffered in a human way, showing that what He was remained exempt from all change. For He operated, things divine in a carnal manner (the flesh, to wit, being the medium, which was not devoid of its natural operation), but things human in a divine manner, by divine power; for He, of His own will and by His own discretion and command, and not by any human necessity, took upon Himself the risk of human sufferings and labors. For neither were the divine things done in a divine manner, because He was not a naked God; nor the human things in a carnal manner, because He was not a mere man. Therefore, the miracles were not without suffering, and the sufferings were not without miracle; but the former, to speak boldly, were not impassible, and the latter were openly miraculous; and both are paradoxical, because they are both divine and human, as proceeding from one and the same incarnate Word of God, through both of which He authentically verified the truth of those things from which and as which He existed. For that which is formed out of certain things in an unconfused union, according to a natural ^B arrangement, preserves the natures from which it consists untransformed, and keeps their constituent powers unimpaired for the completion of one work; whether the thing happening was a passion or a miracle, it was in accordance with the image of your wonderful example, Father, which is so appropriate to the mystery of the divine Incarnation—that is, the example of the burning sword, whose cutting we know to be cauterizing, and whose burning we know to be cutting. For there has come to be a union of fire and iron in one subsistence, with neither power departing from its natural state because of the union with the other; nor, indeed, possessing this power as something detached after the union, and separated from that which is conjoined and co-subsistent.

^C I found, indeed, the precision of divine dogmas wisely woven into your letters, Father, and having applied my mind to it, according to the meager and slight faculty of understanding that I possess, I desired to be capable of keeping it and retaining it in my mind, so that it might not be lost to some oblivion. But do you, Father most dear to God, have compassion on me, your servant, and grant the pardon that befits you, as you are kind and merciful, to one who is unable to attempt the things commanded. And do not condemn me for disobedience, but rather praise and approve me, for I myself am striving to recognize my own ignorance. For rashness is a hateful thing, the firstborn of supreme folly, by which the disease of pride easily reveals itself and shines forth, the author of an ungodly and God-opposing state of mind in those who are seized by it; and therefore do I ^D excuse myself and shrink back here—do not take this as any vice or pretense, but consider it in a fair and good light; nor may you repel one who speaks to you with the same words with which Moses first, and then Jeremiah, addressed God on almost the same occasion. And the former indeed:

“I am not qualified, neither yesterday nor the day before, nor since You began to speak to me; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” And the other: “O Lord, Master, I cannot speak, for I am a child.” In truth, I am indeed slow of speech and slow of tongue, and deprived of the understanding necessary to speak of those things which are noble, having neither a mind capable of divine things, nor a power of speech sufficient to rise to the magnitude of the questions raised. For I am still young in passions, and I possess the rebellion of the flesh ^A which prevails over the law of the spirit. Even if we should grant by hypothesis that there is no lack of ability in these matters, who is so rash and bold as to presume to legislate beyond what has been determined in this way by the divine vote of the priests? I ask and implore you rather by your venerable letters to explain clearly to me by a definition what is the *energeia* (let us call it "operation"), and in how many ways it is spoken of, and what, besides it, is the word, and what distinction we should make between these—both from the *ergon* (work) and the *praxis* (action)—so that I may be able to discern the force of what is written. For I have not yet been able to understand with sufficient accuracy which, and in what way, what is called or understood as the "one operation" ^B ought to be accepted. For we do not utter meaningless sounds, but we signify the sensations and concepts of the mind by these sounds. For this reason, I have found that the God-bearing Fathers often yielded on the words, but never on the concepts; because the mystery of our salvation does not lie in syllables, but in concepts and realities. The former they did to provide for peace; the latter, to ground souls in the truth. And so much for these things.

I ask you, venerable Father, your Holiness, that you may graciously receive the divine Fathers who bring these humble letters, and treat them with kindness; men who, to consult for the common utility of the monastic order, have undergone the danger of this voyage; and that you may wish to deal with them, and to bestow upon them all those services which the accurate account of the divine commandment would merit for those who are held by the desire for divine things, and who have ^C the incarnate Word as the sole and most singular pattern of their own life. For they are worthy of...

NOTE

^A of your zeal for this, that they draw the divine yoke of virtue and of knowledge without reproach. But I fear, in writing these things, lest I bring upon myself the reproach of untimely boldness and boorishness in the eyes of those who do not know you, Father, and have not had a trial of your condescension; and lest it be said of me with justice what one of the worldly wise said, seeing one of the unlearned puffed up over some matter: "The wise man, smiling gently, vomited forth foolishness against the wrong." In all things, therefore, holy Father, grant pardon to me, your servant, and by your most holy prayers render propitious to me Christ the God, whom you serve continuously both with purity of mind and with the precision of your life.

XX. The same to Marinus

I, being conscious of the multitude of my own transgressions, and of the condemnation that in all likelihood awaits me after the departure from this life; and beholding in my mind that great and fearful judgment already gathered, at which each of us will receive the rewards for what we have done; had decided to take silence as my companion, avoiding altogether the touching of divine discourses, which, as it seems to me, are far beyond my capacity, lest perhaps I make myself liable to a greater punishment and with greater justice, as one who brings forth the words of God, yet, through the lack of good works on my part, renders them dead, ^B and because of this is unable to provide to those who hear the life that is in grace; and as one who, through my own way of life, is incapable of showing forth the ways of the virtues to the speaker; and becomes liable to the future threat, as I have not only suffocated within myself, by means of my evil ways, the life-giving words of God, but have also provided to those who hear a living image of contempt for them, and have set forth to all the entirely evil conduct of my life as manifest. I, therefore, as I said, being both conscious of these things and fearing them, had cast away the eagerness to speak or write the divine words, for which I have not the practice, judging it to be the greatest injustice and a ruinous harm to receive praise in vain from those who hear, ^C when I do not fulfill it in deed. But since the one who has surpassed me in the decision of silence by the many incantations of his divine reasoning—a man great in prudence and in all things honorable to me, the most holy superior, whom I could not repel because of the beauty of the virtues shining in him according to divine wisdom—has overcome me and forced me to draft this modest letter to your God-fearing self, recounting some parts of your godly achievements and being of the greatest benefit, I have thought it necessary to speak of those things in epitome, as much as is useful and salvific for you, for me, and for all who wish to hear. ^D

^A David, that great prophet and king, for those who set God before them and who prefer divine salvation over all things on earth, pointing out the truly gnostic way of the divine virtues and opening up the practical door of knowledge, says: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and good understanding is for all who practice it." If the fear of the Lord is established as the beginning of wisdom, then the end of wisdom is, clearly, that good understanding which belongs to those who practice it. If these things are thus, let us strive with all our might to acquire the fear of God and that good understanding: the fear, so that we may flee the defilements of sin, shaking them off from the soul through the expectation of eternal punishments; and the understanding, so that we may be proven to be performers of all divine will, and knowledgeable of it. For he who fears the penalties laid out for those who transgress the divine commandments is not captured by passions that defile his soul; and he who has good understanding settled within himself, distinguishing in the proper manner the temporal from the eternal, becomes ready for all divine goods, in no way allowing the knowledge within him to be shown as slothful. For just as fear, in those who truly fear God, becomes the destroyer of unclean passions, so also understanding becomes for those who are truly prudent the manufacturer of all the virtues. Therefore, let us fear God and refrain from doing anything that He wills not; and let us choose His understanding and neglect to do nothing that He wills and is acceptable to Him. For he who fears God hates all iniquity, and he who has welcomed good understanding into the hospitality of his heart loves all justice. For just as the hatred of iniquity makes manifest the one who fears, so also the love of justice makes the prudent person ^B evident.

Let us not, then, pretend to have fear merely by having downcast expressions, nor let us show piety only through outward, visible habits; rather, let us demonstrate it through a disposition of soul and the humility of a heart fortified by constant, deep sighs; and by the conscience, secretly smitten as with a scourge by the memory of formerly committed sins; and because of this, by a restraint upon oneself, not bearing even to look at the lapses and errors of others. For he who merely feigns the fear of God through his outward looks, gestures, and demeanor, differs in no way at all from the ape, which imitates the gestures and movements of humans. For this animal, though among the quadrupeds, and by nature far removed from the human disposition, by its imitative composition of gestures and movements, forces those who see it to imagine it is a human, though it possesses nothing by nature that is truly human; just as he, too, who imitates the outward movements and composition of those who truly fear the Lord so as to deceive those who see him with a mask, while not having the disposition of mind ^D equal to them.

And again, let us not display divine knowledge only by the utterance of words polished for their beauty; nor let us define a good understanding as consisting merely in the ability to speak without acting. Rather [let us define it as having] a soul whose disposition has been imbued with the virtues through action, and through this action brightening the radiance of knowledge, and through knowledge [brightening] the tone of action, so that through the longing for God that comes with good understanding, the fear that comes through deeds might work in us perfect divine wisdom; [a wisdom] which begins with abstinence from evils through fear of God, and is perfected in the practice of the commandments according to good understanding. For he who determines that understanding lies only in the mere utterance of divine words is like a parrot ^B imitating human speech. For this, alone among birds, learns and mimics human words, while possessing nothing at all that is human by nature. So too, he who reaches only the level of mere utterance, mimicking the words of those who are truly understanding to strike the listeners with awe, while lacking the state of knowledge imbued by the practice of the virtues, [like] some other Pharisee in truth, or a blameworthy priest who both is such and is so called, mimics understanding by the mere utterance of words, while entirely lacking the wisdom that truly has its being in deeds. And for this reason, he puffs himself up greatly, and with the arrogance of an opinion ^C that fosters pride in his mind, he stands against the word of truth; not knowing, as it seems, that knowledge without practice is clearly a theology of demons for those who grow puffed up over it out of vainglory; [a theology] which has Jesus openly rebuking [those who use it], for [it is] the so-called "theology," even if he who is seized by such a passion does not perceive it.

Therefore, let us, out of fear, fear God, and let us free ourselves from every filth of the flesh and spirit, not allowing the law of the flesh, through the lauded mortification ^D of the members, to rebel against the law of the spirit; nor let us limit the magnificence of divine fear to customs that appear only in behavior, but let us make the moderation of our conduct a herald of the good disposition and affection within the soul, so that we may flee the threatened fire; and let us adorn our good understanding with the practice of the commandments, so that we may not carry around dead words, like the vainglorious, and as those deprived of the life that is [found] in the practice of the commandments, but rather [let us make] the divine words practical.

action, following after peace with all men and love, being concerned for kindness and gentleness and long-suffering and forbearance in all things toward all men; bearing with patience and thanksgiving the evils that befall us, and receiving trials with unshaken and firm constancy no less than divine gifts; ^A raising no objection against the reasons of providence, by which it conveniently and profitably administers our life, so that we may obtain eternal life with all the saints, enjoying the large delights of future goods in the pastures of eternal beatitude, where we may hear that blessed voice of God directed toward us: "Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" [Matt. xxv, 34]; and let us rejoice as we enjoy those arcane goods, "which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it risen into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love him" [1 Cor. ii, 9].

XXI. — From the same, to the most holy Bishop of Cydonia.

^B My god-guarded master, understanding through pious investigation of the mystery of His dispensation toward us that God is equal to Himself in both height and depth, and marveling how the limit and the unlimited, things opposite and unmixed, having been joined together in Him, contained their manifestation through one another—the infinity being ineffably bounded by the limit, and the limit being ineffably extended by the infinity—and that He, around whom these things [are], is identical to Himself in both respects, having in no way whatever fallen short of Himself in regard to the infinite, as if by nature it were ^C indeterminate, but by dispensation was both incomprehensible and knowable; having the height of divine glory unthinkable, and the depth of the economic condescension unsearchable—he wisely submitted himself to God, like wax to a seal, in a manner easy to receive; and, having received Him entirely impressed into his depth, he made himself a clear and illustrious image of divine beatitude. For he wisely tempered himself to divine modes: by the humility of his nature, ^D he tempered the stature of his dignity through virtue; and conversely, by the height of his dignity, he raised up the humility of his [human] nature through knowledge; and he made each to be seen in the other in a paradoxical way. For in both regards he remained identical to himself, having in neither respect yielded any of his dignity, and he showed very clearly, by those things through which he acquired an unfeigned imitation of God, that God, having appointed the priesthood upon the earth in His own stead, set it forth; in order that, being also seen bodily, he might not cease to let His mysteries appear to those able to see.

^A

Therefore, my master, moving in a manner godlike in both word and conduct, has fashioned for me a great salvation. For just as the Lord besought men to be reconciled to God and the Father—as if they had been the ones injured rather than the ones who had done injury and were guilty of the offense—as the divine Paul testifies, saying, "We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God"—in order that, by the magnitude of such a benefit, He might put them to shame and bring them to a realization of their own blindness, so also my master, by a voluntary condescension, has skillfully captured me (while appearing to wish to learn from me through a letter that which by his office and the very nature of his duty he was appointed to teach), and has ensured that I might belatedly recognize my own ignorance. I therefore offer thanks to my master, and I boast of the way by which he has gently dispersed the cloud of my conceit; and I ask him that, by such words and ways, he may never cease to form his servant. ^B

XXII. — The same to Auxentius.

If, because you place your trust in the Spirit—and possess that love which binds you together indissolubly and surrounds you, standing in need of nothing as though it required fomentation to be renewed—you have decided that the duty of writing to your friends is to be neglected, I commend the principle and approve the practice of those who believe that the treasure of love is that from which and in which it is natural for all things both to begin and to rest. But if, disregarding the duty of friendship, you shirk writing out of sloth, I will not cease doing the opposite; for I do not know how to hold friends in reverence because of some great worldly preoccupation. If, however, neither of these is the case, but you think that the duty of writing to you must be fulfilled, then receive it from those who are absent, and give it readily to those who are absent, that—in accordance with the very nature of the thing (or rather, as it has been granted to nature by God, who imparts wisdom for the sake of consolation)—we may meet and become accustomed to one another through letters. For discourse formed in letters pricks a slumbering memory and shakes off its sleep, so that we may see and represent the very faces of our friends; whence love, like an extinguished fire, is rekindled from a small spark. ^C

XXIII. — The same to Stephanus, presbyter.

It is the peculiar office of spiritual love not only to bestow benefits upon the present who are in need, but also to bring consolation to the absent, and not to permit the soul to be divided along with the bodies; nor that the power of speech, ^D through which the soul bears the image of the Creator, should be confined

^A to a place. But nature, by the grace of God, has wisely devised this manner for the beloved: to converse face to face through the voice when present, or to communicate through letters when absent, for the inseparable union of those who are physically separated by a distance of place. For thus the word, resounding more frequently in the mind through both voice and letters, implants an indelible memory in the soul, so that one may always see those who are eternally present in the spirit through love, and embrace them, and banish all painful things. Do not therefore forget me, your servant and disciple, venerable Fathers; but as you are yourselves both disciples and teachers of love, nourish my soul, which is starving, with the word of virtues, and illuminate my mind, oppressed by the darkness of ignorance, while looking toward the reward laid up for this for you in heaven, even if this task should happen for a moment to draw you away from a more excellent and worthy occupation. For I know that it is not equal in merit to converse directly with God, and to provide with compassion for those who are inferior. Yet this is not alien to those things ^B which are just and legitimate before God and approved by Him.

XXIV. — Of the same to Constantine the sacellarius.

The venerable letter of my master, who is most dear to God and preserved by His providence, has arrived with peace, and it displayed in its manner the one who is entirely radiant in character. For by the gravity of the words, together with the gentleness and mildness of the customs, the very affection of the soul is accustomed to show and reveal itself. I rejoiced, therefore, as if I had received my master himself when he was present, and I embraced him in spirit, and I took him into the whole bosom of my heart and cherished him; and I praised Christ our God, who has wisely implanted in the souls of men the law of love, by which those who know how to duly care for the seeds of ^C love can never be absent from one another, even if they are physically separated by a great distance of place. But since the letter, bringing the good tidings of worldly peace, changed the sorrow of my soul into joy, it is necessary that we should be entirely grateful to God, the giver of it, so that we may not appear ungrateful regarding this benefit, poorly repaying the Benefactor. And we shall be entirely grateful if we use the peace for its proper purpose, ^D and not as, having received the gift, we show ourselves ungrateful.

^A If, observing the duty of our office, we have enjoyed peace, and if we have renounced that friendship with the world and the ruler of this world which had taken root in us to our detriment, and if at long last we have dissolved the war that had been stirred up against God, with its hostile ranks of passions and disturbances, and have established an indissoluble covenant of peace with Him in the destruction of the body, we have thereby brought our enmity toward Him to an end. For it is impossible for us to be reconciled to God while we are still in revolt against Him through the passions, and while we endure being tax-payers through wickedness to the wicked tyrant and murderer of souls, the devil, without first having become completely hostile to the evil one. For as long as we choose to be enslaved to shameful passions, we remain enemies and foes of God, even if we clothe ourselves with the name of the faithful. Nor will any profit henceforth accrue to us from the peace of the world, while the soul is poorly disposed and rebellious against its own Creator, and refuses to come under His kingship, still being sold to ten thousand cruel masters who incite it to vice and, by fraud, persuade it to choose the path leading to destruction rather than that by which salvation is prepared. ^B But when we have sobered up from the drunkenness of the passions and have risen up against the wicked and tyrannical kingdom of the devil, and have shaken off his most bitter yoke, and have seen how much his friendship has corrupted us, then we shall welcome the peaceful advent of the peaceful and gentle King, Christ, as it takes place invisibly within us. We shall submit to His yoke, who directs and conforms us with the laws of truth, and we shall willingly embrace the friendship established with Him, voluntarily offering to Him the tributes and taxes—that is, the fruits of justice brought to perfection in us through the virtues according to His commandment. ^C Taking pleasure in these for the sake of our salvation, He who alone is in need of nothing, as the truth-telling One, will grant us all things whatsoever He has promised. And these things are: "What eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, all that God hath prepared for them that love Him" (1 Cor. II, 9). For He has created us for this very end, that we might become partakers of the divine nature and sharers in His eternity, and that we might appear like unto Him through that deification which is granted by grace, through which all the constitution and duration of beings exists, as well as the production and origin of those not yet in existence. ^D Let us therefore become worthy of peace, my blessed master, by manfully and courageously amputating from ourselves the passions and disturbances that are in revolt against God within us. Let us macerate the body as much as we are able, for when it is pampered, it is the natural avenue for the devil’s access to the soul.

Let us bring our wandering mind to a halt with divine readings, and guide it back again to God. With the rigors of self-restraint and vigils, let us temperately curb our desire, which tends to run wildly toward many things. With prayers, supplications, and alms, let us wisely calm our boiling and troubled anger. By the fear of God and the dread of what is to come, let us stop our senses, which are moved and act in a profligate manner. Above all, and before all things, ^A let us remember death and the fearful departure of the soul from the body; and how the principalities, powers, and forces of darkness will be waiting to meet it in this air, each one dragging it and tearing it apart in proportion to the evil familiarity each soul contracted with them through the medium of the passions. Let us remember the bitter pain of the soul produced in Hades by the conscience, at the remembrance of the evil deeds it committed through the body. Let us remember the final consummation of the whole world, by which this whole great and immense universe will be burned up by the power of fire; as the elements are fearfully shaken and melt away in the conflagration, and the heaven, trembling, rolls up and flees in haste from the face of the fire that purifies creation for the coming of the Pure One; as the sea vanishes, the earth boils up from its deepest foundations, and gives back the infinite ^B myriads of human bodies, lacking nothing for their full and just mass. Let us remember that trembling hour, when we shall stand before the terrible and fearful judgment seat of Christ, when all the powers of the heavens and all people from the foundation of the world shall see the things pertaining to each, even down to a mere thought; when, on the one hand, the ineffable light shall receive some because of the splendor of their works, and the illumination of the holy and blessed Trinity shall shine more clearly upon those who are able, through the purity of their soul, to see and receive it; while, on the other hand, the outer darkness, the inseparable worm, and the unquenchable fire of Gehenna shall receive those who, because of the perversity of their works, are unworthy; and—most grievous of all—the shame and confusion of conscience, which shall have no end. ^C Let us remember all these things, so that we may be made worthy of the former, and not be condemned to experience the latter. Let us become our own and God’s, or rather, let us become wholly God’s, and ourselves entirely so; bearing nothing earthly in ourselves, that we may draw near to God and become gods, having received from God the state of being gods. For this is how the divine gifts are honored, and how the coming of divine peace is welcomed. But enough of these things. May the God of peace, who reconciled us to Himself through the cross, and redeemed us by His own blood from the power of darkness, Himself grant His peace, which surpasses all understanding, to my blessed master, and deem him worthy of His heavenly [kingdom]...

where the dwelling of all who rejoice is, and the choir of those who celebrate. ^A

XXV. — To the Same, to Conon, Presbyter and Abbot.

I believe, as I have received and have been taught, that ^B God is love, and that just as He Himself is one, and never ceases to be one, so too He makes those who live according to His love to be one, and bestows upon them one heart and one soul, even if they happen to be many; so that, having as it were one soul, they may know one another's hearts, and not labor in ignorance while searching for things that are unseen, with each person conjecturing the disposition of his neighbor within himself. For this reason, believing by the grace of Christ that moves and works within you, holy Father, that you are ignorant of nothing that is within my heart—just as perhaps, if it be not too bold to say, I am not ignorant of what is in yours—I make bold to beg off from my arrival to you for the time being, knowing that you believe that my refusal is not one of disobedience, but ^C that I am hindered from the journey by the force of bodily infirmity, which does not allow the readiness of my soul to proceed to action. But even being absent in body, as I am always present in spirit, and never divided from you in soul, I embrace and kiss you as my father in God and protector, and the overseer of my salvation, and your holy flock, which is worthy of Christ's kingdom; and I ask and beseech you to make prayers for me to the Lord, that I may bring forth to Him a faith that is living and active, not deadened by passions and wasted away, but having the power of His cross and death, and burial and resurrection: the cross, through the cessation from sin; the death, through the most complete casting off of wickedness; the burial, through the renunciation of the soul's attachment to sensible images; and the resurrection, through the wealth of virtues, and the abundance ^D of the true knowledge of Him, and the rising of the mind on high, away from those things which perish, so that I may become a partaker of His body and spirit. And, to say it simply, according to His promise, to be in all things like Him, without the identity of nature with Him; so that I do not kill the life given to me by Him through the things mentioned, by works of shame, and justly receive the judgment of those who killed their own life, our Lord Jesus Christ. For it is truly dreadful, and beyond all condemnation, for one to kill of his own will the life given to us by God as a gift through the Holy Spirit, by loving those things that are corruptible. And those who have trained themselves to prefer the truth to self-love know, in any case, this fear.

XXVI. By the same, to Thalasius the presbyter, who asked how it comes about that some of the kings of the Gentiles, in order to avert the wrath of God falling upon their subjects, offered their own children and offspring as sacrifices, and the wrath ceased, as has been recounted by many of the ancients.

God allowed even the Greeks to be instructed, so that through certain means they might invent ways to have foreknowledge of future things for themselves and to avert things that cause distress; and He frequently granted that events would turn out according to their hopes, preparing the way by His providence for everyone, as each was able to receive it, for the reception of the great future mystery. For if the affection of rulers toward their subjects, when it proceeds into action, snatches the subjects away entirely from the necessity that hangs over them, it is neither strange nor incredible if He who is by nature kind and most merciful, and who is the sole Creator and King of men, gave up His own Son to death for the sake of all men by an economy in the flesh, that He might deliver them from the evils by which the human race was held captive. ^A Indeed, when both kings of Israel and Judah had marched against the Moabites in the time of the holy prophet Elisha, and had achieved a great victory and were about to sack their entire royal city, the king of that land took his own son, as was the custom, it seems, among the Gentiles, ^B and sacrificed him before the eyes of the kings upon the wall; and in this way he appeased the kings, and persuaded them to turn away from the battle that had been prepared against him.

^A God therefore, by allowing the Greeks to act on the principles of their own laws, was wisely drawing them toward the reception of the great mystery; while to the Israelite people He gave a Law, which in every way foreshadowed the mystery that was to be. When, therefore, He appeared, and the mystery of our salvation was realized in fact, He abolished both these and those—things from both Gentiles and Jews—that He had given before this time, or had allowed to exist for the sake of prefiguring what was to come. For from Him, and through Him, and in Him are all things, whatever have occurred or will occur in every time and manner: some things according to His good pleasure, others according to His dispensation, and others according to His permission. It is not, then, a myth that is recorded by the ancients; but it has truly happened, and the remedy for which it was brought about followed in its wake. But as to the details of what is written, we shall hold a more subtle discussion when, God willing, it happens that I am with you. Yet he who knows how even the flesh of a viper, when prepared with2 art, can contribute to the healing of diseases, will not begrudge receiving by faith this method and rationale of divine providence. ^B

XXVII. — Of the same, to John the cubicularius.

Those who are joined to one another in friendship according to the way of the world require each other’s bodily presence to preserve it, because of the forgetfulness that naturally withers every desire that is based only on bodies; along with which ^C the memory of those who are so disposed toward one another is accustomed to be extinguished. It also happens at times that this very thing, which seemed to be of great value for fostering that worldly friendship between some people, is severed by an intervening weariness, which abolishes all the affection of the soul that previously prevailed. Often, too, if even the slightest thing is missing from those things out of which such friendship is easily formed, or some small occasion or pretext arises, it quickly turns that supposed friendship into hatred.

But those who are indissolubly bound to one another by the bond of divine love, whether they are together or whether they are absent from one another, tighten its bond all the more; for they possess it within themselves for the sake of God, who is Himself love, and who provides the power to love to those who are worthy; and this, as I believe, is most just. For it is natural for the disposition of those who are disposed toward one another according to the ^D nature of transient things to flow away with them; whereas toward those who are firm and always remain the same, it is the custom for the affection of those who are joined at these levels to remain altogether unshaken and unmoved; and to increase for them that desire for one another toward the infinite, in proportion as God, the author of this very affection, draws to Himself those who are joined to one another in the Spirit.

In this way, therefore, as I love you, my most beloved and dearest one, I have you always inseparably with me in my soul, imprinted and pressed deeply into my spirit, so that however long the intervals of time may be, and however vast the intervening distance of places, I never cease to see you with my mind and to embrace you in spirit. Since I am persuaded that I am loved by you in equal measure, if not more, I do not hesitate to write about whatever is necessary, knowing that by the Spirit, the soul of both of us has been made one. And I know that you will not consider yourself insulted to hear this, you who contemplate the formidable, and beyond mind and word, condescension of God toward man. Receive, therefore, with kindness him who brings this small note, and become all things to him, as He decreed who ordained that men should share the sorrows and evils of life with one another, and that each should so adopt his neighbor as his own, and desire him with such excessive intimacy, that he might not even seem to be another, because of that reciprocal affection of the soul by which they communicate as it were within themselves. For the divine Word commands us not only to rejoice with those who rejoice, but also to weep with those who weep [e]; and not in any way to love our neighbor, but to love him as ourselves [f]; not to mention the new commandment, for the sake of which we are even commanded to lay down our lives for one another [g], when the time of struggle has arrived. This, indeed, the Lord Himself, who gave it, fulfilled in deed, for He did not refuse to lay down His soul for us , providing for us a pattern of perfect and absolute virtue, by which the law of the wicked and blind love that is in us is gradually extinguished. That law, certainly, which from the beginning, having caught us with the enticements of pleasure, led us away from God and from one another through fraud, and instead of the one God, taught us to think there were many deities (or none at all), and utterly dashed the power of the reason that is in us against the flesh; and having divided into many parts the nature which is one, ignited in us the force of anger, by which, after the manner of wild beasts, we rage against one another for the sake of pleasure. Be, therefore, as I said, all things to him who needs your help, so that you may find such a God to be to you, who for the sake of His extreme humanity and clemency has willed to become all things to all men.

XXVIII. — Of the same to Cyrisicius the bishop.

You, who divinely on earth, according to the grace given to you,

^A of the high priesthood, venerable Father, have been born to be an imitator of goodness, you have left none of the ways that characterize it unfulfilled; but rather, having all of them running together in order one after another, you have endeavored to adorn the mystery of the high priesthood with the tunic of the virtues, woven for you from above by the Spirit [i]; which tunic neither the multitude of temptations, nor the demons who crucify you, are ever able to rend. Endeavor, therefore, to gather into one the dispersed children of God [j]. For this also is a mark and sign of divine goodness; and having become as the head of the precious body of the holy Church of God, assemble the members together with one another through the craftsmanship of the Spirit; and call out with a loud voice, having been established as a herald of the divine teachings, both those who are far off and those who are near; and bind them to yourself with the indissoluble bond of the love of the Spirit; provided, at any rate, that the expectation of the enemies has retreated and entirely vanished, for the sake of which they were separated for so long from their native land; so that it may be possible for you also, in a manner worthy of Christ, to say: "Behold I, and the children whom God has given me" [k]. However, I beseech you, holy Father, that you deem your humble and unworthy servant and suppliant worthy to be partaker of this in your venerable letters, and do not refuse to commend me to God in your prayers, when you offer the sacrifices of praise. ^B

XXIX. — Of the same to the same.

God indeed descended from heaven to seek, and longing for the sheep, He took it upon Himself; and thus, having saved the one that had been wandering, He placed it upon His shoulders and compassionately brought it back to the fold [l]. But you, most holy Father and pastor, by filling the reed of instruction solely with the Holy Spirit, have brought back to yourself a full flock of rational ^D sheep, which, although it had unwillingly departed from its homeland, now willingly hastens to your voice as that of a good and skillful pastor, as one having perfect discernment of what is beneficial. For it did not travel the long expanses of the sea out of an urge to wander, having disregarded the divine pasture, but for the sake of the safety of the divine offerings of the soul, so that they might be kept unharmed and secure. But receive the flock which has not only remained inaccessible to wolves, but has even become destructive to wolves, and which abounds in many goods of the soul; and stretch out, and prosper, and reign, because of truth and meekness and righteousness [m]; as a teacher of the divine decrees of piety, and a master of a pure life and honest discipline, and right in all things.

^A Having taken with you, most of all, the aforementioned holy flock, and the sanctified Lord Abbot George the presbyter—a holy man, possessing a life equal to his teaching, and by both being a subduer of the wicked power—I beg you: since I am swallowed up by great sadness, not bearing the separation from them, either take me up too, and have me rest under your wings, or strengthen me through your prayers to bear bravely the pain that attends the separation from those dearest to me.

XXX. — Of the same to John the Bishop.

^B They who have examined the nature of all things through reason say that it has the power of fire to draw to itself all submissive matter. Likening God to this symbolically, those who interpret divine mysteries say that He, too, is a power drawing to Himself all those who wish to obey His laws and who endure to embrace a life ordered by holy habits. ^C And they declare that the priesthood, which holds the imitation of this process in a way well-adapted to the soul, just as a painting holds an image, also possesses, by the same law of grace for compassion, the power to draw all who are under this same nature. Therefore, you, Holy Father, having obtained the lot of being the image of God on earth, call to yourself with the manner and words of a compassionate heart those who long to return to you, and who ask above all else that they might rejoice to have you as their pastor and guide. By true promises through your venerable letters, confirm your providence and care for them in all things, God favoring this, provided that the foul expectation of the enemies has completely ceased; for the sake of which they endured such a flight, since it seemed safe to them to obey the divine law that cries out expressly: "If they persecute you in this city, flee into another" (Matt. x, 23). And they preferred this praiseworthy timidity to boldness, so that, trusting in your words according to God, they might return fearlessly; and that from the labors—which, for the sake of virtue and for the sake of obeying God, who commands that persecutors be fled from, they sustained during this terrible exile and wandering—they might obtain remission, ^D and consolation, and your kind assistance and care in all things. Do not, therefore, Holy Father, disdain to receive your supplicant and servant who beseeches you; but honor with your letters, as you are honorable, one who is worthy of no honor at all; and commend him through your prayers to Christ, to whom alone honor is due, and who, by His own gift, has magnificently honored a man who had no honor; and, imitating that Lord and Master in all things, you have through the grace of the Spirit made yourself another like Him, to be beheld by those who see you.

XXXI. — Of the same to the same.

Just as a ray of light draws toward itself the healthy pupil...

^A of the eye, naturally rejoicing in the light, and imparts its own brilliance; so also the true priesthood, being in all things a living image and likeness of the blessed Godhead to those on earth, draws every God-cultivating, divine soul toward itself, and imparts to it its own knowledge, peace, and love: so that, leading every power of the soul to the end of its own operation, it may present those guided by it as deified in all things to God. For the end of the rational operation of the soul is true knowledge; of the concupiscible, love; of the irascible, peace; just as it is also the duty of the true priesthood to be deified and to deify through these. For we have received the power of reason naturally, in order that we might seek God; the power of desire, in order that we might crave Him alone; and we have acquired the irascible power, in order that we might struggle for Him alone. Moreover, the end of seeking is true knowledge; of longing, ^B constant and fervent love; and of divine struggles, the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Recognizing you as the authors and teachers of these supreme goods, the truly holy and thrice-blessed handmaid of God, daughter, and mother, the lady Eudokia the recluse, has returned to you with her sacred flock, proving that you, who are honored by God, have conquered all those who strove to keep her with them. For she is truly a handmaid, as one who is religious in fulfilling the divine commandments; a daughter, as one who, through the habit, possesses in all things an unchanging likeness to God; a mother, as one who is also ^C the parent of the habit of virtue in others. But now, rejoice and exult, you who have recovered the more precious part of your holy flock; and especially having taken back my holy lord, the priest George, a truly divine cultivation, and a most approved cultivator of the divine and great George, a man capable in deed and word before God and all the people, as regards the skillful cultivation of souls, and for this reason most beloved to all who love the Lord. But since I have hitherto remained half-dead and half-cut away, torn from their profitable fellowship, either receive me also as a sickly member and heal me, or comfort me with your prayers, and persuade me to bear the separation with a tranquil ^D and undisturbed mind. For this too is a property of the divine and true priesthood.

XXXII. — Of the same to the abbot Polychronius.

Since we are about to celebrate the burial and resurrection of Christ, who died and was buried in the flesh for us, let us consider whether we too have died and been buried according to the old man, who is corrupted according to the desires of deceit; and whether we have risen according to the new man, who is renewed...

^A according to the image of Him who created him. The sign of the first dying is a complete and perfect freedom from passions and affections; the sign of the second rising is an unstained and true boldness of conscience, and the enlightenment of the mind by the gift of knowledge. And if these things have come to pass in us, let us keep the feast with Christ our God; but if not, let us at least strive not to betray the Word to the passions like Judas, or deny Him like Peter, lest perhaps we be unable to repent and be carried away, repenting in vain; or lest we be unable to weep bitterly and wash away the stains of denial. For the denial of the Word is the refusal to do what is good out of fear; but betrayal is the intentional impetus toward sin in action: may it never be that we should experience these things. ^B

XXXIII. — To the same.

Since it is so ordained in these matters, as the great subduer of temptations, Job, says: *Temptation is the life of man*; and the world, as the Lord said, *lies in the evil one*; and, *Many are the afflictions of the righteous*, as the great David declares; and it is absolutely necessary, as the holy Apostle is the author, that, since by the just judgment of God we have temptations and struggles, whether against men or against demons, we should earnestly beseech God to grant us patience, so that we may be able to be torn away from the mire of the passions, ^C and to stand upon the unshakable rock, which is Christ, through that freedom from passion which says that through grace, there have been mortified in us both the life that tempts, and the world that works evil, and men, and demons—that is, the passionate life, and the pleasurable gratification according to the senses, and the carnal affections, and the passionate movements of the soul, and the involuntary inflictions that follow these, which are called tribulations. Let us endure, therefore, that we may be saved; for *he who endures to the end will be saved*. The peace of Christ be with us. Amen.

XXXIV. — To the same.

Departing toward His death, the Lord left peace to us; and rising again from the dead, He gave peace to us once more. ^D What, then, is He signifying by both? Namely, that it is worthwhile for us to bear the contrary events and times of things with the tranquility of an imperturbable mind, so that neither, by succumbing to troublesome circumstances, are we deprived of a better hope, nor, by being satisfied with joyful things and pleasing ourselves in them, do we reject the reason that instructs us; but that we may remain the same, whether in adverse or prosperous circumstances. And this cannot be done otherwise than by first having walked upon the asp and the basilisk; that is, by being above the disobedience of divine words and the acceptance of evil thoughts, and by trampling upon the lion and the dragon, that is to say, the...

^A wrath and the concupiscence; by the absence of which we shall enjoy all peace, since there will be nothing left by which we might be moved toward any of the things that remain here. Let us master anger and concupiscence, and let us cast down the whole house of the aliens together with those who dwell within it, having put to death also the pathetic life and conduct together with those passions. The whole family will be overturned, and the house will be destroyed, as [we] have removed the libidinous and vicious [thoughts].

XXXV. — The same to the same

Since after that great and formidable journey through the wilderness, the Israelite people obtain the land of rest; and—what is more astounding to hear—He Himself, who, being God and Lord of all, became man for our sake, enters into His glory through sufferings, the cross, and death, there being no other way appointed for Him, as it is written: *"Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, ^B and to enter into his glory?"* let us not fail by becoming discouraged in our afflictions; but let us look unto the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus; and let us bear the things that happen bravely. For the end of every affliction is joy; and of every labor, rest; and of every disgrace, glory; and in a word, the end of all the evils and hardships and toils endured for the sake of virtue is to dwell with God forever, and to enjoy that eternal rest which shall have no end. But pray, Father, that we may attain it, having crossed the sea of life in a good manner, and having kept the mental footsteps of the soul dry and free from ^C its salt.

XXXVI. — The same to the same

Blessed is our master in the Lord, and blessed is the garden of his heart, which the true husbandman, Jesus, has planted, and has filled with immortal plants of righteousness; of the fruits of which we also have partaken, having been sated with his spiritual herbs; with which also the great Apostle is accustomed to feed those who are too weak to be able to contemplate and behold divine things immediately, feeding them as with herbs, by the natural speculation of things that come under our sight, and leading them by the hand, through the magnificence of visible things, to Him who created them; whom our blessed Father and teacher also ^D imitating, has entertained us in the manner of a loving father, setting before us the consideration of this creation under the symbol of herbs. But impart also solid food, and rouse the soul that is languid through pleasures and nauseated by divine things, by strengthening its desire through the more subtle reason of providence and judgment; so that you may not feed your disciples only with herbs, teaching only the reasons of the things that come into being and pass away; but also with corn, and wine, and oil, establish them with the reasons of eternal things; and, by bestowing the discourse that contains and preserves the virtues as solid bread, and by that which is in truth

^A warming the heart like wine unto the deifying ecstasy of your disciples; and to your servants, implant the peaceful and tranquil habit of gentleness, which, like oil, nourishes the flame within them and keeps it unextinguished.

XXXVII. — The same to the same.

Again we have received your venerable letter with gifts, holy Father; and again we have enjoyed the same goods as before. For by the gift, you have extinguished the heat of the passions and the perturbations that darken our soul—for before these we have consumed the spiritual reasons; since we are convinced that these were not sent by you rashly, or in vain, or without reason, for you are moved in all things by both reason and the Spirit as your companion, and you make for us the very food of the body a doctrine for our soul—while in the letter, discovering humility, the mother of all virtues (by which both good things are generated in souls, and for those endowed with them, ^B excellent gifts are preserved), we have broken out into abundant tears, perceiving how far we have wandered from that path. For your mourning has become a reproof of the evils for which we ourselves are held guilty; it has awakened our mind, which was deeply asleep, and has laid bare the memory, which had been covered by the veil of conceit; it has made us know ourselves, feeling in due proportion the vexation of our own sins. It has made us, in some measure, partakers of wisdom, having obtained knowledge of our own faults, if he who says is true: "They who know themselves are wise." Therefore, do not cease, venerable Father, to refresh our soul with both word and doctrine, and to beseech God in your prayers that we may be delivered ^C from evils, so that you yourself may obtain, as a reward for these things, perfect purity of soul with an unblemished conscience.

XXXVIII. — The same to the same.

I thank you, venerable Father, that you have offered yourself to us as an example of the best repentance, being the author who urges us to lay bare, through confession, the dark treasures of the passions that lie hidden within us; through which, the hatred that is naturally directed against sin is strengthened. For we are truly those who cherish the passions and affections, the memory of which causes distress after the deed has been committed. For we love, as it were onions, the consent to wicked thoughts, by the stain of which the eye of the soul is dulled toward virtue and knowledge, ^D taking on, like scales, the images and forms of visible things joined to lust. For "onion" (in Greek *krommyon*) is so called by those who give the etymology as "pupil-covering" (*kores mysis*). And, as with garlic, we consume the completion of the passions through action, by which the mind, filled with uncleanness, pours out before those outside, through shameful words and conduct, the stench of the evils which it has consumed through action. But teach

us, holy Father, how, when we have cast these aside, we shall love the manna—I mean the rational bread of divine knowledge, which rains down upon us from heaven—and how we shall keep it incorrupt, neither storing it up until tomorrow through procrastination, lest it breed the worms of carnal passions, rotting through idleness; nor celebrating it through ostentation, lest it become empty and be consumed by vainglory. Feed us again with such words, venerable Father, us who are your disciples, and commend us by your prayer to God, for without your intercession we are not able to be pious worshippers. ^A

XXXIX. — To the same.

You nourish our man, holy Father, abundantly, both him who is visible to the eyes and him who is understood by the mind; ^B for you provide to the body those things necessary for its constitution, and to the soul you grant those things necessary for its growth in the Spirit. For God has made you rich in both respects, having blessed your coming in and your going out. For I call your "coming in" the acquisition of the gifts granted to you by God, which are multiplied through action; and I call your "going out" the distribution of the word made by you to others, which, in those who receive it, effectively brings forth like a fruit the performance of their duties.

SOME LETTERS OF ST. MAXIMUS

Ex codice serenissimi Magni Ducis et Romano.

XL. — Of the same to the same Thalassius, presbyter and hegumen.

Having read with care the wise and venerable letters of your paternal holiness, lord, and having examined all things, and having unrolled the whole book of my conscience, I found nothing in me of those things which are attributed to me. ^C Therefore, I immediately checked the intention of my mind, tightening the laxity of my soul, judging it a matter full of madness to be enticed by the praises of another’s virtue, and considering it solely the property of one who allows himself to be led astray into every inclination toward error. For, in truth, it is foolish to strive to seize praises rashly, as though one himself shone with the virtue, lacking in himself the glory of those in whose name one is celebrated. But my master, judging the merits of others by the excellence of his own virtue—in which he abounds with a capacity for God-like perfection—hides what is disgraceful, ^D and approves and praises one who is wounded by many vices and passions, as is customary for those who love the Lord. Yet I, my lord...

well-blessed one, most ^A sluggish in the perfection of virtue, having received your command, have taken it up most promptly; hence perhaps I am to be charged with every reproach and blame, as one who, through my own rashness, has preferred your love over that of others, and most willingly served my lord Abbot Thomas in this matter. For, as I conceive, those who provide the sufficient material, by the grace of God co-operating with you throughout the winter, are able to fulfill your command. May you be saved, most beloved and honorable Father, and may you save by your prayers to God your servant and slave—nay, I shall add, your lover—delivering him through your intercession from all the snares of the devil.

XLI. — From the same to the same Thalassius, presbyter and hegumen.

He who has been taught by the Spirit to take captive all things into Christ knows how to reap profit from all; just as you, also, do from me, who am altogether a stranger to divine grace and firmly bound by the laws of the flesh. And since I am altogether devoid of fruit and virtue, it was worth the while to refuse altogether to appear, lest, while fulfilling what I have been commanded by you, I might inflict a greater injury. Yet I shall come, when the Lord wills it, knowing that you, who have maintained a habit of association with me (profane as I am), will suffer no stain. For holiness, when it is established as a habit, is like nature itself and will be defiled by no impure influence. Regarding the matter of the Bestitor, you do well to show mercy, ^C provided that the matter does not bring injury; especially if you have satisfied yourselves that he is able to endure it.

XLII. — From the same to the same.

Blessed David, that great king of the Lord, after the fearsome battles of foreigners, after great perils created by the hatred of his own citizens, after the tribulations, toilsome tossings, and flights, and after the frequent snares set by those upon whom he had bestowed many benefits, and after he had endured the rebellions of his own kinsmen, and after his... and kingdom, when he sensed himself supported on all sides by ^D the peace granted by the gift of God, he then thought to build a house to the Lord God. And that which he had thus destined in his mind was indeed proven to be pleasing and acceptable to God. Yet... it was fitting that the seed of the other should carry out the work to which he himself had set his hand, with the reason added that he had shed a great quantity of blood upon the earth. And he indeed obeys God who warns him, and gladly takes the counsel, and prefers it to what he had himself labored for in his own mind. Nevertheless, he transmits abundant wealth to his son, and hands over both the materials and the model for the house to be built; for I suppose he was instructed in the rightly ordered laws of salvation. And lest, of the things said individually, the spiritual meaning...

^A I should draw out the discourse to great length, [know that] the peaceful ... the temple of God that is able from above ... these are they, and if one ... but not be able to persuade fear to be a bodyguard, and in the building of the most divine temple, taking upon itself harm: both the Hiram, king of Tyre, and the hundred and fifty thousand of the foreigners, the stone-cutters and water-carriers. But "Strain, and prosper, and reign," even if you reigned without your Maximus, for the sake of truth and meekness and justice, which indeed these are. But I will add: and watch mightily, lest you be led away in any manner together with the daughters of the heathen kings; lest perhaps they divide the kingdom into a foolish son and an apostate servant. For being very willing ... Farewell, venerable Father, and pray for your servant ... who is being led, and is grievously held fast by many sins. ^B

XLIII. Of the same to John the cubicularius.

The venerable letter of my God-guarded lord has come, ^C bearing peace and conveying him, appearing entirely in his manners. For along with the gravity of the words, the disposition of the soul is also accustomed to shine forth with the gentleness and modesty of one's manners; and I rejoiced as if I had received my lord himself, and I embraced him in the spirit, and having taken him into the whole bosom of my heart, I laid him up; and I glorified Christ our God, who implanted in men the light of the law of love; according to which those who know how to care duly for the seeds of love can never be separated from one another, even if they are far distant from one another bodily by local interval.

But since the letter, bringing the good tidings of worldly peace, ^D has transformed the sadness of the soul into joy, it is fitting that we also should, for its sake, become altogether grateful to the God who granted it, so that we may not appear ungrateful concerning the benefit, and in this way requite the benefactor. We shall indeed be grateful if, as is fitting, we use the peace granted, and having dissolved the friendship that we ill cultivated with the world and the ruler of the world, we have at length—having dissolved the war which we have with God, and having made a treaty of peace with Him through the destruction of the body—ceased from His enmity. For it is impossible for us to be joined in friendship to Him, while we are in rebellion against Him through vices and perturbations, and while we endure to pay tribute through malice to the wicked tyrant and murderer of souls, the devil, without first having waged war against the wicked one. For so long as we wish to serve shameful passions and voluntarily to pay heavy tributes through base deeds, we remain enemies and foes of God, even if we flatter ourselves with the title of believers.

^A Nor will there be any profit to us from peace in this world, if the mind be ill-disposed and in revolt against its own Maker; if it bears not to be under His kingdom, but is still sold to countess masters who perpetually impel it toward iniquity, and who cunningly cause it to prefer the path that leads to perdition rather than that which secures salvation. But when, awakening from the drunkenness of the passions, we have risen up against the wickedness of the devil and his tyrannical kingdom, and have shaken off his most bitter yoke from ourselves—and once we have perceived how much his friendship has corrupted us—then we shall receive the peaceful advent of the peaceful and gentle King Christ, who comes to us in an invisible manner. We shall not be unwilling to accept His yoke, which corrects us and instructs us in the laws of truth; rather, we shall spontaneously confirm our friendship with Him, offering to Him by our own will, as tribute, those fruits of righteousness which are brought to perfection within us through the cultivation of the virtues in accordance with His command. ^B In these, the One who alone lacks nothing takes delight for the sake of our salvation, and as the Truth-teller, He will certainly provide all that He has promised us. And these are the things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor entered into the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love Him. For to this end He has made us, that we might become partakers of the divine nature and sharers in His own eternity, and appear like unto Him through the deification which is granted by grace; for the sake of which there is both the preservation and duration of all existing things, and the production and generation of those non-existent things.

Let us therefore become worthy of peace, my blessed lord, by banishing from ourselves the disturbances and vices that rage within us against God. To the extent of our ability, let us macerate the body, since when it grows wanton, an entry becomes open to the devil to reach the soul. Let us stabilize the wandering mind with divine readings, and lead it back again to God. With the stricter rules of continence and vigils, ^C let us temperately restrain desire, which flows forth inordinately into many appetites. With prayers and supplications and alms, let us wisely calm the anger that seethes and is agitated. By the fear of God and the dread of future punishments, let us restrain the senses that act and move shamelessly. Above all and before all, let us keep in mind death, and the fearful departure of the soul from the body; and how the princes and powers and authorities of darkness will meet it in this air, ^D and how they will all drag it toward themselves and rend it asunder, according to the measure of the evil affinity which it contracted with them through the medium of the passions and vice, or lust, by way of connection and ratio. Let us remember the bitter torments of the soul in hell, brought about by the conscience in view of the remembrance of those things which were done wickedly by it through the body. Let us remember the

^A ultimate consummation of the whole world, by which everything that is shall be consumed in that great and boundless fire; when the elements shall be shaken in a fearful manner, melting away in the heat of the conflagration; and the heaven, rolling up with fear, shall hasten to flee from the face of the fire that purifies the creation for His coming, who is pure: the sea shall disappear, the earth shall roar, and being shaken from its depths and foundational recesses, it shall render up the infinite myriads of human bodies, in their complete mass. Let us remember the fearful hour of the defense before the fearful and awesome judgment seat of Christ ^B when all the power of the heavens, and every creature of man from the foundation of the world, shall look upon those things which belong to each one, even unto the barest thought; when, for some, because of the splendor of their works, a light not to be explained by any power of words shall receive them, and the illumination of the holy and blessed Trinity shall shine more clearly upon those who, because of the purity of their soul, have the ability to see and receive it; but for others, because of the absurdity of their works, the outer darkness shall receive them, and the sleepless worm, and the unquenchable fire of Gehenna ^C and, what is most burdensome of all, the shame in the conscience that has no end. Let us remember all these things, so that we may be deemed worthy of the former, and not be condemned to experience the latter; and let us become our own, and God’s; or rather, that we may become wholly God’s alone, carrying nothing earthly within us, so that we may draw near to God and become gods, having received from God the state of being gods. For not yet are the divine gifts honored, nor is the presence of the divine peace magnificently manifested.

And these things indeed concerning this. But may the God of peace, who reconciled us to Himself through the cross, and who, when we were His enemies, redeemed us by His own blood ^D from the power of darkness, Himself grant His peace, which surpasses all understanding, to my blessed master, and deign to grant him His heavenly kingdom, where the dwelling place of all who rejoice is, and the chorus of those who keep the feast.

XLIV. — Of the same, to John the cubicularius, a letter of recommendation.

Of old, God, as He is good, established through the law and the prophets in many ways the law of love among men ^C for one another; at the end of the times, having become man by Himself, as

^A a lover of mankind, He fulfilled it, having loved us not only as Himself, but even more than Himself—as the power of the mystery clearly teaches those who have piously and religiously received the confession of faith in Him. For if He, of His own will, as one liable for us who were liable to passion and death, voluntarily offered Himself to suffering and death, it is surely clear to anyone who has even the slightest sense of grace that He loved us more than Himself, for whom He surrendered Himself and His will to death, and, as one supremely good—though the statement may seem bold—He preferred the insult [suffered] by the dispensation on our behalf as more precious than His own glory by nature. For the surpassing honor and superabundant glory of God, and indeed the clearer manifestation and demonstration of that glory which exists by nature, is truth itself—the return to Him of those who had gone astray. And there is nothing more appropriate to His glory than the salvation of men, for which every word and every mystery [exists]; and this, most mysterious of all mysteries, that God Himself, for the sake of true love, through the assumption of a flesh intellectually and rationally ensouled, became man, and in Himself accepted the passions of nature without change, in order to save man and to give to us men Himself as a model of virtue and a living image of goodwill and love both toward Himself and toward one another, capable of inducing all to the due requital.

^B Since, therefore, the law of God, both old and new, is that we should love one another as we have been loved, and should make the misfortunes of others so much our own that we exchange our dispositions with one another in return through the bond of love, according to the commandment which bids us "rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep," I entreat my God-protected and blessed master—who has one single goal: to follow through equal philanthropy Him who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, being in no way bound by any tie of family or race to this deceitful world and its ruler. ^C For this present world is truly a deceiver, always enticing [men] through the fraud it practices toward the desire for passing things, and enslaving those who are free by nature and heirs of heavenly goods to the servitude of earthly things, mocking them with the allurements of pleasure and deceiving those who allow themselves to be held by these things.

Knowing, therefore, as I said, that my blessed master has this one purpose—namely, that he might attain salvation—I beseech him, receiving with him my most magnificent lord, the Illustrious [lord] Theocharistus, the bearer of this my humble letter, to become to him everything in which he may stand in need of his assistance—according to God, or rather, with God—whatever we pray that God Himself may become for us, and our neighbor

^A for he is truly a good man, and a master of every work of righteousness, and a genuine patron of my sojourning after God; and a ready consoler of many and frequent and grievous infirmities; and, in a word, according to the power he possesses, he has been a succor both to me and to many others. May the Lord grant him to find mercy from Him in that day, because he has been a rest and a consolation to many. Whence, if I have found favor in the eyes of my blessed lord, and he counts me among those beloved to him according to God, may he by all means take him up with every diligence, allowing no injustice, so far as it reaches his power, to befall him. For the law of love dictates this, and the mystery of God's most divine advent to men in the flesh desires it; so that, having returned with God to recount the benefits of my blessed lord and the unalloyed zeal of his protection of him, I, too, might receive an increase of boasting, having obtained from God such a lord on earth, ready for every good work, and the most prepared and most sincere patron and defender of all who are in need of assistance.

The God who alone is good and a lover of men, who for the sake of our salvation wisely orders all things for all, may He Himself hold thy right hand, my lord, and guide thee into the way of His righteousness, and count thee worthy of the heavenly kingdom, having been well established here by divine gifts. May the God of all and our Lord Jesus Christ preserve our most pious and most serene emperors, ^C and strengthen the power of their pious reign, and speak good and peaceful things concerning us, their humble servants, into their hearts. And – if I may dare to say something; for my pain makes me bold, yet even this is a prayer pleasing to God – may He pardon them, for having consented, even for a moment, that the most illustrious prefect of this province, who shines like a lamp in a dark place and delivers almost everyone from the pain of blindness, should be recalled; a man who is religious, faithful, pious, ^D upright, modest, chaste, continent, patient, gentle, compassionate, merciful, a nourisher of the poor, a provider for strangers, an orphan-guardian, a nurse of the sick, a carer for the aged, a patron of widows, a protector of monks, poor by choice, a lover of the Church; and, that I may sum it up, a friend of all, both living and dead. For he pursues the living with all sorts of paternal affection, while he honors the dead with the beauty of buildings in which their bodies may be honestly buried, like Joseph of Arimathea with our Lord, who had willed to endure death in the flesh. And in addition to these things, he is a most fervent zealot for the orthodox word according to the apostolic faith, and a herald of a life of righteousness. And, to be brief

^A while others have labored on earth for various things according to their own desire, the work and study of George—to clothe and feed hospitals, homes for the elderly, hostels, orphanages, monasteries, and hospices, and all those multitudes of the poor and needy who are scattered in groups by lineage throughout the cities—surpasses the bounds of east and west, and of the northern and southern regions, with the rays of his philanthropy.

Since these things are so, who among those who have any care for piety does not know how much favor from God ^B the satisfaction afforded by such works summoned, flourishing as it did through the readiness always present in him? As for the opposite state of affairs, which occurs when these things cease, I will keep silent for the sake of the ill omens involved. But who could measure the tears poured forth like a fountain from every eye by those who inhabit this land at his departure, while all were pressing around him, pulling him toward themselves with violence, not allowing him to approach the ship, and crying out with wailings, as if seeking him according to lineage and age—some seeking the supplier of their poverty, ^C others the steward of their wealth; the widows, their patron; the orphans, their father; the poor, the lover of the poor; strangers, the lover of strangers; brothers, the lover of the brethren; those who are ill, the physician; those in distress, their consolation; the aged, their staff; and, in a word, all men seeking him who became all things to all men, that he might gain all and be gained by God for all? Therefore, according to the grace given to you by God, my blessed master, by whatever ways and through whatever persons you know, if you could cause him to return, know that you have offered a great sacrifice to God, and have shown genuine ^D goodwill and unwavering security to our God-supported emperors, by having been the author of his being appointed to the province. For no one has proven himself a more religious servant of their pious empire and majesty. Farewell, my beloved, and most dear to me and revered one, true servant of God.

XLV. — From the same to the same.

In every age, God, looking out for human nature and caring for the salvation of us all, has manifested the one who lives holily as a lamp shining forth with the radiance of virtues, as one capable of receiving the divine laws according to his purpose; having bestowed upon him such power as was fitting for the conversion ^D of the people who were to be led, in order that, as if by a lamp of the works of righteousness, the rest of men might attend to it and themselves also regulate their own lives according to God, so that no vice arising from ignorance might trip them up. And for us, at this time, George, the Christ-loving prefect, has been revealed as a lamp and rule of virtue; a man illustrious and possessing such great virtue, and having received such abundant power from God by the gift of grace; and...

those who have been appointed and promoted in the past, and as he has discharged his province, so we (that is, our age), oppressed by the heavy burden of wickedness, were in need of emerging from the crowd of the wicked; a man such as, if anyone else ever was, both formerly and now among those who are most religious, is honest and ^A gentle, merciful, mild, patient, long-suffering, modest of mind, chaste, not irascible, not avaricious, of a loving soul, unmindful of injuries, beneficent, hospitable, a lover of the poor, of a compassionate and sharing spirit, most diligent, vigilant, and a lover of the Church; and what is most precious of all, a most fervent emulator of the pious doctrine of the right faith; and the rest follows in the previous epistle, in which I have partly signified these things in another writing to my blessed master. For it is neither possible nor does the subject allow for all the noble ornaments and virtues of the man to be embraced in speech. And I have signified these things for this reason only, ^B that my God-preserved master may know the religious character of the man, and as one supported by divine grace itself, may receive and cherish him, and commend and offer him to our pious and most clement emperors, who display the image of God on earth, and may persuade them not to admit the iniquitous tongues of wicked men, who "work deceit like a sharpened razor" and "love evil rather than good," so that no place may be given to falsehood against the truth, and iniquity may not gain license against justice, or in short, vice against every virtue, through the interchange and confusion of these things with one another. For it is written: "To smite a just man is not good, nor is it right to plot against just princes." For it is fitting that this be done by my blessed master, who is a lover of wisdom and knowledge, which I pray may remain for all time for my God-preserved master, ^C as it is the guardian of his soul and body. As for him who brings these letters of my insignificance, a man indeed older in the prudence of his soul than in the age of his body, I ask that he be received fittingly because of the discernment that distinguishes him, as one who is deeply engaged in the divine study of the Word, and who does not disdain to hold a sincere affection for me, the humble one.

ON THE HOLY TRINITY THREE DIALOGUES

These stand among the works of St. Athanasius of Alexandria in our edition, which reproduces the Benedictine edition, in volume XXVIII of this Patrologia Graeca, cols. 1113-1285; where the preceding Admonition of Montfaucon is to be consulted.